Mortmain Part 47

"This last suggestion was accompanied by a yell and a rush against the door, which swayed inward, and, the lock snapping, burst open. There was an instant's hesitation on the part of the men outside; then they began to surge through the narrow doorway. Randolph quickly raised his pistol.

"'Back!' he shouted. 'Leave the room!' Instinctively they retreated. I can see them now, crowding out through the doorway. Just here, where I am sitting, in the full light of the lamp, stood Randolph, the barrel of his pistol glistening wickedly. There was a cold gleam in his eyes and a drawn look about his mouth. Before him stood Jim, tail switching, and lips curled back in a snarl that showed all his sharp teeth, while in the background cowered Moses, fear pictured upon every feature, his eyeb.a.l.l.s gleaming white in the shadowy doorway of the bedroom.

"'I warn you, gentlemen,' said Randolph haughtily. 'I order you to leave the room. I shall shoot the first man that crosses my threshold.'

"'Bos.h.!.+' cried a voice. 'Hear him!'

"'D----d slave owner!' shouted another.

"'Throw him out!'

"Watkins thrust himself forward.

"'Bah! I'm not afraid of any rum-drinking Southerner! He hasn't the nerve to shoot!'

"'Look out!' called some one.

"There was a sudden rush from outside and Watkins either sprang or was pushed, probably the latter, through the door. At the same instant there was a flash, a report, a snarl, a loud cry, a tumult of feet. The smoke cleared slowly away, showing the door empty. Across the threshold lay a soph.o.m.ore, while over him stood Jim, motionless, with his feet on the man's chest and his teeth close to his face.

"Randolph laid the smoking pistol upon the table and pointed grimly to a splintered crack in the strip above the door.

"'Come here, Jim!' he called. The dog unwillingly drew away, still eying the man on the floor, who, finding himself unhurt, began to blubber loudly.

"'You are free, suh,' remarked Randolph scornfully. 'Don't let me detain you.'

"Watkins slowly and fearfully scrambled to his feet, and then, like a flash, vanished into the darkness.

"'Golly, Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k,' exclaimed Moses in an awestruck voice, 'I thought you'd killed that gem'man, sho'!'

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Back,' he shouted."]

"'Give us a gla.s.s of brandy, Moses!' said his master, extinguis.h.i.+ng the light. 'Where are they, Jack?'

"I raised the window and looked out. The soph.o.m.ores were gathered in an excited group about Jim's victim, gazing at our window, and talking loudly among themselves. Randolph reloaded the pistol and stepped to the door.

"'Pleased to see you at any time, gentlemen,' he said. 'But just now I want to go to bed and don't like noise. Don't let me keep you. While I sometimes miss a single bird I'm not so bad at a covey. Now off with you!'

"Again he whipped up the pistol into position. It looked even more wicked in the starlight than it had done inside. With one accord the crowd broke and ran, Watkins well in the lead.

"Randolph came inside, lighted the lamp, and tossed off the brandy.

"'By Gad, suh,' he drawled with a laugh. 'They really thought they were going to be murdered. You Yankees don't seem gifted with any sense of humor. Here, Moses, run around to my friends' rooms and give them my compliments and invite them all to the tavern for a bowl of punch.'"

Ralph clapped his hands together.

"Right in this very room!" he cried, "right in this room!" Then he jumped to his feet and again critically examined the door. "Just as fresh as ever!" he remarked delightedly. "Why, but that Randolph was a ripper! And to think it all happened right between these four walls and we never have heard a word about it before!"

"Tell us some more about him," said I. "What did the faculty say?"

"The faculty considered the case," replied Mr. Curtis, "but we never heard from them in regard to it. Of course the story got all around the college and Watkins was unmercifully guyed. But he had his turn."

"How was that?" inquired Ralph. "Do go on."

"I don't know," returned Mr. Curtis. "What do you think of Randolph?"

"The best ever!" p.r.o.nounced Ralph with conviction.

"It's hard to resist such an enthusiastic audience--and so insistent,"

smiled Mr. Curtis. "Well, they let him alone after that, and he pursued the even tenor of his way and increased in wisdom and stature and in favor--at least with man.

"I can only tell you about Randolph's leaving college, and that takes me to those sadder times of which I spoke. It was late in the spring, when none of us had any longer time or inclination to think of college distinctions or college jealousies. We were all overwhelmed at the thought of the impending conflict. Already most of the Southerners had departed for their homes.

"You see, I'm trying to give you an impression--a picture of a chap I believe to have been one of the truest gentlemen that ever came here--I feel you're ent.i.tled to know whose room it is you occupy and to share in these memories, which are, after all, the best thing left in my lonely old bachelor existence. When I tell you the rest and how we parted never to meet again you won't be able to get a true understanding of it unless you can grasp the real spirit of the times, the environment, the intensity of the whole affair.

"Here I was rooming with a flamboyant Southerner who fully intended to enlist as soon as his native State should declare herself, when four of my uncles had already joined the Union army. Of course I wanted to go, but my father wouldn't hear of it. The whole miserable business only drew Randolph and me the closer together. I do not think that his performance with the pistol had increased his popularity; in fact, the sympathies of the undergraduates seemed on the whole to be with Watkins, and the general sentiment that he was the aggrieved party. If d.i.c.k had taken his medicine in good part it would doubtless have been better for him in the end. You see, it gave his slanderers a handle and they made the most of it. Neither did he abate any of those idiosyncrasies of which I have spoken, but simply out of bravado, I suppose, rather let himself go. His cravats increased in brilliancy, his waistcoats multiplied their colors, and he was always careering around on Azam through the Yard and Harvard Square. He had a trick of riding suddenly out of nowhere, and appearing at recitations on horseback, turning his beast over to Moses at the door until the lecture had concluded. I have known Randolph at this period to keep his horse waiting an hour in order that he might ride him the length of the Yard. Don't get the impression that I am criticising him unfavorably; I am merely endeavoring to give you the point of view of the outsiders who didn't like him. By April the cla.s.s was pretty evenly divided on the Randolph question. To half of us he was a rather Quixotic hero--to the rest a sort of cheap _poseur_.

Watkins was untiring in his innuendoes, and in this he was aided to a considerable extent by the bitterness of the feeling between North and South. Of course, everything possible was being done to conciliate the Southern States, and it was the aim of the entire North to avert if possible an open rupture. At the theaters the most popular music was the old Southern airs and plantation melodies, and the audiences conscientiously cheered when 'Dixie' was played. Naturally this was vastly gratifying to Randolph, who failed, it seemed to me, to realize its significance. I don't think that anyone really believed actual hostilities would occur.

"Then like a lash across our faces came the firing on Sumter. The whole North gasped and then the blood boiled in our veins. Right here under these trees the war fever burned hottest.

"That night will never be forgotten by the cla.s.s of '64. A huge gathering of students filled the Yard, lights twinkled in all the windows, torches flared here and there among the tree trunks, while between Stoughton Hall and where Thayer now stands, just in front of these very windows, the fellows concentrated in a solid ma.s.s, cheering the Union again and again, as flights of rockets burst high above the trees, sending down their floating canopies of sparks. Into that big elm, out there, some of the seniors were hoisting a transparency, bearing upon one side the words, 'The Const.i.tution and Enforcement of the Laws,' and upon the other, 'Harvard for War.'

"I was sitting in this window--Randolph in that. Perhaps I should have been out on the gra.s.s shouting with the others, but the loneliest fellow in Cambridge was at my side. Poor old chap! No wonder he was gloomily silent. Outside the cheering continued and the rockets roared away over the tops of the old buildings, until the students, forming into an irregular procession, marched away singing patriotic airs, some to go to their rooms, but most to pa.s.s the remainder of the evening at the tavern, discussing the President's proclamation.

"d.i.c.k got up quietly and came over to the window. 'Jack,' he said sadly, 'the game's about up with me. I can't stay here any longer. Now that war is an actuality, I must go home, and the sooner the better.'

"'But Virginia hasn't seceded,' I answered, 'and most likely won't. If she does there will be time enough for you to go.'

"'Virginia _will_ secede,' he replied, 'and blood will be shed in this cursed quarrel within two weeks. I can't stay here when I might be at home helping on the cause. I shall think you are acting from interested motives,' he added, smiling.

"'What does your mother say?'

"'That's the trouble. She wants me to stay.'

"I read the letter which he handed me. It was plain enough. The good lady desired to keep her only son out of harm's way just as long as possible, although through it all I could perceive her consciousness of the futility of any idea of preventing a Randolph from taking an active part, in the event of the secession of his native State. I urged parental duty and the foolishness of taking for granted something that might not happen at all. He, of course, was keen for fighting anyhow, but he was prepared to stand by his State's decision.

"Of course, you couldn't blame a woman for wanting to keep her only son from throwing his life away. From the very first I had a presentiment that that was what it would amount to, and I was for doing all I could to help her carry out her purpose.

"But as the days dragged on it became harder and harder to keep Randolph in Cambridge. You see, by that time he was practically the only Southerner left there, and he found himself in a strangely awkward, not to say painful, position. Even some of his friends, while their manner toward him remained the same, ceased to come as frequently to our room.

"We kept trying to deceive ourselves all along about the seriousness of the crisis. None of us did much studying--Randolph, none at all. He rode about the country or sat in his room reading his last letters from the Hall, fretting to get away from Cambridge. Nor did his continued presence pa.s.s uncommented upon by the more fiery of our student patriots.

"Several anonymous letters suggesting that his presence in Cambridge was undesirable had been left at his room, while, quite accidentally of course, it frequently happened that the sidewalk in front of our windows was selected as the forum for vehement denunciation of the South, of slavery and slaveholders. Randolph gripped his pipe grimly between his teeth and held his head higher than ever. Once he actually tried to address a meeting in front of the post office on the Inherent Right of Secession. But he was groaned down. While few of us had been Abolitionists we were now all Unionists, and '_Harvard was for war_.'

"After this experience I noticed a change in his demeanor, for there were among that shouting, hissing crowd several who had been his friends. Although he must have known that Virginia's supposed loyalty was but a pretext on the part of his mother to keep him out of danger, his devotion to her was such that he remained without a word to bear the whips and scorns of time and the humiliation of his position, waiting manfully until the official action of the government of Virginia should set him free.

"It must have been exquisite torture for a chap of his high spirit to be obliged to hear his principles and those of his father denounced on every side, and the South that he really loved with all his heart charged with treachery and infidelity.

"In those days the top story of Dane was used by the upper cla.s.smen and the members of the Law School as a debating hall, their discussions being frequently marked by personalities and a bitterness of invective unparalleled even in the national Senate and House of Representatives.

After the firing upon Sumter these meetings grew more and more turbulent, and were held almost daily.