"I trust you are right, Miss Jane," said Jack, after a long pause; "but He will have to come soon if lie sets my affairs to rights."
"Don"t git down-hearted, Jack," exclaimed Miss Jane, laying her hand upon the young man"s arm with a motherly touch. "Them that"s big-hearted and broad-shouldered hain"t got much to be afear"d of in this world. Have you forgot Rose Gaither, Jack?"
"I haven"t forgotten Bradley Gaither," said Jack, frowning darkly, "and I won"t forget him in a day, you may depend. Bradley Gaither is at the bottom of all the misery you see there." The young man made a gesture that included the whole horizon.
"Ah, Jack!" exclaimed Miss Jane, solemnly, "I won"t deny but what old Bradley Gaither is been mighty busy runnin" arter the rudiments of the world, but the time was when you"d kindle up barely at the mention of Rose Gaither"s name."
"Shall I tell you the truth, Miss Jane?" asked Jack Carew, turning to Miss Inchly with a frank but bashful smile.
"You"ve never failed to do that, Jack, when the pinch come."
"Well, this is the pinch, then. But for Rose Gaither I should have sold out here when I first found how matters stood. I could easily sell out now--to Bradley Gaither."
"That"s so, Jack, you could," said Squire Inchly, who had been a sympathetic listener. "Yes, sir, you could; there ain"t no two ways about that."
"But I wouldn"t, and I won"t," continued Jack. "Everybody around here knows my troubles, and I propose, to stay here. I haven"t forgotten Rose Gaither, Miss Jane, but I"m afraid she has forgotten me. She has changed greatly."
"You look in the gla.s.s," said Miss Jane, with a knowing toss of the head, "and you"ll see where the change is. Rose was here t"other day, and she stood right in that room there, behind them identical curtains.
I wish--but I sha"n"t tell the poor child"s secrets. I"ll say this: the next time you see Rose Gaither a-pa.s.sin" by, you raise your hat and tell her howdy, and you"ll git the sweetest smile that ever man got."
"Miss Jane!" exclaimed Jack Carew, "you are the best woman in the world."
"Except one, I reckon," said Miss Jane, dryly.
Jack Carew rose from his chair, and straightened himself to his full height. He was a new man. Youth and hope rekindled their fires in his eyes. The flush of enthusiasm revisited his face.
"I feel like a new man; I am a new man!" he exclaimed. Then he glanced at the pitiful figure, maundering and sputtering across the way. "I am going home," he went on, "and will put father to bed and nurse him and take care of him just as if--well, just as if I was his mother."
"The Lord"ll love you for it, Jack," said Miss Jane, "and so"ll Rose Gaither. When ever"thing else happens," she continued, solemnly, "put your trust in the Lord, and don"t have no mis...o...b..s of Rose."
The superst.i.tion that recognises omens and portents we are apt to laugh at as vulgar, but it has an enduring basis in the fact that no circ.u.mstance can be regarded as absolutely trivial. Events apparently the most trifling lead" to the most tremendous results. The wisest of us know not by what process the casual is transformed into the dreadful, nor how accident is twisted into fate.
Jack Carew visited the Inchlys almost daily; yet if he had postponed the visit, the purport of which has been given above, the probability is that he would have been spared much suffering; on the other hand, he would have missed much happiness that came to him at a time of life when he was best prepared to appreciate it. He had determined in his own mind to sell the little land and the few negroes he had saved from the wreck his father"s extravagance had made; he had determined to sell these, and slip away with his father to a new life in the West; but his conversation with Miss Jane gave him new hope and courage, so that when Bradley Gaither, a few weeks afterwards, offered to buy the Carew place for two or three times its value, he received a curt and contemptuous message of refusal.
Young Carew was high-strung and sensitive, even as a boy, and events had only served to develop these traits. When he was compelled to leave college to take charge of his father"s" affairs, he felt that his name was disgraced for ever. He found, however, that all who had known him were anxious to hold up his hands, and to give him such support as one friend is prepared to give another. If the Pinetuckians were simple-minded, they were also sympathetic, There was something gracious as well as wholesome in their att.i.tude. The men somehow succeeded in impressing him with a vague idea that they had pa.s.sed through just such troubles in their youth. The idea was encouraging, and Jack Carew made the most of it.
But he never thought of Rose Gaither without a sense of deepest humiliation. He had loved Rose when they were schoolchildren together, but his pa.s.sion had now reached such proportions that he deeply resented the fact that his school-hoy love had been so careless and shallow a feeling. Now that circ.u.mstances had placed her beyond his reach, he regretted that his youthful love experience was not worthier of the place it held in his remembrance. He could forget that Rose Gaither was the daughter of the man to whom he attributed his troubles, but he could never forget that he himself was the son of a man whose weakness had found him out at an age when manhood ought to have made him strong.
Still, Jack Carew made the most of a bad situation. He had the courage, the endurance, and the hopefulness of youth. He faced his perplexities with at least the appearance of good-humour; and if he had his moments of despair, when the skeleton in the jug in the closet paraded in public, Pinetucky never suspected it. The truth is, while Pinetucky was sympathetic and neighbourly, it was not inclined to make a great fuss over those who took a dram too much now and then. Intemperance was an evil, to be sure; but even intemperance had its humorous side in those days, and Pinetucky was apt to look at the humorous side.
One fine morning, however, Pinetuoky awoke to the fact that it was the centre and scene of a decided sensation. Rumour pulled on her bonnet and boots, and went gadding about like mad. Pinetucky was astonished, then perplexed, then distressed, and finally indignant, as became a conservative and moral community. A little after sunrise, Bradley Gaither had galloped up to Squire Inchly"s door with the information that two bales of cotton had been stolen from hie place the night before.
The facts, as sot forth by Bradley Gaither, were that he had twelve bales of cotton ready for market. The twelve balei had been loaded upon three, wagons, and the wagons were to start for Augusta at daybreak. At the last moment, when everything was ready, the teams harnessed, and the drivers in their seats, it was discovered that two bales of the cotton were missing. Fortunately, it had rained during the night, and Bradley Gaither had waited until it was light enough to make an investigation. He found that a wagon bad been driven to his packing-screw. He saw, moreover, that but one wagon had pa.s.sed along the road after the rain, and it was an easy matter to follow the tracks.
The fact of the theft had surprised Squire Inchly, but the details created consternation in his mind. The tracks of the wagon led to the Carew place! Squire Inchly was prompt with a rebuke.
"Why, you"ve woke up wi" a joke in your mouth, Mr. Gaither. Now that you"ve spit it out, less start fresh. A spiteful joke before breakfus"
"ll make your flesh crawl arter supper, Mr. Gaither."
Squire Inchly spoke seriously, as became a magistrate. Bradley Gaither"s thin lips grew thinner as he smiled.
"I"m as serious as the thieves that stole my cotton, Squire Inchly,"
said Bradley Gaither.
"Two whole bales of cotton in these days is a heavy loss," said the Squire, reflectively. "I hope you"ll ketch the inconsiderate parties to the larceny."
"If you will go with me, Squire, we"ll call by for Brother Gossett and Colonel Hightower, and if I"m not mistaken we"ll find the cotton not far from here."
"Well, sir," said the Squire, indignantly, "you won"t find it on the Carew place. I"ll go wi" you and welcome. We don"t need no search warrant."
The long and the short of it was that the cotton was found concealed in Jack Carew"s rickety barn under a pile of fodder. Of those who joined Bradley Gaither in the search, not one believed that the cottor would be found on the Carew place; and some of them had even gone so far as to suggest to Mr. Gaither that his suspicions had been fathered by his prejudices; but that injured individual merely smiled his cold little smile, and declared that there could be no harm in following the wagon tracks. This was reasonable enough; and the result was that not only was the cotton found, but the wagon standing under the shelter, and two mules at the trough in the lot showed signs of having been used.
These things so shocked those who had gone with Bradley Gaither that they had little to say. They stood confounded. They could not successfully dispute the evidence of their eyes.
They were simple-minded men, and therefore sympathetic. Each one felt ashamed. They did not look into each other"s eyes and give utterance to expressions of astonishment. They said nothing; but each one, with the exception of Bradley Gaither, fell into a state of mental confusion akin to awe.
When Bradley Gaither, with cm. air of triumph, asked them if they were satisfied, they said nothing, but turned and walked away one after the other.
They turned and walked away, and went to their homes; and somehow after that, though the sun shone as brightly and the birds fluttered and sang as joyously, a silence fell upon Pinetucky,--a silence full of austerity. The men talked in subdued tones when they met, as though they expected justice to discharge one of her thunderbolts at their feet; and the women went about their duties with a degree of nervousness that was aptly described by Miss Jane Inchly long afterwards, when reciting the experiences of that most memorable day in the history of Pinetucky. "I let a sifter drop out "n my hand," said she, "and I declare to gracious if it didn"t sound like a cannon had went off."
In all that neighbourhood the Carews, father and son, had but one accuser, and not one apologist. Pinetucky existed in a primitive period, as we are in the habit of believing now, and its people were simple-minded people. In this age of progress and culture, morality and justice are arrayed in many refinements of speech and thought. They have been readjusted, so to speak, by science; but in Pinetucky in the forties, morality and justice were as robust and as severe as they are in the Bible.
It was not until after the machinery of justice had been set in motion that Pinetucky allowed itself to comment on the case; but the comment was justified by the peculiar conduct of the Carews, When they were confronted with the facts--the cotton concealed in the barn and the warrant in the hands of the sheriff,--old Billy Carew fell to trembling as though he had the palsy. Jack had turned pale as death, and had made a movement toward Bradley Gaither as though to offer violence; but when he saw his father shaking so, the colour returned to his face, and he exclaimed quickly--
"The warrant is for me alone, Mr. Sheriff. Pay no attention to father.
He is old, and his mind is weak."
"He"s a liar!" the old man screamed, when he found his voice. "He"s a miserable liar! He never stole that cotton. Don"t tetch him! don"t you dast to tetch him! He"ll lie to you, but he won"t steal your cotton!
Put my name in that warrant. Bradley Gaither stole my money and land; I reckon I"ve got the rights to steal his cotton."
"He"s drunk again," said Jack. "We"ll carry him in the house, and then I"ll be ready to go with you."
But the old man was not carried to the house without a scene. He raved, and screamed, and swore, and finally fell to the ground in a fit of impotent rage, protesting to the last that Jack was a liar. When those who were present had been worked up to the highest pitch of excitement, Bradley Gaither spoke--
"Don"t criminate yourself, Jack. I am willing to drop this matter." He appeared to be greatly agitated.
"Drop what matter?" exclaimed young Carew in a pa.s.sion. "I have a matter with you, sir, that won"t be dropped."
"Go your ways, then," said Bradley Gaither; "I"ve done my duty." With that he mounted his horse, and Jack Carew was left in the hands of the sheriff.
The machinery of the law was not as difficult to set in motion in those days as it is now. There was no delay. Pinetuoky was greatly interested in the trial, and during the two days of its continuance delegations of Pinetuckians were present as spectators. Some of these were summoned to testify to the good character of young Carew, and this they did with a simplicity that was impressive; but neither their testimony nor the efforts of the distinguished counsel for the defence, Colonel Peyton Poindexter, had any effect. The facts and the tacit admissions of Jack were against him. Colonel Poindexter"s closing speech was long remembered, and indeed is alluded to even now, as the most eloquent and impressive ever delivered in the court-house in Rockville; but it failed to convince the jury. A verdict in accordance with the facts and testimony was brought in, and Jack Carew was sentenced to serve a term in the penitentiary at Milledgeville.
The first to bring this information to Pinetucky was Bradley Gaither himself. He stopped at Squire Inehly"s for his daughter, and went in.
"What"s the news?" asked Miss Jane.
"Bad, very bad news," said Bradley Gaither.
"Jack ain"t hung, I reckon," said Miss Jane. "My mind tells me, day and night, that the poor boy in innocent as the child that"s unborn."