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

the universe. The interspaces of all things seemed lambent, and therein fixed centrally was this ineffaceable and ineffable picture. He gazed, and as he gazed there came to him but one thought: For ever.

“John,” said Mrs. Eddring, when they were again alone, “that’s a sweet girl, a very sweet girl. Did you notice how she thanked me—as being the elder lady, you know—for our call? I think—” Eddring started, only half-hearing her.

“But that lady, her mother,” went on Mrs. Eddring, “I can’t tell, yet for some reason I do not fully understand her. But—” and here she gained conviction, “you need not tell_ me!_ There is family somewhere back of that girl, my son. She’s good enough. She’s—”

“Good enough!” cried John Eddring. “Good enough! What do you mean?”

“Ah, my boy,” said Mrs. Eddring, sighing, “I know. I presume, I hope, that you feel quite as the general did, when I was a girl. Sometimes I have thought the world was changing in such matters. I shall want to see this young lady again, and often. We must inquire—but here I am, talking with you, when of course you must be back at your work. I’ll leave you now.”

“Work!” cried John Eddring. “Work!”

 

CHAPTER XI.

COLONEL CALVIN BLOUNT’S PROPOSAL.

 

The mild winter of the Delta region wore itself gradually away, and now again the sun was high in the mid-arc of the sky, glowing so warm that the earth, rich and teeming, seemed once more to quiver under its ardor. The sloth of ease and comfort was in the air. The big bees droned among the flowers at the lattice, and out in the glaring sunlight the lusty cocks led their bands betimes, crowing each his loud defiance. In the pastures, under the wide-armed oaks, the cattle and horses stood dozing. Life on the old plantation seemed, after all, to have set on again much in its former quiet channels. If within the year there had been insubordination, violence, death hereabout, the scene no longer showed it. The Delta, less than a quarter white, more than three-quarters black, was once more at rest, and waiting.

This was the scene over which Miss Lady looked out one day as she sat in a big rocking-chair in the shade, in a favorite spot of the wide gallery, feeling dreamily, if not definitely, the spirit of the idle landscape which lay shimmering in the sun. Her gaze gained directness and comprehension at last.

This, thought Miss Lady, was the world! It was all the world for her. This, so far as she could see, was to be her fate—to sit and look out over the wide reaches of the cotton fields, to hear the negroes sing their melodies, to watch the lazy life of an inland farm. This was to be the boundary of her world, this white and black rim of the forest hedging all about. This lattice was to shut in her life for ever. She might meet no white woman but her mother, no white man. Things were not quite clear to Miss Lady’s mind to-day. She sank back in the chair, and all the world again seemed vague, confused, shimmering, like this scene over which she gazed. She sighed, her foot tapping at the gallery floor. Sometimes it seemed to Miss Lady that she must break out into cries of impatience, that she must fly, that she must indeed seek out a wider world. What was that world, she wondered, the world out there beyond the rim of the ancient forest that hedged her in? What did it hold for a girl? Was there life in it? Was there love in it? Was there answer in it?

The old bear-dog, Hec, came around the corner of the house from his napping in the shade, and sat looking up in adoration at his divinity, inquiring mutely whether that divinity would permit a common warrior like himself to come and kiss her hand. She saw him finally and extended one hand idly; at which Hec dropped his ears, wagged his tail uncertainly, and came on slowly up the stair. He nozzled his head tentatively against her knee; and so, receiving sanction, went into delighted waggings, licking tenderly the soft white hand which stroked his head.

“Oh, Hec, dear old Hec,” said Miss Lady, “I am so lonesome!” And Hec, understanding vaguely that all was not quite well with his divinity, uplifted his voice in deep regret. “I am so lonesome,” repeated Miss Lady, softly, to herself.

A step on the gallery caused her to turn. Colonel Blount crossed the length of the gallery and paused at her side. “Miss Lady,” said he, “you just literally honey my b’ah-dogs up so all the time, that after a while I’ll be ashamed to call the pack my own. I’m almost afraid now to take them out hunting, for fear some of them will get hurt; and you always make such a fuss about it.”

“You get them all bitten and cut up,” said Miss Lady. “How do you think that feels?”

“I know how it feels,” said Blount, slowly. “As to dogs, I think there are times when it’s a sort of relief to them. You can’t change the way the world is made, Miss Lady. How’d you like to sit here for ever and never get a chance to see anything outside of this here yard?”

Unconsciously, he had come close to a certain mark. “I should die,” said Miss Lady, simply. “I was just thinking—”

“What were you thinking?” said Blount, suddenly.

“I don’t blame Hec, after all. I should die if I had to stay here for ever, with just nothing to do—nothing—nobody—”

Blount suddenly pulled up his chair and sat down close at hand.

“Tell me, Miss Lady, what do you mean?” said he. “Tell me, child. Ain’t you happy here?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do know; and I asked you if you weren’t happy.”

“Maybe you don’t understand all about girls, Colonel Calvin,” said Miss Lady.

“I don’t reckon I do. I don’t reckon God A’mighty does, either, hardly. I thought you and your mother were contented here. You’ve made it a sort of heaven for me. I ‘lowed it would run along for ever that-away.”

Silence fell between them. “Miss Lady,” said Blount, finally, “I came out here this morning on purpose to hunt you up. Now, listen. You say you’re not happy here. I have been nothing but happy ever since you came. For a long time I didn’t know why. I didn’t know why I kept on asking where was Miss Lady at, where was Miss Lady gone to. ‘Now, where is Miss Lady?’ I found myself asking this very morning. About an hour ago I found myself asking that mighty strong. Then I just set myself down, right out there on the board-pile, and done reasoned it all out. Then I found out why I was asking that question so much. I found out why I never did get married, Miss Lady. The reason was, I never wanted to, till now.”

Miss Lady was looking far away now, out across the fields. Her face was pale, save for a small red spot in either cheek. She moved as though she would have turned to face this man whose eyes she felt, yet this she was unable to do. She heard the voice go on, softer than she had ever known it before.

“Miss Lady,” said Calvin Blount, “now listen to me. I’ve grown up down here like any savage. I haven’t been much better than my old daddy, nor much different; and every man ought to grow better than his dad, if he can. I have driven the niggers to work, and I have been comfortable on what they raised. I can see it’s right rough down here, though. I never used to think so. All I wanted in the world was rain enough to make the cotton sure, and mast enough to make the b’ahs come. I was happy, or thought I was, until you came, though I reckon I never really knew what that word meant before. I never did see a woman I liked as well as my pack of dogs. This place was good enough for me. Now, listen. I was fool enough to think for one minute, Miss Lady, for just one minute, that it was good enough for you. I thought maybe you and I could understand a heap of things together. Now, I hear you say that you’re lonesome, that you’re not happy here. Happy? Why, I tell you, Miss Lady, I am half-dying of lonesomeness right now, right here in my own home, on my own ground, in the only place in God A’mighty’s world where I am fit to live.”

“You must not,” said Miss Lady, and turned toward him eyes in which stood sudden tears. “I must go. I must go away.”

“Listen, I tell you,” said Blount again, sternly, and put out a hand as she would have risen. “You go away? Where would you go? What would you do? Now, wait till I get done. Here,” he cried almost savagely, “stand up here like I tell you, and listen to what I’ve got to say! Stand right there!” He drew in one grasp from his pocket his handkerchief and his gauntlet gloves, and swept a place clean upon the gallery floor before her.

“Stand right there, Miss Lady,” said he, with all his old imperiousness. “Stand in that place where I done made it clean and easy for you, like I want to make the whole world clean and easy for you always. I’d like to smooth it that-away for you, always. Now, look at me, Miss Lady. I ain’t a coward, at least I never was till now, and maybe not now; for I came here as soon as I knew how this thing was, though God knows I wanted to get on my horse and ride the other way as fast as I could. I came here because I wouldn’t have been a man if I hadn’t come, if I hadn’t said this to the first woman I ever thought twice about.”

“Don’t, don’t, please! please!” cried Miss Lady, pushing out her hands, but he commanded her again, sternly.

“Stop,” said he. “There’s one time when a man has a right to say his say, and say it all. I’ve got to tell you this. I’ve got to offer myself to you in marriage, Miss Lady. I’ve got to ask that of you; and, God pity me, I’ve got to give myself my own answer. Listen! Stop! It ain’t for you to answer. It’s for me.

“Now, look at me. I’m strong. I’m not afraid of any living thing, except you. I’m old, but there’s younger men that’s no better. I’m rich enough. I’ve got two thousand acres of the best land in the Delta, and that’s the best on earth. There’s money enough here to take you anywhere you want to go in all the world. I couldn’t be mean to no woman. It’s in my nature to feel that a woman is a thing to be took care of, for ever and for ever—that oughtn’t to work, that oughtn’t to worry, that ought to just be! I don’t know much about women, but I always did feel that-away. You’d never have to worry about that. I wouldn’t lie to you, not for any reason. No man should ever raise a breath against you. If”—he swept a hand over his face, but still went on.

“Listen,” he said, “Miss Lady Ellison, I, Calvin Blount, old Calvin Blount, this sort of man like I told you, I offer myself to you, and all I have, for your own. I offer you that—” The girl’s eyes looked up