JACQUELIN GRAY COMES HOME AND CLAIMS A GRAVEYARD

When Jacquelin Gray returned home, his arrival was wholly unexpected. His ship had reached port only a few days before and he had planned to take his friends by surprise, and, without giving any notice, had at once started for home. He would hardly have been known for the same man: in place of the pallid and almost bed-ridden invalid who had been borne away on a stretcher a year or two back, appeared a vigorous, weather-browned man, almost as stalwart as Steve himself. The first to recognize him was Waverley, who had been sent to the railroad by Mrs. Gray to try and get news of him.

“Well b’fo’ de Lord!” exclaimed the old man, “ef dat ain’t!—” He paused and took another scrutinizing look, and, with a bound forward, broke out again. “Marse Jack, you done riz f’um de dead. Ef I didn’ think ’twas my ole marster—er de Injun-Killer. Bless de Lord!—you’s jest in time. My mistis sen’ me down fur a letter—she say she ’bleeged to have a letter to-day. But dis de bes’ letter could ’a’ come in dis wull fur her. Yas, suh, she’ll git well now.” He took in the whole crowd confidentially. He was wringing Jacquelin’s hand in an ecstasy of joy, and the welcome of the others was not less warm, if less voluble. Under it all, however, was something that struck Jacquelin and went to his heart—something plaintive—different from what he had expected. The negroes too had changed. The hearty laughter had given place to something that had the sound of bravado in it. The shining teeth were not seen as of old. Old Waverley’s words sent a chill through him. What could they mean?

How was his mother? And aunt—and all the others?—at Birdwood and everywhere? he asked.

His mistress had been “mighty po’ly, mighty po’ly indeed,” the old servant said. “Been jes’ pinin’ fur you to git back. What meck you stay so long, Marse Jack? Hit must be a long ways ’roun de wull? But she’ll be all right now. De Doctor say you de bes’ physic she could git. All de others is well.”

“And all at Birdwood?” asked Jacquelin.

“‘Tain’t Budwood you’s axin’ ’bout. Washy Still, he’s at Budwood. Dem you want know ’bout is at Mis’ Bellers! Washy Still thought he wuz gwine git one o’ dem whar wuz at Budwood; but he ain’t do it. Rich or no rich, dee tun up dey nose at him—and all he git wuz de nest arter de bud done fly. Dee look higher’n him I knows. But I mighty glad you come. Marse Steve, he’s dyah. He’s a big man now. You’s done stay away too long. He’s one o’ de leaders.”

What could this mean?

As Jacquelin drove homeward with the old man he discovered what it meant; for Waverley was not one to take the edge from a blow. He had a sympathetic heart and he made the most of it.

“Marse Jack, de debble is done broke loose, sho!” he wound up. “De overseer is in de gret house, and de gent’man’s in de blacksmiff shop. I wonders sometimes dat old Injun-Killer don’ come down out de picture sho ’nough—like so many o’ dem dead folks what comin’ out dey graves.”

“What’s that?” asked Jacquelin.

“Dat’s what dee tells me,” protested Waverley. “De woods and roads is full on ’em at night. An’ you can’t git a nigger to stir out by hisself arter dark. I b’lieves it, and so does plenty o’ urrs.” He gave a little nervous laugh.

“What nonsense is this?” demanded Jacquelin.

“‘Tain’ no nonsense, Marse Jack. ’Tis de fatal truf—Since sich doin’s been goin’ on, de graves won’ hole ’em. De’s some knows ’tain’ no nonsense. Dee done been to de house o’ several o’ dese sarsy niggers whar done got dee heads turned and gin ’em warnin’ an’ a leetle tetch o’ what’s comin’ to ’em. Dee went to Moses’ house turr night an’ gin him warnin’. Moses wa’nt dyah; but dee done lef him de wud—cut three cross marks in de tree right side he do’; an’ he wife say dee leetle mo’ drink de well dry. One on ’em say he shot in de battle nigh heah and was cut up in de ole horspittle, and dat he jes come from torment to gi’ Moses an’ Sherrod an’ Nicholas Ash warnin’. Dee say he drink six water-bucketfuls and hit run down he guzzle sizzlin’ jes like po’in’ ’t on hot stove. Moses say he don’ mine ’em; but I tell you he better!” A sudden gleam of shrewdness crossed the old fellow’s face.

“Things had done got pretty bad, Marse Jack,” the old man went on, confidentially. “Hiram Still and Cun’l Leech, dee owned ev’y thing, and ef you didn’t do what dee say you couldn’ turn roun’. Hiram, he turn’ me out my shop jes soon as he got our place; an’ soon as he fine he couldn’t git my young mistis, he turn’ de Doctor out. Look like he and dat urr man, Leech, sutney is got a grudge ’ginst all o’ we all. Dee done put dee cross marks ’ginst Hiram too. Some say ’twas de Injun-Killer. Leech say he don’ mine ’em—he’s gwine to be gov’ner an’ he say he’ll know how to settle ’em; but Hiram, sence he fine dat mark on de porch and on de tree, he walks right smart lighter’n he did.”

As they neared the county seat they met a body of negroes marching. The officers yelled at them to get out of the way, and old Waverley pulled out to one side. “What are they?” asked Jacquelin.

“Dem’s Cun’l Leech’s soldiers,” said Waverley—“dem’s de mellish. When you meets dem you got to git out ’n de way, I tell you.”

The change in the aspect of the county in the few years of his absence impressed Jacquelin. It seemed to him greater even than that which had taken place during the war. The fields were more grown up; the houses more dilapidated. But as much as these warned him, Jacquelin was not prepared for the change which on his arrival at Dr. Cary’s he found had taken place.

His mother’s appearance struck a chill to his heart. His mother had become an old woman. She had kept everything from him that could disturb him. He was shocked at the change which illness had made in her, and all he could do was to try and conceal his anguish.

He sought Dr. Cary and had a long talk with him; but the Doctor could not hold out any hope. It was simply a general breakdown, he told him: the effect of years of anxiety. “You cannot transplant old trees,” he said, sadly. Jacquelin ground his teeth in speechless self-reproach.

“Ah! my dear Jacquelin, there are some things that even you could not have changed,” said the Doctor, with a deep sigh.

As Jacquelin looked at him the expression on the old physician’s face went to his heart.

“Yes, I know,” he said, softly. “Ah! well, we’ll pull through.”

“You young men, perhaps; not we old ones. We are too broken to weather the storm. Your father was the fortunate one.”

As the young man went out from this interview he met Blair. She had just come in from her school; her cheeks were all aglow and she gave him a warm handclasp—and her eyes, after the first glance into his, fell. He was sure from what he had heard that she was engaged to Steve, and he had rehearsed a hundred times how he should meet her. Now like a puff of wind went all his strong resolutions. It was as though he had opened a door toward the sunrise. A fresh sense of her charm came over him as though he had just discovered her. Her presence appeared to him to fill all the place. She had grown in beauty since he went away. She was blushing and laughing and running away from Steve, who had met her outside and told her of Jacquelin’s arrival, and was calling to her through the door to come back; but after shaking hands with Jacquelin she sped on upstairs, with a little side glance at him as she ran up. She had never appeared so beautiful to Jacquelin, and his heart leaped up in him at her charm. It was the vision that had gone with him all around the globe. He followed her with his eyes. As she turned at the top of the stairs his heart sank; for, leaning down over the banisters, she gave Steve a glance so full of meaning that Jacquelin took it all in in an instant.

“I’m going to tell him,” called Steve, teasingly.

“No, you promised me you would not, Steve,” and she was gone.

Jacquelin turned to the door.

Steve called him:

“Jack, Jack, come here.”

But Jacquelin could not stand seeing him at that moment. He wanted to be alone, and he went out to meet the full realization of it all by himself.

Jacquelin made up his mind at once. Although Doctor and Mrs. Cary pressed him to stay with them, he felt that he could not live in the house with Blair. How could he sit by and see her and Steve day by day! Steve was as a brother to him, and Blair, from her manner, meant to be a sister; but he could not endure it. He declared his intention of starting at once to practise law. Steve offered him a partnership, meeting Jacquelin’s objection that it would not be fair, with the statement that he would make Jacquelin do all the work, as he proposed to be a statesman.

So, as the Doctor had said that a change and occupation in household duties might possibly do Mrs. Gray good, Jacquelin rented a small farm between the Carys’ and the old hospital-place on the river, and they moved there. His mother and Miss Thomasia furnished it with the assistance of Mrs. Cary, and Blair, and other neighbors; the old pieces of furniture and other odds and ends giving, as Miss Thomasia said, “a distinction which even the meanness of the structure itself could not impair. For, my dear,” she said to Blair, who was visiting them the evening after they had made their exodus from Dr. Cary’s to their new home, “I have often heard my grandfather say that nothing characterized gentle-people more than dignity under misfortune.” And she smoothed down her faded dress and resumed her knitting with an air which Blair in vain tried to reproduce to her father on her return.

Jacquelin was vaguely conscious that a change had come, not only over the old county since he left it, but over his friends also. Not merely had the places gone down, but the people themselves were somewhat changed. They looked downcast; their tone, formerly jovial and cheery, had a tinge of bitterness. In those few years a difference between him and them had grown up. He did not analyze it, but it was enough to disquiet him. Had his point of view changed? He saw defects which he thought he could remedy. Those he was with, apparently saw none. They simply plodded on, as though oblivious of the facts. It made him unhappy. He determined to use his enlarged view, as he deemed it, to instruct and aid those who lacked his advantages. It seemed to him that, in his travels, his horizon had widened. On the high seas or in a foreign land, it had been the flag of the nation that he wanted to see. He had begun to realize the idea of a great nation that should be known and respected wherever a ship could sail or a traveller could penetrate; of a re-united country in which the people of both sides, retaining all the best of both sides, should vie with each other in building up the nation, and should equally receive all its benefits. He had pondered much on this, and he thought he had discovered the way to accomplish it, in a complete acceptance of the new situation.

It was a great blow to Jacquelin to find on his return what extraordinary changes had taken place in the county: Still, occupying not only his old home, but Dr. Cary’s; Leech the supreme power in all public matters in the county; Nicholas Ash driving a carriage, with money that must have been stolen; and almost the entire gentry of the State either turned out of their homes or just holding on, while those whom he had left half-amused children playing at the game of freedmen, were parading around the country in all the bravery and insolence of an armed mob. All this was a shock to him. He spoke of his views to Dr. Cary. The Doctor was the person who had first suggested the idea to his mind, and was the one who, he felt, was the soundest and safest guide to follow. In the little that he had seen of him since his return he had found him, as he knew he would be, precisely the same he had always been, absolutely calm and unruffled. To his astonishment the Doctor shook his head.

“It is Utopian. I thought so myself formerly and, as you may remember, incurred much animadversion and some obloquy. I did not care a button about that. But I am not sure that General Legaie and those who agreed with him, whose action I at that time thought the height of folly, were not nearer right than I was. I am sure my principle was correct, and, perhaps, had they yielded and gone in with us at the beginning it might have been different; but I am not certain as to it now.” He bowed his head in deep and painful reflection.

“It is now vae victis, and the only hope is in resistance,” he proceeded, sadly. “Yielding is esteemed simply a confession of cowardice. The miscreants who rule us know no restraint except fear. You will be astonished when I tell you that the last few years have almost overthrown the views I have held for a lifetime. I am nearer agreeing with Legaie than I ever was in my whole life.” The old fellow shook his head in deep despondency over this fatal declension.

Jacquelin did not agree with him. He had all a young man’s confidence. He determined that he would effect his ends by law. He shortly had an illustration of what the Doctor meant.

Mrs. Gray was failing steadily. The strain she had undergone had been too much for her. She had lived only until Jacquelin’s return.

To the end, all her heart was on her old home. In those last days she went back constantly to the time when she had come as a bride to her home adorned with all that love and forethought could devise. The war and the long years of struggle seemed to have been blotted out and her memory appeared only to retain and to dwell on every scene of the old life. One of her constant thoughts was: If she could only have lain at the old home, at her husband’s side! So, she passed quietly away. In the watches of the last night, when no one was with her but Jacquelin, after she had talked to him of Rupert and confided him to his care, she asked Jacquelin if he thought she might ever be taken home. His father and she had picked out the spot under one of the great trees.

“Mother,” said Jacquelin, kneeling beside her and holding one of her thin, transparent hands in his, “if I live and God is good to me, you shall lie there.”

He had consulted General Legaie and Steve on the subject, and they both had thought that the burying-ground had not been conveyed in the deed to Still, though Leech, to whom, as counsel for Still, they had broached the matter, asserted that it had been included.

The day Mrs. Gray died, Dr. Cary wrote a note to Still on Jacquelin’s behalf, though without his knowledge, indicating his cousin’s wish to bury his mother beside his father, and saying that it would not be held to affect any question of ownership at issue between them.

To this Still replied that while he should be “very glad to do anything that Dr. Cary or any member of his family asked for themselves,” he would not permit any outsider to be buried on his place, especially one who had insulted him; that he did not acknowledge that any question existed as to his title; and that he was prepared to show that, if so, it was unfounded. He added that he was “going to remove the tomb-stones, cut down the trees, clear up the place, and get rid of the old grave-yard altogether.”

A part of the letter was evidently written by a lawyer.

Dr. Cary felt that he could not withhold this notification from Jacquelin. Before doing so, however, he consulted General Legaie. The little General’s eyes snapped as he read the letter. “Ah! if he were only a gentleman!” he sighed. The next moment he broke out. “I’ll lay my riding-whip across the dog’s shoulders! That’s what I’ll do.” The Doctor tried to soothe him. He would show the letter to Jacquelin, he said. The General protested. “My dear sir, if you do, there will be trouble. Young men are so rash. They have not the calm deliberation that we have.” The Doctor, recalling his conversation with Jacquelin, said he thought he could rely on his wisdom. “If he sees that letter there will be trouble,” asserted the General, “or he is not the nephew of his—ahem! not the son of his father.” However, the Doctor was firm. So he broke the matter to Jacquelin. To their surprise, Jacquelin took it very quietly; he did not say anything nor appear to mind it a great deal. The General’s countenance fell. “Young men have changed since my day,” he said, sadly.

So Mrs. Gray was buried in what had been a part of the church-yard of the old brick-church, and Jacquelin, walking with his arm around Rupert, was as quiet as Miss Thomasia.

That afternoon he excused himself from the further attendance of his friends, left his aunt and Rupert and walked out alone. He went first to the house of his neighbor, Stamper. Him Jacquelin told of his purpose. Stamper wished to accompany him; but he would not permit that. “Have you got a pistol?” asked Stamper. No, he was not armed, he said; he only wanted his friend to know, “in case anything should happen.” Then he walked away in the direction of Red Rock, leaving little Stamper leaning on the bars looking after him rather wistfully until he had disappeared.

He had not been gone long when Stamper started after him. “If he gets hold of him, I’m afeared he’ll kill him,” he muttered as he hurried along.

It was after sunset, and Hiram Still was sitting alone in the hall at Red Rock, by a table in the drawers of which he kept his papers. He never liked to sit in the dark, and had just called for a light. He was waiting for it. He was not in a good humor, for he had had something of a quarrel with Leech, and his son Wash had taken the latter’s side. The young doctor was always taking sides against him these days. They had made him write Dr. Cary that he was going to clear up the grave-yard, and he was not at all sure that it was a good thing to do; he had always heard that it was bad luck to break up a grave-yard, and now they had left him alone in the house. Even the drink of whiskey he had taken had not restored his good spirits.

Why did not the light come? He roared an oath toward the open door. “D——n the lazy niggers!”

Suddenly there was a step, or something like a step, near him—he was not sure about it, for he must have been dozing—and he looked up. His heart jumped into his throat. Before him in the hall stood, tall and gray, the “Indian-killer,” his eyes blazing like coals of fire.

“Good God!” he gasped.

No, it was speaking—it was a man. But it was almost as bad. Still had not seen Jacquelin before in two years. And he had never noticed how like the “Indian-killer” he was. What did he want?

“I have come to see you about the grave-yard,” said Jacquelin. The voice was his father’s. It smote Still like a voice from the dead.

Still wanted to apologize to him; but he could not speak, his throat was dry. There was a pistol in the drawer before him and he pulled the drawer open and put his hand on it. The cold steel recalled him to himself and he drew it toward him, his courage reviving. Jacquelin must have heard the sound; he was right over him.

“If you attempt to draw that pistol on me,” he said, quietly, “I will kill you right where you sit.”

Whether it was the man’s unstrung condition, or whether it was Jacquelin’s resemblance to the fierce Indian-killer, as he stood there in the dusk with his eyes burning, his strong hands twitching, or whether it was his unexpected stalwartness and fierceness as he towered above the overseer, the latter sank back with a whine.

A negro entered at a side door with a light, but stood still, amazed at the scene, muttering to himself: “Good Lordy!”

Jacquelin went on speaking. He told Still that if he cut down so much as a bush in that grave-yard until he had a decision of court authorizing him to do so, he would kill him, even if he had the whole Government of the United States around him.

“Now, I have come here to tell you this,” he said, in the same quiet, strange voice, “and I have come to tell you one thing more, that you will not be in this place always. We are coming back here, the living and the dead.”

Still turned even more livid than before. “What do you mean?” he gasped.

“What I say, we are coming back.” He swept his eye around the hall, turned on his heel, and walked toward the picture over the fireplace. Just then a gust of wind blew out the lamp the negro held, leaving the hall in gloom. When the servant came back with a light, according to the story that he told, Still was raving like a mad-man, and he drank whiskey and raved all night.

Neither Still nor Jacquelin ever spoke of the interview; but a story got abroad in the neighborhood that the old Indian-killer had appeared to Still the night of Mrs. Gray’s burial and threatened him with death if he should ever touch the grave-yard. Still said he had never meant to touch it anyhow, and that Leech had made him put it in the letter for a joke. It was, however, a dear joke.

For a time there was quite a coolness between the friends; but they had too much in common to be able to afford to quarrel, so it was made up.