THE MEASURE OF A MANBy John Trotwood Moore
By John Trotwood Moore
[Note.—This story was begun in the November number ofTrotwood’s Monthly. It opened with a pioneer horse race at the Hermitage, in Tennessee, in which Jack Trevellian, General Jackson and others had entered their horses. Trevellian was a young captain who had been in the Creek wars with General Jackson, and whom the old soldier loved very much. Trevellian was in love with Juliette Templeton, a guest of General Jackson. She had not promised to marry him, but was in love with him. She came to the race accompanied by Colonel Bristow, also in love with her. In the very graphic account of the race, the horse of an unknown boy, the son of an outcast woman, won, for which he was about to be beaten by those who had bet on the other horses, when Trevellian came to his rescue, claiming the boy was a Trevellian. “It is his son!” said someone to Juliette Templeton, and almost fainting she rode away from the field.]
An hour afterwards there was a halloo at the lower gate. It was answered by the dogs, who rushed out, barring the way, and stopping the newcomer at the entrance. According to pioneer custom, he sat on his horse till the dogs had been called in by their master.
At a word from Trevellian they slunk back to their kennels.
“Good evening, Jack—you were not expecting me, eh?”
“I am just as glad to see you, General—ride in,” and he opened the gate with a quick, nervous jerk. “I was just about to have the blues,” he added—“yes, we all have them at times.”
The older man seemed to have guessed this, for he had dismounted and hitched his horse, and, arm in arm, they walked up the path to the house.
“I promised Mrs. Jackson I’d not stay long, Jack, but as much as we love them, boy, there are times when a man must talk to a man. Nothing else will do,” and he slapped the other affectionately on the shoulder.
Both, for a while, were constrained, and each knew it. Trevellian knew what the older man had come for, and the other knew that Trevellian had guessed.
In endeavoring to be natural, the General was slightly embarrassed, a thing so unnatural with him that he worried more as he recognized it. But it convinced him how deeply interested he was in the affair before him—how much he cared for the future of the young man at his side.
“That tobacco they raised at the Hermitage while I was away this year is not the best in the world, Jack,” he said, passing his buckskin pouch to the other, “but it will help us out.”
The two were soon smoking. It was plain that the older man had plans, and that he would soon unfold them. Under any other circumstances his talk would have been different—the day’s racing, the banterings, the jokes, the oft-repeated tales of it, the speculation on this and that event, the praise or condemnation of horse or jockey.
To-night it was different. They smoked in silence, and after a while the General said:
“I heard from Washington to-day.”
Trevellian looked up quickly—expectantly.
“Not about Pensacola,” went on theother, “but the treaty with the Creeks. I am directed by the Secretary of War to conclude it, and I will soon meet them at Ft. Jackson. I’ll want you to go with me—of course—and the First Regiment.” He stopped and tapped the young man lightly on the arm:
“And that’s not all the troops I’ll slip into that vicinity. I’ve a good excuse—there has been no reply to my letter concerning the landing of British troops at Pensacola, and the treachery of Spain in permitting it, and I’ll take silence for consent, and with the troops in the forts and on the frontier I’ll order your regiment in and hold all in good striking distance of that nest of Spanish snakes. And we’ll strike, Jack—we’ll strike!”
He arose and began to pace the room.
“I’ll not stay tethered while Spain permits our enemy to use her harbor to shelter them. What do they know at Washington, a thousand miles away, with their ears sealed for fear they’ll have another war on their hands? The government—all governments are abstract things, at best. It is the men in them that count—the concrete agents who carry out the things to be done, and there are things every man is called on to solve for himself, both in war and in life—there are times when the general is the government, and if he fails to rise to the occasion he is a flunk and a failure.”
He was still walking around the room, talking more to himself than to Jack.
“Now, the situation is this: I know. The government doesn’t want to know. It’s my business to fight and whip the foes of my country. It’s my government’s to keep out of more than one fight at a time. That’s all right—but when I can kill two bears with one ball, it’s better than killing one of them and wounding the other. The British are swarming in Pensacola. They are our enemy, and once securely entrenched there they will entrench from the Rio Grande to Mobile Bay. Then it will be too late. In driving them from Pensacola I’ll drive out Spain at the same time and hold it so securely that Spain may bluff for a while, but will finally give in—and Florida will be ours.”
And so he smoked and walked, planning it all out, and in an hour it was arranged, and the General grew calmer and sat down again.
“Now, while we are gone, the election will come off. To-day you had Bristow beat—”
“Youhad him beat, General,” the younger man smiled for the first time.
The General gave his first chuckle. The ice was broken.
“But now—” began the General.
“I am out of the race, sir,” said Trevellian, rising. “I shall so announce it to-morrow. I am going with you and fight,” he added.
The General arose quickly: “No, you are not out of it, Jack—not while I am about.”
“What do you mean, General?” He came over and stood face to face with the older man.
“Let us be seated,” said the other. “I will go into detail. Bristow remained with us for supper to-night—”
The younger man was still silent.
“But first, Jack, shall I tell you all?”
Jack nodded.
“It was a little thing—perhaps I should not speak of it. Mrs. Jackson says”—and he smiled—“that for an old Indian fighter I am taking on a lot of romance since I returned, and that you two have caused it. Well, my heart is in this thing, and you know it. But I loved Templeton and I love you, my boy.”
The other bowed his head reverently.
“The girl loves you, Jack; I know it. I know when a woman loves. She is wretched to-night. Why, didn’t I see her when she came home—in spite of Bristow, everybody—everything—with her face set like a flint monument in grief. To-night she was weeping in her room. Mrs. Jackson told me—by God, but you have broken her heart, and you must tell me, Jack.”
Jack arose hastily and walked the room in silent agitation. At last he stopped and stood before the other.
“I cannot, my General—my God, I cannot! Blame me, cut me off from your esteem and friendship as I am already cut off from hers. This thing is between me and my Maker.
“No man,” said the General, rising, “has the right to ask of you things which are between you and your God. I do not want to know—and this —is—”
“And I cannot tell you anything, my friend—my more than friend.”
He stood before his father’s picture—the Trevellian portrait that hung above them on the wall. He bowed his head in the agony of it all.
“I have never kept anything from you before, and you know how hard it is for me to do this, but—”
The other man was walking the room. He turned and said:
“Well, then, I will tell you what happened. Bristow has said enough for me to challenge him—said it at my table,” and his face flushed with the purpling rage which could so quickly mount to it. “My friends’ fights are my own, Jack—you know that—”
“You have not challenged him, General?” and Jack paled suddenly.
“I will to-morrow—as soon as Patton Anderson can take him a note. I’ll challenge him, and I’ll kill him.” He came up closer to Jack.
“It’s not you and what he said I’m thinking of. You only give me the chance. I’ve been wanting to kill him ever since that cowardly night.”
“You could not prove it before a court-martial, General.”
“No, d—n him—no—I wish I could. But there are things a man knows he cannot prove by the red-tape letter of the law which—no—no—he is too smart to be caught. But I know it and you know, and every man of sense, that he treacherously instigated and led the mutiny of those starved and homesick troops in the Creek wilderness. When—ha, Jack, you know it was he!”
The General was getting hot.
“But you—you stopped it,” smiled the other.
“Yes—with a rifle in their path, and I wish I had shot him then. No, I am not fighting your battles, young man. You may take care of yourself, as I said to him—I am going to kill him for instigating that mutiny when the life of the army and the fate of the war hung on our fighting it to a finish.”
“But you will not challenge him, General—you must promise me you will not.”
The General turned purple with anger—his eyes flashed indignantly into those of the younger man. He stuck his bony finger in Jack’s face and fairly shrieked:
“D—n you, Jack, and your sissy, foolish silence! Yes, sir, I will, unless you tell me you are guilty—that you are not worth Juliette’s love—that the boy is your son. And if you are silent, why then—”
“And if I am silent, General, why then you will believe I am guilty and let this thing pass?”
The General nodded.
“General, I must—I must—I cannot—I must be silent.”
The General looked up.
Jack’s eyes were wet. The General grasped his hand silently.
“By God, you are not guilty, Jack—you will tell me in your own time. I said I’d kill him, but—well, you’ve spoiled my plans. I’ll let him go for your sake.”
“For my sake, General, and I swear to you you shall one day know. Let him have the office—let him have the girl. I’ll have my sacred promise to the dead and my manhood left—that I’ll never part with.”
[To be continued]