Chapter 2

It was specially interesting, besides, after the proper introductions had been made, to note the way in which Jack's friends, inoculated with the contagion of the major's mood, and carried away by his breezy, buoyant enthusiasm, encouraged the major to flow on, interjecting little asides about his horses and farm stock, agreeing to a man that the two-year old colt--a pure creation on the moment of the major--would certainly beat the record and make the major's fortune, and inquiring with great solicitude whether the major felt quite sure that the addition to the stables which he contemplated would be large enough to accommodate his stud, with other similar inquiries which, while indefinite and tentative, were, so to speak, but flies thrown out on the stream of talk,--the major rising continuously, seizing the bait, and rushing headlong over sunken rocks and through tangled weeds of the improbable in a way that would have done credit to a Munchausen of older date. As for Jack, he let him run on. One plank in the platform of his hospitality was to give every guest a free rein.

Before the men separated for the day, the major had invited each individual person to make Crab Island his home for the balance of his life, regretting that no woman now graced his table since Mrs. Slocomb's death,--"Major Talbot's widow--Major John Talbot of Pocomoke, suh," this impressively and with sudden gravity of tone,--placing his stables, his cellar, and his servants at their disposal, and arranging for everybody to meet everybody else the following day in Baltimore, the major starting that night, and Jack and his friends the next day. The whole party would then take passage on board one of the Chesapeake Bay boats, arriving off Crab Island at daylight the succeeding morning.

This was said with a spring and joyousness of manner, and a certain quickness of movement, that would surprise those unfamiliar with some of the peculiarities of Widow Talbot's second husband. For with that true spirit of vagabondage which saturated him, next to the exquisite luxury of lying sprawled on a lounge with a noiseless servant attached to the other end of an electric wire, nothing delighted the major so much as an outing, and no member of any such junketing party, be it said, was more popular every hour of the journey. He could be host, servant, cook, chambermaid, errand-boy, and _grand seigneur_ again in the same hour, adapting himself to every emergency that arose. His good-humor was perennial, unceasing, one constant flow, and never checked. He took care of the dogs, unpacked the bags, laid out everybody's linen, saw that the sheets were dry, received all callers so that the boys might sleep in the afternoon, did all the disagreeable and uncomfortable things himself, and let everybody else have all the fun. He did all this unconsciously, graciously, and simply because he could not help it. When the outing ended, you parted from him with all the regret that you would from some chum of your college days. As for him, he never wanted it to end. There was no office, nor law case, nor sick patient, nor ugly partner, nor complication of any kind, commercial, social, or professional, which could affect the major. For him life was one prolonged drift: so long as the last man remained he could stay. When he left, if there was enough in the larder to last over, the major always made another day of it.

II

The major was standing on the steamboat wharf in Baltimore, nervously consulting his watch, when Jack and I stepped from a cab next day.

"Well, by gravy! is this all? Where are the other gentlemen?"

"They'll be down in the morning, major," said Jack. "Where shall we send this baggage?"

"Here, just give it to me! Po'ter, _po'ter_!" in a stentorian voice. "Take these bags and guns, and put 'em on the upper deck alongside of my luggage. Now, gentlemen, just a sip of somethin' befo' they haul the gang-plank,--we've six minutes yet."

The bar was across the street. On the way over, the major confided to Jack full information regarding the state-rooms, remarking that he had selected the "fo' best on the upper deck," and adding that he would have paid for them himself only a friend had disappointed him.

It was evident that the barkeeper knew his peculiarities, for a tall, black bottle with a wabbly cork--consisting of a porcelain marble confined in a miniature bird-cage--was passed to the major before he had opened his mouth. When he did open it--the mouth--there was no audible protest as regards the selection. When he closed it again the flow line had fallen some three fingers. It is, however, fair to the major to say that only one third of this amount was tucked away under his own waistcoat.

The trip down the bay was particularly enjoyable, brightened outside on the water by the most brilliant of sunsets, the afternoon sky a glory of purple and gold, and made gay and delightful inside the after-cabin by the charm of the major's talk,--the whole passenger-list entranced as he skipped from politics and the fine arts to literature, tarrying a moment in his flight to discuss a yellow-backed book that had just been published, and coming to a full stop with the remark:--

"And you haven't read that book, Jack,--that scurrilous attack on the industries of the South? My dear fellow! I'm astounded that a man of yo' gifts should not--Here--just do me the favor to look through my baggage on the upper deck, and bring me a couple of books lyin' on top of my dressin'-case."

"Which trunk, major?" asked Jack, a slight smile playing around his mouth.

"Why, my sole-leather trunk, of co'se; or perhaps that English hat-box--no, stop, Jack, come to think, it is in the small valise. Here, take my keys," said the major, straightening his back, squeezing his fat hand into the pocket of his skin-tight trousers, and fishing up with his fore-finger a small bunch of keys. "Right on top, Jack; you can't miss it."

"Isn't he just too lovely for anything?" said Jack to me, when we reached the upper deck,--I had followed him out. "He's wearing now the only decent suit of clothes he owns, and the rest of his wardrobe you could stuff into a bandbox. English sole-leather trunk! Here, put your thumb on that catch," and he drew out the major's bag,--the one, of course, that Jefferson unpacked, with the galvanized-iron clasps and paper-leather sides.

The bag seemed more rotund, and heavier, and more important looking than when I handled it that afternoon in front of Delmonico's, presenting a well-fed, even a bloated, appearance. The clasps, too, appeared to have all they could do to keep its mouth shut, while the hinges bulged in an ominous way.

I started one clasp, the other gave way with a burst, and the next instant, to my horror, the major's wardrobe littered the deck. First the books, then a package of tobacco, then the one shirt, porcelain-finished collars, and the other necessaries, including a pair of slippers and a comb. Next, three bundles loosely wrapped, one containing two wax dolls, the others some small toys, and a cheap Noah's ark, and last of all, wrapped up in coarse, yellow butcher's paper, stained and moist, a freshly cut porter-house steak.

Jack roared with laughter as he replaced the contents. "Yes; toys for the little children--he never goes back without something for them if it takes his last dollar; tobacco for his old cook, Rachel; not a thing for himself, you see--and this steak! Who do you suppose he bought that for?"

"Did you find it?" called out the major, as we reëntered the cabin.

"Yes; but it wasn't in the English trunk," said Jack, handing back the keys, grave as a judge, not a smile on his face.

"Of co'se not; didn't I tell you it was in the small bag? Now, gentlemen, listen!" turning the leaves. "Here is a man who has the impertinence to say that our industries are paralyzed. It is not our industries; it is our people. Robbed of their patrimony, their fields laid waste, their estates confiscated by a system of foreclosure lackin' every vestige of decency and co'tesy,--Shylocks wantin' their pound of flesh on the very hour and day,--why shouldn't they be paralyzed?" He laughed heartily. "Jack, you know Colonel Dorsey Kent, don't you?"

Jack did not, but the owners of several names on the passenger-list did, and hitched their camp-stools closer.

"Well, Kent was the only man I ever knew who ever held out against the damnable oligarchy."

Here an old fellow in a butternut suit, with a half-moon of white whiskers tied under his chin, leaned forward in rapt attention.

The major braced himself, and continued: "Kent, gentlemen, as many of you know, lived with his maiden sister over on Tinker Neck, on the same piece of ground where he was bo'n. She had a life interest in the house and property, and it was so nominated in the bond. Well, when it got down to hog and hominy, and very little of that, she told Kent she was goin' to let the place to a strawberry-planter from Philadelphia, and go to Baltimo' to teach school. She was sorry to break up the home, but there was nothin' else to do. Well, it hurt Kent to think she had to leave home and work for her living, for he was a very tender-hearted man.

"'You don't say so, Jane,' said he, 'and you raised here! Isn't that very sudden?' She told him it was, and asked him what he was going to do for a home when the place was rented?

"'Me, Jane? I shan't do anythin'. I shall stay here. If your money affairs are so badly mixed up that you're obliged to leave yo' home, I am very deeply grieved, but I am powerless to help. I am not responsible for the way this war ended. I was born here, and here I am going to stay." And he did. Nothing could move him. She finally had to rent him with the house,--he to have three meals a day, and a room over the kitchen.

"For two years after that Kent was so disgusted with life, and the turn of events, that he used to lie out on a rawhide, under a big sycamore tree in front of the po'ch, and get a farm nigger to pull him round into the shade by the tail of the hide, till the grass was wore as bare as yo' hand. Then he got a bias-cut rockin'-chair, and rocked himself round.

"The strawberry man said, of co'se, that he was too lazy to live. But I look deeper than that. To me, gentlemen, it was a crushin', silent protest against the money power of our times. And it never broke his spirit, neither. Why, when the census man came down a year befo' the colonel's death, he found him sittin' in his rockin'-chair, bare-headed. Without havin' the decency to take off his own hat, or even ask Kent's permission to speak to him, the census man began askin' questions,--all kinds, as those damnable fellows do. Colonel Kent let him ramble on for a while, then he brought him up standin'.

"'Who did you say you were, suh?'

"'The United States census-taker.'

"'Ah, a message from the enemy. Take a seat on the grass.'

"'It's only a matter of form,' said the man.

"'So I presume, and very bad form, suh,' looking at the hat still on the man's head. 'But go on.'

"'Well, what's yo' business?' asked the agent, taking out his book and pencil.

"'My business, suh?' said the colonel, risin' from his chair, mad clear through,--'I've no business, suh. I am a prisoner of war waitin' to be exchanged!' and he stomped into the house."

Here the major burst into a laugh, straightened himself up to his full height, squeezed the keys back into his pocket, and said he must take a look into the state-rooms on the deck to see if they were all ready for his friends for the night.

When I turned in for the night, he was on deck again, still talking, his hearty laugh ringing out every few moments. Only the white-whiskered man was left. The other camp-stools were empty.

II

At early dawn the steamboat slowed down, and a scow, manned by two bare-footed negroes with sweep oars, rounded to. In a few moments the major, two guns, two valises, Jack, and I were safely landed on its wet bottom, the major's bag with its precious contents stowed between his knees.

To the left, a mile or more away, lay Crab Island, the landed estate of our host,--a delicate, green thread on the horizon line, broken by two knots, one evidently a large house with chimneys, and the other a clump of trees. The larger knot proved to be the manor house that sheltered the belongings of the major, with the wine-cellars of marvelous vintage, the table that groaned, the folding mahogany doors that swung back for bevies of beauties, and perhaps, for all I knew, the gray-haired, ebony butler in the green coat. The smaller knot, Jack said, screened from public view the little club-house belonging to his friends and himself.

As the sun rose and we neared the shore, there came into view on the near end of the island the rickety outline of a palsied old dock, clutching with one arm a group of piles anchored in the marsh grass, and extending the other as if in welcome to the slow-moving scow. We accepted the invitation, threw a line over a thumb of a pile, and in five minutes were seated in a country stage. Ten more, and we backed up to an old-fashioned colonial porch, with sloping roof and dormer windows supported by high white columns. Leaning over the broken railing of the porch was a half-grown negro boy, hatless and bare-footed; inside the door, looking furtively out, half concealing her face with her apron, stood an old negro woman, her head bound with a bandana kerchief, while peeping from behind an outbuilding was a group of children in sun-bonnets and straw hats,--"the farmer's boys and girls," the major said, waving his hand, as we drove up, his eyes brightening. Then there was the usual collection of farm-yard fowl, beside two great hounds, who visited each one of us in turn, their noses rubbing our knees.

If the major, now that he was on his native heath, realized in his own mind any difference between the Eldorado which his eloquence had conjured up in my own mind, the morning before in Jack's room, and the hard, cold facts before us, he gave no outward sign. To all appearances, judging from his perfect ease and good temper, the paint-scaled pillars were the finest of Carrara marble, the bare floors were carpeted with the softest fabrics of Turkish looms, and the big, sparsely furnished rooms were so many salons, where princes trod in pride, and fair ladies stepped a measure.

The only remark he made was in answer to a look of surprise on my face when I peered curiously into the bare hall and made a cursory mental inventory of its contents.

"Yes, colonel; you will find, I regret to say, some slight changes since the old days. Then, too, my home is in slight confusion owin' to the spring cleanin', and a good many things have been put away."

I looked to Jack for explanation, but if that thoroughbred knew where the major had permanently put the last batch of his furniture, he, too, gave no outward sign.

As for the servants, were there not old Rachel and Sam, chef and valet? What more could one want? The major's voice, too, had lost none of its persuasive powers.

"Here, Sam, you black imp, carry yo' Marster Jack's gun and things to my room, and, Rachel, take the colonel's bag to the sea-room, next to the dinin'-hall. Breakfast in an hour, gentlemen, as Mrs. Slocomb used to say."

I found only a bed covered with a quilt, an old table with small drawers, a wash-stand, two chairs, and a desk on three legs. The walls were bare except for a fly-stained map yellow with age. As I passed through the sitting-room, Rachel preceding me with my traps, I caught a glimpse of traces of better times. There was a plain wooden mantelpiece, a wide fireplace with big brass andirons, a sideboard with and without brass handles and a limited number of claw feet,--which if brought under the spell of the scraper and varnish-pot might once more regain its lost estate,--a corner-cupboard built into the wall, half full of fragments of old china, and, to do justice to the major's former statement, there was also a pair of dull old mahogany doors with glass knobs separating the room from some undiscovered unknown territory of bareness and emptiness beyond. These, no doubt, were the doors Anthony threw open for the bevies of beauties so picturesquely described by the major, but where were the Chippendale furniture, the George III. silver, the Italian marble mantels with carved lions' heads, the marquetry floors and cabinets?

I determined to end my mental suspense. I would ask Rachel and get at the facts. The old woman was opening the windows, letting in the fresh breath of a honeysuckle, and framing a view of the sea beyond.

"How long have you lived here, aunty?"

"'Most fo'ty years, sah. Long 'fo' Massa John Talbot died."

"Where's old Anthony?" I said.

"What Anthony? De fust major's body-servant?"

"Yes."

"Go 'long, honey. He's daid dese twenty years. Daid two years 'fo' Massa Slocomb married Mis' Talbot."

"And Anthony never waited at all on Major Slocomb?"

"How could he wait on him, honey, when he daid 'fo' he see him?"

I pondered for a moment over the picturesque quality of the major's mendacity.

Was it, then, only another of the major's tributes to his wife,--this whole story of Anthony and the madeira of '39? How he must have loved this dear relict of his military predecessor!

An hour later the major strolled into the sitting-room, his arm through Jack's.

"Grand old place, is it not?" he said, turning to me. "Full of historic interest. Of co'se the damnable oligarchy has stripped us, but"--

Here Aunt Rachel flopped in--her slippers, I mean; the sound was distinctly audible.

"Bre'kfus', major."

"All right, Rachel. Come, gentlemen!"

When we were all seated, the major leaned back in his chair, toyed with his knife a moment, and said with an air of great deliberation:--

"Gentlemen, when I was in New York I discovered that the fashionable dish of the day was a po'ter-house steak. So when I knew you were coming, I wired my agent in Baltimo' to go to Lexington market and to send me down on ice the best steak he could buy fo' money. It is now befo' you.

"Jack, shall I cut you a piece of the tenderloin?"

A KNIGHT OF THE LEGION OF HONOR

It was in the smoking-room of a Cunarder two days out. The evening had been spent in telling stories, the fresh-air passengers crowding the doorways to listen, the habitual loungers and card-players abandoning their books and games.

When my turn came,--mine was a story of Venice, a story of the old palace of the Barbarozzi,--I noticed in one corner of the room a man seated alone wrapped in a light shawl, who had listened intently as he smoked, but who took no part in the general talk. He attracted my attention from his likeness to my friend Vereschagin the painter; his broad, white forehead, finely wrought features, clear, honest, penetrating eye, flowing mustache and beard streaked with gray,--all strongly suggestive of that distinguished Russian. I love Vereschagin, and so, unconsciously, and by mental association, perhaps, I was drawn to this stranger. Seeing my eye fixed constantly upon him, he threw off his shawl, and crossed the room.

"Pardon me, but your story about the Barbarozzi brought to my mind so many delightful recollections that I cannot help thanking you. I know that old palace,--knew it thirty years ago,--and I know that cortile, and although I have not had the good fortune to run across either your gondolier, Espero, or his sweetheart, Mariana, I have known a dozen others as romantic and delightful. The air is stifling here. Shall we have our coffee outside on the deck?"

When we were seated, he continued, "And so you are going to Venice to paint?"

"Yes; and you?"

"Me? Oh, to the Engadine to rest. American life is so exhausting that I must have these three months of quiet to make the other nine possible."

The talk drifted into the many curious adventures befalling a man in his journeyings up and down the world, most of them suggested by the queer stories of the night. When coffee had been served, he lighted another cigar, held the match until it burned itself out,--the yellow flame lighting up his handsome face,--looked out over the broad expanse of tranquil sea, with its great highway of silver leading up to the full moon dominating the night, and said as if in deep thought:--

"And so you are going to Venice?" Then, after a long pause: "Will you mind if I tell you of an adventure of my own,--one still most vivid in my memory? It happened near there many years ago." He picked up his shawl, pushed our chairs close to the overhanging life-boat, and continued: "I had begun my professional career, and had gone abroad to study the hospital system in Europe. The revolution in Poland--the revolt of '62--had made traveling in northern Europe uncomfortable, if not dangerous, for foreigners, even with the most authentic of passports, and so I had spent the summer in Italy. One morning, early in the autumn, I bade good-by to my gondolier at the water-steps of the railroad station, and bought a ticket for Vienna. An important letter required my immediate presence in Berlin.

"On entering the train I found the carriage occupied by two persons: a lady, richly dressed, but in deep mourning and heavily veiled; and a man, dark and smooth-faced, wearing a high silk hat. Raising my cap, I placed my umbrella and smaller traps under the seat, and hung my bundle of traveling shawls in the rack overhead. The lady returned my salutation gravely, lifting her veil and making room for my bundles. The dark man's only response was a formal touching of his hat-brim with his forefinger.

"The lady interested me instantly. She was perhaps twenty-five years of age, graceful, and of distinguished bearing. Her hair was jet-black, brushed straight back from her temples, her complexion a rich olive, her teeth pure white. Her lashes were long, and opened and shut with a slow, fan-like movement, shading a pair of deep blue eyes, which shone with that peculiar light only seen when quick tears lie hidden under half-closed lids. Her figure was rounded and full, and her hands exquisitely modeled. Her dress, while of the richest material, was perfectly plain, with a broad white collar and cuffs like those of a nun. She wore no jewels of any kind. I judged her to be a woman of some distinction,--an Italian or Hungarian, perhaps.

"When the train started, the dark man, who had remained standing, touched his hat to me, raised it to the lady, and disappeared. Her only acknowledgment was a slight inclination of the head. A polite stranger, no doubt, I thought, who prefers the smoker. When the train stopped for luncheon, I noticed that the lady did not leave the carriage, and on my return I found her still seated, looking listlessly out of the window, her head upon her hand.

"'Pardon me, madame,' I said in French, 'but unless you travel some distance this is the last station where you can get anything to eat.'

"She started, and looked about helplessly. 'I am not hungry. I cannot eat--but I suppose I should.'

"'Permit me;' and I sprang from the carriage, and caught a waiter with a tray before the guard reclosed the doors. She drank the coffee, tasted the fruit, thanking me in a low, sweet voice, and said:--

"'You are very considerate. It will help me to bear my journey. I am very tired, and weaker than I thought; for I have not slept for many nights.'

"I expressed my sympathy, and ended by telling her I hoped we could keep the carriage to ourselves; she might then sleep undisturbed. She looked at me fixedly, a curious startled expression crossing her face, but made no reply.