The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills

"It's fitten"--said the old man tenderly--"it's fitten an' beautiful. The fust burial we know of in the Bible is where Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah for to bury Sarah, his wife. And as Abraham bought it of Ephron, the Hittite, and offered it to Abraham for to bury his dead out of his sight, so I give this cave to you, Jack Bracken, forever to be the restin' place of little Jack." And so, tenderly and with many kisses did they bury little Jack, sinless and innocent, deep in the pure white rock, covered as he was with purity and looking ever upwards toward the statue above, wherein Nature's chisel had carved out a Madonna and her child. CHAPTER XII JACK BRACKEN Jack Bracken was comfortably fixed in his underground home. There was every comfort for living. It was warm in winter and cool in summer, and in another apartment adjoining his living room was what he called a kitchen in which a spring of pure water, trickling down from rock to rock, formed in a natural basin of whitest rock below. "Jack," said the old man, "won't you tell me about yo'self an' how you ever got down to this? I knowed you as a boy, up to the time you went into the army, an' if I do say it to yo' face, you were a brave hon'rble boy that never forgot a frien' nor--" "A foe," put in Jack quickly. "Bishop, if I cu'd only forgive my foes--that's been the ruin of me." The old man was thoughtful a while: "Jack, that's a terrible thing in the human heart--unforgiveness. It's to life what a drought is to Nature--an' it spiles mo' people than any other weakness. But that don't make yo' no wuss than the rest of us, nor does robbery nor even murder. So there's a chance for you yet, Jack--a mighty fine chance, too, sence yo' heart is changed." "Many a time, Jack, many a time when the paper 'ud be full of yo' holdin' up a train or shootin' a shar'ff, or robbin' or killin', I'd tell 'em what a good boy you had been, brave an' game but revengeful when aroused. I'd tell 'em how you dared the bullets of our own men, after the battle of Shiloh, to cut down an' carry off a measley little Yankee they'd hung up as a spy 'cause he had onct saved yo' father's life. You shot two of our boys then, Jack." "They was a shootin' me, too," he said quietly. "I caught two bullets savin' that Yankee. But he was no spy; he was caught in a Yankee uniform an'--an' he saved my father, as you said--that settled it with me." "It turned our boys agin you, Jack." "Yes, an' the Yankees were agin me already--that made all the worl' agin me, an' it's been agin me ever since--they made me an outlaw." The old man softened: "How was it, Jack? I knowed you was driven to it." "They shot my father--waylaid and killed him--some home-made Yankee bush-whackers that infested these hills--as you know." The Bishop nodded. "I know--I know--it was awful. 'But vengeance is mine--I will repay'--saith the Lord." "Well, I was young, an' my father--you know how I loved him. Befo' I c'ud get home they had burned our house, killed my sick mother from exposure and insulted my sisters." "Jack," said the old man hotly--"a home-made Yankee is a 'bomination to the Lord. He's a twin brother to the Copperhead up north." "My little brother--they might have spared him," went on the outlaw--"they might have spared him. He tried to defen' his mother an' sisters an' they shot him down in col' blood." "'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord," replied the old man sadly. "Well, I acted as His agent that time,"--his eyes were hot with a bright glitter. "I put on their uniform an' went after 'em. I j'ined 'em--the devils! An' they had a nigger sarjent an' ten of their twenty-seven was niggers, wearin' a Yankee uniform. I j'ined 'em--yes,--for wasn't I the agent of the Lord?" He laughed bitterly. "An' didn't He say: 'He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.' One by one they come up missin', till I had killed all but seven. These got panicky--followed by an unknown doom an' they c'udn't see it, for it come like a thief at midnight an' agin like a pesterlence it wasted 'em at noonday. They separated--they tried to fly--they hid--but I followed 'em 'an I got all but one. He fled to California." "It was awful, Jack--awful--God he'p you." "Then a price was put on my head. I was Jack Bracken, the spy and the outlaw. I was not to be captured, but shot and hung. Then I cut down that Yankee an' you all turned agin me. I was hunted and hounded. I shot--they shot. I killed an' they tried to. I was shot down three times. I've got bullets in me now. "After the war I tried to surrender. I wanted to quit and live a decent life. But no, they put a bigger price on my head. I came home like other soldiers an' went to tillin' my farm. They ran me away--they hunted an' hounded me. Civilization turned ag'in me. Society was my foe. I was up ag'in the fust law of Nature. It is the law of the survival--the wild beast that, cowered, fights for his life. Society turned on me--I turned on Society." "But there was one thing that happen'd that put the steel in me wuss than all. All through them times was one star I loved and hoped for. I was to marry her when the war closed. She an' her sister--the pretty one--they lived up yander on the mountain side. The pretty one died. But when I lost faith in Margaret Adams, I lost it in mankind. I'd ruther a seen her dead. It staggered me--killed the soul in me--to think that an angel like her could fall an' be false." "I don't blame you," said the old man. "I've never understood it yet." "I was to marry Margaret. I love her yet," he added simply. "When I found she was false I went out--and--well, you know the rest." He took a turn around the room, picked up one of little Jack's shoes, and cried over it. "So I married his mother--little Jack's mother, a mountain lass that hid me and befriended me. She died when the boy was born. His granny kep' him while I was on my raids--nobody knowed it was my son. His granny died two years ago. This has been our home ever sence, an' not once, sence little Jack has been with me, have I done a wrong deed. Often an' often we've slipt up to hear you preach--what you've said went home to me." "Jack," said the old man suddenly aroused--"was that you--was it you been puttin' them twenty dollar gol' pieces in the church Bible--between the leds, _ever'_ month for the las' two years? By it I've kep' up the po' of Cottontown. I've puzzled an' wonder'd--I've thought of a dozen fo'ks--but I sed nothin'--was it you?" The outlaw smiled: "It come from the rich an' it went to the po'. Come," he said--"that's somethin' we must settle." He took up the lantern and led the way into the other room. Under a ledge of rocks, securely hid, sat, in rows, half a dozen common water buckets, made of red cedar, with tops fitting securely on them. The outlaw spread a blanket on the sand, then knelt and, taking up a bucket, removed the top and poured out its contents on the blanket. They chuckled and rolled and tumbled over each other, the yellow eagles and half eagles, like thoroughbred colts turned out in the paddocks for a romp. The old man's knees shook under him. He trembled so that he had to sit down on the blanket. Then he ran his hand through them--his fingers open, letting the coins fall through playfully. Never before had he seen so much gold. Poor as he was and had ever been--much and often as he had suffered--he and his, for the necessities of life, even, knowing its value and the use he might make of it, it thrilled him with a strange, nervous longing--a childish curiosity to handle it and play with it. Modest and brave men have looked on low-bosomed women in the glitter of dissipative lights with the same feeling. The old man gazed, silent--doubtless with the same awe which Keats gave to Cortez, when he first looked on the Pacific and stood "Silent, upon a peak in Darien." The outlaw lifted another bucket and took off the lid. It also was full. "There are five mo'," he said--"that last one is silver an' this one--" He lifted the lid of a small cedar box. In it was a large package, wrapped in water-proof. Unravelling it, he shoved out packages of bank bills of such number and denomination as fairly made the old preacher wonder. "How much in all, Jack?" "A little the rise of one hundred thousand dollars." He pushed them back and put the buckets under their ledge of rocks. "I'd give it all just to have little Jack here agin--an'--an'--start out--a new man. This has cost me ten years of outlawry an' fo'teen bullets. Now I've got all this an'--well--a hole in the groun' an' little Jack in the hole. If you wanter preach a sermon on the folly of pilin' up money," he went on half ironically, "here is yo' tex'. All me an' little Jack needed or cu'd use, was a few clothes, some bac'n an' coffee an' flour. Often I'd fill my pockets an' say: 'Well, I'll buy somethin' I want, an' that little Jack will want.' I'd go to town an' see it all, an' think an' puzzle an' wonder--then I'd come home with a few toys, maybe, an' bac'n an' flour an' coffee." "With all our money we can't buy higher than our source, an' when we go we leave even that behind," he added. "The world," said the old man quaintly, "is full of folks who have got a big pocket-book an' a bac'n pedigree." "Do you know who this money belongs to?" he asked the outlaw. "Every dollar of it," said Jack Bracken. "It come from railroads, banks and express companies. I didn't feel squirmish about takin' it, for all o' them are robbers. The only diff'r'nce betwix' them an' me is that they rob a little every day, till they get their pile, an' I take mine from 'em, all at onct." He thought awhile, then he said: "But it must all go back to 'em, Jack. Let them answer for their own sins. Leave it here until next week--an' then we will come an' haul it fifty miles to the next town, where you can express it to them without bein' known, or havin' anybody kno' what's in the buckets till you're safe back here in this town. I'll fix it an' the note you are to write. They'll not pester you after they get their money. The crowd you've named never got hot under a gold collar. A clean shave will change you so nobody will suspect you, an' there's a good openin' in town for a blacksmith, an' you can live with me in my cabin." "But there's one thing I've kept back for the las'," said Jack, after they had gone into the front part of the room and sat down on the deer skins there. "That sword there"--and he pointed to the wall where it hung. The Bishop glanced up, and as he did so he felt a strange thrill of recognition run through him--"It belongs to Cap'n Tom," said Jack quietly. The old man sprang up and took it reverently, fondly down. "Jack--" he began. "I was at Franklin," went on Jack proudly. "I charged with old Gen. Travis over the breastworks near the Carter House. I saw Cap'n Tom when he went under." "Cap'n Tom," repeated the old man slowly. "Cap'n Tom, yes--he saved my life once, you know. He cut me down when they were about to hang me for a spy--you heard about it?" The Bishop nodded. "It was his Company that caught me an' they was glad of any excuse to hang me. An' they mighty nigh done it, but Cap'n Tom came up in time to cut me down an' he said he'd make it hot for any man that teched me, that I was a square prisoner of war, an' he sent me to Johnson Island. Of course it didn't take me long to get out of that hole--I escaped." The Bishop was silent, looking at the sword. "Well, at Franklin, when I seed Cap'n Tom dyin' as I tho'rt, shunned by the Yankees as a traitor----" "As a traitor?" asked the old man hotly--"what, after Shiloh--after