The doctor shook his head.
“Give up this madness. Your life is hanging by a thread. The Southern people even in their despair will never drink this black broth you are pressing to their lips.”
“They’ve got to drink it.”
“Your decision is unalterable?”
“Absolutely. It’s the breath I breathe. As my physician you may select the place to which I shall be banished. It must be reached by rail and wire. I care not its name or size. I’ll make it the capital of the Nation. There’ll be poetic justice in setting up my establishment in a fallen slaveholder’s mansion.”
The doctor looked intently at the old man:
“The study of men has become a sort of passion with me, but you are the deepest mystery I’ve yet encountered in this land of surprises.”
“And why?” asked the cynic.
“Because the secret of personality resides in motives, and I can’t find yours either in your actions or words.”
Stoneman glanced at him sharply from beneath his wrinkled brows and snapped.
“Keep on guessing.”
“I will. In the meantime I’m going to send you to the village of Piedmont, South Carolina. Your son and daughter both seem enthusiastic over this spot.”
“Good; that settles it. And now that mine own have been conspiring against me,” said Stoneman confidentially, “a little guile on my part. Not a word of what has passed between us to my children. Tell them I agree with your plans and give up my work. I’ll give the same story to the press—I wish nothing to mar their happiness while in the South. My secret burdens need not cloud their young lives.”
Dr. Barnes took the old man by the hand:
“I promise. My assistant has agreed to go with you. I’ll say good-bye. It’s an inspiration to look into a face like yours, lit by the splendour of an unconquerable will! But I want to say something to you before you set out on this journey.”
“Out with it,” said the Commoner.
“The breed to which the Southern white man belongs has conquered every foot of soil on this earth their feet have pressed for a thousand years. A handful of them hold in subjection three hundred millions in India. Place a dozen of them in the heart of Africa, and they will rule the continent unless you kill them——”
“Wait,” cried Stoneman, “until I put a ballot in the hand of every negro and a bayonet at the breast of every white man from the James to the Rio Grande!”
“I’ll tell you a little story,” said the doctor with a smile. “I once had a half-grown eagle in a cage in my yard. The door was left open one day, and a meddlesome rooster hopped in to pick a fight. The eagle had been sick a week and seemed an easy mark. I watched. The rooster jumped and wheeled and spurred and picked pieces out of his topknot. The young eagle didn’t know at first what he meant. He walked around dazed, with a hurt expression. When at last it dawned on him what the chicken was about, he simply reached out one claw, took the rooster by the neck, planted the other claw in his breast, and snatched his head off.”
The old man snapped his massive jaws together and grunted contemptuously.
* * *
Book III—The Reign of Terror
* * *
CHAPTER I
A Fallen Slaveholder’s Mansion
Piedmont, South Carolina, which Elsie and Phil had selected for reasons best known to themselves as the place of retreat for their father, was a favourite summer resort of Charleston people before the war.
Ulster county, of which this village was the capital, bordered on the North Carolina line, lying alongside the ancient shore of York. It was settled by the Scotch folk who came from the North of Ireland in the great migrations which gave America three hundred thousand people of Covenanter martyr blood, the largest and most important addition to our population, larger in number than either the Puritans of New England or the so-called Cavaliers of Virginia and Eastern Carolina; and far more important than either, in the growth of American nationality.
To a man they had hated Great Britain. Not a Tory was found among them. The cries of their martyred dead were still ringing in their souls when George III started on his career of oppression. The fiery words of Patrick Henry, their spokesman in the valley of Virginia, had swept the aristocracy of the Old Dominion into rebellion against the King and on into triumphant Democracy. They had made North Carolina the first home of freedom in the New World, issued the first Declaration of Independence in Mecklenburg, and lifted the first banner of rebellion against the tyranny of the Crown.
They grew to the soil wherever they stopped, always home lovers and home builders, loyal to their own people, instinctive clan leaders and clan followers. A sturdy, honest, covenant-keeping, God-fearing, fighting people, above all things they hated sham and pretence. They never boasted of their families, though some of them might have quartered the royal arms of Scotland on their shields.
To these sturdy qualities had been added a strain of Huguenot tenderness and vivacity.
The culture of cotton as the sole industry had fixed African slavery as their economic system. With the heritage of the Old World had been blended forces inherent in the earth and air of the new Southland, something of the breath of its unbroken forests, the freedom of its untrod mountains, the temper of its sun, and the sweetness of its tropic perfumes.
When Mrs. Cameron received Elsie’s letter, asking her to secure for them six good rooms at the “Palmetto” hotel, she laughed. The big rambling hostelry had been burned by roving negroes, pigs were wallowing in the sulphur springs, and along its walks, where lovers of olden days had strolled, the cows were browsing on the shrubbery.
But she laughed for a more important reason. They had asked for a six-room cottage if accommodations could not be had in the hotel.
She could put them in the Lenoir place. The cotton crop from their farm had been stolen from the gin—the cotton tax of $200 could not be paid, and a mortgage was about to be foreclosed on both their farm and home. She had been brooding over their troubles in despair. The Stonemans’ coming was a godsend.
Mrs. Cameron was helping them set the house in order to receive the new tenants.
“I declare,” said Mrs. Lenoir gratefully. “It seems too good to be true. Just as I was about to give up—the first time in my life—here came those rich Yankees and with enough rent to pay the interest on the mortgages and our board at the hotel. I’ll teach Margaret to paint, and she can give Marion lessons on the piano. The darkest hour’s just before day. And last week I cried when they told me I must lose the farm.”
“I was heartsick over it for you.”
“You know, the farm was my dowry with the dozen slaves Papa gave us on our wedding-day. The negroes did as they pleased, yet we managed to live and were very happy.”
Marion entered and placed a bouquet of roses on the table, touching them daintily until she stood each flower apart in careless splendour. Their perfume, the girl’s wistful dreamy blue eyes and shy elusive beauty, all seemed a part of the warm sweet air of the June morning. Mrs. Lenoir watched her lovingly.
“Mamma, I’m going to put flowers in every room. I’m sure they haven’t such lovely ones in Washington,” said Marion eagerly, as she skipped out.
The two women moved to the open window, through which came the drone of bees and the distant music of the river falls.
“Marion’s greatest charm,” whispered her mother, “is in her way of doing things easily and gently without a trace of effort. Watch her bend over to get that rose. Did you ever see anything like the grace and symmetry of her figure—she seems a living flower!”
“Jeannie, you’re making an idol of her——”
“Why not? With all our troubles and poverty, I’m rich in her! She’s fifteen years old, her head teeming with romance. You know, I was married at fifteen. There’ll be a half dozen boys to see her to-night in our new home—all of them head over heels in love with her.”
“Oh, Jeannie, you must not be so silly! We
should worship God only.”
“Isn’t she God’s message to me and to the world?”
“But if anything should happen to her——”
The young mother laughed. “I never think of it. Some things are fixed. Her happiness and beauty are to me the sign of God’s presence.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re coming to live with us in the heart of town. This place is a cosey nest, just such a one as a poet lover would build here in the edge of these deep woods, but it is too far out for you to be alone. Dr. Cameron has been worrying about you ever since he came home.”
“I’m not afraid of the negroes. I don’t know one of them who wouldn’t go out of his way to do me a favour. Old Aleck is the only rascal I know among them, and he’s too busy with politics now even to steal a chicken.”
“And Gus, the young scamp we used to own; you haven’t forgotten him? He is back here, a member of the company of negro troops, and parades before the house every day to show off his uniform. Dr. Cameron told him yesterday he’d thrash him if he caught him hanging around the place again. He frightened Margaret nearly to death when she went to the barn to feed her horse.”
“I’ve never known the meaning of fear. We used to roam the woods and fields together all hours of the day and night: my lover, Marion, and I. This panic seems absurd to me.”
“Well, I’ll be glad to get you two children under my wing. I was afraid I’d find you in tears over moving from your nest.”
“No, where Marion is I’m at home, and I’ll feel I’ve a mother when I get with you.”
“Will you come to the hotel before they arrive?”
“No; I’ll welcome and tell them how glad I am they have brought me good luck.”
“I’m delighted, Jeannie. I wished you to do this, but I couldn’t ask it. I can never do enough for this old man’s daughter. We must make their stay happy. They say he’s a terrible old Radical politician, but I suppose he’s no meaner than the others. He’s very ill, and she loves him devotedly. He is coming here to find health, and not to insult us. Besides, he was kind to me. He wrote a letter to the President. Nothing that I have will be too good for him or for his. It’s very brave and sweet of you to stay and meet them.”
“I’m doing it to please Marion. She suggested it last night, sitting out on the porch in the twilight. She slipped her arm around me and said:
“‘Mamma, we must welcome them and make them feel at home. He is very ill. They will be tired and homesick. Suppose it were you and I, and we were taking my Papa to a strange place.’”
* * *
When the Stonemans arrived, the old man was too ill and nervous from the fatigue of the long journey to notice his surroundings or to be conscious of the restful beauty of the cottage into which they carried him. His room looked out over the valley of the river for miles, and the glimpse he got of its broad fertile acres only confirmed his ideas of the “slaveholding oligarchy” it was his life-purpose to crush. Over the mantel hung a steel engraving of Calhoun. He fell asleep with his deep, sunken eyes resting on it and a cynical smile playing about his grim mouth.
Margaret and Mrs. Cameron had met the Stonemans and their physician at the train, and taken Elsie and her father in the old weather-beaten family carriage to the Lenoir cottage, apologising for Ben’s absence.
“He has gone to Nashville on some important legal business, and the doctor is ailing, but as the head of the clan Cameron he told me to welcome your father to the hospitality of the county, and beg him to let us know if he could be of help.”
The old man, who sat in a stupor of exhaustion, made no response, and Elsie hastened to say:
“We appreciate your kindness more than I can tell you, Mrs. Cameron. I trust father will be better in a day or two, when he will thank you. The trip has been more than he could bear.”
“I am expecting Ben home this week,” the mother whispered. “I need not tell you that he will be delighted at your coming.”
Elsie smiled and blushed.
“And I’ll expect Captain Stoneman to see me very soon,” said Margaret softly. “You will not forget to tell him for me?”
“He’s a very retiring young man,” said Elsie, “and pretends to be busy about our baggage just now. I’m sure he will find the way.”
Elsie fell in love at sight with Marion and her mother. Their easy genial manners, the genuineness of their welcome, and the simple kindness with which they sought to make her feel at home put her heart into a warm glow.
Mrs. Lenoir explained the conveniences of the place and apologized for its defects, the results of the war.
“I am sorry about the window curtains—we have used them all for dresses. Marion is a genius with a needle, and we took the last pair out of the parlour to make a dress for a birthday party. The year before, we used the ones in my room for a costume at a starvation party in a benefit for our rector—you know we’re Episcopalians—strayed up here for our health from Charleston among these good Scotch Presbyterians.”
“We will soon place curtains at the windows,” said Elsie cheerfully.
“The carpets were sent to the soldiers for blankets during the war. It was all we could do for our poor boys, except to cut my hair and sell it. You see my hair hasn’t grown out yet. I sent it to Richmond the last year of the war. I felt I must do something when my neighbours were giving so much. You know Mrs. Cameron lost four boys.”
“I prefer the floors bare,” Elsie replied. “We will get a few rugs.”
She looked at the girlish hair hanging in ringlets about Mrs. Lenoir’s handsome face, smiled pathetically, and asked:
“Did you really make such sacrifices for your cause?”
“Yes, indeed. I was glad when the war was ended for some things. We certainly needed a few pins, needles, and buttons, to say nothing of a cup of coffee or tea.”
“I trust you will never lack for anything again,” said Elsie kindly.
“You will bring us good luck,” Mrs. Lenoir responded. “Your coming is so fortunate. The cotton tax Congress levied was so heavy this year we were going to lose everything. Such a tax when we are all about to starve! Dr. Cameron says it was an act of stupid vengeance on the South, and that no other farmers in America have their crops taxed by the National Government. I am so glad your father has come. He is not hunting for an office. He can help us, maybe.”
“I am sure he will,” answered Elsie thoughtfully.
Marion ran up the steps lightly, her hair dishevelled and face flushed.
“Now, Mamma, it’s almost sundown; you get ready to go. I want her awhile to show her about my things.”
She took Elsie shyly by the hand and led her into the lawn, while her mother paid a visit to each room, and made up the last bundle of odds and ends she meant to carry to the hotel.
“I hope you will love the place as we do,” said the girl simply.
“I think it very beautiful and restful,” Elsie replied. “This wilderness of flowers looks like fairyland. You have roses running on the porch around the whole length of the house.”
“Yes, Papa was crazy over the trailing roses, and kept planting them until the house seems just a frame built to hold them, with a roof on it. But you can see the river through the arches from three sides. Ben Cameron helped me set that big beauty on the south corner the day he ran away to the war——”
“The view is glorious!” Elsie exclaimed, looking in rapture over the river valley.
The village of Piedmont crowned an immense hill on the banks of the Broad River, just where it dashes over the last stone barrier in a series of beautiful falls and spreads out in peaceful glory through the plains toward Columbia and the distant sea. The muffled roar of these falls, rising softly through the trees on its wooded cliff, held the daily life of the people in the spell of distant music. In fair weather it soothed and charmed, and in storm and freshet rose to the deep solemn growl of thunder.
The river made a sharp bend as it emerged from the hills and flowed westw
ard for six miles before it turned south again. Beyond this six-mile sweep of its broad channel loomed the three ranges of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the first one dark, rich, distinct, clothed in eternal green, the last one melting in dim lines into the clouds and soft azure of the sky.
As the sun began to sink now behind these distant peaks, each cloud that hung about them burst into a blazing riot of colour. The silver mirror of the river caught their shadows, and the water glowed in sympathy.
As Elsie drank the beauty of the scene, the music of the falls ringing its soft accompaniment, her heart went out in a throb of love and pity for the land and its people.
“Can you blame us for loving such a spot?” said Marion. “It’s far more beautiful from the cliff at Lover’s Leap. I’ll take you there some day. My father used to tell me that this world was Heaven, and that the spirits would all come back to live here when sin and shame and strife were gone.”
“Are your father’s poems published?” asked Elsie.
“Only in the papers. We have them clipped and pasted in a scrapbook. I’ll show you the one about Ben Cameron some day. You met him in Washington, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Elsie quietly.
“Then I know he made love to you.”
“Why?”
“You’re so pretty. He couldn’t help it.”
“Does he make love to every pretty girl?”
“Always. It’s his religion. But he does it so beautifully you can’t help believing it, until you compare notes with the other girls.”
“Did he make love to you?”
“He broke my heart when he ran away. I cried a whole week. But I got over it. He seemed so big and grown when he came home this last time. I was afraid to let him kiss me.”
“Did he dare to try?”
“No, and it hurt my feelings. You see, I’m not quite old enough to be serious with the big boys, and he looked so brave and handsome with that ugly scar on the edge of his forehead, and everybody was so proud of him. I was just dying to kiss him, and I thought it downright mean in him not to offer it.”
The Clansman Page 15