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THE WAY OF A MAN

by

EMERSON HOUGH

Author of _The Covered Wagon_, etc.

Illustrated with Scenes from the Photoplay, _The Way of A Man_,
A Pathe Picture

Grosset & Dunlap
Publishers New York

1907







[Illustration: GRACE SHOWS A LACK OF SYMPATHY.]



CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I THE KISSING OF MISS GRACE SHERATON
II THE MEETING OF GORDON ORME
III THE ART OF THE ORIENT
IV WARS AND RUMORS OF WAR
V THE MADNESS OF MUCH KISSING
VI A SAD LOVER
VII WHAT COMETH IN THE NIGHT
VIII BEGINNING ADVENTURES IN NEW LANDS
IX THE GIRL WITH THE HEART
X THE SUPREME COURT
XI THE MORNING AFTER
XII THE WRECK ON THE RIVER
XIII THE FACE IN THE FIRELIGHT
XIV AU LARGE
XV HER INFINITE VARIETY
XVI BUFFALO
XVII SIOUX!
XVIII THE TEST
XIX THE QUALITY OF MERCY
XX GORDON ORME, MAGICIAN
XXI TWO IN THE DESERT
XXII MANDY MCGOVERN ON MARRIAGE
XXIII ISSUE JOINED
XXIV FORSAKING ALL OTHERS
XXV CLEAVING ONLY UNTO HER
XXVI IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH
XXVII WITH ALL MY WORLDLY GOODS I THEE ENDOW
XXVIII TILL DEATH DO PART
XXIX THE GARDEN
XXX THEY TWAIN
XXXI THE BETROTHAL
XXXII THE COVENANT
XXXIII THE FLAMING SWORD
XXXIV THE LOSS OF PARADISE
XXXV THE YOKE
XXXVI THE GOAD
XXXVII THE FURROW
XXXVIII HEARTS HYPOTHECATED
XXXIX THE UNCOVERING OF GORDON ORME
XL A CONFUSION IN COVENANTS
XLI ELLEN OR GRACE
XLII FACE TO FACE
XLIII THE RECKONING
XLIV THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH
XLV ELLEN





CHAPTER I

THE KISSING OF MISS GRACE SHERATON


I admit I kissed her.

Perhaps I should not have done so. Perhaps I would not do so again. Had
I known what was to come I could not have done so. Nevertheless I did.

After all, it was not strange. All things about us conspired to be
accessory and incendiary. The air of the Virginia morning was so soft
and warm, the honeysuckles along the wall were so languid sweet, the
bees and the hollyhocks up to the walk so fat and lazy, the smell of the
orchard was so rich, the south wind from the fields was so wanton!
Moreover, I was only twenty-six. As it chances, I was this sort of a
man: thick in the arm and neck, deep through, just short of six feet
tall, and wide as a door, my mother said; strong as one man out of a
thousand, my father said. And then--the girl was there.

So this was how it happened that I threw the reins of Satan, my black
horse, over the hooked iron of the gate at Dixiana Farm and strode up to
the side of the stone pillar where Grace Sheraton stood, shading her
eyes with her hand, watching me approach through the deep trough road
that flattened there, near the Sheraton lane. So I laughed and strode
up--and kept my promise. I had promised myself that I would kiss her the
first time that seemed feasible. I had even promised her--when she came
home from Philadelphia so lofty and superior for her stopping a brace of
years with Miss Carey at her Allendale Academy for Young Ladies--that if
she mitigated not something of her haughtiness, I would kiss her fair,
as if she were but a girl of the country. Of these latter I may guiltily
confess, though with no names, I had known many who rebelled little more
than formally.

She stood in the shade of the stone pillar, where the ivy made a deep
green, and held back her light blue skirt daintily, in her high-bred
way; for never was a girl Sheraton who was not high-bred or other than
fair to look upon in the Sheraton way--slender, rather tall, long
cheeked, with very much dark hair and a deep color under the skin, and
something of long curves withal. They were ladies, every one, these
Sheraton girls; and as Miss Grace presently advised me, no milkmaids
wandering and waiting in lanes for lovers.

When I sprang down from Satan Miss Grace was but a pace or so away. I
put out a hand on either side of her as she stood in the shade, and so
prisoned her against the pillar. She flushed at this, and caught at my
arm with both hands, which made me smile, for few men in that country
could have put away my arms from the stone until I liked. Then I bent
and kissed her fair, and took what revenge was due our girls for her
Philadelphia manners.

When she boxed my ears I kissed her once more. Had she not at that
smiled at me a little, I should have been a boor, I admit. As she
did--and as I in my innocence supposed all girls did--I presume I may be
called but a man as men go. Miss Grace grew very rosy for a Sheraton,
but her eyes were bright. So I threw my hat on the grass by the side of
the gate and bowed her to be seated. We sat and looked up the lane which
wound on to the big Sheraton house, and up the red road which led from
their farm over toward our lands, the John Cowles farm, which had been
three generations in our family as against four on the part of the
Sheratons' holdings; a fact which I think always ranked us in the
Sheraton soul a trifle lower than themselves.

We were neighbors, Miss Grace and I, and as I lazily looked out over the
red road unoccupied at the time by even the wobbling wheel of some
negro's cart, I said to her some word of our being neighbors, and of its
being no sin for neighbors to exchange the courtesy of a greeting when
they met upon such a morning. This seemed not to please her; indeed I
opine that the best way of a man with a maid is to make no manner of
speech whatever before or after any such incident as this.

"I was just wandering down the lane," she said, "to see if Jerry had
found my horse, Fanny."

"Old Jerry's a mile back up the road," said I, "fast asleep under the
hedge."

"The black rascal!"

"He is my friend," said I, smiling.

"You do indeed take me for some common person," said she; "as though I
had been looking for--"

"No, I take you only for the sweetest Sheraton that ever came to meet a
Cowles from the farm yonder." Which was coming rather close home, for
our families, though neighbors, had once had trouble over some such
meeting as this two generations back; though of that I do not now speak.

"Cannot a girl walk down her own carriage road of a morning, after
hollyhocks for the windows, without--"

"She cannot!" I answered. I would have put out an arm for further
mistreatment, but all at once I pulled up. What was I coming to, I, John
Cowles, this morning when the bees droned fat and the flowers made
fragrant all the air? I was no boy, but a man grown; and ruthless as I
was, I had all the breeding the land could give me, full Virginia
training as to what a gentleman should be. And a gentleman, unless he
may travel all a road, does not set foot too far into it when he sees
that he is taken at what seems his wish. So now I said how glad I was
that she had come back from school, though a fine lady now, and no doubt
forgetful of her friends, of myself, who once caught young rabbits and
birds for her, and made pens for the little pink pigs at the orchard
edge, and all of that. But she had no mind, it seemed to me, to talk of
these old days; and though now some sort of wall seemed to me to arise
between us as we sat there on the bank blowing at dandelions and pulling
loose grass blades, and humming a bit of tune now and then as young
persons will, still, thickheaded as I was, it was in some way made
apparent to me that I was quite as willing the wall should be there as
she herself was willing.

My mother had mentioned Miss Grace Sheraton to me before. My father had
never opposed my riding over now and then to the Sheraton gates. There
were no better families in our county than these two. There was no
reason why I should feel troubled. Yet as I looked out into the haze of
the hilltops where the red road appeared to leap off sheer to meet the
distant rim of the Blue Ridge, I seemed to hear some whispered warning.
I was young, and wild as any deer in those hills beyond. Had it been
any enterprise scorning settled ways; had it been merely a breaking of
orders and a following of my own will, I suppose I might have gone on.
But there are ever two things which govern an adventure for one of my
sex. He may be a man; but he must also be a gentleman. I suppose books
might be written about the war between those two things. He may be a
gentleman sometimes and have credit for being a soft-headed fool, with
no daring to approach the very woman who has contempt for him; whereas
she may not know his reasons for restraint. So much for civilization,
which at times I hated because it brought such problems. Yet these
problems never cease, at least while youth lasts, and no community is
free from them, even so quiet a one as ours there in the valley of the
old Blue Ridge, before the wars had rolled across it and made all the
young people old.

I was of no mind to end my wildness and my roaming just yet; and still,
seeing that I was, by gentleness of my Quaker mother and by sternness of
my Virginia father, set in the class of gentlemen, I had no wish
dishonorably to engage a woman's heart. Alas, I was not the first to
learn that kissing is a most difficult art to practice!

When one reflects, the matter seems most intricate. Life to the young is
barren without kissing; yet a kiss with too much warmth may mean
overmuch, whereas a kiss with no warmth to it is not worth the pains.
The kiss which comes precisely at the moment when it should, in quite
sufficient warmth and yet not of complicating fervor, working no harm
and but joy to both involved--those kisses, now that one pauses to think
it over, are relatively few.

As for me, I thought it was time for me to be going.




CHAPTER II

THE MEETING OF GORDON ORME


I had enough to do when it came to mounting my horse Satan. Few cared to
ride Satan, since it meant a battle each time he was mounted. He was a
splendid brute, black and clean, with abundant bone in the head and a
brilliant eye--blood all over, that was easy to see. Yet he was a
murderer at heart. I have known him to bite the backbone out of a
yearling pig that came under his manger, and no other horse on our farm
would stand before him a moment when he came on, mouth open and ears
laid back. He would fight man, dog, or devil, and fear was not in him,
nor any real submission. He was no harder to sit than many horses I have
ridden. I have seen Arabians and Barbary horses and English hunters that
would buck-jump now and then. Satan contented himself with rearing high
and whirling sharply, and lunging with a low head; so that to ride him
was a matter of strength as well as skill. The greatest danger was in
coming near his mouth or heels. My father always told me that this horse
was not fit to ride; but since my father rode him--as he would any horse
that offered--nothing would serve me but I must ride Satan also, and so
I made him my private saddler on occasion.

I ought to speak of my father, that very brave and kindly gentleman from
whom I got what daring I ever had, I suppose. He was a clean-cut man,
five-eleven in his stockings, and few men in all that country had a
handsomer body. His shoulders sloped--an excellent configuration for
strength--as a study of no less a man than George Washington will
prove--his arms were round, his skin white as milk, his hair, like my
own, a sandy red, and his eyes blue and very quiet. There was a balance
in his nature that I have ever lacked. I rejoice even now in his love of
justice. Fair play meant with him something more than fair play for the
sake of sport--it meant as well fair play for the sake of justice.
Temperate to the point of caring always for his body's welfare, as
regular in his habits as he was in his promises and their fulfillments,
kindling readily enough at any risk, though never boasting--I always
admired him, and trust I may be pardoned for saying so. I fear that at
the time I mention now I admired him most for his strength and courage.

Thus as I swung leg over Satan that morning I resolved to handle him as
I had seen my father do, and I felt strong enough for that. I
remembered, in the proud way a boy will have, the time when my father
and I, riding through the muddy streets of Leesburg town together, saw a
farmer's wagon stuck midway of a crossing. "Come, Jack," my father
called me, "we must send Bill Yarnley home to his family." Then we two
dismounted, and stooping in the mud got our two shoulders under the axle
of the wagon, before we were done with it, our blood getting up at the
laughter of the townsfolk. When we heaved together, out came Bill
Yarnley's wagon from the mud, and the laughter ended. It was like
him--he would not stop when once he started. Why, it was so he married
my mother, that very sweet Quakeress from the foot of old Catoctin. He
told me she said him no many times, not liking his wild ways, so
contrary to the manner of the Society of Friends; and she only
consented after binding him to go with her once each week to the little
stone church at Wallingford village, near our farm, provided he should
be at home and able to attend. My mother I think during her life had not
missed a half dozen meetings at the little stone church. Twice a week,
and once each Sunday, and once each month, and four times each year, and
also annually, the Society of Friends met there at Wallingford, and have
done so for over one hundred and thirty-five years. Thither went my
mother, quiet, brown-haired, gentle, as good a soul as ever lived, and
with her my father, tall, strong as a tree, keeping his promise until at
length by sheer force of this kept promise, he himself became half
Quaker and all gentle, since he saw what it meant to her.

As I have paused in my horsemanship to speak thus of my father, I ought
also to speak of my mother. It was she who in those troublous times just
before the Civil War was the first to raise the voice in the Quaker
Meeting which said that the Friends ought to free their slaves, law or
no law; and so started what was called later the Unionist sentiment in
that part of old Virginia. It was my mother did that. Then she asked my
father to manumit all his slaves; and he thought for an hour, and then
raised his head and said it should be done; after which the servants
lived on as before, and gave less in return, at which my father made wry
faces, but said nothing in regret. After us others also set free their
people, and presently this part of Virginia was a sort of Mecca for
escaped blacks. It was my mother did that; and I believe that it was her
influence which had much to do with the position of East Virginia on the
question of the war. And this also in time had much to do with this
strange story of mine, and much to do with the presence thereabout of
the man whom I was to meet that very morning; although when I started to
mount my horse Satan I did not know that such a man as Gordon Orme
existed in the world.

When I approached Satan he lunged at me, but I caught him by the cheek
strap of the bridle and swung his head close up, feeling for the saddle
front as he reached for me with open mouth. Then as he reared I swung up
with him into place, and so felt safe, for once I clamped a horse fair
there was an end of his throwing me. I laughed when Miss Grace Sheraton
called out in alarm, and so wheeled Satan around a few times and rode on
down the road, past the fields where the blacks were busy as blacks ever
are, and so on to our own red pillared-gates.

Then, since the morning was still young, and since the air seemed to me
like wine, and since I wanted something to subdue and Satan offered, I
spurred him back from the gate and rode him hard down toward
Wallingford. Of course he picked up a stone en route. Two of us held his
head while Billings the blacksmith fished out the stone and tapped the
shoe nails tight. After that I had time to look around.

As I did so I saw approaching a gentleman who was looking with interest
at my mount. He was one of the most striking men I have ever seen, a
stranger as I could see, for I knew each family on both sides the Blue
Ridge as far up the valley as White Sulphur.

"A grand animal you have there, sir," said he, accosting Me. "I did not
know his like existed in this country."

"As well in this as in any country," said I tartly. He smiled at this.

"You know his breeding?"

"Klingwalla out of Bonnie Waters."

"No wonder he's vicious," said the stranger, calmly.

"Ah, you know something of the English strains," said I. He shrugged his
shoulders. "As much as that," he commented indifferently.

There was something about him I did not fancy, a sort of condescension,
as though he were better than those about him. They say that we
Virginians have a way of reserving that right to ourselves; and I
suppose that a family of clean strain may perhaps become proud after
generations of independence and comfort and freedom from care. None the
less I was forced to admit this newcomer to the class of gentlemen. He
stood as a gentleman, with no resting or bracing with an arm, or
crossing of legs or hitching about, but balanced on his legs
easily--like a fencer or boxer or fighting man, or gentleman, in short.
His face, as I now perceived, was long and thin, his chin square,
although somewhat narrow. His mouth, too, was narrow, and his teeth were
narrow, one of the upper teeth at each side like the tooth of a
carnivore, longer than its fellows. His hair was thick and close cut to
his head, dark, and if the least bit gray about the edges, requiring
close scrutiny to prove it so. In color his skin was dark, sunburned
beyond tan, almost to parchment dryness. His eyes were gray, the most
remarkable eyes that I have ever seen--calm, emotionless, direct, the
most fearless eyes I have ever seen in mortal head, and I have looked
into many men's eyes in my time. He was taller than most men, I think
above the six feet line. His figure was thin, his limbs thin, his hands
and feet slender. He did not look one-tenth his strength. He was simply
dressed, dressed indeed as a gentleman. He stood as one, spoke as one,
and assumed that all the world accepted him as one. His voice was warmer
in accent than even our Virginia speech. I saw him to be an Englishman.

"He is a bit nasty, that one"; he nodded his head toward Satan.

I grinned. "I know of only two men in Fairfax County I'd back to ride
him."

"Yourself and--"

"My father."

"By Jove! How old is your father, my good fellow?"

"Sixty, my good fellow," I replied. He laughed.

"Well," said he, "there's a third in Fairfax can ride him."

"Meaning yourself?"

He nodded carelessly. I did not share his confidence. "He's not a
saddler in any sense," said I. "We keep him for the farms."

"Oh, I say, my friend," he rejoined--"my name's Orme, Gordon Orme--I'm
just stopping here at the inn for a time, and I'm deucedly bored. I've
not had leg over a decent mount since I've been here, and if I might
ride this beggar, I'd be awfully obliged."

My jaw may have dropped at his words; I am not sure. It was not that he
called our little tavern an "inn." It was the name he gave me which
caused me to start.

"Orme," said I, "Mr. Gordon Orme? That was the name of the speaker the
other evening here at the church of the Methodists."

He nodded, smiling. "Don't let that trouble you," said he.

None the less it did trouble me; for the truth was that word had gone
about to the effect that a new minister from some place not stated had
spoken from the pulpit on that evening upon no less a topic than the
ever present one of Southern slavery. Now, I could not clear it to my
mind how a minister of the gospel might take so keen and swift an
interest in a stranger in the street, and that stranger's horse. I
expressed to him something of my surprise.

"It's of no importance," said he again. "What seems to me of most
importance just at present is that here's a son of old Klingwalla, and
that I want to ride him."

"Just for the sake of saying you have done so?" I inquired.

His face changed swiftly as he answered: "We owned Klingwalla ourselves
back home. He broke a leg for my father, and was near killing him."

"Sir," I said to him, catching his thought quickly, "we could not afford
to have the horse injured, but if you wish to ride him fair or be beaten
by him fair, you are welcome to the chance."

His eye kindled at this. "You're a sportsman, sir," he exclaimed, and he
advanced at once toward Satan.

I saw in him something which awakened a responsive chord in my nature.
He was a man to take a risk and welcome it for the risk's sake.
Moreover, he was a horseman; as I saw by his quick glance over Satan's
furniture. He caught the cheek strap of the bridle, and motioned us away
as we would have helped him at the horse's head. Then ensued as pretty a
fight between man and horse as one could ask to see. The black brute
reared and fairly took him from the ground, fairly chased him about the
street, as a great dog would a rat. But never did the iron hold on the
bridle loosen, and the man was light on his feet as a boy. Finally he
had his chance, and with the lightest spring I ever saw at a saddle
skirt, up he went and nailed old Satan fair, with a grip which ridged
his legs out. I saw then that he was a rider. His head was bare, his hat
having fallen off; his hair was tumbled, but his color scarcely
heightened. As the horse lunged and bolted about the street, Orme sat
him in perfect confidence. He kept his hands low, his knees a little
more up and forward than we use in our style of riding, and his weight a
trifle further back; but I saw from the lines of his limbs that he had
the horse in a steel grip. He gazed down contemplatively, with a half
serious look, master of himself and of the horse as well. Then presently
he turned him up the road and went off at a gallop, with the brute under
perfect control. I do not know what art he used; all I can say is that
in a half hour he brought Satan back in a canter.

This was my first acquaintance with Gordon Orme, that strange
personality with whom I was later to have much to do. This was my first
witnessing of that half uncanny power by which he seemed to win all
things to his purposes. I admired him, yet did not like him, when he
swung carelessly down and handed me the reins.

"He's a grand one," he said easily, "but not so difficult to ride as old
Klingwalla. Not that I would discount your own skill in riding him, sir,
for I doubt not you have taken a lot out of him before now."

At least this was generous, and as I later learned, it was like him to
give full credit to the performance of any able adversary.




CHAPTER III

THE ART OF THE ORIENT


"Come," said Orme to me, "let us go into the shade, for I find your
Virginia morning warm."

We stepped over to the gallery of the little tavern, where the shade was
deep and the chairs were wide and the honeysuckles sweet. I threw myself
rather discontentedly into a chair. Orme seated himself quietly in
another, his slender legs crossed easily, his hands meeting above his
elbows supported on the chair rails, as he gazed somewhat meditatively
at his finger tips.

"So you did not hear my little effort the other night?" he remarked,
smiling.

"I was not so fortunate as to hear you speak. But I will only say I will
back you against any minister of the gospel I ever knew when it comes to
riding horses."

"Oh, well," he deprecated, "I'm just passing through on my way to
Albemarle County across the mountains. You couldn't blame me for wanting
something to do--speaking or riding, or what not. One must be occupied,
you know. But shall we not have them bring us one of these juleps of the
country? I find them most agreeable, I declare."

I did not criticise his conduct as a wearer of the cloth, but declined
his hospitality on the ground that it was early in the day for me. He
urged me so little and was so much the gentleman that I explained.

"Awhile ago," I said, "my father came to me and said, 'I see, Jack, that
thee is trying to do three things--to farm, hunt foxes, and drink
juleps. Does thee think thee can handle all three of these activities in
combination?' You see, my mother is a Quakeress, and when my father
wished to reprove me he uses the plain speech. Well, sir, I thought it
over, and for the most part I dropped the other two, and took up more
farming."

"Your father is Mr. John Cowles, of Cowles' Farms?"

"The same."

"No doubt your family know every one in this part of the country?"

"Oh, yes, very well."

"These are troublous times," he ventured, after a time. "I mean in
regard to this talk of secession of the Southern States."

I was studying this man. What was he doing here in our quiet country
community? What was his errand? What business had a julep-drinking,
horse-riding parson speaking in a Virginia pulpit where only the gospel
was known, and that from exponents worth the name?

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