CHAPTER III MOREY MEETS A FELLOW FISHERMAN

Mrs. Marshall’s home fronted the west. Always, in the distance, like a magic curtain ready to rise and reveal a fairyland beyond, hung the vapory Blue Mountains. Round about, like long fingers, the rough mountain heights ran down among the century-old plantations. Ridges, pine-grown and rocky, and here and there tumbling rivulets gave variety to the long, level reaches of tobacco land.

A little creek, finally trickling into the north part of the Rappahannock river, skirted what had once been the east boundary of the old Marshall plantation. In days long gone, before the forests thinned and while the mountain sides were thick with laurel, ash, and oak, the creek plunged lustily in and out of its wide and deep pools and went bounding musically in many a rapid. But now, even as the Marshall acres had thinned and disappeared, the woodland stream had dwarfed and shrunk until it was little more than a reminder of its former vigor.

Yet, by all the Marshalls it was remembered as the place where Colonel Aspley had “whipped the stream for speckled beauties” like a gentleman; it was still Aspley Creek, and Amos was not the only one who believed trout might still be taken there. It was not surprising, therefore, that Lieutenant Fred Purcell, of the U. S. Army, should on this day drive twenty miles from Linden to try his luck there.

Why this keen-eyed young officer, and many other soldiers who were not officers, were seen so often in the little railroad town of Linden, few persons knew. But to this place he had come, when the snows in the mountains were disappearing in March, with a few brother officers and a squad of privates and much strange baggage. Mules and wagons followed a few days later and then the new arrivals disappeared. There were many theories. Generally it was agreed that it might mean an expedition against “moonshiners” or illicit distillers. More conservative gossips predicted that it was a party of military engineers. The local paper ventured that the war department was about to locate a weather observatory on the mountains. One thing only became, gradually, common knowledge—that the soldiers were in camp near Green Springs, in Squirrel Gap, ten miles back in the foot hills and that the officers came every few days to the Green Tree Inn, in Linden, to eat and smoke.

Morey, rising from the breakfast table, was almost on Mammy Ca’line’s heels.

“Mammy,” he shouted, “where’s my old fishin’ clothes?”

The fat old negress turned and then, embarrassed, exclaimed:

“Yo’ ma done say yo’ don’ want dem ol’ pants no mo’. She gib all yo’ ol’ garmen’s to Amos.”

“Everything?” laughed Morey, looking down at his second best trousers. “I’m goin’ for trout. I can’t wade in these.”

Old Ca’line shook her head.

“I reckon yo’ ma gwine get yo’ new clothes. Yo’ old clothes is Amos meetin’ pants.”

“Amos!” yelled Morey, rushing through the wide hall and out into the rear yard. “Amos!” he called, hurrying toward the tumble-down cabin of the Greens. “Gimme my pants! My fishin’ pants!”

The sober-faced colored boy was just emerging from the single room in which he and his father lived, with a bit of clothes line around his shoulders to which was attached an old, cracked, and broken creel, and carrying in his hand a long-preserved jointed casting rod.

“I say,” repeated Morey, half laughing, “Mammy Ca’line says Mother gave you my old fishing clothes. Produce—I want ’em.”

The colored boy looked up, alarmed.

“Ah—ah,” he stuttered. “Dem’s my own clothes. Dey’s my onliest meetin’ pants.”

“I should say not,” roared Morey. “Mother didn’t know what she was doin’. Fork ’em over! I can’t go into the water in these,” he added, pointing to the trousers he had on. “These ain’t ready-made,” he went on proudly; “they ain’t boughten. I got them from a tailor in Richmond.”

Amos eyed the new trousers with interest and admiration. Then his lip quivered.

“Marse Morey,” he whimpered, “yo’ ma done gib me dem pants las’ Chrismus’. I speck’s she don’t ’low I’s gwine part wid dem. Dey’s a present.”

“Look here, boy, don’t make me mad,” retorted Morey. “Turn over my pants or we don’t go fishin’.”

Amos’ whine ended in a sob. He hesitated and then broke out: “Yo’ ma gib ’em to me. But—.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Marse Morey,” he said, coming close to the frowning white boy, “I’s got fo’ bits I made pickin’ berries fo’ Miss Carey—”

Morey’s voice did not change but a smile seemed to hover about his clean-cut lips.

“Look here, nigger,” he exclaimed suddenly, “do you want those pants worse than I do?”

“Wuss!” whimpered Amos. “I jes’ nachally got to hab ’em. I done promised dem pants to Miss ’Mandy Hill.”

“Promised my pants to a girl?”

“Yas sah,” explained Amos soberly. “’Mandy and me’s gwine to de camp meetin’ Sunday to the Co’t House. I promise her long time ago I’s gwine wear dem pants when we does.”

“Ah, I see,” laughed Morey at last, “well, don’t disappoint ’Mandy.”

When the two boys left the cabin and cut across the old tobacco field it would have been hard to tell which was the raggedest, Amos with his patched blue overalls, almost white from constant washing, or Morey clad in old Marsh Green’s working corduroys.

At the ruins of the old tobacco shed Amos paused, looked at Morey a little sheepishly and then, from under a few protecting boards, drew out an old torn seine about five feet long, attached to two thin saplings.

Morey’s face flushed at once.

“What you doing with that seine, Amos?” he exclaimed severely.

“What I doin’ wid dat?”

“You’ve been seining trout, you black rascal.”

“Cross my h’at, no sah. Deed I ain’t. No sah.”

“What have you been doing with it?”

“Well sah, some says dey is and some says dey ain’t. But, ef yo’ ain’t no salt meat, suckers is good eatin’.”

“Suckers!” snorted Morey. “You all ain’t been seinin’ and eatin’ suckers?”

Amos nodded his head.

“You never eat none o’ Mammy Ca’line’s sucker chowder?”

Morey turned up his nose in disgust.

“Can’t mostly tell no difference ’tween Ca’line’s chowder and reg’lar fish,” the black boy went on appealingly.

As they neared the creek Morey said:

“Amos, if I ever catch you takin’ a trout with that net I’ll thrash you.”

As Morey went on and the tall colored boy looked down on his slender companion, his hollow, mournful cheeks rounded into what was almost a smile and he muttered to himself:

“I reckon dat boy been livin’ high and mighty down to Richmond. Suckers is gittin’ ’tas’ good to me sence Marse Aspley gone.”

Morey left the tobacco field and took the old meadow path to the big bend above—Julius Cæsar’s domain and the best part of the creek. Amos took the road to the ford, two bends below and about an hour’s fishing from the big pool. If Julius Cæsar existed outside of Amos’ head Morey could not prove it. With what skill he had he fished the pool, waited ten minutes and went over the same water again without a strike. Then he advanced slowly down stream. In three quarters of an hour only two trout did he hook, neither of them a fish to be proud of.

When he reached the ford where Amos should have been waiting for him there was no sign of the colored boy and the sun was high overhead. Ten minutes later, wading softly down the cool and shady little stream and almost lost in the sportsman’s absorption, his fly shooting forward swiftly and silently over each eddy and likely log, he was suddenly aroused by a quick splash and a violent exclamation.

Amos Struggled to Free Himself.

Just before him, and struggling in the middle of the stream, were two persons. Amos, who was one of them, almost prostrate in the shallow water, was struggling to free himself from the grip of a man about thirty-five years old.

“You black rascal,” exclaimed the man. “What d’you mean. Seinin’, eh? Take that!”

At the word he planted the flat of his hand on the black boy’s back. As Amos fell flat in the stream and rolled over in the water there was a splashing behind his assailant. The man turned just in time to see Morey, his ragged, baggy trousers wet and impeding his progress, plugging furiously forward.

“Oh, you’re his pal, eh?” laughed the man. “Well, come on and get the same. I’ll teach you young whelps to know better. I’ll—.”

But he neither had time to administer the same nor to finish his speech. The agile Amos with the water running from his clothes and mouth, had recovered himself and with head down lunged forward. The next instant both boy and man were locked together and almost submerged in the sluggish current.

As they rolled over and over Morey made desperate efforts to stop the struggle. But he only complicated matters. Slipping, he fell upon the two combatants. Cold water, however, is a great cooler of angry passions. Without knowing just how it happened, in a moment, the man and the two boys were standing in mid-stream, sputtering and gasping for breath. Morey still gripped his rod, the man was glancing dejectedly toward his own broken pole, now well down the creek and Amos was gripping a moss-covered rock dug up from the bed of the creek.

“I suppose you know you are trespassing on private property?” began Morey, forgetting, in his indignation, that the creek no longer was a part of his mother’s plantation.

The man, shaking himself, turned as if surprised.

“This boy is my servant. Have you any explanation to make?”

The man’s surprise increased to astonishment. After another look at Morey’s ragged garments he fixed his eyes upon the lad’s face.

“He was seining trout—” began the stranger indignantly.

“Da’s a lie,” exclaimed Amos.

“He was fishing for suckers,” explained Morey.

“Look in his pockets,” retorted the stranger.

Morey hesitated a moment.

“My name is Mortimer Marshall, sir, of Aspley Place. This boy is my mother’s servant. He—”

At that moment Morey saw a suspicious movement of Amos’ hand.

“Amos,” he exclaimed sternly, “come here!”

Slowly the black boy splashed forward, the rock still in his hand, but with one cautious eye on the stranger.

Morey ran his hand into the colored boy’s pocket and drew slowly forth a still flopping three-quarter pound trout.

“Fo’ de lan’s sake, Marse Morey, who done put dat fish in dar?”

The man did not smile.

“I’m really sorry, my boy, that I struck you. I’m a great lover of this sport and I lost my head. I apologize to you. And to you,” he added, turning to Morey.

Morey turned again to Amos.

“Where did you get that trout, Amos?”

“Cross my ha’t, Marse Morey, I reckon dat fish done swum in ma’ pocket. Trouts is cute fishes.”

Morey picked up Amos’ seine, still tangled among the rocks, and grasping the rotten sticks to which it was attached, he broke them over his knee. Then he pointed to the bank and Amos crawled dejectedly ashore.

“My name is Purcell, Lieutenant Purcell, of the United States Army,” said the stranger.

“I am glad to know you,” replied Morey reaching out his hand. “I am fond of fishing myself.”