VI
COLLEGE DAYS
"My dear grandpa," wrote Dan during his first weeks at college, "I think Iam going to like it pretty well here after I get used to the professors.The professors are a great nuisance. They seem to forget that a fellow ofseventeen isn't a baby any longer.
"The Arcades are very nice, and the maples on the lawn remind me of thoseat Uplands, only they aren't nearly so fine. My room is rather small, butBig Abel keeps everything put away, so I manage to get along. Champe sleepsnext to me, and we are always shouting through the wall for Big Abel. Itell you, he has to step lively now.
"The night after we came, we went to supper at Professor Ball's. There wasa Miss Ball there who had a pair of big eyes, but girls are so silly.Champe talked to her all the evening and walked out to the graveyard withher the next afternoon. I don't see why he wants to spend so much of histime with young ladies. It's because they think him good-looking, I reckon.
"We are the only men who have horses here, so I am glad you made me bringPrince Rupert, after all. When I ride him into town, everybody turns tolook at him, and Batt Horsford, the stableman, says his trot is as clean asa razor. At first I wished I'd brought my hunter instead, they made such afuss over Champe's, and I tell you he's a regular timber-topper.
"A week ago I rode to the grave of Mr. Jefferson, as I promised you, but Icouldn't carry the wreath for grandma because it would have lookedsilly--Champe said so. However, I made Big Abel get down and pull a fewflowers on the way.
"You know, I had always thought that only gentlemen came to the University,but whom do you think I met the first evening?--why, the son of oldRainy-day Jones. What do you think of that? He actually had the impudenceto pass himself off as one of the real Joneses, and he was going with allthe men. Of course, I refused to shake hands with him--so did Champe--and,when he wanted to fight me, I said I fought only gentlemen. I wish youcould have seen his face. He looked as old Rainy-day did when he hit thefree negro Levi, and I knocked him down.
"By the way, I wish you would please send me my half-year's pocket money ina lump, if you can conveniently do so. There is a man here who is workinghis way through Law, and his mother has just lost all her money, so, unlesssome one helps him, he'll have to go out and work before he takes hisdegree. I've promised to lend him my half-year's allowance--I said 'lend'because it might hurt his feelings; but, of course, I don't want him to payit back. He's a great fellow, but I can't tell you his name--I shouldn'tlike it in his place, you know.
"The worst thing about college life is having to go to classes. If itwasn't for that I should be all right, and, anyway, I am solid on my Greekand Latin--but I can't get on with the higher mathematics. Mr. Bennettcouldn't drive them into my head as he did into Champe's.
"I hope grandma has entirely recovered from her lumbago. Tell her Mrs. Ballsays she was cured by using red pepper plasters.
"Do you know, by the way, that I left my half-dozen best waistcoats--theembroidered ones--in the bottom drawer of my bureau, at least Big Abelswears that's where he put them. I should be very much obliged if grandmawould have them fixed up and sent to me--I can't do without them. A greatmany gentlemen here are wearing coloured cravats, and Charlie Morson'sbrother, who came up from Richmond for a week, has a pair of side whiskers.He says they are fashionable down there, but I don't like them.
"With affectionate greeting to grandma and yourself,
"Your dutiful grandson,
"DANDRIDGE MONTJOY."
"P.S. I am using my full name now--it will look better if I am everPresident. I wonder if Mr. Jefferson was ever called plain Tom.
"DAN."
"N.B. Give my love to the little girls at Uplands.
"D."
The Major read the letter aloud to his wife while she sat knitting by thefireside, with Mitty holding the ball of yarn on a footstool at her feet.
"What do you think of that, Molly?" he asked when he had finished, hisvoice quivering with excitement.
"Red pepper plasters!" returned the old lady, contemptuously. "As if Ihadn't been making them for Cupid for the last twenty years. Red pepperplasters, indeed! Why, they're no better than mustard ones. I reckon I'vemade enough of them to know."
"I don't mean that, Molly," explained the Major, a little crestfallen. "Iwas speaking of the letter. That's a fine letter, now, isn't it?"
"It might be worse," admitted Mrs. Lightfoot, coolly; "but for my part, Idon't care to have my grandson upon terms of equality with any of thatrascal Jones's blood. Why, the man whips his servants."
"But he isn't upon any terms, my dear. He refused to shake hands with him,didn't you hear that? Perhaps I'd better read the letter again."
"That is all very well, Mr. Lightfoot," said his wife, clicking herneedles, "but it can't prevent his being in classes with him, all the same.And I am sure, if I had known the University was so little select, I shouldhave insisted upon sending him to Oxford, where his great-grandfather wentbefore him."
"Good gracious, Molly! You don't wish the lad was across the ocean, doyou?"
"It matters very little where he is so long as he is a gentleman," returnedthe old lady, so sharply that Mitty began to unwind the worsted rapidly.
"Nonsense, Molly," protested the Major, irritably, for he could not standopposition upon his own hearth-rug. "The boy couldn't be hurt by sitting inthe same class with the devil himself--nor could Champe, for that matter.They are too good Lightfoots."
"I am not uneasy about Champe," rejoined his wife. "Champe has never beenhumoured as Dan has been, I'm glad to say."
The Major started up as red as a beet.
"Do you mean that I humour him, madam?" he demanded in a terrible voice.
"Do pray, Mr. Lightfoot, you will frighten Mitty to death," said his wife,reprovingly, "and it is really very dangerous for you to excite yourselfso--you remember the doctor cautioned you against it." And, by the time theMajor was thoroughly depressed, she skilfully brought out her point. "Ofcourse you spoil the child to death. You know it as well as I do."
The Major, with the fear of apoplexy in his mind, had no answer on histongue, though a few minutes later he showed his displeasure by orderinghis horse and riding to Uplands to talk things over with the Governor.
"I am afraid Molly is breaking," he thought gloomily, as he rode along."She isn't what she was when I married her fifty years ago."
But at Uplands his ill humour was dispelled. The Governor read the letterand declared that Dan was a fine lad, "and I'm glad you haven't spoiledhim, Major," he said heartily. "Yes, they're both fine lads and do youhonour."
"So they do! so they do!" exclaimed the Major, delightedly. "That's justwhat I said to Molly, sir. And Dan sends his love to the little girls," headded, smiling upon Betty and Virginia, who stood by.
"Thank you, sir," responded Virginia, prettily, looking at the old man withher dovelike eyes; but Betty tossed her head--she had an imperative littletoss which she used when she was angry. "I am only three years younger thanhe is," she said, "and I'm not a little girl any longer--Mammy has had tolet down all my dresses. I am fourteen years old, sir."
"And quite a young lady," replied the Major, with a bow. "There are not twohandsomer girls in the state, Governor, which means, of course, that thereare not two handsomer girls in the world, sir. Why, Virginia's eyes arealmost a match for my Aunt Emmeline's, and poets have immortalized hers. Doyou recall the verses by the English officer she visited in prison?--
"'The stars in Rebel skies that shine Are the bright orbs of Emmeline.'"
"Yes, I remember," said the Governor. "Emmeline Lightfoot is as famous asDiana," then his quick eyes caught Betty's drooping head, "and what of thislittle lady?" he asked, patting her shoulder. "There's not a brighter smilein Virginia than hers, eh, Major?"
But the Major was not to be outdone when there were compliments to beexchanged.
"Her hair is like the sunshine," he began, and checked himself, for at thefirst mention of her hair Betty had fled.
It was on this afternoon that she brewed a dye of walnut juice and carriedit in secret to her room. She had loosened her braids and was about toplunge her head into the basin when Mrs. Ambler came in upon her. "Why,Betty! Betty!" she cried in horror.
Betty turned with a start, wrapped in her shining hair. "It is the onlything left to do, mamma," she said desperately. "I am going to dye it. Itisn't ladylike, I know, but red hair isn't ladylike either. I have triedconjuring, and it won't conjure, so I'm going to dye it."
"Betty! Betty!" was all Mrs. Ambler could say, though she seized the basinand threw it from the window as if it held poison. "If you ever let thatstuff touch your hair, I--I'll shave your head for you," she declared asshe left the room; but a moment afterward she looked in again to add, "Yourgrandmamma had red hair, and she was the beauty of her day--there, now, youought to be ashamed of yourself!"
So Betty smiled again, and when Virginia came in to dress for supper, shefound her parading about in Aunt Lydia's best bombazine gown.
"This is how I'll look when I'm grown up," she said, the corner of her eyeon her sister.
"You'll look just lovely," returned Virginia, promptly, for she always saidthe sweetest thing at the sweetest time.
"And I'm going to look like this when Dan comes home next summer," resumedBetty, sedately.
"Not in Aunt Lydia's dress?"
"You goose! Of course not. I'm going to get Mammy to make me a Swiss muslindown to the ground, and I'm going to wear six starched petticoats because Ihaven't any hoops. I'm just wild to wear hoops, aren't you, Virginia?"
"I reckon so," responded Virginia, doubtfully; "but it will be hard to sitdown, don't you think?"
"Oh, but I know how," said Betty. "Aunt Lydia showed me how to do itgracefully. You give a little kick--ever so little and nobody sees it--andthen you just sink into your seat. I can do it well."
"You were always clever," exclaimed Virginia, as sweetly as before. She wasparting her satiny hair over her forehead, and the glass gave back ayouthful likeness of Mrs. Ambler. She was the beauty of the family, and sheknew it, which made her all the lovelier to Betty.
"I declare, your freckles are all gone," she said, as her sister's headlooked over her shoulder. "I wonder if it is the buttermilk that has madeyou so white?"
"It must be that," admitted Betty, who had used it faithfully for the sixtynights. "Aunt Lydia says it works wonders." Then, as she looked at herself,her eyes narrowed and she laughed aloud. "Why, Dan won't know me," shecried merrily.
But whatever hopes she had of Dan withered in the summer. When he came homefor the holidays, he brought with him an unmistakable swagger and a supplyof coloured neckerchiefs. On his first visit to Uplands he called Virginia"my pretty child," and said "Good day, little lady," to Betty. He carriedhimself like an Indian, as the Governor put it, and he was very lithe andmuscular, though he did not measure up to Champe by half a head. It was theMontjoy blood in him, people thought, for the Lightfoots were all of greatheight, and he had, too, a shock of his father's coarse black hair, whichflared stiffly above the brilliant Lightfoot eyes. As he galloped along theturnpike on Prince Rupert, the travelling countrymen turned to look afterhim, and muttered that "dare-devil Jack Montjoy had risen from hisgrave--if he had a grave."
Once he met Betty at the gate, and catching her up before him, dashed withher as far as Aunt Ailsey's cabin and back again. "You are as light as afly," he said with a laugh, "and not much bigger. There, take your hair outof my eyes, or I'll ride amuck."
Betty caught her hair in one hand and drew it across her breast. "This islike--" she began gayly, and checked herself. She was thinking of "thatdevil Jack Montjoy and Jane Lightfoot."
"I must take my chance now," said Dan, in his easy, masterful way. "Youwill be too old for this by next year. Why, you will be in long dressesthen, and Virginia--have you noticed, by the way, what a beauty Virginia isgoing to be?"
"She is just lovely," heartily agreed Betty. "She's prettier than yourGreat-aunt Emmeline, isn't she?"
"By George, she is. And I've been in love with Great-aunt Emmeline for tenyears because I couldn't find her match. I say, don't let anybody go offwith Virginia while I'm at college, will you?"
"All right," said Betty, and though she smiled at him through her hair, hersmile was not so bright as it had been. It was all very well to hearVirginia praised, she told herself, but she should have liked it better hadDan been a little less emphatic. "I don't think any one is going to run offwith her," she added gravely, and let the subject of her sister's beautypass.
But at the end of the week, when Dan went back to college, her loyal heartreproached her, and she confided to Virginia that "he thought her a greatdeal lovelier than Great-aunt Emmeline."
"Really?" asked Virginia, and determined to be very nice to him when hecame home for the holidays.
"But what does he say about you?" she inquired after a moment.
"About me?" returned Betty. "Oh, he doesn't say anything about me, exceptthat I am kind."
Virginia stooped and kissed her. "You are kind, dear," she said in hersweetest voice.
And "kind," after all, was the word for Betty, unless Big Abel had foundone when he said, "She is des all heart." It was Betty who had trampedthree miles through the snow last Christmas to carry her gifts to the freenegro Levi, who was "laid up" and could not come to claim his share; and itwas Betty who had asked as a present for herself the lame boy Micah, thatbelonged to old Rainy-day Jones. She had met Micah in the road, and fromthat day the Governor's life was a burden until he sent the negro up to herdoor on Christmas morning. There was never a sick slave or a homeless dogthat she would not fly out to welcome, bareheaded and a little breathless,with the kindness brimming over from her eyes. "She has her father's headand her mother's heart," said the Major to his wife, when he saw the girlgoing by with the dogs leaping round her and a young fox in her arms. "Whata wife she would make for Dan when she grows up! I wish he'd fancy her.They'd be well suited, eh, Molly?"
"If he fancies the thing that is suited to him, he is less of a man than Itake him to be," retorted Mrs. Lightfoot, with a cynicism which confoundedthe Major. "He will lose his head over her doll baby of a sister, Isuppose--not that she isn't a good girl," she added briskly. "Julia Amblercouldn't have had a bad child if she had tried, though I confess I amsurprised that she could have helped having a silly one; but Betty, why,there hasn't been a girl since I grew up with so much sense in her head asBetty Ambler has in her little finger."
"When I think of you fifty years ago, I must admit that you put a highstandard, Molly," interposed the Major, who was always polite when he wasnot angry.
"She spent a week with me while you were away," Mrs. Lightfoot went on inan unchanged voice, though with a softened face, "and, I declare, she kepthouse as well as I could have done it myself, and Cupid says she washed thepink teaset every morning with her own hands, and she actually curedRhody's lameness with a liniment she made out of Jimson weed. I tell younow, Mr. Lightfoot, that, if I get sick, Betty Ambler is the only girl I'mgoing to have inside the house."
"Very well, my dear," said the Major, meekly, "I'll try to remember; and,in that case, I reckon we'd as well drop a hint to Dan, eh, Molly?"
Mrs. Lightfoot looked at him a moment in silence. Then she said "Humph!"beneath her breath, and took up her knitting from the little table at herside.
But Dan was living fast at college, and the Major's hints were thrown away.He read of "the Ambler girls who are growing into real beauties," and heskipped the part that said, "Your grandmother has taken a great fancy toBetty and enjoys having her about."
"Here's something for you, Champe," he remarked with a laugh, as he tossedthe letter upon the table. "Gather your beauties while you may, for Iprefer bull pups. Did Batt Horsford tell you I'd offered him twenty-fivedollars for that one of his?"
Champe picked up the letter and unfolded it slowly. He was a tall, slenderyoung fellow, with curling pale brown hair and fine straigh
t features. Hisface, in the strong light of the window by which he stood, showed a traceryof blue veins across the high forehead.
"Oh, shut up about bull pups," he said irritably. "You are as bad as abreeder, and yet you couldn't tell that thoroughbred of John Morson's froma cross with a terrier."
"You bet I couldn't," cried Dan, firing up; but Champe was reading theletter, and a faint flush had risen to his face. "The girl is like a sprayof golden-rod in the sunshine," wrote the Major, with his old-fashionedrhetoric.
"What is it he says, eh?" asked Dan, noting the flush and drawing hisconclusions.
"He says that Aunt Molly and himself will meet us at the White Sulphur nextsummer."
"Oh, I don't mean that. What is it he says about the girls; they are realbeauties aren't they? By the way, Champe, why don't you marry one of themand settle down?"
"Why don't you?" retorted Champe, as Dan got up and called to Big Abel tobring his riding clothes. "Oh, I'm not a lady's man," he said lightly."I've too moody a face for them," and he began to dress himself with theelaborate care which had won for him the title of "Beau" Montjoy.
By the next summer, Betty and Virginia had shot up as if in a night, butneither Champe nor Dan came home. After weeks of excited preparation, theMajor and Mrs. Lightfoot started, with Congo and Mitty, for the WhiteSulphur, where the boys were awaiting them. As the months went on, vaguerumours reached the Governor's ears--rumours which the Major did not quitedisprove when he came back in the autumn. "Yes, the boy is sowing his wildoats," he said; "but what can you expect, Governor? Why, he is not yettwenty, and young blood is hot blood, sir."
"I am sorry to hear that he has been losing at cards," returned theGovernor; "but take my advice, and let him pick himself up when he falls tohurt. Don't back him up, Major."
"Pooh! pooh!" exclaimed the Major, testily. "You're like Molly, Governor,and, bless my soul, one old woman is as much as I can manage. Why, shewants me to let the boy starve."
The Governor sighed, but he did not protest. He liked Dan, with all hisyouthful errors, and he wanted to put out a hand to hold him back fromdestruction; but he feared to bring the terrible flush to the Major's face.It was better to leave things alone, he thought, and so sighed and saidnothing.
That was an autumn of burning political conditions, and the excited slaverydebates in the North were reechoing through the Virginia mountains. TheMajor, like the old war horse that he was, had already pricked up his ears,and determined to lend his tongue or his sword, as his state might require.That a fight could go on in the Union so long as Virginia or himself keptout of it, seemed to him a possibility little less than preposterous.
"Didn't we fight the Revolution, sir? and didn't we fight the War of 1812?and didn't we fight the Mexican War to boot?" he would demand. "And, blessmy soul, aren't we ready to fight all the Yankees in the universe, and towhip them clean out of the Union, too? Why, it wouldn't take us ten days tohave them on their knees, sir."
The Governor did not laugh now; the times were too grave for that. Hisclear eyes had seen whither they were drifting, and he had thrown hisinfluence against the tide, which, he knew, would but sweep over him in theend. "You are out of place in Virginia, Major," he said seriously."Virginia wants peace, and she wants the Union. Go south, my dear sir, gosouth."
During the spring before he had gone south himself to a convention atMontgomery, and he had spoken there against one of the greatest of theSouthern orators. His state had upheld him, but the Major had not. He camehome to find his old neighbour red with resentment, and refusing for thefirst few days to shake the hand of "a man who would tamper with the honourof Virginia." At the end of the week the Major's hand was held out, but hisheart still bore his grievance, and he began quoting William L. Yancey, ashe had once quoted Mr. Addison. In the little meetings at Uplands or atChericoke, he would now declaim the words of the impassioned agitator asvigorously as in the old days he had recited those of the polishedgentleman of letters. The rector and the doctor would sit silent andabashed, and only the Governor would break in now and then with: "You gotoo far, Major. There is a step from which there is no drawing back, andthat step means ruin to your state, sir."
"Ruin, sir? Nonsense! nonsense! We made the Union, and we'll unmake it whenwe please. We didn't make slavery; but, if Virginia wants slaves, by God,sir, she shall have slaves!"
It was after such a discussion in the Governor's library that the oldgentleman rose one evening to depart in his wrath. "The man who sits up inmy presence and questions my right to own my slaves is a damned blackabolitionist, sir," he thundered as he went, and by the time he reached hiscoach he was so blinded by his rage that Congo, the driver, was obliged tolift him bodily into his seat. "Dis yer ain' no way ter do, Ole Marster,"said the negro, reproachfully. "How I gwine teck cyar you like Ole Missdone tole me, w'en you let yo' bile git ter yo' haid like dis? 'Tain' noway ter do, suh."
The Major was too full for silence; and, ignoring the Governor, who hadhurried out to beseech him to return, he let his rage burst forth.
"I can't help it, Congo, I can't help it!" he said. "They want to take youfrom me, do you hear? and that black Republican party up north wants totake you, too. They say I've no right to you, Congo,--bless my soul, andyou were born on my own land!"
"Go 'way, Ole Marster, who gwine min' w'at dey say?" returned Congo,soothingly. "You des better wrop dat ar neck'chif roun' yo' thoat er OleMiss'll git atter you sho' es you live!"
The Major wiped his eyes on the end of the neckerchief as he tied it abouthis throat. "But, if they elect their President, he may send down an armyto free you," he went on, with something like a sob of anger, "and I'd liketo know what we'd do then, Congo."
"Lawd, Lawd, suh," said Congo, as he wrapped the robe about his master'sknees. "Did you ever heah tell er sech doin's!" then, as he mounted thebox, he leaned down and called out reassuringly, "Don' you min', OleMarster, we'll des loose de dawgs on 'em, dat's w'at we'll do," and theyrolled off indignantly, leaving the Governor half angry and half apologeticupon his portico.
It was on the way home that evening that Congo spied in the sassafrasbushes beside the road a runaway slave of old Rainy-day Jones's, anddescended, with a shout, to deliver his brother into bondage.
"Hi, Ole Marster, w'at I gwine tie him wid?" he demanded gleefully.
The Major looked out of the window, and his face went white.
"What's that on his cheek, Congo?" he asked in a whisper.
"Dat's des whar dey done hit 'im, Ole Marster. How I gwine tie 'im?"
But the Major had looked again, and the awful redness rose to his brow.
"Shut up, you fool!" he said with a roar, as he dived under his seat andbrought out his brandy flask. "Give him a swallow of that--be quick, do youhear? Pour it into your cup, sir, and give him that corn pone in yourpocket. I see it sticking out. There, now hoist him up beside you, and, ifI meet that rascal Jones, I'll blow his damn brains out!"
The Major doubtless would have fulfilled his oath as surely as his twelvepeers would have shaken his hand afterwards; but, by the time they came upwith Rainy-day a mile ahead, his wrath had settled and he had decided that"he didn't want such dirty blood upon his hands."
So he took a different course, and merely swore a little as he threw a rollof banknotes into the road. "Don't open your mouth to me, you hell hound,"he cried, "or I'll have you whipped clean out of this county, sir, andthere's not a gentleman in Virginia that wouldn't lend a hand. Don't openyour mouth to me, I tell you; here's the price of your property, and youcan stoop in the dirt to pick it up. There's no man alive that shallquestion the divine right of slavery in my presence; but--but it is aninstitution for gentlemen, and you, sir, are a damned scoundrel!"
With which the Major and old Rainy-day rode on in opposite ways.
BOOK SECOND
YOUNG BLOOD
Battle Ground Page 6