Chapter II

The day of Miss Ainger's marriage with Crawford, which took place in New York, a month later than the events heretofore recorded, found Vance Townsend on horseback in Virginia, following, with no especial purpose, a highway that crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains to descend sharply into the valley of the Shenandoah.

Before leaving home, he had acquitted himself of conventional duty to the bride by ordering to be sent to her the finest antique vase of his collection,--a gem of carved metal that Cellini might have signed,--filled with boughs of white lilac, his card and best wishes accompanying it. Then, with a heart overburdened, as he fancied, with regretful self-reproach, he had turned his back upon the chief might-have-been of his experience.

Katherine, who had, in fact, passed many days in her paternal mansion unsought by him, was now invested with a veil of tender sentiment. In his waistcoat pocket he carried an unfinished poem, addressed to her,--or to an idealized version of Miss Ainger,--which, at intervals on his journey, he would take out and polish and shape with assiduity, forgetting sometimes to sigh over it in his zeal for metrical construction.

The morning of the day that was to see the prize he had lost become definitely another's beheld Vance bargaining with a farmer--a former cavalryman in the Confederate service--to ride one of the two horses he had shipped by train from New York, and serve as guide in the war-harried region through which he desired to pass.

The process was a simple one, the sum negligently offered for his services for a day sufficing to cover the expenses of ex-corporal Claggett for a fortnight, and leave a margin to fill his pipe with. Therefore, the rusty squire in attendance (to whom the treat of bestriding a steed like this would have been requital all-sufficient), the riders left the village that had sheltered Townsend for the night, and at once set out to ascend a long and toilsome hill, giving views on every side of an enchanting prospect.

"I don't mean to appear boastful, suh," observed Mr. Claggett, modestly, "an' I ain't travelled much myself out o' this State, but I've heerd people say this 'ere view beats creation."

"It is very fine, certainly, Claggett," replied Vance, halting to look back at the wide expanse of hill and valley mantled with springing green, the far-off, grassy heights serving as pasture for sheep and cows, and scattered with limestone boulders, against which redbud and dogwood in blossom made brilliant patches; with mountains beyond, above, everywhere, and all of that exquisite, velvet-textured shade of blue, so soft and melting it seems to invite caress.

"By Jove! It is well named the Blue Ridge," Vance went on, approvingly.

"Jest there, Mr. Townsend, in that very spot where the old red cow's a-munchin' in the grass, was where Pelham stood when his artillery let fly at them plucky Yankee cavalry that was behind the stone wall firin' like fury at our Confeds."

"And who was Pelham?" asked the visitor, with interest.

"Never heard o' Pelham? Well, I wouldn't 'a' thought it," was the compassionate answer. "Why, suh, he was a boy,--major of artillery--nuthin' but a boy,--an' they killed him early in the war. But he'd the skill an' the sense of an old general; an' there wornt no risk to himself he'd stop at in a fight. He'd just _swipe_ vict'ry, every time, suh, Pelham would; an' he was the pride an' idol of our army. Thar! them johnny-jump-ups are growin' where his gun stood, an' he rammin' charges into it with his own hand, when he sent that murderin' volley that made batterin'-rams out o' the stones o' the wall here, an' druv the poor Yankees behind it into Kingdom Come. Things look different to me, suh, now. I was a youngster, then, run mad to git into any kind o' fightin'; but I've got sons o' my own now, an' I can't somehow see the pints in all that killin' we did in our war, like I used to. But I can't think o' fellers like Pelham without wantin' to be in it again, suh.

"Why, at Snicker's Gap (heard o' Snicker's Gap, Mr. Townsend?) that lad, who was commandin' Stuart's horse-artillery, charged on a squadron of cavalry that had been botherin' him with its sharp-shooters, and, with a gun that they'd dragged by hand through the undergrowth, fired a double charge of canister into their reserves. Then, suh, he charged agin,--a reg'lar thunderbolt that sally was,--picked up sev'ral prisoners an' horses, an', limberin' up his gun like wild-fire, hurried back to his first position, his men shoutin' for him all the while."

"Those were stirring days for you, Claggett," said Townsend, whose blood began to answer to the man's enthusiasm.

"Yes, Mr. Townsend, they were so; but you mustn't let me impose on you with my war stories. My present wife, suh,--a young lady I courted in King William, about the age of my oldest daughter,--she won't have me open my mouth 'bout war stories at our house. Says I tire everybody out with my old chestnuts, suh; an' perhaps I do. The ladies like to do a good deal of the talkin' themselves, I've noticed, Mr. Townsend."

With a subdued sigh, Claggett subsided into silence, but not for long. The names of Stuart and Mosby and their officers were ever upon his lips, interspersed with anecdote and gossip concerning the country people whose dwellings were only occasionally seen from the road. Here and there, in the distance, chimneys behind clumps of trees were pointed out as belonging to old inhabitants who had held on to their homes through storm and stress of ill-fortune since the war.

"Since you are from the Nawth, I would like to tell you, suh, that nobody who is anybody among our gentry ever lived in a village. They lived to themselves, suh, an' the further away from each other the better. If you had the time, suh, an' were acquainted with the families, I could show you some places that would surprise you. An' the ladies an' gentlemen, Mr. Townsend, of our best old stock are as fine people as any on God's earth, I reckon. Pity you ain't acquainted, as I said. It would give me pleasure to take you inside some of the gates of our foremost residents."

Vance noted with amusement that Claggett did not assume to be on a social plane with the people he extolled, but had accepted the tradition of their superiority as part of the Virginian creed. Laughing, he joined in the honest fellow's regret at his ineligibility to take rank as a guest in the neighborhood.

"Though it seems to me, Claggett, now that I think of it, I have a kinsman somewhere hereabout. Do you know anything of a family of Carlyles--Colonel Carlyle, I believe they call him?"

Claggett's manner underwent instant transformation.

"Colonel Guy Carlyle, of the Hall, suh?" he exclaimed, eagerly. "That's in the next county, a matter of twenty or thirty miles from here. I had the luck to serve under the Colonel, Mr. Townsend, and he'd know me if you spoke my name. You'll be goin' that way, suh? We'll strike north from Glenwood, and get there by supper-time."

"Hold on, Claggett, you'll be pouring out my coffee and asking me to take more of the Colonel's waffles, presently. Colonel Carlyle married my mother's cousin, but I fancy would not recognize my name as quickly as yours. I have certainly no grounds for venturing to offer myself as an inmate of his house."

"Beg your pardon, suh, but the Colonel'd never get over a relation ridin' so near the Hall an' not stoppin' there to sleep," persisted Claggett. "It's a thing nobody ever heard of, down this way."

"I shall have to brave tradition, then," answered Vance, indifferently.

"It's a fine old place, suh. House built by the Hessian prisoners in the Revolution, and splendid furniture. They do say there's one mirror in the big saloon that covers fourteen foot of wall, Mr. Townsend. Yanks bivouacked in that room, too, but didn't so much as crack it. An' chandeliers, all over danglers like earrings, suh. For all they ain't got such a sight o' money as they had, Miss Eve, she's got a real knack at fixin' up, an' she's travelled Nawth, an' got all the new ideas. You must 'a' met Miss Eve when she was Nawth, Mr. Townsend. Why, suh, she's the beauty o' three counties; nobody could pass _her_ in a crowd, or out of it."

"I _have_ met Miss Carlyle, Claggett," Vance said, growing uncomfortable at the recollection. "But only once, and for a moment. As you say, she is a beautiful young woman."

"Then you _will_ stop at the Hall, suh?" pleaded his guide.

"No," said Vance, briefly. "We will go on to Glenwood, and sleep there at the inn. To-morrow, you shall show me as much of the country as I have enjoyed to-day, but I am here for travelling, and not to cultivate acquaintance, understand."

"Up yonder, on the hill-top, suh," observed Mr. Claggett, ignoring rebuke, "when we git through this little village we're comin' to (I was in a red-hot skirmish once, right in the middle of the street, ahead, suh), is a tree we call the Big Poplar. It marks the junction of three counties, an' 'twas there George Washin'ton slept, when he was on his surveyin' tour as a boy, suh--you've heard of General Washin'ton up your way, Mr. Townsend?"

"Yes, confound you," said Vance, laughing at his sly look.

"General Lee halted at that point to look at the country round, on his way to Gettysburg. A great friend of Colonel Carlyle was the General, suh; you'll see a fine picture of the General in the dinin'-room at the Hall. Colonel Carlyle lost two brothers followin' Lee into battle, suh, but we call that an honor down here. They do say little Miss Eve keeps the old swords and soldier caps of them two uncles in a sort o' altar in her chamber, suh. Heard the news that Miss Eve's engaged to her cousin, Mr. Ralph Corbin, in Wash'n't'n, suh? It's all over the country, I reckon. He's a young archytec', an' doin' well; but down here nobody knows if a young lady's engaged for sure, till the day's set for the weddin'."

At this point Vance interrupted his garrulous guide to suggest that they should seek refreshment for man and beast in the hamlet close at hand; and the diversion this created turned Claggett from the apparently inexhaustible subject of the Carlyles.

They rode onward, the genial sun, as it mounted higher in the heaven, serving to irradiate, not overheat, the beautiful earth.

From this point the road went creeping up, by gentle degrees, to the summit of the mountain, beyond which Shenandoah cleft their way in twain. Traversing Ashby's Gap, the efflorescence of the woods, the music of many waters, the balm of purest air, confirmed Vance's satisfaction in his choice of an expedition. Descending the steep grade to the river, they crossed the classic stream upon the most primitive of flat ferry-boats, and on the further side passed almost at once into a rich, agricultural country, upon a well-kept turnpike, where the horses trotted rapidly ahead.

Claggett, strange to say, did not resume allusions to the Carlyle family; but upon reaching a certain cross-road, he ventured an appealing glance at his employer.

"Turn to the right here, to get a short cut to Carlyle Hall, suh."

"Where does the left road take us?" asked Vance, shortly.

"You _kin_ git to Glenwood that way, Mr. Townsend. But it's a roundabout way, an' a new road, an' a pretty bad one, an' it's just in the opposite direction from Colonel--"

Vance answered him by riding to the left.

A new road, with a vengeance, and one apparently bottomless, the horses at every step plunging deeper into clinging, red-clay mud; but the obstinacy of Vance kept him riding silently ahead, and the trooper, with a quizzical look upon his weather-beaten face, followed. Miles, traversed in this fashion, brought them into the vicinity of a small gathering of houses, at sight of which Vance spoke for the first time in an hour.

"Claggett."

"Yes, suh?" This, deferentially.

"If I ever go back of my own free will over that infernal piece of road"--he paused for a sufficiently strong expression.

"Yes, suh?" said Claggett, expectantly.

"You may write me down an ass."

"Yes, _suh_," Claggett exclaimed, with what Vance thought a trifle too much alacrity. "Better let me go befo' you for a little piece, Mr. Townsend," added the countryman. "Just where the road slopes down to the crick, here, it's sorter treacherous, if you don't know the best bit."

Vance, choosing to be deaf, kept in front. He traversed the creek in safety; but, in ascending the other side, his horse plunged knee-deep into a quagmire,--throwing his rider, who arose none the worse except for a plaster of red mud,--and emerged evidently lamed.

"He's all right, suh, excep' for a little strain," said the ex-trooper, after his experienced eye and hand had passed over Merrylad's injuries.

"We will go at once to the hotel in the village, and get quarters for the night," said Vance, ruefully. "I've a change of clothes in that bag you carry, so I don't mind for myself. But I wouldn't have Merrylad the worse for this for anything."

"The trouble is, Mr. Townsend," answered Claggett, "that you may get quarters fit for a horse here, but you won't be stoppin' yourself, I'll tell you."

"Nonsense! Come along! You lead Merrylad; I'm glad to stretch my legs by a walk," and the young man started off at a good pace, plashing ever through liquid mire, that overflowed street and so-called sidewalk.

There was no sign of an inn of any kind. A few dilapidated houses of the poorest straggled on either side the street, at the end of which they came upon a country store and post-office combined. Three or four mud-splashed horses hitched to a rock; as many mud-splashed loungers upon tilted chairs on the platform before the door. That was all.

"Better take 'em on to old Josey's, Charley," called out a friendly voice to Claggett.

"Yes, old Josey will do the correct thing by them," remarked a full-bearded, sunburned gentleman, who, seated astride of a mule, now came "clopping" toward them through the mud, from the opposite direction.

"I am really afraid, Mr. Townsend," Claggett said, persuasively, "that we shall be forced to go on a mile or so further, to old Josey's."

"And who in the thunder _is_ old Josey?" exclaimed Vance, testily.

"Never heard o' him up Nawth, suh?" answered the trooper, with a twinkle in his eye. "He's the big person o' this part,--an old bachelor,--Mr. Joseph Lloyd, who runs the best farms and raises the best stock in the neighborhood. The truth is, not many visitors come here, unless they are booked for Mr. Lloyd's."

"What claim have I on him, unless I can pay my night's lodging and yours? I will leave you and the lame horse here, and make my way back to-night to Glenwood."

"To get to Glenwood, you'd have to pass over right smart of that mire we came through," said Claggett, pensively.

"Then, in Heaven's name, let us go to Josey's," said Vance, laughing, in spite of his bad humor.

They bade farewell to the village, and went off as they had come, Vance choosing to walk, the trooper leading the lame horse.

And now, in defiance of his plight, his melancholy appearance, the accident to his favorite, Vance yielded himself to the spell of a region that became at every moment, as he advanced, more wildly beautiful. The sun, about to set, sent a flood of radiance over hills high and low, over a broken rolling country dominated by the massive shaft of Massanutton Mountain, rising like a tower above his lesser brethren. That the "mile or two further on" stretched into four or five, the young man cared not a jot. His lungs filling with crisp, invigorating air, he strode forward, and was almost sorry when the dormer-windows of an old house shrouded by locust-trees in bloom appeared upon a plateau across intervening fields.

"Now for my best cheek!" he said to himself. "What _am_ I to say to old Josephus? Ask for lodging, like the tramp I look? Hang it! I believe I'll sleep under the nearest haystack, rather!"

While thus absorbed, Mr. Theodore Vance Townsend, the fine flower of various clubs, did not perceive that he was an object of varying interest and solicitude to three persons looking over the fence of a pasture near-by, where cattle were enclosed.

Two elderly gentlemen surveyed him closely. A girl, who had tossed a glance at him over her shoulder, seemed to find more attraction in the Alderney heifer, whose saucy rough tongue was at that moment stretched out to lick salt from a velvet palm, than in the mud-stained wayfarer.

"That's no common tramp," said one of the gentlemen to the other. "If you will stay here with my Lady-love, I'll just go and investigate his case."

Vance Townsend had, perhaps, like other mortals, known his "bad moments" in life. But he felt that there had been few like this, when the old gentleman, issuing through a gate opening from the pasture, came to him with a quick, decided step.

The younger man took off his hat. The older did likewise. And then Vance, between a laugh and a groan, told his story, confirmed by the apparition at that moment, in the distance, of the horses and Claggett, who was himself afoot.

"Say no more, my dear fellow, say not another word," interrupted the astonished old gentleman. "My name is Lloyd, and I'm the owner of that house behind the locusts, where I'm delighted to take you in, and Charley Claggett, too. We'll find out what's the matter with your horse, quick enough. Welcome to Wheatlands, sir, and just come along with me."

Before Vance fairly knew how, he found himself in a "prophet's chamber," looking upon a sloping roof, where a martin was nesting within reach of his hand. Tapping the panes of the upper sash of his window, a branch tasselled with sweet-smelling blossoms swayed in the breeze. Outside, he had a wide and glorious view of field and mountains. Inside, he possessed a clean, if homely, bedroom, at the door of which a soft-voiced negro woman was already knocking, to ask for his bespattered garments.

Vance was delighted. When he furthermore found left at his portal a tub with a large bucket of ice-cold water from the spring, together with his bag, he began to think that Virginia hospitality was not to be relegated among things traditional.

* * * * *

The soft Virginia dusk was closing upon the scene, when our young man, leaving his room, went down-stairs, through a hall hung with trophies and implements of sport, and out of an open door upon the "front porch," to look at the evening star hanging above the mountain crest. In this occupation he found another person indulging likewise, and in the clear gloom discovered the face and figure of a young and singularly graceful girl, who without hesitation accosted him.

"Mr. Lloyd has told us of your mishap," she said, courteously. "He is congratulating himself that it happened near enough to let him help you out of it. I hope the horse will fare as well as the master."

"Merrylad will be all right, thank you, so Claggett has been up to tell me. It appears that Mr. Lloyd, in addition to his other attractions, is a famous amateur vet."

"You will find he has all the virtues," she said, laughing. At that moment, a lamp, lighted by the servant in the hall, sent a stream of illumination upon them. To Townsend's utter surprise, he saw the face of his cousin, Evelyn Carlyle.

"You!" he heard her say, in a not too well pleased tone; and "You?" he repeated, with what he felt to be not a distinguished success.

"How extraordinary that it should turn out to be you!" she began again, first of the two to recover her composure. "Did you think--were you, that is, on your way to visit _us_?"

"Nothing was further from my thoughts," he answered, bluntly. "I, on the contrary, believed myself to be going in the opposite direction from where you live."

"Of course," she said, somewhat piqued. "It is impossible you should have known that papa and I came yesterday on a visit to dear old Cousin Josephus. I beg your pardon if I was very rude."

"It is certainly not a welcome that seems inspired by what I have been led to think is Virginia cordiality," he answered, coolly.

"But I have asked your pardon, and that's not the way to answer me. You might grant it, never so stiffly; and after that, we, being thrown together this way through no fault of either of us, might agree to be decently civil before papa, who can have no idea how I feel toward--I mean what my reasons are for feeling--well, never mind what I mean," she ended, vexed at his immobility.

"I quite join with you in thinking it would be very silly to take any one else into this armed neutrality of ours. I shall at the earliest moment, to-morrow, relieve you of my presence. Suppose, until then, you try to treat me as you would another unoffending man under my circumstances."

"Yes. You are right. It would be better, and it would not worry papa and Cousin Josephus," she said, reflectively. "Well, then, if you were another man, I should begin by asking you what brought you to Virginia. No; that would not be at all polite, would it? I think I shall just say nothing at all."

"Not till you let me assure you that I came because a fellow I know told me he had made a driving tour in this part, last year, with his wife, and had found it rather nice--and another reason was, that I wanted to get away from myself."

"You are very flattering to our State," she said, bridling her head after a fashion he found both comical and sweet. She was silent a little while, then resumed, more gently:

"I was thinking of what you last said, and maybe I have done you an injustice. Maybe you are to be pitied more than blamed."

"Do you mean because I spoiled a good suit of clothes and hurt my horse's leg?"

"No; not that. You are clearly not in need of sympathy. There! They are going to ring the supper-bell, and you must go and be introduced to my father, as his cousin. He is the dearest daddy in the world, and will be sure to try to make you come to visit us at the Hall."

"Am I to understand this is a hint not to accept?"

"I _could_ stay on here, you know," she said, in a businesslike way.

"You are perfectly exasperating," he exclaimed, and then the summons came to go into the house. Just before they crossed the threshold, she appeared to have undergone another change of mind. Turning back swiftly, in a voice of exceeding sweetness she breathed into his ear these words:

"Please, I am sorry. I ought not to keep forgetting, ought I, that you are a stranger within our gates, and a cousin, really?"

"Is she a coquette?" Vance began to ask himself, but was interrupted by a _sortie_ of his host in search of him.