The Earth Trembled

by Edward Payson Roe

As spring verged into summer, Uncle Sheba yielded more and more to the lassitude of the season. His "bobscure 'fliction" seemed to grow upon him, if it were possible to note degrees in his malady, but Aun' Sheba said, "'Long as he is roun' like a log an' don' bodder me I is use' ter it." He even began to neglect the "prar-meetin'," and old Tobe told him to his face, "You'se back-slidin' fur as you kin slide, inch or so." His son-in-law, Kern Watson, had won such a good reputation for steadiness that he was taken into the fire department. When off duty he was always with "Sissy an' de chilen."

Outwardly there was but slight change in Owen Clancy. He had never been inclined to make many intimate acquaintances, and those who knew him best only noted that he seemed more reserved about himself if possible, and that he was unusually devoted to business. Yet he was much spoken of in business circles, for it was known that he was the chief correspondent of the wealthy Mr. Ainsley of New York, who was making large investments in the South. Among the progressive men of the city, no matter what might be their political faith and association, the young man was winning golden opinions, for it was clearly recognized that he ever had the interest of his section at heart, that in a straightforward, honorable manner he was making every effort to enlist Northern capital in Southern enterprises. He had withdrawn almost wholly from social life, and ladies saw him but seldom in their drawing-rooms. When among men, however, he talked earnestly and sagaciously on the business topics of the hour. The evening usually found him with book in hand in his bachelor apartment.

Beneath all this ordinary ebb and flow of daily life, changes were taking place, old forces working silently, and new ones entering in to complicate the problems of the future. As unobtrusively as possible, Clancy kept himself informed about Mara and all that related to her welfare. By some malign fate, as she deemed it, she would unexpectedly hear of him, encounter him on the street, also, yet rarely now, meet him at some small evening company. He would permit no open estrangement, and always compelled her to recognize him. One evening, to her astonishment and momentary confusion he quietly took a seat by her side and entered into conversation, as he might have done with other ladies present. By neither tone nor glance did he recognize any cause for estrangement between them, and he talked so intelligently and agreeably as to compel her admiration. His mask was perfect, and after an instant hers was equally so, yet all the time she was as conscious of his love as of her own.

He recognized the new element which the Bodines had brought into her life, and with a lover's keen instinct began to surmise what the captain might become to her. He was not long in discovering the former relations of the veteran to Colonel Wallingford, and he justly believed that, as yet, Mara's regard was largely the result of that old friendship and an entire accordance in views. But he was not so sure about Bodine, whom he knew but slightly and with whom he had no sympathy. He had learned substantially the ground on which the captain had taken employment from Mr. Houghton, and as we know, he was bitterly hostile to that whole line of policy. "It would eventually turn every Southern man into a clerk," he muttered, "when it is our patriotic duty to lead in business as in everything else that pertains to our section." Yet he knew, or at least believed, that if he had taken the same course Mara might now be his wife.

Sometimes, when reading, apparently, he would throw down his book and say aloud in his solitude, "Bah, I'm more loyal to the South than this sombre-faced veteran. He would keep his State forever in his own crippled condition. No crutches for the South, I say; no general clerkship to the North, but an equal onward march, side by side, to one national destiny. He thinks he is a martyr and may very complacently let Mara think so too. Who has given up the more? He a leg, and I my heart's love!"

It has already been shown that Clancy touched the extremes of political and social life in the city. Some, of whom Mrs. Hunter was an exasperated exponent, could be cold toward him, but they could neither ignore nor despise him. Those beginning to cast off the fetters of enmity and prejudice, secretly admired him and were friendly. While cordial in his relations, therefore, with Northern people and Northern enterprises of the right stamp, he had not so lost his hold on Mara's exclusive circle as to remain in ignorance of what was transpiring within it, and he secretly resolved that if Bodine sought to take the girl of his heart from him, and, as he truly believed, from all chance of true happiness herself, he would give as earnest a warning as ever one soul gave to another.

In June he received a strong diversion to his thoughts. Mr. Ainsley wrote him from New York, in effect, that he with his daughter would soon be in Charleston—that his interests in the South had become so large as to require personal attention; also that he had new enterprises in view. The young man's interest and ambition were naturally kindled. As Mara had taken the Bodines and their affairs as an antidote for her trouble, he sought relief in the preoccupation which the Ainsleys might bring to his mind. Accordingly he met father and daughter at the station and escorted them to the hotel with some degree of pleasurable excitement.

Miss Ainsley made the same impression of remarkable beauty and cosmopolitan culture as at first. There was a refined, easy poise in her bearing. Indeed he almost fancied that, to her mind, coming to Charleston was a sort of condescension, she had visited so many famous cities in the world. She greeted him cordially, and to a vain man her brilliant eyes would have expressed more than the mere pleasure of seeing an old acquaintance again.

But few days elapsed before Mr. Ainsley was on the wing, here and there where his interests called him, meantime making the Charleston hotel his headquarters. Miss Ainsley's friend, Mrs. Willoughby, carried off the daughter to her pretty home on the Battery, where sea-breezes tempered the Southern sun. Clancy aided the father satisfactorily in business ways, and the daughter found him so agreeable socially as to manifest a wish to see him often. She interested him as a "rara avis" which he felt that he would like to understand better, and he would have been less than a man if not fascinated by her beauty, accomplishments and intelligence. Miss Ainsley could not fail to charm the eyes of sense as well, and she was not chary of the secret that she had been fashioned in one of Nature's finest molds. The soft, warm languor of the summer evenings was, to her, ample excuse for revealing the glowing marble of her neck and bosom to dark Southern eyes, and admirers began to gather like bees to honey ready made.

Clancy had wished to see her deportment toward other young men, and now had the opportunity. The result flattered him in spite of himself. To others she was courteous, affable and sublimely indifferent. When he approached it seemed almost as if a film passed from her eyes, that she awakened into a fuller life and became an enchantress in her versatile powers. He responded with as fine a courtesy as her own, although quite different, but there was a cool, steady self-restraint in eyes and manner which piqued and charmed her.