XI
AT MERRY OAKS TAVERN
Upon awaking his first thought was that he had got "into a deucedlyuncomfortable fix," and when he stretched out his hand from the bedside theneed of fresh clothes appeared less easy to be borne than the more abstractwreck of his career. For the first time he clearly grasped some outline ofhis future--a future in which a change of linen would become a luxury; andit was with smarting eyes and a nervous tightening of the throat that heglanced about the long room, with its whitewashed walls, and told himselfthat he had come early to the end of his ambition. In the ill-regulatedtenor of his thoughts but a hair's breadth divided assurance from despair.Last night the vaguest hope had seemed to be a certainty; to-day his fatacres and the sturdy slaves upon them had vanished like a dream, and thebuilding of his fortunes had become suddenly a very different matter fromthe rearing of airy castles along the road.
As he lay there, with his strong white hands folded upon the quilt, hiseyes went beyond the little lattice at the window, and rested upon the darkgray chain of mountains over which the white clouds sailed like birds.Somewhere nearer those mountains he knew that Chericoke was standing underthe clouded sky, with the half-bared elms knocking night and day upon thewindows. He could see the open doors, through which the wind blew steadily,and the crooked stair down which his mother had come in her carelessgirlhood.
It seemed to him, lying there, that in this one hour he had drawn closerinto sympathy with his mother, and when he looked up from his pillow, hehalf expected to see her merry eyes bending over him, and to feel her thinand trembling hand upon his brow. His old worship of her awoke to life, andhe suffered over again the moment in his childhood when he had called herand she had not answered, and they had pushed him from the room and toldhim she was dead. He remembered the clear white of her face, with theviolet shadows in the hollows; and he remembered the baby lying as ifasleep upon her bosom. For a moment he felt that he had never grown oldersince that day--that he was still a child grieving for her loss--while allthe time she was not dead, but stood beside him and smiled down upon hispillow. Poor mother, with the merry eyes and the bitter mouth.
Then as he looked the face grew younger, though the smile did not change,and he saw that it was Betty, after all--Betty with the tenderness in hereyes and the motherly yearning in her outstretched arms. The two women heloved were forever blended in his thoughts, and he dimly realized thatwhatever the future made of him, he should be moulded less by events thanby the hands of these two women. Events might subdue, but love alone couldcreate the spirit that gave him life.
There was a tap at his door, and when he arose and opened it, Mrs. Hickshanded in a pitcher of hot water and inquired "if he had recollected toknock upon the floor?"
He set the water upon the table, and after he had dressed brushedhopelessly, with a trembling hand, at the dust upon his clothes. Then hewent to the window and stood gloomily looking down among the great oaktrees to the strip of yard where a pig was rooting in the acorns.
A small porch ran across the entrance to the inn, and Jack Hicks wasalready seated on it, with a pipe in his mouth, and his feet upon therailing. His drowsy gaze was turned upon the woodpile hard by, where an oldnegro slave was chopping aimlessly into a new pine log, and a black urchingathering chips into a big split basket. At a little distance the Hopevillestage was drawn out under the trees, the empty shafts lying upon theground, and on the box a red and black rooster stood crowing. Overheadthere was a dull gray sky, and the scene, in all its ugliness, showedstripped of the redeeming grace of lights and shadows.
Jack Hicks, smoking on his porch, presented a picture of bodily comfort andphilosophic ease of mind. He was owner of some rich acres, and hispossessions, it was said, might have been readily doubled had he chosen tobarter for them the peace of perfect inactivity. To do him justice the ideahad never occurred to him in the light of a temptation, and when aneighbour had once remarked in his hearing that he "reckoned Jack wouldrather lose a dollar than walk a mile to fetch it," he had answeredblandly, and without embarrassment, that "a mile was a goodish stretch on asandy road." So he sat and dozed beneath his sturdy oaks, while his wifewent ragged at the heels and his swarm of tow-headed children rolledcontentedly with the pigs among the acorns.
Dan was still looking moodily down into the yard, when he heard a gentlepressure upon the handle of his door, and as he turned, it opened quicklyand Big Abel, bearing a large white bundle upon his shoulders, staggeredinto the room.
"Ef'n you'd des let me knowed hit, I could er brung a bigger load," heremarked sternly.
While he drew breath Dan stared at him with the blankness of surprise."Where did you come from, Big Abel?" he questioned at last, speaking in awhisper.
Big Abel was busily untying the sheet he had brought, and spreading out thecontents upon the bed, and he did not pause as he sullenly answered:--
"Ole Marster's."
"Who sent you?"
Big Abel snorted. "Who gwine sen' me?" he demanded in his turn.
"Well, I declare," said Dan, and after a moment, "how did you get away,man?"
"Lawd, Lawd," returned Big Abel, "I wa'n' bo'n yestiddy nur de day befo'.Terreckly I seed you a-cuttin' up de drive, I knowed dar wuz mo' den wuz inde tail er de eye, en w'en you des lit right out agin en bang de do' behintyou fitten ter bus' hit, den I begin ter steddy 'bout de close in de bigwa'drobe. I got out one er ole Miss's sheets w'en she wa'n' lookin, en Itie up all de summer close de bes' I kin--caze dat ar do' bang hit ain'soun' like you gwine be back fo' de summer right plum hyer. I'se done heaha do' bang befo' now, en dars mo' in it den des de shettin' ter stay shet."
"So you ran away?" said Dan, with a long whistle.
"Ain't you done run away?"
"I--oh, I was turned out," answered the young man, with his eyes on thenegro. "But--bless my soul, Big Abel, why did you do it?"
Big Abel muttered something beneath his breath, and went on laying out thethings.
"How you gwine git dese yer close ef I ain' tote 'em 'long de road?" heasked presently. "How you gwine git dis yer close bresh ef I ain' brung hitter you? Whar de close you got? Whar de close bresh?"
"You're a fool, Big Abel," retorted Dan. "Go back where you belong anddon't hang about me any more. I'm a beggar, I tell you, and I'm likely tobe a beggar at the judgment day."
"Whar de close bresh?" repeated Big Abel, scornfully.
"What would Saphiry say, I'd like to know?" went on Dan. "It isn't fair toSaphiry to run off this way."
"Don' you bodder 'bout Saphiry," responded Big Abel. "I'se done loss mytase fur Saphiry, young Marster."
"I tell you you're a fool," snapped out Dan, sharply.
"De Lawd he knows," piously rejoined Big Abel, and he added: "Dar ain' nouse a-rumpasin' case hyer I is en hyer I'se gwine ter stay. Whar you run,dar I'se gwine ter run right atter, so 'tain' no use a-rumpasin'. Hit's apity dese yer ain' nuttin' but summer close."
Dan looked at him a moment in silence, then he put out his hand and slappedhim upon the shoulder.
"You're a fool--God bless you," he said.
"Go 'way f'om yer, young Marster," responded the negro, in a highgood-humour. "Dar's a speck er dut right on yo' shut."
"Then give me another," cried Dan, gayly, and threw off his coat.
When he went down stairs, carefully brushed, a half-hour afterward, theworld had grown suddenly to wear a more cheerful aspect. He greeted Mrs.Hicks with his careless good-humour, and spoke pleasantly to the dirtywhite-haired children that streamed through the dining room.
"Yes, I'll take my breakfast now, if you please," he said as he sat down atone end of the long, oilcloth-covered table. Mrs. Hicks brought him hiscoffee and cakes, and then stood, with her hands upon a chair back, andwatched him with a frank delight in his well-dressed comely figure.
"You do favour the Major, Mr. Dan," she suddenly remarked.
He started impatiently. "Oh, the Lightfoots are all alike, you know," heresponded. "We are fond of sayin
g that a strain of Lightfoot blood is goodfor two centuries of intermixing." Then, as he looked up at her fadedwrapper and twisted curl papers, he flinched and turned away as if herugliness afflicted his eyes. "Do not let me keep you," he added hastily.
But the woman stooped to shake a child that was tugging at her dress, andtalked on in her drawling voice, while a greedy interest gave life to herworn and sallow face. "How long do you think of stayin'?" she askedcuriously, "and do you often take a notion to walk so fur in the dead ofnight? Why, I declar, when I looked out an' saw you I couldn't believe myeyes. That's not Mr. Dan, I said, you won't catch Mr. Dan out in the pitchdarkness with a lantern and ten miles from home."
"I really do not want to keep you," he broke in shortly, all thegood-humour gone from his voice.
"Thar ain't nothin' to do right now," she answered with a searching lookinto his face. "I was jest waitin' to bring you some mo' cakes." She wentout and came in presently with a fresh plateful. "I remember jest as wellthe first time you ever took breakfast here," she said. "You wa'n't more'ntwelve, I don't reckon, an' the Major brought you by in the coach, with BigAbel driving. The Major didn't like the molasses we gave him, and he pushedthe pitcher away and said it wasn't fit for pigs; and then you looked aboutreal peart and spoke up, 'It's good molasses, grandpa, I like it.' Sakesalive, it seems jest like yestiddy. I don't reckon the Major is comin' byto-day, is he?"
He pushed his plate away and rose hurriedly, then, without replying, hebrushed past her, and went out upon the porch.
There he found Jack Hicks, and forced himself squarely into a discussion ofhis altered fortunes. "I may as well tell you, Jack," he said, with a touchof arrogance, "that I'm turned out upon the world, at last, and I've got tomake a living. I've left Chericoke for good, and as I've got to stay hereuntil I find a place to go, there's no use making a secret of it."
The pipe dropped from Jack's mouth, and he stared back in astonishment.
"Bless my soul and body!" he exclaimed. "Is the old gentleman crazy or isyou?"
"You forget yourself," sharply retorted Dan.
"Well, well," pursued Jack, good-naturedly, as he knocked the ashes fromhis pipe and slowly refilled it. "If you hadn't have told me, I wouldn'thave believed you--well, well." He put his pipe into his mouth and hung onit for a moment; then he took it out and spoke thoughtfully. "I reckon I'veknown you from a child, haven't I, Mr. Dan?" he asked.
"That's so, Jack," responded the young man, "and if you can recommend me, Iwant you to help me to a job for a week or two--then I'm off to town."
"I've known you from a child year in an' year out," went on Jack, blandlydisregarding the interruption. "From the time you was sech apleasant-spoken little boy that it did me good to bow to you when you rodeby with the Major. 'Thar's not another like him in the country,' I said toBill Bates, an' he said to me, 'Thar's not a man between here an'Leicesterburg as ain't ready to say the same.' Then time went on an' yougot bigger, an' the year came when the crops failed an' Sairy got sick, an'I took a mortgage on this here house--an' what should happen but that youstepped right up an' paid it out of yo' own pocket. And you kept it fromthe Major. Lord, Lord, to think the Major never knew which way the moneywent."
"We won't speak of that," said Dan, throwing back his head. The thoughtthat the innkeeper might be going to offer him the money stung him intoanger.
But Jack knew his man, and he would as soon have thought of throwing ahandful of dust into his face. "Jest as you like, suh, jest as you like,"he returned easily, and went on smoking.
Dan sat down in a chair upon the porch, and taking out his knife began idlywhittling at the end of a stick. A small boy, in blue jean breeches,watched him eagerly from the steps, and he spoke to him pleasantly while hecut into the wood.
"Did you ever see a horse's head on a cane, sonny?"
The child sucked his dirty thumb and edged nearer.
"Naw, suh, but I've seen a dawg's," he answered, drawing out his thumb likea stopper and sticking it in again.
"Well, you watch this and you'll see a horse's. There, now don't take youreyes away."
He whittled silently for a time, then as he looked up his glance fell onthe stagecoach in the yard, and he turned from it to Jack Hicks.
"There's one thing on earth I know about, Jack," he said, "and that's ahorse."
"Not a better jedge in the county, suh," was Jack's response.
As Dan whittled a flush rose to his face. "Does Tom Hyden still drive theHopeville stage?" he asked.
"Well, you see it's this way," answered Jack, weighing his words. "Tom he'sa first-rate hand at horses, but he drinks like a fish, and last week hemarried a wife who owns a house an' farm up the road. So long as he had toearn his own livin' he kept sober long enough to run the stage, but sincehe's gone and married, he says thar's no call fur him to keep a levelhead--so he don't keep it. Yes, that's about how 'tis, suh."
Dan finished the stick and handed it to the child. "I tell you what, Jack,"he said suddenly, "I want Tom Hyden's place, and I'm going to drive thatstage over to Hopeville this afternoon. Phil Banks runs it, doesn'the?--well, I know him." He rose and stood humorously looking out upon thecoach. "There's no time like the present," he added, "so I begin workto-day."
Jack Hicks silently stared up at him for a moment; then he coughed andexclaimed hoarsely:--
"The jedgment ain't fur off," but Dan laughed the prophecy aside and wentupstairs to write to Betty.
"I've got a job, Big Abel," he began, going into his room, where the negrowas pressing a pair of trousers with a flatiron, "and what's more it willkeep me till I get another."
Big Abel gloomily shook his head. "We all 'ud des better go 'long home terOle Miss," he returned, for he was in no mood for compromises. "Caze I ain'use ter de po' w'ite trash en dey ain' use ter me."
"Go if you want to," retorted Dan, sternly, "but you go alone," and thenegro, protesting under his breath, laid the clothes away and went down tohis breakfast.
Dan sat down by the window and wrote a letter to Betty which he never sent.When he thought of her now it was as if half the world instead of ten mileslay between them; and quickly as he would have resented the hint of it fromJack Hicks, to himself he admitted that he was fast sinking where Bettycould not follow him. What would the end be? he asked, and disheartened bythe question, tore the paper into bits and walked moodily up and down theroom. He had lived so blithely until to-day! His lines had fallen sosmoothly in the pleasant places! Not without a grim humour he rememberednow that last year his grievance had been that his tailor failed to fithim. Last year he had walked the floor in a rage because of a wrinkledcoat, and to-day--His road had gone rough so suddenly that he stumbled likea blind man when he tried to go over it in his old buoyant manner.
An hour later he was still pacing restlessly to and fro, when the doorsoftly opened and Mrs. Hicks looked in upon him with a deprecating smile.As she lingered on the threshold, he stopped in the middle of the room andthrew her a sharp glance over his shoulder.
"Is there anything you wish?" he questioned irritably.
Shaking her head, she came slowly toward him and stood in her soiledwrapper and curl papers, where the gray light from the latticed window fellfull upon her.
"It ain't nothin'," she answered hurriedly. "Nothin' except Jack's beentellin' me you're in trouble, Mr. Dan."
"Then he has been telling you something that concerns nobody but myself,"he replied coolly, and continued his walking.
There was a nervous flutter of her wrapper, and she passed her knotted handover her face.
"You are like yo' mother, Mr. Dan," she said with an unexpectedness thatbrought him to a halt. "An' I was the last one to see her the night shewent away. She came in here, po' thing, all shiverin' with the cold, an'she wouldn't set down but kep' walkin' up an' down, up an' down, jest likeyou've been doin' fur this last hour. Po' thing! Po' thing! I tried to makeher take a sip of brandy, but she laughed an' said she was quite warm, withher teeth chatterin' fit to b
reak--"
"You are very good, Mrs. Hicks," interrupted Dan, in an affected drawlwhich steadied his voice, "but do you know, I'd really rather that youwouldn't."
Her sallow face twitched and she looked wistfully up at him.
"It isn't that, Mr. Dan," she went on slowly, "but I've had trouble myself,God knows, and when I think of that po' proud young lady, an' the way shewent, I can't help sayin' what I feel--it won't stay back. So if you'lljest keep on here, an' give up the stage drivin' an' wait twil the oldgentleman comes round--Jack an' I'll do our best fur you--we'll do ourbest, even if it ain't much."
Her lips quivered, and as he watched her it seemed to him that a newmeaning passed into her face--something that made her look like Betty andhis mother--that made all good women who had loved him look alike. For themoment he forgot her ugliness, and with the beginning of that keenerinsight into life which would come to him as he touched with humanity, hesaw only the dignity with which suffering had endowed this plain and simplewoman. The furrows upon her cheeks were no longer mere disfigurements; theyraised her from the ordinary level of the ignorant and the ugly into somebond of sympathy with his dead mother.
"My dear Mrs. Hicks," he stammered, abashed and reddening. "Why, I shalltake a positive pleasure in driving the stage, I assure you."
He crossed to the mirror and carefully brushed a stray lock of hair intoplace; then he took up his hat and gloves and turned toward the door. "Ithink it is waiting for me now," he added lightly; "a pleasant evening toyou."
But she stood straight before him and as he met her eyes his affectedjauntiness dropped from him. With a boyish awkwardness he took her hand andheld it for an instant as he looked at her. "My dear madam, you are a goodwoman," he said, and went whistling down to take the stage.
Upon the porch he found Jack Hicks seated between a stout gentleman and athin lady, who were to be the passengers to Hopeville; and as Dan appearedthe innkeeper started to his feet and swung open the door of the coach forthe thin lady to pass inside. "You'll find it a pleasant ride, mum," heheartily assured her. "I've often taken it myself an', rain or shine,thar's not a prettier road in all Virginny," then he moved humbly back asDan, carelessly drawing on his gloves, came down the steps. "I hope wehaven't hurried you, suh," he stammered.
"Not a bit--not a bit," returned Dan, affably, slipping on his overcoat,which Big Abel had run up to hold for him.
"You gwine git right soakin' wet, Marse Dan," said Big Abel, anxiously.
"Oh, I'll not melt," responded Dan, and bowing to the thin lady he steppedupon the wheel and mounted lightly to the box.
"There's no end to this eternal drizzle," he called down, as he tucked thewaterproof robe about him and took up the reins.
Then, with a merry crack of the whip, the stage rolled through the gate andon its way.
As it turned into the road, a man on horseback came galloping from thedirection of the town, and when he neared the tavern he stood up in hisstirrups and shouted his piece of news.
"Thar was a raid on Harper's Ferry in the night," he yelled hoarsely. "Thearsenal has fallen, an' they're armin' the damned niggers."