Sons and Fathers

"My Dear Amos: I have been thinking over the information I gave you touching the base parentage of the man Morgan, and I am not sure but that it should be suppressed so far as the public is concerned, and brought home here in another way. The facts cannot be easily proved, and the affair would create a great scandal, in which I, as a member of this absurd family, would be involved. You should not use it, at any rate, except as a desperate measure, and then only upon the understanding that you are to become responsible, and that I am in no way whatever to be brought into the matter. Yours in haste,

    "Annie."

The reader let the paper fall and covered his face with his hands a moment. Then he arose with dignity.

"I did not imagine, sir, that the human heart was capable of such villainy as yours has developed. You have stabbed a defenseless stranger in the back; have broken faith with a poor, jealous, weak woman, and have outraged and humiliated me, to whom you are personally indebted financially and otherwise. Unlock your door! I have but one honorable course left. I shall publish a card in the morning's paper stating that your letter was based upon statements made by a member of my family; that they are untrue in every respect, and offer a public apology."

"Will you name the informant?"

"What is that to you, sir?"

"A great deal! If you do name her, I shall reaffirm the truth of her statements, as in the absence of her husband I am her nearest relative. If you do not name her, then the public may guess wrong. I think you will not do so rash a thing, colonel. Keep out of the matter. Circumstances give you a natural right to hands off!"

"And if I do!" exclaimed the old man, passionately, "who will act for him?" The unpleasant smile returned to the young man's lips.

"No one, I apprehend!"

Montjoy could have killed him as he stood. He felt the ground slipping from under him as he, too, realized the completeness and cowardliness of the plot.

"We shall see; we shall see!" he said, gasping and pressing his hand to his heart. "We shall see, Mr. Royson! There is a just God who looks down upon the acts of all men, and the right prevails!"

Royson bowed mockingly but profoundly.

"That is an old doctrine. You are going, and there is just one thing left unsaid. At the risk of offending you yet more, I am going to say it."

"I warn you, then, to be careful; there is a limit to human endurance and I have persistently ascribed to me the worst of motives in this matter, but I have as much pride in my family as you in yours. There are but few of us left. Will you concede that if there is danger, in her opinion, that she will become the sister-in-law of this man, and that she believed the information she has given to be true, will you concede that her action is natural, if not wise, and that a little more selfishness may after all be mixed in mine?" Gradually his meaning dawned upon his hearer. For a second he was dumb. And all this was to be public property!

"I think," said Royson, coolly opening the door, "it will be well for you to confer with friends before you proceed, and perhaps leave to others the task of righting the wrongs of strangers who have taken advantage of your hospitality to offer the deadliest insult possible in this southern country. It may not be well to arm this man with the fact that you vouch for him; he may answer you in the future."

He drew back from the door suddenly, half in terror. A man, pale as death itself, with hair curling down upon his shoulders, and eyes that blazed under the face before him, whose eyes never for a moment left his, broke the seal. Then he read aloud:

"Mr. Amos Royson, I inclose for your inspection a clipping from an extra issue this day, and ask if you are the author of the letter it contains. If you answer yes, I hereby demand of you an unconditional retraction of and apology for the same, for publication in the paper which contained the original. This will be handed to you by my friend, Gerald Morgan.

    "Edward Morgan."

Royson recovered himself with evident difficulty.

"This is not customary – he does not demand the name of my informant!" he said.

"We do not care a fig, sir, for your informant. The insult rests in the use you have made of a lie, and we propose to hold you responsible for it!"

Gerald spoke the words like a sweet-voiced girl and returned the stare of his opponent with insolent coolness. The colonel had paused, as he perceived the completeness of the lawyer's entrapping. Amos could not use his cousin's name before the public and the Montjoys were saved from interference. He was cornered. The colonel passed out hurriedly with an affectionate smile to Gerald, saying:

"Excuse me, gentlemen; these are matters which you will probably wish to discuss in private. Mr. Royson, I had friends wiser than myself at work upon this matter, and I did not know it."

CHAPTER XX

IN THE HANDS OF THEIR FRIENDS

It was not sunset when Col. Montjoy left home. Mary went to her room and threw herself upon her bed, sick at heart and anxious beyond the power of weeping. Unadvised, ignorant of the full significance of the information that had been conveyed to them, she conjured up a world of danger for her father and for Edward. Tragedy was in the air she breathed. At supper she was laboring under ill-concealed excitement. Fortunately for her, the little mother was not present. Sitting in her room, with the green glasses to which she had been reduced by the progress of her disease, she did not notice the expression of the daughter's face when she came as usual to look after the final arrangement of her mother's comfort.

By 8 o'clock the house was quiet. Throwing a light wrap over her shoulders and concealing in its folds her father's army pistol, Mary slipped into the outer darkness and whistled softly. A great shaggy dog came bounding around from the rear and leaped upon her. She rested her hand on his collar, and together they passed into the avenue. Old Isam stood there and by him the pony phaeton and mare.

"Stay up until I return, please, Uncle Isam, and be sure to meet me here!" The old man bowed.

"I'll be hyar, missy," he said. "Don't you want me to go, too?"

"No, thank you; I am going to Gen. Evan's and you must stay and look after things. Nero will go with me." The dog had already leaped into the vehicle. She sprang in also, and almost noiselessly they rolled away over the pine straw.

The old man listened; first he heard the dogs bark at Rich's then at Manuel's and then at black Henry's, nearly a mile away. He shook his head.

"Missy got somep'n on her mind! She don't make no hoss move in de night dat way for nothin'! Too fast! Too fast!"

He went off to his cabin and sat outside to smoke. And in the night the little mare sped away. On the public roads the gait was comparatively safe, and she responded to every call nobly. The unbroken shadows of the roadside glided like walls of gloom! The little vehicle rocked and swayed, and, underneath, the wheels sang a monotonous warning rhyme.

Now and then the little vehicle fairly leaped from the ground, for when Norton, a year previous, had bid in that animal at a blooded-stock sale in Kentucky, she was in her third summer and carried the blood of Wilkes and Rysdyk's Hambletonian, and was proud of it, as her every motion showed.

The little mare had the long route that night, but at last she stood before the doorway of the Cedars. The general was descending the steps as Mary gave Nero the lines.

"What! Mary – "

He feared to ask the question on his lips. She was full of excitement, and her first effort to speak was a dismal failure.

"Come! Come! Come!" he said, in that descending scale of voice which seems to have been made for sympathy and encouragment. "Calm yourself first and talk later." He had his arms around her now and was ascending the steps. "Sit right down here in this big chair; there you are!"

"You have not heard, then?" she said, controlling herself with supreme effort.

"About your father's defeat? Oh, yes. But what of that? There are defeats more glorious than victories, my child. You will find that your father was taken advantage of." She buried her face in her hands.

"It is not about that, sir – the means they used!" And then, between sobs, she told him the whole story. He made no reply, no comment, but reaching over to the rail secured his corn-cob pipe and filled it. As he struck a match above the tobacco, she saw that his face was as calm as the candid skies of June. The sight gave her courage.

"Do you not think it awful?" she ventured.

"Awful? Yes! A man to descend to such depths of meanness must have suffered a great deal on the way. I am sorry for Royson – sorry, indeed!"

"But Mr. Morgan!" she exclaimed, excitedly.

"That must be attended to," he said, very gravely. "Mr. Morgan has placed us all under heavy obligations, and we must see him through."

"You must, General; you must, and right away! They have sent for poor papa, and he has gone to town, and I – I – just could not sleep, so I came to you." He laughed heartily.

"And in a hurry! Whew! I heard the mare's feet as she crossed the bridge a mile away. You did just right. And of course the old general is expected to go to town and pull papa and Mr. Morgan out of the mud, and straighten out things. John!"

"Put the saddle on my horse at once. And now, how is the little mamma?" he asked, gently.

He held her on this subject until the horse was brought, and then they rode off down the avenue, the general following and rallying the girl upon her driving.

"Don't expect me to hold to that pace," he said. "I once crossed a bridge as fast, and faster, up in Virginia, but I was trying to beat the bluecoats. Too old now, too old."