Emerson Hough

“ And now poor Miss Lady flushed even more hotly than ever, though her heart was lighter for the truth thus told.
Eddring looked straight on down the road ahead of them, the road which broke the rim of the forest toward which they had now unconsciously faced. At length he turned toward her.
"Miss Lady," said he, simply, "I have loved you so much, so very much. I've always loved you. I didn't dare admit it to myself for a long time; but it's run away with me now, absolutely and for ever. I can't look at life—I can't turn any way—I can't think of anything in which I don't see you. ”

“ She is a queen—a queen of annihilation!
"And so this thing went on," resumed Eddring, after a time, "this plotting which meant war and destruction, not for this household alone, nor this district, nor this state, but for this nation! What prevented it? I'll tell you. It was our Miss Lady. It was the White Woman, the white woman of America. Whatever happens, whatever stands or falls, whatever is the law or is not the law, that is the thing to be cherished always and to be protected at any cost or any risk. This house is no better than the women in it, nor is any home, nor is any nation. ”

“ He tells her how to incite these ignorant niggers; how to bring up all the old talk of their day of deliverance, the time when they won't have to work, the time when they will be not only the equals, but the superiors of the whites. He tells Delphine that she is the naturally appointed Queen of these people. She is savage enough to fit in with all their savagery. She does rule it as a queen. In her soul there are thoughts, wild thoughts which you and I can never understand, because we are white, and all white. Delphine is neither white nor black, neither red, nor white, nor black. ”

“ Not an ill-looking man, upon the whole, was Henry Decherd, though his reddish-yellow eyes, a bit oblique in their setting, gave the impression alike of a certain touchiness of temper and an unpleasantly fox-like quality of character. There was an air not barren of self-consciousness as he threw himself out of the saddle, for it might have been seen that under his saddle, and not that of Colonel Blount, there rested the black and glossy hide of the great bear which had been the object of the chase. ”

“ Father Messasebe is, after all, but weakly bound to the ways of commerce. His voice is always for the wild; his wish is for the ancient ways. Here in the far wild country—a part of which even to- day is a more trackless and a less known wilderness than any in the heart of our remotest mountain ranges—the great river reaches out a thousand clutching fingers for his own, claiming it as a home even now for his savagery; asking it, if not for a wild red race, then for the black one which may one day prove its savage successor. ”

“ In time the North will need to free her white slaves, already turbulent and rebellious. In time she will have to pay for them, as we of the South have paid. After that great civil war which is yet to come, the men of the North may perhaps understand more fully the meaning of that phrase 'the manhood suffrage' and know that manhood means survival, that good manhood means the product of a good environment, a survival slowly and fitly won. By that time, North and South, perhaps, will know that the franchise should be as the bulwark of the law, not the destroyer of the law. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII MISS LADY AT THE BIG HOUSE The days wore on not ungentle at the Big House, until the mild southern winter had taken the place of mellow fall, and until presently all the land was again full of the warm, sweet smell of spring. Softness and gentleness rested on all the world, and upon every side were tokens that calm had come again to a land late distraught. Slowly the signs of wreck and ruin disappeared about the plantation. The track of the receding waters was covered with a swift verdure. ”

“ All the pictures smiled. "Alice!" he whispered.
"My God!" cried Henry Decherd, suddenly. "They're alive! They're coming to life!"
They stood about him now in the little room, smiling, beckoning; Alice, Nora, Kate, Jane, Margaret, all the rest, as he addressed them. They smiled and beckoned; but he could not reply, whether to those honest or not honest, to those deceived or undeceived.
The face of Alice Ellison, strong-jawed, dark-browed, large-eyed, stared at him steadily from behind a certain chair. He could see that her hair was wet. ”

“ He is a noble man. If ever I pained him I am sorry. But as to friends—" she dangled the little domino on her finger, "this has been my only friend. It has kept me from seeing even myself. Without it I should have died." There were no tears in her eyes as she spoke. Eddring felt that he had now to do with a woman grown, sad, not light and unstable. There crowded to his tongue a thousand things.
"That!" said he. "You, Louise Loisson—you have indeed been masquerading. Tell me, how did you get that name?"
"It was an accident purely," said Miss Lady. ”

“ CHAPTER X THE VOYAGE "As to the law, Captain Wilson," said Eddring, to the master of the Opelousas Queen the following morning, as he sat in the cabin; "I'm a lawyer myself, and I want to tell you, the law is a strange thing. It will, and it won't. It can, and it can't. It does, and it doesn't. It's blind, crosseyed and clear-sighted all at the same time. It offers a precedent for everything, right or wrong. ”

“ And when, finally, aided, as we hope, by our brothers of the North, we, as citizens of an ofttimes mistaken, yet eventually to be united America, shall have builded this renewed temple of the law, then the lives of the white men of this state will be—like ours joined in this trial before you—free pledge that the men of this country, so long charged with lawlessness, shall come and bow in that temple in reverence of that law which they have always coveted and which they covet here to-day. ”

“ In the night the wild life of the forest went on. The barkings and rustlings and splashings still were heard, and the great cat called again. But all these savage things went by, passing apart, avoiding this spot where the White Man, most savage and most potent of all animals, had made his lair and now guarded his own.
In the night the voice of the wilderness spoke to John Eddring: "Old, old are we!" the trees seemed to whisper: "Only the strong! Only the strong!" ”

“ For now the sun of the South came creeping up apace, and saw Miss Lady as it peered in through the rose lattice whereon hung scores of fragrant blossoms. A gentle wind of morning stirred the lace curtains at the windows and touched Miss Lady's hair as she stood there, asking the answer of the mirror. It was morning in the great room, morning for the southern day, morning for the old plantation whose bell now jangled faintly and afar off—morning indeed for Miss Lady, who now had ceased in her self-absorbed dance. ”

“ Ellison call repeatedly to Delphine, and was dimly conscious that there was no answer. Once, too, he saw, standing at the door, the tall figure of the young girl, Miss Lady—the white girl, the prototype of civilization; woman, sweet, to be shielded, to be cared for, to be protected—yea, though it were with a man's heart-blood. And after this spectacle John Eddring looked about him no more, but cherished his rifle and used it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We know that it is the chiefest of cruelty and unkindness, the chiefest of madness, to incite these poor and ignorant people—ever ready to follow the voice of sophistry or selfishness—to believe that their burglary of the house of success is right and reasonable; because it is certain that such burglary will be met in the South by the law, by the White Justice, and that, if need be, until either white or black man shall exist no more in this portion of America. ”

“ Gentlemen, North and South owe it to America, America owes it to the world, that there be held aloft for our worship an image of the Law more honorable than this. Until that time of a more honorable image for our worship, there must perhaps go on the enormous folly of one portion of this nation asking another portion to destroy itself for the sake of an unworthy race. ”

“ So intent, indeed, was the latter in his gaze upon the receding figure that he did not hear the swift rush of light feet on the gallery, nor turn until Miss Lady stood before him. The girl swept him a deep courtesy, spreading out the skirt of her biscuit-colored gown in mocking deference of posture.
"Please, Colonel Cal," said she, "since he can't hear the dinner bell, would he be good enough to tell whether or not he will come in and eat? Everything is growing cold; and I made the biscuits."
Calvin Blount put out his hand, and a softer shade came upon his face. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Eternity seems to stretch before it, an eternity of joy hinted in the first glance at this new universe which it attains. Yet comes the sun, the sudden, blighting sun, the same influence which has broken the brooding envelope of another world and brought this gentle being into its new life, and this cruel sun withers at once the tender creature in all its hope and youthfulness and beauty, ending its bright day ere it as yet is noon. Thus seemed the universe to Miss Lady, no longer young, care- free, joyous, but now suddenly grown old. ”

“ Ho! now for the game of letting in the floods, of making anew my wilderness.
"For a wilderness," said Father Messasebe, "the world has ever had. And whether gentle overpower barbarian, or barbarian in turn overcast the gentle, always there will be a wilderness, and out of it will come combat.
"But the World is ancient and abiding," said Father Messasebe to his children, "and the World cares no whit for those things sometimes called good and new. In the years, that which is new becomes old. Only the World and its children endure. Only the old prevails. ”

“ It was a home taking firm hold upon the soil, its wide roots reaching into traditions of more than one generation. Well toward the head of the vast Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, the richest region on the face of the whole earth, the Big House ruled over these wide acres as of immemorial right. Its owner, Colonel Calvin Blount, was a king, an American king, his right to rule based upon full proof of fitness.
In the heart of the only American part of America, the Big House, careless and confident, could afford to lie blinking at the sun, or at the broad acres which blinked back at it. ”