THE MAN AND THE TIMES
I
The Democratic State Convention had taken an hour's recess. From the
doors of the opera house of Powhatan City the assembled delegates
emerged, heated, clamorous, out of breath. The morning session, despite
its noise, had not been interesting--awaiting the report of the
Committee on Credentials, the panting body had fumed away the opening
hours. Of the fifteen hundred representatives of absent voters, the
favoured few who had held the floor had been needlessly discursive and
undeniably dull. There had been overmuch of the party platform, and an
absence of the wit which is the soul of political speaking; and, though
the average Virginia Convention is able to breast triumphantly the most
encompassing wave of oratory, the present one had shown unmistakable
signs of suffocation. At the end of the third speech, metaphor had
failed to move it, and alliteration had ceased to evoke applause. It had
heard without emotion similes that concerned the colour of Cleopatra's
hair, and had yawned through perorations that ranged from Socrates to
the Senior Senator, who sat upon the stage. Attacks upon the "cormorants
and harpies that roost in Wall Street" had roused no thrill in the mind
of the majority that knew not rhetoric. The most patient of the silent
members had observed that "after all, their business was to nominate a
candidate for governor," while the unruly spirits, as they brandished
palm-leaf fans, had wished "that blamed committee would come on."
Now, after hours of restless waiting, they emerged, stiff-kneed and
perspiring, into the blazing sunshine that filled the little street.
Once outside, they opened their lungs to the warm air in an attempt to
banish the tainted atmosphere of the interior; but the original motive
of expansion was lost in a flow of words. On the sidewalk the crowd
divided into streams, pulsing in opposite directions. Heated, noisy,
pervasive, it surged to dinners in hotels and boarding-houses, and
overflowed where Moloney's restaurant displayed its bill of fare. It
came out talking, it divided talking; still talking, it swept, a roaring
sea of flesh, into the far-off buzz of the distance. In a group of three
men passing into the lobby of the largest hotel, there was a slender man
of fifty years, with a well-knit figure, half closed, indifferent eyes,
and an emphatic mouth. In the insistent hum of words about him, his
voice sounded in a brisk utterance that carried a hint of important
issues.
"Oh, I don't think Hartley's much account," he was saying. "I'd bet on a
close shave between Webb and Crutchfield, with Webb in the lead. Small
will get the lieutenant-governorship, of course. Davis ought to be
attorney-general, but he'll be beaten by Wray. It's the party reward.
Davis is the better lawyer, by long odds, but Wray has stuck to the
party like a burr--I don't mean a pun, if you please."
The younger of his two companions, a spirited youth with high-standing
auburn hair, laughed uproariously.
"The trouble is they're afraid Burr won't stick to the party," he
protested. "Major Simms, who is marshalling Crutchfield's forces, you
know, said to me last night--'Oh, Burr's all right when you let him
lead, but he's damned mulish if you begin to pull the other way.'"
The third man, a sunburned farmer, with a dogged mouth overhung by a
tobacco-stained mustache, assented with a nod.
"There's not a better Democrat in Virginia than Nick Burr," he said. "If
the party's got anything against him it had better out with it at once.
He made the most successful chairman the State ever had--and he's
honest--there's not a more honest man in politics or out."
"Oh, I know all that," broke in the auburn-haired young fellow, whose
name was Dickson; "I'd back Burr against any candidate in the field, and
I'm sorry he kept out of it. I hoped he'd come forward with you to
manage his campaign, Mr. Galt," he said to the first speaker.
Galt waived the remark.
"Perhaps he thought his chances too slim for a walkover," he said in
non-committal fashion, as Burr's best friend. "I hear, by the way, that
the delegation from his old home is instructed to vote for him on the
first ballot, whether or not."
"He has a great name down in my parts," put in the farmer. "The people
think he has the agricultural interests at heart. They wanted to send
him to Congress in Webb's place, you know."
"Yes, I know," said Galt. "Hello, Bassett," as Tom Bassett joined him.
"Where've you been? Lost sight of you this morning."
"Oh, I was out with the Committee on Credentials. A member? I should say
not. I wanted to hear that Madison County case, so I got made
sergeant-at-arms. By the way, Dick," to Dickson, "I hear you held the
floor for five minutes this morning and got off five distinct stories
that landed with Columbus."
"Nonsense. I didn't open my mouth--except to call 'time' on the men who
did. There's our orator now."
He bowed to an elderly gentleman with a sharply pointed chin beard and
the type of face that was once called clerical.
"Some one defined oratory the other day," said Galt, "as the fringe with
which the inhabitants of the Southern States still delighted to trim
their politics--so I should call the gentleman of to-day 'a political
tassel.' He's ornamental and he hangs by a thread."
And he passed into the lobby arm-in-arm with Tom Bassett.
The place was swarming with delegates: delegates from country districts,
red-faced farmers in flapping linen coats and wide-brimmed hats;
delegates from the cities, dapper, well-groomed, cordial-voiced;
delegates of the true political type, shaven, obsequious, alert;
delegates of the cast that belongs at home, outspoken, honest-eyed,
remote; stout delegates, with half-bursting waistbands, thin delegates,
with shrunken chests. In the animated throng there was but one condition
held in common--they were all heated delegates. In one corner a stout
gentleman in a thin coat, with a scarlet neck showing above his wilted
collar, held a half-dozen listeners with his eyes, while he plied them
with emphatic sentences in which the name of Crutchfield sounded like a
refrain. Moving from group to group, portly, unctuous, insinuating, a
man with an oily voice was doing battle in the cause of Webb.
The throng that passed in and out of the lobby was continually shifting
place and principles. One instant it would seem that Crutchfield
triumphed in a majority sufficient to overwhelm the platform; a moment
more and the Webb men were vociferously in the ascendant. At the time it
resolved itself into a question of tongues.
"This is thick," said Ben Galt, dodging the straw hat with which a
perspiring politician was fanning himself and gently withdrawing himself
from the arms of a scarlet individual in a wet collar to collide with
his double. "Let's go to dinner. Ah! there's the Lion of Democracy--how
are you, Judge?"
The Lion, a striking figure, with a graceful, snow-white mane and a
colossal memory, held out a tireless hand. "Well met, Ben," he exclaimed
in effusive tones. "I've been on the outlook for you all day. One
moment--your pardon--one moment--Ah, my dear sir! my dear sir!" to a
countryman who approached him with outstretched hand, "I am delighted.
Remember you? Why, of course--of course! Your name has escaped me this
instant; but I was speaking of you only yesterday. No, don't tell me!
don't tell me. I remember. Ah, now I have it--one moment, please--it was
after the battle of Seven Pines. You lent me a horse after the battle of
Seven Pines. Thank you--thank you, sir. And your charming lady, who made
me the delicious coffee. My best regards to her."
The great man was surrounded, and Galt and Bassett, leaving him to his
assailants, passed into the dining-room.
Glancing hastily down the long room filled with small, overcrowded
tables, they joined several men who were seated near an open window.
"Hello, Major. Glad to see you, Mr. Slate! How are things down your way,
Colonel?"
A tired negro waiter, with a napkin slung over his arm, drew back the
chairs and deposited two plates of lukewarm soup before the newcomers,
after which he lifted a brush of variegated tissue paper and made
valiant assault upon the flies which overran the tables. Stale odours of
over-cooked food weighted the atmosphere, and waiters bearing enormous
trays above their heads jostled one another as they threaded their
difficult ways. Occasionally the clamour of voices was lost in the
clatter of breaking dishes. Tom Bassett pushed his plate away and mopped
his large forehead. He appeared to have developed without aging in the
last fifteen years--still presenting an aspect of invincible
respectability.
"It's ninety-two degrees in the shade, if it's anything," he declared,
adding, "Has anybody seen Webb to-day?"
The colonel, whose name was Diggs, nodded with his mouth full, and,
having swallowed at his leisure, proceeded to reply, holding his knife
and fork poised for service. He was fair to the point of insipidity, and
his weak blue eyes bulged with joviality.
"Shook hands with him at the train last night," he said. "Hall was a day
ahead of time. Great politician, Hall. Working for Webb like a beaver.
Here, waiter! More potatoes."
"I went to sleep last night to the music of Webb's men," said Galt, "and
I awoke to the tune of Crutchfield. I don't believe either side went to
bed. My wonder is whom they found to work on."
Slate, a muscular little man, with a nervous affection about the mouth
that gave him an appearance of being continually on the point of a
surprising utterance, hesitated over, caught, and finally landed his
speech. "They're dead against Webb down my way," he said. "Our
delegation is instructed to vote for anybody that favours retrenchment,
unless it's Webb--they won't have Webb if he moves to run the State on
the two-cent system. If we'd cast a quarter of a vote for him they'd
drum us out of the district. It's all because he voted for that railroad
bill in Washington last winter. We hate a railroad as a bull hates a red
flag."
Major Baylor, a courtly gentleman, with a face that bore traces of a
survival of the old Virginian legal type, spoke for the first time.
"Fauquier stands to a man for Dudley Webb," he said. "He has a large
following in my section, and I understand, by the way, that if Hartley
withdraws after the first ballot, it will mean a clear gain for Webb in
the eighth district. He's safe, I think."
"Oh, we're Crutchfield strong," laughed the colonel good-humouredly,
reaching for a toothpick from the glass stand in the centre of the
table. "We think a man deserves something who hasn't missed a convention
for fourteen years."
There was a spirit of ridicule tempered with good-humour about the
group, which showed it to be, in the main, indifferent to the result--an
attitude in vivid contrast to the effervescent partisanship of the
leaders. With the exception of the colonel, whose heart was in his
dinner, they appeared to be unconcerned spectators of the events of the
day.
"Hall was telling me a good story on Webb last week," said Diggs, as he
waited for his dessert. "It was about the time he seconded the
nomination of Reed for attorney-general--ever hear it?"
"Fire away!" was Galt's reply, as he leaned back in his chair. The
colonel's stories were the platform which had supported him throughout a
not unsuccessful social career.
"It was when Webb was a young fellow, you know, just beginning to be
heard of as an advocate. He was at his first convention, eager to have
his say, hard to keep silent; and he was asked to second the nomination
of Reed, a boyish-looking chap of twenty-six. He didn't know Reed from
Adam, but he was ambitious to be heard just then--and he'd have spoken
for the devil if they'd have given him a chance. Well, he launched out
on his speech in fine style. He began with Noah--as they all did in
those days--glided down the centuries to Seneca and Cæsar, touched upon
Adam Smith and Jefferson, and finally landed in the arms of Monroe P.
Reed. There he grew fairly ecstatic over his subject. He spoke of him as
'the lawyer sprung, full-armed, from the head of learning,' as the
'nonpareil Democrat who clove, as Ruth to Naomi, to the immortal
principles of Virginia Democracy,' and in a glorious period, he rounded
off 'the incomparable services which Monroe P. Reed had rendered the
deathless cause of the Confederacy!' In an instant the house came down.
There was a roar of laughter, and somebody in the gallery sang out: 'He
was at his mother's breast!'
"For a moment Webb quailed, but his wits never left him. He faced the
man in the gallery like Apollo come to judgment, and his fine voice rang
to the roof. 'I know it, sir, I know it,' he thundered, 'but Monroe P.
Reed was one of the stoutest breastworks of the Confederacy. I have it
from his mother, sir!'
"Of course the house went wild. He was the youngest man on the floor,
and they gave him an ovation. Since then, he's learned some things, and
he's become the only orator left among us."
The colonel finished hurriedly as his apple pie was placed before him,
and did not speak again during dinner.
"He is an orator," said Galt. "He doesn't use much clap-trap business
either. I've never heard him drag in the Medes and Persians, and I could
count his classical quotations on my fingers. Personally, I like Burr's
way better--it's saner and it's sounder--but Webb knows how to talk,
and he has a voice like a silver bell--Ah, here he is."
As he spoke there was a stir in the crowd at the doorway and Dudley Webb
entered and took the nearest vacant seat.
The first impression of him at this time was one of extreme
picturesqueness. A slight tendency to stoutness gave dignity to a figure
which, had it been thin, would have been insignificant, and served to
accentuate a peculiar grace of curve which prevented his weight from
carrying any suggestion of the coming solidity of middle age. His rich,
rather oily hair, worn longer than the fashion, fell in affected
carelessness across his brow and lent to his candid eyes an expression
of intensity and eloquence. His clear-cut nose and the firm, fleshy
curve of his prominent chin modified the effect of instability produced
by his large and somewhat loosely moulded lips. The salient quality of
his personality, as of his appearance, was an ease of proportion almost
urbane. His presence in the overcrowded room diffused an infectious
affability. Though he spoke to few, he was at once, and irrepressibly,
the friend of all. He did not go out of his way to shake a single hand,
he confined his conversation, with the old absorption, to the men at his
table--personal supporters, for the most part; but there was about him a
pacific emanation--an atmosphere at once social and political, which
extended to the far end of the room and to men whose names he did not
know.
He talked rapidly in a vibrant, low-toned voice, with frequent gestures
of his shapely hands. His laugh was easy, full, and inspiriting--the
laugh of a man with a vital sense of humour. As Galt watched him, he
smiled in unconscious sympathy.
"But for Burr, I think I'd like to see Webb governor," he said. "After
all, it is something to have a man who looks well in a procession--and
he has a charming wife."
II
The gas light and electric light illuminating the opera house fell with
a curious distinction in tone upon the crowd which filled the building
and overflowed through darkened doors and windows. Beneath the electric
jets the faces were focussed to a white hush of expectancy, which
mellowed into a blur of impatient animation where the dim gas flickered
against the walls.
Since the birth of Virginia Democracy, the people had not witnessed so
generous an outpouring of delegates. In a State where every man is more
or less a politician, the convention had assumed the air of a carnival
of males--the restriction of sex limiting it to an expression of but
half the population.
The delegations from the congressional districts were marshalled in line
upon the floor and stage, their positions denoted by numbered placards
on poles, while in the galleries an enthusiastic swarm of visitors gave
vent to the opinions of that tribunal which is the public. A straggling
fringe of feet, in white socks and low shoes, suspended from the red and
gilt railings of the boxes, illustrated the peculiar privileges enjoyed
in the absence of the feminine atmosphere. From stage to gallery the
play of palm-leaf fans produced the effect of a swarm of gigantic
insects, and behind them rows of flushed and perspiring faces were
turned upon the gentleman who held the floor.
A composite photograph of the faces would have resulted in a type at
once alarming and reassuring--alarming to the student of individual
endeavour, reassuring to the historian of impersonal issues. It would
have presented a countenance that was unerringly Anglo-Saxon, though
modified by the conditions of centuries of changes. One would have
recognised instinctively the tiller of the soil--the single class which
has refused concessions to the making of a racial cast of feature. The
farmer would have stamped his impress indelibly upon the
plate--retaining that enduring aspect which comes from contact with
natural forces--that integrity of type which is the sole survival of the
Virginian pioneer.
In the general face, the softening influences of society, the relaxing
morality of city life would have appeared only as a wrinkle here and
there, or as an additional shadow. Beneath the fluctuating expression of
political sins and heresies, there would have remained the unaltered
features of the steadfast qualities of the race.
The band in a far corner rolled out "Dixie," and the mass heaved
momentarily, while a cloud of tobacco smoke rose into the air,
scattering into circles before the waving of the palm-leaf fans. Here
and there a man stood up to remove his coat or to stretch his hand to
the vendor of lemonade. Sometimes the fringe of feet overhanging the
boxes waved convulsively as a howl of approbation or derision greeted a
fresh arrival or the remarks of a speaker. Again, there would rise a
tumultuous call for a party leader or a famous story teller. It was a
jovial, unkempt, coatless crowd that spat tobacco juice as recklessly
as it applauded a fine sentiment.
As an unwieldy gentleman, in an alpaca coat, made his appearance upon
the platform, there was an outburst of emotion from where the tenth
delegation was seated. The unwieldy gentleman was the Honourable
Cumberland Crutchfield, a popular aspirant to the governorship.
When Galt entered the hall, an athletic rhetorician was declaiming an
eulogy which had for its theme the graces of his candidate. "You came
too soon," observed a man seated next a vacant chair, which Galt took.
"You should have escaped this infliction."
"My dear fellow, I never escaped an infliction in my life," responded
Galt serenely. "I cut my teeth on them--but here's another," and he
turned an indifferent gaze on the orator, who had risen upon the
platform. "Good Lord, it's Gary!" he groaned. "Now we're in for it."
"Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the convention," Gary was beginning, "it
is my pleasant duty to second the nomination of the Honourable
Cumberland Crutchfield of the gallant little county of Botetourt. Before
this august body, before this incomparable assemblage of the intellect
and learning of the State, my tongue would be securely tied ("I'd like
that little job," grunted the man next to Galt) did not the majesty of
my subject loosen it to eloquence. Would that the immortal Cicero ("Now
we're in for it," breathed Galt) in his deathless orations had been
inspired by the illustrious figure of our fellow-countryman. Gentlemen,
in the Honourable Cumberland Crutchfield you behold one whose public
service is an inspiration, whose private life is a benediction--one who
has borne without abuse the grand old title of the Cæsar of Democracy,
and I dare to stand before you and assert that, had Cæsar been a
Cumberland Crutchfield, there would have been no Brutus. Gentlemen, I
present to you in the Honourable Cumberland Crutchfield the Vested
Virgin of Virginia!"
The chairman's gavel fell with a thud. In the uproar which ensued hats,
fans, sticks filled the air. The tenth delegation rose to a man and
surged forward, but it was howled down. "Go it, old man!" sang the
boxes, where the fringe of feet was wildly swaying, and "He's all
right!" screeched the galleries. To a man who may be made fun of a
Virginia convention can be kind, but in the confusion Gary had sauntered
out for a drink.
After his exit the seconding motion flowed on smoothly through several
tedious speeches; and when the virtues of Mr. Crutchfield had been
sufficiently exploited Major Baylor requested the nomination of Dudley
Webb. He spoke warmly along the old heroic lines.
"The gentleman whom I ask you to nominate as your candidate for governor
stands before his people as one of the foremost statesmen of his day.
The father fell while defending Virginia; the son has pledged his
splendid ability and his untiring youth to the same service. From a
child he has been trained in the love of country and the principles of
Democracy. In his veins he carries the blood of a race of patriots. From
his mother's breast he has imbibed the immortal milk of morality. He
has laboured for his people in a single-hearted service that seeketh not
its own. There is no man rich enough to buy the good-will of Dudley
Webb; there is none so poor--"
"That he hasn't a vote to sell him!" called a voice from the pit.
In an instant a chorus of yells rang out from stage to gallery. The man
who spoke was knocked down by a Webb partisan, and assailant and
assailed were hustled from the house.
When the uproar was subdued, the thin voice of Mr. Slate sounded from
the platform.
"What he doesn't sell he buys," he cried in his nervous, penetrant
tones. "Twelve years ago he was accused of lobbying with full hands in
the legislature. He was the lobbyist of the P.H. & C. railroad. The
charge was passed over, not disproved. What do you say to this, Major?"
In the effort to restore order the chairman grew purple, but the major
turned squarely upon his questioner.
"I say nothing, sir. It is unnecessary to assert that a gentleman is not
a criminal at large."
A burst of applause broke out.
"I repeat the charge," screamed Slate.
"It is false!" retorted the major.
"It's a damned lie!" called a dozen voices.
"Nick Burr knows it. Ask him!" answered Slate.
From a peaceable assemblage the convention had passed into pandemonium.
Two thousand throats made, in two thousand different keys, a single
gigantic discord. The pounding of the chairman was a faint
accompaniment to the clamour. In the first lull, a man's voice with a
dominant note was heard demanding recognition, and at the sight of his
towering figure upon the platform there was a short silence.
"It's Nick Burr!" called a man from Burr's district. "Let's hear Nick
Burr."
There was a protest on the part of the Webb faction. Burr and Webb were
looked upon as rivals. "He hates Webb like the devil!" cried a delegate,
and "It's pie for Burr!" sneered another. But as he moved slightly
forward and faced the chairman a sudden hush fell before him.
Among the men surrounding him his powerful figure towered like a
giant's. His abundant red hair, waving thickly from his bulging
forehead, redeemed by its single note of colour the rigidity of his
features. His eyes--small, keen, deeply set beneath heavy brows--flashed
from a dull opacity to an alert animation. But in the first and last
view of his face it was the mouth that marked the man; the straight,
thin lips would close or unclose at their own will, not at
another's--the line of the mouth, like the line of the hard, square jaw,
was the physical expression of his character. He was called ugly, but it
was at least the ugliness of individuality--the ugliness of an
unpolished force--of a raw, yet disciplined energy. Now, as he stood at
his full height upon the stage, his personality was felt before his
words were uttered. He had but one attribute of recognised oratory--a
voice; and yet a voice so little vibrant as to seem almost without
inflections.
It was resonant, far-reaching, incisive; but it rang abruptly and
without mellowness.
"Mr. Chairman," he began, and his words were heard from pit to gallery.
"It is perhaps unnecessary for me to state that I do not rise as an
advocate of Mr. Webb. I am neither his personal friend nor his political
supporter, but in the year alluded to by the gentleman from Nottoway I
was upon a committee appointed to investigate the charges which the
gentleman from Nottoway has seen fit to revive." A silence had fallen in
which a whisper might have been heard. Every eye in the building was
turned to where his outstanding mop of hair shone red against the
smoke-stained wall. "The charges were thoroughly investigated and
emphatically withdrawn. The gentleman from Nottoway has been misinformed
or his memory has misled him--since there was abundant evidence brought
before the committee to prove the suspicions against Mr. Webb's methods
as a lobbyist to be absolutely without foundation.
"I have made this statement because I believe myself to be in a better
position to disprove this old and forgotten charge than any man present.
As I am a recognised opponent of Mr. Webb's political ambition my
testimony to the integrity of his personal honour may be of additional
value."
In the thunder of applause that shook the building he turned for the
first time towards the house. The cheers that went up to him brought the
animation to his eyes. The faces in the pit were hidden behind a sea of
handkerchiefs and hats--it was the response which a Virginia audience
makes to a brave or a generous action. "Hurrah for honest Nick!" yelled
the floor, and "Go in and win yourself!" shouted a delegate from his own
district.
He spoke again, and they were silent.
"Men of Virginia, in the naming of your governor, let us have neither
subterfuge nor slander. Better than the love of party is the love of
honesty--and the Democracy of Jefferson cannot thrive upon falsehood.
Fair means are the only means, honest ends are the only ends. The party
owes its right to existence to the people's will; when its life must be
prolonged by artificial stimulants it is fit that it should die. It is
not the people's master, but the people's servant; if it should usurp
the oppressor's place, it must die the oppressor's death.
"For fifteen years I have worked a Democrat among you, and it is not
needed that I should put in words my love for the party I have served;
but I say to you to-day that if that party were doomed to annihilation
and a lie could save it, I would not speak it."
He sat down and the uproar began again. Beyond the party were the
people, and he had touched them. With the force of his personality upon
it he had become suddenly the hero of the house. "Honest Nick! Honest
Nick!" shouted the galleries, and the cry was echoed from the pit. When
order was restored Major Baylor completed his speech; it was seconded by
a sensible young congressman, and the oratory was cut short by a call
for votes.
In a flash the chairmen of the different delegations were stung into
action. A buzz like that of bees swarming rose from the pit and white
slips of paper fluttered from row to row. The Webb leaders were
whipping their faction into an enthusiasm that drowned the roll call. At
last, with the reading of the ballot, there was silence, followed by
applause. Webb led slightly in advance of Crutchfield; Burr came next,
Hartley last. With the surprise of the third name, round which there had
been a rally of uninstructed delegations, a cheer went up. In the
clamour Burr had risen to ask that his name be withdrawn, but the chorus
of his newly formed followers howled him down. Then Hartley was dropped
from the race and a second ballot ordered. The excitement in the
building could be felt like steam. The heat was rising and a nervous
tension weighted the atmosphere. Through the clouds of tobacco smoke the
records of changes sounded distinctly. The Hartley delegation that Webb
had counted on divided and went two ways; the county of Albemarle passed
over to Burr; the city of Richmond broke its vote into three equal
parts.
Each change was received with a roar by the opposing factions--while the
clerks stumbled on, making alteration upon alteration. On the floor and
the stage the chairmen thickened in the fight. Ben Galt had sprung
suddenly into life as Burr's manager, and in the aisle Tom Bassett, in
his shirt sleeves, with a tally sheet in his hand, was inciting his
battalion to victory. About him the Webb men were summing up the votes
needed to bring in their leader. The noise had a dull, baying sound, as
if the general voice were growing hoarse. The odour of good and bad
tobacco was dense and stifling. In the midst of the clamour a drunken
man rose to move that the convention consider the subject in prayer.
Upon the reading of the second ballot the confusion deepened. The name
of Crutchfield went down, and Burr and Webb ran hotly neck to neck. Then
the Crutchfield party, which had held bravely together, began to go
over, and, as each change was made, a shout went up from the successful
force. Hall and Galt had established themselves on opposite sides of the
stage and were working with drawn breath. Galt, with a cigar in his
mouth and a fan in his hand, was the only cool man in the house. He had
caught the wave of popular enthusiasm before it had had time to break,
and he was giving it no ground upon which to settle. Tom Bassett in the
centre aisle was cheering on his workers. He was superb, but the Webb
men were not behind him; it was still neck to neck. Then, at last, with
the third ballot, Burr led off, and the voting was over.
There was a call upon the name of the successful candidate, but before
he stood up the Honourable Cumberland Crutchfield rose to eulogise the
wisdom of the convention in nominating the man he had tried to defeat.
The Cæsar of Democracy was beaming, despite his disappointment--a
persistent beam of the flesh.
"Gentlemen, you have made your decision, and it is for me to bow to its
wisdom. In the Honourable Nick Burr your choice has fallen upon the man
who will most incite to ardour each individual voter. His record is a
glorious one,"--for an instant he wavered; then his imagination took a
blinded leap. "He was born a Democrat, he lives a Democrat, he will die
a Democrat. In the life of his revered and lamented father, the late
Alexander P. Burr, he has a shining example of unshaken conviction and
unswerving loyalty to principle. Gentlemen, you have chosen well, and I
pledge myself to uphold your nominee and to be the foremost bearer of
your banner when it waves in next November from the line of Tennessee to
the Atlantic Ocean."
He sat down amid ecstatic cheers and Nicholas Burr came forward.
His face was grave, but there was the light of enthusiasm in his eyes
and his head was uplifted.
"There's a man who has capitalised his conscience," sneered a Webb
follower with a smile.
Across the hall Ben Galt was lighting a cigar, the tattered remains of
his fan at his feet. "There's a statesman that came a century too late,"
he remarked to Tom Bassett. "He's a leader, pure and simple, but he's
out of place in an age when every man's his own patriot."
III
The successful man was returning to Kingsborough. He had spent the week
in Richmond, where he had lived for the past ten years, and he was now
going back to receive the congratulations of the judge--as he would have
gone twice the distance.
It was the ordinary car of a Southern railroad, and leaning his head
against the harsh, bristly plush of the seat, he had before him the
usual examples of Southern passengers.
Across the aisle a slender mother was holding a crying baby, two small
children huddling beside her. In the seat in front of him slouched a
mulatto of the new era--the degenerate descendant of two races that mix
only to decay. Further off there were several men returning from
business trips, and across from them sat a pretty girl, asleep, her hand
resting on a gilded cage containing a startled canary. At intervals she
was aroused by the flitting figure of a small boy on the way to the
cooler of iced water. From the rear of the car came the amiable drawl of
the conductor as he discussed the affairs of the State with a local
drummer, whose feet rested upon a square leathern case.
Nicholas Burr leaned back and closed his eyes, crossing his long legs
which were cramped by the limited space. He had already exchanged
pleasantries with the conductor, and he had chatted for twenty minutes
with a farmer, who had gone back at last to the smoking-car.
The low, irregular landscape was as familiar to him as his own face. He
knew it so well that he could see it with closed eyes--could note each
change of expression where the daylight shifted, could tell where the
thin cornfields ended and the meadows rolled fresh and green, could
smell the stretch of young pines above the smoke of the engine, and
could follow to their ends the rain-washed roads that crawled with
hidden heads into the blue blur of the distance. He knew it all, but he
was not thinking of it now.
He was thinking of the day, fifteen years ago, when he had left
Kingsborough to throw himself and his future into the service of his
State. He had told himself then, fresh from the influence of Jefferson
and the traditions of Kingsborough, that he had but one love
remaining--the love of Virginia. Now, with the bitterer wisdom of
experience, that youthful romance showed half foolish, half pathetic. To
the man of twenty-three it had been at once the inspiration and the
actuality. His personal life had turned to ashes in an hour, and he had
told himself that his public one, at least, should remain vital. He had
pledged himself to success, and it came to him now that the cause had
been won by his single-heartedness--by the absolute oneness of his
desire. There had been a sole divinity before him, and he had not
wandered in the way of strange gods. He had given himself, and after
fifteen years he was gaining his recompense--a recompense for more work
than most men put into a lifetime.
He smiled slightly as he thought of the beginning. In the beginning his
sincerity, had been laughed at, his ardour had met rebuff. He had gone
to Richmond to meet an assembly of statesmen; he had found a body of
well-intentioned, but unprofitable servants. They were men to be led,
this he saw; and as soon as his vision was adjusted he had determined
within himself to become their leader. The day when a legislator meant a
statesman was done with; it meant merely a man like other men, to be
juggled with by shrewder politicians or to be tricked by more dishonest
ones. They plunged into errors, and lived to retrieve them; they walked
blindfold into traps, and with open eyes struggled out again. For he
found them honest and he found them faithful where their lights led
them. He remembered, with a laugh, a New Englander who, after a
fruitless winter spent in scenting the iniquities of the ruling party,
had angrily exclaimed that "if politicians were made up of knaves and
fools, Mason and Dixon's was the geographical line dividing the
species." Nicholas had retorted, "If to be honest means to be a fool, we
are fools!" and the New Englander had chuckled homeward.
That was his first winter and he had been nobody. Ah, it was hard work,
that beginning. He had had to fight party plans and personal prejudices.
He had had to fight the recognised leaders of the legislature, and he
had had to fight the men who pulled the strings--the men who stood
outside and hoodwinked the consciences of the powers within. He had had
to fight, and he had fought well and long.
He recalled the day of his first decisive victory--the day when he had
stood alone and the people--the great, free people, the beginning and
the end of all democracies--had rallied to his standard. He had won the
people on that day, and he had never lost them.
But he was of the party first and last. In his youth he had believed in
the divine inspiration of the Jeffersonian principles as he believed in
God. On the Democratic leaders he had thought to find the mantle of
Apostolic Succession. He had believed as the judge believed--with the
passionate credulity of an older political age. Time had tempered, but
it had not dissipated, his fiery partisanship. He sat to-day with the
honours of a party upon him--honours that a few months would see
ratified by a voice nominally the people's. He laughed now as he
remembered that Galt had said that in five years Dudley Webb would be
the most popular man in the State. "When Senator Withers stops
delivering orations, there'll be a call for an orator, and Webb will
arise," he had prophesied. "They don't need him now because the senator
gets off speeches like hot cakes; but mark my words, the first time Webb
is asked to make an address at the unveiling of a Confederate statue,
there won't be a man to stand up against him in Virginia. He's a better
speaker than Withers--only the public doesn't know it, and there'll be
hot times when it finds it out."
The train was slackening for a wayside station. Outside a man was
driving a plough across a field where grain had been harvested. Nicholas
followed with his eyes the walk of the horses, the purple-brown trail of
the plough, the sturdy, independent figure of the driver as he passed,
whistling an air. Over the Virginian landscape--the landscape of a
country where each ragged inch of ground wears its strange, distinctive
charm, where each rotting "worm fence" guards a peculiar beauty for
those who know it--lay the warm hush of full-blown summer.
The man at the plough aroused in Nicholas Burr a sudden exhilaration as
of physical exertion. It brought back his boyhood which had brightened
as he had passed farther from it, and he felt that it would be good on
such an afternoon to follow the horses across fields that were odorous
of the upturned earth.
The train went on slowly, with the shiftless slouch of Southern trains,
the man at the plough vanished, and Nicholas returned to his thoughts.
The years had been almost breathless in their flight. He had put himself
to a purpose, and he had lost sight of all things save its fulfilment.
The success that men spoke of with astonished eyes--the transformation
of the barefooted boy into the triumphant politician, had a firm
foundation, he knew, though others did not. It was his capacity for toil
that had made him--not his intellect, but his ability to persevere--the
power which, in the old days, had successfully carried him through Jerry
Pollard's store. As chairman of the Democratic Party, men had called his
campaigns brilliant. He alone knew the tedious processes, the infinite
patience from which these triumphs had evolved--he alone knew the secret
and the security of his success.
The train stopped with a lurch.
"Kingsborough, sir!" said the conductor with a friendly touch upon his
arm.
He started abruptly from his reverie, lifted his bag, and left the car.
On the platform outside a group of stragglers recognised him, and there
was a hearty cheer followed by frantic handshakes. The incident pleased
him, and he spoke to each man singly, calling him by name. The sheriff
was one of them, and the clerk of the court, and the old negro sexton of
the church. There was a fervour in their congratulations which brought
the warmth to his eyes. He was glad that the men who had known him in
his poverty should rise so cordially to approve his success.
He left the station, walking rapidly to the judge's house. He had
frequently returned to Kingsborough, but to-day the changes of the last
fifteen years struck him with a sensation of surprise. The wide, white
street, half in sunshine, half in shadow, trailed its drowsy length into
the open country where the roads were filled with grass and dust. He
noticed with a pang that the ivy had been torn from the church and that
the glazed brick walls flaunted a nudity that was almost immodest. He
had remembered it as a bower of shade--a gigantic bird's nest. He saw
that ancient elms were rapidly decaying, and when he reached the judge's
garden he found that the syringa and the lilacs had vanished. The garden
had faced the destroyer in the plough, and trim vegetables thrived where
gaudy blossoms had once rioted.
As he opened the gate he saw old Cæsar bending above the mint bed, and
he went over to him.
"Dar ain' nuttin better ter jedge er gent'mun by den his mint patch,"
the old negro was muttering, "an' dis yer one's done w'ar out all dose
no 'count flow'rs, des' like de quality done w'ar out de trash. Hi!
Marse Nick, dat you?" he shook the proffered hand, his kindly black face
wrinkling with hospitality. "Marse George hev got de swelled foot," he
said in answer to a question, "an' he ain' tech his julep sence de day
befo' yestiddy. Dis yer's fur you," he added, looking at the bunch in
his hand.
"You're a trump, Cæsar!" exclaimed Nicholas as he ascended the steps and
entered the wide hall, through which a light breeze was blowing.
The library door was open and he went in softly, lightening
instinctively his heavy tread. The judge was sitting in his great
arm-chair, his white head resting against the cushioned back, his
bandaged foot on a high footstool.
"Is it you, my boy?" he asked, without turning.
Nicholas crossed the room and gripped the outstretched hand which
trembled slightly in the air, the usual rugged composure of his face
giving place to frank tenderness.
"I'm sorry to see the gout's troubling you again," he said.
The judge laughed and motioned to a chair beside his desk. His fine dark
eyes were as bright as ever, and there was a youthful ring in his voice.
"I'm paying for my pleasures like the rest of us," he responded. "The
truth is, Cæsar makes me live too high, the rascal--and I go on a
bread-and-milk diet once in a while to spite him." Then his tone
changed; he pushed aside a slender vase of "safrano" roses which
shadowed Nicholas's face and regarded him with genuine delight. "It's
good news you bring me," he exclaimed. "I haven't had such news since
they told me the Democratic Party had wiped out Mahonism. And it was a
surprise. We thought Dudley Webb was too secure for the chances of the
'dark horse.' Well, well, I'm sorry for Dudley, though I'm glad for you.
How did you do it?"
Nicholas laughed, but his face was grave. "Ben Galt says I worked up a
political 'revival,'" he replied. "He declares my methods were for all
the world the counterpart of those employed in a Methodist camp meeting,
but he's joking, of course. It was a distinct surprise to me, as you
know. I had declined to offer myself as a candidate for the nomination,
because I believed Webb to be assured of victory. However, the
Crutchfield party proved stronger than we supposed, and they came over
to my side. I was the 'dark horse,' as you say."
"It's very good," commented the judge. "Very good."
"Galt is afraid that what he calls 'the political change of heart' won't
last," Nicholas went on, "but he knows, as I know, that I am the choice
of the people and that, though a few of the leaders may distrust me, the
Democratic Party as a body has entire confidence in me. You will
understand that, had I doubted that the decision was free and
untrammelled, I should not have accepted the nomination."
The judge nodded with a smile. "I know," he said, "and I also know that
you were not born to be a politician. You will bear witness to it some
day. You should have stuck to law. But have you seen Dudley?"
The younger man's face clouded. When he spoke there was a triumphant
zest in his voice. His deeply-set eyes, which had at times a peculiarly
opaque quality, were now charged with light. The thick red locks flared
above his brow.
"He spoke pleasantly to me after the convention," he answered. "It was a
disappointment to him, I know--and I am sorry," he finished in a forced,
exclamatory manner, and was silent.
The judge looked at him for a moment before he went on in his even
tones.
"His wife was telling me," he said. "She was down here a week or two
before the convention. It seems that they are both anxious to return to
Richmond to live. She's a fine girl, is Eugie. It was a terrible thing
about that brother of hers, and she's never recovered from it. I can't
understand how the boy came to commit such a peculiarly stupid forgery."
A flash of bitterness crossed the other's face; his voice was hard.
"He has missed his deserts," he returned harshly.
"Oh, I don't know, poor fellow," murmured the judge, flinching from a
twinge of gout and settling his foot more carefully upon the stool. "He
has been a fugitive from the State for years and a stranger to his wife
and children. There was always something extraordinary in the fact that
he escaped after conviction, and I suppose there was a kind of honour in
his not breaking his bail. At least, that's the way Eugie seems to
regard it--and it is such a pitiful consolation that we might allow her
to retain it. She tells me that Bernard's wife has been in destitute
circumstances. It's a pity! it's a pity! I had always hoped that Tom
Battle's boy would turn out well."
The younger man met his eyes squarely and spoke in an emotionless voice.
"I should like to see him serving his sentence," he said.
An hour later he left the judge's house and walked out to his old home.
Since his father's death the place had undergone repairs and
improvements. The lawn had been cleared off and sown in grass, the
fences had been mended, and the house had been painted white. It could
never suggest prosperity, but it had assumed an appearance of comfort.
In the little room next the kitchen he heard his stepmother scolding a
small negro servant, and he broke in good-humouredly upon her discourse.
"All right, ma?" he called.
Marthy Burr turned and came towards him. She had aged but little, and
her gaunt figure and sharp face still showed the force of her
indomitable spirit.
"I declar' if 'tain't you, Nick!" she exclaimed.
He took her in his arms and kissed her perfunctorily, for he was chary
of caresses. Then he lifted Nannie's baby from the floor and tossed it
lightly.
"Nannie's spending the day," explained his stepmother with an attempt at
conversation. "She would name that child Marthy, an' it's the best
lookin' one she's got."
The baby, a pink-cheeked atom in a blue gingham frock, made a frantic
clutch at the vivid hair of the giant who held her, and set up a tearful
disclaimer. Nicholas returned her to the rug, where she attempted to
swallow a string of spools, and looked at his stepmother.
"Where's that dress I sent you?" he demanded.
Marthy Burr sat down and smoothed out the creases in her purple calico.
"Laid away in camphor," she replied with a diffidence that was rapidly
waning. "Marthy, if you swallow them spools, you won't have anything to
play with."
Nicholas looked about the common little room--at the coarse lace
curtains, the crude chromos, the distorted vases--and returned to his
question.
"You promised me you'd wear it," he went on.
"Wear my best alpaca every day?" she demanded suspiciously. "I wouldn't
have it on more'n an hour befo' one of them worthless niggers would have
spilt bacon gravy all over it. There ain't been no peace in this house
since you sent those no 'count darkies here to help me. If yo' pa was
'live, he'd turn them out bag an' baggage befo' sundown. Lord, Lord,
when I think of what yo' poor pa would say if he was to walk in now an'
find them creeturs in the kitchen."
Her stepson smiled.
"Now, if you'll sit still a moment, I'll tell you a piece of news," he
said.
"You ain't thinkin' of gettin' married, air you?" inquired Marthy Burr
with sudden keenness.
"Married!" He laughed aloud. "I've no time for such nonsense.
Listen--no, let the baby alone, she isn't choking. If the Powers agree,
and the Democratic Party triumphs in November, I shall be Governor of
Virginia on the first of January."
His stepmother looked at him in a dazed way, her glance wandering from
his face to the baby with the string of spools. There was a pleased
light in her eyes, but he saw that she was striving in vain to grasp the
full significance of his words.
"Well, well," she said at last. "I al'ays told Amos you wa'nt no
fool--but who'd have thought it!"
IV
The Capitol building at Richmond stands on a slight eminence in a grassy
square, hiding its gray walls behind a stretch of elms and sycamores, as
if it had retreated into historic shadow before the ruthless advance of
the spirit of modernism. In the centre of the square, whose brilliant
green slopes are intersected by gravelled walks that shine silver in the
sunlight, the grave old building remains the one distinctive feature of
a city where Iconoclasm has walked with destroying feet.
A few years ago--so few that it is within the memory of the very
young--the streets leading from the Capitol were the streets of a
Southern town--bordered by hospitable Southern houses set in gardens
where old-fashioned flowers bloomed. Now the gardens are gone and the
houses are outgrown. Progress has passed, and in its wake there have
sprung up obvious structures of red brick with brownstone trimmings. The
young trees leading off into avenues of shade soften the harshness of an
architecture which would become New York, and which belongs as much to
Massachusetts as to Virginia.
The very girls who, on past summer afternoons, flitted in bareheaded
loveliness from door to door, have changed with the changing times. The
loveliness is perhaps more striking, less distinctive; with the
flower-like heads have passed the old grace and the old dependence, and
the undulatory walk has quickened into buoyant briskness. It is all
modern--as modern as the red brick walls that are building where a
quaint mansion has fallen.
But in the Capitol Square one forgets to-day and relives yesterday.
Beneath the calm eyes of the warlike statue of the First American little
children chase gray squirrels across the grass, and infant carriages with
beruffled parasols are drawn in white and pink clusters beside the
benches. Jefferson and Marshall, Henry and Nelson are secure in bronze
when mere greatness has decayed.
To the left of the Capitol a gravelled drive leads between a short
avenue of lindens to the turnstile iron gates that open before the
governor's house. Here, too, there is an atmosphere of the past and the
picturesque. The lawn, dotted with chrysanthemums and rose trees, leads
down from the rear of the house to a wall of grapevines that overlooks
the street below. In front the yard is narrow and broken by a short
circular walk, in the centre of which a thin fountain plays amid
long-leaved plants. The house, grave, gray, and old-fashioned--the
square side porches giving it a delusive suggestion of length--faces
from its stone steps the thin fountain, the iron gates, beyond which
stretches the white drive beneath the lindens, and the great bronze
Washington above his bodyguard of patriots. Between the house and the
city the square lies like a garden of green.
It was on a bright morning in January that Ben Galt entered one of the
iron gateways of the square and walked rapidly across to the Capitol.
He ascended the steep flight of stone steps, and paused for an instant
in the lobby which divided the Senate Chamber from the House of
Delegates. The legislature had convened some six weeks before, and the
building was humming like a vast beehive.
In the centre of the tesselated floor of the lobby, which was fitted out
with rows of earthenware spittoons, stood Houdon's statue of Washington,
and upon the railing surrounding it groups of men were leaning as they
talked. Occasionally a speaker would pause to send a mouthful of tobacco
juice in aimless pursuit of a spittoon, or to slice off a fresh quid
from the plug he carried in his pocket.
Galt, stopping behind a stout man with sandy hair, tapped him carelessly
on the shoulder.
"Eh, Major?" he exclaimed.
The major turned, presenting a florid, hairy face, with small, shrewd
eyes and an unpleasant mouth. His name was Rann, and he was the most
important figure in the Senate. It was said of him that he had never
made a speech in his life, but that he was continually speaking through
the mouths of others. He could command more votes in both branches than
any member of the Assembly, but his ambition was confined to the
leadership of the men about him; he had been in the State Senate fifteen
years, and he had never tried to climb higher, though it was reported
that he had sent a United States senator to Washington.
"Ah, we'll see you oftener among us now," he said as he wheeled round,
holding out a huge red hand, "since your friend sits above." He laughed,
with a motion towards the ceiling, signifying the direction of the
governor's office. "By the way, I was sorry about that bill you were
interested in," he went on; "upon my word I was--but we're skittish just
now on the subject of corporations. Charters are dangerous things--you
can't tell where they're leading you, eh?--but, on my word, I was
sorry."
"So was I," responded Galt with peculiar dryness--adding, with the
frankness for which he was liked and hated, "I'd been dining that
committee for weeks. Seven of them swore to back me through, and the
eighth man said he'd go as the others went. My mind was so easy I lost
sight of them for six hours, and every man John of them voted against
the bill. I believe you got in a little work in those six hours."
Rann laughed and lowered one puffy eyelid in a blandly unembarrassed
wink. "Oh, we don't like corporations," he replied, "I think I remarked
as much. How-de-do, Colonel? Where'd you dine last night? Missed you at
table."
The colonel was Diggs, and, after a curt nod in his direction, Galt
pushed his way through the lobbyists and glanced into the House of
Delegates, where an animated discussion of an oyster bill was in
progress.
Owing to the absolute supremacy of the Democrats, the body presented the
effect of a party caucus rather than a legislative branch of opposing
elements. The few Republicans and Populists were lost in the ruling
faction.
Galt was nodding here and there to members who recognised him, when his
arm was touched by a lank countryman who was standing near.
"Eh?" he inquired absently.
"I jest axed you if you reckoned we paid that gentleman over yonder for
talking that gosh about oyschers?"
Galt bowed. "Why, I suppose so," he responded gravely. "It's a good
day's work. Am I to presume that you are not interested in oysters?"
"An' he gits fo' dollars a day for saying them things," commented the
other shortly. "I tell you 'tain't wo'th fo' cents, suh."
He lifted his bony hand and gave a tug at his scraggy beard. In a moment
he spoke again.
"Can you p'int out the young fellow from Goochland?" he inquired.
"That's whar I come from."
Galt pointed out the representative in question, and smiled because it
was a man who had dined with him the evening before.
"That he?" exclaimed the countryman contemptuously. "Why, I've been down
here sence Saturday, an' that young spark ain't opened his mouth. I
ain't heerd him mention Goochland sence I come."
"Oh, there's time enough," ventured Galt good-humouredly. "He's young
yet, and Goochland is immortal!"
"An' I reckon he gits fo' dollars same as the rest," went on the
stranger reflectively, "jest for settin' thar an' whittlin' at that
desk. I used to study a good deal about politics fo' I come here, but
they air jest a blamed swindle, that's what they air."
He turned on his heel, and in a moment Galt entered the elevator and
ascended to the office of the chief executive.
Reaching the landing he crossed a small gallery, where hung portraits of
historic Virginians--governors in periwigs and lace ruffles and
statesmen of a later age in high neckcloths. At the end of a short
passage he opened the door of the anteroom and faced the private
secretary, who was busy with his typewriter.
The secretary glanced up, recognised Galt, and gave a cordial nod.
"The governor's got a gentleman in just now who called about the
boundary line between Virginia and Maryland," he said as Galt sat down.
"He wants to see you, though, so you'd better wait. For a wonder there's
nobody else here. Two-thirds of the legislature were up a while ago."
He spoke with an easy intimacy of tone, while the click of the
typewriter went on rapidly.
Galt nodded in response and, as he did so, the door opened and the
caller came out.
"You're the very man!" exclaimed a hearty voice, and Nicholas Burr was
holding out his hand. "Come in. You're the only human being I know who
is always the right man in the right place. How do you manage it?"
He sat down before his desk, pushing aside the litter of letters and
pamphlets. "I should like you to glance over this list of appointments,"
he went on.
"It is what I dropped in about," responded Galt.
He flung himself into an easy chair and stretched his long legs
comfortably before him. He did not take the list at once, but sat
staring abstractedly at the freshly papered green walls above the large
Latrobe stove whose isinglass doors shone like bloodshot eyes.
It was a long cheerful room with three windows which overlooked the
grassy square. There was a bright red carpet on the floor, and before
the desk lay a gaudy rug enriched with stiff garlands. In one corner a
walnut bookcase was filled with papers filed for reference, and the
shelves across from it were lined with calf-bound "Codes of Virginia."
Among the pictures on the pale-green walls there were several of
historic subjects--Washington among his generals and Lee mounted upon
Traveller. Over the mantel hung an engraving of the United States Senate
with Clay for the central figure. Beside the desk a cracker box was
filled with unanswered letters.
"Yes, I dropped in about that," repeated Galt, his gaze returning to the
rugged features of the man at the desk. "You're not looking well, by the
way."
The other laughed. "The office seekers have been at me," he replied;
"but I'm all right. What were you going to say?"
His large, muscular hand lay upon the desk, and as he spoke he fingered
an open pamphlet. His penetrating eyes were on Galt's face.
Galt lifted the list of names and read it in silence.
"A-ahem!" he said at last and laid it down; then he took it up again.
"I have given a good deal of attention to the educational boards,"
continued the governor slowly.
"I do not think it is sufficiently realised that only men of the
highest ability should be placed in control of institutions of
learning."
"Ah, I see," was Galt's comment. In a moment he spoke abruptly:
"I say, Nick, has it occurred to you to ascertain the direction in which
the influence of these men will go in the next senatorial election?"
The other hesitated an instant. "Frankly, I have done my best to put
such questions aside," he answered.
Galt squared round suddenly and faced him; there was a decisive ring in
his voice.
"The next election comes in two years," he said quietly. "I have it on
excellent authority that Withers will not seek to succeed himself. His
health has given out and he is going to the country. Now, remove
Withers, and there are two men who might take his place in the Senate.
You know whom I mean?"
"Yes, I know."
Galt went on quickly:
"You want the senatorship?"
"Yes, I want it."
"Very good. Now, Webb and yourself will run that race, and one of you
will lose it. It's going to be a hot race and a hard winning. There'll
be some pretty unpleasant work to be done by somebody. You've been in
the business long enough to know that the methods aren't exactly such as
you can see your face in."
"All the more need for clean men," broke in Nicholas shortly.
"Just so. But the man who spends his days in the bathtub doesn't walk
about where mud is flinging. I'm an honest man, please God. You're an
honest man, and that's why a lot of us are running you with might and
main and money. But there's an honesty that verges on imbecility, and
that's the kind that talks itself hoarse when it ought to keep silent.
Save your talking until you get to the Senate, and then let fly as much
morality as you please; it won't hurt anybody there, heaven knows. You
are the man we need, and a few of us know it, though the majority may
not. But for the next two years give up trying to purify the Democratic
Party. The party's all right, and it's going to stay so."
"It has been my habit to express my convictions," returned the other
quickly.
"Then drop the habit," replied Galt with an affectionate glance that
softened the shrewd alertness of his look. "My dear and valued friend, a
successful politician does not have convictions; he has emotions.
Convictions were all right when Madison was President, but that
gentleman has been in heaven these many years, and they don't thrive
under the present administration. A party man has got to be a party
mouthpiece. He may laugh and weep with the people, but he has got to
vote with the party--and it's the party man who comes out on top. Why,
look at Withers! Hunt about in his senatorial record and you'll find
that he has voted against himself time out of number. You and I may call
that cowardliness, but the party calls it honour and applauds every
time. That applause has kept him the exponent of the machine and the
idol of the people, who hear the fuss and imagine it means something.
Now Webb is like Withers, only smarter. He is just the man to become a
sounding brass reflector, and there's the danger."
"And yet I defeated him!" suggested the governor.
Galt laughed, with a wave of his thin, nervous hand.
"My dear governor, you are the one great man in State politics, but that
unimportant fact would not have landed you into your present seat had
not the little revivalistic episode befuddled the brains of the
convention."
Nicholas shook his head impatiently. "You make too much of that," he
said.
"Perhaps. I want to impress upon you that you have a hard fight before
you. The Webb men are already putting in a little quiet work in the
legislature--and they have even been after the guards at the
penitentiary. Major Rann is your man, and he tells me the Webb leaders
are the quietest, most insidious workers he has ever met. As it is, he
is your great card, and his influence is immense. Webb would give his
right hand for him."
The governor tossed the hair from his brow with a quick movement.
"I have the confidence of the people," he said.
"The people! How long does it take a clever politician to befuddle them?
You aren't new to the business, and you know these things as well as I
do--or better. I tell you, when Dudley Webb begins to stump the State
the people will begin to howl for him. He'll win over the women and the
old Confederates when he gets on the Civil War, and the rest will come
easy. There won't be need of bogus ballots and disappearing election
books when the members of the Democratic caucus are sent up next
session."
"What do you want?" demanded the governor abruptly. He leaned forward,
his arms on the desk.
Galt tapped the list of appointments significantly.
"As a beginning, I want you to scratch out a good two-thirds of these
names. The others will go all right. The men I have cross marked are not
all Webb men to-day, but they will throw their influence on Webb's side
when the pull comes."
Nicholas took up the list and reread it carefully. "The men I have named
I believe to be best suited to the positions," he returned. "One, you
may observe, is a Republican--that will call for hostile criticism--but
he was beyond doubt the best man. I regret the fact that the majority of
these men are Webb partisans, but I wish to make these appointments for
reasons entirely apart from politics."
Galt had risen, and he now stood looking down upon the governor with a
smile in his eyes.
"So it goes?" he asked, pointing to the sheet of paper.
The other nodded.
"Yes, it goes. I am not a fool, Ben. I wish things were different--but
it goes."
"And so do I," laughed Galt easily. "You won't mind my remarking, by the
way, that you are a brick, but a brick in the wrong road. However, you
hold on to Rann, and the rest of us will hold on to you. Oh, we'll see
you to-night at Carrie's coming-out affair, of course. The child
wouldn't have you absent for worlds. If my wife and daughter
represented the community you might become Dictator of Richmond. Good
morning!"
As he crossed the little gallery where the portraits hung there was an
abstracted smile about the corners of his shrewd mouth.
V
"Juliet!" called Galt as he swung open his house door.
It was his habit to call for his wife as soon as he crossed the
threshold, and she was accustomed to respond from the drawing-room, the
pantry, or the nursery, as the case might be. This evening her voice
floated from the dining-room, and following the sound he stumbled over a
shadowy palm and came upon Juliet as she put the last touches to a long
white table, radiant with cut glass and roses.
She wore a faded blue dressing-gown, caught loosely together, and her
curling hair, untouched by gray, fell carelessly from its coil across
her full, fair cheek. She had developed from a fragile girl into a
rounded matron without losing the peculiar charm of her beauty. The
abundant curve of her white throat was still angelic in its outline. As
she leaned over to settle the silver candelabra on the table, the light
deepened the flush in her face and imparted a shifting radiance to her
full-blown loveliness.
"How is it, little woman?" asked Galt as he put his arm about the blue
dressing-gown. "Working yourself to death, are you?"
Since entering his home he had lost entirely the air of business-like
severity which he had worn all day. He looked young and credulous.
Juliet laughed with the pettish protest of a half-spoiled wife and drew
back from the table.
"It is almost time to dress Carrie," she said, "and the ice-cream hasn't
come. Everything else is here. Did you get dinner downtown?"
"Such as it was--a miserable pretence. For heaven's sake, let's have
this over and settle down. I only wish it were Carrie's wedding; then we
might hope for a rest."
"Until Julie comes out--she's nearly fourteen. But you ought to be
ashamed, when we've been working like Turks. Eugenia cut up every bit of
the chicken salad and Emma Carr made the mayonnaise--she makes the most
delicious you ever tasted. Aren't those candelabra visions? Emma lent
them to me, and Mrs. Randolph sent her oriental lamps. There's the bell
now! It must be Eugie's extra forks; she said she'd send them as soon as
she got home."
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Galt feebly. "You are as great at borrowing as
the children of Israel."
His comments were cut short by the entrance of Eugenia's silver basket,
accompanied by an enormous punch bowl, which she sent word she had
remembered at the last moment.
"Bless her heart!" exclaimed Juliet. "She forgets nothing; but I hope
that bowl won't get broken, it is one somebody brought the general from
China fifty years ago. Eugie is so careless. She invited the children to
tea the other afternoon and I found her giving them jam on those old
Tucker Royal Worcester plates."
She broke off an instant to draw Galt into the reception rooms, where
her eyes roved sharply over the decorations.
"They look lovely, don't they?" she inquired, rearranging a bowl of
American Beauty roses. "I got that new man to do them Mrs. Carrington
told me about--Yes, Carrie, I'm coming! Why, I declare, I haven't seen
the baby since breakfast. Unnatural mother!"
And she rushed off to the nursery, followed by Galt.
An hour later she was in the drawing-room again, her fair hair caught
back from her plump cheeks, her white bosom shining through soft falls
of lace.
"I wonder how a man feels who isn't married to a beauty," remarked Galt,
watching her matronly vanity dimple beneath his gaze. He was as much her
lover as he had been more than twenty years ago when pretty Juliet
Burwell had put back her wedding veil to meet his kiss. The very
exactions of her petted nature had served to keep alive the passion of
his youth; she demanded service as her right, and he yielded it as her
due. The unflinching shrewdness of his professional character, the
hardness of his business beliefs, had never entered into the atmosphere
of his home. Juliet possessed to a degree that pervasive womanliness
which vanquishes mankind. After twenty years of married life in which
Galt had learned her limitations and her minor sins of temperament, he
was not able to face her stainless bosom or to meet her pure eyes
without believing her to be a saint. In his heart he knew Sally Burwell
to be a nobler woman than Juliet, and yet he never found himself
regarding Sally through an outward and visible veil of her virtues.
Even Tom Bassett, who was married to her, had lost the lover in the
husband, as his emotions had matured into domestic sentiment. Galt had
seen Sally wrestle for a day with one of her father's headaches, to be
rewarded by less gratitude than Juliet would receive for the mere laying
of a white finger on his temple--Sally's services were looked upon by
those who loved her best as one of the daily facts of life; Juliet's
came always as an additional bounty.
To Galt himself, the different developments of the two women had become
a source of almost humorous surprise. After her marriage Sally had sunk
her future into Tom's; Galt had submerged his own in Juliet's. Behind
Tom's not too remarkable success Galt had seen always Sally's quicker
wit and more active nature; to his own ambitions, his love for Juliet
had been the retarding influence. He had been called "insanely aspiring"
in his profession, and yet he had sacrificed his career without a murmur
for the sake of his wife's health. He had sundered his professional
interests in New York that he might see the colour rebloom in her cheek,
and neither he nor she had questioned that the loss was justified. In
return she had rendered him a jealous loyalty and an absorbing wifehood,
and he had found his happiness apart from his ambition.
Now she dimpled as he looked at her and he pinched her cheek.
"The mother of six children!" he exclaimed; "they're changelings." He
looked at Carrie, who was flitting nervously from room to room.
"It's a shame she didn't take after you," he added. "She carries the
curse of my chin."
"She's splendid!" protested Juliet. "I never had such a figure in my
life; Sally says so. Carrie is a new woman, that's the difference."
"But the old lady's good enough for me," finished Galt triumphantly;
then he melted towards his daughter. "I dare say she's stunning," he
observed. "Come here, Carrie, and bear witness that you're as handsome
as your parents."
Carrie floated up, a straight, fine figure in white organdie, her smooth
hair shining like satin as it rolled from her brow. Her mouth and chin
were too strong for beauty, but she was frank and clean and fresh to
look at.
"Oh, I am just like you," she declared, "and I'm not half so pretty as
mamma. There's the bell. Somebody's coming!"
There was a rustle of women's skirts on the way upstairs, and in a
moment several light-coloured gowns were fringed by the palms in the
doorway.