George Cary Eggleston

“ She mightily admired Boyd Westover, and she had even dreamed a little dream with regard to him. She was a proud maiden in her way and as she searched her heart there in the moonlight, she decided that she had not suffered herself to fall in love with Westover.
"How could I?" she challenged herself to answer. "I have met him but once. The thing is absurd. Besides, no self-respecting young woman gives her love to any man until he asks for it. No, of course I'm not in love with Mr. Westover. It is nothing but admiration that I feel for him." ”

“ But before Jack had finished, the old dream of life and love, with Margaret for its saint and sovereign, had revived in his mind. What if, after all, Jack Towns should be able to unravel the mystery of Margaret's silence and open a way for him? In that moment all the love he had cherished for Margaret surged back upon his soul in an overwhelming flood that made all other women objects of courteous but complete indifference. He saw clearly that no woman on earth could ever take the place in his heart that this one woman had made her own. ”

“ If you are a guest in her house she fulfils every obligation of hospitality, but she tells you no lies either in word or deed. She will lay herself out to serve you with sublime fried chicken and glorified waffles, but if she catches you in a falsehood she'll tell you you are a liar even while she presses the apple butter or the maple syrup upon your acceptance. In brief, Judy Peters is altogether a natural human being, whose elemental passions have never been curbed by convention, whose courage is of the kind that never shrinks from the recognition of truth or from its telling in plain words. ”

“ It is Aunt Betsy who has wrought all the mischief. She has deceived you; she has deceived me; she has deceived Mr. Westover. It should be her duty, not yours, to undo the wrong she has done."
"But, my dear daughter, how can she? She is a woman."
"I know that, Father, and I know our Virginian view of such things. But it is all wrong. You men of Virginia have granted to us women a license that ought not to be. If one of us utters a slander, you hold yourselves responsible for it even unto death. ”

“ Obviously Boyd Westover had recovered his vigor and was again fit to call himself by the name his forebears had borne for generations past—Westover of Wanalah—a name which in that community had always stood for virility, courage and uncompromising honor; a name that had meant secure peace to those who deserved peace and quick war to those who were hostilely disposed; a name that had always represented what is best in manhood, both in its tenderly forbearing gentleness of impulse and its relentless strength of purpose. ”

“ She felt that Jack Towns was a man of limitless resource, a man accustomed to do things and to get others to do things, a man to be leant upon with confidence, and the feeling was altogether comforting. The thought that floated vaguely through her mind, though she shrank from formulating it, was that if ever Jack Towns should love a woman, that woman would be exceedingly comfortable in the certainty that his care of her would be always tenderly solicitous in its impulse, aggressively masterful in its manifestation, and measurelessly ingenious in its devices of safety for her against every ill. ”

“ The jury that convicted you didn't believe it and not one of them believes it now. The Judge who will sentence you doesn't believe it. If the envious and malignant falsely pretend to believe it, why should you care for the despicable pretense of people so utterly unworthy? If cowards fight shy of your acquaintance, lest recognition of you should compromise themselves, why should you care for the acquaintance of such poltroons? You are Westover of Wanalah—inheritor of an honorable name. You will be that so long as you shall live. ”

“ But who expects an impatient lover to be reasonable—who that has ever been himself a lover? Reasonable or unreasonable, Boyd Westover felt himself bound to observe the rule that imposed so annoying a restraint upon him. He might fret and fume in revolt against it, but he must bend to the custom. He resolved to wait with what grace he could until Margaret's return to her own home. He worked out in his mind all the situations that were likely to occur during her convalescence at Wanalah, and framed all the conversations to fit the embarrassing circumstances. ”

“ Anyhow it's plain that Colonel Conway believes Boyd Westover to be guilty, just as I do and as a good many other folks down our way do. If he isn't guilty, why's he hiding himself? Why don't he come into the district and face the music, instead of leaving that little monkey, Carley Farnsworth, to do everything for him? You never saw Carley Farnsworth, did you, Judy? Of course you didn't. Well, he's a little jackanapes of a doctor that's equally ready to give his blue pills by the mouth or at the point of a pistol. Boyd Westover has put him forward to overawe and intimidate everybody ”

“ It was in this mood that he encountered the first news of what had happened. It presented itself in the shape of one of Carley Farnsworth's nominating placards, tacked to the great hewn log posts of a gate that spanned the road, and Westover, after nearly twenty miles of tramping, came upon it about sunrise. He could not imagine what to make of it, and after a minute's consideration he dismissed it as somebody's practical joke—a part perhaps of that "devil to pay" in his own neighborhood of which Judy Peters had sent him warning. ”

“ The letter to Colonel Conway was a long one of necessity; that to Margaret was much longer without any necessity at all. But even the longest letter must come to an end sometime, and at last, about four o'clock in the morning, Boyd Westover crept into bed, a man altogether happy in the present and confidently hopeful of the future. And why not? Fortune was bringing him its richest gifts. Love was already his and the future held out to him an assured promise of happiness and peace in the plantation life he loved. ”

“ There was never a time when he would not have given it as a forfeit in behalf of those he loved, never a time when he would not have laid it down gladly in answer to any call of duty. But the cowardly thought of destroying it by way of himself escaping from intolerable sufferings did not suggest itself to his brave young soul. It is a man's part to endure what comes to a man, and Boyd Westover was altogether a man. ”

“ As you are innocent of that and of all other crimes you have no right to hold yourself responsible for the consequences of other people's mistakes."
"Am I free to go to my mother while she yet lives?" Boyd asked in an agony of apprehension.
Then Jack Towns lied—like the generous gentleman he was.
"No," he said. "Legally you are free to go anywhere you please—to Mozambique or the dominions of Mumbo Jumbo if you choose. But you are free only because of the generous confidence of the Judge and the Commonwealth's Attorney in your honor as a gentleman. ”

“ Is it probable or even conceivably possible that under the circumstances of your trouble in Richmond, Margaret Conway, pledged as she was to be your wife, and possessed as she is of an exalted conception of womanly truth and honor, and saturated as she is with the courage of a proud race, the courage that does duty and dares consequences—is it conceivably possible that she has under such circumstances sat still and left unanswered letters received from you in your travail? ”

“ As he reached this point in his meditations he was passing the outer gates of The Oaks plantation, and suddenly his thought reverted to Margaret.
"She, too, is a woman of that type," he reflected. "I do not understand her silence, but I should be unworthy of any woman's love if I doubted her truth. I will not doubt her. I will let no other take her place in my heart so long as I live. She is all that Millicent Danvers is, and to me she is more and always must be. ”

“ I'm going to attend every gathering of my fellow citizens between now and election day, and at every one of them I'm going to challenge any and every body as I do now, who has aught to say against my character or my conduct to say it openly like a man. If any one does that, I shall reply in such fashion as I think appropriate in each case. I stand before the community as Westover of Wanalah, a man conscious of his own rectitude and prepared to vindicate the honor of the name he bears at all times, against all comers and at all hazards. ”

“ With the womanly instinct of ministry, reinforced by a passionate impulse of friendship, Millicent passed around the table, threw her arm about the stricken girl and gently forced her to lie upon one of the broad lounges or settees, or whatever else they should be called, that in those days invited repose in every dining room and every hallway of the plantation houses.
With that ready appreciation of necessity which is characteristic of womanhood, she went to the sideboard, poured a thimble glass of sherry and compelled Margaret to drink it. ”

“ Here is a young woman who can think for herself and without any regard whatever for the conventions of thought; she is inspired with an appreciation of truth and beauty, which is only another way of saying that she is a poet in her soul—thank God she is not a poet in the magazines, for that would be dreadful. She has common sense, too, in an uncommon abundance. Jack Towns, you are falling in love in a way you never dreamed of before, and the fact doesn't alarm you in the least. ”

“ Those who asked Carley Farnsworth got for reply:
"Oh, it is only that some of us think we ought to have a fitter man than Webb to represent us in the Senate, and we've nominated Westover without his knowledge or consent."
"But where is he?" was sure to be the next question. "Is he afraid to face the public?"
"No," Carley answered in every case. "If you get it into your head that Boyd Westover is afraid of anything or anybody, you'll be as badly mistaken as if you'd burnt your boots. He's away on a hunting and fishing expedition, just now, and he knows nothing of his nomination. ”

“ Then you'll awake to the fact that after all a man's affections are not so easily transferred as shares of stock are. You've never told me so, but I know, nevertheless, that the one love of your life is for Margaret Conway, and if you permit yourself to attempt a transfer of that passion, you'll repent it in sackcloth and ashes so long as you live. No, don't interrupt me. I'm in desperate earnest, and I'm going to say my say out, even if it results in your ordering my horse and bidding me be gone from Wanalah forever. Now listen to me. ”

“ Truth is as much an obligation of women as of men. So is courage of the moral sort. But it is idle to expect that after generations in which you gentlemen of Virginia have excused us from all obligations except that of chastity. You have assumed our protection, and you have met that obligation bravely; but—well, I have thought much on that subject, and what I have thought is of no consequence. What are you going to do by way of righting the wrong Aunt Betsy has done, as you excuse her from the obligation of herself righting it? ”

“ Margaret Conway was too inherently truthful to protest that she had no cause of unhappiness when she had. But, with an instinctive flinching from self-revelation, which every sensitive soul experiences at such a time, she carefully framed her speech for purposes of avoidance.
"I don't think I'm cynical, Millicent. I don't feel so. I meant only to be amusing in talking of something that always amuses me. It has always seemed to me funny that young men should be so desperately afraid of us young women even when we are trembling in holy awe of them. ”

“ Boyd Westover was sleepy, and worse still, in his present case, he was indifferent. What good could a packet of papers or anything else bring to a man disgraced, condemned, doomed to a life of lost repute? He heartily wished that Jack had kept the papers and done whatever he pleased with them after the closing of the prison doors behind himself on the approaching day. But in response to Jack's insistence, he arose, drew on a light dressing gown and slippers, and offered his dully uninterested presence in Jack's dining room. ”

“ She simply parsed two or three times through the broad passageway between the two log houses that constituted her home, until the swish of her starched calico skirts awakened him "drop by drop like," as she explained to Sapphira and those of her long-legged sons who had "turned up" for supper in the maternal home. Those boys, Webster, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and Theonidas—heaven only knows where Judy got that name—were always uncertain quantities in the household. Each was a law unto himself. They came and went at their own free will, giving no account of themselves. Home was home to them. ”

“ I have taken the mountain vote for granted, as about three-fourths Whig and one-fourth Democratic. You see none of us expected this intrusion of Boyd Westover into the campaign."
"No, none of us expected it," answered another, "but we've run up against the unexpected, and we've got to meet it. Webb, you've got to go up and see Judy Peters. If you please her she'll settle the election out of hand, but if you offend her, then God save us, for no lesser power can!" ”

“ But what interest can a man in my position feel in anything?"
"Now listen to me, Boyd!" Jack Towns said commandingly, and rising to his feet to say it. "Listen to me. You are morbid. You need calomel or something. You're the victim of some mistake and you're in sore trouble. But you are not disgraced. Nobody can disgrace a man but the man himself. You are conscious of your own honor; what matters it what others think? Besides, no honest man in Virginia believes that you are guilty of a sneaking crime or capable of it. ”