Brother Against Brother Part 4

"I was raised in Tennessee, Major, and was tolerably well educated. I was in business for myself in Shelbyville, the capital of our county, which was named for one of my ancestors. But I did not succeed, for the place was not big enough. I bought some nice horses of Colonel Lyon, and for some reason he took a fancy to me."

"I don't think that was very strange," added Noah.

"When I failed, he wanted me to come and manage this place for him; and I have been here ever since. He paid me well, and I have always done the best I could for him. He was a good man; and it looks to me just as though his successor was as good a man as he was."

"Thank you, Levi; I believe we shall be friends."

"Betwixt you and me, Major," continued the manager in a low tone, "when the colonel's health began to be rather shaky, though I had no idea he was so near his end, I had a mortal dread that a certain other man would come into possession of this place. Excuse me for saying that, but I couldn't help it. Since I met you this noon, Major, I have been lifted up to the seventh heaven."

Noah did not deem it wise to make any reply to this remark then; but he intended to inquire more particularly in regard to his Kentucky brother when he had an opportunity; and it appeared that the manager had some very p.r.o.nounced opinions in regard to t.i.tus. He changed the subject, and continued to eat his supper.

The meal was elaborate enough for a family feast. After the fried ham and bacon, the fried chicken, with baked potatoes and the nicest white cornbread the family had ever eaten, came hot biscuits, waffles, and griddle-cakes, and cake of several kinds, which were fully approved by Mrs. Lyon. Diana came in before the party rose from the table, and the praises bestowed upon her handiwork in the kitchen would have made her blush if she had been as light-colored as the two girls that waited upon the table.

When Noah Lyon went to his room after supper, and was alone there, he took from his pocket the letter from his deceased brother which Colonel Cosgrove had given him. It was with no little emotion that he broke the c.u.mbrous seals. It looked very much like a mystery to him, for the estate had been duly divided in the will.

It was a very kindly and brotherly letter for the first page. Then the colonel stated that Noah had by the time he received the letter discovered that the value of the fifty-one negroes on the estate had not been included in his valuation of the property. They were worth at least twenty-five thousand dollars. They had been given to him with the plantation, but he enjoined it upon him on no account to sell one of them.

In the letter he found another as carefully sealed as the one that enclosed it, directed to his successor, with the direction: "Not to be opened till five years from the date of my death. Duncan Lyon."

The letter evidently related to the slaves on the plantation; but the mystery in regard to them was still unsolved.

CHAPTER V

THE DISTRESS OF MRS. t.i.tUS LYON

In the rear of the drawing-room was the library. It contained about five hundred bound volumes, and more than this number of pamphlets and doc.u.ments, which had acc.u.mulated in a quarter of a century. It contained a large desk and a safe, and the apartment was an office rather than a library, though the owner of Riverlawn had largely improved his education by reading in his abundant leisure. The shelves were piled high with newspapers and magazines, which appeared to have been the staple of his intellectual food.

Levi had given the key of the safe to the new proprietor; and after Noah had read and reread the open letter, and pondered its contents, he carried the one which was not to be opened for five years to the library, and deposited it in the safe with the explanatory epistle which left the whole subject a mystery. What was eventually to become of the negroes was not indicated, but he was enjoined not to sell one of them on any account.

Though opposed to the extension of slavery, Noah Lyon did not believe that Congress had any const.i.tutional right to meddle with the system as it existed in the States. He had never been brought into contact with slavery, and did not howl when his brother became a slaveholder. Like the majority of the people of the North, he was instinctively, as it were, opposed to human bondage; but he had never been considered a fanatic or an abolitionist by his friends and neighbors. He simply refrained from meddling with the subject.

The fifty-one negroes on the estate had been willed to him, and he was as much a slaveholder as his brother had been. The injunction not to sell one of them was needless in its application to him, for he would as readily have thought of selling one of his own children as any human being.

It would require a bulky volume to detail the experience of Noah Lyon and his family during the years that followed his arrival at Barcreek.

He was an intelligent man, richly endowed with saving common-sense, and soon made himself familiar with all the affairs of the plantation. He made the acquaintance of the servants, which was no small matter in itself, for he ascertained the history, disposition, and character of all of them.

He found that his brother had not over-estimated the worth of Levi Bedford, who soon became a great favorite with all the family. The new proprietor found no occasion to change the conduct of affairs in the management of the place, even if he had felt that he was competent to improve the methods and system of his late brother. Everything went on as before. Levi made the crops of hemp, tobacco, corn, and vegetables, and raised horses, marketing everything to be sold. He consulted his employer, but he had little to say.

The family became acquainted with their neighbors within a circuit of ten miles, and in spite of their origin they were kindly and hospitably received by the best families.

At the end of a year the Lyons had practically become Kentuckians. In the following year came the great political campaign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. Ominous growls had been heard from the South, and even in the border State of Kentucky.

Noah regarded the situation with no little anxiety; but he continued to attend to his own affairs, and it was not till the bombardment of Fort Sumter that he began to take an active part in the agitation which was shaking the entire nation.

t.i.tus Lyon was one of the most stormy and aggressive of the Southern sympathizers. Even neutrality was a compromise with him. When Noah's family took possession of Riverlawn, he did not call at the mansion for several days, though his wife and Mabel, his eldest daughter, had spent the day after their arrival with them. Though t.i.tus said nothing at first, or for months to come, it was very evident to Noah that he was intensely dissatisfied with the distribution the colonel had made of his property.

The state of affairs in Barcreek has been shown in the conversation between the planter and his son on the bridge. This seemed to be a favorite resort for conferences, and they returned to it after dinner.

On one side of it was a seat which had been put up there years before; for it was shaded by a magnificent tree which grew by the side of the creek road, and the bridge was the coolest place on the estate in a hot day.

"Of course you heard what your mother said about her visit to t.i.tus's house to-day, Dexter," said the father, as he seated himself on the bench.

"I could not well help hearing it," replied Deck.

"If there is anything in this world I abominate, it is a family quarrel," continued Noah, fixing his gaze upon the dark waters of the creek. "Your uncle seems to be disposed to be at variance with me, though I am sure I have done nothing of which he can reasonably complain. He is down upon every Union man in the county. I should say that Barcreek was about equally divided between the two parties. But he does not talk politics to me, as he does to every other man in the place."

"I don't know what he means when he says you owe him five thousand dollars, for I thought the boot was on the other leg," said Deck, looking into the troubled face of his father.

"He owes me several hundred dollars I lent him before he sold his railroad stock. He is able to pay me now, for he has turned his securities into money, and he seems to be flinging it away as fast as he can. He must be worth twenty-five thousand dollars, including his house and land; but I don't know how much of it he has thrown away."

"If he has spent five thousand dollars for arms, ammunition, and uniforms, he must have made a big hole in it," suggested Deck. "He keeps three horses when he has no use for more than one."

"He never had a tenth part as much money before in his life, and he does not know how to use it. He will be the captain of a Home Guard as soon as he can enlist the men, and the people on his side of the question at the village have begun to call him 'Captain Lyon,' or 'Captain t.i.tus.'"

"Sandy told me that he, his father, and Orly had been drilling for three months with an old soldier who was in the Mexican War," added Deck.

"There comes Artie in one of the boats."

"Where is he going?" asked Noah.

"I'm sure I don't know; Artie don't always tell where he is going,"

answered Deck.

His cousin, whom he regarded and treated as his brother, was pulling a very handsome keel boat leisurely up the creek. The colonel appeared to have had some aquatic tastes, for at a kind of pier half-way between the bridge and the river were a sailboat and two row-boats, all of which were kept in excellent condition. In places the river was wide enough to allow the use of a boat with a sail, and the colonel had had some skill in managing one; but neither Noah nor his boys could handle such a craft, and it was never used.

The creek extended back some ten miles through a flat, swampy region, and Deck and Artie had explored it almost to its source in some low hills not a dozen miles from the Mammoth Cave. Like most boys, they were fond of boats, and nothing but the forbidding command of the planter prevented them from experimenting with the Magnolia, as the sailboat was called by the colonel.

If the boys had explored Bar Creek to its source, they would have discovered that it came out of the numerous "sinks" to be found in this portion of the country, and streams flowed in subterranean channels which honeycombed the earth at a greater or less depth below the surface.

"What are you up to, Deck?" shouted Artie, as he approached the bridge.

"Nothing particular," replied the one on the bridge. "Where are you going?"

"Up the creek," answered Artie very indefinitely. "Can't you go with me?

It is easier for two to row this boat than for one."

"I don't want to go now," returned Deck, who was too much interested in the conversation with his father to leave him.

"You may go with him if you want to, Dexter," interposed Mr. Lyon.

"I don't care about going now, father. Do you suppose Uncle t.i.tus has really bought the arms and things as mother says?" asked Deck.

"Your aunt is very much worried about the actions of your uncle. I suppose he told her what he had done, for she would not make up such a story out of whole cloth. Besides, it seems to be in keeping with a dozen other things he has done; and he is certainly doing all he can to raise a company in Barcreek," replied Mr. Lyon.

"Isn't it strange that he never says anything to you about politics, especially such as we are having now?" asked the son.

"I don't see him very often; he is at Bowling Green half the time.