Books: The Law of the Land
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Emerson Hough >> The Law of the Land
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"Come," said she, "let's explore our desert island; yonder's such a
pretty little path,"--and she pointed down the path which Eddring had
already investigated.
"No," he said, "the cane is very wet; you'd better sit close by the
fire, so that you will not feel the damp. Now, I will get the
breakfast; and I promise you, this is to be our last meal in the
forest."
"Our last?" said madame. "What you mean?"
"In a couple of hours we shall be at the Big House," said Eddring. "I
have looked about, and I know this place perfectly. We are only four
or five miles from the station, and the way will be plain."
"Monsieur," said madame, "I shall be almost sorry. It is the fine
peek-_neek._ Never have I slept so before."
"I, too, have slept nicely," said Miss Lady, "and I want to thank
you. Shall we be out of the wood so soon?" There was small elation in
her own voice, after all. In her soul there was a wild, inexplicable
longing that this present hour might endure. Fear was gone, in some
way, she knew not how. What there might be ahead, Miss Lady did not
know. Here in the forest she felt safe.
The hurried breakfast was soon despatched and Eddring, taking aboard
his passengers once more, pushed out into the broad sea which lay
through all the heavy forest. The nearest road to the station was
under water, and, as it offered few obstructions, Eddring for the
most part followed its curves for the remainder of his boat journey.
At length, as he had said, he brought up within sight of the
telegraph poles along the railway. He passed by boat even beyond the
little station-house, and landed at the edge of what had been the Big
House lawn.
On every side there was ruin and desolation. The rude fence of the
railway track had caught and held a certain amount of wreckage. Most
of the field cabins were above the water, but others were half out of
sight, deep in the flood. Fences were well-nigh obliterated. Half of
the Big House plantation was under water. Above all this scene of
ruin, high, strong and grim, the Big House itself stood, now silent
and apparently deserted. Toward it the voyagers hurried. It was not
until they knocked at the door that they met signs of life.
In response to repeated summons there appeared at the door the gaunt
figure of Colonel Calvin Blount himself, shirt-sleeved, unshaven,
pale, his left arm tightly bandaged to his side, his hawk-like eye
alone showing the wonted fire of his disposition. Each man threw an
arm over the other's shoulder after their hands had met in silent
grasp.
"I am not too late," said Eddring. "Thank God!"
"No, not quite too late," said Blount. "There is a little left--not
much. Who's with you?"
"The one you sent for," said Eddring, stepping aside, "and this is
Madame Delchasse, the one woman, Colonel, whom you and I ought to
thank with all our hearts. She has been the friend of Miss Lady when
certainly she needed one."
Blount stepped forward, a smile softening his grim face. "Oh, Miss
Lady, Miss Lady," he cried, extending his unhampered hand. "You ran
away from us! You didn't do right! What made you? Where have you
been? What have you been doing?" Miss Lady's eyes only filled, and
she found no speech.
"But now you're back," Blount went on. "You need friends, and you've
come back to the right place. Here are three friends of yours. Madame
Delchasse--" this as Miss Lady drew her companion toward him with one
hand, "I am glad to see you. It you ever befriended this girl, you
are our friend here. Come in, and we will take care of you the best
we can, though we've not much left--not much left.
"You see," said he, turning toward Eddring, "that boy Jack of yours
came down with the news of this uprising that I mentioned in my
message. He brought along his woman; and I must say that though I
don't much mind this--"--he pointed to his injured arm--"if I have
to eat that woman's cooking much longer, I'm going to die."
Then it was that Clarisse Delchasse arose grandly to the occasion.
"Monsieur Colonel," she said, as she divested herself of her bonnet,
"I have swear I would cook no more; but me? I am once the best cook
in New Orleans. I cook not for money, ah, _non!_ but from pity!
Sir, humanity it is so outrage' by the poor cook that I have pity!
So, Monsieur, I have pity also of you. Show me this girl that can not
cook, and show me also the kitshen. Ah, we shall see whether Clarisse
Delchasse have forget!"
"Show her, Miss Lady," said Blount. "Show her. The place is yours.
Oh, girl, we're glad enough to have you back. Go get that gold-
toothed woman of Jack's, go get 'em all, if you can find any of 'em
around. Get Bill, he's around somewhere--get any of 'em you can find,
and tell 'em to take care of you. Child, child, it's glad enough we
all are to have you back again. Ah, Miss Lady, what made you go
away?"
Even as he spoke, Madame Delchasse, rolling up her cuffs, was
marching down the hall. "By jinks!" said Blount, looking after her
admiringly. "By jinks! It looks like things were going to happen,
don't it?" His strained features relaxed into a smile.
"But now come on, son," he said, turning to Eddring, "you and I have
got to have a talk. I'll tell you about some of the things that
_have_ happened. We've been busy here in Tullahoma."
Drawing apart into another room, Blount met Eddring's hurried queries
as to his own safety, and heard in turn the strange story of the late
voyage and the incidents immediately preceding it. He told Blount of
the discovery of Miss Lady living in the care of the old Frenchwoman,
Madame Delchasse--Miss Lady, as they had both more than suspected,
none other than Louise Loisson, the mysterious dancer in the city of
New Orleans; told of the plot which he was satisfied had been the
motive of Henry Decherd in inducing Miss Lady to accompany him upon
the steamer. Blount added rapid confirmation here and there, and
presently they came to a topic which could no longer be avoided.
"I know what was done," said Eddring at length, after a slight pause
in the conversation. "I found the place where it all happened. That's
where we spent the night, on the ridge, near the house."
"Did they see? Did they know?" asked Blount, nodding toward the place
where the two women had disappeared.
"No," said Eddring. "I did not tell them. Blount, it's awful. Where's
the law gone in this country?"
"Law?" cried Blount, fiercely, "_we_ were the law! We sent for
that nigger sheriff--the one they elected for a joke--hell of a joke,
wasn't it?--and he wouldn't come. We had with us the old sheriff, Jim
Peters, a good officer in this county, as you know, before now. We
had with us every white voter in this precinct, every tax-payer. We
found them, these levee-cutting, house-burning fools, right at their
work. We left some of them dead there, and run some into the cane,
and we took the balance over to that church of theirs which you saw.
The water wasn't so high then as you say it is now. There was a
regular fight, and the niggers were plumb desperate. They had guns.
Jim Bowles, down below here, was shot pretty bad, though I reckon
he'll get well. I was shot, too--not bad, but enough to make me some
dizzy. Jim Peters--and I reckon he was the real officer of the law--
was shot, too, so bad that he died pretty soon. Now I reckon you can
tell what we found to be at the bottom of this, and who it was that's
been making all this deviltry here for years."
"Delphine!"
"It was nobody else," said Blount. "You talk about human tigers, and
fiends, and all that kind of thing; that woman beat anything I ever
did see or hear of. She was brave as a lion. Peters and Bowles and I
closed in on her, wanting to take her, but she fought like a man, and
a brave one. She had two six-shooters, and she dropped us, all three
of us; and then before the others could close in on her, she turned
loose on herself, and killed herself dead as hell. She didn't see the
finish of the others."
Eddring buried his face in his hands and inwardly thanked Providence
that he himself had not been present at such a scene.
Blount resumed presently. "Peters didn't die right away," said he.
"He lay there with his head propped on a coat rolled up for a piller,
and he talked to us all like we was at home in the parlor. 'Keep on
with it, boys,' said he. 'Do this thorough. Make this a white man's
country; or if you kain't, don't leave no white men alive in it.'
Then after a while he turns to me and says he, 'Colonel, you know I'm
not a rich man. Now I've got a couple of mighty fine b'ah-dogs, and I
want to give 'em to you; but if you don't mind, I'd like mighty well
if you'd send my wife over a good cow. She's going to be left in
pretty poor shape, I'm afraid, for you know how things have been
going on the plantations,' I told him I would. We was both laying on
the ground together. I told him I would take care of his folks, for
he was a friend of mine, and the right kind of man. He talked on a
while like that, and finally he says, 'Well, boys, I'm not going to
live, and you've got a heap to do right now, and I mustn't keep you
from it. Jake,' says he, 'you Jake, come here.'--Jake was his nigger
boy that he always kept around with him. We had three or four good
darkies with us. My boy Bill, out there, was along, and this Jake and
some others. 'Jake,' says Jim Peters to this boy, 'come around here
an' take this piller out from under my head. Lay me down, and lemme
die!' Jake he didn't want to, but Jim says to him again, 'Jake, damn
you,' says he,'do like I tell you'; so then Jake he took the piller
out, and Jim he just lay back and gasped once, 'Oh!' like that, and
he was gone. I call that dying like a gentleman," said Blount.
"The poor fools," presently went on the firm voice of the man who was
recounting these commonplaces of the recent savage scenes, "they
think, and they told us, some of them, that they've got the North
behind them. They think the time is going to come when they won't
have to work any more. They want to make all this Delta black, and
not white. If we could give it to them and fence them in we would be
well rid of the whole proposition, North and South alike. These poor
fools say that the North will make another war and set them free
again! There'll never be another war between the South and the North.
Next time it will be North and South together, against the slaves,
white and black. But as to the Delta going black, while we men in
here are left alive--well, I want to say we'll never live to see it.
If the people up North could only know the trouble they make--could
only know that that trouble lands hardest on the niggers, I think
maybe they'd change a few of their theories. They don't understand.
They think that maybe after a while they can make us people think
that black is white, and white is black. Carry that out, and it means
extermination, on the one side or the other.
"Law?" he went on bitterly; "I wish you'd tell me what _is_ the law.
Good God, we white men in this country are anxious enough in our
hearts to settle all these things. We want to be law-abiding, but how
can we, unless we begin everything all over again? Law? You tell me,
what _is_ the law!"
CHAPTER XV
CERTAIN MOTIVES
Miss Lady and her stout-hearted friend, Clarisse Delchasse, found
abundance at hand to engage their activities. Miss Lady ran from one
part to another of the great house which once she had known so
familiarly. Everywhere was an unlovely disorder and confusion, which
spoke of shiftlessness and lack of care. The touch of woman's hand
had long been wanting. Colonel Blount, in the hands of his
indifferent servants, had indeed seen all things go to ruin about
him. To Miss Lady, concerned with the swift changes in her own life,
wondering what the future might presently have in store for her, all
this seemed a sorry home-coming. She leaned her head against the door
and wept in a sudden sense of loneliness; yet presently she lost in
part this feeling in a greater access of pity which she felt for the
helpless master of the Big House, who had been living thus abandoned
and alone. With this there came the woman-like wish to restore the
place to some semblance of a home. Even as she dried her eyes, to her
entered presently madame, with her sleeves rolled to the elbow and
her face aglow in the noble ardor of housekeeping.
"_Voila_!" she cried. "I have foun' it! I have dig it h'out. Here is
the soss-_pan_ of copper. It was throw' away. It was disspise'. _Mais
oui_, but now I shall cook! This house it is ruin'. Such a place I
never have seen since I begin. You and I, Mademoiselle, it is for us
to make this a place fit for the to-live--but you, what is it? Ah,
Mademoiselle, why you weep? Come, Come to me!" And Miss Lady was
indeed fain to lay her head upon the broad shoulders, to feel the
comforting embrace of madame's fat arms.
"H'idgit!" cried madame, suddenly, starting back.
"H'idgit congenital! H'ass most tremenjouse! Fool _par excellence!"_
Miss Lady gazed to her in wonder. "Auntie," she cried, "who?"
"Who should it be but the M'sieu Eddrang?" replied madame. "For a
time it is like the book. Now it is not like the book. Ah, if I
Clarisse Delchasse, were a man, and I take the lady away from one
man, I'd h'run away with her myself, me, and I'd keep on the h'run.
But M'sieu Eddrang, how is it that he does? Bah! He does not speak
t'ree, four word to you the whole time on the boat. You, who have
been the idol of the young _gentilhommes_ of New Orleans--you,
who have been worship'! Now, it is not one man, and it is not
another, although _ma 'tite fille,_ she is alone, here in this
desert _execrable._ Bah! It is for you to disspise that M'sieu
Eddrang. He is not _grand homme._ Come. I take you back to New
Orleans."
Miss Lady looked at her with a curious shade of perplexity on her
face. "You mistake, auntie," said she. "I do not wish to be back at
New Orleans. I am done with the stage--I'll never dance again. I am--
I'm just lonesome--I don't know why. I have been so troubled. I don't
know where I belong. Auntie, it's an awful feeling not to know that
you belong somewhere, or to some one."
"You billong to me," said Madame Delchasse, stoutly. "As to that
h'idgit,--no, never!"
"But Mr. Eddring brought us safely through the forest," said Miss
Lady, arguing now for him. "I don't know what became of Mr. Decherd,
or why he left us, but we can't accuse Mr. Eddring of anything
ungentlemanly after that time. But why was he so anxious to come? Why
was Colonel Blount so anxious? I don't understand all these things.
And Mr. Eddring and Colonel Cal seem to want to talk to each other,
and not to us."
"Bah! Those men!" said Madame Delchasse. "What can they do but for
us? This place, it is horrible neglect'. But come, I show you my
soss-_pan."_
As Miss Lady had said, Blount and Eddring were long and eagerly
engaged in conversation. They were rapidly running over the new links
in the strange chain of evidence which had now for some time been
forging, Eddring being especially curious now as to Blount's
discoveries in connection with the girl Delphine.
"It's plain enough," said Blount, finally, "that this thing between
Decherd and Delphine had been going on for a long time. Delphine left
a good many papers, which we found among her belongings. It's all
turned out just about as we figured before you went to New Orleans;
but we found one letter from Decherd to Delphine that uncovered his
hand completely, and it was this, to my notion, that made Delphine so
desperate."
"Let me have that letter, Cal."
"All right, I'll get it for you after a while, along with all the
other papers. It gives the whole thing away. He just told her he was
through with her, and with Mrs. Ellison, too. Told her he wouldn't
send her no more money, and turned her loose to take care of herself
the best she could. He allowed that she, and Mrs. Ellison, too, could
do what they wanted to. That was when he told Delphine that if she
made him any trouble he'd come out and charge her with the train
wreck. He was the planner of that wreck. He knew right where that
log-pile was at. He wanted another accident on that railroad, and he
wanted Delphine mixed up in it, so he could control her after that.
She was willing enough, because by that time I reckon she just about
hated all the world. And Decherd came down on that very train, and
got off at our station just before the smash. There was a little
danger in that, but at the same time it was the best way in the world
to rid himself of all suspicion. After the wreck he just mixed with
the crowd, and nobody thought of him one way or the other. Pretty
smooth, wasn't it?
"Oh, he had nerve, too, that fellow did. He wasn't scared, at least
not of these two women, although I'm right sure Mrs. Ellison and he
might have had reason to be scared of the law in some of their
carryings-on before now. It is easy enough to see that Mrs. Ellison
never was Miss Lady's mother."
"No," said Eddring, "that couldn't have been. Some day we'll know all
about that. A good lawyer might get at the truth, even yet."
"Good lawyer?" said Blount. "How about you?"
Eddring shook his head.
"What do you mean?" asked Blount.
"Well," said Eddring, bitterly, "I told you I'd bring Miss Lady
through, and I did. But that ends it. I am neither lawyer nor friend
for any young woman who thinks I'm a thief."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, she told me to my own face that I stole that list of judgment
claims from my own railroad. She told me that I was dishonest. She
forbade me ever to see her again."
"Seems like you _did_ see her again," said Blount, philosophically.
"Well now, you just think over both sides of that. You want to forget
some of the things women say."
"I'll forget nothing," replied Eddring, "I don't need any advice in
such matters as that. No man, and no woman, can accuse me in that way
and ever make it right without coming to me voluntarily and making
apology and explanation. I say voluntarily, meaning for a woman. If
it were a man, I'd take the first steps myself."
"Oh, well, get your feathers up, if you want to," said Blount. "I
suppose every fellow is entitled to his own kind of damned
foolishness. First thing, let's go on through with this Delphine
business. Now, was that girl crazy, or was she just a natural devil?
Folks mostly have reasons for doing things."
"I should think this letter you mention would explain everything for
Delphine," said Eddring. "She was born a good hater, and she was
surely misled and deceived for years--finally thrown over and
taunted."
"But where did they first hook up together, and what made 'em?"
"No doubt she and Decherd knew each other before either came to your
place. Decherd's main motive was money. Delphine was no doubt his
mistress, even here; but he was looking after the legal side of
matters all the time. What he promised Delphine no one knows. It
looks as though he and Mrs. Ellison were hunting in couple, too. Now,
Mrs. Ellison had brains, and she was an attractive woman, too--full
of sex, full of love and hate, and full of unscrupulousness as well.
Rather a dangerous proposition, I should say, to have right here in
your own house. Now, here was Decherd mixed up with two, or perhaps
all three of these women at the same time! That took nerve."
"I should say it did," said Blount. "It was the same sort of nerve a
fellow has to have when he starts on across a trembling bog. He just
keeps on a-running."
"Well, he had to keep running, sure as you're born. A fine situation,
all around, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Blount, tersely. "If I had known all that was going on
here, I wouldn't maybe have felt altogether easy about it."
"Well, Miss Lady's going away helped Decherd. By this time he had to
lighten cargo somewhere. We don't know about his first relations with
Mrs. Ellison, and we don't know just how he got rid of her. Perhaps
he didn't quite want to dispense with Mrs. Ellison, since he might
need her in legal matters later on. He wanted to get rid of Delphine,
but he couldn't kill her outright, and illegally, so he resolved to
get her killed legally if he could! I have no doubt in the world,
Cal, that Decherd planned the train wreck. Maybe he thought it meant
more damage suits; but I think as you do, his main reason was to get
rid of Delphine. He probably hid the handkerchief under the log-pile.
He probably was glad to see the dogs run the trail right to your
door. But Delphine had a nerve of her own. I have no doubt it was she
who turned your pack loose, and wiped out the sheriff's trail right
there."
"By jinks!" said Blount, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Things were
happening, right around here."
"They were happening, and they are not done happening yet. Now, I've
brought you Miss Lady. You take care of her. Better keep that
Frenchwoman here, too, if you can. Decherd may turn up again
sometime, or maybe Mrs. Ellison, though I think Decherd's teeth are
pretty well pulled, I can't act as Miss Lady's lawyer, but I'll
promise to act as your friend."
"And hers?"
"Yes, and hers," said Eddring, hesitatingly. "We are hardly through
with all this yet."
"It's been pretty bad down here," said the old planter.
"Yes, and we know now how it happened and who was at the head of the
trouble, and what cat's-paws were used in it all. Decherd fails in
his first attempt to get rid of Delphine legally, so he stirs her up
to still worse acts; tells her there is no profit in law and order,
but only in destruction. He tells her how to incite these ignorant
niggers; how to bring up all the old talk of their day of
deliverance, the time when they won't have to work, the time when
they will be not only the equals, but the superiors of the whites. He
tells Delphine that she is the naturally appointed Queen of these
people. She is savage enough to fit in with all their savagery. She
does rule it as a queen. In her soul there are thoughts, wild
thoughts which you and I can never understand, because we are white,
and all white. Delphine is neither white nor black, neither red, nor
white, nor black. She is a product of race amalgamation, a
monstrosity, a horror, the germ of a national destruction. She is a
queen--a queen of annihilation!
"And so this thing went on," resumed Eddring, after a time, "this
plotting which meant war and destruction, not for this household
alone, nor this district, nor this state, but for this nation! What
prevented it? I'll tell you. It was our Miss Lady. It was the White
Woman, the white woman of America. Whatever happens, whatever stands
or falls, whatever is the law or is not the law, that is the thing to
be cherished always and to be protected at any cost or any risk. This
house is no better than the women in it, nor is any home, nor is any
nation. Lawless, American men may be, but not so the women; and in
them we reverence the law. When the women go, the nation goes. They
are the salvation of this nation--the stronghold of its purity. In
the commercialization and the corruption of a people the women are
the last to go. In the South we have taken care of them always. I'm
not preaching. I only say, it was our Miss Lady who, by the
Providence of God, acted here as the spirit of all that means
progress, all that means development and civilization.
"Cal, you think I'm a visionary, that I'm a dreamer. Perhaps I am.
But I think on my honor that the angel of our salvation here was one
girl who had no conception of the part she played. I have told you,
she is _our_ Miss Lady. There's nothing in this for me
personally, but at least you and I can take off our hats to her.
Maybe sometime the picture will blur and merge, so that, for us two
old fellows, Miss Lady will just mean Woman. I reckon all of us old
fellows, and all the young ones, can take care of Her."
The two sat looking at each other a moment. Ere their silence was
broken there came the sound of a quick step down the hall, and a
light tap at the door. There appeared, framed in the doorway, the
figure of Miss Lady herself; but not Miss Lady the dancer of New
Orleans, nor yet Miss Lady as recently garbed for her voyage through
the wilderness. In her rummaging about the once familiar recesses of
the Big House, she had come across a simple gown of lawn, which she
had worn long ago, when scarce more than a child. Now, albeit
rounder, firmer and fuller of figure than when she had departed in
search of that bigger world beyond the rim of the hedging forest, it
was the same Miss Lady of the Big House once more. She had come back
to her old friends, and to a world which now seemed strangely sweet
and strangely dear. Her sleeves were rolled up; her hair was tumbled
about her brow, and her eyes were dancing with new merriment.
"Please, gentlemen," said she, with a dainty courtesy, "and would you
come out to dinner? You really should see what Madame Delchasse has
done with her new sauce-pan."
Blount and Eddring both arose; there was gravity in the gaze of
either, though the heart of either might have leaped.
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