The Colonel's Dream Page 26

  _Twenty-six_

  During the next month the colonel made several attempts to seeFetters, but some fatality seemed always to prevent their meeting. Hefinally left the matter of finding Fetters to Caxton, who ascertainedthat Fetters would be in attendance at court during a certain week, atCarthage, the county seat of the adjoining county, where the colonelhad been once before to inspect a cotton mill. Thither the colonelwent on the day of the opening of court. His train reached town towardnoon and he went over to the hotel. He wondered if he would find theproprietor sitting where he had found him some weeks before. But thebuggy was gone from before the piazza, and there was a new face behindthe desk. The colonel registered, left word that he would be in todinner, and then went over to the court house, which lay behind thetrees across the square.

  The court house was an old, square, hip-roofed brick structure, whosewalls, whitewashed the year before, had been splotched and discolouredby the weather. From one side, under the eaves, projected a beam,which supported a bell rung by a rope from the window below. A hallran through the centre, on either side of which were the countyoffices, while the court room with a judge's room and jury room,occupied the upper floor.

  The colonel made his way across the square, which showed the usualsigns of court being in session. There were buggies hitched to treesand posts here and there, a few Negroes sleeping in the sun, andseveral old coloured women with little stands for the sale of cakes,and fried fish, and cider.

  The colonel went upstairs to the court room. It was fairly wellfilled, and he remained standing for a few minutes near the entrance.The civil docket was evidently on trial, for there was a jury in thebox, and a witness was being examined with some prolixity withreference to the use of a few inches of land which lay on one side oron the other of a disputed boundary. From what the colonel couldgather, that particular line fence dispute had been in litigation fortwenty years, had cost several lives, and had resulted in a feud thatinvolved a whole township.

  The testimony was about concluded when the colonel entered, and thelawyers began their arguments. The feeling between the litigantsseemed to have affected their attorneys, and the court more than oncefound it necessary to call counsel to order. The trial was finished,however, without bloodshed; the case went to the jury, and court wasadjourned until two o'clock.

  The colonel had never met Fetters, nor had he seen anyone in the courtroom who seemed likely to be the man. But he had seen his name freshlywritten on the hotel register, and he would doubtless go there fordinner. There would be ample time to get acquainted and transact hisbusiness before court reassembled for the afternoon.

  Dinner seemed to be a rather solemn function, and except at a tableoccupied by the judge and the lawyers, in the corner of the roomfarthest from the colonel, little was said. A glance about the roomshowed no one whom the colonel could imagine to be Fetters, and he wasabout to ask the waiter if that gentleman had yet entered the diningroom, when a man came in and sat down on the opposite side of thetable. The colonel looked up, and met the cheerful countenance of theliveryman from whom he had hired a horse and buggy some weeks before.

  "Howdy do?" said the newcomer amiably. "Hope you've been well."

  "Quite well," returned the colonel, "how are you?"

  "Oh, just tol'able. Tendin' co't?"

  "No, I came down here to see a man that's attending court--your friendFetters. I suppose he'll be in to dinner."

  "Oh, yes, but he ain't come in yet. I reckon you find the ho-tel alittle different from the time you were here befo'."

  "This is a better dinner than I got," replied the colonel, "and Ihaven't seen the landlord anywhere, nor his buggy."

  "No, he ain't here no more. Sad loss to Carthage! You see BarkFetters--that's Bill's boy that's come home from the No'th fromcollege--Bark Fetters come down here one day, an' went in the ho-tel,an' when Lee Dickson commenced to put on his big airs, Bark cussed 'imout, and Lee, who didn't know Bark from Adam, cussed 'im back, an'then Bark hauled off an' hit 'im. They had it hot an' heavy for awhile. Lee had more strength, but Bark had more science, an' laid Leeout col'. Then Bark went home an' tol' the ole man, who had a mortgageon the ho-tel, an' he sol' Lee up. I hear he's barberin' or somethin'er that sort up to Atlanta, an' the hotel's run by another man.There's Fetters comin' in now."

  The colonel glanced in the direction indicated, and was surprised atthe appearance of the redoubtable Fetters, who walked over and tookhis seat at the table with the judge and the lawyers. He had expectedto meet a tall, long-haired, red-faced, truculent individual, in aslouch hat and a frock coat, with a loud voice and a dictatorialmanner, the typical Southerner of melodrama. He saw a keen-eyed,hard-faced small man, slightly gray, clean-shaven, wearing awell-fitting city-made business suit of light tweed. Except for a fewlittle indications, such as the lack of a crease in his trousers,Fetters looked like any one of a hundred business men whom the colonelmight have met on Broadway in any given fifteen minutes duringbusiness hours.

  The colonel timed his meal so as to leave the dining-room at the samemoment with Fetters. He went up to Fetters, who was chewing atoothpick in the office, and made himself known.

  "I am Mr. French," he said--he never referred to himself by hismilitary title--"and you, I believe, are Mr. Fetters?"

  "Yes, sir, that's my name," replied Fetters without enthusiasm, buteyeing the colonel keenly between narrowed lashes.

  "I've been trying to see you for some time, about a matter," continuedthe colonel, "but never seemed able to catch up with you before."

  "Yes, I heard you were at my house, but I was asleep upstairs, anddidn't know you'd be'n there till you'd gone."

  "Your man told me you had gone to the capital for two weeks."

  "My man? Oh, you mean Turner! Well, I reckon you must have riledTurner somehow, and he thought he'd have a joke on you."

  "I don't quite see the joke," said the colonel, restraining hisdispleasure. "But that's ancient history. Can we sit down over here inthe shade and talk by ourselves for a moment?"

  Fetters followed the colonel out of doors, where they drew a couple ofchairs to one side, and the colonel stated the nature of his business.He wished to bargain for the release of a Negro, Bud Johnson by name,held to service by Fetters under a contract with Clarendon County. Hewas willing to pay whatever expense Fetters had been to on account ofJohnson, and an amount sufficient to cover any estimated profits fromhis services.

  Meanwhile Fetters picked his teeth nonchalantly, so nonchalantly as toirritate the colonel. The colonel's impatience was not lessened by thefact that Fetters waited several seconds before replying.

  "Well, Mr. Fetters, what say you?"

  "Colonel French," said Fetters, "I reckon you can't have the nigger."

  "Is it a matter of money?" asked the colonel. "Name your figure. Idon't care about the money. I want the man for a personal reason."

  "So do I," returned Fetters, coolly, "and money's no object to me.I've more now than I know what to do with."

  The colonel mastered his impatience. He had one appeal which noSoutherner could resist.

  "Mr. Fetters," he said, "I wish to get this man released to please alady."

  "Sorry to disoblige a lady," returned Fetters, "but I'll have to keepthe nigger. I run a big place, and I'm obliged to maintain discipline.This nigger has been fractious and contrary, and I've sworn that heshall work out his time. I have never let any nigger get the best ofme--or white man either," he added significantly.

  The colonel was angry, but controlled himself long enough to make onemore effort. "I'll give you five hundred dollars for your contract,"he said rising from his chair.

  "You couldn't get him for five thousand."

  "Very well, sir," returned the colonel, "this is not the end of this.I will see, sir, if a man can be held in slavery in this State, for adebt he is willing and ready to pay. You'll hear more of this beforeI'm through with it."

  "Another thing, Colonel French," said Fetters, his quiet eyesglittering
as he spoke, "I wonder if you recollect an incident thatoccurred years ago, when we went to the academy in Clarendon?"

  "If you refer," returned the colonel promptly, "to the time I chasedyou down Main Street, yes--I recalled it the first time I heard ofyou when I came back to Clarendon--and I remember why I did it. It isa good omen."

  "That's as it may be," returned Fetters quietly. "I didn't have torecall it; I've never forgotten it. Now you want something from me,and you can't have it."

  "We shall see," replied the colonel. "I bested you then, and I'll bestyou now."

  "We shall see," said Fetters.

  Fetters was not at all alarmed, indeed he smiled rather pityingly.There had been a time when these old aristocrats could speak, and theearth trembled, but that day was over. In this age money talked, andhe had known how to get money, and how to use it to get more. Therewere a dozen civil suits pending against him in the court house there,and he knew in advance that he should win them every one, withoutdirectly paying any juryman a dollar. That any nigger should get awaywhile he wished to hold him, was--well, inconceivable. Colonel Frenchmight have money, but he, Fetters, had men as well; and if ColonelFrench became too troublesome about this nigger, this friendship forniggers could be used in such a way as to make Clarendon too hot forColonel French. He really bore no great malice against Colonel Frenchfor the little incident of their school days, but he had not forgottenit, and Colonel French might as well learn a lesson. He, Fetters, hadnot worked half a lifetime for a commanding position, to yield it toColonel French or any other man. So Fetters smoked his cigartranquilly, and waited at the hotel for his anticipated verdicts. Forthere could not be a jury impanelled in the county which did not haveon it a majority of men who were mortgaged to Fetters. He even heldthe Judge's note for several hundred dollars.

  The colonel waited at the station for the train back to Clarendon.When it came, it brought a gang of convicts, consigned to Fetters.They had been brought down in the regular "Jim Crow" car, for thecolonel saw coloured women and children come out ahead of them. Thecolonel watched the wretches, in coarse striped garments, with chainson their legs and shackles on their hands, unloaded from the train andinto the waiting wagons. There were burly Negroes and flat-shanked,scrawny Negroes. Some wore the ashen hue of long confinement. Somewere shamefaced, some reckless, some sullen. A few white convictsamong them seemed doubly ashamed--both of their condition and of theircompany; they kept together as much as they were permitted, and lookedwith contempt at their black companions in misfortune. Fetters's manand Haines, armed with whips, and with pistols in their belts, werepresent to oversee the unloading, and the colonel could see them pointhim out to the State officers who had come in charge of the convicts,and see them look at him with curious looks. The scene was notedifying. There were criminals in New York, he knew very well, but hehad never seen one. They were not marched down Broadway in stripes andchains. There were certain functions of society, as of the body, whichwere more decently performed in retirement. There was work in theState for the social reformer, and the colonel, undismayed by histemporary defeat, metaphorically girded up his loins, went home, and,still metaphorically, set out to put a spoke in Fetters's wheel.