Part 20 (2/2)
He was still sitting motionless when there came a knock at the door and it opened to admit the gruff voice of Doctor Southall. A big form was close behind him.
”h.e.l.lo. Up, I see. I took the liberty of bringing Major Bristow.”
The master of Damory Court came forward--limping the least trifle--and shook hands.
”Glad to know you, sah,” said the major. ”Allow me to congratulate you; it's not every one who gets bitten by one of those infernal moccasins that lives to talk about it. You must be a pet of Providence, or else you have a cast-iron const.i.tution, sah.”
Valiant waved his hand toward the man of medicine, who said, ”I reckon Miss s.h.i.+rley was the Providence in the case. She had sense enough to send for me quick and speed did it.”
”Well, sah,” the major said, ”I reckon under the circ.u.mstances, your first impressions of the section aren't anything for us to brag about.”
”I'm delighted; it's hard for me to tell how much.”
”Wait till you know the fool place,” growled the doctor testily. ”You'll change your tune.”
The major smiled genially. ”Don't be taken in by the doctor's pessimism.
You'd have to get a yoke of three-year oxen to drag him out of this state.”
”It would take as many for me.” Valiant laughed a little. ”You who have always lived here, can scarcely understand what I am feeling, I imagine.
You see, I never knew till quite recently--my childhood was largely spent abroad, and I have no near relatives--that my father was a Virginian and that my ancestors always lived here. To discover this all at once and to come to this house, with their portraits on the walls and their names on the t.i.tle-pages of these books!” He made a gesture toward the gla.s.s shelves. ”Why, there's a room up-stairs with the very toys they played with when they were children! To learn that I belong to it all; that I myself am the last link in such a chain!”
”The ancestral instinct,” said the doctor. ”I'm glad to see that it means something still, in these rotten days.”
”Of course,” John Valiant continued, ”every one knows that he has ancestors. But I'm beginning to see that what you call the ancestral instinct needs a locality and a place. In a way it seems to me that an old estate like this has a soul too--a sort of clan or family soul that reacts on the descendant.”
”Rather a j.a.panesy idea, isn't it?” observed the major. ”But I know what you mean. Maybe that's why old Virginian families hang on to their land in spite of h.e.l.l and high-water. They count their forebears real live people, quite capable of turning over in their graves.”
”Mine are beginning to seem very real to me. Though I don't even know their Christian names yet, I can judge them by their handiwork. The men who built Damory Court had a sense of beauty and of art.”
”And their share of deviltry, too,” put in the doctor.
”I suppose so,” admitted his host. ”At this distance I can bear even that. But good or bad, I'm deeply thankful that they chose Virginia.
Since I've been laid up, I've been browsing in the library here--”
”A bit out of date now, I reckon,” said the major, ”but it used to pa.s.s muster. Your grandfather was something of a book-worm. He wrote a history of the family, didn't he?”
”Yes. I've found it. _The Valiants of Virginia._ I'm reading the Revolutionary chapters now. It never seemed real before--it's been only a slice of impersonal and rather dull history. But the book has made it come alive. I'm having the thrill of the globe-trotter the first time he sees the Tower of London or the field of Waterloo. I see more than that stubble-field out yonder; I see a big wooden stockade with soldiers in ragged buff and blue guarding it.”
The major nodded, ”Ah, yes,” he said. ”The Continental prison-camp.”
”And just over the rise there I can see an old court-house, and the Virginia a.s.sembly boiling under the golden tongue-las.h.i.+ng of lean raw-boned Patrick Henry. I see a messenger gallop up and see the members scramble to their saddles--and then, Tarleton and his red-coats streaming up, too late.”
”Well,” commented the doctor deliberately, ”all I have to say is, don't materialize too much to Mrs. Poly Gifford when you meet her. She'll have you lecturing to the Ladies' Church Guild before you know it. She's sailed herself out here already, I understand.”
”She called the second day: my first visitor. I've subscribed to the Guild.”
The doctor chuckled. ”Blame curiosity! That woman's housemaid-silly. She can spin more street yarn than any ten in the county. Miss Mattie Sue's been here, too, she told me. Ah, yes,”--looking quizzically at the tray--”I recognize the apple-b.u.t.ter. A pot just like that goes to the White House every Christmas there's a Democrat there. She reminds me of a little drab-gray wren in horn-rimmed spectacles.”
”She's perfectly dear!” said Valiant, ”from her hoops to the calycanthus bud tied in the corner of her handkerchief. She must be very old. She told me she remembered seeing Jefferson at Monticello.”
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