FOOTNOTES
N. B.—They appear as “clefts,” marking not the adult fish, but the embryo at the corresponding stage.
“Evolution and Disease,” p. 81.
Haeckel: “Evolution of Man,” vol. ii, p. 269.
Sutton: “Evolution and Disease.”
“Descent of Man,” p. 15.
JAMES PARTON’S RULES OF BIOGRAPHY.
PREFATORY NOTE.
The following letters were written in 1888 and 1889, by James Parton to the Honorable Alfred R. Conkling of New York City. In December, 1888, Mr. Conkling wrote to Mr. Parton, making him a formal offer to assist in the preparation of the “Life and Letters of Roscoe Conkling.” Mr. Parton generously declined to accept payment, but took a great interest in the work, and during the following year corresponded frequently with Mr. Conkling, advising upon specific points and setting forth the general principles of the art of biography.
We are indebted to Mr. Conkling for permission to print these letters, which are full of wise suggestion to the literary “recruit,” and of genuine human interest to all lovers of good reading. They give us glimpses of Mr. Parton, not only as a conscientious writer of biography who had acquired a rare mastery of his art, but also as a man of aggressive interest in public affairs, of broad mind, and a singularly wholesome nature.
Newburyport, Mass., Dec. 8, 1888.
Dear Sir: I am glad to learn from yours of yesterday that we are to have a biography of so interesting and marked a character as the lamented Roscoe Conkling, and I should esteem it a privilege to render any assistance toward it in my power.
JAMES PARTON IN 1852, AT THIRTY YEARS OF AGE.
The great charm of all biography is the truth, told simply, directly, boldly, charitably.
But this is also the great difficulty. A human life is long. A human character is complicated. It is often inconsistent with itself, and it requires nice judgment to proportion it in such a way as to make the book really correspond with the man, and make the same impression upon the reader that the man did upon those who knew him best.
Your difficulty will be to present fairly his less favorable side; but upon this depends all the value, and much of the interest of the work.
My great rules are:
1, To know the subject thoroughly myself; 2, to index fully all the knowledge in existence relating to it; 3, to determine beforehand where I will be brief, where expand, and how much space I can afford to each part; 4, to work slowly and finish as I go; 5, to avoid eulogy and apology and let the facts have their natural weight; 6, to hold back nothing which the reader has a right to know.
I have generally had the great advantage of loving my subjects warmly, and I do not believe we can do justice to any human creature unless we love him. A true love enlightens, but not blinds, as we often see in the case of mothers who love their children better, 60 and also know them better, than anybody else ever does.
With regard to New York, I am always going there, but never go; still, I may have to go soon, and I will go anyway if I can do anything important or valuable in the way you suggest—but not “professionally,” except as an old soldier helps a recruit.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Newburyport, Mass., Dec. 24, 1888.
Dear Sir: I have examined with much interest and pleasure your work upon Mexico, with a title so extravagantly modest as almost to efface the author. Let us accept our fate. It is our destiny to live in an age when all human distinctions are abolished, or about to be abolished, except the advertiser and his victim. Your work appears to me to be quite a model, and I wish I were going to be a tourist in Mexico that I might have the advantage of using it.
One word more with regard to your biography. In the case of a person like Mr. Conkling, whose vocation it was to express himself in words, and whose utterances were often most brilliant and powerful, I think you should make great and free use of his letters and speeches. Is not a volume of five hundred pages too small? Could you not make a work in two volumes, and get Mark Twain to sell it by subscription?
Another: I hope you feel the peculiar character and importance of that part of New York of which Utica is the central point. It does not figure much in books, but there are many strong and remarkable families there. I should like to see it elucidated. The first questions to be asked of a man are: Where, and of whom, was he born?
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
P. S.—For example: If you know fully what a Corsican is, you have the key to the understanding of Bonaparte. He was a Corsican above all things else, and not in the least a Frenchman.
So of Andrew Jackson: He was a Scotch-Irishman. Alexander Hamilton: a Scotch-Frenchman.
Newburyport, Mass., March 26, 1889.
My dear Sir: You can give a sufficiently “complete account” of an event without giving a long one. Now, the duel between two such persons as Burr and Hamilton may be long, because it can also be interesting. Readers are interested in the men, in the time, in the scene, and the whole affair is surcharged with human interest. In that Elmira trial, the chief interest will centre in your uncle’s tact and success. I should give enough of the trial to enable the reader to see and appreciate his part in the affair. My impression is: Do not expend many pages upon it, but pack the pages full of matter. You want all your room for other scenes in which he displayed his great power in a striking way.
Many qualities are desirable in a book, only one is necessary—to be interesting enough to be read. The art is, to be short where the interest is small, and long where the interest is great.
Your uncle’s speeches do not need much “comment.” Most speeches contain one passage which includes the whole.
I fear I shall not be able to visit New York this spring.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Newburyport, Mass., April 3, 1889.
My Dear Sir: As often as possible I would insert the bright things where they belong, as they seem to enliven the narrative. If you have an inconvenient surplus, or a number of things undated, you might make a chapter of them, or reserve them for the final chapter. It is a good rule, though only a rule, not to have breaks in the continuity, like the “Bagman’s Story” in “Pickwick.” Readers are apt to skip them, however good they may be in themselves. You have doubtless often done so. A good thing is twice good when it comes in just where it ought. The modern reader is very shy, and easily breaks away from you, if you only give him a pretext.
I merely send my impressions. You alone can really judge.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Newburyport, Mass., April 17, 1889.
My dear Sir: The description of your uncle’s oratory will be so sure to interest the reader, that it may come in almost anywhere, but best, perhaps, where you mention his first notable speech. Remember, too, that the author has, in his last chapter, not only a chance to “sum up,” but also an opportunity to slip in anything he may have omitted. An interesting thing it is always to know how a strong man grew old, what changes occurred in his manner, methods and character.
By all means, use the personal pronoun sparingly, and allude unfrequently to your relationship. It is not necessary wholly to avoid either. Deal with the reader honestly and openly. There may come moments when calling him “my uncle” would be fair, and in the best taste—but not often.
The ladies have the privilege of skipping. Make your late chapter about the law practice in New York very full and clear. It will very greatly interest everybody who will be likely to read the book. It is the intrinsic worth of a book that is to be considered before all things else.
I fear you are making the book too short. Mind: It cannot be what is called “popular.” It must appeal to the few. Ought it not to be two volumes at five dollars?
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Think of Blaine’s book and its sale by subscription.
The difference between one volume published in the ordinary way, and two volumes by subscription, may be the difference between a profit of two thousand dollars and one of two hundred thousand dollars.
Blaine’s book, sold over the counter, might have gone to the length of five thousand copies. Sold by subscription, it made him rich.
On this point, however, Mr. Appleton’s opinion is worth ten of mine.
Newburyport, Mass., April 26, 1889.
My Dear Sir: The pamphlet has only just arrived.
So far as the comments are necessary to elucidate the text, and to explain why and how the text came to be uttered, they are justified—no farther. Your uncle was such a master of expression that almost anything placed in juxtaposition must suffer from the contrast.
Let him have the whole floor, I say, and just give the indispensable explanations. It would be impossible to enhance the effect of his characteristic passages. They need, like diamonds, a quiet setting.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Newburyport, Mass., June 4, 1889.
My dear Sir: I return your paper of questions. Give plenty of the “light matter” to which you refer, and I hope you will extract many passages that show your uncle’s horror of corruption. The pamphlets you were so good as to send me are valuable and interesting. I do not wonder at his great success before a jury. He was an awful man to have on the other side. Is there any one who could describe for you some of the noted scenes in which your uncle figured, but which you did not witness yourself? There may be available interviews in the newspapers. I remember hearing Thomas Nast talk about him very enthusiastically after returning from a visit to him in Washington. You could make a nice chapter about the Senate—its ways and occupations, traditions and tone—viewed merely as a club of gentlemen.
I am glad that Mark Twain is going to publish the book. Give all the pictures you dare.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Newburyport, Mass., Aug. 5, 1889.
Dear Sir: Would not those “undated anecdotes” come in well to illustrate and brighten your summing-up chapter? If not, then the plan you suggest might answer very well.
I am glad to hear that you are so near to the end of your labors, and that the work is to be published by the ever victorious firm of Mark Twain. If I have been able to render 62 you the smallest service I am glad, and you are heartily welcome.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
Newburyport, Mass., Dec. 28, 1889.
Dear Sir: Your solid volume reached me several days ago, and some time after, your letter of Dec. 20. I have now read the work pretty carefully, and shall no doubt often return to it. Considering the restraints you were under, as nephew and as Republican, you have executed your task well and given to the world the most pathetic of the tragedies resulting from the system of spoils. Never again, until that blighting curse of free institutions is destroyed, will a man of Roscoe Conkling’s genius, pride and purity remain long in the public service, if ever he enters it. He was the last of the Romans. My great regret is that he did not consecrate his whole existence to the reform of the civil service. I have such an acute sense of the shame, the cruelty and the childish folly of the present system that I sometimes feel as if we ought to stop all our other work and enter upon a universal crusade against it.
You must not expect the public to remain satisfied with the omissions and suppressions of your book. Sooner or later, somebody will supply them, and you might just as well have told the whole story.
I am glad to hear of the success of the book with the public.
Very truly yours,
James Parton.
JAMES PARTON IN 1891.
EUROPE AT THE PRESENT MOMENT.
By Mr. De Blowitz, Paris Correspondent Of The “London Times.”
Paris, April 20, 1893.
Let me say, at the very start, that it is imperative not to forget the date which heads this article. This date has a significance of the highest importance, for it marks the opening of a new era. The political situation of Europe is to-day widely different from what it was only yesterday. Yesterday the entire world turned an eye feverishly intent towards Belgium, upon the spectacle there of the decisive struggle between an established government and an unestablished proletariat. There was to be seen in Belgium the constitutional authority of an entire realm, backed by the force of arms, opposed by a militant labor democracy. On the one side, law, authority, armed force; on the other, lack of authority, of capital, and of arms; in a word, vague nothingness struggling against omnipotence. Yet it is the former that has won the day. Omnipotence has belied its name, and has been driven to the wall; the defeat has been crushing. But more than this, it has been significant. I repeat, it marks the opening of a new era.
For the world-wide association of laborers now comprehends that it holds the Old World in its hands. It has discovered the invincible power of the strike, in obedience to the watchword emanating from its irresponsible leaders. Here is a force which is negative, perhaps, but one against which nothing henceforth can prevail. Lo, a silent word of command, and the towers of Jericho fall! Before a general strike of this sort the Old World is to-day powerless, like the child at the breast to whom the mother refuses to give suck.
This is a fact so big with suggestion, so sudden, so almost terrifying, that it changes all our former points of view. I could not have written yesterday what I can write to-day; for when I saw unexpectedly breaking out “the troubles in Belgium,” I could not but postpone till all was over the writing of the article for which I had been asked. No one has as yet fairly grappled with the meaning of the new social pact prepared in mystery, a pact of which the dark elaboration had been only suspected, but which has just become so startlingly revealed. The idea of the strike as applied to political problems upsets all preconceived notions. What has hitherto been regarded as the only real force is now as if paralyzed; instead, sheer, silent will-power remains the only sovereign. In such circumstances who would venture to draw the horoscope of the Europe of to-morrow?
For consider the situation. Recognized constitutional government has actually thought itself fortunate in treating with “strikers,” and in attempting to conceal the reality of its defeat behind the vain show of an arrangement, the actual significance of which deceives nobody. The face of Europe has changed in an instant. The Old World is conquered. Socialism bestirs itself, and begins its conquering march. The dangerous problems, hitherto so vague, become instantly pressing. Yet no one is ready with a solution, and few care even to discuss these problems. Even the leaders of the hostile army, the strike generals, do not, can not, measure all the consequences of their orders. Drunk with their new power they forget for the moment its unseen bearings. When first, more used to the sensation of omnipotence, they look about them to see what their action may have precipitated, they will draw back in horror.
The phrase, “the present situation of Europe,” therefore, can have reference 65 now only to a very indefinite and a future thing. The present is big with uncertainties for the morrow, and the prospect would be really distressing, if the established wielders of power did not realize—what now is inevitable—the imperative necessity of coming to some understanding with this fresh force; the hopelessness, henceforward, of playing with theories of repression, and the duty of negotiating with this great amorphous army, which, once it is on the march, may drink dry the cisterns at which human society is accustomed to assuage its thirst. And it is in the light of these events in Belgium, that I do not hesitate to say, that Europe for a long time still will not be menaced by war. The social problem is now too pressing. It requires the entire attention. Woe to the blind! The hour of rest is past; a new world awakes. It knows its strength. It has everything to gain, nothing to lose. Follow it with anxious eye, ye who sleep now in possession, for if ye sleep too long, ye will awake in chains!
But apart from this event, which is the prelude of a social struggle to be of long duration, yet absolutely inevitable, it is possible at this moment, when the European world is preparing to turn westward beyond the Atlantic, there to entrust to the proud loyalty of the United States immense and untold treasures, to predict for this continent a prolonged peace—a peace, however, which is as the uncertain tranquillity of an old man heavily dozing on a bed where there is no real rest. It is alone one of those incidents, impossible to anticipate, which seize whole nations as with madness, driving them to arms and carnage, and leaving them at the end of the disillusion of the struggle stupefied with their victory, or terrified in their defeat, that can break the uncertain spell of this restless sleep. But incidents such as these, which bring to naught all human calculation, can, indeed must, be left out of account, when considering the character of a given moment, and the prospects of peace or war.
Europe, just now, is divided up rather arbitrarily, but none the less really. This is partly due to a premeditated combination, partly to chance, partly also to the bungling or ignorance of rulers. The Triple Alliance, due to the decisive action of Prince Bismarck, is the only truly scientific conception of the sort, the only one possessing a stable and seriously laid foundation. It includes Austria, which relies on Germany to shield it from Russia, as its directly menacing foe, or to bar against Russia the route to Constantinople whenever Russia shall appear fatally dangerous to the existence of the combined empire of Austria-Hungary. It includes Germany, which, as careful organizer of the Alliance, is thus protected against any possible simultaneous action of France and Russia. It includes Italy, which, otherwise weak in the presence of the disdainful hostility of France, is thus assured a certain security and repose. Aside from this great Triple Alliance, the European states have no real collective organization; there are only affinities badly defined, private interests, or uncertain situations from which they do not venture to think of extricating themselves. What is called the Franco-Russian understanding is limited at the moment to an exchange of notes which might serve as the basis of a military convention; to demonstrations at once noisy and platonic, in which France is playing a sort of Potiphar role; and to the chance eventuality of Russia’s one day finding herself engaged in some formidable struggle when she could count on the irresistible and unthinking enthusiasm of France, who would place blood and treasure at her disposal.
When has human history ever afforded such a spectacle?
No real alliance exists between Russia and France, but no French government could resist popular pressure, were the question to come up of helping Russia in the case of a war direct or indirect against Germany. Yet at a single gesture of the autocratic czar, Russia would shoulder arms and fight in whatever deadly combat France found itself involved. The Emperor of Russia is to-day, perhaps, the most formidable monarch who has ever existed. 66 He has at his unchecked beck and call the vastest empire in Europe, but an empire without gold, sunlight, or liberty. Stop! It is a force, blind and brutal, and capable of a frightful impact; a force which the finger of a single man can set in motion, and which may be made to fall crushingly at the exact point designated by the imperious and imperial gesture. To this force which does not reason, the czar can, with a gleam of his sword, rally the power of France. France, the country of sunlight and liberty, where gold flows in rivulets, where every citizen thinks and wills, and where every soldier would fight to the death, conscious that it is only with Russia, in common struggle against common enemies, that a great conflict may be undertaken. The spectacle of such power, dormant in one human brain, is almost overwhelming; and the psychologist who portends that every man disposing of autocratic power, whether czar, sultan or pope, must inevitably go mad, utters a thought perhaps not so paradoxical after all.
However, this autocrat so formidably armed is well known to be absolutely pacific. He turns a constantly listening ear to the counsels of an experienced queen, herself full of the spirit of peace, the Queen of Denmark. This queen loves Germany; she adores the young emperor whom she calls “an angel.” She has already smoothed down many rough places. It was she who brought about the Kiel interview and the visit of the czarevitch to Berlin. She has strengthened the idea of peace in the brain of this emperor, whence, instead, war might spring full-armed; war fin de siècle; the new, mysterious, unprecedented form of it; the war of infinitely multiplied murder, covering the Old World with corpses of the slain. The special factor of armed explosion most to be dreaded in Europe is thus held in check by an all-powerful hand gently directed. It is nothing less than the work of God that has made him who holds the chief of the arsenals of power, pacific, and thus reassuring to the world.
Turn your vision from this tacit though vague understanding between France and Russia, and look beyond the regularly organized Triple Alliance; the eye falls on three great isolated powers, directed by various motives, and the action of which, determined upon only at the last moment, is constantly in the thought of the other ruling nations. Of these three the first is England. No minister of foreign affairs in any country would ever think of committing towards the English nation the crime of supposing its policy subservient to that of any other nation. The dream or the fear of a quadruple alliance has haunted only the crudest brains. England remains free in its movements, and it will preserve this liberty to the last. This is, moreover, for the happiness of all; for, except in those accesses of madness, a sort of factor of which, as I said, no account can be taken, no power will think of taking up a struggle in which the intervention of England, on one side or the other, can determine the issue.
The second great power which remains free of all entanglement is that which dominates the Bosphorus. A strange power, indeed! It has no friends. There it remains alone on this European soil, of which it occupies certain extreme points, like a bit of abandoned booty tempting the cupidity of the Christian world. The whole of Europe looks thither with dull hate, and each power would willingly bear away a bit of the trappings and the hangings that render soft and resplendent the gilded cage where lies the sick lion of Yildiz Kiosk. If ever the war which appears to me so distant breaks out, Abdul Hamid, or his successor, will have his hands free; and at the supreme moment when the conqueror, whomsoever he may be, cannot reject them, will impose his conditions. If the then sultan neglects to seize the event, it is not at all sure that the crescent will cease to mark its silhouette on the firmament of Europe; but at all events, until then European peace is the surest safeguard of the Ottoman Empire, and this Abdul Hamid well knows.
The third of the great isolated powers of which I speak is personified to-day 67 by the grand old man whom an heroic pertinacity, henceforward to be traditional, keeps a prisoner at the Vatican. No one can have any idea of the life and movement which reigns in this voluntary prison which lies over against the Quirinal. Thither flow innumerable missives from every corner of the world, and could I only tell some of them, it would be seen how long still is the arm extending from the shadow of St. Peter’s; how dreadful still are the lips that speak in the shade of the Vatican. I should show the Holy Father and his cardinals writing to the Emperor of Austria, directing him by counsel and advice, and sometimes almost by their orders. I should show Prince Bismarck continuing, since his fall, to hold before the eyes of the pope, glimpses of the more or less partial restoration of the temporal power. I should show Leo XIII. now trying to unite, now to alienate, France and Russia, according as at the moment this or that policy seems to him most propitious for his own cause or the cause of peace; and I should show, at the same time, the Vatican divided within itself, and Cardinal Vauncelli working, in secret letters addressed to powerful sovereigns, against the policy of Cardinal Rampolla, and acting on the mind of Leo XIII. to detach him from his secretary of state, and wean him from the democratic policy on which he is now launched. I should show, also, all the leading politicians of France, whether in power or out, soliciting the support, the protection, the favor of Leo XIII., and the latter working with astounding insight for the fusion, more and more complete, of the liberal monarchical party with the Republic. I should show again how, owing to mysterious action, instability has become the normal state of France; and how the action of Russia, driven by the double current from the north and the south, not only has been not a source of strength for M. Ribot, but even forced him to his fall. Not only did the czar refuse to send the Russian fleet to France, and to let the czarevitch pass through Paris under pretext of going from Berlin to London, but he has just of late imposed on the French prime minister exigencies of such a nature that the latter has preferred to lay down the power rather than to submit. When M. Ribot, minister of foreign affairs, committed the political stupidity of carrying to the tribune the name of Baron Mohrenheim in connection with the Panama scandal, the Emperor of Russia showed that he was much irritated and wounded. M. Develle, minister of foreign affairs, hurried to the baron with excuses. But the czar declared these excuses unsatisfactory. M. Ribot then went himself to see the ambassador and give him certain explanations and excuses. Still the czar was not satisfied. He demanded a letter written by the prime minister and addressed to the Russian minister of foreign affairs, M. de Giers, who was then stopping at the gates of France. M. Ribot could not accept this demand. He had already endured the insult of M. Stambouloff during the affair of the Chadourne expulsion. He did not wish to leave behind him a letter of excuse addressed to M. de Giers. He preferred to fall, and he fell.
This is a fair instance of the hidden forces which sweep through the side-scenes of international European politics. In the preceding rapid summary of the present state of politics in the Old World, the conclusion must come irrefutably, and that is the ground of these remarks, that no war is in sight, nor will be for yet a long time. The Triple Alliance wishes, and necessarily wishes, peace. The young German emperor, from whom people have affected to anticipate some mad and irresponsible conduct, has no doubt uttered some imprudent words, but he has never committed any dangerous action. Really, his mouth seems a sort of safety-valve for the boiling steam within. So far he is satisfied with the conquests already secured. He is trying to bring back to him the Emperor of Russia. The meeting which he is now having with the pope is intended to bring about a formal rapprochement between the Quirinal and Vatican. Leo XIII., in turning his face towards the democracy, disquiets all thrones; but he disquiets especially the throne of Italy, since he 68 is showing the Italians that the Papacy is not only not an enemy of republics, but that it might be the protector of future republics in Italy, if the Italian fatherland, dreaming of the former brilliant prosperity, tried to found a democratic federation, with the pope as the centre and beneficent father. But at the same time Leo XIII. will whisper peace in the ear of William II. The young emperor wishes for a long era of peace. The new military law, with its far-reaching bearings, proves this. Even to-day he would never think of undertaking a war which left Prince Bismarck out of account, and he will never undertake a war which might cause his return.
So, too, the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary; he too is inclined to peace. He cannot risk a war. The bonds which link the different portions of the empire are too fragile to be exposed to the rude strain of armed strife. Italy, perhaps, by a fortunate war might be a gainer; but it is not strong enough to provoke one, or even to carry one on. It would regard the Papacy at the Vatican as too great a danger at its back; and, with little hope of conquering anything without its borders, it might legitimately fear to find Rome no longer intact on its return.
As for the Emperor of Russia, he is moderate at once in his love for France and his hatred of Germany. So far, a man of genius has been wanting to cement the bonds of alliance between France and Germany. There is already an understanding, vague, platonic, and with no morrow assured to it. The French Republic will recoil before the thought of war, so long as Russian action does not precipitate an explosion. The Republic knows that war would be at its peril; that vanquished it is submerged under floods of anarchy, that victorious it brings forth a Cæsar, and it wishes peace.
England, rich, industrial, devoted to its own internal problems, preserves an attitude which is an earnest of peace. So that, when one casts a steady glance over the Europe of the present hour, one is minded to say to the world about to repair to the great centre of industry, of letters, and of art, which Chicago is so soon to be: “Go in peace. War is distant. Gather in peace the fruit of your peaceful victories.”
Blowitz.
THE COMEDY OF WAR.
by Joel Chandler Harris
Author of “Uncle Remus,” “Plantation Fables,” etc.
I.
ON THE UNION SIDE.
Private O’Halloran, detailed for special duty in advance of the picket line, sat reclining against a huge red oak. Within reach lay a rifle of beautiful workmanship. In one hand he held a blackened brier-root pipe, gazing on it with an air of mock regret. It had been his companion on many a weary march and on many a lonely day, when, as now, he was doing duty as a sharp-shooter. But it was not much of a companion now. It held the flavor, but not the fragrance, of other days. It was empty, and so was O’Halloran’s tobacco-pouch. It was nothing to grumble about, but the big, laughing Irishman liked his pipe, especially when it was full of tobacco. The words of an old song came to him, and he hummed them to himself:
“There was an ould man, an’ he had a wooden leg,
An’ he had no terbacky, nor terbacky could he beg;
There was another ould man, as keen as a fox,
An’ he always had terbacky in his ould terbacky box.
“Sez one ould man, ‘Will yez give me a chew?’
Sez the other ould man, ‘I’ll be dommed ef I do.
Kape away from them gin-mills, an’ save up yure rocks,
An’ ye’ll always have terbacky in yer ould terbacky box.’”
What with the singing and the far-away thoughts that accompanied the song, Private O’Halloran failed to hear footsteps approaching until they sounded quite near.
“Halt!” he cried, seizing his rifle and springing to his feet. The newcomer wore the insignia of a Federal captain, seeing which, O’Halloran lowered his weapon and saluted. “Sure, sor, you’re not to mind me capers. I thought the inimy had me complately surrounded—I did, upon me sowl.”
“And I,” said the captain, laughing, “thought the Johnnies had caught me. It is a pleasant surprise. You are O’Halloran of the Sharp-shooters, I have heard of you—a gay singer and a great fighter.”
“Sure it’s not for me to say that same. I sings a little bechwane times for to kape up me sperits, and takes me chances, right and lift. You’re 70 takin’ a good many yourself, sor, so far away from the picket line. If I make no mistake, sor, it is Captain Somerville I’m talkin’ to.”
“That is my name,” the captain said.
“I was touchin’ elbows wit’ you at Gettysburg, sor.”
The captain looked at O’Halloran again. “Why, certainly!” he exclaimed. “You are the big fellow that lifted one of the Johnnies over the stone wall.”
“By the slack of the trousers. I am that same, sor. He was nothin’ but a bit of a lad, sor, but he fought right up to the end of me nose. The men was jabbin’ at ’im wit’ their bay’nets, so I sez to him, says I, ‘Come in out of the inclemency of the weather,’ says I, and thin I lifted him over. He made at me, sor, when I put ’im down, an’ it took two men for to lead ’im kindly to the rear. It was a warm hour, sor.”
As O’Halloran talked, he kept his eyes far afield.
“Sure, sor,” he went on, “you stand too much in the open. They had one muddlehead on that post yesterday; they’ll not put another there to-day, sor.” As he said this, the big Irishman seized the captain by the arm and gave him a sudden jerk. It was an unceremonious proceeding, but a very timely one, for the next moment the sapling against which the captain had been lightly leaning was shattered by a ball from the Confederate side.
“Tis an old friend of mine, sor,” said O’Halloran; “I know ’im by his handwritin’. They had a muddlehead there yesterday, sor. I set in full sight of ’im, an’ he blazed at me twice; the last time I had me fist above me head, an’ he grazed me knuckles. ‘Be-dad,’ says I, ‘you’re no good in your place;’ an’ when he showed his mug, I plugged ’im where the nose says howdy to the eyebrows. ’Twas no hurt to ’im, sor; if he seen the flash, ’twas as much.”
To the left, in a little clearing, was a comfortable farm-house. Stacks of fodder and straw and pens of corn in the shuck were ranged around. There was every appearance of prosperity, but no sign of life, save two bluebirds, the pioneers of spring, that were fighting around the martin gourds, preparing to take possession.
“There’s where I was born.” The captain pointed to the farm-house. “It is five years since I have seen the place.”
“You don’t tell me, sor! I see in the Hur’ld that they call it the Civil War, but it’s nothin’ but oncivil, sor, for to fight agin’ your ould home.”
“You are right,” assented the captain. “There’s nothing civil about war. I suppose the old house has long been deserted.”
“Sure, look at the forage, thin. ’Tis piled up as nately as you please. Wait till the b’ys git at it! Look at the smoke of the chimbly. Barrin’ the jay-birds, ’tis the peacefulest sight I’ve seen.”
“My people are gone,” said the captain. “My father was a Union man. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of him somewhere at the North. The day that I was eighteen he gave me a larrupping for disobedience, and I ran away.”
“Don’t spake of it, sor.” O’Halloran held up his hands. “Many’s the time I’ve had me feelin’s hurted wit’ a bar’l stave.”
“That was in 1860,” said the captain. “I was too proud to go back home, but when the war began I remembered what a strong Union man my father was, and I joined the Union army.”
“’Tis a great scheme for a play,” said the big Irishman solemnly.
“My mother was dead,” the captain went on, “my oldest sister was married, and my youngest sister was at school in Philadelphia, and my brother, two years older than myself, made life miserable for me in trying to boss me.”
“Oh!” exclaimed O’Halloran, “don’t I know that same? ’Tis meself that’s been along there.”
Captain Somerville looked at the old place, carefully noting the outward changes, which were comparatively few. He noted, too, with the eye of a soldier, that when the impending conflict took place between the forces then facing each other, there would be a sharp struggle for the knoll on which the house stood; and he thought it was a curious feat for his mind to perform, to regard the old home where he had been both happy and miserable as a strategic point of battle. Private O’Halloran had no such memories to please or to vex him. To the extent of his opportunities he was a man of business. He took a piece of white cloth from his pocket and hung it on the broken sapling.
“I’ll see, sor, if yon chap is in the grocery business.”
As he turned away, there was a puff of smoke on the farther hill, a crackling report, and the hanging cloth jumped as though it were alive.
“Faith, it’s him, sor!” exclaimed O’Halloran, “an’ he’s in a mighty hurry.” Whereupon the big Irishman brushed a pile of leaves from an oil-cloth strapped together in the semblance of a knapsack.
“What have you there?” asked Captain Somerville.
“Sure, ’tis me grocery store, sor. Coffee, tay, an’ sugar. Faith, I’ll make the devil’s mouth water like a baby cuttin’ his stomach tathe. Would ye mind comin’ along, sor, for to kape me from swindlin’ the Johnny out of all his belongin’s?”
II.
ON THE CONFEDERATE SIDE.
Three men sat in a gully that had once been a hillside ditch. Their uniforms were various, the result of accident and capture. One of them wore a very fine blue overcoat which was in queer contrast to his ragged pantaloons. This was Lieutenant Clopton, who had charge of the picket line. Another had on the uniform of an artilleryman, and his left arm was in a sling. He had come out of the hospital to do duty as a guide. This was Private John Fambrough. The third had on no uniform at all, but was dressed in plain citizen’s clothes, much the worse for wear. This was Jack Kilpatrick, scout and sharp-shooter. Happy Jack, as he was called.
How long since the gully had been a ditch it would be impossible to say, but it must have been a good many years, for the pines had grown into stout trees, and here and there a black-jack loomed up vigorously.
“Don’t git too permiscus around here,” said Happy Jack, as the others were moving about. “This ain’t no fancy spot.” He eased himself upward on his elbow, and made a swift but careful survey of the woodland vista that led to the Federal lines. Then he shook down the breech of his rifle, and slipped a long cartridge into its place. “You see that big poplar over yonder? Well, under that tree there’s a man, leastways he ought to be there, because he’s always hangin’ around in front of me.”
“Why don’t you nail him?” asked Fambrough.
“Bosh! Why don’t he nail me? It’s because he can’t do it. Well, that’s the reason I don’t nail him. You know what happened yesterday, don’t you? You saw that elegant lookin’ chap that came out to take my place, didn’t you? Did you see him when he went back?”
Lieutenant Clopton replied with a little grimace, but Fambrough said never a word. He only looked at Kilpatrick with inquiring eyes.
“Why, he was the nicest lookin’ man in the army—hair combed, clothes brushed, and rings on his fingers. He was all the way from New ’leans, with a silver-mounted rifle and a globe sight.”
“A which?” asked Fambrough.
“A globe sight. Set down on yourself a little further, sonny,” said Happy Jack; “your head’s too high. I says to him, says I, ‘Friend, you are goin’ where you’ll have to strip that doll’s step-ladder off’n your gun, an’ come down to business,’ says I. I says, says I, ‘You may have to face a red-headed, flannel-mouthed Irishman, and you don’t want to look at him through all that machinery,’ says I.”
“What did he say?” Fambrough asked.
“He said, ‘I’ll git him.’ Now, how did he git him? Why, he come down here, lammed aloose a time or two, and then hung his head over the edge of the gully there, with a ball right spang betwixt his eyes. I went behind the picket line to get a wink of sleep, but I hadn’t more’n curled up in the broom-sage before I heard that chap a-bangin’ away. Then come the reply, like this—” Happy Jack snapped his fingers; “and then I went to sleep waitin’ for the rej’inder.”
Kilpatrick paused, and looked steadily in the direction of the poplar.
“Well, dog my cats! Yonder’s a chap standin’ right out in front of me. 73 It ain’t the Mickey, neither. I’ll see what he’s up to.” He raised his rifle with a light swinging movement, chirruped to it as though it were a horse or a little child, and in another moment the deadly business of war would have been resumed, but Fambrough laid his hand on the sharp-shooter’s arm.
“Wait,” he said. “That may be my old man wandering around out there. Don’t be too quick on trigger. I ain’t got but one old man.”
“Shucks!” exclaimed Kilpatrick, pettishly; “you reckon I don’t know your old man? He’s big in the body, an’ wobbly in his legs. You’ve spiled a mighty purty shot. I believe in my soul that chap was a colonel, an’ he might ’a’ been a general. Now that’s funny.”
“What’s funny?” asked Fambrough.
“Why, that chap. He’ll never know you saved him, an’ if he know’d it he wouldn’t thank you. I’d ’a’ put a hole right through his gizzard. Now he’s behind the poplar.”
“It’s luck,” Lieutenant Clopton suggested.
“Maybe,” said Kilpatrick. “Yonder he is ag’in. Luck won’t save him this time.” He raised his rifle, glanced down the barrel, and pulled the trigger. Simultaneously with the report an expression of disgust passed over his face, and with an oath he struck the ground with his fist.
“Don’t tell me you missed him,” said Clopton.
“Miss what?” exclaimed Kilpatrick scornfully. “If he ain’t drunk, somebody pulled him out of the way.”
“I told you it was luck,” commented Clopton.
“Shucks! don’t tell me. Luck’s like lightnin’. She never hits twice in the same place.”
Kilpatrick sank back in the gully and gave himself up to ruminating. He leaned on his elbows and pulled up little tufts of grass and weeds growing here and there. Lieutenant Clopton, looking across towards the poplar, suddenly reached for the sharp-shooter’s rifle, but Kilpatrick placed his hand on it jealously.
“Give me the gun. Yonder’s a Yank in full view.”
Kilpatrick, still holding his rifle, raised himself and looked.
“Why, he’s hanging out a flag of truce,” said Clopton. “What does the fellow mean?”
“It’s a message,” said Kilpatrick, “an’ here’s the answer.” With that he raised his rifle, dropped it gently in the palm, of his left hand, and fired.
“You saw the hankcher jump, didn’t you?” he exclaimed. “Well, that lets us out. That’s my Mickey. He wants tobacco, and I want coffee an’ tea. Come, watch me swap him out of his eye teeth.”
Then Kilpatrick went to a clump of broom sedge and drew forth a wallet containing several pounds of prepared smoking tobacco and a bundle of plug tobacco, and in a few moments the trio were picking their way through the underwood towards the open.
III.
ON NEUTRAL GROUND.
Matters were getting critical for Squire Fambrough. He had vowed and declared that he would never be a refugee, but he had a responsibility on his hands that he had not counted on. That responsibility was his daughter Julia, twenty-two years old, and as obstinate as her father. The Squire had sent off his son’s wife and her children, together with as many negroes as had refused to go into the Union lines. He had expected his daughter to go at the same time, but when the time arrived, the fair Julia showed that she had a mind of her own. She made no scene, she did not go into hysterics; but when everything was ready, she asked her father if he was going. He said he would follow along after a while. She called to a negro, and made him take her trunks and band-boxes from the wagon and carry them into the house, while Squire Fambrough stood scratching his head.
“Why don’t you make her come?” his daughter-in-law asked, somewhat sharply.
“Well, Susannah,” the Squire remarked, “I ain’t been a jestice of the peace and a married man, off and on for forty year, without findin’ out when to fool with the wimen sek an’ when not to fool wi’ ’em.”
“I’d make her come,” said the daughter-in-law.
“I give you lief, Susannah, freely an’ fully. Lay your baby some’rs wher’ it won’t git run over, an’ take off your surplus harness, an’ go an’ fetch her out of the house an’ put her in the buggy.”
But the daughter-in-law treated the courteous invitation with proper scorn, and the small caravan moved off, leaving the fair Julia and her father in possession of the premises. According to human understanding, the refugees got off just in the nick of time. A day or two afterwards, the Union army, figuratively speaking, marched up, looked over Squire Fambrough’s front palings, and then fell back to reflect over the situation. Shortly afterwards the Confederate army marched up, looked over the Squire’s back palings, and also fell back to reflect. Evidently the situation was one to justify reflection, for presently both armies fell back still farther. These movements were so courteous and discreet—were such a colossal display of etiquette—that war seemed to be out of the question. Of course there were the conservative pickets, the thoughtful videttes, and the careful sharp-shooters, ready to occasion a little bloodshed, accidentally or intentionally. But by far the most boisterously ferocious appendages of the two armies were the two brass bands. They were continually challenging each other, beginning early in the morning and ending late in the afternoon; one firing 75 off “Dixie,” and the other “Yankee Doodle.” It was “Yankee Doodle, howdy do?” and “Doodle-doodle, Dixie, too,” like two chanticleers challenging each other afar off.
This was the situation as it appeared to Squire Fambrough and his daughter. On this particular morning the sun was shining brightly, and the birds were fluttering joyously in the budding trees. Miss Julia had brought her book out into the grove of venerable oaks which was the chief beauty of the place, and had seated herself on a rustic bench that was built around one of the trees. Just as she had become interested, she heard a rifle-shot. She moved uneasily, but fell to reading again, and was apparently absorbed in the book, when she heard another shot. Then she threw the book down and rose to her feet, making a very pretty centerpiece in the woodland setting.
“Oh! what is the matter with everything?” she exclaimed. “There’s the shooting again! How can I read books and sit quietly here while the soldiers are preparing to fight? Oh, me! I don’t know what to do! If there should be a battle here, I don’t know what would become of us.”
Julia, in her despair, was fair to look upon. Her gown of striped homespun stuff, simply made, set off to admiration her strong but supple figure. Excitement added a new lustre to her eye and gave a heightened color to the rose that bloomed on her cheeks. She stood a moment as if listening, and then a faint smile showed on her lips. She heard her father calling:
“Jule! Jule! O Jule!”
“Here I am, father!” she cried. “What is it?”
“Well, the Lord he’p my soul! I’ve been huntin’ for you high an’ low. Did you hear that shootin’? I ’lowed may be you’d been took prisoner an’ carried bodaciously off. Didn’t I hear you talkin’ to somebody?”
Squire Fambrough pulled off his hat and scratched his head. His face, set in a fringe of gray beard, was kindly and full of humor, but it contained not a few of the hard lines of experience.
“No, father,” said Julia, in reply to the Squire’s question. “I was only talking to myself.”
“Jest makin’ a speech, eh? Well, I don’t blame you, honey. I’m a great mind to jump out here in the clearin’ an’ yell out my sentiments so that both sides can hear ’em.”
“Why, what is the matter, father?”
“I’m mad, honey! I’m jest nachally stirred up—dog my cats ef I ain’t! Along at fust I did hope there wouldn’t be no fightin’ in this neighborhood, but now I jest want to see them two blamed armies light into one another, tooth and toe-nail.”
“Why, father!” Julia made a pretty gesture of dismay. “How can you talk so?”
“Half of my niggers is gone,” said Squire Fambrough; “one side has got my hosses, and t’other side has stole my cattle. The Yankees has grabbed my 76 grist mill, an’ the Confeds has laid holt of my corn crib. One army is squattin’ in my tater patch, and t’other one is roostin’ in my cow pastur’. Do you reckon I was born to set down here an’ put up wi’ that kind of business?”
“But, father, what can you do? How can you help yourself? For heaven’s sake, let’s go away from here!”
“Great Moses, Jule! Have you gone an’ lost what little bit of common sense you was born with? Do you reckon I’m a-goin’ to be a-refugeein’ an’ a-skee-daddlin’ across the country like a skeer’d rabbit at my time of life? I hain’t afeared of nary two armies they can find room for on these hills! Hain’t I got one son on one side an’ another son on t’other side? Much good they are doin’, too. If they’d a-felt like me they’d a fit both sides. Do you reckon I’m a-gwine to be drove off’n the place where I was born, an’ where your granpappy was born, an’ where your mother lies buried? No, honey!”
“But, father, you know we can’t stay here. Suppose there should be a battle?”
“Come, honey! come!” There was a touch of petulance in the old man’s tone. “Don’t get me flustrated. I told you to go when John’s wife an’ the children went. By this time you’d ’a’ been out of hearin’ of the war.”
“But, father, how could I go and leave you here all by yourself?” The girl laid her hand on the Squire’s shoulder caressingly.
“No,” exclaimed the Squire, angrily; “stay you would, stay you did, an’ here you are!”
“Yes, and now I want to go away, and I want you to go with me. All the horses are not taken, and the spring wagon and the barouche are here.”
“Don’t come a-pesterin’ me, honey! I’m pestered enough as it is. Lord, if 77 I had the big men here what started the war, I’d take ’em an’ butt their cussed heads together tell you wouldn’t know ’em from a lot of spiled squashes.”
“Now, don’t get angry and say bad words, father.”
“I can’t help it, Jule; I jest can’t help it. When the fuss was a-brewin’ I sot down an’ wrote to Jeems Buchanan, and told him, jest as plain as the words could be put on paper, that war was boun’ to come if he didn’t look sharp; an’ then when old Buck dropped out, I sot down an’ wrote to Abe Lincoln an’ told him that coercion wouldn’t work worth a cent, but conciliation——”
“Wait, father!” Julia held up her pretty hand. “I hear some one calling. Listen!”
Not far away they heard the voice of a negro. “Marse Dave Henry! O Marse Dave Henry!”
“Hello! Who the nation are you hollerin’ at?” said Squire Fambrough as a youngish looking negro man came in view. “An’ where did you come from, an’ where are you goin’?”
“Howdy, mistiss—howdy, marster!” The negro took off his hat as he came up.
“What’s your name?” asked the Squire.
“I’m name Tuck, suh. None er you all ain’t seed nothin’ er Marse——”
“Who do you belong to?”
“I b’longs ter de Cloptons down dar in Georgy, suh. None er you-all ain’t seed nothin’——”
“What are you doin’ here?” demanded Squire Fambrough, somewhat angrily. “Don’t you know you are liable to get killed any minute? Ain’t you makin’ your way to the Yankee army?”
“No, suh.” The negro spoke with unction. “I’m des a-huntin’ my young marster, suh. He name Dave Henry Clopton. Dat what we call him—Marse Henry. None er you-all ain’t seed ’im, is you?”
“Jule,” said the Squire, rubbing his nose thoughtfully, “ain’t that the name of the chap that used to hang around here before the Yankees got too close?”
“Do you mean Lieutenant Clopton, father?” asked Julia, showing some confusion.
“Yessum.” Tuck grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Marse Dave Henry is sholy a lieutender in de company, an’ mistiss she say he’d a done been a giner’l ef dey wa’nt so much enviousness in de army.”
“I saw him this morning—I mean—” Julia blushed and hesitated. “I mean, I heard him talking out here in the grove.”
“Who was he talking to, Jule?” The Squire put the question calmly and deliberately.
There was a little pause. Julia, still blushing, adjusted an imaginary hair-pin. The negro looked sheepishly from one to the other. The Squire repeated his question.
“Who was he talking to, Jule?”
“Nobody but me,” said the young lady, growing redder. Her embarrassment was not lessened by an involuntary “eh—eh,” from the negro. Squire Fambrough raised his eyes heavenwards and allowed both his heavy hands to drop helplessly by his side.
“What was he talkin’ about?” The old man spoke with apparent humility.
“N-o-t-h-i-n-g,” said Julia, demurely, looking at her pink finger-nails. “He just asked me if I thought it would rain, and I told him I didn’t know; and then he said the spring was coming on very rapidly, and I said, ‘Yes, I thought it was.’ And then he had found a bunch of violets and asked me if I would accept them, and I said, ‘Thank you.’”
“Land of the livin’ Moses!” exclaimed Squire Fambrough, lifting his hands above his head and allowing them to fall heavily again. “And they call this war!”
“Yessum!” The negro’s tone was triumphant. “Dat sholy wuz Marse Dave Henry. War er no war, dat wuz him. Dat des de way he goes ’mongst de ladies. He gi’um candy yit, let ’lone flowers. Shoo! You can’t tell me nothin’ ’tall ’bout Marse Dave Henry.”
“What are you wanderin’ ’round here in the woods for?” asked the Squire. His tone was somewhat severe. “Did anybody tell you he was here?”
“No, suh!” replied Tuck. “Dey tol’ me back dar at de camps dat I’d 78 fin’ ’im out on de picket line, an’ when I got dar dey tol’ me he wuz out dis a-way, whar dey wuz some sharp-shootin’ gwine on, but I ain’t foun’ ’im yit.”
“Ain’t you been with him all the time?” The Squire was disposed to treat the negro as a witness for the defence.
“Lor, no, suh! I des now come right straight fum Georgy. Mistiss—she Marse Dave Henry’s ma—she hear talk dat de solyers ain’t got no cloze fer ter w’ar an’ no vittles fer ter eat, skacely, an’ she tuck’n made me come an’ fetch ’im a box full er duds an’ er box full er vittles. She put cake in dar, yit, ’kaze I smelt it whiles I wuz handlin’ de box. De boxes, dey er dar at de camp, an’ here me, but wharbouts is Marse Dave Henry? Not ter be a-hidin’ fum somebody, he de hardest white man ter fin’ what I ever laid eyes on. I speck I better be knockin’ ’long. Good-by, marster; good-by, young mistiss. Ef I don’ fin’ Marse Dave Henry no wheres, I’ll know whar ter come an’ watch fer ’im.”
The Squire watched the negro disappear in the woods, and then turned to his daughter. To his surprise, her eyes were full of tears; but before he could make any comment, or ask any question, he heard the noise of tramping feet in the woods, and presently saw two Union soldiers approaching. Almost immediately Julia called his attention to three soldiers coming from the Confederate side.
“I believe in my soul we’re surrounded by both armies,” remarked the Squire dryly. “But don’t git skeer’d, honey. I’m goin’ to see what they’re trespassin’ on my premises for.”
IV.
COMMERCE AND SENTIMENT.
“Upon my sowl,” said O’Halloran, as he and Captain Somerville went forward, the big Irishman leading the way, “I’m afeard I’m tollin’ you into a trap.”
“How?” asked the captain.
“Why, there’s three of the Johnnies comin’, sor, an’ the ould man an’ the gurrul make five.”
“Halt!” said the captain, using the word by force of habit. The two paused, and the captain took in the situation at a glance. Then he turned to the big Irishman, with a queer look on his face.
“What is it, sor?”
“I’m in for it now. That is my father yonder, and the young lady is my sister.”
“The Divvle an’ Tom Walker!” exclaimed O’Halloran. “’Tis quite a family rayanion, sor.”
“I don’t know whether to make myself known or not. What could have possessed them to stay here? I’ll see whether they know me.” As they went forward, the captain plucked O’Halloran by the sleeve. “I’ll be shot if the Johnny with his arm in the sling isn’t my brother.”
“I was expectin’ it, sor,” said the big Irishman, giving matters a humorous turn. “Soon the cousins will be poppin’ out from under the bushes.”
By this time the two were near enough to the approaching Confederates to carry on a conversation by lifting their voices a little.
“Hello, Johnny,” said O’Halloran.
“Hello, Yank,” replied Kilpatrick.
“What’s the countersign, Johnny?”
“Tobacco. What is it on your side, Yank?”
“Tay an’ coffee, Johnny.”
“You are mighty right,” Kilpatrick exclaimed. “Stack your arms agin a tree.”
“The same to you,” said O’Halloran.
The Irishman, using his foot as a broom, cleared the dead leaves and twigs from a little space of ground, where he deposited his bundle, and Kilpatrick did the same. John Fambrough, the wounded Confederate, went forward to greet his father and sister, and Lieutenant Clopton went with him. The Squire was not in a good humor.
“I tell you what, John,” he said to his son, “I don’t like to be harborin’ nary side. It’s agin’ my principles. I don’t like this colloguin’ an’ palaverin’ betwixt folks that ought to be by good 79 rights a-knockin’ one another on the head. If they want to collogue an’ palaver, why don’t they go som’ers else?”
The Squire’s son tried to explain, but the old gentleman hooted at the explanation. “Come on, Jule, let’s go and see what they’re up to.”
As they approached, the Irishman glanced at Captain Somerville, and saw that he had turned away, cap in hand, to hide his emotion.
“You’re just in time,” the Irishman said to Squire Fambrough in a bantering tone, “to watch the continding armies. This mite of a Johnny will swindle the Government, if I don’t kape me eye on him.”
“Is this what you call war?” the Squire inquired sarcastically. “Who axed you to come trespassin’ on my land?”
“Oh, we’ll put the leaves back where we found them,” said Kilpatrick, “if we have to git a furlough.”
“Right you are!” said the Irishman.
“It is just a little trading frolic among the boys!” Captain Somerville turned to the old man with a courteous bow. “They will do no harm. I’ll answer for that.”
“Well, I’ll tell you how I feel about it!” Squire Fambrough exclaimed with some warmth. “I’m in here betwixt the hostiles. They ain’t nobody here but me an’ my daughter. We don’t pester nobody, an’ we don’t want nobody to pester us. One of my sons is in the Union army, I hear tell, an’ the other is in the Confederate army when he ain’t in the hospital. These boys, you see, found their old daddy a-straddle of the fence, an’ one clomb down one leg on the Union side, an’ t’other one clomb down t’other leg on the Confederate side.”
“That is what I call an interesting situation,” said the captain, drawing a long breath. “Perhaps I have seen your Union son.”
“Maybe so, maybe so,” assented the Squire.
“Perhaps you have seen him yourself since the war began?”
Before the Squire could make any reply, Julia rushed at the captain and threw her arms around his neck, crying, “O brother George, I know you!”
The Squire seemed to be dazed by this discovery. He went towards the captain slowly. The tears streamed down his face and the hand he held out trembled.
“George,” he exclaimed, “God A’mighty knows I’m glad to see you!”
O’Halloran and Kilpatrick had paused in the midst of their traffic to 80 watch this scene, but when they saw the gray-haired old man crying and hugging his son, and the young girl clinging to the two, they were confused. O’Halloran turned and kicked his bundles.
“Take all the tay and coffee, you bloody booger! Just give me a pipeful of the weed.”
Kilpatrick shook his fist at the big Irishman.
“Take the darned tobacco, you red-mouthed Mickey! What do I want with your tea and coffee?” Then both started to go a little way into the woods. Lieutenant Clopton following. The captain would have called them back, but they wouldn’t accept the invitation.
“We are just turnin’ our backs, sor, while you hold a family orgie,” said O’Halloran. “Me an’ this measly Johnny will just go on an’ complate the transaction of swappin’.”
At this moment Tuck reappeared on the scene. Seeing his young master, he stopped still and looked at him, and then broke out into loud complaints.
“Marse Dave Henry, whar de namer goodness you been? You better come read dish yer letter what yo’ ma writes you. I’m gwine tell mistiss she come mighty nigh losin’ a likely nigger, an’ she’ll rake you over de coals, mon.”
“Why, howdy, Tuck,” exclaimed Lieutenant Clopton. “Ain’t you glad to see me?”
“Yasser, I speck I is.” The negro spoke in a querulous and somewhat doubtful tone, as he produced a letter from the lining of his hat. “But I’d ’a’ been a heap gladder ef I hadn’t mighty nigh trapsed all de gladness out’n me.”
Young Clopton took the letter and read it with a smile on his lips and a dimness in his eyes. The negro, left to himself, had his attention attracted by the coffee and tobacco lying exposed on the ground. He looked at the display, scratching his head.
“Boss, is dat sho nuff coffee?”
“It is that same,” said O’Halloran.
“De ginnywine ole-time coffee?” insisted the negro.
“’Tis nothin’ else, simlin-head.”
“Marse Dave Henry,” the negro yelled, “run here an’ look at dish yer ginnywine coffee! Dey’s nuff coffee dar fer ter make mistiss happy de balance er her days. Some done spill out!” he exclaimed. “Boss, kin I have dem what’s on de groun’?”
“Take ’em,” said O’Halloran, “an’ much good may they do you.”
“One, two, th’ee, fo’, fi’, sick, sev’n.” The negro counted the grains as he picked them up. “O Marse Dave Henry, run here an’ look! I got sev’n grains er ginnywine coffee. I’m gwine take um ter mistiss.”
The Irishman regarded the negro with curiosity. Then taking the dead branch of a tree he drew a line several yards in length between himself and Kilpatrick.
“D’ye see that line there?” he said to the negro.
“Dat ar mark? Oh, yasser, I sees de mark.”
“Very well. On that side of the line you are in slavery—on this side the line you are free.”
“Who? Me?”
“Who else but you?”
“I been hear talk er freedom, but I ain’t seed ’er yit, an’ I dunner how she feel.” The negro scratched his head and grinned expectantly.
“’Tis as I tell you,” said the Irishman.
“I b’lieve I’ll step ’cross an’ see how she feel.” The negro stepped over the line, and walked up and down as if to test the matter physically. “’Tain’t needer no hotter ner no colder on dis side dan what ’tis on dat,” he remarked. Then he cried out to his young master: “Look at me, Marse Dave Henry; I’m free now.”
“All right.” The young man waved his hand without taking his eyes from the letter he was reading.
“He take it mos’ too easy fer ter suit me,” said the negro. Then he called out to his young master again: “O Marse Dave Henry! Don’t you tell mistiss dat I been free, kase she’ll take a bresh-broom an’ run me off’n de place when I go back home.”
V.
THE CURTAIN FALLS.
Squire Fambrough insisted that his son should go to the house and look it over for the sake of old times, and young Clopton went along to keep Miss Julia company. O’Halloran, Kilpatrick, and the negro stayed where they were—the white men smoking their pipes, and the negro chewing the first “mannyfac” tobacco he had seen in many a day.
The others were not gone long. As they came back, a courier was seen riding through the woods at break-neck speed, going from the Union lines to those of the Confederates, and carrying a white flag. Kilpatrick hailed him, and he drew rein long enough to cry out, as he waved his flag:
“Lee has surrendered!”
“I was looking out for it,” said Kilpatrick, “but dang me if I hadn’t ruther somebody had a-shot me right spang in the gizzard.”
Lieutenant Clopton took out his pocket-knife and began to whittle a stick. John Fambrough turned away, and his sister leaned her hands on his shoulder and began to weep. Squire Fambrough rubbed his chin thoughtfully and sighed.
“It had to be, father,” the captain said. “It’s a piece of news that brings peace to the land.”
“Oh, yes, but it leaves us flat. No money, and nothing to make a crop with.”
“I have Government bonds that will be worth a hundred thousand dollars. The interest will keep us comfortably.”
“For my part,” said Clopton, “I have nothing but this free nigger.”
“You b’lieve de half er dat,” spoke up the free nigger. “Mistiss been savin’ her cotton craps, an’ ef she got one bale she got two hundred.”
The captain figured a moment. “They will bring more than a hundred thousand dollars.”
“I have me two arrums,” said O’Halloran.
“I’ve got a mighty fine pack of fox-hounds,” remarked Kilpatrick with real pride.
There was a pause in the conversation. In the distance could be heard the shouting of the Union soldiers and the band with its “Yankee Doodle, howd’y-do?” Suddenly Clopton turned to Captain Fambrough:
“I want to ask you how many troops have you got over there—fighting men?”
The captain laughed. Then he put his hand to his mouth and said in a stage whisper:
“Five companies.”
“Well, dang my hide!” exclaimed Kilpatrick.
“What is your fighting force?” Captain Fambrough asked.
“Four companies,” said Clopton.
“Think o’ that, sir!” cried the Irishman; “an’ me out there defendin’ meself ag’in a whole army.”
“More than that,” said Clopton, “our colonel is a Connecticut man.”
“Shake!” the captain exclaimed. “My colonel is a Virginian.”
“Lord ’a’ mercy! Lord ’a’ mercy!” It was Squire Fambrough who spoke. “I’m a-goin’ off some’rs an’ ontangle the tangle we’ve got into.”
Soon the small company separated. The Squire went a short distance towards the Union army with his new-found son, who was now willing to call himself George Somerville Fambrough. Kilpatrick and the negro went trudging back to the Confederate camp, while Clopton lingered awhile, saying something of great importance to the fair Julia and himself.
His remarks and her replies were those which precede and follow both comedy and tragedy. The thunders of war cannot drown them, nor can the sunshine of peace render them commonplace.
THE ROSE IS SUCH A LADY.
By Gertrude Hall.
The rose is such a lady—
So stately, fresh, and sweet;
It joys to hold her image
The rain pool at her feet.
They look such common lasses,
Those red pinks in a line;
The rose is such a lady—
So dignified and fine.
The winds would wish to kiss her,
And yet they scarcely dare;
The rose is such a lady—
So courteous, pure, and fair.
Here’s one come from a garden
To die within this book—
See, in the faded features
The old lady-like look!
THE COUNT DE LESSEPS OF TO-DAY.
By R. H. Sherard.
Seated in an arm-chair, now feebly turning over the leaves of his “Souvenirs of Forty Years,” now letting his dimmed eyes wander listlessly over the broad expanse of fields and woodlands outside the windows, Ferdinand de Lesseps, the great Frenchman, drags out the agony of his old age.
The visitor to him in his retreat arrives at La Chesnaye to some extent attuned to melancholy, for the long diligence ride from the nearest railway station, twenty-four kilometres away, is across a most desolate country. This part of the ancient duchy of Berry is one of the districts in France which has most suffered by the ruin of the vine-culture; the lands seem deserted and abandoned; the roads are neglected, and little life is seen anywhere till the sleepy burgh of Vatan is reached. From Vatan, which is a market-town on the old and now disused high-road from Paris to Toulouse, to the chateau of La Chesnaye, there are four more kilometres of road across an equally desolate country to be taken. The buildings of the home farm are the first human habitations that one sees all the long way. An oppressive sense of desolation imposes itself on even the casual wayfarer, and prepares for the sorrowful sight that awaits him who goes to La Chesnaye to salute the fallen greatness of the old man who but two years ago was the greatest Frenchman in France.
The chateau of La Chesnaye, a modest country-house of irregular shape and flanked at the angles with towers, has been in the possession of M. de Lesseps for fifty years. Except for a large modern wing, it stands just as Agnes Sorel, its first occupant, left it. In her days it had served as a hunting-box for her royal patron and the Berry squires, and at present is still surrounded with fields scantily timbered. There is no well-kept lawn, but the fields of grass are full of violets, and there is a trim look about the stables. On a bright day the white of the stone, contrasted with the green of the grass, gives a cheerful look to the scene, but it is indescribably mournful of aspect in the days of rain and snow and wind.
About half a mile on the road before the chateau is in sight, an avenue of trees is reached. “Those trees were planted by M. de Lesseps himself, forty years ago, and every time that he passes this way he relates the fact.”
So spoke to me the English governess 84 of the De Lesseps children, whom Madame de Lesseps had despatched to meet me with the pony-carriage at Vatan.
“The countess is terribly busy to-day with her papers, for she is expecting a barrister from Paris, who is to receive some instructions in view of the new trial; but she will manage to give you an hour, and wants you to drive to church with her, so that you can talk on the way.” As we entered the courtyard the countess’s carriage was in waiting at the front entrance. It was the landau of the days of triumphant drives in the Champs Élysées, and the horses were the same pair which excited the admiration and envy of the connoisseurs of the Avenue des Acacias, “Juliette” and “Panama,” which latter is now never called by that name. It is talked about as “the other,” for the ill-fated word, Panama, is never even whispered, lest any echo of it should reach the ears of him to whom this word has meant ruin and disgrace and a broken heart. I waited for the countess at the bottom of the spiral stair-case, and presently saw a lady descending, who greeted me in a familiar voice, but whom I failed to recognize. “But, yes,” she said, holding out her hand, “I am Madame de Lesseps. I have changed, have I not?”
THE CHATEAU DE LA CHESNAYE.
When I last met Madame de Lesseps in Paris, though at that time the shadow of the present was already upon her, she was in the full of her matronly beauty, large, ample, and flourishing. It was a wasted woman who addressed me, pinched and thin. “If I were to remove my veil,” she added, “you would see an even greater change.”
“It is a sad moment that you have chosen to visit us, and you find us in terrible circumstances,” she said as we drove away. Then turning to the lady who accompanied her, she remarked, “This is the first time I have been out for three weeks, and I ought not to have gone out to-day, except for the fact that I can’t miss going to church again. It is the only comfort I have left to me. All my days and most of my nights, when not attending on my husband, are taken up answering letters and telegrams which keep pouring in upon me from all parts of the world. And then I am in constant correspondence with the lawyers in Paris as to the prosecution of my son for corruption, and the revision of the last judgment of the Court of Appeal.”
The church which is attended by the La Chesnaye party is situated in a village about three miles off, which is called Guilly, “the mistletoe hamlet,” as all the trees around are covered with this parasite. We were passing a fine old oak tree, the upper part of which was loaded with mistletoe, when the lady who was with us laughed scornfully, and, pointing, said: “One would say Herz, Arton, and the rest,” referring to the Panama parasites. “Would you believe me,” said Madame de Lesseps, “that until these recent revelations I had never even heard the names of 85 either Arton or Herz or the Baron de Reinach?”
COUNT DE LESSEPS IN 1869.
Outside the church was standing a char-à-banc drawn by two horses, and it was in this that, after service, I returned to La Chesnaye with the children and the governesses. It was interesting to see how devoted the people of Guilly seem to be to the De Lesseps family, and how the men and women bowed and courtesied as the countess came out of church. Here, as at Vatan and in all the district, the love and respect for “Monsieur le Comte” have been increased rather than diminished by the persecutions to which he has been subjected. It was on the great fair-day at Vatan that the news of his condemnation was made public, and at once the villagers, in sign of mourning, stopped the public ball which is a fête to which the young people of the district look forward for months beforehand. Sturdy Berrichon lads have been seen to flourish their sticks and heard to say that the Parisians had better keep their hands off “Monsieur le Comte.” Nor is it surprising that in his own country M. de Lesseps should be loved and venerated. Always delighting in acts of kindness, his generosity towards his poor neighbors throughout the district has been constant and large-handed. Never a marriage takes place in any of the surrounding villages but that a handsome present from La Chesnaye is thrown into the bride’s corbeille. The children are dressed for confirmation at the expense of the chateau; layettes are found for poor mothers, and no case of distress is allowed to pass unrelieved. Since the heavy losses which the Panama failure has entailed on the family, no change nor diminution in these liberalities has been made. But perhaps what the people in the district like the best in the La Chesnaye folk is their extreme simplicity. Chateau folk are not generally very popular in France, and certainly not in republican circumscriptions, because republican electors of the peasant class have inherited prejudices about them; and if the De Lesseps family is so very popular, it is because of the extreme simplicity of their manners and of the way in which they live the lives of the people around them. For instance, not the children alone, but even the elegant Madame de Lesseps herself, are dressed in clothes purchased and made in Vatan. Nothing is got from Paris, and the Vatan people are highly pleased with the unusual compliment thus paid to them. By the church at Guilly is 86 an orphanage, which was founded by the De Lesseps, and is entirely kept up at their expense. It is a rule with Madame de Lesseps to pay a visit to this orphanage each Sunday after mass, and, accordingly, as she left church she asked me to return home with the children. Of these there are now seven at home; Matthew, who has just returned on sick leave from the Soudan, being in Paris near his stepbrother Charles. Ismail is serving in the army as a soldier in a regiment of chasseurs at St. Germain; and the eldest daughter, the Comtesse de Gontaut-Biron, is in Nice, whither she has been sent by her doctors. Lolo, aged eighteen, is the eldest girl at home; and Paul, a handsome lad of twelve, with long ringlets down his back, is the eldest boy. The youngest children are mere babies. There is Zi-Zi, a tiny little boy, with fair curls and dark eyes; and Griselle, a charming little mite, who on that Sunday was dressed in a Kate Greenaway bonnet and gown, and looked sweetly pretty. The char-à-banc, spacious as it was, was quite filled. Besides all the children from Lolo down to Zi-Zi, there were the English and German governesses, Paul and Robert’s tutor, the niece of Madame de Lesseps who for many years past has lived with the family, and an intimate friend, Mademoiselle Mimaut.
It was a merry party, and yet whenever the name of the poor old father at home was mentioned, silence came over the prattle of the children. “They all feel it deeply,” said Madame de Lesseps to me later on, “though their youth often gets the better of their feelings. And what grieves them all most is, to know that their brother Charles, whom they all love and respect like a second father, is in prison, whilst they can run about. Zi-Zi and Griselle write to him every day at Mazas or the Conciergerie, and send him violets, and little stories which they compose for his amusement, spending long hours inking their fingers over their paper.”
About half-way home the carriage passed the rural postman trudging along on his daily thirty-mile round. The children would have the carriage stopped, and, though it was quite full, place was made for him. Father Pierre seemed quite a favorite with the children, for is it not he, as little Griselle said, who brings letters from brother Charles? Charles, it seems, writes every day, and his letters, to judge by what every member of the family told me, are admirable in their manly unselfishness. There is never a word of complaint about the wretchedness of his position; his only anxiety is about his father, and he is ready to undergo everything so that the old man may be spared a moment’s pain. Ruined, disgraced, though not dishonored, having to face a long period of imprisonment, which at his age and in his physical condition may kill him, he affects in his letters the greatest cheerfulness. Nor is his heroic unselfishness without its reward. He is the idol of everybody at La Chesnaye and for miles around. Only one complaint has escaped him since his confinement, and that was when, during his hurried visit, under guard, to his father, he went with the children for a favorite walk to a neighboring wood. Here, as he was walking along the avenue which runs through some magnificent timber, he looked around at the detectives behind him, and said with a sigh: “And to-morrow I shall be again within four gray walls.” But immediately he added, that if he could only be allowed to come and pass an afternoon in the wood with his brothers and sisters every month, he would not mind his confinement in the least, and could resign himself to the prospect of imprisonment for the rest of his days. Yet he is past fifty-three, and his health has suffered terribly from what he has undergone.
The half hour before lunch was spent by the children in showing their pets. A prime favorite with them just now is a little Newfoundland puppy, which has quite dethroned in their affections an old shepherd dog, who, as Zi-Zi relates, “came one day and liked us so much that she has never left us.” Another pet of whom a great deal is made is an African monkey which Matthew brought home from the Soudan. It is called Bou-Bou, and when it is scolded it hides its face in its hands. It is quite tame, and runs about without a chain.
Just before lunch the children set about picking violets, each a bunch. This they do every day. One is for Charles at Mazas, another for Madame de Lesseps, but the sweetest is for the old father to wear in his buttonhole at lunch, which is the only meal he takes with the family. The child whose bouquet is worn by the father is the proudest child in Berry that day.
I could not refrain from a movement of the most painful surprise when, after a few moments spent in the drawing-room, I was invited by Madame de Lesseps into the room where her husband sat. I have known M. de Lesseps for many years, and though the last time that I saw him he was already under the influence of the sorrow of defeat—it was just after he had been called before a magistrate, for examination—my recollection of him had always been as of a man full of the most surprising vitality and high spirits, keen, bright, energetic, defying the wear of time, a man of eternal youth in spite of his white hairs. I remembered him last, erect, with clear voice and flashing eyes, and now I saw him huddled together in a chair, a wrap about his knees, nodding his head as under sleep, pale, inert, and with all the life gone out of his eyes. Behind him stood a large screen tapestried with red stuff, against which the waxen whiteness of his face and hands stood out in strong relief. How old he looked, whom age had seemed to spare so long! For the most part the head drooped forward on his chest, but now and then he raised it listlessly and let his eyes wander round the room, or across the panes on to the fields beyond. There was rarely recognition in his glance; mostly a look of unalterable sadness—of wonder, it may be, at the terrible hazards of life. Yet, when now and then one of the children, who were crowding about his chair, pressed his hand or kissed his cheek or said some words of endearment to him, the smile which was one of his characteristics came over his face, and for a brief moment he seemed himself again. Himself again—that is to say, in the goodness and great-heartedness which more than all he has ever done for France merited for him the name of the great Frenchman. For greatness of heart has always been the keynote of the character of Ferdinand de Lesseps. It was the secret of the indescribable seduction which he exercised over everyone who came near him, from emperor to laborer. It was to this quality of his that M. Renan, albeit a sceptic himself, rendered such signal homage in the speech in which he welcomed M. de Lesseps to the French Academy on the day of his admittance.
“You were good to all who came,” said M. Renan; “you made them feel 88 that their past would be effaced and that a new life lay before them. In exchange you only asked them to share your enthusiasm in the work which you had devoted to the interest of France. You held that most people can amend if only one will forget their past. One day a whole gang of convicts arrived at Panama and took work at the canal. The Austrian consul demanded that they should be handed over to him; but you delayed giving satisfaction to his request, and at the end of some weeks the Austrian consulate was fully occupied in remitting home to Austria, to their families, or, it may be, to their victims, the moneys which these outcasts whom you had transformed into honest workmen were earning with the work of their hands. You have declared your faith in humanity. You have convinced yourself and tried to convince others that men are loyal and good if only they have the wherewithal to live. It is your opinion that it is only hunger that makes men bad. ‘Never,’ said you in one of your lectures, ‘have I had cause for complaint against any of the workmen, although I have employed outcasts, pariahs, and convicts. Work has redeemed even the most dishonest. I have never been robbed, not even of a handkerchief. It is a fact which I have proved, that men can be brought to do anything by showing them kindness and by persuading them that they are working in a cause of universal interest.’ Thus you have made green again what seemed withered for ever and aye. You have given, in a century of unbelief, a startling proof of the efficacy of faith.”
MADAME DE LESSEPS IN 1880.
A thousand instances of this kindness of heart might be cited to show that M. de Lesseps ever remained a chivalrous gentleman in the best sense of the word. A trifling experience of my own may suffice. A few days after my first visit to him, at the office of the Suez Canal, I was dining at a house in the Cours-la-Reine. It was my first visit to that house, a fact which somewhat contributed to my embarrassment in what was one of my first experiences in Parisian society. Amongst the guests was the editor of one of the principal French papers, and being anxious to make his acquaintance, I asked our host to introduce me to my confrère. The editor in question had no courtesies to waste upon an insignificant foreigner, and acknowledged my bow with a reverence of exaggerated profundity, bowing almost to the earth, and then swinging round on his heel to continue a conversation with another journalist, which had been interrupted by the introduction. I was left standing in the middle of the room, with my eyes on the editor’s back, suffused with shame and mortification. M. de Lesseps saw the slight thus inflicted on a young man, and from kindness of heart immediately did what he could to efface it. From his place at the fire, where he had been standing surrounded by the usual crowd of courtiers, he had noticed the incident, and I saw him making his way across the drawing-room towards me, exclaiming to those around him: “Oh, there is a young man with whom I must have a few words!” He then took me by the hand, drew me aside, and remained conversing with me until dinner was announced.
COUNT DE LESSEPS IN 1880.
In view of the awful change that, within so short a time, has been made in this gentleman, I cannot but think that it must be attributed to the shock produced in a very old man by an experience which shows him that he has been mistaken all his life long. It is terrible to wake up at eighty-five and find that things are not what one has believed during his past life, and that the men whom one has loved and respected are unworthy. I believe that what has struck Ferdinand de Lesseps down in his chair, in full vitality, is an immense disappointment, not at the failure of his hopes, for he has always been indifferent to money, and has never had the wish to leave his children large fortunes, but at the falseness of a creed which was optimistic to the point of blindness. I believe that Ferdinand de Lesseps is dying of a broken heart, broken by the immense ingratitude of men. And if the loss of all the money that has been sunk in the Panama mud and the pockets of the intrigants of the Third Republic adds to his sorrow, it is certainly not for himself nor his family, but for all those who are suffering because they shared his belief in his star, and who blindly followed him to ruin. He knew that they were of the humble, and often told me so. “Panama will be carried out with the savings in woollen stockings of the peasant and of the workman,” he used to say. He has never been self-seeking. He presented France with a concession, that of the Suez Canal, estimated at one hundred millions of francs, and with lands worth another thirty millions, and fought heroically for years to render to his gift its greatest value. In the words of M. Renan, the courage, the energy, the resources of all sorts expended by M. de Lesseps in this struggle were nothing short of prodigious. In exchange he took for himself enough to enable him to lead the life of a gentleman and to do good around him. Each of his children he endowed with not more than seventy thousand francs, the revenues from which, together with his wife’s private fortune, are now all that remain to the family. I firmly believe that all his life he acted only from feelings of philanthropy and from patriotism of the most chivalrous type. He never had any desire to leave a large fortune, and I can remember his saying to me, very emphatically, that his children must do as he had done; and that they would do so if they were worthy of his name; and that he never wished to leave them large fortunes, but an honorable name, a love for their country equal to his, and an example which he hoped they would follow. “Let them work as I have done,” said this most tender of fathers.
It seems that not even this heritage of an honored name is, if the persecutors of the old man can have their way, to be left to his family. Since he has been down the number of his adversaries has of course increased tenfold. Even those who owe him all—many officials at the Suez Canal Company, for instance, who owe their positions and fortunes to his genius—seem glad to revenge themselves for their obligation. De Lesseps has done too much good to men not to be hated, and it is to be regretted that poor De Maupassant cannot wield his pen in analysis of the motives which are actuating his former dependents in their endeavors to renounce all solidarity with the dying octogenarian of La Chesnaye. I visited the offices of the Suez Canal Company a few days ago, and, prepared as one is for human ingratitude, it was distressing in the extreme to see how poor a thing to charm with was the name at the sound of which, as I can well remember, all the flunkeys of the 90 place in livery or black frock coat doubled up in the days that are past. The lion is down, and every ass of Paris has a heel to kick him with.
COUNT DE LESSEPS IN 1892.
On the other hand, the adversities of the De Lesseps family have revealed to them the immense number of friends which they possess in all parts of the world. Letters and telegrams keep pouring in from all sides to La Chesnaye, and all the available pens are kept busy most of the day and night in answering the kindest expressions of sympathy, many from utter strangers. “This is the only thing that gives me courage to bear it all,” said Madame de Lesseps. Helene told me, with some amusement, that a Spanish banker had the day before written to Madame de Lesseps to offer her a present of a million, and that there had been many similar offers of pecuniary assistance from people who believed the family to be totally ruined. When Charles was down at La Chesnaye, and was walking in the woods with his escort behind him, a serious offer was made to him by friends who had gathered around him, to effect his rescue if he would but give the word. As for tokens of sympathy from all the country around, they are unending. The farmer at the home-farm, which was built by M. de Lesseps, and which has been in the occupation of the present tenants from the beginning, was at dinner when the paper containing the news of Charles’s conviction and sentence reached him. “He turned quite white,” said his wife to me, “and rushed out of the house and went roaming about the woods like a demented man until late at night. And I have cried every time I have thought of M. Charles, whom I knew when he was a baby not higher than my knee.” But perhaps the most devoted friend that remains to the family is M. de Lesseps’s valet, who since his master’s fall has never left him for more than ten minutes together, sleeping on a mattress in his bedroom, and waiting on him patiently all day and all night. “Don’t let anyone, I don’t care who it may be,” he says, clenching his fist, “come near my master. I will be killed before any offence shall be put upon him.” And though one is rather sceptical as to such professions, I fully believe that in this case they are sincere. It was touching to note with what reverence, when lunch was served, this valet approached his master, and, mindful of old formalities of respect, bowed and said that Monsieur the Count was served; to note with what womanly gentleness this strong man lifted his feeble master up and guided his tottering steps into the adjoining dining-room.
What a beautiful family it was, to be sure, that gathered round that table! Paul with his girlish ringlets, Robert also in curls. Helene, who sat next to her father, with her jet-black hair loose down her back, and her bright eyes contrasting with the ivory pallor of her face, worn out as the poor child is with care and sorrow and hard work as her mother’s penwoman. Then there was Lolo, a young lady of eighteen, roughly dressed, but of great elegance, who looked even sadder than the rest, but who tried to be bright and gay; and on the other side of her, Solange, who though she is quite a woman in appearance, hates to be considered so, and wants to be treated as a child, and refuses to wear long dresses, and loves to climb trees in the park and to give picnics to her little brothers and sisters in a mud hovel which she has constructed in the garden. Then there is Zi-Zi and Griselle—more than twenty in all around the long oval table. Every now and then one of the children rises from its seat, and runs up to the old father and kisses him on the cheek, or presses his hand; and I think all envied Helene who sat next to him and could caress him when she liked. I was seated just opposite the old man, and I am afraid my presence disturbed him; for he seemed to listen to what I said, and to wonder who I was, and what I might want. I shall never forget the sight of him as he faced me, sunk down in his chair, with one trembling hand holding his napkin to his breast, and feebly with the other guiding the morsels to his mouth. He seemed to eat with some appetite, though under persistent drowsiness, which was only shaken off for a moment when his wife, who came in late, took her seat at the table. Then his head was lifted, and a bright look came into his eyes, as if of salute to the comrade of his life. Whatever Madame de Lesseps may have suffered, I am sure that she feels herself repaid each time that those eyes are so lifted to hers. The dejeuner was a simple though ample one, the menu being in keeping with the manner of life at Chesnaye, which is that of comfort without ostentation. The wine is grown by Madame de Lesseps herself, on vineyards of her own planting, and is that “gray wine” which is so much appreciated by connoisseurs. It has a beautiful color in a cut-glass decanter. The conversation was a halting one. Each tried to be gay, each tried to forget the deep shadow that lay over that family gathering. 92 When the old man’s eyes wandered around the table as if in quest of some one whom he desired but who was not there, a silence imposed itself on all, for all knew whom he was seeking, and where that dear one was.
In his buttonhole was Helene’s bouquet of violets, underneath which peeped out the rosette of the grand officer of the Legion of Honor, alas, in jeopardy!
We took coffee in the drawing-room. It was served on a table which stood underneath a fine portrait of Agnes Sorel, once the mistress of the house. Facing us were two pictures of the inauguration of the Suez Canal. The furniture was covered with tapestries mostly from the needle of the countess.
It was here that Madame de Lesseps told me of the old man’s present life. “He has the fixed idea that the Queen of England will come and make all things right. He often rises in his chair and asks if Queen Victoria has arrived, and when any visitor comes he thinks that it is she at last.”
Then blanching the countess added, “You think, sir, do you not, that he is in ignorance of what has happened? You do not think that he has any suspicion? Sometimes the dreadful thought troubles me that he knows all, and that, great-hearted gentleman that he is, he lends himself to this most tragic comedy that we are playing. I sometimes doubt. Would not that be terrible? And again there are times when I am convinced that our efforts to hide all that is, are successful. We give him last year’s papers to read. I have had collections sent down. Formerly we used to cut out or erase parts which we did not want him to see, but he seemed to notice the alterations, and so we ordered down papers of a year ago. And it is quite pathetic to hear the remarks he occasionally makes. Thus a few days ago he called me to his side in high glee, and said how happy he was to hear that his old friend M. Ressman had been appointed Italian Ambassador to France, an event of more than a year ago. There are times, too, when he gets very impatient at being kept down here, and what he misses chiefly is the French Academy. He is constantly telling me how anxious he is to attend, and I have to invent the sorriest fables to explain to him that the Academicians are not holding any meetings; as, for instance, that they are all old men, and that they are taking a long holiday.”
The countess sighed and said: “I do what I can, but that terrible doubt pursues me often. You see, he did know that the Panama affair had resulted in ruin. It is since he was called before that examining magistrate, M. Prinet, that he has been as you have seen him. He must suspect something. How much, we shall never know.”
Then she added: “He is constantly asking after Charles. He knows that he is in trouble, but we hope that he does not suspect what the trouble is. Before he was taken as he is, Charles had, to his knowledge, become involved in that Société des Comptes Courants bankruptcy, which ruined him; and perhaps his father thinks that his son’s troubles are in connection with that affair.” Then the stepmother broke out into impassioned praise of the stepson: “The noblest heart! He will suffer all, rather than let the slightest harm come to his father. He is a hero, a gentleman, a hero, a hero! When he was here he told us what he had undergone, and said that he was willing to undergo ten times as much, so that his father be left unmolested.
“It is strangers who send us expressions of their sympathy. Those whom De Lesseps has enriched have forgotten him. And yet I am unjust. I have had letters from people who risked their positions, their daily bread, in writing to me as they did. But not a single political man has written a word to express condolence with the great patriot or with his family. They dare not. None of my letters are safe. Many of my friends have received my letters open. Many letters addressed to me have gone astray. It is dangerous to-day to be the friend of the man who gave a fortune to his country.
“He sits there all day,” she continued, “and reads his ‘Souvenirs of Forty Years,’ the ‘Souvenirs’ which he has dedicated to his children. And at times he is quite his old self again, but 93 drowsiness is always coming upon him. Mon Dieu! that he may be spared to us a little longer!”
Helene just then passed through the room. “There is a paper in papa’s room,” she whispered, “which I must take away. There is the word Panama upon it.”
Our conversation was with bated breath, and the ill-fated word was scouted like an unclean thing.
And whilst we were talking, the sunny, curly-headed Paul ran into the room and cried out: “Oh, do come and see papa! Bou-Bou has jumped onto his shoulder and is picking his violets.”
We moved towards the door, and this was the last that I saw, or may ever see, of Ferdinand de Lesseps. Against the red background of the twofold screen he sat sunken, asleep, in his arm-chair, with the two volumes that tell the story of his heroism in his lap, and on his shoulders perched a grinning Barbary ape, pulling at and munching the violets which Helene had picked for him, and which hid in his buttonhole his jeopardized rosette of the Legion of Honor. Around him stood his children, and it was sad to see, and sadder still to think, that, his family excepted, what holds this great heart and splendid gentleman in dearest affection is not the millionaire grown rich on his achievements, but a witless, speechless thing, that perhaps has feeling what a great and generous heart is here.
McCLURE’S MAGAZINE
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SOME OF THE CONTRIBUTORS.
The most famous authors in America and England will contribute to McCLURE’S MAGAZINE. A partial list of these authors is as follows:
R. L. Stevenson,
Rudyard Kipling,
A. Conan Doyle,
Octave Thanet,
William Dean Howells,
Bret Harte,
Clark Russell,
Joel Chandler Harris,
Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson,
F. Marion Crawford,
Margaret Deland,
Herbert D. Ward,
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps,
Thomas Hardy,
J. T. Trowbridge,
Jerome K. Jerome,
Frances Hodgson Burnett,
Theodore Roosevelt,
Joaquin Miller,
Gilbert Parker,
John Burroughs,
Camille Flammarion,
Lillie Chace Wyman,
Sarah Orne Jewett,
Edward Everett Hale,
Louise Chandler Moulton,
Hamlin Garland,
Prof. E. S. Holden,
Prof. C. A. Young,
H. H. Boyesen,
Robert Barr,
Henry M. Stanley,
Archibald Forbes,
Andrew Lang,
Harriet Prescott Spofford,
Dr. J. S. Billings,
W. E. Henley,
Capt. Charles King.
PRICE, 15 CENTS A COPY. SUBSCRIPTION, $1.50 A YEAR.
The price of this magazine marks a radical departure in the history of American magazines. This price is possible on account of the connection of the magazine with the Newspaper Syndicate established by S. S. McClure.
Many stories by famous authors, and frequently special articles, will be secured for the newspapers and afterwards be republished in the magazine, with new and splendid illustrations.
INTERVIEWS WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE.
In addition to contributions by noted authors there will be in every issue of the magazine interviews, prepared by well qualified writers, with eminent men and women. In this way the story will be told of men distinguished as authors, artists, inventors, explorers, scientists, etc. These interviews will be fully illustrated, and will have all the value of careful biographical studies set forth in great part autobiographically.
Jules Verne,
Frances Hodgson Burnett,
Tissandier, the famous French Balloonist,
Archdeacon Farrar,
Thomas A. Edison,
F. Hopkinson Smith,
H. H. Boyesen,
Alphonse Daudet,
Camille Flammarion,
Edward Everett Hale,
Prof. Graham Bell,
and many others, have given material for especially prepared interviews, which will appear fully illustrated in the magazine.
THE EDGE OF THE FUTURE
is the title of a series of interviews and articles furnished by Scientists, Inventors, Notable Enterprisers, including men who have built up great businesses, railroads, manufactories, etc., Statesmen, Soldiers, Explorers, Surgeons and Investigators, and which will indicate the lines of future progress. The interviews with Edison (electricity), Pasteur (bacteriology), Tissandier (ballooning), illustrate the character of this series.
AN ENTIRELY NEW FORM OF MAGAZINE LITERATURE ARE REAL CONVERSATIONS.
It is expected that each issue of the magazine will contain real conversations between eminent personalities. The dialogue between William Dean Howells and Professor H. H. Boyesen, which appears in this number, indicates the general character of these contributions.
HUMAN DOCUMENTS
is the title to a department new in American magazine literature, and will consist principally of portraits of distinguished men and women at different periods of their lives, showing the gradual development of character in distinguished Soldiers, Statesmen, Merchants, Novelists, Actors, Inventors, etc.
FICTION BY FAMOUS AUTHORS.
A Group of Notable Short Stories has been secured by the editors of McClure’s Magazine, and two or three will be published in each issue. Stories may be expected in early numbers by
Thomas Hardy,
Rudyard Kipling,
Joel Chandler Harris,
Conan Doyle,
William Dean Howells,
Bret Harte,
Harriet Prescott Spofford,
Frances Hodgson Burnett,
R. L. Stevenson,
Sarah Orne Jewett,
Octave Thanet,
Stanley J. Weyman.
These stories will be fully illustrated.
HENRY M. STANLEY
will contribute, especially for younger readers, a story of African Adventure.
NATURAL HISTORY AND ADVENTURE.
There will be several articles written by Raymond Blathwayt, who has been called by Mr. W. T. Stead the best interviewer in England, from material furnished him by Karl Hagenbeck of Hamburg, the great animal importer and trainer. The articles will deal with
The Capture of Wild Beasts.
The Transportation of Wild Beasts.
The Training of Wild Beasts.
The Adventures and Escapes of Karl Hagenbeck.
These articles contain a wealth of material of the most interesting description. The series will be illustrated by an English artist of great skill in drawing animals.
John Burroughs, C. F. Holder, Dr. C. C. Abbott and other writers famous for their work in this field will contribute to the magazine.
Of Interest to both Young and Old will be PROF. R. L. GARNER’S AFRICAN EXPEDITION TO THE GORILLAS.
Arrangements have been made, in connection with a leading English review, to publish Professor Garner’s letters descriptive of his present expedition to Africa. Professor Garner is noted the world over for the curious and interesting investigations he is making in the speech of monkeys. He sailed for Africa last September for the purpose of further pursuing his studies in the native haunts of the gorilla. He is at present in the heart of the forest. It is expected that the illustrations of these articles will be from photographs taken by Professor Garner in Africa.
KNOWLEDGE OF IMMEDIATE VALUE
will afford the subjects of many articles and interviews that will deal with problems and questions of universal interest. Among the topics treated under this head will be “How to Obtain a Healthy Old Age.”
NEWEST KNOWLEDGE.
Discoveries About to be Made: A popular and comprehensive report as gleaned in universities and elsewhere in all departments of knowledge and investigation. Plans are maturing for an extensive investigation, by able journalists, of the progress in various departments of knowledge and science as found in the leading colleges and universities, as well as manufacturing establishments, where valuable and original investigations and experiments are undertaken in various fields.
The series will touch upon a variety of subjects. Bacteriology and What Is Being Done in Its Investigation will be thoroughly explained after visiting: the laboratories of eminent authorities such as Prof. Welch of Johns Hopkins University.
The work done in the most Notable Physical Laboratories will be reported upon. In these laboratories the subjects connected with electricity are studied and experiments are made that often have far-reaching results.
Another subject of great interest is the work of Famous Astronomical Observatories, explaining “How Discoveries are Made,” etc.
The recently established Psychological Laboratories, where the action of the mind is scientifically investigated, will furnish material for a paper of novel interest.
Special articles will be furnished on The Physique of the American Student, describing gymnastics, outdoor sports, the effect of training, etc.
A tour of investigation of this kind cannot fail to bring to light a great deal of material that cannot be anticipated.
The articles secured in this way will supplement the material announced in other parts of this prospectus.
TIMELINESS.
In the various fields which this magazine will cultivate, a constant effort will be made to secure articles of timely interest. The newest book, the latest important political event, the most recent discovery or invention—in fact, what is newest and most important in every department of human activity, will be set forth by specially well-qualified writers, in the form of essays, biographical articles, interviews or contributions by the men most closely identified with the subjects in hand.
THE PRESENT HOUR
will be the subject of a series of articles, published month by month, dealing with men and measures that are making current history. The first one is by M. de Blowitz, and appears in this issue.
STRANGER THAN FICTION
is the title of a department which will contain a number of short articles; true tales of adventure; striking bits of biography; interesting and curious facts in science; stories of travelers and explorers; picturesque short articles gathered from every field of human activity and investigation.
IN GENERAL.
The magazine will not only furnish the best literature, but will make a serious attempt to report the marvelous activities and developments of modern civilization, and especially of the United States.
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