I do not know how it is that I shall find words in which to write down
the loveliness of that Gouverneur of Old Harpeth. He was not as tall
as my Uncle, the General Robert, and he was slender and lithe as some
wild thing in a forest, but the power in the broadness of his
shoulders and in the strength of his nervous hands was of a greatness
of which to be frightened; that is, I think, of which a man should be
frightened but in which a woman would take much glory. His hair was of
the tarnished gold of a sunset storm and upon his temples was a curved
crest of white that sparkled like the spray of a wave. All of which I
must have seen with some kind of inward eyes, for from the moment my
eyes lifted themselves from contemplating the carpet in embarrassment
over my tweed trousers they were looking into his in a way which at
dawn my eyes have gazed into the morning star rising near to me over
the little wood at the Chateau de Grez. I did not for many days know
whether those eyes were gray or blue or purple, for when I regarded
them I forgot to decide, and also they were so deep and shadowed by
the blackness of their lashes and brows that such a decision was
difficult. At this time I only knew that in them lay the fire of the
lightning over Old Harpeth when the storm breaks, the laugh of the
very small boy who splashes bare feet in the water with glee, and also
a coldness of the stars upon the frost of winter. I was glad that I
came across the dark ocean to flee from the cruel guns into a strange
land to look into those eyes.
"It is good that you have come, Robert Carruthers, for the General and
I both need you," were the words I heard him saying to me in a voice
that was as deep and of as much interest as the eyes, and as he spoke
those words he took one of my hands in both of his strong ones. "And
if you say snails, snails it shall be, if Cato and I have to invade
every rose garden in Hayesville and vicinity and stay up all night to
catch them."
"I think I shall choose that corn pone and whiskey that my Uncle, the
General Robert, has promised to me from one bad tempered cook at the
time of my luncheon," I found myself saying with a laugh that answered
the bare-footed boy who suddenly looked at me out of the cool eyes.
"I thought I would let him have a try-out with Kizzie before we
decided what to feed the savages," also said my Uncle, the General
Robert, with a laugh. "Besides, he's one himself and I'll have to go
slow and tame him gradually."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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