by Bret Harte
Produced by Donald Lainson
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT
By Bret Harte
CONTENTS
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT
THE POSTMISTRESS OF LAUREL RUN
A NIGHT AT "HAYS"
JOHNSON'S "OLD WOMAN"
THE NEW ASSISTANT AT PINE CLEARING SCHOOL
IN A PIONEER RESTAURANT
A TREASURE OF THE GALLEON
OUT OF A PIONEER'S TRUNK
THE GHOSTS OF STUKELEY CASTLE
COLONEL STARBOTTLE'S CLIENT.
CHAPTER I.
It may be remembered that it was the habit of that gallant "war-horse"of the Calaveras democracy, Colonel Starbottle, at the close of apolitical campaign, to return to his original profession of theLaw. Perhaps it could not be called a peaceful retirement. The samefiery-tongued eloquence and full-breasted chivalry which had in turnsthrilled and overawed freemen at the polls were no less fervid andembattled before a jury. Yet the Colonel was counsel for two or threepastoral Ditch companies and certain bucolic corporations, and althoughhe managed to import into the simplest question of contract more or lessabuse of opposing counsel, and occasionally mingled precedents of lawwith antecedents of his adversary, his legal victories were seldomcomplicated by bloodshed. He was only once shot at by a free-handedjudge, and twice assaulted by an over-sensitive litigant. Nevertheless,it was thought merely prudent, while preparing the papers in the wellknown case of "The Arcadian Shepherds' Association of Tuolumne versusthe Kedron Vine and Fig Tree Growers of Calaveras," that the Colonelshould seek with a shotgun the seclusion of his partner's law officein the sylvan outskirts of Rough and Ready for that complete rest andserious preoccupation which Marysville could not afford.
It was an exceptionally hot day. The painted shingles of the plainwooden one-storied building in which the Colonel sat were warped andblistering in the direct rays of the fierce, untempered sun. The tinsign bearing the dazzling legend, "Starbottle and Bungstarter, Attorneysand Counselors," glowed with an insufferable light; the two pine-treesstill left in the clearing around the house, ineffective as shade,seemed only to have absorbed the day-long heat through every scorchedand crisp twig and fibre, to radiate it again with the pungent smell ofa slowly smouldering fire; the air was motionless yet vibrating in thesunlight; on distant shallows the half-dried river was flashing andintolerable.
Seated in a wooden armchair before a table covered with books andpapers, yet with that apparently haughty attitude towards it affectedby gentlemen of abdominal fullness, Colonel Starbottle supported himselfwith one hand grasping the arm of his chair and the other vigorouslyplying a huge palm-leaf fan. He was perspiring freely. He had taken offhis characteristic blue frock-coat, waistcoat, cravat, and collar, and,stripped only to his ruffled shirt and white drill trousers, presentedthe appearance from the opposite side of the table of having hastilyrisen to work in his nightgown. A glass with a thin sediment of sugarand lemon-peel remaining in it stood near his elbow. Suddenly a blackshadow fell on the staring, uncarpeted hall. It was that of a strangerwho had just entered from the noiseless dust of the deserted road. TheColonel cast a rapid glance at his sword-cane, which lay on the table.
But the stranger, although sallow and morose-looking, was evidentlyof pacific intent. He paused on the threshold in a kind of surlyembarrassment.
"I reckon this is Colonel Starbottle," he said at last, glancinggloomily round him, as if the interview was not entirely of his ownseeking. "Well, I've seen you often enough, though you don't know me. Myname's Jo Corbin. I guess," he added, still discontentedly, "I have toconsult you about something."
"Corbin?" repeated the Colonel in his jauntiest manner. "Ah! Anyrelation to old Maje Corbin of Nashville, sir?"
"No," said the stranger briefly. "I'm from Shelbyville."
"The Major," continued the Colonel, half closing his eyes as if tofollow the Major into the dreamy past, "the old Major, sir, a matterof five or six years ago, was one of my most intimate politicalfriends,--in fact, sir, my most intimate friend. Take a chyar!"
But the stranger had already taken one, and during the Colonel'sreminiscence had leaned forward, with his eyes on the ground,discontentedly swinging his soft hat between his legs. "Did you know TomFrisbee, of Yolo?" he asked abruptly.
"Er--no."
"Nor even heard anything about Frisbee, nor what happened to him?"continued the man, with aggrieved melancholy.
In point of fact the Colonel did not think that he had.
"Nor anything about his being killed over at Fresno?" said the stranger,with a desponding implication that the interview after all was afailure.
"If--er--if you could--er--give me a hint or two," suggested the Colonelblandly.
"There wasn't much," said the stranger, "if you don't remember." Hepaused, then rising, he gloomily dragged his chair slowly besidethe table, and taking up a paperweight examined it with heavydissatisfaction. "You see," he went on slowly, "I killed him--it was aquo'll. He was my pardner, but I reckon he must have drove me hard. Yes,sir," he added with aggrieved reflection, "I reckon he drove me hard."
The Colonel smiled courteously, slightly expanding his chest under thehomicidal relation, as if, having taken it in and made it a part ofhimself, he was ready, if necessary, to become personally responsiblefor it. Then lifting his empty glass to the light, he looked at it withhalf closed eyes, in polite imitation of his companion's examinationof the paper-weight, and set it down again. A casual spectator fromthe window might have imagined that the two were engaged in an amicableinventory of the furniture.
"And the--er--actual circumstances?" asked the Colonel.
"Oh, it was fair enough fight. THEY'LL tell you that. And so would HE,I reckon--if he could. He was ugly and bedev'lin', but I didn't care toquo'll, and give him the go-by all the time. He kept on, followed me outof the shanty, drew, and fired twice. I"--he stopped and regarded hishat a moment as if it was a corroborating witness--"I--I closed withhim--I had to--it was my only chance, and that ended it--and with hisown revolver. I never drew mine."
"I see," said the Colonel, nodding, "clearly justifiable and honorableas regards the code. And you wish me to defend you?"
The stranger's gloomy expression of astonishment now turned to blankhopelessness.
"I knew you didn't understand," he said, despairingly. "Why, all THATwas TWO YEARS AGO. It's all settled and done and gone. The jury foundfor me at the inquest. It ain't THAT I want to see you about. It'ssomething arising out of it."
"Ah," said the Colonel, affably, "a vendetta, perhaps. Some friend orrelation of his taken up the quarrel?"
The stranger looked abstractedly at Starbottle. "You think a relationmight; or would feel in that sort of way?"
"Why, blank it all, sir," said the Colonel, "nothing is more common.Why, in '52 one of my oldest friends, Doctor Byrne, of St. Jo, theseventh in a line from old General Byrne, of St. Louis, was killed,sir, by Pinkey Riggs, seventh in a line from Senator Riggs, of Kentucky.Original cause, sir, something about a d----d roasting ear, or a blankpersimmon in 1832; forty-seven men wiped out in twenty years. Fact,sir."
"It ain't that," said the stranger, moving hesitatingly in his chair."If it was anything of that sort I wouldn't mind,--it might bringmatters to a wind-up, and I shouldn't have to come here and have thiscursed talk with you."
It was so evident that this frank and unaffected expression of someobscure disgust with his own present position had no other implication,that the Colonel did not except to it. Yet the man did not go on. Hestopped and seemed lost in sombre contemplation of his hat.
The Colonel leaned back in his chair, fanned himself elegantly, wipedhis forehead with a large pongee handkerchief, and looking at hisc
ompanion, whose shadowed abstraction seemed to render him impervious tothe heat, said:--
"My dear Mr. Corbin, I perfectly understand you. Blank it all, sir,the temperature in this infernal hole is quite enough to render anyconfidential conversation between gentlemen upon delicate mattersutterly impossible. It's almost as near Hades, sir, as they makeit,--as I trust you and I, Mr. Corbin, will ever experience. I propose,"continued the Colonel, with airy geniality, "some light change andrefreshment. The bar-keeper of the Magnolia is--er--I may say, sir,facile princeps in the concoction of mint juleps, and there is a backroom where I have occasionally conferred with political leaders atelection time. It is but a step, sir--in fact, on Main Street--round thecorner."
The stranger looked up and then rose mechanically as the Colonel resumedhis coat and waistcoat, but not his collar and cravat, which lay limpand dejected among his papers. Then, sheltering himself beneath alarge-brimmed Panama hat, and hooking his cane on his arm, he led theway, fan in hand, into the road, tiptoeing in his tight, polished bootsthrough the red, impalpable dust with his usual jaunty manner, yetnot without a profane suggestion of burning ploughshares. The strangerstrode in silence by his side in the burning sun, impenetrable in hisown morose shadow.
But the Magnolia was fragrant, like its namesake, with mint and herbalodors, cool with sprinkled floors, and sparkling with broken ice onits counters, like dewdrops on white, unfolded petals--and slightlysoporific with the subdued murmur of droning loungers, who were heavywith its sweets. The gallant Colonel nodded with confidential affabilityto the spotless-shirted bar-keeper, and then taking Corbin by the armfraternally conducted him into a small apartment in the rear of thebar-room. It was evidently used as the office of the proprietor, andcontained a plain desk, table, and chairs. At the rear window, Nature,not entirely evicted, looked in with a few straggling buckeyes and adusty myrtle, over the body of a lately-felled pine-tree, that flauntedfrom an upflung branch a still green spray as if it were a droopingbanner lifted by a dead but rigid arm. From the adjoining room thefaint, monotonous click of billiard balls, languidly played, came atintervals like the dry notes of cicale in the bushes.
The bar-keeper brought two glasses crowned with mint and diademed withbroken ice. The Colonel took a long pull at his portion, and leanedback in his chair with a bland gulp of satisfaction and dreamily patienteyes. The stranger mechanically sipped the contents of his glass, andthen, without having altered his reluctant expression, drew from hisbreast-pocket a number of old letters. Holding them displayed in hisfingers like a difficult hand of cards, and with something of the air ofa dispirited player, he began:--
"You see, about six months after this yer trouble I got this letter." Hepicked out a well worn, badly written missive, and put it into ColonelStarbottle's hands, rising at the same time and leaning over him as heread. "You see, she that writ it says as how she hadn't heard from herson for a long time, but owing to his having spoken once about ME, shewas emboldened to write and ask me if I knew what had gone of him." Hewas pointing his finger at each line of the letter as he read it, orrather seemed to translate it from memory with a sad familiarity. "Now,"he continued in parenthesis, "you see this kind o' got me. I knew he hadgot relatives in Kentucky. I knew that all this trouble had been put inthe paper with his name and mine, but this here name of Martha Jeffcourtat the bottom didn't seem to jibe with it. Then I remembered that he hadleft a lot of letters in his trunk in the shanty, and I looked 'em over.And I found that his name WAS Tom Jeffcourt, and that he'd been passin'under the name of Frisbee all this time."
"Perfectly natural and a frequent occurrence," interposed the Colonelcheerfully. "Only last year I met an old friend whom we'll call Stidger,of New Orleans, at the Union Club, 'Frisco. 'How are you, Stidger?' Isaid; 'I haven't seen you since we used to meet--driving over the ShellRoad in '53.' 'Excuse me, sir,' said he, 'my name is not Stidger, it'sBrown.' I looked him in the eye, sir, and saw him quiver. 'Then I mustapologize to Stidger,' I said, 'for supposing him capable of changinghis name.' He came to me an hour after, all in a tremble. 'For God'ssake, Star,' he said,--always called me Star,--'don't go back on me,but you know family affairs--another woman, beautiful creature,' etc.,etc.,--yes, sir, perfectly common, but a blank mistake. When a man oncefunks his own name he'll turn tail on anything. Sorry for this man,Friezecoat, or Turncoat, or whatever's his d----d name; but it's so."
The suggestion did not, however, seem to raise the stranger's spiritsor alter his manner. "His name was Jeffcourt, and this here was hismother," he went on drearily; "and you see here she says"--pointingto the letter again--"she's been expecting money from him and it don'tcome, and she's mighty hard up. And that gave me an idea. I don't know,"he went on, regarding the Colonel with gloomy doubt, "as you'll think itwas much; I don't know as you wouldn't call it a d----d fool idea, but Igot it all the same." He stopped, hesitated, and went on. "You see thisman, Frisbee or Jeffcourt, was my pardner. We were good friends up tothe killing, and then he drove me hard. I think I told you he drove mehard,--didn't I? Well, he did. But the idea I got was this. Considerin'I killed him after all, and so to speak disappointed them, I reckonedI'd take upon myself the care of that family and send 'em money everymonth."
The Colonel slightly straitened his clean-shaven mouth. "A kind ofexpiation or amercement by fine, known to the Mosaic, Roman, and oldEnglish law. Gad, sir, the Jews might have made you MARRY his widowor sister. An old custom, and I think superseded--sir, properlysuperseded--by the alternative of ordeal by battle in the mediaevaltimes. I don't myself fancy these pecuniary fashions of settlingwrongs,--but go on."
"I wrote her," continued Corbin, "that her son was dead, but that he andme had some interests together in a claim, and that I was very glad toknow where to send her what would be his share every month. I thought itno use to tell her I killed him,--may be she might refuse to take it. Isent her a hundred dollars every month since. Sometimes it's been prettyhard sleddin' to do it, for I ain't rich; sometimes I've had to borrowthe money, but I reckoned that I was only paying for my share in thishere business of his bein' dead, and I did it."
"And I understand you that this Jeffcourt really had no interest in yourclaim?"
Corbin looked at him in dull astonishment. "Not a cent, of course; Ithought I told you that. But that weren't his fault, for he neverhad anything, and owed me money. In fact," he added gloomily, "itwas because I hadn't any more to give him--havin' sold my watchfor grub--that he quo'lled with me that day, and up and called me a'sneakin' Yankee hound.' I told you he drove me hard."
The Colonel coughed slightly and resumed his jaunty manner. "Andthe--er--mother was, of course, grateful and satisfied?"
"Well, no,--not exactly." He stopped again and took up his letters oncemore, sorted and arranged them as if to play out his unfinished buthopeless hand, and drawing out another, laid it before the Colonel. "Yousee, this Mrs. Jeffcourt, after a time, reckoned she ought to have MOREmoney than I sent her, and wrote saying that she had always understoodfrom her son (he that never wrote but once a year, remember) that thisclaim of ours (that she never knew of, you know) was paying much morethan I sent her--and she wanted a return of accounts and papers, orshe'd write to some lawyer, mighty quick. Well, I reckoned that allthis was naturally in the line of my trouble, and I DID manage to scrapetogether fifty dollars more for two months and sent it. But that didn'tseem to satisfy her--as you see." He dealt Colonel Starbottle anotherletter from his baleful hand with an unchanged face. "When I gotthat,--well, I just up and told her the whole thing. I sent her theaccount of the fight from the newspapers, and told her as how her sonwas the Frisbee that was my pardner, and how he never had a cent in theworld--but how I'd got that idea to help her, and was willing to carryit out as long as I could."
"Did you keep a copy of that letter?" asked the Colonel, straitening hismask-like mouth.
"No," said Corbin moodily. "What was the good? I know'd she'd got theletter,--and she did,--for that is what she wrote back." He laid anotherletter
before the Colonel, who hastily read a few lines and then broughthis fat white hand violently on the desk.
"Why, d--n it all, sir, this is BLACKMAIL! As infamous a case ofthreatening and chantage as I ever heard of."
"Well," said Corbin, dejectedly, "I don't know. You see she allows thatI murdered Frisbee to get hold of his claim, and that I'm trying to buyher off, and that if I don't come down with twenty thousand dollars onthe nail, and notes for the rest, she'll prosecute me. Well, mebbe thething looks to her like that--mebbe you know I've got to shoulder thattoo. Perhaps it's all in the same line."
Colonel Starbottle for a moment regarded Corbin critically. In spite ofhis chivalrous attitude towards the homicidal faculty, the Colonelwas not optimistic in regard to the baser pecuniary interests of hisfellow-man. It was quite on the cards that his companion might havemurdered his partner to get possession of the claim. It was true thatCorbin had voluntarily assumed an unrecorded and hitherto unknownresponsibility that had never been even suspected, and was virtuallyself-imposed. But that might have been the usual one unerring blunder ofcriminal sagacity and forethought. It was equally true that he did notlook or act like a mean murderer; but that was nothing. However, therewas no evidence of these reflections in the Colonel's face. Rather hesuddenly beamed with an excess of politeness. "Would you--er--mind, Mr.Corbin, whilst I am going over those letters again, to--er--step acrossto my office--and--er--bring me the copy of 'Wood's Digest' that lies onmy table? It will save some time."
The stranger rose, as if the service was part of his self-imposedtrouble, and as equally hopeless with the rest, and taking his hatdeparted to execute the commission. As soon as he had left the buildingColonel Starbottle opened the door and mysteriously beckoned thebar-keeper within.
"Do you remember anything of the killing of a man named Frisbee over inFresno three years ago?"
The bar-keeper whistled meditatively. "Three yearsago--Frisbee?--Fresno?--no? Yes--but that was only one of his names. Hewas Jack Walker over here. Yes--and by Jove! that feller that was herewith you killed him. Darn my skin, but I thought I recognized him."
"Yes, yes, I know all that," said the Colonel, impatiently. "But didFrisbee have any PROPERTY? Did he have any means of his own?"
"Property?" echoed the bar-keeper with scornful incredulity. "Property?Means? The only property and means he ever had was the free lunches ordrinks he took in at somebody else's expense. Why, the only chance heever had of earning a square meal was when that fellow that was with youjust now took him up and made him his partner. And the only way HE couldget rid of him was to kill him! And I didn't think he had it in him.Rather a queer kind o' chap,--good deal of hayseed about him. Showed upat the inquest so glum and orkerd that if the boys hadn't made up theirminds this yer Frisbee ORTER BEEN killed--it might have gone hard withhim."
"Mr. Corbin," said Colonel Starbottle, with a pained but unmistakablehauteur and a singular elevation of his shirt frill, as if it had becomeof its own accord erectile, "Mr. Corbin--er--er--is the distant relativeof old Major Corbin, of Nashville--er--one of my oldest politicalfriends. When Mr. Corbin--er--returns, you can conduct him to me. And,if you please, replenish the glasses."
When the bar-keeper respectfully showed Mr. Corbin and "Wood's Digest"into the room again, the Colonel was still beaming and apologetic.
"A thousand thanks, sir, but except to SHOW you the law if you requireit--hardly necessary. I have--er--glanced over the woman's lettersagain; it would be better, perhaps, if you had kept copies of yourown--but still these tell the whole story and YOUR OWN. The claimis preposterous! You have simply to drop the whole thing. Stop yourremittances, stop your correspondence,--pay no heed to any furtherletters and wait results. You need fear nothing further, sir; I stake myprofessional reputation on it."
The gloom of the stranger seemed only to increase as the Colonel reachedhis triumphant conclusion.
"I reckoned you'd say that," he said slowly, "but it won't do. I shallgo on paying as far as I can. It's my trouble and I'll see it through."
"But, my dear sir, consider," gasped the Colonel. "You are in the handsof an infamous harpy, who is using her son's blood to extract moneyfrom you. You have already paid a dozen times more than the life ofthat d----d sneak was worth; and more than that--the longer you keep onpaying you are helping to give color to their claim and estopping yourown defense. And Gad, sir, you're making a precedent for this sort ofthing! you are offering a premium to widows and orphans. A gentlemanwon't be able to exchange shots with another without making himselfliable for damages. I am willing to admit that your feelings--though, inmy opinion--er--exaggerated--do you credit; but I am satisfied that theyare utterly misunderstood--sir."
"Not by all of them," said Corbin darkly.
"Eh?" returned the Colonel quickly.
"There was another letter here which I didn't particularly point outto you," said Corbin, taking up the letters again, "for I reckonedit wasn't evidence, so to speak, being from HIS COUSIN, a girl,--andcalculated you'd read it when I was out."
The Colonel coughed hastily. "I was in fact--er--just about to glanceover it when you came in."
"It was written," continued Corbin, selecting a letter more bethumbedthan the others, "after the old woman had threatened me. This here youngwoman allows that she is sorry that her aunt has to take money of me onaccount of her cousin being killed, and she is still sorrier that she isso bitter against me. She says she hadn't seen her cousin since he wasa boy, and used to play with her, and that she finds it hard to believethat he should ever grow up to change his name and act so as to provokeanybody to lift a hand against him. She says she supposed it must besomething in that dreadful California that alters people and makeseverybody so reckless. I reckon her head's level there, ain't it?"
There was such a sudden and unexpected lightening of the man's face ashe said it, such a momentary relief to his persistent gloom, that theColonel, albeit inwardly dissenting from both letter and comment, smiledcondescendingly.
"She's no slouch of a scribe neither," continued Corbin animatedly."Read that."
He handed his companion the letter, pointing to a passage with hisfinger. The Colonel took it with, I fear, a somewhat lowered opinion ofhis client, and a new theory of the case. It was evident that this weaksubmission to the aunt's conspiracy was only the result of a greaterweakness for the niece. Colonel Starbottle had a wholesome distrust ofthe sex as a business or political factor. He began to look over theletter, but was evidently slurring it with superficial politeness, whenCorbin said:--
"Read it out loud."
The Colonel slightly lifted his shoulders, fortified himself withanother sip of the julep, and, leaning back, oratorically began toread,--the stranger leaning over him and following line by line withshining eyes.
"'When I say I am sorry for you, it is because I think it must bedreadful for you to be going round with the blood of a fellow-creatureon your hands. It must be awful for you in the stillness of the nightseason to hear the voice of the Lord saying, "Cain, where is thybrother?" and you saying, "Lord, I have slayed him dead." It must beawful for you when the pride of your wrath was surfitted, and hisdum senseless corps was before you, not to know that it is written,"Vengeance is mine, I will repay," saith the Lord. . . . It was no usefor you to say, "I never heard that before," remembering your teacherand parents. Yet verily I say unto you, "Though your sins be as scarlet,they shall be washed whiter than snow," saith the Lord--Isaiah i. 18;and "Heart hath no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal."--My hymn book, 1stPresbyterian Church, page 79. Mr. Corbin, I pity your feelins at thegrave of my pore dear cousin, knowing he is before his Maker, and youcan't bring him back.' Umph!--er--er--very good--very good indeed," saidthe Colonel, hastily refolding the letter. "Very well meaning and--er"--
"Go on," said Corbin over his shoulder, "you haven't read all."
"Ah, true. I perceive I overlooked something. Um--um. 'May God forgiveyou, Mr. Corbin, as I do, and make aunty think better of you, for it wasgood
what you tried to do for her and the fammely, and I've always saidit when she was raging round and wanting money of you. I don't believeyou meant to do it anyway, owin' to your kindness of heart to theophanless and the widow since you did it. Anser this letter, anddon't mind what aunty says. So no more at present from--Yours veryrespectfully, SALLY DOWS.
"'P. S.--There's been some troubel in our township, and some fitin'. Maythe Lord change ther hearts and make them as a little child, for if youare still young you may grow up different. I have writ a short prayerfor you to say every night. You can coppy it out and put it at the headof your bed. It is this: O Lord make me sorry for having killed SarahDows' cousin. Give me, O Lord, that peace that the world cannot give,and which fadeth not away; for my yoke is heavy, and my burden is harderthan I can bear.'"
The Colonel's deliberate voice stopped. There was a silence in theroom, and the air seemed stifling. The click of the billiard balls camedistinctly through the partition from the other room. Then there wasanother click, a stamp on the floor, and a voice crying coarsely: "Curseit all--missed again!"
To the stranger's astonishment, the Colonel was on his feet in aninstant, gasping with inarticulate rage. Flinging the door open, heconfronted the startled bar-keeper empurpled and stertorous.
"Blank it all, sir, do you call this a saloon for gentlemen, or a corralfor swearing cattle? Or do you mean to say that the conversation of twogentlemen upon delicate professional--and--er--domestic affairs--isto be broken upon by the blank profanity of low-bred hounds over theirpicayune gambling! Take them my kyard, sir," choked the Colonel, who wasalways Southern and dialectic in his excited as in his softest moments,"and tell them that Colonel Starbottle will nevah dyarken these doahsagain."
Before the astonished bar-keeper could reply, the Colonel had dashedback into the room, clapped his hat on his head, and seized his book,letters, and cane. "Mr. Corbin," he said with gasping dignity, "I willtake these papahs, and consult them again in my own office--where, ifyou will do me the honor, sir, to call at ten o'clock to-morrow, Iwill give you my opinion." He strode out of the saloon beside the halfawe-stricken, half-amused, yet all discreetly silent loungers, followedby his wondering but gloomy client. At the door they parted,--theColonel tiptoeing towards his office as if dancing with rage, thestranger darkly plodding through the stifling dust in the oppositedirection, with what might have been a faint suggestion to hiscounselor, that the paths of the homicide did not lie beside the stillcool waters.
CHAPTER II.
The house of Captain Masterton Dows, at Pineville, Kentucky, was a finespecimen of Southern classical architecture, being an exact copy ofMajor Fauquier's house in Virginia, which was in turn only a slightvariation from a well-known statesman's historical villa in Alabama,that everybody knew was designed from a famous Greek temple on thePiraeus. Not but that it shared this resemblance with the County CourtHouse and the Odd Fellows' Hall, but the addition of training jessamineand Cherokee rose to the columns of the portico, and over the colonnadeleading to its offices, showed a certain domestic distinction. And thesky line of its incongruously high roof was pleasantly broken againstadjacent green pines, butternut, and darker cypress.
A nearer approach showed the stuccoed gateposts--whose red brickcore was revealed through the dropping plaster--opening in a wall ofhalf-rough stone, half-wooden palisade, equally covered with shiningmoss and parasitical vines, which hid a tangled garden left to its ownunkempt luxuriance. Yet there was a reminiscence of past formalityand even pretentiousness in a wide box-bordered terrace and one or twostuccoed vases prematurely worn and time-stained; while several rareexotics had, however, thriven so unwisely and well in that stimulatingsoil as to lose their exclusive refinement and acquire a certaintemporary vulgarity. A few, with the not uncommon enthusiasm of aliens,had adopted certain native peculiarities with a zeal that far exceededany indigenous performance. But dominant through all was the continualsuggestion of precocious fruition and premature decay that lingered likea sad perfume in the garden, but made itself persistent if less poeticalin the house.
Here the fluted wooden columns of the portico and colonnade seemed tohave taken upon themselves a sodden and unwholesome age unknown to stoneand mortar. Moss and creeper clung to paint that time had neither driednor mellowed, but left still glairy in its white consistency. There wererusty red blotches around inflamed nail-holes in the swollen wood, as ofpunctures in living flesh; along the entablature and cornices and in thedank gutters decay had taken the form of a mild deliquescence; and thepillars were spotted as if Nature had dropped over the too early ruina few unclean tears. The house itself was lifted upon a broad woodenfoundation painted to imitate marble with such hopeless mendacity thatthe architect at the last moment had added a green border, and the ownerpermitted a fallen board to remain off so as to allow a few privilegedfowls to openly explore the interior. When Miss Sally Dows played thepiano in the drawing-room she was at times accompanied by the upliftedvoice of the sympathetic hounds who sought its quiet retreat inill-health or low spirits, and from whom she was separated only byan imperfectly carpeted floor of yawning seams. The infant progenyof "Mammy Judy," an old nurse, made this a hiding-place from domesticjustice, where they were eventually betrayed by subterranean gigglingthat had once or twice brought bashful confusion to the hearts of MissSally's admirers, and mischievous security to that finished coquetteherself.
It was a pleasant September afternoon, on possibly one of theseoccasions, that Miss Sally, sitting before the piano, alternatelystriking a few notes with three pink fingers and glancing at herreflection in the polished rosewood surface of the lifted keyboard case,was heard to utter this languid protest:--
"Quit that kind of talk, Chet, unless you just admire to have every wordof it repeated all over the county. Those little niggers of Mammy Judy'sare lying round somewhere and are mighty 'cute, and sassy, I tell you.It's nothin' to ME, sure, but Miss Hilda mightn't like to hear of it. Sosoon after your particular attention to her at last night's pawty too."
Here a fresh-looking young fellow of six-and-twenty, leaning uneasilyover the piano from the opposite side, was heard to murmur that hedidn't care what Miss Hilda heard, nor the whole world, for the matterof that. "But," he added, with a faint smile, "folks allow that you knowhow to PLAY UP sometimes, and put on the loud pedal, when you don't wantMammy's niggers to hear."
"Indeed," said the young lady demurely. "Like this?"
She put out a distracting little foot, clothed in the white stocking andcool black prunella slipper then de rigueur in the State, and, pressingit on the pedal, began to drum vigorously on the keys. In vain theamorous Chet protested in a voice which the instrument drowned.Perceiving which the artful young lady opened her blue eyes mildly andsaid:--
"I reckon it IS so; it DOES kind of prevent you hearing what you don'twant to hear."
"You know well enough what I mean," said the youth gloomily. "And thatain't all that folks say. They allow that you're doin' a heap too muchcorrespondence with that Californian rough that killed Tom Jeffcourtover there."
"Do they?" said the young lady, with a slight curl of her pretty lip."Then perhaps they allow that if it wasn't for me he wouldn't be sendinga hundred dollars a month to Aunt Martha?"
"Yes," said the fatuous youth; "but they allow he killed Tom for hismoney. And they do say it's mighty queer doin's in yo' writin' religiousletters to him, and Tom your own cousin."
"Oh, they tell those lies HERE, do they? But do they say anything abouthow, when the same lies were told over in California, the lawyer they'vegot over there, called Colonel Starbottle,--a Southern man too,--got upand just wrote to Aunt Martha that she'd better quit that afore she gotprosecuted? They didn't tell you that, did they, Mister Chester Brooks?"
But here the unfortunate Brooks, after the fashion of all jealouslovers, deserted his allies for his fair enemy. "I don't cotton to whatTHEY say, Sally, but you DO write to him, and I don't see what you'vegot to write about--you and him. Jule Jeffcourt says that
when you gotreligion at Louisville during the revival, you felt you had a call towrite and save sinners, and you did that as your trial and probation,but that since you backslided and are worldly again, and go to parties,you just keep it up for foolin' and flirtin'! SHE ain't goin' to weakenon the man that shot her brother, just because he's got a gold mineand--a mustache!"
"She takes his MONEY all the same," said Miss Sally.
"SHE don't,--her mother does. SHE says if she was a man she'd have bloodfor blood!"
"My!" said Miss Sally, in affected consternation. "It's a wonder shedon't apply to you to act for her."
"If it was MY brother he killed, I'd challenge him quick enough," saidChet, flushing through his thin pink skin and light hair.
"Marry her, then, and that'll make you one of the family. I reckon MissHilda can bear it," rejoined the young lady pertly.
"Look here, Miss Sally," said the young fellow with a boyish despairthat was not without a certain pathos in its implied inferiority, "Iain't gifted like you--I ain't on yo' level no how; I can't pass yo' onthe road, and so I reckon I must take yo' dust as yo' make it. But thereis one thing, Miss Sally, I want to tell you. You know what's going onin this country, you've heard your father say what the opinion of thebest men is, and what's likely to happen if the Yanks force that niggerworshiper, Lincoln, on the South. You know that we're drawing the linecloser every day, and spottin' the men that ain't sound. Take care, MissSally, you ain't sellin' us cheap to some Northern Abolitionistwho'd like to set Marm Judy's little niggers to something worsethan eavesdropping down there, and mebbe teach 'em to kindle a fireunderneath yo' own flo'."
He had become quite dialectic in his appeal, as if youthfully revertingto some accent of the nursery, or as if he were exhorting her in somerecognized shibboleth of a section. Miss Sally rose and shut down thepiano. Then leaning over it on her elbows, her rounded little chinslightly elevated with languid impertinence, and one saucy foot kickedbackwards beyond the hem of her white cotton frock, she said: "And letme tell you, Mister Chester Brooks, that it's just such God-forsaken,infant phenomenons as you who want to run the whole country that makeall this fuss, when you ain't no more fit to be trusted with matchesthan Judy's children. What do YOU know of Mr. Jo Corbin, when you don'teven know that he's from Shelbyville, and as good a Suth'ner as you, andif he hasn't got niggers it's because they don't use them in his parts?Yo'r for all the world like one o' Mrs. Johnson's fancy bantams thatain't quit of the shell afore they square off at their own mother. Mygoodness! Sho! Sho-o-o!" And suiting the action to the word the younglady, still indolently, even in her simulation, swirled around, caughther skirts at the side with each hand, and lazily shaking them beforeher in the accepted feminine method of frightening chickens as sheretreated backwards, dropped them suddenly in a profound curtsey andswept out of the parlor.
Nevertheless, as she entered the sitting-room she paused to listen,then, going to the window, peeped through the slits of the Venetianblind and saw her youthful admirer, more dejected in the consciousnessof his wasted efforts and useless attire, mount his showy young horse,as aimlessly spirited as himself, and ride away. Miss Sally did notregret this; neither had she been entirely sincere in her defense of hermysterious correspondent. But, like many of her sex, she was trying tokeep up by the active stimulus of opposition an interest that she hadbegun to think if left to itself might wane. She was conscious thather cousin Julia, although impertinent and illogical, was right inconsidering her first epistolary advances to Corbin as a youthfulconvert's religious zeal. But now that her girlish enthusiasm was spent,and the revival itself had proved as fleeting an excitement as the old"Tournament of Love and Beauty," which it had supplanted, she preferredto believe that she enjoyed the fascinating impropriety because it wasthe actual result of her religious freedom. Perhaps she had a vague ideathat Corbin's conversion would expiate her present preference for dressand dancing. She had certainly never flirted with him; they had neverexchanged photographs; there was not a passage in his letters that mightnot have been perused by her parents,--which, I fear, was probably onereason why she had never shown her correspondence; and beyond the factthat this letter-writing gave her a certain importance in her owneyes and those of her companions, it might really be stopped. She eventhought of writing at once to him that her parents objected to itsfurther continuance, but remembering that his usual monthly letter wasnow nearly due, she concluded to wait until it came.
It is to be feared that Miss Sally had little help in the way of familyadvice, and that the moral administration of the Dows household was asprematurely developed and as precociously exhausted as the estate andmansion themselves. Captain Dows' marriage with Josephine Jeffcourt,the daughter of a "poor white," had been considered a mesalliance by hisfamily, and his own sister, Miranda Dows, had abandoned her brother'sroof and refused to associate with the Jeffcourts, only returning tothe house and an armed neutrality at the death of Mrs. Dows a few yearslater. She had taken charge of Miss Sally, sending her to school atNashville until she was recalled by her father two years ago. It may beimagined that Miss Sally's correspondence with Jeffcourt's murderer hadafforded her a mixed satisfaction; it was at first asserted that MissSally's forgiveness was really prompted by "Miss Mirandy," as a subtlesarcasm upon the family. When, however, that forgiveness seemed tobecome a source of revenue to the impoverished Jeffcourts, her Christianinterference had declined.
For this reason, possibly, the young girl did not seek her aunt inthe bedroom, the dining-room, or the business-room, where MissMiranda frequently assisted Captain Dows in the fatuous and prejudicedmismanagement of the house and property, nor in any of the vacantguest-rooms, which, in their early wreck of latter-day mahogany androsewood, seemed to have been unoccupied for ages, but went directly toher own room. This was in the "L," a lately added wing that had escapedthe gloomy architectural tyranny of the main building, and gave MissSally light, ventilation, the freshness and spice of new pine boards andclean paper, and a separate entrance and windows on a cool veranda allto herself. Intended as a concession to the young lady's traveled taste,it was really a reversion to the finer simplicity of the pioneer.
New as the apartment appeared to be, it was old enough to containthe brief little records of her maidenhood: the childish samplers andpictures; the sporting epoch with its fox-heads, opossum and wild-catskins, riding-whip, and the goshawk in a cage, which Miss Sally believedcould be trained as a falcon; the religious interval of illustratedtexts, "Rock of Ages," cardboard crosses, and the certificate of hermembership with "The Daughters of Sion" at the head of her little bed,down to the last decadence of frivolity shown in the be-ribboned guitarin the corner, and the dance cards, favors, and rosettes, militarybuttons, dried bouquets, and other love gages on the mantelpiece.
The young girl opened a drawer of her table and took out a small packetof letters tied up with a green ribbon. As she did so she heard thesound of hoofs in the rear courtyard. This was presently followed bya step on the veranda, and she opened the door to her father with theletters still in her hand. There was neither the least embarrassment norself-consciousness in her manner.
Captain Dows, superficially remarkable only for a certain oddcombination of high military stock and turned-over planter's collar, wasslightly exalted by a sympathetic mingling of politics and mint julepat Pineville Court House. "I was passing by the post-office at the CrossRoads last week, dear," he began, cheerfully, "and I thought of you, andreckoned it was about time that my Pussy got one of her letters from herrich Californian friend--and sure enough there was one. I clean forgotto give it to you then, and only remembered it passing there to-day. Ididn't get to see if there was any gold-dust in it," he continued, withgreat archness, and a fatherly pinch of her cheek; "though I suspectthat isn't the kind of currency he sends to you."
"It IS from Mr. Corbin," said Miss Sally, taking it with a languid kindof doubt; "and only now, paw, I was just thinking that I'd sort of dropwriting any more; it makes a good deal of buzzing a
mongst the neighbors,and I don't see much honey nor comb in it."
"Eh," said the Captain, apparently more astonished than delighted athis daughter's prudence. "Well, child, suit yourself! It's mighty mean,though, for I was just thinking of telling you that Judge Read is anold friend of this Colonel Starbottle, who is your friend's friend andlawyer, and he says that Colonel Starbottle is WITH US, and workingfor the cause out there, and has got a list of all the So'thern menin California that are sound and solid for the South. Read says heshouldn't wonder if he'd make California wheel into line too."
"I don't see what that's got to do with Mr. Corbin," said the younggirl, impatiently, flicking the still unopened letter against the packetin her hand.
"Well," said the Captain, with cheerful vagueness, "I thought it mightinterest you,--that's all," and lounged judicially away.
"Paw thinks," said Miss Sally, still standing in the doorway,ostentatiously addressing her pet goshawk, but with one eye followingher retreating parent, "Paw thinks that everybody is as keen bent onpolitics as he is. There's where paw slips up, Jim."
Re-entering the room, scratching her little nose thoughtfully with theedge of Mr. Corbin's letter, she went to the mantelpiece and picked up asmall ivory-handled dagger, the gift of Joyce Masterton, aged eighteen,presented with certain verses addressed to a "Daughter of the South,"and cut open the envelope. The first glance was at her own name, andthen at the signature. There was no change in the formality; it was"Dear Miss Sarah," and "Yours respectfully, Jo Corbin," as usual. Shewas still secure. But her pretty brows contracted slightly as she readas follows:--
"I've always allowed I should feel easier in my mind if I could ever getto see Mrs. Jeffcourt, and that may be she might feel easier in hers ifI stood before her, face to face. Even if she didn't forgive me at once,it might do her good to get off what she had on her mind against me. Butas there wasn't any chance of her coming to me, and it was out of thequestion my coming to her and still keeping up enough work in the minesto send her the regular money, it couldn't be done. But at last I've gota partner to run the machine when I'm away. I shall be at Shelbyville bythe time this reaches you, where I shall stay a day or two to give youtime to break the news to Mrs. Jeffcourt, and then come on. You will dothis for me in your Christian kindness, Miss Dows--won't you? and ifyou could soften her mind so as to make it less hard for me I shall begrateful.
"P. S.--I forgot to say I have had HIM exhumed--you know who I mean--andam bringing him with me in a patent metallic burial casket,--the bestthat could be got in 'Frisco, and will see that he is properly buriedin your own graveyard. It seemed to me that it would be the best thingI could do, and might work upon her feelings--as it has on mine. Don'tyou?
"J. C."
Miss Sally felt the tendrils of her fair hair stir with consternation.The letter had arrived a week ago; perhaps he was in Pineville at thatvery moment! She must go at once to the Jeffcourts,--it was only a miledistant. Perhaps she might be still in time; but even then it was aterribly short notice for such a meeting. Yet she stopped to select hernewest hat from the closet, and to tie it with the largest of bows underher pretty chin; and then skipped from the veranda into a green lanethat ran beside the garden boundary. There, hidden by a hedge, shedropped into a long, swinging trot, that even in her haste still keptthe languid deliberation characteristic of her people, until she hadreached the road. Two or three hounds in the garden started joyouslyto follow her, but she drove them back with a portentous frown, and anill-aimed stone, and a suppressed voice. Yet in that backward glance shecould see that her little Eumenides--Mammy Judy's children--were peeringat her from below the wooden floor of the portico, which they weregrasping with outstretched arms and bowed shoulders, as if they wereblack caryatides supporting--as indeed their race had done for many ayear--the pre-doomed and decaying mansion of their master.
CHAPTER III.
Happily Miss Sally thought more of her present mission than of thepast errors of her people. The faster she walked the more vividly shepictured the possible complications of this meeting. She knew the dull,mean nature of her aunt, and the utter hopelessness of all appeal toanything but her selfish cupidity, and saw in this fatuous essay ofCorbin only an aggravation of her worst instincts. Even the dead bodyof her son would not only whet her appetite for pecuniary vengeance,but give it plausibility in the eyes of their emotional but ignorantneighbors. She had still less to hope from Julia Jeffcourt's more honestand human indignation but equally bigoted and prejudiced intelligence.It is true they were only women, and she ought to have no fear of thatphysical revenge which Julia had spoken of, but she reflected that MissJeffcourt's unmistakable beauty, and what was believed to be a "trulySouthern spirit," had gained her many admirers who might easily takeher wrongs upon their shoulders. If her father had only given her thatletter before, she might have stopped Corbin's coming at all; she mighteven have met him in time to hurry him and her cousin's provocativeremains out of the country. In the midst of these reflections she hadto pass the little hillside cemetery. It was a spot of great naturalbeauty, cypress-shadowed and luxuriant. It was justly celebrated inPineville, and, but for its pretentious tombstones, might have beenpeaceful and suggestive. Here she recognized a figure just turning fromits gate. It was Julia Jeffcourt.
Her first instinct--that she was too late and that her cousin had cometo the cemetery to make some arrangements for the impending burial--was,however, quickly dissipated by the young girl's manner.
"Well, Sally Dows, YOU here! who'd have thought of seeing you to-day?Why, Chet Brooks allowed that you danced every set last night anddidn't get home till daylight. And you--you that are going to show upat another party to-night too! Well, I reckon I haven't got that muchambition these times. And out with your new bonnet too."
There was a slight curl of her handsome lip as she looked at her cousin.She was certainly a more beautiful girl than Miss Sally; very tall, darkand luminous of eye, with a brunette pallor of complexion, suggesting,it was said, that remote mixture of blood which was one of the unprovencounts of Miss Miranda's indictment against her family. Miss Sallysmiled sweetly behind her big bow. "If you reckon to tie to everythingthat Chet Brooks says, you'll want lots of string, and you won't be safethen. You ought to have heard him run on about this one, and that one,and that other one, not an hour ago in our parlor. I had to pack himoff, saying he was even making Judy's niggers tired." She stopped andadded with polite languor, "I suppose there's no news up at yo' houseeither? Everything's going on as usual--and--you get yo' Californiadraft regularly?"
A good deal of the white of Julia's beautiful eyes showed as she turnedindignantly on the speaker. "I wish, cousin Sally, you'd just let uptalking to me about that money. You know as well as I do that I allowedto maw I wouldn't take a cent of it from the first! I might have had allthe gowns and bonnets"--with a look at Miss Sally's bows--"I wanted fromher; she even offered to take me to St. Louis for a rig-out--if I'd beenwilling to take blood money. But I'd rather stick to this old sleazymou'nin' for Tom"--she gave a dramatic pluck at her faded blackskirt--"than flaunt round in white muslins and China silks at tendollars a yard, paid for by his murderer."
"You know black's yo' color always,--taking in your height andcomplexion, Jule," said Miss Sally demurely, yet not without a feminineconsciousness that it really did set off her cousin's graceful figure toperfection. "But you can't keep up this gait always. You know some dayyou might come upon this Mr. Corbin."
"He'd better not cross my path," she said passionately.
"I've heard girls talk like that about a man and then get just greenand yellow after him," said Miss Sally critically. "But goodness me!speaking of meeting people reminds me I clean forgot to stop at thestage office and see about bringing over the new overseer. Lucky I metyou, Jule! Good-by, dear. Come in to-night, and we'll all go to theparty together." And with a little nod she ran off before herindignant cousin could frame a suitably crushing reply to her Parthianinsinuation.
But at the st
age office Miss Sally only wrote a few lines on a card, putit in an envelope, which she addressed to Mr. Joseph Corbin, and thenseating herself with easy carelessness on a long packing-box, languidlysummoned the proprietor.
"You're always on hand yourself at Kirby station when the kyars come into bring passengers to Pineville, Mr. Sledge?"
"Yes, Miss."
"Yo' haven't brought any strangers over lately?"
"Well, last week Squire Farnham of Green Ridge--if he kin be called astranger--as used to live in the very house yo father"--
"Yes, I know," said Miss Sally, impatiently, "but if an ENTIRE strangercomes to take a seat for Pineville, you ask him if that's his name,"handing the letter, "and give it to him if it is. And--Mr. Sledge--it'snobody's business but--yours and mine."
"I understand, Miss Sally," with a slow, paternal, tolerating wink."He'll get it, and nobody else, sure."
"Thank you; I hope Mrs. Sledge is getting round again."
"Pow'fully, Miss Sally."
Having thus, as she hoped, stopped the arrival of the unhappy Corbin,Miss Sally returned home to consider the best means of finally disposingof him. She had insisted upon his stopping at Kirby and holding nocommunication with the Jeffcourts until he heard from her, and hadstrongly pointed out the hopeless infelicity of his plan. She darenot tell her Aunt Miranda, knowing that she would be too happy toprecipitate an interview that would terminate disastrously to boththe Jeffcourts and Corbin. She might have to take her father into herconfidence,--a dreadful contingency.
She was dressed for the evening party, which was provincially early;indeed, it was scarcely past nine o'clock when she had finished hertoilet, when there came a rap at her door. It was one of Mammy Judy'schildren.
"Dey is a gemplum, Miss Sally."
"Yes, yes," said Miss Sally, impatiently, thinking only of her escort."I'll be there in a minute. Run away. He can wait."
"And he said I was to guv yo' dis yer," continued the little negro withportentous gravity, presenting a card.
Miss Sally took it with a smile. It was a plain card on which waswritten with a pencil in a hand she hurriedly recognized, "JosephCorbin."
Miss Sally's smile became hysterically rigid, and pushing the boy asidewith a little cry, she darted along the veranda and entered the parlorfrom a side door and vestibule. To her momentary relief she saw that herfriends had not yet arrived: a single figure--a stranger's--rose as sheentered.
Even in her consternation she had time to feel the added shock ofdisappointment. She had always present in her mind an ideal picture ofthis man whom she had never seen or even heard described. JosephCorbin had been tall, dark, with flowing hair and long mustache. Hehad flashing fiery eyes which were capable of being subdued by asingle glance of gentleness--her own. He was tempestuous, quick, andpassionate, but in quarrel would be led by a smile. He was a combinationof an Italian brigand and a poker player whom she had once met on aMississippi steamboat. He would wear a broad-brimmed soft hat, a redshirt, showing his massive throat and neck--and high boots! Alas! theman before her was of medium height, with light close-cut hair, hollowcheeks that seemed to have been lately scraped with a razor, andlight gray troubled eyes. A suit of cheap black, ill fitting, hastilyacquired, and provincial even for Pineville, painfully set off theseimperfections, to which a white cravat in a hopelessly tied bowwas superadded. A terrible idea that this combination of a countryundertaker and an ill-paid circuit preacher on probation was his bestholiday tribute to her, and not a funeral offering to Mr. Jeffcourt,took possession of her. And when, with feminine quickness, she saw hiseyes wander over her own fine clothes and festal figure, and sink againupon the floor in a kind of hopeless disappointment equal to herown, she felt ready to cry. But the more terrible sound of laughterapproaching the house from the garden recalled her. Her friends werecoming.
"For Heaven's sake," she broke out desperately, "didn't you get my noteat the station telling you not to come?"
His face grew darker, and then took up its look of hopeless resignation,as if this last misfortune was only an accepted part of his greatertrouble, as he sat down again, and to Miss Sally's horror, listlesslyswung his hat to and fro under his chair.
"No," he said, gloomily, "I didn't go to no station. I walked here allthe way from Shelbyville. I thought it might seem more like the squarething to her for me to do. I sent HIM by express ahead in the box. It'sbeen at the stage office all day."
With a sickening conviction that she had been sitting on her cousin'sbody while she wrote that ill-fated card, the young girl managed to gaspout impatiently: "But you must go--yes--go now, at once! Don't talk now,but go."
"I didn't come here," he said, rising with a kind of slow dignity, "tointerfere with things I didn't kalkilate to see," glancing again at herdress, as the voices came nearer, "and that I ain't in touch with,--butto know if you think I'd better bring him--or"--
He did not finish the sentence, for the door had opened suddenly, anda half-dozen laughing girls and their escorts burst into the room.But among them, a little haughty and still irritated from her lastinterview, was her cousin Julia Jeffcourt, erect and beautiful in asombre silk.
"Go," repeated Miss Sally, in an agonized whisper. "You must not beknown here."
But the attention of Julia had been arrested by her cousin's agitation,and her eye fell on Corbin, where it was fixed with some fatalfascination that seemed in turn to enthrall and possess him also. ToMiss Sally's infinite dismay the others fell back and allowed these twoblack figures to stand out, then to move towards each other with thesame terrible magnetism. They were so near she could not repeat herwarning to him without the others hearing it. And all hope died whenCorbin, turning deliberately towards her with a grave gesture in thedirection of Julia, said quietly:--
"Interduce me."
Miss Sally hesitated, and then gasped hastily, "Miss Jeffcourt."
"Yer don't say MY name. Tell her I'm Joseph Corbin of 'Frisco,California, who killed her brother." He stopped and turned towards her."I came here to try and fix things again--and I've brought HIM."
In the wondering silence that ensued the others smiled vacantly,breathlessly, and expectantly, until Corbin advanced and held out hishand, when Julia Jeffcourt, drawing hers back to her bosom with thepalms outward, uttered an inarticulate cry and--and spat in his face!
With that act she found tongue--reviling him, the house that harboredhim, the insolence that presented him, the insult that had been put uponher! "Are you men!" she added passionately, "who stand here with theman before you that killed my brother, and see him offer me his filthyvillainous hand--and dare not strike him down!"
And they dared not. Violently, blindly, stupidly moved though all theirinstincts, though they gathered hysterically around him, there wassomething in his dull self-containment that was unassailable and awful.For he wiped his face and breast with his handkerchief without a tremor,and turned to them with even a suggestion of relief.
"She's right, gentlemen," he said gravely. "She's right. It might havebeen otherwise. I might have allowed that it might be otherwise,--butshe's right. I'm a Soth'n man myself, gentlemen, and I reckon tounderstand what she has done. I killed the only man that had a right tostand up for her, and she has now to stand up for herself. But if shewants--and you see she allows she wants--to pass that on to some of you,or all of you, I'm willing. As many as you like, and in what wayyou like--I waive any chyce of weapon--I'm ready, gentlemen. I camehere--with HIM--for that purpose."
Perhaps it may have been his fateful resignation; perhaps it may havebeen his exceeding readiness,--but there was no response. He sat downagain, and again swung his hat slowly and gloomily to and fro under hischair.
"I've got him in a box at the stage office," he went on, apparently tothe carpet. "I had him dug up that I might bring him here, and mebbebury some of the trouble and difference along with his friends. Itmight be," he added, with a slightly glowering upward glance, as to anoverruling, but occasionally misdirecting Providen
ce,--"it might befrom the way things are piling up on me that some one might have rung inanother corpse instead o' HIM, but so far as I can judge, allowin' forthe space of time and nat'ral wear and tear--it's HIM!"
He rose slowly and moved towards the door in a silence that was as muchthe result of some conviction that any violent demonstration against himwould be as grotesque and monstrous as the situation, as of anythinghe had said. Even the flashing indignation of Julia Jeffcourt seemedto become suddenly as unnatural and incongruous as her brother's chiefmourner himself, and although she shrank from his passing figure sheuttered no word. Chester Brooks's youthful emotions, following theexpression of Miss Sally's face, lost themselves in a vague hystericsmile, and the other gentlemen looked sheepish. Joseph Corbin halted atthe door.
"Whatever," he said, turning to the company, "ye make up your mind todo about me, I reckon ye'd better do it AFTER the funeral. I'M alwaysready. But HE, what with being in a box and changing climate, had bettergo FIRST." He paused, and with a suggestion of delicacy in the momentarydropping of his eyelids, added,--"for REASONS."
He passed out through the door, on to the portico and thence into thegarden. It was noticed at the time that the half-dozen hounds lingeringthere rushed after him with their usual noisy demonstrations, but thatthey as suddenly stopped, retreated violently to the security of thebasement, and there gave relief to their feelings in a succession ofprolonged howls.
CHAPTER IV.
It must not be supposed that Miss Sally did not feel some contritionover the ineffective part she had played in this last episode.But Joseph Corbin had committed the unpardonable sin to a woman ofdestroying her own illogical ideas of him, which was worse than if hehad affronted the preconceived ideas of others, in which case she mightstill defend him. Then, too, she was no longer religious, and had no"call" to act as peacemaker. Nevertheless she resented Julia Jeffcourt'sinsinuations bitterly, and the cousins quarreled--not the first time intheir intercourse--and it was reserved for the latter to break the newsof Corbin's arrival with the body to Mrs. Jeffcourt.
How this was done and what occurred at that interview has not beenrecorded. But it was known the next day that, while Mrs. Jeffcourtaccepted the body at Corbin's hands,--and it is presumed the funeralexpenses also,--he was positively forbidden to appear either at theservices at the house or at the church. There had been some wild talkamong the younger and many of the lower members of the community,notably the "poor" non-slave-holding whites, of tarring and featheringJoseph Corbin, and riding him on a rail out of the town on the dayof the funeral, as a propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of ThomasJeffcourt; but it being pointed out by the undertaker that it mightinvolve some uncertainty in the settlement of his bill, together withsome reasonable doubt of the thorough resignation of Corbin, whoseprevious momentary aberration in that respect they were celebrating, theproject was postponed until AFTER THE FUNERAL. And here an unlooked-forincident occurred.
There was to be a political meeting at Kirby on that day, when certaindistinguished Southern leaders had gathered from the remoter SouthernStates. At the instigation of Captain Dows it was adjourned at the hourof the funeral to enable members to attend, and it was even rumored,to the great delight of Pineville, that a distinguished speaker or twomight come over to "improve the occasion" with some slight allusion tothe engrossing topic of "Southern Rights." This combined appeal tothe domestic and political emotions of Pineville was irresistible. TheSecond Baptist Church was crowded. After the religious service therewas a pause, and Judge Reed, stepping forward amid a breathless silence,said that they were peculiarly honored by the unexpected presence intheir midst "of that famous son of the South, Colonel Starbottle,"who had lately returned to his native soil from his adopted home inCalifornia. Every eye was fixed on the distinguished stranger as herose.
Jaunty and gallant as ever, femininely smooth-faced, yet polished andhigh colored as a youthful mask; pectorally expansive, and unfolding thewhite petals of his waistcoat through the swollen lapels of his coat,like a bursting magnolia bud, Colonel Starbottle began. The presentassociations were, he might say, singularly hallowed to him; not onlywas Pineville--a Southern centre--the recognized nursery of Southernchivalry, Southern beauty (a stately inclination to the pew in whichMiss Sally and Julia Jeffcourt sat), Southern intelligence, and Southernindependence, but it was the home of the lamented dead who had been,like himself and another he should refer to later, an adopted citizen ofthe Golden State, a seeker of the Golden Fleece, a companion of Jason.It was the home, fellow-citizens and friends, of the sorrowing sister ofthe deceased, a young lady whom he, the speaker, had as yet known onlythrough the chivalrous blazon of her virtues and graces by her attendantknights (a courteous wave towards the gallery where Joyce Masterton,Chester Brooks, Calhoun Bungstarter, and the embattled youth generallyof Pineville became empurpled and idiotic); it was the home of theafflicted widowed mother, also personally unknown to him, but with whomhe might say he had had--er--er--professional correspondence. But itwas not this alone that hallowed the occasion, it was a sentiment thatshould speak in trumpet-like tones throughout the South in this uprisingof an united section. It was the forgetfulness of petty strife, offamily feud, of personal wrongs in the claims of party! It might not beknown that he, the speaker, was professionally cognizant of one ofthese regrettable--should he say accidents?--arising from the chivalrouschallenge and equally chivalrous response of two fiery Southern spirits,to which they primarily owe their coming here that day. And he shouldtake it as his duty, his solemn duty, in that sacred edifice to proclaimto the world that in his knowledge as a professional man--as a man ofhonor, as a Southerner, as a gentleman, that the--er--circumstanceswhich three years ago led to the early demise of our lamented friendand brother, reflected only the highest credit equally on both of theparties. He said this on his own responsibility--in or out of thissacred edifice--and in or out of that sacred edifice he was personallyresponsible, and prepared to give the fullest satisfaction for it. Hewas also aware that it might not be known--or understood--that sincethat boyish episode the survivor had taken the place of the departedin the bereaved family and ministered to their needs with counseland--er--er--pecuniary aid, and had followed the body afoot across thecontinent that it might rest with its kindred dust. He was aware thatan unchristian--he would say but for that sacred edifice--a DASTARDLYattempt had been made to impugn the survivor's motives--to suggest anunseemly discord between him and the family, but he, the speaker, wouldnever forget the letter breathing with Christian forgiveness and repletewith angelic simplicity sent by a member of that family to his client,which came under his professional eye (here the professional eye for amoment lingered on the hysteric face of Miss Sally); he did not envy thehead or heart of a man who could peruse these lines--of which the mererecollection--er--er--choked the utterance of even a professionalman like--er--himself--without emotion. "And what, my friends andfellow-citizens," suddenly continued the Colonel, replacing his whitehandkerchief in his coat-tail, "was the reason why my client, Mr.Joseph Corbin--whose delicacy keeps him from appearing among thesemourners--comes here to bury all differences, all animosities, all pettypassions? Because he is a son of the South; because as a son of theSouth, as the representative, and a distant connection, I believe, ofmy old political friend, Major Corbin, of Nashville, he wishes hereand everywhere, at this momentous crisis, to sink everything in the oneall-pervading, all-absorbing, one and indivisible UNITY of the South inits resistance to the Northern Usurper! That, my friends, is the great,the solemn, the Christian lesson of this most remarkable occasion in myprofessional, political, and social experience."
Whatever might have been the calmer opinion, there was no doubt thatthe gallant Colonel had changed the prevailing illogical emotion ofPineville by the substitution of another equally illogical, and MissSally was not surprised when her father, touched by the Colonel'sallusion to his daughter's epistolary powers, insisted upon bringingJoseph Corbin home with him, and offering him the hospitality of
theDows mansion. Although the stranger seemed to yield rather from the factthat the Dows were relations of the Jeffcourts than from any personalpreference, when he was fairly installed in one of the appropriatelygloomy guest chambers, Miss Sally set about the delayed work ofreconciliation--theoretically accepted by her father, and cynicallytolerated by her Aunt Miranda. But here a difficulty arose which she hadnot foreseen. Although Corbin had evidently forgiven her defection onthat memorable evening, he had not apparently got over the revelation ofher giddy worldliness, and was resignedly apathetic and distrustful ofher endeavors. She was at first amused, and then angry. And her patiencewas exhausted when she discovered that he actually seemed more anxiousto conciliate Julia Jeffcourt than her mother.
"But she spat in your face," she said, indignantly.
"That's so," he replied, gloomily; "but I reckoned you said something inone of your letters about turning the other cheek when you were smitten.Of course, as you don't believe it now," he added with his upwardglance, "I suppose THAT'S been played on me, too."
But here Miss Sally's spirit lazily rebelled.
"Look here, Mr. Joseph JEREMIAH Corbin," she returned with languidimpertinence, "if instead of cavortin' round on yo' knees trying toconciliate an old woman who never had a stroke of luck till you killedher son, and a young girl who won't be above letting on afore you thinkit that your conciliatin' her means SPARKIN' her; if instead of thatfoolishness you'd turn your hand to trying to conciliate the folks hereand keep 'em from going into that fool's act of breaking up these UnitedStates; if instead of digging up second-hand corpses that's already beenput out of sight once you'd set to work to try and prevent the folksabout here from digging up their old cranks and their old whims, andtheir old women fancies, you'd be doing something like a Christian anda man! What's yo' blood-guiltiness--I'd like to know--alongside of theblood-guiltiness of those fools who are just wild to rush into it, ledby such turkey-cocks as yo' friend Colonel Starbottle? And you've beenfive years in California--a free State--and that's all yo' 've toted outof it--a dead body! There now, don't sit there and swing yo' hat underthat chyar, but rouse out and come along with me to the pawty if you canshake a foot, and show Miss Pinkney and the gyrls yo' fit for somethingmo' than to skirmish round as a black japanned spittoon for JuliaJeffcourt!" It is not recorded that Corbin accepted this cheerfulinvitation, but for a few days afterwards he was more darkly observantof, and respectful to, Miss Sally. Strange indeed if he had notnoticed--although always in his resigned fashion--the dull greenstagnation of the life around him, or when not accepting it as partof his trouble he had not chafed at the arrested youth and senilechildishness of the people. Stranger still if he had not at times beenstartled to hear the outgrown superstitions and follies of his youthvoiced again by grown-up men, and perhaps strangest of all if he had notvaguely accepted it all as the hereditary curse of that barbarism underwhich he himself had survived and suffered.
The reconciliation between himself and Mrs. Jeffcourt was superficiallyeffected, so far as a daily visit by him to the house indicated it tothe community, but it was also known that Julia was invariably absenton these occasions. What happened at those interviews did not transpire,but it may be surmised that Mrs. Jeffcourt, perhaps recognizing the factthat Corbin was really giving her all that he had to give, or possiblyhaving some lurking fear of Colonel Starbottle, was so far placated asto exhibit only the average ingratitude of her species towards a regularbenefactor. She consented to the erection of a small obelisk over herson's grave, and permitted Corbin to plant a few flowering shrubs,which he daily visited and took care of. It is said that on one of thesepilgrimages he encountered Miss Julia, apparently on the same errand,who haughtily retired. It was further alleged, on the authority of oneof Mammy Judy's little niggers, that those two black mourning figureshad been seen at nightfall sitting opposite to each other at the headand foot of the grave, and "glowerin'" at one another "like two hants."But when it was asserted on the same authority that their voices hadbeen later overheard uplifted in some vehement discussion over the graveof the impassive dead, great curiosity was aroused. Being pressed bythe eager Miss Sally to repeat some words or any words he had heard themsay, the little witness glibly replied, "Marse Linkum" (Lincoln), and"The Souf," and so, for the time, shipwrecked his testimony. But it wasrecalled six months afterwards. It was then that a pleasant spring daybrought madness and enthusiasm to a majority of Pineville, and batedbreath and awe to a few, and it was known with the tidings that theSouth had appealed to arms, that among those who had first responded tothe call was Joseph Corbin, an alleged "Union man," who had, however,volunteered to take that place in her ranks which might HAVE BEEN FILLEDBY THE MAN HE HAD KILLED. And then people forgot all about him.
*****
A year passed. It was the same place; the old familiar outlines of homeand garden and landscape. But seen now, in the choking breathlessness ofhaste, in the fitful changing flashes of life and motion around it,in intervals of sharp suspense or dazed bewilderment, it seemed to berecognized no longer. Men who had known it all their lives, hurrying tothe front in compact masses, scurrying to the rear in straggling line,or opening their ranks to let artillery gallop by, stared at it vaguely,and clattered or scrambled on again. The smoke of a masked batteryin the woods struggled and writhed to free itself from the clingingtreetops behind it, and sank back into a gray encompassing cloud. Thedust thrown up by a column of passing horse poured over the wall in onelong wave, and whitened the garden with its ashes. Throughout thedim empty house one no longer heard the sound of cannon, only a dullintermittent concussion was felt, silently bringing flakes of plasterfrom the walls, or sliding fragments of glass from the shatteredwindows. A shell, lifted from the ominous distance, hung uncertain inthe air and then descended swiftly through the roof; the whole housedilated with flame for an instant, smoke rolled slowly from the windows,and even the desolate chimneys started into a hideous mockery of life,and then all was still again. At such awful intervals the sun shone outbrightly, touched the green of the still sleeping woods and the red andwhite of a flower in the garden, and something in a gray uniform writhedout of the dust of the road, staggered to the wall, and died.
A mile down this road, growing more and more obscure with those risingand falling apparitions or the shapeless and rugged heaps terrible intheir helpless inertia by hedge and fence, arose the cemetery hill.Taken and retaken thrice that afternoon, the dead above it faroutnumbered the dead below; and when at last the tide of battle sweptaround its base into the dull, reverberating woods, and it emerged fromthe smoke, silenced and abandoned, only a few stragglers remained. Oneof them, leaning on his musket, was still gloomily facing the woods.
"Joseph Corbin," said a low, hurried voice.
He started and glanced quickly at the tombs around him. Perhaps it wasbecause he had been thinking of the dead,--but the voice sounded likeHIS. Yet it was only the SISTER, who had glided, pale and haggard, fromthe thicket.
"They are coming through the woods," she said quickly. "Run, or you'llbe taken. Why do you linger?"
"You know why," he said gloomily.
"Yes, but you have done yo' duty. You have done his work. The task isfinished now, and yo' free."
He did not reply, but remained gazing at the woods.
"Joseph," she said more gently, laying her trembling hand on his arm,"Joseph, fly--and--take me with you. For I was wrong, and I want you toforgive me. I knew your heart was not in this, and I ought not to haveasked you. Joseph--listen! I never wanted to avenge myself nor HIM whenI spat on your face. I wanted to avenge myself on HER. I hated her,because I thought she wanted to work upon you and use you for herself."
"Your mother," he said, looking at her.
"No," she said, with widely opened eyes, "you know who I mean--MissSally."
He looked at her wonderingly for a moment, but quickly bent hishead again in the direction of the road. "They are coming," he said,starting. "YOU must go. This is no place for you. Stop! it's toolat
e; you cannot go now until they have passed. Come here--crouch downhere--over this grave--so."
He almost forced her--kneeling down--upon the mound below the level ofthe shrubs, and then ran quickly himself a few paces lower down thehill to a more exposed position. She understood it. He wished to attractattention to himself. He was successful--a few hurried shots followedfrom the road, but struck above him.
He clambered back quickly to where she was still crouching.
"They were the vedettes," he said, "but they have fallen back on themain skirmish line and will be here in force in a moment. Go--while youcan." She had not moved. He tried to raise her--her hat fell off---hesaw blood oozing from where the vedette's bullet that had missed him hadpierced her brain.
And yet he saw in that pale dead face only the other face which heremembered now had been turned like this towards his own. It was verystrange. And this was the end, and this was his expiation! He raised hisown face humbly, blindly, despairingly to the inscrutable sky; it lookedback upon him from above as coldly as the dead face had from below.
Yet out of this he struck a faint idea that he voiced aloud in nearlythe same words which he had used to Colonel Starbottle only three yearsago. "It was with his own pistol too," he said, and took up his musket.
He walked deliberately down the hill, occasionally trying the stock ofhis musket in the loose earth, and at last suddenly remained motionless,in the attitude of leaning over it. At the same moment there was adistant shout; two thin parallel streams of blue and steel came issuingthrough the woods like a river, appeared to join tumultuously in theopen before the hill, and out of the tumult a mounted officer calledupon him to surrender.
He did not reply.
"Come down from there, Johnny Reb, I want to speak to you," called ayoung corporal.
He did not move.
"It's time to go home, Johnny."
No response.
The officer, who had been holding down his men with an unsworded butmasterful hand, raised it suddenly. A dozen shots followed. The menleaped forward, and dashing Corbin contemptuously aside streamed up thehill past him.
But he had neither heard nor cared. For they found he had alreadydeliberately transfixed himself through the heart on his own bayonet.