Read The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan Page 16
CHAPTER VIII
A DREAM
Elsie spent weeks of happiness in an abandonment of joy to the spell ofher lover. His charm was resistless. His gift of delicate intimacy, theeloquence with which he expressed his love, and yet the manly dignity withwhich he did it, threw a spell no woman could resist.
Each day's working hours were given to his father's case and to the studyof law. If there was work to do, he did it, and then struck the word carefrom his life, giving himself body and soul to his love. Great events weremoving. The shock of the battle between Congress and the President beganto shake the Republic to its foundations. He heard nothing, felt nothing,save the music of Elsie's voice.
And she knew it. She had only played with lovers before. She had neverseen one of Ben's kind, and he took her by storm. His creed was simple.The chief end of life is to glorify the girl you love. Other things couldwait. And he let them wait. He ignored their existence.
But one cloud cast its shadow over the girl's heart during thesered-letter days of life--the fear of what her father would do to herlover's people. Ben had asked her whether he must speak to him. When shesaid "No, not yet," he forgot that such a man lived. As for his politics,he knew nothing and cared less.
But the girl knew and thought with sickening dread, until she forgot herfears in the joy of his laughter. Ben laughed so heartily, soinsinuatingly, the contagion of his fun could not be resisted.
He would sit for hours and confess to her the secrets of his boyish dreamsof glory in war, recount his thrilling adventures and daring deeds withsuch enthusiasm that his cause seemed her own, and the pity and theanguish of the ruin of his people hurt her with the keen sense of personalpain. His love for his native State was so genuine, his pride in thebravery and goodness of its people so chivalrous, she began to see for thefirst time how the cords which bound the Southerner to his soil were ofthe heart's red blood.
She began to understand why the war, which had seemed to her a wicked,cruel, and causeless rebellion, was the one inevitable thing in our growthfrom a loose group of sovereign States to a United Nation. Love had givenher his point of view.
Secret grief over her father's course began to grow into conscious fear.With unerring instinct she felt the fatal day drawing nearer when thesetwo men, now of her inmost life, must clash in mortal enmity.
She saw little of her father. He was absorbed with fevered activity anddeadly hate in his struggle with the President.
Brooding over her fears one night, she had tried to interest Ben inpolitics. To her surprise she found that he knew nothing of her father'sreal position or power as leader of his party. The stunning tragedy of thewar had for the time crushed out of his consciousness all political ideas,as it had for most young Southerners. He took her hand while a dreamy lookoverspread his swarthy face:
"Don't cross a bridge till you come to it. I learned that in the war.Politics are a mess. Let me tell you something that counts----"
He felt her hand's soft pressure and reverently kissed it. "Listen," hewhispered. "I was dreaming last night after I left you of the home we'llbuild. Just back of our place, on the hill overlooking the river, myfather and mother planted trees in exact duplicate of the ones they placedaround our house when they were married. They set these trees in honour ofthe first-born of their love, that he should make his nest there whengrown. But it was not for him. He had pitched his tent on higher ground,and the others with him. This place will be mine. There are fortyvarieties of trees, all grown--elm, maple, oak, holly, pine, cedar,magnolia, and every fruit and flowering stem that grows in our friendlysoil. A little house, built near the vacant space reserved for thehomestead, is nicely kept by a farmer, and birds have learned to build inevery shrub and tree. All the year their music rings its chorus--one longoverture awaiting the coming of my bride----"
Elsie sighed.
"Listen, dear," he went on eagerly. "Last night I dreamed the South hadrisen from her ruins. I saw you there. I saw our home standing amid abower of roses your hands had planted. The full moon wrapped it in softlight, while you and I walked hand in hand in silence beneath our trees.But fairer and brighter than the moon was the face of her I loved, andsweeter than all the songs of birds the music of her voice!"
A tear dimmed the girl's warm eyes, and a deeper flush mantled her cheeks,as she lifted her face and whispered: