________________________________________________
_ ABRAHAM LINCOLN!
At the foot of Breed's Hill in Charlestown an American had been born into
the world, by the might of whose genius that fateful name was sped to the
uttermost parts of the nation. Abraham Lincoln was elected President of
the United States. And the moan of the storm gathering in the South grew
suddenly loud and louder.
Stephen Brice read the news in the black headlines and laid down the
newspaper, a sense of the miraculous upon him. There again was the
angled, low-celled room of the country tavern, reeking with food and
lamps and perspiration; for a central figure the man of surpassing
homeliness,--coatless, tieless, and vestless,--telling a story in the
vernacular. He reflected that it might well seem strange yea, and
intolerable--to many that this comedian of the country store, this crude
lawyer and politician, should inherit the seat dignified by Washington
and the Adamses.
And yet Stephen believed. For to him had been vouchsafed the glimpse
beyond.
That was a dark winter that followed, the darkest in our history. Gloom
and despondency came fast upon the heels of Republican exultation. Men
rose early for tidings from Charleston, the storm centre. The Union was
cracking here and there. Would it crumble in pieces before Abraham
Lincoln got to Washington?
One smoky morning early in December Stephen arrived late at the office to
find Richter sitting idle on his stool, concern graven on his face.
"The Judge has had no breakfast, Stephen," he whispered. "Listen!
Shadrach tells me he has been doing that since six this morning, when he
got his newspaper."
Stephen listened, and he heard the Judge pacing and pacing in his room.
Presently the door was flung open, And they saw Mr. Whipple standing in
the threshold, stern and dishevelled. Astonishment did not pause here.
He came out and sat down in Stephen's chair, striking the newspaper in
his hand, and they feared at first that his Mind had wandered.
"Propitiate!" he cried, "propitiate, propitiate, and again propitiate.
How long, O Lord?" Suddenly he turned upon Stephen, who was frightened.
But now his voice was natural, and he thrust the paper into the young
man's lap. "Have you read the President's message to Congress, sir? God
help me that I am spared to call that wobbling Buchanan President. Read
it. Read it, sir. You have a legal brain. Perhaps you can tell me why,
if a man admits that it is wrong for a state to abandon this Union, he
cannot call upon Congress for men and money to bring her back. No, this
weakling lets Floyd stock the Southern arsenals. He pays tribute to
Barbary. He is for bribing them not to be angry. Take Cuba from Spain,
says he, and steal the rest of Mexico that the maw of slavery may be
filled, and the demon propitiated."
They dared not answer him. And so he went back into his room, shutting
the door. That day no clients saw him, even those poor ones dependent on
his charity whom had never before denied. Richter and Stephen took
counsel together, and sent Shadrach out for his dinner.
Three weeks passed. There arrived a sparkling Sunday, brought down the
valley of the Missouri from the frozen northwest. The Saturday had been
soggy and warm.
Thursday had seen South Carolina leave that Union into which she was
born, amid prayers and the ringing of bells. Tuesday was to be Christmas
day. A young lady, who had listened to a solemn sermon of Dr.
Posthelwaite's, slipped out of Church before the prayers were ended, and
hurried into that deserted portion of the town about the Court House
where on week days business held its sway.
She stopped once at the bottom of the grimy flight of steps leading to
Judge Whipple's office. At the top she paused again, and for a short
space stood alert, her glance resting on the little table in the corner,
on top of which a few thumbed law books lay neatly piled. Once she made
a hesitating step in this direction. Then, as if by a resolution quickly
taken, she turned her back and softly opened the door of the Judge's
room. He was sitting upright in his chair. A book was open in his lap,
but it did not seem to Virginia that he was reading it.
"Uncle Silas," she said, "aren't you coming to dinner any more?"
He looked up swiftly from under his shaggy brows. The book fell to the
floor.
"Uncle Silas," said Virginia, bravely, "I came to get you to-day."
Never before had she known him to turn away from man or woman, but now
Judge Whipple drew his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose
violently. A woman's intuition told her that locked tight in his heart
was what he longed to say, and could not. The shiny black overcoat he
wore was on the bed. Virginia picked it up and held it out to him, an
appeal in her eyes.
He got into it. Then she handed him his hat. Many people walking home
from church that morning marvelled as they saw these two on Locust Street
together, the young girl supporting the elderly man over the slippery
places at the crossings. For neighbor had begun to look coldly upon
neighbor.
Colonel Carvel beheld them from his armchair by the sitting-room window,
and leaned forward with a start. His lips moved as he closed his Bible
reverently and marked his place. At the foot of the stairs he surprised
Jackson by waving him aside, for the Colonel himself flung open the door
and held out his hand to his friend. The Judge released Virginia's arm,
and his own trembled as he gave it.
"Silas," said the Colonel, "Silas, we've missed you."
Virginia stood by, smiling, but her breath came deeply. Had she done
right? Could any good come of it all? Judge Whipple did not go in at
the door--He stood uncompromisingly planted on the threshold, his head
flung back, and actual fierceness in his stare.
"Do you guess we can keep off the subject, Comyn?" he demanded.
Even Mr. Carvel, so used to the Judge's ways, was a bit taken aback by
this question. It set him tugging at his goatee, and his voice was not
quite steady as he answered:
"God knows, Silas. We are human, and we can only try."
Then Mr. Whipple marched in. It lacked a quarter of an hour of dinner,--
a crucial period to tax the resources of any woman. Virginia led the
talk, but oh, the pathetic lameness of it. Her own mind was wandering
when it should not, and recollections she had tried to strangle had
sprung up once more. Only that morning in church she had lived over
again the scene by Mr. Brinsmade's gate, and it was then that a wayward
but resistless impulse to go to the Judge's office had seized her. The
thought of the old man lonely and bitter in his room decided her. On her
knees she prayed that she might save the bond between him and her father.
For the Colonel had been morose on Sundays, and had taken to reading the
Bible, a custom he had not had since she was a child.
In the dining-room Jackson, bowing and smiling, pulled out the Judge's
chair, and got his customary curt nod as a reward. Virginia carved.
"Oh, Uncle Silas," she cried, "I am so glad that we have a wild turkey.
And you shall have your side-bone." The girl carved deftly, feverishly,
talking the while, aided by that most kind and accomplished of hosts, her
father. In the corner the dreaded skeleton of the subject grinned
sardonically. Were they going to be able to keep it off? There was to
be no help from Judge Whipple, who sat in grim silence. A man who feels
his soul burning is not given to small talk. Virginia alone had ever
possessed the power to make him forget.
"Uncle Silas, I am sure there are some things about our trip that we never
told you. How we saw Napoleon and his beautiful Empress driving in the
Bois, and how Eugenie smiled and bowed at the people. I never saw such
enthusiasm in my life. And oh, I learned such a lot of French history.
All about Francis the First, and Pa took me to see his chateaus along the
Loire. Very few tourists go there. You really ought to have gone with
us."
Take care, Virginia!
"I had other work to do, Jinny," said the Judge.
Virginia rattled an.
"I told you that we stayed with a real lord in England, didn't I?" said
she. "He wasn't half as nice as the Prince. But he had a beautiful
house in Surrey, all windows, which was built in Elizabeth's time. They
called the architecture Tudor, didn't they, Pa?"
"Yes, dear," said the Colonel, smiling.
"The Countess was nice to me," continued the girl, "and took me to garden
parties. But Lord Jermyn was always talking politics."
The Colonel was stroking his goatee.
"Tell Silas about the house, Jinny--Jackson, help the Judge again."
"No," said Virginia, drawing a breath. "I'm going to tell him about that
queer club where my great-grand-father used to bet with Charles Fox. We
saw a great many places where Richard Carvel had been in England. That
was before the Revolution. Uncle Daniel read me some of his memoirs when
we were at Calvert House. I know that you would be interested in them,
Uncle Silas. He sailed under Paul Jones."
"And fought for his country and for his flag, Virginia," said the Judge,
who had scarcely spoken until then. "No, I could. not bear to read them
now, when those who should love that country are leaving it in passion."
There was a heavy silence. Virginia did not dare to look at her father.
But the Colonel said, gently:
"Not in passion, Silas, but in sorrow."
The Judge tightened his lips. But the effort was beyond him, and the
flood within him broke loose.
"Colonel Carvel," he cried, "South Carolina is mad--She is departing in
sin, in order that a fiendish practice may be perpetuated. If her people
stopped to think they would know that slavery cannot exist except by
means of this Union. But let this milksop of a President do his worst.
We have chosen a man who has the strength to say, 'You shall not go!'"
It was an awful moment. The saving grace of it was that respect and love
for her father filled Virginia's heart. In his just anger Colonel Carvel
remembered that he was the host, and strove to think only of his
affection for his old friend.
'To invade a sovereign state, sir, is a crime against the sacred spirit
of this government," he said.
"There is no such thing as a sovereign state, sir," exclaimed the Judge,
hotly. I am an American, and not a Missourian."
"When the time comes, sir," said the Colonel, with dignity, "Missouri
will join with her sister sovereign states against oppression."
"Missouri will not secede, sir."
"Why not, sir !" demanded the Colonel.
Because, sir, when the worst comes, the Soothing Syrup men will rally for
the Union. And there are enough loyal people here to keep her straight."
"Dutchmen, sir! Hessians? Foreign Republican hirelings, sir," exclaimed
the Colonel, standing up. "We shall drive them like sheep if they oppose
us. You are drilling them now that they may murder your own blood when
you think the time is ripe."
The Colonel did not hear Virginia leave the room, so softly had she gone,
He made a grand figure of a man as he stood up, straight and tall, those
gray eyes a-kindle at last. But the fire died as quickly as it had
flared. Pity had come and quenched it,--pity that an unselfish life of
suffering and loneliness should be crowned with these. The Colonel
longed then to clasp his friend in his arms. Quarrels they had had by
the hundred, never yet a misunderstanding. God had given to Silas
Whipple a nature stern and harsh that repelled all save the charitable
few whose gift it was to see below the surface, and Colonel Carvel had
been the chief of them. But now the Judge's vision was clouded.
Steadying himself by his chair, he had risen glaring, the loose skin
twitching on his sallow face. He began firmly but his voice shook ere he
had finished.
"Colonel Carvel," said he, "I expect that the day has come when you go
your way and I go mine. It will be better if--we do not meet again,
sir."
And so he turned from the man whose friendship had stayed him for the
score of years he had battled with his enemies, from that house which had
been for so long his only home. For the last time Jackson came forward
to help him with his coat. The Judge did not see him, nor did he see the
tearful face of a young girl leaning over the banisters above. Ice was
on the stones. And Mr. Whipple, blinded by a moisture strange to his
eyes, clung to the iron railing as he felt his way down the steps.
Before he reached the bottom a stronger arm had seize his own, and was
helping him.
The Judge brushed his eyes with his sleeve, and turned a defiant face
upon Captain Elijah Brent--then his voice broke. His anger was suddenly
gone, and his thought had flown back to the Colonel's thousand charities.
"Lige," he said, "Lige, it has come."
In answer the Captain pressed the Judge's hand, nodding vigorously to
hide his rising emotion. There was a pause.
"And you, Lige?" said Mr. Whipple, presently.
"My God!" cried the Captain, "I wish I knew."
"Lige," said the Judge, gravely, "you're too good a man to be for
Soothing Syrup."
The Captain choked.
"You're too smart to be fooled, Lige," he said, with a note near to
pleading. "The time has come when you Bell people and the Douglas people
have got to decide. Never in my life did I know it to do good to dodge a
question. We've got to be white or black, Lige. Nobody's got much use
for the grays. And don't let yourself be fooled with Constitutional
Union Meetings, and compromises. The time is almost here, Lige, when it
will take a rascal to steer a middle course."
Captain Lige listened, and he shifted from one foot to the other, and
rubbed his hands, which were red. Some odd trick of the mind had put
into his head two people--Eliphalet Hopper and Jacob Cluyme. Was he like
them?
"Lige, you've got to decide. Do you love your country, sir? Can you
look on while our own states defy us, and not lift a hand? Can you sit
still while the Governor and all the secessionists in this state are
plotting to take Missouri, too, out of the Union? The militia is riddled
with rebels, and the rest are forming companies of minute men."
"And you Black Republicans," the Captain cried "have organized your Dutch
Wideawakes, and are arming them to resist Americans born."
"They are Americans by our Constitution, sir, which the South pretends to
revere," cried the Judge. "And they are showing themselves better
Americans than many who have been on the soil for generations."
"My sympathies are with the South," said the Captain, doggedly, "and my
love is for the South."
"And your conscience?" said the Judge.
There was no answer. Both men raised their eyes to the house of him
whose loving hospitality had been a light in the lives of both. When at
last the Captain spoke, his voice was rent with feeling.
"Judge," he began, "when I was a poor young man on the old 'Vicksburg',
second officer under old Stetson, Colonel Carvel used to take me up to
his house on Fourth Street to dinner. And he gave me the clothes on my
back, so that I might not be ashamed before the fashion which came there.
He treated me like a son, sir. One day the sheriff sold the Vicksburg.
You remember it. That left me high and dry in the mud. Who bought her,
sir? Colonel Carvel. And he says to me, 'Lige, you're captain now, the
youngest captain on the river. And she's your boat. You can pay me
principal and interest when you get ready.'
"Judge Whipple, I never had any other home than right in, this house. I
never had any other pleasure than bringing Jinny presents, and tryin' to
show 'em gratitude. He took me into his house and cared for me at a time
when I wanted to go to the devil along with the stevedores when I was a
wanderer he kept me out of the streets, and out of temptation. Judge,
I'd a heap rather go down and jump off the stern of my boat than step in
here and tell him I'd fight for the North."
The Judge steadied himself on his hickory stick and walked off without a
word. For a while Captain Lige stood staring after him. Then he slowly
climbed the steps and disappeared. _
Read next: BOOK II: Volume 4: Chapter XV. Mutterings
Read previous: BOOK II: Volume 4: Chapter XIII. At Mr. Brinsmade's Gate
Table of content of Crisis
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
