The Way of a Man - Emerson Hough (most read books of all time txt) 📗

I had enough to do when it came to mounting my horse Satan. Few cared to ride Satan, since it meant a battle each time he was mounted. He was a splendid brute, black and clean, with abundant bone in the head and a brilliant eye—blood all over, that was easy to see. Yet he was a murderer at heart. I have known him to bite the backbone out of a yearling pig that came under his manger, and no other horse on our farm would stand before him a moment when he came on, mouth open and ears laid back. He would fight man, dog, or devil, and fear was not in him, nor any real submission. He was no harder to sit than many horses I have ridden. I have seen Arabians and Barbary horses and English hunters that would buck-jump now and then. Satan contented himself with rearing high and whirling sharply, and lunging with a low head; so that to ride him was a matter of strength as well as skill. The greatest danger was in coming near his mouth or heels. My father always told me that this horse was not fit to ride; but since my father rode him—as he would any horse that offered—nothing would serve me but I must ride Satan also, and so I made him my private saddler on occasion.

I ought to speak of my father, that very brave and kindly gentleman from whom I got what daring I ever had, I suppose. He was a clean-cut man, five-eleven in his stockings, and few men in all that country had a handsomer body. His shoulders sloped—an excellent configuration for strength—as a study of no less a man than George Washington will prove—his arms were round, his skin white as milk, his hair, like my own, a sandy red, and his eyes blue and very quiet. There was a balance in his nature that I have ever lacked. I rejoice even now in his love of justice. Fair play meant with him something more than fair play for the sake of sport—it meant as well fair play for the sake of justice. Temperate to the point of caring always for his body's welfare, as regular in his habits as he was in his promises and their fulfillments, kindling readily enough at any risk, though never boasting—I always admired him, and trust I may be pardoned for saying so. I fear that at the time I mention now I admired him most for his strength and courage.

Thus as I swung leg over Satan that morning I resolved to handle him as I had seen my father do, and I felt strong enough for that. I remembered, in the proud way a boy will have, the time when my father and I, riding through the muddy streets of Leesburg town together, saw a farmer's wagon stuck midway of a crossing. "Come, Jack," my father called me, "we must send Bill Yarnley home to his family." Then we two dismounted, and stooping in the mud got our two shoulders under the axle of the wagon, before we were done with it, our blood getting up at the laughter of the townsfolk. When we heaved together, out came Bill Yarnley's wagon from the mud, and the laughter ended. It was like him—he would not stop when once he started. Why, it was so he married my mother, that very sweet Quakeress from the foot of old Catoctin. He told me she said him no many times, not liking his wild ways, so contrary to the manner of the Society of Friends; and she only consented after binding him to go with her once each week to the little stone church at Wallingford village, near our farm, provided he should be at home and able to attend. My mother I think during her life had not missed a half dozen meetings at the little stone church. Twice a week, and once each Sunday, and once each month, and four times each year, and also annually, the Society of Friends met there at Wallingford, and have done so for over one hundred and thirty-five years. Thither went my mother, quiet, brown-haired, gentle, as good a soul as ever lived, and with her my father, tall, strong as a tree, keeping his promise until at length by sheer force of this kept promise, he himself became half Quaker and all gentle, since he saw what it meant to her.

As I have paused in my horsemanship to speak thus of my father, I ought also to speak of my mother. It was she who in those troublous times just before the Civil War was the first to raise the voice in the Quaker Meeting which said that the Friends ought to free their slaves, law or no law; and so started what was called later the Unionist sentiment in that part of old Virginia. It was my mother did that. Then she asked my father to manumit all his slaves; and he thought for an hour, and then raised his head and said it should be done; after which the servants lived on as before, and gave less in return, at which my father made wry faces, but said nothing in regret. After us others also set free their people, and presently this part of Virginia was a sort of Mecca for escaped blacks. It was my mother did that; and I believe that it was her influence which had much to do with the position of East Virginia on the question of the war. And this also in time had much to do with this strange story of mine, and much to do with the presence thereabout of the man whom I was to meet that very morning; although when I started to mount my horse Satan I did not know that such a man as Gordon Orme existed in the world.

When I approached Satan he lunged at me, but I caught him by the cheek strap of the bridle and swung his head close up, feeling for the saddle front as he reached for me with open mouth. Then as he reared I swung up with him into place, and so felt safe, for once I clamped a horse fair there was an end of his throwing me. I laughed when Miss Grace Sheraton called out in alarm, and so wheeled Satan around a few times and rode on down the road, past the fields where the blacks were busy as blacks ever are, and so on to our own red pillared-gates.

Then, since the morning was still young, and since the air seemed to me like wine, and since I wanted something to subdue and Satan offered, I spurred him back from the gate and rode him hard down toward Wallingford. Of course he picked up a stone en route. Two of us held his head while Billings the blacksmith fished out the stone and tapped the shoe nails tight. After that I had time to look around.

As I did so I saw approaching a gentleman who was looking with interest at my mount. He was one of the most striking men I have ever seen, a stranger as I could see, for I knew each family on both sides the Blue Ridge as far up the valley as White Sulphur.

"A grand animal you have there, sir," said he, accosting Me. "I did not know his like existed in this country."

"As well in this as in any country," said I tartly. He smiled at this.

"You know his breeding?"

"Klingwalla out of Bonnie Waters."

"No wonder he's vicious," said the stranger, calmly.

"Ah, you know something of the English strains," said I. He shrugged his shoulders. "As much as that," he commented indifferently.

There was something about him I did not fancy, a sort of condescension, as though he were better than those about him. They say that we Virginians have a way of reserving that right to ourselves; and I suppose that a family of clean strain may perhaps become proud after generations of independence and comfort and freedom from care. None the less I was forced to admit this newcomer to the class of gentlemen. He stood as a gentleman, with no resting or bracing with an arm, or crossing of legs or hitching about, but balanced on his legs easily—like a fencer or boxer or fighting man, or gentleman, in short. His face, as I now perceived, was long and thin, his chin square, although somewhat narrow. His mouth, too, was narrow, and his teeth were narrow, one of the upper teeth at each side like the tooth of a carnivore, longer than its fellows. His hair was thick and close cut to his head, dark, and if the least bit gray about the edges, requiring close scrutiny to prove it so. In color his skin was dark, sunburned beyond tan, almost to parchment dryness. His eyes were gray, the most remarkable eyes that I have ever seen—calm, emotionless, direct, the most fearless eyes I have ever seen in mortal head, and I have looked into many men's eyes in my time. He was taller than most men, I think above the six feet line. His figure was thin, his limbs thin, his hands and feet slender. He did not look one-tenth his strength. He was simply dressed, dressed indeed as a gentleman. He stood as one, spoke as one, and assumed that all the world accepted him as one. His voice was warmer in accent than even our Virginia speech. I saw him to be an Englishman.

"He is a bit nasty, that one"; he nodded his head toward Satan.

I grinned. "I know of only two men in Fairfax County I'd back to ride him."

"Yourself and—"

"My father."

"By Jove! How old is your father, my good fellow?"

"Sixty, my good fellow," I replied. He laughed.

"Well," said he, "there's a third in Fairfax can ride him."

"Meaning yourself?"

He nodded carelessly. I did not share his confidence. "He's not a saddler in any sense," said I. "We keep him for the farms."

"Oh, I say, my friend," he rejoined—"my name's Orme, Gordon Orme—I'm just stopping here at the inn for a time, and I'm deucedly bored. I've not had leg over a decent mount since I've been here, and if I might ride this beggar, I'd be awfully obliged."

My jaw may have dropped at his words; I am not sure. It was not that he called our little tavern an "inn." It was the name he gave me which caused me to start.

"Orme," said I, "Mr. Gordon Orme? That was the name of the speaker the other evening here at the church of the Methodists."

He nodded, smiling. "Don't let that trouble you," said he.

None the less it did trouble me; for the truth was that word had gone about to the effect that a new minister from some place not stated had spoken from the pulpit on that evening upon no less a topic than the ever present one of Southern slavery. Now, I could not clear it to my mind how a minister of the gospel might take so keen and swift an interest