CHAPTER II THE ABSENCE OF GOVERNOR OSBORNE
Griswold spent the night at the Saluda House, Columbia, and rose in the morning with every intention of seeing Governor Osborne, or some one in authority at his office, as soon as possible and proceeding to Richmond without further delay. As he scanned the morning newspaper at breakfast he read with chagrin this item, prominently head-lined:
Governor Osborne, who was expected home from the Cotton Planters' Convention yesterday morning has been unavoidably detained in Atlanta by important personal business. Miss Barbara Osborne arrived last night and proceeded at once to the governor's mansion.
Several matters of considerable importance await the governor's return. Among these is the matter of dealing with the notorious Bill Appleweight. It is understood that the North Carolina officials are unwilling to arrest Appleweight, though his hiding-place in the hills on the border near Kildare is well known. Although he runs back and forth across the state line at pleasure, he is a North Carolinian beyond question, and it's about time Governor Dangerfield took note of the fact. However, the governor of South Carolina may be relied on to act with his usual high sense of public duty in this matter.
Professor Griswold was not pleased to learn that the governor was still absent from the capital. He felt that he deserved better luck after the trouble he had taken to warn the governor. His conscience had got the better of his comfort—he knew that, and he wrote a telegram to the law firm at Richmond with which he was consultant, asking that a meeting with certain clients arranged for to-day be deferred twenty-four hours. It was now Tuesday; he had no further lectures at the university until the following Monday, and after he had taken his bearings of Columbia, where it occurred to him he had not an acquaintance, he walked toward the capitol with a well-formed idea of seeing the governor's private secretary—and, if that person appeared to be worthy of confidence, apprising him of the governor's danger.
Standing in the many-pillared portico of the capitol, Griswold turned to look down upon Columbia, a city distinguished to the most casual eye by streets an acre wide! And having an historical imagination and a reverence for the past, Griswold gave himself for a moment to Memory, hearing the tramp of armed hosts, and the thunder of cannon, and seeing flames leap again in the wake of battle. It was a glorious day, and the green of late May lay like a soft scarf upon the city. The sky held the wistful blue of spring. Griswold bared his head to the faint breeze, or perhaps unconsciously he saluted the bronze figure of Hampton, who rides forever there at the head of his stubborn legion. He turned into the capitol with a little sigh, for he was a son of Virginia, and here, in this unfamiliar scene, the Past was revivified, and he felt the spell of things that were already old when he was born.
It was not yet nine o'clock when he entered the governor's office. He waited in the reception-room, adjoining the official chamber, but the several desks of the clerical staff remained unoccupied. He chafed a bit as time passed and no one appeared, for his north-bound train left at eleven, and he could not fairly be asked to waste the entire day here. He was pacing the floor, expecting one of the clerks to appear at any moment, when a man entered hurriedly, walked to the closed inner door, shook it impatiently, and kicked it angrily as he turned away. He was a short, thick-set man of thirty-five, dressed in blue serge, and his movements were quick and nervous. He growled under his breath and swung round upon Griswold as though to tax him with responsibility for the closed door.