THE VISITORS START SOUTH AGAIN; AND THEIR FORMER HOSTS GO TO MEET THEM
Both Larry Middleton and Mr. Welch were to visit Red Rock again; but
under circumstances little anticipated by anyone at the time the
invitation to return was given.
When Middleton came of age he turned over the manufacturing business
he had inherited, to the family’s agent, Mr. Bolter, and, on leaving
college, accepted the invitation of his cousin, Mr. Welch, to go in
his law-office. He made only one condition: that the same invitation
should be extended to his college chum, Reely Thurston, whom Middleton
described to Mr. Welch as “at once the roundest and squarest fellow”
in his class. This was enough for Mr. Welch, and within a few months
the two young men were at adjoining desks, professing to practise law
and really practising whatever other young gentlemen of their age and
kind are given to doing: a combination of loafing, working, and airing
themselves for the benefit of the rest of mankind, particularly of that
portion that wears bonnets and petticoats.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Welch were glad to have Middleton with them; for
Mrs. Welch was fond of him as a near relation, and one who in personal
appearance and address was a worthy representative of the old stock
from which they had both come. And she had this further reason for
wishing to have Middleton near her: that she had long observed his
tendency to be affected unduly, as she termed it, by his surroundings,
and she meant to counteract this defect of character by her personal
influence.
It was enough for Mrs. Welch to see a defect of any kind to wish to
correct it, and her wish was usually but a step in advance of her
action. One might see this in the broad brow above which the hair was
brushed so very smoothly; in the deep gray eyes; in the firm mouth
with its fine, even teeth; in the strong chin, almost too strong for
a woman; and especially, in the set of her head, and the absolute
straightness of her back. She was at heart a missionary: one of those
intrepid and unbending spirits who have carried their principles
through the world by the sheer energy of their belief. She would no
more have bowed in the house of Rimmon than she would have committed
theft. If she had lived in Rome, she would have died before taking
a pinch of incense for Diana, unless, indeed, she had been on the
other side, when she would have fed the lions with fervor. If she had
been in Spain on Torquemada’s side, she could have sung Te Deums at
an _auto-da-fé_. As someone said of her, she would have burned like
a candle. The only difficulty was that she wanted others to burn
too—which they were not always so ready to do. As a girl, she had been
on the eve of going out as missionary to the Sandwich Islands, when she
heard the splendid oratory of one of the new apostles of abolitionism,
one evening in company with Mr. Welch, then a young engineer, when her
philanthropical direction changed from West to South, and she devoted
herself thenceforth to the cause of the negroes—and of the young
engineer.
She had great hopes of Lawrence Middleton and deplored the influence
on him of the young man whom he had chosen at college as his especial
friend; and she grieved over the effect that his visit South, already
described, had on him. He had come home much impressed by the charm
of the life there. Indeed, he had become actually an apologist for
Slavery. But Mrs. Welch did not despair. She never despaired. It
implied weakness, and so, sin. She was urgent to have Larry Middleton
accept her husband’s proposal to take a place in his office, and though
she would have preferred to separate him from young Thurston, as to
whom she had misgivings, yet when he made this condition she yielded;
for it brought Middleton where she could influence him, and had, at
least, this advantage: that it gave her two persons to work on instead
of one.
When her daughter, Ruth Welch, a young Miss with sparkling eyes, came
home in her vacations, it was natural that she should be thrown a great
deal with her cousin, and the only singular thing was that Mrs. Welch
appeared inclined to minimize the importance of the relationship. This,
however, made little difference to the gay, fun-loving girl, who,
enjoying her emancipation from school, tyrannized over the two young
sprigs of the Law to her heart’s content. She soon reduced Thurston
to a condition of abject slavery which might well have called forth
the intervention of so ardent an emancipator as her mother, and did,
indeed, excite some solicitude in her maternal bosom. Mrs. Welch was
beginning to be very anxious about him when events, suddenly crowding
on each other, gave her something widely different to think of, and
unexpectedly relieved her from this cause of care to give her others
far weightier.
Both the young men had become politicians. Middleton was a Whig, though
he admitted he did not see how Slavery could be interfered with; while
Thurston announced tenets of the opposite party, particularly when Mrs.
Welch was present.
The cloud which had been gathering so long above the Country suddenly
burst.
Middleton and Thurston were sitting in their office one afternoon when
there was a scamper outside; the door was flung open, and a paper
thrown in—an extra still wet from the press. Thurston seized it, his
seat being nearest the door, and gave a long whistle as his eye fell
on the black headlines:
The Flag Fired on: Open Rebellion. The Union Must Be Saved At Any
Cost. Etc., etc.
He sank into his seat and read rapidly the whole account, ending with
the call for troops to put down the Rebellion; while Middleton listened
with a set face. When Thurston was through, he flung the paper down and
sat back in his chair, thinking intently. The next moment he hammered
his fist on his desk and sprang to his feet, his face white with
resolve.
“By God! I’ll go.”
With a single inquiring look at Middleton, he turned to the door and
walked out. A moment later Middleton locked his desk and followed
him. The street was already filling with people, crowding to hear the
details, and the buzz of voices was growing louder.
Within a few hours the two young men were both enrolled in a company
of volunteers which was being gotten up—Middleton, in right of his
stature and family connections, as a Sergeant, and little Thurston as a
Corporal, and were at work getting others enrolled.
As they were so engaged, Thurston’s attention was arrested by a man
in the crowd who was especially violent in his denunciations, and was
urging everybody to enlist. His voice had a peculiar, penetrating
whine. As Thurston could not remember the man among those who had
signed the roll, he asked him his name.
“Leech, Jonadab Leech,” he said.
When Thurston looked at the roster, the name was not on it, and the
next time Leech came up in the crowd, the little Corporal called him:
“Here; you have forgotten to put your name down.”
To his surprise, Leech drew back and actually turned pale.
“What’s the matter?” asked Thurston.
“I have a wife.”
The little volunteer gave a sniff.
“All right—send her in your place. I guess she’d do as well.”
“If he has, he’s trying to get rid of her,” said someone standing by,
in an undertone.
“Why—ah!—my eyes are bad; I’m too near-sighted.”
“Your eyes be hanged! You can see well enough to read this paper.”
“I—ah!—I cannot see in the dark at all,” stammered Leech as a number
of the new volunteers crowded around them.
“Neither can I—neither can anybody but a cat,” declared the little
Corporal, and the crowd around cheered him. Leech vanished.
“Who is he?” asked Thurston, as Leech disappeared.
“He is a clerk in old Bolter’s commissary.”
The crowd was patriotic.
There was great excitement in the town all night: bells rang; crowds
marched up and down the streets singing; stopping at the houses of
those who had been opposed to ultra measures, and calling on them to
put up flags to show their loyalty. The name of Jonadab Leech appeared
in the papers next morning as one of the street-orators who made the
most blood-thirsty speech.
Next day was Sunday. Sober second thought had succeeded the excitement
of the previous day, the faces of the people showed it. The churches
were overflowing. The preachers all alluded to the crisis that had
come, and the tears of the congregations testified how deeply they were
moved. After church, by a common impulse, everyone went to the public
square to learn the news. The square was packed. Suddenly on the pole
that stood above the old court-house, someone ran up the flag. At the
instant that it broke forth the breeze caught it, and it fluttered out
full and straight, pointing to the southward. The effect was electric.
A great cheer burst from the crowd below. As it died down, a young
man’s clear voice struck up “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” and the next
moment the whole crowd was singing and weeping.
That flag and that song made more soldiers from the old town than all
the newspapers and all the speeches, and Larry Middleton, for having
struck up the song, found himself suddenly of more note in his own home
than he could have been later if he had stormed a battery.
Loudest among the shouters was the street-orator of the evening before,
Jonadab Leech, the clerk in Bolter’s commissary.
Within a week the two young men were on their way South.
A little later, Mr. Welch, having taken time to settle up his affairs,
and also those of his cousin, Larry Middleton, went off to join the
first corps of engineers from his State, with abundance of tears from
Ruth and a blessing from his wife, whose mouth was never firmer, or her
eye clearer, than when she kissed him, and bade him God-speed.
She replied to the astonished query of Mrs. Bolter, “You did not cry?”
with another question:
“Why should I cry, when I knew it was his duty? If I had wept it would
have been because I could not go myself to strike a blow for the
freedom of the poor African!”
“You are an unusually strong woman,” said Mrs. Bolter, with a shake of
her head, and, indeed, Mrs. Welch looked it; for though Bolter had gone
to Washington, he had not gone to war, but to see about contracts.
* * * * *
Just at the time that the two young students from Mr. Welch’s office
were in the street of their town enrolling their names as soldiers
to fight for the flag of the Union, the young men, and the elders
as well, whom Middleton had met at Red Rock a thousand miles to the
southward, were engaged in similar work—enlisting to fight against
Invasion, to fight for their State.
There had been much discussion—much dissension in the old county, and
all others like it, during the interim since the night when Middleton
and Mr. Welch had appeared unexpectedly at Red Rock among the wedding
guests. Some were for radical measures, for Secession, for War; others
were conservative. Many were for the Union. Matters more than once had
reached a white heat in that section, and it had looked for a long time
as though an explosion must come. Yet the cooler heads had controlled,
and when the final elections for the body that was to settle the
momentous questions at issue at last came on, the most conservative
men in the country had been selected. In our county, Dr. Cary and Mr.
Bagby, both strong Union men, had been chosen over Major Legaie and Mr.
Gray, both ardent Democrats; and one, the former, a hot Secessionist.
When they arrived at the capital to attend the session of the
Convention they found, perhaps, the most distinguished body that had
sat in the State in fifty years. In this great crisis both sides had
put forward their best men, and in face of the nearing peril the
wildest grew conservative. The body declared for Peace.
Affairs moved rapidly, however; excitement grew; feeling changed. Yet
the more conservative prevailed.
One morning Dr. Cary received a report of a great public meeting held
at the county seat, instructing him to vote for Secession. Many of his
old supporters had signed it. He presented the resolutions at the desk,
and stated their purport fully and strongly, amid cheers from the other
side.
“Now you will vote with us?” said one of the leaders on that side.
“Not if every man in my county instructed me.”
“Then you must resign?”
“Not if every man in my county demanded it.”
“Are you the only wise man in the county?”
The voice trembled. Feeling was rising.
The Doctor was looking his questioner full in the eyes.
“If they signed such a paper, I should think so.” And there were
cheers from his side, and the vote was stayed for that day at least.
Dr. Cary made an appeal for the Union that men remembered all their
lives. However they disagreed with him, they were moved by him. But the
magazine was being stored fuller every moment.
Then the spark fell and the explosion came.
A week after this the call for troops by the President to put down
Rebellion appeared in an extra in the city where the Convention sat.
Invasion!
The whole people rose. From the time of Varrus down they had done so.
The defences that conservatives like Dr. Cary had laboriously built up
were swept away in an instant. The State went out with a rush.
At the announcement the population poured into the streets and public
squares in a great demonstration. It was tremendous—a maelstrom—a
tornado—a conflagration. Men were caught up and tossed on platforms,
that appeared as if by magic from nowhere, to makes speeches; bonfires
were lighted and bells were rung; but the crowd shouted louder than the
ringing of the bells, for it meant War: none could now withstand it.
Suddenly from some public place a gun, which had been found and run
out, boomed through the dusk, and the crowd roared louder than before,
and made a rush in that direction, cheering as if for a great victory.
Dr. Cary, stalking through the throng, silent and white, was recognized
and lifted unresisting to a platform. After a great roar, the tumult
hushed down for a moment; for he was waiting with close-shut mouth and
blazing eye, and he had the reputation of being, when he chose to
exert himself, an orator. Besides, it was not yet known what he would
do, and he was a power in his section.
He broke the silence with a calm voice that went everywhere. Without
appearing to be strong, his voice was one of those strange instruments
that filled every building with its finest tone and reached over
every crowd to its farthest limit. With a gesture that, as men said
afterward, seemed to sweep the horizon, he began:
“The time has passed for talking. Go home and prepare for War. For it
is on us.”
“Oh! there is not going to be any war,” cried someone, and a part of
the crowd cheered. Dr. Cary turned on them.
“No war? We are at war now—with the greatest power on earth: the power
of universal progress. It is not the North that we shall have to fight,
but the world. Go home and make ready. If we have talked like fools, we
shall at least fight like men.”
That night Dr. Cary walked into his lodgings alone and seated himself
in the dusk. His old body-servant, Tarquin, silent and dark, brought
a light and set it conveniently for him. He did not speak a word; but
his ministrations were unusually attentive and every movement expressed
adherence and sympathy. Suddenly his master broke the silence:
“Tarquin, do you want to be free?”
“Lawd Gawd!” exclaimed Tarquin, stopping quite still and gazing in
amazement. “Me! Free?”
“If you do I will set you free, and give you money enough to live in
Philadelphia.”
“No, suh; Marster, you know I don’ wan’ be free,” said Tarquin.
“Pack my trunk. I am going home.”
“When, suh?”
“I do not know exactly; but shortly.”
Within a week Dr. Cary was back at home, working, along with Major
Legaie and the other secessionists, making preparation for equipping
the companies that the county was going to send to the war.
What a revolution that week had made in the old county! In the face
of the menace of invasion, after but ten days one would scarcely have
known it. All division was ended: all parties were one. It was as if
the county had declared war by itself and felt the whole burden of the
struggle on its shoulders. From having been one of the most quiet,
peaceful and conservative corners of the universe, where a fox-hunt or
an evening-party was the chief excitement of the year, and where the
advent of a stranger was enough to convulse the entire community, it
became suddenly a training ground and a camp, filled with bustle and
preparation and the sound of arms. The haze of dust from men galloping
by, hung over the highways all day long, and the cross-roads and
the county seat, where the musters used to meet quarterly and where
the Fourth of July celebrations were held, became scenes of almost
metropolitan activity.
Men appeared to spring from the ground as in the days of Cadmus, ready
for war. Red Rock and Birdwood became recruiting-stations and depots of
supply. From the big estates men came; from the small homesteads amid
their orchards, and from the cabins back among the pines—all eager for
war and with a new light in their eyes. Everyone was in the movement.
Major Legaie was a colonel and Mr. Gray was a captain; Dr. Cary was
surgeon, and even old Mr. Langstaff, under that fire of enthusiasm,
doffed his cassock for a uniform, merged his ecclesiastical title of
rector in the military one of chaplain, and made amends for the pacific
nature of his prescribed prayers in church, by praying before his
company outside, prayers as diverse from the benignity of his nature,
as the curses of Ezekiel or Jeremiah from the benediction of St. John
the Aged.
Miss Thomasia, who was always trying to meet some wants which only
the sensitiveness of her own spirit apprehended, enlarged her little
academy in the office at Red Rock, so as to take in all the children of
the men around who had enlisted; made them between their lessons pick
lint, and opened her exercises daily with the most martial hymns she
could find in the prayer-book, feeling in her simple heart that she
could do God no better service than to inculcate an undying patriotism
along with undying piety. As for Blair, she had long deserted the
anti-war side, horse, foot, and dragoons, and sewed on uniforms and
picked lint; wore badges of palmetto, and single stars on little blue
flags sewed somewhat crookedly in the front of her frocks, and sang
“Dixie,” “Maryland,” and “The Bonny Blue Flag” all the time.
Steve Allen and Morris Cary, on an hour’s notice, had left the
University where all the students were flocking into companies, and
with pistols and sabres strapped about their slender waists galloped
up to the county seat together one afternoon, in a cloud of dust,
having outsped their telegrams, and, amid huzzas and the waving of
handkerchiefs from the carriages lining the roadside, spurred their
sweating horses straight to the end of the line that was drilling
under Colonel Legaie in the field beside the court-house. And so, with
radiant faces and bounding hearts were enlisted for the war. Little
Andy Stamper, the rescuer of the two visitors at the ford, was already
there in line at the far end on one of his father’s two farmhorses;
and Jacquelin, on a blooded colt, was trying to keep as near in line
with him as his excited four-year-old would permit. Even the servants,
for whom some on the other side were pledging their blood, were warmly
interested, and were acting more like clansmen than slaves.
Hiram Still, Mr. Gray’s tall manager, had a sudden return of his old
enemy, rheumatism, and was so drawn up that he had to go on crutches;
but was as enthusiastic as anyone, and lent money to help equip the
companies—lent it not to the county, it is true, but to Mr. Gray and
Dr. Cary on their joint security. He and Andy Stamper were not on good
terms, yet he even offered to lend money to Andy Stamper to buy a horse
with. Jacquelin, however, spared Andy this mortification.
The boy, emancipated from school, partly because his father was going
off so shortly to the war, and partly because Dr. Maule himself had
enlisted and Mr. Eliphalet Bush, his successor, was not considered
altogether sound politically, spent his time breaking his colt to stand
the excitement of cavalry drill. Jacquelin and Andy were sworn friends,
and hearing that Andy had applied to Hiram Still to borrow money to
buy a horse with, Jacquelin asked his father’s consent to give him his
colt, and was rewarded by the pick of the horses on the place, after
the carriage horses, his father’s own riding horse and Steve’s. It was
a proud moment for the boy when he rode the high-mettled bay he chose,
over to the old Stamper place.
Andy, in a new gray jacket, was sitting on the front steps, polishing
his scabbard and accoutrements, old Mrs. Stamper was in her low,
split-bottomed chair behind him, knitting a yarn sock for her soldier,
and Delia Dove, with her plump cheeks glowing under her calico
sun-bonnet, which she had pushed back from her round face, was seated
on the bench in the little porch, toying with the wisteria-vine above
her, and looking down on Andy with her black eyes softer than usual.
Andy rose to greet Jacquelin as the boy galloped up to the gate.
“Come in, Jack. What’s up? Look out or he’ll git you off him. That’s
the way to set him! Ah!” as Jacquelin swung himself down.
“Here’s a present for you,” said Jacquelin.
“What?”
“This horse!”
“What!”
“Yes: he’s mine: papa gave him to me this morning and said I might give
him to you. I took the pick——”
“Well, by—” Andy was too much dazed to swear.
“Jack—” This also ended. “Now let that Hiram Still ask for s’curity.
Delia, I’ll lick a regiment.” He faced his sweetheart, who suddenly
turned and caught Jacquelin and kissed him violently, bringing the red
blood to the boy’s fresh face.
“If you’ll do that to me I’ll give him to you right now. D——d ’f I
don’t!” And the little recruit looked Miss Delia Dove in the eyes and
gave a shake of his head for emphasis. The girl looked for one moment
as if she were going to accept his offer. Then as Andy squared himself
and opened his arms wide she considered, and, with a toss of her head
and a sparkle in her eyes, turned away.
That moment the latch clicked and Hiram Still’s daughter, Virgy, stood
beside them, shy and silent, veiled within her sun-bonnet.
“Mr. Stamper, pappy says if you’ll come over to see him about that
business o’ yourn, maybe he can make out to help you out.”
She delivered the message automatically, and, with a shy glance at
Jacquelin, and another, somewhat different, at Delia Dove, retired once
more within the deep recesses of her sun-bonnet.
“Well, you tell your pappy that I say I’m much obliged to him; but I
ain’t got any business with him that I knows on; ’t somebody else’s
done helped me out.” The voice was kind, though the words were
sarcastic.
“Yes, sir. Good-even’.” And with another shy glance and nod to each one
in turn, the girl turned and went off as noiselessly as a hare.
“That girl always gives me the creeps,” said Delia, when Virgy had
reached a safe distance.
“How about Washy?” asked Andy, at which Delia only sniffed disdainfully.
Jacquelin Gray was not the only one of the youngsters whose patriotic
fervor was rewarded. The ladies of the neighborhood made a banner for
each of the companies that went forth, and Blair Cary was selected
to present the banner to the Red Rock company, which she did from the
court-house balcony, with her laughing eyes sobered by excitement, her
glowing face growing white and pink by turns, and her little tremulous
speech, written by her father and carefully conned by heart for days,
much swallowed and almost inaudible in face of the large crowd filling
all the space around, and of the brave company drawn up in the road
below her. But she got through it—that part about “emulating the
Spartan youth who came back with his shield or on it,” and all; and at
the close she carried everyone away by a natural clasp of her little
brown hands over her heart, as she said, “And don’t you let them take
it away from you, not ever,” outstretching her arms to her father, who
sat with moist eyes at one end of the line a little below her, with
Jacquelin close beside him, his eyes like saucers for interest in, and
admiration of, Blair.
“Blair, that’s the best speech that ever was made,” cried the boy,
enthusiastically, when he saw her; “and Steve says so, too. Don’t you
wish I was old enough to go?” The little girl’s cheeks glowed with
pleasure.
The evening before Jacquelin’s father went off, he called Jacquelin
into his office, and rising, shut the door himself. They were alone,
and Jacquelin was mystified. He had never before been summoned for
an interview with his father unless it were for a lecture, or worse.
He hastily ran over in his mind his recent acts, but he could recall
nothing that merited even censure, and curiosity took the place of
wonderment. Wonder came back, however, when his father, motioning him
to a seat, stood before him and began to address him in an entirely
new and unknown tone. He talked to him as if he were a man. Jacquelin
suddenly felt all his old timidity of his father vanish, and a new
spirit, as it were, rise up in his heart. His father told him that now
that he was going away to the war, he might never come back; but he
left, he said, with the assurance that whatever happened, he would
be worthily succeeded; and he said that he was proud of him, and had
the fullest confidence in him. He had never said anything like this to
Jacquelin before, in all his life, and the boy felt a new sensation.
He had no idea that his father had ever been satisfied with him, much
less been proud of him. It was like opening the skies and giving him a
glimpse beyond them into a new heaven. The boy suddenly rose, and flung
his arms about his father’s neck, and clung there, pouring out his
heart to him. Then he sat down again, feeling like a shriven soul, and
the father and son understood each other like two school-fellows.
Mr. Gray told Jacquelin of his will. He had left his mother everything;
but it would be the same thing as if he had left it to him and Rupert.
He, as the oldest, was to have Red Rock, and Rupert the estate in the
South. “I leave it to her, and I leave her to you,” he said, putting
his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Jacquelin listened, his mind suddenly
sobered and expanded to a man’s measure.
“And, Jacquelin,” he said, “keep the old place. Make any sacrifice to
do that. Landholding is one of the safeguards of a gentry. Our people,
for six generations, have never sold an acre, and I never knew a man
who sold land that throve.”
“I will keep it, father,” said the boy, earnestly.
There were some debts, but not enough to amount to anything, his father
told him; the principal one was to Hiram Still. Still had wanted him
to keep his money, and he had done so. It could be paid any time, if
necessary. Still was a better man than he was given credit for. A
bad manner made those who did not know him well, suspicious of him.
But he was the best business man he had ever known, and he believed
devoted to his interest. His father, old Mr. Still, had been overseer
for Jacquelin’s grandfather when Mr. Gray was a boy, and he could not
forget him, and though Still was at present in poor health, he had
contracted the disease while in their service at the South, and he
would be glad to have him kept in his position as long as he treated
the negroes well, and cared to remain.
“And, Jacquelin, one other thing: be a father to Rupert. See that he
gets an education. It is the one patrimony that no accident—not even
war—can take away.”
Jacquelin promised his father that he would remember his injunctions,
and try faithfully to keep them, every one; and when the two walked
out, it was arm in arm like two brothers, and the old servants, looking
at them, nodded their heads, and talked with pride of Jacquelin’s
growing resemblance to his grandfather.
Next day the companies raised in the county started off to the war,
taking almost every man of serviceable age and strength, and many who
were not.
When they marched away it was like a triumphal procession. The blue
haze of spring lay over the woods, softening the landscape, and filling
it with peace. Tears were on some cheeks, no doubt; and many eyes were
dimmed; but kerchiefs and scarfs were waved by many who could not see,
and fervent prayers went up from many hearts when the lips were too
tremulous to speak.