CHAPTER XLIV
THIS INDENTURE WITNESSETH
Within the few days following the battle, the newspapers paused in theirwarnings and rebukes on the one side, their paeans of victory on theother, and turned to the sober business of printing the long lists ofthe dead. Then, presently, each section but the more resolved, the Northand South again joined issue, and the war went on.
As for myself, I was busy with my work, for now my superiors were goodenough to advance me for what they called valor on the field. Beforeautumn ended I was one of the youngest colonels of volunteers in theFederal Army. Thus it was easy for me to find a brief furlough when wepassed near Leesburg on our way to the Blue Ridge Gap, and I then randown for a look at our little valley.
The women now were taking ranks steadfastly as the men. My mothergreeted me, and in spite of all her sorrow, in spite of all the ruinthat lay around us there, I think she felt a certain pride. I doubt ifshe would have suffered me to lay aside my uniform. It hung in our homelong after the war was ended, and my Quaker mother, bless her! kept itwhole and clean.
There were some business matters to be attended to with our friend Dr.Samuel Bond, who had been charged to handle our estate matters during myabsence. He himself, too old and too busy to serve in either army, hadremained at home, where certainly he had enough to do before the end ofthe war, as first one army and then the other swept across Wallingford.
I found Doctor Bond in his little brick office at the top of the hilloverlooking the village. It was he who first showed me the Richmondpapers with lists of the Confederate dead. Colonel Sheraton's name wasamong the first I saw. He had been with Cumming's forces, closelyopposed to my own position at Bull Run. He himself was instantly killed,and his son Harry, practically at his side, seriously, possibly fatallywounded, was now in hospital at Richmond. Even by this time we werelearning the dullness to surprise and shock which war always brings. Wehad not time to grieve.
I showed Doctor Bond the last writing of Gordon Orme, and put before himthe Bank of England notes which I had found on Orme's person, and which,by the terms of his testament, I thought might perhaps belong to me.
"Could I use any of this money with clean conscience?" I asked. "Couldit honorably be employed in the discharging of the debt Orme left on myfamily?"
"A part of that debt you have already caused him to discharge," the olddoctor answered, slowly. "You would be doing a wrong if you did notoblige him to discharge the rest."
I counted out and laid on the desk before him the amount of the fundswhich my father's memoranda showed had been taken from him by Orme thatfatal night more than a year ago. The balance of the notes I tossed intothe little grate, and with no more ado we burned them there.
We concluded our conference in regard to my business matters. I learnedthat the coal lands had been redeemed from foreclosure, ColonelMeriwether having advanced the necessary funds; and as this now left ourdebt running to him, I instructed Doctor Bond to take steps to cancel itimmediately, and to have the property partitioned as Colonel Meriwethershould determine.
"And now, Jack," said my wire-haired old friend to me at last, "when doyou ride to Albemarle? There is something in this slip of paper"--hepointed to Orme's last will and confession--"which a certain personought to see."
"My duties do not permit me to go and come as I like these days," Ianswered evasively. But Dr. Samuel Bond was a hard man to evade.
"Jack," said he, fumbling in his dusty desk, "here's something _you_ought to see. I saved it for you, over there, the morning you threw itinto the fireplace."
He spread out on the top of the desk a folded bit of hide. Familiarenough it was to me.
"You saved but half," I said. "The other half is gone!"
He pushed a flake of snuff far up his long nose. "Yes," said he quietly."I sent it to her some three months ago."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing, you fool. What did you expect?"
"Listen," he went on presently. "Your brain is dull. What say the wordsof the law? 'This Indenture Witnesseth!' Now what is an 'indenture'? Theold Romans and the old English knew. They wrote a contract on parchment,and cut it in two with an indented line, and they gave each party ahalf. When the court saw that these two halves fitted--as no otherportions could--then indeed the indenture witnessed. It was its ownproof.
"Now, my son," he concluded savagely, "if you ever dreamed of marryingany other woman, damn me if I wouldn't come into court and make thisindenture witness for you _both_--for her as well as you! Go on awaynow, and don't bother me any more."