Part 9

“Looky' heer,” he said, “they call you the fightin' preacher. They say you believe in hittin' back when yo' re hit. I'm heer to show you that ef I am a outlaw I ain't afeerd o' you, an' I ain't a-goin' to be abused by you when you are under the cloak o' this meetin'. When you say some 'n' you think is purty good you wink at some brother in the amen-corner an' he yells 'Amen 'loud enough to be heerd to the cross-roads. Then you go on as if nothin' had happened. What I said back thar was jest my way o' sayin' amen. Little Jas' Marmaduke hit you in a weak spot; so did what Mis' Pellham said, an' yo' re tryin' to take yore spite out on me. That won't work. I come heer to see fair play, an' I'm a-goin' to do it. Uncle Ab's a good man an' I'm heer to testify to it. He's come nigher--him an' Alan Bishop, that's a chip off'n 'im--to turn me into the right way than all the shoutin'-bees I ever attended, an' I've been to as many as thar are hairs on my head. I ain't bald, nuther. Now ef you want to have it out with me jest wait an' meet me outside, whar we 'll both have fair play.”

Dole was quivering with rage. “I kin whip a dozen dirty scoundrels like you,” he panted. “Men like you insult ministers, thinking they won't fight, but after meetin' I 'll simply wipe up the ground with you.”

“All right, 'nough said!” and Pole sat down. There was silence for a moment. Dole's furious panting could be heard all over the room. Then Abner Daniel rose. A vast change had come over him. The light of quizzical merriment had faded from his face; nothing lay there except the shadows of deepest regret. “I've been wrong--wrong--_wrong!_” he said, loudly. “I'm dead wrong, ur Pole Baker never would 'a' wanted to fight, an' brother Dole wouldn't 'a' been driv' to lose his temper in the pulpit. I'm at the bottom o' all this rumpus that has kept you all from listenin' to a good sermon. You've not found me hard to git along with when I see my error, an' I promise that I 'll try from this day on to keep from shovin' my notions on folks that ain't ready fer 'em. I want to stay in the church. I think every sane man an' woman kin do good in a church, an' I want to stay in this un.”

The confession was so unexpected, and furnished Dole with such an easy loop-hole for gracefully retiring from a most unpleasant predicament, that he actually beamed on the speaker.

“I don't think any more need be said,” he smiled. “Brother Daniel has shown himself willing to do the right thing, an' I propose that the charges be dropped.” Thereupon a vote was taken, and it went overwhelmingly in Abner's favor. After the benediction, which followed immediately, Pole Baker hurried across to Daniel. “I declare, you make me sick, Uncle Ab,” he grumbled. “What on earth did you mean by takin' back-water? You had 'im whar the wool was short; he was white at the gills. You could 'a' mauled the life out'n 'im. Ef I'd--”

But Abner, smiling indulgently, had a watchful eye on Dole, and was moving forward to shake the preacher's outstretched hand.

“Well, I 'll be damned!” Pole grunted, half aloud and in high disgust, as he pushed his way through the crowd to the door.

Abner found him waiting for him near the hitch-ing-post, where he had been to untie Bishop's horse.

“I reckon,” he said, “bein' as you got so mighty good yorese'f, 'at you think I acted wrong.”

“Not any wuss'n I did, Pole,” replied the old man, seriously. “My advice to you is to go to Dole an' tell 'im you are sorry.”

“Sorry hell!”

“It ud be better fer you,” half smiled Abner. “Ef you don't, some o' them hill-Billies 'll make a case at court agin you fer disturbin' public worship. Before a grand jury o' mossbacks a man with yore record ud not stand any better chance o' comin' cleer 'n a old bird-nest ud o' makin' good soup. When you was a-runnin' of yore still it made you powerful mad to have revenue men after you, didn't it? Well, this heer shebang is Dole's still, my boy, whar he claims to make good sperits out'n bad material, an' he's got a license, which is more 'n you could 'a' said.”

“I reckon yo' re right,” said Pole. “I 'll wait fer 'im.”

XV

N the middle of the following week some of the young people of Darley gave a picnic at Morley's Spring, a beautiful and picturesque spot about a mile below Bishop's farm. Alan had received an urgent invitation to join the party, and he rode down after dinner.

It was a hot afternoon, and the party of a dozen couples had scattered in all directions in search of cool, shady nooks. Alan was by no means sure that Miss Barclay would be there, but, if the truth must be told, he went solely with the hope of at least getting another look at her. He was more than agreeably surprised, for, just as he had hitched his horse to a hanging bow of an oak near the spring, Frank Hillhouse came from the tangle of wild vines and underbrush on a little hill-side and approached him.

“You are just the fellow I'm looking for,” said Frank. “Miss Dolly's over there in a hammock, and I want to leave somebody with her. Old man Morley promised me the biggest watermelon in his patch if I'd come over for it. I won't be long.”

“Oh, I don't care how long you are,” smiled Alan. “You can stay all day if you want to.”

“I thought you wouldn't mind,” grinned Frank. “I used to think you were the one man I had to fight, but I reckon I was mistaken. A feller in love imagines everybody in creation is against him.”

Alan made no reply to this, but hurried away to where Dolly sat, a new magazine in her hands and a box of candies on the grass at her feet. “I saw you riding down the hill,” she said, with a pretty flush and no little excitement. “To tell the truth, I sent Frank after the melon when I recognized you. He's been threatening to go all the afternoon, but I insisted on it. You may be surprised, but I have a business message for you, and I would have made Frank drive me past your house on the way home if you hadn't come.”

“Business,” Alan laughed, merrily; he felt very happy in her presence under all her assurances of welcome. “The idea of your having a business message! That's really funny.”

“Well, that's what it is; sit down.” She made room for him in the hammock, and he sat beside her, his foolish brain in a whirl. “Why, yes, it is business; and it concerns you. I fancy it is important; anyway, it may take you to town to-night.”

“You don't mean it,” he laughed. She looked very pretty, in her light organdie gown and big rustic hat, with its wide, flowing ribbons.

“Yes, it is a message from Rayburn Miller, about that railroad idea of yours.”

“Really? Then he told you about that?”

“Yes; he was down to see me last week. He didn't seem to think much of it then--but”--she hesitated and smiled, as if over the memory of something amusing--“he's been thinking of it since. As Frank and I drove through the main street this morning--Frank had gone in a store to get a basket of fruit--he came to me on his way to the train for Atlanta. He hadn't time to say much, but he said if you were out here to-day to tell you to come in town to-night without fail, so as to meet him at his office early in the morning. He 'll be back on the midnight train. I asked him if it was about the railroad, and he said it was--that he had discovered something that looked encouraging.”

“I'm glad of that,” said Alan, a thrill of excitement passing over him. “Rayburn threw cold water on my ideas the other day, and--”

“I know he did, and it was a shame,” said Dolly, warmly. “The idea of his thinking he is the only man in Georgia with originality! Anyway, I hope it will come to something.”

“I certainly do,” responded Alan. “It's the only thing I could think of to help my people, and I am willing to stake all I have on it--which is, after all, nothing but time and energy.”

“Well, don't you let him nor any one else discourage you,” said the girl, her eyes flashing. “A man who listens to other people and puts his own ideas aside is unworthy of the brain God gave him. There is another thing”--her voice sank lower and her eyes sought the ground. “Rayburn Miller is a fine, allround man, but he is not perfect by any means. He talks freely to me, you know; he's known me since I was knee-high. Well, he told me--he told me of the talk he had with you at the dance that night. Oh, that hurt me--hurt me!”

“He told you that!” exclaimed Alan, in surprise. “Yes, and it actually disgusted me. Does he think all men ought to act on that sort of advice? He might, for he has made an unnatural man of himself, with all his fancies for new faces; but you are not that kind, Alan, and I'm sorry you and he are so intimate--not that he can influence you _much_, but he has already, _in a way_, and that has pained me deeply.”

“He has influenced me?” cried Alan, in surprise. “I think you are mistaken.”

“You may not realize it, but he has,” said Dolly, with gentle and yet unyielding earnestness. “You see, you are so very sensitive that it would not be hard to make you believe that a young man ought not to keep on caring for a girl whose parents object to his attentions.”

“Ah!” He had caught her drift.

There was a pause. At the foot of the hill a little brook ran merrily over the water-browned stones, and its monotonous lapping could be heard distinctly. Under the trees across the open some of the couples had drawn together and were singing:

“I see the boat go 'round the bend,

Good-bye, my lover, good-bye.”

Dolly had said exactly what he had never hoped to hear her say, and the fact of her broaching such a subject in such a frank, determined way sent a glow of happiness all over him.

“I don't think,” he began, thoughtfully, “that Rayburn or any man could keep me from”--he looked into her full, expectant eyes, and then plunged madly--“could keep me from caring for you, from loving you with all my heart, Dolly; but it really is a terrible thing to know that you are robbing a girl of not only the love of her parents but her rightful inheritance, when, when”--he hurried on, seeing that an impulse to speak was urging her to protest--“when you haven't a cent to your name, and, moreover, have a black eye from your father's mistakes.”

“I knew that's what he'd said!” declared the girl, almost white with anger. “I knew it! Oh, Alan, Rayburn Miller might be able to draw back and leave a girl at such a time, but no man could that truly loves as--as I believe you love me. I have known how you have felt all this time, and it has nearly broken my heart, but I could not write to you when you had never even told me, what you have to-day. You must not let anybody or anything influence you, Alan. I'd rather be a poor man' s wife, and do my own work, than let a paltry thing like my father's money keep me from standing by the man I love.”

Alan' s face was ablaze. He drew himself up and gazed at her, all his soul in his eyes. “Then I shall not give you up,” he declared; “not for anything in the world. And if there is a chance in the railroad idea I shall work at it ten times as hard, now that I have talked with you.”

They sat together in blissful ignorance of the passage of time, till some one shouted out that Frank Hill-house was coming with the watermelon. Then all the couples in sight or hearing ran to the spring, where Hillhouse could be seen plunging the big melon into the water. Hattie Alexander and Charlie Durant, who had been perched on a jutting bowlder high up on the hill behind Dolly and Alan, came half running, half sliding down, catching at the trees to keep from falling.

“Better come get your teeth in that melon,” Hattie said, with a knowing smile at Dolly. They lived next door to each other and were quite intimate.

“Come on, Alan.” Dolly rose. “Frank will never forgive me if I don't have some.”

“I sha 'n' t have time, if I go to town to-night,” replied Alan. “I have something to do at home first.”

“Then I won't keep you,” Dolly smiled, “for you must go and meet Rayburn Miller. I'm going to hope that he has had good luck in Atlanta.”

The world had never seemed so full of joy and hope as Alan rode homeward. The sun was setting in glorious splendor beyond the towering mountains, above which the sky seemed an ocean of mother-of-pearl and liquid gold. Truly it was good to be alive. At the bars he met Abner Daniel with a fishing-cane in his hands, his bait-gourd under his arm.

“I know right whar you've been,” he said, with a broad smile, as he threw down the bars for Alan to pass through. “I seed that gang drive by in all the'r flurry this mornin', the queen bee in the lead with that little makeshift of a man.”

Alan dismounted to prevent his uncle from putting up the bars, and they walked homeward side by side.

“Yes, and I've had the time of my life,” said the young man. “I talked to her for a solid hour.”

“I could see that in yore face,” said Abner, quietly. “You couldn't hide it, an' I 'll bet she didn't lose time in lettin' you know what she never could hide from me.”

“We understand each other better now,” admitted Alan.

“Well, I've certainly set my heart on the match--on gittin' her in our family,” affirmed Abner. “Durn-ed ef--I declare, sometimes I'm afeerd I'm gone on 'er myse'f. Yes, I want you 'n' her to make it. I want to set an' smoke an' chaw on yore front porch, an' heer her back in the kitchen fryin' ham an' eggs, an',” the old man winked, “I don't know as I'd object to trottin' some 'n' on my knee, to sorter pass the time betwixt meals.”

“Oh, come off, Uncle Ab!” said Alan, with a flush, “that's going too far.”

The old man whisked his bait-gourd round under his other arm. His eyes twinkled, and he chuckled. “'Tain' t goin' as fur as havin' one on each knee an' both pine blank alike an' exactly the same age. I've knowed that to happen in my day an' time, when nobody wasn't even lookin' fer a' increase.”

XVI

ATTIE ALEXANDER and Charlie Durant reached home before Dolly and Hillhouse, and as Dolly alighted from the buggy at the front gate and was going up the flower-bordered walk Hattie came to the side fence and called out:

“Oh, Dolly, come here quick; I've got some 'n' to tell you.”

“Well, wait till I get my hat off,” answered Dolly.

“No, I can't wait; come on, or you 'll wish you had.”

“What is it, goosie?” Dolly smiled, as she tripped across the grass, her face flushed from her rapid drive.

“Doll, darling, I've got you in an _awful_ scrape. I know you 'll never forgive me, but I couldn't help it. When Charlie left me at the gate mother come out and asked me all about the picnic, who was there an' who talked to who, and all about it. Among other things I told her about you and Alan getting together for such a nice, long talk, and--”

“Oh, I don't mind her,” broke in Dolly, as she reached for the skirt of her gown to rescue it from the dew on the high grass.

“Wait, wait; I'm not through by a jugful,” panted Hattie. “Just then your pa came along an' asked if you'd got home. I told him you hadn't, an' then he up and asked me if Alan Bishop was out there. I had to say yes, of course, for you know how strict mother is about telling a fib, and then what do you think he did? He come right out plain and asked if Alan talked to you by yourself. I didn't know what on earth to do. I reckon I actually turned white, and then mother chipped in and said: 'Tell the truth, daughter; a story never mends matters; besides, Colonel Barclay, you must be more reasonable; young folks will be young folks, and Alan Bishop would be my choice if I was picking out a husband for my girl.' And then you ought to have heard your pa snort; it was as loud as a horse kicking up his heels in the lot. He wheeled round an' made for the house like he was shot out of a gun.”

“I reckon he 'll raise the very Old Harry,” opined Dolly, grimly. “But I don't care; he's driven me about as far as he can.”

“I wouldn't make him any madder,” advised the innocent mischief-maker, with a doleful expression. “It's all my fault. I--”

“No, it wasn't,” declared Dolly. “But he can't run over me with his unreasonable ideas about Alan Bishop.”

With that she turned and went towards the house, her head down. On the veranda she met her mother, who was waiting for her with a pleasurable smile. “You've stirred up yore pa awful,” she said, laughing impulsively, and then trying to veil it with a seriousness that sat awkwardly on her. “You'd better dodge him right now. Oh, he's hot! He was just saying this morning that he believed you and Frank were getting on fine, and now he says Frank is an idiot to take a girl to a picnic to meet his rival. How did it happen?”

“Just as I intended it should, mother,” Dolly said. “I knew he was coming, and sent Frank off after a watermelon. He didn't have sense enough to see through my ruse. If I'd treated Alan that way he'd simply have looked straight through me as if I'd been a window-pane. Mother, I'm not going to put up with it. I tell you I won't. I know what there is in Alan Bishop better than father does, and I am not going to stand it.”

“You ain't, heigh?” thundered Barclay across the hall, and he stalked out of the sitting-room, looking over his eye-glasses, a newspaper in his hand. “Now, my lady, let me say to you that Alan Bishop shall never darken my door, and if you meet him again anywhere you shall go away and stay.”

“Father “--Dolly had never stood so tall in her high-heeled shoes nor so straight--“Father, you insulted Alan just now before Mrs. Alexander and Hattie, and I'm not going to have you do it any more. I love him, and I shall never love any other man, nor marry any other man. I know he loves me, and I'm going to stick to him.”

“Then the quicker you get away from here the better,” said the old man, beside himself with rage. “And when you go, don't you dare to come back again.”

The Colonel stalked from the room. Dolly glanced at her mother, who had a pale smile of half-frightened enjoyment on her face.

“I think you said 'most too much,” Mrs. Barclay said. “You'd better not drive him too far.”

Dolly went up to her room, and when supper was called, half an hour later, she declined to come down. However, Mrs. Barclay sent up a tray of delicacies by Aunt Milly, the old colored woman, which came back untouched.

It was the custom of the family to retire rather early at that season of the year, and by half-past nine the house was dark and still. Mrs. Barclay dropped to sleep quickly, but waked about one o' clock, and lay unable to drift into unconsciousness again for the delightful pastime of thinking over her daughter's love affair. She began to wonder if Dolly, too, might not be awake, and the prospect of a midnight chat on that of all topics made her pulse beat quickly. Slipping noiselessly out of bed, so as not to wake her husband, who was snoring in his bed across the room, she glided up-stairs. She had not been there a moment before the Colonel was waked by a low scream from her, and then he heard her bare feet thumping on the floor overhead as she crossed the hall into the other rooms. She screamed out again, and the Colonel sprang up, grasped his revolver, which always lay on the bureau, and ran into the hall. There he met his wife, half sliding down the stairs.

“Dolly's gone,” she gasped. “Her bed hasn't been touched. Oh, Seth, do you reckon anything has happened to her?”

The old man stared in the dim light of the hall, and then turned towards the door which opened on the back veranda. He said not a word, but was breathing hard. The cabin of old Ned and his wife, Aunt Milly, was near by.

“Ned; oh, Ned!” called out the Colonel.

“Yes, marster!”

“Crawl out o' that bed and come heer!”

“Yes, marster; I'm a-comin'.”

“Oh, Seth, do you reckon--do you--?”

“Dry up, will you?” thundered Barclay. “Are you comin', Ned?”

Uncle Ned's gray head was thrust out at the partly open door.

“You want me, marster?”

“Yes; what do you suppose I called you for if I didn't want you. Now I don't want any lies from you. You know you can't fool me. I want to know if you carried a note from this house to anybody since sundown.”

“A note must have been sent,” ventured Mrs. Barclay, in an undertone. “Dolly never would have gone to him. He must have been notified and come after her.”

“Dry up, for God's sake!” yelled the Colonel over his shoulder to the spectre by his side. “Answer me, you black rascal.”

“Marse Seth, young miss, she--”

“She sent a note to Alan Bishop, didn't she?” interpolated the Colonel.

“Marster, I didn't know it was any harm. I des 'lowed it was some prank o' young miss'. Oh, Lordy!”

“You might know you'd do suppen, you old sap-haid,” broke in Aunt Milly from the darkness of the cabin. “I kin count on you ever' time.”

“Get back in bed,” ordered the Colonel, and he walked calmly into his room and lay down again. His wife followed him, standing in the middle of the room.

“Aren't you going to do anything?” she said. Her voice was charged with a blending of tears and a sort of feminine eagerness that is beyond the comprehension of man.

“Do anything? What do you think I ought to do? Raise an alarm, ring the church-bells, and call out the hook-and-ladder company? Huh! She's made her bed; let her lie on it.”

“You are heartless--you have no feeling,” cried his wife. The very core of her desire was to get him to talk about the matter. If he was not going to rouse the neighborhood, and thus furnish some one to talk to, he, at least, ought to be communicative.

“Well, you'd better go to bed,” snarled her husband.

“No”--she scratched a match and lighted a candle--“I'm going up-stairs and see if she left a note. Now, you see, _I_ had to think of that. The poor girl may have written something.”

There did seem to be a vestige of reason in this, and the old man said nothing against it, throwing himself back on his pillow with a stifled groan.

After about half an hour Mrs. Barclay came back; she stood over him, holding the candle so that its best rays would fall on his face.

“She didn't write one word,” was her announcement. “I reckon she knew we'd understand or find out from Uncle Ned. And just to think!”--Mrs. Barclay now sat down on a chair across the back of which lay the Colonel's trousers, holding the candle well to the right that she might still see the rigid torture of his face--“just to think, she's only taken the dress she had on at the picnic. It will be a poor wedding for her, when she's always said she wanted a lot of bridesmaids and ushers and decorations. Poor child! Maybe they had to drive into the country to get somebody to marry them. I know brother Lapsley wouldn't do it without letting us know. I reckon she 'll send the first thing in the morning for her trunk, if--” Mrs. Barclay gazed more steadily--“if she don't come herself.”

“Well, she needn't come herself,” grunted the reclining figure as it flounced under the sheets to turn its face to the wall.

“You wouldn't be that hard on our only child, just because she--”

“If you don't go to bed,” the words rebounded from the white plastering an inch from the speaker's lips, “you 'n' me 'll have a row. I've said what I'd do, and I shall do it!”

“Well, I'm going out to speak to Aunt Milly a minute,” said Mrs. Barclay, and, drawing on a thin graywrapper and sliding her bare feet into a pair of slippers, she shuffled out to the back porch.

“Come here, Aunt Milly,” she called out, and she sat down on the highest step and waited till the fat old woman, enveloped in a coarse gray blanket, joined her.

“Aunt Milly, did you ever hear the like?” she said. “She 'ain't made off sho 'nough, have she, Miss Annie?”

“Yes, she's gone an' done it; her pa drove her just a little too far. I reckon she railly does love Alan Bishop, or thinks she does.”