THE ATMOSPHERE OF the Treadwell home was charged, for the next few days, with electric currents. Graciella knew that her aunt was engaged to Colonel French. But she had not waited, the night before, to hear her aunt express the wish that the engagement should be kept secret. She was therefore bursting with information of which she could manifest no consciousness without confessing that she had been eavesdropping — a thing which she knew Miss Laura regarded as detestably immoral. She wondered at her aunt’s silence. Except a certain subdued air of happiness there was nothing to distinguish Miss Laura’s calm demeanor from that of any other day. Graciella had determined upon her own attitude toward her aunt. She would kiss her, and wish her happiness, and give no sign that any thought of Colonel French had ever entered her own mind. But this little drama, rehearsed in the privacy of her own room, went unacted, since the curtain did not rise upon the stage.

The colonel came and went as usual. Some dissimulation was required on Graciella’s part to preserve her usual light-hearted manner toward him. She may have been to blame in taking the colonel’s attentions as intended for herself; she would not soon forgive his slighting reference to her. In his eyes she had been only a child, who ought to go to school. He had been good enough to say that she had the making of a fine woman. Thanks! She had had a lover for at least two years, and a proposal of marriage before Colonel French’s shadow had fallen athwart her life. She wished her Aunt Laura happiness; no one could deserve it more, but was it possible to be happy with a man so lacking in taste and judgment?

Her aunt’s secret began to weigh upon her mind, and she effaced herself as much as possible when the colonel came. Her grandmother had begun to notice this and comment upon it, when the happening of a certain social event created a diversion. This was the annual entertainment known as the Assembly Ball. It was usually held later in the year, but owing to the presence of several young lady visitors in the town, it had been decided to give it early in the fall.

The affair was in the hands of a committee, by whom invitations were sent to most people in the county who had any claims to gentility. The gentlemen accepting were expected to subscribe to the funds for hall rent, music and refreshments. These were always the best the town afforded. The ball was held in the Opera House, a rather euphemistic title for the large hall above Barstow’s cotton warehouse, where third-class theatrical companies played one-night stands several times during the winter, and where an occasional lecturer or conjurer held forth. An amateur performance of “Pinafore” had once been given there. Henry W. Grady had lectured there upon White Supremacy; the Reverend Sam Small had preached there on Hell. It was also distinguished as having been refused, even at the request of the State Commissioner of Education, as a place for Booker T. Washington to deliver an address, which had been given at the town hall instead. The Assembly Balls had always been held in the Opera House. In former years the music had been furnished by local Negro musicians, but there were no longer any of these, and a band of string music was brought in from another town. So far as mere wealth was concerned, the subscribers touched such extremes as Ben Dudley on the one hand and Colonel French on the other, and included Barclay Fetters, whom Graciella had met on the evening before her disappointment.

The Treadwell ladies were of course invited, and the question of ways and means became paramount. New gowns and other accessories were imperative. Miss Laura’s one party dress had done service until it was past redemption, and this was Graciella’s first Assembly Ball. Miss Laura took stock of the family’s resources, and found that she could afford only one gown. This, of course, must be Graciella’s. Her own marriage would entail certain expenses which demanded some present self-denial. She had played wall-flower for several years, but now that she was sure of a partner, it was a real sacrifice not to attend the ball. But Graciella was young, and in such matters youth has a prior right; for she had yet to find her mate.

Graciella magnanimously offered to remain at home, but was easily prevailed upon to go. She was not entirely happy, for the humiliating failure of her hopes had left her for the moment without a recognised admirer, and the fear of old maidenhood had again laid hold of her heart. Her Aunt Laura’s case was no consoling example. Not one man in a hundred would choose a wife for Colonel French’s reasons. Most men married for beauty, and Graciella had been told that beauty that matured early, like her own, was likely to fade early.

One humiliation she was spared. She had been as silent about her hopes as Miss Laura was about her engagement. Whether this was due to mere prudence or to vanity — the hope of astonishing her little world by the unexpected announcement — did not change the comforting fact that she had nothing to explain and nothing for which to be pitied. If her friends, after the manner of young ladies, had hinted at the subject and sought to find a meaning in Colonel French’s friendship, she had smiled enigmatically. For this self-restraint, whatever had been its motive, she now reaped her reward. The announcement of her aunt’s engagement would account for the colonel’s attentions to Graciella as a mere courtesy to a young relative of his affianced.

With regard to Ben, Graciella was quite uneasy. She had met him only once since their quarrel, and had meant to bow to him politely, but with dignity, to show that she bore no malice; but he had ostentatiously avoided her glance. If he chose to be ill-natured, she had thought, and preferred her enmity to her friendship, her conscience was at least clear. She had been willing to forget his rudeness and be a friend to him. She could have been his true friend, if nothing more; and he would need friends, unless he changed a great deal.

When her mental atmosphere was cleared by the fading of her dream, Ben assumed larger proportions. Perhaps he had had cause for complaint; at least it was only just to admit that he thought so. Nor had he suffered in her estimation by his display of spirit in not waiting to be jilted but in forcing her hand before she was quite ready to play it. She could scarcely expect him to attend her to the ball; but he was among the subscribers, and could hardly avoid meeting her, or dancing with her, without pointed rudeness. If he did not ask her to dance, then either the Virginia reel, or the lancers, or quadrilles, would surely bring them together; and though Graciella sighed, she did not despair. She could, of course, allay his jealousy at once by telling him of her Aunt Laura’s engagement, but this was not yet practicable. She must find some other way of placating him.

Ben Dudley also had a problem to face in reference to the ball — a problem which has troubled impecunious youth since balls were invented — the problem of clothes. He was not obliged to go to the ball. Graciella’s outrageous conduct relieved him of any obligation to invite her, and there was no other woman with whom he would have cared to go, or who would have cared, so far as he knew, to go with him. For he was not a lady’s man, and but for his distant relationship would probably never have gone to the Treadwells’. He was looked upon by young women as slow, and he knew that Graciella had often been impatient at his lack of sprightliness. He could pay his subscription, which was really a sort of gentility tax, the failure to meet which would merely forfeit future invitations, and remain at home. He did not own a dress suit, nor had he the money to spare for one. He, or they, for he and his uncle were one in such matters, were in debt already, up to the limit of their credit, and he had sold the last bale of old cotton to pay the last month’s expenses, while the new crop, already partly mortgaged, was not yet picked. He knew that some young fellows in town rented dress suits from Solomon Cohen, who, though he kept only four suits in stock at a time, would send to New York for others to rent out on this occasion, and return them afterwards. But Ben would not wear another man’s clothes. He had borne insults from Graciella that he never would have borne from any one else, and that he would never bear again; but there were things at which his soul protested. Nor would Cohen’s suits have fitted him. He was so much taller than the average man for whom store clothes were made.

He remained in a state of indecision until the day of the ball. Late in the evening he put on his black cutaway coat, which was getting a little small, trousers to match, and a white waistcoat, and started to town on horseback so as to arrive in time for the ball, in case he should decide, at the last moment, to take part.

THE OPERA HOUSE was brilliantly lighted on the night of the Assembly Ball. The dancers gathered at an earlier hour than is the rule in the large cities. Many of the guests came in from the country, and returned home after the ball, since the hotel could accommodate only a part of them.

When Ben Dudley, having left his horse at a livery stable, walked up Main Street toward the hall, carriages were arriving and discharging their freight. The ladies were prettily gowned, their faces were bright and animated, and Ben observed that most of the gentlemen wore dress suits; but also, much to his relief, that a number, sufficient to make at least a respectable minority, did not. He was rapidly making up his mind to enter, when Colonel French’s carriage, drawn by a pair of dashing bays and driven by a Negro in livery, dashed up to the door and discharged Miss Graciella Treadwell, radiantly beautiful in a new low-cut pink gown, with pink flowers in her hair, a thin gold chain with a gold locket at the end around her slender throat, white slippers on her feet and long white gloves upon her shapely hands and wrists.

Ben shrank back into the shadow. He had never been of an envious disposition; he had always looked upon envy as a mean vice, unworthy of a gentleman; but for a moment something very like envy pulled at his heartstrings. Graciella worshipped the golden calf. He worshipped Graciella. But he had no money; he could not have taken her to the ball in a closed carriage, drawn by blooded horses and driven by a darky in livery.

Graciella’s cavalier wore, with the ease and grace of long habit, an evening suit of some fine black stuff that almost shone in the light from the open door. At the sight of him the waist of Ben’s own coat shrunk up to the arm-pits, and he felt a sinking of the heart as they passed out of his range of vision. He would not appear to advantage by the side of Colonel French, and he would not care to appear otherwise than to advantage in Graciella’s eyes. He would not like to make more palpable, by contrast, the difference between Colonel French and himself; nor could he be haughty, distant, reproachful, or anything but painfully self-conscious, in a coat that was not of the proper cut, too short in the sleeves, and too tight under the arms.

While he stood thus communing with his own bitter thoughts, another carriage, drawn by a pair of beautiful black horses, drew up to the curb in front of him. The horses were restive, and not inclined to stand still. Some one from the inside of the carriage called to the coachman through the open window.

“Ransom,” said the voice, “stay on the box. Here, you, open this carriage door!”

Ben looked around for the person addressed, but saw no one near but himself.

“You boy there, by the curb, open this door, will you, or hold the horses, so my coachman can!”

“Are you speaking to me?” demanded Ben angrily.

Just then one of the side-lights of the carriage flashed on Ben’s face.

“Oh, I beg pardon,” said the man in the carriage, carelessly, “I took you for a nigger.”

There could be no more deadly insult, though the mistake was not unnatural. Ben was dark, and the shadow made him darker.

Ben was furious. The stranger had uttered words of apology, but his tone had been insolent, and his apology was more offensive than his original blunder. Had it not been for Ben’s reluctance to make a disturbance, he would have struck the offender in the mouth. If he had had a pistol, he could have shot him; his great uncle Ralph, for instance, would not have let him live an hour.

While these thoughts were surging through his heated brain, the young man, as immaculately clad as Colonel French had been, left the carriage, from which he helped a lady, and with her upon his arm, entered the hall. In the light that streamed from the doorway, Ben recognised him as Barclay Fetters, who, having finished a checkered scholastic career, had been at home at Sycamore for several months. Much of this time he had spent in Clarendon, where his father’s wealth and influence gave him entrance to good society, in spite of an ancestry which mere character would not have offset. He knew young Fetters very well by sight, since the latter had to pass Mink Run whenever he came to town from Sycamore. Fetters may not have known him, since he had been away for much of the time in recent years, but he ought to have been able to distinguish between a white man — a gentleman — and a Negro. It was the insolence of an upstart. Old Josh Fetters had been, in his younger days, his uncle’s overseer. An overseer’s grandson treated him, Ben Dudley, like dirt under his feet! Perhaps he had judged him by his clothes. He would like to show Barclay Fetters, if they ever stood face to face, that clothes did not make the man, nor the gentleman.

Ben decided after this encounter that he would not go on the floor of the ballroom; but unable to tear himself away, he waited until everybody seemed to have gone in; then went up the stairs and gained access, by a back way, to a dark gallery in the rear of the hall, which the ushers had deserted for the ballroom, from which he could, without discovery, look down upon the scene below. His eyes flew to Graciella as the needle to the pole. She was dancing with Colonel French.

The music stopped, and a crowd of young fellows surrounded her. When the next dance, which was a waltz, began, she moved out upon the floor in the arms of Barclay Fetters.

Ben swore beneath his breath. He had heard tales of Barclay Fetters which, if true, made him unfit to touch a decent woman. He left the hall, walked a short distance down a street and around the corner to the bar in the rear of the hotel, where he ordered a glass of whiskey. He had never been drunk in his life, and detested the taste of liquor; but he was desperate and had to do something; he would drink till he was drunk, and forget his troubles. Having never been intoxicated, he had no idea whatever of the effect liquor would have upon him.

With each succeeding drink, the sense of his wrongs broadened and deepened. At one stage his intoxication took the form of an intense self-pity. There was something rotten in the whole scheme of things. Why should he be poor, while others were rich, and while fifty thousand dollars in gold were hidden in or around the house where he lived? Why should Colonel French, an old man, who was of no better blood than himself, be rich enough to rob him of the woman whom he loved? And why, above all, should Barclay Fetters have education and money and every kind of opportunity, which he did not appreciate, while he, who would have made good use of them, had nothing? With this sense of wrong, which grew as his brain clouded more and more, there came, side by side, a vague zeal to right these wrongs. As he grew drunker still, his thoughts grew less coherent; he lost sight of his special grievance, and merely retained the combative instinct.

He had reached this dangerous stage, and had, fortunately, passed it one step farther along the road to unconsciousness — fortunately, because had he been sober, the result of that which was to follow might have been more serious — when two young men, who had come down from the ballroom for some refreshment, entered the barroom and asked for cocktails. While the barkeeper was compounding the liquor, the young men spoke of the ball.

“That little Treadwell girl is a peach,” said one. “I could tote a bunch of beauty like that around the ballroom all night.”

The remark was not exactly respectful, nor yet exactly disrespectful. Ben looked up from his seat. The speaker was Barclay Fetters, and his companion one Tom McRae, another dissolute young man of the town. Ben got up unsteadily and walked over to where they stood.

“I want you to un’erstan’,” he said thickly, “that no gen’l’man would mensh’n a lady’s name in a place like this, or shpeak dissuspeckerly ‘bout a lady ‘n any place; an’ I want you to unerstan’ fu’thermo’ that you’re no gen’l’man, an’ that I’m goin’ t’ lick you, by G — d!”

“The hell you are!” returned Fetters. A scowl of surprise rose on his handsome face, and he sprang to an attitude of defence.

Ben suited the action to the word, and struck at Fetters. But Ben was drunk and the other two were sober, and in three minutes Ben lay on the floor with a sore head and a black eye. His nose was bleeding copiously, and the crimson stream had run down upon his white shirt and vest. Taken all in all, his appearance was most disreputable. By this time the liquor he had drunk had its full effect, and complete unconsciousness supervened to save him, for a little while, from the realisation of his disgrace.

“Who is the mucker, anyway?” asked Barclay Fetters, readjusting his cuffs, which had slipped down in the melee.

“He’s a chap by the name of Dudley,” answered McRae; “lives at Mink Run, between here and Sycamore, you know.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve seen him — the ‘po’ white’ chap that lives with the old lunatic that’s always digging for buried treasure ——

‘For my name was Captain Kidd, As I sailed, as I sailed.’

But let’s hurry back, Tom, or we’ll lose the next dance.”

Fetters and his companion returned to the ball. The barkeeper called a servant of the hotel, with whose aid, Ben was carried upstairs and put to bed, bruised in body and damaged in reputation.

BEN’S FIGHT WITH young Fetters became a matter of public comment the next day after the ball. His conduct was cited as sad proof of the degeneracy of a once fine old family. He had been considered shiftless and not well educated, but no one had suspected that he was a drunkard and a rowdy. Other young men in the town, high-spirited young fellows with plenty of money, sometimes drank a little too much, and occasionally, for a point of honour, gentlemen were obliged to attack or defend themselves, but when they did, they used pistols, a gentleman’s weapon. Here, however, was an unprovoked and brutal attack with fists, upon two gentlemen in evening dress and without weapons to defend themselves, “one of them,” said the Anglo-Saxon, “the son of our distinguished fellow citizen and colleague in the legislature, the Honourable William Fetters.”

When Colonel French called to see Miss Laura, the afternoon of next day after the ball, the ladies were much concerned about the affair.

“Oh, Henry,” exclaimed Miss Laura, “what is this dreadful story about Ben Dudley? They say he was drinking at the hotel, and became intoxicated, and that when Barclay Fetters and Tom McRae went into the hotel, he said something insulting about Graciella, and when they rebuked him for his freedom he attacked them violently, and that when finally subdued he was put to bed unconscious and disgracefully intoxicated. Graciella is very angry, and we all feel ashamed enough to sink into the ground. What can be the matter with Ben? He hasn’t been around lately, and he has quarrelled with Graciella. I never would have expected anything like this from Ben.”

“It came from his great-uncle Ralph,” said Mrs. Treadwell. “Ralph was very wild when he was young, but settled down into a very polished gentleman. I danced with him once when he was drunk, and I never knew it — it was my first ball, and I was intoxicated myself, with excitement. Mother was scandalised, but father laughed and said boys would be boys. But poor Ben hasn’t had his uncle’s chances, and while he has always behaved well here, he could hardly be expected to carry his liquor like a gentleman of the old school.”

“My dear ladies,” said the colonel, “we have heard only one side of the story. I guess there’s no doubt Ben was intoxicated, but we know he isn’t a drinking man, and one drink — or even one drunk — doesn’t make a drunkard, nor one fight a rowdy. Barclay Fetters and Tom McRae are not immaculate, and perhaps Ben can exonerate himself.”

“I certainly hope so,” said Miss Laura earnestly. “I am sorry for Ben, but I could not permit a drunken rowdy to come to the house, or let my niece be seen upon the street with him.”

“It would only be fair,” said the colonel, “to give him a chance to explain, when he comes in again. I rather like Ben. He has some fine mechanical ideas, and the making of a man in him, unless I am mistaken. I have been hoping to find a place for him in the new cotton mill, when it is ready to run.”

They were still speaking of Ben, when there was an irresolute knock at the rear door of the parlour, in which they were seated.

“Miss Laura, O Miss Laura,” came a muffled voice. “Kin I speak to you a minute. It’s mighty pertickler, Miss Laura, fo’ God it is!”

“Laura,” said the colonel, “bring Catharine in. I saw that you were troubled once before when you were compelled to refuse her something. Henceforth your burdens shall be mine. Come in, Catharine,” he called, “and tell us what’s the matter. What’s your trouble? What’s it all about?”

The woman, red-eyed from weeping, came in, wringing her apron.

“Miss Laura,” she sobbed, “an’ Colonel French, my husban’ Bud is done gone and got inter mo’ trouble. He’s run away f’m Mistah Fettuhs, w’at he wuz sol’ back to in de spring, an’ he’s done be’n fine’ fifty dollahs mo’, an’ he’s gwine ter be sol’ back ter Mistah Fettuhs in de mawnin’, fer ter finish out de ole fine and wo’k out de new one. I’s be’n ter see ’im in de gyard house, an’ he say Mistah Haines, w’at use’ ter be de constable and is a gyard fer Mistah Fettuhs now, beat an’ ‘bused him so he couldn’ stan’ it; an’ ‘ceptin’ I could pay all dem fines, he’ll be tuck back dere; an’he say ef dey evah beats him ag’in, dey’ll eithuh haf ter kill him, er he’ll kill some er dem. An’ Bud is a rash man, Miss Laura, an’ I’m feared dat he’ll do w’at he say, an’ ef dey kills him er he kills any er dem, it’ll be all de same ter me — I’ll never see ‘m no mo’ in dis worl’. Ef I could borry de money, Miss Laura — Mars’ Colonel — I’d wuk my fingers ter de bone ‘tel I paid back de las’ cent. Er ef you’d buy Bud, suh, lack you did Unc’ Peter, he would n’ mind wukkin’ fer you, suh, fer Bud is a good wukker we’n folks treats him right; an’ he had n’ never had no trouble nowhar befo’ he come hyuh, suh.”

“How did he come to be arrested the first time?” asked the colonel.

“He didn’t live hyuh, suh; I used ter live hyuh, an’ I ma’ied him down ter Madison, where I wuz wukkin’. We fell out one day, an’ I got mad and lef’ ’im — it wuz all my fault an’ I be’n payin’ fer it evuh since — an’ I come back home an’ went ter wuk hyuh, an’ he come aftuh me, an de fus’ day he come, befo’ I knowed he wuz hyuh, dis yer Mistah Haines tuck ’im up, an’ lock ’im up in de gyard house, like a hog in de poun’, an’ he didn’ know nobody, an’ dey didn’ give ’im no chanst ter see nobody, an’ dey tuck ’im roun’ ter Squi’ Reddick nex’ mawnin’, an’ fined ’im an’ sol’ ’im ter dis yer Mistuh Fettuhs fer ter wo’k out de fine; an’ I be’n wantin’ all dis time ter hyuh fum ’im, an’ I’d done be’n an’ gone back ter Madison to look fer ’im, an’ foun’ he wuz gone. An’ God knows I didn’ know what had become er ’im, ‘tel he run away de yuther time an’ dey tuck ’im an’ sent ’im back again. An’ he hadn’ done nothin’ de fus’ time, suh, but de Lawd know w’at he won’ do ef dey sen’s ’im back any mo’.”

Catharine had put her apron to her eyes and was sobbing bitterly. The story was probably true. The colonel had heard underground rumours about the Fetters plantation and the manner in which it was supplied with labourers, and his own experience in old Peter’s case had made them seem not unlikely. He had seen Catharine’s husband, in the justice’s court, and the next day, in the convict gang behind Turner’s buggy. The man had not looked like a criminal; that he was surly and desperate may as well have been due to a sense of rank injustice as to an evil nature. That a wrong had been done, under cover of law, was at least more than likely; but a deed of mercy could be made to right it. The love of money might be the root of all evil, but its control was certainly a means of great good. The colonel glowed with the consciousness of this beneficent power to scatter happiness.

“Laura,” he said, “I will attend to this; it is a matter about which you should not be troubled. Don’t be alarmed, Catharine. Just be a good girl and help Miss Laura all you can, and I’ll look after your husband, and pay his fine and let him work it out as a free man.”

“Thank’y, suh, thank’y, Mars’ Colonel, an’ Miss Laura! An’ de Lawd is gwine bless you, suh, you an’ my sweet young lady, fuh bein’ good to po’ folks w’at can’t do nuthin’ to he’p deyse’ves out er trouble,” said Catharine backing out with her apron to her eyes.

 

 

 

On leaving Miss Laura, the colonel went round to the office of Squire Reddick, the justice of the peace, to inquire into the matter of Bud Johnson. The justice was out of town, his clerk said, but would be in his office at nine in the morning, at which time the colonel could speak to him about Johnson’s fine.

The next morning was bright and clear, and cool enough to be bracing. The colonel, alive with pleasant thoughts, rose early and after a cold bath, and a leisurely breakfast, walked over to the mill site, where the men were already at work. Having looked the work over and given certain directions, he glanced at his watch, and finding it near nine, set out for the justice’s office in time to reach it by the appointed hour. Squire Reddick was at his desk, upon which his feet rested, while he read a newspaper. He looked up with an air of surprise as the colonel entered.

“Why, good mornin’, Colonel French,” he said genially. “I kind of expected you a while ago; the clerk said you might be around. But you didn’ come, so I supposed you’d changed yo’ mind.”

“The clerk said that you would be here at nine,” replied the colonel; “it is only just nine.”

“Did he? Well, now, that’s too bad! I do generally git around about nine, but I was earlier this mornin’ and as everybody was here, we started in a little sooner than usual. You wanted to see me about Bud Johnson?”

“Yes, I wish to pay his fine and give him work.”

“Well, that’s too bad; but you weren’t here, and Mr. Turner was, and he bought his time again for Mr. Fetters. I’m sorry, you know, but first come, first served.”

The colonel was seriously annoyed. He did not like to believe there was a conspiracy to frustrate his good intention; but that result had been accomplished, whether by accident or design. He had failed in the first thing he had undertaken for the woman he loved and was to marry. He would see Fetters’s man, however, and come to some arrangement with him. With Fetters the hiring of the Negro was purely a commercial transaction, conditioned upon a probable profit, for the immediate payment of which, and a liberal bonus, he would doubtless relinquish his claim upon Johnson’s services.

Learning that Turner, who had acted as Fetters’s agent in the matter, had gone over to Clay Johnson’s saloon, he went to seek him there. He found him, and asked for a proposition. Turner heard him out.

“Well, Colonel French,” he replied with slightly veiled insolence, “I bought this nigger’s time for Mr. Fetters, an’ unless I’m might’ly mistaken in Mr. Fetters, no amount of money can get the nigger until he’s served his time out. He’s defied our rules and defied the law, and defied me, and assaulted one of the guards; and he ought to be made an example of. We want to keep ’im; he’s a bad nigger, an’ we’ve got to handle a lot of ’em, an’ we need ’im for an example — he keeps us in trainin’.”

“Have you any power in the matter?” demanded the colonel, restraining his contempt.

“Me? No, not me! I couldn’t let the nigger go for his weight in gol’ — an’ wouldn’ if I could. I bought ’im in for Mr. Fetters, an’ he’s the only man that’s got any say about ’im.”

“Very well,” said the colonel as he turned away, “I’ll see Fetters.”

“I don’t know whether you will or not,” said Turner to himself, as he shot a vindictive glance at the colonel’s retreating figure. “Fetters has got this county where he wants it, an’ I’ll bet dollars to bird shot he ain’t goin’ to let no coon-flavoured No’the’n interloper come down here an’ mix up with his arrangements, even if he did hail from this town way back yonder. This here nigger problem is a South’en problem, and outsiders might’s well keep their han’s off. Me and Haines an’ Fetters is the kind o’ men to settle it.”

The colonel was obliged to confess to Miss Laura his temporary setback, which he went around to the house and did immediately.

“It’s the first thing I’ve undertaken yet for your sake, Laura, and I’ve got to report failure, so far.”

“It’s only the first step,” she said, consolingly.

“That’s all. I’ll drive out to Fetters’s place to-morrow, and arrange the matter. By starting before day, I can make it and transact my business, and get back by night, without hurting the horses.”

Catharine was called in and the situation explained to her. Though clearly disappointed at the delay, and not yet free of apprehension that Bud might do something rash, she seemed serenely confident of the colonel’s ultimate success. In her simple creed, God might sometimes seem to neglect his black children, but no harm could come to a Negro who had a rich white gentleman for friend and protector.

IT WAS NOT yet sunrise when the colonel set out next day, after an early breakfast, upon his visit to Fetters. There was a crisp freshness in the air, the dew was thick upon the grass, the clear blue sky gave promise of a bright day and a pleasant journey.

The plantation conducted by Fetters lay about twenty miles to the south of Clarendon, and remote from any railroad, a convenient location for such an establishment, for railroads, while they bring in supplies and take out produce, also bring in light and take out information, both of which are fatal to certain fungus growths, social as well as vegetable, which flourish best in the dark.

The road led by Mink Run, and the colonel looked over toward the house as they passed it. Old and weather-beaten it seemed, even in the distance, which lent it no enchantment in the bright morning light. When the colonel had travelled that road in his boyhood, great forests of primeval pine had stretched for miles on either hand, broken at intervals by thriving plantations. Now all was changed. The tall and stately growth of the long-leaf pine had well nigh disappeared; fifteen years before, the turpentine industry, moving southward from Virginia, along the upland counties of the Appalachian slope, had swept through Clarendon County, leaving behind it a trail of blasted trunks and abandoned stills. Ere these had yielded to decay, the sawmill had followed, and after the sawmill the tar kiln, so that the dark green forest was now only a waste of blackened stumps and undergrowth, topped by the vulgar short-leaved pine and an occasional oak or juniper. Here and there they passed an expanse of cultivated land, and there were many smaller clearings in which could be seen, plowing with gaunt mules or stunted steers, some heavy-footed Negro or listless “po’ white man;” or women and children, black or white. In reply to a question, the coachman said that Mr. Fetters had worked all that country for turpentine years before, and had only taken up cotton raising after the turpentine had been exhausted from the sand hills.

He had left his mark, thought the colonel. Like the plague of locusts, he had settled and devoured and then moved on, leaving a barren waste behind him.

As the morning advanced, the settlements grew thinner, until suddenly, upon reaching the crest of a hill, a great stretch of cultivated lowland lay spread before them. In the centre of the plantation, near the road which ran through it, stood a square, new, freshly painted frame house, which would not have seemed out of place in some Ohio or Michigan city, but here struck a note alien to its surroundings. Off to one side, like the Negro quarters of another generation, were several rows of low, unpainted cabins, built of sawed lumber, the boards running up and down, and battened with strips where the edges met. The fields were green with cotton and with corn, and there were numerous gangs of men at work, with an apparent zeal quite in contrast with the leisurely movement of those they had passed on the way. It was a very pleasing scene.

“Dis yer, suh,” said the coachman in an awed tone, “is Mistah Fetters’s plantation. You ain’ gwine off nowhere, and leave me alone whils’ you are hyuh, is you, suh?”

“No,” said the colonel, “I’ll keep my eye on you. Nobody’ll trouble you while you’re with me.”

Passing a clump of low trees, the colonel came upon a group at sight of which he paused involuntarily. A gang of Negroes were at work. Upon the ankles of some was riveted an iron band to which was soldered a chain, at the end of which in turn an iron ball was fastened. Accompanying them was a white man, in whose belt was stuck a revolver, and who carried in one hand a stout leather strap, about two inches in width with a handle by which to grasp it. The gang paused momentarily to look at the traveller, but at a meaning glance from the overseer fell again to their work of hoeing cotton. The white man stepped to the fence, and Colonel French addressed him.

“Good morning.”

“Mornin’, suh.”

“Will you tell me where I can find Mr. Fetters?” inquired the colonel.

“No, suh, unless he’s at the house. He may have went away this mornin’, but I haven’t heard of it. But you drive along the road to the house, an’ somebody’ll tell you.”

The colonel seemed to have seen the overseer before, but could not remember where.

“Sam,” he asked the coachman, “who is that white man?”

“Dat’s Mistah Haines, suh — use’ ter be de constable at Cla’endon, suh. I wouldn’ lak to be in no gang under him, suh, sho’ I wouldn’, no, suh!”

After this ejaculation, which seemed sincere as well as fervent, Sam whipped up the horses and soon reached the house. A Negro boy came out to meet them.

“Is Mr. Fetters at home,” inquired the colonel?

“I — I don’ know, suh — I — I’ll ax Mars’ Turner. He’s hyuh.”

He disappeared round the house and in a few minutes returned with Turner, with whom the colonel exchanged curt nods.

“I wish to see Mr. Fetters,” said the colonel.

“Well, you can’t see him.”

“Why not?”

“Because he ain’t here. He left for the capital this mornin’, to be gone a week. You’ll be havin’ a fine drive, down here and back.”

The colonel ignored the taunt.

“When will Mr. Fetters return?” he inquired.

“I’m shore I don’t know. He don’t tell me his secrets. But I’ll tell you, Colonel French, that if you’re after that nigger, you’re wastin’ your time. He’s in Haines’s gang, and Haines loves him so well that Mr. Fetters has to keep Bud in order to keep Haines. There’s no accountin’ for these vi’lent affections, but they’re human natur’, and they have to be ‘umoured.”

“I’ll talk to your master,” rejoined the colonel, restraining his indignation and turning away.

Turner looked after him vindictively.

“He’ll talk to my master, like as if I was a nigger! It’ll be a long time before he talks to Fetters, if that’s who he means — if I can prevent it. Not that it would make any difference, but I’ll just keep him on the anxious seat.”

It was nearing noon, but the colonel had received no invitation to stop, or eat, or feed his horses. He ordered Sam to turn and drive back the way they had come.

As they neared the group of labourers they had passed before, the colonel saw four Negroes, in response to an imperative gesture from the overseer, seize one of their number, a short, thickset fellow, overpower some small resistance which he seemed to make, throw him down with his face to the ground, and sit upon his extremities while the overseer applied the broad leathern thong vigorously to his bare back.

The colonel reached over and pulled the reins mechanically. His instinct was to interfere; had he been near enough to recognise in the Negro the object of his visit, Bud Johnson, and in the overseer the ex-constable, Haines, he might have yielded to the impulse. But on second thought he realised that he had neither authority nor strength to make good his interference. For aught he knew, the performance might be strictly according to law. So, fighting a feeling of nausea which he could hardly conquer, he ordered Sam to drive on.

The coachman complied with alacrity, as though glad to escape from a mighty dangerous place. He had known friendless coloured folks, who had strayed down in that neighbourhood to be lost for a long time; and he had heard of a spot, far back from the road, in a secluded part of the plantation, where the graves of convicts who had died while in Fetters’s service were very numerous.

DURING THE NEXT month the colonel made several attempts to see Fetters, but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting. He finally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton, who ascertained that Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week, at Carthage, the county seat of the adjoining county, where the colonel had been once before to inspect a cotton mill. Thither the colonel went on the day of the opening of court. His train reached town toward noon and he went over to the hotel. He wondered if he would find the proprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before. But the buggy was gone from before the piazza, and there was a new face behind the desk. The colonel registered, left word that he would be in to dinner, and then went over to the court house, which lay behind the trees across the square.

The court house was an old, square, hip-roofed brick structure, whose walls, whitewashed the year before, had been splotched and discoloured by the weather. From one side, under the eaves, projected a beam, which supported a bell rung by a rope from the window below. A hall ran through the centre, on either side of which were the county offices, while the court room with a judge’s room and jury room, occupied the upper floor.

The colonel made his way across the square, which showed the usual signs of court being in session. There were buggies hitched to trees and posts here and there, a few Negroes sleeping in the sun, and several old coloured women with little stands for the sale of cakes, and fried fish, and cider.

The colonel went upstairs to the court room. It was fairly well filled, and he remained standing for a few minutes near the entrance. The civil docket was evidently on trial, for there was a jury in the box, and a witness was being examined with some prolixity with reference to the use of a few inches of land which lay on one side or on the other of a disputed boundary. From what the colonel could gather, that particular line fence dispute had been in litigation for twenty years, had cost several lives, and had resulted in a feud that involved a whole township.

The testimony was about concluded when the colonel entered, and the lawyers began their arguments. The feeling between the litigants seemed to have affected their attorneys, and the court more than once found it necessary to call counsel to order. The trial was finished, however, without bloodshed; the case went to the jury, and court was adjourned until two o’clock.

The colonel had never met Fetters, nor had he seen anyone in the court room who seemed likely to be the man. But he had seen his name freshly written on the hotel register, and he would doubtless go there for dinner. There would be ample time to get acquainted and transact his business before court reassembled for the afternoon.

Dinner seemed to be a rather solemn function, and except at a table occupied by the judge and the lawyers, in the corner of the room farthest from the colonel, little was said. A glance about the room showed no one whom the colonel could imagine to be Fetters, and he was about to ask the waiter if that gentleman had yet entered the dining room, when a man came in and sat down on the opposite side of the table. The colonel looked up, and met the cheerful countenance of the liveryman from whom he had hired a horse and buggy some weeks before.

“Howdy do?” said the newcomer amiably. “Hope you’ve been well.”

“Quite well,” returned the colonel, “how are you?”

“Oh, just tol’able. Tendin’ co’t?”

“No, I came down here to see a man that’s attending court — your friend Fetters. I suppose he’ll be in to dinner.”

“Oh, yes, but he ain’t come in yet. I reckon you find the ho-tel a little different from the time you were here befo’.”

“This is a better dinner than I got,” replied the colonel, “and I haven’t seen the landlord anywhere, nor his buggy.”

“No, he ain’t here no more. Sad loss to Carthage! You see Bark Fetters — that’s Bill’s boy that’s come home from the No’th from college — Bark Fetters come down here one day, an’ went in the ho-tel, an’ when Lee Dickson commenced to put on his big airs, Bark cussed ’im out, and Lee, who didn’t know Bark from Adam, cussed ’im back, an’ then Bark hauled off an’ hit ’im. They had it hot an’ heavy for a while. Lee had more strength, but Bark had more science, an’ laid Lee out col’. Then Bark went home an’ tol’ the ole man, who had a mortgage on the ho-tel, an’ he sol’ Lee up. I hear he’s barberin’ or somethin’ er that sort up to Atlanta, an’ the hotel’s run by another man. There’s Fetters comin’ in now.”

The colonel glanced in the direction indicated, and was surprised at the appearance of the redoubtable Fetters, who walked over and took his seat at the table with the judge and the lawyers. He had expected to meet a tall, long-haired, red-faced, truculent individual, in a slouch hat and a frock coat, with a loud voice and a dictatorial manner, the typical Southerner of melodrama. He saw a keen-eyed, hard-faced small man, slightly gray, clean-shaven, wearing a well-fitting city-made business suit of light tweed. Except for a few little indications, such as the lack of a crease in his trousers, Fetters looked like any one of a hundred business men whom the colonel might have met on Broadway in any given fifteen minutes during business hours.

The colonel timed his meal so as to leave the dining-room at the same moment with Fetters. He went up to Fetters, who was chewing a toothpick in the office, and made himself known.

“I am Mr. French,” he said — he never referred to himself by his military title— “and you, I believe, are Mr. Fetters?”

“Yes, sir, that’s my name,” replied Fetters without enthusiasm, but eyeing the colonel keenly between narrowed lashes.

“I’ve been trying to see you for some time, about a matter,” continued the colonel, “but never seemed able to catch up with you before.”

“Yes, I heard you were at my house, but I was asleep upstairs, and didn’t know you’d be’n there till you’d gone.”

“Your man told me you had gone to the capital for two weeks.”

“My man? Oh, you mean Turner! Well, I reckon you must have riled Turner somehow, and he thought he’d have a joke on you.”

“I don’t quite see the joke,” said the colonel, restraining his displeasure. “But that’s ancient history. Can we sit down over here in the shade and talk by ourselves for a moment?”

Fetters followed the colonel out of doors, where they drew a couple of chairs to one side, and the colonel stated the nature of his business. He wished to bargain for the release of a Negro, Bud Johnson by name, held to service by Fetters under a contract with Clarendon County. He was willing to pay whatever expense Fetters had been to on account of Johnson, and an amount sufficient to cover any estimated profits from his services.