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

brought him word that he must forthwith be on his way to Albemarle. He had asked my father if he cared to sell the black horse, Satan, to which he had taken a fancy, but this had been declined. Then it seems there had come up something of our late meeting at the village, and Orme, laughing, had told of our horse breaking and wrestling in a way which it seemed had not detracted from my standing in my parents' eyes. None of us three was willing to criticise our guest, yet I doubt if any one of us failed to entertain a certain wonder, not to say suspicion, regarding him. At least he was gone.

Our talk now gradually resolved itself to one on business matters. I ought to have said that my father was an ambitious man and one of wide plans. I think that even then he foresaw the day when the half-patriarchial life of our State would pass away before one of wider horizons of commercial sort. He was anxious to hand down his family fortune much increased, and foreseeing troublous times ahead as to the institution of slavery in the South, he had of late been taking large risks to assure success in spite of any change of times. Now, moved by some strange reasons which he himself perhaps did not recognize, he began for the first time, contrary to his usual reticence, to explain to my mother and me something of these matters. He told us that in connection with his friend, Colonel William Meriwether, of Albemarle, he had invested heavily in coal lands in the western part of the State, in what is now West Virginia. This requiring very large sums of money, he for his part had encumbered not only the lands themselves, but these lands of Cowles' Farms to secure the payment. The holder of these mortgages was a banking firm in Fredericksburg. The interest was one which in these times would be considered a cruel one, and indeed the whole enterprise was one which required a sanguine courage, precisely as his; for I have said that risk he always held as challenge and invitation.

"Does thee think that in these times thee should go so deeply in debt," asked my mother of him.

"Elizabeth," he said, "that is why I have gone in debt. Two years from now, and the value of these lands here may have been cut in half. Ten years from now the coal lands yonder will be worth ten times what they are to-day."

"John," she said to him suddenly, "sell those coal lands, or a part of them."

"Now, that I could not do," he answered, "for half their value. The country now is fuller of war than of investment. But come peace, come war, there lies a fortune for us all. For my share there remains but one heavy payment; and to-morrow I ride to raise funds for that among our tenants and elsewhere. I admit that my bankers are shrewd and severe—in fact, I think they would rather see the payments forfeited than not. As Meriwether is away, it is with me to attend to this business now."

And so, with this prelude, I may as well tell without more delay what evil fortune was in store for us.

That coming day my father rode abroad as he had planned, taking black Satan for his mount, since he needed to travel far. He had collected from various sources, as his account book later showed, a sum of over five thousand dollars, which he must have had in gold and negotiable papers in his saddle-bags. During his return home, he came down the deep trough road which ran in front of the Sheraton farms and ours. He passed near to a certain clump of bushes at the roadside. And there that happened which brought to a sudden end all the peace and comfort of our lives, and which made me old before my time.

I heard the horse Satan whinny at our lane gate, wildly, as though in fright; and even as I went out my heart stopped with sudden fear. He had leaped the gate at the lower end of the lane. His bridle rein was broken, and caught at his feet as he moved about, throwing up his head in fright as much as viciousness. I hastily looked at the saddle, but it bore no mark of anything unusual. Not pausing to look farther, I caught the broken reins in my hand, and sprung into the saddle, spurring the horse down the lane and over the gate again, and back up the road which I knew my father must have taken.

There, at the side of the road, near the clump of blackberry vines and sumac growth, lay my father, a long dark blot, motionless, awesome, as I could see by the light of the moon, now just rising in a gap of the distant mountains. I sprang down and ran to him, lifted his head, called to him in a voice so hoarse I did not recognize it. I told him that it was his son had come to him, and that he must speak. So at last, as though by sheer will he had held on to this time, he turned his gray face toward me, and as a dead man, spoke.

"Tell your mother," he said; "Tell Meriwether—must protect—good-by."

Then he said "Lizzie!" and opened wide his arms.

Presently he said, "Jack, lay my head down, please." I did so. He was dead, there in the moon.

I straightened him, and put my coat across his face, and spurred back down the road again and over the gate. But my mother already knew. She met me at the hall, and her face was white.

"Jack," she said, "I know!"

Then the servants came, and we brought him home, and laid him in his own great room, as the master of the house should lie when the end comes, and arrayed him like the gentleman he was.

Now came that old wire-hair, Doctor Bond, his mane standing stiff and gray over a gray face, down which tears rolled the first time known of any man. He sent my mother away and called me to him. And then he told me that in my father's back were three or four pierced wounds, no doubt received from the sharp stubs of underbrushes when he fell. But this, he said, could hardly have been the cause of death. He admitted that the matter seemed mysterious to him.

Up to this time we had not thought of the cause of this disaster, nor pondered upon motives, were it worse than accident. Now we began to think. Doctor Bond felt in the pockets of my father's coat; and so for the first time we found his account book and his wallets. Doctor Bond and I at once went out and searched the saddle pockets my father had carried. They were quite empty.

All this, of course, proved nothing to us. The most that we could argue was that the horse in some way had thrown his rider, and that the fall had proved fatal; and that perhaps some wandering negro had committed the theft. These conclusions were the next day bad for the horse Satan, whom I whipped and spurred, and rode till he trembled, meting out to him what had been given old Klingwalla, his sire, for another murdering deed like this. In my brutal rage I hated all the world. Like the savage I was, I must be avenged on something. I could not believe that my father was gone, the man who had been my model, my friend, my companion all my life.

But in time we laid him away in the sunny little graveyard of the Society of Friends, back of the little stone church at Wallingford. We put a small, narrow, rough little slab of sandstone at his head, and cut into it his name and the dates of his birth and death; this being all that the simple manners of the Society of Friends thought fit. "His temple is in my heart," said my mother; and from that day to her death she offered tribute to him.

Thus, I say, it was that I changed from a boy into a man. But not the man my father had been. Life and business matters had hitherto been much a sealed book for me. I was seized of consternation when a man came riding over from the little Wallingford bank, asking attention to word from Abrams & Halliday, bankers of Fredericksburg. I understood vaguely of notes overdue, and somewhat of mortgages on our lands, our house, our crops. I explained our present troubles and confusion; but the messenger shook his head with a coldness on his face I had not been accustomed to see worn by any at Cowles' Farms. Sweat stood on my face when I saw that we owed over fifteen thousand dollars—a large sum in those simple days—and that more would presently follow, remainder of a purchase price of over a hundred thousand dollars for lands I had never seen. I looked about me at the great house of Cowles' Farms, and a coldness came upon my heart as I realized for the first time that perhaps this home was not ours, but another's. Anger again possessed me at this thought, and with small adieu I ordered the man from the place, and told him I would horsewhip him if he lingered but a moment. Then, too late, I thought of more business-like action, and of following the advice my father had given me, at once to see his associate, Colonel Meriwether. Thereafter I consulted my mother.

In the chaotic state of affairs then existing, with the excitement of a turbulent election approaching, it may be supposed that all commercial matters were much unsettled. None knew what might be the condition of the country after the fall elections; but all agreed that now was no time to advance money upon any sort of credit. As to further pledges, with a view to raising these sums now due, I found the matter hopeless.

Colonel Sheraton might, perhaps, have aided us, but him I would not ask. Before this time I had acquainted him of my intentions in regard to his daughter; and now I went to him and placed the matter before him, explaining to him the nature of our affairs and announcing my intention to make a quick journey to the West, in order to obtain assistance from Colonel Meriwether, of whom I hoped to find instant solution of the financial problems, at least. It seemed wise for me to place before Miss Grace's father the question of advisability of allowing her to remain pledged to a man whose fortunes were in so sad a state. I asked him what was right for me to do. His face was very grave as he pondered, but he said, "If my girl's word has been passed, we will wait. We will wait, sir." And that was all I knew when I made my hurried preparations for the longest journey I had at that time ever known.