Winter Evening Tales Part 11

"Really, dear," says Mrs. Jack Warner, the next day, "how does the professor get along with that foolish, ignorant little wife of his?"

"Get along with her? Why, he couldn't get along without her! She sorts his papers, makes his notes and quotations, answers his letters, copies his ma.n.u.scripts, swears by all he thinks and says and does, through thick and thin, by day and night. It's wonderful, by Jove! I felt spiteful enough to remind her that she had once vowed that nothing on earth should ever induce her to marry a writer."

"What did she say?"

"She turned round in her old saucy manner, and answered, 'Jack Warner, you are as dark as ever. I did not marry the writer, I married _the man_.' Then I said, 'I suppose all this study and reading and writing is your offering toward the advancement of science and social regeneration?'"

"What then?"

"She laughed in a very provoking way, and said, 'Dark again, Jack; _it is a labor of love_.'"

"Well I never!"

"Nor I either."

THE HARVEST OF THE WIND.

CHAPTER I.

"As a city broken down and without walls, so is he that hath no rule over his own spirit."

"My soul! Master Jesus, my soul!

My soul!

Dar's a little thing lays in my heart, An' de more I dig him de better he spring: My soul!

Dar's a little thing lays in my heart An' he sets my soul on fire: My soul!

Master Jesus, my soul! my soul!"

The singer was a negro man, with a very, black but very kindly face; and he was hoeing corn in the rich bottom lands of the San Gabriel river as he chanted his joyful little melody. It was early in the morning, yet he rested on his hoe and looked anxiously toward the cypress swamp on his left hand.

"I'se mighty weary 'bout Ma.s.sa Davie; he'll get himself into trouble ef he stay dar much longer. Ole ma.s.sa might be 'long most any time now." He communed with himself in this strain for about five minutes, and then threw his hoe across his shoulder, and picked a road among the hills of growing corn until he pa.s.sed out of the white dazzling light of the field into the grey-green shadows of the swamp. Threading his way among the still black bayous, he soon came to a little clearing in the cypress.

Here a young man was standing in an att.i.tude of expectancy--a very handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid switching to and fro of his riding-whip. "Plato, she has not come!" He said it reproachfully, as if the negro was to blame.

"I done tole you, Ma.s.sa Davie, dat Miss Lulu neber do noffing ob dat kind; ole ma.s.sa 'ticlarly objects to Miss Lulu seeing you at de present time."

"My father objects to every one I like."

"Ef Ma.s.sa Davie jist 'lieve it, ole ma.s.sa want ebery thing for his good."

"You oversize that statement considerably, Plato. Tell my father, if he asks you, that I am going with Jim Whaley, and give Miss Lulu this letter."

"I done promise ole ma.s.sa neber to gib Miss Lulu any letter or message from you, Ma.s.sa Davie."

In a moment the youth's handsome face was flaming with ungovernable pa.s.sion, and he lifted his riding-whip to strike.

"For de Lord Jesus' sake don't strike, Ma.s.sa Davie! Dese arms done carry you when you was de littlest little chile. Don't strike me!"

"I should be a brute if I did, Plato;" but the blow descended upon the trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force.

Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs chiming to his uneven, crashing tread.

Plato looked sorrowfully after him. "Poor Ma.s.sa Davie! He's got de drefful temper; got it each side ob de house--father and mother, bofe. I hope de good Ma.s.sa above will make 'lowances for de young man--got it bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving unselfishness of a prayer in them.

In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio--a daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between father and son, a great gulf.

He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.

But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him; he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary.

He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan architecture--broad pa.s.sages between every room, sweeping from front to rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip trees.

The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere, there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would rise to every occasion.

And so great is the influence of any genuine nature, that David loved his father in a certain fashion. The creed he held was a hard one; but when he called his family and servants together, and unflinchingly taught it, David, even in his worst moods, was impressed with his sincerity and solemnity. There was between them plenty of ground on which they could have stood hand in hand, and learned to love one another; but a pa.s.sionate authority on the one hand, and a pa.s.sionate independence on the other, kept them far apart.

Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house until he chose to humble himself to his father's authority. Then David joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand.

This news greatly distressed James Lorimer. He loved his son better than he was aware of. There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he regarded with positive horror. The drove had left two days when he heard of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake it if he wished to do so. As he sat in the moonlight that night, smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he ought to overtake it. Even if Davie would not return with him, he could tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate, relieve his own conscience of a burden.

Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza. He regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture.

The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice. He was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman must have been a great one to David. He had himself fallen into just such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice.

"Lulu!"

"Yes, uncle."

"Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?"

"Not since you forbid me."

He said no more. He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not have been better than Jim Whaley. In a dim way it struck him that people for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their intentions. It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away. Still over and over came back the question, "What if Lulu's influence would have been sufficient to have kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?"

For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that he might have made a mistake.

The next morning he was early in the saddle. The sky was blue and clear, the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers. The swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge of the prairie--the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did, let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience, all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention.

He rode on at a steady pace, keeping the track very easily, and thinking of Lulu in a persistent way that was annoying to him. Hitherto he had given her very little thought. Half reluctantly he had taken her into his household when she was four years of age, and she had grown up there with almost as little care as the vines which year by year clambered higher over the piazzas. As for her beauty he had thought no more of it than he did of the beauty of the magnolias which sheltered his doorstep.

Mrs. Lorimer had loved her niece, and he had not interfered with the affection. They were both Yturris; it was natural that they should understand one another.

But his son was of a different race, and the inheritor of his own traditions and prejudices. A Scot from his own countryside had recently settled in the neighborhood, and at the Sabbath gathering he had seen and approved his daughter. To marry his son David to Jessie Kennedy appeared to him a most desirable thing, and he had considered its advantages until he could not bear to relinquish the idea. But when both fathers had settled the matter, David had met the question squarely, and declared he would marry no woman but his cousin Lulu. It was on this subject father and son had quarrelled and parted; but for all that, James Lorimer could not see his only son taking a high road to ruin, and not make an effort to save him.

At sundown he rested a little, but the trail was so fresh he determined to ride on. He might reach David while they were camping, and then he could talk matters over with more ease and freedom. Near midnight the great white Texas moon flooded everything with a light wondrously soft, but clear as day, and he easily found Whaley's camp--a ten-acre patch of gra.s.s on the summit of some low hills.

The cattle had all settled for the night, and the "watch" of eight men were slowly riding in a circle around them. Lorimer was immediately challenged; and he gave his name and asked to see the captain. Whaley rose at once, and confronted him with a cool, civil movement of his hand to his hat. Then Lorimer observed the man as he had never done before.

He was evidently not a person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a bowie knife.

"Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer."