Red Rock: A Chronicle of Reconstruction

by Thomas Nelson Page

  CHAPTER XXIII

  TWO NEW RESIDENTS COME TO THE COUNTY

  Other changes than those already recorded had taken place in the yearsthat had passed since the day when Middleton and Thurston, on their wayto take command of a part of the conquered land, had found JacquelinGray outstretched under a tree at the little country station in the RedRock County. In this period Middleton had won promotion in the West,and a wound which had necessitated a long leave of absence and a tourabroad; and finally, his retirement from the service. Reely Thurston,who was now a Captain himself, declared that Middleton’s wound wasreceived in the South and not in the West, and that if such woundswere to be recognized, he himself ought to have been sent abroad. Thejolly little officer, however, if he wished to boast of wounds of thisnature, might have cited a later one; for he had for some time been adevoted admirer of Miss Ruth Welch, who had grown from a romping girlto a lively and very handsome young lady, and had, as Reely said ofher, the warmest heart toward all mankind, except a man in love withher, and the coldest toward him, of any girl in the world. However thismight be, she had turned a very stony heart toward Thurston in commonwith a number of others, and after a season or two at fashionablesummer-resorts was finding, or thinking she was finding, all meninsipid and life very commonplace and hollow. She declared that sheliked Thurston better than any other man except her father and a halfdozen or more others, all of whom labored under the sole disadvantageof being married, and she finally, as the price of the continuance ofthis somewhat measurable state of feeling, bound the Captain by themost solemn pledges never to so much as hint at any desire on his partfor a higher degree of affection.

  The little soldier would have sworn by all the gods, higher and lower,to anything that Ruth Welch proposed, for the privilege of being herslave; but he could no more have stopped bringing up the forbiddensubject when in her presence, than he could have sealed up the breathin his plump and manly bosom. He was always like a cat that in sight ofcream, though knowing he is on his good behavior, yet, with invinciblelonging, licks his chops.

  No doubt the game had additional zest for Captain Thurston from thedisapproval with which Mrs. Welch always regarded him. He neverapproached Miss Ruth without that lady fluttering around with thesemi-comical distress of an anxious hen that cannot see even thehouse-dog approach her chick, without ruffling her feathers and showingfight.

  This had thrown Thurston into a state of rather chronic opposition tothe good lady, and he revenged himself for the loss of the daughter, bya habit of apparently espousing whatever the mother disapproved of, whoon her part, lived in a constant effort to prove him in the wrong.

  He had even ventured to express open skepticism as to the wisdom ofthe steps Mrs. Welch and her Aid Society had been taking in theirphilanthropic efforts on behalf of the freedmen; giving expression tothe heretical doctrine that in the main the negroes had been humanelytreated before the war, and that the question should be dealt withnow from an economical rather than from a sentimental standpoint. Hegave it as his opinion that the people down there knew more about theNegro, and the questions arising out of the new conditions, than thosewho were undertaking to settle those questions, from a distance, andthat, if let alone, the questions would settle themselves. While as toLeech, the correspondent of Mrs. Welch’s society, he declared that hewould not believe anything he said.

  Nothing could have scandalized Mrs. Welch more than such an utterance.And it is probable that this attitude on Thurston’s part did as much asher real philanthropy to establish her in the extreme views she held.

  For some time past there had been appearing in the _Censor_, the chiefpaper in the city where the Welches lived, a series of letters givinga dreadful, and, what Mrs. Welch considered, a powerful account of theoutrages that were taking place in the South. According to the writer,the entire native white population were engaged in nothing but thesystematic murder and mutilation of unoffending negroes and Northernsettlers, who on their side were wholly without blame and received thispersecution with the most Christian and uncomplaining humility.

  The author’s name was not given, because, it was stated in theletters, if it were known, he would at once be murdered. Indeed, itwas declared that the letters were not written for publication at all,but were sent to a philanthropic organization composed of the best andmost benevolent ladies in the country, who would vouch for the highstanding of the noble Christian gentleman from whose pen the accountsemanated. As the letters were from the very section—indeed, from thevery neighborhood which Thurston always cited as an evidence of thebeneficent effect of his theory of moderation—Mrs. Welch, who was thehead of the organization to which Leech had written them, saved themfor the purpose of confounding and, once for all, disposing of CaptainThurston’s arguments, together with himself.

  So one morning when Thurston was calling on Ruth Mrs. Welch broughtin the whole batch of papers and plumped them down before him with atriumphant air.

  “Now, you read every word before you express an opinion,” she said,decisively.

  While Thurston read, Mrs. Welch, who was enjoying her triumph,annotated each letter with running comments. These impressed Ruthgreatly, but Thurston wilily kept his face from giving the slightestclew to his thoughts. When he was through reading, Mrs. Welch drew along breath of exultation.

  “Well, what do you say to that?”

  “I don’t believe it!” said Thurston, calmly.

  “What!” Mrs. Welch was lifted out of her chair by astonishment.

  “The writer of that is Jonadab Leech, one of the most unmitigated——”

  “Captain Thurston! You do not know what you are talking about!”exclaimed Mrs. Welch.

  “Do you mean to say Leech is not the writer of those letters?”

  “No, I did not say that,” said Mrs. Welch, who would have cut out hertongue before she would have uttered a falsehood.

  “I would not believe Leech on oath,” said the Captain, blandly.

  “Oh, well, if that’s the stand you take, there’s no use reasoning withyou.” And with a gesture expressive both of pity and sorrow that shemust wash her hands of him completely and forever, Mrs. Welch gatheredup her papers and indignantly swept from the room.

  When Thurston went away that day he had entrusted Ruth with an apologyfor Mrs. Welch capable of being expanded, as circumstances mightrequire, to an unlimited degree; for Ruth had explained to him how dearto her mother’s heart her charities were. But he had also given Ruthsuch sound reasons for his views regarding the people in the regionwhere he had been stationed that, however her principles remainedsteadfast, the sympathies of the girl had gone out to those whom hedescribed as in such incredible difficulties.

  “Ask Larry about Miss Blair Cary,” he said. “Ask him which is thebetter man, Dr. Cary or Jonadab Leech, and which he’d believe first,that Steve Allen, who is spoken of as such a ruffian, or Hiram Still,the martyr.”

  “And how about Miss Dockett?” Ruth’s eyes twinkled.

  “Miss Dockett?—Who is Miss Dockett?” The little Captain’s face wore socomical an expression of counterfeit innocence and sheepish guilt thatthe girl burst out laughing.

  “Have you been in love with so many Miss Docketts that you can’tremember which one lived down there?”

  “No—oh, the girl I am in love with? Miss Ruth—ah, Dockett wasn’t thename. It began with Wel—.” He looked at Ruth with so languishing anexpression that she held up a warning finger.

  “Remember.”

  He pretended to misunderstand her.

  “Certainly I remember—Ruth Welch.”

  Ruth gathered up her things to leave.

  “Please don’t go.—Now that just slipped out. I swear I’ll not sayanother word on the subject as long as I live, if you’ll just sit down.”

  “I can’t trust you.”

  “Yes, you can, I swear it; and I’ll tell you all about Miss Dockettand—Steve Allen.”

  This was too much for Ruth, and she reseated herself with impr
essivecondescension.

  Miss Welch was greatly interested for other reasons. Her father’shealth had not been very good of late, and he had been thinking ofgetting a winter home in the South, where he could be most of thetime out of doors, as an old wound in his chest still troubled himsometimes, and the doctors said he must not for the present spendanother winter in the North. He had been in correspondence with thisvery Mr. Still, who was spoken of so highly in those letters, about aplace just where this trouble was.

  Besides, a short time before this conversation of Ruth’s withThurston, Major Welch had received a letter from Middleton, who wasstill abroad, asking him to look into his affairs. He had alwaysenjoyed a large income, but of late it had, he stated, fallen off,owing, as Mr. Bolter, his agent, explained, to temporary complicationsgrowing out of extensive investments Bolter had made for him on jointaccount with himself in Southern enterprises. These investments, Mr.Bolter assured him, were perfectly safe and would yield in a shorttime immense profits, being guaranteed by the State, and managed bythe strongest and most successful men down there, who were themselvesdeeply interested in the schemes. It had happened, that the very namesBolter had given as a guarantee of the security of his investment, hadaroused Middleton’s anxiety, and though he had no reason, he said,to doubt Bolter, he did doubt Leech and Still, the men Bolter hadmentioned.

  Major Welch had made an investigation. And it had shown him that theinvestments referred to were so extensive as to involve a considerablepart of his cousin’s estate.

  Bolter gave Major Welch what struck the latter quite as an “audience,”though, when he learned the Major’s business, he suddenly unbent andbecame much more confidential, explaining everything with promptnessand clearness. Bolter was a strong-looking, stout man, with a roundhead and a strong face. His brow was rather low, but his eyes werekeen and his mouth firm. As he sat in his inner business office, withhis clerks in outer pens, he looked the picture of a successful,self-contained man.

  “Why, they fight a railroad coming into their country as if it were apublic enemy,” he said to Major Welch.

  “Then they must be pretty formidable antagonists.”

  “And I have gotten letters warning me and denouncing the men who haveplanned and worked up the matter—and who would carry it through ifthey were allowed to do so—as though they were thieves.”

  He rang a bell and sent for the letters. Among them was one from Dr.Cary and another from General Legaie. Though strangers, they saidthey wrote to him as one reported to be interested, and protestedagainst the scheme of Still and Leech, who were destroying the Stateand pillaging the people. They contrasted the condition of the Statebefore the war and at the present time. Dr. Cary’s letter stated that“for purposes of identification” he would say that both his father andgrandfather had been Governors of the State. General Legaie’s letterwas signed “Late General, C. S. A.”

  “What are you going to do with such people!” exclaimed Mr. Bolter.“They abuse those men as if they were pickpockets, and they are therichest and most influential men in that county, and Leech will,without doubt, be the next Governor.” He handed Major Welch a newspapercontaining a glowing account of Leech’s services to the Commonwealth,and a positive assertion that he would be the next Governor of theState.

  “What did you write them in reply?” asked Major Welch, who was takinganother glance at the letters.

  “Why, I wrote them that I believed I was capable of conducting myown affairs,” said the capitalist, with satisfaction, running hishands deep in his pockets; “and if they would stop thinking abouttheir grandfathers and the times before the war, and think a littlemore about their children and the present, it would be money in theirpockets.”

  “And what did they reply to that?”

  “Ah—why, I don’t believe I ever got any reply to that. I suppose themoss had covered them by that time,” he laughed. Major Welch lookedthoughtful, and the capitalist changed his tone.

  “In fact I had already made the investments, and I had to see themthrough. Major Leech is very friendly to me. It was through him we wereinduced to go into the enterprise—through him—and because of theopportunities it offered, at the same time that it was made perfectlysafe by the guarantee of both the counties and the States. He used tobe in my—in our—employ, and he is a very shrewd fellow, Leech is.That was the way we came to go in, and it doesn’t do to swap horses inthe stream.”

  “Mrs. Welch thinks very highly of him,” said Major Welch, meditatively.“She has had some correspondence with him on behalf of her charitablesociety for the freedmen, and she has been much impressed by him.”

  “My only question was whether he was not a little too philanthropic,”said Bolter, significantly. “But since I have come to find out, I guesshe has used his philanthropy pretty discreetly. He’s a very shrewdfellow.” His smile and manner grated on the Major somewhat.

  “Perhaps he is too shrewd?” he suggested, dryly.

  “Oh, no, not for me. I have made it a rule in life to treat every manas a rascal——”

  “Oh!” A shadow crossed the Major’s brow, which Bolter was quick tocatch.

  “Until I found out differently.”

  “I should think the other would have been rather inconvenient.” MajorWelch changed the subject. “But Captain Middleton had some sort oftrouble with this man, and has always had a dislike for him. And Ithink I shall go South and look into matters there.”

  “Oh, well, that’s nothing,” broke in Bolter, hotly. “What doesMiddleton know about business? That’s his trouble. These militaryofficers don’t understand the word. They are always stickling for theird—d dignity, and think if a man ain’t willing to wipe up the floor for’em he’s bound to be a rascal.”

  It was as much the sudden insolence in the capitalist’s tone, as hiswords that offended Major Welch. He rose to his feet.

  “I am not aware, that being officers, and having risked their lives tosave their country, necessarily makes men either more narrow or greaterfools than those who stayed at home,” he said, coldly.

  The other, after a sharp glance at him, was on his feet in an instant,his whole manner changed.

  “My dear sir. You have misunderstood me. I assure you you have.” And heproceeded to smooth the Major down with equal shrewdness and success;delivering a most warm and eloquent eulogy on patriotism in general,and on that of Captain Lawrence Middleton in particular. Truth to tell,it was not hard to do, as the Major was one of the most placable ofmen, except where a principle was involved; then he was rock.

  Bolter wound up by making Major Welch an offer, which the latter couldnot but consider handsome, to go South and represent his interests aswell as Middleton’s.

  “If he is going there he better be on my side than against me, and hishands would be tied then anyway,” reflected Bolter.

  “You will find our interests identical,” he said, seeing the Major’shesitation. “We are both in the same boat. And you will find that Ihave done by Mr. Middleton just what I have done for myself. And Ihave taken every precaution, of that you may be sure. And we are boundto win. We have the most successful men in the State with us, boundup by interest, and also as tight as paper can bind them. We have thelaw with us, the men who make, and the men who construe the law, andagainst us, only a few old moss-backs and soreheads. If they can beatthat combination I should like to see them do it.”

  The only doubt in Major Welch’s mind as to the propriety of a move tothe South was on account of his daughter.

  The condition of affairs there made no difference to Major Welchhimself—for he felt that he had the Union behind him—and he knew itmade none to Mrs. Welch. She had been working her hands off for twoyears to send things to the negroes through these men, Still and Leech.But with Ruth, who was the apple of her father’s eye, it might beanother matter.

  But when the subject was broached to Ruth, and she chimed in andsketched, with real enthusiasm, the delights of living in the South, inthe country—the real c
ountry—amid palm and orange groves, the Major’smind was set at rest. He only cautioned her against building herair-castles too high, as he knew there were no orange-groves where theywere going, and though there might be palms, he doubted if they were ofthe material sort, or very easy to obtain.

  Ruth’s ardor, however, was not to be damped just then.

  “Why, the South is the land of Romance, Papa.”

  “It will be if you are there,” smiled her father.

  It is said that curiosity is a potent motive with what used tobe called the gentler, and, occasionally, even the weaker sex, adistinction that for some time has been passing, if it has notaltogether passed, away. But far be it from the writer even to appearto give adherence to such a doctrine by anything that he may set downin this veracious chronicle. He does not recollect ever to have heardthis remark made by any of the thousands of women whom he has known,personally, or through books with which the press teems, and he feelssure that had it been true it would not have escaped their acuteobservation. In recording, therefore, the move of the Welches to theSouth he is simply reporting facts.

  On the occasion of the discussion between Mrs. Welch and CaptainThurston, Mrs. Welch was left by that gentleman in what, in a weakerwoman, might have been deemed a state of exasperation. After all thetrouble she had taken to secure the evidence to confound and annihilatethat young man, he had with a breath undermined her foundation, or,rather, had shown that her imposing fabric had no foundation whatever.He knew Leech, and she did not. She would now go and satisfy herselfby personal knowledge that she was right and he wrong—as she wellknew to be the case, anyhow. So, many people start out on a quest forinformation, not to test, but to prove, their opinions. Thus, whenMajor Welch came with the statement of the offer he had received, Mrs.Welch truthfully declared that she in some sort saw in it the hand ofProvidence. This was strengthened by a conversation with Miss Ruth, whoquoted Thurston’s opinion of Leech.

  “Captain Thurston, my dear!” said Mrs. Welch. “So light and frivolousa person as Captain Thurston is really incapable of forming a justopinion of such a man as Mr. Leech, whose letters breathe a spirit ofthe truest Christian humility, as well as the most exalted courageunder circumstances which might well make even a strong man quail. Ihope you will not quote Captain Thurston to me again. You know whatmy opinion of him has always been. I never could understand what yourfather’s and Lawrence Middleton’s infatuation for him was. Besides,you know that Captain Thurston was in love with some girl down in thatcountry, and when a man is in love he is absolutely irresponsible. Lovemakes a man a fool about everything.”

  Thus Mrs. Welch, so to speak, shot at, even if she did not kill, twobirds with one stone. If she did not kill this second bird it was nother fault, as the glance which she gave Ruth showed. Ruth’s face didnot wholly satisfy her, for she added:

  “Besides that, Mr. Bolter has been down there and he tells me that hethinks very highly of Major Leech.”

  “Oh, Mr. Bolter! I don’t like Mr. Bolter, and neither do you,” beganMiss Ruth.

  “My dear, that is very unreasonable; what possible cause can you haveto dislike Mr. Bolter, for you do not know him at all?”

  “I have met him. He did not go into the army; but stayed at home andmade money. Papa does not like him either.”

  “Don’t you see how illogical that is. We cannot dislike everyone whodid not go into the army.”

  “No, I know that.” Ruth pondered a moment and then broke out, laughing:“Why, mamma, I have given two reasons for not liking Mr. Bolter, andyou did not give any for disliking Captain Thurston.”

  “That is different,” replied Mrs. Welch, gravely, though she did notexplain precisely how, and perhaps Ruth did not see it.

  “Mamma,” burst out Ruth, warmly, her face glowing, “I believe in aman’s fighting for what he believes right. If I had been a man when thewar broke out I should have gone into it, and if I had lived at theSouth I should have fought for the South.”

  “Ruth!” exclaimed her mother, deeply shocked.

  “I would, mamma, I know I would, and you would too; for I know how muchtrouble you took to get an exchange for that young boy, Mr. Jacquelinor something, that Miss Bush, the nurse, was interested in.”

  “Ruth, I hope I shall never hear you say that again,” protested Mrs.Welch, warmly. “You do not understand.”

  “I think I do—I won’t say it again—but I have wanted to say it for along time, and I feel so much better for having said it, mamma.”

  So the conversation ended.

  It was decided that Major Welch and Ruth should go ahead and select aplace which they could rent until they should find one that exactlysuited them, and then Mrs. Welch, as soon as she could finish packingthe furniture and other things which they would want, should followthem.

  A week later, Ruth and her father found themselves in the old countyand almost at their journey’s end, in a region which though as far aspossible from Ruth’s conception of palm and orange groves, was to thegirl, shut up as she had been all her life in a city, not a whit lessromantic and strange.

  It was far wilder than she had supposed it would be. The land layfallow, or was cultivated only in patches; the woods were forests andseemed to stretch interminably; the fields were growing up in bushesand briars. And yet the birds flitted and sang in every thicket, andover everything rested an air of peace that sank into Ruth’s soul, asshe jolted along in a little rickety wagon which they had hired at thestation, and filled her with a sense of novelty and content. She wasalready beginning to feel something of the charm of which her cousin,Larry Middleton, and Captain Thurston were always talking. Some time,perhaps, she would see Blair Cary, about whom Reely Thurston was alwayshinting in connection with Larry Middleton; and she tried to picture toherself what she would be like—small and dark and very vivacious, orelse no doubt, haughty. She was sure she should not like her.

  On her father, however, the same surroundings that pleased Miss Ruthhad a very different effect. Major Welch had always carried in hismind the picture of this section as he remembered it the first time herode through it, when it was filled with fine plantations and pleasanthomesteads, and where, even during the war, the battle in which hehad been wounded had been fought amid orchards and rolling fields andpastures.

  At length, at the top of the hill they came to a fork, but though therewas an open field between the roads, such as Major Welch remembered,there was no church there; in the open field was only a great thicket,an acre or more in extent, and the field behind it was nothing but awilderness.

  “We’ve missed the road, just as I supposed,” said Major Welch. “Weought to have kept nearer to the river, and I will take this roadand strike the other somewhere down this way. I thought this countrylooked very different—and yet—?” He gazed all around him, at the openfields filled with bushes and briars, the rolling hills beyond, and therampart of blue spurs across the background.

  “No, we must have crossed Twist Creek lower down that day.” He turnedinto the road leading off from that they had been travelling, anddrove on. This way, however, the country appeared even wilder, and theyhad driven two or three miles before they saw anyone. Finally they cameon a man walking along, just where a footpath left the road and turnedacross the old field. He was a small, sallow fellow, very shabbilydressed, the only noticeable thing about him being his eyes, which wereboth keen and good-humored. Major Welch stopped him and inquired as totheir way.

  “Where do you want to go?” asked the man, politely.

  “I want to go to Mr. Hiram Still’s,” said the Major.

  The countryman gave him a quick glance.

  “Well, you can’t git there this way,” he said, his tone changed alittle; “the bridge is down, on this road and nobody don’t travelit much now—you’ll have to go back to Old Brick Church and takethe other road. There’s a new bridge on that road, but it’s sort o’rickety since these freshes, and you have to take to the old fordagain. One of Hiram’s and Jonada
b’s jobs,” he explained, with a note ofhostility in his voice. Then, in a more friendly tone, he added: “Thewater’s up still from last night’s rain, and the ford ain’t the bestno time, so you better not try it unless you have somebody as knowsit to set you right. I would go myself, but—” He hesitated, a littleembarrassed—and the Major at once protested.

  “No, indeed! Just tell me where is Old Brick Church.”

  “That fork back yonder where you turned is what’s called Old BrickChurch,” said the man; “that’s where it used to stand.”

  “What has become of the church?”

  “Pulled down during the war.”

  “Why don’t they rebuild it?” asked the Major, a little testily over theman’s manner.

  “Well, I s’pose they think it’s cheaper to leave it down,” said theman, dryly.

  “Is there any place where we could spend the night?” the Major asked,with a glance up at the sunset sky.

  “Oh, Hiram Still, he’s got a big house. He’ll take you in, if he gits achance,” he said, half grimly.

  “But I mean, if we get overtaken by night this side the river? You tellme the bridge is shaky and the ford filled up now. I have my daughteralong and don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Oh, papa, the idea! As if I couldn’t go anywhere you went,” put inRuth, suddenly.

  At the Major’s mention of his daughter, the man’s manner changed.

  “There’s Doct’r Cary’s,” he said, with a return of his first friendlytone. “They take everyone in. You just turn and go back by Old BrickChurch, and keep the main, plain road till you pass two forks on yourleft and three on your right, then turn in at the third you come toon your left, and go down a hill and up another, and you’re rightthere.” The Major and Ruth were both laughing; their director, however,remained grave.

  “Ain’t no fences nor gates to stop you. Just keep the main, plain road,like I tell you, and you can’t git out.”

  “I can’t? Well, I’ll see,” said the Major, and after an inquiring lookat the man, he turned and drove back.

  “What bright eyes he has,” said Ruth, but her father was pondering.

  “It’s a most curious thing; but that man’s face and voice were bothfamiliar to me,” said he, presently. “Quite as if I had seen thembefore in a dream. Did you observe how his whole manner changed as soonas I mentioned Still’s name? They are a most intractable people.”

  “But I’m sure he was very civil,” defended Ruth.

  “Civility costs nothing and often means nothing. Ah, well, we shallsee.” And the Major drove on.

  As they passed by the fork again, both travellers looked curiouslyacross at the great clump of trees rising out of the bushes and briars.The notes of a dove cooing in the soft light came from somewhere in thebrake. They made out a gleam of white among the bushes, but neitherof them spoke. Major Welch was recalling a night he had spent in thatchurch-yard amid the dead and the dying.

  Ruth was thinking of the description Middleton had given of thehandsome mansion and grounds of Dr. Cary, and was wondering if this Dr.Cary could be the same.