Part 22 (2/2)

Overhanging eyebrows of iron-gray were the first thing to arrest attention in Matthew Loring's face. They shadowed dark expressive eyes in a swarthy setting. His hair and mustache were of the same grey, and very bushy. He had the broad head and square jaw of the aggressive type. Not a large man, even in his prime, he looked almost frail as he settled back in his chair. He was probably sixty, but looked older.

”Still knitting socks, Mistress Nesbitt?” he inquired, with a caustic smile. ”Charming occupation. Do you select that quality and color for any beauties to be found in them? I can remember seeing your mother using knitting needles on this very veranda thirty--yes, forty years ago. But I must say I never saw her make anything heavier than lace.

And what's all this, Gertrude? Do you entertain your visitors these days by dragging out the old linen for their inspection? Why are you dallying with the servants' tasks?”

”No; it is my own task, uncle,” returned his niece, with unruffled serenity. ”Not a very beautiful one, but consoling because of its usefulness.”

”Usefulness--huh! In your mother's day ladies were not expected to be useful.”

”Alas for us that the day is past,” said the girl, tearing off another strip of muslin.

”Now, do you wonder that I adore my Judge?” whispered Evilena to Delaven.

CHAPTER XIII.

Despite his natural irritability, to which no one appeared to pay much attention, Mr. Loring grew almost cordial under the geniality and hopefulness emanating from Judge Clarkson, whom he was really very glad to see, and of whom he had numberless queries to ask regarding the hostilities of the past few months.

The enforced absence abroad had kept him in a highly nervous condition, doing much to counteract the utmost care given him by the most learned specialists of Europe. Half his fortune had been lost by those opening guns at Sumter. His warehouses, piled with great cotton bales for s.h.i.+pment to England, had been fired--burned to the ground.

The capture of Beaufort, near which was another plantation of his, had made further wreck for him, financially, and whatever the foreign doctors might to with his body, his mind was back in Carolina, eager, questioning, combative. He was burning himself up with a fever of anxiety.

”It is all of no use, Mademoiselle,” said the most distinguished specialist whom she had consulted, ”Monsieur, your uncle will live for many years if but the mind is composed--no shocks, no heavy loads to carry. But the mind, you perceive--it is impossible for him to allow himself to be composed away from his country. We have done all that can be done here. To return to his own land under the care of a competent physician, of course, would be now the best arrangement I could suggest. He may live there for many years; here, he will most certainly die.”

At Loring's request Dr. Delaven was the physician who had been approached with the proposal to accompany him to Carolina. Why, it would be hard to guess, for they were totally unlike in every way--had not, apparently, a single taste in common. But the physician in charge of the hospital approved his judgment.

”It is a most wise one, Monsieur Loring. Dr. Delaven has shown as his specialty cases similar to your own, and has proven most successful.

Withal, he is adventurous. He will enjoy the new country, and he is of your own language. All I could do for you he can do, perhaps more; for I am old, while he is young and alive with enthusiasms with which to supplement his technical knowledge.”

Gertrude only delayed their departure long enough to write Col.

McVeigh, who was in London. He secured for them transportation to Na.s.sau under the guardians.h.i.+p of an official who would take most extreme care that the party be conveyed from there by some blockade runner to be depended upon. And that the Federal blockade often failed of its purpose was evidenced by the fact that they were quietly landed one night in a little inlet south of Charleston, which they reached by carriage, and rested there a few days before attempting the journey overland.

The doctors were correct as to the beneficial results of the home coming of Loring. It acted like a tonic and the thought of outwitting the Yankees of that blockade pleased him immensely. He never gave a thought to the girl who watched with pale face and sleepless eyes through that dash for the sh.o.r.e. Delaven mentally called him a selfish brute.

The visit of Judge Clarkson was partially an affair of business, but after a private interview with Delaven he decided to dismiss all idea of business settlements until later. Nothing of an annoying or irritating nature must be broached to the convalescent just yet.

The Judge confessed that it was an affair over which Mr. Loring had been deeply chagrined--a clear loss of a large sum of money, and perhaps it would be safer, under the circ.u.mstances, to await Col.

McVeigh's return. Col. McVeigh was equally interested, and neither he nor the Judge would consent to risk an attack similar to that experienced by Mr. Loring during the bombardment of Port Royal entrance. He was at that time on his Beaufort plantation, where the blue coats overran his place after they landed, and it was known to have been nothing else than a fit of rage at their victory, and rage at the planters who fled on all sides of him, which finally ended in the prostration for which the local physicians could find no remedy.

Then it was that Gertrude took him abroad, with the result described.

It was understood the prostration had taught him one useful lesson--he no longer cultivated the rages for which he had been locally famous.

As he was unable to stamp and roar, he compromised on sneers and caustic retorts, from which he appeared to derive an amount of satisfaction tonical in its effects.

The Judge was giving Delaven the details of the Beaufort affair when Ben wheeled his master into the room. There was an awkward pause, a slight embarra.s.sment, but he had caught the words ”Port Royal entrance,” and comprehended.

”Huh! Talking over that disaster, Judge?” he remarked. ”I tell you what it is, you can't convey to a foreigner anything of the feeling of the South over those misfortunes; to have Sherman's tramps go rough-shod over your lawns and rest themselves with braggadocio at your tables--the most infernal riff-raff--”

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