The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 8

"Toffington, Toffington," said Billy, dropping his eye-gla.s.ses with a movement of his eyebrows. He had listened to the story without the slightest comment. "No, Tom, unless he is one of those upper county men. There was a fellow I met in London last year--" (Billy p.r.o.nounced it "larst yarh," to Oliver's infinite amus.e.m.e.nt) "with some such name as that. He and I went over to Kew Gardens with the Duke of--."

Gunning instantly turned around with an impatient gesture--n.o.body ever listened to one of Billy's London stories, they being the never-ending jokes around Kennedy Square--faced the General again, much to Oliver's regret, who would have loved above all things to hear Billy descant on his English experiences.

"Do you, General, know anybody named Toffington?" asked Tom.

"No, Gunning--but here comes Clayton, he knows everybody in the State that is worth knowing. What you have told me is most extraordinary--most extraordinary, Gunning. It only goes to show how necessary it is for every man to be prepared for emergencies of this kind. You should never go unarmed, sir. You had a very narrow escape--a very narrow escape, Gunning. Here, Clayton--come over here."

Oliver pulled his face into long lines. The picture of Gunning taking a drink with a man who a moment before had tried to blow the top of his head off, and the serious way in which the coterie about the table regarded the incident, so excited the boy's risibles that he would have laughed outright had not his eye rested on the Colonel walking toward him.

The Colonel, evidently, did not hear McTavish's call. His mind was occupied with something much more important. He had been finishing a game of whist upstairs, and the mahogany-colored Cerberus had not dared to disturb him until the hand was played out. The fact that young Oliver Horn had called to see him at such an hour and in such a place had greatly disturbed him. He felt sure that something out of the ordinary had happened.

"My dear boy," he cried, as Oliver rose to meet him, "I have this instant heard you were here, or I never should have kept you waiting a moment. Nothing serious--nothing at home?"

"Oh, no, Colonel. Only a word from mother, sir. I missed you at the bank and Mr. Stiger thought that I might better come here," and he delivered his mother's message in a low voice and resumed his seat again.

The Colonel, now that his mind was at rest, dropped into a chair, stroked his goatee with his thumb and forefinger, and ran over in his mind the sum of his engagements.

"Tell your dear mother," he said, "that I will do myself the honor of calling upon her on my way home late this afternoon. Nothing will give me greater pleasure. Now stay awhile with me and let me order something for you, my boy," and he beckoned to one of the brown-coated servants who had entered the room with a fresh tray for the Gunning table.

"No, thank you, Colonel; I ought not to stop," Oliver replied, in an apologetic way, as he rose from his seat. "I really ought to go back and tell mother," and with a grasp of Clayton's hand and a bow to one or two men in the room who were watching his movements--the Colonel following him to the outer door--Oliver took himself off, as was the duty of one so young and so entirely out of place among a collection of men all so knowing and distinguished.

CHAPTER VI

AMOS COBB'S ADVICE

In full justice to the Chesapeake Club the scribe must admit that such light-weights as Billy Talbot, Torn Gunning, and Carter Thorn did not fairly represent the standing of the organization. Many of the most cultivated and enlightened men about Kennedy Square and the neighboring country enjoyed its privileges; among them not only such men as Richard Horn, Nathan Gill, the Chief-Justice of the State, and those members of the State Legislature whose birth was above reproach, but most of the sporting gentry of the county, as well as many of the more wealthy planters who lived on the Bay and whose houses were opened to their fellow-members when the ducks were flying.

Each man's lineage, occupation, and opinions on the leading topics of the time were as well known to the club as to the man himself. Any new-corner presenting himself for membership was always subjected to the severest scrutiny, and had to be favorably pa.s.sed upon by a large majority of the committee before a sufficient number of votes could be secured for his election.

The only outsider elected for years had been Amos Cobb, of Vermont, the abolitionist, as he was generally called, who invariably wore black broad-cloth and whose clean-shaven face--a marked contrast to the others--with its restless black eyes, strong nose, and firm mouth, was as sharp and hard as the rocks of his native State. His election to full membership of the Chesapeake Club was not due to his wealth and commercial standing--neither of these would have availed him--but to the fact that he had married a daughter of Judge Wharton of Wharton Hall, and had thus, by reason of his alliance with one of the first families of the State, been admitted to all the social privileges of Kennedy Square. This exception in his favor, however, had never crippled Cobb's independence nor stifled his fearlessness in expressing his views on any one of the leading topics of the day. The Vermonter had worked with his hands when a boy on his father's farm, and believed in the dignity of labor and the blessings of self-support. He believed, too, in the freedom of all men, black and white, and looked upon slavery as a crime. He expressed these sentiments openly and unreservedly, and declared that no matter how long he might live South he would never cease to raise his voice against a system which allowed a man--as he put it--"to sit down in the shade and fan himself to sleep while a lot of n.i.g.g.e.rs whose bodies he owned were sweating in a corn-field to help feed and clothe him."

These sentiments, it must be said, did not add to his popularity, although the time had not yet arrived when he would have been thrown into the street for uttering them.

Nathan Gill was a daily visitor. He was just mounting the club steps, his long pen-wiper cloak about his shoulders, as Oliver, after his interview with Colonel Clayton, pa.s.sed down the street on his way back to his mother. Nathan shook hands with the Colonel, and the two entered the main room, and seated themselves at one of the tables.

Billy Talbot, who had moved to the window, and who had been watching Oliver until he disappeared around the corner, dropped his eye-gla.s.s with that peculiar twitch of the upper lip which no one could have imitated, and crossed the room to where Nathan and Colonel Clayton had taken their seats. Waggles, the sc.r.a.p of a Skye terrier, who was never three feet from Billy's heels, instantly crossed with him. After Billy had anch.o.r.ed himself and had a.s.sumed his customary position, with his feet slightly apart, Waggles, as was his habit, slid in and sat down on his haunches between his master's gaiters. There he lifted his fluffy head and gazed about him. The skill with which Mr. Talbot managed his dog was only equalled by the dexterity with which he managed his eye-gla.s.s; he never inadvertently stepped on the one nor unconsciously let slip the other. This caused Mr. Talbot considerable mental strain, but as it was all to which he ever subjected himself he stood the test bravely.

"Who is that young man, Colonel" Billy began, as he bent his head to be sure that Waggles was in position. He had been abroad while Oliver was growing up, and so did not recognize him.

"That's Richard Horn's son," the Colonel said, without raising his eyes from the paper. The Colonel never took Billy seriously.

"And a fine young fellow he is," broke in Nathan, straightening himself proudly.

"Hope he don't take after his father, Gill. By the way, what's that old wisionary doing now?" drawled Billy, throwing back the lapels of his coat, and slapping his checked trousers with his cane. "Larst time you talked to me about him he had some machine with w'eels and horse-shoe magnets, didn't he? He hasn't been in here for some time, so I know he's at work on some tomfoolery or other. Amazing, isn't it, that a man of his blood, with a cellar of the best Madeiwa in the State, should waste his time on such things. Egad! I cawn't understand it." Some of Billy's expressions, as well as his accent, came in with his clothes.

"Now, if I had that Madeiwa, do you know what I'd do with it? I'd--"

"Perfectly, Billy," cried a man at the next table, who was bending over a game of chess. "You'd drink it up in a week." Talbot had never been known by any other name than Billy, and never would be as long as he lived.

When the laugh had subsided, Nathan, whose cheeks were still burning at the slighting way in which Billy Talbot had spoken of Richard, and who had sat hunched up in his chair combing the white hair farther over his ears with his long, spare fingers, a habit with him when he was in deep thought, lifted his head and remarked, quietly, addressing the room rather than Talbot:

"Richard's mind is not on his cellar; he's got something to think of besides Madeira and cards and dogs." And he looked toward Waggles. "You will all, one day, be proud to say that he lived in our town. Richard is a genius, one of the most remarkable men of the day, and everybody outside of this place knows it; you will be compelled to admit it yet.

I left him only half an hour ago, and he is just perfecting a motor, gentlemen, which will--"

"Does it go yet, Nathan?" interrupted Cobb, who was filling a gla.s.s from a decanter which a brown-coated darky had brought him. Cobb's wife was Nathan's cousin, and, therefore, he had a right to be familiar. "I went to see his machine the other day, but I couldn't make anything out of it. Horn is a little touched here, isn't he?" and he tapped his forehead and smiled knowingly.

"No, Amos, the motor was not running when I left the shop," answered Nathan, dryly and with some dignity, "but it will be, he a.s.sured me, perhaps by to-morrow." He could fight Billy Talbot, but he never crossed swords with Cobb, never in late years. Cobb was the one man in all the world, he once told Richard, with whom he had nothing in common.

"Oh, to-morrow?" And Cobb whistled as he put down the decanter and picked up the day's paper. It was one of Cobb's jokes--this "to-morrow"

of his neighbors. "What was a Northern man's to-day was always a Southern man's to-morrow," he would say. "I hope this young man of whom you speak so highly is not walking in the footsteps of this genius of a father? He looks to me like a young fellow that had some stuff in him if anybody would bring it out."

The half-concealed sneer in Cobb's voice grated also on old Judge Bowman, who threw down his book and looked up over his bowed spectacles. He was a testy old fellow, with a Burgundy face and s.h.a.ggy white hair, a chin and nose that met together like a parrot's, and an eye like a hawk. It was one of his principles to permit none of his intimates to speak ill of his friends in his hearing. Criticisms, therefore, by an outsider like Cobb were especially obnoxious to him.

"Richard Horn's head is all right, Mr. Cobb, and so is his heart," he exclaimed in an indignant tone. "As for his genius, sir--Gill is within the mark. He IS one of the remarkable men of our day. You are quite right, too, about his young son, who has just left here. He has all the qualities that go to make a gentleman, and many of those which will make a jurist. He is now studying law with my a.s.sociate, Judge Ellicott--a profession enn.o.bled by his ancestors, sir, and one, for which what you call his 'stuff,' but which we, sir, call his 'blood,'

especially fits him. You Northern men, I know, don't believe in blood.

We do down here. This young man comes of a line of ancestors that have reflected great credit on our State for more than a hundred years, and he is bound to make his mark. His grandfather on his mother's side was our Chief Justice in 1810, and his great-grandfather was--"

"That's just what's the matter with most of you Southerners, Judge,"

interrupted Cobb, his black eyes snapping. "You think more of blood than you do of brains. We rate a man on Northern soil by what he does himself, not what a bundle of bones in some family burying-ground did for him before he was born. Don't you agree with me, Clayton?"

"I can't say I do, Cobb," replied the Colonel, slowly, stirring his toddy. "I never set foot on your soil but once, and so am unfamiliar with your ways." He never liked Cobb. "He's so cursedly practical, and so proud of it, too," he would often say; "and if you will pardon me, sir--a trifle underbred."

"When was that?" asked Cobb, looking over the top of his paper.

"That was some years ago, when I chased a wounded canvas-back across the Susquehanna River, and had to go ash.o.r.e to get him; and I want to tell you, sir, that what you call 'your soil' was d.a.m.ned disagreeable muck. I had to change my boots when I got back to my home, and I've never worn them since." And the Colonel crushed the sugar in his gla.s.s with his spoon as savagely as if each lump were the head of an enemy, and raised the mixture to his mouth.

Amos's thin lips curled. The high and lofty airs of these patricians always exasperated him. The shout of laughter that followed the Colonel's reply brought the color to his cheeks.

"Chased him like a runaway n.i.g.g.e.r, I suppose, Clayton, didn't you? and wrung his neck when you got him--" retorted Amos, biting his lips.

"Of course, like I would any other piece of my property that tried to get away, or as I would wring the neck of any man who would help him--"

And the Colonel looked meaningly at the Vermonter and drained his gla.s.s with a gulp. Then smothering his anger, he moved away to the window, where he watched Mr. Talbot, who had just left the club and who at the moment was standing on the corner making his daily afternoon inspection of the two connecting streets; an occupation which Billy varied by saluting each new-corner with a slap of his cane on his checker-board trousers and a stentorian "Bah Jove!" Waggles meanwhile squatting pensively between his gaiters.

When an hour later the Colonel presented himself at the Horn mansion, no trace of this encounter with Cobb was in his face nor in his manner.

Men did not air their grievances in their own nor anyone's else home around Kennedy Square.

Mrs. Horn met him with her hand extended. She had been watching for Oliver's return with a degree of impatience rarely seen in her. She had hoped that the Colonel would have called upon her before he went to his office, and could not understand his delay until Oliver had given his account of the morning mishaps. She was too anxious now to chide him.

It was but another indication of his temperament, she thought--a fault to be corrected with the others that threatened his success in life.

Holding fast to the Colonel's hand she drew him to one of the old haircloth sofas and told him the whole story.

"Do not give the mortgage a thought, my dear Sallie," the Colonel said, In his kindest manner, when she had finished speaking, laying his hand on her wrist. "My only regret is that it should have caused you a moment's uneasiness. I know that our bank has lately been in need of a large sum of money, and this loan, no doubt, was called in by the board. But it will be all right--if not I will provide for it myself."

"No--I do not want that, and Richard, if he knew, would not be willing either. Tell me, please, how this money is loaned," and she turned and looked earnestly into his face. "What papers are pa.s.sed, and who signs them? I have never had anything to do with such matters, and you must explain it all clearly."