VALIANTS
THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
By
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES
(Mrs. Post Wheeler)
The Kingdom of Slender Swords
Satan Sanderson
Tales From Dickens
The Castaway
Hearts Courageous
A Furnace of Earth
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
INDIANAPOLIS
THE
VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
By
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES
(Mrs. POM Wheeler)
ILLUSTRATED BY
ANDRE CASTAIGNE
INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1912
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH ft CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTER*.
BROOKLYN, N. V.
524
TO
THE REAL JOHN
"Molly, Molly Bright!
Can I get there by candle-light? "
"Yes, if your legs are long enough.*
I THE CRASH ....
II VANITY VALIANT
III THE NEVER-NEVER LAND
IV THE TURN OF THE PAGE
V THE LETTER ....
VI A VALIANT OF VIRGINIA
VII ON THE RED ROAD
VIII MAD ANTHONY ....
IX UNCLE JEFFERSON
X WHAT HAPPENED THIRTY YEARS AGO
XI DAMORY COURT ....
XII THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER .
XIII THE HUNT ....
XIV SANCTUARY ....
XV MRS. POLY GIFFORD PAYS A CALL
XVI THE ECHO
XVII THE TRESPASSER
XVIII JOHN VALIANT MAKES A DISCOVERY
XIX UNDER THE HEMLOCKS
XX ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
XXI AFTER THE STORM
XXII THE ANNIVERSARY
XXIII UNCLE JEFFERSON'S STORY
XXIV IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY
XXV JOHN VALIANT ASKS A QUESTION
XXVI THE CALL OF THE ROSES .
XXVII BEYOND THE BOX-HEDGE
XXVIII NIGHT
XXIX AT THE DOME
1
12
21
29
36
44
49
59
71
80
90
102
109
119
124
139
142
152
163
173
179
188
197
203
219
223
230
238
244
CONTENTS Continued
CHAPTER PAGT
XXX THE GARDENERS ...... 255
XXXI TOURNAMENT DAY 267
XXXII A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE .... 275
XXXIII THE KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE . . 289
XXXIV KATHARINE DECIDES 300
XXXV "WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER ' . 309
XXXVI BY THE SUN-DIAL 317
XXXVII THE DOCTOR SPEAKS 328
XXXVIII THE AMBUSH 334
XXXIX WHAT THE CAPE JESSAMINES KNEW . . 340
XL THE AWAKENING 346
XLI THE COMING OF GREEF KING . . . 359
XLII IN THE RAIN 369
XLIII THE EVENING OF AN OLD SCORE . . . 378
XLIV THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE . . . 386
XLV RENUNCIATION 398
XLVI THE VOICE FROM THE PAST . . .408
XLVII WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK .... 415
XLVIII THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE 427
THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
CHAPTER I
THE CRASH
II TRAILED!" ejaculated John Valiant blankly,
J/ and the hat he held dropped to the claret-
colored rug like a huge white splotch of sudden
fright " The Corporation failed 1 "
The young man was the glass of fashion, from the
silken ribbon on the spotless Panama to his pearl-
gray gaiters, and well favored a lithe stalwart
figure, with wide-set hazel eyes and strong brown
hair waving back from a candid forehead. The
soft straw, however, had been wrung to a wisp be
tween clutching fingers and the face was glazed in
a kind of horrified and assiduous surprise, as if the
rosy peach of life, bitten, had suddenly revealed it
self an unripe persimmon. The very words them
selves came with a galvanic twitch and a stagger
that conveyed a sense at once of shock and of pro
test. Even the white bulldog stretched on the
I
2 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
floor, nose between paws and one restless eye on his
master in a troubled wonder that any one should
prefer to forsake the ecstatic sunshine of the street,
with its thousand fascinating scents and cross-trails,
for a stuffy business office, lifted his wrinkling pink
nose and snuffled with acute and hopeful inquiry.
Never had John Valiant's innocuous and butter
fly existence known a surprise more startling. He
had swung into the room with all the nonchalant
habits, the ingrained certitude of the man born with
achievement ready-made in his hands. And a
single curt statement like the ruthless blades of a
pair of shears had snipped across the one splendid
scarlet thread in the woof that constituted life as he
knew it. He had knotted his lavender scarf that
morning a vice-president of the Valiant Corpora
tion one of the greatest and most successful of
modern-day organizations ; he sat now in the fading
afternoon trying to realize that the huge fabric,
without warning, had toppled to its fall.
With every nerve of his six feet of manhood
in rebellion, he rose and strode to the half -opened
window, through which sifted the smell of growing
things for the great building fronted the square
and the soft alluring moistness of early spring.
" Failed ! " he repeated helplessly, and the echo
seemed to go flittering about the substantial walls
like a derisive India-rubber bat on a spree.
The bulldog sat up, thumping the rug with a
THE CRASH 3
vibrant tail. There was some mistake, surely ; one
went out by the door, not by the window! He
rose, picked up the Panama in his mouth, and pad
ding across the rug, poked it tentatively into his
master's hand. But no, the hand made no response.
Clearly they were not to go out, and he dropped it
and went puzzledly back and lay down with pricked
ears, while his master stared out into the foliaged
day.
How solid and changeless it had always seemed
that great business fabric woven by the father
he could so dimly remember! His own invested
fortune had been derived from the great corporation
the elder Valiant had founded and controlled until
his death. With almost unprecedented earnings,
it had stood as a very Gibraltar of finance, a type
and sign of brilliant organization. Now, on the
heels of a trust's dissolution which would be a
nine-days' wonder, the vast structure had crumpled
up like a cardboard. The rains had descended and
the floods had come, and it had fallen!
The man at the desk had wheeled in his revolv
ing chair and was looking at the trim athletic back
blotting the daylight, with a smile that was little
short of a covert sneer. He was one of the local
managers of the Corporation whose ruin was to be
that day's sensation, a colorless man who had ac
quired middle age with his first long trousers and
had been dedicated to the commercial treadmill be-
4 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
fore he had bought a safety-razor. He despised all
loiterers along the primrose paths, and John Valiant
was but a decorative figurehead.
The bulldog lifted his head. The ghost of a
furred throaty growl rumbled in the silence, and
the man at the desk shrank a little, as the hair
rippled up on the thick neck and the faithful red-
rimmed eyes opened a shade wider. But John
Valiant did not turn. He was bitterly absorbed
with his own thoughts.
Till this moment he had never really known how
proud he had always been of the Corporation, of
the fact that he was its founder's son. His elec
tion to high office in the small coterie that controlled
its destinies he had known very well to be but the
modern concrete expression of his individual hold
ings, but it had nevertheless deeply pleased him.
The fleeting sense of power, the intimate touching
of wide issues in a city of Big Things had flat
tered him ; for a while he had dreamed of playing a
great part, of pushing the activities of the Cor
poration into new territory, invading foreign soil.
He might have done much, for he had begun with
good equipment. He had read law, had even been
admitted to the bar. But to what had it come ? A
gradual slipping back into the rut of careless amuse
ment, the tacit assumption of his prerogatives by
other waiting hands. The huge wheels had con
tinued to turn, smoothly,- inevitably, and he had
THE CRASH 5
drawn his dividends . . . and that was all. John
Valiant swallowed something that was very like a
sob.
As he stood trying to plumb the depth of the
calamity, self -anger began to stir and buzz in his
heart like a great bee. Like a tingling X-ray there
went stabbing through the husk woven of a thou
sand inherent habits the humiliating knowledge of
his own uselessness. In those profitless seasons
through which he had sauntered, as he had strolled
through his casual years of college, he had given
least of his time and thought to the concern which
had absorbed his father's young manhood. He,
John Valiant one of its vice-presidents! waster,
on whose expenditures there had never been a limit,
who had strewn with the foolish free-handedness
of a prodigal! Idler, with a reputation in three
cities as a leader of cotillions !
"Fool!" he muttered under his breath, and on
the landscape outside the word stamped itself on
everything as though a thousand little devils had
suddenly turned themselves into letters of the alpha
bet and were skipping about in fours.
Valiant started as the other spoke at his elbow.
He, too, had come to the window and was looking
down at the pavement. " How quickly some news
spreads ! "
For the first time the young man noted that the
street below was filling with a desultory crowd.
6 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He distinguished a knot of Italian laborers talking
with excited gesticulations a smudged plasterer,
tools in hand, clerks, some hatless and with thin
alpaca coats all peering at the voiceless front of
the great building, and all, he imagined, with a
thriving fear in their faces. As he watched, a
woman, coarsely dressed, ran across the street, her
handkerchief pressed to her eyes.
" The notice has gone up on the door," said the
manager. " I sent word to the police. Crowds are
ugly sometimes."
Valiant drew a sudden sharp breath. The
Corporation down in the mire, with crowds at its
doors ready to clamor for money entrusted to it,
the aggregate savings of widow and orphan, the
piteous hoarded sums earned by labor over which
pinched sickly faces had burned the midnight oil!
The older man had turned back to the desk to
draw a narrow typewritten slip of paper from a
pigeonhole. " Here," he said, " is a list of the
bonds of the subsidiary companies recorded in your
name. These are all, of course, engulfed in the
larger failure. You have, however, your private
fortune. If you take my advice, by the way," he
added significantly, " you'll make sure of keeping
that."
" What do you mean ? " John Valiant faced him
quickly.
The other laughed shortly. " ' A word to the
THE CRASH 7
wise,' " he quoted. " It's very good living abroad.
There's a boat leaving to-morrow."
A dull red sprang into the younger face. " You
mean "
" Look at that crowd down there you can hear
them now. There'll be a legislative investigation,
of course. And the devil'll get the hindmost." He
struck the desk-top with his hand. " Have you
ever seen the bills for this furniture? Do you
know what that rug under your feet cost? Twelve
thousand it's an old Persian. What do you sup
pose the papers will do to that ? Do you think such
things will seem amusing to that rabble down
there ? " His hand swept toward the window.
" It's been going on for too many years, I tell you !
And now some one'll pay the piper. The lightning
won't strike me I'm not tall enough. You're a
vice-president."
" Do you imagine that I knew these things
that I have been a party to what you seem to be
lieve has been a deliberate wrecking?" Valiant
towered over him, his breath coming fast, his hands
clenched hard.
' You ? " The manager laughed again an
unpleasant laugh that scraped the other's quivering
nerves like hot sandpaper. " Oh, lord, no ! How
should you? You've been too busy playing polo
and winning bridge prizes. How many board
meetings have you attended this year? Your vote
8 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
is proxied as regular as clockwork. But you're
supposed to know. The people down there in the
street won't ask questions about patent-leather
pumps and ponies ; they'll want to hear about such
things as rotten irrigation loans in the Stony-River
Valley to market an alkali desert that is the per
sonal property of the president of this Corporation."
Valiant turned a blank white face. " Sedg-
wick?"
" Yes. You know his principle : ' It's all right to
be honest, if you're not too damn honest.' He
owns the Stony-River Valley bag and baggage. It
was a big gamble and he lost."
For a moment there was absolute silence in the
room. From outside came the rising murmur of
the crowd and cutting through it the shrill cry of a
newsboy calling an evening extra. Valiant was
staring at the other with a strange look. Emotions
to which in all his self-indulgent life he had been a
stranger were running through his mind, and outre
passions had him by the throat. Fool and doubly
blind! A poor pawn, a catspaw raking the chest
nuts for unscrupulous men whose ignominy he was
now called on, perforce, to share! In hr pitiful
egotism he had consented to be a figurehead, and
he had been made a tool. A red rage surged over
him. No one had ever seen on J ,hn Valiant's face
such a look as grew on it now.
He turned, retrieved the Panama, and without a
THE CRASH 9
word opened the door. The older man took a step
toward him he had a sense of dangerous electric
forces in the air but the door closed sharply in
his face. He smiled grimly. " Not crooked," he
said to himself; "merely callow. A well-meaning,
manicured young fop wholly surrounded by men
who knew what they wanted ! " He shrugged his
shoulders and went back to his chair.
Valiant plunged down in the elevator to the
street. Its single other passenger had his nose
buried in a newspaper, and over the reader's shoul
der he saw the double-leaded head-line : " Collapse
of the Valiant Corporation ! "
He pushed past the guarded door, and threading
the crowd, made toward the curb, where the bull
dog, with a bark of delight, leaped upon the seat of
a burnished car, rumbling and vibrating with pent-
up power. There were those in the sullen anxious
crowd who knew whose was that throbbing metal
miracle, the chauffeur spick and span from shining
cap-visor to polished brown puttees, and recogniz
ing the white face that went past, pelted it with
muttered sneers. But he scarcely saw or heard
them, as he stepped into the seat, took the wheel
from the chauffeur's hand and threw on the gear.
He had afterward little memory of that ride.
Once the leaping anger within him jerked the throt
tle wide and the car responded with a breakneck
dart through the startled traffic, till the sight of an
io THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
infuriated mounted policeman, baton up, brought
him to himself with a thud. He had small mind to
be stopped at the moment. His mouth set in a
sudden hard sharp line, and under it his hands
gripped the slewing wheel to a tearing serpentine
rush that sent the skidding monster rearing on side
wheels, to swoop between two drays in a hooting
plunge down a side street. His tight lips parted
then in a ragged laugh, bit off by the jolt of the
lurching motor and the slap of the bulging air.
As the sleek rubber shoes spun noiselessly and
swiftly along the avenue the myriad lights that
were beginning to gleam wove into a twinkling mist.
He drove mechanically past a hundred familiar
things and places: the particular chop-house of
which he was an habitue the ivied wall of his
favorite club, with the cluster of faces at the double
window the florist's where daily he stopped for
his knot of Parma violets but he saw nothing,
till the massive marble fronts of the upper park side
ceased their mad dance as the car halted before a
tall iron-grilled doorway with wide glistening steps,
between windows strangely shuttered and dark.
He sprang out and touched the bell. The heavy
oak parted slowly ; the confidential secretary of the
man he had come to face stood in the gloomy door
way.
" I want to see Mr, Sedgwick."
" You can't see him, Mr. Valiant."
THE CRASH n
" But I will! " Sharp passion leaped into the
young voice. " He must speak to me."
The man in the doorway shook his head. " He
won't speak to anybody any more," he said. " Mr.
Sedgwick shot himself two hours ago."
CHAPTER II
VANITY VALIANT
**A I ^SHE witness is excused."
JL In the ripple that stirred across the
court room at the examiner's abrupt conclusion,
John Valiant, who had withstood that pitiless hail
of questions, rose, bowed to him and slowly crossed
the cleared space to his counsel. The chairman
looked severely over his eye-glasses, with his gavel
lifted, and a statuesque girl, in the rear of the room,
laid her delicately gloved hand on a companion's
and smiled slowly without withdrawing her gaze,
and with the faintest tint of color in her face.
Katharine Fargo neither smiled nor flushed read
ily. Her smile was an index of her whole per
sonality, languid, symmetrical, exquisitely perfect.
The little group with whom she sat looked some
what out of place in that mixed assemblage. They
had not gasped at the tale of the Corporation's un
precedented earnings, the lavish expenditure for its
palatial offices. The recital of the tragic waste, the
nepotism, the mole-like ramifications by which the
vast structure had been undermined, had left
them rather amusedly and satirically appreciative.
12
VANITY VALIANT 13
Smartly groomed and palpably members of a set
to whom John Valiant was a familiar, they had had
only friendly nods and smiles for the young man at
whom so many there had gazed with jaundiced eyes.
To the general public which read its daily news
paper perhaps none of the gilded set was better
known than " Vanity Valiant." The very nick
name given him by his fellows in facetious allu
sion to a flippant newspaper paragraph laying at his
door the alleged new fashion of a masculine vanity-
box had taken root in the fads and elegancies he
affected. The new Panhard he drove was the
smartest car on the avenue, and the collar on the
white bulldog that pranced or dozed on its leather
seat sported a diamond buckle. To the space-
writers of the social columns, he had been a peren
nial inspiration. They had delighted to herald a
more or less bohemian gathering, into which he
had smuggled this pet, as a " dog-dinner " ; and
when one midnight, after a staid and stodgy
" bridge," in a gust of wild spirits he had, for a
wager, jumped into and out of a fountain on a
deserted square, the act, dished up by a night-
hawking reporter had, the following Sunday, in
spired three metropolitan sermons on " The Idle
Rich." The patterns of his waistcoats, and the
splendors of his latest bachelors' dinner at Sherry's
with such items the public had been kept suffi
ciently familiar. To it, he stood a perfect symbol
14 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
of the eider ease and insolent display of inherited
wealth. And the great majority of those who had
found place in that roomy chamber to listen to the
ugly tale of squandered millions, looked at him with
a resentment that was sharpened by his apparent
nonchalance.
For the failure of the concern upon which a
legislature had now turned the search-light of its
inquiry, might to him have been a thing of trivial
interest, and the present task an alien one, which he
must against his will go through with. Often his
eyes had wandered to the window, through which
came the crisp clip-trip-clop of the cab horses on the
asphalt, the irritant clang of trolleys and the mon
strous panther purr of motors. Only once had this
seeming indifference been shaken : when the figures
of the salary voted the Corporation's chief officers
had been sardonically cited when in the tense
quiet a woman had laughed out suddenly, a harsh
jeering note quickly repressed. For one swift sec
ond then Valiant's gaze had turned to the rusty
black gown, the flushed face of the sleeping child
against the tawdry fall of the widow's veil. Then
the gaze had come back, and he was once more
the abstracted spectator, boredly waiting his re
lease.
Long before the closing session it had been clear
that, as far as indictments were concerned, the in
vestigation would be barren >f result. Of indi-
VANITY VALIANT 15
vidual criminality, flight and suicide had been con
fession, but more sweeping charges could not be
brought home. The gilded fool had not brought
himself into the embarrassing purview of the law.
This certainty, however, had served to goad the
public and sharpen the satire of the newspaper par-
agraphist; and the examiner, who incidentally had
a reputation of his own to guard, knew his cue.
There were possibilities for the exercise of his es
pecial gifts in a vice-president of the Corporation
who was also Vanity Valiant, the decorative idler
of social fopperies and sumptuous clothes.
Valiant took the chair with a sensation almost of
relief. Since that day when he had spun down
town in his motor to that sharp enlightenment, his
daily round had gone on as usual, but beneath the
habitual pose, the worldly mask of his class, had
lain a sore sensitiveness that had cringed painfully
at the sneering word and the envenomed paragraph.
Always his mental eye had seen a white- faced crowd
staring at a marble building, a coarsely-dressed
woman crossing the street with a handkerchief
pressed to her face.
And mingling with the sick realization of his own
inadequacy had woven panging thoughts of his
father. The shattered bits of recollection of him
that he had preserved had formed a mosaic which
had pictured the hero of his boyhood. Yet his
father's name would now go down, linked not to
16 THE VALIANTS OF. VIRGINIA
success and achievement, but to failure, to chicanery,
to the robbing of the poor. The thought had be
come a blind ache that had tortured him. Beneath
the old characteristic veneer it had been working a
strange change. Something old had been dying,
something new budding under the careless exterior
of the man who now faced his examiner in the big
armchair that May afternoon.
John Valiant's testimony, to those of his listen
ers who cherished a sordid disbelief in the ingenuous
ness of the man who counts his wealth in seven fig
ures, seemed a pose of gratuitous insolence. It had
a clarity and simplicity that was almost horrifying.
He did not stoop to gloze his own monumental
flippancy. He had attended only one directors'
meeting during that year. Till after the crash, he
had known little, had cared less, about the larger
investments of the Corporation's capital: he had
left all that to others.
Perhaps to the examiner himself this blunt direct
ness the bitter unshadowed truth that searched
for no evasions had appeared effrontery: the
contemptuous and cynical frankness of the young
egoist who sat secure, his own millions safe, on the
ruins of the enterprise from which they were de
rived. The questions, that had been bland with
suave innuendo, acquired an acrid sarcasm, a barbed
and stinging satire, which at length touched indis
cretion. He allowed himself a scornful reference
VANITY VALIANT 17
to the elder Valiant as scathing as it was unjusti
fied.
To the man in the witness-chair this had been
like an electric shock. Something new and un-
guessed beneath the husk of boredom, the indolent
pose of body, had suddenly looked from his blazing
eyes: something foreign to Vanity Valiant, the
club habitue, the spoiled scion of wealth. For a
brief five minutes he spoke, in a fashion that sur
prised the court room a passionate defense of his
father, the principles on which the Corporation had
been founded and its traditional policies: few sen
tences, but each hot as lava and quivering with feel
ing. Their very force startled the reporters' bench
and left his inquisitor for a moment silent.
The latter took refuge in a sardonic reference to
the Corporation's salary-list. Did the witness con
ceive, he asked with effective deliberation, that he
had rendered services commensurate with the an
nual sums paid him? The witness thought that he
had, in fact, received just about what those serv
ices were worth. Would Mr. Valiant be good
enough to state the figures of the salary he had been
privileged to draw as a vice-president?
The answer fell as slowly in the sardonic silence.
" I have never drawn a salary as an officer of the
Valiant Corporation."
Then it was that the irritated examiner had
abruptly dismissed the witness. Then the ripple
i8 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
had swept over the assemblage, and Katharine
Fargo, gazing, had smiled that slow smile in which
approval struggled with mingled wonder and ques
tion.
The jostling crowd flocked out into the square,
among them a fresh-faced girl on the arm of a
gray-bearded man in black frock coat and pictur
esque broad-brimmed felt hat. She turned her eyes
to his.
" So that," she said, " is John Valiant! I'd al
most rather have missed Niagara Falls. I must
write Shirley Dandridge about it. I'm so sorry I
lost that picture of him that I cut out of the paper."
" I reckon he's not such a bad lot," said her
uncle. " I liked the way he spoke of his father."
He hailed a cab. " Grand Central Station," he
directed, with a glance at his watch, " and be quick
about it. We've just time to make our train."
"Yessir! Dollar'n a half, sir."
The gentleman seated the girl and climbed in
himself. " I know the legal fare," he said, " if I am
from Virginia. And if you try to beat me out of
more, you'll be sorry."
Some hours later, in an inner office of a down
town sky-scraper, the newly-appointed receiver of
the Valiant Corporation, a heavy, thick-set man with
narrow eyes, sat beside a table on which lay a small
VANITY VALIANT 19
black satchel with a padlock on its handle, whose
contents several bundles of crisp papers he
had been turning over in his heavy hands with a
look of incredulous amazement. A sheet contain
ing a mass of figures and memoranda lay among
them.
The shock was still on his face when a knock
came at the door, and a man entered. The new
comer was gray-haired, slightly stooped and lean-
jowled, with a humorous expression on his lips.
He glanced in surprise at the littered table.
" Fargo," said the man at the desk, " do you no
tice anything queer about me? "
His friend grinned, " No, Buck," he said ju
dicially, " unless it's that necktie. It would stop a
Dutch clock."
" Hang the haberdashery ! Read this from
young Valiant." He passed over a letter.
Fargo read. He looked up. " Securities aggre
gating three millions ! " he said in a hushed voice.
" Why, unless I've been misinformed, that repre
sents practically all his private fortune."
The other nodded. " Turned over to the Cor
poration with his resignation as a vice-president,
and without a blessed string tied to 'em ! What do
you think of that?"
' Think ! It's the most absurdly idiotic thing I
ever met. Two weeks ago, before the investigation
, . . but now, when it's perfectly certain they can
20 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
bring nothing home to him " He paused. "Of
course I suppose it'll save the Corporation, eh?
But it may be ten years before its securities pay
dividends. And this is real money. Where the
devil does he come in meanwhile ? "
The receiver pursed his lips. " I knew his
father," he said. " He had the same crazy quixotic
streak."
He gathered the scattered documents and locked
them carefully with the satchel in a safe. " Spec
tacular young ass ! " he said explosively.
" I should say so ! " agreed Fargo. " Do you
know, I used to be afraid my Katharine had a lean
ing toward him. But thank God, she's a sensible
girl!"
CHAPTER III
THE NEVER-NEVER LAND
DUSK had fallen that evening when John Val
iant's Panhard turned into a cross-street and
circled into the yawning mouth of his garage.
Here, before he descended, he wrote a check on hi
knee with a slobbering fountain-pen.
" Lars," he said to the chauffeur, " as I dare say
you've heard, things have not gone exactly smoothly
with me lately, and I'm uncertain about my plans.
I've made arrangements to turn the car over to the
manufacturers, and take back the old one. I must
drive myself hereafter. I'm sorry, but you must
look for another place."
The dapper young Swede touched his cap grate
fully as he looked at the check's figures. Embar
rassment was burning his tongue. "I I've
heard, sir. I'm sure it's very kind, sir, and when
you need another . . ."
" Thank you, Lars," said Valiant, as he shook
hands, " and good luck. I'll remember."
Lars, the chauffeur, looked after him. " Going
to skip out, he is! I thought so when he brought
that stuff out of the safe-deposit. Afraid they'll try
21
22 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
to take the boodie away from him, I guess. The
papers seem to think he's rotten, but he's been a
mighty good boss to me. He's a dead swell, all
right, anyhow," he added pridefully, as he slid the
car to its moorings, " and they'll have to get up
early to catch him asleep! "
A little later John Valiant, the bulldog at his
heels, ascended the steps of his club, where he
lodged he had disposed of his bachelor apart
ment a fortnight ago. The cavernous seats of the
lounge were all occupied, but he did not pause as
he strode through the hall. He took the little pile
of letters the boy handed him at the desk and went
slowly up the stairway.
He wandered into the deserted library and sat
down, tossing the letters on the magazine-littered
table. He 'had suddenly remembered that it was
his twenty-fifth birthday.
In the reaction from the long strain he felt phys
ically spent. He thought of what he had done that
afternoon with a sense of satisfaction. A reversal
of public judgment, in his own case, had not en
tered his head. He knew his world its comfort
able faculty of forgetting, and the multitude of sins
that wealth may cover. To preserve at whatever
personal cost the one noble monument his father's
genius had reared, and to right the wrong that
would cast its gloomy shadow on his name this
had been his only thought.- What he had done
THE NEVER-NEVER LAND 23
would have been done no matter what the outcome
of the investigation. But now, he told himself, no
one could say the act had been wrung from him.
That, he fancied, would have been his father's way.
Fancied for his recollections of his father
were vague and fragmentary. They belonged
wholly to his pinafore years. His early memories
of his mother were, for that matter, even more un
substantial. They were of a creature of wonderful
dazzling gowns, and more wonderful shining jewels,
who lived for the most part in an over-sea city as
far away as the moon (he was later to identify this
as Paris) and who, when she came home which
was not often took him driving in the park and
gave him chocolate macaroons. He had always
held her in more or less awe and had breathed
easier when she had departed. She had died in
Rome a year later than his father. He had been
left then without a near relative in the world and
his growing years had been an epic of nurses and
caretakers, a boys' school on the continent, and a
university course at home. As far as his father
was concerned, he had had only his own childish
recollections.
He smiled a slow smile of reminiscence for
there had come to him at that moment the dearest
of all those memories a play of his childhood.
He saw himself seated on a low stool, watching
a funny old clock with a moon-face, whose smiling
24 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
lips curved up like military mustachios, and wishing
the lazy long hands would hurry. He saw himself
stealing down a long corridor to the door of a big
room strewn with books and papers, that through
some baleful and mysterious spell could not be
made to open at all hours. When the hands
pointed right, however, there was the " Open
Sesame " his own secret knock, two fierce twin
raps, with one little lonesome one afterward and
this was unfailing. Safe inside, he saw himself
standing on a big, polar-bear-skin rug, the door
tight-locked against all comers, an expectant baby
figure, with his little hand clasped in his father's.
The white rug was the magic entrance to the Never-
Never Country, known only to those two.
He could hear his own shrill treble :
" Wishing-House, Wishing-House, where are
you?"
Then the deeper voice (quite unrecognizable as
his father's) answering:
" Here I am, Master ; here I am ! "
And instantly the room vanished and they were
in the Never-Never Land, and before them reared
the biggest house in the world, with a row of white
pillars across its front a mile high.
Valiant drew a deep breath. Some magic of time
and place was repainting that dead and dusty in
fancy in sudden delicate lights and filmy colors.
\Yhat had been but blurred under-exposures on the
THE NEVER-NEVER LAND 25
retina of his brain became all at once elfin pictures,
weird and specter-like as the dissolving views of a
camera obscura.
He and his father had lived alone in Wishing-
House. No one else had possessed the secret.
Not his mother. Not even the more portentous per
son whom he had thought must own the vast hotel
in which they lived (in such respect did she seem
to be held by the servants), who wore crackling
black silk and a big bunch of keys for a sole orna
ment, and who had called him her " lamb." No,
in the Never-Never Land there had been only his
father and he!
Yet they were anything but lonely, for the coun
try was inhabited by good-natured friendly sav
ages, as black as a lump of coal, most of them
with curly white hair. These talked a queer lan
guage, but of course his father and he could under
stand them perfectly. These savages had many
curious and enthralling customs and strange cud
dling songs that made one sleepy, and all these his
father knew by heart. They lived in little square
huts around Wishing-House, made of sticks, and
had dozens and dozens of children who wore no
clothes and liked to dance in the sun and eat cher
ries. They were very useful barbarians, too, for
they chopped the wood and built the fires and made
the horses' coats shine for he and his father
would have scorned to walk, and went galloping
26 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
like the wind everywhere. The forests about were
filled with small brown cats, tremendously furry,
with long whiskers and sharp, beedy black eyes, and
sometimes they would hunt these on horseback; but
they never caught them, because the cats could run
just a little bit faster than the horses.
Christmas time at home was not so very excit
ing, but at Wishing-House what a time they
had ! Then all the savages and their wives and
children received presents, and he and his father
had a dreadfully scary shivery time remembering
them all, because some had so many children they
ran out of names and had to use numbers instead.
So there was always the harrowing fear that one
might inadvertently be left out, and sometimes they
couldn't remember the last one till the very final
minute. After the Christmas turkey, the oldest and
blackest savage of all would come in where his
father and he sat at the table, with a pudding as
big as the gold chariot in the circus, and the pud
ding, by some magic spell, would set itself on fire,
while he carried it round the table, with all the
other savages marching after him. This was the
most awe-inspiring spectacle of all. Christmases at
other places were a long way apart, but they came
as often as they were wanted at Wishing-House,
which, he recalled, was very often indeed.
John Valiant felt an odd beating of the heart
and a tightening of the throat, for he saw another
THE NEVER-NEVER LAND 27
scene, too. It was the one hushed and horrible
night, after the spell had failed and the door had
refused to open for a long time, when dread things
had been happening that he could not understand,
when a big man with gold eye-glasses, who smelled
of some curious sickish-sweet perfume, came and
took him by the hand and led him into a room where
his father lay in bed, very gray and quiet
The white hand on the coverlet had beckoned to
him and he had gone close up to the bed, standing
very straight, his heart beating fast and hard.
" John ! " the word had been almost a whisper,
very tense and anxious, very distinct. " John,
you're a little boy, and father is going away."
" To to Wishing-House ? "
The gray lips had smiled then, ever so little, and
sadly. " No, John."
" Take me with you, father ! Take me with you,
and let us find it ! " His voice had trembled then,
and he had had to gulp hard.
" Listen, John, for what I am saying is very im
portant. You don't know what I mean now, but
sometime you will." The whisper had grown
strained and frayed, but it was still distinct. " I
can't go to the Never-Never Land. But you may
sometime. If you ... if you do, and if you find
Wishing-House, remember that the men who
lived in it ... before you and me . . . were gen
tlemen. Whatever else they were, they were al-
28 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ways that. Be ... like them, John , . . will
you?"
" Yes, father."
The old gentleman with the eye-glasses had come
forward then, hastily.
" Good-night, father "
He had wanted to kiss him, but a strange cool
hush had settled on the room and his father seemed
all at once to have fallen asleep. And he had gone
out, so carefully, on tiptoe, wondering, and sud
denly afraid.
CHAPTER IV
THE TURN OF THE PACE
JOHN VALIANT stirred and laughed, a lit
tle self-consciously, for there had been drops
on his face.
Presently he took a check-book from his pocket
and began to figure on the stub, looking up with
a wry smile. " To come down to brass tacks," he
muttered, " when I've settled everything (thank
heaven, I don't owe my tailor!) there will be a
little matter of twenty-eight hundred odd dollars,
a passe motor and my clothes between me and the
bread-line ! "
Everything else he had disposed of everything
but the four-footed comrade there at his feet. At
his look, the white bulldog sprang up whining and
made joyful pretense of devouring his master's
immaculate boot-laces. Valiant put his hand un
der the eager muzzle, lifted the intelligent head to
his knee and looked into the beseeching amber eyes.
" But I'd not sell you, old chap," he said softly ;
" not a single lick of your friendly pink tongue ; not
for a beastly hundred thousand ! "
He withdrew his caressing hand and looked
29
30 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
again at the check-stub. Twenty-eight hundred!
He laughed bleakly. Why, he had spent more than
that a month ago on a ball at Sherry's ! This morn
ing he had been rich; to-night he was poor! He
had imagined this in the abstract, but now of a
sudden the fact seemed fraught with such a ghastly
and nightmarish ridiculousness as a man might
feel who, going to bed with a full thatch of hair,
confronts the morning mirror to find himself as
bald as a porcelain mandarin.
What could he do? He could not remember a
time when he had not had all that he wanted. He
had never borrowed from a friend or been dunned
by an importunate tradesman. And he had never
tried to earn a dollar in his life; as to current
methods of making a living, he was as ignorant as
a Pueblo Indian.
What did others do? The men he knew who
joked of their poverty and their debts, and whose
hilarious habit it was to picture life as a desperate
handicap in which they were forever " three jumps
ahead of the sheriff ", somehow managed to cling to
their yachts and their stables. Few of his friends
had really gone " smash ", and of these all but one
had taken themselves speedily and decently off. He
thought of Rod Creighton, the one failure who had
clung to the old life, achieving for a transient
period the brilliant success of living on his friends.
When this ended he had gone on the road for some
THE TURN OF THE PAGE 31
champagne or other. Everybody had ordered from
him at the start. But this, too, had failed. He had
dropped out of the clubs and there had at last be
fallen an evil time when he had come to haunt the
avenue, as keen for stray quarters as any pan
handler. Where was Creighton now, he won
dered ?
Across the avenue was Larry Treadwell's
brokerage office. Larry had a brain for business;
as a youthful scamp in knickerbockers he had been
as sharp as a steel-trap. But what did he, John
Valiant, know of business? Less than of law!
Why, he was not fit to smirk behind a counter and
measure lace insertion for the petticoats of the
women he waltzed with! All he was really fit for
was to work with his hands!
He thought of a gang of laborers he had seen
that afternoon breaking the asphalt with crowbars.
What must it be to toil through the clammy cold of
winter and the smothering fur-heat of summer, in
some revolting routine of filth and unredeemable
ugliness? He looked down at his supple white
fingers and shivered.
He rose grimly and dragged his chair facing the
window. The night was balmy and he looked
down across the darker sea of reefs, barred like a
gigantic checker-board by the shining lines of
streets, to where the flashing electric signs of the
theater district laid their wide swath of colored
32 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
radiance. The manifold calls of the street and
the buzz of trolleys made a dull tonal background,
subdued and far-away.
To be outside ! All that light and color and com
fort and pleasure would hum and sparkle on just
the same, though he was no longer within the circle
of its effulgence slaving perhaps, he thought with
a twisted smile, at some tawdry occupation that
called for no experience, to pay for a meal in some
second-rate restaurant and a pallet in some shabby-
genteel, hall bedroom, till his clothes were replaced
by ill-fitting " hand-me-downs " till by wretched
gradations he arrived finally at the status of the
dime seat in the gallery and five-cent cigars !
There was one way back. It lay through the
hackneyed gateway of marriage. Youth, comeli
ness and fine linen, in the world he knew, were a
fair exchange for wealth any day. " Cutlet for
cutlet " the satiric phrase ran through his mind.
Why not? Others did so. And as for himself, it
perhaps need be no question of plain and spinstered
millions there was Katharine Fargo !
He had known her since a time when she be
strode a small fuzzy pony in the park, cool as a
grapefruit and with a critical eye, even in her ten
years, for social forms and observances. In the in
tervals of fashionable boarding-schools he had seen
her develop, beautiful, cold, stately and correct.
The Fargo fortune thanks to modern journalism,
THE TURN OF THE PAGE 33
\vhich was fond of stating that if the steel rails of
the Fargo railways were set end to end, the chain
would reach from the earth to the planet Saturn
or thereabouts was as familiar to the public im
agination as Caruso or the Hope diamond. And
the daughter Katharine had not lacked admirers;
shop-girls knew the scalps that dangled from her
girdle. But in his heart John Valiant was aware,
by those subtle signs which men and women alike
distinguish, that while Katharine Fargo loved first
and foremost only her own wonderful person, he
had been an easy second in her regard.
He remembered the last Christmas house-party
at the Fargos' place on the St. Lawrence. Its hab
itues irreverently dubbed this " The Shack ", but
it w^as the nursling of folk who took their camping
luxuriously, in a palatial structure which, though
built, as to its exterior, of logs, was equipped within
with Turkish bath, billiard-room and the most in
defatigable chef west of St. Petersburg. The
evening before his host's swift motor had hooted
him off to the station, as its wide hall exhaled the
bouquet of after-dinner cigars, he had looked at
her standing in the wide doorway, a rare exquisite
creature her face fore-shortened and touched to
a borrowed tenderness by the flickering glow of
the burning logs in the room behind the perfect
flower, he had thought, of the civilization in which
he lived.
34 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
John Valiant looked down at the bulldog
squatted on the floor, his eyes shining in the dim
ness. A little hot ripple had run over him. " Not
on your life, Chum ! " he said. " No shameless bar
ter! There must be other things besides money
and social position in this doddering old world, after
all!"
The dog whined with delight at the voice and
jumped up to lick the strong tense hand held down
to him. " Do you know, old chap," his master con
tinued, " I've been handing myself a collection of
cold marble truths in the last few weeks? I've
been the prize dolt of the whole show, and you
ought to have thrown me over long ago. You've
probably realized it all along, but it has never
dawned on me until lately. I've worn the blue rib
bon so long I'd come to think it was a decoration.
All my life I've been just another of those well-
meaning, brainless young idiots who have never
done a blessed thing that's the slightest value to
anybody else. Well, Chum, we're through. We're
going to begin doing something for ourselves, if
it's only raising cabbages! And we're going to
stand it without any baby -aching the nurse never
held our noses when we took our castor-oil ! "
It was folded down, that old bright page.
Finis had been written to the rose-colored chapter.
And even as he told himself, he was conscious of a
new rugged something that had been slowly dawn-
THE TURN OF THE PAGE 35
ing within him, a sense of courage, even of zest,
and a furious hatred of the self-pity that had
wrenched him even for a moment.
He turned from the window, picked up his letters,
and followed by the dog, went slowly up another
flight to his room.
* \
CHAPTER V
THE LETTER
HE tore open the letters abstractedly: the
usual dinner-card or two, a tailor's spring an
nouncement, a chronic serial from an exclamatory
marble-quarrying company, a quarterly statement
of a club house-committee. The last two missives
bore a nondescript look.
One was small, with the name of a legal firm
in its corner. The other was largish, corpulent and
heavy, of stout Manila paper, and bore, down one
side, a gaudy procession of postage stamps pro
claiming that it had been registered.
"What's in that, I wonder?" he said to him
self, and then, with a smile at the unmasculine spec
ulation, opened the smaller envelope.
" Dear Sir," began the letter, in the most uncom
promisingly conventional of typewriting:
" Dear Sir:
" Enclosed please find, with title-deed, a memo
randum opened in your name by the late John
Valiant some years before his death. It was his
desire that the services indicated in connection with
this estate should continue till ihis date. We hand
36
THE LETTER 37
you herewith our check for $236.20 (two hundred
and thirty-six dollars and twenty cents), the balance
in your favor, for which please send receipt,
" And oblige,
" Yours very truly,
"(Enclosure) "EMERSON AND BALL."
He turned to the memorandum. It showed a
sizable initial deposit against which was entered
a series of annual tax payments with minor dis
bursements credited to " Inspection and care."
The tax receipts were pinned to the account.
The larger wrapper contained an unsealed envel
ope, across which was written in faded ink and in
an unfamiliar dashing, slanting handwriting, his
own name. The envelope contained a creased yel
low parchment, from between whose folds there
clumped and fluttered down upon the floor a long
flattish object wrapped in a paper, a newspaper clip
ping and a letter.
Puzzledly he unfolded the crackling thing in his
hands. " Why," he said half aloud, " it's it's a
deed made over to me." He overran it swiftly.
" Part of an old Colony grant ... a planta
tion in Virginia, twelve hundred odd acres, given
under the hand of a vice-regal governor in the
sixteenth century. I had no idea titles in the United
States went back so far as that ! " His eye fled
to the end. " It was my father's ! What could he
have wanted of an estate in Virginia? It must
38 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
have come into his hands in the course of busi
ness."
He fairly groaned. " Ye gods ! If it .were only
Long Island, or even Pike County! The sorriest,
out-at-elbow, boulder-ridden, mosquito-stung old
rock- farm there would bring a decent sum. But
Virginia! The place where the dialect stories
grow. The paradise of the Jim-crow car and the
hook-worm, where land-poor, clay-colored colonels
with goatees sit in green wicker lawn-chairs and
watch their shadows go round the house, while
they guzzle mint- juleps and cuss at lazy * cullud
pussons.' Where everybody is an F. F. V. and
everybody's grandfather was a patroon, or what
ever they call 'em, and had a thousand slaves ' be-
foh de wah ' ! "
Who ever heard of Virginia nowadays, except as
a place people came from? The principal event in
the history of the state since the Civil War had
been the discovery of New York. Its men had
moved upon the latter en masse, coming with the
halo about them of old Southern names and legends
of planter hospitality and had married Northern
women, till the announcement in the marriage col
umn that the fathers of bride and bridegroom had
fought in opposing armies at the battle of Manassas
had grown as hackneyed as the stereotyped
"Whither are we drifting?" editorial. Eat was
Virginia herself anything more, in this twentieth
THE LETTER 39
century, than a hot-blooded, high-handed, prodigal
legend, kept alive in the North by the banquets of
" Southern Societies " and annual poems on " The
Lost Cause " ?
He picked up the newspaper clipping. It was
worn and broken in the folds as if it had been car
ried for months in a pocketbook.
" It will interest readers of this section of Vir
ginia (the paragraph began) to learn, from a re
cent transfer received for record at the County
Clerk's Office, that Damory Court has passed to
Mr. John Valiant, minor "
He turned the paper over and found a date ; it had
been printed in the year of the transfer to himself,
when he was six years old the year his father
had died.
" John Valiant, minor, the son of the former
owner.
' There are few indeed who do not recall the
tragedy with which in the public mind the estate
is connected. The fact, moreover, that this old
homestead has been left in its present state (for,
as is well known, the house has remained with all
its contents and furnishings untouched) to rest
during so long a term of years unoccupied, could
not, of course, fail to be commented on, and this
circumstance alone has perhaps tended to keep
alive a melancholy story which may well be for
gotten."
40 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He read the elaborate, rather stilted phraseology
in the twenty-year-old paper with a wondering in
terest. " An old house," he mused, " with a bad
name. Probably he couldn't sell it, and maybe no
body would even live in it. That would explain
why it remained so long unoccupied why there
are no records of rentals. Probably the land was
starved and run down. At any rate, in twenty
years it would be overgrown with stubble."
Yet, whatever their condition, acres of land were,
after all, a tangible thing. This lawyer's firm
might, instead, have sent him a bundle of beauti
fully engraved certificates of stock in some zinc-
mine whose imaginary bottom had dropped out ten
years ago. Here was real property, in size, at least,
a gentleman's domain, on which real taxes had
been paid during a long term a sort of hilarious
consolation prize, hurtling to him out of the void
like the magic gift of the traditional fairy god
mother.
"It's an off-set to the hall-bedroom idea, at any
rate," he said to himself humorously. " It holds
out an escape from the noble army of rent-payers.
When my twenty-eight hundred is gone, I could live
down there a landed proprietor, and by the same
mark an honorary colonel, and raise the cabbages
I was talking about eh, Chum? while you
stalk rabbits. How does that strike you?"
He laughed whimsically. He, John Valiant, of
THE LETTER 41
New York, first-nighter at its theaters, hail-fellow-
well-met in its club corridors and welcome diner at
any one of a hundred brilliant glass-and-silver-
twinkling supper-tables, entombed on the wreck of
a Virginia plantation, a would-be country gentle
man, on an automobile and next to nothing a
year!
He bethought himself of the fallen letter and
possessed himself of it quickly. It lay with the
superscription side down. On it was written, in
the same hand which had addressed the other en
velope :
For my son, John Valiant,
When he reaches the age of twenty-five.
That, then, had been written by his father and
he had died nearly twenty years ago! He broke
the seal with a strange feeling as if, walking in
some familiar thoroughfare, he had stumbled on a
lichened and sunken tombstone.
"When you read this, my son, you will have
come to man's estate. It is curious to think that this
black, black ink may be faded to gray and 'his white,
white paper yellowed, just from lying waiting so
long. But strangest of all is to think that you
yourself whose brown head hardly tops this desk,
will be as tall (I hope) as I! How I wonder what
you will look like then ! And shall I the real,
/eal I, I mean be peering over your strong broad
.shoulder rs you read? Who knows? Wise men
42 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
have dreamed such a thing possible and I am
not a bit wise.
" John, you will not have forgotten that you are
a Valiant. But you are also a Virginian. Will
you have discovered this for yourself? Here is the
deed to the land where I and my father, and his
father, and many, many more Valiants before them
were born. Sometime, perhaps, you will know why
you are John Valiant of New York instead of John
Valiant of Damory Court. I can not tell you my
self, because it is too true a story, and I have for
gotten how to tell any but fairy tales, wh^re
everything happens right, where the Prince mar
ries the beautiful Princess and they live happily to
gether ever after.
" You may never care to live at Damory Court.
Maybe the life you will know so well by the time
you read this will have welded you to itself. If so,
well and good. Then leave the old place to your
son. But there is such a thing as racia 1 habit, and
the call of blood. And I know there is such a thing,
too, as fate. ' Every man carries his fate on a rib
and about his neck ' ; so the Moslem put it. It was
my fate to go away, and I know now since dis
tance is not made by miles alone- that I myself
shall never see Damory Court again. But life is
a strange wheel that goes round and round and
comes back to the same point again and again.
And it may be your fate to go back. Then per
haps you will cry (but, oh, not on the old white
bear's-skin rug never again with me holding your
small, small hand!)
" ' Wishing-House ! Wishing-House ! Where are
you? '
THE LETTER 43
" And this old parchment deed will answer
" ' Here I am, Master ; here I am ! '
*' Ah, we are only children, after all, playing out
our plays. I have had many toys, but O John,
John ! The ones I treasure most are all in the
Never-Never Land ! "
CHAPTER VI
A VALIANT OF VIRGINIA
FOR a long time John Valiant sat motionless,
the opened letter in his hand, staring at noth
ing. He had the sensation, spiritually, of a
traveler awakened with a rude shock amid wholly
unfamiliar surroundings. He had passed through
so many conflicting states of emotion that after
noon and evening that he felt numb.
He was trying to remember to put two and
two together. His father had been Southern-born ;
yes, he had known that. But he had known noth
ing whatever of his father's early days, or of his
forebears ; since he had been old enough to wonder
about such things, he had had no one to ask ques
tions of. There had been no private papers or
letters left for his adult perusal. It had been
borne upon him very early that his father's life had
not been a happy one. He had seldom laughed,
and his hair had been streaked with ^ray, yet when
'he died he had been but ten years older than the
son was now.
Phrases of the letter ran through his mind:
44
A VALIANT OF VIRGINIA 45
"Sometime, perhaps, you will know why you are
John Valiant of New York instead of John Valiant
of Damory Court. ... 7 can . ot tell you myself."
There was some tragedy, then, that had blighted
the place, some " melancholy story," as the clipping
put it.
He bent over the deed spread out upon the table,
following with his finger the long line of transfers :
" ' To John Valyante,' " he muttered ; " what odd
spelling! 'Robert Valyant ' without the ' e.'
Here, in 1730, the 'y' begins io be ' i.' ' There
was something strenuous and appealing in the long
line of dates. " Valiant. Always a Valiant
How they held on to it ! There's never a break."
A curious pride, new-born and self-conscious, was
dawning in him. He was descended from an
cestors who had been no weaklings. A Valiant had
settled on those acres under a royal governor, be
fore the old frontier fighting was over and the In
dians had sullenly retired to the westward. The
sons of those who had braved sea and savages had
bowed their str ng bodies and their stronger hearts
to raze the forests and turn the primeval jungles
into golden plantations. Except as regarded his
father, Valiant had never known ancestral pride be
fore. He had been proud of his strong and healthy
frame, of his ability to ride like a dragoon, un
consciously, perhaps, a little proud of his wealth.
But pride in the larger sense, reverence for the past
46 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
based upon a. respect for ancient lineage, he had
never known until this moment.
Where was his facetious concept of Virginia
now? He remembered his characterization of it
with a wincing half-humorous mortification a
slender needle-prick of shame. The empty preten
sions, subsisting on the vanished glories of the past,
had suddenly acquired character and meaning. He
himself was a Virginian !
There below him stretched the great cafioned
city, its avenues roaring with nightly gaiety, its,
roadways bright with the beams of shuttling mo
tors, its theaters and cafes brilliant with women
in throbbing hues and men in black and white, and
its " Great White Way " blazing with incandescents,
interminable and alluring an apotheosis of
fevered movement and hectic color. He knew sud
denly that he was sick of it all : its jostle and glitter,
its mad race after bubbles, its hideous under-sur-
face contrasts of wealth and squalor, its lukewarm
friendships and fr.lse standards which he had been
so bitterly unlearning. He knew that, for all his
self-pity, he was at heart full of a tired longing for
wide uncrowded nature, for green breezy inter
ludes and a sky of untainted sunlight or peaceful
stars.
There stole into his mood an eery suggestion of
intention. Why should the date assigned for that
deed's delivery have been the very day on which
A VALIANT OF VIRGINIA 47
he had elected poverty? Here was a foreordina-
tion as pointed as the index-finger of a guide-post.
" ' Every man carries his fate/ " he repeated, " ' on
a riband about his neck.' Chum, do you believe in
fate?"
For answer the bulldog, cocking an alert eye on
his master, discontinued his occupation a con
scientious if unsuccessful mastication of the flattish
packet that had fallen from the folded deed and
with much solicitous tail-wagging, brought the sod
den thing in his mouth and put it into the out
stretched hand.
His master unrolled the pulpy wad and extri
cated the object it had enclosed an old-fashioned
iron door-key.
After a time Valiant thrust the key into his
pocket, and rising, went to a trunk that lay against
the wall. Searching in a portfolio, he took out a
small old-fashioned photograph, much battered
and soiled. It had been cut from a larger group
and the name of the photographer had been erased
from the back. He set it upright on the desk, and
bending forward, looked long at the face it dis
closed. It was the only picture he had ever pos
sessed of his father.
He turned and looked into the glass above the
dresser. The features were the same, eyes, brow,
lips, and strong waving hair. But for its time-
48 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
stains the photograph might have been one of him
self, taken yesterday.
For an hour he sat in the bright light thinking,
the pictured face propped on the desk before him,
the dog snuggled against his knee.
THE green, mid -May Virginian afternoon was
arched with ? sky as blue as the tiles of the
Temple of Heaven and steeped in a wash of sun
light as yellow as gold : smoke-hazy peaks piling uj>
in the distance billowy verdure like clumps of trem
bling jade between, shaded with masses of blue-Mack
shadow, and lazying up and down, by gashed ravine
and rounded knoll, a road like red lacquer, fringed
with stone wall and sturdy shrub and splashed ^ere
and there with the purple stain of the Judas-tree
and the snow of dogwood blooms. Nothing in all
the springy landscape but looked warm and opales
cent and inviting except a tawny bull that from
across a barred fence-corner switched a truculent
tail in silence and glowered sullenly at the big motor
halted motionless at the side of the twisting road.
Curled worm-like in the driver's seat, with his
chin on his knees, John Valiant sat with his eyes
upon the distance. For an hour he had whirred
through that wondrous shimmer of color with a
flippant loitering breeze in his face, sweet from the
crimson clover that poured and rioted over the
49
SO THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
roadside: past nests of meditative farm-buildings,
fields of baby-green corn, occasional ramshackle
dirt-daubed cabins with doorways hung with yel-
..ow honeysuckle and flagrant trumpet-vines, and
here and there ~ quiet ola church, Gothic and ivied
and gray, whooe leaded windows watched be-
nignantly over myrtled graveyards. A great sooth
ing suspi ration 01" peace seemed to swell from it all
to lap the traveler like the moist balminess of a
semi-tropical sea.
''' Chum, old man," said Valiant, with his arm
about ihe bulldog's neck, " if those color-photo
graph chaps haa shown us this, we simply wouldn't
have believed it, would we? Such scenery beats
the roads we're used to, what? If it were all like
this- -but of course it isn't. We'll get to our own
bailiwick presently, and wake up. Never mind;
we're country gentlemen, Chummy, en route to our
estate! No silly snuffle, now! Out with it!
That's right," as a sharp bark rewarded him
"that's the proper enthusiasm." He wound his
strong fingers in a choking grip in the scruff of the
white neck, as a chipmunk chattered by on the low
stone wall. " No, you don't, you cannibal ! He's
a jolly little beggar, and he doesn't deserve being
eaten ! "
He filled his brier-wood pipe and drew in great
breaths of the fragrant incense. " What a pity
you don't smoke, Chum ; you miss such a lot ! "
ON THE RED ROAD 51
saw a poodle once in a circus that did. But he'd
been to college. Think how you could think if
you only smoked! We may have to do a lot of
thinking, where we're bound to. Wonder what
we'll find? Oh, that's right, leave it all to me, of
course, and wash your paws of the whole blooming
business ! "
After a time he shook himself and knocked the
red core from the pipe-bowl against his boot-heel.
" I hate to start," he confessed, half to the dog and
half to himself. " To leave anything so sheerly
beautiful as this! However, on with the dance!
By the road map the village can't be far now. So
long, Mr. Bull!"
He clutched the self-starter. But there was only
a protestant wheeze; the car declined to budge.
Climbing down, he cranked vigorously. The motor
turned over with a surly grunt of remonstrance
and after a tentative throb-throb, coughed and
stopped dead. Something was wrong. With a
sigh he flung off his tweed jacket, donned a smudgy
" jumper," opened his tool-box, and, with a glance
at his wrist-watch which told him it was three
o'clock, threw up the monster's hood and went bit
terly to work.
At half past three the investigation had got as
far as the lubricator. At four o'clock the bull
dog had given it up and gone nosing afield. At
half past four John Valiant lay flat on his back
52 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
like some disreputable stevadore, alternately tinker
ing with refractory valves and cursing the obdurate
mechanism. Over his right eye an ooze of orange-
colored oil glowered and glistened and indefatigably
drip-dripped into his shrinking collar. A sharp
stone gnawed frenziedly into the small of his back
and just as he made a final vicious lunge, something
gave way and a prickling red-hot stab of pain shot
zigzagging from his smitten crazy-bone through
every tortured crevice of his impatient frame. Like
steel from flint it struck out a crisp oath that brought
an answering bovine snort from the fence-corner.
Worming like a lizard to freedom, his eyes puck
ered shut with the wretched pang, John Valiant sat
up and shook his grimy fist in the air. " You silly
loafing idiot ! " he cried. " Thump your own crazy-
bone and see how you like it ! You oh, lord 1 "
His arm dropped, and a flush spread over his face
to the brow. For his eyes had opened. He was
gesturing not at the bull but at a girl, who fronted
him beside the road, haughtiness in the very hue of
her gray-blue linen walking suit and, in the clear-
cut cameo face under her felt cavalry hat, myrtle-
blue eyes) that held a smolder of mingled aston
ishment and indignation. The long ragged stems
of two crimson roses were thrust through her belt,
a splash of blood-red against the pallid weave. An
instant he gazed, all the muscles of his face tight
ened with chagrin.
ON THE RED ROAD 53
"I I beg your pardon," he stammered. " I
didn't see you. I really didn't. I was I was
talking to the bull."
The girl had been glancing from the flushed face
to the thistly fence-corner, while the startled dig
nity of her features warred with an unmistakable
tendency to mirth. He could see the little rebellious
twitch of the vivid lips, the tell-tale flutter of the
eyelids, and the tremor of the gauntleted hand as it
drew the hat firmly down over her curling masses
of red-bronze. "What hair!" he was saying to
himself. "It's red, but what a red! It has the
burnish of hot copper ! I never saw such hair ! "
He had struggled to his feet, nursing his bruised
elbow, irritably conscious of his resemblance to an
emerging chimney-sweep. " I don't habitually
swear," he said, " but I'd got to the point when
something had to explode."
" Oh," she said, " don't mind me ! " Then mirth
conquered and she broke forth suddenly into a laugh
that seemed to set the whole place aquiver with a
musical contagion. They both laughed in concert,
while the bull pawed the ground and sent forth a
rumbling bellow of affront and challenge.
She was the first to recover. " You did look so
funny ! " she gasped.
" I can believe it," he agreed, making a vicious
dab at his smudged brow. " The possibilities of a
motor for comedy are simply stupendous."
54 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
She came closer and looked curiously at the
quiescent monster at the steamer-trunk strapped
on the carrier and the bulging portmanteau peep
ing over the side of the tonneau. " Is it broken? "
" Merely on strike, I imagine. I think it re
sents the quality of the gasoline I got at Charlottes-
ville. I can't decide whether it needs a monkey-
wrench or a mustard-plaster. To tell the truth, it
has been out of commission and I'm not much of an
expert, though I can study it out in time. Are we
far from the village? "
" About a mile and a half."
" I'll have to have it towed after me. The im
mediate point is my traps. I wonder if there is
likely to be a team passing."
" I'm afraid it's not too certain," answered the
girl, and now he noted the liquid modulation, with
its slightly questioning accent, charmingly South
ern. " There is no livery, but there is a negro who
meets the train sometimes. I can send him if you
like."
" You're very good," said Valiant, as she turned
away, " and I'll be enormously obliged. Oh and
if you see a white dog, don't be frightened if he
tries to follow you. He's perfectly kind."
She looked back momentarily.
" He he always follows people he likes, you
see"
" Thank you," she said. The tone had now a
ON THE RED ROAD 55
hint small, yet perceptible of aloofness. " I'm
not in the least afraid of dogs." And with a little
nod, she swung briskly on up the Red Road.
John Valiant stood staring after her till she had
passed from view around a curve. " Oh, glory ! "
he muttered. " To begin by shaking your fist at
her and end by making her wonder if you aren't
trying to be fresh! You poor, profane, floundering
dolt!"
After a time he discarded his " jumper " and con
trived a make-shift toilet. " What a type ! " he said
to himself. " Corn-flower eyes and a blowse of cop
pery hair." A fragment of verse ran through his
mind:
" Tawny-flecked, russet-brown, in a tangle of gold,
The billowy sweep of her flame-washed hair,
Like amber lace, laid fold on fold,
Or beaten metal beyond compare."
" Delicacy and strength ! " he muttered, as he
climbed again to the leather seat. " The steel blade
in the silk scabbard. With that face in repose she
might have been a maid of honor of the Stuarts'
time! Yet when she laughed "
The girl walked on up the highway with a lilting
stride, now and then laughing to herself, or run
ning a few steps, occasionally stopping by some
hedge to pull a leaf which she rubbed against her
56
cheek, smelling its keen new scent, or stopping to
gaze out across the orange-green belts of sunny
wind-dimpled fields, one hand pushing back her mu
tinous hair from her brow, the other shielding her
eyes. When she had passed beyond the ken of the
stranded motor, she began to sing a snatch of a
cabin song, her vivid red lips framing themselves
about the absurd words with a humorous exaggera
tion of the soft darky pronunciation. Beneath its
fun her voice held a haunting dreamy quality, as
she sang, sometimes in the blaze of sun, sometimes
with leaf-shadows above her through which the
light spurted down in green-gilt splashes. Once
she stopped suddenly, and crouching down by a
thorn-hedge, whistled a low mellow tentative
pipe and in a moment a brown-flecked covey of
baby partridges rushed out of the grass to dart in
stantly back again. She laughed, and springing up,
threw back her head and began a bird song, her
slender throat pulsing to the shake and reedy trill.
It was marvelously done, from the clear, long open
ing note to the soaring rapture that seemed to bub
ble and break all at once into its final crescendo.
Farther on the highroad looped around a strip
of young forest, and she struck into this for a short
cut. Here the trees stirred faintly in the breeze,
filling the place with leafy rustlings and whisper
ings; yet it was so still that when a saffron-barred
hornet darted through with an intolerant high-
ON THE RED ROAD '57
keyed hum, it made the air for an instant angrily
vocal, and a woodpecker's tattoo at some distance
sounded with startling loudness, like a crackling
series of pistol-shots.
In the depth of this wood she sat down to rest
on the sun-splashed roots of a tree. Leaning back
against the seamed trunk, her felt hat fallen to the
ground, she looked like some sea-woman emerging
from an earth-hued pool to comb her hair against
a dappled rock. The ground was sparsely covered
with gray-blue bushes whose fronds at a little dis
tance blended into a haze till they seemed like bil
lows of smoke suddenly solidified, and here and
there a darting red or yellow flower gave the illu
sion of an under-tongue of flame. Her eyes, pas
sionately eager, peered about her, drinking in each
note of color as her quick ear caught each twig-
fall, each sound of bird and insect.
She drew back against the tree and caught her
breath as a bulldog frisked over a mossy boulder
just in front of her.
A moment more and she had thrown herself on
her knees with both arms outstretched. " Oh, you
splendid creature ! " she cried, " you big, lovely
white darling! "
The dog seemed in no way averse to this sensa
tional proceeding. He responded instantly not
merely with tail-wagging, but with ecstatic grunts
and growls. "Where did you come from?" she
58 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
questioned, as his pink tongue struggled desperately
to find a cheek through the whorl of coppery hair.
" Why, you must be the one I was told not to be
afraid of."
She petted and fondled the smooth intelligent
muzzle. " As if any one could be afraid of you!
We'll set your master right on that point." Smil
ing to herself, she pulled one of the roses from her
belt, and twisting a wisp of long grass, wound it
round and round the dog's neck and thrust the
ragged rose-stem firmly through it. " Now," she
said, and pushed him gently from her, " go back,
sir!"
He whined and licked her hand, but when she
repeated the command, he turned obediently and
left her. A little way from her he halted, with a sud
den perception of mysterious punishment, shrugged,
sat down, and tried to reach the irksome grass-
wisp with his teeth. This failing, he rolled labori
ously in the dirt.
Then he rose, cast a reproachful glance behind
him, and trotted off.
CHAPTER VIII
MAD ANTHONY
BEYOND the selvage of the sleepy leaf-shel
tered village a cherry bordered lane met the
Red Road. On its one side was a clovered pasture
and beyond this an orchard, bounded by a tall hedge
of close-clipped box which separated it from a
broad yard where the gray-weathered roof of
Rosewood showed above a group of tulip and
catalpa trees. Viewed nearer, the low stone house,
with its huge overhanging eaves, would have looked
like a small boy with his father's hat on but for the
trellises of climbing roses that covered two sides
and overflowed here and there on long arbors,
flecking the dull brown stone with a glorious crim
son, like a warrior's blood. On the sunny steps a
lop-eared hound puppy was playing with a mottled
cat.
The front door was open, showing a hall where
stood a grandfather's clock and a spindle-legged
table holding a bowl of potpourri. The timepiece
had landed from a sailing vessel at Jamestown
wharf with the household goods of that English
Garland who had adopted the old Middle Planta-
59
60 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
tion when Dunmore was royal governor under
George III. Framed portraits and engravings lent
tints of tarnished silver, old-rose and sunset-golds
colors time-toned and reminiscent, carrying a
charming sense of peaceful content, of gentleness
and long tradition. The dark polished stairway
had at its turn a square dormer-window which
looked out upon one of the rose-arbors.
Down this stair, somewhat later that afternoon,
came Shirley Dandridge, booted and spurred, the
rebellious whorls of her russet hair now as closely
filleted as a Greek boy's, in a short divided skirt of
yew-green and a cool white blouse and swinging by
its ribbon a green hat whose rolling brim was caught
up at one side by a crisp blue-black hawk's feather.
She stopped to peer out of the dormer-window to
where, under the latticed weave of bloom, beside a
round iron table holding a hoop of embroidery and a
book or two, a lady sat reading.
The lady's hair was silver, but not with age. It
had been so for many years, refuted by the trans
parent skin and a color as soft as the cheek of an
apricot. It was solely in her dark eyes, deep and
strangely luminous, that one might see lurking the
somber spirit of passion and of pain. But they were
eager and brilliant withal, giving the lie to the cane
whose crook one pale delicate hand held with a
clasp that somehow conveyed a sense of exas
perate if semi-humorous rebellion. She wore
MAD ANTHONY 61
nun's gray; soft old lace was at her wrists and
throat, and she was knitting a scarlet silk stocking.
She looked up at Shirley's voice, and smiled
brightly. " Off for your ride, dear? "
" Yes. I'm going with the Chalmers."
" Oh, of course. Betty Page is visiting them,
isn't she?"
Shirley nodded. " SHe came yesterday. I'll
have to hurry, for I saw them from my window
turning into the Red Road." She waved her hand
and ran lightly down the stair and across the lawn
to the orchard.
She pulled a green apple from a bough that hung
over a stone wall and with this in her hand she
came close to the pasture fence and whistled a pe
culiar call. It was answered by a low whinny and
a soft thud of hoofs, and a golden-chestnut hunter
thrust a long nose over the bars, flaring flame-lined
nostrils to the touch of her hand. She laid her
cheek against the white thoroughbred forehead and
held the apple to the eager reaching lip, with sev
eral teasing withdrawings before she gave it to its
juicy crunching.
" No, Selim," she said as the wide nostrils snuf
fled over her shoulder, the begging breath blowing
warm against her neck. " No more and no sugar
to-day. Sugar has gone up two cents a pound."
She let down the top bar of the fence and vaulting
over, ran to a stable and presently emerging with
62 THE VALIANTS OF, VIRGINIA
a saddle on her arm, whistled the horse to her and
saddled him. Then opening the gate, she mounted
and cantered down the lane to meet the oncoming
riders a kindly- faced, middle-aged man, a
younger one with dark features and coal-black hair,
and two girls.
Chisholm Lusk spurred in advance and lifted his
hat. " I held up the judge, Shirley," he said, " and
made him bring me along. He tells me there's a
fox-hunt on to-morrow ; may I come ? "
" Pshaw ! Chilly," said the judge. " I don't be
lieve you ever got up at five o'clock in your born
days. You've learned bad habits abroad."
" You'll see," he answered. "If my man Fri
day doesn't rout me out to-morrow, I'll be up for
murder."
They rode an hour, along stretches of sunny high
ways or on shaded bridle-paths where the horses'
hoofs fell muffled in brown pine-needles and droop
ing branches flicked their faces. Then, by a murky
way gouged with brusk gullies, across shelving
fields and " turn-rows " in a long detbur around
Powhattan Mountain, a rough spur in the shape of
an Indian's head that wedged itself forbiddingly
between the fields of springing corn and tobacco.
They approached the Red Road again by a crazy
bridge whose adze-hewn flooring was held in place
by wild grape-vines and weighted down against
cloudburst and freshet by heavy boulders till it
MAD ANTHONY 63
dipped its middle like an overloaded buckboard
in the yellow waters of the sluggish stream beneath.
On the farther side they pulled down to breathe
their horses. Here the road was like a narrow
ruler dividing a desert from a promised land.
On one hand a guttered slope of marl and pebbles
covered with a tatterdemalion forest on the other
acre upon acre of burnished grain.
" Ah never saw such a f rowsley-looking thing in
mah life," said Betty Page, in her soft South Caro
linian drawl that was all vowels and liquids, " as
that wild hill beside those fields. For all the world
like a disgraceful tramp leering across the wall at a
dandy."
Shirley applauded the simile, and the judge said,
" This is a boundary. That hobo-landscape is part
of the deserted Valiant estate. The hill hides the
house."
She nodded. " Damory Court. It's still vacant,
Ah suppose."
" Yes, and likely to be. Valiant is dead long ago,
but apparently there's never been any attempt to
let it. I suppose his son is so rich that one estate
more or less doesn't figure much to him."
" I got a letter this morning from Dorothy Ran
dolph," said Shirley. " The Valiant Corporation is
being investigated, you know, and her uncle had
taken her to one of the hearings, when John Valiant
was in the chair. From her description, they are
64 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
making it sufficiently hot for that silver-spooned
young man."
" I don't reckon he cares," said Lusk satirically.
" Nothing matters with his set if you have enough
money."
The judge pointed with his crop. "That nar
row wagon-track," he said, " goes to Hell's-Half-
Acre."
" Oh, yes," said Betty. " That's that weird set
tlement on the Dome where Shirley's little protegee
Rickey Snyder came from." It was all she said,
but her glance at the girl beside her was one of
open admiration. For, as all in the party knew,
the lonely road had been connected with an act of
sheer impulsive daring in Shirley's girlhood that she
would never hear spoken of.
Judge Chalmers flicked his horse's ears gently
with his rein and they moved slowly on, presently
coming in sight of a humble patch of ground, en
closed in a worm-fence and holding a white
washed cabin with a well shaded by varicolored
hollyhocks. Under the eaves clambered a gourd-
vine, beneath which dangled strings of onions and
bright red peppers. " Do let us get a drink! " said
Chilly Lusk. " I'm as thirsty as a cotton-batting
camel."
" All right, we'll stop," agreed the judge, " and
you'll have a chance to see another local lion, Betty.
This is where Mad Anthony lives. You must
MAD ANTHONY 65
have heard of him when you were here before.
He's almost as celebrated as the Reverend John Jas
per of Richmond."
Betty tapped her temple. " Where have Ah
heard of John Jasper? "
" He was the author of the famous sermon on
The Sun do Move. He used to prove it by a
bucket of water that he set beside his pulpit Satur
day night. As it hadn't spilled in the morning he
knew it was the earth that stood still."
Betty nodded laughingly. " Ah remember now.
He's the one who said there were only four great
races : the Huguenots, the Hottentots, the Abyssin-
ians and the Virginians. Is Mad Anthony really
mad?"
" Only harmlessly," said Shirley. " He's stone
blind. The negroes all believe he conjures that's
voodoo, you know. They put a lot of stock in his
' prophecisms.' He tells fortunes, too. S-sh ! " she
warned. " He's sitting on the door-step. He's
heard us."
The old negro had the torso of a black patriarch.
He sat bolt upright with long straight arms rest
ing on his knees, and his face had that peculiar
expressionless immobility seen in Egyptian carv
ings. He had slightly turned his head in their di
rection, his brow, under its shock of perfectly white
crinkly hair, twitching with a peculiar expression
of inquiry. His age might have been anything
66 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
judging from his face which was so seamed and
creviced with innumerable tiny wrinkles that it most
resembled the tortured glaze of some ancient bitu
men pottery unearthed from a tomb of Kor. Un
der their heavy lids his sightless eyeballs, whitely
opaque and lusterless, turned mutely toward the
sound of the horse hoofs.
The judge dismounted, and tossing his bridle
over a fence-picket, took from his pocket a col
lapsible drinking cup. " Howdy do, Anthony," he
said. " We just stopped for a drink of your good
water."
The old negro nodded his head. " Good watah,"
he said in the gentle quavering tones of extreme
age. " Yas, Mars'. He'p yo'se'f. Come f'om de
centah ob de yerf, dat watah. En dah's folks say
de centah of de yerf is all fiah. Yo' reck'n dey's
right, Mars' Chahmahs ? "
" Now, how the devil do you know who I am,
Anthony?" The judge set down his cup on the
well-curb. " I haven't been by here for a year."
The ebony head moved slowly from side to side.
" Ol' Ant'ny don' need no eyes," he said, touching
his hand to his brow. " He see ev'ything heah."
The judge beckoned to the others and they
trooped inside the paling. " I've brought some
other folks with me, Anthony ; can you tell who they
are?"
The sightless look wavered over them and the
MAD ANTHONY 67
white head shook slowly. " Don' know young
mars,'," said the gentle voice. " How many yud-
dahs wid yo'? One, two? No, don' know young
mistis, eidah."
" I reckon you don't need any eyes," Judge Chal
mers laughed, as he passed the sweet cold water
to the rest. " One of these young ladies wants you
to tell her fortune."
The old negro dropped his head, waving his gaunt
hands restlessly. Then his gaze lifted and the
whitened eyeballs roved painfully about as if in
search of something elusive. The judge beckoned
to Betty Page, but she shook her head with a little
grimace and drew back.
" You go, Shirley," she whispered, and with a
laughing glance at the others, Shirley came and
sat down on the lowest step.
Mad Anthony put out a wavering hand and
touched the young body. His fingers strayed over
the habit and went up to the curling bronze under
the hat-brim. " Dis de li'l mistis," he muttered,
" ain' afeahd ob ol' Ant'ny. Dah's fiah en she ain'
afeahd, en dah's watah en she ain' afeahd. Wondah
whut Ah gwine tell huh? Whut de coloh ob yo'
haih, honey ? "
" Black," put in Chilly Lusk, with a wink at the
others. " Black as a crow."
Old Anthony's hand fell back to his knee.
" Young mars' laugh at de ol' man," he said, " but
68 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
he don' know. Dat de coloh dat buhn mah ban's
de coloh ob gol', en eyes blue like er cat-bird's aig.
Dah's er man gwine look in dem eyes, honey, en
gwine make 'em cry en cry." He raised his head
sharply, his lids shut tight, and swung his arm to
ward the North. " Dah's whah he come f'om," he
said, " en heah " his arm veered and he pointed
straight toward the ragged hill behind them " he
stay."
Lusk laughed noiselessly. " He's pointing to
Damory Court," he whispered to Nancy Chalmers,
" the only uninhabited place within ten miles.
That's as near as he often hits it, I fancy."
" Heah's whah he stay," repeated the old man.
" Heap ob trouble wait heah fo' him too, honey,
heap ob trouble, heah whah li'l mistis fin' him."
His voice dropped to a monotone, and he began to
rock gently to and fro as if he were' crooning a
lullaby. " Li'l trouble en gr'et trouble ! Fo' dah's
fiah en she ain' afeahd, en dah's watah en she' ain'
afeahd. It's de thing whut eat de ha'at outen de
breas' dat whut she afeahd of ! "
" Come, Anthony," said Judge Chalmers, laying
his hand on the old man's shoulder. " That's much
too mournful ! Give her something nice to top off
with, at least ! "
But Anthony paid no heed, continuing his rock
ing and his muttering. " Gr'et trouble. Dab/s fiah
en she ain' afeahd, en dah's watah en sbe ain'
MAD ANTHONY 69
afeahd. En Ah sees yo' gwine ter him, honey.
Ah heah's de co'ot-house clock a-strikin' in de
night en yo' gwine. Don' wait, don' wait, li'l
mistis, er de trouble-cloud gwine kyah him erway
f'om yo'. . . . When de clock strike thuhteen
when de clock strike thuhteen "
The droning voice ceased. The gaunt form be
came rigid. Then he started and turned his eyes
slowly about him, a vague look of anxiety on his
face. For a moment no one moved. When he
spoke again it was once more in his gentle quaver
ing voice :
" Watah ? Yas, Mars', good watah. He'p yo'-
se'f."
The judge set a dollar bill on the step and
weighted it with a stone, as the rest remounted.
"Well, good-by, Anthony," he said. "We're
mightily obliged."
He sprang into the saddle and the quartette can
tered away. " My experiment wasn't a great suc
cess, I'm afraid, Shirley," he said ruefully.
" Oh, I think it was splendid ! " cried Nancy.
" Do you suppose he really believes those spooky
things? I declare, at the time I almost did myself.
What an odd idea * when the clock strikes thir
teen/ which, of course, it never does."
" Don't mind, Shirley," bantered Lusk. " When
you see all ' dem troubles ' coming, sound the alarm
and we'll fly in a body to your rescue."
70 THE VALIANTS OF. VIRGINIA
They let their horses out for a pounding gallop
which pulled down suddenly at a muffled shriek
from Betty Page, as her horse went into the air at
sight of an automobile by the roadside.
" Now, whose under the canopy is that?" ex
claimed Lusk.
" It's stalled," said Shirley. " I passed here this
afternoon when the owner was trying to start it,
and I sent Unc' Jefferson as first aid to the in
jured."
" I wonder who he can be," said Nancy. " I've
never seen that car before."
" Why," said Betty gaily, " Ah know ! It's Mad
Anthony's trouble-man, of course, come for Shir
ley."
CHAPTER IX
UNCLE JEFFERSON
A RED rose, while ever a thing of beauty, is
not invariably a joy forever. The white
bulldog, as he plodded along the sunny highway,
was sunk in depression. Being trammeled by the
limitations of a canine horizon, he could not under
stand the whims of Adorable Ones met by the way,
who seemed so glad to see him that they threw both
arms about him, and then tied to his neck irksome
colored weeds that prickled and scratched and
would not be dislodged. Lacking a basis of pain
ful comparison, since he had never had a tin can
tied to his tail, he accepted it as condign punishment
and was puzzledly wretched. So it was a chas
tened and shamed Chum who at length wriggled
stealthily into the seat of the stranded automobile
beside his master and thrust a dirty pink nose into
his palm.
John Valiant lifted his hand to stroke the shapely
head, then drew it back with an exclamation. A
thorn had pricked his thumb. He looked down and
saw the draggled flower thrust through the twist
72 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
of grass. " Oh, pup of wonders ! " he exclaimed.
11 Where did you get that rose ? "
Chum sat up and wagged his tail, for his mas
ter's tone, instead of ridicule, held a dawning de
light. Perhaps the thing had not been intended as
a disgrace after all ! As the careful hand drew the
misused blossom tenderly from its tether, he barked
joyously with recovered spirits.
With the first sight of the decoration Valiant had
had a sudden memory of a splotch of vivid red
against the belted gray -blue of a gown. He grinned
appreciatively. " And I warned her," he chuckled.
" Told her not to be afraid ! " He dusted the blos
som painstakingly with his handkerchief and held
it to his face a live brilliant thing, breathing
musk-odors of the mid-moon of paradise.
A long time he sat, while the dog dozed and
yawned on the shiny cushion beside him. Grad
ually the clover-breeze fainted and the lengthening
shadows dipped their fingers into indigo. On the
far amethystine peaks of the Blue Ridge leaned
milky-breasted clouds through which the sun sifted
in wide bars. A blackbird began to flute from some
near-by tree and across the low stone wall he heard
a feathery whir. Of a sudden Chum sat up and
barked in earnest.
Turning his head, his master saw approaching a
dilapidated hack with side-lanterns like great
goggles and decrepit and palsied curtains. It was
UNCLE JEFFERSON 73
drawn by a lean mustard-tinted mule, and on its
front seat sat a colored man of uncertain age, whose
hunched vertebrae and outward-crooked arms gave
him a curious expression of replete and bulbous in
quiry. Abreast of the car he removed a moth-eaten
cap.
" Evenin', suh," he said, " evenin', evenin'."
" Howdy do," returned the other amiably.
" Ah reck'n yo'-all done had er breck-down wid
dat machine-thing dar. Spec' er graveyahd rab
bit done cross yo' pahf. Yo' been hyuh 'bout er
hour, ain' yo' ? "
" Nearer three," said Valiant cheerfully, " but
the view's worth it."
A hoarse titter came from the conveyance, which
gave forth sundry creakings of leather. " Huyh !
Huyh ! Dat's so, suh. Dat's so ! Hm-m. Reck'n
Ah'll be gittin' erlong back." He clucked to the
mule and proceeded to turn the vehicle round.
" Hold on," cried John Valiant. " I thought you
were bound in the other direction."
" No, suh. Ah'm gwine back whah I come
f'om. Ah jus' druv out hyuh 'case Miss Shirley
done met me, en she say, ' Unc' Jeffe'son, yo' go
'treckly out de Red Road, 'case er gemman done got
stalled-ed.' "
" Oh Miss Shirley. She told you, did she ?
What did you say her first name was ? "
"Dat's huh fust name, Miss Shirley. Yas, suh!
74 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Miss Shirley done said f me ter come en git de gem-
man whut whut kinder dawg is yo' got dar ? "
"It's a bulldog. Can you give me a lift? I've
got that small trunk and "
" Dat's a right fine dawg. Miss Shirley she
moghty fond ob dawgs, too."
"Fond of dogs, is she?" said Valiant. "I
might have known it. It was nice of her to send
you here, Uncle Jefferson. You can take me and
my traps, I suppose ? "
" Tens on whah yo' gwineter," answered Uncle
Jefferson sapiently.
" I'm going to Damory Court."
A kind of shocked surprise that was almost stupe
faction spread over the other's face, like oil over
a pool. " Dam'ry Co'ot ! Dat's de old Valiant
place. Am' nobody lives dar. Ah reck'n am' no
body live dar fer mos' er hun'erd yeahs ! "
" The old house has a great surprise coming to
it," said Valiant gravely. " Henceforth some one
is going to occupy it. How far is it away ? "
" Measurin' by de coonskin en th'owin' in de tail,
et's erbout two mile. Ain' gwineter live dar yo'se'f,
suh, is yo' ? "
" I am for the present," was the crisp answer.
Uncle Jefferson stared at him a moment with his
mouth open. Then ejaculating under his breath,
" Fo' de Lawdl Whut folks gwineter say ter dat ! "
UNCLE JEFFERSON 75
iie shambled to the rear of the motor arid began to
unship the steamer-trunk.
" By the way," John Valiant paused, with the
portmanteau in his hands, " what do you ask for
the job?"
The owner of the hack scratched his grizzled
head. " Ah gen'ly chahges er quahtah er trunk
f'um de deepo' les'n et's one ob dem ar rich folks
f'om up Norf."
'' I don't happen to be rich, so we'll make it a
dollar. What makes you think I'm from the
North?"
Again the aguish mirth agitated the other, as he
put aboard a hamper and one of the motor's lamps,
which Valiant added as an afterthought. " Ah
knows et," he said ingenuously, " but Ah don' know
why. Ah'll jes' twis' er rope eroun' yo' trunk.
Whut yo' gwineter do wid dat-ar ? " he asked, point
ing to the car. " Ah kin come wid ole Sukey
dat's mah mule en fotch it in in de mawnin'.
Am' gwineter rain ter-night nohow."
This matter having been arranged, they started
jogging down the green-bordered road, the bulldog
prospecting alongside. A meadow-lark soared
somewhere in the overarching blue, dropping
golden notes; dusty bumble-bees boomed hither and
thither; genial crickets tuned their fiddles in the
" tickle-grass " and a hawking dragon-fly paused
76 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
for an impudent siesta between the mule's gyrating
ears.
" S'pose'n de Co'ot done ben sold en yo' gwineter
fix it up fo' de new ownah," hazarded Uncle Jef
ferson presently.
Valiant did not answer directly. " You say the
place hasn't been occupied for many years," he ob
served. " Did you ever hear why, Uncle Jeffer
son?"
" Ah done heerd/' said the other vaguely, " but
Ah disremembahs. Sump'in dat happened befo' Ah
come heah f'om ol' Post-Oak Plantation. Reck'n
Majah Bristow he know erbout it, er Mis' Judith
dat's Miss Shirley's mothah. Her fathah wus
Gen'l Tawm Dandridge, en he died fo' she wus
bawn."
Shirley Dandridge! A high-sounding name,
with something of long-linked culture, of arrogant
heritage. In some subtle way it seemed to clothe
the personality of which Valiant had had that fleet
ing roadside glimpse.
Uncle Jefferson stared meditatively skyward
whence dropped the bubbling lark song. " Dat-ar
buhd kin sing! " he said. " Queeh dat folkses cyan'
do dat, dey so moughty much smahtah. Nevah
knowed nobody could, dough, cep'n on'y Miss
Shirley. Tain' er buhd nowhah in de fiel's dat she
cyan' mock."
" You mean she knows their -calls ? "
UNCLE JEFFERSON 77
" Yas, suh, ev'y soun'. Done fool me heap er
times. Dah's de cook's li'l boy et Rosewood dat
wuz sick las' summah, en he listen ev'y day ter de
mockin'-buhd dat nes' in one ob de tulip-trees. He
jes' love dat buhd next ter he mammy, en when et
come fall en et don' come no mo', he ha'at mos'
broke. He jes' lay en cry en git right smaht wus-
sur. Et las' seems lak de li'l boy gwine die.
When Mis' Shirley heah dat, she try en try till
she jes' git dat buhd's song ez pat ez de Lawd's
Prayah, en one evenin' she gwine en say ter he mam
my ter tell him he mockin'-buhd done come back, en
he mammy she bundle him all up in de quilt en
open de winder, en sho' nuff, dah's Mistah Mockin'-
buhd behin' de bushes, jes' bus'in' hisse'f. Well,
suh, seems lak dat chile hang on ter living jes' ter
heah dat buhd, en ev'y evenin', way till when de
snow on de groun', Mis' Shirley she hide out in
de trees en sing en sing till de po' li'l feller gwine
ter sleep."
Valiant leaned forward, for Uncle Jefferson had
paused. " Did the child get well ? " he asked
eagerly.
The old man clucked to the leisurely mule.
" Yas, suh! " he said. " He done git well. He
'bout de on'riest young'un roun' heah now !
" Reck'n yo'-all come f 'om New York ? " inquired
Uncle Jefferson, after a little silence. " So! Dey
say dat's er pow'ful big place. But Ah reck'n ol'
78 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Richmon's big ernuf fo' me." He clucked to the
leisurely mule and added, "Ah bin ter Richmon'
onct. Yas, suh! Ah nevah see sech houses mos'
all bigger'n de county co'ot-house."
John Valiant expressed a somewhat absent inter
est. He was looking thoughtfully at the blossom
in his hand, in an absorption through which Uncle
Jefferson's reminiscences oozed on:
" Mos' cur'ousest thing wus how e'vybody dar
seem ter know e'vybody else. Dey got street-kyahs
dar, no hoss en no mule, jes' shoot up de hill en
down ergen, lak de debble skinnin' tan-bahk.
Well, suh, Ah got on er kyah en gib de man whut
stan' on de flatfawm er nickel, en Ah set dar lookin'
outen de win'ow, till de man he call out 'Adams,'
en er gemman whut wah sittin' ercross f'om me,
he git up en git off. De kyah start ergen en de
nex co'nah dat ar man on de flatfawm he yell out
* Monroe.' En Mistah Monroe, he was sittin' up
at de end, en he jump up en git off. Den de kyah
took anuddah staht, en bress mah soul, dat ar man
on de flatfawm he hollah 'Jeffe'son!' Ah clah'
ter goodness, suh, Ah nebbah skeered so bad en
mah life. How dat man know me, suh? Well,
suh, Ah jump up lak Ah be'n shot, en Ah says, * Fo'
de lawd, boss, Ah wa'n't gwineter git off at dis co'
nah, but ef yo' says so, Ah reck'n Ah got ter! ' So
Ah git off en Ah walk erbout fo' miles back ter de
deepo ! "
UNCLE JEFFERSON 79
Uncle Jefferson's inward and volcanic amuse
ment shook his passenger from his reverie. " En
dat ar wa'n't de wust. When Ah got ter de deepo,
Ah didn' have mah pocketbook. Er burglar had
'scaped off wid it en lef me es nickelless ez er con-
vie'."
CHAPTER X
.WHAT HAPPENED THIRTY YEARS AGO
WHEN Shirley came across the lawn at Rose
wood, Major Montague Bristovv sat under
the arbor talking to her mother.
The major was massive-framed, with a strong
jaw and a rubicund complexion the sort that
might be supposed to have attained the utmost bene
fit to be conferred by a consistent indulgence in
mint-juleps. His blue eyes were piercing and
arched with brows like sable rainbows, at variance
with his heavy iron-gray hair and imperial. His
head was leonine and he looked like a king who
has humbled his enemy. It may be added that his
linen was fine and immaculate, his black string-tie
precisely tied and a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses
swung by a flat black cord against his white waist
coat. There was a touch of the military in the
squareness of shoulder and the lift of the rugged
head, no less than in the gallant little bow with
which he rose to greet the girl coming toward them.
" Shirley," said her mother, " the major's bru
tal, and he shan't have his mint-julep."
80
THIRTY YEARS AGO Si
" What has he been doing? " asked the other, her
brows wrinkling in a delightful way she had.
" He has reminded me that I'm growing old."
Shirley looked at the major skeptically, for his
chivalry was undoubted. During a long career in
law and legislature it had been said of him that he
could neither speak on the tariff question nor de
fend a man for murder, without first paying a trib
ute to " the women of the South, sah."
" Nothing of the sort," he rumbled.
Mrs. Dandridge's face softened to wistfulness.
" Shirley, am I ? " she asked, with a quizzical, al
most a droll uneasiness. " Why, I've got every
emotion I've ever had. I read all the new French
novels, and I'm even thinking of going in for the
militant suffragette movement."
The girl had tossed her hat and crop on the table
and seated herself by her mother's chair. Now
reaching down, she drew one of the fragile blue-
veined hands up against her cheek, her bronze hair,
its heavy coil loosened, dropping over one shoulder
like sunlit seaweed. " What was it he said, dear
est?"
" He thinks I ought to wear a worsted shawl
and arctics." Her mother thrust out one little thin-
slippered foot, with its slender ankle gleaming
through its open-work stocking like mother-of-
pearl. " Imagine ! In May. And he knows I'm
vain of my feet! Major, if you had ever had a
82 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
wife, you would have learned wisdom. But you
mean well, and I'll take back what I said about the
julep. You mix it, Shirley. Yours is even bet
ter than Ranston's."
" She makes me one every day, Monty," she con
tinued, as Shirley went into the house. " And
when she isn't looking, I pour it into the bush there.
See those huge, maudlin-looking roses ? That's the
shameless result. It's a new species. I'm going
to name it Tipsium Giganticum."
Major Bristow laughed as he bit the end off a
cigar. " All the same," he said in his big rumbling
voice, " you need 'em, I reckon. You need more
than mint-juleps, too. You leave the whisky to
me and the doctor, and you take Shirley and pull
out for Italy. Why not? A year there would do
you a heap of good."
She shook her head. " No, Monty. It isn't
what you think. It's here." She lifted her
hand and touched her heart. " It's been so for a
long time. But it may it can't go on forever,
you see. Nothing can."
The major had leaned forward in his chair.
" Judith ! " he said, and his hand twitched, " it isn't
true ! " And then, " How do you know ? "
She smiled at him. " You remember when that
big surgeon from Vienna came to see the doctor
last year? Well, the doctor "brought him to me.
I'd known it before in a way, but it had gone far-
THIRTY YEARS AGO 83
ther than I thought. No one can tell just how long
it may be. It may be years, of course, but I'm not
taking any sea trips, Monty."
He cleared his throat and his voice was husky
when he spoke. " Shirley doesn't know ? "
" Certainly not. She mustn't." And then, in
sudden sharpness : " You shan't tell her, Monty.
You wouldn't dare ! "
" No, indeed," he assured her quickly. " Of
course not."
" It's just among us three, Doctor Southall and
you and me. We three have had our secrets be
fore, eh, Monty ? "
" Yes, Judith, we have."
She bent toward him, her hands tightening on
the cane. " After all, it's true. To-day I am get
ting old. I may look only fifty, but I feel sixty
and I'll admit to seventy-five. It's joy that keeps
us young, and I didn't get my fair share of that,
Monty. For just one little week my heart had it
all all and then well, then it was finished.
It was finished long before I married Tom Dan-
dridge. It isn't that I'm empty-headed. It's that
I've been an empty-hearted woman, Monty as
empty and dusty and desolate as the old house over
yonder on the ridge."
" I know, Judith, I know."
' You've been empty in a way, too," she said.
" But it's been a different way. You were never
84
in love really in love, I mean. Certainly not
with me, Monty, though you tried to make me think
so once upon a time, before Sassoon came along,
and Beauty Valiant."
The major blinked, suddenly startled. It was
out, the one name neither had spoken to the other
for thirty years ! He looked at her a little guiltily ;
but her eyes had turned away. They were gazing
between the catalpas to where, far off on a gentle
rise, the stained gable of a roof thrust up dark and
gaunt above its nest of foliage. " Everything
changed then," she continued dreamily, " every
thing."
The major's fingers strayed across his waistcoat,
fumbling uncertainly for his eye-glasses. For an
instant he, too, was back in the long-ago past, when
he and Valiant had been comrades. What a long
panorama unfolded at the name; the times when
they had been boys fly-fishing in the Rapidan and
fox-hunting about Pilot-Knob with the yelping
hounds crisp winters of books and pipes together
at the old university at Charlottesville later ma-
turer years about Damory Court when the trail of
sex had deepened into man's passion and the devil's
rivalry. It had been a curious three-sided affair
he, and Valiant, and Sassoon. Sassoon with his
dissipated flair and ungovernable temper and
strange fits of recklessness; clean, high-idealed,
straight-away Valiant ; and he a Bristow, neither
THIRTY YEARS AGO 85
better nor worse than the rest of his name. He
remembered that mad strained season when he
had grimly recognized his own cause as hopeless,
and with burning eyes had watched Sassoon and
Valiant racing abreast. He remembered that glit
tering prodigal dance when he had come upon
Valiant and Judith standing in the shrubbery, the
candle-light from some open door engoldening their
faces: hers smiling, a little flippant perhaps, and
conscious of her spell; his grave and earnest, yet
wistful.
" You promise, John ? "
" I give my sacred word. Whatever the provo
cation, I will not lift my hand against him. Never,
never ! " Then the same voice, vibrant, appealing.
" Judith ! It isn't because because you care
for him?"
He had plunged away in the darkness before
her answer came. What had it mattered then to
him what she had replied? And that very night
had befallen the fatal quarrel !
The major started. How that name had blown
away the dust ! " That's a long time ago, Judith."
* Think of it ! I wore my hair just as Shirley
does now. It was the same color, with the same
fascinating little lights and whorls in it." She
turned toward him, but he sat rigidly upright, his
gaze avoiding hers. Her dreamy look was gone
now, and her eyes were very bright.
86 THE VALIANTS OF. VIRGINIA
" Thirty years ago to-morrow they fought," she
said softly, " Valiant and Sassoon. Every woman
has her one anniversary, I suppose, and to-mor
row's mine. Do you know what I do, every four
teenth of May, Monty? I keep my room and spend
the day always the same way. There's a little book
I read. And there's an old haircloth trunk that
I've had since I was a girl. Down in the bottom
of it are some things, that I take out and set
round the room . . . and there is a handful of old
letters I go over from first to last. They're almost
worn out now, but I could repeat them all with my
eyes shut. Then, there's a tiny old straw basket
with a yellow wisp in it that once was a bunch of
cape jessamines. I wore them to that last ball
the night before it happened. The fourteenth of
May used to be sad, but now, do you know, I look
forward to it! I always have a lot of jessamines
that particular day I'll have Shirley get me some
to-morrow and in the evening, when I go down
stairs, the house is full of the scent of them. All
summer long it's roses, but on the fourteenth of
May it has to be jessamines. Shirley must think
me a whimsical old woman, but I insist on being
humored."
She was silent a moment, the point of her slender
cane tracing circles in the gravel. " It's a black date
for you too, Monty. 7 know. But men and
THIRTY YEARS AGO 87
women are different. I wonder what takes the
place to a man of a woman's haircloth trunk? "
" I reckon it's a demijohn," he said mirthlessly.
A smile flashed over her face, like sunshine over
a flower, and she looked up at him slowly. " What
bricks men are to each other ! You and the doctor
were John Valiant's closest friends. What did you
two care what people said? Why, women don't
stick to each other like that ! It isn't in petticoats !
It wouldn't do for women to take to dueling,
Monty ; when the affair was over and done, the sec
onds would fall to with their hatpins and jab each
other's eyes out ! "
He smiled, a little bleakly, and cleared his throat.
" Isn't it strange for me to be talking this way
now ! " she said presently. " Another proof that
I'm getting old. But the date brings it very close;
it seems, somehow, closer than ever this year.
Monty, weren't you tremendously surprised when I
married Tom Dandridge ? "
" I certainly was."
" I'll tell you a secret. I was, too. I suppose I
did it because of a sneaking feeling that some peo
ple were feeling sorry for me, which I never could
stand. Well, he was a man any one might honor.
I've always thought a woman ought to have two
husbands: one to love and cherish, and the other
to honor and obey. I had the latter, at any rate."
88 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" And you've lived, Judith/' he said.
" Yes," she agreed, with a little sigh, " I've lived.
I've had Shirley, and she's twenty and adorable.
Some of my emotions creak a bit in the hinges, but
I've enjoyed things. A woman is cat enough not
to be wholly miserable if she can sit in the sun and
purr. And I've had people enough, and books to
read, and plenty of pretty things to look at, and
old lace to wear, and I've kept my figure and my
vanity I'm not too old yet to thank the Lord for
that! So don't talk to me about worsted shawls
and horrible arctics. For I won't wear 'em. Not
if I know myself! Here comes Shirley. She's
made two juleps, and if you're a gentleman, you'll
distract her attention till I've got rid of mine in
my usual way."
The major, at the foot of the cherry-bordered
lane, looked back across the box-hedge to where
the two figures sat under the rose-arbor, the
mother's face turned lovingly down to Shirley's at
her knee. He stood a moment watching them from
under his slouched hat-brim.
" You never looked at me that way, Judith, did
you ! " he sighed to himself. " It's been a long
time, too, since I began to want you to 'most forty
years. When it came to the show-down, I wasn't
even as fit as Tom Dandridge ! "
He pulled his hat down farther over his big brow
THIRTY YEARS AGO 89
and sighed again as he strode on. " You just
couldn't make yourself care, could you! People
can't, maybe. And I reckon you were right about
it. I wasn't fit."
CHAPTER XI
DAMORY COURT
** "INVAR'S Dam'ry Co'ot smack-dab ahaid, suh."
1 J John Valiant looked up. Facing them
at an elbow of the broad road, was an old gateway
of time-nicked stone, clasping an iron gate that was
quaint and heavy and red with rust. Over it on
either side twin sugar-trees flung their untrammeled
strength, and from it, leading up a gentle declivity,
ran a curving avenue of oaks. He put out his
hand.
" Wait a moment," he said in a low voice, and
as the creaking conveyance stopped, he turned and
looked about him.
Facing the entrance the land fell away sharply
to a miniature valley through which rambled a wil
low-bordered brook, in whose shallows short-horned
cows stood lazily. Beyond, alternating with fields
of young grain and verdured pastures like crushed
velvet, rose a succession of tranquil slopes crowned
with trees that here and there grouped about a white
colonial dwelling, with its outbuildings behind it.
Beyond, whither wound the Red Road, he could
see a drowsy village, with a spire and a cupolaed
90
DAMORY COURT 91
court-house; and farther yet a yellow gorge
with a wisp of white smoke curling above it
marke4 the course of a crawling far-away railway.
Over all the dimming yellow sunshine, and girdling
the farther horizon, in masses of purplish blue r the
tumbled battlements of the Blue Ridge.
His conductor had laboriously descended am
now the complaining gates swung open. Before
them, as they toiled up the long ascent, the neg
lected driveway was a riot of turbulent growth:
thistle, white-belled burdock, ragweed and dusty
mullein stood waist high.
" Et's er moughty fine ol' place, suh, wid dat big
revenue ob trees," said Uncle Jefferson. " But Ah
reck'n et ain' got none ob de modern connivances."
But Valiant did not answer ; his gaze was straight
before him, fixed on the noble old house they were
approaching. Its wide and columned front peered
between huge rugged oaks and slender silver pop
lars which cast cool long shadows across an un
kempt lawn laden with ragged mock-orange, lilac
and syringa bushes, its stately grandeur dimmed
but not destroyed by the shameful stains of the
neglected years.
As he jumped down he was possessed by an odd
sensation of old acquaintance as if he had seen
those tall white columns before an illusory half-
vision into some shadowy, fourth-dimensional land
scape that belonged to his subconscious self, or
92 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
that, glimpsed in some immaterial dream-picture,
had left a faint-etched memory. Then, on a sud
den, the vista vibrated and widened, the white col
umns expanded and shot up into the clouds, and
from every bush seemed to peer a friendly black
savage with woolly white hair !
" Wishing-House ! " he whispered. He looked
about him, half expecting so vivid was the il
lusion to see a circle of rough huts under the
trees and a multitude of ebony imps dancing in the
sunshine. So Virginia had been that secret Never-
Never Land, the wondrous fairy demesne of his
childhood, with its amiable barbarians and its thick
ets of coursing grimalkins! The hidden country
which his father's thoughts, sadly recurring, had
painted to the little child that once he was, in
the guise of an endless wonder-tale! His eyes
misted over, and it seemed to him that moment that
his father was very near.
Leaving the negro to unload his belongings, he
traversed an overgrown path of mossed gravel, be
tween box-rows frowsled like the manes of lions
gone mad and smothered in an accumulation of
matted roots and debris of rotting foliage, and
presently, the bulldog at his heels, found himself in
the rear of the house.
The building, with kitchen, stables and negro
quarters behind it, had been set on the boss of
DAMORY COURT 93
the wooded knoll. Along half its side ran a wide
porch that had once been glass-enclosed, now with
panes gone and broken and putty-crumbling sashes.
Below it lay the piteous remnants of a formal gar
den, grouped about an oval pool from whose center
reared the slender yellowed shaft of a fountain
in whose shallow cup a robin was taking its rain
water bath. The pool was dry, the tiles that had
formed its floor were prized apart with weeds;
ribald wild grape-vines ran amuck hither and
thither; and over all was a drenching-sweet scent
of trailing honeysuckle.
Threading his way among the dank undergrowth
of the desolate wilderness, following the sound of
running water, he came suddenly to a little lake fed
from unseen pipes, that spread its lily-padded
surface coolly and invitingly under a clump of
elms. Beside it stood a spring-house with a sadly
sagging roof. With a dead branch he probed the
water's depth. '' Ten feet and a pebble bottom,"
he said. The lake's overflow poured in a musical
cascade down between fern-covered rocks, to join,
far below, the stream he had seen from the gate
way. Beyond this the ground rose again to a hill,
densely forested and flanked by runnelled slopes of
poverty-stricken broom-sedge as stark and sear as
the bad-lands of an alkali desert. As he gazed,
a bird bubbled into a wild song from the grape-
94 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
vine tangle behind him, and almost at his feet a
rabbit scudded blithely out of the weeds and darted
back.
"Mine!" he said aloud with a rueful pride.
" And for general run-downness, it's up to the ad
vertisement." He looked musingly at the piteous
wreck and ruin, his gaze sweeping down across the
bared fields and unkempt forest. " Mine ! " he re
peated. " All that, I suppose, for it has the same
earmarks of neglect. Between those cultivated
stretches it looks like a wedge of Sahara gone
astray." His gaze returned to the house. " Yet
what a place it must have been in its time ! " It
had not sprung into being at the whim of any one
man; it had grown mellowly and deliberately, ex
pressing the multiform life and culture of a stock.
Generation after generation, father and son, had
lived there and loved it, and, ministering to all, it
had given to each of itself. The wild weird beauty
was infecting him and the pathos of the desolation
caught at his heart. He went slowly back to where
his conductor sat on the lichened horse-block.
"We's heah," called Uncle Jefferson cheerfully.
" Whut we gwineter do nex', suh ? Reck'n Ah bet-
tah go ovah ter Miss Dandridge's place fer er crow-
bah. Lawd!" he added, " ef he am' got de key!
Whut yo' think ob dat now ? "
John Valiant was looking closely at the big key ;
for there were words, which he had not noted be-
DAMORY COURT 95
fore, engraved in the massive flange: Friends all
hours. He smiled. The sentiment sent a warm
current of pleasure to his finger-tips. Here was
the very text of hospitality!
A Lilliputian spider-web was stretched over the
preempted keyhole, and he fetched a grass-stem
and poked out its tiny gray-striped denizen before
he inserted the key in the rusted lock. He turned
it with a curious sense of timidity. All the strength
of his fingers was necessary before the massive
door swung open and the leveling sun sent its late
red rays into the gloomy interior.
He stood in a spacious hall, his nostrils filled
with a curious but not unpleasant aromatic odor
with which the place was strongly impregnated.
The hall ran the full length of the building, and in
its center a wide, balustraded double staircase led
to upper darkness. The floor, where his footprints
had disturbed the even gray film of dust, was of
fine close parquetry and had been generously
strewn everywhere with a mica-like powder. He
stooped and took up a pinch in his fingers, noting
that it gave forth the curious spicy scent. Dim
paintings in tarnished frames hung on the walls.
From a niche on the break of the stairway looked
down the round face of a tall Dutch clock, and on
one side protruded a huge bulging something
draped with a yellowed linen sheet. From its shape
he guessed this to be an elk's head. Dust, undis-
96
turbed, lay thickly on everything, ghostly floating
cobwebs crawled across his face, and a bat flitted
out of a fireplace and vanished squeaking over his
head. With Uncle Jefferson's help he opened the
rear doors and windows, knocked up the rusted belts
of the shutters and flung them wide.
But for the dust and cobwebs and the strange
odor, mingled with the faint musty smell that per
vades a sunless interior, the former owner of the
house might have deserted it a week ago. On a
wall-rack lay two walking-sticks and a gold-mounted
hunting-crop, and on a great carved chest below
it had been flung an opened book bound in tooled
leather. John Valiant picked this up curiously.
It was Lucile, He noted that here and there
passages were marked with penciled lines some
light and femininely delicate, some heavier, as
though two had been reading it together, noting
their individual preferences.
He laid it back musingly, and opening a door,
entered the large room it disclosed. This had been
the dining-room. The walls were white, in alter
nate panels with small oval mirrors whose dust-
covered surfaces looked like ground steel. At one
end stood a crystal-knobbed mahogany sideboard,
holding glass candlesticks in the shape of Ionic
columns above it a quaint portrait of a lady in
hoops and love-curls and at the other end was a
DAMORY COURT 97
huge fireplace with rust-red fire-dogs and tarnished
brass fender. All these, with the round centipede
table and the Chippendale chairs set in order against
the walls, were dimmed and grayed with a thick
powdering of dust.
The next room that he entered was big and
wide, a place of dark colors, nobly smutched of
time. It had been at once library and living-room.
Glass-faced book-shelves ran along one side well-
stocked, as the dusty panes showed and a huge
pigeonholed desk glowered in the big bow-win
dow that opened on to what had been the garden.
On the wall hung an old map of Virginia. At one
side the dark wainscoting yawned to a cavernous
fireplace and inglenook with seats in black leather.
By it stood a great square tapestry screen, showing
a hunting scene, set in a heavy frame. A great
leather settee was drawn near the desk and beside
this stood a reading-stand with a small china dog
and a squat bronze lamp upon it. In contrast to
the orderly dining-room there was about this
chamber a sense of untouched disorder a desk-
drawer jerked half-open, a yellowed newspaper torn
across and flung into a corner, books tossed on
desk and lounge, and in the fireplace a little heap
of whitened ashes in which charred fragments told
of letters and papers burned in haste. A bottle
that had once held brandy and a grimy goblet stood
98 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
on the desk, and in a metal ash-tray on the read
ing-stand lay a half -smoked cigar that crumbled to
dust in the intruder's fingers.
One by one Valiant forced open the tall French
windows, till the fading light lay softly over the
austere dignity of the apartment. In that somber
room, he knew, had had place whatever was most
worthy in the lives of his forebears. The thought
of generation upon generation had steeped it in hu
man association.
Suddenly he lifted his eyes. Above the desk
hung a life-size portrait of a man, in the high soft
stock and velvet collar of half a century before.
The right eye, strangely, had been cut from the can
vas. He stood straight and tall, one hand holding
an eager hound in leash, his face proud and florid,
his single, cold, steel-blue eye staring down through
its dusty curtain with a certain malicious arrogance,
and his lips set in a sardonic curve that seemed
about to sneer. It was for an instant as if the pic
tured figure confronted the young man who stood
there, mutely challenging his entrance into that
tomb-like and secret-keeping quiet; and he gazed
back as fixedly, repelled by the craft of the face, yet
subtly attracted. " I wonder who you were," he
said. " You were cruel. Perhaps you were wicked.
But you were strong, too."
He returned to the outer hall to find that the ne-
DAMORY COURT 99
gro had carried in his trunk, and he bade him place
it, with the portmanteau, in the room he had just
left. Dusk was falling. The air was full of a
faint far chirr of night insects, like an elfin sere
nade, and here and there among the trees pulsed
the greenish-yellow spark of a firefly.
" Uncle Jefferson," said Valiant abruptly, " have
you a family ? "
" No, suh. Jes' me en mah ol' 'ooman."
" Can she cook ? "
" Cook ! " The genial titter again captured his
dusky escort. " When she got de ftxens, Ah reck'n
she de beaten'es cook in dis heah county."
" How much do you earn, driving that hack? "
Uncle Jefferson ruminated. " Well, suh, 'pens
on de weddah. Mighty lucky sometimes dis yeah
cf Ah kin pay de groc'ry man."
" How would you both like to live here with me
for a while? She could cook and you could take
care of me."
Uncle Jefferson's eyes seemed to turn inward
with mingled surprise and introspection. He
shifted from one foot to the other, swallowed diffi
cultly several times, and said, " Ah ain' nebbah seed
yo' befo', suh."
" Well, I haven't seen you either, have I ? "
" Dat's de truf e, suh, 'deed et is ! Hyuh, hyuh !
Whut Ah means ter say is dat de ol' 'ooman kain'
cook no fancy didoes like what dey eats up Norf.
She kin jes' cook de Ferginey style."
" That sounds good to me," quoth Valiant. " I'll
risk it. Now as to wages "
"Ah ain' specticulous as ter de wages," said
Uncle Jefferson. " Ah knows er gemman when Ah
sees one. 'Sides, ter-day's Friday en et's baid luck.
Ah sho' is troubled in mah min' wheddah we-all
kin suit yo' perpensities, but Ah reck'n we kin take
er try ef yo' kin."
" Then it's a bargain," responded Valiant with
alacrity. "Can you come at once?"
" Yas, suh, me en Daph gwineter come ovah fus'
thing in de mawnin'. Whut yo'-all gwineter do f o'
yo' suppah? "
" I'll get along," Valiant assured him cheerfully.
" Here is five dollars. You can buy some food and
things to cook with, and bring them with you. Do
you think there's a stove in the kitchen ? "
" Ah reck'n," replied Uncle Jefferson. " En ef
dar ain' Daph kin cook er Chris'mus dinnah wid fo'
stones en er tin skillet. Yas, suh!"
He trudged away into the shadows, but presently,
as the new master of Damory Court stood in the
gloomy hall, he heard the shambling step again be
hind him. " Ah done neglectuated ter ax yo' name,
suh. Ah did, fo' er fac'."
" My name is Valiant. John Valiant."
Uncle Jefferson's eyes turned upward and rolled
DAMORY COURT 101
out of orbit. " Mah Lawd ! " he ejaculated sound
lessly. And with his wide lips still framed about
the last word, he backed out of the doorway and
disappeared.
CHAPTER XII
THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER
ALONE in the ebbing twilight, John Valiant
found his hamper, spread a napkin on the
broad stone steps and took out a glass, a spoon and
part of a loaf of bread. The thermos flask was
filled with milk. It was not a splendid banquet, yet
he ate it with as great content as the bulldog at his
feet gnawed his share of the crust. He broke his
bread into the milk as he had not done since he was
a child, and ate the luscious pulp with a keen relish
bred of the long outdoor day. When the last drop
was gone he brushed up the very crumbs from the
cloth, laughing to himself as he did so. It had
been a long time since he remembered being so
hungry !
It was almost dark when the meal was done and,
depleted hamper in hand, he reentered the empty
echoing house. He went into the library, lighted
the great brass lamp from the motor and began to
rummage. The drawers of the dining-room side
board yielded nothing; on a shelf of the butler's
pantry, however, was a tin box which proved to be
half full of wax candles, perfectly preserved.
1 02
THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER 103
' The very thing! " he said triumphantly. Car
rying them back, he fixed several in the glass-
candlesticks and set them, lighted, all about the
somber room till the soft glow flooded its every
corner. " There," he said, " that is as it should be.
No big blatant search-light here! And no glare of
modern electricity would suit that old wainscoting,
either." He looked up at the painting on the wall ;
it seemed as if the sneer had smoothed out, the
hard cruel eye softened. " You needn't be afraid,"
he said, nodding. " I understand."
He dragged the leather settee to the porch and
by the light of the motor-lamp dusted it thoroughly,
and wheeling it back, set it under the portrait. He
washed the glass from which he had dined and
filled it at the cup of the garden fountain, put into
it the rose from his hat and set it on the reading-
stand. The small china dog caught his eye and he
picked it up casually. The head came off in his
hands. It had been a bon-bon box and was empty
save for a narrow strip of yellowed paper, on which
were written some meaningless figures: 17-28-94-0.
He pondered this a moment, then thrust it into one
of the empty pigeonholes of the desk. On the
latter stood an old-fashioned leaf-calendar; the
date it exposed was May I4th. Curiously enough
the same date would recur to-morrow. The page
bore a quotation : " Every man carries his fate on
a riband about his neck." The line had been
104 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
quoted in his father's letter. May I4th! how
much that date and that motto may have meant for
him!
He put the calendar back, filled his pipe and sat
down facing the open bow-window. The dark was
mysteriously lifting, the air filling with a soft
silver-gray translucence that touched the wild
growth as with a fairy gossamer. Presently, from
between the still elms, the new sickle moon climbed
into view. From the garden came a plaintive bird-
cry, long-drawn and wavering and then, from
farther away, the triple mellow whistle of a whip-
poorwill.
The place was alive now with bird-notes, and he
listened with a new delight. He thought suddenly,
with a kind of impatient wonder, that never in his
life had he sat perfectly alone in a solitude and
listened to the voices of the night. The only out-
of-doors he knew had been comprised in motor-
whirls on frequented highroads, seashore, or
mountain months where bridge and dancing were
forever on the cards, or else such up-to-date " camp
ing " as was indulged in at the Fargos' " shack " on
the St. Lawrence. He sat now with his senses
alert to a new world that his sophisticated eye and
ear had never known. Something new was enter
ing into him that seemed the spirit of the place;
the blessing of the tall silver poplars outside, the
THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER 105
musical scented gardens and the moonlight laid like
a placid benediction over all.
He rose to push the shutter wider and in the
movement his elbow sent a shallow case of morocco
leather that had lain on the desk crashing to the floor.
It opened and a heavy metallic object rolled almost
to his feet. He saw at a glance that it was an old-
fashioned rusted dueling-pistol.
The box had originally held two pistols. He
shuddered as he stooped to pick up the weapon, and
with the crawling repugnance mingled a panging
anger and humiliation. From his very babyhood it
had always been so that unconquerable aversion
to the touch of a firearm. There had been mo
ments in his youth when this unreasoning shrinking
had filled him with a blind fury, had driven him to
strange self-tests of courage. He had never been
able to overcome it. He had always had a natural
distaste for the taking of life ; hunting was an un
thinkable sport to him, and he regarded the lusty
pursuit of small feathered or furry things for
pleasure with a mingled wonder and contempt. But
analyzation had told him that his peculiar abhor
rence was no mere outgrowth of this. It lay far
deeper. He had rarely, of recent years, met the
test. Now, as he stood in these unaccustomed sur
roundings, with the cold touch of the metal the old
shuddering held him, and the sweat broke in beads
106 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
on his forehead. Setting his teeth hard, he crossed
the room, slipped the box with its pistol between
the volumes of the bookcase, and returned to his
seat.
The bulldog, aroused from a nap, thrust a warm
muzzle between his knees. " It's uncanny, Chum ! "
he said, as his hand caressed the velvety head.
" Why should the touch of that fool thing chill my
spine and make my flesh tiptoe over my bones?
Is it a mere peculiarity of temperament? Some
men hate cats'-eyes. Some can't abide sitting on
plush. I knew a chap once who couldn't see milk
poured from a pitcher without getting goose-flesh.
People are born that way, but there must be a
cause. Why should I hate a pistol? Do you sup
pose I was shot in one of my previous existences? "
For a long while he sat there, his pipe dead, his
eyes on the moonlighted out-of-doors. The eery
feeling that had gripped him had gone as quickly as
it had come. At last he rose, stretching himself
with a great boyish yawn, put out all save one of
the candles and taking a bath-robe, sandals and a
huge fuzzy towel from the steamer-trunk, stripped
leisurely. He donned the bath-robe and sandals
and went out through the window to the garden and
down to where lay the little lake ruffling silverly
under the moon. On its brink he stopped, and toss
ing back his head, tried to imitate one of the bird
calls but was unsuccessful. With a rueful laugh
THE CASE OF MOROCCO LEATHER 107
he threw off the bath-robe and stood an instant
glistening, poised in the moonlight like a marble
faun, before he dove, straight down out of sight.
Five minutes later he pulled himself up over the
edge, his flesh tingling with the chill of the water,
and drew the robe about his cool white shoulders.
Then he thrust his feet into his sandals and sped
quickly back. He rubbed himself to a glow, and
blowing out the remaining candle, stretched him
self luxuriously between the warm blankets on the
couch. The dog sniffed inquiringly at his hand,
then leaped up and snuggled down close to his feet.
The soft flooding moonlight sent its radiance into
the gloomy room, touching lovingly its dark carven
furniture and bringing into sharp relief the lithe
contour of the figure under the fleecy coverlid, the
crisp damp hair, the expressive face, and the wide-
open dreamy eyes.
John Valiant's thoughts had fled a thousand miles
away, to the tall girl who all his life had seemed to
stand out from his world, aloof and unsurpassed
Katharine Fargo. He tried to picture her, a per
fect chatelaine, graceful and gracious as a tall,
white, splendid lily, in this dead house that seemed
still to throb with living passions. But the picture
subtly eluded him and he stirred uneasily under the
blanket.
After a time his hand stretched out to the read
ing-stand and drew tfie glass with its vivid blossom
io8 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
nearer, till, in his nostrils, its musky odor mingled
with the dew- wet scent of the honeysuckle from the
garden. At last his eyes closed. " Every man car
ries his fate ... on a riband about his neck,"
he muttered drowsily, and then, " Roses . . . red
roses . . ."
And so he fell asleep.
CHAPTER XIII
THE HUNT
HE awoke to a musical twittering and chirping 1 ,
to find the sun pouring into the dusty room
in a very glory. He rolled from the blanket and
stood upright, filling his lungs with a long deep
breath of satisfaction. He felt singularly light-
hearted and alive. The bulldog came bounding
through the window, dirty from the weeds, and
flung himself upon his master in a canine rapture.
" Get out ! " quoth the latter, laughing. " Stop
licking my feet ! How the dickens do you suppose
I'm to get into my clothes with your ridiculous
antics going on ? Down, I say ! "
He began to dress rapidly. " Listen to those
birds, Chum ! " he said. " There's an ornithological
political convention going on out there. Wish I
knew what they were chinning about they're so
mightily in earnest. See them splashing in that
fountain? If you had any self-respect you'd be
taking a bath yourself. You need it! Hark!"
He broke off and listened. " Who's that singing? "
The sound drew nearer a lugubrious chant,
with the weirdest minor reflections, faintly sugges-
109
no THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
tive of the rag-time ditties of the music-halls, yet
with a plaintive cadence :
/
" As he went mowin' roun' de fiel'
Er mocc'son bit him on de heel,
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toodle-link-uh, toodle-link-uh,
Da-a-dee-e-ec.ye !
" Dey kyah'd him in ter his Sally deah.
She say, ' M:ih lawd, yo' looks so queah ! *
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toodle-link-uh, toodle-link-uh,
Da-a-dee-e-e-aye ! "
A smile of genuine delight crossed the listener's
face. "That would make the everlasting fortune
of a music-hall artist," Valiant muttered, as, coat-
less, and with a towel over his arm, he stepped to the
piazza.
" Dey laid him down spang on de groun'.
He-e-e shet-up-his-eyes en looked all aroun',
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toc<ile-link-uh, toodle-link-uh,
Da-a-dee e-e-aye !
" So den he died, giv' up de Ghos'.
To Abrum's buzzum he did pos'
Right toodle-link-uh-day,
Right toodle-link-uh-day "
THE HUNT in
" Good morning, Uncle Jefferson."
The singer broke off his refrain, set down the
twig-broom that he had been wielding and came
toward him. " Mawnin', suh. Mawnm'," he said.
" Hopes yo'-all slep' good. Ah reck'n dem ar birds
woke yo' up ; dey's makin' seh er 'miration."
" Thank you. Never slept better in my life. Am
I laboring under a delusion when I imagine I smell
coffee?"
Just then there came a voice from the open door
of the kitchen: " Calls yo'se'f er man, yo' triflin'
reconstructed niggah! Wen marstah gwineter git
he brekfus' wid' yo' ramshacklin' eroun' wid dat
dawg all dis Gawd's-blessid mawnin'? Go fotch
some mo' fiah-wood dis minute. Yo' heah ? "
A turbaned head poked itself through the door,
with a good-natured leaf -brown face beneath it,
which broadened into a wide smile as its owner
bobbed energetically at Valiant's greeting. " Fo'
de Lawd!" she exclaimed, wiping floury hands on
a gingham apron. " Yo' sho' is up early, but Ah
got yo' brekfus' mos' ready, suh."
" All right, Aunt Daphne. I'll be back directly."
He sped down to the lake to plunge his head into
the cool water and thereby sharpen the edge of an
appetite that needed no honing. From the little
valley through which the stream meandered, rose a
curdled mist, fraying now beneath the warming sun.
ii2 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
The tall tangled grass through which he passed was
beaded with dew like diamonds and hung with a
thousand fairy jeweled webs. The wild honey
suckle was alive with quick whirrings of humming
birds, and he hung his pocket-mirror from a twig
and shaved with a woodsy chorus in his ears.
He came up the trail again to find the reading-
stand transferred to the porch and laid with a white
cloth on which was set a steaming coffee-pot, with
fresh cream, saltless butter and crisp hot biscuit;
and as he sat down, with a sigh of pure delight, in
his dressing-gown a crepy Japanese thing re
deemed from womanishness by the bold green bam
boo of its design Uncle Jefferson planted before
him a generous platter of bacon, eggs and potatoes.
These he attacked with a surprising keenness. As
he buttered his fifth biscuit he looked at the dog,
rolling on his back in morning ecstasy, with a look
of humorous surprise.
" Chum," he said, " what do you think of that?
All my life a single roll and a cup of coffee have
been the most I could ever negotiate for breakfast,
and then it was apt to taste like chips and whet
stones. And now look at this plate ! " The dog
ceased winnowing his ear with a hind foot and
looked back at his master with much the same ex
pression. Clearly his own needs had not been for
gotten.
"Reck'n Ah bettah go ter git dat ar machine
THE HUNT 113
thing," said Uncle Jefferson behind him. " Ol'
'ooman, heah, she 'low ter fix up de kitchen dis
mawnin' en we begin on de house dis evenin'."
"Right-o," said Valiant. "It's all up-hill, so
the motor won't run away with you. Aunt Daphne,
can you get some help with the cleaning? "
" He'p ? " that worthy responded with fine scorn.
"No, suh. Moughty few, in de town 'cep'n low-
down yaller new-issue trash det ain' wu'f killin'!
Ah gwineter go fo' dat house mahse'f 'fo' long,
hammah en tongs, en git it fix' up ! "
" Splendid ! My destiny is in your hands. You
might take the dog with you, Uncle Jefferson; the
run will do him good."
When the latter had disappeared and truculent
sounds from the kitchen indicated that the era of
strenuous cleaning had begun, he reentered the
library, changed the water in the rose-glass and set
it on the edge of the shady front porch, where its
flaunting blossom made a dash of bright crimson
against the grayed weather-beaten brick. This
done, he opened the one large room on the ground-
floor that he had not visited.
It was double the size of the library, a parlor
hung in striped yellow silk vaguely and tenderly
faded, with a tall plate mirror set over a marble-
topped console at either side. In one corner stood a
grand piano of Circassian walnut with keys of tinted
mother-of-pearl and a slender music-rack inlaid with
ii4 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
morning-glories in the same material. From the
center of the ceiling, above an oval table, depended
a great chandelier hung with glass prisms. He
drew his handkerchief across the table; beneath
the disfiguring dust it showed a highly polished
surface inlaid with different colored woods, in
an intricate Italian-like landscape. The legs of
the consoles were bowed, delicately carved, and of
gold-leaf. The chairs and sofas were covered with
dusty slip-covers of muslin. He lifted one of these.
The tarnished gold furniture was Louis XV, the
upholstery of yellow brocade with a pattern of pink
roses. Two Japanese hawthorn vases sat on teak-
wood stands and a corner held a glass cabinet con
taining a collection of small ivories and faience.
His appreciative eye kindled. " What a room ! "
he muttered. "Not a jarring note anywhere!
That's an old Crowe and Christopher piano. I'll
get plenty of music out of that ! You don't see such
chandeliers outside of palaces any more except in
the old French chateaus. It holds a hundred can
dles if it holds one! I never knew before all there
was in that phrase ' the candle-lighted fifties.' I
can imagine what it looked like, with the men in
white stocks and flowered waistcoats and the women
in their crinolines and red-heeled slippers, bowing
to the minuet under that candle-light! I'll bet the
girls bred in this neighborhood won't take much to
the turkey-trot and the bunny-hug!"
THE HUNT 115
He went thoughtfully back to the great hall,
where sat the big chest on which lay the volume of
Lucile. He pushed down the antique wrought-
iron hasp and threw up the lid. It was filled to the
brim with textures : heavy portieres of rose-damask,
table-covers of faded soft-toned tapestry, window-
hangings of dull green all with tobacco-leaves laid
between the folds and sifted thickly over with the
sparkling white powder. At the bottom, rolled in
tarry-smelling paper, he found a half-dozen thin,
Persian prayer-rugs.
" Phew ! " he whistled. " I certainly ought to
be grateful to that law firm that ' inspected ' the
place. Think of the things lying here all these
years! And that powder everywhere! It's done
the work, too, for there's not a sign of moth.
If I'm not careful, I'll stumble over the family
plate it seems to be about the only thing want-
ing."
The mantelpiece, beneath the shrouded elk's
head, was of gray marble in which a crest was
deeply carved. He went close and examined it.
" A sable greyhound, rampant, on a field argent,"
he said. " That's my own crest, I suppose."
There touched him again the same eery sensation
of acquaintance that had possessed him with his
first sight of the house-front. " Somehow it's
familiar," he muttered ; " where have I seen it be
fore?"
n6 THE VALIANTS OF. VIRGINIA
He thought a moment, then went quickly into
the library and began to ransack the trunk. At
length he found a small box containing keepsakes
of various kinds. He poured the medley on to the
table an uncut moonstone, an amethyst-topped
pencil that one of his tutors had given him as a
boy, a tiger's claw, a compass and what-not. Among
them was a man's seal-ring with a crest cut in a
cornelian. He looked at it closely. It was the
same device.
The ring had been his father's. Just when or
how it had come into his possession he could never
remember. It had lain among these keepsakes so
many years that he had almost forgotten its ex
istence. He had never worn a ring, but now, as he
went back to the hall, he slipped it on his finger.
The motto below the crest was worn away, but it
showed clear in the marble of the hall-mantel: /
clinge.
His eyes turned from the carven words and
strayed to the pleasant sunny foliage outside. An
arrogant boast, perhaps, yet in the event well justi
fied. Valiants had held that selfsame slope when
the encircling forests had rung with war-whoop and
blazed with torture-fire. They had held on through
Revolution and Civil War. Good and bad, abiding
and lawless, every generation had cleaved stub
bornly to its acres. / clinge. His father had clung
through absence that seemed to have been almost
THE HUNT 117
exile, and now he, the last Valiant, was come to
make good the boast.
His gaze wavered. The tail of his eye had
caught through the window a spurt of something
dashing and vivid, that grazed the corner of a far-
off field. He craned his neck, but it had passed the
line of his vision. The next moment, however,
there came trailing on the satiny stillness the high-
keyed ululation of a horn, and an instant later a
long-drawn hallo-o-o! mixed with a pattering
chorus of yelps.
He went close, and leaning from the sill, shaded
his eyes with his hand. The noise swelled and
rounded in volume ; it was nearing rapidly. As he
looked, the hunt dashed into full view between the
tree-boles a galloping melee of khaki and scarlet,
swarming across the fresh green of a wheat field,
behind a spotted swirl of hounds. It mounted a
rise, dipped momentarily into a gully and then, in a
narrow sweeping curve, came pounding on up the
long slope, directly toward the house.
" Confound it ! " said John Valiant belligerently ;
" they're on my land ! "
They were near enough now for him to hear the
voices of the men, calling encouragement to the
dogs, and to see the white ribbons of foam across
the flanks of the laboring horses. One scarlet-
coated feminine rider, detached from the bunch, had
spurred in advance and was leading by a clean hun-
n8
dred yards, bareheaded, her hat fallen back to the
limit of its ribbon knotted under her chin, and her
waving hair gleaming like tarnished gold.
" How she rides ! " muttered the solitary watcher.
" Cross-saddle, of course, the sensible little sport f
She'll never in the world do that wall ! Yes, by
George ! " For, with a beseeching cry and a strain
ing tug, she had fairly lifted her big golden-chest
nut hunter over the high barrier in a leap as clean
as the flight of a flying squirrel. He saw her lean
forward to pat the wet arching neck as the horse
settled again into its pace.
John Valiant's admiration turned to delight.
"Why," he said, "it's the Lady-of-the-Roses ! "
He put his hands on the sill and vaulted to the
porch.
CHAPTER XIV
SANCTUARY
THE tawny scudding streak that led that long
chase had shot into the yard, turning for a
last desperate double. It saw the man in the fore
ground and its bounding, agonized little wild heart
that so prayed for life, gave way. With a final
effort, it gained the porch and crouched down in its
corner, an abject, sweated, hunted morsel, at hope
less bay.
Like a flash, Valiant stooped, caught the shiver
ing thing by the scruff, and as its snapping jaws
grazed his thumb, dropped it through the open win
dow behind him. " Sanctuary ! " quoth he, and
banged the shutter to.
At the same instant, as the place overflowed with
a pandemonium of nosing leaping hounds, he saw
the golden chestnut reined sharply down among the
ragged box-rows, with a shamefaced though brazen
knowledge that the girl who rode it had seen.
She sat moveless, her head held high, one hand
on the hunter's foam-flecked neck, and their glances
met like crossed swords. The look stirred some
thing vague and deep within him. For an unfor-
119
120 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
gettable instant their eyes held each other, in a
gaze rigid, challenging, almost defiant ; then it broke
and she turned to the rest of the party spurring in
a galloping zigzag: a genial-faced man of middle
age in khaki who sat his horse like a cavalryman,
a younger one with a reckless dark face and straight
black hair, and following these a half-dozen youth
ful riders of both sexes, one of the lads heavily
plastered with mud from a wet cropper, and the
girls chiefly gasps and giggles.
The elder of the two men pulled up beside the
leader, his astonished eyes sweeping the house- front,
with its open blinds, the wisp of smoke curling
from the kitchen chimney. He said something to
her, and she nodded. The younger man, mean
while, had flung himself from his horse, a wild-
eyed roan, and with his arm thrust through its
bridle, strode forward among the welter of hounds,
where they scurried at fault, hither and thither,
yelping and eager.
" What rotten luck ! " he exclaimed. " Gone to
ground after twelve miles! After him, Tawny!
You mongrels! Do you imagine he's up a tree?
After him, Bulger ! Bring him here ! "
He glanced up, and for the first time saw the
figure in tweeds looking on. Valiant was attracted
by his face, its dash and generosity overlying its in
herent profligacy and weakness. Dark as the girl
was light, his features had the same delicate chisel-
SANCTUARY 121
ing, the inbreeding, nobility and indulgence of gen
erations. He stared a moment, and the somewhat
supercilious look traveled over the gazer, from dusty
boots to waving brown hair.
" Oh ! " he said. His view slowly took in the
evidences of occupation. " The house is open, I
see. Going to get it fit for occupancy, I presume ? "
"Yes."
The other turned. " Well, Judge Chalmers,
what do you think of that? The unexpected has
happened at last." He looked again at the porch.
" Who's to occupy it ? "
" The owner."
" Wonders will never cease ! " said the young man
easily, shrugging. " Well, our quarry is here some
where. From the way the dogs act I should say
he's bolted into the house. With your permission
I'll take one of them in and see." He stooped and
snapped a leash on a dog-collar.
" I'm really very sorry," said Valiant, " but I'm
living in it at present."
The edge of a smile lifted the carefully trained
mustache over the other's white teeth. It had the
perfectly courteous air of saying, " Of course, if you
say so. But "
Valiant turned, with a gesture that included all.
"If you care to dismount and rest," he said, " I
shall be honored, though I'm afraid I can't offer
you such hospitality as I should wish."
122 THE VALIANTS OK VIRGINIA
The judge raised his broad soft hat. " Thank
you, sir," he said, with a soft accent that delight
fully disdained the letter " r." " But we mustn't in
trude any further. As you know, of course, the
place has been uninhabited for any number of years,
and we had no idea it was to acquire a tenant. You
will overlook our riding through, I hope. I'm
afraid the neighborhood has got used to consid
ering this a sort of no-man's land. It's a pleasure
to know that the Court is to be reclaimed, sir.
Come along, Chilly," he added. " Our fox has a
burrow under the house, I reckon hang the cun-
ing little devil ! "
He whistled sharply to the dogs, who came leap
ing about his horse's legs for their meed of praise
and clubbing. " Down, Fan ! Down Trojan !
Come on, you young folks, to breakfast. We've
had a prime run of it, anyhow, and we'll put him
up another day."
He waved his hat at the porch and turned his
horse down the path, side by side with the golden
chestnut. After them trooped the others, horses
walking wearily, riders talking in low voices, the
girls turning often to send swift bird-like glances
behind them to where the straight masculine figure
still stood with the yellow sunshine on his face.
They did not leap the \vall this time, but filed de
corously through the swinging gate to the Red
Road. Then, as they passed from view behind the
SANCTUARY 123
hedges, John Valiant heard the younger voices break
out together like the sound of a bomb thrown into a
poultry-yard.
After a time he saw the straggling bunch of
riders emerge at a slow canter on the far-away
field. He saw the roan spurred beside the golden
chestnut and both dashed away, neck and neck in a
race, the light patrician form of the man leaning
far forward and the girl swaying to the pace as if
she and her hunter were one.
John Valiant stood watching till the last rider
was out of sight. There was a warm flush of color
in his face.
At length he turned with the ghost of a sigh,
opened the hall door wide and stalking a hundred
yards away, sat down on the shady grass and began
to whistle, with his eyes on the door.
Presently he was rewarded. On a sudden,
around the edge of the sill peered a sharp, sus
picious little muzzle. Then, like a flash of tawny
light, the fox broke sanctuary and shot for the
thicket.
CHAPTER XV
MRS. POLY GIFFORD PAYS A CALL
THE brown ivied house in the village was big
and square and faced the sleepy street. Its
front was gay with pink oleanders in green tubs and
the yard spotted with annual encampments of ge
raniums and marigolds. A one-storied wing con
tained a small door with a doctor's brass plate on
the clapboarding beside it. Doctor Southall was
one of Mrs. Merryweather Mason's paying
guests for she would have deemed the word
boarder a gratuitous insult, no less to them than
to her. Another was the major, who for a decade
had occupied the big old-fashioned corner-room on
the second floor, companioned by a monstrous gray
cat and waited on by an ancient negro named Jere-
boam, who had been a slave of his father's.
The doctor was a sallow taciturn man with a
saturnine face, eyebrows like frosted thistles, a
mouth as if made with one quick knife-slash and
a head nearly bald, set on a neck that would not
have disqualified a yearling ox. His broad shoul
ders were slightly stooped, and his mouth wore ha
bitually an expression half resentful, half sardonic,
124
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 125
conveying a cynical opinion of the motives of the
race in general and of the special depravity of that
particular countryside. Altogether he exhaled an
air in contrast to which the major's old-school
blend of charm and courtesy seemed an almost ribald
frivolity.
On this particular morning neither the major nor
the doctor was in evidence, the former having gone
out early, and the latter being at the moment in
his office, as the brassy buzz of a telephone from
time to time announced. Two of the green wicker
rocking-chairs on the porch, however, were in agi-
tant commotion. Mrs. Mason was receiving a
caller in the person of Mrs. Napoleon Gifford.
The latter had a middle-aged affection for baby-
blue and a devouring penchant for the ages and an
tecedents of others, at times irksome to those to
whom her " Let me see. You went to school with
my first husband's sister, didn't you?" or "Your
daughter Jane must have been married the year the
old Israel Stamper place was burned," were unwel
come reminders of the pace of time. To-day, of
course, the topic was the new arrival at Damory
Court.
" After all these years! " the visitor was saying in
her customary italics. (The broad " a " which lent
a dulcet softness to the speech of her hostess was
scorned by Mrs. Poly, her own " a's " being as nar
row as the needle through which the rich man
126 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
reaches heaven.) " We came here from Richmond
when I was a bride that's twenty-one years ago
and Damory Court was forsaken then. And
think what a condition the house must be in nowt
Cared for by an agent who comes every other
season from New York. Trust a man to do work
like that!"
" I'm glad a Valiant is to occupy it," remarked
Mrs. Mason in her sweet flute-like voice. " It
would be sad to see any one else there. For after
all, the Valiants were gentlemen."
Mrs. Gifford sniffed. " Would you have called
Devil-John Valiant a gentleman? Why, he earned
the name by the dreadful things he did. My
grandfather used to say that when his wife lay
sick he hated her, you know he would gallop
his horse with all his hounds full-cry after him
under her windows. Then that ghastly story of
the slave he pressed to death in the hogshead of to
bacco."
" I know," acquiesced Mrs. Mason. " He was
a cruel man, and wicked, too. Yet of course he was
a gentleman. In the South the test of a gentle
man has never been what he does, but who he is.
Devil-John was splendid, for all his wickedness.
He was the best swordsman in all Virginia. It
used to be said there was a portrait of him at
Damory Court, and that during the war, in the en
gagement on the hillside, a bullet took out one of
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 127
its eyes. But his grandson, Beauty Valiant, who
lived at Damory Court thirty years ago, wasn't his
type at all. He was only twenty-five when the duel
occurred."
" He must have been brilliant," said the visitor,
" to have founded that great Corporation. It's a
pity the son didn't take after him. Have you seen
the papers lately? It seems that though he was to
blame for the wrecking of the concern they can't do
anything to him. Some technicality in the law, I
suppose. But if a man is only rich enough they
can't convict him of anything. Why he should sud
denly make up his mind to come down here I can't
see. With that old affair of his father's behind
him, I should think he'd prefer Patagonia."
" I take it, then, madam," Doctor Southall's for
bidding voice rose from the doorway, " that you
are familiar with the circumstances of that old
affair, as you term it ? "
The lady bridled. Her passages at arms with the
doctor did not invariably tend to sweeten her dis
position. " I'm sure I only know what people say,"
she said.
" ' People ? ' snorted the doctor irascibly.
" Just another name for a community that's a per
fect sink of meanness and malice. If one believed
all he heard here he'd quit speaking to his own
grandmother."
" You will admit, I suppose," said Mrs. Gifford
128 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
with some spirit, " that the name Valiant isn't what
it used to be in this neighborhood ? "
" I will, madam," responded the doctor. " When
Valiant left this place (a mark of good taste, I've
always considered it) he left it the worse, if possible,
for his departure. Your remark, however, would
seem to imply demerit on his part. Was he the
only man who ever happened to be at the lucky end
of a dueling-ground?"
" Then it isn't true that Valiant was a dead shot
and Sassoon intoxicated ? "
" Madam," said the doctor, " I have no wish to
discuss the details of that unhappy incident with
you or anybody else. I was one of those present,
but the circumstances you mention have never been
descanted upon by me. I merely wish to point out
that the people whom you have been quoting, are
not only a set of ignoramuses with cotton-back
souls, but as full of uncharitableness as an egg is of
meat."
" I see by the papers," said Mrs. Gifford, with
an air of resignedly changing the subject, " they've
been investigating the failure of the Valiant Cor
poration. The son seems to be getting the sharp
end of the stick. Perhaps he's coming down here
because they've made it so hot for him in New
York. Well, I'm afraid he'll find this county dis
appointing."
"He will that!" agreed the doctor savagely.
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 129
" No doubt he imagines he's coming to a kindly
countryside of gentle-born people with souls and
imaginations; he'll find he's lit in a section that's
entirely too ready to hack at his father's name and
prepared in advance to call him Northern scum
and turn up its nose at his accent a community
so full of dyed-in-the-wool snobbery that it would
make Boston look like a poor-white barbecue. I'm
sorry for him!"
Mrs. Gifford, having learned wisdom from ex
perience, resisted the temptation to reply. She
merely rocked a trifle faster and turned a smile
which she strove to make amusedly deprecative upon
her hostess. Just then from the rear of the house
came a strident voice :
' Yo', Raph'el ! Take yo' han's outer dem cher
ries! Don' yo' know ef yo' swallahs dem ar pits,
yo' gwineter hab 'pende#^d:us en lump up en die ? "
The sound of a slap and a shrill yelp followed,
and around the porch dashed an infantile darky, as
nude as a black Puck, with his hands full of cher
ries, who came to a sudden demoralized stop in the
embarrassing foreground.
"Raph!" thundered the doctor. "Didn't I tell
you to go back to that kitchen ? "
" Yas, suh," responded the imp. " But yo' didn'
tell me ter stay dar ! "
" If I see you out here again," roared the doctor,
" I'll tie your ears back and grease you and
1 30 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
SWALLOW you ! " At which grisly threat, the ap
parition, with a shrill shriek, turned and ran des
perately for the corner of the house.
" I hear," said the doctor, resuming, " that the
young man who came to fix the place up has hired
Uncle Jefferson and his wife to help him. Who's
responsible for that interesting information? "
" Rickey Snyder," said Mrs. Mason. " She's
got a spy-glass rigged up in a sugar-tree at Miss
Mattie Sue's and she saw them pottering around
there this morning."
" Little limb!" exclaimed Mrs. Gifford, with em
phasis. " She's as cheeky as a town-hog. I can't
imagine what Shirley Dandridge was thinking of
when she brought that low-born child out of her
sphere."
Something like a growl came from the doctor as
he struck open the screen-door. " * Limb ! ' I'll
bet ten dollars she's an angel in a cedar-tree at a
church fair compared with some better-born
young ones I know of who are only fit to live when
they've got the scarlet-fever and who ought to be
in the reformatory long ago. And as for Shirley
Dandridge, it's my opinion she and her mother and
a few others like her have got about the only drops
of the milk of human kindness in this whole aban
doned community! "
" Dreadful man ! " said Mrs. Gifford, sotto voce,
as the door banged viciously. " To think of his
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 131
being born a Southall ! Sometimes I can't believe
it!"
Mrs. Mason shook her head and smiled. " Ah,
but that isn't the real Doctor Southall," she said.
" That's only his shell."
" I've heard that he has another side," responded
the other with guarded grimness, " but if he has,
I wish he'd manage to show it sometimes."
Mrs. Mason took off her glasses and wiped them
carefully. " I saw it when my husband died," she
said softly. " That was before you came. They
were old friends, you know. He was sick almost
a year, and the doctor used to carry him out here
on the porch every day in his arms, like a child.
And then, when the typhus came that summer
among the negroes, he quarantined himself with
them the only white man there and treated
and nursed them and buried the dead with his own
hands, till it was stamped out. That's the real
Doctor Southall."
The rockers vibrated in silence for a moment.
Then Mrs. Gifford said : " I never knew before
that he had anything to do with that duel. Was
he one of Valiant's seconds? "
" Yes," said Mrs. Mason ; " and the major was
the other. I was a little girl when it happened. I
can barely remember it, but it made a big sensa
tion."
"And over a love-affair!" exclaimed Mrs. Gif-
132 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ford in the tone of one to whom romance was daily
bread.
" I suppose it was."
" Why, my dear! Of course it was. That's al
ways been the story. What on earth have men
to fight duels about except us women? They only
pretend it's cards or horses. Trust me, there's
always a pair of silk stockings at the bottom of it !
Girls are so thoughtless though you and I were
just as bad, I suppose, if we only remembered!
and they don't realize that it's sometimes a serious
thing to trifle with a man. That is, of course, if
he's of a certain type. 7 think our Virginian girls
flirt outrageously. They quit only at the church
door (though I will say they generally stop then)
and they take a man's ring without any idea what
ever of the sacredness of an engagement. You
remember lisa Eustis who married the man from
Petersburg? She was engaged to two men at once,
and used to wear whichever ring belonged to the
one who was coming to see her. One day they
came together. She was in the yard when they
stopped at the horse-block. Well, she tied her
handkerchief round her hand and said she'd burned
herself pulling candy. (No, neither one of them
was the man from Petersburg.) When she was
married, one of them wrote her and asked for his
ring. It had seven diamonds set in the shape of a
cross. I'm telling you this in confidence, just as
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 133
h was told to me. She didn't write a reply she
only sent him a telegram : ' Simply to thy cross I
cling.* She wears the stones yet in a bracelet."
For a time the conversation languished. Then
Mrs. Gifford asked suddenly : " Who do you sup
pose she could have been ? the girl behind that old
Valiant affair."
Mrs. Mason shook her head. " No one knows
for certain unless, of course, the major or the
doctor, and I wouldn't question either of them for
worlds. You see, people had stopped gossiping
about it before I was out of school."
" But surely your husband "
" The only quarrel we had while we were en
gaged was over that. I tried to make him tell me.
I imagined from something he said then that the
young men who did know had pledged one another
not to speak of it."
" I wonder why? " said the other thoughtfully.
" Oh, undoubtedly out of regard for the girl.
I've always thought it so decent of them! If there
was a girl in the case, her position must have been
unpleasant enough, if she was not actually heart
broken. Imagine the poor thing, knowing that
wherever she went, people would be saying : ' She's
the one they fought the duel over ! Look at her ! '
If she grieved, they'd say she'd been crazy in love
with Sassoon, and point out the dark circles under
her eyes, and wonder if she'd ever get over it.
I 3 4 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
If she didn't mope, they'd say she was in love with
Valiant and was glad it was Sassoon who was
shot. If she shut herself up, they'd say she had no
pride; if she didn't, they'd say she had no heart.
It was far better to cover the story up and let it
die."
But the subject was too fascinating for her morn
ing visitor to abandon. " She probably loved one
of them," she said. " I wonder which it was. I'll
ask the major when I see him. I'm not afraid.
He can't eat me ! Wouldn't it be curious" she con
tinued, " if it should be somebody who lives here
now whom we've always known ! I can't think
who it could have been, though. There's Jenny
Quarles she's eight years older than we are, if
she's a day she was a nice little thing, but you
couldn't dream of anybody ever fighting a duel
over her. There's Polly Pendleton, and Berenice
Garland they must have been about the right age,
and they never married but no, it couldn't have
been either of them. The only other spinster I can
think of is Miss Mattie Sue, and she was as poor
as Job's turkey and teaching school. Besides, she
must have been years and years too old. Hush!
There's Major Bristow at the gate now. And the
doctor's just coming out again."
The major wore a suit of white linen, with a
broad-brimmed straw hat, and a pink was in his
button-hole, but to the observing, his step might
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 135
hate seemed to lack an accustomed jauntiness. As
he came up the path the doctor opened his office
door. Standing on the threshold, his legs wide
apart and his hands under his coat-tails, he nodded
grimly across the marigolds. " How do you feel
this morning, Major."
" Feel? " rumbled the major; " the way any gen
tleman ought to feel this time of the morning, sah.
Like hell, sah."
The doctor bent his gaze on the hilarious blos
som in the other's lapel. " If I were you, Bristow,"
he said scathingly, " I reckon I'd quit galivanting
around to bridge-fights with perfumery on my hand
kerchief every evening. It's a devil of an example
to the young."
The rocking-chairs behind the screening vines be
came motionless, and the ladies exchanged surrepti
tious smiles. If the two gentlemen were aware
of each other's sterling qualities, their mutual ap
preciation was in inverse ratio to its expression,
and, as the Elucinian mysteries, cloaked before the
world. In public the doctor was wont to remark
that the major talked like a Caesar, looked like a
piano-tuner and was the only man he had ever seen
who could strut sitting down. Never were his
gibes so barbed as when launched against the ma
jor's white-waistcoated and patrician calm, and con
versely, never did the major's bland suavity so
nearly approach an undignified irritation as when
136 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
receiving the envenomed darts of that accomplished
cynic.
The major settled his black tie. " A little whole
some exercise wouldn't be a bad thing for you,
Doctor," he said succinctly. " You're looking a
shade pasty to-day."
" Exercise ! " snapped the other viciously, as he
pounded down the steps. " Ha, ha ! I suppose
you exercise lazying out to the Dandridges
once a week for a julep, and the rest of the time
wearing out good cane-bottoms and palm-leaf fans
and cussing at the heat. You'll go off with apoplexy
one of these days."
" I shall if they're scared enough to call you," the
major shot after him, nettled. But the doctor did
not pause. He went on down the street without
turning his head.
The major lifted his hat gallantly to the ladies,
whose presence he had just observed. " I reckon,"
he said, as he found the string of his glasses and
adjusted them to gaze after the retreating form ; " I
reckon if I did have apoplexy, I'd want Southall to
handle the case, but the temptation to get one in on
him is sometimes a little too much for me."
"Do sit down, Major," said Mrs. Gifford.
" There's a question I'm just dying to ask you.
We've had such an interesting conversation.
You've heard the news, of course, that young Mr.
Valiant is coming to Damory Court? "
MRS. GIFFORD PAYS A CALL 137
The major sat down heavily. In the bright light
his face seemed suddenly pale and old.
" No ? " the lady's tone was arch. " Have all the
rest of us really got ahead of you for once? Yes,
it's true. There's some one there getting it to
rights. Now here's the question. There was a
woman, of course, at the bottom of the Valiant duel.
I'd never dream of asking you who she was. But
which was it she loved, Valiant or Sassoon ? "
CHAPTER XVI
THE ECHO
WHEN the major entered his room, Jere-
boam, his ancient body-servant, was
dawdling about putting things to rights, his seamed
visage under his white wool suggesting a charred
stump beneath a crisp powdering of snow. " Jedge
Chalmahs done telly foam ter ax yo' ovah ter Glad
den Hall ter suppah ter-night, suh," he said. " De
jedge 'low he gwine git eben wid yo' fo' dat las'
game ob pokah when yo' done lam him."
" Tell him not to-night, Jerry," said the other
wearily. " Some other time."
The old darky ruminated as he plodded down to
the doctor's telephone. " Whut de mattah now ?
He got dat ar way-off-yondah look ergen." He
shook his head forebodingly. " Ah heahed he
hummin' dat tune when he dress hisse'f dis mawnin'.
Sing befo' yo' eat, cry befo' yo' sleep! "
The major had, indeed, a far-away look as he
sat there, a heavy lonely figure, that bright morn
ing. It had slipped to his face with the news of the
arrival at Damory Court. He told himself that he
felt queer. A mocking-bird was singing in a
138
THE ECHO 139
tulip-tree outside, and the gray cat sat on the win
dow-sill, watching the foliage with blinking lust.
There was no breeze and the leaves of the Virginia
creeper that curled about the sash were trembling
with the sensuous delight of the sunshine. Suddenly
he seemed to hear elfin voices close to his ear :
" Which was it she loved? Valiant or S 'as-
soon f"
It was so distinct that he started, vexed and dis
turbed. Really, it was absurd. He would be see
ing things next! " Southall may be right about
that exercise," he muttered; " I'll walk more." He
began the projected reform without delay, striding
up and down the room. But the little voices pres
ently sounded again, shouting like gnomes inside a
hill:
" Which was it? Valiant or Sassoon? "
" I wish to God I knew ! " said the major
roughly, standing still. It silenced them, but the
sound of his own voice, as though it had been a pre
concerted signal, drew together a hundred inchoate
images of other days. There was the well-ordered
garden of Damory Court it rose up, gloomy with
night shadows, across his great clothes-press against
the wall with himself sitting on a rustic bench
smoking and behind him the candle-lighted library
window with Beauty Valiant pacing up and down,
waiting for daylight. There was a sun-lighted
stretch between two hemlocks, with Southall and
140 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
he measuring the ground the grass all dewy
sparkles and an early robin teetering on a thorn-
bush. Eight nine ten he caught himself
counting the paces.
He wiped his forehead. Between the hemlocks
now were two figures facing each other, one
twitching uncertainly, the other palely rigid ; and at
one side, held screen-wise, a raised umbrella. In
some ghostly way he could see straight through the
latter see the doctor's hand gripping the handle,
his own, outstretched beyond its edge, holding a
handkerchief ready to flutter down. A silly sub
terfuge those umbrellas, but there must be no actual
witnesses to the final act of a " gentlemen's meet
ing " ! A silly code, the whole of it, now happily
outgrown! He thought thus with a kind of dumb
irritant wonder, while the green picture hung a
moment as a stone thrown in air hangs poised
at height before it falls then dissolved itself in
two sharp crackles, with a gasping interval between.
The scene blurred into a single figure huddling down
huddling down
" Which did she love? " The major shook his
head helplessly. It was, after all, only the echo,
become all at once audible on a shallow woman's
lips, of a question that had always haunted him.
It had first come to him on the heels of that duel,
when he had stood, somewhat later that hateful
morning, holding a saddled horse before the big
THE ECHO 141
pillared porch. It had whispered itself then from
every moving leaf. " Sassoon or Valiant? " If she
had loved Sassoon, of what use the letter Valiant
was so long penning in the library? But if it
were Valiant she loved? The man who, having
sworn not to lift his hand against the other, had
broken his sacred word to her! Who had stained
the unwritten code by facing an opponent maddened
with liquor! Yet, what was there a woman might
not condone in the one man ? Would she read, for
give and send for him ?
The major laughed out suddenly, harshly, in the
quiet room, and looked down as if he expected to
see that letter still lying in his hand. But the laugh
could not still a regular pulsing sound that was in
his ears elfin like the voices, but as distinct
the sound of a horse's hoofs going from Damory
Court.
He had heard those hoof-beats echo in his brain
for thirty years!
TILL the sun was high John Valiant lay on
his back in the fragrant grass, meditatively
watching a bucaneering chicken-hawk draw widen
ing circles against the blue and listening to the
vibrant tattoo of a " pecker-wood " on a far-away
tree, and the timorous wet whistle of a bob-white.
The sun shone through the tracery of the foliage,
making a quivering mosaic of light and shadow all
about him. A robin ran across the grass with his
breast puffed out as if he had been stealing apples ;
now and then an inquisitive yellow-hammer darted
above and in the bushes cardinals wove slender
sharp flashes of living crimson. The whole place
was very quiet now. For just one thrilling mo
ment it had burgeoned into sound and movement:
when the sweaty horses had stood snorting and
stamping in the yard with the hounds scampering
between their legs and the riding-coats winking like
rubies in the early sunshine !
Had she recognized him as the smudged tinkerer
of the stalled car ? " She saw me drop that wretched
142
THE TRESPASSER 143
brute through the window," he chuckled. " I could
take oath to that. But she didn't give me away,
true little sport that she was. And she won't. I
can't think of any reason, but I know." The
chuckle broadened to an appreciative grin. '' What
an ass she must have thought me ! To risk a nasty
bite and rob her of her brush into the bargain!
How she looked at me, just for a minute, with that
thoroughbred face, out of those sea-deep eyes, under
that whorling, marvelous heaped-up hair of hers!
Was she angry ? I wonder ! "
At length he rose and went back to the house.
With a bunch of keys he had found he went to
the stables, after some difficulty gained access, and
propped the crazy doors and windows open to the
sun. The building was airy and well-lighted and
contained a dozen roomy box-stalls, a spacious loft
and a carriage-house. The straw bedding had been
unremoved, mice-gnawed sacking and rotted hay
lay in the mangers, and the warped harness, hang
ing on its pegs, was a smelly mass of mildew and
decay. In the carriage-house were three vehicles
a coach with rat-riddled upholstery and old-
fashioned hoop-iron springs eaten through with
rust, a rockaway and a surrey. The latter had
collapsed where it stood. He found a stick, mowed
away the festooning cobwebs, and moved the debris
piece-meal.
"There!" he said with satisfaction. "There's a
144 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
place for the motor if Uncle Jefferson ever gets
it here."
It was noon when he returned, after a wash-up
in the lake, to the meal with which Aunt Daphne,
in a costume dimly suggestive of a bran-meal poul
tice with a gingham apron on, regaled him. Fried
chicken, corn-bread so soft and fluffy that it had
to be lifted from the pan with a spoon, browned
potatoes, and to his surprise, fresh milk. " Ah
done druv ouah ol' cow ovah, suh," explained Aunt
Daphne. " 'Case she gotter be milked, er she run
dry ez de Red Sea fo' de chillen ob Izril."
" Aunt Daphne," inquired Valiant with his mouth
full, " what do you call this green thing? "
"Dat? Dat's jes' turnip-tops, suh, wid er hunk
er bacon in de pot. Laws-er-me, et cert'n'y do me
good ter see yo' git arter it dat way, suh. Reck'n
yo' got er appertite ! Hyuh, Hyuh ! "
" I have. I never guessed it before, and it's a
magnificent discovery. However, it suggests un
welcome reflections. Aunt Daphne, how long do
you estimate a man can dine like this on well, say
on a hundred dollars?"
" Er hun'ed dollahs, suh ? Dat's er right smart
heap o' money, 'deed et is! Well, suh, 'pen's on
whut yo' raises. Ef yo' raises yo' own gyarden-
sass, en chick'ns en aigs, Ah reck'n yo' kin live
longah dan dat ar Methoosalum, en still hats ires' of
it in de ol' stockin'."
THE TRESPASSER 14$
"Ah! I can grow all those things myself, you
think?"
" Yo' cert'n'y kin" said Aunt Daphne. " Ev'y-
body do. De chick'ns done peck fo' deyselves en
de yuddah things yo' o'ny gotter 'courage 'em
en dey jes' grows."
Valiant ate his dessert with a thoughtful smile
wrinkling his brow. As he pushed back his chair
he smote his hands together and laughed aloud.
"Back to the soil!" he said. "John Valiant,
farmer! The miracle of it is that it sounds good
to me. I want to raise my own grub and till my
own soil. I want to be my own man! And I'm
beginning to see my way. Crops will have to wait
for another season, but there's water and pasture
for cattle now. There's timber lots of it on
that hillside, too. I must look into that."
He filled his pipe and climbed the staircase to
the upper floor. Here the lower hall was dupli
cated. He proceeded slowly and carefully with the
dusty task of window-opening. There were many
bedrooms with great four-posted, canopied beds and
old-fashioned carved furniture of mahogany and
curly-maple, and in one he found a great cedar-
lined chest filled with bed-linen and napery. In
these rooms were more evidences of decay. They
showed in faded hues, streaked and discolored fin
ishings, yellow mildew beneath the glass of framed
engravings and unsightly stains on walls and floors
146 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
from leaks in the roof. On a dainty dressing-table
had been left a pin-cushion; its stuffing was strewn
in a tiny trickling trail to a mouse-hole in the
base-board. The bedroom he mentally chose for
his own was the plainest of all, and was above the
library, fronting the vagabond garden. It had a
great black desk with many glass-knobbed drawers
and a book-rack. The volumes this contained were
mostly of the historical sort : a history of the Mid
dle Plantation, Meade's Old Churches, and at the
end a parchment-bound tome inscribed The Valiants
of Virginia.
He lingered longest in a room over whose door
was painted The Hilarium. It had evidently been
a nursery and schoolroom. Here on the walls
were many shelves wound over with networks of
cobwebs, and piled with the oddest assemblage of
toys: wooden and splintered soldiers that had once
been bravely painted, dolls in various states of
worn-outness one rag doll in a calico dress with
shoe-button eyes and a string of bright glass beads
round her neck a wooden box of marbles, a tat
tered boxing-glove. There were school-books, too,
thumbed and dog-eared, from First Reader to
Caesar's Gallic Wars, with names of small Valiants
scrawled on their fly-leaves. He carefully relocked
the door of this room ; he wanted to dust those toys
and books with his own hands.
In the upper hall again he leaned from the win-
THE TRESPASSER 147
(low, sniffing the far-flung scent of orchards and
peach-blown fence-rows. The soft whirring sound
of a bird's wing went past, almost brushing his
startled face, and the old oaks seemed to stretch
their bent limbs with a faithful brute-like yawn of
pleasure. In the room below he could hear the
vigorous sound of Aunt Daphne's hard-driven
broom and the sound flooded the echoing space with
a comfortable commotion.
The present task was one after Aunt Daphne's
own heart. A small mountain of dust was growing
on the terrace, and as beneath brush and rag the
colors of wall and parquetry stood forth, her face
became one shiny expanse of ebony satisfaction.
When the bulldog, returning from his jaunt, out
stripping Uncle Jefferson, bounced in to prance
against her she smote him lustily with her scrub
bing-brush.
" Git outer heah, yo' good-fo'-nuthin' w'ite
rapscallyun! Gwine trapse yo' muddy feet all
ovah dis yeah floor, whut Ah jes' scrubbed tell yo'
marstah kin eat ofn et?" She broke off to listen
to Uncle Jefferson's voice outside, directed toward
the upper window.
" Dat yo', suh? Yas, suh, dis me. Well, suh,
Ah take ol' Sukey out de Red Road, en Ah hitch huh
ter yo' machine-thing, en she done balk. Won't
go nohow . . . whut, suh ? * Beat huh ovah de
haid ? ' Yas. suh, done hit huh in de haid six times
148 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
wid de whip-han'l, en she look me in de eye en ain'
said er word. ... * Twis' huh tail ? ' Me, suh ?
No-suh-ree, suh. Mars' Quarles' boy one time he
twis* huh tail en dey sen' him ter de horspit'l.
'Daid/ suh? No, suh, ain' daid, but et mos' bust
him wide open. . . . ' Set fiah undah huh ? ' Yas,
suh, done set fiah undah huh. Mos' burn up de
harness, en ain' done no good. . . . Well, suh, Ah
jes' gwineter say no use waitin' fo' Sukey ter
change huh min', so Ah put some fence-rails undah
huh en jock huh up en come home. En Ah's
gwine out arter suppah en Sukey be all right den,
suh, Ah reck'n. Yas, suh."
Aunt Daphne plunged out with fire in her eye,
but the laugh that came from above was reassuring.
" Never mind, Uncle Jefferson, Miss Sukey's whims
shall be regarded."
Chum, bouncing up the stairs like an animated
bundle of springs, met his master coming down.
" Old man," said the latter, " I don't mind telling
you that I'm beginning to be taken with this place.
But it's in a bad way, and it's going to be put in
shape. It's a large order, and we'll have to work
like horses. Don't you bother Aunt Daph! You
just come with your Uncle Dudley. He's going to
take a look over the grounds."
He went to his trunk and fished out a soft shirt
on which he knotted a loose tie, exchanged his
Panama for a slouch hat, and whistling the bar-
THE TRESPASSER 149
carole from Tales of Hoffmann, went gaily
out. " I feel tremendously alive to-day," he con
fided to the dog, as he tramped through the lush
grass. "If you see me ladle the muck out of that
fountain with my own fair hands, don't have a fit.
I'm liable to do anything."
His eye swept up and down the slope. " There
probably isn't a finer site for a house in the whole
South," he told himself. " The living-rooms front
south and west. We'll get scrumptious sunsets
from that back porch. And on the other side
there's the view clear to the Blue Ridge. And as
for this garden, no landscape artist need apply.
The outlines are all here; it needs only to be put
back. We'll first rake out the rubbish, chop down
that underbrush and trim the box. The shrubs
only want pruning. Then we'll mend the pool and
set the fountain going and put in some goldfish.
Flower-seeds and bulbs are cheap enough, I fancy.
Just think of a bed of black and gold pansies run
ning down to the lake! And on the other side a
wilderness garden. I've seen pictures of them in
the illustrated weeklies. Those rotten posts, under
that snarl of vines, were a pergola. Any old car
penter can rebuild that I can draw the plans
myself."
He skirted the lake. " Only to grub out some
of the lilies there's too many of them and
straighten the rim and weed the pebble margin
1 50 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
to give those green rocks a show. I'll build a little
wharf below them to dive from, and yes, I'll
stock it with spotted trout. Not just to yank out
with a barbed hook, but to make it inhabited. How
well a couple of white swans would look preening
in the shade out there i The roof's gone from that
oval summer-house, but it's no trick to put another
on."
He penetrated farther into the tangle and came
out into a partially cleared space shaded with great
trees, where the grass was matted with clover into
a thick rug, sprinkled with designs worked in blue
bells and field-daisies, with here and there a flaunt
ing poppy, like a scarlet medallion. He was but
a few hundred yards from the house, yet the silence
was so deep that there might have been no habita
tion within fifty miles. All at once he stopped
short ; there was a sudden movement in the thicket
beyond the sound of light fast footfalls, as of
some one running away.
He made a lunge for the dog, but with a growl
Chum tore himself from the restraining grasp and
dashed into the bushes. " A child, no doubt," hvi
thought as he plunged in pursuit, " and that lub
berly brute will scare it half to death! "
He pulled up with an exclamation. In a narrow
wood-path a little way from him, partly hidden by
a windfall, stood a girl, her skirt transfixed with a
wickedly jagged sapling. He saw instantly how it
THE TRESPASSER 151
had happened; the windfall had blocked the way,
and she had sprung clean over it, not noting the
screened spear, which now held her as effectually
as any railroad spike. She was struggling with
silent helpless fury to release herself, wrenching
viciously at the offending stuff, which seemed ridicu
lously stout, and disregarding utterly the bulldog,
frisking madly about her feet with sharp joyous
barks.
In another moment Valiant had reached her and
met her face, flushed, half defiant, her eyes a blue
gleam of smoldering anger as she desperately, al
most savagely, thrust wild tendrils of flame-colored
hair beneath the broad curved brim of her straw
hat At her feet lay a great armful of cape jessa
mines.
A little thrill, light and warm and joyous, ran
through h^nr Until that instant he had not recog
nized her.
CHAPTER XVIII
JOHN VALIANT MAKES A DISCOVERY
M so sorry," was what he said, as he kneeled
to release her, and she was grateful that his
tone was unmixed with amusement. She bit her
lips, as by sheer strength of elbow and knee he
snapped the offending bole short off one of those
quick exhibitions of reserved strength that every
woman likes. Meanwhile he was uttering banal
fragments of sentences: " I hope you're not hurt.
It was that unmannerly dog, I suppose. What a
sword-edge that sliver has ! A bad tear, I'm afraid.
There ! now it's all right."
" I don't know how I could have been so silly -
thank you so much," said Shirley, panting slightly
from her exertions. " I'm not the least bit hurt
only my dress and you know very well that I
wasn't afraid of that ridiculous dog." A richer
glow stole to her cheeks as she spoke, a burning
recollection of a rose, which from her horse that
morning at Damory Court, she had glimpsed in its
glass on the porch.
Both laughed a little. He imagined that he could
smell that wonderful hair, a subtle fragrance like
152
JOHN MAKES A DISCOVERY 153
that of sun-dried seaweed or the elusive scent that
clings to a tuft of long-plucked Spanish moss.
" Chum stands absolved, then," he said, bending
to sweep together the scattered jessamine. " Do
you do you run like that when you're not fright
ened?"
" When I'm caught red-handed. Don't you? "
He looked puzzled.
She pointed to the flowers. " I had stolen them,
and I was trying to * 'scape off wid 'em ' as the ne
groes say. Shocking, isn't it? But you see, no
body has lived here since long before I was born,
and I suppose the flower-thieving habit has become
ingrown."
" But," he interrupted, " there's acres of them
going to waste. Why on earth shouldn't you have
them?"
"Of course I know better to-day, but there was
a a special reason. We have none and this is
the nearest place where they grow. My mother
wanted some for this particular day."
" Good heavens ! " he cried. " You don't think
you can't go right on taking them ? Why, you can
' 'scape off ' with the whole garden any time ! "
A droll little gleam of azure mischief darted at
him suddenly out of her eyes and then dodged back
again. "Aren't you just a little rash with other
people's property ? "
"Other people's?"
154 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" What will the owner say ? "
He bent back one of the long jessamine stems and
wound it around the others. " I can answer for
him. Besides, I owe you something, you know.
I robbed you this morning of your brush."
She looked at him, abruptly serious. " Why did
you do that ? "
" Sanctuary. His two beady eyes begged so
hard for it. * Twenty ravenous hounds,' they said,
' and a dozen galloping horses. And look what a!
poor shivering little red-brown morsel / am ! '
For just an instant the bronze-gold head gave a
quick imperious toss, like a high-mettled pony un
der the flick of the whip*. But as suddenly the
shadow of resentment passed ; the mobile face under
the bent hat-brim turned thoughtful. " Poor little
beastie ! " she said meditatively. " We so seldom
think of his side, do we! We think only of the
run, the dog-music, the wild rush along the wet
fields, with the horses straining and pounding under
us. I've ridden to hounds all my life. Everybody
does down here." She looked again at him. " Do
you think it's wrong to kill things ? " she asked
gravely.
" Oh, dear, no," he smiled. " I haven't a single
ism. I'm not even a vegetarian."
" But you would be if you had to kill your own
meat ? "
" Perhaps. So many of us would. As a matter
JOHN MAKES A DISCOVERY 155
of fact, I don't hunt myself, but I'm no re
former."
"Why don't you hunt?"
"I don't enjoy it." He flushed slightly. "I
hate firearms," he said, a trifle difficultly. " I al
ways have. I don't know why. Idiosyncrasy, I
suppose. But I shouldn't care for hunting, even
with bows and arrows. I would kill a tiger or a
poisonous reptile, or anything else, in case of neces
sity. But even then I should hardly enjoy it. I
know some animals are pests and have to be killed.
Some men do, too. But I don't like to do it my
self."
" Wouldn't that theory lead to a wholesale
evasion of responsibility?"
" Perhaps. I'm no philosopher. But a black
bird or a red fox is so pretty, even when he is thiev
ing, that I'd let him have the corn. I'm like the
Lord High Executioner in The Mikado who was
so tender-hearted that he couldn't execute anybody
and planned to begin with guinea-pigs and work up.
Only I'm afraid I couldn't even manage the guinea-
pigs."
She laughed. " You wouldn't find many to prac
tise on here. Do you raise guinea-pigs up North? "
" Ah," he said ruefully, " you tag me, too.
Have I by chance a large letter N tattooed upon my
manly brow? But I suppose it's the accent. Uncle
Jefferson catalogued me in five minutes. He said
156 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
he didn't know why I was from ' de Norf,' but he
' knowed ' it. I've annexed him and his wife, by
the way."
" You're lucky to have them. Unc' Jefferson
and Aunt Daph might have slipped out of a planta
tion of the last century. They're absolutely ante
bellum. Most of the negroes are more or less
spoiled, as you'll find, I'm afraid." She turned the
conversation bluntly. " Had you seen Damory
Court before? "
" No, never."
" Do you like the general plan of the place? "
" Do I like it? " cried John Valiant. " Do I like
it!"
A quick pleasure glanced across her face. " It's
nice of you to say it that way. We ask that ques
tion so often it's become mechanical. You see, it's
our great show-place. We exhibit it to strangers as
we show them the Natural Bridge and Monticello,
and expect them to rhapsodize. Years ago the ne
groes would never set foot here. The house was
supposed to be haunted."
"I'm not afraid," he laughed. "I wouldn't
blame any ghost for hanging around. I'm thinking
of haunting it myself in a hundred years or so."
" Oh, the specters are all laid long ago, if therq
ever were any."
At that moment a patter of footsteps and shrill
shrieks came flying over the last-year's leaves be-
JOHN MAKES A DISCOVERY 157
yond the lilac bushes. " It's Rickey Snyder," she
said, peering out smilingly as two children, pursued
and pursuer, burst into view. " Hush ! " she whis
pered ; " I wonder what they are up to."
The pair came in a whirl through the bushes.
The foremost was a seven-year-old negro girl, in a
single short cottonade garment, wizened, barelegged
and bareheaded, her black wool parted in little
angular patches and tightly wrapped with bits of
cord. The other was white and as freckled as a
turkey's egg, with hair cropped like a boy's. She
held a carving-knife cut from a shingle, whose edge
had been deeply ensanguined by poke-berry juice.
The pursued one stumbled over a root and came
to earth in a heap, while the other pounced upon her
like a wildcat.
"Hold still, you limb of Satan," she scolded.
" How can I do it when you won't stay still ? "
" Oh, lawd," moaned the prostrate one, in simu
lated terror; "oh, Doctah, good Doctah Snydah,
has Ah goiter hab dat operation? Is yo' sho'
gwineter twitter eroun* mah insides wid dem knives
en saws en things ? "
" It won't hurt," reassured the would-be operator ;
" no more than it did Mis' Poly Gifford. And I'll
put your liver right back again."
" Wait er minute. Ah jes' remembahs Ah fo'got
ter make mah will. Ah leabs "
" Nonsense ! " objected the other irritably.
158 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" You made it yesterday. They always do it be
forehand."
" No, suh ; Ah done clean f ergot et Ah leabs
mah thimble ter de Mefodis' church, en mah black
en w'ite kitten ter Rickey Snydah, en "
" I don't want your old tabby ! " said the bene
ficiary unfeelingly. " Now flatten out, while I give
you the chloroform."
" All right, Doctah. Ah's in de free-ward en
'tain't costin' me er cent ! But Ah's mighty skeered
Ah gwineter wake up daid ! Gord A'mighty, ef Ah
dies, save mah sinful soul! Oh, Mars' Judge Jesus,
swing dat cha'yut down en kyah me up ter Hebben !
Rickey, yo' reck'n, arter all, Ah's gwineter be er
black angel? Hesh-sh! Ah's driftin' away, Doc
tah, Ah's driftin' away on de big wide ribber."
" Now you're asleep," declared the surgeon, and
fell to with a flourish of the gory blade.
The other reared herself. " Huh ! How yo'
reck'n Ah's gwineter be ersleep wid yo' chunkin'
me in de shoht-ribs wid dat ar stick? Ain' yo'
done cyarvin' me up yet ? "
" Oh, nurse," wailed Rickey, turning the drama
into a new channel, " I can't wake Greenie up ! She
won't come out of the chloroform! She's dying.
Let's all sing and maybe it'll make it easier :
" ' I went down to Jordan and what did I see,
Coming for to carry me home?
JOHN MAKES A DISCOVERY 159
A band of angels waiting for me,
Coming for to carry me home 1 ' "
The melody, however, was too much for the pros
pective corpse. She sat up, shook the dead leaves
from her hair and joined in, swaying her lean body
to and fro and clapping her yellow-lined hands to
gether in an ecstasy :
" ' Sweeng low ! Sweet Char-ee-yut !
Comin' fo' t'kyah me ho-o-o-ome.
Swee-eng low, swee-et Char-ee-yut!
Comin' f o' t'kyah me home ! ' '
The two were a strange contrast as they sang,
the negro child swaying with the emotionalism of
her race and her voice dropping instinctively to a
soft alto accompaniment to the other's rigid soprano,
and lending itself to subtle half-tones and minor
cadences.
A twig snapped under Valiant's foot. The sing
ers faced about and saw them. Both scrambled to
their feet, the black girl to look at them with a wide
self-conscious grin. Rickey, tossing her short hair
back from her freckled face, came toward them.
" My goodness, Miss Shirley," she said, " we
didn't see you at all." She looked at Valiant.
" Are you the man that's going to fix up Damory
Court? " she inquired, without any tedious formali
ties.
160 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" Yes," said Valiant.
" Well," she said critically, " you've got your
job cut out for you. But I should say you're the
kind to do it."
" Rickey ! " Shirley's voice tried to be stern, but
there was a hint of laughter in it.
" What did I say now ? " inquired Rickey. " I'm
sure I meant it to be complimentary."
" It was," said Valiant. " I shall try to deserve
your good opinion."
" But what a ghastly play ! " exclaimed Shirley.
" Where did you learn it? "
" We were playing Mis' Poly Gifford in the
hospital," Rickey answered. " She's got a whole
lot of little pebbles that they cut out "
" Oh, Rickey ! " expostulated Shirley with a
shudder.
" They did. She keeps them in a little pasteboard
box like wedding-cake, with a blue ribbon around
it. She was showing it to Miss Mattie Sue yester
day. She was telling her all about it. She said all
the women there showed each other their cuts and
bragged about how long they were."
Valiant's merriment rang out under the trees, but
Shirley was crimson. " Well, I don't think it's a
nice play," she said decidedly.
" That's just the way," murmured Rickey discon
solately, "yesterday it was Romeo and Juliet with
JOHN MAKES A DISCOVERY 161
the Meredith children, and their mother had a con
niption fit."
" Was that gruesome, too ? "
" Not so very. I only poisoned Rosebud and
June and stabbed myself. I don't call that grue
some."
" You certainly have a highly developed taste for
the dramatic," said Shirley. " I wonder what your
next effort will be."
" It's to-morrow," Rickey informed her. " We're
going to have the duel between Valiant and Sas-
soon."
The smile was stricken from John Valiant's face.
A duel the duel between Valiant and Sassoon !
He felt his blood beat quickly. Had there been
such a thing in his father's life? Was that what
had blighted it ?
" Only not here where it really happened, but in
the Meredith orchard. Greenie's going to be "
" Ah ain' ! " contradicted Greenie. " Ah ain'
gwineter be dat Valiant, nohow ! "
"You are, too!" insisted Rickey wrathfully.
" You needn't be so pickety and choosety and
after she kills Sassoon, we put the bloodhounds on
her trail."
Greenie tittered. " Dey ain' no dawg eroun'
heah'd tech me" she said, " en 'sides "
" But, Rickey," Shirley interposed, " that wasn't
1 62 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
a murder. That was a duel between gentlemen.
They don't"
" I know it," assented Rickey cheerfully. " But it
makes it more exciting. Will you come, Miss Shir
ley, deed and double? I won't charge you any ad
mission."
" I can't promise," said Shirley. " I might stand
the duel, but I'm afraid the hounds would be too
blood-curdling. By the way," she added, " isn't it
about time Miss Mattie Sue had her tea ? "
" It certainly is, Miss Shirley ! " said Rickey, with
penitent emphasis. " I clean forgot it, and she'll
row me up the gump-stump! Come on, Greenie,"
and she started off through the bushes.
But the other hung back. " Ah done tole yo' Ah
ain' gwine be dat Valiant," she said stubbornly.
" Look here, Greenville Female Seminary
Simms," Rickey retorted, " don't you multiply
words with me just because your mammy was work
ing there when you were born and gave you a fancy
name! If you'll promise to be him, I'll get Miss
Mattie Sue to let us make molasses candy."
CHAPTER XIX
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS
SHIRLEY looked at Valiant with a deepening of
her dimple. " Rickey isn't an aristocrat," she
said : " she s what we call here poor- white, but
she's got a heart of gold. She's an orphan, and the
neighborhood in general, and Miss Mattie Sue
Mabry in particular, have adopted her."
He hardly neard her words lor the painful won
der that was noldin^ him. He had canvassed many
theories to explain hir father's letter but such a
thing as a duel H had never remotely imagined.
His father ha<'. taken a man's life. Was it this
thought - whatever the provocation, however jus
tified "jy the customs of the time and section that
had driven him to self-exile? He recalled himself
with an effort, for she was speaking again.
" Youve found Lovers' Leap, no doubt?"
" No. This is the . irs: time I've been so far from
the house. Is it near here ? "
" I'll show it to you/' She held out her hand
for the bunch of jessamine and laid it on the broad
roots of a tree that were mottled with lichen.
163
164 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
"Look there," she said suddenly; "isn't that a
beauty?"
She was pointing to a jimson-weed on which had
settled, with glassy wings vibrating, a long, un
gainly, needlelike insect with an odd sword-like
beak. " What is that? " he asked.
" A snake-doctor. If Unc' Jefferson were here
he'd say, ' Bettah watch out ! Dah's er snek roun'
erbout heah, sho' ! ' He'll fill you full of darky
superstitions."
He shrugged his shoulders. " I'm being intro
duced to them hourly. I've met the graveyard
rabbit one of them had hoodooed my motor yes
terday. I'm to carry a buckeye in my pocket by
the way, is a buckeye a horse-chestnut? if I want
to escape rheumatism. I've learned that it's bad
luck to make a bargain on a Friday, and the weepy
consequences of singing before breakfast." A blue-
jay darted by them, to perch on a limb and eye them
saucily. " And the jay-bird ! He goes to hell
every Friday noon to carry brimstone and tell the
devil what folks have been up to."
She clapped her hands. " You're certainly learn
ing fast. When I was little I used to be delighted
to see a blue-jay in the cedars on Friday afternoon.
It was a sign we'd been so good there was nothing
to tell. Follow me now and I'll show you the view
from Lovers' Leap. But look down. Don't lift
your eyes till I tell you."
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS 165
He dropped his gaze to the small brown boots and
followed, his eyes catching low side-glimpses of
woodsy things the spangled dance of leaf-shad
ows, a chameleon lizard whisking through the roots
of the bracken, the creamy wavering wings of a
white moth resting on a dead stump. Suddenly the
slim path between the trees took a quick turn, and
fell away at their feet. " There," she said. " This
is the finest view at Damory Court."
They stood on the edge of a stony ravine which
widened at one end to a shallow marshy valley.
The rocks were covered with gray-green feathery
creepers, en wound with curly yellow tendrils of
love-vine. Across the ravine, on a lower level, be
gan a grove of splendid trees that marched up into
the long stretch of neglected forest he had seen from
the house. Looking down the valley, fields of
young tobacco lay tier on tier, and beyond, in the
very middle of the mellow vaporous distance, lifted
the tapering tower of a far-off church, hazily out
lined against the azure.
" You love it ? " he asked, without withdrawing
his eyes.
" I've loved it all my life. I love everything
about Damory Court. Ruined as it is, it is still one
of the most beautiful estates in all Virginia.
There's nothing finer even in Italy. Just behind
us, where those hemlocks stand, is where the duel
the children spoke of was fought."
1 66 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He turned his head. " Tell me about it," he said.
She glanced at him curiously. " Didn't you
know? That was the reason the place was aban
doned. Valiant, who lived here, and the owner of
another plantation, who was named Sassoon, quar
reled. They fought, the story is, under those big
hemlock trees. Sassoon was killed."
He looked out across the distance; he could not
trust his face. " And Valiant ? "
" He went away the same day and never came
back; he lived in New York till he died. He was
the father of the Court's present owner. You
never heard the story ? "
" No," he admitted. "I till quite recently I
never heard of Damory Court."
" As a little girl," she went on, " I had a very
vivid imagination, and when I came here to play
I used to imagine I could see them, Valiant so hand
some his nickname was Beauty Valiant and
Sassoon. How awful to come to such a lovely
spot, just because of a young man's quarrel, and to
to kill one's friend ! I used to wonder if the sky
was blue that day and whether poor Sassoon looked
up at it when he took his place; and whom else he
thought of that last moment."
"Had he parents?"
" No, neither of them had, I believe. But there
might have been some one else, some one he cared
for and who cared for him. That was the last duel
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS 167
ever fought in Virginia. Dueling was a dreadful
custom. I'm glad it's gone. Aren't you? "
" Yes," he said slowly, " it was a thing that cut
two ways. Perhaps Valiant, if he could have had
his choice afterward, would rather have been lying
there that morning than Sassoon."
" He must have suffered, too," she agreed, "'or he
wouldn't have exiled himself as he did. I used to
wonder if it was a love-quarrel whether they
could have been in love with the same woman."
" But why should he go away ? "
" I can't imagine, unless she had really loved the
other man. If so, she couldn't have borne seeing
Valiant afterward." She paused with a little laugh.
" But then," she said, " it may have been nothing so
romantic. Perhaps they quarreled over cards or dif
fered as to whose horse was the better jumper.
Valiant's grandfather, who was known as Devil-
John, is said to have called a man out because he
rode past him on the wrong side. Our ancestors
in Virginia, I'm afraid, didn't stand on ceremony
when they felt uppish."
He did not smile. He was looking out once
more over the luminous stretch of fields, his side-
face toward her. Curious and painful questions
were running through his brain. With an effort,
he thrust these back and recalled his attention to
what she was saying.
" You wonder, I suppose, that we feel as we
1 68 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
do toward these old estates, and set store by them,
and yes, and brag of them insufferably as we do.
But it's in our blood. We love them as the English
do their ancient manors. They have made our
legends and our history. And the history of Vir
ginia "
She broke off with a shrug 1 and, more himself
now, he finished for her: " isn't exactly a
trifling part of the history of these United States.
You are right."
" You Northerners think we are desperately con
ceited," she smiled, "but it's true. We're still as
proud of our land, and its old, old places, and love
them as well as our ancestors ever did. We
wouldn't change a line of their stately old pillars
or a pebble of their darling homey gardens. Do
you wonder we resent their passing to people who
don't care for them in the Southern way?"
" But suppose the newcomers do care for them ? "
Her lips curled. " A young millionaire who has
lived all jiis life in New York, to care for Damory
Court! A youth idiotically rich, brought up in a
superheated atmosphere of noise and money ! "
He started uncontrollably. So that was what she
thought! He felt himself flushing. He had won
dered what would be his impression of the neigh
borhood and its people; their possible opinion of
himself had never occurred to him.
" Why," she went on, " he's never cared enough
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS 169
about the place even to come and see it. For rea
sons of his own good enough ones, perhaps, ac
cording to the papers, he finds himself tired of
the city. I can imagine him reflecting." With a
mocking simulation of a brown-study, she put her
hand to her brow, pushing impatiently back the
wayward luster : " ' Let me see. Don't I own an
estate somewhere in the South? Ah-ha! yes. If I
remember, it's in Virginia. I'll send down and fix
up the old hovel/ Then he telephones for his archi
tect to run down and see what ' improvements ' it
needs. And here you are ! "
He laughed shortly a tribute to her mimicry
but it was a difficult laugh. The desperately en-
nuyee pose, the lax drawl, the unaccustomed mental
effort and the sudden self-congratulatory " ah-ha! "
hitting off to a hair the lackadaisical boredom of
the haplessly rich young boulevardier this was
the countryside's pen-picture of him!
" Don't you consider a longing for nature a
wholesome sign ? "
" Perhaps. The vagaries of the rich are always
suggestive."
' You think there's no chance of his choosing
to stay here because he actually likes it ? "
" Not the slightest," she said indifferently.
' You are so certain of this without ever having
seen him? "
She glanced at him covertly, annoyedly sensible
170 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
of the impropriety of the discussion, since the man
discussed was certainly his patron, maybe his friend.
But his insistence had roused a certain balky wil-
fulness that would have its way. " It's true I've
never seen him," she said, " but I've read about him
a hundred times in the Sunday supplements. He's
a regular feature of the high-roller section. His
idea of a good time is a dog-banquet at Sherry's.
Why, a girl told me once that there was a cigarette
named after him the Vanity Valiant ! "
An angry glint slanted across his eyes. For
some reason the silly story on her lips stung him
deeply. " You find the Sunday newspapers always
so dependable ? "
" Well," she flashed, " you must know Mr. Val
iant. /,? he a useful citizen? What has he ever
done except play polo and furnish spicy paragraphs
for the society columns? "
" Isn't that beside the point ? Because he has
been an idler, must he necessarily be a van
dal?"
She laughed again. " He wouldn't call it vandal
ism. He'd think it decided improvement to make
Damory Court as frantically different as possible.
I suppose he'll erect a glass cupola and a porte-
cochere, all up-to-date and varnishy, and put orchid
hot-houses where the wilderness garden was, and a
modern marble cupid instead of the summer-house,
and lay out a kite-shaped track "
UNDER THE HEMLOCKS 171
Everything that was impulsive and explosive in
John Valiant's nature came out with a bang.
" No ! " he cried, " whatever else he is, he's not
such a preposterous ass as that ! "
She faced him squarely now. Her eyes were
sparkling. " Since you know him so intimately and
so highly approve of him "
" No, no," he interrupted. " You mistake me.
I shouldn't try to justify him." His flush had
risen to the roots of his brown hair, but he did not
lower his gaze. Now the red color slowly ebbed,
leaving him pale. " He has been an idler that's
true enough and till a week ago he was ' idiotic
ally rich.' But his idling is over now. At this mo
ment, except for this one property, he is little better
than a beggar."
She had taken a hasty step or two back from him,
and her eyes were now fixed on his with a dawning
half-fearful question in them.
" Till the failure of the Valiant Corporation, he
had never heard of Damory Court, much less been
aware that he owned it. It wasn't because he loved
it that he came here no ! How could it be ? He
had never set foot in Virginia in his mortal life."
She put up her hands to her throat with a start.
" Came? " she echoed. tf Came! "
" But if you think that even he could be so crassly
stupid, so monumentally blind to all that is really
fine and beautiful "
172 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" Oh ! " she cried with flashing comprehension.
" Oh, how could you ! You "
He nodded curtly. " Yes," he said. " I am that
haphazard harlequin, John Valiant, himself."
CHAPTER XX
ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
THERE was a pause not to be reckoned by min
utes but suffocatingly long. She had grown
as pale as he.
" That was ungenerous of you," she said then
with icy slowness. " Though no doubt you
found it entertaining. It must have still further
amused you to be taken for an architect ? "
" I am flattered," he replied, with a trace of bit
terness, " to have suggested, even for a moment, so
worthy a calling."
Though he spoke calmly enough, his thoughts
were in ragged confusion. As her gaze dived into
his, he was conscious of outre fancies. She seemed
to him like some snow-cloud in woman's shape,
edged with anger and swept by a wrathful wind
into this summery afternoon. For her part she was
telling herself with passionate resentment that he
had no right so to misrepresent himself to lead
her on to such a denouement. At his answer she
put out her hand with a sudden gesture, as if bluntly
thrusting the matter from her concern, and turning,
went back along the tree-shadowed path.
173
174 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He followed glumly, gnawing his lip, wanting to
say he knew not what, but wretchedly tongue-tied,
noting that the great white moth was still waving
its creamy wings on the dead stump and wondering
if she would take the cape jessamines. He felt an
embarrassed relief when, passing the roots where
they lay, she stooped to raise them.
Then all at once the blood seemed to shrink from
his heart. With a hoarse cry he leaped toward her,
seized her wrist and roughly dragged her back, feel
ing as he did so, a sharp fiery sting on his instep.
The next moment, with clenched teeth, he was vi
ciously stamping his heel again and again, driving
into the soft earth a twisting root-like something
that slapped the brown wintered leaves into a hiss
ing turmoil.
He had flung her from him with such violence
that she had fallen sidewise. Now she raised her
self, kneeling in the feathery light, both hands
clasped close to her breast, trembling excessively
with loathing and feeling the dun earth-floor bil
low like a canvas sea in a theater. Little puffs of
dust from the protesting ground were wreathing
about her set face, and she pressed one hand against
her shoulder to repress her shivers.
" The horrible horrible thing ! " she said
whisperingly. " It would have bitten me ! "
He came toward her, panting, and grasping her
hand, lifted her to her feet. He staggered slightly
ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD 175
as he did so, and she saw his lips twist together
oddly. "Ah," she gasped, "it bit you! It bit
you!"
" No," he said, " I think not."
" Look ! There on your ankle that spot ! "
" I did feel something, just that first moment."
He laughed uncertainly. " It's queer. My foot's
gone fast asleep."
Every remnant of color left her face. She had
known a negro child who had died of a water-
moccasin's bite some years before the child of a
house-servant. It had been wading in the creek in
the gorge. The doctor had said then that if one
of the other children. . . .
She grasped his arm. " Sit down," she com
manded, " here, on this log, and see."
Her pale fright caught him. He obeyed,
dragged off the low shoe and bared the tingling
spot. The firm white flesh was puffing up around
two tiny blue-rimmed punctures. He reached into
his pocket, then remembered that he had no knife.
As a next best thing he knotted his handkerchief
quickly above the ankle, thrust a stick through the
loop and twisted it till the ligature cut deeply, while
she knelt beside him, her lips moving soundlessly,
saying over and over to herself words like these:
" I must not be frightened. He doesn't realize the
danger, but I do ! I must be quite collected. It is
a mile to the doctor's. I might run to the house
176 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
and send Unc' Jefferson, but it would take too long.
Besides, the doctor might not be there. There is no
one to do anything but me."
She crouched beside him, putting her hands by
his on the stick and wrenching it over with all her
strength. " Tighter, tighter," she said. " It must
be tighter." But, to her dismay, at the last turn
the improvised cord snapped, and the released stick
flew a dozen feet away.
Her heart leaped chokingly, then dropped into
hammer-like thudding. He leaned back on one
arm, trying to laugh, but she noted that his breath
came shortly as if he had been running. " Ab
surd ! " he said, frowning. " How such a fool
thing can hurt ! "
Suddenly she threw herself on the ground and
grasped his foot with both her hands. He could
see her face twitch with shuddering, and her eyes
dilating with some determined purpose.
" What are you going to do ? "
" This," she said, and he felt her shrinking lips,
warm and tremulous, pressed hard against his in
step.
He drew away sharply, with savage denial.
" No no ! Not that ! You shan't ! My lord
you shan't ! " He dragged his numbing foot from
her desperate grasp, lifting himself, pushing her
from him; but she fought with him, clinging, pant
ing broken sentences :
177
" You must ! It's the only way. It was a
moccasin, and it's deadly. Every minute counts ! "
" I won't. No, stop ! How do you know ? It's
not going to here, listen! Take your hands
away. Listen! Listen! I can go to the house
and send Uncle Jefferson for the doctor and he
No! stop, I say! Oh I'm sorry if I hurt you.
How strong you are ! "
"Let me!"
" No ! Your lips are not for that good God,
that damnable thing! You yourself might be "
" Let me ! Oh, how cruel you are ! It was my
fault. But for me it would never have "
"No! I would rather"
" Let me! Oh, if you died! "
With all the force of her strong young body she
wrenched away his protestant hands. A thirst and
a sickish feeling were upon him, a curious irre
sponsible giddiness, and her hair which that strug
gle had brought in tumbled masses about her
shoulders, seemed to have little flames running all
over it. His foot had entirely lost its feeling.
There was a strange weakness in his limbs.
He felt it with a cool thriving surprise. Could
it be death stealing over him really death, in this
silly inglorious guise, from a miserable crawling
reptile? Death, when he had just begun a life that
seemed so worth living?
A sense of unreality came. He was asleep ! The
178 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
failure, the investigation, Virginia all was a
dream. Presently he would wake in his bachelor
quarters to find his man setting out his coffee and
grapefruit. He settled back and closed his eyes.
Moments of half-consciousness, or consciousness
jumbled with strange imaginings, followed. At
times he felt the pressure upon the wounded
foot, was sensible of the suction of the young mouth
striving desperately to draw the poison from the
wound. From time to time he was conscious of a
white desperate face haloed with hair that was a
mist of woven sparkles. At times he thought him
self a recumbent stone statue in a wood, and her a
great tall golden-headed flower lying broken at his
feet. Again he was a granite boulder and she a
vine with yellow leaves winding and clinging about
him. Then a blank a sense of movement and of
troublous disturbance, of insistent voices that called
to him and inquisitive hands that plucked at him,
and then voices growing distant again, and hands
falling away, and at last silence.
CHAPTER XXI
AFTER THE STORM
INKY clouds were gathering over the sunlight
when Shirley came from Damory Court, along
the narrow wood-path under the hemlocks, and the
way was striped with blue-black shadows and filled
with sighing noises. She walked warily, halting
often at some leafy rustle to catch a quick breath
of dread. As she approached the tree-roots where
the cape jessamines lay, she had to force her feet
forward by sheer effort of will. At a little dis
tance from them she broke a stick and with it man
aged to drag the bunch to her, turning her eyes with
a shiver from the trampled spot near by. She
picked up the flowers, and treading with caution,
retraced her steps to the wider path.
She stepped into the Red Road at length in the
teeth of a thunder-storm, which had arisen almost
without warning to break with the passionate in
tensity of electric storms in the South. The green-
golden fields were now a gray seethe of rain and
the farther peaks lifted like huge tumbled masses of
onyx against a sky stippled with wan yellow and
vicious violet. The wind leaped and roared and
179
i8o THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
swished through the weeping foliage, lashing the
dull Pompeian-red puddles, swirling leaves and
twigs from the hedges and seeming to be intent on
dragging her very garments from her as she ran.
There was no shelter, but even had there been, she
would not have sought it. The turbulence of na
ture around her matched, in a way, her overstrained
feeling, and she welcomed the fierce bulge of the
wind in the up-blowing whorls of her hair and the
drenching wetness of the rain. At length, out of
breath, she crouched down under a catalpa tree,
watching the fangs of lightning knot themselves
against the baleful gray-yellow dimness, making
sudden flares of unbearable brightness against which
twigs etched themselves with the unrelieved sharp
ness of black paper silhouettes.
She tried to fix her mind on near things, the
bending grasses, the scurrying red runnels and flap
ping shrubbery, but her thoughts wilfully escaped
the tether, turning again and again to the events of
the last two hours. She pictured Unc' Jefferson's
eyes rolling up in ridiculous alarm, his winnowing
arm lashing his indignant mule in his flight for the
doctor.
At the mental picture she choked with hysterical
laughter, then cringed suddenly against the sopping
bark. She saw again the doctor's gaze lift from
his first examination of the tiny punctures to send
a swift penetrant glance straight at her, before he
AFTER THE STORM 181
bent his great body to carry the unconscious man
to the house. Again a fit of shuddering swept over
her. Then, all at once, tears came, strangling sobs
that bent and swayed her. It was the discharge of
the Ley den jar, the loosing of the tense bow-string,
and it brought relief.
After a time she grew quieter. He would per
haps still be lying on tht couch in the dull-colored
library, under the one-eyed portrait, his hair wav
ing crisply against the white blanket, his hands mov
ing restlessly, his lips muttering. Her imagina
tion followed Aunt Daph shuffling to fetch this and
that, nagged by the doctor's sharp admonitions.
He would get well! The thought that perhaps
she had saved his life gave her a thrill that ran over
her whole body. And until yesterday she had never
seen him! She kneeled in the blurred half-light,
pushing her wet hair back from her forehead and
smiling up in the rain that still fell fast.
In a few moments she rose and went on. The
lightning came now at longer and more irregular
intervals and the thunder pealed less heavily. The
wan yellow murk was lifting. Here and there a
soaked sun-beam peered half- frightened through the
racked mist-wreaths, as though to smell the over-
sweet fragrance of the wet jessamine in her arms.
At the gate of the Rosewood lane stood a mail
box on a cedar post and she paused to fish out a
draggled Richmond newspaper. As she thrust it
1 82 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
under her arm her eye caught a word of a head-line.
With a flush she tore it from its soggy wrapper, the
wetted fiber parting in her eager fingers, and rest
ing her foot on the lower rail of the gate, spread it
open on her knee.
She stood stock-still until she had read the whole.
It was the story of John Valiant's sacrifice of his
private fortune to save the ruin of the involved Cor
poration.
Its effect upon her was a shock. She felt her
throat swell as she read; then she was chilled by
the memory of what she had said to him : " What
has he ever done except play polo and furnish spicy
paragraphs for the society columns?"
" What a beast I was ! " she said, addressing the
wet hedge. " He had just done that splendid
thing. It was because of that that he was little
better than a beggar, and I said those horrible
things ! " Again she bent her eyes, rereading the
sentences : " Took his detractors by surprise . . .
had fust sustained a grilling at the hands of the
State's examiner which might well have dried at
their fount the springs of sympathy"
She crushed up the paper in her hand and rested
her forehead on the wet rail. Idiotically rich a
vandal a useless purse-proud flaneur. She had
called him all that! She could still see the pale
ness of his look as she had said it.
Shirley, overexcited as she still was, felt the
AFTER THE STORM 183
sobs returning. These, however, did not last long
and in a moment she found herself smiling again.
Though she had hurt him, she had saved him, too !
When she whispered this over to herself it still
thrilled and startled her. She folded the paper and
hastened on under the cherry-trees.
Emmaline, the negro maid was waiting anxiously
on the porch. She was thin to spareness, with a
face as brown as a tobacco leaf, restless black eyes
and wool neatly pinned and set off by an amber
comb.
" Honey," called Emmaline, " I'se been fearin' fo'
yo' wid all that lightnin' r'arin' eroun'. Do yo' re-
membah when yo' useter run up en jump plumb
down in th' middle of yore feddah-baid en covah up
dat little gol' haid, en I useter tell yo' th' noise was
th' Good Man rollin' eroun' his rain-barr'l ? " She
laughed noiselessly, holding both hands to her thin
sides. " Yo' grow'd up now so yo' ain' skeered o'
nothin' this side th' Bad Place! Yo' got th' jess'-
mine ? Give 'em to Em'line. She'll fix 'em all nice,
jes' how Mis' Judith like."
" All right, Emmaline," replied Shirley. " And
I'll go and dress. Has mother missed me? "
" No'm. She ain' lef huh room this whole
blessed day. Now yo' barth's all ready all 'cep'n
th' hot watah, en I sen' Ranston with that th' fus'
thing. Yo' hurry en peel them wet close off
yo'se'f, or yo' have one o' them digested chills."
184 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Her young mistress flown and the hot water
despatched, the negro woman spread a cloth on the
floor and began to cut and dress the long stalks of
the flowers. This done she fetched bowls and
vases, and set the pearly-white clumps here and
there on the dining-room sideboard, the hall
mantel and the desk of the living-room till the
delicate fragrance filled the house, quite vanquish
ing the rose-scent from the arbors.
When all was done, she stood in the doorway with
arms akimbo, turning about to survey her handi
work. " Mis' Judith be pleas' with that," she said,
nodding her woolly head with vigor. " Wondah
why she want them sprangly things ! All th' res' o'
th' time roses, but 'bout onct a yeah seems like she
jes' got to have them jess'mine en nothin' else."
She swept up the scattered twigs and leaves, and
going into the dining-room, began to lay the table
for dinner. This room was square and low, with a
carved console and straight-backed chairs thinly
cushioned in faded blue to match the china. The
olive-gray walls were brightened with the soft dull
gold of an old mirror and picture frames from which
dim faces looked placidly down. The crumbling
splendor of the storm-racked sunset fell through
old-fashioned leaded window-panes, tinging the
white Capodimonte figures on the mantelpiece.
As the trim colored woman moved lightly about
in the growing dusk, with the low click of glass and
AFTER THE STORM 185
muffled clash of silver, the light tat-tat of a cane
sounded, and she ran to the hall, where Mrs. Dand-
ridge was descending the stairway, one slim white
hand holding the banister, under the edge of a
white silk shawl which drooped its heavy fringes to
her daintily-shod feet. On the lower step she
halted, looking smilingly about at the blossoming
bowls.
"Don' they smell up th' whole house?" said
Emmaline. " I know'd yo' be pleas', Mis' Judith.
Now put yo' han' on mah shouldah en I'll take yo'
to yo' big cha'h."
They crossed the hall, the dusky form bending to
the fragile pressure of the fingers. " Now heah's
yo' cha'h. Ranston he made up a little fiah jes'
to take th' damp out, en th' big lamp's lit, en Miss
Shirley'll be down right quick."
A moment later, in fact, Shirley descended the
stair, in a filmy gown of India-muslin, with a nar
row belting of gold, against whose flowing sleeves
her bare arms showed with a flushed pinkness the
hue of the pale coral beads about her neck. The
damp newspaper was in her hand.
At her step her mother turned her head : she was
listening intently to voices that came from the gar
den a child's shrill treble opposing Ranston's
stentorian grumble.
" Listen, Shirley. What's that Rickey is telling
Ranston ? "
i86 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" Don' yo' come heah wid yo' no-count play-
actin'. Cyan' fool Ranston wid no sich snek-story,
neidah. Ain' no moc'sin at Dam'ry Co'ot, en neb-
bah was! "
" There was, too ! " insisted Rickey. " One bit
him and Miss Shirley found him and sent Uncle
Jefferson for Doctor Southall and it saved his life !
So there! Doctor Southall told Mrs. Mason.
And he isn't a man who's just come to fix it up,
either ; he's the really truly man that owns it ! "
" Who on earth is that child talking about? "
Shirley put her arm around her mother and
kissed her. Her heart was beating quickly. " The
owner has come to Damory Court. He "
The small book Mrs. Dandridge held fell to the
floor. "The owner! What owner?"
" Mr. Valiant Mr. John Valiant. The son of
the man who abandoned it so long ago." As she
picked up the fallen volume and put it into her
mother's hands, Shirley was startled by the white
ness of her face.
"Dearest!" she cried. "You are ill. You
shouldn't have come down."
" No. It's nothing. I've been shut up all day.
Go and open the other window."
Shirley threw it wide. " Can I get your salts ? "
she asked anxiously.
Her mother shook her head. " No," she said al
most sharply. " There's nothing whatever the mat-
__ AFTER THE STORM 187
ter with me. Only my nerves aren't what they used
to be, I suppose and snakes always did get on
them. Now, give me the gist of it first. I can wait
for the rest. There's a tenant at Damory Court.
And his name's John Valiant. And he was bit
ten by a moccasin. When ? "
" This afternoon."
Mrs. Dandridge's voice shook. " Will he will
he recover ? "
" Oh, yes."
" Beyond any question ? "
" The doctor says so."
" And you found him, Shirley you?"
" I was there when it happened." She had
crouched down on the rug in her favorite posture,
her coppery hair against her mother's knee, catch
ing strange reddish over-tones like molten metal,
from the shaded lamp. Mrs. Dandridge fingered
her cane nervously. Then she dropped her hand on
the girl's head.
" Now," she said, " tell me all about it."
CHAPTER XXII
THE ANNIVERSARY
THE story was not a long one, though it
omitted nothing: the morning fox-hunt and
the identification of the new arrival at Damory
Court as the owner of yesterday's stalled motor;
the afternoon raid on the jessamine, the conversa
tion with John Valiant in the woods.
Mrs. Dandridge, gazing into the fire, listened
without comment, but more than once Shirley saw
her hands clasp themselves together and thought,
too, that she seemed strangely pale. The swift
and tragic sequel to that meeting was the
hardest to tell, and as she ended she put up her
hand to her shoulder, holding it hard. " It was
horrible ! " she said. Yet now she did not shudder.
Strangely enough, the sense of loathing which had
been surging over her at recurrent intervals ever
since that hour in the wood, had vanished utterly!
She read the newspaper article aloud and her
mother listened with an expression that puzzled
her. When she finished, both were silent for a mo
ment, then she asked, " You must have known his
father, dearest ; didn't you ? "
188
THE ANNIVERSARY 189
" Yes," said Mrs. Dandridge after a pause. " I
knew his father."
Shirley said no more, and facing each other in
the candle-glow, across the spotless damask, they
talked, as with common consent, of other things.
She thought she had never seen her mother more
brilliant. An odd excitement was flooding her
cheek with red and she chatted and laughed as she
had not done for years. Even Ranston rolled his
eyes in appreciation, later confiding to Emmaline in
the kitchen that " Mis' Judith cert'n'y chipper ez
er squ'rl dis ev'nin'. Reck'n she be breckin' dat
cane ovah some o' ouah haids yit ! What yo' spos'n
she say 'bout dem aryplanes? She 'clah she tickle
tuh deff ter ride in one yas'm. Say et soun'
lak er thrash'n-machine en look lak er debble-fish
but she don' keer. When she ride, she want tuh
zip yas she did! Dat's jes' whut Mis' Judith
say." "
But after dinner the gaiety and effervescence
faded quickly and Mrs. Dandridge went early to
her room. She mounted the stair with her arm
thrown about Shirley's pliant waist. At the win
dow, where the balustrade turned, she paused to peer
into the night. The air outside was moist and
heavy with rose-scent.
" How alive they seem, Shirley," she said, " the
roses. But the jessamine deserves its little hour."
At her door she kissed her, looking at her with a
THE VALIANTS OF, VIRGINIA
strange smile. " How curious," she said, as if to
herself, " that it should have happened, to-day! "
The reading-lamp had been lighted on her table.
She drew a slim gold chain from the bosom of her
dress and held to the light a little locket-brooch it
carried. It was of black enamel, with a tiny laurel-
wreath of pearls on one side encircling a single
diamond. The other side was of crystal and cov
ered a baby's russet-colored curl. In her fingers it
opened and disclosed a miniature at which she
looked closely for a moment.
As she snapped the halves shut, her eye fell on
the open page of a book that lay on the table in the
circle of radiance. It was Lucile:
"Alas! who shall number the drops of the rain?
Or give to the dead leaves their greenness again ?
Who shall seal up the caverns the earthquake hath rent?
Who shall bring forth the winds that within them are pent?
To a voice who shall render an image? or who
From the heats of the noontide shall gather the dew? "
Her eyes turned restlessly about the room. It
had been hers as a girl, for Rosewood had been the
old Garland homestead. It seemed now all at once
to be full of calling memories of her youth. She
looked again at the page and turned the leaf :
" Hush ! That which is done
I regret not. I breathe no reproaches. That's best
Which God sends. 'Twas His will; it is mine. And the rest
Of that riddle I will not look back to! "
THE ANNIVERSARY 191
She closed the book hastily and thrust it out of
sight, beneath a magazine.
" How strange that it should have been to-day ! "
It had been on Shirley's lips to question, but the
door had closed, and she went slowly down-stairs.
She sat a while thinking, but at length grew restless
and began to walk to and fro across the floor, her
hands clasped behind her head so that the cool air
filled her flowing sleeves. In the hall she could
hear the leisurely kon-kon kon-kon of the tall
clock. The evening outside was exquisitely still
and the metallic monotone was threaded with the
airy fiddle-fiddle of crickets in the grass and punc
tuated with the rain-glad cloap of a frog.
Presently, with the mellow whirrings that ac
company the movements of such antiques, the an
cient timepiece struck ten. At the sound she
threw a thin scarf over her shoulders and stole out
to the porch. Its deep odorous shadow was crossed
by oblongs of lemon-colored light from the win
dows. Before the kitchen door Ranston's voice was
humming huskily:
" ' Steal away ; Steal away 1
Steal away to Jesus.
Steal away ! Steal away home
accompanied by the soft alto of Aunt Judy the cook.
Shirley stepped lightly down to the wet grass.
192 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Looking back, she could see her mother's lighted
blind. All around the ground was splotched with
rose-petals, looking in the squares of light like
bloody rain. Beyond the margin of this brightness
all was in darkness, for the moon was not yet risen,
and a light damp breeze passed in a slow rhythm as
if the earth were breathing moistly in its sleep.
Somewhere far away sounded the faint inquiring
woo-o-o of an owl and in the wet branches of a
walnut tree a pigeon moved murmurously.
She skimmed the lawn and ran a little way down
the lane. A shuffling sound presently fell on her
ear.
" Is that you, Unc' Jefferson? " she called softly.
"Yas'm!" The footsteps came nearer. " Et's
me, Miss Shirley." He tittered noiselessly, and she
could see his bent form vibrating in the gloom.
" Yo' reck'n Ah done fergit? "
" No, indeed. I knew you wouldn't do that.
How is he?"
" He right much bettah," he replied in the same
guarded tone. " Doctah he say he be all right in er
few days, on'y he gotter lay up er while. Dat was
er ugly nip he got f'om dat 'spisable reptyle. Ah
reck'n de moc'sins is wuss'n dem ar Floridy yallar-
gaters."
" Do you think there can be any others about the
grounds ? "
" No'm. Dey mos'ly keeps ter de ma'sh-lan'
THE ANNIVERSARY 193
en on'y runs whah de undah-bresh ez thick. I
gwineter fix dat ter-morrow. Mars' Valiant he tell
me ter grub et all out en make er bon-fiah ob it."
' That's right, Unc' Jefferson. Good night, and
thank you for coming."
She started back to the house, when his voice
stopped her.
" Mis Shirley, yo' don' keer ef de ole man ged-
dahs two er three ob dem roses? Seems lak young
mars' moughty fon' ob dem. He got one in er
glass but et's mos' daid now."
" Wait a minute," she said, and disappeared in
the darkness, returning quickly with a handful
which she put in his grasp.
" There ! " she whispered, and slipped back
through the perfumed dark.
An hour later she stood in the cozy stillness of
her bedroom. It was hung in silvery blue with cur
tains of softly figured shadow-cloth having a misty
design of mauve and pink hydrangeas. A tilted
mirror on the draped dressing-table had a dark ma
hogany frame set in upright posts carved in a heavy
pattern of grape-leaves. Two candles in silver
candlesticks stood before it, their friendly light
winking from the fittings of the dark bed, from the
polished surface of the desk in the corner and from
the old piece of brocade stretched above the mantel,
worked like shredded silver cobwebs.
194 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
She threw off her gown, slipped into a soft loose
robe of maize-colored silk and stood before the small
glass. She pulled out the amber pins and drew her
wonderful hair on either side of her face, looking
out at her reflection like a mermaid from between
the rippling waves of a moon-golden sea. She
gazed a long critical minute from eyes whose blue
seemed now almost black.
At last she turned, and seating herself at the
desk, took from it a diary. She scanned the pages
at random, her eyes catching lines here and there.
* A good run to-day. Betty and Judge Chalmers
and the Pendleton boys. My fourth brush this sea
son." A frown drew itself across her brows, and
she turned the page. " One of the hounds broke
his leg, and I gave him to Rickey." ... " Chilly
Lusk to dinner to-day, after swimming the Loring
Rapid."
She bit her lip, turned abruptly to the new page
and took up her pen. " This morning a twelve mile
run to Damory Court," she wrote. " This after
noon went for cape jessamines." There she paused.
The happenings and sensations of that day would
not be recorded. They were unwritable.
She laid down her pen and put her forehead on
her clasped hands. How empty and inane these en
tries seemed beside this rich and eventful twenty-
four hours just passed ! What had she been doing
a year ago to-day? she wondered. The lower
THE ANNIVERSARY 195
drawer of the desk held a number of slim diaries
like the one before her. She pulled it out, took up
the last-year's volume and opened it.
" Why," she said in surprise, " I got jessamine
for mother this very same day last year ! " she pon
dered frowning, then reached for a third and a
fourth. From these she looked up, startled. That
date in her mother's calendar called for cape jessa
mines. What was the fourteenth of May to her?
She bent a slow troubled gaze about her. The
room had been hers as a child. She seemed sud
denly back in that childhood, with her mother bend
ing over her pillow and fondling her rebellious hair.
When the wind cried for loneliness out in the dark
she had sung old songs to her that had seemed to
suit a windy night : Mary of the Wild Moor, and
I am Dreaming Now of Hallie. Sad songs ! Even
in those pinafore years Shirley had vaguely realized
that pain lay behind the brave gay mask. Was
there something some event that had caused
that dull-colored life and unfulfilment? And was
to-day, perhaps, its anniversary?
Her thought darted to her father who had died
before her birth, on whose gray hair had been set
the greenest laurels of the Civil War. She had al
ways been deeply proud of his military record
had never read his name on a page of Confederate
history without a new thrill. But she had never
thought of him and her mother as actors in a pas-
196 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
sionate love-romance. Their portraits hung to
gether in the living-room down-stairs: the grave
middle-aged man with graying hair, and the pale
proud girl with the strange shadow in the dark eyes.
The canvases had been painted in the year of her
mother's marriage. The same sadness had been in
her face then. And their marriage and his death
had both fallen in midwinter. No, this May date
was not connected with him!
" Dearest, dearest ! " whispered Shirley, and a
slow tear drew its shining track down her cheek.
" Is there something I've never known ? Is there ? "
CHAPTER XXIII
UNCLE JEFFERSON'S STORY
JOHN VALIANT sat propped up on the library
couch, an open magazine unheeded on his knee.
The reading-stand beside him was a litter of letters
and papers. The bow-window was open and the
honeysuckle breeze blew about him, lifting his hair
and ruffling the leaves of the papers. In one cor
ner, in a splotch of bright sunshine, lay the bull
dog, watching a strayed blue-bottle darting in panic
hither and thither near the ceiling.
Outside a colored maid a new acquisition of
Aunt Daphne's named Cassandra, black (in Doc
tor Southall's phrase) " as the inside of a cow,"
and dressed in a trim cotton-print " swing-clear,"
was sweeping the big porch. Over the little cabin
by the kitchens, morning-glories twirled their young
tendrils. Before its step stood a low shuck-bottom
" rocker " with a crimson dyed sheep-skin for up
holstery, on which was curled a brindle cat.
Through its door Valiant could see a spool what
not, with green pasteboard partitions, a chromo
framed in pine-covers on the wall and on a shelf a
creton-covered can full of bustling paper lighters.
197
198 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
In the garden three darkies were laboring, under
the supervision of Uncle Jefferson. The unsightly
weeds and lichen were gone from the graveled paths,
and from the fountain pool, whose shaft now
spouted a slender spray shivered by the breeze into a
million diamonds, which fell back into the pool with
a tintinabulant trickle and drip. The drunken wild
grape-vines now trailed with a pruned and sobered
luxuriance and the clamor of hammer and saw
came from the direction of the lake, where a car
penter refurbished the ruined summer-house.
The master of Damory Court closed the maga
zine with a sigh. " If I could only do it all at
once ! " he muttered. " It takes such a confounded
time. Four days they've been working now, and
they haven't done much more than clean up." He
laughed, and threw the magazine at the dog who
dodged it with injured alacrity. " After all,
Chum," he remarked, " it's been thirty years get
ting in this condition. I guess we're doing pretty
well."
He picked up a plump package and weighed it in
his hand. " There are the seeds for the wilderness
garden. Bachelor's-buttons and love-lies-bleeding
and Jacob's-ladder and touch-me-nots and daffy-
down-dillies and phlox and sweet-williams and
love-in-a-mist and four-o'clocks not a blessed
hot-house name among 'em, Chum! Don't they
sound homey and old-fashioned? The asters and
UNCLE JEFFERSON'S STORY 199
dahlias and scarlet geraniums are for nearer the
house, and the pansies and petunias for that sunny
stretch down by the lake. Then there'll be sun
flowers around the kitchens and a trumpet-vine over
the side of this porch."
He stretched luxuriously. " I'll take a hand at it
myself to-morrow. I'm as right as rain again
now, thanks to Aunt Daph and the doctor. Some
thing of a crusty citizen, the doctor, but he's all to
the good."
A heavy step came along the porch and Uncle
Jefferson appeared with a tray holding a covered
dish with a plate of biscuit and a round jam-pot.
" Look here," said John Valiant, " I had my lunch
eon three hours ago. Fm being stuffed like a milk-
fed turkey."
The old man smiled widely. " Et's jes' er li'l
snack er broth," he said. " Reck'n et'll kinder float
eroun' de yuddah things. Daph ain' got no use fo*
tea. She say she boun' ter mek yo' fit fo' ernud-
dah rassle wid dem moc'sins. Dis' yeah pot's dat
apple-buttah whut Miss Mattie Sue sen' yo' by
Rickey Snyder."
Valiant sniffed with satisfaction. " I'm getting
so confoundedly spoiled," he said, " that I'm tempted
to stay sick and do nothing but eat. By the way,
Uncle Jefferson, where did Rickey come from?
Does she belong here ? "
" No, suh. She come f'om Hell's-Half-Acre."
200 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
"What's that?"
" Dat's dat ornery passle o' folks yondah on dc
Dome," explained Uncle Jefferson. " Dey's been
dah long's Ah kin recommembah jes' er ram
shackle lot o' shif'less po'-white trash whut git
erlong anyways 't all. Ain' nobody boddahs er-
bout dem 'less'n et's er guv'ment agint, fo' dey
makes dey own whisky, en dey drinks et, too."
" That's interesting," said Valiant. " So Rickey
belonged there ? "
" Yas, suh ; nebbah 'd a-come down heah 'cep'in'
fo' Miss Shirley. She de one whut fotch de li'l
gal outen dat place, en put huh wid Miss Mattie
Sue, three yeah ergo."
A sudden color came into John Valiant's cheeks.
" Tell me about it." His voice vibrated eagerly.
" Well, suh," continued Uncle Jefferson, " dey
was one o' dem low-down Hell's-Half-Acrers, name'
Greef King, whut call hese'f de may ah ob de Dome,
en he went on de rampage one day, en took ahtah
his wife. She was er po' sickly 'ooman, wid er li'l
gal five yeah ol' by er fust husban'. He done beat
huh heap o' times befo', but dis time he boun' ter
finish huh. Ah reck'n he was too drunk fo' dat, en
she got erway en run down heah. Et was wintah
time en dah's snow on de groun'. Dah's er road
f 'om de Dome dat hits de Red Road clost' ter Rose
wood dat ar's de Dandridge place en she come
dah. Reck'n she wuz er pitiful-lookin' obstacle.
UNCLE JEFFERSON'S STORY 201
'Pcahs lak she done put de li'l gal up in de cabin lof '
en hid de laddah, en she mos' crazy fo' feah Greef
git huh. She lef he huntin' fo' de young 'un when
she run erway. Dey was on'y Mis' Judith en Miss
Shirley en de gal Em'line at Rosewood, 'case
Ranston de butlah en de yuddahs gone ter diss-
tracted meetin' down ter de Cullud Mefodis' Chu'ch.
Well, suh, dey wa'nt no time ter sen' f o' men. Whut
yo' reck'n Miss Shirley do? She ain' afeahd o'
nuffin on dis yerf, en she on'y sebenteen yeah ol' den,
too. She don' tell Mis' Judith no, suh! She
run out ter de stable en saddle huh hoss, en she gal
lop up dat road ter Hell's-Half-Acre lak er shot
outen er shovel."
Valiant brought his hands together sharply.
" Yes, yes," he said. " And then? "
" When she come ter Greef King's cabin, he done
foun' de laddah, en one er he foots was on de rung.
He had er ax in he han'. De po' li'l gal was peepin*
down thoo' de cracks o' de flo', en prayin' de bestes*
she know how. She say arterwuhds dat she reck'n
de Good Lawd sen' er angel, fo' Miss Shirley were
all in white she didn' stop ter change huh close.
She didn' say nuffin, Miss Shirley didn'. She on'y
lay huh han' on Greef King's ahm, en he look at
huh face, en he drop he ax en go. Den she dumb
de laddah en fotch de chile down in huh ahms en
take huh on de hoss en come back. Dat de way et
happen, suh."
202 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" And Rickey was that little child ! "
" Yas, suh, she sho' was. In de mawnin' er
posse done ride up ter Hell's-Half-Acre en take
Greef King in. De majah he argyfy de case fo'
de State, en when he done git thoo', dey mos' put
de tow eroun' King's nek in de co'ot room. He
done got th'ee yeah, en et mos' broke de majah's
ha'at dat dey couldn' give him no mo'. He wuz
cert'n'y er bad aig, dat Greef wuz. Dey say he
done sw'ah he gwineter do up de majah when he
git out. De po' 'ooman she stay sick dah at Rose
wood all wintah, but she git no bettah moughty fas',
en in de spring she up en die. Den Miss Shirley she
put li'l Rickey at Miss Mattie Sue's, en she pay fo'
huh keep eber sence outer huh own money. Dat
whut she done, suh,"
Such was the story which Uncle Jefferson told,
standing in the doorway. When his shuffling step
had retreated, Valiant went to the table and picked
up a slim tooled volume that lay there. It was
the Lucile he had found in the hall the night of
his arrival. He opened it to a page where, pressed
and wrinkled but still retaining its bright red pig
ment, lay what had been a rose.
He stood looking at it abstractedly, his nostrils
widening to its crushed spicy scent, then closed it
and slipped it into his pocket.
CHAPTER XXIV
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY
HE was still sitting motionless when there came
a knock at the door and it opened to admit
the gruff voice of Doctor Southall. A big form
was close behind him.
" Hello. Up, I see. I took the liberty of bring
ing Major Bristow."
The master of Damory Court came forward
limping the least trifle and shook hands.
" Glad to know you, sah," said the major. " Al
low me to congratulate you ; it's not every one who
gets bitten by one of those infernal moccasins that
lives to talk about it. You must be a pet of Provi
dence, or else you have a cast-iron constitution,
sah."
Valiant waved his hand toward the man of medi
cine, who said, " I reckon Miss Shirley was the
Providence in the case. She had sense enough to
send for me quick and speed did it."
" Well, sah," the major said, " I reckon under
the circumstances, your first impressions of the sec
tion aren't anything for us to brag about."
203 .
204 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
"I'm delighted; it's hard for me to tell how
much."
" Wait till you know the fool place," growled the
doctor testily. " You'll change your tune."
The major smiled genially. " Don't be taken in
by the doctor's pessimism. You'd have to get a
yoke of three-year oxen to drag him out of this
state."
" It would take as many for me." Valiant
laughed a little. " You who have always lived
here, can scarcely understand what I am feeling, I
imagine. You see, I never knew till quite recently
my childhood was largely spent abroad, and I
have no near relatives that my father was a Vir
ginian and that my ancestors always lived here.
To discover this all at once and to come to this
house, with their portraits on the walls and their
names on the title-pages of these books ! " He made
a gesture toward the glass shelves. " Why, there's
a room up-stairs with the very toys they played with
when they were children! To learn that I belong
to it all; that I myself am the last link in such a
chain!"
" The ancestral instinct," said the doctor. " I'm
glad to see that it means something still, in these
rotten days."
"Of course," John Valiant continued, " every one
knows that he has ancestors. But I'm beginning to
see that what you call the ancestral instinct needs
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 205
a locality and a place. In a way it seems to me
that an old estate like this has a soul too a sort
of clan or family soul that reacts on the descend
ant"
" Rather a Japanesy idea, isn't it ? " observed the
major. " But I know what you mean. Maybe
that's why old Virginian families hang on to their
land in spite of hell and high-water. They count
their forebears real live people, quite capable of
turning over in their graves."
" Mine are beginning to seem very real to me.
Though I don't even know their Christian names
yet, I can judge them by their handiwork. The
men who built Damory Court had a sense of beauty
and of art."
" And their share of deviltry, too," put in the
doctor.
" I suppose so," admitted his host. " At this dis
tance I can bear even that. But good or bad, I'm
deeply thankful that they chose Virginia. Since
I've been laid up, I've been browsing in the library
here"
" A bit out of date now, I reckon," said the
major, " but it used to pass muster. Your grand
father was something of a book- worm. He wrote
a history of the family, didn't he? "
"Yes. I've found it. The Valiants of Vir
ginia. I'm reading the Revolutionary chapters
now. It never seemed real before - it's been only
206 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
a slice of impersonal and rather dull history. But
the book has made it come alive. I'm having the
thrill of the globe-trotter the first time he sees the
Tower of London or the field of Waterloo. I see
more than that stubble-field out yonder ; I see a big
wooden stockade with soldiers in ragged buff and
blue guarding it."
The major nodded, " Ah, yes," he said. " The
Continental prison-camp."
" And just over the rise there I can see an old
court-house, and the Virginia Assembly boiling
under the golden tongue-lashing of lean raw-boned
Patrick Henry. I see a messenger gallop up and
see the members scramble to their saddles and
then, Tarleton and his red-coats streaming up, too
late."
" Well," commented the doctor deliberately, " all
I have to say is, don't materialize too much to Mrs.
Poly Gifford when you meet her. She'll have you
lecturing to the Ladies' Church Guild before you
know it. She's sailed herself out here already, I
understand."
" She called the second day : my first visitor. I've
subscribed to the Guild."
The doctor chuckled. " Blame curiosity ! That
woman's housemaid-silly. She can spin more street
yarn than any ten in the county. Miss Mattie Sue's
been here, too, she told me. Ah, yes," looking
quizzically at the tray " I recognize the apple-but-
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 207
ter. A pot just like that goes to the White House
every Christmas there's a Democrat there. She re
minds me of a little drab-gray wren in horn-rimmed
spectacles."
" She's perfectly dear ! " said Valiant, " from her
hoops to the calycanthus bud tied in the corner of
her handkerchief. She must be very old. She told
me she remembered seeing Jefferson at Monticello."
" She's growing younger," the doctor said.
" Sixteen or seventeen years ago she was very feeble
and the Ladies' Guild agreed to support her for life
on consideration that she will her house and lot to
the church, next door. Mrs. Poly Gifford refers
to her now, I believe, as a dispensation of Provi
dence. Did she bring the apple-butter herself? "
" No," smiled John Valiant. " She sent it after
ward by Miss Rickey Snyder."
The major stroked his imperial. " Rickey's an
institution," he said. " I hope she gave us all good
characters. I'd hate to have Rickey Snyder down
on me ! Have you heard her history? "
" Yes, Uncle Jefferson told me."
" I'm glad of that," shot out the doctor. " Now,
we needn't have it from Bristow. He's as fond of
oratory as a maltese cat is of milk."
" He gave me a hint of the major's powers in that
direction, in his account of Greef King's trial."
" Humph ! " retorted the doctor gloomily, " that
was in his palmy days. He's fallen off since then.
Plenty of others been here to bore you, I reckon,
though of course you don't remember all the names
yet."
Valiant summoned Uncle Jefferson.
"Yas, suh," grinned the old darky pridefully,
" de folkses mos' lam de face off'n dat-ar ol'
knockah. Day 'fo' yistiddy dah wuz Mars' Quarles
en Jedge en Mis' Chalmahs. De jedge done sen'
er streng o' silvah perch."
" His place is Gladden Hall," the major said,
" one of the finest mansions round here. A sports
man, sah, and one of the best pokah hands in the
county."
" En yistiddy dah's Mars' Chilly Lusk en de
Pen'letons en de Byloes en Mars' Livy Stowe f'om
Seven Oaks, en de Woodrows en "
"That'll do," said the major. "I'll just run
over the tax-list ; it'll be quicker. There are kindly
people here, sah," he went on, " but after all, it's a
narrow circle. We have our little pleasures and
courtships and scandals and we are satisfied with
them. We're not gadabouts. Our girls haven't
all flirted around Europe and they don't talk of the
Pincio and the Champs Elysees as if they were
Capitol Hill and Madison Street in Richmond. But
if I may say so, sah, I think in Virginia we get a
little closer to life as God Almighty intended it
than people in some of your big cities."
" Come, Bristow," interrupted the doctor, " tell
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 209
the truth. This dog-gone borough is as dull as a
mud fence sticking with tadpoles. There isn't a
man in it with a soul above horse-flesh."
The doctor's shafts to-day, however, glanced off
the major's buckler of geniality like the Lilliputian
arrows from Gulliver's eye-glass. " I hope you
ride, Mr. Valiant?" the latter asked genially.
" I'm fond of it," said Valiant, " but I have no
horse as yet."
" I was thinking," pursued the major, " of the
coming tournament."
"Tournament? "
The doctor cut in. " A ridiculous cock-a-doodle-
do which gives the young bucks a chance to rig out
in silly toggery and prance their colts before a lot of
petticoats ! "
" It's an annual affair," explained the major ;
" a kind of spectacle. For many years, by the
way, it has been held on a part of this estate
perhaps you will have no objection to its use this
season ? and at night there is a dance at the Coun
try Club. By the way, you must let me introduce
you there to-morrow. I've taken the liberty already
of putting your name up."
" Good lord ! " growled the doctor, aside. " He
counts himself young! If I'd reached your age,
Bristow "
" You have," said the major, nettled. " Four
years ago! As I was saying, Mr. Valiant, they
210 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ride for a prize. It's a very ancient thing I've
seen references to it in a colonial manuscript in the
Byrd Library at Westover. No doubt it's come
down directly from the old jousts."
" You don't mean to say," cried his hearer in
genuine astonishment, " that Virginia has a lineal
descendant of the tourney? "
The major nodded. " Yes. Certain sections of
Kentucky used to have it, too, but it has died out
there. It exists now only in this state. It's a cu
rious thing that the old knightly meetings of the
middle ages should survive to-day only on American
soil and in a corner of Virginia."
Doctor Southall, meanwhile, had set his gaze on
the litter of pamphlets. He turned with an ap
preciative eye. " You're beginning in earnest.
The Agricultural Department. And the Congres
sional frank."
" I've gone to the fountainhead," said Valiant.
" I'm trying to find out possibilities. I've sent sam
ples of the soil. It's lain fallow so long it has oc
curred to me it may need special treatment."
The major pulled his mustache meditatively.
" Not a bad idea," he said. " He's starting right
eh, Southall? You're bringing the view-point
of practical science to bear on the problem, Mr.
Valiant."
" I'm afraid I'm a sad sketch as a scientist,"
laughed the other. " My point of view has to be
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 211
a somewhat practical one. I must be self-support
ing. Damory Court is a big estate. It has grain
lands and forest as well. If my ancestors lived
from it, I can. It's not only that," he went on more
slowly, " I want to make the most of the place for
its own sake, too. Not only of its possibilities for
earning, but of its natural beauties. I lack the
resources I once had, but I can give it thought and
work, and if they can bring Damory Court back to
anything even remotely resembling what it once
was, I'll not spare either."
The major smote his knee and even the doctor's
face showed a grim, if transient approval. " I
believe you'll do it ! " exclaimed the former. " And
let me say, sah, that the neighborhood is not un
aware of the splendid generosity which is responsi
ble for the present lack of which you speak."
Valiant put out his hand with a little gesture of
deprecation, but the other disregarded it. " Con
found it, sah, it was to be expected of a Valiant.
Your ancestors wrote their names in capital letters
over this county. They were an up and down lot,
but good or bad (and, as Southall says, I reckon"
he nodded toward the great portrait above the
couch " they weren't all little woolly lambs) they
did big things in a big way."
Valiant leaned forward eagerly, a question on his
lips. But at the moment a diversion occurred in
the shape of Uncle Jefferson, who reentered, bearing
212 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
a tray on which sat sundry jugs and clinking
glasses, glowing with white and green and gold.
" You old humbug," said the doctor, " don't you
know the major's that poisoned with mint- juleps
already that he can't get up before eight in the
morning?"
" Well, suh," tittered Uncle Jefferson, " Ah done
foun* er mint-baid down below de kitchens dis
mawnin'. Yo'-all gemmun' 'bout de bigges' expuhts
in dis yeah county, en Ah reck'n Mars' Valiant sho'
'sist on yo' samplin' et."
" Sah," said the major feelingly, turning to his
host, " I'm proud to drink your health in the typical
beverage of Virginia!" He touched glasses with
Valiant and glared at the doctor, who was sipping
his own thoughtfully. " In my travels," he said,
" I have become acquainted with a drink called
pousse-caf e, which contains all the colors of the
rainbow. But for chaste beauty, sah, give me this.
No garish combination, you will observe. A
frosted goblet, golden at the bottom as an autumn
corn-ear, shading into emerald and then into snow.
On top a white rim of icebergs with the mint sprigs
like fairy pine-trees. Poems have been written on
the julep, sah."
" They make good epitaphs, too," observed the
doctor.
" I notice your glass isn't going begging," the
major retorted. " Unc' Jefferson, that's as good
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 213
mint as grew in the gyarden of Eden. See that
those lazy niggers of yours don't grub the patch out
by mistake."
" Yas, suh" said Uncle Jefferson, as he retired
with the tray. " Ah gwineter put er fence eroun'
dat ar baid 'fo' sundown."
The question that had sprung to Valiant's lips
now found utterance. " I saw you look at the por
trait there," he said to the major. " Which of
my ancestors is it ? "
The other got up and stood before the mantel
piece in a Napoleonic attitude. " That," he said,
fixing his eye-glasses, " is your great-grandfather,
Devil-John Valiant."
" Devil- John ! " echoed his host. " Yes, I've
heard the name."
The doctor guffawed. " He earned it, I reckon.
I never realized what a sinister expression that
missing optic gives the old ruffian. There was a
skirmish during the war on the hillside yonder and
a bullet cut it out. When we were boys we used to
call him ' Old One-Eye/ "
" It interests me enormously." John Valiant
spoke explosively.
" The stories of Devil- John would fill a mighty
big book," said the major. " By all accounts he
ought to have lived in the middle ages." Crossing
the library, he looked into the dining-room. " I
thought I remembered. The portrait over the con-
214 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
sole there is his wife, your great-grandmother.
She was a wonderful swimmer, by the way," he
went on, returning to his seat. " It was said she
had swum across the Potomac in her hunting togs.
When Devil- John heard of the feat, he swore he
would marry her and he did. It was a love-match,
no doubt, on her side ; he must have been one to take
with women. Even in those days, when men still
lived picturesquely and weren't all cut to the same
pattern, he must have been unique. There was
something satanically splendid and savage about
him. My great-uncle used to say he stood six feet
two, and walked like an emperor on a love-spree.
He was a man of sky-high rages, with fingers that
could bend a gold coin double.
" They say he bet that when he brought his bride
home, she should walk into Damory Court between
rows of candlesticks worth twenty-thousand dol
lars. He made the wager good, too, for when she
came up those steps out there, there was a row of
ten candles burning on either side of the doorway,
each held by a young slave worth a thousand dollars
in the market. The whole state talked of the wed
ding and for a time Damory Court was ablaze with
tea-parties and dances. That was in the old days
of coaching and red-heeled slippers, when Virginia
planters lived like viceroys and money was only
to throw to the birds. They were fast livers and
hard drinkers, and their passions ran away with
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 215
them. Devil-John's knew neither saddle nor
bridle. Some say he grew jealous of his wife's
beauty. There were any number of stories told
of his cruelties to her that aren't worth repeating.
She died early poor lady and your grand
father was the only issue. Devil- John himself lived
to be past seventy, and at that age, when most men
were stacking their sins and groaning with the
gout, he was dicing and fox-hunting with the young
est of them. He always swore he would die with
his boots on, and they say when the doctor told
him he had only a few hours leeway, he made his
slaves dress him completely and prop him on his
horse. They galloped out so, a negro on either
side of him. It was a stormy night, black as the
Earl of Hell's riding-boots, with wind and lightning,
and he rode cursing at both. There's an old black-
gum tree a mile from here that they still call Devil-
John's tree. They were just passing under it when
the lightning struck it. Lightning has no effect
on the black-gum, you know. The bolt glanced
from the tree and struck him between the two
slaves without harming either of them. It killed his
horse, too. That's the story. To be sure at this
date nobody can separate fact from fiction. Possi
bly he wasn't so much worse than the rest of his
neighbors not excepting even the parsons.
' Other times, other manners.' '
" They weren't any worse than the present gen-
216 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
eration," said the doctor malevolently. " Your
four bottle men then knew only claret : now they
punish whisky-straight. They still trice up their
gouty legs to take after harmless foxes. And I
dare say the women will be wearing red-heeled slip
pers again next year."
The major buried his nose in his julep for a long
moment before he looked at the doctor blandly. " I
agree with you, Bristow," he said ; " but it's the first
time I ever heard you admit that much good of your
ancestors."
"Good!" said the doctor belligerently. "Me?
I don't! I said people now were no better. As
for the men of that time, they were a cheap swag
gering lot of bullies and swash-bucklers. When
I read history I'm ashamed to be descended from
them."
" I desire to inform you, sah," said the major,
stung, " that I too am a descendant of those
bullies and swash-bucklers, as you call them. And
I wish from my heart I thought we, nowadays,
could hold a tallow-dip to them. Whatever their
habits, they had their ideals, and they lived up to
them."
" You refer, no doubt," said the doctor with
sarcasm, " to our friend Devil-John and his ideal
treatment of his wife ! "
" No, sah," replied the major warmly. " I'm
not referring to Devil-John. - There were excep-
IN DEVIL-JOHN'S DAY 217
tions, no doubt, but for the most part they treated
their women folk as I believe their Maker made
them to be treated! The man who failed in his
courtesy there, sah, was called to account for it.
He was mighty apt to find himself standing in the
cool dawn at the butt-end of a "
He broke off and coughed. There was an awk
ward pause in which he set down his glass noisily
and rose and stood before the open bookcase. " I
envy you this, sah/' he said with somewhat of
haste. " A fine old collection. Bless my soul, what
a curious volume ! "
As he spoke, his hand jerked out a heavy-looking
leather-back. Valiant, who had risen and stood be
side him, saw instantly that what he had drawn
from the shelf was the morocco case that held the
rusted dueling-pistol! In the major's hands the
broken box opened. A sudden startled look darted
across his leonine face. With a smothered exclama
tion he thrust it back between the books and closed
the glass door.
Valiant had paled. His previous finding of the
weapon had escaped his mind. Now he read, as
clearly as if it had been printed in black-letter across
the sunny wall, the significance of the major's con
fusion. That weapon had been in his father's hand
when he had faced his opponent in that fatal duel !
It flashed across his mind as the doctor lunged for
his hat and stick and got to his feet.
218 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" Come, Bristow," said the latter irritably.
" Your feet will grow fast to the floor presently.
We mustn't talk a new neighbor to death. I've got
to see a patient at six.'*
CHAPTER XXV
JOHN VALIANT ASKS A QUESTION
VALIANT went with them to the outer door.
A painful thought was flooding his mind.
It hampered his speech and it was only by a violent
effort that he found voice :
" One moment ! There is a question I would
like to ask."
Both gentlemen had turned upon the steps
and as they faced him he thought a swift glance
passed between them. They waited courteously,
the doctor with his habitual frown, the major's
hand fumbling for the black ribbon on his waist
coat.
" Since I came here, I have heard " his tone
was uneven " of a duel in which my father was
a principal. There was such a meeting? "
" There was," said the doctor after the slightest
pause of surprise. " Had you known nothing of
it?"
" Absolutely nothing."
The major cleared his throat. " It was some
thing he might naturally not have made a record
219
220 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
of," he said. " The two had been friends, and it
it was a fatal encounter for the other. The doc
tor and I were your father's seconds."
There was a moment's silence before Valiant
spoke again. When he did his voice was steady,
though drops had sprung to his forehead. " Was
there any circumstance in that meeting that might
be construed as reflecting on his honor?"
" Good God, no! " said the major explosively.
" On his bearing as a gentleman? "
There was a hiatus this time in which he could
hear his heart beat. In that single exclamation the
major seemed to have exhausted his vocabulary.
He was looking at the ground. It was the doctor
who spoke at last, in a silence that to the man in
the doorway weighed like a hundred atmospheres.
" No ! " he said bluntly. " Certainly not. What
put that into your head? "
When he was alone in the library Valiant opened
the glass door and took from the shelf the morocco
case. The old shiver of repugnance ran over him
at the very touch of the leather. In the farthest
corner was a low commode. He set the case on
this and moved the big tapestry screen across the
angle, hiding it from view.
The major and the doctor walked in silence till
they Jiad left Damory Court far behind them. Then
the doctor observed caustically, " Nice graceful
JOHN VALIANT ASKS A QUESTION 221
little act of yours, yanking that infernal pistol out
before his face like that! "
" How in Sam Hill could I guess ? " the other
retorted. " It's long enough since I saw that old
case. I I brought it there myself, Southall
that very morning, immediately after the meeting.
To think of its lying there untouched in that empty
room all these years ! "
There was another silence. " How straight he
put the question to us ! Right out from the shoul
der, for all the world like his father. Well, you
said the right thing. There are times when a gen
tleman simply has to lie like one."
The doctor shut his teeth with a snap, as though
he had caught a rabbit. " Look here, Bristow,"
he said hotly, " I've never cared a hang what your
opinions of Valiant were after that duel. I'll keep
my own."
" Oh, all right," rejoined the major. " But let's
be honest with ourselves. If you could split a sil
ver dollar nine times out of ten at fifteen paces,
would you exchange shots with a man who was
beside himself with liquor?"
"If Valiant was a dead shot, the better for
him," said the doctor grimly. "If Sassoon was
drunk, so much the worse for Sassoon. His con
dition was the affair of his seconds. Valiant was
no more responsible for it than for the quarrel.
Neither was of his making. Just because a man
222 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
is a crack shot and stays sober, is he to bear any
insult stand up to be shot at into the bargain
and take no hand in the game himself? Answer 1
me that?"
" It didn't touch his honor, of course," replied
the major. " We could all agree on that. He was
within his rights. But it wasn't like a Valiant."
They were at the parting now and the major
held out his hand. "Oh, well," he said, "it's
long enough ago, and there's nothing against his
son. I like the young chap, Southall. He's his
father all over again, eh ? "
" When I first saw him," said the doctor huskily,
" I thought I had slid back thirty years and that our
old Beauty Valiant was lying there before me. I
loved him, Bristow, and somehow whatever hap
pened that day at the Hemlocks it couldn't make
a damned bit of difference to me! "
CHAPTER XXVI
THE CALL OF THE ROSES
IN the great hall at Damory Court the candles
in their brass wall-sconces blinked back from
the polished parquetry and the shining fire-dogs,
filling the rather solemn gloom with an air of
warmth and creature-comfort.
Leaning against the newel-post, Valiant gazed
about him. How different it all looked from the
night of his coming!
It occurred to him with a kind of wonder that a
fortnight ago he had never known this house ex
isted. Then he had conceived the old hectic life
the only one worth knowing, the be-all and end-
all of modern felicity. It was as if a single stroke
had cut his life in two parts which had instantly
recoiled as far asunder as the poles. Strangely,
the new seemed more familiar than the old; there
had been moments when he remembered the past
almost as in the placid day one recalls a thriving
dream of the night before, which, itself unreal, has
left an overpowering impression behind it. Little
fragments of the old nightly mosaic the bitt-
music across the dulled glisten of pounded asphalt,
223
224 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
the fcatherbone girl flaring high in air in electric
rain, a pointed clock-tower spiking the upper night-
gloom, the faint halitus of musk from a downy
theater-wrap fluttered about him. But all seemed
far away, hackneyed, shop-worn, as banal as the
scenery of an opera.
He began to walk up and down the floor, teasing
pricks of restlessness urging him. He opened the
door and passed into the unlighted dining-room.
On the sideboard sat a silver loving-cup that had
arrived the day before in a huge box with his
books and knick-knacks. He had won it at polo.
He lifted it, fingering its carved handles. He re
membered that when that particular score had been
made, Katharine Fargo had sat in one of the drags
at the side-line.
But the memory evoked no thrill. Instead, the
thought of her palely-cold, passionless beauty called
up another mobile thoroughbred face instinct with
quick flashings of mirth and hauteur. Again he
felt the fierce clutch of small fingers, as they fought
with his in that struggle for his life. Each line of
that face stood before him the arching brows, the
cameo-delicacy of profile, the magnolia skin and hair
like a brown-gold cloud across the sun.
A soft clicking patter trailed itself over the pol
ished floor and the bulldog's nose was thrust be
tween his knees. He bent down and fondled the
satiny head to still the sudden surge of loneliness
THE CALL OF THE ROSES 225
that had overflowed his heart an ache for he
knew not what. A depression was on him, he
knew not why something that had a keen edge of
longing like physical hunger.
He set back the loving-cup and went out to the
front porch to prowl aimlessly up and down past
the great gray-stained Ionic columns. It was not
late, but the night was very still. The Virginia
creeper waved gently to and fro in a soundless
breeze that was little more than a whisper. The
sky was heavily sprinkled with stars whose wan
clustering was blotted here and there by floating
shreds of cloud, like vaporous, filmy leaves stripped
by some upper gale from the Tree of Heaven. The
lawn lay a mass of mysterious shadow, stirring
with faint chirps and rustles and laden with the
poignant scent of the garden honeysuckle. He
could hear the howl of a lonesome hound, a horse
neighed impatiently on a distant meadow, and from
far down the Red Road, beyond the gate, came the
rude twitter of a banjo and the voice of the strolling
darky player:
" All Ah wants in dis creation
Pretty yellah gal, en er big plantation ! "
When the twangling notes died away in the dis
tance they had served only to intensify the still
ness. He felt that peculiar detachedness that one
senses in thick black dark, as though he and his im-
226 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
mediate surroundings were floating in some sound
less, ambient ether. The white bulldog scurried
noiselessly back and forth across the clipped grass,
now emerging like a canine ghost in the light from
the doorway, now suffering total eclipse. Staring
into the furry gloom, he seemed, as in those mo
ments of semi-delirium in the forest, to see Shir
ley's face advance and retreat as though it lay on
the very pulsing heart of the darkness.
He stepped down to the graveled drive and fol
lowed it to the gate, then, bareheaded, took the
Red Road. Along this highway he had rattled in
Uncle Jefferson's crazy hack with her red rose
in his hand. The musky scent of the pressed leaves
in the book in his pocket seemed to be all about
him.
The odor of living roses, in fact, was in the air.
It came on the scarce-felt breeze, a heavy calling
perfume. He walked on, keeping the road by the
misty infiltrating shimmer of the stars, with a sen
sation rather of gliding than of walking. Now
and then from some pasture came the snort and
whinny of horses or the grunt of a frog from a
marshy sink, and once, where a narrow path joined
the road, he felt against his trousers the sniffing
nose of a silent and friendly puppy. It occurred
to him that if, as scientists say, colors emit sound-
tones, scents also should possess a music of their
own: the honeysuckle fragrance, maybe soft
THE CALL OF THE ROSES 227
mellow fluting as of diminutive wind-instruments;
the far- faint sickly odor of lilies the upper regis
ter of faery violins; this spicy breath of roses
blending, throbbing chords like elfin echoes of an
Italian harp. The fancy pleased him; he could im
agine the perfume now in the air carried with it
an under-music, like a ghostly harping.
It came to him at the same instant that this was
no mere fancy. Somewhere in the languorous
night a harp was being played. He paused and lis
tened intently, then went on toward the sound.
Presently he became aware that he had passed it,
had left it on one side, and he went back, stumbling
along the low stone wall till it opened to a shadowy
lane, full of foliaged whispers. The rose scent had
grown stronger; it was almost, in that heavy air,
as if he were breasting an etherial sea of attar.
He felt as if he were treading on a path of rose-
leaves, down which the increasing melody flowed
crimsonly to him, calling, calling.
He stopped stock-still. He had been skirting a
close-cropped hedge of box. This had ended
abruptly and he was looking straight up a bar of
green-yellow radiance from a double doorway.
The latter opened on a porch and the light, flung
across this, drenched an arbor of climbing roses,
making it stand out a mass of woven rubies set in
emerald.
He drew a long sigh of more than delight, for
228 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
framed in the doorway he saw a figure in misty
white, leaning to the gilded upright of a harp. He
knew at once that it was Shirley. Holding his
breath, he came closer, his feet muffled in the thick
grass. She wore a gown of some gauze-like ma
terial sprinkled with knots of embroidery and with
.her lifted face and filmy aureole of hair, she looked
like a tall golden candle. He stood in the dense
obscurity, one hand gripping the gnarled limb of
a catalpa, his eyes following the shapely arms from
wrist to shoulder, the fingers straying across the
strings, the bending cheek caressing the carved
wood. She was playing the melody of Shelley's
Indian Serenade touching the chords softly
and tenderly and his lips moved, molding them
selves soundlessly to the words:
" I arise from dreams of thee,
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
And the stars are shining bright;
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me who knows how ?
To thy chamber window, Sweet ! "
The serenade died in a single long note. As if
in answer to it there rose a flood of bird-music from
beyond the arbor jets of song that swelled and
rippled to a soaring melody. She heard it, too, for
the gracile fingers fell from the strings. She lis-
THE CALL OF THE ROSES 229
tened a moment, with head held to one side, then
sprang up and came through the door and down the
steps.
He hesitated a moment, then a single stride took
him from the shadow.
CHAPTER XXVII
BEYOND THE BOX-HEDGE
AS he greeted her, his gaze plunged deep into
hers. She had recoiled a step, startled, to
recognize him almost instantly. He noted the
shrinking and thought it due to a stabbing memory
of that forest-horror. His first words were prosaic
enough :
" I'm an unconscionable trespasser," he said. " It
must seem awfully prowly, but I didn't realize I
was on private property till I passed the hedge
there."
As her hand lay in his, a strange fancy stirred in
him: in that wood-meeting she had seemed some
thing witch-like, the wilful spirit of the passionate
spring herself, mixed of her aerial essences and
jungle wildernesses; in this scented dim-lit close
she was grave-eyed, subdued, a paler pensive woman
of under half-guessed sadnesses and haunting
moods. With her answer, however, this gravity
seemed to slip from her like a garment. She
laughed lightly.
" I love to prowl myself. I think sometimes I
230
BEYOND THE BOX-HEDGE 231
like the night better than the day. I believe in one
of my incarnations I must have been a panther."
" Do you know," he said, " I followed the scent
of those roses? I smelled it at Damory Court."
" It goes for miles when the air is heavy as it
is to-night. How terrible it would be if roses were
intoxicating like poppies! I get almost tipsy with
the odor sometimes, like a cat with catnip."
They both laughed. " I'm growing supersti
tious about flowers," he said. " You know a rose
figured in our first meeting. And in our last "
She shrank momentarily. " The cape jessa
mines! I shall always think of that when I see
them ! "
" Ah, forgive me ! " he begged. " But when I
remember what you did for me ! Oh, I know !
But for you, I must have died." ' ,
" But for me you wouldn't have been bitten.
But don't let's talk of it." She shivered suddenly.
" You are cold," he said. " Isn't that gown too
thin for this night air? "
" No, I often walk here till quite late. Listen ! "
The bird song had broken forth again, to be an
swered this time by a rival's in a distant thicket.
" My nightingale is in good voice."
" I never heard a nightingale before I came to
Virginia. I wonder why it sings only at night."
" What an odd idea ! Why, it sings in the day
time, too."
232 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" Really? But I suppose it escapes notice in the
general chorus. Is it a large bird?"
" No ; smaller than a thrush. Only a little big
ger than a robin. Its nest is over there in that
hedge a tiny loose cup of dried oak-leaves, lined
with hair, and the eggs are olive color. How pretty
the hedge looks now, all tangled with firefly
sparks ! "
" Doesn't it ! Uncle Jefferson calls them ' light
ning-bugs.' '
" The name is much more picturesque. But all
the darky sayings are. I heard him telling our
butler once, of something, that ' when de debble
heah dat, he gwine sen' fo' he smellin'-salts.' Who
else would ever have put it that way ? Do you find
him and Aunt Daph useful? "
" He has been a godsend," he said fervently ;
" and her cooking has taught me to treat her with
passionate respect. As Uncle Jefferson says she
can ' put de big pot in de li'l one en mek soup outer
de laigs.' He's teaching me now about flowers
it's surprising how many kinds he knows. He's a
walking herbarium."
" Come and see mine," she said. " Roses are our
specialty we have to live up to the Rosewood
name. But beyond the arbors, are beds and beds
of other flowers. See by this big tree are speed
well and delphinium. The tree is a black-walnut.
It's a dreadful thing to have one as big as that.
BEYOND THE BOX-HEDGE 233
When you want something that costs a lot of money
you go and look at it and wonder which you want
most, that particular luxury or the tree. I know a
girl who had two in her yard only a little bigger
than this, and she went to Europe on them. But so
far I've always voted for the tree."
" Perhaps you've not been sufficiently tempted."
" Maybe," she assented, and in a bar of light
from a window, stooped over a glimmering patch
to pull him a sprig of bluebells. f< The wildings
are hard to find," she said, " so I grow a few here.
What ghostly tintings they show in this half-light!
My corn-flowers aren't in bloom yet. Here are
wild violets. They are the single ones, you know,
the kind two children play cock-fighting with." She
picked two of the blossoms and hooked their heads
together. " See, both pull till one rooster's head
drops off." She bent again and passed her hand
lovingly over a mass of starry blooms. " And here
are some bluet, the violet roosters' little pale-blue
hens. How does your garden come on ? "
" Famously. Uncle Jefferson has shanghaied a
half-dozen negro gardeners from where I can't
imagine and he's having the time of his life
hectoring over them. He refers to the upper and
lower terraces as ' up- and down-stairs.' I've got
seeds, but it will be a long time before they flower."
" Oh, would you like some slips ? " she cried.
" Or, better still, I can give you the roses already
234 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
rooted Mad Charles and Marechal Neil and
Cloth of Gold and cabbage and ramblers. We have
geraniums and fuchsias, too, and the coral honey
suckle. That's different from the wild one, you
know."
" You are too good! If you would only advise
me where to set them! But I dare say you think
me presuming."
She turned her full face to him. " ' Presuming ! '
You're punishing me now for the dreadful way I
talked to you about Damory Court before I knew
who you were. Oh, it was unpardonable! And
after the splendid thing you had done I read
about it that same evening with your money, I
mean ! "
" No, no ! " he protested. " There was nothing
splendid about it. It was only pride. You see the
Corporation was my father's great idea the thing
he created and put his soul into and it was foun
dering. I know that would have hurt him. One
thing I've wanted to say to you, ever since the day
we talked together about the duel. I want to
say that whatever lay behind it, my father's whole
life was darkened by that event. Now that I can
put two and two together, I know that it was the
cause of his sadness."
" Ah, I can believe that," she replied.
" I think he had only two interests myself and
the Corporation. So you see why I'd rather save
BEYOND THE BOX-HEDGE 235
that and be a beggar the rest of my natural life.
But I'm not a beggar. Damory Court alone is
worth I know it now a hundred times what I
left."
" But to give up your own world to let it all
slip by, and to come here to a spot that to you must
seem desperately dull."
" I came here because the door of the old life was
closed to me."
" You closed it yourself," she answered quickly.
" Maybe, But for whatever reason, it was
closed. And you call this dull dull? Why, my
life seems never to have had real interest before! "
" I'm so glad you think that ! You are so utterly
different from what I imagined you ! "
" I could never have imagined you," he said,
" never."
" I must be terribly outre."
" You are so many women in one. When I
listened to your harp playing I could hardly believe
it was the same you I saw galloping across the
fields that morning. Now you are a different
woman from both of those."
As she looked at him, her lips curled corner-
wise, her foot slipped on the sheer edge of the
turf. She swayed toward him and he caught her,
feeling for a sharp instant the adorable nearness of
her body. It ridged all his skin with a creeping 1
delight. She recovered her footing with an ex-
236 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
clamation, and turned back somewhat abruptly to
the porch where she seated herself on the step,
drawing her filmy skirt aside to make a place for
him. There was a moment of silence which he
broke.
" That exquisite serenade you were playing I
You know the words, of course."
" They are more lovely, if possible, than the
score. Do you care for poetry ? "
" I've always loved it," he said. " I've been read
ing some lately a little old-fashioned book I
found at Damory Court. It's Lucile. Do you
know it?"
" Yes. It's my mother's favorite."
He drew it from his pocket. " See, I've got it
here. It's marked, too."
He opened it, to close it instantly not, how
ever, before she had put out her hand and laid it,
palm down, on the page. " That rose ! Oh, let
me have it ! "
" Never ! " he protested. " Look here. When I
put it between the leaves, I did so at random.
I didn't see till now that I had opened it at a marked
passage."
" Let us read it," she said.
He leaned and held the leaf to the light from the
doorway and the two heads bent together over the
text.
A sound fell behind them and both turned. A
BEYOND THE BOX-HEDGE 237
slight figure, in a soft gray gown with old lace at
the throat, stood in the doorway behind them.
John Valiant sprang to his feet.
" Ah, Shirley, I thought I heard voices. Is that
you, Chilly?"
" It's not Mr. Lusk, mother," said Shirley. " It's
our new neighbor, Mr. Valiant."
As he bent over the frail hand, murmuring the
conventional words that presentations are believed
to require, Mrs. Dandridge sank into a deep cush
ioned chair. " Won't you sit down ? " she said.
He noticed that she did not look directly at him,
and that her face was as pallid as her hair.
" Thank you," said John Valiant, and resumed
his place on the lower step.
Shirley, who had again seated herself, suddenly
laughed, and pointed to the book which lay between
them. " Imagine what we were doing, dearest !
We were reading Lucile together."
She saw the other wince, and the deep dark eyes
lifted, as if under compulsion, from the book-cover
to Valiant's face. He was startled by Shirley's cry
and the sudden limp unconscious settling-back into
the cushions of the fragile form.
NIGHT
A QUICKER breeze was stirring as John
Valiant went back along the Red Road. It
brushed the fraying clouds from the sky, leaving
it a pale gray-blue, sprinkled with wan stars. He
had waited in the garden at Rosewood till Shirley,
aided by Emmaline and with Ranston's anxious
face hovering in the background, having performed
those gentle offices which a woman's fainting spell
requires, had come to reassure him and to say good
night.
The road seemed no longer dark ; it swam before
him now in a soft winged mistiness with here and
there an occasional cedar thrusting grotesquely
above huddled cobble-wall and black-lined rail-fence.
As he went, her form swam before him. The
texture of each shadowy bush seemed that gauzy
drapery, sprayed with lilies-of-the-valley, and the
leaves syllabled her name in cautious whispers.
That brief touch of her, when he had caught her
in his arms, lingered, as the memory of the harp
music on his inner ear, pricking his senses like fine
238
NIGHT 239
musk, a thing of soft new pulses flashing over him
like spurts of vapor.
As he threw off his coat in the bedroom he had
chosen for his own, he felt the hard corner of the
Lucile in the pocket, and drawing it out, laid it
on the table by the bedside. He seemed to feel
again the tingle of his cheek where a curling strand
of her coppery hair had sprung against it when her
head had bent beside his own to read the marked
lines. By now perhaps that riotous crown was all
unbound and falling redly about her shoulders, those
shoulders no longer peeping from a weave of lilies,
but draped in virginal white. Perhaps she knelt
now by her silk-covered bed, warming the coverlid
with her breast, her down-bent face above her locked
palms. What did she pray for, he wondered. As
a child, his own prayers had been comprehensive
ones. Even the savages who lived at Wishing-
House and their innumerable offspring had been
regularly included in those petitions.
When he had undressed he sat an hour in the
candle-blaze, a dressing-gown thrown over his
shoulders, striving vainly to recreate that evening
call, to remember her every word and look and move
ment. For a breath her face would flush sud
denly before him, like a live thing; then it would
mysteriously fade and elude him, though he clenched
his hands on the arms of his chair in the fierce men
tal effort to recall it. Only the intense blue of her
240 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
eyes, the tawny sweep of her hair these and the
touch of her, the consciousness of her warm and
vivid fragrance, remained to wrap all his senses in
a mist woven of gold and fire.
Shirley, meanwhile, had sat some time beside her
mother's bed, leaning from a white chintz-covered
chair, her anxiety only partially allayed by reas
surances, now and then stooping to lay her young
cheek against the delicate arm in its lacy sleeve or
to pass her hand lovingly up and down its outline,
noting with a recurrent passion of tenderness the
transparency of the skin with its violet veining and
the shadows beneath the closed eyes. Emmaline,
moving on soft worsted-shod feet about the dim
room, at length had whispered :
" You go tuh baid, honey. I stay with Mis'
Judith till she go tuh sleep."
" Yes, go, Shirley," said her mother. " Haven't
I any privileges at all? Can't I even faint when I
feel like it, without calling out the fire-brigade?
You'll pamper me to death and heaven knows I
don't need it."
" You won't let me telephone for Doctor South-
all?"
" Certainly not ! "
" And you are sure it was nothing but the roses ? "
" Why, what else should it be ? " said her mother
almost peevishly. " I must really have the arbors
NIGHT 241
thinned out. On heavy nights it's positively over
powering. Go along now, and we'll talk about it
to-morrow. I can ring if I want anything."
In her own room Shirley undressed thoughtfully.
There was between her and her mother a fine tenu
ous bond of sympathy and feeling as rare, perhaps,
as it was lovely. She could not remember when
the other had not been a semi-invalid, and her earli
est childhood recollections were punctuated with
the tap of the little cane. To-night's sudden in
disposition had shocked and disturbed her; to faint
at a rush of perfume seemed to suggest a growing
weakness that was alarming. To-morrow, she told
herself, she would send Ranston with a wagon-load
of the roses to the hospital at Charlottesville.
She slipped on a pink shell-shaded dressing-gown
of slinky silk with a riot of azaleas scattered in the
weave, and then, dragging a chair before the open
window, drew aside the light curtain and began to
brush her hair. She parted the lustrous mass with
long sweeps of her white arm, forward first over
one shoulder, then over the other. The silver brush
smoothed the lighter ashen ripples that netted and
fretted into a fine amber lace, till they lay, a rich
warm mahogany like red earth. The coppery
whorls eddied and merged themselves, showing
under-glints of russet and dun-gold, curling and
clasping in flame-tinted furrows like a living field
of gold under a silver harrow. Outside the window
242 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
the stars lay on the lapis-lazuli sky like white flower-
petals on still deep water, and in the pasture across
the hedges she could see the form of Selim, her
chestnut hunter, standing ghostly, like an equine
sentinel.
When that shimmering glory lay in two thick
braids against her shoulders, Shirley rose with a sigh
and went to her writing-desk, where lay her diary.
But she was in no mood to write, and she turned
from it, frowning a little, with the reflection that
she had not written in it since the night of the cape
jessamines.
All at once her gaze fell upon the floor, and she
shrank backward from a twisting thread-like thing
whose bright saffron-yellow glowed sharply against
the dark carpet. She saw in an instant, however,
that it was nothing more dangerous than a frag
ment of love-vine from the garden, which had clung
to her skirt. She picked up the tiny mass of ten
drils and with a slow smile tossed it over her right
shoulder through the window. " If it takes root,"
she said aloud, " my sweetheart loves me." She
leaned from the sill to peer down into the misty gar
den, but could not follow its fall.
Long ago her visitor would have reached Damory
Court. She had a vision of him wandering, candle
in hand, through the empty echoing rooms, looking
at the voiceless portraits on the walls, thinking per
haps of his father, of the fatal duel of which he
NIGHT 243
had never known. She liked the way he had spoken
of his father!
Or, maybe he was sitting in the lonely library,
with some volume from its shelves on his knees.
She pictured Uncle Jefferson fetching his pipe and
jar of tobacco and striking the match on his broad
foot to light it. She remembered one of the old
darky's sayings : " Er man ain' nachally no angel,
but 'thouten terbacker, Ah reck'n he be pizen-ugly
ernuf ter giv de Bad Man de toof-ache ! " In that
instant when her cheek had touched his rough tweed
jacket, she had been sensible of that woodsy pipy
fragrance.
A vivid flush swept up her face and with a sud
den gesture she caught her open palms to her cheek.
With what a daring softness his eyes had hazed
as they looked down at her under his crisp waving
hair. Why was the memory of that look so sharply
sweet ?
As she leaned, out of the stillness there came to her
ear a mellow sound. It was the bell of the court
house in the village. She counted the strokes
falling clearly or faintly as the sluggish breeze ebbed
or swelled. It was eleven.
She drew back, dropped the curtain to shut out
the wan glimmer, and in the darkness crept into the
soft bed as if into a hiding-place.
CHAPTER XXIX
AT THE DOME
A WARM sun and an air mildly mellow. A
faint gold-shadowed mist over the valley
and a soft lilac haze blending the rounded outlines
of the hills. A breeze shook the twigs on the
cedars, fluttered the leaves of the poplars till they
looked a quivering mass of palpitating silver, bearing
away with it the cool elastic grace-notes of the drip
ping water, as it sparkled over the big green-streaked
rocks at the foot of the little lake at Damory Court.
Over the wild grape-vines a pair of drunken butter
flies reeled, kissing wings, and on the stone rim of
the fountain basin a tiny brown-green lizard lay
motionless, sunning itself. Through the shrubbery
a cardinal darted like a crimson shuttle, to rock im
pudently from a fleering limb, and here and there
on the bluish-ivory sky, motionless as a pasted
wafer, hung a hawk; from time to time one of these
wavered and slanted swiftly down, to climb once
more in a huge spiral to its high tower of sky.
Perhaps it wondered, as its telescopic eye looked
down. That had been its choicest covert, that dis
heveled tangle where the birds, held perpetual carni-
244
AT THE DOME 245
val, the weasel lurked in the underbrush and the
rabbit lined his windfall. Now the wildness was
gone. The lines of the formal garden lay again
ordered and fair. The box-rows had been thinned
of their too-aged shrubs and filled in anew. The
wilderness garden to-be was still a stretch of raked
and level soil, but all across this slender green
spears were thrusting up the promise of buds
and blooms. A pergola, glistening white, now up
held the runaway vines, making a sickle-like path
from the upper terrace to the lake. In the barn
loft the pigeons still quarrelled over their new cotes
of fresh pine, and under a clump of locust trees at
a little distance from the house, a half-dozen dolls'
cabins on stilts stood waiting the honey-storage of
the black and gold bees.
There were new denizens, also. These had ar
rived in a dozen zinc tanks and willow hampers, to
the amaze of a sleepy express clerk at the railroad
station: two swans now sailed majestically over the
lily-pads of the lake, along its gravel rim a pair of
bronze-colored ducks waddled and preened, and its
placid surface rippled and broke to the sluggish
backs of goldfish and the flirting fins of red
Japanese carp. Hens and guinea-fowl strutted and
ran in a wire wattle behind the kitchen, and on the
wall, now straightened and repaired, a splendid pea
cock spread his barbaric plumage of spangled purple
and screeched exultingly to his sober-hued mate.
246 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
The house itself wore another air. Its look of
unkemptness had largely vanished. The comb of the
roof had been straightened and the warped shutters
repaired. The boards of the porch flooring had
been relaid. Moss and green lichen had been
scoured from the bases of the great weather-beaten
pillars. These, however, bore no garish coat of
new paint. The soft gray tone of age remained,
but the bleakness and forlornness were gone; there
was about all now a warmth and genial bearing that
hinted at mellowed beauty, firelight and cheerful
voices within.
Valiant heaved a long sigh of satisfaction as he
stood in the sunlight gazing at the results of his
labors. He was not now the flippant boulevardier
to whom money was the sine qua non of existence.
He had learned a sovereign lesson one gained not
through the push and fight of crowds, but in the
simple peace of a countryside, unvexed by the
clamor of gold and the complex problems of a com
petitive existence that he had inherited a need of
activity, of achievement: that he had been born to
do. He had worked hard, with hand and foot, with
hoe and mattock strenuous perspiring effort that
made his blood course fast and brought muscle-
weariness over which nature had nightly poured her
soothing medicaments of peace and sleep. His
tanned face was as clear as a fine brown porcelain,
AT THE DOME 247
his eye bright, and his muscles rippled up under his
skin with elastic power.
" Chum," he said, to the dog rolling on his back
in the grass, " what do you think of it all, anyway? "
He reached down, seized a hind leg and whirling
him around like a teetotum, sent him flying into the
bushes, whence Chum launched again upon him, like
a catapult. He caught the white shoulders and held
him vise-like. "Just about right, eh? But wait
till we get those ramblers ! "
"And to think," he continued, whimsically re
leasing him, " that I might have gone on, one of
the little-neck-clam crowd I've always trained with,
at the same old pace, till the Vermouth-cocktail-
Palm-Beach career got a double Nelson on me and
the umpire counted me out. And I'd have ended
by lazying along through my forties with a bay-
window and a bunch of boudoir keys ! Now I can
kiss my hand to it all. At this moment I wouldn't
swap this old house and land, and the sunshine and
that ' gyarden ' and Unc' Jefferson and Aunt Daph
and the chickens and the birds and all the rest of it,
for a mile of Millionaires' Row."
He drew from his jacket pocket a somewhat worn
note and unfolded the dainty paper with its char
acteristic twirly handwriting. " The scarlet gera
niums rimming the porch," he muttered, " the coral
honeysuckle on the old dead tulip-tree, and the
248 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
fuchsias and verbenas by the straight walk. How
right she is! They're all growing, too. I haven't
lost a single slip." He caught himself up short,
strode to the nearest porch-pillar and rapped on it
smartly with his knuckles.
" I must knock on wood," he said, " or I'll lose
my luck." He laughed a little. " I'm certainly
catching Uncle Jefferson's superstitions. Perhaps
that's in the soil, too ! "
He went into the house and to the library. The
breeze through the wide-flung bow-window was
fluttering the papers on the desk and the map on the
wall was flapping sidewise. He went to straighten
it, and then saw what he had not noticed before
that it covered something that had been let into the
plaster. He swung it aside and made an exclama
tion.
He was looking at a square, uncompromising
wall-safe, with a round figured disk of white metal
on its face. He knelt before it and tried its knob.
After a moment it turned easily. But the resolute
steel door would not open, though he tried every
combination that came into his mind. " No use,"
he said disgustedly. " One must have the right
numbers."
Then he lifted his fretted frame and smote his
grimy hands together. " Confound it ! " he said
with a short laugh. " Here I am, a bankrupt, with
all this outfit clear to the .very finger-bowls
AT THE DOME 249
handed to me on a silver tray, and I'm mad as scat
because I can't open the first locked thing I find ! "
He ran up-sairs and donned a rough corduroy
jacket and high leather leggings. " We're going to
climb the hill to-day, Chum," he announced, " and
no more moccasins need apply."
In the lower hall, however, he suddenly stopped
stock-still. " The slip of paper that was in the
china dog ! " he exclaimed. " What a chump I am
not to have thought of it ! " He found it in its
pigeonhole and, kneeling down before the safe,
tried the numbers carefully, first right, then left :
17 28 94 o. The heavy door opened.
"I was right!" he exulted. "It's the plate."
He drew it out, piece by piece. Each was bagged
in dark-red Canton flannel. He broke the tape of
one bag and exposed a great silver pitcher, tarnished
purple-blue like a raven's wing then a tea-service.
Each piece, large and small, was marked with the
greyhound rampant and the motto. " And to
think," he said, " that my great-great-grandfather
buried you with his own hands under the stables
when Tarleton's raiders swept the valley before the
surrender at Yorktown! Only wait till Aunt
Daphne gets you polished up, and on the sideboard !
You're the one thing the place has needed ! "
With the dog for comrade he traversed the gar
den and plunged across the valley below, humming
250 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
as he went one of the songs with which Uncle Jef
ferson was wont to regale his labors :
" My gran'mothah lived on yondah li'l green,
Fines' ol' lady evah wuz seen.
Tummy-eye, tummy-oh, tummy-umpy-tumpy-tee.
Fines' ol' lady evah yo' see ! "
The ridiculous refrain rang out through the be
wildering vistas of the wooded slope as he swung
on, up the hill, through the underbrush.
The place was pathless and overgrown with paw
paw bushes and sassafras. Great trees stood so
thickly in places as to make a twilight and the sun
nier spots were masses of pink laurel, poison-ivy,
flaming purple rhododendron and wine-red tendrils
of interbraided briers. This was the forest land of
whose possibilities he had thought. In the heart of
the woods he came upon a great limb that had been
wrenched off by storm. The broken wood was of a
deep rich brown, shading to black. He broke off
his song, snapped a twig and smelled it. Its sharp
acrid odor was unmistakable. He suddenly re
membered the walnut tree at Rosewood and what
Shirley had said : " I know a girl who had two
in her yard, and she went to Europe on them."
He looked about him; as far a,s he could see the
trees reared, hardy and perfect, untouched for a
generation. He selected one of medium size and
pulling a creeper, measured its circumference and
AT THE DOME 251
gaging this measure with his eye, made a penciled
calculation on the back of an envelope. " Great
Scott! " he said jubilantly to the dog; " that would
cut enough to wainscot the Damory Court library
and build twenty sideboards ! "
He sat down on a mossed boulder, breathless, his
eyes sparkling. He had thought himself almost a
beggar, and here in his hand was a small fortune!
" Talk about engagement rings ! " he muttered.
" Why, a dozen of these ought to buy a whole
tiara!"
Far below him he could see the square tower of
the old parish church of St. Andrew. The day be
fore he had gone there to service, slipping into a
pew at the rear. There had been flowers in silver
vases on either side of the reading-desk, and dim
hues from the stained-glass windows had touched
the gray head of the rector above the brass lectern
and the crooked oak beams of the roof, and he had
caught himself all at once thinking that but for its
drooping hat, Shirley's head might have outshone
that of the saint through whose bright mantle the
colors came. After the service the rector had
showed him the vestry and the church books with
their many records of Valiants before him, and he
had sat for a moment in the Valiant pew, fancying
her standing there sometime beside him, with her
trim gloved hand by his on the prayer-book.
At length he rose and climbed on, presently turn-
252 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ing at a right-angle to bisect the strip to its boundary
before he paused to rest. " I'm no timber-cruiser,"
he said to himself as he wiped his brow, " but I cal
culate there are all of three hundred trees big enough
to cut. Why, suppose they are worth on an aver
age only a hundred apiece. That would make
Good lord ! " he muttered, " and I've been moon
ing about poverty ! "
The growth was smaller and sparser now and be
fore long he came, on the hill's very crest, to the
edge of a ragged clearing. It held a squalid set
tlement, perhaps a score of dirt-daubed cabins little
better than hovels, some of them mere mud-walled
lean-tos, with sod roofs and window-panes of flour-
sacking. Fences and outhouses there was none.
Littered paths rambled aimlessly hither and thither
from chip-strewn yards to starved patches of corn,
under-cultivated and blighted. Over the whole
place hung an indescribable atmosphere of disconso
late filth, of unredeemed squalor and vileness.
Razor-backed hogs rooted everywhere, snapped at
by a handful of lean and spiritless hounds. A
slatternly woman lolled under a burlap awning be
side one of the cabins from whose interior came
the sound of men's voices raised in a fierce quarrel.
Undisturbed by the hideous din, a little girl of about
three years was dragging by a string an old cigar-
box in which was propped a rag-doll. She was
barelegged and barearmed, her tiny limbs burned
AT THE DOME 253
a dark red by the sun, and she wore a single garment
made from the leg of a patched pair of overalls.
Her hair, bleached the color of corn-silk, fell over
her face in elfin wildness.
With one hand on the dog's collar, hushing him
to silence, Valiant, unseen, looked at the wretched
place with a shiver. He had glimpsed many
wretched purlieus in the slums of great cities, but
this, in the open sunlight, with the clean woods
about it and the sweet clear blue above, stood out
with an unrelieved boldness and contrast that was
doubly sinister and forbidding. He knew instantly
that the tawdry corner was the community known
as Hell's-Half-Acre, the place to which Shirley had
made her night ride to rescue Rickey Snyder.
A quick glad realization of her courage rushed
through him. On its heels came a feeling of shame
that a spot like this could exist, a foul blot on such
a landscape. It was on his own land ! Its denizens
held place by squatter sovereignty, but he was,
nevertheless, their landlord. The thought bred a
new sense of responsibility. Something should be
done for them, too for that baby, dragging its
rag-doll in the cigar-box, poor little soul, abandoned
to a life of besottedness, ignorance and evil!
As he gazed, the uproar in the cabin reached a
climax. A red-bearded figure in nondescript gar
ments shot from the door and collapsed in a heap in
the dirt. He got up with a dreadful oath a
254 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
thrown jug grazing his temple as he did so and
shaking his fist behind him, staggered into a near-by
lean-to.
Valiant turned away with a feeling almost of
nausea, and plunged back down the forest hillside,
the shrill laughter of the woman under the strip of
burlap echoing in his ears.
CHAPTER XXX
THE GARDENERS
HE saw them coming through the gate on the
Red Road the major and Shirley in a lilac
muslin by his side and strode to meet them. Be
hind them Ranston propelled a hand-cart filled with
paper bundles from each of which protruded a bunch
of flowering stems. There was a flush in Shirley's
cheek as her hand lay in Valiant's. As for him,
his eyes, like wilful drunkards, returned again and
again, between the major's compliments, to her face.
" You have accomplished wonders, sah ! I had no
idea so much could be done in such a limited time.
We are leisurely down here, and seldom do to-day
what can be put off till to-morrow. Real Northern
hustle, eh, Shirley? You have certainly primped
the old place up. I could almost think I was look
ing at Damory Court in the sixties, sah! "
'"' That's quite the nicest thing you could have said,
Major," responded Valiant. " But it needs the
flowers." He looked at Shirley with sparkling eyes.
" How splendid of you to bring them ! I feel like
a robber."
255
2$6 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
"With our bushels of them? We shall never
miss them at all. Have you set out the others ? "
" I have, indeed. Every one has rooted, too.
You shall see them." He led the way up the drive
till they stood before the porch.
"Gad!" chuckled the major. "Who would
think it had been unoccupied for three decades ? At
this rate, you'll soon be giving dances, sah."
" Ah," said Valiant. " That's the very thing I
want to suggest. The tournament comes off next
week, I understand, and it's been the custom to have
a ball that night. The tourney ground is on this
estate, and Damory Court is handier than the Coun
try Club. Why wouldn't it be appropriate to hold
the dance here? The ground-floor rooms are in
order, and if the young people would put up with
it, it would be a great pleasure to me, I assure you."
" Oh ! " breathed Shirley. " That would be too
wonderful ! "
The major seized his hand and shook it heartily.
" I can answer for the committee," he said.
" They'll jump at it. Why, sah, the new genera
tion has never set eyes inside the house. It's a
golden legend to them."
" Then I'll go ahead with arrangements."
Shirley's eyes were overrunning the cropped lawn,
which now showed a clear smooth slope between the
arching trees. " It was lovely in its ruin," she said,
" but it was pathetic, too. Unc' Jefferson used to
THE GARDENERS 257
say ' De ol' place look lak et ben griebin' etse'f ter
deff wid lonesomeness.' Somehow, now it looks
glad. Just hear that small citizen ! "
A red squirrel sat up in a tree-crotch, his paws
tucked into his furry breast, barking angrily at
them. " He's shocked at the house-cleaning," she
said ; " a sign he's a bachelor."
" So am I," said Valiant.
" Maybe he's older than you," she countered ;
" and sot in his ways."
" I accept him as a warning," he said, and she
laughed with him.
He led them around the house and down the
terraces of the formal garden, and here the major's
encomiums broke forth again. " You are going to
take us old folks back, sah," he said with real feel
ing. " This gyarden in its original lines was unique.
It had a piquancy and a picturesqueness that, thank
God, are to be restored! One can understand the
owner of an estate like this having no desire to
spend his life philandering abroad. We all hope,
sah, that you will recur to the habit of your an
cestors, and count Damory Court home."
Valiant smiled slowly. " I don't dream of any
thing else," he said. " My life, as I map it out,
seems to begin here. The rest doesn't count only
the years when I was little and had my father."
The major carefully adjusted his eye-glasses.
His head was turned away. " Ah, yes," he said.
258
" The last twenty years," continued the other,
" from my present view-point, are valuable mainly
for contrast."
" As a consistent regimen of pate de foie gras,"
said Shirley quizzically, " makes one value bread
and butter?"
He shook his head at her. " As starvation makes
one appreciate plenty. The next twenty years are
to be here. But they hold side-trips, too. Now
and then there's a jaunt back to the city."
" Contrast again? " she asked interestedly.
" Yes and no. Yes, because no one who has never
known that blazing clanging life can really under
stand the peace and blessedness of a place like this.
No, because there are some things which are to be
found only there. There are the galleries and the
opera. I need a breath of them both."
" You're right," nodded the major. " Birds are
birds, and Melba is Melba. But a sward like this in
the early morning, with the dew on the grass, is
the best opera for a steady diet."
" I called them only side-trips," said John Valiant.
" And semi-occasional longer flights, too," the
major reflected. " A look-see abroad once in a blue
moon. Why not?"
" Yes. For mental photographs impressions
one can't get from between book-covers. There's an
old cloister garden I know in Italy and a particular
river-bank in Japan in the cherry-blossom season,
THE GARDENERS 259
and a tiny island with a Greek castle on it in the
/Egean. Little colored memories for me to bring
away to dream over. But always I come back here
to Damory Court. For this is home ! "
They walked beneath the pergola to the lake,
where Shirley gave a cry of delight at sight of its
feathered population. " Where did you get them
from ? " she asked.
" Washington. In crates."
" That explains it," she exclaimed. " One day
last week the little darkies in the village all in
sisted a circus was coming. They must have seen
these being hauled here. They watched the whole
afternoon for the elephants."
" Poor youngsters ! " he said. " It's a shame to
fool them. But I've had all the circus I want get
ting the live stock installed."
" They won't suffer," said the major. " Rickey
Snyder'll get them up a three-ringed show at the
drop of a hat and drop it herself. Besides, there's
tournament day coming, and they can live on that.
I see you've dredged out some of the lilies."
' Yes. I take my dip here every morning'."
" We used to have a diving-board when we were
little shavers," pursued the major. " I remember
once, your father
He cleared his throat and stopped dead.
" Please," said John Valiant, " I I like to hey
about him."
2<5o THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" It was only that I struck my head on a rock
on the bottom and stayed down. The others
were frightened, but he he dove down again and
again till he brought me out. It was a narrow
squeak, I reckon."
A silence fell. Looking at the tall muscular form
beside her, Shirley had a sudden vision of a de
termined little body cleaving the dark water, over
and over, now rising panting for breath, now plung
ing again, never giving up. And she told herself
that the son was the same sort. That hard set of
the jaw, those firm lips, would know no flinching.
He might suffer, but he would be strong. Subcon
sciously her mind was also swiftly contrasting him
with Chilly Lusk: the same spare lithe frame but
set off by light skin, brown hair and hazel eyes;
the two faces, alike sharply and clearly chiseled,
but this one purged of the lazy scorn, the satiety,
and reckless indulgence.
Half unconsciously she spoke her thought aloud:
" You look like your father, do you not ? "
" Yes," he replied, " there's a strong likeness. I
have a photograph which I'll show you sometime.
But how did you know ? "
" Perhaps I only guessed," she said in some con
fusion. To cover this she stooped by the pebbly
marge and held out her hand to the bronze ducks
that pushed and gobbled about her fingers. " What
have you named them ? " she asked.
THE GARDENERS 261
" Nothing. You christen them."
" Very well. The light one shall be Peezletree
and the dark one Pilgarlic. I got the names from
John Jasper he was Virginia's famous negro
preacher. I once heard him hold forth when he
read from one of the Psalms the one about the
harp and the psaltery and he called it peezletree."
" Speaking of ducks," said the major, tweaking
his gray imperial, " reminds me of Judge Chalmers'
white mallard. He had a pair that were so much
in love they did nothing but loaf around honey-
cafuddling with their wings over each other's backs.
It was a lesson in domesticity for the community,
sah. Well, the drake got shot for a wild one, and
if you'll believe it, the poor little duck was that
inconsolable it would have brought tears to your
eyes. ' The whole Chalmers family were affected."
Shirley had put one hand over her mouth to re
press a smile. " Major, Major ! " she murmured re
provingly. But his guilty glance avoided her.
' Yes, sah, nothing would console her. So at
last Chalmers got another drake, the handsomest he
could find, and trotted him out to please her. What
do you reckon that little white duck did? She
looked at the judge once reproachfully and then
waddled down to a black muck -bed and lay down in
it. She came out with as fine a suit of mourning
as you ever saw. And believe it or not, sah, but
she wouldn't go in the water for ten days ! "
262 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Valiant's laugh rang out over the lake to be
answered by a sudden sharp screech from the terrace,
where the peacock strutted, a blaze of spangled
purple and gold. They turned to see Aunt Daphne
issue from the kitchen, twig-broom in hand.
"Heah!" she exclaimed. "What fo' yo'
kyahin' on like er wil' gyraff we'n we got comp'ny,
yo' triflin' ol' fan-tail, yo' ! Git outen heah ! "
She waved her weapon and the bird, with a raucous
shriek of defiance, retired in ruffled disorder. The
master of Damory Court looked at Shirley. " What
shall we name him?"
" I'd call him Fire-Cracker if he goes off like
that," she said. And Fire-Cracker the bird was
christened forthwith.
" And now," said Shirley, " let's set out the
ramblers."
The major had brought a rough plan, sketched
from memory, of the old arrangement of the formal
garden. " I'll just go over the lines of the beds with
Unc' Jefferson," he proposed, " while you two potter
over these roses." So Valiant and Shirley walked
back up the slope beneath the pergola together. The
sun was westering fast, and long lilac cloud-trails
lay over the terraces. But the bumbling bees were
still busy in the honeysuckle and hawking dragon-
flies shot hither and thither. A robin was tilting on
the rim of the fountain and it looked at them with
head turned sidewise, with a low sweet pipe that
THE GARDENERS 263
mingled with the trickling latigh of the falling
water.
With Ranston puffing and blowing like a black
porpoise over his creaking go-cart, they planted the
ramblers crimson and pink and white Valiant
much of the time on his knees, his hands plunging
deep into the black spongy earth, and Shirley with
broad hat flung on the grass, her ringers separat
ing the clinging thread-like roots and her small
arched foot tamping down the soil about them. Her
hair the color of wet raw wood in the sunlight
was very near the brown head and sometimes
their ringers touched over the work. Once, as they
stood up, flushed with the exercise, a great black
and orange butterfly, dazed with the sun-glow,
alighted on Valiant's rolled-up sleeve. He held his
arm perfectly still and blew gently on the wavering
pinions till it swam away. When a redbird flirted
by, to his delight she whistled its call so perfectly
that it wheeled in mid-flight and tilted inquiringly
back toward them.
As they descended the terrace again to the per
gola, he said, " There's only one thing lacking at
Damory Court a sun-dial."
' Then you haven't found it ? " she cried delight
edly. " Come and let me show you."
She led the way through the maze of beds at one
side till they reached a hedge laced thickly with
Virginia creeper. He parted this leafy screen, bend-
264 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ing back the springing fronds that thrust against the
flimsy muslin of her gown and threatened to spear
the pink-rosed hat that cast an adorable warm tint
over her creamy face, thinking that never had the
old place seen such a picture as she made framed
in the deep green.
Some such thought was in the major's mind, too,
as he came slowly up the terrace below. He paused,
to take off his hat and wipe his brow.
" With the place all fixed up this way," he sighed
to himself, " I could believe it was only last week
that Beauty Valiant and Southall and I were boys,
loafing around this gyarden. And to think that
now it's Valiant's son and Judith's daughter ! Why,
it seems like yesterday that Shirley there was only
knee-high to a grasshopper and I used to tell
her her hair was that color because she ran through
hell bareheaded. I'm about a thousand years old,
I reckon ! "
Meanwhile the two figures above had pushed
through the tangle into a circular sunny space where
stood a short round pillar of red onyx. It was a
sun-dial, its vine-clad disk cut of gray polished stone
in which its metal tongue was socketed. Round
the outer edge of the disk ran an inscription in
archaic lettering. Valiant pulled away the cluster
ing ivy leaves and read : / count no hours but the
happy ones.
" If that had only been true I" he said.
THE GARDENERS 265
" It is true. See how the vines hid the sun from
it. It ceased to mark the time after the Court was
deserted."
He snapped the clinging tendrils and swept the
cluster from its stone face. " It shall begin to count
again from this moment. Will it mark only happy
hours for me, I wonder? I'll bribe it with flowers."
" White for happiness," she said.
" I'll put moonflowers at its base and where you
are standing, Madonna lilies. The outer part of
the circle shall have bridal-wreath and white irises,
and they shall shade out into pastel colors
mauves and grays and heliotropes. Oh, I shall love
this spot ! perhaps sometime the best of all."
" Which do you love the most now ? "
He leaned slightly toward her, one hand on the
dial's time-notched rim. " Don't you know ? " he
said in a lower voice. " Could any other spot mean
to me what that acre under the hemlocks means? "
Her face was turned from him, her ringers pulling
at the drifting vine, and a splinter of sunlight
tangled in her hair like a lace of fireflies.
" I could never forget it," he continued. " The
thing that spoiled my father's life happened there,
yet there we two first talked, and there you "
" Don't ! " she said, facing him. " Don't ! "
" Ah, let me speak ! I want to tell you that I
shall carry the memory of that afternoon, and of
your brave kindness, always, always! If I were
266 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
never to see you again in this life, I should always
treasure it. If I died of thirst in some Sahara,
it would be the last thing I should remember your
face would be the last thing I should see! If I "
He paused, his veins beating hard under the sav
age self-repression, his hand trembling against the
stone, his voice a traitor, yielding to something that
rose in his throat to choke the stumbling words.
In the silence there was the sound of a slow foot
fall on the gravel walk, and at the same moment he
saw a magical change. Shirley drew back. The
soft gentian blue of her eyes darkened. The lips
that an instant before had been tremulous, parted in
a low delicious laugh. She swept him a deep
curtsey.
" I am beholden to you, sir," she said gaily, " for
a most knightly compliment. There's the major.
Come and let us show him where we've planted the
ramblers."
CHAPTER XXXI
TOURNAMENT DAY
THE noon sun of tournament day shone bril
liantly over the village, drowsy no longer, for
many vehicles were hitched at the curb, or moved
leisurely along the leafy street: big, canvas-topped
country wagons drawn by shaggy-hoofed horses
and set with chairs that had bumped and jostled
their holiday loads from outlying tobacco plantation
and stud-farm; sober, black-covered buggies, long,
narrow, springless buckboards, frivolous side-bar
runabouts and antique shays resurrected from the
primeval depths of cobwebbed stables, relics of
tarnished grandeur and faded fortune. Here and
there a motor crept, a bilious and replete beetle
among insects of wider wing. Knots of high-
booted men conversed on street corners, men hand
cuffed, it would seem, to their whips; children
romped and ran hither and thither ; and through all
sifted a varicolored stream of negroes, male and
female, good-natured and voluble. For tourna
ment day was a county event, and the annual sport
267
268 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
of the quality had long outstripped even circus day
in general popularity.
At midday vehicles resolved themselves into
luncheon-booths hampers stowed away beneath
the seats, disclosing all manner of picnic edibles
the court-house yard was an array of grass-spread
table-cloths, and an air of plenty reigned.
Within Mrs. Merryweather Mason's brown house
hospitality sat enthroned and the generous dining-
room was held by a regiment of feminine out-of-
town acquaintances. At intervals Aunt Charity, the
cook, issued from the kitchen to peer surreptitiously
through the dining-room door with vast delight.
" Dey cert'n'y do take ahtah dat fried chick'n,"
she said to old Jereboam, who, with a half-dozen
extras, had been pressed into perspiring tray-service.
" Dey got all de Mefodis' preachahs Ah evah see
laid in de shade dis day. Hyuh ! hyuh ! "
"'Deed dey has! Hyuh! hyuh!" echoed Jere
boam huskily.
The Mason yard, an hour later, was an active en
campment of rocking-chairs, and a din of conversa
tion floated out over the pink oleanders, whose tubs
had achieved a fresh coat of bright green paint for
the occasion. Mrs. Poly Gifford a guest of the
day here shone resplendent.
" The young folks are counting mightily on the
dance to-night," observed Mrs. Livy Stowe of
TOURNAMENT DAY 269
Seven Oaks. " Even the Buckner girls have got
new ball dresses."
" Improvident, 7 call it," said Mrs. Gifford.
" They can't afford such things, with Park Hill
mortgaged up to the roof the way it is."
Mrs. Mason's soft apologetic alto interposed.
" They're sweet girls, and we're never young but
once. I think it was so fine of Mr. Valiant to offer
to give the ball. I hear he's motored to Charlottes-
ville three or four times for fixings, though I un
derstand he's poor enough since he gave up his
money as he did. What a princely act that was ! "
" Ye-e-es," agreed Mrs. Gifford, " but a little
what shall I call it ? precipitous ! If I were mar
ried to a man like that I should always be in terror
of his adopting an orphan asylum or turning Repub
lican or something equally impossible."
" He's good-looking enough for most girls to be
willing to risk it," returned Mrs. Stowe, " to say
nothing of a widow or two I might mention," she
added cryptically.
" I believe you ! " said Mrs. Gifford with em
phasis. " We all know who you mean. Why any
woman can't be satisfied with having had one hus
band, I can't see."
The other pursed her lips. " I know some women
with live husbands, for that matter," she said, " who,
if the truth were told, aren't either. It's lucky
270 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
there's no marriage in heaven or there'd be a
precious mix-up before they got through with it ! "
" Well," Mrs. Gifford rejoined, " the Bible may
say there's no marriage or giving in marriage in
heaven, but if I see Poly there, I'll say to them,
' Look here. That's mine, and all you women
angels keep your wings off him ! '
The listening phalanx relaxed in smiles. Pres
ently Mrs. Mason said :
" I was at Miss Mattie Sue's the other day. Mr.
Valiant had just called on her. She was tremend
ously pleased. She said he was the living image of
his father."
" Oh, it never occurred to me," cried Mrs. Gifford,
in some excitement, " that she might be able to guess
who the woman was at the bottom of that old duel.
But Miss Mattie Sue is so everlastingly close-
mouthed," she added, with an aggravated sigh.
" She never lets out anything. Why, I've been try
ing for years to find out how old she is. In the
winter when she was so sick, you know T went
to see her one day, and I said : * Now, Miss Mattie
Sue, you know you're pretty sick. Not that I think
you're going to die, but one never knows. And if
the Lord should see fit to call you, I know you would
want everything to be done right. I was think
ing,' I said, ' of the stone, for I know the ladies
of the church would want to do something nice.
Now don't you feel like giving me a few little de-
TOURNAMENT DAY 271
tails the date you were born, for instance ? ' I
thought I'd find out then, but I didn't. She turned
her head on the pillow and says she, ' It's mighty
thoughtful of you, Mrs. Gifford, but I like simplicity.
Just put on my tombstone " Here lies Mattie Sue
Mabry. Born a virgin, died a virgin."
The doctor shut his office door with a vicious
slam and from the vantage of the wire window-
screen looked sourly across the beds of marigold
and nasturtium.
" I reckon if Mrs. Poly Gifford shut her mouth
more than ten minutes hand-running," he said
malevolently, " the top of her head'd fly from here
to Charlottesville. What on earth can they find
to gabble about? They've been at it since ten
o'clock!"
The major, ensconced with a cigar in the easy
chair behind him, flourished his palm-leaf fan and
smote an errant fly. He was in gayest plumage.
His fine white waistcoat was a miracle, his spats a
pattern, and the pink in his button-hole had a Beau
Brummelish air which many a youthful gallant was
to envy him ere the day was done.
" Speaking of Damory Court," he said in his
big voice. " The dance idea was a happy thought
of young Valiant's. I'll be surprised if he doesn't
do it to the queen's taste."
The doctor nodded. " This place can't teach hiru
272 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
much about such folderolings, I reckon. He's led
more cotillions than I've got hairs on my head."
" I'd hardly limit it to that," said the major,
chortling at the easy thrust. " And after all, even
folderolings have their use."
"Who said they hadn't? If people choose to
make whirling dervishes of themselves, they at least
can reflect that it's better for their livers than cane-
bottom chairs. Though that's about all you can
say in favor of the modern ball."
" Pshaw ! " said the major. " I remember a time
when you used to rig out in a claw-hammer and
"'Dance all night till broad daylight
And go home with the gyrls in the morning,'
with the bravest of us. Used to like it, too."
" I got over it before I was old enough to make
myself a butt of hilarity," the doctor retorted. " I
see by the papers they've invented a new dance
called the grizzly bear. I believe there's another
named the yip-kyoodle. I hope you've got 'em
down pat to show the young folks to-night, Bris-
tow."
The major got up with some irritation. " South-
all," he said, " sometimes I'm tempted to think
your remarks verge upon the personal. You
don't have to watch me dance if you don't choose
to."
" No, thank God," muttered the doctor. " I pre-
TOURNAMENT DAY 273
fer to remember you when you still preserved a
trace of dignity twenty odd years ago."
" If dignity " the major's blood was rising now,
" consists in your eternal tasteless bickerings, I
want none of it. What on earth do you do it for?
You had some friends once."
" Friends ! " snapped the other, " the fewer I have
the better ! "
The major clapped on his straw hat angrily,
strode to the door, and opened it. But on the
threshold he stopped, and presently shut it, turned
back slowly and resumed his chair. The doctor was
relighting his cigar, but an odd furtive look had
slipped to his face, and the hand that struck the
match was unsteady.
For a time both sat smoking, at first in silence,
then talking in a desultory way on indifferent topics.
Finally the major rose and tossed his cigar into
the empty grate.
" I'll be off now," he said. " I must be on the
field before the others."
As he went down the steps a carriage, drawn by
a pair of dancing grays, plunged past. " Who are
those people with the Chalmers, I wonder," said the
doctor. " They're strangers here."
The major peered. " Oh," he said, over his
shoulder, " I forgot to tell you. That's Silas
Fargo, the railroad president from New York, and
his daughter Katharine. His private car's down
274 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
on the siding. They're at the judge's he's chief
counsel for the road in this state. They'll be at the
tournament, I reckon. You'll be there, won't
you?"
The doctor was putting some phials and instru
ments into a worn leather bag. " No," he said,
shortly. " I'm going to take a ten-mile drive to
add to this county's population, I expect. But I'm
coming to the dance. Promised Valiant I would in
a moment of temporary aberration."
CHAPTER XXXII
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE
* TUNE in Virginia is something to remember."
J To-day the master of Damory Court deemed
this a true saying. For the air was like wine, and
the drifting white wings of cloud, piled above the
amethystine ramparts of the far Blue Ridge, looked
down upon a violet world bound in green and silver.
In his bedroom Valiant stood looking into the
depths of an ancient wardrobe. Presently he took
from a hook a suit of white flannel in which he
arrayed himself. Over his soft shirt he knotted a
pale gray scarf. The modish white suit and the
rolling Panama threw out in fine contrast the keen
sun-tanned face and dark brown eyes.
In the hall below he looked about him with satis
faction. For the last three days he had labored
tirelessly to fit the place for the evening's event.
The parlor now showed walls rimmed with straight-
back chairs and the grand piano long ago put
in order had been relegated to the library. That
instinct for the artistic, which had made him a
last resort in the vexing problems of club entertain
ments, had aided him in the Court's adornment.
275
276 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Thick branches of holly, axed from the hollows by
Uncle Jefferson, lined the balustrade of the stair
way, the burnished green of ivy leaves was twined
with the prisms of the chandelier in the big yellow-
hung parlor, and bands of twisted laurel were
festooned along the upper walls. The massed green
was a setting for a prodigal use of flowers. Every
where wild blossoms showed their spreading clus
ters, and he had searched every corner of the estate,
even climbing the ragged forest slope, to the tawdry
edge of Hell's Half-Acre, to plunder each covert
of its hidden blooms.
He had intended at first to use only the wild
flowers, but that morning Ranston had arrived from
Rosewood with a load of red roses that had made
him gasp with delight. Now these painted the
whole a splendid riotous crimson. They stood
banked in windows and fireplaces. Great clumps
nodded from shadowed corners and a veritable
bower of them waited for the musicians at the end
of the hall. Through the whole house wreathed
the sweet rose-scent, mingled with the frailer frag
rance of the wildings. John Valiant drew a single
great red beauty from its brethren and fastened
it in his button-hole.
Out in the kitchens Cassandra's egg-beating
clattered like a watchman's rattle, while Aunt
Daphne put the finishing touches to an array of
lighter edibles destined to grace the long table on
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE 277
the rear porch, now walled in with snow-white
muslin and hung with candle-lusters. Under the
trees Uncle Jefferson was even then experimenting
with various punch compounds, and a delicious
aroma of vanilla came to Valiant's nostrils together
with Aunt Daphne's wrathful voice :
" Heah, yo' Greenie Simms ! Whah yo' gwine ? "
" Ain' gwine nowhah. Ah's done been whah
Ah's gwine."
" Yo' set down dat o'ange er Ah'll smack yo'
bardaciously ovah ! Ef yo' steals, what gwineter be
come ob yo' soul? "
" Don' know nuffin' 'bout mah soul," responded
the ebony materialist. " But Ah knows Ah got er
body, 'cause Ah buttons et up e'vy day, en Ah lakes
et plump."
" Yo' go back en wuk fo' yo' quahtah yankin' on
dat ar ice-cream freezah," decreed Aunt Daphne ex-
asperatedly, " er yo' don' git er smell ter-night. Yo'
heah dat!"
The threat proved efficacious, for Greenie, mut
tering sullenly that she " didn' nebbah feel no sky
lark in de ebenin'," returned to her labors.
The Red Road, as Valiant's car passed, was
dotted with straggling pedestrians : humble country
folk who trudged along the grassy foot-path with no
sullen regard for the swift cars and comfortable
carriages that left them behind; sturdy barefooted
278 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
children who called shrilly after him, and happy-go-
lucky negro youths clad in their best with Sunday
shoes dangling over their shoulders, slouching re-
gardlessly in the dust all bound for the same
Mecca, which presently rose before him, a gateway
of painted canvas proclaiming the field to which
it opened Runnymede.
This was a spacious level meadow into which de
bouched the ravine on whose rim he had stood with
Shirley on that unforgettable day. But its stake-
and-ridered fence enclosed now no mere stretch of
ill-kept sward. Busy scythes, rollers and grass-cut
ters from the Country Club had smoothed and
shaven a rectangle in its center till it lay like a carpet
of crushed green velvet, set in an expanse of life-
everlasting and pale budding goldenrod.
He halted his car at the end of the field and
snapped a leash in the bulldog's collar. " I hate
to do it, old man," he said apologetically to Chum's
reproachful look, " but I've got to. There are to
be some stunts, and in such occasions you're apt
to be convinced you're the main one of the con
testants, which might cause a mix-up. Never mind ;
I'll anchor you where you won't miss anything."
With the excited dog tugging before him, he
threaded his way through the press with keen ex
hilaration. This was not a crowd like that of a
city; rather it resembled the old-homestead day of
some unbelievably populous family, at reunion with
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE 279
its servants and retainers. All its members knew
one another and the air was musical with badinage.
Now and then his gloved hand touched his cap at
a salutation. He was conscious of swift bird-like
glances from pretty girls. Here was none of the
rigid straight-ahead gaze or vacant stare of the
city boulevard ; the eyes that looked at him, frankly
curious and inquiring, were full of easy open com
radeship. There was about both men and women
an air of being at the same time more ceremonious
and more casual than those he had known. Some
of the girls wore gowns and hats that might that
morning have issued from the Rue de la Paix ; others
were habited in cheap materials. But about the lat
ter hung no benumbing self -consciousness. All bore
themselves alike. And all seemed to possess musical
voices, graceful movements and a sense of quiet
dignity. He was beginning to realize that there
might really exist straitened circumstances, even
actual poverty, which yet created no sort of social
difference.
Opposite the canvas-covered grand stand sat
twelve small mushroom tents, each with a staff and
tiny flag. Midway lines of flaxen ropes stretched
between rows of slender peeled saplings from whose
tops floated fanged streamers of vivid bunting. A
pavilion of purple cloth, open at the sides, awaited
the committee, and near the center, a negro band
was disposed on camp-stools, the brass of the
280 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
waiting instruments winking in the sunlight. The
stand was a confused glow of color, of light gauzy
dresses, of young girls in pastel muslins with
flowers in their belts, picturesque hats and slender
articulate hands darting in vivacious gestures like
white swallows the gentry from the " big houses."
About the square babbled and palpitated the crowd
of the farm-wagon and carry-all; and at the lower
end, jostling, laughing and skylarking beyond the
barrier, a picturesque block of negroes, picked out
by flashing white teeth, red bandannas folded above
wrinkled countenances and garish knots of ribbon
flaunting above the pert yellow faces of a younger
mulatto race.
The light athletic figure, towed by the white bull
dog, drew many glances. Valiant's eyes, however,
as they swept the seats, were looking for but one,
and at first vainly. He felt a quick pang of disap
pointment. Perhaps she would not come ! Perhaps
her mother was still ill. Perhaps but then sud
denly his heart beat high, for he saw her in the
lower tier, with a group of young people. He could
not have told what she wore, save that it was of
soft Murillo blue with a hat whose down-curved
brim was wound with a shaded plume of the same
tint. Her mother was not with her. She was not
looking his way as he passed her arms at the
moment being held out in an adorable gesture to
ward a little child in a smiling matron's lap and
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE 281
but a single glance was vouchsafed him before the
major seized upon him and bore him to the purple
pavilion, for he was one of the committee.
But for this distraction, he might have seen, en
tering the stand with the Chalmers just as the band
struck up a delirious whirl of Dixie, the two
strangers whom the doctor had observed an hour
before as they whirled by the Merry weather Mason
house behind the judge's grays. Silas Fargo might
have passed in any gathering for the unobtrusive
city man. Katharine was noticeable anywhere, and
to-day her tall willowy figure in its champagne-color
lingerie gown and hat garnished with bronze and
gold thistles, setting in relief her ivory statuesque
face, drew a wave of whispered comment which
left a sibilant wake behind them. The party made
a picturesque group as they now disposed them
selves, Katharine's colorless loveliness contrasting
with the eager sparkle of pretty Nancy Chalmers
and the gipsy-like beauty of Betty Page.
" You call it a tournament, don't you ? " asked
Katharine of the judge.
" Yes," he replied. " It's a kind of contest in
which twelve riders compete for the privilege of
naming a Queen of Beauty. There's a ball to
night, at which the lucky lady is crowned. Those
little tents are where the noble knights don their
shining armor. See, there go their caparisoned
chargers."
-82 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
A file of negroes was approaching the tents, each
leading a horse whose saddle and bridle were dec
orated with fringes of various hues. In the center
of the roped lists, directly in front of the stand,
others were planting upright in the ground a tall
pole from whose top projected a horizontal arm
like a slender gallows. From this was suspended
a cord at whose end swung a tiny object that whirled
and glittered in the sun.
The judge explained. " On the end of the cord
is a silver ring, at which the knights tilt with lances.
Twelve rings are used. The pike-points are
made to fit them, and the knight who carries off
the greatest number of the twelve is the victor.
The whole thing is a custom as ancient as Virginia
a relic, of course, of the old jousting of the
feudal ages. The ring is supposed to represent the
device on the boss of the shield, at which the larice-
thrust was aimed."
" How interesting ! " exclaimed Katharine, and
turning, swept the stand with her lorgnette. " I
suppose all the county's F. F. Vs. are here," she said
laughingly to Nancy Chalmers. " I've often won
dered, by the way, what became of the Second
Families of Virginia."
" Oh, they've mostly emigrated North," answered
Nancy. " The ones that are left are all ancient.
There are families here that don't admit they ever
began at all."
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE 283
Silas Fargo shook his stooped shoulders with
laughter. " Up North," he said genially " we've
got regular factories that turn out ready-made
family-trees for anybody who wants to roost in
one."
Betty Page turned her piquant brown face toward
him reflectively. " Ah do think you No'therners are
wonderful," she said in her languorous Carolinian,
"at being just what you want to be! Ah met a
No'thern gyrl once at White Sulphur Springs who
said such clever things, and Ah asked her, ' How did
you ever learn to talk like you do ? ' What do you
reckon the gyrl said ? She said she had to be clever
because her nose was so big. She tried wearing
tricky little hats and a follow-me-in-the-twilight ex
pression, but it made her seem ridiculous, so she
finally thought of brains and epigrams, and took to
reading Bernard Shaw and Walter Pater, and it
worked fine. She said trouble suited her profile,
and she'd discovered people looked twice at sad
eyes, so she'd cultivated a pensive look for yeahs.
Ah think that was mighty bright! Down South
we're too lazy to work over ourselves that way."
And now over the fluttering stand and the crowd
about the barriers, a stir was discernible. Kath
arine looked again at the field. " Who is that
splendid big old man giving directions? The one
who looks like a lion. He's coming this way now."
284 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" That's Major Montague Bristow," said the
judge. " He's been master of the heralds for years.
The tournament could hardly happen without the
major."
" I'm sure I'd like him," she answered. " What
a lovely girl he is talking to ! "
It was Shirley who had beckoned the major from
the lists. She was leaning over the railing. " Why
has Ridgeley Pendleton left?" she asked in a low
voice. " Isn't he one of the twelve ? "
" He was. But he's ill. He wasn't feeling up
to it when he came, but he didn't give up till half
an hour ago. We'll have to get along with eleven
knights."
She made an exclamation of dismay. " Poor
Ridge ! And what a pity ! There have never been
less than the full number. It will spoil the royal
quadrille to-night, too. Why doesn't the commit
tee choose some one in his place? "
" Too late. Besides, he would have no costume."
" Surely that's not so important as filling the
Round Table?"
" It's too bad. But I'm afraid it can't be helped."
She bent still closer. " Listen. Why not ask Mr.
Valiant? He is our host to-night. I'm sure he'd
be glad to help out, even without the costume."
" Egad ! " he said, pulling his imperial. " None
of us had thought of him. He could ride Pendle-
ton's mount, of course." He reflected a moment.
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE 285
" I'll do it. Its exactly the right thing. You're
a clever girl, Shirley."
He hastily crossed the field, while she leaned back,
her eyes on the flanneled figure long since recog
nized under the purple pavilion. She saw the
committee put their heads together and hurriedly en
ter.
In the moment's wait, Shirley's gloved fingers
clasped and unclasped somewhat nervously. The
riders had been chosen long before John Valiant's
coming. If a saddle, however, was perforce to be
vacant, what more appropriate than that he should
fill it ? The thought had come to her instantly, bred
of an underlying regret, which she had all along
cherished, that he was not to take part. But be
neath this was a deeper passionate wish that she
did not attempt to analyze, to see him assume his
place with others long habituated to that closed cir
cle a place rightfully his by reason of birth and
name and to lighten the gloomy shadow, that
must rest on his thoughts of his father, with warmer
sunnier things. She heaved a secret sigh of satis
faction as the white-clad figure rose in acquiescence.
The major returned to the grand stand and held
up his hand for silence.
" Our gracious Liege," he proclaimed, in his big
vibrant voice, " Queen of Beauty yet unknown,
Lords, Knights and Esquires, Fair Dames and
gentles all ! Whereas divers noble persons have en-
286 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
terprized and taken upon them to hold jousts royal
and tourney, you are hereby acquainted that the
lists of Runnymede are about to open for that
achievement of arms and grand and noble tourna
ment for which they have so long been famed.
But an hour since one of our noble knights, prick'
ing hither to tilt for his lady, was beset by a
grievous malady. However, lest our jousting lack
the royal number, a new champion hath at this last
hour been found to fill the Table Round, who of
his courtesy doth consent to ride without armor."
A buzz ran over the assemblage. " It must be
Pendleton who has defaulted," said Judge Chalmers.
" I heard this morning he was sick. Who's the sub
stitute knight, I wonder?"
At the moment a single mounted herald before
the tents blew a long blast on a silver horn. Their
flaps parted and eleven knights issued to mount their
steeds and draw into line behind him. They were
brilliantly decked in fleshlings with slashed doublets
and plumed chapeaus, and short jeweled cloaks
drooped from their shoulders. Pages handed each
a long lance which was held perpendicular, the butt
resting on the right stirrup.
" Why," cried Katharine, " it's like a bit out of
the medieval pageant at Earl's Court! Where do
you get the costumes? "
" Some we make," Judge Chalmers answered,
" but a few are the real thing so old they have
A VIRGINIAN RUNNYMEDE 287
to be patched up anew each year. The ancient
lances have disappeared. The pikes we use now
were found in '61, hidden ready for the negro in
surrection, when John Brown should give the
signal."
Under the pavilion, just for the fraction of a
second, Valiant hesitated. Then he turned swiftly
to the twelfth tent. Its flag-staff bore a long
streamer of deep blood-red. He snatched this from
its place, flung it about his waist and knotted it sash-
wise. He drew the rose from his lapel and thrust
it through the band of his Panama, leaped to the
saddle of the horse the major had beckoned, and
with a quick thrust of his heel, swung to the end
of the stamping line.
The field and grand stand had seen the quick de
cision, with its instant action, and as the hoofs
thudded over the turf, a wave of hand-clapping ran
across the seats like a silver rain. " Neatly done,
upon my word ! " said the judge, delighted.
" What a daring idea ! Who is it ? Is it bless
my soul, it is ! "
Katharine Fargo had dropped her lorgnette with
an exclamation. She stood up, her wide eyes fixed
on that figure in pure white, with the blood-red
cordon flaunting across his horse's flanks and the
single crimson blossom glowing in his hat.
" The White Knight ! " she breathed. " Who is
he?"
288
Judge Chalmers looked round in sudden illumina
tion. " I forgot that you would be likely to know
him," he said. "That is Mr. John Valiant of
Damory Court."
CHAFER XXXIII
THE KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE
THE row of horsemen had halted in a curving
line before the grand stand, and now in the
silence the herald, holding a parchment scroll,
spurred before each rider in turn, demanding his
title. As this was given he whirled to proclaim it,
accompanying each evolution with a blast on his
horn. " Knight of the Golden Spur," " Knight of
Castlewood," "Lord of Brandon," " Westover's
Knight," " Knight of the Silver Cross " : the names,
fanciful, or those of family estates, fell on John
Valiant's ear with a pungent flavor of medievalism.
His eyes, full of the swaying crowd, the shift and
shimmer of light and color, returned again and
again to an alluring spot of blue at one side, which
might for him have been the heart of the whole
festal out-of-doors. He started as he became aware
that the rider next him had answered and that the
herald had paused before him.
" Knight of the Crimson Rose ! " It sprang to
his lips without forethought, an echo, perhaps, of
the improvised sash and the flower in his hat-band,
but the shout of the herald and the trumpet's blare
289
290 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
seemed to make the words fairly bulge with in
evitability. And through this struck a sudden ap
palled feeling that he had really spoken Shirley's
name, and that every one had heard. He could not
see her face, and clutched his lance fiercely to over
come an insane desire to stoop hideously in his saddle
and peer under the shading hat-brim. Lest he
should do this, he fastened his eyes determinedly on
the major, who now proceeded to deliver himself of
the " Charge to the Knights."
The major made an appealing center to the charm
ing picture as he stood on the green turf, " the glass
of fashion and the mold of form," his head bare,
his shock of blond-gray hair thrown back, and one
hand thrust between the buttons of his snowy waist
coat. His rich bass voice rolled out to the farthest
corner of the field :
"Sir Knights!
" The tournament to which we are gathered to
day is to us traditional; a rite of antiquity and a
monument of ancient generations. This relic of the
jousts of the Field of the Cloth-of-Gold points us
back to an era of knightly deeds, fidelity to sacred
trust, obligation to duty and loyalty to woman
the watchwords of true knighthood.
" We like to think that when our forefathers, off
spring of men who established chivalry, came from
over-seas, they brought with them not only this an
cient play, but the precepts it symbolizes. We may
KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE 291
be proud, indeed, knowing that this is no hollow
ceremonial, but an earnest that the flower of knight
hood has not withered in the world, that in an age
when the greed of gold was never so dazzling, the
spirit of true gallantry has not faded but blooms
luxuriant in the sparkling dews of the heart of this
commonwealth.
' Yours is no bitter ride by haunted tarn or
through enchanted forest no arrowed vigil on
beleagered walls. You go not in gleaming steel and
fretted mail to meet the bite of blade and crash
of battle-ax. Yet is your trial one of honor and
glory. I charge you that in the contest there be
no darkling envy for the victor, but only true com
radeship and that generosity which is the badge of
noble minds.
" I summon you to bow the knee loyally before
your queen. For as the contest typifies life's battle,
so shall she stand for you as the type of womanhood,
the crown of knighthood. The bravest thoughts of
chivalry circle about her. The stars of heaven only
may be above her head, the glowworm in the night-
chill grasses the only fire at her feet; still the spot
that holds her is richer than if ceiled with cedar and
painted with vermilion, and sheds a light far for
him who else were lampless.
" Most Noble Knights ! In the name of that high
tradition which this day preserves ! In the memory
of those other knights who practised the tourney
292 THE VALIANTS OK VIRGINIA
in its old-time glory! In the sight of your Queen
of Beauty! I charge you, Southern gentlemen, to
joust with that valor, fairness and truth which
are the enduring glories of the knighthood of Vir
ginia ! "
Over the ringing applause Nancy Chalmers looked
at him with a little smile, quizzical yet soft. " Dear
old major! " she whispered to Betty Page. " How
he loves the center of the stage ! And he's effective,
too. Thirty years ago, father says, he might have
been anything he wanted to even United States
Senator. But he would never leave the state. Not
that I blame him for that," she added ; " I'd rather
be a church-mouse in Virginia than Croesus' daugh
ter anywhere else."
The twelve horsemen were now sitting their
restive mounts in a group at one end of the lists.
Two mounted monitors had stationed themselves on
either side of the rope-barrier ; a third stood behind
the upright from whose arm was suspended the
silver ring. The herald blew a blast, calling the
title of the first of the knights. Instantly, with
lance at rest, the latter galloped at full speed down
the lists. There was a sharp musical clash, and as
he dashed on, the ring flew the full length of its
tether and swung back, whirling swiftly. It had
been a close thrust, for the iron pike-point had
smitten its rim. A cheer went up, under cover o
KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE 293
which the rider looped back outside the lists to his
former position.
In an upper tier of the stand a spectator made a
cup of his hands. " The Knight of the Golden
Spur against the field," he called. " What odds? "
" Five to one, Spotteswood," a voice answered.
" Ten dollars," announced the first.
" Good." And both made memorandum on their
cuffs.
A second time the trumpet sounded, and the
Knight of Castlewood flashed ingloriously down the
roped aisle a miss.
Again and again the clear note rang out and a
mounted figure plunged by, and presently, in a burst
of cheering, the herald proclaimed " The Knight of
the Black Eagle one ! " and Chilly Lusk, in old-
rose doublet and inky plume cantered back with a
silver ring upon his pike.
The hazards in the stand multiplied. Now it
was Westover's Knight against him of the Silver
Cross; now, the Lord of Brandon to win. The
gentlemen wagered coin of the realm; the ladies
gloves and chocolates. One pretty girl, amid a gale
of chaff, staked a greyhound puppy. The arena
swam in a lustrous light, and the greensward
glistened in its frame of white and dusky spectators.
In the sunshine the horses every one of them
groomed till his coat shone like black, gray or sorrel
294 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
satin curveted and whinnied, restive and red-
nostriled under the tense rein. The riders sat erect
and statuesque, pikes in air, cloaks flapping from
their shoulders, waiting the call that sent each in
turn tilting against the glittering and elusively
breeze-swinging silver circlet.
No simple thing, approaching leisurely and afoot,
to send that tapering point straight to the tiny mark.
But at headlong gallop, astride a blooded horse
straining to take the bit, a deed requiring a nice
eye, a perfect seat and an unwavering arm and
hand! Those knights who looped back with their
pikes thus braceleted had spent long hours in prac
tise and each rode as naturally as he breathed; yet
more than once a horse shied in mid-course and at
the too-eager thrust of the spur bolted through the
ropes. Valiant made his first essay and missed
with the blood singing in his ears. The ring
flew from his pike, catching him a swinging blow
on the temple in its rebound, but he scarcely felt
it. As he cantered back he heard the major's bass
pitting him against the field, and for a moment
again the spot of blue seemed to spread over all
the watching stand.
And then, suddenly, stand and field all vanished.
He saw only the long level rope-lined lane with its
twinkling mid-air point. An exhilaration caught
him at the feel of the splendid horse-flesh beneath
him that sense of oneness with the creature he
KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE 295
bestrode which the instinctive horseman knows. He
lifted his lance and hefted it, seeking its absolute
balance, feeling its point as a fencer with his rapier.
When again the blood-red sash streamed away the
herald's cry, " Knight of the Crimson Rose
One ! " set the field hand-clapping. From the next
joust also, Valiant returned with the gage upon his
lance. Two had gone to the Champion of Castle-
wood and two to scattering riders. When Valiant
won his fourth the grand stand thundered with ap
plause.
Katherine Fargo was watching with a gaze that
held a curious puzzle. After that recognition of
the White Knight, Judge Chalmers had told in a few
words the story of Damory Court, its ancient his
tory, the unhappy duel that had sent its owner into
a Northern exile, and the son's recent coming. It
had more than surprised her. Her father's appre
ciative chuckle that " the young vagabond seemed
after all to have fallen on his feet " had left her
strangely silent. She was undergoing a curious
mental bouleversement. Valiant's passionate de
fense of his father in that fierce burst of anger in
the court room had at first startled her with its
sense of unsuspected force. Later, however, she
had come to think it theatric and overdrawn, and
she had heard of his quixotic surrender of his
fortune with a wonder not unmixed with an almost
pitying scorn. She despised eccentricity as much
296 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
as she respected wealth, and the act had seemed a
ridiculous impulse or a silly affectation destined to
be repented long and bitterly in cold blood. So she
had thought of him since his evanishment with a
regret less sharp for being glozed with a certain
contempt.
The discovery of him to-day had dissipated this.
She had an unerring sense of social values and she
made no error in her estimate of ihe jjeopl by
whom she was now surrounded. The recital of
the Valiant generations, the size of the estate, the
position into which it's heir had stepped by very rea
son of being who he was, appealed to her instinct
and imagination and respect for blood. She had a
sudden conception of new values, beside whicb
money counted little. The last of a line more an
cient than the state itself, master of a homestead
famous throughout its borders, John Valiant loomed
larger in her eyes at the moment than ever before.
The trumpet again pealed its silvery proclamation.
Judge Chalmers was on his feet. " Fifty to ten on
the Crimson Rose," he cried. This time, however,
there were no takers. He called again, but none
heard him; the last tilts were too absorbing.
Where had John Valiant learned that trick of
the loose wrist and inflexible thrust, but at the fen
cing club? Where that subconscious management
of the rein, that nice gage of speed and distance,
but on the polo field ? The old sports stood him now
297
in good stead. " Why, he has a seat like a cen
taur ! " exclaimed the judge praise indeed in a
community where riding was a passion and horse
flesh a fetish !
" Oh, dear ! " mourned Nancy Chalmers. " I've
bet six pairs of gloves on Quint Carter. Never
mind ; if it has to be anybody else, I'd rather it were
Mr. Valiant. It's about time Damory Court got
something after Rip-Van-Winkling it for thirty
years. Besides, he's giving us the dance, and I
love him for that ! Quint still has a chance, though.
If he takes the next two, and Mr. Valiant misses "
Katherine looked at her with a little smile. " He
won't miss," she said.
She had seen that look on his face before and
read it aright. John Valiant had striven in many
contests, not only of skill but of strength and dar
ing, before crowded grand stands. But never in
all his life had he so desired to pluck the prize.
His grip was tense on the lance as the yellow doublet
and olive plume of Castlewood shot away for a last-
time and failed. An instant later the Knight of
the Crimson Rose flashed down the lists with the
last ring on his pike.
And the tourney was won.
In the shouting and hand-clapping Valiant took
the rose from his hat-band and bound it with a shred
of his sash to his lance-point. As he rode slowly
toward the massed stand, the whole field was so still
298 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
that he could hear the hoofs of the file of knights
behind him. The people were on their feet.
The mounted herald blew his blast. " By the
Majesties of St. Michael and St. George," he pro
claimed, " I declare the Knight of the Crimson
Rose the victor of this our tourney, and do charge
him now to choose his Queen of Beauty, that all
may do her homage ! "
Shirley saw the horse coming down the line, its
rider bareheaded now, and her heart began to race
wildly. Beyond wanting him to take part, she had
not thought. She looked about her, suddenly dis
mayed. People were smiling at her and clapping
their hands. From the other end of the stand she
saw Nancy Chalmers throwing her a kiss, and beside
her a tall pale girl in champagne-color staring
through a jeweled lorgnette.
She was conscious all at once that the flanneled
rider was very close . . . that his pike-point, with
its big red blossom, was stretching up to her.
With the rose in her hand she curtsied to him,
while the blurred throng cheered itself hoarse, and
the band struck up You Great Big Beautiful Doll,
with extraordinary rapture, to the tune of which the
noise finally subsided to a battery of hilarious con
gratulations which left her flushed and a little
breathless. Nancy Chalmers and Betty Page had
burst upon her like petticoated whirlwinds and pres-
KNIGHT OF THE CRIMSON ROSE 299
ently, when the crowd had lessened, the judge came
to introduce his visitor.
" Mr. Fargo and his daughter are our guests at
Gladden Hall," he told her. " They are old friends
of Valiant's, by the way; they knew him in New
York."
" Katharine's lighting her incense now, I guess,"
observed Silas Fargo. " See there ! " He pointed
across the stand, where stood a willowy tan figure,
one hand beckoning to the concourse below, where
Valiant stood, the center of a shifting group, round
which the white bulldog, mad with recovered
liberty, tore in eccentric circles.
As they looked, she called softly, " John ! John ! "
Shirley saw him start and face about, then come
quickly toward her, amazement and welcome in his
eyes.
As Shirley turned away a little later with the
major, that whispering voice seemed still to sound
in her ears " John ! John ! " There smote her
suddenly the thought that when he had chosen her
his Queen of Beauty, he had not seen the other
had not known she was there.
A few moments before the day had been golden;
she went home through a landscape that somehow
seemed to have lost its brightest glow.
CHAPTER XXXIV
KATHARINE DECIDES
KATHARINE left the field of Runnymede with
John Valiant in the dun-colored motor. She
sat in the driver's seat beside him, while the bulldog
capered, ecstatically barking, from side to side of
the rear cushions. Her father had declined the
honor, remarking that he considered a professional
chauffeur a sufficient risk of his valuable life and
that the Chalmers' grays were good enough for him
a decision which did not wholly displease Katha
rine.
The car was not the smart Panhard in which she
had so often spun down the avenue or along the
shell-roads of the north shore. It lacked those fin-
de-siecle appurtenances which marked the ne plus
ultra of its kind, as her observant eye recognized;
but it ran staunch and true. The powerful hands
that gripped the steering-wheel were brown with sun
and wind, and the handsome face above it had a
look of keenness and energy she had never surprised
before. They passed many vehicles and there were
few whose occupants did not greet him. In fact, as
300
KATHARINE DECIDES 301
he presently remarked, it was a saving of energy to
keep his hat off; and he tossed the Panama into the
rear seat. On the rim of the village a group raised
a cheer to which he nodded laughingly, and farther
on a little old lady on a timid vine-covered porch
beside a church, waved a black-mitted hand to him
with a sweet old-time gesture. Katharine noted
that he bowed to her with extra care.
" That's Miss Mattie Sue Mabry," he said, " the
quaintest, dearest thing you ever saw. She taught
my father his letters." A small freckled- faced girl
was swinging on the gate. " You really must know
Rickey Snyder ! " he said, and halted the car at the
curb. " Rickey," he called, " I want to introduce
you to Miss Fargo."
" Howdy do ? " said Rickey, approaching with an
ingratiating bob of the head. " I saw you at the
tournament. Is it true that you can ride on the
train wherever you want to without ever buying any
ticket?"
Katharine smiled back. " I'm not sure they'd all
take me for nothing," she said, " but perhaps a few
of them would."
" That must be grand," sighed Rickey. " I
reckon you've seen everything in the world, almost."
" No, indeed. I never saw a tournament like
this, for instance. It was tremendously exciting.
Wasn't it!"
" My goodness gracious, yes ! Mr. Valiant, I
302 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
most cried when you chose Miss Shirley Queen ol
Beauty, I was that glad ! She was a lot the pret
tiest girl there. Though I like your looks right
much too, Miss Fargo," she added tactfully.
" Oh, Mr. Valiant!" Rickey called after them as
the car started. " Now you're at Damory Court,
are you going to let us children keep on playing up
at the Hemlocks ? "
" Well I should think so ! " he answered. " Play
there all the time, if you like."
" Oh, thank you," said Rickey, radiant. " And
there won't be any snakes there now, for you've
cleared all the underbrush away."
As they sped on, Katharine's cheek had a faintly
heightened color. But, " What a deliciously odd
child ! " she laughed.
" She's a character," he said. " She worships
the ground Miss Dandridge walks on. There's a
good reason for it. You must get Miss Chalmers to
tell you the story."
Where the Red Road stretched level before them,
he threw the throttle open for a long rush through
the thymy-scented air. The light, late afternoon
breeze drew by them, sweeping back Katharine's
graceful sinuous veil and spraying them with odors
of clover and sunny fruit. They passed orchard
clumps bending with young apples, boundless aisles
of green, young-tasseled corn and shadowy groves
KATHARINE DECIDES 303
that smelled of fern and sassafras, opening out into
more sunlighted vistas overarched by the intense
penetrable blue of the June sky.
John Valiant had never seemed to her so wholly
good to see, with his waving hair ruffling in their
flight and the westerning sun shining redly on his
face. Midway of this spurt he looked at her to say :
" Did you ever know a more beautiful countryside?
See how the pink-and-yellow of those grain fields
fades into the purple of the hills. Very few paint
ers have ever captured a tint like that. It's like
raspberries crushed in curdled milk."
" I've quite lost my heart to it all," she said, her
voice jolting with the speed of their course. " It's
a perfect pastoral ... so different from our ter
rific city pace. ... Of course it must be a trifle dull
at times . . . seeing the same people always . . .
and without the theater and the opera and the whirl
about one but . . . the kind of life one reads
about ... in the novels of the South, you know
... I suppose one doesn't realize that it actually
exists until one comes to a Southern place like this.
And the negro servants! How odd it must be to
have a white-headed old darky in a brass-buttoned
swallow-tail for a butler! So picturesque! At
Judge Chalmers, I have a feeling all the time that
I'm walking through a stage rehearsal."
The car slackened speed as it slid by a white-
304 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
washed cabin at whose entrance sat a dusky gray-
bearded figure. Valiant pointed. " Do you see
him ? " he asked.
" I see a very ordinary old colored man sitting
on the door-step," Katharine replied.
" That's Mad Anthony, our local Mother Ship-
ton. He's a prophet and soothsayer. Uncle Jef
ferson that's my body-servant insists that he
foretold my coming to Damory Court. If we had
more time you could have your fortune told."
"How thrilling!" she commented with half'
humorous irony.
He pointed to a great white house set in a grove
of trees. " That is Beechwood," he told her, " the
Beverley homestead. Young Beverley was the
Knight of the Silver Cross. A fine old place, isn't
it ? It was burned by the Indians during the French
and Indian War. My great-great-great-grandfather
" He broke off. "But then, those old things
won't interest you."
"They interest you a great deal, don't they?"
she asked.
" Yes," he admitted, " they do. You see, my an
cestors are such new acquaintances, I find them ab
sorbing. You know when I lived in New York "
" Last month."
He laughed a little not quite the laugh she had
known in the past. " Yes, but I can hardly believe
KATHARINE DECIDES 305
it; I seem to have been here half a lifetime. To
think that a month ago I was a double-dyed New
Yorker."
" It's been a strange experience for you. Don't
you feel rather Jekyl-and-Hydish ? "
" That's a terrible compound ! " he laughed, as he
swept the car round a curve, skilfully evading a
bumping wagon-load of farm-hands. " In which
capacity am I Mr. Hyde, by the way ? "
She smiled at him round the edge of her blown
veil. " Figures of speech aren't to be analyzed.
You are Dr. Jekyl in New York, anyway. You
read what the papers said ? No ? It's just as well ;
it would have been likely to turn your head."
" Could anything be as likely to do that as
this ? " With a glance he indicated her presence be
side him.
She made him a mocking bow. " Be careful,"
she warned. " Speeches like that smack of dis
loyalty to your queen. What a pretty girl she is!
I congratulated you on your prowess. I must add
my congratulations on your taste."
He returned her bow of a moment since.
" It was all a most unique thing," she went on.
" And to-night at your ball I shall witness the coro
nation. I can hardly wait to see Damory Court.
Do you know, in all these years I never suspected
what a versatile genius you were? It's too wonder-
306 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ful how you have stepped into this life into the
people's thoughts and feelings as you have.
When you come back to New York "
He looked at her, oddly she thought. " Why
should I go back ? "
" Why ? Because it's your natural habitat.
Isn't it?"
" That's the word," he said smiling. " It was my
habitat. This is my home."
She was silent a moment in sheer surprise. She
had thought of this Southern essay as a quickly
passing incident, a colorful chapter whose page
might any day be turned. But it was impossible
to mistake his meaning. Clearly, he was deeply in
fatuated with this Arcadian experience and had no
thought at present but to continue it indefinitely.
But it would pass ! He was a New Yorker, after
all. And what more charming than to have an old
place in such a countryside a position ready-made
at one's hand, to step into for a month or two when
ennui made the old haunts tasteless? It was worth _
some cultivation. One must anchor somewhere.
Virginia was not so far from the center; splendid
estates of Northerners dotted even the Carolinas.
Here one might be in hand-touch with everything.
And it was no small thing to hold one of the oldest
and proudest names in a section like this. One
could always have a town-house too there was
Washington, and there was Europe. . . .
KATHARINE DECIDES 307
They were passing the entrance of a cherry-
bordered lane, and without taking his hands from
the gear, he nodded toward the low broad-eaved
dwelling with its flowering arbors that showed in
flashing glimpses of brown and red between the
intervening trees. " The palace of the queen ! " he
said " Rosewood, by name."
She looked in some curiosity. Clearly, if not a
refuge of genteel poverty, neither was it the abode
of wealth; so, from her assured rampart of the
Fargo millions, Katharine reflected complacently.
The girl was a local favorite, of course he had
been tactful as to that. It was fortunate, in a way,
that he had not seen her, Katharine, in the grand
stand until afterward. Feeling toward her as she
believed he did, with his absurd directness, he would
have been likely to drop the rose in her lap, never re
flecting that, the tourney being a local function, the
choice should not fall upon an outlander. That
would not have tended to increase his popularity in
the countryside, and popularity was the very salt
of social success. So Katharine pondered, her mind,
like a capable general's, running somewhat ahead of
the moment.
The slowing of the car brought her back to the
present, and she looked up to see before them the
great gate of Gladden Hall. She did not speak till
they had quite stopped.
Then, as her hand lay in his for farewell, " You
308 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
are right in your decision," she said softly. " This
is your place. You are a Valiant of Virginia. I
didn't realize it before, but I am beginning to see all
it means to you."
Her voice held a lingering indefinable quality
that was almost sadness, and for that one slender in
stant, she opened on him the unmasked batteries of
her glorious gray eyes.
CHAPTER XXXV
" WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER "
THE Tournament Ball at Damory Court that
night was more than an event. The old
mansion was an irresistible magnet. The floor of
its yellow parlor was known to be of delectable huge
ness. Its gardens were a legend. The whole place,
moreover, was steeped in the very odor of old mys
tery and new romance. Small wonder that to this
particular affair the elect the major was the high
custodian of the rolls, his decisions being as the
laws of the Medes and Persians came gaily from
the farthest county line, and the big houses of
the neighborhood were crammed with over-night
guests.
By half past nine o'clock the phalanx of chaperons
decreed by old custom had begun to arrive, and the
great iron gate at the foot of the drive erect and
rustless now saw an imposing processional of car
riages. These passed up a slope as radiant with the
fairy light of paper lanterns as a Japanese thorough
fare in festival season. The colored bulbs swung
moon-like from tree and shrub, painting their rain
bow lusters on grass and driveway. Under the
309
310 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
high gray columns of the porch and into the wide
door, framed in its small leaded panes that glowed
with the merry light within, poured a stream of love
liness : in carriage-wraps of light tints, collared and
edged with fur or eider, or wide-sleeved mandarin
coats falling back from dazzling throats and arms,
hair swathed with chiffon against the night dews,
and gallantly cavaliered by masculine black and
white.
These from their tiring-rooms overflowed pres
ently, garbed like dreams, to make obeisance to the
dowagers and then to drift through flower-lined cor
ridors, the foam on recurrent, waves of discovery.
Behind the rose-bower in the hall, which shielded a
dozen colored musicians violins, cello, guitars
and mandolins came premonitory chirps and
shivers, which presently wove into the low and
dreamy melody of Carry me back to old Virginia.
Around the walls of the yellow parlor, chairs stood
two deep, occupied, or preempted by fan or gloves or
lacy handkerchief. The floor, newly waxed,
gleamed in the candle-light like beaten moonbeams.
At its farther end was a low dais covered by a thin
Persian prayer-rug, where a single great tapestried
chair of dull gold waited throne-like, flanked on
either side by the chaperons, ladies of honor to the
queen to come.
Promptly as the clock in the hall chimed ten, the
music merged into a march. Doors on opposite
KNIGHTHOOD IN FLOWER 311
sides of the upper hall swung wide and down the
broad staircase came, with slow step, a stately pro
cession: two heralds in fawn-colored doublets with
scroll and trumpets wound with flowers, behind them
the Queen of Beauty, her finger-tips resting lightly
in the hand of the Knight of the Crimson Rose, and
these followed by as brave a concourse of lords and
ladies as ever graced castle-hall in the gallant days
" when knighthood was in flower."
Shirley's gown was of pure white: her arms
were swathed in tulle, crossed with straps of seed-
pearl, over which hung long semi-flowing sleeves of
satin, and from her shoulders rose a stiff pointed
medieval collar of Venetian lace, against whose pale
traceries her bronze hair glowed with rosy lights.
The edge of the square-cut corsage was powdered
with the pearls and against their sheen her breast
and neck had the soft creamy ivory of magnolia
buds. Her straight plain train of satin, knotted
with fresh white rose-buds (Nancy Chalmers had
labored for a frantic half -hour in the dressing-room
for this effect) was held by the seven-year-old
Byloe twins, in beribboned knickerbockers, duly im
pressed with the grandeur of their privilege and
grimly intent on acquitting themselves with glory.
Shirley's face was still touched with the surprise
that had swept it as Valiant had stepped to her
side. She had looked to see him in the conventional
panoply a sober-sided masculine mode decrees.
3 i2 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
What she had beheld was a figure that might have
stepped out of an Elizabethan picture-frame. He
was in deep purple slashed with gold. A cloak of
thin crimson velvet narrowly edged with ermine
hung from his shoulders, lined with tissue-like cloth-
of-gold. From the rolling brim of his hat swept a
curling purple plume. He wore a slender dress-
sword, and an order set with brilliants sparkled on
his breast.
The costume had been one he had worn at a
fancy ball of the winter before. It had been made
from a painting at Windsor of one of the Dukes of
Buckingham, and it made a perfect foil for Shirley's
white.
The eleven knights of the tourney, each with his
chosen lady, if less splendid, were tricked out in
sufficiently gorgeous attire. The Knight of Castle-
wood was in olive velveteen slashed with yellow,
with Nancy Chalmers, in flowered panniers and
beaded pompadour, on his arm. The Lord of Bran
don wore black and silver, and Westover's champion
was in forest green. Many an ancient brocade had
been awakened for the nonce from its lavender
bed, and ruffs and gold-braid were at no pre
mium.
To the twanging of the deft black fingers, they
passed in gorgeous array between files of low-cut
gowns and flower-like faces and masculine swallow
tails, to the yellow parlor. Once there the music
KNIGHTHOOD IN FLOWER 313
ceased with a splendid crash, the eleven knights each
dropped upon one knee, the eleven ladies-in-waiting
curtsied low, and Shirley, seated upon the dais,
leaned her burnished head to receive the crown.
What though the bauble was but bristol-board, its
jeweled chasing but tinsel and paste? On her head
it glowed and trembled, a true diadem. As Valiant
set the glittering thing on those rich and wonderful
coils, the music of her presence was singing a swift
melody in his blood.
His coronation address held no such flowery
periods as would have rolled from the major's soul.
He had chosen a single paragraph he had lighted
on in an old book in the library a history of the
last Crusade in French black-letter. He had trans
lated and memorized the archaic phrasing, keeping
the quaint feeling of the original:
" These noble Knights bow in your presence, fair
lady, as their Leige, whom they know as even in
judgment, as dainty in fulfilling these our acts of
arms, and do recommend their all unto your Good
Grace in as lowly wise as they can. O Queen, in
whom the whole story of virtue is written with the
language of beauty, your eyes, which have been only
wont to discern the bowed knees of kneeling hearts
and, inwardly turned, found always the heavenly
solace of a sweet mind, see them, ready in heart and
able with hands not only to assailing but to pre
vailing."
314 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
A hushed rustle of applause not loud: the
merest whisper of silken feet and feathered fans
tapped softly testified to a widespread approba
tion. It was the first sight many there had had of
John Valiant and in both looks and manner be fitted
their best ideals. True, his accent had not that
subtle gloze, that consonantal softness and intona
tion that mark the Southron, but he was a Southron
for all that, and one of themselves.
The queen's curtsey was the signal for the music,
which throbbed suddenly into a march, and she
stepped down beside him. Couple after couple,
knights and ladies, ranged behind them, till the
twenty-four stood ready for the royal quadrille.
It was the old-fashioned lancers, but the de
liberate strain lent the familiar measures something
of the stately effect of the minuet. The rhythmic
waves alternately bore Shirley to his arms and
whisked her away, for fleeting hand-touch of this or
that demure or laughing maid, giving him glimpses
of the seated rows by the walls, of flower vistas, of
open windows beyond which peered shining black
faces delightedly watching.
Quadrilles were not invented as aids to conversa
tion, and John Valiant's and Shirley's was neces
sarily limited. " The decorations are simply deli
cious ! " she said as they faced each other briefly.
" How did you manage it ? "
" Home talent with a vengeance Uncle Jeffer-
KNIGHTHOOD IN FLOWER 315
son and I did it with our little hatchets. But the
roses "
They were swooped apart and Shirley found
herself curtsying to Chilly Lusk. " More than
queen ! " he said under his breath. " I had my
heart set on naming you to-day. I reckon I've lost
my rabbit- foot ! "
Opposite, in the turn, Betty Page had slipped her
dainty hand into John Valiant's. " Ah haven't seen
such a lovely dance for yeahs! " she sighed. " Isn't
Shirley too sweet? If Ah had hair like hers, Ah
wouldn't speak to a soul on earth ! "
The exigencies of the figure gave no space for
answer, and presently, after certain labyrinthine evo
lutions, Shirley's eyes were gazing into his again.
" How adorably you look ! " he whispered, as he
bowed over her hand. " How does it feel to be a
queen? "
' This little head was never made to wear a
crown," she laughed. " Queens should be regal.
Miss Fargo would have "
The music swept the rest away, but not the look
of blinding reproach he gave her that made her heart
throb wildly as she glided on.
The last note of the quadrille slipped into a waltz
dreamily slow, and Valiant put his arm about
Shirley and they floated away. Once before, in the
moonlighted garden at Rosewood, she had lain in
316 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
his arms for one brief instant ; then she had seemed
like some trapped wood-thing resisting. Now, her
slender body swaying to his every motion, she was
another creature. Under the drooping tawny hair
her face was almost as pale as the white satin of
her gown ; her lips were parted, and as they moved,
he could feel her heart rise and fall to her languor
ous breath.
There was no speech between them ; for those few
golden moments all else vanished utterly, and he
guided by instinct, as oblivious to the floor-full as
if he were drifting through some enchanted ether,
holding to his breast the incarnation of all loveli
ness, a thing of as frail enchantment as the glow
of stars upon snow, yet for him always the one di
vine vision!
CHAPTER XXXVI
BY THE SUN-DIAL
EYES arched with fan-shielded whispers, and
fair faces, foreshortened as they turned back
over powder-white shoulders, followed their swal
low-like movement. From an ever-widening circle
of masculine devotees Katharine Fargo watched
them with a smile that cloaked an increasing and un
welcome question.
Katharine had never looked more handsome; a
critical survey of her mirror at Gladden Hall had
assured her of that. Never had her poise been more
superb, her toilet more enrapturing. She was ex
quisitely gowned in rose-colored mousseline-de-soie,
embroidered in tiny brilliants laid on in Greek pat
terns. From her neck, in a single splendid loop of
iridescence against the rosy mist, depended those
fabulous pearls " the kind you simply can't be
lieve," as Betty Page confided to her partner on
whose newspaper reproduction (actual diameter)
metropolitan shop-girls had been wont to gaze with
glistening eyes ; and within their milky circlet, on her
rounded breast, trembled three pale gold-veined
orchids.
317
3 i8 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Watching that quadrille through her drooping
emerald-tinted eyes, she had received a sudden en
lightening impression of Shirley's flawless beauty.
At the tournament her fleeting glimpse had ad
judged the other merely sweetly pretty. The
Chalmers' surrey had stopped en route for Shirley,
but in her wraps and veil she had then been all but
invisible. This had beea Katharine's first adequate
view, and the sight of her radiant charm had the
effect almost of a blow.
For Katharine, be it said, had wholly surrendered
to the old, yet new, attraction that had swept her on
the tourney field. This feeling was no less cerebral
and intellectual than it had been : she was no Galatea
waiting her Pygmalion. But it was strong for all
that. And what had lain always in the back of her
mind as a half- formed intention, had become a self-
admitted purpose during the motor ride. So as she
watched them in the waltz, seasoned artificialist as
she was, Katharine for a breath had had need of all
her address to keep the ball of conversation
sparklingly a-roll. Her natural assurance, however,
came quickly to her aid. She had been an ac
knowledged beauty too many seasons had known
John Valiant, or believed she had, too long and too
well to allow the swift keen edge of trepidation
that had touched her to cool into prescience.
In another moment the waltz fainted out, to be
succeeded by a deiur-temps, and presently the host,
BY THE SUN-DIAL 319
in his crimson cloak, was doffing his plumed hat
before her. Circling the polished floor in the maze,
there was something gratefully like former days in
the assured touch, the true and ready guidance. The
intrusive question faded. He was the John Valiant
she had always known, of flashing repartee and
graceful compliment, yet with a touch of dignity, too
>as befitted the lord of a manor which sat well
upon him. After a decorous dozen of rounds, she
took his arm and allowed her perfect figure to be
conducted through the various rooms of the ground
floor, chatting in quite the old-time way, till a new
gallant claimed her.
The mellow strings made on their merry tune,
and at length the Washington Post marched all
in flushed unity of purpose to the great muslin-
walled porch with its array of tables groaning under
viands concocted by Aunt Daphne for the delectation
of the palate-weary: layer-cakes, furry-brown with
chocolate, or saffron with orange icing; fruit-cake
richer than an Indian begum; angel-cake as white
(as the major was to remark) as innocence and al
most as sweet as the lady upon whom he pressed it
at the moment; yellow jumbles, kisses that crumbled
at a touch, and all nameless toothsome inventions
for which new-laid eggs are beaten and golden cit
ron sliced.
And then once more the waltz-strain supervened
and in the yellow parlor joy was again unconfined.
320 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
Among the masculine contingent, perhaps, the same
catholicity of age no longer prevailed, certain of
the elders showing an inclination toward one end of
the front porch, now hazing with the fragrance of
Havanas. But the dowagers' fans plied on, the
rose-corners echoed their light laughter and the
couples footed it as though midnight was yet un-
reached and dawn as far afield as Judgment Day.
Again Valiant claimed Katharine and they glided
off on The Beautiful Blue Danube. Her paleness
now had a tinge of color but nevertheless he thought
she drooped. " You are tired," he said, " shan't we
sit it out ? "
"Oh, do you mind?" she responded gratefully.
" It has been a fairly strenuous day, hasn't it ! "
He guided her to a corridor, where branches of
rhododendron screened an alcove of settees and se
ductive cushions. Here, her weariness seemed put
to rout. There was no drooping of fringed lids, no
disconcerting silences; she chatted with ease and
piquancy.
" It's like a fairy tale," she said at length
dreamily, "this wonderful life. To step into it
from New York is like coming out of a hot-house
into the spring out-of-doors! It makes our city
existence seem so sordidly artificial. You have
chosen right."
" I know it. And yet two months ago a life a
BY THE SUN-DIAL 321
hundred miles from the avenue would have seemed
a sad and sandy Sahara. I know better now."
" I have been listening to paeans all the evening,"
she said. " And you deserve them. It's a fine big
thing you are attempting the restoring of this old
estate. And I know you have even bigger plans,
too."
He nodded, suddenly serious and thoughtful.
" There's a lot I'd like to do. It's r.ot only the house
and grounds. There are . . . other things. For
instance, back on the mountain on my own land
is a settlement they call Hell's-Half-Acre. Prob
ably it has well earned the name. It's a wretched
collection of hovels and surly men and drabs of
women and unkempt children, the poorest of poor-
whites. Not one of them can read or write, and
they live like animals. If I'm ever able, I mean
to put a manual-training school up there. And
then"
He ended with a half laugh, suddenly conscious
that he was talking in a language she would scarcely
understand in fact, in a tongue new to himself.
But there was no smile on her lips and her ex
traordinary eyes cool gray, shot through with
emerald were looking into his with a frankness
and sympathy he would not have guessed lay be
neath her glacial placidity.
To Katharine, indeed, it made little difference
322 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
what philanthropic fads the man she had chosen
might affect as regarded his tenantry. Ambitions
like these had a manorial flavor that did not dis
please her. And the Fargo millions would bear
much harmless hammering. A change, subtle and
incommunicable, passed over her.
" I shall think of you," she sighed, " as working
on in this splendid program. For it is splendid.
But New York will miss you, John."
" Ah, no. I've no delusions on that score. I
dare say I'm almost forgotten there already. Here
I have a place."
Her head, leaned back against the cushion, turned
toward him, the pale orchids trembling on her bosom
she was so near that he could feel her breath on
his cheek. A new waltz had begun to sigh its
languorous measures.
" Place ? " she queried. " Do you think you had
no place there ? Is it possible that you do not under
stand that your going has left a void? "
He looked at her suddenly, and her eyes fell. No
sophisticated blushing this, though it was by such
effective employment of her charms that her won
derful body and pliant mind had been drilled and
fashioned from her babyhood. Katharine at the
moment was as near the luxury of real embarrass
ment as she had ever been in her life.
Before he answered, however, the big form of
Major Bristow appeared, looking about him.
BY THE SUN-DIAL 323
"It has left a void," she said, her eyes still
downcast, her voice just low enough, " for
me."
The major pounced upon them at this juncture,
feelingly accusing John of the nefarious design of
robbing the assemblage of its bright and particular
star. When Katharine put her hand in her cava
lier's arm, her eyes were dewy under their long shad
ing lashes and her fine lips ever so little tremulous.
It had been her best available moment, and she had
used it.
As she moved away, her faint color slightly height
ened, she was glad of the interruption. It was bet
ter as it was. When John Valiant came to her
again. . . .
But to him, as he stood watching her move lightly
from him, there was vouchsafed illumination. It
came to him suddenly that that placidity and hauteur
which he had so admired in the old days were no
mask for fires within. The exquisite husk was the
real Katharine. Hers was the loveliness of some
tall white lily cut in marble, splendid but chill. And
with the thought, between him and her there swept
through the shimmering candle-lighted air a breath
of wet rose- fragrance like an impalpable cloud, and
set in the midst of it a misty star-tinted gown
sprayed with lilies-of-the-valley, and above it a girl's
face clear and vivid, her deep shadow-blue eyes
fixed on his.
324 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
The music of a two-step was languishing when, a
little later, Valiant and Shirley strolled down be
tween the garden box-hedges, cypress-shaped and
lifting spire-like toward a sky which bent, a silent
canopy of mauve and purplish blue. The moon
drowsed between the trees like a great yellow moth,
and the shadows of the branches lay on the ground
like sharp bluish etchings on light green paper. Be
hind them Damory Court lay a nest of woven music
and laughter. The long white-muslined porch shim
mered goldenly, and beside it under the lanterns dal
lied a flirtatious couple or two, ghost-like in the
shadows.
Peace brooded over all, a vast sweet silence creep
ing through the trees only here and there the
twitter of a waking bird and around them was
the glimmer of tall flowers standing like pensive
moon- worshipers in an ecstasy of prayerless bloom.
" Come," he said. " Let me take you to see the
sun-dial now."
The tangle had been cut away and a narrow
gravel-path led through the pruned creepers. She
made an exclamation of delight. The onyx-pil
lar stood in an oasis of white moonflowers, white
dahlias, mignonette and narcissus; bars of late
lilies-of-the-valley beyond these, bordered with
Arum-lilies, white clematis, iris and bridal-wreath,
shading out into tender paler hues that ringed the
spotless purity like dawning passion.
BY THE SUN-DIAL 325
o
" White for happiness," he quoted. " You said
that when you brought me here the day we
planted the ramblers. Do you remember what I
said? That some day, perhaps, I should love this
spot the best of all at Damory Court." He was
silent a moment, tracing with his finger the motto on
the dial's rim. " When I was very little," he went
on, " hardly more than three years old, I think,
my father and I had a play, in which we lived in a
great mansion like this. It was called Wishing-
House, and it was in the middle of the Never-Never
Land a sort of beautiful fairy country in which
everything happened right. I know now that the
Never-Never Land was Virginia, and that Wishing-
House was Damory Court. No wonder my father
loved it ! No wonder his memory turned back to it
always ! I've wanted to make it as it was when he
lived here. And I want the old dial to count happy
hours for me/ 5
Something had crept into his tone that struck her
with a strange sweet terror and tumult of mind.
The hand that clutched her skirts about her knees
had begun to tremble and she caught the other hand
to her cheek in a vague hesitant gesture. The
moonflowers seemed to be great round eyes staring
up at her.
" Shirley " he said, and now his voice was
shaken with longing "will you make my happi
ness for me ? "
326 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
She was standing perfectly still against the sun
dial, both hands, laced together, against her breast,
her eyes on his with a strange startled look. Over
the hush of the garden now, like the very soul of the
passionate night, throbbed the haunting barcarole of
Tales of Hoffmann:
" Night of stars and night of love "
an inarticulate echo of his longing. He took a
step toward her, and she turned like one in sudden
terror seeking a way of escape. But he caught her
close in his arms.
" I love you ! " he said. " Hear it now in my
bride's garden that I've made for you ! I love you,
I love you ! "
For one instant she struggled. Then, slowly, her
eyes turned to his, the sweet lips trembling, and
something dawning deep in the dewy blue that turned
all his leaping blood to quicksilver. " My darling ! "
he breathed, and their lips met.
In that delirious moment both had the sense of
divine completion that comes only with love re
turned. For him there was but the woman in his
arms, the one woman created for him since the
foundation of the world. It was Kismet. For
this he had come to Virginia. For this fate
had turned and twisted a thousand ways. Through
the riot of his senses, like a silver blaze, ran the
legend of the calendar : " Every man carries his fate
BY THE SUN-DIAL 327
upon a riband about his neck." For her, something
seemed to pass from her soul with that kiss, some
deep irrevocable thing, shy but fiercely strong, that
had sprung to him at that lip-contact as steel to
magnet. The foliage about them flared up in green
light and the ground under her feet rose and fell
like deep sea-waves.
She lifted her face to him. It was deathly pale,
but the light that burned on it was lit from the
whitest altar-fires of Southern girlhood. " Six
weeks ago," she whispered, " you had never seen
me!"
He held her crushed to him. She could feel his
heart thudding madly. " I've always known you,"
he said. " I've seen you a thousand times. I saw
you coming to meet me down a cherry-blossomed
lane in Kyoto. I've seen your eyes peering from
behind a veil in India. I've heard your voice call
ing to me, through the padding camels' feet, from
the desert mirages. You are the dream I have gone
searching always! Ah, Shirley, Shirley, Shirley!"
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE DOCTOR SPEAKS
WHILE the vibrant strings hummed and
sang through the roses, and the couples
drifted on tireless and content, or blissfully " sat
out " dances on the stairway, Katharine Fargo held
her stately court no less gaily for the stealthy doubt
that was creeping over her spirit. She had been so
certain of what would happen that evening that
when her father (between cigars on the porch with
Judge Chalmers and Doctor Southall) had searched
her out under a flag-of -truce, she had sent him to
the right-abcut, laughingly declining to depart be
fore royalty. But number followed number, and
the knight in purple and gold had not paused again
before her. Now the scarlet cloak no longer
flaunted among the dancers, and the white satin
gown and sparkling coronal had disappeared. The
end of the next " round-dance " found her subsid
ing into the flower-banked alcove suddenly distrait
amid her escort's sallies. It was at this moment
that she saw, entering the corridor from the gar
den, the missing couple.
It was not the faint flush on Shirley's cheek
328
THE DOCTOR SPEAKS 329
that was not deep nor was it his nearness to her,
though they stood closely, as lovers might. But
there was in both their faces a something that
resurgent conventionality had not had time to
cover a trembling reflection of that "light that
never was, on sea or land " which was like a death-
stab to what lay far deeper than Katharine's heart,
her pride. She drew swiftly back, dismayed at the
sudden verification, and for an instant her whole
body chilled.
A craving for a glass of water has served its pur
pose a thousand times; as her cavalier solicitously
departed to fetch the cooling draught, she rose, and
carelessly humming the refrain the music had just
left off, sauntered lightly out by another door to the
open air. A swift glance about her showed her she
was unobserved and she stepped down to the grass
and along the winding path to a bench at some dis
tance in the shrubbery. Here the smiling mask
slipped from her face and with a shiver she dropped
her hot face in her hands.
There were no tears. The wave that was welling
over her was one of bitter humiliation. She had
shot her bolt and missed she, Katharine Fargo!
For three years she had held John Valiant, roman
tically speaking, in the hollow of her shapely hand.
Now she had all but thrown herself at his feet
and he had turned away to this flame-haired, vivid
girl whom he had not known as many months!
330 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
The rankling barb was dipped in no poison of un
requited love. Hers was the anger of the self-
willed and intensely proud woman denied her dear
est wish, and crossed and flouted for the first time
in her pampered exquisite life.
Heavy footfalls all at once approached her two
men were coming from the house. There was the
spitting crackle of a match, and as she peered out, its
red flare lighted the massive face and floating hair
of Major Bristow. His companion's face was in
the shadow. She waited, thinking they would pass ;
but to her annoyance, when she looked again, they
had seated themselves on a bench a few paces away.
To be found mooning in the shrubbery like a
schoolgirl did not please her, but it seemed there
was no recourse, and she had half arisen, when the
major's gruff-voiced companion spoke a name that
caused her to sit down abruptly. To do Katharine
justice, it did not occur to her at the moment that
she was eavesdropping. And such was the signifi
cance of the sentences she heard, and such their bear
ing on the turmoil of her mind, that a woman of
more sensitive fiber might have lingered.
" Bristow, Shirley's a magnificent girl."
" Finest in seven counties," agreed the major's
bass.
" Whom do you reckon she'll _hoose to marry ? "
" Chilly Lusk, of course. The boy's been in love
THE DOCTOR SPEAKS 331
with her since they were in bibs. And he comes as
near being fit for her as anybody."
" Humph ! " said the other sardonically. " No
man I ever saw was half good enough for a good
woman. But good women marry just the same. It
isn't Lusk. I used to think it would be, but I've got
a pair of eyes in my head, if you haven't. It's
young Valiant."
The pearl fan twisted in Katharine's fingers.
What she had guessed was an open secret, then !
The major made an exclamation that had the
effect of coming after a jaw-dropped silence. " I
I never thought of that ! "
The other resumed slowly, somewhat bitterly, it
seemed to the girl listening. "If her mother was in
love with Sassoon "
Katharine's heart beat fast and then stood still.
Sassoon! That was the name of the man Valiant's
father had killed in that old duel of which Judge
Chalmers had told ! " If her mother " - Shirley
Dandridge's mother " was in love with Sassoon ! "
Why-
The major's query held a sharpness that seemed
almost appeal. She was conscious that the other
had faced about abruptly.
" I've always believed so, certainly. If she had
loved Valiant, would she have thrown him over
332 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
merely because he broke his promise not to be a
party to a quarrel ? "
" You think not ? " said the major huskily.
" Not under the circumstances. Valiant was
forced into it. No gentleman, at that day, could
have declined the meeting. He could have explained
it to Judith's satisfaction a woman doesn't need
much evidence to justify the man she's in love with.
He must have written her he couldn't have gone
away without that and if she had loved him, she
would have called him back."
The major made no answer. Katharine saw a
cigar fall unheeded upon the grass, where it lay
glowing like a panther's eye.
The other had risen now, his stooped figure bulk
ing in the moonlight. His voice sounded harsh and
strained : " I loved Beauty Valiant," he said, " and
his son is his son to me but I have to think of
Judith, too. She fainted, Bristow, when she saw
him Shirley told me about it. Her mother has
made her think it was the scent of the roses ! He's
his father's living image, and he's brought the past
back with him. Every sound of his voice, every
sight of his face, will be a separate stab! Oh, his
mere presence will be enough for Judith to bear.
But with her heart in the grave with Sassoon, what
would love between Shirley and young Valiant mean
to her? Think of it!"
He broke off, and there was a blank of silence, in
THE DOCTOR SPEAKS 333
which he turned with almost a sigh. Then Katha
rine saw him reach the bench with a single stride and
drop his hand on the bowed shoulder.
" Bristow ! " he said bruskly. " You're ill ! This
confounded philandering at your time of life "
The major's face looked ashy pale, but he got up
with a laugh. " Not I," he said ; " I was never bet
ter in my life! We've had our mouthful of air.
Come on back to the house."
" Not much ! " grunted the other. " I'm going
where we both ought to have been hours ago." He
threw away his cigar and stalked down the path into
the darkness.
The major stood looking after him till he had
disappeared, then suddenly dropped on the bench
and covered his face. Something like a groan burst
from him.
" My God ! " he said, and his voice came to Katha
rine with a quaver of age and suffering very dif
ferent from the jovial accents of the ballroom " if
I were only sure it was Sassoon ! "
Presently he rose, and went slowly toward the
lighted doorway.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE AMBUSH
NOT long after, from the musicians' bower the
sound of Home, Sweet Home drifted over
the poignant rose-scent, and presently the drive
way resounded to rolling wheels and the voices of
negro drivers, and the house-entrance jostled with
groups, muffled in loose carriage-wraps, silken
cloaks and light overcoats, calling tired but laughing
farewells.
Katharine, on the step, found herself looking into
Valiant's eyes. " How can I tell you how much I
have enjoyed it all ? " she said. " I've stayed till the
very last minute which is something for one's
fourth season! And now, good-by, for we are off
to-morrow for Hot Springs." Her face may have
been a little worn, a trifle hard under the emerald-
tinted eyes, but her smile seemed friendly and un
clouded.
Her father had long ago betaken himself home
ward, and the big three-seated surrey holding
" six com f 'table and nine fumiliah," in the phrase of
Lige the coachman had returned for the rest :
Judge Chalmers, the two younger girls and Shirley.
334
THE AMBUSH 335
Katharine greeted the latter with a charming smile.
What more natural than that she should find herself
straightway on the rear seat with royalty ? The two
girls safely disposed in the middle, the judge climbed
up beside the driver, who cracked his whip and they
were off.
The way was not long, and Katharine had need
of despatch if that revengeful weapon were to be
used which fate had put into her hands. She
wasted little time.
" It seems so strange," she said, " to find our host
in such surroundings! I can scarcely believe him
the same John Valiant I've danced with a hundred
times in New York. He's been here such a short
while and yet he couldn't possibly be more at home
if he'd lived in Virginia always. And you all treat
him as if he were quite one of yourselves."
Shirley smiled enchantingly. " Why, yes," she
said, " maybe it seems odd to outsiders. But, you
see, with us a Valiant is always a Valiant. No mat
ter where he has lived, he's the son of his father and
the master of Damory Court."
' That's the wonderful part of it. It's so so
English, somehow."
" Is it ? " said Shirley. " I never thought of it
But perhaps it seems so. We have the old houses
and the old names and think of them, no doubt, in
the same way."
" What a sad life his father had ! " pursued Katha-
336 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
rine dreamily. " You know all about the duel, of
course ? "
Shirley shrank imperceptibly now. The subject
touched Valiant so closely it seemed almost as if it
belonged to him and to her alone not a thing to be
flippantly touched on. " Yes," she said some
what slowly, " every one here knows of it."
" No doubt it has been almost forgotten," the
other continued, " but John's coming must naturally
have revamped the old story. What was it about
- the quarrel ? A love-affair ? "
"I I don't think it is known."
But reluctant coldness did not deter the ques
tioner. " Who was it said there was a petticoat
back of every ancient war ? " quoted Katharine,
lightly. " I fancy it's the same with the duello. But
how strange that nobody knows. Some of the older
ones must, don't you think ? "
" It's so long ago," murmured Shirley. " I sup
pose some could tell if they would."
" Major Bristow, perhaps," conjectured Katha
rine thoughtfully.
" He was one of the seconds," admitted Shirley
unhappily. " But by common consent that side of
it wasn't talked of at the time. Men in Virginia
have old-fashioned ideas about women. . . ."
" Ah, it's fine of them ! " paeaned Katharine. " I
can imagine the men who knew about that dreadful
affair, in their Southern chivalry, drawing a cordon
THE AMBUSH 337
of silence about the name of that girl with her
broken heart ! For if she loved one of the two, it
must have been Sassoon not Valiant, else he
would have stayed. How terrible to see one's lover
killed in such a way. ... It was quickly ended for
him, but the poor woman was left to bear it all the
years! She may be living yet, here maybe, some
one whom everybody knows. I suppose I am im
aginative," she added, " but I can't help wondering
about her. I fancy she would never wholly get over
it, never be able to forget him, though she tried."
Shirley made some reply that was lost in the
whirring wheels. The other's words seemed almost
an echo of what she herself had been thinking.
" Maybe she married after a while, too. A
woman must make a life for herself, you know. If
she lives here, it will be sad for her, this opening of
the old wound by John's coming. . . . And looking
so like his father "
Katharine paused. There was a kind of exhilara
tion in this subtle baiting. Determined as she was
that Shirley should guess at the truth before that
ride ended, bludgeon-wielding was not to her taste.
She preferred the keen needle-point that injected its
poison before the thrust was even felt. She waited,
wondering just how much it would be necessary for
her to say.
Shirley stirred uneasily, and in the glimpsing light
her face looked troubled. Katharine's voice had
338 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
touched pathos, and in spite of her distaste of the
subject, Shirley had been entering into the feeling
of that supposititious woman. There had come to
her, like a touch of eery clairvoyance, the sugges
tion the other had meant to convey of her actual ex
istence; and this was sharpened by the sudden
recollection that Valiant had himself told her of the
resemblance that Katharine recalled.
The judge, on the front seat, was telling a low-
toned story over his shoulder for the delectation of
Nancy and Betty, but Shirley was not listening.
Her whole mind was full of what Katharine had
been saying. She was picturing to herself this
woman, her secret hidden all these years, hearing
of John Valiant's coming to Damory Court, learning
of this likeness, shrinking from sight of it, dread
ing the painful memory it must thrust upon her.
" Suppose " Katharine's voice was dreamy
" that she and John met suddenly, without warning.
What would she do? Would she say anything?
Perhaps she would faint. . . ."
Shirley started violently. Her hands, as they
drew her cloak uncertainly about her, began to
tremble, as if with cold. Something fell from them
to the bottom of the surrey.
Through her chiffon veil Katharine noted this
with a slow smile. It had been easier than she had
thought. She said no more, and the carriage rolled
on, to the accompaniment of giggles over the judge's
THE AMBUSH 339
peroration. As it neared the Rosewood lane she
leaned toward Shirley.
" You have dropped your fan," said she " and
your gloves, too. ... I might have reached them
for you. Why, we are there already. How short
the drive has seemed ! "
" Don't drive up the lane, Lige," said Shirley,
and her voice seemed sharp and strange even to
herself. " The wheels would wake mother."
Katharine bade her good-by with careful sweetness,
as the Judge bundled her down in his strong friendly
arms.
" No, ' she told him, " don't come with me. It's
not a bit necessary. Emmaline will be waiting for
me."
He climbed into her vacant place as the girls
called their good nights. " We'll all sleep late
enough in the morning, I reckon," he said with a
laugh, " but it's been a great success ! "
CHAPTER XXXIX
WHAT THE CAPE JESSAMINES KNEW
EMMALINE was crouched in a chair in the
hall, a rug thrown over her knees, in open-
mouthed slumber. She started up at the touch of
Shirley's hand, yawning widely.
" I 'clare to goodness," she muttered, " I was
jes' fixin* t' go t' sleep ! " The lamp on the table
was low and she turned up the wick, then threw
up her arms like ramrods, in delight.
" Lor', honey," she said in a rapturous whisper,
" I reck'n they all say yo' was th' purties' queen on
earth, when th' vict'ry man set that crown, with th'
di'mon's as big as scaley-barks, on that little gol'
haid! But yo' pale, honey-chile. Yo' dance yo'-
se'f mos' ter death, I reck'n."
"I I'm so tired, Emmaline. Take the crown.
It's heavy."
The negro woman untangled the glittering points
from the meshing hair with careful fingers. " Po'
li'l chickydee-dee ! " she said lovingly. " Reck'n
she flop all th' feddahs outer her wings. Gimme
that ol* tin crown I like ter lam' it out th' winder!
340
THE CAPE JESSAMINES 341
Come on, now; we go up-stairs soft so's not ter
'sturb Mis' Judith."
In the silvery-blue bedroom, she deftly unfastened
the hooks of the heavy satin gown and coaxed her
mistress to lie on the sofa while she unpinned the
masses of waving hair till they lay in a rich surge
over the cushion. Then she brought a brush and
crouching down beside her, began with long gentle
strokes to smooth out the silken threads, talking
to her the while in a soft crooning monotone.
" I jes' know Mis' Judith wish she well ernuf ter
see her chile bein' queens en things 'mongst all th'
othah qual'ty ! When they want er queen they jes'
gotter come fo' her little girl. Talk 'bout th' stars
she 'way above them! Ranston he say Mistah
Valiant 'bout th' bestes' dancer in th' world ; say th'
papers up in New York think th' sun rise en set
in his heels. 'Spec' ter-night he dance er little with
th' othahs jes' ter be p'lite, till he git back ter th'
one he put th' crown on. So-o-o tired she is ! But
Em'line gwine ter bresh away all th' achiness en
she got yo' baid all turned down fo' yo' en yo'
pretty little night-dress all ready en yo' gwineter
sleep en sleep till yo' kyan sleep no mo' no
how! "
Under these ministrations Shirley lay languid and
speechless, her eyes closed. The fear that had
stricken her heart by turns seemed a cold hand press
ing upon its beating and an algid vapor rising
342 THE VALIANTS OF. VIRGINIA
stealthily over it. But her hands were hot and her
eyelids burned. Finally she roused herself.
" Thank you, Emmaline," she said in a tired
voice, " good night now ; I'm going to sleep, and you
must go to bed, too."
But alone in the warm wan dark, Shirley lay
staring open-eyed at the ceiling. Slowly the terror
was seizing upon her, the dread, noiseless and in
tangible, folding her in the shadow of its numbing
wings. Was her mother the one over whom that
old duel had been fought? Was it she whose love
had been wrecked in that long-ago tragedy that all
at once seemed so horribly near and real? Was
that the explanation of her fainting? She remem
bered the cape jessamines. Was the date of that
duel of the death of Sassoon the anniversary
her mother kept ?
She sat up in bed, trembling. Then she rose,
and opening the door with caution, crept down the
stair, sliding her hot hand before her along the cool
polished banister. Only a subdued glimmer came
through the curtained windows, stealing in with the
ever-present scent of the arbors. It was so still she
thought she could hear the very heart of the dark
beating. As she passed through the lower hall, a
hound on the porch, scenting her, stirred, thumped
his tail on the flooring, and whined. Groping her
way to the dining-room, she lighted a candle and
passed through a corridor into a low-ceilinged cham-
THE CAPE JESSAMINES 343
ber employed as a general receptacle a glorified
garret, as Mrs. Dandridge dubbed it.
It showed a strange assemblage! A row of
chests, stored with winter clothing, gave forth a
clean pungent smell of cedar, and .t one side stood
an antique spinet and a worn set of horsehair furni
ture. Sofa and chairs were piled with excrescences
in the shape of old engravings in carved ebony
frames, ancient scrap-books and what-not, and on
a table stood a rounded glass case with a flat base
the sort m which an older generation had been wont
to display to awestruck admiration its terrifying
concoctions of wax fruit.
Shirley had turned her miserable eyes on a
book-shelf along one waL The volumes it con
tained had been her father' % and among them stood
a row of tomes taller than their fellows the bound
numbers of a county newspaper, beginning before
the war. The back of each was stamped with the
year. Sht was deciphering these faded imprints.
"Thirty years ago," she whispered; "yes, here
it is."
She set down the candle and dragged out one of
the huge leather-backs. Staggering under the
weight, she rested its edge on the table and began
feverishly to turn the pages, her eye on the date
line. She stopped presently with a quiek breath
she had reached May I5th. The year was that of
the duel : the date was the day following the jessa-
344 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
mine anniversary. Fearfully her eye overran the
columns.
Then suddenly she put her open hand on the page
as though to blot out the words, every trace of color
stricken from cheek and brow. But the line seemed
to glow up through the very flesh: "Died, May
1 4th; Edward Sassoon, in his twenty-sixth year!'
The book slipped to the floor with a crash that
echoed through the room. It was true, then ! It
was Sassoon's death that her mother mourned.
The man in whose arms she had stood such a lit
tle while ago by the old dial of Damory Court was
the son of the man who had killed him! She
lifted her hands to her breast with a gesture of
anguish, then dropped to her knees, buried her face
on the dusty seat of one of the rickety horsehair
chairs and broke into a wild burst of sobs, noiseless
but terrible, that seemed to rise in her heart and
tear themselves up through her breast.
" Oh, God," she whispered, " just when I was so
happy ! Oh, mother, mother ! You loved him, and
your heart broke when he died. It was Valiant
who broke it Valiant Valiant. His father ! "
She slipped down upon the bare floor and
crouched there shuddering and agonized, her dis
heveled hair wet with her tears. Was her love to be
but the thing of an hour, a single clasp and then,
forever, nothing? His father's deed was not his
fault. Yet how could she love a man whose every
THE CAPE JESSAMINES 345
feature brought a pang to that mother she loved
more than herself? So, over and over, the wheel
of her thought turned in the same desolate groove,
and over and over the paroxysms of grief and long
ing submerged her.
Dawn was paling the guttering candle and streak
ing the sky outside before she composed herself.
She rose heavily, as white as a narcissus flower,
winding back her hair from her quivering face, and
struggling to repress the tearless sobs that still
caught stranglingly at her breath. The gray infil
trating light seemed gaunt and cruel, and the thin
cheeping of waking sparrows on the lawn came to
her with a haunting intolerable note of pain.
Noiselessly as she had descended, she crept again
up the stair. As she passed her mother's door, she
paused a moment, and laying her arms out across it,
pressed her lips to the dark grain of the wood.
CHAPTER XL
THE AWAKENING
THE sun had passed the meridian next day
when Valiant awoke, from a sleep as deep
as Abou ben Adhem's, yet one crowded with flying
tiptoe dreams. Inchoate and of such flimsy ma
terial that the first whiff of reality dissipated them
like smoke, these nevertheless left behind them a
fragrance, a sensation of golden sweetness and de
light. The one great fact of Shirley's love had lain
at the core of all these honied images, and his mind
was full of it as his eyes opened, wide all at once,
to the new day.
He looked at his watch and rolled from the bed
with a laugh. " Past twelve ! " he exclaimed.
" Good heavens ! What about all the work I had
laid out for to-day? "
He went down the stair in his bath-robe. The
walls were still wreath-hung, but the rooms had been
despoiled of their roses: only a dozen vases of
blooms still unwithered remained of the greater
glory ; and in the yellow parlor a great heap of
shriveled petals, broken ivy and dewy-blue cedar
berries, sprinkled with wisps of feathers and se-
346
THE AWAKENING 347
quinned beads lay the shattered remainders of
last night's gaiety.
Presently he was splashing in the lake, shoot
ing under his curved hand unerring jets of water
at Chum, who danced about the rim barking, now
venturing to wet a valorous paw, now scrambling up
the bank to escape the watery javelins.
It was another perfect day, though far on the
mountainous horizon a blue-black density promised
otherwise for the morrow. The sun lay golden-soft
over the huddled hills. Birds darted hither and
thither, self-important bumble-bees boomed from
vine to vine and the shady lake-corners flashed with
dragon-flies. The stately white swans turned their
arching necks interrogatively toward the splashing,
and the brown ducks, Peezletree and Pilgarlic,
quacked and gobbled softly to each other among the
lily-pads.
Valiant came up the terraces with his blood bound
ing to a new rapture. Crossing the garden, he ran
quickly to the little close which held the sun-dial and
pulled a single great passion-flower. He stood a mo
ment holding it to his face, his nostrils catching its
faint elusive perfume. Only last night, under the
moon, he had stood there with Shirley in his arms.
A gush of the unbelievable sweetness of that mo
ment poured over him. His face softened.
Standing with his sandaled feet deep in the white
blossoms, the sun on his damp hair and the loose
348 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
robe clinging to his moist limbs, he gave himself
to a sudden day-dream. A wonderful waking
dream of joy overflooding years of ambitionless
ease; of the Damory Court that should be in days
to come.
Summer would pass to autumn, with maple-
foliage falling in golden rain, and fawn-brown fields
scattered with life-everlasting, with the wine-red
beauty of October, its purple pageant of crimsoning
woods, its opal haze of Indian summer, and scent
of burning leaves. Frost would lay its spectral
stain over the old house like star-dew, and the scent
of cider would linger under the apple-trees. In his
mind's eye he could see Uncle Jefferson bent with
the weight of hickory-logs for the eager chimney-
piece, deep as the casement of a fortress. Snow-
sandaled winter would lay its samite on the dark
blue ramparts of the mountains, and droop the naked
boughs of the mock-orange bushes, dishevel the
evergreens like rough-and-tumble schoolboys, and
cover the frosted ruts of the Red Road. But in
Damory Court would be cheerful warmth and
friendly noises, with a loved woman standing be
fore the crackling fireplace whose mottoed " /
clinge" was for him written in her fringed and
gentian eyes. So he stood dreaming a dream in
the open sunlight, of a future that should never end,
of work and plan, of comradeship and understand
ing, of cheer and tenderness and clasping hands and
THE AWAKENING 349
clinging lips of a woman's arms held out in that
same adorable gesture of the tourney field, to little
children's uncertain footsteps across that polished
floor.
When he came from the little close there was a
new mystery in the sunshine, a fresh and joyous
meaning in the intense blue overarching of the im
ponderable sky. Every bird-note held its own love-
secret. A wood-thrush sang it from a silver birch
beside the summer-house, and a bob-white whistled
it in che little valley beyond. Even the long trip
hammer of a far-away woodpecker beat a radiant
tattoo.
He paused to greet the flaming peacock that
sent out a curdling screech, in which the tentative
potterack! potterack! of a guinea-fowl tangled itself
softly. " Go on," he invited. " Explode all you
want to, old Fire-Cracker. Hang your purple-and-
gold pessimism! You only make the birds sound
sweeter. Perhaps that's what you're for who
knows ? "
He tried to work, but work was not for that mar
velous afternoon. He wandered about the gardens,
planning this or that addition : a little longer sweep
to the pansy-bed a clump of bull-rushes at the far
ther end of the lake. He peered into the stable : a
saddle horse stood there now, but there should be
more steeds stamping in those stalls one day, good
350 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
horse-flesh bought with sound walnut timber from
the hillside. How he and Shirley would go gallop
ing over those gleaming roads, in that roseate future
when she belonged to him !
Uncle Jefferson, from the door of the kitchens,
watched him swinging about in the sunshine, whist
ling the Indian Serenade.
" Young mars' feel 'way up in de clouds dis
day," he said to Aunt Daphne. " He wake up ez
glad ez ef he done 'fessed 'ligion las' night. Well,
all de folkses cert'n'y 'joyed deyselves. Ol' Mistah
Fargo done eat 'bout forty uh dem jumbles. Ah
heah him talkin' ter Mars' John. ' Reck'n yo' mus'
hab er crackahjack cook down heah,' he say.
Hyuh, hyuh!"
" G'way wid yo' blackgyardin' ! " sniffed Aunt
Daphne, delighted. " Don' need ter come eroun'
honey-caffuddlin' me!"
" Dat's whut he say," insisted Uncle Jefferson ;
"he did fo' er fac'!"
She drew her hands from the suds and looked at
him anxiously. " Jeff' son, yo' reck'n Mars' John
gwineter fetch dat Yankee 'ooman heah ter Dam'ry
Co'ot, ter be ouah mistis? "
" Humph ! " scoffed her spouse. " Dat high-
falutin' gal whut done swaller de ramrod? No
suh-ree-bob-tail ! De oldah yo' gits, de mo' fool-
ishah yo' citations is ! Don* yo' tek no mo' trouble
on yo' back den yo' kin keek off'n yo' heels! She
THE AWAKENING 351
am' gwineter run dis place, er ol' Devil-John tuhn
ovah in he grave ! "
Sunset found Valiant sitting in the music-room
before the old square piano. In the shadowy cham
ber the keys of mother-of-pearl gleamed with dull
colors under his fingers. He struck at first only
broken chords, that became finally the haunting
barcarole of Tales of Hoffmann. It was the air
that had drifted across the garden when he had
stood with Shirley by the sun-dial, in the moment
of their first kiss. Over and over he played it, im
provising dreamy variations, till the tender melody
seemed the dear ghost of that embrace. At length
he went into the library and in the crimsoning light
sat down at the desk, and began to write :
" Dear Bluebird of mine:
" I can't wait any longer to talk to you. Less
than a day has passed since we were together, but it
might have been eons, if one measured time by
heart-beats. What have you been doing and think
ing, I wonder? I have spent those eons in the
garden, just wandering about, dreaming over those
wonderful, wonderful moments by the sun-dial.
Ah, dear little wild heart born of the flowers, with
the soul of a bird (yet you are woman, too!) that
old disk is marking happy hours now for me!
" How have I deserved this thing that has come
to me ? sad bungler that I have been ! Sometimes
it seems too glad and sweet, and I am suddenly
desperately afraid I shall wake to find myself facing
352 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
another dull morning in that old, useless, empty life
of mine. I am very humble, dear, before your love.
" Shall I tell you when it began with me ? Not
last night nor the day we planted the ramblers.
(Do you know, when your little muddy boot went
trampling down the earth about their roots, I wanted
to stoop down and kiss it? So dear everything
about you was!) Not that evening at Rosewood,
with the arbor fragrance about us. (I think I shall
always picture you with roses all about you. Red
roses the color of your lips!) No, it was not then
that it began nor that dreadful hour when you
fought with me to save my life nor the morning
you sat your horse in the box-rows in that yew-
green habit that made your hair look like molten
copper. No, it began the first afternoon, when I
sat in my motor with your rose in my hand ! It has
never left me since, by day or by night. And yet
there are people in this age of airships and honking
highways and typewriters who think love-at-first-
sight is as out-of-date as our little grandmothers'
hoops rusting in the garret. Ah, sweetheart, I, for
one, know better 1
" Suppose I had not come to Virginia and
known you! My heart jumps when I think of it.
It makes one believe in fate. Here at the Court I
found an old leaf-calendar it sits at my elbow
now, just as I came on it. The date it shows is
May I4th, and its motto is: Every man carries his
fate upon a riband about his neck. I like that.
" That first Sunday at St. Andrew's, I thought
of a day may it be soon ! when you and I
might stand before that altar, with your people (my
people, too, now) around us, and I shall hear you
THE AWAKENING 353
say : ' I, Shirley, take thee, John ' And to
think it is really to come true ! Do you remember
the text the minister preached from ? It was * But
all men perceive that they have riches, and that their
faces shine as the faces of angels.' I think I shall
go about henceforth with my face shining, so that
all men will see that / have riches your love for
me, dear.
" I am so happy I can hardly see the words
or perhaps it is that the sun has set. I am sending
this over by Uncle Jefferson. Send me back just
a word by him, sweetheart, to say I may come to
you Jo-night. And add the three short words I
am so thirsty to hear over and over one verb
between two pronouns so that I can kiss them all
at once ! "
He raised his head, a little flushed and with eyes
brilliant, lighted a candle, sealed the letter with the
ring he wore and despatched it.
Thereafter he sat looking into the growing dusk,
watching the pale lamps of the constellations deepen
to green gilt against the lapis-lazuli of the sky, and
listening to the insect noises dulling into the woven
chorus of evening. Uncle Jefferson was long in
returning, and he grew impatient finally and began
to prowl through the dusky corridors like a leopard,
then to the front porch and finally to the driveway,
listening at every turn for the familiar slouching
step.
When at length the old negro appeared, Valiant
354 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
took the note he brought, his heart beating rapidly,
and carried it hastily in to the candle-light. He
did not open it at once, but sat for a full minute
pressing it between his palms as though to extract
from the delicate paper the beloved thrill of her
touch. His hand shook slightly as he drew the
folded leaves from the envelope. How would it be
gin? "My Knight of the Crimson Rose?" or
" Dear Gardener? " (She had called him Gardener
the day they had set out the roses) or perhaps even
" Sweetheart "? It would not be long, only a mere
" Yes " or " Come to me," perhaps ; yet even the
shortest missive had its beginning and its ending.
He opened and read.
For an instant he stared unbelievingly. Then the
paper crackled to a ball in his clutched hand, and he
made a hoarse sound which was half a cry, then sat
perfectly still, his whole face shuddering. What
he crushed in his hand was no note of tender love-
phrases; it was an abrupt dismissal. The stagger
ing contretemps struck the color from his face and
left every nerve raw and quivering. To be " noth
ing to her, as she could be nothing to him " ? He
felt a ghastly inclination to laugh. Nothing to her!
The meaning of the lines was monstrous. It was
inconceivable.
Presently, his brows frowning heavily, he spread
out the crumpled paper and reread it with bitter slow
ness, weighing each phrase. " Something which
THE AWAKENING 355
she had learned since she last saw him, which lay
between them." She had not known it, then, last
night, when they had kissed beside the sun-dial !
She had loved him then ! What could there be that
thrust them irrevocably apart?
He sprang up and paced the floor in a blinding
passion of resentment ant. icvolt. " You shall! you
shall! " he said between his set teeth. " We belong
to each other! There can be nothing, nothing to
separate us ! " Again he pored over the page.
" She could not see him again, could not even ex
plain." The words seemed to echo themselves, bleak
as hail on a prison pane. " If he went to St. An
drew's, he might find the reason why." What could
she mean by the reference to St. Andrew's? He
caught at that as a clue. Could the old church tell
him what had reared itself in such dismal fashion
between them ?
Without stopping to think of the darkness or that
the friendly doors of the edifice would be closed,
he caught up his hat and went swiftly down the
drive to the road, along which he plunged breath
lessly. The blue star-sprinkled sky was now
streaked with clouds like faded orchids, and the
shadows on the uneven ground under his hurried
feet made him giddy. Through the din and hurly-
burly of his thoughts he was conscious of dimly-
moving shapes across fences, the sweet breath of
cows, and a negro pedestrian who greeted him in
356 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
passing. He was stricken suddenly with the thought
that Shirley was suffering, too. It seemed incredible
that he should now be raging along a country road at
nightfall to find something that so horribly hurt
them both.
It was almost dark save for the starlight
when he saw the shadow of the square ivy-grown
spire rearing stark from its huddle of foliage against
the blurred background. He pushed open the gate
and went slowly up the worn path toward the great
iron-bound and hooded door. Under the larches on
either hand the outlines of the gravestones loomed
pallidly, and from the bell -tower came the faint
inquiring cry of a small owl. Valiant stood still,
looking about him. What could he learn here ? He
read no answer to the riddle. A little to one side
of the path something showed snow-like on the
ground, and he went toward it. Nearer, he saw
that it was a mass of flowers, staring up whitely
from the semi-obscurity from within an iron rail
ing. He bent over, suddenly noting the scent; it
was cape jessamine.
With a curious sensation of almost prescience
plucking at him, he took a box of vestas from his
pocket and struck one. It flared up illuminating a
flat granite slab in which was cut a name and in
scription :
EDWARD SASSOON
"Forgive us our trespasses."
THE AWAKENING 357
The silence seemed to crash to earth like a great
looking-glass and shiver into a million pieces. The
wax dropped from his fingers and in the superven
ing darkness a numb fright gripped him by the
throat. Shirley had laid these there, on the grave
of the man his father had killed the cape jessa
mines she had wanted that day, for her mother!
He understood.
It came to him at last that there was a chill mist
groping among the trees and that he was very cold.
He' went back along the Red Road stumblingly.
Was this to be the end of the dream, which he
had fancied would last forever? Could it be that
she was not for him ? Was it no hoary lie that the
sins of the fathers were visited upon the third and
fourth generation?
When he reentered the library the candle was
guttering in the burned wings of a night-moth.
The place looked all at once gaunt and desolate and
despoiled. What could Virginia, what could
Damory Court, be to him without her? The
wrinkled note lay on the desk and he bent suddenly
with a sharp catching breath and kissed it. There
welled over him a wave of rebellious longing. The
candle spread to a hazy yellow blur. The walls
fell away. He stood under the moonlight, with
his arms about her, his lips on hers and his heart
beating to the sound of the violins behind them.
358 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He laughed a harsh wild laugh that rang
through the gloomy room. Then he threw himself
on the couch and buried his face in his hands. He
was still lying there when the misty rain-wet dawn
came through the shutters.
CHAPTER XLI
THE COMING OF GREEF KING
IT was Sunday afternoon, and under the hemlocks,
Rickey Snyder had gathered her minions
a dozen children from the near-by houses with the
usual sprinkling of little blacks from the kitchens.
There were parents, of course, to whom this mingling
of color and degree was a matter of conventional
prohibition, but since the advent of Rickey, in whose
soul lay a Napoleonic instinct of leadership, this was
more honored in the breach than in the observance.
" My ! Ain't it scrumptious here now ! " said
Cozy Cabell, hanging yellow lady-slippers over her
ears. " I wish we could play here always."
"Mr. Valiant will let us," said Rickey. "I
asked him."
" Oh, he will," Responded Cozy gloomily, " but
he'll probably go and marry somebody who'll be
mean about it."
" Everybody doesn't get married," said one of the
Byloe twins, with masculine assurance. " Maybe
he won't."
" Much a boy knows about it ! " retorted Cozy
scornfully. " Women have to., and some one of
360 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
them will make him. (Greenville Female Seminary
Simms, if you slap that little nigger again, I'll slap
you!) "
Greenie rolled over on the grass and tittered.
" Miss Mattie Sue didn'," she said. " Ah heah huh
say de yuddah day et wuz er moughty good feelin*
ter go ter baid Mistis en git up Marstah ! "
" Well," said Cozy, tossing her head till the flower
earrings danced, " I'm going to get married if the
man hasn't got anything but a character and a red
mustache. Married women don't have to prove they
could have got a husband if they had wanted to."
" Let's play something," proposed Rosebud Mere
dith, on whom the discussion palled. " Let's play
King, King Katiko."
" It's Sunday ! " this from her smaller and
more righteous sister. " We're forbidden to play
anything but Bible games on Sunday, and if Rose
bud does, I'll tell."
" Jay-bird tattle-tale ! " sang Rosebud derisively.
"Don't care if you do!"
"Well," decreed Rickey. "We'll play Sunday-
school then. It would take a saint to object to that.
I'm superintendent and this stump's my desk. All
you children sit down under that tree."
They ranged themselves in two rows, the white
children, in clean Sabbath pinafores and go-to-meet
ing knickerbockers, in front and the colored ones, in
ginghams and cotton-prints, in the rear the
THE COMING OF GREEF KING 361
habitual expression of a differing social station.
"Oh!" shrieked Miss Cabell, "and I'll be Mrs.
Merryweather Mason and teach the infants' class."
" There isn't any infant class," said Rickey.
" How could there be when there aren't any in
fants? The lesson is over and I've just rung the
bell for silence. Children, this is Missionary Sun
day, and I'm glad to see so many happy faces here
to-day. Cozy," she said, relenting, " you can be
the organist if you want to."
" I ^won't," said Cozy sullenly. " If I can't be
table-cloth I won't be dish-rag."
" All right, you needn't," retorted Rickey freez-
ingly. " Sit up, Greenie. People don't lie on their
backs in Sunday-school."
Greenie yawned dismally, and righted herself
with injured slowness. " Ah diffuses ter 'cep' yo'
insult, Rickey Snydah," she said. " Ah'd ruthah
lose mah 'ligion dan mah laz'ness. En Ah 'spises
yo' 'spisable dissisition ! "
" Let us all rise," continued Rickey, unmoved,
" and sing Kingdom Coming." And she struck
up lustily, beating time on the stump with a stick :
"From all the dark places of earth's heathen races,
O, see how the thick shadows flee ! "
and the rows of children joined in with unction,
the colored contingent coming out strong on the
chorus :
362 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" De yerf shall be full ob de wunduhful story
As watahs dat covah de sea ! "
The clear voices in the quiet air startled the flut
tering birds and sent a squirrel to the tip-top of an
oak, from which he looked down, flirting his brush.
They roused a man, too, who had lain in a sodden
sleep under a bush at a little distance. He was
ragged and soiled and his heavy brutal face, covered
with a dark stubble of some days' growth, had an
ugly scar slanting from cheek to hair. Without
getting up, he rolled over to command a better view,
and set his eyes, blinking from their slumber, on
the children.
" We will now take up the collection," said
Rickey. ("You can do it, June. Use a flat piece
of bark). Remember that what we give to-day is
for the poor heathen in in Alabama."
" That's no heathen place," objected Cozy with
spirit. " My cousin lives in Alabama."
" Well, then," acquiesced Rickey, " anywhere you
like. But I reckon your cousin wouldn't be above
taking the money. For the poor heathen who
have never heard of God, or Virginia, or anything.
Think of them and give cheerfully."
The bark-slab made its rounds, receiving leaves,
acorns, and an occasional pin. Midway, however,
there arose a shrill shriek from the bearer and the
collection was scattered broadcast. " Rosebud
Meredith," said Rickey witheringly, " it would
THE COMING OF GREEF KING 363
serve you right for putting that toad in the plate
if your hand would get all over warts! I'm sure I
hope it will." She rescued the fallen piece of bark
and announced : " The collection this afternoon
has amounted to a hundred dollars and seven cents.
And now, children, we will skip the catechism and
I will tell you a story/'
Her auditors hunched themselves nearer, a double
row of attentive white and black faces, as Rickey
with a preliminary bass cough, began in a drawling
tone .v/hose mimicry called forth giggles of ecstasy.
" There were once two little sisters, who went to
Sunday-school and loved their teacher ve-e-ery
much. They were always good and attentive
not like that little nigger over there! The one with
his thumb in his mouth! One was little Mary
and the other was little Susy. They had a mighty
rich uncle who lived in Richmond, and once he
came to see them and gave them each a dollar. And
they were ve-e-ery glad. It wasn't a mean old
paper dollar, all dirt and creases; nor a battered
whitey silver dollar; but it was a bright round gold
dolkr, right out of the mint. Little Mary and
little Susy could hardly sleep that night for think
ing of what they could buy with those gold dollars.
" Early next morning they went down-town, hand
in hand, to the store, and little Susy bought a bag
of goober-peas, and sticks and sticks of striped
candy, and a limber jack, and a gold ring, and a wax
364 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
doll with a silk dress on that could open and shut its
eyes"
" Huh ! " said the captious Cozy. " You can't
buy a wax doll for a dollar. My littlest, littlest one
cost three, and she didn't have a stitch to her back ! "
"Shut up!" said Rickey briefly. "Dolls were
cheaper then." She looked at the row of little
negroes, goggle-eyed at the vision of such largess.
" What do you think little Mary did with her gold
dollar? She loved dolls and candy, too, but she
had heard about the poo-oo-r heathen. There was
a tear in her eye, but she took the dollar home, and
next day when she went to Sunday-school, she
dropped it in the missionary-box.
" Little children, what do you reckon became of
that dollar? It bought a big satchel ful of tracts
for a missionary. He had been a poor man with
six children and a wife with a bone-felon on her
right hand not a child old enough to wash dishes
and all of them young enough to fall in the fire
so he had to go and be a missionary. He was
going to Alabam to a cannibal island, and he
took the tracts and sailed away in a ship that landed
him on the shore. And when the heathen cannibals
saw him they were ve-e-ery glad, for there hadn't
been any shipwrecked sailors for a long time, and
they were ve-e-ery hungry. So they tied up the
missionary and gathered a lot of wood to make a
fire and cook him.
THE COMING OF GREEF KING 365
" But it had rained and rained and rained for so
long that the wood was all wet, and it wouldn't
burn, and they all cried because they were so hungry.
And then they happened to find the satchel ful of
tracts, and the tracts were ve-e-ery dry. They took
them and stuck them under the wet wood, and the
tracts burned and the wood caught fire and they
cooked the missionary and ATE him.
" Now, little children, which do you think did the
most good with her dollar little Susy or little
Mary?"
The front row sniggered, and a sigh came from
the colored ranks. " Dem ar' can'bals," gasped a
dusky infant breathlessly, " dey done eat up all
dat candy en dem goober-peas, too ? "
The inquiry was drowned in a shriek from several
children in unison. They scrambled to their feet,
casting fearful glances over their shoulders. The
man who had been lying behind the bush had risen
and was coming toward them at a slouching amble,
one foot dragging slightly. His appearance, in
deed, was enough to cause panic. With his savage
face, set now in a grin, and his tramp-like costume,
he looked fierce and animal-like. White and black,
the children fled like startled rabbits, older ones
dragging younger, without a backward look all
save Rickey, who stood quite still, her widening
eyes fixed on him in a kind of blanched fascinated
terror.
366 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He came close to her, never taking his eyes from
hers, then put his heavy grimy hand under her chin
and turned her twitching face upward, chuckling.
"Ain't a f card, damn me! " he said with admira
tion. "Wouldn't skedaddle with th' fine folks'
white-livered young 5 uns! Know who I am, don't
ye?"
" Greef King." Rickey's lips rather formed than
spoke the name.
" Right. An* I know you, too. Got jes' th' same
look ez when ye wuzn't no higher'n my knee. So
ye ain't at th' Dome no mo', eh? Purkle an' fine
linning an' a eddication. Ho-ho! Coin' ter make
ye another ladyess like the sweet ducky-do vey that
rescooed ye from th' lovin' embrace o' yer fond step-
parient, eh ? "
Rickey's small arm went suddenly out and her
fingers tore at his shirt-band. " Don't you," she
burst in a paroxysm of passion ; " don't you even
speak her name! If you do, I'll kill you!"
So fierce was her leap that he fell back a step
in sheer surprise. Then he laughed loudly. " Why,
ye little spittin' wile-cat ! " he grinned.
He leaned suddenly, gripped her wrist and cover
ing her mouth tightly with his palm, dragged her
behind a clump of dogwood bushes. A heavy step
was coming along the wood-path. He held her
motionless and breathless in this cruel grip till the
pedestrian passed. It was Major Bristow, his
THE COMING OF GREEF KING 367
spruce white hat on the back of his head, his un
sullied waistcoat dappled with the leaf-shadows.
He stepped out briskly toward Damory Court,
swinging his stick, all unconscious of the fierce
scrutiny bent on him from behind the dogwoods.
Greef King did not withdraw his hand till the
steps had died in the distance. When he did, he
clenched his fist and shook it in the air. " There he
goes!" he said with bitter hatred. " Yer noble
friend that sent me up for six years t' break my
heart on th' rock-pile! Oh, he's a top-notcher, he
is ! But he's got Greef King to reckon with yit ! "
He looked at her bale fully and shook her.
" Look-a-yere," he said in a hissing voice. " Ye
remember me. I'm a bad one ter fool with. Yer
maw foun' that out, I reckon. Now ye'll promise
me ye'll tell nobody who ye've seen. I'm only a
tramp ; d'ye hear ? " He shook her roughly.
Rickey's fingers and teeth were clenched hard and
she said no word. He shook her again viciously,
the blood pouring into his scarred face. " Ye
snivelin' brat, ye ! " he snarled. " I'll show yer ! "
He began to drag her after him through the bushes.
A few yards and they were on the brink of the
headlong ugly chasm of Lovers' Leap. She cast
one desperate look about her and shut her eyes.
Catching her about the waist he leaned over and
held her out in mid-air, as if she had been a kitten.
' Ye ain't seen me, hev yer ? Promise, or over ye
368 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
go. Ye won't look so pretty when yere layin*
down there on them rocks ! "
The child's face was paper-white and she had be
gun to tremble like a leaf, but her eyes remained
closed.
" One two " he counted deliberately.
Her eyes opened. She turned one shuddering
glance below, then her resolution broke. She
clutched his arm and broke into wild supplications.
" I promise, I promise ! " she cried. " Oh, don't let
go! I promise! "
He set her on the solid ground and released her,
looking at her with a sneering laugh. " Now we'll
see ef ye belong here or up ter Hell's-Half-Acre,"
he said. " Fine folks keeps their promises, I've
heerd tell."
Rickey looked at him a moment shaking; then
she burst into a passion of sobs and with her face
averted ran from him like a deer through the
bushes.
CHAPTER XLII
IN THE RAIN
SHIRLEY stood looking out at the rain. It wa?
falling in no steady downpour which held forth
promise of ending, but with a gentle constancy
that gave the hills a look of sodden discomfort
and made disconsolate miry pools by the roadside.
The clouds were not too thick, however, to let
through a dismal gray brightness that shone on
the foliage and touched with glistening lines of
high-light the draggled tufts of the soaked blue-
grass. Now and then, across the dripping fields,
fraying skeins of mist wandered, to lie curdled in
the flooded hollows where, here and there, cattle
stood lowing at intervals in a mournful key.
The indoors had become impossible to her. She
was sick of trying to read, sick of the endless pac
ings and purposeless invention of needless tasks.
She wanted movement, the cobwebby mist about her
knees, the wet rain in her face. She ran up-stairs
and came down clad in a close scarlet jersey, with
leather gaiters and a soft hat.
Emmaline saw her thus accoutered with disap-
369
370 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
proval. " Lavvdy-mercy, chile!" she urged; "you
ain't goin' out? It's rainin' cats en dawgs! "
" I'm neither sugar nor salt, Emmaline," re
sponded Shirley listlessly, dragging on her rain-coat,
" and the walk will do me good."
On the sopping lawn she glanced up at her
mother's window. Since the night of the ball her
own panging self-consciousness had overlaid the
fine and sensitive association between them. She
had been full of a horrible feeling that her face must
betray her and the cause of her loss of spirits be
guessed.
Her mother had, in fact, been troubled by this,
but was far from guessing the truth. A some
what long indisposition had followed her first sight
of Valiant, and she had not witnessed the tourna
ment She had hung upon Shirley's description of
it, however, with an excited interest that the other
was later to translate in the light of her own dis
covery. If the thought had flitted to her that fate
might hold something deeper than friendship in
Shirley's acquaintance with Valiant, it had been of
the vaguest. His choice of her as Queen of Beauty
had seemed a natural homage to that swift and
unflinching act of hers which had saved his life.
There was in her mind a more obvious explanation
of Shirley's altered demeanor. " Perhaps it's
Chilly Lusk," she had said to herself. " Have they
IN THE RAIN 371
had a foolish quarrel, I wonder? Ah, well, in her
own time she will tell me."
There was some relief to Shirley's overcharged
feelings in the very discomfort of the drenched
weather: the sucking pull of the wet clay on her
boots and the flirt of the drops on her cheeks and
hair. She thrust her dog-skin gloves into her pocket
and held her arms outstretched to let the wind blow
through her fingers. The moisture clung in damp
wreaths to her hair and rolled in great drops down
her coai as she went.
The wildest, most secluded walks had always
drawn her most and she instinctively chose one of
these to-day. It was the road whereon squatted
Mad Anthony's whitewashed cabin. " Dah's
er man gwine look in dem eyes, honey, en gwine
make 'em cry en cry." She had forgotten the in
cident of that day, when he had read her fortune,
but now the quavering prophecy came back to her
with a shivering sense of reality. " Fo' dah's fiah
en she ain' afeah'd, en dah's watah en she ain'
afeah'd. Et's de thing whut eat de ha' at outen de
breas' dat whut she afeah'd of ! " If it were only
fire and water that threatened her!
She struck her hands together with an inarticulate
cry. She remembered the laugh in Valiant's eyes
as they had planted the roses, the characteristic ges-
372 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
ture with which he tossed the waving hair from his
forehead how she had named the ducks and the
peacock and chosen the spots for his flowers; and
she smiled for such memories, even in the stabbing
knowledge that these dear trivial things could mean
nothing to her in the future. She tried to realize
that he was gone from her life, that he was the
one man on earth whom to marry would be to
strike to the heart her love and loyalty to her
mother, and she said this over and over to herself
in varying phrases :
" You can't ! No matter how much you love
him, you can't! His father deliberately ruined
your mother's life your own mother! It's bad
enough to love him you can't help that. But
you can help marrying him. You would hate your
self. You can never kiss him again, or feel his
arms around you. You can't touch his hand.
You mustn't even see him. Not if it breaks your
heart as your mother's heart was broken ! "
She had turned into an unbeaten way that ambled
from the road through a track of tall oaks and pines,
scarce more than a bridle-path, winding aimlessly
through bracken-strewn depths so dense that even
the wild-roses had not found them. In her child
ish hurts she had always fled to the companionship
of the trees. She had known them every one
the black-gum and pale dogwood and gnarled
hickory, the prickly-balled " button-wood," the
IN THE RAIN 373
lowly mulberry and the majestic red oak and walnut.
They had seemed friendly and pitying counselors,
standing about her with arms intertwined. Now,
with the rain weeping in soughing gusts through
them, they offered her no comfort. She suddenly
threw herself face down on the soaked moss.
" Oh, God ! " she cried. " I love him so ! And
I had only that one evening. It doesn't seem just.
If I could only have him, and suffer some other
way! He's suffering, too, and it isn't our fault!
We neither of us harmed any one! He isn't re
sponsible for what his father did why, he hardly
knew him! Oh, God, why must it be so hard for
us? Millions of other people love each other and
nothing separates them like this! "
Shirley's warm breath made a little fog against
the star-eyed moss. She was scarcely conscious
of her wet and clinging clothing, and the soaked
strands of her hair. She was so wrapped in her
desolation that she no longer heard the sound of
the persevering rain and the wet swishing of the
bushes parting now to a hurried step that fell
almost without sound on the spongy forest soil.
She started up suddenly to see Valiant before
her.
He was in a somewhat battered walking suit of
brown khaki, with a leather belt and a felt hat
whose brim, stiff with the wet, was curved down
visor-wise over his brow. In an instant he had
374 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
drawn her upright, and they stood, looking at each
other, drenched and trembling.
" How can you ? " he said with a roughness that
sounded akin to anger. " Here in this atrocious
weather like this!" he laid a hand on her arm.
" You're wet through."
"I don't mind the rain," she answered, draw
ing away, yet feeling with a guilty thrill the master
fulness of his tone, as well as its real concern. " I'm
often wet."
His gaze searched her face, feature by feature,
noting her pallor, the blue-black shadows beneath
her eyes, the caught breath, uneven like a child's
from crying. He still held her hands in his.
" Shirley," he said, " I know what you intended
to tell me by those flowers I went to St. Andrew's
that night, in the dark, after I read your letter.
.Who told you ? Your mother ? "
" No, no ! " she cried. " She would never have
told me!"
His face lighted. With an irresistible movement
he caught her to him. " Shirley ! " he cried. " It
shan't be! It shan't, I tell you! You can't break
our lives in two like this ! It's unthinkable."
" No, no ! " she said piteously, pushing him from
her. " You don't understand. You are a man,
and men can't."
" I do understand," he insisted. " Oh, my dar
ling, my darling! It isn't right for that spectral
IN THE RAIN 375
thing to come between us ! Why, it belonged to a
past generation ! However sad the outcome of that
duel, it held no dishonor. I know only too well
the ruin it brought my father! It's enough that it
wrecked three lives. It shan't rise again, like
Banquo's ghost to haunt ours! I know what you
think I would love you the more, if I could love
you more, for that sweet loyalty but it's wrong,
dear. It's wrong ! "
" It's the only way."
" Listen. Your mother loves you. If she knew
you loved me, she would bear anything rather than
have you suffer like this. You say she wouldn't
have told you herself. Why, if my father "
She tore her hands from his and faced him with
a cry. " Ah, that is it ! You knew your father so
little. He was never to you what she is to me.
Why, I've been all the life she has had. I remem
ber when she mended my dolls, and held me when
I had scarlet fever, and sang me the songs the trees
sang to themselves at night. I said my prayers at
her knee till I was twelve years old. We were
never apart a day till I went away to school."
She paused, breathless.
" Doesn't that prove what I say? " he said, bend
ing toward her. " She loves you far better than
herself. She wants your happiness."
" Could that mean hers ? " she demanded, her
bosom heaving. " To see us together always
376 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
always! To be reminded in everything the lirKJ
of your face the tones of your voice, maybe,
of that! Oh, you don't know how women feel
how they remember how they grieve ! I've gone
over all you can say till my soul cries out, but it
can't change it. It can't ! "
Valiant felt as though he were battering with
bruised knuckles at a stone wall. A helpless anger
simmered in him. " Suppose," he said bitterly,
" that your mother one day, perhaps after long
years, learns of your sacrifice. She is likely to guess
in the end, I think. Will it add to her pleasure,
do you fancy, to discover that out of this conception
of filial loyalty for it's that, I suppose ! you
have spoiled your own life?"
She shuddered. " She will never learn," she said
brokenly. " Oh, I know she would not have spoken.
She would suffer anything for my happiness. But
I wouldn't have her bear any more for my sake."
His anger faded suddenly, and when he looked at
her again, tears were burning in his eyes.
" Shirley ! " he said. " It's my heart, too, that
you are binding on the wheel ! I love you. I want
nothing but you! I'd rather beg my bread from
door to door with your hand in mine than sit on a
throne without you! What can there be in life for
me unless you share it ? Think of our love ! Think
of the fate that brought me here to find you in Vir
ginia ! Think of our garden where I thought we
IN THE RAIN 377
would live and work and dream, till we were old
and gray together, darling ! Don't throw our
love away like this ! "
His entreaties left her only whiter, but unmoved.
She shook her head, gazing at him through great
clear tears that welled over and rolled down her
cheeks.
" I can't fight," she said. " I have no strength
left." She put out her hand as she spoke and
dropped it with a little limp gesture that had in it
tired despair, finality and hopelessness. It caught
at his heart more strongly than any words. He felt
a warm gush of pity and tenderness.
He took her hand gently without speaking, and
pressed it hard against his lips. It seemed to him
very small and cold.
They passed together through the wet bracken,
his strong arm guiding her over the uneven path, and
came to the open in silence.
" Don't come with me," she said then, and without
a backward glance, went rapidly from him down the
shimmering road.
CHAPTER XLIII
THE EVENING OF AN OLD SCORE
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! - - Major Bris-
tow's ivory-headed camphor-wood stick
thumped on the great door of Damory Court. The
sound had a tang of impatience, for he had used the
knocker more than once without result. Now he
strode to the end of the porch and raised his voice
in a stentorian bellow that brought Uncle Jefferson
shuffling around the path from the kitchens with all
the whites of his eyes showing.
" You dog-gone lazy rascal ! " thundered the
major. " What do you mean, sah, by keeping a gen
tleman cooling his heels on the door-step like a tax-
collector? Where's your master? "
" Fo' de Lawd, Major, Ah ain' seen Mars' John
sence dis mawnin'. Staht out aftah breakfus' en
he nevah showed up ergin et all. Yo' reck'n whut
de mattah, suh ? " he added anxiously. " 'Peahs lak
sumpin' preyin' on he mind. Don' seem er bit hese'f
lately."
"H-m-m!" The major looked thoughtful.
"Isn't he well?"
378
AN OLD SCORE 379
" No, suH. 'Ain' et no mor'n er hummin'-buhd
dese las' few days. Jes' hangs eroun' lonesome lak.
Don' laugh no mo', don' sing no mo'. Am' play
de pianny sence de day aftah de ball. Me en Daph
moght'ly pestered 'bout him."
" Pshaw ! " said the major. " Touch of spring
fever, I reckon. Aunt Daph feeds him too well.
Give him less fried chicken and more ash-cake and
buttermilk. Make him some juleps."
The old negro shook his head. " Moghty neah
use up all dat mint-baid Ah foun'," he said, " but
ain' do no good. Majah, Ah's sho' 'feahed sumpin'
gwineter happen."
" Nonsense ! " the major sniffed. " What fool
idea's got under your wool now ? Been seeing Mad
Anthony again, I'll bet a dollar."
Uncle Jefferson swallowed once or twice with
seeming difficulty and turned the gravel with his toe.
" Dat's so," he said gloomily. " Ah done see de
old man de yuddah day 'bout et. Ant'y, he know !
He see trouble er-comin' en trouble er-gwine. Dat
same night de hoss-shoe drop offen de stable do',
en dis ve'y mawnin' er buhd done fly inter de
house. Das' er mighty bad hoodoo, er mighty bad
hoodoo ! "
" Shucks ! " said the major. " You're as loony
as old Anthony, with your infernal signs. If
your Mars' John's been out all day I reckon he'll
turn up before long. I'll wait for him a while."
380 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
He started in, but paused on the threshold. " Did
you say ah that mint was all gone, Unc' Jef
ferson ? "
Uncle Jefferson's lips relaxed in a wide grin.
"Ah reck'n dah's er few stray sprigs lef, suh.
Step in en mek yo'se'f et home. Ef Mars' John
see yo', he be mought'ly hoped up. Ah gwineter
mix yo' dat julep in two shakes! "
He disappeared around the corner of the porch
and the major strode into the hall, threw his gray
slouch hat on the table, and sat down.
It was quiet and peaceful, that ancient hall. He
fell to thinking of the many times, of old, when he
had sat there. The house was the same again, now.
It had waked from a thirty-years' slumber to a re
newed prime. Only he had lived on meanwhile and
now was old! He sighed.
How gay the place had been the night of the
ball, with the lights and roses and music! He re
membered what the doctor had said about Valiant
and Shirley it had lain ever since in his mind, a
painful speculation. The recollection roused an
other thought from which he shrank. He stirred
uneasily. What on earth kept that old darky so
long over that julep?
A slight noise made him turn his head. But
nothing moved. Only a creak of the woodwork, he
thought, and settled back again in his chair.
AN OLD SCORE 381
It was, in fact, a stealthy footfall he had heard.
It came from the library, where a shabby figure
crouched, listening, in the corner behind the tapes
tried screen a man evilly clad, with a scarred
cheek.
It had been with no good purpose that Greef
King had dogged the major these last days. He
hugged a hot hatred grown to white heat in six
years of prison labor within bleak walls at the click
ing shoe-machine, or with the chain-gang on blazing
or frosty turnpikes. He had slunk behind him that
afternoon, creeping up the drive under cover of the
bushes, and while the other talked with Uncle Jef
ferson, had skirted the house and entered from the
farther side, through an open French window.
Now as he peered from behind the screen, a poker,
snatched from the fireplace, was in his hand. His
furtive gaze fell upon a morocco-covered case on
a commode by his side. He lifted its lid and his
eyes narrowed as he saw that it held a pistol. He
set down the poker noiselessly and took the weapon.
He tilted it it was rusted, but there were loads
in the chambers. He crouched lower, with a whis
pered curse : the major was coming into the library,
but not alone the old nigger was with him!
Uncle Jefferson bore a tray with a frosted goblet
over whose rim peeped green leaves and which
spread abroad an ambrosial odor, which the major
382 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
sniffed approvingly as the other set the burden on
the desk at his elbow.
" Majah," said the latter solemnly, " you reck'n
Mars' John en Miss Shirley '
" Good lord ! " said the major, wheeling to the
small ormolu clock on the desk. " It's 'most four
o'clock. Haven't you any idea where he's gone ? "
" No, suh, less'n he's gwineter look ovah dem
walnut trees. Whut Ah's gwine ter say yo'
reck'n Mars' John en Miss "
" Walnut trees ? Is he going to sell them ? "
" Tree man come f 'om up Norf somewhah ter
see erbout et yistidday. Yas, suh. Yo' reck'n
Mars' John en "
" Nice pot of money tied up in that timber ! He
saw it right off. You're a lucky old rascal to have
him for a master."
" Hyuh, hyuh ! " agreed Uncle Jefferson.
" Dam'ry Co'ot er heap bettah dan drivin' er ol'
stage ter de deepo fer drummahs en lightnin'-rod
agents. Ah sho' do pray de Good Man ter mek
Mars' John happy," he added soberly, " but Ah's
mought'ly 'sturbed in mah mind mought'ly
"sturbed!"
The hidden watcher waited motionless. From
where he stood he could look through the rear win
dow. He waited till he saw the negro's bent
figure disappear into the kitchens. Then he noise
lessly lifted himself upright, and resting the pistol
AN OLD SCORE 383
on the screen-top, took deliberate aim and pulled the
trigger.
The hammer clicked sharply on the worthless
thirty-year old cartridge, and the major sprang
around with an exclamation, as with an oath, the
other dashed the screen aside and again pulled the
trigger.
"You infernal murderer!" cried the major. It
was all he said, for, as he swung his chair up, the
one-time bully of Hell's-Half-Acre rushed in and
struck him a single sledge-hammer blow with the
clubbed pistol. It fell full on the major's temple,
and the heavy iron crashed through.
Greef King stood an instant breathing hard, then,
without withdrawing his eyes from the prostrate
form, his hand groped for the cold goblet and lift
ing it to his lips he drained it to its dregs.
"There!" he said. "There's my six-years' debt
paid in full, ye lily-livered, fancy-weskited hellion!
Take that from the mayor of the Dome ! "
There was a man's step on the gravel and the
sudden bark of a dog. The pistol fell from his
hand. He stole on tiptoe along the corridor and
leaped through the French window. As he dashed
across the lawn, a startled cry came from the house
behind him.
No human eye had seen him, but he had been
observed for all that. Run your best now, Greef
King! Double and turn how you will, there is a
384 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
swifter Nemesis pursuing. It is only a dog, and
not a big one at that, but it is of a faithful breed
that knows neither fear nor quarter. Like white
lightning, without a bark or growl, Chum launched
himself on the fleeing quarry, and in the shadow of
the trees his teeth met in the ragged trousers-leg.
Kicking, beating with his hands at the dragging
weight, the man dashed on. Not till they had
reached the hemlocks was that fierce grip broken,
and then it was with a tearing of flesh and sinew.
Panting, snarling with rage and pain, the man seized
a fallen branch and stood at bay, striking out with
vicious sweeping blows. But the bulldog, the
hair bristling up on his thick neck, his red-rimmed
eyes fiery, circled beyond reach of the flail, crouch
ing for another spring.
Again he launched himself, and the man, dodg
ing, blundered full-face into a thorn-bush. The
sharp spines slashed his forehead and the starting
blood blinded him, so that he ran without sense of
direction straight upon the declivity of Lovers'
Leap.
He was toppling on its edge before he could stop,
and then threw himself backward, clutching des
perately at the slippery fern-covered rock, feeling
his feet dangling over nothing. He dug his fingers
into the yielding soil and with knee and elbow strove
frenziedly to crawl to the path.
AN OLD SCORE 385
But the white bulldog was upon him. The
clamping teeth met in the striving fingers, and with
a scream of pain Greef King's hold let go and
dog and man went down together.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE
TEN minutes later a motor was hurling itself
along the Red Road to the village. The doc
tor was in his office and no time was lost in the
return. En route they passed Judge Chalmers driv
ing, and seeing the flying haste, he turned his sweat
ing pair and lashed them after the car.
So that when the major finally opened his eyes
from the big leather couch, he looked on the
faces of two of his oldest friends. Recollection and
understanding seemed to come at once.
"Well Southall?"
The doctor's hand closed over the white one on
the settee. He did not answer, but his chin was
quivering and he was winking fast.
"How long?" asked the major after a lengthy
minute.
" Maybe maybe an hour, Bristow. Maybe
not."
The major winced and shut his eyes, but when
the doctor, reaching swiftly for a phial on the table,
turned again, it was to find that look once more on
him, now in yearning appeal. " Southall," he said,
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE 387
" send for Judith. I I must see her. There's
time."
The judge started up. " I'll bring her," he said,
and his voice had all the tenderness of a woman's.
" My carriage is at the door and with those horses
she ought to be here in twenty minutes." He
leaned over the couch. " Bristow," he said,
" would you would you like me to send for the
rector?"
The major smiled, a little wistfully, and shook his
head. He lay silent for a while after the judge had
gone out he seemed housing his strength while
the ormolu clock on the desk ticked ominously on,
and the doctor busied himself with the glasses be
side him. Presently he said huskily :
" You've had a bad fall, Bristow. You were
dizzy, I reckon."
" Dizzy ! ' : echoed the major with feeble asperity.
" It was Greef King."
"Greef King! Good God!"
" He was hiding behind the screen. He struck
me with something. He swore at his trial he'd get
me. I was a fool not to have remembered his
time was out."
A look, wolf-like and grim, had sprung into the
doctor's face. His eyes searched the room, and
he crossed the floor and picked up something from
the rug. He looked at it a moment, then thrust
it hastily into his breast pocket.
388 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
"I remember now. It was a pistol. He
snapped it twice, but it missed fire."
"He can't hide where we'll not find him! " The
doctor spoke with low but terrible energy.
" Not that I care myself," said the major diffi
cultly. " But I reckon he'd better be settled with,
or he'll be killing some one worth while one of
these days."
A big tear suddenly loosed itself from the doctor's
eyelid and rolled down his cheek, and he turned
hastily away.
" There's no call to feel bad," said the major
gruffly. " I've sort of been a thorn-in-the-flesh to
you, Southall. We always rowed, somehow, and
yet-"
The doctor choked and cleared his throat.
" I reckon," the major murmured with a faint
smile, " you won't get quite so much fun out of
Chalmers and the rest. They never did rise to
you like I did."
A little later he asked for the restorative. " Ten
minutes gone," he said then. " Chalmers ought to
be at Rosewood by now . . . what a fool way to
go like this. But it wasn't apoplexy, Southall,
anyway."
At the sound of wheels on the drive, Valiant
went out quietly. Huddled in a corner of the hall
were Uncle Jefferson and Aunt Daphne, with Jere-
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE 389
beam, the major's body-servant. Aunt Daphne,
her apron thrown over her face was rocking to and
fro silently, and old Jerebiam's head was bowed
on his breast. Valiant \vent quickly to the rear
of the hall. A painful embarrassment had come
to him a curious confusion mingling with a fas
tidious sense of shrinking. How should he meet
this woman who recoiled from the very sight of
his face? In the swiftness of the tragic event he
had forgotten this. From the background he saw
Judge Chalmers lift down the frail form, and sud
denly his heart leaped. There were two feminine
figures; Shirley was with her mother.
The doctor stood just inside the library door
and Mrs. Dandridge went hastily toward him, her
light cane tapping through the stricken silence.
Jereboam lifted his head and looked at her pite-
ously.
" Reck'n Mars' Monty cyan' see ole Jerry now,"
he quavered, " but yo'-all gib him mah love, Mis'
Judith, and tell him " His voice broke.
" Yes, yes, Jerry. I will."
The doctor closed the door upon her and came
to where Shirley waited. " Come, my dear," he
said, and dropped his arm about her. " Let us go
out to the garden."
As they passed Valiant, she held out her hand to
him. There was no word between them, but as his
hand swallowed hers, his heart said to her, " I
390 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
love you, I love you! No matter what is between
us, I shall always love you ! "
It was wordless, a heart-whisper that only love
itself could hear, and he could read no answer in
the deep pools of her eyes, heavy now with un
shed tears. But in some subtle way this voiceless
greeting comforted and lightened by a little the
\\eight of dumb impotence that he had borne.
In the library, lighted so brightly by the sun
light, yet grave with the hush of that solemn pres
ence, the major looked into the face of the woman
for whose coming he had waited so anxiously.
"It's all up, Judith," he said faintly. "I've
come to the jumping-off place."
She looked at him whitely. " Monty, Monty ! "
she cried. " Don't leave me this way ! I always
thought "
He guessed what she would have said. " Heaven
knows you're needed more than me, Judith. After
all, I reckon when my time had to come I'd have
chosen the quick way." His voice trailed out and
he struggled for breath.
" Jerry's in the hall, Monty. He asked me to
give you his love."
" Poor old nigger ! He used to tote me on his
back when I was a little shaver." There was a
silence. " Don't kneel, Judith," he said at length.
" You will be so tired."
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE 391
She rose obediently and drew up a chair.
" Monty," she faltered tremulously, " shall I say
a prayer? I've never prayed much my prayers
never seemed to get above the ceiling, somehow.
But I'll try."
He smiled wanly. " I wouldn't want any better
than yours, Judith. But seems as if I'd been
prayed over enough. I reckon God Almighty's like
anybody else, and doesn't want to be ding-donged
all the time."
He seemed to have been gathering his resolution,
arid presently his hand fumbled over his breast.
" My wallet ; give it to me." She drew it from the
pocket and the uncertain fingers took out a key.
" It opens a tin box in my trunk. There's a let
ter in it for you." He paused a moment, panting :
"Judith," he said, "I've got to tell you, but it's
mighty hard. The letter . . . it's one Valiant gave
me for you that morning, after the duel. I
never gave it to you."
If she had been white before, she grew like
marble now. Her slim fingers clutched the little
cane till it rattled against the chair, and the lace at
her throat shook with her breathing. " Yes
Monty."
He lifted his hand with difficulty and put the key
into hers. " The seal's still unbroken, Judith," he
said, " but I've kept it these thirty years."
She was holding the key in her hands, looking
392 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
down upon it. There was a strained half-fearful
wonder in her face. For an instant she seemed
quite to have forgotten him in the grip of some
swift and painful emotion.
" I loved you, Judith ! " he stammered in an
guished appeal. " From the time we were boy and
girl together, I loved you. You never cared for me
- Sassoon and Valiant had the inside track. You
might have loved me; but I had no chance with
either of them. Then came the duel. There was
only Valiant then. I overheard his promise to you
that night, Judith. He had broken that! If you
cared more for him than for Sassoon, you might
have forgiven him, and I should have lost you!
I didn't want you to call him back, Judith! I
wanted my chance! And so I took it. That's
the reason, dear. It's it's a bad one, isn't
it!"
A shiver went over her set face like a breath
of wind over tall grass, and she seemed to come
back from an infinite distance to place and moment.
Between the curtains a white butterfly hovered an
instant, and in the yard she heard the sound of
some winged thing fluttering. The thought darted
to her that it was the sound of her own dead heart
awaking. She looked at the key and all at once put
a hand to her mouth as though to still words
clamoring there.
" Judith," he said tremulously, between short
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE 393
struggles for breath, " all these years, after I found
there was no chance for me, I reckon I've prayed
only one prayer. ' God, let it be Sassoon that she
loved ! ' And I've prayed that mighty near every
day. The thought that maybe it was Valiant has
haunted me like a ghost. You never told and I
never dared ask you. Judith "
Her face was still averted, and when she did not
speak he turned his head from her on the pillow,
with a breath that was almost a moan. She started,
looking at him an instant in piteous hesitation, then
swiftly kissed the little key and closed her hand
tight upon it. Truth? She saw only the pillow
and the graying face upon it! She threw herself
on her knees by the couch and laid her lips on the
pallid forehead.
" It it was Sassoon, Monty," she said, and her
voice broke on the first lie she had ever told.
" Thank God ! " he gasped. He struggled to
raise himself on his elbow, then suddenly the
strength faded out and he settled back.
Her cry brought the doctor, but this time the
restorative seemed of no avail, and after a time he
came and touched her shoulder. With a last long
look at the ash-pale face on the settee she followed
him from the room. In the yellow parlor he put
ker into a chair.
" No," he said, in answer to her look, " he won't
rouse again."
394
" I will wait," she told him, and he left her, shut
ting the door with careful softness.
But the slight figure with its silver hair, sitting
there, was not alone. Ghosts were walking up and
down. Not the misty wraiths John Valiant had at
times imagined went flitting along the empty corri
dors, but faces very clear in the sunlight, that came
and went with the memories so long woven over by
the shuttle of time evoked now by the touch of a
key that her hand still clenched tightly in its palm.
There welled over her in a tide those days of
puzzle, the weeks of waiting silence, the slow in
exorable months of heartache, the long years that
had deepened the mystery of Beauty Valiant's exile.
In the first shock of the news that Sassoon had fal
len by his hand, she had thought she could not for
give him that broken faith. She and his promise to
her had not weighed in the balance against his idea
of manly " honor " ! But this bitterness had at
length slipped away. " He will write," she had
told herself, " and explain." But no word had
come. Whispers had flitted to her the tale of
Sassoon's intoxication stinging barbs that clung
to Beauty Valiant's name. That these should rest
unanswered had filled her with resentment and
anger. Slowly, but with deadly surety, had grown
the belief that he no longer cared. In the end there
had been left her only pride the pride that covers
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE 395
its wound and smiles. And she had hidden her
wound with flowers. But in the deepest well of her
heart her love for him had rested unchanged, clear
and defined as a moss in amber, wrapped in that
mystery of silence.
In the little haircloth trunk back in her room lay
an old scrap-book. It held a few leaves torn from
letters and many newspaper clippings. From these
she had known of his work, his marriage, the great
commercial success for which his name had stood
the name that from the day of his going, she had so
^eldom taken upon her lips. Some of them had
dealt with his habits and idiosyncrasies, hints of an
altered personality, an aloofness or loneliness that
had set him apart and made him, in a way, a
stranger to those who should have known him best.
Thus her mind had come to hold a double image:
the grave man these shadowed forth, and the man
she had loved, whose youthful face was in the
locket she wore always on her breast. It was this
face that was printed on her heart, and when John
Valiant had stood before her on the porch at Rose
wood, it had seemed to have risen, instinct, from
that old grave.
He had not kept silence! He had written! It
pealed through her brain like a muffled bell. But
Beauty Valiant was gone with her youth; in the
room near by lay that old companion who would
never speak to her again, the lifelong friend
396 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
who had really failed her thirty years ago! . . .
and in a tin box a mile away lay a letter. . . .
" He won't rouse again," the doctor had said, but
a little later, as he and Valiant sat beside the couch,
the major opened his eyes suddenly.
"Shirley," he whispered. "Where's Shirley?"
She was sitting on the porch just outside the open
window, and when she entered, tears were on her
face. The doctor drew back silently; but when
Valiant would have done so, the major called him
nearer.
" No," he panted ; " I like to see you two to
gether." His voice was very weak and tired.
As she leaned and touched his hand, he smiled
whimsically. " It's mighty curious," he said, " but
I can't get it out of my head that its Beauty Valiant
and Judith that I'm really talking to. Foolish
isn't it ? " But the idea seemed to master him, and
presently he began to call Shirley by her mother's
name. An odd youth fulness crept into his eyes; a
subtle paradoxical boyishness. His cheek tinged
with color. The deep lines about his mouth
smoothed miraculously out.
" Judith," he whispered, " you sure you told
me the truth a while ago, when you said you
said "
" Yes, yes," Shirley answered, putting her young
arm under him, thinking only to soothe the anxiety
THE MAJOR BREAKS SILENCE 397
that seemed vaguely to thread some vague hallucina
tion.
He smiled again. " It makes it easier," he said.
He looked at Valiant, his mind seeming to slip far
ther and farther away. " Beauty," he gasped,
" you didn't go away after all, did you ! I dreamed
it I reckon. It'll be all right with you both."
He sighed peacefully, and his eyes turned to
Shirley's and closed. " I'm so glad," he mut
tered, " so glad I didn't really do it, Judith. It
would have been the only low-down thing
I ever did."
The doctor went swiftly to the door and beckoned
to Jereboam. " Come in now, Jerry," he said in a
low voice, " quickly."
The old negro fell on his knees by the couch.
" Mars' Monty ! " he cried. " Is you' gwine away
en leabe ol' Jerry ? Is yo' ? Mars' ? "
The cracked but loving voice struck across the
void of the failing sense. For a last time the major
opened his misting eyes.
" Jerry, you black scoundrel ! " he whispered,
and Shirley felt his head grow heavier on her arm,
" I reckon it's about time to be going
home!"
CHAPTER XLV
RENUNCIATION
THE grim posse that gathered in haste that
afternoon did not ride far. Its work had
been singularly well done. It brought back to
Damory Court, however, a white bulldog whose
broken leg made his would-be joyful bark trail into
a sad whimper as his owner took him into welcom
ing arms.
Next day the major was carried to his final rest
in the myrtled shadow of St. Andrew's, At the
service the old church was crowded to its doors.
Valiant occupied a humble place at one side the
others, he knew, were older friends than he. The
light of the late afternoon came dimly in through
the stained-glass windows and seemed to clothe with
subtle colors the voice of the rector as he read the
solemn service. The responses came brokenly, and
there were tears on many faces.
Valiant could see the side-face of the doctor, its
saturnine grimness strangely moved, and beyond
him, Shirley and her mother. Many glanced at
them, for the major's will had been opened that
morning and few there had been surprised to learn
RENUNCIATION 399
that, save for a life-annuity for old Jereboam, he had
left everything he possessed to Shirley. Miss Mat-
tie Sue was beside them, and between, wan with
weeping, sat Rickey Snyder. Shirley's arm lay
shelteringly about the small shoulders as if it would
stay the passion of grief that from time to time
shook them.
The evening before had been further darkened by
the child's disappearance and Miss Mattie Sue had
sat through half the night in tearful anxiety. It
was Valiant who had solved the riddle. In her first
wild compunction, Rickey had gasped out the story
of her meeting with Greef King, his threat and her
own terrorized silence, and when he heard of this
he had guessed her whereabouts. He had found
her at the Dome, in the deserted cabin from which
on a snowy night six years ago, Shirley had rescued
her. She had fled there in her shabbiest dress, her
toys and trinkets left behind, taking with her only
a string of blue glass beads that had been Shirley's
last Christmas present.
" Let me stay ! " she had wailed. " I'm not fit
to live down there! It's all my fault that it hap
pened. I was a coward. I ought to stay here in
Hell's-Half-Acre forever and ever!" Valiant had
carried her back in his arms down the mountain
she had been too spent to walk.
He thought of this now as he saw that arm about
the child in that protective, almost motherly gesture.
4 oo
It made his own heartache more unbearable. Such
a little time ago he had felt that arm about him!
He leaned his hot head against the cool plastered
wall, trying to keep his mind on the solemn read
ing. But Shirley's voice and laugh seemed to be
running eerily through the chanting lines, and her
face shut out pulpit and lectern. It swept over him
suddenly that each abominable hour could but make
the situation more impossible for them both. He
had seen her as she entered the church, had thought
her even paler than in the wood, the bluish shadows
deeper under her eyes. Those delicate charms were
in eclipse.
And it was he who was to blame!
It came to him with a stab of enlightenment. He
had been thinking only of himself all the while.
But for her, it was his presence that had now be
come the unbearable thing. A cold sweat broke on
his forehead. "... for I am a stranger with thee,
and a sojourner: as all my fathers were. O spare
me a little, that I may recover my strength before I
go hence. . . ." The intoning voice fell dully on
his ears.
To go away ! To pass out of her life, to a future
empty of her? How could he do that? When he
had parted from her in the rain he had felt a frenzy
of obstinacy. It had seemed so clear that the bar
rier must in the end yield before their love. He
had never thought of surrender. Now he told him-
RENUNCIATION 401
self that flight was all that was left him. She
her happiness nothing else mattered. Damory
Court and its future the plans he had made the
Valiant name in that clarifying instant he knew
that all these, from that May day on the Red Road,
had clung about her. She had been the inspiration
of all.
"Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom "
The voices of the unvested choir rose clearly and
some one at his side was whispering that this had
been the major's favorite hymn. But he scarcely
heard.
When the service was ended the people filled the
big yard while the last reverent words were spoken
at the grave. Valiant, standing with the rest, saw
Shirley, with her mother and the doctor, pass out of
the gate. She was not looking toward him. A
mist was before his eyes as they drove away, and
the vision of her remained wavering and indistinct
a pale blurred face under shining hair.
He realized after a time that the yard was empty
and the sexton was locking the church door. He
went slowly to the gate, and just outside some one
spoke to him. It was Chisholm Lusk. They had
not met since the night of the ball. Even in his
own preoccupation, Valiant noted that Lusk's face
seemed to have lost its exuberant youthfulness. It
was worn as if with sleeplessness, and had a look of
402 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
suffering that touched him. And all at once, while
they stood looking at each other, Valiant knew
what the other had waited to say.
" I won't beat about the bush," said Lusk stam
mering. " I've got to ask you something. I reckon
you've guessed that I that Shirley "
Valient touched the young fellow's arm. " Yes>,"
he said, " I think I know."
" It's no new thing, with me," said the other
hoarsely. " It's been three years. The night of
the ball, I thought perhaps that I don't mean to
ask what you might have a right to resent but I
must find out. Is there any reason why I shouldn't
try my luck ? "
Valiant shook his head. " No," he said heavily,
" there is no reason."
The boyish look sprang back to Lusk's face. He
drew a long breath. " Why, then I will" he said.
"I I'm sorry if I hurt you. Heaven knows I
didn't want to ! "
He grasped the other's hand with a man's hearti
ness and went up the road with a swinging stride ;
and Valiant stood watching him go, with his hands
tight-clenched at his side.
A little later Valiant climbed the sloping drive
way of Damory Court. It seemed to stare at him
from a thousand reproachful eyes. The bachelor
RENUNCIATION 403
red squirrel from his tree-crotch looked down at
him askance. The redbirds, flashing through the
hedges, fluttered disconsolately. Fire-Cracker, the
peacock, was shrieking from the upper lawn and
the strident discord seemed to mock his mood.
The great house had become home to him ; he told
himself that he would make no other. The few
things he had brought his books and trophies
had grown to be a part of it, and they should remain.
The ax should not be laid to the walnut grove. As
his father had done, he would leave behind him the
life he had lived there, and the old Court should be
once more closed and deserted. Uncle Jefferson and
Aunt Daphne might live on in the cabin back of
the kitchens. There was pasturage for the horse
and the cows and for old Sukey, and some acres had
already been cleared for planting. And there would
be the swans, the ducks and chickens, the peafowl
and the fish.
A letter had come to him that morning. The
Corporation had resumed business with credit unim
paired. Public opinion was more than friendly now.
A place waited for him there, and one of added
honor, in a concern that had rigorously cleansed
itself and already looked forward to a new career of
prosperity. But he thought of this now with no
thrill. The old life no longer called. There were
still wide unpeopled spaces somewhere where a
4 o 4 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
man's hand and brain were no less needed, and there
was work there that would help him to bear, if not
forget.
He paced up and down the porch under the great
gray columns, his steps spiritless and lagging. The
Virginia creeper, trailing over its end, waved to and
fro with a sound like a sigh. How long would it be
before the lawn was once more unkempt and drag
gled? Before burdock and thistle, mullein and
Spanish-needle would return to smother the clover?
Before Damory Court, on which he had spent such
loving labor, would lie again as it lay that after
noon when he had rattled thither on Uncle Jeffer
son's crazy hack? Before there would be for him,
in some far-away corner of the world, only Wish-
ing-House and the Never-Never Land ?
In the hall he stood a moment before the fire
place, his eyes on its carven motto, / cling e: the
phrase was like a spear-thrust. He began to wander
restlessly through the house, up and down, like a
prowling animal. The dining-room .looked austere
and chill only the little lady in hoops and love-
curls who had been his great-grandmother smiled
wistfully down from her gilt frame above the con
sole and in the library a melancholy deeper than
that of yesterday's tragedy seemed to hang, through
which Devil-John, drawing closer the leash of his
leaping hound, glared sardonically at him from his
one cold eye. The shutters of the parlor were
RENUNCIATION 405
closed, but he threw them open and let the rich light
pierce the yellow gloom, glinting from the figures in
the cabinet and weaving a thousand tiny rainbows
in the prisms of the great chandelier.
He went up-stairs, into the bedrooms one by one,
now and then passing his hand over a polished chair-
back or touching an ornament or a frame on the
wall : into The Hilarium with its records of childish
study and play. The dolls stood now on dress-
parade in glass cases, and prints in bright colors,
dear to little people, were on the walls. He opened
the shutters here, too, and stood some time on the
threshold before he turned and went heavily down
stairs.
Through the rear door he could see the kitchens,
and Aunt Daphne sitting under the trumpet-vine
piecing a nine-patch calico quilt with little squares
of orange and red and green cloth. Two diminutive
darkies were sprawled on the ground looking up at
her with round serious eyes, while a wary bantam
pecked industriously about their bare legs.
" En den whut de roostah say, Aunt Daph ? "
" Ol' roostah he hollah ter all he wifes, * Oo
ooo! Oo ooo! Young Mars' come! Young
Mars' come ! Young Mars' come ! ' En dey all
mighty skeered, 'case Mars' John he cert'n'y fond
ob fried chick'n. But de big tuhkey gobbler he
don' b'leeve et 'tall. 'Doubtful doubtful
doubtful ! ' he say, lak dat. Den de drake he peep
406 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
eroun' de cornah, en he say, ' Haish ! Haish ! Haish ! '
Fo' he done seed Mars' John comin', sho' nuff.
But et too late by den, fo' Aunt Daph she done
grab Mis' Pullet, en Mars' John he gwineter eat
huh dis bery evenin' fo' he suppah. Now you chil-
len run erlong home ter yo' mammies, en don' yo'
pick none ob dem green apples on de way, neidah."
It was not till after dark had come that Valiant
said good-by to the garden. He loved it best
under the starlight. He sat a long hour under the
pergola overlooking the lake, where he could dimly
see the green rocks, and the white froth of the water
bubbling and chuckling down over their rounded out
lines to the shrouded level below. The moon lifted
finally and soared through the sky, blowing out the
little lamps of stars. Under its light a gossamer
mist robed the landscape in a shimmering opales-
cence, in which tree and shrub altered their values
and became transmuted to silver sentinels, watching
over a demesne of violet-velvet shadows filled with
sleepy twitterings and stealthy rustlings and the odor
of wild honeysuckle.
At last he stood before the old sun-dial, rear
ing its column from its pearly clusters of blossoms.
"7 count no hours but the happy ones": he read
the inscription with an indrawn breath. Then,
groping at its base, he lifted the ivy that had once
RENUNCIATION 407
rambled there and drew up the tangle again over the
stone disk. His Bride's-Garden !
In the library, an hour later, sitting at the big
black pigeonholed desk, he wrote to Shirley :
"I am leaving to-night on the midnight train.
Uncle Jefferson will give you this note in the morn
ing. I will not stay at Damory Court to bring more
pain into your life. I am going very far away. 1
understand all you are feeling and so, good-by,
good-by. God keep you! I love you and I shall
love you always, always ! "
CHAPTER XLVI
THE VOICE FROM THE PAST
THOUGH the doctor left the church with
Shirley and her mother, he did not drive to
Rosewood, but to his office. There, alone with
Mrs. Dandridge while Shirley waited in the carriage,
he unlocked the little tin box that had been the ma
jor's, with the key Mrs. Dandridge gave him, and put
into her hands a little packet of yellow oiled-silk
which bore her name. He noted that it agitated her
profoundly and as she thrust it into the bosom of
her dress, her face seemed stirred as he had never
seen it. When he put her again in the carriage, he
patted her shoulder with a touch far gentler than his
gruff good-by.
At Rosewood, at length, alone in her room, she
sat down with the packet in her hands. During the
long hours since first the little key had lain in her
palm like a live coal, she had been all afire with eager
ness. Now the moment had come, she was almost
afraid.
She tried to imagine that letter's coming to her
then. Thirty years ago! A May day, a day of
golden sunshine and flowers. The arbors had been
408
THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 409
covered with roses then, too, like tHose whose per
fume drifted to her now. Evil news flies fast, and
she had heard of the duel very early that morning.
The letter would have reached her later. She would
have fled away with it to this very room to read it
alone as she did now !
With unsteady fingers she unwrapped the oiled-
silk, broke the letter's seal, and read :
" Dearest:
" Before you read this, you will no doubt have
heard the thing that has happened this sunshiny
morning. Sassoon poor Sassoon ! I can say that
with all my heart is dead. What this fact will
mean to you, God help me! I can not guess. For
I have never been certain, Judith, of your heart.
Sometimes I have thought you loved me me only
as I love you. Last night when I saw you wear
ing my cape jessamines at the ball, I was almost sure
of it. But when you made me promise, whatever
happened, not to lift my hand against him, then I
doubted. Was it because you feared for him?
Would to God at this moment I knew this was not
true! For whatever the fact, I must love you,
darling, you and no other, as long as I live ! "
When she had read thus far, she closed the letter,
and pressing a hand against her heart as if to still
its throbbing, locked the written pages in a drawer
of her bureau. She went down-stairs and made
Ranston bring her chair to its accustomed place
4 io THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
under the rose-arbor, and sat there through the fall
ing twilight.
She and Shirley talked but little at dinner, and
what she said seemed to come winging from old
memories her own girlhood, its routs and picnics
and harum-scarum pleasures. And there were long
gaps in which she sat silent, playing with her napkin,
the light color coming and going in her delicate
cheek, lost in revery. It was not till the hall-clock
struck her usual hour that she rose to go to her room.
" Don't send Emmaline," she said. " I shan't
want her." She kissed Shirley good night.
"Maybe after a while you will sing for me; you
haven't played your harp for ever so long."
In the subdued candle-light Mrs. Dandridge
locked the door of her room. She opened a closet,
and from the very bottom of a small haircloth trunk,
lifted and shook out from its many tissue wrappings
a faded gown of rose-colored silk, with pointed bod
ice and old-fashioned puff-sleeves. She spread
this on the bed and laid with it a pair of yellowed
satin slippers and a little straw basket that held
a spray of what had once been cape jessamine.
In the flickering light she undressed and rear
ranged her hair, catching its silvery curling meshes
in a low soft coil. Looking almost furtively about
her, she put on the rose-colored gown, and pinned
the withered flower-spray on its breast. She lighted
more candles in the wall-brackets and on the
THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 4"
dressing-table and the reading-lamp on the desk.
Standing before her mirror then, she gazed long at
the reflection the poor faded rose-tint against the
pale ivory of her slender neck, and the white hair.
A little quiver ran over her lips.
" ' Whatever the fact,' " she whispered, " ' . . .
you and no other, as long as I live.' '
She unlocked the bureau-drawer then, took out
the letter, and seating herself by the table, read the
remainder :
" I write this in the old library and Bristow holds
my horse by the porch. He will give you this let
ter when I am gone.
" Last night we were dancing all of us at
the ball. I can scarcely believe it was less than
twelve hours ago ! The calendar on my desk has a
motto for each leaf. To-day's is this : * Every
man carries his fate on a riband about his neck.'
Last night I would have smiled at that, perhaps;
to-day I say to myself, ' It's true it's true ! ' Two
little hours ago I could have sworn that whatever
happened to me, Sassoon would suffer no harm.
" Judith, I could not avoid the meeting. You will
know the circumstances, and will see that it was
forced upon me. But though we met on the field,
I kept my promise. Sassoon did not fall by my
hand."
She had begun to tremble so that the paper shook
in her hands, and from her breast, shattered by her
quick breathing, the brown jessamine petals dusted
412 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
down in her lap. It was some moments before she
could calm herself sufficiently to read on.
" He fired at the signal and the shot went wide.
I threw my pistol on the ground. Then whether
maddened by my refusal to fire, I can not tell he
turned his weapon all at once and shot himself
through the breast. It was over in an instant. The
seconds did not guess do not even now, for it hap
pened but an hour ago. As the code decrees, their
backs were turned when the shots were fired. But
there were circumstances I can not touch upon to
you which made them disapprove which made my
facing him just then seem unchivalrous. I saw it in
Bristow's face, and liked him the better for it, even
while it touched my pride. They could not know,
of course, that I did not intend to fire. Well, you
and they will know it now! And Bristow has my
pistol ; he will find it undischarged thank God,
thank God!
"But will that matter to you? If you loved
Sassoon, I shall always in your mind stand as the in
direct cause of his death ! It is for this reason I am
going away I could not bear to look in your ac
cusing eyes and hear you say it. Nor could I bear
to stay here, a reminder to you of such a horror.
If you love me, you will write and call me back to
you. Oh, Judith, Judith, my own dear love! I
pray God you will ! "
She put the letter down and laid her face upon it.
" Beauty ! Beauty ! " she whispered, dry-eyed. " I
never knew! I never knew! But it would have
THE VOICE FROM THE PAST 413
made no difference, darling. I would have forgiven
you anything everything ! You know that, now,
dear! You have been certain of it all these years
that have been so empty, empty to me ! "
But when the faded rose-colored gown and the
poor time-yellowed slippers had been laid back in
the haircloth trunk ; when, her door once more un
bolted, she lay in her bed in the dim glow of the read
ing-lamp, with her curling silvery hair drifting across
the pillow and the letter beneath it, at last the tears
came coursing down her cheeks.
And with the loosening of her tears, gradually and
softly came joy infinitely deeper than the anguish
and sense of betrayal. It poured upon her like a
trembling flood. Long, long ago he had gone out
of the world it was only his memory that counted
to her. Now that could no longer spell pain or
emptiness or denial. It was engoldened by a new
light, and in that light she would walk gently and
smilingly to the end.
She found the slender golden chain that hung
about her neck and opened the little black locket with
its circlet of laureled pearls. And as she gazed at
the face it held, which time had not touched with
change, the sound of Shirley's harp came softly in
through the window. She was playing an old-fash
ioned song, of the sort she knew her mother loved
best:
4M THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" Darling, I am growing old.
Silver threads among the gold
Shine upon my brow to-day;
Life is fading fast away.
But, my darling, you will be
Always young and fair to me."
Outside the leaves rustled, the birds called and the
crickets sang their unending epithalamia of summer
nights, and on this tone-background the melody rose
tenderly and lingeringly like a haunting perfume of
pressed flowers. She smiled and lifted the locket
to her face, whispering the words of the refrain :
" Yes, my darling, you will be
Always young and fair to me! "
The smile was still on her lips when she fell asleep,
and the little locket still lay in her fingers.
CHAPTER XLVII
WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK
weeps sorrow sings." As Shir-
ley played that night, the old Russian proverb
kept running through her mind. When she had
pushed the gold harp into its corner she threw her
self upon a broad sofa in a feathery drift of chintz
cushions and dropped her forehead in her laced
fingers. A gilt-framed mirror hung on the opposite
wall, out of which her sorrowful brooding eyes
looked with an expression of dumb and weary suf
fering.
Her confused thoughts raced hither and thither.
What would be the end? Would Valiant forget
after a time? Would he marry Miss Fargo, per
haps? The thought caused her a stab of anguish.
Yet she herself could not marry him. The barrier
was impassable !
She was still lying listlessly among the cushions
when a step sounded on the porch and she heard
Chilly Lusk's voice in the hall. With heavy hands
Shirley put into place her disheveled hair and rose
to meet him.
415
416 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
" I'm awfully selfish to come to-night," he said
awkwardly ; " no doubt you are tired out."
She disclaimed the weariness that dragged upon
her spirits like leaden weights, and made him wel
come with her usual cordiality. She was, in fact,
relieved at his coming. At Damory Court, the
night of the ball, when she had come from the garden
with her lips thrilling from Valiant's kiss, she had
suddenly met his look. It had seemed to hold a
startled realization that she had remembered with a
remorseful compunction. Since that night he had
not been at Rosewood.
Ranston had lighted a pine-knot in the fireplace,
and the walls were shuddering with crimson
shadows. Her hand was shielding her eyes, and as
she strove to fill the gaps in their somewhat spas
modic conversation with the trivial impersonal
things that belonged to their old intimacy, the tiny
flickering flames seemed to be darting unfriendly
fingers plucking at her secret Leaning from her
nest of cushions she thrust the poker into the glow
ing resinous mass till sparks whizzed up the chim
ney's black maw in a torrent.
"How they fly!" she said. "Rickey Snyder
calls it raising a blizzard in Hades. I used to
think they flew up to the sky and became the littlest
stars. What a pity we have to grow up and learn so
much ! I'd rather have kept on believing that when
the red leaves in the woods whirled about in a
WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK 417
circle the fairies were dancing, and that it was the
gnomes who put the cockle-burs in the hounds'
ears."
She had been talking at random, gradually be
coming shrinkingly conscious of his constrained and
stumbling manner. She had, however, but half de
fined his errand when he came to it all in a burst.
"I I can't get to it, somehow, Shirley," he said
with sudden desperation, " but here it is. I've come
to ask you to marry me. Don't stop me," he went
on hurriedly, lifting his hand ; " whatever you say,
I must tell you. I've been trying to for months and
months ! " Now that he had started, it came
with a boyish vehemence that both chilled and
thrilled her. Even in her own desolation, and
shrinking almost unbearably from the avowal, the
hope and brightness in his voice touched her with
pity. It seemed to her that life was a strange jumble
of unescapable and incomprehensible pain. And all
the while, in the young voice vibrant with feeling,
her cringing ear was catching imagined echoes of
that other voice, graver and more self-contained, but
shaken by the same passion, in that iteration of " I
love you ! I love you ! "
His answer came to him finally in her silence, and
he released her hands which he had caught in his
own. They dropped, limp and unresponsive, in her
lap. " Shirley," he said brokenly, " maybe you
can't care for me yet. But if you will marry
4 i8 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
me. I I'll be content with so little, till you do."
She shook her head, her hair making dim flashes
in the firelight. " No, Chilly," she said. " It makes
me wretched to give you pain, but I must I must !
Love isn't like that. It doesn't come afterward. I
know. I could never give you what you want.
You would end by despising me, as I should de
spise myself."
" I won't give up," he said incoherently. " I can't
give up. Not so long as I know there's nobody else.
At the ball I thought I thought perhaps you cared
for Valiant but since he told me "
He stopped suddenly, for she was looking at him
from an ashen face. " He told me there was no rea
son why I should not try my luck," he said difficultly.
" I asked him."
There was a silence, while he gazed at her, breath
ing deeply. Then he tried to laugh.
" All right," he said hoarsely. " It it doesn't
matter. Don't worry."
She stretched out her hand to him in a gesture of
wistful pain, and he held it a moment between both
of his, then released it and went hurriedly out.
As the door closed, Shirley sat down, her head
dropping into her hands like a storm-broken flower.
Valiant had accepted the finality of the situation.
With a wave of deeper hopelessness than had yet
submerged her, she realized that, against her own de-
WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK 419
cision, something deep within her had taken shy and
secret comfort in his stubborn masculine refusal.
Against all fact, in face of the impossible, her heart
had been clinging to this as though his love might
even attain the miraculous and somewhere, some
how, recreate circumstance. But now he, too, had
bowed to the decree. A kind of utter apathetic
wretchedness seized upon her, to replace the sharp
misery that had so long been her companion an
empty numbness in which, in a measure, she ceased
to feel.
An hour dragged slowly by and at length she rose
and went slowly up the stairs. Her head felt curi
ously heavy, but it did not ache. Outside her
mother's door, as was her custom, she paused me
chanically to listen. A tiny pencil of light struck
through the darkness and painted a spot of bright
ness on her gown. It came through the keyhole;
the lamp in her mother's room was burning.
" She has fallen asleep and forgotten it," she
thought, and softly turning the knob, pushed the
door noiselessly open and entered.
A moment she stood listening to the low regular
breathing of the sleeper. The reading-lamp shed a
shaded glow on the pillow with its spread-out silver
hair, and on the delicate hands clasped loosely on the
coverlet. Shirley came close and looked down on
the placid face. It was smooth as a child's and a
smile touched it lightly as if some pleasant sleep-
420 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
thought had just laid rosy fingers on the dreaming
lips. The light caught and sparkled from some
thing bright that lay between her mother's hands.
It was the enamel brooch that held her own baby
curl, and she saw suddenly that what she had all
her life thought was a solid pendant, was now open
locket-wise and that the two halves clasped a minia
ture. It came to her at once that the picture must
be Sassoon's, and a quick thrill of pity and yearn
ing welled up through her own dejection. Stoop
ing, she looked at it closely. She started as she
did so, for the face on the little disk of ivory was
that of John Valiant.
An instant she stared unbelievingly. Then recol
lection of the resemblance of which Valiant had
told her rushed to her, and she realized that it must
be the picture of his father. The fact shocked and
confounded her. Why should her mother carry
in secret the miniature of the man who had killed
Shirley's breath stopped. She felt her face ting
ing and a curious weakness came on her limbs.
Why indeed, unless and the thought was like a
wild prayer in her mind she had been mistaken in
her surmise? Thoughts came thronging in panic
haste: the fourteenth of May and the cape jessa
mines these might point no less to Valiant than
to Sassoon. But her mother's fainting at the sight
of the son the eager interest she had displayed in
Shirley's accounts of him, from the episode of the
.WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK 421
rose and the bulldog to the tournament ball
seemed now to stand out in a new light, throbbing
and roseate. Could it be ? Had she been stumbling
along a blind trail, misled by the cunning dove
tailing of circumstance? Her heart was beating
stiflingly. If she should be mistaken now! She
dashed her hand across her eyes as though to com
pel their clearness, and looked again.
It was Beauty Valiant's face that lay in the
locket, and that could mean but one thing: it was
he, not Sassoon, whom her mother loved!
The lamplight seemed to grow and spread to an
unbearable radiance. Shirley thought she cried out
with a sudden sweet wildness, but she had not
moved or uttered a sound. The illumination was
all about her, like a splendid cloud. The impossible
had happened. The miracle for which she had hys
terically prayed had been wrought !
When she blew out the light, the shining still re
mained. That glowing knowledge, like a vitalizing
and physical presence, passed with her through the
hall to her own room. As she stood in the elfish
light of her one candle, the poignancy of her joy
was as sharp as her past pain. Later was to come
the wonder how that tragedy had bent Beauty
Valiant's life to exile and her mother's to unfulfil-
ment, and in time she was to know these things, too.
But now the one great knowledge blotted out all
else. She need starve her fancy no longer! The
422 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
hours with her lover might again sweep across her
memory undenied. She felt his arms, his kisses,
heard his whispers against her cheek and smelled the
perfume of Madonna lilies.
She drew the curtain and opened the window
noiselessly to the night. Only a few hours ago she
had been singing to her harp in what wretchedness !
She laughed softly to herself. The quiet night was
full of his voice : " I love you ! I want nothing
but you ! " How her pitiful error had tortured and
wrung them both! But to-morrow he, too, would
know that all was well.
A clear sound chimed across the distance the
bell of the court-house clock, striking midnight.
One! . . . Two! . . . How often lately it had
rung discordantly across her mood; now it seemed
a clamant watcher, tolling joy. Three! . . . Four!
. . . Five! . . . Perhaps he was sleepless, listening,
too. Was he in the old library, thinking of her?
Six! . . . Seven! . . . Eight! . . . Nine! ... If
she could only send her message to him on the bells !
Ten! ... It swelled more loudly now, more de
liberate. Eleven! . . . Another day was almost
gone. Twelve! ..." Joy cometh in the morning "
ran the whisper across her thought. It was
morning now.
Thirteen!
She caught a sharp breath. Her ear had not de
ceived her the vibration still palpitated on the air
WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK 423
like a heart of sound. It had struck thirteen! A
little eery touch crept along her nerves and a cool
dampness broke on her skin, for she seemed to hear,
quavering through the wondering silence, the voice
of Mad Anthony, as it had quavered to her ear on
the door-step of the negro cabin, with the well-sweep
throwing its long curved shadow across the group
of laughing faces :
" Ah sees yo' gwine ter him. Ah heahs de co'ot-
house clock a-strikin' in de night en yo' gwine.
. . . Don' wait, don' wait, li'l mistis, er de trouble-
cloud gwine kyah him erway f'om yo'. . . . When
de clock strike thuhteen when de clock strike
thuhteen "
She dropped the flowered curtain and drew back.
A weird fancy had begun to press on her brain.
Had not Mad Anthony foretold truly what had
gone before? What if there were some cryptic
meaning in this, too? To go to him, at midnight,
by a lonely country road she, a girl ? Incredible !
Yet her mind had opened to a vague growing fear
that was swiftly mounting to a thriving anxiety.
That innate superstition, secretly cherished while
derided, which is the heritage of the Southron-born
bred from centuries of contact with a mystical race,
had her in its grip. Yet all the while her sober
actual common-sense was crying out upon her
and crying in vain. Unknown appetences that had
lain darkling in her blood, come down to her from
424 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
long generations, were suddenly compelling her.
The curtain began to wave in a little wind that whis
pered in the silk, and somewhere in the yard below
she could hear Selim nipping the clover.
She was to go or the " trouble-cloud " would
carry him away!
A strange expression of mingled fright and re
solve grew on her face. She ran on tiptoe to her
wardrobe and with frantic haste dragged out a
rough cloak that fell over her soft house-gown, cov
ering it to the feet. It had a peaked hood falling
from its collar and into this she thrust the resentful
masses of her hair. Every few seconds she caught
her breath in a short gasp, and once she paused
with an apprehensive glance over her shoulder and
shivered. She scarcely knew what she did, nor did
she ask herself what might be the outcome of such
an absurd adventure. She neither knew nor cared.
She was swept off her feet and whirled away into
some outlandish limbo of shadowy fear and crying
dread.
Slipping off her shoes, she went swiftly and noise
lessly down the stair. She let herself out of the
door and, shoes on again, ran across the clover. A
hound clambered about her, whining, but she si
lenced him with a whispered word. Selim lifted
his head and she patted the snuffling inquiring muz
zle an instant before, with her hand on his mane, she
led him through the hedge to the stable. It was
WHEN THE CLOCK STRUCK 425
but the work of a moment to throw on a side-saddle
and buckle the girth. Then, mounting, she turned
him into the lane.
He was thoroughbred, and her tense excitement
seemed to communicate itself to him. He blew the
breath through his delicate flaring nostrils and flung
up his head at her restraining hand on the bridle.
Once on the Red Road, she let him have his will.
The long vacant highway reeled out behind her
to the fierce and lonely hoof-tattoo. She was
scarcely conscious of consecutive thought all was
a vague jumble of chaotic impressions threaded by
that necessity that called her like an insistent voice.
Copse and hedge flew by, streaks of distemper on
the shifting gloom; swarthy farmhouse roofs hud
dled like giant Indians on the trail, and ponds in
pastures glinted back the pale glimmering of stars.
The faint mist, tangled in the branches of the trees,
made them look like ghosts gathered to see her
pass. Was this real or was she dreaming? Was
she, Shirley Dandridge, really galloping down an
open road at midnight because of the hare
brained maunderings of a half-mad old negro?
The great iron gate of Damory Court hung open,
and scarcely slackening her pace, she rode through
and up the long drive. The glooming house- front
was blank and silent and its huge porch columns
looked like lonely gray monoliths in the wan light.
Not a twinkle showed at chink or crarmy ; the pon-
426 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
derous shutters were closed. There was a sense
of desertion, of emptiness about the place that
brought her heart into her throat with a sickly hor
rible feeling of certainty.
She jumped down from the blowing horse and
hurried around the house. The door of the kitch
ens was open and a ladder of dim reddish light fell
from it across the grass. She ran swiftly and
looked in. A huddled figure sat there, rocking to
and fro in the lamplight.
" Aunt Daph," she called, " what is the matter? "
The turbaned head turned sharply toward her.
" Dat yo', Miss Shirley?" the old woman said
huskily. " Is yo' come ter see Mars' John *fo' he
gwine away? Yo' too late, honey, too late! He
done gone ter de deepo fo' ter ketch de th'oo train.
En, oh, honey, Ah knows in mah ole ha'at dat Mars'
John ain' nevah gwine come back ter Dam'ry Co'ot
no mo'!"
CHAPTER XLVIII
THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE
ALONG the dark turnpike John Valiant rode
with his chin sunk on his breast. He was
wretchedly glad of the darkness, for it covered a
thousand familiar sights he had grown to love. Yet
through the dark came drifting sounds that caught
at him with clutching hands the bay of a hound
from some far-off kennel, the whirring note of
frogs, the impatient high whinny of a horse across
pasture-bars and his nostrils widened to the wild
braided fragrance of the fields over which the mist
was spinning its fairy carded wool.
The preparations for his going had been quickly
made. He was leaving behind him all but a single
portmanteau. Uncle Jefferson had already taken
this with Chum to the station. The old man
had now gone sorrowfully afoot to the blockhouse,
a half-mile up the track, to bespeak the stopping of
the express. He would go back on the horse his
master was riding.
The lonely little depot flanked a siding beside
a dismal stretch of yellow clay-bank gouged by
rains. Its windows were dark and the weather-
427
428 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
beaten plank platform was illuminated by a single
lantern that hung on a nail beside the locked door,
its sickly flame showing bruise-like through smoky
streakings of lamp-black. At one side, in the
shadow, was his bag, and beside it the tethered bull
dog sole spot of white against the melancholy
forlornness lying with one splinted leg, like a
swaddled ramrod, sticking straight out before him.
In the saddle, Valiant struck his hand hard against
his knee. Surely it was a dream ! It could not be
that he was leaving Virginia, leaving Damory Court,
leaving her! But he knew that it was not a dream.
Far away, rounding Powhattan Mountain, he
heard the long-drawn hoot of the coming train,
flinging its sky-warning in a host of scampering
echoes. Among them mixed another sound far up
the desolate road, coming nearer the sound of a
horse, galloping fast and hard.
His own fidgeted, flung up wide nostrils and
neighed shrilly. Who was coming along that run-
nelled highway at such an hour in such breakneck
fashion ?
The train was nearer now ; he could hear its low
rumbling hum, rising to a roar, and the click and
spring of the rails. But though he lifted a foot
from the stirrup, he did not dismount. Something
in the whirlwind speed of that coming caught and
held him motionless. He had a sudden curious feel
ing that all the world beside did not exist; there
THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE 429
were only the sweeping rush of the nearing train
impersonal, unhuman he, sitting his horse in the
gloom, and that unknown rider whose anguish of
speed outstripped the steam, riding to whom?
The road skirted the track as it neared the sta
tion, and all at once a white glare from the opened
fire-box flung itself blindingly across the dark,
illuminating like a flare of summer lightning the
patch of highway and the rider. Valiant, staring,
had an instant's vision of a streaming cloak, of a
girl's face, set in a tawny swirl of loosened hair.
With a cry that was lost in the shriek of escaping
steam, he dragged his plunging horse around and
the white blaze swept him also, as the rider pulled
down at his side.
" You ! " he cried. He leaned and caught the
slim hands gripped on the bridle, shaking now.
"You!"
The dazzling brightness had gone by, and the air
was full of the groaning of the brakes as the long
line of darkened sleepers shuddered to its enforced
stop. " John ! " He heard the sweet wild cry
pierce through the jumble of noises, and something
in it set his blood running molten through his veins.
It held an agony of relief, of shame and of appeal.
"John . . . John!"
And knowing suddenly, though not how or why,
that all barriers were swept away, his arms went
out and around her, and in the shadow of the lonely
430 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
little station, they two, in their saddles, clung and
swayed together with clasping hands and broken
words, while the train, breathing heavily for a re
sentful second, shrieked itself away into the night,
and left only the fragrance from the misty fields,
the crowding silence and the sprinkling stars.
The breeze had risen and was blowing the mist
away as they went back along the road. A faint
light was lifting, forerunner of the moon. They
rode side by side, and to the slow gait of the horses,
touching noses in low whinnyings of equine com
radeship, by the faint glamour they gazed into each
other's faces. The adorable tweedy roughness of
his shoulder thrilled her cheek.
". . . And you were going away. Yes, yes, I
know. It was my fault. I ... misunderstood.
Forgive me ! "
He kissed her hand. " As if there were anything
to forgive T Do you remember in the woods, sweet
heart, the day it rained? What a brute I was
to fight so ! And all the time I wanted to take you
in my arms like a little hurt child. . . ."
She turned toward him. " Oh, I wanted you to
fight! Even though it was no use. I had given
up, but your strength comforted me. To have you
surrender, too "
" It was your face in the churchyard," he told
THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE 431
her. " How pale and worn you looked ! It came
to me then for the first time how horribly selfish
it would be to stay how much easier going would
make it for you."
". . . And to think that it was Mad Anthony
Did the clock really strike thirteen, do you think?
Or did I fancy it?"
" Why question it ? " he said. " I believe in mys
teries. The greatest mystery of all is that you
should love me. I doubt no miracle hereafter.
Dearest, dearest ! "
At the entrance of the cherry lane, he fastened
his horse to the hedge, and noiselessly let down the
pasture-bars for her golden chestnut. When he
came back to where she stood waiting on the edge
of the lawn, the late moon, golden- vestured, was
just showing above the rim of the hills, painting
the deep soft blueness of the Virginian night with
a translucence as pure as prayer. Above the fallen
hood of her cloak her hair shone like a nimbus, and
the loveliness of her face made him catch his
breath for the wonder fulness of it.
As they stood heavened in each other's arms,
heart beating against heart, and the whole world
throbbing to joy, the nightingale beyond the arbors
began to bubble and thrill its unimaginable melody.
It came to them like the voice of the magical rose-
432 THE VALIANTS OF VIRGINIA
scented night itself, set to the wordless music of the
silver leaves. It rose and swelled exultant to break
and die in a cascade of golden notes.
But in their hearts was the song that is fadeless,
immortal
THE END
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