Crestlands Part 12

CHAPTER XVI.

A SINGULAR WILL

Upon reaching Williamsburg, Abner, of course, examined the will of his late granduncle. It was dated May 2, 1782, when Andrew Hite, being dangerously ill, thought death imminent.

Stripped of all legal verbosities, the purport of the doc.u.ment was that the testator bequeathed all of his earthly possessions, consisting of six hundred and forty acres of land in Henderson County, Kentucky; Crestlands, a Virginia estate of some three hundred acres, and all slaves, cattle, horses, goods and chattels pertaining to this estate, to his niece, Mary Belle Hollis Page, youngest child of Andrew Hite's sister, Mary Hite Hollis--"provided," so read the will, "Mary Belle Hollis Page, wife of Marshall Page, is still living at this date, the second day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-two. If, however, said Mary Belle Hollis Page, wife of Marshall Page, is already deceased, I, Andrew Thurston Hite, of Crestlands, Sterling County, Virginia, do give and bequeath all my worldly possessions above mentioned to her legitimate offspring, if any. In case my niece, Mary Belle Hollis Page, be already deceased and has left no legitimate offspring, I give and bequeath all houses, lands, slaves, live stock, goods and chattels of whatsoever nature of which I die possessed to my niece, Sarah Jane Pepper, of Chestnut Hall, Caxton County, Virginia, only child of my half-sister, Sarah Melvina Thornton Pepper, deceased."

Dr. Richard Dudley, of Lawsonville, "husband of Frances Hollis, deceased, sister of Mary Belle Hollis Page," was named as sole executor of this will. A codicil dated twenty years later, June 30, 1802, the very day of Andrew Hite's death, stated that all subsequent wills having been rendered null and void by the death of the testator's adopted son, Stephen Balleau Hite, were destroyed, and that the testator, Andrew Thurston Hite, decreed that the will dated May 2, 1782, should be his last will and testament. This codicil also named Richard Dudley, "late of Lawsonville, now of Williamsburg," as sole executor.

Contrary to his own convictions and the dictum of his physicians, Andrew Hite recovered from his illness in 1782, and five years later adopted a lad, Stephen Balleau, and reared him as his son. This Stephen, grown to manhood, but unmarried, was killed in a duel, four months before the death of his adopted father, then an old man of seventy-six years. After Stephen was killed, Andrew Hite seems to have lost all interest in life, and to have neglected making any provision as to the disposal of his property, until the very day of his death.

Then, instead of making a new will, he on his deathbed, in the presence of his physician, his old body-servant, and a neighbor, simply added the codicil to the will made twenty years before.

"This strange will still holds good, I presume, eccentric though it be," Abner said to Dr. Dudley, after reading the doc.u.ment.

"Certainly," his uncle replied; "for your mother was undoubtedly living at the date specified in the will."

"Yes," Abner said, "that can be established by your testimony, which is corroborated by the inscription on her tombstone at Lawsonville and by the record in your family Bible--both of which give the date of her death as that of August 21, 1782, three months after the will was written."

"And," added the doctor, "even should the will not stand, you, the only child of your mother, are justly ent.i.tled to this bequest; for all that Andrew Hite possessed, save that Kentucky land which he in my presence promised your mother at his death, came through his father, your great-grandfather, Abner Hite; and Sarah Jane Pepper is connected only through her mother, Andrew Hite's half-sister, Sarah Thornton, who was not a descendant of old Abner Hite. Therefore, you need have no uneasiness on the score of either the justness or the validity of your claim; and you should at once take steps to put you in possession of your legacy."

"That I shall certainly do," said Abner; "and I shall do so, not as Abner Dudley, but as Abner Dudley Logan. In fact, Uncle Richard, aside from all question of this bequest, I had already determined to a.s.sume my full name; for, much as I honor you who have been a second father to me, I think it but justice to my own father's memory, now that I have arrived at man's estate, that I should wear his name. You know I wished to do so before I went to Kentucky; but you were so averse to the idea that I yielded for the time, contrary to my convictions of justice to my father's memory and against my own preference. But now I am fully resolved to be known in future by my full name, Abner Dudley Logan."

Dr. Dudley sat silent with downcast eyes, a gloomy, perplexed look upon his face; and his nephew went on:

"Uncle Richard, I wish you would tell me more about my father and about my mother's early life. You have always been singularly reticent on the subject. Why! I was a boy of eleven or twelve before I even knew that my real name was Logan, and then I discovered it by accident; and it was not until I read this will of Uncle Hite's that I learned that my mother had married a second time. The time has now come, I think, when you should tell me all that you know of my father and mother."

"Of your father," said Richard slowly, and, it seemed to Abner, reluctantly, "I know little more than the facts already in your possession. Briefly told, your mother's history is this: Her mother, Mary Hite, married John Hollis, of Plainfield, New Jersey. To this union were born eight children, of whom your Aunt Frances, my first wife, was the eldest, and your mother, the youngest. The six children intervening died in early childhood. Your grandfather, John Hollis, died when your mother was two months old, and his wife survived him but one month. Her half-sister, Sarah Thornton, who had just been married to Jackson Pepper, of Chestnut Hall in northern Virginia--a widower with one son--took your mother to raise as her own child. This Sarah Thornton Pepper died ten years later. She had but one child, Sarah Jane Pepper. Your mother, after her aunt's death, still lived at Chestnut Hall until she was about sixteen. Then she greatly offended Jackson Pepper by refusing to be betrothed to Fletcher Pepper, the son of Jackson's former marriage. Her home was rendered so unpleasant by Jackson Pepper's anger and Fletcher's persistence in his suit, that she went to live at Crestlands with her old bachelor uncle, Andrew Hite, until a few years later--in 1775, I think--when he went with a party of adventurers to Kentucky. He expected to be gone a year, and, before setting forth, he took your mother to Morristown, New Jersey, to find a temporary home with some of her Hollis connections, two maiden ladies, her father's cousins. When, however, Andrew Hite returned to Virginia, he, instead of recalling his niece and settling down with her at Crestlands, joined the Continental army. So your mother continued with her distant relatives at Morristown until the winter of 1776-77. After the battles at Trenton and Princeton, Washington's army, as you know, went into winter quarters at Morristown. In this army was a young soldier, John Logan. He and your mother met and immediately fell in love with each other; and in March, after an acquaintance of only five weeks, they were married. It was an ill-advised, imprudent marriage.

Mary had nothing of her own, nor had John Logan; and, besides, he must necessarily be away from his young wife a great deal, and leave her unprotected and illy provided for while he was encountering the dangers and hardships of a soldier's life. Mary's relatives at Morristown were bitterly offended because of her marriage to a man of whose antecedents she knew nothing, and who was poor, and, still worse, a hated Continental soldier, for they were strong Tory sympathizers. They would have nothing whatever to do with Mary after her marriage. In the spring, when Washington left his winter quarters, Logan, of course, went with the army, and his wife was left alone at Morristown with a poor old couple of whom your father had rented lodgings. After the departure of the troops from Morristown, Logan very rarely could find opportunity to visit his wife, nor could he make adequate provision for her comfort. You were born there in the home of the old couple at Morristown, February 25, 1778. There your mother continued to live until after your father fell in the battle of Monmouth Court-house in June, 1778. Then she made her way with you, her four-months-old babe, back to your Aunt Frances and me. She lived with us until after the death of your Aunt Frances in March, 1781. Then that fall, and about five months before my marriage to Rachel Sneed, your mother was married to Marshall Page, and both she and he died the following August."

"What of this Marshall Page, my stepfather?" asked Abner. "Where was he from? Was he a man calculated to make my mother happy?"

"He was a brave, honest, hard-working fellow," acknowledged Richard, "from Maryland; but he had only a limited education, and had not been gently reared. I was not well pleased with the marriage; and had your Aunt Frances lived, I do not think Mary would have married him. But as I was a widower, and no blood relation to your mother, my house was hardly any longer a suitable refuge for her and her babe. When she and Marshall Page died the following summer, we--my second wife, Rachel, and I--took you as our own. It was your mother's dying request that you should, if possible, be spared all knowledge of her sad history, and be reared as our own child."

"n.o.bly have you and Aunt Rachel tried to fulfill that dying request!"

said the young man in a choked voice and with tears in his eyes, as he arose and threw his arm across his uncle's shoulder.

"And n.o.bly have you repaid our love and care, my boy," the older man answered huskily. "You have given us filial love and obedience, and have never crossed our wishes in anything, except when you persisted in going off to Kentucky, instead of staying here and becoming a lawyer.

But there! there! you were right, I dare say. You had no liking for a legal profession, and that new country across the mountains is a better place than this old, aristocratic State for a young, energetic fellow who has nothing but his native ability and a good education to a.s.sist him forward. So enough of these saddening recollections," he added in a more cheerful tone, rising briskly and crossing the room to a table whereon were scattered various papers. "Now for the business pertaining to this fine fellow, Abner Dudley Logan, as he must be called in future, I suppose, and who has just come into a rich inheritance."

"Of which inheritance," said Abner, joining his uncle at the table and picking up one of the papers, "the most valuable part, I'm inclined to think, will prove to be this Kentucky land. As for this Virginian estate, I fear from what you tell me that I can realize very little from it."

"That is true," agreed Richard. "Owing to the recklessness and prodigality of Stephen Hite, and the neglect and mismanagement of Col.

Andrew Hite during the last ten years of his life, the estate is well-nigh worthless. Besides being heavily mortgaged, the land is worn, and the grand old brick mansion built over a hundred years ago by your great-grandfather, Abner Hite, is sadly out of repair--in fact, is almost in ruins."

"'Lord of Crestlands, an ancestral estate in the proud old dominion of Virginia,' sounds rich and grand," laughed Abner; "but is only as 'sounding bra.s.s and tinkling cymbals,' after all, without money to lift mortgages and to repair the breaches made by the prodigality and carelessness of my predecessors. And, uncle, how about the negroes I am to inherit?" taking up the copy of the will, and reading therefrom, "'I give and bequeath all houses, lands, slaves, live stock, goods and chattels of whatsoever nature of which I die possessed, etc.' How many of these dusky retainers are there remaining in my ancestral halls?"

"Only three," the doctor answered, "out of the troops of slaves which Andrew Hite owned twenty years ago. The others, I find, have been sold from time to time, to pay the gambling debts and for the other vicious habits of the precious Stephen, I presume. And of the three negroes still left, two are old and decrepit, which leaves but one of marketable value. But, Abner, my boy," jokingly added Dr. Dudley, "when you have realized a fortune out of that Henderson County land which you think so valuable, you can use this wealth to lift mortgages and to rebuild this home of your forefathers; so that you will be, after all, 'lord of Crestlands,' the ancestral home of the family."

"That plan doesn't appeal to me," said the young man, stoutly. "For one thing, I do not consider Crestlands as my ancestral estate. My Grandmother Hite lived there only until her marriage, and neither Hollises nor Logans had part or lot in it. No, my ancestral halls shall be of my own rearing," he said promptly. "I intend indeed to be one day known as 'Logan of Crestlands;' but not of that ramshackle old manor house in southeastern Virginia, but of a new Crestlands in that transmontine paradise, Kentucky. Crestlands!" he said musingly. "Yes, I like the name. It has a pleasing sound, and I mean that in its symbolical sense it shall be appropriate; for I intend that life in this home I shall found shall be one of purity, truth, love, and high ideals."

"And from the light in your eyes, and that hopeful, exultant smile, I suspect," said Uncle Richard, "that you have found the fair damsel who is to reign queen of this goodly domain, this new Crestlands. Is it not so?"

"I see visions and dream dreams of such a consummation," acknowledged the young man, flushing warmly; "but at present I am on probation with this lady fair. I shall know my fate when I return in November for her verdict. But, uncle, whatever my hopes in that direction, there's another hope almost equally dear--that my loving foster parents should share my prosperity. Leave this old home which must be lonely to you and Aunt Rachel now that I am gone and your daughters both married and gone from the home nest. You have toiled hard, and have borne the burden and heat of the day, and now in your declining years I would have your life all ease and sunshine. Come to me, and share my new home. I promise you comfort, cheer and happiness. Will you not come?"

"No, my boy," answered his uncle. "'Ephraim is joined to his idols.' I am too old to transplant to a new soil, however vigorous and genial it may be; and your Aunt Rachel would never consent to go so far from her daughters and their children. But some day, when that saucy, black-eyed siren (I'm certain she is saucy and black-eyed) shall have come to reign as mistress of your hearth and home, I'll cross the mountains, old as I am, to spend a few months with you. But all this is far in the future, and we have too much business still to transact before we can hope to get you thoroughly established in your rights, to plan so far ahead."

"As to this Kentucky land, Uncle Richard," said Abner, presently, "when and how did Uncle Hite acquire it?"

"Back in 1775, I believe, when he went out there on that exploring trip. Under the provisions of the 'Henderson grant' made that same year, Andrew Hite purchased, as I see from these papers, a tract of four hundred acres in that part of the Green River valley now known as Henderson County. But, instead of remaining in Kentucky and settling on his land, he returned to this State and joined the army. Now, this 'Henderson grant' was annulled in 1778 by the Virginia a.s.sembly, but the next year, when the war burdens were beginning to press heavily on the country, the a.s.sembly enacted a new land law which, besides arranging for the sale of lands in her western territory, also offered as military bounty tracts of these western lands to her soldiers. So, Hite, then a colonel in the Continental army, applied for and received from the State of Virginia this same land he had purchased under the old Henderson grant, and sixty acres adjoining. His t.i.tle, therefore, was made doubly secure, and he seems to have been little troubled, as so many others were, by rival claimants. He was wounded in the battle of King's Mountain, and after his wound had healed, before rejoining the army, he managed to make another short visit to Kentucky. Upon his return, on his way to join Lafayette at Yorktown just before Cornwallis' surrender, Hite stopped at Lawsonville. It was soon after your Aunt Frances died, and when your mother was on the eve of marrying Marshall Page. After the war, Hite went to France, where he found this waif, Stephen Balleau, and brought him home as his adopted son, a year or so later. That is all I know about Andrew Hite. After that flying visit to Lawsonville I never saw him, nor heard anything more directly of him, until I was notified last May of his death, and asked to be present at the reading of his will.

"This paper shows me," said Abner after a pause, "that Uncle Hite placed the management of his Kentucky affairs in the hands of an attorney, Anson Drane. Now, I know a young lawyer of Lexington named James Anson Drane. It must be the son of this old attorney."

"Yes," said Dr. Dudley, handing his nephew another doc.u.ment, "and from this paper you will find that this son, your James Anson Drane, was employed after the death of the father to act as. .h.i.te's factor. So your first step, when you return, will, of course, be to communicate with this young Drane."

CHAPTER XVII.

AT CANE RIDGE AGAIN

Abner returned to Kentucky early in October. At Pittsburg, on his return journey, he had again fallen in with Judge Sebastian, who intrusted him with a packet containing a sum of money, and with a package of books, requesting him to deliver them to Judge Innes.

Arriving at Lexington, he delivered the money and books, and then went on to Cane Ridge, reaching Mason Rogers' about nightfall.

The next morning he set out for his farm, intending, after he had looked after affairs there, to ride on to Bourbonton to post a letter, as it was the day on which the once-a-week mail-coach pa.s.sed through the village.

Over three months had elapsed since he had seen Betsy Gilcrest; and although he meant to obey her hint and wait until November to renew his suit, he felt that there was no prohibition against his seeing her.

Accordingly, he purposed to return from Bourbonton by way of Oaklands.

On the way to the farm he met James Drane. Abner had not made known to the Rogers family the nature of the business which had called him to Virginia, nor did he now say anything to the lawyer about consulting him professionally; for he had resolved that Betsy should be the first to be told of his good fortune. Drane, after congratulating Abner upon his safe return, and expressing an intention of calling soon to learn the particulars of the visit to Virginia, added that he must now hasten forward, as he had business to transact at Bourbonton. Whereupon, Abner, thinking to save himself a ride to the village, handed him the letter to post, and then went on towards his farm.

As soon as Abner was out of sight, Drane took the letter from his pocket. When he saw its address, Judge Benjamin Sebastian, he uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n of surprise and pleasure. He rode on slowly for a time, in deep thought, then turned and galloped rapidly towards Oaklands. In a field adjoining the road was Hiram Gilcrest, superintending some negroes gathering corn. Drane, riding up to the fence, hailed Gilcrest, who advanced to meet him. Drane then took the letter from his pocket, and, showing its address, said, "You see, Major, my suspicions regarding your neighbor are well founded."

"Has Dudley returned?" asked Gilcrest in some surprise.

"Yes, last evening. He pa.s.sed through Lexington yesterday. While there he doubtless gathered important information from others of the band, and this morning he asked me to post this letter, which, of course, transmits this information to Sebastian."

After some further conversation, Drane exacted a pledge from Gilcrest of absolute secrecy in regard to the letter, and, declining an invitation to dine at Oaklands, rode away.

Much to Abner's chagrin, he found, on arriving at Oaklands an hour after the interview between Drane and Gilcrest, that Betsy was on a visit to her friend, Mary Winston, who lived near Lexington. Mrs.

Gilcrest, however, was unusually animated, and evinced great interest in his recent journey, and questioned him about people and places, changes and fashions in Virginia. Yet Abner could not but notice the lack of cordiality in Major Gilcrest. Thinking this due to recollection of the discussion just before the trip to Virginia, Abner tried to avoid all topics even remotely approaching church matters. He described his visit to Blennerha.s.sett Island. Gilcrest, becoming interested, melted perceptibly, for a time; but when the young man, in the course of his narrative, mentioned the names of his two traveling companions from Lexington to Blennerha.s.sett Island, Gilcrest's manner not only lost its lately recovered geniality, but became harder and more frigid than ever.

After striving vainly to bring his host back to a more pleasant mood, Abner felt that he could not, in the face of Gilcrest's increasing sternness and coldness, prolong the visit. Although it was raining heavily, he declined Mrs. Gilcrest's timid invitation to remain to dinner, and left a little before noon. As he rode home through the rain he thought over every trifling incident of his hour at Oaklands. He recalled every topic of conversation, without finding a clue to the enigma. "He's harking back to my old transgression in upholding Stone,"

was his conclusion. "Interest in the account of my journey did for a time beguile him into forgetfulness of my offense, but his mind at last reverted to it; hence his return to the Frigid Zone. It was a regular freeze-out toward the end. If he were not Betty's father, I'd have nothing more to do with him. But what a fool I was to discuss theological matters with him in the first place! After all, this church trouble is no affair of mine, and Stone did not need my advocacy; he's quite able, single-handed, to play St. George to the dragon of sectarianism that trails its length through this region. A pretty time I'll have now, trying to reinstate myself in the old gentleman's good graces! I hope to heaven something will happen to call him out of the way the first of November; for see Betty then I will, no matter what happens."