The Hallam Succession

"It is nearly two years since you parted."

"Yes."

"Go and see her. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder. If it did, we should never forget the dead. Those who touch us move us. Go and see Elizabeth again. Women worth loving want wooing."

"Will you go with me?"

"Do not ask me. I doubt whether I could bear the tossing to and fro for so many days, and I want to stay where I can hear from John."

There was much further talk upon the subject, but the end of it was that Richard sailed for England in the early summer. He hardly expected to renew the enthusiasm of his first visit, and he was prepared for changes; and, perhaps, he felt the changes more because those to whom they had come slowly and separately were hardly conscious of them. Elizabeth was a different woman, although she would have denied it. Her character had matured, and was, perhaps, less winning. She had fully accepted the position of heiress of Hallam, and Richard could feel that it was a controlling influence in her life. Physically she was much handsomer, stately as a queen, fair and radiant, and "most divinely tall."

She drove into Leeds to meet the stage which brought Richard, and was quite as demonstrative as he had any right to expect; but he felt abashed slightly by her air of calm authority. He forgot that when he had seen her first she was in a comparatively dependent position, and that she was now prospective lady of the manor. It was quite natural that she should have taken on a little dignity, and it was not natural that she should all at once discard it for her lover.

The squire, too, was changed, sadly changed; for he had had a fall in the hunting field, and had never recovered from its effects. He limped to the door to meet Richard, and spoke in his old hearty way, but Richard was pained to see him, so pale and broken.

"Thou's welcome beyond ivery thing, Richard," he said, warmly. "If ta hed brought Phyllis, I'd hev given thee a double welcome. I'd hev liked to hev seen her bonny face again afore I go t' way I'll nivver come back."

"She was not strong enough to bear the journey."

"Yonder shooting was a bad bit o' work. I've nowt against a gun, but dash pistols! They're blackguardly weapons for a gentleman to carry about; 'specially where women are around."

"You are quite right, uncle. That pistol-shot cost me many a day's heart-ache."

"And t' poor little lass hed to suffer, too! Well, well, we thought about her above a bit."

Elizabeth had spoken, of company, but in the joy and excitement of meeting her again, Richard had asked no questions about it. It proved to be Antony's intended wife, Lady Evelyn Darragh, daughter of an Irish nobleman. Richard, without admiring her, watched her with interest. She was tall and pale, with a transparent aquiline nose and preternaturally large eyes. Her moods were alternations of immoderate mirth and immoderate depression. "She expects too much of life," thought Richard, "and if she is disappointed, she will proudly turn away and silently die." She had no fortune, but Antony was ambitious for something more than mere money. For the carrying out of his financial schemes he wanted influence, rank, and the prestige of a name. The Earl of Darragh had a large family, and little to give them, and Lady Evelyn having been selected by the promising young financier, she was not permitted to decline the hand he offered her.

So it happened she was stopping at Hallam, and she brought a change into the atmosphere of the place. The squire was anxious, fearful of his son's undertakings, and yet partly proud of his commercial and social recognition. But the good-natured evenness of his happy temperament was quite gone. Elizabeth, too, had little cares and hospitable duties; she was often busy and often pre-occupied. It was necessary to have a great deal of company, and Richard perceived that among the usual visitors at Hallam he had more than one rival. But in this respect he had no fault to find with Elizabeth. She treated all with equal regard and to Richard alone unbent the proud sufficiency of her manner. And yet he was unhappy and dissatisfied. It was not the Elizabeth he had wooed and dreamed about. And he did not find that he reached any more satisfactory results than he had done by letter. Elizabeth could not "see her way clear to leave her father."

"If Antony married?" he asked.

"That would not alter affairs much. Antony could not live at Hallam. His business binds him to the vicinity of London."

There was but one new hope, and that was but a far probability. Antony had requested permission to repay, as soon as he was able, the L50,000, and resume his right as heir of Hallam. When he was able to do this Elizabeth would be freed from the duties which specially pertained to the property. As to her father's claim upon her, that could only end with his or her own life. Not even if Antony's wife was mistress of Hallam would she leave the squire, if he wished or needed her love.

And Elizabeth was rather hurt that Richard could not see the conditions as reasonable a service as she did. "You may trust me," she said, "for ten, for twenty years; is not that enough?"

"No, it is not enough," he answered, warmly. "I want you now. If you loved me, you would leave all and come with me. That is how Phyllis loves John Millard."

"I think you are mistaken. If you were sick, and needed Phyllis for your comfort, or for your business, she would not leave you. Men may leave father and mother for their wives, that is their duty; but women have a higher commandment given them. It may be an unwritten Scripture, but it is in every good daughter's heart, Richard."

The squire did not again name to him the succession to Hallam. Antony's proposal had become the dearest hope of the old man's heart. He wished to live that he might see the estate honorably restored to his son. He had fully determined that it should go to Elizabeth, unless Antony paid the uttermost farthing of its redemption; but if he did this, then he believed that it might be safely entrusted to him. For a man may be reckless with money or land which he acquires by inheritance, but he usually prizes what he buys with money which he himself earns.

Therefore Richard's and Elizabeth's hopes hung upon Antony's success; and with such consolation as he could gather from this probability, and from Elizabeth's assurance of fidelity to him, he was obliged to content himself.

CHAPTER VII

"For freedom's battle, once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled alt, is ever won."

"The unconquerable mind, and freedom's holy flame."

"With freedom's soil beneath our feet,
And freedom's banner streaming o'er us."

"And the King hath laid his hand
On the watcher's head;
Till the heart that was worn and sad,
Is quiet and comforted."

It was a beautiful day at the close of May, 1836, and New Orleans was holding a jubilant holiday. The streets were full of flowers and gay with flying flags; bells were ringing and bands of music playing; and at the earliest dawn the levee was black with a dense crowd of excited men. In the shaded balconies beautiful women were watching; and on the streets there was the constant chatter of gaudily turbaned negresses, and the rollicking guffaws of the darkies, who had nothing to do but laugh and be merry.

New Orleans in those days took naturally to a holiday; and a very little excuse made her put on her festal garments, and this day she had the very best of reasons for her rejoicing. The hero of San Jacinto was coming to be her guest, and though he was at death's door with his long-neglected wound, she was determined to meet him with songs of triumph. As he was carried in his cot through the crowded streets to the house of the physician who was to attend to his shattered bone, shouts of acclamation rent the air. Men and women and little children pressed to the cotside, to touch his hand, or to look upon his noble, emaciated face. And though he had striven with things impossible, and was worn to a shadow with pain and fever, he must have felt that "welcome" an over-payment for all his toil and suffering.

Yet it was not alone General Houston that was honored that day by the men of New Orleans. He represented to them the heroes of the Texan Thermopylae at the Alamo, the brave five hundred who had fallen in cold-blooded massacre at Goliad, and the seven hundred who had stood for liberty and the inalienable rights of manhood at San Jacinto. He was not only Sam Houston; he was the ideal in whom men honored all the noblest sentiments of humanity.

A few friends accompanied him, and among them John Millard. On reaching Texas John had gone at once to Houston's side; and in days and nights of such extremity as they shared together, friendship grows rapidly. Houston, like the best of great generals, had immense personal magnetism, and drew close to him the brave and the honest-hearted. John gave him the love of a son for a father, and the homage of a Soldier for a great leader. He rode by his side to victory, and he could not bear to leave him when he was in suffering and danger.

Phyllis expected John, and the Bishop went into the city to meet him. O, how happy she was! She went from room to room re-arranging the lace curtains, and placing every chair and couch in its prettiest position. The table on such holidays is a kind of altar, and she spread it with the snowiest damask, the clearest crystal, and the brightest silver. She made it beautiful with fresh cool ferns and budding roses. Outside Nature had done her part. The orange-trees filled the air with subtle fragrance, and the warm south wind wafted it in waves of perfume through the open doors and windows. Every vine was in its first beauty, every tree and shrub had as yet its spring grace, that luminous emerald transparency which seems to make the very atmosphere green. The garden was wearing all its lilies and pansies and sweet violets, and the birds were building, and shedding song upon every tree-top.

To meet her lover, when that lover comes back from the battle-field with the light of victory on his brow, what women will not put on all her beautiful garments? Phyllis's dark eyes held a wonderfully tender light, and the soft, rich pallor of her complexion took just the shadow of color from the dress of pale pink which fell in flowing lines to her small sandaled feet. A few white narcissus were at her belt and in her black hair, and a fairer picture of pure and graceful womanhood never gladdened a lover's heart.

John had taken in and taken on, even in the few weeks of his absence, some of that peculiar air of independence which seems to be the spirit infusing every thing in Texan land. "I can't help it," he said, with a laugh; "it's in the air; the very winds are full of freedom; they know nothing will challenge them, and they go roving over the prairies with a sound like a song."

The Bishop had come back with John, but the Bishop was one of those old men who, while they gather the wisdom of age, can still keep their young heart. After supper was over he said: "Phyllis, my daughter, let them put me a chair and a table under the live oaks by the cabins. I am going to have a class-meeting there to-night. That will give me the pleasure of making many hearts glad; and it will give John a couple of hours to tell you all the wonderful things he is going to do."

And there, two hours afterward, John and Phyllis went to find him. He was sitting under a great tree, with the servants in little ebony squads around him at the doors of their white cabins; and singularly white they looked, under the swaying festoons of gray moss and in the soft light; for the moon was far up in the zenith, calm and bright and worshipful. John and Phyllis stood together, listening to his benediction; Then they walked silently back to the house, wonderfully touched by the pathos of a little "spiritual" that an old negress started, and whose whispering minor tones seemed to pervade all the garden—

"Steal away-steal away!
Steal away to Jesus!"

And in those moments, though not a word was uttered, the hearts of Phyllis and John were knitted together as no sensuous pleasure of dance or song could ever have bound them. Love touched the spiritual element in each soul, and received its earnest of immortality. And lovers, who have had such experiences together, need never fear that chance or change of life can separate them.

"John," said the Bishop, as they sat in the moonlight, "it is my turn now. I want to hear about Texas and about Houston. Where did you meet him?"

"I met him falling back from the Colorado. I crossed the Buffalo Bayou at Vance's Bridge, just above San Jacinto, and rode west. Twenty miles away I met the women and children of the western settlements, and they told me that Houston was a little farther on, interposing himself and his seven hundred men between the Mexican army and them. O, how my heart bled for them! They were footsore, hungry, and exhausted. Many of the women were carrying sick children. The whole country behind them had been depopulated, and their only hope was to reach the eastern settlements on the Trinity before Santa Anna's army overtook them. I could do nothing to help them, and I hasted onward to join the defending party. I came up to it on the evening of the 20th of April—a desperate handful of men—chased from their homes by an overpowering foe, and quite aware that not only themselves, but their wives and children, were doomed by Santa Anna to an exterminating massacre."

"What was your first impression of Houston, John?"

"That he was a born leader of men. He had the true imperial look. He was dressed in buckskin and an Indian blanket, and was leaning upon his rifle, talking to some of his men. 'General,' I said, 'I am a volunteer. I bring you a true heart and a steady rifle.'

"'You are welcome, sir,' he answered. 'We are sworn to win our rights, or to die free men. Now, what do you say?'

"'That I am with you with all my soul.' Then I told him that there were two regiments on the way, and that the women of Nashville were raising a company of young men, and that another company would start from Natchez within a week. 'Why, this is great news,' he said; and he looked me steadily in the face till both our eyes shone and our hands met—I know not how—but I loved and trusted him."

"I understand, John. When soldiers are few they draw close together. Forlorn hopes have their glad hours, and when men press hands beneath the fire of batteries they touch souls also. It is war that gives us our brother-in-arms. The spiritual warfare knows this also, John.

"'O, these are moments, rare fair moments!