Old Joel passed her on the way to the barn.  Several times the old mother walked to the door behind her, and each time starting to speak, stopped and turned back, but the girl neither saw nor heard them.  Jack trotted by, whimpering.  He sat down in front of her, looking up at her unseeing eyes, and it was only when he crept to her and put his head in her lap, that she put her arms around him and bent her own head down; but no tears came.

CHAPTER 17.  CHADWICK BUFORD, GENTLEMAN

And so, returned to the Bluegrass, the midsummer of that year, Chadwick Buford gentleman.  A youth of eighteen, with the self-possession of a man, and a pair of level, clear eyes, that looked the world in the face as proudly as ever but with no defiance and no secret sense of shame It was a curious story that Chad brought back and told to the Major, on the porch under the honeysuckle vines, but it seemed to surprise the Major very little:  how old Nathan had sent for him to come to his death-bed and had told Chad that he was no foundling; that one of his farms belonged to the boy; that he had lied to the Major about Chad’s mother, who was a lawful wife, in order to keep the land for himself; how old Nathan had offered to give back the farm, or pay him the price of it in livestock, and how, at old Joel’s advice he had taken the stock and turned the stock into money.  How, after he had found his mother’s grave, his first act had been to take up the rough bee-gum coffin that held her remains, and carry it down the river, and bury her where she had the right to lie, side by side with her grandfather and his—­the old gentleman who slept in wig and peruke on the hill-side—­that her good name and memory should never again suffer insult from any living tongue.  It was then that Major took Chad by the shoulders roughly, and, with tears in his eyes, swore that he would have no more nonsense from the boy; that Chad was flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone; that he would adopt him and make him live where he belonged, and break his damned pride.  And it was then that Chad told him how gladly he would come, now that he could bring him an untarnished name.  And the two walked together down to the old family graveyard, where the Major said that the two in the mountains should be brought some day and where the two brothers who had parted nearly fourscore years ago could, side by side, await Judgment Day.

When they went back into the house the Major went to the sideboard.

“Have a drink, Chad?”

Chad laughed:  “Do you think it will stunt my growth?”

“Stand up here, and let’s see,” said the Major.

The two stood up, back to back, in front of a long mirror, and Chad’s shaggy hair rose at least an inch above the Major’s thin locks of gray.  The Major turned and looked at him from head to foot with affectionate pride.

“Six feet in your socks, to the inch, without that hair.  I reckon it won’t stunt you—­not now.”