A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill
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A ROMANCE OF BILLY-GOAT HILL
By Alice Hegan Rice
Author of Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch Lovey Mary, Sandy, Etc.
With Illustrations By George Weight
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“Do you believe in love, Doctor?”
The Colonel leaned back upon his knees and glared at Morley
There was a sharp report, a smothered groan, then a heavy fall
She held it to the flame, and watched it burn to ashes on the hearth
Maria began to cry, and forgot to jolt the Boarder
Mrs. Sequin paused with her hand on the banister
“It was a great wrong I did you, Don; can you forgive me?”
“Tell me quick! How do you know about the shooting?”
CHAPTER I
It was springtime in Kentucky, gay, irresponsible, Southern springtime,
that comes bursting impetuously through highways and byways, heedless of
possible frosts and impossible fruitions. A glamour of tender new green
enveloped the world, and the air was sweet with the odor of young and
growing things. The brown river, streaked with green where the fresher
currents of the creeks poured in, circled the base of a long hill that
dominated the landscape from every direction.
In spite of the fact that impertinent railroads were beginning to crawl
about its feet, and the flotsam and jetsam of the adjacent city were
gradually being deposited at its base, it nevertheless reared its
granite shoulders proudly and defiantly against the sky.
From the early days when the hill and rich surrounding farm lands
had been granted to the old pioneer William Carsey, one generation of
Carseys after another had lived in the stately old mansion that now
stood like the last remaining fortress against the city's invasion.
Sagging cornices and discolored walls had not dispelled the atmosphere
of contentment that enveloped the place, an effect heightened by the
wide front porch which ran straight across the face of it, like a
broad, complacent smile. Some old houses, like old gallants, bear
an unmistakable air of past prosperity, of past affairs. Romance has
trailed her garments near them and the fragrance lingers.
Thornwood, shabby and neglected, could still afford to drowse in the
sunshine and smile over the past. It remembered the time when its
hospitality was the boast of the countryside, when its stables held the
best string of horses in the State; when its smokehouse, now groaning
under a pile of lumber, sheltered shoulders of pork, and sides of bacon,
and long lines of juicy, sugar-cured hams; when the cellar quartered
battalions of cobwebby bottles that stood at attention on the low
hanging shelves. It was a house ripe with experience and mellow with
memories, a wise, old, sophisticated house, that had had its day, and
enjoyed it, and now, through with ambitions, and through with striving,
had settled down to a peaceful old age.
On this particular Sunday afternoon Colonel Bob Carsey, the third of
his name, sat on the porch in a weather-beaten mahogany rocker, making
himself a mint julep. He was a stout, elderly gentleman, and, like the
rocking chair, was weather-beaten, and of a slightly mahogany hue. His
features, having long ago given up the struggle against encroaching
flesh, were now merely slight indentures, and mild protuberances,
with the exception of the eyes which still blazed away defiantly, like
twinkling lights at the end of a passage. Across his feet with nose
on paws lay a dog, and about him was scattered a profusion of fishing
paraphernalia.
The Colonel, carefully crushing the mint between his stubby fingers,
stirred it with the sugar at the bottom of his tall glass; then, resting
the concoction on the broad arm of the rocker, and without turning his
head, lifted his voice in stentorian command:
“Jimpson!”
No answer. He turned his head slightly to the left, in the general
direction of the negro cabins whose roofs could be seen through the
trees, and sent another summons hurtling through the bushes:
“Jimpson!”
Again he waited, and again there was no response. The Colonel sighed
resignedly, and spreading a large bordered handkerchief over his
obliterated features, clasped his fat hands with some difficulty about
his ample girth, and slept. When he awoke he began exactly where he had
left off, only this time turning his head slightly to the right, and
sending his command toward the kitchen wing.
A door slammed somewhere in the distance, and presently a shuffling
of feet was heard in the hall, and a small, alert old negro presented
himself to his master with an air of cheerful conciliation.
The Colonel did not turn his head; he gazed with an air of great injury
at the tops of the locust trees, clasping his tumbler as it rested on
the arm of the rocker.
“Jimpson,” he began, after the culprit had suffered his silence some
minutes.
“Now, Cunnel,” began Jimpson nervously. He had evidently rehearsed this
scene in the past.
“Just answer my questions,” insisted the Colonel. “_Is_ this my house?”
“Yas, sir, but Carline, she--”
“And are you my nigger?” persisted the Colonel plaintively.
“Yas, sir; but you see, Carline--”
“And haven't I, for twenty years,” persisted the Colonel, “been taking a
mint julep at half past two on Sunday afternoons?”
“Yas, sir, I was a comin'--”
“Then you don't regard it as an unreasonable request, that a gentleman
should ask his own nigger, in his own house, to bring him a small piece
of ice?” The Colonel's sense of injury was becoming so overpowering that
the offender might have been crushed by contrition had not a laugh made
them both look up.
Standing in the doorway was a young girl in a short riding habit, and a
small hat of red felt that was carelessly pinned to her bright, tumbled
hair. Her eyes were dark, and round like those of a child, and they
danced from object to object as if eager to miss none of the good things
that the world had to offer. Joy of life and radiant youth seemed to
flash from her face and figure.
“What's the matter, Squire Daddy?” she asked, pausing on the threshold.
“Mad again?” The Colonel's head twitched in her direction, but he held
it stiff.
“Well, please don't kill Uncle Jimpson 'til he finds my gloves. I don't
know where I took them off.”
“Yas 'm, Miss Lady,” Jimpson welcomed the diversion. “I'll find 'em jes
as soon as I git yer Paw his ice.”
“Oh, Daddy'll wait, won't you, Dad? I'm in a hurry.”
For a moment Jimpson and the Colonel eyed each other, then the Colonel's
gaze shifted.
“I'll git de ice fer you on my way back,” Jimpson whispered
reassuringly. “I spec' dat chile _is_ in a hurry.”
The young lady in question gave no appearance of haste as she perched
herself on the arm of her father's chair, and presented a boot-lace for
him to tie.
“Going fishing, Dad?” she asked.
“Yes,” said the Colonel, struggling to make a two-loop bow-knot. “Noah
Wicker and I are going down below the mill dam. Want to come along?”
“I can't. I'm going riding.”
“That's good. Who with?”
“With Don Morley.”
The smile that had returned to the Colonel's face during this
conversation contracted suddenly, leaving his mouth a round little
button of disapprobation.
“What in thunder is he doing up here anyhow; why don't he go on back to
town where he belongs?”
“Don?” Miss Lady pretended to effect a part in the few straggling hairs
that adorned his forehead. “Why, he's staying over to the Wickers' while
he looks around for a farm. Here's a gray hair, Daddy! I'd pull it out
only there are two more on that other side now than there are on this.”
“Buying a farm, is he?” The Colonel waxed a deeper mahogany. “Well, this
place is not for sale. I should think he could find something better to
do with his time than hanging around here. For two weeks I haven't been
able to sit on this porch for five minutes without having him under my
feet! What's the sense of his coming so often?”
Miss Lady caught him by the ears, and turned his irate face up to her
own.
“He comes to see me!” she announced, emphasizing each word with a nod.
“He likes horses and dogs and me, and I like horses and dogs and him.
But I like you, too, Daddy.”
The Colonel refused to be beguiled by such blandishments.
“I'll speak to him when he comes. He needn't think just because he is a
city fellow, he can take a daughter of mine racing all over the country
on Sunday afternoon!”
“Why, Dad, that's absurd! Don't you take me yourself almost every
Sunday? And don't I go with Noah, and the Brooks boys whenever I like?”
“Well, you can't go to-day.”
“But this is Donald's last day. He goes back to town to-night, and he
may go abroad next week to stay ever and ever so long.”
The Colonel brought his fist down on his knees: “I don't care a hang
where he goes. It's _you_ we are talking about. You've got to promise me
not to go with him this afternoon.”
“But why?”
“Because,” the Colonel argued feebly, “because it's Sunday.”
Miss Lady sat for a moment looking straight before her and there was a
contraction of her lips that might have passed for a comic imitation of
her father's had it not softened into a smile.
“Suppose I won't promise?” she said.
The Colonel's free hand gripped the arm of the chair, and he looked as
if he had every intention in the world of being firm.
“You see, if it is wrong for me to go riding on Sunday,” went on Miss
Lady, “it's wrong for you to go fishing. Suppose we both reform and stay
at home?”
The Colonel's eyes involuntarily flew to his cherished tackle, lying
ready for action on the top step, then they came back with a snap to the
top of a locust tree.
Miss Lady squeezed his arm and laughed: “Of course you don't want to
stay at home this glorious afternoon, neither do I! Now, that's settled.
Here comes Noah; I'll go and fix your lunch.”
It was not by any means the first time the daughter of the house of
Carsey had scored in a contest with her father. His subjection had begun
on that morning now nearly twenty years ago, when she had been placed
in his arms, a motherless bundle of helplessness without even a personal
name to begin life with.
That question of a name had baffled him. He had consulted all the
neighbors, considered all the possibilities in the back of the
dictionary, and even had recourse to the tombstones in the old cemetery,
but the haunting fear that in days to come she might not like his
choice, held him back from a final decision. In the meanwhile she was
“The Little Lady,” then “Lady,” and finally through the negroes it got
to be “Miss Lady.” So the Colonel weakly compromised in the matter by
deciding to wait until she was old enough to name herself. When that
time arrived she stubbornly refused to exchange her nickname for a real
one. A halfhearted effort was made to harness her up to “Elizabeth,” but
she flatly declined to answer to the appellation.
She and Noah Wicker, the son of a neighboring farmer, had run wild on
the big place, and it was Miss Lady who invariably got to the top of
the peach tree first, or dared to wade the farthest into the stream.
All through the summer days her little bare legs raced beside Noah's
sturdier brown ones. She could handle a fishing rod as well as her
father, could ride and drive and shoot, and was on terms of easy
friendship with every neighbor who passed over the brow of Billy-goat
Hill.
The matter of education had been the first serious break in this idyllic
existence. After romping through the country school, she had had several
young and pretty governesses, all of whom had succumbed to the charms of
neighboring country swains, and abandoned their young charge, to start
establishments of their own. Then came wise counsel from without and