An Alabama Courtship/Part 2
PART II.
1.
THE end of our journey lay upon the very summit of the mountain ridge; twenty leagues of forest all around. Here, with the sweep of his gesture to the westering sun, Judge Hankinson made the great speech of the day. I remember little about it save that he likened Coe to Icarus, referred to me (General Higginbotham) as one of the merchant princes of the Orient, and to Tim Healy as some mighty magician "spinning his iron spell o'er mountain and o'er sea." The rusty iron rails stopped abruptly in a field of stumps; beyond and below us stretched "the right of way." Only a broad swathe cut through the forest, the trees heaped where they fell, like jackstraws. At the edge of the clearing stood a three-seated wagon and a pair of mules.
Everyone took very simply to the proposition that we were not returning; and after all the speech-making was over and all the whiskey drunk, the train, with prolonged and reiterated tooting, began backing slowly down the mountain toward civilization again.
"Isn't this delightful?" said Miss Jeanie. Tim Healy sniffed.
I had made it all right with Coe; but Healy still looked at the proceeding askance.
"Last time I rode through this yer wood, I had the pay-chest with me; and two bullets went through my hat. And last week they killed the United States mail and Jim, the storekeeper of Section Fourteen."
I considered this to be a story for tenderfeet, so I mildly hinted that "they" would not attack so large a party.
"Won't they, though? The only double mule team as ever goes through yer, is the month's pay, an hit's jest due this Saturday."
"Who is 'they'?" said I.
"Moonshiners. But they're all on em up to it. Hope you've got your shooters?"
By this time we had started, and were driving through the twilight of the forest over a trail hardly perceptible where the wood grew scantier.
"Not I," said I, "I never carry them."
"Nor I," said Coe, "I left 'em on the bureau at home."
"All right," said Tim, gloomily. "But most fellers like a shot of their own afore they turn their toes up."
Miss Jeanie produced a small, pearl-handled, silver-mounted revolver, and begged me to borrow it. Miss May handed the mate of it to Coe; and young Raoul displayed a formidable pair of Smith & Wesson's, where he was sitting with her on the back seat.
"All right," said Tim, somewhat mollified. "But the wood's chock full of chickers all the same."
At this the ladies appeared really so terrified that I asked what "chickers" were, and discovered them to be a kind of insect.
"I've got my pennyr'yle," said Mrs. Judge Pennoyer, who was a woman of resource.
What a drive it was! We lost our way; and the girls sang. Tim swore, Mrs. Judge Pennoyer laughed, and May and Jeanie sang all the sweeter. Tim Healy thought he saw twenty moonshiners and emptied his revolver at one of them; a charred stump it proved to be. We passed one hut in a clearing, and were refreshed by veritable whiskey; i.e., "pinetop" whiskey, milky-white in color, and said to be made out of the cones of pines. We found the trail once more, and the stars came out, and the nightingales sang, and May Bruce and young Raoul became more silent. At last we saw upon a hillside in the forest, the burning pitch-pine torches of the great construction "camp." Hundreds of black forms surrounded these ruddy fires; from some of the groups came sounds of banjos and negroes singing; and I looked suddenly up and saw the starlight reflected in Miss Jeanie's eyes.
There was only one tent in the camp with "sides" to it—i.e., perpendicular flaps making walls below the roof, and that, of course, was sacred to the ladies. We lay beneath a mere V-shaped canvas roof, stretched downward to end some three feet from the ground, our heads in a heap of pillows and our legs all radiating outward, like a starfish, to terminate in thirty booted feet. Under the canvas back I could see the starlight, and there I lay awake some time regarding it, which now seemed to bear some reflection of Miss Jeanie's eyes. Next thing came the sun and opened mine by shining into them; then closed them up again, and I rolled into the canvas-shade, and up, and out of doors, and followed Coe and Healy to the "branch" below. Big Bear Creek it was, of a rich red-chocolate color, fit, perhaps, to wash a Chinaman who could not see. Yet Coe took a plunge, and looked up white enough.
"Come in," he shouted to us, hesitating, "it doesn't come off."
The negroes had been sleeping all over the place, tentless; and now they were pulling themselves together, in groups, and starting for the railroad, or rather where the railroad was to be. On the way they stopped at the commissaries to get their breakfast, standing in long rows before the counter, waiting their turn. The commissaries stores were the only wooden buildings in camp; well walled and bolted, too, as they had to be, said Tim Healy, to withstand the attacks of a riotous Saturday night. Four men, he said, were always in them armed; and on Saturday nights, pay night, they would often empty a revolver or two into the crowd and perhaps "drop" a nigger, before it ceased to besiege their doors for fruit or whiskey.
Then we all went to breakfast, the Misses Bruce both fresh as dewy wood-flowers and Mrs. Judge Pennoyer radiating amiability. Only the head commissary and the section contractor were thought of sufficient social importance to breakfast with us, and the former from his stores brought many delicacies in cans and bottles. Then after breakfast we went to walk—the ladies with sunshades and gloves—upon the location; a broad swath cut through the rolling forest and undulating far as the eye could reach in either direction, dotted with men and mules. Ahead, they were still blowing out stumps with gunpowder and dragging them away; where we stood was being built an embankment of gravel; and they were dragging out gravel from the "cut" ahead and heaping it upon the long mound. I gave my hand to Miss Jeanie and helped her up. Each black negro worked with a splendid mule; seventeen or eighteen hands high perhaps, dragging a curious sort of drag-spade, which the mule knew how to catch in the gravel, turn out full, drag the load evenly along, and then tip it out adroitly at the precise spot, a foot in front of the last dump; the negro hardly doing more than standing by to see the mule kept working; not, of course, working himself. Thus each man-laborer became an overseer, if only to a mule.
"The mule's the finer animal of the two," said Coe, "and much the more moral."
"But he's got no vote," grunted Jim. "Ef we didn't keep them black Mississippi niggers up here off'm the farms, they'd swamp us all."
"Are they allowed to bring their wives to camp with them?" queried Miss May, softly; and, following her glance we saw several coal-black damsels sitting in the warm sand-bank at the side of the cut, their finery about them, and evidently established there for the morning, basking in the sun.
"Oh, yes, they bring up their wives," said Healy, reluctantly. "If we didn't, they'd run away every two or three days. Nothing a contractor dislikes so much as irregular labor."
"But it shows they have some good in them to be so devoted," said Miss Jeanie.
"We don't all of us have emotions stronger than money-getting," added I.
"I don't know about emotions," said Tim. "There's forty of their wives and eighteen hundred niggers, and every Saturday night they has a fight an a batch on 'em gets killed, an' I know it's terrible expensive on labor. Most as bad as moonshine."
"Have you got King Kelly, yet?" said Coe, in an undertone.
"Hush!" hissed Captain Healy, dramatically. Just then I noticed a file of peculiarly idle negroes sauntering down the "right of way;" they had passed us once or twice before, and appeared to have no occupation. "See anythin' peculiar about them niggers?"
"They are very lazy," said Coe.
"They look like minstrels," said Miss May.
"By gracious!" cried Healy, slapping his thigh, "if she hasn't hit it!" We looked at him inquiringly; he dropped his voice to a stage whisper. "Come up here," and he started, dragging Mrs. Judge Pennoyer by one hand up the new gravel slope beside the line. Raoul followed, with Miss May; he had been very silent that morning; and I with Miss Jeanie. Her little foot was buried at once in the sliding gravel, over the dainty low shoe; I wanted to carry her up, had only propriety sanctioned it. At the top, Healy swept the horizon as if for spies; then bending over us, all in a close group, he said:
"Them ain't real niggers—them's United States revenue officers from New Orleans, under General McBride."
"General McBride?"
"He's in hidin' in my hut. He wouldn't black up. But them deputy-marshals thought it was a spree. We had to do it. Every Saturday the niggers are paid off—one dollar and fifty cents a day, nigh on to ten dollars apiece—an' then King Kelly he'd come down from his stills in the mountain, with his men loaded with casks o' pinetop, warranted to kill—an' by sundown eighteen hundred niggers would be blind-drunk, an fit for shootin'. On last Sunday we lost sixty-two hands. An' the head contractor, he swore nigh to lift yer ha'r off."
"Sixty-two men killed?" cried Jeanie, in horror.
"Some killed, some wounded; but it tells on the contract just the same. Why, you could have heared 'em poppin' all over camp."
The Higginbothams had always been abolitionists; and I felt my ancestors turn in their complacent graves.
"Expect to get Kelly this time?" said Coe.
"Dunno, we'll see at twelve o'clock, when they're paid off. It'll be quite a thing to see, all the same. But the ladies had better stay in their tents. An' it's eleven now, so I reckon we'll go back to camp. See, there go the marshals."
When we got back to camp Raoul received a telegram. He read it hastily, and crumpled it into his pocket; but, I thought, looked troubled.
Jeanie and I wandered down by the brook side before dinner, and afterward Raoul, Healy, Coe, and I sallied forth to "see the fun." We were let into the chief commissary's hut, the front of which, above a strong wooden bar, was open; and before it a great crowd of negroes, singing and dancing, and a hundred others, in a long queue, waiting for their pay. "You kin lie down on the floor ef they git to shootin'," said General McBride, whom we found there smoking placidly in a cane-seated chair. "Those revolvers won't carry through the boards."
It was a curious spectacle, that line of coal-black, stalwart, "swamp" negroes; and then to watch the first human expression—in their case greed—impress their stolid features as they took their pay. Among the crowd we noticed many bearded, well-armed, flannel-shirted mountaineers; these we took to be the moonshiners; and near each one, but loitering as if to avoid attention, one of the made-up negroes; to us now obviously factitious. It was a wonder the moonshiners did not find them out, but that they were intent on other things.
"See, that's King Kelly," whispered General McBride. "That big fellow there with the slouched hat and rifle." Having said this, I was surprised to hear him, when the last man had been paid off, get up and make a speech to the navvies, in which he congratulated them that the camp had at last been freed from that great pest, Kelly; and urged them to save their money and be abstemious. "I am General McBride, of New Orleans"
"Three cheers for Gineral McBride, of New Orleans!" cried a big mulatto opposite, I thought at a sign from Healy. They were given, not very heartily.
"And I've come up to see those poisoners keep away."
I had seen the man he said was Kelly start and look about him, as if for other enemies; then he stood still nervously, and fidgetted at his gun. Meanwhile the General made quite a speech, apparently thinking the opportunity too good a one to remain unimproved. He took every occasion to heap obloquy upon the head of Kelly, king of the moonshiners; and concluded by lamenting that that "poor white trash" would not dare to show his head in camp while even he, McBride, was there alone."
"Look yar," shouted Kelly, striding up to the bar of the tent when he had got through, "I'm the man you call King Kelry; an I've got four stills a-runnin within a bit an a screech of this yer camp; an' I kin tell yer it's deuced lucky yer white-faced, biled-shirted revenue officers stayed down to New Orleans."
"And I," said another, "I own a still myself; an it ain't goin ter stop up fur no United States Government—though we're mighty glad to see the Gineral, ez he comes here sociable and pleasant like."
"And I," "and I," "and I;" and three more strode forward, and I noticed a pair of pseudo darkies get behind each one as he moved.
"What'll yer take ter drink, Gineral?" said Kelly. Quick as a flash, every man had four stout arms about his neck, choking him, and the handcuffs on his wrists. Not a shot was fired; and Kelly and his gang were safely immured in an improvised guardhouse. The General sank back upon his cane-seated chair.
"A pretty job, gentlemen," said he. "What will you take to drink? None of their pinetop, though, "he added, with a laugh. "Yet, I don't know as you can hardly blame 'em—corn's mighty scarce up here."
"May I trouble you, sir, with a few words in private?" The voice was serious, but familiar, and appertained to Mr. Hampton Raoul.
2.
"I have appealed to you, sir," said Raoul, when we had abandoned the still quiet camp for the solitude of the forest, "to demand that which every gentleman has the right to ask of every other."
I feared the man had some notion of a duel, and his next words did not tend to relieve me. "I have long loved Miss Bruce."
I must have appeared disquieted, for he hastened to add, "Miss May Bruce, I mean. But until yesterday I did not know my love was returned. We have now resolved on being married."
I expressed my congratulations, but intimated that I did not yet see how my aid was necessary.
"We have resolved to make our bridal journey to the White Sulphur Springs, in Virginia. We shall be married upon arrival there, and I should esteem it a favor initial of a life-long friendship if you, sir, would consent to be best man. Moreover, your escort may prove necessary to Miss Jeanie to return."
My escort! to Miss Jeanie! I was to travel with her four hundred miles—meantime her sister philandering with this young man—perhaps make a visit at a fashionable watering-place—give away her sister in matrimony—and then make the principal bridesmaid companion of my journey home! And this young Huguenot, pour sauver la situation, called me her escort. I looked at Raoul; his attitude was impassive and his manner still courteous; but evidently he thought there was something unchivalric even in my hesitation.
"I—has Miss Jeanie Bruce," I hazarded, "yet been told of your plans?"
"Of course—and she approves them. She can hardly invite you herself to join her party; it might look forward, as you and she, necessarily, will be left much to yourselves."
Absent-mindedly I twirled the ring on my finger, still there, that she had given me. Evidently, as a gentleman, in the eyes of him, of her, and of her sister, there was nothing else for me to do. "I must see Miss Bruce herself," I gasped.
"Certainly," said Raoul. "I had reckoned, sir, that such would be your course. I will meet you in front of the commissary's tent at three. We start at four." He stalked off, and left me under the live-oak tree.
It was two o'clock. I felt that I must see Miss Jeanie at once. Nothing could exceed the good-breeding of her greeting; but she evidently expected me to go. I found the two beautiful young girls in afternoon toilette of white muslin, half reclining under their open tent, fanning themselves. The calm of her gentle voice told me so. I think I would not have been so much in doubt had not Jeanie been so very pretty. Then, how hazard, in the presence of her sister, and of her own soft eyes, the fear that she might be committing an impropriety?
And it was with the greatest difficulty and an acute sense of my own brutality, that I did so. I began by congratulating Miss May, which evoked a lovable blush. "You know we have to start after dark, and drive twenty miles to-night," said she, "to a station on the Georgia road—we cannot return the same way; Mr. Raoul has some reason."
"Do you think that we four ought to go off—ought to go off just like that?"
Miss Bruce looked at me, amazed. Jeanie tried to help her. "Do you not have wedding-journeys in the North?"
"Alone, I mean," I ended, desperately.
"Alone? Mrs. Judge Pennoyer is going."
Mrs. Judge Pennoyer had all the elements of a true sport; and I went back to Raoul—(having had a long walk down the brook with Jeanie; her happiness in her sister's prospects was quite charming)—an hour after the time fixed, less decided—I think there is some adventurous blood in the Higginbothams—and found the camp in a state of wild tumult. Raoul met me, nervously.
"General McBride paroled Kelly and his gang," said he, "and the moonshiners have come back from the mountains a hundred strong and given the revenue officers twenty minutes to leave for New Orleans."
"And are they going?" said I.
"They calculate, sir, to go," answered Raoul, gravely. "The mule team will take them back to the head of the line, and there we have wired for a special to carry them back to Bagdad. I have decided it is best for us to go with them. The special train simplifies matters. I trust you have come to a decision?"
"I—I do not know," said I.
"We certainly cannot leave them here in camp. Every nigger in it will be blind drunk before midnight, and they are fortifying the commissary's store."
"What on earth did McBride mean by paroling those ruffians," I sighed. "It was beginning to be so pleasant."
"It was an error of judgment. But it will be equally pleasant at White Sulphur."
As we talked we had returned to the centre of the camp. There we found a picturesque scene. McBride and his men were seated in the glade of the live-oak forest, no longer disguised; around them stood or lounged some forty bearded mountaineers provided with long rifles. General McBride was sitting with King Kelly himself, amicably drinking his own "pine-top;" as we approached he rose to meet us and handed a telegram to Raoul, who cast his eyes over it and gave it to me, with the remark that it might assist my decision. It read:
"If cousins Miss Bruce are with you, detain them and escorts. Wire parental authority to-morrow.
"Kirk Bruce."
"I feel bound, sir, to ask you your intentions," said McBride.
"Miss May Bruce and I are to be married, sir."
"In that case, sir," said the General, "in the absence of parental authority I cannot, of course, interfere. Permit me to congratulate you." They shook hands.
"And this Northern gentleman?"
"Goes with me, of course. And Mrs. Judge Pennoyer."
"A most estimable lady. I knew her as a girl."
"We thought of returning on your special."
"An excellent idea. Particularly as I have an idea Mr. Bruce may pass us on Number Two. But stop—we have unluckily only one mule-team."
"Is there no room?" I asked. For I, myself, was beginning to see the necessity of getting away—to White Sulphur or Salem.
"Room enough—but you must remember we have nigh twenty miles through the woods. These gentlemen—" and the General waved his hand at the surrounding moonshiners—"will naturally take a few shots at us."
We looked at one another in perplexity. The colloquy was interrupted by the appearance of Jeanie and May, in travelling dress again, but looking very charming, and Mrs. Judge Pennoyer. To her the situation was rapidly explained.
I have before remarked that Mrs. Pennoyer was a true sport. She rose immediately to the occasion, and desired to be introduced to King Kelly.
"Colonel Kelly," said she, "these young ladies are travelling under my protection. One of them is engaged to be married to Mr. Raoul, and they are desirous of going to White Sulphur on their wedding-journey. As there is only one wagon they must return with General McBride's party. I trust the journey will be perfectly safe."
Kelly scratched his head. "I can answer, of course, for these gentlemen here," said he, "but some of my friends are out'n the mountain, and it may be difficult to notify them of the sitooation. Let me see your team," he added, as if a bright idea struck him.
The General and Kelly walked off in the direction of the wagon. The ladies followed. Raoul, Healy, Coe, and I followed the ladies. The undisguised United States marshals followed us, and the moonshiners followed the marshals. It was a large wagon with high wooden sides, bound with iron, and was used for bringing supplies to camp. A team of six of the biggest mules—some fully eighteen hands high—was already being harnessed to it.
"Reckon you can fix the ladies safely," said Kelly. "We are good shots on the mountain," he added, significantly, to McBride.
"I see your idea," said the General. "Bring some straw."
The straw was brought and filled the bottom of the wagon. Upon this sat the three ladies. McBride, Coe, and Healy went on the high front seat; Raoul and I sat on the tail-board looking out behind; and the eight revenue officers disposed themselves, four on each side, sitting on the side-board with their legs hanging over. They had nothing but six-shooters, which, however, they displayed with some ostentation.
"Colonel Kelly," said Raoul, slipping down after he had taken his seat, "lend me one of your rifles—I want it very particularly" (I heard him add in the ear of that chief of moonshiners), "and I'll send it back in Number Four to-morrow."
"By G— you shall have it, sir." And Kelly gave him his own. "I like your spunk, sir; an if you'n Mrs. Raoul will come back here without them darned biled-shirted gov'en'm'nt men, I'll give you a real good time."
"Thank you, Colonel," said Raoul. "Good-by—and fire high."
We departed amid quite a cheer; lumbering out of the picturesque great camp some two hours before sunset, and as we passed the negroes quarters, heard already sounds of revelry beginning. We felt the girls were fairly safe between the double rampart of men. Still, the General thought they had perhaps better not sing (which they were fond of doing), so the long ride was rather silent. Raoul lay leaning back, talking in whispers with May Bruce, and I was left to do the same with Jeanie. Coming to the last long hill before the end of the line, one or two shots were fired; but they whistled in the tree-tops far above our heads. We found the "special" waiting for us, got into the one "directors car, "and started safely.
But when we got to the siding at Bear Creek, Raoul asked the conductor which train had the right of way. Learning that the special had, he beckoned to me, and, taking his rifle, went out upon the rear platform. I followed, wondering. Our train was running rather fast, the engine having suddenly started up after Raoul's conversation with the conductor. At Bear Creek the regular up-train stood side-tracked waiting for us. We rattled by, and on its rear platform, in the moonlight, I saw a tall frock-coated figure standing. I had hardly recognized it to be Kirk Bruce when Raoul threw up his rifle, and I saw a flash of fire from the platform of the side-tracked Mr. Bruce. The reports were quite simultaneous; but neither was hurt, for I saw Bruce leaning his head out of the shadow of the platform to look at us, while Raoul remarked, as we went back into the car, now jumping wildly on the down grade:
"He knew I was yere, and I knew he was thar. You'd hardly see worse rifle-practice in the North."
There was a tinge of disgust in his voice, and he went out to smoke on the engine.
"Was it Cousin Kirk?" said May to me, breathlessly.
I nodded. Jeanie blushed.
3.
The United States marshals from New Orleans had kept rather quiet throughout the journey; but as we approached the city of Bagdad their spirits rose. The momentary interest caused by Mr. Raoul's and Cousin Kirk's shots had subsided when they learned there was nothing national or professional in the affair. Amateur shooting was always poor. But May Bruce was considered with more attention; and when their "special" of a "shirt-tail" engine and a caboose backed up to the Bagdad platform, they all requested to be presented to her. General McBride performed the ceremony with much formality; including Mrs. Judge Pennoyer, upon whom, I could see, they looked with a reverence that only her years divided from admiration. Even Raoul came in for some passive applause; but I played, as I saw, a very second fiddle, which is why, perhaps, Miss Jeanie and I went off and took a walk, by moonlight, down through the ravine where I first met her.
We returned to find Mrs. Pennoyer slumbering peacefully on a settee; but Raoul was walking up and down nervously. The straight track stretched glistening away in the moonlight, but not a train nor engine was in sight.
"How long do you think it'll take Mr. Bruce to get down back here?" says Raoul to me, nervously.
"Train Number Two doesn't come back till to-morrow, they said."
"I know; but the station man here tells me the engineer on Number Two married a cousin of Kirk Bruce's brother-in-law. Our train doesn't come along from Memphis until four in the morning. And there's not an engine to be had in Bagdad."
"There's one," said I; and I pointed to a distant shower of sparks above the forest. At the same moment the peculiar light rattle of a "wild" engine was audible.
"My God, sir, so it is!" answered Raoul. "And it's on the line of the Tennessee River and Gulf."
"Number Two?" I answered, grimly, for I was getting to understand the ways of the place. "What shall we do?"
"Do?" said Raoul; "why get ready, of course. He may shoot before he stops the engine, lucky I've got a rifle. You go in and prepare the ladies. … This is my quar'l," he added, impatiently, at my demur. "Besides you ain't got only that girl's popgun. Reckon you'll have a chance later, likely."
So I went in, and told the girls; and we woke up Mrs. Judge Pennoyer, who, I am bound to say, took it more calmly than might have been expected from a lady of her years. May was tearful; but Jeanie's eyes were very bright. All this time the rattle of the engine was growing louder down the grade.
"Haven't you kept that revolver I gave you?" said Jeanie to me.
I looked at her; and went out upon the platform just in time to see the engine dash up, and a strange figure jump out of the cab.
"It's all right," he cried; "drop your iron. I've got a message from King Kelly." I observed the man had a blackened face and uncouth costume; he did not look like an engineer, though a negro fireman was on the smoking engine. The saturnine Raoul tore open the envelope, read the letter twice, and handed it to me with the nearest approach to a chuckle I had heard him give. I also read it, while the negro fireman opened half his head and laughed aloud.
"What will you take, sir?" I heard Raoul say; then, as the ladies, overcome by the curiosity this unexpected silence caused, came out upon the platform, I heard him introducing the man of the charcoal face to each in turn.
The letter was as follows:
" Raoul, Esq.
"Dear Sir: A gentleman have arrived here on Number Two, inkwiring for you, and I take him for to be a member of Mrs. Raoul's family, so I got him and his ingineer here in Camp and reckon I kin hold him about till termorrer sundown.
"Yours trooly,
"Lucius R. Kelly."
4.
Beati possidentes. I now saw that under the methods of Southern courtship the man who had got the lady had a great advantage. The Memphis express pulled up at four in the morning in front of a burning tar-barrel on the track, which Raoul had placed there as a hint to it to stop at Bagdad. How our story always got out so quickly, I don't know; but two members of Congress from Mississippi turned out of the two end sections and were accommodated with us with shakedowns in the smoking compartment of the crowded Pullman.
I did not sleep very well, and at seven in the morning got out at Chattanooga. What was my surprise at seeing Mrs. Judge Pennoyer also emerge, fully dressed, from the sleeping-car.
"You young people don't want me," said she, benevolently. "I should only be in the way. An' I'm getting out here to take the day train on to Knoxville. If I got out thar, they might stop ye before the train pulled out again; now ye'll all get by unbeknownst."
What could I oppose to such strategy? Moreover, the young ladies were still in their berths. I could not leave Miss Jeanie to come back alone. I bowed, the train started; I got in it.
The sunlight broadened, but it was high noon and we had passed Knoxville before the two girls appeared, fresher than the June morning, and rosier, I am sure, than Raoul or I. With some trepidation I told them of Mrs. Pennoyer's evasion.
"Dear Aunt Emily," said May, "she has always been like a mother to me." But Jeanie, I fancied, blushed; and that day talked to Raoul, while May was left to me.
The impending catastrophe made May very gentle and silent, but we now heard Jeanie and Mr. Raoul in speech of much light laughter at the other end of the car.
"I suppose," said I, "they are laughing at the way Mr. Kirk Bruce's pursuit has stopped in moonshine."
Miss May looked at me inquiringly. "Cousin Kirk was never attentive to me," said she.
"He is attentive enough now," I laughed; and she looked at me as if about to say something—but bit her red lips.
Jeanie certainly avoided me . When Raoul came back to talk to his fiancée, her sister made pretext of a headache and lay down. The train was not a quick one, and stopped long periods at several stations, during which Raoul was obviously nervous. His brow only cleared when we got to Bristol, Va., about sun set. Here we stopped an hour for supper, half of which we four devoted to a walk. The town consisted principally of a long straight street, lined by low two-story brick shops; the one-story shops had false fronts and presented an appearance of uniformity. Boots, saddles, guns, groceries, and drygoods were the articles they sold.
I had noticed that Raoul kept persistently on one side of the street, and when I started to cross over, to look at a particularly gorgeous embroidered Mexican saddle on the other side, he held me back.
"This street," said he, "is the State line between Virginia and Tennessee. I think we had better keep on the Virginia side."
"How odd," said Jeanie, "to have a town divided against itself!"
"It is a great convenience," answered Mr. Raoul. "When my father and Colonel Carington had their dispute about the last constitutional convention, both were candidates for the governorship, my father in Tennessee and the colonel in Virginia. The constitution of Tennessee disqualified a man who fought a duel from holding office. So my father stood on the Virginia side of the street and the colonel in Tennessee. The distance between the sidewalks is just about right, as you see. There was a warrant out against my father in Tennessee and the colonel in Virginia."
"And did they fight?" I asked.
"Oh, yes—and the sheriffs looked on, but they couldn't cross the street. And the colonel, he allowed he was shot accidentally by a bullet from another State. The case went up to the Supreme Court, but they allowed they couldn't say any duel was fought in Tennessee, and the Constitution does not disqualify a man for shooting, but only just for duelling."
At this point a prolonged whistling recalled us to the station. Here we found an elegant Pullman car added to the train for our accommodation, "with the superintendent's compliments to Mr. Raoul." The darky porters in it were smiling broadly, and on the table was a huge bouquet of orange-blossoms.
In the morning we woke up—or Raoul woke me up—at the station for White Sulphur. He had a telegram signed "Emily Pennoyer," which warned him to lose no time, that Kirk Bruce was on the night express.
"May and I have decided to go to the county Judge and get married directly," said he. Our Pullman car had been shunted on a side track at the little station; the rest of the train had gone on, and the little village was quiet and fragrant as a bank of wild flowers. "Fortunately, he is a friend of my father's."
We found the Judge, I think, before his breakfast, smoking on his piazza covered with jasmine and magnolia. He led us directly across the road to a little brick court-house, where we found another couple waiting already, more sheepish than ourselves, who had driven all night in a buggy with an old white horse. The groom was awkward and embarrassed, with his trousers tucked in his boots; the bride was buxom and blushing, but seemed hardly more than a child.
"First come, first served," said the Judge, and we all went into the court house, where the clerk unlocked his register, and the blushing pair stood up before us, the groom having first hitched the old white horse to the fence outside. We four were accommodated with seats upon the bench.
"Do you think she's twenty-one?" whispered the Judge to Raoul, while the rustic bride shuffled uneasily upon her new shoes.
"Twenty-one? She's not eighteen," said Raoul.
"Dear me," whispered the Judge. "Guess she'll have to be—reckon I'll forget to ask her!"
The pair were married with us as witnesses; Jeanie gave the bride her parasol for a wedding present, and the old white horse and buggy scrambled away. "And now," said the Judge, turning to Jeanie, "how old are you?"
There was a pause of embarrassment; then Raoul spoke up bravely: "It's not Miss Jeanie—it's Miss May Bruce, and she's quite eighteen."
"Eighteen?" said the Judge. "She must be twenty-one—so have you the parents' consent?"
"No," said Raoul. "Eighteen is old enough in Alabama."
"Twenty-one in Virginia," said the Judge. "Give me the Code."
The clerk handed him a musty leather volume from beneath a musty leather Bible. Twenty-one it was, sure enough.
"Why did you say she was only eighteen?" said the Judge, peevishly.
"But you married the others," answered I.
"True," said the Judge, "but I've had a telegram for you—from a Mr. Kirk Bruce, who, I take it, is a relative of the bride."
Raoul's face maintained its customary look of quiet determination. "Where is the nearest State where a lady is free to get married at eighteen?"
"South Carolina," said the Judge.
"All right," said Raoul. "I've got a car, and I reckon Colonel Carington will give us transportation."
"I'll see that he does," said the Judge, his face brightening. "I guess you'd better go to Charleston."
"Spartanburg is the nearest point," said Raoul. "He'll never think of Spartanburg."
"True," said the Judge, "he'll never think of Spartanburg. Lucky, Colonel Carington is at the Springs."
In two hours we had borrowed an old freight engine and were off on our way to Spartanburg.
5.
The freight engine had been loaned us by telegram from Colonel Carington, and we had found our Pullman car pulled up on an old rusty side-track that ran into a bed of wild flowers; on the front platform, half smothered by them, our two darkies were asleep. They wakened, however, to greet us with smiles of such expansive intimacy that I felt bound, when we were safely on the way, to put them au courant of the situation. The solemnity and sympathy their faces at once assumed guaranteed their discretion; though I afterward heard the "conductor" adjuring the engineer from the front platform to "git up that thar burro-engine wif'm bacon-ham." Whereupon the engineer sanded the track and blew off brakes.
The long journey was rather distressing, however. The brave girls did not lose their spirits, but they kept to themselves, resting in the state-room, while Raoul and I sat on the rear platform and watched the dust eddy up from the long single track behind us. We had innumerable waits and sidings; where often the girls and I wandered into the woods after wild flowers, while Raoul stayed behind to pepper Mrs. Judge Pennoyer with telegrams. We were now by the highest mountains of the East; Roan Mountain still, though it was June, was rosy-robed about its shoulders with the laurel.
The day wore on, and I could get no speech with Jeanie. I looked for my dédommagement to the journey home. This I no longer dreaded; it was a rosy hope. But Jeanie was so timid, now or I was bolder. In the evening we had a long wait for the night express, which rattled by our siding at a wood-and-water station.
"Perhaps Mr. Bruce is on that train," I laughed.
"No," said Raoul, gravely (he never had a sense of humor); "I am confident he is not."
"How do you know?"
"I have had a telegram from Mrs. Judge Pennoyer."
"Is she his confidante?"
"She says that he has suddenly decided to await your return in Knoxville."
"Await my return?"
"Certainly—yours and Miss Jeanie's. I conclude the Judge this morning wired him an answer that it was not Jeanie who was getting married."
I gasped. "Then it was not you, after all, he was chasing?"
"Why, of course not."
"Why did you run away so?"
Raoul looked at me as who should say, "Oh, these Northerners!"
"Perhaps it wasn't necessary," he added, with that faint tinge of sarcasm which is akin to humor. "Is that your ring you wear upon your finger?"
I know I started; and I felt myself blush. "It—it was given to me to wear," I gasped.
"Exactly—and by Miss Jeanie Bruce—and Mr. Kirk Bruce gave it to Miss Jeanie. Of course he thought—when he heard a Miss Bruce and a gentleman had gone off to get married"
"Kirk Bruce gave it to her?" I said. My mind works slowly at such times.
"Certainly. Did she not tell you so?"
"She said a gentleman gave it her"
"Well, he was the gentleman."
"Who had shot a schoolmate at boarding-school "
"Same man, I assure you."
"For being attentive to a young lady"
"Kirk Bruce, to a T."
"Went out without a revolver"
"As you did yourself. I think," concluded Raoul, "you had better give Miss Jeanie her ring back."
"If I do," said I, "I'm damned."
6.
They were married the next day in the pretty little Episcopal church in Spartanburg, by the Bishop of Georgia. They left the same afternoon on their wedding journey back to "Old White" and the North. Miss Jeanie Bruce and I accompanied them—or rather, they us—as far as the junction station (I forget its name) where they met the east-bound train, and we were to keep on to Knoxville.
Jeanie's sweet face was very pale, but her eyes were like deep wells—so deep now that they indeed "unravelled the coiled night and saw the stars by noon." She had to sit by me now; but her silence appealed even to a blunted Northern sense of chivalry. I foresaw that I, too, should have to keep silence until I had brought her home to Knoxville. But not a day longer! Not an hour, I inly vowed.
But oh, the beauty of that immediate future! The long twenty hours journey after they left us at the junction—where she was under my protection, and no Kirk Bruce could say me nay! Even chivalry at such times is like a sordine on one harp-string…heart-string I had almost said. One's being is so resonant that the note of speech is hardly missed.
So, I had my two-hours' day-dream, and then Mrs. Judge Pennoyer turned up on that east-bound train, as chaperone to bring us home.
"You telegraphed for her?" I said to Jeanie.
She did not deny it; and I thought Mrs. Pennoyer cast one look at me as of contempt.
Then I saw her see the ring upon my finger, and her expression seemed to change.
We saw the happy pair go off, and we went back to our seats in the returning train. We three; and one of us most miserable, and that was I.
I had given up all hope of talking with Jeanie any more. She went off with Mrs. Pennoyer to a front seat, where I saw them in earnest consultation; and that ancient relict of justice tempered by mercy appeared to be speaking of me. I watched them; and I heard the words "Mr. Bruce" and "the ring;" and I saw Jeanie grow still more pale.
Finally, to my glad astonishment, she rose, and like a brave lady—not like a Northern girl, who would not throw a man her glove to save his soul from drowning—sweet and gracious, she came back to me.
"Mr. Higginbotham" (what a name to set by Raoul, or even Bruce), "I must have my ring again," said she.
"Never," I answered. "It is not your ring, but mine."
"I only lent it to you. I did not give it."
"Then lend it to me a little longer—till I have seen you home," I said.
Her eyes filled with tears, and my heart was drowned in them.
"But Mrs. Pennoyer says Cousin Kirk is waiting for us there. Oh, please."
"Let him wait," I said.
"But, please. I implore you—as you"
"As I love you," I said. "As I love you, I shall keep it. Will you marry me?"
"I—I do not love you," she answered, almost in a whisper. "Now, will you give it back?"
"No," I said.
I saw her tears. "He will kill you;" and she left me, sobbing.
"Then you can take it," I called out, after her.
Man can be brutal at such times.
Mrs. Pennoyer came back and tried to move me. Who could, after Jeanie Bruce had failed? Moreover, I thought she thought she would have done like me.
I fear Jeanie cried most of that journey home. But I, as is the way of men, was happy.
We got back to Knoxville in the early morning. They did not wish me to go home with them from the station; so I put them in a carriage, and sat upon the box. We drove up to the piazza of the little house upon which sat a man in a black frock-coat, smoking a cigar. He threw it away, and took off his hat to the ladies. We both assisted them out; and Jeanie ran quickly into the house, Mrs. Judge Pennoyer following. I paid the carriage, and it drove away.
"Now, sir," said Mr. Kirk Bruce.
"Now, sir," said I.
"I will request you, sir, for to give me that ring that is on your finger."
"That ring does not belong to me."
"That is why, sir, I ask you as a gentleman, fo' to give it up."
"That is why, sir, I am compelled as a gentleman, fo' to refuse."
Insults to one's diction come next to those that touch the heart. Mr. Bruce had me, forthwith, "covered" with his revolver.
"Are you engaged to Miss Jeanie Bruce?"
"I am not."
"Then, sir, as a gentleman, you have no right to wear that ring."
I had heard vague stories of firing through one's coat pocket; and I felt in mine for the little revolver Jeanie had given me. But the miserable little toy was turned the wrong way, and I could not twist it about.
"He is engaged to me—he is," cried Jeanie, bursting out from the front door. "He asked me on the train."
"And you refused me," I said, turning my eyes for one moment away from Bruce to look at her.
"I did not—I only"
How it happened, I do not know; but at that instant the confounded revolver went off in my pocket. With a cry, Jeanie threw up her arms and fell upon the floor of the piazza. Bruce and I were at her feet instantly. Mrs. Pennoyer rushed out. The neighbors rushed across from over the way.
"Is she killed?" said Bruce and I, together.
As we spoke Jeanie made a dart, and picking up Bruce's revolver, which he had dropped upon the grass, threw it over a high board fence into the neighboring lot. Then turning, "Give me your ring," said she.
I gave it her.
"And now," she said, replacing it on another finger, "Cousin Kirk, let me introduce to you the gentleman to whom I am to be married—Mr. Higginbotham, of Boston."
"Salem," I corrected, in a dazed way.
"Of Salem. Cousin Kirk—congratulate him."
Cousin Kirk looked at her, at me, and at the board fence.
"As a gentleman, sir, I have no other thing to do. Of course—if my cousin loves you—you may keep the ring. Though I must allow, sir, you shoot rather late."
With this one simple sarcasm he departed. Jeanie and I watched him groping in the long grass of the next lot for his revolver and then go slouching down the road. We turned and our eyes met. I tried to take her hand; but suddenly her face grew scarlet. "Oh, what have I done?" and she rushed into the house.
I went back to Salem.
I stayed there just four days. In New York I met Jerry Sullivan and had a talk with him.
Then I wrote and asked Jeanie if she would accept me, save at the pistol's mouth.
Mr. and Mrs. Raoul accompanied us on our wedding journey; and we were married at White Sulphur by the genial justice de céans.