Lewis Rand Part 26

On the way I stopped at Bowler's Tavern to see his man about that filly we were talking of, and I had a gla.s.s with old Bowler himself. He let out a piece of news. Who d'ye think is in town and under Bowler's roof?--Aaron Burr!"

There was a silence, then Cary said quietly, "Aren't you mistaken, Fair?"

"Not in the least," answered the other. "He came in a sloop from Baltimore yesterday. It is not known that he's in town; he does not want it known. He's keeping quiet,--perhaps he has another duel on his conscience. I don't believe old Bowler knew he had let the cat out. Burr leaves to-morrow. He was out visiting to-night."

"How do you know that?" Cary demanded, with sudden sharpness.

"Bowler's best bedroom in darkness--no special preparations for supper--Burr's man idling in the kitchen--mine host taking no cake to speak low,--in short, the wedding guest was roaming. I wonder where he was!"

The elder Cary raised and drained the gla.s.s of wine. He knew where Aaron Burr had supped and pa.s.sed the evening, and a coldness that was not of the night crept upon him. As for Lewis Rand, he cared not what he did nor why he did it, but for Jacqueline Churchill. This had been the client from the country! All the time she was keeping it secret that Burr was there. She had turned pale. No wonder!--the faithful wife!

"Take care, that gla.s.s is thin--you'll break it!" warned the younger Cary, but the gla.s.s had snapped in the elder's fingers.

"Pshaw!" said Cary; "too frail for use! I'm off to bed, Fair. That bill comes up to-morrow, and it means a bitter fight. Good-night,--and I say, Fair, hold your tongue about Aaron Burr. Good-night!"

In his room he put out the candle, parted the window curtains, and looked upon Orion, icily splendid in the midnight sky. "What is there that is steadfast?" he thought. "Does she love him so?" He stood for a long time looking out into the night. He thought of that evening at Fontenoy when he had come in from the sultry and thunderous air and had found Rand seated in the drawing-room and Jacqueline at her harp, singing To Althea,--

"Minds innocent and quiet take That for a hermitage."

The words and the vision of Fontenoy that night were yet with him when at last he turned from the window and threw himself upon the bed, where he finally fell asleep with his arm flung up and across his eyes.

CHAPTER XVI

AT LYNCH'S

Rand, walking hastily through the hail of the Capitol, came out into the portico. Before him, between the great pillars, the landscape showed in glittering silver, in the brown of leafless trees and the hard green of pine and fir. The hill fell steep and white to the houses at its base and to the trampled street. In the still and crystal air the river made itself plainly heard. Across, on the Chesterfield side, the woods formed a long smudge of umber against the blue of the afternoon sky.

There were people here in the open air as there had been in the corridor, a number of men talking loudly, or excitedly whispering, or in silence rolling triumph beneath the tongue, or digesting defeat. Rand's progress, here as there, brought a change. The loud talking fell, the whisperers turned, the silent found their voices, and there arose a humming note of recognition and tribute. Rand had carried the Albemarle Resolutions, and that with a high hand. He moved through the crowd, acknowledging with a bend of his head this or that man's salute, frankly smiling upon good friends, and finely unconscious of all enemies, until at the head of the broad steps he came upon Adam Gaudylock seated with his gun beside him, smoking reflectively in the face of the Albemarle Resolutions and the general excitement. At Rand's glance he rose, took up the gun, and slid the pipe into his beaded pouch. The two descended the steps together.

"I am going to Lynch's," said Rand. "The stage will soon be in and I want the news. Well?"

"He's off," answered Gaudylock. "Chaise to Fredericksburg at six this morning. Pitch dark and no one stirring, and he as chipper, fresh, and pleased as a squirrel with a nut! Pshaw! a Creek pappoose could read his trail! He's from New England anyway. I want a Virginian out there!"

They walked on down the white hillside. The hunter, tawny and light of tread, scarce older to the eye, for all his wanderings, than the man beside him, glanced aslant with his sea-blue eyes. "When are you coming, Lewis?"

"Never, I think," said Rand abruptly; then after a moment's silent walking, "They should better clean these paths of snow. Mocket says a brig came in yesterday from the Indies;--attacks on Neutral Trade and great storms at sea. I've a pipe of Madeira on the ocean that I hope will not go astray. I wish that some time you would send me by a wagon coming east antlers of elk for the hall at Roselands."

"Why, certainly!" quoth Gaudylock. "And so you are going to settle down like every other country gentleman,--safe and snug, winter and summer, fenced in by tobacco and looking after negroes? I'll send you the skin of a grizzly, too."

"Thank you," replied Rand; then presently, "I dreamed last night--when at last I got to sleep--of my father. Do you remember how he used to stride along with his black hair and his open shirt and his big stick in his hand? I used to think that stick a part of him--just his arm made long and heavy. I tried once to burn it when he was asleep. Ugh!"

"I dreamed," said Gaudylock imperturbably, "of a Shawnee girl who once wanted me to stay in her father's lodge. 'It is winter in the forest,'

quoth she, 'and the wolves begin to howl. All your talk of places where the river runs through flowers and the pale faces build great villages is the talk of singing birds! Stay by the fire, Golden-tongue!' and I stayed--in the dream.

"When you see a partridge Scurrying through the gra.s.s, Fit an arrow to the bow, For a man will pa.s.s!

"Heigho!"

"I am already," retorted Rand, "at the place where the river runs through flowers and the pale faces have built villages. Who will say that I did not cross the forest?--I was years in crossing it! Here is Lynch's."

The coffee house on Main Street was the resort of lawyers, politicians, and strangers in town, and towards dusk, when the stage and post-rider were in, a crowded and noisy place. It was yet early when Rand and Gaudylock entered, and neither the mail-bag, nor many habitues of the place had arrived. The room was quiet and not over brightly lit by the declining sun and the flare of a great, crackling fire. There were a number of tables and a few shadowy figures sipping chocolate, wine, or punch. Rand led the way to a corner table, and, sitting down with his back to the room, beckoned a negro and ordered wine. "I am tired, voice and mind," he said to Gaudylock, "and I know you well enough to neglect you. Let us sit still till the papers come."

He drank his wine and, with his elbow on the table, rested his forehead upon his hand and closed his eyes. Adam emptied his gla.s.s, then, leaning back in his corner, surveyed the room. Two men came and seated themselves at a neighbouring table. They were talking in lowered voices, but Gaudylock's ears were exceedingly keen. "A great speech!" said one.

"As great as Mr. Henry ever made. Do you remember old Gideon Rand?"

The other shrugged. "Yes; and I remember old Stephen Rand, Gideon's father--a pirate of a man, sullen, cruel, and revengeful! A black stock!"

"The Waynes were not angels either--save by comparison," quoth the first. "All the same it was a great speech."

"I grant you that," said the other. "Black stock or not, we'll see him Governor of Virginia. Curious, isn't it?"

They became aware of their neighbours, glanced uneasily at each other, raised their eyebrows, and changed to a distant table. Rand made no sign of having heard. He put out his hand to the Burgundy, filled his gla.s.s, and drank it slowly, then closed his eyes again. A figure, half buried in the settle by the fire, folded a month-old journal and, rising, displayed in the light from the hickory logs the faded silk stockings, the velvet short-clothes, brocaded coat, and curled wig of M. Achille Pincornet, who taught dancing each winter in Richmond, as in summer he taught it in Albemarle. Mr. Pincornet, snuff-box and handkerchief in hand, looked around him, saw the two at the corner table, and crossed to them. "Mr. Rand, I make you my compliments. I was in the gallery. Ah, eloquence, eloquence!--substance persuasively put! Minerva with the air of Venus! I, too, was eloquent in my day! Pray honour me!"

Rand touched the extended snuff-box with his fingers, muttered an absent word or two, and again sank into revery. Mr. Pincornet, with an affable, "Ah, hunter!" to Gaudylock, pa.s.sed on to greet an entering compatriot, the good Abbe Dubois.

Rand sat still, his head propped upon one hand, the fingers of the other moving upon the board before him, half aimlessly, half deliberately, as though he wrote in a dream. Opposite him rested Adam, placid as an eastern G.o.d. The room began to fill and the murmur of voices to deepen.

"The Red Deer is late," affirmed some one. "d.a.m.ned heavy roads!"

"Then they've sent on a rider!" cried another. "Here's Lynch's man with the bag!"

It being the custom to address letters, papers, and pamphlets to gentlemen at "Lynch's Coffee House," there was now a general movement of interest and expectation. A negro carrying a pair of saddle-bags advanced, obsequious and smiling, to a high desk at one side of the room and placed thereon the news from the outer world The genial Mr Lynch, proprietor of the establishment, took his place behind the desk with due solemnity, and a score of lawyers, merchants, and planters left tobacco, wine, julep, and toddy to press around his temporary throne. Every day at this hour Lynch mounted this height, and he dearly loved the transient importance. Now he solemnly unfastened the bags, drew out a great handful of matter, looked it over, amid laughing clamour, with pursed lips and one raised, deprecating hand, then in a cheerful, wheezing voice began to call out names,--"Major Du Val--Major Baker--Mr.

Allan--Mr. Munford--Mr. Chavallie--Colonel Harvie--Major Gibbon--Dr.

Foushee--Mr. Warrington--Major Willis--Mr. Wickham--Mr. Rand--"

There was a moment's check while Lynch craned his neck. "Mr. Rand's not here, I believe?"

"Lewis Rand,--no!" quoth Mr. Wickham. "What should he do in a mere coffee house with mere earthly newspapers? He's walking somewhere in a laurel garden in the cool of the evening."

Rand's voice came out of the depths of the room that was now just light enough to see the written word. "I am here, Mr. Lynch." He rose and came forward. "Good-afternoon, gentlemen--good-afternoon, Mr. Wickham!"

"Did you hear?" asked Wickham coolly. "Well, it is a laurel garden, you know! Mr. Lynch, let's have candles--"

"Yes, sir," said Mr. Lynch. "Colonel Ambler--Mr. Carrington--Mr.

Rutherfoord--Mr. Page--Mr. Cary--Mr. Fairfax Cary--"

"They are coming later," said a voice.

"Thank you, Mr. Mason--Mr. Carter--Mr. Call--Mr. Cabell--the Abbe Dubois-"

The list went on. Candles were lighted on every table and on the mantel-shelf, though outside the windows the west was yet red. Two negroes brought and tossed into the cavernous fireplace a mighty backlog of hickory. The sound of the fire mingled with the rustle of large thin sheets of paper, the crisp turning of Auroras, National Intelligencers, Alexandria Expositors, Gazettes of the United States, excited journals of an excited time, with softly uttered interjections and running comment, and with now and then a high, clear statement of fact or rumour. At home, the hour's burning question was that of English and Spanish depredation at sea, attack upon neutral ships, confiscation and impressment of American sailors. In Washington, the resolutions of Gregg and Nicholson were under consideration, and all things looked toward the Embargo of a year later. Abroad, the sign in the skies was still Napoleon--Napoleon--Napoleon! Now, at Lynch's, as the crowd increased and the first absorbed perusal of script and print gave way to exchange of news and heated discussion, the room began to ring with voices.

Broken sentences, words, and talismanic phrases danced as thick as motes in a sunbeam. "Non-Importation.... Gregg.... Too wholesale....

Nicholson.... Silk, window-gla.s.s.... Napoleon.... Bra.s.s, playing-cards, books, prints, beer, and ale.... Napoleon.... The Ess.e.x of Salem, the Enoch and Rowena.... Texas--the seizure of Texas. Two millions for the Floridas.... The Death of Pitt.... Napoleon--Austerlitz.... 'Decius' in the Enquirer--that's John Randolph of Roanoke.... 'Aurelius'--that letter of 'Aurelius'--"

Rand, at the corner table, had moved his chair so as to face the room.

Letters and papers were spread before him; he had broken the seal of a thin blue sheet and drawn a candle close to the fine, neat, and pointed writing. The letter interested him, and he apparently took no heed of the rapid disjointed speech around him. But the word "Aurelius" brought a sudden, darting glance, a movement of the lower lip, and a stiffening of the shoulders. Gaudylock, who sat and smoked, supremely indifferent to the display of newspapers, marked the flicker of emotion. "He sees a snake in the gra.s.s," he thought lazily "Who's 'Aurelius'?"