The Prodigal Judge
CHAPTER VI
BETTY SETS OUT FOR TENNESSEE
Bruce Carrington came of a westward-looking race. From the low coast where
they had first settled, those of his name had followed the rivers to their
headwaters. The headwaters had sent them forth toward the foot-hills, where they
made their, clearings and built their cabins in the shadow of the blue wall that
for a time marked the furthest goal of their desires. But only for a time.
Crossing the mountains they found the headwaters once more, and following the
streams out of the hills saw the roaring torrents become great placid rivers.
Carrington's father had put the mountains at his back thirty years before.
The Watauga settlements had furnished him a wife, and some four years later
Bruce was born on the banks of the Ohio. The senior Carrington had appeared on
horseback as a wooer, but had walked on foot as a married man, each shift of
residence he made having represented a descent to a lower social level. On the
death of his wife he had embarked in the river trade with all that enthusiasm
and hope he had brought to half-a-dozen other occupations, for he was a
gentleman of prodigious energy.
Bruce's first memories had to do with long nights when he perched beside his
father on the cabin roof of their keel-boat and watched the stars, or the
blurred line of the shore where it lay against the sky, or the lights on other
barges and rafts drifting as they were drifting, with their wheat and corn and
whisky to that common market at the river's mouth.
Sometimes they dragged their boat back up-stream, painfully, laboriously;
three or four months of unremitting toil sufficed for this, when the crew
sweated at the towing ropes from dawn until dark, that the rich planters in
Kentucky and Tennessee might have tea and wine for their tables, and silks and
laces for their womenfolk. More often they abandoned their boat and tramped
north, armed and watchful, since cutthroats and robbers haunted the roads, and
river-men, if they had not drunk away their last dollar in New Orleans, were
worth spoiling. Or, if it offered, they took passage on some fast sailing
clipper bound for Baltimore or Philadelphia, and crossed the mountains to the
Ohio and were within a week or two of home.
Bruce Carrington had seen the day of barge and raft reach its zenith, had
heard the first steam packet's shrieking whistle which sounded the death-knell
of the ancient order, though the shifting of the trade was a slow matter and the
glory of the old did not pass over to the new at once, but lingered still in
mighty fleets of rafts and keel-boats and in the Homeric carousals of some ten
thousand of the half-horse, half-alligator breed that nightly gathered in New
Orleans. Broad-horns and mud-sills they were called in derision. A strange race
of aquatic pioneers, jeans and leather clad, the rifle and the setting-pole
equally theirs, they came out of every stream down which a scow could be thrust
at flood-time; from tiny settlements far back among the hills; from those
bustling sinks of iniquity, the river towns. But now, surely, yet almost
imperceptibly, their commerce was slipping from them. At all the landings they
were being elbowed by the newcomers—men who wore brass buttons and gold braid,
and shiny leather shoes instead of moccasins; men with white hands and gold
rings on their fingers and diamonds in their shirts—men whose hair and clothing
kept the rancid smell of oil and smoke and machinery.
After the reading of the warrant that morning, Charley Balaam had shown
Carrington the road to the Forks, assuring him when they separated that with a
little care and decent use of his eyes it would be possible to fetch up there
and not pass plumb through the settlement without knowing where he was. But
Carrington had found the Forks without difficulty. He had seen the old mill his
grandfather had built almost a hundred years before, and in the churchyard he
had found the graves and read the inscriptions that recorded the virtues of
certain dead and gone Carringtons. It had all seemed a very respectable link
with the past.
He was on his way to Fayetteville, where he intended to spend the night, and
perhaps a day or two in looking around, when the meeting with Betty and Murrell
occurred. As Murrell disappeared in the direction of Balaam's, Carrington took a
spiteful kick at the unoffending coin, and strode off down the Fayetteville
pike. But the girl's face remained with him. It was a face he would like to see
again. He wondered who she was, and if she lived in the big house on the other
road, the house beyond the red gate which Charley Balaam had told him was called
the Barony.
He was still thinking of the girl when he ate his supper that night at
Cleggett's Tavern. Later, in the bar, he engaged his host in idle gossip. Mr.
Cleggett knew all about the Barony and its owner, Nat Ferris. Ferris was a
youngish man, just married. Carrington experienced a quick sinking of the heart.
A fleeting sense of humor succeeded—had he interfered between man and wife? But
surely if this had been the case the girl would not have spoken as she had.
He wound Mr. Cleggett up with sundry pegs of strong New England rum. He had
met a gentleman and lady on the road that day; he wondered, as he toyed with his
glass, if it could have been the Ferrises? Mounted? Yes, mounted. Then it was
Ferris and his wife—or it might have been Captain Murrell and Miss Malroy the
captain was a strapping, black-haired chap who rode a big bay horse. Miss Malroy
did not live in that part of the country; she was a friend of Mrs. Ferris',
belonged in Kentucky or Tennessee, or somewhere out yonder—at any rate she was
bringing her visit to an end, for Ferris had instructed him to reserve a place
for her in the north-bound stage on the morrow.
Carrington suddenly remembered that he had some thought of starting north in
the morning himself, but he was still undecided. How about it if he deferred his
decision until the stage was leaving? Mr. Cleggett consulted his bookings and
was of the opinion that his chances would not be good; and Carrington hastily
paid down his money. Later in the privacy of his own room he remarked
meditatively, viewing his reflection in the mirror that hung above the
chimneypiece, "I reckon you're plain crazy!" and seemed to free himself from all
further responsibility for his own acts whatever they might be.
The stage left at six, and as Carrington climbed to his seat the next morning
Mr. Cleggett was advising the driver to look sharp when he came to the Barony
road, as he was to pick up a party there. It was Carrington who looked sharp,
and almost at the spot where he had seen Betty Malroy the day before he saw her
again, with Ferris and Judith and a pile of luggage bestowed by the wayside.
Betty did not observe him as the coach stopped, for she was intent on her
farewells with her friends. There were hasty words of advice from Ferris,
prolonged good-byes to Judith, tears—kisses—while a place was being made for her
many boxes and trunks. Carrington viewed the luggage with awe, and listened
without shame. He gathered that she was going north to Washington; that her
final destination was some point either on the Ohio or Mississippi, and that her
name was Betty. Then the door slammed and the stage was in motion again.
Carrington felt sensibly enriched by the meager facts now in his possession.
He was especially interested in her name. Be liked the sound of it. It suited
her. He even tried it under his breath softly. Betty—Betty Malroy—next he fell
to wondering if those few hurried words she had addressed to him could possibly
be construed as forming a basis for a further acquaintance. Or wasn't it far
more likely she would prefer to forget the episode of the previous day, which
had clearly been anything but agreeable?
All through the morning they swung forward in the heat and dust and glare,
with now and then a brief pause when they changed horses, and at midday rattled
into the shaded main street of a sleepy village and drew up before the tavern
where dinner was waiting them—a fact that was announced by a bare-legged colored
boy armed with a club, who beat upon a suspended wagon tire.
Betty saw Carrington when she took her seat, and gave a scarcely perceptible
start of surprise. Then her face was flooded with a rich color. This was the man
who saw her with Captain Murrell yesterday I What must he think of her! There
was a brief moment of irresolution and then she bowed coldly.
"You just barely managed it. I reckon nobody could misunderstand that. By no
means cordial—but of course not!" Carrington reflected. His own handsome face
had been expressionless when he returned her bow, and Betty could not have
guessed how consoled and comforted he was by it. With great fortitude and
self-denial he forbore to look in her direction again, but he lingered at the
table until the last moment that he might watch her when she returned to the
coach. Mr. Carrington entertained ideals where women were concerned, and even
though he had been the one to profit by it he would not have had Betty depart in
the minutest particular from those stringent rules he laid down for her sex.
Consequently that distant air she bore toward him filled him with satisfaction.
It was quite enough for the present—for the present—that three times each day
his perseverance and determination were rewarded by that curt little
acknowledgment of her indebtedness to him.
It was four days to Richmond. Four days of hot, dusty travel, four nights of
uncomfortable cross-road stations, where Betty suffered sleepless nights and the
unaccustomed pangs of early rising. She occasionally found herself wondering who
Carrington was. She approved of the manner in which he conducted himself. She
liked a man who could be unobtrusive. Traveling like that day after day it would
have been so easy for him to be officious. But he never addressed her and
refused to see any opportunity to assist her in entering or quitting the stage,
leaving that to some one else. Presently she was sorry she had bowed to him that
first day—so self-contained and unpresuming a person as he would evidently have
been quite satisfied to overlook the omission. Then she began to be haunted by
doubts. Perhaps, after all, he had not recognized her as the girl he had met in
the road! This gave her a very queer feeling indeed—for what must he think of
her? And the next time she bowed to this perfect stranger she threw a chilling
austerity into the salutation quite at variance with her appearance, for the
windy drive had tangled her hair and blown it in curling wisps about her face.
This served to trouble Carrington excessively, and furnished him with food for
reflection through all his waking moments for the succeeding eight and forty
hours.
The next morning he found himself seated opposite her at breakfast. He
received another curt little nod, cool and distant, as he took his seat, but he
felt strongly that a mere bowing acquaintance would no longer suffice; so he
passed her a number of things she didn't want, and presently ventured the
opinion that she must find traveling as they were, day after day, very
fatiguing. Surprised at the sound of his voice, before she knew what she was
doing, Betty said, "Not at all," closed her red lips, and was immediately dumb.
Carrington at once relapsed into silence and ventured no further opinion on
any topic. Betty was left wondering whether she had been rude, and when they met
again asked if the stage would reach Washington at the advertised hour. She had
been consulting the copy of Badger's and Porter's Register which Ferris had
thrust into her satchel the morning she left the Barony, and which, among a
multiplicity of detail as to hotels and taverns, gave the runnings of all the
regular stage lines, packets, canal-boats and steamers, by which one could
travel over the length and breadth of the land. "You stop in Washington?" said
Carrington.
Betty shook her head. "No, I am going on to Wheeling."
"You're fortunate in being so nearly home," he observed. "I am going on to
Memphis." He felt it was time she knew this, or else she might think his
movements were dictated by her own.
Betty exclaimed: "Why, I am going to Memphis, too!"
"Are you? By canal to Cumberland, and then by stage over the National Road to
Wheeling?"
Betty nodded. "It makes one wish they'd finish their railroads, doesn't it?
Do you suppose they'll ever get as far west as Memphis?" she said.
"They say it's going to be bad for the river trade when they're built on
something besides paper," answered Carrington. "And I happen to be a
flatboat-man, Miss Malroy."
Betty gave him a glance of surprise.
"Why, how did you learn my name?" she asked.
"Oh, I heard your friends speak it," he answered glibly. But Betty's smooth
brow was puckered thoughtfully. She wondered if he had—and if he hadn't. It was
very odd certainly that he should know it.
"So the railroads are going to hurt the steamboats?" she presently said.
"No, I didn't say that. I was thinking of the flatboats that have already
been hurt by the steamers," he replied. Now to the western mind the river-men
typified all that was reckless and wild. It was their carousals that gave an
evil repute to such towns as Natchez. But this particular river-man looked
harmless. "Carrington is my name, Miss Malroy," he added.
No more was said just then, for Betty became reserved and he did not attempt
to resume the conversation. A day later they rumbled into Washington, and as
Betty descended from the coach, Carrington stepped to her side.
"I suppose you'll stop here, Miss Malroy?" he said, indicating the tavern
before which the stage had come to a stand. "Yes," said Betty briefly.
"If I can be of any service to you—" he began, with just a touch of
awkwardness in his manner.
"No, I thank you, Mr. Carrington," said Betty quickly.
"Good night... good-by," he turned away, and Betty saw his tall form
disappear in the twilight.