It was almost mid-April; and still the silvery-green tassels on the
wistaria showed no hint of the blue petals folded within; but the
maples' leafless symmetry was already veined with fire. Faint
perfume from Long Island woodlands, wandering puffs of wind from
salt meadows freshened the city streets; St. Felix Street boasted a
lilac bush in leaf; Oxford Street was gay with hyacinths and a
winter-battered butterfly; and in Fort Greene Place the grassy
door-yards were exquisite with crocus bloom. Peace, good-will, and
spring on earth; but in men's souls a silence as of winter.
To Northland folk the unclosing buds of April brought no awakening;
lethargy fettered all, arresting vigour, sapping desire. An
immense inertia chained progress in its tracks, while overhead the
gray storm-wrack fled away,--misty, monstrous, gale-driven before
the coming hurricane.
Still, for the Northland, there remained now little of the keener
suspense since those first fiery outbursts in the South; but all
through the winter the dull pain throbbed in silence as star after
star dropped from the old galaxy and fell flashing into the new.
And it was a time of apathy, acquiescence, stupefied incredulity; a
time of dull faith in destiny, duller resignation.
The printed news was read day after day by a people who understood
nothing, neither the cautious arming nor the bold disarming, nor
the silent fall of fortified places, nor the swift dismantling of
tall ships--nor did they comprehend the ceaseless tremors of a land
slowly crumbling under the subtle pressure--nor that at last the
vast disintegration of the matrix would disclose the forming
crystal of another nation cradled there, glittering, naming under
the splendour of the Southern skies.
A palsied Old Year had gone out. The mindless old man--he who had
been President--went with it. A New Year had come in, and on its
infant heels shambled a tall, gaunt shape that seated itself by the
White House windows and looked out into the murk of things with
eyes that no man understood.
And now the soft sun of April spun a spell upon the Northland folk;
for they had eyes but they saw not; ears had they, but they heard
not; neither spoke they through the mouth.
To them only one figure seemed real, looming above the vast and
motionless mirage where a continent stood watching the parapets of
a sea-girt fort off Charleston.
But the nation looked too long; the mirage closed in; fort, sea,
the flag itself, became unreal; the lone figure on the parapet
turned to a phantom. God's will was doing. Who dared doubt?
"There seems to be no doubt in the South," observed Ailsa Paige to
her brother-in-law one fragrant evening after dinner where, in the
dusk, the family had gathered on the stoop after the custom of a
simpler era.
Along the dim street long lines of front stoops blossomed with the
light spring gowns of women and young girls, pale, dainty clusters
in the dusk set with darker figures, where sparks from cigars
glowed and waned in the darkness.
Windows were open, here and there a gas jet in a globe flickered
inside a room, but the street was dusky and tranquil as a country
lane, and unilluminated save where at far intervals lamp-posts
stood in a circle of pale light, around which a few moths hovered.
"The rebels," repeated Ailsa, "appear to have no doubts, honest or
otherwise. They've sent seven thousand troops to the Charleston
fortifications--the paper says."
Stephen Craig heard his cousin speak but made no response. He was
smoking openly and in sight of his entire family the cigar which
had, heretofore, been consumed surreptitiously. His mother sat
close to his shoulder, rallying him like a tormenting schoolgirl,
and, at intervals, turning to look back at her husband who stood on
the steps beside her, a little amused, a little proud, a little
inclined to be critical of this tall son of his who yesterday had
been a boy.
The younger daughters of the house, Paige and Marye, strolled past,
bareheaded, arms linked, in company with Camilla and Jimmy Lent.
"O dad!" called out Paige softly, "Jim says that Major Anderson is
to be reinforced at once. There was a bulletin this evening."
"I am very glad to hear it, sweetheart," said her father, smiling
through his eye-glasses.
Stephen bent forward across his mother's shoulder. "Is that true,
father?"
"Camilla's brother has probably been reading the _Tribune's_
evening bulletin. The _Herald_ bulletin says that the Cabinet has
ordered the evacuation of Fort Sumter; the _Times_ says Major
Anderson is to be reinforced; the _World_ says that he abandoned
the fort last night; and they all say he has been summoned to
surrender. Take your choice, Steve," he added wearily. "There is
only one wire working from the South, and the rebels control that."
"Are you tired, Curt?" asked his wife, looking around and up at him.
He seated himself and readjusted his eye-glasses.
"No, dear--only of this nightmare we are living in"--he stopped
abruptly. Politics had been avoided between them. There was a
short silence; he felt his wife's hand touch his in the
darkness--sign of a tender respect for his perplexity, but not for
his political views.
"Forgive me, dear, for using the word 'rebel,'" he said, smiling
and straightening his shoulders. "Where have you and Ailsa been
to-day? Did you go to New York?"
"Yes. We saw the Academy, and, oh, Curt! there are some very
striking landscapes--two by Gifford; and the cutest portrait of a
girl by Wiyam Hunt. And your friend Bierstadt has a Western
scene--all fireworks! and, dear, Eastman Johnson was there--and
Kensett sent such a cunning little landscape. We lunched at
Taylor's." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Ailsa did look
too cute fo' words. I declare she is the most engaging little
minx. Eve'y man sta'ed at her. I _wish_ she would marry again and
be happy. _She_ doesn't know what a happy love affair can be--poor
baby."
"Do you?" asked her husband.
"Are you beginning to co't me again, Curt?"
"Have I ever ceased?--you little Rebel!"
"No," she said under her breath.
"By the way, Celia," he said smiling, "that young man--cousin of
yours--Berkley, turned up promptly to-day. I gave him a room in
the office."
"That was certainly ve'y frien'ly of you, Curt!" she responded
warmly. "You _will_ be patient with him, won't you?"
"I've had to be already. I gave him a commission to collect some
rents and he came back fifty dollars short, calmly explaining that
one of our lodgers looked poor and he hated to ask for the rent."
"O Curt--the boy is ve'y sweet and wa'm-hearted. Were you cross
with him?"
"Not very. I imparted a few plain truths--very pleasantly, Celia.
He knew better; there's a sort of an impish streak in him--also an
inclination for the pleasant by-ways of life. . . . He had better
let drink alone, too, if he expects to remain in my office. I told
him that."
"Does he--the foolish baby!"
"Oh, probably not very much. I don't know; he's likable, but--he
hasn't inspired me with any overwhelming respect and confidence.
His record is not exactly savoury. But he's your protege, and I'll
stand him as long as you can."
"Thank you, Curt. We must be gentle to him. I shall ask him to
dinner and we can give a May dance perhaps--something informal and
pretty--What is the matter, Curt?"
"Nothing, dear. . . . Only I wouldn't plan anything just yet--I
mean for the present--not for a few days, anyway----"
He shrugged, removed his glasses, polished them on his
handkerchief, and sat holding them, his short-sighted eyes lost in
reverie.
His wife endured it to the limit of patience:
"Curt," she began in a lower voice, "you and I gen'ally avoid
certain matters, dear--but--ev'ything is sure to come right in the
end--isn't it? The No'th is going to be sensible."
"In the--end," he admitted quietly. And between them the ocean
sprang into view again.
"I wonder--" She stopped, and an inexplicable uneasiness stirred in
her breast. She looked around at her son, her left hand fell
protectingly upon his shoulder, her right, groping, touched her
husband's sleeve.
"I am--well cared for--in the world," she sighed happily to
herself. "It shall not come nigh me."
Stephen was saying to Ailsa:
"There's a piece of up-town property that came into the office
to-day which seems to me significant of the future. It would be a
good investment for you, Cousin Ailsa. Some day Fifth Avenue will
be built up solidly with brown-stone mansions as far as the Central
Park. It is all going to be wonderfully attractive when they
finish it."
Ailsa mused for a moment. Then:
"I walked down this street to Fort Greene this afternoon," she
began, "and the little rocky park was so sweet and fragrant with
dogwood and Forsythia and new buds everywhere. And I looked out
over the rivers and the bay and over the two cities and, Steve,
somehow--I don't know why--I found my eyes filling with tears. I
don't know why, Steve----"
"Feminine sentiment," observed her cousin, smoking.
Mrs. Craig's fingers became restless on her husband's sleeve; she
spoke at moments in soft, wistful tones, watching her younger
daughters and their friends grouped under the trees in the dusk.
And all the time, whatever it was that had brought a new unease
into her breast was still there, latent. She had no name to give
it, no reason, no excuse; it was too shadowy to bear analysis, too
impalpable to be defined, yet it remained there; she was perfectly
conscious of it, as she held her husband's sleeve the tighter.
"Curt, is business so plaguey poor because of all these politics?"
"My business is not very flourishing. Many men feel the
uncertainty; not everybody, dear."
"When this--_matter_--is settled, everything will be easier for
you, won't it? You look so white and tired, dear."
Stephen overheard her.
"The _matter_, as you call it, won't be settled without a row,
mother--if you mean the rebellion."
"Such a wise boy with his new cigar," she smiled through a sudden
resurgence of uneasiness.
The boy said calmly: "Mother, you don't understand; and all the
rest of the South is like you."
"Does anybody understand, Steve?" asked his father, slightly
ironical.
"Some people understand there's going to be a big fight," said the
boy.
"Oh. Do you?"
"Yes," he said, with the conviction of youth. "And I'm wondering
who's going to be in it."
"The militia, of course," observed Ailsa scornfully. "Camilla is
forever sewing buttons on Jimmy's dress uniform. He wears them off
dancing."
Mr. Craig said, unsmiling: "We are not a military nation, Steve; we
are not only non-military but we are unmilitary--if you know what
that means."
"We once managed to catch Cornwallis," suggested his son, still
proudly smoking.
"I wonder how we did it?" mused his father.
"They were another race--those catchers of Cornwallis--those
fellows in, blue-and-buff and powdered hair."
"You and Celia are their grandchildren," observed Ailsa, "and you
are a West Point graduate."
Her brother-in-law looked at her with a strange sort of humour in
his handsome, near-sighted eyes:
"Yes, too blind to serve the country that educated me. And now
it's too late; the desire is gone; I have no inclination to fight,
Ailsa. Drums always annoyed me. I don't particularly like a gun.
I don't care for a fuss. I don't wish to be a soldier."
Ailsa said: "I rather like the noise of drums. I think I'd
like--war."
"Molly Pitcher! Molly Pitcher! Of what are you babbling,"
whispered Celia, laughing down the flashes of pain that ran through
her heart. "Wars are ended in our Western World. Didn't you know
it, grandchild of Vikings? There are to be no more Lake
Champlains, only debates--_n'est ce pas_, Curt?--very grand debates
between gentlemen of the South and gentlemen of the North in
Congress assembled----"
"_Two_ congresses assembled," said Ailsa calmly, "and the debates
will be at long range----"
"By magnetic telegraph if you wish, Honey-bell," conceded Celia
hastily. "Oh, we must _not_ begin disputin' about matters that
nobody can possibly he'p. It will all come right; you know it
will, don't you, Curt?"
"Yes, I know it, somehow."
Silence, fragrance, and darkness, through which rang the distant
laugh of a young girl. And, very, very far away sounds arose in
the city, dull, indistinct, lost for moments at a time, then
audible again, and always the same sounds, the same monotony, and
distant persistence.
"I do believe they're calling an extra," said Ailsa, lifting her
head to listen.
Celia listened, too.
"Children shouting at play," she said.
"They _are_ calling an extra, Celia!"
"No, little Cassandra, it's only boys skylarking."
For a while they remained listening and silent. The voices still
persisted, but they sounded so distant that the light laughter from
their neighbour's stoop drowned the echoes.
Later, Jimmy Lent drifted into the family circle.
"They say that there's an extra out about Fort Sumter," he said.
"Do you think he's given up, Mr. Craig?"
"If there's an extra out the fort is probably safe enough, Jim,"
said the elder man carelessly. He rose and went toward the group
of girls and youths under the trees.
"Come, children," he said to his two daughters; and was patient
amid indignant protests which preceded the youthful interchange of
reluctant good-nights.
When he returned to the stoop Ailsa had gone indoors with her
cousin. His wife rose to greet him as though he had been away on a
long journey, and then, passing her arms around her schoolgirl
daughters, and nodding a mischievous dismissal to Jimmy Lent,
walked slowly into the house. Bolts were shot, keys turned; from
the lighted front parlour came the notes of the sweet-toned square
piano, and Ailsa's voice:
--"Dear are her charms to me,
Dearest her constancy,
Aileen aroon--"
"Never mind any more of that silly song!" exclaimed Celia,
imprisoning Ailsa's arms from behind.
"Youth must with time decay,
Aileen aroon,
Beauty must fade away,
Aileen aroon--"
"Don't, dear! please----"
But Ailsa sang on obstinately:
"Castles are sacked in war,
Chieftains are scattered far,
Truth is a fixed star,
Aileen aroon."
And, glancing back over her shoulder, caught her breath quickly.
"Celia! What _is_ the matter, dear?"
"Nothing. I don't like such songs--just now----"
"What songs?"
"I don't know, Ailsa; songs about war and castles. Little things
plague me. . . . There's been altogether too much talk about
war--it gets into ev'ything, somehow. I can't seem to he'p it,
somehow----"
"Why, Celia! _You_ are not worrying?"
"Not fo' myse'f, Honey-bud. Somehow, to-night--I don't know--and
Curt seemed a little anxious."
She laughed with an effort; her natural gaiety returned to buoy her
above this indefinable undercurrent of unrest.
Paige and Marye came in from the glass extension where their father
was pacing to and fro, smoking his bedtime cigar, and their mother
began her invariable running comment concerning the day's events,
rallying her children, tenderly tormenting them with their
shortcomings--undarned stockings, lessons imperfectly learned,
little household tasks neglected--she was always aware of and ready
at bedtime to point out every sin of omission.
"As fo' you, Paige, you are certainly a ve'y rare kind of
Honey-bird, and I reckon Mr. Ba'num will sho'ly catch you some day
fo' his museum. Who ever heard of a shif'less Yankee girl except
you and Marye?"
"O mother, how _can_ we mend _everything_ we tear? It's heartless
to ask us!"
"You don't have to try to mend _ev'y_thing. Fo' example, there's
Jimmy Lent's heart----"
A quick outbreak of laughter swept them--all except Paige, who
flushed furiously over her first school-girl affair.
"That poor Jimmy child came to me about it," continued their
mother, "and asked me if I would let you be engaiged to him; and I
said, 'Certainly, if Paige wants to be, Jimmy. I was engaiged
myse'f fo' times befo' I was fo'teen----'"
Another gale of laughter drowned her words, and she sat there
dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful
soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental
matters in the family circle--letting in fresh air and sunshine on
what so often takes root and flourishes rather morbidly at sixteen.
"It's perfectly absurd," observed Ailsa, "at your age, Paige----"
"Mother was married at sixteen! Weren't you, dearest?"
"I certainly was; but _I_ am a bad rebel and _you_ are good little
Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they're twenty odd befo'
they do anything ve'y ridiculous."
"We expect to wait," said Paige, with a dignified glance at her
sister.
"You've four years to wait, then," laughed Marye.
"What's the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?"
"And you've three years to wait, silly," retorted Paige. "But I
don't care; I'd rather wait. It isn't very long, now. Ailsa, why
don't you marry again?"
Ailsa's lip curled her comment upon the suggestion. She sat under
the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been
sent recently to Celia. Presently her agreeable voice sounded in
appreciative recitation of what she was reading.
"Hath not the morning dawned with added light?
And shall not evening call another star
Out of the infinite regions of the night
To mark this day in Heaven? At last we are
A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port
Another flag unfurled!"
"Listen, Celia," she said, "this is really beautiful:
A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig's cheeks, but she said
nothing. And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of
Timrod's "Ethnogenesis":
"Now come what may, whose favour need we court?
And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?"
She stopped short, considering the printed page. Then, doubtfully:
"And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old
Who long since, in the limits of the North,
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God--
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage
Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge,
And with a hostile horde profane our sod!"
The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page;
then:
"Nor would we shun the battleground!
. . . The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm,
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
Call up the clashing elements around
And test the right and wrong!
On one side creeds that dare to preach
What Christ and Paul refused to teach----"
"Oh!" she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; "Do they believe
such things of us in the South, Celia?"
The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig's cheeks; her lips unclosed,
tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered.
She meditated. Then: "Honey-bell," she said tranquilly, "if we are
bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain."
"A _nation_!"
"Dear, we have always been that--only the No'th has just found it
out. Charleston is telling her now. God give that our cannon need
not repeat it."
"But, Celia, the cannon _can't_! The same flag belongs to us both."
"Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird." There came a subtle
ringing sound in Celia Craig's voice; she leaned forward, taking
the newspaper from Ailsa's idle fingers:
"Try to be fair," she said in unsteady tones. "God knows I am not
trying to teach you secession, but suppose the guns on Governor's
Island were suddenly swung round and pointed at this street? Would
you care ve'y much what flag happened to be flying over Castle
William? Listen to another warning from this stainless poet of the
South." She opened the newspaper feverishly, glanced quickly down
the columns, and holding it high under the chandelier, read in a
hushed but distinct voice, picking out a verse here and there at
random:
"Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds
A city bides her foe.
"As yet, behind high ramparts stem and proud
Where bolted thunders sleep,
Dark Sumter like a battlemented cloud
Towers o'er the solemn deep.
"But still along the dim Atlantic's line
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine
From some frail floating oak.
"And still through streets re-echoing with trade
Walk grave and thoughtful men
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.
"And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a wounded hound
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword-knot she hath hound.
"Thus, girt without and garrisoned at home,
Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome
Across her tranquil bay.
"Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in steel,
And with an unscathed brow,
Watch o'er a sea unvexed by hostile keel
As fair and free as now?
"We know not. In the Temples of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom;
And, all untroubled in her faith she waits
Her triumph or her tomb!"
The hushed charm of their mother's voice fascinated the children.
Troubled, uncertain, Ailsa rose, took a few irresolute steps toward
the extension where her brother-in-law still paced to and fro in
the darkness, the tip of his cigar aglow. Then she turned suddenly.
"_Can't_ you understand, Ailsa?" asked her sister-in-law wistfully.
"Celia--dearest," she stammered, "I simply can't understand. . . .
I thought the nation was greater than all----"
"The State is greater, dear. Good men will realise that when they
see a sovereign people standing all alone for human truth and
justice--standing with book and sword under God's favour, as
sturdily as ever Israel stood in battle fo' the right!--I don't
mean to be disloyal to my husband in saying this befo' my children.
But you ask me, and I must tell the truth if I answer at all."
Slender, upright, transfigured with a flushed and girlish beauty
wholly strange to them, she moved restlessly back and forth across
the room, a slim, lovely, militant figure all aglow with
inspiration, all aquiver with emotion too long and loyally
suppressed.
Paige and Marye, astonished, watched her without a word. Ailsa
stood with one hand resting on the mantel, a trifle pale but also
silent, her startled eyes following this new incarnation wearing
the familiar shape of Celia Craig.
"Ailsa!"
"Yes, dear."
"Can you think evil of a people who po' out their hearts in prayer
and praise? Do traitors importune fo' blessings?"
She turned nervously to the piano and struck a ringing chord,
another--and dropped to the chair, head bowed on her slim childish
neck. Presently there stole through the silence a tremulous voice
intoning the "Libera Nos," with its strange refrain:
"_A furore Normanorum Libera nos, O Domme_!" Then, head raised, the
gas-light flashing on her dull-gold hair, her voice poured forth
all that was swelling and swelling up in her bruised and stifled
heart:
"God of our fathers! King of Kings!
Lord of the earth and sea!
With hearts repentant and sincere
We turn in need to thee."
She saw neither her children nor her husband nor Ailsa now, where
they gathered silently beside her. And she sang on:
"In the name of God! Amen!
Stand for our Southern rights;
On our side. Southern men,
The God of Battles fights!
Fling the invader far--
Hurl back his work of woe--
His voice is the voice of a brother,
But his hands are the hands of a foe.
By the blood which cries to Heaven.
Crimson upon our sod
Stand, Southrons, fight and conquer
In the Name of the Living God!"
Like receding battle echoes the chords, clashing distantly, died
away.
If she heard her husband turn, enter the hallway, and unbolt the
door, she made no sign. Ailsa, beside her, stooped and passed one
arm around her.
"You--are not crying, are you, Celia, darling?" she whispered.
Her sister-in-law, lashes wet, rose with decision.
"I think that I have made a goose of myse'f to-night. Marye, will
you say to your father that it is after eleven o'clock, and that I
am waiting to be well scolded and sent to bed?"
"Father went out a few moments ago," said Paige in an awed voice.
"I heard him unbolt the front door."
Ailsa turned and walked swiftly out into the hallway; the front
door swung wide; Mr. Craig stood on the steps wearing his hat. He
looked around as she touched his arm.
"Oh, is it you, Ailsa?" There was a moment's indecision. Through
it, once more, far away in the city The Voices became audible
again, distant, vague, incessant.
"I thought--if it is actually an extra--" he began carelessly and
hesitated; and she said:
"Let me go with you. Wait. I'll speak to Celia."
"Say to her that I'll be gone only a moment."
When Ailsa returned she slipped her arm through his and they
descended the steps and walked toward Fulton Avenue. The Voices
were still distant; a few people, passing swiftly through the dusk,
preceded them. Far down the vista of the lighted avenue dark
figures crossed and recrossed the street, silhouetted against the
gas-lights; some were running. A man called out something as they
passed him. Suddenly, right ahead in the darkness, they
encountered people gathered before the boarded fence of a vacant
lot, a silent crowd shouldering, pushing, surging back and forth,
swarming far out along the dimly lighted avenue.
"There's a bulletin posted there," whispered Ailsa. "Could you
lift me in your arms?"
Her brother-in-law stooped, clasped her knees, and lifted her high
up above the sea of heads. Kerosene torches flickered beyond,
flanking a poster on which was printed in big black letters:
"WASHINGTON, April 13, 1861, 6 A.M.
"At half-past four o'clock this morning fire was
opened on Fort Sumter by the rebel batteries in the
harbour. Major Anderson is replying with his
barbette guns."
"8 A.M.
"A private despatch to the N. Y. Herald says that
the batteries on Mount Pleasant have opened on
Sumter. Major Anderson has brought into action two tiers
of guns trained on Fort Moultrie and the Iron Battery."
"3 P.M.
"The fire at this hour is very heavy. Nineteen
batteries are bombarding Sumter. The fort replies
briskly. The excitement in Charleston is intense."
"LATER.
"Heavy rain storm. Firing resumed this evening.
The mortar batteries throw a shell into the fort every
twenty minutes. The fort replies at intervals."
"LATEST.
"The fort is still replying. Major Anderson has
signalled the fleet outside."
All this she read aloud, one hand resting on Craig's shoulder as he
held her aloft above the throng. Men crowding around and striving
to see, paused, with up-turned faces, listening to the emotionless
young voice. There was no shouting, no sound save the trample and
shuffle of feet; scarcely a voice raised, scarcely an exclamation.
As Craig lowered her to the pavement, a man making his way out said
to them:
"Well, I guess that ends it."
Somebody replied quietly: "I guess that _begins_ it."
Farther down the avenue toward the City Hall where the new marble
court house was being built, a red glare quivered incessantly
against the darkness; distant hoarse rumours penetrated the night
air, accented every moment by the sharper clamour of voices calling
the _Herald's_ extras.
"Curt?"
"Yes, dear."
"If he surrenders----"
"It makes no difference what he does now, child."
"I know it. . . . They've dishonoured the flag. This is war,
isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Will it be a long war?"
"I think not."
"Who will go?"
"I don't know. . . . Soldiers."
"I didn't suppose we had enough. Where are we going to get more?"
"The people--" he said absently--"everybody, I suppose. How do I
know, child?"
"Just ordinary people?"
"Just ordinary people," he responded quietly. A few minutes later
as they entered their own street he said:
"I suppose I had better tell my wife about this to-night. I don't
know--it will be in the morning papers; but I think I had better
break it to her to-night."
"She will have to know--sometime--of course----"
Halting at the foot of the stoop he turned and peered through his
glasses at his sister-in-law.
"I don't want Stephen to start any nonsense about going."
"Going where?" she asked innocently.
He hesitated: "I don't want to hear any talk from him about
enlisting. That is what I mean. Your influence counts with him
more deeply than you know. Remember that."
"Steve--_enlist_!" she repeated blankly.
She could not yet comprehend what all this had to do with people
she personally knew--with her own kin.
"He must not enlist, of course," she said curtly. "There are
plenty of soldiers--there will be plenty, of course. I----"
Something silenced her, something within her sealed her lips. She
stood in silence while Craig fitted his night-key, then entered the
house with him. Gas burned low in the hall globes; when he turned
it off a fainter light from above guided them.
"Celia, is that you?" she called gently,
"Hush; go to bed, Honey-bell. Everybody is asleep. How pale you
are, Curt--dearest--dearest----"
The rear room was Ailsa's; she walked into it and dropped down on
the bed in the darkness. The door between the rooms closed: she
sat perfectly still, her eyes were wide open, staring in front of
her.
Queer little luminous shapes danced through obscurity like the
names from the kerosene torches around the bulletin; her ears still
vibrated with the hoarse alarm of the voices; through her brain
sounded her brother-in-law's words about Steve, repeated
incessantly, stupidly.
Presently she began to undress by sense of touch. The gas in the
bathroom was lighted; she completed her ablutions, turned it off,
and felt her way back to the bed.
Lying there she became aware of sounds from the front room. Celia
was still awake; she distinguished her voice in quick, frightened
exclamation; then the low murmur continued for a while, then
silence fell.
She raised herself on one elbow; the crack of light under the door
was gone; there was no sound, no movement in the house except the
measured tick of the hall clock outside,
tic-toc!--tic-toc!--tic-toc!
And she had been lying there a long, long while, eyes open, before
she realised that the rhythm of the hall clock was but a repetition
of a name which did not concern her in any manner:
"Berk-ley!--Berk-ley!--Berk-ley!"
How it had crept into her consciousness she could not understand;
she lay still, listening, but the tic-toc seemed to fit the
syllables of his name; and when, annoyed, she made a half
disdainful mental attempt to substitute other syllables, it proved
too much of an effort, and back into its sober, swinging rhythm
slipped the old clock's tic-toe, in wearisome, meaningless
repetition:
"Berk-ley!--Berk-ley!--Berk-ley!"
She was awakened by a rapping at her door and her cousin's
imperative voice:
"I want to talk to you; are you in bed?"
She drew the coverlet to her chin and called out:
"Come in, Steve!"
He came, tremendously excited, clutching the _Herald_ in one hand.
"I've had enough of this rebel newspaper!" he said fiercely. "I
don't want it in the house again, ever. Father says that the
marine news makes it worth taking, but----"
"What on earth are you trying to say, Steve?"
"I'm trying to tell you that we're at war! War, Ailsa! Do you
understand? Father and I've had a fight already----"
"What?"
"They're still firing on Sumter, I tell you, and if the fort
doesn't hold out do you think I'm going to sit around the house
like a pussy cat? Do you think I'm going to business every day as
though nothing was happening to the country I'm living in? I tell
you now--you and mother and father--that I'm not built that way----"
Ailsa rose in bed, snatched the paper from his grasp, and leaning
on one arm gazed down at the flaring head-lines:
THE WAR BEGUN
Very Exciting News from Charleston
Bombardment of Fort Sumter Commenced
Terrible Fire from the Secessionists' Batteries
Brilliant Defence of Maj. Anderson
Reckless Bravery of the Confederate States Troops.
And, scanning it to the end, cried out:
"He hasn't hauled down his flag! What are you so excited about?"
"I--I'm excited, of course! He can't possibly hold out with only
eighty men and nothing to feed them on. Something's got to be
done!" he added, walking up and down the room. "I've made fun of
the militia--like everybody else--but Jimmy Lent is getting ready,
and I'm doing nothing! Do you hear what I'm saying, Ailsa?"
She looked up from the newspaper, sitting there cross-legged under
the coverlet.
"I hear you, Steve. I don't know what you mean by 'something's got
to be done.' Major Anderson is doing what he can--bless him!"
"That's all right, but the thing isn't going to stop there."
"Stop where?"
"At Sumter. They'll begin firing on Fortress Monroe and
Pensacola--I--how do you know they're not already thinking about
bombarding Washington? Virginia is going out of the Union; the
entire South is out, or going. Yesterday, I didn't suppose there
was any use in trying to get them back again. Father did, but I
didn't. I think it's got to be done, now. And the question is,
Ailsa, whose going to do it?"
But she was fiercely absorbed again in the news, leaning close over
the paper, tumbled dull-gold hair falling around her bare
shoulders, breath coming faster and more irregularly as she read
the incredible story and strove to comprehend its cataclysmic
significance.
"If others are going, I am," repeated her cousin sullenly.
"Going where, Steve?--Oh------"
She dropped the paper and looked up, startled; and he looked back
at her, defiant, without a flicker in those characteristic family
eyes of his, clear as azure, steady to punishment given or
taken--good eyes for a boy to inherit. And he inherited them from
his rebel mother.
"Father can't keep me home if other people go," he said.
"Wait until other people go." She reached out and laid a hand on
his arm.
"Things are happening too fast, Steve, too fast for everybody to
quite understand just yet. Everybody will do what is the thing to
do; the family will do what it ought to. . . . Has your mother
seen this?"
"Yes. Neither she nor father have dared speak about it before
us--" He made a gesture of quick despair, walked to the window and
back.
"It's a terrible thing, Ailsa, to have mother feel as she does."
"How could she feel otherwise?"
"I've done my best to explain to her----"
"O Steve! _You_!--when it's a matter between her soul and God!"
He said, reddening: "It's a matter of common-sense--I don't mean to
insult mother--but--good Lord, a nation is a nation, but a state is
only a state! I--hang it all--what's the use of trying to explain
what is born in one----"
"The contrary was born in your mother, Steve. Don't ever talk to
her this way. And--go out, please, I wish to dress."
He went away, saying over his shoulders: "I only wanted to tell you
that I'm not inclined to sit sucking my thumb if other men go, and
you can say so to father, who has forbidden me to mention the
subject to him again until I have his permission."
But he went away to business that morning with his father, as
usual; and when evening came the two men returned, anxious, dead
tired, having passed most of the day standing in the dense throngs
that choked every street around the bulletin boards of the
newspaper offices.
Ailsa had not been out during the day, nor had Mrs. Craig, except
for an hour's drive in the family coupe around the district where
preliminary surveys for the new Prospect Park were being pushed.
They had driven for almost an hour in utter silence. Her
sister-in-law's hand lay clasped in hers, but both looked from the
carriage windows without speaking, and the return from the drive
found them strangely weary and inclined for the quiet of their own
rooms. But Celia Craig could not close her eyes even to feign
sleep to herself.
When husband and son returned at evening, she asked nothing of the
news from them, but her upturned face lingered a second or two
longer as her husband kissed her, and she clung a little to
Stephen, who was inclined to be brief with her.
Dinner was a miserable failure in that family, which usually had
much to compare, much to impart, much badinage and laughter to
distribute. But the men were weary and uncommunicative; Estcourt
Craig went to his club after dinner; Stephen, now possessing a
latch-key, disappeared shortly afterward.
Paige and Marye did embroidery and gossipped together under the big
crystal chandelier while their mother read aloud to them from
"Great Expectations," which was running serially in _Harper's
Weekly_. Later she read in her prayer-book; later still, fully
dressed, she lay across the bed in the alcove staring at the
darkness and listening for the sound of her husband's latch-key in
the front door,
When it sounded, she sprang up and hastily dried her eyes.
"The children and Ailsa are all abed, Curt. How late you are! It
was not very wise of you to go out--being so tired--" She was
hovering near him as though to help his weariness with her small
offices; she took his hat, stood looking at him, then stepped
nearer, laying both hands on his shoulders, and her face against
his.
"I am--already tired of the--war," she sighed. "Is it ended yet,
Curt?"
"There is no more news from Sumter."
"You will--love me--best--anyway. Curt--won't you?"
"Do you doubt it?"
She only drew a deep, frightened breath. For within her heart she
felt the weight of the new apprehension--the clairvoyant
premonition of a rival that she must prepare to encounter--a rival
that menaced her peace of mind--a shape, shadowy as yet, but
terrible, slowly becoming frightfully denned--a Thing that might
one day wean this man from her--husband, and son, too--both
perhaps----.
"Curt," she faltered, "it will all come right in the end. Say it.
I am afraid."
"It will come out all right," he said gently. They kissed, and she
turned to the mirror and silently began preparing for the night.
With the calm notes of church bells floating out across the city,
and an April breeze blowing her lace curtains, Ailsa awoke.
Overhead she heard the trample of Stephen's feet as he moved
leisurely about his bedroom. Outside her windows in the backyard,
early sunshine slanted across shrub and grass and white-washed
fence; the Sunday quiet was absolute, save for the church bells.
She lay there listening and thinking; the church bells ceased; and
after a while, lying there, she began to realise that the silence
was unnatural--became conscious of something ominous in the intense
quiet outside--a far-spread stillness which was more than the hush
of Sabbath.
Whether or not the household was still abed she did not know; no
sound came from Celia's room; nor were Marye and Paige stirring on
the floor above when she rose and stole out barefooted to the
landing, holding a thin silk chamber robe around her. She paused,
listening; the tic-toc of the hall clock accented the silence; the
door that led from Celia's chamber into the hall stood wide open,
and there was nobody in sight. Something drew her to the alcove
window, which was raised; through the lace curtains she saw the
staff of the family flag set in its iron socket at right angles to
the facade--saw the silken folds stirring lazily in the sunshine,
tiptoed to the window and peered out.
As far as her eyes could see, east and west, the street was one
rustling mass of flags.
For a second her heart almost hurt her with its thrilling leap; she
caught her breath; the hard tension in her throat was choking her;
she dropped to her knees by the sill, drew a corner of the flag to
her, and laid her cheek against it.
Her eyes unclosed and she gazed out upon the world of flags; then,
upright, she opened her fingers, and the crinkled edges of the
flag, released, floated leisurely out once more into the April
sunshine.
When she had dressed she found the family in the dining-room--her
sister-in-law, serene but pale, seated behind the coffee urn, Mr.
Craig and Stephen reading the Sunday newspapers, Paige and Marye
whispering together over their oatmeal and cream.
She kissed Celia, dropped the old-fashioned, half-forgotten curtsey
to the others, and stood hesitating a moment, one hand resting on
Celia's shoulder.
"Is the fort holding out?" she asked.
Stephen looked up angrily, made as though to speak, but a deep
flush settled to the roots of his hair and he remained silent.
"Fort Sumter has surrendered," said her brother-in-law quietly.
Celia whispered: "Take your seat now, Honey-bell; your breakfast is
getting cold."
At church that Sunday the Northern clergy prayed in a dazed sort of
way for the Union and for the President; some addressed the Most
High as "The God of Battles." The sun shone brightly; new leaves
were startling on every tree in every Northern city; acres of
starry banners drooped above thousands of departing congregations,
and formed whispering canopies overhead.
Vespers were solemn; April dusk fell over a million roofs and
spires; twinkling gas jets were lighted in street lamps; city,
town, and hamlet drew their curtains and bowed their heads in
darkness. A dreadful silence fell over the North--a stillness that
breeds epochs and the makers of them.
But the first gray pallor of the dawn awoke a nation for the first
time certain of its entity, roaring its comprehension of it from
the Lakes to the Potomac, from sea to sea; and the red sun rose
over twenty States in solid battle line thundering their loyalty to
a Union undivided,
And on that day rang out the first loud call to arms; and the first
battalion of the Northland, seventy-five thousand strong, formed
ranks, cheering their insulted flag.
Then, southward, another flag shot up above the horizon. The world
already knew it as The Stars and Bars. And, beside it, from its
pointed lance, whipped and snapped and fretted another
flag--square, red, crossed by a blue saltier edged with white on
which glittered thirteen stars.
It was the battle flag of the Confederacy flashing the answer to
the Northern cheer.