The Law of the Land, Emerson Hough [best beach reads of all time TXT] 📗

all along. The niggers are up. They are going to march on your house tonight. 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 no great curiosity.

“Well, there’s trouble enough on hand right now. We need every white man we can get. Bowles, take your wife inside to get something to eat, and you, Ben, go back and get your women-folks; and don’t forget your Winchester.”

The bell spoke on. The plantation paths now began to blacken with slowly moving figures, but within the Big House there was no confusion. Colonel Blount paced slowly up and down the gallery. Hearing footfalls, he turned.

“Oh, it’s you, Decherd, is it? I’m right glad you’re going home tomorrow morning, and not tonight. We need men who can shoot. I will give you something for every black head you can make a hole in tonight. What would you like? Say about two dollars?” Decherd gulped and reddened, and made such shamefaced defense as he could. There was an ugly look of ill temper on his face, but he found Calvin Blount a hard man to approach with any masculine asperities.

“The next time,” said Blount to him, quietly, “if I were you, Mr. Decherd, and I heard the Blount pack going out, I don’t believe I would ride along.” He was away before Decherd could frame reply. At that instant Eddring appeared on the gallery calling out to him.

“Listen, listen to it,” cried Eddring, “don’t you hear it? That’s their drum; it’s coming closer.”

The little party of white men faced toward the sound.

“Here, Bill,” cried Blount. “Call the ladies here to me at once.” He turned to them, as presently they appeared, questioning him.

“Never mind,” he said, “there’s going to be a little trouble, but we can handle it. It’s out of the difficulty with that Sands nigger that I was telling you about, Mrs. Ellison. Now, here, you and Miss Lady take these two pistols, and go into Miss Lady’s room. No matter what happens, you stay there until you are called. If any one tries to get into the room, wait until he gets almost in, then shoot, and shoot straight. Don’t be scared, and keep quiet; well take care of you, these gentlemen and myself. I must tell you that it was my friend Mr. Eddring here who brought the news and warned us. You ought to thank him, but not now; get on into that room.”

The women took the weapons, and Eddring noticed that of the two Mrs. Ellison seemed the more frightened. The younger one was pale, but her eye did not flicker or falter. She looked straight at each man, at Bowles and Buckner, both impassive, at Calvin Blount, now beginning to flush under his fighting choler; yes, and at last at him, John Eddring, pale and serious, but steady as the door-jamb against which he leaned.

“It was fortunate for us, sir, that you came,” she said in a voice that did not tremble as much as did his in stammering a reply. So she passed on within, and the eyes of those silent men followed her.

“Now then, Bill,” cried Calvin Blount, sharply, “get the hands into line so we can count them. Here, into the kitchen there, all you people, every one of you. If I see a head out of the window this night it will get a hole put through it. Do you hear? Get under cover and stay there. Ring that bell, Bill, louder, louder! Keep it going! We’ll show these people what we think, and what we’ll do.”

So, high over the droning sounds of sleeping evening-tide, there arose the challenge of the white man’s bell, calling out to the savage drum its answer and its defiance.