THE DISTRESS OF MRS. TITUS 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 documents, which had accumulated 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 constitutional 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.
Titus 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 Titus 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 Titus'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 Titus.'"
"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 Titus 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. Besides, he and I never agreed on politics. By the great George Washington, there he is now!" exclaimed Noah Lyon, springing up from his seat on the bench.
Titus Lyon was seated with his wife in a stylish buggy. He stopped his horse on the bridge when he came opposite to his brother, and passing the reins to Mrs. Lyon he descended to the planks. His wife drove on, and stopped at the front door of the mansion. Frank the coachman ran with all his might from the stable to take charge of the team, and the lady went into the house.
"How do you do, Titus?" said Noah, extending his hand to his brother.
"I think it is about time for me to have some talk with you, Noah," replied Titus, ignoring the offered hand, and bestowing a frowning look upon Deck. "Send that boy away."
"Dexter knows all about my affairs, and I don't have many secrets from him," replied Noah very mildly, and somewhat nettled to have his son treated in that rude manner.
"I came over here on purpose to talk with you; and what I have to say is between you and me—for the present. If you don't wish to talk with me on these terms, that's the end on't," added Titus, rising from the seat he had taken.
"I will go with Artie, father," interposed Deck, who did not wish to prevent an interview between the brothers, though he thought his uncle behaved like a Hottentot.
"Very well, Dexter; but you needn't go if you don't want to," said his father, who evidently did not believe that the proposed interview with Titus would be conducted on a peace basis.
"I think I will go," added Deck, who hailed Artie from the bridge, and then hastened to a plank where he could get into the boat.
For a reason which he would not have explained if he had been interrogated by his father, or by any other person except Deck, Artie was very desirous to have his cousin go with him; in fact, he was thinking of postponing his excursion, whatever its object, till his cousin could accompany him, when the hail came to him from the bridge. He pulled up to the plank, the outer end of which was supported by stakes driven into the bottom of the stream, with a cross-piece above the water. It had been built for the convenience of those taking one of the boats near the mansion. Deck took an oar, and they pulled together up the creek.
Mrs. Titus Lyon was cordially welcomed at the door of the house by Mrs. Noah, who had seen her coming from the window. The lady from the village was in a high state of perturbation, and her eyes looked as though she had been weeping.
"I have had an awful time since you called upon me this morning," said she, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. "I don't know what we are coming to at our house. For the first time in my life my husband struck me after we got up from dinner, and then hurried me down here with hardly time to change my clothes!"
"Struck you, Amelia!" exclaimed Mrs. Noah with an expression of horror.
"Perhaps it was all my own fault," groaned the poor woman.
"No fault could justify your husband in striking you. But what was it for?" inquired Mrs. Noah, overflowing with sympathy for her sister-in-law.
"You remember that story about the arms and equipments I told you this morning? Well, it seems that my son Orly was listening at the half-open door when I supposed that no one but myself was in the house, for the girls had all gone off to the store. He heard the whole of it, and told his father when he came in to dinner," gasped the abused lady in short sentences.
"He struck you for telling me, did he?" demanded Mrs. Noah indignantly. "I should like to give him a piece of my mind!"
"Don't you say a word to him about it, for that would only make it all the worse for me. Titus says there is no truth at all in the story. He has bought no arms. I misunderstood him; he was telling about a committee in Logan County that had bought the arms and ammunition for a company. It is all a mistake; and if you have told any of your family, do take it all back, and say there is not a word of truth in the story."
Mrs. Titus could see from the window that the two brothers were having a stormy interview on the bridge; but she stayed till long after dark, and had recovered her self-possession before she left. Noah had no supper till she had gone, and the boys had not yet returned.