“I’ve got it, Larry. Are you a Mason?”
“No. Why?”
“Oh! Nothing—I was just thinking of that old Masonic lodge where the chaplain preached and Leech led in prayer. You issue your orders—and leave me +to manage it: this tailoring part is what’s going to play the deuce. I can settle the other—I’m a churchman—I ought to have been a bishop.”
As Thurston foresaw, it was the order touching the uniforms which gave the greatest offence, and in the indignation which this aroused, the other was almost lost sight of. It was intended to show the negroes, the old residents said, that the Southerners were completely in subjection to the Federal authorities. Which view gained some ground from the fact that the orders were issued by Leech, who appeared to be charged with their enforcement.
The next day there was a storm in the county.
The little General made old Julius burnish up his buttons until they shone like gold, and then rode into the village to interview the officer in command. He was stopped on the street by Leech, and was ordered to cut them off immediately if he did not wish him to do it for him, on which the gallant old Confederate stated to that functionary as placidly as he might have returned an answer to Miss Thomasia on the subject of roses, that if Leech so much as attempted to lay his hand on him, he would kill him immediately; and the look in his eyes was so resolute and so piercing that Leech, who supposed from this that he was fully armed, slunk away to secure a squad of soldiers to enforce his order. The General rode serenely on to find Middleton. No one was present at the interview. But it became known afterward that the General had begun by an intimation that he was ready to renew his polite offer of the pair of duelling pistols to Captain Middleton, if the Captain wished to give a gentleman who found himself temporarily in a somewhat embarrassing position, a gentleman’s satisfaction; and that he had come away, not, indeed, with this satisfaction, but, at least, with renewed esteem for the young men, whom he continued to speak of as “most gentlemanly young fellows”; and he covered his buttons with cloth.
Steve Allen let Miss Thomasia cover his with crêpe, and having led Leech into questioning him as to the reason for this, said that it was mourning because a certain cowardly hound had only barked at Mammy Krenda one day, instead of attempting to touch her, and giving her the opportunity to cut the skin from him. Dr. Cary found his buttons cut off by Mrs. Cary and Miss Blair—“to prevent,” Blair said, “their being defiled by sacrilegious hands.”
Jacquelin Gray was at this time confined to his lounge, by his wound; but it had this drop of consolation for his mother and Aunt Thomasia, that so long as he stayed there he could not be subjected to what others underwent. They reckoned, however, without their host.
One afternoon Leech rode into the Red Rock yard with a squad of soldiers at his back, and riding across the grass to the very door, dismounted and stamped up the steps, and, without waiting for an answer to his loud rap, stalked into the hall, with his men behind him. Where he had come from no one knew; for he had ridden in the back way. It transpired afterwards that he had stopped for a minute at the overseer’s house.
At the moment Leech appeared in the hall, Jacquelin was lying on his lounge, with Blair Cary and Rupert sitting beside him, and the first he knew of the Provost’s presence was when Blair, with an exclamation, sprang to her feet. He turned and faced Leech as he entered the hall. The Provost appeared dazed by the scene before him; for scores of eyes were fastened on him from the walls, and he stood for a moment rooted to the spot, with his gaze fixed on the face of the “Indian-killer” over the big fireplace. That strange embodiment of fierce resolve seemed almost to appal him. The next instant, with a gesture, he came forward to where Jacquelin lay. At the same moment Blair retired to seek Mrs. Gray and Miss Thomasia. Leech’s eyes followed her as she went out.