Читать книгу Gabriel Tolliver - Joel Chandler Harris - Страница 7

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Before, during, and after the war, Shady Dale presented always the same aspect of serene repose. It was, as you may say, a town with a history. Then, as now, there were towns all about that had no such fortunate appendage behind them to explain their origin. No one could tell what they were begun for; no one could say whether they had for their nucleus an old field or a cross-roads grocery, or whether a party of immigrants pitched their tents there because the grass was fine and the water abundant. There is one city in Georgia, and it is the most prosperous of all, that was built on the idea that the cattle-paths and the old government roads afford the most convenient and picturesque contours for the streets; and to this day, the thoroughfares of that city afford a most interesting study to those who are interested in either topography or human nature; for it is possible to go to that city, and, with half an eye, discover the places where the waggons and other vehicles turned aside nearly a hundred years ago to avoid the mudholes, the fallen trees, and other temporary obstructions. They have been preserved in the conformation of the streets.

Shady Dale is no city, and it may be that its public-spirited citizens stretch the meaning of the term when they call it a town. Nevertheless, the community has a well-defined history. When Raleigh Clopton, shortly after the signing of the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, crossed the Oconee, and settled on the lands of the hostile Creeks, his friends declared that he was tempting Providence; and so it seemed; but the event proved that from first to last, his adventure was under the direct guidance of Providence. He demonstrated anew the truth of two ancient maxims: he who risks nothing, gains nothing; heaven helps those who help themselves. Raleigh Clopton risked everything and gained the most beautiful domain in all the land. He had, indeed, one stormy interview with General McGillivray, the great Creek chief and statesman, but after that all was peace and prosperity.

General McGillivray was one of the most remarkable men of his time, and his time was during an era of remarkable men. He possessed a genius that enabled him to cope successfully with the ablest statesmen of his day. He drew Washington into a secret treaty with the Creek Nation, and when McGillivray died, the Father of his country referred to him as "my friend," and deplored his taking off. Courageous and adventurous himself, McGillivray was no doubt attracted by the attitude and personality of the fearless Virginian. He became the warm friend of Raleigh Clopton, and marked that friendship by deeding to the first white settler two thousand acres of land lying between the Little River hills on one side, and the meadows of Murder Creek on the other. Moreover, he named the estate Shady Dale, and aided Raleigh Clopton to establish a trading-post where the court-house of the town now stands; and on a pine near by, he caused to be made the semblance of a broken arrow, a token that between the Creeks and the Master of Shady Dale a lasting peace had been established.

This was the beginning. When the multifarious and long-disputed treaties between the United States and the Creek Nation had been signed, and a general peace was assured, Raleigh Clopton communicated with his friends in Wilkes, Burke, Columbia and Richmond counties—the choice spirits who had fought by his side in the bloodiest battles of the War for Independence—informed them of his good fortune, and invited them to share it. The response was all that he could have desired. His old friends and comrades lost no time in joining him—the Dorringtons, the Tomlins, the Gaithers, the Awtrys, the Terrells, the Odoms, the Lumsdens, and, later, the friends and relatives of these. For the most part they were men of substance and character.

Well, perhaps not all. There are black sheep in every flock, and wherever the nature of Adam survives, there we may behold wisdom and folly dancing to the same tune, and sin and repentance occupying the same couch. So it has been from the first, and so it will be to the end. But, take them all in all, making due allowance for the tendencies of human nature, the men and women who responded to the invitation of Raleigh Clopton may be described as the salt of the earth. They had all, women and men, been subjected to the trials and hardships of a war in which no quarter was asked or given; and their experiences had given them a strength of character, and a versatility in dealing with unexpected events, that could hardly be matched elsewhere. To each of those who responded to his invitation, Raleigh Clopton gave a part of his domain, and laid out their settlement for them.

This was the origin of Shady Dale. But to set forth its origin is not to describe its beauty, which is of a character that refuses to submit to description. You go down to the old town from the city, and you say to yourself and your friends that you are enjoying the delights of the country. You visit it from the plantations, and you feel that you are breathing the kind of atmosphere that should be found in the social life of a large, refined and perfectly homogeneous community. But whether you go there from the city, or from the plantations, you are inevitably impressed with a sense of the attractiveness of the place; you fall under the spell of the old town—it was old even in the old times of the sixties. And yet if you were called upon to define the nature of the spell, what could you say? What name could you give to the tremulous beauty that hovers about and around the place, when the fresh green leaves of the great trees are fluttering in the cool wind, and everything is touched and illumined by the tender colours of spring? Under what heading in the catalogue of things would you place the vivid richness which animates the town and the landscape all around when the summer is at its height? And how could you describe the harmony that time has brought about between the fine old houses and the setting in which they are grouped?

All these things are elusive; they make themselves keenly felt, but they do not lend themselves to analysis.

It is a pity that those who are interested in traditions that are truer than history could not have all the facts in regard to Shady Dale from the lips of Mr. Obadiah Tutwiler, who had constituted himself the oral historian of the community. Mr. Tutwiler was alive as late as 1869, and had at his fingers'-ends all the essential facts relating to the origin and growth of the town, and he related the story with a fluency, an accuracy, and a relish quite surprising in so old a man.

As was fitting, the old court-house, the temple of justice, had been reared in the centre of the town, and the square that surrounds it took the shape of a park of considerable dimensions. On two sides were some of the more pretentious dwellings; the tavern, with a few of the more modest houses took up a third side; while the fourth side was taken up by the shops and stores; and so careful had the early settlers been with the trees, that it was possible to stand in a certain upper window of the court-house, and look out upon the town with not a house in sight.

Naturally, the most interesting feature of Shady Dale was the Clopton Place. It had been the home of the First Settler, and in 1860, when Nan and Gabriel were enjoying their happiest days, it was owned and occupied by the son, Meriwether Clopton.

From the time of the First Settler, the Clopton Place had been dedicated and set apart to the uses of hospitality. The deed in which General McGillivray, in the name of the Creek Nation, conveyed the domain to Raleigh Clopton, distinctly sets forth the condition that the Clopton Place was to be an asylum and a place of refuge for the unfortunate and for those who needed succour. During the long and bloody contests between the white settlers and the Creeks, it was the pleasure of the Creek chief to pay out of his own private fortune, which was a large one for those days, the ransoms which, under the rules of the tribal organisations, each Indian town demanded for the prisoners captured by its warriors. Such was the poverty of the whites in general that only occasionally was General McGillivray reimbursed for his expenditures in this direction.

But no matter by whom the ransoms were paid, the prisoners were one and all forwarded to the Clopton Place, where they were cared for until such time as they could be transferred to the white settlements. In this way hospitality became a habit at the Place, and in the years that followed, no wayfarer was ever turned away from those wide doors.

In the pleasant weather, it was a familiar spectacle to see Meriwether Clopton sitting on the wide lawn, reading Virgil and Horace, two volumes of which he never tired. His favourite seat was in the shade of a silver maple, through the branches of which a grapevine had been trained. This silver maple, with the vine running through it, and the seat in the shade, were a realisation, he once told Gabriel and Cephas, of one of the most beautiful poems in one of the volumes, but whether Virgil or Horace, the aforesaid Cephas is unable to remember.

There were days long to be remembered when the Master of Clopton Place read aloud to the children, translating as he went along, and smacking his lips over the choice of words as though he were tasting a fine quality of wine. And the children felt the charm of these ancient verses; and they soon came to understand why words written down centuries ago, had power to take possession of the mind. They were charged with the qualities that brought them home to the modern hour; and for all that was foreign in them, they might have been composed at Shady Dale. It is no wonder that the common people in the Middle Ages clothed Virgil with the gift and power of a prophet or a magician.

Something of the charm that dwelt all about the place had its origin and centre in Meriwether Clopton himself. His years sat lightly upon him. He had led an active and a temperate life, and a hale and hearty old age was the fruit thereof. He had had his flings, and something more, perhaps, for there were traditions of some very serious troubles in which he had been engaged shortly after reaching his majority. But Gabriel's grandmother, who knew—none better—declared that these troubles were not of Meriwether Clopton's seeking. They were the results of a legacy of feuds which Raleigh Clopton, through no desire of his own, had left to his son. It was said of Raleigh Clopton that his sense of justice was as strong as his temper, which was a stormy one. He espoused the cause of young Eli Whitney, who had been despoiled of his rights in the cotton-gin in Georgia, and this led him into a series of difficulties without parallel in the history of the State. Raleigh Clopton's attitude in this contest brought him in conflict with some of the most powerful men and interests in the commonwealth. It was a contest in which knavery, fraud and corruption, the courts, and considerable private capital, were all combined against Whitney, who appeared to be without a strong friend until Raleigh Clopton became his champion.

The collusion of the courts with this high-handed robbery was so ill-concealed that Raleigh Clopton soon discovered the fact, and his indignation rose to such a white heat that it drove him to excesses. He dragged one judge from a buggy, and plied him with a rawhide, he slapped the face of another in a public house, and posted a dozen prominent men as thieves and corruptionists, with the result that the State fairly swarmed with his enemies, men who were able to keep him busy in the way of troubles and difficulties. It was the day of private feuds, and it was not surprising that some of these enemies should attack the father through the son. Thus it fell out that Meriwether Clopton's experience for half a score of years after he came of age was anything but peaceful. But he came out of all these difficulties with head erect, clean hands and a clear conscience. He was neither hardened nor embittered by the violence with which he had to deal. On the contrary, his character was strengthened and his temper sweetened; so that when the lads who listened to his mellifluous translations from the Latin poets, were old enough to appreciate the qualities that go to make up a good man and an influential citizen, the fact dawned upon their minds that Meriwether Clopton was the finest gentleman they had ever seen.