The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Prodigal Judge, by Vaughan Kester

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Title: The Prodigal Judge

Author: Vaughan Kester

Release Date: February, 2004 [EBook #5129]
Posting Date: May 2, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRODIGAL JUDGE ***

Produced by Polly Stratton

THE PRODIGAL JUDGE BY VAUGHAN KESTER

By Vaughan Kester

CHAPTER I. THE BOY AT THE BARONY

The Quintards had not prospered on the barren lands of the pine woods
whither they had emigrated to escape the malaria of the low coast, but
this no longer mattered, for the last of his name and race, old General
Quintard, was dead in the great house his father had built almost a
century before and the thin acres of the Barony, where he had made his
last stand against age and poverty, were to claim him, now that he had
given up the struggle in their midst. The two or three old slaves about
the place, stricken with a sense of the futility of the fight their
master had made, mourned for him and for themselves, but of his own
blood and class none was present.

Shy dwellers from the pine woods, lanky jeans-clad men and sunbonneted
women, who were gathering for the burial of the famous man of their
neighborhood, grouped themselves about the lawn which had long since
sunk to the uses of a pasture lot. Singly or by twos and threes they
stole up the steps and across the wide porch to the open door. On the
right of the long hall another door stood open, and who wished could
enter the drawing-room, with its splendid green and gold paper, and the
wonderful fireplace with the Dutch tiles that graphically depicted the
story of Jonah and the whale.

Here the general lay in state. The slaves had dressed their old master
in the uniform he had worn as a colonel of the continental line, but the
thin shoulders of the wasted figure no longer filled the buff and blue
coat. The high-bred face, once proud and masterful no doubt, as became
the face of a Quintard, spoke of more than age and poverty--it was
infinitely sorrowful. Yet there was something harsh and unforgiving
in the lines death had fixed there, which might have been tak