plain citizen, and you're the Lieutenant-Governor of Alleghenia. You
know how things stand. Now, I've given you my girl, and after that it's
not much to put myself into your hands as well. I'm getting on. My
strength isn't what it was. I'm not as fit to stand such a struggle as
this is bound to be, as I was thirty years ago. I look strong, but, in
reality, I'm not. My doctor has warned me, more than once. A sudden
shock--you know what these medical chaps say about sudden shocks! I've
laughed at him, of course, and yet--I know there is truth in it. I've
been up against hard propositions, but never one as hard as this. I've
had big responsibilities, but never a responsibility that I felt as I
feel this one. If I hold out, I know what people and the newspapers will
say,--how they'll blackguard me,--but I'm not afraid of that. I'm not
even thinking of it. No, and I'm not thinking of what the strain may
mean to me. Every man's turn is sure to come--why not one way as well as
another? But what I _am_ thinking of is the result upon the lives of
these people whom I've made, as surely as if I were another Creator. And
McGrath's another Beelzebub! There's a fight on between us for the
salvation of a little world of four thousand souls! But I'm not God! I
can't act with the conviction of omniscience. I've been the most
independent of men. I've made my own fortune with my own brains. I've
done as I saw fit, and the results have seemed to indicate that I've
been oftener right than wrong. But now, I'm at a loss. It's not the men
I'm thinking of so much. They ought to be able to make their own way, as
I've made mine. It's the women and children dependent upon them--the
women and children who have no voice in the matter, and yet who are
bound to suffer most by a strike. I've got to think for them. I've
reached a crisis--a cross-ways--and I've got to choose which course to
take--and I can't! All my experience counts for nothing. I've never--you
probably know it--asked for advice before. But now I must have the
unprejudiced, the outside point of view. I've always thought there was a
clear, unmistakable boundary between right and wrong, but now there's
some right in the wrong, and a big sight more of wrong in the right!
I've heard Broadcastle's opinion, and I want yours. If you agree, I'll
go by what you say. As I said before, John, in this matter I'm the
individual--you're the state. I'll go by what you say. What shall I do?"
Peter Rathbawne's words had wrought tremendously upon the
Lieutenant-Governor. He answered slowly, looking down, and with a
perceptible tremor in his voice.
"Mr. Rathbawne, you and the Colonel know how high-sounding my title is,
and how little, in reality, it means. There is no need to go into
details. I'm Lieutenant-Governor of Alleghenia, yes!--and as helpless in
the cause of right as a new-born baby! If I could by any means, in any
manner, support the advice I gave you, I would give it willingly."
"John!" said Peter Rathbawne, "I don't mean that. I've put the case
wrongly. Give me your counsel, not as Lieutenant-Governor, but as my
friend, and the man who loves my daughter!"
The Lieutenant-Governor raised his eyes from the finger-tips with which,
as the other was speaking, he had been plucking at the cloth.
"Fight them, Mr. Rathbawne," he said, "and may God help you--because I
can't!"
V
A BRAND FROM THE BURNING
More heartsick than he cared to confess, even to himself, the
Lieutenant-Governor left the Rathbawnes' earlier than his wont, despite
the fact that his host and Colonel Broadcastle were still engaged in
discussing the impending situation, and that Natalie, with a batch of
new music, was waiting for him at the piano. He pleaded an unusually
busy day and his consequent fatigue as an excuse, and so, at half after
nine, found himself about to light a second cigar, on the steps of the
Rathbawne residence, and shivering a little in the night air, which
stung the inside of his nostrils and set his eyes watering. Raw as the
day had been, it had turned colder now, but the night was superbly
clear. The sky seemed to have drawn nearer to the earth, and the stars
twinkled so sharply and clearly against its deep blue-black that they
resembled in form their conventionally five-pointed counterfeits of
silver paper. A brisk wind whirled a few dried leaves in whispering
eddies across the smooth asphaltum of the driveway, but beyond this and
the peevish sputtering of the arc-light on the opposite corner there was
no sound. It was the kind of night which, with its crystal clearness and
its steely intensity, stirs the normal pulse to keen exhilaration: yet
never had John Barclay felt more hopelessly dispirited, more utterly at
a loss to see the way before him. That anxiety, distress, possibly
actual disaster should be impending over this house where lay his heart,
his happiness, and his hope, was sufficiently disturbing in itself. That
he should not be able, despite his position, to raise a hand to avert
the calamity was worse. But that the battle was to be a battle for the
right, and yet, as it seemed, foredoomed from the start to end in
disaster, since no aid could be expected from the strong arm of the law
to which the partisans of principle turn naturally for support: this
was worst of all. For out of dangerous surroundings he felt himself able
to snatch away the littlest and most lovely woman in the world. She, at
least, should not suffer. And out of this nightmare of powerless
prominence, of impotent position, he himself could retire into private
life, and be no less a man than he had been before. But from the
reproach of corruption which had fallen upon her, and the impending slur
of anarchy, who was to rescue Alleghenia? The Lieutenant-Governor set
his lips and drove his nails into his palms, as he stood in the shadow
of the Rathbawnes' doorway, looking up at the sky of the February night.
He was not a religious man--as the term goes--but in that moment he said
a better prayer for the welfare of his state than had ever lain upon the
lips of any priest in Kenton City!
He was about to strike his match when an instinct rather than an actual
perception of movement arrested his hand. Bradbury Avenue, upon which
stood the Rathbawne house, was situated in one of the quieter residence
districts which prided itself on the turfed spaces between its
dwellings, pretentious enough for the most part, and the double rows of
trees which lined its thoroughfares. It was one of these trees which, at
the moment, attracted Barclay's attention. It lay in a direct line
between himself and the arc-light on the corner, and its trunk, in some
miraculous manner, had abruptly developed an elbow, and then an arm. The
Lieutenant-Governor was still staring at this phenomenon when it was as
abruptly explained by the sudden emergence from shadow of a man, who had
apparently been standing on the side of the tree nearest to the house.
He was crossing the avenue obliquely when something about his bearing
caused the Lieutenant-Governor to lean forward and follow him intently
with his eyes. It was all there, as Natalie had said--the lifted
shoulders, the bent head, the unmistakable, pathetic air of the beggar.
Then, as he neared the light, he gave a short upward strain to his neck
and chin, the impatient movement of a man whose collar annoys him. The
trick was too familiar to have been forgotten. The next moment Barclay's
heels were pounding on the asphaltum behind him, and then Barclay's hand
fell upon his shoulder and whirled him round.
In the oddly intense radiance of the arc-light above, which cut sharply
across the surface of forehead, cheek, and chin, and left heavy shadows
like those in a roughly blocked-out carving, under brow, nose, and lower
lip, the two men faced each other briefly, in silence. Then the
Lieutenant-Governor voiced the other's name, hardly above a whisper.
"Spencer Cavendish!"
And the other, echoing the tone, if not the words, replied:--
"Bar-clay!"
A square away, the lights of a hansom winked into the avenue, and the
hoof-beats of the horse clonked on the pavement, unaccompanied by any
sound from the smoothly trundling, rubber-tired wheels. Barclay stepped
to the kerb, and hailed the driver with his stick. The cab drew in,
stopped, and threw the divisions of its apron wide, like two black hands
extended in cordial welcome.
The Lieutenant-Governor turned to his companion.
"Get in," he said. "I want to have a talk with you."
The drive of a mile and more from Bradbury Avenue to Barclay's quarters
in the new bachelor apartment-house "Rockingham" was accomplished
without the exchange of a word. Once, he felt his companion shiver, and
dragging a rug from under them, he spread it across their knees. That
was the only movement on the part of either. They sat, side by side,
looking straight before them over the horse's bobbing crupper, until the
hansom pulled up sharply before the broad and brilliantly illuminated
entrance of the "Rockingham." As they passed in, Cavendish had a passing
impression of tiled floors, columns of green marble, and attendants in
tightly fitting green uniforms with brass buttons. Then an elevator
whirled them up to the eighth floor, deposited them in a square hallway,
and vanished again, with the little page in charge wrinkling his nose
and biting the thumb of his cotton glove.
"Wot's the Loot'nt-Guvnor up to now, Sawed-Off?" inquired the doorkeeper
genially, as the elevator returned to the ground floor.
"Ide'no!" replied the little page with equal affability. "Goin' in fer
pol'tics, I guest. Jeest! Wot a slob it wuz--wot?"
The Lieutenant-Governor unlocked the door of his apartment, touched an
electric button which flooded the little hall and the drawing-room
beyond with light, and, entering the latter, went directly to a closet
in the wall. Unlocking this, he took out a jar of biscuits and a
decanter, and setting them upon the table, turned once more to his
companion.
"Put away a couple of those biscuits and a glass of sherry," he said,
"and then we'll talk."
"I'm past biscuits," said the other, almost sullenly.
"I'll see to that," replied Barclay. "They are only by way of a
starter."
He passed into the hall as he spoke, and presently Cavendish heard the
click of a telephone receiver slipping from its crotch, and Barclay's
voice speaking, to some one below, of a steak, vegetables, salad, and
coffee. He stepped to the table, devoured two or three of the biscuits
ravenously, poured himself a glass of sherry, sipped, and then swallowed
it, and flung himself down upon a wide divan.
"Have you a cigarette?" he asked, as Barclay reëntered. "I haven't
smoked in three days. That's worse than mere hunger, you know."
"I believe you!"
Barclay pushed a silver box across the table, and seating himself
opposite, touched a match to the cigar which he had been about to light
at the Rathbawnes' door, and which he still held between his lips.
"Help yourself," he added. "Your supper will be up presently. Meanwhile,
shall I fire away, or will you?"
Cavendish let the first smoke from his cigarette curl slowly up his
cheek before replying. In the full light now first resting upon it, his
face showed as that of a man approximately Barclay's age, but pinched by
want, and deeply lined by dissipation. His under lids were puffy and
discolored, and a dozen heavy creases ran, fan-like, from the corners of
his eyes. Hair already turning white and an unkempt mustache and beard
completed the picture. His clothes were faded and frayed, no linen was
visible, and his boots were cracked and soggy. There was nothing about
him to suggest the former estate of gentleman save his hands, which,
while thin and tremulous, were clean and well-kept, in singular contrast
to the slovenliness of his attire.
"Age before respectability," he said in reply to Barclay's question,
with a shrug. "I'll go first. It will save your asking questions. We
parted in anger, Barclay."
"Let that pass," put in the Lieutenant-Governor, briefly. "Two years
wipe out all scores as petty as was the cause of our quarrel."
"Well, then," continued Cavendish more easily, "when I left Kenton City,
it was with the best intention in the world of making a fresh start in
some place where my story wasn't known. I went to New York. I had a
little money, but only a very little, and not the most remote idea of
how difficult it is for a man to make his way in a place where he is
unknown, particularly if he has no credentials and is too proud to ask
for any from his old associates. Moreover, I'd been drinking hard for
six months and there was no such thing as clipping it short all at once.
I had an idea of tapering off, and perhaps, if I had found a job, I
might have done so. As it was I climbed up one step and fell down two,
and that went on indefinitely. It wasn't as if I'd had a distinct aim or
anything in my life which made it seem worth living. I didn't half care.
I'd set my heart on something which I couldn't get, and--well, never
mind that. It is all as long ago as the Flood! I got work now and again,
tried reporting, and teaching, and copying. But each time it was a grade
lower, and I stuck to nothing but the whiskey--except when I had a
little more money than usual, and then it was absinthe."
He touched his eyes, and then raised his hand to the level of his chin,
with the fingers held wide apart and rigid, and watched it tremble for
an instant in silence.
"I haven't seen a mirror in weeks," he went on, "but I know the signs
are all there. That's the story. I could string it out for an hour, but
it would all be in the same key. I've simply been going down, down,
down. I'm what the old judge called me--do you remember it came out in
the 'Record?'--I'm a common drunk, Barclay. And I don't care! I've been
on the point of putting an end to it many a time--but I always held out
for another drink! Now, even my pride's gone. It stuck to me longer than
anything else, but it's taken itself off at last. I've been feeling
lately that I'm pretty near the end, and I wanted to see Kenton City
again before it came. That's the reason I walked all the way from
Pittsburg, and I've been begging on the streets since I got in. I
thought nobody would recognize me."
"But _I_ did," said Barclay.
"Yes, and--and"--
"Yes, and _she_ did! She saw you this morning, but before she took in
fully that it was you, you were gone in the crowd. She was half
heart-broken over it, and made me promise to look you up. I was going to
do so, when I tumbled against you by chance to-night. You were watching
the house?"
"Yes, for the last time. I saw she had recognized me and that Kenton
City was no place for me. So I was off again to-night. Is she"--
"She is well, and, I am glad to say, happy. We are to be married in the
autumn."
A smile hovered for an instant on Cavendish's lips.
"God bless her!" he said slowly. "I'm glad of it. But don't let's talk
of that. She's as far above me as the stars!"
"And as far above me, too, for that matter!" answered Barclay. "Here's
your supper. While you're eating, I'll take my turn at the talk."
A bell-boy arranged the tray on the table, removed the covers, and in a
moment the two men were again alone. With a deep sigh of satisfaction
Cavendish drew a chair to the table and set to work on the steaming
dishes before him.
"Jupiter!" he said, with the first mouthful poised on his fork, "you
don't know what this means, Barclay, and you can thank God you don't. I
won't attempt to thank you. Go on, and tell me about yourself."
"I've no intention of doing that just at present," replied the
Lieutenant-Governor, settling himself more comfortably in his chair. "I
want to talk about you. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to preach! But I
_am_ going to say that while I understand a good deal of what you've
said, the last part is pure rot! You're a bit of a wreck, of course, but
it isn't your pride or your self-respect or whatever you choose to call
it, that's gone. It's only your nerve. Now you've had your experience,
and you're back where you belong, and you've friends who like you, and
who can help you, and who will. I'm in a position to do so myself, and I
don't expect you to make any bones about accepting my assistance, and
whatever money you need for the moment. It will be a loan, of course, to
be repaid when you're on your feet again. We'll have you there in no
time. When you've made way with the grub, you can bunk down on that
divan for the night, and in the morning I'll tog you out in one of my
outfits, and you can set about getting back on _terra firma_. You'll
have to shake the drink, that goes without saying."
Cavendish straightened himself suddenly, laid down his knife and fork,
and laughed shortly.
"It sounds well," he said bitterly, "but you don't understand, Barclay.
It's too late! I don't care, and if I did, I couldn't shake the drink to
save my immortal soul. I'm steady enough for the time being, because I'm
hungry and because I'm being fed. But I've tried the other game too
often. I know what it means. I wouldn't promise you to quit, because I
don't want to lie to you, and that's all it would be. When the craving
comes back, I'll go down before it like a row of tenpins. No, Barclay,
it won't do."
"Nonsense, man! Do you want to tell me you're as weak as that?"
"Every bit!" said Cavendish, attacking the steak again.
"Well, I don't believe it, that's all. In the morning you'll be a
different man. I'll give you a bromide when you're ready for bed. You're
shaky, as it is, but that's all a matter of nerves. Now we'll drop the
subject, and talk of other things."
It was midnight when they separated. Barclay brought out sheets and
blankets for the divan, produced pajamas for his guest, put the bath at
his disposal, and mixed a strong dose of bromide for him to take upon
retiring.
Half an hour later, when he reëntered the drawing-room to see whether
Cavendish was in need of anything further, he found him standing by the
table in his pajamas, trembling, wide-eyed, and very pale.
"What is it?" he asked. "Are you ill?"
"No," answered Cavendish, striving in vain to control the trembling of
his lips, "only damnably nervous. Could you--could you give me a drop of
brandy, Barclay?"
"Certainly not!" said the Lieutenant-Governor. "Pull yourself together,
man! There's your bromide. Take that. It's better than a thousand
brandies."
Cavendish turned, lifted the glass, spilling a little as he did so, and
swallowed the sedative at a gulp. Then he stretched himself upon the
divan and drew the covers close up about his chin. Presently, from the
bedroom, Barclay heard him breathing deeply and regularly, and turning
on his side, fell into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
He awoke with a start, as the dawn was showing gray through the chinks
of his window curtains, with a vague, uneasy sense of something wrong,
and lay listening, every nerve strained taut. From the adjoining room
came the sound of Cavendish's breathing, but now it was more raucous,
more like groan following groan. The Lieutenant-Governor strove in vain
to put off the foreboding which lay heavy upon him, until, finally,
unable to resist the impulse, he rose, slid his feet into his slippers,
and going noiselessly into the drawing-room, stepped to the windows and
put the curtains softly aside. What first met his eye as he turned was
the door of his little wine-closet in the wall. It was standing wide
open, and about the lock the wood was hacked and hewed away in great
splinters. On a chair near by lay a rough knife with the blade open and
a sliver of wood yet sticking to the point. Then he looked toward the
divan. Cavendish was lying face down upon it, outside the blankets,
with his head lolling sharply over the edge. His left arm was extended
full length toward the ground, where his fingers just touched a bottle
of French absinthe, overturned upon its side, and uncorked, with the
thick, gummy liquid spread from its mouth in a circular pool on the
waxed floor.
VI
McGRATH LAUGHS
The clock on the huge central tower of the Capitol marked nine, as the
Lieutenant-Governor passed rapidly through the lofty entrance hall
toward the corridor leading to his office and that of Governor Abbott.
Already his promptness was proverbial, and there were those in the
great, grim building who looked forward to the moment of his arrival,
each morning, with a kind of eagerness. These were the simpler folk of
the official world with which circumstance housed him for eight hours
daily,--bootblacks, elevator-boys, porters, doormen. For to the big,
clean, wholesome personality which appeals irresistibly to these humbler
people, Barclay added an astonishing memory for faces, and for the names
and circumstances connected with them. It was a gift which counted as an
unspeakably important factor in the establishment and maintenance of
unusually cordial relations with all those with whom he came in contact.
No one brought within the radius of his personal magnetism long resisted
it. It was only those who judged him from a distance, as did the press
and the rank and file of his party, or those who deliberately
misinterpreted him, as did his political enemies, who permitted
themselves anything short of enthusiasm for John Barclay. And this
faculty for attracting admiration and commanding respect, this
infallible kindness and this inherent dignity, were never made manifest
to so great advantage as in his attitude toward his inferiors. These
adored him. He accumulated, bit by bit, a remarkable store of intimate
information relating to them, and employed it in his intercourse with
them, with a tact and a frank sincerity of interest which never failed
of their effect. The response thus elicited was strongest of the minor
pleasures in his life. He was aware--none better--of the shrewdness
native to those who have no claim upon one's recognition, their
appreciation of notice that is unfeignedly interested, their
sensitiveness to open indifference, their resentment of the simulated
consideration which is mere impertinence; and he was conscious of a
little inward thrill of satisfaction at the difference of attitude in
the employees at the Capitol as toward Governor Abbott and himself.
Where the former's suavity elicited only formal respect, manifestly
obligatory, his own whole-heartedness lined his way with smiles and
kindly greetings. His official existence, beset with annoyance,
mortification, and disappointment, was, as he often reflected, made
tolerable only by this friendliness which he, almost unconsciously,
inspired. Dogs, children, and his subordinates--the three most
intuitively critical classes of beings--were all his friends. The
pathway to and from the daily routine, which he was coming to regard as
moral martyrdom, was a pathway illumined with sunlight and strewn with
flowers!
As the Lieutenant-Governor passed through his ante-room, with a wink at
the boy, a nod to the stenographer, and a word of greeting to his
private secretary, and entered his office, he was surprised to find the
communicating door open, and to hear the sound of a vaguely familiar
voice in the Governor's room beyond. In an effort to place the speaker,
he hesitated briefly before advancing to a point which would bring him
within range of the Governor's eye. Almost immediately, the memory of
the convention rushed over him, and he recognized the voice as that of
Michael McGrath.
"And it won't be a strike like other strikes," he was saying, "not so
long as I'm running it, that is. It's going to mean business from the
word go! There's been too much shilly-shallying in the strikes I've
known anything about, too much talk, and too much wasting of Union
funds. You know what I mean. It isn't enough to tie up a mill, and then
hang around on street-corners for two months, waiting for the other side
to give in. The only place to hit a man like Rathbawne is in his pocket,
and by that I don't mean simply cutting off his income, but chopping
into his capital as well. He's got to understand"--
The Lieutenant-Governor walked over to his desk, laid his hat and stick
on a chair, and, before removing his overcoat, began turning over the
pile of letters which awaited his attention. As he did so, Governor
Abbott's voice broke in suavely upon the other's.
"I deprecate any resort to violence," he said. "You must proceed with
discretion if you expect the state to maintain an attitude of
neutrality. Otherwise, the police or the militia"--
"Oh, to hell with the police and the militia!" broke in McGrath
impatiently. "What's the use"--
"There is the Lieutenant-Governor now," interrupted the other. "Perhaps
he has some news for us. Mr. Barclay, will you kindly step in here for a
moment?"
McGrath was standing on the opposite side of the Governor's table as
Barclay entered the room. He acknowledged the latter's curt nod with an
ironical bow, slipped his hands into the pockets of his checked
trousers, and stood waiting, with his square head thrust forward, for
what was to follow.