"Still," answered the young man, as if arguing the matter out with himself, "it might not compromise your dignity so much to ride a mare that belongs to me, as to let me 'tote' you home – for that is precisely what I must do if you persist in your refusal."
The girl again laughed, merrily this time, but still she hesitated:
"Listen!" said Baillie; "that's my boy Sam coming. It would be unseemly for us to continue our quarrel in the presence of a servant."
As he spoke the voice of Sam rose from beyond the pines, in a ditty which he was singing with all the power of a robust set of vocal organs:
"My own Eliza gal – she's de colour ob de night,
When de moon it doesn't shine a little bit;
But her teeth shows white in de shaddah ob de night,
And her eyes is like a lantern when it's lit.
"Oh, Eliza!
How I prize yeh!
You'se de nicest gal dere is;
It's fer you dat I'se a-pinin',
For you're like a star dat's shinin'
When de moon it's done forgitten how to riz."
With that Sam came beaming upon the scene. His round, black, shining visage, and eyes that glittered with a humour which might have won an anchorite to merriment, resembled nothing so much as the sun at its rising, if one may think of the sun as black and glistening from a diligent rubbing with a bacon rind, which was Sam's favourite cosmetic, as it is of all the very black negroes.
Sam was sitting sidewise upon a saddleless mule, but when he saw the situation he quickly slipped to the ground, pulled his woolly forelock in lieu of doffing the hat which he had not, and asked:
"What's de mattah, Mas' Baillie?"
The girl saw the impropriety of continuing the discussion – it had ceased to be a quarrel now – in Sam's presence. So she held out her hand, and said:
"Thank you very much, Mr. Pegram. I will ride your beautiful mare, and to-morrow, if you are so minded, you may call at The Oaks to inquire how the animal has behaved toward me. Good morning, sir!"
She sprang into the saddle without waiting for young Pegram to assist her, for she was even yet determined to accept no more of attention at his hands than she must. He, in his turn, was too greatly relieved by this ending of the embarrassing scene to care for the implied snub to his gallantry. As soon as the girl rode away, which she did without pausing for a moment, Baillie Pegram turned to Sam, and without inquiring upon what errand that worthy had been going, gave the order:
"Mount your mule and ride at a respectful distance behind Miss Agatha Ronald. She may have trouble with that half-broken mare of mine. And mind you, boy, don't entertain the young lady with any of your songs as you go. When you get back to Warlock, bring me a horse to the Court-house, do you hear?"
Then leading the wounded animal upon three legs into the woods near by, Pegram fired a charge of shot from the fowling-piece which he carried, into its brain, killing the poor beast instantly and painlessly.
Having discharged this duty of mercy, the young man, with high boots drawn over his trousers' legs, set out with a brisk stride for the county-seat village, known only as "the Court-house." Entering the clerk's office, he said to the county clerk:
"As a magistrate of this county I direct you to enter a fine of five dollars against Baillie Pegram, Esq., supervisor of the Vinegar Post road, for his neglect to keep the bridge over Dogwood Branch in repair. Here's the money. Give me a receipt, please, and make the proper entries upon the court records."
"Pardon me, Mr. Pegram," answered the clerk, "but you remember that at the last term of the county court, with a full bench of magistrates sitting, it was decided to adjourn the court indefinitely in view of the disturbed condition of the time?"
"I remember that," answered the young man, "but that action was taken only upon the ground that under present circumstances it would work hardship to many for the courts to meet for the enforcement of debts. This is a very different case. As road supervisor I am charged with a public duty which I have neglected. As a magistrate it is my duty to fine every road supervisor who is derelict. No session of the court is necessary for that. I shall certainly not tolerate such neglect of duty on the part of any county officer, particularly when I happen to be myself the derelict official. So enter the fine and give me a receipt for the money."
Does all this impress the reader as quixotic? Was it a foolish sentimentalism that prompted these men to serve their neighbours and the public without pay, and, upon occasion, to hold themselves rigidly responsible to a high standard of duty? Was it quixotism which prompted George Washington to serve his country without one dollar of pay, through seven years of war, as the general of its armies, and through nearly twice that time as President, first of the Constitutional Convention, and afterwards, for eight years, as President of the nation? Was it an absurd sentimentalism that prompted him, after he had declined pay, to decline also the gifts voluntarily and urgently pressed upon him by his own and other States, and by the nation? The humourists ridicule all such sentiment. But the humourists are not a court of final appeal. At any rate, this sentimentality had its good side.
But at this time of extreme excitement, there were, no doubt, ludicrous exaggerations of sentiment and conduct now and then, and on this sixteenth day of April, 1861, the master of Warlock encountered some things that greatly amused him. Having finished his business in the clerk's office, he found himself in the midst of excited throngs. Startling news had come from Richmond that morning. In view of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln had called for seventy-five thousand men as an army with which to reduce the seceding States to subjection.
Virginia was not one of the seceding States. Up to that time, she had utterly repudiated the thought that secession was justified by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by any threat to the South which his accession to office implied.
The statesmen of Virginia had busied themselves for months with efforts to find a way out of the difficulties that beset the country. They were intent upon saving that Union which had been born of Virginia's suggestion, if such saving could be accomplished by any means that did not involve dishonour. The people of Virginia, when called upon to decide the question of their own course in such a crisis by the election of a constitutional convention, had overwhelmingly decided it against secession, and in favour of adherence to the Union. Under Virginia's influence, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Missouri had refused to secede.
But while the Virginians were thus opposed to secession, and while they were fully convinced that secession was neither necessary nor advisable under the circumstances then existing, they were of one mind in believing that the constitutional right of any State to withdraw from the Union at will was absolute and indefeasible. So when Mr. Lincoln called upon Virginia for her quota of troops with which to coerce back into the Union those States which had exercised what the Virginians held to be their rightful privilege of withdrawal, it seemed to the Virginians that there was forced upon them a choice between secession and unspeakable dishonour. They wanted to remain in the Union, of which their State had been from the beginning so influential a part. They were intensely loyal to the history and traditions of that Union over which their Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Tyler had presided, and at the head of whose supreme court their John Marshall had so wisely interpreted the constitution. But when Mr. Lincoln notified them that they must furnish their quota of troops with which to make war upon sister States for exercising a right which the Virginians deemed unquestionable, they felt that they had no choice but to join the seceding States and take the consequences.
What a pity it seems, as we look back upon that crisis of forty odd years ago, that Mr. Lincoln could not have found some other way out of his difficulties!