Part 2 (1/2)
Realizing without illusion the temper of the audience which would troop in from creek-bed and cove and the branch-waters ”back of beyond,” he was to speak in Marlin Town where the cardinal faith of the mountains is, ”hate thine enemy!”
In the court-house square of Marlin Town, under the shadow of high-flung hills, had gathered close-packed battalions of listeners. Some there were who carried with them their rifles and some who looked as foreign to even these rude streets as nomads ridden in from the desert.
A bra.s.s band had come with the candidate's special train and blared out its stirring message. There was a fluttering of flags and a brave showing of transparencies, and to Boone Wellver, aged fifteen, as he hung shadow-close at Asa Gregory's elbow, it all seemed the splendour of panoply and the height of pageantry.
From the hotel door, as the man and boy pa.s.sed it, emerged two gentlemen who were clothed in the smoother raiment of ”Down below,” and Boone pointed them out to his companion.
”Who _air_ they, Asa?” he whispered, and his kinsman carelessly responded:
”One of 'em's named Masters. He's a coal-mine boss--but I hain't never seed t'other one, afore now.”
Strolling along the narrow plank runway that did service as a sidewalk, the boy glimpsed also the mysterious stranger who had ridden in on a mule, with a canvas-covered sword at his saddle ring.
Then the fanfare of the band fell silent and a thin figure in an ancient frock coat stepped forward on the platform itself and raised its hands to shout: ”Fellow Citizens and Kentuckians of Marlin County!”
Ranged importantly behind the draped bunting stood the corporal's guard of native Democratic leaders--leaders who were well-nigh without followers--and who now stood as local sponsors for the Candidate himself.
Boone caught his breath and listened, his eager eyes conspicuous among the immobile and stolid faces of the unresponsive throng as the speaker let flow his words of encomium.
Seeking to compensate by his own vehemence for the unreceptiveness of his audience, the thin master of ceremonies heaped the Ossa of fulsomeness upon the Pelion of praise. ”And now, men of Marlin,” he shouted in his memorized peroration, ”now I have the distinguished honour of presenting to you the man whose loins are girt in the people's fight--the--the--ahem,--unterrified champeen of the Commonwealth's yeomanry--. Gentlemen, the next Governor of Kentucky!”
A peroration without applause is like a quick-step beat upon a loose drum-head, and an the local sponsor stood back in the dispiriting emptiness of dead silence--unbroken by a single hand-clap--his face fell. For several moments that quiet hung like a paralyzing rebuff, then from the outskirts of the crowd a liquor-thickened voice bellowed--”Next gov'nor--of h.e.l.l!”
To the front of the platform, with that derisive introduction, calmly--even coldly, stepped a dark, smooth-shaven man, over whose stocky shoulders and well-rounded chest a frock coat was tightly b.u.t.toned.
For a while the Candidate stood looking out, gauging his audience, and from him there seemed to emanate an a.s.surance of power before his lips parted. A heavy lock of coal-black hair fell over his forehead, across almost disdainfully cold eyes went sooty lashes, and dark brows met above the prominent nose. The whole face seemed drawn in bold charcoal strokes, uncompromising of line and feature--a portrayal of force.
Then the resonant voice broke silence, and though it came calmly and moderately pitched, it went out clarion-clear over the crowd like the note of a fox horn.
”Some one out there shouted--'Next governor of h.e.l.l!'” he began without preamble. ”I grant you that if any region needs improved government it is h.e.l.l, and if there is a state on this earth where a man might hope to qualify himself for that task, it is this state. Let me try that first, my friend. I believe in myself, but I am only human.”
He launched forthright into arraignment of his enemies with sledge-blows of denunciation untempered by any concession to time, place or condition, and though scowls grew vindictively black about him, he knew that he was holding his audience.
He was a Vulcan forging thunders with words and destructive batteries of bolts with phrases, and Boone Wellver--trembling with excitement as a pointer puppy trembles with the young eagerness of the covey-scent in his nostrils--seemed to be in the presence of a miracle; the miracle of eloquence.
”My G.o.d,” breathed the less impressionable Asa Gregory under his breath, ”but thet feller hes a master gift fer lyin'!”
At the end, with one clenched fist raised high, the speaker thundered out his final words of defiance: ”The fight is on, and I believe in fighting. I ask no quarter and I fear no foe!”
Again he paused, and again save for the valiant enthusiasm on the platform at his back, he met with no response except a grim and negative silence.
But this disconcerting stillness was abruptly ripped asunder by a pistol shot and a commotion of confused voices, rising where figures began to eddy and mill at the outskirts. The reception committee closed hastily and protectingly about the candidate, whose challenge seemed to have been accepted by some irresponsible gun-fighter, but he thrust them back with a face of unaltered and stony calmness. Though he had finished, he continued to stand at the front with hands idly resting on the platform rail as if meaning to demonstrate his contempt for anything like retreat.
While he still tarried there a tall figure elbowed its way through the crowd until it stood near. It was the figure of Asa Gregory, and, raising a hand for recognition, it called out in a full-chested voice: ”Thet shot war fired by a feller thet war full of white licker--an'
they're takin' him ter ther jail-house now. I reckon yore doctrine hain't hardly converted n.o.body hyarabouts--but we don't aim ter insult no visitor.”
Victor McCalloway had come to Cyrus Spradling's house to remain until he could arrange a more permanent residence. The purpose that lay behind his coming was one which he had not felt called upon to explain, and though he had much to learn of this new place of abode, still he had come forearmed with some of the cardinals of a necessary understanding.
They were an incurious people with whom he had cast his lot, content with their remoteness, and it was something that here a man could lose himself from questions touching the past, so long as he answered frankly those of the present. It suited McCalloway to seal the back pages and the bearded men evinced no wish to penetrate them.