F CHAPTER XII THE DEVIL LAUGHS OR a week Craig wrestled with his longing to see n't hold water. The sensation of Hawkins' act of malice in disbarring him from the practice of law had made his relations with the Judge the chief topic of conversation. A call on his daughter would start every gossip's tongue wagging. And they would not all wag one way. An attempt on his part to pay court to Claudia might be interpreted as an act of cowardice—that he had taken the shortest way to cultivate an enemy and regain his living. He couldn't do it. And yet the desire to see her at last became an obsession. He began to bet with himself on the number of days he could hold out. On the first day of the second week he wrote a note to Claudia, read it and tore it up. In a fit of temper he turned back to his desk and drew from a pigeonhole the legal papers containing the evidence which he had gathered of Hawkins' theft of his estate. The dissolution of the Klan had left him only the process of the law by which to recover it. It was only a question of time when the Supreme Court would oust the Judge from his home and arraign him for impeachment. Now that he was ready to file the suit, his mind was in a tumult. The hand of a girl was holding his. He gazed at the documents and saw only her face. The ink lines resolved themselves into her glossy hair piled in curling con fusion above her white forehead, and he was trying to find the depths of her wonderful eyes. Something in the expression of her eyes held his memory in a spell their remarkable size and their dilation when she spoke. They seemed to enfold him in their light. He bundled the papers, replaced them, and took up his pen. "I've got to see her—” he muttered. "I'll not throw my chances away for a house, some trees and a few acres of dirt." On a sheet of old note paper with a crest of yellow and black at the top, he wrote: "My Dear Miss Hawkins: "You were gracious enough to ask me to call again. I beg the privilege of coming to-day while your father, my valiant political enemy, is busy downtown with the delegates to his convention. "I anxiously await your answer." "Sincerely, "JOHN CRAIG." He called Henry and handed the note to him. "Take that to Miss Hawkins and wait for an answer." "Down to de ole place?" "Yes, of course." Henry laughed. "Well, now, 'fore de Lawd, don't dat beat ye!" "Shut up and hurry back. I'll wait for you.” Henry didn't move. "Yassah-right away, sah-" "Well, get a move on you-and listen-not a word of this to a living soul-" "Nasah-'cose not. I know how tiz myself. De course er true love ain't run smooth wid me— _99 "Quick now-you fool-don't you stop anywhere and don't you lose a minute—” "Nasah. I won't stop no whar—” Craig paced the floor of his office in a fever of waiting. He thanked God that he had thrown the last barrier of hate from his pathway. He had been a fool to hesitate. He could see it now. What did it matter whether the tonques of gossip wagged? Let them wag. If he could win the girl he loved, nothing else mattered. His eyes danced with excitement as he realized that he loved her. He had done the manly thing. He had given himself to the one purpose worth while. A sense of joy filled him. He was as sure of her answer as if he held it in his hand. His appeal could not fail. If Henry had only kept his promise not to loiter on the way! But the devil sometimes laughs at the best laid plans of men. The messenger loitered on the way. And with results that changed the current of more lives than one. Henry placed the note carefully under his hat and hastened to the Judge's, laughing and chuckling. For reasons best known to himself he entered by the carriageway. At the wide double gate stood the little lodge-keeper's cottage, a relic of the slave régime. In this cottage, which she called her cabin, Aunt Laura lived with Julius, her latest husband. Henry had once been honored with that position before the war, but Julius had whipped him and taken her by force of arms. Henry was the larger man of the two, tall, awkward and slow of movement, while Julius was small, but active as a cat. The agility of his movements had swept Laura's imagination. The contrast to her own two hundred pounds had probably been the secret charm. She had loudly professed her love for Henry until she saw Julius thrash him, and without a word she surrendered to the new lord and refused to recognize her former husband. This had happened two years before the war and Henry watched and waited the day of his revenge. Many a night he had prowled around her cottage listening for her cry of help. He heard that Julius was beating her. He approached the gates this morning in a peculiarly romantic frame of mind. He listened and heard Julius' voice within, hectoring it over his former spouse. He peeped through the keyhole and saw Laura busy at the ironing board, while his enemy sat majestically in a rocker delivering to her a discourse on "Sanctification" and his own sinless perfection. He had lately become a Methodist exhorter and went from church to church holding revivals, particularly appealing to the sisters of the church, calling them to the life of stainless purity of those who had not merely "Salvation," as the ordinary Methodist understood it, but "Sanctification" as only those of the inner circle of the Lord could know it. Julius declared not only his sinless nature but proclaimed himself a prophet of the new order and fixed his name as “Julius the Apostle," which had been simplified by busy clerks in written form to "Julius A. Postle." Laura heard of the success of his meetings with misgiving. The majority of his converts were among the sisters. She finally dared to question his apostolic call. Her skepticism aroused Julius to a frenzy of religious enthusiasm. That the wife of his bosom should be the only voice to question his divine mission was proof that she had in some way become possessed of the devil-perhaps seven devils. He determined to cast them out-by moral suasion if possible-if not, by the strength of his right arm. He must set his own house in order lest the source of his in spiration be poisoned by lack of faith. He was devoting the morning to the task when Henry arrived. He had just finished an explanation of the miracle of Sanctification. "Fur de las' time I axes ye, 'oman, what sez ye ter de word er de Lawd?" Laura banged the board with the iron and grunted: "Huh!" Julius rose and repeated his question with rising wrath: "What sez ye ter de word er de Lawd?" "I ain' heared de Lawd say nuttin' yit!" "An' why ain't ye?” "Case you keep so much fuss I can't hear nuttin', Julius Caesar Craig " "Doan' you call me dat name, you brazen sinner dat sets in de seat er de scornful. Is ye ready ter repent an' sin no mo'?” Julius approached her threateningly. Henry watched with bulging eyes, and clutched the stick which he had picked up. "Tech me if ye dare-I bus' yo head open wid dis flatiron!" Laura cried. Julius knew his duty now and determined to perform it without delay. The anointed of the Lord had been threatened by the ungodly. He drew a hickory withe from a crack where he had hidden it and approached his skeptical spouse. Laura began to whimper. "Put down dat flatiron!" he sternly commanded. Henry, peering through the keyhole, gasped as he saw her drop the iron on the floor. Julius raised his switch and began to whip her. Around and around she flew screaming, begging, pleading for mercy. But Julius continued to lay on steadily. |