AS BETWEEN FRIENDS
There were but two guests at the Rathbawnes" dinner-table that night, the Lieutenant-Governor and Colonel Amos Broadcastle, a veteran of the Rebellion, brevetted Major for conspicuous gallantry at Lookout Mountain, and now commanding officer of the Ninth Regiment, N. G. A., the crack militia organization of Kenton City. Colonel Broadcastle had seen his sixty-five, but his broad, square shoulders, his rigid carriage, and his black hair, even now only slightly touched with gray, clipped twenty years from his appearance. His eye was one that was famous throughout the Alleghenia Guard,--an eye accustomed to control, not a single man, or two, or three, but a thousand, moving as one at his command; an eye enforcing obedience immediate, machine-like, and unquestioning.
It had been a momentous day for the Ninth when Amos Broadcastle, retiring from the staff of a former Governor, had accepted, first a majority therein, and then, three months later, its colonelcy. He found ten companies, in no one instance exceeding twenty files front. He found a field and staff vain, incompetent, and jealous; company officers deficient alike in their knowledge of tactics and in their conception of their responsibilities; sergeants, corporals, and lances chosen without any view to fitness, and ignorant and tyrannical in their positions; and finally, the rank and file lazy, untidy, and frankly contemptuous of the school of the soldier. Some one had once said of the Ninth that there was consolation to be found in the mortifying knowledge that the men composing it were there with the unique view of escaping jury duty. The consolation lay in the probability that such infernally bad soldiers would have made jurors quite as infernally bad.
But Broadcastle, a born disciplinarian and a trained tactician, was now in a position to echo, albeit in a different spirit, the arrogance of Louis: "_Nous avons change tout cela!_" Ten years had sufficed to change the indolent and incompetent Ninth of Alleghenia into a regiment rivaling in prestige the Seventh of New York. The commissioned officers were thrust upon, rather than achieved by, their companies, but, once established in their respective positions, proceeded without exception to justify, by their energy and ability, their selection from the best element of Kenton City. Among the enlisted men the exponents of the old spirit of sloth, indifference, and laxity were weeded out as fast as their terms of service expired, and their places filled from the same sources whence the company officers were drawn. Colonel Broadcastle was a diplomat as well as a disciplinarian. By some unknowable system of suggestion and example it came, little by little, to be regarded in Kenton City as "the thing" to belong to the Ninth. Before the capital was aware of the transformation, every company roster read 103, the field and staff had been reorganized and perfected, and the Ninth Regiment, N. G. A., was what it remained thereafter: a magnificent fighting machine, ably drilled, perfectly equipped, a credit to the state, to the credit of which there stood so little else. The declaration of war with Spain brought it suddenly into prominence by the astonishing readiness with which it went into camp twenty hours after the Adjutant-General of Alleghenia published the President"s call for volunteers; and although it never saw active service, it attracted at Chickamauga, and later at Tampa, the admiring attention of the regular army, and was spoken of as the most perfect body among the volunteer forces.
The citizens of Kenton City were not accustomed to discovering things in which they could take pride. The exact contrary was more apt to be the case. When, therefore, they discovered the rehabilitated Ninth, and its redeemer in the person of its commanding officer, they had a deal to say, and said it with unexampled arrogance and satisfaction.
Thenceforward, Alleghenia meant much to Colonel Broadcastle, and Colonel Broadcastle considerably more than much to Alleghenia.
Something of all this went through the Lieutenant-Governor"s mind during the progress of the dinner. He sat at Mrs. Rathbawne"s right, than which nothing in the world could have been more cheerless, unless it was sitting at Mrs. Rathbawne"s left. But the good lady"s habitual complacency was plainly in abeyance, her customary volubility replaced by a fidgety reserve. The dinner, as a social achievement, was a distinct failure, save in so far as Mrs. Wynyard and Colonel Broadcastle were concerned. Several months before, Mrs. Wynyard had frankly announced that she had designs upon the Colonel. Latterly, Barclay had begun to suspect the Colonel of having designs upon Mrs. Wynyard. Thirty and sixty-five that looked forty-five--a widow and a widower! More wonderful things had happened.
"If I were thirty years younger," Broadcastle was saying even now, as he did full justice to the celery mayonnaise, "I should say we were made for each other."
"Since two single people may be made for each other," laughed Mrs.
Wynyard, "I wonder if two married people can"t be unmade for each other.
Perhaps that is just what has happened to us!"
"I"ll think that over," replied the Colonel with mock gravity. "I don"t want to commit myself on so serious a hypothesis, without due reflection."
They were the only ones who were thoroughly at ease. Barclay and Natalie, unstrung by the events of the day, ate little and talked listlessly. Dorothy, victim to an inward excitement which was half happiness and half disappointment, chattered feverishly. Rathbawne was wrapped in his own thoughts, and his wife, innocently un.o.bservant of emotional manifestations in any and every other, but pathetically sensitive to the slightest evidence of mental perturbation in this stern, kind man, between herself and whom existed a devotion dog-like in its silence and intensity, watched his clouded face with an anxiety which she made no effort to conceal. The dinner dragged hopelessly, until she shook herself into a bewildered realization that it was over, folded her napkin scrupulously, dusted a few crumbs from the black-satin slope of her obsolete lap, and, followed by her daughters and Mrs.
Wynyard, left the men to their cordials and cigars.
The latter drew their chairs nearer, as the door closed, made little clearings in the wilderness of finger-bowls, silver, and discarded napkins, for the accommodation of their coffee-cups and cordial gla.s.ses, and, lighting the long Invincibles which were Rathbawne"s sole extravagance, inhaled that first matchless whiff of smoke which makes a whole day of anxiety and vexation seem to have been worth the while.
It is a moment apart and _sui generis_, this, and is rivaled only by that of early morning realization that one is awake--and not obliged to get up. It is apt to pa.s.s in silence, for a newly lit cigar is like a newly married wife: a man is deliberately oblivious to all else. The moment, too, is one of readjustment, of hasty mental survey of the chatter that has pa.s.sed, and of preparation for the essentially dissimilar talk to come. With men of the mental calibre of the three here a.s.sembled this opportunity is sacred to some of the gravest and most vital thoughts which they exchange. Peter Rathbawne, in particular, whenever he reviewed the paramount conversations of his life, seemed to find their significance indissolubly fused with the fragrance of Havana cigars and the taste of k.u.mmel or yellow Chartreuse.
His eyes dwelt thoughtfully upon his companions during the pause which followed. First, on Broadcastle. He could depend upon him as he could depend upon no other man on earth. They had fought side by side in many a tight place in the black days of "62, and in many another, full as tight, since then, on battlefields commercial and political. It is doubtful whether so much as a single word of admiration or affection had ever pa.s.sed between them. It is equally doubtful whether anything could have been more entirely superfluous than such a voicing of self-evident sentiments.
John Barclay, too! Peter Rathbawne, with what had been natural shrewdness at the outset now sharpened almost to clairvoyance by his years of dealing with a multiplicity of men and things, understood the Lieutenant-Governor absolutely, and admired him with all the force of his rugged nature. And Rathbawne was not given to admiring people. His business experience had not fostered the spirit of hero-worship. He had seen too much for that. But in the two men before him he recognized qualities so unusual, and in many ways so similar, that he was proud to count them friends.
For the moment, however, as he took stock of them, he was measuring them by a new standard, more rigid, more severe than he had hitherto had reason to apply. It is one thing to trust a man implicitly, and another thing entirely to try to tell him so. For silence is most golden in the specification of friendship, and when employed in the particularizing of intimate emotion the silver of speech is apt to turn to veriest tinsel.
Yet the occasion was one which demanded speech. Moreover, and in direct opposition to his inclinations and the precedents he had established, he was forced not only to give practical expression to his feeling for Broadcastle and Barclay, but, what humiliated as well as annoyed him, to confess himself incapable of dealing with a question which confronted him. It was the first time within his recollection when he had mistrusted his own judgment.
But Peter Rathbawne was not the man to procrastinate, and presently he began to speak, in a low but curiously intense voice, from which the others instinctively took their cue. He was a short man, inclined to stoutness, but with the clear, sharp eye and the underhang of jaw which tell of right principle and indomitable perseverance. It was a question whether in calling him the second most obstinate man in Alleghenia, Governor Abbott had given him the full measure of his due.
"Gentlemen," he said, with the somewhat stilted formality which was part of his manner, "I will say to you what I wouldn"t say to others,--I"m in a hole, and I want your advice. I"ll be as brief as possible, and I"ll come right to the point. For thirty years I"ve been building up the Rathbawne Mills, giving them every hour of my thought, every particle of my strength, every atom of my ability. I"ve seen them grow from a little shanty on the outskirts of Kenton City to a collection of buildings covering four solid squares, filled with modern machinery, and employing four thousand, two hundred and odd hands. I"ve been a business man, I"ve been a rigid man, but I"ve been a fair man, too. No one can say that I ever clipped wages, even when I had to run the mills at a loss, as I"ve had to do more than once. I gave my people an eight-hour day long before the law of Alleghenia jammed it down the throats of other mill-owners.
I swallowed the Union, though it was a bitter mouthful. There has never been a just complaint from one of my employees that wasn"t attended to in short order, if it was in my power to do so. There"s many an old fossil on my pay-rolls to-day who isn"t worth his salt, but he stays there, and will continue to stay there, because he did his best when he could, and it"s not his fault that he"s dead wood now. I"ve given in, over and over again, in one way or another, sometimes against my convictions, and oftener against my will. But one thing I"ve stuck to, and that"s my right to discharge a hand when I see fit, without dictation from the Union or anybody else. In the past, this has been comparatively easy sailing. One man, now and again, isn"t a ripple on the surface of four thousand employees. Besides, there was always a good reason. The others saw that, and there was never a finger raised. They believed in me, through and through, and it has been my pride to know that they did, and that they had good cause to. But now it"s different.
There has been a band of young good-for-nothings in Shop 22, who were full, chock-a-block, of socialism, and equality, and workingmen"s rights, and G.o.d knows what-not! They"ve talked enough poisonous gas to the other hands to blow up a state. They distributed pamphlets, and made speeches, and organized clubs, and fomented discord, till I got sick and tired of it. There wasn"t one square day"s work in the whole fifteen of them put together. So, when I"d stood them as long as I could--which was at ten o"clock yesterday morning--I discharged them all in a bunch, and if there"d been a steep place handy, I"d have expected to see them all run violently down it into the sea--like the other swine, in Scripture.
For if ever there was a band of devils made incarnate, it was that same fifteen who were sowing anarchy broadcast through the Rathbawne Mills!
"Now--what? Lo and behold, they are all henchmen and disciples of Michael McGrath, whom we in Kenton City know to our cost, and regular and loyal members--save the mark!--of his Union. Well, gentlemen, I"ve got that Union about my ears like a nest of hornets, with McGrath at the head, and unless those fifteen men are reinstated by noon to-morrow, my four thousand hands will be out on strike, and the Rathbawne Mills will be tied up as tight as a drum!"
"Fight "em!" said Colonel Broadcastle curtly, as the other paused.
"That"s what I meant to do--but where am I going to come out? If I thought, for instance, that I was going to have your regiment to back me up, Broadcastle, or even the Kenton City police, why, well and good! But _am_ I? No, sir! _No_, sir! Not with Elijah Abbott in the Governor"s chair, I"m not! You know that as well as I. Why, Broadcastle, I"d rather see McGrath himself at the capitol than that smooth-spoken skunk!"
He paused to relight his cigar, and then continued.
"The Rathbawne Mills are like the fruit of my own body to me. I love them! I love every stone and brick of them, that I"ve put in place, as it were, with my own hands. I"ve often thought that if they should burn down it would come close to killing me. And yet I could watch them go with a lighter heart, G.o.d knows, than that with which I foresee the misery that"s coming to these people of mine, who are going to starve at the bidding of a band of black-legs, and that not even because they think their cause a just one, but simply because they can"t help themselves. It isn"t only that ruin"s staring me in the face, though there"s that possibility in the situation, too, but that privation, bitter misery, and despair are lying in wait for them. G.o.d!--what an iniquity!
"But I _can"t_ give in, Broadcastle--I _can"t_ give in, John Barclay! It means the sacrifice of a principle I"ve held out for, and that I know is right. What"s more, it isn"t as if I were yielding one point. It would only be the beginning. If I give in now, I might as well turn over the mills to McGrath at once, and let him run them according to his own blackguardly will. You know how such things go. Give them an inch"--
"And they raise a h.e.l.l!" put in Colonel Broadcastle.
"Exactly! It"s commercial suicide. And yet, if I _don"t_ yield, I"m precipitating disorder, and bloodshed, and the untold suffering of four thousand souls. What am I to do?"
"Fight "em!" said Colonel Broadcastle, with a sharp nod of his head.
Rathbawne turned from him to the Lieutenant-Governor, and to the latter, knowing the man he had been, there was something indescribably heart-rending in the sudden, irresolute trembling of his half-raised hands, the slow shake of his head, and the pathos of his raised eyebrows and drooping lips.
"John," he said, "I"m an old man, and you"re a young one, but I"m a 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 G.o.d! 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 t.i.tle 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 G.o.d 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 s.p.a.ces 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!"