Chapter 6

“What is it he says, eh?” asked Dan, noting the flush and drawing his conclusions.

“He says that Aunt Molly and himself will meet us at the White Sulphur next summer.”

“Oh, I don't mean that. What is it he says about the girls; they are real beauties aren't they? By the way, Champe, why don't you marry one of them and settle down?”

“Why don't you?” retorted Champe, as Dan got up and called to Big Abel to bring his riding clothes. “Oh, I'm not a lady's man,” he said lightly. “I've too moody a face for them,” and he began to dress himself with the elaborate care which had won for him the title of “Beau” Montjoy.

By the next summer, Betty and Virginia had shot up as if in a night, but neither Champe nor Dan came home. After weeks of excited preparation, the Major and Mrs. Lightfoot started, with Congo and Mitty, for the White Sulphur, where the boys were awaiting them. As the months went on, vague rumours reached the Governor's ears--rumours which the Major did not quite disprove when he came back in the autumn. “Yes, the boy is sowing his wild oats,” he said; “but what can you expect, Governor? Why, he is not yet twenty, and young blood is hot blood, sir.”

“I am sorry to hear that he has been losing at cards,” returned the Governor; “but take my advice, and let him pick himself up when he falls to hurt. Don't back him up, Major.”

“Pooh! pooh!” exclaimed the Major, testily. “You're like Molly, Governor, and, bless my soul, one old woman is as much as I can manage. Why, she wants me to let the boy starve.”

The Governor sighed, but he did not protest. He liked Dan, with all his youthful errors, and he wanted to put out a hand to hold him back from destruction; but he feared to bring the terrible flush to the Major's face. It was better to leave things alone, he thought, and so sighed and said nothing.

That was an autumn of burning political conditions, and the excited slavery debates in the North were reechoing through the Virginia mountains. The Major, like the old war horse that he was, had already pricked up his ears, and determined to lend his tongue or his sword, as his state might require. That a fight could go on in the Union so long as Virginia or himself kept out of it, seemed to him a possibility little less than preposterous.

“Didn't we fight the Revolution, sir? and didn't we fight the War of 1812? and didn't we fight the Mexican War to boot?” he would demand. “And, bless my soul, aren't we ready to fight all the Yankees in the universe, and to whip them clean out of the Union, too? Why, it wouldn't take us ten days to have them on their knees, sir.”

The Governor did not laugh now; the times were too grave for that. His clear eyes had seen whither they were drifting, and he had thrown his influence against the tide, which, he knew, would but sweep over him in the end. “You are out of place in Virginia, Major,” he said seriously. “Virginia wants peace, and she wants the Union. Go south, my dear sir, go south.”

During the spring before he had gone south himself to a convention at Montgomery, and he had spoken there against one of the greatest of the Southern orators. His state had upheld him, but the Major had not. He came home to find his old neighbour red with resentment, and refusing for the first few days to shake the hand of “a man who would tamper with the honour of Virginia.” At the end of the week the Major's hand was held out, but his heart still bore his grievance, and he began quoting William L. Yancey, as he had once quoted Mr. Addison. In the little meetings at Uplands or at Chericoke, he would now declaim the words of the impassioned agitator as vigorously as in the old days he had recited those of the polished gentleman of letters. The rector and the doctor would sit silent and abashed, and only the Governor would break in now and then with: “You go too far, Major. There is a step from which there is no drawing back, and that step means ruin to your state, sir.”

“Ruin, sir? Nonsense! nonsense! We made the Union, and we'll unmake it when we please. We didn't make slavery; but, if Virginia wants slaves, by God, sir, she shall have slaves!”

It was after such a discussion in the Governor's library that the old gentleman rose one evening to depart in his wrath. “The man who sits up in my presence and questions my right to own my slaves is a damned black abolitionist, sir,” he thundered as he went, and by the time he reached his coach he was so blinded by his rage that Congo, the driver, was obliged to lift him bodily into his seat. “Dis yer ain' no way ter do, Ole Marster,” said the negro, reproachfully. “How I gwine teck cyar you like Ole Miss done tole me, w'en you let yo' bile git ter yo' haid like dis? 'Tain' no way ter do, suh.”

The Major was too full for silence; and, ignoring the Governor, who had hurried out to beseech him to return, he let his rage burst forth.

“I can't help it, Congo, I can't help it!” he said. “They want to take you from me, do you hear? and that black Republican party up north wants to take you, too. They say I've no right to you, Congo,--bless my soul, and you were born on my own land!”

“Go 'way, Ole Marster, who gwine min' w'at dey say?” returned Congo, soothingly. “You des better wrop dat ar neck'chif roun' yo' thoat er Ole Miss'll git atter you sho' es you live!”

The Major wiped his eyes on the end of the neckerchief as he tied it about his throat. “But, if they elect their President, he may send down an army to free you,” he went on, with something like a sob of anger, “and I'd like to know what we'd do then, Congo.”

“Lawd, Lawd, suh,” said Congo, as he wrapped the robe about his master's knees. “Did you ever heah tell er sech doin's!” then, as he mounted the box, he leaned down and called out reassuringly, “Don' you min', Ole Marster, we'll des loose de dawgs on 'em, dat's w'at we'll do,” and they rolled off indignantly, leaving the Governor half angry and half apologetic upon his portico.

It was on the way home that evening that Congo spied in the sassafras bushes beside the road a runaway slave of old Rainy-day Jones's, and descended, with a shout, to deliver his brother into bondage.

“Hi, Ole Marster, w'at I gwine tie him wid?” he demanded gleefully.

The Major looked out of the window, and his face went white.

“What's that on his cheek, Congo?” he asked in a whisper.

“Dat's des whar dey done hit 'im, Ole Marster. How I gwine tie 'im?”

But the Major had looked again, and the awful redness rose to his brow.

“Shut up, you fool!” he said with a roar, as he dived under his seat and brought out his brandy flask. “Give him a swallow of that--be quick, do you hear? Pour it into your cup, sir, and give him that corn pone in your pocket. I see it sticking out. There, now hoist him up beside you, and, if I meet that rascal Jones, I'll blow his damn brains out!”

The Major doubtless would have fulfilled his oath as surely as his twelve peers would have shaken his hand afterwards; but, by the time they came up with Rainy-day a mile ahead, his wrath had settled and he had decided that “he didn't want such dirty blood upon his hands.”

So he took a different course, and merely swore a little as he threw a roll of banknotes into the road. “Don't open your mouth to me, you hell hound,” he cried, “or I'll have you whipped clean out of this county, sir, and there's not a gentleman in Virginia that wouldn't lend a hand. Don't open your mouth to me, I tell you; here's the price of your property, and you can stoop in the dirt to pick it up. There's no man alive that shall question the divine right of slavery in my presence; but--but it is an institution for gentlemen, and you, sir, are a damned scoundrel!”

With which the Major and old Rainy-day rode on in opposite ways.

BOOK SECOND

YOUNG BLOOD

I

THE MAJOR'S CHRISTMAS

On Christmas Eve the great logs blazed at Chericoke. From the open door the red light of the fire streamed through the falling snow upon the broad drive where the wheel ruts had frozen into ribbons of ice. The naked boughs of the old elms on the lawn tapped the peaked roof with twigs as cold and bright as steel, and the two high urns beside the steps had an iridescent fringe around their marble basins.

In the hall, beneath swinging sprays of mistletoe and holly, the Major and his hearty cronies were dipping apple toddy from the silver punch bowl half hidden in its wreath of evergreens. Behind them the panelled parlour was aglow with warmth, and on its shining wainscoting Great-aunt Emmeline, under her Christmas garland, held her red apple stiffly away from the skirt of her amber brocade.

The Major, who had just filled the rector's glass, let the ladle fall with a splash, and hurried to the open door.

“They're coming, Molly!” he called excitedly, “I hear their horses in the drive. No, bless my soul, it's wheels! The Governor's here, Molly! Fill their glasses at once--they'll be frozen through!”

Mrs. Lightfoot, who had been watching from the ivied panes of the parlour, rustled, with sharp exclamation, into the hall, and began hastily dipping from the silver punch bowl. “I really think, Mr. Lightfoot, that the house would be more comfortable if you'd be content to keep the front door closed,” she found time to remark. “Do take your glass by the fire, Mr. Blake; I declare, I positively feel the sleet in my face. Don't you think it would be just as hospitable, Mr. Lightfoot, to open to them when they knock?”

“What, keep the door shut on Christmas Eve, Molly!” exclaimed the Major from the front steps, where the snow was falling on his bare head. “Why, you're no better than a heathen. It's time you were learning your catechism over again. Ah, here they are, here they are! Come in, ladies, come in. The night is cold, but the welcome's warm.--Cupid, you fool, bring an umbrella, and don't stand grinning there.--Here, my dear Miss Lydia, take my arm, and never mind the weather; we've the best apple toddy in Virginia to warm you with, and the biggest log in the woods for you to look at. Ah, come in, come in,” and he led Miss Lydia, in her white wool “fascinator,” into the house where Mrs. Lightfoot stood waiting with open arms and the apple toddy. The Governor had insisted upon carrying his wife, lest she chill her feet, and Betty and Virginia, in their long cloaks, fluttered across the snow and up the steps. As they reached the hall, the Major caught them in his arms and soundly kissed them. “It isn't Christmas every day, you know,” he lamented ruefully, “and even our friend Mr. Addison wasn't steeled against rosy cheeks, though he was but a poor creature who hadn't been to Virginia. But come to the fire, come to the fire. There's eggnog to your liking, Mr. Bill, and just a sip of this, Miss Lydia, to warm you up. You may defy the wind, ma'am, with a single sip of my apple toddy.” He seized the poker and, while Congo brought the glasses, prodded the giant log until the flames leaped, roaring, up the chimney and the wainscoting glowed deep red.

“What, not a drop, Miss Lydia?” he cried, in aggrieved tones, when he turned his back upon the fire.

Miss Lydia shook her head, blushing as she untied her “fascinator.” She was fond of apple toddy, but she regarded the taste as an indelicate one, and would as soon have admitted, before gentlemen, a liking for cabbage.

“Don't drink it, dear,” she whispered to Betty, as the girl took her glass; “it will give you a vulgar colour.”

Betty turned upon her the smile of beaming affection with which she always regarded her family. She was standing under the mistletoe in her light blue cloak and hood bordered with swan's-down, and her eyes shone like lamps in the bright pallor of her face.

“Why, it is delicious!” she said, with the pretty effusion the old man loved. “It is better than my eggnog, isn't it, papa?”

“If anything can be better than your eggnog, my dear,” replied the Governor, courteously, “it is the Major's apple toddy.” The Major bowed, and Betty gave a merry little nod. “If you hadn't put it so nicely, I should never have forgiven you,” she laughed; “but he always puts it nicely, Major, doesn't he? I made him the other day a plum pudding of my very own,--I wouldn't even let Aunt Floretta seed the raisins,--and when it came on burnt, what do you think he said? Why, I asked him how he liked it, and he thought for a minute and replied, 'My dear, it's the very best burnt plum pudding I ever ate.' Now wasn't that dear of him?”

“Ah, but you should have heard how he put things when he was in politics,” said the Major, refilling his glass. “On my word, he could make the truth sound sweeter than most men could make a lie.”

“Come, come, Major,” protested the Governor. “Julia, can't you induce our good friend to forbear?”

“He knows I like to hear it,” said Mrs. Ambler, turning from a discussion of her Christmas dinner with Mrs. Lightfoot.

“Then you shall hear it, madam,” declared the Major, “and I may as well say at once that if the Governor hasn't told you about the reply he made to Plaintain Dudley when he asked him for his political influence, you haven't the kind of husband, ma'am, that Molly Lightfoot has got. Keep a secret from Molly! Why, I'd as soon try to keep a keg full of brandy from following an auger.”

“Auger, indeed!” exclaimed the little old lady, to whom the Major's facetiousness was the only serious thing about him. “Your secrets are like apples, sir, that hang to every passer-by, until I store them away. Auger, indeed!”

“No offence, my dear,” was the Major's meek apology. “An auger is a very useful implement, eh, Governor; and it's Plaintain Dudley, after all, that we're concerned with. Do you remember Plaintain, Mrs. Ambler, a big ruddy fellow, with ruffled shirts? Oh, he prided himself on his shirts, did Plaintain!”

“A very becoming weakness,” said Mrs. Ambler, smiling at the Governor, who was blushing above his tucks.

“Becoming? Well, well, I dare say,” admitted the Major. “Plaintain thought so, at any rate. Why, I can see him now, on the day he came to the Governor, puffing out his front, and twirling his white silk handkerchief. 'May I ask your opinion of me, sir?' he had the audacity to begin, and the Governor! Bless my soul, ma'am, the Governor bowed his politest bow, and replied with his pleasantest smile, 'My opinion of you, sir, is that were you as great a gentleman as you are a scoundrel, you would be a greater gentleman than my Lord Chesterfield.' Those were his words, ma'am, on my oath, those were his words!”

“But he was a scoundrel!” exclaimed the Governor. “Why, he swindled women, Major. It was always a mystery to me how you tolerated him.”

“And a mystery to Mrs. Lightfoot,” responded the Major, in a half whisper; “but as I tell her, sir, you mustn't judge a man by his company, or a 'possum by his grin.” Then he raised a well-filled glass and gave a toast that brought even Mr. Bill upon his feet, “To Virginia, the home of brave men and,” he straightened himself, tossed back his hair, and bowed to the ladies, “and of angels.”

The Governor raised his glass with a smile, “To the angels who take pity upon the men,” he said.

“That more angels may take pity upon men,” added the rector, rising from his seat by the fireside, with a wink at the doctor.

And the toast was drunk, standing, while the girls ran up the crooked stair to lay aside their wraps in a three-cornered bedroom.

As Virginia threw off her pink cloak and twirled round in her flaring skirts, Betty gave a little gasp of admiration and stood holding the lighted candle, with its sprig of holly, above her head. The tall girlish figure, in its flounces of organdy muslin, with the smooth parting of bright brown hair and the dovelike eyes, had flowered suddenly into a beauty that took her breath away.

“Why, you are a vision--a vision!” she cried delightedly.

Virginia stopped short in her twirling and settled the illusion ruche over her slim white shoulders. “It's the first time I've dressed like this, you know,” she said, glancing at herself in the dim old mirror.

“Ah, I'm not half so pretty,” sighed Betty, hopelessly, “Is the rose in place, do you think?” She had fastened a white rose in the thick coil on her neck, where it lay half hidden by her hair.

“It looks just lovely,” replied Virginia, heartily. “Do you hear some one in the drive?” She went to the window, and looked out into the falling snow, her bare shoulders shrinking from the frosted pane. “What a long ride the boys have had, and how cold they'll be. Why, the ground is quite covered with snow.” Betty, with the candle still in her hand, turned from the mirror, and gave a quick glance through the sloping window, to the naked elms outside. “Ah, poor things, poor things!” she cried.

“But they have their riding cloaks,” said Virginia, in her placid voice.

“Oh, I don't mean Dan and Champe and Big Abel,” answered Betty, “I mean the elms, the poor naked elms that wear their clothes all summer, and are stripped bare for the cold. How I should like to warm you, you dear things,” she added, going to the window. Against the tossing branches her hair made a glow of colour, and her vivid face was warm with tenderness. “And Jane Lightfoot rode away on a night like this!” she whispered after a pause.

“She wore a muslin dress and a coral necklace, you know,” said Virginia, in the same low tone, “and she had only a knitted shawl over her head when she met Jack Montjoy at the end of the drive. He wrapped her in his cape, and they rode like mad to the town--and she was laughing! Uncle Shadrach met them in the road, and he says he heard her laughing in the wind. She must have been very wicked, mustn't she, Betty?”

But Betty was looking into the storm, and did not answer. “I wonder if he were in the least like Dan,” she murmured a moment later.

“Well, he had black hair, and Dan has that,” responded Virginia, lightly; “and he had a square chin, and Dan has that, too. Oh, every one says that Dan's the image of his father, except for the Lightfoot eyes. I'm glad he has the Lightfoot eyes, anyway. Are you ready to go down?”

Betty was ready, though her face had grown a little grave, and with a last look at the glass, they caught hands and went sedately down the winding stair.

In the hall below they met Mrs. Lightfoot, who sent Virginia into the panelled parlour, and bore Betty off to the kitchen to taste the sauce for the plum pudding. “I can't do a thing on earth with Rhody,” she remarked uneasily, throwing a knitted scarf over her head as they went from the back porch along the covered way that led to the brick kitchen. “She insists that yours is the only palate in all the country she will permit to pass judgment upon her sauce. I made the Major try it, and he thinks it needs a dash more of rum, but Rhody says she shan't be induced to change it until she has had your advice. Here, Rhody, open the door; I've brought your young lady.”

The door swung back with a jerk upon the big kitchen, where before the Christmas turkeys toasting on the spit, Aunt Rhody was striding to and fro like an Amazon in charcoal. From the beginning of the covered way they had been guided by the tones of penetrant contempt, with which she lashed the circle of house servants who had gathered to her assistance. “You des lemme alont now,” was the advice she royally offered. “Ef you gwine ax me w'at you'd better do, I des tell you right now, you'd better lemme alont. Ca'line, you teck yo' eyes off dat ar roas' pig, er I'll fling dis yer b'ilin' lard right spang on you. I ain' gwine hev none er my cookin' conjured fo' my ve'y face. Congo, you shet dat mouf er yourn, er I'll shet hit wid er flat-iron, en den hit'll be shet ter stay.”

Then, as Mrs. Lightfoot and Betty came in, she broke off, and wiped her large black hands on her apron, before she waved with pride to the shelves and tables bending beneath her various creations. “I'se done stuff dat ar pig so full er chestnuts dat he's fitten ter bus',” she exclaimed proudly. “Lawd, Lawd, hit's a pity he ain' 'live agin des ter tase hese'f!”

“Poor little pig,” said Betty, “he looks so small and pink, Aunt Rhody, I don't see how you have the heart to roast him.”

“I'se done stuff 'im full,” returned Aunt Rhody, in justification.

“I hope he's well done, Rhody,” briskly broke in Mrs. Lightfoot; “and be sure to bake the hams until the juice runs through the bread crumbs. Is everything ready for to-morrow?”

“Des es ready es ef 'twuz fer Kingdom Come, Ole Miss, en dar ain' gwine be no better dinner on Jedgment Day nurr, I don' cyar who gwine cook hit. You des tase dis yer sass--dat's all I ax, you des tase dis yer sass.”

“You taste it, Betty,” begged Mrs. Lightfoot, shrinking from the approaching spoon; and Betty tasted and pronounced it excellent, “and there never was an Ambler who wasn't a judge of 'sass,” she added.

Moved by the compliment, Aunt Rhody fell back and regarded the girl, with her arms akimbo. “I d'clar, her eyes do des shoot fire,” she exclaimed admiringly. “I dunno whar de beaux done hid deyse'ves dese days; hit's a wonner dey ain' des a-busin' dey sides ter git yer. Marse Dan, now, whynt he come a-prancin' roun' dese yer parts?”

Mrs. Lightfoot looked at Betty and saw her colour rise. “That will do, Rhody,” she cautioned; “you will let the turkeys burn,” but as they moved toward the door, Betty herself paused and looked back.

“I gave your Christmas gift to Uncle Cupid, Aunt Rhody,” she said; “he put it under the joists in your cabin, so you mustn't look at it till morning.”

“Lawd, chile, I'se done got Christmas gifts afo' now,” replied Aunt Rhody, ungratefully, “en I'se done got a pa'cel er no count ones, too. Folks dey give Christmas gifts same es de Lawd he give chillun--dey des han's out w'at dey's got on dey han's, wid no stiddyin' 'bout de tase. Sakes er live! Ef'n de Lawd hadn't hed a plum sight ter git rid er, he 'ouldn't er sont Ca'line all dose driblets, fo' he'd done sont 'er a husban'.”

“Husban', huh!” exclaimed Ca'line, with a snort from the fireplace. “Husban' yo'se'f! No mo' niggerisms fer me, ma'am!”

“Hold your tongue, Ca'line,” said Mrs. Lightfoot, sternly; “and, Rhody, you ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk so before your Miss Betty.”

“Husban', huh!” repeated the indignant Ca'line, under her breath.

“Hold your tongues, both of you,” cried the old lady, as she lifted her silk skirt in both hands and swept from the kitchen.

When they reached the house again, they heard the Major's voice, on its highest key, demanding: “Molly! Why, bless my soul, what's become of Molly?” He was calling from the front steps, and the sound of tramping feet rang in the drive below. Against the whiteness of the storm Big Abel's face shone in the light from the open door, and about him, as he held the horses, Dan and Champe and a guest or two were dismounting upon the steps.

As the old lady went forward, Champe rushed into the hall, and caught her in his arms.

“On my word, you're so young I didn't know you,” he cried gayly. “If you keep this up, Aunt Molly, there'll be a second Lightfoot beauty yet. You grow prettier every day--I declare you do!”

“Hold your tongue, you scamp,” said the old lady, flushing with pleasure, “or there'll be a second Ananias as well. Here, Betty, come and wish this bad boy a Merry Christmas.”

Betty looked round with a smile, but as she did so, her eyes went beyond Champe, and saw Dan standing in the doorway, his soft slouch hat in his hand, and a powdering of snow on his dark hair. He had grown bigger and older in the last few months, and the Lightfoot eyes, with the Lightfoot twinkle in their pupils, gave an expression of careless humour to his pale, strongly moulded face. The same humour was in his voice even as he held his grandfather's hand.