Cauthorne was an enthusiastic and a very accomplished sportsman. In fact, he considered himself an incomparable shot. He belonged to a crack gun-club of New York, and had worn its champion badge whenever he had found himself present at its annual pigeon-match. He had killed his seventy-five birds straight at thirty-one yards rise. He had made fourteen successful double shots in succession, from ground traps, in a strong wind. These feats were performed, as a matter of course, with a shot-gun. But he was no less a rifleman. He had usually won at the Creedmoor ranges. He had broken thirty glass balls in succession, cast into the air at fifteen paces, this with a thirty-two calibre rifle. It was in the field behind the pointers and setters, that he had won the best fame. He had never been beaten on grouse, woodcock, or quail. The rising bird rarely escaped his first barrel; but if it did, then his second cut it down, the reports ringing out in such rapid succession as to almost run together.
The reader can well understand that Cauthorne's surprise was somewhat tempered with pleasure when he received a polite note from Col. Vance, the purport of which will appear in the following copy, taken from memory: —
Dear Sir, — I have just become acquainted with your friend Mr. Willard. He has accepted an invitation to shoot with me over some fine partridge-cover on one of my estates. I shall be highly pleased if you will consent to join us. I can promise you a day of rare sport, and a tolerable dinner at the plantation house. To-morrow is the day. If you will do me the honor of accepting, I will call for you early with a carriage.
Yours to command,
Arthur Vance.
To Mr. Cauthorne.
The servant stood waiting, and Cauthorne acted on his first impulse, which was to accept. When the note had been written, and was on its way to Col. Vance, he would have recalled it if he had been able. It struck him that this sudden recognition of his personal standing by the proud Southerner had grown out of Willard's lodgement at Judge La Rue's, a thing not pleasant to contemplate. While he was biting his mustache, and scowling, his friend Willard came in. Of late these comings-in had been very desultory, as if they had been the results of so many erratic efforts to back out of the charm which had enveloped him. His stays had been short, his talk scrappy and unsatisfactory.
Cauthorne handed Willard Col. Vance's card of invitation.
"Yes: he was speaking to me about what fine shooting the surrounding country affords; and I expressed a desire, and so forth," said Willard. "I told him you couldn't be beaten with a gun.
"'Ah, he's a champion, is he!' exclaimed this handsome politician. 'Then I must give him a turn. If he is your friend, you will not object to my inviting him to join us.' "
"A deuced patronizing way!" muttered Cauthorne.
"Oh, no!" said Willard: "a Southern way. You will find him delightful company when the ice is once broken."
"Confound the ice!" thundered Cauthorne, in a momentary explosion of what combustibles had been accumulating in him for the past fortnight or so. "Confound the ice! I don't want it broken! Let it freeze thicker, and stay longer."
Willard laughed. He knew that this one blast ended the storm.
"Of course you have accepted," he said.
"Yes: of course," said Cauthorne. "Did you ever know me to do a sensible thing in an emergency? Of course I have very promptly accepted." And he laughed too.
"You can always be relied upon to do just the cleverest things possible," said Willard. "It would have been beastly rough in you to have refused. I like him, Cauthorne, and I can tell you that he's no ordinary man."
"A clever politician, I take it," said Cauthorne.
"More than that. You will say so before to-morrow night. He is a man of rare personal gifts. He has a big soul, and a bigger intellect," warmly responded Willard.
"He seems to have made a proselyte of you," rejoined Cauthorne. "No wonder his chances for the next governorship of Florida brighten daily. If he can capture you so easily, what can he do with these listless sand-lappers and peanut-crackers! "
They lighted cigars, and, as became true Tallahassee folk, went out for a stroll in the cool afternoon. They walked down Adams Street south from the hotel, until they came to one of those open squares, which, covered with a scattered growth of immense live-oak trees, are such a peculiar and strikingly Southern feature of the city.They sat down upon the buttressed roots of one of the oaks, whence they could loojt away beyond the hill-spurs to the low swamps of Wakulla, out of which rises the far-famed and mysterious smoke column of the so-called volcano. The sky overhead, seen through rifts in the foliage, was blue and cloudless; but heavy Gulf-caps hung on the horizon south. There was a dancing silver film in the atmosphere of the mid-distance, unlike any thing ever seen in a Northern climate. The wood, fringing the ridge a mile away, waved its shadowy tree-tops to the fitful motions of a breeze. A long angular line of water-fowl slowly flew northwestward, so high that the individual birds looked like mere flickering specks; but their clanging voices fell to earth with great distinctness and power. A ragged negro, whose face wore the marks of utter resignation to hopeless poverty, went past in a rude cart, drawn by a lean little ox, working between shafts. Following this came a fine old-fashioned rockaway with a pair of match bays, and a dapper colored driver. Inside were ladies and children who looked serenely happy. A gay party of young men and girls, returning from a ride to Lake Bradford and the country-seat of Gov. Bloxham, some distance west of the city, clattered along the road which winds diagonally through the square, their horses seeming to enjoy the merry talk and laughter as much as did the riders. The girls were picturesquely habited; and their broad palmetto hats shaded faces as brown as nuts, and as pink-cheeked as peaches. The youths were all sallow and slender alike, sitting their horses like born troopers, and showing a dash of something like knighthood in their attentions to their gentle companions. It was a cavalcade of romance, such as is conjured up by the old Spanish tales. One thing was noticeable: despite the bright colors and tasteful drapings, these were the children of parents made poor by the recent sectional downfall. The scantiness of luxuries was not hidden by the pretty maidenly arts of deception with needle and ribbons. The young men made little pretension to fashionable dress. It was a fair exhibition of the state of the middle and better classes of young people in the region. They were the sons and daughters of gentlemen turned shopkeepers, and of ladies turned domestic laborers. It marked the neutral ground between the old South and the future South. That cavalcade might furnish thought for a volume.
"These Southern girls are wonderfully beautiful, as a general thing," said Willard. "I took careful note, and there was not an unattractive one in that party. They are so lithe and graceful, too, and so fearless on horseback, especially here in Tallahassee."
"You are right," said Cauthorne; "and you may add that they are less understood, in fact, more misunderstood, than the girls of any section in this country, or in the enlightened world. I should much like to know them better. Truth to say, I must know them, and know them well, else my novel must fall dead."
"My dear fellow, you shall know them right away," exclaimed Willard. "I have a pressing request to introduce you at Judge La Rue's next Thursday evening. A number of the best Tallahassee people, young and old, will be there. It will be a capital chance for you."
"And I willingly, nay, wilfully, shall turn it to account. I am utterly wreaking myself upon this story. It is my heroine that bothers me. I need this opportunity to find a model for her. Is Miss La Rue friendly, communicative?"
"Not exactly: that is," said Willard, frowning like one who is trying to untie a knot, "she is naive and enigmatical, whilst she is pleasing you with her sweetness and kindliness of manner. She seems untrained, and yet quite formal. Oh, well! I can't express it. She's the most beautiful and charming girl I ever saw, that's the upshot of it."
"And so you are crazy, as usual, and make love to her from morning till" —
"No," interrupted Willard, "I do nothing of the sort. She has a way of keeping one constantly on his guard. One feels in her presence like a pilgrim just reaching a holy shrine: he is too reverentially happy for any further effort, so he slips down at her feet, and" —
"Infernal nonsense!" exclaimed Cauthorne. "I am a flesh-and-blood man, and a democrat. I'll not slip down at her feet. I'll stand up in front of her, and she'll have to look up to me if there is any looking-up done." He got up as he spoke; and Willard glanced admiringly over his stalwart frame and into his resolute face, so lit with his half-earnest, half-mocking mood, that it was hard to say whether he were really feigning this burst of feeling.
The sun fell behind the bold hills in the west, and set ablaze the upper domes of the Gulf-caps; the silver of the air was turned to a dusky gray. The breeze fell to stillness; but a heavy waft of perfume came from the flower-gardens of the old Walker homestead, and the mocking-birds redoubled their singing.
Returning to the hotel, Cauthorne and Willard met a party of three or four legislators, and in their midst Col. Vance, who came forward and shook hands cordially with both.
"Soon in the morning," he said, in a deep, rich voice, so full of friendliness and comradeship, "soon in the morning we will go after
the partridges. Have you a gun, Mr. Cauthorne?"
"The very best one in the world," was the prompt reply.
"I have its mate, then," said Vance, bowing; "but there our equality ends. You are an incomparable field-shot, your friend informs me; and I recollect some reports of your achievements in the London Field."
"My matches with Major Tilney-Dubois, of her Majesty's Light Guards?"
"Yes: they were cleverly won, sir."
