Certain Important Letters

When I reached my lodgings that night I found this note, marked in the left-hand corner "Important," and in the right-hand corner "In haste." A boy had left it half an hour before.

Be at my house at six, prepared to leave town at an hour's notice.

CARTER.

I hurried to Bedford Place, dived through the tunnel, and found Fitzpatrick with his hand on the knocker. I followed him through the narrow hall and into the dining-room. He had a duplicate, also marked "Important" and "In haste," with this additional postscript: "Bring address of a prudent doctor."

"What does all this mean, Fitz?" I asked, spreading my letter out.

"I give it up, Major. The last I saw of the colonel was at two o'clock. He was then in the private office writing. That old wind-bag Klutchem had been worrying him, I heard, and the colonel sat down on him hard. But he had forgotten all about it when I talked to him, for he was as calm as a clock. But what the devil, Major, does he want with a doctor? Chad!"

"Yes, sah!"

"Was the colonel sick this morning?"

"No, sah. Eat two b'iled eggs, and a dish ob ham half as big as yo' han'. He wa'n't sick, 'cause I yerd him singin' to hisself all fru de tunnel cl'ar out to de street."

We sat down and looked at each other. Could anybody else be sick? Perhaps aunt Nancy had been taken ill on her way home to Virginia, and the doctor was for the dear lady. But why a "prudent doctor," and why both of us to go?

Fitz paced up and down the room, and I sat by the open window, and looked out into the dreary yard. The hands of the clock in the tall tower outlined against the evening sky were past the hour, long past, and yet no colonel.

Suppose he had been suddenly stricken down himself! Suppose—

The slamming of the outer gate, followed by a sentry-like tread in the tunnel, cut short our quandary, and the colonel's tall figure emerged from the archway, and mounted the steps.

"What has happened?" we both blurted out, opening the door for him.
"Who's sick? Where are we going?"

The colonel's only reply was a pressure of our hands. Then, placing his hat with great deliberation on the hall table, he drew off his gloves, waved us before him, and took his seat at the dining-room table.

Fitz and I, now thoroughly alarmed, and quite prepared for the worst, stood on each side.

The colonel dropped his hand into his inside pocket, and drew forth three letters.

"Gentlemen, you see befo' you a man on the verge of one of the great crises of his life. You heard, Fitz, of what occurred in my office this mornin'? You know how brutally I was assaulted, and how entirely without provocation on my part? I am a Caarter, suh, and a gentleman. No man can throw discredit on an enterprise bearin' my name without bein' answerable to me."

And the colonel with great dignity opened one of the letters, and read as follows:—

51 BEDFORD PLACE. Tuesday.

P. A. KLUTCHEM. Sir,—You took occasion this morning, in the presence of a number of my friends, to make use of certain offensive remarks reflecting upon a great commercial enterprise to which I have lent my name. This was accompanied by a familiarity as coarse as it was unwarranted. The laws of hospitality, which your own lack of good breeding violated, forbade my having you ejected from my office on the spot.

I now demand that satisfaction to which I am entitled, and I herewith inform you that I am ready at an hour's notice to meet you at any point outside the city most convenient to yourself.

Immediately upon your reply my friend Mr. T. B. Fitzpatrick will wait upon you and arrange the details. I name Major Thos. C. Yancey of Virginia as my second in the field.

I have the honor to remain
Your obedient servant,
GEORGE FAIRFAX CARTER, Late Colonel C. S. A.

"Suffering Moses!" cried out Fitz. "You are not going to send that?"

"It is sent, my dear Fitz. Mailed from my office this afternoon. This is a copy." Fitz sank into a chair with both hands to his head.

"My object in sendin' for you both," the colonel continued, "was to be fully prepared should my antagonist select some early hour in the mornin'. In that case, Fitz, I shall have to rely on you alone, as Major Yancey cannot reach here until the followin' day. That was why a prudent doctor might be necessary at once."

Fitz's only reply was to thump his own head, as if the situation was too overpowering for words.

The colonel, with the same deliberation, opened the second letter. It was addressed to Judge Kerfoot, informing him of the nature of the "crisis," and notifying him of his (the colonel's) intention to appoint him sole executor of his estate should fate provide that vacancy.

The third was a telegram to Major Yancey summoning him at once "to duty on the field in an affair of honor."

"I am aware, Fitz, that some secrecy must be preserved in an affair of this kind Nawth—quite diffe'ent from our own county, and"—

"Secrecy! Secrecy! With that bellowing Klutchem? Don't you know that that idiot will have it all over the Street by nine o'clock to-morrow, unless he is ass enough to get scared, get out a warrant, and clap you into the Tombs before breakfast? O Colonel! How could you do a thing like this without letting us know?"

The colonel never changed a muscle in his face. He was courteous, even patient with Fitz, now really alarmed over the consequences of what he considered a most stupendous piece of folly. He could not, he said, sit in judgment on other gentlemen. If Fitz felt that way, it was doubtless due to his education. As for himself, he must follow the traditions of his ancestors.

"But at all events, my friends, my dear friends,"—and he extended both hands,—"we must not let this affair spoil our ap'tites. Nothing can now occur until the mornin', and we have ample time befo' daylight to make our preparations. Major, kindly touch the bell. Thank you! Chad, serve the soup."

So short a time elapsed between the sound of the bell and the thrusting in of Chad's head that it was quite evident the darky had been listening on the outside.

If, however, that worthy guardian of the honor and dignity of the Carter family was at all disturbed by what he had heard, there was nothing in his face to indicate it. On the contrary, every wrinkle was twisted into curls and curves of hilarity. He even went so far during dinner as to correct his master in so slight a detail as to where Captain Loynes was hit in the famous duel between the colonel's father and that distinguished Virginian.

"Are you shore, Chad, it was in the leg?"

"Yes, sah, berry sho. You don't reckel-member, Colonel; but I had Marsa John's coat, an' I wrop it round Cap'in Loynes when he was ca'aied to his ca'aige. Yes, sah, jes above de knee. Marsa John picked him de fust shot."

"I remember now. Yes, you are right. The captain always walked a little lame."

"But, gentlemen,"—still with great dignity, but yet with an air as if he desired to relieve our minds from any anxiety concerning himself,—"by far the most interesting affair of honor of my time was the one in which I met Major Howard, a prominent member of the Fairfax County bar. Some words in the heat of debate led to a blow, and the next mornin' the handkerchief was dropped at the edge of a wood near the cote-house just as the sun rose over the hill. As I fired, the light blinded me, and my ball passed through his left arm. I escaped with a hole in my sleeve."

"Living yet?" said Fitz, repressing a smile.

"Certainly, suh, and one of the fo'most lawyers of our State. Vehy good friend of mine. Saw him on'y the week befo' I left home."

When dinner was served, I could detect no falling off in the colonel's appetite. With the exception of a certain nervous expectance, intensified when there was a rap at the front door, followed by a certain consequent disappointment when Chad announced the return of a pair of shoes—out to be half-soled—instead of the long-delayed reply from the offending broker, he was as calm and collected as ever.

It was only when he took from his table drawer some sheets of foolscap, spread the nib of a quill pen on his thumb nail, and beckoned Fitz to his side, that I noticed any difference even in his voice.

"You know, Fitz, that my hand is not so steady as it was, and if I should fall, there are some things that must be attended to. Sit here and write these memoranda at my dictation."

Fitz drew nearer, and bent his ear in attention.

"I, George Fairfax Caarter of Caarter Hall, Caartersville, Virginia, bein' of sound mind"—

The pen scratched away.

"Everything down but the sound mind," said Fitz; "but go on."

"Do hereby," continued the colonel.

"What's all this for—another challenge?" said Fitz, looking up.

"No, Fitz,"—the colonel did not like his tone,—"but a few partin' instructions which will answer in place of a more formally drawn will."

Fitz scratched on until the preamble was finished, and the unincumbered half of Carter Hall had been bequeathed to "my ever valued aunt Ann Carter, spinster," and he had reached a new paragraph beginning with, "All bonds, stocks, and shares, whether founders', preferred, or common, of the corporation known as the Cartersville and Warrentown Air Line Railroad, particularly the sum of 25,000 shares of said company subscribed for by the undersigned, I hereby bequeath," when Fitz stopped and laid down his pen.

"You can't leave that stock. Not transferred to you yet."

"I know it, Fitz; but I have pledged my word to take it, and so far as I am concerned, it is mine."

Fitz looked over his glasses at me, and completed the sentence by which this also became "the exclusive property of Ann Carter, spinster." Then followed a clause giving his clothes to Chad, his seal and chain to Fitz, and his fowling-piece to me.

When the document was finished, the colonel signed it in a bold, round hand, and attested it by a burning puddle of red wax into which he plunged the old family seal. Fitz and I duly witnessed it, and then the colonel, with the air of a man whose mind had been suddenly relieved of some great pressure, locked the important document in his drawer, and handed the key to Fitz.

The change now in the colonel's manner was quite in keeping with the expression of his face. All his severe dignity, all the excess of responsibility and apparent studied calmness, were gone. He even became buoyant enough to light a pipe.

Presently he gave a little start as if suddenly remembering something until that moment overlooked, then he lighted a candle, and mounted the stairs to his bedroom. In a few minutes he returned, carrying in both hands a mysterious-looking box. This he placed with great care on the table, and proceeded to unlock with a miniature key attached to a bunch which he invariably carried in his trousers pocket.

It was a square box made of mahogany, bound at each corner with brass, and bearing in the centre of the top a lozenge-shaped silver tablet engraved with a Carter coat of arms, the letters "G. F. C." being beneath.

The colonel raised the lid and uncovered the weapons that had defended the honor of the Carter family for two generations. They were the old fashioned single-barrel kind, with butts like those of the pirates in a play, and they lay in a bed of faded red velvet surrounded by ramrods, bullet-moulds, a green pill-box labeled "G. D. Gun Caps," some scraps of wash leather, together with a copper powder-flask and a spoonful of bullets. The nipples were protected by little patches cut from an old kid glove.

The colonel showed with great pride a dent on one side of the barrel where a ball had glanced, saving some ancestor's life; then he rang the bell for Chad, and consigned the case to that hilarious darky very much as the knight of a castle would place his trusty blade in the hands of his chief armorer.

"Want a tech o' ile in dese baals, Colonel," said Chad, examining them critically. "Got to keep dere moufs clean if you want dese dogs to bark right;" and he bore away the battery, followed by the colonel, who went down into the kitchen to see if the fire was hot enough to cast a few extra bullets.

[Illustration]

Fitz and I, being more concerned about devising some method to prevent the consequences of the colonel's rash act than in increasing the facilities for bloodshed, remained where we were and discussed the possible outcome of the situation.

We had about agreed that should Klutchem demand protection of the police, and the colonel be hauled up for violating the law of the State, I should go bail and Fitz employ the lawyer, when we were startled by a sound like the snap of a percussion-cap, followed by loud talking in the front yard.

First came a voice in a commanding tone: "Stand where you are! Drop yo' hand!"

Then Chad's "Don't shoot yit, Colonel."

Fitz and I started for the front door on a run, threw it open, and ran against Chad standing on the top step with his back to the panels. Over his head he held the stub of a candle flickering in the night wind. This he moved up and down in obedience to certain mysterious sounds which came rumbling out of the tunnel. Beside him on the stone step lay the brass-cornered mahogany dueling case with both weapons gone.

The only other light visible was the glowing eye of the tall tower.

"Where's the colonel?" we both asked in a breath.

Chad kept the light aloft with one hand like an ebony Statue of Liberty, and pointed straight ahead into the tunnel with the other.

"Mo' to the left," came the voice.

Chad swayed the candle towards the broken-down fence, and sent his magnified shadow scurrying up the measly wall and halfway over to the next house.

"So! Now steady."

The darky stood like the Sphinx, the light streaming atop of the tall candlestick, and then said from out one side of his mouth, "Spec' you gemmen better squat; she's gwineter bite."

Fitz peered into the tunnel, caught the gleam of a pistol held in a shadowy hand, made a clear leap, and landed out of range among the broken flower-pots. I sprang behind the hydrant, and at the same instant another cap snapped.

"Ah, gentlemen," said the voice emerging from the tunnel. "Had I been quite sure of myself I should have sent for you. I used to snuff a candle at fo'ty yards, and but that my powder is a little old I could do it ag'in."