He laughed again, yawned lazily, stretched his arms upward, and fell back luxuriously on the bed, resting his tired muscles.
He lay staring at the design of the wall-paper, which was in scrolls of brown that, as they whorled over clear enamelled spaces of creamy white, enclosed an outline in fainter browns and yellow,—a scene of waves breaking on rocks and surmounted by a lighthouse; a far and foreign suggestion to this deeply inland nook, and refreshing, for there was more than vernal warmth in the air. And presently, still repeating—"Mr. John Wray, how do you do to-day?" he slipped off into a half-conscious doze from which he was roused only by a knock at the door.
CHAPTER XII
Downstairs in the hotel there had been the usual stir of the morning. Till a late hour the punkahs had swung back and forth above the long tables in the dining room, each furnished with one of those primitive contrivances for the banishment of flies. The swaying of the pendent fringes of paper rivalled the rustling of the trees in the quadrangle outside, on which the broad, long windows looked, as each punkah-cord was pulled by a specimen of the cheerful and alert pickaninny of that day, keenly interested in all that occurred. Others ran in and out of the kitchen, bearing to the waiters, to be dispensed among the guests, interminable relays of the waffles of those times, golden brown, delicately rich, soft, yet crisp, of a peculiar lightness,—a kind that will be seen no more, despite the food inventions and dietetic improvements, for the artists of that choice cookery are all dead and their receipts only serve to mark the decadence of proficiency.
Strangers of all sorts, officers of the army, civilians from every quarter of the north, filled the public apartments, aimlessly chatting, discussing the news from the front, smoking matutinal cigars, buying papers from the omnipresent newsboys, or reading them in the big arm-chairs within or on the benches under the trees in the quadrangle, glimpsed in attractive verdure through the open doors of the office. There was continual passing through the halls, and groups filled the verandas and stood about on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, for the great brick pillars that supported the roof of the arcade at the height of the third story were anchored at the curb of the pavement, and this colonnade illustrated the forgotten architect's idea of impressiveness.
In the gay sunshine, the streets, with substantial two and three storied buildings on either side, with much effect of big airy windows and now and again a high, iron-railed balcony, were congested with traffic. The pavements were crowded with pedestrians of varying aspect,—freedmen in rags, idle, exhaustlessly zealous of sensation, grotesquely slouching along, eying the shop windows, seeing all that there was to be seen; soldiers in uniform on furlough; citizens of a new migration, having almost superseded the old townsmen, so limited were the latter in number in comparison with the present population of the gorged town; ladies, many the wives and daughters of Federal officers, with an unfamiliar accent and walk, and with toilettes of a more recent style than characterized the native exponents of fashion. Now and again some passing body of troops filled the avenue,—cavalry, with guidon and trumpet, or a jaunty progress of infantry, to the fife and drum and the tune of "The girl I left behind me!"
At this period the war had focussed a sort of superficial prosperity here. The counters were covered with Northern goods to supply the needs and excite the extravagance of this medley of congregated humanity. Street venders howled their wares in raucous voices that added to the unintelligible clamors of the old highways that were wont to be so dull and quiet and decorous.
The paving stones roared with the reverberation of wheels. Sometimes endless trains of white-hooded army wagons defiled by; again heavy open transfers; sometimes an ambulance anguish-laden passed slowly, taking the crown of the causeway. Occasionally a light-wheeled buggy whisked about with the unmistakable effect of display and with a military charioteer handling the ribbons, who found the Tennessee blooded roadsters much to his mind. And forever the dray, laden with cotton bales sometimes, and sometimes with boxes, or barrels, or hogsheads, took its drag-tailed way to the depots or to the wharf. All was dominated by the presence of the mule—in force, driven loose in hundreds through the town to some remote scene of usefulness, now drawing the great transfers and drays, now giving an exhibition of the peculiar pertinacity of mule nature by planted hoofs and ears laid back and a resolution of immovableness, bringing the whole tumultuous noisy rout to a blockade of such intricacy and cumbrous obstructiveness that one might wonder by what magic the interlocked wheels, the twisted harness, the crowded beasts, the whistling, long-thonged whips and shouting, swearing men were ever disentangled.