Melville Davisson Post

“ Greed ruled the world, and beauty, like many another gift of nature, was battered out under his hammer.
The oil driller stopped at the road side and leaned his long body on the rail fence. He was a thin, old man, with sharp, emaciated features, his hair and iron-gray beard were matted with oil, and his long arms, bare to the elbow and burned black by the sun, glistened greasy as the piston of his engine. The ancient workman kept his watch in dead silence, and beyond this his face showed no interest. ”

“ How could it be in the economy of men that such princely fidelity obtained alone even without trace of the common attendant virtues?
For the obligations of the law Ambercrombie Hergan had no regard. For the obligations of the citizen he had no regard. Even for the common obligations of morality he maintained the most stolid unconcern. Honesty was a name to him, and right and duty and honor were merely names to him. Yet blooming in the barren garden of this gambler's heart was something fairer than them all. ”

“ The little county seat on Tug River slept in a pocket. Behind it and on every side except the river were great mountains, half-hidden by a gigantic cloak of fog. On the opposite side, from the great coal plants of the Norfolk and Western Railroad a counter-canopy of smoke arose, dense and voluminous, and stretched itself like a black hand out over the town and across to the fog of the mountain. Man, it seemed, had conspired with nature to cover up and hide the town of Welch. ”

“ The soft breath of wind creeping up from the North through the rift in the low hills brought with it no sound, save the dull ceaseless thump of the engines drawing streams of liquid wealth from a thousand narrow arteries leading down into the bosom of the earth. This great industry, not content with changing the civilization, had changed also the very face of the land; two years before this fluttering summer breeze had carried with it the murmur of ripening corn fields, the sweet odor of quiet pasture land where herds of fattening cattle wandered through fields of blue grass. ”

“ The mountaineer was tall, rugged, and powerful,—a proper inhabitant for such a place.
“Spitler Hamrick,” murmured the sheriff.
“By every limping god! The toughest pine knot in the mountains of McDowell. I wonder what the old wolf is looking for.”
Then he tightened his knee on the pommel of the saddle and a slow smile crept over the features of the sheriff. “By my troth'” he drawled, “it is certain that Spitler is no Vere de Vere. Still, if blue blood ran to back, and bunches of muscles on the shoulders, Spitler's claim to princely lineage would be unquestioned.” ”

“ As for you, sir, the scheme in which you have been an actor was abominably planned, and more abominably executed. The most drivelling intelligence should have seen peril staring out from every infantile move made by you and this stupendous blunderer Hirst. You have taken an old, time-worn plan, teeming with dangers, and, not content with its frightful hazards, you and this witless Hirst have added one complicated peril after another until you have finally constructed a masterpiece of idiocy that in its complex nonsense approaches the sublime. ”

“ Prior to the notable exodus of the machine to Idaho, Randal had called upon Miss Lanmar, who was at that time a very young woman in college. The two were quite important, quite enthusiastic, and pitiably ignorant of the world's ways.
This last meeting to them seemed big with fate, and was dramatic to the limit of a playactor's rehearsal. Youth lent to it all the glamour of romance. To Miss Lanmar young Randal was her chivalrous knight-errant, on the eve of his departure into a wild and unknown land full of mysterious peril, in quest of wealth and fair fame, all for her. ”

“ Still he maintained his place, until on a certain autumn morning at a fat cattle show in Chicago, the good wife of a powerful Virginia grazier, on a quest for the ideal bullock, pointed down into the stock ring at the splendid Polled-Angus and said, “There he is, but he don't look human.” And there he was indeed, broad, and shiny black, and hornless as a man's palm—nature's answer to the breeder's dream.
The great tawny sun climbed high in the heavens; the heat of the day settled down over the living earth like an invisible mantle ”

“ Beaufort's residence on the avenue, the world was now a vast arena, into which he was going, armed and knighted with his lady's colors on his helm. His heart beat high in his bosom. He would be a factor in great affairs; the hour would come when he would return, famous, wealthy past belief, announced by the heralds. He could not know that he was but another character in that sweet old fairy story which men and women have striven to act over and over again before they learn with dumb horror how pitiless and how practical are the ways of Providence. ”

“ Presently in the deepening twilight a huge shadow appeared at the foot of the long hill, and the driller heard distinctly the sound of a horse coming leisurely up the sandy road. As it approached, the indefinite shadow took on a clear and decided outline, until one in the position of the driller could have seen that it was an enormous man, riding a red roan horse. The man was leaning forward, his head down and his hands resting on the pommel of his saddle, while the bridle reins dangled loose in his fingers. ”

“ Randolph Mason arose slowly and pointed his finger at the huge Alshire.
“The old story,” he sneered, “child afraid of a goblin. Moral wrong! A name used to frighten fools. There is no such thing. The law lays down the only standard by which the acts of the citizen are to be governed. What the law permits is right, else it would prohibit it. What the law prohibits is wrong, because it punishes it. This is the only lawful measure, the only measure bearing the stamp and the sanction of the State. All others are spurious, counterfeit, and void. ”

“ The dust arose in clouds from under the feet of the herd, and the cattle themselves, warm and vexed with the irksome travel, were restless and difficult to control. The great Al-shire and his huge horse moved here and there through the drove, white with dust; while the happy thrall plodded along behind the herd, whistling merrily and turning from time to time to strike some lagging bullock, and shout with childish glee “Go along you fat feller; to-night you will ride on the steam-cars, and to-morrow the British will eat you.” ”

“ Van Bartan was a woman of iron will, of stern resolve, of relentless determination, and that neither he nor any other living man could affect her. And how like a woman she answered that he, Dalton, would be sent for to make the will, and that he must save her some way, she did not know how,—he would know, he was shrewd, he was a great lawyer, he could certainly find some way ”

“ The ways of Providence are without premonition. At the first onslaught of the attorney for Gilmore, the importance of the testimony of Salathiel Jenkins vanished like a New Year's resolution. Yes, he had gone to the prisoner together with John Bartlett; he had explained that he was the deputy sheriff of the county of McDowell; that he was a person of influence; that the prisoner was in grave peril; and that, if a full confession were made, he, Jenkins, would induce the authorities of the law to deal leniently with the prisoner. ”

“ He had come up from a mysterious substratum of New York,—for what, and by reason of what, no man inquired. This mighty new land traced no records and propounded no questions. The arena stood open with its doors thrown back. Any combatant who pleased could enter. Heralded or unheralded, it mattered not. Good or bad, learned or ignorant, of yokel blood or princely lineage, it mattered not. If he were fittest, he could win.
From this organic defect of his mental build, and not from evil animus, had resulted the sad state of the Secretary's accounts. ”

“ The mountaineer always shot to kill. He was no man of half measures; it was a free, open, breezy war, and perhaps it was as healthy fighting as any. At his worst, the native moonshiner was a better man than the imported miner at his best. Up in the fog of the mountains men were killed; down in the smoke of the coke ovens they were murdered; and between the two words there is a distinction as big as the honor of a people. ”

“ Wise magistrates, laboring for the welfare of the race, have been pleased to write down what should be done and what should not be done, and have called it “law.” The citizen, having no time to inquire, has gone about his trade under the impression that these rules were offering ample protection to his person and his property. But the law, being of human device, is imperfect, and in this fag end of the nineteenth century, the evil genius thrusts through and despoils the citizen, and the robbery is all the more easy because the victim sleeps in a consciousness of perfect security. ”

“ The life of Jerry Van Meter had been crowded with events quite as varied and rapid of incident as that of Sinbad the Sailor. His parents, who resided on a small farm near Rufus Alshire's estate, had died when the child Jerry was quite an infant, and the huge grazier had assumed the guardianship of the youth. Under his direction the boy had been educated, and finally installed as a bank clerk in one of the small towns. But the spirit of adventure was big in the breast of the youthful Jerry, and one morning he closed the ledger carefully and vanished into the Northwest. ”

“ Yet the wise man who accompanies the youth to the gateway of the arena will not say: “To-morrow Circumstance will beat you from your horse and tramp you under, and instead of returning victor, you will return a cripple.” Although the wise man knows full well that of all results this latter is most probable, yet he will not say it, because the enthusiasm of youth is a marvellous power, difficult to estimate, and what it may accomplish no man can tell. ”

“ They were exact, calculating men, bred to respect order, and obey and maintain the customs of law. The contrast was significant, and one recalled and understood the constant bitter conflict between the judicial tribunals of the State and the judicial tribunals of the Federal Government, bitterly waged and as yet undecided. From one standpoint, this was the calm tribunal of the supreme power of the land, providing the same rights and remedies on the very border of its jurisdiction that it provided at the capital itself, favoring no condition and acting as even-eyed as nature. ”

“ If I love you, of what value to me are all those other things without you? If I love you, it is not all these things I want—it is you. I ask you to answer this, and by what is true in your heart, know what is true in mine: Would you be happy with all that wealth can give you and without me? ”

“ It was a world where, if one sat still, one wasted with monotony; and if one labored, it was only for the purpose of building ships to fly in the air, which, when they were all completed, sat stupidly on the earth or by hap toppled heavily upon the builder, crushing out his heart. He could not understand why men had sometimes said that life was good. ”

“ It may happen, and, indeed, frequently does happen, that the individual suffers great hurt from this sweeping policy of the law, but it is held that the good of the commonwealth rises above the mere benefit of the individual citizen, and that where the welfare of the whole of society is involved, the law will not pause to consider the injury entailed upon the mere unit. Hence the policy of government in the exigencies of war, when protection must be had against violence, and the policy of government in the peaceful administration of the law, when protection must be had against vice. ”

“ Still the sheriff was all right. When he looked out of his dreamy blue eyes through his rimless nose glasses at a negro miner who had used his razor as an adjunct to an argument, and mildly requested the negro to accompany him to the confines of the county jail, it was as certain as the advent of death that the negro would obey, and obey without comment. ”

“ Thus gambling, wagering, and all gambling and wagering contracts and transactions are illegal as against public policy, since they are repugnant to the well-being of society, fraught with vice, pregnant with demoralization, and corrupting alike to the youth and to the aged, as they inspire a hope of reward without labor. ”

“ Indeed, even after the punishment of la peine forte et dure is gone out these many hundred years, the good citizen will hardly hold that one guiltless who stands dumb while hidden evils assail. If men about their affairs were passing to and fro across a great bridge, and one should discover that certain planks in its flooring were defective, would he do ill if he pointed them out to his fellows? ”

“ Thus do men hoot the customs of their fellows when in conflict with their own. One looking at this grand jury as an exhibit would have gone away regretting that the chief fad of Delilah had not been handed down in the county of McDowell, just as the jury would have wondered why the funny little man divided his hair in the middle like a woman and wore a tight band around his neck and a stiff breastplate of cloth and starch over his ribs, when he could dress like a Christian, and be comfortable. ”

“ It must be borne in mind, however, that more gigantic and more intricate methods for evading the law and for appropriating the property of the citizen are available. The unwritten records of business ventures and the reports of courts are crowded with the record of huge schemes having for their ultimate purpose the robbery of the citizen. Some of these have been successful and some have failed. Enough have brought great fortunes to their daring perpetrators to appal that one who looks on with the welfare of human society at heart. ”