The Evacuation of England: The Twist in the Gulf Stream

by L. P. Gratacap

Then came a procession through the Reservation to Big Round Top and back again on the lower ground past the Devil’s Den, and over the Emmetsburg road to Gettysburg, and in the clamorous excitement, the parade of uniforms, the brilliant atmosphere, congratulations and convivial indulgence, all the President’s words became clouded and unreal. And if the Isthmus was covered by water, if the Gulf Stream was deflected, if it meant blight for England, what of it? The United States would only become greater—its magnification would be unquestioned, boundless; the stars in their courses worked for them, and the mutations of the earth’s surface only brought to them unrivalled aptitudes for new chances, for new power.

This was said a good many times by a good many kinds of men, and the intangible something it suggested, by repetition, assumed the force of demonstration. There was a distinguishable forgetfulness of the disasters that had come, and a listless thought of those that were threatened. A few observant and reflecting minds brooded over the strange catastrophe, and yielded an attention to their implications. This attitude sprang from knowledge, and in the case of Leacraft from a personal interest in the singular sequence of events which the President portrayed, and which even the placidity of an Englishman’s confidence in his destiny failed to contemplate as injurious fiction. It was a thing to be reflected upon, at least, and added its sombre influence to deepen the gloom of Leacraft’s disappointment. But it also gradually developed for him a remedial efficacy, not simply as a spurious employment for his thoughts, but through a substantial relevancy to his emotional needs.

Leacraft’s mental inclinations carried him towards speculative forecasts. He had cultivated his predilections along all sorts of scientific horoscopes, and had enjoyed the indulgence of his fancy in studying nations and inventions, with a view to composing a plan or description of their future condition, phase and expression. He had arrived at some curious results, but they represented solely the changed surface of society, in its industrial, civic or social states, or else, in their more immaterial flights, pictured the enduring alterations of religious or philosophic systems. In all these speculations he had quite neglected the physical constants of the world, its climate and topography. His thought engaged itself with the mechanical structure of civilization, as affected by new discoveries, allied with an increasing utilitarianism, in which the individual vanishes before the imperious supervention of the State, the incorporated multitude, the abstract Wisdom of the most knowing minds, influenced by a solicitous paternalism for the Whole.

But now he found himself confronted by a new exigency, the geological interferences of Nature, and it piqued his curiosity, it assailed his fancy with indubitable fascination. By reason of his intellectual proneness to these questions, which quite deeply occupied his mind, he felt at this moment that the tremendous and supreme chance of his own mighty nation, succumbing to the accidents of a tidal caprice might offer him an alternative refuge of interest which would help to dull the pain of his misfortune. So convulsing a spectacle as the pitiless war of nature upon the embedded bulwarks of a great commercial nation’s prosperity, terrified him as a possible historical fact. Above all, it terrified him as a British subject. It became so overwhelming in the magnitude of its effects that he shudderingly admitted to himself that his love for Sally suffered a relieving diminution, as though in such events the End of the World seemed precipitated, and all human ties became obliterated, were dissolved.

The day closed in resplendent beauty. The sun curtained in a haze, shed a diffused glory through the upper sky, and sank at last in a grating of narrow bars of cloud, that lay across the west like reefs of gold, slowly transmuted into a purple nimbus upon the faintly turquoised ether. The great crowds dispersed, the troops escorted the President away, and music from near and far seemed to mingle dreamily with the mute harmonies of the sunset.

The Garretts, with Mr. Leacraft and Brig Barry, returned that night by train to Baltimore. The night proved a sleepless and excited one for Leacraft. He felt ill at ease. There was much reason for uneasiness and heartache, and the hours passed in a dull series of mournful reflections upon his own trouble, and the immodest threat of nature at the prestige of his people.

The next morning he entered the library and found Miss Garrett bending over the morning paper. She looked up as he appeared in the doorway, and there was for both a moment’s hesitation, before the morning’s greeting passed their lips. It was Sally who first spoke, and her voice was eager with alarm.

“Mr. Leacraft, the President’s lecture—surely, it was nothing else—is all here. And there is more news from the Isthmus. The land is sinking, all sinking, and”—she turned to the paper—“almost all the canal has now disappeared beneath the assault of the waves, and a stormy waste of waters sweeps across the Isthmus of Panama. Isn’t it simply fearful? And nothing can be done.”

“Miss Garrett,” answered Leacraft slowly, his eyes sadly resting upon her face, grown more beautiful, he thought, by the dwelling of a tender fearfulness in her eyes, “it is a fearful thing; an occurrence such as this is a pretty sharp shock to our sense of security. I can’t forget the President’s words. As an Englishman I really contemplate coming events with a positive terror. But there is something else, Miss Sally, I beg to speak about, another sorrow for me, though I must not permit my selfish regret to cloud your happiness.”

Sally Garrett came quite close to Leacraft. She had a true estimate of his strong and dignified nature; she yielded the just homage of affectionate regard, but her heart had never been moved by the Englishman’s impressive seriousness. Leacraft was about to speak again when voices were heard approaching, and among them the vigorous intonations of Brig Barry. Leacraft stopped, and a shadow of suffering crossed his pale face. Sally understood too clearly. She put out her hand and seized his, and pressed it kindly, and Leacraft understood her sympathy.