The Man in Lonely Land

by Kate Langley Bosher

Half an hour later, bags and boxes having been stored in a state-room, a hasty survey of the boat made, and a few words exchanged with a blue-coated man of friendly manners concerning the hour of departure, Laine again got in the old ramshackle hack and for two hours was shown the honors and glories of the little town which had hitherto been but a name and forever after was to be a smiling memory. Snow and slush covered its sidewalks, mud was deep in the middle of the streets, but the air went to the head with its stinging freshness, the sun shone brilliantly, and in the faces of the people was happy content.

Reins dropped loosely in his lap, Beauregarde, the driver, sat sideways on the box and emitted information in terms of his own; and Laine looked and listened in silent joy to statements made and the manner of their making.

"Yas, suh, this heah town am second only in historic con-se-quence to Williamsburg, suh, though folks don't know it till they come and find it out from me. I been a-drivin' this heah hack and a-studyin' of history for more'n forty years, and I ain't hardly scratch the skin of what done happen heah before a Yankee man was ever thought of. They didn't use to have no Yankees 'fore the war, but they done propogate themselves so all over the land that they clean got possession of 'most all of it. They's worse than them little English sparrows, they tell me. Marse George Washington he used to walk these streets on his way to school. He had to cross the river from Ferry Farm over yonder"—the whip was waved vaguely in the air—"and he wore long trousers till he got to be a man. Young folks didn't use to show their legs in those days, suh, jes' gentlemen. That place we're comin' to is Swan Tavern, and if it could talk it could tell things that big men said, that it could. This heah house is where Mis' Mary, the mother of Marse George Washington, used to live when she got too old to boss the farm. Some society owns it what was originated to preserve our Virginia iniquities, and they done put up a monument to her that's the onliest one ever put up to a woman for being the mother of a man. They was bus head people, the Washingtons was, but so was a lot of others who didn't do nothin' to prove it, and so is now forgot, and quality folks in them days was so thick there warn't enough other kind to do 'em reverence. Governor Spottswood and his Horse-Shoe gentlemen took dinner once in this heah town, and President James Monroe used to live heah. I'm a-goin' to show you his home and his office, presently, and the house where Marse Paul Jones used to live in. I reckon you done heard tell of Marse John Paul Jones, ain't you?"

Laine admitted having heard of him, but historic personages did not interest as much as present-day ones. The occupants of certain quaint and charming old houses, with servants' quarters in the rear and flower-filled gardens in the front, the rose-bushes of which were now bent and burdened with snow, appealed, as the other places of famous associations failed to do, and he wondered in which of them Claudia's relatives lived.

At Marye's Heights Beauregarde waxed eloquent. Half of what he said was unheard, however, and as Laine's eyes swept the famous battle-fields his forehead wrinkled in fine folds. Could they have been settled in any other way—those questions which had torn a nation's heart from its bosom? Would the spilling of blood be forever necessary? He ordered Beauregarde to drive to the hotel. There was just time for lunch, and then the boat which would take him down the river to where Claudia would be waiting.

As the boat swung off from the wharf and slowly made its way down the narrow river, curving like a horse-shoe around its ice-bound banks, Laine, standing in the bow, scanned the scene closely, and wondered if it were but yesterday that he had been in the rush and stir of city life. Straight up from the water the bluff rose boldly. Rays of pale sunlight sent threads of rainbow colors on the snow which covered it, and through the crystal-coated trees, here and there, a stately mansion could be seen overlooking the river. Skimming the water, a sea-gull would now and then dip and splash and rise again in the clear, cold air, and, save for the throb of the engine, there was no sound.

Until the sun had set and darkness made farther scanning of banks and bluff and winding river impossible, Laine walked the deck, hands in pockets, and thought of the morrow and the days ahead. The boat would tie up for the night at Pratt's Wharf and was due at ten the next morning at Brooke Bank if there was no unusual delay. Suddenly he remembered she had said other friends would be on the boat. Most of the passengers were obviously returning home from a shopping trip to the city, package-laden and bundle-burdened, but two city men he had noticed and then forgotten in the thought of other things. Who were they? He opened the door of the stuffy little cabin and went in. Five minutes later he was at the supper-table and next to the two men who were talking in undertones of former Christmases at Elmwood. They were young, good-looking, and of Claudia's world. He got up and again went out.

XVIII

ELMWOOD

For some time Laine had seen Claudia. Walking up and down the little wharf at the end of the long bridge, railless and narrow, which ran far out into the river, her hands in her muff, the collar of her fur coat turned up, her face unprotected by the brown veil which tied down securely the close-fitting hat, he had seen her a long way off, and as she waved her hand in greeting he lifted his hat and waved it in return.