He had, of course, no right to his title. It had simply accrued to him as titles often do accrue to men of his type, particularly in the South; partly by inheritance, growing as he grew, beginning with a modest lieutenancy in the State Guards, which had been his one and only taste of the career for which he had been created. He never spoke of himself as "Major"; but from the habit of years he had perhaps come to think of himself so, accepting the unsought honor gracefully as he accepted whatever else came his way, whether of good or evil.
It is a pity that he could not have fallen asleep, say, at twenty, in his clean, brave youth; and awakened in the month of August 1914, ready for the day's work....
The Darcys and Joan were running home after a long trip in the Bluegrass one evening, slipping along without lights in the glow of an October aftermath, when at the turn of an unfrequented lane they came suddenly upon a crowd of people collected about a bridge. The chauffeur brought the car to an abrupt stop. It was at once surrounded by several men with handkerchiefs tied over the lower parts of their faces.
"What the devil—" cried Major Darcy.
"Highwaymen!" gasped Joan.
A man with a pistol in his hand said laconically, "No, we ain't highwaymen, lady. We wasn't expectin' comp'ny, but sence you've come, you'll hev to stay. Set right where you are and don't look. We'll be through this job in a minute."
"Nonsense! Let us pass at once," said the Major indignantly. "Drive on over the bridge, James!"
"Better not, James," drawled the laconic one. "We're usin' that bridge ourselves just now."
The chauffeur hesitated, walling his eyes in fright. Joan, who was seated beside him, reached for the ignition switch to start the engine, but turned on instead the lighting-switch. The sudden glare of the headlights revealed some twenty or thirty roughly dressed men of the farmer class, and in their midst, bound hand and foot with rope, a cowering negro.
"My God! It's a lynching," quavered Effie May.