"Slavery has EVERYTHING to do with the question."
The Major looked bewildered; the General frowned, and the keen-eyed lawyer spoke again:
"The struggle was written in the Const.i.tution. The framers evaded it. Logic leads one way as well as another and no man can logically blame another for the way he goes."
"No more politics now, gentlemen," said the General quickly. "We will join the ladies. Harry," he added, with some sternness, "lead the way!"
As the three boys rose, Chad lifted his gla.s.s. His face was pale and his lips trembled.
"May I propose a toast, General Dean?"
"Why, certainly," said the General, kindly.
"I want to drink to one man but for whom I might be in a log cabin now, and might have died there for all I know-my friend and, thank G.o.d! my kinsman-Major Buford."
It was irregular and hardly in good taste, but the boy had waited till the ladies were gone, and it touched the Major that he should want to make such a public acknowledgment that there should be no false colors in the flag he meant henceforth to bear.
The startled guests drank blindly to the confused Major, though they knew not why, but as the lads disappeared the lawyer asked:
"Who is that boy, Major?"
Outside, the same question had been asked among the ladies and the same story told. The three girls remembered him vaguely, they said, and when Chad reappeared, in the eyes of the poetess at least, the halo of romance floated above his head.
She was waiting for Chad when he came out on the porch, and she shook her curls and flashed her eyes in a way that almost alarmed him. Old Mammy dropped him a curtsey, for she had had her orders, and, behind her, s...o...b..ll, now a tall, fine-looking coal-black youth, grinned a welcome. The three girls were walking under the trees, with their arms mysteriously twined about one anther"s waists, and the poetess walked down toward them with the three lads, Richard Hunt following. Chad could not know how it happened, but, a moment later, Dan was walking away with Nellie Hunt one way; Harry with Elizabeth Morgan the other; the Lieutenant had Margaret alone, and Miss Overstreet was leading him away, raving meanwhile about the beauty of field and sky. As they went toward the gate he could not help flashing one look toward the pair under the fir tree. An amused smile was playing under the Lieutenant"s beautiful mustache, his eyes were dancing with mischief, and Margaret was blushing with anything else than displeasure.
"Oho!" he said, as Chad and his companion pa.s.sed on. "Sits the wind in that corner? Bless me, if looks could kill, I"d have a happy death here at your feet, Mistress Margaret. SEE the young man! It"s the second time he has almost slain me."
Chad could scarcely hear Miss Jennie"s happy chatter, scarcely saw the shaking curls, the eyes all but in a frenzy of rolling. His eyes were in the back of his head, and his backward-listening ears heard only Margaret"s laugh behind him.
"Oh, I do love the autumn"-it was at the foot of those steps, thought Chad, that he first saw Margaret springing to the back of her pony and dashing off under the fir trees-"and it"s coming. There"s one scarlet leaf already"-Chad could see the rock fence where he had sat that spring day-"it"s curious and mournful that you can see in any season a sign of the next to come." And there was the creek where he found Dan fishing, and there the road led to the ford where Margaret had spurned his offer of a slimy fish-ugh! "I do love the autumn. It makes me feel like the young woman who told Emerson that she had such mammoth thoughts she couldn"t give them utterance-why, wake up, Mr. Buford, wake up!" Chad came to with a start.
"Do you know you aren"t very polite, Mr. Buford?" Mr. Buford! That did sound funny.
"But I know what the matter is," she went on. "I saw you look"-she nodded her head backward. "Can you keep a secret?" Chad nodded; he had not yet opened his lips.
"Thae"s going to be a match back there. He"s only a few years older. The French say that a woman should be half a man"s age plus seven years. That would make her only a few years too young, and she can wait." Chad was scarlet under the girl"s mischievous torture, but a cry from the house saved him. Dan was calling them back.
"Mr. Hunt has to go back early to drill the Rifles. Can you keep another secret?" Again Chad nodded gravely. "Well, he is going to drive me back. I"ll tell him what a dangerous rival he has." Chad was dumb; there was much yet for him to learn before he could parry with a tongue like hers.
"He"s very good-looking," said Miss Jennie, when she joined the girls, "but oh, so stupid."
Margaret turned quickly and unsuspiciously. "Stupid! Why, he"s the first man in his cla.s.s."
"Oh," said Miss Jennie, with a demure smile, "perhaps I couldn"t draw him out," and Margaret flushed to have caught the deftly tossed bait so readily.
A moment later the Lieutenant was gathering up the reins, with Miss Jennie by his side. He gave a bow to Margaret, and Miss Jennie nodded to Chad.
"Come see me when you come to town, Mr. Buford," she called, as though to an old friend, and still Chad was dumb, though he lifted his hat gravely.
At no time was Chad alone with Margaret, and he was not sorry-her manner so puzzled him. The three lads and three girls walked together through Mrs. Dean"s garden with its gra.s.s walks and flower beds and vegetable patches surrounded with rose bushes. At the lower edge they could see the barn with sheep in the yard around it, and there were the very stiles where Harry and Margaret had sat in state when Dan and Chad were charging in the tournament. The thing might never have happened for any sign from Harry or Dan or Margaret, and Chad began to wonder if his past or his present were a dream.
How fine this courtesy was Chad could not realize. Neither could he know that the favor Margaret had shown him when he was little more than outcast he must now, as an equal, win for himself. Miss Jennie had called him "Mr. Buford." He wondered what Margaret would call him when he came to say good-by. She called him nothing. She only smiled at him.
"You must come to see us soon again," she said, graciously, and so said all the Deans.
The Major was quiet going home, and Miss Lucy drowsed. All evening the Major was quiet.
"If a fight does come," he said, when they were going to bed, "I reckon I"m not too old to take a hand."
"And I reckon I"m not too young," said Chad.
CHAPTER 18.
THE SPIRIT OF "76 AND THE SHADOW OF "61
One night, in the following April, there was a great dance in Lexington. Next day the news of Sumter came. Chad pleaded to be let off from the dance, but the Major would not hear of it. It was a fancy-dress ball, and the Major had a pet purpose of his own that he wanted gratified and Chad had promised to aid him. That fancy was that Chad should go in regimentals, as the stern, old soldier on the wall, of whom the Major swore the boy was the "spit and image." The Major himself helped Chad dress in wig, peruke, stock, breeches, boots, spurs, c.o.c.ked hat, sword and all. And then he led the boy down into the parlor, where Miss Lucy was waiting for them, and stood him up on one side of the portrait. To please the old fellow, Chad laughingly struck the att.i.tude of the pictured soldier, and the Major cried:
"What"d I tell you, Lucy!" Then he advanced and made a low bow.
"General Buford," he said, "General Washington"s compliments, and will General Buford plant the flag on that hill where the left wing of the British is entrenched?"
"Hush, Cal," said Miss Lucy, laughing.
"General Buford"s compliments to General Washington. General Buford will plant that flag on ANY hill that ANY enemy holds against it."
The lad"s face paled as the words, by some curious impulse, sprang to his lips, but the unsuspecting Major saw no lurking significance in his manner, nor in what he said, and then there was a rumble of carriage wheels at the door.
The winter had sped swiftly. Chad had done his work in college only fairly well, for Margaret had been a disturbing factor. The girl was an impenetrable mystery to him, for the past between them was not only wiped clean-it seemed quite gone. Once only had he dared to open his lips about the old days, and the girl"s flushed silence made a like mistake forever impossible. He came and went at the Deans" as he pleased. Always they were kind, courteous, hospitable-no more, no less, unvaryingly. During the Christmas holidays he and Margaret had had a foolish quarrel, and it was then that Chad took his little fling at his little world-a fling that was foolish, but harmful, chiefly in that it took his time and his mind and his energy from his work. He not only neglected his studies, but he fell in with the wild young bucks of the town, learned to play cards, took more wine than was good for him sometimes, was on the verge of several duels, and night after night raced home in his buggy against the coming dawn. Though Miss Lucy looked worried, the indulgent old Major made no protest. Indeed he was rather pleased. Chad was sowing his wild oats-it was in the blood, and the mood would pa.s.s. It did pa.s.s, naturally enough, on the very day that the breach between him and Margaret was partly healed; and the heart of Caleb Hazel, whom Chad, for months, had not dared to face, was made glad when the boy came back to him remorseful and repentant-the old Chad once more.
They were late in getting to the dance. Every window in the old Hunt home was brilliant with light. Chinese lanterns swung in the big yard. The scent of early spring flowers smote the fresh night air. Music and the murmur of nimble feet and happy laughter swept out the wide-open doors past which white figures flitted swiftly. Scarcely anybody knew Chad in his regimentals, and the Major, with the delight of a boy, led him around, gravely presenting him as General Buford here and there. Indeed, the lad made a n.o.ble figure with his superb height and bearing, and he wore sword and spurs as though born to them. Margaret was dancing with Richard Hunt when she saw his eyes searching for her through the room, and she gave him a radiant smile that almost stunned him. She had been haughty and distant when he went to her to plead forgiveness: she had been too hard, and Margaret, too, was repentant.
"Why, who"s that?" asked Richard Hunt. "Oh, yes," he added, getting his answer from Margaret"s face. "Bless me, but he"s fine-the very spirit of "76. I must have him in the Rifles."
"Will you make him a lieutenant?" asked Margaret.
"Why, yes, I will," said Mr. Hunt, decisively. "I"ll resign myself in his favor, if it pleases you."
"Oh, no, no-no one could fill your place."
"Well, he can, I fear-and here he comes to do it. I"ll have to retreat some time, and I suppose I"d as well begin now." And the gallant gentleman bowed to Chad.
"Will you pardon me, Miss Margaret? My mother is calling me."
"You must have keen ears," said Margaret; "your mother is upstairs."
"Yes; but she wants me. Everybody wants me, but-" he bowed again with an imperturbable smile and went his way.