“And what do folk say?” Anger stood red on the brow of the General as a banner is flung from a battlement. “What do folk say?”
“You should consider coolly, General,” I went on. Ever cool myself, it was for that the General valued my counsel. “You know this tale as well as I. It has been told me more than once within four days. Light and laughter-loving, the beautiful Peg O'Neal grows up, the daughter of this very tavern that shelters us. She weds Timberlake, the purser. He is here; then he is at sea. The girlish Peg is still a girl. She goes to rout and ball; she is gay and high and does not mope and wear demure half-weeds as good opinion holds one should whose love is on the sea among the storms. There come whisper and nod and innuendo—the pot of Washington scandal, they tell me, is made easily to boil. Then in the Mediterranean Timberlake cuts his throat; and next, as one who makes sure work, leaps overboard into fifty fathoms. The beautiful Peg does not become distinguished for her grief. This, and the throat-cutting, augment talk, and tongues wag doubly. Within the year thereafter, and not two months ago, she and our friend Eaton are wed. Gossip gains a new impulse; heads nod and there are wise leers. I put this to you, General, with a rude coarseness almost ferocious; I do so for a purpose. I put it as your enemies will put it when, should you call Eaton to your cabinet, they seize on the story to your injury. It is not what you and I say or believe; that is not the question. It is what will your enemies tell and the world accept.”
While I was talking, the General filled a clay pipe; in tobacco he found calm. Holding the pipe by its long reed stem he strode up and down, puffing cloudily. The red faded on his forehead, but his eyes were agate-hard. I saw it would be Eaton against argument. The General's will was set as hard and fast and cold as arctic ice.
Nor, to be fully honest, was I over-surprised or sensibly cast down; I had fairly foreseen it all. You may question why, then, I made this vigorous head; and Eaton my friend.
It is a proper curiosity. Freely, I am constrained, as I review the past, to regard myself as sometimes the victim of self-foolery. On this February evening with the General, I make no doubt but I thought I acted wholly for his weal and peace. And yet I was clear before I spoke, how my words would win to no effect, and Eaton for the cabinet it would be. Thus, I now see that my impulse, indubitably, was one wholly of vanity; as the friend privileged to frankness and who—as he said many times and until I consented to the fact myself—more than any other had builded him up to be a president, I would tell my mind, air my gifts of prophecy, and arrange myself for a future wherein the General might say, when the winds blew high, “You saw the tempest coming and you told me.” That, as I now see, was the very conceited, small, cheap reason of my interference; although at the time I in no sort beheld it by that light, but felt somewhat noble and high and as might a loyal friend.
The General for ten full minutes smoked up and down, I silent, and the room otherwise still save for the tick-ticking of the clock. At last he spoke smilingly and off to one side.
“You remember that sagacious doctor who was yesterday called from Baltimore to amend me after my journey? 'I'll do anything you say,' I told him, 'save give up coffee and tobacco.' 'Then you'll die,' he retorted, 'since it is coffee and tobacco which are killing you.' 'Then I'll die,' I replied, 'since coffee and tobacco are all that are left worth living for.' He quit the place in a fury of heat, did that doctor.”
The General grinned. There was another pause; then he swung back to my Eaton warning, while his face again showed grave and firm.
“Sir, Mrs. Eaton—Peg, as we call her—is as spotless as a star. My wife knew her, loved her.” His tone was tender, while his glance sought the miniature where from the table it followed him up and down with its eyes. “Timberlake's habits were unfortunate; his suicide was due to that. There was never a doubt of Peg in his soul; never a question of her conduct. I know this; I do not guess. What!”—here his voice began to rise with choler—“what! are we to guide by nameless slanders? Eaton is my friend, honorable, high of mind, honorably married to the woman he loves! I will not, by anything I do or fail to do, arm villification. Into my cabinet he goes though every bow in hell be bent against it.”
Smash! went the General's pipe upon the hearth. It was the manner of the man when driven of anger. First and last he smashed pipes by the gross.