[Illustration: 9294]
HE end of the war was come, and McCarthy and I felt a sense of shame and
sorrow that we had had no part in it--he, because of his wooden leg; and
I, because of those who were dependent upon me. But soon we were to find
ourselves in the first great battle of peace, one of those of which the
iron-master had spoken.
The States had put aside their jealousy, and begun to pull together in
enterprises the like of which had never been known. We were laying iron
rails across the deserts, and would soon be scaling the Rockies with
them. Engines had climbed the Alps and swung in little curves, hauling
a forty-ton train over Mont Cenis and the Semmering at twelve miles an
hour. But the work we had begun was vaster and more difficult.
It was in January, 1866, when we were together in Albany, that the
gentleman said to me one day:
“The battle is on. I knew it was coming, although I haven't said
anything about it. The Central is fighting the Commodore. He has so much
power in the board that they're afraid of him. In summer they've been
sending their south-bound freight by the river boats. In winter, when
the river was closed, of course they've been glad to use the Vanderbilt
roads to New York. The Commodore has got ugly, and begun to jerk the
bull ring.”
“The bull ring!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly,” he went on. “It's the middle of January, and the ice is a
foot thick on the Hudson, and, somehow, the Central freight doesn't
move. They've begun to yell at the Commodore, and he answers, 'Use the
boats.' 'They answer, 'The river is frozen.' He says, 'Well, pull your
trains into Albany on time, and I'll do my best for you.'
“Now, there's where he's got 'em. They can't get here on time, and
never do. Their freight is piling up, their passengers never make their
connections for the South. The Commodore's trains used to wait, now they
leave promptly on time. Lately there's been something the matter with
the tracks on the east side of the river, and Mr. Vanderbilt's trains
haven't been able to reach Albany at all.”
The gentleman paused, and began to laugh.
“The Central yards and storehouses are overflowing, patrons and
stockholders have set up a howl,” he went on.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“Progress,” he answered. “God has found the will of a Cæsar to perform
His wonders. When it's time for a great thing to be done, it's done, and
little people have to get out of the way.”
“But the bull ring seems to me rather oppressive,” I suggested.
“It is oppressive, and a godsend, too, when the bull won't lead,” said
the gentleman. “What would you do with men like Richmond and Drew? Would
you try to persuade them? Suppose, too, there were a lot of people who
expected you to bribe them out of the way? Why, in such a case we
need power, and it's down at No. 10 Washington Square. In a month Mr.
Vanderbilt will own the Central lines, then--”
The gentleman paused, and turned and looked at me.
“Why, it's the beginning of a new emancipation,” he said. “It will break
the bonds of distance and set us free. In a few years we shall
take our train in New York and leave it in San Francisco. The desert
plains will be settled and tilled, and there will be great cities where
there's nothing now but gophers and wild sage. Why, in the Far West
there's land enough for all the oppressed of Europe.”
It was the first time that I had heard the phrase now so well worn.
Within a week new schedules were established, and Central freight and
passengers went on without delay.
“It's all settled,” said McCarthy. “My dream is coming true. Soon
there'll be one system from New York and Boston to Chicago.”
But things not so cheerful were pressing on us. My mother and sister and
I had taken a small furnished house in Albany, and fitted up a room for
the gentleman, agreeably with his own plan, for he had been urgent in
his wish to live with us. Months had passed, but the room was still
unoccupied. My sister had made it cosey and homelike, with the pretty
arts of a school-girl.
“Don't you think it's lovely?” she said to me one day.
“Oh, it's a charming room!” I exclaimed.
“I wonder why he doesn't like it?”
“I think that he does like it.”
“But he's only been here once since it was ready,” she answered. “Just
one look at that room was enough for him.”
She turned away, and when I went and put my arm around her waist and
kissed her I saw that there were tears in her eyes.
“You silly child,” I said, “you are fond of him!” I had not dreamed of
such a thing, and yet I ought to have known it.
Sarah began to laugh, and ran away from me and up-stairs to her room.
The revelation worried me, and that very day I had a talk with my mother
about it.
“Sarah will get over that,” said she. “All boys and girls have their
little troubles. You had yours, and have recovered.”
“Not yet,” was my answer. “If it takes hold of her as it took hold of
me, God pity her. I shall not fall in love again.”
“I'm sorry to hear you say that,” said my mother. “Jo treats you very
badly. Sarah had a letter from her the other day, and there was not a
word for you in it. They are in India, and intend to stay there for a
year or so. It seems rather strange to me.”
“There's some reason--I'm sure she means well,” I insisted.
That evening McCarthy and I sat together in his room at the Delevan
writing letters until midnight.
“Speaking of the ring in the bull's nose,” he said, “what do you think
of that?”
He passed me a letter from a firm of New York lawyers in behalf of Maud
Isabel Manning. They demanded that he keep his promise to marry the
young woman or pay a “reasonable sum” in damages. That sum should be, in
their opinion, forty thousand dollars.
“I'm in an awful mess,” he said, as he turned to me with a troubled look
in his face. “There's a quotation from Ecclesiastes that fits the case
pretty well:
“'I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and
nets, and her hands as bands.'
“Jake, you know now why I couldn't go and live in your house, with this
thing hanging over me.”
“I do not quite understand you,” I said.
“Why, as times are, if I had to pay that sum of money it would ruin
me,” he declared. “I don't see how I can go to law with them and smirch
myself and you with scandal, to say nothing of the girl--”
“You needn't worry about her,” I interrupted, with a smile. “As to
myself, I'll tell all I know as publicly as you please.”
“I feel disgraced enough already,” said he, “but worse things are
coming. I'm not going to lie down and let them rob me. I shall fight
them, but not with your testimony.”
“I am your friend--” I began.
“Wait,” he interrupted, as he closed his desk. “Heron, I'm in love with
your sister. I have never told her or any one. It may be a hopeless
love; but, you see, it won't answer for you to have anything to do with
this case, and I must keep away from your house until I am done with it.
Your sister is sacred to me. I must keep her name as far from mine as
possible until I am vindicated and free.”
Then James Henry McCarthy--a gentleman than whom no knight of old had
better chivalry--shook my hand and bade me good-night.