The Fanatics/Chapter 18

The arrangements for the meeting between Walter Stewart and Lieutenant Forsythe were as simple as the brevity of their conversation indicated. The whole matter was to be kept a profound secret as much on account of Walter's position as a paroled prisoner as because of the other's place in the army. They were to face each other in a small open space under the trees that lined a little creek about three miles from the Etheridge cottage. They were both familiar with the place and agreed upon it with equal readiness. Because of the secrecy which they wished maintained, there were to be no witnesses beside the two seconds, but each might bring with him a trusted friend or servant. Thus promptly, they arranged the affair leaving only to the assistants yet to be chosen the task of marking the ground and giving the signal. Pistols were the weapons.

When, after parting with Dolly, Walter called Sam to his room, it was to dispatch him on a ​delicate and doubtful errand. Recognizing the peculiar attitude of his neighbors towards him, he had formed but few friendships and these only of the most tentative kind. Now, in this emergency, he needed a friend and a confidant. His mind turned to but one person, a young Dr. Daniel, whose frank manner had won him as much as he dared yield himself. He now sent the servant to bring to him this man upon the plea of most pressing business.

In less than an hour, the young physician was with him. He was an open-faced, breezy looking young man of nine-and-twenty, or thereabouts, with the assured manner of perfect self-possession and self-reliance.

He came into the room with a soft though brisk step, but stopped in surprise to see Walter pacing up and down the room.

"Come in, doctor."

"Why, why, man, from the expression of that rascal of yours, I expected to find you in bed tossing with a raging fever or laid up with a broken leg."

"I shall not be your patient, to-night, doctor, to-morrow, who can say?"

"Eh, what's this? Not thinking of suicide, are you?"

"I'm thinking of how good a shot my opponent may be. The fact is, Dr. Daniel, I called you ​here on a business that is almost, if not wholly impertinent. But I hope you will pardon and help me, for there is no one else to whom I may turn." He then recounted to him the events of the night; the physician's face, already inclined to ruddiness, growing redder and angrier as he went on.

"Now, doctor," concluded Walter, "I am sure that Forsythe's intentions were neither honest nor official, and I have only tried to do my duty. Is it too much to ask you to forget what I am politically, and to be my friend and second in this matter?"

"Forget what you are? Damn what you are, Stewart. I'll tell you what I'll do, man, I'll change places with you. I'll let you be my second."

"It's my fight."

"But don't you see it's a nasty business, and might get you into complications."

"I am willing to risk all that."

"Oh, come now, be sensible. The lady's brother is a good friend of mine."

"The lady is a good friend of mine."

"But I know the whole story; how he has tried to annoy that girl ever since she rejected him two years ago as any girl of decency and spirit would have done. I know he has always kept just outside the limit that would give her ​brother the right to fill his carcass full of lead. He has overstepped it now, and I want a chance to get a shot at the dirtiest hound in all Virginia. Give it to me."

"Wish I could, old man, but I want it myself."

"Oh, well, I always was a selfish dog. It's your say and if you won't, you won't; but anyhow, I'm with you, and I'll be in at the death if I can't have the brush."

"Thank you, doctor, your kindness is even greater than I could have hoped for, even from you."

"Yours isn't, or you'd have given me a shot at that cur; but remember if he happens to hit you, and God forbid that, I get the next chance at his hide."

"I wouldn't want to leave the business to a better man, and now, let us complete our arrangements, and then you may get to bed."

They talked for a short time longer, and then Walter conducted the physician to his room, while he gave his attention to one or two other duties. The last words the buoyant young Southerner said to him as he began to undress wore, "Um, you're a lucky dog—a shot at Forsythe!"

It was before the darkness of the night had given way to the morning's grey that the men ​were up and ready for the saddle. Dr. Daniel had already reached the lawn where Sam was holding the horses. Walter loitered down the hallway, half expecting, yet half doubting that he should see Dolly.

"She's asleep, of course," he told himself, "and I'm glad of it. How could I expect her to get up after such a night as she has had. I was a brute to think of it." Nevertheless, there was a dissatisfied feeling tugging at his heart as he stepped out on the veranda. But his foot had scarcely touched the floor when his eye caught the flash of a woman's white shawl up under some vines that overhung the porch. His heart, suddenly relieved from its tension, gave a great leap as he hastened towards her.

"Dolly," he said, "I was afraid you wouldn't come. Indeed, I didn't want you to, dear."

"I had to come, if only to bid you Godspeed, Walter. Come back to me, you will, won't you?"

"To answer that, lies beyond me, my darling, but I will try. If I don't———"

"Don't say that—you will."

"Good-bye, now."

"Good-bye, Walter, good-bye, and strength to you and a safe return. Good-bye."

She went back and he hastened down and swung into the saddle.

​"We must not keep the gentlemen waiting," he said to the doctor as they rode away slowly until out of ear-shot of the house.

"It will be enough to leave him lie waiting afterwards, and I hope you will leave him for a long wait, after it's all over."

"Well, it's a chance, you know, and I'm willing to take it; if he leaves me, instead, I guess Sam here, can take me home across his horse."

Sam was trailing along, carrying the pistol case, but he caught the words, and spurred up to his master.

"Mas' Waltah," he said solemnly, "ef dat man hits you, dey kin bu'n me er hang me, but he ain' gwine leave dis place alive."

The doctor suddenly halted horse and turned on the negro.

"Now look here, Sam," he said, "it's all right for you to be protecting your master, but whatever happens, if you raise a hand against John Forsythe, I'll kill you on the instant. When your master is done with him, he's my meat, and he'll hardly take the reckoning of us both."

Sam looked appealingly to his master.

"That's right," the latter replied, "you're not in this part of it, Sam, but you did your share last night. Anyhow, I'm not counting on leaving work for anybody this morning."

For the rest of the journey, they rode in silence, ​but Walter's thoughts were busy with the events that had filled his life in the weeks since he bad left Ohio. He reviewed the change that had come to him in his feelings towards the cause he had espoused. He saw how remorse for the disagreement with his father, his affection for his family and the glamour of the South had all combined to win him from a righteous allegiance, and made him lukewarm or indifferent to what he had once felt to be the absolute right. He saw that in spirit, if not in deed, he was as much a deserter as the veriest renegade, who stole from the marching ranks to hide in the thickets and by ways until his comrades had passed on. He saw how much weaker a man he was now than on the day when he had gone out from his father's house in Dorbury, though he did not see that the weakening process had been excusable, even inevitable. Though he held himself mercilessly up to his own criticism, the very fact that he was able to see these things in himself clearly, was evidence of the approach of a new state of mind, a change subtler than either of the others had been. He had begun to get back to himself, to be a man stronger than his surroundings, with a spirit independent of his affections.

At first contact with it, to him, as to many others beyond his years, the condition of the South, its life and its people, had seemed all ​chivalry and romance. The events of the past and the present day's business, had done more to tear aside this veil than anything else could have done. It was clear to him now that they were not all gods and goddesses in Dixie—that if it were an Eden, at least it was not free from serpents. He had received a royally good shaking up, and now he began to perceive that some hasty conclusions which he had reached were not based upon fact. One of these was that the North was eaten up by commercialism while the South was free from it; another that Northern honor and Southern honor were two essentially different things; both these beliefs died an early death as he reflected that here too, men bought and bartered, sold and intrigued. The occurrences which had taken place within the last few months under his eyes now reacted one upon the other with the result of placing him surely, strongly and logically where his first enthusiasm had placed him, and for the first time since he had been paroled, the irksome hatefulness of his situation was borne in upon him. Now he chafed to be in the field again. Now he felt the thrill of fighting for a great cause. His eyes were flashing and his teeth clenched hard when the voice of the doctor called him to the business at hand.

"Here we are," he cried as gaily as though ​they were a party reaching the picnic grounds, "and we're the first here, of course."

They dismounted and tied their horses, and then began examining the ground. It was a plot of greensward, well surrounded by trees, and sloping with a slow incline to a little creek that ran gurgling past—a quiet, pretty enough place, but its very seclusion had made it the recipient of many a bloody secret in those days when men settled affairs of honor according to the code. Two trees stood opposite each other about twenty paces apart, and these had won the name of the "duelling trees," because the distance between them being paced, the principals were usually placed, one under each, and many a deadly combat had been waged beneath their softly sighing branches.

The grey dawn had given way to the warmer hues of morning when two other riders cantered into the circle of trees and halted.

"It's Forsythe," said the doctor. "And he only brings one of his troopers with him as second."

"If it is true that he went on that errand last night without authority, it is just as well that he does not have too many in his secret," was the rejoinder.

The men greeted each other with the utmost formality, though there was a touch of ​brusqueness in the physician's recognition of the lieutenant. While the two principals walked apart, their seconds paused for a brief conference as to conditions. In a little while, Dr. Daniel came to Walter.

"Are you ready and steady, old man?"

"Both," was the calm reply.

"The conditions are these; you are to be stationed at twenty paces, back to back. At the word, you are to turn and fire where you stand, then each has the privilege of advancing, firing until one or the other is hit. Are you satisfied?"

"Perfectly."

"Very well, we are ready," said the doctor to Forsythe's trooper, and together they paced off the ground, already so well known. Then the men were put in their places, and each second saw to the condition of his principal's weapon. Dr. Daniel stationed himself to the left, and midway the ground, while the trooper took a like position to the right.

"Are you ready, gentlemen?" said the latter.

"We are ready."

"One."

Then the clatter of horses' hoofs broke the morning stillness, and he paused. Both men waited with manifest impatience, but neither spoke.

"Go on," said the doctor. "Quick!"

​"Two."

Forsythe half turned, but it was too late. A squad of horsemen in grey uniform burst into the enclosure and rode between the men.

"Walter Stewart," said the sergeant, "I arrest you upon the charge of violating your parole."

"Can you not wait just one moment until this business can be dispatched," said Walter calmly.

But the officer spurred away from him with a curt, "Your business is not ours."

"Never mind, Forsythe," screamed Daniel, "I'll take the job off of Stewart's hands."

"Lieutenant Forsythe is also under arrest," said the sergeant.

Forsythe went very white, but stood calm as a statue.

"You took a miserable, cowardly way to save yourself," he said when he and Walter were brought together.

"You are mistaken, lieutenant," said the sergeant breaking in, "one of your own men was the informant."

The lieutenant bit his lip. The three prisoners, for the trooper was also put under arrest, mounted their horses and were surrounded by a close guard.

"Why am I too not arrested?" stormed the doctor.

"We had no orders regarding you, sir," was ​the reply, and the little cavalcade cantered away, leaving the physician swearing with feeling and distinction.

"Never mind," he said at last. "Let's go home, Sam. If that old trooper had been a bit quicker, Virginia might have been rid of the meanest sneak that ever scourged her; but instead of that, the party is broken up and nobody gets out of the mess but the doctor and the darky, neither one worth arresting. Come, let's go home."