This page contains affiliate links. As Amazon Associates we earn from qualifying purchases.
Language:
Form:
Genre:
Published:
Collection:
Tags:
Buy it on Amazon FREE Audible 30 days

man of that kind did not belong in her sister-in-law’s house, anyway, nor in her own–a man who could appeal to a woman for a favourable opinion of himself, asking her to suspend her reason, stifle logic, stultify her own intelligence, and trust to a sentimental impulse that he deserved the toleration and consideration which he asked for. . . . It was certainly well for her that he should not return. . . . It would be better for her to lay the entire matter before her sister-in-law–that was what she would do immediately!

She sprang to her feet and ran lightly up-stairs; but, fast as she fled, thought outran her slender flying feet, and she came at last very leisurely into Celia’s room, a subdued, demure opportunist, apparently with nothing on her mind and conscience,

“If I may have the carriage at ten, Celia, I’ll begin on the Destitute Children to-morrow. . . . Poor babies! . . . If they only had once a week as wholesome food as is wasted in this city every day by Irish servants . . . which reminds me–I suppose you will have to invite your new kinsman to dine with you.”

“There is loads of time for that, Honey-bud,” said her sister-in-law, glancing up absently from the note she was writing.

“I was merely wondering whether it was necessary at all,” observed Ailsa Paige, without interest.

But Celia had begun to write again. “I’ll ask him,” she said in her softly preoccupied voice, “Saturday, I think.”

“Oh, but I’m invited to the Cortlandt’s,” began Ailsa, and caught her under lip in her teeth. Then she turned and walked noiselessly into her bedroom, and sat down on the bed and looked at the wall.

CHAPTER IV

It was almost mid-April; and still the silvery-green tassels on the wistaria showed no hint of the blue petals folded within; but the maples’ leafless symmetry was already veined with fire. Faint perfume from Long Island woodlands, wandering puffs of wind from salt meadows freshened the city streets; St. Felix Street boasted a lilac bush in leaf; Oxford Street was gay with hyacinths and a winter-battered butterfly; and in Fort Greene Place the grassy door-yards were exquisite with crocus bloom. Peace, good-will, and spring on earth; but in men’s souls a silence as of winter.

To Northland folk the unclosing buds of April brought no awakening; lethargy fettered all, arresting vigour, sapping desire. An immense inertia chained progress in its tracks, while overhead the gray storm-wrack fled away,–misty, monstrous, gale-driven before the coming hurricane.

Still, for the Northland, there remained now little of the keener suspense since those first fiery outbursts in the South; but all through the winter the dull pain throbbed in silence as star after star dropped from the old galaxy and fell flashing into the new.

And it was a time of apathy, acquiescence, stupefied incredulity; a time of dull faith in destiny, duller resignation.

The printed news was read day after day by a people who understood nothing, neither the cautious arming nor the bold disarming, nor the silent fall of fortified places, nor the swift dismantling of tall ships–nor did they comprehend the ceaseless tremors of a land slowly crumbling under the subtle pressure–nor that at last the vast disintegration of the matrix would disclose the forming crystal of another nation cradled there, glittering, naming under the splendour of the Southern skies.

A palsied Old Year had gone out. The mindless old man–he who had been President–went with it. A New Year had come in, and on its infant heels shambled a tall, gaunt shape that seated itself by the White House windows and looked out into the murk of things with eyes that no man understood.

And now the soft sun of April spun a spell upon the Northland folk; for they had eyes but they saw not; ears had they, but they heard not; neither spoke they through the mouth.

To them only one figure seemed real, looming above the vast and motionless mirage where a continent stood watching the parapets of a sea-girt fort off Charleston.

But the nation looked too long; the mirage closed in; fort, sea, the flag itself, became unreal; the lone figure on the parapet turned to a phantom. God’s will was doing. Who dared doubt?

“There seems to be no doubt in the South,” observed Ailsa Paige to her brother-in-law one fragrant evening after dinner where, in the dusk, the family had gathered on the stoop after the custom of a simpler era.

Along the dim street long lines of front stoops blossomed with the light spring gowns of women and young girls, pale, dainty clusters in the dusk set with darker figures, where sparks from cigars glowed and waned in the darkness.

Windows were open, here and there a gas jet in a globe flickered inside a room, but the street was dusky and tranquil as a country lane, and unilluminated save where at far intervals lamp-posts stood in a circle of pale light, around which a few moths hovered.

“The rebels,” repeated Ailsa, “appear to have no doubts, honest or otherwise. They’ve sent seven thousand troops to the Charleston fortifications–the paper says.”

Stephen Craig heard his cousin speak but made no response. He was smoking openly and in sight of his entire family the cigar which had, heretofore, been consumed surreptitiously. His mother sat close to his shoulder, rallying him like a tormenting schoolgirl, and, at intervals, turning to look back at her husband who stood on the steps beside her, a little amused, a little proud, a little inclined to be critical of this tall son of his who yesterday had been a boy.

The younger daughters of the house, Paige and Marye, strolled past, bareheaded, arms linked, in company with Camilla and Jimmy Lent.

“O dad!” called out Paige softly, “Jim says that Major Anderson is to be reinforced at once. There was a bulletin this evening.”

“I am very glad to hear it, sweetheart,” said her father, smiling through his eye-glasses.

Stephen bent forward across his mother’s shoulder. “Is that true, father?”

“Camilla’s brother has probably been reading the _Tribune’s_ evening bulletin. The _Herald_ bulletin says that the Cabinet has ordered the evacuation of Fort Sumter; the _Times_ says Major Anderson is to be reinforced; the _World_ says that he abandoned the fort last night; and they all say he has been summoned to surrender. Take your choice, Steve,” he added wearily. “There is only one wire working from the South, and the rebels control that.”

“Are you tired, Curt?” asked his wife, looking around and up at him.

He seated himself and readjusted his eye-glasses.

“No, dear–only of this nightmare we are living in”–he stopped abruptly. Politics had been avoided between them. There was a short silence; he felt his wife’s hand touch his in the darkness–sign of a tender respect for his perplexity, but not for his political views.

“Forgive me, dear, for using the word ‘rebel,'” he said, smiling and straightening his shoulders. “Where have you and Ailsa been to-day? Did you go to New York?”

“Yes. We saw the Academy, and, oh, Curt! there are some very striking landscapes–two by Gifford; and the cutest portrait of a girl by Wiyam Hunt. And your friend Bierstadt has a Western scene–all fireworks! and, dear, Eastman Johnson was there–and Kensett sent such a cunning little landscape. We lunched at Taylor’s.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Ailsa did look too cute fo’ words. I declare she is the most engaging little minx. Eve’y man sta’ed at her. I _wish_ she would marry again and be happy. _She_ doesn’t know what a happy love affair can be–poor baby.”

“Do you?” asked her husband.

“Are you beginning to co’t me again, Curt?”

“Have I ever ceased?–you little Rebel!”

“No,” she said under her breath.

“By the way, Celia,” he said smiling, “that young man–cousin of yours–Berkley, turned up promptly to-day. I gave him a room in the office.”

“That was certainly ve’y frien’ly of you, Curt!” she responded warmly. “You _will_ be patient with him, won’t you?”

“I’ve had to be already. I gave him a commission to collect some rents and he came back fifty dollars short, calmly explaining that one of our lodgers looked poor and he hated to ask for the rent.”

“O Curt–the boy is ve’y sweet and wa’m-hearted. Were you cross with him?”

“Not very. I imparted a few plain truths–very pleasantly, Celia. He knew better; there’s a sort of an impish streak in him–also an inclination for the pleasant by-ways of life. . . . He had better let drink alone, too, if he expects to remain in my office. I told him that.”

“Does he–the foolish baby!”

“Oh, probably not very much. I don’t know; he’s likable, but–he hasn’t inspired me with any overwhelming respect and confidence. His record is not exactly savoury. But he’s your protege, and I’ll stand him as long as you can.”

“Thank you, Curt. We must be gentle to him. I shall ask him to dinner and we can give a May dance perhaps–something informal and pretty–What is the matter, Curt?”

“Nothing, dear. . . . Only I wouldn’t plan anything just yet–I mean for the present–not for a few days, anyway—-“

He shrugged, removed his glasses, polished them on his handkerchief, and sat holding them, his short-sighted eyes lost in reverie.

His wife endured it to the limit of patience:

“Curt,” she began in a lower voice, “you and I gen’ally avoid certain matters, dear–but–ev’ything is sure to come right in the end–isn’t it? The No’th is going to be sensible.”

“In the–end,” he admitted quietly. And between them the ocean sprang into view again.

“I wonder–” She stopped, and an inexplicable uneasiness stirred in her breast. She looked around at her son, her left hand fell protectingly upon his shoulder, her right, groping, touched her husband’s sleeve.

“I am–well cared for–in the world,” she sighed happily to herself. “It shall not come nigh me.”

Stephen was saying to Ailsa:

“There’s a piece of up-town property that came into the office to-day which seems to me significant of the future. It would be a good investment for you, Cousin Ailsa. Some day Fifth Avenue will be built up solidly with brown-stone mansions as far as the Central Park. It is all going to be wonderfully attractive when they finish it.”

Ailsa mused for a moment. Then:

“I walked down this street to Fort Greene this afternoon,” she began, “and the little rocky park was so sweet and fragrant with dogwood and Forsythia and new buds everywhere. And I looked out over the rivers and the bay and over the two cities and, Steve, somehow–I don’t know why–I found my eyes filling with tears. I don’t know why, Steve—-“

“Feminine sentiment,” observed her cousin, smoking.

Mrs. Craig’s fingers became restless on her husband’s sleeve; she spoke at moments in soft, wistful tones, watching her younger daughters and their friends grouped under the trees in the dusk. And all the time, whatever it was that had brought a new unease into her breast was still there, latent. She had no name to give it, no reason, no excuse; it was too shadowy to bear analysis, too impalpable to be defined, yet it remained there; she was perfectly conscious of it, as she held her husband’s sleeve the tighter.

“Curt, is business so plaguey poor because of all these politics?”

“My business is not very flourishing. Many men feel the uncertainty; not everybody, dear.”

“When this–_matter_–is settled, everything will be easier for you, won’t it? You look so white and tired, dear.”

Stephen overheard her.

“The _matter_, as you call it, won’t be settled without a row, mother–if you mean the rebellion.”

“Such a wise boy with his new cigar,” she smiled through a sudden resurgence of uneasiness.

The boy said calmly: “Mother, you don’t understand; and all the rest of the South is like you.”

“Does anybody understand, Steve?” asked his father, slightly ironical.

“Some people understand there’s going to be a big fight,” said the boy.

“Oh. Do you?”

“Yes,” he said, with the conviction of youth. “And I’m wondering who’s going to be in it.”

“The militia, of course,” observed Ailsa scornfully. “Camilla is forever sewing buttons on Jimmy’s dress uniform. He wears them off dancing.”

Mr. Craig said, unsmiling: “We are not a military nation, Steve; we are not only non-military but we are unmilitary–if you know what that means.”

“We once managed to catch Cornwallis,” suggested his son, still proudly smoking.

“I wonder how we did it?” mused his father.

“They were another race–those catchers of Cornwallis–those fellows in, blue-and-buff and powdered hair.”

“You and Celia are their grandchildren,” observed Ailsa, “and you are a West Point graduate.”

Her brother-in-law looked at her with a strange sort of humour in his handsome, near-sighted eyes:

“Yes, too blind to serve the country that educated me. And now it’s too late; the desire is gone; I have no inclination to fight, Ailsa. Drums always annoyed me. I don’t particularly like a gun. I don’t care for a fuss. I don’t wish to be a soldier.”

Ailsa said: “I rather like the noise of drums. I think I’d like–war.”

“Molly Pitcher! Molly Pitcher! Of what are you babbling,” whispered Celia, laughing down the flashes of pain that ran through her heart. “Wars are ended in our Western World. Didn’t you know it, grandchild of Vikings? There are to be no more Lake Champlains, only debates–_n’est ce pas_, Curt?–very grand debates between gentlemen of the South and gentlemen of the North in Congress assembled—-“

“_Two_ congresses assembled,” said Ailsa calmly, “and the debates will be at long range—-“

“By magnetic telegraph if you wish, Honey-bell,” conceded Celia hastily. “Oh, we must _not_ begin disputin’ about matters that nobody can possibly he’p. It will all come right; you know it will, don’t you, Curt?”

“Yes, I know it, somehow.”

Silence, fragrance, and darkness, through which rang the distant laugh of a young girl. And, very, very far away sounds arose in the city, dull, indistinct, lost for moments at a time, then audible again, and always the same sounds, the same monotony, and distant persistence.

“I do believe they’re calling an extra,” said Ailsa, lifting her head to listen.

Celia listened, too.

“Children shouting at play,” she said.

“They _are_ calling an extra, Celia!”

“No, little Cassandra, it’s only boys skylarking.”

For a while they remained listening and silent. The voices still persisted, but they sounded so distant that the light laughter from their neighbour’s stoop drowned the echoes.

Later, Jimmy Lent drifted into the family circle.

“They say that there’s an extra out about Fort Sumter,” he said. “Do you think he’s given up, Mr. Craig?”

“If there’s an extra out the fort is probably safe enough, Jim,” said the elder man carelessly. He rose and went toward the group of girls and youths under the trees.

“Come, children,” he said to his two daughters; and was patient amid indignant protests which preceded the youthful interchange of reluctant good-nights.

When he returned to the stoop Ailsa had gone indoors with her cousin. His wife rose to greet him as though he had been away on a long journey, and then, passing her arms around her schoolgirl daughters, and nodding a mischievous dismissal to Jimmy Lent, walked slowly into the house. Bolts were shot, keys turned; from the lighted front parlour came the notes of the sweet-toned square piano, and Ailsa’s voice:

–“Dear are her charms to me,
Dearest her constancy,
Aileen aroon–“

“Never mind any more of that silly song!” exclaimed Celia, imprisoning Ailsa’s arms from behind.

“Youth must with time decay,
Aileen aroon,
Beauty must fade away,
Aileen aroon–“

“Don’t, dear! please—-“

But Ailsa sang on obstinately:

“Castles are sacked in war,
Chieftains are scattered far,
Truth is a fixed star,
Aileen aroon.”

And, glancing back over her shoulder, caught her breath quickly.

“Celia! What _is_ the matter, dear?”

“Nothing. I don’t like such songs–just now—-“

“What songs?”

“I don’t know, Ailsa; songs about war and castles. Little things plague me. . . . There’s been altogether too much talk about war–it gets into ev’ything, somehow. I can’t seem to he’p it, somehow—-“

“Why, Celia! _You_ are not worrying?”

“Not fo’ myse’f, Honey-bud. Somehow, to-night–I don’t know–and Curt seemed a little anxious.”

She laughed with an effort; her natural gaiety returned to buoy her above this indefinable undercurrent of unrest.

Paige and Marye came in from the glass extension where their father was pacing to and fro, smoking his bedtime cigar, and their mother began her invariable running comment concerning the day’s events, rallying her children, tenderly tormenting them with their shortcomings–undarned stockings, lessons imperfectly learned, little household tasks neglected–she was always aware of and ready at bedtime to point out every sin of omission.

“As fo’ you, Paige, you are certainly a ve’y rare kind of Honey-bird, and I reckon Mr. Ba’num will sho’ly catch you some day fo’ his museum. Who ever heard of a shif’less Yankee girl except you and Marye?”

“O mother, how _can_ we mend _everything_ we tear? It’s heartless to ask us!”

“You don’t have to try to mend _ev’y_thing. Fo’ example, there’s Jimmy Lent’s heart—-“

A quick outbreak of laughter swept them–all except Paige, who flushed furiously over her first school-girl affair.

“That poor Jimmy child came to me about it,” continued their mother, “and asked me if I would let you be engaiged to him; and I said, ‘Certainly, if Paige wants to be, Jimmy. I was engaiged myse’f fo’ times befo’ I was fo’teen—-‘”

Another gale of laughter drowned her words, and she sat there dimpled, mischievous, naively looking around, yet in her careful soul shrewdly pursuing her wise policy of airing all sentimental matters in the family circle–letting in fresh air and sunshine on what so often takes root and flourishes rather morbidly at sixteen.

“It’s perfectly absurd,” observed Ailsa, “at your age, Paige—-“

“Mother was married at sixteen! Weren’t you, dearest?”

“I certainly was; but _I_ am a bad rebel and _you_ are good little Yankees; and good little Yankees wait till they’re twenty odd befo’ they do anything ve’y ridiculous.”

“We expect to wait,” said Paige, with a dignified glance at her sister.

“You’ve four years to wait, then,” laughed Marye.

“What’s the use of being courted if you have to wait four years?”

“And you’ve three years to wait, silly,” retorted Paige. “But I don’t care; I’d rather wait. It isn’t very long, now. Ailsa, why don’t you marry again?”

Ailsa’s lip curled her comment upon the suggestion. She sat under the crystal chandelier reading a Southern newspaper which had been sent recently to Celia. Presently her agreeable voice sounded in appreciative recitation of what she was reading.

“Hath not the morning dawned with added light? And shall not evening call another star Out of the infinite regions of the night To mark this day in Heaven? At last we are A nation among nations; and the world
Shall soon behold in many a distant port Another flag unfurled!”
“Listen, Celia,” she said, “this is really beautiful:

A tint of pink fire touched Mrs. Craig’s cheeks, but she said nothing. And Ailsa went on, breathing out the opening beauty of Timrod’s “Ethnogenesis”:

“Now come what may, whose favour need we court? And, under God, whose thunder need we fear?”

She stopped short, considering the printed page. Then, doubtfully:

“And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought, In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old
Who long since, in the limits of the North, Set up his evil throne, and warred with God– What if, both mad and blinded in their rage Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge, And with a hostile horde profane our sod!”

The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page; then:

“Nor would we shun the battleground! . . . The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend Their firmness and their calm,
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend The strength of pine and palm!
Call up the clashing elements around And test the right and wrong!
On one side creeds that dare to preach What Christ and Paul refused to teach—-“

“Oh!” she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; “Do they believe such things of us in the South, Celia?”

The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig’s cheeks; her lips unclosed, tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered. She meditated. Then: “Honey-bell,” she said tranquilly, “if we are bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain.”

“A _nation_!”

“Dear, we have always been that–only the No’th has just found it out. Charleston is telling her now. God give that our cannon need not repeat it.”

“But, Celia, the cannon _can’t_! The same flag belongs to us both.”

“Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird.” There came a subtle ringing sound in Celia Craig’s voice; she leaned forward, taking the newspaper from Ailsa’s idle fingers:

“Try to be fair,” she said in unsteady tones. “God knows I am not trying to teach you secession, but suppose the guns on Governor’s Island were suddenly swung round and pointed at this street? Would you care ve’y much what flag happened to be flying over Castle William? Listen to another warning from this stainless poet of the South.” She opened the newspaper feverishly, glanced quickly down the columns, and holding it high under the chandelier, read in a hushed but distinct voice, picking out a verse here and there at random:

“Calm as that second summer which precedes The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds A city bides her foe.

“As yet, behind high ramparts stem and proud Where bolted thunders sleep,
Dark Sumter like a battlemented cloud Towers o’er the solemn deep.

“But still along the dim Atlantic’s line The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine From some frail floating oak.

“And still through streets re-echoing with trade Walk grave and thoughtful men
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot’s blade As lightly as the pen.

“And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim Over a wounded hound
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him Whose sword-knot she hath hound.

“Thus, girt without and garrisoned at home, Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome Across her tranquil bay.

“Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in steel, And with an unscathed brow,
Watch o’er a sea unvexed by hostile keel As fair and free as now?

“We know not. In the Temples of the Fates God has inscribed her doom;
And, all untroubled in her faith she waits Her triumph or her tomb!”

The hushed charm of their mother’s voice fascinated the children. Troubled, uncertain, Ailsa rose, took a few irresolute steps toward the extension where her brother-in-law still paced to and fro in the darkness, the tip of his cigar aglow. Then she turned suddenly.

“_Can’t_ you understand, Ailsa?” asked her sister-in-law wistfully.

“Celia–dearest,” she stammered, “I simply can’t understand. . . . I thought the nation was greater than all—-“

“The State is greater, dear. Good men will realise that when they see a sovereign people standing all alone for human truth and justice–standing with book and sword under God’s favour, as sturdily as ever Israel stood in battle fo’ the right!–I don’t mean to be disloyal to my husband in saying this befo’ my children. But you ask me, and I must tell the truth if I answer at all.”

Slender, upright, transfigured with a flushed and girlish beauty wholly strange to them, she moved restlessly back and forth across the room, a slim, lovely, militant figure all aglow with inspiration, all aquiver with emotion too long and loyally suppressed.

Paige and Marye, astonished, watched her without a word. Ailsa stood with one hand resting on the mantel, a trifle pale but also silent, her startled eyes following this new incarnation wearing the familiar shape of Celia Craig.

“Ailsa!”

“Yes, dear.”

“Can you think evil of a people who po’ out their hearts in prayer and praise? Do traitors importune fo’ blessings?”

She turned nervously to the piano and struck a ringing chord, another–and dropped to the chair, head bowed on her slim childish neck. Presently there stole through the silence a tremulous voice intoning the “Libera Nos,” with its strange refrain:

“_A furore Normanorum Libera nos, O Domme_!” Then, head raised, the gas-light flashing on her dull-gold hair, her voice poured forth all that was swelling and swelling up in her bruised and stifled heart:

“God of our fathers! King of Kings!
Lord of the earth and sea!
With hearts repentant and sincere
We turn in need to thee.”

She saw neither her children nor her husband nor Ailsa now, where they gathered silently beside her. And she sang on:

“In the name of God! Amen!
Stand for our Southern rights;
On our side. Southern men,
The God of Battles fights!
Fling the invader far–
Hurl back his work of woe–
His voice is the voice of a brother, But his hands are the hands of a foe.
By the blood which cries to Heaven. Crimson upon our sod
Stand, Southrons, fight and conquer In the Name of the Living God!”

Like receding battle echoes the chords, clashing distantly, died away.

If she heard her husband turn, enter the hallway, and unbolt the door, she made no sign. Ailsa, beside her, stooped and passed one arm around her.

“You–are not crying, are you, Celia, darling?” she whispered.

Her sister-in-law, lashes wet, rose with decision.

“I think that I have made a goose of myse’f to-night. Marye, will you say to your father that it is after eleven o’clock, and that I am waiting to be well scolded and sent to bed?”

“Father went out a few moments ago,” said Paige in an awed voice. “I heard him unbolt the front door.”

Ailsa turned and walked swiftly out into the hallway; the front door swung wide; Mr. Craig stood on the steps wearing his hat. He looked around as she touched his arm.

“Oh, is it you, Ailsa?” There was a moment’s indecision. Through it, once more, far away in the city The Voices became audible again, distant, vague, incessant.

“I thought–if it is actually an extra–” he began carelessly and hesitated; and she said:

“Let me go with you. Wait. I’ll speak to Celia.”

“Say to her that I’ll be gone only a moment.”

When Ailsa returned she slipped her arm through his and they descended the steps and walked toward Fulton Avenue. The Voices were still distant; a few people, passing swiftly through the dusk, preceded them. Far down the vista of the lighted avenue dark figures crossed and recrossed the street, silhouetted against the gas-lights; some were running. A man called out something as they passed him. Suddenly, right ahead in the darkness, they encountered people gathered before the boarded fence of a vacant lot, a silent crowd shouldering, pushing, surging back and forth, swarming far out along the dimly lighted avenue.

“There’s a bulletin posted there,” whispered Ailsa. “Could you lift me in your arms?”

Her brother-in-law stooped, clasped her knees, and lifted her high up above the sea of heads. Kerosene torches flickered beyond, flanking a poster on which was printed in big black letters:

“WASHINGTON, April 13, 1861, 6 A.M.
“At half-past four o’clock this morning fire was opened on Fort Sumter by the rebel batteries in the harbour. Major Anderson is replying with his barbette guns.”

“8 A.M.
“A private despatch to the N. Y. Herald says that the batteries on Mount Pleasant have opened on Sumter. Major Anderson has brought into action two tiers of guns trained on Fort Moultrie and the Iron Battery.”

“3 P.M.
“The fire at this hour is very heavy. Nineteen batteries are bombarding Sumter. The fort replies briskly. The excitement in Charleston is intense.”

“LATER.
“Heavy rain storm. Firing resumed this evening. The mortar batteries throw a shell into the fort every twenty minutes. The fort replies at intervals.”

“LATEST.
“The fort is still replying. Major Anderson has signalled the fleet outside.”

All this she read aloud, one hand resting on Craig’s shoulder as he held her aloft above the throng. Men crowding around and striving to see, paused, with up-turned faces, listening to the emotionless young voice. There was no shouting, no sound save the trample and shuffle of feet; scarcely a voice raised, scarcely an exclamation.

As Craig lowered her to the pavement, a man making his way out said to them:

“Well, I guess that ends it.”

Somebody replied quietly: “I guess that _begins_ it.”

Farther down the avenue toward the City Hall where the new marble court house was being built, a red glare quivered incessantly against the darkness; distant hoarse rumours penetrated the night air, accented every moment by the sharper clamour of voices calling the _Herald’s_ extras.

“Curt?”

“Yes, dear.”

“If he surrenders—-“

“It makes no difference what he does now, child.”

“I know it. . . . They’ve dishonoured the flag. This is war, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Will it be a long war?”

“I think not.”

“Who will go?”

“I don’t know. . . . Soldiers.”

“I didn’t suppose we had enough. Where are we going to get more?”

“The people–” he said absently–“everybody, I suppose. How do I know, child?”

“Just ordinary people?”

“Just ordinary people,” he responded quietly. A few minutes later as they entered their own street he said:

“I suppose I had better tell my wife about this to-night. I don’t know–it will be in the morning papers; but I think I had better break it to her to-night.”

“She will have to know–sometime–of course—-“

Halting at the foot of the stoop he turned and peered through his glasses at his sister-in-law.

“I don’t want Stephen to start any nonsense about going.”

“Going where?” she asked innocently.

He hesitated: “I don’t want to hear any talk from him about enlisting. That is what I mean. Your influence counts with him more deeply than you know. Remember that.”

“Steve–_enlist_!” she repeated blankly.

She could not yet comprehend what all this had to do with people she personally knew–with her own kin.

“He must not enlist, of course,” she said curtly. “There are plenty of soldiers–there will be plenty, of course. I—-“

Something silenced her, something within her sealed her lips. She stood in silence while Craig fitted his night-key, then entered the house with him. Gas burned low in the hall globes; when he turned it off a fainter light from above guided them.

“Celia, is that you?” she called gently,

“Hush; go to bed, Honey-bell. Everybody is asleep. How pale you are, Curt–dearest–dearest—-“

The rear room was Ailsa’s; she walked into it and dropped down on the bed in the darkness. The door between the rooms closed: she sat perfectly still, her eyes were wide open, staring in front of her.

Queer little luminous shapes danced through obscurity like the names from the kerosene torches around the bulletin; her ears still vibrated with the hoarse alarm of the voices; through her brain sounded her brother-in-law’s words about Steve, repeated incessantly, stupidly.

Presently she began to undress by sense of touch. The gas in the bathroom was lighted; she completed her ablutions, turned it off, and felt her way back to the bed.

Lying there she became aware of sounds from the front room. Celia was still awake; she distinguished her voice in quick, frightened exclamation; then the low murmur continued for a while, then silence fell.

She raised herself on one elbow; the crack of light under the door was gone; there was no sound, no movement in the house except the measured tick of the hall clock outside, tic-toc!–tic-toc!–tic-toc!

And she had been lying there a long, long while, eyes open, before she realised that the rhythm of the hall clock was but a repetition of a name which did not concern her in any manner:

“Berk-ley!–Berk-ley!–Berk-ley!”

How it had crept into her consciousness she could not understand; she lay still, listening, but the tic-toc seemed to fit the syllables of his name; and when, annoyed, she made a half disdainful mental attempt to substitute other syllables, it proved too much of an effort, and back into its sober, swinging rhythm slipped the old clock’s tic-toe, in wearisome, meaningless repetition:

“Berk-ley!–Berk-ley!–Berk-ley!”

She was awakened by a rapping at her door and her cousin’s imperative voice:

“I want to talk to you; are you in bed?”

She drew the coverlet to her chin and called out:

“Come in, Steve!”

He came, tremendously excited, clutching the _Herald_ in one hand.

“I’ve had enough of this rebel newspaper!” he said fiercely. “I don’t want it in the house again, ever. Father says that the marine news makes it worth taking, but—-“

“What on earth are you trying to say, Steve?”

“I’m trying to tell you that we’re at war! War, Ailsa! Do you understand? Father and I’ve had a fight already—-“

“What?”

“They’re still firing on Sumter, I tell you, and if the fort doesn’t hold out do you think I’m going to sit around the house like a pussy cat? Do you think I’m going to business every day as though nothing was happening to the country I’m living in? I tell you now–you and mother and father–that I’m not built that way—-“

Ailsa rose in bed, snatched the paper from his grasp, and leaning on one arm gazed down at the flaring head-lines:

THE WAR BEGUN

Very Exciting News from Charleston

Bombardment of Fort Sumter Commenced

Terrible Fire from the Secessionists’ Batteries

Brilliant Defence of Maj. Anderson

Reckless Bravery of the Confederate States Troops.

And, scanning it to the end, cried out:

“He hasn’t hauled down his flag! What are you so excited about?”

“I–I’m excited, of course! He can’t possibly hold out with only eighty men and nothing to feed them on. Something’s got to be done!” he added, walking up and down the room. “I’ve made fun of the militia–like everybody else–but Jimmy Lent is getting ready, and I’m doing nothing! Do you hear what I’m saying, Ailsa?”

She looked up from the newspaper, sitting there cross-legged under the coverlet.

“I hear you, Steve. I don’t know what you mean by ‘something’s got to be done.’ Major Anderson is doing what he can–bless him!”

“That’s all right, but the thing isn’t going to stop there.”

“Stop where?”

“At Sumter. They’ll begin firing on Fortress Monroe and Pensacola–I–how do you know they’re not already thinking about bombarding Washington? Virginia is going out of the Union; the entire South is out, or going. Yesterday, I didn’t suppose there was any use in trying to get them back again. Father did, but I didn’t. I think it’s got to be done, now. And the question is, Ailsa, whose going to do it?”

But she was fiercely absorbed again in the news, leaning close over the paper, tumbled dull-gold hair falling around her bare shoulders, breath coming faster and more irregularly as she read the incredible story and strove to comprehend its cataclysmic significance.

“If others are going, I am,” repeated her cousin sullenly.

“Going where, Steve?–Oh——“

She dropped the paper and looked up, startled; and he looked back at her, defiant, without a flicker in those characteristic family eyes of his, clear as azure, steady to punishment given or taken–good eyes for a boy to inherit. And he inherited them from his rebel mother.

“Father can’t keep me home if other people go,” he said.

“Wait until other people go.” She reached out and laid a hand on his arm.

“Things are happening too fast, Steve, too fast for everybody to quite understand just yet. Everybody will do what is the thing to do; the family will do what it ought to. . . . Has your mother seen this?”

“Yes. Neither she nor father have dared speak about it before us–” He made a gesture of quick despair, walked to the window and back.

“It’s a terrible thing, Ailsa, to have mother feel as she does.”

“How could she feel otherwise?”

“I’ve done my best to explain to her—-“

“O Steve! _You_!–when it’s a matter between her soul and God!”

He said, reddening: “It’s a matter of common-sense–I don’t mean to insult mother–but–good Lord, a nation is a nation, but a state is only a state! I–hang it all–what’s the use of trying to explain what is born in one—-“

“The contrary was born in your mother, Steve. Don’t ever talk to her this way. And–go out, please, I wish to dress.”

He went away, saying over his shoulders: “I only wanted to tell you that I’m not inclined to sit sucking my thumb if other men go, and you can say so to father, who has forbidden me to mention the subject to him again until I have his permission.”

But he went away to business that morning with his father, as usual; and when evening came the two men returned, anxious, dead tired, having passed most of the day standing in the dense throngs that choked every street around the bulletin boards of the newspaper offices.

Ailsa had not been out during the day, nor had Mrs. Craig, except for an hour’s drive in the family coupe around the district where preliminary surveys for the new Prospect Park were being pushed.

They had driven for almost an hour in utter silence. Her sister-in-law’s hand lay clasped in hers, but both looked from the carriage windows without speaking, and the return from the drive found them strangely weary and inclined for the quiet of their own rooms. But Celia Craig could not close her eyes even to feign sleep to herself.

When husband and son returned at evening, she asked nothing of the news from them, but her upturned face lingered a second or two longer as her husband kissed her, and she clung a little to Stephen, who was inclined to be brief with her.

Dinner was a miserable failure in that family, which usually had much to compare, much to impart, much badinage and laughter to distribute. But the men were weary and uncommunicative; Estcourt Craig went to his club after dinner; Stephen, now possessing a latch-key, disappeared shortly afterward.

Paige and Marye did embroidery and gossipped together under the big crystal chandelier while their mother read aloud to them from “Great Expectations,” which was running serially in _Harper’s Weekly_. Later she read in her prayer-book; later still, fully dressed, she lay across the bed in the alcove staring at the darkness and listening for the sound of her husband’s latch-key in the front door,

When it sounded, she sprang up and hastily dried her eyes.

“The children and Ailsa are all abed, Curt. How late you are! It was not very wise of you to go out–being so tired–” She was hovering near him as though to help his weariness with her small offices; she took his hat, stood looking at him, then stepped nearer, laying both hands on his shoulders, and her face against his.

“I am–already tired of the–war,” she sighed. “Is it ended yet, Curt?”

“There is no more news from Sumter.”

“You will–love me–best–anyway. Curt–won’t you?”

“Do you doubt it?”

She only drew a deep, frightened breath. For within her heart she felt the weight of the new apprehension–the clairvoyant premonition of a rival that she must prepare to encounter–a rival that menaced her peace of mind–a shape, shadowy as yet, but terrible, slowly becoming frightfully denned–a Thing that might one day wean this man from her–husband, and son, too–both perhaps—-.

“Curt,” she faltered, “it will all come right in the end. Say it. I am afraid.”

“It will come out all right,” he said gently. They kissed, and she turned to the mirror and silently began preparing for the night.

With the calm notes of church bells floating out across the city, and an April breeze blowing her lace curtains, Ailsa awoke. Overhead she heard the trample of Stephen’s feet as he moved leisurely about his bedroom. Outside her windows in the backyard, early sunshine slanted across shrub and grass and white-washed fence; the Sunday quiet was absolute, save for the church bells.

She lay there listening and thinking; the church bells ceased; and after a while, lying there, she began to realise that the silence was unnatural–became conscious of something ominous in the intense quiet outside–a far-spread stillness which was more than the hush of Sabbath.

Whether or not the household was still abed she did not know; no sound came from Celia’s room; nor were Marye and Paige stirring on the floor above when she rose and stole out barefooted to the landing, holding a thin silk chamber robe around her. She paused, listening; the tic-toc of the hall clock accented the silence; the door that led from Celia’s chamber into the hall stood wide open, and there was nobody in sight. Something drew her to the alcove window, which was raised; through the lace curtains she saw the staff of the family flag set in its iron socket at right angles to the facade–saw the silken folds stirring lazily in the sunshine, tiptoed to the window and peered out.

As far as her eyes could see, east and west, the street was one rustling mass of flags.

For a second her heart almost hurt her with its thrilling leap; she caught her breath; the hard tension in her throat was choking her; she dropped to her knees by the sill, drew a corner of the flag to her, and laid her cheek against it.

Her eyes unclosed and she gazed out upon the world of flags; then, upright, she opened her fingers, and the crinkled edges of the flag, released, floated leisurely out once more into the April sunshine.

When she had dressed she found the family in the dining-room–her sister-in-law, serene but pale, seated behind the coffee urn, Mr. Craig and Stephen reading the Sunday newspapers, Paige and Marye whispering together over their oatmeal and cream.

She kissed Celia, dropped the old-fashioned, half-forgotten curtsey to the others, and stood hesitating a moment, one hand resting on Celia’s shoulder.

“Is the fort holding out?” she asked.

Stephen looked up angrily, made as though to speak, but a deep flush settled to the roots of his hair and he remained silent.

“Fort Sumter has surrendered,” said her brother-in-law quietly.

Celia whispered: “Take your seat now, Honey-bell; your breakfast is getting cold.”

At church that Sunday the Northern clergy prayed in a dazed sort of way for the Union and for the President; some addressed the Most High as “The God of Battles.” The sun shone brightly; new leaves were startling on every tree in every Northern city; acres of starry banners drooped above thousands of departing congregations, and formed whispering canopies overhead.

Vespers were solemn; April dusk fell over a million roofs and spires; twinkling gas jets were lighted in street lamps; city, town, and hamlet drew their curtains and bowed their heads in darkness. A dreadful silence fell over the North–a stillness that breeds epochs and the makers of them.

But the first gray pallor of the dawn awoke a nation for the first time certain of its entity, roaring its comprehension of it from the Lakes to the Potomac, from sea to sea; and the red sun rose over twenty States in solid battle line thundering their loyalty to a Union undivided,

And on that day rang out the first loud call to arms; and the first battalion of the Northland, seventy-five thousand strong, formed ranks, cheering their insulted flag.

Then, southward, another flag shot up above the horizon. The world already knew it as The Stars and Bars. And, beside it, from its pointed lance, whipped and snapped and fretted another flag–square, red, crossed by a blue saltier edged with white on which glittered thirteen stars.

It was the battle flag of the Confederacy flashing the answer to the Northern cheer.

CHAPTER V

“Burgess!”

“Sir?”

Berkley sat up in bed and viewed his environment with disgust.

“These new lodgings would make a fair kennel, wouldn’t they, Burgess?–if a man isn’t too particular about his dog.”

The servant entered with a nasty smirk. “Yes, sir; I seen a rat last night.”

“He’s not the only one, is he, Burgess,” yawned Berkley. “Oh, hell! I’ve got to dress. Did you paint that bathtub? I guess you did, the place reeks like a paint shop. Anyway, it kills less desirable aromas. Where’s the water?”

He swung his symmetrical body to the bed’s edge, dropped lightly to the carpet, unloosed his night robe, and stretched himself.

“Was I very drunk, Burgess?”

“No, sir; you just went to sleep. You haven’t got no headache, have you?”

“No–but it was only corn whisky. I didn’t remember what I did with it. Is there any left?”

“Not much, sir.”

The servant, ugly to the verge of deformity, and wearing invariably the abominable smirk that disgusted others but amused Berkley, went about his duties.

Berkley blinked at him reflectively, then bathed, dressed, and sat down to a bowl of chocolate and a bit of bread.

“What the devil was all that row this morning, Burgess?”

“War, sir. The President has called for seventy-five thousand men. Here it is, sir.” And he laid a morning paper beside the cup of chocolate, which Berkley studied between sips, commenting occasionally aloud:

“Heavens, Burgess, why, we’re a race of patriots! Now who on earth could have suspected that. . . . Why, we seem to be heroes, too! What do you think of that, Burgess? You’re a hero; I’m a hero; everybody north of Charleston is an embattled citizen or a hero! Isn’t it funny that nobody realised all this before?” . . . He turned the paper leisurely sipping his chocolate. . . . “_Of_ course–the ‘dear old flag’! That’s the cheese, isn’t it, Burgess? Been insulted, hasn’t it? And we’re all going to Charleston to punch that wicked Beauregard in the nose. . . . Burgess, you and I are neglecting our duty as heroes; there’s much shouting to be done yet, much yelling in the streets, much arguing to be done, many, many cocktails to be firmly and uncompromisingly swallowed. Are you prepared to face the serious consequences of being a hero?”

“Yes, sir,” said Burgess.

“You merit well of the republic! The country needs you. Here’s half a dollar. Do your duty unflinchingly–at the nearest bar!”

Burgess took the coin with a smirk.

“Mr. Berkley, the landlady sent word that times is hard.”

“Bless her soul! They _are_ hard, Burgess. Inform her of my sentiments,” said Berkley cordially. “Now, my hat and cane, if you please. We’re a wonderful people, Burgess; we’ll beat our walking-sticks into bayonets if Mr. Beauregard insists on saying boo to us too many times in succession. . . . And, Burgess?”

“Sir?”

“Now that you have waked up this morning to find yourself a hero, I think you’d better find yourself another and more spectacular master. My heroism, for the future, is to be more or less inconspicuous; in fact, I begin the campaign by inserting my own studs and cleaning my own clothes, and keeping out of gaol; and the sooner I go where that kind of glory calls me the sooner my name will be emblazoned in the bright lexicon of youth where there’s no such word as ‘jail.'”,

“Sir?”

“In simpler and more archaic phrase, I can’t afford you, Burgess, unless I pilfer for a living.”

“I don’t eat much, sir.”

“No, you don’t _eat_ much.”

“I could quit drinking, sir.”

“_That_ is really touching, Burgess. This alcohol pickled integument of yours covers a trusting heart. But it won’t do. Heroics in a hall bedroom cut no coupons, my poor friend. Our paths to glory and the grave part just outside the door-sill yonder.”

“_She_ said I could stay, sir.”

“Which _she_?”

“The landlady. I’m to fetch coal and run errants and wait on table. But you’ll get the best cuts, sir. And after hours I can see to your clothes and linen and boots and hats, and do your errants same like the usual.”

“Now this is nearly as pathetic as our best fiction,” said Berkley; “ruined master, faithful man–_won’t_ leave–starves slowly at his master’s feet–tootle music very sneaky–‘transformation! Burgess in heaven, blinking, puzzled, stretching one wing, reflectively scratching his halo with right hind foot. Angel chorus. Burgess appears to enjoy it and lights one of my best cigars—-“

“Sir?” said Burgess, very red.

Berkley swung around, levelled his walking-stick, and indicated the pit of his servant’s stomach:

“Your face is talking now; wait till _that_ begins to yell. It will take more than I’m earning to fill it.”

He stood a moment, smiling, curious. Then:

“You’ve been as faithless a valet as any servant who ever watered wine, lost a gimcrack, or hooked a weed. Studs, neckcloths, bootjacks, silk socks, pins, underwear–all magically and eventually faded from my wardrobe, wafted to those silent bournes of swag that valets wot of. What in hell do you want to stay _here_ for now, you amusing wastrel?”

“Yes, sir. I’d prefer to stay with you.”

“But there’ll be no more pleasant pickings, my poor and faithless steward! If you should convert anything more to your own bank account I’ll be obliged to stroll about naked.”

“Yes, sir,” muttered Burgess; “I brought back some things last night–them socks, shirt-pins and studs, and the fob. . . . Yes, sir; I fetched ’em back, I did–” A sudden and curious gleam of pride crossed the smirk for an instant;–“I guess my gentleman ain’t agoing to _look_ no worse than the next Fifth Avenue swell he meets–even if he ain’t et no devilled kidneys for breakfast and he don’t dine on no canvas-back at Delmonico’s. No, sir.”

Berkley sat down on the bed’s edge and laughed until he could scarcely see the man, who observed him in patient annoyance. And every time Berkley looked at him he went into another fit of uncontrollable laughter, as he realised the one delightful weakness in this thorough-paced rogue–pride in the lustre cast upon himself by the immaculate appearance of a fashionable master. But after reflection, it did not astonish him too much; the besetting weakness of rogues is vanity in one form or another. This happened to be an unusual form.

“Burgess,” he said, “I don’t care how you go to hell. Go with me if you like or go it alone.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Berkley gravely, and, tucking his cane up under one arm, he went out to business, drawing on a pair of lemon-coloured kid gloves.

Later he searched his pockets for the cigar he had denied himself the evening before. It was not there. In fact, at that moment, Burgess, in the boarding-house backyard, was promenading up and down, leering at the Swedish scullion, and enjoying the last expensive cigar that his master was likely to purchase in many a day.

The street, and avenue were seething with people; people stood at their windows looking out at the news-boys who swarmed everywhere, shouting endless extras; people were gathering on corners, in squares, along park railings, under porticos of hotels, and every one of them had a newspaper and was reading.

In front of the St. Nicholas Hotel a lank and shabby man had mounted a cracker box, and was evidently making a speech, but Berkley could distinguish nothing he said because of the wild cheering.

Everywhere, threading the throng, hurried boys and men selling miniature flags, red-white-and-blue rosettes, and tricoloured cockades; and everybody was purchasing the national colours–the passing crowd had already become bright with badges; the Union colours floated in streamers from the throats or sleeves of pretty girls, glinted in the lapels of dignified old gentlemen, decorated the hats of the stage-drivers and the blinders of their horses.

“Certainly,” said Berkley, buying a badge and pinning it in his button-hole. “Being a hero, I require the trade-mark. Kindly permit that I offer a suggestion–” a number of people waiting to buy badges; were now listening to him–“those gentlemen gathered there in front of the New York Hotel seem to be without these marks which distinguish heroes from citizens. No doubt they’ll be delighted to avail themselves of your offered cockades.”

A quick laugh broke out from those around, but there was an undertone of menace in it, because the undecorated gentlemen in front of the New York Hotel were probably Southerners, and Secessionists in principles; that hostelry being the rendezvous in New York of everything Southern.

So, having bestowed his mischievous advice, Berkley strolled on down Broadway, his destination being the offices of Craig and Son, City and Country Real Estate, where he had a desk to himself, a client or two in prospect, and considerable leisure to study the street, gas, and sewer maps of New York City.

Tiring of this distraction, he was always at liberty to twiddle his thumbs, twirl his pencil, yawn, blink, and look out of the window at the City Park across the way, where excited citizens maintained a steady yelling monotone before the neighbouring newspaper offices all day long.

He was also free to reflect upon his own personal shortcomings, a speculation perhaps less damaging than the recent one he had indulged in; and he thought about it sometimes; and sometimes about Ailsa Paige, whom he had not again seen since the unaccountable madness had driven him to trample and destroy the first real inclination he had ever had for a woman.

This inclination he occasionally found leisure to analyse, but, not understanding it, never got very far, except that, superficially, it had been more or less physical. From the moment he saw her he was conscious that she was different; insensibly the exquisitely volatile charm of her enveloped him, and he betrayed it, awaking her, first, to uneasy self-consciousness; then uneasy consciousness of him; then, imperceptibly, through distrust, alarm, and a thousand inexplicable psychological emotions, to a wistful interest that faintly responded to his. Ah! that response!–strange, childish, ignorant, restless–but still a response; and from obscure shallows unsuspected, uncomprehended–shallows that had never before warned her with the echo of an evanescent ripple.

For him to have reflected, reasoned, halted himself, had been useless from the beginning. The sister-in-law of this girl knew who and what he was and had been. There was no hope for him. To let himself drift; to evoke in her, sometimes by hazard, at times with intent, the delicate response–faint echo–pale shadow of the virile emotions she evoked in him, that, too, was useless. He knew it, yet curious to try, intent on developing communication through those exquisite and impalpable lines that threaded the mystery from him to her–from her to him.

And then, when the mystery all about them was aquiver, and her vague eyes met his through the magic, acquiescent under a sorcery for which she had no name–then, when all things occult breathed silence–then he had said too much!

It was perhaps as well that he had said it then as later–as well perhaps that, losing self-control, defeat had moved his tongue to boast, had fixed the empty eye and stamped the smile he wore with a confidence dead in him for ever.

He had said that he would come back. He knew that he would not.

It was the pitiful defiance of a boaster hopelessly hurt.

He no longer desired to see her again. Never again would he risk enduring what she had evoked in him, whatever it was of good or of evil, of the spiritual or the impure–he did not know he was aware only of what his eyes had beheld and his heart had begun to desire.

On his way back from the office that evening he met Camilla Lent and her uncle, the Captain, and would have passed with an amiable salute, but the girl evinced a decided desire to speak. So he turned and joined them.

“How do you do, Camilla? How are you, Captain Lent? This re-conversion of the nation’s ploughshares and pruning hooks is a noisy affair, isn’t it?”

“April 18th, 1861!” replied the Captain quickly. “What you hear, sir, is the attrition consequent upon the grinding together of certain millstones belonging to the gods.”

“I have no doubt of it, Captain Lent; they’ll probably make meal of us all. Are you offering your services, sir.”

Camilla said quickly, and with gayest confidence: “Uncle has been looking about casually. There are so many regiments forming, so many recruiting stations that we–we haven’t decided–have we, uncle?” And she gave Berkley a wistful, harrowing glance that enlightened him.

He said gravely: “I suppose the average age of these volunteers will be about eighteen. And if the militia go, too, it will be comforting for a defenceless city to know she has men of your experience to count on, Captain Lent.”

“_I_ am going to the front,” observed the Captain.

“There may be much to be done in New York, sir.”

“Then let the police do it,” said Captain Lent calmly. “The Union must and shall be preserved. If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him upon the spot. Et cetera, sir, et cetera.”

“Certainly. But it’s a question of niggers, too, I believe.”

“No, sir. It is _not_ a question of niggers. It is a question of who’s at the wheel, Union or State. I myself never had any doubts any more than I ever doubted the Unitarian faith! So it is no question for me, sir. What bothers me is to pick out the regiment most likely to be sent first.”

“We’ve walked our legs off,” said Camilla, aside, “and we’ve been in all kinds of frightful places where men are drilling and smoking and swearing and yelling; and I was dreadfully afraid a gun would go off or somebody would be impudent to uncle. The dear old thing,” she whispered, “he is perfectly sure they want him and that he has only to choose a regiment and offer his sword. Oh, dear! I’m beginning to be terribly unhappy–I’m afraid they won’t let him go and I’m deadly afraid they might! And I’m sure that Jim means to go. Oh, dear! Have you seen Ailsa Paige lately?”

“No. . . . I hope she is quite well.”

“You are not very enthusiastic.”

“I have every reason to be. She is a very winsome girl.”

“She’s a dear. . . . She has spoken of you several times.”

“That is most amiable of her, and of you to say so.”

“Oh, very,” laughed Camilla, tossing her pretty head, “but it evidently does not interest you very much. In fact–” she glanced sidewise–“it is understood that no woman ever interests you for more than forty-eight consecutive hours.”

“Pure slander, Camilla. _You_ do.”

“Oh–not in the way I mean.”

“Well, but you don’t expect me to be interested in Mrs. Paige–in the way _you_ mean do you?”

“Why not?” she asked mischievously.

“Because, to begin properly, Mrs. Paige is not likely ever to become interested in me.”

“I am heartily glad of it,” retorted Camilla. “You’d forget her in a week,”

“That’s more than forty-eight hours,” he said, laughing. “You’re flattering me now.”

“Anyway,” said Camilla, “I don’t see why everybody that knows her isn’t mad about Ailsa Paige. She has _such_ high principles, such ideals, such wonderful aspirations–” She clasped her hands sentimentally: “At times, Phil, she seems too ethereal, scarcely of earth–and yet I breakfasted with her and she ate twice as much as I did. _How_ does she keep that glorious figure!”

Plumpness was the bane and terror of Camilla’s life. Her smooth, suave white skin was glossy and tight; distracting curves, entrancing contours characterised her now; but her full red lips fairly trembled as she gazed at her parents’ portraits in her bedroom, for they had both been of a florid texture and full habit; and she had now long refused sugar and the comforts of sweetmeats dear to the palate of her age and sex. And mostly was this self-denial practised for the sake of a young and unobservant friend, one Stephen Craig, who had so far evinced no unusual inclination for her, or for anything except cigars and masculine society of his own age and condition.

She managed to get Philip Berkley to talk about Stephen, which ingenuity soothed her. But Philip was becoming bored, and he presently escaped to retrace his steps up Broadway, up Fifth Avenue, and then west to the exceedingly modest lodgings whither fate and misfortune had wafted him.

On the way he passed Colonel Arran’s big double house with a sullen and sidelong scowl, and continued onward with a shrug. But he smiled no more to himself.

Burgess was in the room, cross-legged on the floor, ironing out his master’s best coat.

“What the devil are you about,” said Philip ungraciously. “Get up. I need what floor I’ve got to stand on.”

Burgess obediently laid the board and the coat on a trunk and continued ironing; and Philip scowled at him askance.

“Why don’t you enlist?” he said. “Every car-driver, stage-driver, hackman, and racing-tout can become major-generals if they yell loud enough.”

Burgess continued ironing, then stole a glance at his master.

“Are you thinking of enlisting, sir?”

“No; I can’t pass the examination for lung power. By the way,” he added, laughing, “I overlooked the impudence of your question, too. But now is your time, Burgess. If I wanted you I’d have to put up with your insolence, I suppose.”

“But you don’t want me, sir.”

“Which restrains you,” said Philip, laughing. “Oh, go on, my friend. Don’t say ‘sir’ to me; it’s a badge of servitude pasted onto the vernacular. Say ‘Hi!’ if you like.”

“Sir?”

“Hell! I say don’t behave like a servant to me.”

“I _am_ a servant, sir.”

“You’re not mine.”

“Yes, sir, I am. Will you wear this coat this evening, sir?”

“God knows,” said the young fellow, sitting down and gazing about at the melancholy poverty of the place. . . . “Is there any of that corn whisky?”

“No, sir.”

“Damn it, you said there was this morning!”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

The man lied placidly; the master looked at him, then laughed.

“Poor old Burgess,” he said aloud as though to himself; “there wasn’t a skinful in that bottle. Well, I can’t get drunk, I can’t lie here and count from six to midnight and keep my sanity, I can’t smoke–you rascal, where’s my cigar? And I certainly can’t go out anywhere because I haven’t any money.”

“You might take the air on the avenue, sir. Your clothes are in order.”

“Poor Burgess! That was your amusement, wasn’t it?–to see me go out discreetly perfumed, in fine linen and purple, brave as the best of them in club and hall, in ballroom and supper room, and in every lesser hell from Crystal Palace cinders to Canal.

“Poor Burgess! Even the seventy-five pretty waitresses at the Gaities would turn up their seventy-five retrousse noses at a man with pockets as empty as mine.”

“Your clothes are fashionable. So is your figger, sir.”

“That settles it?” protested the young fellow, weak with laughter. “Burgess, _don’t_ go! Don’t _ever_ go! I do need you. Oh I _do_ want you, Burgess. Because there never will be anybody exactly like you, and I’ve only one life in which to observe you, study you, and mentally digest you. You _won’t_ go, will you?”

“No sir,” said Burgess with dignity.

CHAPTER VI

There was incipient demoralisation already in the offices of Craig & Son. Young gentlemen perched on high benches still searched city maps and explored high-way and by-way with compass and pencil-point, but their ears were alert to every shout from the streets, and their interest remained centred in the newspaper bulletins across the way, where excited crowds clamoured for details not forthcoming.

All day, just outside the glass doors of the office, Broadway streamed with people; and here, where the human counter currents running north and south encountered amid the racket of omnibuses, carts, carriages, and drays, a vast overflow spread turbulently, eddying out around the recruiting stations and newspaper offices which faced the City Park.

Sidewalks swarmed, the park was packed solid. Overhead flags flew from every flag pole, over every portal, across every alley and street and square–big nags, little flags, flags of silk, of cotton, of linen, of bunting, all waving wide in the spring sunshine, or hanging like great drenched flowers in the winnowing April rain.

And it was very hard for the young gentlemen in the offices of Craig & Son to keep their minds on their business.

Berkley had a small room to himself, a chair, a desk, a city map suspended against the wall, and no clients. Such occasional commissions as Craig & Son were able to give him constituted his sole source of income.

He also had every variety of time on his hands–leisure to walk to the window and walk back again, and then walk all around the room–leisure to go out and solicit business in a city where already business was on the edge of chaos and still sliding–leisure to sit for hours in his chair and reflect upon anything he chose–leisure to be hungry and satisfy the inclination with philosophy. He was perfectly at liberty to choose any subject and think about it. But he spent most of his time in trying to prevent himself from thinking.

However, from his window, the street views now were usually interesting; he was an unconvinced spectator of the mob which started for the _Daily News_ office, hissing, cat-calling, yelling: “Show your colours!” “Run up your colours!” He saw the mob visit the _Journal of Commerce_, and then turn on the _Herald_, yelling insult and bellowing threats which promptly inspired that journal to execute a political flip-flap that set the entire city smiling.

Stephen, who had conceived a younger man’s furtive admiration for Berkley and his rumoured misdemeanours, often came into his room when opportunity offered. That morning he chanced in for a moment and found Berkley at the window chewing the end of a pencil, perhaps in lieu of the cigar he could no longer afford.

“These are spectacular times,” observed the latter, with a gesture toward the street below. “Observe yonder ladylike warrior in brand-new regimentals. Apparently, Stephen, he’s a votary of Mars and pants for carnage; but in reality he continues to remain the sartorial artist whose pants are more politely emitted. He emitted these–” patting his trousers with a ruler. “On what goose has this my tailor fed that he hath grown so sightly!”

They stood watching the crowds, once brightened only by the red shirts of firemen or the blue and brass of a policeman, but now varied with weird uniforms, or parts of uniforms, constructed on every known and unknown pattern, military and unmilitary, foreign and domestic. The immortal army at Coventry was not more variegated.

“There’s a new poster across the street,” said Stephen. He indicated a big advertisement decorated with a flying eagle.

DOWN WITH SECESSION!

The Government Appeals to the
New York Fire Department for One Regiment of Zouaves!

Companies will select their own officers. The roll is at Engine House 138, West Broadway.

ELSWORTH, COL: ZOUAVES.

“That’s a good, regiment to enlist in, isn’t it?” said the boy restlessly.

“Cavalry for me,” replied Berkley, unsmiling; “they can run faster.”

“I’m serious,” said Stephen. “If I had a chance–” He turned on Berkley: “Why don’t you, enlist? There’s nothing to stop you, is there?”

“Nothing except constitutional timidity.”

“Then why don’t you?”

Berkley laughed. “Well, for one thing, I’m not sure how I’d behave in battle. I might be intelligent enough to run; I might be ass enough to fight. The enemy would have to take its chances.”

The boy laughed, too, turned to the window, and suddenly caught Berkley by the arm:

“Look! There’s something going on down by the Astor House!”

“A Massachusetts regiment of embattled farmers arrived in this hamlet last night. I believe they are to pass by here on their way to Washington,” remarked Berkley, opening the window and leaning out.

Already dense crowds of people were pushing, fighting, forcing their way past the windows, driven before double lines of police; already distant volleys of cheers sounded; the throb of drums became audible; the cheering sounded shriller, nearer.

Past the windows, through Broadway, hordes of ragged street arabs came running, scattered into night before another heavy escort of police. And now the on-coming drums could be heard more distinctly; and now two dusty officers marched into view, a colonel of Massachusetts infantry attended by a quartermaster of New York militia.

Behind them tramped the regimental band of the 6th Massachusetts, instruments slung; behind these, filling the street from gutter to gutter, surged the sweating drummers, deafening every ear with their racket; then followed the field and staff, then the Yankee regiment, wave on wave of bayonets choking the thoroughfare far as the eye could see, until there seemed no end to their coming, and the cheering had become an unbroken howl.

Stephen turned to Berkley: “A fellow can’t see too much of this kind of thing and stand it very long. Those soldiers are no older than I am!”

Berkley’s ironical reply was drowned in a renewed uproar as the Massachusetts soldiers wheeled and began to file into the Astor House, and the New York militia of the escort swung past hurrahing for the first Northern troops to leave for the front.

That day Berkley lunched in imagination only, seriously inclined to exchange his present board and lodgings for a dish of glory and a cot in barracks.

That evening, too, after a boarding-house banquet, and after Burgess had done his offices, he took the air instead of other and more expensive distraction; and tired of it thoroughly, and of the solitary silver coin remaining in his pocket.

From his clubs he had already resigned; other and less innocent haunts of his were no longer possible; some desirable people still retained him on their lists, and their houses were probably open to him, but the social instinct was sick; he had no desire to go; no desire even to cross the river for a penny and look again on Ailsa Paige. So he had, as usual, the evening on his hands, nothing in his pockets, and a very weary heart, under a last year’s evening coat. And his lodgings were becoming a horror to him; the landlady’s cat had already killed two enormous rats In the hallway; also cabbage had been cooked in the kitchen that day. Which left him no other choice than to go out again and take more air.

Before midnight he had no longer any coin in his pockets, and he was not drunk yet. The situation seemed hopeless, and he found a policeman and inquired politely for the nearest recruiting station; but when he got there the station was closed, and his kicks on the door brought nobody but a prowling Bowery b’hoy, sullenly in quest of single combat. So Berkley, being at leisure, accommodated him, picked him up, propped him limply against a doorway, resumed his own hat and coat, and walked thoughtfully and unsteadily homeward, where he slept like an infant in spite of rats, cabbage, and a swollen lip.

Next day, however, matters were less cheerful. He had expected to realise a little money out of his last salable trinket–a diamond he had once taken for a debt. But it seemed that the stone couldn’t pass muster, and he bestowed it upon Burgess, breakfasted on coffee and sour bread, and sauntered downtown quite undisturbed in the brilliant April sunshine.

However, the prospect of a small commission from Craig & Son buoyed up his natural cheerfulness. All the way downtown he nourished his cane; he hummed lively tunes in his office as he studied his maps and carefully read the real estate reports in the daily papers; and then he wrote another of the letters which he never mailed, strolled out to Stephen’s desk for a little gossip, reported himself to Mr. Craig, and finally sallied forth to execute that gentleman’s behest upon an upper Fifth Avenue squatter who had declined to vacate property recently dedicated to blasting, the Irish, and general excavation.

In a few moments he found himself involved in the usual crowd. The 8th Massachusetts regiment was passing in the wake of the 6th, its sister regiment of the day before, and the enthusiasm and noise were tremendous.

However, he extricated himself and went about his business; found the squatter, argued with the squatter, gracefully dodged a brick from the wife of the squatter, laid a laughing complaint before the proper authorities, and then banqueted in imagination. What a luncheon he had! He was becoming a Lucullus at mental feasts.

Later, his business affairs and his luncheon terminated, attempting to enter Broadway at Grand Street, he got into a crowd so rough and ungovernable that he couldn’t get out of it–an unreasonable, obstinate, struggling mass of men, women, and children so hysterical that the wild demonstrations of the day previous, and of the morning, seemed as nothing compared to this dense, far-spread riot.

Broadway from Fourth to Cortlandt Streets was one tossing mass of flags overhead; one mad surge of humanity below. Through it battalions of almost exhausted police relieved each other in attempting to keep the roadway clear for the passing of the New York 7th on its way to Washington.

Driven, crushed, hurled back by the played-out police, the crowds had sagged back into the cross streets. But even here the police charged them repeatedly, and the bewildered people turned struggling to escape, stumbled, swayed, became panic-stricken and lost their heads.

A Broadway stage, stranded in Canal Street, was besieged as a refuge. Toward it Berkley had been borne in spite of his efforts to extricate himself, incidentally losing his hat in the confusion. At the same moment he heard a quiet, unterrified voice pronounce his name, caught a glimpse of Ailsa Paige swept past on the human wave, set his shoulders, stemmed the rush from behind, and into the momentary eddy created, Ailsa was tossed, undismayed, laughing, and pinned flat against the forward wheel of the stalled stage.

“Climb up!” he said. “Place your right foot on the hub!–now the left on the tire!–now step on my shoulder!”

There came a brutal rush from behind; he braced his back to it; she set one foot on the hub, the other on the tire, stepped to his shoulder, swung herself aloft, and crept up over the roof of the stage. Here he joined her, offering an arm to steady her as the stage shook under the impact of the reeling masses below.

“How did you get into this mob?” he asked.

“I was caught,” she said calmly, steadying herself by the arm he offered and glancing down at the peril below. “Celia and I were shopping in Grand Street at Lord and Taylor’s, and I thought I’d step out of the shop for a moment to see if the 7th was coming, and I ventured too far–I simply could not get back. . . . And–thank you for helping me.” She had entirely recovered her serenity; she released his arm and now stood cautiously balanced behind the driver’s empty seat, looking curiously out over the turbulent sea of people, where already hundreds of newsboys were racing hither and thither shouting an afternoon extra, which seemed to excite everybody within hearing to frenzy.

“Can you hear what they are shouting?” she inquired. “It seems to make people very angry.”

“They say that the 6th Massachusetts, which passed through here yesterday, was attacked by a mob in Baltimore.”

“_Our_ soldiers!” she said, incredulous. Then, clenching her small hands: “If I were Colonel Lefferts of the 7th I’d march my men through Baltimore to-morrow!”

“I believe they expect to go through,” he said, amused. “That is what they are for.”

The rising uproar around was affecting her; the vivid colour in her lips and cheeks deepened. Berkley looked at her, at the cockade with its fluttering red-white-and-blue ribbons on her breast, at the clear, fearless eyes now brilliant with excitement and indignation.

“Have you thought of enlisting?” she asked abruptly, without glancing at him.

“Yes,” he said, “I’ve ventured that far. It’s perfectly safe to think about it. You have no idea, Mrs. Paige, what warlike sentiments I cautiously entertain in my office chair.”

She turned nervously, with a sunny glint of gold hair and fluttering ribbons:

“Are you _never_ perfectly serious, Mr. Berkley? Even at such a moment as this?”

“Always,” he insisted. “I was only philosophising upon these scenes of inexpensive patriotism which fill even the most urbane and peaceful among us full of truculence. . . . I recently saw my tailor wearing a sword, attired in the made-to-measure panoply of battle.”

“Did that strike you as humorous?”

“No, indeed; it fitted; I am only afraid he may find a soldier’s grave before I can settle our sartorial accounts.”

There was a levity to his pleasantries which sounded discordant to her amid the solemnly thrilling circumstances impending. For the flower of the city’s soldiery was going forth to battle–a thousand gay, thoughtless young fellows summoned from ledger, office, and counting-house; and all about her a million of their neighbours had gathered to see them go.

“Applause makes patriots. Why should I enlist when merely by cheering others I can stand here and create heroes in battalions?”

“I think,” she said, “that there was once another scoffer who remained to pray.”

As he did not answer, she sent a swift side glance at him, found him tranquilly surveying the crowd below where, at the corner of Canal and Broadway, half a dozen Zouaves, clothed in their characteristic and brilliant uniforms and wearing hairy knapsacks trussed up behind, were being vociferously acclaimed by the people as they passed, bayonets fixed.

“More heroes,” he observed, “made immortal while you wait.”

And now Ailsa became aware of a steady, sustained sound audible above the tumult around them; a sound like surf washing on a distant reef.

“Do you hear that? It’s like the roar of the sea,” she said. “I believe they’re coming; I think I caught a strain of military music a moment ago!”

They rose on tiptoe, straining their ears; even the skylarking gamins who had occupied the stage top behind them, and the driver, who had reappeared, drunk, and resumed his reins and seat, stood up to listen.

Above the noise of the cheering, rolling steadily toward them over the human ocean, came the deadened throbbing of drums. A far, thin strain of military music rose, was lost, rose again; the double thudding of the drums sounded nearer; the tempest of cheers became terrific. Through it, at intervals, they could catch the clear marching music of the 7th as two platoons of police, sixty strong, arrived, forcing their way into view, followed by a full company of Zouaves.

Then pandemonium broke loose as the matchless regiment swung into sight. The polished instruments of the musicians flashed in the sun; over the slanting drums the drumsticks rose and fell, but in the thundering cheers not a sound could be heard from brass or parchment.

Field and staff passed headed by the colonel; behind jolted two howitzers; behind them glittered the sabre-bayonets of the engineers; then, filling the roadway from sidewalk to sidewalk the perfect ranks of the infantry swept by under burnished bayonets.

They wore their familiar gray and black uniforms, forage caps, and blue overcoats, and carried knapsacks with heavy blankets rolled on top. And New York went mad.

What the Household troops are to England the 7th is to America. In its ranks it carries the best that New York has to offer. The polished metal gorgets of its officers reflect a past unstained; its pedigree stretches to the cannon smoke fringing the Revolution.

To America the 7th was always The Guard; and now, in the lurid obscurity of national disaster, where all things traditional were crashing down, where doubt, distrust, the agony of indecision turned government to ridicule and law to anarchy, there was no doubt, no indecision in The Guard. Above the terrible clamour of political confusion rolled the drums of the 7th steadily beating the assembly; out of the dust of catastrophe emerged its disciplined gray columns. Doubters no longer doubted, uncertainty became conviction; in a situation without a precedent, the precedent was established; the _corps d’elite_ of all state soldiery was answering the national summons; and once more the associated states of North America understood that they were first of all a nation indivisible.

Down from window and balcony and roof, sifting among the bayonets, fluttered an unbroken shower of tokens–gloves, flowers, handkerchiefs, tricoloured bunches of ribbon; and here and there a bracelet or some gem-set chain fell flashing through the sun.

Ailsa Craig, like thousands of her sisters, tore the red-white-and-blue rosette from her breast and flung it down among the bayonets with a tremulous little cheer.

Everywhere the crowd was breaking into the street; citizens marched with their hands on the shoulders of the soldiers; old gentlemen toddled along beside strapping sons; brothers passed arms around brothers; here and there a mother hung to the chevroned sleeve of son or husband who was striving to see ahead through blurring eyes; here and there some fair young girl, badged with the national colours, stretched out her arms from the crowd and laid her hands