The Laurens advertiser. (Laurens, S.C.) 1885-1973, June 03, 1914, Image 9
VOLUME~ XXIX. LAURENS, SOUTH CAROLINA, WE[)NESDAY, 3 JUNE, 1914. tMW 4
VAHXANT61S
ILLUSTRATrD ,y- I
MW'm,6vr 2 av aaoa-nEeata oo
CIIAP TR XIX- - .ant w'orks won
der in thie (bl phteer. hie iscovers tht
he has at fortune in old walnut trees.
CHAPTER XX.
The Gardeners.
Ie saw them comling through the
gate on the Red Road-the major and
Shirley ini a Iliac nusalin by his side
and strode to meet them. Behind
them Ianston propelled a hand-cart
fillied with paper bundles from each of
which protruded a bunch of flowering
stems. There was a flush in Shirley's
cheek as her hand lay in Valiant's.
As for him, his eyes, like a wilful
drunkards, returned again and again,
between the major's compliments, to
her face.
"You have accomplished wonders,
sah! I had no idea no much could be
done in such a limited time. You
have certainly primped the old place
up. I could almost think I was look
ing at Damory Court in the sixties,
sah!"
"That's quite the nicest thing you
could have said, Major," responded
Valiant. "Blut it needs the flowers."
Ile looked at Shirley with sparkling
eyes. "How splendid of you to bring
them! I feel like a robber."
"With our bushels of them? We
shall never miss them at all. Have
you set out the others?"
"I have, indeed. Every one has
.-rooted, too. You shall see them." lie
led the way up the drive till they
stood before the porch.
"Gad!" chuckled the major. "Who
would think it had been unoccupied
for three decades? At this rate, you'll
soon be giving dances, salh."
"Al," said Valiant. "That's the very
thing I want to suggest. The tourna
ment comes off next week, I under
stand, and it's been the custom to
have a ball that night. 'fihe tourney
ground is on this estate, and Damory
Court is handier than the Country
Club. Why wouldn't it be appropriate
to hold the dance here? The ground
floor rooms are in order, and it the
young people would put up with it, it
would be a great pleasure to me, I as
sure you."
"Oh!" breathed Shirley. "That
would be too wonderful!"
The major seized his hand and
shook it heartily. "I can answer for
the committee," he said. "They'll
jump at it. Why, sah, the new gener
ation has never set eyes inside the
house. It's a golden legend to them."
"Then I'll go ahead with arrange.
ments."
He led them around the house and
'down the terraces of the formal gar.
Aden, and here the major's encomiums
(broke forth again. "You are going to
take us old folks back, sah," he said
with real feeling. "This gyarden in
its original lines'was unique. It had a
piquancy and a picturesqueness that,
,thank God, are to be restored! One
can understand the owner of an es
tate like this having no desire to
spend his life philandering abroad. We
all hope, sah, that you will recur to
the habit of your ancestors and count
Damnory Court home."
Valiant smiled slowly. "I don't
dream of anything else," he said. "My
-life, as I map it out, seems to begin
'heo. The rest doesn't count-only
the years when I was little and had
my father."
The major carefully adjusted his
eye-glasses. lls head was turned
away. "Ahm, yes," lie said.
"The last twenty years," continued
'the other, "from my present view.
'ioint, are valuable mainly for con
trast."
"As a consistent regimen of pate
'do foie gras," said Shirley qlui/zically.
"makes one value bread and butter?~
H-e shook his head at her. "M
'vation makes one appr'eiante '
T'he next twent~y years i'iare I
'But they hold side-trip,.
and then there's a jaunt back to the
city."
"Contrast again?" she asked inter
estedly.
"Yes and no. Yes, because no one
who has ever known that blazing
clanging life can really undierstand the
peace and blessedness of a place like
:this. No, because there are somethings
'which are to be found only there.
There are the galleries and the opera.
I need a breath of them both."
"And semii-occasional longer flights,
tee," the major reflccted. "A look-ee
abroad once in a blue moon. Why
"Yes. For mental photographs-im
pr'essions one can't get freom between
book-cov er TPhere's an old1 cloister
garden I kr~uw in Italy andl a particu
la ie-ank~nt in Tannn in hne r@herv.
AUREN STOUT
tiossom season, and a tiny island with
a Greek castle on it in the Aegean.
.ittlo colored memories for me to
bring away to dream over. But al
ways I come back here to Damnory
Court. For this iF-home!"
T'hey walked beneath the pergola
to the lake, where Shirley gave a cry
of delight at sight of its feathered
population. "W\hero did you get them
from?" she asked.
"\\asllngton. In crates."
"That explains it." she exclaimed.
"One (lay last week the little darkies
in the village all insisted a circus was
coming. They must have seen these
being hauled here. They watched the
whole afternoon for the elephants." '
"Poor youngsters!" he said. "It's
a shame to fool them. But I've had
all the circus I want getting the live
stock installed."
"They won't suffer," said the major.
"Rickey Snyder'll get them up a three
I ringed show at the drop of a hat and
drop it herself. Besides, there's tourn
amnent day coming, and they can live
on that. I see you've dredged out
some of the lilies."
"Yes. I take my dip here every
morning."
"We used to have a diving-board
when we were little shavers," pursued
the major. "I remember once, your
father-"
le cleared his throat and stopped
dead.
"Please," said John Valiant, "I-I
like to hear about him."
"It was only that I otruck my head
on a rock an the bottom And-staye
con. ~Tnt- others were ri-Igntenen.
but he-he dove down again and again
till he brought me out. It was a nar
row squeak, I reckon."
A silence fell. Looking at the tall
muscular form beside her, Shirley had
a sudden vision of a determined little
body cleaving the dark water, over
and over, now rising panting for
breath, now plunging again, never giv
Ing up. And she told herself that the
son was the same sort. That hard
set of the jaw, those firm lips, would
know no flinching. He might suffer,
but he would be strong.
Half unconsciously she spoke her
thought aloud: "You look like your
father, do you not?"
"Yes," he replied, "there's a strong
likeness. I have a photograph which
I'll show you sometime. But how did
you know ?"
"Perhaps I only guessed," she said
in some confusion. To cover this she
stooped by the pebbly marge and held
out her hand to the bronze ducks that
pashed and gobbled about her fingers.
"What have you named them?" she
asked.
"Nothing. You christen them."
"Very well. The light one shall
be Peezletree and the dark one Pilgar
lie. I got the names from John Jasper
-he was Virginia's famous negro
preacher. I once heard him hold forth
when he readl from one of the Psalms
-the one about the harp and the
psaltery-and he called it peezietree."
Valiant's laugh rang out over the
lake-to be answered by a sudden
sharp screech from the terrace, where
the peacock strutted, a blaze of span
gled purple and gold. They turned to
see Aunt D~aphne issue from the
kitchen, twig-broom in hand.
"Hieah!" she exclaimed. "What fo'
ye' kyahin' on like or wil' gyraft we'n
we get comp'ny, ye' triflin' ol' fan
tail, ye! Glit outenm heah!"' She
waved her weapon and the bird, with
a raucous shriek of deilance, retired
in ruffled dlisordler. Th'e master of
Damory Court looked at Shirley.
"WThat shall we name him ?"
."I'd call him Fire.Cracke-r it he
goes off like that," sihe said. And Fire.
Cracker the bir'd wvas christenedi forth
with.
"And now," said Shirley, "let's set
out the ramblers."
The major had brought a rough plan,
sketched from memory, of the oldi ar
rangement of the formal gar'deni. "I'll
just g;o over the lineus or the beds with
lInem~' .Iefierson."' he prolposed, 'while
von In (, '?--r over' thIese roses5 " 5o
\'I!: -' -r' -y walked batc' tup
the slope beneath the pergola to
gether.
WVith Rlanston, phifling and blowing
like a black porpose over his creak
ing go-cart, they planted the ramblers
-crimson andl pink and wthite-Va
lant mnuch of the lime on his knees,
his hands lunging deep) into the black
spongy earth, andi Shirley with broad
hat flung on the grase. heri fingers
separating the clinging thread-like
roots andl her small arched foot tamp
ing dlown the soil about them. H1er
hair--tho color of wet m'am wood in
the sunlight--was very near the brown
head and sometimes their fingers
touched over the work. Once, as they
stood up, flushed with the exercise, a
great black and orange butterfly,
dazed with the sun-glow, alighted on
Valiant's rolled-up sleeve. Ile held his
armi perfectly still and blew gently
on the wavering pinions till it swam
away. When a redbird flirted by, to
his delight she whistled its ca1 se
perfectly that it wheeled in mid-ilight
and tilted inquiringly back toward
them.
As they descended the terrace again
to the pergola, he said, "There's only
one thing lacking at l)amory Court
a sun-dial."
"Then you haven't found it?" she
cried delightedly. "Come and let me
show you."
She led the way through the maze
of beds at one side till they reached
a hedge laced thickly with Virginia
creeper. lie parted this leafy screen,
bending back the springing fronds
that thrust against the flimsy muslin
of her gown and threatened to spear
the ink-rosed hat that cast an ador
able warm tint over her creamy face,
thinking that never had the old place
seen such a picture as she made
framed in the deep green.
Some such thought was in the ma
Jor's mind, too, as he came slowly up
the terrace below. He paused, to take
e1f his hat and wipe his. brow.
%'With the place all fixed up this
way," he sighed to himself, "I could
believe it was only last week that
Beauty Valiant and Southall and I
were boys, loafing around this gyar
den. And to think that now it's Va
liant's son and Judith's daughter!
Why, it seems like yesterday that Shir
ley there was only knee-high to a
grasshopper-and I used to tell her
her hair was that color because she
ran through hell bareheaded. I'm
about a thousand years old, I reckon!"
Meanwhile the two figures above
had pushed through the tangle into
a circular sunny space where stood a
short round pillar of red onyx. It was
a sun-dial, its vine-clad disk cut of
gray polished stone in which its metal
'tongue was socketed. Round the outer
edge of the disk ran an inscription
in archaic lettering. Valiant pulled
away the clustering ivy leaves and
read: "I count no hours but the hap
py ones."
"If that had only been true!" he
said.
"it is true. See how the vines hid
the sun from it. It ceased to mark
the time after the Court was de
serted."
"I'll put moonflowers at its base and
where you are standing, Madonna
lilies. The outer part of the circle
shall have bridal-wreath and white
irises, iand they shall shade out into
pastel colors---mauves and grays and
heliotropes. Oh, I shall love this spot!
-perhaps sometime the best of all."
"Which do you love the most now?"
He leaned slightly toward her, one
hand on the dial's time-notched rim.
"Don't you know?" he said in a lower
voice. "Could any other spot mean to
me what that acre under the hemlocks
means?"
Her face was turned from him, her
fingers pulling at the drifting vine, and
a splinter of sunlight tangled in her
hair like a lace of fireflies.
"I could never forget it," he con
tinued. "The thing that spoiled my
father's life happened there, yet there
we two first talked, and there you-"
"Don't!" she said, facing him.
"Don't!"
"Ah, let me speak! I want to tell
you that I shall car-ry the memory of
that afternoon, and of your brave kind
ness, always, always! If I were never
to see you again in this life, I should
always treasure it. If I died of thirst
in sonme Sahara, it wvould be the last
thing I should r'emember-your face
would be the last thing I should see!
If I-"
In the silenice there was the sound
of a slow foot-fall oni (lie gravel walk,
and at the same moment lie saw a
magical change. Shirley drewv back.
The soft gentian blue of Iter' eyes
dlarkcenedl. The lip)s thant an instant
before had been tremulous, parted in
a lowt delicious laugh. She swept him
a deeop curtisey.
"I am beholden to you, sir," she
said gally, "for a most knightly comn
pliment. 'Thiere's (lie major. Come
and let us show him wvher'o we've
planted (lie ramiblers."
(Continiued Ne xt \\ee.
'Take Pity of)0' 111 Time at.
Th'leie is a a' lngin
tlheM hbitE of ;aing i .la
mos lieyi fei
3t__ _ _ _ I)taa:it: i a . (" (i1 ! ) tfl t)'JI . .
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The Land ManaWh friides NoThe ar teetoutY u'P i
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