Chapter II: Part I: I (2)

“You do not yet know the best of these Southern people, Constance. It will be both pleasant and desirable that you and I learn to like them. I am sure you will. Imagine the kindness of it, and the trouble!”

They went from room to room in the little house, looking out on the roses already in bloom, the grass slopes, and the river beyond. At last they found their way into the dining-room, and then into an apartment where were shelves and a businesslike table; but here the cases sent on by Trescot and Constance had been left unopened. Again husband and wife recognized the feeling which had left their personal belongings untouched.

One of the servants, an old woman once a slave of the Averills, conducted Constance over the kitchen, and up-stairs and down again, and was delighted when, after supper, the cooking was praised.

Then, as the shadows came, and they sat on the back porch among clustering Cherokee roses, she brought him a match, and as his pipe glowed or darkened they talked of the new life before them; she recognizing with fresh happiness the man’s gain in health and vigor; he, at moments, in thought with certain reasonable fears. Would this distinguished-looking woman, with her music, her social ties, her unchecked expenditures, her familiar Boston circle—would she be contented here in this simpler life? Would every one be as kind as Mrs. Averill? He became more and more silent as they sat in the twilight. She, too, had her less distinct doubts, but heretofore they had said little of the life which lay before them. Now she spoke, touching his brown hair as he sat on the step below her. She was strangely intuitive as concerned George Trescot.

“I know what you are thinking of, my dear, dear George.”

“Oh! What, love?”

“You are wondering whether I shall be satisfied here in this new life amid the people you fought and I hated.”

“I was; but you will not hate them. I never did.”

“And I shall not if they are good to you.”

“Oh, whether or not; and you won’t miss the ease of home, the varied life, your carriage and riding-horse?”

“I—I have you.”

“But you will not have me always as you have had for these happy weeks.”

“But you will be always thinking of me.”

“Even that may not be possible. I sometimes fancy it would have been better—”

“No, no; we did wisely, and love is my only answer.”

“Then, once and for all let us put away the past, and accept our new life with thankfulness.”

“Yes. Ah, letters! Thank you,” she said to the maid. “Let us go in, George, and read them.” As they sat down, she cried: “Gracious! oh, do listen to this, George. It is from uncle.”

“MY DEAR CONSTANCE:

“Major-General Averill will give you the title-deeds of the house. It
will, I hope, make you less discontented, for you will have to
economize as you never did here. I trust also that my generosity will
be an inducement to that obstinate young man to give the fullest
attention to my affairs.

“Susan will, no doubt, tell you that she made me give you the house;
but her religion is too vague a thing to have taught her accuracy.
What she calls faith, I am happy to say I am without; it is too vague
for intellectual assimilation.

“Yours affectionately,
“RUFUS HOOD.”

“Of which has he none—faith or intellectual assimilation?” laughed Trescot. “Upon my word, Constance, what about the blind belief we call love? No one knows everything of any one. The rest we call trust, faith; and without the mystery of the unknowable in man, woman, and God, the half of the charm of life and love were gone.”

She did not answer him directly, but said: “Uncle Rufus is plain enough, and I know you, and you me.”

“No, not altogether; what you would do or be in certain contingencies of this changeful life, I do not know.”

“Am I not simple?”

“You? No, no,” he laughed. “But what does Susan say?”

She read:

“DEAR CONNY:

“As soon as you were engaged I set to work to make Uncle Rufus behave
decently. He is not mean or ungenerous, but you were to be punished
for preferring George to him, and to have a narrow income as a
reminder of your iniquity. We had it about and about. He enjoyed the
row and, as usual, backed down. I made him groan when the bills came
in; but he had to pay, and now he tells every one about the pleasure
he had in surprising you with the house. I send a few books of
reference for George—the cyclopedia he wanted, and a few other
books.”

She said nothing of what further she had done.

Constance looked up. “But I meant to give you that cyclopedia myself. I told her so.”

She had a childlike disappointment because of having been thus anticipated. He saw and understood.

“But I want far more—the new biographical dictionary, and how many other books I dare not tell you. To-morrow we shall see when we unpack the boxes. What else is there in your sister’s letter?”

“Nothing of moment. She wishes to know if the house, _our_ house—isn’t that delightful—needs any other furniture.”

“I should think not,” said Trescot, faintly jealous of the liberality which had provided what in time he had hoped to give. He said, however: “I confess, dear, to being very glad that you are to be so pleasantly nested. I feared a little the long stay at an inn or in lodgings, where you would have all manner of unavoidable contacts.”

“Yes,” she said, “that would have been dreadful. To have been able all one’s life to choose or avoid, to say ‘At home’ or not, and then to be obliged to meet, all the time, the chance acquaintances of a boarding-house! I did not expect to have a house for a year at least.”

George Trescot reflected anew upon the sacrifices she had made, and on how less than little she knew of what she was saved by Susan’s persistency and self-sacrifice.

“We owe Susan a great debt,” he said; “and I am as grateful as a man ought to be; but I wish I had been able to do all this for you myself. I have been so anxious that you should be satisfied.”

Constance slipped down on to the step beside him, cast an arm around him, and laid her head on his shoulder. “You need not have been afraid, George. Life can ask nothing of me, large or small, which I would not give or be or do for you.” The voice became low and measured as she went on. “I could beg, or do anything. You will see how I shall help you. I shall make all these St. Ann people our friends—oh, whether I like them or not; but, George, I am scared sometimes when I think of how all other love has shrunk to nothing, as if it had all gone to make up one great love for you. If any one—man or woman—loves you, I shall be jealous; if any one does not, I shall hate him. Oh, I am a fine fool of love! I am half jealous of the company you find in your pipe.”

He said, “Are you, indeed?”

“Yes, I am, really. Oh, you may laugh, but I am.”

The stress of passion in her words was broken by this half-humorous reflection, and a little to the man’s relief, even if he hardly knew it. The quality of his affection was governed by temperament, and, never reaching the instinctive freedom of her passion, was nobler, in that it looked forward to being always the true lover, and also the friend who guides and counsels; for already he saw that both guidance and counsel might be needed. He smiled as he kissed her.

“Well, shall I give up my friend of many campfires, of sad days, of long night-rides?”

“What a pretty defense! No, indeed; I like it because it can comfort and cannot love.”

She rose as she spoke, and standing before him, threw up her hands with a gesture of emphatic abandonment and cried: “Oh, George, I am so happy! Come, let us walk in the garden. Isn’t it little?—but do look at the roses.”

He went with her, and they talked more quietly of the kindness of the general and his wife; of their own plans, and of his work. To his surprise, she said no word of Susan. At last he said, “It is early, but you must be tired.”

“Oh, I am never tired; but I have to unpack, and what the colored women can do I have yet to learn.”

“To-morrow will be Sunday, Constance.”

“I am going to church with you. You will have to find the places for me in your prayer-book; but I am going because—because you are going.”

“Thank you! You are very good to me, my love! Good night.”

She left him, and he lighted his pipe, and for an hour moved about in thought.

IV

As they went up the slight ascent of West Street toward the Episcopal church, Constance said to her husband: “Since we left home you have gone to church alone. I mean that you shall never do that again. But, George, do you know that this will be the first time I have ever been present at a church service?”

“It will interest you,” he said, realizing with regret how complete had been the denial of the highest opportunities to the woman he loved. Careful to show no surprise, he went on to speak of the service, and of how it had been formed and molded, until, arriving at the church, they sat down near to the door. After church they slipped away, unnoticed, except casually by General Averill. On the way homeward, Constance was silent for a time, and seeming to her husband thus inclined, he made no effort to disturb her mood.

Presently, however, she began to speak of the impression this amazing novelty of a great ritual had left with her. The congregation had been large and very devoted. She confessed to interest and something like awe—a certain wonder at it, a trained disbelief in its verities. She spoke with care, and he, on his side, listened without criticism. Certainly to her it was so strange that he found it hard to put himself in her attitude of mind, and preferred, with the patience which was part of his character, to do no more than wait for such better chances as time might bring.

The music she found good and simple. Caught by its charm, her full soprano rose in the hymns he knew so well, and added to the satisfaction he felt when she expressed her surprise at the refined faces she saw about her. He explained that the older settlers had been Virginians, and many of them gentlefolk. She was sure she would like them; and the elderly woman she saw as they came out must be Mrs. Averill. She smiled at them as the general raised his hat—a handsome couple. There was even a kind of distinction in the old-fashioned gowns and bonnets.

“I think they were all curious about us,” she added.

“There may be other reasons,” he laughed, “for looking at you, my dear. I sometimes enjoy that privilege myself.”

Sunday passed quietly in their new home, and they fully recognized the thoughtful kindness which left them thus undisturbed. In the afternoon they decided to see the little city and their neighborhood. They were about a half-mile from the court-house green, beyond which, on an upper rise, were a dozen houses, not very well cared for, but set pleasantly among trees and well-tended gardens. On the level land above the river bluff were the straggling houses and shops which, in their fresh shingles and paint, gave evidence here and there of the new material growth which had begun since the war. Below the bluff, on the shore of the great curve of the turbid river, were warehouses, cotton-presses, and rudely built piers where steamers lay. Much of the nearer water-front was occupied, and as they stood Trescot pointed out where, at the bend of the river, lay the long stretch of frontage which was in litigation, and was claimed by Mr. Hood. Descending to the water’s edge, they found a rough road which passed through low growths and the rude clearings of the squatters who had refused to vacate their lands. Beyond, the road wound along the river bank, and over the land which Trescot had pointed out as valuable on account of the deep water in front of it.

When on their homeward way they came near to their own house, the path so narrowed in front of an ill-kept garden that Trescot fell behind. A gentleman in gray clothes, and wearing an undress army-cap with Confederate buttons, moved aside into the road to make room for Mrs. Trescot to pass. He lifted his cap and showed some attentive surprise as Trescot touched his straw hat and they passed on.

“By George!” he murmured, “who can that be? What a beautiful woman!” He stared after her well-clad figure, noting the ease and grace of her walk, and then the slighter form of the man. Seeing them turn in at their own gate, he said aloud: “That must be old Hood’s new agent. He is very young.”

Meanwhile Mrs. Trescot said: “George, did you notice that gentleman?”

“Yes.”

“He looks like an Indian chief, and very unlike the people I saw to-day. He is handsome, but how dark he is!”

“Oh, there is some old Creole blood here—of French descent, very likely—a fine, big man, probably a Confederate soldier.”

* * * * *

The Monday morning of their first week at St. Ann found them after breakfast on the back porch of their new home. The man was gravely happy; the young wife a little excited as they began to consider what they were to do on this the first morning of their new life. Past the little garden, the grassy slopes and green maize-fields were bounded below by a fringe of oaks, beyond which the brown current of the mighty river swept onward in its march to the gulf. The Cherokee rose was all about them in red clusters, the humming-birds were busy on quivering wing, and the warmth and moisture of the Southland—April already—invited to repose and idleness.

“It is very pleasant here,” said Trescot, “but there will be many things to do, and I suppose one must begin.” As he spoke he rose. The temptations to linger were very great. But at last he compromised with sense of duty by resolving, as many a man has done, to go as soon as his pipe had gone out. Nevertheless he economically nursed the failing pipe. As he lingered Constance asked:

“What have you to do, George? I mean at once.”

“Oh, many things. I must see the general and learn all I can of your uncle’s affairs. There are unpaid rents, mortgages in arrears, taxes, and what not,—a sad tangle, I fear. Then, if I am to appear in the courts I must qualify by an examination to practise in this State.”

She was at once eager to know why.

“I could appear,” he returned, “in a United States court, but not before local tribunals. But that is all simple.” And, in fact, after a fortnight he was enabled thus to qualify for practice at St. Ann.

When at last the pipe refused to furnish excuses for delay, he left his wife to her new household duties. She found herself amply occupied, and while her husband spent a busy morning with Averill, she went about the house with the two black servants, arranging her husband’s books, and giving to the rooms that look of having been lived in, which is one of the mysterious accomplishments of certain women. Trescot heard snatches of song as he came in at midday, to meet her eager questions, and to note with satisfaction what she had done to change the house into a home.

“How hard you must have worked!” he said, seeing all of his many books in order.

“I did not unpack your law books, George.”

“No, you were right; I must have them with me. I am to have a bit of an office next to the general’s. I find that he has come into some property of late, and wants to give up part of his work—I mean chiefly your uncle’s affairs. There are, I fancy, other reasons. He was somewhat reticent. From what I gathered I fear that your uncle’s business is going to be difficult; and he has been so hard to deal with that people here say it is impossible to settle anything. However, we shall see. I suspect that the general has been indisposed to push matters, and that your uncle has been unyieldingly opposed to any compromises.”

“Very likely,” said Constance; “but if the general had been firm uncle would have given way. He always does. But for that he should be here. He is always most obstinate in his letters.”

“That is hardly consoling,” said Trescot. “And oh, Constance, I would not hang my sword here. Put it in your room.”

“I should like that,” she said, at once understanding him. “I see that you do not wear your Loyal Legion button—I suppose we are to forget?”

“Yes, and forgive, as they, too, will in time. I lost a brother and many friends in the war, but, dear, I learn that our old general lost his two sons,—his only children, Constance,—his all. They are childless.”

“Oh, George! That mother! She was here to-day, and such kindness I never could have hoped for. Now I understand her

“‘sad eyes
Wherein no expectation lies.’

“Who said that, George? I forget. I wondered what gave her that look; I noticed it when I first saw her. I think Susan quoted it once. And, my dear George, she heard me singing in that absurd way in church, and would I join the choir, and they would expect us to use their pew, and there are sewing-circles, and what not. I had to say several noes; I did it sweetly, and said I must think about it. Imagine me in a sewing-circle!”

“I am sure you said just the right thing. As for the general, he, too, was more than kind. He begged me to be careful about war talk. People were still sensitive. And I ought to be made aware that your uncle, whom no one here has seen, is detested, and supposed to hinder the growth of the town by refusals to sell or improve. He wants me to see people socially, and it seems there is a little club which he thinks I had better join. I said it would be as well to wait. I do not want any needless expenses—even the smallest.”

“Oh, I shall manage, George. I have talked to Mrs. Averill. We shall have enough. It might be better to join the club.”

“I shall think of it,” he said. “But my best club is elsewhere.”

“Yes; but you would see these people there. Only, I shall be jealous of the hours I do not own.”

“You own all my hours, Constance. And, by the way, talking of jealousy, the dark gentleman you admired yesterday has some Indian and some Creole blood. I guessed well. But his name, I take it, is English—Greyhurst. He is the lawyer who has been engaged in the suit to dispossess your uncle of the water-front. I hear, also, that he is pretty deeply and personally interested in lands along the water.”

She determined to know more of this man when she saw the general. She had some vague feeling that here was a man who would be hostile; and she had not liked the smiling face with the dark, attentive eyes.

The next day being Tuesday, while Trescot was again busy with the old general, Constance dressed with care and set out to visit his wife. The sun was warm, and as she walked along the road to the town she was full of plans for a social campaign which should be of use to the man she loved. There was enough to interest in the negro huts and children, the wayside flowers, the straggling town, its blooming gardens, and the houses which war and its attendant poverty had left long uncared for. As she gained the main street, she began to see that she was the object of notice; but to this she was not unaccustomed, and did not find it unpleasing. Her looks and her power to be agreeable were a part of George’s capital. She noted the men on horseback—now and then a man in a battle-worn suit of Confederate gray; twice she observed the “C. S.” branded on the flanks of mules—and felt the nearness of that vast struggle which had left the South wrecked and impoverished.

A question or two brought her to the general’s house. It stood on a rise to the eastward and above the town—an ample brick dwelling of more pretension than those near by. The garden around it on all sides was admirably cared for, but the fence was broken and the gate lay on the ground. The hall door was open, but she looked in vain for a bell, and used the brass knocker without effect. At last she entered, and saw through the back door of the hall the gray head of Mrs. Averill in the garden, moving between tall rows of Osage orange. For a moment some inbred regard for conventional usages stayed the visitor’s steps, and then, seeing no other way, she walked through the house and down the garden path.

Mrs. Averill turned, setting down a basket of roses, and with both hands welcomed her visitor.

“Come in,” she said; “come in out of the sun.”

Her looks approved the proudly carried head, the rich red of the cheeks, the large blue eyes, and that indescribable air of caste and good-breeding which the day before, as they came out of church, had been at once and easily recognized.

Constance, too, saw that here was an older woman of her own world—a woman, as she wrote to Susan, who seemed suited to the old-fashioned garden and its familiar flowers—a delicately provincial dame, with an assured way of saying gently very positive things, and with hands and feet thin, delicate, and marvelously small.

The Southland tongue as Mrs. Averill used it, with its half-lost _r_’s and a certain precision in her choice of words, delighted the critical taste of Constance.

As they entered the large parlor, Mrs. Averill said: “Sit down, my dear; it is very warm. I must find my servants—nowadays they are never to be found. You shall have a glass of lemonade.”

Constance said she should be glad to have it, and was left alone. She looked after her hostess with increasing satisfaction. Mrs. Averill was exquisitely neat, from the little cap, over abundant gray hair, and wide white kerchief to the white gown and the long garden gloves. The room offered an unpleasing contrast. The wall-paper was worn and spotted, the seats of the chairs showed signs of wear. Some of them were of Colonial respectability, some with the black hair-cloth covers of a day of worse taste. The matting was much mended, and a thin-legged piano, not too free from dust, suggested indifference, or, more probably, the housekeeping troubles of which as yet Constance was happily ignorant.

On the walls were two or three portraits in the thin manner of the elder Peale, and an admirable Copley of a husband and wife. Over the fireplace hung a pair of crossed swords suspended by broad black ribbons. Below were ill-colored photographs of two young officers in Confederate uniform. “Poor mother!” said Constance. Over all, caught up in folds, hung a torn battle-flag of the rebel States, and below it the flag of a Maine regiment, also tattered and battle-scarred, evidently a captured trophy.

For a moment the young faces of the dead sons troubled her, and then the two flags sent a rush of angry blood to her face—a return of the passionate feelings the great war had so often caused her. Here before her was the record of battle and of death, of the pathos and the courage and endurance of a struggle which should have left, and did leave for the best of those who fought and won, only admiration, pity, and magnanimity. Constance had little of that greatness of soul which is the noblest factor in the large gospel of forgiveness. The personal feeling which entered so largely into her life during the war was supported by an unusually intelligent knowledge of our history, and kept angrily alive by her uncle’s attitude when, rejoicing over Confederate victories, he thus kept her irritated and on edge throughout the years of that sad struggle—ever glorious for those who won and those who lost.

Hearing Mrs. Averill’s step at the doorway, she turned quickly from the mantel to meet her, composing her face with the habitual ease of a caste accustomed to hide emotion. The little old lady, so gray, so worn, became of a sudden grave.

“Sit down here beside me,” she said. “You were looking at the flags and—the faces of my dead. Of course it troubled you—I saw that—the flags and—the rest. I won’t have you excuse yourself; it was natural. One boy fell dead on the flag he had captured; they sent it home to me. The other, a prisoner, died in the North, after having been cared for as we could not have cared for him in those terrible days. You see, I am explaining to you because we are to be friends; but some day, when you are a mother, you—”

“Please don’t,” said Constance, taking her thin hand. Both women’s eyes were full of tears.

For a moment they were silent. Then Constance said, “How did you live through it?”

“God helped me, as some day he may need to help you. It is less hard to forgive a nation than if it had been a man, and John Averill was spared to sorrow with me. Some day I shall see my boys. There, my dear, we must not talk of it any more; but we are very sore in the South, and the state of things in the Carolinas makes it impossible to forget defeat in the face of continual humiliation.”

“I know,” said Constance. “It is shameful, and no one—not even you—can feel it more than my husband. He tries to put aside the war. He never speaks of it, although his crippled arm is a sad reminder. He will not let me hang his sword where it can be seen in—” She paused, feeling that she had made one of those social slips which even the best-trained do not altogether escape. She went on quickly: “We want to make friends with the people here. You will tell us how. You know it is to be our home.”

“My dear, you will easily make friends; but sometimes you will have to be forbearing and keep silent. It may be hard, but for those who won it should not be.” Constance thought of George, and assented. “Mr. Trescot will find it less easy; but his having been in your army will help him with all but the women; we are unreasonably venomous—a few of us, not all.”

“Well, that will save me some jealousies,” said Constance, smiling.

“Ah, here is the lemonade,” said her hostess. “I was picking these flowers for you; will you care to carry the basket, or shall I send them? I was about to call again this afternoon. I thought I might help you. It must all be so strange to you.”

Constance, thanking her, rose, saying: “You will let me come again?”

“Oh, often, I hope,—often.”

She walked away through the sun and down the dusty street, carrying the roses. The men looked after her erect figure, the women made comments on gown and bonnet.

She was lost to her surroundings, thinking of the flags and the dead boys, and wondering at the peace of soul which had come to the childless mother. She could not comprehend it, and thought that such a calamity falling on herself would have left her with an undying hatred. Presently, feeling the heat, she was reminded that she had promised not to tempt its consequences through the summer months. The idea of leaving George troubled her, and she quickened her pace in order the sooner to see him.

V

The Trescots by degrees settled into a routine of life which, while it left Constance alone in the mornings, usually permitted of their being together the rest of the day, and in the evening.

A few friends or relatives of the Averills called upon them; but these visits were evidently formal or made to oblige the general’s wife, and they were left much alone.

If Trescot soon felt the social atmosphere to be cold, he excused it, and trusted to time and chance for better things. Except that Constance saw in their reception difficulties for her husband, she had small regret on account of the conditions which relieved her from being constantly on guard, and made her secure of a larger share of the society she preferred to all other.

The women she met and tried to find pleasant were chiefly interested in their households, in the difficulties caused by the emancipation of the slaves, and in the awkward subject of the misgovernment of the South. There were but few subjects which were free from peril, and such intellectual sympathies as Constance possessed awakened little interest among overburdened women whom many forms of disaster had left with too constant thought of the morrow.

What help and advice Constance required she found in the Averill house, where now and then they ate a meal and were at all times welcome guests. The older woman discovered, to her husband’s joy, a novel pleasure in Constance Trescot’s music; and it became common for the old general and his wife to appear of an evening, and while the men smoked their pipes on the porch the piano, Susan’s wedding-gift, was opened, and song after song, or the tones of the greater music, soothed and pleased the pale little lady who sat a silent listener, or pleaded for “just one more, my dear.”

Then, too, Susan sent the new books and the magazines, and these were passed on to the Averills, who formed, by degrees, an increasing attachment to the young man and his wife, and became thoughtfully busy in the difficult task of bringing them into cordial relations with what was best in the town. As far as was possible to a woman like Constance, the regard was returned. She had all her life had a singular incapacity for generous division or sharing of her affection. Once it had been wholly Susan’s. It was now George Trescot’s, and this predisposition was reinforced by a passion deep, jealous, and exacting. The man so long lonely sunned himself in the warmth of all that an intelligent and beautiful woman brought to help and glorify his life, with no mind to criticize the quality of the woman’s love.

And so the latter days of April passed, and the warmth of May and June came, while, with the all-sufficient company of books, music, and talk, time moved onward. In the evening he read to her or told her of his work, and she of what she had seen and done. Of the keen sense he had of hostility in the very air of the place he said but little. She was but too anxiously aware of it, and said as little.

On an evening early in June the general came in, and leaving Constance alone with her open piano, the two men went out on to the porch.

“I came in, Mr. Trescot, because I want to talk of the squatters. I heard to-day that there may be trouble. I wish my friend Mr. Hood were more reasonable.”

“He is not, and never will be, and there is nothing to do but to serve the usual notices on them.”

“It has already excited a good deal of feeling. The squatters will resist, or at least two of them will. The fact is that I have been unable to make up my mind in the past to turn out three old soldiers of my own regiment. One of these is a lame man, crippled in the war. Cannot you wait until the suit for the water-front has been tried?”

“It is low down on the docket, and it will be October before it can come up. But what would be gained by that—by waiting?”

The general was unprepared to reply. He was merely inclined, like most old men, to put off the disagreeable, having that faith in the helpfulness of time which is a part of the business creed of the aged.

He said at last that he was of opinion that Greyhurst was stirring them up. The eviction of a lot of old soldiers, one of them eighteen years on the ground, father and son, would further prejudice an already hostile public opinion, and make it the harder to secure a just verdict in regard to the question of title to the lands beyond them on the river.

“What I disliked to do about these men, Mr. Trescot,” he said, “will be dangerous for you to attempt. I think it right to tell you that. Their land is not valuable for steamboat landings, and for any other purpose it is useless, because the squatters never can sell it; but they won’t give up, and are utterly indifferent to law, and quite well aware that the community is on their side. Best let them alone just now. Wait a little.”

“No, I must go on.”

“It will be at the risk of your life.”

He could have said nothing better fitted to add vigor to Trescot’s resolute intention. He replied, laughing: “I presume that we have both been shot at pretty often.”

“But this is different, Trescot.”

“Yes, I know that. But am I to believe, general, that an opponent lawyer deliberately advises an assassination?”

“Oh, no, I beg you not to misunderstand me; I spoke rather too positively. Greyhurst would never do that; and, upon my word, he never did anything deliberate in his life. The man is impulsive and quick to resent, and very imprudent in talk. He is in debt, and if he can win this suit he will probably receive a large contingent fee. These men, especially that fellow named Coffin, have been to see him,—I pointed the man out to you on the street yesterday. Mr. Greyhurst has told them that you surely mean to evict them. I do not think he can have gone further.”

“If he said only that I mean to evict, that is true. I would tell them that myself. Was there anything else?”

“No; but there are ways of saying things. It was none of his business. They did not consult him as a lawyer, and he was merely making mischief. These mountain-men who are now squatted on the flats come to me like children. They were, some of them, in my company when I first went out, and they look to me for protection. It is a damned disagreeable business, sir; and none the easier for John Greyhurst’s interference and Mr. Hood’s stupid obstinacy.”

“I presume, general, that you really could not make up your mind to act on Mr. Hood’s determination to evict.”

“I must confess, Mr. Trescot, that I would not. I think I said as much. The legal right no one can dispute; but I could not come down on these poor devils with the law without being looked upon as an oppressor, and, what is worse just now, as the instrument of a Northern man. Even for me, my dear Trescot, to evict mercilessly men who have lived there five, ten, even eighteen years unmolested—even for me, sir, there might be risk.”

“And for me,” queried Trescot, smiling, “much more risk?”

“That is my belief, sir. I do not think Mr. Hood has ever taken in the situation.”

“No; it is his land. The men must go. For him it is simple,—but for me and you there are the human ties to land men have cleared and plowed, the sense of the home, and all manner of associations. Mr. Hood prides himself on being exact in business. Out of it he is generous, even lavish. He has not imagination enough to be largely charitable. I never saw a man like him.”

“Then, sir,” said the old general, grimly humorous, “he had better lavish on you a good revolver or a first-class rifle. What I could not or would not do, you will surely risk your life if you try to do. I may as well say to you that my chief reason for giving up Hood’s agency was his infernal obstinacy about these squatters. Did he tell you that I had said so, and that no reputable gentleman in St. Ann would accept the position?”

“No, he did not,” returned Trescot, somewhat surprised at this revelation of Mr. Hood’s methods.

“Well, no one here would take it on his terms, and, as I see it, he has placed you in what is a position of real danger. Even now, before you have moved legally, these men are sure they will be turned out. They are not men to wait, and the whole town is on their side. Think it over. A very little money would settle the business.”

“You are no doubt right; but what can I do? I must give up the agency or act on Mr. Hood’s orders. I came here to do so, and I mean to move in the matter. How can I hope to convince him if you failed?”

The general laid a hand on Trescot’s knee, and said very earnestly:

“Wait until I write to him again. I have known lives lost in this country for far less things, and if you are set on taking legal action I beg that you will go about armed.”

Trescot laughed. “Why, my dear general, I am half crippled, and it would be simply useless. Do you all carry revolvers?”

“I do not; but if I were bent on following out Mr. Hood’s orders I most assuredly should do so, and, too, I should be rather careful how I went out at night.”

Trescot thanked him and said: “You will do nothing with Hood; but could not we do something with these men if you and I saw them together?”

“It is worth trying. I shall go with you with pleasure. Before I leave let me say a word more about that land suit. It was first brought the year after the big flood in sixty-three. Who suggested to the Baptiste people to dispute Hood’s title I do not know. Two lawyers have had it; one died and one threw up the case. Then it came into Greyhurst’s hands, and has hung on. I had too slight evidence in Mr. Hood’s favor to want to try it, and Greyhurst evidently took it with the hope of forcing a compromise. I can’t think he believes their claim just.”

“Well, I shall urge it, and we can make him come to time. It is very much like a sort of legally disguised blackmail. What kind of man is he? I ought to know. You said he was impulsive.”

“Yes, it is as well that you should. A rather unusual person. He has had a wild life, but is not uncultivated. He certainly has a high opinion of John Greyhurst, and the most damned insecure temper I ever met with. Halloa! Talk of him another time. Listen to that!”

There was a low, mellow roll of murmurous thunder. The general rose. “We are in for one of our big thunder-storms. It will cool the air. Say good-by to Mrs. Trescot. I must hurry.” He went away around the house in haste.

As Trescot stood looking at the darkening sky a blinding splendor of violet light made bright the distant river and the march of dark masses of cloud across the star-lighted sky. “Come out,” he called to his wife. “The general has gone, Constance; come out on the porch.”

She rejoiced in a great storm, as she did in any display of the might of nature, such as the wild sea drama of a gale on her own rock-bound coast. She came out at once and they walked into the garden. The herald wind of the coming storm shook the house and brought a cool breath of freshness.

“How delicious the air is, George, and how magnificent, how glorious!”

Swift javelins of light flashed incessant, with crashes of thunder, and soon the sudden downfall of rain drove them to the shelter of the porch.

“No, I can’t go in, George. I never before saw such a storm. I love it. I should like to be once in an earthquake.”

“Not I,” he returned, laughing. “I saw one in New Mexico. I prefer to face again the worst fire I was ever under. I got out of a window on to a shed, and the house went down behind me.”

Again a vast flare of lightning made every drop of rain in the air a moment’s jewel.

“The rain blows in here; get your rain-cloak,” he said. “Wait, I shall get it—or better to go in.”

“Oh, no; I must see it. You could not find the cloak.”

She left him where he stood enjoying the storm. As the quick-coming flashes lighted the hill slope he saw a man moving, very slowly as it seemed to him for one storm-caught, some thirty feet beyond the garden fence. He called out, “Halloa! come in here.”

Surprised to receive no reply, he called again. A moment after, amid still more vivid light, Trescot was aware of a flash lower down on the hillside, and of the sound, once familiar, of a rifle-shot. The broken glass of the window just to the left jangled. As the instant lightning flared, Trescot, seeing the man moving down the hill, ran through the garden and out of the gate in hot pursuit, thinking quickly as he caught sight of him at moments, “It was the old-fashioned rifle; he can’t reload. By George! he is lame; I shall have him.”

He was not twenty feet away when Trescot’s foot caught in a tangle of briers and he fell. He rolled over on his lame shoulder, and in some pain got up to find he had lost his man in the wood at the foot of the hill. He stood still a moment in the rain, and then walked back up the rise of ground.

His wife was on the porch. “Where have you been? What was that, George? I heard glass break.”

Concealment was impossible. “I am all right. A man shot at me; one of those squatters, I suppose. I saw him plainly; he was lame. Come in, dear. I should have had him in a moment if I had not fallen.”

“You are not hurt?” she asked anxiously.

“No; but come in. The shot went quite wide and broke the glass. Do not mention it to those blacks. It must appear to have been an accident while I was closing the shutters.”

When they were in the lighted room and the house shut up, he saw how pale she was. He put his arm around her. “Constance, love,” he said, “this will not occur again.” He was by no means sure. “Do not be worried; I am to see these men with Averill in a day or two. We shall settle with them in some way.”

“But what will you do? and how can I live here with the chance of having you brought home to me dead? Oh, this barbarous country! And I made you come—and my uncle, I shall never forgive him.”

At last he persuaded her to go to bed. She passed a restless night, almost without sleep—perhaps for the first time in her life of vigorous health.

When, next day, she insisted on his not leaving her, he said at last: “We shall walk to the Averills’, and I shall call for you after I have gone over some of the old French deeds. I shall not be long.” Her very visible anxiety troubled him, and the more because it was reasonable. She was not easily answered.

“But what will you do, George?” she went on. “Can’t you arrest him? Something must be done, and without delay. I shall write to uncle.”

“No, you must not do that; it would be of no use. Before he could reply I shall have consulted with the general and done something.” He had no clear idea of what he should do, except that he still meant to visit the squatters with Averill. He said as much.

“But I cannot sit still and wait,” she returned. “I simply cannot.”

Such reassurance as he was able to give quite failed to satisfy her. She went slowly up-stairs, step by step, deep in thought, and then, making a sudden decision, dressed herself with unusual care and came down to join him. Although she commonly talked much when with her husband, as they walked on she barely answered him, and finally left him at Mrs. Averill’s gate.

During the night, as Constance lay awake, she had reproached herself again and again for having urged her husband to accept her uncle’s offer. What now he would do had not satisfied her. As she walked by his side she kept on perplexing herself about a situation in which, as a woman, she felt herself powerless. After an uneasy half-hour with Mrs. Averill, to whom she said nothing of what had happened, she took her leave, and with a sudden and well-defined resolution in her mind went down the steep road from the bluff, and leaving the busy cotton-marts and -presses behind her, followed the river bank. The path led through scrubby undergrowth on to rudely cultivated clearings. Here were two well-built log cabins. In front of the nearer one a man well beyond middle age was seated on a stump engaged in oiling the lock of a rifle. As she came upon him he stood up in wonder at the loveliness of the wandering stranger.

She said: “Will you kindly give me a drink of water, and may I sit down? I am tired.”

“Would you come in, ma’am, out of the sun?”

She followed him, and took the chair he offered, and the tin cup.

“What good water you have! Thank you.”

As he moved she observed his lameness, and sharply observant, saw about her no evidence of a woman’s care. This was the man she sought.

“Yes, ma’am; it’s a spring below the bluff.”

“What a handsome bearskin! Did you shoot him?”

“Yes; last winter, up in the Virginia hills.”

“Are you a good shot?”

“I reckon I am.”

“But you missed my husband last night.”

“Great Scott!” he exclaimed, “who told you that?”

“He saw you. It is useless to deny it, and the fact is, Mr.—what is your name?”

“I’m Tom Coffin, and I just want—”

“Wait a little. If you had killed him you would have killed your best friend.”

“Well, now, that’s pretty good. My friend! ’Tain’t a matter to talk over with women. He’s got to let me alone. My father, that’s dead, and me, we have been here eighteen years, and now comes your man and says git out.”

“Is the land so good?”

“No, it isn’t; but it’s mine, and it’s all I have.”

“Suppose my husband were to offer to do one of two things?”

“Well,” he said, “he ain’t offered nothing.”

“If he wins our suit about the bounds of the land below you on the river, and would give you a deed for five acres on the bluff,—good land, too,—would you take it in exchange for what does not belong to you?”

“I would; but he hasn’t got it. Mr. Greyhurst says he won’t git it.”

Then the man became of a sudden suspicious.

“Look here, ma’am; I ain’t used to dealing with ladies. Did Mr. Trescot send you? He needn’t have been afraid.”

“Afraid!” she said proudly, rising as she spoke. “George Trescot, my husband, afraid! It was not he who ran last night. Who was it ran from an unarmed man?”

Then in a moment she was back in a well-played part.

“Mr. Coffin, I came here just because I am a woman and a young wife. My husband does not know, or I never should have been allowed to come. I want to make sure that you will not kill an unarmed, crippled man. I can’t stand by and wait to see what will happen. I will not go until you promise me that you will agree, if we win, to exchange your clearing for the better land below; or if you will not do that, tell me now what you will take to move if we—I mean my uncle—does not win his suit.”

Coffin weakened. This gracious woman with her soft voice and eyes full of tears captured the man.

“Who’s going to make sure of the pay?”

“I shall pay. Come, now, let us be friends. I am really on your side. You can’t fight the law. Some day you will have to go and get nothing for all you have done. Come, now, what will you take?”

“Would you say three hundred, ma’am?”

“No; four hundred,” she said quickly. It was the half of her little personal savings.

“I’ll take it,” he said.

She put out her hand. He took it shyly, as she said:

“Are you busy all day?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Could you come up in the afternoons and help me in my garden, for three dollars a week?”

“I will if your man wants me; he won’t want me.”

“Yes, he will. You should have come at first and talked to him. You are both old soldiers; and, Mr. Coffin, you must be a Northern man—you have a good old New England name.”

“No; my father was. He came from Massachusetts.” Then he was silent.

She saw that he was still unsatisfied. “Ah, my own State. Is there anything else? I want it all clear.”

“Well, it isn’t, and I want to know. The fact is, ma’am, Mr. Greyhurst told me you folks wouldn’t do anything, but just drive me out. Father and I have been here eighteen years, and my sister has the cabin just below here. Her man’s sick, and there’s two children, and go was the word, just like we were dogs.”

“If Mr. Greyhurst told you that, he said what was not true. He knew nothing about it, or what Mr. Trescot would do. My husband was coming here with General Averill to-morrow.”

“Was he?—he and my old captain?”

“Yes, and you come like a coward and shoot at an unarmed man, who is ready to help you.”

“O Lord, drop that! I was just fooled by that man Greyhurst. I’ll get even with him. I was thinking—me and another man—that we’d go and see Mr. Trescot. Greyhurst he said it was no good. You can tell your husband, if he’s minded not to be hard on us, I can help him about those bounds down below. I won’t say no more till we talk—me and him.”

Constance, surprised, returned: “I’ll leave you to settle that with him, but don’t go and what you call get even with Mr. Greyhurst.” She saw mischief in this. “Keep it all to yourself; do not let him know that you are on our side. Promise me; you know I trust you.”

“I can hold my tongue, ma’am. Darn that lawyer chap!”

“Well,” she said, “here is your first week’s wages.”

“No; I don’t take money I haven’t earned.”

“Yes, you must,” and she left the notes in his great rough hand.

“Of course Mr. Greyhurst will see you in my garden.”

“Well, it ain’t none of his business. Guess I’ll be the fooler this time. When will I come? I don’t half like it.”

“But you will. Come to-day at six. It is too late for work, but I want Mr. Trescot to talk to you.”

“Well, I’ll come. I’ve said it, and I’ll come.”

“Good-by.”

Well pleased, she went away across the clearing and up the bluff, determined that her uncle should agree to pay, or that she herself must do so. “I have bought a man and saved a man’s life,” she said joyously. She was glad, elate, and at ease.

She had been so long with Coffin that her husband had gone home. She hurried her steps and entered the house just after him. A great joy was in her heart. She would tell him in this way—no, it should be in that way. The adventure delighted her, and the feeling that she had been able to help her husband and make him secure.