I A STRANGER FROM SOUTH CAROLINA Time touches all things with destroying hand ; and if he seem now and then to bestow the bloom of youth , the sap of spring , it is but a brief mockery , to be surely and swiftly followed by the wrinkles of old age , the dry leaves and bare branches of winter .
And yet there are places where Time seems to linger lovingly long after youth has departed , and to which he seems loath to bring the evil day .
Who has not known some even-tempered old man or woman who seemed to have drunk of the fountain of youth ?
Who has not seen somewhere an old town that , having long since ceased to grow , yet held its own without perceptible decline ?
Some such trite reflection -- as apposite to the subject as most random reflections are -- passed through the mind of a young man who came out of the front door of the Patesville Hotel about nine o'clock one fine morning in spring , a few years after the Civil War , and started down Front Street toward the market-house .
Arriving at the town late the previous evening , he had been driven up from the steamboat in a carriage , from which he had been able to distinguish only the shadowy outlines of the houses along the street ; so that this morning walk was his first opportunity to see the town by daylight .
He was dressed in a suit of linen duck -- the day was warm -- a panama straw hat , and patent leather shoes .
In appearance he was tall , dark , with straight , black , lustrous hair , and very clean-cut , high-bred features .
When he paused by the clerk 's desk on his way out , to light his cigar , the day clerk , who had just come on duty , glanced at the register and read the last entry : -- " ' JOHN WARWICK , CLARENCE , SOUTH CAROLINA . '
" One of the South Ca ' lina bigbugs , I reckon -- probably in cotton , or turpentine . "
The gentleman from South Carolina , walking down the street , glanced about him with an eager look , in which curiosity and affection were mingled with a touch of bitterness .
He saw little that was not familiar , or that he had not seen in his dreams a hundred times during the past ten years .
There had been some changes , it is true , some melancholy changes , but scarcely anything by way of addition or improvement to counterbalance them .
Here and there blackened and dismantled walls marked the place where handsome buildings once had stood , for Sherman 's march to the sea had left its mark upon the town .
The stores were mostly of brick , two stories high , joining one another after the manner of cities .
Some of the names on the signs were familiar ; others , including a number of Jewish names , were quite unknown to him .
A two minutes ' walk brought Warwick -- the name he had registered under , and as we shall call him -- to the market-house , the central feature of Patesville , from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view .
Standing foursquare in the heart of the town , at the intersection of the two main streets , a " jog " at each street corner left around the market-house a little public square , which at this hour was well occupied by carts and wagons from the country and empty drays awaiting hire .
Warwick was unable to perceive much change in the market-house .
Perhaps the surface of the red brick , long unpainted , had scaled off a little more here and there .
There might have been a slight accretion of the moss and lichen on the shingled roof .
But the tall tower , with its four-faced clock , rose as majestically and uncompromisingly as though the land had never been subjugated .
Was it so irreconcilable , Warwick wondered , as still to peal out the curfew bell , which at nine o'clock at night had clamorously warned all negroes , slave or free , that it was unlawful for them to be abroad after that hour , under penalty of imprisonment or whipping ?
Was the old constable , whose chief business it had been to ring the bell , still alive and exercising the functions of his office , and had age lessened or increased the number of times that obliging citizens performed this duty for him during his temporary absences in the company of convivial spirits ?
A few moments later , Warwick saw a colored policeman in the old constable 's place -- a stronger reminder than even the burned buildings that war had left its mark upon the old town , with which Time had dealt so tenderly .
The lower story of the market-house was open on all four of its sides to the public square .
Warwick passed through one of the wide brick arches and traversed the building with a leisurely step .
He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week , on market days , and he felt a genuine thrill of pleasure when he recognized the red bandana turban of old Aunt Lyddy , the ancient negro woman who had sold him gingerbread and fried fish , and told him weird tales of witchcraft and conjuration , in the old days when , as an idle boy , he had loafed about the market-house .
He did not speak to her , however , or give her any sign of recognition .
He threw a glance toward a certain corner where steps led to the town hall above .
On this stairway he had once seen a manacled free negro shot while being taken upstairs for examination under a criminal charge .
Warwick recalled vividly how the shot had rung out .
He could see again the livid look of terror on the victim 's face , the gathering crowd , the resulting confusion .
The murderer , he recalled , had been tried and sentenced to imprisonment for life , but was pardoned by a merciful governor after serving a year of his sentence .
As Warwick was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet , he could not foresee that , thirty years later , even this would seem an excessive punishment for so slight a misdemeanor .
Leaving the market-house , Warwick turned to the left , and kept on his course until he reached the next corner .
After another turn to the right , a dozen paces brought him in front of a small weather-beaten frame building , from which projected a wooden sign-board bearing the inscription : -- ARCHIBALD STRAIGHT , LAWYER .
He turned the knob , but the door was locked .
Retracing his steps past a vacant lot , the young man entered a shop where a colored man was employed in varnishing a coffin , which stood on two trestles in the middle of the floor .
Not at all impressed by the melancholy suggestiveness of his task , he was whistling a lively air with great gusto .
Upon Warwick 's entrance this effusion came to a sudden end , and the coffin-maker assumed an air of professional gravity .
" Good-mawnin ' , suh , " he said , lifting his cap politely .
" Good-morning , " answered Warwick .
" Can you tell me anything about Judge Straight 's office hours ? "
" De ole jedge has be 'n a little onreg ' lar sence de wah , suh ; but he gin ' ally gits roun ' ' bout ten o'clock er so .
He 's be 'n kin ' er feeble fer de las ' few yeahs .
An ' I reckon , " continued the undertaker solemnly , his glance unconsciously seeking a row of fine caskets standing against the wall , -- " I reckon he 'll soon be goin ' de way er all de earth .
' Man dat is bawn er ' oman hath but a sho ' t time ter lib , an ' is full er mis ' ry .
He cometh up an ' is cut down lack as a flower . '
' De days er his life is three-sco ' an ' ten ' -- an ' de ole jedge is libbed mo ' d' n dat , suh , by five yeahs , ter say de leas ' . " "
' Death , ' " quoted Warwick , with whose mood the undertaker 's remarks were in tune , " ' is the penalty that all must pay for the crime of living . ' "
" Dat 's a fac ' , suh , dat 's a fac ' ; so dey mus ' -- so dey mus ' .
An ' den all de dead has ter be buried .
An ' we does ou ' sheer of it , suh , we does ou ' sheer .
We conduc 's de obs ' quies er all de bes ' w ' ite folks er de town , suh . "
Warwick left the undertaker 's shop and retraced his steps until he had passed the lawyer 's office , toward which he threw an affectionate glance .
A few rods farther led him past the old black Presbyterian church , with its square tower , embowered in a stately grove ; past the Catholic church , with its many crosses , and a painted wooden figure of St. James in a recess beneath the gable ; and past the old Jefferson House , once the leading hotel of the town , in front of which political meetings had been held , and political speeches made , and political hard cider drunk , in the days of " Tippecanoe and Tyler too . "
The street down which Warwick had come intersected Front Street at a sharp angle in front of the old hotel , forming a sort of flatiron block at the junction , known as Liberty Point , -- perhaps because slave auctions were sometimes held there in the good old days .
Just before Warwick reached Liberty Point , a young woman came down Front Street from the direction of the market-house .
When their paths converged , Warwick kept on down Front Street behind her , it having been already his intention to walk in this direction .
Warwick 's first glance had revealed the fact that the young woman was strikingly handsome , with a stately beauty seldom encountered .
As he walked along behind her at a measured distance , he could not help noting the details that made up this pleasing impression , for his mind was singularly alive to beauty , in whatever embodiment .
The girl 's figure , he perceived , was admirably proportioned ; she was evidently at the period when the angles of childhood were rounding into the promising curves of adolescence .
Her abundant hair , of a dark and glossy brown , was neatly plaited and coiled above an ivory column that rose straight from a pair of gently sloping shoulders , clearly outlined beneath the light muslin frock that covered them .
He could see that she was tastefully , though not richly , dressed , and that she walked with an elastic step that revealed a light heart and the vigor of perfect health .
Her face , of course , he could not analyze , since he had caught only the one brief but convincing glimpse of it .