The Voice of the People

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

"Thanky, Marse George," said Cæsar. He passed his arm under the judge's head and raised him as he would a child. As the glass touched his lips the judge spoke in a clear voice. "To the ladies!" he cried.

"He is regaining the use of his limbs," whispered Mrs. Burwell softly. "He will be well again," and Nicholas left the room and went downstairs. At the door he gave his instructions to a woman servant. "I shall return to spend the night," he said. "You will see that my room is ready. Yes, I'll be back to supper." He had had no dinner, but at the moment this was forgotten. In the relief that had come to him he wanted solitude and the breadth of the open fields. He was going over the old ground again—to breathe the air and feel the dust of the Old Stage Road.

He passed the naked walls of the church and followed the wide white street to the college gate. Then, turning, he faced the way to his father's farm and the distant pines emblazoned on the west.

A clear gold light flooded the landscape, warming the pale dust of the deserted road. The air was keen with the autumn tang, and as he walked the quick blood leaped to his cheeks. He was no longer conscious of his forty years—his boyhood was with him, and middle age was a dream, or less than a dream.

In the branch road a fall of tawny leaves hid the ruts of wheels, and the sun, striking the ground like a golden lance, sent out sharp, fiery sparks as from a mine of light. Overhead the red trees rustled.

It was here that Eugenia had ridden beside him in the early morning—here he had seen her face against the enkindled branches—and here he had placed the scarlet gum leaves in her horse's bridle. The breeze in the wood came to him like the echo of her laugh, faded as the memory of his past passion. Well, he had more than most men, for he had the ghost of a laugh and the shadow of love.

Passing his father's house, he went on beyond the fallen shanty of Uncle Ish into the twilight of the cedars. At the end of the avenue he saw the rows of box—twisted and tall with age—leading to the empty house, where the stone steps were wreathed in vines. Did Eugenia ever come back, he wondered, or was the house to crumble as Miss Chris's rockery had done? On the porch he saw the marks made by the general's chair, which had been removed, and on one of the long green benches there was an E cut in a childish hand. At a window above—Eugenia's window—a shutter hung back upon its hinges, and between the muslin curtains it seemed to him that a face looked out and smiled—not the face of Eugenia, but a ghost again, the ghost of his old romance.

He went into the garden, crossing the cattle lane, where the footprints of the cows were fresh in the dust. Near at hand he heard a voice shouting. It was the voice of the overseer, but the sound startled him, and he awoke abruptly to himself and his forty years. The spell of the past was broken—even the riotous old garden, blending its many colours in a single blur, could not bring it back. The chrysanthemums and the roses and the hardy zenias that came up uncared for were powerless to reinvoke the spirit of the place. If Eugenia, in her full-blown motherhood, had risen in an overgrown path he might have passed her by unheeding. His Eugenia was a girl in a muslin gown, endowed with immortal youth—the youth of visions unfulfilled and desire unquenched. His Eugenia could never grow old—could never alter—could never leave the eternal sunshine of dead autumns. In his nostrils was the keen sweetness of old-fashioned flowers, but his thoughts were not of them, and, turning presently, he went back as he had come. It was dark when at last he reached the judge's house and sat down to supper.

He was with the judge until midnight, when, before going to his room, he descended the stairs and went out upon the porch. He had been thinking of the elections three days hence, and the outcome seemed to him more hopeful than it had done when he first came forward as a candidate. The uncertainty was almost as great, this he granted; but behind him he believed to be the pressure of the people's will—which the schemes of politicians had not turned. Tuesday would prove nothing—nor had the conventions that had been held; when the meeting of the caucus came, he would still be in ignorance—unaware of traps that had been laid or surprises to be sprung. It was the mark to which his ambition had aimed—the end to which his career had faced—that now rose before him, and yet in his heart there was neither elation nor distrust. He had done his best—he had fought fairly and well, and he awaited what the day might bring forth.

Above him a full moon was rising, and across the green the crooked path wound like a silver thread, leading to the glow of a night-lamp that burned in a sick-room. The night, the air, the shuttered houses were as silent as the churchyard, where the tombstones glimmered, row on row. Only somewhere on the vacant green a hound bayed at the moon.