XXI
ALONE WITH NATURE
When the party returned to the train after Jimmy Grayson's thrilling defiance there was an air of relief, even joyousness, about them all. No more diplomacy, no more watching for blows in the dark, no more waiting, now they knew who their friends were, and they knew equally well their enemies. They could strike straight at Goodnight, Crayon, and all the others. Only in the heart of nearly every one of them there was still mourning for the lost leader, for "King" Plummer, whom a gust of passion had led astray.
"Well," said Hobart, "I thank God that the split has come at last. Even if we are beaten out of our boots, I've got that defiance to remember, and the picture of Jimmy Grayson refusing either to be browbeaten or cajoled, even though the price was the Presidency."
"We know where we stand," said Mr. Heathcote, "and that at least is a gain."
As for Sylvia, she was thrilling with pride. Her uncle's high heroism, his superb truthfulness appealed to every quality in her woman's soul, and with another impulse full as womanly she hated Goodnight, Crayon, and their associates with all her heart; she believed them capable of any crime, personal as well as political. She felt so intensely upon the subject that she wanted to speak of it to somebody else, but Mr. and Mrs. Grayson had withdrawn to the drawing-room, and all the correspondents were deep in their work, as it would be necessary to send very long despatches to the great cities that day.
Harley wrote five or six thousand words full of fire and zeal. As usual, he wrote from the "inside," and his was not a bare record of facts; one reading it, though three thousand miles away, was upon the scene himself; everything passed before him alive; he saw the heroic figure of the candidate thundering forth his denunciation; he knew all that it cost, the full penalty, and he shared the stern impulse which such a speaker in such a situation must feel; he, too, saw the astonishment on the faces of the committee, astonishment followed by fear and rage, and he shared also the noble thrill that must come to a man who had lost all save honor, but was proud in the losing. Harley was always a good writer, but now as he wrote he saw every word burning before him, so intense were his feelings, and even across the United States he communicated the same thrill to those who read.
His despatch brought from his abrupt editor the one word "Splendid!" and it attracted marked attention not only wherever the Gazette went, but where also went the numerous journals into which it was copied. Everybody who read it said, "What a magnificent figure Jimmy Grayson is!" and the impression was deepened and widened by other writers on the train who were inferior in powers only to Harley. In this his day of great disaster the candidate was to find that there were friends who were truly bound to him with "hooks of steel." Nor was he ungrateful. The moisture rose in his eyes when he first heard of their accounts, and in privacy he confided to his wife that he did not know how to thank them.
"If I were you I should not say anything," she advised. "They will like it better if you don't."