The Law of the Land by Emerson Hough (the reader ebook .TXT) 📕
The forest, the deep, vast forest of oak and ash and gum and ghostlysycamore; the forest, tangled with a thousand binding vines andbriers, wattled and laced with rank blue cane--sure proof of a soilexhaustlessly rich--this ancient forest still stood, mysterious andforbidding, all about the edges of the great plantation. Here andthere a tall white stump, fire-blackened at its foot, stood, even infields long cultivated, showing how laborious and slow had been thewhittling away of this jungle, which even now continually encroachedand claimed its own. The rim of the woods, marked white by thedeadened trees where the axes of the laborers were reclaiming yetother acres as the years rolled by, now showed in the morning sundistinctly, making a frame for the rich and restful picture of theBig House and it
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Miss Lady was now fully worthy to be called beautiful. She rarely rode otherwise than bare-headed, and the high-rolled masses of her hair had grown tawnier and redder for that reason. Her figure gave perfect lines to the scarlet jacket which so well became her. Her gauntlets fitted well the small, firm hands, and her foot was ever well-shod. Ah, indeed, in those days, when Miss Lady for the time forgot her past unhappiness, almost at times ceased to wonder what lay out beyond the forest, almost resigned herself to the mere happiness of a glorious young womanhood—she did indeed seem well-named as Lady, thoroughbred, titled as by right. Her eyes were wide and trustful, her lips high-curved, her cheeks pink with the rush of the air when Cherry galloped hard; her head was high, her gaze direct. And if, now and again, when the train had departed, Miss Lady, having come swiftly, she knew not why, rode back again slowly, she knew not why; if at times her eyes grew pensive as she listened to the mockers gurgling in the dogwood or on the honeysuckle, her spirits rose again, and her face was sure to brighten when she came near to the house and hurried Cherry up to the mounting block. She was the high-light in all the picture, unconsciously first in the gaze and thought of all. No woman ever was more worshiped; no, nor was ever one more fit for worship. Again, as old Jules once had said, she had become a religion!
One morning Miss Lady, her hair in its usual riot of tawny brown, her face flushed, her lips laughing as she urged Cherry’s nose up to the car side, was met by the conductor at the step, who called out to her gaily, “Company to-day.” Miss Lady did not fully understand, and so waited, looking excellently well turned out in the bright jacket and the dainty gloves which lay on Cherry’s tugging rein, as she sat easily, with the grace of a born horsewoman. And so, before she understood this speech, the train passed on; and as it passed it showed to these newly arrived passengers upon the platform this picture of Miss Lady, one not easily to be surpassed in any land, fit long to linger in any eye.
It was John Eddring who now gazed at this picture, and who felt rise to his lips the swift salutation of his soul, tenderer than ever now in its instantaneous homage. He had not dreamed that she could grow so beautiful. He had not known that love could mean so much—that it could mean more than everything—that it could outweigh every human interest and every human resolve! His heart, long suppressed by an iron determination; his whole nature, gone a-hunger in the long fight for success, now at once rebelled and broke all shackles in one swift instant of its mutiny. He knew now how unjust he had been to himself, for that he had worked and had not lived. The years broke from him, and he was young. For with him youth had not been lost, but set aside, unspent. Now it came to him all at once—the red riot of youth and love. It must have shone in his eyes, must have trembled in his touch, as he hurried over the rails at which Cherry’s dainty forefeet now were pausing, and reached up his arms to her, murmuring he knew not what.
He helped her dismount, and caught then her gaze directed behind him. John Eddring had forgotten that his mother was with him. She came forward now, reaching out her hand, then reaching out her arms.
“Child,” said the white-haired old lady, “I’ve heard it all, all your strange story. My son has come to tell you that you have succeeded at last. Your case is won!”
She touched Miss Lady’s tumbled tawny hair with her own gentle hand. “My girl,” said she, “my dear girl; and you never knew your own mother? You never knew what that was? My dear, it is very sweet to have a mother.”
Miss Lady, knowing no better thing, kissed her impulsively, and the older lady drew her close, in such communion as only women may understand. Mrs. Eddring again touched lightly the red-brown hair. “I never had a daughter,” said she. “I’ve only a boy. That’s my boy there.”
Eddring, who had meantime taken Cherry’s bridle rein, was now walking on in advance toward the lane that led to the house. The girl caught the old lady’s hands in her own, and then threw her arms about the thin figure in a swift embrace. So, arm in arm, they also turned toward the lane; and which was then welcoming the other home neither could have said.
“Well, what do you want, boy?” Blount gruffly asked of Eddring on the morning after his arrival. “Are you on a still hunt for that Congressional nomination?”
“No, it’s of a heap more importance than that,” said Eddring.
“Humph! Maybe. Bill, oh, Bill! Here, you go and get the big glass mug, and a bunch of mint. Come out here, Eddring. Sit down on the board-pile in the shade—I’ve been going to build a roof on my doghouse with these boards as long as I can remember.”
They had just seated themselves upon the board-pile, and were waiting for Bill with the mint when Eddring looked up and smiled. “Who’s that coming?” he asked, pointing down the lane.
“That? Why, I reckon that’s Jim Bowles and his wife, Sar’ Ann. They come up once in a while to get a little milk, when they ain’t too durn tired. Their cow—why, say, it was a good many years ago your blamed railroad killed that cow. They never did get another one since. And that reminds me, Mr. John Eddring—that reminds me—”
He fumbled in the wallet which he drew from his pocket, and produced an old and well-creased bit of paper. “Look here,” said he, “you owe me for that filly of mine yet. That old railroad never did settle at all. Here it is. Fifty dollars.”
“I thought it was fifteen,” said Eddring, with twinkling eyes.
“That’s what I said,” replied Blount, solemnly, as he tore the paper in bits and dropped them at his feet. “I said fifteen! Anyway I’m in no humor to be a-quarreling about a little thing like that. Why, man, I’m just beginning to enjoy life. We’re going to make a big crop of cotton this year, I’ve got the best pack of b’ah-dogs I ever did have yet, and there’s more b’ah out in the woods than you ever did see.”
“I suppose your ladies leave you once in a while, to go down to New Orleans?” inquired Eddring.
“No, sir! New Orleans no more,” said Blount. “Why, you know, just as a business precaution, I bought that house down there that Madame Delchasse used to own. It’s sort of in the family now. Shut off that running down to New Orleans.”
“Well, how does Madame Delchasse like that?” asked Eddring.
[Illustration: “MAY I DEPEND? TELL ME, GIRL. I CANNOT WAIT.”]
“Man,” said Blount, earnestly, “there’s some things that seem to be sort of settled by fate—couldn’t come out no other way. Do you suppose for one minute that I’m going to allow to get away from me the only woman I ever did see that could cook b’ah meat fit to eat? Well, I reckon not! Besides, what she can do to most anything is simply enough to scare you. She can take common crawfish, like the niggers catch all around here—and a shell off of a mussel, and out of them two things she makes what she calls a ‘kokeeyon of eckriveese,’ and—_say, man_! You bet your bottom dollar Madame Delchasse ain’t going to get away from here. Don’t matter a damn if she ain’t got over putting hair-oil in her cocktails, like they do at New Orleans—we won’t fall out about that, either. I don’t have to drink ‘em. Only thing, she calls a cussed old catfish a ‘poisson.’ That’s when we begin to tangle some. But taking it all in all—up one side and down the other—I never did know before what good cooking meant. Why she’s got to cook—she’d die if she didn’t cook. Her go back to New Orleans?—well, I reckon not!
“Why, say,” continued Blount, “don’t it sometimes seem that luck sort of runs in streaks in this world? All cloudy, then out comes the sun—lovely world! Now, for one while it looked like things were pretty cloudy down here. But the sun’s done come out again. Everything’s all right, here at the Big House, now, sure’s you’re born. We’ll go out and get a b’ah tomorrow. Come on, let’s go see the dogs.”
“Well, you know, I must be getting back to business before long,” began Eddring.
“Business, what business?” protested Colonel Blount. “Say, have you asked that girl yet?” He was fumbling at the gate latch as he spoke, or he might have seen Eddring’s face suddenly flush red.
“Whom do you mean?” he managed to stammer.
Blount whirled and looked him full in the eye. “You know mighty well who I mean.”
Eddring turned away. “I told you, Cal,”—he began.
“Oh, you told me! Well I could have told you a long time ago that Miss Lady had this whole thing straightened out in her head. Do you reckon she’s a fool? I don’t reckon she thinks you’re a thief any more. I reckon like enough she thinks you’re just a supreme damned fool. I know I do.”
“Turn ‘em loose, Cal!” cried Eddring, suddenly. “Open the gates! Let ‘em out! I want to hear ‘em holler!” The pack poured out, motley, vociferous, eager for the chase, filling the air with their wild music, with a riot of primeval, savage life. “Get me a horse saddled, Cal, quick,” cried Eddring. “I want to feel leather under me again. I want to feel the air in my ears. I’ve got to ride, to move! Man, I’m going to live!”
“Now,” said Blount, rubbing his chin, “you’re beginning to talk. The man that don’t like a good b’ah chase once in a while is no earthly use to me.”
But Eddring did not ride to the far forest that day. A good horseman, and now well mounted, he made a handsome figure as he galloped off across the field. As he rode, his eye searched here and there, till it caught sight of the flash of a scarlet jacket beyond a distant screen of high green brier. He put his horse over the rail fence and pulled up at her side.
“You ride well,” said Miss Lady, critically. “I didn’t know that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There have been a good many things about me that you didn’t know,” said Eddring, “and there’s a heap of things I haven’t told you.”
Knowing in the instant now that a time of accounting had come, she looked at him miserably, her eyes downcast, her hands fiddling with the reins.
“But
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