The Candidate Part 18

Simpson moved in his chair, and a sudden wondering look appeared in his eyes at the words "eastern Kentucky." The old woman, too, slightly raised her bent form and gazed eagerly at the candidate. But Jimmy Grayson took no notice, and continued.

"This," he said, "is the love story of two people who were young then, but who are old now. Yet I am sure there is much affection and tenderness in their hearts, and often they must think fondly of those old days. The youth lived on the side of a mountain, and the girl lived on the side of another mountain not far away. He was tall, strong, and brave; she, too, was tall, as slender as one of the mountain saplings, with glorious brown hair and eyes, and a voice as musical as a mountain echo. Well, they met and they loved, loved truly and deeply. It might seem that the way was easy now for them to marry and go to a house of their own, but it was not. There was a bar."

"A feud!" breathed the old man. The old woman put her hands to her eyes.

"Yes, a feud; they seem strange things to us here, but to those distant people in the mountains they seem the most natural thing in the world.

The youth and the girl belonged to families that were at war with each other, and marriage between them would have been considered by all their relatives a mortal sin."

The old man's eyes were fastened upon Jimmy Grayson's, but his look for the moment was distant, as if it were held by old memories. The woman was crying softly. Again the soft shuffle of feet in the other part of the house came to Harley's ears, but the old couple did not hear; the driver was forgotten; for all Simpson and his wife remembered, he might still be finis.h.i.+ng his morning toilet on the porch.

"They were compelled to meet in secret," continued Jimmy Grayson, "but the girl was frightened for him because she loved him. She told him that he must go away, that if her father and brothers heard of their meetings they would kill him; it was impossible for them to marry, but she loved him, she would never deny that. He listened to her gently and tenderly; he was a brave youth, as I have said, and he would not go away. He said that G.o.d had made them for each other, and she should be his wife; he would not go away; he was not afraid."

"No, I was not afraid," breathed the old man, softly. The old woman had straightened herself up until she stood erect. There was a delicate flush on her face, and her eyes were luminous.

"This youth was a hero, a gallant and chivalrous gentleman," continued Jimmy Grayson; "he loved the girl, and she loved him; there was no real reason in the world why they should not marry, and he was resolved that there should be none."

The candidate's head was bent forward over his plate. His face was slightly flushed, and his burning eyes held Simpson's. Harley saw that he thrilled with his own story and the crisis for which it was told.

Elsewhere in the building the faint noises went on, but Harley alone heard.

"The youth did what I would have done and what you would have done, Mr.

Simpson," continued Jimmy Grayson. "He did what nature and sense dictated. He overbore all resistance on the part of the girl, who in her heart was willing to be overborne. One dark night he stole her from her father's house and carried her away on his horse."

"How well I remember it!" exclaimed the old man, with eyes a-gleam. "I had Marthy on the horse behind me, and my rifle on the pommel of the saddle before me."

The old woman cried softly, but it seemed to Harley that the note of her weeping was not grief.

"He stole her away," continued Jimmy Grayson, "and before morning they were married. Then he took her to a house of his own, and he sent word that if any man came to do them harm he would meet a rifle bullet. They knew that he was the best shot in the mountains, and that he was without fear, so they did not come. And that youth and that girl are still living, though both are old now, but neither has ever for a moment regretted that night."

"You speak the truth," exclaimed the old man, striking his fist upon the table, while his eyes flashed with exultant fire. "We've never been sorry for a moment for what we did, hev we Marthy?"

Harley had risen to his feet, and a signal look pa.s.sed between him and the candidate.

"And then," said Jimmy Grayson, "why do you deny to Henry Eversley the right to do what you did, and what you still glory in after all these years? Mr. Simpson, shake hands with your new son-in-law. He and his bride are waiting in the doorway."

The old man sprang to his feet. His daughter and a youth, a handsome couple, stood at the entrance. Behind them were three or four men, one the driver, and another in clerical garb, evidently a minister.

"They were married in your front parlor while we sat at breakfast," said Jimmy Grayson. "Mr. Simpson, your son-in-law is still offering you his hand."

The bewildered look left the old man's eyes, and he took the outstretched hand in a hearty grasp.

"Henry," he said, "you've won."

X

THE "KING'S" REQUEST

An hour later the candidate, Harley, and the driver were on the way to the town at which they had intended to pa.s.s the preceding night. With ample instructions and a brilliant morning sunlight there was no further trouble about the direction, and they pursued their way in peace.

The air was crisp and blowy, and the earth, new-washed by the rain, took on some of the tints of spring green, despite the lateness of the season. Harley, relaxed from the tension of the night before, leaned back in his seat and enjoyed the tonic breeze. No one of the three had much to say; all were in meditation, and the quiet and loneliness of the morning seemed to promote musing. They drove some miles across the rolling prairie without seeing a single house, but at last the driver pointed to a flickering patch of gold on the western horizon.

"That," said he, "is the weather-vane on the cupola of the new court-house, and in another hour we'll be in town. I guess your people will be glad to see you, Mr. Grayson."

"And I shall be glad to see them," said the candidate. A few minutes later he turned to the correspondent.

"Harley," he asked, "will you send anything to your paper about last night?"

"I have to do so," replied Harley, with a slight note of apology in his tone--this had not been his personal doing. "For a presidential candidate to get lost on the prairie in the dark and the storm, and then spend the night in a house in which only his presence of mind and eloquence prevent a murder, that is news--news of the first importance and the deepest interest. I am bound not only to send a despatch about it, but the despatch must be very long and full. And I suppose, too, that I shall have to tell it to the other fellows when we reach the town."

The candidate sighed.

"I know you are right," he said, "but I wish you did not have to do it.

The story puts me in a sensational light. It seems as if I were turning aside from the great issues of a campaign for personal adventure."

"It was forced upon you."

"So it was, but that fact does not take from it the sensational look."

Harley was silent. He knew that Mr. Grayson's point was well made, but he knew also that he must send the despatch.

The candidate made no further reference to the subject, and five minutes later they saw hors.e.m.e.n rise out of the plain and gallop towards them.

As Harley had said, a presidential nominee was not lost in the dark and the storm every night, and this little Western town was mightily perturbed when Mr. Grayson failed to arrive. The others had come in safely, but already all the morning newspapers of the country had published the fact that the candidate was lost, swallowed up somewhere on the dark prairie. And Mr. Grayson's instinct was correct, too, because mingled with the wonder and speculation was much criticism. It was boldly said in certain supercilious circles that he had probably turned aside on an impulse to look after some minor matter, perhaps something that was purely personal that had nothing to do with the campaign. Churchill, late the night before, had sent to the _Monitor_ a despatch written in his most censorious manner, in that vein of reluctant condemnation that so well suited his sense of superiority. He was loath to admit that the candidate was proving inadequate to his high position, but the circ.u.mstances indicated it, and the proof was becoming c.u.mulative. He also sent a telegram to the Honorable Mr. Goodnight, in New York, and the burden of it was the need of a restraining force, a force near at hand, and able to meet every evil with instant cure.

But the Western hors.e.m.e.n who met Jimmy Grayson--they clung to their affectionate "Jimmy"--were swayed by no such emotions. They repeated a shout of welcome, and wanted to know how and where he had pa.s.sed the night, to all of which questions the candidate, with easy humor, returned ready and truthful replies, although he did not say anything for the present about the adventure of the old man and of the young one who was now the old one's son-in-law.

The driver took them straight towards a large and attractive hotel, and it seemed to Harley that half the population of the town was out to see the triumphant entry of the candidate. With all the attention of the crowd centred upon one man, Harley was able to slip quietly through the dense ranks and enter the hotel, where he fell at once into the hands of Sylvia Morgan. She came forward to meet him, impulsively holding out her hands, the light of welcome sparkling in her eyes.

"We did not know what had become of you," she exclaimed. "We feared that you had got lost in the quicksands of the river." And then, with a sudden flush, she added, somewhat lamely, "We are all so glad that Uncle James has got back safely."

Harley had read undeniable relief and welcome in her eyes, and it gave him a peculiar thrill, a thrill at first of absolute and unthinking joy, followed at once by a little catch. Before him rose the square and ma.s.sive vision of "King" Plummer, and he had an undefined sense of doing wrong.

"We've brought him back safely," he said, after slight hesitation. "We spent the night very comfortably in a farm-house on the prairie."

She noticed his hesitation, and her eyes became eager.

"I do believe that you have had an adventure," she exclaimed. "I know that you have; I know by your look. You must tell it to me at once."

"We have had an adventure," admitted Harley, "and there is no reason why I shouldn't tell you of it, as in a few hours a long account of it written by me will be going eastward."

"I am waiting."

Harley began at once with his narrative, and they became absorbed in it, he in the telling and she in the hearing. While he talked and she listened "King" Plummer approached. Now the "King" in these later few days had begun to study the ways of women, in so far as his limited experience enabled him to do so, a task to which he had never turned his attention before in his life. But the words of Mrs. Grayson rankled; they kept him unhappy, they disturbed his self-satisfaction, and made him apprehensive for the future. He had been in the crowd that welcomed Jimmy Grayson, he had shaken the candidate's hand effusively, and now, when he entered the hotel, he found Sylvia Morgan welcoming John Harley.

"King" Plummer did not like what he saw; it gave him his second shock, and he paused to examine the two with a yellow eye, and a mind reluctant to admit certain facts, among them the most obvious one, that they were a handsome couple, and of an age. And this was a fact that did not give the "King" pleasure. He did not dislike Harley; instead, he appreciated his good qualities, but just then he regarded him with an unfriendly glance; that reality of youth annoyed him. There was a gla.s.s on the other side of the room, and the "King" looked at his own reflection. He saw a large, powerful head and broad, strong features, the whole expressing a man at the height of his powers, at the very flood-tide of his strength. But it was not young. The hair was iron-gray, and there were many deep lines in the face--not unhandsome lines, yet they were lines.