Part 13

Pole ceased speaking. There was profound silence, broken only by the croaking of frogs in the spring branch near by. Dilworthy thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers awkwardly, and slowly turned his eyeholes upon the eyeholes about him, but no one made sign or sound.

“Boys, you all hear what Pole says,” finally came from him. “He seems to feel--I mought say to realize--that--” The voice spent itself in the folds of the speaker's mask.

“Hold! I want to say a word.” A tall, lank man stepped from the group, spitting wads of cotton from his mouth and lifting the cap from his head. “I'm Jeff Wade, Pole. You see who I am. You kin appear agin me before the grand jury an' swear I'm a member o' this gang, ef you want to. I don't give a damn. In j'inin' the association, I tuck the oath to abide by what the majority done. But I didn't take no oath that I wouldn't talk when I got ready, an' I want now to explain, as is my right, I reckon, how I happen to be here. I've fit this case agin you fer several meetin's with all my soul an' strength, beca'se I knowed you was too good a man at heart to whip like a dog fer what you've done. I fit it an' fit it, but last meetin' my wife was down havin' another twelve-pound boy, as maybe you heard, an' somehow in my absence the vote went agin you. Strong speeches was made by yore wife's kin about her treatment, an' action was finally tuck. But I'm here to say that every lick that falls on yore helpless back to-night will hurt me more than ef they was on me You've made a better man out o' me in a few ways, Pole, an', by God! I'm a-goin' to feel like some o' that dirty crowd felt away back thar when they went along an' sanctioned the death agony of our Saviour. You are too good a man, Pole, to be degraded this away. What you've done agin yore own was through weakness that you couldn't well help. We've all got our faults, but I don't know a man in this gang that's got as many good p'ints to counteract the bad as you have.”

“That's all right, Jeff,” Pole said, stolidly. “What you say don't excuse me. I stand here to-night convicted by my neighbors of mistreatin' my own blood an' heart kin, an' I don't want nobody to defend me when sech men as Sandy McHugh tuck what was comin' to them without a whimper. I don't know what effect it's goin' to have on me. I cayn't see that fur ahead. I've tried to quit liquor about as hard as any man alive, an' I'm not goin' to make promises an' break 'em. After this is over, I reckon I'll do whatever the Lord has laid out fer me to do.”

“Pole, I'm Mel Jones!” Another tall man divested himself of cap and mask and stood out in full view. “I voted agin this, too. I'm yore friend, Pole. That's all I got to say.”

“That's all right, Mel,” said Pole, “an' I'm much obliged to you. But, gentlemen, I told my wife I was goin' to town an' would be straight back. You hain't said whether it would be possible to keep this thing quiet--”

“Quiet hell!” snorted Dilworthy. “Do you damn fools think I'm goin' to act as leader fer a lot o' snifflin' idiots that don't know whar they are at or how they got thar? It may not be parliamentary by a long shot, but as chairman o' this meetin' I'm goin' to say that I think you've all made a mess of the whole thing. I 'lowed I could abide by what the majority done in any matter that was pendin' before us, but I'll be derned ef I'm in favor o' tetchin' _that thar man_. I'd every bit as soon drag my old mammy from the grave an' whip her as a man feelin' like that thar 'un. I believe Pole Baker's tried as hard as any livin' mortal to behave hisse'f, an' that's enough. A gang o' men that's goin' about whippin' folks who's doin' the'r level best ort to be in better business, an' from to-night on--oath or no oath--I'm a-goin' to let the law o' the land manage the conduct o' my neighbors, as fur as I am concerned. It may be contrary to parliamentary rules, as I say, but this damn thing is so lopsided to-night that I'm a-goin' to put it to another vote. Maybe, ef Pole had a-been allowed to 'a' made a statement you'd 'a' seed this thing different. Now, all in favor of enactin' the verdict of our court in this case hold up yore hands.”

There was a portentous pause. Not a hand was raised.

“See thar? What did I tell you?” Dilworthy exclaimed, in disgust. “Not a man amongst you knows his own mind. Now, to the contrary: all in favor o' sendin' Baker home without tetchin' him raise yore hands.”

Every hand went up. Pole stared blankly from one stiff token of pity to another, then his head went down. The brim of his old hat hid his face. He was silent. The crowd was filtering away. Soon only Jeff Wade was left. He gave Pole his hand, and in an awkward voice said: “Go home now, old friend. Don't let Sally suspicion this. It would hurt her mighty bad.”

Pole said nothing at all, but, returning Wade's hand-pressure, he moved away in the soft moonlight.

XXIV

THE following Sunday morning Nelson Floyd went to church. From the doorway he descried a vacant seat on the side of the house occupied by the men and boys, and when he had taken it and looked over the well-filled room, he saw that he had Cynthia Porter in plain view. She had come alone. A few seats behind her he saw Pole Baker and his wife. Pole had never looked better. He wore a new suit of clothes and had recently had his hair trimmed. Floyd tried to catch his eye, but Pole looked neither to the right nor left, seeming only intent on Hillhouse, who had risen to read the chapter from the Bible which contained the text for his sermon. In their accustomed places sat Captain Duncan and his daughter Evelyn. The old gentleman had placed his silk-hat on the floor at the end of the bench on which he sat, and his kid-gloved hands rested on his gold-headed, ebony cane, which stood erect between his knees.

When the service was over and the congregation was passing out, Floyd waited for Cynthia, whom he saw coming out immediately behind the Duncans. “Hello, Floyd; how are you?” the captain exclaimed, cordially, as he came up. “Going home? Daughter and I have a place for you in the carriage and will drop you at the hotel--that is, if you won't let us take you on to dinner.”

Floyd flushed. Cynthia was now quite near, and he saw from her face that she had overheard the invitation.

“I thank you very much, captain,” Floyd said, as he smiled and nodded to her, “but I see that Miss Cynthia is alone, and I was just waiting to ask her to let me walk home with her.”

“Ah, I see!” Duncan exclaimed, with a gallant bow and smile to Cynthia. “I wouldn't break up a nice thing like that if I could. I haven't forgotten my young days, and this is the time of the year, my boy, when the grass is green and the sun drives you into the shade.”

With a very haughty nod to Floyd and Cynthia together, Evelyn Duncan walked stiffly on ahead of her father.

Outside, Cynthia looked straight into the eyes of her escort.

“Why did you refuse Captain Duncan's invitation?” she asked.

“Why did I?” He laughed, mysteriously. “Because during service I made up my mind that I'd get to you before the parson did; and then I had other reasons.”

“What were they?”

“Gossip,” he said, with a low, significant laugh.

“Gossip? I don't understand,” Cynthia said, perplexed.

“Well, I heard,” Floyd replied, “that since I've been finally invited to Duncan's house I'll run there night and day, and that it will end in my marrying that little bunch of lace and ribbons. I heard other speculations, too, on my future conduct, and as I saw our village talker, Mrs. Snodgrass, was listening just now, I was tickled at the chance to decline the invitation and walk home with you. It will be all over the country by night.”

They were traversing a cool, shaded road now, and as most of the congregation had taken other directions, they were comparatively alone.

“Evelyn Duncan is in love with you,” Cynthia said, abruptly, her glance on the ground.

“That's ridiculous,” Floyd laughed. “Simply ridiculous.”

“I know--I saw it in her face when you said you were going home with me. She could have bitten my head off.”

“Good gracious, I've never talked with her more than two or three times in all my life.”

“That may be, but she has heard dozens of people say it will be just the thing for you to marry her, and she has wondered--” Cynthia stopped.

“Look here, little woman, we've had enough of this,” Floyd said, abruptly. “I saw the light in your room the other night, and I stood and whistled and whistled, but you wouldn't come to me. I had a lot to tell you.”

“I told you I'd never meet you that way again, and I meant it.” Cynthia was looking straight into his eyes. .

“I know you did, but I thought you might relent. I was chock full of my new discovery--or rather Pole Baker's--and I wanted to pour it out on you.”

“Of course, you are happy over it?” Cynthia said, tentatively.

“It has been the one great experience of my life,” said Floyd, impressively. “No one who has not been through it, Cynthia, can have any idea of what it means. It is on my mind at night when I go to bed; it is in my dreams; it is in my thoughts when I get up.”

“I wanted to know about your mother,” ventured the girl, reverently. “What was she like?”

“That is right where I'm in the dark,” Floyd answered. “Pole didn't get my new relative to say a thing about her. I would have written to him at length, but Pole advised me to wait till I could see him personally. My uncle seems to be a crusty, despondent, unlucky sort of old fellow, and, as there was a kind of estrangement between him and my father, Pole thinks it would irritate him to have to answer my letters. However, I am going down to Atlanta to call on him next Wednesday.”

“Oh, I see,” said Cynthia. “Speaking of Pole Baker--I suppose you heard of what the White Caps did the other night?”

“Yes, and it pained me deeply,” said Floyd, “for I was the indirect cause of the whole trouble.”

“You?”

“Yes, Pole is this way: It is usually some big trouble or great joy that throws him off his balance, and it was the good news he brought to me that upset him. It was in my own room at the hotel, too, that he found the whiskey. A bottle of it was on my table and he slipped it into his pocket and took it off with him. I never missed it till I heard he was on a spree. His friends are trying to keep his wife from finding out about the White Caps.”

“They needn't trouble further,” Cynthia said, bitterly. “I was over there yesterday. Mrs. Snodgrass had just told her about it, and I thought the poor woman would die. She ordered Mrs. Snodgrass out of the house, telling her never to darken her door again, and she stood on the porch, as white as death, screaming after her at the top of her voice. Mrs. Snodgrass was so frightened that she actually broke into a run.”

“The old hag!” Floyd said, darkly. “I wish the same gang would take her out some night and tie her tongue at least.”

“Mrs. Baker came back to me then,” Cynthia went on. “She put her head in my lap and sobbed as if her heart would break. Nothing I could possibly say would comfort her. She worships the ground Pole walks on. And she _ought_ to love him. He's good and noble and full of tenderness. She saw him coming while we were talking, and quickly dried her eyes.

“'He mustn't see me crying,' she said. 'If he thought I knew this he would never get over it.'

“He came in then and noticed her red eyes, and I saw him turn pale as he sat studying her face. Then to throw him off she told him a fib. She told him I'd been taking her into my confidence about something which she was not at liberty to reveal.”

“Ah, I see,” exclaimed Floyd, admiringly. “She's a shrewd little woman--nearly as shrewd as he is.”

“But he acted queerly after that, I must say,”

Cynthia went on. “He at once quit looking at her, and sat staring at me in the oddest way. I spoke to him, but he wouldn't answer. When I was going home, he followed me as far as the bam. 'You couldn't tell me that secret, could you, little sister?' he said, with a strange, excited look on his face. Of course, I saw that he thought it was some trouble of mine, but I couldn't set him right and be true to his wife, and so I said nothing. He walked on with me to the branch, still looking worried; then, when we were about to part, he held out his hand. 'I want to say right here, little sister,' he said, 'that I love you like a brother, and if any harm comes to you, _in any way_, I'll be with you.'”

“He's very queer,” said Floyd, thoughtfully. They were now near the house and he paused. “I'll not go any farther,” he said. “It will do no good to disturb your mother. She hates the ground I walk on. She will only make it unpleasant for you if she sees us together. Good-bye, I'll see you when I get back from Atlanta.”

XXV

THE following Wednesday afternoon, when he had concluded his business at one of the larger wholesale houses in Atlanta, Nelson Floyd took a street-car for his uncle's residence. Reaching it, he was met at the door by the white woman who had admitted Pole Baker to the house on his visit to Atlanta. She explained that her master had only gone across the street to see a neighbor, and that he would be back at once. She led Floyd into the old-fashioned parlor and gave him one of the dilapidated, hair-cloth chairs, remaining in the room to put a few things to rights, and dusting the furniture with her apron. On either side of the mantel-piece hung a crude oil-portrait, in cracked and chipped gilt frames of very massive make. The one on the right was that of a dark-haired gentleman in the conventional dress of seventy-five years previous. The other was evidently his wife, a woman of no little beauty. They were doubtless family portraits, and Floyd regarded them with reverential interest. The servant saw him looking at them and remarked: “They are Mr. Floyd's mother and father, sir. The pictures were made a long time ago. Old Mr. Floyd was a very smart man in his day, and his wife was considered a great beauty and a belle, so I've heard folks say, though I'm sure I don't see how any woman could be popular with her hair fixed that bungly way. But Mr. Floyd is very proud of the pictures. He wouldn't sell them for any price. We thought the house was going to burn down one day when the kitchen-stove turned over, and he sprained his ankle climbing up in a chair to get them down.”

“They are my grandparents,” he told her.

“You don't say! Then you are Mr. Floyd's--”

“I'm his nephew. My name is Floyd--Nelson Floyd. I've never met my uncle.”

“Oh, I see!” The woman's brow was corrugated. “Mr. Floyd _did_ have a brother who died young, but I don't think I ever heard him speak of him. But he don't talk much to anybody, and now--la me!--he's so worried over his business that he's as near crazy as any man I ever saw. You say you haven't ever seen him! Then you'd better not expect him to be very sociable. As I say, he's all upset over business. The way he's doing is the talk of the neighborhood. There, I heard the gate shut. I reckon that's him now.”

She went to one of the front windows and parted the curtains and looked out.

“Yes, that's him. I'll go and tell him you are here.”

Nelson heard the door open and close and then muffled voices, a gruff, masculine one, and that of the servant lowered persuasively. Heavy steps passed on down the hall, and then the woman came back.

“I told him you was here, sir,” she said. “He's gone to his room, but will be back in a minute. He's queer, sir; if you haven't seen him before you had as well be prepared for that. I heard Dr. Plympton say the other day that if he didn't stop worrying as he is that he'd have a stroke of paralysis.”

The woman retired and the visitor sat for several moments alone. Presently he heard the heavy-steps in the hall and Henry A. Floyd came in. He was very pale, his skin appearing almost ashen in color, and his eyes, under their heavy brows, had a restless, shifting expression. Nelson felt repelled in a way he could not account for. The old man failed to offer any greeting, and it was only the caller's extended hand that seemed to remind him of the courtesy due a stranger. Even then only the ends of his cold fingers touched those of the young man. A thrill of intense and disagreeable surprise passed over Nelson, for his uncle stood staring at him steadily, without uttering a word.

“Did your servant tell you who I am?” the young man ventured, in no little embarrassment.

“Yes, she told me,” old Floyd answered. “She told me.”

“From your stand-point, sir,” Nelson said, “perhaps I have little excuse for coming to see you without an intimation from you that such a visit would be welcome, but I confess I was so anxious to hear, something from you about my parents that I couldn't wait longer.”

“Huh, I see, I see!” exclaimed the old man, his glance on the floor.

“You may understand my eagerness more fully,” said Nelson, “when I tell you that you are the first and only blood relative I remember ever to have seen.”

The old man shrugged his bent shoulders, and Nelson was almost sure that he sneered, but no sound came from his tightly compressed lips.

The young man, in even greater embarrassment, looked at the portraits on the wall, and, for the lack of anything more appropriate to say, remarked: “Your servant tells me that these are my grandparents--your father and mother.”

“Yes, they are my parents,” the old man said, deep down in his throat. Then all of a sudden his eyes began to flash angrily. “That old hussy's been talking behind my back, has she? I'll teach her what her place is in my house, if--”

“Oh, she only answered a question or two of mine,” said Nelson, pacifically. “I told her you were my uncle and for that reason I was interested in family portraits.”

“_Your uncle!_” That was all the reply old Floyd made.

Nelson stared at him in deep perplexity for a moment, then he said: “I hope I am not on the wrong track, sir. A friend of mine--a rough mountaineer, it's true, but a sterling fellow--called here some time ago, and he came back and told me that you said--”

“He came here like the spy that he was,” snorted the old man. “He came here to my house pretending to want to rent land, and in that way got into my confidence and had me talk about family matters; but he didn't want to rent land. When he failed to come back my suspicions were roused and I made inquiries. I found out that he was the sharpest, keenest man among mountain revenue detectives, and that he had no idea of leaving his present location. Now I'd simply like to know what you and he are after. I haven't got anything for you--not a dollar in the world, nor any property that isn't mortgaged up to the hilt. Why did you send a man of that kind to me?”

“You actually astound me, sir,” Nelson said. “I hardly know what to say.”

“I reckon you don't--now that I hurl the unexpected truth into your teeth. You didn't think I'd be sharp enough to inquire about that fellow Baker, did you? You thought a man living here in a city as big as this would let a green country lout like that get him in a trap. Huh! But I wasn't a fool, sir. You thought you were getting facts from me through him, but you were not, by a long shot. I wasn't going to tell a stranger like that delicate family matters. God knows your father's conduct was disgraceful enough without my unfolding his life to a coarse greenhorn so long after his death. You know the reputation my brother Charles had, don't you?”

“Not till it came from you, sir,” said Nelson, coldly. “Baker told me you said he was a little wild, that he drank--”

“My father kicked him out of our home, I tell you,” the old man snapped. “He told him never to darken his door again, after the way he lived before the war and during it. It completely broke that woman's heart.” Old Floyd pointed a' trembling finger at his mother's portrait. “I don't understand why you--how you can come here as you do, calling me your uncle as if you had a right to do so.”

“Right to do so?--stop!” Nelson took him up sharply. “What do you mean? I've the right to ask that, sir, anyway.”

“Oh, you know what I mean, I reckon. That man Baker intimated that you knew all about your family history. You know that your mother and my poor, deluded brother were never married, that they--”

“Not married!” Nelson Floyd shrank as if he had been struck in the face. “For God's sake don't say that! I can stand anything but that.”

“I won't ask you to believe me without ample proof,” old Floyd answered, harshly. “Wait here a minute.”

Nelson sank into a chair, and pale and trembling, and with a heart that seemed dead within him, he watched the old man move slowly from the room. Old Floyd returned presently. An expression that seemed born of grim, palpitating satisfaction lay on his colorless face; a triumphant light blazed in his sullen eyes. He held some books and a package of letters in his hands.

“Here are your father's letters to my parents,” he began. “The letters will tell the whole story. They bear his signature. If you doubt their authenticity--if you think the name is forged, you can compare it to all the specimens of his writing in these old school-books of his. This is a diary he kept in college. You can see from its character how his life was tending. The letters are later, after he met your mother--a French girl--in New Orleans.”

For a moment Nelson stared up into the withered face above him, and then, with a groan of dawning conviction, he took the letters. He opened the one on the top.

How strange! The handwriting was not unlike his own. But that was too trivial to marvel over. It was the contents of the letter that at once benumbed and tore his heart in twain.

_“Dear father and mother,” it began; “I am longing for the old home to-night; but, as you say, it is perhaps best that I should never come back again, especially as the facts are known in the neighborhood. The things you write me in regard to Annette's past are, alas! only too true. I don't deny them. Perhaps I'm the only one in the world who will overlook them, for I happen to know how she was tried by poverty and temptation when she was hardly more than a child. But on one point I can set your minds at rest. You seem to think that I intend to marry her; but I promise you now that I shall never link your honored name to hers. Really the poor girl doesn't wish it. She seems to understand how you feel exactly. And the baby! you are worried over its future. Let that go. As soon as the war is over, I shall do my full duty by it. It is nameless, as you say, and that fact may sting it later in life, but such things have happened before, and, my dear father and mother, young men have fallen into bad ways before, and--“_

Nelson Floyd read no further. Turning the time-stained sheet over, he saw his father's signature. With lifeless fingers he opened one or two of the other letters. He tried to glance at the fly-leaves of the books on his quivering knees, but there was a blur before his sight. The scrawny hands of the old man were stretched out to prevent the mass from falling to the floor.

“Are you satisfied? That's the main thing,” he said. “Because, if you are not, there are plenty of legal records which--”

“I am satisfied.” Nelson stood up, his inert hand on the back of the rocking-chair he had just vacated.

“I was going to say if you are not I can give you further proof. I can cite to you old legal documents to which my brother signed his name. He got hard up and sold a piece of land to me once. I have that deed. You are welcome to--”

“I am satisfied.” Those words seemed the only ones of which the young man's bewildered brain were capable. But he was a gentleman to the core of his being. “I'm sorry I intruded on you, Mr. Floyd. Only blind ignorance on my part--” He went no further.