As Eddring and Blount sat engaged in conversation after dinner that same evening, they were interrupted by a sudden disturbance in the hall. "Stan' aside, you-all," cried a pompous voice. "You wanteh hindeh a officah o' de law?"

Hurrying footfalls followed, and presently the face of old Bill, Colonel Blount's faithful bear-hunter, appeared at the door, "Hit's dat fool new sheriff, Mas' Cunnel," he explained, "Mose Taylor. Why, he says he got a wah'nt fo' you. I tol' him like enough you was busy."

"Let him come in, Bill, let him come right along in," said Calvin Blount, suavely. "Mose Taylor, eh? That's our new sheriff," said he to Eddring. "He's our joke. Hell of a joke, ain't it?"

Presently there came to the door the form of the new sheriff, large, portly and pompous. Taylor was a mulatto who long had entertained political ambitions. The realization of one of his ambitions seemed for this present moment to give him no especial happiness. On his face stood beads of sudden perspiration. His office had never before seemed to him quite so serious as it did at this moment. At his waist he wore a belt supporting a pair of heavy revolvers with highly ornamented handles—a present from certain admirers to one who was looked upon as fit to do much for the elevation of his race. The new sheriff did not at that moment seem to think of these revolvers. As Mose Taylor entered the door he cast his glance backward, over his shoulder. It did not encourage him to see his cowardly posse of black followers gathered in a huddle at the edge of the overflowed lawn, beside their boat. They were waiting to see what would happen to their leader; and their leader now heartily wished that he had remained with them.

"Come on in, Mose," said Blount, with honey-like sweetness. "Come in and take a chair." The man sidled in. "Sit down," said Blount, "sit down! Sit down on it good; that chair ain't hot;" and the sheriff suddenly obeyed. "I always like to see the sheriff of Tullahoma County feeling easy-like in my house. Now, tell me, damn you, what you want around here?"

"Cunnel Blount, sah—well, I got a papah, a wah'nt from co'te, f-fo' you, sah. I—I—I—didn't think you was quite so well, sah."

"Uh-huh! So that's why you came, eh? I reckon you'd be mighty glad if
I was a heap sicker, wouldn't you?"

"I dunno, sah."

"What's your warrant for, Mose?" said Calvin Blount, still quietly. "Stealing hogs this time, or killing somebody's cows, maybe? Out with it. Now, damn you, can't you read your own warrant?"

"Well, sah, you-all know there wuz some killin'—my wah'nt—"

"Yes, we-all do know there was some killing, a little of it, the beginning of it, a part of it. Now, tell me, have you the nerve—are you fool enough to come down here and try to arrest any of us white gentlemen for what we did a few days ago? Now talk. Tell me!" Blount's face took on its red fighting-hue.

"Wait!" cried Eddring, speaking to Blount, "this is an officer of the law. This is the law." He rose and stepped between the two, even as the sheriff fumbled in his pocket for the paper which had lately been the bolster of his courage, the warrant which in grim jest had been issued by the court of that county to its duly instituted executive officer.

Blount's face was an evil thing to see. At a grasp he caught from a belt which hung at the head board of the bed a well-worn revolver whitened where long friction on the scabbard had worn away the bluing. "Out of the way, Eddring," he cried. "Get your head out of the way, man!" His pistol sight followed steadily here and there, searching for a clean opening at its victim, now partly protected by Eddring as the latter sprang between them. Blount sat on the edge of the bed, his crippled arm fast at his side, his unshaven face aflame, his red eye burning in an unspeakable rage as it shone down the pistol-barrel, grimly hunting for a vital spot on the body of the man beyond him.

"Get out, quick," cried Eddring, and pushed the man through the door.
He sprang to Blount and pushed him in turn back upon the bed.

"It's the law!" he reiterated.

"The law be damned!" cried Calvin Blount. "Let me up! Let me at him! Him—to come around here to arrest me-that damned nigger! You, Bill!" he called out, raising his voice. "Throw him off my place. Kill him!" He struggled furiously with Eddring in his effort to gain the door.

The new sheriff of Tullahoma County was ashen in color when he emerged into the hall; and then it was only to look into the muzzle of a rifle, held steadily by old Bill. There ambled up to Bill's side, also, Jack, and between them they laid hold of the sheriff of the county and pushed him out of the house and across the lawn, administering meanwhile to his body repeated deliberate and energetic kicks, and thus enthusiastically propelling him into the very presence of his waiting posse, who raised never a hand to resent these indignities to one who had been their chosen representative for the advancement of their race.

"I'll see 'bout dis yer, I will!" cried the sheriff, as at last he got clear and took refuge in the boat which lay waiting at the edge of the lawn. "I'll have you-all up for 'sistin' a officah, dat's whut I will."

"'Sistin' a officah! Who! You?" said Bill. The scorn in his voice was infinite. "Say, you low-down scoun'rel, you say very much mo' an' I'll blow yoh head off. You're on our lan', does you know dat? Now you git off, right soon."

The officer of the law retreated as far as he could into the boat.
"You thought Cunnel Blount was all 'lone in bed, too weak to move,
didn't you?" resumed Bill. "Why, blame you, you couldn't 'rest
Colonel Calvin Blount, not if he was daid! Go 'long dah, now!"

Mose Taylor, the grim jest, the sardonic answer of the whites of Tullahoma County to those who deal fluently with questions of which they know but little, was fain to take Bill's sincere advice. Behind the shelter of the first clump of trees, he folded his arms into a posture as near resembling that of Napoleon as he could assume. He frowned heavily. "Huh!" said he savagely, looking from one to another of the crew who made his "posse." "Huh!" he said again, and yet again, "Huh!" A cloud sat on his soul. It seemed to him that persons like himself, earnestly engaged in settling the race problem, ought not to have such difficulties cast in their way.

Meantime, in the house, Eddring still confronted the rage of Colonel
Blount.

"You," panted Blount. "You! I thought you were one of us."

"I am, I am!" cried Eddring. "I was with you in what you did. I tried to get to you. It had to be done. But somewhere, Cal, we must stop. We've got to pull up. We can't fight lawlessness with worse lawlessness. We must begin with the law."

A bitter smile was his answer. "Is that sort of sheriff the foundation that you lay?" said Calvin Blount, panting, as at length he threw his six-shooter upon the bed. "Let me tell you, then, the law is never going to stand. That's no law for the Delta."

Eddring sunk his face between his hands. "Cal," he said, "we've got to begin. This country is being ruined, and perhaps it is partly our own fault. Now, I am guilty as you. are; but I say, we have got to give ourselves up to the law."

"Give myself up? Why, of course I will. I was going up directly, soon as I got well, to talk it over with the judge, and arrange for a trial. All this has got to be squared up legally, of course. But that's a heap different from sending a nigger sheriff down here to arrest Cal Blount in his own house. Why, I'm one of the oldest citizens in these here bottoms. I've carried my end of the log for fifty years, with black and white. Why, if I should go in with that fellow, where'd be my reputation? I'd have a heap of show of living down here after that, wouldn't I? Why, my neighbors'd kill me, and do me a kindness at that."

"But we must begin," said Eddring, insistently, once more. "There must be some law. We'll go in and surrender. I'll take your case."

"You mean you'll be my lawyer at the trial?"

"Yes, I'll defend you. But as for you and me, we're for the state, after all. We've got to prosecute this entire system which prevails down here to-day. We're growing more and more lawless all over the South, all over America. Now, we don't want that. We don't believe in it. Then what can we do? How can we get to the bottom of this thing? Cal, I reckon you and I are brave enough to begin."

Even as they were speaking, they heard a knock at the door, and Miss Lady once more stood looking in hesitatingly upon these stern-faced men. Upon her own face there was horror, terror.

"I don't know what to do!" she cried, her hands at her temples. "I don't know where to go. You tell me this is my home, and I have nowhere else to go, but this is a terrible place. Why, I have just heard about what happened—about Delphine and those others. Why, sir,"—this to Eddring,—"you knew it all the time. You saw. You knew!"

"Yes," said Eddring, "that is why I would not let you walk down that little path on the island. I didn't want you to know—we didn't want you ever to know."

"Yes, Miss Lady," affirmed Blount, "we knew. We didn't want you to know."

"But is there no law?" she cried. "Why do you do these things? The punishment is for the officers, for the courts, and not for you. Why, how can I look at you without shivering?"

"What shall we do, Miss Lady?" asked Blount, coldly. "What's the right thing to do? Listen. We've done this thing for you. You're a white girl. The white women of this country—if we didn't do these things, what chance would you and your like have in this country? Now, we've done it for you, and we'll finish the way you say. You're to decide. Shall we go in and surrender? Shall we be tried? Remember, it is our own lives at stake, then."

"We will go in, and we will meet our trial," said John Eddring, rising and interrupting, even as Miss Lady buried her face in her hands. "We will begin, right here."

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAW OF THE LAND

One morning in the early fall, the little town of Clarksville, county-seat of Tullahoma County, was thronged with people from all the country round about. There was in progress the trial of certain white citizens under indictment for murder, among these some of the most respected men of that region. The case of Colonel Calvin Blount had been chosen as the first of many.

The court-room in the square brick court house was packed with masses of silent men. The halls were crowded. The yard of the court house was full, and the streets were alive with grim-faced men. The hitching racks were lined with saddle horses, and other horses and countless mules were hitched to fences and trees even beyond the outskirts of the town. The hotels had long since abandoned system, and every dwelling house was open and full to overflowing.

Outside of the town, or mingling in the fringes of the crowd at its edges, there huddled even greater numbers of those of the colored race. Some of these were armed. The white men in the streets were armed. None showed hurry or agitation; none shouted or gesticulated; yet the clerk of the court had a pistol in his pocket; each juryman was likewise equipped; the judge on the bench knew there was a pistol in the drawer of the desk before him. This gathering of the people was thoughtfully prepared. It was a crisis, and was so recognized.

The silent audience was packed close up to the rail back of which was stationed the judge's stand and jury-box. Within the railing there was scanty room; every member of the local bar was there, and many lawyers from counties round about.

Erect in the grave-faced assemblage, there stood one man, pale of face but with burning eyes. It was John Eddring, attorney for the defense in the case of the state against Calvin Blount, charged with murder. His voice, clean-cut, eager, incisive, reached every corner of the room. His gestures were few and downright. He was swept forward by his own convictions of the truth.

Eddring was approaching the conclusion of the argument which he had begun the previous day. The testimony in these cases, known generally as the "lynching cases," had long been in and had passed through examination, cross-examination, rebuttal and surrebuttal.

Eddring knew that he would be followed by an able man, a district attorney conscientious in the discharge of his duty, however unpleasant it might be. He had therefore with the greatest care analyzed the evidence of the state as offered, and had demonstrated the technical impossibility of a conviction. Yet this, he knew, would not upon this occasion suffice. He went on toward the heart of the real case which he felt was then on trial before this jury of the people.

"Your Honor and gentlemen of the jury," he continued, "we all know that we are, in effect, trying today not one man, not one district, not one state, but an entire system. We are trying the South. The life and the liberty of the South are at stake. To prove this, these men have come in and given themselves up as an atonement, as a blood offering like to that of old; seeking to prove that what they continually have coveted is not lawlessness, but the law.

"Now I say this, and I say, also, let each of us have a care lest he lose touch with the eternal pillar of the truth. There it is. It rises before you, gentlemen, that silent, somber shaft. It finds its summit in the sky. I pray God to keep my own hand in touch thereto, and my eyes turned not aside. And my life, with that of these others, is offered freely in proof that we covet not lawlessness, but the law! We are white men, and where the white man has gone, there has he builded ever, first of all, his temple of the law. Upon whatever land the Anglo-Saxon sets his foot, of that land he is the master, or there he finds his grave. First he lays his hearthstone, and upon that foundation he builds his temple of the law. A race which has no hearthstone knows no law.

"Inasmuch as God has made all manner of things diverse, setting no fence even between species and species, creating all blades of grass alike, yet not one the duplicate of another; then neither should we, being human, essay a wisdom greater than that of the eternal compromise of life. No human document, no sum of human wisdom, not even the Deity of all life can or does guarantee a success which means individual equality in the result of effort. The chance, the opportunity—that is the law, and that is all the law. Beyond that did not go the intent of that Divinity which decreed the scheme under which this earth must endure. To war and conflict each creature is foreordained, for so runs the decree of life. But never, in the divine wisdom, was it established that the mouth of the stream should be its source; that inequality should be equality; that failure should be success; that unfitness should mean survival.

"In reading the pages of the great and beloved Constitution of America there have been those who have juggled the import of the word 'success' with the meaning of the chance to succeed.

"There was such juggling in those war amendments to that Constitution, which to-day represent the folly of a part of America— not of all of America. Those amendments, if they be not of themselves war measures, were at least consequences of war measures. This Constitution which we call supreme can, of itself, be amended—can, indeed, itself be set aside by its own servants, as was proved in that very war whose memory is still in our minds. The Supreme Court, in the Legal Tender case, admittedly set aside the Constitution. It did so of necessity, and as a measure demanded by the times of war. The supreme letter of the law has not always been respected by this people, nor by its wisest men, by its most august servants.

"It is not the law, gentlemen, vainly to call two blades of grass identical, vainly to call the hare and tiger alike and equal; vainly to call, if you like, black the same as white. The law is that if it be possible for the hare to approach its neighbor in ways desirable, it be given its chance to do so. If the black man can grow like to the white in all human attainments, if he can grow and succeed, then let him have the chance to do so.

"But that same chance of betterment and advancement, that same selfish chance to prevail and to survive, that chance to succeed given under the divine intent, must be accorded also to that creature known as the white man. If he, the white man, can prevail, can survive, can succeed, he, too, must have his chance. That is the law! But the chance of either white or black man is his own and is not negotiable. That is the law! Not without fitness can there be ultimate success. Not until the fullness of the years can there be attainment for any creature of this earth. That is the law! There is no tree growing in the center of this ordained universe wherefrom the full fruit of survival and of success may be plucked and eaten without effort and without earning. No individual has done it. No one can do it. Bounty and gift do not make success. It must be won!

"Is this doctrine difficult? If so, we can not change it. It is the great law, irrevocable and unamendable, and it is no more kind and no more cruel than life itself is kind or cruel. It is the law. That is the law!

"The makers of the Constitution, the amenders of the Constitution— that document subject to change, subject to being ignored, as has been the case—could never, under the enduring law, guarantee success plucked as an apple for each and every man who had not earned it. Gentlemen, talk not to me of the broad charity of this nation, or of its general justice to humanity. Call not this piece-work Constitution of ours, amended and subject to amendment, an approach to divine charity or wisdom. No; for in some of its effects it has proved to be the most cruel and unjust measure ever known in all human laws.

"It was cruel and unjust to whom? To us? To the white man? No, no. It was cruel in that it presented a title to success, to fitness and to survival unto eager, ignorant hands, and then by its own limitations snatched that title away from them again. It sought to do that which can not be done—to establish growth instead of the chance to grow. It was cruel. It was unjust. In the wisdom of a later day its patchwork form must once more be changed. It must be changed as a protection, no more against the former slaves of the South than against the future slaves of the North.

"Gentlemen, if that change could be effected to-morrow by the offering up of this life—of these lives now in your hands—I say these lives would be laid down gladly. Take them if you will. They are our pledge that we covet not lawlessness, but the law; our pledge that, having no law, we have been eager to act lawfully as we might. The reign of lawlessness and terror must end in this country. We must contrive some machinery of the law which shall command respect. We must not continually drag the name of the South—the name of America— in the mire of lawlessness. To do that is to smirch the flag—the one flag of America. But we denounce and will always denounce that false decree which says that black is white; that inequality is equality; that lack of manhood is manhood itself; that the absence of a hearthstone can mean a home; that the absence of the home can mean a permanent society.

"In the future the North, packed and crowded beyond endurance, with imported and herded white slaves who in time will demand the position of masters—as the blacks may legally demand that position here to- day—will pay her price for the right to make this plea. The South has already paid a thousand times for her right to make it to-day. With treasure she has paid for it; with roof-tree and hearth-tree she has paid it dear, and with the sacred tears of women. With the sacrifice of her own future she has paid for that right. But the South and the North belong together, not held apart by politics, but held together in brotherhood. In the name of all justice, let us hope that the South shall not be asked to pay the bitterest of all prices, the misunderstanding and the alienation of those whom she loves and would embrace as her brothers. Let us hope, in the name of mercy, if not of justice, that the South shall be understood as a region having a problem, a problem which is national, and not sectional, and not political. Let us in all fairness hope that our northern brothers will understand that the South is honest in her attempt to deal with that problem in her time, which is the time of to-day.

"Your Honor, I do not depart from my argument. I am not here for wild talk regarding the relations of the two races. It is the ages alone which will decide that problem. But I am here to stand for the law and not for lawlessness. I am here to say that our flag, the American flag, is for all men, and for America; not for Africa alone, or for Europe alone, but for America. It is the flag of progress, not the flag of anarchy. It is the banner of civilization and not of savagery. That, and not the banner of Africa or of Europe, must be our ensign to-day.

"Your Honor, and gentlemen, we are not here today to conclude that God set the white man over the black. We are to conclude simply that He set him apart from the black man. The divine right of slavery was an impiety, and, worst of all, an absurdity. The South made that mistake, and bitter has been the price of her folly. Yet the South, having sinned, paid the price of her sinning in all ways exacted of her. She accepted the ruling of the North, and, as a distinguished orator once said, surrendered 'bravely and frankly.' But she did not admit, and please God, never will admit, that those fresh from savagery should govern the white men, that they should institute the machinery of the law whereunder the white man must live.

"Gentlemen, you see before you, sardonically done, the fruits of the Black Justice. Is that the Law? If it be, then send us to our graves; for as that Black Justice formally exists to-day, Calvin Blount, and I, and these others, must go back to our fields or to our graves. Do you wish to send us to the latter? If you do, you send these other white men just as lawfully back to take up the hoe of labor, to bend their necks under the black yoke of African ignorance and savagery. Is that the Law? In my heart, gentlemen, I believe that those who say this is the law have not read the history of this country, do not understand the theory of this country, and can not speak for it unselfishly or honestly.

"Yet, gentlemen, that is the dilemma into which our brothers of the North would continually thrust us. Suppose that, casting about for some possible measure to free us from one point or the other of that dilemma, we should seek some legal compromise which would free us from the letter of this oppressive law of our national Constitution. Suppose there should be proposed some general and stern limitation of the franchise? Such an onerous qualification must needs apply to black and white alike. Who would be first to object to it? It would be the politicians of the North, who could not afford to exact even a prepaid poll-tax as a test for a vote. 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. Until that time, we of the South must continue to pay our part of the price of the national lawlessness; and we must continue, each commonwealth for itself as best it may, to enact laws which shall in part lessen the intolerable weight of that which we have set up as the idol of our national laws—that Constitution, which is impossible and not practicable, which is merciless instead of just, which is cruel instead of being kind, and most cruel to those whom it is thought to shelter. Meantime the South feels still the intolerable weight of that Constitution, the intolerable sting of the demand of her northern brothers, that she shall be asked to endure, in the name of this incubus, this body of the law, the continuous burglarizing of her honor and her prosperity—the burglarizing of the house of her society.

"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. This demand, gentlemen, I take to be an actual treason to the law and to this country.

"The white man has won his rights—why? Because he was able to do so. He accords to any other race the same privilege. That is the law of survival; it is greater than any law of politics, greater than any statute law.

"But, your Honor, these men can not be acquitted under any plea dealing with generalizations alone. The law of the land must be observed in so far as that law exists.

"Now I ask whether at the time of the acts charged against Calvin Blount there existed any adequate machinery of the law. I have pointed out to you the precedent of the great case handled by Mr. Webster in the city of New York, in which case the statutes were set aside by the greater law of an immediate and overpowering necessity. I submit to you that necessity, the greatest of all laws, and in precedent respected by our courts as such, would have overridden even the regular machinery of our laws had it been in operation. I submit further to you that no law existed in this country at that time; that the service of the law to its citizens had ceased. If the greatest court of the country still tolerates the burglary of the house of society by this so-called manhood suffrage, which should rather be called the per capita suffrage, then at least the lesser courts, wiser than the greater, recognize the fact that some crimes require no warrant for arrest; that sometimes the citizen is court and executive in one and at once.

"As the greatest authorities of the law have written, in the organization of society the individual never surrenders all of his rights. He retains for ever and inalienably, after all his delegations to society and the law, a residuum of power for his own. He retains under the great and supreme law of all life, that sweet, that divine privilege, his chance to succeed, his chance to survive! No tyranny, no oppression, can overcome that sweetest and strongest of all the Anglo-Saxon's coveted rights. Instead, he has ever risen against the law, when that law has demanded of him this last, this ultimate and inalienable right, this principle under which he has builded the civilization of the world.

"In defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the barons at Runnymede wrested Magna Charta from King John; in defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the free men of England wrested their Habeas Corpus Act from King Charles; in defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the colonists of America wrested a virgin empire from King George.

"And, please God, in defiance of statute laws grown weak and impotent, the white man will wrest from whatsoever hand may hold it, the right to protect the integrity of his race, the safety of his women, the sanctity of his two-fold temple of the law!

"I therefore submit to you that a sacred exigency demanded the action of this prisoner, of these prisoners; and I submit that this prisoner at the bar is innocent before the law. But beyond that I add my plea, with that of this honorable court, and of these gentlemen, that one day we may have given to us an image of the Law which we may venerate in letter and in spirit, and a law capable of its own enforcement.

"As I stand before you, gentlemen, this prisoner, this cause, its feeble advocate, seem small and inconsiderable. But at my side I see arising the eternal pillars of the temple of the White Justice. Do you not see them, rising solemn and stately before you, those pillars, their heads taking hold upon the heavens? If that temple has been defiled, if it has been cast down, then let us hope that South and North will restore it again in its full majesty. 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. Your Honor, and gentlemen of the jury, in the face of that statement, I say that not Calvin Blount—nor any one of these prisoners—has violated the law. And so I close with the words of the ancient form of pleading: Of this we do indeed put ourselves upon the country."

In the silence which fell upon the room as Eddring closed, the district attorney arose to present the case of the state. He began slowly, gravely, logically. He presented the printed page of the statutes, called attention to the formal accuracy of the proceedings, the overwhelming nature of the evidence; he explained that without law, nothing remained but anarchy. He pointed out to the jury that here was the law, plain and unmistakable; here were the facts, obvious and uncontroverted, the convicting facts. He spoke of the infamy which had been cast upon the name of the South by reason of just such deeds as these. He urged the necessity for an absolute and unyielding observance of the letter of the law, those statutes from which they dared not depart. They were statutes which could not be overswept by any glittering speciousness, or set aside by fine spun theories as to what might or might not be a more desirable order of affairs. He reminded them of their oath, their sworn promise to enforce the law—this law, the law of the printed page.

[Illustration: "OF THIS WE DO INDEED PUT OURSELVES UPON THE COUNTRY." p. 358]

He spoke for two hours, and he did his duty; but he addressed himself to men of stone, and he knew it even as he spoke. Not to be moved by his words were these set and solemn faces. Concluding with a passionate appeal that they should protect the fair name of their country from the stigma of lawlessness, he resumed his seat, knowing then the verdict which would follow.

The judge, an old man with silvery hair, turned to the jury.

"Retire, gentlemen, to consider of your verdict."

The door to the jury-room closed behind them, and left a thousand eyes fixed anxiously upon it.

They had scarcely disappeared when the knock of the foreman was heard at the door.

"Bring in the jury, Mr. Sheriff," the judge ordered.

The foreman of the jury, an unknown man, tall and stooped, with scraggly hair and beard, handed a folded paper to the clerk.

"Mr. Clerk, read the verdict," the judge ordered; and the clerk read:
"We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty."

The words were received in utter silence.

Presently all, jury and bar and spectators, filed from the court- room, quietly, not with oaths or threats of violence for those others who at the outskirts of the town were waiting for their answer. And they, the waiting ones, found their answer in this silence, and so now slipped out into the forest. The crowds of white men in the town also quietly melted away.

That night at the hotel the judge and certain citizens were engaged in quiet conversation.

"I think," said the judge, "that this young gentleman, Mr. Eddring, belongs somewhere in a position of trust. I believe that he can be depended upon to think, and not merely to play politics for the sake of office holding. We have had too much politics in the South, and too much in America. It's time now we did a little thinking."

"You're right about that, Judge," broke in the voice of Calvin Blount. "But it's just as he says, we've got to begin. We've got to have some kind of law to begin under."

The judge sighed. "It is humiliating to have to resort to any sort of subterfuge," said he. "Of course, in law, the rule must apply to black and white alike. I see that one of our sister states has passed a law allowing no one to vote who can not read, or who can not write on dictation any section of the Constitution; or who has not paid state and county taxes for two preceding years. This test is not applied to any one who was entitled to vote in any one of the states of the Union on January first, 1867, or at some time prior thereto. It does not apply to any legitimate lineal descendant of persons entitled to vote prior to that time. That is an evasion. Yet, as this young gentleman said, we can not submit to the burglarizing of the house of our society. Until we may legally repel, we must legally evade."

"Why, see here, men," broke in Blount, again, "if you'll let me say so, Judge, there ain't no law higher than the law of poker. Now we've let Mr. Nigger into the game with us; or, anyhow, he's here, and somebody gives him a few chips. He don't buy 'em for himself, and he don't know the value of 'em. His chips ought to be good as far as they last. The trouble with Mr. Nigger is, he's wanting to get into every jack-pot with less'n a pair of deuces, and wanting to play on the ground that his white chips are as good as the other fellow's blue ones. Now, that ain't poker!"

"It Shirley ain't," said the tall foreman, wagging a scraggly beard.

The judge smiled softly and gravely. "No," said he. "There should be justice to the white man as well as the black. You will notice the order in which I place those terms."

Calvin Blount hitched his chair closer up to the table. "But now you were saying, Judge, that we ought to do something for this young fellow, Eddring. I have known him a long time, from the time he was claim agent on the railroad. I want to say he's a man and a gentleman, not afraid of anything, and he wants to do what's right. I don't think he puts money ahead of everything else in the world. For my part, if he was my representative in the Legislature, or in Congress either, I'd feel right sure he'd represent me strictly according to the legitimate rules of poker; and that's a blamed sight more than a whole lot of politicians are doing to-day, North or South."

"It Shirley is!" again said the foreman, wagging his scraggly beard.

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. The cabins, late half-submerged and deserted, again found, at least in part, a tenantry. Songs were heard once more as the plowmen resumed their labors in the fields. Green and white and pink colors appeared, and gracious odors, and kindly sights filled now all the horizon. Peace, and content, and hope seemed now at hand once more. The master of the Big House saw about him his accustomed kingdom, and once more his subjects felt the hand of a master, if as firm, perhaps more kindly than ever before.

As for Miss Lady, she dropped back into the life of the place as though she had been gone but for a day. Care and responsibility sat upon the brow of Madame Delchasse, but Miss Lady, not less useful in the household economy, went about her employment as if she had never been away. Of those who welcomed her back to the Big House there was none more thankful and adoring than the old bear-dog, Hec. At the first sight of his divinity, not forgotten in all these long months, Hec, himself grown very old and gray, well-nigh wriggled his rheumatic frame apart, and lifted up his voice in a very wail of thanksgiving. From that time on he rarely allowed Miss Lady out of his sight, but pursued her about the place, hobbling and whimpering when her feet grew too swift; nor did his homage know any change save when Miss Lady deserted him to bestow her attentions elsewhere, whether upon little yellow chickens, or upon some of the toddling puppies which filled the yard about the Big House.

Of all little helpless things, Miss Lady could not find too many for her attention. Upon one certain morning in the spring, some time after the late trial at the Clarksville court, Miss Lady was sitting out on the board-pile beneath the evergreen trees in the front yard of the Big House. Her wide hat, confined loosely by its strings, had fallen back on her shoulders, so that the sun and the warm wind had their way of the brown hair, and the cheeks now flushed with tender solicitude for the three puppies she held in her lap. Yet other puppies scrambled at a pan of milk close by her feet, while at a distance old Hec, too dignified to engage in such procedures, lay in the shade and gazed at her with reproachful eyes. Calvin Blount, coming about the corner of the house, stood for a while and gazed at this picture in silence before he approached and interrupted.

"Miss Lady," said he, "you never did know how glad I am to have you back here again. Why, a while ago I didn't care what became of me, or of anything else. I wasn't even half-training my pack of dogs. Now I have got more'n fifty of the best hounds that ever run a trail, and with you to take care of the cripples and the puppies, it certainly looks like the old pack is going to last a while yet. Yes, you surely are right useful on the place."

"You are not any gladder than I am," said Miss Lady. "I've every reason in the world to be glad."

"Well," said Blount, seating himself apart on the end of the board- pile, "I've got a few, myself. This here is a heap better than being in jail, or maybe getting hung."

"Don't talk about it," said Miss Lady, shuddering.

"I don't want to think—"

"Well, it was Jack Eddring got us out of it all, I reckon," said Blount, breaking off a splinter from the board. "Did you ever stop to think, Miss Lady, that he's a powerful fine young man?"

"Why do you always talk about him?" said Miss Lady, turning, to the sudden discomfort of one of the puppies. "Every time anything comes up—"

"Now, hold on," said Blount, "you don't say a word against that young man while I'm around. I want to tell you that fellow has showed me a heap. He's a square, hard-working man, as honest as the day is long, straight as a string, square as they make 'em, and not afraid of nothing on earth. I ask him to come down here and go b'ah hunting. He always says he has to work—works harder than any nigger I ever had on the place. Now that's what he done showed me. I reckon he'd be a good sort of model for this whole southern country to-day. He's proof enough to my mind that a man can work, and do his own work, and still be a gentleman. I've been right lazy in my time, I reckon, b'ah hunting and that sort of thing, but now I come to think it all over, I don't know but what Jack Eddring is as near right as anybody I know of. He allows he's got something to do in this world, and he's starting out to do it. He sort of showed me that maybe that's about the best thing a man can do with himself—just work.

"Besides, Miss Lady,"—and here Blount turned upon her suddenly, "that man's done a heap for you."

"Oh, well—" began Miss Lady.

"And he thinks a heap of you. That is,"—and here Blount undertook to save himself from what he swiftly fancied might be indiscretion— "he's like all of us people down in here, you know. Now they tell me that up North, in the big cities where I've never been at, there's so many women that folks think they're right common. I don't believe that, nohow, for it don't stand to reason. Now we-all know that a woman is something a good ways off, and high up and hard to reach. That's the way we-all feel. But now even if we allow it that way, I want to say that Jack Eddring has done a heap for you, Miss Lady, that maybe you don't know about. He didn't have to do it, either."

"I never asked him to do anything—I never told him."

"No, you didn't," said Cal Blount, gravely. "You sort of allowed that he was a meddling sneak-thief, Miss Lady. I want to say right here that I allow a lot different from that. Now, if I know that man at all, he ain't going to come around you and make any sort of talk. You'll have to go to him."

"I'll not!" said Miss Lady, again eliciting a yelp from one of the puppies in her lap.

"There, there, now," said Blount, gently. "Just you hold on a minute.
Don't say you will or you won't. I just want to ask you one thing,
Miss Lady. Who do you reckon you are? I know you're Miss Lady, and
that's all I want to know. But who do you think you are?"

The kindness of the keen gray eye disarmed Miss Lady. In the sheer instinct of youth and vitality she spread out her arms wide, her face turned up halfway toward the sky, her lips half-parted: "Oh, don't ask me, Colonel Cal," said she. "I'm alive, and it's spring. I danced in the big room this morning, Colonel Cal! Isn't it enough, just to be alive?" Thus she evaded that question, which she had so long shunned as impossible of answer.

"Yes, it's enough, Miss Lady," said the old planter, gravely. "It's enough for you. But now, we men who are your friends have got to take care of you. We've got to do the thinking. Now, I'm saying that Jack Eddring has done a heap of thinking for you that you don't know anything about."

"Oh, I know he sort of took charge of things down there at New
Orleans. He told me a lot. And then—about Mr. Decherd—"

"Yes, about Mr. Decherd. I've never talked much to you about that, because the time hadn't come. Now I want to say that Jack Eddring had more right to throw that man Decherd off the boat than ever you understood. I'd have done it the same way, only maybe rougher. We're friends of yours. You're ours, you know. You haven't got any mother. Thank God, you haven't got any husband. You haven't got any father. Now tell me, Miss Lady, who do you reckon Henry Decherd is, and what do you think he wanted to do?"

Miss Lady, suddenly sober, turned toward him a face grave and thoughtful. A certain portion of the old morbidness returned to her. "It's not kind of you, Colonel Cal," said she, "to remind me that I'm nobody. I'm worse than an orphan. I'm worse than a foundling. How I endure staying here is more than I can tell. Shall I go away again?"

"There, there, none of that," said Blount, sharply. "I'll have none of that; and you'll understand that right away. You're here, and you belong here. You don't go out beyond the edge of this yard and get tangled up with any more Henry Decherds, I'll tell you that. Now, there's certain things people are fitted for. There's Mrs. Delchasse, a-stewing and a-kicking all the time because she wants to go back to New Orleans. I tell her she can't go, because she's got to stay here and take care of you. Now I'm fit to hunt b'ah. I can tell by looking at a b'ah's track which way he's going to run. Same way with Mrs. Delchasse. She can just look at a cook stove and tell what it's going to do. You can run the rest of this house, and do it easy. We're all right, just the way we are. Now it's going to be that way for a while, and no other way, and I don't want no orphan talk from you. For the time being I'm your daddy—and nothing else.

"But now," he went on, presently, "Jack Eddring is fit to do other things. He's been digging around, like he maybe told you part way, for all I know, and he's found out a heap of things about you that you didn't know, and I didn't know. Miss Lady, as far as I know, you may be richer than I am before long. If you think I've missed the corn-bread you've done eat at my place, why, maybe some day we can negotiate for you to pay for it. Now I ask you once more, who are you? and you can't tell. How ought you to feel toward the man who can tell you what you are, and who you are? And him a man who can do that, not for pay, but just because you are Miss Lady. How ought you to feel in a case like that?"

Miss Lady said nothing. She only looked anxious and ill at ease.

"Now listen. I'm going to tell you what we know about you, or think we know.

"We think your real name is Louise Loisson, just the name you picked out for yourself. We think that was the name of your mother, and of your grandmother, too, for that matter. If all that is so, then you're rich, if you can prove your title; and we think you can. Tell me, what do you know about Mrs. Ellison? And what do you know about Henry Decherd? Were they ever married?"

A deep flush of shame sprang to Miss Lady's face as she turned about at this. "Colonel Cal," she began, and her voice trembled; "you hurt. All this hurts me so."

"Now hold on, child," said Blount, quickly. "None of that, either. This is strictly business. I know you are not the child of Mrs. Ellison. You are somebody else's daughter. You were in her company or her possession for a long time; just why, we can't prove yet a while. But there was something right mysterious between that fellow Decherd and Mrs. Ellison. Did you ever see them much together, as long as you were living with Mrs. Ellison?"

"No," said Miss Lady, "never, except as they met occasionally here or there. Mrs. Ellison traveled a great deal from time to time, when I was little, before we went to New Orleans, where I went to school with the Sisters. She, my mother—that is, Mrs. Ellison—had money from somewhere, not always very much. Mr. Decherd told me often that he simply was an old friend of hers. I always thought he was a lawyer somewhere in this state. Sometimes he went to St. Louis. We went to New Orleans; and that was the last I saw of him for some years until we came here to the Big House."

"That's all you know?" asked Blount. "You don't remember any mother of your own?"

"Not in the least." Tears welled from her eyes, and this time Blount did not protest.

"Miss Lady," said he, "there are some things we can't clear up yet. We can't prove just yet who was your own mother, but I want to tell you, you were born as far above that sort of life as that there sun is above the earth. No matter how much Decherd loved you, or how much right he had to love you, he couldn't do you anything but wrong and harm, and injury, and shame. As near as we can find out, he was about as bad, and about as sharp a man as ever struck this country. We couldn't hardly believe at first how smooth he was. Miss Lady, we can't tell just what his relations to Mrs. Ellison were. We know they had some kind of an understanding. We know that he was mixed up with Delphine down here on some sort of a basis. We know that he was robbing the railroad here with a list of judgment claims against the road, which he stole in some way. We know he was underneath a heap of this trouble with the niggers down here, and that he used Delphine as a cat's-paw in that. It was his scheme to have other people stir up all the trouble they could, so he could carry on his own devilment behind the smoke. Now we know he was mixed up with those two women somehow. I won't ask you any questions, and won't try to understand why you could have been so blind as not to know your own friends.— No, Miss Lady, come back here, and sit right down. You've got to take your own medicine, and some day you've got to know your own friends. Now sit down, and hold on till I tell you what I know about this."

And so, to a Miss Lady alternately shocked and ashamed, he went on to tell in his own fashion, and to the best of his knowledge, the facts of the strange story which had been canvassed between himself and Eddring long before. The sun was still farther up in the heavens when he had concluded, and when finally he rose to his feet and stood erect before her.

"So there you are, Miss Lady," said he. "You couldn't be any better than we knew you were all along. I don't think any more of you now than I ever did; and I don't believe Jack Eddring does either. Now, we don't know where this man Decherd will turn up again. You've got to stay here until we find out about that. But this thing can't run along this way, and it's got to be settled on a business basis. We've got to find Mrs. Ellison and make her tell what she knows. As to Decherd, his own rope'll hang him before long. Now, I'm going to be your agent, your attorney-in-fact. That's what we'd call a 'next friend' in law, maybe, though you don't need any guardian now. If you've got any better friend, you name him, but I know you haven't. Then we'll start suit to get possession of that property, which is yours. Jack Eddring will be your attorney. I'll appoint him myself, right now. He's just a little too good for you, Miss Lady, for you didn't think he was honest; but he'll handle this case. The only promise I want of you is this: if you get plumb rich and independent, and able to go where you like, and marry anybody you want to, you won't get up and go right away at once and leave us all. You won't do that right away, now will you, Miss Lady?"

Tears still stood in Miss Lady's eyes, as she put both her hands in the big one extended to her. "Colonel Cal," said she, "it's a wonder that I can know my friends, or tell the truth, or do anything that's right. It's been deceit, and treachery, and wrong about me all the time. I have hardly heard a true word, it seems to me, except when I was with the Sisters. But I think that she, Mrs. Ellison, told me one true thing, although she didn't mean it that way. She said, 'There's nothing in the world for a woman except the men.' That's the truth. It's been the truth for me. They're not all bad; I know now I've met two good ones, at least."

"You said two?" asked Blount.

Miss Lady hesitated. "Yes—two," she said, "I'm so sorry."

Blount caught the penitence of her tone and the meaning of her unfinished speech, and was content to leave his friend's case as it was. "Miss Lady," said he, sternly, "what do you mean idling around here all the morning? Can't you hear my dogs hollering? Them puppies will just naturally starve to death, and here you are a-visiting around in the shade, not tending to business."

It was a sober and thoughtful young woman who looked up at him. "All my life, Colonel Cal," said she, "there has been a sort of cloud before my eyes. I could not see clearly. Tell me, do you think I'll ever understand, and see everything clearly, and be my real self?"

"Yes, girl," said Calvin Blount, "you'll see it all clear, some day; and I hope it won't be long. Now, I said, go feed them puppies. And look at old Hec, there, wanting to talk to you."