The Way of a Man Part 45

"And now, Jack," said my wire-haired old friend to me at last, "when do you ride to Albemarle? There is something in this slip of paper"--he pointed to Orme's last will and confession--"which a certain person ought to see."

"My duties do not permit me to go and come as I like these days," I answered evasively. But Dr. Samuel Bond was a hard man to evade.

"Jack," said he, fumbling in his dusty desk, "here's something _you_ ought to see. I saved it for you, over there, the morning you threw it into the fireplace."

He spread out on the top of the desk a folded bit of hide. Familiar enough it was to me.

"You saved but half," I said. "The other half is gone!"

He pushed a flake of snuff far up his long nose. "Yes," said he quietly.

"I sent it to her some three months ago."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing, you fool. What did you expect?"

"Listen," he went on presently. "Your brain is dull. What say the words of the law? 'This Indenture Witnesseth!' Now what is an 'indenture'? The old Romans and the old English knew. They wrote a contract on parchment, and cut it in two with an indented line, and they gave each party a half. When the court saw that these two halves fitted--as no other portions could--then indeed the indenture witnessed. It was its own proof.

"Now, my son," he concluded savagely, "if you ever dreamed of marrying any other woman, d.a.m.n me if I wouldn't come into court and make this indenture witness for you _both_--for her as well as you! Go on away now, and don't bother me any more."

CHAPTER XLV

ELLEN

Our forces pa.s.sed up the valley of Virginia and rolled through the old Rockfish Gap--where once the Knights of the Golden Horn paused and took possession, in the name of King Charles, of all the land thence to the South Sea. We overspread all the Piedmont Valley and pa.s.sed down to the old town of Charlottesville. It was nearly deserted now. The gay Southern boys who in the past rode there with their negro servants, and set at naught good Thomas Jefferson's intent of simplicity in the narrow little chambers of the old University of Virginia, now were gone with their horses and their servants. To-day you may see their names in bronze on the tablets at the University doors.

I quartered my men about the quiet old place, and myself hunted up an office-room on one of the rambling streets that wandered beneath the trees. I was well toward the finish of my morning's work when I heard the voice of my sentry challenge, and caught an answering word of indignation in a woman's voice. I stepped to the door.

A low, single-seated cart was halted near the curb, and one of its occupants was apparently much angered. I saw heir clutch the long brown rifle barrel which extended out at the rear over the top of the seat.

"You git out'n the road, man," repeated she, "or I'll take a shot at you for luck! We done come this fur, and I reckon we c'n go the rest the way."

That could be no one but old Mandy McGovern! For the sake of amus.e.m.e.nt I should have left her to make her own argument with the guard, had I not in the same glance caught sight of her companion, a trim figure in close fitting corduroy of golden brown, a wide hat of russet straw shading her face, wide gauntlet gloves drawn over her little hands.

Women were not usual within the Army lines. Women such as this were not usual anywhere. It was Ellen!

Her face went rosy red as I hastened to the side of the cart and put down Mandy's arm. She stammered, unable to speak more connectedly than I myself. Mandy could not forget her anger, and insisted that she wanted to see the "boss."

"I am the Colonel in command right here, Aunt Mandy," I said. "Won't I do?"

"You a kunnel?" she retorted. "Looks to me like kunnels is mighty easy made if you'll do. No, we're atter Ginral Meriwether, who's comin' here to be the real boss of all you folks. Say, man, you taken away my man and my boy. Where they at?"

"With me here," I was glad to answer, "safe, and somewhere not far away.

The boy is wounded, but his arm is nearly well."

"Ain't got his bellyful o' fightin' yit?"

"No, both he and Auberry seem to be just beginning."

"Humph! Reackon they're happy, then. If a man's gettin' three squares a day and plenty o' fightin', don't see whut more he kin ask."

"Corporal," I called to my sentry, who was now pacing back and forth before the door, hiding his mouth behind his hand, "put this woman under arrest, and hold her until I return. She's looking for privates Auberry and McGovern, G Company, First Virginia Volunteers. Keep her in my office while they're sent for. Bring me my bag from the table."

It was really a pretty fight, that between Mandy and the corporal. The latter was obliged to call out the guard for aid. "Sick 'em, Pete!"

cried Mandy, when she found her arms pinioned; and at once there darted out from under the cart a hairy little demon of a dog, mute, mongrelish, pink-eared, which began silent havoc with the corporal's legs.

I looked again at that dog. I was ready to take it in my arms and cry out that it was my friend! It was the little Indian dog that Ellen and I had tamed! Why, then, had she kept it, why had she brought it home with her? I doubt which way the contest would have gone, had not Mandy seen me climb into her vacated seat and take up the reins. "Pete" then stolidly took up his place under the cart.

We turned and drove back up the shady street, Ellen and I. I saw her fingers twisting together in her lap, but as yet she had not spoken. The flush on her cheek was deeper now. She beat her hands together softly, confused, half frightened; but she did not beg me to leave her.

"If you could get away," she began at last, "I would ask you to drive me back home. Aunt Mandy and I are living there together. Kitty Stevenson's visiting me--you'll--you'll want to call on Kitty. My father has been in East Kentucky, but I understand he's ordered here this week. Major Stevenson is with him. We thought we might get word, and so came on through the lines."

"You had no right to do so. The pickets should have stopped you," I said. "At the same time, I am very glad they didn't."

"So you are a Colonel," she said after a time, with an Army girl's nice reading of insignia.

"Yes," I answered, "I am an officer. Now if I could only be a gentleman!"

"Don't!" she whispered. "Don't talk in that way, please."

"Do you think I could be?"

"I think you have been," she whispered, all her face rosy now.

We were now near the line of our own pickets on this edge of the town.

Making myself known, I pa.s.sed through and drove out into the country roads, along the edge of the hills, now glorious in their autumn hues.

It was a scene fair as Paradise to me. Presently Ellen pointed to a mansion house on a far off hill--such a house as can be found nowhere in America but in this very valley; an old family seat, lying, reserved and full of dignity, at a hilltop shielded with great oaks. I bethought me again of the cities of peace I had seen on the far horizons of another land than this.

"That is our home," she said. "We have not often been here since grandfather died, and then my mother. But this is the place that we Meriwethers all call home."

Then I saw again what appeal the profession of arms makes to a man--how strong is its fascination. It had taken the master of a home like this from a life like this, and plunged him into the hardships and dangers of frontier war, again into the still more difficult and dangerous conflicts between great armies. Not for months, for years, had he set foot on his own sod--sod like ours in Loudoun, never broken by a plow.

As we approached the gate I heard behind us the sound of galloping horses. There came up the road a mounted officer, with his personal escort, an orderly, several troopers, and a grinning body servant.

"Look--there he comes--it is my father!" exclaimed Ellen; and in a moment she was out of the cart and running down the road to meet him, taking his hand, resting her cheek against his dusty thigh, as he sat in saddle.

The officer saluted me sharply. "You are outside the lines," said he.

"Have you leave?"

I saluted also, and caught the twinkle in his eye as I looked into his face.

"On detached service this morning, General," I said. "If you please, I shall report to you within the hour."

He wheeled his horse and spurred on up along his own grounds, fit master for their stateliness. But he entered, leaving the gate wide open for us to pa.s.s.