The Way of a Man Part 33

Finally there came a shuffling footfall and the door was opened, but there stood before me no one that I recognized. It was a smallish, oldish, grayish man who opened the door and smiled in query at me.

"I am John Cowles, sir," I said, hesitating. "Yourself I do not seem to know--"

"My name is Halliday, Mr. Cowles," he replied. A flush of humiliation came to my face.

"I should know you. You were my father's creditor."

"Yes, sir, my firm was the holder of certain obligations at the time of your father's death. You have been gone very long without word to us.

Meantime, pending any action--"

"You have moved in!"

"I have ventured to take possession, Mr. Cowles. That was as your mother wished. She waived all her rights and surrendered everything, said all the debts must be paid--"

"Of course--"

"And all we could prevail upon her to do was to take up her quarters there in one of the little houses."

He pointed with this euphemism toward our old servants' quarters. So there was my mother, a woman gently reared, tenderly cared for all her life, living in a cabin where once slaves had lived. And I had come back to her, to tell a story such as mine!

"I hope," said he, hesitating, "that all these matters may presently be adjusted. But first I ask you to influence your mother to come back into the place and take up her residence."

I smiled slowly. "You hardly understand her," I said. "I doubt if my influence will suffice for that. But I shall meet you again." I was turning away.

"Your mother, I believe, is not here--she went over to Wallingford. I think it is the day when she goes to the little church--"

"Yes, I know. If you will excuse me I shall ride over to see if I can find her." He bowed. Presently I was hurrying down the road again. It seemed to me that I could never tolerate the sight of a stranger as master at Cowles' Farms.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

THE FURROW

I Found her at the churchyard of the old meetinghouse. She was just turning toward the gate in the low sandstone wall which surrounded the burying ground and separated it from the s.p.a.ce immediately about the little stone church. It was a beautiful spot, here where the sun came through the great oaks that had never known an ax, resting upon blue gra.s.s that had never known a plow--a spot virgin as it was before old Lord Fairfax ever claimed it hi his loose ownership. Everything about it spoke of quiet and gentleness.

I knew what it was that she looked upon as she turned back toward that spot--it was one more low mound, simple, unpretentious, added to the many which had been placed there this last century and a half; one more little gray sandstone head-mark, cut simply with the name and dates of him who rested there, last in a long roll of our others. The slight figure in the dove-colored gown looked back lingeringly. It gave a new ache to my heart to see her there.

She did not notice me as I slipped down from my saddle and fastened my horse at the long rack. But when I called she turned and came to me with open arms.

"Jack!" she cried. "My son, how I have missed thee! Now thee has come back to thy mother." She put her forehead on my shoulder, but presently took up a mother's scrutiny. Her hand stroked my hair, my unshaven beard, took in each line of my face.

"Thee has a b.u.t.ton from thy coat," she said, reprovingly. "And what is this scar on thy neck--thee did not tell me when thee wrote, Jack, what ails thee?" She looked at me closely. "Thee is changed. Thee is older--what has come to thee, my son?"

"Come," I said to her at length, and led her toward the steps of the little church.

Then I broke out bitterly and railed against our ill-fortune, and cursed at the man who would allow her to live in servants' quarters--indeed, railed at all of life.

"Thee must learn to subdue thyself, my son," she said. "It is only so that strength comes to us--when we bend the back to the furrow G.o.d sets for us. I am quite content in my little rooms. I have made them very clean; and I have with me a few things of my own--a few, not many."

"But your neighbors, mother, the Sheratons--"

"Oh, certainly, they asked me to live with them. But I was not moved to do that. You see, I know each rose bush and each apple tree on our old place. I did not like to leave them.

"Besides, as to the Sheratons, Jack," she began again--"I do not wish to say one word to hurt thy feelings, but Miss Grace--"

"What about Miss Grace?"

"Mr. Orme, the gentleman who once stopped with us a few days--"

"Oh, Orme! Is he here again? He was all through the West with me--I met him everywhere there. Now I meet him here!"

"He returned last summer, and for most of his time has been living at the Sheratons'. He and Colonel Sheraton agree very well. And he and Miss Grace--I do not like to say these things to thee, my son, but they also seem to agree."

"Go on," I demanded, bitterly.

"Whether Miss Grace's fancy has changed, I do not know, but thy mother ought to tell thee this, so that if she should jilt thee, why, then--"

"Yes," said I, slowly, "it would be hard for me to speak the first word as to a release."

"But if she does not love thee, surely she will speak that word. So then say good-by to her and set about thy business."

I could not at that moment find it in my heart to speak further. We rose and walked down to the street of the little town, and at the tavern barn I secured a conveyance which took us both back to what had once been our home. It was my mother's hands which, at a blackened old fireplace, in a former slave's cabin, prepared what we ate that evening. Then, as the sun sank in a warm glow beyond the old Blue Ridge, and our little valley lay there warm and peaceful as of old, I drew her to the rude porch of the whitewashed cabin, and we looked out, and talked of things which must be mentioned. I told her--told her all my sad and bitter story, from end to end.

"This, then," I concluded, more than an hour after I had begun, "is what I have brought back to you--failure, failure, nothing but failure."

We sat in silence, looking out into the starry night, how long I do not know. Then I heard her pray, openly, as was not the custom of her people. "Lord, this is not my will. Is this Thy will?"

After a time she put her hand upon mine. "My son, now let us reason what is the law. From the law no man may escape. Let us see who is the criminal. And if that be thee, then let my son have his punishment."

I allowed the edge of her gentle words to bite into my soul, but I could not speak.

"But one thing I know," she concluded, "thee is John Cowles, the son of my husband, John; and thee at the last will do what is right, what thy heart says to thee is right."

She kissed me on the cheek and so arose. All that night I felt her prayers.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

HEARTS HYPOTHECATED

The next morning at the proper hour I started for the Sheraton mansion.

This time it was not my old horse Satan that I rode. My mother told me that Satan had been given over under the blanket chattel mortgage, and sold at the town livery stable to some purchaser, whom she did not know, who had taken the horse out of the country. I reflected bitterly upon the changes in my fortunes since the last time I rode this way.