Part 14 (1/2)

”He never hunts, because he has something better to do,” retorted Bartholomew.

”Ah, better?” murmured the Englishman, doubtfully.

Bartholomew got up and took a chair which was nearer f.a.n.n.y. ”No--no tea,” he said, as she made a motion towards a cup; then, without further explaining his change of position, he gave her a little smile. Dallas, who caught this smile on the wing, learned from it unexpectedly that there was a closer intimacy between his hostess and Bartholomew than he had suspected. ”Bartholomew!” he thought, contemptuously.

”Gray--spectacles--stout.” Then suddenly recollecting the increasing plumpness of his own person, he drew in his out-stretched legs, and determined, from that instant, to walk fifteen miles a day.

”Rod knows how to shoot, even though he doesn't hunt,” said Bartholomew, addressing the Englishman. ”I saw him once bring down a mad bull, who was charging directly upon an old man--the neatest sort of a hit.”

”He himself being in a safe place meanwhile,” said Dallas.

”On the contrary, he had to rush forward into an open field. If he had missed his aim by an eighth of an inch, the beast--a terrible creature--would have made an end of him.”

”And the poor old man?” said Eva.

”He was saved, of course; he was a rather disreputable old darky.

Another time Rod went out in a howling gale--the kind they have down there--to rescue two men whose boat had capsized in the bay. They were clinging to the bottom; no one else would stir; they said it was certain death; but Rod went out--he's a capital sailor--and got them in. I didn't see that myself, as I saw the bull episode; I was told about it.”

”By Rod?” said Dallas.

”By one of the men he saved. As you've never been saved yourself, Dallas, you probably don't know how it feels.”

”He seems to be a modern Chevalier Bayard, doesn't he?” said good-natured Mark Ferguson.

”He's modern, but no Bayard. He's a modern and a model pioneer--”

”Pioneers! oh, pioneers!” murmured Gordon-Gray, half chanting it.

None of the Americans recognized his quotation.

”He's the son of a Methodist minister,” Bartholomew went on. ”His father, a missionary, wandered down to Florida in the early days, and died there, leaving a sickly wife and seven children. You know the sort of man--a linen duster for a coat, prunella shoes, always smiling and hopeful--a great deal about 'Brethren.' Fortunately they could at least be warm in that climate, and fish were to be had for the catching; but I suspect it was a struggle for existence while the boys were small. David was the youngest; his five brothers, who had come up almost laborers, were determined to give this lad a chance if they could; together they managed to send him to school, and later to a forlorn little Methodist college somewhere in Georgia. David doesn't call it forlorn, mind you; he still thinks it an important inst.i.tution. For nine years now--he is thirty--he has taken care of himself; he and a partner have cleared this large farm, and have already done well with it. Their hope is to put it all into sugar in time, and a Northern man with capital has advanced them the money for this Italian colonization scheme: it has been tried before in Florida, and has worked well. They have been very enterprising, David and his partner; they have a saw-mill running, and two school-houses already--one for whites, one for blacks. You ought to see the little darkies, with their wool twisted into twenty tails, going proudly in when the bell rings,” he added, turning to f.a.n.n.y.

”And the white children, do they go too?” said Eva.

”Yes, to their own school-house--lank girls, in immense sun-bonnets, stalking on long bare feet. He has got a brisk little Yankee school-mistress for them. In ten years more I declare he will have civilized that entire neighborhood.”

”You are evidently the Northern man with capital,” said Dallas.

”I don't care in the least for your sneers, Dallas; I'm not the Northern man, but I should like to be. If I admire Rod, with his constant driving action, his indomitable pluck, his simple but tremendous belief in the importance of what he has undertaken to do, that's my own affair. I do admire him just as he stands, clothes and all; I admire his creaking saw-mill; I admire his groaning dredge; I even admire his two hideously ugly new school-houses, set staring among the stumps.”

”Tell me one thing, does he preach in the school-houses on Sundays and Friday evenings, say?” asked Ferguson. ”Because if he does he will make no money, whatever else he may make. They never do if they preach.”

”It's his father who was the minister, not he,” said Bartholomew. ”David never preached in his life; he wouldn't in the least know how. In fact, he's no talker at all; he says very little at any time; he's a doer--David is; he _does_ things. I declare it used to make me sick of myself to see how much that fellow accomplished every day of his life down there, and thought nothing of it at all.”

”And what were you doing 'down there,' besides making yourself sick, if I may ask?” said Ferguson.

”Oh, I went down for the hunting, of course. What else does one go to such a place for?”

”Tell me a little about that, if you don't mind,” said the Englishman, interested for the first time.