He pa.s.sed two drunken men. Here in town at the end of Suez's wedding so many had toasted it so often, it was as if Susie's own eyes were blood-shot and her steps uncertain. "It's my wedding, too," he soliloquized. "This Widewood business and I are married this day; it alone, to me alone, till it's finished. Garnet shall see whether--humph!--Jake, my horse and buggy!" And soon he was rattling back down the stony slopes toward his mother.

"Hope of Suez!" he grimly laughed. "We'll be its despair if we don't get something done. And I've got to do it alone. Why shouldn't I? Yes, it's true, times have changed; and yet if this was ever rightly a private matter in my father's hands, I can't see why it has or why it should become a public matter in mine!"

He said this to himself the more emphatically because he felt, somehow, very uncertain about it. He wished his problem was as simple as a railroad question. A railroad can ask for public aid; but fancy him asking public aid to open and settle up his private lands! He could almost hear Susie's horse-laugh in reply. Why should she not laugh? He recalled with what sweet unboastful tone his father had always condemned every scheme and symptom of riding on public shoulders into private fortune. In the dear _old_ Dixie there had been virtually no public, and every gentleman was by choice his own and only public aid, no matter what--"Look out!"

He hauled up his horse. A man pressed close to the side of the halted buggy, to avoid a huge telegraph pole that came by quivering between two timber wheels. He offered John a freckled, yellow hand, and a smile of maudlin fondness.

"Mr. Mahch, I admiah to salute you ag'in, seh. _Hasn't_ we had a glo'ious day? It's the mos' obtainable day Susie eveh see, seh!"

"Well, 'pon my soul!" said John, ignoring the proffered hand. "If I'd seen who it was, I'd 'a' driven straight over you." Both laughed.

"Cornelius, did you see my mother waiting for me down by the tracks?"

"I did, seh. Thah she a-set'n' on a pile o' ceda'-tree poles, lookin'

like the las' o' pea-time--p-he-he-he!

"Majo' Gyarnit? O ya.s.s, seh, he thah, too. Tha.s.s how come I lingud thah, seh, ya.s.s, seh, in espiration o' Johanna. Mr. Mahch, I loves that creatu' yit, seh!--I means Johanna."

"Oh!--not Major Garnet," laughed John, gathering the reins.

Cornelius sputtered with delight, and kept between the wheels. "Mr.

Mahch,"--he straightened, solemnly, and held himself sober--"I was jess about to tell you what I jess evise Majo' Gyarnit espressin' to yo'

maw--jess accidental as I was earwhilin' aroun' Johanna, you know."

"What was it? What did he say?"

"O, it wan't much, what he say. He say, 'Sis' Mahch, you e'zac'ly right.

Don't you on no accounts paht with so much's a' acre o' them lan's lessn----"

"Lord!--the lands--take care for the wheel."

But Mr. Leggett leaned heavily on the buggy. "Mr. Mahch, I evince an'

repose you in confidence to wit: that long as you do like Gyarnit say----"

John gave a stare of menace. "Major Garnet, if you please."

"Ya.s.s, seh, o' co'se; Majo' Gyarnit. I say, long as you do like he say, Widewood stay jess like it is, an' which it suit him like grapes suit a c.o.o.n!" The informant's booziness had returned. One foot kept slipping from a spoke of the fore-wheel. With pretence of perplexity he examined the wheel. "Mr. Mahch, this wheel sick; she mighty sick; got to see blacksmiff befo' she can eveh see Widewood."

John looked. The word was true. He swore. The mulatto snickered, sagged against it and c.o.c.ked his face importantly.

"Mr. Mahch, if you an' me was on'y in cahoots! En we _kin_ be, seh, we kin--why, hafe o' yo' lan's 'u'd be public lan's in no time, an' the res' 'u'd belong to a stawk comp'ny, an' me'n' you 'u'd be a-cuttin' off kewponds an' a-drivin' fas' hawses an' a-drinkin' champagne suppuz, an'

champagne faw ow real frien's an' real pain faw ow sham frien's, an'

plenty o' both kine--thah goes Majo' Gyarnit's kerrige to him." It pa.s.sed.

"But, why, Cornelius, should it suit Major Garnet for my lands to lie idle?"

"Mr. Mahch, has you neveh inspec' the absence o' green in my eye? It suit him faw a reason known on'y to yo's truly, yit which the said yo's truly would accede to transfawm to you, seh; ya.s.s, seh; in considerations o' us goin' in cahoots, aw else a call loan, an' yit mo'

stric'ly a call-ag'in loan, a sawt o' continial fee, ya.s.s, seh; an' the on'y question, now much kin you make it?"

John looked into the upturned face for some seconds before he said, slowly and pleasantly, "Why, you dirty dog!" He gave the horse a cut of the whip. Leggett smiling and staggering, called after him, to the delight of all the street,

"Mr. Mahch, tha.s.s confidential, you know! An' Mr. Mahch! Woe! Mr.

Mahch." John glanced fiercely back--"You betteh 'zamine that _hine_ wheel! caze it jess now pa-a.s.s oveh my foot!"

XXIX.

RAVENEL ASKS

The Garnet carriage, Johanna on the back seat, came smartly up through the town, past Parson Tombs's, the Halliday cottage, and silent Montrose Academy, and was soon parted from the Marches' buggy, which followed with slower dignity and a growing limp.

"Well, Johanna," said Garnet, driving, "had a good time?"

"Ya.s.s, seh."

"What's made Miss Barb so quiet all day; doesn't she like our friend?"

The answer was a bashful drawl--"I reckon she like him tol'able, seh."

"If you think Miss Barb would be pleased you can change to this seat beside me, Johanna." The master drew rein and she made the change. He spoke again. "You saw me, just now, talking with Cornelius, didn't you?"

"Ya.s.s, seh."

"His wife's dead, at last."

No answer.

"Johanna," he turned a playful eye, "what makes you so hard on Cornelius!"

She replied with a white glance of alarm and turned away. He would have pressed the subject but she murmured,

"Dah Miss Barb."

Barbara sat on a bare ledge of rock above the road-side, platting clovers. Fair stood close below, watching her fingers. She sprang to her feet.

"What did keep you so?" She moved to where Fair had stopped to hand her down, but laughed, turned away, waved good-by to Fannie and Ravenel out in a field full of flowers and western sunlight, and ran around by an easier descent to the carriage. Fair helped her in.

"Homeward bound," she said, and they spun away. As they turned a bend in the pike she glanced back with a carefully careless air, but saw only their own dust.

John, driving beside his mother, with eyes on the infirm wheel, was very silent, and she was very limp. The buggy top was up for privacy. By and by he heard a half-spoken sound at his side, and turning saw her eyes full of tears.

"O thunder!" he thought, but only said, "Why, mother, what's the matter?"

"Ah! my son, that's what I wonder. Why have you shunned me all day? Am I----"