The war of the Carolinas

Oh, for you that I never knew, Only in dreams that bind you!-- By Spring’s own grace I shall know your face When under the may I find you!

H. C. Bunner.

TO YOU AT THE GATE.

There was a daisy-meadow, that flowed brimming to the stone wall at the roadside, and on the wooded crest beyond a lamp twinkled in a house round which stole softly the unhurried, eddyless dusk. You stood at the gate, your arms folded on the top bar, your face uplifted, watching the stars and the young moon of June. I was not so old but that I marked your gown of white, your dark head, your eyes like the blue of mid-ocean sea-water in the shadow of marching billows. As my step sounded you looked up startled, a little disdainful, maybe; then you smiled gravely; but a certain dejection of attitude, a sweet wistfulness of lips and eyes, arrested and touched me; and I stole on guiltily, for who was I to intrude upon a picture so perfect, to which moon and stars were glad contributors? As I reached the crown of the road, where it dipped down to a brook that whispered your name, I paused and looked back, and you waved your hand as though dismissing me to the noisy world of men.

In other Junes I have kept tryst with moon and stars beside your gate, where daisies flow still across the meadow, and insect voices blur the twilight peace; but I have never seen again your house of shadows among the trees, or found you dreaming there at the gate with uplifted face and wistful eyes. But from the ridge, where the road steals down into the hollow with its fireflies and murmuring water, I for ever look back to the star- and moon-hung gate in the wall, and see your slim, girlish figure, and can swear that you wave your hand.

KATONAH, June 30, 1908. M. N.

CONTENTS.

I. TWO GENTLEMEN SAY GOOD-BYE 7

II. THE ABSENCE OF GOVERNOR OSBORNE 29

III. THE JUG AND MR. ARDMORE 40

IV. DUTY AND THE JUG 55

V. MR. ARDMORE OFFICIALLY RECOGNIZED 71

VI. MR. GRISWOLD FORSAKES THE ACADEMIC LIFE 89

VII. AN AFFAIR AT THE STATE HOUSE 100

VIII. THE LABOURS OF MR. ARDMORE 115

IX. THE LAND OF THE LITTLE BROWN JUG 129

X. PROFESSOR GRISWOLD TAKES THE FIELD 138

XI. TWO LADIES ON A BALCONY 149

XII. THE EMBARRASSMENTS OF THE DUKE OF BALLYWINKLE 160

XIII. MISS DANGERFIELD TAKES A PRISONER 175

XIV. A MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS 191

XV. THE PRISONER IN THE CORN-CRIB 209

XVI. THE FLIGHT OF GILLINGWATER 228

XVII. ON THE ROAD TO TURNER’S 237

XVIII. THE BATTLE OF THE RACCOON 246

XIX. IN THE RED BUNGALOW 255

XX. ROSÆ MUNDI 269

XXI. GOOD-BYE TO JERRY DANGERFIELD 281

THE WAR OF THE CAROLINAS.

CHAPTER I.

TWO GENTLEMEN SAY GOOD-BYE.

“If anything really interesting should happen to me I think I should drop dead,” declared Ardmore, as he stood talking to Griswold in the railway station at Atlanta. “I entered upon this life under false pretenses, thinking that money would make the game easy, but here I am, twenty-seven years old, stalled at the end of a blind alley, with no light ahead; and to be quite frank, old man, I don’t believe you have the advantage of me. What’s the matter with us, anyhow?”

“The mistake we make,” replied Griswold, “is in failing to seize opportunities when they offer. You and I have talked ourselves hoarse a thousand times planning schemes we never pull off. We are cursed with indecision, that’s the trouble with us. We never see the handwriting on the wall, or if we do, it’s just a streak of hieroglyphics, and we don’t know what it means until we read about it in the newspapers. But I thought you were satisfied with the thrills you got running as a reform candidate for alderman in New York last year. It was a large stage, and the lime-light struck you pretty often. Didn’t you get enough? No doubt they’d be glad to run you again.”