The Battle Ground Part 20

"And a far off one I trust," added Mrs. Ambler, with her plaintive smile.

"Well, maybe so," responded the Major, settling himself in an easy chair beside the fire. "Any way, you can't blame an old man for fighting for his own, as my friend Harry Smith put it when he lost his leg in the War of 1812. 'By G.o.d, it belongs to me,' he roared to the surgeon, 'and if it comes off, I'll take it off myself, sir.' It took six men to hold him, and when it was over all he said was, 'Well, gentlemen, you mustn't blame a man for fighting for his own.' Ah, he was a sad scamp, was Harry, a sad scamp.

He used to say that he didn't know whether he preferred a battle or a dinner, but he reckoned a battle was better for the blood. And to think that he died in his bed at last like any Christian."

"That reminds me of d.i.c.k Wythe, who never needed any tonic but a fight,"

returned the Governor, thoughtfully. "You remember d.i.c.k, don't you, Major?--a hard drinker, poor fellow, but handsome enough to have stepped out of Homer. I've been sitting by him at the post-office on a spring day, and seen him get up and slap a pa.s.ser-by on the face as coolly as he'd take his toddy. Of course the man would slap back again, and when it was over d.i.c.k would make his politest bow, and say pleasantly, 'Thank you, sir, I felt a touch of the gout.' He told me once that if it was only a twinge, he chose a man of his own size; but if it was a positive wrench, he struck out at the biggest he could find."

The Major leaned back, laughing. "That was d.i.c.k, sir, that was d.i.c.k!" he exclaimed, "and it was his father before him. Why, I've had my own blows with Taylor Wythe in his day, and never a hard word afterward, never a word." Then his face clouded. "I saw d.i.c.k's brother Tom in town this morning," he added. "A sneaking fellow, who hasn't the spirit in his whole body that was in his father's little finger. Why, what do you suppose he had the impudence to tell me, sir? Some one had asked him, he said, what he should do if Virginia went to war, and he had answered that he'd stay at home and build an asylum for the fools that brought it on." He turned his indignant face upon Mrs. Ambler, and she put in a modest word of sympathy.

"You mustn't judge Tom by his jests, sir," rejoined the Governor, persuasively. "His wit takes with the town folks, you know, and I hear that he's becoming famous as a post-office orator."

"There it is, sir, there it is," retorted the Major. "I've always said that the post-offices were the ruin of this country--and that proves my words.

Why, if there were no post-offices, there'd be fewer newspapers; and if there were fewer newspapers, there wouldn't be the _Richmond Whig_."

The Governor's glance wandered to his writing table.

"Then I should never see my views in print, Major," he added, smiling; and a moment afterward, disregarding Mrs. Ambler's warning gestures, he plunged headlong into a discussion of political conditions.

As he talked the Major sat trembling in his chair, his stern face flus.h.i.+ng from red to purple, and the heavy veins upon his forehead standing out like cords. "Vote for Douglas, sir!" he cried at last. "Vote for the biggest traitor that has gone scot free since Arnold! Why, I'd sooner go over to the arch-fiend himself and vote for Seward."

"I'm not sure that you won't go farther and fare worse," replied the Governor, gravely. "You know me for a loyal Whig, sir, but I tell you frankly, that I believe Douglas to be the man to save the South. Cast him off, and you cast off your remaining hope."

"Tush, tus.h.!.+" retorted the Major, hotly. "I tell you I wouldn't vote to have Douglas President of Perdition, sir. Don't talk to me about your loyalty, Peyton Ambler, you're mad--you're all mad! I honestly believe that I am the only sane man in the state."

The Governor had risen from his chair and was walking nervously about the room. His eyes were dim, and his face was pallid with emotion.

"My G.o.d, sir, don't you see where you are drifting?" he cried, stretching out an appealing hand to the angry old gentleman in the easy chair.

"Drifting! Pooh, pooh!" protested the Major, "at least I am not drifting into a nest of traitors, sir."

And with his wrath hot within he rose to take his leave, very red and stormy, but retaining the presence of mind to a.s.sure Mrs. Ambler that the glimpse of her fireside would send him rejoicing upon his way.

Such burning topics went like strong wine to his head, and like strong wine left a craving which always carried him back to them in the end. He would quarrel with the Governor, and make his peace, and at the next meeting quarrel, without peace-making, again.

"Don't, oh, please don't talk horrid politics, papa," Betty would implore, when she saw the nose of his dapple mare turn into the drive between the silver poplars.

"I'll not, daughter, I give you my word I'll not," the Governor would answer, and for a time the conversation would jog easily along the well worn roads of county changes and by the green graves of many a long dead jovial neighbour. While the red logs spluttered on the hearth, they would sip their gla.s.ses of Madeira and amicably weigh the dust of "my friend d.i.c.k Wythe--a fine fellow, in spite of his little weakness."

But in the end the live question would rear its head and come hissing from among the quiet graves; and d.i.c.k Wythe, who loved his fight, or Plaintain Dudley, in his ruffled s.h.i.+rt, would fall back suddenly to make way for the wrangling figures of the slaveholder and the abolitionist.

"I can't help it, Betty, I can't help it," the Governor would declare, when he came back from following the old gentleman to the drive; "did you see Mr. Yancey step out of d.i.c.k Wythe's dry bones to-day? Poor d.i.c.k, an honest fellow who loved no man's quarrel but his own; it's too bad, I declare it's too bad." And the next day he would send Betty over to Cheric.o.ke to stroke down the Major's temper. "Slippery are the paths of the peacemaker," the girl laughed one morning, when she had ridden home after an hour of persuasion. "I go on tip-toe because of your indiscretions, papa. You really must learn to control yourself, the Major says."

"Control myself!" repeated the Governor, laughing, though he looked a little vexed. "If I hadn't the control of a stoic, daughter, to say nothing of the patience of Job, do you think I'd be able to listen calmly to his tirades? Why, he wants to pull the Government to pieces for his pleasure,"

then he pinched her cheek and added, smiling, "Oh, you sly puss, why don't you play your pranks upon one of your own age?"

Through the long winter many visits were exchanged between Uplands and Cheric.o.ke, and once, on a mild February morning, Mrs. Lightfoot drove over in her old coach, with her knitting and her handmaid Mitty, to spend the day. She took Betty back with her, and the girl stayed a week in the queer old house, where the elm boughs tapped upon her window as she slept, and the shadows on the crooked staircase frightened her when she went up and down at night. It seemed to her that the presence of Jane Lightfoot still haunted the home that she had left. When the snow fell on the roof and the wind beat against the panes, she would open her door and look out into the long dim halls, as if she half expected to see a girlish figure in a muslin gown steal softly to the stair.

Dan was less with her in that stormy week than was the memory of his mother; even Great-aunt Emmeline, whose motto was written on the ivied gla.s.s, grew faint beside the outcast daughter of whom but one pale miniature remained. Before Betty went back to Uplands she had grown to know Jane Lightfoot as she knew herself.

When the spring came she took up her trowel and followed Aunt Lydia into the garden. On bright mornings the two would work side by side among the flowers, kneeling in a row with the small darkies who came to their a.s.sistance. Peter, the gardener, would watch them lazily, as he leaned upon his hoe, and mutter beneath his breath, "Dat dut wuz dut, en de dut er de flow'r baids warn' no better'n de dut er de co'n fiel'."

Betty would laugh and shake her head as she planted her square of pansies.

She was working feverishly to overcome her longing for the sight of Dan, and her growing dread of his return.

But at last on a sunny morning, when the lilacs made a lane of purple to the road, the Major drove over with the news that "the boys would not be back again till autumn. They'll go abroad for the summer," he added proudly. "It's time they were seeing something of the world, you know. I've always said that a man should see the world before thirty, if he wants to stay at home after forty," then he smiled down on Virginia, and pinched her cheek. "It won't hurt Dan, my dear," he said cheerfully. "Let him get a glimpse of artificial flowers, that he may learn the value of our own beauties."

"Of Great-aunt Emmeline, you mean, sir," replied Virginia, laughing.

"Oh, yes, my child," chuckled the Major. "Let him learn the value of Great-aunt Emmeline, by all means."

When the old gentleman had gone, Betty went into the garden, where the gra.s.s was powdered with small spring flowers, and gathered a bunch of white violets for her mother. Aunt Lydia was walking slowly up and down in the mild suns.h.i.+ne, and her long black shadow pa.s.sed over the girl as she knelt in the narrow gra.s.s-grown path. A slender spray of syringa drooped down upon her head, and the warm wind was sweet with the heavy perfume of the lilacs. On the whitewashed fence a catbird was calling over the meadow, and another answered from the little bricked-up graveyard, where the gate was opened only when a fresh grave was to be hollowed out amid the periwinkle.

As Betty knelt there, something in the warm wind, the heavy perfume, or the old lady's flitting shadow touched her with a sudden melancholy, and while the tears lay upon her lashes, she started quickly to her feet and looked about her. But a great peace was in the air, and around her she saw only the garden wrapped in suns.h.i.+ne, the small spring flowers in bloom, and Aunt Lydia moving up and down in the box-bordered walk.

VI

THE MEETING IN THE TURNPIKE

On a late September afternoon Dan rode leisurely homeward along the turnpike. He had reached New York some days before, but instead of hurrying on with Champe, he had sent a careless apology to his expectant grandparents while he waited over to look up a missing trunk.

"Oh, what difference does a day make?" he had urged in reply to Champe's remonstrances, "and after going all the way to Paris, I can't afford to lose my clothes, you know. I'm not a Leander, my boy, and there's no Hero awaiting me. You can't expect a fellow to sacrifice the proprieties for his grandmother."

"Well, I'm going, that's all," rejoined Champe, and Dan heartily responded, "G.o.d be with you," as he shook his hand.

Now, as he rode slowly up the turnpike on a hired horse, he was beginning to regret, with an impatient self-reproach, the three tiresome days he had stolen from his grandfather's delight. It was characteristic of him at the age of twenty-one that he began to regret what appeared to be a pleasure only after it had proved to be a disappointment. Had the New York days been gay instead of dull, it is probable that he would have ridden home with an easy conscience and a lordly belief that there was something generous in the spirit of his coming back at all.

A damp wind was blowing straight along the turnpike, and the autumn fields, brilliant with golden-rod and sumach, stretched under a sky which had clouded over so suddenly that the last rays of sun were still s.h.i.+ning upon the mountains.

He had left Uplands a mile behind, throwing, as he pa.s.sed, a wistful glance between the silver poplars. A pink dress had fluttered for an instant beyond the Doric columns, and he had wondered idly if it meant Virginia, and if she were still the pretty little simpleton of six months ago. At the thought of her he threw back his head and whistled gayly into the threatening sky, so gayly that a bluebird flying across the road hovered round him in the air. The joy of living possessed him at the moment, a mere physical delight in the circulation of his blood, in the healthy beating of his pulses. Old things which he had half forgotten appealed to him suddenly with all the force of fresh impressions. The beauty of the September fields, the long curve in the white road where the tuft of cedars grew, the falling valley which went down between the hills, stood out for him as if bathed in a new and tender light. The youth in him was looking through his eyes.

And the thought of Virginia went merrily with his mood. What a pretty little simpleton she was, by George, and what a dull world this would be were it not for the pretty simpletons in pink dresses! Why, in that case one might as well sit in a library and read Horace and wear red flannel.

One might as well--a drop of rain fell in his face and he lowered his head.

When he did so he saw that Betty was coming along the turnpike, and that she wore a dress of blue dimity.

In a flash of light his first wonder was that he should ever have preferred pink to blue; his second that a girl in a dimity gown and a white chip bonnet should be fleeing from a storm along the turnpike. As he jumped from his horse he faced her a little anxiously.

"There's a hard shower coming, and you'll be wet," he said.

"And my bonnet!" cried Betty, breathlessly. She untied the blue strings and swung them over her arm. There was a flush in her cheeks, and as he drew nearer she fell back quickly.

"You--you came so suddenly," she stammered.

He laughed aloud. "Doesn't the Prince always come suddenly?" he asked. "You are like the wandering princess in the fairy tale--all in blue upon a lonely road; but this isn't just the place for loitering, you know. Come up behind me and I'll carry you to shelter in Aunt Ailsey's cabin; it isn't the first time I've run away, with you, remember." He lifted her upon the horse, and started at a gallop up the turnpike. "I'm afraid the steed doesn't take the romantic view," he went on lightly. "There, get up, Barebones, the lady doesn't want to wet her bonnet. Lean against me, Betty, and I'll try to shelter you."

But the rain was in their faces, and Betty shut her eyes to keep out the hard bright drops. As she clung with both hands to his arm, her wet cheek was hidden against his coat, and the blue ribbons on her breast were blown round them in the wind. It was as if one of her dreams had awakened from sleep and come boldly out into the daylight; and because it was like a dream she trembled and was half ashamed of its reality.