The Debatable Land Part 22

"Daddy Joe," he said, suddenly, "we must work in our garden."

Daddy Joe seemed to think that normal remarks were not to be expected from a visitant, possibly heavenly, at any rate having intimate knowledge and a message to deliver.

"Yes, sah. Da's a fac'. We must work in de gyarden, sholy."

"I have something for you to do." He stopped. Daddy Joe's sermon had seemed to imply an adverse opinion to negro freedom.

"You are wrong, Daddy Joe. It would be better for the slaves to be free."

"Fo' G.o.d!"

"You really think so yourself. This is what you think, that it is meant they shall be free, but it is right to tell them that their freedom will be a trial for them and many of them will fail. This is what you think."

"Da's sholy de efficaciousness."

"You will promise, then, in order to help this forward, to do what I tell you, and in secret, so that no one here shall know. It is a small thing, but a help to the cause of the Union armies, which is the cause of the nation and the negro--you will do this?"

"Yes, sah," in a trembling and awed whisper.

"The promise is upon your conscience as a preacher of the Word."

"Yes, sah," almost inaudibly.

"This is it, then. You will give me the clothes you are wearing, for which I will pay you twenty dollars, and one of the horses hidden in the hill pasture."

"Fo' G.o.d!"

"You will take my horse in exchange, ride to-morrow morning, before daybreak, for Leesburg, and take the train to Was.h.i.+ngton. Have you ever been in Was.h.i.+ngton?"

"Yes, sah."

"I will give you a paper which you will show to any soldier about Was.h.i.+ngton who stops you, and he will let you pa.s.s. In the city you will find the War Department, and there leave that paper and another I will give you. The second paper you will not let any one see before you leave it at the War Department. You will there be given forty dollars.

When you return you will come at night and take the horse up to the hill pasture. Will you have to account for your absence?"

"Miss Meely done lef' me go preachin' round de cyounty, sah. Miss Meely"--hesitating--"Miss Meely te'ible sot down on de Yankees, sah."

"Be careful, then. We must work in our garden."

"Sholy."

"And you see that this is your duty."

"Yes, sah."

"To-morrow morning, before daybreak, in the road beyond your church, we will separate, and you will not see me any more."

Beside Daddy Joe's bowed-down humility and belief Gard had a sensation that in a measure was new--a sense of ign.o.bleness and triviality. In some strange way there seemed to rise out of Daddy Joe a certain spiritual stature and significance. One seemed to discern that nowhere in his soul did he play a part, or play at anything, or remember himself. He took Gard to be perhaps, a half-divine evangelist. In Daddy Joe's primitive faith, Gard fancied, heavenly incarnated messengers came as easily among men as his ancestral G.o.ds had come in the jungle; spirits, evil or good, still rode the night wind; a magical influence of benefit or harm was a quality of things, like their color and touch.

It was out of these conditions that the historic faiths had come, with their deep simplicities. The torch-bearers, with fresh fire, men who travailed with the secrets of the future, had so sat in doorways, taught such as Daddy Joe the master words, and forgot the times filled with wars and policies, while the sunlight was on the grainfields, some brown creek quiet in its bed, and the hearth smoke hanging in the air. But he had not any such message for Daddy Joe, and felt trivial in his mask.

Wars and policies, too, were trivial, shadows drifting across the cornfields, ripples on the slow ma.s.s of the creek. It was what occurred to men in doorways and by roadsides that was of importance, that lit the torches and determined the ma.s.sed current.

In the dark of the dawn they separated at the highway. Daddy Joe rode downward on Gard's horse with the white forefoot. A few hundred feet and he pulled up, turned in his saddle, and looked back. The horse and man going up under the pine avenue seemed to loom large and vague in the gloom.

"Fo' G.o.d," he whispered, "ain' gwine see him no mo'."

In the broad daylight on top of the gap Gard examined his clothes, rubbed the smoothness of his shaven face, and observed that the horse he rode was an iron-gray. The clothes were a gray felt hat, a long, black coat, threadbare and lined with silk, a white vest, dotted necktie and unstarched linen, black trousers, and his own shoes. He thought he might resemble a seedy Southern gentleman in possession of a whiskey flask and an eccentric plan for the capture of the city of Was.h.i.+ngton. He might imagine a resemblance in spirit to Jack Mavering. It would furnish a basis and a sequence.

He came to the burned bridge on the Shenandoah. Three or four hors.e.m.e.n were on the other side who met and greeted him when he had crossed.

"Howdy."

"Howdy."

Gard wrung the water from his wet clothes and waited. One of the hors.e.m.e.n drew a paper from his pocket.

"Haven't seen a man like this anywhere, have you?" and read from the paper.

"'Loose, black clothes, broad, stiff-brimmed hat, shaven lips, black beard, smooth hair, of sect called Dunkers, carrying saddle-bags, riding bay horse with white forefoot.'"

Gard considered.

"I wouldn't gamble on the fo' foot," he said, slowly, "but there was an individual resembling otherwise that lucid and cyarefully boiled description over 'yond the ridge. He gave me a printed little d.a.m.n sheet which contained discourteous ref'ences to h.e.l.l-fire.

But"--thoughtfully--"that ho'se, 'pears to me his feet matched."

"Never mind. That's the man. They said he went over the ridge. Where'd he go from then?"

"He 'peared to be pointed for Harper's Ferry."

"Well, we've lost him, then."

Gard looked sympathetic and reached down into the tails of his coat.

"There's only one thing, seh, that's equally good for disappointment and wet feet. This heah whiskey never paid any duty to the United States--I have my doubts, seh, whether it paid any to the Confed'acy. I should like to devote a generous percentage to the use of the Confed'acy. You wouldn't mind a.s.suming charge of that percentage?"

A moment later the other asked, "Have you got the tract that Yankee scout gave you?"

"Who?"

"The Dunker."

"Oh! ve'y good! As applied to me, I took the ref'ences to be discourteous. I gave it, seh, to a niggeh."

Chapter XVII

On the Question of the Exact Location of the Divinity which is Ultimately Called Worth While