Part 27 (2/2)

As he spoke, he moved to face the fire. He had not raised his voice, but he had given it carrying quality. Cary raised his eyes, and laid down the paper he had in his hand. A genial, down-river planter and magistrate entered the conversation. ”Well, I for one don't hold with all this latter-day hiding behind names out of Roman history! Brutus and Cato and Helvidius, Decius and Aurelius, and all the rest of them! Is a man ashamed of his English name?”

”Or afraid?” said Rand, then bit his lip. He had not meant to carry things so far, but the pent-up anger had its way at last. His mind was weary and tense, irritable from two sleepless nights and from futile decisions, and he inherited a tendency to black and sudden rage. It was true he had walked through life with a black dog at his heels. Sometimes he turned, closed with, throttled, and flung off his pursuer; sometimes he left him far behind; more than once he had seen him mastered and done with, dead by the wayside, had drawn free breath, and had gone on with a victor's brow. Then, when all the fields were smiling, came at a bound the dark shape, leaped at the throat, and hung there. It was so this evening at Lynch's. He strove with his pa.s.sion, but he was aware of a wish to strive no longer, to let the black dog have his way.

There was a laugh for the speaker before him. ”You see, sir,” cried a noted lawyer, ”Brutus and Cato, Helvidius, Decius, and Aurelius, and all the n.o.ble Romans died before duelling came in! 'Sir, the editor of the--ahem!--newspaper, I take exception to this statement in your pages.' 'Sir, I refer you to Junius Brutus. Answer, Roman!' Never a sound from Limbo!--'Sir, Decius has grossly misrepresented. Where shall I send my challenge?' 'To Hades, no less! Not the least use in knocking up John Randolph of Roanoke.'--'Sir, I am at odds with Aurelius. Pray favour me with the gentleman's address.' 'Sir, he left no name. You see, he lived so long ago!'”

Amid the laugh that followed, Cary turned a smiling face upon the speaker. ”_I_ will answer, Mr. Wickham, for Aurelius. Do you really want to challenge me?” He slightly changed his position so as to confront Rand's table. ”In this instance, Mr. Rand, I am certain there was no fear.”

His speech, heard of all, wrought in various ways. Mocket the day before had not exaggerated the general interest in the letter signed ”Aurelius.” Now at Lynch's there arose a small tumult of surprise, acclaim, enthusiasm, and dissent. His friends broke into triumph, his political enemies--he had few others--strove for a deeper frown and a growling note. The only indifferent in Lynch's was Adam Gaudylock, who smoked tranquilly on, not having read the letter in question nor being concerned with Roman history. Lewis Rand sat in silence with compressed lips, bodily there in the lit coffee room, but the inner man far away on the mind's dark plains, struggling with the fiend that dogged him.

Fairfax Cary's cheek glowed and his eyes shone. He looked at his brother, then poured a gla.s.s of wine and raised it to his lips. ”Wait, Fairfax! We'll all drink with you!” cried a neighbour. ”Gentlemen and Federalists, gla.s.ses!--Ludwell Cary, and may he live to hear his children's children read 'Aurelius'!”

The Federalists drank the toast with acclaim, while the Republicans with equal ostentation did no such thing. Mr. Pincornet in his corner, hearing the words ”Gentlemen” and ”Cary,” drank with gusto his very thin wine, and Adam drank because he had always liked the Carys and certainly had no grudge against ”Aurelius,” whoever he might be.

In the first lull of sound the man at the table with Lewis Rand spoke in a loud, harsh, but agreeable voice. ”Well, Mr. Cary, the staunchest of Republicans, though he can't drink that toast, need not deny praise to a masterpiece of words. Words, sir, not facts. What I want to know is at whom--not at what, at _whom_--you were firing? I thought once that Aaron Burr was your mark. But he's too light metal--a mere buccaneer! That broadside of yours would predicate a general foe--and I'm d.a.m.ned if I wouldn't like to know his name!”

”We would all like to know his name,” said Rand. ”And when we know it, I for one would like to hear Mr. Cary's proofs of faithlessness to obligations.”

In the hush of expectation which fell upon the room the eyes of the two men met. In Rand's there was something cold and gleaming, something that was not his father's nor his grandfather's, but his own, deadly but markedly courageous. Cary's look was more masked, grave, and collected, with the merest quiver of the upper lip. In the mind of each the curtain strangely lifted, not upon Richmond or Fontenoy or the Court House at Charlottesville, but upon a long past day and the Albemarle woods and two boys gathering nuts together. This lasted but an instant, then Cary spoke. ”In that letter, Judge Roane, 'Aurelius' had no thought of Aaron Burr. I doubt if in writing he meant to give to any image recognizable face and form. I think that, very largely, he believed himself but personifying the powers of evil and the tendencies thereto inherent in the Democrat-Republican as in all human doctrine. If he builded better than he knew, if he held the mirror up, if, in short, there's any whom the cap fits”--He paused a moment, then said sternly, ”Let the wearer, whoever he may be, look to his steps!” and turned to face Rand. ”Seeing there is no name to divulge, there are of course no proofs of faithlessness.” He rose. ”It is growing late, gentlemen, and I, for one, am committed to Mrs. Ambler's party. Who goes towards the Eagle?”

There was a movement throughout the coffee room. It was full dark, home beckoned, and a number besides Cary were pledged to the evening's entertainment. From every table men were rising, gathering up their papers, when Rand's voice, harsh, raised, and thick with pa.s.sion, jarred the room. ”I hold, Mr. Cary, that not even to please his fine imagination is a gentleman justified in publicly weaving caps of so particular a description!”

Cary turned sharply. ”Not even when he weaves it for a man of straw?--your own expression, Mr. Rand.”

”Even men of straw,” answered the other thickly, ”find sometimes a defender. By G.o.d, I'll not endure it!”

”All this,” said Cary scornfully,--”all this for the usual, the familiar, the expected Federalist criticism of Republican precept and practice! What, specifically, is it, Mr. Rand, that you'll not endure?”

”I'll endure,” replied Rand, in a strained, monotonous, and menacing voice, ”no taunt from you.”

As he spoke, he threw himself forward. ”Have a care, sir!” cried Cary, and flung out his arm. He had seen, and the men around had seen, the intention of the blow. It was not struck. Amid the commotion that arose, Rand suddenly, and with an effort so violent and so directed that it had scarcely been in the scope of any other there, checked himself upon the precipice's verge, stood rigid, and strove with white lips for self-command. His inmost, his highest man had no desire to feel or to exhibit ungoverned rage, but there was a legion against him--and the black and furious dog. The coffee house was in a ferment.

”Gentlemen--gentlemen!--What's the quarrel, Rand?--Ludwell Cary, I'm at your service!--Bills and bows! bills and bows!--or is it coffee and pistols?” Fairfax Cary had sprung to his brother's side. Adam Gaudylock, annihilating in some mysterious fas.h.i.+on the distance between the corner table and the group in the light of the fire, was visible over Rand's shoulder. Mr. Pincornet, chin in air and with his hand where once a sword had been, tiptoed upon the fringe of the crowd. The clamour went on. ”Is it a challenge?--was a blow struck?--Mr. Cary, command me--Mr.

Rand--”

Cary and Rand, standing opposed, three feet of bare floor between them, looked fixedly at each other. Both were pale, both breathing heavily, but for both the unthinking moment had pa.s.sed. Reflection had come and was standing there between them. To Rand it wore more faces than one, but to Cary it was steadily a form in white with amethysts about the neck. There had been--it was well, it was best--no blow struck, no lie given. Cary drew a long breath, shook himself slightly like a swimmer who has breasted a formidable wave, and broke into a laugh. ”No affront and no challenge, gentlemen! That is so, is it not, Mr. Rand?”

If there was an instant's sombre hesitation, it was no more. ”Yes, that is so,” said Rand. ”After all, men should be more stable. There is no quarrel, gentlemen.”

He bowed ceremoniously to Cary, who returned the salute. Each moved from where he had stood, and the tide at Lynch's came between them. There was some questioning, some excited speech, some natural disappointment at matters going no further. It was not clearly understood what offence had been given or what taken, but many felt aggrieved by the check on the threshold of a likely affair. However, it was, they could concede, the business of the two princ.i.p.als, each of whom could afford to ignore any seeming reflection upon his unreadiness to pick up the glove--if a glove had been thrown. As the a.s.semblage broke up and flowed homeward, the most pertinent comment, perhaps, was that of the down-river planter: ”If 'twas just a breeze, and all over, why didn't they shake hands? Gad!

when I was young and we fell out and made up over the wine, we went roaring home arm over shoulder! Your manners are too cold. A bow is nothing--one can bow to a villain! Men of honour, when the quarrel's over, should shake hands!”

”Precisely,” said his companion, who chanced to be Mr. Wickham. ”They are men of honour; they didn't shake hands. _Ergo_ the quarrel's not over!--Here we are at the Eagle.”

CHAPTER XVII

FAIRFAX AND UNITY

”Bah!” exclaimed Major Churchill. ”Long ago Hamilton said the last word on the subject. Aaron Burr's sole political principle is to _mount_. The Gazette says he has started West--gone, I'll swear, to light the fuse.”

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