MAJOR WELCH AND RUTH BECOME RESIDENTS

It was yet early in the day, when the travellers drove up to Red Rock, and though there were certain things which showed that the place was not kept up as it had formerly been, it was far handsomer, and appeared to be more extensively cultivated, than any plantation they had yet seen. A long line of barns and stables lay at some little distance behind the mansion, half screened by the hill, and off to one side stretched a large garden with shrubbery, apparently somewhat neglected, at the far end of which was a grove or great thicket of evergreens and other trees.

A tall man with a slight stoop in his shoulders came down the broad steps, and advanced to meet them as they drove up.

“Is this Colonel Welch?” he asked.

“Well, not exactly, but Major Welch,” said that gentleman, pleasantly, wondering how he could know him, “and you are—Mr. Still?”

“Yes, sir, I’m the gentleman: I’m Mr. Still—Colonel Still, some of ’em calls me; but I’m like yourself, Colonel, I don’t care for titles. The madam, I suppose, sir?” he smiled, as he handed Ruth down.

“No, my daughter, Miss Welch,” said the Major, a little stiffly, to Ruth’s amusement.

“Ah! I thought she was a leetle young for you, Colonel; but sometimes we old fellows get a chance at a fresh covey and we most always try to pick a young bird. We’re real glad to see you, ma’am, and to have the honor of entertainin’ so fine a young lady in our humble home. My son Wash, the Doctor, ain’t at home this mornin’, but he’ll be back to-night, and he’ll know how to make you have a good time. He’s had advantages his daddy never had,” he explained.

There was something almost pathetic, Major Welch thought, in this allusion to his son, and his recognition of his own failure to measure up to his standard. It made Major Welch overlook his vulgarity and his attempt to be familiar. And the Major decided anew that Hiram Still was not half as black as he had been painted, and that the opposition to him which he had discovered was nothing but prejudice.

As they entered the house, both Major Welch and Ruth stopped on the threshold, with an exclamation. Before them stretched one of the most striking halls Ruth had ever seen. At the other end was an open door with a glimpse of green fields and blue hills in the distance; but it was the hall itself that took Ruth’s eye. And it was the picture of the man in the space just over the great fireplace that caught Major Welch. The “Indian-killer” again stood before him. Clad in his hunter’s garb, with the dark rock behind him, his broken rifle at his feet, his cap on the back of his head, and his yellow hair pushed from under it, his eyes fastened on Major Welch with so calm and yet so intense a look that Major Welch was almost startled. That figure had suddenly obliterated the years. It brought back to him vividly the whole of his former visit.

Ruth, impressed by the expression of her father’s face, and intensely struck by the picture, pressed forward to her father’s side, almost holding her breath.

“I see you’re like most folks, ma’am; you’re taken first thing with that picture,” said Still; then added, with a half laugh, “and it’s the only picture in the batch I don’t really like. But I jist mortally dislikes that, and I’d give it to anybody who’d take it down from thar, and save me harmless.”

He went off into a half reverie. The Major was examining the frame curiously. He put his finger on a dim, red smear on the bottom of the frame. Memory was bringing back a long train of recollections. Hardly more than ten years before, he had stood on that same spot and done the same thing. This hall was thronged with a gay and happy and high bred company. He himself was an honored guest. His gracious host was standing beside him, telling him the story. He remembered it all. Now—they were all gone. It was as if a flood had swept over them. These inanimate things alone had survived. He ran his hand along the frame.

The voice of his host broke in on his reflections.

“That thar red paint I see you lookin’ at, got on the frame one day the picture fell down before the war. A nigger was paintin’ the hairth right below it; it wa’n’t nailed then—and a gust of wind come up sudden and banged a door and the picture dropped right down in the paint. Mr. Gray, who used to own this place, was a settin’ right by the winder where his secretary used to stand, and I had jest come back from the South the day befo’ and was talkin’ to Mr. Gray about it in the hall here that minute. ‘Well,’ says I to him, ‘if I was you, I’d be sort o’ skeered to see that happen’;—because thar’s a story about it, that whenever it comes down the old fellow in the grave-yard gits up, and something’s goin to happen to the man as lives here. ‘No,’ he says, ‘Hiram (he always called me Hiram), I’m not superstitious; but if anything should happen, I have confidence in you to know you’d still be faithful—a faithful friend to my wife and boys,’ he says, in them very words. And I says to him, ‘Mr. Gray, I promise you I will, faithful. And that’s what I’ve done, Major, I’ve kept my word and yet, see how they treat me! So after I got the place I nailed the picture in the wall—or rather just before that,” he said in his former natural voice, “and it ain’t been down since, an’ it ain’t comin’ down neither.”

“But does that keep him from coming on his horse as they say? Has he ever been seen since you nailed the frame to the wall?” Ruth asked.

“Well, ma’am, I can only tell you that I ain’t never seen him,” said their host, with a faint, little smile. “Some says he’s still ridin’, and every time they hears a horse nicker at night around here they say that’s him; but I can’t say as I believes it.”

“Of course you cannot,” said the Major, a little abruptly, “for you know it isn’t he; you have too much sense. A good head and a good conscience never see apparitions.” The Major was still thinking of the past.

“How like he is to a picture I saw at Dr. Cary’s, that they said was of a young Mr. Gray who still lives about here,” said Ruth, recurring to the picture. She turned and was surprised to see what a change had come over her host’s face. He suddenly changed the subject.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve come down, Colonel. Only I’m sorry I didn’t know just when you were coming. I’d have sent my carriage for you. I’ve been lookin’ out for you, and I’ve got the prettiest place in the country for you,” he said. He nodded over in the direction of the garden. “I want to take you to see it. It will just suit you. The house ain’t big, but the land’s as rich as low grounds.

“And you’re the very sort of a man we want here, Major. Your name will be worth a heap to us. Between ourselves, you can conjure with a Gover’ment title like a trick-doctor. Now, this fall, if you just go in with us—How would you like to go to the Legislature?” he asked, his voice lowered the least bit, and interrupting himself in a way he had.

“Not at all,” said Major Welch. “No politics for me. Why, I’m not eligible—even if I settle here. I suppose there are some requirements in the way of residence and so forth?”

“Oh! requirements ain’t nothin’. We’ve got the Legislature, you see, and we—There’s some several been elected ain’t been here as long as you’ll been when the election comes off.” He glanced at Major Welch and interrupted himself again. “The fact is, Major,” he explained, in a somewhat lower key, “we’ve had to do some things a leetle out of the regular run—to git the best men we could. But if we could get a gentleman like yourself——”

“No, I’m not in politics,” said Major Welch, decisively. “I’ve neither experience nor liking for it, and I’ve come for business purposes——”

“Of course, you are quite right, Major, you’re just like me; but I didn’t know what your opinion was. Well, you’ve come to the right place for business, Major,” he said, in so changed a voice that he seemed to be two persons speaking. “It’s the garden spot of the world—the money’s jest layin’ round to waste on the ground, if the folks jist had the sense to see it. All it wants is a little more capital. Colonel Leech and them’s been talkin’ about runnin’ a railroad through this region. You know after all’s said and done, Colonel, I ain’t nothin’ but a plain farmer. I talks about railroads, but, fact is, I’d ruther see cotton and corn grow ’n the finest railroad’s ever run. My son Wash, the Doctor, he’s got education, and he’s got city ways and wants a railroad, and I says to him, that’s all right, Wash, you have yer railroad and enjoy it, but jist let yer old pappy set on his porch and see the crops grow. I’ve made ten thousand dollars a year clear money on this place, and that’s good enough for me, I says. That may sound like foolishness to you, Major, but that’s my raisin’, and a man can’t git over his raisin’.”

This was a philosophic fact which the Major had often been struck with, and it appeared to him now that he had a most excellent example of it before him.

As Major Welch was desirous to get settled as soon as possible, he and Ruth rode over that afternoon to take a look at the place Still had spoken of. A detour of a mile or so brought them around to a small farm-house with peaked roof and dormer windows, amid big locust-trees, on top of a hill. Behind it, at a little distance, rose the line of timbered spurs that were visible through the hall-door at Red Rock, and in front a sudden bend brought the river in view, with an old mill on its nearer bank, and the comb of water flashing over the dam. Ruth gave an exclamation of delight. She sketched rapidly just what they could do with the place. Still observed her silently, and when Major Welch inquired what price was asked for the place, told him that he could not exactly say that it was for sale. The Major looked so surprised at this, however, that he explained himself.

“It is this way,” he said, “it is for sale and it ain’t.”

“Well, that’s a way I do not understand. Whose is it?” said Major Welch, so stiffly that the other changed his tone.

“Well, the fact is, Colonel, to be honest about it,” he said, “this here place belongs to me; but I was born on this here place, not exactly in this house, but on the place, an’ I always thought’t if anything was to happen—if my son Wash, the Doctor, was to git married or anything, and take a notion to set up at Red Rock, I might come back here and live—you see?”

The Major was mollified. He had not given the man credit for so much sentiment.

“Of course, if you really wants it—?” began Still, but the Major said, no, he would not insist on one’s making such a sacrifice; that such a feeling did him credit.

So the matter ended in Still’s proposing to lease the place to the Major, which was accepted, Major Welch agreeing to the first price he named, only saying he supposed it was the customary figure, which Still assured him was the case. He pointed out to him that the land was unusually rich.

“What’s the name of the place?” asked Ruth.

“Well, ’tain’t got any special name. We call it Stamper’s,” Still said.

“Stamper—Stamper?” repeated the Major. “Where have I heard that name?”

“You might ’a heard of him in connection with the riot’t took place near here a few years ago, when a dozen or so soldiers was murdered. ’Twas up here they hatched the plot and from here they started. They moved away from here, and I bought it.”

It was not in this connection that the Major recalled the name.

“What was ever done about it?” he asked.

“Nothin’. What could you do?” demanded Still, tragically.

“Why arrest them and hang them, or send them to prison.”

Still gave an ejaculation.

“You don’t know ’em, Major! But we are gittin’ ’em straight now,” he added.

On their return to Red Rock they found that Still’s son, the Doctor, had arrived. He was a tall, dark, and, at a distance, a rather handsome young man; but on nearer view this impression vanished. His eyes were small and too close together, like his father’s, but instead of the good-humored expression which these sometimes had, his had a suspicious and ill-contented look. He dressed showily and evidently took great pride in his personal appearance. He had some education and was fond of making quotations, especially in his father’s presence, toward whom his attitude was one of censoriousness and ill-humor.

His manner to the Major was always polite, and to Ruth it was especially so; but to the servants it was arrogant, and to his father it was little short of contemptuous. The Major heard him that evening berating someone in so angry a tone that he thought it was a dog he was scolding, until he heard Hiram Still’s voice in mild expostulation; and again at the table that evening Dr. Still spoke to his father so sharply for some little breach of table etiquette that the Major’s blood boiled. The meekness with which the father took his son’s rebuke did more to secure for him the Major’s friendship than anything else that occurred during their stay with him.