The fact that a white man, in some sense a local man, who had yet come from the far North, the land of plenty, with feelings friendly to their advancement, had taken a personal interest in their welfare and proved it by his presence among them, gave them hope and inspiration for the future. They had long been familiar with the friendship that curbed, restricted and restrained, and concerned itself mainly with their limitations. They were almost hysterically eager to welcome the co-operation of a friend who, in seeking to lift them up, was obsessed by no fear of pulling himself down or of narrowing in some degree the gulf that separated them—who was willing not only to help them, but to help them to a condition in which they might be in less need of help. The colonel touched the reserves of loyalty in the Negro nature, exemplified in old Peter and such as he. Who knows, had these reserves been reached sooner by strict justice and patient kindness, that they might not long since have helped to heal the wounds of slavery?

"And now, Laura," said the colonel, "when we have improved the schools and educated the people, we must give them something to occupy their minds. We must have a library, a public library."

"That will be splendid!" she replied with enthusiasm.

"A public library," continued the colonel, "housed in a beautiful building, in a conspicuous place, and decorated in an artistic manner—a shrine of intellect and taste, at which all the people, rich and poor, black and white, may worship."

Miss Laura was silent for a moment, and thoughtful.

"But, Henry," she said with some hesitation, "do you mean that coloured people should use the library?"

"Why not?" he asked. "Do they not need it most? Perhaps not many of them might wish to use it; but to those who do, should we deny the opportunity? Consider their teachers—if the blind lead the blind, shall they not both fall into the ditch?"

"Yes, Henry, that is the truth; but I am afraid the white people wouldn't wish to handle the same books."

"Very well, then we will give the coloured folks a library of their own, at some place convenient for their use. We need not strain our ideal by going too fast. Where shall I build the library?"

"The vacant lot," she said, "between the post-office and the bank."

"The very place," he replied. "It belonged to our family once, and I shall be acquiring some more ancestral property. The cows will need to find a new pasture."

The announcement of the colonel's plan concerning the academy and the library evoked a hearty response on the part of the public, and the Anglo-Saxon hailed it as the dawning of a new era. With regard to the colonel's friendly plans for the Negroes, there was less enthusiasm and some difference of opinion. Some commended the colonel's course. There were others, good men and patriotic, men who would have died for liberty, in the abstract, men who sought to walk uprightly, and to live peaceably with all, but who, by much brooding over the conditions surrounding their life, had grown hopelessly pessimistic concerning the Negro.

The subject came up in a little company of gentlemen who were gathered around the colonel's table one evening, after the coffee had been served, and the Havanas passed around.

"Your zeal for humanity does you infinite credit, Colonel French," said Dr. Mackenzie, minister of the Presbyterian Church, who was one of these prophetic souls, "but I fear your time and money and effort will be wasted. The Negroes are hopelessly degraded. They have degenerated rapidly since the war."

"How do you know, doctor? You came here from the North long after the war. What is your standard of comparison?"

"I voice the unanimous opinion of those who have known them at both periods."

"I don't agree with you; and I lived here before the war. There is certainly one smart Negro in town. Nichols, the coloured barber, owns five houses, and overreached me in a bargain. Before the war he was a chattel. And Taylor, the teacher, seems to be a very sensible fellow."

"Yes," said Dr. Price, who was one of the company, "Taylor is a very intelligent Negro. Nichols and he have learned how to live and prosper among the white people."

"They are exceptions," said the preacher, "who only prove the rule. No, Colonel French, for a long time I hoped that there was a future for these poor, helpless blacks. But of late I have become profoundly convinced that there is no place in this nation for the Negro, except under the sod. We will not assimilate him, we cannot deport him——"

"And therefore, O man of God, must we exterminate him?"

"It is God's will. We need not stain our hands with innocent blood. If we but sit passive, and leave their fate to time, they will die away in discouragement and despair. Already disease is sapping their vitals. Like other weak races, they will vanish from the pathway of the strong, and there is no place for them to flee. When they go hence, it is to go forever. It is the law of life, which God has given to the earth. To coddle them, to delude them with false hopes of an unnatural equality which not all the power of the Government has been able to maintain, is only to increase their unhappiness. To a doomed race, ignorance is euthanasia, and knowledge is but pain and sorrow. It is His will that the fittest should survive, and that those shall inherit the earth who are best prepared to utilise its forces and gather its fruits."

"My dear doctor, what you say may all be true, but, with all due respect, I don't believe a word of it. I am rather inclined to think that these people have a future; that there is a place for them here; that they have made fair progress under discouraging circumstances; that they will not disappear from our midst for many generations, if ever; and that in the meantime, as we make or mar them, we shall make or mar our civilisation. No society can be greater or wiser or better than the average of all its elements. Our ancestors brought these people here, and lived in luxury, some of them—or went into bankruptcy, more of them—on their labour. After three hundred years of toil they might be fairly said to have earned their liberty. At any rate, they are here. They constitute the bulk of our labouring class. To teach them is to make their labour more effective and therefore more profitable; to increase their needs is to increase our profits in supplying them. I'll take my chances on the Golden Rule. I am no lover of the Negro, as Negro—I do not know but I should rather see him elsewhere. I think our land would have been far happier had none but white men ever set foot upon it after the red men were driven back. But they are here, through no fault of theirs, as we are. They were born here. We have given them our language—which they speak more or less corruptly; our religion—which they practise certainly no better than we; and our blood—which our laws make a badge of disgrace. Perhaps we could not do them strict justice, without a great sacrifice upon our own part. But they are men, and they should have their chance—at least some chance."

"I shall pray for your success," sighed the preacher. "With God all things are possible, if He will them. But I can only anticipate your failure."

"The colonel is growing so popular, with his ready money and his cheerful optimism," said old General Thornton, another of the guests, "that we'll have to run him for Congress, as soon as he is reconverted to the faith of his fathers."

Colonel French had more than once smiled at the assumption that a mere change of residence would alter his matured political convictions. His friends seemed to look upon them, so far as they differed from their own, as a mere veneer, which would scale off in time, as had the multiplied coats of whitewash over the pencil drawing made on the school-house wall in his callow youth.

"You see," the old general went on, "it's a social matter down here, rather than a political one. With this ignorant black flood sweeping up against us, the race question assumes an importance which overshadows the tariff and the currency and everything else. For instance, I had fully made up my mind to vote the other ticket in the last election. I didn't like our candidate nor our platform. There was a clean-cut issue between sound money and financial repudiation, and I was tired of the domination of populists and demagogues. All my better instincts led me toward a change of attitude, and I boldly proclaimed the fact. I declared my political and intellectual independence, at the cost of many friends; even my own son-in-law scarcely spoke to me for a month. When I went to the polls, old Sam Brown, the triflingest nigger in town, whom I had seen sentenced to jail more than once for stealing—old Sam Brown was next to me in the line.

"'Well, Gin'l,' he said, 'I'm glad you is got on de right side at las', an' is gwine to vote our ticket.'"

"This was too much! I could stand the other party in the abstract, but not in the concrete. I voted the ticket of my neighbours and my friends. We had to preserve our institutions, if our finances went to smash. Call it prejudice—call it what you like—it's human nature, and you'll come to it, colonel, you'll come to it—and then we'll send you to Congress."

"I might not care to go," returned the colonel, smiling.

"You could not resist, sir, the unanimous demand of a determined constituency. Upon the rare occasions when, in this State, the office has had a chance to seek the man, it has never sought in vain."



Nineteen

Time slipped rapidly by, and the colonel had been in Clarendon a couple of months when he went home one afternoon, and not finding Phil and Peter, went around to the Treadwells' as the most likely place to seek them.

"Henry," said Miss Laura, "Philip does not seem quite well to-day. There are dark circles under his eyes, and he has been coughing a little."

The colonel was startled. Had his growing absorption in other things led him to neglect his child? Phil needed a mother. This dear, thoughtful woman, whom nature had made for motherhood, had seen things about his child, that he, the child's father, had not perceived. To a mind like Colonel French's, this juxtaposition of a motherly heart and a motherless child seemed very pleasing.

He despatched a messenger on horseback immediately for Dr. Price. The colonel had made the doctor's acquaintance soon after coming to Clarendon, and out of abundant precaution, had engaged him to call once a week to see Phil. A physician of skill and experience, a gentleman by birth and breeding, a thoughtful student of men and manners, and a good story teller, he had proved excellent company and the colonel soon numbered him among his intimate friends. He had seen Phil a few days before, but it was yet several days before his next visit.

Dr. Price owned a place in the country, several miles away, on the road to Mink Run, and thither the messenger went to find him. He was in his town office only at stated hours. The colonel was waiting at home, an hour later, when the doctor drove up to the gate with Ben Dudley, in the shabby old buggy to which Ben sometimes drove his one good horse on his trips to town.

"I broke one of my buggy wheels going out home this morning," explained the doctor, "and had just sent it to the shop when your messenger came. I would have ridden your horse back, and let the man walk in, but Mr. Dudley fortunately came along and gave me a lift."

He looked at Phil, left some tablets, with directions for their use, and said that it was nothing serious and the child would be all right in a day or two.

"What he needs, colonel, at his age, is a woman's care. But for that matter none of us ever get too old to need that."

"I'll have Tom hitch up and take you home," said the colonel, when the doctor had finished with Phil, "unless you'll stay to dinner."

"No, thank you," said the doctor, "I'm much obliged, but I told my wife I'd be back to dinner. I'll just sit here and wait for young Dudley, who's going to call for me in an hour. There's a fine mind, colonel, that's never had a proper opportunity for development. If he'd had half the chance that your boy will, he would make his mark. Did you ever see his uncle Malcolm?"

The colonel described his visit to Mink Run, the scene on the piazza, the interview with Mr. Dudley, and Peter's story about the hidden treasure.

"Is the old man sane?" he asked.

"His mind is warped, undoubtedly," said the doctor, "but I'll leave it to you whether it was the result of an insane delusion or not—if you care to hear his story—or perhaps you've heard it?"

"No, I have not," returned the colonel, "but I should like to hear it."

This was the story that the doctor told:

* * * * *

When the last century had passed the half-way mark, and had started upon its decline, the Dudleys had already owned land on Mink Run for a hundred years or more, and were one of the richest and most conspicuous families in the State. The first great man of the family, General Arthur Dudley, an ardent patriot, had won distinction in the War of Independence, and held high place in the councils of the infant nation. His son became a distinguished jurist, whose name is still a synonym for legal learning and juridical wisdom. In Ralph Dudley, the son of Judge Dudley, and the immediate predecessor of the demented old man in whom now rested the title to the remnant of the estate, the family began to decline from its eminence. Ralph did not marry, but led a life of ease and pleasure, wasting what his friends thought rare gifts, and leaving his property to the management of his nephew Malcolm, the orphan son of a younger brother and his uncle's prospective heir. Malcolm Dudley proved so capable a manager that for year after year the large estate was left almost entirely in his charge, the owner looking to it merely for revenue to lead his own life in other places.

The Civil War gave Ralph Dudley a career, not upon the field, for which he had no taste, but in administrative work, which suited his talents, and imposed more arduous tasks than those of actual warfare. Valour was of small account without arms and ammunition. A commissariat might be improvised, but gunpowder must be manufactured or purchased.

Ralph's nephew Malcolm kept bachelor's hall in the great house. The only women in the household were an old black cook, and the housekeeper, known as "Viney"—a Negro corruption of Lavinia—a tall, comely young light mulattress, with a dash of Cherokee blood, which gave her straighter, blacker and more glossy hair than most women of mixed race have, and perhaps a somewhat different temperamental endowment. Her duties were not onerous; compared with the toiling field hands she led an easy life. The household had been thus constituted for ten years and more, when Malcolm Dudley began paying court to a wealthy widow.

This lady, a Mrs. Todd, was a war widow, who had lost her husband in the early years of the struggle. War, while it took many lives, did not stop the currents of life, and weeping widows sometimes found consolation. Mrs. Todd was of Clarendon extraction, and had returned to the town to pass the period of her mourning. Men were scarce in those days, and Mrs. Todd was no longer young, Malcolm Dudley courted her, proposed marriage, and was accepted.

He broke the news to his housekeeper by telling her to prepare the house for a mistress. It was not a pleasant task, but he was a resolute man. The woman had been in power too long to yield gracefully. Some passionate strain of the mixed blood in her veins broke out in a scene of hysterical violence. Her pleadings, remonstrances, rages, were all in vain. Mrs. Todd was rich, and he was poor; should his uncle see fit to marry—always a possibility—he would have nothing. He would carry out his purpose.

The day after this announcement Viney went to town, sought out the object of Dudley's attentions, and told her something; just what, no one but herself and the lady ever knew. When Dudley called in the evening, the widow refused to see him, and sent instead, a curt note cancelling their engagement.

Dudley went home puzzled and angry. On the way thither a suspicion flashed into his mind. In the morning he made investigations, after which he rode round by the residence of his overseer. Returning to the house at noon, he ate his dinner in an ominous silence, which struck terror to the heart of the woman who waited on him and had already repented of her temerity. When she would have addressed him, with a look he froze the words upon her lips. When he had eaten he looked at his watch, and ordered a boy to bring his horse round to the door. He waited until he saw his overseer coming toward the house, then sprang into the saddle and rode down the lane, passing the overseer with a nod.

Ten minutes later Dudley galloped back up the lane and sprang from his panting horse. As he dashed up the steps he met the overseer coming out of the house.

"You have not——"

"I have, sir, and well! The she-devil bit my hand to the bone, and would have stabbed me if I hadn't got the knife away from her. You'd better have the niggers look after her; she's shamming a fit."

Dudley was remorseful, and finding Viney unconscious, sent hastily for a doctor.

"The woman has had a stroke," said that gentleman curtly, after an examination, "brought on by brutal treatment. By G—d, Dudley, I wouldn't have thought this of you! I own Negroes, but I treat them like human beings. And such a woman! I'm ashamed of my own race, I swear I am! If we are whipped in this war and the slaves are freed, as Lincoln threatens, it will be God's judgment!"

Many a man has been shot by Southern gentlemen for language less offensive; but Dudley's conscience made him meek as Moses.

"It was a mistake," he faltered, "and I shall discharge the overseer who did it."

"You had better shoot him," returned the doctor. "He has no soul—and what is worse, no discrimination."

Dudley gave orders that Viney should receive the best of care. Next day he found, behind the clock, where she had laid it, the letter which Ben Dudley, many years after, had read to Graciella on Mrs. Treadwell's piazza. It was dated the morning of the previous day.

An hour later he learned of the death of his uncle, who had been thrown from a fractious horse, not far from Mink Run, and had broken his neck in the fall. A hasty search of the premises did not disclose the concealed treasure. The secret lay in the mind of the stricken woman. As soon as Dudley learned that Viney had eaten and drunk and was apparently conscious, he went to her bedside and took her limp hand in his own.

"I'm sorry, Viney, mighty sorry, I assure you. Martin went further than I intended, and I have discharged him for his brutality. You'll be sorry, Viney, to learn that your old Master Ralph is dead; he was killed by an accident within ten miles of here. His body will be brought home to-day and buried to-morrow."

Dudley thought he detected in her expressionless face a shade of sorrow. Old Ralph, high liver and genial soul, had been so indulgent a master, that his nephew suffered by the comparison.

"I found the letter he left with you," he continued softly, "and must take charge of the money immediately. Can you tell me where it is?"

One side of Viney's face was perfectly inert, as the result of her disorder, and any movement of the other produced a slight distortion that spoiled the face as the index of the mind. But her eyes were not dimmed, and into their sombre depths there leaped a sudden fire—only a momentary flash, for almost instantly she closed her lids, and when she opened them a moment later, they exhibited no trace of emotion.

"You will tell me where it is?" he repeated. A request came awkwardly to his lips; he was accustomed to command.

Viney pointed to her mouth with her right hand, which was not affected.

"To be sure," he said hastily, "you cannot speak—not yet."

He reflected for a moment. The times were unsettled. Should a wave of conflict sweep over Clarendon, the money might be found by the enemy. Should Viney take a turn for the worse and die, it would be impossible to learn anything from her at all. There was another thought, which had rapidly taken shape in his mind. No one but Viney knew that his uncle had been at Mink Run. The estate had been seriously embarrassed by Roger's extravagant patriotism, following upon the heels of other and earlier extravagances. The fifty thousand dollars would in part make good the loss; as his uncle's heir, he had at least a moral claim upon it, and possession was nine points of the law.

"Is it in the house?" he asked.

She made a negative sign.

"In the barn?"

The same answer.

"In the yard? the garden? the spring house? the quarters?"

No question he could put brought a different answer. Dudley was puzzled. The woman was in her right mind; she was no liar—of this servile vice at least she was free. Surely there was some mystery.

"You saw my uncle?" he asked thoughtfully.

She nodded affirmatively.

"And he had the money, in gold?"

Yes.

"He left it here?"

Yes, positively.

"Do you know where he hid it?"

She indicated that she did, and pointed again to her silent tongue.

"You mean that you must regain your speech before you can explain?"

She nodded yes, and then, as if in pain, turned her face away from him.

Viney was carefully nursed. The doctor came to see her regularly. She was fed with dainty food, and no expense was spared to effect her cure. In due time she recovered from the paralytic stroke, in all except the power of speech, which did not seem to return. All of Dudley's attempts to learn from her the whereabouts of the money were equally futile. She seemed willing enough, but, though she made the effort, was never able to articulate; and there was plainly some mystery about the hidden gold which only words could unravel.

If she could but write, a few strokes of the pen would give him his heart's desire! But, alas! Viney may as well have been without hands, for any use she could make of a pen. Slaves were not taught to read or write, nor was Viney one of the rare exceptions. But Dudley was a man of resource—he would have her taught. He employed a teacher for her, a free coloured man who knew the rudiments. But Viney, handicapped by her loss of speech, made wretched progress. From whatever cause, she manifested a remarkable stupidity, while seemingly anxious to learn. Dudley himself took a hand in her instruction, but with no better results, and, in the end, the attempt to teach her was abandoned as hopeless.

Years rolled by. The fall of the Confederacy left the slaves free and completed the ruin of the Dudley estate. Part of the land went, at ruinous prices, to meet mortgages at ruinous rates; part lay fallow, given up to scrub oak and short-leaf pine; merely enough was cultivated, or let out on shares to Negro tenants, to provide a living for old Malcolm and a few servants. Absorbed in dreams of the hidden gold and in the search for it, he neglected his business and fell yet deeper into debt. He worried himself into a lingering fever, through which Viney nursed him with every sign of devotion, and from which he rose with his mind visibly weakened.

When the slaves were freed, Viney had manifested no desire to leave her old place. After the tragic episode which had led to their mutual undoing, there had been no relation between them but that of master and servant. But some gloomy attraction, or it may have been habit, held her to the scene of her power and of her fall. She had no kith nor kin, and her affliction separated her from the rest of mankind. Nor would Dudley have been willing to let her go, for in her lay the secret of the treasure; and, since all other traces of her ailment had disappeared, so her speech might return. The fruitless search was never relinquished, and in time absorbed all of Malcolm Dudley's interest. The crops were left to the servants, who neglected them. The yard had been dug over many times. Every foot of ground for rods around had been sounded with a pointed iron bar. The house had suffered in the search. No crack or cranny had been left unexplored. The spaces between the walls, beneath the floors, under the hearths—every possible hiding place had been searched, with little care for any resulting injury.

* * * * *

Into this household Ben Dudley, left alone in the world, had come when a boy of fifteen. He had no special turn for farming, but such work as was done upon the old plantation was conducted under his supervision. In the decaying old house, on the neglected farm, he had grown up in harmony with his surroundings. The example of his old uncle, wrecked in mind by a hopeless quest, had never been brought home to him as a warning; use had dulled its force. He had never joined in the search, except casually, but the legend was in his mind. Unconsciously his standards of life grew around it. Some day he would be rich, and in order to be sure of it, he must remain with his uncle, whose heir he was. For the money was there, without a doubt. His great-uncle had hid the gold and left the letter—Ben had read it.

The neighbours knew the story, or at least some vague version of it, and for a time joined in the search—surreptitiously, as occasion offered, and each on his own account. It was the common understanding that old Malcolm was mentally unbalanced. The neighbouring Negroes, with generous imagination, fixed his mythical and elusive treasure at a million dollars. Not one of them had the faintest conception of the bulk or purchasing power of one million dollars in gold; but when one builds a castle in the air, why not make it lofty and spacious?

From this unwholesome atmosphere Ben Dudley found relief, as he grew older, in frequent visits to Clarendon, which invariably ended at the Treadwells', who were, indeed, distant relatives. He had one good horse, and in an hour or less could leave behind him the shabby old house, falling into ruin, the demented old man, digging in the disordered yard, the dumb old woman watching him from her inscrutable eyes; and by a change as abrupt as that of coming from a dark room into the brightness of midday, find himself in a lovely garden, beside a beautiful girl, whom he loved devotedly, but who kept him on the ragged edge of an uncertainty that was stimulating enough, but very wearing.



Twenty

The summer following Colonel French's return to Clarendon was unusually cool, so cool that the colonel, pleasantly occupied with his various plans and projects, scarcely found the heat less bearable than that of New York at the same season. During a brief torrid spell he took Phil to a Southern mountain resort for a couple of weeks, and upon another occasion ran up to New York for a day or two on business in reference to the machinery for the cotton mill, which was to be ready for installation some time during the fall. But these were brief interludes, and did not interrupt the current of his life, which was flowing very smoothly and pleasantly in its new channel, if not very swiftly, for even the colonel was not able to make things move swiftly in Clarendon during the summer time, and he was well enough pleased to see them move at all.

Kirby was out of town when the colonel was in New York, and therefore he did not see him. His mail was being sent from his club to Denver, where he was presumably looking into some mining proposition. Mrs. Jerviss, the colonel supposed, was at the seaside, but he had almost come face to face with her one day on Broadway. She had run down to the city on business of some sort. Moved by the instinct of defense, the colonel, by a quick movement, avoided the meeting, and felt safer when the lady was well out of sight. He did not wish, at this time, to be diverted from his Southern interests, and the image of another woman was uppermost in his mind.

One moonlight evening, a day or two after his return from this brief Northern trip, the colonel called at Mrs. Treadwells'. Caroline opened the door. Mrs. Treadwell, she said, was lying down. Miss Graciella had gone over to a neighbour's, but would soon return. Miss Laura was paying a call, but would not be long. Would the colonel wait? No, he said, he would take a walk, and come back later.

The streets were shady, and the moonlight bathed with a silvery glow that part of the town which the shadows did not cover. Strolling aimlessly along the quiet, unpaved streets, the colonel, upon turning a corner, saw a lady walking a short distance ahead of him. He thought he recognised the figure, and hurried forward; but ere he caught up with her, she turned and went into one of a row of small houses which he knew belonged to Nichols, the coloured barber, and were occupied by coloured people. Thinking he had been mistaken in the woman's identity, he slackened his pace, and ere he had passed out of hearing, caught the tones of a piano, accompanying the words,

"I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, With vassals and serfs at my s-i-i-de."

It was doubtless the barber's daughter. The barber's was the only coloured family in town that owned a piano. In the moonlight, and at a distance of some rods, the song sounded well enough, and the colonel lingered until it ceased, and the player began to practise scales, when he continued his walk. He had smoked a couple of cigars, and was returning toward Mrs. Treadwells', when he met, face to face, Miss Laura Treadwell coming out of the barber's house. He lifted his hat and put out his hand.

"I called at the house a while ago, and you were all out. I was just going back. I'll walk along with you."

Miss Laura was visibly embarrassed at the meeting. The colonel gave no sign that he noticed her emotion, but went on talking.

"It is a delightful evening," he said.

"Yes," she replied, and then went on, "you must wonder what I was doing there."

"I suppose," he said, "that you were looking for a servant, or on some mission of kindness and good will."

Miss Laura was silent for a moment and he could feel her hand tremble on the arm he offered her.

"No, Henry," she said, "why should I deceive you? I did not go to find a servant, but to serve. I have told you we were poor, but not how poor. I can tell you what I could not say to others, for you have lived away from here, and I know how differently from most of us you look at things. I went to the barber's house to give the barber's daughter music lessons—for money."

The colonel laughed contagiously.

"You taught her to sing—

'I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls?'"

"Yes, but you must not judge my work too soon," she replied. "It is not finished yet."

"You shall let me know when it is done," he said, "and I will walk by and hear the finished product. Your pupil has improved wonderfully. I heard her singing the song the day I came back—the first time I walked by the old house. She sings it much better now. You are a good teacher, as well as a good woman."

Miss Laura laughed somewhat excitedly, but was bent upon her explanation.

"The girl used to come to the house," she said. "Her mother belonged to us before the war, and we have been such friends as white and black can be. And she wanted to learn to play, and offered to pay me well for lessons, and I gave them to her. We never speak about the money at the house; mother knows it, but feigns that I do it out of mere kindness, and tells me that I am spoiling the coloured people. Our friends are not supposed to know it, and if any of them do, they are kind and never speak of it. Since you have been coming to the house, it has not been convenient to teach her there, and I have been going to her home in the evening."

"My dear Laura," said the colonel, remorsefully, "I have driven you away from your own home, and all unwittingly. I applaud your enterprise and your public spirit. It is a long way from the banjo to the piano—it marks the progress of a family and foreshadows the evolution of a race. And what higher work than to elevate humanity?"

They had reached the house. Mrs. Treadwell had not come down, nor had Graciella returned. They went into the parlour. Miss Laura turned up the lamp.

* * * * *

Graciella had run over to a neighbour's to meet a young lady who was visiting a young lady who was a friend of Graciella's. She had remained a little longer than she had meant to, for among those who had called to see her friend's friend was young Mr. Fetters, the son of the magnate, lately returned home from college. Barclay Fetters was handsome, well-dressed and well-mannered. He had started at one college, and had already changed to two others. Stories of his dissipated habits and reckless extravagance had been bruited about. Graciella knew his family history, and had imbibed the old-fashioned notions of her grandmother's household, so that her acknowledgment of the introduction was somewhat cold, not to say distant. But as she felt the charm of his manner, and saw that the other girls were vieing with one another for his notice, she felt a certain triumph that he exhibited a marked preference for her conversation. Her reserve gradually broke down, and she was talking with animation and listening with pleasure, when she suddenly recollected that Colonel French would probably call, and that she ought to be there to entertain him, for which purpose she had dressed herself very carefully. He had not spoken yet, but might be expected to speak at any time; such marked attentions as his could have but one meaning; and for several days she had had a premonition that before the week was out he would seek to know his fate; and Graciella meant to be kind.

Anticipating this event, she had politely but pointedly discouraged Ben Dudley's attentions, until Ben's pride, of which he had plenty in reserve, had awaked to activity. At their last meeting he had demanded a definite answer to his oft-repeated question.

"Graciella," he had said, "are you going to marry me? Yes or no. I'll not be played with any longer. You must marry me for myself, or not at all. Yes or no."

"Then no, Mr. Dudley," she had replied with spirit, and without a moment's hesitation, "I will not marry you. I will never marry you, not if I should die an old maid."

She was sorry they had not parted friends, but she was not to blame. After her marriage, she would avoid the embarrassment of meeting him, by making the colonel take her away. Sometime she might, through her husband, be of service to Ben, and thus make up, in part at least, for his disappointment.

As she ran up through the garden and stepped upon the porch—her slippers were thin and made no sound—she heard Colonel French's voice in the darkened parlour. Some unusual intonation struck her, and she moved lightly and almost mechanically forward, in the shadow, toward a point where she could see through the window and remain screened from observation. So intense was her interest in what she heard, that she stood with her hand on her heart, not even conscious that she was doing a shameful thing.

* * * * *

Her aunt was seated and Colonel French was standing near her. An open Bible lay upon the table. The colonel had taken it up and was reading:

"'Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. Strength and honour are her clothing, and she shall rejoice in time to come.'

"Laura," he said, "the proverb maker was a prophet as well. In these words, written four thousand years ago, he has described you, line for line."

The glow which warmed her cheek, still smooth, the light which came into her clear eyes, the joy that filled her heart at these kind words, put the years to flight, and for the moment Laura was young again.

"You have been good to Phil," the colonel went on, "and I should like him to be always near you and have your care. And you have been kind to me, and made me welcome and at home in what might otherwise have seemed, after so long an absence, a strange land. You bring back to me the best of my youth, and in you I find the inspiration for good deeds. Be my wife, dear Laura, and a mother to my boy, and we will try to make you happy."

"Oh, Henry," she cried with fluttering heart, "I am not worthy to be your wife. I know nothing of the world where you have lived, nor whether I would fit into it."

"You are worthy of any place," he declared, "and if one please you more than another, I shall make your wishes mine."

"But, Henry, how could I leave my mother? And Graciella needs my care."

"You need not leave your mother—she shall be mine as well as yours. Graciella is a dear, bright child; she has in her the making of a noble woman; she should be sent away to a good school, and I will see to it. No, dear Laura, there are no difficulties, no giants in the pathway that will not fly or fall when we confront them."

He had put his arm around her and lifted her face to his. He read his answer in her swimming eyes, and when he had reached down and kissed her cheek, she buried her head on his shoulder and shed some tears of happiness. For this was her secret: she was sweet and good; she would have made any man happy, who had been worthy of her, but no man had ever before asked her to be his wife. She had lived upon a plane so simple, yet so high, that men not equally high-minded had never ventured to address her, and there were few such men, and chance had not led them her way. As to the others—perhaps there were women more beautiful, and certainly more enterprising. She had not repined; she had been busy and contented. Now this great happiness was vouchsafed her, to find in the love of the man whom she admired above all others a woman's true career.

"Henry," she said, when they had sat down on the old hair-cloth sofa, side by side, "you have made me very happy; so happy that I wish to keep my happiness all to myself—for a little while. Will you let me keep our engagement secret until I—am accustomed to it? It may be silly or childish, but it seems like a happy dream, and I wish to assure myself of its reality before I tell it to anyone else."

"To me," said the colonel, smiling tenderly into her eyes, "it is the realisation of an ideal. Since we met that day in the cemetery you have seemed to me the embodiment of all that is best of my memories of the old South; and your gentleness, your kindness, your tender grace, your self-sacrifice and devotion to duty, mark you a queen among women, and my heart shall be your throne. As to the announcement, have it as you will—it is the lady's privilege."

"You are very good," she said tremulously. "This hour repays me for all I have ever tried to do for others."

* * * * *

Graciella felt very young indeed—somewhere in the neighbourhood of ten, she put it afterward, when she reviewed the situation in a calmer frame of mind—as she crept softly away from the window and around the house to the back door, and up the stairs and into her own chamber, where, all oblivious of danger to her clothes or her complexion, she threw herself down upon her own bed and burst into a passion of tears. She had been cruelly humiliated. Colonel French, whom she had imagined in love with her, had regarded her merely as a child, who ought to be sent to school—to acquire what, she asked herself, good sense or deportment? Perhaps she might acquire more good sense—she had certainly made a fool of herself in this case—but she had prided herself upon her manners. Colonel French had been merely playing with her, like one would with a pet monkey; and he had been in love, all the time, with her Aunt Laura, whom the girls had referred to compassionately, only that same evening, as a hopeless old maid.

It is fortunate that youth and hope go generally hand in hand. Graciella possessed a buoyant spirit to breast the waves of disappointment. She had her cry out, a good, long cry; and when much weeping had dulled the edge of her discomfiture she began to reflect that all was not yet lost. The colonel would not marry her, but he would still marry in the family. When her Aunt Laura became Mrs. French, she would doubtless go often to New York, if she would not live there always. She would invite Graciella to go with her, perhaps to live with her there. As for going to school, that was a matter which her own views should control; at present she had no wish to return to school. She might take lessons in music, or art; her aunt would hardly care for her to learn stenography now, or go into magazine work. Her aunt would surely not go to Europe without inviting her, and Colonel French was very liberal with his money, and would deny his wife nothing, though Graciella could hardly imagine that any man would be infatuated with her Aunt Laura.

But this was not the end of Graciella's troubles. Graciella had a heart, although she had suppressed its promptings, under the influence of a selfish ambition. She had thrown Ben Dudley over for the colonel; the colonel did not want her, and now she would have neither. Ben had been very angry, unreasonably angry, she had thought at the time, and objectionably rude in his manner. He had sworn never to speak to her again. If he should keep his word, she might be very unhappy. These reflections brought on another rush of tears, and a very penitent, contrite, humble-minded young woman cried herself to sleep before Miss Laura, with a heart bursting with happiness, bade the colonel good-night at the gate, and went upstairs to lie awake in her bed in a turmoil of pleasant emotions.

Miss Laura's happiness lay not alone in the prospect that Colonel French would marry her, nor in any sordid thought of what she would gain by becoming the wife of a rich man. It rested in the fact that this man, whom she admired, and who had come back from the outer world to bring fresh ideas, new and larger ideals to lift and broaden and revivify the town, had passed by youth and beauty and vivacity, and had chosen her to share this task, to form the heart and mind and manners of his child, and to be the tie which would bind him most strongly to her dear South. For she was a true child of the soil; the people about her, white and black, were her people, and this marriage, with its larger opportunities for usefulness, would help her to do that for which hitherto she had only been able to pray and to hope. To the boy she would be a mother indeed; to lead him in the paths of truth and loyalty and manliness and the fear of God—it was a priceless privilege, and already her mother-heart yearned to begin the task.

And then after the flow came the ebb. Why had he chosen her? Was it merely as an abstraction—the embodiment of an ideal, a survival from a host of pleasant memories, and as a mother for his child, who needed care which no one else could give, and as a helpmate in carrying out his schemes of benevolence? Were these his only motives; and, if so, were they sufficient to ensure her happiness? Was he marrying her through a mere sentimental impulse, or for calculated convenience, or from both? She must be certain; for his views might change. He was yet in the full flow of philanthropic enthusiasm. She shared his faith in human nature and the triumph of right ideas; but once or twice she had feared he was underrating the power of conservative forces; that he had been away from Clarendon so long as to lose the perspective of actual conditions, and that he was cherishing expectations which might be disappointed. Should this ever prove true, his disillusion might be as far-reaching and as sudden as his enthusiasm. Then, if he had not loved her for herself, she might be very unhappy. She would have rejoiced to bring him youth and beauty, and the things for which other women were preferred; she would have loved to be the perfect mate, one in heart, mind, soul and body, with the man with whom she was to share the journey of life.

But this was a passing thought, born of weakness and self-distrust, and she brushed it away with the tear that had come with it, and smiled at its absurdity. Her youth was past; with nothing to expect but an old age filled with the small expedients of genteel poverty, there had opened up to her, suddenly and unexpectedly, a great avenue for happiness and usefulness. It was foolish, with so much to be grateful for, to sigh for the unattainable. His love must be all the stronger since it took no thought of things which others would have found of controlling importance. In choosing her to share his intellectual life he had paid her a higher compliment than had he praised the glow of her cheek or the contour of her throat. In confiding Phil to her care he had given her a sacred trust and confidence, for she knew how much he loved the child.



Twenty-one

The colonel's schemes for the improvement of Clarendon went forward, with occasional setbacks. Several kilns of brick turned out badly, so that the brickyard fell behind with its orders, thus delaying the work a few weeks. The foundations of the old cotton mill had been substantially laid, and could be used, so far as their position permitted for the new walls. When the bricks were ready, a gang of masons was put to work. White men and coloured were employed, under a white foreman. So great was the demand for labour and so stimulating the colonel's liberal wage, that even the drowsy Negroes around the market house were all at work, and the pigs who had slept near them were obliged to bestir themselves to keep from being run over by the wagons that were hauling brick and lime and lumber through the streets. Even the cows in the vacant lot between the post-office and the bank occasionally lifted up their gentle eyes as though wondering what strange fever possessed the two-legged creatures around them, urging them to such unnatural activity.

The work went on smoothly for a week or two, when the colonel had some words with Jim Green, the white foreman of the masons. The cause of the dispute was not important, but the colonel, as the master, insisted that certain work should be done in a certain way. Green wished to argue the point. The colonel brought the discussion to a close with a peremptory command. The foreman took offense, declared that he was no nigger to be ordered around, and quit. The colonel promoted to the vacancy George Brown, a coloured man, who was the next best workman in the gang.

On the day when Brown took charge of the job the white bricklayers, of whom there were two at work, laid down their tools.

"What's the matter?" asked the colonel, when they reported for their pay. "Aren't you satisfied with the wages?"

"Yes, we've got no fault to find with the wages."

"Well?"

"We won't work under George Brown. We don't mind working with niggers, but we won't work under a nigger."

"I'm sorry, gentlemen, but I must hire my own men. Here is your money."

They would have preferred to argue their grievance, and since the colonel had shut off discussion they went down to Clay Jackson's saloon and argued the case with all comers, with the usual distortion attending one-sided argument. Jim Green had been superseded by a nigger—this was the burden of their grievance.

Thus came the thin entering wedge that was to separate the colonel from a measure of his popularity. There had been no objection to the colonel's employing Negroes, no objection to his helping their school—if he chose to waste his money that way; but there were many who took offense when a Negro was preferred to a white man.

Through Caxton the colonel learned of this criticism. The colonel showed no surprise, and no annoyance, but in his usual good-humoured way replied:

"We'll go right along and pay no attention to him. There were only two white men in the gang, and they have never worked under the Negro; they quit as soon as I promoted him. I have hired many men in my time and have made it an unvarying rule to manage my own business in my own way. If anybody says anything to you about it, you tell them just that. These people have got to learn that we live in an industrial age, and success demands of an employer that he utilise the most available labour. After Green was discharged, George Brown was the best mason left. He gets more work out of the men than Green did—even in the old slave times Negroes made the best of overseers; they knew their own people better than white men could and got more out of them. When the mill is completed it will give employment to five hundred white women and fifty white men. But every dog must have his day, so give the Negro his."

The colonel attached no great importance to the incident; the places of the workmen were filled, and the work went forward. He knew the Southern sensitiveness, and viewed it with a good-natured tolerance, which, however, stopped at injustice to himself or others. The very root of his reform was involved in the proposition to discharge a competent foreman because of an unreasonable prejudice. Matters of feeling were all well enough in some respects—no one valued more highly than the colonel the right to choose his own associates—but the right to work and to do one's best work, was fundamental, as was the right to have one's work done by those who could do it best. Even a healthy social instinct might be perverted into an unhealthy and unjust prejudice; most things evil were the perversion of good.

The feeling with which the colonel thus came for the first time directly in contact, a smouldering fire capable always of being fanned into flame, had been greatly excited by the political campaign which began about the third month after his arrival in Clarendon. An ambitious politician in a neighbouring State had led a successful campaign on the issue of Negro disfranchisement. Plainly unconstitutional, it was declared to be as plainly necessary for the preservation of the white race and white civilisation. The example had proved contagious, and Fetters and his crowd, who dominated their State, had raised the issue there. At first the pronouncement met with slight response. The sister State had possessed a Negro majority, which, in view of reconstruction history was theoretically capable of injuring the State. Such was not the case here. The State had survived reconstruction with small injury. White supremacy existed, in the main, by virtue of white efficiency as compared with efficiency of a lower grade; there had been places, and instances, where other methods had been occasionally employed to suppress the Negro vote, but, taken as a whole, the supremacy of the white man was secure. No Negro had held a State office for twenty years. In Clarendon they had even ceased to be summoned as jurors, and when a Negro met a white man, he gave him the wall, even if it were necessary to take the gutter to do so. But this was not enough; this supremacy must be made permanent. Negroes must be taught that they need never look for any different state of things. New definitions were given to old words, new pictures set in old frames, new wine poured into old bottles.

"So long," said the candidate for governor, when he spoke at Clarendon during the canvas, at a meeting presided over by the editor of the Anglo-Saxon, "so long as one Negro votes in the State, so long are we face to face with the nightmare of Negro domination. For example, suppose a difference of opinion among white men so radical as to divide their vote equally, the ballot of one Negro would determine the issue. Can such a possibility be contemplated without a shudder? Our duty to ourselves, to our children, and their unborn descendants, and to our great and favoured race, impels us to protest, by word, by vote, by arms if need be, against the enforced equality of an inferior race. Equality anywhere, means ultimately, equality everywhere. Equality at the polls means social equality; social equality means intermarriage and corruption of blood, and degeneration and decay. What gentleman here would want his daughter to marry a blubber-lipped, cocoanut-headed, kidney-footed, etc., etc., nigger?"

There could be but one answer to the question, and it came in thunders of applause. Colonel French heard the speech, smiled at the old arguments, but felt a sudden gravity at the deep-seated feeling which they evoked. He remembered hearing, when a boy, the same arguments. They had served their purpose once before, with other issues, to plunge the South into war and consequent disaster. Had the lesson been in vain? He did not see the justice nor the expediency of the proposed anti-Negro agitation. But he was not in politics, and confined his protests to argument with his friends, who listened but were not convinced.

Behind closed doors, more than one of the prominent citizens admitted that the campaign was all wrong; that the issues were unjust and reactionary, and that the best interests of the State lay in uplifting every element of the people rather than selecting some one class for discouragement and degradation, and that the white race could hold its own, with the Negroes or against them, in any conceivable state of political equality. They listened to the colonel's quiet argument that no State could be freer or greater or more enlightened than the average of its citizenship, and that any restriction of rights that rested upon anything but impartial justice, was bound to re-act, as slavery had done, upon the prosperity and progress of the State. They listened, which the colonel regarded as a great point gained, and they agreed in part, and he could almost understand why they let their feelings govern their reason and their judgment, and said no word to prevent an unfair and unconstitutional scheme from going forward to a successful issue. He knew that for a white man to declare, in such a community, for equal rights or equal justice for the Negro, or to take the Negro's side in any case where the race issue was raised, was to court social ostracism and political death, or, if the feeling provoked were strong enough, an even more complete form of extinction.

So the colonel was patient, and meant to be prudent. His own arguments avoided the stirring up of prejudice, and were directed to the higher motives and deeper principles which underlie society, in the light of which humanity is more than race, and the welfare of the State above that of any man or set of men within it; it being an axiom as true in statesmanship as in mathematics, that the whole is greater than any one of its parts. Content to await the uplifting power of industry and enlightenment, and supremely confident of the result, the colonel went serenely forward in his work of sowing that others might reap.



Twenty-two

The atmosphere of the Treadwell home was charged, for the next few days, with electric currents. Graciella knew that her aunt was engaged to Colonel French. But she had not waited, the night before, to hear her aunt express the wish that the engagement should be kept secret. She was therefore bursting with information of which she could manifest no consciousness without confessing that she had been eavesdropping—a thing which she knew Miss Laura regarded as detestably immoral. She wondered at her aunt's silence. Except a certain subdued air of happiness there was nothing to distinguish Miss Laura's calm demeanor from that of any other day. Graciella had determined upon her own attitude toward her aunt. She would kiss her, and wish her happiness, and give no sign that any thought of Colonel French had ever entered her own mind. But this little drama, rehearsed in the privacy of her own room, went unacted, since the curtain did not rise upon the stage.

The colonel came and went as usual. Some dissimulation was required on Graciella's part to preserve her usual light-hearted manner toward him. She may have been to blame in taking the colonel's attentions as intended for herself; she would not soon forgive his slighting reference to her. In his eyes she had been only a child, who ought to go to school. He had been good enough to say that she had the making of a fine woman. Thanks! She had had a lover for at least two years, and a proposal of marriage before Colonel French's shadow had fallen athwart her life. She wished her Aunt Laura happiness; no one could deserve it more, but was it possible to be happy with a man so lacking in taste and judgment?

Her aunt's secret began to weigh upon her mind, and she effaced herself as much as possible when the colonel came. Her grandmother had begun to notice this and comment upon it, when the happening of a certain social event created a diversion. This was the annual entertainment known as the Assembly Ball. It was usually held later in the year, but owing to the presence of several young lady visitors in the town, it had been decided to give it early in the fall.

The affair was in the hands of a committee, by whom invitations were sent to most people in the county who had any claims to gentility. The gentlemen accepting were expected to subscribe to the funds for hall rent, music and refreshments. These were always the best the town afforded. The ball was held in the Opera House, a rather euphemistic title for the large hall above Barstow's cotton warehouse, where third-class theatrical companies played one-night stands several times during the winter, and where an occasional lecturer or conjurer held forth. An amateur performance of "Pinafore" had once been given there. Henry W. Grady had lectured there upon White Supremacy; the Reverend Sam Small had preached there on Hell. It was also distinguished as having been refused, even at the request of the State Commissioner of Education, as a place for Booker T. Washington to deliver an address, which had been given at the town hall instead. The Assembly Balls had always been held in the Opera House. In former years the music had been furnished by local Negro musicians, but there were no longer any of these, and a band of string music was brought in from another town. So far as mere wealth was concerned, the subscribers touched such extremes as Ben Dudley on the one hand and Colonel French on the other, and included Barclay Fetters, whom Graciella had met on the evening before her disappointment.

The Treadwell ladies were of course invited, and the question of ways and means became paramount. New gowns and other accessories were imperative. Miss Laura's one party dress had done service until it was past redemption, and this was Graciella's first Assembly Ball. Miss Laura took stock of the family's resources, and found that she could afford only one gown. This, of course, must be Graciella's. Her own marriage would entail certain expenses which demanded some present self-denial. She had played wall-flower for several years, but now that she was sure of a partner, it was a real sacrifice not to attend the ball. But Graciella was young, and in such matters youth has a prior right; for she had yet to find her mate.

Graciella magnanimously offered to remain at home, but was easily prevailed upon to go. She was not entirely happy, for the humiliating failure of her hopes had left her for the moment without a recognised admirer, and the fear of old maidenhood had again laid hold of her heart. Her Aunt Laura's case was no consoling example. Not one man in a hundred would choose a wife for Colonel French's reasons. Most men married for beauty, and Graciella had been told that beauty that matured early, like her own, was likely to fade early.

One humiliation she was spared. She had been as silent about her hopes as Miss Laura was about her engagement. Whether this was due to mere prudence or to vanity—the hope of astonishing her little world by the unexpected announcement—did not change the comforting fact that she had nothing to explain and nothing for which to be pitied. If her friends, after the manner of young ladies, had hinted at the subject and sought to find a meaning in Colonel French's friendship, she had smiled enigmatically. For this self-restraint, whatever had been its motive, she now reaped her reward. The announcement of her aunt's engagement would account for the colonel's attentions to Graciella as a mere courtesy to a young relative of his affianced.

With regard to Ben, Graciella was quite uneasy. She had met him only once since their quarrel, and had meant to bow to him politely, but with dignity, to show that she bore no malice; but he had ostentatiously avoided her glance. If he chose to be ill-natured, she had thought, and preferred her enmity to her friendship, her conscience was at least clear. She had been willing to forget his rudeness and be a friend to him. She could have been his true friend, if nothing more; and he would need friends, unless he changed a great deal.

When her mental atmosphere was cleared by the fading of her dream, Ben assumed larger proportions. Perhaps he had had cause for complaint; at least it was only just to admit that he thought so. Nor had he suffered in her estimation by his display of spirit in not waiting to be jilted but in forcing her hand before she was quite ready to play it. She could scarcely expect him to attend her to the ball; but he was among the subscribers, and could hardly avoid meeting her, or dancing with her, without pointed rudeness. If he did not ask her to dance, then either the Virginia reel, or the lancers, or quadrilles, would surely bring them together; and though Graciella sighed, she did not despair. She could, of course, allay his jealousy at once by telling him of her Aunt Laura's engagement, but this was not yet practicable. She must find some other way of placating him.

Ben Dudley also had a problem to face in reference to the ball—a problem which has troubled impecunious youth since balls were invented—the problem of clothes. He was not obliged to go to the ball. Graciella's outrageous conduct relieved him of any obligation to invite her, and there was no other woman with whom he would have cared to go, or who would have cared, so far as he knew, to go with him. For he was not a lady's man, and but for his distant relationship would probably never have gone to the Treadwells'. He was looked upon by young women as slow, and he knew that Graciella had often been impatient at his lack of sprightliness. He could pay his subscription, which was really a sort of gentility tax, the failure to meet which would merely forfeit future invitations, and remain at home. He did not own a dress suit, nor had he the money to spare for one. He, or they, for he and his uncle were one in such matters, were in debt already, up to the limit of their credit, and he had sold the last bale of old cotton to pay the last month's expenses, while the new crop, already partly mortgaged, was not yet picked. He knew that some young fellows in town rented dress suits from Solomon Cohen, who, though he kept only four suits in stock at a time, would send to New York for others to rent out on this occasion, and return them afterwards. But Ben would not wear another man's clothes. He had borne insults from Graciella that he never would have borne from any one else, and that he would never bear again; but there were things at which his soul protested. Nor would Cohen's suits have fitted him. He was so much taller than the average man for whom store clothes were made.

He remained in a state of indecision until the day of the ball. Late in the evening he put on his black cutaway coat, which was getting a little small, trousers to match, and a white waistcoat, and started to town on horseback so as to arrive in time for the ball, in case he should decide, at the last moment, to take part.



Twenty-three

The Opera House was brilliantly lighted on the night of the Assembly Ball. The dancers gathered at an earlier hour than is the rule in the large cities. Many of the guests came in from the country, and returned home after the ball, since the hotel could accommodate only a part of them.

When Ben Dudley, having left his horse at a livery stable, walked up Main Street toward the hall, carriages were arriving and discharging their freight. The ladies were prettily gowned, their faces were bright and animated, and Ben observed that most of the gentlemen wore dress suits; but also, much to his relief, that a number, sufficient to make at least a respectable minority, did not. He was rapidly making up his mind to enter, when Colonel French's carriage, drawn by a pair of dashing bays and driven by a Negro in livery, dashed up to the door and discharged Miss Graciella Treadwell, radiantly beautiful in a new low-cut pink gown, with pink flowers in her hair, a thin gold chain with a gold locket at the end around her slender throat, white slippers on her feet and long white gloves upon her shapely hands and wrists.

Ben shrank back into the shadow. He had never been of an envious disposition; he had always looked upon envy as a mean vice, unworthy of a gentleman; but for a moment something very like envy pulled at his heartstrings. Graciella worshipped the golden calf. He worshipped Graciella. But he had no money; he could not have taken her to the ball in a closed carriage, drawn by blooded horses and driven by a darky in livery.

Graciella's cavalier wore, with the ease and grace of long habit, an evening suit of some fine black stuff that almost shone in the light from the open door. At the sight of him the waist of Ben's own coat shrunk up to the arm-pits, and he felt a sinking of the heart as they passed out of his range of vision. He would not appear to advantage by the side of Colonel French, and he would not care to appear otherwise than to advantage in Graciella's eyes. He would not like to make more palpable, by contrast, the difference between Colonel French and himself; nor could he be haughty, distant, reproachful, or anything but painfully self-conscious, in a coat that was not of the proper cut, too short in the sleeves, and too tight under the arms.

While he stood thus communing with his own bitter thoughts, another carriage, drawn by a pair of beautiful black horses, drew up to the curb in front of him. The horses were restive, and not inclined to stand still. Some one from the inside of the carriage called to the coachman through the open window.

"Ransom," said the voice, "stay on the box. Here, you, open this carriage door!"

Ben looked around for the person addressed, but saw no one near but himself.

"You boy there, by the curb, open this door, will you, or hold the horses, so my coachman can!"

"Are you speaking to me?" demanded Ben angrily.

Just then one of the side-lights of the carriage flashed on Ben's face.

"Oh, I beg pardon," said the man in the carriage, carelessly, "I took you for a nigger."

There could be no more deadly insult, though the mistake was not unnatural. Ben was dark, and the shadow made him darker.

Ben was furious. The stranger had uttered words of apology, but his tone had been insolent, and his apology was more offensive than his original blunder. Had it not been for Ben's reluctance to make a disturbance, he would have struck the offender in the mouth. If he had had a pistol, he could have shot him; his great uncle Ralph, for instance, would not have let him live an hour.

While these thoughts were surging through his heated brain, the young man, as immaculately clad as Colonel French had been, left the carriage, from which he helped a lady, and with her upon his arm, entered the hall. In the light that streamed from the doorway, Ben recognised him as Barclay Fetters, who, having finished a checkered scholastic career, had been at home at Sycamore for several months. Much of this time he had spent in Clarendon, where his father's wealth and influence gave him entrance to good society, in spite of an ancestry which mere character would not have offset. He knew young Fetters very well by sight, since the latter had to pass Mink Run whenever he came to town from Sycamore. Fetters may not have known him, since he had been away for much of the time in recent years, but he ought to have been able to distinguish between a white man—a gentleman—and a Negro. It was the insolence of an upstart. Old Josh Fetters had been, in his younger days, his uncle's overseer. An overseer's grandson treated him, Ben Dudley, like dirt under his feet! Perhaps he had judged him by his clothes. He would like to show Barclay Fetters, if they ever stood face to face, that clothes did not make the man, nor the gentleman.

Ben decided after this encounter that he would not go on the floor of the ballroom; but unable to tear himself away, he waited until everybody seemed to have gone in; then went up the stairs and gained access, by a back way, to a dark gallery in the rear of the hall, which the ushers had deserted for the ballroom, from which he could, without discovery, look down upon the scene below. His eyes flew to Graciella as the needle to the pole. She was dancing with Colonel French.

The music stopped, and a crowd of young fellows surrounded her. When the next dance, which was a waltz, began, she moved out upon the floor in the arms of Barclay Fetters.

Ben swore beneath his breath. He had heard tales of Barclay Fetters which, if true, made him unfit to touch a decent woman. He left the hall, walked a short distance down a street and around the corner to the bar in the rear of the hotel, where he ordered a glass of whiskey. He had never been drunk in his life, and detested the taste of liquor; but he was desperate and had to do something; he would drink till he was drunk, and forget his troubles. Having never been intoxicated, he had no idea whatever of the effect liquor would have upon him.

With each succeeding drink, the sense of his wrongs broadened and deepened. At one stage his intoxication took the form of an intense self-pity. There was something rotten in the whole scheme of things. Why should he be poor, while others were rich, and while fifty thousand dollars in gold were hidden in or around the house where he lived? Why should Colonel French, an old man, who was of no better blood than himself, be rich enough to rob him of the woman whom he loved? And why, above all, should Barclay Fetters have education and money and every kind of opportunity, which he did not appreciate, while he, who would have made good use of them, had nothing? With this sense of wrong, which grew as his brain clouded more and more, there came, side by side, a vague zeal to right these wrongs. As he grew drunker still, his thoughts grew less coherent; he lost sight of his special grievance, and merely retained the combative instinct.

He had reached this dangerous stage, and had, fortunately, passed it one step farther along the road to unconsciousness—fortunately, because had he been sober, the result of that which was to follow might have been more serious—when two young men, who had come down from the ballroom for some refreshment, entered the barroom and asked for cocktails. While the barkeeper was compounding the liquor, the young men spoke of the ball.

"That little Treadwell girl is a peach," said one. "I could tote a bunch of beauty like that around the ballroom all night."

The remark was not exactly respectful, nor yet exactly disrespectful. Ben looked up from his seat. The speaker was Barclay Fetters, and his companion one Tom McRae, another dissolute young man of the town. Ben got up unsteadily and walked over to where they stood.

"I want you to un'erstan'," he said thickly, "that no gen'l'man would mensh'n a lady's name in a place like this, or shpeak dissuspeckerly 'bout a lady 'n any place; an' I want you to unerstan' fu'thermo' that you're no gen'l'man, an' that I'm goin' t' lick you, by G—d!"

"The hell you are!" returned Fetters. A scowl of surprise rose on his handsome face, and he sprang to an attitude of defence.

Ben suited the action to the word, and struck at Fetters. But Ben was drunk and the other two were sober, and in three minutes Ben lay on the floor with a sore head and a black eye. His nose was bleeding copiously, and the crimson stream had run down upon his white shirt and vest. Taken all in all, his appearance was most disreputable. By this time the liquor he had drunk had its full effect, and complete unconsciousness supervened to save him, for a little while, from the realisation of his disgrace.

"Who is the mucker, anyway?" asked Barclay Fetters, readjusting his cuffs, which had slipped down in the melee.

"He's a chap by the name of Dudley," answered McRae; "lives at Mink Run, between here and Sycamore, you know."

"Oh, yes, I've seen him—the 'po' white' chap that lives with the old lunatic that's always digging for buried treasure——

'For my name was Captain Kidd, As I sailed, as I sailed.'

But let's hurry back, Tom, or we'll lose the next dance."

Fetters and his companion returned to the ball. The barkeeper called a servant of the hotel, with whose aid, Ben was carried upstairs and put to bed, bruised in body and damaged in reputation.



Twenty-four

Ben's fight with young Fetters became a matter of public comment the next day after the ball. His conduct was cited as sad proof of the degeneracy of a once fine old family. He had been considered shiftless and not well educated, but no one had suspected that he was a drunkard and a rowdy. Other young men in the town, high-spirited young fellows with plenty of money, sometimes drank a little too much, and occasionally, for a point of honour, gentlemen were obliged to attack or defend themselves, but when they did, they used pistols, a gentleman's weapon. Here, however, was an unprovoked and brutal attack with fists, upon two gentlemen in evening dress and without weapons to defend themselves, "one of them," said the Anglo-Saxon, "the son of our distinguished fellow citizen and colleague in the legislature, the Honourable William Fetters."

When Colonel French called to see Miss Laura, the afternoon of next day after the ball, the ladies were much concerned about the affair.

"Oh, Henry," exclaimed Miss Laura, "what is this dreadful story about Ben Dudley? They say he was drinking at the hotel, and became intoxicated, and that when Barclay Fetters and Tom McRae went into the hotel, he said something insulting about Graciella, and when they rebuked him for his freedom he attacked them violently, and that when finally subdued he was put to bed unconscious and disgracefully intoxicated. Graciella is very angry, and we all feel ashamed enough to sink into the ground. What can be the matter with Ben? He hasn't been around lately, and he has quarrelled with Graciella. I never would have expected anything like this from Ben."

"It came from his great-uncle Ralph," said Mrs. Treadwell. "Ralph was very wild when he was young, but settled down into a very polished gentleman. I danced with him once when he was drunk, and I never knew it—it was my first ball, and I was intoxicated myself, with excitement. Mother was scandalised, but father laughed and said boys would be boys. But poor Ben hasn't had his uncle's chances, and while he has always behaved well here, he could hardly be expected to carry his liquor like a gentleman of the old school."

"My dear ladies," said the colonel, "we have heard only one side of the story. I guess there's no doubt Ben was intoxicated, but we know he isn't a drinking man, and one drink—or even one drunk—doesn't make a drunkard, nor one fight a rowdy. Barclay Fetters and Tom McRae are not immaculate, and perhaps Ben can exonerate himself."

"I certainly hope so," said Miss Laura earnestly. "I am sorry for Ben, but I could not permit a drunken rowdy to come to the house, or let my niece be seen upon the street with him."

"It would only be fair," said the colonel, "to give him a chance to explain, when he comes in again. I rather like Ben. He has some fine mechanical ideas, and the making of a man in him, unless I am mistaken. I have been hoping to find a place for him in the new cotton mill, when it is ready to run."

They were still speaking of Ben, when there was an irresolute knock at the rear door of the parlour, in which they were seated.

"Miss Laura, O Miss Laura," came a muffled voice. "Kin I speak to you a minute. It's mighty pertickler, Miss Laura, fo' God it is!"

"Laura," said the colonel, "bring Catharine in. I saw that you were troubled once before when you were compelled to refuse her something. Henceforth your burdens shall be mine. Come in, Catharine," he called, "and tell us what's the matter. What's your trouble? What's it all about?"

The woman, red-eyed from weeping, came in, wringing her apron.

"Miss Laura," she sobbed, "an' Colonel French, my husban' Bud is done gone and got inter mo' trouble. He's run away f'm Mistah Fettuhs, w'at he wuz sol' back to in de spring, an' he's done be'n fine' fifty dollahs mo', an' he's gwine ter be sol' back ter Mistah Fettuhs in de mawnin', fer ter finish out de ole fine and wo'k out de new one. I's be'n ter see 'im in de gyard house, an' he say Mistah Haines, w'at use' ter be de constable and is a gyard fer Mistah Fettuhs now, beat an' 'bused him so he couldn' stan' it; an' 'ceptin' I could pay all dem fines, he'll be tuck back dere; an'he say ef dey evah beats him ag'in, dey'll eithuh haf ter kill him, er he'll kill some er dem. An' Bud is a rash man, Miss Laura, an' I'm feared dat he'll do w'at he say, an' ef dey kills him er he kills any er dem, it'll be all de same ter me—I'll never see 'm no mo' in dis worl'. Ef I could borry de money, Miss Laura—Mars' Colonel—I'd wuk my fingers ter de bone 'tel I paid back de las' cent. Er ef you'd buy Bud, suh, lack you did Unc' Peter, he would n' mind wukkin' fer you, suh, fer Bud is a good wukker we'n folks treats him right; an' he had n' never had no trouble nowhar befo' he come hyuh, suh."

"How did he come to be arrested the first time?" asked the colonel.

"He didn't live hyuh, suh; I used ter live hyuh, an' I ma'ied him down ter Madison, where I wuz wukkin'. We fell out one day, an' I got mad and lef' 'im—it wuz all my fault an' I be'n payin' fer it evuh since—an' I come back home an' went ter wuk hyuh, an' he come aftuh me, an de fus' day he come, befo' I knowed he wuz hyuh, dis yer Mistah Haines tuck 'im up, an' lock 'im up in de gyard house, like a hog in de poun', an' he didn' know nobody, an' dey didn' give 'im no chanst ter see nobody, an' dey tuck 'im roun' ter Squi' Reddick nex' mawnin', an' fined 'im an' sol' 'im ter dis yer Mistuh Fettuhs fer ter wo'k out de fine; an' I be'n wantin' all dis time ter hyuh fum 'im, an' I'd done be'n an' gone back ter Madison to look fer 'im, an' foun' he wuz gone. An' God knows I didn' know what had become er 'im, 'tel he run away de yuther time an' dey tuck 'im an' sent 'im back again. An' he hadn' done nothin' de fus' time, suh, but de Lawd know w'at he won' do ef dey sen's 'im back any mo'."

Catharine had put her apron to her eyes and was sobbing bitterly. The story was probably true. The colonel had heard underground rumours about the Fetters plantation and the manner in which it was supplied with labourers, and his own experience in old Peter's case had made them seem not unlikely. He had seen Catharine's husband, in the justice's court, and the next day, in the convict gang behind Turner's buggy. The man had not looked like a criminal; that he was surly and desperate may as well have been due to a sense of rank injustice as to an evil nature. That a wrong had been done, under cover of law, was at least more than likely; but a deed of mercy could be made to right it. The love of money might be the root of all evil, but its control was certainly a means of great good. The colonel glowed with the consciousness of this beneficent power to scatter happiness.

"Laura," he said, "I will attend to this; it is a matter about which you should not be troubled. Don't be alarmed, Catharine. Just be a good girl and help Miss Laura all you can, and I'll look after your husband, and pay his fine and let him work it out as a free man."

"Thank'y, suh, thank'y, Mars' Colonel, an' Miss Laura! An' de Lawd is gwine bless you, suh, you an' my sweet young lady, fuh bein' good to po' folks w'at can't do nuthin' to he'p deyse'ves out er trouble," said Catharine backing out with her apron to her eyes.

* * * * *

On leaving Miss Laura, the colonel went round to the office of Squire Reddick, the justice of the peace, to inquire into the matter of Bud Johnson. The justice was out of town, his clerk said, but would be in his office at nine in the morning, at which time the colonel could speak to him about Johnson's fine.

The next morning was bright and clear, and cool enough to be bracing. The colonel, alive with pleasant thoughts, rose early and after a cold bath, and a leisurely breakfast, walked over to the mill site, where the men were already at work. Having looked the work over and given certain directions, he glanced at his watch, and finding it near nine, set out for the justice's office in time to reach it by the appointed hour. Squire Reddick was at his desk, upon which his feet rested, while he read a newspaper. He looked up with an air of surprise as the colonel entered.

"Why, good mornin', Colonel French," he said genially. "I kind of expected you a while ago; the clerk said you might be around. But you didn' come, so I supposed you'd changed yo' mind."

"The clerk said that you would be here at nine," replied the colonel; "it is only just nine."

"Did he? Well, now, that's too bad! I do generally git around about nine, but I was earlier this mornin' and as everybody was here, we started in a little sooner than usual. You wanted to see me about Bud Johnson?"

"Yes, I wish to pay his fine and give him work."

"Well, that's too bad; but you weren't here, and Mr. Turner was, and he bought his time again for Mr. Fetters. I'm sorry, you know, but first come, first served."

The colonel was seriously annoyed. He did not like to believe there was a conspiracy to frustrate his good intention; but that result had been accomplished, whether by accident or design. He had failed in the first thing he had undertaken for the woman he loved and was to marry. He would see Fetters's man, however, and come to some arrangement with him. With Fetters the hiring of the Negro was purely a commercial transaction, conditioned upon a probable profit, for the immediate payment of which, and a liberal bonus, he would doubtless relinquish his claim upon Johnson's services.

Learning that Turner, who had acted as Fetters's agent in the matter, had gone over to Clay Johnson's saloon, he went to seek him there. He found him, and asked for a proposition. Turner heard him out.

"Well, Colonel French," he replied with slightly veiled insolence, "I bought this nigger's time for Mr. Fetters, an' unless I'm might'ly mistaken in Mr. Fetters, no amount of money can get the nigger until he's served his time out. He's defied our rules and defied the law, and defied me, and assaulted one of the guards; and he ought to be made an example of. We want to keep 'im; he's a bad nigger, an' we've got to handle a lot of 'em, an' we need 'im for an example—he keeps us in trainin'."

"Have you any power in the matter?" demanded the colonel, restraining his contempt.

"Me? No, not me! I couldn't let the nigger go for his weight in gol'—an' wouldn' if I could. I bought 'im in for Mr. Fetters, an' he's the only man that's got any say about 'im."

"Very well," said the colonel as he turned away, "I'll see Fetters."

"I don't know whether you will or not," said Turner to himself, as he shot a vindictive glance at the colonel's retreating figure. "Fetters has got this county where he wants it, an' I'll bet dollars to bird shot he ain't goin' to let no coon-flavoured No'the'n interloper come down here an' mix up with his arrangements, even if he did hail from this town way back yonder. This here nigger problem is a South'en problem, and outsiders might's well keep their han's off. Me and Haines an' Fetters is the kind o' men to settle it."

The colonel was obliged to confess to Miss Laura his temporary setback, which he went around to the house and did immediately.

"It's the first thing I've undertaken yet for your sake, Laura, and I've got to report failure, so far."

"It's only the first step," she said, consolingly.

"That's all. I'll drive out to Fetters's place to-morrow, and arrange the matter. By starting before day, I can make it and transact my business, and get back by night, without hurting the horses."

Catharine was called in and the situation explained to her. Though clearly disappointed at the delay, and not yet free of apprehension that Bud might do something rash, she seemed serenely confident of the colonel's ultimate success. In her simple creed, God might sometimes seem to neglect his black children, but no harm could come to a Negro who had a rich white gentleman for friend and protector.



Twenty-five

It was not yet sunrise when the colonel set out next day, after an early breakfast, upon his visit to Fetters. There was a crisp freshness in the air, the dew was thick upon the grass, the clear blue sky gave promise of a bright day and a pleasant journey.

The plantation conducted by Fetters lay about twenty miles to the south of Clarendon, and remote from any railroad, a convenient location for such an establishment, for railroads, while they bring in supplies and take out produce, also bring in light and take out information, both of which are fatal to certain fungus growths, social as well as vegetable, which flourish best in the dark.

The road led by Mink Run, and the colonel looked over toward the house as they passed it. Old and weather-beaten it seemed, even in the distance, which lent it no enchantment in the bright morning light. When the colonel had travelled that road in his boyhood, great forests of primeval pine had stretched for miles on either hand, broken at intervals by thriving plantations. Now all was changed. The tall and stately growth of the long-leaf pine had well nigh disappeared; fifteen years before, the turpentine industry, moving southward from Virginia, along the upland counties of the Appalachian slope, had swept through Clarendon County, leaving behind it a trail of blasted trunks and abandoned stills. Ere these had yielded to decay, the sawmill had followed, and after the sawmill the tar kiln, so that the dark green forest was now only a waste of blackened stumps and undergrowth, topped by the vulgar short-leaved pine and an occasional oak or juniper. Here and there they passed an expanse of cultivated land, and there were many smaller clearings in which could be seen, plowing with gaunt mules or stunted steers, some heavy-footed Negro or listless "po' white man;" or women and children, black or white. In reply to a question, the coachman said that Mr. Fetters had worked all that country for turpentine years before, and had only taken up cotton raising after the turpentine had been exhausted from the sand hills.

He had left his mark, thought the colonel. Like the plague of locusts, he had settled and devoured and then moved on, leaving a barren waste behind him.

As the morning advanced, the settlements grew thinner, until suddenly, upon reaching the crest of a hill, a great stretch of cultivated lowland lay spread before them. In the centre of the plantation, near the road which ran through it, stood a square, new, freshly painted frame house, which would not have seemed out of place in some Ohio or Michigan city, but here struck a note alien to its surroundings. Off to one side, like the Negro quarters of another generation, were several rows of low, unpainted cabins, built of sawed lumber, the boards running up and down, and battened with strips where the edges met. The fields were green with cotton and with corn, and there were numerous gangs of men at work, with an apparent zeal quite in contrast with the leisurely movement of those they had passed on the way. It was a very pleasing scene.

"Dis yer, suh," said the coachman in an awed tone, "is Mistah Fetters's plantation. You ain' gwine off nowhere, and leave me alone whils' you are hyuh, is you, suh?"

"No," said the colonel, "I'll keep my eye on you. Nobody'll trouble you while you're with me."

Passing a clump of low trees, the colonel came upon a group at sight of which he paused involuntarily. A gang of Negroes were at work. Upon the ankles of some was riveted an iron band to which was soldered a chain, at the end of which in turn an iron ball was fastened. Accompanying them was a white man, in whose belt was stuck a revolver, and who carried in one hand a stout leather strap, about two inches in width with a handle by which to grasp it. The gang paused momentarily to look at the traveller, but at a meaning glance from the overseer fell again to their work of hoeing cotton. The white man stepped to the fence, and Colonel French addressed him.

"Good morning."

"Mornin', suh."

"Will you tell me where I can find Mr. Fetters?" inquired the colonel.

"No, suh, unless he's at the house. He may have went away this mornin', but I haven't heard of it. But you drive along the road to the house, an' somebody'll tell you."

The colonel seemed to have seen the overseer before, but could not remember where.

"Sam," he asked the coachman, "who is that white man?"

"Dat's Mistah Haines, suh—use' ter be de constable at Cla'endon, suh. I wouldn' lak to be in no gang under him, suh, sho' I wouldn', no, suh!"

After this ejaculation, which seemed sincere as well as fervent, Sam whipped up the horses and soon reached the house. A Negro boy came out to meet them.

"Is Mr. Fetters at home," inquired the colonel?

"I—I don' know, suh—I—I'll ax Mars' Turner. He's hyuh."

He disappeared round the house and in a few minutes returned with Turner, with whom the colonel exchanged curt nods.

"I wish to see Mr. Fetters," said the colonel.

"Well, you can't see him."

"Why not?"

"Because he ain't here. He left for the capital this mornin', to be gone a week. You'll be havin' a fine drive, down here and back."

The colonel ignored the taunt.

"When will Mr. Fetters return?" he inquired.

"I'm shore I don't know. He don't tell me his secrets. But I'll tell you, Colonel French, that if you're after that nigger, you're wastin' your time. He's in Haines's gang, and Haines loves him so well that Mr. Fetters has to keep Bud in order to keep Haines. There's no accountin' for these vi'lent affections, but they're human natur', and they have to be 'umoured."

"I'll talk to your master," rejoined the colonel, restraining his indignation and turning away.

Turner looked after him vindictively.

"He'll talk to my master, like as if I was a nigger! It'll be a long time before he talks to Fetters, if that's who he means—if I can prevent it. Not that it would make any difference, but I'll just keep him on the anxious seat."

It was nearing noon, but the colonel had received no invitation to stop, or eat, or feed his horses. He ordered Sam to turn and drive back the way they had come.

As they neared the group of labourers they had passed before, the colonel saw four Negroes, in response to an imperative gesture from the overseer, seize one of their number, a short, thickset fellow, overpower some small resistance which he seemed to make, throw him down with his face to the ground, and sit upon his extremities while the overseer applied the broad leathern thong vigorously to his bare back.

The colonel reached over and pulled the reins mechanically. His instinct was to interfere; had he been near enough to recognise in the Negro the object of his visit, Bud Johnson, and in the overseer the ex-constable, Haines, he might have yielded to the impulse. But on second thought he realised that he had neither authority nor strength to make good his interference. For aught he knew, the performance might be strictly according to law. So, fighting a feeling of nausea which he could hardly conquer, he ordered Sam to drive on.

The coachman complied with alacrity, as though glad to escape from a mighty dangerous place. He had known friendless coloured folks, who had strayed down in that neighbourhood to be lost for a long time; and he had heard of a spot, far back from the road, in a secluded part of the plantation, where the graves of convicts who had died while in Fetters's service were very numerous.



Twenty-six

During the next month the colonel made several attempts to see Fetters, but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting. He finally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton, who ascertained that Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week, at Carthage, the county seat of the adjoining county, where the colonel had been once before to inspect a cotton mill. Thither the colonel went on the day of the opening of court. His train reached town toward noon and he went over to the hotel. He wondered if he would find the proprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before. But the buggy was gone from before the piazza, and there was a new face behind the desk. The colonel registered, left word that he would be in to dinner, and then went over to the court house, which lay behind the trees across the square.

The court house was an old, square, hip-roofed brick structure, whose walls, whitewashed the year before, had been splotched and discoloured by the weather. From one side, under the eaves, projected a beam, which supported a bell rung by a rope from the window below. A hall ran through the centre, on either side of which were the county offices, while the court room with a judge's room and jury room, occupied the upper floor.

The colonel made his way across the square, which showed the usual signs of court being in session. There were buggies hitched to trees and posts here and there, a few Negroes sleeping in the sun, and several old coloured women with little stands for the sale of cakes, and fried fish, and cider.

The colonel went upstairs to the court room. It was fairly well filled, and he remained standing for a few minutes near the entrance. The civil docket was evidently on trial, for there was a jury in the box, and a witness was being examined with some prolixity with reference to the use of a few inches of land which lay on one side or on the other of a disputed boundary. From what the colonel could gather, that particular line fence dispute had been in litigation for twenty years, had cost several lives, and had resulted in a feud that involved a whole township.

The testimony was about concluded when the colonel entered, and the lawyers began their arguments. The feeling between the litigants seemed to have affected their attorneys, and the court more than once found it necessary to call counsel to order. The trial was finished, however, without bloodshed; the case went to the jury, and court was adjourned until two o'clock.

The colonel had never met Fetters, nor had he seen anyone in the court room who seemed likely to be the man. But he had seen his name freshly written on the hotel register, and he would doubtless go there for dinner. There would be ample time to get acquainted and transact his business before court reassembled for the afternoon.

Dinner seemed to be a rather solemn function, and except at a table occupied by the judge and the lawyers, in the corner of the room farthest from the colonel, little was said. A glance about the room showed no one whom the colonel could imagine to be Fetters, and he was about to ask the waiter if that gentleman had yet entered the dining room, when a man came in and sat down on the opposite side of the table. The colonel looked up, and met the cheerful countenance of the liveryman from whom he had hired a horse and buggy some weeks before.

"Howdy do?" said the newcomer amiably. "Hope you've been well."

"Quite well," returned the colonel, "how are you?"

"Oh, just tol'able. Tendin' co't?"

"No, I came down here to see a man that's attending court—your friend Fetters. I suppose he'll be in to dinner."

"Oh, yes, but he ain't come in yet. I reckon you find the ho-tel a little different from the time you were here befo'."

"This is a better dinner than I got," replied the colonel, "and I haven't seen the landlord anywhere, nor his buggy."

"No, he ain't here no more. Sad loss to Carthage! You see Bark Fetters—that's Bill's boy that's come home from the No'th from college—Bark Fetters come down here one day, an' went in the ho-tel, an' when Lee Dickson commenced to put on his big airs, Bark cussed 'im out, and Lee, who didn't know Bark from Adam, cussed 'im back, an' then Bark hauled off an' hit 'im. They had it hot an' heavy for a while. Lee had more strength, but Bark had more science, an' laid Lee out col'. Then Bark went home an' tol' the ole man, who had a mortgage on the ho-tel, an' he sol' Lee up. I hear he's barberin' or somethin' er that sort up to Atlanta, an' the hotel's run by another man. There's Fetters comin' in now."

The colonel glanced in the direction indicated, and was surprised at the appearance of the redoubtable Fetters, who walked over and took his seat at the table with the judge and the lawyers. He had expected to meet a tall, long-haired, red-faced, truculent individual, in a slouch hat and a frock coat, with a loud voice and a dictatorial manner, the typical Southerner of melodrama. He saw a keen-eyed, hard-faced small man, slightly gray, clean-shaven, wearing a well-fitting city-made business suit of light tweed. Except for a few little indications, such as the lack of a crease in his trousers, Fetters looked like any one of a hundred business men whom the colonel might have met on Broadway in any given fifteen minutes during business hours.