The Hallam Succession, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [desktop ebook reader .txt] 📗

meant that he could not endure that John Millard should at the last get the better of him about his own sister. And when he put his foot down passionately, and said, between his closed teeth, "He shall not do it!" it was the latter thought he answered.

He felt half angry at Phyllis for being so lovely when she sat down opposite him at dinner time. And there was an unusual light in her eyes and an indescribable elation in her manner which betrayed her knowledge of the coming event to him.

"Phyllis," he asked, suddenly, "who told you John Millard was coming?"

"Harriet told me you had a letter from him this morning."

"Confound--"

"Richard!"

"I beg your pardon, Phyllis. Be so good as to keep Harriet out of my way. Yes; I had a letter--a most impertinent one, I think. Civilized human beings usually wait for an invitation."

"Unless they imagine themselves going to a home."

"Home?"

"Yes. I think this is, in some sense, John's home. Mother always made him welcome to it. Dear Richard, if it is foolish to meet troubles, it is far more foolish to meet quarrels."

"I do not wish to quarrel, Phyllis; if John does not talk to you as he ought not to talk. He ought to have more modesty than to ask you to share such a home as he can offer you."

"Richard, dear, you are in a bad way. There is a trustees' meeting to-night, and they are in trouble about dollars and cents; I would go, if I were you."

"And have to help the deficiency?"

"Yes; when a man has been feeling unkindly, and talking unkindly, the best of all atonements is to do a good deed."

"O, Phyllis! Phyllis!"

"Yes, Richard; and you will see the Bishop there, very likely; and you can tell the good old man what is in your heart, and I know what he will say. 'It is but fair and square, son Richard, to treat a man kindly till he does you some wrong which deserves unkindness.' He will say, 'Son Richard, if you have not the proofs upon which to blame a man, don't blame him upon likelihoods.'"

"My good little sister, what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to meet John, as we were met at Hallam, with trusting courtesy."

"If you will promise me to--"

"I will promise you to do nothing secretly; to do nothing my mother would blame me for. To ask more, is to doubt me, and doubt I do not deserve. Now put on your hat and go to church. They will be disappointed if you are absent."

"It will cost me $100."

"A man ought to pay his debts; and it is nicer to go and pay them than to compel some one to call here and ask you to do it."

"A debt?"

"Call it a gift, if you like. When I look over the cotton-fields, Richard, and see what a grand crop you are going to have this year, somehow I feel as if you ought to have said $200."

"Give me my hat, Phyllis. You have won, as you always do." And he stooped and kissed her, and then went slowly through the garden to the road.

She did not see him again that night, but in the morning he was very bright and cheerful "I am going to ride to Greyson's Timbers, Phyllis," he said; "I have some business with Greyson, and John will be almost sure to 'noon' there. So we shall likely come back together."

She smiled gladly, but knew her brother too well to either inquire into his motives or comment upon them. It was sufficient that Richard had conquered his lower self, and whether the victory had been a single-handed one, or whether the Bishop had been an ally, was not of vital importance. One may enjoy the perfume of a good action without investigating the processes of its production.

In the middle of the afternoon she heard their arrival. It was a pleasant thing to hear the sound of men's voices and laughter, and all that cheerful confusion, which as surely follows their advent as thunder follows lightning. And Phyllis found it very pleasant to lie still and think of the past, and put off, just for an hour or two, whatever of joy or sorrow was coming to meet her; for she had not seen John for two years. He might have ceased to love her. He might be so changed that she would not dare to love him. But in the main she thought hopefully. True love, like true faith, when there seems to, be nothing at all to rest upon,


"Treads on the void and finds
The rock beneath."


Few women will blame Phyllis for being unusually careful about her toilet, and for going down stairs with a little tremor at her heart. Even when she could hear Richard and John talking, she still delayed the moment she had been longing for. She walked into the dining-room, looked at the boy setting the table, and altered the arrangement of the flowers. She looked into the parlor, raised a curtain, and opened the piano, and then, half ashamed of her self-consciousness, went to the front piazza, where the young men were sitting.

There was a subtle likeness between Richard and his English ancestors that neither intermarriage, climate, nor educational surroundings had been able to overcome; but between him and John Millard there were radical dissimilarities. Richard was sitting on the topmost of the broad white steps which led from the piazza to the garden. With the exception of a narrow black ribbon round his throat, he was altogether dressed in white; and this dress was a singularly becoming contrast to his black hair and glowing dark eyes. And in every attitude which he took he managed his tall stature with an indolent grace suggestive of an unlimited capacity for pride, passion, aristocratic--or cottonocratic--self-sufficiency. In his best moods he was well aware of the dangerous points in his character, and kept a guard over them; otherwise they came prominently forward; and, sitting in John Millard's presence, Richard Fontaine was very much indeed the Richard Fontaine of a nature distinctly overbearing and uncontrolled.

John Millard leaned against the pillar of the piazza, talking to him. He had a brown, handsome face, and short, brown, curly hair. His eyes were very large and blue, with that steely look in them which snaps like lightning when any thing strikes fire from the heart. He was very tall and straight, and had a lofty carriage and an air of command. His dress was that of an ordinary frontiersman, and he wore no arms of any kind, yet any one would have said, with the invincible assurance of a sudden presentiment, "The man is a soldier."

Richard and he were talking of frontier defense, and Richard, out of pure contradiction, was opposing it. In belittling the cause he had some idea that he was snubbing the man who had been fighting for it. John was just going to reply when Phyllis's approach broke the sentence in two, and he did not finish it. He stood still watching her, his whole soul in his face; and, when he took her hands, said, heartily, "O, Phyllis, I am so happy to see you again! I was afraid I never would!"

"What nonsense!" said Richard, coldly; "a journey to Europe is a trifle--no need to make a fuss about it; is there, Phyllis? Come, let us go to dinner. I hear the bell."

Before dinner was over the sun had set and the moon risen. The mocking-birds were singing, the fire-flies executing, in the sweet, languid atmosphere, a dance full of mystery. The garden was like a land of enchantment. It was easy to sit still and let the beauty of heaven and earth sink into the heart. And for some time John was contented with it. It was enough to sit and watch the white-robed figure of Phyllis, which was thrown into the fairest relief by the green vines behind it. And Richard was silent because he was trying to conquer his resentment at John finding satisfaction in the exquisite picture.

Perhaps few people understand how jealous a true brotherly love can be, How tenderly careful of a sister's welfare, how watchful of all that pertains to her future happiness, how proud of her beauty and her goodness, how exacting of all pretenders to her favor. His ideal husband for Phyllis was not John Millard. He wondered what she could see to admire in the bronzed frontier soldier. He wondered how John could dare to think of transplanting a gentlewoman like Phyllis from the repose and luxury of her present home to the change and dangers and hardships of pioneer life.

It would have been an uncomfortable evening if the Bishop had not called. He looked at John and loved him. Their souls touched each other when they clasped hands. Perhaps it was because the nature of both men was militant--perhaps because both men loved frontier fighting. "I like," said the old soldier of Christ, "I dearly like to follow the devil to his outposts. He has often fine fellows in them, souls well worth saving. I was the first Methodist--I may say the first Protestant preacher--that entered Washington County, in Texas. Texas was one of our mission stations in 1837. I never was as happy as when lifting the cross of Christ in some camp of outlaws."

"Did they listen to you?"

"Gladly. Many of them clung to it. The worst of them respected and protected me. One night I came to a lonely log-house in the Brazos woods--that was 'far, far West' then. I think the eight men in it were thieves; I believe that they intended to rob, and perhaps to murder, me. But they gave me supper, and took my saddle-bags, and put up my horse. 'Reckon you're from the States,' one said. 'Twelve months ago.' 'Any news?' 'The grandest. If you'll get your boys together I'll tell you it.'"

"They gathered very quickly, lit their pipes, and sat down; and, sitting there among them, I preached the very best sermon I ever preached in my life. I was weeping before I'd done, and they were just as wretched as I like to see sinners. I laid down among them and slept soundly and safely. Ten years afterward I gave the sacrament to four of these very men in Bastrop Methodist Church. If I was a young man I would be in the Rio Grande District. I would carry 'the glad tidings' to the ranger camps on the Chicon and the Secor, and the United States forts on the Mexican border. It is 'the few sheep in the wilderness' that I love to seek; yea, it is the scape-goats that, loaded with the sins of civilized communities, have been driven from among them!"

Richard started to his feet. "My dear father, almost you persuade me to be a missionary!"

"Ah, son Richard, if you had the 'call' it would be no uncertain one! You would not say 'almost;' but it is a grand thing to feel your heart stir to the trumpet, even though you don't buckle on the armor. A respectable, cold indifference makes me despair of a soul. I have more hope for a flagrant sinner."

"I am sure," said John, "our camp on the San Saba would welcome you. One night a stranger came along who had with him a child--a little chap about five years old. He