Wythe's law office, with a smile so broadly humorous, humane, and tolerant, that suddenly the courtroom smiled with him. "Tom Mocket, gentlemen, is a scamp, but he's not a scoundrel! The election proceeds, Mr. Sheriff."
"I vote for Lewis Rand!" shouted the scamp out of the uproar. "Richmond now, then Washington! We'll send Lewis Rand as high as he can go!"
"As high as the gallows!" growled Major Edward Churchill.
"Send him," said a voice in the doorway, "out West. Mr. Jefferson gained Louisiana, but 'twill take a stronger man to gain Mexico. Mexico wants a Buonaparte."
The day wore on with no lessening of heat and clamour. The Court House becoming too full, men betook themselves to the yard or to the street, where, mounted on chairs or on wagons from which the horses had been taken, they harangued their fellows. Public speaking came easily to this race. To-day good liquor and emulation pricked them on, and the spring in the blood. Under the locusts to the right of the gate Federalists apostrophized Washington, lauded Hamilton, the Judiciary, and the beauty of the English Constitution, denounced the French, denounced the Louisiana Purchase, denounced the Man of the People, and his every tool and parasite, and lifted to the skies the name of Ludwell Cary. To the left of the gate, under the locusts, the Republicans praised the President of the United States and all his doings, and poured oblation to Lewis Rand. From side to side of the path there were alarms and incursions. Before noon there had occurred a number of hand-to-hand fights, one, at least, accompanied by "gouging," and a couple of duels had been arranged.
In the courtroom the parties jostled each other at the polls, and the candidates, side by side upon the Justice's Bench, watched the day go now this way and now that. Their partisans they must acceptably thank, and they must be quick of wit with their adversaries. Fatigue did not count, nor hoarseness from much speaking, nor an undercurrent of consciousness that there were, after all, more parties than two, more principles than those they advocated, more colours than black and white, more epithets than hero and villain. They must act in their moment, and accept its excitement. A colour burned in their cheeks, and the hair lay damp upon their foreheads. They must listen and answer to men saying loudly to their faces and before other men, "I hold with you, and your mind is brother to my mind"; or saying, "I hold not with you, and you and your mind are abominable to me! To outer darkness with you both!"
Sometimes they consulted with their committee-men, and sometimes punch was brought, and they drank with their friends. Occasionally they spoke to each other; when they did this, it was with extreme courtesy. Cary used the buttoned foil with polished ease. Rand's manner was less assured; there was something antique and laboured in his determined grasp at the amenities of the occasion. It was the only heaviness. To the other contest between them he brought an amazing sureness, a suppleness, power, and audacity beyond praise. He directed his battle, and at his elbow Tom Mocket, sandy-haired and ferret-eyed, did him yeoman service.
At one o'clock there was an adjournment for dinner. The principal Federalists betook themselves to the Swan; the principal Republicans to the Eagle. The commonalty ate from the packed baskets upon the trampled grass of the Court House yard. An hour later, when the polls were reopened, men returned to them flushed with drink and in the temper for a quarrel, the Republicans boisterous over a foreseen victory, the Federalists peppery from defeat. In the yard the constable had to part belligerents, in the courtroom the excitement mounted. The tide was set now for Lewis Rand. The Federalists watched it with angry eyes; the Republicans greeted with jubilation each new wave. The defeated found some relief in gibes. "Holoa! here's Citizen Bonhomme—red breeches, cockade, and Brutus crop!
"Ah, ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!"
"That man ran away from Tarleton!—yes, you did, the very day that Mr. Jefferson—a-hem!—absented himself from Monticello!"
"Challenge that man—he deserted in the Indian War!
"November the fourth, in the year ninety-one,
We had a sore engagement near to Fort Jefferson!"
"Here's a traveller who has seen the mammoth and climbed the Salt Mountain!"
"Here's a tobacco-roller! Hey, my man, don't you miss old friends on the road?"
Under cover of the high words, laughter, and vituperation which made a babel of the courtroom, Cary spoke to his opponent. "Mr. Rand, do you remember that frosty morning, long ago, when you and I first met? I came upon you in the woods, and together we gathered chinquapins. Does it seem long to you since you were a boy?"
"Long enough!" answered Rand. "I remember that day very well."
"We told each other our names, I remember, and what each meant to do in the world. We hardly foresaw this day." "It is not easy to foresee," said Rand slowly. "If we could, we might—"
"We might foresee our last meeting," smiled Cary, "as we remember our first." He took a glass of wine from a passing servant and put it to his lips, "To another meeting, in the wood!" he said, "since I may not quite drink to your victory."
"Ah, my victory!" answered Rand. "When I have it, I don't know that I shall care for it! That's a handsome youth, your brother—and he has worked for you like a Trojan! I'll drink to your brother!"
"Here are the Green Spring folk!" cried a voice. "They always vote like gentlemen!"
The Green Spring folk were a squadron, and they voted Cary again within sight of the goal. A man who had been standing just without the open door rested his long musket against the wall and advanced to the polls. "Last time I voted here," he said, "'twas for Mr. Jefferson. I reckon I'll have to vote to-day for Lewis Rand."
A tumult arose. "Adam Gaudylock belongs upon the Mississippi!—He isn't an Albemarle man!—He's a Kentuck—He's a Louisianian—He's a subject of Jefferson's new kingdom!—Challenged!—He can't vote in Albemarle!"
The hunter waited for the uproar to cease. "You Federalists are mighty poor shots!" he exclaimed at last. "You make no account of the wind. I am subject of no man's kingdom. I trade in New Orleans, and I travel on the great rivers, and I've friends in Kentucky, and I hunt where the hunting's good, but when I want to vote I come back to my own county where I was born, and where I grew up among you all, and where I've yet a pretty piece of land between here and the mountains. I voted here before, and I'll vote here again. The Gaudylocks may wander and wander, but their home is on the Three-Notched Road, and they vote in Albemarle."
The vote standing, and Adam being followed by a string of hunters, traders, and boatmen, the Republican candidate was again and finally in advance. The winds blew for him from the four quarters. In the last golden light of the afternoon there was a strong and sudden muster of Republicans. From all directions stragglers appeared, voice after voice proclaiming for the man who, regarded at first as merely a protégé of Jefferson, had come in the last two years to be regarded for himself. The power in him had ceased to be latent, and friend and foe were beginning to watch Lewis Rand and his doings with intentness.
As the sun set behind the Ragged Mountains, the polls closed, and the sheriff proclaimed the election of the Republican candidate.
The Court House was quickly emptied, nor was the Court House yard far behind. The excitement had spent itself. The result, after all, had been foreknown. It drew on chilly with the April dusk, and men were eager to be at home, seated at their supper-tables, going over the day with captured friends and telling the women the news. On wheels, on horseback or afoot, drunk and sober, north, south, east, and west, they cantered, rolled, and trudged away from the brick Court House and the trampled grass, and the empty bowls beneath the locust trees.
The
