Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 53

"Yes, my old mare got bit by something yesterday and kicked the gig to smithereens, and lamed her off hind-leg."

"I will lend you a horse and a gig," said Penhallow.

"Thanks," said McGregor simply. "I am sweating through my coat."

"But don't leave my horse half a day tied to a post-any animal with horse-sense would kick."

"As if I ever did-but when the ladies keep me waiting. Heard the good news? No-We have nominated Lincoln-and Hamlin."

"I preferred Seward. You surprise me. What of the platform?"

"Oh, good! The Union, tariff, free soil. You will like it. The October elections in Pennsylvania will tell us who will win-later you will have to take an active part."

"No. Come up to-morrow and get that horse-No, I'll send it."

The Squire met Rivers on the avenue. As he walked beside the horse, he said, "I am going to dine with you."

"That is always good, but be on your guard about politics at Grey Pine.

Lincoln is nominated."

"Thank G.o.d! What do you think of it, Squire?"

"I think with you. This is definite-no more wabbling. But rest a.s.sured, it means, if he is elected, secession, and in the end war. We will try to avert it. We will invent compromises, at which the South will laugh; at last, we will fight, Mark. But we are a quiet commercial people and will not fight if we can avoid it. They believe nothing will make us fight. The average, every-day Northerner thinks the threat of secession is mere bluff."

"Do you recall, Squire, what Thucydides said of the Greeks at the time of the Peloponnesian War?"

"I-how the deuce should I?-what did he say?"

"He said the Greeks did not understand each other any longer, although they spoke the same language. The same words in Boston and in Charleston have different meanings."

"But," said Penhallow, "we never did understand one another."

"No, never. War-even war-is better than to keep up a partners.h.i.+p in slavery-a sleeping partners.h.i.+p. Oh, I would let them go-or accept the gage of battle."

"Pretty well that, for a clergyman, Mark. As for me, having seen war, I want never to see it again. This may please you." As he spoke, he extracted a slip of paper from his pocket-book, where to Leila's amus.e.m.e.nt queer bits of all kinds of matters were collected. Now it was verse. "Read that. You might have written it. I kept it for you. There is Ann on the porch. Don't read it now."

Late that evening Rivers sat down to think over the sermon of the next Sunday. The Squire had once said to him, "War brings out all that is best and all that is worst in a nation." He read the verses, and then read them aloud.

"They say that war is h.e.l.l, the great accursed, The sin impossible to be forgiven; Yet I can look beyond it at its worst And still find blue in Heaven.

"And as I note how n.o.bly natures form Under the war's red reign, I deem it true That He who made the earthquake and the storm Perchance makes battles too.

"The life He loves is not the life of span Abbreviated by each pa.s.sing breath; It is the true humanity of man Victorious over death."

"No great thing in the way of poetry-but-a thought-a thought. Oh, I should like to preach of men's duty to their country just now. I envy Grace his freedom. If I preached as he does, people would say it was none of a preacher's business to apply Christ's creed of conduct to a question like slavery. Mrs. Penhallow would walk out of the church. But before long men will blame the preacher who does not say, 'Thou shalt love thy country as thyself'-ah, and better, yes, and preach it too."

During the early summer of 1860, James Penhallow guarded an awkward silence about politics. Leila found that her uncle would not talk of what the closing months of Buchanan's administration might contribute to insure peaceful settlement. John Penhallow was as averse to answering her eager questions. Their silence on matters which concerned a nation's possible dismemberment and her aunt's too evident distress weighed heavily upon Leila. The newspapers bewildered her. The Tribune was for peaceful separation, and then later was against it. Uncle Jim had said he was too worried about the mills to talk politics, "Don't ask me, Leila." At last, an errand to Dr. McGregor's gave her the chance she desired.

"Yes," said the doctor, "I'll come to-day. One of the maids? Well, what else, Leila?" seeing that she still lingered.

"I want to know something about all this tangle of politics. There's Breckinridge, Douglas, Bell and Lincoln-four candidates. Uncle Jim gets almost cross when I ask him what they all stand for. Mr. Rivers told me to be thankful I have no vote. If there is to be war, have I no interest? There is Uncle Jim-and-and John."

The doctor said, "Sit down, Leila. Your uncle could answer you. He won't talk. I don't believe John Penhallow owns any politics except a soldier's blind creed of devotion to the Flag."

"Oh, the Flag, Doctor! But it is a symbol-it is history. I won't write to a man any more who has no certain opinions. He never answers."

"Well, my dear, see how hard it is to know what to think! One State after another is seceding. The old juggle of compromises goes on in that circus we call Congress. The audience is grimly silent. Crittenden's compromise has failed. The President is at last against secession-and makes no vigorous effort to reinforce Fort Sumter. The Cabinet was distinctly with the South-the new men came in too late. You-a girl-may well call it a tangle. It is a diabolical cat's-cradle. My only hope, my dear, is in a new and practically untried man-Abraham Lincoln. The South is one in opinion-we are perplexed by the fears of commerce and are split. There you have all my wisdom. Read the news, but not the weatherc.o.c.k essays called editorials. Oh! I forgot to tell the Squire that Tom, my young doctor, has pa.s.sed the Army Board and is awaiting orders in Was.h.i.+ngton. By-bye!"

"Tom as a doctor-and in uniform," Leila murmured, as her horse walked away. "How these boys go on and on, and we women just wait and wait while men dispose of our fates."

In February the Confederacy of the South was organising, and in March of 1861 Mr. Lincoln was President. Penhallow groaned over Cameron as Secretary of War, smiled approval of the Cabinet with Seward and Chase and anxiously waited to see what Lincoln would do.

Events followed fast in those eventful days. On the thirteenth of April Ann Penhallow sat in the spring suns.h.i.+ne on the porch, while Leila read aloud to her with entranced attention "The Marble Faun." The advent of an early spring in the uplands was to be seen in the ruddy colour of the maples. Bees were busy among the young flowers. There was noiseless peace in the moveless infant foliage.

"How still it is!" said Leila looking up from the book. They were far from the madding crowd. "What is it, Billy?"

He was red, breathless, excited, and suddenly broke out in his thin boy-like voice, "Hurrah! They've fired on the flag."

"Who-what flag?"

"Don't know." He had no least idea of what his words meant. "Don't know," and crying "Hurrah! They've fired on the flag," fled away.

Ann said, "Go to the village and find out what that idiot meant."

In a half hour Leila came back. "Well, what is it?"

"The Charleston troops have fired on Fort Sumter-My G.o.d! Aunt Ann-on the flag-our flag!"

Ann rose, gathered up her work, hesitated a moment, and saying, "That is bad news, indeed," went into the house.

Leila sat down on the step of the porch and broke into a pa.s.sion of tears, as James Penhallow coming through the woods dismounted at her side. "What is the matter, my dear child?"

"They have fired on the flag at Sumter-it is an insult!"

"Yes, my child, that-and much more. A blunder too! Mr. Lincoln should thank G.o.d to-day. He will have with him now the North as one man. Colonel Anderson must surrender; he will be helpless. Alas for his wife, a Georgia woman!-and my Ann, my dear Ann."

There are few alive to-day who recall the effect caused in the States of the North by what thousands of men and women, rich and poor, felt to be an insult, and for the hour, far more to them than the material consequences which were to follow.

When Rivers saw the working people of the little town pa.s.sionately enraged, the women in tears, he read in this outbreak of a cla.s.s not given to sentimental emotion what was felt when the fatal news came home to lonely farms or great cities over all the North and West.

Memorable events followed in bewildering succession during the early spring and summer of 1861. John wrote that Beauregard and all but a score of Southern cadets had left the Point. Robert Lee's decision to resign from the army was to the Squire far more sorrowfully important.

When Lincoln's call to arms was followed in July by the defeat of Bull Run, James Penhallow wrote to his nephew: "My Dear John: Your aunt is beyond measure disturbed. I have been more at ease now that this terrible decision as to whether we are to be one or G.o.d knows how many is to be settled by the ordeal of battle. I am amazed that no one has dwelt upon what would have followed accepted secession. We should have had a long frontier of custom houses, endless rows over escaping slaves, and the outlet of the Mississippi in the possession of a foreign country. Within ten years war would have followed; better let it come now.

"I am offered a regiment by Governor Curtin. To accept would be fatal to our interests in the mills. It may become an imperative duty to accept; but this war will last long, or I much underestimate the difficulties of overcoming a gallant people waging a defensive war in a country where every road and creek is familiar.

"Yours, in haste,

"JAMES PENHALLOW."

John wrote later:

"MY DEAR UNCLE: Here is news for you! All of my cla.s.s are ordered to Was.h.i.+ngton. I shall be in the engineer corps. I see General McClellan is put in command of the army. I will write again from Was.h.i.+ngton."