Chapter 4

"Well, they said Doctor Brigham and Judge Grace both threw up their hands and begun talkin' at once, and says they, 'You don't mean to say you're goin' to turn the squire out now!' And Brother Wilson says, says he, 'Why not? Here are the charges against him: breaking the Sabbath, taking the name of the Lord in vain, and refusing to appear before the officers of the church when he's summoned.' And Doctor Brigham says, 'But he's paid his subscription.' And Brother Wilson says, 'That's no more than an honest man ought to do.' And Judge Grace says, 'But he's paid five hundred dollars besides.' And Brother Wilson says, 'A letter of thanks is all we owe him for that.' Says he, 'Here's a matter of church discipline, and here's a matter of money, and one has nothing whatever to do with the other. Can't you see that?' says he. And they all shook their heads and said they couldn't. And Judge Grace says: 'It looks to me like it's not treatin' a man exactly square to take his money to build the church, and then to turn him out o' the church. It looks like if a man's money's good enough to go into the church walls, the man's name's good enough to stay on the church rolls.' And the rest of the session, they agreed with the old judge. But Brother Wilson, he jumped up and says he, 'A man that sees things that way has a conscience that needs enlightening.' Says he, 'Money itself is neither good nor evil. Whether it's clean or unclean,' says he, 'depends on the way it's given and the way it's taken. The money that's given in fulfilment of a promise,' says he, 'is clean money: let it go into the walls of the church. Coming from Meredith Schuyler's hands the way it does,' says he, 'it's pure gold. He's not offering it as a bribe to us to keep him in the church, but if we take it as a bribe,' says he, 'the minute it gets into our hands it turns to base coin, and it's a dishonor to us who take it and an insult to him who gave it.'

"Well, the session set there and studied a while, and shook their heads, and said they couldn't see things that way. And Brother Wilson looked at 'em a minute or two, and then he jumped up and says he, 'Let us pray.' And then he offered up a prayer that God would send his spirit into the hearts and consciences of his servants, that they might see things in the right light, so that all they did might be for the glory of God and of his kingdom on earth. Then they all set down and waited a while, and Brother Wilson says, 'Brethren, are you still of the same mind?' And they all nodded their heads, and says he, 'Well, when the session thinks one way and the minister another, it's time for them to separate.' Says he, 'Here's my resignation by word of mouth, and as soon as I go home, I'll put it in writing.' And off he went, leavin' the session sittin' there.

"Well, of course the men went home and told their wives all about it, and before the next day everybody was talkin' about Brother Wilson resignin', and the church-members lined up, some on the squire's side and some on the preacher's side, jest like they did in Goshen church the time we got the new organ. There was the church walls goin' up, and both sides had put money into 'em, and neither side had money enough to buy the other side out, and neither side wanted to be bought out. And the squire's side, they'd say, 'We've got the money, and you can't have a church without money.' And the preacher's side, they'd say, 'But we've got the members and the preacher, and you can't have a church without church-members and a preacher.' And they had it up and down and back and forth, and the Methodists and Babtists, they took sides, and such quarrelin' and disputin' you never heard. Some o' the outsiders went to Brother Wilson, and says they, 'You Christian people are settin' a mighty bad example to us outsiders. Can't somethin' be done,' says they, 'to stop this wranglin' amongst the churches?'

"And Brother Wilson, he laughed at 'em, and says he, 'Open your Bibles and find out who it was said, "I came not to send peace, but a sword."' Says he, 'The word of the Lord is a two-edged sword, and all this disturbance means that the Lord is visiting his church and his spirit is striving with the spirit of man.'

"Well, matters was standin' in this loose, unj'inted way when all at once Squire Schuyler's weddin' invitations come out. Everybody knew he was waitin' on Miss Drusilla Elrod, but nobody expected the weddin' that soon, and folks begun speculatin' about who he'd have say the weddin' ceremony, and Judge Grace says: 'Now see what a man makes by havin' such curious ideas and bein' so rash in his speech. Here's a big weddin' fee that ought to go into a Presbyterian pocket, and instead o' that, it'll fall to some Babtist or Methodist preacher.'

"But--bless your life!--the day before the weddin', Squire Schuyler's carriage drove up to the parsonage, and the coachman got out and knocked at the door and handed in a letter with a big red seal, and it was from the squire, askin' Brother Wilson to say the weddin' ceremony over him, and promisin' to send his carriage to bring him and Mis' Wilson to the weddin'.

"Well, that weddin' was the talk o' the town and the country for many a day before and after it happened. They had cyarpet spread from the gate to the front door, and they burned over a hundred wax candles before the evenin' was over, and folks said it looked like they had ransacked the heavens above and the earth beneath and the waters under the earth for somethin' to put on that supper-table. Brother Wilson said a mighty nice ceremony over 'em, and when they went out to supper the preacher and his wife set on the right hand of the bride and groom.

"Well, when Brother Wilson got ready to leave, he went up to Squire Schuyler to shake hands and say good night, and the squire pulled a long paper out o' the breast pocket of his coat, and he bowed, and says he, 'Will you do me the honor, sir, to accept this?' Squire Schuyler had a mighty grand way of talkin', honey, and you don't see any such manners nowadays as the Schuylers and the Elrods used to have. And says he, 'Don't open it till you get home.' And Brother Wilson, he says, 'I'm not the man to look a gift horse in the mouth, but,' says he, 'I must see the gift horse before I accept it.' With that he opened the paper, and what do you reckon it was, honey? It was a deed to that house I p'inted out to you the day we went to town--Schuyler Hall, they call it--and I don't know how many acres of land along with it.

"Brother Wilson he looked at it and looked at it, and it seemed as if he couldn't take it in. And says he, 'There must be some mistake about this. You surely do not mean to deed me a house and land?'

"And the squire he bows again, and says he, 'There's no mistake. The house and the land are yours to have and to hold while you live and to will as you please when you die.'

"And Brother Wilson held out the paper and says he, 'Sir, it's a princely gift, but I can't take it. It's no suitable fee for a poor preacher like myself.'

"And the squire he folded his arms and stepped back to keep Brother Wilson from puttin' the deed into his hands, and says he, 'It takes a princely gift to suit an occasion like this.' Says he, 'I want the wedding fee to match the worth of my bride and the worth of my minister, but, not being a prince, this is the best I can do.' And all the time he was talkin', Brother Wilson was shakin' his head and tryin' to make him take back the paper, and sayin', 'I can't take it, I can't take it.'

"And the squire says: 'Sir, you'll have to take it. The deed has passed from my hands to yours, and a Schuyler never takes back a gift.' And Brother Wilson, he says, 'But the gift will be of no use to me. I've handed in my resignation,' says he, 'and the presbytery will shortly send me to another field of usefulness.'

"And the squire he ripped out a terrible oath, and says he, 'I beg your pardon, sir, for swearing in your presence. I've heard,' says he, 'of the doings of that session; but,' says he, 'if I have influence enough to keep myself in the church, I have influence enough to keep you in, too; and if I can't do that,' says he, 'I'll build you a church and pay you a salary for life.' Says he, 'There's nothing too good for a man that refuses to bow down and worship the golden calf.'

"Honey," said Aunt Jane, lowering her voice, "considerin' it was his weddin' night and him talkin' to a preacher, the language Squire Schuyler used was far from fittin'. What he said was all right, but the way he said it was all wrong.

"Well, they argued back and forth, and it ended by Brother Wilson goin' home with the deed in his pocket. And the next Saturday Squire Schuyler come before the session and acknowledged the error of his ways. 'And,' says he, 'I promise in future to keep the Sabbath day holy, but as to the profane language,' says he, 'it comes as natural to me to swear and fight as it does to the Rev. Mr. Wilson to pray and fight, and all I can promise about that,' says he, 'is that hereafter I'll try to do the most of my swearing in private, so my example won't hurt the church I'm a member of.'

"And Sunday mornin', child, here come Squire Schuyler and his bride, as fine as a fiddle, walkin' down the church aisle arm in arm, and the squire j'ined in the hymns, and when the contribution plate was passed around he dropped a gold piece on it as unconcerned as if it was a copper cent. And Brother Wilson, he moved out to the house the squire had give him, and there never was anybody as happy as he appeared to be. He'd walk around under the trees and look at his gyarden on one side and his clover-fields on the other side, and he'd say: '"Delight thyself in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart." I've always wanted a home in the country, and the Lord has given me one of the desires of my heart.'

"But he didn't live to enjoy it very long, poor man. He died before his prime, and his tombstone's standin' now in the old graveyard yonder in town. They had a Bible text cyarved on it, 'For he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of God, and much people was added unto the Lord.'

"And now, child, put on your hat. I see Johnny Amos comin' with the buggy, and we'll go over and see the old house."

Suppose a child should read the story of Beauty and the Beast, and straightway a fairy godmother should appear, saying, "Now, let us go to the palace of the Beast." If you can fancy that child's feelings, you will know how I felt when I stepped into the old buggy to go to Schuyler Hall.

It was a gray September afternoon. The air was warm and still, and the earth lay weary, thirsty, and patient under a three-weeks drouth. Dust was thick over the grass, flowers, and trees along the roadside, and on the weed-grown fields that had brought forth their harvest for the sons of men and now, sun-scorched and desolate, seemed to say, "Is this the end, the end of all?"

Over the horizon there was a soft haze like smoke from the smoldering embers of summer's dying fires, and in the west gloomed a cloud from which the thunder and the lightning would be loosed before the midnight hour; and after the rain would come a season of gentle suns, cool dews, and frosts scarce colder than the dew--not spring, but a memory of spring--when the earth, looking back to her May, would send a ripple of green over the autumn fields, and, like thoughts of youth in the heart of age, the clover and the dandelion would spring into untimely bloom.

"Things look sort o' down-hearted and discouraged, don't they?" said Aunt Jane, echoing my thought. "But jest wait till the Lord sends us the latter rain, and things'll freshen up mightily. There's plenty o' pretty weather to come betwixt now and winter-time. Now, child, you jump out and open the gate, like I used to do in the days when I was young and spry."

Old Nelly crept lazily up the long avenue, and my eyes were fixed on the house of legend that lay at its end.

"Houses and lands are jest like pieces o' money," observed Aunt Jane. "They pass from one hand to another, and this old place has had many an owner since Brother Wilson's day. The man that owns it now is a great-nephew of old Peter Cyartwright, and him and his wife's mighty proud of the place."

"Do they object to strangers coming to see it?" I asked as we neared the giant cypress-tree in front of the porch.

"La, child," laughed Aunt Jane. "Ain't this Kentucky? Who ever heard of a Kentuckian objectin' to folks goin' through his house! We'll jest walk in at the front door and out at the back door and see all that's to be seen, up-stairs and down."

As she spoke we heard the voice of the hostess bidding us welcome to Schuyler Hall, and, fresh from the fairy-land of Aunt Jane's memories, I walked into one of the scenes of the story, the house that was a wedding fee.

There was a hint of baronial grandeur in the lofty ceilings, the heavy walnut wainscoting and oaken floors, the huge fireplaces with their tall mantels; and underneath the evident remodeling and repairing one saw the home and the taste of a vanished generation, the same that had witnessed the building of Monticello, for the hand that wrote the Declaration of Independence had drawn the plans for the house that was a wedding fee.

From room to room I went, pleasing myself with fancies of the man who had never bowed the knee to Mammon. My feet were on the floors that he had trod. By this worn hearthstone he had knelt, night and morn, to the God who had given him the desire of his heart. From this doorway he had looked upon the broad acres that were his by grace of a generous adversary, the tribute of one noble nature to another. In the long, low-ceiled bedchamber above the stately lower rooms he had slept the sleep of one whose conscience is void of offense toward God and his fellow man, and through the dormer-window that looked toward the rising of the sun his soul had passed out in its flight to the stars.

Dusty and flowerless, the garden paths wandered to right and left, but not one did I miss in my pilgrimage; for who could know what shrines of remembrance might lie hidden in that drift of leaves, withered and fallen before their time? Perhaps the minister's hand had planted the clump of tansy and the bed of sage, and well I knew that here in the night hours he had met his Maker, and his garden had been to him as that paradise where Adam walked with God.

Near the house was a spring to whose waters came the Indian and the deer before the foot of the pioneer had touched Kentucky soil. Rising from sources too deep to be affected by the weather of earth, no drouth ever checks its flow, no flood increases it, and here I knelt and drank to the memory of a day that is not dead nor can ever die.

Again on the threshold of the old house I paused and looked back into the shadowy hall. Ah, if the other world would for a moment give up its own that I might see them "in their habit as they lived," the Cavalier squire, the Puritan minister, the bride whose womanly worth was but faintly shadowed forth in the princely gift of a house and land! But no presence crossed the dim perspective within, and the only whisper I heard was the wind in the cypress-tree. The past had buried its dead, and soon their habitation, like themselves, would be but a memory and a name.

In that mansion used to be Free-hearted hospitality; His great fires up the chimney roared, The stranger feasted at his board.

Fair and stately are the dwellings that shelter this latest generation, and by their side such mansions as Schuyler Hall seem only moldering, ghost-haunted reminders of the past. But those who dwelt in them are immortal, and though walls of flesh and walls of stone alike crumble to dust, there shall never lack a heart to treasure and a pen to record the virtues of the men and women of those early times, who, in reverence and in honor, founded and built the "old Kentucky home."

III

THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS

III

THE COURTSHIP OF MISS AMARYLLIS

"It's curious," said Aunt Jane meditatively, "how, when old people go to lookin' back on the way things was when they was young, it appears like everything was better then than it is now. Strawberries was sweeter, times was easier, men was taller, and women prettier. I ain't say in' a word against your looks, child; you're as good-lookin' as the best of 'em nowadays, but I reckon there ain't any harm in me sayin' that you don't quite come up to Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis. I git to thinkin' about them two, and I wish I could see 'em by the side o' the women that folks call pretty nowadays so I could tell whether they really was prettier or whether it's jest an old woman's notion."

"Who was Miss Amaryllis?" I asked. "If she matched her name she must have been a beauty."

Aunt Jane smiled delightedly and gave an assenting nod. "Miss Amaryllis was Miss Penelope's sister," she said. "They was first cousins to Dick Elrod, that married Annie Crawford, and their father was Judge Elrod, Squire Elrod's brother. The old judge was a mighty learned sort of a man. He spent most of his time readin' and writin', and he had a room in his house with nothin' in it but books, clear from the floor to the ceilin', and some of 'em he never allowed anybody but himself to touch, he thought so much of 'em. And next to his books it was his two daughters. Folks used to say that the judge's wife was right jealous of his books and of Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis.

"Maybe you know, child, where the old judge got the names for his daughters. The only names I'm used to are the good old family names that come out o' the Bible, and some people said Penelope and Amaryllis couldn't be called Christian names, because they sounded so heathenish, and the judge's wife she objected to 'em because, she said, they was too long for folks to say. But the old judge wouldn't hear to anybody's shortenin' the children's names. Says he, 'If you give a child a plain name it'll be likely to turn out a plain man or a plain woman. But,' says he, 'I've given my children fine names, and I expect them to grow up into women that'll become their names.' And I reckon they did, for two prettier women you never saw, and their names seemed to suit 'em exactly. And as for their bein' too long, I always liked to say 'em and hear people say 'em. Penelope and Amaryllis--why, they're jest as easy to say as Mary and Marthy, and I always thought they sounded like fallin' water or the singin' of a bird, Amaryllis especially."

Aunt Jane paused here and laid down her work. She had reached a difficult point in the story, and there must be time for thought.

"Now, how in the world am I goin' to tell you how Miss Amaryllis looked?" she said, with an accent of gentle despair. "Why, it's as hard as tryin' to tell about that yeller rose that grew in old lady Elrod's gyarden. There never was such a rose as that, and there never was such a gyirl as Miss Amaryllis, or Miss Penelope either, for that matter. The judge was always havin' their pictures painted, and there was one, no bigger around than that, set in gold. If I jest had it to show you! But I reckon that picture o' Miss Amaryllis is lyin' in a grave somewhere on the other side o' the ocean. Mighty near every woman has somethin' pretty about her; one'll have pretty eyes and another'll have a pretty color, but Miss Amaryllis was pretty every way. I ricollect once I was passin' along Main Street, one County Court day, and the old judge's carriage was standin' in front o' Tom Barker's dry-goods store, and Miss Amaryllis was leanin' back against the cushions, and her hand was layin' on the carriage door, and she had a ring on one of her fingers with a yeller stone in it; the sun was shinin' on it and, I declare to goodness, from that day to this I never see a white lily with the yeller heart and the dust like grains o' gold inside of it that I don't think o' Miss Amaryllis's hand and Miss Amaryllis's ring.

"They both had golden hair, Miss Penelope and Miss Amaryllis, but Miss Penelope had gray eyes like a dove's, and Miss Amaryllis had brown ones with dark lashes. I reckon it was Miss Amaryllis's eyes and hair that made her what she was. You can find plenty o' women with brown eyes and brown hair, but when you find one with brown eyes and golden hair, why, it's somethin' to ricollect. And then, there was her voice. You've heard me tell many a time about Miss Penelope's voice, and Miss Amaryllis had one that was jest as sweet, but hers was low and deep where Miss Penelope's was clear and high. Miss Amaryllis played on the guitar, and summer nights they'd sit out on the portico and sing together, and the old judge used to say that when his gyirls sung the very mockin'-birds stopped to listen.

"Many a woman has hard work to find one man to love her, and many a woman can't find even one, but Miss Amaryllis had more beaus on her string, and more strings to her bow, than any fiddler, in the state; and she danced with 'em and sung to 'em and played with 'em like a cat plays with mice, and then, when she got ready, she'd send 'em on their way, and she'd go on hers. And as fast as one went another'd come. The judge's wife used to shake her head and say, 'My daughter, there's such a thing as a woman sayin' "No" once too often.' And Miss Amaryllis she'd say, 'Yes, and there's such a thing as a woman sayin' "Yes" a little too soon;' and the old judge he'd laugh and say, 'Let her alone; one of these days she'll find her master.' And sure enough she did. They said it was love at first sight on both sides when Miss Amaryllis and Hamilton Schuyler met each other at a big party at Squire Elrod's, and before long the weddin' day was set, and everybody was sayin' that Miss Amaryllis had found her match at last.

"Hamilton Schuyler was as handsome as Miss Amaryllis was pretty, and when it come to family he had as much to brag of as she had. He was a first cousin to Squire Meredith Schuyler, and all the Schuylers had fine houses and plenty o' land. Rich folks in that day had a way of namin' their places jest as rich folks do now. The Elrod place was called The Cedars, and Hamilton Schuyler had a big house on the same 'pike, and that was Schuyler Court. The Schuylers was mighty proud o' their blood, and I used to hear folks talk about the coat of arms that the squire had hangin' in his front hall. Abram was there once to see about some land the squire was havin' cleared, and he said he took particular notice of the coat of arms, but to save his life he couldn't see why they called it that, for there wasn't any coat or any arms on it that he could see, jest a curious colored thing, red and blue and black, and on top of it some kind of a beast standin' on its hind legs.

"The Elrods come of plain people at the start, but they could hold up their heads with the best, for they had plenty o' money and plenty o' learnin', too, and the judge's wife was as blue-blooded as any Schuyler and twice as proud of her blood, in the bargain. She had pictures, and silver things, and dishes that'd been in the family for generations, and her great-great-grandfather was a Fairfax.

"There's some people, child, that'll tell you that one person's as good as another, and all blood's alike, and all of it red. And maybe they are right. And when it comes to kindness and right principles and all that, why, Squire Schuyler and the judge's wife wasn't a bit better'n Abram and me. But when it come to their manners and their language, they had somethin' we didn't have. Abram was jest as polite a man as Squire Schuyler, but he couldn't take off his hat to a lady the way the squire could, and I couldn't bow and smile like the judge's wife, and I reckon that's where the blue blood comes in.