The Purchase Price by Emerson Hough (ebook reader screen .txt) 📕

jail or a fortress. The shrubs, carelessly, and for that reason more attractively planted, also stood here and there over the wide and smooth bluegrass lawn.

The house was built in the edge of a growth of great oaks and elms, which threw their arms out over even the lofty gables as though in protection. Tradition had it that the reason the building had never been completed was that the old master would have been obliged to cut down a favorite elm in order to make room for it; and he had declared that since his wife had died and all his children but one had followed her, the house was large enough as it was. So it stood as he had left it, with its two tall chimneys, one at each end of the mid-body of the house, marking the two great fireplaces, yet another chimney at the other end of the lesser wing.

Straight through the mid-body of the house ran a wide hall, usually left open to all the airs of heaven; and through this one could see far out over the approach, entirely through the house itself, and note the framed picture beyond of woods glowing with foliage, and masses of shrubbery, and lesser trees among which lay the white huts of the negroes. Still to the left, beyond the existing wing, lay the fenced vegetable gardens where grew rankly all manner of provender intended for the bounteous table, whose boast it was that, save for sugar and coffee, nothing was used at Tallwoods which was not grown upon its grounds.

So lived one, and thus indeed lived more than one, baron on American soil not so long ago, when this country was more American than it is to-day—more like the old world in many ways, more like a young world in many others. Here, for thirty years of his life, had lived the present owner of Tallwoods, sole male of the family surviving in these parts.

It might have been called matter of course that Warville Dunwody should be chosen to the state legislature. So chosen, he had, through sheer force of his commanding nature, easily become a leader among men not without strength and individuality. Far up in the northern comer, where the capital of the state lay, men spoke of this place hid somewhere down among the hills of the lower country. Those who in the easier acres of the northwestern prairie lands reared their own corn and swine and cotton, often wondered at the half-wild man from St. Francois, who came riding into the capital on a blooded horse, who was followed by negroes also on blooded horses, a self-contained man who never lacked money, who never lacked wit, whose hand was heavy, whose tongue was keen, whose mind was strong and whose purse was ever open.

The state which had produced a Benton was now building up a rival to Benton. That giant, then rounding out a history of thirty years' continuous service in the Senate of the United States, unlike the men of this weaker day, reserved the right to his own honest and personal political belief. He steadily refused to countenance the extending of slavery, although himself a holder of slaves; and, although he admitted the legality and constitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Act, he deplored that act as much as any. To the eventual day of his defeat he stood, careless of his fate, firm in his own principles, going down in defeat at last because he would not permit his own state legislature—headed then by men such as Warville Dunwody and his friends—to dictate to him the workings of his own conscience. Stronger than Daniel Webster, he was one of those who would not obey the dictates of that leader, and he did set up his "conscience above the law." These two men, Benton and Dunwody, therefore, were at the time of which we write two gladiators upon the scenes of a wild western region, as yet little known in the eastern states, though then swiftly coming forward into more specific notice.

Perhaps thirty or forty slaves were employed about Tallwoods home farm, as it was called. They did their work much as they liked, in a way not grudging for the main part. Idle and shiftless, relying on the frequent absence of the master and the ease of gaining a living, they worked no more than was necessary to keep up a semblance of routine. In some way the acres got plowed and reaped, in some way the meats were cured, in some way the animals were fed and the table was served and the rooms kept in a semi-tidiness, none too scrupulous. Always in Tallwoods there was something at hand ready to eat, and there was fuel whereby fires might be made. Such as it was, the hospitality of the place was ready. It was a rich, loose way of life, and went on lazily and loosely, like the fashion of some roomy old vehicle, not quite run down, but advancing now and then with a groan or a creak at tasks imposed.

But now, another and most important matter for our note—there was no woman's hand at Tallwoods. The care was that of servants, of slaves. When things grew insupportable in their shiftlessness the master lashed out an order and got what he demanded; then soon matters sank back again to their old state. None might tell when the master would ride away, and when gone none could say when he would return. Since the death of his mother no woman's control had ruled here, nor, in spite of the busy tongues at the larger cities above, did there seem likelihood that any would soon share or alter the fortunes of Tallwoods. Rumors floated here and there, tongues wagged; but Tallwoods lay apart; and Tallwoods, as commonly was conceded, had ways of its own.

It was to these remote and somewhat singular surroundings that there approached, on the evening of a bland autumn day, along the winding road which followed the little stream, the great coach of the master of Tallwoods, drawn by four blooded carriage horses, weary, mud-stained and flecked with foam. At the end of the valley, where the road emerged from its, hidden course among the cliffs, the carriage now halted. Dunwody himself sprang down from the driver's seat where he had been riding in order to give the occupants of the coach the more room. He approached the window, hat in hand.

"My dear lady," said he, "this is the end of our journey. Yonder is my home. Will you not look at it?"

It was a pale and languid face which greeted him, the face of a woman weary and even now in tears. Hastily she sought to conceal these evidences of her distress. It was the first time he had seen her weeping. Hitherto her courage had kept her cold and defiant, else hot and full of reproofs. This spectacle gave him concern. His face took on a troubled frown.

"Come now, do not weep, my dear girl,—anything but that."

"What, then, is it you would say?" she demanded. "It makes little difference to me where you are taking me."

He threw open the coach door and extended a hand to aid her in alighting. "Suppose we walk up from here," he said. "I know you are tired by the ride. Besides," he added, with pride, "I want to show you Tallwoods."

Scarce touching his hand, she stepped down. Dunwody motioned to the driver to advance, and in spite of the protests of the maid Jeanne, thus left alone within, the coach rolled on up the driveway ahead of them.

It was in fact a beautiful prospect which lay before the travelers thus arrived. The sun was low in the west, approaching the rim of the hills, and its level rays lighted the autumn foliage, crossed the great trees, brightened the tall white pillars. It even illuminated the grounds beyond, so that quite through the body of the house itself its golden light could be seen on the farther slopes, framing the quaint and singular picture thus set apart. All around rose the wide cup of the valley, its sides as yet covered by unbroken decoration of vivid or parti-colored foliage. Here and there the vivid reds of the wild sumac broke out in riot; framed lower in the scale were patches of berry vines touched by the frost; while now and again a maple lifted aloft a fan of clean scarlet against the sky,—all backed by the more somber colors of the oaks and elms, or the now almost naked branches of the lindens.

These enfolding forests gave a look of protectedness to this secret place. They left a feeling not of discomfort but of shelter. Moreover, the grass underfoot was soft and still green. Some sort of comeliness, picturesque though rude, showed in the scant attempts to modify nature in the arrangement of the grounds. And there, noble and strong, upon a little eminence swelling at the bottom of the valley's cup, lay the great house, rude, unfinished, yet dignified. If it seemed just this side of elegance, yet the look of it savored of comfort. To a woman distracted and wearied it should have offered some sort of rest. To her who now gazed upon it the sight afforded only horror. This then was the place. Here was to be her trial. This was the battle-ground.

Dunwody lingered, hoping to hear some word of satisfaction.

"The hills are beautiful, the trees are beautiful, and the sky," she said, at length. "What God has done here is beautiful. But God Himself is gone."

Rage filled him suddenly. "At any rate, this is what I have and all I have," he said. "Like it, woman, or by that God! hate it! Here you are, and here you stay, until—until I die or until God returns. You are the only woman in it for me when you step into that house there. You are its mistress. I rule here. But what you want shall be yours at any time you want it. You can think of nothing in the world that shall not be brought to you when you ask for it. My servants are yours. Choose from them as many as you like."

"Slaves for your slave? You are full of kindness indeed! But I shall never be what you delicately call the mistress of Tallwoods."

"By the Lord! girl, if I thought that would be true—if I thought for one moment that it were true—" in a half-frenzy he threw out his arm, rigid. An instant later he had lapsed into one of the moods new to him. "There is no punishment I don't deserve," he said. "All the time I have hurt you, when I'd rather cut my tongue out than hurt you. I've seen you, these few days. God knows, at the hardest—me at the worst—you at the worst. But your worst is better than the best of any other woman I ever saw. I'm going to have you. It's you or nothing for me, and I'm going to have you. Choose your own title here, then, Madam. This is your home or your prison, as you like."

For a moment Josephine paused, looking around her at the surrounding hills. He seemed to catch her thought, and smiled at her.

"Twenty miles to the nearest house that way, Madam. None at all that other way. Every path known and guarded by my people. No paths at all in these hills out yonder. Wild animals in them, little food in them for man or woman not used to living wild. You would be helpless in one day, if you tried to get put. We'd find you before you'd gone five miles. Don't attempt any foolishness about trying to escape from here. You're mine, I say. I shall not let you go."

Yet in spite of his savagery, his face softened in the next moment.
"If it could only be in the right way! Look at me, look at you.
You're so very beautiful, I'm so strong. There is only one right
way about it. Oh, woman!

"But come," he resumed with a half sigh, seeking in a rough way to brush back a wisp of hair from his forehead, to join the tangled mane upon