Roads of Destiny
The Guardian of the Accolade |
|||
|
3,487 words
The Guardian of the Accolade
Weymouth lay, dreamy and unbrageous, among the low foothills
along the brow of a Southern valley. Three banks there were in
Jeymouthville. Two were hopeless, misguided enterprises, lacking the
presence and prestige of a Weymouth to give them glory. The third was
The Bank, managed by the Weymouths --- and Uncle Bushrod. In the old
Weymouth homestead --- the red brick, white- porticoed mansion, the
first to your right as you crossed Elder Creek,
coming into town --- lived Mr. Robert Weymouth (the president of
the bank), his widowed daughter, Mrs. Vesey --- called "Miss
Letty" by every one ---and her two children, Nan and Guy. There,
also in a cottage on the grounds, resided Uncle Bushrod and Aunt
Malindy, his wife. Mr. William Weymouth (the cashier of the bank) lived
in a modern, fine house on the principal avenue.
Mr. Robert was a large, stout man, sixty-two years of age, with a
smooth, plump face, long iron-gray hair and fiery blue eyes. He was
high-tempered, kind, and generous, with a youthful smile and a
formidable, stern voice that did not always mean what it sounded like.
Mr. William was a milder man, correct in deportment and absorbed in
business. The Weymouths formed The Family of Weymouthville, and were
looked up to, as was their right of heritage.
Uncle Bushrod was the bank's trusted porter, messenger, vassal,
and guardian. He carried a key to the vault, just as Mr. Robert and Mr.
William did. Sometimes there was ten, fifteen, or twenty thousand
dollars in sacked silver stacked on the vault floor. It was safe with
Uncle Bushrod. He was a Weymouth in heart, honesty, and pride.
Of late Uncle Bushrod had not been without worry. It was on
account of Marse Robert. For nearly a year Mr. Robert had been known to
indulge in too much drink. Not enough, understand, to
become tipsy, but the habit was getting a hold upon him, and
every one was beginning to notice it. Half a dozen times a day he would
leave the bank and step around to the Merchantst and Planters' Hotel to
take a drink. Mr. Robert's usual keen judgment and business capacity
became a little impaired. Mr. William, a Weymouth, but not so rich in
experience, tried to dam the inevitable backflow of the tide, but with
incomplete success. The deposits in the Weymouth Bank dropped from six
figures to five. Past-due paper began to accumulate, owing to
injudicious loans. No one cared to address Mr. Robert on the subject of
temperance. Many of his friends said that the cause of it had been the
death of his wife some two years before. Others hesitated on account of
Mr. Robert's quick temper, which was extremely apt to resent personal
interference of such a nature. Miss Letty and the children noticed the
change and grieved about it. Uncle Bushrod also worried, but he was one
of those who would not have dared to remonstrate, although he and Marse
Robert had been raised almost as companions. But there was a heavier
shock coming to Uncle Bushrod
than that caused by the bank president's toddies and juleps.
Mr. Robert had a passion for fishing, which he usually indulged
whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had
been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his
intention of making a two- or three-days' visit to the lakes. He was
going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, an old friend.
Now, Uncle Bushrod was treasurer of the Sons and Daughters of the
Burning Bush. Every association he belonged to made him treasurer
without hesitation. He stood AA1 in colored circles. He was understood
among them to be Mr. Bushrod Weymouth, of the Weymouth Bank.
The night following the day on which Mr. Robert mentioned his
intended fishing-trip the old man woke up and rose from his bed at
twelve o'clock, declaring he must go down to the bank and fetch the
pass-book of the Sons and Daughters, which he had forgotten to bring
home. The bookkeeper had balanced it for him that day, put the cancelled
checks in it, and snapped two elastic bands around it. He put but one
band around other passbooks.
Aunt Malindy objected to the mission at so late an hour,
denouncing it as foolish and unnecessary, but Uncle Bushrod was not to
be deflected from duty.
"I done told Sister Adaline Hoskins," he said, "to
come by here for dat book to-morrow mawnin' at sebin o'clock, for to
kar' it to de meetin' of de bo'd of 'rangements, and dat book
"gwine to be here when she come."
So, Uncle Bushrod put on his old brown suit, got his thick
hickory stick, and meandered through the almost deserted streets of
Weymouthville. He entered the bank, unlocking the side door, and found
the passbook where he had left it in the little back room used for
private consultations, where he always hung his coat. Looking about
casually, he saw that everything was as he had left it, and was about to
start for home when he was brought to a standstill by the sudden rattle
of a key in the front door. Some one came quickly in, closed the door
softly, and entered the counting-room through the door in the iron
railing.
That division of the bank's space was connected with the back
room by a narrow passage-way, now in deep darkness.
Uncle Bushrod, firmly gripping his hickory stick, tiptoed gently
up this passage until he could see the midnight intruder into the sacred
precincts of the Weymouth Bank. One dim gas-jet burned there, but even
in its nebulous light he perceived at once that the prowler was the
bank's president.
Wondering, fearful, undecided what to do, the old colored man
stood motionless in the gloomy strip of hallway, and waited
developments.
The vault, with its big iron door, was opposite him. Inside that
was the safe, holding the papers of value, the gold and currency of the
bank. On the floor of the vault was, perhaps, eighteen thousand dollars
in silver.
The president took his key from his pocket, opened the vault and
went inside, nearly closing the door behind him. Uncle Bushrod saw,
through the narrow aperture, the flicker of a candle. In a minute or two
--- it seemed an hour to the watcher --- Mr. Robert came out, bringing
with him a large hand-satchel, handling it in a careful but hurried
manner, as if fearful that he might be observed. With one hand he closed
and locked the vault door.
With a reluctant theory forming itself beneath his wool, Uncle
Bushrod waited and watched, shaking in his concealing shadow.
Mr. Robert set the satchel softly upon a desk, and turned his
coat collar up about his neck and ears. He was dressed in a rough suit
of gray, as if for travelling. He glanced with frowning intentness at
the big office clock above the burning gasket, and then looked
lingeringly about the bank --- lingeringly and fondly, Uncle Bushrod
thought, as one who bids farewell to dear and familiar scenes.
Now he caught up his burden again and moved promptly and softly
out of the bank by the way he had come locking the front door behind
him.
For a minute or longer Uncle Bushrod was as stone in his tracks.
Had that midnight rifler of safes and vaults been any other on earth
than the man he was, the old retainer would have rushed upon him and
struck to save the Weymouth property. But now the watcher's soul was
tortured by the poignant dread of something worse than mere robbery. He
was seized by an accusing terror that said the Weymouth name and the
Weymouth honor was about to be lost.
Marse Robert robbing the bank! What else could it mean? The hour
of the night, the stealthy visit to the vault, the satchel brought forth
full and with expedition and silence, the prowler's rough dress, his
solicitous reading of the clock, and noiseless departure --- what
else could it mean?
And then to the turmoil of Uncle Bushrod's thoughts came the
corroborating recollection of preceding events --- Mr. Robert's
increasing intemperance and consequent many moods of royal high spirits
and stern tempers; the casual talk he had heard in the bank of the
decrease in business and difficulty in collecting loans. What else could
it all mean but that Mr. Robert Weymouth was an absconder --- was about
to fly with the bank's remaining funds, leaving Mr. William, Miss
Letty, little Nan, Guy, and Uncle Bushrod to bear the disgrace?
During one minute Uncle Bushrod considered these things, and then
he awoke to sudden determination and action.
"Lawd! Lawd!" he moaned aloud, as he hobbled hastily
toward the side door. "Sech a come-off after all dese here years of
big coin's and fine doin's. Scan'lous sights upon de yearth when de
Weymouth fambly done turn out robbers and 'bezzlers! Time for Uncle
Bushrod to clean out somebody's chicken-coop and eben matters up. Oh,
Lawd! Marse Robert, you ain't 'gwine do dat. 'N Miss Letty an' dem
chillum so proud and talking' 'Weymouth, Weymouth,' all de time! I'm 'gwine to stop you of I can.
'Spec yo shoot Mr. Nigger's head off ef he fool wid you, but I'm
'gwine stop you ef I can. "
Uncle Bushrod, aided by his hickory stick, impeded by his
rheumatism, hurried down the street toward the railroad station, where
the two lines touching Weymouthville met. As he had expected and feared,
he saw there Mr. Robert, standing in the shadow of the building, waiting
for the train. He held the satchel in his hand.
When Uncle Bushrod came within twenty yards of the bank
president, standing like a huge, gray ghost by the station wall, sudden
perturbation seized him. The rashness and audacity of the thing he had
come to do struck him fully. He would have been happy could he have
turned and fled from the possibilities of the famous Weymouth wrath. But
again he saw, in his fancy, the white reproachful face of Miss Letty,
and the distressed looks of Nan and Guy, should he fail in his duty and
they questioned him as to his stewardship.
Braced by the thought, he approached in a straight line, clearing
his throat and pounding his stick so that he might be early recognized.
Thus he might avoid the likely danger of too suddenly surprising
the sometimes hasty Robert.
"Is that you, Bushrod?" called the clamant, clear voice
of the gray ghost.
"Yes, suh, Marse Robert."
"What the devil are you doing out at this time of
night?"
For the first time in his life, Uncle Bushrod told Marse Robert a
falsehood. He could not repress it. He would have to circumlocute a
little. His nerve was not equal to a direct attack.
"I done been down, sub, to see ol' Aunt M'ria Patterson. She
taken sick in de night, and I kyar'ed her a bottle of M'lindy's
medercine. Yes, suh."
"Humph!" said Robert. "You better get home out of
the night air. It's damp.
You'll hardly be worth killing to-morrow on account of
your rheumatism. Think it'll be a clear day, Bushrod?"
"I 'low it will, sub. De sun sot red las' night."
Mr. Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like
his gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle
Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful subject.
He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel and fumbling
with his stick. But then, afar off --- three miles away, at the Jimtown
switch --- he heard the faint whistle of the coming train, the one that
was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of dishonor and
shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced the chief of the
clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty,
terrible Weymouth --- he bearded him there at the brink of the
awful thing that was about
to happen.
"Marse Robert," he began, his voice quavering a little
with the stress of his feelings, "you 'member de day dey--all rode
de tunnament at Oak Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin', and you
crown Miss Lucy de queen?"
"Tournament?" said Mr. Robert, taking his cigar from
his mouth. "Yes, I remember very well the --- but what the deuce
are you talking about tournaments here at midnight for? Go 'long home,
Bushrod. I believe you're
sleepwalking."
"Miss Lucy fetch you on de shoulder," continued the old
man, never heeding, "wid a s'ord, and say: 'I mek you a knight, Suh
Robert --- rise up, pure and fearless and widout reproach.' Dat what
Miss Lucy say. Dat's been a long time ago, but me nor you ain't
forgot it. And den dar's another time we ain't forgot --- de time
when Miss Lucy lay on her las' bed. She sent for Uncle Bushrod, and she
say: 'Uncle Bushrod, when I die, I want you to take good care of Mr. Robert. Seem like' --- so Miss Lucy say --- 'he listen to
you mo' den to anybody
else. He apt to be mighty fractious sometimes, and maybe he cuss you
when you try to 'suede him but he need somebody what
understand him to be 'round wid him. He am like a little child
sometimes' --- so Miss Lucy
say, wid her eyes shinin' in her po', thin face --- 'but he always been'
--- dem was her words ---'my knight, pure and fearless and widout
reproach.' "
Mr. Robert began to mask, as was his habit, a tendency to
soft-heartedness with a spurious anger.
"You --- you old windbag!" he growled through a cloud
of swirling cigar smoke. "I believe you are crazy. I told you to go
home, Bushrod. Miss Lucy
said that, did she? Well, we haven't kept the scutcheon
very clear. Two years ago last week, wasn't it, Bushrod, when she
died? Confound it! Are you going to stand there all night gabbing like a
coffee-colored gander?)'
The train whistled again. Now it was at the water tank, a mile
away.
Marse Robert, " said Uncle Bushrod, laying his hand on the
satchel that the banker held. "For Gawd's sake, don't take dis wid
you. I knows what's in it. I knows where you got it in de bank. Don'
kyar it wid you. Dey's big trouble in dat valise for Miss Lucy
and Miss Lucy's child's chillun. Hit's bound to destroy de name of
Weymouth and bow dem dat own it wid shame and triberlation. Marse
Robert, you can kill dis ole nigger ef you will, but don't take away dis
'er' valise. If I ever
crosses over de Jordan, what I 'gwine to say to Miss Lucy when she ax
me: 'Uncle Bushrod, wharfo' didn' you take good care of Mr. Robert?'
"
Mr. Robert Weymouth threw away his cigar and shook free one arm
with that peculiar gesture that always preceded his outbursts of
irascibility. Uncle Bushrod bowed his head to the expected storm, but he
did not flinch. If the house of Weymouth was to fall, he would fall with
it. The banker spoke, and Uncle Bushrod blinked with surprise. The storm
was there, but it was suppressed to the quietness of a summer breeze.
"Bushrod," said Mr. Robert, in a lower voice than he
usually employed, "you have overstepped all bounds. You have
presumed upon the leniency with which you have been treated, to meddle unpardonably. So you know what is in this satchel! Your long and
faithful service is some excuse, but --- go home, Bushrod --- not
another word!"
But Bushrod grasped the satchel with a firmer hand. The headlight
of the train was lightening the shadows about the station. The roar was
increasing, and folks were stirring about at the track side:
"Marse Robert, gimme dis 'er' valise. I got a right, suh, to
talk to you dis 'er' way. I slaved for you and 'tended to you from a
child - up. I went th'ough de war as yo' body-servant tell we whipped de
Yankees and
sent 'em back to de No'th. I was at yo' weddin', and I wasn' fur away
when yo' Miss Letty was bawn. And Miss Letty's chillun, dey watches
to-day for Uncle Bushrod when he comes home ever' evenin'. I been a'
Weymouth, all 'cept in color and entitlements.
Both of us is old, Marse Robert. Tain't goin' to be long tell we
"gwine to see Miss Lucy and has to give an account of our doin's.
De old nigger man won't be 'spected to say much mo' den he done all he
could by de fambly dat owned him. But de Weymouths, dey must say dey
been livin' pure and fearless and widout reproach. Gimme dis valise,
Marse Robert --- I'm 'gwine to hab it. I'm "wine to take it back to
the bank and lock it up in de vault. I'm 'gwine to do Miss Lucy's
biddin'. Turn 'er loose, Marse Robert."
The train was standing at the station. Some men were pushing
trucks along the side. Two or three sleepy passengers got off and
wandered away into the night. The conductor stepped to the gravel, swung
his lantern and called: "Hello, Frank!" at some one invisible.
The bell clanged, the brakes hissed, the conductor drawled: "All
aboard!"
Mr. Robert released his hold on the satchel. Uncle Bushrod hugged
it to his breast with both arms, as a lover clasps his first beloved.
"Take it back with you, Bushrod," said Mr. Robert,
thrusting his hands into his pockets. "And let the subject drop ---
now mind! You've said quite enough. I'm going to take this train. Tell
Mr. William I will be back on Saturday. Good-night."
The banker climbed the steps of the moving train and disappeared
in a coach. Uncle Bushrod stood motionless, still embracing the precious
satchel. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving in thanks to the
Master above for the salvation of the Weymouth honor.
He knew Mr. Robert would return when he said he would. The
Weymouths never lied. Nor now, thank the Lord! could it ever be said
that they embezzled the money in banks.
Then awake to the necessity for further guardianship of Weymouth
trust funds, the old man started for the bank with the redeemed satchel.
Three hours from Weymouthville, in
the gray dawn, Mr. Robert alighted from the train at a lonely
flag-station. Dimly he could see the figure of a man waiting on the
platform and the shape of a spring-wagon, team and driver. Half a dozen
lengthy bamboo fishing-poles projected from the wagon's rear.
"You're here, Bob," said Judge Archinard, Mr. Robert's
old friend and schoolmate. "It's going to be a royal day for
fishing. I thought you said --- why, didn't you bring along the
stuff?"
The president of the Weymouth Bank took off his hat and rumpled
his gray locks. "Well, Ben to tell the truth, there's an infernally presumptuous old nigger belonging in my family that broke up the arrangement. He came down to the depot and vetoed the whole proceeding. He means all right, and --- well, I reckon he is right. Somehow, he had found out what I had along --- though I hid it in the bank vault and sneaked it out at midnight. I reckon he has noticed that I've been indulging a little more than a gentleman should, and he laid for me with some reaching arguments.
"I'm going to quit drinking," Mr. Robert concluded.
"I've come to the conclusion that a man can't keep it up and be
quite what he'd like to be --- 'pure and fearless and without reproach'
--- that's the way old Bushrod quoted it."
"Well, I'll have to admit," said the judge,
thoughtfully, as they climbed into the wagon, "that the old
darkey's argument can't conscientiously be overruled."
"Still," said Mr. Robert, with a ghost of a sigh,
"there was two quarts of the finest old silk-velvet Bourbon in that
satchel you ever wet your lips with."
.========================
|
|||
|
|||
