I fear, however, that while much of this talk was going on upon the galleries at Cowles" Farms, I myself was busier with the training of my pointer than I was with matters of politics. I was not displeased when my mother came to me presently that afternoon and suggested that we should all make a visit to Dixiana Farm, to call upon our neighbors, the Sheratons.
"Mr. Orme says he would like to meet Colonel Sheraton," she explained, "and thee knows that we have not been to see our neighbors for some time now. I thought that perhaps Colonel Sheraton might be moved to listen to me as well as to Mr. Orme, if I should speak of peace--not in argument, as thee knows, but as his neighbor."
She looked at me a moment, her hand dusting at my coat. "Thee knows the Sheratons and the Cowles have sometimes been friends and sometimes enemies--I would rather we were friends. And, Jack, Miss Grace is quite thy equal--it any may be the equal of my boy. And some day thee must be thinking, thee knows--"
"I was already thinking, mother," said I gravely; and so, indeed, I was, though perhaps not quite as she imagined.
At least that is how we happened to ride to the Sheratons that afternoon, in our greater carriage, my father and Mr. Orme by the side of my mother, and I alongside on horseback. In some way the visit seemed to have a formal nature.
Colonel Sheraton met us at his lawn, and as the day was somewhat warm, asked us to be seated in the chairs beneath the oaks. Here Miss Grace joined us presently, and Orme was presented to her, as well as to Mrs.
Sheraton, tall, dark, and lace-draped, who also joined us in response to Colonel Sheraton"s request. I could not fail to notice the quick glance with which Orme took in the face and figure of Grace Sheraton; and, indeed he had been a critical man who would not have called her fair to look upon.
The elder members of the party fell to conversing in their rocking-chairs there on the lawn, and I was selfish enough to withdraw Miss Grace to the gallery steps, where we sat for a time, laughing and talking, while I pulled the ears of their hunting dog, and rolled under foot a puppy or two, which were my friends. I say, none could have failed to call Grace Sheraton fair. It pleased me better to sit there on the gallery steps and talk with her than to listen once more to the arguments over slavery and secession. I could hear Colonel Sheraton"s deep voice every now and then emphatically coinciding with some statement made by Orme. I could see the clean-cut features of the latter, and his gestures, strongly but not flamboyantly made.
As for us two, the language that goes without speech between a young man and a maid pa.s.sed between us. I rejoiced to mock at her, always, and did so now, declaring again my purpose to treat her simply as my neighbor and not as a young lady finished at the best schools of Philadelphia.
But presently in some way, I scarce can say by whose first motion, we arose and strolled together around the corner of the house and out into the orchard.
CHAPTER V
THE MADNESS OF MUCH KISSING
"That was a very n.o.ble thing of you," Miss Grace Sheraton was saying to me, as we pa.s.sed slowly among the big trees of the Sheraton apple orchard. Her eyes were rather soft and a slight color lay upon her cheeks, whose ivory hue was rarely heightened in this way.
"I am in ignorance, Miss Grace," I said to her.
"Fie! You know very well what I mean--about yesterday."
"Oh, that," said I, and went rather red of the face, for I thought she meant my salutation at the gate.
She, redder now than myself, needed no explanation as to what I meant.
"No, not that," she began hastily, "that was not n.o.ble, but vile of you!
I mean at the tavern, where you took my part--"
So then I saw that word in some way had come to her of the little brawl between Harry Singleton and myself. Then indeed my face grew scarlet.
"It was nothing," said I, "simply nothing at all." But to this she would not listen.
"To protect an absent woman is always manly," she said. (It was the women of the South who set us all foolish about chivalry.) "I thank you for caring for my name."
Now, I should have grown warmer in the face and in the heart at this, but the very truth is that I felt a chill come over me, as though I were getting deeper into cold water. I guessed her mind. Now, how was I, who had kissed her at the lane, who had defended her when absent, who called now in state with his father and mother in the family carriage--how was I to say I was not of the same mind as she? I pulled the ears of the hunting dog until he yelped in pain.
We were deep in the great Sheraton orchard, across the fence which divided it from the house grounds, so far that only the great chimney of the house showed above the trees. The shade was gracious, the fragrance alluring. At a distance the voices of singing negroes came to us.
Presently we came to a fallen apple tree, a giant perhaps planted there generations before. We seated ourselves here, and we should have been happy, for we were young, and all about us was sweet and comforting.
Yet, on my honor, I would rather at that moment have been talking to my mother than to Grace Sheraton. I did not know why.
For some time we sat there, pulling at apple blossoms and gra.s.s stems, and talking of many things quite beside the real question; but at last there came an interruption. I heard the sound of a low, rumbling bellow approaching through the trees, and as I looked up I saw, coming forward with a certain confidence, Sir Jonas, the red Sheraton bull, with a ring in his nose, and in his carriage an intense haughtiness for one so young. I knew all about Sir Jonas, for we had bred him on our farm, and sold him not long since to the Sheratons.
Miss Grace gathered her skirts for instant flight, but I quickly pushed her down. I knew the nature of Sir Jonas very well, and saw that flight would mean disaster long before she could reach any place of safety.
"Keep quiet," I said to her in a low voice. "Don"t make any quick motions, or he"ll charge. Come with me, slowly now."
Very pale, and with eyes staring at the intruder, she arose as I bade her and slowly moved toward the tree which I had in mind. "Now--quick!"
I said, and catching her beneath the arms I swung her up into the low branches. Her light lawn gown caught on a knotty limb, somewhat to her perturbation, and ere I could adjust it and get her safe aloft Sir Jonas had made up his mind. He came on with head down, in a short, savage rush, and his horn missed my trouser leg by no more than an inch as I dodged around the tree. At this I laughed, but Miss Grace screamed, until between my hasty actions I called to her to keep quiet.
Sir Jonas seemed to have forgotten my voice, and though I commanded him to be gone, he only shook his curly front and came again with head low and short legs working very fast. Once more he nearly caught me with a side lunge of his wicked horns as he whirled. He tossed up his head then and bolted for the tree where Miss Grace had her refuge. Then I saw it was the red lining of her Parisian parasol which had enraged him. "Throw it down!" I called out to her. She could not find it in her heart to toss it straight down to Sir Jonas, who would have trampled it at once, so she cast it sidelong toward me, and inch by inch I beat Sir Jonas in the race to it. Then I resolved that he should not have it at all, and so tossed it into the branches of another tree as I ran.
"Come," called the girl to me, "jump! Get up into a tree. He can"t catch you there."
But I was in no mind to take to a tree, and wait for some inglorious discovery by a rescue party from the house. I found my fighting blood rising, and became of the mind to show Sir Jonas who was his master, regardless of who might be his owner.
His youth kept him in good wind still, and he charged me again and again, keeping me hard put to it to find trees enough, even in an orchard full of trees. Once he ripped the bark half off a big trunk as I sprang behind it, and he stood with his head still pressed there, not two feet from where I was, with my hand against the tree, braced for a sudden spring. His front foot dug in the sod, his eyes were red, and between his grumbles his breath came in puffs and snorts of anger.
Evidently he meant me ill, and this thought offended me.
Near by me on the ground lay a ragged limb, cut from some tree by the pruners, now dry, tough and not ill-shaped for a club. I reached back with my foot and pulled it within reach, then stooped quickly and got it in hand, breaking off a few of the lesser branches with one foot, as we still stood there eying each other. "Now, sir," said I to Sir Jonas at last, "I shall show you that no little bull two years old can make me a laughing stock." Then I sprang out and carried the war into Africa forthwith.
Sir Jonas was surprised when I came from behind the tree and swung a hard blow to the side of his tender nose; and as I repeated this, he grunted, blew out his breath and turned his head to one side with closed eyes, raising his muzzle aloft in pain. Once more I struck him fair on the muzzle, and this time he bawled loudly in surprise and anguish, and so turned to run. This act of his offered me fair hold upon his tail, and so affixed to him, I followed smiting him upon the back with blows which I think cut through his hide where the pointed knots struck. Thus with loud orders and with a voice which he ought better to have remembered, I brought him to his senses and pursued him entirely out of the orchard, so that he had no mind whatever to return. After which, with what dignity I could summon, I returned to the tree where Grace Sheraton was still perched aloft. Drawing my riding gloves from my pocket I reached up my hands, somewhat soiled with the encounter, and so helped her down to earth once more. And once more her gaze, soft and not easily to be mistaken, rested upon me.
"Tell me, Jack Cowles," she said, "is there anything in the world you are afraid to do?"
"At least I"m not afraid to give a lesson to any little Sir Jonas that has forgot his manners," I replied. "But I hope you are not hurt in any way?" She shook her head, smoothing out her gown, and again raised her eyes to mine.
We seated ourselves again upon our fallen apple tree. Her hand fell upon my coat sleeve. We raised our eyes. They met. Our lips met also--I do not know how.
I do not hold myself either guilty or guiltless. I am only a man now. I was only a boy then. But even then I had my notions, right or wrong, as to what a gentleman should be and do. At least this is how Grace Sheraton and I became engaged.
CHAPTER VI
A SAD LOVER
I shall never forget the scene there under the oak of the Sheraton front yard, which met my gaze when Miss Grace and I came about the corner of the house.
Before us, and facing each other, stood my father and Colonel Sheraton, the former standing straight and tall, Colonel Sheraton with tightly clenched hand resting on his stick, his white hair thrown back, his s.h.a.ggy brows contracted. My mother sat in the low rocker which had been brought to her, and opposite her, leaning forward, was Mrs. Sheraton, tall, thin, her black eyes fixed upon the men. Orme, also standing, his hands behind him, regarded the troubled men intently. Near at hand was the Sheratons" Jim, his face also fixed upon them; and such was his own emotion that he had tipped his silver tray and dropped one of the Sheraton cut gla.s.s julep gla.s.ses to the sod.
It was mid-afternoon, or evening, as we call it in Virginia, and the light was still frank and strong, though the wind was softening among the great oaks, and the flowers were sweet all about. It was a scene of peace; but it was not peace which occupied those who made its central figures.
"I tell you, Cowles," said Colonel Sheraton, grinding his stick into the turf, "you do not talk like a Virginian. If the North keeps on this course, then we Southerners must start a country of our own. Look, man--" He swept about him an arm which included his own wide acres and ours, lying there shimmering clear to the thin line of the old Blue Ridge--"We must fight for these homes!"
My mother stirred in her chair, but she made no speech, only looked at my father.
"You forget, Colonel," said my father in his low, deep voice, "that this man Lincoln has not yet been elected, and that even if elected he may prove a greater figure than we think. He has not yet had chance to learn the South."