presently they passed through a second gate and left the outpost of trees behind. to the right stretched a broad expanse of turf, bare of trees or shrubs; phillip called it the lawn. it led upward to a sloping terrace upon which, fair and white against a dense background of winter woods, guarded by a few sentinel trees which threw their leafless shadows upon the sunlit walls, stood the house, crowning the splendour of the landscape with its own gleaming beauty and quiet dignity. john drew a breath of intense pleasure as he looked, while cardinal, moved to new impatience by the sight of the stables, rushed around the curve that, bordering the lawn, led to the house.
elaine had been built by phillip’s great-grandfather in the early part of the century, when three or four years was thought none too long for the rearing of a home. the great terrace had been pulled down from the ridge at the back and thrown up from the sloping meadow below by scores of toiling[217] slaves; the stone that formed the thick walls had been carted from quarries forty miles away as the crow flies; the timber had been felled upon the estate, sawn and cut and planed with infinite toil; the huge stone columns before the door had been erected by workmen brought from italy for the purpose. that long-gone phillip ryerson had builded well, and to-day the house was as strong and undisturbed as when he had first led his young bride into it. save that here and there the plaster covering the stones had cracked or chipped, the building showed no signs of any depredations of time or weather; nor had the civil strife which had waged hotly about it marred its beauty; though once, indeed, the great hall had been piled high with bundles of fodder and only a miracle had averted the applying of the torch by northern soldiers.
the house was long—“four feet longer than the white house at washington,” phillip assured—and two stories and a half in height. in the centre of the front an immense portico stood forth, its roofs supported by four great greek doric columns whose bases two men could scarce encircle with their arms. the masonry of the columns was hidden by plaster,[218] white and gleaming like the pediment above; and the same snowy hue was everywhere visible save upon the doors and windows and upon the ornamental lintels above them. these were of two shades of chocolate brown, and, with the hanging balcony above the front entrance, lent a pleasant suggestion of the italian to the architecture. the white chimneys rising above the gables were topped with mellow ochre-tinted pots. just now the shadows were gathering beneath the portico roof, but upon the rest of the house front the westerning sun shone warmly, delicately shadowing the walls with the tracery of spreading branches and throwing upon the great base of a column a grotesque silhouette of one of the two big lions which, standing at either side upon their stone acroteria, guarded the broad entrance.
as the carriage reached the corner of the house three dogs, a red-and-white setter, a dark brindle bull terrier and a toddling beagle, raced toward them, baying and yelping their welcome, while a flock of handsome bronze turkeys and two disdainful peacocks hurried across the drive toward the shelter of the trees. on the porch stood a white-haired[219] darky, and below, on the gravel, a younger one ready to take the horse.
“hello, uncle!” called phillip. the elder darky grinned delightedly and bobbed his grizzled head.
“howdy, will!” the younger smiled from ear to ear and performed a subdued double-shuffle in the roadway. phillip leaped to the porch, shook hands with the butler and turned to john.
“all out for elaine!” he cried merrily. “here’s where we stop, john. look after those guns and umbrellas, uncle. out you come, sis!”
in the hall, broad, deep and high of ceiling, a room in itself, margaret, drawing her gloves from palms that ached with holding the headstrong cardinal, nodded smilingly toward a deep chair. john shook his head, however, and turning to one of the windows gazed out over the sloping, sun-bathed lawn to the timbered creek, to the fields beyond, to the purple rises and hills beyond those, and so to an almost cloudless horizon which already hinted of sunset. he received an impression of openness and space that was almost thrilling. phillip, followed by the butler, came in with the luggage, and to the darky margaret spoke:
“has mother come down?”
[220]
“no’m, not yet. she said she’d wait till you-all come.”
“very well. you’d better take mr. north’s things to his room, uncle; and perhaps you’d like to go up?” turning to john.
“thank you, i will.”
“i’m going up to see mamma; i’ll be back in a minute or so, john. i’ve told them at the stable to bring the horses around; we’ll take a ride before supper.” phillip tossed aside his cap and turned toward a door.
“but maybe mr. north is tired, phil, and would rather not ride this evening,” said margaret.
“tired! shucks, margey; why, you just can’t tire him! you want to ride, don’t you, john?”
“i should like to very much. it seems a mistake to stay indoors in this kind of weather—it’s grand. i’ll get washed up a bit and change my things. don’t let your mother put herself to any inconvenience on my account, phil, unless she would have come downstairs anyway—if i wasn’t here, i mean——”
“this is her usual time,” answered margaret. “i suspect the reason she’s not already here to welcome you is that she’s doing an unusual amount[221] of primping on your account, mr. north. mamma is not beyond feminine coquetries, is she, phil?”
“she’s the biggest flirt in four counties!” laughed phillip. “i don’t doubt but that she’s been dressing for your conquest, john, ever since morning.”
“the extra exertion is quite unnecessary,” john replied gravely. “i came here quite prepared to fall victim to her charms.”
uncle casper, with john in tow, led the way through an old-style drawing-room at the right to a narrow entry from which stairs led upward to a similar hall on the second floor. john’s room was to the left, an immense apartment occupying the corner of the house toward the stables. on the front two large windows afforded the same broad view of the lawn and the country villageward that he had admired from the hall. on the side two other windows overlooked a space of turf that narrowed itself between two driveways until its apex lay just outside the gate of the stable-yard. to the right of it was the terrace and the lawn, to the left the thickly wooded ridge, rising abruptly from the back of the house and inviting to explorations with gun and dog. the stables were painted white, with brown roofs, and from the centre of[222] what was evidently the original structure arose against the clear sky an airy clock tower surmounted by a great iron vane. beyond the stables the ground dipped to a hollow through which a small stream slipped down from the hill beyond; and across the hollow, disputing the edge of the rise with the primeval forest, lay a group of barns, folds, pens and sheds. on that side a door opened upon a balcony from which a flight of steps gave access to the ground. “must have been designed for a bachelor apartment,” john thought. the room was well, if plainly furnished, and an antique testerbed, draped about with faded pink curtains, promised good repose. near the bed a big fireplace was ablaze with pine logs that hurled their sparks against the brass fender with reports like miniature pistols. the warmth felt agreeable, since the four windows were wide open; and after uncle casper had taken his slow departure, john lighted a cigarette and, turning his broad back to the glow, clasped his hands behind him and gazed contentedly across the width of the room and out into the afternoon world. he had been several times abroad, although his travels there had followed well-worn roads, and he had looked about not a[223] little in his own country, and now he was telling himself that never had he found a place as beautiful as elaine nor one better worth calling home.
presently he threw aside his cigarette and struggled into a pair of riding breeches—discovering to his dismay that he had put on flesh since the summer—and worked his feet into a pair of boots. when he was dressed he glanced at his watch and found the time to be a quarter to four. from the stable the negro, will, was bringing the horses, a big black stallion and a smaller but rangy-looking bay mare which john guessed to be a sister to cardinal. he watched them pass toward the portico and made his way downstairs. phillip was in the hall looking very handsome in whipcords, boots and brown tweed coat.
“mamma asks me to apologize to you, old man, for not coming down. i think the excitement of seeing me again has rather upset her. i was to convey her compliments and say that she bids you welcome to elaine and hopes to have the pleasure of seeing you at supper. there! those are her own words, and i think i said them nicely. are you all ready? we won’t have much time, but we can jog around a bit.”
[224]
“i hope mrs. ryerson is not ill?” asked john with concern.
“no; only a little headachey, i reckon. margey made her lie down until supper.” a look of anxiety shaded his face for a moment. “i suppose it’s my being away so long, but she looks heaps thinner and poorer than i thought. poor little mamma! she’s been getting more and more like a dear little ghost ever since father died. i’m beginning to think that maybe i’d ought to stay at home with her, john, instead of going away off there to college. but she won’t hear of it; it was father’s wish, she says. i reckon if he had wanted me to go to south africa and dig gold she’d have insisted on my going. well, come on. how’s ruby, will? all right? she looks fine. that’s my mare, john. isn’t she a sweet one? you can have either of them. the stallion’s rather mean going through the gates, but except for that he’s a pretty steady horse. and the mare’s as nice as you’ll want.”
“i guess i’ll take the mare, if you don’t mind,” answered john. “i haven’t ridden since summer, and not a great deal then, and i guess she’ll break me in easier.”
“all right, then i’ll ride winchester. will, look[225] at mr. north’s stirrups; you’ll have to let them out a good deal, i reckon. when bob gets here tell him the trunk with the red stripes goes to mr. north’s room. all right, john? we’ll ride over to the east farm and call on markham. he’s the overseer, you know, and a mighty nice fellow.”
but they didn’t have to go to the east farm to see markham, for they met him half a mile from the house; a tall, angular man of about forty years, with a long and drooping yellow mustache and a soft and deliberate southern drawl that john liked to listen to. he rode a horse that was as near a counterpart of himself as a horse could be—a yellowish sorrel with many angles and a deliberate gait. the meeting between phillip and markham was more in the nature of that between brothers than between employer and employed. phillip introduced the others and they shook hands cordially above their stirrups.
“this is tom markham, john,” said phillip; “a good fellow, and the finest overseer in the state of virginia.”
“pleased to meet you, sir,” markham greeted. “allow me to add my welcome to the others. it’s always a pleasure to me to meet a no’therner; i[226] fought against ’em, sir, and the more i fought ’em the more i liked ’em, sir. yes, mr. no’th, by doggie, sir!” he drew forth a plug of tobacco and offered it with a courteous inclination of the cone-crowned sombrero that covered his weather-stained face. john declined with equal politeness, and markham set two rows of strong white teeth into the plug. “a pow’ful mean habit, sir. i respect yo’ decision, sir; by doggie, sir!” he spat politely and drew a lean brown hand over his mustache. “where yo’ goin’, phil?”
“we started out to call on you. where are you going?”
“i was on my way to see you and pay my respects to yo’ friend.”
“well, can’t you come back to supper with us?”
“thank you, not to-night. i shall be pleased to come over to-morrow night.”
“that’s fine,” answered phillip. “i want to have a good talk with you.”
“if yo’-all have no special place in mind,” said markham, “why not ride over to cupples’s with me? i want to see about some hay they’ve got for sale. we’re not goin’ to have enough to last, i reckon, and i want to buy before the[227] price goes up. they’re askin’ nine and a half in melville now.”
“all right,” phillip replied; “one place is as good as another to us. i reckon we can get back by supper time if we cut through the woods.”
john let the others ride ahead, since the narrow road would not allow of three abreast, and trotted along behind on ruby, filling his lungs with the moist, frosty air of evening and watching the darkening panorama of hill and field and woodland. the leather felt good between his thighs, the road was firm and springy, and ruby was a horse in a hundred, having a long, easy trot that carried her along with seemingly no effort. they went through innumerable gates which markham either opened from the saddle or dismounted and let down, and winchester fidgeted and reared at each succeeding one as though he had never seen its like. when they reached the little hill farm that was their destination the lights were aglow in the house and the haystack was scarcely more than a blur of black in the purple-gray twilight. but markham pulled out tufts here and there and nibbled it knowingly, and phillip followed suit, while john kept his seat and held the restive winchester. maid and the[228] beagle, whose name was tubby, had accompanied them, and were now growlingly renewing acquaintances with the resident dogs. markham threw the reins back over his horse’s head and climbed into the saddle.
“good hay, phil, that,” he said. “a bit dusty, maybe, but all right if the price suits. how much do you reckon there is there?”
“it’s hard to see,” answered phillip, “but i should say about eight tons.”
“gingeration! i’ll buy it for eight,” chuckled markham, “yes, sir! i reckon there’s nearer ten. it’s mighty well settled. i’ll ride down to the house and see ’em; it won’t take but a minute.”
presently he returned, loping up the little rise toward them.
“that’s fixed, phil. got it for nine tons. they wanted eight and a half for it, but i got it for eight and a quarter. good hay, too, by doggie, sir, yes!”
“tom, can’t you get us up a fox hunt some day soon?” asked phillip on the way back. “this is good weather, you know.”
“certainly i can. old colonel brownell and a lot of the boys rode over here last saturday and borrowed the dogs and found just back of clearspring.[229] they had a good run and caught a young vixen right down over yonder”—pointing into the darkness toward the west—“and the colonel carried off the head. the colonel’s sixty-eight,” he continued, turning toward john, “and he’s never missed a hunt yet. well, now, how would next monday morning do?”
“all right, i reckon,” answered phillip. “and we’ll pray for as good weather as this.”
“you’re right; this is certainly mighty fine weather. well, i’ll leave yo’-all here and jog home, i reckon. good-night, phil. good-night, mr. no’th; mighty pleased to have made yo’ acquaintance, sir, an’ hope to see yo’ over at my place before yo’ leave, sir.”
half-way home, while riding through a clearing that was bordered on one side by a dark wood, there was a sudden noise in the underbrush, followed by the sweet, clear, bell-like note of the beagle and the sharp, excited yelping of tudor maid. john’s mount threw up her head, laid her ears back and tugged at the bit.
“tubby’s found a fox,” cried phillip. “whoa, boy!” he stood up in his stirrups and placed a hand at his mouth.
[230]
“ha-arkaway!” he called shrilly. “harkaway! after him, tubby, old boy!”
the rustling of the underbrush died away and tubby’s voice from a distance took on a worried, whining tone.
“he’s lost him,” laughed phillip. “come on, winchester.” they rode on in a silence disturbed only by the tread of the horses on the soft wagon path, the musical creaking of leather and the occasional rustling or chirp of birds preparing for the night. when they reached the top of the hill elaine lay before and below them, a misty white blur picked out with tiny lights, while in the east, over a dark rampart of forests, the moon was sailing, its lower edge caught in the topmost branches of a distant tree.
“by jove,” said john softly, “but that’s beautiful!”
“yes,” answered phillip, as their horses, scenting the stables, tugged at the reins and began the descent; and after a moment he added thoughtfully, “i wonder if margey told aunt cicely to have cakes for supper.”
it is probable that she did, for when, an hour later, they sat at table, uncle casper began a series[231] of excursions to the kitchen which john thought would never end, returning each time laden with steaming, golden-brown griddle-cakes and offering them to the guest with a murmured and persuasive “hot cakes, sir?” that john found difficult to resist. between uncle casper and phillip—continually challenging john, to renewed excesses—and mrs. ryerson, who apparently believed that he was about to die of starvation under her eyes, he was in danger of doing mortal injury to his digestion. the only thing that saved him was the fact that as soon as he had prepared his cakes and had taken his first mouthful or two, uncle casper would appear at his elbow with a fresh plate.
“mr. north, do take some more and butter them while they’re hot,” mrs. ryerson would beg; and in that moment of hesitation which is fatal uncle casper would whisk away his plate and present a new one, and john would begin all over again. but his ride—to crupples’s and back was reckoned six miles—had given him a keen appetite, and he thoroughly enjoyed his supper and would have been enabled to rival phillip in the consumption of cakes had that dish not been preceded by a bountiful[232] repast of country sausage, baked potatoes, salad and divers kinds of hot bread.
the dining-room was large and high-ceilinged, but furnished in such a way that the effect was one of coziness rather than spaciousness. the table was small and oval and was lighted only by the two old-fashioned candelabra. phillip sat at the head and his mother at the foot, margaret and john facing each other on the sides—an arrangement that the latter heartily approved of.
mrs. ryerson was a sweet-faced, delicate-looking little woman of about forty, who took her troubles seriously but without undue complaining. her hair was heavily streaked with white and suffering had left its imprint about the rather deep eyes and delicate mouth. but for all that john could readily understand how, not so many years ago, she was called the handsomest woman in the county. both phillip and margaret had something of her looks, but were cast in larger mould. she had a rather ceremonious manner of speech that suggested hoop-skirts and patches, and caused john to raise his eyes involuntarily to the old portraits on the walls. but her welcome had been unmistakably sincere and hearty, despite its formality, and had made john[233] wonder whether he was not something of an impostor, since he was looked upon at elaine as one whose example and guidance had saved phillip from awful and unknown pitfalls. john believed that as a guardian he had been somewhat of a failure, and he had striven to convey the fact to mrs. ryerson. but he might as well have saved his breath, for that admiring lady had already set him up in her mind as a hero and received his attempts to disclaim credit with polite incredulity.
after supper phillip lead john to the library for a smoke. it was a small room, shabby in appearance, lined from floor to ceiling with shelves containing a collection of literature typical of fifty years ago: the spectator in small calf-bound and discoloured volumes, pepys and evelyn, several mythologies, richardson and sterne, countless cloth-backed volumes of the british poets, the waverley novels in ponderous forms, and hundreds of other books of whose existence the world has long since forgotten. later the two returned to the drawing-room, where before a big oak fire mrs. ryerson and margaret were awaiting them. it was a quiet evening and a pleasant one. the two women were full of questions regarding phillip’s college life which his letters had[234] failed to answer, and so he explained a great deal, constantly turning to john for corroboration.
the latter listened, answered when appealed to, threw in a word of his own now and then, watched the flames and sometimes margaret, and was delightfully restful and contented. he was a trifle saddle-sore and somewhat sleepy. at nine mrs. ryerson retired, and after a few minutes more of almost silent contemplation of the fire the others followed suit.
“i’m jolly sleepy,” said phillip. “besides, we’re to shoot in the morning. aunt cicely is to give us breakfast at seven.”
john lay in the big four-poster watching the firelight dance on the white walls and thinking over the incidents of the day for quite ten minutes. then with the distant baying of a foxhound in his ears he turned over and began to snore.
