Just at this time, which was the year before the Civil War, that fashionable summer resort, the White Briar Springs, was at its gayest. Rarely before had the hotel been filled with so brilliant a company. A few extra cases of yellow fever had been the cause of an unusual exodus from the fever districts, and in consequence the various summer resorts flourished and grew strong. The “White Briar” especially exerted and arrayed itself in its most festive garments. The great dining-room was filled to overflowing, the waiters were driven to desperation by the demands made upon them as they flew from table to table and endeavoured with laudable zeal to commit to memory fifty orders at once and at the same time to answer “Comin’, sah” to the same number of snapped fingers. There were belles from Louisiana, beauties from Mississippi, and enslavers from Virginia, accompanied by their mothers, their fathers, their troops of younger brothers and sisters, and their black servants. There were nurses and valets and maids of all shades from ebony to cream-colour, and of all varieties of picturesqueness. All day the immense piazzas were crowded with promenaders, sitters, talkers, fancy-workers, servants attired in rainbow hues and apparently enjoying their idleness or their pretence at work to the utmost. Every morning parties played ten-pins, rode, strolled, gossipped; every afternoon the daring few who did not doze away the heated hours in the shaded rooms, flirted in couples under trees on the lawn, or in the woods, or by the creek. Every evening there was to be found ardent youth to dance in the ballroom, and twice a week at least did this same youth, arrayed in robes suited to honour the occasion, disport itself joyfully and with transcendent delight in the presence of its elders assembled in rooms around the walls of the same glittering apartment with the intention of bestowing distinction upon what was known as “the hop.”
Sometimes, in dull seasons, there was a scarcity of partners upon such occasions; but this year such was not the case. Aside from the brothers of the belles and beauties before referred to, who mustered in full force, there was a reserved corps of cavaliers who, though past the early and crude bloom of their first youth, were still malleable material. Who could desire a more gallant attendant than the agile though elderly Major Beaufort, who, with a large party of nieces, daughters, and granddaughters, made the tour of the watering-places each succeeding year, pervading the atmosphere of each with the subtle essence of his gallantry and hilariousness?
“I should be a miserable man, sir,” proclaimed the Major, chivalrously upon each succeeding Thursday—“I should be a miserable man in seeing before me such grace and youth and beauty, feeling that I am no longer young, if I did not possess a heart which will throb for Woman as long as it beats with life.”
Having distinguished himself by which poetic remark, he usually called up a waiter with champagne and glasses, in which beverage he gallantly drank the health of the admiring circle which partook of it with him.
Attached to the Beaufort party were various lesser luminaries, each of whom, it must be confessed, might well, under ordinary circumstances, have formed the centre of a circle himself; legal luminaries, social luminaries, political luminaries, each playing ten-pins and whist, each riding, each showing in all small gallantries, and adding by their presence to the exhilaration of the hour.
There was one gentleman, however, who, though he was not of the Beaufort party, could still not be considered among the lesser luminaries. He was a planet with an orbit of his own. This gentleman had ridden up to the hotel one afternoon on a fine horse, accompanied by a handsome, gloomy boy on another animal as fine, and followed by a well-dressed young negro carrying various necessary trappings, and himself mounted in a manner which did no discredit to his owner. The air of the party was such as to occasion some sensation on the front gallery, where the greater number of the guests were congregated.
“Oh,” cried one of the Beauforts, “what a distinguished-looking man. Oh, what a handsome boy! and what splendid horses.”
At that moment one of the other ladies—a dark, quiet, clever matron from South Carolina—uttered an exclamation.
“Is it possible,” she said. “There is Colonel De Willoughby.”
The new arrival recognised her at once and made his way towards her with the most graceful air of ease and pleasure, notwithstanding that it was necessary that he should wind his way dexterously round numerous groups in and out among a dozen chairs.
He was a strikingly handsome man, dark, aquiline, tall and lithe of figure; his clothes fitted him marvellously well at the waist, his slender arched foot was incased in a marvel of a boot, his black hair was rather long, and his superb eyes gained a mysterious depth and mellowness from the length and darkness of their lashes; altogether, it was quite natural that for the moment the Beauforts and their satellites should pale somewhat by comparison.
When he bowed over Mrs. Marvin’s hand, a thrill of pleasure made itself manifest in those surrounding them. He spoke in the most melodious of voices.
“The greatest of pleasures,” he was heard to say. “I did not expect this.” And then, in response to some question: “My health since—since my loss has been very poor. I hope to recover strength and spirits,” with an air of delicate and gentle melancholy. “May I present my boy—Rupert?”
In response to the summons the boy came forward—not awkwardly, or with any embarrassment, but with a bearing not at all likely to create a pleasant impression. The guests could see that he was even a handsomer boy than he had seemed at a greater distance. He was very like his father in the matter of aquiline features, clear pale-olive skin and superb dark eyes: his face had even a fineness the older man’s lacked, but the straight marks of a fixed frown were upon his forehead, and his mouth wore a look which accorded well with the lines.
He approached and bared his head, making his boyish bow in a manner which did credit to his training, but though he blushed slightly on being addressed, his manner was by no means a responsive one, and he moved away as soon as an opportunity presented itself, leaving his father making himself very fascinating in a gently chivalric way, and establishing himself as a planet by the mere manner of his address towards a woman who was neither pretty, young, nor enthusiastic.
There was no woman in the hotel so little prone to enthusiasm as this one. She was old enough and clever enough to have few illusions. It was thought singular that though she admitted she had known the Colonel from his youth, she showed very little partiality for his society, and, indeed, treated him with marked reserve. She never joined in the choruses of praise which were chanted daily around her.
“I know the De Willoughbys very well,” she said. “Oh, yes, very well indeed—in a way. We hear a good deal of them. De Courcy’s wife was a friend of mine. This one is De Courcy, the other is Romaine, and there was one who was considered a sort of black sheep and broke with the family altogether. They don’t know where he is and don’t care to know, I suppose. They have their own views of the matter. Oh, yes; I know them very well, in a way.”
When questioned by enthusiasts, she was obliged to confess that the hero of the hour was bountifully supplied with all outward gifts of nature, was to be envied his charm of manner and the air of romance surrounding him, though, in admitting this, she added a little comment not generally approved of.
“It’s a little of the Troubadour order,” she said; “but I dare say no woman would deny that it is rather taking. I don’t deny it, it is taking—if you don’t go below the surface.”
Never was a man so popular as the Colonel, and never a man so missed as he on the days of his indisposition. He had such days when he did not leave his room and his negro was kept busy attending to his wants. The nature of his attacks was not definitely understood, but after them he always appeared wearing an interesting air of languor and melancholy, and was more admired than ever.
“The boy seems to feel it very much,” the lady remarked. “He always looks so uneasy and anxious, and never goes away from the house at all. I suppose they are very fond of each other.”
“I dare say he does feel it very much,” said Mrs. Marvin with her reserved little smile. “He is De Willoughby enough for that.”
It was not agreed to that he inherited his father’s grace of manner however. He was a definitely unamiable boy, if one might judge from appearances. He always wore a dark little scowl, as if he were either on the point of falling into a secret rage or making his way out of one; instead of allowing himself to be admired and made a pet of, he showed an unnatural preference for prowling around the grounds and galleries alone, sometimes sitting in corners and professing to read, but generally appearing to be meditating resentfully upon his wrongs in a manner which in a less handsome boy would have been decidedly unpleasant. Even Mrs. Marvin’s advances did not meet with any show of cordiality, though it was allowed that he appeared less averse to her society than to that of any other woman, including the half dozen belles and beauties who would have enjoyed his boyish admiration greatly.
“I knew your mother,” said Mrs. Marvin to him one day as he sat near her upon the gallery.
“Did you?” he answered, in a rather encouraging way. “When did you know her?”
“When she was young. We were girls together. She was a beauty and I wasn’t, but we were very fond of each other.”
He gave his closed book a sullen look.
“What makes women break so?” he asked. “I don’t see why they break so. She had pretty eyes when she died, but,——”
He drew his handsome black brows down and scowled; and, seeing that he was angry at himself for having spoken, Mrs. Marvin made another remark.
“You miss her very much?” she said, gravely.
He turned his face away.
“She’s better off where she is, I suppose,” he said. “That’s what they always say of dead people.”
And then still frowning he got up and walked away.
The negro servants about the hotel were all fond of him, though his manner towards them was that of a fiery and enthusiastic young potentate, brooking no delay or interference. His beauty and his high-handed way impressed them as being the belongings of one favoured by fortune and worthy of admiration and respect.
“He’s a D’Willoughby out and out,” said his father’s negro, Tip. “Ain’t no mistake ’bout dat. He’s a young devil when his spirit’s up, ’n it’s easy raised. But he’s a powerful gen’lman sort o’ boy—powerful. Throw’s you a quarter soon’s look at ye, ’n he’s got the right kind o’ high ways—dough der ain’t no sayin’ he ain’t a young devil; de Kurnel hisself cayn’t outcuss him when his spirit’s up.”
The Colonel and his son had been at the springs a month, when the fancy-dress ball took place which was the occasion of a very unpleasant episode in the annals of this summer.
For several days before the greatest excitement had prevailed at the hotel. A pleasant air of mystery had prevailed over the preparations that were being made. The rural proprietors of the two stores in which the neighbourhood rejoiced were driven to distraction by constant demands made upon them for articles and materials of which they had never before heard, and which were not procurable within a hundred miles of the place. Bedrooms were overflowing with dresses in process of alteration from ordinary social aspects to marvellous combinations of imagination and ingenuity, while an amiable borrowing and exchanging went on through all the corridors.
On the day before the ball the Colonel’s popularity reached its height. As it was the time of a certain local election, there was held upon the grounds a political meeting, giving such individuals as chose to avail themselves of it the opportunity of expressing their opinions to the assembled guests and the thirty or forty mountaineers who had suddenly and without any warning of previous existence appeared upon the scene.
The Colonel had been one of the first called upon, and, to the delight of his admirers, he responded at once with the utmost grace to the call.
When he ascended the little platform with the slow, light step which was numbered among his chief attractions and stood before his audience for a moment looking down at them gently and reflectively from under his beautiful lashes, a throb of expectation was felt in every tender bosom.
His speech fell short of no desire, being decided to be simple perfection. His soft voice, his quiet ease of movement, his eloquence, were all that could be hoped for from mortal man. He mentioned with high-bred depreciation the fact that he could not fairly call himself a politician unless as any son of the fair South must be one at least at heart, however devoid of the gifts which have made her greatest heard from continent to continent. He was only one of the many who had at stake their cherished institutions, the homes they loved, the beloved who brightened those homes, and their own happiness as it was centred in those homes, and irrevocably bound in that of the fairest land upon which the fair sun shone.
The applause at this juncture was so great as to oblige him to pause for a few moments; but it was to be regretted that nine out of ten of the mountaineers remained entirely unresponsive, crossing their jean-covered legs and rubbing their lean and grizzled jaws in a soulless manner. They displayed this apathetic indifference to the most graceful flight of rhetoric, to the most musical appeals to the hearts of all men loving freedom, to the announcement that matters had reached a sad and significant crisis, that the peculiar institutions left as a legacy by their forefathers were threatened by the Northern fanatics, and that in the near future the blood of patriots might be poured forth as a libation upon the soil they loved; to eloquent denunciations of the hirelings and would-be violators of our rights under the constitution. To all these they listened, evidently devoting all their slow energies to the comprehension of it, but they were less moved than might have been expected of men little used to oratory.
But it was the termination of the speech that stirred all hearts. With a dexterity only to be compared to its easy grace, the orator left the sterner side of the question for a tenderer one to which he had already referred in passing, and which was the side of all political questions which presented themselves to such men as he. Every man, it was to be hoped, knew the meaning of home and love and tenderness in some form, however poor and humble and unpatriotic; to every man was given a man’s privilege of defending the rights and sacredness of this home, this love, with his strength, with his might, with the blood of his beating heart if need be. To a Southern man, as to all men, his right to be first in his own land in ruling, in choosing rulers, in carrying out the laws, meant his right to defend this home and that which was precious to him within it. There were a few before him upon this summer’s day, alas, alas! that Fate should will it so, who had not somewhere a grave whose grass moved in the softness of the wind over dead loves and hopes cherished even in this hour as naught else was cherished. “And these graves——”
He faltered and paused, glancing towards the doorway with a singular expression. For a few seconds he could not go on. He was obliged to raise to his lips the glass of water which had been provided for him.
“Oh!” was sighed softly through the room, “his emotion has overpowered him. Poor fellow! how sad he looks.”
Mrs. Marvin simply followed the direction his eyes had taken. She was a practical person. The object her eye met was the figure of the boy who had come in a few minutes before. He was leaning against the doorpost, attired in a cool suit of white linen, his hands in his pockets, the expression of his handsome darkling young face a most curious one. He was staring at his father steadily, his fine eyes wide open holding a spark of inward rage, his nostrils dilated and quivering. He seemed bent upon making the orator meet his glance, but the orator showed no desire to do so. He gave his sole attention to his glass of water. To this clever, elderly Southern matron it was an interesting scene.
“If he sprang up in two minutes and threw something deadly and murderous at him,” she said to herself, “I should not be in the least surprised; and I should not be the first to blame him.”
But the rest of the audience was intent upon the Colonel, who, recovering himself, finished his harangue with an appeal that the land made sacred by those loves, those homes, those graves, might be left solely in the hands of the men who loved it best, who knew its needs, who yearned for its highest development, and who, when the needful hour arrived, would lay down their lives to save its honour.
When he concluded, and was on the point of seating himself very quietly, without any appearance of being conscious of the great sensation he had created, and still wearing an admirable touch of melancholy upon his fine countenance, Major Beaufort rushed towards him, almost upsetting a chair in his eagerness, and grasped his hand and shook it with a congratulatory ardour so impressive and enthusiastic as to be a sensation in itself.
There were other speeches afterwards. Fired by the example of his friend, Major Beaufort distinguished himself by an harangue overflowing with gallantry and adorned throughout with amiable allusions to the greatest power of all, the power of Youth, Beauty, and Womanhood. The political perspicuity of the address was perhaps somewhat obscured by its being chivalrously pointed towards those fair beings who brighten our existence and lengthen our griefs. Without the Ladies, the speaker found, we may be politicians, but we cannot be gentlemen. He discovered (upon the spot, and with a delicate suggestion of pathos) that by a curious coincidence, the Ladies were the men’s mothers, their wives, their sisters, their daughters. This being greatly applauded, he added that over these husbands, these fathers, these brothers—and might be added “these lovers”—the Ladies wielded a mighty influence. The position of Woman, even in the darkest ages, had been the position of one whose delicate hand worked the lever of the world; but to-day, in these more enlightened times, in the age of advancement and discovery, before what great and sublime power did the nobleman, the inventor, the literary man, the warrior, bow, as he bowed before the shrine of the Ladies?
But it was the Colonel who bore away the palm and was the hero of the hour. When the audience rose he was surrounded at once by groups of enthusiasts, who shook hands with him, who poured forth libations of praise, who hung upon his every word with rapture.
“How proud of you he must be,” said one of the fairest in the group of worshippers; “boys of his age feel things so strongly. I wonder why he doesn’t come forward and say something to you? He is too shy, I suppose.”
“I dare say,” said the Colonel with his most fascinating gentle smile. “One must not expect enthusiasm of boys. I have no doubt he thought it a great bore and wondered what I was aiming at.”
“Impossible,” exclaimed the fair enslaver. “Don’t do him an injustice, Colonel de Willoughby.”
But as she glanced towards the doorway her voice died down and the expression of her face changed somewhat. The boy—still with his hands in his pockets—was looking on with an air which was as insolent as it was remarkable, an air of youthful scorn and malignant derision which staggered even the enthusiast.
She turned uneasily to the Colonel, who faintly smiled.
“He is a handsome fellow,” he said, “and I must own to being a vain parent, but he has a demon of a temper and he has been spoiled. He’ll get over it when he is older.”
It was a great blow to his admirers when it became known the next morning that the Colonel was suffering from one of his attacks, and even a worse one than usual. Neb was shut up in his room with him all day, and it was rumoured that the boy would not come down, but wandered up and down the corridors restlessly, looking miserable enough to have touched the stoniest heart.
During the morning quite a gloom pervaded the atmosphere; only the excitement of preparations for the evening could have proved an antidote to the general depression.
It was to be a brilliant occasion. The county had been scoured for guests, some of whom were to travel in their carriages from other watering-places for twenty or thirty miles. The ballroom had been decorated by a committee of ladies; the costumes, it was anticipated, would be dazzling beyond measure. No disappointment was felt when the festal hour arrived, but the very keen emotion attendant upon the absence of the interesting invalid.
“If he had only been well enough to be here,” it was said, “how he would have enjoyed it.”
Major Beaufort, attired as a Sultan and appropriately surrounded by his harem in sarsenet trousers and spangled veils, gave universal satisfaction. Minnehaha in feathers and moccasins, and Hiawatha in moccasins and feathers, gave a touch of mild poetry to the evening. Sisters of Charity in white cambric caps told their beads through the mazes of the lancers. Night and Morning, attired respectively in black and white tarletan, and both profusely adorned with silver paper stars, combined their forces to add romance and vividness to the festive scene.
There had been dancing and flirtation, upon which those of the guests who did not join gazed for an hour or so as they sat in the chairs arranged around the walls, doubtless enjoying themselves intensely, and the gaiety was at its height, when some commotion became manifest at one of the doors. Those grouped about it appeared to be startled at finding something or somebody behind them, and almost immediately it was seen that this something or somebody was bent upon crowding past them. A loud, insane-sounding laugh was heard. The dancers stopped and turned towards it with one accord, their alarm and astonishment depicted on their faces. The spectators bent forward in their seats.
“What is it?” was the general exclamation. “Oh! Oh!”
This last interjection took the form of a chorus as two of the group at the doorway were pushed headlong into the room, and a tall, unsteady, half-dressed figure made its violent entrance.
At the first glance it was not easy to recognize it; it was simply the figure of a very tall man in an ungirt costume, composed of shirt and pantaloons. He was crushed and dishevelled. His hair hung over his forehead. He strode into the middle of the quadrille, and stood with his hands in his pockets, swaying to and fro, with a stare at once malicious and vacant.
“Oh,” he remarked, sardonically, as he took in his surroundings, and then everyone recognized at once that it was Colonel De Willoughby, and that Colonel De Willoughby was mad drunk.
He caught sight of Major Beaufort, and staggered towards him with another frantic laugh.
“Good God, Major,” he cried; “how becomin’ ’tis, how damned becomin’. Harem an’ all. Only trouble is you’re too fat—too fat; if you weren’t so fat wouldn’t look such a damned fool.”
It was to be regretted there was no longer an air of refinement about his intoxication, no suggestion of melancholy grace, no ghost of his usual high-bred suavity; with his laugh and stare and unsteady legs he was simply a more drunken lunatic than one generally sees.
There was a rush at him from all sides—Major Beaufort, in his Turkish trousers, being the first to fall upon him and have his turban stamped upon in the encounter. He was borne across the room, shouting and struggling and indulging in profanity of the most frightful kind. Just as they got him to the door his black boy Neb appeared, looking ashen with fright.
“De Lord o’ massey,” he cried. “I ain’t lef’ him more’n a minit. He sent me down hisself. One o’ his cunnin’ ways to get rid o’ me when he’s at de wust. Opium ’n whiskey, dats what gets him dis way. Bof togedder a-gwine ter kill him some dese days, ’n de opium am de wustest. For de Lord’s sake some o’ you gen’men cum ’n hep me till I git him quieted down.”
It was all over in a few moments, but the effort made to return to hilariousness was a failure; the shock to the majority of the gay throng had been great. Mrs. Marvin, sitting in her special corner, was besieged with questions, and at length was prevailed upon through the force of circumstances to speak the truth as she knew it.
“Has he ever done it before?” she said. “Yes, he has done it before—he has done it a dozen times since he has been here, only to-night he was madder than usual and got away from his servant. What is it? It is opium when it isn’t whiskey, and whiskey when it isn’t opium, and oftenest it is both together. He is the worst of a bad lot, and if you haven’t understood that miserable angry boy before you may understand him now. His mother died of a broken heart when he was twelve years old, and he watched her die of it and knew what killed her, and is proud enough to feel the shame that rests upon him. That’s as much as I care to say, and yet it isn’t the half.”
When those bearing the Colonel to his room turned into the corridor leading to it they encountered his son, who met them with a white-lipped rage, startling to every man of them in its incongruous contrast to the boyish face and figure.
“What?” he said, panting. “You’ve got him, have you?”
“Yes,” responded the Colonel hilariously; “’ve got me safe ’nuff; pick me up ad’ car’ me. If man won’t go out, tote ’m out.”
They carried him into his rooms and laid him down, and more than one among them turned curiously to the boy as he stood near the bed looking down at the dishevelled, incoherent, gibbering object upon it.
“Damn him,” he said in a sudden outburst; “damn him.”
“Hello, youngster,” said one of the party, “that’s not the thing exactly.”
“Go to the devil,” roared the lad, livid with wrath and shame. “Do you think I’ll not say what I please? A nice one he is for a fellow to have for a father—to be tied to and dragged about by—drinking himself mad and disgracing himself after his palaver and sentiment and playing the gentleman. He ought to be a gentleman—he’s got a gentleman’s name, and”—choking a little—“all the rest of it. I hate him! He makes me sick. I wish he was dead. He’s a liar and a bully and a fool. I’d kill him if he wasn’t my father. I should like to kill him for being my father!”
Suddenly his voice faltered and his face turned white. He walked to the other side of the room, turning his back to them all, and, flinging himself into a chair, dropped his curly head on his arm on the window-sill and sobbed aloud with a weakness and broken-down fury pitiful to see.
The Colonel burst into a frantic shriek of laughter.
“Queer little devil,” he said. “Prou’ lit’l devil! Like’s moth‘—don’ like it. Moth’ used er cry. She didn’t like it.”
As the Cross-roads had regarded Tom as a piece of personal property to be proud of, so it fell into the habit of regarding his protégée. The romance of her history was considered to confer distinction upon the vicinity, and Tom’s affection for her was approved of as a sentiment worthy of the largeness of the Cross-roads nature.
“They kinder set one anuther off,” it was frequently remarked, “her a-bein’ so little and him so big, an’ both of ’em stickin’ to each other so clost. Lordy! ’tain’t no use a-tryin’ to part ’em. Sheby, she ain’t a-goin’ nowhar ’thout Tom, an’ Tom, he h’aint a-goin’ nowhars ’thout Sheby!”
When the child was five years old the changes which had taken place in the store were followed by still greater changes in the house. Up to her fifth birthday the experiences had balanced themselves between the store and the three back rooms with their bare floors and rough walls. She had had her corner, her small chair behind the counter or near the stove, and there she had amused herself with her playthings through long or short days, and in the evening Tom had taken her upon his shoulder and carried her back to the house, as it was called, leaving his careless, roystering gaiety behind him locked up in the store, ready to be resumed for the edification of his customers the next morning.
“He don’t hev no pore folkses ways wid dat chile,” said Mornin once to Mrs. Doty; “he don’t never speak to her no other then gen’leman way. He’s a-raisin’ her to be fitten fur de highes’. He’s mighty keerful ob her way ob speakin’ an’ settin’ to de table. Mornin’s got to stand ’hind her cheer an’ wait on her hersel’; an’ sence she was big ’nuff to set dar, she’s had a silver fork an’ spoon an’ napkin-ring same’s de President himself. Ah; he’s a-raisin’ her keerful, is Mars D’Willerby.”
“Waal,” said Mrs. Doty, “ef ’twarn’t Tom D’Willerby, I shed say it was a puttin’ on airs; but thar ain’t no airs ’bout Tom D’Willerby.”
From the first Mr. Stamps’s interest in Tom’s protégée had been unfailing though quiet. When he came into the store, which he did some three times a week, it was his habit to fix his small, pale eyes upon her and follow her movements stealthily but with unflagging watchfulness. Occasionally this occupation so absorbed him that when she moved to her small corner behind the counter, vaguely oppressed by his surveillance, he sauntered across the room and took his seat upon the counter itself, persisting in his mild, furtive gaze, until it became too much for her and she sought refuge at Tom’s knee.
“He looks at me,” she burst out distressedly on one such day. “Don’t let him look at me.”
Tom gave a start and turned round, and Mr. Stamps gave a start also, at once mildly recovering himself.
“Leave her alone,” said Tom, “what are you lookin’ at her for?”
Mr. Stamps smiled.
“Thar’s no law agin it, Tom,” he replied. “An’ she’s wuth a lookin’ at. She’s that kind, an’ it’ll grow on her. Ten year from now thar ain’t no law es ’ed keep ’em from lookin’ at her, ’thout it was made an’ passed in Congrist. She’ll hev to git reckonciled to a-bein’ looked at.”
“Leave her alone,” repeated Tom, quite fiercely. “I’ll not have her troubled.”
“I didn’t go to trouble her, Tom,” said Mr. Stamps, softly; and he slipped down from the counter and sidled out of the store and went home.
With Mr. Stamps Sheba always connected her first knowledge of the fact that her protector’s temper could be disturbed. She had never seen him angry until she saw Mr. Stamps rouse him to wrath on the eventful fifth birthday, from which the first exciting events of her life dated themselves. Up to that time she had seen only in his great strength and broad build a power to protect and shield her own fragility and smallness from harm or fear. When he took her in his huge arms and held her at what seemed to be an incredible height from the ordinary platform of existence, she had only felt the cautious tenderness of his touch and recognised her own safety, and it had never occurred to her that his tremendous voice, which was so strong and deep by nature, that it might have been a terrible one if he had chosen to make it so, could express any other feeling than kindliness in its cheery roar.
But on this fifth birthday Tom presented himself to her childish mind in a new light.
She had awakened early to find him standing at her small bedside and a new doll lying in her arms. It was a bigger doll than she had ever owned before, and so gaily dressed, that in her first rapture her breath quite forsook her. When she recovered it, she scrambled up, holding her new possession in one arm and clung with the other around Tom’s neck.
“Oh, the lovely, lovely doll!” she cried, and then hid her face on his shoulder.
“Hallo,” said Tom, hugging her, “what is she hiding her eyes for?”
She nestled closer to him with a little sob of loving delight.
“Because—because of the doll,” she answered, bewildered by her own little demonstration and yet perfect in her confidence that he would understand her.
“Well,” said Tom, cheerfully, “that’s a queer thing, ain’t it? Look here, did you know it was your birthday? Five years old to-day—think of that.”
He sat down and settled her in her usual place on his knee, her doll in her arms.
“To think,” he said, “of her setting up a birthday on purpose to be five years old and have a doll given her. That’s a nice business, ain’t it?”
After they had breakfasted together in state, the doll was carried into the store to be played with there. It was a wet day, and, the air being chilled by a heavy mountain rain, a small fire was burning in the stove, and by this fire the two settled themselves to enjoy the morning together, the weather precluding the possibility of their being disturbed by many customers. But in the height of their quiet enjoyment they were broken in upon by the sound of horse’s hoofs splashing in the mud outside and Mr. Stamps’s hat appeared above the window-sill.
It was Sheba who saw it first, and in the strength of her desire to avoid the wearer, she formed a desperate plan. She rose so quietly that Tom, who was reading a paper, did not hear her, and, having risen, drew her small chair behind the counter in the hope that, finding her place vacant, the visitor would not suspect her presence.
In this she was not disappointed. Having brushed the mud from his feet on the porch, Mr. Stamps appeared at the doorway, and, after his usual precautionary glance about him, made his way to the stove. His manner was at once propitiatory and friendly. He drew up a chair and put his wet feet on the stove, where they kept up a comfortable hissing sound as they dried.
“Howdy, Tom,” he said, “howdy?” And from her hiding-place Sheba saw him rubbing his legs from the knee downwards as he said it, with an air of solid enjoyment which suggested that he was congratulating himself upon something he had in his mind.
“Morning,” responded Tom.
Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs again quite luxuriously.
“You’re a lookin’ well, Tom,” he remarked. “Lord, yes, ye’re a lookin’ powerful well.”
Tom laid his paper down and folded it on his knee.
“Lookin’ well, am I?” he answered. “Well, I’m a delicate weakly sort of fellow in general, I am, and it’s encouraging to hear that I’m looking well.”
Mr. Stamps laughed rather spasmodically.
“I wouldn’t be agin bein’ the same kind o’ weakly myself,” he said, “nor the same kind o’ delycate. You’re a powerfle hansum man, Tom.”
“Yes,” replied Tom, drily, “I’m a handsome man. That’s what carried me along this far. It’s what I’ve always had to rely on—that and a knock-down intellect.”
Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs with his air of luxury again.
“Folks is fond o’ sayin’ beauty ain’t but skin deep,” he said; “but I wouldn’t hev it no deeper myself—bein’ so that it kivers. An’, talkin’ o’ beauty, she’s one—Lord, yes. She’s one.”
“Look here,” said Tom, “leave her alone.”
“’Tain’t a gwine to harm her, Tom,” replied Mr. Stamps, “’tain’t a gwine to harm her none. What made me think of it was it a bein’ jest five years since she was born—a makin’ it her birthday an’ her jest five years old.”
“What,” cried Tom, “you’ve been counting it up, have you?”
“No,” replied Mr. Stamps, with true modesty of demeanour, “I ain’t ben a countin’ of it up, Tom.” And he drew a dirty memorandum book softly from his pocket. “I set it down at the time es it happened.”
He laid the dirty book on his knee and turned over its pages carefully as if looking for some note.
“I ain’t much on readin’ an’ writin’,” he said, “an’ ’rithmetick it goes kinder hard with me now an’ agin, but a man’s got to know suthin’ on ’em if he ’lows to keep anyways even. I ’low to keep even, sorter, an’ I’ve give a good deal o’ time to steddyin’ of ’em. I never went to no school, but I’ve sot things down es I want to remember, an’ I kin count out money. I never was imposed on none I rekin, an’ I never lost nothin’. Yere’s whar I sot it down about her a-bein’ born an’ the woman a-dyin’ an’ him a-gwine away. Ye cayn’t read it, mebbe.” He bent forward, pointing to the open page and looking up at Tom as if he expected him to be interested. “Thar it is,” he added in his thin, piping, little voice, “even to the time o’ day. Mornin, she told me that. ’Bout three o’clock in the mornin’ in thet thar little front room. Ef anyone shed ever want to know particular, thar it is.”
The look in Tom’s face was far from being a calm one. He fidgetted in his chair and finally rolled his paper into a hard wad and threw it at the counter as if it had been a missile.
“See here,” he exclaimed, “take my advice and let that alone.”
Mr. Stamps regarded his dirty book affectionately.
“’Tain’t a-gwine to hurt nothin’ to hev it down,” he replied, with an air of simplicity.
He shut it up, returned it to his pocket, and clasped his hands about his knees, while he fixed his eyes on the glimmer of red showing itself through a crack in a stove-plate.
“It’s kinder curi’s I should hev happened along by thar this mornin’,” he remarked, reflectively.
“By where?” demanded Tom.
Mr. Stamps hugged his knees as if he enjoyed their companionship.
“By thar,” he responded, cheerfully, “the Holler, Tom. An’ it ’peared to me it ’ed be kinder int’restin’ to take a look through, bein’ as this was the day as the thing kinder started. So I hitched my mule an’ went in.” He paused a moment as if to enjoy his knees again.
“Well,” said Tom.
Mr. Stamps looked up at him harmlessly. “Eh?” he enquired.
“I said ‘well,’” answered Tom, “that’s what I said.”
“Oh,” replied Mr. Stamps. “Waal, thar wasn’t nothin’ thar, Tom.”
For the moment Tom’s expression was one of relief. But he said nothing.
“Thar wasn’t nothin’ thar,” Mr. Stamps continued. Then occurred another pause. “Nothin’,” he added after it, “nothin’ particular.”
The tenderness with which he embraced his knees at this juncture had something like fascination in it.
Tom found himself fixing a serious gaze upon his clasping arms.
“I kinder looked round,” he proceeded, “an’ if there’d ben anythin’ thar I ’low I’d hev seed it. But thar wasn’t nothin’, nothin’ but the empty rooms an’ a dead leaf or so es hed blowed in through a broken winder, an’ the pile o’ ashes in the fireplace beat down with the rain as hed fell down the chimney. Mighty lonesome an’ still them ashes looked; an’ thar wasn’t nothin’ but them an’ the leaves,——an’ a bit of a’ envelope.”
Tom moved his chair back. Sheba thought he was going to get up suddenly. But he remained seated, perhaps because Mr. Stamps began again.
“Thar wasn’t nothin’ but them an’ the bit of a’ envelope,” he remarked. “It was a-sticken in a crack o’ the house, low down, like it hed ben swep’ or blowed thar an’ overlooked. I shouldn’t hev seed it”—modestly—“ef I hedn’t ben a-goin’ round on my hands an’ knees.”
Then Tom rose very suddenly indeed, so suddenly that he knocked his chair over and amazed Sheba by kicking it violently across the store. For the moment he so far forgot himself as to be possessed with some idea of falling upon Mr. Stamps with the intent to do him bodily injury. He seized him by the shoulders and turned him about so that he had an excellent view of his unprepossessing back. What Mr. Stamps thought it would have been difficult to discover. Sheba fancied that when he opened his mouth he was going to utter a cry of terror. But he did not. He turned his neck about as well as he could under the circumstances, and looking up into Tom’s face meekly smiled.
“Tom,” he said, “ye ain’t a-gwine ter do a thing to me, not a dern thing.”
“Yes, I am,” cried Tom, furiously, “I’m goin’ to kick——”
“Ef ye was jest haaf to let drive at me, ye’d break my neck,” said Mr. Stamps, “an ye ain’t a-gwine ter do it. Ef ye was, Tom, ye’d be a bigger fool than I took ye fer. Lemme go.”
He looked so diminutive and weak-eyed, as he made these remarks, that it was no wonder Tom released him helplessly, though he was obliged to thrust his hands deep into his pockets and keep them under control.
“I thought I’d given you one lesson,” he burst forth; “I thought——”
Mr. Stamps interrupted him, continuing to argue his side of the question, evidently feeling it well worth his while to dispose of it on the spot.
“Ye weigh three hundred, Tom,” he said, “ef ye weigh a pound, an’ I don’t weigh but ninety, ’n ye couldn’t handle me keerful enuf not to leave me in a fix as wouldn’t be no credit to ye when ye was done; ’n it ’ed look kinder bad for ye to meddle with me, anyhow. An’ the madder ye get, the more particular ye’ll be not to. Thar’s whar ye are, Tom; an’ I ain’t sich a fool as not to know it.”
His perfect confidence in the strength of his position, and in Tom’s helplessness against it, was a thing to be remembered. Tom remembered it long afterwards, though at the moment it only roused him to greater heat.
“Now then,” he demanded, “let’s hear what you’re driving at. What I want to know is what you’re driving at. Let’s hear.”
Mr. Stamps’s pale eyes fixed themselves with interest on his angry face. He had seated himself in his chair again, and he watched Tom closely as he rambled on in his simple, uncomplaining way.
“Ye’re fond o’ laughin’ at me round yere at the store, Tom,” he remarked, “an’ I ain’t agin it. A man don’t make nothin’ much by bein’ laughed at, I rekin, but he don’t lose nothin’ nuther, an’ that’s what I am agin. I rekin ye laugh ’cos I kinder look like a fool—an’ I hain’t nothin’ agin thet, nuther, Lord! not by a heap. A man ain’t a-gwine to lose nothin’ by lookin’ like a fool. I hain’t never, not a cent, Tom. But I ain’t es big a fool es I look, an’ I don’t ’low ye air, uther. Thar’s whar I argy from. Ye ain’t es big a fool as ye look, an’ ye’d be in a bad fix ef ye was.”
“Go on,” ordered Tom, “and leave me out.”
“I cayn’t leave ye out, Tom,” said Mr. Stamps, “fer ye’re in. Ye’d be as big a fool as ye look ef ye was doin’ all this yere fer nothin’.”
“All what?” demanded Tom.
“Gals,” suggested Mr. Stamps, “is plenty. An’ ef ye take to raisin’ ’em as this un’s ben raised, ye ain’t makin’ much; an’ ef thar ain’t nothin’ to be made, Tom, what’s yer aim?”
He put it as if it was a conundrum without an answer.
“What’s yer aim, Tom?” he repeated, pleasantly, “ef thar ain’t nothin’ to be made?”
Tom’s honest face flamed into red which was almost purple, the veins swelled on his forehead, his indignation almost deprived him of his breath. He fell into a chair with a concussion which shook the building.
“Good—good Lord!” he exclaimed; “how I wish you weighed five hundred pounds.”
It is quite certain that if Stamps had, he would have demolished him utterly upon the spot, leaving him in such a condition that his remains would hardly have been a source of consolation to his friends. He pointed to the door.
“If you want to get out,” he said, “start. This is getting the better of me—and if it does——”
“Ye wouldn’t do a dern thing, Tom,” he said, peaceably, “not a dern thing.”
He sidled towards the door, and reaching it, paused to reflect, shaking his head.
“Ef thar ain’t nothin’ to be made,” he said, “ye’v got ter hev a aim, an’ what is it?”
Observing that Tom made a move in his chair, he slipped through the doorway rather hurriedly. Sheba thought he was gone, but a moment later the door re-opened and he thrust his head in and spoke, not intrusively—simply as if offering a suggestion which might prove of interest.
“It begun with a ‘L,’” he said; “thar was a name on it, and it begun with a ‘L’.”