“Now, Tom,” said Betty, with a bustling little air of excitement as she rose from the breakfast table that first morning at Belle Plain, “I am ready if you are. I want you to show me everything!”
“I reckon you'll notice some changes,” remarked Tom.
He went from the room and down the hall a step or two in advance of her. On the wide porch Betty paused, breathing deep. The house stood on an eminence; directly before it at the bottom of the slight descent was a small bayou, beyond this the forest stretched away in one unbroken mass to the Mississippi. Here and there, gleaming in the brilliant morning light, some great bend of the river was visible through the trees, while the Arkansas coast, blue and distant, piled up against the far horizon.
“What is it you want to see, anyhow, Betty?” Tom demanded, turning on her.
“Everything—the place, Tom—Belle Plain! Oh, isn't it beautiful! I had no idea how lovely it was!” cried Betty, as with her eyes still fixed on the distant panorama of woods and water she went down the steps, Tom at her heels—he bet she'd get sick of it all soon enough, that was one comfort!
“Why, Tom! Why does the lawn look like this?”
“Like what?” inquired Tom.
“Why, this—all weeds and briers, and the paths overgrown?” and as Betty surveyed the unkempt waste that had once been a lawn, a little frown fixed itself on her smooth brow.
Mr. Ware rubbed his chin reflectively with the back of his hand.
“That sort of thing looked all right, Bet,” he said, “but it kept five or six of the best hands out of the fields right at the busiest time of the year.”
“Haven't I slaves enough?” she asked.
The dull color crept into Ware's cheeks. He hated her for that “I!” So she was going to come that on him, was she? And he'd worked himself like a horse to bring in more land. Why, he'd doubled the acreage in cotton and corn in the last four years! He smothered his sense of hurt and indignation.
“Don't you want to see the crops, Bet? Let me order a team and show you about, you couldn't walk over the place in a week!” he urged.
The girl shook her head and moved swiftly down the path that led from terrace to terrace to the margin of the bayou. At the first terrace she paused. All below was a wilderness of tangled vines and brush. She faced Tom rather piteously. What had been lost was more than he could possibly understand. Her father had planned these grounds which he was allowing a riotous second growth to swallow up.
“It's positively squalid!” cried Betty, with a little stamp of her foot.
Ware glanced about with dull eyes. The air of neglect and decay which was everywhere visible, and which was such a shock to Betty, had not been reached in a season, he was really convinced that the place looked pretty much as it had always looked.
“I'll tell you, Betty, I'm busy this morning; you poke about and see what you want done and we'll do it,” he said, and made a hasty retreat to his office, a little brick building at the other side of the house.
Betty returned to the porch and seating herself on the top step with her elbows on her knees and her chin sunk in the palms of her hands, gazed about her miserably enough. She was still seated there when half an hour later Charley Norton galloped up the drive from the highroad. Catching sight of her on the porch he sprang from the saddle, and, throwing his reins to a black boy, hurried to her side.
“Inspecting your domain, Betty?” he asked, as he took his place near her on the step.
“Why didn't you tell me, Charley—or at least prepare me for this?” she asked, almost tearfully.
“How was I to know, Betty? I haven't been here since you went away, dear—what was there to bring me? Old Tom would make a cow pasture out of the Garden of Eden, wouldn't he—a beautiful, practical, sordid soul he is!”
“What am I going to do, Charley?”
“Keep after him until you get what you want, it's the only way to manage Tom that I know of.”
“It's horrid to have to assert one's self!”
“You'll have to with Tom—you must, Betty—he won't understand anything else.” Then he added: “Let's look around and see what's needed, a season or two of care will remedy the most of this neglect. Just make Tom put a lot of hands in here with brush-hooks and axes and soon you'll not know the place!”
Norton spent the day at Belle Plain; and though he was there on his good behavior as the result of an agreement they had reached on board The Naiad, he proposed twice.
“My intentions are all right, Betty,” he assured her in extenuation. “But I've the worst memory imaginable. Oh, yes, the lower terrace is badly gullied, but it's no great matter, it can be fixed with a little work.”
It was soon plain to Betty that Tom's ideals, if he possessed any, had not led him in the direction of what he termed display. His social impulse had suffered atrophy. The house was utterly disorganized; there was a dearth of suitable servants. Those she had known were gone—sold, she learned. Tom explained that there had been no need for them since he had lived pretty much in his office, what had been the use in keeping darkies standing about doing nothing? He had got rid of those show niggers and put their price in husky field hands, who could be made to do a day's work and not feel they were abused.
But Tom was mistaken in his supposition that Betty would soon tire of Belle Plain. She demanded men, and teams, and began on the lawns. This interested and fascinated her. She was out at sun-up to direct her laborers. She had the advantage of Charley Norton's presence and advice for the greater part of each day in the week, and Sundays he came to look over what had been accomplished, and, as Tom firmly believed, to put that little fool up to fresh nonsense. He could have booted him!
As the grounds took shape before her delighted eyes, Betty found leisure to institute a thorough reformation indoors. A number of house servants were rescued from the quarters and she began to instruct them in their new duties.
Tom was sick at heart. The little fool would cripple the place. It gave him acute nausea to see the gangs at work about the lawns; it made him sicker to pass through the house. There were five or six women in the kitchen now—he was damned if he could see what they found to do—there was a butler and a page. Betty had levied on the stables for one of the best teams to draw the family carriage, which had not been in use since her mother's death; there was a coachman for that, and another little monkey to ride on the rumble and hop down and open gates. This came of sending girls away to school—they only learned foolishness.
And those niggers about the house had to be dressed for their new work; the butler, a cracking plow-hand he was, wore better clothes than he—Tom—did. No wonder he was sick;—and waste! Tom knew all about that when the bills began to come in from Memphis. Why, that pink-faced chit, he always referred to her in his own mind now as a pink-faced chit, was evolving a scheme of life that would cost eight or ten thousand dollars a year to maintain, and she was talking of decorators for the house, either from New Orleans or Philadelphia, and new furniture from top to bottom.
Tom felt that he was being robbed. Then he realized with a sense of shock that here was a fortune of over half a million in lands and slaves which he had managed and manipulated all these years, but which was not his. It was true that under the terms of his stepmother's will he would inherit it in the event of Betty's death—well, she looked like dying, a whole lot—she was as strong as a mule, those soft rounded curves covered plenty of vigorous muscle; Tom hated the very sight of her. A pink-faced chit bubbling over with life and useless energy, a perfect curse she was, with all sorts of extravagant tastes and he was powerless to check her, for, although he was still her guardian, there were certain provisions of the will—he consulted the copy he kept locked up in his desk in the office—that permitted her to do pretty much as she pleased with her income. It was a hell of a will! She could spend fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year if she wanted to and he couldn't prevent it. It was an iniquitous document!
Well, the place could go straight off to the devil, he wouldn't wear out his life economizing for her to waste—he didn't get a thank-you—and he knew that nobody took off the land bigger crops than he did, while bale for bale his cotton outsold all other cotton raised in the county—that was the kind of a manager he was. He wagged his head in self-approval. And what did he get out of it? A lump sum each year with a further lump sum of twenty thousand dollars when she came of age—soon now—or married. Tom's eyes bulged from their sockets—she'd be doing that next, to spite him!
Betty's sphere of influence rapidly extended itself. She soon began to have her doubts concerning the treatment accorded the slaves, and was not long in discovering that Hicks, the overseer, ran things with a heavy hand. Matters reached a crisis one day when, happening to ride through the quarters, she found him disciplining a refractory black. She turned sick at the sight. Here was a slave actually being whipped by another slave while Hicks stood looking on with his hands in his pockets, and with a brutal satisfied air. When he caught sight of the girl, he sang out,
“That'll do; he's had enough, I reckon, to learn him!” He added sullenly to Betty, “Sorry you seen this, Miss!”
“How dare you order such a punishment without authority!” cried Betty furiously.
Hicks gave her a black scowl.
“I don't need no authority to whip a shirker,” he said insolently, as he turned away.
“Stop!” commanded Betty, her eyes blazing. She strove to keep her voice steady. “You shall not remain at Belle Plain another hour.”
Hicks said nothing. He knew it would take more than her saying so to get him off the place. Betty turned her horse and galloped back to the house. She felt that she was in no condition to see Tom just at that moment, and dismounting at the door ran up-stairs to her room.
Meantime the overseer sought out Ware in his office. His manner of stating his grievance was singular. He began by swearing at his employer. He had been insulted before all the quarter—his rage fairly choked him, he could not speak.
Tom seized the opportunity to swear back. He wanted to know if he hadn't troubles enough without the overseer's help? If he'd got himself insulted it was his own affair and he could lump it, generally speaking, and get out of that office! But Tom's fury quickly spent itself. He wanted to know what the matter was.
“Sent you off the place, did she; well, you'll have to eat crow. I'll do all I can. I don't know what girls were ever made for anyhow, damned if I do!” he added plaintively, as a realization of a stupendous mistake on the part of nature overwhelmed him.
Hicks consented to eat crow only after Mr. Ware had cursed and cajoled him into a better and more forgiving frame of mind. Then Tom hurried off to find Betty and put matters right; a more difficult task than he had reckoned on, for Betty was obdurate and her indignation flared up at mention of the incident; all his powers of argument and persuasion were called into requisition before she would consent to Hicks remaining, and then only on that most uncertain tenure, his good behavior.
“Now you come up to the house,” said Tom, when he had won his point and gone back to Hicks, “and get done with it. I reckon you talked when you should have kept your blame familiar mouth shut! Come on, and get it over with, and say you're sorry.”
Later, after Hicks had made his apology, the two men smoked a friendly pipe and discussed the situation. Tom pointed out that opposition was useless, a losing game, you could get your way by less direct means. She wouldn't stay long at Belle Plain, but while she did remain they must avoid any more crises of the sort through which they had just passed, and presently; she'd be sick of the place. Tom wagged his head. She was sick of it already only she hadn't the sense to know it. It wasn't good enough. Nothing suited-the house—the grounds—nothing!
In the midst of her activities Betty occasionally found time to think of Bruce Carrington. She was sure she did not wish to see him again! But when three weeks had passed she began to feel incensed that he had not appeared. She thought of him with hot cheeks and a quickening beat of the heart. It was anger. Naturally she was very indignant, as she had every right to be! He was the first man who had dared—!
Then one day when she had decided for ever to banish all memory of him from her mind, and never, under any circumstances, to think of him again, he presented himself at Belle Plain.
She was in her room just putting the finishing touches to an especially satisfying toilet when her maid tapped on the door and told her there was a gentleman in the parlor who wished to see her.
“Is it Mr. Norton?” asked Betty.
“No, Miss—he didn't give no name, Miss.”
When Betty entered the parlor a moment later she saw her caller standing with his back turned toward her as he gazed from one of the windows, but she instantly recognized those broad shoulders, and the fine poise of the shapely head that surmounted them.
“Oh, Mr. Carrington—” and Betty stopped short, while her face grew rather pale and then crimsoned. Then she advanced quite boldly and held out a frigid hand, which he took carefully. “I didn't know—so you are alive—you disappeared so suddenly that night—”
“Yes, I'm alive,” he said, and then with a smile. “But I fear before you get through with me we'll both wish I were not, Betty.”
“Don't call me Betty.”
“Who was that man who met you at New Madrid? He can't have you, whoever he is!” His eyes dwelt on her tenderly, and the remembered spell of her fresh youthful beauty deepened itself for him.
“Perhaps he doesn't want me—”
“Yes, he does. That was plain as day.”
Betty surveyed him from under her lashes. What could she do with this man? Nothing affected him. He seemed to have crossed some intangible barrier and to stand closer to her than any other man had ever stood.
“Do you still hate me, Betty—Miss Malroy—is there anything I can say or do that will make you forgive me?” He looked at her penitently.
But Betty hardened her heart against him and prepared to keep him in place. Remembering that he was still holding her hand, she recovered it.
“Will you sit down?” she indicated a chair. He seated himself and Betty put a safe distance between them. “Are you staying in the neighborhood, Mr. Carrington?” she asked, rather unkindly. How did he dare come here when she had forgotten him and her annoyance? And now the sight of him brought back memories of that disagreeable night on that horrid boat—he had deceived her about that boat, too—she would never forgive him for that—she had trusted him and he had clearly shown that he was not to be trusted; and Betty closed her pretty mouth until it was a thin red line and looked away that she might not see his hateful face.
“No, I'm not staying in the neighborhood. When I left you, I made up my mind I'd wait at New Madrid until I could come on down here and say I was sorry.”
“And it's taken you all this time?”
Carrington regarded her seriously.
“I reckon I must have come for more time, Betty—Miss Malroy.” In spite of herself, Betty glowed under the caressing humor of his tone.
“Really—you must have chosen poorly then when you selected New Madrid. It couldn't have been a good place for your purpose.”
“I think if I could have made up my mind to stay there long enough, it would have answered,” said Carrington. “But when a down-river boat tied up 'there yesterday it was more than I could stand. You 'see there's danger in a town like New Madrid of getting too sorry. I thought we'd better discuss this point—”
“Mayn't I show you Belle Plain?” asked Betty quickly.
But Carrington shook his head.
“I don't care anything about that,” he said. “I didn't come here to see Belle Plain.”
“You certainly are candid,” said Betty.
“I intend to be honest with you always.”
“Dear me—but I don't know that I shall particularly like it. Do you think it was quite fair to select the boat you did, or was your resolution to be always honest formed later?” demanded Betty severely.
He looked at her with great sweetness of expression.
“I didn't advise that boat for speed, only for safety. Betty, doesn't it mean anything to you that I love you? I admit that I wish it had been twice as slow!” he added reflectively, as an afterthought. He looked at her steadily, and Betty's dark lashes drooped as the color mounted to her face.
“I don't,” she said quickly. She rose from her chair, and Carrington followed her example with a lithe movement that bespoke muscles in good training. She led the way through the wide hall and out to the porch.
“Now I am going to show you all over the place,” she announced resolutely. She stood on the top step, looking off into the flaming west where the sun rode low in the heavens. “Isn't it lovely, Mr. Carrington, isn't it beautiful?”
“Very beautiful!” Carrington's glance was fixed on her face.
“If you don't care to see Belle Plain,” began Betty, rather indignantly. “No, I don't, Betty. This is enough for me. I'll come for that some other time if you'll be good enough to let me?”
“Then you expect to remain in the neighborhood?”
“I've given up the river, and I'm going to get hold of some land—”
“Land?” said Betty, with a rising inflection.
“Yes, land.”
“I thought you were a river-man?”
“I'm a river-man no longer. I am going to be a planter now. But I'll tell you why, and all about it some other day.” Then he held out his hand. “Goodby,” he added.
“Are you going—good-by, Mr. Carrington,” and Betty's fingers tingled with his masterful clasp long after he had gone.
Carrington sauntered slowly down the path to the highroad.
“She didn't ask me to come back—an oversight,” he told himself cheerfully.
Just beyond the gates he met that same young fellow he had seen at New Madrid. Norton nodded good-naturedly as he passed, and Carrington, glancing back, saw that he turned in at Belle Plain. He shrugged his shoulders, and went on his way not rejoicing.
The judge's faith in the reasonableness of mankind having received a staggering blow, there began a somewhat furtive existence for himself, for Solomon Mahaffy, and for the boy. They kept to little frequented byways, and usually it was the early hours of morning, or the cool of late afternoons when they took the road.
The heat of silent middays found them lounging beside shady pools, where the ripple of fretted waters filled the pauses in their talk. It was then that the judge and Mahaffy exchanged views on literature and politics, on religion and politics, on the public debt and politics, on canals and national roads and more politics. They could and did honestly differ at great length and with unflagging energy on these vital topics, especially politics, for they were as far apart mentally as they were close together morally.
Mahaffy, morose and embittered, regarded the life they were living as an unmixed hardship. The judge entered upon it with infinite zest. He displayed astonishing adaptability, while he brought all the resources of a calm and modest knowledge to bear on the vexed problem of procuring sustenance for himself and for his two companions.
“To an old campaigner like me, nothing could be more delightful than this holiday, coming as it does on the heels of grinding professional activity,” he observed to Mahaffy. “This is the way our first parents lived—close to nature, in touch with her gracious beneficence! Sir, this experience is singularly refreshing after twenty years of slaving at the desk. If any man can grasp the possibilities of a likely looking truck-patch at a glance, I am that man, and as for getting around in the dark and keeping the lay of the land—well, I suppose it's my military training. Jackson always placed the highest value on such data as I furnished him. He leaned on me more than any other man, Solomon—”
“I've heard he stood up pretty straight,” said Mahaffy affably. The judge's abandoned conduct distressed him not a little, but his remonstrances had been in vain.
“I consider that when society subjected me to the indignity of arrest, I was relieved of all responsibility. Injustice must bear its own fruit,” the judge had answered him sternly.
His beginnings had been modest enough: a few ears of corn, a few hills of potatoes, and the like, had satisfied him; then one night he appeared in camp with two streaks of scarlet down the side of his face.
“Are you hurt, Price?” demanded Mahaffy, betraying an anxiety of which he was instantly ashamed.
“Let me relieve your apprehension, Solomon; it's only a trickle of stewed fruit. I folded a couple of pies and put them in the crown of my hat,” explained the judge.
“You mean you've been in somebody's springhouse?”
“It was unlocked, Solomon, This will be a warning to the owner. I consider I have done him a kindness.”
Thus launched on a career of plunder, the judge very speedily accumulated a water bucket—useful when one wished to milk a cow—an ax from a woodpile, a kettle from a summer kitchen, a tin of soft soap, and an excellent blanket from a wash-line.
“For the boy, Solomon,” he said gently, when he caught Mahaffy's steady disapproving glance fixed upon him as he displayed this last trophy.
“What sort of an example are you setting him?”
“The world is full of examples I'd not recommend, Solomon. One must learn to discriminate. A body can no more follow all the examples than he can follow all the roads, and I submit that the ends of morality can as well be served in showing a child what he should not do as in showing him what he should. Indeed, I don't know but it's the finer educational idea!”
Thereafter the judge went through the land with an eye out for wash-lines.
“I'm looking for a change of linen for the boy, Solomon,” he said. “Let me bring you a garment or two. Eh—how few men you'll find of my build; those last shirts I got were tight around the armholes and had no more tail than a rabbit!”
Two nights later Mr. Mahaffy accepted a complete change of under linen, but without visible sign of gratitude.
A night later the judge disappeared from camp, and after a prolonged absence returned puffing and panting with three watermelons, which proved to be green, since his activity had been much in advance of the season.
“I don't suppose there is any greater tax on human ingenuity than to carry three watermelons!” he remarked. “The human structure is ideally adapted to the transportation of two—it can be done with comfort; but when a body tackles three he finds that nature herself is opposed to the proceeding! Well, I am going back for a bee-gum I saw in a fence corner. Hannibal will enjoy that—a child is always wanting sweets!”
In this fashion they fared gaily across the state, but as they neared the Mississippi the judge began to consider the future. His bright and illuminating intelligence dealt with this problem in all its many-sidedness.
“I wish you'd enter one of the learned professions, Solomon—have you ever thought of medicine?” he inquired. Mr. Mahaffy laughed. “But why not, Solomon? There is nothing like a degree or a title—that always stamps a man, gives him standing—”
“What do I know about the human system?”
“I should certainly hope you know as much as the average doctor knows. We could locate in one of these new towns where they have the river on one side and the canal on the other, and where everybody has the ague—”
“What do I know about medicine?” inquired Mahaffy.
“As much as Aesculapius, no doubt—even he had to make a beginning. The torch of science wasn't lit in a day—you must be willing to wait; but you've got a good sick-room manner. Have you ever thought of opening an undertaker's shop? If you couldn't cure them you might bury them.”
A certain hot afternoon brought them into the shaded main street of a straggling village. Near the door of the principal building, a frame tavern, a man was seated, with his feet on the horse-rack. There was no other sign of human occupancy.
“How do you do, sir?” said the judge, halting before this solitary individual whom he conjectured to be the 'landlord. The man nodded, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his vest. “What's the name of this bustling metropolis?” continued the judge, cocking his head on one side.
As he spoke, Bruce Carrington appeared in the tavern door; pausing there, he glanced curiously at the shabby wayfarers.
“This is Raleigh, in Shelby County, Tennessee, one of the states of the Union of which, no doubt, you've heard rumor in your wanderings,” said the landlord.
“Are you the voice from the tomb?” inquired the judge, in a tone of playful sarcasm.
Carrington, amused, sauntered toward him.
“That's one for you, Mr. Pegloe!” he said.
“I am charmed to meet a gentleman whose spirit of appreciation shows his familiarity with a literary allusion,” said the judge, bowing.
“We ain't so dead as we look,” said Pegloe. “Just you keep on to Boggs' race-track, straight down the road, and you'll find that out—everybody's there to the hoss-racing and shooting-match. I reckon you've missed the hoss-racing, but you'll be in time for the shooting. Why ain't you there, Mr. Carrington?”
“I'm going now, Mr. Pegloe,” answered Carrington, as he followed the judge, who, with Mahaffy and the boy, had moved off.
“Better stop at Boggs'!” Pegloe called after them.
But the judge had already formed his decision.
Horse-racing and shooting-matches were suggestive of that progressive spirit, the absence of which he had so much lamented at the jail raising at Pleasantville—Memphis was their objective point, but Boggs' became a side issue of importance. They had gained the edge of the village when Carrington overtook them. He stepped to Hannibal's side.
“Here, let me carry that long rifle, son!” he said. Hannibal looked up into his face, and yielded the piece without a word. Carrington balanced it on his big, muscular palm. “I reckon it can shoot—these old guns are hard to beat!” he observed.
“She's the clostest shooting rifle I ever sighted,” said Hannibal promptly. “You had ought to see the judge shoot her—my! he never misses!”
Carrington laughed.
“The clostest shooting rifle you ever sighted—eh?” he repeated. “Why, aren't you afraid of it?”
“No,” said Hannibal scornfully. “But she kicks you some if you don't hold her right.”
There was a rusty name-plate on the stock of the old sporting rifle; this had caught Carrington's eye.
“What's the name here? Oh, Turberville.”
The judge, a step or two in advance, wheeled in his tracks with a startling suddenness.
“What?” he faltered, and his face was ashen.
“Nothing, I was reading the name here; it is yours; sir, I suppose?” said Carrington.
The color crept slowly back into the judge's cheeks, but a tremulous hand stole up to his throat.
“No, sir—no; my name is Price—Slocum Price! Turberville—Turberville—” he muttered thickly, staring stupidly at Carrington.
“It's not a common name; you seem to have heard it before?” said the latter.
A spasm of pain passed over the judge's face.
“I—I've heard it. The name is on the rifle, you say?”
“Here on the stock, yes.”
The judge took the gun and examined it in silence.
“Where did you get this rifle, Hannibal?” he at length asked brokenly.
“I fetched it away from the Barony, sir; Mr. Crenshaw said I might have it.”
The judge gave a great start, and a hoarse inarticulate murmur stole from between his twitching lips.
“The Barony—the Barony—what Barony? The Quintard seat in North Carolina, is that what you mean?”
“Yes,” said the boy.
The judge, as though stunned, stared at Hannibal and stared at the rifle, where the rusted name-plate danced before his eyes.
“What do you know of the Barony, Hannibal?” the words came slowly from the judge's lips, and his face had gone gray again.
“I lived at the Barony once, until Uncle Bob took me to Scratch Hill to be with him. It were Mr. Crenshaw said I was to have the old sp'otin' rifle,” said Hannibal.
“You—you lived at the Barony?” repeated the judge, and a dull stupid wonder struck through his tone, he passed a shaking hand before his eyes. “How long ago—when?” he continued.
“I don't know how long it were, but until Uncle Bob carried me away after the old general died.”
The judge slipped a hand under the child's chin and tilted his face back so that he might look into it. For a long moment he studied closely those small features, then with a shake of the head he handed the rifle to Carrington, and without a word strode forward. Carrington had been regarding Hannibal with a quickened interest.
“Hello!” he said, as the judge moved off. “You're the boy I saw at Scratch Hill!”
Hannibal gave him a frightened glance, and edged to Mr. Mahaffy's side, but did not answer him.
“What's become of Bob Yancy?” Carrington went on. He looked from Mahaffy to the judge; externally neither of these gentlemen was calculated to inspire confidence. Mahaffy, keenly alive to this fact, returned Carrington's glance with a fixed and hostile stare. “Come—” said Carrington good-naturedly, “you surely remember me?”
“Yes, sir; I reckon I do—”
“Can't you tell me about Mr. Yancy?”
“No, sir; I don't know exactly where he is—”
“But how did you get here?” persisted Carrington.
Suddenly Mahaffy turned on him.
“Don't you see he's with us?” he said truculently.
“Well, my dear sir, I certainly intended no offense!” rejoined Carrington rather hotly.
Mahaffy was plainly disturbed, the debased currency of his affection was in circulation where Hannibal was concerned, and he eyed the river-man askance. He was prepared to give him the lie should he set up any claim to the boy.
The judge plodded forward, his shoulders drooped, and his head bowed. For once silence had fixed its seal upon his lips, no inspiring speech fell from them. He had been suddenly swept back into a past he had striven these twenty years and more to forget, and his memories shaped themselves fantastically. Surely if ever a man had quitted the world that knew him, he was that man! He had died and yet he lived—lived horribly, without soul or heart, the empty shell of a man.
A turn in the road brought them within sight of Boggs' racetrack, a wide level meadow. The judge paused irresolutely, and turned his bleared face on his friend.
“We'll stop here, Solomon,” he said rather wearily, for the spirit of boast and jest was quite gone out of him. He glanced toward Carrington. “Are you a resident of these parts, sir?” he asked.
“I've been in Raleigh three days altogether,” answered Carrington, falling into step at his side, and they continued on across the meadow in silence.
“Do you observe the decorations of those refreshment booths?—the tasteful disposition of our national colors, sir?” the judge presently inquired.
Carrington smiled; he was able to follow his companion's train of thought.
They were elbowing the crowd now. Here were men from the small clearings in homespun and butternut or fringed hunting-shirts, with their women folk trailing after them. Here, too, in lesser numbers, were the lords of the soil, the men who counted their acres by the thousand and their slaves by the score. There was the flutter of skirts among the moving groups, the nodding of gay parasols that shaded fresh young faces, while occasionally a comfortable family carriage with some planter's wife or daughter rolled silently over the turf; for Boggs' race-track was a famous meeting-place where families that saw one another not above once or twice a year, friends who lived a day's hard drive apart even when summer roads were at their best, came as to a common center.
The judge's dull eye kindled, the haggard lines that had streaked his face erased themselves. This was life, opulent and full. These swift rolling carriages with their handsome women, these well-dressed men on foot, and splendidly mounted, all did their part toward lifting him out of his gloom. He settled his hat on his head with a rakish slant and his walk became a strut, he courted observation; he would have been grateful for a word, even a jest at his expense.
A cry from Hannibal drew his attention. Turning, he was in time to see the boy bound away. An instant later, to his astonishment, he saw a young girl who was seated with two men in an open carriage, spring to the ground, and dropping to her knees put her arms about the tattered little figure.
“Why, Hannibal!” cried Betty Malroy.
“Miss Betty! Miss Betty!” and Hannibal buried his head on her shoulder.
“What is it, Hannibal; what is it, dear?”
“Nothing, only I'm so glad to find you!”
“I am glad to see you, too!” said Betty, as she wiped his tears away. “When did you get here, dear?”
“We got here just to-day, Miss Betty,” said Hannibal.
Mr. Ware, careless as to dress, with a wiry black beard of a week's growth decorating his chin and giving an unkempt appearance which his expression did not mitigate, it being of the sour and fretful sort; scowled down on the child. He had favored Boggs' with his presence, not because he felt the least interest in horse-racing, but because he had no faith in girls, and especially had he profound mistrust of Betty. She was so much easily portable wealth, a pink-faced chit ready to fall into the arms of the first man who proposed to her. But Charley Norton had not seemed disturbed by the planter's forbidding air. Between those two there existed complete reciprocity of feeling, inasmuch as Tom's presence was as distasteful to Norton as his own presence was distressing to Ware.
“Where is your Uncle Bob, Hannibal?” Betty asked, glancing about, and at her question a shadow crossed the child's face and the tears gathered again in his eyes.
“Ain't you seen him, Miss Betty?” he whispered. He had been sustained by the belief that when he found her he should find his Uncle Bob, too.
“Why, what do you mean, Hannibal—isn't your Uncle Bob with you?” demanded Betty.
“He got hurt in a fight, and I got separated from him way back yonder just after we came out of the mountains.” He looked up piteously into Betty's face. “But you think he'll find me, don't you?”
“Why, you poor little thing!” cried Betty compassionately, and again she sank on her knees at Hannibal's side, and slipped her arms about him. The child began to cry softly.
“What ragamuffin's this, Betty?” growled Ware disgustedly.
But Betty did not seem to hear.
“Did you come alone, Hannibal?” she asked.
“No, ma'am; the judge and Mr. Mahaffy, they fetched me.”
The judge had drawn nearer as Betty and Hannibal spoke together, but Mahaffy hung back. There were gulfs not to be crossed by him. It was different with the judge; the native magnificence of his mind fitted him for any occasion. He pulled up his stock, and coaxed a half-inch of limp linen down about his wrists, then very splendidly he lifted his napless hat from his shiny bald head and pressing it against his fat chest with much fervor, elegantly inclined himself from the hips.
“Allow me the honor to present myself, ma'am—Price is my name—Judge Slocum Price. May I be permitted to assume that this is the Miss Betty of whom my young protege so often speaks?” The judge beamed benevolently, and rested a ponderous hand on the boy's head.
Tom Ware gave him a glance of undisguised astonishment, while Norton regarded him with an expression of stunned and resolute gravity. Mahaffy seemed to be undergoing a terrible moment of uncertainty. He was divided between two purposes: one was to seize Price by the coat tails and drag him back into the crowd; the other was to kick him, and himself fly that spot. This singular impulse sprang from the fact that he firmly believed his friend's appearance was sufficient to blast the boy's chances in every quarter; nor did he think any better of himself.
Betty looked at the judge rather inquiringly.
“I am glad he has found friends,” she said slowly. She wanted to believe that judge Slocum Price was somehow better than he looked, which should have been easy, since it was incredible that he could have been worse.
“He has indeed found friends,” said the judge with mellow unction, and swelling visibly. These prosperous appearing people should be of use to him, God willing—he made a sweeping gesture. “I have assumed the responsibility of his future—he is my care.”
Now Betty caught sight of Carrington and bowed. Occupied with Hannibal and the judge, she had been unaware of his presence. Carrington stepped forward.
“Have you met Mr. Norton, and my brother, Mr. Carrington?” she asked.
The two young men shook hands, and Ware improved the opportunity to inspect the new-comer. But as his glance wandered over him, it took in more than Carrington, for it included the fine figure and swarthy face of Captain Murrell, who, with his eyes fixed on Betty, was thrusting his eager way through the crowd.
Murrell had presented himself at Belle Plain the day before. For upward of a year, Ware had enjoyed great peace of mind as a direct result of his absence from west Tennessee, and when he thought of him at all he had invariably put a period to his meditations with, “I hope to hell he catches it wherever he is!” It had really seemed a pernicious thing to him that no one had shown sufficient public spirit to knock the captain on the head, and that this had not been done, utterly destroyed his faith in the good intentions of Providence.
More than this, Betty had spoken of the captain in no uncertain terms. He was not to repeat that visit. Tom must make that point clear to him. Tom might entertain him if he liked at his office, but the doors of Belle Plain were closed against Captain Murrell; he was not to set his foot inside of them.
As Murrell approached, the hot color surged into Betty's face. As for Hannibal, he had gone white to the lips, and his small hand clutched hers desperately; he was remembering all the terror of that hot dawn at Slosson's.
Murrell, with all his hardihood, realized that a too great confidence had placed him in an awkward position, for Betty turned her back on him and began an animated conversation with Carrington and Charley Norton; only Hannibal and the judge continued to regard him; the boy with a frightened, fascinated stare, the judge with a wide sweet smile.
Hicks, the Belle Plain overseer, pushed his way to Murrell's side.
“Here, John Murrell, ain't you going to show us a trick or two?” he inquired.
Murrell turned quickly with a sense of relief.
“If you can spare me your rifle,” he said, but his face wore a bleak look. Glancing at Betty, he took up his station with the other contestants, whereupon two or three young planters silently withdrew from the firing-line.
“Don't you think you've seen about enough, Bet?” demanded Tom. “You don't care for the shooting, do you?”
“That's the very thing I do care for; I think I'd rather see that than the horse-racing,” said Betty perversely. This had been her first appearance in public since her home-coming, and she felt that it had been most satisfactory. She had met everybody she had ever known, and scores of new people; her progress had been quite triumphal in spite of Tom, and in spite of Charley Norton, who was plainly not anxious to share her with any one, his devotion being rather of the monopolizing sort.
Betty now seated herself in the carriage, with Hannibal beside her, quietly determined to miss nothing. The judge, feeling that he had come into his own, leaned elegantly against the wheel, and explained the merits of each shot as it was made.
“Our intruding friend, the Captain, ma'am, is certainly a master with his weapon,” he observed.
Betty was already aware of this. She turned to Norton.
“Charley, I can't bear to have him win!”
“I am afraid he will, for anything I can do, Betty,” said Norton.
“Mr. Carrington, can't you shoot?—do take Hannibal's rifle and beat him,” she coaxed.
“Don't be too sure that I can!” said Carrington, laughing.
“But I know you can!” urged Betty.
“I hope you gentlemen are not going to let me walk off with the prize?” said Murrell, approaching the group about the carriage.
“Mr. Norton, I am told you are clever with the rifle.”
“I am not shooting to-day,” responded Norton haughtily.
Murrell stalked back to the line.
“At forty paces I'd risk it myself, ma'am,” said the judge. “But at a hundred, offhand like this, I should most certainly fail—I've burnt too much midnight oil. Eh—what—damn the dog, he's scored another center shot!”
“It would be hard to beat that—” they heard Murrell say.
“At least it would be quite possible to equal it,” said Carrington, advancing with Hannibal's rifle in his hands. It was tossed to his shoulder, and poured out its contents in a bright stream of flame. There was a moment of silence.
“Center shot, ma'am!” cried the judge.
“I'll add twenty dollars to the purse!” Norton addressed himself to Carrington. “And I shall hope, sir, to see it go in to your pocket.”
“Our sentiments exactly, ma'am, are they not?” said the judge.
“Perhaps you'd like to bet a little of your money?” remarked Murrell.
“I'm ready to do that too, sir,” responded Norton quietly.
“Five hundred dollars, then, that this gentleman in whose success you take so great an interest, can neither equal nor better my next shot!” Murrell had produced a roll of bills as he spoke. Norton colored with embarrassment. Carrington took in the situation.
“Wait a minute—” he said, and passed his purse to Norton.
“Cover his money, sir,” he added briefly.
“Thank you, my horses have run away with most of my cash,” explained Norton.
“Your shot!” said Carrington shortly, to the outlaw.
Murrell taking careful aim, fired, clipping the center.
As soon as the result was known, Carrington raised his rifle; his bullet, truer than his opponent's, drove out the center. Murrell turned on him with an oath.
“You shoot well, but a board stuck against a tree is no test for a man's nerve,” he said insolently.
Carrington was charging his piece.
“I only know of one other kind of target,” he observed coolly.
“Yes—a living target!” cried Murrell.
The crowd opened from right to left. Betty's face grew white, and uttering a smothered cry she started to descend from the carriage, but the judge rested his hand on her arm.
“No, my dear young, lady, our friend is quite able to care for himself.”
Carrington shook the priming into the pan of Hannibal's ancient weapon.
“I am ready for that, too,” he said. There was a slow smile on his lips, but his eyes, black and burning, looked the captain through and through.
“Another time—” said Murrell, scowling.
“Any time,” answered Carrington indifferently.