MR. GRISWOLD FORSAKES THE ACADEMIC LIFE
Miss Osborne had asked Griswold to await the outcome of the day, and, finding himself thus possessed of a vacation, he indulged his antiquarian instincts by exploring Columbia. The late afternoon found him in the lovely cathedral churchyard, where an aged negro, tending the graves of an illustrious family, leaned upon his spade and recited the achievements and virtues of the dead. Men who had been law-makers, others who had led valiantly to battle, and ministers of the Prince of Peace, mingled their dust together; and across the crisp hedges a robin sang above Timrod's grave.
As the shadows lengthened, Griswold walked back to the hotel, where he ate supper, then, calling for a horse, he rode through the streets in a mood of more complete alienation than he had ever experienced in a foreign country; yet the very scents of the summer night, stealing out from old gardens, the voices that reached him from open doorways, spoke of home.
As he reached the outskirts of town and rode on toward the governor's mansion, his mood changed, and he laughed softly, for he remembered Ardmore, and Ardmore was beyond question the most amusing person he knew. It was unfortunate, he generously reflected, that Ardmore, rather than himself, had not been plunged into this present undertaking, which was much more in Ardmore's line than his own. There would, however, be a great satisfaction in telling Ardmore of his unexpected visit to Columbia, in exchange for his friend's report of his pursuit of the winking eye. He only regretted that in the nature of things Columbia is a modern city, a seat of commerce as well as of government, a place where bank clearings are seriously computed, and where the jaunty adventurer with sword and ruffles is quite likely to run afoul of the police. Yet his own imagination was far more fertile than Ardmore's, and he would have hailed a troop of mail-clad men as joyfully as his friend had he met them clanking in the highway. Thus, modern as we think ourselves, the least venturesome among us dreams that some day some turn of a street corner will bring him face to face with what we please to call our fate; and this is the manifestation of our last drop of medieval blood. The grimmest seeker after reality looks out of the corner of his eye for the flutter of a white handkerchief from the ivied tower he affects to ignore; and, in spite of himself, he is buoyed by the hope that some day a horn will sound for him over the nearest hill.
Miss Osborne met him at the veranda steps. Indoors a mandolin and piano struck up the merry chords of The Eutaw Girl.
"My young sisters have company. We'll sit here, if you don't mind."
She led the way to a quiet corner, and after they were seated she was silent a moment, while the light from the windows showed clearly that her perplexity of the morning was not yet at an end. The music tinkled softly, and a breeze swept in upon them with faint odors of the garden.
"I hope you won't mind, Mr. Griswold, if I appear to be ashamed of you. It's not a bit hospitable to keep you outside our threshold; but—you understand—I don't have to tell you!"
"I understand perfectly, Miss Osborne!"
"It seems best not to let the others know just why you are here. I told my sisters that you were an old friend—of father's—who wished to leave a message for him."
"That will do first rate!" he laughed. "My status is fixed. I know your father, but as for ourselves, we are not acquainted."
He felt that she was seriously anxious and troubled, and he wished to hearten her if he could. The soft dusk of the faintly-lighted corner folded her in. Behind her the vines of the veranda moved slightly in the breeze. A thin, wayward shaft of light touched her hair, as though searching out the gold. When we say that people have atmosphere, we really mean that they possess indefinite qualities that awaken new moods in us, as by that magic through which an ignorant hand thrumming a harp's strings may evoke some harmony denied to conscious skill. He heard whispered in his heart a man's first word of the woman he is destined to love, in which he sets her apart; above and beyond all other womenkind—she is different; she is not like other women!
"It is nearly nine," she said, her voice thrilling through him. "My father should have been here an hour ago. We have heard nothing from him. The newspapers have telephoned repeatedly to know his whereabouts. I have put them off by intimating that he is away on important public business, and that his purpose might be defeated if his exact whereabouts were known. I tried to intimate, without saying as much, that he was busy with the Appleweight case. One of the papers that has very bitterly antagonized father ever since his election has threatened to expose what the editor calls father's relations with Appleweight. I can not believe that there is anything wrong about that; of course there is not!"
She was controlling herself with an effort, and she broke off her declaration of confidence in her absent father sharply but with a sob in her voice.
"I have no doubt in the world that the explanation you gave the newspapers is the truth of the matter. Your father must be absent a great deal—it is part of a governor's business to keep in motion. But we may as well face the fact that his absence just now is most embarrassing. This Appleweight matter has reached a crisis, and a failure to handle it properly may injure your father's future as a public man. If you will pardon me, I would suggest that there must be some one whom you can take into your confidence—some friend, some one in your father's administration that you can rely on?"
"Yes; father has many friends; but I can not consider acknowledging to any one that father has disappeared when such a matter as this Appleweight case is an issue through the state. No; I have thought of every one this afternoon. It would be a painful thing for his best friends to know what is—what seems to be the truth." Her voice wavered a little, but she was brave, and he was aware that she straightened herself in her chair, and, when wayward gleams of light fell upon her face, that her lips were set resolutely.
"You saw the attorney-general this morning," she went on. "As you suggested, he would naturally be the one to whom I should turn, but I can not do it. I—there is a reason"—and she faltered a moment—"there are reasons why I can not appeal to Mr. Bosworth at this time."
She shrugged her shoulders as though throwing off a disagreeable topic, and he saw that there was nothing more to be said on this point. His heart-beats quickened as he realized that she was appealing to him; that, though he was only the most casual acquaintance, she trusted him. It was a dictum of his, learned in his study and practise of the law, that issues must be met as they offer—not as the practitioner would prefer to have them, but as they occur; and here was a condition of affairs that must be met promptly if the unaccountable absence of the governor was to be robbed of its embarrassing significance.
As he pondered for a moment, a messenger rode into the grounds, and Miss Osborne slipped away and met the boy at the steps. She came back and opened a telegram, reading the message at one of the windows. An indignant exclamation escaped her, and she crumpled the paper in her hand.
"The impudence of it!" she exclaimed. He had risen, and she now turned to him with anger and scorn deepening her beautiful color. Her breath came quickly; her head was lifted imperiously; her lips quivered slightly as she spoke.
"This is from Governor Dangerfield. Can you imagine a man of any character or decency sending such a message to the governor of another state?"
She watched him as he read:
RALEIGH, N. C.
The Honorable Charles Osborne,
Governor of South Carolina,
Columbia, S. C.:
Have written by to-night's mail in Appleweight matter. Your vacillating course not understood.
WILLIAM DANGERFIELD,
Governor of North Carolina.
"What do you think of that?" she demanded.
"I think it's impertinent, to say the least," he replied guardedly.
"Impertinent? It's the most contemptible, outrageous thing I ever heard of in my life! Governor Dangerfield has dilly-dallied with that case for two years. His administration has been marked from the beginning by the worst kind of incompetence. Why, this man Appleweight and his gang of outlaws only come into South Carolina now and then to hide and steal, but they commit most of their crimes in North Carolina, and they always have. Talk about a vacillating course! Father has never taken steps to arrest those men out of sheer regard for Governor Dangerfield; he thought North Carolina had some pride, and that her governor would prefer to take care of his own criminals. What do you suppose Appleweight is indicted for in this state? For stealing one ham—one single ham from a farmer in Mingo County, and he's killed half a dozen men in North Carolina."
She paced the corner of the veranda angrily, while Griswold groped for a solution of the problem. The telegram from Raleigh was certainly lacking in diplomatic suavity. It was patent that if the governor of North Carolina was not tremendously aroused, he was playing a great game of bluff; and on either hypothesis a prompt response must be made to his telegram.
"I must answer this at once. He must not think we are so stupid in Columbia that we don't know when we're insulted. We can go through the side door to father's study and write the message there," and she led the way.
"It might be best to wait and see what his letter is like," suggested Griswold, with a vague wish to prolong this discussion, that he might enjoy the soft glow of the student lamp on her cheek.
"I don't care what his letter says; it can't be worse than his telegram. We'll answer them both at once."
She found a blank and wrote rapidly, without asking suggestions, with this result:
The Honorable William Dangerfield,
Raleigh, N. C.:
Your extremely diverting telegram in Appleweight case received and filed.
CHARLES OSBORNE,
Governor of South Carolina.
She met Griswold's obvious disappointment with prompt explanation.
"You see, the governor of South Carolina can not stoop to an exchange of billingsgate with an underbred person like that—a big, solemn, conceited creature in long frock-coat and a shoestring necktie, who boasts of belonging to the common 'peo-pull.' He doesn't have to tell anybody that, when it's plain as daylight. The way to answer him is not to answer at all."
"The way to answer him is to make North Carolina put Appleweight in jail, for crimes committed in that state, and then, if need be, we can satisfy the cry for vengeance in South Carolina by flashing our requisition. There is a rule in such cases that the state having the heaviest indictments shall have precedence; and you say that in this state it's only a matter of a ham. I am not acquainted with the South Carolina ham," he went on, smiling, "but in Virginia the right kind of a ham is sacred property, and to steal one is a capital offense."
"I should like to steal one such as I had last winter in Richmond," and Miss Osborne forgot her anger; her eyes narrowed dreamily at an agreeable memory.
"Was it at Judge Randolph Wilson's?" asked Griswold instantly.
"Why, yes, it was at Judge Wilson's, Mr. Griswold. How did you know?"
"I didn't know; I guessed; for I have sat at that table myself. The judge says grace twice when there's to be ham—once before soup, then again before ham."
"Then thanksgiving after the ham would be perfectly proper!"
Miss Osborne was studying Griswold carefully, then she laughed, and her attitude toward him, that had been tempered by a certain official reserve, became at once cordial.
"Are you the Professor Griswold who is so crazy about pirates? I've heard the Wilsons speak of you, but you don't look like that."
"Don't I look like a pirate? Thank you! I had an appointment at Judge Wilson's office this morning to talk over a case in which I'm interested."
"I remember now what he said about you. He said you really were a fine lawyer, but that you liked to read about pirates."
"That may have been what he said to you; but he has told me that the association of piracy and law was most unfortunate, as it would suggest unpleasant comments to those who don't admire the legal profession."
"And you are one of those tide-water Griswolds, then, if you know the Randolph Wilsons. They are very strong for the tide-water families; to hear them talk you'd think the people back in the Virginia hills weren't really respectable."
"It's undeniably the right view of the matter," laughed Griswold, "but now that I live in Charlottesville I don't insist on it. It wouldn't be decent in me. And I have lots of cousins in Lexington and through the Valley. The broad view is that every inch of the Old Dominion is holy ground."
"It is an interesting commonwealth, Mr. Griswold; but I do not consider it holy ground. South Carolina has a monopoly of that;" and then the smile left her face and she returned to the telegram. "Our immediate business, however, is not with Virginia, or with South Carolina, but with the miserable commonwealth that lies between."
"And that commonwealth," said Griswold, wishing to prolong the respite from official cares, "that state known in law and history as North Carolina, I have heard called, by a delightful North Carolina lady I met once at Charlottesville, a valley of humility between two mountains of conceit. That seems to hit both of us!"
"North Carolina isn't a state at all," Miss Osborne declared spitefully; "it's only a strip of land where uninteresting people live. And now, what do you say to this telegram?"
"Excellent. It's bound to irritate, and it leaves him in the dark as to our—I mean Governor Osborne's—intentions. And those intentions—"
During this by-play he had reached a decision as to what should be done, and he was prepared to answer when she asked, with an employment of the pronoun that pleasantly emphasized their relationship:
"What are our intentions?"
"We are going to catch Appleweight, that's the first thing—and until we get him we're going to keep our own counsel. Let me have a telegraph blank and I will try my hand at being governor." He sat down in the governor's chair, asked the name of the county seat of Mingo and wrote without erasure or hesitation this message:
To the Sheriff of Mingo County,
Turner Court House, S. C.:
Make every possible effort to capture Appleweight and any of his gang who are abroad in your county. Swear in all the deputies you need, and if friendliness of citizens to outlaws makes this impossible wire me immediately, and I will send militia. Any delay on your part will be visited with severest penalties. Answer immediately by telegraph.
CHARLES OSBORNE,
Governor of South Carolina.
"That's quite within the law," said Griswold, handing Barbara the message; "and we might as well put the thing through at a gallop. I'll get the telegraph company to hold open the line to Turner Court House until the sheriff answers."
As Barbara read the message he saw her pleasure in the quick compression of her lips, the glow in her cheeks, and then the bright glint of her bronze-brown eyes as she finished.
"That's exactly right. I didn't know just how to manage such a thing, but I see that that is the proper method."
"Yes; the sheriff must have his full opportunity to act."
"And what then, if the sheriff refuses to do anything?"
"Then—then"—and Griswold's jaw set firmly, and he straightened himself slightly before he added in a quiet tone—"then I'm going down there to take charge of the thing myself."
"Oh, that is too much! I didn't ask that; and I must refuse to let you take any such responsibility on yourself, to say nothing of the personal danger. I merely wanted your advice—as a lawyer, for the reason that I dared not risk father's name even among his best friends here. And your coming to the office this morning seemed so—so providential—"
He sought at once to minimize the value of his services, for he was not a man to place a woman under obligations, and, moreover, an opportunity like this, to uphold the dignity, and perhaps to exercise the power of a state, laid strong hold upon him. He knew little enough about the Appleweight case, but he felt from his slight knowledge that he was well within his rights in putting spurs to the sheriff of Mingo County. If the sheriff failed to respond in proper spirit and it became necessary to use the militia, he was conscious that serious complications might arise. He had not only a respect for law, but an ideal of civic courage and integrity, and the governor's inexplicable absence aroused his honest wrath. The idea that a mere girl should be forced to sustain the official honor and dignity of a cowardly father further angered him. And then he looked into her eyes and saw how grave they were, and how earnest and with what courage she met the situation; and the charm of her slender figure, that glint of gold in her hair, her slim, supple hands folded on the table—these things wrought in him a happiness that he had never known before, so that he laughed as he took the telegram from her.
"There must be no mistake, no failure," she said quietly.
"We are not going to fail; we are going to carry this through! Within three days we'll have Appleweight in a North Carolina jail or a flying fugitive in Governor Dangerfield's territory. And now these telegrams must be sent. It might be better for you to go to the telegraph office with me. You must remember that I am a pilgrim and a stranger and they might question my filing official messages."
"That is perfectly true. I will go into town with you."
"And if there's an official coach that everybody knows as yours, it would allay suspicions to have it," and while he was still speaking she vanished to order the carriage.
In five minutes it was at the side door, and Griswold and Barbara, fortified by the presence of Phœbe, left the governor's study.
"If they don't know me, everybody in South Carolina knows Phœbe," said Barbara.
"A capital idea. I can see by her eye that she's built for conspiracy."
Griswold's horse was to be returned to town by a boy; and when this had been arranged the three entered the carriage.
"The telegraph office, Tom; and hurry."