next morning the sun had not climbed over-high when the reverend campbell, head down and secret eye aslant, came shuffling to call upon the general. i caught the black shadow of him—for all the world like the shadow of some vulture to sail between one and the sun—as the drooping, furtive creature sidled through the hall. the general had sent for him, for the general was not one to let the grass grow deep between resolve and action.
“i will see the man alone, major,” observed the general; “he might complain, were you present, of a situation offering two against one and planned to over-ride him.”
such management was much to my appetite, since it would but serve to boil my anger—this listening while the reverend rogue laid out his pack of calumnies upon peg. in good truth! i much misdoubt if i had withstood my hands from him when under such honest provocation; and that, maugre his black surtout and pulpit snuffle.
and yet it did not miss me as a feature hard to be read for its significance, that now was the earliest time when the general had shown himself so equitable as to think on “two against one” and fail to ask my presence for his conferences. he had met folk for war and peace, and they had come alone; i had been there, and no one spoke of over-riding. however, the subject was not worth quizzing one's self concerning; the reverend campbell was come, the best thing about it being that the general lived ample and to spare to arrest whatever of slander he should bring us in his mouth, and put it to the death. the general could track a lie as surely as ever he tracked creek, and lived even more inveterately its enemy.
peg met the reverend campbell almost in the great front door, for she was on her usual journey to consult with me about some trifling nothing. when his sidelong glance encountered peg's, the rascal cowered and seemed to turn more mean, if that were possible, than by nature belonged with him. but he said no word; he did not so much as muster against her one square look, but sinuously, and as a snake might, writhed himself out of her path peg, for herself, swept him with a chill, errant eye as if he were some gutter-being, offensive though unknown.
“and what brings that bird of mal-omen to flutter about one's door?—so bright a morning, too!” this was peg's question on the reverend campbell as she walked in to me and climbed to her customary chair at the left hand of my desk. “what should you say, watch-dog, was his bad mission? is he a threat? does he drag a danger after him? you must be alert if you would make safe your little peg.”
the tone of raillery which peg adopted secured me; she had no surmise, then, to the purpose of the reverend campbell.
“it's quite sure,” i returned, evasively, “that our swart visitor would be much uplifted were the general to relent and dispose of florida according to his wish.”
and now while peg sits before the mirror of my memory with her sweet face, as she on that far morning sat in the great leathern chair, let me please my fond pencil with a word of her. there were so many expressions of the unexpected to our peg—for so i had grown to call her—one must needs be describing and redescribing her with each new page one turns. a born enchantress and a witch full-blown besides! it is the mere truth that peg bore upon me like a spell.
there was never woman to be peg's marrow for flash and spirit, and beyond all to creep so tenderly near to one. and for a crown to that, she was as wise as the serpent. there were moments when socrates himself might have listened to her and not lost his time.
and she could shift color like a chameleon. behold her on some day of social parade, or where she meets strangers or half acquaintances, and she will be older by fifteen years than now when she plants her small self in that armchair, and makes me turn my writing downward to talk with her. tender, wilful, pliant, wise, patient, petulant, true, uncertain, sure, confiding and confusing, she offered contradictions equal with the general. i would exhaust the roll-call of the adjectives were i wholly to set forth this child-woman in the last of her frank arts and sage simplicities.
peg wore as many moods as a lake on a flawy day and where skies are scud-swept. now, with a cloud across the sun, she would be dull and sad as lead. then, with a gust of wind, she would wrinkle into waves of temper. and next there would dawn a tranquil moment when, calm and clear and deep and sweet, she shone on one like burnished silver.
once, i recall, she sat in her big chair, steeped in a way of pensive wordlessness. i had not heard her voice for an hour; nor she mine, for i was fallen behind in my letters, and politics and president-making are mighty gluttons of ink. suddenly she broke in:
“why are you so good to me—so much more than any other?”
“how should one fail of sympathy,” said i, giving my manner a light turn, “for another so innocent and so ill-used?”
“and it's just sympathy—all sympathy?” demanded peg, resting her round chin in her little shell of a palm. “nothing but sympathy?”
“what else should it be?”
“i don't know,” said peg, shortly. then she walked slowly across the room and studied a picture. in a moment she gave a word to me over her shoulder: “i may tell you this, mr. questioner. there is but one question a man should put to a woman.”
smiling on her jaunty petulances, i went forward with my writing; she to pulling out the slides of a cabinet. this apartment, i should tell you, was my private workshop of politics wherein i repaired and extended the destinies of the general, and transacted his fame for him. there were a world of history and one president—and say the least of it—constructed in that room.
peg came presently to my elbow, bringing a trinket of coral. it had been my sister's, and was my mother's before that.
“is it worth much money?” asked peg.
“nothing at all,” i returned.
“and yet you value it highly?”
“very highly.”
“may i have it?”
it seemed shame to hesitate, and yet i did, while peg stood with wistful face.
“why,” said i at last, “i meant it for the one i should love.”
“oh, you meant it for her whom you would love! and do you look to see it again after that? the coral is mine from this moment.”
with a swish of her skirts peg was gone; and with her went the coral.
peg betimes would lay out her campaign for the coming winter. it was then she talked of van buren, “the good little secretary,” as peg named him. van buren went often to the eatons; and on each of those kind excursions he climbed ever higher with the general and with me.
“not only,” said peg, assuming a wise pucker of the brow as she recounted how she should wage and win her social war, “not only shall i preside for our good little secretary at dinners and receptions, but he has brought to me the viscount vaughn, who is minister for the english, and baron krudener, who is here, as you know, for the russians; and they, since they own no wives to help them, also have besought me to be at the head of their legation functions. and with the white house back of all, what then will mrs. calhoun and her followers do! watch-dog we have them routed!” here peg's rich laugh would ring out for victory on its way.
peg, on another day, would shake her head with soft solemnity.
“i do so wish some one watched over me.” peg spoke in contemplative earnestness. “if i could find a fault in a best of husbands, it must be that he doesn't watch over me.”
“what idleness now claims your tongue?” said i, impatiently. “was ever such nonsense uttered! and the wives should all turn ospreys, too, i take it, and haunt the upper air to watch their husbands?”
“no,” returned peg, demurely reading the carpet, “no; a wife should never watch her husband. what should you think of her who, dwelling in a garden—a measureless garden of roses—went ever about with petticoats tucked up, stick in hand, questing for some serpent? who is she, to be so daft as to refuse the fragrance of a thousand blossoms to find one serpent and be stung by it?” peg crowed high and long, deeming herself a princess of chop-logic. “but a man should watch a woman,” she concluded; “the woman wants him to.”
“and why?” said i, becoming curious.
“because she likes to feel herself tethered by his vigilance.”
“but why?” i insisted. “is not freedom dear to a woman?”
“yes, but love is more dear. see what she gains when she barters only a little freedom for a world of love.”
“i had not thought a woman set such store by jealousy—the green eye turned against herself.”
“jealousy—a man's jealousy is but the counterpart of his love.” peg lifted her clever head oracularly. “and, watch-dog, that reminds me”—here she admonished me with upraised finger—“you are jealous of me! yes you are; you are jealous of my husband.”
“you are a confusing form of little girl!” i said, laughing in my turn; “and most confusing when you jest.”
“yes; when i jest.” this in a way of funny dryness. “especially, when i jest. still, you are jealous; you watch me all the time. do not look frightened; i do not object to jealousy.” peg finished in a mirthful ripple.
“i would not see you walk into harm,” said i, meekly.
perhaps i was thus meek because the small hectorer would stir up confusion in my bosom; and she, cool, assured, mistress of situations it was her merry humor to create.
“you would not see me walk into harm,” she repeated. “but you are jealous of my husband. is my husband 'harm?'”
“do you not complain for that he does not watch you?”
this i said desperately. it is not a hand's-breadth behind a miracle how a girl—and you a steady man of years, and twice her age—will wrap you in perplexities like a parcel. it was so with me; the witch would wind and unwind me as though i were a ball of knitting-yarn! she would darn and patch her laughter with me!
“watch-dog,” said peg, severely, “watchdog, you know you are jealous! and how long do you count it since i told you that jealously was but love turned upside down?” this came off trippingly, and with superior wave of wrist, as settling a thing beyond debate. then with a tinge of tenderness: “watch-dog, being so trusted, what would you do for me?”
“i would be a slave for you,” said i, simply enough, “if it were to do you good.”
“qualification,” cried she, with a vicious stamp of her foot, “always qualification!” then mimicking me: “'if it were to do me good.' good!—good!—what a desert of weariness in four letters! if i were to discover some unnamed desolation, some barren waste, one arid, gray, dry, dead—especially dead—i'd turn geographer and call it 'good.'”
peg was quiet after this upheaval, which was with it all but a surface impatience and nothing deep, and uttering never a word, gazed over against the wall. on my side, i made no return; for i was grown used to her whims, and knew they were not to be argued with. and most fatal of all was agreement. a best course would be to reply nothing, whether of denial or comment or endorsement, but let peg talk her talk out unrestrained.
however, catching the fashion of her with the fringe of my eye as i went for more ink on my pen, and observing her face to seem over sad and considerate, i spoke up to cheer her.
“and now what are your thoughts?” said i.
“i was just wanting to be a man, that's all.” and peg stared straight ahead as though in a muse. then starting up, and with a rush of vivacity: “heigh ho! and now if i were, i'll wager i'd be as dull as the others—as dull as you, watch-dog.” then, changing the tune of it, but keeping to her dash and fling: “so you would be my slave! come, let me mark you for my slave!”
without warning, she seized my hand, and with her sharp leopard teeth bit until the blood flowed. then surveying her work, she kissed the pin-prick of a wound with unction. when she raised her face, there was a trickle of blood on her lip and chin.
walking to a mirror with a careless, flinging step, peg glanced her face over, and i thought with relish.
“see if there do not come a pretty white mark when it heals.” this she told me in an arch manner, and with chin on shoulder, and the fleck of blood on her chin. “now if i but dared,” she went on, returning to the glass, “i would wear that blood always and never wash it away. but the world! the world!—ah, the world! one must wash one's face for the world although one owes the world nothing.”
peg, now in a climax of bubbling spirits, and pouring a spoonful of water on her handkerchief, washed off the spots of red, transferring them to her tiny square of cambric. this she contemplated with a sort of surprised delight, as tendering a new idea.
“i need never wash that, at any rate,” said she. then with her glancing eyes on me: “you will wear my mark now;—peg's mark for her slave!—who would do her good.”
the next moment she went singing across the lawn for her home, leaving me to think on the caprices of our radiant, reckless, blooming, madcap peg. all this by the way, however; now to return to our day of the reverend campbell's call upon the general.
peg was still curled in her big armchair when, following his interview with the general, the reverend campbell left the mansion. it was she who told his departure to me where i wrought at my desk. peg caught a flutter of him through the large window.
“oh!” cried peg, “there goes our reverend raven.”
looking up from where i worked, i beheld the reverend campbell making speed out of the grounds. in such hurry was he that he left the walk of gravel, and to save a corner would cut across the grass. the black-foot creature slouched away for all mankind like unto some henroost fox of the night whom daylight had surprised and who now went skulking for the comforting safe darkness of his burrow.
“it is wonder,” said peg, “what could induce the good general to tolerate the presence of our reverend raven for so long. what should be the interest in his croakings?”
as peg spoke, the general's gaunt form appeared in the door. he was more than half warm with an angry excitement. without pause or first words of greeting, he addressed himself to peg.
“child, where was timberlake two years ago this summer?—where was he in june?”
“here in washington,” returned peg, her eyes full of wonder, as she scanned the face of the general in quest of a clue to his sharp, unusual curiosity. “he stayed here idle for four years before he last sailed. he was seeking to adjust his accounts as purser for the frigate president. his books were lost when the english captured the ship. it was that to make all the trouble; the red-tape of the navy office detained him here four years before it would accept his accounts. it was during that period we were wed.” peg's voice, brisk at the start, fell sorrowfully away towards the end.
“then he was here in june two summers ago,” said the general, “and for three years prior and almost one year after that time?”
“yes,” said peg.
“now there!” cried the general, with a mixture of wrath and disgust; “see what bald and easily confuted falsehood a fool moved of low malice will tell! i could believe at times, when i'm brought face to face with such mendacious simplicity, that liars are denied powers of reflection.”
“what is it all about?” asked peg.
“nothing, child, nothing,” returned the general. “now run away home; i want a word with your big playmate here.” then in a softer manner: “no, child, the major and i are trying to do you a service, and please god! i think we shall accomplish it.”
the whole kind attitude of the general towards peg seemed ever that of a father, and he was used to call her to him or dismiss her with no shade of rudeness, truly, and yet with no more of ceremonies than an affectionate parent might adopt. peg never grudged obedience, and received the general's word as readily, and was withal as free of affront at any suddenness, as should be a daughter who feels her place assured.
when peg was off for home, the general came and sat in the chair she had vacated.
with the white thick brush of his end-wise hair, and the fierce eyes of him, he made a portrait wide apart from that tender one the great chair so lately framed.
“you are not to know,” quoth the general, without halting for my question, “the whole foul story this creature has told me. it is bad enough that i was made to give ear to it. the point lies here: if timberlake were with peg in june two years ago, and for a year before, this miserable tale falls to the ground as false. he makes its main element to depend upon timberlake's absence—his charge of iniquity against peg holds only by that. the reverend serpent's hinge to swing his vilification on is the absence of timberlake. and you heard her declare how timberlake was here.”
“does this snake, as you rightly term him, give you his story as of a knowledge of his own?”
“no; he hides behind the words of two women; a mother and daughter, named craven. they pretend to base their slanders on what they allege was told them by the husband and father, a doctor craven—dead, he is, these ten months.”
“and that is mighty convenient,” said i, “for the reverend campbell and his fellow ophidians—this retreat to the word of one who dwells dead and dumb beneath six feet of earth.”
“that is their coward strategy,” commented the general, furiously. “however, my thought is to ask noah to visit these women and question them before the reverend campbell collects the wit to tell of his talk with me. i may have alarmed the man, for i was now and then not altogether calm.”
i was driven to smile at this; so much concession of a want of calmness on the general's part would mean that he had fumed up and down like a tiger. the scuttling eagerness of the reverend campbell to be clear of the place was not without a cause. there beat some reason in his heels.
“i asked him,” said the general, “why he did not tell this story in the beginning. he explained that he hesitated to approach me with it; he related it to doctor ely, who pretended to close terms with me. then i demanded why this ely had not told me by word of mouth? why should he leave with that lie in his stomach, and then write it and send it by post? he said that when it came to the test, doctor ely was afraid of me. fear, fear, that was the assassin excuse of him, and the reason for striking at a woman in the dark! why, i would not believe the sun was shining on the words of such coward rogues!”
it was settled that i should make company for noah when he saw the cravens.
“but don't interfere for a word, major,” exhorted the general, with a world of earnestness. “you do right well when the quarry is a bear or the enemy no more subtile than an indian. but now the foe is a woman, you might better fall to the rear and leave leadership to noah. you are monstrous ignorant of woman.”
the cravens lived no breathless distance up georgetown way. not far from their doorstep, noah and i encountered the reverend campbell, who seemed shaken by the meeting.
“nothing could be better,” cried noah, cheerfully, claiming the reverend campbell's arm. “you shall present the major and myself to the ladies. and please permit me to do the talking; you may have your turn at the conversation when we leave.”
the two women were bilious, lime-faced folk, and the daughter notably ugly. i was something stiff, i fear; but noah, when introduced by the reverend campbell, showed as balmy as a day in may. he swept the pair with rapid glance and then turned to the daughter.
“i shall pitch upon the one i deem the more manageable,” said noah, on our journey to the house, “and when i commence to talk with her, you engage with the other.”
having this hint in my mind, when noah began to address the daughter i favored the mother with a word or two on safe topics, principally the weather and the condition of the roads. for all that, i could tell how the mother, like myself, had her ears laid back to catch the words of the others. her suspicions were upon us from the start, even with the guaranty of the reverend campbell's company. as for that perturbed animal, he looked only upon the floor, saying never a syllable, and rubbing one warty hand with the other in a composite of doubt and trepidation. the tragic wrath of the general still sang in the hare-hearted creature's head.
“we are being shown about by our reverend friend,” i heard noah say; “we were asked to make a few calls with him and meet the better folk. we were too glad, i assure you; i grow vastly weary of nobody save the politicians and nothing better to talk of than politics.”
to say that i was startled at these gay, glib fictions on the lips of my companion would fall behind the fact; i was amazed. but i also had the general's command to leave leadership to noah, and so stood mute. i let my gaze go for a moment to the reverend campbell to come by some thought of how he took the trend of noah's surprising discourse. i saw naught beyond the top of his head, as, bowed forward in his chair, he appeared to study his toes, meanwhile twiddling and rubbing his nobby fingers.
as for the women, they knew no argument of fact or otherwise for distrusting noah's statements. i should have before explained that neither possessed the least of glimmer as to our identity or nearness to the general. indeed, they lived ignorant, we found later, of the letters of that ely ill-using peg's name, and of the reverend campbell's visit to the general paid that morning. thus, it fell about that the daughter sailed off with noah on a current of conversation in the dark, and the mother just as blind.
“and so,” noah went on, “you are a copyist in the department of justice.” this from her explanation and his notice of a stain of ink near her finger-nail, for this daughter was an untidy slut. “the department of justice!” repeated noah. “and there is something consistent in your employment in such a field, since justice is a woman—and blind.” this last quip under his breath. “i am a close friend with judge berrien, the attorney general, who heads your department. the great tie to unite us is our love for calhoun.”
“are you a friend of the vice-president?” asked the daughter, her interest a little kindled.
“perhaps partisan would be the truer word,” replied noah. “i trust a good day will come when we are to drop the 'vice' to his title and find him at home in the white house. and you, i suppose, meet many of calhoun's adherents in your department of justice?”
“numbers, indeed,” assented the daughter, while the mother bent an intent ear, trying to discover the drift.
by this time i could well make out how neither of these women was of vigorous intelligence. a malignant spirit, and a ripe aptness for evil to others. i could read in their vinegar faces and the fault-finding gather to their brows; but no power of thought, nor yet much cunning. i leaned back now, inquisitive as to noah's methods and to note their results.
noah led the talk up and down the town. he made it cover several years, for the cravens were not newcomers in the place. at last he considered the navy and mentioned timberlake. had the young lady known the handsome purser timberlake? the young lady had known the handsome purser timberlake. a forbidding scowl contorted her features as she said this.
“oh, i beg a thousand pardons!” cried noah. he had caught the scowl. “i fear the mention of the handsome timberlake is not agreeable. but he cut his throat, and there's the proper villain end of him.”
the butt-end cruelty of noah's manner i was sure possessed a purpose, for commonly he was one of your most guarded of folk. while i had this in thought, it did not lessen my dismay when the daughter fell to weeping with her face in her hands, and all in frantic kind. sobbing, she left the room.
“an affair of the heart?” cooed noah, sympathetically, to the mother, while the reverend campbell fidgeted visibly.
“sir,” said the mother, loftily, “you touched her rudely. mr. timberlake was paying my daughter marked attentions, and ones not to be misunderstood, when he was stolen from her side and trapped to the altar by that wanton, peg o'neal.”
“sorry, i assure you,” murmured noah, apologetically. “sorry i so blundered against your daughter's sensibilities. please recall her, madam, if only to hear me ask forgiveness.”
the daughter, whose emotion was of the briefest, returned, with nose reddened and look more bilious than before. noah became profuse in his regrets, and severely characterized his own awkwardness.
“nor are you to have blame for your feeling,” said he, addressing the daughter and as a finish to his self-reproaches. “your mother has done us the honor to confide the once nearness of the handsome purser timberlake to you. and that hideous woman who stole him away! i do not marvel you hate her. i could teach you to write her such a letter as should be a revenge; for i know one of her secrets, the very name of which would crush her like a falling tree.”
it was to me a thing astounding how neither of these women resented the raw freedom of noah's words. on the contrary, they went with him, making no question of the propriety of such talk on the tongue of a stranger. they would appear not to have been crossed by such a thought, for, so to phrase it, they fell in with noah, and, as if it were, hand in hand.
at the word “secrets,” both women sat bolt upright and questioned noah with tongue and eye. what was this hidden sin of that siren, peg o'neal? they panted for a fullest tale of it.
“nay, then,” remonstrated noah, “it was but a slip. i said i could teach you how to write a letter that should strike her to the soul. but of what avail? timberlake is dead; his grave is the mediterranean.”
“but she lives,” hissed the daughter. “tell me that secret concerning her, and i shall call you my best friend.” truly, the bilious maiden had a taste for vengeance as pointed as a thorn.
“why, then,” returned noah, hesitating with invented reluctance, “there is no reason why i should not humor your wishes. take your pen, and i'll dictate that letter i have in my mind.”
the bilious one wheeled about to a writing table which stood by her side, and while the rest of us sat silent—for the mother and myself had long before surrendered our semblance of conversation, and the unhappy dominie still pored upon the floor—noah began with finger on forehead as one who cudgels memory.
“write her this,” said noah. “revenge is sweet! i have you in my power; and i shall burn you as savages burn their victim at the stake. think not that you can escape me. i would not that death nor any evil thing should take you out of my hand for half the world.” when noah began this evil dictation, the lime-faced one took down his opening words with greedy pen. as he proceeded, she first hesitated, and then with blanched, scared face, whirled herself upon him. her pen fell to the floor, while her hands shook in a gust of fear. at the close she gasped:
“you have read my letter!”
“i have, indeed,” returned noah. “i have repeated word for word your atrocious threats to a lady whom we will not name.” it was verity; with a memory like unto wax, noah had recalled with every faithfulness of word and mark that menacing epistle peg brought to me, and which was then under my private lock and key. “yes, you wrote that letter,” repeated noah. “and you,” coming round on the reverend campbell, who writhed as one in the jaws of wretchedness, unable to make a plan or frame a sentence; “and you, sir, were privy to it.”
“our dear sister”—he could not lay aside his snuffle even now—“our dear sister did indeed tell me she had sent such a note.”
“you mix your tenses, sir,” retorted noah, savagely. “she told you before it was dispatched, and you read it.”
* “my dear gentlemen,” broke in the mother, in mighty agitation, “he put that letter in the post himself. oh, gentlemen, spare my poor daughter!” with that the mother put her arm about the-younger harpy, where, like some frightened thing of sin that can escape no farther, she waited as one frozen.
“your daughter, madam,” replied noah, quietly enough, “lies in no peril, although by the law there be punishments for ones who thus misuse the post. but there remains another question. you have put a lie against that lady of the letter into the mouth of our reverend friend. he has retold it to many; this morning he told it to the president. the tale proves itself untrue upon its face, and that is the one merit of it. it was a dangerous falsehood to tell, and”—here noah looked towards the unhappy reverend campbell, who, as though fascinated by the other's baleful eye, lifted up his visage,' with its ugly array of munching mouth and flabby unhealthfulness—“and a still more dangerous falsehood to repeat.”
“what do you require of us, gentlemen?” asked the frightened mother-harpy.
“nothing, save tongues of peace,” cried noah. “it is too much to suppose that her friends will rest quiet while you foully tear a good woman to shreds. tie up your tongues, you three, and the thing rests. let another word escape, and a torch shall be found to burn you out like any other nest of adders.” the reverend campbell made no return to this warning thrown to him with the others. the scoundrel had the wisdom of silence when words would work no benefit. still, i could trace a hunger for retaliation writhing beneath the coarse snake's skin of him.
“i think we have locked three evil mouths to-day,” observed noah, as we were about our return. “it is the less important, perhaps, since already a whole flock of these lies has been uncaged in the town.”
“it is never unimportant,” i returned, “to identify an enemy. i am the more relieved, too, since you cleared up the mystery of that written menace. and yet i do not make out how you supposed it gained emanation among these people.”
“i had no such thought in the beginning,” replied noah. “i knew, as did you, and with a glance, how our entertainers were nothing fine nor deep, but of a harshest clay and of least intelligence. no more delicacy was required than might do for driving pigs. at first i sought to develop their whereabouts, and stormed the woods with my remarks. in that, and on the sheer chance of it, i employed the name of timberlake. the daughter's disturbed features were a cue. and you know the rest. the digging up of the authorship of the letter was but the birth of a bold guess. however, we've paralyzed that trio of tongues, which is excellent as far as it goes. and we must beat out these fires wherever we find them. else they will spread, and may come to mean a conflagration that shall burn some one to a cinder.”
“and going back for cause,” i said, my thought recurring to peg, “i still can not tell the hound purpose of this incessant, malignant pursuit of our little girl.”
“sir, they reason in this guise,” returned noah. “as i've told you, the great impulse springs from the adherents of calhoun. they desire the destruction of the president as a method of their man's advancement. they fear that the president will seek to succeed himself—there has been illustrious example—or, in default of that, insist on selecting his successor. they attack mrs. eaton in hope of its reaction against the administration. suppose, sir, they make her out to be vile, suppose they show the administration as condoning and defending her vileness, will they not have organized the women against us? give calhoun the women of the country to be his allies, and he will go over the administration like an avalanche.”
“but you”—now i spoke gingerly, for i would not hurt so true a friend nor ruffle him with himself—“in your pretense of friendship for calhoun, and as well in other particulars, misled our harpy folk.”
“i but fought the devil with fire and snared liars with lies,” said he. “these she-villains were not entitled to the truth. only truthful folk have a right to truth.”
when the general and i were together, i laid before him those ethics or word-morals of noah; he stoutly agreed with that diplomat.
“one is not always bound to tell the truth,” asserted the general. “would you tell a footpad whose gun was at your breast where you lodged your money? in war, would you disclose your strengths or your plans to the foe because he asked? sir, truth is a property—a goods; to have right to it one must possess title to it. the casual man, and the more if he would work me harm, has as scant a right to search my head with his questions as to search my pockets with his fingers. take my word for it, major,”—this in high delphic vein, for the general was growing pleased with his argument—“take my word, sir; the right in the one is the right in the other, and he who may lock a door may lie.”
“these harpies,” said i, commenting on what had befallen, “and the reverend campbell have fair admitted their guilt.”
“why, as to that, sir,” returned the general, “the falsity of the story was never in doubt. but the prime thing is to smother out these calumnies. it is not hard to see how this day has been well spent.”
in concord with what we had long before agreed, neither the general nor i, by lisp or the lifting of an eyebrow, gave peg a least intimation of what had gone forward about her name and fame. and yet, she must have divined her close interest, for in the early hours of the twilight she came again to the general, saying she remembered books of account kept by timberlake's own hand, which would demonstrate his whereabouts for those four years. her mother, peg said, had these books in her house.
“why, then,” said the general, “that should give us the best evidence. major, go you with the child to her mother's and bring me those books.”
it was not the first call i had made on peg's mother, but this night the garrulous old soul would so launch herself upon wide waters of gossip, and never quit until she crossed them from shore to shore, that it leaned towards ten of the clock when peg and i, taking the road in our hands, as say the spaniards, went forth for our return.
the night was dark and still, and a moist promise of rain hung in the air. our way lay from the south, diagonally across the wooded patch called the mall. we were finding our path without trouble, peg keeping close and warm to my side, with a hand gripping my arm, and had gone some distance when, in a way of dull faintness, a sound like the fall of a stealthy foot on the grass overtook my ear. peg heard it as soon as i.
“are we dogged?” she asked. peg showed no fear, but bit off her words in a manner vicious and resentful.
“that we may soon know,” said i. then i drew her in by a clump of bushes where her white frock would be screened. “it should be a strange thing if any save ourselves were going this road at such an hour.”
we had been but a moment hidden by the trees when a dark figure crouched past us with furtive, hurrying step that made it plain he followed as a spy. as he would have brushed by, i stretched out and seized him by the shoulder. the creature screamed like a hare when the dogs snap her up.
now i lugged him to the open, and, for all the night was moonless and no stars because of clouds, it puzzled neither peg nor myself to make out the reverend campbell. the fellow hung in my hand like a rag, and beyond that first shrill screech uttered not a word.
“what shall i do with him?” i asked, still holding him in my grasp like something dead.
“kill him!” cried peg; “kill him with your great hands!” and then, while i was dumb before the sudden murderous fury of her tones, peg began to plead the other way about. “let him go free,” she said. “he's not worth punishment. and yet it is sure he was after us as a spy.”
“i think,” said i, “it would do no harm to throw him in yonder water.”
now in that day a chain of baby lakes lay along this portion of the potomac fens, and one of these was glimmering on our near left hand. it was not deep; but muddy and grown up to lilies, and the home, besides, of certain sedate bullpouts and turtles and other stagnant fish that do not care for currents but love dead waters. these, since bullpouts and turtles be in no manner hysterical animals nor nervous, would not suffer for any plumping of the spy into their midst; and, thus forming my resolve, i was for posting to its execution. my captive still swung limp and loose, for all the world as though he had fainted. i could not believe this last, however, and in any event i would throw him in among the lilies. if he were too far gone with fright to save his own life from drowning, it would mean no more than that i must wade to him and fish him ashore again.
thus adjusted in my mind, i was on the brink of heaving him overboard, when with a touch of protest peg stayed my arm.
“no,” she cried, “let him go free.”
“but a moment gone,” i remonstrated, “and you were calling for murder with all its inconveniences. now you interpose to stop a mighty proper punishment, for, i bethink me, it has been custom to duck spies in every age.”
“still, you must let him go,” cried peg. “i will not have you touch him.” and she seized my hand with her little fingers.
with that i threw the caitiff creature on the grass; whereupon he rolled to his knees and extended his palms towards peg. there was something to roil me in the attitude, and to end that i pushed him over with my foot.
“be off,” i cried. “and you are to thank this lady for your dry clothes. you had been splashing among the lily-pads except for her.”
without retort, he scrambled to his soles and was gone like some foul shadow. his absence, of itself, relieved me, for the sight of him was like a blot.
“he would not resist, and so i made you let him go,” said peg.
“you would have it safe for cowards,” i returned.
“it wasn't for that creature!” exclaimed peg. she seemed to scorn me for a dullard. “no; it was for you. i would not have such a memory—you, punishing an unresisting beast!”
we were for a second time on our way, peg now holding my arm with her two hands and laying her cheek against it like a child. i could tell by that how this bushwhacking rogue had fluttered her not a little. at last she lifted her face, and i could, even in the pitch darkness, catch the deep glow of her eyes.
“and after all, for what should you think he spied upon us? what should he hope to find?”
“indeed, that is beyond me,” i replied.
“but the very wicked are often very foolish too.”
“to follow so right a character as yourself, watch-dog, is for a spy to waste his strength.” peg spoke in a droll way of laughter.
“why, then, i may say i emulate the virtuous drusus, who commanded the architect to so build his house that all who would might behold every act of his life.” i must tell you i had studied the classics in my youth, and would like at times to flourish with a scrap or two. i was no pedant to show off my learning, only a tag or two from ovid or horace on occasion, and just enough to suggest what a deal i had forgot.
“and your drusus would so live as to hide nothing.” peg was still stifling a laugh. “how very admirable! and what was the end of your memorable drusus?”
“as to that,” i retorted, puzzled and put about by the satirical toss she gave to her queries, “as to that, i believe the people stoned him to death.”
“ah, the poor people! his awful goodness, i suppose, drove them to frenzy.” peg's voice was mocking sympathy. then, with a great abruptness of anger, and throwing away my arm: “do you know what i think of your precious drusus? i think he was a hypocrite, and a canting prig who earned his fate; and if he have followers they should taste the same destiny for a sniveling conceit that teaches them a holiness above their neighbors.” this peg flung at me like a spoiled child; and then, stepping smartly, she went on alone, i following in silence a yard or more to the rear.
