The Harvest of the Wind - Page 2

him. "Poor Massa Davie! He's got de
drefful temper; got it each side ob de house--father and mother, bofe. I
hope de good Massa above will make 'lowances for de young man--got it
bofe ways, he did." And he went thoughtfully back to his work, murmuring
hopes and apologies for the man he loved, with all the forgiving
unselfishness of a prayer in them.

In some respects Plato was right. David Lorimer had inherited, both from
father and mother, an unruly temper. His father was a Scot, dour and
self-willed; his mother had been a Spanish woman, of San Antonio--a
daughter of the grandee family of Yturris. Their marriage had not been a
happy one, and the fiery emotional Southern woman had fretted her life
away against the rugged strength of the will which opposed hers. David
remembered his mother well, and idolized her memory; right or wrong, he
had always espoused her quarrel, and when she died she left, between
father and son, a great gulf.

He had been hard to manage then, but at twenty-two he was beyond all
control, excepting such as his cousin, Lulu Yturri, exercised over him.
But this love, the most pure and powerful influence he acknowledged, had
been positively forbidden. The elder Lorimer declared that there had
been too much Spanish blood in the family; and it is likely his motives
commended themselves to his own conscience. It was certain that the mere
exertion of his will in the matter gave him a pleasure he would not
forego. Yet he was theoretically a religious man, devoted to the special
creed he approved, and rigidly observing such forms of worship as made
any part of it. But the law of love had never yet been revealed to him;
he had feared and trembled at the fiery Mount of Sinai, but he had not
yet drawn near to the tenderer influences of Calvary.

He was a rich man also. Broad acres waved with his corn and cotton, and
he counted his cattle on the prairies by tens of thousands; but nothing
in his mode of life indicated wealth. The log-house, stretching itself
out under gigantic trees, was of the usual style of Texan
architecture--broad passages between every room, sweeping from front to
rear; and low piazzas, festooned with flowery vines, shading it on every
side. All around it, under the live oaks, were scattered the negro
cabins, their staring whitewash looking picturesque enough under the
hanging moss and dark green foliage. But, simple as the house was, it
was approached by lordly avenues, shaded with black-jack and sweet gum
and chincapin, interwoven with superb magnolias and gorgeous tulip
trees.

The Scot in a foreign country, too, often steadily cultivates his
national peculiarities. James Lorimer was a Scot of this type. As far as
it was possible to do so in that