Books: The Law of the Land
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Emerson Hough >> The Law of the Land
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"John," said Mrs. Eddring, when they were again alone, "that's a
sweet girl, a _very_ sweet girl. Did you notice how she thanked
me--as being the elder lady, you know--for our call? I think--"
Eddring started, only half-hearing her.
"But that lady, her mother," went on Mrs. Eddring, "I can't tell, yet
for some reason I do not fully understand her. But--" and here she
gained conviction, "you need not tell_ me!_ There is _family_
somewhere back of that girl, my son. She's good enough. She's--"
"Good enough!" cried John Eddring. "Good enough! What do you mean?"
"Ah, my boy," said Mrs. Eddring, sighing, "I know. I presume, I hope,
that you feel quite as the general did, when I was a girl. Sometimes
I have thought the world was changing in such matters. I shall want
to see this young lady again, and often. We must inquire--but here I
am, talking with you, when of course you must be back at your work.
I'll leave you now."
"Work!" cried John Eddring. "Work!"
CHAPTER XI.
COLONEL CALVIN BLOUNT'S PROPOSAL.
The mild winter of the Delta region wore itself gradually away, and
now again the sun was high in the mid-arc of the sky, glowing so warm
that the earth, rich and teeming, seemed once more to quiver under
its ardor. The sloth of ease and comfort was in the air. The big bees
droned among the flowers at the lattice, and out in the glaring
sunlight the lusty cocks led their bands betimes, crowing each his
loud defiance. In the pastures, under the wide-armed oaks, the cattle
and horses stood dozing. Life on the old plantation seemed, after
all, to have set on again much in its former quiet channels. If
within the year there had been insubordination, violence, death
hereabout, the scene no longer showed it. The Delta, less than a
quarter white, more than three-quarters black, was once more at rest,
and waiting.
This was the scene over which Miss Lady looked out one day as she sat
in a big rocking-chair in the shade, in a favorite spot of the wide
gallery, feeling dreamily, if not definitely, the spirit of the idle
landscape which lay shimmering in the sun. Her gaze gained directness
and comprehension at last.
This, thought Miss Lady, was the world! It was all the world for her.
This, so far as she could see, was to be her fate--to sit and look
out over the wide reaches of the cotton fields, to hear the negroes
sing their melodies, to watch the lazy life of an inland farm. This
was to be the boundary of her world, this white and black rim of the
forest hedging all about. This lattice was to shut in her life for
ever. She might meet no white woman but her mother, no white man.
Things were not quite clear to Miss Lady's mind to-day. She sank back
in the chair, and all the world again seemed vague, confused,
shimmering, like this scene over which she gazed. She sighed, her
foot tapping at the gallery floor. Sometimes it seemed to Miss Lady
that she must break out into cries of impatience, that she must fly,
that she must indeed seek out a wider world. What was that world, she
wondered, the world out there beyond the rim of the ancient forest
that hedged her in? What did it hold for a girl? Was there life in
it? Was there love in it? Was there answer in it?
The old bear-dog, Hec, came around the corner of the house from his
napping in the shade, and sat looking up in adoration at his
divinity, inquiring mutely whether that divinity would permit a
common warrior like himself to come and kiss her hand. She saw him
finally and extended one hand idly; at which Hec dropped his ears,
wagged his tail uncertainly, and came on slowly up the stair. He
nozzled his head tentatively against her knee; and so, receiving
sanction, went into delighted waggings, licking tenderly the soft
white hand which stroked his head.
"Oh, Hec, dear old Hec," said Miss Lady, "I am _so_ lonesome!" And
Hec, understanding vaguely that all was not quite well with his
divinity, uplifted his voice in deep regret. "I am so _lonesome,_"
repeated Miss Lady, softly, to herself.
A step on the gallery caused her to turn. Colonel Blount crossed the
length of the gallery and paused at her side. "Miss Lady," said he,
"you just literally honey my b'ah-dogs up so all the time, that after
a while I'll be ashamed to call the pack my own. I'm almost afraid
now to take them out hunting, for fear some of them will get hurt;
and you always make such a fuss about it."
"You get them all bitten and cut up," said Miss Lady. "How do you
think that feels?"
"I know how it feels," said Blount, slowly. "As to dogs, I think
there are times when it's a sort of relief to them. You can't change
the way the world is made, Miss Lady. How'd you like to sit here for
ever and never get a chance to see anything outside of this here
yard?"
Unconsciously, he had come close to a certain mark. "I should die,"
said Miss Lady, simply. "I was just thinking--"
"What were you thinking?" said Blount, suddenly.
"I don't blame Hec, after all. I should die if I had to stay here for
ever, with just nothing to do--nothing--nobody--"
Blount suddenly pulled up his chair and sat down close at hand.
"Tell me, Miss Lady, what do you mean?" said he. "Tell me, child.
Ain't you happy here?"
"Well, I don't know."
"Yes, you do know; and I asked you if you weren't happy."
"Maybe you don't understand all about girls, Colonel Calvin," said
Miss Lady.
"I don't reckon I do. I don't reckon God A'mighty does, either,
hardly. I thought you and your mother were contented here. You've
made it a sort of heaven for me. I 'lowed it would run along for ever
that-away."
Silence fell between them. "Miss Lady," said Blount, finally, "I came
out here this morning on purpose to hunt you up. Now, listen. You say
you're not happy here. I have been nothing but happy ever since you
came. For a long time I didn't know why. I didn't know why I kept on
asking where was Miss Lady at, where was Miss Lady gone to. 'Now,
where is Miss Lady?' I found myself asking this very morning. About
an hour ago I found myself asking that mighty strong. Then I just set
myself down, right out there on the board-pile, and done reasoned it
all out. Then I found out why I was asking that question so much. I
found out why I never did get married, Miss Lady. The reason was, I
never wanted to, till now."
Miss Lady was looking far away now, out across the fields. Her face
was pale, save for a small red spot in either cheek. She moved as
though she would have turned to face this man whose eyes she felt,
yet this she was unable to do. She heard the voice go on, softer than
she had ever known it before.
"Miss Lady," said Calvin Blount, "now listen to me. I've grown up
down here like any savage. I haven't been much better than my old
daddy, nor much different; and every man ought to grow better than
his dad, if he can. I have driven the niggers to work, and I have
been comfortable on what they raised. I can see it's right rough down
here, though. I never used to think so. All I wanted in the world was
rain enough to make the cotton sure, and mast enough to make the
b'ahs come. I was happy, or thought I was, until you came, though I
reckon I never really knew what that word meant before. I never did
see a woman I liked as well as my pack of dogs. This place was good
enough for me. Now, listen. I was fool enough to think for one
minute, Miss Lady, for just one minute, that it was good enough for
you. I thought maybe you and I could understand a heap of things
together. Now, I hear you say that you're lonesome, that you're not
happy here. Happy? Why, I tell you, Miss Lady, I am half-dying of
lonesomeness right now, right here in my own home, on my own ground,
in the only place in God A'mighty's world where I am fit to live."
"You must not," said Miss Lady, and turned toward him eyes in which
stood sudden tears. "I must go. I must go away."
"Listen, I tell you," said Blount again, sternly, and put out a hand
as she would have risen. "You go away? Where would you go? What would
you do? Now, wait till I get done. Here," he cried almost savagely,
"stand up here like I tell you, and listen to what I've got to say!
Stand right there!" He drew in one grasp from his pocket his
handkerchief and his gauntlet gloves, and swept a place clean upon
the gallery floor before her.
"Stand right there, Miss Lady," said he, with all his old
imperiousness. "Stand in that place where I done made it clean and
easy for you, like I want to make the whole world clean and easy for
you always. I'd like to smooth it that-away for you, always. Now,
look at me, Miss Lady. I ain't a coward, at least I never was till
now, and maybe not now; for I came here as soon as I knew how this
thing was, though God knows I wanted to get on my horse and ride the
other way as fast as I could. I came here because I wouldn't have
been a man if I hadn't come, if I hadn't said this to the first woman
I ever thought twice about."
"Don't, don't, please! please!" cried Miss Lady, pushing out her
hands, but he commanded her again, sternly.
"Stop," said he. "There's one time when a man has a right to say his
say, and say it all. I've got to tell you this. I've got to offer
myself to you in marriage, Miss Lady. I've got to ask that of you;
and, God pity me, I've got to give myself my own answer. Listen!
Stop! It ain't for you to answer. It's for me.
"Now, look at me. I'm strong. I'm not afraid of any living thing,
except you. I'm old, but there's younger men that's no better. I'm
rich enough. I've got two thousand acres of the best land in the
Delta, and that's the best on earth. There's money enough here to
take you anywhere you want to go in all the world. I couldn't be mean
to no woman. It's in my nature to feel that a woman is a thing to be
took care of, for ever and for ever--that oughtn't to work, that
oughtn't to worry, that ought to just _be!_ I don't know much about
women, but I always did feel that-away. You'd never have to worry
about that. I wouldn't lie to you, not for any reason. No man should
ever raise a breath against you. If"--he swept a hand over his face,
but still went on.
"Listen," he said, "Miss Lady Ellison, I, Calvin Blount, old Calvin
Blount, this sort of man like I told you, I offer myself to you, and
all I have, for your own. I offer you that--" The girl's eyes looked
up at him, swimming now all the more in tears. His face was
distorted, but he went on. "Don't," said he, "please don't! Listen,
here's the answer. By the Eternal, you _can't_ and you _shan't_ marry
old Cal Blount! It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be right, Miss
Lady," said he again, presently. "It's right for me to tell you that I
never thought twice of any other woman, that in my soul I love you,
that I never shall know a happy day without you; but it's right, too,
for me to give myself the answer, and I do. And it's No, Miss Lady,
it's No!" He turned away. Miss Lady felt about her blindly and dropped
her head on the rail of the chair, sobbing.
"I can't help it. I can't help things, Colonel Cal," said she, "but
then, but then--"
"Yes, child; yes, Miss Lady," said Calvin Blount,
gently, "but then, but then! I never did know much, but I'm learnin'.
I'm man enough now to know all about what you mean when you say 'but
then.' Come, it's all over. But I can't bear to see you cry. Please
stop, Miss Lady. Don't do that."
Miss Lady could not stop. She buried her face in her hands. She half
felt the touch of a hand, very light, upon her head, a touch given
but once, and swiftly withdrawn. She heard him continue. "This home
is yours," said he, "and you can stay here, I'll go out into the
woods again. You need not fret and you need not fear. We couldn't,
maybe, both stay here together now. Or, it may be there's a bigger
world for you somewhere, and you want to go there. I won't stand in
your way, and I'll help you all I can. I'm done talking about this,
now and for ever. But if you don't stop crying, I'll get on my horse
right now, and I'll ride out in the woods and I never will come back
again."
Miss Lady put out her hand to him.
"Sir," said she, half-whispering, "I didn't know that men were this
way. It's different from what I thought. But you must remember," and
she smiled wanly, "you must remember always only that it was you who
refused yourself. Please think of it that way, Mr. Cal."
Old Hec ventured up the steps again and stood looking dumbly from one
to the other of these two. At last he deserted his master and went
over and laid his big head on Miss Lady's lap, looking up at her with
questioning eyes.
[Illustration: SHE HALF FELT THE TOUCH OF A HAND, VERY LIGHT, UPON
HER HEAD.]
CHAPTER XII
A WOMAN SCORNED
As Colonel Blount passed from the gallery into the house he came
under the gaze of a close observer. Mrs. Ellison, for reasons of her
own watchful and suspicious, had heard these agitated voices on the
gallery, and, had it been possible without detection, would not have
been in the least above eavesdropping. This being impossible, she was
forced to draw her own conclusions, based in part upon her own
suspicions. The droop of this man's shoulders, the drawn look of his
face, spoke plainly enough for her. Hardly had the sound of his
footsteps died away before she was out of the door of her room and by
the side of Miss Lady, who still sat, pensive and downcast, in her
rocking-chair on the gallery.
Miss Lady was not prepared for the spectacle which thus met her gaze,
this woman with clenched hands and distorted face, and attitude which
spoke only of antagonism and threat. There came a swift catch at her
heart, for this was the woman to whom of natural right she should now
have fled in search of consolation. It seemed to her now as though
all her world had known a sudden change. It was as when some tender
creature, fresh risen from the earth, ventures into the strange, new
world of the air, to flutter its brief day. Eternity seems to stretch
before it, an eternity of joy hinted in the first glance at this new
universe which it attains. Yet comes the sun, the sudden, blighting
sun, the same influence which has broken the brooding envelope of
another world and brought this gentle being into its new life, and
this cruel sun withers at once the tender creature in all its hope
and youthfulness and beauty, ending its bright day ere it as yet is
noon. Thus seemed the universe to Miss Lady, no longer young, care-
free, joyous, but now suddenly grown old. One look, one sudden flash
of her inner comprehension, and she knew it to be for ever
established that this woman, her mother, was her mother no more! Why,
she knew not, yet this was sure, she was not her mother, but her
enemy. How dubiously swam all the world about poor Miss Lady at that
instant! She knew, even before the enraged woman at her side had
formulated her emotion into speech.
"So now, you treacherous little cat," said Mrs. Ellison, between her
shut teeth, "you've been at work, have you? Oh, I might have known it
all along. You've been trying to undermine me, have you? Why, do you
think I'll let a little minx, a little half-baked brat like you, keep
me out of getting the man I want? I'll show you, Miss Lady girl!"
"Stop! Wait! What are you saying?" cried Miss Lady.
"You'll listen to what I am saying," cried Mrs. Ellison. "You've been
leading him on, and now you presume to reject him--to reject the roof
over your head and the bread in your mouth. Why, I never thought of
him seriously for you! You've ruined us both in every way, yourself
and me. Why, can't you see that if we stayed here he had to be for
one or the other of us? And could you not know that I wanted him for
myself? Oh, don't say 'wait'--don't speak to me! I know it all as
well as if I had seen it. Now, you've got to walk, that's all."
"Oh, mamma, mamma," cried Miss Lady, "do not!"
"'Oh, mamma, mamma!'" mocked the other; "stop your tongue, girl, and
don't you dare to call me 'mamma' again. I am not your mother, and
never was!"
Miss Lady gasped and went pale, but the cruel voice went on. "You
don't know what you are, or who you are. You're nothing, you're
nobody! You had no chance except what I could give you, and you'll
never know now what a chance that was! I would have made you, girl. I
would have done something with you, something for us both--but not
now, ah, no, not now! You, to cut me out from the only man I ever
really did want!"
Miss Lady rose, suddenly aflame with resentment, and feeling a
courage which came she knew not whence.
"Madam," said she, with calmness in spite of her anger, "I don't know
what you mean by this, but I am certain you are telling the truth. I
will not talk to you at all. You degrade us both. As to Colonel
Blount, I never said a word, I never did the first thing--I didn't--I
didn't tell him anything--I could not help--"
"You could not help! You could not help! Of course you could not
help! Neither can I help. But the main thing, after all, is that you
have thrown away a home for both of us--"
"Madam," said Miss Lady, now very quiet and calm, "there is only one
thing certain in all the world to me at this moment, and that is that
you do not love me, that you never will, and that I don't feel toward
you as I should. It is as you say. I could not stay here now; I shall
have to go somewhere. Colonel Blount himself knows that. He said so."
"Your mother!" resumed Mrs. Ellison, laughing shrilly, "I am about as
much your mother"--she began, but caught herself up; "you are nobody,
I say, and you'll have to go take care of yourself as best you can.
You don't know what you're throwing away, young woman. If you had
left things to me there would have been none of this trouble. Now I
shall have to go too, for I would die rather than stay here now. I
hate that man!"
Miss Lady for a moment saw the naked soul of this woman whom she had
called her mother, even as at that moment she saw her own soul; and
between this which she saw and that which remained in her own bosom,
she recognized no kinship. Problems there were for her, but this was
not one of them.
"Madam," said she at length, with a dignity beyond her years, "you
are right. We must go, both of us; but we shall not go together."
She turned to leave the gallery, and as she passed, gazed straight
into the face of Mrs. Ellison. She saw there a swift change. The red
rage, the anger, the jealousy were gone. Haggard, with eyes shifting
as though in search of refuge, the woman showed now nothing so much
as a pale terror! Miss Lady unconsciously followed her gaze. There,
near a door at the farther end of the gallery, quiet, impassive,
stood the girl Delphine. She did not speak, but gazed at Mrs. Ellison
with eyes wherein there might have been seen a certain somber fire.
"I--I did not call, Delphine," stammered Mrs. Ellison. "No, no, I did
not call."
Silent as before, Delphine turned back. With swift intuition Miss
Lady caught the conviction that some relationship existed between
these two which she herself did not understand. A sudden sense of
insecurity possessed her, mingled with the reflection that the master
of the Big House was ignorant of what arrested drama was here going
on under his own roof. If she dared but tell the master what she
suspected--ah! then perhaps this comfortable landscape, which but
lately she had found monotonous, might again enfold her sweetly and
safely; and never again would she call it aught but satisfying. Yet
every instinct told her that to the master of the Big House she could
go no more. Thus she pondered, and as she pondered her panic fear
increased to a blind terror, overwhelming every other emotion. But
one resolve remained--as soon as might be, she must fly, and find a
hiding spot unknown to any of those who had been her associates in
this place which for a time she had called home.
CHAPTER XIII
JOHN DOE VERSUS Y.V.R.R.
There are but few of the humble who are untrustworthy. Continually
we discover the great truth that faithfulness and loyalty are general
human traits, nowhere more so than among those from whom they should
not be expected; nowhere more so than among those who are debarred
from hope. The great captains of industry so-called, themselves blown
full of pride of circumstance, prate often of the inefficiencies of
human cattle; yet continually the wonder remains that these same
cattle continue to do that which their conscience tells them is right
for them to do, and to do it for the sake of the doing. The lives of
all of us are daily put in charge of beings entitled fully to an
Iago-like hatred, who might hate for the very sake of hating; yet
these are the faithful ones, who do right for the sake of its doing.
When one of these forsakes his own creed--then it is that danger
exists for all. It is the unfaithfulness of the humble which is the
unusual, the fateful, the tremendous thing.
There was small active harm in the somewhat passive soul of John
Eddring's assistant, William Carson, the large-handed young man who
acted as clerk and stenographer and rendered more or less blundering
service about the office. Perhaps there was more of curiosity than
evil in his nature. It was curiosity in the first place which gave
him personal knowledge of a certain list of judgment claims against
the Y.V. railway, which the chief agent of that road had recently
cautioned Eddring, division agent, to keep revised up to date and to
hold close under cover as a matter of absolute secrecy. These things
were more or less familiar to William Carson through his acquaintance
with the correspondence of the office. This very injunction of
secrecy inflamed his curiosity to the point of action. In the absence
of his chief, he rummaged through the office papers until he
unearthed these lists, and to these latter he gave a more careful
scrutiny than he had accorded many other matters under his immediate
charge. He figured up the totals of the unpaid claims, and the
figures startled him. He reflected that so much money in one sum
would represent very many things to him personally. This established,
he reflected further that it was in the first place most unrighteous
to withhold these sums from the lawful claimants, and in the second
place, to withhold them from himself. He was sure that the company
did not need, and ought not to have, this money. If only, thought
William Carson, these judgments might be collected, and if only--but
beyond this thought his brain was not shrewd enough to travel.
It needed a bolder mind, and this, as it chanced, was at hand, after
the devil's fashion in such affairs. Henry Decherd had known Carson
in the community where he had lived before his removal to the city.
The two had since then met by chance now and again on the street or
elsewhere. Once, when Eddring chanced to be out of town, they
happened to meet and paused for a conversation longer than usual.
There came a hint from Carson, a word of quick inquiry from Decherd,
a flush of timorous guilt upon the face of the unfaithful humble one;
and presently these two repaired to the office of the claim agent,
locked the door behind them, and soon were absorbed in certain lines
and columns of figures which had been prepared by Carson.
"This ain't for ten years, nor half of it," said the latter, at
length. "But you can see it runs up to a good lot of money. Look
here." Decherd gave a long whistle as he looked at the footings of
the columns of figures.
"And they're all unpaid claims," he said. "Judgments from one end of
the line to the other, it looks like. By Jove, it does seem that the
road had to pay for about everything in the Delta, doesn't it?"
"Oh, it don't have to pay _these_ things, don't you worry," said
Carson. "It don't need no sympathy, _this_ road don't. It will take
care of itself, all right. These ain't claims that's going to be
_paid,_ but ones that _ain't_ going to be paid. They're ones that's in
judgment and can be collected; but the owners of these judgments don't
seem to know their rights. They don't collect. Maybe they're dead or
moved away, or maybe they've forgotten all about it, or maybe their
lawyers haven't taken pains to tell them--you can't tell about all
these things. Every big accident that happens on the road, there's a
lot of judgments taken against the road; but they don't all get paid,
as you see. That is one of the secrets of our business."
"A pretty situation of affairs, isn't it?" said Decherd. "Looks like
the road would have to pay, if these claims were fought."
"I should say so. These judgments are on the court records all the
way from here to New Orleans, and they're all as good as gold. The
company can't dodge out of one of them, if a fellow takes enough.
interest to get around and collect. Most of them are air-tight. Some
have gone on appeal to upper courts, but we don't bother to appeal
these little ones. And, you know, there ain't a court in the Delta
that wouldn't cinch the road if it got a chance."
"How much do they foot up?" said Decherd again, reaching out his hand
for the papers.
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