"I want that job!" MacArthur cried eagerly.
"I"ll let you know when the time comes."
The farmer smiled:
"I _am_ a Scotchman--ain"t I?"
"And a good one, too!"
With his hand on the door, the rugged face aflame with patriotic fire, he slowly repeated:
"The cunning of the fox and the courage of the lion!--And by the living G.o.d, we"ll win this time, boy!"
Norton heard him laugh aloud as he hurried down the stairs. Gazing again from his window at the black clouds of negroes floating across the Square, he slowly muttered:
"Yes, we"ll win this time!--but twenty years from now--I wonder!"
He took up the little black coffin and smiled at the perfection of its workmanship:
"I think I know the young gentleman who made that and he may give me trouble."
He thrust the thing into a drawer, seized his hat, strolled down a side street and slowly pa.s.sed the cabinet shop of the workman whom he suspected.
It was closed. Evidently the master had business outside. It was barely possible, of course, that he had gone to the galleries of the Capitol to hear the long-expected message of the Governor against the Klan. The galleries had been packed for the past two sessions in antic.i.p.ation of this threatened message. The Capital city was only a town of five thousand white inhabitants and four thousand blacks. Rumors of impending political movements flew from house to house with the swiftness of village gossip.
He walked to the Capitol building by a quiet street. As he pa.s.sed through the echoing corridor the rotund figure of Schlitz, the Carpetbagger, leader of the House of Representatives, emerged from the Governor"s office.
The red face flushed a purple hue as his eye rested on his arch-enemy of the _Eagle and Phoenix_. He tried to smile and nodded to Norton. His smile was answered by a cold stare and a quickened step.
Schlitz had been a teamster"s scullion in the Union Army. He was not even an army cook, but a servant of servants. He was now the master of the Legislature of a great Southern state and controlled its black, ignorant members with a snap of his bloated fingers. There was but one man Norton loathed with greater intensity and that was the shrewd little Scalawag Governor, the native traitor who had betrayed his people to win office. A conference of these two cronies was always an ill omen for the state.
He hurried up the winding stairs, pushed his way into a corner of the crowded galleries from which he could see every face and searched in vain for his young workman.
He stood for a moment, looked down on the floor of the House and watched a Black Parliament at work making laws to govern the children of the men who had created the Republic--watched them through fetid smoke, the vapors of stale whiskey and the deafening roar of half-drunken brutes as they voted millions in taxes, their leaders had already stolen.
The red blood rushed to his cheeks and the big veins on his slender swarthy neck stood out for a moment like drawn cords.
He hurried down to the Court House Square, walked with long, leisurely stride through the thinning crowds, and paused before a vacant lot on the opposite side of the street. A dozen or more horses were still tied to the racks provided for the accommodation of countrymen.
"Funny," he muttered, "farmers start home before sundown, and it"s dusk--I wonder if it"s possible!"
He crossed the street, strolled carelessly among the horses and noted that their saddles had not been removed and the still more significant fact that their saddle blankets were unusually thick. Only an eye trained to observe this fact would have noticed it. He lifted the edge of one of the blankets and saw the white and scarlet edges of a Klan costume. It was true. The young dare-devil who had sent that message to old Peeler had planned an unauthorized raid. Only a crowd of youngsters bent on a night"s fun, he knew; and yet the act at this moment meant certain anarchy unless he nipped it in the bud. The Klan was a dangerous inst.i.tution. Its only salvation lay in the absolute obedience of its members to the orders of an intelligent and patriotic chief. Unless the word of that chief remained the sole law of its life, a reign of terror by irresponsible fools would follow at once. As commander of the Klan in his county he must subdue this lawless element. It must be done with an iron hand and done immediately or it would be too late. His decision to act was instantaneous.
He sent a message to his wife that he couldn"t get home for supper, locked his door and in three hours finished his day"s work. There was ample time to head these boys off before they reached old Peeler"s house. They couldn"t start before eleven, yet he would take no chances. He determined to arrive an hour ahead of them.
The night was gloriously beautiful--a clear star-gemmed sky in the full tide of a Southern summer, the first week in August. He paused inside the gate of his home and drank for a moment the perfume of the roses on the lawn. The light from the window of his wife"s room poured a mellow flood of welcome through the shadows beside the white, fluted columns. This home of his father"s was all the wreck of war had left him and his heart gave a throb of joy to-night that it was his.
Behind the room where the delicate wife lay, a petted invalid, was the nursery. His baby boy was there, nestling in the arms of the black mammy who had nursed him twenty odd years ago. He could hear the soft crooning of her dear old voice singing the child to sleep. The heart of the young father swelled with pride. He loved his frail little wife with a deep, tender pa.s.sion, but this big rosy-cheeked, laughing boy, which she had given him six months ago, he fairly worshipped.
He stopped again under the nursery window and listened to the music of the cradle. The old lullaby had waked a mocking bird in a magnolia beside the porch and he was answering her plaintive wail with a thrilling love song.
By the strange law of contrast, his memory flashed over the fields of death he had trodden in the long war.
"What does it matter after all, these wars and revolutions, if G.o.d only brings with each new generation a n.o.bler breed of men!"
He tipped softly past the window lest his footfall disturb the loved ones above, hurried to the stable, saddled his horse and slowly rode through the quiet streets of the town. On clearing the last clump of negro cabins on the outskirts his pace quickened to a gallop.
He stopped in the edge of the woods at the gate which opened from Peeler"s farm on the main road. The boys would have to enter here. He would stop them at this spot.
The solemn beauty of the night stirred his soul to visions of the future, and the coming battle which his Klan must fight for the mastery of the state. The chirp of crickets, the song of katydids and the flash of fireflies became the martial music and the flaming torches of triumphant hosts he saw marching to certain victory. But the Klan he was leading was a wild horse that must be broken to the bit or both horse and rider would plunge to ruin.
There would be at least twenty or thirty of these young marauders to-night.
If they should unite in defying his authority it would be a serious and dangerous situation. Somebody might be killed. And yet he waited without a fear of the outcome. He had faced odds before. He loved a battle when the enemy outnumbered him two to one. It stirred his blood. He had ridden with Forrest one night at the head of four hundred daring, ragged veterans, surrounded a crack Union regiment at two o"clock in the morning, and forced their commander to surrender 1800 men before he discovered the real strength of the attacking force. It stirred his blood to-night to know that General Forrest was the Commander-in-Chief of his own daring Clansmen.
Half an hour pa.s.sed without a sign of the youngsters. He grew uneasy. Could they have dared to ride so early that they had reached the house before his arrival? He must know at once. He opened the gate and galloped down the narrow track at a furious pace.
A hundred yards from Peeler"s front gate he drew rein and listened. A horse neighed in the woods, and the piercing shriek of a woman left nothing to doubt. They were already in the midst of their dangerous comedy.
He pressed cautiously toward the gate, riding in the shadows of the overhanging trees. They were dragging old Peeler across the yard toward the roadway, followed by the pleading voice of a woman begging for his worthless life.
Realizing that the raid was now an accomplished fact, Norton waited to see what the young fools were going to do. He was not long in doubt. They dragged their panting, perspiring victim into the edge of the woods, tied him to a sapling and bared his back. The leader stepped forward holding a lighted torch whose flickering flames made an unearthly picture of the distorted features and bulging eyes.
"Mr. Peeler," began the solemn m.u.f.fled voice behind the cloth mask, "for your many sins and blasphemies against G.o.d and man the preachers of this county have a.s.sembled to-night to call you to repentance----"
The terror-stricken eyes bulged further and the fat neck twisted in an effort to see how many ghastly figures surrounded him, as he gasped:
"Oh, Lord--oh, h.e.l.l--are you all preachers?"
"All!" was the solemn echo from each sepulchral figure.
"Then I"m a goner--that coffin"s too big----"
"Yea, verily, there"ll be nothing left when we get through--Selah!"
solemnly cried the leader.
"But, say, look here, brethren," Peeler pleaded between shattering teeth, "can"t we compromise this thing? I"ll repent and join the church. And how"ll a contribution of fifty dollars each strike you? Now what do you say to that?"
The coward"s voice had melted into a pious whine.
The leader selected a switch from the bundle extended by a shrouded figure and without a word began to lay on. Peeler"s screams could be heard a mile.
Norton allowed them to give him a dozen lashes and spurred his horse into the crowd. There was a wild scramble to cover and most of the boys leaped to their saddles. Three white figures resolutely stood their ground.
"What"s the meaning of this, sir?" Norton sternly demanded of the man who still held the switch.
"Just a little fun, major," was the sheepish answer.
"A dangerous piece of business."
"For G.o.d"s sake, save me, Major Norton!" Peeler cried, suddenly waking from the spell of fear. "They"ve got me, sir--and it"s just like I told you, they"re all preachers--I"m a goner!"