The Tyranny of Weakness

Tyranny of Weakness, by
Charles Neville Buck

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Title: The Tyranny of Weakness
Author: Charles Neville Buck
Illustrator: Paul Stahr
Release Date: June 6, 2007 [EBook #21689]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE TYRANNY OF WEAKNESS
BY
CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
AUTHOR OF
"THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS," "DESTINY," Etc.
Frontispiece by PAUL STAHR
[Illustration: Publisher's logo]
NEW YORK W. J. WATT & COMPANY PUBLISHERS
[Illustration: Stuart was a memory and she was trying very hard to
make him even less than that]
COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY W. J. WATT & COMPANY
OTHER BOOKS BY CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
THE KEY TO YESTERDAY THE LIGHTED MATCH THE
PORTAL OF DREAMS THE CALL OF THE CUMBERLANDS THE
BATTLE CRY THE CODE OF THE MOUNTAINS DESTINY
PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS
BROOKLYN. N. Y.

THE TYRANNY OF WEAKNESS
CHAPTER I
They were types in embryo, but of course they did not know it. No
more would a grain of wheat and a poppy seed dropping side-by-side in
a fallow place reflect upon their destinies, though one might typify a

working world's dependence for bread; the other a dreaming world's
reliance for opium.
They were a boy and a girl stepping artlessly into the wide chances of a
brand-new and vastly interesting adolescence. Just now her young eyes
were provocative with the starry light of mischief. His were smoldering
darkly under her badgering because his pride had been touched to the
quick. His forefathers had been gentlemen in England before they were
gentlemen in the Valley of Virginia and his heritage of knightly blood
must not be made a subject of levity. But the girl reflected only that
when his dark eyes blazed and his cheeks colored with that dammed-up
fury she found him a more diverting vassal than in calmer and duller
moods. A zoo is more animated when the beasts are stirred into action.
"What was it that General Breckinridge said, Stuart?" She put the
question innocently. "When the Newmarket cadets made their charge?"
"He said--" Suddenly the boy caught the riffled mockery of her eyes
and abruptly his inspired recital broke off in exasperation, "May I ask
just why you find that such a funny story?" he inquired with ironical
dignity. "Most people seem to think it was rather pitiful than comic to
send to their slaughter boys almost young enough to be in the nursery."
The eyes of Conscience Williams twinkled. "Maybe it isn't the story
itself that's funny," she deigned to admit. "When your father told it, I
cried--but when you tell it your face is so furious that--that you seem
about to begin the war between the states all over again."
"Of course that makes it perfectly clear." Into the manner of young Mr.
Stuart Farquaharson came now the hauteur of dignified rebuke. He
enveloped himself in a sudden and sullen silence, brooding as he sat
with his eyes fixed on his riding boots.
"What did General Breckinridge say?" She prompted persistently. Such
sheer perversity maddened him. He had been reciting to her a story of
exalted heroism--the narrative of how the boy cadets had hurled their
young bodies against the Northern cannon and of how General
Breckinridge had prayed for forgiveness as he gave the command

which sent this flowering youth to its fate. And she found it amusing!
He could not see how genuinely comic was his own unreconstructed
ardor--how exaggerated was his cocksure manner--how thoroughly he
spoke as though he himself had bled on the field of honor.
From her hammock she watched him with serene and inscrutable
complacency, from under long, half-closed lashes. In his gaze was
inarticulate wrath, but back of that--idolatry. He had from birth
breathed an atmosphere of traditions in which the word "chivalry" was
defined, not as an obsolete term, but as a thing still kept sacredly
aflame in the hearts of gentlemen. To the stilted gallantry of his
boyhood, ideals had meant more than ideas until Conscience Williams
had come from her home on Cape Cod and turned his life topsy-turvy.
Since her advent he had dreamed only of dark eyes and darker hair and
crimson lips. He had rehearsed eloquent and irresistible speeches, only
to have them die on a tongue which swelled painfully