Register
Login
Authors
Works
Reading Lists
Forums
Members
Book Auctions
Bookmark
“As a city broken
down and without walls, so is he that hath no “My soul! Master
Jesus, my soul! The singer was a negro man, with a very, black but very kindly face; and he was hoeing corn in the rich bottom lands of the San Gabriel river as he chanted his joyful little melody. It was early in the morning, yet he rested on his hoe and looked anxiously toward the cypress swamp on his left hand. “I’se mighty weary ’bout Massa Davie; he’ll get himself into trouble ef he stay dar much longer. Ole massa might be ’long most any time now.” He communed with himself in this strain for about five minutes, and then threw his hoe across his shoulder, and picked a road among the hills of growing corn until he passed out of the white dazzling light of the field into the grey-green shadows of the swamp. Threading his way among the still black bayous, he soon came to a little clearing in the cypress. Here a young man was standing in an attitude of expectancy—a very handsome man clothed in the picturesque costume of a ranchero. He leaned upon his rifle, but betrayed both anger and impatience in the rapid switching to and fro of his riding-whip. “Plato, she has not come!” He said it reproachfully, as if the negro was to blame. “I done tole you, Massa Davie, dat Miss Lulu neber do noffing ob dat kind; ole massa ’ticlarly objects to Miss Lulu seeing you at de present time.” “My father objects to every one I like.” “Ef Massa Davie jist ’lieve it, ole massa want ebery thing for his good.” “You oversize that statement considerably, Plato. Tell my father, if he asks you, that I am going with Jim Whaley, and give Miss Lulu this letter.” “I done promise ole massa neber to gib Miss Lulu any letter or message from you, Massa Davie.” In a moment the youth’s handsome face was flaming with ungovernable passion, and he lifted his riding-whip to strike. “For de Lord Jesus’ sake don’t strike, Massa Davie! Dese arms done carry you when you was de littlest little chile. Don’t strike me!” “I should be a brute if I did, Plato;” but the blow descended upon the trunk of the tree against which he had been leaning with terrible force. Then David Lorimer went striding through the swamp, his great bell spurs chiming to his uneven, crashing tread. Plato looked sorrowfully after him. “Poor Massa Davie! He’s got de drefful temper; got it each side ob de house—father and mother, bofe. I hope de good Massa above will make ’lowances for de young man—got it bofe ways, he did.” And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving unselfishness of a prayer in them. In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio—a daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between father and son, a great gulf. He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him. But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him; he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary. He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan architecture—broad passages between every room, sweeping from front to rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip trees. The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as it was possible to do so in that sunshiny climate, he introduced the grey, sombre influence of the land of mists and east winds. His household was ruled with stern gravity; his ranch was a model of good management; and though few affected his society, he was generally relied upon and esteemed; for, though opinionated, egotistical, and austere, there was about him a grand honesty and a sense of strength that would rise to every occasion. And so great is the influence of any genuine nature, that David loved his father in a certain fashion. The creed he held was a hard one; but when he called his family and servants together, and unflinchingly taught it, David, even in his worst moods, was impressed with his sincerity and solemnity. There was between them plenty of ground on which they could have stood hand in hand, and learned to love one another; but a passionate authority on the one hand, and a passionate independence on the other, kept them far apart. Shortly before my story opens there had been a more stubborn quarrel than usual, and James Lorimer had forbidden his son to enter his house until he chose to humble himself to his father’s authority. Then David joined Jim Whaley, a great cattle drover, and in a week they were on the road to New Mexico with a herd of eight thousand. This news greatly distressed James Lorimer. He loved his son better than he was aware of. There was a thousand deaths upon such a road; there was a moral danger in the companionship attending such a business, which he regarded with positive horror. The drove had left two days when he heard of its departure; but such droves travel slowly, and he could overtake it if he wished to do so. As he sat in the moonlight that night, smoking, he thought the thing over until he convinced himself that he ought to overtake it. Even if Davie would not return with him, he could tell him of his danger, and urge him to his duty and thus, at any rate, relieve his own conscience of a burden. Arriving at this conclusion, he looked up and saw his niece Lulu leaning against one of the white pilasters supporting the piazza. He regarded her a moment curiously, as one may look at a lovely picture. The pale, sensitive face, the swaying, graceful figure, the flowing white robe, the roses at her girdle, were all sharply revealed by the bright moonlight, and nothing beautiful in them escaped his notice. He was just enough to admit that the temptation to love so fair a woman must have been a great one to David. He had himself fallen into just such a bewitching snare, and he believed it to be his duty to prevent a recurrence of his own married life at any sacrifice. “Lulu!” “Yes, uncle.” “Have you spoken with or written to Davie lately?” “Not since you forbid me.” He said no more. He began wondering if, after all, the girl would not have been better than Jim Whaley. In a dim way it struck him that people for ever interfering with destiny do not always succeed in their intentions. It was an unusual and unpractical vein of thought for James Lorimer, and he put it uneasily away. Still over and over came back the question, “What if Lulu’s influence would have been sufficient to have kept David from the wild reckless men with whom he was now consorting?” For the first time in his life he consciously admitted to himself that he might have made a mistake. The next morning he was early in the saddle. The sky was blue and clear, the air full of the fresh odor of earth and clover and wild flowers. The swallows were making a jubilant twitter, the larks singing on the edge of the prairie—the glorious prairie, which the giants of the unflooded world had cleared off and leveled for the dwelling-place of Liberty. In his own way he enjoyed the scene; but he could not, as he usually did, let the peace of it sink into his heart. He had suddenly become aware that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and to shirk a duty was a thing impossible to him. Until he had obeyed the voice of Conscience, all other voices would fail to arrest his interest or attention. He rode on at a steady pace, keeping the track very easily, and thinking of Lulu in a persistent way that was annoying to him. Hitherto he had given her very little thought. Half reluctantly he had taken her into his household when she was four years of age, and she had grown up there with almost as little care as the vines which year by year clambered higher over the piazzas. As for her beauty he had thought no more of it than he did of the beauty of the magnolias which sheltered his doorstep. Mrs. Lorimer had loved her niece, and he had not interfered with the affection. They were both Yturris; it was natural that they should understand one another. But his son was of a different race, and the inheritor of his own traditions and prejudices. A Scot from his own countryside had recently settled in the neighborhood, and at the Sabbath gathering he had seen and approved his daughter. To marry his son David to Jessie Kennedy appeared to him a most desirable thing, and he had considered its advantages until he could not bear to relinquish the idea. But when both fathers had settled the matter, David had met the question squarely, and declared he would marry no woman but his cousin Lulu. It was on this subject father and son had quarrelled and parted; but for all that, James Lorimer could not see his only son taking a high road to ruin, and not make an effort to save him. At sundown he rested a little, but the trail was so fresh he determined to ride on. He might reach David while they were camping, and then he could talk matters over with more ease and freedom. Near midnight the great white Texas moon flooded everything with a light wondrously soft, but clear as day, and he easily found Whaley’s camp—a ten-acre patch of grass on the summit of some low hills. The cattle had all settled for the night, and the “watch” of eight men were slowly riding in a circle around them. Lorimer was immediately challenged; and he gave his name and asked to see the captain. Whaley rose at once, and confronted him with a cool, civil movement of his hand to his hat. Then Lorimer observed the man as he had never done before. He was evidently not a person to be trifled with. There was a fixed look about him, and a deliberate coolness, sufficiently indicating a determined character; and a belt around his waist supported a six-shooter and revealed the glittering hilt of a bowie knife. “Captain, good night. I wish to speak with my son, David Lorimer.” “Wall, sir, you can’t do it, not by no manner of means, just yet. David Lorimer is on watch till midnight.” He was perfectly civil, but there was something particularly irritating in the way Whaley named David Lorimer. So the two men sat almost silent before the camp fire until midnight. Then Whaley said, “Mr. Lorimer, your son is at liberty now. You’ll excuse me saying that the shorter you make your palaver the better it will suit me.” Lorimer turned angrily, but Whaley was walking carelessly away; and the retort that rose to his lips was not one to be shouted after a man of Whaley’s desperate character with safety. As his son approached him he was conscious of a thrill of pleasure in the young man’s appearance. Physically, he was all he could desire. No Lorimer that ever galloped through Eskdale had the national peculiarities more distinctively. He was the tall, fair Scot, and his father complacently compared his yellow hair and blue eyes with the “dark, deil-like beauty” of Whaley. “Davie,” and he held out his hand frankly, “I hae come to tak ye back to your ain hame. Let byganes be byganes, and we’ll start a new chapter o’ life, my lad. Ye’ll try to be a gude son, and I’ll aye be a gude father to ye.” It was a great deal for James Lorimer to say; and David quite appreciated the concession, but he answered— “Lulu, father? I cannot give her up.” “Weel, weel, if ye are daft to marry a strange woman, ye must e’en do sae. It is an auld sin, and there have aye been daughters o’ Heth to plague honest houses wi’. But sit down, my lad; I came to talk wi’ ye anent some decenter way of life than this.” The talk was not altogether a pleasant one; but both yielded something, and it was finally agreed that as soon as Whaley could pick up a man to fill Davie’s place Davie should return home. Lorimer did not linger after this decision. Whaley’s behavior had offended him and without the ceremony of a “good-bye,” he turned his horse’s head eastward again. Picking up a man was not easy; they certainly had several offers from emigrants going west, and from Mexicans on the route, but Whaley seemed determined not to be pleased. He disliked Lorimer and was deeply offended at him interfering with his arrangements. Every day that he kept David was a kind of triumph to him. “He might as well have asked me how I’d like my drivers decoyed away. I like a man to be on the square,” he grumbled. And he said these and similar things so often, that David began to feel it impossible to restrain his temper. Anger, fed constantly by spiteful remarks and small injustices, grows rapidly; and as they approached the Apache mountains, the men began to notice a fixed tightening of the lips, and a stern blaze in the young Scot’s eyes, which Whaley appeared to delight in intensifying. “Thar’ll be mischief atween them two afore long,” remarked an old drover; “Lorimer is gittin’ to hate the captain with such a vim that he’s no appetite for his food left.” “It’ll be a fair fight, and one or both’ll get upped; that’s about it.” At length they met a party of returning drovers, and half a dozen men among them were willing to take David’s place. Whaley had no longer any pretence for detaining him. They were at the time between two long, low spurs of hills, enclosing a rich narrow valley, deep with ripened grass, gilded into flickering gold by the sun and the dewless summer days. All the lower ridges were savagely bald and hot—a glen, paved with gold and walled with iron. Oh, how the sun did beat and shiver, and shake down into the breathless valley! The cattle were restless, and the men had had a hard day. David was weary; his heart was not in the work; he was glad it was his last watch. It began at ten o’clock, and would end at midnight. The weather was gloomy, and the few stars which shone between the rifts of driving clouds just served to outline the mass of sleeping cattle. The air also was surcharged with electricity, though there had been no lightning. “I wouldn’t wonder ef we have a ‘run’ to-night,” said one of the men. “I’ve seen a good many stampedes, and they allays happens on such nights as this one.” “Nonsense!” replied David. “If a cayote frightens one in a drove the panic Spreads to all. Any night would do for a ‘run.’” “’Taint so, Lorimer. Ef you’ve a drove of one thousand or of ten thousand it’s all the same; the panic strikes every beast at the same moment. It’s somethin’ in the air; ’taint my business to know what. But you look like a ‘run’ yourself, restless and hot, and as ef somethin’ was gitting ‘the mad’ up in you. I noticed Whaley is ’bout the same. I’d keep clear of him, ef I was you.” “No, I won’t. He owes me money, and I’ll make him pay me!” “Don’t! Thar, I’ve warned you, David Lorimer, and that let’s me out. Take your own way now.” For half an hour David pondered this caution, and something in his own heart seconded it. But when the trial of his temper came he turned a deaf ear to every monition. Whaley went swaggering by him, and as he passed issued an unnecessary order in a very insolent manner. David asked pointedly, “Were you speaking to me, Captain?” “I was.” “Then don’t you dare to do it again, sir; never, as long as you live!” Before the words were out of his mouth, every one of the drove of eight thousand were on their feet like a flash of lightning; every one of them exactly at the same instant. With a rush like a whirlwind leveling a forest, they were off in the darkness. The wild clatter, the crackling of a river of horns, and the thundering of hoofs, was deafening. Whaley, seeing eighty thousand dollars’ worth of cattle running away from him, turned with a fierce imprecation, and gave David a passionate order “to ride up to the leaders,” and then he sprang for his own mule. David’s time was now fully out, and he drew his horse’s rein tight and stood still. “Coward!” screamed Whaley; “try and forget for an hour that you have Spanish blood in you.” A pistol shot answered the taunt. Whaley staggered a second, then fell without a word. The whole scene had not occupied a minute; but it was a minute that branded itself on the soul of David Lorimer. He gazed one instant on the upturned face of his slain enemy, and then gave himself up to the wild passion of the pursuit. By the spectral starlight he could see the cattle outlined as a black, clattering, thundering stream, rushing wildly on, and every instant becoming wilder. But David’s horse had been trained in the business; he knew what the matter was, and scarce needed any guiding. Dashing along by the side of the stampede, they soon overtook the leaders and joined the men, who were gradually pushing against the foremost cattle on the left so as to turn them to the right. When once the leaders were turned the rest blindly followed and thus, by constantly turning them to the right, the leaders were finally swung clear around, and overtook the fag end of the line. Then they rushed around in a circle, the centre of which soon closed up, and they were “milling;” that is, they had formed a solid wheel, and were going round and round themselves in the same space of ground. Men who had noticed how very little David’s heart had been in his work were amazed to see the reckless courage he displayed. Round and round the mill he flew, keeping the outside stock from flying off at a tangent, and soothing and quieting the beasts nearest to him with his voice. The “run” was over as suddenly as it commenced, and the men, breathless and exhausted, stood around the circle of panting cattle. “Whar’s the Captain?” said one; “he gin’rally soop’rintends a job like this himself.” “And likes to do it. Who’s seen the Captain? Hev you, Lorimer?” “He was in camp when I started. My time was up just as the ‘run’ commenced.” No more was said; indeed, there was little opportunity for conversation. The cattle were to watch; it was still dark; the men were weary with the hard riding and the unnatural pitch to which their voices had been raised. David felt that he must get away at once; any moment a messenger from the camp might bring the news of Whaley’s murder; and he knew well that suspicion would at once rest upon him. He offered to return to camp and report “all right,” and the offer was accepted; but, at the first turn, he rode away into the darkness of a belt of timber. The cayotes howled in the distance; there was a rush of unclean night birds above him, and the growling of panther cats in the underwood. But in his soul there was a terror and a darkness that made all natural terrors of small account. His own hands were hateful to him. He moaned out loudly like a man in an agony. He measured in every moments’ space the height from which he had fallen; the blessings from which he must be an outcast, if by any means he might escape the shameful punishment of his deed. He remembered at that hour his father’s love, the love that had so finely asserted itself when the occasion for it came. Lulu’s tenderness and beauty, the hope of home and children, the respect of his fellow-men, all sacrificed for a moment’s passionate revenge. He stood face to face with himself, and, dropping the reins, cowered down full of terror and grief at the future which he had evoked. Within hopeless sight of Hope and Love and Home, he was silent for hours gazing despairingly after the life which had sailed by him, and not daring— “—to search
through what sad maze,
|
||||||||||||
© 2004 Literature Archive, all rights reserved.
