“That is precisely what I think—and I have a witness, a ragged boy, hereabouts, whom I have tried to keep respectable, who heard a great noise as of men shouting and drinking at Hackett’s house the night of Hackett’s death. The boy was cold and hungry, and although he knew he would be driven away if caught—for Hackett was a hard-hearted villain—yet he sneaked up to the house and gazed through the half-drawn curtains at the men sitting around the table, fascinated as he says by the sight of fire and food. He heard Hackett singing and laughing, and he saw the faces, and—mark you,—knows the names of those low fellows, who have never been suspected, and who have kept so remarkably quiet. Then, here is the point—one of the very men who deserted from my company, and was very thick afterward with Hackett, suddenly disappeared, and within a month died of injuries he could give no account of. You may depend upon it they had a fight, and it was my former companion in arms that killed the worthy Hackett—not poor Bob Henry’s blow.”
Pembroke’s dark eyes shone.
“We’ll keep this to ourselves, and make the fellow hold his tongue. We won’t give the deserters a chance to concoct a plausible lie. They will be certain to be at the court house when the trial comes off, and when I put them in the witness box unprepared—you will see.”
They talked over the case a half an hour longer before Pembroke got up to go. Then he said: “Are you going to call at The Beeches? You must have known Eliza Koller before she left here.”
“Know her,” cried Cave, “yes, I know her. I hope she has improved in every other way as much as she has in looks. I saw her the other day. It seemed to me that her hair was not so violently yellow when she went away; however, I’ll be cautious,—I see you are badly singed. Little Olivia Berkeley wouldn’t do for my lord—”
Pembroke got up and flung off in a passion, pursued by Cave shouting:
“I’ll give long odds on the widow!”
CHAPTER V.
A few Sundays after that, Mr. Cole’s heart was gladdened by the sight of Madame Koller and the bundle of cloaks and mufflers she called her mamma, walking in church just as the morning service was beginning. The little clergyman felt inspired. He fancied himself like Paul before the Athenians. Olivia Berkeley was there too, and the Colonel, who settled himself in his pew to catch Mr. Cole in a false syllogism or a misquotation—anything to chaff the reverend gentleman about during the coming week. Mr. Cole did his best. He laid aside his manuscript and indulged in an extempore address that warmed the orator, if not the congregation, with something like eloquence. The Hibbses were there too—a florid, well-dressed family, Mr. Hibbs making the responses in a basso so much louder than Mr. Cole’s mild treble that it seemed as if Mr. Hibbs were the parson and Mr. Cole the clerk.
“I tell you what it is my dear,” Colonel Berkeley had said angrily to his daughter half an hour before when the Hibbses swept past them up the flagged walk through the churchyard, “the religion of these infernal Hibbs people is what disgusts me most. They made their money in the war of 1812. Up to then they were shouting Methodists—I’ve heard my father swear it a hundred times—” The Colonel belonged to a class, not uncommon in Virginia, who regarded the Episcopal Church as a close corporation, and resented with great pugnacity any attempt to enter it on the part of the great unwashed. It was the vehicle chosen by the first families to go to heaven in, and marked “Reserved.” Hence the Colonel’s wrath. His church was a church founded by gentlemen, of gentlemen, and for gentlemen, and it was a great liberty for any other class to seek that aristocratic mode of salvation.