The Prodigal Judge

CHAPTER XVI
THE PORTAL OF HOPE

"This—" the speaker was judge Price; "this is the place for me: They are a warm-hearted people, sir; a prosperous people, and a patriotic people with an unstinted love of country. A people full of rugged virtues engaged in carving a great state out of the indulgent bosom of Nature. I like the size of their whisky glasses; I like the stuff that goes into them; I despise a section that separates its gallons into too many glasses. Show me a community that does that, and I'll show you a community rapidly tending toward a low scale of living. I'd like to hang out my shingle here and practise law."

The judge and Mr. Mahaffy were camped in the woods between Boggs' and Raleigh. Betty had carried Hannibal off to spend the night at Belle Plain, Carrington had disappeared with Charley Norton; but the judge and Mahaffy had lingered in the meadow until the last refreshment booth struck its colors to the twilight, and they had not lingered in vain. The judge threw himself at full length on the ground, and Mahaffy dropped at his side. About them, in the ruddy glow of their camp-fire, rose the dark wall of the forest.

"I crave opportunity, Solomon—the indorsement of my own class. I feel that I shall have it here," resumed the judge pensively.

But Mahaffy was sad in his joy, sober in his incipientent drunkenness. The same handsome treatment which the judge commended, had been as freely tendered him, yet he saw the end of all such hospitality. This was the worm in the bud. The judge, however, was an eager idealist; he still dreamed of Utopia, he still believed in millenniums. Mahaffy didn't and couldn't. Memory was the scarecrow in the garden of his hopes—you could wear out your welcome anywhere. In the end the world reckoned your cost, and unless you were prepared to make some sort of return for its bounty, the cold shoulder came to be your portion instead of the warm handclasp.

"Hannibal has found friends among people of the first importance. I have made it my business to inquire into their standing, and I find that young lady is heiress to a cool half million. Think of that, Solomon—think of that! I never saw anything more beautiful than her manifestation of regard for my protege—"

"And you made it your business, Mr. Price, to do your very damnedest to ruin his chances," said Mahaffy, with sudden heat.

"I ruin his chances?—I, sir? I consider that I helped his chances immeasurably."

"All right, then, you helped his chances—only you didn't, Price!"

"Am I to understand, Solomon, that you regard my interest in the boy as harmful?" inquired the judge, in a tone of shocked surprise.

"I regard it as a calamity," said Mahaffy, with cruel candor.

"And how about you, Solomon?"

"Equally a calamity. Mr. Price, you don't seem able to grasp just what we look like!"

"The mind's the only measure of the man, Solomon. If anybody can talk to me and be unaware that they are conversing with a gentleman, all I can say is their experience has been as pitiable as their intelligence is meager. But it hurts me when you intimate that I stand in the way of the boy's opportunity."

"Price, what do you; suppose we look like—you and I?"

"In a general way, Solomon, I am conscious that our appeal is to the brain rather than the eye," answered the judge, with dignity.

"I reckon even you couldn't do a much lower trick than use the boy as a stepping-stone," pursued Mahaffy.

"I don't see how you have the heart to charge me with such a purpose—I don't indeed, Solomon." The judge spoke with deep feeling; he was really hurt.

"Well, you let the boy have his chance, and don't you stick in your broken oar," cried Mahaffy fiercely.

The judge rolled over on his back, and stared up at the heavens.

"This is a new aspect of your versatile nature, Solomon. Must I regard you as a personally emancipated moral influence, not committed to the straight and narrow path yourself, but still close enough to it to keep my feet from straying?" he at length demanded.

Mahaffy having spoken his mind, preserved a stony silence.

The judge got up and replenished the camp-fire, which had burnt low, then squatting before it, he peered into the flames.

"You'll not deny, Solomon, that Miss Malroy exhibited a real affection for Hannibal?" he began.

"Now don't you try to borrow money of her, Price," said Mahaffy, returning to the attack.

"Solomon—Solomon—how can you?"

"That'll be your next move. Now let her alone; let Hannibal have his luck as it comes to him."

"You seem to forget, sir, that I still bear the name of gentleman!" said the judge.

Mahaffy gave way to acid merriment.

"Well, see that you are not tempted to forget that," he observed.

"If I didn't know your sterling qualities, Solomon, and pay homage to 'em, I might be tempted to take offense," said the judge.

"It's like pouring water on a duck's back to talk to you, Price; nothing strikes in."

"On the contrary, I am at all times ready to listen to reason from any quarter, but I've studied this matter in its many-sided aspect. I won't say we might not do better in Memphis, but we must consider the boy. No; if I can find a vacant house in Raleigh, I wouldn't ask a finer spot in which to spend the afternoon of my life."

"Afternoon?" snapped Mahaffy irritably.

"That's right—carp—! But you can't relegate me! You can't shove me away from the portal of hope—metaphorically speaking, I'm on the stoop; it may be God's pleasure that I enter; there's a place for gray heads—and there's a respectable slice of life after the meridian is passed."

"Humph!" said Mahaffy.

"I've made my impression; I've been thrown with cultivated minds quick to recognize superiority; I've met with deference and consideration."

"Aren't you forgetting the boy?" inquired Mahaffy. "No, sir! I regard my obligations where he is concerned as a sacred trust to be administered in a lofty and impersonal manner. If his friends—if Miss Malroy, for instance—cares to make me the instrument of her benefactions, I'll not be disposed to stand on my dignity; but his education shall be my care. I'll make such a lawyer of him as America has not seen before! I don't ask you to accept my own opinion of my fitness to do this, but two gentlemen with whom I talked this evening—one of them was the justice of the peace—were pleased to say that they had never heard such illuminating comments on the criminal law. I quoted the Greeks and Romans to 'em, sir; I gave 'em the salient points on mediaeval law; and they were dumfounded and speechless. I reckon they'd never heard such an exposition of fundamental principles; I showed 'em the germ and I showed 'em fruition. Damn it, sir, they were overwhelmed by the array of facts I marshaled for 'em. They said they'd never met with such erudition—no more they had, for I boiled down thirty years of study into ten minutes of talk! I flogged 'em with facts, and then we drank—" The judge smacked his lips. "It is this free-handed hospitality I like; it's this that gives life its gala aspect."

He forgot former experiences; but without this kindly refusal of memory to perform its wonted functions, the world would have been a chill place indeed for Slocum Price. But Mahaffy, keen and anxious, with doubt in every glass he drained, a lurking devil to grin at him above the rim, could see only the end of their brief hour of welcome. This made the present moment as bitter as the last.

"I have a theory, Solomon, that I shall be handsomely supported by my new friends. They'll snatch at the opportunity."

"I see 'em snatching, Mr. Price," said Mahaffy grimly.

"That's right—go on and plant doubt in my heart if you can! You're as hopeless as the grave side!" cried the judge, a spasm of rage shaking him.

"The thing for us to do—you and I, Price—is to clear out of here," said Mahaffy.

"But what of the boy?"

"Leave him with his friends."

"How do you know Miss Malroy would be willing to assume his care? It's scandalous the way you leap at conclusions. No, Solomon, no—I won't shirk a single irksome responsibility," and the judge's voice shook with suppressed emotion. Mahaffy laughed. "There you go again, Solomon, with that indecent mirth of yours! Friendship aside, you grow more offensive every day." The judge paused and then resumed. "I understand there's a federal judgeship vacant here. The president—" Mr. Mahaffy gave him a furtive leer. "I tell you General Jackson was my friend—we were brothers, sir—I stood at his side on the glorious blood-wet field of New Orleans! You don't believe me—"

"Price, you've made more demands on my stock of credulity than any man I've ever known!"

The judge became somber-faced.

"Unparalleled misfortune overtook me—I stepped aside, but the world never waits; I was a cog discarded from the mechanism of society—" He was so pleased with the metaphor that he repeated it.

"Look here, Price, you talk as though you were a modern job; what's the matter anyhow?—have you got boils?"

The judge froze into stony silence. Well, Mahaffy could sneer—he would show him! This was the last ditch and he proposed to descend into it, it was something to be able to demand the final word of fate—but he instantly recalled that he had been playing at hide-and-seek with inevitable consequences for something like a quarter of a century; it had been a triumph merely to exist. Mahaffy having eased his conscience, rolled over and promptly went to sleep. Flat on his back, the judge stared up at the wide blue arch of the heavens and rehearsed those promises which in the last twenty years he had made and broken times without number. He planned no sweeping reforms, his system of morality being little more than a series of graceful compromises with himself. He must not get hopelessly in debt; he must not get helplessly drunk. Dealing candidly with his own soul in the silence, he presently came to the belief that this might be done without special hardship. Then suddenly the rusted name-plate on Hannibal's old rifle danced again before his burning eyes, and a bitter sense of hurt and loss struck through him. He saw himself as he was, a shabby outcast, a tavern hanger-on, the utter travesty of all he should have been; he dropped his arm across his face.

The first rift of light in the sky found the judge stirring; it found him in his usual cheerful frame of mind. He disposed of his toilet and breakfast with the greatest expedition.

"Will you stroll into town with me, Solomon?" he asked, when they had eaten. Mahaffy shook his head, his air was still plainly hostile. "Then let your prayers follow me, for I'm off!" said the judge.

Ten minutes' walk brought him to the door of the city tavern, where he found Mr. Pegloe directing the activities of a small colored boy who was mopping out his bar. To him the judge made known his needs.

"Goin' to locate, are you?" said Mr. Pegloe.

"My friends urge it, sir, and I have taken the matter under consideration," answered the judge.

"Sho, do you know any folks hereabouts?" asked Mr. Pegloe.

"Not many," said the judge, with reserve.

"Well, the only empty house in town is right over yonder; it belongs to young Charley Norton out at Thicket Point Plantation."

"Ah-h!" said the judge.

The house Mr. Pegloe had pointed out was a small frame building; it stood directly on the street, with a narrow porch across the front, and a shed addition at the back. The judge scuttled over to it. With his hands clasped under the tails of his coat he walked twice about the building, stopping to peer in at all the windows, then he paused and took stock of his surroundings. Over the way was Pegloe's City Tavern; farther up the street was the court-house, a square wooden box with a crib that housed a cracked bell, rising from a gable end. The judge's pulse quickened. What a location, and what a fortunate chance that Mr. Norton was the owner of this most desirable tenement.

He must see him at once. As he turned away to recross the street and learn from Mr. Pegloe by what road Thicket Point might be reached, Norton himself galloped into the village. Catching sight of the judge, he reined in his horse and swung himself from the saddle.

"I was hoping, sir, I might find you," he said, as they met before the tavern.

"A wish I should have echoed had I been aware of it!" responded the judge. "I was about to do myself the honor to wait upon you at your plantation."

"Then I have saved you a long walk," said Norton. He surveyed the judge rather dubiously, but listened with great civility and kindness as he explained the business that would have taken him to Thicket Point.

"The house is quite at your service, sir," he said, at length.

"The rent—" began the judge. He had great natural delicacy always in mentioning matters of a financial nature.

But Mr. Norton, with a delicacy equal to his own, entreated him not to mention the rent. The house had come to him as boot in a trade. It had been occupied by a doctor and a lawyer; these gentlemen had each decamped between two days, heavily in debt at the stores and taverns, especially the taverns.

"I can't honestly say they owed me, since I never expected to get anything out of them; however, they both left some furniture, all that was necessary for the kind of housekeeping they did, for they were single gentlemen and drew the bulk of their nourishment from Pegloe's bar. I'll turn the establishment over to you with the greatest pleasure in the world, and wish you better luck than your predecessors had—you'll offend me if you refer to the rent again!"

And thus handsomely did Charley Norton acquit himself of the mission he had undertaken at Betty Malroy's request.

That same morning Tom Ware and Captain Murrell were seated in the small detached building at Belle Plain, known as the office, where the former spent most of his time when not in the saddle. Whatever the planter's vices, and he was reputed to possess a fair working knowledge of good and evil, no one had ever charged him with hypocrisy. His emotions lay close to the surface and wrote themselves on his unprepossessing exterior with an impartial touch. He had felt no pleasure when Murrell rode into the yard, and he had welcomed him according to the dictates of his mood, which was one of surly reticence.

"So your sister doesn't like me, Tom—that's on your mind this morning, is it?" Murrell was saying, as he watched his friend out of the corner of his eyes.

"She was mad enough, the way you pushed in on us at Boggs' yesterday. What happened back in North Carolina, Murrell, anyhow?"

"Never you mind what happened."

"Well, it's none of my business, I reckon; she'll have to look out for herself, she's nothing to me but a pest sand a nuisance—I've been more bothered since she came back than I've been in years! I'd give a good deal to be rid of her," said Ware, greatly depressed as he recalled the extraordinary demands Betty had made.

"Make it worth my while and I'll take her off your hands," and Murrell laughed.

Tom favored him with a sullen stare.

"You'd better get rid of that notion—of all fool nonsense, this love business is the worst! I can't see the slightest damn difference between one good looking girl and another. I wish every one was as sensible as I am," he lamented. "I wouldn't miss a meal, or ten minutes' sleep, on account of any woman in creation," and Ware shook his head.

"So your sister doesn't like me?"

"No, she doesn't," said Ware, with simple candor.

"Told you to put a stop to my coming here?"

"Not here—to the house, yes. She doesn't give a damn, so long as she doesn't have to see you."

Murrell, somber-faced and thoughtful, examined a crack in the flooring.

"I'd like to know what happened back yonder in North Carolina to make her so blazing mad?" continued Ware.

"Well, if you want to know, I told her I loved her."

"That's all right, that's the fool talk girls like to hear," said Ware. He lighted a cigar with an air of wearied patience.

"Open the door, Tom," commanded Murrell.

"It is close in here," agreed the planter.

"It isn't that, but you smoke the meanest cigars I ever smelt, I always think your shoes are on fire. Tom, do you want to get rid of her? Did you mean that?"

"Oh, shut up," said Tom, dropping his voice to a surly whisper.

There was a brief silence, during which Murrell studied his friend's face. When he spoke, it was to give the conversation a new direction.

"Did she bring the boy here last night? I saw you drive off with him in the carriage."

"Yes, she makes a regular pet of the little ragamuffin—it's perfectly sickening!"

"Who were the two men with him?"

"One of 'em calls himself judge Price; the other kept out of the way, I didn't hear his name."

"Is the boy going to stay at Belle Plain?" inquired Murrell.

"That notion hasn't struck her yet, for I heard her say at breakfast that she'd take him to Raleigh this afternoon."

"That's the boy I traveled all the way to North Carolina to get for Fentress. I thought I had him once, but the little cuss gave me the slip."

"Eh—you don't say?" cried Ware.

"Tom, what do you know about the Quintard lands; what do you know about Quintard himself?" continued Murrell.

"He was a rich planter, lived in North Carolina. My father met him when he was in congress and got him to invest in land here. They had some colonization scheme on foot this was upward of twenty years ago—but nothing came of it. Quintard lost interest."

"And the land?"

"Oh, he held on to that."

"Is there much of it?"

"A hundred thousand acres," said Ware.

Murrell whistled softly under his breath.

"What's it worth?"

"A pot of money, two or three dollars an acre anyhow," answered Ware.

"Quintard has been dead two years, Tom, and back yonder in North Carolina they told me he left nothing but the home plantation. The boy lived there up to the time of Quintard's death, but what relation he was to the old man no one knew. What do you suppose Fentress wants with him? He offered me five thousand dollars if I'd bring him West; and he still wants him, only he's lying low now to see what comes of the two old sots—he don't want to move in the dark. Offhand, Tom, I'd say that by getting hold of the boy Fentress expects to get hold of the Quintard land."

"That's likely," said Ware, then struck by a sudden idea, he added, "Are you going to take all the risks and let him pocket the cash? If it's the land he's after, the stake's big enough to divide."

"He can have the whole thing and welcome, I'm playing for a bigger stake." His friend stared at him in astonishment. "I tell you, Tom, I'm bent on getting even with the world! No silver spoon came in the way of my mouth when I was a youngster; my father was too honest—and I think the less of him for it!"

Mr. Ware seemed on the whole edified by the captain's unorthodox point of view.

"My mother was the true grit though; she came of mountain stock, and taught us children to steal by the time we could think! Whatever we stole, she hid, and dared my father to touch us. I remember the first thing of account was when I was ten years old. A Dutch peddler came to our cabin one winter night and begged us to take him in. Of course, he opened his pack before he left, and almost under his nose I got away with a bolt of linen. The old man and woman fought about it, but if the peddler discovered his loss he had the sense not to come back and tell of it! When I was seventeen I left home with three good horses I'd picked up; they brought me more money than I'd ever seen before and I got my first taste of life—that was in Nashville where I made some good friends with whose help I soon had as pretty a trade organized in horseflesh as any one could wish." A somber tone had crept into Murrell's voice, while his glance had become restless and uneasy. He went on: "I'm licking a speculation into shape that will cause me to be remembered while there's a white man alive in the Mississippi Valley!" His wicked black eyes were blazing coals of fire in their deep sockets. "Have you heard what the niggers did at Hayti?"

"My God, John—no, I won't talk to you—and don't you think about it! That's wrong—wrong as hell itself!" cried Ware.

"There's no such thing as right and wrong for me. That'll do for those who have something to lose. I was born with empty hands and I am going to fill them where and how I can. I believe the time has come when the niggers can be of use to me—look what Turner did back in Virginia three years ago! If he'd had any real purpose he could have laid the country waste, but he hadn't brains enough to engineer a general uprising."

Ware was probably as remote from any emotion that even vaguely approximated right feeling as any man could well be, but Murrell's words jarred his dull conscience, or his fear, into giving signs of life.

"Don't you talk of that business, we want nothing of that sort out here. You let the niggers alone!" he said, but he could scarcely bring himself to believe that Murrell had spoken in earnest. Yet even if he jested, this was a forbidden subject.

"White brains will have to think for them, if it's to be more than a flash in the pan," said Murrell unheeding him.

"You let the niggers alone, don't you tamper with them," said Ware. He possessed a profound belief in Murrell's capacity. He knew how the latter had shaped the uneasy population that foregathered on the edge of civilization to his own ends, and that what he had christened the Clan had become an elaborate organization, disciplined and flexible to his ruthless will.

"Look here, what do you think I have been working for—to steal a few niggers?"

"A few—you've been sending 'em south by the boatload! You ought to be a rich man, Murrell. If you're not it's your own fault."

"That furnishes us with money, but you can push the trade too hard and too far, and we've about done that. The planters are uneasy in the sections we've worked over, there's talk of getting together to clean out everybody who can't give a good account of himself. The Clan's got to deal a counter blow or go out of business. It was so with the horse trade; in the end it became mighty unhandy to move the stock we'd collected. We've reached the same point now with the trade in niggers. Between here and the gulf—" he made a wide sweeping gesture with his arm. "I am spotting the country with my men; there are two thousand active workers on the rolls of the Clan, and as many more like you, Tom—and Fentress—on whose friendship I can rely." He leaned toward Ware. "You'd be slow to tell me I couldn't count on you, Tom, and you'd be slow to think I couldn't manage this thing when the time's ripe for it!"

But no trace of this all-sufficient sense of confidence, of which he seemed so certain, showed on Ware's hardened visage. He spat away the stump of his cigar.

"Sure as God, John Murrell, you are overreaching yourself! Your white men are all right, they've got to stick by you; if they don't they know it's only a question of time until they get a knife driven into their ribs—but niggers—there isn't any real fight in a nigger, if there was they wouldn't be here."

"Yet you couldn't have made the whites in Hayti believe that," said Murrell, with a sinister smile.

"Because they were no-account trash themselves!" returned Ware, shaking his head. "We'll all go down in this muss you're fixing for!" he added.

"No, you won't, Tom. I'll look out for my friends. You'll be warned in time."

"A hell of a lot of good a warning will do!" growled Ware.

"The business will be engineered so that you, and those like you, will not be disturbed. Maybe the niggers will have control of the country for a day or two in the thickly settled parts near the towns; longer, of course, where the towns and plantations are scattering. The end will come in the swamps and cane-brakes, and the members of the Clan who don't get rich while the trouble is at its worst, will have to stay poor. As for the niggers, I expect nothing else than that they will be pretty well exterminated. But look what that will do for men like yourself, Tom, who will have been able to hold on to their slaves!"

"I'd like to have some guarantee that I'd be able to; do that! No, sir, the devils will all go whooping off to raise hell." Ware shivered at the picture his mind had conjured up. "Well, thank God, they're not my niggers!" he added.

"You'd better come with me, Tom," said Murrell.

"With you?"

"Yes, I'm going to keep New Orleans for myself; that's a plum I'm going to pick with the help of a few friends, and I'd cheerfully hang for it afterward if I could destroy the city Old Hickory saved—but I expect to quit the country in good time; with a river full of ships I shan't lack for means of escape." His manner was cool and decided. He possessed in an eminent degree the egotism that makes possible great crimes and great criminals, and his degenerate brain dealt with this colossal horror as simply as if it had been a petty theft.

"There's no use in trying to talk you out of this, John, but I just want to ask you one thing: you do all you say you are going to do, and then where in hell's name will you be safe?"

"I'll take my chances. What have I been taking all my life but the biggest sort of chances?—and for little enough!"

Ware, feeling the entire uselessness of argument, uttered a string of imprecations, and then fell silent. His acquaintance with Murrell was of long standing. It dated back to the time when he was growing into the management of Belle Plain. A chance meeting with the outlaw in Memphis had developed into the closest intimacy, and the plantation had become one of the regular stations for the band of horse-thieves of which Murrell had spoken. But time had wrought its changes. Tom was now in full control of Belle Plain and its resources, and he had little heart for such risks as he had once taken.

"Well, how about the girl, Tom?" asked Murrell at length, in a low even tone.

"The girl? Oh, Betty, you mean?" said Ware, and shifted uneasily in his seat. "Haven't you got enough on your hands without worrying about her? She don't like you, haven't I told you that? Think of some one else for a spell, and you'll find it answers," he urged.

"What do you think is going to happen here if I take your advice? She'll marry one of these young bloods!" Ware's lips twitched. "And then, Tom, you'll get your orders to move out, while her husband takes over the management of her affairs. What have you put by anyhow?—enough to stock another place?"

"Nothing, not a damn cent!" said Ware. Murrell laughed incredulously. "It's so! I've turned it all over—more lands, more niggers, bigger crops each year. Another man might have saved his little spec, but I couldn't; I reckon I never believed it would go to her, and I've managed Belle Plain as if I were running it for myself." He seemed to writhe as if undergoing some acute bodily pain.

"And you are in a fair way to turn it all over to her husband when she marries, and step out of here a beggar, unless—"

"It isn't right, John! I haven't had pay for my ability! Why, the place would have gone down to nothing with any management but mine!"

"If she were to die, you'd inherit?"

Ware laughed harshly.

"She looks like dying, doesn't she?"

"Listen to me, Tom. I'll take her away, and Belle Plain is yours—land, stock and niggers!" said Murrell quietly.

Ware shifted and twisted in his seat.

"It can't be done. I can advise and urge: but I can't command. She's got her friends, those people back yonder in North Carolina, and if I made things uncomfortable for her here she'd go to them and I couldn't stop her. You don't seem to get it through your head that she's got no earthly use for you!"

Murrell favored him with a contemptuous glance.

"You're like every one else! Certain things you'll do, and certain other things you won't even try to do—your conscience or your fear gets in your way."

"Call it what you like."

"I offer to take the girl off your hands; when I quit the country she shall go with me—"

"And I'd be left here to explain what had become of her!" cried Ware, in a panic.

"You won't have anything to explain. She'll have disappeared, that will be all you'll know," said Murrell quietly.

"She'll never marry you."

"Don't you be too sure of that. She may be glad enough to in the end."

"Oh, you think you are a hell of a fellow with women! Well, maybe you are with one sort—but what do you know about her kind?" jeered the planter.

Murrell's brow darkened.

"I'll manage her," he said briefly.

"You were of some account until this took hold of you," complained Ware.

"What do you say? One would hardly think I was offering to make you a present of the best plantation in west Tennessee!" said Murrell.

Ware seemed to suck in hope through his shut teeth.

"I don't want to know anything about this, you are going to swamp yourself yet—you're fixing to get yourself strung up—yes, by thunder, that'll be your finish!"

"Do you want the land and the niggers? I reckon you'll have to take them whether you want them or not, for I'm going to have the girl."

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