A Fool's Errand & Bricks without Straw

by Albion Winegar Tourgée

"On the contrary," said Gurney earnestly, "my request for this interview was because I desired to ask your leave to return it to the owner myself."

  "Well, sir," said Servosse thoughtfully, "I do not see but you have earned the right to do so. I will see if she can receive you."

  A few moments later, Melville Gurney, somewhat weak and tremulous from the loss of blood and subsequent excitement, came down stairs, leaning on the arm of his friend Burleson, and was ushered into the parlor of the hotel, where Lily Servosse leaned upon her father's arm. Pale and trembling, he presented the hat with a low bow, and withdrew without a word.

  "Well, I swear!" said Burleson a minute after, "if I had thought you would show the white feather just at the last, I never would have seconded you!"

  Comfort Servosse never once dreamed that the trembling creature clinging to his arm, and dropping tears upon the hat as she brushed and picked at it, was any thing more than a simple child. So he said, with an amused smile, —

  "It's not even rumpled, is it, dear?"

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  "AND ALL THE WORLD WAS IN A SEA"

  Table of Contents

  THE train which brought Lily and her father, Judge Denton, Burleson, and Gurney to Verdenton, did not arrive unnoted. The report of Lily's heroic ride, and of Burleson's defection from the Klan, had preceded it; and a great crowd had collected, anxious for a sight of the brave girl who had courage and wit enough to circumvent the Ku-Klux, and of the yet braver man, who, having been one of their number, had yet courage to denounce them.

  What he would say, what he would do, there was the utmost anxiety to know. For once no imputation was made upon the motives of one who saw fit to stem the popular current. Men cursed and denounced him; but it was for what he had done, or was supposed to have done, and not on account of the motives which they believed to have animated him.

  No one attributed either cowardice, ambition, or avariciousness to John Burleson. He was known to have disapproved from the first, at least of all the violent features of the organization, and to have done not a little to prevent their being carried into execution. He had been advanced to be the Chief of the County, both because of his known and acknowledged capacity for organization and leadership, and also because this very disinclination to promote unlawful acts had met the approval of many of the more conservative members of the order. As he had said, he went upon the raid which we have described simply to accommodate a friend, who, being required to attend, had afterward sickened. He was recognized as bold, generous, and impulsive. He was one of the very few private soldiers who survived the surrender of the Confederate armies. Entering the service at the very outset of the war, he had never failed to perform his full duty, and not seldom had done considerably more; yet he had received no promotion, and, since the collapse of the Rebellion, not a sign of any military title had attached itself to his name. The man who should have saluted him as "Captain" would probably have been whipped first, and invited to drink afterwards, for his temerity. The reason of this was twofold. In the first place, young Burleson, a man of unusually broad and catholic feeling, and of varied personal experience and wide observation, was as thoroughly convinced of the hopelessness of the Confederate cause in the field of battle at the outset of the war as at its close. This view he did not hesitate to declare on all occasions; and, when reproved for so doing by an upstart superior, he had the boldness and arrogance to assure the official, that, if he knew half as much as himself, he would desert to the Yankees in two days. Besides this, it suited his humor to boast of his disinclination for a military life. When offered promotion, he curtly declined it, on the ground that he did not wish to do any thing that might remove his dislike for the service.

  Of course such a man, though he had been of the ripest culture and most marked capacity, was only fitted for the place of a private soldier; and so a soldier he remained, always scornful of control, and utterly regardless of the Pharisaical distinctions of rank, respected for his unshrinking bluntness, and feared for his terrible directness of thought, and explicitness of statement. He was perhaps the most dangerous man who could have renounced his fealty to the Klan.

  As he stepped upon the platform at Verdenton, a man whom he knew to be a very prominent member of the Klan touched him upon the shoulder, and said, with a meaning look towards the rear of the train, —

  "Let me see you a moment."

  "Oh, go to the devil!" said Burleson, in a loud but good-natured tone of voice. "I know what you want; and I had just as lief tell you here as around the corner, or in the camp. I am neither afraid nor ashamed. I am out of it, and opposed to it root and branch. If any one has any thing he wants to say or do about it, he knows where to find John Burleson.

  "Judge Denton!" he cried in the same tone, as that gentleman appeared on the platform, "these people are my Ku-Klux friends and neighbors, who have come to see if John Burleson has the pluck to renounce what he was a fool for engaging in, and knew himself to be such at the time. They don't look like Ku-Klux, do they? But they are — nearly every man you can see. I don't believe there are a dozen white men on this platform whom I don't know to be such, and have not seen in their meetings more than once. They are most of them church-members, and all of them respectable. You ought to see them with their gowns and masks on! they look savage enough then. You know a good many of them, Judge, and will get acquainted with them all if Justice ever gets her dues. There's right smart of men here who to my knowledge deserve a hanging."

  Such language as this increased the consternation which already prevailed; and, before it was ended, nearly every white man had left the platform, and only a crowd of wondering colored men remained to grin applause to his concluding remarks. He knew that he had thrown a bomb, but he was not ignorant that its explosion might endanger himself. He knew very thoroughly the temper of the people whom he had been addressing, and did not under-estimate his own danger. So when he had bidden good-by to Gurney, who went on to his home, he went and assisted his other fellow-travelers to enter their carriage. Then he took the Fool aside, and said in a low voice, —

  "Colonel Servosse, I dislike to ask a favor of you; but it may be that I shall be able to render you a like service before long. You know what has occurred. If I remain here to-night, the probabilities are that I shall not be troubled about getting up in the morning. I wish you would invite me to Warrington for a day or two. I do not think you will be attacked there. If you should, you would not find me entirely useless in the defense. I think we three would make a bad crowd for any force to attack. In a short time we can tell what will be the result. Either they will cry for mercy, or we must fight. I don't know which it will be as yet."

  "Certainly, certainly, Mr. Burleson!" said Servosse heartily. "I have been studying for the last hour, as to whether I ought not to invite both you and your friend."

  "Oh, he is all right!" said Burleson lightly. "He is not tainted with my offense. No one regards him now except as the poor fellow who had the good fortune to be shot by your daughter."

  "The fact is," said Servosse apologetically, "I have become so suspicious since I have been a 'carpet-bagger,' that I am never quite sure whether it is expected or desired that I should either tender or receive hospitality as a matter of course. Besides that, you will permit me to confess that I was by no means sure that you were in earnest until within the last few minutes. Of course we shall be glad to have you at Warrington, and hope you may find it both safe and agreeable there, though I confess I share your apprehensions."

  It was a very thoughtful company which drove to Warrington that evening. Metta, with the overwrought Lily in her arms, listened, with overflowing eyes and irrepressible sobs, to the girl's broken recital of that adventure which had been so perilous to her, and so providential to her father and one of their guests, whose hearts were of course deeply affected at the thought of the barbarous death they had escaped. The other guest, realizing even more clearly than they both what they had escaped and what still impended
, was deeply concerned lest he had added to the peril of those with whom he had sought shelter.

  A few colored people had collected at the depot, anxious to welcome those in whom they took so deep an interest, after the great peril they had escaped. A few of them had spoken to the Fool; and all had manifested a sense of the utmost satisfaction, both at their arrival and at what had transpired at the station, but made no clamorous demonstrations of joy. Hardly had they started for home, however, than it became evident that the excitement extended to all classes of society. From almost every house along the road they saw white faces peering at them with troubled and apprehensive looks, while the cabin of every colored man gave them looks and words of cheerful greeting; and, long before they reached Warrington, it became evident that the negroes were hastening from all directions to meet Servosse. Arrived in the neighborhood of his home, the Fool found that the news of his coming had gone before, as well as the report in regard to Burleson's defection from the Klan; and a great crowd of colored people, as well as many of their white political associates, had gathered to congratulate them on their escape, and to make inquiry as to the other report.

  It was a most cordial welcome which the Fool and his brave daughter received from these neighbors; and the presence of Judge Denton and Mr. Burleson fully confirmed the rumor in regard to the latter. Several parties who seemed ill at ease with the company which had gathered on the lawn were cordially greeted by Burleson in his loud, careless manner; but they were rendered still more uncomfortable by this, and soon slunk away, one by one, and left only the constantly increasing crowd of colored men and friendly neighbors, whose gratulations could not find sufficient words.

  As night came on, it became evident that these good friends, apprehensive of an attack from the Klan, had determined to stand guard about the Fool's house. This was deemed unadvisable; and, after thanking them again for their sympathy, he requested them to disperse, saying that ample precautions had been taken to secure the safety of Warrington, and naming a number of their most devoted white friends who would sleep there that night. So with cheers, and overflowing wishes for their peace and happiness, the colored people dispersed, and an eventful night settled down upon Warrington.

  It was a little after dark, and while the company at Warrington were seated at supper, that a man rode up to the gate, who, after the customary hail had been answered by a servant, made some cautious inquiries as to who was within, and then asked to see Mr. Eyebright, a prominent Union man of the neighborhood. On being informed that he was at supper, he finally consented, not without considerable hesitation and evident doubt, to enter and take a seat in the Fool's library, enjoining again and again upon the servant that only he whom he had inquired for should be informed of his presence.

  Mr. Eyebright was a portly, well-to-do planter, whose bluff and hearty manliness gave everybody the utmost confidence in his sincerity and kindliness. He had been noted for his unsparing denunciations of the Klan at all times and in all places. To hear him lavish curses upon them as he filled his pipe, or puffed at the long reed stem before a glowing fire, a stranger would have imagined that nothing would have afforded him more intense and unadulterated satisfaction than the utter destruction of the Klan, and the incineration of each and every one of its individual members, unless he should note the twinkle in his soft, lazy-rolling brown eye, or mark the lurking smiles that passed over his rotund countenance, or hid away at the corners of his wide, mobile mouth. At home he was known as the gruffest and kindliest of neighbors; abroad he was accounted one of the most sanguinary and revengeful of the degraded Radicals. A noticeable birthmark had given him a ludicrous nickname, which had contributed not a little to confer upon one of the kindliest, and most peaceful of men a reputation for blood-thirstiness and savagery almost equal to that of the original Blue-beard. This quaint and humorous giant, with his assumed ferocity, abundance of unmeaning oaths, and real goodness of heart, was a special favorite of the Fool, whose devotedness he heartily returned. He had insisted upon staying as one of the sort of guard of honor that night, upon the ground that he would be of the utmost value in case of an attack, which was very true; but the Fool knew very well that the prospect of a jolly night beside the smoldering fire in the library, with abundance of good company, and now and then a sup of good peach-brandy, made at his own still, and softened with honey, interspersed with pipes and politics, and stories of "the good old time when we had a country," had far more attractions for his fat friend than a night of actual guard-duty.

  As they filed out of the dining-room, Eyebright laid one ponderous arm on the Fool's shoulder, and, extending the other over his own expansive person, remarked, —

  "After such a supper as that, Colonel, one could not help enjoying a smoke."

  Servosse merely answered with a low chuckle, to which Eyebright responded, —

  "I know what you mean, you rascal! You think I just staid here to-night to have a good time. Suppose I did, now. It's not often we poor devils can get a dozen good fellows together, and I am for making the most of the opportunity. I tell you, you don't know how hungry I get sometimes to hear somebody else talk sense beside myself [with a laugh]! There's Judge Denton, I'm going to pull him out to-night. They say he's just about the best company in the State — that is, they used to say so before he became one of us 'scalawags.' I s'pose that's had a bad effect on him, as well as the rest of us. There's that Burleson: I like him. He'd be a good fellow if he hadn't been a Ku-Klux. Cussed if I can ever get over that! Oh, don't tell me he's out of it now, and all that! It's like sheep-killing in a dog: once they've learned how, they never forget. I wouldn't sleep in the same room with him for the State! I wouldn't, I swear! I should expect to wake up with my throat cut, at the very least."

  "Hush! He'll hear you," said Servosse.

  "Oh, that's nothing!" responded Eyebright. "I've been trying to devil him all the evening. He asked me at supper — you were serving the meat, and didn't hear it — if I didn't think Judge Denton and himself represented the lion and the lamb very well. I told him I'd never heard before of a lion that took his lamb roasted."

  Just then the servant who had waited on the door touched him, and whispered in his ear.

  "Wants to see me, you say, Jim?" he asked in surprise. "What does the damn Ku-Klux want of me, Jim?"

  "Dunno, sah," answered Jim. "Sed he want ter see you mighty pertickeler."

  "He didn't say what about?"

  "No, sah."

  "Well, give me a light," said he, feeling in one pocket after another for his pipe, "and let me go and see what 'tis, and send him off. We don't want no such cattle around here to-night, Jim. Heh? Where is he?"

  "In de libery, sah."

  "So, puffing his long reed pipe, Eyebright rolled down the steps of the porch, and across the intervening space to the detached wooden building which served as the Fool's office and library. Pushing the door open with his stick, he ascended the steps and entered, exclaiming, as the door swung together behind him, —

  "Hello, Kirkwood, is this you? What the devil are you doing here?"

  The rest of the company drifted into the spacious sitting-room, and for half an hour Eyebright and his visitor were forgotten. At the end of that time his rotund face appeared at the door, and he hastily motioned to the Fool to come out into the hall. As soon as he came, and the sitting-room door was shut, Eyebright caught his hand, and said, in tones trembling with excitement, —

  "Colonel, I'll be damned if the bottom hasn't fallen out at last! Don't ask me any questions. Bring Judge Denton over to the office. Quick! Don't let on that any thing is up! I daren't show my head in there: everybody would know something was wrong. But you Yankees — you could keep your faces straight if the world was coming to an end!"

  The Fool did as requested; and, upon their entering the office, was surprised to find there a young man of good family in the neighborhood, whom Mr. Eyebright introduced to the judge as Ralph Kirkwood.

  "He says he's got some
thing to say to you, Mr. Denton, which, judging from what he's told me, will be of interest to a good many."

  Eyebright spoke with a great effort at self-restraint.

  "Yes," said Kirkwood absently: "there's a thing on my mind I've wanted to get off it for a long time."

  "I will hear any thing you have to say, Mr. Kirkwood," said the judge with some formality; "but I must warn you that any thing you say must be purely voluntary, and is given without threat or promise. I can not hear it otherwise."

  "So Mr. Eyebright said," responded Kirkwood, without looking up.

  "And I must further advise you," remarked the judge, "that any thing you may say here may be used against you upon trial for any crime."

  "It makes no difference," said Kirkwood after a moment. "I can not keep still any longer. I haven't had a good night's rest since it occurred. I went to Texas, and it followed me there. I came home, and it came with me. It's been with me all the time, and given me no rest, night nor day. I can see him now just as plain as I saw him that night!"

  "See who?" asked the judge in surprise.

  "Jerry Hunt," responded Kirkwood, in the same matter-of-fact, even tone, and without looking up from the smoldering fire in the grate on which his gaze had all the time rested.

  If he could have seen the look of horror and amazement which his auditors exchanged, it would perhaps have surprised him almost as much as his declaration did them. Surrounded year after year by this terrible organization, whose secret blows had fallen upon every side, with no tangible clew to their source, there had grown up in the minds of these men a conviction that there would some time come a day when confidence would be lost between the perpetrators of these crimes, and they would turn upon each other, and confess their evil deeds. They thought, that, when that time did come, there would be a race to be among the first to confess. It is true there had been before some defections from this body, who had disclosed something, in a general way, of its workings, but nothing of any importance. Indeed, their disclosures had been regarded with more of ridicule than respect, because of the conspicuous ignorance which they manifested of what they pretended to disclose. They were usually attended, too, with some circumstance of suspicion antecedently or subsequently occurring, which had destroyed almost all confidence in their verity, or the good faith of the parties making them. That they should at this peculiar moment be confronted with the prospect of a revelation of one of the most noted of the crimes may well have startled them from their composure. Servosse remembered Eyebright's declaration, "The bottom has fallen out at last!"