Book: The Crisis, Complete

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'He said that to Colonel Carvel?"

"Yes."

"Stephen!"

He didn't dare to look at his mother, nor she at him. And when he reached
the office, half an hour later, Mr. Whipple was seated in his chair,
defiant and unapproachable. Stephen sighed as he settled down to his
work. The thought of one who might have accomplished what her father
could not was in his head. She was at Monticello.

Some three weeks later Mr. Brinsmade's buggy drew up at Mrs. Brice's
door. The Brinsmade family had been for some time in the country. And
frequently, when that gentleman was detained in town by business, he
would stop at the little home for tea. The secret of the good man's visit
came out as he sat with them on the front steps afterward.

"I fear that it will be a hot summer, ma'am," he had said to Mrs. Brice.
"You should go to the country."

"The heat agrees with me remarkably, Mr. Brinsmade," said the lady,
smiling.

"I have heard that Colonel Carvel wishes to rent his house at Glencoe,"
Mr. Brinsmade continued, "The figure is not high." He mentioned it. And
it was, indeed nominal. "It struck me that a change of air would do you
good, Mrs. Brice, and Stephen. Knowing that you shared in our uneasiness
concerning Judge Whipple, I thought--"

He stopped, and looked at her. It was a hard task even for that best and
roost tactful of gentlemen, Mr. Brinsmade. He too had misjudged this calm
woman.

"I understand you, Mr. Brinsmade," she said. She saw, as did Stephen, the
kindness behind the offer--Colonel Carvel's kindness and his own. The
gentleman's benevolent face brightened:

"And, my dear Madam, do not let the thought of this little house trouble
you. It was never my expectation to have it occupied in the summer. If we
could induce the Judge to go to Glencoe with you for the summer; I am
sure it would be a relief for us all."

He did not press the matter; but begged Stephen to call on him in a day
or two, at the bank.

"What do you think, Stephen," asked his mother, when Mr. Brinsmade was
gone, Stephen did not reply at once. What, indeed, could he say? The
vision of that proud figure of Miss Virginia was before him, and he
revolted. What was kindness from Colonel Carvel and Mr. Brinsmade was
charity from her. He could not bear the thought of living in a house
haunted by her. And yet why should he let his pride and his feelings
stand in the way of the health--perhaps of the life--of Judge Whipple?

It was characteristic of his mothers strength of mind not to mention the
subject again that evening. Stephen did not sleep in the hot night. But
when he rose in the morning he had made up his mind. After breakfast he
went straight to the Colonel's store, and fortunately found. Mr. Carvel
at his desk, winding up his affairs.

The next morning, when the train for the East pulled out of Illinoistown,
Miss Jinny Carvel stood on the plat form tearfully waving good-by to a
knot of friends. She was leaving for Europe. Presently she went into the
sleeping-car to join the Colonel, who wore a gray liners duster. For a
long time she sat gazing at the young, corn waving on the prairie,
fingering the bunch of June roses on her lap. Clarence had picked them
only a few hours ago, in the dew at Bellegarde. She saw her cousin
standing disconsolate under the train sheds, just as she had left him.
She pictured him riding out the Bellefontaine Road that afternoon, alone.
Now that the ocean was to be between them, was it love that she felt for
Clarence at last? She glanced at her father. Once or twice she had
suspected him of wishing to separate them. Her Aunt Lillian, indeed, had
said as much, and Virginia had silenced her. But when she had asked the
Colonel to take Clarence to Europe, he had refused. And yet she knew that
he had begged Captain Lige to go.

Virginia had been at home but a week. She had seen the change in Clarence
and exulted. The very first day she had surprised him on the porch at
Bellegarde with "Hardee's tactics". From a boy Clarence had suddenly
become a man with a Purpose,--and that was the Purpose of the South.

"They have dared to nominate that dirty Lincoln," he said.--"Do you think
that we will submit to nigger equality rule? Never! never!" he cried. "If
they elect him, I will stand and fight them until my legs are shot from
under me, and then I will shoot down the Yankees from the ground."

Virginia's heart had leaped within her at the words, and into her eyes
had flashed once more the look for which the boy had waited and hoped in
vain. He had the carriage of a soldier, the animation and endurance of
the thoroughbred when roused. He was of the stuff that made the
resistance of the South the marvel of the world. And well we know,
whatever the sound of it, that his speech was not heroics. Nor was it
love for his cousin that inspired it, save in this: he had apotheosized
Virginia. To him she was the inspired goddess of the South--his country.
His admiration and affection had of late been laid upon an altar. Her
ambition for him he felt was likewise the South's ambition for him.

His mother, Virginia's aunt, felt this too, and strove against it with
her feeble might. She never had had power over her son; nor over any man,
save the temporal power of beauty. And to her mortification she found
herself actually in fear of this girl who might have been her daughter.
So in Virginia's presence she became more trivial and petty than ever. It
was her one defence.

It had of course been a foregone conclusion that Clarence should join
Company A. Few young men of family did not. And now he ran to his room to
don for Virginia that glorious but useless full dress,--the high bearskin
rat, the red pigeon-tailed coat, the light blue trousers, and the
gorgeous, priceless shackle. Indeed, the boy looked stunning. He held his
big rifle like a veteran, and his face was set with a high resolve there
was no mistaking. The high color of her pride was on the cheek of the
girl as he brought his piece to the salute of her, his mistress. And yet,
when he was gone, and she sat alone amid the roses awaiting him, came
wilfully before her another face that was relentless determination,--the
face of Stephen Brice, as he had stood before her in the summer house at
Glencoe. Strive as she might against the thought, deny it to herself and
others, to Virginia Carvel his way become the face of the North. Her
patriotism and all that was in her of race rebelled. To conquer that face
she would have given her own soul, and Clarence's. Angrily she had arisen
and paced the garden walks, and cried out aloud that it was not
inflexible.

And now, by the car window, looking out over the endless roll of the
prairie, the memory of this was bitter within her.

Suddenly she turned to her father.

"Did you rent our house at Glencoe?" she asked.

"No, Jinny."

"I suppose Mr. Brice was too proud to accept it at your charitable rent,
even to save Mr, Whipple's life."

The Colonel turned to his daughter in mild surprise. She was leaning back
on the seat, her eyes half closed.

"Once you dislike a person, Jinny, you never get over it. I always had a
fancy for the young man, and now I have a better opinion of him than ever
before. It was I who insulted them by naming that rent."

"What did he do?" Virginia demanded.

"He came to my office yesterday morning. 'Colonel Carvel,' said he, 'I
hear you wish to rent your house.' I said yes. 'You rented it once
before, sir,' said he. 'Yes,' said I. 'May I ask you what price you got
for it?' said he."

"And what did you say?" she asked, leaning forward.

"I told him," said the Colonel, smiling. "But I explained that I could
not expect to command that price now on short notice. He replied that
they would pay it, or not consider the place."

Virginia turned her head away and stared out over the fields.

"How could they afford it!" she murmured.

"Mr. Brinsmade tells me that young Brice won rather a remarkable case
last winter, and since then has had some practice. And that he writes for
the newspapers. I believe he declined some sort of an editorial position,
preferring to remain at the law."

"And so they are going into the house?" she asked presently.

"No," said the Colonel. "Whipple refused point-blank to go to the
country. He said that he would be shirking the only work of his life
likely to be worth anything. So the Brices remain in town."

Colonel Carvel sighed. But Virginia said nothing.




CHAPTER X.

RICHTER'S SCAR

This was the summer when Mr. Stephen Brice began to make his appearance
in public. The very first was rather encouraging than otherwise, although
they were not all so. It was at a little town on the outskirts of the
city where those who had come to scoff and jeer remained to listen.

In writing that speech Stephen had striven to bear in mind a piece of
advice which Mr. Lincoln had given him. "Speak so that the lowest may
understand, and the rest will have no trouble." And it had worked. At the
halting lameness of the beginning an egg was thrown,--fortunately wide of
the mark. After this incident Stephen fairly astonished his audience,
--especially an elderly gentleman who sat on a cracker-box in the rear, out
of sight of the stand. This may have been Judge Whipple, although we have
no proof of the fact.

Stephen himself would not have claimed originality for that speech. He
laughs now when it is spoken of, and calls it a boyish effort, which it
was. I have no doubt that many of the master's phrases slipped in, as
young Mr. Brice could repeat most of the Debates, and the Cooper Union
speech by heart. He had caught more than the phrasing, however. So imbued
was he with the spirit of Abraham Lincoln that his hearers caught it; and
that was the end of the rotten eggs and the cabbages. The event is to be
especially noted because they crowded around him afterward to ask
questions. For one thing, he had not mentioned abolition. Wasn't it true,
then, that this Lincoln wished to tear the negro from his master, give
him a vote and a subsidy, and set him up as the equal of the man that
owned him? "Slavery may stay where it is," cried the young orator. "If it
is content there, so are we content. What we say is that it shall not go
one step farther. No, not one inch into a northern territory."

On the next occasion Mr. Brice was one of the orators at a much larger
meeting in a garden in South St. Louis. The audience was mostly German.
And this was even a happier event, inasmuch as Mr. Brice was able to
trace with some skill the history of the Fatherland from the Napoleonic
wars to its Revolution. Incidentally he told them why they had emigrated
to this great and free country. And when in an inspired moment he coupled
the names of Abraham Lincoln and Father Jahn, the very leaves of the
trees above them trembled at their cheers.

And afterwards there was a long-remembered supper in the moonlit grove
with Richter and a party of his college friends from Jena. There was Herr
Tiefel with the little Dresden-blue eyes, red and round and jolly; and
Hauptmann, long and thin and sallow; and Korner, redbearded and
ponderous; and Konig, a little clean-cut man with a blond mustache that
pointed upward. They clattered their steins on the table and sang
wonderful Jena songs, while Stephen was lifted up and his soul carried
off to far-away Saxony,--to the clean little University town with its
towers and crooked streets. And when they sang the Trolksmelodie,
"Bemooster Bursche zieh' ich aus,--Ade!" a big tear rolled down the scar
on Richter's cheek.

"Fahrt wohl, ihr Strassen grad and krumm
Ich zieh' nicht mehr in euch herum,
Durchton euch nicht mehr mit Gesang,
Mit Larm nicht mehr and Sporenklang."

As the deep tones died away, the soft night was steeped in the sadness of
that farewell song. It was Richter who brought the full force of it home
to Stephen.

"Do you recall the day you left your Harvard, and your Boston, my
friend?" he asked.

Stephen only nodded. He had never spoken of the bitterness of that, even
to his mother. And here was the difference between the Saxon and the
Anglo-Saxon.

Richter smoked his pipe 'mid dreamy silence, the tear still wet upon his
face.

"Tiefel and I were at the University together," he said at length. "He
remembers the day I left Jena for good and all. Ah, Stephen, that is the
most pathetic thing in life, next to leaving the Fatherland. We dine with
our student club for the last time at the Burg Keller, a dingy little
tavern under a grim old house, but very dear to us. We swear for the last
time to be clean and honorable and patriotic, and to die for the
Fatherland, if God so wills. And then we march at the head of a slow
procession out of the old West Gate, two and two, old members first, then
the fox major and the foxes."

"The foxes?" Stephen interrupted.

"The youngsters--the freshmen, you call them," answered Richter, smiling.

"And after the foxes," said Herr Tiefel, taking up the story, "after the
foxes comes the empty carriage, with its gay postilion and four. It is
like a long funeral. And every man is chanting that song. And so we go
slowly until we; come to the Oil Mill Tavern, where we have had many a
schlager-bout with the aristocrats. And the president of our society
makes his farewell speech under the vines, and we drink to you with all
the honors. And we drank to you, Carl, renowned swordsman!" And Herr
Tiefel, carried away by the recollection, rose to his feet.

The others caught fire, and stood up with their mugs high in the air,
shouting:

"Lebe wohl, Carl! Lebe wohl! Salamander, salamander, salamander! Ein ist
ein, zwei ist zwei, drei ist drei! Lebe wohl!"

And so they toasted every man present, even Stephen himself, whom they
complimented on his speech. And he soon learned to cry Salamander, and to
rub his mug on the table, German fashion. He was not long in discovering
that Richter was not merely a prime favorite with his companions, but
likewise a person of some political importance in South St. Louis. In the
very midst of their merriment an elderly man whom Stephen recognized as
one of the German leaders (he afterwards became a United States general)
came and stood smiling by the table and joined in the singing. But
presently he carried Richter away with him.

"What a patriot he would have made, had our country been spared to us!"
exclaimed Herr Konig. "I think he was the best man with the Schlager that
Jena ever saw. Even Korner likes not to stand against him in mask and
fencing hat, all padded. Eh, Rudolph?"

Herr Korner gave a good-natured growl of assent.

"I have still a welt that he gave me a month since," he said. "He has
left his mark on many an aristocrat."

"And why did you always fight the aristocrats?" Stephen asked.

They all tried to tell him at once, but Tiefel prevailed.

"Because they were for making our country Austrian, my friend," he cried.
"Because they were overbearing, and ground the poor. Because the most of
them were immoral like the French, and we knew that it must be by
morality and pure living that our 'Vaterland' was to be rescued. And so
we formed our guilds in opposition to theirs. We swore to live by the
standards of the great Jahn, of whom you spoke. We swore to strive for
the freedom of Germany with manly courage. And when we were not duelling
with the nobles, we had Schlager-bouts among ourselves."

"Broadswords?" exclaimed Stephen, in amazement.

"Ja wohl," answered Korner, puffing heavily. The slit in his nose was
plain even in the moonlight. "To keep our hands in, as you would say. You
Americans are a brave people--without the Schlager. But we fought that we
might not become effete."

It was then that Stephen ventured to ask a question that, had been long
burning within him.

"See here, Mr. Korner," said he, "how did Richter come by that scar? He
always gets red when I mention it. He will never tell me."

"Ah, I can well believe that," answered Korner. "I will recount that
matter,--if you do not tell Carl, lieber Freund. He would not forgive me.
I was there in Berlin at the time. It was a famous time. Tiefel will bear
me out."

"Ja, ja!" said Tiefel, eagerly.

"Mr. Brice," Herr Korner continued, "has never heard of the Count von
Kalbach. No, of course. We at Jena had, and all Germany. Many of us of
the Burschenschaft will bear to the grave the marks of his Schlager. Von
Kalbach went to Bonn, that university of the aristocrats, where he was
worshipped. When he came to Berlin with his sister, crowds would gather
to look at them. They were like Wodan and Freya. 'Donner'!" exclaimed
Herr Korner, "there is something in blood, when all is said. He was as
straight and strong as an oak of the Black Forest, and she as fair as a
poplar. It is so with the Pomeranians.

"It was in the year '47, when Carl Richter was gone home to Berlin before
his last semester, to see his father: One fine morning von Kalbach rode
in at the Brandenburg gate on a great black stallion. He boasted openly
that day that none of the despised 'Burschenschaft' dare stand before
him. And Carl Richter took up the challenge. Before night all Berlin had
heard of the temerity of the young Liberal of the Jena 'Burschenschaft'.
To our shame be it said, we who knew and loved Carl likewise feared for
him.

"Carl chose for his second Ebhardt, a man of our own Germanian Club at
Jena, since killed in the Breite Strasse. And if you will believe me, my
friend. I tell you that Richter came to the glade at daybreak smoking his
pipe. The place was filled, the nobles on one side and the Burschenschaft
on the other, and the sun coming up over the trees. Richter would not
listen to any of us, not even the surgeon. He would not have the silk
wound on his arm, nor the padded breeches, nor the neck covering
--Nothing! So Ebhardt put on his gauntlets and peaked cap, and his apron
with the device of the Germanians.

"There stood the Count in his white shirt in the pose of a statue. And
when it was seen that Richter likewise had no protection, but was calmly
smoking the little short pipe, with a charred bowl, a hush fell upon all.
At the sight of the pipe von Kalbach ground his heel in the turf, and
when the word was given he rushed at Richter like a wild beast. You, my
friend, who have never heard the whistle of sharp Schlager cannot know
the song which a skilled arm draws from the blade. It was music that
morning: You should have seen the noble's mighty strokes--'Prim und
Second und Terz und Quart'. You would have marked how Richter met him at
every blow. Von Kalbach never once took his eyes from the blue smoke from
the bowl. He was terrible in his fury, and I shiver now to think how we
of the Burschenschaft trembled when we saw that our champion was driven
back a step, and then another. You must know that it is a lasting
disgrace to be forced over one's own line. It seemed as if we could not
bear the agony. And then, while we counted out the last seconds of the
half, came a snap like that of a whip's lash, and the bowl of Richter's
pipe lay smouldering on the grass. The noble had cut the stem as clean as
it were sapling twig, and there stood Richter with the piece still
clenched in his teeth, his eyes ablaze, and his cheek running blood. He
pushed the surgeon away when he came forward with his needles. The Count
was smiling as he put up his sword, his friends crowding around him, when
Ebhardt cried out that his man could fight the second mensur,--though the
wound was three needles long. Then Kalbach cried aloud that he would kill
him. But he had not seen Carl's eyes. Something was in them that made us
think as we washed the cut. But when we spoke to him he said nothing. Nor
could we force the pipe stems from his teeth.

"Donner Schock!" exclaimed Herr Korner, but reverently, "if I live to a
hundred I never hope to see such a sight as that 'Mensur'. The word was
given. The Schlager flew so fast that we only saw the light and heard the
ring alone. Before we of the Burschenschaft knew what had happened the
Count von Kalbach was over his line and had flung his Schlager into a
great tree, and was striding from the place with his head hung and the
tears streamin down his face."

Amid a silence, Herr Korner lifted his great mug and emptied it slowly. A
wind was rising, bearing with it song and laughter from distant groups,
--Teutonic song and, laughter. The moonlight trembled through the shifting
leaves. And Stephen was filled with a sense of the marvelous. It was as
if this fierce duel, so full of national significance to a German, had
been fought in another existence, It was incredible to him that the
unassuming lawyer he knew, so wholly Americanized, had been the hero of
it. Strange, indeed, that the striving life of these leaders of European
Revolution had been suddenly cut off in its vigor. There came to Stephen
a flash of that world-comprehension which marks great statesmen. Was it
not with a divine purpose that this measureless force of patriotism and
high ideal had been given to this youngest of the nations, that its high
mission might be fulfilled?

Miss Russell heard of Stephen's speeches. She and her brothers and Jack
Brinsmade used to banter him when he came a-visiting in Bellefontaine
Road. The time was not yet come when neighbor stared coldly upon
neighbor, when friends of long standing passed each other with averted
looks. It was not even a wild dream that white-trash Lincoln would be
elected. And so Mr. Jack, who made speeches for Breckenridge in the face
of Mr. Brinsmade's Union leanings, laughed at Stephen when he came to
spend the night. He joined forces with Puss in making clever fun of the
booby Dutch, which Stephen was wise enough to take good-naturedly. But
once or twice when he met Clarence Colfax at these houses he was aware of
a decided change in the attitude of that young gentleman. This troubled
him more than he cared to admit. For he liked Clarence, who reminded him
of Virginia--at once a pleasure and a pain.

It is no harm to admit (for the benefit of the Society for Psychical
Research) that Stephen still dreamed of her. He would go about his work
absently all the morning with the dream still in his head, and the girl
so vividly near him that he could not believe her to be travelling in
England, as Miss Russell said. Puss and Anne were careful to keep him
informed as to her whereabouts. Stephen set this down as a most natural
supposition on their part that all young men must have an interest in
Virginia Carvel.

How needless to add that Virginia in her correspondence never mentioned
Stephen, although Puss in her letters took pains to record the fact every
time that he addressed a Black Republican meeting: Miss Carvel paid no
attention to this part of the communications. Her concern for Judge
Whipple Virginia did not hide. Anne wrote of him. How he stood the rigors
of that campaign were a mystery to friend and foe alike.




CHAPTER XI

HOW A PRINCE CAME

Who has not heard of the St. Louis Agricultural Fair. And what memories
of its October days the mere mention of at brings back to us who knew
that hallowed place as children. There was the vast wooden amphitheatre
where mad trotting races were run; where stolid cattle walked past the
Chinese pagoda in the middle circle, and shook the blue ribbons on their
horns. But it was underneath the tiers of seats (the whole way around the
ring) that the chief attractions lay hid. These were the church booths,
where fried oysters and sandwiches and cake and whit candy and ice-cream
were sold by your mothers and sister for charity. These ladies wore white
aprons as they waited on the burly farmers. And toward the close of the
day for which they had volunteered they became distracted. Christ Church
had a booth, and St. George's; and Dr. Thayer's, Unitarian, where Mrs.
Brice might be found and Mr. Davitt's, conducted by Mr. Eliphalet Hopper
on strictly business principles, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral, where
Miss Renault and other young ladies of French descent presided: and Dr.
Posthelwaite's, Presbyterian, which we shall come to presently. And
others, the whole way around the ring.

There is one Fair which old St. Louisans still delight to recall,--that
of the autumn of 1860--Think for a minute. You will remember that
Virginia Carvel came back from Europe; and made quite a stir in a town
where all who were worth knowing were intimates. Stephen caught a glimpse
of her an the street, received a distant bow, and dreamed of her that
night. Mr. Eliphalet Hopper, in his Sunday suit, was at the ferry to pay
his respects to the Colonel, to offer his services, and to tell him how
the business fared. His was the first St. Louis face that Virginia saw
(Captain Lige being in New Orleans), and if she conversed with Eliphalet
on the ferry with more warmth than ever before, there is nothing strange
in that. Mr. Hopper rode home with them in the carriage, and walked to
Miss Crane's with his heart thumping against his breast, and wild
thoughts whirling in his head.

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