XIV
AT one o'clock the following Sunday afternoon Nelson Floyd drove up to Porter's gate in his new buggy, behind his spirited Kentucky thorough-bred. Nathan Porter in his stockinged feet, for the day was warm, stood on the porch, and as Floyd reined in, he walked down the steps and out to the gate, leaning over it lazily, his slow, pleased glance critically sweeping the horse from head to foot.
“You've got you a dandy at last,” was his observation. “I used to be some'n' of a judge. Them's the slimmest legs fer sech a good stout body I ever seed. He totes his head high without a check-rein, too, an' that's purty. I reckon you come after Cynthia. She'll be out here in a minute. She knows you've come; she kin see the road from the window o' her room. An' I never knowed a woman that could keep from peepin' out.”
“Oh, I'm in no hurry at all,” Floyd assured him. “It's only ten miles, and we can easily make it by the three o'clock service.”
“Oh, well, I reckon it don't make no odds to you whether you hold yore meetin' in that hug-me-tight or under the arbor. I know my choice 'ud 'a' been jest one way when I was on the turf. Camp-meetin's an' bush-arbor revivals used to be our hay-time. Us boys an' gals used to have a great way o' settin' in our buggies, jest outside, whar we could chat all we wanted to, jine in the tunes, an' at the same time git credit fer properly observin' the day.”
“That's about the way the young people look at it now,” Floyd said, with a smile.
“I reckon this is a sort o' picnic to you in more ways than one,” Porter remarked, without a trace of humor in his tone, as he spat over the gate and wiped his chin on his bare hand. “You ort to enjoy a day o' freedom, after waitin' two hours at that spring fer Jeff Wade. Gee whiz! half o' Springtown was behind barracks, sayin' prayers an' beggin' the Lord to spare the town from flames. I didn't stay myself. I don't object to watchin' a fisticuff match once in a while, but fellers in a powder-and-ball battle like that seem to try to mow down spectators as hard as they do the'r man. Then I don't like to be questioned in court. A feller has to forgit so dern much, ef he stands to his friends.”
“No, we avoided trouble,” said Floyd, in evident aversion to a topic so keenly personal. “So you like my horse! He is really the best I could get at Louisville.”
“I reckon.” Porter spat again. “Well, as you say, Wade will shoot an' he kin, too. When he was in the war, they tell me his colonel wanted some sharpshooters an' selected 'im to—but thar's that gal now. Gee whiz! don't she look fluffy?”
For the most part, the drive was through the mountains, along steep roads, past yawning gorges, and across rapid, turbulent streams. It was an ideal afternoon for such an outing, and Cynthia had never looked so well, though she was evidently fatigued. Floyd remarked upon this, and she said: “I don't know why it was, but I waked at three o'clock this morning, and could not get back to sleep before father called me at six. Since then I have been hard at work. I'm afraid I shall feel very tired before we get back.”