The Way of a Man | Page 6

risk's sake.
Moreover, he was a horseman; as I saw by his quick glance over
Satan's furniture. He caught the cheek strap of the bridle, and motioned

us away as we would have helped him at the horse's head. Then ensued
as pretty a fight between man and horse as one could ask to see. The
black brute reared and fairly took him from the ground, fairly chased
him about the street, as a great dog would a rat. But never did the iron
hold on the bridle loosen, and the man was light on his feet as a boy.
Finally he had his chance, and with the lightest spring I ever saw at a
saddle skirt, up he went and nailed old Satan fair, with a grip which
ridged his legs out. I saw then that he was a rider. His head was bare,
his hat having fallen off; his hair was tumbled, but his color scarcely
heightened. As the horse lunged and bolted about the street, Orme sat
him in perfect confidence. He kept his hands low, his knees a little
more up and forward than we use in our style of riding, and his weight
a trifle further back; but I saw from the lines of his limbs that he had
the horse in a steel grip. He gazed down contemplatively, with a half
serious look, master of himself and of the horse as well. Then presently
he turned him up the road and went off at a gallop, with the brute under
perfect control. I do not know what art he used; all I can say is that in a
half hour he brought Satan back in a canter.
This was my first acquaintance with Gordon Orme, that strange
personality with whom I was later to have much to do. This was my
first witnessing of that half uncanny power by which he seemed to win
all things to his purposes. I admired him, yet did not like him, when he
swung carelessly down and handed me the reins.
"He's a grand one," he said easily, "but not so difficult to ride as old
Klingwalla. Not that I would discount your own skill in riding him, sir,
for I doubt not you have taken a lot out of him before now."
At least this was generous, and as I later learned, it was like him to give
full credit to the performance of any able adversary.
CHAPTER III
THE ART OF THE ORIENT
"Come," said Orme to me, "let us go into the shade, for I find your
Virginia morning warm."

We stepped over to the gallery of the little tavern, where the shade was
deep and the chairs were wide and the honeysuckles sweet. I threw
myself rather discontentedly into a chair. Orme seated himself quietly
in another, his slender legs crossed easily, his hands meeting above his
elbows supported on the chair rails, as he gazed somewhat meditatively
at his finger tips.
"So you did not hear my little effort the other night?" he remarked,
smiling.
"I was not so fortunate as to hear you speak. But I will only say I will
back you against any minister of the gospel I ever knew when it comes
to riding horses."
"Oh, well," he deprecated, "I'm just passing through on my way to
Albemarle County across the mountains. You couldn't blame me for
wanting something to do--speaking or riding, or what not. One must be
occupied, you know. But shall we not have them bring us one of these
juleps of the country? I find them most agreeable, I declare."
I did not criticise his conduct as a wearer of the cloth, but declined his
hospitality on the ground that it was early in the day for me. He urged
me so little and was so much the gentleman that I explained.
"Awhile ago," I said, "my father came to me and said, 'I see, Jack, that
thee is trying to do three things--to farm, hunt foxes, and drink juleps.
Does thee think thee can handle all three of these activities in
combination?' You see, my mother is a Quakeress, and when my father
wished to reprove me he uses the plain speech. Well, sir, I thought it
over, and for the most part I dropped the other two, and took up more
farming."
"Your father is Mr. John Cowles, of Cowles' Farms?"
"The same."
"No doubt your family know every one in this part of the country?"

"Oh, yes, very well."
"These are troublous times," he ventured, after a time. "I mean in
regard to this talk of secession of the Southern States."
I was studying this man. What was he doing here in our quiet country
community? What was his errand? What business had a julep-drinking,