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CD ieee

A

CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA.

BY

MARION HARLAND,

Author of ‘‘Alone,’?’ ‘‘The Hidden Path,’ ‘*Common Sense in the
Household,’ ‘‘ Eve's Daughters, 1? etc.

ie .

ILLUSTRATED.

 

PHILADELPHIA :
OUR CONTINENT PUBLISHING CO.
New York: FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT.
1883
 

COPYRIGHT, 1883,
BY M. V. TERHUNE.

 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Drawn by W.L SHEPPARD and ARTHUR B. Frost. Engraved by GrorcE

oS

se

10.

Leh

P. Witiiams, Epira Cooper, E. CugmMent and J. A. CouGHLan.

PAGE
“Tre NEGROES ARE RISING ALL OVER THE
COUNTRY,” . a z ‘ ‘ 2 Frontispiece
“AunT BETSY WAS TELLING A STORY,” . ‘ 5 8
“MASTER AND MAN DASHED STRAIGHT ACROSS THE
Yanrp,” is ‘i , ‘ , ‘ 20
“AYTER THAT NOBODY WOULD RISK THE CROSSING,” 24
“Ty's ME, Miss JUDITH,’ SHE SAID,” . : ‘ 37
“WE THREW OPEN ONE WINDOW AFTER ANOTHER
AND LISTENED,” fe % & 27
“SHE COME T’WARD ME SO FIERCE, WITH HER HAN’
UP,” : : 3 : ‘ : ‘ jl
“THE DEFEATED LEADER CLUNG TO THE LAST SHRED
OF OFFICIAL POMP,” . ‘ r 96
‘‘SHE LAID IIER HAND ON THE DARK FINGERS OF HER
ATTENDANT,” 2 ; . 102
“THE THING CAME DOWN VERY SLOWLY, STEP BY
STEP, MAKING NO NOISE AS IT MOVED,” > 179,
“THE TWO GIRLS, WRAPPED IN BED-ROOM GOWNS,
SAT OVER THE FIRE IN COSY CONVERSE,” . «221

. “H% WOULD LET NO ONE TOUCH YOU, UNTIL HE HAD

LaID YOU ON THE GRASS,” . ' ‘ , . 240
JUDITH:

A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER I.

ALL the chimneys of the Summerfield homestead
were built on the outside of the house. In a nook
formed by the meeting of the outer wall with the parlor
chimney, I sat on a certain August afternoon. The
turf was soft under my feet; a lush trumpet-creeper
ran all over the bricks and thrust tough fingers under
the clapboards. I nestled among the leaves and
orange-red flowers like an exaggerated June-bug. My
frock was dark-blue calico, sprinkled with white dots ;
a sleeveless, high-necked apron left my arms bare;
white home-knit stockings and stout shoes made by the
plantation shoemaker covered my nether extremities.

The ‘‘ New York Reader ”’ lay on my lap—a valuable
text-book bound between sides of coarse straw paste-
board. From the blue paper covering these, yellow
splinters protruded at broken corners and abraded
edges. I picked at one mechanically while reading of
a boy who had, in defiance of his mother’s warning
never to taste strange flowers or grasses, made a light
lunch upon a ‘‘ pretty plant with a small white flower.”’

The catastrophe never lost its charm for me, and I
recognized now for the fortieth time the coming of the
creeping horror in reading how, ‘‘ when his mother came

to him, she was surprised to see that his mouth was
%
8 JUDITH :

dirty.”’ At this point, I became aware that my Aunt
Betsey was telling a story.

The back porch ran the whole length of the main
building and one wing, and was the family sitting-room
all summer long. White jessamine and multiflora roses
curtained it, drooping low and thick at the end nearest
what I had named ‘t my chimney-place.”’

My Aunt Betsey was the widow of a Presbyterian
clergyman, who had died in less than a year after their
marriage. The sad event had occurred thirty years
prior to the date of my story, but she still wore mourn-
ing weeds in obedience to the custom of the day and the
inclination of such simple, loving souls. Even young
matrons sported caps then. That framing Aunt
Betsey’s face had a veritable crown, standing up stiff
and high, and a border of quilled ‘‘ footing.” Her
brown hair, interlined with silver, lay in smooth bands
above her forehead. Her eyes were gray, mild aud
contemplative, and, when she conversed, looked at her
auditor over her spectacles. She was knitting a lamb’s-
wool stocking, reeling off the sentences as evenly and
naturally as she drew the yarn from the fleecy ball in
her lap. She sat in a splint-bottomed, straight-backed
chair, cushioned with gay chintz. Her sister and my
grandmother, Mrs. Judith Read, the widowed mistress
of Summerfield, sat in one exactly like it, and knitted a
lamb’s-wool sock for one of her sons. Neither touched
the back of her chair while she worked.

I could never decide whether my grandmother re-
minded me more of a queen or of asaint. Her portrait,
taken at sixty, is that of a stately gentlewoman, with
black eyes, clear brunette complexion and high-bred,
placid features. The deep black of her gown is relieved
by a crimped lawn ruffle running around the neck and
down to the belt in front. Her mob-cap is of sheer
A sTORY.”’

6
“A
&
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=
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=
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"AL

 
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 9

muslin, set above dark hair and tied under her chin
with black ‘‘ love ”’ ribbons. At her throat is a red rose.
She used to explain, in smiling apology for the decora-
tion, that her youngest boy had pinned it there, and
begged that it should appear in the picture. I had been
too strictly trained in such matters to quote hymns on
secular occasions ; therefore, I never said aloud the line
that forced itself into my mind at family worship and
during the long sermons at Mounts Tabor and Hermon,
when I fell into affectionate studies of my grandmother’s
face:
‘* Majestic sweetness sits enthroned.’”’

Her near ancestors came of noble Huguenot stock.
She had their bright eyes and radiant smile, chastened
by sanctified sorrow into infinite gentleness. I never
saw her angry, or heard a fretful syllable from her lips ;
yet she had buried the husband of her youth when the
eldest of six children was but fourteen years old, and
succeeded to the ownership of a fearfully-encumbered
estate. Under her administration the debts had been
paid and the plantation judiciously worked until her
eldest son was qualified to take charge of it.

The porch steps were five oaken beams, eight inches
thick, set in an easy slope from floor to ground, polished
at the edges, and hollowed in the middle by the feet of
five generations of Reads. An arch of trellis-work,
thatched with vines, formed a pent-house over the
porch entrance. On the top step sat two girls, my
Aunt Maria and Miss Virginia Dabney, a city visitor.
Below them were seated my Uncle Archie, Mr. Bradley,
the Summerfield tutor, and my youngest uncle, Wythe
Read, a lad of fifteen. Aunt Betsey was the family
story-teller—the licensed and honored receptacle of
genealogies and traditions. Her auditors were now, as
always, respectful and interested.
10 JUDITH:

In this, our day, when every scrap of local and gen-
eral intelligence is seized upon by professional scribes,
held up to the light, shaken thoroughly and scraped
into lint for application to the ever-fevered sore of pub-
lic curiosity, the role of the oral raconteur is so unim-
portant that it is going out of fashion.

‘*Tell ye your children of it, and let your children
tell their children, and their children another genera-
tion,’’ is a process the simplicity of which moves us to
smiles. Yet what a barren flat would be our record of
happenings not yet fifty years old but for the elderly
women who loved to relate unwritten reminiscences, and
the young people who liked to listen on the door-steps
and about the hearthstones of our homesteads when
newspapers were few and popular histories unknown ?

“*T was in Richmond at the time of Gabriel’s insurrec-
tion,’”? the dear woman was saying when I lifted my
head and hitched my cricket nearer to listen,—‘‘on a
visit to Cousin Sarah Blair. There was a party at her
house that night, and after supper we went out into the
garden. I was sitting on a bench in a honeysuckle
arbor (Cousin Sarah’s flowers and fruit were famous)
with Jo Pleasants. He married Lizzy Blair the year
afterward. She (Lizzy) was singing ‘Robin Adair’ in
the parlor. The windows were all open, and we could
hear every word. I never hear that song to this day
without a queer, creepy feeling up my back and a faint-
ness about my heart; and the smell of honeysuckles on
a warm night makes me positively sick. It was very
hot and close, and while we talked Jo pointed outa
cloud rising in the west. It was black—a sort of blue-
black—and topped with white as it swelled up toward
the moon. Jo said it reminded him of a gray-headed
negro, and I laughed, although I was always timid in a
thunder-storm. The shape was like that of an enor-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGLNIA. i1

mous man pulling himself up to his full height very
slowly. When the big, broad shoulders and one arm
came in sight Jo called to the others to look at it. They
came, one after another, until nearly all the company
was gathered about the gate, and two or three went out
into the middle of the street to get a better view. The
breeze had died down completely, and the sound of the
falls in the river was very distinct, as it always is just
before a storm. Jo said we might imagine that it was
the roar of the giant advancing upon us.

“*QOh, don’t!’ said I. ‘Iam afraid that is a tempt-
ing of Providence.’

““*T can see his teeth and the whites of his eyes,’
called back one of the young men who had gone into
the street.

‘“‘It did really seem as if we could. The mighty
shape rose higher and higher, and broader, and the
arm was raised over the head, one forefinger, yards
long, pointing right at Richmond. Then this finger
changed into something like a pitchfork or trident.

‘**Tt’s the Old Harry himself! said the same young
man, but his laugh wasn’t very natural.

‘“Lizzy had left the piano and ran down the steps
toward us, still singing :

“What, when the ball was o’er,
What made my heart so sore”

‘When she saw the cloud she seized my arm with a
httle cry:

‘“¢Whatis it? Oh, what does it mean ??

‘She shook like an aspen leaf, and Jo and I were
trying to quiet her when we heard far off the beat of a
horse’s hoofs dashing along at full speed.

‘‘« There he comes, Miss Lizzy!’ said somebody,
thinking to amuse her and turn her attention.

‘“She gave one shrick and went off into hysterics.
12 JUDITH:

She was a delicate, nervous little thing, with no consti-
tution at all. She died young, and no wonder! One
ran for water and another for hartshorn, and half a
dozen rushed up with fans. In the confusion we forgot
the horse. I jumped as if I had been shot, when a
hoarse voice said in my ear:

“¢ Vou ve heard it already, then ??

‘“A man had ridden up to the garden fence and
leaned over toward us. He talked strangely, panting
between each syllable loud enough for us all to hear
him.

“«¢ Why, Colonel Prosser!’ cried Jo Pleasants, ‘ what
is the matter ?’

‘‘Lizzy stopped sobbing, and we stared at him,
frightened already by his face and manner. He was
deadly pale, and his eyes glared wildly.

“¢¢Get the ladies in-doors directly !’ he panted in the
same odd way. ‘Some of you fellows run to the armory.
I’ve sent my body-servant there ahead of me. Some
hurry down to the Capito] and have the barracks bell
rung. The negroes are rising all over the county. I
left hundreds of them on my plantation. They shot at
me as I leaped the garden fence. I met squads of them
—all armed—on the road. They are marching on the
city. There is not a minute to be lost.’

‘Scared as I was, I thought of Job’s servants, with
their—‘I alone am escaped to tell thee.’

‘While he was speaking the cloud swallowed up the
moon at one gulp, as it seemed, and it grew so dark in
an instant that we had to grope our way to the house.
Cousin Sarah’s two grown sons, Walter and Hugh,
offered to stay at home to guard us, but she wouldn’t
hear of it. Tom was fourteen, John twelve, and she
said they were able to fire through a window should
the house be attacked. There were four guns on the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 18

premises, besides the sword and pistols Colonel Blair,
her husband, had used in the Revolutionary war. She
could pull a trigger as well as a man. Hugh and Walter
must be off to the Blues’ muster-room and help defend
the town. Hugh was a lieutenant in the Richmond
Blues, and Walter a private. When the men were gone
she called us girls into the parlor and shut the door.

‘** Look here, Elizabeth Scott Blair!’ says she—cool
and sharp, like a mustard-plaster—‘ Go to that piano
and begin to sing—directly !”

““T could hardly believe my eyes when I saw that
girl cross the room, sit down on the music-stool and
run her fingers over the keys. I suppose that, her wits
being clean gone for the time, her mother’s will just
took hold of her—vpossessed her—and she could do
nothing but mind her. Anyhow she began to sing the
very song at which she had left off playing not ten
minutes before :

““* What ’s this dull town to me?
Robin ’s not here !
What’s here I wish to see?
Robin Adair !’

“Cousin Sarah was gone from the room for maybe
three minutes, and returned with the boys and the
guns, as Lizzy finished the last verse.

‘“*Now—the Battle of Prague!’ she ordered—‘ and
as loud as you can make it !’

‘She gathered the rest of us—ten in all—into a cor-
ner and set us to work cleaning and loading the guns,
and filling powder-flasks and shot-pouches. I think
what made me most calm was her sending me up-stairs
for check aprons to keep our frocks clean. The sight
and feel of the everyday working-clothes steadied me,
and helped me to think. I saw, in coming down the
stairs, Uncle Solomon, the butler, and three colored
14 JUDITI:

-women in the dining-room washing up and putting
away the supper things, laughing and talking and too
busy to notice me, Somehow, that brought the danger
and horror to me as I had not seen them before. These
were our enemies—the foes in our own household—the
people who had carried us, when we were babes, in
their arms and our fathers’ and mothers’ coffins to the
grave! the people almost as dear to us as our very
nearest kinsfolk !

‘‘Cousin Sarah treated me to a hard look when she
took the aprons from me.

‘(¢Phis is no time for fooling, nor for thinking,’ she
said, and gave me a bunch of greasy cotton with a pis-
tol and a thick wire. ‘Clean out the barrel with that,
and then I’ll load it. As long as that piano is going,
the servants can’t hear the alarm-bell. If they get a
notion that there ’s a fire down town the fools will be
off to see it, and leave their work until they come back.
I want to get them out the house as soon as possible.
Besides, they mustn’t suspect that we have heard any-
thing unusual. If there is a conspiracy between the
country and the town negroes, those here will wait for
the others to come, unless they find out that the plot is
known. An hour’s time is worth a great deal to us
just now.’

“The Battle of Prague must have drowned the first
thunder rolls, for we heard nothing of the storm untila
tremendous clap burst right overhead, and the room
wag filled with blue fire. The girls screamed, and poor
Lizzy dropped to the floor in a dead faint. We thought
at first that she was struck. If she had been I doubtif
her mother would have acted differently from what she
did. She helped lay Lizzy on one sofa, huddled all the
firearms, the sword and ammunition under another, and
poked the check aprons after them, before she called
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 15

Marthy, Lizzy’s maid, to bring water and the camphor-
bottle. Marthy had not known till then that the gen-
tlemen had gone. Maybe I did her injustice, being
excited, but I thought there was something queer in
her smile when she looked around as Lizzy came to.

““*TLaw, young ladies!’ she said pertly, ‘is Miss
*Lizabeth done scare all the beaux away by faintin’ ?’

‘* Another crash of thunder saved us the trouble of a
reply.

‘** The young ladies will stay here until the shower
is over,’ said Cousin Sarah. ‘The gentlemen had no
umbrellas. Hurry, all of you, to shut up the house, or
you won’t be able to get to the kitchen for the rain.’

‘In ten minutes we had the house to ourselves, As
Marthy ran across the yard to her room we heard her
scream at the blaze that wrapped heavens and earth in
a sheet of flame. Cousin Sarah made Patsey Dabney—
your father’s oldest sister, Virginia—and me help her
fasten doors and windows. We shut and bolted the
solid blinds on the first floor, put bars across front and
back doors, then followed our commanding officer up to
Lizzy’s room. It was a big, square one, with windows
on three sides. The shutters of those at the back were
closed. We brought in beds, bolsters and pillows to
put up against the others that faced the streets in front
and at the end of the house. We were to block these
up at the word of command, leaving loop-holes for firing.
Tom was put in charge of one gun, John of another;
Deborah Chapman voluntecred for a third, Janey Mosby
for a fourth, Cousin Sarah had on a great, big pocket
and her pistols in it. Elvira Burton took the sword,
and we divided up a box of table-knives among us.

‘‘ All this time the thunder was splitting and rolling and
rattling above the house, and the white and blue streams
of lightning almost blinding us. When everything was
16 JUDITH :

done that we could think of, Cousin Sarah made us sit
down on the feather-beds in the middle of the floor.
That was the hardest thing of all!—the sitting there,
waiting and listening and dreading, hearing nothing
from hour to hour but the thunder-claps, and, when
these were not so loud (they never ceased !), the rain
pouring down in floods—waiting to be killed by bullet
or knife, or maybe burned alive in the locked-up house,
for we knew that Cousin Sarah would never turn a key
or bolt to let us out if the roof were fired above our
heads. She meant resistance unto death from the mo-
ment she set Lizzy down to the piano. We put out the
lights, not to call attention to the building; but we
were not in the dark for a second. About twelve
o’clock we began to whisper among ourselves that they
must be here very soon now. The storm was passing,
the thunder fainter, and the lightning less bright. We
caught by snatches, between the heavy dashes of rain
on-the roof and windows, the fast, irregular ringing of
the alarm-bells—told one another this must mean that
the town was attacked at some point.

‘‘Cousin Sarah got up and went out of the room.
Presently she called to us from the garret :

‘**Come up here, girls !—very quietly !

“She was in the cupola. From there we had a view
of the armory. The windows were all flashing with
light, and torches were moving in the yard and streets
surrounding it. There were other specks of light far
down town, and here and there lighted windows nearer
tous. But overhead and close about us was the very
blackness of darkness that might be felt—an awful sort
of smothering gloom, as if we were in the heart of the
cloud. For the first time in two hours, I remembered
the strange shape we had scen in the heavens, and said
to myself that it was certainly a sign and a warning of
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 17

what was to befall us. While we stood there the black-
ness opened suddenly, and a cataract of lightning—I
can’t call it anything else—fell right down upon us. I
saw the face of every person in the cupola as plainly as
Ido yours now. The thunder burst out with it, crash-
ing and booming again and again, as if it would never
stop.

‘“¢ Cousin Sarah had to raise her voice to be heard:

““* We must go down—another cloud is rising !”

‘She spoke again, as we huddled together, shivering
and shaking, on the pile of feather-beds :

““¢We are in God’s hands. Let us fall into them
rather than into the hands of bloody and deceitful men !’

‘¢ By-and-by we heard her say :

‘** The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.
Therefore will we not fear though the earth be re-
moved.’

‘“‘But for her we would have gone stark mad that
night. Anything like the horribleness of that second
storm I hope never to see again. It was like the ter-
rors of the Judgment day. The heavens were rolled
together like a scroll; the earth seemed to be on fire.
The thunder was never quite still for five hours. By the
time it ceased to mutter in the east it roared out again
in the west, and the lightnings chased and overtook
one another in mid-heaven. The rain was a deluge.

“¢This will make a ‘‘fresh’’ in the river,’ Cousin
Sarah said once.

“What difference will that make to us?’ answered
one of the girls—Abigail Burton by name.

‘¢ Even then Cousin Sarah didn’t let the speech pass.

‘“¢TDon’t let me hear any more such talk as that!’
she said, as quick as a flash. ‘Is the Lord’s arm short-
ened that it cannot save ?’

“Poor little John had dropped asleep. his head on his
18 JUDITI:

mother’s lap. By a gleam of lightning I saw her, after
a while, stoop over him and kiss him two or three times
on his mouth. Then she eased his head down on the
pillows and walked toa window. We knew in a second
that she had heard something. One by one we stole
after her to the front windows and looked out, those
who were nearest the wall kneeling down, that the
others might see over their heads. We all heard it,
though nobody spoke or moved—when the thunder-
peals were furthest off—the ‘splash! splash !? of men’s
and horses’ feet and the crowding together of many
people. ‘Hundreds of them! I fancied I could hear
Colonel Prosser repeat the words. And we a handful
of weak women and two little boys! The alarm-bells
had stopped ringing long ago. Perhaps the white
people had given up all idea of saving the city. How
was it possible to do it when in every house there were
traitors, and a countless horde of murderers marching
upon us in the dead of night ?

‘*Cousin Sarah’s voice went through and through
me, although she spoke low:

“¢* They are going out of town—not coming in!’

‘“We all seemed to think together that night. In
comparing notes afterward every girl said her first
thought was at that instant that the town negroes had
scized the armory, killed the guard, armed themselves
and were now on their way to meet Gabriel’s army. A
downpour of lightning lit up everything outside—the
flooded street, the still houses and trees and fences, and
right in front of us, a mounted company of white men !
Military cloaks and blankets protected their arms from
the rain, but as they broke into a slow trot we heard
the clink of spurs and sabres.

‘¢¢The Blues !’ said Cousin Sarah ina shrill, strangled
whisper. ‘I see my boys!’
A CHRONICLE OF OLJI VIRGINIA. 12

“We leaned far out of the windows to shake our hand-
kerchiefs to them. Another flash showed us twenty
faces turned up toward us, but not a sound was uttered
by them or by us.

‘“* Have they left anybody to guard the town ?? whis-
pered Lizzy, as the last of the long line disappeared.

‘“¢T he Lord of Hosts !’ said Cousin Sarah, in a clear,
solemn voice.

‘*She stood up in the middle of the room, raised both
hands like she was in church.

““«Tet us pray!’ said she; and we all fell on our
knees around her. Whata prayer she made for the
brave men who had gone out to meet the enemy, and
for ourselves, our families, our homes, our churches, our
beloved Richmond! At last she prayed for the poor,
deluded creatures who had followed the lead of wicked
men, and been taught to thirst for the blood of their
best friends.

‘* At that she gave way for the first time, and we all
burst out crying. For some minutes nothing was heard
but weeping and sobbing. Then Cousin Sarah got back
voice enough to say:

“*¢ Father, forgive them! they know not what they
do!’

‘We said, ‘Amen! Amen!’ We could not be fierce
and angry any longer, and our hearts were stayed by
hope as well as by prayer; but none of us, except the
boys, slept a wink that night. Seven distinct thunder-
clouds arose one after another between ten o’clock and
four, and were emptied upon the earth; but the awful
figure we had seen flying toward us was the angel of de-
liverance, not of destruction.

“The rising was on Colonel Prosser’s plantation,
Brook Hill, about six miles from Richmond, His family
was away from home, and he was known to be an easy
20 JUDITH:

master, who wouldn’t be apt to notice unusual move-
ments about the place. The plan was to kill him when
they were all assembled, ransack his house for weapons
and ammunition (he was a colonel of militia in Henrico
County), and to take his horses. His body-servant
slipped out of the tobacco-barn where they were talk-
ing it over, ran to the stable and saddled two of the
best hunters. Then he went to his master’s room, told
him what was going on, and to ride for his life. The
two were hardly mounted when some of the gang caught
sight of them and gave the alarm. Master and man
dashed straight across the yard and put their horses at
the garden fence. Five or six shots were fired at them
before they cleared the two fences between them and the
public road. Colonel Prosser could never allude to his
escape without shuddering. He said the negroes rushed
at him from all directions, and that their yells were like
a pack of wolves.

‘*Michael!’’ in the same soft, even tones that had
borne the story thus far, ‘‘ bring that water this way,
won’t you ?””

A \are-footed negro boy, dressed in yellow homespun,
had brought a cedar-wood pail, bound with bright brass
hoops, up the steps at the far end of the porch, and was
in the act of setting it on a triangular shelf supported
by the railings. He swung it back to his head from
which he had just let it down, and obeyed the order he
had received. Uncle Archie arose from the steps as the
lad dexterously lowered his burden, dipped the white
gourd bobbing about on the surface, into the water, and
handed it to his aunt, his hand held beneath to catch
the drops shed by the glistening sides.

‘* Aunt Betsey always grows thirsty at the most inter-
esting part of her story,’ laughed’ Aunt Maria. ‘I
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 21

don’t mind it so much this time, because I know the
rest. But it is crucl to those of you who don’t.”

“* Like ‘To be continued’ in a magazine serial,’ replied
Mr. Bradley.

Ilis speech was very unlike that of the others, more
precise in articulation and unrhythmical in inflection.
He pronounced 7 like eye in such words as ‘‘ like’? and
‘‘right,’? and sometimes u like oo,

‘*Mrs. Waddell plays with us as a cat with a mouse,
or an angler with a fish,’”’ he continued. ‘‘It is a profes-
sional trick, meant to whet our appetites for the rest.
A successful one in this case.’’

“* Michael !?—Grandma checked him by saying as he
passed her—‘‘ don’t put a drinking-water pail on your
head. It is not considered proper. You will learn all
these little things after awhile. He has only been up
from the Quarter for a few days,’’ she mentioned, apolo-
getic of the mistake to Virginia Dabney, when the boy
was out of hearing. ‘‘ He comes of excellent parents,
and will do well as a house-servant under Jerry’s train-
ing. He is Rose’s child—one of the twins, you know.”’

‘‘Isn’t the name of the other Gabriel?” asked the
young lady, with pretty abruptness.

Uncle Archie smiled down at her from his stand
against a porch pillar.

“You remember that, do you? Yes; the mother
called them, of her own accord, after the archangels—
Gabriel and Michael. You don’t admire her taste, it
would seem.”’

‘¢T have nothing against Michael. I don’t remember
his brother. But I shall hate him at sight, on account
of his name. If I were Mrs. Read he should change
it, or leave the plantation.”’
22 JUDITH:

CHAPTER II.

‘“‘THE insurgents were howling like wolves, Mrs.
Waddell,” resumed the tutor in playful persistence.
‘“‘Tt is unkind to leave us with the echo in our ears
while you set the heel of that stocking.”’

Aunt Betsey was counting stitches, but desisted at
the word ‘‘ unkind,”’ as the artful speaker had foreseen.

‘‘Gabriel was an unusually intelligent negro. His
master had petted him from his childhood and his mis-
tress taught him to read. He showed what a dangerous
thing a little learning is by plotting a general massacre
of the white people, sparing only some young women,
who were to be the maids of the leaders’ colored wives,
and half a dozen who were to marry the principal men.
They meant to fire the city in three places at once ; then
a trumpet, ‘blown long and loud,’ would let the con-
spirators know that the hour had come, and be the
signal of attack upon the armory. The small company
of soldiers there would be killed, the arms secured, and
the building held as a fort by a certain number, while
the rest went from house to house, slaughtering young
and old. A chosen band was to make sure of the ladies
already selected, and guard them to the armory. ‘ Every-
thing else that wears a white skin must die,’ was one of
Gabriel’s general orders. A paper containing the list
was found in his pocket, and a rough sketch of the
government he hoped to establish. He was known
among his followers as ‘General Gabriel.’ When the
white folks were all dead, he was to be crowned ‘King
of Virginia.’ Richmond was chosen as his capital, and
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 23

Mrs. Marcia Randolph, a beautiful widow, for his
queen.’”

‘“You may have seen her cookery-book, ‘The Vir-
ginia Housewife,’ Mr. Bradley,’ interpolated Grand-
ma. ‘Your mother uses it I know, Virginia, my
dear. It is a valuable work, although rather expensive
for people of moderate means.”’

‘The next in office were to be presidents. Then came
princes and governors and counsellors,’’ went on the
narrator.

‘‘ Borrowed wholesale from the Book of Daniel,’ com-
mented Mr. Bradley. ‘I wonder at his copying a
heathen form of government.’’

‘“That was where he got it all. Each of these offi-
cers, as I have said, was to have a white wife to add
dignity to his position. The plot had been working for
a year. It will never be known in this world how many
knew of it or would have joined in the bloody work.
There were a thousand at Gabriel’s back when he
halted his horse on the bank of a branch of the Chicka-
hominy River, that lay between them and the city. It
was a shallow creek they could have crossed on foot at
sundown that day ; but the heavy rain had swelled it
into a deep, rushing stream they dared not try to ford.
Gabriel called a council of war there in the storm.
They knew, of course, that Colonel Prosser and his man
had escaped, but they were not sure that they had gone
to Richmond. While they argued and disputed among
themselves, a negro boy, about twenty years old, named
Pharaoh, belonging to Mr. William Mosby, stole down
the creek in the darkness, plunged in, and swam.to the
other side. That shows what might have been done by
many had not the Lord, in mercy to us, withheld them
from the attempt. Pharaoh started to Richmond, and
met the white troops about a mile outside of the city.
24 JUDITH :

From him they had full information as to the state of
affairs, and marched directly to the creek, The negroes
were still on the other side when the ‘troops got to the
bank nearest town. Five or six: of the bravest, urged
by Gabriel and Jack Bowler, his right-hand man, had
tried to swim over, and been drowned. The stream
was boiling like a pot and rising every minute, and they
were sucked right under in thesight of the rest. After
that nobody would risk the crossing.

‘Gabriel was preaching to them when the troops ar-
rived. The constant glare of lightning lit up both par-
ties. The white men had heard Gabriel before they
saw him standing on the edge of the water, and close
by him Jack Bowler, who was a perfect giant, almost
six and a half feet high, and as strong as four or five
ordinary men. He had persuaded the negroes that the
Lord had made him on purpose to deliver them, as He
did Samson to deliver the Israelites. His hair was long
and thick, and had never been cut. He wore it gener-
ally in a cue, like a gentleman’s, but this night he
let it hang joose on his shoulders, to remind his men of
Samson’s hair, ‘ wherein his great strength lay.” Both
of these men were under thirty, and could read and
write. They were armed to the teeth, and Gabriel had
put on Colonel Prosser’s regimental suit. Around and
behind them was a crowd that looked like tens of thou-
sands, heaving and murmuring. Walter Blair said the
sound reminded him of the pushing and grunting of a
herd of hogs. It bristled with all sorts of weapons.
Some had guns, some axes, some hatchets, and many
side-blades (scythes) fastened to the ends of poles. The
lightning flashed on hundreds of these, ground sharp
and rubbed bright.

‘““The white men fired directly into the body of the
crow(, for the creek was not, even in the freshet, twenty
‘DNISSOUN GTHL MWSIU GINOM AGOMON LVAL NILA ,,

“

 
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 29

yards wide. A few shots were fired back, but most of
the poor, foolish things had never thought of keeping
guns and powder dry. The leaders hallooed to them to
‘stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,’ but it
was of no use. They scattered in all directions, like
scared sheep.”’

‘‘They are a race of born cowards,”’ observed Uncle
Archie, in careless contempt. ‘‘One white man armed
with a cornstalk could put a battalion of them to flight.
Their attempts at insurrection can never be anything
but ridiculous failures. It is like a boy bullying and
bragging with a pea pop-gun.”’

‘* Pop-gun peas have put out grown folks’ eyes be-
fore now,’’ returned Grandma seriously. ‘“‘If it had not
been the Lord who was on our side that night, blood
would have flowed like a river. In many homes in
Richmond there was no hope of escape from violent
death. My dear friend, Mrs. Jean Wood, wife of Govy-
ernor Wood, was then living at their place, Chelsea, a
little way out of town. There was no member of the
white family at home but herself when a neighbor
stopped at her door in the storm to tell her what was
going on, and to invite her to goto his house. She
would not stir from home.

‘“* We are all marked for certain death before the
rising of another sun,’ she said calmly. ‘I should only
add to your responsibility and distress the pain of see-
ing me die.’

‘* Neither would she lock her doors.

‘“*¢ Resistance will make them the more cruel,’ she
said. ‘ All that I shall ask of my murderers will be to
put me to no useless suffering, but to despatch me
quickly and decently.’

‘Then she thanked him for his kindness in giving her
26 JUDITH:

timely notice of her departure, and hoped she should see
him in heaven very soon.

“*Tt will not make much difference to us then
whether we have got there by a rough or a smooth road,’
was the last thing she said, as he went down the front
steps. ‘Good night. We won’t have to say that up
there !”

‘* Everybody agreed afterward that her expectations
were most reasonable. The police force was weak and
inefficient, and the negroes who were marching upon the
town outnumbered the white troops at least five to one,
without taking into account those in the city—what
Betsey calls the ‘foes in the household.’ Mrs. Wood
acted wisely in preparing to die before morning. She
told me afterward how wonderfully she was supported.
She set her room in perfect order, bathed from head to
foot, and shrouded herself in a new night-gown that had
never been worn. Then she read the fourteenth chap-
ter of St. John and the twenty-first and twenty-second
of Revelations, said her prayers, committing her soul
to her Saviour, and asking God to forgive and have
mercy upon them who sought her life, and lay down
upon the outside of her bed, her husband’s miniature
in her hand, to wait the coming of the rebels.”’

‘* That sounds like a chapter from the ‘ Book of Mar-
tyrs,’ ’’ cried young Bradley animatedly. ‘‘I never heard
anything finer. Your friend was a heroine, Mrs. Read.”

‘She was a Christian,” answered Grandma simply.
“That was the way Dr. Rice summed up her attrac-
tions and merits in the beautiful obituary he wrote of
her. After speaking of her brilliant conversation and
personal charms—which, he says, made young people
‘prefer her society to their gay novels’—her natural af-
fection, her patriotism, her conduct asa friend, a neigh-
bor anda philanthropist, he concludes with: ‘To crown
 

“wkE THREW OPEN ONE WINDOW AFTER ANOTHER AND LIS-
”

TENED.’’—p. 27.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. at

the whole, Mrs. Wood was a Christian. Not by tradi-
tionary faith, not with a cold assent of the understand-
ing, but with the whole heart.’

‘‘She told me, too, that she never in after-life knew a
single fear of death. God gave her gracious assurance
in the lonely watches of that night that as her day so
should her strength be. When the morning dawned,
and with it the news of the dispersion of the insurgents,
it cost her an effort to come back to earth and thoughts
of an earthly future, so sweet had been her meditations,
so sure was her hope of her heavenly home. As she
expressed it: ‘It was being turned back when I had my
hand on the door-knob.’ Her first act after dressing
herself for the day and putting away her shroud was to
call in the servants just as usual for family prayers.
Tier maid used to tell how her mistress noticed when
breakfast was ready that the table-cloth was slightly
crooked, and had the china taken off that it might be
straightened before she sat down. She made no refer-
ence whatever to what had passed; behaved to her
servants exactly as she had always done, making: them
understand that she bore them no grudge for the faults
of others of their color.

‘*The women of that day certainly had brave hearts,”
said Aunt Betsey, serenely forgetful of the fact that she
was one of the commended class. ‘* We girls were just
worn out by daybreak. We were cramped with sitting
ina bunch on the floor, faint with the weary waiting
and constant dreading. Lizzy had to go regularly to
bed when the strain was over, and stay there for a
week. We had good news by the time we could see
across the strect. The rain and thunder had passed by,
but the clouds hung low, almost touching the tops of
the chimneys. The air was close and ‘muggy.’ We
threw open one window after another and listened, It
28 JUDITH:

was the stillest morning I ever knew. The flowers were
beaten flat to the ground, the bushes were dripping °
wet. I can seem to smell now the bruised honeysuckles
and lilies that strewed the grass. Presently we heard
the long, steady gallop of a horse through the mud.
Then a dark figure reined up at the gate, and Jo Plea-
sants’ voice called :

“¢ All’s well, Mrs. Blair !’

‘“‘We rushed down stairs in a body, tore back bolts
and bars, and ran out to him. He was coated with
mud up to the eyes. You couldn’t have told the color
of his horse. He twisted himself sideways in his sad-
dle, his hand on the horse’s back, in the way men have
when they want to seem particularly at their ease, and
says he:

‘**Tam sorry we had to leave you so unceremoniously
last night, ladies, but the country gentlemen we went
to call upon could not be put off. Hugh and Walter
charged me with a dozen messages about breakfast,
Mrs. Blair, but I have forgotten all except fried chicken,
batter-cakes and coffee. They are wet and hungry, and
will be here in the course of two or three hours—as soon
as the hunt is over.’

‘*I saw Cousin Sarah’s hand shut down hard upon
the gate.

‘** Was anybody killed ?’ she asked outright.

‘“*T am afraid not!’ said Jo, and a strange, fierce
expression went over his face, very different from his
usual kind, merry look.

‘“T saw the same very often in men’s eyes and coun-
tenances in the next few weeks. The white people
were enraged and disappointed at the conduct of the
servants they had regarded as part of their families,
They had never dreamed of such a thing as a general
rising of the negrocs. Yet here it was actually upon
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 20

us! If Colonel Prosser’s body-servant had been as fal:e
as the rest ; if Mr. Mosby’s Pharaoh had been less soft-
hearted, even the rising of the water would only have
delayed the destruction of the city. Gabriel would
have gone around the head of the creek, or down lower
toa bridge. Men had been so close to a horrible death
—had seen so clearly the fate that threatened their
wives and innocent babes—that they could not forgive
and forget directly. It was many months before we
were quite easy in our minds, before we got back our
confidence in the people that cooked our victuals and
nursed our children.

‘*Gabriel and, I think, three others of the ringleaders
were taken in different hiding-places and brought to
Richmond jail. They had a fair trial, and were con-
demned to death. They were hanged in October of the
same year—1800.”’

‘‘But the thousands of followers ?’’ questioned Mr.
Bradley. ‘‘ Surely they were not suffered to go un-
punished ?”’

‘“Why not, poor things ?”? Aunt Betsey’s merciful
eyes. put the query more emphatically than did her
tongue. ‘If they had not been deceived and tempted
and led on by designing men they would never have
thought of lifting a finger against us. The day after
the rising, they were all back in their homes, doing
housework, hoeing corn, picking off tobacco-worms—
whatever was the business set for them, just as if no-
thing had happened. Their owners asked no questions.
They didn’t want to know which of them had meant to
butcher them in their beds not twelve hours before.”’

‘Tt was a false step, nevertheless—mistaken mercy !"*
insisted the tutor, rising as he talked. ‘‘ The claims of
justice should have been satisfied at whatever cost of
expediency or personal fecling. So decp a wound tu
30 JUDITH:

the body politic could not be safely salved over or coy-
ered up. The thorough course is always the best one.
The matter should have been probed to the bottom.
Who knows but that the bullet is there still ?”’

‘Suppose nothing short of amputation—say of both
legs—would save the patient’s life ?’’ said Uncle Archie.
“In plainer words—there is, in my opinion, but one
way of avoiding the risk of servile insurrection. That
is, to get rid of slavery.”

‘* You should be a better judge of that than myself,”
rejoined the Northerner. ‘‘In New England it became
unprofitable and inconvenient, and it is not. There is
the history, in one sentence, of emancipation with us.”’

‘* It is not so profitable here that we need sell our lives
to preserve it,’’ replied the other. ‘‘ Public feeling on this
subject has changed materially since the last century.
Good men do not hesitate to express their views to the
effect that the abolition of the system is inevitable;
and, taking everything into consideration, desirable.
But, for the sake of the servant, no less than that of
the master, we must dispense with it by degrees, as they
are doing in the Middle States.”

‘Their being here ina state of bondage is a wrong
inflicted upon them and us by our forefathers ; a wrong
for which we, their descendants, must pay dearly unless
we set it right.”

My grandmother offered the observation as a self-
evident proposition, and the listeners heard it as quietly
as if she had remarked on the August drouth,

Uncle Archie laughed, but with no show of other emo-
tion than affectionate amusement.

‘Mother takes steady aim when slaveholding comes
within gunshot. And all the while she knows that her
servants could not be so well cared for anywhere else as
they are on her plantation. The sin of having them
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 31

here does not weigh upon my mind so much as a doubt as
to the best way of shaking the state clear of them. For
the one we have to blame Dutch and New England
pirates and nigger-traders. The other is an existing
evil with which we must deal personally.”

‘* By evil do you mean sin, and sin per se??? demurred
Mr. Bradley.

‘Unless the Declaration of Independence is a lie,”
the Virginian responded. ‘‘Since we have adopted it
as the rule of political faith and practice we should live
up to it. The ownership of an enslaved nation is a
satire upon a republic, however well it may have agreed
with monarchy and colonial times.’’

‘“‘Pshaw! now they ’re beginning to talk politics!”
thought I, vexed at the diversion from the delightful
horrors of Aunt Betsey’s story. I did not like political
talk, yet much of the essence of it was absorbed by the
pores of my small mental being. I was used to discus-
sions in the key of that which I-have just recorded.
The inconveniences and injustice of slavery—which no-
body spelled with a capital 8, or thought it safest to
mention under his breath—were freely admitted by
serious thinkers. The divine origin of what had not
then been dubbed ‘‘ The Peculiar Institution ”’ was not
an article of the Virginian’s creed. Many influential
planters had openly expressed their intention of manu-
mitting their servants by will, and were shaping their
financial plans to that effect. I had heard my own pa-
rents commend such a course; was familiar with the
idea that by the time I was grown, ‘‘the colored folks’’
would all be free with comfortable homes of their
own. From babyhood I was taught to be respectful
to the elder servants and not to maltreat the younger.
‘*Because,’? as was often impressed upon me, ‘‘it is
mean to strike one who has no right to strike back.”
32 JUDITH:

The affectionate intercourse between the white family
and their negroes was a matter of course—a perfectly
natural state of affairs in the estimation of all parties
concerned. ‘‘ The children” included those of all com-
plexions. ‘‘Mam Peggy,’ the cook for forty years in
the Summerfield kitchen, swept me out of her domain
when she was cross or busy, as emphatically as she did
her grandchildren. My grandmother and aunts sat up
at night with the sick at ‘‘ the Quarter,’”’ tending them
as assiduously as they cared fur invalids of their own
blood and name. The oldest colored person on the
plantation had been born there and his parents before
him. ‘‘ Our family” was referred to and quoted oftener
by them than by their owners, and meant the Summer-
field Reads.

I state these facts in explanation of the consterna-
tion that clutched my heart in the review of the tale I
have set down as it fell from my aunt’s lips. I had
never imagined until this hour the existence of the
sleeping demon in home and state. The shock could
hardly have been greater had doubts of my sweet
mother’s loving kindness been injected into my mind,
or if, under the clear frills of Grandma’s cap, the wolf’s
eyes had glarcd into mine as she gave me a ‘“‘ good-
night’ kiss. I positively ached all over when I ceased
listening, and began to reflect upon the revelation un-
folded by her who, I instinctively divined, would never
have touched upon it had she dreamed of my proxim-
ity. With the inconsistent reticence of childhood I
remained quiet, shrinking yet farther into my ‘‘ chim-
ney-place,’’ not daring to stir hand or foot for fear the
rustling vines should betray me and my innocent cayves-
dropping. Why had this dreadful possibility of treach-
ery and carnage been veiled from me all the ten years
of my life? My uncle had not hidden from my childish
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 33

comprehension the meaning of the portentous words,
‘* servile insurrection.’? Both were new to me, but I
gathered the force of the phrase and shuddered away
from the pit opened at my feet. It was like the awaken-
ing from peaceful dreams to find the chamber walls
ablaze and tottering inward.

From my nook I looked across the yard, shaded by
locust and aspen, to a row of hale Lombardy poplars,
stretching illimitable shadows over turf, house and gar-
den. Beyond the poplars and the white yard-fence
swelled smooth rolls of land, green with corn, cotton and
tobacco. Afar off was the plantation gate opening upon
the highway, the road to it twisting like a dull-red ribbon
between the fields. Two tobacco-barns, built of hewn
logs, stood close beside it, a hundred yards apart—un-
sightly edifices, set flush with the road for the conveni-
ence of loading the wagons that were to transport the
valuable product to market. Tomy left, the sward was
spread past well and ice-house to the picket-fence rail-
ing in the house-yard. Within this inclosure were the
kitchen and what the English call ‘‘ offices ”’—laundry,
store-rooms and the ‘‘smoke-house,’’ in which the bacon
was cured in the winter and stored for the year’s use.
A neat story-and-a-half cabin between dwelling and
garden was ‘‘ Mammy’s house,”’ the lodging from gene-
ration to generation of the confidential maid of the
mistress of Summerfield and the nurse of her children.
A flagged walk led directly from this to ‘ the chamber ”’
on the first floor of ‘tthe house.’? Other paths, un-
paved, streaked the grass in the direction of well, offices
and “the Quarter.’”? This was a cluster of cabins on
a slight eminence over against the hill on which the
house stood and nearly an eighth of a mile distant.
Beyond, and girdling all, was the forest line.

Gabriel, Michael’s double, smock-frocked, barc-
34 JUDITH:

headed and bare-footed, was driving the cows home
from pasture along the winding red road. As he
lounged at the heels of the herd he whistled a planta-
tion melody. A mocking-bird in the tallest Lombardy
poplar added a pipe that was hardly sweeter and
clearer.

A tame and unromantic scene—but endeared to me
by associations more venerable than personal memories.
I had drawn my first breath under the roof of the old
house against which I now leaned, my mother having,
as was the manner of the day, come back to her
mother’s care for her time of trial. Bellair, the patri-
monial estate, to which my father had succeeded, was in
another county across the river, and on higher ground
than Summerfield; but throughout a delicate childhood
no other air agreed so well with me as that which wan-
dered among the low hills environing my birthplace. I
asked no better entertainment than the society of the
aunts who borrowed me for months ata time ; no richer
queendom than my sovereignty over the crew of colored
children who were my comrades in tramps through field
and wood, my loving satellites in the simple round of
daily duties and pleasures.

Family annals and plantation traditions had been my
delight from the time Icould run and talk. There was
an assimilative quality in such to my mental and moral
constitution that made them a corporate part of thought
and existence. ‘Tribal love and loyalty were a heredi-
tary transmission in my case, and also cultivated by
every influence of early years.

‘TY thought Aunt Betsey had told me every single
thing about the Blairs and her visits to Richmond,”
said I inly, with a swelling heart. ‘‘She might have
trusted me not to repeat things which are not conye-
nient to be spoken of ’—.Aunt Betsey’s own phraseology,
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 35

after St. Paul. ‘I never even knew that anybody’s
servants cared so much to be free that they would kill
their masters to get rid of them. I shall never trust
one of them again—never! They’re as bad as Robes-
pierre’s Frenchmen—every bit !””

Isaw Mr. Bradley and Aunt Maria go down the path
toward the Quarter ; then Uncle Archie and Miss Vir-
ginia Dabney—he tall and dark, she blond and petite
—follow them, talking earnestly. I even noted, with
the shrewdness of a child whose chief associates are
people much older than herself, how he looked down at
her in holding back the little swing-gate at the foot of
the lawn—just the same mixture of amusement, admi-
ration and love I had seen in his countenance when she
recalled the names of the archangelic twins. The four
crossed the ‘‘ branch’? separating the hills, mounted
the farther of the two, and disappeared in the pine
woods crowning it. Uncle Wythe brought out his
school-books—a formidable pile—established himself
upon the porch steps, and began studying the morrow’s
lessons. I had tasks to prepare, too; and Mr. Bradley,
although kind and helpfui, was strict. But I sat still,
miserable and half angry. Aunt Betsey picked up the
key basket from the floor when she had rolled up her
stocking tightly and stuck the needles into the ball.

“‘Pegoy |”? she called from the end of the piazza
nearest the kitchen, ‘‘it is time to get out supper.’’

She went across the yard to the store-room, where
barrels of flour, meal, sugar, rice and salt were kept
with bags of coffee, tubs of lard, soap, starch, candles
and other groceries. I seldom failed to follow her in
these visits, sugar, raisins and stick cinnamon being
dainties to a country-bred child. They did not tempt
me in my present mood. Mam Peggy joined her at the
store-room door, bread-tray and sifter in hand. Pre-
36 JUDITH:

sently I heard from the kitchen the thump of the rolling-
pin on the biscuit-block. I loved beaten biscuit, and
none others so well as those I made myself of the bits
thrown off in the beating and caught up as perquisites
of the gleaner. The thought of them turned me sick
now. Grandma sat in her straight-backed chair and
knitted her lamb’s-wool sock, the embodiment of placid
ease and holy content.

I propped my elbows on my knees, my chin in my
hands, and tugged at the suddenly-tangled threads of
thought and anticipation until two tears, round as beads,
broke splashingly upon the story of the naughty boy
who ate the ‘‘ pretty plant with a small white flower.”’

Had not Grandma spoken of rivers of blood that
must have followed the course of servile insurrection ?
Had not Uncle Archie affirmed that the only preventive
of such a catastrophe was to free the slaves? Had not
Grandma, who never uttered idle words, declared their
being here at all to be a wrong for which we must pay
dearly, if it were not set right ?

Yet, were not my grandmother, my parents—all of
my kith and kin—slave-owners up to this very eighth
month of the year of our Lord 1831 ?
‘ye d—-aiys WHS ,.{HbTane ssn “AN Ss, LI

”

 
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 37

CHAPTER III.

““ WAKE up, honey! What’s the marter with you ?”

It was not quite dark when I went to bed. I re-
membered watching the fading into ashy gray of one
pink cloud resting long and motionless against the pale-
blue sky above the top of the big walnut tree in front
of the house. The wide-flung masses of green were
the last thing I saw at night, the first in the morning.
There had been solace in the familiar outlines, comfort
and hope in their stability, on this particular evening.
But for them [ could not have borne to go to my room
alone. Isaid my prayers at the window that looked
into the branches. It seemed but a few minutes there-
after when Mammy stood by my bed with a candle in
her hand.

“It’s me, Miss Judith,’? she said soothingly.
‘“You’ve had a mighty bad night-m’yar’. I heerd
you all the way down to Mistis’ room, an’ come up to
look arfter you.”’

I sat upright, staring at her, and pushed my wet hair
back with both hands. My face was dripping with cold
sweat.

‘*Oh, Mammy !”’ I gasped, ‘‘I thought I was in the
middle of Gabriel’s insurrection, and Jack Bowler was
about to kill me! You wouldn’t let him! You wouldn’t
hurt me, would you? Mammy! Mammy !”

I threw myself upon her neck with the cry and sobbed
violently. She set down the candle, seated herself on
the bedside and gathered me into her arms.

“Who ’s been a-scarin’ you, Miss Judith ?” I heard
ae JUDITH :

her say when, by patting, cooing and rocking, she had
calmed my hysterical paroxysm. ‘‘It’s wicked in
grown folks to talk to chillen ’bout sech things. I can’t
think who ’s had the heart to do it. Your Ma wouldn’t
like it ef she was to hear it.”’

‘‘Nobody told me—nobody talked to me. Aunt
Betsey was telling the others on the back porch this
evening. They didn’t think about my being there. I
never knew such dreadful things could be! I feel as if
I could never be happy again—never have another good
night’s rest. It’s like walking over the—bad place !”’

I hurried it all over in a shuddering whisper. The
monosyllabic name of the locality and the title of the
master of the region were ‘‘swear words’’ to me as a
Presbyterian child. That I alluded thus plainly to
either, showed how intense was my excitement.

Mammy was silent. The quartette of young people
who had occupied the back piazza in the afternoon was
now convened in the square front porch, and, as I
ceased speaking, began to sing. Aunt Maria’s fresh
voice led a three-part fugue in what was then known as
the tenor—what we call now the treble or soprano:

“*O send Thy light to guide my feet.”’

The base picked up the burden at the fourth word, the
treble (the modern tenor) at the sixth, and went chasing
one another through twenty bars:

“O send Thy light to guide my feet,
And bid Thy truth appear ;
Conduct me to Thy holy hill,
To taste Thy mercies there.’”’

They had never sung the fugue before without notes,
and went through it again and again, led by Mr. Brad-
ley. I had seen such rehearsals so often that I pictured
to myself just how he was standing on the lowest step
of the porch, facing the group upon the upper, and
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 29

beating time with his tuning-fork. I followed them
once until all brought up on the long-held ‘t open note ”’
at the close. Then I began to wonder why Mammy sat
so still, her back to the light, her head bowed upon her
breast. Me she had put down upon the pillow, when
she had turned and shaken it, and was now fanning me
in slow, long sweeps with a turkey-feather fan.

I touched her timidly.

“You are not mad with me, Mammy !”

‘Mad, chile! did you ever know me to be mad "long
you sence you was born? I was the firs’ to dress you
in this pore, sinful worl’, honey. I had washed an’
dressed your ma in the same way befo’ you. Some-
times I’ve wondered ef ’twouldn’t ’a’ been kinder jes’
to put you out o’ your misery then an’ there. You’d
>a? gone straight home. An’ the yearth is got so crooked
nowadays !”’

““That would have been murder,’’ was my sensible
comment.

‘“True, chile. An’ I couldu’t ’a’ brung myself to hurt
a h’yar of your swect head. There is them that kills
both soul an’ body. Nobody ken hurt a baby’s soul,
thank the Lord! But when them that’s old in sin an’
years is sent to their account, ‘wo unto him by whom
the offense cometh!’ Them’s Bible words! Seems
like the wor!’ is a-gittin’ so wuthless that the Almighty
Himself wen’t be able to do nothin’ with it but jes’ to
pitch it into the las’ burnin’. Would you min’ readin’
a little piece out o’ the Bible from the place Mars’
Archibald read to-night at pra’rs ?”

She brought book and candle from the table, slipped
her arm under me to raise me toa sitting posture.

“It’s "bout wars an’ all kinds o’ trouble,” she
prompted, seeing me turn the leaves irresolutely. ‘‘ St.
Mark—he tells ’bout it.”’
40 JUDITH:

Searching from chapter to chapter I happened upon it :

‘* And when ye hear of wars and rumors of wars, be
ye not troubled, for such things must needs be ; but the
end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation,
and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be earth-
quakes in divers places, and there shall be famines and
troubles ; these are the beginnings of sorrows.”’

Iwas going on with the next verse, but she gently
withdrew the volume.

“That ll do, honey! That ’s as much as I ken take
at atime. I reckon 1’d better blow the light out. The
candle-bugs is mighty troublesome at this season of the
year. But I’ll set by you ’tel you go to sleep, seein’
you’re kind 0’ res’less to-night. ”’

She settled herself in a chair at my bedside and began
rubbing my feet and ankles gently to allay my nervous-
ness. By the starlight and the faint, purple shimmer
that does not leave the August sky until near the dawn,
Icould see the outlines of her tall, powerful figure sway-
ing slightly as she rubbed, her white turban nodding in
the gloom like a bursting cotton-pod swayed by the
breeze. The fugue was raised more confidently from
below stairs.

“‘O send Thy light,
O send Thy light,
O send Thy light to guide my feet !’’

“ That ’s a good pra’r !”? observed Mammy presently.
‘* But when all’s said an’ done, thar ’s no gittin’ ‘round
nor rubbin’ out them words you read—‘sech things
must needs be.’ >Twould be easier to b’ar ef we onder-
stood better the why an’ wharfo’. ’Tought to be ’nough
to feel that the Lord knows, an’ has got hole of the
handle that moves the univarse. But we ’re mighty
weak an’ doubtful cre’turs. An’ the ole Satan, he’s
all the time a-moyin’ an’ a-seekin’ an? a-roarin’ an’ a-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 41

devourin’. Thar ain’t no sign of his bein’ caught,
much less chained, for a long time to come. Lord !”—
she lifted her arms in the darkness, as if to lay hold of
the Unseen Strength—‘‘ Lord! how long ! how long !””

‘What has happened, Mammy ?”? The gesture and
the heavy sadness of her tone struck me as peculiar.
‘* What is going to happen ?”

She quieted down in an instant, rubbing me as before.

“The Lord knows, dearie; I don’t! His holy will
will be done ’mong the ’habitants of the yearth what-
ever we may say and think. He ken make the wrath
an’ foolishness an’ even the blood-guiltiness of men to
praise Him. S’pose now,”’ rousing herself to brisker
speech and manipulation, ‘‘I was to tell you a story
to put you to sleep ? ’Tain’t right for little ladies to lay
*wake ’tel all times o’ night.”’

I nestled satisfiedly among my pillows. Mammy’s
stories were a never-stale delight. When I was a mere
baby I learned from her the folk-lore made famous, in
this our day, by ‘‘ Uncle Remus’”’ recapitulations.
When I outgrew the fables of “‘ Brer Rabbit’’ and ‘‘ Brer
Bar,” she had tales of real life—a bountiful supply,
valued all the more that she dealt them out to few.
Without austerity her demeanor had a shade of reserve,
her carriage a dignity that kept the would-be familiar
ata distance. She was never merry with the child-like
hilarity of her race, although never gloomy. Her voice
was a mellow contralto, her speech ungrammatical and
provincial, but never coarse. Her intonations were
refined and very sweet, reminding strangers of the gra-
cious gentlewoman in whose service she had lived for
thirty years. Like my grandmother and my grand-
aunt, she was a widow. Her only child, Uncle Archie’s
foster-brother, was the Summerfield ‘‘ dining-room ser-
vant.”’
42 JUDITH:

A tempting idea seized me.

‘Tell me the whole story of your life, won’t you?
Make a memoir of it—a biography, Mammy, like Miss
Hannah More’s. I heard Grandma say to Mrs. Pres-
ton the other day: ‘You know that I have an African
princess on my plantation. I mean ’Ritta. She has
French blood in her veins, too.’ And Mrs. Preston
said: ‘That accounts for her being such a superior
person. Iam a firm believer in blood.’ What did they
mean ?”’

She drew the linen sheet gently over my limbs,
straightened herself in her chair and folded her arms in
unconscious stateliness.

‘Mistis tole the truth. I’ve been hear my mother
say, many a time, that her father was a king in his own
country. Thar was fightin’ and wars thar too. Sech
bloody an’ deceitful wars that sometimes they eat their
enemies when they were took in battle, an’ other times
sole them to nigger-traders. One day my gran’father
went to fight at the head of his army, and was took
prisoner. He had the name of bein’ a great warrior,
and his enemies were ’fraid to let him loose. So they
carried him down to the sho’ whar a white folks’ vessel
was waitin’ for a load 0’ mizzable fellow-bein’s, an’ sole
him—my mother use’ to declar’—for a kaig 0’ New
England rum! He was passed from one plantation to
another ’tel one o’ the Reads bought him, and so he
come into ole Marster’s han’s—he that was your great-
gran’pa. I don’no’ what the king was name’ in his
own country, but in Ameriky they called him ‘Scipio,’
and give him a surname, ‘ Africanus.’ I remember it
*cause it was so much like the land he come from. It
sounds sorter heathenish, too. But mos’ly he went by
the title of ‘Scip Read.’ He didn’t die ’tel I was mos’
grown. I recklect him as plain as ef he had sot in the
A CHRONICLI: OF OLD VIRGINIA. 43

chimbley cornder 0’? Mammy’s house yes’day evenin’ a-
smoking’ of his pipe, an’ makin’ us chillen’ min’. He
was black as sut’ (soot), ‘but he had a noble ’portment
when he was nigh ’pon a hund’ed year ole. He was
Marster’s carridge-driver ’s long as he could work, an’
Marster and Mistis set a heap o’ store by him.

‘““He warn’t converted ’tel ’bout fifteen year befo’
his death. Then he got through in a powerful revival
of religion, the mos’ wonderful ever seen bout here.
’Twas like a fresh in the creek. It swep’ off a heap o’
ole dry an’ rotten logs that had been layin’ so long on
the bank folks had clean given ’’em up. They say my
pore ole gran’daddy he kneel down right in the meetin’
an’ shouted an’ blessed God for the ’flictions of his
youth, an’ he a-holdin’ up his han’s with two fingers
shot off 0’ one of ’em in the battle whar he was took
pris’ner! When he come to jine the church he ’fessed
to the preacher (ole Parson Watkins it was) that he
never in all them years had laid down at night ’thout
sayin’ over a heathen charm that was certain to be-
witch, an’ mos’ likely destroy the men that took him
pris’ner an’ the nigger-trader that bought him.

“«<« Now,’ says he, ‘the debbil done lef’? my heart so
clean an’ sweet I ken pray for ’em all—blackaman an’
whitey.’

‘He allers spoke very uncorrect to the las’.

“Parson Watkins—he preach his funeral sermon
from the tex’, ‘Ethiopia shall stretch out her han’s
unto the Lord.’

‘‘ But Mistis, she say she ’d ruther have had, ‘ What
I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know here-
after.’ ”’

“What sort of charm was it, do you suppose? And
could it really do anybody any harm ?”

“J don’no’, Miss Judith. In our Saviour’s time the
44 JUDITH:

Evil One had great power. He ain’t los’ it all, certain,
an’ he’s allers willin’ an’ a-waitin’ to put his han’ to
any bad job. Thar’s many sensible persons believes in
spells an’ witches. I reckon the good is boun’ to come
cut ahead in the long run, but it’s a tough race for
awhile. Thar’s whar the ‘mus’ needs be’ comes in
again!” sighing deeply.

‘*Go on with your story, Mammy!’’? I nudged her
as she was relapsing into revery.

“Sure ’nough, dear! Thinkin’ comes easier than
talkin’ to people that are gittin’ on in years. ’Pears
like we’s gittin’ use’ to the las’ sleep in the grave,
whar thar’s no speech nor langidge. Firs’, we don’
hear so well; then, the eyes is darkened; then, the
tongue gets slow an’ heavy. All over us we ’re bein’
made ready for the silence an’ the night. That’s the
Lord’s way o’ preparin’ His people for what mus’ come
—what we can’t git shet of.”’

I fidgeted uncasily.

““That’s preaching, Mammy! I always skip the
stupid-good parts of memoirs, even on Sundays. Tell
me about your French blood. Was your father a
French king ?”’

‘“He was a French scrvant, chile!’ gravely. ‘My
ole marster had a brother—Mars’ Littleton Read—who
went to France to finish his edication. This was befo’
the long war, an’ he stayed ’cross seas two years. When
he come home he fetched with hima young French
body-servant name’ Francis Bernard. My mother was
ole Mistis’ maid, an’ as likely a girl as could be foun’
in this country or any other. So this Francis he fell in
love with her, an’ one day he come to Mars’ Littleton,
an’ ask leave to marry her in good an’ reg’lar style—
same like she was a white woman. For that marter, he
warn't so mighty fa’r himeclf, but mo’ like a light
“i CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 45

mulotter. Ole Marster an’ Mistis they wouldn’t hear
on it for a long while, an’ wanted Mars’ Littleton to
send his man away. But he said he couldn’t do with-
out him, an’ wouldn’t. He was dreadful sot in his ways,
Mars’ Littleton was, an’ I reckon Francis had caught
the same complaint. He wouldn’t give up his notion,
neither, an’ kep’ pesterin’ his young marster, an’ he
a-dingin’ at his brother, until bimeby ole Marster he had
to give in. He sont for a white preacher though, an’
ole Mistis she lent the bride her own weddin’-veil, an’
had a beautiful supper for them, an’ they war married
*s fas’? as the Gospel could marry ’em. Colored folks
can’t be married to anybody by law.”

‘* Why not ?”

‘* That ’s one of the questions I can’t answer, honey.
I reckon ’cause a woman can’t have two marsters, an’
she ‘s born one man’s property. Some folks say ef they
war’ married by law they couldn’t never be separated
nor sole apart. Some others say that ef a man on one
plantation was to marry a woman on another by law,
they would both have to go to the man’s marster to
avide confusion ’bout the children. I don’ pretend to
onderstan’ how that mought be. All I know is white
folks is married by law an’ colored ones ain’t, I’ve
been hear tell, too, that ole Marster could ’a’ been took
up an’ tried for lowin’ the weddin’, an’ the preacher
for marryin’ a white man toa colored woman. Maybe
folks warn’t so particklar ’bout sech things in them ole
times, when thar was Injins an’ other wile cre*turs to
to be fit’ (fought). ‘‘Or maybe they counted a French-
man no better thar. a colored person. Anyhow, he an’
my mother was married, an’ they lived as man an’ wife
for better’n six years in the very same house whar f
live now, out yarnder in the yard. They say he fixed it
up beautiful. He planted grape-vines by the do’, an’
48 JUDITH:

fig trees at the end by the chimbley, an’ sot out the
butter an’ eggs an’ jonquils an’ vi’lets that bloom soon
in the spring, even now, under the front winder. He
kep’ the house whitewashed inside an’ out, an’ put up
shelves an’ cubberds an’ all sorts 0’ conveniences. He
warn’t a Christyun though. The firs’ thing I ken re-
member was him a-settin’ on the do’step, playin’ the
fiddle an’ a-learnin’ me to dance to it, an’ how my
mother use’ to run into the house an’ cry when he
wouldn’t stop. She ’d been brought up to think ’twas
a sin to play worldly tunes an’ to dance. In his out-
landish country everybody did it.

‘‘'Then Mars’ Littleton he went fora soldier an’ took
my father with him. I reckon that was how he got into
the notion of leavin’ the plantation. Anyhow, when
the war was over, he never come back. He an’ another
Frenchman stopped in Richmon’ an’ sot up in business
thar. Both of ’em was peart fellows, an’ they ’d picked
up aright smart chance of money an’ idees sence they
cometo Ameriky. Mars’ Littleton he died the las’ year
o’ the war, an’ Francis writ a very polite note to ole
Marster to say that there warn’t no sense in his makin’
his home on the plantation any longer. Nex’ thing we
had news that he was gittin’? on wonderful in town,
makin’ money, an’ very pop’lar with everybody. But
not a word from him for my mother or anybody else.

‘*Ole Marster an’ Mistis died in the one year, an’
Mars’ Sterling, your gran’pa, had the ole place, an’
pretty soon he brought his wife home, an’ she took a
heap o’ int’rust in my mother an’ me. She writ to a
frien’ of hers in Richmon’ to inquire ’bout Mr. Francis
Bernard in a quiet sort 0? way. *Twouldn’t ’a’ been no
use to try to git him back seein’ they warn’t married by
law. Back came word that he was mighty respectable,
an’ in a fa’r way to be a rich man, an’ how he was jes”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 43

been married to a very nice lady—pore, but of a pretty
good family.”

‘Mammy ! how cruel! how wicked! when his first
wife was living! Why, that is sin!” cried I, summing
up the case in the concluding word.

‘* Sin”? to us meant more than error or fault. It was
a specific, not a generic term, and signified downright
infraction of some section of the Decalogue.

“We jes’ had to b’ar it, Miss Judith. Man’s law
couldn’t tech him. Bein’ a onbeliever, he didn’t con-
sider the law of his God. He mought go on a-flourishin’
like a green bay tree, with none to moles’ or make him
*fraid. ’Tain’t often that the Lord himself speaks out
d’reckly an’ loud when He sees sech wickedness. Ef
He says to himself sentence ag’inst the evil work, we
ain’t none the wiser ’tel His time for punishment is
full an’ ripe. Then comes the weepin’ an’ wailin’ an’
gnashin’ o’ teeth. The Lord’s thoughts ain’t car
thoughts, nor His day our ’n.”

The moon was peeping at me through the lower
boughs of the walnut tree. The fugue burst out anew—
was carried on evenly, in good time and tune, to the
close. We stopped our talk to listen.

“©O send Thy light !”
began Aunt Maria, tenderly fervent.

“O send Thy light !’’
came in Uncle Archie’s base, steady and resonant as a
drum.

*O send Thy light !”’
followed the young Northerner’s bettcr-trained but
lighter voice, with some sacrifice of expression to mu-
sical accent.

The confluent harmony fulfilled my childish ideal of
angelic quiring.
48 JUDITH :

“T think the new song must sound very much like
that,’’ said I, when the last note had throbbed into
silence that, to my fancy, waited for more.

‘My pore mother’s been a-singin’ it for this many a
year,”’ responded Mammy.

‘Did she die of a broken heart ?”

“No, honey. Workin’ people—plain, every-day folks
—don’t gen’rally. They can’t take time for the disease
to run its course. For all that, ’twas pitiful to hear
her sobbin’ an’ prayin’ in the dead o’ night when she
thought everybody was ’sleep. I never let on to her
that she woke me up sometimes! Thar warn’t no
yearthly power that could lift so much as the little end
o’ her cross. ”Iwas strapped an’ buckled on too tight
for her to shake it off long as she lived. She mought a
married two or three times, bein’ considered the same
as a widder, but she said ‘No!’ right up an’ down
when asked, an’ Mistis wouldn’t ’low her to be pestered
by the men. She allers stood out that my mother was
right not to think o’ sech things.”’

“‘Of course she did !”’ interjected I, indignantly.

‘*Some ladies would a felt an’ talked different to a
likely young woman. T’d been married ten year when
my mother went away for good from this worl’ o’ sin
an’ misery. Mistis was with her when she died, an’
closed her eyes with her own han’s, Then she stood
lookin’ at her, the tears runnin’ down her sweet face.

“**Good an’ faithful!’ says she. ‘Good an’ faithful
unto death! She’s entered into the joy o’ her Lord,

Ritta ! says she tome. ‘But you have lost a mother,
an? I one o’ my best frien’s.’

‘She helped me shroud the pore, weary body in one
o’ her own gowns. She thought everything o’ her,
Mistis did !

‘‘ The night befo’ she died, my mother had a long talk
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 49

with me ’bout my father. She hadn’t named him to
me in more ’n twenty years. Then ’twas she tole me
that my real name was Marguerita. I hadn’t never
known it befo’.

“Tt ?s French,’ says she, ‘an’ he named you arfter
his mother. He was mighty proud an’ fond o’ his firs’
baby. ’Fever you git a chance to speak to him tell him
how free I forgiv’ him on my death-bed, an’ how I hope
he’ll be happy here an’ hereafter. He wouldn’t keer,
maybe, to meet me in heaven,’ says she, ‘an’ it ’s likely
his white wife would be more suitable-like for him in
this worl’ an’ the nex’, But he needn’t stay out o’ the
kingdom on that account. The houses thar is many
an’ wide. I ’spose he mought walk ’bout the golden
streets for a million year without comin’ ’cross me with-
out he chose to meet me. I wouldn’t git in his way. I
been hear tell,’ says she, kinder wishful-like, ‘how Mr.
Baptist preached one day to the colored people at Red
Lane Church that thar would be kitchens in heaven
jes’ like ’tis here, an’ that if we are good servants on
yearth we may be ’lowed to tote up water from the river
o’ life for the white folks’ table. But Mistis, she say
that ain’t so—that we’ll all be free an’ equil thar. I
don’no’ ’bout that! Don’t ’pear jes’ right for me to sit
*longside o’ a lady like her even at the marridge-supper
o’ the Lamb,’ says she.

“«The Lord will manage so’s you shell feel easy
an’ happy wherever you are in the New Jerus’lem,
Mammy,’ says I, for I see she was beginnin’ to wander
in her min’.

‘‘She giv’ a little smile an’ turned her face over to the
pillow, jes’ like a chile goin’ to sleep.

“*¢- You won’t forgit my messidge to your father,’ says
she, ‘an’ how I won't bother him no more in time nor
eternity ?”
50 JUDITH :

‘*So I promised her, solemn an’ sure.

‘‘But Richmon’ isa good many mile off from here,
an’ Mistis didn’t git away from home often. ‘Three
years was gone before I could take the trip. At las’
Mistis went down one spring to visit her cousins, the
Blairs and Pleasantses, an’ Mrs. Governor Wood, an’
carried me with her. She’d tole me whar my father
lived, an’ I didn’t forgit it. The day arfler we got
to town I asked her mought I go out fora walk, an’
hunted ’bout ’tel I foun’ the street an’ the house.
*Twas on Church Hill, an’ a very nice brick house with
guarden an’ orchard an’ all. I thought in a minute to
myself ’twas likely he’d planted the flowers an’ grape-
vines an’ fig trees. Thar was a pretty summer-house
one side of the guarden, with a table an’ a cheer in it.
I could jes’ ’magine mos’ as plain as ef I’d seen him
how he’d sot thar warm evenin’s smokin’ an’ readin’.
I walked up an’ down, up an’ down, for much as half an
hour befo’ that house tryin’ to find heart for togoin. I
shuck all over like I had a chill when I thought o’ meetin’
my father. ’Twan’t that I loved him exactly, but I
reck’lected him holdin’ me on his knee an’ singin’ me
to sleep, an’ how my mother had been bound up in him,
an’ it all come back ’pon me ina rush. Bimeby, jes’ as
I stopped ai the gate to try to steady my mind, a lady
come out on the porch an’ called to me.

*** Come in!’ says she, friendly an’ pleasant as could
be. ‘I saw you pass several times, like you was a-lookin’
for somebody,’ says she. ‘Can I do anything for
you ?’

“¢¢Tm lookin’ for Mr. Francis Bernard, ma’am,’ says
I. ‘I’d like to speak to him.’

‘* She turned as white as the wall, an’ sot right down
on the porch bench.

‘** You haven’t heard, then, that he’s dead!’ says
 

 

 

”

“SHE CAME T’WARD ME SO FIERCE, WITH HER HAN’ UP.”’—p 51.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 51

she. ‘He has been in his heavenly home a year this
spring. He was my dear, dear husband !’

“With that she pulled out her handkerchief an’
began to cry.

‘Td dropped down on the other bench an’ couldn’t
have spoke a word ef my life had depended on it.

““*His heavenly home!’ thinks I. ‘ How positive she
says it! Who knows but he has had my mother’s mes-
sidge long befo’ this time ?’

‘* Presen’ly she wipes her eyes, an’ says she, a-smilin’
in a sorrowful way :

“What did you want with him? Can I do any-
thing for you? What is your name, an’ whar do you
come from ?”

‘*My name is Marguerita Bernard, ma’am,’ says I.
‘My mistis is Mrs. Read of Summerfield, —— County.’

‘* Jes’ as I said it, I see two young ladies standin’ in
the do’ behind me. One of them steps forward before
her mother could speak. She had a dark skin and big
biack eyes. The other was fa’r like the mother.

‘““* Who is this woman, mother ?’ said the dark one,
very haughty-like. ‘Did your mistress send you here ?
An’ what is your business with Mrs. Bernard ?”

‘Something biled up in me. I riz right up, straight ’s
an’ arrow, an’ faced her, an’ says I:

‘¢¢ The Lord do so to me, an’ mo’ also, ef I’m tellin’
anything but the downright truth! My mother was
married to yo’ father in the sight 0’ God an’ His angels
befo’ yo’ father ever see yo’ mother, an’ I’m his chile !’

‘‘T thought she would a hit me, she come t’ward
me so fierce with her han’ up. But her mother she
ketched holt o’ her.

‘* ¢Marguerita, be still !’ says she.

‘Tt went through me like a shot that he ’d made no
%eount o’ me, but called another chile arfter his mother.
JUDITH :

a
w

“¢T{?s all true! says Mrs. Bernard. ‘‘ He tole me
bout it years ago, when he’d a spell of sickness an’
thought he was dyin’. I forgiv’ him then; the Lord
forgiv’ him arfterward. If he had sinned, he repented.
Who am I that I should judge him ?’

‘*She made me come into the house, an’ had a long
talk with me, an’ showed me my father’s pictur’. Then
she giv’? me a nice snack to eat, an’ asked me to call
an’ see her whenever I come to town. Nobody could
a behaved kinder than she did. She’s dead, too, now.
She was a good Christyun if ever one lived. I been
hear that her daughters has married mighty well.
I shan’t never bother them ag’in ; but I wish ’em well.”

‘““But, Mammy, they are your sisters !”’

‘In one way, honey—but that don’t count for much
in this one-sided world.

‘“That makes me say what I do say,’’ she resumed
thoughtfully after a pause; ‘“‘that it don’t stan’ to
reason as everything ken he sot straight and satisfac-
tory here. ’Tain’t man, whose breath is in his nostrils,
who is got the right to overturn an’ overturn an’ over-
turn, no marter how upside-down things may look to
be. That’s the Lord’s business, an’ we ain’t no call to
pull it out 0’ His han’s befo’ He’s half done with it
an’ ready to trust it to us for the finishin’ off. You ken
sew a right straight seam an’ hem when Mistis or Miss
Betsey has fixed it an’ basted it down. ’Twould be
foolish an’ disrespec’ful in you to undertake the whole
job, an’ you know it well enough not to try it. The
kingdom of heaven ain’t the only thing we’ve got to
receive like little children. It’s one thing to say, ‘ His
will be done,’ an* another to suffer it !
A CHRONICLE OF CLD VIRGINIA. 53

CHAPTER IV.

Iwas busy next morning with my neglected lessons,
my feet curled up undcr me on a rug laid in the shadiest
corner of the back porch, when Miss Virginia Dabney
came out to me. I raised my eyes from the dog-eared
‘*Emerson’s Arithmetic.’? In a close tussle with a new
rule J had caught the click of her slipper-heels on the
hall-floor, and thrilled to the square toes of my thick
shoes. There is an almost piteous strain in the wor-
shipful regard of a little girl for a beautiful young
woman. It may be the eager, unconscious recognition
of the possible apotheosis of her immature self, such as
quickens the sluggish pace of the caterpillar brushed by
the wing of a passing butterfly.

This city maiden—whose toilettes were a wonder in
themselves to my rustic appreciation, whose smiles
were so free and sweet, her spirits so buoyant that she
seemed to me to glorify a room by entering it—was just
now my terrestrial goddess. I crimsoned with untold
delight when she accosted me suddenly with one of the
endearing terms she uttered more easily than did my
kinspeople; her touch was a benefaction, her kiss an
ecstacy. She had never been prettier than on this sum-
mer morning. No pink-tipped daisy fresh from an
English dew-bath could be fairer and brighter.

She wore a gown of fine white dimity, her shoulders
being covered by a small cape, crossing the chest in
front, leaving bare a bewitching triangle at the neck,
almost as purely white as the fabric. Shoulder-puffs
were met by long cambric sleeves, which could be un-
54 JUDITH:

buttoned and slipped off at the pleasure of the wearer.
These were finished at the wrists by narrow crimped
ruffles of linen lawn. The cape was trimmed with the
same, and a broader frill edged the skirt. Ill-natured
critics spoke of her hair as ‘‘ red,”’ but she had no feel-
ing on the subject of her bright locks. They were soft,
luxuriant, and curled as naturally as woodbine tendrils,
being susceptible of many varieties of eflective arrange-
ment. She might well be content with them, even had
they not set off to such advantage the exquisite clear-
ness of her complexion and contrasted harmoniously
with the blue of her eyes.

‘‘Good-morrow, my little Sweetbrier,’’ she said, trip-
ping up to me to tap my cheek with a taper fore-
finger.

She was never prodigal of her kisses, nor was oscula-
tion so common—I might add, so cheap—a ceremony
then as now in the most affectionate families.

My Uncle Wythe had nicknamed me ‘‘ Brier ’’ when I
was five and he ten years old. Ina pitched battle for
supremacy he had boxed my ears. I fastened one hand
in his hair, the nails of the other upon his face. I was
very much ashamed of the story and of the long scar,
like an untimely wrinkle, crossing his freckled check.
But I still hated him when he used the unlucky word in
teasing or rebuke. Miss Virginia’s amiable tact had
drawn the sting from this a year ago, when he had
goaded me to stormy but ineffectual tears. She scolded
him—still sweetly—for ‘‘ persecuting a little girl,’’ and
taking me upon her lap, averred ‘‘ that Sweetbrier was
her favorite flower, in bloom and out. It was sweet and
spicy, and no more thorny than was necessary to keep
rude boys at a distance. She meant to call me by no
other name.”’

Uncle Archie was a spectator of the scene, and the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 55

next day transplanted a thrifty root of sweetbrier from
the woods to a bed of prepared soil beside the front
porch, Miss Virginia superintending the pretty bit of
horticulture. It had taken root forthwith and flourished
apace. Uncle Archie had the ‘‘lucky touch”’ with roots
and slips. They grew when and wherever he set them.

While she looked over my shoulder now, with kindly
offers of assistance gratefully and conscientiously de-
clined, he joined us, a spray of sweetbrier—a rose,
two buds and a cluster of the odorous leaves—in his
hand. He offered it to her, smiling silently, when
‘‘Good mornings ’’ had been exchanged.

‘““It grows lovelier every day,’’ said she, accepting the
gift without spoken thanks.

She inhaled the breath of the opened flower long
enough for my eyes—and perhaps others—to note how
perfectly the pale rose-tint matched her cheeks, then
pinned it at the top of her corsage, where it rested
against the pearly skin. I thought how few women
could risk the contrast safely, and how free from vain
imaginations was this paragon of her sex.

The pair began a slow promenade of the porch while
awaiting the summons to prayers. I tried faithfully
to concentrate my powers of observation upon Emer-
son and the day’s sums (we did not call them ‘ex-
amples’). I did keep my eyes upon the page and my
lips moved in mechanical iteration. In the calm light
of day and the steady progress of a restored train of
ideas, I had compunctious visitings as to yesterday’s
eavesdropping. I would hear nothing now—if I could
help it—that was not directed with conscious intent, to
my ears. Yet whence was I, inquisitive little sinner
that I was, to draw the moral courage to exclude from
these organs the trickle of such tempting sentences as
were projected toward me with each turn of their stroll
56 JUDITH:

at my end of the piazza? ITlearing, I could not but
heed; heeding, I laid up and pondered then and re-
member now.

“You are unjust to yourself. Indeed, you have never
had justice done you!’’ The deliverance was so silvery
distinct that it reached me from the other extremity of
the promenade. ‘“‘I am angry whenever I recollect
that you had to give up the hope of an education and
settle down at nineteen to a farmer’s life.”

‘‘An education”? meant a collegiate course. The
Reads belonged to what Dr. Holmes has taught us to
call the ‘‘ Brahmin Caste ’’—‘‘ that in which aptitude
for learning is congenital and hereditary. Their names,”’
he goes on to say, ‘“‘are always on some college cata-
logue or other. They break out every generation or
two in some learned labor which calls them up after they
seem to have died out.”’

Young as I was, I understood that not to be college-
bred was very near akin to loss of caste; shrank from
the touch on a sore place at this overt allusion to
what was seldom mentioned in the family. Mammy
and Aunt Betsey had, between them, let me into the
secret, enjoining discretion upon me, as it was ‘‘ a great
grief to Grandma.”

“It was unavoidable,’? I heard Uncle Archie say,
with no haste of self-vindication, but rather as if allay-
ing another’s disappointment.

Again the silvery, somewhat thin voice in reply :

‘“Yes, I know! Maria told me one day last year
—how it was decided that, since your mother could af-
ford, at that time, to educate but one of you, you, as
the eldest son, should of course enter college; how,
the very day before you were to set out—after your
trunk was packed—you happened to find Sterling lying
flat on his face in Gie woods, erying--”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 57

The rest was lost in the distance. When they neared
me again Uncle Archie was speaking.

‘‘ He has fine talents. I knew this then as wellas I
do now that he has proved by his college career what
stuff he is made of. He will be a man of mark should
his life be spared. I deserve no credit for what you call
a sacrifice. I should have committed a crime had I—”

The girl came to a full stop midway in the porch at
their next round; set her foot down hard and looked
at him, eyes flashing and lips pouting.

‘*T can’t bear to hear you say that, Mr. Read! ‘No
talent to speak of!" You ‘lay claim to nothing better
than hard, common sense !? Don’t you know that stupid,
ordinary people—and so many of those we meet are
stupid and ordinary !—will take you at your own valua-
tion ? will believe your slanders of yourself? Mr. Ster-
ling Read is very brilliant, I’ve no doubt, but his mind
is no better or stronger than yours. Why will you fret
me by insisting upon the contrary ? Don’t I know you ?”

Italics convey no just sense of the eloquent shades of
emphasis, nor would a word-portrait of the changeful
fice uplifted te the morning light. The pale rose was
damask red, her eyes gleamed moistily. She plucked,
nervously, leaf after leaf from a jasmine streamer, to
throw them on the floor. Her little slipper beat the
devil’s tattoo on the oaken boards.

Uncle Archie stood looking at her until I felt that I
must jump up and run away. With fragments of old
novels drifting through my mind, I should not have
been astonished to see him drop upon one knee and
break forth into three pages of rhapsodical declaration.
Then, before I could gather up limbs and book for es-
cape, he seemed to take hold of himself, to curb some-
thing that strained and tore at the rein. So tremendous
was the mental battle that bis bronzed cheek grew sal-
58 JUDITH:

low, one big, forked vein stood out turgidly in his fore-
head, his hands unclosed and clenched as in a spasm.
He swallowed hard, as the girl’s eyes gradually sank
under his ; wet his lips with his tongue before he spoke—
very quietly and deliberately even for him, who was
seldom impulsive or rash of utterance.

‘‘You are very good to think so wellof me. But I
am not affecting humility when I say that my brothers
are more gifted than I, intellectually. I liked to study
when at school. They love learning for its own sake.
They speak fluently and effectively. I handle my mother
tongue with difficulty, and know no other, having for-
gotten the little Latin and less Greek drilled into me
when a boy. The bent of my mind is practical. I think
Ishall make, in time, a tolerable planter. Icould never
succeed at the law as Sterling will, or in the ministry
as Wythe will, should he hold to his purpose of becom-
ing a preacher. He has always nursed this notion’’—
laughing a little to relieve the stiffaess both were ke-
ginning to feel and show—“‘ ever since he used to collect
the little negroes under the big walnut tree and preach
to them against the sin of eating clay. For two centu-
ries there has never been wanting in our family a man
to stand before the Lord. Each generation has had one
or more ministers of the gospel.”

‘‘T know it is a way they have!’ She was fingering
the upper rail of the balustrade as she would a key-
board, gazing into the distance. ‘‘It isa noble profes-
sion.’’

‘‘The highest man can follow,” responded Uncle
Archie as sententiously.

‘*'You would have made a good minister, yet preferred
to be a farmer !””

‘‘T obeyed the call as I heard it.”

‘‘ Ah, well, there is no use wishing now, I suppose !"”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 59

She tossed out both plump hands with the action of
one who puts aside something definitely and decidedly.
The sweetbrier rose, blown to the full, was shaken by
the motion, and a rain of loosened petals fell, unnoticed
by either, among the strewn jasmine leaves.

“Doing is better than wishing—as a rule,” said
Uncle Archie, still avoiding looking directly at her—
“but less pleasant.”’

His eyes were fixed on the pine crown of the opposite
hill. Their expression robbed the words of common-
placeness. Neither of the twain seemed to address the
other in these latter sentences. I saw Miss Virginia
steal one look at him, questioning, pleading, as loath to
believe herself foiled or mistaken.

A bell tinkled in the hall, and I arose to follow them
to the parlor. Miss Virginia walked on to the open
front door, paused for an instant there, waiting until
Aunt Maria should join her. The sunlight, creeping
aslant across the polished floor, struck full on her face,
and I was shocked at its pallor—a strange, bluish tint
touching her very lips. Was she angry with Uncle
Archie? Had he wounded her to the heart? She
looked just as usual when sh» took her place beside
her friend in the silent group at the top of the long
room. The house-servants, eight in number, including
Mammy and ‘‘Mam”’ Peggy, the cook, ranged them-
selves near the entrance; Uncle Archie had the arm-
chair that had been his father’s. A round stand at his
right hand supported the Family Bible, the leathern
covers black with age and glossed by handling. His
mother sat nearest him on one side, Aunt Betsey next
to her.

‘* Looking forth as the morning, fair as the sun, clear
as the moon!” repeated I, inly, in surveying them.

Their white hands, beautiful still in form and tex-
60° JUDITH:

ture, were folded upon their mourning-dresses. Caps
and frilled tuckers were pure and crisp. The sisters
never looked hot in summer, or cold in winter. Just
now their thoughts and hearts were fixed, their eyes
deep and clear with holy calm.

Uncle Archie was not yet twenty-seven, yet no one
saw incongruity in his position as patriarch and priest
of the household. Sedate beyond his years with the
pressure of premature care and thought-taking for
others, his mother’s strong right arm, the guardian and
mentor of three younger children, he yet bore himself
with the chastened reverence of a youthful disciple in
the High Presence to which he now summoned others.

The service began with a hymn, given out two lines
ata time, and sung by us all, Mr. Bradley raising and
leading the tune of ‘‘ Mear.”’

“Lord ! in the morning Thou shalt hear
My voice ascending high ;
To Thee will I direct my prayer,

To Thee lift up mine eye.”
Aunt Betsey sang tenor. We children called it ‘tthe
tribble,’’ and were proud of heraccomplishment. It was
a part much affected by musical ladies of her generation.
At forty, her voice was clear and sound. I never hear
old ‘‘ Mear,’’ “‘St. Anne’s,”’ ‘“‘China,’’ or ‘‘Dundee,”’
without fancying that I discern her bell-like rendering of
the highest notes of the staff, the tuneful rise above the
other voices of certain bars in which she felt especially
at home, an occasional holding and slurring not set
down in the score, as if she loved some passages too
well to let them go at once. She warbled as a bird
sings, chin and brow slightly upraised, lips just parted,
eyes steady and serene, and was followed at harmonious
distances by air and counter, all upborne and marshaled
by Uncle Archie’s base, firm and true like himself.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 61

It was the custom in Presbyterian families to take
the Bible ‘‘in course’? at morning prayers, one long
chapter or two short ones each day, leaving the se-
lection of the chapter read at evening to the reader’s
judgment. We had begun with Genesis on New Year’s
Day. The nineteenth chapter of Second Kings was the
portion in order for this morning. Uncle Archie read
in his round, clear voice, with no pretense of elocution-
ary effect, all the thirty-seven verses. If there had
been seventy-four we should have had the unabated tale
of Scripture. The fashion of hanging illuminated texts
on the walls of living-rooms had not then been invented,
but above the high mantel of the dining-room was a
framed sentence written in paled ink on yellowing
paper—

‘“PRAYER AND PROVENDER HINDER NO MAN’S JOURNEY.”
Sterling Read, my grandfather, had penned it in bold,
clerkly characters for the admonition of children, ser-
vants and guests.

There was time for thirty-seven-verse Bible readings
and stately-phrased petitions and well-grounded beliefs
in that age when sewing, spinning, reaping and thresh-
ing were done by hand. We hearkened, one and all, to
the history of Hezekiah’s grievous strait in view of the
threatened invasion of the Assyrians. How he spread
the matter before the Lord and received gracious pro-
mises of deliverance; held our breaths in awe and
thankfuiness at the finale in which was portrayed with
sublime brevity the overthrow of the enemies of the
Daughter of Zion, the blasphemers of the Holy One of
Israel.

‘¢ And it came to pass in that night that the angel
of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the
Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand ; and
when they arose early in the morning, behold they were
62 JUDITH:

all dead corpses,’’ said the quiet, deliberate accents of
the reader.

The eyes of all were riveted upon his visage, and
while the words were passing his lips a sudden stir of
breaths—not one of us moving hand, foot or head—was
perceptible in the hushed room. It was, as I have said,
along parlor. Full white curtains with knotted fringes
were looped away from the windows, of which there
were four. Those at the back were shaded by the
piazza. About the front clambered a riotous growth of
roses. The air was laden with their breath and that of
the lilies banked at their roots. As Uncle Archie read
the verse above quoted, a vagrant pencil of sunlight
pierced the woven branches and struck his cheek. It
broadened into a beam, the lower part shivering on his
shoulder and spotting his gray coat and vest with the
blue-green tint that changed his healthful complexion
to ghastliness. There was not an exclamation at the
phenomenon. In profound ignorance of it, he gave the |
two verses that remained of the chapter, closed the
book upon ‘‘ And Esarhaddon, his son, reigned in his
stead,’ adjusted the ribbon book-mark, laid the Bible
on ihe stand, and arose to his feet. The baleful beam
and blotches quivered and glanced with the movement,
touching his hands and white pantaloons, and when he
knelt, rested on his black hair. Peeping between the
fingers with which I decorously barred my face, I saw
the clustering masses take on the greenish lustre of a
crow’s wing as he began, in low, measured tones, never
employed on secular occasions, the customary formula :

‘‘Almighty and Most Merciful God, our Heavenly
Father.”

After that the power of listening was denied to me.
It was wicked and without precedent in a girl who
knew herself to be, as she had been told again and
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 63

again, ‘‘ quite old enough to follow in her heart the pe-
titions offered in church and at family worship,” but I
felt that I would rather die than not adventure a second
look, just to make sure that I had not imagined the
horrid hue. I opened a wider crack, twisted my body
slightly to the left from my kneeling position in the
shadow of Aunt Maria’s chair. People took posi-
tions then at prayers the easiest compatible with de-
vout decorum, for they were not to be varied without
weighty cause until the ‘“‘Amen!’’ was said. The
breeze that had blown aside the branches was a smart
puff that had not yet died out. Other streaks and
splashes of ‘sunshine were playing through the inter-
stices. A green corona encircled the mob of Grandma’s
cap. Short, crooked rays, like fingers, clutched at
Miss Virginia’s shoulder. Aunt Betsey’s calm profile,
bent upon her clasped hands, was bathed in dye as deep
as the color of a robin’s egg, with variations of dull
pea-green. While I stared, fascinated and horrified, I
saw Miss Virginia lift her head slowly and glance
around at Uncle Archie. Then her dilated eyes swept
the whole company, and she shuddered aside from the
crooking fingers, as if fecling as well as seeing them.

I lowered my hands in the instinctive desire for sym-
pathy, if Icould not get reassurance. Our regards met,
asked of one another, ‘‘What does it mean ?’’ and
traveled in company around the room until we reached
the kneeling row of servants. There we perceived what
we had not before noticed in our intent observation of
the semi-circle about the Bible-stand, that the window
nearest the door being less densely overgrown than the
others, let in a broader stream of light. The white
curtains seemed to be lined with green, and between
them a peak of cadaverous sunshine was cast upon the
floor. Right in the centre of this knelt Michael, over a
64 JUDITH:

wooden cricket he had brought in with him. Beyond
his kneeling attitude he made no pretense of devotion.
He grinned openly, half in terror, half in enjoyment of
a novelty, when he caught our eyes; his eye-balls rolled
from one to the other. Thirty years later I saw a Her-
culaneum bronze that brought back to me his aspect at
that instant—a greenish-black satyr’s head. His hair
was an ugly thing tosee. It was a bushy shock, well
combed by his mother within an hour, and the light
pierced it at the apex, changing it into the likeness of
crisped grass writhing in the heat of an oven.

“ For the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!”

The speaker was the only person there utterly uncon-
scious of any interruption of the solemnity of the ser-
vice, yet it was significant of the training and manners
of the day that none of us hurried the rising from our
devout posture. Nor when we were upright did any
one speak for a moment. We stood gazing about us
spell-bound by the increasing strangeness of the spec-
tacle. The glare and color were so much intensified
since we knelt down that eyes just unclosed were imme-
diately impressed with the phenomenon.

Mr. Bradley spoke first.

“Let us see what this means!’’ he said, walking
quickly to the front door.

We trooped after him into the porch.

The tranquil landscape I had seen yesterday afternoon
bathed in sunset smiles lay now like an accursed region.
Uncle Archie used to liken it to the face of a man he had
once seen dying of cholera, and to insist that hills and
trees seemed shrunken and drawn, as were his features.
The image is more apt than any other I can summon in
the recollection. The sun shone in an unclouded sky.
There was no haze about it, or on the most distant hills
visible to us. The awful change was in the burning disk
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 65

itself, or in the light emitted by it. Some declared that
both were blue, others that they were green. To this
day the prodigy is referred to by eye-witnesses of it,
sometimes as ‘‘the blue,’? sometimes as “the green
days.’’? The truth lay between these descriptions. The
color changed from time to time, at irregularly recur-
rent intervals, and suddenly or gradually with like
irregularity. For hours of morning, noon or afternoon
it was a dingy bluc, with the greenish reflections I
have mentioned ; again for whole hours the more por-
tentous dull green prevailed. At times both faded into
milder shades that promised a return of clear light.
The effect was lugubrious and depressing throughout
the continuance of what was esteemed inexplicable and
ominous in the absence of knowledge of chemical analy-
ses of sun-rays and scientific acquaintance with the
possible vagaries of the source of heat and radiance.

“It is very singular !"’ mused Uncle Archie aloud,
after going out as far.as the yard gate to see if the tinge
were generally diffused over heavens and earth.

‘‘What you s’pose it means, Mars’ Archie ?”’

The young master paused, his foot on the bottom
step of the porch. At the corner of the house nearest
the kitchen were collected the plantation negroes, fifty
or more in number. Mothers had babies in their arms;
men had come in from the fields with hoes, scythes and
rakes in hand; two or three sick persons had arisen
from bed and dressed hastily in the first garments that
came to hand. The questioner was an old man in the
front rank of the affrighted gang. He was attired in
jacket and trousers of unbleached cotton homespun,
and his hair was of the same yellowish-white. The
ashes of age and alarm lay on his sooty forehead and
cheeks.

“Jt arises from some peculiar state of the atmos-
66 JUDITH:

phere, Uncle Windsor,”’ returned Uncle Archie lightly.
‘“‘It will probably pass away in a little while.”

“You don’t s’pose, den,”’ tentatively, ‘“‘dat it’s one
o’ dem signs in de heaven above dat’s to come ’pon de
nations 0’ de yearth, sah, befo’ de Las’ Day ?”

‘‘T have no idea that it means anything of the kind,
my good friend,”’ in the same tone of easy good nature.

‘*Nor de token 0’ some heavy jedgment dat’s goin’
for to fall pon some folks somewhar, sah? Same-like
de tower o’ Sillyum, dat mashed eighteen ?*’ the man
drew nearer to say.

A low chorus of groans and ‘‘um-hwms !” from the
women ensued upon this erudite query. The signs of
gathering excitement did not escape the master’s no-
tice. He glanced somewhat sternly at the palpitating
throng, but his smile and voice were unchanged.

‘¢The Lord writes His prophecies in plainer print than
that, Uncle Windsor,’’ waving his hand toward the sky.
“He tells us that when He posts notices and puts up
sign-boards for us there will be no danger of misunder-
standing them; that ‘the wayfaring man, though a
fool, may not err therein, and he that runs may read.’ ”

The old man, privileged by age beyond the rank and
file of his fellows, shook his head.

‘* But ain’t we tole too, sah, dat in order to read ’em,
we mus’ hav de applyin’ eye an’ de seein’ ear an’ de
willin’? heart? ’Twon’t do to trabbel through de
yearth like moles, Mars’ Archie, nor yit like bats, dat
shets dey eyes an’ goes to sleep ina holler tree soon’s
de sun gits up. What you think we all better do ’bout
dis yer’ ’sturbance of de iliments ?”

He, too, waved his hand upward, but oratorically.

The smile was a pleasant laugh.

“Tam going in to breakfast. Those of you who
have had yours may stop at the cider-press for a drink
A CHRONICLH OF OLD VIRGINIA. 67

as you go back to work. You, Uncle Windsor, can
step to the kitchen and tell Mam Peggy to give you a
cup of coffee. Then take a comfortable smoke out
there in the shade. Have you any tobacco ?”’

‘““We was a-thinkin’ o’ holdin’ an all-day pra’r-
meetin’ sah,’? continued the spokesman, apparently
deaf to the tempting suggestions. ‘‘ef so be de wrath
o’ de Almighty mought be turn’ away, an’ His fiery
*dignation be drawed back into Heaven. for I been
hear dat de Good Book say, my young marster, how
in dat day shall de sun be darken’ an’ de moon shell
not give her light, an’ de stars shell drap ’pon de
yearth, same like de ’timely figs is shook off by de win’.
Pears like I ken see mos’ all dem things dis bery day,”’
falling into the sing-song of the negro exhorter; ‘‘an’
what dey say to one dey say to all, young an’ old, bon’
an’ free, ‘Prepar’ to meet de Lord at His comin’!
Turn to de Lord an’ make his parths straight, an’ t’ar
yo’ hearts an’ not yo’ guarments!’ It’s sech a day as
you think not maybe, Mars’ Archie !”’

An outburst of sighs, shrill groans and sobs from the
women behind him was waxing into the swinging hum,
like an inarticulate chant, common to the race in sea-
sons of religious fervor, when Uncle Archie turned
about sharply.

“None of that, there!’ he said, authoritatively.
“Hight hundred and thirty-one years ago, one thou-
sand years after the birth of our Saviour, people got
the idea into their heads that the end of the world was
at hand. They held all-day prayer-meetings by the
month, and repented and cried and waited for the sound
of the trumpet until the fields they had not planted were
high with weeds, and there was no bread to put into
their children’s mouths. Thousands starved to death.
Now, hear me! I mean that the work of this planta-
68 JUDITIT :

tion shall go on as long as there is light enough to show
the difference between cotton and tobacco, and for you
to see the rows of corn. What concern would it be of
yours if the sun should turn as blue as indigo! Leave
all that to One wiser and mightier than we are, and be
off to your business every one of you! If I were sure
that this was the last day of the world I could give you
no better advice than to do the day’s work better than
ever before. I can repeat Scripture, too, Uncle Wind-
sor, and I remember that the Wise Man said, ‘ What-
soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might?”

An expressive gesture in the direction of kitchen and
quarters was the signal of dispersion. The crowd
melted quietly away. In less than a minute the party
on the porch were left to themselves. Uncle Archie
mounted the steps.

“Ts breakfast ready, mother ?”’

He wiped his forehead, moved and spoke as one
weary or harassed.

Miss Virginia pinched my arm as Grandma led the
way to the dining-room.

‘““Wasn’t he splendid?’ she whispered. ‘‘ For all
that—I don’t dare let him know it—but I’m scared out
of my senses! I do believe that something is going to
happen !?
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 69

CILAPTER V.

THE chariot of learning drove heavily that day. Our
school-house was ‘‘the office,”? a small frame building
in a clump of locust trees near the garden paling. Be-
sides Uncle Wythe and myself there were eight pupils
—four boys and as many girls—who came over every
morning from neighboring plantations to enjoy the
privilege of study under the Summerfield tutor.

The teachers employed by the Reads had had a
somewhat remarkable record. Dr. Conrad Speece, an
intimate friend of my grandmother, had called that
one-roomed house under the locusts ‘‘ the nursery of
the Presbyterian clergy in Virginia,’? so many theo-
logical students had made it the half-way station to the
exercise of their sacred calling, earning by teaching for
a year or more the means with which to complete their
scholastic course. It was generally conceded that the
advantages of the position were extraordinary. More
than one, or half a dozen eminent divines freely ac-
knowledged their obligations to the queen of this little
realm for benefits college and serninary could not give.
From the riches of her motherliness she fed their bodies
aud hearts. Through her gentlehood she refined them.
Out of the hid treasures of her Christian experience she
furnished them for the life-work she dignified in their
sight as the commission in the service of her King.

Mr. Bradley was a student of law, not divinity, and
a graduate of Yale. He had come to Virginia and to
Summerfield at the beginning of this year, recom-
mended to my grandmother’s good will by Dr. John H.
of, JUDITH :

Rice, whose praise was in all the churches as a man of
learning, zeal and piety. The tutor was of totally
different type from his predecessors, but not one of
them had won so distinguished a place in the favor of
family and neighbors nor one showed more grateful ap-
preciation of his incorporation as a part of the household.

He sat, on the first of the discolored days, in the arm-
chair used by a long succession of tutors, a desk of
equal antiquity at his elbow. A window at his other
hand opened into a branchy nectarine tree. We were
ranged on backless benches about him. Five double
desks of unpainted pine, browned by time, notched,
hacked, scratched and ink-spotted, were behind us
when we faced him for recitation. While ciphering,
writing and studying, we had bent over them before his
induction into office. He was the first tutor who in-
sisted that we should sit straight and also hold heads
up and shoulders back in walking. His own carriage
was singularly graceful and his person pleasing. Not
so tall as Uncle Archie, he was more lithe, so erect in
figure and elastic in step that he had the appearance of
equal height. His hair was brown, as were his expres-
sive eyes; his nose was straight, with thin, flexible
nostrils; the mouth fine and sensitive, the lips parting
readily in smiles over white, regular teeth ; there was a
cleft in his chin and a hint of waviness in the hair.

I should be conversant with all these particulars,
having sketched his profile on stray bits of paper and
copy-book covers on an average ten times a week for
ten months. I can imagine now that he may have
looked in that dingy school-room and among its clumsy,
homely furnishings like a vase of choicest faience doing
duty as a kitchen ewer. No one perceived the incon-
gruity while he filled the post. We were used to seeing
men of noblest scholarship in the pulpits of churches
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 71

that had known neither painter’s brush nor carver's
tool, the pews of which were without cushions and the
aisles carpetless. Men who had stood before kings and
held sway in governmental councils walked the bare
floors of hereditary halls with the courtly bearing
learned in the minuet and practiced in foreign salons,
vaulted to the saddle and rode in knightly fashion that
recalled Sir Launcelot and the Black Prince. Never a
word or look on Mr. Bradley’s part evinced that there
was aught novel in all this to his apprehension ; still
less that he was surprised at the cordiality, unalloyed
by patronage, extended to himself by the best people in
the county. He was a gentleman—ingrain. That
was enough. Had he been personally less attractive
he would still have been entitled to courtcous treat-
ment as a recognized part of the Summerfield family.
There was no question of condescension on one side or
of humility on the other.

He was especially benignant and companionable on
this dreary forenoon. It is superfluous to mention tiat
he had not a single perfect lesson from the shivering
wretches who essayed to recite the tasks conned over
night. Those who had gone to bed knowing every line
and word and slept the sleep of the well-doer fared no
better than the rest. The altered face of Nature made
dunces of us all. We could not have mustered two
whole ideas among us unless allowed to exchange confi-
dences upon the mutations of the horrible garb cast
about the outer world. The very tree we had watched
day by day, each between his or her ‘‘ turns”’ in geog-
raphy, history and dictionary lessons until we knew
every glossy leaf as well as we had known every curve
and knot of naked boughs and twigs in winter time,
could have told the exact number of ripening nectarincs
in July and the now useless stalks where these had hung
72 JUDITH :

—even this familiar friend wore a jaundiced and for-
bidding aspect. The brown bark was edged with faint
blue films, as if seen through a prism ; the foliage was
of a uniform and disagreeable color, and hung heavily
motionless as noon drew near. Cicada and tree-toad
were mute. The grasshopper’s rattle and whirr in the
sun-parched sward that had grated on our ears yester-
day would have been welcome in the dead stillness of a
sickly earth fainting under the eye of a sickly sun.

I bore it without outcry, but with sinking heart,
chilled hands and feet, until it was almost time for
recess— ‘‘intermission,’? Mr. Bradley taught us to
term it, instead of ‘‘ play-time.’? Then; when the be-
thumbed and smeared slate, filled on one side with my
trial-sum in long division, was given back to me with a
reluctant, ‘‘ You had better try it once more, Judith,”’
pronounced in the tutor’s gentlest voice, I burst into a
passion of sobs.

““My dear little scholar !’’? exclaimed Mr. Bradley,
““T did oot scold. I donot wonder that you did not
get it right the first time, nor that you do not feel like
studying to-day. Everything will come straight to-
morrow.”’

Ihad heard him say it scores of times, for his was a
cheerful philosophy that never faltcred. Now it failed
to console me. The emotions and events of the past
twenty-four hours had worn my nerves to the raw
quick. I could not check my tears; and Elvira Clarke,
a delicate girl of fourteen, began to snivel behind her
handkerchief in sympathy.

‘The school is dismissed !”’? said the teacher, and
when the rest had gone, picked me up in his arms and
ran across the yard to Uncle Archie’s room.

It was on the first floor, and in the wing adjoining
his mother’s apartment—‘‘ the chamber,’’ as it was
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 73

called in country houses. Here we were sure to find
the ladies of the household, with one or two colored
scamstresses at this hour of the day. Uncle Archie
had not returned from his morning round of the plan-
tation, as my bearer knew. He carried me around by
a side door into the quiet room, laid me on the bed, and
went to look for fresh water and Aunt Maria. It was
natural for hurt and troubled things to turn toher. I
was clutching at my throat when he returned with
her—sitting upright, because I feared to choke to death
if I lay down, too much terrified at my own sensations
to think of what had induced the seizure. Aunt Maria
had brought the invariable hartshorn and administered
afew drops. The faith that possessed my soul at her
quiet assertion, ‘‘ It will do you good !’’ would have de-
fied the malignant operation of prussic acid. I hardly
felt the tingle of the ammonia on tongue and throat ;
held out my arms to be taken into her lap, and clung to
her in the blind persuasion that I was safer there than
anywhere else, were this indeed the crack of doom.

‘“Now,”? said Mr. Bradley, sitting down in front of
us, as we rocked slowly in Uncle Archie’s one easy-
chair, ‘‘let us reason together about this mighty matter.
Was it long division, or Uncle Windsor’s raw-head-and-
bloody-bones talk, or Old Sol’s blue goggles that upset
you?”

I perpetrated something between a giggle and a gulp.

“T don’t exactly know, sir; only’’—the tears stream-.
ing anew—‘‘ the world is all spoiled !””

I hid my face on Aunt Maria’s shoulder. She laid
her cool, smooth cheek to my hot forehead.

“That is a great mistake, dear,’’ she said. ‘‘God
does not ruin things that belong to Him !”

“He will burn the earth up some day—maybe very
soon !”’ T protested.
74 JUDITH :

‘*That new heavens and a new earth—ever so much
better than these—may take their place.”

“Listen, Judith!” Mr. Bradley took my hand.
“*You believe in the Bible, don’t you, no matter how
blue in the face the sun may turn ?”?

“‘Of course I do!”

“Then, when we read there that the Gospel is to be
preached to all nations before the end of the world, is
it worth while to be frightened to death at changes in
the color of the air? Be reasonable !”’

I cannot remember the time when the dread of a
nearing Judgment Day was not a part of my daily
thinking and expectation. It entered so largely into
the sermons of the period, into the prayers, exhorta-
tions and hymns of the negroes, that every act and
scene of the Divine Tragedy were fixed in my mind.
At awakening in the morning I said to myself, ‘‘ It may
come before night; after my evening prayer, ‘‘ The
last trumpet may sound before it is light.”” A cloud of
unusual form and color had thrown me into a violent fit
of shivering, the cause of which I was ashamed to own ;
a lurid or brassy sunset robbed me of appetite and
sleep. Uncle Windsor, deprived of the gloomy delecta-
tions of the all-day prayer-mecting, had found partial
compensation in sitting on the kitchen steps and croon-
ing in a cracked, wheezy voice:

‘Oh, there will be mou’nin’, mou’nin’, mou’nin’,
At the jedgment-seat o’ Christ !
Parents an’ chillen thar will part,
Parents an’ chillen thar will part,

Parents an’ chillen thar mus’ part,
Mus’ part to mect no mo’.”

And so on through ‘‘ brothers an’ sisters,”’ ‘‘ frien’s an’
neighbors,’’ ‘‘ pastors an’ people ’’—I am not sure but
uncles and nephews. There were at least a dozen
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 75

verses, and when he had sung to the end, he straightway
began again with ‘tparents an’ chillen.’? The other
servants had caught his mood. While Mr. Bradley
urged me to be reasonable, Becky, the laundress, scrub-
bing away at the tubs under the aspen trees back of the
smoke-house, upraised, in a voice that made her a
power in negro convocations, a wild melody which
swept every word to our ears:
“You may bury me in de eas’,
You may bury me in de wes’,
But Ill hear dat trumpet soun’ in de mornin’.
My ears may change to clay,
An’ my tongue be wast’ away,
But I’l] answer dat trumpet in de mornin’.
In de mornin’, in de mornin’, in de mornin’ ob de Lord—
Ah, we ’ll all be togedder in de mornin’ !”’

It was not strange that the birds refused to sing that
Cv with these canticles of woe jarring the drooping
leaves—a Dutch concert of distressful discord.

Isat up straight on my aunt’s lap, my eyes suddenly
dried.

‘“‘T never thought of that. May I tell them all? And
where is it ?”

Smiling at the success of his ruse, he took a Bible
from the table and put it into my hand, pointing silently
to Matthew xxiv: 14. I took in the verse as by instinct,
and darted from the room, bearing the book with me.
By dinner-time I had read the comforting prophecy to
all my schoolfellows, to the kitchen-cabinet and at the
quarters, with the same quality if not degree of eager-
ness with which I would have borne to each a reprieve
on the scaffold.

My auditors received it with varieties of character-
istic emotion. The scholars ate their ‘‘snacks”’ with
revived relish, and forthwith got out the foot-balls, mar-
bles and “‘ checks ’’-blanket they had not had spirits to
76 JUDITH :

produce before. Two or three who had preferred re-
maining in the school-room to read their Bibles, shut
them up with alacrity upon raggedly-torn scraps of
paper inserted at the passage I had revealed to them,
and ran to join the sports.

‘“Take keer, chile!’ said Mam Peggy testily, when I
would have forced her to look at the verse. ‘‘ Mars’
Archie done tole us dat de wuk is to be done, Resurrec-
tion or no Resurrection! How I gwine to get dinner ef
you will poke books under my nose? You’ll drap dat
Bible in de pot-liquor, mun’”’ (short for “if you don’t
mind’’). ‘* An’ dar’ssayin’s in dar dat ’d make it hot-
ter’n pepper-tea befo’ you could fish de Word o’ Life
outen it !”’

This was ungrateful, but nothing in comparison with
Uncle Windsor’s grumblings at my interruption of his
ditty.

“Go “long, Miss Judy! Think I ain’t been hear dat
fifty times befo’ you was born? Dar’s ways o’ gittin’
*roun’ mos’ hard Scripter ef ennybody wants ter. An’
dar’s plenty things wuss dan de worl’ burnin’ up out
an’ out. What JI done say, an’ what I say now, no
marter what Mars’ Archie an’ forrard chillen think ’’—
severely sarcastic in the classification—‘‘is jes’ dis one
bit o’ ’flammation ’’—he raised his quavering tones for
the benefit of cook, laundress, butler, scullion and five
or six loungers about the kitchen door—‘“‘ dat ’ar’ sign
ain't "peared for nothin’?! De Almighty don’t frow ’way
His blue fire dat ’ar? way! Dar’s brimstone an’ wrath
an’ warnin’ in sech a broad blaze as dis. I ain’t got
nary word mo’ tosay. When de jedgment begins at
de House 0’ Israel, you’ll maybe b’ar ole Windsor’s
langidge in min’! All ole folks ain’t fools, for all Mars’
Archie’s argerin’ an’ chillen’s larnin’ !”’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 77

The day wore on to a dingy-purple sunsctting behind
olive-green hills—a dreary ending. Fairly tired out
with agitation, I fell asleep earlier than usual. It was
midnight when I awoke and slipped out of bed to sce if
the moon reflected the changed complexion of the
greater luminary. She swam above the walnut boughs
in a bath of crystalline ether, and the earth, liberated
from the unholy spell of the day, sent up gentle mur-
murings of drowsy content. Dewy zephyrs wandered
among the flowers; there was the sound of a going,
like the patter of innumerable tiny feet in the poplar
tops ; the aspens granted to the breeze coy glimpses of
the silver lining of their leaves ; mother birds addressed
little notes of tender interrogation to their young, and
called across intervening rifts in the foliage to their
neighbors, probably exchanging congratulations upon
the restoration of order and seemliness in their world.

I knelt on the floor, my elbows crossed on the win-
dow-sill, and drank in peace as from a living fountain.
The placidity of the fair moonlight steeped me, body and
spirit. The white beams were a personal boon. I
recalled Aunt Maria’s saying—‘‘God does not ruin
things that belong to Him’’—in looking up at the kindly
stars. I think I speak truly in declaring that I had
never before, since my unconscious infancy, gazed upon
the mighty vault of the nocturnal heavens without a
thrill of awesome fear. The stillness and expanse of
the star-sown depths excited thoughts of my chief dread
—the day when time should be no more. Aunt Maria,
from the wealth of her hymnology, had taught me that
these sparkling worlds are

‘* Forever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine !’’

I had read for myself, and remembered more vividly,
78 JUDITH:

another hymn, the majestic measures of Scott’s trans-
lation,—
‘“ When quivering, like a parchéd scroll,
The flaming heavens together roll,””—
and experienced delicious, agonizing shivers along
spinal column and scalp in singing it (to the tune of
Old Hundred) in the out-door ‘‘ preachings’’ I held
with the negro children on Sunday afternoons. I had
a realistic picture in my imagination of the Hand that
should roll up the sky—as I had seen Uncle Archie
handle writing-paper—then kindle the scroll in the fairy
breath of divine wrath, and apply to the doomed earth.

The dear earth that was not to be destroyed yet—
perhaps not until I was quite an old woman, and some-
what weary of mundane things. The progress of
missions was slow. I am afraid I said ‘‘ delightfully
slow.’? JI knew the Missionary Hymn by heart, of
course; but as I pondered, I concluded it might be
well to exempt mentally one little South Sea island—
an unimportant Zoar—from the ‘‘spread from pole to
pole,”’ a saving clause that might postpone indefinitely
the coming of the “‘morning,’’ sung by Becky, and the
‘*mourning’”’ Uncle Windsor anticipated with ghoulish
delight.

When I grew sleepy, and cramped with kneeling, I
crept back to my trundle-bed, pausing at Aunt Maria’s
pillow to look at the sweet pale face, and to think how
dearly, dearly I loved her, and how good she was !

Mammy awoke me with the information that I had
just time to dress for prayers. I raised my head in
instant recollection of yesterday’s alarm. Aunt Maria
had gone down-stairs, the windows were all open, and
through those that faced the east two parallelograms
of livid green were cast into the chamber, one upon
the floor, the other across Aunt Maria’s white bed.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 79

We had three blue-green days, a fourth more faintly
tinged ; on the fifth the sun arose brilliantly clear and
scorching hot. The colorless glare was accepted by all
as a gracious gift from Heaven. At prayers Uncle
Archie returned thanks, in terms well-chosen and suc-
cinct, for the ‘‘blessings of the light, and the sure
promise that, while the earth remaineth, seed-time and
harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter,
and day and night, shall not cease.”’

At sunset on the third day, after, as we phrased it,
“everything had come right again,’ Mr. Bradley read
to us on the back porch a paper descriptive of the
phenomenon he had prepared for a Northern journal.
It was truthful and graphic.

‘“Nobody could have done it better,’ decided Aunt
Betsey, nodding satisfiedly ; ‘‘and it will be even more
interesting in print. There is a something in a printed
page that manuscript never has—a sort of smoothing
out and setting straight that is like magic.”’

Uncle Archie stood facing the front hall and door,
and now started forward with a hospitable smile and
extended hand. A martial tread rang on the floor and
a visitor appeared among us. A tall man of sixty or
thereabouts, with grizzled hair and whiskers, a long
face, squared in the lower jaw, deep-set, piercing eyes,
a large mouth and florid color. In walking he stooped
very slightly. He stood erect, a commanding figure.
He wore high-top boots, white pantaloons, buff vest,
and a scarlet frock-coat of military cut, fastened at the
waist by two buttons, flaring open above to show a
padded chest and ruffied shirt-front. In the left hand
he held a planter’s straw hat and riding-whip. The
right he offered to my grandmother, bending low above
the soft, fair fingers placed within it.

“JT hope I have the happiness of secing you quite
89 JUDITH:

well, my dear madame! Mrs. Waddell, I am the hum-
blest of your servants! Miss Maria, Iam rejoiced to
see that the changing skies have not dimmed your
smiles !”’

‘*Miss Dabney,” said Grandma, whose courtesy was
ever opportune, never officious, ‘‘allow me to present
our neighbor, Captain Macon.’

The guest laid his hand on his heart in a bow that,
even then, when men knew how to make obeisance to
gentlewomen, was remarkable for grace and expression.

‘My dear young lady, I am the friend of your father.
I can say nothing more to a daughter.’’

The girl had arisen as her name was spoken, and now
swept him a deep courtesy, her color rising beautifully,
her eyes glowing softly.

“*T am very happy to meet one of whom my father
speaks so often and affectionately.”’

So engaging was her modest readiness of reply, her
deferential demeanor touched with cordiality that was
what flavor and perfume are to the downy ripeness of
the peach, that I glanced involuntarily at Uncle Archie
for sympathy in my admiration. His face was turned
from me, but I saw Mr. Bradley’s sudden, slight smile
—his look at the young lady. This was the sort of
thing that would please hiro, I thought. He was him-
self apt in repartee, alert with civility.

Captain Macon drew a chair to the side of his friend’s
daughter, questioned her as to her father’s health and
spirits, and hoped, in due stateliness of phrase, that she
would continue the blessing of her presence to our
neighborhood until Major Dabney should come in per-
son to recall her.

‘«'We were brothers in arms and in heart throughout
the War of 1812; but we were comrades in our boy-
hood—playfellows at school and chums at William and
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 81

Mary College. I regret extremely that the absence of
my daughters at the White Sulphur Springs has de-
prived them of the pleasure of your acquaintance and
me of the honor of welcoming you where your father
has always been a dear and honored guest—in my own
house at Hunter’s Rest. My sons, Iam glad to know,
have had the privilege of paying their respects to you.
That I have not done so ere this has been my grievous
misfortune. A multiplication of engagements and hin-
drances has conspired to deprive me of a coveted plea-
sure.”’

‘* At our age, Captain Macon, we may surely expect
indulgence of social shortcomings at the hands of
young people,” remarked Grandma.

“It is not, madame, that I question Miss Dabney’s
tenderness of compassion or her generosity. I am re-
gretting my own loss. The more’’—another bow—
“since meeting her.”’

He adroitly passed from this complimentary strain to
the solar eccentricities we had lately observed—“ opined
that scientific investigations would shortly analyze and
elucidate the causes thereof, demonstrating these to
have been natural and in no wise extraordinary.”

“You do not regard them as supernatural portents,
then >’? smiled Aunt Betsey. ‘‘ Uncle Windsor and his
disciples class them with the comet that hung over
Jerusalem and the eclipse of the sun last February, and
interpret them as signs and warnings.”’

The Captain switched his left foot smartly with his
riding-whip ; his jaws grew squarer.

‘“¢There is no more monstrous obstacle to human pro-
gress and human happiness than the imbecility of
superstition,’? he said, oracularly. ‘‘ Notably the su-
perstition of ignorance. The dies irce of our land—if
Divine Providence’’—a reverent inclination of the head
82 JUDITH :

—‘‘hath appointed such unto us—is foretold in three
words, to wit, ‘the uneducated masses.’ The only in-
tellectual stimulus of these is vulgar curiosity, which
begets a love for the vivid and startling. This appetite
will have food. Rather than hunger it will pursue and
slay its own game. Once thus supplied, appetite be-
comes passion, such lust for prey as worked the guil-
lotine by a million-fiend blood power in the French
Revolution. This is the key to most of the wrongfully
denominated ‘struggles for freedom.’ If
‘Who rules freemen should himself be free’

be true, it is also patent to every candid apprehension
that only the liberal, intelligent mind can so far recog-
nize and value the blessings of liberty as to peril life to
acquire it.’’

“You would then consider most popular rebellionsasa
kind of ‘ Follow-your-leader’ game ?”’ said Uncle Archie.

‘‘Nothing more, sir! nothing more! when the up-
rising is of ignorant, mindless underlings, This is the
basis of my abhorrence of the Democratic party. Its
motto of ‘Vox populi, imperium in imperio”’ is as false
as the faith of its leaders. I have asserted upon the
hustings, in the Legislature, in private and in public
assemblies, that any sane, rational being would rather
be governed by an educated oligarchy than an illiterate
democracy. Else, liberty were license, anarchy, ruin.
Law, order and safety lie in the rule of the fit and free.
Nine-tenths—I might say nineteen-twentieths—of the
lives lost in what history dignifies as ‘uprisings of the
people’ are thrown away in ignorant frenzy. The very
‘rights’ for which the besotted wretches fought would
have been such expensive playthings in their keeping
as would be this watch of mine to a baby.”’

“The baby will grow in knowledge, stature and skill,”
suggested Mr. Bradley, respectfully.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 83

‘““True, sir! true! But that is not a valid reason
why you should let him batter upon the rocks a treasure
that cost more than his entire race ever owned! When
he is a man grown, or a tolerably intelligent and worthy
lad, he shall have the watch from me asa gift anda
‘God bless you!’ to boot. If he try to steal it or take
it by force before then I shall flog him into a sense of
honesty and justice. —But this is a political tirade!
I crave pardon of the ladies.’’

He arose with a bow all around—a marvelous com-
bination of homage, apology and farewell.

“Archibald, my good fellow, may I ask for the pleas-
ure of your company as far as the gate? I want to
confer with you on a little matter of business.’’

‘““You are not going before supper !’’ remonstrated
Grandma. ‘‘ This is hardly neighborly.”’

‘“My dear Mrs. Read, do not make the inevitable the
insupportable by adding to hardship the weight of your
displeasure. Do me the bare justice to believe that I
would not—could not—decline your invitation were not
conscience, duty and honor ranged on the other side.
With your permission I shall compensate—myself— for
the present sacrifice by another and longer call at an
early day.”’

He brushed the floor with the broad brim of his straw
hat, and walked bareheaded until out of the house and
front porch. Miss Virginia craned her slender neck to
watch the soldierly figure down the paved walk leading
to the gate and the rack where his horse was tied.

‘‘T comprehend why he called his son Philip Sidney,”’
she said, with a pretty catch in her breath. ‘ But
Philip Sidney will never be half so fine a man as his
father. He is magnificent, in spite of that ridiculous
red coat. Why does he wear it ?”

Grandma laughed.
84 JUDITH:

“It is one of his harmless whims, my dear. Quite
innocent and quite unaccountable. He does not come
of a tory family, nor was he ever very fond of fox-
hunting.”’

“T rather like it,”’ said Aunt Betsey, ‘It goes so
well with his manners and talk. All are somewhat
florid.’’

‘‘They make a harmonious chord,’’ was Mr. Brad-
ley’s comment. ‘‘ All three are essentially Maconian,
and none of them would sit well on any other man I
ever saw. He is like a red-lettered edition of Sir
Charles Grandison.”’

Grandma laughed again—the low merriment that
had never lost its youthful ripple. Aunt Maria echoed
it, and Aunt Betsey blushed more redly than the
monthly roses over the porch steps.

“Tt is time to see about supper,”’ she said, hastily,
stooping to take up her key basket.

Mr. Bradley gazed bewilderedly after her as she
vanished into the house.

‘May I be enlightened ?’’ he asked, pathetically.

“You used the key to the puzzle, although un-
intentionally,’’? rejoined Aunt Maria, still intensely
amused. ‘‘A few months before Aunt Betsey’s mar-
riage, Captain Macon, then a gay widower, offered
himself to her by letter. This declaracion he slipped
into the fourth volume of Sir Charles Grandison, and
put the book back in the bookcase. On taking his
leave of Aunt Betsey that day, he asked her to ‘read
carefully a certain marked passage on the forty-third
page of the fourth volume of that incomparable work,
and favor him with a written or verbal commentary
upon the same.’

‘“‘She promised to do this, and forgot it entirely. In
the letter he had said that he would consider silence as
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 85

rejection of his suit, and never trouble her again, but
remain forever her true friend and well-wisher. Ten
years afterward the gallant Captain, having meanwhile
solaced his wounded heart by a handsome second wife—
my sister Mary, Judith’s mother, read Sir Charles
Grandison through, and happened upon the sealed love-
letter. The suitor never knew how long it remained
unread. Our good aunt has been teased by those who
know and enjoy the joke until she has become some-
what sensitive on the subject.”’

‘* A real romance in everyday life !’? cried Miss Vir-
ginia, enchanted. ‘‘I was never so close to one before,
unless I brushed by it in the dark without knowing it.”’

While the light chit-chat of the merry group went
forward, I strolled around to the front of the house to
pick fresh sweetbrier buds for my favorite’s breast-knot.
The tallest branches of the giant walnut tree were
washed with gold such as capped the hill-brows. Vale
and plain were in amethyst shadow, warm and trans-
parent. The two figures just outside the wicket-gate
of the yard were defined darkly against the pale stubble
of a wheat-field beyond the red-clay road. Captain
Macon had one hand on the pommel, the bridle gath-
ered up in it, yet did not mount. Their heads were
close together; they seemed to whisper their earnest
sayings. Twice the Captain brandished his whip so
sharply that I heard the whizzing slash in the air which
made his horse plunge. At length he swung himself
into the saddle, yet leaned down for one long sentence
in the other’s ear. As the horse bounded away at the
spur-prick, I ran down the walk to Uncle Archie. He
had not stirred from the spot where he had stood so
long, even to gaze after the departing rider, nor did he
turn at my approach. As I seized the hand hanging
by his side, it had the dead limpness of a glove. Look-
86 JUDITH:

ing up confidently into the face that had always a smile
for me, I beheld it dark and dreadful, wrung with pain,
and set in anger I could fear but not fathom.

CHAPTER VI.

AUNT MARIA went up to our room with me that
night as she often did. She was grave and gentle in
look and speech. Uncle Archie was troubled about
“business,’’? she stated, and did not feel like talking.
Grandma had a headache. I must remember in my
prayers all who were in distress of any kind, then go to
sleep like a dear, good child. She laid a long kiss on
my lips when I was in bed. I could have been sure
there were tears in her sweet eyes, but durst ask no
questions. Family discipline of the mildest type then
in practice taught children at least when not to speak.

Next morning, after breakfast, Mammy summoned
me to “‘the chamber.”? Grandma had not appeared at
the breakfast-table. She was dressed as usual, but lay
back in the great chair she seldom used when in tole-
rable health, and looked wan and sad. After kissing
me, she pointed to her footstool as my seat. and as
Mammy was going out called her back.

‘‘Stay here, ’Ritta! I have nothing to say to the
child that you may not hear.”’

The maid obeyed without speaking, and took her
stand behind her mistress’ chair, one hand on the high
back, her eyes downcast, her visage stilland melancholy.

Then and thus my grandmother told me the story
Captain Macon had ridden over to communicate the
preceding day, but which he adjudged fit for men’s ears
only—the account of what has the bad notoriety of
A CHRONIULE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 87

being the one partially-successful insurrection of the
Southern slaves against their masters, among the very
few that were definitely planned, the many suggested
by mischief-makers not of their race and dreamed of by
embryo demagogues of their own color.

Nat Turner, the petted slave of a planter in South-
ampton County, in southeastern Virginia, had imbibed
at an early age the idea that he was divinely appointed
to some exalted mission. His silly mother, hearing her
four-year-old boy narrate a trifling incident to a play-
mate, cried out in rapt surprise that it had happened
before he was born, and he must be a prophet. His
master took much and injudicious notice of the pert
urchin, as he grew older, taught him to read and lent
him books and newspapers. The lazy protégé, loung-
ing on porches, hanging about political barbecues and
waiting behind his master’s chair at gentlemen’s dinner-
parties when wine and argument flowed freely, heard a
rare medley of politics and religion, French infidelity
and Calvinistic decrees. The fermentation of these ele-
ments disordered a brain never too well balanced, fired
a train laid by vanity and ambition. He affected to
receive revelations from Heaven, prayed long and loud
and fasted ostentatiously, and soon became the sooth-
sayer of the region. He muttered excitedly over his
work and in solitude, and was reputed to be in familiar
communication with unseen spirits. He predicted
deaths, accidents, signs in the clouds and prodigies upon
the earth. He had mysterious birth-marks on his
chest, and captured and exhibited beetles stamped with
cabalistic figures, turtles marked with his initials and
crossed swords, and locusts with a big “* W”’ wrought in
the gossamer of their wings. All these tokens of the
Divine purpose pointed to WAR as aecessary and im-
minent.
88 JUDITH:

‘On the 12th of May, 1828,’’ he said in his con-
fession, ‘‘I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the
Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the serpent
was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he
had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it
on and fight against the serpent, for the time was fast
approaching when the first should be last and the last
should be first—and by signs in the heavens that it would
be made known to me when I should commence the
great work, and until the first sign appeared I should
conceal it from the knowledge of men.”

Convinced according to his showing that the predicted
war was to be one of races that should lower the first
to the present level of the last, and elevate the last to
the throne of the first, the yoke-bearer and leader zeal-
ously prepared the imaginations of his disciples for some
inighty happening, the exact nature of which he might
not as yetreveal. He denied himself everything except
the meanest food, redoubled his prayers and voluntary
mortifications of the flesh, moving among his fellows as
one to whom Christ the Lord had relegated the work of
final redemption of His saints and vengeance upon their
enemies. He preached openly in the sight and hearing
of the whites that he had received consecration directly
from the Spirit, that he was Elijah, the harbinger of the
Second Advent, the herald of the Year of Jubilee ; John
the Baptist risen from the dead, and crying in the wil-
derness of Southampton, ‘‘ Repent! for the Kingdom of
Heaven is at hand !”

He, for one, had no personal wrongs to avenge. Like
the famous ‘‘ Uncle Jack?’ of Amelia County, of whom
Dr. Rice records, ‘‘ He is, in many respects, the most
remarkable man I ever knew,’? Nat Turner was re-
garded with prideful respect by the gentlemen of the
neighborhood. His conventicles were tolerated by easy-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 89

going Episcopalians who readily conceded that their
ancient and honorable service was not attractive to the
lower orders, and encouraged by sects that received, at
each sacramental feast, accessions to their church-rolls
in ‘‘ Turner’s converts.”’

‘‘My master was very kind to me and placed the
greatest confidence in me,’’ is his testimony. ‘‘In fact
Thad no cause to complain of his treatment to me.”’

This is a very temperate statement of the truth that
he was a slave in little besides the name, working just
when and where he pleased, and, especially in the long
winter evenings, roaming from one plantation to an-
other on what he and his lax and kindly employer
regarded as his professional business—home-missionary
labors. It may be assumed positively that he who was
eventually to claim his master’s property as his right,
and his master’s life as the forfeit paid by the tyrant to
the oppressed, never, in the course of his existence of
thirty-one years, half earned a decent livelihood. If he
had been dependent upon his own exertions he must
have starved in a climate where light labor brings in
p-entiful returns of harvest, and wild rruit is abun-
dant.

In February, 1831, the promised sign appeared—an
eclipse of the sun—and to return to his own words,
‘the seal was removed from my lips.

“Tt was intended by us to have begun the work of
death on the 4th of July last. Many were the plans
formed and rejected by us, and it affected my mind to
such a degree that I fell sick, and the time passed with-
out our coming to any determination how to com-
mence—still forming new schemes and rejecting them,
when the sign appeared again which determined me to
wait no longer.”’

The second heavenly sign was what a local historian
90 JUDITH:

denominates ‘‘ the unnatural and extraordinary appear-
ance of the sun at that particular period.”’

Turner lost not an hour in availing himself of the
wildly-excited fancies of his satellites. Seven ringlead-
ers met in the woods at three o’clock on Sunday after-
noon, August 21, to hold a solemn feast preparatory to
the bloody sacrifice in the name of Freedom. To this
dinner, ‘“‘ Hark,’’ Nat reports, ‘“‘ brought a pig, and
Henry brandy.’? The seventh man had not been pres-
ent at previous conferences, and was challenged by the
prophet in this manner:

“T saluted them on coming up, and asked Will how
he came there.

‘*He answered that his life was worth no more than
others, and his liberty as dear to him.

“TY asked him if he thought to obtain it.

“* He said he would or lose his life.

“‘This was enough to put him in full confidence.”

The bold realism of the confession is the more revolt-
ing that the arch-conspirator’s overweening conceit
crops out in every paragraph, and the tragical details
are given with a passionless triteness that shows by
contrast Guiteau’s ‘‘ poor soul !’? when alluding to the
widow of his victim, as the breathings of tenderest
humanity.

“Jt was quickly agreed that we should commence at
home”’ (i.e., the house of Nat’s master, Mr. Joseph
Travis) ‘‘on that night, and until we had armed and
equipped ourselves and gathered sufficient force, neither
age nor sex was to be spared (which was invariably ad-
hered to). We remained at the feast until about two
hours in the night, when we went to the house and
found Austin. They all went to the cider-press and
drank except myself. On returning to the house, Hark
went to the door with an axe, for the purpose of break-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 91

ing it open, as we knew we were strong enough to
murder the family if they were awakened by the noise;
but reflecting that it might create an alarm in the neigh-
borhood, we determined to enter the house secretly and
murder them while sleeping. Hark got a ladder and
set it against the chimney, on which I ascended and
hoisted a window, entered and came down stairs, un-
barred the door and removed the guns from their places.
It was then observed that I must spill the first blood;
on which, being armed with a hatchet and accompanied
by Will, I entered my master’s chamber. It being
dark, I could not give a death-blow. The hatchet
glanced from his head; he sprang from the bed and
called his wife. It was his last word. Will laid him
dead with a blow of the axe, and Mrs. Travis shared
the same fate as she lay in bed.

‘* The murder of this family, five in number, was the
work of a moment. Not one of them awoke. There
was a little infant in a cradle that was forgotten until
we had left the house and gone some distance, when
Henry and Will returned and killed it.”

Their numbers were augmented at each house they
visited on the same bloody errand, until they were an
armed and mounted gang of between fifty and sixty
men. Before the marauders lay the peaceful homes of
those who had known and liked and trusted them.
Some of the sleepiag men and women had partaken of
the symbols of the slain body and shed blood of their
common Lord and Master from the same pastor’s hand
year after year. Fellow-Christians, friends, foster-
brothers and sisters, the baby at the breast and the bed-
ridden grandmother, whose purblind eyes could not
discern the face of him who cut her throat—all were
stricken down without word and without mercy. At
one house breakfast was just over, and a young girl,
92 JUDITH:

leading a pretty boy by the hand, stepped off the porch
and tripped down the path to mect Nat Turner at the
gate. He had ridden on to reconnoitre, leaving the
gang concealed in a corn-field hard by. The young
jady knew and greeted him cordially. The child cried
out: ‘‘Uncle Nat! please give me a ride on your
horse ??? and held up his arms to be lifted into the
saddle.

“‘Good morning, Miss Kitty,’? said Nat, alighting.
“Ts your brother at home ?”’

‘Yes, but he is sick in bed. Will you go up and see
him ?”’

Turner owned, somewhat shamefacedly, in prison
that, as she smiled up at him and the boy clasped his
leg, his heart failed him for a cowardly second. But he
was set apart by the Spirit to the work. He dealt a
blow for Freedom when he shot the girl through the
heart and cleft the child’s head with a broad-axe. His
followers rushed forward pell-mell to dispatch the sick
man, his mother and three beautiful sisters.

The carnival of blood reigned until the afternoon of
Monday. Then, leaving behind a track bestrewed with
fifty-five corpses, lying where they had fallen and with
none to bury them, the band of liberators, collected by
their chief into a caricature of a company of cavalry, and
“‘carried,’’ he said, with modest satisfaction, ‘“‘ through
all the maneuvers I was master of,’? was drawn up in
the open road and harangued from the words, ‘‘ Begin-
ning at Jerusalem.’’ This was the name of the shire-
town—‘‘ the Court House ”—of Southampton County,
a mere hamlet of about twenty dwellings clustering
about the court-house, clerk’s office, jail, a church and
two or three stores, in one of which was the post-office.
This Turner proposed to make his head-quarters and the
pivot of the rebellion. The white residents were first
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 93

to be massacred, and it is said that he read as his war-
rant for the deed the twenty-second chapter of Ezekiel,
the sequel of this strange service on which he had not
scrupled to ask the Divine blessing. His auditors,
drunken with brandy, cider and whisky from the rifled
cellars of their butchered masters and lusting for far-
ther carnage, hearkened with gloating senses to the
fearful judgments pronounced against the princes who
had destroyed souls for dishonest gain, the prophets
who daubed with untempered mortar, saying, ‘“‘ Thus
saith the Lord God,’’ when the Lord hath not spoken;
the people of the land who used oppression and exer-
cised robbery and vexed the poor and needy.

All these, so they now heard from the lips of their
Moses, were to be gathered ‘“‘into the midst of Jeru-
salem, as they gather silver and brass and iron and
lead and tin into the midst of the furnace, to blow the
fire upon it to melt it.”? Not one doubted that the
shabby little South Country village was in the mind of
the Hebrew prophet when he wrote of the capital of
“the land that is not cleansed.”’

When Turner returned the Bible to his pocket—the
well-worn volume which he boasted in his condemned
cell he spent his Sunday evenings in reading until he
could repeat many chapters from memory—his followers
raised a savage yell, and spurred down the road toward
Jerusalem. The gallop became a run, the run a helter-
skelter race, kept up in the dusty highway for four
miles, It was a hurly-burly of devils—screeching, bel-
lowing, psalm-singing as they dashed along, brandishing
blood-stained scythes, pikes and axes, and now and then
firing off a gun or pistol in their murderous glee. The
stentorian voice of Turner, trained in prayer-meetings
and exhortings, arose at intervals above the hubbub in
shouted orders heeded by none. Ata bend in the road
94 JUDITH:

the intoxicated crew came abruptly in sight of asquad
of white horsemen, ten in number, drawn up across
the way.

‘‘Halt and fire!’ vociferated Turner to his com-
pany.

Before they could raise their guns a volley of mus-
ketry blazed along the line of their opponents. One
negro fell dead, several others were wounded. A second
discharge followed in rapid succession, Turner and his
men firing a few random and harmless shots. Before
the whites could reload, the rebels turned their horses’
heads as one man, and fled at full speed.

‘‘On my way back,” their leader relates, ‘‘ I called at
Mr. Thomas’, Mrs. Spencer’s, and several other places,
The white families having fled, we found no more vic-
tims to gratify our thirst for blood. We stopped at
Major Ridley’s quarter for the night, and being joined
by four of his men, with the recruits made since my de-
feat, we mustered now about forty strong.”’

Without understanding why he does so, he mentions
the ‘‘thirst for blood” of the rampant brute-part he
had aroused in the hitherto indolent and docile black,
as naturally as he tells how, after the gross and pro-
longed feast of Sunday night, ‘‘all went to the cider-
press and drank.”’

A false alarm was raised during the night by the
sentinels he had posted. They came running into the
camp with the news that they were to be attacked.
Turner had lain down to sleep, but was ‘“‘ quickly roused
by a great racket.’? He ordered a reconnoissance, and
the return of these scouts being mistaken for hostile
horsemen, the rout wascomplete. All but twenty dis-
persed in various directions, in spite of Turner’s frantic
endeavor to rally them. He ‘“‘ called’ during Tuesday
forenoon upon other families in the neighborhood, but
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 95

was fired upon from upper windows in two or three in-
stances and retreated, leaving several of his followers
wounded.

‘*T do not know what became of them,’ he says,
‘‘as Inever saw them afterward. Pursuing our way back
and coming in sight of Captain Harris’, where we had
been the day before, we discovered a party of white
men at the house, on which all deserted me but two—
Jacob and Nat.”

These he sent out from the rendezvous in the woods,
where the Sabbath feast had been held, ‘‘ with orders to
raily all they could.’? They were the bearers of impera-
tive requisitions upon the six other ringleaders. Turner
remained alone in the depths of the forest until Wednes-
day afternoon, when he caught sight of ‘‘ white men
riding round the place as though they were looking for
some one,’’ and concluded that his emissaries had been
captured, and, as he generously puts it, ‘‘compelled to
betray ’? him.

For six weeks he skulked in woods and field, burrow-
ing like a ground-hog under piles of rails and fallen
timber, in holes dug with the sword he had waved in
the ‘‘ Forward to Jerusalem ”’ charge, and subsisting on
green corn, potatoes and meat stolen from the deserted
Travis place. The only human beings to whom he spoke
during this time were two negroes who were out hunt-
ing one night with a dog, and passed his cave.

I copy his account of the incident :

‘*[Thad just gone out to walk about and the dog dis-
covered me and barked. On which, thinking myself
discovered, I spoke to them to beg concealment. On
making myself known they fled from me. Knowing then
they would betray me, I immediately left my hiding-
place.”’

There are pathos and significance in the words I have
96 JUDITH:

italicised that almost move us to compassion for the
humiliated seer and liberator, and prove that he knew
the material he had to deal with better than an alien to
the race could have understood it.

A fortnight afterward Mr. Phipps, one of the armed
patrol that never let the fugitive’s scent get cold,
caught a glimpse of something stirring under the
bushy top of a prostrate oak, and riding closer, saw
that it was human and black. Without a moment’s
hesitation he brought his cocked gun to his shoulder,
covering the crouching creature. A hoarse voice begged
him to hold his fire, and a ragged, earth-grimed thing,
emaciated by fasting and trembling with the malarial
ague of the low countries, crept into the sunshine.
Even in this extremest degradation the defeated leader
clung to the last shred of official pomp. The deputy of
Him who ‘‘had borne the yoke for the sins of men,”
went through, as he chronicles, the form of ‘‘ surrender-
ing’’ his sword to the captor, as to another and a victo-
rious general.

There was no plea of insanity urged at his trial. Nor
was there in other and non-slaveholding states any ex-
pression of sympathy with the aims and acts, or pity
for the fate of one who, forsaken at the first show of op-
position by the adherents who had sworn within two
days to sell life for liberty, yet believed up to the gal-
lows’ foot that ‘‘God set him about this righteous
work.’

One item in the list of the killed on that Sunday night
after the ‘‘ feast of consecration,” is :

“Mrs. Levi Walker and ten children.”

It was hard to convince Christians in the first third
of the nineteenth century that ‘Divine necessity”
takes such form as this.

The outline of this frightful tale, up to the dispersion
 

 

 

 

‘OPHE DEFEATED LEADER CLUNG TO THE LAST SHRED OF
OFFICIAL POMP.’’—p. 96.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 97

of the rebels on Tuesday noon, was what my grand-
mother imparted to me as cautiously as was consistent
with my right comprehension of the situation in which
we, with other Virginian families, were placed by the
catastrophe. Swift messengers had borne the news to
Richmond, and others been dispatched by the state
authorities at the capital in every direction to warn the
white population of the danger working under their
feet. Military companies from armory and municipality
set off without the delay of an hour for the afflicted
county seventy miles away. The Richmond Blues, the
gallant volunteers that had marched forth in the tem-
pest of rain and fire from heaven to oppose Gabriel’s
horde, buckled on sword-belts, shouldered muskets,
and joined in this bloodier expedition. Infuriated at
the fiendish atrocity of the wholesale butchery reported
to them ; racked beyond the power of control at the
horrible sights that met them in their passage through
a district where there were not enough living inhabi-
tants to put decently underground the piles of dead
blackening in the August heat—they were hardly re-
strained by discipline from entering upon a retaliative
slaughter of the Southampton negroes. They ransacked
quarters and barns and woods with the zeal of blood-
hounds for evidences of conyplicity in the horrid work ;
shot without warrant or reniorse at dusky figures steal-
ing through the underbrush, hiding behind trees and
lurking in gullies, as the militia and regular soldiery
rode by in their fierce patrol of the neighborhood.
These and other particulars were unknown to us
when I listened to Grandma’s brief synopsis of Captain
Macon’s news. He, as the head of the impromptu
police put on duty in our county, was in possession of
little beyond the leading facts of the case. The end of
the thread trailed away into portentous darkness. The
98 JUDITH :

extent of the conspiracy; what other and direful
developments were in reserve for us; what were the
probabilities of the reappearance of the chief of the
murderers in another section with a new host at his
call—these were the harrowing uncertainties that
begloomed the views of the most sanguine. Of this
suspenseful period—the six weeks in which the whole
colored population of Virginia lay under suspicion of
harboring the escaped ringleader, and rumors were
rife and rapid of his machinations and whereabouts—
John Randolph’s declaration was true, ‘‘ When the fire-
bell in Richmond rings at night, there is never a mother
within hearing of it who does not clasp her baby more
tightly to her breast.”

Grandma did not affect to conceal from me that our
lives might be in jeopardy every hour. She did speak
calmly of the duty of courage and resolution, tenderly
of the one certainty that remained to us, that a God of
love and infinite compassion was above all, and we
could not suffer hurt without his knowledge and con-
sent.

And this with Mammy standing behind her mistress’
chair, one swarthy hand—sinewy yet and strong enough
to interrupt for all time the breath in the white throat
above the lawn ruffles of the widow’s dress—almost
touching her shoulder as the tale went on!

‘“?Ritta,’’ said Grandma, when there was no more to
tell, ‘‘ will you pour out my drops for me ?”’

The medicine was ina closet. It was powerful, and
must be used carefully. There were other and deadlier
poisons on the same shelf that might be substituted for
it. Grandma did not turn ber head to watch the
woman as she obeyed the order, drank the potion pre-
pared, and gave back the glass with the usual, ‘‘ Thank
you, ’Ritta,”’ that repaid every such service.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 99

‘*Mammy,”’ said I, breathless and dizzy with a sud-
den thought, ‘‘ how did you know anything about Nat
Turner’s plans a week ago last Thursday night—the
night I had the nightmare—the night you told me
about your grandfather and your father ?”’

‘‘A week ago last Thursday,’ repeated Grandma,
slowly. ‘‘ Why, my child, nothing of all this had hap-
pened then ?”

‘It was the day Aunt Betsey was talking about
Gabriel’s insurrection on the porch,’ I continued, too
excited to recollect how I had heard her.

‘‘T remember. We were saying last night how
strange it was that our thoughts should have taken
that turn. It would seem sometimes as if the air
caught and carried feelings and opinions.”’

She said it musingly and tranquilly ; then, for the first
time since I had sprung the question upon her, looked
at her maid.

“Did you know or suspect anything of this before it
came to pass ?”? without change of tone or expression.

Mammy set aside the glass, folded her hands in the
submissive way common with her, and rested her eyes
full upon her mistress’ face.

‘Tt was in the air, as you say, ma’am. ’Twasn’t a
story, but asayin’ that brought on the talk. It came
up in the kitchen from the chapter Mars’ Archie read at
pra’rs. Michael he arsked his mammy what was the
meanin’ o’ ‘ insurrection.’ He say as how he been hear
Miss Betsey talkin’ ’bout one on the po’ch, an’ ’bout
Gabriel an’ thecreek risin’. He was in the dinin’-room
breshin’ out the flies. Rose she was all for shettin’ him
up, but Uncle Win’sor—you know how heady he is,
ma’am—would have his say ’bout them ole times, an’
Barrateer he tole what some men had said in his shop
one day, two or three weeks ago, ’bout slavery not being
100 JUDITH :

the ’pintment of the Lord, though He does ’low it, an’
how liberty was proclaim’ to all de *habitants o’ the lan’,
an’ why not black as well as white ? That was the peth
o’ the talk, ma’am, arfter we had sont the chillen to bed ;
but it sot me to argyin’ an’ thinkin’, an’ when I come
into the house to fix yo’ room for the night, I couldn’t
fetch up all at onct. I dar’ say, what with turnin’ it
over in my min’ an’ frettin’ over other people’s foolish-
ness, I may have spoken imprudent to Miss Judith.”’

‘‘ Who were the men who talked in the blacksmith’s
shop ?”

‘‘Barrateer didn’t know ’em, ma’am. The tire of
their carryall wheel had come off. But he ’d a notion,
from their common looks and keerless ways, that they
were free niggers.”’

‘‘Very likely,’? thoughtfully. ‘‘I must speak to your
Master Archie about them. It may be of some import-
ance. Such careless, idle talk does much harm. ’Ritta’’
—the black eyes, usually so mild, were piercingly bright
—‘T have told Miss Judith what I have learned about
this terrible affair. Have I had all that you know—or
suspect ?”’

French sparkle met Huguenot glow as the two
women fiueed each other. The kingly blood in the serf
triumphed over the habit of subjection learned in two
generations.

‘“My mistis has arsked me for the truth. Ihas been
serve’ her fur thirty odd year, an’ she ain’t never foun’
aliein my mouth. This plantation an’ this fam’ly is
all the home an’ frien’s T got in this worl’. My husban’
he is in a country whar even the bondage o’ sin is un-
known. My only chile, my son, a man growed, lives
here with me in peace an’? honor. I arsk nothin’ bet-
ter o’? the Lord than that He 7ll let me die here in my
nes’, an’ fur the same han’s to close my eyes that shet
«l CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 101

down my mother’s eyelids. But ef my mistis wish to
hear what other folks~-younger folks—think, ef they
darsn’t say it out, it’s somethin’ like this: ‘ Ef freedom
ain’t a good thing, why does the Word o’ the Lord
make so much of it ?? The bondwoman ain’t the blessid
one thar. Jerusalem which is above is free. The ‘ fas’
which the Lord has chosen is to loose the ban’s 0?
wickedness.’ But that ain’t all! ‘To ondo the heavy
burdens.’ An’ it don’t stop thar! ‘ To let the oppress?
go free, an’ to break every yoke! Now, these shoulders
o’ mine ain’t cuarr’ed no heavier burdens ’n I could
stan’ up under. But my mother’s did! I ain’t op-
press’, No yoke ain’t fasten’ on my neck. But my
gran’father—a king in his own lan’—never got up from
crawlin’ on his han’s an’ knees under his’n tell he
stood up straight an’ white, a saved soul, befo? Him
who made him free with an everlastin’ freedom. It’s
somethin’ wuth talkin’ ’bout fur a man to be his own
marster. It’s better wuth havin’ fur him to be sure
that he ken live joyful all the days o’ his life with his
wife an’ chillen. You know what happens sometime,
Mistis!’ Never with your servants, thank the Lord!
Thar ain’t been a Read servant sole sence I ken re-
member, nor in my mother’s lifetime, I been hear her
say. But’tain’tso in other places an’ with other folks!”’

““T would free you all to-morrow, ’Ritta, if I could.
The Master whom we both serve is my witness that I
speak the truth.”’

‘*Don’ I know that, ma’am? Don’ all this place
know it, down to the younges’ chile that ken tell its
right han’ from the lef’? An’ don’ we all onderstan’
that ef you did thar wouldn’t be no res’ fur the sole
o’ our foot on Virginny sile ? that we mus’ pack up
babies an’ bundles an’ tramp off to earn our livin’ ’mong
strangers an’ furriners whar we ’ll be dispisable on ’count
102 JUDITH :

o’ our color? We ain’t all of us born fools yit, nor on-
grateful to them that have done the bes’ they could by
us. You been arsk me what I know an’ what I suspec’.
I know there ain’t a colored person that ever b’longed
to you or yours that wouldn’t stan’ between you an’
Nat Turner’s meat-axe any time 0’ day or night. Be-
fo’ a h’ar 0’ yo’ head falls he ’s got to kill every man an’
woman o’ his own color on this plantation. We all
heerd this story of the crazy wickedness goin’ on in
Southampton las’ night. We all onderstood this mornin’
at pra’rs what Mars’ Archie wanted to talk to the han’s
about when he tole them to meet him at the quarters
when they heerd the horn blow soon arfter breakfas’.
He knows by this time how they think an’ feel.

“Tain’t denyin’ that ef it was so ez they could be
free without bein’ transpo’ted into strange countries
like so many barn-burners an’ horse-stealers, they ’d
bless the day that gin’ ’em liberty. But they don’ see
their way clear to the Promise’ Lan’ over a road fenced
in with babies’ corpses an’ knee-deep in the blogd 0’ in-
nercent women who have done nothin’ but try to cuerry
the load in the fear o’ the Lord that their forefathers
laid ’pon ’em. They can’t see, bein’ Christyuns an’
human bein’s, ez the Lord calls them to march through
no sech Red Sea as that!

“That ’s all I know. IL don’ suspec’ nothin’ !”

My grandmother was a woman of singular self-com-
mand. She seldom shed tears, almost as seldom lost
the dignified repose which gave such exquisite finish to
her manner. I was actually terrified when I saw her
draw out her handkerchief and press it to her eyes.
She arose to her feet and laid her hand—fine bred in
every line and tint, the thread of gold that remained of
the wedding-ring its only ornament—on the dark fingers
interlaced in the energy of her attendant’s speech.
 

 

 

 

 

 

““SHE LAID HER HAND ON THE DARK FINGERS OF HER
ATTENDANT.’’—p. 102.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 103

“I believe you—and I trust them! Say to them—
my people whom I love, my friends who have served
and cared for me and mine these many years—these
words from the Book in which we all believe :

‘** Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friends.’

“IT do not believe that they will be called upon to de-
fend my life with theirs. But I shall be a rich woman
all my days in knowing that they would, if necessary,
give me and my children this proof of love.”

CHAPTER VII.

THE parlor at Summerfield was wainscotted and
paneled from floor to ceiling—I think with oak; cer-
tainly with hard wood, firm in grain and solid in style—
but painted by some long-ago owner, in unpardonable
barbarity of taste, of a reddish brown. The solecism
of coating such boards with any kind of pigment was,
however, the more readily pardoned in that the hue in
the toning-down of years approximated the mellow
sombreness the native material would have gathered in
the same time. The carpet was of dim reds and soft-
ened browns. The furniture—mahogany, massive and
stiff—consisted of exactly a dozen chairs, two very
hard settees at the sides of the room, two round tables
in opposite corners, a candle-stand, the top turned up
during the day, and set flat against the wall on the left
hand side of the fire to balance the effect of the Bible-
stand on the right. Aunt Maria’s harmonica was
pushed hard into the wall-angle nearest the light-stand,
and had a companion-piece in the escritoire on which I
14 JUDITH :

pen this chronicle, shoved as close into the corner be-
yond the tripod upbearing the Holy Scriptures.

This escritoire, spoken of by the family as ‘‘ Archie’s
secretary,’? was brought from France by my great-
uncle, Littleton Read, when he returned from abroad
with Francis Bernard as his valet. It is of solid ma-
hogany, inlaid with narrow lines and points of satin-
wood. Two deep drawers have brass handles. A
folding desk-leaf above them rests, when open, upon
perpendicular supports drawn out from the body of the
secretary. Back of and above the desk is a section in
shape and height resembling the top of an upright
piano. Fluted doors, sliding back in grooves, and run-
ning around the corners of the upright to disappear en-
tirely and mysteriously from view until a pull at two
little brass knobs—the only evidences of their locality
left to sight—brings them again to the fore—shut in
small drawers and pigeon-holes when the escritoire is
nt in use.

‘* A gem,’ lovers of old furniture call it. To meitis
a missal the secret of whose clasp I alone comprehend.
When I slide back the curious doors I am—out of the
body—in another place and generation than that to
which I nominally belong. From the archway of the
central recess, where inkstand and pen are kept as of
old, my childhood’s self looks forth into eyes graver with
sorrow and thought than they were then with musings
far too mature for my years and experience. In passing,
Thave a trick of laying my hand lightly on the closed
leaf. I find myself sometimes sitting at it when it is
unfolded, paper and pen laid out for work—dreaming,
is it? or seeing?

For it is there, then, be it to soul-sight or to faithful
memory, that has not suffered one lineament to be
blurred by the dash of the waves we know as years. A
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 105

stalwart form seated in front of the baize-covered sur-
fice revealed by the open lid; the thick waves of black
hair falling low upon the forehead, with the bowing of
the head above account-books and letters ; a dark, stead-
fast face, gray eyes too earnest for laughter, but which
softened and deepened suddenly when they smiled; a
mouth like Aunt Maria’s in the loving, winsome half-
pout of the lower lip, on which the upper was laid in
more resolute lines than in his sister’s—careless, indeed,
would be the custodian that could lose the portrait for
which he sat to such worshipful affection as I bore him.
This was my Uncle Archie—a simple, God-fearing gen-
tleman, who believed in the Bible and Confession of
Faith; voted the Whig ticket, and paid his debts, one
hundred cents in the dollar; acknowledged no social
code but that of right, and loved one woman better than
aught else on earth, save truth and honor.

The desk was open and the owner in the arm-chair be-
fore it on Christmas Eve, which fell that year on Satur-
day. He usually made up his books after supper on
Saturday night, giving audience then to the plantation
blacksmith, carpenter, shoemaker and the head-man of
the field-gang. These he had directed to-day to bring in
their reports immediately after dinner. While they
gave and he entered them in a large ledger, I sat in my
winter ‘‘chimney-place’’? on a sheepskin, dyed red-
brown, stuffed and lined by Mammy’s own hands, laid
on the floor in the shelter of the Bible-stand. My back
was against the wall, my knees drawn up to support a
volume taken from the book-case at the farther end of
the room. It was but an average planter’s library, yet
many expensive collections of our bibliomaniacal times
are comparatively poor in standard English literature.
The Spectator, in ten small sheepskin volumes, took up
half of one shelf; ‘‘ Rasselas,’”’ ‘‘ Vattek,”’ ‘‘ Arcadia,”’
106 JUDITH :

Sir Thomas Moore’s ‘‘ Utopia”? and “ Pilgrim’s Pro-
gress’? filled it out. ‘‘ Plutarch’s Lives,”’ translations
of the “‘Tliad’’ and ‘‘Odyssey,’’? Shakspeare, Milton,
Thomson, Pope, Cowper, James Montgomery’s poems,
the for-ten-years-unread Sir Charles Grandison, Rol-
lins’ ‘“‘ Ancient History,’? Hannah More, Mrs. Rowe,
Jeremy and Isaac Taylor, Baxter, ‘‘ Scott’s Commen-
tary,’? ‘‘Hervey’s Meditations,” ‘‘Young’s Night
Thoughts,” ‘‘The Lady of the Manor,’’ a series of
Episcopal tales in seven volumes, that went near to re-
storing me to the church of my ancestors ; ‘‘ The Chil-
dren of the Abbey,’’ ‘‘Munallan,’’ all the Waverley
novels, Saurin’s and Sa... el Davies’ Sermons—were
some of the works that :s0cked the capacious case.
From my sixth year I browsed at will on such strong
and wholesome pasturage. There were few volumes
then designed expressly for children, except school
‘Readers’? and ‘‘Class-Bouoks.’”? When I was tired
skirmishing with words and thoughts too mighty for
me, I feil back for recuperation upon the ‘‘ New York
Reader ’’ and Mrs. Barbauld, always beloved, however
far I might have outgrown them.

The book I had selected on this particular afternoon
was, I recollect, Wirt’s ‘‘ British Spy.’? My grand-
father had left pen-and-ink annotations ia the margin,
identifying this and that character. designated by
asterisks, with well-known public men in Church
and State. The leaves parted of themselves at the
description of ‘‘ The Blind Preacher.’? With very in-
adequate appreciation of the beauty of the word-paint-
ing, and, nevertheless, drawing from it a certain vague
enjoyment—a sort of mental cuticular absorption,
which is one of the uncovenanted advantages of this
mode of education—I had read this chapter until I
knew it without book. Dr. Waddell was, as Virginians
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 107

rate such ties, a connection of our family. Aunt
Betsey had married his second or third cousin, and the
subject of Wirt’s eulogy had been a guest at Summer-
field in the lifetime of my grandfather.

Aunt Betsey liked to relate to theological students
how, before there was any established divinity school
in Virginia, young men preparing for the ministry
were wont to apply to Dr. Waddell for instruction in
Hebrew, in which tongue he was proficient. One was
a resident for some months in his house, learned enough
Hebrew to enable him to pass examination for licensure,
and married the tutor’s daughter. Another succeeded
him, went through his pupilage, and carried off'a second
daughter. A third did likewise, and a fourth wedded
the sole remaining girl of the household, When the
fifth aspirant for initiation into the recondite lore of the
Pentateuch presented himself, the oft-robbed parent
dryly informed him that his ‘‘stock of Hebrew idioms
was exhausted.”’

“To this day,”’ the narrator would add, smiling over
the rims of her spectacles at her auditor, ‘‘in that part
of the state, when a young man is in love, they say he
is studying IIebrew.”’

I recalled the pleasing anecdote while my eyes dwelt
on the words: ‘‘He is not only a very polite scholar,
but a man of extensive and profound crudition.”’

Then my fancy rambled off to other tales of the great
and good—some gleaned from the printed page, more
harvested from the every-day talk going on about me.
The phrase, ‘‘representative men,’’ had not then been
adopted in the significance it now bears, orI might have
divined that my small world was peopled with such—
with people who had room to grow and time to form
in just accord with the impulses of natural germination
and development; in whom helief and principle were
108 JUDITH:

substantial framework, sustaining the same relation to
the external life that bole and boughs do to the cumu-
lative foliage of the oak. Character was expressed
opinion and faith, as strong and as sound as conscien-
tious research could make them. Each sturdy oak
mounted upward and spread outward of and for itself
in the wide bounteousness then vouchsafed to individu-
ality. Every man was a study, every woman an entity.
This is not sentimental maundering over the fancied
“orace of a day that is dead,’ but a loving tribute to
times which, take them all in all, may have been no
better than these, yet were fraught with a wholesome
vitality, a direct exhibition of original elements now
ignored or vitiated, that make the superficial life of to-
day vapid and jejune by comparison. Men’s minds then
were like their book-cases—furnished with recognized
standards and classics of doctrine, studied from preface
to ‘‘finis,’’? not once, but so many times that, by infil-
tration, thought, and through thought, acticn and
existence were colored by them.

While I dreamed, dipping occasionally into such
pools of ‘‘ British Spy” literature as looked shallow
enough for my wading, the sable subordinates had had
their audience and retired. Several small piles of coin
ranged on the baize at the master’s elbow had gradu-
ally vanished. As each man was dismissed he reccived
a Christmas gratuity and a word or two of commen-
dation.

‘“You have done well this year. I hope you will
have a merry holiday and a happy New Year,’’ was the
longest expression of approval and good-will, but the
recipients took fully and gratefully for granted all that
lay back of the laconic phrases.

The only sound that broke in upon the afternoon
quiet was the scratching of Uncle Archie’s pen and the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 109

muffled roar of the fire up the throat of the chimney.
Logs—not sticks—had been piled as far up as the
builder’s arm could lay them and then be withdrawn
from the roof of the fireplace. Tall brass andirons sup-
ported the load, a richly-wrought fender of the same
brilliant metal hedged it about. The conflagration was
well under way. The bark had ceased to crackle—the
flames wound smooth swathes about the wood ; the hiss
and drip of the sap from the cut ends told that the bil-
lets were hot to the heart. The pipe-clayed hearth and
jambs were rosy in the glare. In the glass doors of the
high book-case my end of the room was distinctly re-
flected, but in small-paned sections, like panel-pictures ;
the fire in its rush and flare; the mantel ornaments of
square white vases filled with holly-berries ; between
them Grandma’s portrait with the rose in her bodice,
the frame wreathed with running-cedar ; low down and
cut short by a drawer, a dissected map of myself, clad
in the crimson merino which was my best winter
frock. Outside, the heavens were gray with wind-
clouds, scurrying in troubled indecision from the north-
west. The walnut-tree top rocked and beat backward
hands at the blast before which it was forced to bend;
the naked rose-branches whipped fitfully across the
windows.

I hugged myself in the warm, cushioned covert under
the broad wing of the Bible-stand.

“Ah !’’ I sighed involuntarily, then started guiltily,
for I was innocently vain of the reputation of never dis-
turbing grown people by my presence.

Uncle Archie glanced smilingly over his shoulder.

“Tired, Judith ?””

‘‘No, sir. I didn’t mean to do it. Only—it is Christ-
mas Eve, and everything is so nice and pleasant. Iwas
just enjoying it—that is alk!”
110 JUDITH:

‘** Christmas in your bones,’ as the servants say ? I
am glad my little girl is happy.”’

He returned to his work, and I left the pictures in
the glass to watch him. His brow was clear, his smile
genial, He, too, looked happy, and I believed that I
knew why.

Miss Virginia Dabney had left us early in September.
She was never quite easy after the news came of the
Southampton massacre. Mammy said to me once that
it was natural to believe one would be safer in town
than country while such rumors were flying about of
renewed risings, and Nat Turner was still uncaught.
Miss Virginia said she was anxious to rejoin her family,
that, come what might, they would all be together.
There was some delay and a little difficulty in arranging
the manner of her return. The roads were not consid-
ered safe for private carriages; we were twenty miles
from the tri-weekly stage to Richmond, and in this,
which carried four armed militiamen on the top, it was
not esteemed proper for a young lady to travel alone.
Finally, a guard of honor, consisting of Sidney Macon,
our cousin Clem Read, and Mr. Bradley, escorted her
and her maid to the nearest stage-house. Mr. Bradley,
who had received letters requiring his presence in the
city, accompanied her the rest of the way. Everything
was quiet now, outwardly. In the Legislature wise
men were discussing the bill for the gradual abolition
of slavery. It was lost two months later by a single
vote, but at this Christmas-tide we were sanguine that
it would be carried by a large majority. The political
and domestic sky was clear and propitious to the grate-
ful celebration of our thanksgiving week.

Aunt Maria had gone, a fortnight ago, to pay a long-
deferred visit to her Richmond friend, conditional upon
Miss Virginia’s engagement to pass Christmas at Sum-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. dil

merfield. The two were expected this evening. It had
not been practicable for Uncle Archie to be one of her
attendants in September. His post was on the planta-
tion, which he would let no one patrol except himself.
He had pledged his word for the good faith and quiet
behavior of his servants to the neighborhood police, and
could not quit home for a day in the distempered condi-
tion of public feeling. Nor would his engagements at
this season allow him to spare three days in order to
bring his sister and her guest home for Christmas. It
was fortunate that Mr. Bradley’s school-term closed
December 15th, and that his arrangements for the en-
suing year made it expedient for him to go again to
town before January Ist. He had been absent now
four days, having gone down in the Summerfield car-
riage sent for the young ladies.

I laughed slyly to my discreet self with the wonder
whether Uncle Archie suspected how truly I deciphered
his face that day—the serene content of his eyes, the
half-smile that relaxed the habitual compression of his
lips—if he imagined that I did not note his occasional
glance at the clouds, or that he looked at his watch a
dozen times during the afternoon. His lapses into
dreamy inaction had hindered the progress of his task.
He held himself inexorably to pen and figures until the
fire-lit arca about the hearth looked redder and brighter
for the darkening shadows hemming it in and pressing
it closer. By-and-by the door opened quietly, and my
mother, Mrs. Mary Trueheart, entered. She and my
father had arrived two days before, with the three chil-
dren younger than myself. We never failed to pass
Christmas in the old homestead.

My grandfather was fair of skin and hair, and his
wife used to say that they divided the children equally
between them. My mother and her brothers Sterling
112 JUDITH :

and Wythe were Saxon blondes, with blue eyes. Uncle
Archie, Aunt Maria and the eldest sister and first-born,
who died in childhood, were brunettes, inheriting with
their mother’s coloring much of her stateliness of car-
riage and motion. The lady who now appeared through
the ruddy dusks nearest the door was small and plump,
vivacious in visage and talk, full of fun and feeling.
‘“* A handful of sunshine,’’ her husband called her, and
she carried her household and maternal responsibilities
as lightly as was consistent with a religious valuation
of their weight and worth. Her brother looked up
brightly at her approach, and she lifted a menacing
forefinger.

‘‘My dear boy! have you no mercy on your eyes?
Don’t you know when blind-man’s holiday begins ?”’

He wiped the pen and put it away; shook the sand-
box over the wet lines of the page just written.

‘“‘Thave just finished. My week’s—and my year’s
work is done !””

He rested his head against her shoulder, as she put
her arm behind his neck. Dear and lovely as was the
younger sister, she could never be all to him that this,
his senior by three years, still was. I caught the sigh
of relief or satisfaction—it had no breath of weariness
—that escaped him.

‘* A hard year’s work, I know. Has it been a good
one ?”

‘* Better than I dared hope for. The best since the
management of the estate came into my hands. The
crops have turned out finely. You heard me telling
Tom about the tobacco last night? Wheat, corn, cot-
ton have done quite as well; the new mill and cotton-
gin more than paid for themselves. The stock is in
splendid condition. You must ride down to the far
pasture with me some day and look at my blooded colts
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 113

and the calves. We have a hundred pigs wintered in
the pine-woods, and as many sheep in the stable-
meadow, with food enough to carry them all well into
the spring. Two such seasons would oblige us, if not
to pull down our barns, at least to put up more and
larger ones. Our expenses should be no heavier next
year than this. Wythe enters college, but Sterling has
graduated. I am proud of that boy’s independence,
although I did oppose at first his idea of teaching school
while studying law. He is determined to pay his own
way henceforward, he says. I do not grudge Bradley
his good fortune, but I wish Sterling had such a situa-
tion offered him, instead of an old-field school.”’

He had pulled his sister down to his knee. Her
pretty white hand—the family were noted for the beauty
of their hands—threaded and tossed his hair while they
talked.

‘“Mr. Bradley is to have a private class in Richmond,
isn’t he ?”

“Of six boys, whom he is to fit for college. The
duties will not occupy more than half the day, leaving
him plenty of time for his law studies. He is a fine
fellow, and deserves the best that can be done for him.
We shall miss him sadly, but when Wythe goes there
will be no more need of a tutor. And Bradley can do
so much better than to stay here, even if there were
younger boys to be educated.”

‘¢ There is something very winning in his manner,’’
answered my mother, and I fancied with a dry edge to
her accent. ‘* He impresses me as one who is sure to
make his way in the world. But I don’t feel that I
know him very well. Tom says I have not taken kindly
to him because he is a Yankee.”

“Fe is a thorough gentleman—an honorable, high-
minded Christian man, whom any Southerner might be
114 JUDITH:

proud to call ‘friend.’ I have known him more inti-
mately than any other of our tutors. He can be trusted
to the world’s end, and to death.”’

“Tf all I hear be true, you are not the only member
of the family that holds that opinion,’’ rejoined my
mother. ‘‘I have my suspicions.”’

“Of Aunt Betsey ??? demurely. ‘“‘SohaveI. But I
make it a rule not to interfere in such affairs. Having
eyes, I see not ; having ears, I hear not, and know only
what I am told in so many words. Of one thing I am
certain, and that is all I, as Aunt Betsey’s guardian,
need know. Bradley would never abuse the advan-
tages of his position here, whatever his feelings may be.
And it isa serious question, Molly, whether or no aman
has a right to try to bind another by an engagement
that may drag on for years. My view has always been
that he should have the foundations of the house laid, or,
at any rate, some notion where and how it is to be built,
before he invites a tenderly-reared girl to live in it.”

The fair fingers closed saucily on one lock of hair,
dealing it a decisive tweak, under which he winced and
laughed.

“‘T must tell you of a talk, Mr. Worldly Wiseman,
that I had the other day with Uncle Hamilcar, our car-
riage-driver, you know. He has just married a woman
twenty-five years younger than himself, and this before
Aunt Sylvy, his first wife, had been four months in her
grave. I scolded him roundly, as was my duty as a
woman and a mistress. I told him his conduct was
scandalous, an offense to taste and decency, and an in-
sult to Sylvy’s memory. He was humble but not con-
trite, and prepared forthwith to debate the case.

‘7 did ‘lot ’pon waitin’ ’bout a year mistis,’ he
said, ‘to show propa resentmen’ to de dear deceasted,
you onderstan’, marm, But, as I look at de case, my
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 115

mistis, it ’s jes’ "bout dis way: S’pose you was a-stan’in’
on de bank o’ Jeemses River, an’ you was to see a
moughty big snappin’-turkle, what you knowed would
make de bes’ sort 0’ stew an’ soup, a-floatin’ down
t’wards you. Well, you don’ want dat ar turkle jes’
dat minnit. Too soon arter breakfuss, maybe. Maybe
you don’ want him dat day. You got plenty bacon in
de smoke-house. But yo’ know in yo’ soul dat de time
is a-comin’ when dat ar turkle will be moughty conve-
nient fur you to have roun’ de house. An’ ef you don’
cotch him, like ’s not somebody else will, an’ whar you
an’ yo’ stew an’ yo’ soup den? Wouldn’t it be a heap
sensibler in you fur to make sure o’ him by gittin’ holt
o’ him quick’s you ken, an’ tyin’ him to a stake on de
bank ’ginst you want him? Dat ar’s de very thing I
been gone an’ done, my mistis. Ef I hadn’t ’a’ married
Sally, somebody else would ’a’ co’rted her while I was
a-mo’rnin’ for po’ Sylvy, an’ den—dar !’””

Uncle Archie’s laugh was as fresh-hearted as a boy’s.

‘Moral,’ he said: ‘‘ Bracley would do well as a pru-
dent provider to make sure of—Aunt Betsey—for fear
of trespassers.”’

My mother shook her head.

“T said never a word about Mr. Bradley. My mind
is running upon somebody worth fifty such men as the
agreeable pedagogue. Don’t frown. I like you for
praising your friend, and he may be all you say, yet not
your equal by many degrees. Surely, Archie—to come
down to practical talk—you ought to profit by present
prosperity. Even the small percentage of the procceds
of sales, etc., that you consented, five years ago, to ac-
cept as your share—you, to whom the estate owes so
much, should justify you in thinking of your own hap-
piness. You don’t mind my plain speaking ? We were
boy and girl together, dear !”
116 JUDITH:

‘* Did I ever ‘mind’ anything you said? I wanted to
talk to you on this very subject. Two years ago I got
my head above water. Last vear I laid hold of a plank
and climbed upon it. This year I have a little raft—
not a smart affair, but staunch. I hope, and sometimes
believe that it will, in the course of another year, be
big enough to float two comfortably. Provided ”—
archly—‘‘ the second passenger is not very heavy.”’

His sister leaned forward and kissed him in the middle
of his forehead, where I knew, from the odd constraint
in voice and manner blent with his forced gayety, that
the branching vein was throbbing.

‘‘Heavy or light, she will be a very happy woman,
brother! She is a dear, warm-hearted child; loving,
sweet-tempered and pretty enough to turn even this
steady head. I don’t deny that I wanted you once to
marry somebody else, but I am quite willing to believe
that you are a better judge than I of what suits you.”

“Will I suit her? That is the question that torments
me !’’ broke out the man impetuously.

Up to this instant I had been aware that he framed
his speech in the recollection that I was within ear-
shot ; that his mention of Aunt Betsey’s name, and the
figures of plank and raft were designed to bewilder me
into loss of the clue to the real personages referred to,
should I be listening instead of being absorbed in my
book. They all had a notion that when I plunged into
printed matter I became forthwith deaf and blind. They
always talked before me with a freedom that would have
been dangerous had I not been trained neither to inter-
rupt the conversation of my elders by pert questions nor
to repeat afterward what had not been addressed to me.
But this last ejaculation was in a different key—the
minor of pain, doubt, longing, thrilling through strong
desire, hope and thankfulness. It tingled along my
wl CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 117

nerves like the shock of a voltaic battery, and brought
the first misgiving that I had no right to be where I
was.

‘* Her views on this subject may not be the same as
mine,’’ he went on, using the plain, practical phrases
habitual to him. I doubtif he could have found any
others, even for love-making. ‘‘She is such a dainty
little thing! refined in all her ways, and used to ele-
gances I may never be able to give her, however good
may be my will. I seem to myself sometimes to be
nothing better than a clodhopper in her presence ; some-
times a clod itself. She permits me to be her friend.
She talks freely—almost confidentially—with me, as
with an older brother. Will she be frightened—or dis-
gusted—when I speak of what I have felt for her ever
since she was a school-girl spending her summer vaca-
tions here with Maria? Am I too old, too sober, not
intellectual enough for her? I turn these and forty
other questions over in my mind until Iam almost dis-
tracted.”’

‘*My poor boy! But I could laugh at your harrowing
doubts if it were not you who are speaking. I know she
respects and likes you. Why not, by one bold stroke,
find out just how well?”

“T have had no right to speak out while she was our
guest. No right to speak at all until I could maintain
her comfortably. In what Iam disposed to think are
my sanest moments I am ready to believe that it would
be rank presumption in the best man that ever lived to
ask a girl like Virginia Dabney to marry him. For all
that, the dearest hope I have in this world is that I
may win her as my wife’’—his voice sinking in a rever-
ent cadence.

The Bible-stand toppled over with a resounding bang,
and I scrambled up, very red in the face, very weak in
118 JUDITH :

the knees, and uncertain how to live through the next
minute.

‘¢ JUDITH !”’

My mother’s countenance and emphasis revealed a
new horror. She had not known until the crash came
that I was in the room!

“Indeed, mamma, I came out as soon as I saw he had
forgotten. I thought you saw me sitting there! Iam
so sorry! Uncle Archie knew—”’

Tears drowned the words.

Uncle Archie picked up stand and Bible and restored
them to their places. The momentary cloud was gone
from his face when he turned tome. He put his arm
about my waist and gathered me up close to him.

“I forgot her entirely,’’ he said to his sister, ‘‘al-
though I spoke to her just before you came in. She
comes and goes like a shadow, always. She had aright
to be here. It was no fault of hers that she heard what
we said. And, when I think of it, I don’t care much,
Sweetbrier. You are a sensible little woman, who
knows how to hold her tongue. I have trusted you be-
fore this, haven’t I?” pulling up my chin that he might
dry my eyes with his own handkerchief, and shedding
into their wet depths the sweet brightness of a smile
that made him to me the handsomest of men. ‘‘I am
not very wise about signs, but I don’t think it can be
lucky to cry long on Christmas Eve. And it would
never do,’’—he stooped to say it in my ear—“‘ for Some-
body to think we are not glad to see her.”’

As I ran up stairs to bathe my face and brush my
hair, I heard the door of ‘‘ the chamber’? open, and in
the hall the voices and footsteps of my father and
younger uncles, expectant and hospitable. I flew to an
upper window in time to see the carriage at the gate in
the wan shimmer cast by the yellowish clouds where
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 119

the sun had gone down. Four men were hurrying
down the walk. Mr. Bradley sprang out before they
reached the gate. An imposing bevy attended the
young ladies to the house. The shorter of the two had
my Uncle Stirling on one side and my father on the
other. The stripling Wythe, her vehement admirer,
walked abreast of these, carrying her shawl and hand-
basket. Mr. Bradley stayed behind to superintend the
unpacking of the chariot he had seen loaded with
Christmas parcels. He drew them out with his own
hands, and gave them to the servants in waiting. The
wind made a merry mixture of voices and laughter.
Uncle Archie gave his left arm to his weary sister,
brought on the other sundry bundles of fragile articles,
too precious to be intrusted to rough or careless bearers.

CHAPTER VIII.

A CENTURY and three-quarters agone—very far back
in the seventeen hundreds—there lived in one of the
midland counties of Virginia a rich Frenchman, Pierre
St. Jean by name. He owned a fertile plantation and
many slaves, and worked both with diligence that
earned for him from his leisure-lovixg neighbors the
title of ‘‘ miserly skinflint.’? Me had neither wife nor
child, and was the only white person on his estate. A
traditional anecdote runs that an inquisitive neighbor
plied him, when he was in his eightieth year, with
questions as to the disposition he intended to make of
his hoards.

The old man was sitting in his porch, overlooking
cotton and tobacco-fields specked with laborers, low-
120 JUDITH :

grounds of corn skirting the river, and uplands waving
with golden wheat ready for the scythe. He was bent
almost double with age and rheumatism, his skin was
tan-colored and dry as a drum-head, but his beady black
eyes snapped wickedly at the bore’s importunities.

‘“*Sare !’? he snarled, ‘‘in all ze time I ’ave live’ in
zis so villain countree I ’ave save’ joos’ t’ree ’undred
pence. I s’all leave zis in mine veel to my grandmozzer,
who still live in Paree, and dance at ze Court balls.”

It has almost passed from the minds of those now
living that, up to the year 1776, the Church of England
was the ‘‘Esiablishment’’ in the Old Dominion as
really as in the Mother Country. Mr. Jefferson,
through whose bold pressure of a bill for the ‘‘ Aboli-
tion of General Assessment for the Established Church”’
all denominations were put upon an equal footing, says
of the period preceding this salutary enactment :

“In process of time, however, other sectarisms were
introduced, chietly of the Presbyterian family. The es-
tablished clergy, secure for life in their glebes and sala-
ries, adding to these generally the emoluments of a
classical school, found employment enough in their
farms and school-rooms for the rest of the week, and de-
voted Sunday only for the edification of their flock by
service and a sermon at their parish church. Their
other pastoral functions were little attended to, Against
this inactivity the zeal and industry of sectarian
preachers had an open and undisputed field, and by the
time of the Revolution a majority of the inhabitants
had become dissenters from the Established Church, but
were still obliged to pay contributions to support the
pastors of the minority. This unrighteous compulsion
to maintain teachers of what they deemed religious
errors was grievously felt during the regal government,
and without a hope of relief.”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 121

Thomas Jefferson was not born, and public men had
not begun to bestir themselves to right the wrong of
which complaints were circulating in discontented
whispers, when there was talk of erecting a parish
church in the godless vicinage in which Pierre St. Jean
was the principal land-holder. At the first breath of
the project he astonished the county by offering to give
the ground for church and glebe-farm., His reasons for
the action were substantially the same with those that
led to the erection of the little church at the gates of
the Ferney chateau.

‘* Ze church is one almost as good t’ing as ze police,”’ he
represented to the committee who were collecting funds
for the enterprise. ‘‘ Ve cannot in one land so new and
savage as zis ’ave ze police; zen ze church by all mean.
I s’all send all my servants, and veep zem if zey do not
go. Perhaps zey veel be afraid of ze priest, and ze fire
eternal, and steal not so mooch of my corn and peach-
brandy.”’

He aroused himself from his customary absorption in
lis own affairs so far as to overlook the work when
begun. The vestrymen favored another location for
tue church and encompassing burial-ground than that
desired by him, but he carried his point. The building
was set up on a natural bank scarcely twenty-five yards
from the highway, and within sight of the smal! dwell-
ing which was the heart of the Bienvenu (pronounced
‘- Benvenew ”’ by the neighbors) tract. The glebe-farm
and parsonage were two miles away. It was evident
that the house of worship was designed as a family
chapel, an appanage of M. St. Jeau’s estate. Money
and stubbornness won the day, and he testified a sneer-
ing consciousness of their supremacy over consideration
for the religious welfare of the community by register-
ing in the deed of gift that the church was made
122 --  - JUDITH:

over to the parish by ‘Pierre St. Jean’s will.” He
said by his ‘‘veel,’? and by the passage of the story
through many mouths, the plain wooden structure
perched on the roadside, although formally dedicated
as ‘‘St.Philip’s,’? was known generally as ‘‘ Old Sing-
insville.”’

After the disestablishment it became by degrees ‘‘a
free church,” 4. e., one in which several denominations
had acknowledged right. The Methodists, Baptists
and Presbyterians each held services in it one Sunday
in the month, leaving a fourth for the original owners.
When a fifth Sunday occurred the Episcopalians took
that also, by a sort of courteous and somewhat pathetic
recognition of their former lordly estate. The four sects
assumed the duty in common of keeping the premises
in repair, no one feeling especially obliged to see that
this was well done.

This is the history in brief of ‘‘ Old Singinsville,”’ as
it is known to this day, none, except the neighborhood
antiquarian having any knowledge of the title of which
the uncouth appellation is a perversion, or why the ad-
jective of age is prefixed.

On Christmas Sunday two carriages from Summer-
field set down their loads at the church-door. It was
an ugly, oblong frame house, the paintless clap-boards
and shingles dark-gray at their underlapping, shading
into black at the outer edges. A door like that of a
barn, and two long, shutterless windows were set in the
gable nearest the road; five other windows on each long
side, and two more in the farther gable. Between these
jast was the pulpit. Farm-fences—the well-known rail
zigzags—bounded the church-yard on the north and
east. The west end of the building backed up into a
pine wood that ran down the hill to a creek at the bot-
tom. Toward the highway the area was open, and be-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 123

tween this and the church-door all vestiges of the
grave-yard had been obliterated. Beyond the wheel-
track leading to and from the steps, tall hickories and
oaks had shot up since the abolition of the ancien régime,
heaving flat grave-stones and wrapping their roots about
the forgotten bones below. Here and there a tangle of
honeysuckle and white-rose bushes, the scraggy stems
yellow with moss, or a hardy arbor-vitee tree bore tes-
timony to love that had watched above the precious
dust a long generation ago. Old Pierre St. Jean’s will
decreed that, he should be buried as near the chureh as
the grave could be dug without injuring the foundation.
He had slept for a hundred years right under the drip
of the gutterless eaves, and the continual dropping had
worn away the two lines that recorded his name, birth
and death.

The negroes believed that he walked on winter nights
about and about the walls raised at his “‘ vill,” ban-
ished from Heaven for his sins, but respited from the
place of torment at certain seasons, that he might look
for a few hours upon the monument of the solitary good
deed he had performed while wearing his meagre gar-
ment of flesh. On stormy midnights he had been seen
carrying a blue lantern slowly around the church, ex-
amining the foundation stones cemented under his eye.
While they held together his imprisonment was to have
the temporary mitigation of these earthly visits. His
estate had been sold at his death and the proceeds sent
to an address in France given in his last will and testa-
ment. The plantation was parceled into three free-
holds. His house took fire in the night and burned to
the ground shortly after his demise.

Aunt Betsey had told me the tale with many illus-
trative incidents, and it was a pearl of price to me
pending the Sabbath ministrations of such godly and
124 JUDITH :

long-winded brethren as Rev. Mr. Watts, the Baptist
incumbent, and our own pastor, Mr. Burgess. There
was Presbyterian preaching twice a month at Mt. Her-
mon, a neat, new church just beyond the outskirts of
the Summerfield plantation. On the remaining Sab-
baths we took such chances of spiritual profit as ‘‘ free
churches”? afforded.

Given board and charcoal, I could reproduce the inte-
rior of the edifice on the site of which now stands a
hideous rectangle of cheap brick—still ‘‘ Singinsville,”’
and sometimes ‘‘ New.”

The benches must have been of lignum-vite, or pos-
sibly petrified wood, for no others were ever so hard,
and had never known the touch of a paint-brush. The
backs were carved and lettered on the outside with in-
dustry and into intricacy rivaling the master-pieces
wrought with tools as rude by monks, with nothing else
to do, on stall and reredos and lectern, in medieval
chapels. Lovers’ knots with intertwined initials ; linked
and scarified hearts ; horses leaping fences, in full run,
standing with and without riders; caricatures of the
human face and form ; dogs, foxes, birds—were cut or
drawn carelessly, or with much painstaking, by men
whose pockets, from six up to eighty-six, were never
without a stout English jack-knife. The side of the
church devoted to the gentler and neater sex was almost
as profusely decorated as that on which sat their hus-
bands and brothers—a puzzle explained by the frequent
use of the building, since it became ‘“‘ free,’’ for political
and other secular assemblies. One of the many inscrip-
tions penciled on the dingy whitewash of the walls must,
Timagined, have been written during service. I had
settled in my own mind that it was done while Mr.
Watts had his eyes shut in ‘‘ the long’’—oh, how long !—
prayer. Myseat on this Sunday was, as I liked to have
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 125

it, within easy eye-range of the pessimistic doggerel. It
was engrossed in a fair, clerkly hand, and ran thus:
“Some go to church to laugh and talk ;

Some for a pleasant ride or walk ;

Some to show the last new dress ;

Some to court a Kate or Bess;

Some to meet: a business friend ;

Some the heavy hours to spend ;

Many go to sleep and nod ;—

But, ah! who goes to worship Gop?”

I used to fancy the cynical smile with which the writer
surveyed the congregation between the lines. He must
have been tall, I thought, with dark hair and lively
eyes. His coat fitted him well; his hand was elegant
in shape, and he wrote with a gold pencil-case like Mr.
Bradley’s. The whole proceeding was very wicked, as
were the sacrilegious etchings on wainscot and bench-
hacks. Nevertheless, I was as exceedingly glad of them
as Jonah of his palm-christ (which was not a gourd).

This was Mr. Watts’ day in course at Old Singinsville,
and it was his lank ungainliness that undid one joint at
a time until a lugubrious countenance, set off into gloom
by straight hair and the thick-set roots of a blue-black
beard, a pair of round shoulders and very long arms in-
cased in arusty black coat, were visible above the boxed-
in desk. ‘‘ We will begin the services of the Lord’s
Day by singing the 875th hymn,” he plained, as one
bewails his first-born.

“¢Show pity, Lord! Oh Lord, forgive !
Let a repenting sinner live
The words are so familiar that I deem it hardly neces-
sary to give out the lines.” —

He set the tune himself—the wildly-mournful num-
bers I halted but yesterday beneath the windows of a
‘colored church’’ in the street of a Northern city to
hear. The audience took it and the words away from
126 JUDITH:

him before he finished the first line, bore the melody
with increasing spirit from one verse to another until
the air swayed and swung with it from wall to wall.
Hardy old planters—their hats on the floor between
their knees, with horsewhips sticking up in them, like
spoons in so many toddy-tumblers—gave it out with
the blast of leathery lungs, beating time with big cow-
skin boots. Their delicate-featured wives sang it with
closed eyes, folded hands, and heads gently vibrative to
the favorite measure. Aunt Betsey’s tenor skimmed the
levels of the music with an easy lope and took the bar-
leaps like a bird. Across the aisle from us the sonorous
*“brum-brum”’ of Uncle Archie’s voice supplied the
deeper notes that had else been wanting from the really
noble harmony. From the servants’ gallery in the rear
of the audience-room poured over our heads a thunder-
ous rush of song.

It took one-quarter of Brother Watts’ long prayer to
let my nerves and fancies down to the regulation level
of sanctuary dullness. Our Mr. Burgess once informed
a youthful theologue in my hearing that ‘‘ the monosyl-
lable ‘Acts’ formed an excellent epitomical guide in
the composition of the principal prayer offered in public
worship. This should begin with Adoration, proceed
to Confession, rise into Thanksgiving and close with
Supplication.”’

After which I held to the private belief that Mr.
Watts’ mnemonic recipe must be a polysyllable with
never a letter left out. Grown men stood or sat at their
ease while he wailed from station to station of the peni-
tential progress. Devout Presbyterian women bowed
their heads upon the backs of the seats before them. Bap-
tist sisters sometimes—Methodists and Episcopalians
always—knelt, and so did children as a rule, this being
the easiest posture for themselves and least troublesome
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 127

to their guardians, I had an established fashion of
settling myself, as squarcly as was compatible with
human anatomy, upon my knees, my elbows on the
stony-hearted bench, my chin in my hollowed palms. I
could keep my eyes closed for perhaps five minutes,
then the lids arose as on springs and refused to shut
more. Turn about I might not, any more than I
might rise or wriggle; but, my scooping hands serving
as blinders, I could regard whatever went on immedi-
ately behind me, as seen beneath the horizontal rails of
the seat-back. It was a genuine comfort when the
woman who occupied this space wore a gayly-figured
gown, a cross when it was black silk, an offense if it
chanced to be a sheenless bombazine. Once, when Miss
Harry Macon sat in this place, she opened her hymn-
book on her knee, the bottom of the page toward me,
holding it so that I could easily read it. I learned two
new hymns before I got up. I always liked Miss Harry
after that. Usually, howeve:, the dead numbness of
the knees, the tingles and pricis of the cramped arms
were a bagatelle beside the dreary vacuity of mind that
overtook me about the middle of the prayer. I could
not remember a period when Mr. Watts was not
droning out his petitions, or forecast a time when he
would cease to pray. If I aroused myself spasmodic-
ally by the reflection that what had been might be
again—that I had felt just as now over and over again,
yet lived to go home and eat my Sunday dinner in great
peace of body and mind—the relief died soon before
the ‘staying power’’ of the good man’s voice, rising
and falling like an evening breeze in a pine grove, with
an awful earnest of endless continuity in the monotony
of its moan.

He did stop to-day, and, as heretofore, just in season
to save me from dissolution, or the disgrace of “speaking
128 JUDITH:

out in mecting” to preserve life and reason. Then
he read ten sections of the 119th Psalm, and “ lined
out’? asecond hymn. This sung, the sermon was due.
Instead of announcing his text, he unclosed a wide,
thin-lipped mouth to say, in the same doleful key that
had given forth hymn, prayer and psalm:

“T am rejoiced ’’(!) ‘‘to communicate to you this
morning, my dear Christian friends, the good tidings
that our beloved Brother Dudley, whose name is familiar
to you all and whose face is known to many, whose work
in the vineyard the Master hath been pleased to bless in
times past and now, is with us to-day by an enactment
of Divine Providence, and will preach for us at this
time. I take this occasion to give notice that I expect
to preach next Sunday, God willing, at Muddy Creek ;
on the second Sunday in January at Red Lane, and on
the third Sabbath of that month at Bethel.”

A manifest sensation fluttered his dear Christian
friends at the name of the orator of the day. Glancing
at Grandma’s face as she sat erect in the corner of the
long bench, I fancied that a troubled wave broke up the
solemn calm of her eyes. Aunt Betsey raised her eye-
brows in response to Aunt Maria’s apprehensive look.
The corners of Miss Virginia’s rosy mouth relaxed, and
she shot a swift flash under her eyelids over the way
where sat Uncle Archie and Mr. Bradley. Both young
men saw the mirthful appeal, Uncle Archie meeting it
with a gleam of quiet sympathy in her amusement, the
other in undisguised enjoyinent of the prospective dis-
course. As Mr. Watts had said, everybody had heard of
Brother Dudley. Nowadays, he would be called a ‘‘ hard-
shell’ and a ‘‘ sensation preacher.”’ In that era of noted
revivalists, he was considered by the more staid of even
his own sect as eccentric. Some were disposed to ques-
tion the expediency of suffering him to continue his
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 129

official ministrations. Once, after some unusually ex-
travagant expressions on his part and of boisterous mer-
riment on that of certain of his auditors, he was cited to
answer before the State Association for ‘“‘ unbecoming
levity of speech, approximating irreverence.’’? He re-
ceived the remonstrances of his peers with humility, but
protested, even with tears, that he never meant to say
or do aught derogatory to the cause he presented or the
sacred desk in which he stood. He spoke as he was
moved by the Spirit; but they must not forget that
Divinity speaking through man must take human voice
and language.

“King David himself, with the Chief Musician and
Asaph to lend a hand, couldn’t get the same music out
of a banjo as out of his harp,’’? he represented in his
defense ; ‘‘ an’ even the breath of the Lord would sound
different in a French bugle from what ’twould in the
‘toot! toot! Toot!’ of a tin dinner-norn !”

“Brother Dudley ! Brother Dudley /” called the chair-
man. ‘You are guilty again of the very impropricty
with which you stand charged !”’

The rebuked man begged pardon penitently. Je
would endeavor prayerfully in future to avoid the error
he had just proved to be so easily-besetting. He en-
treated the brethren to be patient with him—above all,
not to deprive him of the glorious privilege of preach-
ing the Gospel. Ilis meat and drink was to do the will
of Him that sent him; his thought, hope, prayer that
he micht be the means of warning his fellows, his kins-
men according to the flesh, to flee from the wrath to
come. He told how hard he worked, how poorly he
lived, how many miles he rode every year, how many
sermons he had preached, how wistfully he sought out
ways and wiles by which to win souls. Hard labor
and coarse fare, poverty and contempt he accounted as
130 JUDITH:

nothing. If he had any goods, he would take joyfully
their spoiling if so be he might secure for others treas-
ure in Heaven. He wound up in perfectly good faith
in this wise:

‘J don’t pick fine words, nor stop to parse sentences.
So long’s they hold together, I let ’em fly, knowin’
thar ’s j’ints in every harness that the Lord knows
about, ef I don’t. Throwin’ stones out 0’ the brook 1s my
business—guidin’ ’em to Goliath’s skull is the Lord’s.
I ain’t always as particular maybe as I oughter be
to see that they ’re smooth an’ to wipe off the mud from
them on my coat-sleeve, ’specially when the Philistine
is comin’ for me full tilt, an’ Israel is a-turnin’ their
backs to the enemy. But, bless your soul, honey, whar’s
the odds, so long ’s I make the devil run like smoke ?
I’d preach corn-stalk-fiddle-an’-shoe-string-bow ef that
kind o? lingo would save sinners !”’

The chorus of a popular husking (‘‘shucking” in
Virginia) song began with ‘‘ A corn-stalk fiddle and a
shoe-string bow,’’ and every grave divine there could
have whistled it. Brother Dudley was admonished to
be wary of speech, yet assured that he retained the con-
fidence and respect of his brethren, and dismissed after
a prayer from the most dignified member of the body
that he might be long spared to the world and the
church.

He was a man of medium height, well knit together.
His hair was iron-gray, and bristled up, stiff as wires,
over shrewd eyebrows. His eyes were full and keen,
his expression quietly benevolent until he began to
speak. His cravat was loosely tied, and he had a trick
of tugging at it when excited in declamation as if it op-
pressed his breathing. Other men wore black satin or
sulk stocks, and finical people objected that this wisp of
a ’kerchicf about his throat gave him an aftectedly rakish
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 131

air unbecoming his office. His coat was baggy and the
sleeves too short, having evidently been made, and
probably worn, by a fatter man who was not so tall as
the present owner. His voice was powerful and some-
what harsh in the upper register. The lower tones were
extremely sweet and flexible.

He began the performances on this occasion by
dragging the Bible from the sloping wooden shelf that
was the pulpit desk, and handing it to Mr. Watts, who
was sitting behind him—a significant clearance of decks
for action.

“In the first book of the Bible,”? was the exordium,
‘‘ written as I’ve understood by Moses, pretty well on
towards the middle of the book an’ a leetle furder
along than the middle of a chapter, youll find these
words—when you go home an’ look for ’em :

“* The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered
into Zoar.’

‘I’m not goin’ to tell you the name 0’ the book, nor
the number of chapter an’ verse. I mean you shall do
that much s’archin’ the Scripters for yourselves. I’m
mighty afraid some o’ you will blow off dust from the
leds o’ your Bibles that will rise up a cloud 0’ condemna-
tion ag’inst you on the las’ day—a thick dust that won’t
let you see the face o’ Him that sitteth on the throne.
A neglected Bible is dumb enough now. It lies as still
as a roach in the bottom of a mill-pond just whar you
laid it down the las’ time you were in trouble—the night
your wife died, or your boy had the croup, or maybe
when the sun shone so blue las’ summer. You’ve piled
other books on it an’ it never groaned nor stirred—not
so much as to rustle the Whig nor the Enquirer, nor the
almanac that lays atop of all—the things you do read
an’ take an int’rest in.

‘‘The fifth prophet before the New Testament tells
132 JUDITH:

us of a time when the stone shall cry out 0’ the wall,
an’ the beam out o’ the timber shall answer it. But
that outcry will be like the singin’ of a black gnat in
your ear compared with the awful shout that will go up
from a fam’ly Bible that’s never looked into except
when somebody ’s born or married or dead, or almost
skeered out 0’ his senses.

‘“‘ My text is thar, whether you look for it or not!

‘¢¢'The sun had risen upon the earth.’ And what 0’
that ? If thar’s one thing more certain than death
an’ sin an’ sorrow in this world it is that the sun’s
a-goin’ to rise in the mornin’. I°ll bet my head ’most all
0’ you say more’n once every week o’ your lives, ‘ Sure’s
the sun will rise to-morrow.’ As if you’d bespoke it
an’ paid your cash down to the showman! Like’s not
twas justas pat a sayingin Sodom. ‘Ill pay you that
debt sure ’s the sun rises to-morrow mornin’,’ says one
the night befo’ that day o’ burnin’ an’ brimstone an’
gnawin’ o’ tongues for pain, when the wicked cities
were wiped clean off the face o’ the globe like you'd
take a drop o’ tar off the hub of a wheel with a greasy
rag—wiped off and throwed away for all time.

“““T love you, sure’s the sun’ll rise an’ set to-mor-
row,’ says another, lookin’ into his sweetheart’s blue
eyes. An’ another shakes his fist in his enemy’s face
an’ says, ‘Ill beeven with you for this certain as the
sun ’ll rise to-morrow !’

‘Well, the sun is up! He’s cleared the tops o’ the
pine trees on the mountains over yonder, an’ a-shinin’
hot an’ bright ’cross the plain, on streets full 0’ folks,
marryin’ an’ givin’ in marriage, an’ buyin’ an’ sellin’
an’ eatin’ an’ drinkin’. On the rascally gang that was
hullabalooin’ under Lot’s winders las’ night. On Lot’s
sons-in-law, a-splittin’ their sides a-laughin’ at the
‘ole man’s new maggot in the brain,’ arfter they ’d seen
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 133

him an’ bis wife an’ two single daughters a-runnin’ out
0’ the gates, licketysplit for the mountain, skeered for
nothin’?! An’ not one o’ the thousan’s o’ sinners seen
death hangin’ over his head in that black cloud a-rollin’
up in the west, spittin’ out lightnin’s an’ roarin’ with
the blast of hell! They took life, an’ meant to take
eternity, as easy as you do who come here to-day in
your cushioned carriages or on your slick horses, sayin’
how lucky it was the weather had changed so’s to give
you a pleasant Sunday, an’ how much store you set by
the fourth Sunday at Old Singinsville, for everybody
and his wife is sure to be there for you to see.

‘* They didn’t see destruction, but it overtook them !
Not one head will be lifted out 0’ the Dead Sea on the
evenin’ o’ the day they met so gayly—the sea that’s
nothin’ but a pot o’ pitch, hot with the wrath of the
Almighty—to look the red sun in the face and say, ‘Ill
forsake the works o’ darkness an’ turn with my whole
heart to the Lord, sure as that sun will rise to-mor-
row !’ Charred corpses cannot repent ; ears stopped with
b’ilin’? slime couldn’t hear if the Lord of Life was
standin’ on the edge of the smokin’ pit Abraham saw
a-steamin’ up to Heaven, miles an’ miles off, an’ callin’,
‘Look unto Me and be saved !’

“*O thou long-sufferin’ an’ pitiful Saviour! who would
not that any should die, but that all should come to
Thee for salvation! Is it then true that thar is a limit
to the day of mercy? The grave cannot praise Thee ;
death cannot celebrate Thee; they that go down to the
pit cannot hope for Thy truth!

‘That risin’? sun saw Somethin’ in the middle o’ the
plain that war’n’t thar when he went down las’ night.
Somethin’ white as the drifted snow, that yet war’n’t
soft, nor pure, nor cold. Somethin’ hard an’ shiny as
marble, that no builder would tech with hammer nor
184 JUDITH:

chisel ef thar war’n’t another rock in a thousan’ miles,
For it was a woman ten minutes ago. A woman that
loved her husban’ an’ children, or she wouldn’t ’a’ come
out o’ Sodom even at the angels’ order; a woman that
run well for a while an’ then—looked back! That was
her sin. It must ’a’ been a great sin, or it wouldn't ’a’
been so terribly punished, for the Lord always leans to
the side 0? mercy. Thar were plenty o’ reasons why
she mought ’a’ looked over her shoulder to the losin’ of
her soul—women’s reasons, every one of ’em! She’d
left a heap of things in that town that women think
valuable. Her furniture an’ fine clothes—her Sunday
bonnet—an’ neighbors an’ married daughters. She
mought easily have reasoned it out to herself arfter she
got her breath an’ wits together, that ’twas unjust an’
cruel to yank her out 0’ her home so sudden befo’ she
could so much as pick up her key-basket. Maybe she
had gran’children, with their innercent, coaxin’ ways,
as dear to her as that sweet little thing’’ (pointing to a
child in the front seat that had fallen asleep on her
mother’s lap) ‘“‘is to you, my sister. As beautiful in
in her sight as the crowin’, kickin’ youngster you kissed
in his cradle befo’? you come to the house o’ God this
mornin’, my dear madam !

‘Maybe, ag’in, Lot’s wife wanted to see ef the jedg-
ment had fallen yet upon the roofs an’ chimneys she
knew so well—ef her house was burnt with fire an’ all
her pleasant places laid waste. P’raps—onct mo’—
she didn’t half believe what the angels had tole her, an’
hadn’t so much respec’ for her husban’s opinion as to
take his word ag’inst her sons-in-law’s. I’ve seen sech
women—yes! an’ more men who didn’t order their
households so well as to entitle them to duty and obedi-
ence. Guessin’ an’ sposin’ an’ wonderin’ are idle
words now when she’s been a pillar o’ salt for thou-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 185

sands o’ years. It’s enough for us to know the solemn
lesson that she flew—a poor, silly, mealy-winged moth—
in the face o’ the Lord an’—suffered accordin’ly !

‘¢ An’ whar, let me arsk in the nex’ place, was Lot all
this time ? Lot—the one righteous man who mought
’a” saved even guilty Sodom ef Abraham had stood to
his guns a minute longer an’ not taken too much for
granted? Lot—that had sot on the knees of his uncle,
the Friend 0’ God, hundreds o’ times at family prayers ?
Lot—that Abraham had fought (with only one hundred
an’ eighteen nigger servants!) four kings for, an’
brought back safe an’ sound with all his goods? Lot—
that had seen Melchizedech, a greater than Abraham,
an’ heard his blessin’—even the blessin’ of him who,
Paul says, was ‘ Priest o’ the Most High God, King of
Righteousness, and after that, King of Salem, which is
King of Peace’ >”

At this moment an extraordinary interruption oc-
curred,
136 JUDITH:

CHAPTER Ix.

A MAN walked up the aisle of the church with a
horse-block on his shoulder. A horse-block—be it
known to the modern citizen—is a log of wood sawed
across the grain and set upright on the ground, to be
used by women and short-legged boys in mounting to
their saddles. There was always one large one, with
two or three lower logs arranged as steps, near every
church-door. Several single-barreled ones stood under
the trees at Old Singinsville, varying in height from
eighteen inches to two and a-half feet. One of these,
a stout block of hickory, the late comer lowered from
his shoulder in the open space surrounding the pulpit—
the chancel on Episcopalian Sundays—and close to tne
big iron stove that heated the building. This settled
to his liking, he shook himself like a water-dog, and a
camlet cloak of red-and-green plaid dropped away from
him, displaying a full suit of yellow flannel—an ugly,
vicious, brimstone yellow, almost matched by a head of
coarse, foxy hair. His skin had the hard flush cf the
habitual drunkard. Not a glimpse of white showed
above a black stock, and on his feet were boots of un-
dressed calfskin of the same general complexion as his
clothes.

He was an eerie and revolting apparition in the well-
dressed and well-mannered congregation. Captain Ma-
con half arose from his seat, his fingers closing nervously
on his riding-whip, when the cloak fell off, perhaps in
resentment of the possible caricature of his scarlet coat.
Eyery gentleman in the house was on the alert to check
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 137

more overt insult to the place and audience. Thus far,
the man had not laid himself open to reproof or chastise-
ment. His garb was peculiar in color, but so was Cap-
tain Macon’s, and since the benches were all full he
had a right to provide a seat for himself. He was per-
fectly grave in aspect, even when he put both feet on
the low box filled with sand surrounding the stove, took
a handful of peanuts—otherwise ‘‘ ground” or “‘ goober-
peas’’—from his pocket, and began to eat them vigor-
ously, tossing the shells among the tobacco-quids, in
various stages of desiccation, that besprinkled the sandy
surface.

Some present knew enougu of him to grasp the situa-
tion at sight. His name was Roger Jones ; but he had
deservedly won the title of ‘‘ Rowdy Roger’’ by drunken
pranks and general disreputableness. In July of this
year he had disturbed the decorum of a ‘ protracted
meeting”? by unseemly antics, and been severely and
publicly rebuked by Mr. Dudley. The fellow had stood
up in his place and offered to fight the preacher then
and there.

“Sit down, young man!”’ was the stinging retort.
‘‘T am too busy with bigger game—to wit, the devil—to
waste time mashing fleas.”’

The poor creature had actually obeyed in utter abash-
ment, under the stern eyes of the speaker and the laugh
called forth by the reply, but from that day had cudgeled
his fuddled brains to devise fresh means of persecution
of his opponent, following him from place to place to
practice low tricks by which to distract the notice of
Mr. Dudley’s congregations without putting himself
within reach of the law. Those of the audience who
had not heard the story supposed him to be a lunatic or
fool, without suspecting the animus of the witless freak.

Not a line of the minister’s face betrayed conscious-
188 JUDITH:

ness of his entrance. When the increasing solemnity
of tone and manner recalled the senses of his hearers,
he was using Sodom as a type of the city of destruction,
and describing three classes who were warned to escape
therefrom :

First, the openly profane and reckless, as illustrated
by Lot’s sons-in-law, and the vain fellows composing
the nocturnal mob.

Secondly, those who hearing the alarm heeded it so
far as to begin their flight, then turned again with
longing to their sins. Vide Lot’s wife.

Thirdly, worldly, careless Christians, who had been
lured by wealth and pleasure into dwelling in the tents
of wickedness, and were saved, so as by fire. He said
“by the skin of their teeth.”

‘We will deal with these last first,’’? he continued
when the heads were stated. ‘‘I have been given to
understand that they areas plentiful in these fat low-
grounds an’ rich tobacco lands ’round about Old Sing-
insville as persimmons in Fluvanna, an’ watermillions
in Hanover, an’ sweet potatoes in Nansemond County.
Speritual laziness has been the natural consequence 0’
high livin’ ever sence Jeshurum waxed fat an’ kicked
arfter he ’d been fed upon honey an’ oil, butter, milk,
fat lambs, wheat flour an’ the juice o’ the grape. I
haven’t seen more store clothes in a country church in
a month o’ Sundays than I am lookin’ at now. Jere-
miah mought ’a’ made out his list o’ the contraptions
worn by the daughters 0’ Zion in his time without
pbudgin’ from these pulpit-steps, writin’ on a sheet 0’
paper laid on the top o’ his hat.’’

He told us how ‘Lot, half-hearted toward God,
whole-hearted toward Mammon, vexed his soul from
day to day with his neighbors’ unlawful deeds, yet stood
it out because he made money out o’ these sinners. He
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 139

had driven a sharp bargain with easy old Abraham
when he chose the plain o’ Jordan, watered like the
garden of the Lord, an’ let the uncle that had brought
him up—an orphan boy—scratch a livin’ out o’ the
sand an’ broom-straw of Mamre. It never entered the
smart Jew’s head that the Lord would use the dusty
roads in which Abraham traveled ankle-deep to give
him some notion of the multitude of his descendants;
that the sandy bottoms where he’d pitched his tent
under the one scrub-oak that could make out to live
there would be trodden by His blessid feet. It’s a pretty
safe thing, in the long run, to trust the Almighty for
bread and butter. There’s hundreds that call them-
selves believers who can’t do that. They look out for
their bodies, but commit the keepin’ 0’ their souls unto
Him. Idon’t know, sometimes, but ’twould be fa’r to
take their souls at their own valuation, ef we’re to
judge from the care they take of ’em. In that case,
forty-seven of ’em could play ‘prisoner’s base’ on a
seed-tick’s back, an’ never hit each other’s elbows !”
He painted Lot ‘‘lingerin’, lingerin’, loath to travel
with his foot in his hand, as the sayin’ is, when he had
money in the Sodom an’ Gomorrah bank, besides real
estate, an’? nobody knows how many head o’ cattle.
Lingerin’ an’ whinin’ until even the angels los’ patience,
an’—mark the words !—‘ the Lord being merciful unto
him,’ they laid holt 0’ him an’ dragged him out by the
nape o’ the neck. Then in the plain, the comin’ tem-
pest bellowin’ in the distance, he hegged to be allowed
to go to Zoar. ‘Sech a little bit of a town!’ he argers.
‘Hardly worth the trouble o’ burnin’ up, nor the brim-
stone ’twould take to doit!’ But it was a city, an’ he
didn’t take to the notion o’ livin’? in the mountains,
where thar warn’t a neighbor in half a mile. That’s
Jew all over! To this day they ’ve no tasie for the
140 JUDITH:

country. Trade in men’s souls ain’t lively enough for
them there. Not that country Christians don’t improve
their opportunities for backslidin’. An’ wagons ain’t
apt to stall goin’ down hill, even in sech stiff mud as
that in the road leading to the creek yonder. The devil
knows he can take care of the lead horse when the load
gets fa’rly started down.

‘“But you’ll tell me that Lot was saved; that he
couldn’t be lost, seein’ he was truly a child 0’ God;
that your callin’ an’ election’s sure. Ef thar’s one
trick meaner ’n another upon the pock-marked face 0’
this cranky old earth, it is sneakin’ behind the ‘perse-
verance o’ the saints’ in order to have an excuse for
sin. The Lord has you under the covert o’ His wings;
tharfore you can wound the Saviour in the house 0’ His
friends. He’s drawn you out 0’ the horrible pit an’ the
miry clay an’ set your feet upon the Rock of Ages—an’
you cut a pigeon-wing to the scrapin’ 0’ Satan’s fiddle !
Now, let me give you a plain piece o? my mind! The
man that can reason an’ feel in that way had better
look mighty keerful at his ’listment papers. Maybe,
my easy citizen 0’ Zion, you’ve got holt o’ the wrong
dockerment. Somebody else has been called, an’ you ’ve
answered ; an’ as for your election, it won’t stan’ in the
Supreme Court. A real believer don’t want to sin.
Put that in your pipe an’ smokeit! I can’t think so
bad o’ Lot, money-worshippin’ Jew as he was, as to
b’lieve that he ever put it squar’ before him that he was
doin’ wrong. You recollect the man in ‘ Pilgrim’s
Progress’ that was robbed on the road to the Celestial
City ? The thieves didn’t get his jewels—that is, his
title-deeds to heaven. They were hid too safe. But
they stole all his spendin’-money—the loose change he
had for travelin’ expenses, tavern fare, an’ horse hire
an’so on, That’s the way with you sleepy, take-it-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 141

comfortably, yea-nay Christians. You are beggin’ your
way to the New Jerusalem. On Sundays you get a bone
the Marster has thrown over His shoulder from one 0’
the children’s plates. You pick up a dry crust of a hoe-
cake at a pra’r-meetin’. Onct in a while, at a rousin’
revival, when others are enjoyin’ a feast o’ fat things,
you say, ‘Thanky, my Marster!’ for a fa’r plate o’
bacon an’ greens. You are never full—never in good
order. Your ribs stare you in the face, an’ you deefen
the ears 0’ the Lord’s faithful ones with the howls o’
‘My leanness! my leanness!’ I haven’t a doubt now
that ef the eyes o’ all in this house could be opened
this blessid minute to discern speritual bodies, we
should see about us enough rack-a-bone skeletons, fes-
tooned with filthy rags 0’ self-righteousness, to scare
away all the crows this side o’ the Blue Ridge.”

His dealing with the almost-saved was yet more faith-
ful, and mingled with a tenderness of protest that found
no place in his treatment of avowed scoffers—defiant
blasphemers.

“Brother Watts!’ he said abruptly, turning to him,
‘* please open that Bible at the tenth Psalm, thirteenth
verse, and first clause 0’ the fourteenth, an’ rise up an’
read what you find thar. Thar may be some here who
wouldn’t b’lieve that I read it right.”

He stepped aside. Mr. Watts, in no wise discon-
certed by the singular requisition, got up and spread
the bulky volume on the sloping shelf. While he turned
the leaves slowly in quest of the passage, we heard the
cracking of the goober-pea shells in the horny fingers of
the man in yellow, the crunching of the nuts between
his jaws, so profound was the silence. Mr. Watts’
quavering wail gave the solemn words :

‘¢¢ Wherefore do the wicked contemn God? He hath
said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it!’
142 JUDITH:

‘¢*Thou hast seen it! For Thou beholdest mischief
and spite to requite it with Thy hand.’ ”’

‘“‘Thank you, brother !”? Mr. Dudley advanced again
to the front. ‘‘ Now, how many of you noticed next to
the last word in that first sentence—that word, ‘ con-
temn?? Thar ’s another word so much like it in sound,
I’m afraid some 0’ you mought not ’a’ understood that
thar ’s at, an’ nota dinthisone. It means to neglect,
to treat slightingly, to despise. The wicked contemn
God. He hath said in his heart, ‘Thou wilt not re-
quire it.’ Require what? The slights you ’ve heaped
upon His word, upon His Sabbath, upon His laws, upon
the mercy an’ love an’ bloody sacrifice 0’ His blessid
Son. You’ve gone swingin’ ‘long the middle o’ the
road, whistlin’ jig-tunes, kickin’ opportunities an’ priv-
iliges an’ warnin’ judgments out o’ the way like they
were so many gravel-stones, tramplin’ down all holy
an’ precious things like you would gimsen’-weed an’
pursley. But there is One who has seen and kept tally
o’ every despised offer 0’ grace, every chance 0’ salva-
tion. The time is comin’ in which youll see ’em all
ag’in, piled into a mountain whose top shall reach the
skies, thunderin’ an’ lightnin’ like Sinai, an’ fallin’ over
on your frightened soul to bury it a million fathoms
deep in the bottomless pit. ‘An’ the smoke of their
torment ascended up forever.’ Thar ’ll be no end to
the burnin’ o’ that Sodom, not even a Dead Sea of for-
getfulness to put out the fire and the memory of them
who are wallowin’ init. You have laughed when your
mother or your wife begged you with strong cryin’ an’
tears to stop in your evil courses. My merry friend, the
Lord has put those tears in His bottle, an’ every drop
will be a blister upon your naked soul. Each slighted
prayer and sermon will hang like a mill-stone about
your neck, while you’re sinkin’ down! down! Down !
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 143

You have ‘ pooh-poohed!’ at the prayers an’ warnin’s
an’ teachin’s 0’ God’s ministers, puffin’ them away like
boys blow off dandelion seed, but the harvest shall be a
heap in that day o’ grief an’ desperate sorrow. Oh, my
soul! enter not thou into the secret of him who destroys
himself, who laughs an’ jokes while he slams the door
of mercy in his own face, locks it an’ throws away
the key !

‘¢ For He will require it! Mark that! He has seen
it. Mischief an’ spite to requite it with Hishand. Do
you know what that means? Have you ever pulled up
long enough on the down-hill road to say to yourself
what the weight o’ that hand is? The Hand that
measures the heavens as you shut your fingers ’round
your wine-glass ; that taketh up the isles like you pinch
up the few grains o’ powder you spilt on the table in
loadin’ your gun; that holds the seas as you scoop up
water from a spring in your palm. Dare you resk a
blow from it ? I want you to put that question to your-
self in silence one minute. Go down on the knees of
your heart, while all these Christian friends are prayin’
for you, an’ say in your soul, ‘I have contemned Thee,
Most Holy an’ Most Mighty! Unless I repent Thou
wilt condemn me. Can I endure it ?’”

He drew out his watch and fixed his eyes on it. The
stillness was dreadful. Eye, intonation and gesture
showed the man to be in awful earnest. Those who
were disposed at first to smile at his homely similes
were grave enough by now. Sixty seconds ticked
audibly by. Miss Harry Macon said afterward that
they sounded to her like ‘‘Going! going! gone!”
Rowdy Roger discharged a rattling handful of empty
shells at the broadside of the stove, and champed noisily
ona fresh supply of nuts, cocking his head on one side to
leer at the preacher, like an impudent yellow-hammer.
144 JUDITH:

Mr. Dudley put up the watch in his fob, began to
speak again ina studiously quiet tone.

“I think it was Mr. Whitefield who, at the close of
a sermon, called out to the recording angel he knew
was thar, ’though he couldn’t see him : ‘ Gabriel, wait
one minute longer, and take to Heaven the news of
the repentance an’ pardon of at least one soul!’ My
hearers, that angel wouldn’t ’a’ stopped the nine-hun-
dred-an’-ninety-ninth part of a second at the biddin’ of
all the Whitefields an’ Wesleys an’ Knoxes an’ Sum-
merfields that ever preached. Sence the Apostles fell
asleep thar have been no Joshuas in the pulpit. The
minute I have jus’ counted is gone as completely as
that which heard the click 0’ the hasp that fastened
down Noah into the ark. It’s one of the drops of the
ocean of eternity past, of whose number the Almighty,
who was and is, and is to be, keeps account. —

‘*T looked onct at a drop 0’ water in a microscope,
an’ it was alive! full o’ squirmin’, creepin’, feelin’
things. The man that owned the instrument said ef it
had been a stronger glass we could ’a’ seen thousands
more, every one with life an’ organs of its own. Thar’s
no stronger lens than the eye of the Judge an’ Maker
ous all. He saw in that drop o’ time that slipped
down while we were silent, all that passed in the hearts
o’ this congregation. The prayers an’ longin’s 0’ Chris-
tians over the dyin’ souls about them; the sneers an’
callousness of them that are past feelin’ ; maybe—I pray
that in infinite mercy this may have been !—the out-
stretched hand of some drownin’ wretch, as he cried,
‘ Lord, save, or I perish!”

The abrupt change of voice to impassioned supplica-
tion, the clasped hands uplifted, as were the streaming
eyes, wrought powerfully upon the aspect of the crowd.
Heads went down as bowed by a mighty wind ; forms
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGLINL1. 145

shook with emotion; there was a sound of low sobbing
and deep-drawn breaths throughout the house. The
man in yellow stretched arms and jaws in a huge yawn,
and addressed himself to an ostentatious examination
of every pocket for one more peanut, drawing forth, at
flourishing length, a red bandana handkerchief, jack-
knife, wallet and a dozen miscellaneous articles, de-
positing them one by one in the hat between his knees.

‘*The showman told us another curious thing,” pur-
sued the speaker. ‘* His was a solar microscope, an’ he
said thar were times when the sun was very hot an’ the
lenses very strong, that the weakly critturs among them
in the drop 0’ water—the things that had fewest organs
an’ senses—died in crossin’ the focus. The glare an’
heat were more ’n they could stand. My dear friends,
return thanks with me that God is more merciful than
man. Ef He wasn’t, what chance would there be of
life ? what hope of escape from blastin’, shrivelin’ up
and annihilation under the burnin’-glass 0’ His indig-
nation for a yaller imp o’ the Evil One, who, on the
birthday of the King of Glory, comes to His holy temple
to insult Elis servants, an’ to chaw goober-peas !”’

The slow sweep of his arm consecrated the mean, de-
faced interior into a house of prayer ; the box in which
he stood was an altar from which he, the sword-bearer
of the Spirit, the priest of the Most High, convicted
the godless reptile, cowering under his blazing eyes, of
sacrilege. Before the electric shock had so far subsided
as to allow the auditors to perceive the comical side of
the diatribe, he joined his hands and bent his head :

‘Let us pray !”’

Nearly all present fell upon their knees. I entered
that hour into the meaning of a phrase already familiar
to my ear—‘‘ wrestling in prayer.’? Onc was impressed
irresistibly, in listening to him, with the figure of a
146 JUDITH:

man fastening with clutching hands upon the King’s
robe, while plea and petition rushed to the lips almost
too fast for utterance. As he implored an extension of
the day of grace for the hardened offender who had
played so conspicuous a part in the foreground of the
morning scene, furtive steps passed down the aisle. A
moment later the clattering of hoofs was heard among
the grave-stones, the thud and splash of a gallop down
the muddy road. Rowdy Roger was nowhere to be seen
when we arose to receive the benediction.

The dispersion of a Virginia country congregation in
those times was acurious spectacle to Northern eyes.
Horses had been detached from carriages and gigs and
tied to fences and trees, there to stand at ease during
divine service. Some minutes were consumed in making
them ready and bringing them up in turn to the en-
trance of the church. This interval, and often a much
longer time, were passed in social greetings and kindly
converse among neighbors and friends. No sooner was
the ‘‘ Amen!’ of dismission pronounced thana general
hand-shaking began, the occupants of the pews leaning
forward or back to address those near them, without
leaving their places. Old or infirm ladies often sat
down again to await the summons to their chariots.
Some elderly men strolled out to see that horses were
unhitched and brought up. Younger cavaliers were
prone to linger in lively chat with favorite belles, or
pleasant exchange of compliments with mothers and
chaperones. The outward procession was leisurely con-
ducted, cronies gossiping, their faces under one an-
other’s bonnets; gay youths, carrying their hats in
hands cast carelessly behind them, heads bent in at-
tention or homage, escorted sweet-voiced, frank-eyed
girls down the aisle and steps and handed them into
their carriages. No lady was suffered to step in or out
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 147

of the door unassisted. There were always those on
each side of the church steps ready to perform this gal-
lant service alike for acquaintance and stranger.

Our home-party was divided into two bands. Grand-
ma, Aunt Betsey, my mother and little Bessie, my
sister, were bestowed in the Trueheart carriage. In
that belonging to Summerfield were Aunt Maria, Miss
Virginia, myself; and, just as the door was closing, Miss
Harry Macon tripped up, with the petition that she
might have a seat with us as far as the cross-roads.

‘“We have two tabbies in our carriage to-day. I want
to escape for half an hour from spit and purr,”’ she said
when we were in motion. ‘Don’t let Sid hear me, or
he 711 tomahawk—or preach to—me when we get home,”’
with a mock-timid glance at her grave brother, riding at
Aunt Maria’s window. ‘‘ Aunt Deborah Macon and
Aunt Peggy Branch arrived unexpectedly last night. I
never knew such unexpected people! They always re-
mind me of death in that respect—ifin no other. They
hate one another dearly, and met just at our outer gate.
Neither would turn back for fear of pleasing the other.”’

“IT saw them in church,’? remarked Aunt Maria.
‘We shall be happy to see them with you to-morrow.
Will you ask them to excuse the informality of the in-
vitation ?”’

““They shall die rather than come !’’ returned the
beauty tranquilly. ‘‘I would administer ratsbane
with my own fair hands. I have been counting upon
to-morrow’s fun for weeks past, and the lives of a couple
of spinster aunts would not weigh the cighth of an ounce
in the balance against the fulfillment of my wishes. Di
can’t come, poor thing! She has one of her sore throats
—the seventeenth since we got home last September.
That ’s all the White Sulphur is good for! Sid, Rod
and I will be with you, whether or no, and the sweet
148 JUDITH:

‘

maidens will eat their Christmas dinner with Papa.
Both call him ‘ Brother,’ both are slightly deaf and very
sensitive on the score of the infirmity, and the dear,
miserable man will roar first at one, then the other, and
beg pardon when they start back and say in the same
breath, ‘My dear brother, one would suppose me to be
hard of hearing from the way you pitch your voice!’
Aunt Deborah is the woman who has never been seen
with uncovered head since she put on caps at forty. She
sleeps in my room, and always blows out the candle be-
fore she changes her day-cap for that she wears at night.
Or, when I will sit up and read, keeping one eye on her,
she steps out into the passage, and comes back night-
capped.’

Sidney Macon leaned toward us, his hand on the
window-frame, leaving his horse, experienced in such
attendance, to pick his way over the ruddy ruts of the
road, avoiding as best he could collision with the
wheels.

‘* What is she saying ?”’ he asked, smiling indulgently
at the rattle-pate.

“* Making herself most entertaining, as usual,’ replied
Miss Virginia, readily and prettily.

The Richmond girl was as popular with her own sex
as with the other—an uncommon circumstance when
one is an acknowledged belle. Her pouts and coquet-
ries were so palpably feigned, she was so watchful of
the comfort of all, elderly and young, so generous in the
division with other women of the attentions that fell
abundantly to her lot, so quick to say and to do gracious
things, that malice and envy could not thrive in the
balminess of her presence. She overlooked nobody and
forgot nothing that was said to her. Her outward life
was a study of peace on earth, good-will to men, witha
liberal inclusion of women. She basked in and absorbed
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 149

sunlight as her natural aliment ; radiated it in lambent
gleams, after the manner of some affluent tropical
flowers.

Miss Harry Macon sat opposite on the back seat, con-
fessedly the handsomest girl in our county. Eighteen
years old, taller by half a head than Miss Virginia and
by an inch than Aunt Maria, straight as a palm, with a
willowy grace of figure and movement; great gray
eyes, black with the shadowing of curling lashes;
spirited and almost faultless features; with a gay au-
dacity of temper and tongue that mocked at rebuke and
restraint—she was the motive-power in her home, the
crowned leader of her little clique. She had been
christened ‘‘ Harriet Byron,’’ in admiring recollection
of the precise pink of maidenly affectation who writes
out her own praises, virtues and conquest in the ro-
mance lauded by Captain Macon in his ill-fated wooing.
The name suited her as well as a Quaker cap would
have become the sparkling face, that had fun in every
flash and roguishness in each dimple. The alteration
to the semi-masculine sobriquet, to which she had an-
swered from babyhood, was inevitable. Her sister,
Diana Vernon, was, by a like contrariety of happening,
‘a shy invalid, who seldom appeared abroad.

Miss Harry sported that day a costume more conspicu-
ous then than it would be now—a black cloth gown,
fitting as closely as a riding-habit, high in the neck, and
with tight sleeves, while every other woman at church
who made any pretense of following the fashion wore
huge puffs between shoulders and elbows, often ex-
panded by frames of buckram and wire. Her wrists
and neck were trimmed with fur. A band of the same
bordered - her black hat, from the crown of which
drooped a long scarlet feather. Her straight skirt, fol-
lowing the outlines of her lissome figure, fell to her feet
150 JUDITH:

in classic folds. Miss Virginia’s dark-blue silk pelisse
and bonnet and Aunt Maria’s dove-colored raiment
were, in cut and material, more in accordance with the
reigning mode. The combination of red and black, in
hich favor with our modern fashionists, was regarded
fifty years back with peculiar disfavor. Even Mammy
had been stirred out of her grave reserve by the sight
of Miss Harry’s attire when she first exhibited it at
Summerfield, waylaying her in the hall to expostulate.

‘Miss Harry, my dear young lady, you mustn’t be
mad with me! I been know you ever sence you was a
baby. Honey, what you wear red an’ black for ? Don’t
you know it’s mournin’ for the devil, an’ mighty bad
luck ?”

‘Mammy! am I so near of kin to the old gentleman
that I should be obliged to mourn for him if he were to
be scalded to death in one of his own dinner-pots some
day ?”’ said the incorrigible, with a look of affected
horror.

No other woman in six counties could have carried
off this costume as she did, or indeed looked otherwise
than absurd in it.

A cortége of horsemen overtook and accompanied
our carriage. Sidney Macon kept his place at the right
hand, pushed hard by his livelier brother Roderick, who
talked persistently across him, watching for a chance to
slip into closer proximity to the wheels. Mr. Bradley
rode nearest the other window. Beyond these skir-
mished three or four others, flinging merry and gallant
sayings to one and all of the three young ladies. Uncle
Sterling, disdaining, as he put it, ‘‘ to enter for a scrub-
race,”’ had ridden forward to a neighbor’s carriage, and
Wythe to join some collegians at home for the holidays.
Uncle Archie was at one side of the coach, in which
were his mother, aunt and sister; my father riding on
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 151

the other. They were right behind us, and I, sitting
with my back to the horses, watched him with loving,
grieving eyes. Miss Virginia always ‘‘ preferred to ride
backward,’ especially as Aunt Maria was apt to have
a headache when she occupied this place. Uncle Archie
had a full view of the face, radiant with happy smiles,
brilliant with the color brought to the cheeks by the
frosty kisses of the wind. I was provoked with him for
having tarried to seat the elder ladies, instead of dele-
gating the duty to his brother-in-law and riding on in
season to secure the post which was his of right. He
nodded smilingly in catching my yearning gaze, but I
was not comforted. Nor was I deceived by his brave
show of interest in my mother’s talk. How was this
possible when I was assured that the plump, perfectly-
gloved hand laid caressingly on my lap held his heart
and destiny ?

At the cross-roads the carriage from ILlunter’s Rest
was waiting for us at the side of the highway. The
master, in his red coat, had alighted, to hold the door
open for his darling’s return. His fine gray head was
uncovered every half minute in salutation to passers-
by; the bridle of his horse hung in the crook of his
elbow. Five or six young fellows sprang to the earth
with the halting of the Summerfield equipage. The
door flew wide, the steps were let down with a flourish,
emulous hands were outstretched to assist the beauty’s
descent and guard her dress from the muddy wheels.
In state that, to my fancy, might wait upon a princess
of the blood, she was attended to the cushion over
against that occupied by the brace of spinsters in black
satin and curled false ‘‘fronts,’? who looked on in iced
propriety, agreed for once in their virtuous disapproval
of the display of homage to ‘‘that spoiled child.”
Harry waved her hand smilingly as the horses started.
152 JUDITH:

Captain Macon bent to his saddle-bow; young heads
were bared in farewell obeisances. Roderick and Sid-
ney tarried for a word of adieu and promise for the
morrow, then galloped on to join their father, and we
turned off into the road leading homeward.

The bustle and ceremony, the festal tone, tempered
with decorous remembrance of time and place, attendant
upon these returnings from church, were to me, albeit
all my life used to them, an unceasing and delicious ex-
citement. It seemed such a grand thing—a life worth
living—to be youthful and fair—a cup that never staled,
lucent to the dregless depths, in which the minutes
were glittering beads, breaking before the rising of
others as bright and fresh.

“At last !’? I heaved a wordless sigh as Uncle Archie
touched his horse with the spur and appeared at Miss
Virginia’s side.

She looked up in her sweet, ingenuous way straight
into his eyes.

“*T think,”’ she said, ‘‘ that I never saw a more bril-
liantly beautiful girl than Harry Macon. If I were a
man, I should fall madly in love with her. I don’t see
how any man can respect himself who does not. I
hope,’’ glancing severely from Mr. Bradley to the Read
brothers, ‘‘ that you all come up to your duty in this re-
gard ?””

Aunt Maria’s gentle voice answered for them:

‘My dear Virginia ! what a disaster you are propo-
sing! All three in love at once and with the same
woman |”?
A CHRONIULE UF OLD VIRGINIA. 153

CHAPTER X.

A WIDE world of whirling white out of doors, The
Christmas storm which had set in at noon, and raged
unremittingly until, in the premature twilight, to an
observer on the front porch, the big walnut tree was but
a darkening of the low-hanging glooms in that direction,
except when the wind cleft the swaying curtain of snow
with the cimeter of a hyperborean Saladin, and a black
bough—like an arm shot up suddenly in prayer or exe-
cration—was thrust upon the view. The ground was
already buried inches deep—the porch-steps were an in-
clined plane. Barn-yard noises—the tinkle of cow-bells,
the answering calls of dams and calves and the more
distant bleating of folded sheep--had the muffled sound
as if heard through a woolly medium, which is famili-
arly pleasant to those who have noted the features of a
steady snowfall. The homestead stood alone and stead-
fast, the one fixed object in the wavering waste that was
the landscape. A great drift lay athwart the front door ;
others against the chimneys and in the angles of the roof.

Within, the great parlor was full to the remotest cor-
ner of scarlet shine from the riotous yule fire, under-
pinned with “‘fat”’ lightwood knots and roofed with
hickory logs. The hexagons of glass in the book-case
doors were patens of bright gold; the perpendicular
disk of the light-stand shone like a polished shield. The
festoons of running cedar and the holly-boughs in the
vases seemed astir with dancing shadows. From the
ceiling hung a bunch of mistletoe, studded with waxen
berries, pulsing visibly in the current of warmed air.

A company of about twenty young people was wound
154 JUDITH :

and knotted in a semicircular ring at a respectful «s-
tance from the heart of the glare. This had been a
‘‘dining-day ” at Summerfield, Two Archers, an Eg-
gleston, a Page, a Craig, two Venables, a Carrington,
three Macons, and two of the Burleigh Reads, with the
Summerfield residents, made up the party. They would
all lodge under our roof that night. If the number of
bedrooms in the homestead had been less by half than
it was, none of them would have been suffered to de-
part. Christmas Day, kept this year on Monday, the
26th of December, was the beginning of a series of
‘‘junketings ’? that would overrun the holiday week.
On the morrow the throng would break bounds and
snow-drifts to swarm down upon Burleigh, the resi-
dence of my great-uncle, Lyle Read, by whom the
guests would be entertained for a day anda night. On
Wednesday they were expected at Hunter’s Rest; on
Thursday by the Sleepy Creek Venables; on Friday at
Fonthill, the ancestral seat of the Archers. These
were regular engagements, from which would spring
divers impromptu diversions and suggestions for pro-
longation of the convivialties.

There was no dancing in Presbyterian houses, but the
day had gone by merrily. The first carriage drove up at
half-past eleven. Dinner was served at two o’clock on
two tables running the whole length of the dining-room.
Oysters, roast turkeys, wild and domestic; roast pig,
duck, mutton and beef, boiled ham, fried chicken, sweet
and Irish potatoes, hominy, rice, black-eyed peas, tur-
nips, parsnips, cold-slaw, pickles of every conceivable
kind, and no less than twenty dishes of sweets, includ-
ing mince, lemon, apple and custard-pie, damson puffs,
the ever-luscious, transparent pudding, plum pudding,
preserves, cakes, jellies and cream—somewhat in this
order went the feast. Tiny glasses of home-made
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 155

ligueur prefaced it in the parlor, and tumblers of Aunt
Betsey’s famous egg-nogg went around with the dessert.
Just before bed-time she would compound a mighty
bowl of the same as a general night-cap. Into this
would go:

3 pints of peach brandy,
(‘‘Hunter’s Rest’? brand, smooth as oil, clear as amber, and

fifteen years old) ;

8 gallons of fresh milk,

5 dozen eggs—yolks and whites beaten separately ;

114 lbs. best loaf sugar,

1 nutmeg, grated.

Captain Macon, although compelled to dine at home
with his spinster visitors, had ridden over with his sons
and daughter purposely to ‘‘ quaff ’’—-standing, and his
hand upon his heart—‘‘a beaker of the incomparable
beverage brewed

‘ By nae hands as ye may guess
Save those of fairlie fair.’ ”
It was clear that the true-hearted old officer bore his
former flame no ungenerous grudge for her unexplained
silence almost thirty years ago.

Everybody, including my saintly grandmother, tasted
egg-nogg at Christmas. Nobody had taken enough of
any kind of stimulant to make him either stupid or
over-merry at this the hour when fun and jollity reached
the climax. We had music at intervals throughout the
afternoon. Aunt Maria’s harmonica was a mahogany
box about four feet long and as many in width, and
eighteen inches deep. A hinged cover, when lifted, re-
vealed rows of hemispherical glasses mounted on foot-
less stems, set in sockets. The vessels were arranged
in octaves, the larger representing the base, the smaller
the treble keys of a harpsichord. When used, a super-
numerary goblet was filled with water, and the finger-
tips dipped in this were passed deftly around the rims
156 JUDITH:

of those bearing the names of the desired notes of music.
These were the ‘‘ musical glasses’ popular at the pe-
riod, sets of which may still be found once in a great
while in old mansions. The music was a sweet, vibrant
legato strain, best adapted for sacred and plaintive airs.
Aunt Maria played well and with ease that tempted one
to imagine that the dulcet ring following the motion of
her hands flowed spontaneously from the slender brown
fingers. Mr. Bradley accompanied her on the flute in
selections from Moore’s ‘‘ National Airs,’’ a book he
had brought from Richmond in September.

Miss Virginia Dabney was a skillful pianist, but in
the absence of that instrument was persuaded to sing
to a flute second a ballad named by Mr. Bradley. Hand-
organs have taken all the music out of the somewhat
shallow melody, and parodists achieved their usual re-
ductio ad absurdum for the rhymes which were never
poetry; but, given in her tender trill and pure articula-
tion, tactful expression supplying soul to the words, it
was listened to with feeling, applauded enthusiastically.

I transcribe the song, that the reader may compare
the lyrical taste of our grandparents with that which
considers the popular English ballad as very weak
lemonade, and craves claret-cup and champagne in
classic symphony and operatic bravura. Some know-
ledge of the sentiment conveyed by the words is like-
wise necessary to a right comprehension of the ensuing
conversation :

‘A place in thy memory, dearest,
Is all that I claim,
To pause and look back when thou hearest
The sound of my name.
Another may woo thee nearer,
Another may win and may wear ;
I care not if he be dearer
So I’m remembered there.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 157

“‘ Remember me not as a lover,
Whose hopes have been crossed,
Whose bosom can never recover
The joy it has lost.
As a young bride remembers the mother
She loves, yet ne’er more may see ;
As a sister remembers a brother,
So, dearest, remember me !

“Remember me, then—and remember

My calm life, love ;

Though drear as the skies of November
Its light may prove,

That life will, though lonely, be sweet
If its brightest enjoyment should be

A smile and a kind word when we meet,
And a place in thy memory.”

It was encored by acclamation. The songstress was
very lovely in her compliance with the flattering re-
quest. Crouched on my sheepskin cushion between the
sweep of her pale-blue silk skirt and the wall, I watched
her in rapt content. Mr. Bradley stood behind her with
his flute at lip. For once Uncle Archie had established
himself in the chair next to hers. By leaning back and
turning slightly to the left he could look down upon her
without seeming intentness of observation. That she
was conscious of his gaze I was certain when I marked
the heightened damask stealing upward to her forehead
as she sang again, and yet more sweetly than at first,
the soft contralto of the flute sustaining and enriching
the poor little air, with its one imperfectly-hinted musi-
cal thought.

‘Too disinterested by half!”

The speaker was Roderick Macon. IIe had borrowed
a banjo from ‘‘ the quarters,’’ and began to screw up the
strings while he talked, standing on the outskirt of the
semicircle, very tall, black and restless as to wall-

shadow.
“ «Tf she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she he?”
158 JUDITH :

The fellow whose highest hope of terrestrial happiness
is that the woman who has discarded him may not en-
tirely forget the insignificant fact of his existence,
ought to be toned up on milk punch, wine whey and
chalybeate bitters. His blood is thin, his brain inert,
his gastric juices vitiated.”’

There was a laugh, for handsome Roderick was a
medical student.

“Rod has just reached Dietetics. You must excuse
the bent of his ideas,’’ interpolated his sister, in affected
mortification. ‘‘ Now, I should recommend a Spanish
fly blister for that unambitious youth, to be applied at
the base of the brain. Just to wake him up, you know.
Love couldn’t do it, it seems.”’

“It is well that I am not responsible for the senti-
ment of my song,’’ said Miss Virginia, smiling. ‘‘ Yet
—I suppose you will be ashamed of me as a fellow-
woman, Harry, and it is impolitic to confess as much
in the hearing of the gentlemen ’’—blushing bewitch-
ingly—“‘ but I really do think that if I were a man I
could sympathize with the feelings of that author.
Being a woman, I could honor him for it.”

‘“‘He may certainly claim the blessing promised to
the poor in spirit,’? observed Branch Archer. ‘‘It is
lucky he is content to wait for it, since his chances of
temporal reward are worse than uncertain.”’

There was a hum of eager assent and demur from
the masculine group that, by a natural law of accre-
tion, always encompassed Harry Macon.

‘*T believe there are men, neither mean-spirited nor
sickly, who could feel what the song expresses.’? Uncle
Archie’s strong tones took up the discussion, ‘‘ The
difficulty is that love is seldom so single-hearted as that.
The first object is apt to be a man’s own happiness, and
the second that of the woman he loves. As I look at the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 159

case of this discarded suitor, if he had loved her less,
he would not have had the courage to give her up. If
he had been less sensible, he would have persecuted her
until she was disgusted, instead of cherishing his
memory as that of the friend who would rather be her
brother than the husband of any other woman, There
is a great deal that passes for love which is clear selfish-
ness, and for the pain of disappointed affection which
is nothing but mortified vanity.”

The murmur of criticism and opinion broke out
anew. Under cover of it Miss Virginia spoke softly
to the companion nearest her.

“Thank you! I thought you would understand !”’

A delicately inflected emphasis on the pronoun in the
second person made the acknowledgment the more
valuable to him who bent to catch it. His eye beamed,
the vein in his forehead throbbed. Before he could
speak, Roderick Macon swung the banjo aloft in a
strummed prelude; his full baritone interrupted the
strife of tongues :

“Says the blackbird to the crow,
‘What makes white folks hate us so?
Ever since the first Old Adam was born
It’s been our trade to pull up corn,
Caw! caw! caw!’
“Oh ! says the nightingale, sitting in the grass,
‘Once I loved a handsome lass ;
But, though my voice would charm a king,
She wouldn’t so much as let me sing.’ ”’

(An excellent imitation of the unwriteable ‘ jug-jug-
jug !” of the nightingale.)
“¢ Ah says the woodpecker, drumming on a tree,
‘Once I wooed a fair ladye ;

She grew fickle, and from me fled ;
Ever since then my head’s been red.’ ”

‘‘ Tap-tap-tap ! Tap-tap-tap !”’ (with the finger on the
wood of the banjo).
160 JUDITI:

*¢¢ To-whoo !’ cries the owl with head so white,
All alone on a dark, rainy night,
‘ Oft I hear the young men say,
‘Court by night and sleep by day !”’
To-whit ! To-whoo !’’”

His sister caught the instrument in the concluding
flourish, picked at the strings with a touch as practiced
as his, in a rollicking melody. Somebody said once that
‘‘the banjo laughed whenever she touched it.”

“Tf you want practical, hard common sense, here it
is,’’ she said, without breaking the tune:

‘Whistle, daughter ! whistle! come, now, be very good !””
“T cannot whistle, mother. You know I never could.”

‘Whistle, daughter ! whistle! and have these lovely flowers !””
“T cannot whistle, mother, though I should try for hours.”’

“Whistle, daughter! whistle! behold a golden ring!”
“‘T cannot whistle, mother! I ne’er did such a thing ¥’

“Whistle, daughter! whistle! and be in satin dressed !”’
“‘T cannot whistle, mother, or I would do my best.”

“Whistle, daughter! whistle! and you shall have a man !”’
“ Whew-ew-ew ! whew-ew-ew! whew-ew-cw! I'll doit if I can!”

Unmoved by the clapping and laughter succeeding
the last line, she whistled the air through clearly and
correctly, to a dashing banjo accompaniment.

“That shows what motive will accomplish !”’ she ut-
tered, passing the instrument backward over her head
to her brother.

She was a dazzling picture—sitting there on a low
stool in the very focus of warm color, and thrown into
striking relief by the line of dark-coated men behind
her. Her gown of canton crape was of a rich cream in
tint, and left to view the perfectly-moulded shoulders
and arms. A scarlet scarf was disposed in artistic neg-
ligence over one shoulder and caught in a loose knot
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 161

under the other. Beneath her skirt peeped out the toe
of a high-heeled slipper and a red rosette. Her luxu-
riant hair was combed over a cushion & la Pompadour,
and wound into close bands on the nape of the neck.
Half the men in the room would have been ready at that
instant to swear that they adored her. She knew this,
and was used to it. She had expanded into glorious
bloom in an atmosphere of adulation that would have
been death to generous impulse in a less fine nature. If
she offended prudes by her avowed fondness for flirta-
tion, and the liking for escapades that sometimes grazcd
the proprieties, she won comrades to loyalty and lenient
elders to indulgence of her most questionable freaks,
Eyen her brother Sidney admitted that ‘Harry was
capable of managing her own affairs.”” The boldest
admirer would not have dared to cross the line she drew
sharply between freedom and license. Uncle Archie cast
a look of affectionate admiration at her now, laughed
with the rest at the latest ebullition of unconquerable
levity. He had liked and petted her ever since, as a
baby-despot, she would ride on no shoulder but his
when her mother brought her for the day or afternoon
to Summerfield.

The stiff-backed, claw-footed scttees had been walked
away from the wall for the convenience of those who
would surround the fire. Perched on the arm of one of
these, one foot touching the floor, Roderick Macon sang
and strummed comic and sentimental songs upon call,
until Harry captured the banjo, declaring that she was
tired to death of his croaking.

‘* So is everybody else, but nobody except your faithful
sister is enough your friend to tell you so. Mr, Craig
cracked his jaws on a particularly tough yawn just now.
Don’t deny it, Mr. Craig! I am so used to the sound
that I recognize the gulp of a swallowed yawn on the
162 JUDITH :

instant. I have a delightful bit of news for you all,
friends. Listen !’’ smiling around the ring that looked
as well as listened. ‘‘It is just the day and the hour
and the weather for—Guost Stories! We will have
nothing else until supper-time, and never a lamp or
candle in the room. It used to be the custom at family
Christmas parties for people to get around the fire in
the evening, each with a vacant chair beside him or her,
and talk of spirits until they appeared—and sat down
with them !”? This in a sepulchral tone, her eyes dilated
upon vacancy.

A stifled shriek from a nervous young woman and a
universal shudder.

““That was carrying a pleasant custom rather too far
for good taste,’? Harry subjoined, considerate of the
whims of weaker natures. ‘‘But it is only right and
fit—a duty we owe to Christmas, ourselves and the
company of shades—to spend the twilight of this day
in telling true stories of what is vulgarly termed ‘ the
supernatural’—when it is truly more natural than
nature herself! I believe firmly in ghosts. I am neither
ashamed nor afraid to confess it. So does every minister
I ever forced to speak frankly of the matter, and I have
tried dozens. ‘It is nota subject to be treated lightly,’
they say. ‘Hem—em! Such beliefs are prone to de-
eonerate into superstition if the ignorant are allowed
to—ah—hem !—embrace them.’ ”’

‘* Harry !’? remonstrated Sidney, yet unable to seem
quite grave. ‘‘ You forget yourself!’

Her imitation of Mr. Burgess was perfect.

‘“The last person I shall forget while reason reigns,
my dear brother! But to leave ghostly fathers and go
back to our more interesting ghosts. My father believes
in them, fully and solemnly. J think nobody here will
doubt his sense and courage!’ drawing herself up
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 163

proudly. ‘‘I wrung the confession from him one night
last winter, when he and I had the house to ourselves,
and the maddest, gloriousest storm was howling out-
side. He has seen—Tuines—himself. But not so
many as—here is a part of my surprise for you—as
Mrs. Waddell! Aunt Betsey is a born ghost-seer !”

I detected a swift exchange of glances between Aunt
Maria and Uncle Archie. Then the latter spoke lightly :

‘Who is to be responsible for the mischief these reve-
lations may do, Miss Harry? Will you sit up to-night
with sal-volatile and burnt feathers, to wait upon all the
young ladies you frighten out of their wits ?”

‘* The truth is only—hem-em !—perilous to the feeble-
minded, my young friend. To the—ah !—enlightened
and rational, accustomed to—ah, hem !—weigh evi-
dence, may be safely intrusted the keeping of—hem-
em-hem !—mysteries, the key to which we do not at the
present possess, Mr. Read !”’

‘Harry ! Harry !’’ from Sidney, now really uneasy.

She went on audaciously.

‘¢We will try this intelligent company by a Scriptural
test. ‘ Whosoever is fearful and afraid let him depart
and return early’—that is now, to the Mount Gilead of
the dining-room, where the staid and elderly are enjoy-
ing unlimited pipes and housekeeping gossip. We who
are bold and rational enough to hear the truth will stay
here, send an embassage to Mrs. Waddell, and when
she comes, coax out of her all she knows. While I
count ten the flight may begin.”

Of course, nobody moved. Miss Virginia cast a side-
long look at me. I squeezed her hand imploringly.

“Please, please let me stay,”’ I whispered.

For answer she made a gesture that bade me crouch
more closely to her side for better concealment. Snug-
gled up under her wing, I possessed myself of one of
164 JUDITH:

her arms, kissed it, and laid my cheek against the satin-
soft skin in dumb ecstacy.

Mr. Bradley was deputed to entreat Aunt Betsey’s
presence, her partiality for the handsome tutor being no
secret. In his absence Miss Harry continued her dis-
course, her chin in her palm, elbow on knee, her great
eyes like lamps with reflected fire-shine.

“Yes! [believe in apparitions and wraiths and guar-
dian angels and omens and presentiments—and espe-
cially in dreams. Many of my dreams come true. The
reason most people dream to no effect is that they pay
no attention to the visions of the night. The spirits
that whisper them to us are repelled by their indiffer-
ence. I write mine down with the date, always. Ihad
an awful one last night !”

She gave a shiver that seemed real. An instant
demand for the narration of the vision arose from all
sides.

“Tt will not amuse ycu, good people! I told it at
the breakfast-table. The maiden aunts said it was a
warning, and advised me to ‘stay at home and lay it to
heart,’ and poor Di nearly fainted. Papa says it grew
out of the sermon yesterday. He scolded me for telling
it in the hearing of the servants. They have such in-
flammable imaginations! I thought I was standing on
a hill-top at the dead of night— But perhaps some of
you have combustible imaginations ?’’ checking herself
abruptly.

There was a clamorous asseveration to the contrary.
Miss Virginia doubtless had no fears respeeting the ef
fect of dreams or ghost stories upon a child brought up
so sensibly as I had been, aud whose association was
almost entirely with her elders. I should have known,
too, that Harry Macon was such a madcap that people
never attached much importance to her vagaries, But
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 165

I shall carry the memory of vision and ghostly tale
until reason and recollection give way together.

Harry took up the thread of the relation, gazing into
the fire, and, as she proceeded, apparently oblivious of
present scene and auditors, her tones sinking into a
musical monotone, as in dreamy soliloquy.

‘*T was standing on a hill-top at the dead of night.
The sky was full of stars, and the Northern lights were
shooting up from the horizon. I was alone, but not
lonely or timid. Presently I made out that the hill was
that on which the Bienvenu house used to stand. I
could see the roof of Old Singinsville, and the creek
winding through the low-grounds and the river on my
right hand, both Shining like glass as the Northern
lights streamed higher and higher. Then other lights
began to gleam in the south, east and west, long spears
and lances of white flame mounting up, up, up, until
they covered the heavens and met at the zenith. There
they formed a big, luminous cross, shedding rays in
every direction—a blazing cross, raining white light
down the sides of the firmament clear to the earth.
Everything was as bright as day—and brighter. I could
count the stones in the graveyard and the blades of
corn in the low-grounds. Still everything was as still
as death, and I wasall alone, and did not feelafraid. I
wished for Papa, and that Di were not so much afraid
of the night air, and smiled to think how Rod and Sid
would explain it all upon natural principles when I
should tell them about it to-morrow.

‘‘Suddenly a crimson glow quivered up from the
north and spread fast, streaming upward and around
until the heavens were as red as blood, flickering and
throbbing just as the bed of coals there does. As the
glow reached the cross, that began to change shape,
until, before I could feel surprised, an immense bell
166 JUDITH:

hung where the white cross had been—a crimson bell,
and init a mighty clapper, like a burning coal. There
were fiery letters on the outside of the bell running
around the edge. They madea single word—‘ Doom !’”’

‘* Harry Macon !”? Sally Page cried out, a sick tremor
shaking the roses from her cheeks, ‘‘ I think it is wicked
to dream such things, and as sinful to repeat them !”’

‘*T advised you to go to Mount Gilead,”’ retorted the
narrator. ‘‘I told you all that inflammable imagina-
tions weren’t safe when there was fire around. There
is worse coming. I ’ll wait until you have gone into the
other room.,”’

It was impossible not to laugh when Sally protested
that she ‘‘ would not budge a step. She was as brave
as other people. But she was thankful she never had
such horrid dreams. She knew she should die of fright
before she woke up.”’

“Very likely,’ rejoined Harry. ‘‘I am not easily
frightened, even in my sleep. I stood staring upat the
monstrous bell, wishing more than ever that Papa and
the boys were there to see it, and wondering what the
inscription meant. Still there was no one on the hill
but me, and I was not at ali afraid.

“** Doom!’ said I aloud. ‘To whom, I wonder!’

‘At that second the clapper vibrated and the bell
began to toll! The boom shook heaven and earth. It
rings in my ears now. Instantly the hill-top and sides
and the low-grounds were crowded with people, and,
looking around, I saw other hills, miles away, packed
with faces, all gazing up at the great crimson bell, and
trembling at the deafening strokes. In the graveyard
by the church the stones were heaving and the ground
Opening, and forms were rising in white shrouds to join
the multitude. Still no one uttered a sound. There
was nothing to be heard but that slow ‘toll! toll! toll!’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 167

It was strange, but I was not terrified, and saw nobody
I knew.

‘* Jn the twinkling of an eye a man started up above
the heads of the people. I saw it was Mr. Dudley. His
shout rang out like a trumpet—was heard above the
Dell:

‘“* Tt is the great and terrible day of the Lord! Cry
unto Zion that her warfare is acconiplished ! Come out of
Babylon, my people, until these calamities be overpast!?

‘« By the time the words were spoken the bell and the
glow and the stars went out, all at once, and I was
hurrying along over the deep sand of a desert with Papa
and Di, trying to make our way to the sea. We were
escaping from the persecution of Christians set on foot
by the Man of Sin spoken of in the Bible. Wherever
we turned we saw stakes and fires and martyrs burning.
The sea-shore was lined with them—the hills were
lighted by them. Wecould smell the pitch in which
the fagots were dipped. We walked and walked, our
feet sinking in hot sand. Di was tired out, and Papa
picked her up and carried her. Poor Papa! red coat
and all! And I carried his cane. The top was made
in the shape of a cross, and he charged me not to lose
it. Once I hid it behind a sand-heap, but he sent me
back for it, and made me hold it up high as we walked,
that we might ‘add our testimony to the truth of
Christianity.’

‘“¢<We will not make our escape from torture and
death under false pretenses !’ he said.

‘““Wasn’t that just like the dear, stanch old Chris-
tian soldier ?”’

She laughed softly and was silent, still gazing into the
intense depths of the fire. The blaze rushed up the
chimney-throat with the blast of forge-flames. The
white whirl outside of the windows was ashy-gray ; the
163 JUDITH:

wind howled and sobbed, with now and then a shriller
cry as of sudden pain or remembered anguish. For a
whole minute nothing was said. Then Sally Page
moved impatiently.

‘““Well? What then? Goon!”

Harry did not withdraw her eyes from the scarlet
coals.

“That is all!’ she answered abstractedly. ‘‘ There is
nothing more.”

‘‘ Really and truly ?”

‘Really and truly! Did you ever hear of a wound-
up, rounded-off and finished dream ? They always end
in the middle and unsatisfactorily. Like some lives !”’

As the door opened she sprang up, all mischief and
animation, and ran to seize and secure the seeress,

‘““We thought you were never coming !’’ she pouted
at Mr. Bradley.

‘*T had to use craft to get her ai all,’’ was his defense.
‘She was begirt with admirers three deep.”’

There was a flush on Aunt Betsey’s face that ona
less benignant visage might have been read as gratified
vanity, a gleam like triumph in her eyes. At dinner
she had been calm, but attent upon the business of the
hour, fine breeding and the wisdom of experience com-
bining to suppress outward evidence of solicitude as to
the successful movement of the repast. Supper was a
bagatelle that rested like a feather on the lake of hos-
pitable design. For the rest of the day she had but to
enjoy and be enjoyed.

Harry led her in stately progress to the biggest arm-
chair, set a stool beneath the trim feet encased in pru-
nella slippers, threw both arms about her neck and
kissed her.

“Now !’’ subsiding into an enchanting mass of
creamy crape, scarlet scarf and winsome smiles upon
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 169

a foot-cushion before her—‘‘you are going to be an
angel and tell us all—taking as long a time as you can,
because it is Christmas, and nobody else ever did, ever
does or ever can tell such Christmas tales as you—all
about the Trueheart Ghost—the one you and Papa
saw !”?

It is needless to say that Aunt Betsey demurred, hesi-
tated, wavered, in just accordance with conventionalism
and expectation. Almost as superfluous to state that
the several stages of reluctance were in time overcome
by argument and coaxing. It may not be amiss to
mention that she had, from the outset, the secret inten-
tion to yield in the end. Story-telling was her passion,
and she was (modestly) conscious of her aptitude in the
art. On an ordinary occasion she would have suc-
cumbed out of hand at Harry Macon’s hug and kiss.
The Trueheart Ghost was a different affair. She had
been choice of repeating it of late years, and in earlier
days there were reasons why the history should be made
known to few. But for Captain Macon’s concession to
his favorite daughter’s entreaties in their téte-d-iéte talk
on the night of the ‘‘ maddest, gloriousest storm,’’ the
chances are that the witch would never have had an
inkling of the existence of the mystery. If the raconteur
had lived in this day she might have pleaded that the
natural emotion consequent upon the narration, the in-
evitable return in some measure, of the excitement of
the events she recalled, would draw so heavily upon
nervous forces, involve so rapid a waste of cellular
tissue, that it was not safe to repeat it too often or
abruptly.

Aunt Betsey liked attention, and to have her tales
made much of. Her professional eye appreciated the
possibilities of the present situation. Christmas night ;
a cirele of enthusiastic young listeners; firelight and
170 JUDITH:

‘“the tumultuous privacy of storm ;’’ herself the only
elderly person importuned, or even invited to contribute
to the enjoyment of the gay party! Quibble and pro-
test and disclaimer were meet prefatory ceremonies,
like undoing the clasps, opening the volume and clear-
ing one’s throat before beginning what everybody was
dying to hear. To this commingling of motives and
emotion we were indebted for the true and authentic ac-
count of THE TRUEHEART GHOST.

CHAPTER XI.

‘““MADAM TRUEHEART, as she was generally called,
was Tom Trueheart’s great aunt-in-law,’’ began the
blessed woman, careful and conscientious of genealogi-
cal degrees, ‘‘She was a widow when she married
Colonel Trueheart. She was a cousin of my mother,
and showed her French extraction very distinctly,
having black eyes and hair and a clear brunette com-
plexion. Her features were fine and distinguished,
and her carriage was a model of dignity and grace.
Some thought her haughty as a girl. As she grew older
she was reserved and grave. After the death of her.
husband and the loss, one after another, of four child-
ren, she was rarely seen to smile. Colonel Trueheart
was a jolly, loud-talking, loud-laughing, fox-hunting
*squire of the old English school. His wife had been
dead a year when he paid a visit to Mrs. Bland’s (her
first husband was a Bland) brother, in Amelia County ;
fell violently in love with her, and gave her no peace
until she married him. He had three sons, all settled
in homes of their own, so his residence, Selma, about
half a mile beyond the city of Richmond, was left to
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 171

these two. It was a beautiful place, and had a large
plantation attached to it. The Colonel lived like a lord
—plenty of servants, blooded horses, a pack of hounds, a
cellar of choice wines, and a houseful of company the
year around. His table was celebrated as one of the
best in the state.

“‘Trecollect ’’—laughing—‘‘ that Uncle Windsor, then
our carriage-driver, remarked once to ’Ritta, in my
sister Judith’s hearing, ‘Colonel Trueheart’s ’stablish-
ment allers fotches to my min’ de story of dat rich man
in de Scripters, whar fared presumptuously every day.
Pears like tain’t fyar to have all dat, and Heaben too.’

‘“‘If the Colonel had any such scruples he kept them
so close that nobody guessed at them. He got louder
in talk and redder in the face; ate and drank more, and
hunted harder every year, his wife all the time growing
paler and quieter. It was said she got out of the habit
of talking through spending so much time alone, for
the Colonel was very little at home, except when his
dining days and game and oyster suppers were on hand.
Sometimes he would be away for two or three weeks,
junketing in the houses of his country friends, and
Madam Trueheart gradually fell into a way of remain-
ing behind at Selma. It was said she was not in strong
health, and had no relish for gay society. For all that,
the Colonel was very fond and proud of her, and was
never heard to speak unkindly to her. It was asserted,
too, by those who knew them well, that he never swore
in her presence, but I cannot vouch for that.

‘‘T was very young when I paid my first visit there,
but I remember how shocked I was at his free-and-easy
manners, and how odd it was to sce him dip his own
spoon or fork into the dishes nearest to him while he
was telling hunting and fighting stories, and Madam
Trueheart, in her black satin or velvet—she never wore
172 JUDITH:

colors—and rich laces, sat up straight and handsome at
the head of the table, scarcely speaking unless when some
one asked a question. She read a great deal and wrote
much, generally at night, sitting up very late at her sec-
retary, writing for hours and hours. Her desk was full
of manuscripts—so said those who had chanced to see
it open during her lifetime. When she died it was
empty. She had burned every page, even the letters
she had received.

“The Colonet went first, ten years before her, and,
as everybody had predicted, was carried off by apoplexy.
He never spoke after the stroke. He was fifty when he
married Mrs. Bland, sixty when he died. The home-
stead was left to her during her lifetime, with enough
to keep it up well, upon condition that she continued to
occupy it. At her death this was to go to hissons. Her
thirds were hers in fee-simple in any event. It was
considered a very handsome provision for her. She was
executrix and administratrix. The Colonel had a high
opinion of her business abilities.

“Five or six years after his death I went to Rich-
mond to visit my friends, the Pleasantses. Madam
Trueheart drove into town to see me as soon as she
heard I was there, and invited Betty Lyle (who was
with me at the Pleasantses’) and myself to spend a
week at Selma. We accepted, and the day was set for
her to send for us. But Betty was called home by her
mother’s sickness, and I had to goalone. The house was
of brick and large, with a deep hall running through-
out the entire depth. At the right of this as you en-
tered was a great drawing-room, with windows at the
front and side. Behind this was ‘the chamber’ where
Madam sat by day and slept by night; back of it, store-
room and linen-closets. On the other side of the hall
was a sort of ante-room, a cross-passage, out of which
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 173

the staircase ran up to the second floor. An arch, filled
with a Venetian-blind door, separated this from the
main hall, and another archway, just like it, divided
the front hall from the back. Next to the ante-chamber
was the dining-room; back of it a smaller apartment,
which I was to occupy. The library was in a wing,
jutting out at the rear of my bedroom.

“**T meant to put you and your friend in the chamber
over mine,’ said Madam. ‘But you might be lonely
there.’

‘“‘T told her that I was not timid, yet that I should
rather be near her in case of sickness or any such
thing, and thanked her for her thoughtfulness, I
always liked and admired Madam Trueheart, and,
although I was not bold enough to tell her so, I suspect
that she had found it out. Hersteady black eyes saw
far into character and motives. She was very kind to
me all that evening, really exerting herself to talk, and
listening, as if she enjoyed it, to my account of the par-
ties I had attended in Richmond and to stories of
ny home-life. After supper she played for me on the
spinnet in the parlor, a fine instrument, for which the
Colonel had sent to England in the lifetime of his first
wife. Then she took me into the library.

“*¢T remember how fond you were of reading as a
child, and how well you read aloud,’ she was pleased to
say. ‘Do you still like it well enough to let me enjoy
one of these with you to-night ?’

““T was delighted, of course. New books were a
rarity to a country girl, and she had the ‘ Mysteries of
Udolpho’ and the ‘Children of the Abbey’ and seve-
ral others I had never seen before. I chose Mrs. Inch-
bald’s ‘Simple Story,’ and carried it with me into the
chamber. Madam sat upright in her chair at one cor-
ner of the fireplace making knotted curtain-fringe
174 JUDITH:

while I read. It impressed me sadly that evening to
fancy how many nights she must have sat just there,
with no company but the lamp and the fire. I won-
dered, as I had often heard others do, that she could be
willing to lead such a solitary life. The Pleasantses had
spoken of her invitation to me asa high compliment,
since she hardly ever had even a grandchild pass the
night with her. But she was particularly fond of my
mother, the two having been reared more like sisters
than cousins. At ten o’clock she made me put by my
book and eat a sugar-cake and drink a glass of wine—
‘to coax sound sleep,’ she said.

‘*¢T do not need it for that purpose,’ answered I. ‘It
is very unusual for me to awake from the moment my
head touches the pillow until morning.’

“¢< That is young people’s sleep,’ she said, half-sigh-
ing. ‘I will go with you to your room, and see that
you are comfortable for the night.’

“She had not told me to bring my maid, and one of
hers had waited on me when I arrived that day. This
woman was in my bedroom now. Madam dismissed her
when she had seen that fire, water and towels were all
right. I recalled then, as one of the peculiarities I had
heard spoken of, that she never let a servant stay in the
house over night. An immense Newfoundland dog
slept on the hearth-rug in the chamber, and in the day
patroled the premises. Madam may have been eccen-
tric in some respects, but she was all goodness to me,
sitting by my fire while I combed my hair, and talking
pleasantly of my mother and old times until it was time
to say ‘Good night.’ Then she kissed me, and told me
not to forget how near she was to me should I awake in
the night. The rain had begun to fall quite heavily,
and the patter on the porch-roof soon put me to sleep.
I did not open my eyes or stir until morning.”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 175

‘No ghost that night!’ ejaculated Harry, in resent-
ful chagrin.

‘* No, nor on the next. A November storm had set
in, and lasted two days. I was not homesick or low-
spirited. In the library were many interesting books
new tome. I was fond of fancy work, and Madam
taught me two or three lovely stitches, gave me cotton,
and showed me how to begin a set of fringes as a gift
for my mother. She proved a delightful companion,
and that was a surprise. She was well-read in English
literature, had seen much of the world, and thought
deeply. We finished ‘A Simple Story’ on the third
night by nine o’clock, and sat for nearly an hour talk-
ing it over cheerfully. Then I ate an apple instead of
drinking the wine she offered—a big, dark-red wine-sap
—at which she said something about my preferring to
take my liqueur in that form, and I laughed. I mention
these trifles to show that my brain was not excited by
talk or stimulant. I never felt better or brighter than
when I lighted my candle to go to my room. Rosina,
the servant who waited on me, had gone to bed early
with a headache.

‘¢¢T will see that all is in order in your chamber,’
said Madam, putting up her work.

““¢ Please don’t stir,’ I begged. ‘I am surely suf-
ficiently at home to look after myself a little,’ and off
I went.

“* My wax candle gave an excellent light, and I carried
it before me. In closing the door of Madam’s bedroom
I faced that of mine just across the passage. This
was narrower than the square front hall, being not
more than six feet wide, and shut off from that, as I
have said, by Venetian blinds. These I had seen
Madam bolt at the same time that I locked the back
door at the other end of the passage, after Rosina went
176 JUDITH :

out soon after supper. Just as I shut the chamber
door behind me, a little woman started right out of the
opposite door, glided slowly along the wall, her head
bowed upon her hands—in this way—crouching as she
went, and vanished at the green blinds.

‘¢ Who was that ?’? thought I, catching my breath.
‘Probably one of the servants who had fallen asleep in
my room, and slipped out of sight when she heard me
coming. She moved like a cat.’ Then, like a flash of
lightning—‘ How did she get through the blinds without
unbolting them ?’? Lastly—‘ She did not open my door
—only came out of it!

‘““We come of a brave race, and I had always prided
myself upon being afraid of nothing. My father had
trained us to hold ghost stories in profound contempt.
Ihad never had a thrill of superstitious dread in my
life ; yet I staggered back into Madam’s room, white as
a shroud, set down the candle I was too weak to hold,
and said :

“**T have seen a ghost !’

‘*Madam was as pale as I—stood up, straight and
rigid.

“¢ Child ! what do you say ?’

““°Tf there is such a thing as a ghost, I have seen one!’

‘‘Without a word she picked up my candle and
walked into the hall. I heard her try blinds and back
door, go into my room and examine the fastenings of
my windows. When she came back she poured out a
glass of wine and made me drink it, looking so set and
stern that I was afraid she did not believe me.

‘“«* Indeed, ma’am,’ I said, sick and trembling, and
stammering on every word, ‘Iamsorry I startled you—
very much ashamed to seem so foolish! But I did see
romething! Quite near to me—so close I could almost
have touched it !’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 177

‘**T do not doubt it, child. What was it ?’

‘““* A small woman, dressed in some sort of grayish-
yellow gown. Her head was bent low, so that I could
not see her face. She seemed to shrink away from me
as she slipped along close to the wall. She disappeared
at the blinds. But they did not open ; nor my door, to
let her out !’

‘I began to shake again.

““*Do not try to talk, my dear!’ (She had never
called me so before.) ‘You shall sleep with me to-
night,’ said Madam, soothingly. ‘To-morrow, if you
wish it, you shall go back to town.’

‘* Not another syllable would she let me speak about
the fright. She went to my room with me to get what
I needed for that night and next morning, for which I
was infinitely obliged to her. I could not forget that IT
had come out of that chamber, and I dared not glance
over my shoulder.

‘““By daylight I was braver and disposed to question
the evidence of my own eyes. What could I say if I
returned to the Pleasantses so soon? That I had been
scared away by an apparition? They would never get
done teasing me about it. That I was ‘blue,’ and had
had a stupid visit ? when Madam had done her best to
make me happy !

‘* After breakfast, in the chamber into which the sun
shone cicarly after the storm, the fire blazing merrily,
and Carlo asleep on the hottest part of the rug, flowers
in the windows and Madam busy with her knotting—
with everything looking natural and everyday-like and
inviting, even to the novel I meant to begin that morn-
ing—I made up my mind. I told Madam that I pre-
ferred to remain « few days longer with her if she would
allow it. What I had seen might have been an optical
illusion—a, trick of my brain, caused by too much read-
178 JUDITH :

ing and too little exercise. I wished her to forget it,
and to let things go on as before. And I was having a
delightful visit.

‘‘She was gratified and touched. I could see that.
Still she assured me that she would not be hurt or
offended if I went away now. She only stipulated that
I should tell nobody why I did not finish my visit.

***T should be extremely sorry were the house to get
the reputation of being haunted,’ she remarked. ‘It
is property left to me in trust for Colonel Trueheart’s
children and grandchildren. If this story were to get
abroad it would lower the value of it seriously. It
would be hard to dispose of it at any price. I say this
frankly to you, for you are a sensible girl.’

‘* After that she could not have driven me away. I
said so, and the matter was put aside. We had another
busy, quiet day, varied by a drive into town and a little
shopping. That night I stayed again in her chamber,
resting well and seeing and hearing nothing unusual.
The next evening, just before supper-time, we were
agreeably surprised by a visit from Captain Macon. He
had come to town on business—”’

‘‘Of vital importance !?? Thus Harry Macon, paren-
thetical and saucy.

Aunt Betsey nipped her ear and continued undaunt-
edly:

“On business! to arrange about the sale of his to-
bacco! Of course he desired to pay his respects to
Madam Trueheart, whom he had known always. She
had his horse taken around to the stables, and urged
him to stay to supper, which he consented todo. At
ten o’clock he got up to go. We were sitting in the
drawing-room. Madam had a slight cold and had ex-
cused herself an hour or two earlier, saying that she
felt the change in the temperature very sensibly, her
 

“THE THING CAME DOWN VERY SLOWLY, STEP BY STEP,
MAKING NO NOISE AS IT MOVED.’’—p. 179.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 179

chamber being warmer than this large parlor. She
thought it prudent to go back to her own fireside.”

‘*Considerate, delightful old lady!’ murmured the
incorrigible.

“At ten o’clock, as I said,’? pursued the narrator,
‘* he arose to go, and I went with him to the parlor-door.

‘¢* Why, the hall is all dark !’ I exclaimed.

‘Tt was usually lighted by three wax candles in a
chandelier hanging from the ceiling. We supposed, in
talking of it afterward, that they must have been blown
out by a gust of wind from the back door when the ser-
vants left the house for the night. The door of the
drawing-room had a way of swinging to of itself, and as
I passed the threshold it shut behind us. Our eyes were
naturally drawn, in the absence of other light, to a win-
dow directly opposite. The shutters of this were open,
and the moonbeams streamed in. I have described the
sort of ante-chamber at the left of the front hall.
Through the archway connecting the two we had a full
view of the staircase. It was broad, and had two land-
ings. On the lower was the moonlit window, opening
down to the floor. Somebody was descending the stairs
between the upper and lower landings. A small figure,
all in white, a gown that trailed on the steps behind
her, and over her head something like a long bridal
veil.

“T caught Captain Macon’s arm, too terrified to utter
aword. It did not occur to him that there was any-
thing supernatural in the appearance, but imagining
that I meant him to be quiet, he stood perfectly still
with me in the recess made by the closed parlor door.
The Thing came down very slowly, step by step, making
no noise as it moved; crossed the flood of moonlight,
turned on the landing and glided down the four re-
maining steps, its back to the window, and, therefore,
180 JUDITH :

facing us. It was within ten feet of us when Madam
Trueheart’s voice was heard from the back hall.

“<*Did I hear you say that the lights are out, Bet-
sey ?’ she called.

The Creature—whatever It was—disappeared in-
stantly! It did not run away or sink into the floor or
rise into the air, but simply was not! The place where
it had stood a second before was empty, and we had
not moved our eyes from it.”

A long, shuddering sigh was exhaled from a dozen
pair of lungs, as she made at this point a rhetorical
pause. Mr. Bradley stealthily stirred the coals under
the forestick to heighten the illumination of the room.

‘*Go on!’ said Harry, in a deep, awed voice. ‘‘It
would kill us were you to trifle with our curiosity now !”°

“T have no disposition to trifle with you, my dear,
or to speak lightly of any part of a strange, true story—
one which was very distressing at the time. Why I
neither fainted nor went into hysterics I do not know,
unless that I never was in the habit of doing either.
Captain Macon complimented me on my nerve. Ma-
dam expressed her thankfulness that the shock had not
been a serious injury to me. She was cool and collected
through it all. At Captain Macon’s earnest request,
she let him take a light and examine every part of the
house. Besides ourselves not a human being was in it.
Madam Trucheart led the way into her chamber when
the search was over.

‘** May I ask of you, as a great favor, to spend the
night in this house ?’ she said to our guest.

‘“He bowed. ‘Iam honored by the invitation, Ma-
dam, and accept it with pleasure.’

‘““She knew him too well, you see, to inquire if he
would be unwilling to stay. He was never afraid of the
living or the dead. If she had not proposed it he would
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 181

have asked the privilege of remaining. When I could
speak without a break in my voice, and laugh at Cap-
tain Macon’s praises of my self-control, Madam did a
singular thing (for her), yet it was the most sensible
step she could have taken. She took us into her confi-
dence.

“¢¢Tt was within six months after I came to Selma to
live that I had the first intimation that all was not right
with the house,’ she said. ‘Colonel Trueheart was not
at home, and I had gone to bed rather early one night,
leaving the fire burning as brightly as it does now. I
was not drowsy, but the firelight was too strong to be
comfortable to my eyes, and I shut them, lying quietly
at ease among the pillows, my thoughts busy and far
away. There was no sound except the crackling of
the blaze, but suddenly I felt the pressure of two hands
on the bed-clothes covering my feet. They rested there
for a moment, were lifted and laid upon my ankles,
moving regularly upward until I felt them lie more
heavily on my chest. I was sure that a robber had
found his way into the house and wanted to convince
himself that I was really asleep before beginning to
plunder. My one hope of life was to remain perfectly
still, to breathe easily, and keep my eyes shut. This I
did, the sense of hearing made more acute by intense
excitement, but my reason singularly steady. When
the hands reached my chest Something looked close into
my face. There was no breath or audible movement,
but I felt the gaze. Then the pressure was removed—
the Presence was gone! I lay still until I counted de-
liberately fifty, to assure myself that I was in full pos-
session of my senses, and sat up. The fire showed every
object distinctly. I was alone in the chamber. Larose,
looked under the bed and in the wardrobe, but found
noholy. The windows and shutters were bolted fast,
"482 JUDITH:

the door was locked. Yet,so strong was my persua-
sion that the visitation was not a trick of the imagina-
tion that I sat up for the rest of the night, keeping fire
and candle burning.

‘*¢ When Colonel Trueheart returned I told him what
had happened. He laughed heartily, and ‘‘hoped the
like might occur when he was at home.’? Three months
later I felt the same pressure in the same order of
movement. It was on a warm night in spring, and
through the lighter coverings I fancied I could discern
that the hands were small, the fingers slight, like those
of a child or a little woman. I tried to call the Colonel,
but could not speak until the Presence had stooped, as
before, to look in my face and departed. Colonel True-
heart awoke at my voice, was greatly amazed at what
I told him, and insisted upon making just such a tour
of the house as you have just instituted, Captain Macon.
This over, he tried to convince me that I had been
dreaming, or that the sensation was caused by some
obstruction of circulation. I did not argue the point,
but when, some weeks afterward, I had a similar expe-
rience, asked him seriously if he had ever heard that
any one else was disturbed in this way. He hesitated,
tried to put me off, and finally owned that his first wife
had declared to him privately her belief that the house
was haunted. That she complained of hearing unac-
countable noises at night; that Things passed and
touched her in the halls after dark ; and once in the day-
time, when she was sitting alone in her room, Some-
thing had plucked her by the elbow with such force as
almost to pull her from her chair. She was delicate and
nervous, and he had attached no importance to her
fancies.

‘¢<<< Tf sickly women and superstitious negroes are to
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 183

be believed, half the country-houses in Virginia are
haunted,”’ he said.

““* He cautioned me to say nothing on the subject,
else ‘‘there would be no such thing as keeping a
servant on the premises, and the house would not sell
for the worth of the bricks should it ever come into
the market.”’

““« Two years went by without farther disturbance.
Then it came in a different form. One night, as I was
locking the back door, holding a candle in my left
hand, I heard a slight sound, like a sigh or long breath,
and, looking up, saw a woman moving past and away
from me, just as Betsey has described. She was dressed
in a misty yellow-gray or grayish-yellow gown, as
Betsey saw her, but with a white handkerchief or cap
on her head. I had time to notice that she was small
of stature, and that she glided along noiseless!ly. At
the closed Venetian blinds she vanished. Colonel True-
heart entered the front door the next instant, and I
made known to him what I had witnessed. He ridi-
culed the theory that it was supernatural, evidently
suspecting some malicious or mischievous prank on the
part of one of the servants. After a second thorough
search of the house, he loaded his pistols and put them
under his pillow, ‘‘ to be ready,” he said, ‘‘ for the next
scare.”? He always slept with them under his head
afterward.

‘¢¢ Again, for months, nothing unusual occurred.
Then the pressure of the hands became frequent. From
that time up to the night preceding Colonel Trueheart’s
death scarcely a fortnight elapsed without my feeling
them. Always beginning at my feet—always ending at
my chest; always that long felt gaze into my face, then
It was gone! Sometimes I strained my eyes in the
darkness to catch some outline or shadow ; again and
184 JUDITH:

again I opened them abruptly in the firelight or moon-
light to surprise whatever it might be into revealing It-
self. I never beheld face or shape or any visible token of
living thing. Once I succeeded in arousing the Colonel
at the first touch upon my feet. He struck a light im-
mediately, but although the regular movement con-
tinued up to the fixed gaze, the room was apparently free
of everybody but ourselves. We had a long consultation
then. I was hurt and angry that he remained skeptical
as to the reality of the visitations, When all my asser-
tions failed to convince him that I was not the victim
of a nervous hallucination, I said:

* ““T shall never allude to this subject again, what-
ever I may see or hear.”’

“¢4¢<Y hope you will keep your word,” he replied.

‘** Neither of us ever mentioned the matter again to
one another. Sometimes, when my pallor or heavy
eyes told that I had not slept well, he would look
at me anxiously, as if longing to question me; but I
was proud and so was he, and neither would lead the
way.

‘** On the night before he died he had retired in his
usual health, and I sat up late writing. My desk stood
at one side of the fireplace, my back being toward that
window. About twelve o’clock I was startled by a
rustling behind me, and turned quickly, but saw no-
thing. Something swept right by me, with a sound like
the waving of silk drapery, and passed toward the bed.
I followed It, looked under the valance, behind the cur-
tains—all through the room, but found nobody. I said
aloud, to reassure myself, “It must have been the
wind !”? and returned to my desk. In perhaps fifteen
minutes [heard the same sound going by me, as before,
toward the bed. In just half an hour more by my watch,
which I had laid on the desk, It came again. Carlo,
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 185

then hardly more than a puppy, howled and ran behind
my chair. I felt then that I could bear it no longer,
moved toward the bed to awaken my husband. He
was sleeping so soundly that, although I passed the
candle close before his eyes, he did not stir. I thought I
would wait to hear or see something more before arous-
ing him. Nothing came. Carlo went back to his
place on the rug, and I sat up all night, listening
and watching.

‘** Colonel Trueheart arose next morning to all ap-
pearance perfectly well. At nine o’clock he had an
apoplectic stroke. At twelve he died. His will, exe-
cuted two years before, directed that I should continue
to live here and take care of the place for his children.
I have done so at less cost of feeling and health than I
anticipated. But once in five years have I had any
reason to believe that the uneasy spirit—if spirit it was
—still walked the premises. One night, in the second
year of my widowhood, as I was coming down stairs,
soon after supper, with a light in my hand, I heard the
sweeping of a gown, the tap of high heels behind me.
On the lower landing I stopped, wheeled short around,
held up my light, and looked back. The steps had been
close on my track, but the staircase was empty and now
silent.

‘“*T had flattered myself that there would never bea
return of ghostly sights or sounds after four years of
exemption. Least of all did I dream that one not con-
nected with the family would be visited by such appa-
ritions should they come.’

“This was the story. If Madam guessed at anything
else, if she had any theory as to the cause of the visita-
tion, she never intimated it. Captain Macon privately
instituted inquiries, at a later period, respecting the
past history of the house, but without striking any trail
186 JUDITH:

that promised to unravel the mystery. It had been
built by a Trueheart, and the estate had descended in
the direct line to the Colonel. We pledged our word vol-
untarily to Madain never to speak of what we had seen
while the truth could affect the value of the property,
or cast imputation upon the character of those who
had owned it. We kept silent until Madam had been
fifteen years in her grave. Then Captain Macon rode
over one day to show me a paragraph in a Richmond
newspaper. I have it safe up stairs in my reliquary,
but I can repeat it, word for word :

“<¢The march of improvement westward has con-
demned to demolition, among other fine old mansions,
Selma, the ancestral home of the Truehearts. It passed
out of the family at the demise of Mrs. Augusta Har-
rison Trueheart, relict of the late Colonel Elbert True-
heart. In order to effect an equitable division of the
estate, the residence and contiguous plantation were
sold. The extensive grounds have been cut up into
building lots, and the mansion—a noble one in its day,
although sadly neglected of late years—standing di-
rectly in the line of the extension of Street, has
been bought by the city to be pulled down and carted
away. In grading the sidewalk of the proposed thor-
oughfare, it was necessary to dig down six feet below
the present level, laying bare the foundations of the
building. At the depth of four feet from the surface,
directly under the windows, and distant scarcely three
feet from the drawing-room, the workmen disinterred
the skeleton of a woman of diminutive stature, which
had evidently lain there for years. There were no signs
of a coffin or coffin-plate. A high tortoise-shell comb,
richly wrought, was found by the head. The oldest in-
habitant of our city has no recollection of any interment
near this spot, nor would decent burial have been made

 
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 187

so close to the surface. The whole affair is wrapped in
mystery.’ ”’

Another prolonged pause. Then Harry raised both
hands to push up her hair from her forehead, as if the
weight oppressed the teeming brain.

“* How the storm roars !’’? she said. ‘‘ Heaven have
mercy upon the homeless souls wandering between sky
and earth to-night! Papa told me that the secret is a
secret still, the tragedy unexplained. Have you sus-
picions of your own ?”

“T know nothing beyond what you have heard. But
—women who die natural deaths and have Christian
burial do not wear expensive combs, such as belong to
party-dresses, when they are shrouded for the grave.
Nor are they thrust into the ground uncoffined !”’

Note,—The author deems it well to state that she
vouches personally for the authenticity of the Dream in
Chapter X, and likewise for the truth, in every particu-
lar, of the story related in Chapter XI.

She offers no explanation of the latter, nor is she her-
self a believer in “ spiritualistic ’’ phenomena, or in the
vulgar hypothesis of apparitions from the world of
shades. The history of the Trueheart Ghost is, from
first to last, one of facts, supported by testimony that
cannot be impugned. She has not been able to with-
stand the temptation to put these upon record as a
curious study of the supernatural—or the unaccount-
able.
188 JUDITH:

CHAPTER XII.

I HAD never been to Richmond in my life, and I was
to spend a whole month in the capital of my day-dreams
—the mundane type to me, ignorant little provincial
that I was, of the city paved with gold and entered
through pearly gates. More than this, I was to be the
guest of my beloved Miss Virginia Dabney. She had
written a long letter with her own dear fingers, ad-
dressed on the outside, as within, to me:

Miss Judith R. Trueheart,
Read’s Cross-Roads,

County,
Virginia.

 

My mother wrote to me under cover to my grand-
mother. This letter was all my very own. How grand
it looked, with the printed ‘‘ Paid”? in one corner, the
stamp of the Richmond Post-Office in the other! Post-
age-stamps were not introduced until almost twenty
years later. Envelopes were unknown, and my corres-
pondent paid ten cents in advance for the thin single
sheet, foided ingeniously to foil the curiosity of country
officiats, and sealed with scented wax.

I broke out with the measles the day after New
Year’s, and was duly put to bed under all the blankets
I could bear, and not a whiff of fresh air or drop of cold
water suffered to enter my room for three weeks.
During this season I was steamed and toasted and
drenched inwardly with hot decoctions until the little
color I could boast in health was soaked out of me.
The eruption ‘‘ came out’? finely, and went off by or-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 189

thodox degrees, and I appeared below-stairs convales-
cent, but such a weak-eyed, etiolated caricature of
childhood as to alarm even those who were conversant
with the ‘effects of measles.”? This malady, like
scarlet-fever and whooping-cough, ‘‘ never left children
as it found them.’ Often it did not leave them at all,
disease and patient going off together.

Aunt Maria had written to her Richmond friend of
my inability to eat, study or read. The result was the
invitation aforesaid.

Moreover, again, I traveled in the Hunter’s Rest
chariot, newer and far more elegant than the Summer-
field carriage, and Miss Harry Macon was my traveling
companion. The hereditary intimacy between the
families was to be cemented by a visit of some weeks
from her to the Dabneys. Her maid, a “ bright”
mulatto, the belle of her set as her mistress was in her
rank, accompanied us, flirting on the coach-box with the
driver, but subject to whatever call might be made from
the interior upon her services.

Furthermore—if aught had been lacking to com-
pletest roundness of bliss—Uncle Archie was our
equerry. He never appeared better than in the saddle.
His well-knit limbs, broad shoulders, straight back—
so flat that his mien was soldierly—his excellent seat
and easy command of the spirited animal he bestrode
were remarkable in a neighborhood where good horse-
manship was the rule.

‘¢ A prince, every inch of him !”’ observed Miss Harry
once, as he fell into the rear to avoid the wheels in a
narrow part of the road. ‘‘ Sweetbrier !’? — she had
caught the name from Miss Virginia—‘‘ they don’t make
better men than your uncle there. I respect myself the
more when I recollect that I was born within three
miles of him. He is so strong, so upright, so real! And
190 JUDITH:

he has never once looked at me as if he would like to
talk love—or nonsense—to me. I can’t say that for an-
other single man in the county. I feelas safe and com-
fortable and protected when I am with him as I should
with my very greatest-grandfather. It is a high com-
pliment, little woman—don’t forget it when your turn
comes !—to have a young fellow talk to you as if you
were another man, with a flavoring of the sister stirred
in!”

The February day was clear and fine. I remember
the glaze left by the winter’s travel upon the beaten
red clay of the highway; the scarlet wax-wings feast-
ing on the whitish-blue berries of the cedars; the
“‘cotton-tailed ’’ hares that scudded across the road, or
scampered over the dry leaves heaped in fence-corners ;
the columnar vistas of frost-work in the clayey banks,
of which I made for myself a fairy realm, with Giants’
Causeways, palaces, and interminable arcades roofed
with unbaked red tiles. The motion, the company, the
fresh, pure air, wrought magically upon my anemic
frame. I was hungry before the time came for opening
the hamper, in which was stowed enough ‘‘ snack ”’ for
a dozen hedgers and ditchers. Uncle Archie accepted a
seat in the carriage while we ate as much as we could
of it.

Apphia, Miss Harry’s Abigail, appeared at the coach
door when we halted to accomplish this change, and
dropped a courtesy, her golden-bronze visage alive with
glee, her cheeks like the sunned side of a Georgia peach.

‘Please, Miss Harry! please, Mars’ Archie! lemme
ride him!’ nodding at the beautiful hunter that would
have followed the carriage as a kitten the one that
petted it.

Hardly waiting for the consent given by both, she
tossed one of the stirrups over the man’s saddle to do
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 191

pommel-duty, bounded into the seat thus contrived,
gathered up the bridle and rode alongside and behind
us for an hour and more, managing the horse dex-
terously, and sitting him with the graceful confidence of
an Amazon. I took in the view of her with lazy enjoy-
ment, appreciating, without the capacity of expressing
how and why I did so, the picturesqueness of attitude
and costume; the red-and-black handkerchief-turban,
the striped linsey-woolsey skirt, yellow and dark-blue,
and the scarlet jacket, a cast-off one of her mistress’s,
which fitted her as trimly as it did the original owner.

“She puts me in mind of a red-winged blackbird,”
said I, softly, out of my nest of shawls on the back
seat which Miss Harry insisted upon giving up entirely
to me.

Uncle Archie cast toward me one of the looks I
always understood to mean that he was especially and
fondly pleased. Miss Harry stooped impulsively to
leave a light, swift kiss, such as the humming-bird
gives the flower, on my lips.

“You dear little thing !’’ she said, and a silly blur
fell between Apphia and me.

I was very weak yet, and these two were so good to
me! The world was so full of love and beauty that
my heart ached suffocatingly under its portion of hap-
piness. The brooding softness of the unclouded blue
overhead, the enveloping and invigorating cheer of the
sunshine, were of the same strain with the human ten-
derness that enfolded me, body and spirit. It was a
divine languor that overtook me when I was again dis-
posed among my pillows, covered up, tucked in cozily
and ordered to ‘‘ take a nap, like a darling.”” My eye-
lids fell, but not in drowsiness; the talk of my com-
panions rippled over me, with wafts of the cool, swect
air from the pine and cedar forests through which our
192 JUDITH:

route lay for several miles. I could not tell from which
I drew the larger accession of strength.

“There is hardly enough body left to hoid her soul,”’
T heard, by-and-by, uttered low and compassionately.
‘*T hope the change will do her good.”’

“Tam not asleep, Miss Harry !’’ said I, unclosing my
eyes.

“Never mind!’? Uncle Archie answered for her.
‘‘We are not talking secrets.”’

In that case I might lie still and listen, unreproved
by conscience. There was a hearty, whole-souled liking
between the pair. To this, her prince among true men,
Harry Macon always showed the best that was in her.
He saw the full current of genuine womanliness under
the froth and glitter which was all most people knew
for the saucy beauty. Where he could not excuse, he
ignored ; where he could not justify, he shielded. They
talked frankly, but never sentimentally. In such petty
scrapes as she would not confide to her father through
fear of troubling him, or to her brothers, lest they
should rebuke her more sharply than her temper would
brook—he was her resort, the kindest, safest counsellor
that ever folly found in uprightness. She had two or
three such confidences for him that day, neither of
them minding me (nobody ever did mind me much), and
I recollect how gencte was his plainness of speech, how
judicious his advice. One of the topics discussed was
the useless adoration of Ronald Craig, the empty-
headed, full-hearted master of Buccleuch, one of the
noblest estates on James River. As Harry averred,
‘he tormented the life out of her, offering himself at
the full of every moon with regularity that inclined her
to believe him a lunatic.”

“¥ told him so one day,”’ she added.

‘“‘T am sorry to hear it,’? returned Uncle Archie, se-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 193

riously. ‘‘ You would not have done it if you had
known that his mother was once insane, although she
recovered her reason some years before her death.
Don’t trifle with true love, Miss Harry. It deserves
respect, however you may despise the creature that be-
stows it. I know you well enough to believe that you
would not strike a muddy hound that crawled up to
lick your foot. You find fault, and maybe very reason-
ably, with the softness of Craig’s brain. You won't
mend that by hardening his heart. You may ruin him
for time and for eternity. There is only one really safe
path in life. That is the straight one. Don’t laugh at
or tease or play with him. The best and tenderest-
hearted of women don’t half understand how they
can hurt us. Ifa man puts heart and happiness in
your hands, and you cannot accept the gift, try to re-
member that it is the very best thing he has to offer,
and give it back to him at once, with as few words as
possible. Help him to bury it out of sight. People of
right feeling don’t joke while open graves are being
flied in.”

“Ronald Craig told me, last week, that he believed I
would enjoy cracking hickory-nuts on his tombstone,”’
said Harry, peeping from under her eyelashes in a look
made up of roguishness and remorse. ‘‘ And—it seems
horrid when I think of it now—but I couldn’t help say-
ing that if it had a nice flat top and was near the
hickory-nut tree, I shouldn’t hesitate to make him use-
ful for once.”’

I giggled, and Uncle Archie did not attempt to sup-
press his smile. ;

‘*T wonder, sometimes, if your turn will ever come,”’
he said. ‘‘ When it does, may I be there to see! I
warn you that I shall not spare you.”’

‘T shall disarm you by telling you, first of all, what
194 JUDITH :

has befallen me, and engaging you to break the news to
Papa. Rod says the double-barreled gun on the hooks
near the front door is kept loaded with buckshot to
shoot the man to whom I shall say ‘Yes.’ The dear
old father turns a fine olive-green whenever the harrow-
ing possibility of my marriage is referred to. An elope-
ment will be the only hope of life for the unhappy
suitor-elect.”’

‘“You may depend upon me to the extent of what
poor influence I possess. Provided—always—you con-
vince me that you are in carnest, that your happiness
depends on my success.”?

She put out her hand.

‘It isa promise! Shake hands on it!”

He hesitated—the raised eyebrows surprised and in-
terrogative.

“Ts the test so near ? I will not take a step in the
dark, you know.”’

‘*T am as fancy-free as Shakspeare’s ‘ fair vestal, en-
throned by the West.’ But in time of peace prepare
for war. I may meet my fate in Richmond. Stranger
things have happened.”’

A fraternal hand-clasp sealed the compact. To be
recalled how soon, how often, and how sadly !

We stopped for dinner and to feed and rest the horses
at a house of entertainment. There was a fine but
strong distinction between the managers of such and
the people who “‘ kept tavern.” Our wayside hostelry,
except in its location, within thirty feet of the public
road, and in the spaciousness of the stable-yard, also
giving upon the thoroughfare, was, in exterior, undis-
tinguishable from the private residence of a planter in
good circumstances. The house was white, with green
blinds; in summer a dense curtain of vines shaded the
long front porch, and the yard was gay with flowers.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 195

The master was smoking a pipe on the porch, basking
in the genial sun-warmth, while he talked polities with
two guests who had preceded us. He advanced to the
gate with hospitable readiness as we drew up before it,
saluted Uncle Archie by name; was presented by him
to Miss Harry and myself; ‘‘reckoned,”’ in response to
the question whether we could get dinner there, ‘‘ there
was no manner of doubt about that,’ and offered his
arm to Miss Macon to conduct her to the house. His
wife, comely and lady-like, met us at the door and
showed Miss Harry and myself to ‘‘the chamber,”
where she had been sitting by a lively fire, with win-
dows and doors open. I was made to lie on the plump,
white bed until dinner was ready in the adjoining
dining-room. An excellent meal it was, including the
conventional boiled ham flanked by cabbage, before the
hostess, and the mountainous side-dish of fried chicken,
brown, tender, juicy and savory as fried chicken never
is outside of Virginia. Spriglets of green parsley curled
between the toothsome joints, breasts and giblets ; crisp
slivers of fried bacon garnished the base of the pile;
cream-gravy was sent around with each plate, that those
who liked the accompaniment might help themselves.
Mince-pie and sweet-potato pudding—another Virginia
delicacy—pound cake and delicate ‘‘ sweetmeats,”’ 7. ¢.,
preserved watermelon-rind, carved curiously and elabo-
rately, brittle and like unto emerald in clarity of green ;
milk, rich with cream, coffee and tea formed the second
course. Cider was served with the meats. For this
there was no extra charge. The proprietor of the
house of entertainment sold no liquors, nor could any
except his personal friends obtain so much as a glass of
spirits or wine from his well-stocked cellar. A gentle-
man’s wines—he was ranked as a gentleman by himself
196 JUDITH:

and others—were as much his personal property as his
watch and waistcoat,

‘‘T do not keep a tavern, sir!’? was the haughty re-
sponse to applications from the uninformed traveler for
toddy, mint-julep or milk-punch.

If he had been a tavern-keeper a swinging sign would
haye indicated that he held a license, took orders and
charged accordingly. As a rule, the guests fed and
lodged by him were quict gentlefolk, who paid his mod-
erate bills without a tinge of condescension or patronage,
or feeling that he lost caste by receiving a quid pro quo.
If there were obligation on either side it was on theirs
for cordial hospitality, for which money was an inade-
quate acknowledgment,

Darkness fell before we came in sight of Richmond.
The swinging of the carriage on its easy springs ;
fatigue and excitement ; the comparative silence of my
companions as twilight induced revery; the closing
glooms that obscured wayside fences, and blotved, as
with a sepia wash, hill and forest and plain—made me
first dull then sleepy. I shut my eyes, turned my face
to the cushioned back of my seat, and, after listening
for a few minutes to the rumble of the wheels, the creak
and jingle of the harness, the thud of hoofs on the
sandy turnpike, varied by rings against infrequent
stones, I lost myself entirely in a dreamless blank of
slumber.

I was aroused by a far-off hum like the swarming of
bees, that grew louder and nearer when I made out
who I was, but not where. The glare of light upon my
unsealed eyes drew from me an ejaculation of pain.

A soft, warm hand covered them instantly ; a gentle
arm was about me; lips met mine in two, three kisses ;
a voice cooed in my ear:

‘“‘Sweetbricr! do you know where you are ?”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 197

“In heaven ?”

The dreaming brain actually sent the question to the
tongue that was as yet too languid to articulate it. In
another second I whispered, ‘*I know you !”’

She let me see her then. Her face that was lovelier
than ever, was still the nearest to mine. She knelt by
the sofa on which Uncle Archie had laid me after bring-
ing me in his arms from the carriage, swathed in shawls
like a mummy, and almost as dead asleep. Her blue
eyes were joyous and tender; her smile was as much
for me as for the lover who, I next perceived, stood by
her, looking down at us both.

We were in a room that was very lofty and grand in
my sight. An astral lamp was on the centre-table.
Crimson damask curtains, and a repetition of the same
warm tone in carpets and furniture; the gleam of pic-
ture-frames, and candelabra hung with tinkling prisms
—most of all, a pier-glass that reflected the group about
the sofa, intensifying the radiance of fire and lamp, and
dcoubling the apparent length of the apartment—made
to my rustic appreciation a scene of palatial splendor.

A prettyish woman of perhaps thirty-five pressed
now to Miss Virginia’s side.

‘You mustn’t let them plague you, honey !’’ she
said, as I was not used to hear people speak, witha
plaintive downward inflection engrafted on a slight
natural lisp. I always had a confusing notion, in lis-
tening to her, that her tongue must curl over at the tip
as she talked.

‘‘Tam certain, Virginia, that she wants to go right
straight off to bed. It’s right down mean to wake her
up ea

‘‘She shall do just as she likes, mother,’’ said the
step-daughter dutifully.

She never disputed a point with the wife, who was
198 JUDITH:

her husband’s junior by twenty-five years. He was
presented to me now—short, good-humored, portly,
and a disappointment to one who had pictured Captain
Macon’s ancient comrade as like that stately warrior in
person and manner. Two boys of fifteen and ten, the
children of the second marriage, completed the family
group.

Uncle Archie declined to sit down, although hard-
pressed to become the guest of the household while he
stayed in town. He always put up at ‘‘ The Colum-
bian,”’ the popular head-quarters of country gentlemen
who liked substantial fare and liberty of action. With
stubborn fidelity to the traditions of their fathers that
was worthy of their English ancestry, the planters and
yeomen of Virginia sustained the old-fashioned inn in
the crooked by-street leading to the river long after the
tide of general travel set in the direction of handsome
hotels with modern improvements established in fash-
jionable quarters. The parade of drilled waiters and
long-drawn-out state of successive courses was intolei-
able to men who ‘‘had something else to do besides
spending hours a day at the table.”” They contended
that the cookery at ‘‘ The Eagle ’’ was infinitely inferior
to that at ‘‘ The Columbian ’’—in brief, that when they
came to town unencumbered by wives and daughters,
they meant to be comfortable in the ugly tavern de-
spised by the rising generation.

Major Dabney and his wife were distressed at the
recusancy of Miss Harry’s escort, and proclaimed their
chagrin vehemently. Miss Virginia said, quietly rais-
ing her shining eyes to his:

““Mr. Bradley will be disappointed. We have in-
vited him to take tea and spend the evening with you.”’

“Evening ’’? in the country meant after dinner, at
whatever hour that repast was taken. After sunset
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 199

was “‘night.’? The afternoon was an unknown quan-
tity in our diurnal computation. The mere use of the
word stamped one as town-bred, or as an imitator of
cockney phrases. I had time to wonder why Mr.
Bradley had not yet appeared if the invitation was for
the evening, before Uncle Archie could be heard above
the renewed clamor of remonstrance:

‘Tf you will allow me to return after I have been
down town to put up my horse and secure my room, I
will with pleasure accept your invitation to supper.”

He was detained a few minutes longer by Mr. Brad-
ley’s arrival, Already the air of city life had taken
effect upon his outer man. The cut of his clothes—a
suit of dark-blue cloth, faultless in fit—of his hair, even
the gloves, one of which he drew from the right hand as
he entered, bore no correspondence to the personal be-
longings of the Summerfield tutor. The healthful tan
of his complexion was superseded by aclear pallor that
enhanced the refined cast of his features. The altera-
tion did not extend to his manner. The buoyant step,
the happy smile, the cordial tone were the same that
had won Aunt Betscy’s best graces, and converted into
a friend every acquaintance he had made while with us.
I felt my forehead flush with prideful delight under his
kiss, saw Uncle Archie’s honest eyes kindle as their
-hands met in a long clasp. Then my foolish flutter sub-
sided into deadest dullness; my sick heart sank until I
fancied it must settle in my heels.

I wished Uncle Archie had taken off his dreadnought
surtout, or, at least, removed the cloth leggings, or
‘‘wrappers,’’ as they were styled, that enveloped his
legs like warlike greaves. Horsemen wore these upon
long winter journeys for warmth and for protection from
the mud. They were strapped under the boots like
gaiters, buttoned up on the outside of the legs and gar-
200 JUDITH:

tered above the knees. His hair, tossed and curling
after the day in the saddle, was a shaggy mane when
contrasted with his friend’s orderly locks. I could
have cried with heartache to think that Miss Virginia’s
eyes rested upon the two, standing face to face, ani-
mated and engrossed by the pleasure of reunion,
yearned to cast my arms about the mud-plashed knees
and tell one of the men how ardently I loved him—how
much better for the unwilling admission to my secretest
soul that he was the sufferer by the comparison I—and
perhaps another—had made.

It was some poor relief when the outer door clanged
behind him. My cheeks cooled gradually while I
feigned to hearken to Mrs. Dabney’s twaddle. It re-
minded me from that evening of plum-porridge, insipid
mush, in which an ever-stirring spoon brought continu-
ally to the surface raisins, currants, citron-slips of
meaningless endearment. I was her “‘ pretty baby,”
her “‘ precious girl,’’? her “‘ sweetest Judith,” and her
‘‘heart?’s treasure,’”? before she finished the harangue
upon the propriety of a measure nobody thought of
gainsaying, to wit: that the travelers should be taken
up stairs to wash and get ready for supper.

‘* Which shan’t be brought in till that dear Mr. Read
comes back, if he don’t make his appearance until mid-
night,’’ she assured us. ‘‘So, my dearest Miss Harry—
I just can’t say ‘Miss Macon,’ when I’ve heard so
much of you—the Major and our darling Virginia are
forever praising you up, dear, and none too much—not
abit! Ill say that to your face. You needn’t hurry
down stairs. Take plenty of time, honey. I dare say
our dear Mr. Bradley will be impatient to see you
again, but, if the truth were known, ’tisn’t the first
time he has had to dance attendance upon a beauty’s
pleasure.”’
a CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 201

When Uncle Archie returned we were reassembled
down stairs, and the great folding-doors between the
two rooms being opened, we had a view of a table in the
back parlor so profusely set out with crystal, china and
silver that my shaken nerves danced again. Isat at
the Major’s right hand, as far away as I could be re-
moved from the voluble hostess. Subsequently I sus-
pected daughterly artifice in this. Time had inured
Miss Virginia to the incessant bubble and spatter of the
porridge-pot, but she shielded her friends from the in-
tliction whenever she could without wounding the poor
lady. The Major did not trouble me with questions,
and kept a hospitable eye ou my plate. Miss Virginia
was next to me on the other side, Mr. Bradley sat by
hier, Uncle Archie was opposite to me, and Miss Harry
his nearest neighbor. She and the ci-devant tutor car-
ried most of the light weight of the conversation. They
drew out one another admirably at all times, and to-
night the exchange of challenge and repartee were like
the flash and catch of a glittering ball in spirited play.
The Major dropped knife and fork several times in a
convulsion of merriment ; the boys were in a perpetual
titter, and Mrs. Dabney exhausted her expletives in
description of her enchantment at seeing the dear
young people so happy.

‘¢ How 1 do like to see young folks enjoy themselves !”
she twittered in pauses and out of pauses. ‘‘If there’s
one thing that makes me happier than another it is to
see young folks having a royally-good time. When
they are in spirits they are in such spirits, and our
young folks—indeed, to tell the truth, most of the young
folks that visit here, and, for the matter of that, young
folks all over the world, so faras I know—those that are
in good health I mean, of course, for without health, my
dear Mr. Read, what is life 2—certainly are, generally
202 JUDITH:

in excellent spirits. And, as Iwas saying to precious
Virginia only to-day, I do hope and pray that our sweet
Miss Harry will have a pleasant visit, and you must
make yourself perfectly at home right off, my love—all
our darling daughter’s friends are our friends; and I’m
sure when that lovely Maria Read was here in Decem-
ber we certainly treated her exactly as if she had been
one of us, exactly—and a more interesting girl I never
met in all my life; never, if Ido say it to your face,
Mr. Read, if she is your own born sister; but if so, why
not praise her ?—I could never see why not—and if the
truth were known, I dare say plenty of young men
would agree with me ; don’t you think so, Mr. Bradley?”

Harry Macon had just tossed a saucy equivoque at
him. His lips were apart in the suspended retort, as
he bowed his apology to the head of the table.

“YT beg your pardon, Mrs. Dabney! I did not quite
catch what you were saying !”’

Who ever did ?

Her good nature was invincible. ‘‘ Very excusable,
I am sure. Idon’t mind people’s talking while I’m
running on. I rather like it. It makes things more
sociable all around ; and what are we put into society for
but to be sociable ? and I was never one to stand upon
my dignity, nor my p’s and q’s, either ; and my sisters
tell me I’m quite too youthful in my feelings for a
woman of my age and a man of the Major’s, though for
the matter of that, I never gave a thought to his being
old enough, you may say, to have been my father. I
was just praising that pretty, sweet, delightful Maria
Read. I fairly fellin love with her, and I was not the
only one, if the truth were told. I wonder how many
hearts she has broken in her day ?”’

‘I think she would be very sorry to break any, ma-
dam. She is very humane.”’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 208

Mr. Bradley’s answer was given in perfect compo-
sure; his countenance baffled even such scrutiny as I
fancied I saw in Harry Macon’s glance.

Uncle Archie looked up from his plate directly at the
host. ‘It would seem now, Major Dabney, as if the
action of the Legislature may, after all, go against the
bill we were discussing when you were at Summerfield
last month.”?

The diversion was effectual. The Major launched
vigorously into asseveration that the present legislators
were in covenant with the enemies of national and state
peace and prosperity ; into prophecies “‘ that the time
was near at hand when Virginia would expiate the blun-
ders of her political leaders in blood and tears, sir; that
for his part he was tempted to question whether the ex-
periment of a republic were not a failure, and to believe
that the hope of the country lay in absolute monarchy—
a despotism, sir; a strong government, sir! Confound
the rascals who are steering us on to ruin, sir; driving
the Ship of State on to the breakers of political wreck,
in the interest of sugar planters and far-south cotton
growers who are not worth a sou-marquee per hundred,
bodies and souls—not a Continental blank, sir!”

‘‘ Major, my blessed love !”’ cried Mrs. Dabney—‘ it
makes my blood run cold to hear how near you come to
swear-words in the presence of ladies and children. I
wish you wou). be careful, and you a vestryman—al-
though if the truth were told, not a communicant,
which would make your language a little worse ; and
everybody, even that blessed innocent sitting by you,
must know that ‘ Continental blank’ is only a whipping-
the-old-boy-round-the-stump way of using a term no
gentleman would utter in a lady’s hearing. It really
frightens me, my dear Mr. Read, and as our dear Mr.
Bradley must have observed before this, when the Major
204 JUDITH:

begins to talk politics, he gets so furious, when on most
subjects he has the temper of a lamb and wouldn’t hurt
the feelings of a fly ; and, if the truth is told, all his va-
poring is wasted, for everybody knows that his bark is
certainly worse than his bite.”’

How, in this Liberty Hall, reared by this hearty,
easy-going, over-indulgent couple, Virginia Dabney ac-
quired her perfection of breeding and refined manner,
was a puzzle to older students of human nature than
the thin-faced child who tired herself out in considering
it that night. It was decided by tender-hearted step-
mother and daughter that it would be unkind to send
me off to bed early on this my first evening in a strange
house. I was laid among pillows in a shaded corner of
a sofa, covered with a shawl and left to rest or look on
as I liked.

‘*Tt will not be rude to go to sleep,’’ added my young
guardian, disposing the mufilings about my shoulders
with a loving squeeze and pat.

The prolonged siesta of the afternoon saved me from
this breach of politeness. Iwas wide awake in more
than one sense of the term. That evening was what I
named to myself ‘‘one of my nicest make-believe
times.’’ I had never seen a coal-fire until the generous
pile in the brass-mounted grate introduced me to the
mimic volcanoes I never wearied of watching, from the
moment the tiny bubble on the bituminous lump began
to swell into a hillock until the blazing puff tore open
the crater, that speedily burned into extinction and
black emptiness. I liked the smell from the first. To
this hour itis as dear to me for the sake of those bygone
days and Richmond memories—as infinitely and touch-
ingly suggestive—as the odor of burning peat to the
exiled Scot, who reckons ‘‘ mountain dew’? flavorless
without the smoky tincture contracted in the distillation.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 205

Mrs. Dabney fussily, but with amiable intentions,
swept husband and sons off to her own sitting-room
when we left the table.

‘* Don’t be a goose, Major, darling !’? she said, when he
‘‘reckoned the young gentlemen wouldn’t mind having
a cigar apiece while he smoked his pipe, and the whole
party might as well adjourn to the sitting-room.’’ ‘‘ You
wouldn’t have touched a pipe in Pa’s parlor while you
were courting me. Not that I mean, of course, that
the cases are at all alike’’—hurriedly, and in genuine
concern, as her lord burst out laughing—“ but I would
say, everybody knows young folks have notions about
smoking that they get over when they are an old mar-
ried woman like me, and things are different now from
what they were in our day, and get differenter every
year, seems to me, and curtains do hold stale tobacco-
smoke so, and it’s natural young girls shouldn’t quite
like it, and gentlemen’s coats and hair and whiskers
too, for the matter of that, and indeed, if the truth
were told—Virginia, my angel! tell your friends what
I meant to say. Virginia always understands me,
even when I’m not just certain myself what I started
to tell.”

‘‘Yes, mother, we all know what you mean. You
must not mind father’s teasing,’’ returned the daughter,
consolingly.

To show that she was not disconcerted by the innu-
endo conveyed in her father’s laugh, she crossed the
room to Uncle Archie and began talking to him about
Summerfield people and news. Her seat was a stuffed
ottoman, and she had to lift her face to see him fairly.
The mellowed light from the astral lamp fell on her
profile, chastened her bloom and smiling eyes. She
questioned in a subdued key, and he answered in the
same,
206 JUDITH:

Miss Harry, flitting aimlessly about the room, picked
up a flute from the piano.

‘““Why, this is yours!’ she said in her clear, full
tones to Mr. Bradley.

The abruptness of the appeal, accustomed as he
should have been to her ways, took him by surprise.
He changed color perceptibly—and he seldom blushed.

‘*Ts it ?”? he began, extending his hand for the instru-
ment.

Miss Virginia glanced over her shoulder without other
change of posture, spoke simply and naturally.

‘*Hadn’t you missed it, Mr. Bradley? You left it
on the piano the night we tried those new songs, I
found it after you went away. Iam glad it happens to
be here, for you and he, Harry, will give us some music
worth having.

‘*So you and Maria are reading ‘ Ivanhoe’ together,
Mr. Read! It is my favorite among all of Scott’s
novels,”?

The chat relapsed intoa confidential murmur. Harry
and Mr. Bradley looked over the music and made selec-
tions for future practicing, taking—considerately, as I
thought—a long time to suit themselves.

Nestled in my shadowed corner, my heart light as a
feather, my mind a halcyon sea gleaming with dyes
whose glories never outlive youth and inexperience—I
watched and dreamed.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 207

CHAPTER XIII.

UNCLE ARCHIE passed four days in town, sleeping,
breakfasting and dining at the ‘‘ Columbian,’’ devoting
his forenoons to business, giving afternoons and even-
ings tous. On Sunday morning we went to the First
Presbyterian Church. The Dabneys were Episcopa-
lians. Miss Virginia had proposed that we should
attend the Presbyterian place of worship out of compli-
ment to her guests. She and Uncle Archie, Miss Harry,
Mr. Bradley and myself formed the party. We drove
down the hill in the family carriage, and walked home
at noon, strolling slowly up the irregular ascent in the
sunshine that burnished the pineapple on the spire of
the old church in the valley beneath us into a pyramidal
flame against a sky of exquisite clearness and color.
Miss Virginia held my hand in her right, her left rest-
ing on her attendant’s arm, as was the custcu in polite
society. Once Uncle Archie said gently to her:

‘““T do not feel your weight. Your hand might be a
little gray feather on my sleeve. Do you never accept
more assistance from an escort? Are you so indepen-
dent ?”

‘*You have named the very trait in which I am most
deficient. Iam asad coward, morally and physically.”’

‘‘Ah! that you cannot make me believe. I have
known you too long and too well.”

I worked my fingers in the design of slipping them
out of her clasp, and falling back to walk with Miss
Harry, whose relations with Mr. Bradley were, I was
sure, many removes from tender. The gray glove
tightened upon the restless digits in determination I
208 JUDITH:

could not resist. Flattered, in spite of my disappvint-
ment on Uncle Archie’s account, I wondered if he
might not come to consider her inconveniently fond of
me. With very nebulous notions of the ctiquette of
wooing and being won, I conceived artless stratagems
of leaving the lovers to themselves evolved from the
germinal principle that they had much to say they
would not like others to hear. I mourned secretly at
the paucity of opportunities that fell to them on this,
the last day of Uncle Archie’s stay in Richmond. Mr.
Bradley dined on Sundays with the Dabneys, in whose
hospitable abode he was already received as a privi-
leged family friend. Miss Harry seconded my awkward
maneuvers ably by keeping him in close attendance
upon her, and I took my book and cricket toa front
window, as far as I could get them and myself from
both couples. Uncle Archie did not fret or sulk, as a
more mercurial suitor might have done, at the seeming
impossibility of securing a private interview. His de-
meanor was, to the general eye, absolutely the same,
whether he talked with the mother or the daughter.
Mr. Bradley’s eyes said more gallant things to Harry
Macon in ten minutes than the grave, kind ones bent
upon her friend’s face would or could express inas many
days. Friendly he was always—sometimes brotherly
in continual thoughtfulness of her comfort and remem-
brance of her views and wishes. Loverly he was not
in the sight of others as loverliness is usually exhibited.

In the afternoon we attended service at the Monu-
mental Church. It is now a quaint, shabby little
octagonal temple that, but for the mournful interest
clinging to the tomb in the vestibule, would long ago
have made way for other structures. At the date
of this, my first visit to it, it was less than twenty years
old and the fashionable church of the city. I forgot to
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 209

watch and plan for the lovers in the emotions awakened
by the place. The surpliced clergyman, the stately
service, known to me hitherto only by such maimed
rites as I had witnessed on the Episcopal Sabbath at
Old Singinsville, where perhaps a dozen worshippers at
most were provided with prayer-books, the roll and
peal of the organ—wrought me up to a state of exalta-
tion I naturally mistook for devotion. I sat motionless,
my eyes full of tears, rapt in ecstacy and dream. The
full-voiced responses moved me to a fervor of petition
felt by few others present. The chants brought before
me visions of Solomon’s Temple and priestly proces-
sions led by Asaph, or, it might be, by the Royal Mu-
sician in person, making a joyful noise unto the God of
Jacob with the timbrel, the pleasant harp and the
psaltery.

“Tt helped me to understand the Psalms,’ wrote I
priggishly to Aunt Maria in the letter Uncle Archic
was to take with him on the morrow. ‘‘I suppose it is
a horrid thing to say, but I do wish my great-grand-
father had not gone to hear Samuel Davies and turned
into a Presbyterian.”

On our way out we paused to look at the monument
in the porch, Major Dabney kindly waiting for me while
I read the names lettered on the four sides, and telling
me many particulars of the catastrophe that led to the
erection of the church. He had been himself present
at the burning of the theatre, and, pleased by the eager
interest excited by his mention of this fact, took me into
the yard surrounding the building to describe the play-
house, how the fire originated, and the rapid progress
of the tragedy. He showed me where stood Gilbert
Hunt, the stalwart negro blacksmith, still living in
Richmond, who caught twenty men and women as they
leaped or fell from the windows, and, as we walked up
210 JUDITH :

the street, entered into a detailed narration of the
event, the particulars of which were indelibly stamped
on my mind.

He was at the theatre on the night of December 26,
1811, with his first wife, Miss Virginia’s mother.

“We were with a party of friends in the lower tier of
boxes,’’? he said. ‘‘ When the alarm was raised I said
to my wife, ‘Keep perfectly still and obey my direc-
tions!’ I then jumped over the front of the box into
the pit, held up my arms and told her to come to me.
She was light and agile, and obeyed without a second’s
hesitation. The other ladies followed, and I hurried
them out before the passage and stairs were choked by
the crowd. My friend, Honorable Abraham Venable, a
distinguished citizen, and the president of the Bank of
Virginia, was in the box next to mine. As I leaped
into the pit I heard him say, ‘ Not a person shall stir
from this box until I give the word !’ He supposed that
the panic would subside in season to allow an orderly
escape. Every one of his party perished. My dear
young friend, Lieutenant Gibbon—a noble fellow !—tried
to carry out in his arms poor Sally Conyers, to whom
he was engaged. She fainted at the first alarm. Both
were lost.’’

He stopped, steadied himself upon the right leg,
brought the heel of the advanced left foot back with a
flourish, to fit into the hollow of the right, and swept,
with hat in hand, a profound bow to a lady just cross-
ing the street in front of us.

“‘Good afternoon, madam! I hope I have the pleas-
ure of seeing you quite well! My dear ’’—to me when
she was beyond earshot—‘‘ she was there that night!
You observe that she limps slightly? She fractured
her leg in jumping from a window, Mr. Marshall, from
Wythe County—an excellent gentlenran—broke his neck
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 211

in the leap from the same window a moment afterward.
Poor Robert Greenhow was thrown down the stairs,
over the heads of the crowd struggling to escape, hold-
ing his little boy in his arms. Both escaped with their
lives, but Mrs. Greenhow was among the victims. Do you
see that house over there ?” designating a frame dwell-
ing on a parallel street. ‘‘ Early next morning—very
early, for nobody in Richmond slept that night, and I
had been back and forth to the theatre for hours—I was
passing that house and saw on the porch Mrs. Green,
the actress who had played ‘The Bleeding Nun’ the
night before. She was still in the white dress, streaked
with red paint, in which she had played her part; her
hair was streaming down her back, and she was wring-
ing her hands and shrieking out the name of her daugh-
ter—‘ pretty Nancy Green,’ they called her, poor child!
—who had been burned alive in the theatre. That was
real tragedy! I pray Heaven I may never look upon
the like again! A cousin of my wife tied on her cloax
in a hurry that evening, on being told that her escort
was waiting for her, and pulled the cherry ribbon-
strings into a hard knot. She was fretted, and jerked
at them impatiently, only to tie them more tightly. At
the theatre she made another effort to undo the knot,
then tried to break the strings. They were new and
strong, and sewed on securely, and, in a very bad
humor, she let them alone. When she was dragged
through the crowd into the street, more dead than alive,
all her clothing had been torn from her in the struggle
excepting this cloak, still tied about her neck, and her
shoes, which were laced about her ankles.”’

“¢ Theatres must be very wicked places !”’ I ventured,
shudderingly. ‘‘I should be afraid ever to go into one.
I suppose this fire was sent as a judgment to teach
people not to attend plays.”
212 JUDITH:

The veteran’s eyes twinkled shrewdly.

‘‘Churches burn down sometimes,’’ he said. ‘‘ And
dwelling-houses oftener than churches. Solomon’s
Temple was burned two or three times, and at last
the foundations were sowed with salt. I’ve long since
given up trying to interpret the judgments of Divine
Providence. Richmond will never know a sadder week
than that which followed on the heels of our Christmas
twenty years ago. My dear wife could never see a play-
billagain without horror. I haven’t the same feeling
exactly, but I am glad a church was built on the site of
that theatre.”

We walked on silently for a square or two, the thump
of his stout cane on the brick sidewalk the loudest sound
in the Sabbatical stillness. From the river in which the
fair city bathes her feet arose a ceaseless, languorous
murmur—the wash of the rapids over hidden rocks and
past greening islets. The delicious weather of the past
week had recalled blue-birds and robins to the spacious
gardens that were the pride of affluent citizens, and en-
couraged a few impatient spring flowers to peep out of
the black mould in sunny borders. I have known no
peacefuller town-Sabbaths than those of the Richmond
of by-gone days. It was more like the leisurely calm
of a country village of our time, which progress has for-
gotten to visit for a hundred years or so—such as Deer-
fieid and Old Hadley—than the bustling liveliness of a
capital that now numbers five times as many inhabi-
tants as then made it the commercial emporium of the
Old Dominion. Everybody knew everybody else, at
least by sight. Acquaintances stopped on Main Street
on week-days to exchange elaborate compliments. On
Sundays they turned to saunter squares out of their
way for the sake of ten minutes’ neighborly converse.

Major Dabney shook hands with dozens of people in
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 213

our walk homeward, and presented all to ‘‘My young
friend, Miss Judith Trueheart.’? To some he added:
‘*Granddaughter of Sterling Read, of Summerfield.
You knew her grandparents.’? To others: ‘The
daughter of our old friend, Tom Trueheart, of Bellair,
‘You must remember Tom ?”

Nearly all thus addressed did know my grandparents,
or were happy to meet Tom Trueheart’s daughter. Two
desired to be remembered to my mother, and four re-
marked on my resemblance to my Huguenot ancestors.
One rubicund citizen was accosted in still different
fashion.

““Gwathmey! I want you to take a particularly good
look at this young lady. You were dying with love for
her mother once. It is a pity you are getting too bald
and fat to wait for her daughter !”’

The Major rolled through his world like a social solar
orb, infusing geniality and good cheer into all absorbent
natures. He had inherited a handsome patrimony, and
each of his wives had brought him a comfortable for-
tune. Like four-fifths of contemporary gentlemen, he
had studied law, but had given up the pretense of prac-
tice before he was forty. He was a “ good liver,’”’ with-
out the slightest tendency to dissipation, and found
sufficient occupation for mind and body in reading Eng-
lish and American journals, looking after the invest-
ments of his capital, in the society of a chosen body of
friends of his own stamp, and in making wife and chil-
dren happy. Mrs. Boffin’s ‘* Lor’! let’s be comfort-
able !?? should have been lettered on the coat-of-arms
that hung over the mantel in the Major’s “study.”
The fine irony of the name was appreciated by the
visitor at the first glance at the den in the rear of the
family sitting-room. It wasa study that reeked with
tobacco-smoke, was adorned with prints of famous
214 JUDITH:

race-horses and hounds, and boasted of no literature
beyond bulky files of newspapers piled on tables and in
corners, and ‘‘ Roderick Random,’’ ‘‘Tom Jones,”
‘Peregrine Pickle’? and ‘Tristram Shandy,” put up
ona very high shelf over the door to be ‘‘out of the
children’s way.”’

In political faith the Major was ardent and pugna-
cious, granted (for the sake of argument) that ‘Tom ”’
Ritchie, the Nestor of the Enquirer, ‘‘ was a gentleman,
sir—no question of it, if a Democrat can be a gentle-
man—of which, the Lord forgive me! I have serious
doubts sometimes, sir, ’pon my word I have; but the
blood of souls will be found in his skirts, as upon other
leaders of that most dangerous and d-d-diabolical party,
sir !”? and served his conscience and country on election
day by riding hard between sunrise and sundown to
plump his vote for the Whig candidates at the polls of
four separate counties, in which he held real estate for
that purpose and that alone. Ten men voted upon as
many slices of his plantation in Hanover, and he was a
freeholder in Chesterfield, Goochland and Powhatan,
In the last-named county the doughty partisan had
more than once or twice saved the day for the Whigs by
driving in to the Court House, less than an hour before
sundown, at the head of a cortége of twenty or thirty
other patriots from the city, all land-owners in the dis-
puted district, and therefore entitled to cast ballots for
the local candidate. Voting was lively work under the
old régime of ‘free, white, twenty-one, and a land-
holder to the amount of at least twenty-five dollars.”’

For religion the Major entertained a profound re-
spect, for the Church the affectionate preference of a
son baptized but never confirmed in her communion.
He pitied honest Dissenters, meting out to them the
same measure of Christian toleration he bestowed upon
A UHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 215

the hapless victims of circumstance who were born out-
side of Virginia. His reverence for womanhood was
sincere and openly expressed. Toward the women of
his household his demeanor was chivalrous, his observ-
ance of the punctilios of courtesy and deference as
exact as was consistent with his jolly heartiness of man-
ner. I—the eleven-year-old pet of his daughter—was
‘Miss Judith ”? to him always. In the third week of
my residence under his roof he ordered his eldest son
from the breakfast-table for chancing to omit the cere-
monious prefix from my name. His tastes were not in-
tellectual, but he was not a fool, and he must have
known that his wife was, yet. he was kindly-affectioned
toward her, and stiffened the limp wand of her au-
thority over those boisterous spirits, Wickham and
Archer, by such appliances as a stout English oath or
two, administered upon occasion to the former, and an
orthodox horsewhipping to the younger.

What he and his amiable wife thought of the behav-
ior of the elder of the lads in walking from The Monu-
mental with his sister and Uncle Archie I had no means
of knowing. Wickham boldly, and to his mother’s dis-
may, averred his intention of settling on the Hanover
plantation as soon as he should be permitted to cast
aside books and tutors. He had heard muel said in
praise of Mr. Read’s practical husbandry, and talked
farm with him industriously all the way up town, some-
what, I suspect, to the scandal of Summerfield notions
of Sabbath-day conversation. We found them still at
it when we entered the parlor, or, to state the case more
accurately, the youth loud in exposition of certain agri-
cultural theories he had formulated through much dili-
gentstudy of The Country Gentleman. Uncle Archie
hearkened with outward good-hunior, the patient show
of interest that had not deserted him, while cach minute
216 JUDITH:

of the walk thus consumed had been a pearl dropped
from the fast-thinning string to be left empty with the
‘*Good-by ’’ spoken that night.

I was heartily indignant. Not more with the thought-
less boy than with Mr. Bradley, whose pupil he was,
and who might have called him off upon one pretext or
another. Knowing his friend as he did, and more than
suspecting his secret, as he must, with the fine percep-
tions that were ever on the alert, his engrossment at this
juncture in the badinage he was carrying on with Miss
Harry was inexcusably selfish.

‘*Take Miss Judith’s cloak and bonnet up stairs,
Wickham, my son!’’ ordered the Major. ‘‘Come to
the fire, my dear young lady. It is turning deucedly
cold, Mr. Read. You will have a disagreeable ride to-
morrow. Better stay a day or two longer. <A frosty
snap can’t last long at this season, if the old folks do
say:

: ‘«¢ As the days begin to lengthen

Then the cold begins to strengthen.’ ”’

While Uncle Archie explained why he must decline
the invitation, I crept up to him and laid my head upon
his shoulder. He drew me silently to his knee, kept his
arm about me, while the others gathered around the
fire and the talk became general. Once, in the dull red
obscurity of blending twilight and fire-glow, he pressed
his lips upon my hair, and I clung more closely to him,
but neither of us spoke to the other. What need was
there of speech ? He was always sure on which side
my intensest sympathies were to be found; knew that
one heart besides his was aching under thoughts of the
approaching parting. I think—I hope it was some poor
comfort to him to feel that he left so stanch an ally near
her whom he would woo, although what poor influence
I had must be exerted indirectly.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 217

Our supper was more than usually profuse, in honor
of the day and guests. Mrs. Dabney expressed her
pleasure in the present enjoyment of dear Mr. Read’s
company in smothered chicken, smoking hot and
savory ; her grief in the prospect of his departure in
sponge-cake and cream-whips, tinct with peach-kernels ;
dropped extra lumps of sugar into his coffee, and a pen-
sive trickle of regrets into his ears while he ate and
drank. There was a deal of laughing and talking among
the others, in which I was gratified to see that Miss Vir-
ginia bore a minor part. The repast over, we adjourned
to the parlor, and had sacred music for an hour, just as
in what I already thought of, as the ‘‘ dear old times,”’
when three of the quartette sat on the porch-steps and
sang, the summer moonlight penciling silhouettes of
sweetbrier and honeysuckle-vines on floor and steps—
the floor and steps Uncle Archie’s feet would press to-
morrow night, while his heart would be here !

Did they remember those al fresco concerts ? and re-
membering, regret ? Did Mr. Bradley, standing at the
end of the mantel, marking time with a white fore-
finger? Or Miss Virginia, supplying a soft second,
sometimes inaudible beneath the volume of Harry Ma-
con’s soprano? Did Uncle Archie, while his eyes never
strayed from the music-book to the face of her who held
it with him ?

The piano was never opencd on Sunday. ‘It did not
look well,’’ thought Mrs. Dabney. ‘“‘ People passing by
might think we were playing worldly music—for enjoy-
ment, you know.”? The young people sang without
accompaniment hymn after hymn, coming at length to
the fugue they had practiced together that Thursday
night in August, when Mammy and I listened in the
upper chamber :

“QO send Thy light to guide my feet.’”’
218 JUDITH:

“We need Maria’s voice in that,’? remarked Miss
Virginia when it was finished. ‘‘ You must tell her,
Mr. Read, that we sang it and more than wished for
her.”

“Tt always reminds me of her,’’ said Mr. Bradley,
turning the leaves. ‘‘ But you took the part very well.”’

‘*Maria sings it. I go through with it!’ was the
answer. ‘‘I think that is just the difference between
us in many things. She would live and elevate and en-
joy a poor life. I just drift and dream.”’

Both men looked at her. One spoke, so low that the
words were lost to the other two in Miss Harry’s excla-
ration ever a tune she ‘‘ had been wanting to hear for
ages,’’ and just then discovered in the collection before
her. She hummed a few bars to make sure that she
identified it.

‘*Tt pains me when you slander yourself,’? was what
Uncle Archie said, under his breath.

The girl shook her head. ‘‘I meanit! If you knew
me, you would acknowledge the truth of what I say.”’

“Don’t I know you?”

His smile that, slight as it was, held playful tender-
ness and triumph, told how he answered the question
to himself.

Another negative gesture and a deeper shadowing of
the eyes raised in sac fearlessness to his.

‘“What do you say to *Old Denmark ?’”’ (*‘ old” even
then !) cried Mr. Bradley, in sudden animation. ‘“ And
here comes Major Dabney, just in time! We are wait-
ing for you, Major? Are you all ready ?” giving key
and chord in his pleasant tenor voice.

The Major spat into the fire, scraped his throat with
a lusty “‘ Ahem 1” thrust both hands into his pockets,
cast the weight of his pursy body well upon his heels,
and prepared to take Denmark. As he sang he tilted
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 219

back and forth, raising heels and toes alternately, enjoy-
ing his own performance with all his might.

‘‘Now, ‘Lenox!’”? he said, while the ‘sounding
praise ’’ yet reverberated in the upper halls, and the
sweet jingle of the pendants of the candelabra was not
quite stilled.

His stentorian tones led off:

““¢ Ye tribes of Adam join
With Heaven and earth and seas,
And offer notes divine
To your Creator’s praise.’ ”’

Then came the burst in which his soul—and mine—
delighted :

“¢Ye holy throng of angels bright
In worlds of light
Begin the song !’”’

How they—our forbears—loved those pealing fugues,
with-their billowy rush and chase, continued with in-
creasing energy until to the uninitiated it seemed in-
evitable that the tune must be beaten to death by the
quickly succeeding surges—and the “‘ diapason closing
full? upon the long open note where counter and tenor
met together, base and treble kissed each other!

““Ah!? sighed the Major sentimentally, but in no
wise spent by his efforts, ‘‘ You should have heard your
aunt, Mrs. Waddell, then Miss Betsey Preston, sing
those tunes in her youth, Mr. Read! I could have
listened forever! And ‘Barbara Allen’s Cruelty’ and
‘A Rose-Tree in Full Bearing’ and ‘The Galley
Slave’s Lament,’ or

“¢ Sweet bird that shun’st the noise of folly
Most musical, most melancholy !’
They used to say of your mother and her that ‘ their
black eyes slew their thousands, their angel voices their
ten thousands.’ Young men could pay compliments in
220 JUDITH:

those times! They had tongues in their heads and
knew how to use them. When one employs such lJan-
guage nowadays, he is ridiculed as romantic. I don’t
know what we are coming to, in courtship, religion or
politics !””

The jeremiade was cut short by the entrance of two
young men, who called to invite the ladies to accom-
pany them to Trinity Church (Methodist) where a pow-
erful revival was in progress. Upon reception of civil
declinatures of their offer, they decided to remain and
spend the evening with the fair ones they could not al-
lure abroad.

At half-past ten the company broke up. I had sat in
a corner with my book, too jealous for my uncle’s hap-
piness to be drowsy, too intent upon watching for the
possible opportunity of saying a few words aside to her
he loved that might yet be vouchsafed to him by fate, to
care to notice one of the new-comers. I did observe
the other, because he haunted the vicinity of Miss Vir-
ginia, in overt defiance of conventional rule and criti-
cism. He was in love with her, and did no! care who
knew it, I concluded, disgustedly. Such a cackling fop
he was, with his mirthless simper and ruffled shirt-front
and the monstrous watch scal pendent from his fob!
His coat was of the latest fgshionable tint, ‘‘ invisible
green.’’? The Dabneys’ butier, Esopus, himself a dandy,
called it ‘‘ bilibous green.’’ Our beau’s waistcoat was
of black velvet, as were the collar and cuffs of the coat.
His pantaloons were gray, corded at the seams with
black. His shirt-collar and wristbands and embroidered
satin stock were miracles of stiffness and gloss. This
was the being who stole two hours—most dear, because
the last—of Miss Virginia’s society from the man who
listened to Mrs. Dabney when she was in the room, and
when she had gone talked quietly on one side of the
 

 

 

 

“HE TWO GIRLS, WRAPPED IN BEDROOM GOWNS, SAT OVER
THE FIRE IN COZY CONVEKSE,’’—p, 221.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 221

hearth with Mr. Bradley while Miss Harry was capti-
vating the stranger gallant, at whom I did not cast a
second glance. Nor did I catch his name. Major Dab-
ney had greeted his companion as “‘ Ned Allen.”’

Uncle Archie made the motion of departure, Mr.
Bradley rising at the same time, and saying that he
would walk down town with him. The others could not
stay behind after this decided measure, but they stood
about exasperatingly, voluble with banter and compli-
ment while Uncle Archie made his adieux.

‘“Give my love—my dearest love—to Maria, and say
that I shall write as usual, every fortnight,’ said Miss
Virginia, her hand resting in his a little—just a very
little longer than Harry Macon’s had done. ‘And you
may all be satisfied that we will do our best to make
Judith strong and rosy again.”

‘* And to spoil her ?’’ he asked smilingly.

She had one of my hands in hers. He took the other
as he spoke, and bent down to kiss me. I clasped both
behind his neck in an unvoiced paroxysm of love and
regret. He drew me into the hall to whisper comfort.

“Be brave, dear! You will be very happy here. I
shall come for you when youare ready to go home. You
and I know how glad I shall be of an excuse to pay an-
other visit soon.”’

He comprehended that this renewed token of his be-
lief in my sense and discretion would extract much of
the bitterness from the parting. Miss Virginia praised
my fortitude while she helped me undress, and tucked
me upin bed. Then she lay down by me, my fingers
folded in hers, until I sank into a sweet sleep.

This must have lasted an hour or more when Lawoke,
thirsty—a natural sequence of my supper. The two
girls, wrapped in bedroom gowns, sat over the fire in
cozy converse.
222 JUDITH:

“Indecd—indecd, you are mistaken, Harry !”’ were
the first words I heard. ‘It would break my heart to
believe it. He isn’t a marrying man. He has more
family cares than most men of double his age. I didn’t
understand this, for a while ; I fancied that he liked me,
and I certainly liked him—and—I’m ashamed to tell it
even to you—one day I tried to make him speak out! I
forced him to talk of himself, and showed how much
interested I was in him and his plans. My cheeks burn
this minute when I recollect it. My dear! he shied off!
There is no other word for it. Then came all the scares
and excitements of last summer, and I think they helped
cure me—’’

“Miss Virginia!” said I, sitting up, in a courageous
exercise of self-denial, for I was tingling with curiosity.
“Will you please give me a drink of water ?”

‘“‘Poes our talking disturb you ?”’ she inquired, as I
drained the tumbler.

““No, ma’am, but I can hear what you say when I am
awake.”

“Little truth-teller!’? She laughed and kissed my
forehead. ‘You will not be much the wiser for what
you hear.’’

She believed what she said. That she was partly
right, the event proved.

‘* What were we speaking of ?”’ she said, returning to
her seat by the fire.

‘“‘Of Edward Dunallan,”’ answered Miss Harry, and
both laughed.

A baby could have seen through a trick so flimsy as
the substitution of the novelist’s hero’s name for one so
much like it! But they may not have known that I
had heard Major Dabncy’s address to the aggressively-
visible guest in the invisible-green coat.

“Edward Dunallan is a nobleman,’’ continued Miss
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 223

Virginia. ‘Too good, too nearly perfect for such a
scrap-bag of foibles and faultsasIam. I could never
live up to his standard, even if he wanted me to do
it. Iwill not believe that he does, or ever did. He
must not—novw !””

‘‘'Virginia Dabney !’? Harry’s handsome face spoke
volumes of suspicious inquiry,

The other hid hers in her hands for an instant, then
confronted her friend, laughing, blushing and defen-
sive.

‘¢ Even those terrible eyes cannot draw out a confes-
sion when there is nothing to tell! I did fancy myself
—with a girl’s fancy—in love with Mr. Dunallan a hun-
dred years ago. I am clean out of love with him now.
That is the whole story.’’

“** When a stronger than he cometh he taketh from
him all the armor wherein he trusted, and divideth the
spoils,’ ”’ said Harry seriously. ‘‘ In this case it is the
weak who has overcome the strong. If ever man was
worth wajting for, this one is. And you are not blind
nor deaf nor silly. I lose patience with your affectation
of disbelief in his devction to you.”’

‘Perhaps you are in his confidence ?”’

As she put the question she lay back in her arm-chair,
linked her fingers behind her head, and lifted one tiny
foot to the grate. Her hair was unbound, and shawled
her as she sat.

“«¢ Fer hair, shedding sparkles from all its bright rings,

Fell over her white arm to make the gold strings,’ ”’
quoted Harry, eyeing her in affectionate admiration.
“Who could help loving you, beautiful witch! No!
Mr. Dunallan has never intimated to me the nature of
his feeling for you. His sister—the married one—let
fall a few words once that would have opened my eyes
had they been shut. You know she is my particular
224 JUDITH:

friend. I suspect she had match-making designs upon
us at one time—”’

“« That would settle the matter beautifully !’’ eagerly.
** Now—Harry !””

‘Don’t be imbecile, Virginia Dabney! You know
we wouldn’t marry one another were we the first—or
the last—man and woman in the world!”

The tart retort checked the dialogue. Virginia leaned
against the brown cushions of her chair, the fair face
enrayed by the golden curls. If she had met Disap-
pointment at one turn in her walk through the well-
kept garden of her life, he had withdrawn his shadow
before the crystal wells of her eyes were clouded. The
unrestrained ease of attitude, the tranquil dreaminess
of mood belonged to a woman heart-whole and fancy-
free. That she had never really suffered was plain.
That she could ever endure and live and smile and be fair
through the wrestle with love unrepaid, desertion, un-
kindness, seemed absurd.

Harry Macon sat upright, her locked hands lying on
her lap, staring straight into the grate, a vivid picture
in her crimson wrapper, her hair tumbling about her
shoulders, but put quite away from her face.

‘“*T have seen the man I am to marry—twice—within
the last week !’’ she uttered abruptly, by-and-by.

“Who is he ?”? Her friend was aroused and intent.

‘*T do not know yet. I shall soon—I think !””

‘* Harriet Byron Macon ! are you crazy—or trying to
quiz me? Where did you meet him ?”’

‘‘At the corner of a street. I have forgotten the
name of it. In front of a large brick house just there
with a garden at one side. A two-story house, an ob-
long octagon in shape—an odd-looking affair, with three
arches opening into a porch inclosed on three sides, and
overhung with vines. The sun was shining on the red
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 225

walls and white porch, and there were violets in bloom
somewhere near, for I smelled them. He came around
the corner and met me face to face, looked into my eyes,
and I knew him at once. He lifted his hat and was
gone. The next time we met in the same place. But
he spoke to me very softly. It was like the music we
hear in our sleep sometimes. He said, ‘ Beloved as
thou art!’ Just those words. I can hear them now.”

Virginia was gazing at her in utter bewilderment.

“‘Ts this fiction or fact ?”’? she queried between petu-
lance and amusement.

‘* A dream, my dear—none the less a fact. The surest
sort of a fact—that which people call ‘ prophecy ’—and
twice given. Look in your Bible there for Genesis xli:
32.”

‘*T am not good—I shall never be wise,”’ she went on
while the other looked for the passage, ‘‘ but I believe
in the Bible. All of the Macons believe in dreams.
Some of us have the gift of second-sight.”’

A fair face, grave to earnestness, looked from the
open Bible to the sceress,

‘« What was he like ?”

‘‘ Like Saul for height and strength, like Apollo for
beauty, and I fell at his feet and worshipped him !””
226 JUDITH:

CHAPTER XIV.

Miss VIRGINIA was to have gone with us that morn-
ing. I often speculate as to what change might have
been wrought in one life had the original plan been
carried out. For an important purchase was the order
of the day, even party dresses for the two young ladies
I was to make the round of certain stores with them,
and we had our bonnets on when country friends called
on Mrs. Dabney and her daughter.

The latter was disappointed, but rallied swiftly to
propose the next best thing.

“This afternoon will do as well for ourshopping. But
the weather is too beautiful for you to stay in the house.
Go out for a walk. Judith has never been to Gamble’s
Hill. The view will be fine to-day, the air is so clear.”’

To Gamble’s Hill we accordingly bent our steps.
There was then but one house upon the summit, the
fainily seat that gave the eminence the name it bears.
The ‘‘ white house ”’ familiar to the readers of ‘‘ Wirt’s
Life and Letters ”’ still looks down upon city and river,
but it is gray with years and mournful of mien, The
beholder whose thoughts are with the past glories of
Richmond need not strain his imagination in order to
detect a survey of sad amaze in window-brows, disdain-
ful calm in the broad stretch of the roof as the shadows
of smart new buildings press nearer and nearer the
massive walls. While we strolled to and fro on the turf,
enjoying sunshine, breeze and landscape, Miss Harry
told me the history of William Wirt’s courtship. How
Miss Gamble, whose father owned the house before us,
while she would not marry a drunkard, yet loved him
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 227

for what he had been and could be, and was faithful to
that memory and possibility. How, as he lay one day
in a tipsy stupor by the roadside, she chanced to walk
that way, and covered the flushed face with a delicate
cambric handkerchief marked with her name. When
he awoke, some children told him that ‘‘a beautiful
lady ”? had been his Good Samaritan. In an agony of
shame, love and gratitude, the sobered man vowed to
himself and to Heaven to shake off the debasing vice,
and kept his word.

I give the anccdote on the authority of those who
claimed to know whereof they spoke. At the same
time I admit that it may possibly come under the cen-
sure pronounced by Wirt’s biographer upon ‘‘ coarse
and disgusting charges of vulgar excess, which I ain per-
suaded,’’ the writer affirms, ‘‘are utterly groundless.”’

Kennedy’s description of his hero’s foible is melliflu-
ous rhetoric:

‘We may not wonder that, in the symposia of those
days, the graver maxims of caution were forgotten, and
that the enemy of human happiness, always lying at
lurch to make prey of the young, should sometimes
steal upon his guard and make his virtue prisoner. ”’

‘*T don’t see how she could love a drunkard,’’ was
my comment upon Miss Harry’s story.

‘* He loved her, Sweetbrier! He was tender and true
to her. Falsehood and bitter words are among the
things that kill love at the root.”

I looked up into her face, comprehending the words,
but hardly the tone.

“Nobody could be false or unkind to you, Miss
Harry!”

‘*Thank you, dear,” as simply as I had uttered the
naive compliment. ‘‘ Unkindness would be hard for me
to bear. I have been petted all my life.”
228 JUDITH:

I remember that we walked down the hill rather
soberly, along what is now Fourth Street, through
a sparsely-built region. A few manor-houses, envi-
roned by gardens, were the dwellings of well-known
citizens, and the streets followed the fences and un-
dulations of these grounds in a perfectly accommo-
dating and feudal spirit. We turned down at Main
Street, where buildings were hardly more frequent,
although the lower end of the street was the busiest
part of the town. Before one house was an organ-
grinder with a monkey. I squeezed Miss Harry’s
hand hard.

‘*You would like to stop and listen, wouldn’t you ?”
said she, kindly. ‘‘So should I.”

We waited on the sidewalk opposite while the musi-
cian ground out ‘‘ Home, Sweet Home” and sang ‘‘ Buy
a Broom ”’ to an organ accompaniment, his wife beat-
ing a tambourine. My eyes filled with tears while [ lis-
tened. Neither the Freybourg organ nor the sweetest
of Swedish songsters brought such pure, sweet drops to
my lids in years when I knew—more or less ?

Miss Harry gave me a silver sixpence to put in the
hat the monkey passed around, and as I ran across the
street to drop it in, followed me with the slow, imperial
grace that belonged to her gait.

The Savoyard took off his cap at her approach 3 his
swarthy, pinched-featured wife courtesied. The little
crowd of urchins, white and black, fell away abashed.

‘‘T t’ank you, my ladee !”’ said the man, in humblest
respect.

‘You are welcome !”’

She bowed in recognition of the civility. The Macons
were too high-bred for superciliousness. Uncle Archie
spoke truly in telling her that she would not maltreat
a muddy dog, and this man was even farther removed
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 229

from her estate than one of her father’s pointers or fox-
hounds.

She tarried with me while he played a merry tune to
exhibit the miniature dancers in the upper front of the
instrument. The modern hand-organ lacks these orna-
ments, and the rising generation is egregiously de-
frauded in consequence,

“‘Thank you!’ said Miss Harry, and I echoed the
acknowledgment. We walked on, my mind full of the
music, my imagination stimulated by the sight of the
lively monkey.

‘‘T wish I could see a great many wild animals,” I
ejaculated. ‘‘ Bears, lions, elephants—such as we read
of.”

‘‘Wickham told me last night that a menagerie and
circus will be here this week,’’ rejoined my companion.
‘Perhaps we may go.”’

“Miss Harry !’’ in a gasp of rapturous surprise.

She laughed, shaking the hand she held back and
forth.

‘“ What a nervous elf you are! Get strong fast, and
you shall see bears, monkeys and tigers to your heart’s
content. I smell violets—don’t you ?”’

At this instant some one came so suddenly around the
corner of Fifth Street, which we had just reached, as to
brush against me and throw me down. I was not hurt,
for Miss Harry did rot let go my hand. The cause of
the mishap laid hold of me on the other side, and the
two had me on my feet before I quite grasped the fact
of my overthrow.

““T beg a thousand pardons!” said a deep, rich voice
regretfully. ‘‘I hope you are not hurt !”’

“Not at all, thank you,’’stammered I, as Miss Harry
did not speak.

She behaved queerly, leaning against the brick wall
230 JUDITH:

behind her, very pale and staring incredulously at the
stranger. He could not help observing her manner.
He uncovered his head, bowed very low and gracefully.

“Forgive my awkwardness, madam! I am afraid
that I alarmed you very much. Can I do anything for
you? You seem faint.”

Faintness never called up such superb coloring as
mantled her face at this address. Her smile was bril-
liant and ineffably sweet; her voice gentle ; her eyes
seemed unable to leave his.

“IT was startled--nothing more! I thank you for
picking up my little friend. You were not at all to
blame. Good morning !”

She bent her head in passing onward. He bowed
again. It was the exchange of salutations between a
young duchess and a prince of the blood. He walked
down Main Street. We turned up Fifth, along which
he had come.

‘Judith !”? said Miss Harry, in changed accents. ‘‘I
ama little faint! I must sit down!”

She sank upon the lowest step of the corner house.

‘*Let me ring the bell and call somebody !”’ begged I,
affrighted.

‘No! no! Ishall be better directly !”’

I stood by her, put my arm about her head that she
might rest against my breast. She trembled violently,
her hands clasped one another spasmodically.

There was a vacant lot opposite, and while I waited
for her to recover, I read mechanically, yet not wholly
without interest, the advertisement of

“CIRCUS AND MENAGERIE,
UNDER THE IMMEDIATE SUPERVISION OF
MR. VAN AMBURG,

THE MOST RENOWNED

BEAST TAMER IN THE WORLD!”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 231

ona glaring yellow placard six feet square. Beneath
the announcement were lions in cages with men’s heads
in their mouths, and a woman standing on one foot on
the back of a careering saddleless horse; and in im-
mense red, white and blue letters, the names of

‘‘MADEMOISELLE CAROLINE PICARD
AND
MR. FREDERIC TREVELYAN,
AND
UNEXAMPLED FEATS OF LEAPING AND RIDING !!1’?

I was perusing it from top to bottom for the third
time when Miss Harry straightened herself up and spoke
quite naturally.

‘Tt was very foolish in me to be shocked by such a
little thing. But I was utterly unprepared— Iam en-
tirely well again. Iam glad nobody came by or saw us
from the windows.”’

In rising she turned to look at the house. She had
been sitting on the steps of a sort of vestibule. In front
were three brick arches ; at the back of this was the
front door, and on each side of it a window. The front-
age of the building was three-sided, a long one taking
in the vestibule, two shorter slanting back at obtuse
angles to join the ends of the house, making in all an
eight-sided edifice. A brick wall inclosed spacious
grounds. Tall magnolias arose above the coping, ivies
fell in loops and streamers on the street side, and vines
clambered over the doorway. Snow-drops were sprout-
ing in the narrow strip of front yard, and the sun-
warmed air held the subtle, pervasive scent of early
violets.

I grew dizzy under an unaccountable sense of famili-
arity with it all. Yet where had I seen it, unless in
my dreams? A light pierced the whirling fogs. This
was the place Miss Harry—not I—had seen in the
2832 JUDITH :

vision she related a fortnight ago—the spot where she
was to meet her ‘‘fate ’’—him of whom she had said,
‘Like Saul for height and strength—like Apollo for
beauty |”

She took my cold hand in hers.

‘*Your wits were shaken by the fall, I am afraid, dear
child! How white you are! Does your head ache ?”

‘““No, ma’am!’? I managed to say. ‘‘ But I feel
strange—somehow !”’ ;

With the inexplicable reticence of childhood, I ap-
proached the truth no more nearly than this. Perhaps
she did not know that I had overheard the dream. Or
she might not have recalled it herself. Or, and more
probably, she did not choose to have me allude to it.
The part of genuine politeness in such a case was, I
had been instructed to believe, to follow her lead. For
all that, my head continued to spin, my whole body to
feelas ‘‘ strange ”’ as if I had drained a glass of cham-
pagne. My ankles twisted as I trod pavements that
sank and swelled under my feet. We hardly spoke
during the rest of our walk. At Major Dabney’s gate
my conductor paused, her hand on the latch.

“‘T have tired you out, Sweetbrier! Iam a selfish
wretch !”’

‘* Miss Harry Macon! how can you say such a thing !”’
cried I, excited and shrill.

‘* Hush-sh-sh !’’ whispered she, agitatedly.

A manly step rang on the sidewalk. I saw a rosy
aurora sweep over her cheeks and forehead, wondrous
light arise in her eyes. Her beautiful head bent in silent
response to the mute salutation she received from the
stranger who had run me down. I had a good look at
him now. He was a model of manly comeliness and
athletic grace, tall, straight, with a Greek profile, liquid
Italian eyes, and a mouth that in its perfect lines and
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 233

haughty curves, reminded one of Byron’s. A half-
smile touched it, and glinted on his eyes as they fell on
me—a look of apology, amusement and kindly congratu-
lation; his swift stride slackened, as if he longed to
stop and speak, but he contented himself with a respect-
ful bow, removing his hat high from a close crop of
dark curls.

Miss Harry stood motionless, her hand on the gate,
looking after him until he turned a distant corner.
Then she drew a deep breath, the nerve-tension relaxed
throughout her frame, but the marvelous luminousness
was still in face and eyes.

‘‘ Judith !?? impressively. ‘‘ Say nothing of what has
happened in the house !”’

‘*T will not !’’ I engaged readily.

Comprehending intuitively that a secret of moment
had accidentally slipped into my hands, I was as much
incfned as was she to confine the knowledge of it to
ourselves. For the rest of the day I scarcely dared look
at her through fear of betraying her confidence by
meaning or embarrassed regards. She was quieter than
usual, and the far-down light in her eyes did not go out.
But she did her shopping, entering with apparent zest
into the selection of the India muslin and satin petti-
coats that were to be the party costume, and at supper
joined in the discussion of the circus plan.

At Miss Virginia’s instigation we called it ‘‘a me-
nagerie’’ in Mrs. Dabney’s presence. The good Epis-
copalian would have been horrified by the mention of
ring and clown, and ground-and-lofty-tumbling, but
saw no earthly harm in allowing her sons, her young
step-daughter and her guests to make up a party under
the escort of the Major and Mr. Bradley, ‘‘to study
natural history.”’

“For that 1s what it is if the truth were told,’’ she
234 JUDITH:

descanted at the meal served the next evening, an hour
earlier than common, that we might get good seats in
the tent. ‘‘ And it must be very improving—very! I
shall expect you boys to give me an accurate descrip-
tion of every wild beast set down in Goldsmith’s ‘ Ani-
mated Nature.’ I shall look through the book to-night
so as to be ready to examine you when you get back.
And, Major, dear, I do hope and beg and pray that you
won’t let them go too near the monkeys! Recollect,
Archer, how the monkey bit Tommy in the fleshy part
of the arm in ‘Sandford and Merton!’ You must take
extra shawls, all of you, and don’t get on a high seat,
for pity’s sake! for you are heavy, Major, and you
know it, and think what it would be to that sweet little
Judith to be on the bench should it give way under
your weight; nor on a low one, for fear the beasts
should get loose and attack the crowd. Isuppose I am
nervous about crowds, but I came within an ace of
going to the theatre, young as I was—vut then I ‘ turned
out ’ at fifteen—the night it was burned, and dear me, if
I had!”

The night was still and bland, and as we set forth
upon our expedition the music of the circus band floated
up the hill. I had never heard a brass band until that
minute, and the lively strains infused themselves like
electricity through my veins. I walked on tip-toe, fell
unconsciously into dancing-steps I had never learned.

The Major laughed jovially.

‘“The music has run down into her heels,” he said,
pointing at me with his cane, as I tripped before him,
between the boys. ‘It’s as natural to dance as to
breathe, whatever Presbyterians may say to the con-
trary, Mr. Bradley.”’

“‘Have I denied 1t, Major? But what of the differ-
ence between going to a menagerie and a circus ?”’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 285

Mr. Bradley had Miss Virginia on his arm, the Major,
Miss Harry. The music, and perhaps an exhilarating
sense of possible unlawfulness in the frolic, made all
hilarious. As we neared the scene of the entertain-
ment, the patter and echo of many other feet heightened
the effect of these stimulants. Van Amburg’s name
gave respectability to what hundreds besides Mrs, Dab-
ney would have reprobated.

‘* After all,’”? cbserved Mr. Bradley, raising his yoice
for the advantage of the juvenile trio, ‘‘ we need not go
into the circus tent at all unless we choose. We are
bound for the menagerie.”

Archer began a protest, nipped at the third word by
his brother’s energetic ‘‘ aside.”

‘Shut up, you silly beggar! He’s only quizzing you.
Wild horses couldn’t keep him out of the big tent, if he
is a picus Presbyterian and in love !”’

In lov? with whom ? I had just time to decide that
some Ritamond syren must have the credit of the
supposed conquest, and to smile disdainful incredulity,
when we came in sight of the encampment. It was on
Council Chamber Hill, then a respectable mound, and
numbered among the Seven ITills on which the city was
built. We climbed the ungraded sides to the main
marquée, snowy white in the moonlight. The entrance
was packed with young and old. Evidently early sup-
pers had been the rule that evening in town, and good
seats were already at a premium. We struggled in with
the rest, and it was unanimously resolved that the in-
spection of the wild-beast cages must be deferred until
after ‘‘ the performances. ”’

‘‘Plenty of time then! plenty of time! and a con-
founded sight more room !”’ panted the Major, lunging
forward in the wake of the crowd. ‘I wouldn’t have
the children miss seeing Van Amburg put his head be-
236 JUDITH :

tween the lion’s jaws for a hundred dollars. All that
sort of thing is in the main tent!”

In which we were presently bestowed, and by rare luck
or management in the best possible position for seeing.

‘‘And being seen!’’ said Miss Harry, running her
eyes from tier to tier.

I suspected whom she hoped to recognize in the mixed
assembly the town had been decimated to produce. In
quick sympathy with the curiosity I imputed to her, I
stared with all my might at every masculine head that
overtopped its neighbors. ‘‘The Prince,’’? as I had
named him in my thoughts, was not to be seen. He
might despise circuses as low and frivolous—or, what if
he had left town? Miss Harry’s composure perplexed
me. There was not a shade of disappointment in her
sunny face, or in the eyes the consciousness of her
happy secret never left, as she withdrew them from
the mass of spectators and began to chat easily with
her party. She sat at one end of the lofty bench nearest
the aisle dividing our section of the amphitheatre from
the next. Miss Virginia sat by her and then came Mr.
Bradley. I was just above and behind Miss Harry,
and in a line with the Major and his boys. The beau-
tiful country girl was the object of much and flattering
attention. Admiring looks were bent upon her from all
sides, and several gentlemen risked the loss of their
seats by walking down or up the steep incline to pay
their respects. Her manner was easy and affable, her
repartee happy and prompt. She seemed intent upon
nothing beyond the amusement of the hour. I did not
understand how firmly the fatalistic superstition that
Time would bring to her her own had rooted itself
among her beliefs. Having seen the Prince, she could
wait. The lapse of days nor months could make him
less hers than she knew him to be.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 237

The performances began with a race of ponies ridden
by monkeys, an absurd scamper that wrought boys up
to ecstatic yells and put their elders in good humor.
Then the clown tumbled into the sawdust arena, to be
bullied by the man with the long whip and to non-plus
him by stale quips and factitious facetiousness, and
Mademoiselle Caroline Picard, in white silk tights and
gauze skirts, less brief than her modern successors are
privileged to assume in like circumstances, flew around
the circle, sitting, standing and leaping through hoops
from the bare back of a milk-white charger that raced
at full speed the while she pirouetted and vaulted.

The ring was cleared, and a cage on wheels drawn by
two gray horses rumbled in. A big head, tawny and
majestic, looked with red eyes between the bars. <A
lioness crouched in one corner. The band played very
softly. We heard the uneasy growlings the captive
emitted in stalking back and forth in the pitifully-short
round. A man walked leisurely into the arena, attired
in a closely-fitiing suit of black velvet. In his hand he
carried a bamboo walking-stick that a touch of the
lion’s paw would have snapped as a straw. He opened
a slide at the back of the cage, slipped in and shut the
grating behind him. The beast growled savagely and
was answered by the lioness. The band glided into the
mournful melody of Moore’s ‘‘ Farewell, farewell to
thee, Araby’s Daughter,”’? as the man fell or his knees
and thrust the top of his head between the distended
jaws dripping with foam. It really entered the dread
cavern, but it emerged very quickly, and the huge
brute, rising on his hind legs, took his human comrade
to his shaggy bosom in a hearty embrace. They tumbled
over and over one another like two kittens at play, the
lioness coming in for her share in the romp. Then the
slide was opencd and shut, and the world-renowned
238 JUDITH:

tamer of beasts was bowing his thanks for the screamed
hurrahs, the stampings and clappings, excited by his
feat and timely escape with his life, and the grumbling
lion was rumbling back into the obscurity of the side-
scenes,

Miss Harry looked around at me.

“Well, pet! are you glad youcame? The best part
of it to me is that youare here. It is all clear, thorough
delight to you. The lion is just from the African forest
and the man in real peril; Mademoiselle Caroline is a
sylph who never heard of red and white paint, and the
clown’s jokes are funny. I wouldn’t take you behind
the scenes for the world.”’

‘*T wouldn’t go!” asserted I, stoutly. ‘‘It is twice
as much fun to believe in everything. People are not
obliged to go behind the scenes, as you call it.”’

‘*'Very true, dear! We will keep on believing—you
and I. Miss Virginia and Mr. Bradley may be infidels
if they like. This is a pretty fair world, taken as a
whole.”’

While she was speaking, the band clashed out, ‘“‘ Over
the Water to Charlie!’ and a magnificent figure ran
fleetly down the slope from the side door into the vacant
ring—a dazzling apparition clad in a white and silver
costume fitting perfectly to the matchless limbs; a crea-
ture beautiful, tall and agile as a young god. After him
rushed a superb coal-black horse. As it flew by he
clutched the mane and sprang to its back, standing
erect upon one foot, and they went like the wind around
the circle.

‘‘Horsé!”? The ringing shout outswelled the ap-
plause of the lookers-on and the blare of the instru-
ments.

A second black racer flashed to his place under the
outstretched foot of the rider; his rein tossed upward
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 239

io his grasp, and the wild flight was not abated by so
much as a single hoof-beat.

“¥ionse!? <A third, dusky and fleet as the others,
joined the coursing pair.

A fourth shout, and a quartette dashed forward and
around on the bound as one animal, held, guided and
animated by the radiant Apollo. It was the sensation
of the night, and with it the crowd lost its senses. Men
arose on the benches and swung their hats and canes,
shouting themselves hoarse ; women beat their gloved
hands excitedly and bent far forward to watch the glit-
tering sprite and his bearers—the tripartite union of
beauty, strength and speed ; the music pealed high and
triumphant to a final boom and crash as the horses sped
out of the ring and back to their stables, leaving their
master flushed, smiling and glorious in the arena, bow-
ing and kissing his hand to the applauding multitude.

Not until that moment did I recognize him. Not
until then did Harry Macon rise, throw up her arms,
totter and fall like one shot in the heart. So unex-
pected was the action that no one near her could have
foreseen it and moved in time to save her. The aisle
between the banks of seats was fearfully precipitous,
and the senseless form went directly down and forward.
Before it touched the earth, the athlete gave a mighty
bound that cleared ring and rope-fence, and caught her
in his arms.
240 JUDITH:

CHAPTER XV.

‘* AND Sweetbrier missed the monkeys!”

Miss Harry had not risen at breakfast-time. I sus-
pect, now, that she kept her bed as much to be out
of the way of Mrs. Dabney’s babblement as because she
really felt jarred and weak. I was now perched beside
her on the bed, and Miss Virginia sat a little way off.

I blushed furiously at her compassionate tone.

“* As if I cared for them or anything else when you
were sick! I could have gone back with Major Dabney
and the boys if I liked !””

‘*Sweetbrier lost her heart to the handsome circus-
rider who saved you from more serious damage than a
few bruises and a general jar of the nerves,’’ observed
Miss Virginia playfully. ‘‘She kept close at his heels
when he carried you out of the tent. Fifty people
offered help, but he would let no one touch you until he
laid you on the grass on the side-hill away from the
crowd. Then he brought water and hartshorn and
brandy and I don’t know what else. I suppose that
kind of people always keep restoratives at hand in case
of accidents. When you came to he was standing a
little way off, shining like a tall white angel in the
moonlight. But when father wanted to thank him for
his services he was nowhere to be seen. Wickham
picked up a strange story about him last night. He
says that Frederic Trevelyan is not his real name, but
that he belongs to a good old English family, and does
all this riding and leaping for amusement, and in order
to see some other side of life than that usually pre-
sented to people of his rank—‘ for a spree’, Wickham
 

 

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“HE WOULD LET NO ONE TOUCH YOU, UNTIL HE HAD LAID
YOU ON THE GRASS.’’— p. 240.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 241

says. Father is going to see him to-day. THe meant to
offer him a reward in money for his presence of mind
and timely aid, but if there is any foundation for this
story, that wouldn’t be proper, I suppose ?”’

“* Certainly not !”’

Miss Harry lay back on her pillows, gazing straight
up at the ceiling. Her voice had a hollow, stifled
sound, and she was very pale. For myself, I was ina
secret quiver of relief and joy. This was the Prince,
then! and in disguise, which made the adventure the
more romantic. I could not utter my rapture, but I
secured one of the cold hands and stroked it until it
began to warm under the fervent caress. Presently she
siniled languidly at me.

‘““What a comfort she is, Virginia! A born nurse,
and already a woman in sense and tact !”’

I was childish enough to begin to sob hysterically at
this, and Miss Virginia took me away to another room
to soothe me. She had ordered the carriage for a drive
to Church Hill, where she had an errand, and would
have me go with her. On the way back we called at a
bookstore that I might select a new book for myself. A
dapper little man waited on us, who was, she told me
when we came out, one of the notable characters of
Richmond. He was not young in the face, but his
clustering chestnut hair was very thick and sleek, and
had an odd look where it was parted ; he lisped, and his
feet glided and frisked from counter to shelves as if life
were a perpetual minuet and he the leader of the sct.
He quoted Shakspeare three times, Byron and Moore
each twice, Cowper once and alluded to Addison in ten
minutes, although our quest was for children’s books.
While I was looking at ‘Riches without Wings,” and
Miss Edgeworth’s ‘‘ Moral Tales,”’ he began talking to
Miss Virginia of the event of the previous evening.
242 JUDITH:

“JT never thaw a more thrilling thene than Mith
Macon’th fall and her rethcue,’”’ he said. ‘‘ Thome of
the fellowth made a bet on the thpot ath to the ground
covered by the leap, and meathured it afterward.
Twenty-five feet upon my honor as a gentleman, and on
the level! The thtory ith, on the thtreet to-day, that he
isa dithtinguithed nobleman. He mutht have had con-
thiderable thircuth practithe if he wath born in the
purple. Ah! ‘we know what we are’—that ith, now
and then one of uth doeth !—‘ but we know not what
we thall be!’ ‘Mithery maketh uth acquainted with
thtrange bedfellowth !’ ”’

““Do you believe this story of the disguised noble-
man ??? asked Miss Virginia.

The littie man shrugged his shoulders and spread out
his hands in non-committal of his valuable opinion.

‘Who can thay? It may be true. It may as eathily
not be true. He ith a handthome fellow, with rather
audathiously-developed muthelth, and altogether too
tall for true thymmetry. But he ith a creditable thpeci-
men of mere animal perfection.”’

When we reached home, we ran up-stairs gleefully—I,
to show my books (Miss Virginia had pressed both upon
me); my companion to recount Phil D: *s criticism of
Frederic Trevelyan’s physique. Miss Harry was up
and dressed, and with her was Mrs. Dabney, in a state
of flutter impossible to @escribe. Tarry’s cheeks were
full-blown carnations, although she feigned smiling
composure ; the elder lady had been crying so profusely
and recently that the handkerchief she flourished in her
declamation was still damp.

‘““Ah, here you are, my poor, dear child !*? she burst
out at sight of her step-daughter. ‘If I were to be led
to the gallows the next second, with no hope of pardon
except upon taking back what I said to your father, and

 
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINTA. 243

I will say that the Major, while he is an excellent man,
with a fair share of delicacy of fecling, for a man of
course, for if the truth were told, men have not the
feelings of women, nor for the matter of that half the
common sense their wives and daughters have, or he
would never have made a social blunder like this, and a
social blunder looks as bad as a real breach of the Com-
mandments, the Lord have mercy upon us and incline
our hearts to keep His law, and there’s no telling where
such a mistake may end, and the boys with their heads
full of circuses and gentlemen in stockinet and spangles
fitting like their skin to show the play of the muscles
which I don’t consider decent, and ’though obliged to
submit to what ’s done and can’t be helped, because it’s
a woman’s duty to honor and obey her husband, I sup-
pose, or St. Paul wouldn’t have said it, and I’m fairly
sick all over with the thought of you, poor darlings,
sitting down to table with one of the lower classes, for
I’m not to be fooled with their stuff about assumed
names, the worse for him if it is so, with Frederic Tre-
velyan pasted on the fences at the street corners, and
plain John Something-or-other on the visiting-card he
gave your father, and our sweet Harry Macon has it in
her hand this blessed minute, large as life, set him up
with his humbugs, for I don’t call myself proud, but the
Dabneys and Archers and Carrs are as good blood as
there is in Virginia, and I’ve never been called to
go through anything like this before—never! never!
never !””

Even the gentle Virginia looked shocked as she stooped
to take the card from Harry and read it aloud. It was
a neat bit of pasteboard, inscribed :

“MR. JOHN WARING.
Fairwold Hall,
Hampshire, England.”
cil JUDLiT:

‘*Do you mean, mother, that father has invitcd him
to dinner ?”’ she asked in a tone that expressed entire
sympathy with the drift of the protest, the sentiments
of which were irretrievably disjointed. ‘‘ How did it
happen ?”?

She—and eventually I—disentangled the truth from
the medley that followed the question. Major Dabney
had found Mr. Frederic Trevelyan at the Eagle Hotel,
in which aristocratic quarters Van Amburg and a few
leading members of his troupe had established them-
selves. The athlete was dressed like a gentleman and
deported himself as one, winning so rapidly upon the
Major’s good-will and respect by a frank avowal of his
incognito, the production of his visiting card and a
grave confession that his connection with the circus
company had been a blunder unworthy of a man of
sense and breeding, that the listener, in a fit of admira-
sion, gratitude and hospitality, asked him to partake of
a family dinner that day, that Miss Macon might thank
him in person for the service he had done her.

“There is no way out of it that I can see,’’ mused
Miss Virginia, aloud and reluctantly.

‘“ Why should there be ?”’

It was Miss Harry who spoke. She had been biting
her lip and pinching her hands during the talk of mother
and daughter. Now she could resirain speech no longer,
and it was many-edged.

‘‘Why should there be ? The man is well-born, well-
bred, and a stranger in Richmond. His masquerade of
the circus-rider is a harmless freak, the bad taste of which
he admits. Iam at a loss to see how it is more degrad-
ing than for Virginia gentlemen to ride their own horses
on the race-course or in steeple-chases. He may be a
degree Jess eligible to a seat at our tables than haber-
dashers’ clerks or tobacco-factory overseers ; but in a
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 245

republic even blue blood must make some concessions.
Still, I cannot deny that the trifling circumstance of his
having saved my life may bias my judgment somewhat.
Forgive me! I ought not to have spoken !”

However this might be, she had ended the debate.
Mrs. Dabney saw that she was angered or hurt, and
hastened to make amends for her unintentional offense
by declaring her willingness to eat and drink with ‘‘any.
white man ’”’ who had rendered them so signal a benefit.
She imagined that his coming this once would hurt no-
body. It was not like giving company in his honor;
and when it was over she should be glad to remember
that she had done all in her power for dear Harry’s pre-
server. The servants would not know who “Mr.
Waring ”’ was, ‘even if they had seen him at the cir-
cus, aS was more than probable, with all his paint
washed off, and in a Christian coat and pantaloons ; an
English gentleman in plain broadcloth and no spangles
and toggery, might dine at our table and nobody think
of his ever having heard of that vulgar Trevelyan fel-
low standing on his head on the fences.”’

Not even the boys were taken into our confidence,
and as they were not allowed to come to the first table,
the danger of identification seemed slight.

Mr. John Waring was stately, and for awhile reserved
in manner, positively overawing the fidgety hostess,
who twice during the dinner accosted him as ‘ Mr.
Tre—Waring, I beg your pardon !””

The second time this happened he said gravely, ‘‘ My
inconsiderate conduct has made the mistake possible,
madam! It is I who should apologize to you. It is
just that I should pay dearly for my folly. Since yes-
terday I have felt how severe the punishment may be.”’

His eyes strayed, as by accident, to Miss Harry’s as
he said, ‘‘since yesterday.’’ Had they lighted on me
246 JUDITH:

I could not have been hotter and more confused. She
had been unusually silent up to that minute, but now
she took the duty of replying out of Mrs. Dabney’s
hands.

‘¢ The self-conviction of folly is, I fancy, the severest
penalty the error will entail upon you,’’ she said very
gently. ‘‘This is always true with sensitive minds.
Nothing others say of us hurts like the fault we are com-
pelled to find with ourselves.”’

He looked gratefully humble.

‘‘Thank you! What you say is more true than you
can imagine.”’

In the parlor he ventured to approach and converse
with her, standing for some time, then taking a chair
near her. She beckoned me to a stool at her side, an
instinctive device to avoid the semblance of a confiden-
tial dialogue. They talked easily, and on commonplace
themes. The Waverly novels, the reflection of Eng-
lish manners and social customs in Virginian society,
the early history of the state, the natural beauties of
her capital, etc., were the topics. Miss Virginia was
drawn into the discussion after a little, and Mrs. Dab-
ney, sitting near the front windows with her tambour-
frame, prattled incessantly in an undertone to her
husband. He was drowsy after his dinner and two
glasses of port, and longing for his pipe, but conven-
tionality held him to the post of nominal entertainer,
Had the visitor been a man of his own caste he would
have left him to the ladies with an apology for the con-
straining power of a habit that withdrew him from the
room for a season. As his social inferior, he was, while
in his house, entitled to such scrupulous attention as
might put him altogether at his ease. It is only with
his equals that the thoroughbred takes liberties.

It was the Major who proposed music, probably in
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 247

the hope that he might slip out unchallenged, and, with-
out incivility, absent himself long enough to snatch a
dozen whitis. He called on Miss Harry for a song, and
she played, instead, a couple of waltzes and a march,
alleging that the fall of the night before had ‘‘ shaken
her voice to pieces.’’

‘‘Had you ever fainted until then?” inquired Mr.
Waring, in a matter-of-fact way.

He was standing at the end of the piano, and had a
full view of her countenance. From my seat behind
her I saw the scarlet tide stream over her neck and
steep the small ears.

‘No!’ she said curtly. ‘‘ Virginia! I will play the
accompaniment if you will sing ‘The harp that once
through Tara’s halls.’ ”’

A duet succeeded to the song, and Mrs. Dabney
spoke up with agreeable intent. The Major had stolen
away, and she spurred herself on to cover his retreat.

‘*Mr. Waring! you have a singing face! I can al-
ways almost tell by looking at a person whether they
sing or not, and by their voice in speaking, you know;
and yours is so very pleasant I’m just as sure as if 1
had heard you that you are a beautiful singer, and may-
be play, too, for you foreign gentlemen are so accom-
plished, and it is a burning sin and shame that our
young men are so remiss in cultivating such things; I
am sure they would be more domestic if they would.”

““T did play and sing once,’’ confessed the English-
man. ‘‘When I was ‘domestic,’ and lived at home
with my sisters, who were really fine performers. Ex-
cuse the personal allusion, Miss Dabney, but your voice
reminds me of my sister Eleanor’s. She is the younger
of the two. I have seldom touched a piano during the
half year I have spent in America—the organ not once.
It may shock you, Mrs. Dabney *’—with a smiling bow
248 JODITE:

in her direction—‘‘ to learn that I was the organist in our
parish church. My uncle is the rector, and my father
gave the instrument when I wasa lad of sixteen. I
could not bear to have other hands than mine touch it.’’

What his touch was we had an opportunity of judg-
ing when, yielding courteously to persuasion, with no
affectation of unwillingness, but rather as if tempted
by the sight of keys and music, he sat down to the
piano. He played boldly and with fine taste. Miss
Virginia said, in after days, that his musical skill did
more than all other proofs to convince her that his
tales of John Waring and Fairwold Hall were not a
myth. The Major shortly reappeared, wide awake and
delighted, drew near the piano, and applauded vocifer-
ously the stirring march that ended with the ‘‘ Marseil-
laise,’’? rendered magnificently. Mrs. Dabney clapped
her hands effusively at the success of her maneuver—
the verification of her suspicions.

““The song ! Now for the song !”? she cried.

The boys were peeping through the crack of the half-
open door, and I caught glimpses of the servants hover-
ing about hall and staircase. The piano had never
spoken and thundered thus before in that house. It
was the glad shout of unbound Ariel, glorying in his
strength. All were excited and eager for more.

“Do you know Shelley ?”’ the musician asked of Miss
Harry, after a little thoughtful preluding.

She had, involuntarily, approached the instrument
while he played. Her sensitive face was a lovely study
of color and expression.

“Very slightly. Ihave read his ‘Skylark,’ of course.’?

‘‘His songs are comparatively little known, but they
are models of their kind. My father and he were
friends in their youth. We are more familiar with his
poems on that account than we would otherwise have
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 249

been. ‘The Fugitives’ used to be a favorite with us at
home. I may remember it. I ought never to forget it.”

He played a symphony in which the roaring of the
winds warred with the tumult of sea-waves, the light-
nings gleamed blue on hissing hail. Then his voice
arose full and grand—a voice that in melody and com-
pass carried feeling by storm and swept criticism out of
the field. His articulation was singularly distinct. We
did not lose a word of the descriptive ballad :

“<The waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing—
Away !’”’

We put off from shore in the boat with the pale
helmsman and the fleeing lovers :

““¢ And from isle, tower and rock
The blue beacon-cloud broke,
Though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast

From the ice.’ ”’

Into the tempest and glare flowed a slender minor
strain of unearthly sweetness—a stealing sun-ray
through the black heart of the cloud. Before it blast
and surges rolled away into horizon mutterings. The
voice took up the story in a passionate undertone:

sect And fear’st thou?” ‘‘ And fear’st thou?”
And seest thou—and hear’st thou ?
And drive we not free
O’er the terrible sea—
Land thou?

*¢¢One boat-cloak doth cover
The loved and the lover—
Their blood beats onc measure,
They murmur proud pleasure,

Soft and low,
250 JUDITH:

‘¢¢ While ’round the lashed ocean,
Like mountains in motion,
Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered and shifted
To and fro.’”’

To the ineffable tenderness of the recitative, the
dreamy lingering upon the melodious measure of verse
and music, succeeded heroic narration :

“¢<Tn the court of the fortress,
Beside the pale portress,

Like a bloodhound well beaten,
The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame.

*¢On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the gray tyrant-father—
To his voice the mad weather

Seems tame;

“¢ And with curses as wild
As e’er cling to child,
He devo-es to the blast
The best, loveliest and last
Of his name!’ ’’

There were specks like dew on the Major’s grizzled
lashes. He laughed outright, but brokenly, as the
story was finished.

‘* But he got her, in spite of bridegroom and father!
The young folks got away safe and sound! By George !
I never heard anything finer in my life! I could see it
all—the storm and the courtship in the boat, and the
pair of scoundrels gnashing their teeth on the tower !
My dear sir,’’ dropping a heavy hand on the guest’s
shoulder, ‘‘ you have given us a rare treat—a wonderful
treat! And let me say that if the fellow in the boat
said those pretty things to the lady as you sang them,
she could not haye stayed behind! Not to save her
life, sir ! human nature and woman nature being what
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 251

itis! Who wrote it did you say? Shelley? Never
heard of him that I recollect, but he is no fool of a
song-writer. Virginia, my dear, put his name down for
me, will you? Do you know anything else of his, Mr.
Waring ?”

“Something sentimental, please, Mr. Waring ?”’ qua-
vered Mrs. Dabney’s drawl. ‘‘I know you would sing
love-songs be-yu-tifully if the truth were told. Did Mr.
Shelby ever write any love-songs? I dote upon love-
songs, if Iam an old married woman. I always cry my
eyes out over ‘ Highland Mary ’ and ‘ Auld Robin Gray’
and ‘Lord Ullin’s Daughter,’ the song you have just
sung so delightfully and thrown us all into ecstacies
with, I am sure, for nobody can enjoy really good music
more than we, and you are certainly a musical genius,
Mr. Waring, reminds me of ‘Lord Ullin’s Daughter,’
the words, I mean, for there ’s no manner of comparison
between the music of the two, and a man with such
melancholy eyes as yours and such a voice ought to be
able to just break our hearts with a love-song.”’

Mr. Waring laughed a little in a perfectly well-bred
way, dropping the bepraised eyes to his fingers that
still lay on the keys.

“T doubt if I could recall a sentimental ballad,
madam, It has been a long time since I heard or sang
one.”?

He turned again to Miss Harry. She had taken
a seat at an easier conversational angle to the piano
than that occupied by either of the other ladies. It
was but natural that he should refer to her in his
perplexity.

‘“‘There is a little serenade of Shelley’s, beginning,
‘I arise from dreams of thee.’ Have you ever heard it ?”’

‘“Never. Cannot you sing it ?”

“Do! do!’ clucked Mrs. Dabney, persuasively. ‘‘ It
252 JUDITH :

must be just perfectly fascinating. I am devoted to
love-songs; they can’t be too loving for me; the
lovinger the sweeter, according to my notion.”’

The accompaniment of the ‘‘Serenade’’ was a mere
nothing, the touch of a chord here and there, as one
might sweep his finger over guitar-strings ; but no more
was needed. I think Harry Macon’s heart left the
keeping of will and reason forever, while that song
flowed into her ears. Her perceptive powers were never
clear afterward. It wrought more potently upon affec-
tions and judgment than did ever philtre or love-spell
in the age when witches gave and maidens sought such.
If it were poison it was a delicious draught as this man
administered it, his glorious eyes like brown opals with
throbbing light, his voice impassioned, supplicating—
and at the last, faint with the burden of a love not to
be conveyed in speech or sound:

“¢*T arise from dreams of thee,
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me—who knows how ?—
To thy chamber-window, sweet !

“<The wandering airs, they faint,

On the dark, the silent stream,—
The roses’ odors fail,

Like sweet thoughts in a dream.
The nightingale’s complaint,

It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,

Oh, belovéd as thou art!”

I cannot more aptly describe the strange change that
swept over Miss Harry’s figure and face as the line I
have italicized was uttered than by saying that it was
like the quiver and play, first, of white, then of roseate
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 203

lambent flame in which she swayed and glowed. Her
eyes closed for a second, and opened to their widest, in
fascinated intentness of gaze that met the rapt look of
the singer. Eyes questioned and cyes replied, before
the few chords of the interlude ceased to vibrate :
“ ¢Oh, lift me from the grass !
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale!
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast.
Oh, press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last !’ ””

The sorcerer arose, crossed over to Mrs. Dabney and
made his adieux, with thanks for her ‘“‘ great kindness
to an undeserving stranger in a strange land.”

““Oh, but look here !’’ cried the Major, taken aback
by the sudden movement. ‘‘ You ain’t going to leave
us this way, you know! Youll be in town some days
yet, Thope. I mean that it ain’t likely that the—ah—
ah—’’

Mr. Waring covered the awkward pause, at which he
smiled, and the rest were mortified.

There was even a touch of archness in his amuse-
ment, repressed by courtesy, but his voice was gravely
respectful.

‘““The company moves westward to-morrow. Ihave
a furlough of two weeks. I had thought—I may say it
to you, Major Dabney, whose treatment of me has been
so noble in its freedom from prejudice and patronage—
that I have hopes of shortly effecting a dissolution of
my relations with my present associates. In short—I
mean to break my contract with the circus company.
My false position has grown very irksome of late.”’

The Major clapped him on the shoulder again.

“‘Of course it has! How could it be otherwise ?
254 JUDITH:

You ’ve had your frolic, and now for a return to your
real self and civilization! You are quite right, my
dear sir—quite right! And let me say that I hope
you'll prolong your stay in Richmond indefinitely, and
examine our institutions and all that, you know, and
let us see as much of you as possible and convenient
to yourself. By George! I honor your honesty and
straightforwardness, sir! Be blamed if I don’t! As
for prejudice and patronage and gossip, I don’t care a
Continental blank for all three !”’

CHAPTER XVI.

‘‘T am sure that father is boring Mr. Waring with his
endless genealogies,’’ said Miss Virginia, quitting the
window where she and Mr. Bradley had been standing
in the rainy twilight. ‘‘Sweetbrier, go into the study
and see if I left ‘Thomson’s Seasons’ on the table—
there ’s a darling !”’

Obediently, but less cheerfully than I usually ful-
filled her behests, I repaired to the Major’s den. He had
lighted a candle and raised it high in one hand toward
the family coat-of-arms over the mantel. In the other
he held the bowl of his pipe, and pointed with the long
handle while discoursing : .

‘The first record we have of the Dabney family is on
the roll of Battle Abbey, erected by William the Con-
queror at Hastings when he defeated Harold. Masses
were sung for the souls of the knights and squires who
fell there. One of the knights is ‘D’Aubenay,’ and
among the squires is another ‘D’Aubenay.’ Baron
al CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 205

‘D’ Aubigny ’ was one of the bold, true men set to watch
tricky King John, lest he might violate Magna Charta.
My immediate ancestors, John and Cornelius ‘ Dabnée ’
(it is thus spelled in the old vestry-book of New Kent
County), fled from France to Wales after the revoca-
tion of the Edict of Nantz, thence emigrated to Amer-
ica. They were among the Huguenots who settled on
the lower Pamunkey— My dear Miss Judith, can I
assist you in your search ?”

I was fumbling among the newspapers, tobacco-
boxes, twine, corks, pipes and account-books on the
table in the centre of the room.

‘Miss Virginia sent me to look for ‘ Thomson’s Sea-
sons,’ sir,’’ I apologized diffidently.

‘Ah!’ setting down the candle. ‘Another more
considerable body of refugees settled on the south side
of James River, near the deserted capital of the Mano-
can tribe, now perverted into ‘Mannakin Town.’ The
Colonial House of Burgesses, held ‘at his majestye’s
royall colledge of William and Mary,’ December 5th,
1700, established the settlement as ‘King William’s
Parish,’ exempting ‘said French refugees’ from taxa-
tion for seven years. Among these were the Michaux
—still resident on the origina) grant—the Flournoys,
Soublettes (now Subletts), the Maurys— Never mind
the almanac, my dear,’’? as Z stooped to pick it up.
“*Can’t you find the beok ?”’

I colored all over. It seemed sacrilegious to break
twice the continuity of so learned a disquisition. Mr.
Waring came forward while the Major helped me to
tumble over the tobacco-and-coal-dusty miscellany.

‘*T saw that volume in the parlor this evening,”’ said
the Englishman respectfully. ‘‘I fancy that I can put
my hand on it at once. Will you excuse me, Major
Dabney, but allow me to return after a while and hear
256 JUDITH:

the rest of the history you have begun? It is deeply
interesting.”

“T am sorry, sir,’’ faltered I, as the guest disappeared
and I caught the blank look on the dear, kind face of
the genealogist.

“Don’t speak of it, my child—don’t speak of it! It
is time Ihad my smoke, and I am apt to forget that old
people make themselves tiresome with their hobbies.”’

He let me fill his pipe and light it with a twisted
paper kindled at the grate, puffed away the shade of
chagrin with the first blue curl of smoke, like the sound-
tempered philosopher he was. I placed a stool under
his gouty foot, and offered the freshest of the news-
papers as a substitute for the fascinating visitor, un-
easily trying to atone for my complicity in his daughter’s
maneuver. Much as I admired the pretty adroitness
with which she avoided giving present pain and offense,
my Summerfield honesty revolted occasionally at the
palpable double-dealing I could not but espy. She was
tactful and a peace-lover, and had to deal with incon-
gruous elements. Furthermore, she was affectionate
and tender-hearted. In shrinking from the sight of
suffering, she sometimes recoiled too far. This is the
excuse reason and heart now combine to make for what
then distressed and baffled me.

She was at the piano when I went back to the parlor,
playing softly one plaintive air after another, Mr. Brad-
ley breathing a flute accompaniment, deliciously and
delicately sweet, although scarcely louder than the
rain-muffled wind plaining disquietly at sash and in
chimney. The two young men had dined with us, and
the close of the short, wet afternoon found both linger-
ing in the hospitable mansion. It was the third of such
March days as strike with dismay spring visitors to
Richmond. There had not been a rift in the sagging
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 207

pall of cloud from sunrise to sunset. Brick sidewalks
and cobble-stone pavements were glazed by sheets of
rain that succeeding floods did not give time to run off.
The muddy street into which Miss Harry, seated on the
broad window-bench, seemed to gaze, was almost de-
serted. The oil-lamps, accentuating the darkness of
business thoroughfares, were not visible from our quar-
ter of the town. The dots and dashes of flickering yel-
low one saw through mist and rain were in the windows
of private dwellings. Once in a great while a figure
tramped by, furnished with umbrella and lantern. I
coiled myself up in another window to watch idly for
these, to listen to the music, and to dream out the
stories that made one long, eventful romance of my
sober-tinted child-life.

The widening area of fire-glow, the outermost edge of
which struck glints from the silver keys of Mr. Brad-
icy’s flute, and brushed the sheeny waves of the pianist’s
Lair ; the monotonous plash of the rain on the panes ;
the proximity of the pair who occupied the embrasure
of the window nearest to me ; the intermittent drifts of
earnest-voiced talk blent with the melody of ** Oft in
the Stilly Night,” ‘“‘Has Sorrow Thy Young Days
Shaded ??? and ‘‘ Byron’s Farewell,’’ were conditions to
the full enjoyment of twilight revery.

Mr. Waring’s furlough would te over in two days.
With the tact that seldom failed him, he had not ap-
peared abroad with the Dabneys, or done anything else
that could attract public attention to his growing inti-
macy in the family. Twice, when other visitors had
called while he was in the parlor, he had quietly with-
drawn to the Major’s study, and talked with him until
the coast was clear. With Mr. Bradley he made friends
within twenty-four hours after his first visit to the
house. They walked and drove together every fair day,
26 JUDIE:

and the quick-witted tutor was apparently as much cap-
tivated by his new acquaintance as was the whole-souled
Major. Both regarded the episode of his introduction
to our domestic circle as a romantic incident, the conse-
quences of which would extend no farther than the
limits of his sojourn in the city, unless, in the event of
the prodigal’s return to his English home, the news
should reach his trans-Atlantic friends and be a stapie
of family gossip in coming years. That he talked much
with Miss Harry went for nothing with people accus-
tomed to see her the recipient of admiring attention
from every man who approached her. She was a belle
in town, as in country, and tokens of the fact were
every day arriving in the shape of graceful trifles—
philopena gifts of books and bon-bons, and votive offer-
ings of flowers. Twice I had seen her extract from
the hearts of bouquets brought up by Apphia to her
room twisted billets, which she reserved for private
perusal. One morning the maid returned from an out-
door erraid with a parcel done up in silver paper and
gave it to her young mistress, without observing my
presence. Instinctively I kept my eyes riveted on my
book, apparently regardless of the violet scent that filled
the chamber, until Miss Harry spoke:

“See what I have, Little Discretion !”’

It was a dainty white satin box, clamped at the cor-
ners with gilded ornaments, and full of violets. A note
had lain upon them, and she still held it in her hand.
As I praised and wondered at the quantity and fresh-
ness of the flowers, she laid her cheek on them, her
bright smile chastened into infinite content. I stood by,
mute and awed, my heart overflowing with sympathy.

Apphia broke in upon the eloquent silence sharply,
even for a privileged and spoiled servant.

“°Tain’t safe to tell child’en sech things, Miss Harry !
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 259

They mean well enough, but they can’t be expected to
understand.”’

“T can trust Judith !’? meeting my hurt look with one
of affectionate reassurance. ‘‘ She will not speak until
I give her leave to doso. She knows I am doing no-
thing to be ashamed of—nothing I shall not be glad to
have the world know by-and-by. But I won’t be talked
about and marveled at until the time comes. Oh,
yes !’’-fondling my flushed face and speaking very
softly—‘‘ Judith quite understands ! Better—so much
better—than most grown people would !”’

It was child-nature to be immensely elated by the
confidence reposed in me. Albeit utterly unsophisti-
cated in intrigue, discretion was, as I have already said,
a lesson conned from my earliest recollection. I did
not suspect that there was more impropriety in Miss
Harrv’s reception of billet-doux from the elect lord of
her drvam than in Uncle Archie’s careful conservation
of the sacret of his love for Virginia Dabney. I was
the flatccred recipient of the confidence of both, and
would have had my tongue plucked out by the roots
sooner than betray either.

Painted upon the background of the rainy darkness
toward which I kept my face resolutely turned, lest I
might ste some gesture or penetrate the meaning of
some word not meant for others’ senses, I beheld the
American girl the honored mistress of Fairwold Hall,
the idolized wife of the man made for her and led over
ocean and land and the Alps of social prejudice to her
feet. I arranged the wedding at Hunter’s Rest, with
Aunt Maria and Miss Virginia among the white-robed
troop of bridesmaids, Uncle Archie and Mr. Bradley as
groomsmen, a shading of disappointed suitors relieving
the almost too-bright vision of the princely pair and
their rejoicing train. I saw my hitherto insignifi-
260 JUDITH:

cant self lauded as a pattern of intelligent prudence,
the ally of the lovers, the petted favorite of the nuptial
day. Perhaps—most probably—they would invite me
to visit them in the ancestral halls of the Warings.
Why might not Uncle Archie include an ocean voyage
and Fairwold Hall in his wedding journey, and I ac-
company the happy couple ?

Between rain, piano and preoccupation of thought,
none of us heard the door-bell or the bustle of arrival
in the hall. I was hurled back from my dream-world
with a shock that produced temporary concussion of
the brain, by the apparition—in the fullest glare of the
light that had gradually filled the room from the ignit-
ing coals—of Uncle Archie and Sidney Macon.

I could hot stir, or determine whether the feet,
numbed by long sitting upon them, and the cyes, filmed
by the abrupt change from the stare into the blackening
night to the ruddy illumination within, really belonged
to myself or not, until Uncle Archie kissed me with the
familiar—

“Well, little woman! how goes it ?”

I clung to him when he sat down and began to tell
that some business connected with tobacco crop and
sales had called them to the city. In the middle of the
explanation the Major hobbled in upon the gouty leg
that was stiff in wet weather—and a minute Jater Mrs.
Dabney, pink cap-strings flying and tongue wabbling
more loosely than usual on the pivotal point of common
sense, in the excitement of meeting dear Mr. Read and
darling Harry’s brother, and there certainly was such
a strong family likeness that she would have known him
anywhere—if she had met him at Rockett’s, or say, the
great Chinese Wall, she would have run right straight
up to him and said, ‘‘ How do you do, Mr. Macon ?”

By the time we were seated, and the ceremony of
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 261

presentation was accomplished, and Mrs. Dabney’s
prattle~vheel was slowing up preparatory to as full a
slop as she ever made, it began to dawn on me, and, I
funcy, on others, that Sidney Macon’s mien was ominous
of trouble. He was habitually grave, but to-night he
looked as inclement as the weather. In opposition to
the conventional courtesy prevalent among Virginian
gentlemen, he did not shake hands with Mr. Waring
when presented to him by Miss Virginia, nor had he
smiled at Mrs. Dabney’s welcome. The butler brought
in lamps and revealed the dark face, grim to ferocity,
the deep-set eyes like gleaming embers that a breath
might excite into flame. Miss Harry pushed a chair
forward, and Mr. Waring, anticipating her intention,
set it near her brother’s for her before saying :

‘‘T have added another to the list of my trespasses on
your hospitality, Mrs. Dabney. I ought to have taken
my leave much earlier than this. But your always-
pleasant home is doubly tempting on such an evening.”

He delivered the little speech distinctly, making his
slight English drawl and upward inflections rather
more apparent than was common with him. Sidney
did not rise, but leaned back in his chair, aggressively
unciyil, his gaze settled on the superbly-handsome linea-
ments in angry scorn, not to be ignored by the sister
familiar with his ordinary behavior.

Her eyes kindled, her lip curled resolutely. She took
a step forward to meet Mr. Waring, as he made his
bow to her—put out her hand.

‘“We shall see you again very soon, I hope!” articu-
lating as clearly as he had done. ‘‘I want you to know
my brother. I might say, with truth, both of my broth-
ers!’? shedding milder light upon Uncle Archie, who
stood by her.

Tone and manner, if not words, were unequivocal.
262 JUDITH:

A strange shock and silence fell upon the little company
at the quietly significant address. I saw Miss Virginia
change color and clasp her hands convulsively, Mr.
Bradley’s start and piercing glance at Miss Harry.
Uncle Archie bowed silently—to her, not to him for
whom she bespoke his good-will. Sidney sat motionless
and glowered wrathfully at the three. Mr. Waring
bent low over the hand shut fast and warm in his.

‘“‘T am honored beyond my powers of expression by
the hope and the wish! Good-night !”’

He stepped backward to the door with courtly dex-
terity ; on the threshold, swept a magnificent general
obeisance to the rest of the group, and was gone.

Sidney started up hastily, spoke harshly :

‘‘Harry! I want to have a few minutes’ talk with
you !””

“As you please!’’ she rejoined, undauntedly. To
Mrs. Dabney, she said, with winning politeness, ‘‘ May
we go into your sitting-room ?”

On receiving a frightened, therefore a tolerably co-
herent reply, she led the way across the hall.

Before bed-time, we all knew what was the result cf
the conference.

At the Columbian Hotel, where the travelers halted
to put up their horses and exchange their damp gar-
ments for dry, Sidney had met his friend Ronald Craig,
Miss Harry’s oft-discarded suitor. He had been in
town several days, paid a diurnal call to his obdurate
idol, twice encountered Mr. Waring, and uneasy at
what he fancied he detected, made it his business to
find out who the obnoxious stranger was. Chancing to
stumble upon Sidney as the latter was following a waiter
to his room within tén minutes after his arrival, he fas-
tened himself upon him and besought an interview. In
the course of his rapid toilet Sidney heard that which
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 263

made him forget cold, wet, hunger and fatigue. He
was collected enough to make due allowance for the
jealous alarms of the unsuccessful wooer and his never-
acute brain, but he gleaned from the dialogue one anda
most disagreeable truth.

His sister was a guest in a house where a worse, than
nobody—a common circus-rider—was received as the
equal of a family so simple as to be duped by his poor pre-
tense of aristocratic lineage and breeding. She had sat
at the same board with him, conversed with him with
apparent satisfaction, and hearkened delightedly to his
playing and singing. Sidney could not forbear allusion
to his discovery as he and Uncle Archie walked up town
and was laughed at for his indignation.

“IT know Miss Harry better than to insult her by
such suspicions as the fear lest she should lower her
dignity by familiar association with the person you dex
scribe,”’ said Harry’: fast friend, picking his way over
the puddles and miry crossings. ‘‘ Major Dabney is a
thorough gentleman. His daughter’s friend would be
as carefully protected from undesirable acquaintances as
his own child. Depend upon it, poor Ronald has been
hoaxed, or is misled by his own dreads. It is more like
your sister to feign preference for another man in order
to get rid of his importunities than to form an attacl-
ment for a nameless adventurer.”

The unshuttered parlor-windows were crimson bea-
cons of cheer to them from the instant they caught sight
of the house. When they were at the gate of the nar-
row front-yard the interior of the room was a Rem-
brandt picture in the light from the blazing coals in the
grate. Both recognized one of the figures in the strik-
ing tableaux framed by the ifluminated window —
Harry’s lissome figure and high-bred profile, and lean-
ing toward her a man evidently earnest in talk. Both
264 JUDITH:

saw him raise her hand to his lips in a passionate pres-
sure unchecked, and so far as could be judged from the
expression of the beautiful head, unrebuked. It was
not a scene fora man like Sidney Macon to discuss with
luis dearest friend. Neither uttered a word until Sid-
ney’s deep voice inquired of the servant who answered
his ring, if ‘‘the ladies and Major Dabney were at
home ?”

His intemperate remonstrance with his sister was
met by an avowal that stung him into a frenzy of as-
tonishment and wrath. The disreputable adventurer
had that very hour declared his love for her and received
a favorable reply. Their mutual devotion dated from
the moment of their first meeting. Each had dreamed
of the other before they had ever looked upon one an-
other’s faces. She would be willing to marry him with-
out other testimonials to his worth and character than
she already possessed. The proposition to procure cre-
dentials from England was his voluntary suggestion.

The stormy scene ensuing upon the astounding dis-
closure was ended by Sidney’s departure from the house
without the slightest form of leave-taking. Those left
in the parlor heard his tramp along the hall, the violent
reverberation of the closing door, and had barely time
to exchange alarmed glances when Harry walked into
the apartment, head high, and face like marble in color
and steadfastness.

‘*My brother has gone, Mrs. Dabney!” she began
with haughty incisiveness that prepared her auditors
for a momentous announcement. ‘‘He was too much
excited to venture to say ‘ Good-evening,’ or even to
remember the commonest forms of courtesy. He sees
fit to be very angry with me because I am engaged to be
married to Mr. Waring !”’

Then, 28 a gasp from Mrs. Dabney and a crowl from
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 265

the Major severed the fine, strong thread of her speech
—'‘‘ Not that his opposition, or that of the whole Macon
clan, combined with the anathemas of Christendom,
would alter one jot or one tittle of my resolution. If
John Waring lives, and I live, I shall become his wife
whenever he sees best to claim me—so help me—God !””
The hand lifted in the energy of the declaration fell on
the great Bible lying on the centre-table, and rested there.

Mrs. Dabney promptly did all that could be expected
of her on the occasion by going into strong hysterics.
Her sobbings, pantings, struggles and suffocations in
the arms of the Major and Uncle Archie while they
carried her to her chamber, her kicks against the wall
and clutchings at the banisters of the stairs, the
shrieks of wild laughter that pierced the ceiling when
the removal was accomplished, were terrific to a child
who had never so much as heard of nervous parox-
ysms and fashionable ‘‘ vapors.’? I slunk away behind
a window-curtain, and cried big, honest tears of dis-
tressful compassion, with none to see or dry them.

“JT had better go,’’ Mr. Bradley said aside to Miss
Virginia.

She stayed him by a gesture, then sank upon an otto-
man, and wept silently, her face buried in her handker-
chief. Harry stood like a statue of Resolve when Uncle
Archie returned to us. He went directly up to her, laid
his hand on that pressed hard on the Bible-lid.

‘¢ None of us are quite calm enough for argument to-
night,’ he said, very gravely and very kindly. ‘“ We
are taken by surprise, and must think over what we
have heard before we are fit to decide as to the merits
of the case you submit to us. You ought not to need
to be told that the one desire of us all is for your hap-
piness. That, if we could congratulate you intelli-
gently and sincerely, we would do it now and gladly.”
266 JUDITH :

Her chin trembled, but the closer compression of the
lips, the unblenching eye told how far she was from
yielding.

““T have had a foretaste of friendly congratulations in
Sidney’s fraternal comments upon what I told him!”
was the curt rejoinder.

“‘Try to think kindly of the brother who loves you
best of living things !’? went on the serious tones. ‘‘ By
to-morrow he may be more reasonable.’’

‘““Why not add, ‘And so may you?’ I read it in
your face. Don’t delude yourself into the belief that I
will ever swerve. I have sworn unto the Lord and will
not go back !”

‘*T have not asked you to retract one word. If I had
prophesied that to-morrow would find you reasonable,
I should have spoken out my own belief. You are right
there. When have you been unreasonable to me?”

He was smiling—the frank, genial gleam that always
met her sallies, as she raised her eyes suddenly to his—
brotherly and compassionate of her present pain, with
no subtler intent than to assuage this. The rigid face-
lines broke up in an answering smile.

“Tf all men were like you—”’ she began impatiently.

He finished the sentence laughingly:

“* You would have a host of true friends, and never
hesitate to say ‘No!’ to any of them who presumed to
be more than friendly !”’

‘*T meant no such thing! The woman who hesitates
to intrust her happiness to your keeping is a benighted
imbecile! One proof of this is that I dare declare that
to your face without fear of a gallant reply. What I
began to say was that if all men were like you, it
would be easier for us to act like reasonable beings.
There would be some hope of just and merciful treat-
ment at the hands of our masters. But, as you say,
-L CLRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 267

discussion of the news I have been forced to communi-
cate more abruptly than is timely or delicate, had better
be deferred until to-morrow. Excuse me for a little
while, please, all of you! I have been flayed alive, and
the smart is still fresh !”’

Mrs. Dabney was unable to appear at supper. The
perturbed Major had hauled Uncle Archie off to the
study as soonas he could leave his distraught spouse,
and kept him there until the meal was announced. Mr.
Bradley and Miss Virginia talked long and confiden-
tially over the parlor fire. I, too low and miserable to
rest quietly, roamed about passages and staircase, con-
scious that there was no place for me and for my dashed
dreams anywhere.

At the tinkle of the tea-bell Miss Virginia came into
the hall and called me from my perch on the first land-
ing. Her tender heart melted a: sight of my disordered
appearance. The stairs were bleak and draughty ; my
skin was rough with cold, my icrehead indented by
leaning on the banisters, and my teeth chattered nerv-
ously. She kissed me, chafed my hands and smoothed
my tousled hair.

“Poor little Sweetbrier! the sharp winds shake you
terribly—don’t they ? Never mind, dear! Everything
always does come right at last, you know. Run up and
sec if Miss Ilarry wants any supper—won’t you? She
is never cross or short with you.”

At Miss Harry’s door I met Apphia, coming out, a
letter in her hand. Iler mistress was brushing her hair
preparatory to answering the bell.

‘Come in, pet !’’ she said, gayly. ‘‘ Youll stand by
me, whatever comes. It’s in the blood, I think. Don’t
let them persuade you that I ought to be turned into
the strect and trodden under foot.”’

“Nobody could!" replicd I, defiantly. +: And. Miss
268 JUDITH:

Harry ’’—eager to tender my one sweet crumb of com-
fort—‘‘ Miss Virginia told me just now that everything
would come out right at last.”

She caught my arms, swung me around the room ina
wild waliz. She was like one ‘‘fey’’ under the com-
mingling excitements of the hour.

‘*Come right !? she cried. ‘‘How can anything go
wrong in this great, glorious world of ours ? Now fora
race to the parlor door !”’

Down stairs she was the life of the party.

“Why shouldn’t I want my supper, and eat it with
good appetite and conscience ?”? she answered Miss
Virginia’s expressed satisfaction at her appearance
among them. ‘‘I have done nothing that needs to
be repented of in sackcloth and ashes ; have no idea of
fasting, or supping on dry bread soaked in salty tears.
Sid will feel better when he has broken his fast, be
quite humane and decent after a night’s rest. Being
a rational creature he will comprehend the folly of con-
tending with Fate—and with a woman who has made
up her mind !”’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGILNLA. 269

CHAPTER XVII.

SIDNEY MACON could not alter the bent of his sis-
ter’s will. He could, and he did, carry out his decision
‘that she should go home with him when the business
that had brought him to Richmond was finished.

‘““The naughty child will be no gooder in country
than in town,” she informed him, with the audacious
vivacity she had maintained in his presence since the
close of their one hot, bitter altercation. ‘‘ Not that I
mind being put into the corner and lectured by under-
lings. It amounts to nothing in the end. I appeal
unto Cesar. When did the blessed autocrat of Hunt-
er’s Rest refuse me anything ?”’

The Major had spent a whole forenoon writing a let-
ter of unparalleled proportions to his ancient crony.
Mr. Waring, as nobody but his betrothed knew at the
time, had penned a formal petition to her father for the
honor of Miss Harriet Macon’s hand. Mrs. Dabney
was never seen during the three days that remained of
our visit, without a damp handkerchief in her fingers,
usually at her eyes. The tip of her thin nose was a
polished red, and her wobbling whine over the “sad,
sad, sad affair,’? her ‘‘ who-would-have-thought-its ?”’
and incessant ‘‘ I call all to witness that I was opposed
to bringing the man inside of Christian doors,’’ went
far, I suspect, toward reconciling Harry to the return
home in disgrace.

On the afternoon of the second day after the revela-
tion that had shaken the peaceful household to the
foundation-stone, she invited me to pay a farewell visit
270 JUDITH:

to McGovern’s Garden. The conservatories and well-
tended flower-beds of the only florist of note in Rich-
mond were, in blossom seasons, a much-affected resort
with the better classes of young people. The broad,
central alley, bordered by roses, was called ‘‘ Flirtation
Walk.” The narrow aisles of the green-house had been
the scene of gallant and loving passages innumerable.
To me—who had seen beside these no conservatory ex-
cept the small building at Hunter’s Rest, which was the
solace of sickly Diana’s life—McGovern’s modest glass-
houses were vast and bewitching.

My heart sank in disappointment when on the front
door-step we met Uncle Archie and Sidney Macon.

‘‘ Where are you going ?’? demanded the latter
sternly.

‘*To McGovern’s, to fill the memorandum Di sent by
you. Perhaps you prefer to do it yourself?”

She showed the folded paper on the palm of her hand,
her smile as ingenuous as a baby’s.

‘“You know I can’t tell a rose from a potato-flower,”’
(her cool hardihood was a continual irritation, and his
rasping tone betrayed it); ‘‘but I had better go with
you.”’

She stood perfectly still, her face as open as the sky.

“Why, may Lask? The danger of elopement is not
so imminent that you need play watch-dog all the time.
Or is this a fresh proof of the ‘ »rotherly love ’ that has
‘continued ’ so virulently for two days past ?”

‘*Don’t be foolish, Sidney !’? Uncle Archie put his
arm within that of his friend. ‘‘ Distrust is always un-
kind. Sometimes it is an insult. Miss Harry, may I
commission you to select some seeds and roots for
Maria’s flower-garden ?”? He slipped a bank-note into
her hand. ‘And a tea-rose for Judith. I heard her
wishing for one last winter.”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 271

Honest scarlet stained a face that was no longer
proud. The smile of flippant defiance passed like a dis-
torted gleam uglier than shadow. She spoke very fast,
looking straight at him:

“ Before you let Judith go with me, you ought to
know that I expect to meet Mr. Waring at the Garden.
Since he cannot visit me here, I must say ‘ Good-by’—
not ‘ Farewell,’ mind you !—to him somewhere. If you
would rather guard her from the contamination of ap-
pearing in public with me in such circumstances, you
have only to speak the word. I wouldn’t have men-
tioned it, but you trusted me !””

“Tf you will allow me, I will accompany you both !”
was the unexpected rejoinder. ‘‘ Please make my ex-
cuses to Mrs. Dabney and Miss Virginia, Sidney !”

We were in the street before anything more was said.
He had offered his arm, and Miss Harry had taken it.

“‘You know it will make no difference !’? she inter-
jected presently.

‘‘T understand that perfectly.”

‘*- You disapprove of the whole proceeding ?”

“The question is too general.”’

She cast aside the dry laconicism so foreign to their
usual style of converse.

““You blame me for promising to marry the man to
whom I have given my whole heart—for whom I have
waited through the years that bring dozens of fancies
to most girls—one who has not his peer among his fel-
lows ! He is noble by birth and princely in nature, rich
in gifts of mind and person. Because I recognize my
king under a disguise no meaner than other kings have
assumed that they might see the worid to advantage,
and be loved for themselves instead of for wealth and
station, I am told that I have forfeited all claim to re-
spect, degradcd my womanhood, deserved to lose the
272 JUDITH:

love of family and friends ; that I have been bold, un-
maidenly—”’

The last word choked the channel of utterance.

‘You overheat your imagination by dwelling upon
the angry exaggerations of other people,’’ answered
Uncle Archie quietly. ‘‘ Nobody thinks that you have
done one of these dreadful things. If Mr. Waring be
what you represent, you have not a friend who would
not approve your choice. If your position were that of
any other woman you know, your good sense would com-
mend the decision of her relatives to wait for proof that
her new acquaintance is a man of good family and ciar-
acter. There is the whole matter in a dozen words!
When Mr. Waring comes to Hunter’s Rest with satis-
factory certificates to prove that he is what he pretends
to be, and is turned away, it will be time enough for you
to complain that be and you are ill-used.”’

“ Phen ?’—eagerly— you will keep your promise of
intercession ? will use your influence with Papa ?”

“J will!”

She ‘vas battling with softer emotions than had
spoken in her former appeal—began a sentence. and
stopped to control her voice.

‘‘Thank Heaven, that I have one true friend! My
first sorrow is a sorely heavy one, Mr. Read. I laughed
outright last night when Major Dabney ended his
hour’s expostulations, but it was because I was ready to
cry. I felt that he meant to be kind. Iwas sorry that
I had caused him distress, but he had seasoned his talk
with abuse of a man every way his superior, blamed
himself for allowing him to enter his house, and much
more of the same sort—and worse. JI told him not to
trouble his conscience on that score—that we had met
twice before he introduced Mr. Waring to me, and al-
ready loved one another better than he could imagine
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 273

people ever loving in any circumstances. With that,
I marched out of the room without farther explana-
tion.”?

“That was unjust to you, uncandid to a good, warm-
hearted gentleman, whose one fault in this affair has
been a too-ready hospitality, and a belief that others
are as honest as himself.”

I thought the bold reproof would anger her, but she
only replied, after the struggle of a second, ‘‘I will beg
his pardon, if you think best.”

‘““T do think it best that you should not willfully
throw away respect and good-will. Here is the garden,
and I see that Mr. Waring is waiting. If you will trust
me, I will, with pleasure, attend to your sister’s memo-
randum and wait for you at the gate.”

She consigned the paper to him with a look of affec-
tionate gratitude it was well her lover was not near
enough tosee. Few men would haye read it aright.
Fewer would have been generous enough to brook it
had their claims upon her been strong and confessed.
Then she went slowly down the long alley, from the far
end of which a tall figure advanced to meet her. I
waiched them in a maze of romanceful enjoyment and
intense misgivings. Uncle Archie’s straightforward
common sense had cleared my perceptions and steadied
my judgment measurably. If this man were not an
impostor there must be means of proving it. If he
could not produce these, father, brother and friends
were more than justified in refusing to sanction his suit
of their darling.

But how handsome he was! how graceful the rever-
ence with which he bent toward her, his kingly head
bared in the sunlight !

“Don’t you think he is a good man, Uncle Archie ?”
queried IJ, tentatively, as we entered the grceen-house.
274 JUDITH:

“*T do not know him well enough to judge, nor to talk
about him yet, little girl !”’

Which I rightly construed into a recommendation to
me to hold my peace.

The west wore the mellow dyes of a spring evening
when we returned to the gate. The air was scented
with violets, jonquils and hyacinths opening wide their
cups for draughts of the warm, sweet breeze. Just
over the lovers’ heads as they paused at the other ex-
tremity of the flower-skirted walk before turning to re-
join us, the crescent moon fainted in the pale yellow
sky. Harry raised her hand to point it out to her com-
panion. Both stood looking at it fora minute, their
figures drawn darkly, yet in soft, uncertain lines above
the hilly horizon.

‘She saw it over her right shoulder !”’ escaped me in
my exultation. ‘‘ That is a splendid sign !”

“T cannot have you grow up superstitious, Judith,”
said my mentor, with perceptible emphasis on the second
personal pronoun. ‘‘ Do you suppose that our Heavenly
Father would let your future happiness depend on the
chances of seeing the moon to the right or the left of
you? That would make Him out to be weaker and
sillier than the most foolish person you ever saw.’’

‘But dreams—now !”’ ventured I, cowed by his un-
wonted asperity.

‘““Come, sometimes, from heavy suppers. Sometimes,
I verily believe, from the devil !”’

The others were too near for farther talk between us,
but cold shivers of doubt crept around my heart. Had
there been diabolical agency in the vision that predicted
this girl’s meeting with her lover, even to the utterance
of the line of the song that locked the chain upon heart
and fancy ?

Major Dabney lent his carriage and horses to convey
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 275

us back to our country homes. Apphia, saucy and
rosy, with many added touches of city fashion in her
apparel, mounted to the high box by the admiring
coachman when her mistress and I were bestowed
within the roomy chariot. A box of plants occupied
the front seat. My precious tea-rose I carried in my
own hands. The topmost bud tickled my nose, and I
had to clutch it tightly to save it from breakage and
bruise in the vicissitudes of the roads, which were at
their spring worst. Sidney and Uncle Archie were out-
riders.

‘*On my way to jail, with a constable on each side !””
Miss Harry put out her head to say to her friend who
waited on the sidewalk to see us off.

The latter was very pretty that morning, her fluffy
hair blowing over her forehead, her bloom deepening in
the damp air. There were tears in her eyes, but she
smiled them back, shook her head in arch reproof.

“No! to Paradise, attended by two Greathearts !”
she retorted. ‘‘I wish I were going with you. Pity us
poor creatures left in the City of Destruction !”’

She could no more help speaking kindly than some
people can help being blunt. This may have been only
one of the tactful, gracious sayings with which she
habitually covered the lapses and blunders of others.
But I was grateful for it when I saw the brightness in
Uncle Archie’s face. The opportunities of confidential
talk with the daughter of the house had been scant at
his former visit. The present was absolutely barren of
such advantages. Poor Harry’s escapade had disturbed
and occupied the thoughts of all. Animprudent lover
might have hesitated to obtrude his suit in the circum-
stances. This one should have been used to putting by
his own hopes and joys that the less important affairs
of others might receive due attention.
276 JUDITH:

We passed from the muddy, unpaved quarter devoted
to private residences into Main Street, rumbled and
jolted over the badly-laid cobble-stones that made a bot-
tom for that popular thoroughfare, past the Eagle Hotel
and the stores where we had spent many forenoons shop-
ping, not only for ourselves, but for half the country-
side. At the corner, where we turned toward Mayo’s
Bridge, was an organ-grinder, surrounded by the inevit-
able troop of urchins. His monkey was sprawling on
the front of the nearest store at the full length of his
tether ; the thin-faced wife, wrapped in a tattered red
shawl, beat her tambourine while her master sang
‘“Buy a broom.”’? It was very early in the day. Red-
dish fogs drooped low on the Chesterfield hills beyond
the river, gave a lurid cast to the light in which we saw
idle clerks standing in store-doors, colored porters ar-
resting the business of sweeping the sidewalks to lean
on their clumsy splint brooms and grin at the monkey’s
antics, the hollow cheeks and heavy eyes of the tamr-
bourine woman, and the stolid visage of her com-
panion.

Miss Harry smiled languidly in response to my ex-
cited look, leaned forward and threw a coin to the
musicians. I saw Sidney’s contemptuous shrug and
Uncle Archie’s expression of amused surprise as the
bright silver dollar struck and rolled on the stones under
the woman’s feet.

‘Tf we had not stopped to look at them that day—”
began Miss Harry. ‘‘ But no! we could not have missed
him, you know! It was foreordained !”’

We did not miss him to-day. He stood at the Rich-
mond end of the bridge, so near to the wheel-track as
to be able to lay a bunch of violets on Miss Harry’s
knee. It was done in one swift, dexterous gesture, then
he stood back with lifted hat, his passionate regards
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 277

burning on her face while the carriage rolled very
slowly by.

‘*T?d ’a’ made that thick-headed ’Manuel stop clean,
smack, dead still!” Apphia told me afterward; ‘‘ but
he was ’fraid o’ his life 0’ Mars’ Sidney. I ain’t, you
better b’lieve! He dar’sn’t lay finger on me, an’ cus-
sin’ don’t break bones. I ain’t been had no use for
that possum-faced "Manuel from that minnit. I tell
him he ain’t got the sperrit of a’ old har’ !”’

Sidney had spurred on in advance to pay the toll, and
not observed, while making change for the gate-keeper,
the figure on the hither side of the toll-house until the
violets had been given and the donor moved away from
the wheels. I feared for an instant that the brother
would have ridden him down, so fierce was the pull on
the rein that drew the blooded horse back on _ his
haunches, so menacing the brandish and snap of the
whip in his other hand. Miss Harry did not see this
by-play, or aught else besides the one face she might
never behold again if Sidney were to give tone to family
opinion. The apparition was a surprise as complete to
her as to the others, and moved her as their formal part-
ing in the garden had not. Heedless of observation and
comment, she arose to kneel on the seat and get a last,
long look out of the small, round window in the back
curtain, then sank down in her corner and drew a thick
veil over her face, weeping convulsively. I could not
see for blinding tears, but I felt that one of the horse-
men approached her window asif to speak, then checked
himself, struck his horse smartly and dashed aliead.
Not a sentence was uttered except in guarded sub-tones
by the servants on the box, for several miles.

It was a tedious, drearisome journey. The red mud
was up to the axles in the bottoms, and we would have
sunk yet lower but for the ‘‘ corduroy’’ underpinning of
278 JUDITH:

logs in the worst morasses. Over this, progress was a
cruel series of bumps, jolts and rockings that taxed
human frames and carriage-springs to the utmost extent
of endurableness. The horses drew their legs out of
the viscid clay with a curious sucking noise as if ma-
licious underground gnomes were smacking their lips in
glee at our evil case. We stopped but half an hour at
the House of Entertainment where we had dined so
gayly six weeks before. The horses were rubbed down,
a pail of corn meal and water administered to each, and
we pushed on. Had our escorts been in tune for con-
versation, they could not have kept near enough to us
for indulgence in the desire. The corduroy—otherwise
the ‘‘gridiron’? causeway—was a single track con-
structed in the middle of the broad public road. On
each side of this were red deeps and danger, and almost
as much might be said of the quaggy wastes outlying
the double row of worn ruts zigzagging from one firm
spot to another. By fovr o’clock the easily-returning
clouds of spring-tide gathered portentously above us.
By six, a fine chilly drizzle set in, and in another hour
increased to a steady rainfall.

Still there was no talk of not reaching the home of
one or the other section of the little party. The car-
riage-lamps were kindled at a wayside smithy, harness
and horses inspected in the light of the forge-fire, and
more meal and water administered. The gentlemen
alighted, stamped hard and shook themselves before the
blaze, to get rid of some of their encrustment of mud.
Their shadows, grotesque and monstrous, filled the
cabin, stretched away into the road and broke upon our
wheels. Uncle Archie drew out a pocket-flask and cup,
poured out something and brought it to Miss Harry.

‘A little wine will do you good!” he said, without
preamble, but in his usual tone,
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 279

Tf he had pitied her she probably would have refused
it. As it was, she took the cup with a low ‘“ Thank
you !”? drank a part of the contents and pressed the rest
on me.

‘* Are you very tired, Judith ?? asked my uncle.

‘* A little, sir!’

‘*She is very good !?? appended Miss Harry. ‘ Very
brave and patient !”’

‘That is well! She will sleep soundly to-night.”

He shut the door. Emmanuel climbed to the box.
The harness creaked and the carriage groaned as the
horses dragged it out of the mud in which it had settled
deeply during the halt. The light of the burning coal,
the smell of which had brought Richmond and our
departed holiday keenly back to me, faded in the rainy
darkness. The miles grew longer and longer. I was
fatigued beyond the power of complaint. In the dark-
ness silent tears rained over the hands, numbed and
sore with holding on to the tea-rose pot. Miss Harry
was very kind, but she showed her compassionate in-
terest by an occasional inquiry as to my welfare and
such slight offices as lay in her power to offer toward miti-
gation of my evident discomfort. I understood, even
then, that to attempt a show of cheerfulness was an im-
possibility with her. With the last glimpse of her lover,
the excitement that had sustained her for three days
utterly deserted her. The long, depressing day must
have seemed full of sad presages. Jer spirit could not
but shrink in view of the battles to be fought with her
nearest of kin, especially at the prospective struggle
with the father who, idolizing her, would be, on that
account, the more tenacious of the traditions of his
tribe and order. She must also have dreaded, with
different and haughtier feelings, county gossip, charged
with her name; the varied phases of indignation,
280 JUDITH:

grieved surprise and mean exultation the wagging
tongues would express.

We had made room for Apphia inside of the carriage
when the rain set in. She was asleep, wedged between
the box of plants and the stuffed side of the vehicle, I
well-nigh dead with drowsiness I dared not indulge,
when Sidney called to the driver to stop, and, riding up
alongside, addressed his sister for the first time since we
left Major Dabney’s door.

‘* Harry ! it would not be safe to attempt the creek
to-night. We think it better for you to drive on to
Summerfield and stay there until morning. Weare at
the Cross-Roads now, three miles nearer Summerfield
than Hunter’s Rest.”’

‘““What does Mr. Read say ?”

Her voice was hard as well as tired. She would ac-
cept nothing upon her brother’s word. Uncle Archie
was close at hand. His reply sounded in my very ear.
I could imagine just how he Jeaned over in the saddle
to lay his hand on the window-fiame—the old, familiar
attitude associated in my mind with fine-weather drives
through forest roads and between plantation fences.
With gay cortéges of fair girls and bevies of beaux rein-
ing in their curveting horses to exchange merry repar-
tee and pay graceful compliment. With the days—how
long past they were to me to-night!—when I had
thought it a glorious thing to be a ‘‘ turned-out”’ young
lady with scores of admirers, and Miss Harry Macon
the most enviable of created beings. We had stopped
on the very spot where her father had stood, his gray
head bared, holding the carriage door open for her on
Christmas day, and half a dozen cavaliers had sprung
from their saddles to attend her.

The rain plashed straight and sullenly into the pools,
deadening the chafing of the boughs against one an-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 281

other and the ceaseless sigh of the dripping pines. All
this I thought and felt and heard, while Uncle Archie’s
voice gave me the impression of one thing strong and
true amid gloom and dissolution :

‘*T hope you will not think of driving through the
ford at this time of night. The water must be high,
and your driver is not familiar with the road. In less
than an hour we can be safely housed at Summerfield.
You know how welcome you will be there.”

“Thank you! Let it be as you wish! It is only
waiting a little longer,’’ she subjoined in an undertone,
sinking back in her seat as we moved on. And yet
lower, as if to hersclf—‘t But I wish it were over! How
I wish it were over !”’

““Miss Harry, honey! I wouldn’t fret if I was you !”’
said Apphia, tenderly. ‘‘ You allers could twis’ Mars-
ter ’roun’ your finger. Jes’ you keep up a brave heart
an’ speak real peart to him, an’ he’ll give you your
own way same like he’s been doin’ ever sence you was
born. You’re Macon all over, an’ thar never was one
of ’em that would give up not ef they was cut to pieces,
bit by bit. Ole Uncle Cesar, he use’ to say as how a
snappin’-turkle ’ud never let go his bite ’thout it thun-
dered, but that the thunders 0’ Mount Siny and the
Jedgement day put together wouldn’t shake off a Macon
onct he’d took holt.’’

She gave the sweet, shrill laugh of the mulatto at the,
to me, unpleasing conceit. Her mistress did not reply.
Perhaps she recollected that her father too was a full-
blooded Macon.

The lighted windows of Summerfield shone dimly
through the mists as we drew up at the gate. At Uncle
Archie’s shout, the house-dogs bounded across the
yard, barking a vociferous welcome; dusky forms, bear-
ing blazing lightwood knots, issued from the kitchen ;
282 JUDITH:

the door of the house was flung wide, and a flood of
lamplight flickered on the drenched floor of the porch.
When, wet, chilled and stiffened, we dragged our tired
bodies up the steps, we found ourselves literally in the
arms of the Blessed Three who had cone forth to re-
ceive us.

‘“This is none other than the gate of heaven !”’ said
Miss Harry, ’twixt laughing and crying, dropping her
head on Grandma’s shoulder. ‘‘ Virginia called it Para-
dise, and she was right!”

It was ten o’clock when, dry, warm and cheery, we
assembled about a smoking-hot supper, served on a
round table before the fire in ‘‘ the chamber ’’—Grand-
ma’s own room. There were four places, and Aunt
Maria sat down to pour out coffee.

‘* Where is Sidney ?”’ asked his sister, abruptly.

‘*He left us at the Cross-Roads. Didn’t you know
it ?” returned Uncle Archie. ‘‘ Having written to your
father to expect you to-night, he wea afraid he might
be uneasy if he heard nothing of you--”

‘‘Harry, dear!’ cried Aunt Maria, starting up in
real terror,

Harry had arisen to her full heighi; her face was
fearful to behold with sneer and scowl.

‘‘T comprehend !”’ she articulated, as if each slow
syllable cost a separate action of lungs and throat. ‘If
I had known it in time I would have followed him on
foot. The risk of drowning would have been nothing
to me compared with that of letting that traitor get to
my father’s ear before me. It was a clever trick! an
honorable, manly subterfuge, worthy of him who con-
trived and carried it out! Living and dying, I will
never forgive him |”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 283

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHEN Trouchin, in 1780, took stays, stocks and
books from Neckar’s precocious daughter, and turned
her loose in the fields to run with the colts and calves,
he was so far in advance of the sentiment of the day
with regard to the training of girls that we do not won-
der at the resentment of the mother, the ci-devant gov-
erness.

‘She is nothing to what I would have made her!”
Madam Neckar would say slightingly, when congratu-
lated upon the brilliant social and literary successes of
the De Stiel.

Popular prejudice had yielded so slowly to common
sense and the teachings of experience, that in 1832
stated exercise in the open air, as a Christian duty of
women and girls, was as little thought of as the mag-
netic telegraph. Men lived much out of doors, spend-
ing whole days in the saddle, and tramping for long
hours over their plantations, and, gun on shoulder,
through the woods in pursuit of abundant game. Every
woman could ride on horseback for the sake of conve-
nience, carriages being comparatively few in some
neighborhoods, and the roads in winter and spring
almost impassable to lighter vehicles than four-horse
wagons. The conventional gentlewoman of that genera-
tion ‘‘sat on a cushion ”’ in-doors or on the roofed porch,
and ‘‘sewed up a seam,’’ summer, winter, spring and
autumn. She was inducted into the mysteries of the
daintier arts of housewifery—preserving, pickling, jelly
and cake-making ; could wash her own laces, and clear-
starch her own muslins, ‘‘give out’? breakfast, dinner
284 JUDITH:

and supper, and was proficient in fine and fancy needle-
work. Laid away among my precious things is an an-
cient counterpane, embroidered in thirteen different
stitches, by my grandmother’s shapely hands. The
cotton of which it is made grew on her father’s planta-
tion ; was woven into a fine twilled fabric in the loom-
room ; her three sisters each designed a corner pattern ;
her only brother, who was very much in love with the
fair neighbor he afterward married, sketched an altar,
upbearing a pair of apoplectic hearts spitted with an
arrow and steaming with affection, for the fourth cor-
ner. On the centre piece, the owner, belle and be-
trothed, exercised her taste and skill. Within a lozenge,
exactly in the middle of the counterpane, the bride of
a week worked in stiff, lean letters, her new name,
“ Judith Read, 1790.”

Aunt Maria wrought diligently three yoars on a du-
plicate of the treasured heirloom, the original descend-
ing to my mother as the eldest child who survived
infancy.

My grandmother wore tight stays from the hour she
arose from her feather bed in the morning until Mammy
*Ritta undid the stout laces for the night. Unless really
ill she never lay down in the day-time, and when the
weather was even slightly unpleasant, did not leave the
house and porches for weeks together. Her skin was
as fine-grained and smooth asivory, and in late life as
colorless ; her limbs, feet and hands retained their deli-
cacy of form to the last. My mother and Aunt Maria
were less hale than she, and both died under sixty years
ofage. That I, the fragile offshoot of the ancient stock,
was suffered to roam at will in meadow and woods until
anxious heads were shaken over the probability that I
would grow up a ‘‘tom-boy,’? was due to my Uncle
Archie’s influence with the feminine cabal. That I am
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINL1. 285

alive upon the earth this day and in fair health, I owe,
under Heaven, to his wise indulgence of my love of
rambles and farm sports. I rode behind him on a sheep-
skin pillion when he made his rounds of the plantation ,
trudged over frozen fields at his side to see the ice-
cutting on the mill-pond. From him I gleaned the
knowledge of forestry and timbering which makes my
woodland strolls a never-failing source of enjoyment.

On a mid-April day, a fortnight or so after my return
from town, he invited me to ride with him into the
heart of the woods, where he was to inspect timber cut
during the winter for new fences and barns. He set me
down, at my request, at what I had named “my
bower.’? About the trunk of a large maple tree a clus-
ter of saplings had sprung up on all sides but one. In
this opening the bulging roots heaved their knees into a
mossy lap, sloping down to the edge of a rapid brook.
Two years before Uncle Archie had assisted me to lash
the supple young trees into a pent-house above the
green velvet cushion, Last summer he had bound other
wayward sprays down to their appointed places, until
the fiercest sun could not penetrate the thatched arch,
and we had once found beneath it a safe refuge from a
summer shower. The branches were scantily decked
to-day with tufts of downy, pinkish foliage ; the ground
was strewed with the dried flowers pushed off by the
leaf-buds. I brushed them from the snoss, hung my
‘snack ’’-basket on a broken branch, and assured Uncle
Archie that I should have a grand holiday all by myself.
He need not hurry back.

“‘T shall not be very far away,’’ he said. ‘‘ Only on
the other side of the hill, where the men are loading the
wagon. But I may be gone some time.”’

“Never mind! I brought my book ’?— producing
‘*Moral Tales.’’ ‘I have only read it twice.”
286 JUDITH:

‘‘ How many readings do you expect to give it ?”

He stooped to pick it up; turned with affected care-
lessness to the fly-leaf, where Miss Virginia had written
her name and mine.

‘“‘Oh, eight or nine, I suppose! I read ‘ Pilgrim’s
Progress’ through three or four times a year. There
are so few really interesting Sunday books beside that
and Miss Hannah More’s ‘ Tracts,’ and the Bible, of
course.”

He pinched my cheek, repeating laughingly, ‘Of
course !’’ put the book down tenderly on my lap, and
mounted his horse.

“Tf you want me, you have only to call very loudly,”’
was his parting admonition.

It was not likely that I should have occasion to sum-
mon him. The woods were safe, the day was perfect.
I did not care to open my book at once. Resting against
the brown-gray trunk, I bethought me that I had
missed seeing the crimson tassels this season; pitied
them for having burned out their brief life and fallen
unheeded. I fancied how the ground had looked gor-
geously carpeted with ther * how they had whirled and
danced on the brook, been heaped up in eddies and
behind stones, and caught in the long grasses shimmer-
ing and swaying below the surface of the water that
went swishing and gurgling down to the creek a mile
below. Such a dear, wonderful little brook ! twisting
and glittering and darkling, but always happy and clean,
for its course was over smooth pebbles and between
banks bound into compactness by reticulated roots, and
turfed and mossed to the brink. A companionable
little brook, in which I had built grottoes, with colored
stones for pixies, and over which leaned certain gnarled
and hollow trees, wherein might dwell dryads and elves,
although tenantcd at present by gray squirrels, that
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 287

barked and scolded when I came too near to them in
their romping races over dry leaves and brushwood. A
very tempting brook to-day, being so full after the spring
floods that the water was clear brown in the hollows,
yet warm down to the bottom. I laid my book in a
crotched branch, beyond the reach of scattering drops,
pulled off my home-knit stockings and thick shoes,
drew the skirt of my blue-spotted frock up to my knees
and stepped into the delicious tide. I had done the
same often enough to learn that better wading-grounds
lay down the stream, and splashed gayly along, stop-
ping now and then to revel in the ripple of the soft cur-
rent over my ‘‘ankles, bare and brown,’ and to watch
the minnows in the shallows. A school of these took
flight at my approach, and darted away, throwing
somersaults over the stones, and floating, sometimes
head first, sometimes backward and upside-down in the
rapids. I gave chase in sheer light-heartedness, holding
my skirts well up and dashing the spray right and left
until I was in water knee-deep.

Just where my brook spread out into a miniature
lake, fringed by ‘“ branch-willows,”’ ochreous and glossy
to the tiniest tip, and studded with grayish leaves, I
turned a sharp corner, and came full upon two people
seated on a fallen trunk.

‘““Why, Sweetbrier !’? cried Harry Macon, with an
agitated laugh. ‘‘ How you startled me! Did youdrop
from the clouds ??? More nervously still: ‘‘ Who is
with you ?”

Mr. Waring had arisen with her, and made me a pro-
found bow.

“Good-day, fair Musidora !”’

I had let fall my frock, and it clung and flapped soak-
ingly against my naked legs. .A hot red vapor seemed to
envelop me like a veil of shame. The power of motion
288 JUDITH:

with that of speech forsook me. I had a wild impulse
to fall, face foremost, in the brook and drown myself
out of present misery and a life that had grown sud-
denly dreadful. I heard Miss Harry say something
hurried and inaudible, and the sound of retreating foot-
steps. When she spoke again she was alone and stand-
ing at the water’s edge.

‘¢Come to me, dear,’’ she said, soothingly. ‘‘ Therc
is no harm done. Are you alone ?”

‘“ Yes, ma’am,”’ faltered I. ‘‘ Uncle Archie brought
me, but he went away.”’

‘*T am glad he did!” She was wringing and shaking
out the wet hem of my petticoats. ‘I don’t want him
or anybody else to know that I am here. I am not sorry
to have a chance of a talk with you. Sit down by me,
and put your fect on that mossy stone. They will soon
dry in the sun. You must take a message to your
uncle from me. But do not deliver it until you hear that
Ihave gone away. Do you understand me, Judith ?”

T nodded obediently, staring right at her, not yet col-
lected enough to gather any other sense from the words
than the ear caught mechanically. She was very pale,
and spoke in a thin, unsteady voice, not at all like her
own. While talking she tore off the tawny bark from
the willow wands nearest her, divided the strips into
threads, and tossed them into the water.

‘Tell him not to blame me. That I am driven to it.
That I receive neither justice nor mercy from my father
and brothers. That when the information for which they
have written to England comes—and it cannot get here
under three months—they will be no better satistied
than they are now. They will pretend to believe the
letters forgeries or falsehoods. They are determined
not to be convinced. There is but one way to force the
truth upon them. T must go myself to Fairwold Hall,
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 280

and write to them from there. Sidney objects to my
talking to your uncle. He says, ‘ Archie is too easy
with you. He encourages you to be headstrong.’ But
tell him to go to my father, when I have gone, and
make him understand that he will not hear from me
until I can date my letter from the house he tells me
has no place on earth outside of my imagination. My
father was never unkind to me before. I never had a
harsh word from him. He would not kiss me when I
went to bed last night, because I would not pledge my
word to hold no communication with Mr. Waring until
we should hear from England. Sidney and I do not
speak to one another, and poor Di cries all the time.
Even Rod, who used to take my part in all our disputes,
writes from Philadelphia that he will never own me as
a sister again if I do not give up what he calls “a dis-
graceful fancy.’? He says he has not been able to study
or sleep since he firs: heard of it. They are killing me
by fast inches! Look at my hands!”

She bared her wrists. The veins stood out high and
blue, the muscles showed whitely.

“(In three months I should not be worth any man’s
taking. They will have hounded me into my grave, or
the mad-house. Sometimes I wonder if I am quite
sane. I don’t know myself as the Harry Macon whe
was so happy last Christmas.”’

She had rushed on in the review of her wrongs with
the impetuosity of one who must have the relief of
speech in a sympathizing ear. Now, she pulled herself
up and tried 10 seem calm.

“You won’t forget what I have told you, Judith ?”

‘Tt is a great deal to remember,’’ uttered I, in my
old-womanish way. ‘But I will try. It is dreadful
that they treat you so unkineély—” winding my arms
about her as if their weak strain could stay the breaking
290 JUDITH:

heart. ‘‘Why don’t you come to Summerfield to stay?
Nobody is cruel to anybody there. And we are all de-
voted to you. Don’t you think Uncle Archie could do
something for you? He always does help ’most every-
body.”

‘“‘He can’t help me, dear. If he could, he would.
God bless him for the truest friend Iever had! Tell
him that too, Judith! That if I were on my death-
bed, I should still pray that God would bless him and
give him the desire of his heart. Say that just as I do
—‘the desire of his heart and the light of his eyes,’—
those dear, honest, tender eyes! He will know what I
mean.

‘*Now I must go! Papa and Sidney are off at court
to-day, or I should not have been able to leave the plan-
tation without the escort of one of them. They dog
me like my shadow. I may not see you ina long time
again, Sweetbrier. But you are a darling, and a com-
fort, and my own friend wherever I may be. Some day
I shall beg to have you for a whole year, all to myself,
and come for you. Don’t breathe a word of having met
me until—you know when. Then, give my love to
Grandma, Aunt Betsey and Maria, and ask them to
think as well of me as they can. And don’t let any-
body teach you to hate me and call me ugly names.
Good-by, darling !”’

She clasped me closely to her breast, kissed me over
and over. In the midst of my stupefaction, the thought
crept into my mind that it was as the puny representa-
tive of all she was deserting—home-loves and friends
and girlhood’s affluence of gayety and triumph—that I
reeeived the griefful passion of her caress. At last she
let me go, and walked away very fast down a disused
cart-road, now overgrown with coarse herbage. Almost
at the end of the vista thus formed, I descricd a woman
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 291

on horseback holding two horses beside her own, and
knew her for Apphia by the gay turban and _parti-col-
ored dress. Mr. Waring joined Miss Harry before she
had gone far. I watched them as they mounted and
rode off, Miss Harry waving a handkerchief in farewell
to the abject speck of humanity gazing at her from the
bank of the stream.

Shaken, stunned and sick, I followed the brook back
to my mossy seat, keeping ashore. I loathed the thought
of wading as I would have shrunk from banjo-music at
a funeral. Twice I stumbled over prostrate logs, my
ankles and feet were torn by mats and ropes of trailing
bamboo, or ‘‘cat-brier.””? I washed the bloody scratches
in the warm water and drew on my stockings, sobbing
bitterly all the while. The cup of childish woe had
been dangerously full many times within this eventful
year. It streamed over, now, in torrents. Miss Harry
meant to run away to be married! I had heard of such
flights over the Virginia border into North Carolina or
Maryland. In our State the eonsent of parents or guar-
dian was essential to the legality of a minor’s marriage.
Most fathers forgave offenses of this sort, and no ob-
loquy was attached to the contracting parties. Still I
wept out of the soreness of a new distrust. I had sud-
denly conceived a prejudice against Mr. Waring. I did
not believe that the real Prince would have accosted me
as ‘‘Musidora.’? He may not have suspected that I
had read ‘‘Thomson’s Seasons,’? but he might have
taken it for granted that Miss Harry had. Musidora
was, in my opinion, a very careless, if not an improper
young woman, her Damon an impudent spy, and the
story anything but a nice one. Uncle Archie would
not have alluded to it in the presence of ladies, nor
would Captain Macon or his sons. What if they were
nearer right, after all, in their views of her love-affair
292 JUDITH:

than was she who sacrificed everything to follow this
man’s fortunes ?

My eyes were red, my cheeks blotched by tears when
my protector returned and proposed to share my lunch
of ginger-cakes and apples.

‘“What is the matter ?’’ he broke off the sentence to
inquire, catching a glimpse of my averted face.

I shook my head, my feelings knotting up hard in my
throat, my lids again drenched.

His eyes fell on my damp garments, and twinkled in
spite of his kind heart.

“Ah! Isee! Never mind, little woman! I should
enjoy a wade myself this morning. The water is just
right. Ill speak to Aunt Maria about the wet frock !”’

I overheard him, in my flight up to my room on reach-
ing home, explain to his sister that ‘‘ the poor child was
almost heart-broken because she had got her frock in
the water while wading,’ and I fairly hated my deceit-
ful, ungrateful self. But had I not been charged to keep
silence as to the occurrences of the forenoon ?

“The Reads never break faith! The Truehearts do
not betray trust!’ gulped I magniloquently, twisting
my short arms over my shoulders to button up the dry
gown behind.

The aptness of the phraseology surprised myself. I
had not read ‘‘ Moral Tales’’ twice in vain. The de-
claration sounded as well as many passages of ‘* Rob
Roy,”’ which Uncle Archie was reading aloud on even-
ings and rainy days.

In my ignorance of ways, means and the conven-
tionalities of elopements, I believed that I had witnessed
the first stage of the fugitives’ journey. The third day
after the scene at the creek was Sunday, and I was as-
tounded by the apparition of the bride-expectant at Old
Singinsville, pale and graver-eyed than usual, but evi-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 293

dently still Harry Macon, and under the protection of
father and brother.

Grandma beckoned Captain Macon to our carriage
when his two daughters were shut up in theirs.

‘*Come over and see us soon!’ she half whispered,
leaning out of the window. ‘‘I have a little friendly
scolding in store for you. You must not take it amiss,
Tam afraid you are handling a delicate machine a little
roughly. It is too valuable to be trifled with.”

The grand old gray head sank dejectedly.

‘‘T will not affect to misunderstand you, madam.
Heaven is my witness how thankfully I shall listen to
counsel, suggestion or rebuke from a friend so judicious,
a woman so true-hearted as yourself. I confess myself
to be baffled and discouraged. I apprehend that we
shall agree as to the main issue involved ?” with a keen
interrogatory look.

‘‘ There can be little differer.ce of opinion on that
head between sensible people. Bui the parting with the
right eye or hand must always seem cruel to the young.
It behooves us in our age and experience to be merciful
and tender. I will not detain you. Maria will drive
over to-morrow to beg a week’s visit from Harry. You
will trust her with us ?”

‘‘Gratefully, madam! I could ask no wiser mentors,
no gentler physicians to a mind diseased. I will not
mention the projected visit to poor Harriet. She views
with a jaundiced eye every subject broached by me.
May He who knows men’s hearts and sees the bitter-
ness of mine, in His own good time unseal her eyes!”

“‘ Amen !”’ responded the venerable sisters, as he re-
treated with one of his incomparable reverences.

Miss Harry’s coming was discussed at our supper-
table that evening. There should be a “ dining-day”
on Tuesday at Summerfield of the young people she
294 JUDITH:

liked best. A fishing-party on Read’s mill-pond was
planned for Wednesday, a horseback excursion and din-
ner in Burwell’s woods, fifteen miles away, for Thursday ;
Aunt Maria proposed to take her guest on Friday to
Bellair to visit my mother, the early friend and ally of
the refractory beauty, and remain there over the Sab-
bath.

‘‘T don’t know whether this junketing talk is quite
the thing for Sunday,’’? demurred Aunt Betsey in the
course of the consultation.

‘<The Sabbath is to be sanctified by a holy resting
all that day, even from such worldly employments and
recreations as are lawful on other days, and spending
the whole time in the public and private exercises of
God’s worship,’ ’’ quoted Grandma from the Westmin-
ster Shorter Catechism, and, with judicial impressive-
ness, ‘‘ ‘except so much as is to be taken up in the works
of necessity and merey !’? The Master would say, I think,
that it is lawful to save life, and what is better than life
—happiness—on His holy day.”

Aunt Maria’s colored class met to be catechised on
Sunday nights in the dining-room. I sat by Mammy,
and answered in my turn. I remember distinctly one
question that fell to her on this particular evening. In
her Sabbath-day garb of black bombazine, asnowy tur-
ban bound about her head, and as white a ’kerchief
crossed on her bosom, she sat, as dignified and upright
as her mistress would have done, at the top of the
room, on the alert to quell the restlessness or antics of
the juniors by a glance, yet devoutly attentive to the
lesson.

‘** What are the benefits which, in this life, do ac-
company or flow from Justification, Adoption and Sanc-
tification ?’? asked Aunt Maria’s silvery voice.

There was a soundless flutter of exultation among
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 295

such idle younglings as Gabriel and Michael when what
they denominated ‘‘one 0’ them long fellows’? was
drawn by Mammy. It struck off one from their list of
probable discomfitures, and there was sublimity in her
acceptance of her fate, music in her sonorous enuncia-
tion of the pregnant sentences. Her black eyes sought
a fixed spot pretty high up on the opposite wall. Her
folded hands were motionless while she replied slowly
and reverently, pausing to mark each division of topics,
and rising in a noble crescendo to the emphatic finale:

‘¢¢ The benefits which, in this life, do accompany or
flow from Justification, Adoption and Sanctification
are: Assurance of God’s love, peace of conscience, joy
in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance
therein to the End?”

It helped one to comprehend what the End would be
to such sincere and steadfast souls as hers to hear the unc-
tion with which Mammy brought out those last words.

The drill was highly satisfactory that evening. Those
who generally fell halt or lame by the way had extraor-
dinary liberty of speech, and the proficient were glib be-
yond precedent. All united in the last hymn with stout
lungs and approving consciences. The words were such
as especially delectate the negro imagination:

“Lo! on a narrow neck of land,
’Twixt two unbounded seas I stand,
Yet how insensible !
A point of time, a moment’s space
Removes me to yon heavenly place,
Or—shuts me up in hell!”

The devout hymnist of the time saw no incongruity
in singing what he believed and held for certain. I
could close my eyes as they rolled out the dolorous can-
ticle, and picture it all to myself. The neck of land was
the Isthmus of Darien; the vexed Atlantic was this
206 JUDITH:

lite; the sunny hazes of the Pacific took shape into
gleaming columns and airy domes, and walls of jasper,
sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardins,
chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprasus, jacinth and ame-
thyst. Hell moved beneath me, even while my eyes
dwelt upon the celestial battlements, and so near that I
could hear the bellowings of the volcanic fires.

Aunt Maria’s taste was for gentler themes. The
curdling of blood, the shiver of spirit and flesh attend-
ant upon the contemplation of the abodes of the finally
impenitent were distress and personal pain to her.
She let her sable disciples sing the hymns selected by
themselves, then lifted her pale, pure face from the hand
that had supported and shaded it.

“¢ Let us pray !”

We all knelt and repeated with her as one voice, ‘‘Our
Father who art in Heaven !”’

She sent them away with the ‘Glory forever and
ever !”’ in ear and heart.

Mine was the additional treat of having her sit beside
mec and talk of Bible stories and Christian’s arrivalat the
Ceiestial City, and most in detail of what I had been
reading that day as the portion of the Scripture lesson
in course—the history of Jezebel’s crimes and fate. I
recollect asking her what was the meaning of ‘tired
her head and looked out at a window.”’

‘*Qh !"’ said I, disappointed on learning that the royal
murderess had assumed her most becoming head-dress.
‘‘T thought she leaned against the window as you do
sometimes when you are tired. I saw you sitting so at
the school-room window to-day while I was reading that
very verse. I should think you would be lonely in there,
Aunt Maria! Ican’t bear the place. The desks and
benches, and especially Mr. Bradley’s chair, make it all
seem so desolate.”’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINTA., 297

“It is a quiet place, dear, and one likes to be alone
and still when she is reading or thinking. But it is
time you were asleep. I will put out the light and stay
with you awhile.”

The graceful outline of her head and neck against the
moonlit window faded into and mingled with dreams in
which Mr. Bradley and Jehu were oddly associated and
Jezebel toppled over on the uncomfortable side of the
‘‘neck of land.’?? A soothing blank, fraught with re-
freshment, followed, and I unclosed my young eyes upon
a bright, fragrant morning.

Aunt Maria, in her white night-dress, her hair loos-
ened on her shoulders as she had shaken it down for
combing, stood motionless and pallid in the sunlight,
transfixed by the tale Mammy was narrating.

“It is too true, honey! Mars’ Sidney was here by
sunrise to see Mars’ Archie ’bout it, pretty sigh crazy,
too—pore young gentleman! Heby—Miss Diaina’s maid
—she ’twas foun’ it out, when thar was no signs 0’
Apphia comin’ down sta’rs to fotch up water for Miss
Harry’s room. So she went up to sce what was the
inatter, an’ lo, an’ behole! Miss Harry’s bed hadn’t
been slep’ in all night, an’ Apphia, she was gone too.
They mus’ ’a’ stole off bout ten o’clock, for Cap’n Ma-
con’s Rube, he was goin’ home from seein’ his sweet-
heart, one of Mr. James Carrington’s house-servants,
an’ met a strange carriage in the road, near ‘leven.
Mars’ Archie had his horse saddled right off and rode
back with him to Hunter’s Res’. I heerd Mars’ Sidney
say that his father was threatened with somethin’ like
a fit, an’ pore Miss Diana was goin’ from one faint to
another. Miss Harry may have had a good deal to b’ar,
put she ’d never ’a’ gone off with the bes’ man livin’ ef
she could ’a’ foreseen the misery she ’d leave behin’ her.
The Lord be more merciful to the pore dear lamb than
she’s been to them that ’s nearest 0’? kin to her!”
298 JUDITH:

CHAPTER XIX.

THE drouth that visited certain counties in Central
and Southern Virginia in August and September of
1832 may not have been exceptionally severe, but the
accessories and incidents of the calamity stand out with
lurid distinctness in my memory. For fifty-seven days
not a drop of rain fell on the Summerfield plantation.
The sun was a copper ball; the moon wan and sickly.
The dust of the public roads was half a foot deep, and
floated, a reddish powder, in the atmosphere. The long
leaves of the maize twisted more and more tightly,
hung wilted and prone against the stems, until the un-
ripe ears perished in the dried ‘‘shucks,’’ and stalks
and leaves were cut for foddering the cattle. Pasture-
fields were sere and blackened as by fire. The lean kine
tore up grass roots and chewed them to extract what
succuience the baked earth had left in the fibrous
threads. Small streams disappeared entirely, and many
large ones were but a succession of shrinking pools
connected by ooze creeping sluggishly among the hot
stones. Almost every mill in the district hung upon
the outer wall a useless wheel with blistered rim and
warping flanges.

By the middle of September the forests of deciduous
trees were of a dull brown, and the blackish verdure of
the pines opposed a funereal contrast. Petitions were
offered in all the churches for rain. Mr. Watt and Mr.
Burgess cried out to the Lord in the great congregation
that ‘‘the heavens over our head were as brass, and
the earth that was under us was as iron; that the rain
of our land was as powder and dust.’? With all the
-l CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 299

energy of men whose own farms eked out salaries which
were inadequate to the support of large and growing
families, they besought mercy upon a people chastised
for their sins and rewarded according to their iniquities.
The periodical August ‘‘ protracted meeting” at Old
Singinsville was a season of fasting, humiliation and
prayer, participated in by multitudes who plowed and
waded through the choking dust of the highways to
unite the weight of their lamentations and supplica-
tions.

Dearth and drouth were at their worst when there
was brought one evening from the post-office to Uncle
Archie, a thick packet directed in Mr. Bradley’s hand,
and post-marked ‘‘ New York.’? It was opened while
we were at supper, and proved to contain, besides a
letter, a mammoth poster, setting forth the unparal-
leled attractions of a circus troupe performing vightly
in Montreal. Among the ‘‘stars’’ was included “ Mr.
FREDERICK TREVELYAN, late of Van Amburg’s Cele-
brated Company, the World-Renowned Acrobat and
Rider, best known in Europe and America as the
‘Modern Pheebus.’ ”’

Had the gorgeous apparition in white and silver that
carried the Richmond spectators by storm alighted
among the china and silver of our country tea-table,
the sensation would hardly have been more pronounced
than that produced by the glaring advertisement of his
return to his former profession. Up to that moment
there had smouldered in the breasts of us all some belief
in the truth of his pretensions to gentlemanhood.

In the farewell note to her sister found in Harry's
room, she had stated that they were on the eve of de-
parture for England, their passage being already taken
in the packet which would sail the next week; also,
that she would not write again until she could date her
300 JUDITH:

letter from Fairwold Hall. Mr. Waring had iuclosed
the certificate of the marriage (performed at Washing-
ton) ina dignified dispatch to Captain Macon, saying
that, should he desire to communicate with his daugh-
ter, or to send any articles belonging to her, Mr. War-
ing’s agent in Baltimore, whose address was given,
would take charge of letter or parcel. Within a day
after the receipt of this epistle everything the mis-
guided girl had called her own in her father’s house,
even to her half-worn shoes, was packed under Captain
Macon’s eye and dispatched as directed. Upon a sheet
of paper laid within the great case, the Captain wrote,
steadying the hand that had been tremulous since the
hour in which he discovered his child’s flight :

“When Harriet writes to me I shall answer her letier.
Communications on her behalf penned by another will re-
ceive no notice.”’

This circus bill, ‘‘ stripped from a street wall in Mon-
treal,’? wrote Mr. Bradley, ‘‘ was ten days old when I
tore it off.”’

It was the only hint Harry’s friends had had of the
whereabouts of the pair since the receipt of the certifi-
cate.

Uncle Archie sent Jerry, the butler, from the room
and read the New York letter aloud. Mr. Bradley had
entered a law office in Philadelphia at the close of his
school term in July. Aunt Betsey had heard from him
twice; he had sent a paper to Aunt Maria, marking
several articles to attract her eye, and written once be-
fore to Uncle Archie since leaving Richmond. He was
a good friend and correspondent of the family of which
he had once formed a part. He stated now that he had
spared no pains to collect information respecting the
movements of the company, which had left Montreal
before his arrival in that city, but his efforts hada heen
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. ovl

indifferently successful. That ‘‘ Frederick Trevelyan ”’
was John Waring, and not a transferred title to another
member of Van Amburg’s troupe, was made altogether
certain by the descriptions he received of his person
and performances. If he had a wife the fact was not
known to his public. Nor could Mr. Bradley obtain
definite intelligence as to the route taken by the circus
when the Montreal engagement was concluded.

‘IT must take this over to Hunter’s Rest to-morrow,”
sighed Uncle Archie, folding up poster and letter.

A. troubled silence ensued. The pale anxiety in the
brother’s face had a reflection in that of the sister,
bowed mournfully over the slender finger that followed
the pattern of the damask table-cloth. Neither was
looking well this summer, The harassing cares and
anxieties incident to the drouth explained this, in part,
but to my senses, preternaturally quickened by the
eveuts of the early spring, there was something beneath
and back of the grave quiet that had become habitual
to them.

In the long, serious talk Uncle Archie held with me
when I delivered the message left for him by Miss
Harry, he had exculpated me from conscious error in
concealing my knowledge of the projected elopement.
He was not one to reason out of a straight line;
had little knowledge of and no patience with the
shool of ethics that blends motives and tones down
principles.

‘¢We have trained the child to mind her own busi-
ness and to speak the truth,’’ he said when Aunt Betsey
‘‘wished that the plot had been revealed in time to
hinder the dear, infatuated girl from sealing her dc-
struction.’’ ‘‘ She was told to hold her tongue, and she
held it. She must not be blamed.”

Nevertheless, I stole after him as he left the table
302 JUDITH:

and went out upon the back porch—slipped my fingers
timidly into his.

“¢ Are you displeased with me, Uncle Archie ?”’

He passed his hand over my hair, but his speech was
brief.

‘No, child! Iam thinking. Run away now!”’

I withdrew to the end of the piazza, and, drawing
myself up against the wall to be out of his beat as he
walked, lay down at full length on the cool, oaken floor.
I was never robust, and the dry, unvarying heat of the
weather weakened me more than my elders suspected.
Silent tears wetted the boards under my cheek. The
world was getting to be a dreary home. An unlovely
one, as I saw it to-night, the withered vines drooping
in the stirless air, the faint moon wistfully surveying
blighted fields from which no harvest-songs would arise
this year. I could scarcely draw breath in the radiated
heat thrown off by the earth after the torrid day.

Presently a slim white figure joined the solitary
promenader, leaned on his offered arm as if the support
were needed.

“* My letter was from Richmond,” I heard her say,
and, for several turns, nothing more.

‘Well! from Uncle Archic, at last—calm, and not
inquisitive.

“Tt is not a long letter, and, like her last, somewhat
dispirited. Something weighs on her heart, altheugh
she does not say so. She writes of commonplace affairs ;
is sorry the drouth is so much worse here than in Rich-
mond ; hopes it will not entirely destroy the tobacco
and corn crops; asks if Diana Macon has gone to the
White Sulphur Springs yet; if Roderick is taking a
summer course in Philadelphia; if we ever hear from
Mr. Bradley and how he is getting on, and half a dozen
other questions as fast as she can run them off. I could
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 303

imagine that she did it to make sure that my answer
should not deal with personal and confidential matters.
I don’t understand her at all; unless—she regrets the
answer sent to your letter !”’

‘* Nothing is less probable !”? quickly and positively.
‘‘It is more likely that she fears lest your feelings may
be changed in consequence of her correspondence with
me.”’

“J reassured her on that point weeks ago. The
change I speak of has come on lately. It is never easy
to get at her hidden hurt, when she has one. She is
unselfish even in this. For instance, she has never inti-
mated to me that her home is not altogether pleasant.
Yet Mrs. Dabney’s peculiarities must be a severe trial.’

‘‘She dreads to inflict pain. J ought to know that!”

Aunt Betsey’s appearance in the doorway with the
original observation that the weather was “really
alarmingly dry,’’ checked farther confidences. The dear
woman walked to the edge of the porch-floor, pulled a
bit of the dying vine from the trellis and sighed audibly.

““¢The wicked walk on every side, and the vilest
men are exalted !? What with the chances of Jackson’s
re-election and the almost certainty of civil war should
that come to pass (for South Carolina could not be paci-
fied), and the drouth and sorrow and disgrace in so
many homes—I am continually reminded of that pass-
age in Habakkuk, ‘ Thou didst march through the land
in indignation. Thou didst thresh the heathen in
anger.’ ”?

“Ah! but you forget the ending of the same chapter.”’

Aunt Maria had left her brother’s arm and leaned on
the porch-railing, her colorless face lifted to the moon,
the very picture of purity and peacefulness. She so
rarely gave utterance to the strong feelings that upbore
and made stable her lovely equanimity of temper and
304 JUDITH:

demeanor, that Aunt Betsey turned toward her in sur-
prise when she began to speak.

‘¢* Although the fig tree shall not blossom,’ ’’ she re-
cited slowly and softly, ‘‘ ‘neither shall fruit be in the
vines; the labor of the olive shall fail and the ficlds
shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the
fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls ; yet will
I rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salva-
tion!”

She passed down the steps in her rustleless white
gown, like a ray of moonlight, and across the yard to
Mammy’s cottage, aunt and brother watching her in
silence.

““She lives very near!” uttered Aunt Betsey at
length, shaking her head. ‘‘ Very close to her Master.
And the refining has gone on rapidly of late. He must
see the reflection of His face with hardly a blur.”’

‘*'You have observed if, too, have you? I thought it
might be a notion of mine—some peculiarity in my own
mood, that made her seem dearer and sweeter than
ever.”

‘Ah, the dear child has enough to grieve her, with
her sympathetic, loving nature !’’? answered Aunt Bet-
sey. ‘‘She takes her friends’ troubles sadly to heart—
weeps with those that weep as if the affliction were her
own.”’

Uncle Archie resumed his walk, head bent and hands
crossed behind him. Was he remorseful that he had
shared his sorrow with this tender spirit ?

Presently he stopped abruptly, and picked me up
bodily.

‘“We must contrive some means to make this bird-
ling eat more, Aunt Betsey! She doesn’t come up to
‘hag’s weight |?”

“* What is that ?’’ asked I, half fearfully, yet diverted.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 305

‘‘Eighty pounds. If you goon in this way I shall
be able soon to carry you on my little finger as I would
afeather. Itis your bedtime now. I am going over
to Hunter’s Rest very early in the morning. Don’t
you want a ride? You needn’t speak! I can see your
eyes in the moonlight. Tell Mammy to call you in time,
and to have a bow! of bread and milk for you before we
set off.”

His cheery tone and thoughtfulness of my health and
pleasure were not like the morbose abstraction of a dis-
appointed lover.

Nor was his morning mood. He had set aside a
steady pony for my use early in the year, and himself
acted as my riding-master. My habit was a nankeen
skirt that fell a few inches below the hem of my gown,
and buttoned all the way down. Before I alighted from
my horse after a ride my escort unfastened this to the last
button, and when I was lifted out of it, threw it upon
the saddle. My dress was in all other respects un-
changed from my usual attire. The close cloth jacket
and flowing skirt, the man’s collar and hat were not
adopted, even by fashionable equestrians of my sex,
until a decade later.

Uncle Archie examined my stirrup, saddle-girth and
bridle, and settled me in the side-saddle which had been
used by two generations before it fell to me. It had
but one pommel and a small black horn; the seat was
of smooth, hard leather, and the stirrup open. Over my
shoulders was pinned a nankeen cape, feather-stitched
with scarlet crewel; on my arms were long home-made
gloves, or ‘‘ mitts,’ of the same material, similarly em-
broidered, that left my fingers bare from the second
knuckle; a white cape-bonnet covered my head. My
pony was an casy pacer. Ladies never rode trotters,
nor did men from choice. The best saddle-horses were
306 JUDITH:

unbroken to harness, and trained only to the pace,
canter, gallop and run.

The morning was already sultry, but Uncle Archie
raised his head and drew in a long breath as one of his
hounds would have snuffed the wind.

‘** All signs fail in dry weather,’ or I should say that
I smell rain, and not far off !””

““ Would it save the tobacco ?”’

We were jogging along between the melancholy brown
fields.

“No.”

‘“‘ Nor the corn ?”

‘It is too late to help either.”

‘“What will you do if all the crops fail, Uncle
Archie ?”

He smiled down at me, his face as tranquil as the
dawn against which the distant hills stood up like purple
mounts of sacrifice, the sacred fires kindling on their
altars.

‘“You heard what Aunt Maria said last night ? There
is but one trust and one joy that never fail us, Judith!”

They styled such talk in that generation, ‘t Conversa-
tion on the Subject of Religion,” and young, unregene-
rate people held themselves aloof from the holy ground.
Traditions of the approach, with unsandaled foot, of
the mystic preparation of the soul, typified by purifica-
tion with oil of myrrh and sweet odors, warned off the
uninitiated. ‘‘ The awful circle of the church ”’ was no
strained metaphor in this connection. Those who loved
the Lord and had confessed Him before men, spake
often one to another when age and sanctified experience
of life and vital godliness had opened hearts and lips,
but even they were not wont to address the language of
the Kingdom to the unconverted except in entreaty and
warning. Within two years I had been adjudged to be
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 307

indubitably ‘ of an accountable age ’’—date of dread to
my apprehension. The prayers of a godly ancestry
could not save my shivering soul, nor the sweet saintli-
ness of my living kindred reflect one ray of hope upon
the dark curtain of the hereafter I could not escape. I
was like a baby torn from her mother’s bosom and flung
upon a weltering deep to swim or drown for myself. I
was a “‘responsible human being,” and as such, had
already been labored with at a protracted meeting by
Mr. Burgess (whom I could never bear afterward), and
a Methodist sister, who put a fat arm about me on a hot
day, as she adjured me to flee from the wrath to come,
and when I sobbed piteously with nameless terror and
excitement, promised to remember me in her prayers.
I felt that the Wesleyan sister had taken a liberty, being
our overseer’s wife, and uneducated, whereas we were
Presbyterian gentlefolk ; but she was less objectionable
than Mr. Burgess. Hers was kindly officiousness, since
she could derive no benefit personally from my conver-
sion. I could not have framed into words my idea that
Mr. Burgess’ strivings with my soul were perfunctory,
and that his salary meant so much per head for every
“‘addition to the church.’’ In portentous gutturals he
held forth to me upon my carnal mind and reprobate
will, and bound on my raw, quivering conscience the
load of my ‘‘awful obligation as a child of the cove-
nant,’ to make my calling and election sure. After that
I never truthfully returned thanks that ‘‘ I was not born
a heathen child.”’

Sweet moisture filled my eyes as Uncle Archie spoke.
It was not a bit like preaching, but no sermon ever fast-
ened on my soul such conviction that he who delivered
it believed thoroughly in the truth he taught. He said
“us,” too, as if including me! I felt the pressure of a
mighty, invisible Arm about my weak, ignorant self;
308 JUDITH:

the stirring of a new hope in my soul. Uncle Archie’s
religion would be a comfortable thing to have. Up to
that hour I had anticipated the throes of conviction,
the birth of conversion, as eminently advisable. In plain
terms, they were the essential process by which to avoid
the eternal agonies of the ‘‘shut-up hell’? of which we
sang. But in this life—short and uncertain as it was
—how good to know that faith and joy would never
fail us |

We rode on the margin of the road-bed, trampling
pennyroyal and wooly-leaved sheepmint into perfume,
and chatting cheerfully until the sight of Hunter’s Rest
brought up strongly the thought of our errand with the
master of the domain.

It was a dark-red brick house, with one wooden wing.
A railing ran along the outer edge of the square roof of
the main building, a wide piazza across the lower front-
age. The walks of a spacious yarc were edged with
box, the aromatic pungency of which is ever associated
in my mind with the venerable homestead. The sun
was beginning to draw it out into the air when we dis-
mounted at the yard-gate. The premises were strangely
still. Miss Diana and Sidney were at the Springs.
Roderick was walking a Philadelphia hospital. The
windows of the first floor were wide open, but not a
face appeared at any one of them. Two ancient*watch-
dogs lay on the gravel-walk, and looked up to wag their
tails as Uncle Archie stepped out on the turf to avoid
treading on them. In nearing the house we heard the
measured voice of one reading. Uncle Archie signed
to me to walk lightly in ascending the steps. From
the porch-floor we had a view of the interior of the
large parlor.

Captain Macon sat in lonely state at the top of the
room in the arm-chair he had occupied at family wor-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 309

ship for a quarter of a century when his growing family
gathered about him. Ishould have looked twice before
recognizing him had I seen him anywhere else. Instead
of his scarlet coat, he wore a complete suit of white
flannel, and there was not much more color in the long
hair brushed back from his face. The greatest change
in his appearance was there. The florid complexion
had faded into the dead hue of parchment ; the fore-
head was crossed by tightly-pressed plaits; the skin
hung loose from the square chin. His dress was ar-
ranged with his usual military precision, even to the
crimpled frills of his shirt-bosom. He sat as erect as a
ramrod, except for the head bowed toward the big Bible
on the stand before him. One arm—the right—lay
straight out from the elbow along the chair-arm, which
was also a desk, and I noticed that he turned the leaves
of the book with the left hand. The rotund voice hada
curious sort of break on some tones that frightened me.

He was reading ‘‘in course,”’ and the first words that
entered my ears were these:

“** On the twelfth day, Ahira, the son of Enan, prince
of the children of Naphtali, offered.

‘*¢ His offering was one silver charger, the weight
whereof was a hundred and thirty shekels, one silver
bowl of seventy shekels after the shekel of the sanc-
tuary ; both of them full of fine flour mingled with oil
for a meat offering.

‘“¢One golden spoon of ten shekels, full of in-
cense—’ ”?

Uncle Archie and I sat down quietly on the top step.
One of the old dogs crept mutely up to us and crouched
on his haunches, his muzzle on Uncle Archie’s knee.
In a plantation of cedars to the left of the lawn a wood-
dove moaned fitfully in the still sultriness that had
assumed the occupation of the young day. Captain
310 JUDITH:

Macon finished the morning lesson, announced it to be
‘‘the seventh chapter of the book of Numbers,’’ and
closed the Bible.

“We will sing the two hundred and fourth of the
‘Village Hymns,’ pursued the hortatory accents,

“¢My soul doth magnify the Lord,
My spirit doth rejoice
In Gop—my Saviour and my Gop;
I hear His joyful voice.’ ”’

He gave it out, two lines at a time, and sang it to
the tune of St. Martin’s, beating time on the table with
his left hand.

Then he said, ‘‘Let us pray!’ and we heard him
kneel slowly and with difficulty, as a lame man might.
Uncle Archie removed his hat and leaned his forehead
on his clasped hands. I shut my eyes, resting my cheek
on his knee. It was the most pathetic act of worship I
have ever witnessed, taken in connection with the de-
serted rooms that echoed every note of the cracked
voice with ostentatious distinctness, as in mockery of
the contrast between the exulting words and tne singer’s
desolation.

The prayer was long and deliberately enunciated.
He abated nothing of his ornate phraseology in the
Master’s audience-chamber. He adored the ‘‘ Lorp of
lords and Kine of kings ;” confessed ‘“‘our manifold
sins and transgressions,’’? returned thanks for the ‘‘ mir-
acle of multiplied and undeserved mercies, new every
morning, and descendiug like plenteous dew with the
going down of every sun,’’ and supplicated the Divine
blessing on ‘‘all classes and conditions of Adam’s race
still groaning from the Fall—ground into the dust by
their own sins and the weight of transmitted and inher-
ited iniquity.”

Thus far he had gene on evenly with the freedom of
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 311

one who had often rehearsed his part. When he began
to pray for his neighbors and friends, his tones mel-
lowed ; when he named the “children absent in pur-
suit of health,”’? it was the earthly parent talking with
the heavenly. He prayed that ‘‘the medicinal fount
they had sought might be to the sick girl even as Be-
thesda when stirred by the angel’s tread,”’ and that the
‘“prother who accompanied her might be led by the
sight of her patience under suffering, her abiding faith
in the love and wisdom of the Divine Arbiter in all
human concerns to yield his heart and life in reason-
able service to the Master.”? That the “absent student
might be strengthened, body and mind, for his arduous
labors, might walk humbly yet firmly in the steps of the
Great Physician who had poured out His blood that toa
dying world it might become the Elixir of Eternal
Life.”’

He faltered on the next petition. It was for the
“poor wanderer from home and kindred in the lead of
passion and falsehood.’? He besought that she might
be shielded from all manner of evil, but especially from
sin, and “‘if it be consistent with the economy of Thy
grace and justice, that the sight of her, contrite and
loving, may yet be grantcd to these aged eyes ere they
close upon all sublunary things.”

“Thou knowest, O Lord !’’—the shaking voice rising
into a ery of pain—‘‘ that we made her our idol; that
she was the chicfest among ten thousand in our sight ;
that she was all fair and there was no spot in her; a
fountain of gardens, a well of living waters. Thou
didst take away the desire of our eyes with a stroke,
and our hurt is not healed—”’

The cry sank into a murmur, the murmur into silence
—broken presently by deep sobs—the terrible weeping
of a broken-hearted old man.
312 JUDITH:

I could bear it no longer. Rushing down the steps
and through garden alleys, I did not stop until I threw
myself, breathless, face downward, on the ground in
the cedar grove. I cried out to the deaf trees that this
was my work ; that if the father died of his hurt I had
helped murder him by withholding the warning I could
have given in season to hinder his child’s flight. I
wondered if this might not be the unpardonable sin—
this helping on the commission of a wrong no mortal
power could undo.

When I had wept myself into exhaustion that was
not composure, I sat up, my arms enwrapping my knees,
and looked about me in listless wretchedness. Beyond
the cedars was a spring, with a grotto of rude masonry
over it, built into a hill at the back. Under a dry-leaved
oak shadowing the “‘ spring branch” was a fire, a mon-
strous kettle set on stones above it. <A flat rack sup-
ported a tub of steaming clothes, which a woman was
washing. She was tall, sinewy and black, and her gown
of unbleached ‘‘ domestic’ left neck and arms bare.
She had pulled off her shoes and stockings and hung
them ona bush. As she scrubbed with fist and palm,
and wrung out the cleansed linen with energy that threw
into high relief the muscles of wrists and arms, she sang
merrily a plantation song, with this chorus :

“¢Q young ladies, ain’t you mighty sorry ?

De sun mos’ down, an’ I gwine away to-morry.’”’

Then she struck into another air loudly, rubbing faster
to keep time to the changed measure :
“ ¢O say, dear doctor, ken you tell
What will make my sweetheart well?

She am sick an’ I are solly,
Dat ’s what makes me mulloncholy !’”’

In the busy intervals of her singing I heard two col-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 313

ored children lying on the hillside, propped by their
elbows, their mouths near the earth, calling in sweet
monotone :

“¢ Doodle-bug ! doodle-bug ! doodle-bug !
Come an’ git some batter-bread !’ ”’

The “doodle *’ is a flat-headed beetle of the ant-eater
family. He digs a conical pit in sandy or friable soil,
and hides himself in the bottom under a coverlet of
dust to await his prey. The breath of the caller or the
vibration of the sides of the pit dislodges particles of
the loose earth, which, falling down, deceive the tenant
into the belief that an ant has slipped into the trap. He
emerges from his Jair to secure the victim, revealing his
shovel-shaped snout and ugly black body to the exorcists
above.

Uncle Archie had told me why the consonantal
summons brought him up. I smiled faintly now in
superior wisdom at the silly creatures who fancied that
an ant-eater cared for batter-bread. The air grew
hotter and stiller; the woman’s ditties subsided into
wordless crooning; the dove’s moan was just audible
from the deeper recesses of the grove. The children
had happened upon a colony of ‘‘doodles,”’ and kept on
culing without the variation of a semitone. A cloud
like a puff of bituminous smoke, no bigger than a man’s
hand, topped a distant hill. Ilay back on the tawny
pillow of cedar leaves, and, from a stern sense of duty,
tried to be miserable again. When Uncle Archie
hunted me up to tell me that he had accepted Captain
Macon’s invitation to breakfast, I was fast asleep, and
the cloud on the hill was swelling slowly and darkly
toward the zenith.

By the time we rode into the outer plantation gate
of Surnmerfield, we urged our horses toa run,as did
314 JUDITH:

the charioteer of Ahab when Elijah, with girt loins,
outran him to the entrance of Jezreel.

‘‘For the heaven was black with clouds and wind,
and there was a great rain.”’ ;

CHAPTER XX.

Aunt BETSEY was a pronounced National Repub-
lican—the party that about this date began to be known
as ‘‘Whig.’? Amid the winds and surges of anti-
Masonic, Democratic, Secession and Nullification prin-
ciples and heresies, she held her helm hard and disdained
to veer or tack. She could argue clearly in favor of
Internal Improvements, Protection and the Bank ; was
conversant with the rights and wrongs of the Cherokee
case, and ‘‘ did not wonder so much at Jackson’s beha-
vior when she remembered his origin. He came of a
very low family. Mr. Clay was born as poor, but his
blood was clean. Poverty, in itself, was no disgrace in
the eyes of the Lord or in those of sensible men. But
the dullest observer must see in looking at the rival
candidates that one was a gentleman by descent and
education, while the other—well, he couldn’t have been
anything but a Democrat, without flying in the face of
Providence !””

When, therefore, a National Republican or Whig bar-
becue was to be held at the county court house the
second week in October, and ladies were ‘‘ respectfully
and cordially invited to honor the occasion with their
presence,’’ our petticoated patriot saw nothing improper
or strange in the innovation upon received customs.

Jourteous consideration for the sex was characteristic
of her party. Tf not another woman in the neighbor-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 315

hood accepted the invitation, she would go alone, sure
of being treated with chivalrous attention.

Her resolution was not put to this test. Far and
near, matrons and maidens caught eagerly at the chance
of supporting by their presence and smiles the Cause
cherished in their hearts. With Nullification growling
at her feet and the Executive whip hissing about her
ears, Virginia was more than uneasy. There were ele-
ments of responsive turbulence in her own bosom that
would down at the bidding of but one man. Twelve
years later the state that had given him birth rallied
her best forces as gallantly and more hopefully than
now, to lift him to the place for which she believed him
to have been born—to be a second time defeated by an
unfortunate division of the Whig party on side issues.
In the present contest, some Whigs were sanguine ; all
were in deadly earnest. Many maintained, with Aunt
Betsey, that the existence of the Federal union de-
pended upon Clay’s election. The talk that sounded
like newly-formulated treason in 1861, the open decla-
rations that Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina
would never suffer the passage through their territory
of ‘coercive’? troops bound for South Carolina, was
blatant among the groups that stood within earshot of
the ‘‘ladies’ seats’’ on the day of the barbecue.

ue place of convocation was a grove of oaks and
hickories on the outskirts of the little shire-town. The
Summerfield carriage, containing Aunt Betsey, Aunt
Maria and myself, was early on the ground, and Uncle
Archie, after seating the others, took me by the hand
and led me off to see the preparations for dinner. Long
tables, constructed of boards nailed on wooden ‘‘ horses”?
or trestles, and draped with white, were ranged on level
ground among the trees on the top of a gentle eminence
that fell away to a spring and “‘ branch,” the centre of
316 JUDITH :

culinary operations. Colored women were preparing
vegetables for boiling and chickens for frying ; colored
men were tending the barbecued meats. Oblong pits,
looking disagreeably like shallow graves, had been
filled overnight with billets of solid hickory, and kept
burning until, by morning, each excavation was floored
with a thick layer of live coals. Sticks of hard, seasoned
white-oak were laid across the mouth, and whole sheep,
young pigs (‘‘shoats’’), calves, and huge quarters of
beef were roasted thereupon to a perfection of juici-
ness and flavor unattainable by any other method of
cookery.

Grave and jovial planters superintended the process
in person. Roderick Macon was a connoisseur in the
matter of basting, and had a nice eye for the proper
shade of brown on leg and join. Ronald Craig, red-
faced and consequential, watched the packing ina mam-
moth iron pot of the ingredients of a Brunswick stew.

““T spent a month in Brunswick County once on pur-
pose to get the exact knack of the thing,’’ he expatiated
to Uncle Archie as we paused beside him in our rounds.
‘‘ And if I do say it that shouldn’t say it, there ain’t
many men in the state who understand the business
better. I told Mr. Archer when he asked me to oversee
the Brunswick stew to-day that by George! it wasn’t
a matter for overseeing, but for work and brains.
Brains, sir! That’s the secret of such a stew as this
will be! Why, sir, I’ve worked like a dog, mentally
and physically, for three weeks to get the materials to-
gether. Fifty squirrels, twenty onions, twenty quarts
of butter-beans, five dozen ears of green cornu (went
thirty miles to find some that was planted late enough
to be fit for use now), ten pounds of butter, ten quarts
of tomatoes (sent to Richmond for them !), sixty pota-
toes, ten pounds of pork (sweet as a nut !), twenty gal-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 317

lons of water! There ain’t another pot in a hundred
miles that would hold it all. This is an heir-loom in
our family, and the stew that comes out of it to-day
will be something to be remembered when people have
forgotten who was elected President of the United
States 1”

The broad complacency of his smile went out abruptly
before reverential decorum—he took off his hat with a
bow.

‘*Captain Macon! good-morning, sir! A fine day
for our meeting, sir!”’

The Captain had a new red coat for the occasion, also
a glistening satin stock. His ruffled shirt bosom was a
snowy cheveaua-ce-frise of political integrity. But crisp-
ness, gloss and color could not restore vigor to his figure
or alertness to carriage and feature. His eyes were dull,
the drooping muscles about the lids and the mouth
flaccid. The whole organism had been too far over-
strained ever to be keyed up again.

He shook hands with Ronald kindly. If the young
fellow had won his peerless Harry he would perhaps
have hated him for binding up her fate with that of a
rich fool. Now theirs was a common loss that dignified
the rejected suitor in the father’s sight.

‘‘He has clean hands and an honest heart, at any
rate,’’? he had once remarked to Uncle Archie, ‘‘and
comes of good stock !”’

He patted my head with his left hand, and laid the
tremulous right on Uncle Archic’s shoulder.

‘We could not have more glorious weather, Mr.
Craig. God grant it may be an augury of the triumph
of the right !””

“¢ Amen!’ responded the young men, and all three
raised their hats.

‘Weare bound to come out all straight, Captain,”
318 JUDITH :

added Mr. Craig confidently. ‘‘One term has showed
the American people what Old Hickory is. They ’ll be
glad enough to take timber from the Hanover Slashes.*
You ’ll see, sir.”

“It may be so, Mr. Craig! it may beso! But I am
not sanguine in my expectations of so speedy and satis-
factory a solution of our national problems, our mani-
fold complications. The element of hope is wanting
from my prognostications of late, but there may be a
natural reason for that. Timidity is an inevitable con-
comitant of decrepitude.”’

Ronald turned aside and spoke sharply to a servant
who was slicing tomatoes. We moved away with the
Captain in the direction of the stand and the rapidly-
filling seats.

The benches prepared for the ladies were covered
with white cotton cloth, and directly in front of the
rude rostrum, The day was as still and warm as June,
but more bracing ; the air was sweet with the odor of
dying leaves. Many of the younger women wore white
gowns; the marshals and ushers sported fluttering
streamers of pale-blue satin ribbon stamped in silver
with a medallion head of Clay. At the right and left
of the stand were planted poles bearing the national
colors. Smaller flags—the ensigns of National Republi-
can Clubs and Clay Leagues—decorated the rail sepa-
rating leaders from listeners. There had been reckless
whispers of having a band up from town, but this, it
was thought, would hazard the loss of plain, economi-
cal voters, already disposed to hearken to the talk of
aristocratic pretensions on the part of those who would
wrest the rule from Democratic fists. The exercises
were, accordingly, opened in the usual manner. When
Captain Macon, the chairman of the Committee of Ar-

* Clay's birthplace—now ‘‘ Ashland, ’’ in Hanover County, Virginia.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 319

rangements, advanced to the edge of the platform, the
hum of laughter and of talk was stilled ; all eyes turned
to the stately figure in scarlet. His bowed shoulders
straightened as he felt the general gaze; his voice was
stronger as he went on with the deliberate utterances
that had something of the olden roll and resonance :

‘* As in individual emprise, so in the crises of national
life—man is a puny impersonation of conceit and impo-
tency, without the guidance of Divine Wisdom. It
therefore behooves us, before entcring upon the debate
of the momentous questions that have called us hither
this day, first of all to invoke the presence, the blessing
and the gracious guidance of ALMIGHTY Gop. Our
prayer to this effect will be led by the Reverend Mr.
Burgess of this county.”

It was a very long prayer—a very stupid one to my
comprehension, and tame to tedium after the flowing
sentences that introduced cur worthy pastor. For ten
minutes he stood, eyes tight shut ; fingers, joined at the
tips, pointing outward from wrists resting on the pit of
his stomach; occasionally rising on his toes asif likely
to be blown aloft in the draught of devotion. He prayed
for the world at large, for the Western Continent, for
the United States, for the State of Virginia, for our par-
ticular county, for our neighborhood, for those who
should speak and those who should hear—that they
might have attentive ears and applying consciences ;
finally and uuctuously, that an influence might go
abroad from that meeting that would extend through-
out earth’s remotest bounds.

Captain Macon had another announcement ready
when ‘‘ Amen”’ had set the audience upright again.

‘“‘In the calm consciousness that a righteous cause
must be strengthened, rather than weakened, by the fair
discussion of the fundamental principles involved in its
320 JUDITH:

maintenance—the National Republicans of this Con-
gressional District have invited the Honorable John
Winston Jones, widely and favorably known as a gen-
tleman of irreproachable character and marked ability,
to represent his party—the Democratic—here to-day.
The debate will be opened by our distinguished guest,
the Honorable Waddy Thompson, of South Carolina.
At the conclusion of his address the collation will be
served in the grove. The banquet over, Mr. Jones will
merit and receive your most respectful attention, and
the closing speech will be delivered by the Honorable
Watkins Leigh, of Richmond. I know that I but voice
—and all too feebly—the sentiments of this audience
when I say that we were never more happy to see this
gentleman than now that his legal acumen and emi-
nent oratorical powers are at the service of the party
which claims at this juncture the patriot’s sympathies,
his labors and his prayers, to secure the triumph of
which some of us would even dare to die!’

They gave him three thunderous rounds of applause
—the gallant old war-horse who had answered the
trumpet’s call by showing himself in the forefront of
the battle. Many women raised their handkerchiefs to
their eyes. I felt the sob Aunt Betsey could not stifle,
and saw Aunt Maria quietly wipe a tear from her cheek.
Then—I forgot everything else in the excitement of be-
holding Captain Macon shake both hands of one of a
company of gentlemen who had just arrived upo. the
ground. They were a delegation from Richmond, and
the portly guest who was laughing and nodding upward
at his taller friend was Major Dabney.

I remember nothing of Waddy Thompson’s two
hours’ speech except that he compared Van Buren’s
efforts to gain the summit of party power to the tortu-
ous windings of a snake up the tree, the Vopmost vougn
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 321

of which Jackson, the eagle, had reached in one bold
flight. I recollect that the dinner was profuse, informal
and very merrily enjoyed; that Mr. Jones seemed to
me prosy and dull, probably because I knew he was a
Democrat ; that Mr. Leigh halted in his gait and was
very witty in his demolition of his predecessor’s argu-
ments. But I preserve a distinct mental record of the
incidents with which the public exercises closed.

‘‘Captain Algernon S. Macon”? was the first name
read by the secretary of the meeting from a paper bear-
ing the list of nominated delegates to a grand party
rally in Richmond.

Before a vote could be taken, Captain Macon was on
his feet, his hand raised in dissent and entreaty.

‘* Fellow-citizens of County! my friends and
neighbors! Iam an old man! Above the portals of
my brain the almond tree bends a weight of blossoms.
The grasshopper has become a burden; I am afraid of
that which is high, and fears are in the way in which
I once ran and was not weary. ‘This earthly house of
my tabernacle is no longer stanch ; the keepers thereof
tremble, and the strong men bow themselves toward
the long home which cannot be far off. I acknowledge
with a full heart fervently the many, many tokens of
confidence and affection of which I have been, for almost
half a century, the grateful recipient. I have been
your unworthy servant in the battle-field, on the magis-
trate’s bench, in your legislative halls. Most heartily
and humbly do I thank you for this latest evidence of
your trust at a season when you should select instru-
ments of finest temper to do the work of the nation.
But I came to this convocation to-day to bid you fare-
well—to lay off the armor, not to buckle on the sword
my arm has grown too weak to wield.”

He was interrupted by cries of ““No! no!” Men

 
O22 JUDITH:

arose in different parts of the crowd to utter protest.
a. majestic wave of the long arm enforced silence. He
reiterated his refusal, making it very plain that there
was no appeal. Then he craved leave to appoint a
delegate in his stead, and being answered by an affirma-
tive acclamation, spoke of ‘‘a countyman of your own.
One of whom it may be affirmed with truth and empha-
sis, that when his word is given no bond or oath could
make the obligation stronger to his conscience ; a man,
who to stainless probity unites strong sense, clear per-
ceptions and just judgment; a Christian gentleman,
who has gone in and out among you from his boyhood,
unconsciously exemplifying the highest type of man-
hood, visiting the widow and the fatherless in their
affliction, and keeping himself unspotted from the
world. A patriot, ingrain—unflinching and incorrup-
tible, whose actions always outrun his words in the
ways of truth and uprightness ; who would defend the
right and resist the wrong to the last drop of blood
poured into his veins, through clean channels, from an
honcrable ancestry.

“Fellow-citizens! That community is blessed, in-
decd, that can boast more than one denizen who, in the
early prime of manhood, possesses and manifests char-
acteristics and endowments such as I have enumerated.
While I have been speaking, I doubt not that each of
my intelligent auditors has anticipated that I shall pre-
sent as a substitute for my unworthy name on the list
of representatives, to be sent from this respectable as-
sembly to the National Republican Convention to be
holden in Richmond, on the last week in this month—
that of my dear and honored friend, ARCHIBALD READ,
Esq., OF SUMMERFIELD !””

How they huzzaed and clapped! How Aunt Betsey
ericd behind her handkerchief, while every fibre of my
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 323

corporate being tingled with excitement ! Uncle Archie
tried to utter some sentences of disclaim from the side
of the platform, but his intention was anticipated, and
the effort foiled by a clamorous storm of applause.
Captain Macon’s motion was put by one of the Com-
mittee of Management and carried unanimously, Major
Dabney joining vociferously in the plaudits that followed
the vote.

An incident, trivial in itself, but which takes deeper
meaning as I look back upon it, occurred on our way
home.

A wild Passion-flower vine grew in a certain fence-
corner on the edge of a body of pines between the Cross-
Roads and Summerfield. I had gathered the blossoms
every summer since I was a baby, and latterly studied
with awe the mystic symbolism of petals and stamens
under Aunt Betsey’s and Mrs. Hemans’ tutelage. We
had nearly passed the spot to-day bzfore I observed it
from the carriage window.

“Oh, Uncle Archie !’? I called: ‘* Won’t you please
see if there are any Passion-balls there? I haven’t had
one this year.”’

The coachman reined in his horses while our escort
alighted, and, throwing the bridle over his arm, searched
for the coveted ‘‘balls.’? Stem, leaves and tendrils
were limp and blackened by a light frost, and he des-
cried, the more readily on this account, four or five
egg-shaped fruits, greenish in color and tough of skin.

They were very palatable to me—more, I fancy, be-
cause they grew wild and that I had never seen them
anywhere except in this piney nook, than because the
flavor was really pleasant. The pulp had an odd acid-
sweet taste, which Aunt Betsey complained left a
‘*tang’’ on her tongue.

‘‘They taste better than those I had last year,”’ re-
324 JUDITH:

marked JI, relishfully. ‘‘Do you suppose the drouth
made them sweeter ?”’

“More likely the frost improved the flavor.’’

“T thought frost killed things !”

‘Sometimes it mellows and sweetens them. Why, I
don’t quite understand, only that it is the Lord’s wiil
and way that this should be.”

Aunt Maria took a Passion-ball from my lap and
studied it silently, as we drove along toward the sun-
setting. By-and-by she touched it almost tenderly with
a finger-tip as it lay in the palm of her hand; her faint,
sweet smile said that she owed it a precious thought or
a lesson.

‘“Why,’’ asked I that evening, ‘‘did they halloo ‘A
Read! A Read!’ Because A stands for Archie ?’’

With all his regard for my sensitive feelings Uncle
Archie laughed while he explained that it was the
usual form of popular call on one whom the people
wished to have serve them by speech or action.

‘‘Of course,’? mused Aunt Betsey aloud, ‘‘it was
only what might have been expected, and what Archi-
bald richly deserves, but I must say I have seldom been
more gratified. And I do consider that Captain Ma-
con’s address was perfect of its kind—the most eloquent
delivered to-day. That man’s command of language is
akin to inspiration.”’

Brother and sister exchanged smiles unseen by the
speaker, who went on unperturbed.

“But Sister Judith! our friend is breaking up fast !
He begins to look like an old man, although he is not
sixty-three until December. It was touching to hear
him speak of his ‘decrepitude.’ Ah, sorrow under-
mines constitutions more quickly than age !”’

‘“We are none of us young,’’ responded Grandma,
serenely. ‘‘ But old age has compensations that are
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 325

pleasures if we use them aright. My son! this old lady
is a little stiff to-night !”

We were rising from the supper-table, and he has-
tened to offer his arm. In taking it she glanced up
proudly.

“One of these is the advantage of having so strong
and tall a boy to lean upon !”?

A clear fire blazed and crackled on the dining-room
hearth. The October evenings were growing cool.
Grandma’s white-knitted shawl hung on the back of
her tall rocking-chair, and Uncle Archie folded it about
her; then, obeying the impulse of her hand, stooped to
kiss her mutely.

““My good boy !”’ was all she said.

I caught the glisten of moisture under his eyelids as
he turned away. Neither of them was ever effusive,
and this episode awed me into thoughtful silence. There
was little need of words or of caresses between two
who understood one another so perfectly.

It seemed so soon after this night that the pictures
blend without visible separation lines, that we four—
Grandma, Aunt Betsey, Aunt Maria and I—sat quietly
in the same place at the same hour of the evening. But
the fire was larger and brighter, the wind hummed in
the chimney and whistled storm-signals outside of the
windows. Ihad that afternoon put on a winter frock
for the first time, a brown stuff, known as ‘‘ Circassian,”’
high in the neck, long-sleeved and long-skirted. My
hair was just long enough to be put behind my ears, and
was turned back from my forehead by a round comb. I
was privately vain of my genteel appearance, esteeming
the crimped ruffles of neck and wrists the acme of
youthful elegance. Still I must have looked but a de-
mure elf—a sort of sepia sketch, pale lights thrown up
by brown shadows—as I sat upright on a cricket against
326 JUDITH:

the mantel-jamb and regaled my olfactories with Aunt
Betsey’s gold-mounted snuff-box. I liked to do this
when there was nothing in it but the tonqua bean, which
gave to the tortoise-shell sides the true vanilla fra-
grance—precisely the perfume that enchants us when ex-
haled by the pond-lily. Gentlewomen took snuff at that
day, and so gracefully as to disgust nobody. The tap
of the delicate forefinger on the enameled or jeweled
lid was susceptible of as many varying expressions
as the Spectator’s ‘‘ fan-exercise,’’? and even the appli-
cation of the aromatic powder to the nostrils was ef-
fected daintily.

‘* November comes in roughly,’”? remarked Grandma,
breaking the silence consequent upon turning off the
heel of her lamb’s-wool sock. ‘I wish Archibald had
taken his surtout with him.”

‘* Young blood is warm,” rejoined Aunt Betsey con-
solingly. ‘And he is very hardy. I hope, however,
that he will come before his supper is spoiled by wait-
ing. Peggy won’t bake the waffles until she has orders,
but good cotie. is injured by standing long on the
grounds and by over-boiling. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt
cheap coffee or tea—such as the country will be flooded
with if the duties are taken off of foreign goods.”’

‘“‘T thought Uncle Archie went down to Richmond
to keep them from electing General Jackson !’’ said I,
alarmed.

“Ah, my child! no man can, single-handed, beat
back such a woe as that! It does seem as if our poor
country had been sufficiently punished, but the Lord
knows best. If it is His will that this awful judgment
shall overtake the nation, we must bow under His
chastening. Archie and all other good patriots will do
their best, but my heart misgives me as the election
draws near.”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. ao

Aunt Maria diverted her thoughts from public to
private sorrows.

‘‘Mammy tells me that Di Macon is failing steadily.
We must go over to-morrow to see what we can do for
her. I wrote to Captain Macon this morning, offering to
sit up whenever they may need me.’’

‘*I wonder if they have tried rusty nails and cider!”
said Aunt Betsey anxiously. ‘‘ Or snake-root and honey
for her cough! I will take a bottle of cherry-bounce
and some of my hoarhound bitters when we go. Some
wafers and chicken-broth, too. There ’s no use in feed-
ing sick people with home victuals. A biscuit baked in
a neighbor’s kitchen has a different flavor from one
cooked in one’s own house. It’s strange how con-
sumption runs in some families! Mrs. Macon died of
it, and her mother, so I’ve heard, and a sister, and
here ’s poor Diana! How mysterious are the ways of
Providence !”’

Heredity was an unused word in her generation, and
the altogether natural transmission of diseases from
parent to child esteemed as little more than an old
wives’ fable. Providence got the credit of such calami-
ties, along with earthquake, drouth and freshet.

As the pious soul laid this new burden upon the
Great Abstraction, the door leading into the back porch
opened and Uncle Archie stood before us. His clothes
were plentifully besprinkled with wet, his wrappers red
with mire thrown up by his horse’s hoofs. But he had
never been handsomer ; bis eyes were bright, his com-
plexion was fresh, his smile sunny and genial. The
ring of his voice put heart and cheer into all. He had
ridden directly to the stable, he said, to get his horse
under shelter. A genuine November storm was coming
on. He had left our Richmond friends well; the con-
vention adjourned yesterday ; he would tell Aunt Betsey
828 JUDITH:

all the political news when he had been to his room to
get rid of the mud.

Te fulfilled the promise with the same merry affec-
tionateness while we sat long over the evening meal.
Ife could not say that he really expected to see Mr.
Clay elected, although he wished it more fervently than
ever. The split in the party would, he feared, prove
fatal to their hopes of success. Still, there was no
saying what would happen. It was certain that the
Democrats would not have so easy a victory as at
Jackson’s first election. Yes! he had filled Aunt Bet-
sey’s memorandum. The articles purchased would be
up ina wagon that left Richmond that morning. There
was a letter in his saddle-bags for Aunt Maria from
Miss Virginia. His voice sank on the name, and a
queer little pause ensued. But he did not offer to
produce the letter then, or when, the servants having
cleared off the table, let down the leaves, set it away
against the back of the room and left us to ourselves.
He laid nore wood on the fire, settling log steadily upon
log, opened a draught in the deep bed of coals under
the forestick with the tongs, and seated himself, holding
out his hand invitingly to me—his face as clear as a
summer morning.

‘*Come and sit on my knee, Judith!’

I nesiled within the curve of his arm in content un-
speazable until I discovered that his heart beat hard
and he drew long, irregular breaths at intervals, as if to
lift some pressure from it or the lungs. Isat up straight
and looked in his face—an apology for leaning so heavily
against him trembling on my tongue. Before it escaped
he began to speak, his throat contracting visibly at each
pause :

‘*Mother—Aunt Betsey !—Maria! I have something
else to tell you; something that is more to me than
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 329

political intelligence; something which will, I knew,
interest and please you. I am to be married on the
twenty-second of next month—her birthday—to Vir-
ginia Dabney !””

CHAPTER XXI.

STRANGELY enough, the central figure in my re-
trospect of the scenes immediately preceding Uncle
Archie’s wedding day is not himself, but Aunt Maria.
Aunt Betsey was the busiest of the busy, superintend-
ing the tearing up and putting down, the routing and
cleansing that were decreed to be absolutely essential
to the preparation of the ancient homestead for the re-
ception of the bride. Major Dabney sent up a carpet
and furniture for his daughter’s room that were the
marvel of the plantation and the staple of neighbor-
hood gossip for a week. Under the vigilant supervision
of the task-mistress this was settled satisfactorily in the
wing chamber, whereof every inch was made clean,
sweet and bright with scrubbing-brush and old home-
made soap.

Curtains, wrought elaborately by Grandma’s hand for
her own bridal chamber, had lain in lavendered darkness
for twenty years, awaiting this auspicious day. They
were drawn from the deepest caverns of the great blue
chest in the garret, brought, with much pomp and cir-
cumstance, down to the dining-room and spread out on
the big table at length and breadth, yellow as saffron
with age, soft and fine of texture, and heavy with em-
broidery. A committee of the whole, consisting of
Grandma, Aunt Betsey, Aunt Maria and Mammy, ex-
amined and pronounced them sound in every part, and
good for a score more years.
330 JUDITH:

“Tt’s far, of course, that Mars’ Archibald’s wife
should have ’em,” said Mammy slowly. ‘But I had
*lotted ’pon their fallin’ to Miss Maria’s sheer 0’ worldly
goods. Daughters valler sech things more’n daughters-
in-law. It’s boun’ for to be so, long ’s blood is thicker’n
water.

“CA daughter ’s a daughter all the days of her life,
But a son ’s a son till he gits him a wife.’ ”’

Aunt Maria had stooped to inspect a frayed thread
in the button-holed border of a grape leaf.

‘*Mother ! astitch is needed here before the curtains
‘are washed. Iam glad Virginia is to have them. IfI
had ever married I should have taken them away from
Summerfield. I shall stay here always—but that makes
no difference. Virginia ought to have them. I will
get a needle and thread and look them over again.”’

She went out.

Mammy pursed her lips; her turban executed a dis-
creet little nod. She only said:

‘* Ain’t you afeerd, Mistis, that Miss Maria is a-settin’
up too steady with Miss Diana Macon ?”’

‘‘She is paler than I like to see her,’’ returned the
mother. ‘Her brother and I were speaking of it last
night. But we agreed that since poor Diana cannot
last much longer it would be cruel to object to her
having the comfort of her friend’s society and nursing.”’

‘““The greatest earthly comfort she has,’’ said Aunt
Betsey. ‘‘ And who can wonder she feels it to be
such ? It is a privilege and a blessing to be ministered
to by such a woman. She grows in grace and the fruits
of the Spirit every day.”’

‘** Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, good-
ness, faith, meekness, temperance,’ ’’ repeated Mammy,
as if to herself. ‘‘Do you think, Miss Betsey, it’s
quite nat’ral for young folks to sanctify so fast ? ’Taint
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 331

the Lord’s common way o’ dealin’ even with the elect,
it seems to me. Fruit ain’t apt to be ripe to the core
early in the summer.”’

‘‘J have thought that, perhaps’?—Anunt Betsey
brought herself up with a side glance in my direction,
felt by its object the while I appeared to be intent upon
my slate and arithmetic in the chimney-corner. I knew
also from the change in her voice that she smiled.

“No! I comprehended, too, without looking up,
that Grandma’s gesture was dissentient and emphatic.
‘*T should be surprised at that. Her interest in Diana
is not heightened by any such motive. Poor Harry was
her favorite in the Macon family.”’

So, Sidney Macon’s devotion to my sweet aunt was
unavailing, except as it deepened her life-long friend-
ship into sisterly kindness !

When he drove over for her that afternoon, as he did
three times each week, to take her to Hunter’s Rest for
the night, I contrived to be lingering about the gate.
He escorted her down the walk, and when she stopped
to kiss me, picked up the sun-bonnet I dropped, stand-
ing by and holding it in his hand while she bade me
“be a good girl, and not lie awake late because she
was not with me.”

“You must forgive me for carrying her off,’ said
Sidney, more affably than he was used to speak to
children. Generally he hardly seemed to see me. ‘‘ But
we need her sadly—just now !””

My alert ear and imagination caught and interpreted
the slight pause separating the last two words from
the rest of the sentence. My heart swelled with min-
gling pity and resentment. He was well enough in his
place. Looking at the haggard lines in his dark, hand-
some face, I could forgive his severity toward the sister
he had loved and lost. But violence was needed to
332 JUDITH:

bring my thoughts to set his image beside that of the
pale, pure saint whom he helped to her seat in the
double gig, folding a shawl over her feet and adjusting
a cushion at her back before he got in himself. It was
easy to believe that she would never change name or
slate, but remain at Summerfield until the dark hair
was white and old age refined into graver placidity the
face others besides Aunt Betsey thought lovelier every
day.

She did not come home next morning. A messenger
rode over at sunrise to let us know that Diana Macon
had let go the last strand of the life which had been
slipping from her hold since she was a tall, fragile girl
of fourteen. Hers was, at the best, a passive, nerveless
nature. She had not struggled to maintain vitality.
One might have fancied that Harry’s redundant indi-
viduality had fed upon and sapped her sister’s strength.
Still the shy, inoffensive sufferer had many friends in a
community where pain, patiently borne, commanded
respectful sympathy. The funeral, held, as was the
country custom, on the day succeeding that of death,
was largely attended. The summons had been sent to
relatives and friends within a radius of twenty-five
miles. Aunt Betsey had gone to Hunter’s Rest as soon
as the news was received, and remained there with
Aunt Maria until} the obsequics were over.

Grandma, Maramy and I occupied the carriage which
turned cut of the Summerfield gate into the public road
at twelve o’clock, and Uncle Archie rode beside it. We
had had a cold luncheon ; the house was as still all day
as if the awful guest had entered our doors. Grandma
was unusually silent and thoughtful. Mammy had
donned her bombazine and a huge black poke-bonnct of
age and portentousness immemorial and indescribable :
a small black silk frock which had been Aunt Maria’s,
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 333

then kept for state mourning, was unfolded for my wear.
Tosport colors at a funeral would have been reckoned
unfeeling and indecorous. I had never attended one
before, nor within my memory looked upon the dead,
excepting a pretty little mulatto baby—Mammy’s grand-
child—lying in a breathless sleep in its cradle.

There was little said as we drove on under bare
boughs, the dead leaves up to the fetlocks of the horses
in the road—nothing that could have lifted the cold
pressure, like that of a dead hand, from my _ heart.
Under the weight I sighed often, involuntarily and hys-
terically. Mammy, on the front seat, kept her eyes
cast down upon her black-mittened hands, as grand and
solemn as an Egyptian statue. Grandma’s fingers were
folded more lightly, her gaze went out of the windows
to the soft gray sky seen through forest vistas and from
rising ground beyond other hills. The fields were brown
and crossed by lines of tobacco-stubs and gaunt, bare
cornstalks, stripped of grain and fodder. The pallid
sereness of the country was the work of drouth, not of
frost, therefore, and in itself unspeakably dreary. Even
the broom-straw and ‘‘hen’s-nest grass”? of the ‘old
fields,’ exhausted by bearing and resigned to the slow
recuperative agencies of Nature, were bleached into
lifeless dinginess. Indian summer haze and drowsiness
slept in the hollows and veiled the horizon-line. It was
as if Nature had turned her faded, wrinkled cheek to
that wall to die as listlessly as the consumptive girl
we were going to bury had breathed her last. With
another sigh, so heavy that it hurt me, I fell to watch-
ing Uncle Archie. Fle sat easily and firmly in the sad-
dle, the reins loose on his horse’s neck, as the blooded
hunter picked his way on the edge of the road so close
to the trees that the rider bowed his head instinctively
every few minutes to avoid the lowest limbs, while he
3384 JUDITH:

seemed to gaze straight ahead. Was he thinking of his
own bridal, now less than a month off, or of the heaven
where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage ?
Or were he and my other companions following my
musings of the long-absent, mysteriously-silent daugh-
ter of the stricken home ?

“Grandma !’’—the exclamation burst from me against
my will, yet was scarcely louder than a dry whisper—
‘isn’t Miss Diana a great deal better off than Miss
Harry now ?”

‘‘ Better off than any of us, dear!”

Uncle Archie looked around quickly, rode up nearer.

‘‘T suppose that is true, mother! I know itis. But
docs God mean us to feel it ? It is a hard saying !”

‘‘T hope and pray that it will be long before you can
say with heart and tongue, ‘ Amen!’ to it,’? was the
rejoinder. ‘‘ At my time of life such thoughts and talk
come naturally to the tongue.”

Then the Indian summer quiet again reigned about
us, Grandma was always right. So wes Uncle Archie
when he called hers, ‘‘a hard saying.”’

Aunt Maria met us at the door with a silent kiss.
There were no signs of tears on her face, but a holy calm
and tenderness ineffable that accounted to me in some
indefinable way for the composure of father and
brothers. We were among the first arrivals, and the
three men sitting together in the drawing-room arose
at our entrance, advanced a few steps to receive their
best neighbor. She gave both hands to Captain Macon.

‘*She is forever with the Lord! There is another to
welcome us to the many mansions when our turn
comes.”’

‘*T would not recall one of them, my dear madam !
The Judge of all the earth has done right in this as in
all things else. Blessed be His holy name !””
A CHURUNICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 335

Sidney wrung Uncle Archie’s hand without trying to
speak. Roderick’s voice shook very slightly in the ex-
change of salutations. Mammy led me by the hand up
to the open coffin, which was covered with black cloth
and rested on two tall stools. A mass of straight white
drapery filled it. Glossy cambric, notched and scal-
loped at the edges, was turned over with sedulous stiff-
ness along the sides of the coffin, and folded at the
upper end into two broad, flat scarfs that swept the
floor. Amid this glacial stillness lay the white shell
from which the spirit had fluttered yesternight. Some-
body whispered that she “looked very natural.”? To
me, the peaceful beauty of the face was unnatural and
unearthly. At the best of her young womanhood she
had been a pretty, pensive shadow in a home where
marked personal characteristics were the rule, and she
was an exception. With the cessation of physical pain,
the tense lines of the mouth and between the brows had
relaxed into a half smile as of pleased surprise at the
relief from the long strain. On the marble forehead the
death-seal which dignifies the commonest features was
a majesty of calm it was not possible to associate with
memories of the living countenance. The hands, pearly
and almost translucent, were crossed at the wrists and
bound in this position with white satin ribbon. Her
shroud was of the same material as the winding-sheet,
and was notched—or ‘‘ pinked’’—down the front and
on the ruffles of neck and sleeves. Bows of stiff ribbon
fastened it from throat to feet, the latter being covered
with silk stockings and satin slippers. On the breast of
the moveless figure lay a single white lily, the gold-
dusted stamen and green stalk the only relief to the
dreadful whiteness.

The piano, the tables, the pictures, the windows were
draped with linen sheets, as straight and smooth as the
336 JUDITH:

burial garments. The outer blinds were closed, and the
colorless light showed an increasing and silent throng
of black-robed forms. Ifa chair creaked, or a boot-
heel scraped on the oaken floor, the sound cut harshly
into the brooding hush which gathered weight and
depth from an occasional sigh poured into it from some
sympathizing heart that could keep it in no longer.
Through the open front door we heard the horses teth-
ered at the racks and fences pawing the turf, the sup-
pressed tones of the colored coachmen in waiting with
the empty carriages. The rear windows gave upon the
long back porch crowded with servants. At the head
of the coffin with father and brothers sat the faithful
woman who had nursed Diana from her birth, and in
whose arms she had died. A snowy turban capped her
wrinkled face ; her arms were folded tightly, her eyes
closed, and she rocked gently back and forth with the
peculiar measured swing known as ‘‘weaving,’’ and
much affected by her caste in solemn assemblies. Afar
off, in the heart of the cedar grove, the turtle-dove,
loth to quit her home, mourned for the departed sum-
mer, and the threnody was audible to us in the languid
pulsing of the hazy noontide.

Mr. Burgess ‘‘conducted the ecxercises,’? standing
just within the parlor door, behind a chair set with the
back toward him and the legs outward. In his hand he
held a copy of ‘‘ Village Hymns.’? His deep voice,
breaking the sacred silence, rasped my every nerve
raw.

‘““We will commence the services of this solemn
occasion by singing the five hundred and seventy-first
hymn:

“¢Tn vain my fancy strives to paint
The moment after death,
The glories that surround the saint
In yielding up his breath.’ ”’
al CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 337

He ‘‘ gave it out’? two lines at a time after reading it
through once. A brief pause followed the first couplet.
Before it became oppressive, a silvery voice arose from
the family group—Aunt Betsey’s—in ‘‘ Dundee’s wild
warbling measures.’? Uncle Archie and Aunt Maria
joined in promptly. To their sincere souls there was no
incongruity in chanting the funeral psalm in the pres-
ence of their coffined friend. It was an act of worship,
therefore duty. People talked of the scene and the
music for a long time afterward.

My gaze could not leave Aunt Maria’s face, as slightly
upraising her eyes in the white glooms of the room, she
sang in thrush-like notes :

““¢Thus much (and this is all) we know,
Saints are completely blest ;

Have done with sin and care and woe,
And with their Saviour rest.

“¢On harps of gold they praise His name,
His face they always view,
Then, let us foll’wers be of them
That we may praise Him too!’ ”

Captain Macon’s gray head fell on the hands sup-
ported by his cane. His frame quivered convulsively
in one long respiration, as a tired heart might stretch
itself in lying down to rest. The words crept into my
mind—‘And Israel worshipped, leaning on the top of his
staff.”

‘* Have done with sin and care and woe,
And with their Saviour rest.”

Why should this couplet ring with tuneful iteration
through my brain during the tedious prayer that en-
sued ? Especially, what spell was there in them to
evoke the image of Harry Macon, blithe, beautiful and
arch, as she peeped down at me between the horizontal
rails on the back of the bench at which I knelt in Old
338 JUDITH:

Singinsville on the Sunday morning ages agonc, when
she opened her hymn-book upside down on her lap that
I might beguile the insufferably weary duration of Mr.
Watts’ prayer by reading ?

Mr. Burgess’ text was Balaam’s aspiration: ‘‘ Let
me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end
be like his!?? These words the faithful pastor treated
and improved and enlarged upon for a whole hour.
When he spoke of the exemplary life and consistent
walk of ‘‘ our departed sister,’? I hearkened. At other
times I dreamed, gazing, in fascination that never di-
minished, at the marbled visage with its unchanging
smile of gentle surprise ; at the lily drooping above the
stilled heart ; at the set, sad lineaments of the trio who
were nearest of kin to the wandering daughter of the
house and to her who was forever present with the
Lord ; at Aunt Maria, sitting at Captain Macon’s sight
hand and not removing her eyes from Mr. Burgess’
lips, the while I suspected that she heard little more
than I. Children at that date sought out many inven-
tions to cheat lagging minutes into swifter movement.
In ultra-conscientious spasms I caught up my wan-
dering thoughts and shook them into place; endured
grinding conviction for sin in the knowledge that I
ought to ‘‘ follow’ the speaker in petition or exhorta-
tion. But Ephraim’s goodness and tte early dew were
fixed institutions by comparison with the evanescence
of these visitings. At this hour I confess to a lively
curiosity to know just how far and how closely my
elders and superiors followed the ordained teacher in his
stated ministrations. A tougher puzzle is how a sen-
sible, educated Christian wrought upon his conscience
to sanction a funeral discourse sixty minutes in length,
woven of washed-out platitudes, and cross-barred with
Scriptural quotations.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 389

We had another hymn, apropos to the text:

‘* How blest the righteous are
When they resign their breath !
No wonder Balaam wished to share
In such a happy death.’’
Then I heard for the first time the dread announcement
that falls upon the heart with the force and pain of a
blow on the naked surface :

‘“The services will be concluded at the grave!” _

No one could pronounce the formula carelessly at the
thousandth repetition. With all his trained mechanism
of pious proclamation, Mr. Burgess uttered it with vis-
ible reluctance, and a sudden, shuddering breath escaped
the crowd in hearing it. Iwas as one struck sharply in
the face. The length and prosiness of the exercises had
numbed the keenness of my sensations ; the dreamy fit
induced by the accustomed round carried me away from
the present and the truth.

But the ‘‘grave!”’ the stern “full stop’’—the ‘‘ Finis”’
trom which there was no appeal, and beyond which lay
a blank leaf uever to be printed while Time endures !
Up to that instant I had not thought of it in connection
with Miss Diana. I could picture her in heaven, for
having known her alive I could not imagine her as
““’not.?? This violent removal, from home and sight, of
a thing so lovely and helpless as the still-featured girl
before me was cruel! I clutched Aunt Maria’s hand
with icy fingers as Captain Macon—‘‘ farewell” in eye
and gesture—arose and stood over the coffin, looking
down into it from one side, his sons from the other,
amid silence that could be felt. All sounds from with-
out were suspended save the distant moan of the wood-
dove, coming and ebbing like a spent musical echo.
My aunt passed an arm about me and held me fast,
her hand on my wildly fluttering heart. Neither of us
340 JUDITH:

could withdraw her regards from the standing group
until the father bowed to kiss the calm forehead, and
his voice, firm and resonant, thrilled through the awful
hush :

“Farewell, my daughter, until the Resurrection
morning! The God of our fathers, who brought our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from the dead, have you
in His holy keeping until then!”

In any other man action and words would have been
melodramatic. With him they were nature—and sub-
lime !

I burst into tears and buried my face in Aunt Maria’s
lap. Many wept aloud with me. Warm drops rained
on my neck as a gentle voice begged me to ‘‘ try not to
cry. It is all well with her, Judith, dear. We must
not forget this!”

“Better off than any of us!’ I recollected, essaying
to check my sobs.

The colored nurse and Aunt Betsey lifted the trailing
cambric scarfs and drew them tenderly over the face,
covering it for the slumber that would endure until
the dawn of the Rising Day, disposed them in smooth
rigidity over the figure and tucked in the scalloped edges
of the sheet. Uncle Archie and two other young men
laid on and screwed down the black lid. Captain Macon
gave Grandma his arm when the coffin was lifted to the
shoulders of the four servants selected by Diana to bear
her to the family burying-ground. Roderick offered his
to Aunt Betsey, and Sidney raised Aunt Maria’s hand
to his arm without a word. Uncle Archie took charge
of me, and we walked close behind the three couples,
the rest winding on after us in a long procession down
the back-steps, across the broad lawn and through
garden-walks bordered by leafless shrubs, to the God’s-
acre of the domain, A literal acre, separated from the
A CHRONICLE OF QLD VIRGINIA. 341

garden by a hedge of box, thick and low, and inclosed
on three other sides by a brick wall. The ground sloped
gently from the garden-level, and was furrowed un-
evenly by the plowshare of death. There were hun-
dreds of graves, servants and masters, the young and
old of five generations having laid their heads on one
equal bed to await the final meeting together of rich
and poor, bond and free. A group of gravestones near
a giant weeping-willow included one erected in memory
of ‘‘ Lucy ANN, BELOVED CoNnsoRT OF ALGERNON
SrmpNEY Macon.”? This was Diana’s mother, and at
her left side gaped a black, hungry-looking pit. A
rough pine case was laid on cross-pieces over the
mouth. The negro sextons waited near, spade and
mattock in hand, but neighbors’ hands did what was
needful until the encased coffin was lowered to its place.
Men stood uncovered, women’s faces were wet with
tears while they sang the hymn which, I dare affirm, had
sounded over every grave opened within the hallowed
precincts for a hundred years past :

“Why should we mourn departing friends
Or shake at Death’s alarms ?
Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to His arms.”
The tune was (of course) ‘‘ China.”’
The lithe streamers of the willow vibrated in the
shew of rapture that upbore the words—
“Thence, He arose, ascending high,
And showed our feet the way,
Up to the Lord we, too, shall fly
At the Great Rising Day !”’
Not one of the singers doubted it. Mr. Burgess’
prayer could not quench the exultation of the sure and

certain Hope.
342 JUDITH:

CHAPTER XXII.

“‘T'r was very good in you to ask me to your wedding.
Do you know, I never saw anybody married in all my
life !””

‘* Not good at all! It wouldn’t be a wedding without
you, Sweetbrier !”’

I sat in Miss Virginia’s lap, wrapped warmly in her
arms, and it was the eve preceding her wedding-day.
Aunt Maria and Mrs. Dabney were in the store-room
together. I had been in the house but two hours,
having come to town that day with Uncle Archie and
three of his groomsmen, but I already observed how tact-
fully and effectually Aunt Maria, who had spent the last
three weeks with her friend, contrived to draw the splut-
tering fire of the stepmother’s attention and comment
from the heroine of the morrow’s drama. It had rained
all day in cold, sullen showers, each promising more of
its kind. The wind was rising now, and sent intermit-
tent gushes of spray against the windows. The soft coal
in the grate flamed high and red, and made the only
light in the parlor. I was intensely, fearfully happy—
excited to loquacity.

‘This is too delicious!’? I panted from the sweet
inclosure of the embrace. ‘‘I was dreadfully afraid
once that you wouldn’t marry Uncle Archie after all.
It seems silly now to say it, but I really had a notion
that you liked that Mr. Allen better than you did him
—the Mr. Allen who wore the ‘bilibous-green’ coat
and big watch-seal, and who paid you so much atten-
tion.”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 343

“Ned Allen! Why, he is odious! The very last
man upon the globe that I would have looked at! How
did you get that notion into your head, Monkey ?”

My cheeks burned.

“*T heard you and Miss Harry talking Edward Dun-
allan one night. Of course I knew he was the hero of
a book, but the names were so much alike that I
thought you meant him.”’

““T did not! It was—quite another—a very different
person. Try to forget the nonsense we talked and
dreamed last winter, Judith, if you love me and want
to please me. It turns me sick to remember it. I wish
I could cut last winter out from the rest of my life and
throw it into the fire there and see it burn away to
nothing !”?

She spoke with passionate acrimony so unlike any-
thing I had ever heard from her before that I was
frightened, and sought instinctively for solacing words.

“T don’t want to burn up my visit to you! I wouldn’t
forget if I could how sweet and kind you were to me
while I was here. Uncle Archie says you couldn’t be
unkind to anything or anybody. He told Grandma the
other day that he had studied you for years without
finding in you a single unamiable or unwomanly trait.’’

I quote.) successfully and complacently.

She pinched my cheek.

““Whst a mouthful! And telling tales out of school,
too! Still Iam glad you said it. It helps me to hear
such things. It helps me,’’ she repeated, looking ab-
sently into the fire, and falling into the softly emphatic
manner of speech peculiar to her earnest moods. “I
will try not to disappoint him or his friends. I wish I
were good enough for him. But Iam not what he be-
lieves me to be. ITamnot! Iam not!”

She put me down and stood up straight on the rug.
344 JUDITH:

rubbing the palms of her hands hard together, her eyes
wild and terrified.

‘“‘T am not ! Sometimes I think I shall lose my senses
with thinking of it! Of what he expects and what I
can give! And I must go straight on—without looking
backward or to the right or left—march right forward—
and—be—married—to-morrow !””

She sank to her knees before the chair from which she
had arisen, sobbing and crying hysterically. Iwas para-
lyzed—afraid to touch her or to call for help. If the
prospect of marriage moved this serene embodiment of
womanly graces and virtues to madness, Uncle Archie
was falsifying the record of his past life by urging it
upon her, even by allowing the sacrifice.

“‘T amsure—”’ began I timidly, when the sobs abated,
“that Uncle Archie would let you off if he knew how
you feel. Why don’t you beg him to do it? He would
be terribly hurt to think he had caused you all this
trouble. He ’d rather live without you always than to
make you miserable for one hour. Suppose you tell
him ?”

She was up in an instant, laughing and shaking me
by the shoulders.

“You are the funniest, comicalest, delightfulest bit
of sweetbrier I ever laid hold of! I shall die some day
with laughing at your oddities! ‘Beg him to let me
off! Why should I take him—or anybody else—if 1
don’t want him? Is there any reason for my marry-
ing him except the one all women have for changing
their names—because they think they can better them-
selves, as well as make somebody else supremely happy ?
If you ever breathe a syllable of our talk and my carry-
ings-on this evening, I won’t forgive you. Mother had
hysterics this morning when I tried on my wedding-
dress, and J believe I have caught them. If a girl
&

A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 345

can’t play the fool the night before she is married,
when can she, I would like to know? Now, we will be
sensible !”

She pulled me again to her lap and began telling me
of the new frock that had been made for me at her
dressmaker’s. Aunt Maria had brought one of my
gowns down with her as a measure, and bought the
material in Richmond, a sort of crépe lisse, trimmed
with white silk ruffles.

‘¢ And there are the prettiest satin slippers, with ro-
settes, and silk stockings to be worn with them—all
white, of course,’’ she filled up the measure of my con-
tent by adding.

‘Miss Diana Macon was buried in white satin shoes
and silk stockings,’? remarked I in a subdued key.
“Jsn’t it strange that the two things should be so much
alike? Marrying and burying, I mean. No! I don’t
either!’ seeing that I had made a false step, but not
what a blunder it was—‘‘I ought not to say that—
but—”

‘Don’t try to take it back! Children and fools speak
the truth. Many a girl stands up to be married when
she would thank God for the privilege of lying down
beside poor Diana in her shroud. I should not call her
‘ poor,’ but ‘rich and happy woman,’ to be out of it all!
You are right. Mousie! Marriage and death are awfully
alike. God hetp women everywhere to-night! But He
doesn’t! I think sometimes that it is part of our curse
—that He should always be on the side of the men, or
seem to be. They can ask for whatever they want, and
plead and plan and work until they get it, and every-
body is ready to lend a helping hand, while we—! If
a woman could keep her heart from breaking or save
her soul by putting out her hand to touch a man who is
passing by without seeing her, she cannot do it. She
346 JUDITH:

must let him go, and hide her hurt as well as she
ean |”?

‘‘T wouldn’t !”’ said I, in the confidence of a preco-
cious twelve-year-old. ‘‘I would call him if I died
for it.’

“Youd die for it if you did! Lose his respect and
your own, and gain the contempt of everybody else!
What stuff I am talking! I believe I am slightly out
of my head to-night. You must get Aunt Maria to
show you her dress. She looks like a tall, slender
lily-of-the-valley in it—just as sweet and modest and
pure.”’

‘‘She wrote to Aunt Betsey that you were to be mar-
ried in white satin.”

‘Yes! as thick as a board and as shiny as shroud-
cambric! Ugh! I hate it!”

‘““Why do you wear it, then ?”’

‘Because it is the prescribed rig for brides. If it
wasn’t for the talk it would make I would be married
in black crape, and keep the satin abomination for my
funeral.’’

“You don’t look and talk a bit like yourself,’’ de-
cided I, shocked and judicial. ‘I have always heard
that it alters people very much to be engaged. Now,
all the change we ’ve noticed in Uncle Archie is that he
is gentler and happier, nicer than ever before, and a
great deal handsomer. Aunt Betsey says he has a kind
of glorified look.”

She shifted me to the other knee, getting me between
her and the fire, that was now glaringly bright, leaned
her forehead on my shoulder, her face in shadow, and
was motionless so long that I took it into my head she
was praying silently. ;

She did not stir when the door-bell rang and Uncle
Archie’s step sounded in the hall. Not until he had
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 347

crossed the room and paused before her did she raise
her head. Then she held out her hand smilingly :

‘Excuse me for not rising. Sweetbrier is a little
tired after her journey, and I am resting her.”’

‘*’Very much to her satisfaction, I have no doubt,”
passing his hand over my hair, as he drew a chair to
her side.

I felt intuitively that he wished me anywhere else at
that moment, and began to meditate an escape.

“Tt rains still—does it not ?’?? Miss Virginia kept the
conversation in safe channels.

‘‘Yes—but it is growing cold and the wind is so high
that we shall probably have clear weather by to-mor-
row.”

“Yes ?” abstractedly.

Uncle Archie held out his hand to me.

“* Judith ! I am afraid you are too heavy for Miss Vir-
ginia.”’

She grasped me when I tried to rise.

‘She is as light as a feather. I like to have her
here. It has been a weary while since I saw her. And
we are great cronies-—aren’t we, dear ? have ever and
ever so much to say to one another.”’

Her hot lips touched my cheek. Uncle Archie put
his hand on hers as i, lay on the arm of the chair. I
felt a sharp shiver ran over her—then, that she held
herself perfectly stv.

‘¢ Please let me go !”’ I breathed in her ear.

For reply Ihad a tighter clasp, and a look into my
eyes I could have resisted as easily as I could interpret
it. This might be the shy sweetness I had read of in
romances—miaidenly coyness as diagnosed by the best
authorities in Cupid’s practice. If this were so I hoped
Uncle Archie understood the symptoms better than I.

The fatigues of the day had not put me tosieep when
348 JUDITH:

the two young ladies came up to their chamber for the
night.

‘*T suppose it is prudent to reserve your strength,”’
Aunt Maria was saying, ‘‘but I think he expected to
have, at least, a half-hour’s talk alone with you.”

‘¢ Would you have me look like a hag on my wedding-
day ?”’ retorted the other with affected asperity. ‘‘ You
who pretend to admire my complexion ought to second
my attempts to preserve it.”

All the next day, in accordance with time-sanctioned
usage, the bride was kept in strict seclusion, visible
only to the bridesmaids. These, eight in number, and
all pretty—for that night at least—gathered about her
like a bouquet of snow-drops enclosing, as heart and
queen, a moss-rose bud, when the bridegroom and his
attendants appeared. By preconcerted arrangement I
slipped down stairs while the train was forming, and
stood by Major Dabney in a place reserved for my
diminutive person by Wickham. The bishop, benignant
in snowy lawn and silvery hair, was stationed between
the back-parlor windows, a spacious area before him
swept clear of the guests who crowded the rooms and
hall. From this reserved space a path was with diffi-
culty opened at a given signal for the progress of the
eight couples from the front-parlor door. They paced
it slowly, Aunt Maria and Stanhope Dabney, Miss Vir-
ginia’s cousin, last and immediately preceding bride
and groom. As each pair reached the Bishop it fell
apart, the gentleman taking a stand at his right, the
lady at his left, gradually shaping a ring which received
the clasp and seal when the pair to be married faced
him. The bride was supported on her left by a semi-
circle of gallant cavaliers, the groom by a crescent of
fairwomen. Everything went off with perfect order and
decorum. At the appointed second the bride’s glove
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINTA. 349

was dexterously removed by the best man, Uncle
Archie’s by his sister, the ring was slipped to its place
with the too-often meaningless formula—t With this
ring I thee wed, with all my worldly goods I thee en-
dow,”’ etc.

Presbyterian Uncle Archie said it slowly and solemnly.
Repetition had not dulled the significance of the pledge
for him. His enunciation of the name of the Divine
Triune was deep-toned and reverent, his head bowed
prayerfully.

The bride’s roses repaid her for the care given to
their preservation. Her bloom was brilliant, her smile
ready and sweet in receiving congratulations and good
wishes. Her lip trembled when her father caught her
to his breast with a half-sob, giving bis left hand, at
the same moment, to his son-in-law.

‘*God bless you both!’ I was near enough to hear
the old soldier say. ‘‘There isn’t another man alive to
whom I would so willingly give her. I told her so,
months and months ago.”

Mrs. Dabney’s hysterical dampness restored her step-
daughter to her wonted tranquillity of demeanor. The
habit of retrieving the good creature’s mishaps of
speech, of guarding others against the effects of her
tactlessness, could not be cast aside even at this junc-
ture. Without forgetting the ceremony due to herself
as the cynosure of the occasion, she took up her cus-
tomary duties as the hostess-daughter of the house and
discharged them with the easy cordiality that became
her so well.

I was watching her admiringly from a safe corner
behind an oleander tree in pink affluence of blossom,
when I overheard a fragment of a dialogue that was
certainly not meant for the ears of any one allied to
either of the two newly-united families.
350 JUDITH:

“Ned isn’t here, I see,’’ said one man slyly to an-
other. ‘‘He’s badly hurt and takes it hard!”

“Yes, but what a fool to advertise it by staying
away to-night!’ rejoined his friend, whose left lappel
was decorated with a ‘‘groomsman’s favor ’’—a ribbon
rosette of blue and silver, with flowing ends. ‘‘Every-
body is noticing and whispering about it. I have
heard a dozen jokes on the subject.”

““Was it ever an engagement ?””

“Humph! Hardly, I reckon. I should say ‘cer-
tainly not,’ if I trusted to my knowledge of the parties
and personal observation. He swears that she encour-
aged him, gets black in the face when he talks about
it and so forth. But I doubt ifshe ever gave him more
encouragement, as he calls it, than she did a dozen
others. I don’t blame her for discarding him. Be-
tween ourselves, she couldn’t have done a more sensi-
ble thing. I thought, last winter and spring, that
Bradley had the inside track and was doing capital
running. In fact, I would have backed him against
the field, but he may have been taking care of Read’s
interests. That’s the way it looks now, at any rate.”

“Would the old gentleman have given consent to
that match ?””

“Um-m-m! doubtful—very ! There must have been
a pretty thorough understanding all around of the real
state of affairs.”’

‘‘She played the game confoundedly well. These
innocent-looking, frank-eyed girls who smile upon
every fellow are the devil’s own for cunning. I
wouldn’t trust one of them on oath.”

The other burst out laughing.

‘‘Halloa! are you galled, too? How many more
victims, I wonder !””

When I repeated the substance of this conversation
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 351

to Aunt Maria, next day, she flushed up painfully—I
fancied indignantly—and charged me to let it go no
further.

‘* Tt was foolish and wicked for them to speak in that
way! You must not allow such wild gossip to affect
your manner or feelings toward your Aunt Virginia.
She never flirted with either Mr. Allen or Mr. Bradley !”

‘“*T know that!’ I rejoined eagerly. ‘‘She could not
have helped knowing that Uncle Archie was in love
with her, and Mr. Bradley certainly saw it. It would
have been dishonorable in him to court her, wouldn’t
it?

‘Yes, dear,’ lifting a calin face from the letter she
was writing. ‘‘Put the whole matter out of your
mind.’’

This injunction served, of course, only to fix indeli-
bly in the retentive mind of childhood every incident of
the winter that had passed.

Aunt Maria’s letter was tomy mother, whose ycunger
children were ‘‘ down” with whooping-cough. ‘1. her
disappointment at her inability to attend the wedding,
she had exacted a promise from her sister that she
would forward a full description of the festivities on the
morrow of the marriage-eve. The other day, in over-
hauling a trunk crammed with old Jetters, I happened
upon the brittle, yellow pages bearing the particulars
she knew would interest her housewifely correspond-
ent. TI transcribe an extract:

‘“We went in to supper at eleven o’clock, the cerc-
mony having taken place at eight. The table was ex-
tremely handsome. The centre-piece was a cake,
richly iced, eighteen inches across and ten inches in
height, and surrounded by a ireble-curled fringe of sil-
ver paper. In the hollow in the middle of this cake,
left by the funnel of the mould, was planted a pretty,
352 JUDITH :

slender holly tree, four feet high, hung with fancy bas-
kets, and wreaths and streamers of silver filigree, and
closely sprinkled with red berries. At one end of the
table was a tall pyramid of jelly and ice-cream ; at the
other, one of candied oranges. Both were built about
two small silver rods, and to the tops of these were
fastened silver-paper festoons, cut exquisitely into pat-
terns as fine as lace, connecting the pyramids with the
tree. Between the centre-piece and the pyramids were
immense cakes iced in pink and white, cheese-cakes,
piles of snow-balls, fruits, nuts, candies, etc. Another
long table was loaded with meats of all kinds, oysters,
tea and coffee. They were lighted, as were all the
rooms, by wax candles in tall silver candlesticks hung
with tissue-paper cut in every imaginable device, then
dipped in spermaceti to make it transparent. On the
sideboard were superb cut-glass decanters filled with
red and white wine, and a punch-bowl so enormous
that Judith thinks it must be the fellow to that in which
the three wise men of Gotham went to sea. There
were also liqueurs of various kinds and cherry-bounce,
and in the hall another big bowl of egg-nogg, refilled
three times before supper. The bride’s health was
dronk in Madeira laid down in Captain Macon’s cellar
the day Virginia was born.

‘The second-day dinner is to be eaten here to-day.
‘Virginia is to wear pale-blue satin, trimmed with old
lace that belonged to her own mother. I need not tell
you how very lovely she looks in it, nor how well she
and Archie behave. One might suppose they had been
married ten years. They are evidently perfectly satis-
fied with one another. About twenty, including, of
course, the bridesmaids and groomsmen, are invited to
the dinner. To-morrow we leave for Summerfield and
comparative quiet.’”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 353

CHAPTER XXIII.

Mrs. ARCHIBALD READ’s wedding-present from her
father was characteristic of him and of the times in
which he lived. She went to her new home in a hand-
some carriage built expressly for her, ‘‘R’’ in raised
solid silver letters on the doors and the harness of a
pair of blooded roadsters selected and bought by the
Major, who was a famous judge of horse-flesh. On the
box was a young colored man, born in “the family,’’
whose father and grandfather had been reared on the
Dabney estate. Beside the coachman—wrappe¢ up to
the ears in shawls and blankets, a foot-stove under her
feet—was Dosia, the bride’s own maid. Both of the
servants were to form a part of the Summerfield esta)-
lishment henceforward, and lent ‘‘tone’’ of no weet
character to the equipage.

The bridal pair traveled together, Aunt Maria, myself
and Emmeline, our maid, in the Summerfield carriage.
The three outriders were Uncle Sterling and the two
other groomsmen, who had accompanied us on our
townward journey, three days earlier. A crew of chil-
dren, white and black, and of idling servants collected
in the street to watch the departure of the cortége.
Aunt Virginia’s ‘‘ Mammy”’ threw an old shoe after the
grand new chariot ; Major Dabney and the boys stood
outside of the gate, blowing their noses very hard, their
eyes watering in the piercing wind. Mrs. Dabney we
had left in high and mighty hysterics on the parlor-sofi.

‘‘T never imagined,”’ said I, pertly, subsiding into nv
corner with a ponderous respiration, ‘‘ that getting mar-
354 JUDITH:

ried was such a dreadful business. Even Uncle Archie
does not look half as happy as he ought todo. As for
Miss—Aunt—Virginia, she can’t help showing that she
is miserable, and the rest behave as if Uncle Archie
were an ogre carrying her off to a cave to eat her up at
his leisure. Upon my word’? —waxing fretful, for
nerves and temper were on edge—‘‘ I don’t see why she
said ‘Yes’ to him if she was going to feel so badly about
leaving home. He didn’t oblige her to do it, I suppose.
It isn’t much of a compliment to him or to us, the way
they carry on!”’

“Hush, my love! You may understand some things
better when you are older and have seen more of the
world,”’ was all the reply I had.

It was gently uttered, but Aunt Maria’s mild dignity
always quelled my saucy fits more effectually than did
Aunt Betsey’s lectures or my mother’s occasional sar-
casm.

My mentor was hardly in her usual spirits that day,
which was the coldest of the season. I fancied that the
necessity of having the glasses of both doors closed to
exclude the biting air was not disagreeable to her; that
she would rather think than chat with our escorts.
They fered hardly enough, although their surtouts
were heavy, their necks and ears shielded by turned-
up coilws and woolen scarfs, their legs incased in close
‘‘wrappers.’? Every few miles one or another was
obliged to dismount and walk briskly along the frozen
turnpike to restore circulation to his limbs. Blankets
and foot-stoves kept us from absolute discomfort, our
vehicles being well-built and the winter wadding, or
‘*squabs’’—to wit, cushioned inner curtains— exclud-
ing the searching blasts. Five miles out of town we
halted suddenly and saw that the carriage in front was
stationary. Unele Archie opened our leeward door.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 355

‘How are you getting on in here? We stopped to
let Dosia get down from the box. Virginia was uneasy
about her. She is not strong at any time, and this is
not fit weather for a woman to be out, so we have taken
her inside.”’

‘Put her in here,’ said Aunt Maria, promptly.
‘There is plenty of room, you see. It would be by
far the better arrangement for all.”’

‘What a jewel of a sister!’’ a loving, grateful smile
illumining his face. ‘‘I never thought of that. Ifyou
really wouldn’t mind—’’

‘*T should like it. Don’t stand there freezing your
feet, but run along and send her and her foot-stove and
bandbox to us!”

In another minute he was back himself, gravely re-
gretful. ‘‘ Virginia is afraid Dosia would crowd you
too much, there being three of you, already, and only
two of us. She says if anybody is inconvenienced by
her maid she ought to be that one. You know how
unselfish she is. The girl is stowed away and tucked
in with the whole front seat to herself. Iam just as
much obliged to you, Maria, but perhaps it is best to let
matters remain as they are. Take care of yourselves,
and keep as comfortable as you can. It is bitter
weather |”’

He spoke fast, for it was freezing cold, shut us up
again, and was off.

‘Miss Virginny ’ll sp’ile Doshy fo’ sho’, ef she hu-
mors her in that ’ar way,’? commented country-bred
Emmeline in strong reprobation. ‘‘I don’ know what
she’s a-thinkin’ *bout to be willin’ to stay thar’. She
mought have sense ’nough o’ her own fur to see that
*taint noways consequential to be a-pushin’ herself into
a cuarridge ’longside o’ new-married folks. I’d ’a’ friz
stiffer ’n a ice-sickle ’fore I’d ’a’ sot foot inside !”’
356 JUDITH :

“Miss Virginia is always thoughtful of others’ com-
fort, and is the best judge of her own affairs,’ replied
Aunt Maria as quietly as she had reproved me; then
leaned back and shut her eyes, as if drowsy.

We dined at the ‘‘House of Entertainment,’’ and
having left word to that effect on our way to Richmond,
we found gloriously hot fires and a bountiful dinner
ready for us, with host and hostess in holiday attire to
receive the wedding-party. The hour spent within the
hospitable hostelry was a most welcome break in the
severe journey. The one mitigation of its rigor was
the hardness of the roads, which enabled us to traverse
the distance in less time than if the depth of winter
mud had prevailed. But we were tossed and battered
over frozen lumps and ridges of clay as over so many
stones.

We had started early and traveled well, still the days
were at their shortest, and we saw the sun sink into
an uninviting bed of clouds behind the rambling roofs
of Summerfield as we turned into the half-mile outer
gate of the plantation. Aunts Maria’s eyes were dark
and heavy, her cheeks wan now that the need of exer-
tion and outward cheerfulness was removed. She was
very silent all day, and I had slept myself into better
humor. She smoothed my tumbled hair, now, tied on
my hood and. straightened the cape of my cloak, smiled
and spoke pteasantly.

‘‘Flow good it will seem to get home again and in
such happy circumstances! And if we are tired and
cold we won’t be cross and ungrateful, Judith, dear—
will we ?”

Not one jot or tittle did Aunt Betsey abate of the
ceremonies with which the future mistress of the
homestead should be brought to her abiding-place.
A double line of servants fell into position along the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 357

walk from the house to the gate, grinning and cour-
tesying, their teeth chattering and eyeballs rolling
with excitement and cold. Between these walked the
bride on her husband’s arm, Uncle Sterling at her
other hand, the two groomsmen escorting Aunt Ma-
ria and my puny, consequential self. The hall-door
flew wide open as we reached the steps, and Aunt
Betsey, arrayed in black satin and sheer lawn stom-
acher, issued forth.

“Lift her over the threshold, Archie !’’ cried she,
when she had embraced the bride. ‘‘My dear boy!
don’t you know it is bad luck to let her touch her foot
to the sill ?”’

He obeyed with such good-will that he did not set
down his lovely burden until he put it into his mother’s
arms. They had not suffered Grandma to venture into
the fireless hall. She awaited us within the drawing-
room, a striking picture in her gentle stateliness ; her
fine face alight with youthful fire, her beautiful old
hands held out eagerly.

“My dear children !”

‘‘Oh, mother!’ It was a piteous cry with which the
girl, who could not recollect her own mother, cast her-
self on the tender bosom and clung there, weeping aloud
and wildly, ‘‘ Mother! Mother! Mother!”

Grandma motioned Uncle Archie away as the fit of
emotion grew violent, and beckoned Mammy to hex aid.
Between them they got Aunt Virginia to the chamber
in the wing which had been made brave and bright for
her occupancy, and nursed her into warmth of body
and outward composure.

Uncle Archie was left to get rid of his chilliness over
the fire in the drawing-room, and to parry as best he
could the impertinent felicitations of his brothers who,
at first, alarmed by the reception-scene, speedily found
358 JUDITH:

in it infinite amusement when coupled with the circum-
stance of the long drive the newly-wedded pair had
taken, virtually en téte-d-téte, Dosia counting for nothing
in the conversation. I could have fought them both as
they piled compassion for her upon remonstrance with
him for having talked her to death, and seriously au-
gured terrible things for the future of the persecuted
woman. There was neither wit nor sense in their
rattle.

“Do stop them, Aunt Maria!’ entreated I, angry,
unshed tears scalding my eyelids. ‘‘ They tease him
so! And he looks so sick and tired !”’

“He can afford to let them laugh !’? She slipped her
hand under her brother’s arm and leaned her cheek on
his sleeve, as he stood at the corner of the hearth, his
elbow on the mantel, paler than I had ever seen him in
health, and hardly seeming to hear the nonsense
hummed about his ears.

‘‘ Sterling is only mad with jealousy, and Wythe is
his echo,”’ pursued the sister, merrily. ‘‘ Archie under-
stands this too well to listen to what they say. Vir-
ginia is chilled through and completely tired out,
brother ’’—in a different tone. ‘‘She has kept up no-
bly all through the weeks of wedding-haste. If you
could see the work she has done you would wonder that
she is alive—not that she broke down when she felt that
she was at last 9+ home and where she could afford to
rest !””

His arm encircled her with an abrupt movement; his
eyes overflowed with the fond smile that unbent his lips.

“There was never such another woman for saying
the right thing at the right time! Sterling !’? resuming
the elder-brotherly tone that always enforced respect—
‘‘will you go up stairs and see that Clem and Archer
have all they want ? Tell Jack to kecp up a good fire
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, aa

in their room until bed-time. Supper will be ready in
an hour—did you say, Aunt Betsey ? Then I shall
have time to go out to the stables and give an eye to
things generally.”

Aunt Maria’s look expostulated, but her tongue did
not. The young planter paid his nightly visit of in-
spection to the farm-yard, and received a condensed
report from his head man of what had been done in his
absence ; then, coming in, made the needful changes in
his dress in his mother’s room not to disturb his wife,
who was lying down in her apartment while Dosia un-
packed one trunk. When supper was ready Aunt
Betsey sent me for him.

“Tell him he must bring your Aunt Virginia into
the dining-room,”’ said the punctilio-loving relative.

Her relish of the situation and of her réle was some-
thing to see and to remember.

Grandma was in her easy-chair. Uncle Archie had
thrown himself on the rug at her feet, and sat, holding
her hand while they talked.

‘Very well! You will wait for Grandma,” he said,
when my message was delivered.

He tarried an instant to fold her shaw] about her, and
to lay more wood on her fire. His mother’s comfort
must never be a secondary consideration.

She stood behind her chair at table, the rest of us in
due order behind ours, when the butler, privately in-
structed by Aunt Betsey, flung open the door to reveal
the wedded twain approaching, arm-in-arm. The bride
had rallied from faintness and tearfulness ; her com-
plexion was brilliant, her blue eyes starry, her ‘‘second-
day’s dress’ enhanced the effect of her fairness and the
beauty of her red-gold curls. The man beside her
looked like a prince in the glory of his content. He
took the master’s post at the foot of the table, placing
360 JUDITH:

her beside him, and, all still standing, he asked a bless-
ing on ‘‘the food provided for our use.’? Everything
was so natural, yet so utterly unlike the olden days
when almost the same party sat at meals in the same
room for weeks together, that I was dazed as to my
whereabouts and identity.

The ‘‘infair ’’? supper was in constituents and quan-
tity expressive of Aunt Betsey’s convictions as to the
importance of the time and circumstances. There were,
at least, ten dishes of meat, as many of cake, preserves,
jellies, etc.; the same number of varieties of hot bread.
The groomsmen, hungry after the long, cold ride, did
ample justice to the feast, and were kept in countenance
by my younger uncles. Aunt Maria ate sparingly ;
Aunt Virginia strove to cover her lack of appetite by a
social flow of chat with those near her, and perhaps did
not see the solicitous glances Uncle Archie stole at her
plate. He would never annoy her by overt assiduity of
attention, but her slightest motion did not escape him.

In obedience to respectable custom, the conversation,
under Aunt Betsey’s direction, contained numerous
references to the wooing and betrothal.

‘* A fashion which is less considered each year,’’ re-
marked Mrs. Waddell, mournfully, in a gap that gave
her opportunity to utter the lament for the benefit of
recusants. ‘‘In my azy no other topic was thought to
be quite the proper thing at wedding entertainments.”’

‘What was done when there was neither courtship
nor engagement in the usual sense of the terms ?”’ put
in Uncle Archie, boldly. ‘‘ And we had none—to speak
of Ip

The general laugh diverted notice from the grateful
look the wife stole at him from under her lashes. I ap-
prehended, if she did not, that he would have inter-
posed his hand between her and living fire as readily as
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 361

he raised a shield to turn aside gossip that might con-
fuse her.

The weather had not moderated by half a degree by
the following morning, but a gray pall was stretched
from horizon to horizon over the steel-blue sky of yes-
terday. It was too cold to snow—much too cold to
rain—yet the clouds drooped gloomily lower as the day
wore into afternoon. Our cousins, the Reads from Bur-
leigh, and the Fonthill Archers, also connected with us
by consanguineous ties, were invited to dinner. We
could not have a “‘dining-day’’ so soon after Diana
Macon’s death, yet the company of relatives should
have been merrier than they succeeded in becoming.
The elder ladies clustered in the corners nearest the
fire, and talked soberly in mellow Southern accents ;
their husbands discussed politics with one another and
the most thoughtful of the younger men, while even
Clem Read faltered perceptibly in the unpromising un-
dertaking of flirtation with the unwedded women of
the party who were all his first cousins. Aunt Virginia
wore a pea-green silk gown with delicate lace trim-
mings, one of the prettiest in her trousseau. She did
her best, in attire and demeanor, to enliven the some-
what too-domestic scene, and must have been secretly
disheartened at the result.

If she did not draw comparisons between it and the
hilarious junketing of one year agone, I did, and in dis-
satisfaction too deep for endurance or expression. It
was not only the absence of the brilliant Macon element,
or the obtrusive memory of their sorrows, nor yet the
paucity of other beaux and belles that wrought flatness
of general effect and induced individual depression. I
felt, vaguely, that the life had gone out of everything :
that the pretense of gayety was a deplorable and obvi-
ous fiction, and that the every-day level of Summerfield
362 JUDITH:

existence would be a relief after the prescribed festivi-
ties were finally and thoroughly disposed of.

When dinner was over, and young, old and middle-
aged women surrounded the yule fire in the parlor,
while their masculine associates smoked in the dining-
room, I abandoned the cast of fine lady, to which I had
taken a fancy during my town experiences. It might
do well enough there ; in the country it was unremune-
rative—at my age. I ran up stairs for my cloak and
warm red hood, convened a posse of dark-skinned
attendants, and rushed off on a frolic over the frost-
bound hills with the zest of a boy let loose from school.
As I ran, I shouted in the delight of the relief, and my
band answered with Christmas yells. Aunt Virginia,
in the sedulous talk-making the poor girl had main-
tained all day, had said in my hearing how fond she
was of persimmons, and that they were rarely brought
to the Richmond market. There was a persimmon-
grove not far from the plantation gate, and this was the
ostensible object of the expedition. I wondered, while
the wild scamper warmed my bleod and Wispelled the
blue-devils I could not fight in-doors, if the pretty, pa-
tient chief guest, still trying to make talk in the house
I left further behind at every bound, would not be glad
to doff her pea-green silk, aad clad in sensible merino,
forget dinner-party and bridehood in my company,

The sharp frosts had strewed the ground with fruit.
There was a saying with us that persimmons were not
really ripe until Christmas. Those we picked up were
slightly shrivelled like the skin of healthy old age; in
color, dark-purple—almost black, and touched with a
silvery film as a plum is with misty blue. Inside, the
glossy brown seeds were incased in juices, sugared to
granulation, a dry, dulcet, mealy pulp, far superior in
flavor to the more highly-esteemed date. I sent the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 363

boys up the trees when we had cleared the ground
under them, and made them shake down fresh supplies.
At last I climbed a small tree myself, totally oblivious
of so much as a shred of my late ‘‘ best behavior,”’ and
swung gayly in the supple branches, found in the frozen
fruit a more sumptuous dessert than all Aunt Betsey’s
dainties. I had just dropped to the earth by letting
myself down at full arm’s length from a lower bough
when one of my convoy gave a screech.

‘* Lor’, Miss Judith! Looky dar! Dat horse done
fall down !”

A covered ‘‘carryall,’? a four-wheeled cart with a
long, painted wooden body and a tent-cloth top, was
at the plantation gate. The colored driver had alighted
1o unlatch and open it, but had brought his wretched-
looking horse too near before checking him. The gate
was heavy and better hung than those the man was
used to handling. It slipped from his hold at the first
jerk and swung open with such force as to knock the
jaded beast off his feet. He went down prone, like a
dead thing, snapping the shaft in the fall and made no
effort to rise.

We rushed pell-mell to the scene of action, the latter
element being embodied in the man’s kicks and tugs at
the prostrate animal, and the agile leap from the rear
of the vehicle of a woman, done up in a red blanket-
shawl. She interrupted her scolding of the driver by a
shriek at sight of me, darted forward and caught me in
her arms, persimmons, basket and all.

“Miss Judith! Miss Judith! Mussiful Marster in
heaven! ef here ain’t the blessid chile herself !’’

I knew her voice before I did her face, which was thin
and haggard, woefully changed from the coquettish pret-
tiness of the ‘‘red-winged blackbird,” Harry Macon’s
maid,
364 JUDITH :

“¢ Apphia !’? I gasped. ‘‘ Where is—”’

‘‘Hishe! honey, hishe!’’ pointing to the carryall.
‘I done been brung her back—what’s left of her!’

What was left. of her! More apt description could
not have been given of her who slowly descended from
the carryall with the help of Apphia on one side, the
colored man on the other. The eyes looked out from
hollows where lurked ashy shadows, the forehead was
bloodless, the nostrils pinched, the lips shrunken and
fever-dried. On each cheek was a botch of hectic
scarlet, kindling up fierily when Apphia entreated
her not to alight.

‘He cannot go further !’? she whispered, nodding to-
ward the horse. ‘‘I will walk!”

But she staggered at the first step and leaned against
the wheel. Apphia pulled a blanket from the cart,
wrapped her in it from head to foot, and made her sit
Town on a fallen tree-vrunk in the lee of a bushy cedar.

‘*Come here, Miss Judith, and stay ‘long her—won’t
ycu—please ? I’ve got to help him hyste that horse up,
Is’pose. ’Fore I’d be sech an empty-headed, avk’ard
buzzard as not to know how to open a gate! Itere!
some of you, thar’! pick up your feet an’ run to the
house fas’ as you can clip it, an’ tell Mars’ Archie Read
how Miss Harry Macon is here—mighty sick and mos’
frozen to death, an’ won’t he sen’ somethin’, if ’tain’t
nothin’ but a tumbler-cuart, for to fetch her in. Be
off !”?

Without a look after the bevy that flew like startled
snow-birds at her imperious mandate, she bent the cn-
ergies of arm and tongue to the effort to help the horse
up and to the salutary beratement of his owner.

‘TY wouldn't lift a finger to help either you or your
crow-bait,’? she took care to inform the fellow, ‘‘ef
*twasn’t that your rubbish has got to be cleared ’way
«l CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 365

from the gate to let Mr. Archibald Read’s carriage pass
through !””

Horror-stricken into dumbness, I stood behind Miss
Harry (I never think of her by any other name), put
my arms around her and tricd to uphold her against
my chest. She shivered with cold or agitation, and
coughed several times so violently that she leaned back,
quite spent in my embrace at the close of each pa-
roxysm. Her eyes were shut and I thought she was
dying. Apphia’s emissaries sped fast, and there was
assuredly no lagging in the response to the summons
they bore. But months have been briefer to me than
the interval during which my benumbed feet seemed
freezing to the iron earth, and colder dreads settled hor-
ribly on my soul. Two or three of the least of the
colored children huddled together at a terrified distance
and watched us; Apphia and the stupefied driver got
the horse up, and he tied the pieces of the broken thill
together with a rope he drew from the straw in the
bottom of the cart, she holding the fragments in place,
her sharp tougue never still. The drooping clouds bor-
rowed increasing darkness from approaching night; the
wind murmured ceaselessly in the pine tops, and pres-
ently fine, close rain began to sift down upon us, glazing
the carryall-top and the log on which Miss Harry sat.
Apphia begged her to get back into the cart, but she
opened her eyes in a vacant stare, a bemused, uncompre-
hending look, and shook her head. The woman poured
something from a bottle into a cup, and held it reso-
lutely to the parched lips until it was swallowed. My
tears found vent and trickled silently down my face
as I saw Apphia wipe hers away with a corner of her
shawl.

The drizzle was a dense veil between us and the
homestead, and the beat of many swift feet on the
366 JUDITH:

frozen road was the first token we had that help was at
hand. Uncle Archie was foremost in the race. Too
anxious to wait while the carriage was made ready, he
had ordered that it should follow him with speed, and
run all the way from the house. With the perverse dis-
position to mark trifles that besets us in supreme crises,
I noted that he had come out in his low shoes and
without hat or surtout. He was white and out of
breath, and the forked vein in his forehead was swollen
and blue. Halting momentarily a few feet from us, he
steadied himself for the meeting, walked quietly up to
my charge, dropped on one knee, took her in his arms,
and kissed her as he would his sister.

‘* Lean all your weight on me, Harry! The carriage
will be here directly.”

Not a syllable more was spoken, until he lifted her
like a child in his arms and laid her among the pillows
Aunt Betsey had put into the carriage.

‘“Get in, Judith,”’ he said to me, and himself stepped
in after us, supporting the sinking form on his broad
breast until we were at home.

This was his fulfillment of the compact on which they
had shaken hands eleven months before this Christmas
night.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 367

CHAPTER XXIV.

A MOUNTED messenger had spurred off in one direc-
tion through the rainy darkness for the doctor. Clem
Read had gone in person to Hunter’s Rest to convey
the intelligence of the prodigal’s return. The coaches
from Burleigh and Fonthill had rolled away, the lamps
shedding sparkles of tremulous light upon the sleety
twigs of wayside brushwood and striking broadly on
bank and tree-bole, thinly coated with ice. Below-
stairs and in the outlying servants’ houses the subdued
stir of intense emotion was like the muffled breathing
of a single strong, living thing. Those who walked
trod on tiptoe; those who talked spoke in hurried whis-
pers. Grandma and her sons sat together over the
dining-room fire, scarcely exchanging a sentence from
one minute to another. Aunt Betsey slipped sound-
lessly fromm chamber to chamber, making ready for
those who would be with us before midnight—the phy-
sician, the brothers, and possibly the father of her
whose earthly life was, for aught we could see, nar-
rowed down to the measure of hours.

Tey had put her to bed in Aunt Maria’s room. Un-
observed in the preoccupation of the attendants, I
crept, cold and forlorn and all dressed as I was, into
my own little bed in the remote corner of the apart-
ment, and had the comfort of feeling myself out of the
way, yet where I would not lose sight of the sufferer.
My fondness for her was augmented into a passian of
devotion by the romantic episodes of our intercourse
during the spring, and by commiseration for her present
368 JUDITH:

evil plight. I was in childlike earnest when I said to
myself that 1 would willingly lay down my life if by so
doing I could put her back into her father’s arms, the
incarnation of youth, beauty and joy she had been a
year ago. As it was, I could do nothing but pray for
her, and my faith was weak as to the efficacy of
ungrammatical petitions not ordered according to ec-
clesiastical rules. Such poor ejaculations as formed
themselves in my thoughts arose no higher than my
head, like bits of thistle-down in damp air. I hoped
the Lord understood how much I wanted my dear Miss
Harry to get well, and how unhappy I was when I
could not make a prayer good enough in which to ask
Him to bless and cure and make up to her for all she
had undergone; but I had grave and harrowing doubts
whether they ever got to His ears or not. It was not
likely that a little ignoramus, half-frightened out of her
wits by the imminence of the peril, could frame ‘‘ an
acceptable petition.’”? Uncle Archie’s morning family
devotions included a clause that entreated blessings on
‘‘all who are near and dear unto us.””, In my misery I
fumbled the phrase over and over in my mind as mea-
surably available in the circumstances, whispering me-
chanically, while my senses were intent upon the scenes
before me:

‘*Q Lord! bless those who are near and dear to us,
and suffer no accident to befall them this day !”

Silence succeeded the bustle of removal and disrob-
ing. Mammy had gone to the kitchen to make broth
and tisanes. Aunt Maria and Aunt Virginia watched
at the bedside. The rays of a shaded lamp on the
mantel showed dimly the gala dresses the sisters-in-law
had not bethought themselves to lay aside. Harry
rested high among the pillows, her respiration easier as
she dozed off into a natural slumber, her face ghastly
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 369

but for the red spots that seemed to glow through the
half-lights of the chamber. She had lain thus for per-
haps an hour, her watchers as motionless as herself,
when suddenly she opened her great eyes wide and di-
rectly upon Aunt Virginia.

**IT didn’t want you to marry him!’ she said, dis-
tinctly, although her voice was thin and shrill with
weakness. ‘‘I told you Archie Read was the stronger
of the two—the noblest fellow in the world—and had
loved you long and well. But you needn*t have jilted
the other. It almost broke his heart.”’

It was Aunt Maria’s hand that stroked the fevered
cheek caressingly, her soft accents that strove to dispel
the delirium. ‘‘ Harry! dear child! you are dreaming.
You are at home—at Summerfield—Grandma Read’s—
don’t you know? Don’t try to talk, until you are
stronger !”’

‘‘T must find out the truth. My word is pledged !
He was so good to me in Philadelphia that I want to
show my gratitude in some way—before I die. I used
to think—I believed—that he was in love—with you,
Maria—”’

‘Harry ! wake up, dear! I cannot let you run on
so! You distress yourself. Never mind about it now.
There will ve time enough to tell us by-and-by !”

I may have been mistaken, but I fancied I saw an
involuntasy smile sweep over the pitying face of the
nurse as she cooed dissuasives in the ears of the excited
invalid. She brought water and bathed Harry’s head
and wrists, apparently totally unsuspicious that there
was weight or coherence in the broken sentences. The
sick woman put her by with an impatient gesture—the
regal air that belonged to her former self.

“He told me all about it one night. I never really
knew Mr. Bradley until then. He said his love for you
370 JUDITH:

was a passing fancy—‘ born of propinquity,’ he said.
You know how he puts things. That his heart had
been Virginia Dabney’s from the first day he saw her.
He kept it a secret while he lived here. He thought
Archie loved her, and he was his friend. After he
went to Richmond she told him that Archie could
never be more to her than a dear brother. There
was nothing dishonorable, then— Sit still! I must
speak !””

For Aunt Maria on one side, Aunt Virginia on the
other, had arisen by acommon impulse, staring straight
into one another’s eyes across the death-bed. Such a
look! blank with ainaze, woeful to agony, despairing as
the gaze of the lost! For one second each saw this in
her sister’s face ; then, the three-days wife fell on her
knees with a stifled cry and buried her head in the cov-
erlet as if to escape from mortal sight.

Aunt Maria stooped to Harry’s ear.

“*Do you know what you are saying, Harry Macon ?
Look at me! I am Maria Read. You are feverish
and wandering—are you not, dear ?”’

A dreary smile wrung the altered features.

‘*T know you better than I do myself. You call me
‘Harry Macon.’ I thought once that I was Mrs. War-
ing. Ihave had three or four aliases since then. But
I haven’t strength or time to talk of my affairs. I
promised Mr. Bradley solemnly that you— Where is
Virginia Dabney ?”’ lifting her head to look for her.
‘“‘T am glad to see that you are sorry you treated
him so cruelly. Why did you send his letters back
as fast as they came, without a word of explanation ?
It was shameful unkindness. It was unladylike, too,
and that surprised me. It will be visited upon you be-
fore you die. All my folly and hardness of heart has
come home to ime sevenfold. ‘God is not mocked.
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 371

Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.’
That is the fire that is consuming me. Oh! I am so
thirsty !””

Aunt Maria raised her to drink the lemonade she
held to her mouth, but without speaking. Aunt Vir-
ginia arose slowly, her rosy face blanched, her eyes
dilated; wrung her hands hard, then lifted them
clenched and high toward Heaven.

‘*As the Lord lives, I did no such thing! I never
had a letier from him after he left Richmond last July !
I wrote to him four times begging him to explain his
silence. Oh, who has done this wicked thing? My
darling! my poor, deceived, true love! What shall I
do? what shall I do ?”

Harry sat upright, trembling and eager, a dreadful
splendor in her eyes.

‘Write to him this very night! I have his address.
How happy he will be! Through me, too! He was so
kind—so kind !’—yielding to the gentle violence with
which Aunt Maria drew her back to the pillow. ‘‘ Thank
God I can do some good! Now—I—can—sleep !””

The young wife swept hurriedly by me to the door;
the swish of her silken skirts died away on the stairs.
Aunt Maria sought a cordial and pressed it upon the
exhausted patient, covered her up and waited, her fin-
gers on the wuazted wrist, to see her lapse into slumber.
Then Jer head fell on her breast, and a single groan
tore its way through heart and lips:

“Oh, my God !””

Distraught and hopeless though she was, the cry was
a prayer.

Profound stillness filled the room. The sick woman
slept; the watcher inade neither moan nor motion.
The rising wind cricd fretfully outside, and the sleet
his+cd against the panes. The dull flame of the single
372 JUDITH:

lamp swayed slightly in the air that found its way be-
tween the sashes, brought out flickering gleams of ruddy
sheen from the folds of Aunt Maria’s garnet silk gown.
She had sunk to the floor, her elbows on the bed, her
face hidden by her hands. The graceful head had the
droop of a bruised flower. Of all the sad scenes and
crises that have come into my life, none has been more
utterly tristful, more lightless than this.

In trying to grasp the complication of mystery and
calamity, my brain succumbed wearily into a heavy
sleep that lasted until daylight.

I awoke with a startled sense that I was in a crowd
of people, all staring at me. My corner was clear, but
about the bed at the far side of the chamber were col-
lected those whose presence had wrought the oppres-
sion of my dream. Captain Macon was close beside his
daughter on the left, facing me, holding one of her
hands. Sidney’s cheek was laid on the other as he
knelt at her right. Roderick leaned against the foot-
board, shaking with sobs, his handkerchief to his eyes.
Uncle Archie stood behind Captain Macon’s chair,
gazing in mournful steadfastness at his old playfellow
and pet. His arm was about his wife’s waist, and she
clung to him, her face hidden on his breast. Aunt
Betsey held a glass of cordial, hoping against certainty
that the dying woman might revive sufficiently to
swallow a few drops. Grandma was at the bed-head,
and in her clear, wistful eyes was prophecy that outran
faith, the beckoning of some safe spirit on the Other
Side rather than the farewell benediction of one who
expected soon to follow the passing soul. Mammy was
by her, her arms crossed meekly on her bosom, her
head bowed—waiting. Aunt Maria’s tender arms had
raised the sufferer at her own request. She sat on the
bed, supported by the head-board ; Harry rested against
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 373

her, her head on her shoulder, her cheek against the
pure, sad face bent toward her.

She was going—fast but painlessly, each breath more
faint than the last. Her eyes were fixed in an upward
look, but she smiled as her father leaned over to kiss
her—the loving, grateful gleam that quivers about the
mouth of a drowsy child under her mother’s “ good-
night ’? caress. In a minute more Uncle Archie set his
wife aside gently, stepped forward, took the still shape
from his sister’s embrace, laid it down, and closed the
eyes with a solemn, brotherly pressure.

From Apphia we gathered the story of Harry’s wan-
derings since she fled at midnight from her father’s
door. Her entreaties that her husband would fulfill his
promise of taking her to England were parried for
awhile by his protestations that he had not the ready
money in hand for the voyage. After the arrival of the
cases sent from Hunter’s Rest, she, with Apphia’s help,
sold all her jewels and laces and procured the sum
needed to defray the expenses of the three across the
ocean and to Fairwold Hall. Apphia had only conjec-
tures to offer as to the particulars of the scene attend-
ant on her proffer of the money to the exile. But
Harry never spoke afterward of going to England and
fell—purposely, or because those about her used the
name—into the habit of speaking of her husband as
‘“*Mr. Trevelyan.’”? #rom this interview Apphia also
dated his changed demeanor toward his wife. Up to
that time he had played the lover-husband and the pol-
ished gentleman. Thenceforward, he was sulky, sar-
castic, occasionally violent, upbraiding her continually
for her obstinate refusal to apply to her father for pecu-
niary aid, threatening to abandon her to disgrace and
poverty, allowing her to go penniless for weeks, and
leaving her with her faithful servant in miserable lodg-
374 JUDITH:

ings in country or village while he was ‘‘starring’’ with
circus troupes in the principal cities of the North and
East. Finally, he gave her the choice between writing
to her father, divulging the true state of affairs and ask-
ing him to maintain her and the man she had married
—and taking care of herself for the future without his
assistance,

The betrayed wife was proud enough and strong
enough to accept the alternative, but in the prostra-
tion of a broken heart, she revealed to Apphia that
neither John Waring nor Frederic Trevelyan was the
man’s real name. He was the natural son of a disso-
lute English baronet who had educated him showily,
and attached him to his person in a mongrel capacity—
part companion, part secretary, part jester. His mother
was an Italian ballet-dancer, of whom the boy had no
recollection. He traveled and rioted with his father
after leaving school, the baronet glorying in the lad’s
beauty and sprightliness, most of all in his athletic
feats, and encouraging his intimacies with habitués of
cock-pits, circuses and races, not to mention worse
places. The twain lived high and fast until the elder
fell dead of apoplexy at the conclusion of a nocturnal
carousal, and his property descended to his legal heirs.
At twenty-one the pseudo John Waring belonged toa
theatrical company, something after the order of the
modern variety show, where his skill in gymnastic ex-
ercises was even more popular than his vocalization.
Both, with his magnificent physique, were inherited from
his mother. At twenty-seven he had journeyed far and
sustained many characters, more or less brilliantly. His
masterpiece of fraud was the well-sustained guise in
which he secured admission to Major Dabney’s house
and won Harry Macon’s heart.

It was a pitifully common, vulgar tale up to that
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 875

epoch ; a catalogue of venal cheats and jugglery,
shrewdly planned and audaciously executed. The
tragic element was added on the night of his elope-
ment with the petied daughter of a noble family. He
deserted her in Philadelphia the latter part of August,
and she had never heard from him since then. She
lived in one small garret-room with her devoted re-
tainer, their united efforts barely sufficing to earn the
necessaries of life. The mistress took in fine sewing
from customers for whom Apphia did clear-starching
and ironing. One November evening as the latter was
hurrying homeward after a day’s work, she met under
a lamp on Chestnut Street a man who accosted her by
name. It was Mr. Bradley. She took him with her up
to the mean attic to which her mistress had been con-
fined for a month by a severe cold. The ci-devant
tutor recognized at a glance that the malady was more
deeply-seated than Apphia feared or Harry dared hope.
He returned next day with a physician, who confiden-
tially confirmed his fears. Mr. Bradley found an oppor-
tunity to tell Apphia that her mistress’ one chance of
life lay in her return to Virginia. The doctor under-
took to build up her strength so far as to enable her to
take the journey. Change of air and good nursing
must accomplish the rest.

From the hour Harry heard of the project she rallied
marvelously. She bound tar. Bradley over by a solemn
pledge not to write to her friends at home that she was
found. She would go back to them in person, praying
for pardon and an asylum. But he called often, paid
secretly through Apphia for better food and a constant
fire, and insisted upon lending ‘‘ Mrs. Macon’? money
for traveling expenses. By the second week of Decem-
ber the physician advised that they should set out for
Virginia. They had come by casy stages ‘across the
376 JUDITH :

country,’’? Apphia said, part of the way by public con-
veyance. The carryall that brought them to our gate
was hired in Lynchburg from the free negro who drove
it, and was the best their failing funds could procure.

“She jes’ didn’t dar’ to go to Hunter’s Res’ !”’ said
Apphia to me, the afternoon of the day on which Harry
died. ‘‘She was fa’r afeerd o’ her father and Mars’
Sidney.”

She and I were in Mammy’s house, and nobody else
was near. The big back-log of the fire was a mass of
scarlet charcoal, and night was settling down apace at
the other side of the room. In her sincere distress the
maid was frank in her confidences, and her knowledge
of how well I had loved her whom we both mourned
opened her heart fully to my appeals and inquiries.

‘*She was sure we would not turn her away,”’ I swal-
lowed my sobs to say.

‘“That’s what she said many a time, honey! ‘Mr.
Archie Read is the truest, best man the good Lord ever
made,’ says she. ‘He promis’ me once that he’d never
cast me off, no matter what Ido. He’s like his Mars-
ter in that. When my father an’ my mother ’d forsake
me, he ’d take me up. An’ I don’ think Aunt Betsey’d
*fuse to take me in an’ let me set at the secon’ table
anyhow,’ says she, sort 0’ laughin’ to herself. Once
she call’ to me in the middle of the night when we was
a-stoppin’ at a mizzable pore-white-folksey tavern, an’
ef I was a-dying’ this minnit I’d declar’ to goodness
the bed the pore lady was a-layin’ on was stuffed
with corn-husks. ‘Apphia,’ says she, ‘I should like
to get thar’ in time to die in Maria’s bed. I never slep’
so sweet in anybody else’s bed as I used to in Ma-
ria’s,’ says she, ‘nor had sech lovely dreams on any
other piller as on hern. I think that was ’cause she is
so heavenly pure herself. The angels has ’special
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 377

charge over Maria Read. I’d like to die under the
shelter o’ their wings.’

‘* Another time she tole me she done pick’ out the
tex’ o’ her funeral sermon, an’ I mus’ be sure not to
forgit it. It was, ‘Reproach hath broken my heart.’
’Twas true as Gospel too—them words! He made like
he’d knock me down one day when I said to him when
she war’n’t in the room that my young mistis war’n’t
use’ to sech rough talk as he giv’ her all the time. An’
when he stomped his foot an’ grit his teeth at me for
speakin’ so plain, I riz right up an’ sot my arms in
timber ”’ (akimbo), ‘* an’ dav’d him to tech me.

“This yer ’s a free state!’ says I. ‘Ef you lay the
weight 0’ yer p’isonous han’ on me, I’’ll put the law on
you! I ain’t your wife, nor your dog, nor your nig-
ger! says I. ‘T been live’ all my life with quality gen-
“emen an? ladies whar knowed how to treat respectable
servants !? says I.

*“ Ah! he was the bigges’ vilyan the Lord ever ‘lowed
to cass His footstool !”’

“Ffow does Mr. Bradley look ?”’ I asked.

‘‘Han’somer ’n ever, an’ peart as could be. He was
a puffic’? angel o’ ministerin’ mercy to my pore young
lady. I been hear’ her prayin’ for bim 0’ nights when
she couldn’t res’ an’ thought I was fas’ asleep, an’
thankin’ her Heavenly Father fov sendin’ him to her
when she was ready to perish.”’

She took a handful of corn-cobs from a basket on the
hearth, threw them on the coals and pensively watched
them blaze.

‘TI suttinly hope marster 711 pay him back all the
money he done spen’ for we-all. But for him, my
blessid young mistis would ’a’ died in that despiseable
furren country. How her eyes ’d shine up the minnit she
heerd him a-comin’ up the sta’r-steps!_ They had talks
378 JUDITH:

together by the hour ’bout home-folks an’ ole times.”’

‘‘ Had he—had you heard of Miss Diana’s death be-
fore you got here ?”’

‘* Not a word, honey-chile! I’m fa’r thankful Miss
Harry went to Heaven ’thout knowin’ that her sister
had flewed that ’ar’ way before her. ’T mus’ ’a’ been
a sweet surprise to them meetin’ thar, an’ ’long with
their mother, too! An’ didn’t you notice, Miss Judith,
how arfter her father had come, and she ’d once put her
arms ’round his neck an’ arsked him to forgive her, an’
he ’d kissed an’ blessed her, that arfter that never a
blemish rolled over her weary soul, but she jes’ gave
her life out easy, like a baby that didn’t know ’nough to
be afeerd ?

‘* No, sugar-pie! we hadn’t never heerd nothin’ ’bout
Miss Diana’s dying nor Miss Virginny Dabney’s mar-
ryin’ Mars’ Archie. Weddin’s come ’bout stranger ’n
fun’rals, ’pears-like to me sometimes.’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 379

CHAPTER XXV.

In the month of February, 1845, Mrs. Archibald
Read paid me a visit at my home in Richmond. I
had married her brother Wickham five years earlier. I
called her ‘‘sister,’? not ‘‘aunt,’’ and still loved her
very sincerely, albeit the progress of years and the
change in our mutual relations had modified the char-
acter of my affection.

She was not well this winter, even for her. The
chronic invalidism that fell into the lot of seven out of
ten Southern gentlewomen at that date had been ac-
cepted by her as her earthly portion after the birth of
her wsst child. She had three sturdy boys now, the
young2st being four years old. Uncle Archie would
not briay any of them with her to town.

‘She was worn out,’’ he said, ‘Sand needed rest.
Nothing else would set her up so soon as a real holi-
day.”’

He nad a private talk with me the night before he
went back, alone, to Summerfield, cominz for this pur-
pose up to my room where I was rockizg my baby to
sleep. It was like the old days of ovr intimate com-
panionship to see him in an easy-chair I had brought
from ‘‘ home,’’ chatting in the kind, grave voice which
was always musical to my ears. First, he listencd in-
vitingly to-my little tale of my domestic affairs, spoke
affectionately of Wickham and our two children (we had
named our boy ‘‘ Archibald Read’’), commended my
housekeeping and admired our house.

‘« There is no other life like that of a happy, united
380 JUDITH:

family,’ he said. ‘‘ You do think that, all things con-
sidered, it is well for a woman to marry—don’t you ?”’

‘‘Tf she loves and is beloved by a good man, she can
do nothing wiser,’’ answered I readily.

He did not speak again at once, yet hardly seemed,
I thought, to be pondering my reply.

‘‘T have had compunctions on the subject,”’ he began,
slowly, not looking at me. ‘‘ Virginia has become so
delicate, and the cares of the house since Mother’s and
Aunt Betsey’s deaths have seemed to weigh so heavily
upon her. Maria does her best to help the poor little
thing, but there can be only one mistress, you know,
and there is no such thing as evading the responsibili-
ties of a mother. It is not surprising, I say to myself,
when I see how much devolves upon my wife, that she
should flag under the weight and grow thin, pale and
nervous. It is hard to forgive myself for taking her
from a home and life where she had nothing to do but
look pretty and be happy all day long.’’

‘“‘If she had remained there, by this time she would
have been an old maid, an orphan and homeless, unless
one of her brothers had taken her into his family,’’ re-
marked I, sententiously.

‘“‘Very true! It is a comfort to remind myself of
that. She has her children, too. They will be a great
solace to her in her declining years.”

‘““If each of them grows up to be as good a man as
his father, their mother will be blessed among women !””
said I, in loving heat.

He looked pained, not gratified, and stirred uneasily
in his chair.

“‘T don’t know about that, Judith!’ dryly, and
shortly. ‘‘I meant, God knows! to make her happy.
LT haven't been able to do it!”

He got up and walked about the room; fingered the
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 381

ornaments on mantel and bureau nervously, and when
he took his stand on the rug near me, held a cologne-
flask in his hand and seemed intent upon fitting in and
pulling out the glass stopper while we talked. His lips
were compressed, the vein between the brows was dark
and full.

‘‘Tf you cannot make a woman content and grateful
with her share of wedded bliss no mortal man ought to
attempt the task, Uncle Archie!’ I found voice to de-
clare.

‘‘'That is the pith of my doubt, child!—whether any
man ever ought to ask a woman to marry him. She
gives up everything—he nothing ! Nor can he, with the
kindest, most loving intentions, understand her fully.
Our sensibilities and perceptions are, like our fingers,
all thumbs, when we undertake to handle such exqui-
site fibres as women’s feelings and fancies. For in-
stance, I almost killed Virginia once by asking her
jokingly, if her father hadn’t over-persuaded her into
marrying me. I told her that he was mightily pleased
with poor old Captain Macon’s flattery of me on the
day of the Whig rally in our county; that he had
lively hopes of me as a citizen and politician, and
worked her up to the point of saying ‘Yes’ when I
asked her for the second time to marry me. I did not
dream what a rough jest it was until she burst into
tears and left the room. Iam afraid sometimes that I
was selfish in hurrying on the marriage. I did not
mean ever to name the subject to her again, but she
was so beautiful, so gentle and winning when I saw
her that November week, that I forgot everything ex-
cept how dearly and how long I had loved her. Her
father agreed with me that there was no propriety in
waiting for months of engagement to make us better
acquainted, and she offercd no objection.”’
382 JUDITH :

“My dear uncle ! why should you torment yourself
by useless, morbid regrets? Any woman in the land
ought to esteem herself fortunate in getting such a hus-
band as yourself. Sister has told me more than once
how unutterably good you are to her; that you have
fewer faults and more virtues than any other person
she ever knew. I wish you could hear her praise you.
Don’t mind her turns of low spirits and the quiet ways
into which she has fallen since your marriage. Many
women settle down naturally, as wives and mothers,
into that style of speech and manner. Indeed, the ex-
ceptions are when they do not. The condition of her
health accounts for much, too. I hope great things
from Dr. Warner’s treatment. We will send her home
at the end of six weeks so rosy and plump that you will
hardly recognize her.”’

I watched my sister-in-law narrowly while she re-
mained with us. ‘Settled down ”’ was the fittest word
that I could have used in this connection. In her dress
she was scrupulously neat and undeniably old-fashioned.
Her silks were heavy, her linen and laces fine and abun-
dant, but in style everything’ was several seasons old.

‘“ What difference does it make ?”’ she asked, when I
suggested alterations and modernizing. ‘‘So long as
they are of good material, whole and clean, they satisfy
me. Mr. Read’s tastes are simplicity itself. He would
not notice if I wore my great-srandmother’s clothes
upside-down and wrong-side-out, provided my hair was
smooth and I had a clean collar on. He never knows
what I wear.”

‘Never criticises it perhaps. Whatever you do is
right in his eyes. Every man is better pleased to have
his wife ‘keep herself up’ and study to look young and
pretty as long as she can. If you grow old fast, so will
he!”
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 383

‘He was a hundred and fifty when I married him !”?
Then, catching herself up quickly: ‘‘In wisdom and
goodness and all that, I mean. Sometimes I am wicked
enough to wish that he were not so tiresomely perfect.
Do you know, Judith, I think my diseased nerves affect
the balance of my mind ?”’

This I would not let her dwell upon nor myself admit
it. She was not strong, she was ennuyée, and in conse-
quence unreasonable. At home she had too much lei-
sure and opportunity for introspection. A wholesome
waking-up was what she needed. I forced her to walk
and drive and to shop with me, whether she felt like it
or not, and fairly badgered her into having her ward-
robe made over and replenished. Her acquiescence in
whatever I insisted upon was very graceful. She
smiled sometimes in quiet amusement at my determina-
tion to ‘‘ furbish her up,’’ as she called it, but offered no
active opposition. Activity had little place in her ex-
istence now. She liked to please other people. She
liked her friends, liked her husband and liked her
children. An amiable, kind-hearted woman whom
everybody liked in return, she was yet irremediably
commonplace. Her sprightliness had been an element
of youth, and, like youth, was not to be recalled. She
must have hemstitched scores of yards of ruffling
during her visit. If I had not dragged her up from her
rocking-chair by moral and sometimes by physical force,
she would have sat there all day, putting her needle in
and out so many threads apart and so many times per
minute, the material on which she wrought being cob-
webby linen cambric.

‘For what ?”’ asked I once, impatiently.

She looked up, mildly bewildered.

‘Those everlasting lengths of hemstitched muslin!
What can you mean to do with them all ?”
384 JUDITH :

‘¢Oh, I don’t know exactly! It’s always convenient
to have them on hand, you know.”’

In her husband’s sight she was still passing fair. My
vision beheld reluctantly a small, sallow woman, sal-
lowest on the hollowed cheeks where the roses had
bloomed, with paled blue eyes and thinned red-gold
hair. A touch of sharpness in nose, chin or voice
would have lent a viragoish cast to the faded picture.
In default of this, it was insipid.

All this I was reviewing on the morning of her de-
parture. Wickham escorted her home, and the stage
had called for them at seven o’clock. I was seated com-
fortably at my sewing by nine, my boy rolling on the
floor in the spring sunshine, while I summed up the re-
sult of my character study:

‘She never had much force of will. Her heart is af-
fectionate but shallow. When the first horror of the
discovery made on the night Harry died was over, she
grew to love her husband—because he was her husband
—as well as she would have loved the man of her choice
had she wedded him. There is a sort of lymph in such
natures that cures heart-hurt rapialy, as a cut tongue is
soon healed by the moisture of the mouth. It is well
that women of her type are largely in the majority,
otherwise the world would be dark with the shadow of
unwritten tragedies.”

Pluming myszif somewhat upon the apt illustration,
in complacent consciousness of my happier and fuller
life, I glanced up at the entrance of the chambermaid,
whose business it was to set the guest-chamber to
rights. She had found a parcel ‘“‘under Miss Vir-
ginny’s piller.”’

“She done forgit it, I reckon. I been see it thar
three other mornin’s when I make her bade’? (bed), ‘‘an’
lef? it back agin.’
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 385

Something warned me to take it without comment,
also, not to unwrap the parcel until the woman had
gone out. It was a miniature, rolled up in a white silk
bandkerchief. The picture was painted on ivory and
set in a narrow gold rim. The artist had caught the
best expression of the original, the half-humorous, half-
loving glance I had seen a thousand times flash from
the hazel eyes. The handkerchief was yellow with
time, and marked in one corner in well-known charac-
ters—‘ J. H. BRADLEY.”

My husband brought me a sealed note from his sister
when he returned from the country :

“T left a small bundle under my pillow Please let
nobody see it but yourself, and keep it until you can re-
store it to me in person. It was given to me many years
ago, and I have had no opportunity to send it back to
the donor. I trust you, Judith, and you must trust me
far enough to believe that no wrong is done to ANY-
ONE by my preservation of this memento of a once
dear friend. I know appearances are against me, but
indeed, my dear sister, Iam not a wicked although an
unhappy woman.”?

Surprises and dénouements advance in squads. If
they appear singly they are always “‘strays’’—sporadic
cases.

About the middle of March I went, accompanied by
nurse and baby, down the river to visit a Norfolk friend.
Wickham drove with us to the pretty steamer, the ‘‘Cur-
tis Peck,” then new and popular; secured a state-room
for us, established me in a shaded seat on the forward
deck, and stayed by me until the signal was given for
throwing off the rope. The day was rarely perfect, the
scene enchanting. I never look upon the soft undula-
tions of the banks rolling away from the brink of the
river to lose themselves in the levels of the back coun-
386 JUDITH:

try, without recalling the lines dropped, one is tempted
to suspect, by accident, into the machine-cut, kiln-dried
measures of ‘‘ Divine songs and hymns :”’
“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green.”’

The green was a glorious type of young life on this
mid-March morning, gladdening the heart with the pro-
mise of bounteous wheat harvests. Peach orchards lay
like fallen clouds of rosy deliciousness on the hillsides,
apple trees offering the blending shades with which the
pink fainted into the snow of cherry-groves embowering
farm-house and mansion. The rapids sang and leaped
past city and islands; turbid waters, raised high by
spring floods, were a symphony in yellows in the sun-
shine that, as the forenoon wore on, imparted a musing
languor to the air and view, and with it the inexplica-
ble charm and beguilement never felt under Northern
skies,

I was wrapped in dreams that might have caught
their coloring from the blush of the fallen mists on the
river-slopes, when a respectful voice addressed me :

‘Pardon the intrusion! Am I mistaken in thinking
that I address an old acquaintance ? Is not this Mrs.
Wickham Dabney, formerly Miss Judith Trueheart and
my favorite pupil >”

I thought and exclaimed that I should have known
him anywhere. Prosperity and a sunny nature had
allowed him to mature without losing his youthfulness.
His eyes were clear, his smile easy and kind. His voice
was even more agreeably modulated than when his Vir-
ginian friends overlooked Yankee provincialisms and
twang in admiration of his pure articulation and clean
periods,

‘J read the notice of your marriage in a stray Rich-
mond paper, some years ago,’’ he remarked, seating
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. a

himself by me. ‘‘ But if nothing else had dra +a my
attention to you, I must have observed your resem-
blance to Miss Maria Read. She is still living, I hope ?”

“Yes, and at Summerfield.’’

‘Has she never married ?”’

‘* Never.”’

Absurdly enough, I shunned meeting his eye in say-
ing it, and felt awkward, in spite of common sense.

‘‘Somebody has been cheated out of an excellent
wife! Ihave never knowna nobler, sweeter woman.”’
There was no embarrassment on his side. ‘‘I thought
at one time that Sidney Macon might win her.”

‘‘He married Miss Betty Archer—in 1836, I think.
Aunt Maria is even lovelier than when you knew her,
the guardian angel of a growing host of nephews and
nieces, adopted and real. Hers is a beautiful, benefi-
cent life.”

‘‘It was sure to be that in any event. Has she
changed much in appearance ?”’

‘“« Not to our eyes. A little paler perhaps, and a trifle
more quiet in general society. Her smile is sweeter,
her eyes more benignant with every year that gives her
more people to comfort and to bless.”

A child, scampering across the deck, tripped and fell
in front of us. Mr. Bradley sprang forward to pick
him up, soothed his outcry, and delivered him with a
bow and reassuring word to the mother when she has-
tened to the spot.

‘“‘T have a youngster of my own about that age,’’ he
said in resuming his seat. ‘‘I sent a paper with the an-
nouncement of my marriage to Archie Read. Did he
get it?”

‘Yes,’ again avoiding his eye. ‘I hope that Mrs.
Bradley is well. Is she with you?”

“No. I left her in Philadelphia when I went on to
388 JUDITEH.

Richmond last Monday. This is a flying business
trip. I saw but few old acquaintances in town. OneI
could wish I had never seen again in this world or the
next. I ought not to be seriously affected by what I
have heard within twenty-four hours, but it has left a
bad taste in my mouth. A man can bear disappoint-
ment and loss better than the knowledge that he has
been tricked out of something he once possessed or be-
lieved was his.”

He hesitated, and I looked the inquiry I did not know
how to frame into language.

He tried to laugh, but his face flushed uneasily.

“IT saw Mr. Allen—Ned Allen—at the Exchange
Hotel yesterday afternoon.”’

‘He has gone down hill fast of late,’’ said I, still in
the dark. ‘‘ He has hardly drawn a sober breath in five
years.”’

‘He was drunk, very drunk, when I met him on the
street night before last, and hardly more sober yester-
day when he called at my room, by his own appoint-
ment, but in the maudlin-repentant stage. Me cried
like a baby, while he tried to confess ‘the irreparable
wrong he had done me, an innocent, inoffensive citizen
and a perfect gentleman, sir!’ An injury that had lain
on his conscience like a fifty-powad weight ever since he
periled his soul’s salvation for she sake of a flirt. ‘Ran
the risk of the peniteutiary, sir!—and for what? To
see myself whistled down the wind, a prey to fortune,
and the woman I adored the bride of another! I
might have saved my soul this fifty-pound weight of
guilt, Mr. Bradley, and let her marry you. This is the
dark secret of my life, sir—the fatal step in my career !’
After this preamble, he informed me ina tragic whis-
per that he would confide the whole mystery to my
keeping, make a clean breast of it, and put himself,
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA, 389

soul and body, at my mercy if I would lend him five
dollars for a couple of days.”’

“Mr. Bradley! What did he mean ?”

I was almost as much shocked by the levity with
which my former tutor rattled off his mimicry of the
tipsy confession as by the hinted revelation.

‘That I cannot undertake to decide! He said that
be had, through a paid tool in the post-office, inter-
cepted Miss Dabney’s letters to me, and mine to her.
Perhaps you did not know—you were very young then
—probably you have never heard that when I left Rich-
mond in 1832 I was engaged to be married to her ?”

‘*T have surmised as much.’’

‘J was to write to her father asking his sanction of
the contract, so soon as she gave me permission to do
so. I had not a word in answer to six or eight letters,
Did she ever talk to you of the affair ?”

“* Never |”?

I ventured few words at a time and chose these
warily. The lava-crust of thirteen years was cracking
under my feet. I kept two things steadily before my
reeling vision. Virginia Dabney was my uncle’s wife.
Mr. Bradley was a married man. Nothing but evil
could come from the admission into this tragedy of the
evidence I held. If he waited for elucidation of the
mystery from me he would live and die without it. Be-
tween me and the fair panorama of waving grain-fields
and blossom-laden orchards arose the figure that had
stood on my hearth that Sunday night in February ;
the visage lined by thought and care, the frosted hair,
the sad, patient, loving eyes making unutterably piteous
the quietly-spoken regret :

“‘T meant—God knows—to make her happy. I have
not been able to do it!”

Here was the cause of his failure! This trim and
390 JUDITH.

successful Philadelphia lawyer, with his flippant trav-
esty of the gravest aspects of the ‘‘affair!”? Had the
Author of beauty and of love—had the God of the
Covenant decreed that the life of the nobler man should
be a disappointment—an abortion—and that of his rival
round and ripe with fullness of satisfaction ?

Mr. Bradley cast a keen glance at my countenance,
laughed slightly and in a well-bred way, and fell to
prodding a crack in the deck-floor with the ferrule of a
natty silk umbrella.

‘There is a homely saying that there is no use crying
over spilt milk. Now that the ache is dead I can con-
fess calmly what a precious cup of cream that was
which was knocked over in the year of our Lord eigh-
teen hundred and thirty-two. I shiver in recollecting
how my heart sickened and fainted with expecting let-
tets that never came ; how I poured love and agony and
entreaty into those I wrote. After my meeting with
Ha.ry Macon, hope revived. She promised to sift the
matrer to the bottom and send me tidings. I was sure
she would keep her word. Captain Macon’s letter came
instead. In Sidney’s communication, written six months
later, informing me of the brave old soldier’s death, he
said that his father seldom touched pen afterward, but
he exerted himself to give mea fullaccount of the poor
girl’s return and of her decease. ‘She breathed her
last,’ he stated, ‘in the arms of that angel of womanly
mercy and love, Miss Maria Read.’ (Isn’t that touch
characteristic ?) In this letter occurred this paragraph :
‘My peerless young friend, Archibald Read, has acted

more than filial part to me throughout this, the most
calamitous year in my life history. His hand closed my
Harriet’s eyes. His wife—the bride of less than a week,
sweet Virginia Dabney, whom you must remember well
—laid flowers on my child’s heart just before the coffin-
A CHRONICLE OF OLD VIRGINIA. 391

lid shut out the beloved face from our eyes for all
time.’

‘*T don’t like to reflect, even now, on what that last
sentence was to me !’’

He shook his head restively—the gesture with which
one rids himself of a buzzing gad-fly.

‘Tt is worse than useless to recall it,’? returned I, in
a smothered voice.

‘You are right. Wise people let the dead past bury
its dead. It is best as it is. It was all ordered wisely,
although I wouldn’t believe it then. I-am married to a
woman who suits me a thousand times better than
pretty Virginia Dabney would have done, and she is
just the wife for my old friend Archie. I can say from
the unveiled depths of my soul, ‘I am glad he has her !’
It was that vile Allen’s story that set me to thinking of
my callow days, and how horribly hurt I believed my-.
self to be for months after the old Captain’s letter Ofi-
vinced me that it had been ‘out of sight, out of mind’
with my Southern sweetheart. Curious, isn’t it ? that
the thought which was the sharpest thorn then is most
consoling to me now—namely, that I suffered longer and
more bitterly from our separation and the unexplained
alienation than she did ; that she forgot me, or was Com-
forted for my loss in less than half a year, while it took
me a whole twelvemonth to pull myself into shape
again.”’

I did not set him right.

[THE END.]
 

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