"I'll kill your vote, Craven Peyton!" came a voice. "I vote, Mr. Sheriff, for Lewis Rand!"
"Ludwell Cary!" cried another, "and there's a killer killed, Dick Carr!"
"I'll draw a bead on you, Gentry!" put in a third. "The best shot in the county, Mr. Sheriff, and that's Lewis Rand!"
"Lewis Rand stands ten ahead!" cried a committee-man; and the sheriff, "Gentlemen, gentlemen! order at the polls!"
A small, wizened man, middle-aged and elaborately dressed in much ancient and tarnished finery, came bowing through the crowd. A curled wig shadowed a narrow face, and lace ruffles fell over long-fingered hands, yellow as old ivory. The entire figure was fantastic, even a little grotesque, though after a pleasant fashion. In a mincing voice and with a strong French accent, M. Achille Pincornet, dancing-master and performer on the violin, intimated that he wished to vote for Mr. Ludwell Cary. Lewis Rand glanced sharply up, then made a sign to a sandy-haired and freckled man who, tally in hand, stood near him.
"I challenge that vote!" cried the man with the tally.
"Mr. Pincornet's vote is challenged!" shouted the sheriff.
"Order, order, gentlemen! Your reason, Mr. Mocket?"
"The gentleman is a Frenchman and not a citizen of the United States! He is not even a citizen of the French Republic! He is an émigré. He has no vote. Mark off his name!"
"Sir!" cried the challenged voter, "I am a de Pincornet, cadet of a house well known in Gascony! If I left France, I left it to find a great and free country, a country where one gentleman may serve another!"
A roar of laughter, led by Mocket, arose from the younger and lower sort of Republicans. "But you do serve, Mr. Pincornet! You teach all the 'Well-born' how to dance!"
"Didn't you teach the Carys? They dance beautifully."
"Are brocaded coats still worn in Gascony?"
"Ne sutor supra crepidam judicaret! Caper all you please on a waxed floor, but leave Virginians to rule!"
Fairfax Cary, hot and angry, put in an oar. "Mr. Sheriff, Mr. Sheriff! Mr. Pincornet has lived these twelve years in Albemarle! We have no more respected, no more esteemed citizen. His vote's as good as any man's—and rather better, I may remark, than that of some men!" He looked pointedly at Mocket.
Lewis Rand gave his henchman a second guiding glance.
"It is merely," said Mocket promptly, "a question of that Alien Law of which the 'Well-born' are so proud. Show your papers, Mr. Pincornet. If you are a citizen of the United States, you have papers to show for it."
"Yes, sir," agreed the sheriff. "That's right, Mr. Mocket. Let me see your papers, Mr. Pincornet."
"Papers, papers! I have no papers!" cried Mr. Pincornet.
"But every gentleman here—and I have no care for the canaille—knows that I live in Albemarle, in a small house between Greenwood and Fontenoy! I have lived there since I left France in the abhorred year of '92, with tears of rage in my eyes! I came to this land, where, seeing that I must eat, and that my dancing was always admired, I said to myself, 'T'enez, Achille, my friend, we will teach these Virginians to dance!' Mr. Fairfax Cary has been my pupil, and it gives me pleasure to vote for his brother to go make the laws for my adopted country—"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Pincornet," interrupted the sheriff, "but you have no vote. I'll have to ask you to stand aside."
"Come up here, Mr. Pincornet," said Cary, from the Justice's Bench. "I want to ask you about a gentleman of your name whom I had the honour to meet in London—M. le Vicomte de Pincornet, a very gallant man—"
"That," said the dancing master, "would be my cousin Alexandre. He escaped during the Terror hidden under a load of hay, his son driving in a blouse and red nightcap. Will Mr. Cary honour me?" and out came a tortoise-shell snuff-box.
The voting quickened. "Rand is ahead—Rand is winning!" went from mouth to mouth. Fairfax Cary, caring much where his brother cared little, welcomed impetuously the wave of Federalists which that rumour brought in from the yard and street. "Ha, Mr. Gilmer, Mr. Carter, you are welcome! Who votes? Who votes as General Hamilton and Mr. Adams and Judge Marshall vote? Who votes as Washington would have voted?"
So many crowded to vote as Washington would have voted, that it almost seemed as though his shade might lead the Federalists to victory. But the dead Washington must cope with the living Jefferson; mild monarchism and stately rule with a spirit born of time, nursed by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, grown articulate in the French Revolution, and now full swing toward majority. When thrown, the Democrat-Republicans rose from the earth like Antæus. Much of the gentle blood and many of the prominent men of the county voted for Lewis Rand. Jefferson's personal following of friends and kinsmen was large; these accepted his man as a matter of course, while to the plain men of the county Lewis Rand was more even than the coming man: he was of them; he was a plain man. The clamour and excitement grew. "Here come the Three-Notched Road people!" cried a voice. "They all rolled tobacco with Gideon Rand!"
The Three-Notched Road people voted to a man for the son of Gideon Rand, and were promptly reinforced by a contingent of hot Republicans from the Ragged Mountains. At ten o'clock Lewis Rand was again well ahead, but at this hour there was a sharp rally of the Federalists. A cheering from without announced the arrival of some popular voter, and Colonel Churchill and his brother, Major Edward, and an array of Federalists from the Fontenoy district, entered the Court House.
"The Churchills are coming, Oho! Oho!" sang out a wag perched on the window-sill.
"Not to that tune," roared a Scot from the gallery. "Mon, they're Tories!"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen! order at the polls!" shouted the sheriff. "Colonel Churchill, for whom do you vote?"
"I vote, sir," cried the Colonel, "for Mr. Ludwell Cary, for a gentleman and a patriot, sir, and may the old county never be represented but by such!"
"Order, order at the polls! Colonel Churchill votes for Mr. Ludwell Cary! Major Edward Churchill, whom do you vote for?"
"For whom do you suppose, Mr. Sheriff?" said the Major. "For Mr. Ludwell Cary."
Cary rose from the bench and stepped forward to the edge of the platform. "Colonel Dick, Major Edward, I thank you both. May I deserve your confidence and your favour! Fontenoy is as dear to me as Greenwood."
"By God, you shall win, Ludwell!" cried Colonel Dick. "Here's a regiment of us to see you through!"
"Rome hasn't fallen yet," added Major Edward. "I don't hear the geese cackling."
"One's cackling now," smiled Cary, and Mr. Tom Mocket stepped up to the polls.
"It's not a goose; it's a turkey buzzard!"
"It's not feathered at all," said Fairfax Cary. "It's a mangy jackal to a mangy lion."
The young man had spoken loudly and contemptuously. Rand, on the Justice's Bench, and Mocket, in the act of voting, both heard, and both looked his way. Ludwell Cary knit his brows, and meeting his brother's eyes, slightly shook his head. Look and gesture said, "Leave abuse alone, Fair."
Mocket voted for Rand. "I challenge that vote!" cried Major Edward Churchill. "The man's been in prison."
Amid the noise that followed, the Jackal was heard to cry, "It's a lie! Lewis, tell them it's a lie! Major Churchill, you'd better be careful! I was acquitted, and you know it."
"Do I?" answered the Major coolly. "I know that you ought to be making shoes in the penitentiary! Mr. Sheriff, you should really have this courtroom sprinkled with vinegar. There's gaol fever in the air."
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