The Valiants of Virginia

by Hallie Erminie Rives

The Red Road, as Valiant’s car passed, was dotted with straggling pedestrians: humble country folk who trudged along the grassy foot-path with no sullen regard for the swift cars and comfortable carriages that left them behind; sturdy barefooted children who called shrilly after him, and happy-go-lucky negro youths clad in their best with Sunday shoes dangling over their shoulders, slouching regardlessly in the dust—all bound for the same Mecca, which presently rose before him, a gateway of painted canvas proclaiming the field to which it opened Runnymede.

This was a spacious level meadow into which debouched the ravine on whose rim he had stood with Shirley on that unforgettable day. But its stake-and-ridered fence enclosed now no mere stretch of ill-kept sward. Busy scythes, rollers and grass-cutters from the Country Club had smoothed and shaven a rectangle in its center till it lay like a carpet of crushed green velvet, set in an expanse of life-everlasting and pale budding goldenrod.

He halted his car at the end of the field and snapped a leash in the bulldog’s collar. “I hate to do it, old man,” he said apologetically to Chum’s reproachful look, “but I’ve got to. There are to be some stunts, and in such occasions you’re apt to be convinced you’re the main one of the contestants, which might cause a mix-up. Never mind; I’ll anchor you where you won’t miss anything.”

With the excited dog tugging before him, he threaded his way through the press with keen exhilaration. This was not a crowd like that of a city; rather it resembled the old-homestead day of some unbelievably populous family, at reunion with its servants and retainers. All its members knew one another and the air was musical with badinage. Now and then his gloved hand touched his cap at a salutation. He was conscious of swift bird-like glances from pretty girls. Here was none of the rigid straight-ahead gaze or vacant stare of the city boulevard; the eyes that looked at him, frankly curious and inquiring, were full of easy open comradeship. There was about both men and women an air of being at the same time more ceremonious and more casual than those he had known. Some of the girls wore gowns and hats that might that morning have issued from the Rue de la Paix; others were habited in cheap materials. But about the latter hung no benumbing self-consciousness. All bore themselves alike. And all seemed to possess musical voices, graceful movements and a sense of quiet dignity. He was beginning to realize that there might really exist straitened circumstances, even actual poverty, which yet created no sort of social difference.

Opposite the canvas-covered grand stand sat twelve small mushroom tents, each with a staff and tiny flag. Midway lines of flaxen ropes stretched between rows of slender peeled saplings from whose tops floated fanged streamers of vivid bunting. A pavilion of purple cloth, open at the sides, awaited the committee, and near the center, a negro band was disposed on camp-stools, the brass of the waiting instruments winking in the sunlight. The stand was a confused glow of color, of light gauzy dresses, of young girls in pastel muslins with flowers in their belts, picturesque hats and slender articulate hands darting in vivacious gestures like white swallows—the gentry from the “big houses.” About the square babbled and palpitated the crowd of the farm-wagon and carry-all; and at the lower end, jostling, laughing and skylarking beyond the barrier, a picturesque block of negroes, picked out by flashing white teeth, red bandannas folded above wrinkled countenances and garish knots of ribbon flaunting above the pert yellow faces of a younger mulatto race.

The light athletic figure, towed by the white bulldog, drew many glances. Valiant’s eyes, however, as they swept the seats, were looking for but one, and at first vainly. He felt a quick pang of disappointment. Perhaps she would not come! Perhaps her mother was still ill. Perhaps—but then suddenly his heart beat high, for he saw her in the lower tier, with a group of young people. He could not have told what she wore, save that it was of soft Murillo blue with a hat whose down-curved brim was wound with a shaded plume of the same tint. Her mother was not with her. She was not looking his way as he passed—her arms at the moment being held out in an adorable gesture toward a little child in a smiling matron’s lap—and but a single glance was vouchsafed him before the major seized upon him and bore him to the purple pavilion, for he was one of the committee.

But for this distraction, he might have seen, entering the stand with the Chalmers just as the band struck up a delirious whirl of Dixie, the two strangers whom the doctor had observed an hour before as they whirled by the Merryweather Mason house behind the judge’s grays. Silas Fargo might have passed in any gathering for the unobtrusive city man. Katharine was noticeable anywhere, and to-day her tall willowy figure in its champagne-color lingerie gown and hat garnished with bronze and gold thistles, setting in relief her ivory statuesque face, drew a wave of whispered comment which left a sibilant wake behind them. The party made a picturesque group as they now disposed themselves, Katharine’s colorless loveliness contrasting with the eager sparkle of pretty Nancy Chalmers and the gipsy-like beauty of Betty Page.

“You call it a tournament, don’t you?” asked Katharine of the judge.

“Yes,” he replied. “It’s a kind of contest in which twelve riders compete for the privilege of naming a Queen of Beauty. There’s a ball to-night, at which the lucky lady is crowned. Those little tents are where the noble knights don their shining armor. See, there go their caparisoned chargers.”