How much it might have saved Mrs. Ellison later had she now simply picked up this book, admitted its ownership and so concealed it for ever! How much, too, that had meant in the life of Miss Lady, its chance finder! Yet this was not to be. Fate sometimes teaches a woman to say the thing which at the instant relieves, though it later damns. It was Mrs. Ellison's fate to deny all knowledge of this little volume.
"Come, we must hurry, my child," she repeated. Miss Lady resolved to come back after dinner and look further into this interesting book. Mrs. Ellison resolved the same. Her interest in the little volume was far greater than she cared to evince. She hesitated. Her eyes turned to it again and again, her hands longed to clutch it. Once more in her possession, she resolved that never in the future should it be left lying carelessly about, to fall into precisely the wrong hands. She hurried Miss Lady away from the place.
"Go and get ready for dinner," she commanded, "and try to look your best to-night; you know we've Mr. Decherd, and perhaps other company. That girl Delphine has run away, and I had to look after things myself; I don't want you to disgrace me — "
"I'll try not," said Miss Lady, coolly, and swept her a mocking courtesy.
Mrs. Ellison gazed after her with ill-veiled hostility, but turned away presently, quite as anxious as she was angry. This girl was a problem, and a dangerous one as well.
Things were not going smoothly at the Big House. Sam, the curly- headed, embryonic butler, who gazed out over Colonel Blount's dinner- table each evening in solemn dignity, knew that something was wrong with his people that evening, though he could not tell what. Some of them talked too much. Miss Lady laughed too much. The boss was too thoughtful, and young Massa Decherd — whom Sam had never learned to like — was too scowling. Little Sam was almost relieved when a knock summoned him without, and he betook his ten years of dignity from Colonel Blount's right hand, to learn what might be wanted at the door.
"What is it, Sam?" asked Colonel Blount.
"M-m-m-m-man outside, sah, h-h-h-he wants to see you, sah."
"Well, Sam, if there is a gentleman outside, why don't you ask him to come in and eat with us? Don't you know your manners, Sam? Why do I give you this place to run if you can't ask a gentleman to come in and sit at your table when we are having dinner?"
"D-d-did as-s-s-sk him, sah," said Sam, "b-b-but he wouldn't c-c-c- come in; n-n-n-no, sah, wouldn't c-c-c-come in."
"What, wouldn't come in, eh?"
"No, sah, s-s-s-says you must come out, sah. W-w-w-wants to see you, sah. H-h-h-he won't wait."
It was the claim agent of the Y. V. railroad who stood on the gallery awaiting the appearance of Colonel Blount. The latter looked at him quietly for a moment, and held out his hand.
"Come in," said he, "you are just in time for dinner. I'm glad to see you back."
"Colonel Blount," said Eddring, in spite of himself grown again swiftly choleric, "damn your dinner! I have come back because as a white man I've got to tell you what you ought to know." There was an eagerness in his tone whose import was recognized by Blount.
"What's up?" said he, shortly. "Niggers?"
"Yes, down below there."
"Down towards the Sands' place?"
"Yes, they've been holding a meeting all the afternoon; they've got a regular church over there in the cane. They've got a leader this time, of some sort; I can't find out who it is, but it all means trouble. There has been a plot going on for a long time. They think you have been too rough with them, and, in fact, I reckon they are just generally right desperate and dangerous. They've heard a lot of this political and educational talk from up North, and it's done what might have been expected all along. The niggers are up. They are going to march on your house to-night. Why, haven't you heard their infernal drum going all the evening! This is insurrection, I tell you!"
"Come in," said Blount, simply. "I thank you."
"I don't want any thanks," said Eddring, "I am telling you this because you are a white man and so am I. It is my duty."
Blount reached out his hand again. "Not necessary," said Eddring; but the older man threw a long arm over his shoulders, so that for an instant they looked into each other's eyes; then quickly Eddring turned and caught Blount by the hand.
"I can't come in," said he, "until you take back this infernal voucher we were wrangling over."
"Oh, well," said Blount, "I will take it, if that will please you, or you may keep it, if that will please you better. There's no time for that sort of thing now. Come in and sit down at my table — and now you, Sam, run and tell Mollie to ring the big plantation bell, and keep it ringing until I tell her to stop."
John Eddring thus came back to the Big House which lately he had left in anger; and as he entered the great dining-room he saw once more his coveted picture, the image of the morning, the tall young girl with the brown ruff of hair rolling back from the smooth brow, above the clear-seeing dark eyes. Here again, by miracle, had come his friend, to meet him in the smother of the grimy way of life! Yet he thought the girl looked at him but coldly as he stood wearily apart. He felt himself unaccredited, a man of no station. Again there swept over him the feeling of his own insufficiency, his own failure of all life's things worth having. It seemed to him that in this young girl's gaze there called out to him the cool, insolent tone of pitiless youth, saying: "I know you not; you are not my friend."
Himself simple and direct in good masculine sort, he knew little of such thing as coquetry, nor knew that the soul feminine might hide much curiosity, if not interest, behind a glance indifferently turned, a word calmly or coolly spoken. And so he raged, unhappy in his own ignorance, and most of all unhappy for that, now disobedient to all his mandates, there surged up in his heart a great and dangerous longing, the mutiny of a soul too long crushed down by the iron hand of the commonplace, — the iron hand of this thing called Duty.
Out of this sudden conflict, and out of this sudden misery, he could formulate no better course of action to set him straight; and in the uneasy silence, tense, overstrung, he almost longed for that physical action which he knew must presently follow.
But now there pealed out suddenly upon the air of evening the mighty clangor of the great bell, the one used only in time of stress at the Big House, which soon sent all else silent. High and clear arose the note, ringing out for a moment and then silent, only to resume. The dinner in the great hall passed with few explanations vouchsafed, and presently Mrs. Ellison hurried Miss Lady away. Eddring, dimly aware that now in spite of himself he was established on some sort of footing in the Big House, none the less reflected that the occasion counted for but little from a social standpoint. He caught himself looking at the door where the tall young woman had disappeared. For the time he forgot his own station, and his own errand in that place. He forgot no more than an instant, for there came to him the swift feeling that a grave peril impended for this girl, for all the white women of the house. From that moment his problems became savagely impersonal. He was simply one of a few men called upon to defend a home, and the women of that home. He asked his soul as to his fitness for the task, and rejoiced grimly that he found himself calm and ready for this thing which was now his duty.
Colonel Calvin Blount scarcely spoke, yet he gladly welcomed his neighbor, the storekeeper, Ben Buckner, who now came strolling up to the gallery steps; and he smiled with yet greater pleasure when he peered out of the window into the twilight and saw riding up to the gate his other neighbor, Jim Bowles, who carried across the saddle in front of him a long rifle. Behind Bowles, on the family mule, sat his wife, Sarah Ann, dipping snuff vigorously.
"Good even', Cunnel," said Bowles, alighting, "I heah you-all got a b'ah this mawnin'. I just brung my own gun 'long heah, 'lowin' I might see somethin' 'long the road, even if it is gittin' a little dark." Blount smiled grimly. No mention was made of the ringing of the bell until Blount himself explained.
"You-all know something is up," said he.
"Yas, sah," said Buckner, evincing