The Broken Sword Part 12

Alice went on and there were fantastic shadows here and there in the primitive landscaping of nature and timid rays of the setting sun were stealing softly through thorn and bush and bough. She found Mary Perkins and her younger sister Gussie at home and she knew that poverty had not destroyed their kindly natures. She told them with sadness her mission and when the little a.s.semblage gathered reverently in the little glebe the next day and the man of G.o.d uncovered his white locks and looked upon the forbidding pall and grave, there was a broken column of white flowers resting over the dead heart of poor Mrs. MacLaren. "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes," is the universal requiem of nature--the proclamation an offended G.o.d uttered when he placed sentinel Cherubim with flaming swords in Paradise to guard its portals. It was the voice of the aged amba.s.sador of Christ this day, when there was no responsive sound to come forth from the dark chamber hidden under the clods of the valley.

Alice returned from the burial in a spirit of resignation, clad in a coat of mail figuratively speaking, strong and riveted in every joint.

"What sore need for the upbuilding of character in this degenerate age; when evil is personified; when courage is so sadly needed," said the girl, "I will try ever so hard to be pure in heart."

She joined her father in the verandah for a few moments, and she saw at a glance that the old man was battling with conflicting emotions.

He said at last very disconsolately, as he stroked her golden tresses.

"I had hoped my darling child to go to my grave in a green old age, but if it please G.o.d to take me and my child I should not murmur. G.o.d knows I am drinking the lees from a cup full of bitterness. The reconstructionists say that they are making treason odious and are scouring the land for distinguished examples."

"Let us not despair, dear father" said Alice as she threw her arms around the old man's neck. "You still own dear old Ingleside. Let us sell what we have and flee ere the whirlwind shall overwhelm us with evil, I will work for you father and we may be happy again some day, somewhere. The good Lord will stay the hands of our oppressors but let us not wait for that, let us go hence as quickly as we can."

"You almost unnerve me my dear child with your eloquence and tears, but that will not do. I--I can clean the rust from my old sword and I am sure it will cut as red a swath now as it did in '63. Our Scotch-Irish blood is thicker than water. Never shall it be said by the craven hearted enemy that John Seymour has ever defiled the proud lineage of his people. Let us dismiss these unhappy thoughts and pray at least for our disenthralment."

Monday came and the shadows began to deepen. The patriarchal oaks and elms were still bowing gracefully each to its vis a vis. There was no cook in the old mansion, no stable boy to feed the horses, and old Jupiter like the old s.e.xton among the graves was groping hither and thither abstractedly, perhaps in quest of memories.

Clarissa the old standby had rebelled, rebelled against the sovereignty that had been too indulgent and too patriarchal perhaps; rebelled against a mistress and a master who condoned every failing of her nature; rebelled against a destiny made up of the comforts of life, without its sacrifices.

You will come back home some fair day Clarissa and there will be tears in your eyes, there will be sorrow in your old black heart, and penitence syllabled upon your tongue. You will come back to tell your dear young mistress something of the delusions that made you swerve from interest and duty and you will see the light of forgiveness in the pretty blue eyes of Alice.

The message came as it were wrapped up in cactus leaves. "Tell Miss Alice dat she needn't speck culled ladies is ergwine to mommick up dey sevs no mo, cooking wittles fur de white trash. Ned is ergwine tu git er organ und hosses und kerridge und she wus ergwine tu split de rode rate wide open er c.u.mmin und ergwine. He's dun und jined de milintery company und sakes er live dat genmen does hab de butifullist feathers and b.u.t.tons und muskit tu be sho!" Poor Alice in her heart "felt like one who treads alone, some banquet hall deserted; whose lights had fled, whose garlands dead and all but her departed."

CHAPTER XI.

THE MAJESTY OF THE LAW.

Another morning came and there was a cook perseveringly tasking herself with a round of slavish duties in the kitchen; but she did not come from Ned's cabin.

Old Jupiter, the pet hound, looked up into her fair face as if to say, "You will not forget me when breakfast is ready will you?" As quietly as possible she went about; there was no rattling of cups and plates, for the new cook said as she came softly out of her chamber "my dear father must not be disturbed this morning." She went resignedly to her toil.

There was a blister or two upon her soft white hands, "but father will kiss the fire out of them when he comes to breakfast; and then we will give thanks to G.o.d for His bounty and in our home it may be that we shall be happy."

As her father entered the room, Alice ran to kiss him, observing that she would not ask for a compliment this morning, as it seemed that Clarissa had communicated her mad spirit to all the appurtenances of the kitchen; the fire would not burn and the kettle had gone off upon a rampage, perhaps as Clarissa's carriage would go when driven upon the corduroy roads of reconstruction; and then again she had prodded her hand unnecessarily with the sharp tines of a fork with which she was marking points in the biscuits.

Her father laughed at her little deficiencies as he relaxed his stern old face to kiss her and said to her approvingly "perhaps you will yet be a CHEF in this responsible department my daughter."

Together they sat down to their meal; together their hearts were uplifted unto Him who had made for them such ample provision.

"And now my daughter," said the colonel smilingly as he was leaving the room "what are your prognostications for to-day. Shall we have peace and rest, or surprises and?" he had not concluded the enquiry when a rude knocking came from the hall door. A frown instantly shadowed the veteran's face. The hour for inquisitorial visits or interruptions was unseasonable, "what could it mean?" he queried.

"Is yo name Semo?" asked a ruffianly negro in uniform, as the old soldier opened the door "It is," replied the colonel restraining his wrath.

"Yu is summuns to kote sar forthwid."

"Why such a requisition, will you please explain," demanded the colonel.

"Don't ax fool questions white man; c.u.m rite erlong, dis heer rit bleeges me to tak yu ded er live."

The colonel went to the stable to saddle Nelly and she was gone, Sweetheart was also gone, and so were the other horses.

He came back with the information; the negro laughed savagely in his face, and told him "dat de milintery company was er drillin in de town und he seed his hosses ergwine to de drill-ground wid de sargent und de corprul und de flagman."

The colonel looked into the face of the negro as he asked despairingly: "How am I to obey the order? I have no way of getting to your court."

"You has got ter go ded er live, I'm er gwine to gib yu one hour to git ter kote und den I'm agwine ter fetch yu wid de possum common taters,"

and the negro gave his horse the whip and cantered away.

Sixty-five years had stiffened the joints of the old man; his muscles and sinews were relaxed and gouty, but the order must be obeyed; no temporizing with the policy of reconstruction, no annulling an order when issued from a court.

The old gentleman halting from sheer weakness ascended the rickety stairway of the court room and he saw the power of the law, its learning, its dignity prost.i.tuted to ign.o.ble purposes.

He saw the power of reconstruction, its ignorance, its venality accentuated to a degree that provoked his abhorrence.

He saw as he entered the house the American flag drooping in graceful folds over the bench, and he felt that judicial authority was reinforced by the strength and dominion that overpowered the South.

A stupid negro as black as the hinges of midnight sat upon the judgment seat; sat there as a representative of the law that had for its substantial underpinning in all the bygone ages, honesty, capacity, prompt.i.tude, justice; sat there under a commission to checkmate evil.

There were but two white men in this revolting presence, beside the veteran, whose face was now marked by fatigue and despair, and who dropped exhausted upon a rude bench.

They were not there from choice but because the law of the bewildered land had brought them there.

Judge Blackstock's black face looked out of a canopy as of carded wool; beetling eyebrows of snowy whiteness would rise and fall automatically like the crest of a kingfisher; the contour of his face was made ridiculously picturesque by great bra.s.s rimmed spectacles that sat reposefully below the bridge of his nose.

A spring tide one day washed him out of a fisherman's hut into the office of a justice of the peace, where he was dipping out of his Dutch nets a larger fry.

The old negro was not vicious or malignant, only ignorant, fanatical and superst.i.tious, with a religious vein that ran in eccentric curves and sharp lines through his stupid nature.

Laflin was his apotheosis, his providence, his inspiration. It was Laflin he believed who had placed in the mid-heavens the great luminary of freedom; who had written upon amaranthine leaves the proclamation of emanc.i.p.ation; and who had erected within his reach the huge commissariat dripping all the while with fatness.

It was to Laflin that he carried his docket every morning to be paragraphed by stars and asterisks against the names of particular offenders; and it was to Laflin that he read the judgments of the court whenever rebels were indicted.

If "Ilderim" the sheik could have seen the old negro with his mace of office presiding in his court he would have recognized his maternal uncle.

The black judge retained his office rather by sufferance than popularity. He was guided by convictions that were illogical and foolish; slavery he believed to have been the whipcords of an offended G.o.d with which he smote his chosen people the negroes hip and thigh.

This man was one of the judges who was caricaturing reconstruction; inditing as it were a pictorial commentary of the law of crimes and misdemeanors in misfitting cartoons.

"Make de pocklermashun, officer" he said to the negro constable as he placed in his right cheek a huge quid of tobacco.

"Oh yes," shouted the constable "dis kote is open fur de suppreshun ob jestis; walk light."

The judge adjusting his spectacles with a judicial temper, read aloud a warrant. "De state agin Edward Sanders."

"Stand up dar prisner; is yu gilty ob dis high depredashun ob de law ur is yu not gilty?"

"Not guilty," replied Mr. Sanders.

"What maks yu say dat white man?" asked his honor.