The Storm Centre Part 6

with no Old Maid in the pack, and he would solace his spare time with such diversion as it might afford, and look to the drill of his squadrons.

Nevertheless the moisture of the storm was scarcely sun-dried the next afternoon before he was again galloping up the long avenue of the grove and inquiring of old Ja.n.u.s, appropriately playing janitor, if Captain Baynell were within, as he had some special business with him.

As on other occasions there was no glimpse or sound of feminine presence in the halls or on the stairs as he followed the old servant up the softly padded ascent. He fancied the old negro was much disaffected; he had a plaintive, remonstrant submissiveness, and a sort of curious, shadowy, aged look that seemed a concomitant of a sullen reproach. Had they been beyond earshot of the household, Ashley would have bidden the old man out with his grievance, but naught was said, and presently the door of Captain Baynell's bedroom closed upon him.

"Did you know that Tompkins had sent up here and impressed Mrs. Gwynn's horse?"

Baynell had not risen from a seat at an escritoire, where he seemed to have been writing, and Ashley was half across the room and had flung himself into a chair before the fire ere his friend could lay down the pen.

"Yes, I knew it."

"Why--why--how did he know they had the animal in the cellar? He was up here the day before yesterday, and that old darkey told him that the horse had already been pressed into service."

"He must have been put into the cellar earlier. You know we heard the animal there last night."

"Why--why--" Colonel Ashley stammered in his haste--"how did _Tompkins_ know?"

"How?--why, of course I notified him--this morning."

Vertnor Ashley was altogether inarticulate. Baynell replied to the surprise in his face.

"Why--whatever did you think I should do?"

"Hold your tongue, of course!--as I held mine! Why, I thought you were a friend of these people."

Baynell looked at him, surprised in turn. "And so I am."

"And they have been kindness itself to you!"

"But do they expect me to return their kindness by helping them deceive the government, or to hold back supplies the army needs? They are mistaken if they do! It is a matter of conscience!"

"Oh, a _little_ thing like that--" Ashley snapped his fingers--"a lady's horse!"

"It is a matter of conscience!" Baynell reiterated.

"I tell you, my friend, I wouldn't have such a conscience as that in the house! It's a selfish beast--a raging monster! exceedingly deadly to the interests of other folks," Ashley retorted with his bright eyes aglow.

Baynell glanced out of the great window, with its white, embroidered muslin curtains, between which he could see the ranges in the distance, Roanoke in the mid-s.p.a.ces, the white tents of the girdle of encampments on all the hillsides about the little city; at intervals, held in cup-like hollows, were great glittering ponds of water, the acc.u.mulations of the storm, gla.s.sing the clouds like mirrors, and realizing to the eye the geologist's description of the prehistoric days when lakes were here.

A sudden suspicion was in Ashley's mind. His resolution was taken on the instant. "I hope you will advance no objection; but I intend to see Mrs.

Gwynn and Judge Roscoe, and a.s.sure them that _I_ had no part in giving this information to the quartermaster's department."

Baynell looked at him with an indignant retort rising to his lips, then laughed satirically.

"Do you imagine I left _you_ under that imputation?"

"You consider it no imputation, but a duty. Now I don't see my duty in that light. And I prefer to make my position clear to them."

Baynell already had his hand on the bell-cord, and it was with pointed alacrity that he gave the order when old Ephraim appeared--"Please say to Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe that Colonel Ashley and Captain Baynell wish to speak to them a few minutes on a matter of business if they are at leisure."

Uncle Ephraim, in whose soul the misadventure about the horse was rankling deep, surlily a.s.sented, closed the door, and took his way downstairs.

"I recken _you_ kin speak ter dem," he soliloquized,--"mos' ennything kin speak hyar. Who'd 'a' thought dat ar horse, dat Ac'obat, would set out ter talk ter de folks in de lawberry, like no four-footed one hev'

done since de days ob Balaam's a.s.s. But I ain't never hearn dat de a.s.s was fool enough ter got hisse'f pressed inter de Fed'ral army. 'Fore de Lawd, dat horse wish now he had held his tongue an' stayed in de wine-cellar, wid dat good feed, whar I put him."

Once in the library, the traits which so endeared Vertnor Ashley to himself, and eke to others, were amply in evidence. He was gentle, deferential, thoroughly straightforward and frank, albeit he saw the subject was a mortification to Judge Roscoe and abated his sense of his own dignity; still Ashley gave no offence.

"I understand. It was a matter of conscience with Captain Baynell," said Judge Roscoe, seeking to dispose of the question in few words. "I can have no displeasure against a man for obeying the dictates of his own conscience, as every man must."

"Well, I am happy to say I had no conscience in the matter," said Colonel Ashley.

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, with her curt, low, icy tone. "We have indeed fallen on evil times. Captain Baynell has conscience enough to destroy us all, if only he sees fit. And Colonel Ashley, by his own admission, has no conscience at all. Between the two we _must_ come to grief."

"It seems to me a trifle," Ashley persisted smilingly, "brought to my attention accidentally on a hospitable occasion. For aught _I_ knew, you might have a permit, or the horse might have been a condemned animal, unsound, thus escaping the requisition. I had no orders to investigate your domestic affairs, nor to search for animals evading the impress.

The men detailed to that duty are presumed to be capable of discharging it."

"I a.s.sure you we have no feeling on that account--no antagonism--" began Judge Roscoe.

"I desire you to realize that _nothing_ would have induced me to report the presence of the horse here," Ashley interrupted; "though," he added, checking himself, "I do not wish to reflect on Captain Baynell's procedure!"

"He thought himself justified, indeed obligated," interposed Judge Roscoe.

"Of course I greatly regretted the necessity, which seemed forced on me, as I saw the matter," said Baynell.

"I fully appreciate that you take a different view," began Ashley.

"'O give ye good even. Here's a million of manners,'" quoted Mrs. Gwynn, satirically, smiling from one to the other as each sought to press forward his own view, yet to cast no reflections on the probity of the standpoint of the other.

Judge Roscoe laughed. He was an admirer of what he called "understanding in women," and the mere flavor of a Shakespearian collocation of words refreshed his spirit like an oasis in a desert.

Ashley looked at her doubtfully. He wondered that they could forgive Baynell for this gratuitous bit of official tyranny, as it seemed to him, and also the serious loss of the value of the horse. He said to himself that almost any rule is constrained to exceptions. He thought Baynell's course was small-minded, unjustifiable, and an ungrateful requital of hospitality, such as only important interests might warrant.

He did not reckon on the strength of the attachment which Judge Roscoe, despite politics, had formed for his dear friend's son, or for his respect for the coercive force of a man's convictions of the requirements of duty. It was a sort of Brutus-like urgency which appealed to a high sense of probity and which commended itself to the ex-judge, accustomed to deal with subtle differentiations of moral intent as well as intricate principles of sheer law.

As for Mrs. Gwynn--it was sufficient that she had lost the horse. She cared too little for either man as an individual to consider the delicate adjustment of the problem of official integrity involved.

"I surely should have lost every claim to your good opinion if I had glozed it over and pa.s.sed it by for personal reasons," Baynell argued after Ashley had gone.

She looked at him speculatively for an instant, wondering what possible claim he could fancy he possessed to her good opinion.

"If you think impressing a horse is a recommendation, a great many citizens of this town have cause to hold the quartermaster-general in high esteem. A perfect drove of horses pa.s.sed here this afternoon. I looked for Acrobat, but I did not see him."

He was taken aback at this turn. "But you know, of course, it was against my own will--my own preference--the horse--it was a sacrifice on my part!"

"So glad to know it; I thought the sacrifice was mine!"

He shifted the subject.

"Judge Roscoe has kindly given me permission to stable here my own horses,--not belonging to the service,--and to use the pasture, and I hope you will ride one that I think is particularly suitable for a lady.

Judge Roscoe, to show that he bears no malice, is riding another one to Roanoke City this afternoon."