Kitabı oku: «The Bondwoman», sayfa 8
CHAPTER XII
“How that child is petted on, Gideon,” and Mrs. Nesbitt looked up from her work, the knitting of socks, to be worn by unknown boys in gray. Even the material for them was growing scarce, and she prided herself on always managing, someway, to keep her knitting needles busy. At present she was using a coarse linen or tow thread, over which she lamented because of its harshness.
Miss Loring, who appeared very domestic, with a stack of household linen beside her, glanced up, with a smile.
“Rather fortunate, isn’t it, considering–” an arch of the brows and a significant expression were allowed to finish her meaning. Mrs. Nesbitt pursed up her lips and shook her head.
“I really and truly wonder sometimes, Gertrude, if it’s going on like this always. Ten years if it’s a day since he commenced paying court there, and what she allows to do, at least is more than I can guess.”
“Marry him, no doubt,” suggested Gertrude, inspecting a sheet carefully, and then proceeding to tear it in widths designated by Dr. Delaven for hospital bandages. “She certainly esteems him very highly.”
“Oh, esteem!” and Mrs. Nesbitt’s tone was dubious.
“Well, people don’t think much of getting married these days, where there is fighting and mourning everywhere.”
The older lady gave her a quick glance over the tow yarn rack, but the fair face was very serene, and without a trace of personal feeling on the subject.
“Yes, that’s so,” she admitted, “but I used to think they were only waiting till Kenneth came of age, or until he graduated. But my! I didn’t see it make a spec of difference. They danced together at the party given for him, and smiled, careless as you please, and now the dancing is ended, they keep on friendly and smiling, and I’m downright puzzled to know what they do mean.”
“Maybe no more than those two, who are only amusing themselves,” said Gertrude, with a glance towards the lawn where Evilena and Delaven were fencing with long stalks of a wild lily they had brought from the swamps, and when Evilena was vanquished by the foe her comforter was a white-haired gentleman, inclined to portliness, and with much more than an inclination to courtliness, whom Evilena called “My Judge.”
It was two weeks after the descent of Aunt Sajane and Evilena upon Loringwood. The former, after a long consultation with Dr. Delaven, had returned to her own home, near the McVeigh plantation, and putting her household in order for a more prolonged visit than at first intended, she had come back to be near Gertrude in case–
None of them had put into words to each other their thought as to Matthew Loring’s condition, but all understood the seriousness of it, and Gertrude, of course, must not be left alone.
Dr. Delaven had meant only to accompany the invalid home, consult with their local physician, and take his departure after a visit to Mrs. McVeigh, and possibly a sight of their new battlefield beside Kenneth, if his command was not too far away.
Kenneth McVeigh was Col. McVeigh now, to the great delight of the sister, who loved men who could fight. On his return from Paris he had, at his own request, and to the dismay of his family, been sent to the frontier. At the secession of his state he was possessed of a captaincy, which he resigned, returned home, and in six weeks tendered a regiment, fully equipped at his own expense, to the Confederate government. His offer had been accepted and himself made a colonel. His regiment had already seen one year of hard service, were veterans, with a colonel of twenty-five–a colonel who had been carried home wounded unto death, the surgeons said, from the defeat of Fort Donaldson. He had belied their prophecies of death, however, and while not yet equal to the rigors of camp life, he had accepted a commission abroad of decided importance to his government, and became one of the committee to deal with certain English sympathizers who were fitting out vessels for the Confederate navy.
Mrs. McVeigh had been called to Mobile by the serious illness of an aged relative and had been detained by something much less dreary, the marriage of her brother, who had command of a garrison at that point.
Thus barred from seeing either of his former Parisian friends, Delaven would have gone back to Charleston, or else gone North or West to view a new land in battle array.
But Mr. Loring’s health, or Miss Loring’s entreaties had interfered with both those plans. He could not desert a young lady on an isolated plantation with only the slaves about her, and a partial paralytic to care for, especially when all the most capable physicians were at military posts, and no one absolutely reliable nearer than Charleston.
So he had promised to stay, and had advised Miss Loring to induce Mrs. Nesbitt to remain until a few weeks’ rest and the atmosphere of home would, he hoped, have a beneficial influence on the invalid.
All his suggestions had been carried out. Aunt Sajane (who had not a niece or nephew in the world, yet was “aunt” to all the young folks) was to remain, also Evilena, until the return of Mr. McVeigh, after which they all hoped Mr. Loring could be persuaded to move up the river to a smaller estate belonging to Gertrude, adjoining The Terrace, as the nearness of friends would be a great advantage under the circumstances. The isolation of Loringwood had of late become oppressive to its mistress, who strongly advocated its sale. They had enough land without, and she realized it was too large a tract to be managed properly or to profit so long as her uncle was unable to see to affairs personally. But above all else, the loneliness of it was irksome since her return.
“Though we never did use to think Loringwood isolated, did we, Gideon?” asked Mrs. Nesbitt, who remembered the house when full of guests, and the fiddles and banjos of the colored musicians always ready for dance music.
“Relentless circumstances over (he called it ovah, and Delaven delighted in the charming dialect of the South, as illustrated by the Judge) which we have no control have altered conditions through this entire (entiah) commonwealth. But, no. I should not call Loringwood exactly isolated, with the highway of the Salkahatchie at its door.”
“But when no one travels the highway?” said Delaven, whose comments had aroused the discussion. “No one but black hunters in log canoes have I seen come along it for a week, barring yourselves. Faith, I should think their presence alone would be enough to give a young lady nervous chills, the daily and nightly fear of insurrection.”
The Judge smiled, indulgently, willing to humor the fancies of foreigners, who were not supposed to understand American institutions.
“Your ideas would be perfectly sound, my dear sir, if you were dealing with any other country, where the colored man is the recognized servant of the land and of the land owners. But we of the South, sir, understand their needs and just the proper amount of control necessary to be enforced for mutual protection. They have grown up under that training until it is a part of themselves. There are refractory blacks, of course, just as there are worthless demoralized whites, but I assure you, sir, I voice the sentiments of our people when I state that the families of Southern planters feel much more secure when guarded by their colored folk than they would if surrounded by a troop of Northern soldiery. There have been no cases where white women and children have had reason to regret having trusted to the black man’s guardianship, sir. In that respect I believe we Southrons hold a unique place in history. The evils of slavery, perfectly true in many lands, are not true here. The proofs of it are many. Their dependence on each other is mutual. Each understands and respects that fact, sir, and the highest evidence of it is shown when the master marches to meet their common enemy, and leaves his wife and children to the care of the oldest or most intelligent of his bondsmen.
“I tell you, sir, the people of Europe cannot comprehend the ties between those two races, because the world has seen nothing like it. The Northern people have no understanding of it, because, sir, their natures are not such as to call forth such loyalty. They are a cold, unresponsive people, and the only systematic cruelty ever practiced against the colored folks by Americans has been by the New England slavers, sir. The slave trade has always been monopolized by the Northern folks in this country–by the puritanical New Englanders who used to sell the pickaninnies at so much a pound, as cattle or sheep are sold.
“They are no longer able to derive a profit from it, hence their desire to abolish the revenue of the South. I assure you, sir, if the colored man could endure the climate of their bleak land there would be no shouting for abolition.”
It was only natural that Delaven should receive a good deal of information those days from the Southern side of the question. Much of it was an added education to him–the perfect honesty of the speakers, the way in which they entered heart and soul into the discussion of their state’s rights, the extreme sacrifices offered up, the lives of their sons, the wealth, the luxury in which they had lived, all given up without protest for the cause. Women who had lived and ruled like queens over the wide plantations, were now cutting their living expenses lower and lower, that the extra portion saved might be devoted to their boys at the front. The muslins and linens for household purposes were used as Gertrude Loring was using them now; everything possible was converted into bandages for hospital use.
“I simply don’t dare let the house servants do it,” she explained, in reply to the Judge’s query. “They could do the work, of course, but they never have had to practice economy, and I can’t undertake to teach it to them as well as myself, and to both at the same time. Oh, yes, Margeret is capable, of course, but she has her hands full to watch those in the cook house.”
Her smile was very bright and contented. It hinted nothing of the straightened circumstances gradually surrounding them, making a close watch in all directions absolutely necessary. Affairs were reaching a stage where money, except in extravagant quantities, was almost useless. The blockade had raised even the most simple articles to the price of luxuries. All possessions, apart from their home productions, must be husbanded to the utmost.
“You are a brave little woman, Miss Gertrude,” said the Judge, bowing before her with a certain reverence. “All the battles of this war are not fought to the sound of regimental music, and our boys at the front shoot straighter when they have at home women like you to guard. Our women of the South are an inspiration–an inspiration!”
No courtier of storied Castile could have rivaled the grace of manner with which the praise was spoken, so thought Delaven, for all his mental pictures of Castillian courtesies revealed them as a bit theatrical, while the Judge was sincerity itself.
As he spoke, the soft sound of wheels was heard in the hall, and Matthew Loring, in his invalid chair, was rolled slowly out on the veranda by his man, Ben. Margeret followed with a light robe over her arm, and a fan.
“Not there, Ben,” she said, in the low tone of one giving an order entirely personal and not intended to be heard by the others, “the draught does seem to coax itself round that corner, and–”
“Not a bit of it,” broke in the master of Loringwood, abruptly. “No more draught there than anywhere else. It’s all right, Ben, wheel me to that railing.”
Margeret silently spread the robe over his knees, laid the fan in his lap, adjusted the cushion back of his head, and re-entered the house with a slight gesture to Ben, who followed her.
“She’s a puzzle entirely,” remarked Delaven, who was watching them from the rustic seat nearest the steps. Evilena was seated there, and he stood beside her.
“Margeret? Why?” she asked, in the same low tone.
“I’ll tell you. Not thirty minutes ago I told her he could be brought out and have his chair placed so that the sun would be on his limbs, but not on his head. Now, what does she do but pilot him out and discourage him from going to just the corner that was best.”
“And you see the result,” whispered the girl, who was laughing. “Margeret knows a lot. Just see how satisfied he is, now, the satisfaction of having had to fight some one. If he knew it was anybody’s orders, even yours, he would not enjoy that corner half so much. That is the sweet disposition of our Uncle Matthew.”
Overhanging eyebrows of iron-gray were the first thing to arrest attention in Matthew Loring’s face. They shadowed dark expressive eyes in a swarthy setting. His hair and mustache were of the same grey, and very bushy. He had the broad head and square jaw of the aggressive type. Not a large man, even in his prime, he looked almost frail as he settled back in his chair. He was probably sixty, but looked older.
“Still knitting socks, Mistress Nesbitt?” he inquired, with a caustic smile. “Charming occupation. Do you select that quality and color for any beauties to be found in them? I can remember seeing your mother using knitting needles on this very veranda thirty–yes, forty years ago. But I must say I never saw her make anything heavier than lace. And what’s all this, Gertrude? Do you entertain your visitors these days by dragging out the old linen for their inspection? Why are you dallying with the servants’ tasks?”
“No; it is my own task, uncle,” returned his niece, with unruffled serenity. “Not a very beautiful one, but consoling because of its usefulness.”
“Usefulness–huh! In your mother’s day ladies were not expected to be useful.”
“Alas for us that the day is past,” said the girl, tearing off another strip of muslin.
“Now, do you wonder that I adore my Judge?” whispered Evilena to Delaven.
CHAPTER XIII
Despite his natural irritability, to which no one appeared to pay much attention, Mr. Loring grew almost cordial under the geniality and hopefulness emanating from Judge Clarkson, whom he was really very glad to see, and of whom he had numberless queries to ask regarding the hostilities of the past few months.
The enforced absence abroad had kept him in a highly nervous condition, doing much to counteract the utmost care given him by the most learned specialists of Europe. Half his fortune had been lost by those opening guns at Sumter. His warehouses, piled with great cotton bales for shipment to England, had been fired–burned to the ground. The capture of Beaufort, near which was another plantation of his, had made further wreck for him, financially, and whatever the foreign doctors might to with his body, his mind was back in Carolina, eager, questioning, combative. He was burning himself up with a fever of anxiety.
“It is all of no use, Mademoiselle,” said the most distinguished specialist whom she had consulted, “Monsieur, your uncle will live for many years if but the mind is composed–no shocks, no heavy loads to carry. But the mind, you perceive–it is impossible for him to allow himself to be composed away from his country. We have done all that can be done here. To return to his own land under the care of a competent physician, of course, would be now the best arrangement I could suggest. He may live there for many years; here, he will most certainly die.”
At Loring’s request Dr. Delaven was the physician who had been approached with the proposal to accompany him to Carolina. Why, it would be hard to guess, for they were totally unlike in every way–had not, apparently, a single taste in common. But the physician in charge of the hospital approved his judgment.
“It is a most wise one, Monsieur Loring. Dr. Delaven has shown as his specialty cases similar to your own, and has proven most successful. Withal, he is adventurous. He will enjoy the new country, and he is of your own language. All I could do for you he can do, perhaps more; for I am old, while he is young and alive with enthusiasms with which to supplement his technical knowledge.”
Gertrude only delayed their departure long enough to write Col. McVeigh, who was in London. He secured for them transportation to Nassau under the guardianship of an official who would take most extreme care that the party be conveyed from there by some blockade runner to be depended upon. And that the Federal blockade often failed of its purpose was evidenced by the fact that they were quietly landed one night in a little inlet south of Charleston, which they reached by carriage, and rested there a few days before attempting the journey overland.
The doctors were correct as to the beneficial results of the home coming of Loring. It acted like a tonic and the thought of outwitting the Yankees of that blockade pleased him immensely. He never gave a thought to the girl who watched with pale face and sleepless eyes through that dash for the shore. Delaven mentally called him a selfish brute.
The visit of Judge Clarkson was partially an affair of business, but after a private interview with Delaven he decided to dismiss all idea of business settlements until later. Nothing of an annoying or irritating nature must be broached to the convalescent just yet.
The Judge confessed that it was an affair over which Mr. Loring had been deeply chagrined–a clear loss of a large sum of money, and perhaps it would be safer, under the circumstances, to await Col. McVeigh’s return. Col. McVeigh was equally interested, and neither he nor the Judge would consent to risk an attack similar to that experienced by Mr. Loring during the bombardment of Port Royal entrance. He was at that time on his Beaufort plantation, where the blue coats overran his place after they landed, and it was known to have been nothing else than a fit of rage at their victory, and rage at the planters who fled on all sides of him, which finally ended in the prostration for which the local physicians could find no remedy. Then it was that Gertrude took him abroad, with the result described. It was understood the prostration had taught him one useful lesson–he no longer cultivated the rages for which he had been locally famous. As he was unable to stamp and roar, he compromised on sneers and caustic retorts, from which he appeared to derive an amount of satisfaction tonical in its effects.
The Judge was giving Delaven the details of the Beaufort affair when Ben wheeled his master into the room. There was an awkward pause, a slight embarrassment, but he had caught the words “Port Royal entrance,” and comprehended.
“Huh! Talking over that disaster, Judge?” he remarked. “I tell you what it is, you can’t convey to a foreigner anything of the feeling of the South over those misfortunes; to have Sherman’s tramps go rough-shod over your lawns and rest themselves with braggadocio at your tables–the most infernal riff-raff–”
“One moment,” interposed the Judge, blandly, with a view to check the unpleasant reminiscences. “Did I not hear you actually praise one of those Yankees?–in fact, assert that he was a very fine fellow?”
“Yes, yes; I had forgotten him. A Yankee captain; ordered the blue-coats to the right-about when he found there was only a sick man and a girl there; and more than that, so long as those scavengers were ashore and parading around Beaufort he kept men stationed at my gates for safeguard duty. A fine fellow, for a Yankee. I can only account for it by the fact that he was a West Point graduate, and was thus thrown, to a certain extent, into the society and under the influences of our own men. Kenneth, Col. McVeigh, had known Monroe there–his name was Monroe–Captain John Monroe–at Beaufort his own men called him Captain Jack.”
“Just as she was stepping on ship board:
‘Your name I’d like to know?’
And with a smile she answered him,
‘My name is Jack Monroe!’”
sang a fresh voice outside the window, and then the curtain was pushed aside and Evilena’s brown head appeared.
“I really could not help that, Mr. Loring,” she said, laughingly. “The temptation was too great. Did you never whistle ‘Jack Monroe’ when you were a boy?”
“No, I can’t say I ever did,” he replied, testily.
“It’s intensely interesting,” she continued, seating herself on the window sill and regarding him with smiling interest, made bold by the presence of her champion, the Judge. “Aunt Sajane taught it to me, an old, old sailor song. It’s all about her sweetheart, Jack, not Aunt Sajane’s sweetheart, but the girl’s. Her wealthy relatives separate them by banishing him to the wars somewhere, and she dressed up in boy’s clothes to follow him.
“‘She went unto a tailor
And dressed in men’s array,
And thence unto a sailor
And paid her fare away.’”
recited Evilena, with uplifted finger punctuating the sentences. “Wasn’t she brave? Well, she found him, and they were married. There are seven verses of it.”
“I–I should think that quite enough,” he remarked, dropping his head forward and looking at her from under the overhanging brows. “Do you mean to sing them all to me?”
“Perhaps, some day,” she promised, showing all her teeth and dropping the curtain.
“So now this couple’s married,
Despite their bitter foe,
And she’s back again in England
With her darling, Jack Monroe.”
The two visitors laughed outright as this information was wafted to them from the veranda, the old song growing more faint as the singer circled the house in search of Gertrude.
“A true daughter of the South, Dr. Delaven,” said the Judge, with a tender cadence betraying how close to his heart was his pride in all Southern excellence–“child and woman in one, sir–a charming combination.”
“Right you are, Judge, in that; may their numbers never be less.”
Evilena had found Gertrude and at once confessed her daring.
“Don’t know how I ever did have courage to pop my head in there. Aunt Sajane–but he talked of Jack Monroe just as I passed the window, and I pretended I thought he meant the old song (I do wonder if he ever–ever sang or whistled?) Then I told him what it was all about, and promised to sing it to him some day, and I know by the sort of smile he had that he wanted to order me out of the room as he used to when I was little.”
“Lena, Lena!” and Gertrude shook her head admonishingly at the girl, though she smiled at the recital.
“Oh, you are an angel, Gertrude; so you never have temptations to do things for pure mischief. But I wish you’d tell me who this Jack Monroe is.”
“A Federal officer who was of service to us when Beaufort was taken.”
“A Yankee!”–and her horror was absolute. “Well, I should not think you’d accept service from such a person.”
“Honey!” said Aunt Sajane, in mild chiding.
“We had no choice,” said Gertrude, quietly; “afterwards we learned he and Kenneth had been friends at West Point; so he was really a gentleman.”
“And in the Yankee Army?” queried the irrepressible. “Good-bye, Jack Monroe, I shan’t sing you again.”
“You might be faithful to one verse for Gertrude’s sake,” ventured Aunt Sajane.
“Gertrude’s sake?”
“Why, yes; he protected them from the intrusion of the Yankees.”
“Oh–h! Aunt Sajane, I really thought you were going to ferret out a romance–a Romeo and Juliet affair–their families at war, and themselves–”
“Evilena!”
“When Gertrude says ‘Evilena’ in that tone I know it is time to stop,” said the girl, letting go the kitten she was patting, and putting her arm around Gertrude. “You dear, sensible Gertrude, don’t mind one word I say; of course I did not mean it. Just as if we did not have enough Romeos in our own army to go around.”
The significant glance accompanying her words made Gertrude look slightly conscious.
“You are a wildly romantic child,” she said, smoothing the chestnut tinted waves of the girl’s hair, “and pray, tell us how many of our military Romeos are singing ‘Sweet Evilena,’ and wearing your colors?”
Dr. Delaven passed along the hall in time to hear this bantering query, and came opposite the door when this true daughter of the South was counting all the fingers of one pretty hand.
“Just make it a half dozen,” he suggested, “for I’m wearing yet the sunflower you gave me,” and he pointed to the large daisy in his buttonhole.
“No, I’m always honest with Gertrude, and she must have the true number. We are talking of military men, and all others are barred out.”
“So you informed me the first day of our acquaintance,” he assented, arranging the daisy more to his liking.
“And I’ve never forgiven you for that first day,” she retorted, nodding her head in a way suggestive of some dire punishment waiting for him in the future. “It was dreadful, the way he led me on to say things, Aunt Sajane, for how was I to guess he was the doctor? I was expecting a man like–well, like Dr. Allison, only more so; very learned, very severe, with eye glasses through which he would examine us as though we were new specimens discovered in the wilds of America. I certainly did not expect to find a frivolous person who wore daisies, and–oh!” as she caught a glimpse of some one coming up the path from the landing–“there comes Nelse. Gertrude, can’t I have him in here?”
“May I ask if Nelse is one of the five distinguished by your colors?” asked Delaven.
“Nelse is distinguished by his own colors, which is a fine mahogany, and he is the most interesting old reprobate in Carolina–a wizard, if you please–a sure enough voodoo doctor, and the black historian of the Salkahatchie. May I call him?”
“I really do not think uncle likes to have him around,” said Gertrude, dubiously; “still–oh, yes, call him if you like. Don’t let him tire you with his stories; and keep him out of uncle’s way. He would be sure to tell him about those late runaways.”
“I promise to stand guard in that case myself, Miss Loring; for I have a prejudice against allowing witch-doctors access to my patients.”
Mrs. Nesbitt arose as if to follow Gertrude from the room, hesitated, and resumed her chair.
“When I was a girl we young folks were all half afraid of Nelse–not that he ever harmed any one,” she confessed. “The colored folks said he was a wizard, but I never did give credit to that.”
“Aunt Chloe, she says he is!”
“Oh, yes; and Aunt Chloe sees ghosts, and talks with goblins, to hear her tell the story; but that old humbug is just as much afraid of a mouse as–as I am.”
“Nelse is a free nigger,” explained Evilena, turning from the window after having motioned him to enter. “He was made free by his old master, Marmaduke Loring, and the old rascal–I mean Nelse, bought himself a wife, paid for her out of his jockey earnings, and when she proved a disappointment what do you think he did?”
Delaven could not get beyond a guess, as the subject of her discourse had just then appeared in the door.
He was a small, black man, quite old, but with a curious attempt at jauntiness, as he made his three bows with his one hand on his breast, the other holding his cane and a jockey cap of ancient fashion. It contrasted oddly with the swallow-tailed coat he wore, which had evidently been made for a much larger man; the sleeves came to his finger tips, and the tails touched his heels. The cloth of which it was made was very fine dark blue, with buttons of brass. His waistcoat of maroon brocade came half way to his knees. Warm as the day was he wore a broad tie of plaid silk arranged in a bow, above which a white muslin collar rose to his ears. He was evidently an ancient beau of the plantations in court dress.
“Yo’ servant, Miss Sajane, Miss Lena; yo’ servant, Mahstah,” he said with a bow to each. “I done come pay my respects to the family what got back. I’m powerful glad to heah they got safe ovah that ocean.”
“Oh, yes; you’re very thankful when you wait two whole weeks before you come around to say ‘howdy.’ Have you moved so far into the swamp you can’t even hear when the family comes home? Sit down, you’re tired likely. Tell us all the news from your alligator pasture.”
“My king! Miss Lena, you jest the same tant’lizin’ little lady. Yo’ growen’ up don’t make you outgrow nothen’ but yo’ clothes. My ’gatah pasture? I show yo’ my little patch some o’ these days–show yo’ what kind ’gatahs pasture theah; why, why, I got ’nigh as many hogs as Mahs Matt has niggahs these days.”
“Yes, and he hasn’t so many as he did have,” remarked Mrs. Nesbitt, significantly. “You know anything about where Scip and Aleck are gone?”
“Who–me? Miss Sajane? You think I keep time on all the runaway boys these days? They too many for me. It sutenly do beat all how they scatter. Yo’ all hear tell how one o’ Cynthy’s boys done run away, too? Suah as I tell you–that second boy, Steve! Ole Mahs Masterson got him dogs out fo’ him–tain’t no use; nevah touched the track once. He’ll nevah stop runnen’ till he reach the Nawth an’ freeze to death. I alles tole Cynthy that Steve boy a bawn fool.”
“Do you mean your son Steve, or your grandson?” queried Mrs. Nesbitt.
“No’m, ’taint little Steve; his mammy got too much sense to let him go; but that gal, Cynthy–humph!” and his disdain of her perceptive powers was very apparent.
“But, Uncle Nelse, just remember Aunt Cynthy must be upwards of seventy. Steve is fifty if he is a day. How do you suppose she could control him, even if she knew of his intention, which is doubtful.”
“She nevah would trounce that rascal, even in his youngest days,” asserted Nelse, earnestly; “and as the ’bush is bent the tree’s declined.’ I use to kote that scripper to her many’s the day, but how much good it do to plant cotton seed on stony groun’ or sow rice on the high lan’? Jes’ that much good scripper words done Cynthy, an’ no more.”
His tone betrayed a sorrowful but impersonal regret over the refractory Cynthia, and their joint offspring. Evilena laughed.
“Where did you get so well acquainted with the scripture, Nelse?” she asked. “I know you never did learn it from your beloved old Mahs Duke Loring. I want you to tell this gentleman all about the old racing days. This is Dr. Delaven (Nelse made a profound bow). He has seen great races abroad and hunted foxes in Ireland. I want you to tell him of the bear hunts, and the horses you used to ride, and how you rode for freedom. The race was so important, Dr. Delaven, that Marmaduke Loring promised Nelse his freedom if he won it, and he had been offered three thousand, five hundred dollars for Nelse, more than once.”
