by Thomas Dixon
CHAPTER III
AUGUSTUS CAESAR
Phil early found the home of the Camerons the most charming spot in town.As he sat in the old-fashioned parlour beside Margaret, his brain seethedwith plans for building a hotel on a large scale on the other side of theSquare and restoring her home intact.
The Cameron homestead was a large brick building with an ample porchlooking out directly on the Court House Square, standing in the middle ofa lawn full of trees, flowers, shrubbery, and a wilderness of evergreenboxwood planted fifty years before. It was located on the farm from whichit had always derived its support. The farm extended up into the villageitself, with the great barn easily seen from the street.
Phil was charmed with the doctor's genial personality. He often found thefather a decidedly easier person to get along with than his handsomedaughter. The Rev. Hugh McAlpin was a daily caller, and Margaret had atantalizing way of showing her deference to his opinions.
Phil hated this preacher from the moment he laid eyes on him. Hispugnacious piety he might have endured but for the fact that he wasgood-looking and eloquent. When he rose in the pulpit in all his sacreddignity, fixed his eyes on Margaret, and began in tenderly modulated voiceto tell about the love of God, Phil clinched his fist. He didn't care tojoin the Presbyterian church, but he quietly made up his mind that, if itcame to the worst and she asked him, he would join anything. What made himfurious was the air of assurance with which the young divine carriedhimself about Margaret, as if he had but to say the word and it would befixed as by a decree issued from before the foundations of the world.
He was pleased and surprised to find that his being a Yankee made nodifference in his standing or welcome. The people seemed unconscious ofthe part his father played at Washington. Stoneman's Confiscation Bill hadnot yet been discussed in Congress, and the promise of land to the negroeswas universally regarded as a hoax of the League to win their followers.The old Commoner was not an orator. Hence his name was scarcely known inthe South. The Southern people could not conceive of a great leader exceptone who expressed his power through the megaphone of oratory. They heldCharles Sumner chiefly responsible for Reconstruction.
The fact that Phil was a Yankee who had no axe to grind in the Southcaused the people to appeal to him in a pathetic way that touched hisheart. He had not been in town two weeks before he was on good terms withevery youngster, had the entree to every home, and Ben had taken him,protesting vehemently, to see every pretty girl there. He found that, inspite of war and poverty, troubles present and troubles to come, the youngSouthern woman was the divinity that claimed and received the chiefworship of man.
The tremendous earnestness with which these youngsters pursued the work ofcourting, all of them so poor they scarcely had enough to eat, amazed andalarmed him beyond measure. He found in several cases as many as fourmaking a dead set for one girl, as if heaven and earth depended on theoutcome, while the girl seemed to receive it all as a matter ofcourse--her just tribute.
Every instinct of his quiet reserved nature revolted at any such attemptto rush his cause with Margaret, and yet it made the cold chills run downhis spine to see that Presbyterian preacher drive his buggy up to thehotel, take her to ride, and stay three hours. He knew where they hadgone--to Lover's Leap and along the beautiful road which led to the NorthCarolina line. He knew the way--Margaret had showed him. This road was theWay of Romance. Every farmhouse, cabin, and shady nook along its beatentrack could tell its tale of lovers fleeing from the North to findhappiness in the haven of matrimony across the line in South Carolina.Everything seemed to favour marriage in this climate. The state requiredno license. A legal marriage could be celebrated, anywhere, at any time,by a minister in the presence of two witnesses, with or without theconsent of parent or guardian. Marriage was the easiest thing in thestate--divorce the one thing impossible. Death alone could grant divorce.
He was now past all reason in love. He followed the movement of Margaret'squeenly figure with pathetic abandonment. Beneath her beautiful manners heswore with a shiver that she was laughing at him. Now and then he caught afunny expression about her eyes, as if she were consumed with a sly senseof humour in her love affairs.
What he felt to be his manliest traits, his reserve, dignity, and moralearnestness, she must think cold and slow beside the dash, fire, andassurance of these Southerners. He could tell by the way she encouragedthe preacher before his eyes that she was criticizing and daring him tolet go for once. Instead of doing it, he sank back appalled at theprospect and let the preacher carry her off again.
He sought solace in Dr. Cameron, who was utterly oblivious of hisdaughter's love affairs.
Phil was constantly amazed at the variety of his knowledge, thegenuineness of his culture, his modesty, and the note of youth and cheerwith which he still pursued the study of medicine.
His company was refreshing for its own sake. The slender graceful figure,ruddy face, with piercing, dark-brown eyes in startling contrast to hissnow-white hair and beard, had for Phil a perpetual charm. He never tiredlistening to his talk, and noting the peculiar grace and dignity withwhich he carried himself, unconscious of the commanding look of hisbrilliant eyes.
"I hear that you have used hypnotism in your practice, Doctor," Phil saidto him one day, as he watched with fascination the changing play of hismobile features.
"Oh, yes! used it for years. Southern doctors have always been pioneers inthe science of medicine. Dr. Crawford Long, of Georgia, you know, was thefirst practitioner in America to apply anesthesia to surgery."
"But where did you run up against hypnotism? I thought this a new thingunder the sun?"
The doctor laughed.
"It's not a home industry, exactly. I became interested in it in Edinburghwhile a medical student, and pursued it with increased interest inParis."
"Did you study medicine abroad?" Phil asked in surprise.
"Yes; I was poor, but I managed to raise and to borrow enough to takethree years on the other side. I put all I had and all my credit in it.I've never regretted the sacrifice. The more I saw of the great world, thebetter I liked my own world. I've given these farmers and their familiesthe best God gave to me."
"Do you find much use for your powers of hypnosis?" Phil asked.
"Only in an experimental way. Naturally I am endowed with thisgift--especially over certain classes who are easily the subjects ofextreme fear. I owned a rascally slave named Gus whom I used to watchstealing. Suddenly confronting him, I've thrown him into unconsciousnesswith a steady gaze of the eye, until he would drop on his face, tremblinglike a leaf, unable to speak until I allowed him."
"How do you account for such powers?"
"I don't account for them at all. They belong to the world of spiritualphenomena of which we know so little and yet which touch our materiallives at a thousand points every day. How do we account for sleep anddreams, or second sight, or the day dreams which we call visions?"
Phil was silent, and the doctor went on dreamily:
"The day my boy Richard was killed at Gettysburg, I saw him lying dead ina field near a house. I saw some soldiers bury him in the corner of thatfield, and then an old man go to the grave, dig up his body, cart it awayinto the woods, and throw it into a ditch. I saw it before I heard of thebattle or knew that he was in it. He was reported killed, and his body hasnever been found. It is the one unspeakable horror of the war to me. I'llnever get over it."
"How very strange!" exclaimed Phil.
"And yet the war was nothing, my boy, to the horrors I feel clutching thethroat of the South to-day. I'm glad you and your father are down here.Your disinterested view of things may help us at Washington when we needit most. The South seems to have no friend at court."
"Your younger men, I find, are hopeful, Doctor," said Phil.
"Yes, the young never see danger until it's time to die. I'm not apessimist, but I was happier in jail. Scores of my old friends have givenup in despair and died. Delicate and cultured women are living
on cowpeas,corn bread, and molasses--and of such quality they would not have fed itto a slave. Children go to bed hungry. Droves of brutal negroes roam atlarge, stealing, murdering, and threatening blacker crimes. We are underthe heel of petty military tyrants, few of whom ever smelled gunpowder ina battle. At the approaching election, not a decent white man in thiscountry can take the infamous test oath. I am disfranchised because I gavea cup of water to the lips of one of my dying boys on the battlefield. Myslaves are all voters. There will be a negro majority of more than onehundred thousand in this state. Desperadoes are here teaching thesenegroes insolence and crime in their secret societies. The future is anightmare."
HENRY WALTHALL AS BEN CAMERON.]
"You have my sympathy, sir," said Phil warmly, extending his hand. "TheseReconstruction Acts, conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity, canbring only shame and disgrace until the last trace of them is wiped fromour laws. I hope it will not be necessary to do it in blood."
The doctor was deeply touched. He could not be mistaken in the genuinenessof any man's feeling. He never dreamed this earnest straightforward Yankeeyoungster was in love with Margaret, and it would have made no differencein the accuracy of his judgment.
"Your sentiments do you honour, sir," he said with grave courtesy. "Andyou honour us and our town with your presence and friendship."
As Phil hurried home in a warm glow of sympathy for the people whosehospitality had made him their friend and champion, he encountered a negrotrooper standing on the corner, watching the Cameron house with furtiveglance.
Instinctively he stopped, surveyed the man from head to foot and asked:
"What's the trouble?"
"None er yo' business," the negro answered, slouching across to theopposite side of the street.
Phil watched him with disgust. He had the short, heavy-set neck of thelower order of animals. His skin was coal black, his lips so thick theycurled both ways up and down with crooked blood marks across them. Hisnose was flat, and its enormous nostrils seemed in perpetual dilation. Thesinister bead eyes, with brown splotches in their whites, were set wideapart and gleamed apelike under his scant brows. His enormous cheekbonesand jaws seemed to protrude beyond the ears and almost hide them.
"That we should send such soldiers here to flaunt our uniform in the facesof these people!" he exclaimed, with bitterness.
He met Ben hurrying home from a visit to Elsie. The two young soldierswhose prejudices had melted in the white heat of battle had become fastfriends.
Phil laughed and winked:
"I'll meet you to-night around the family altar!"
When he reached home, Ben saw, slouching in front of the house, walkingback and forth and glancing furtively behind him, the negro trooper whomhis friend had passed.
He walked quickly in front of him, and blinking his eyes rapidly, said:
"Didn't I tell you, Gus, not to let me catch you hanging around this houseagain?"
The negro drew himself up, pulling his blue uniform into position as hisbody stretched out of its habitual slouch, and answered:
"My name ain't 'Gus.'"
Ben gave a quick little chuckle and leaned back against the palings, hishand resting on one that was loose. He glanced at the negro carelessly andsaid:
"Well, Augustus Caesar, I give your majesty thirty seconds to move off theblock."
Gus' first impulse was to run, but remembering himself he threw back hisshoulders and said:
"I reckon de streets free----"
"Yes, and so is kindling wood!"
Quick as a flash of lightning the paling suddenly left the fence and brokethree times in such bewildering rapidity on the negro's head he forgoteverything he ever knew or thought he knew save one thing--the way to run.He didn't fly, but he made remarkable use of the facilities with which hehad been endowed.
Ben watched him disappear toward the camp.
He picked up the pieces of paling, pulled a strand of black wool from asplinter, looked at it curiously and said:
"A sprig of his majesty's hair--I'll doubtless remember him without it!"
