(Old) Bayard Sartoris

Bayard Sartoris is one of the novel's key characters. The only son of Colonel John Sartoris, he is often referred to by other characters in the novel as "Colonel" or "Cunnel," though in his case the title is honorary: unlike his father, his son or his grandsons, he never fought in a war.  He still lives in the mansion his father "built and rebuilt," collecting rents from the tenant farmers who work the "good broad fields" - "Bayard's own land" - on the family estate four miles north of Jefferson (8).  He is also one of the town's leading citizens, the founder and president of the Merchants and Farmers Bank.  (In "A Rose for Emily" [1930] he is also Jefferson's mayor in the 1890s.) His attempt to preseve tradition and heritage is exemplified both in his household, by the carriage in which he is driven, as well as at the bank he runs, where he refuses to make loans to people who want to buy an automobile. Ironically, however, he dies of a heart attack while riding in his grandson Bayard's car.  He appears throughout the Yoknapatawpha fictions, most notably as the narrator of the short stories in The Unvanquished (1938).