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Tom Mocket made a speech and compared you to Moses. He wept when he made it, and they had to hold him steady on his feet. When they broke up, I took him home to the Partridge. I'll tell you one speech that he never made by himself, and that's the speech that's going to hang Fitch." "No," said Rand. "I wrote it. You were at the trial?" "Ay. It would have hung Abel, so poor Cain had no chance. Mr.
"I don't care for such courtesy," answered Rand "Ludwell Cary had best look where he treads." "Well, I thought I'd tell you," said his colleague "I don't like the Carys, either! And so I'm not to go into that land scheme?" "No. It's a small thing, and not honest. Some day, Tom, I'll help you to a larger thing than that." "And honest?" said Mocket shrewdly.
"Dole was shot down like that, three years ago, in North Garden but then, Fitch was suspected from the first. Fitch had been heard to swear he'd do it, and they knew, too, it was his gun, and a child had seen him come and go. Lewis Rand was for the State. Don't you remember the speech he made? No; Tom Mocket made it, but Mr. Rand wrote it! Either way it hung Fitch.
Mocket stood by the fire, warming his hands. "If 'twas a mild December, 'tis cold enough now! The wind is icy, and it's blowing hard." "Is it? I thought the air was still." As he spoke, Rand arose, replaced the book on the shelf, sat down at his desk, and began to unfold papers. "Work!" he said presently, in a dull voice. "Work! That is the straw at which to catch!
He gasped, and wiped his face with a great flowered handkerchief. "What is it, man?" cried a dozen voices. Mocket rose in his stirrups and looked the assemblage over. "We're all Republicans hip, hip, hurrah! Eh, Lewis Rand, I've brought you a wedding gift! The stage had just come in I got the news at the Eagle! Hip, hip " "Tom," said Rand at his bridle rein, "you've been drinking. Steady, man.
But the awakened mind, and Judgment side by side upon the throne with Love Oh, there's verjuice in the world!" He broke into harsh laughter. "I wish I knew what ailed you," thought Mocket. "I'll try another tack." He stopped whittling and turned from his desk. "Coming out of the Capitol, I heard Ludwell Cary say that he goes next week to Albemarle."
He turned to the excited throng, and as he did so, he was aware that Jacqueline was standing white and frozen, and that Unity was trying to take her hand. He felt for her an infinite tenderness, and he promised himself to give Tom Mocket an old-time rating for at least one ill-advised expression. Such wedding gifts were not for Jacqueline.
"Yeth, thir," said Vinie, her brown arm deep in the beaded pouch. The two lads left behind the scarlet-clad porch, the hunter and Vinie, the little green yard and the broken gate. "Where first? demanded Tom. "Where is the best place in Richmond to buy books?" Young Mocket considered. "There's a shop near the bridge. What do you want with books?" "I want to read them. We'll go to the bridge first."
Sturdy perseverance and an acquaintance with a doorkeeper, however, can accomplish much, and these finally placed Mocket where, by dint of balancing himself upon an advantageous ledge of masonry, he had a fair view of both participants and spectators. General William Eaton was being examined. The throng sat or stood silently attentive, swayed forward as by a wind.
Poor Mocket was only forty when he died, succumbing, like Cowell, to the rough reception accorded to his book.
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