Book: The Crisis, Complete

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One smoky morning early in December Stephen arrived late at the office to
find Richter sitting idle on his stool, concern graven on his face.

"The Judge has had no breakfast, Stephen," he whispered. "Listen!
Shadrach tells me he has been doing that since six this morning, when he
got his newspaper."

Stephen listened, and he heard the Judge pacing and pacing in his room.
Presently the door was flung open, And they saw Mr. Whipple standing in
the threshold, stern and dishevelled. Astonishment did not pause here. He
came out and sat down in Stephen's chair, striking the newspaper in his
hand, and they feared at first that his Mind had wandered.

"Propitiate!" he cried, "propitiate, propitiate, and again propitiate.
How long, O Lord?" Suddenly he turned upon Stephen, who was frightened.
But now his voice was natural, and he thrust the paper into the young
man's lap. "Have you read the President's message to Congress, sir? God
help me that I am spared to call that wobbling Buchanan President. Read
it. Read it, sir. You have a legal brain. Perhaps you can tell me why, if
a man admits that it is wrong for a state to abandon this Union, he
cannot call upon Congress for men and money to bring her back. No, this
weakling lets Floyd stock the Southern arsenals. He pays tribute to
Barbary. He is for bribing them not to be angry. Take Cuba from Spain,
says he, and steal the rest of Mexico that the maw of slavery may be
filled, and the demon propitiated."

They dared not answer him. And so he went back into his room, shutting
the door. That day no clients saw him, even those poor ones dependent on
his charity whom had never before denied. Richter and Stephen took
counsel together, and sent Shadrach out for his dinner.

Three weeks passed. There arrived a sparkling Sunday, brought down the
valley of the Missouri from the frozen northwest. The Saturday had been
soggy and warm.

Thursday had seen South Carolina leave that Union into which she was
born, amid prayers and the ringing of bells. Tuesday was to be Christmas
day. A young lady, who had listened to a solemn sermon of Dr.
Posthelwaite's, slipped out of Church before the prayers were ended, and
hurried into that deserted portion of the town about the Court House
where on week days business held its sway.

She stopped once at the bottom of the grimy flight of steps leading to
Judge Whipple's office. At the top she paused again, and for a short
space stood alert, her glance resting on the little table in the corner,
on top of which a few thumbed law books lay neatly piled. Once she made a
hesitating step in this direction. Then, as if by a resolution quickly
taken, she turned her back and softly opened the door of the Judge's
room. He was sitting upright in his chair. A book was open in his lap,
but it did not seem to Virginia that he was reading it.

"Uncle Silas," she said, "aren't you coming to dinner any more?"

He looked up swiftly from under his shaggy brows. The book fell to the
floor.

"Uncle Silas," said Virginia, bravely, "I came to get you to-day."

Never before had she known him to turn away from man or woman, but now
Judge Whipple drew his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose
violently. A woman's intuition told her that locked tight in his heart
was what he longed to say, and could not. The shiny black overcoat he
wore was on the bed. Virginia picked it up and held it out to him, an
appeal in her eyes.

He got into it. Then she handed him his hat. Many people walking home
from church that morning marvelled as they saw these two on Locust Street
together, the young girl supporting the elderly man over the slippery
places at the crossings. For neighbor had begun to look coldly upon
neighbor.

Colonel Carvel beheld them from his armchair by the sitting-room window,
and leaned forward with a start. His lips moved as he closed his Bible
reverently and marked his place. At the foot of the stairs he surprised
Jackson by waving him aside, for the Colonel himself flung open the door
and held out his hand to his friend. The Judge released Virginia's arm,
and his own trembled as he gave it.

"Silas," said the Colonel, "Silas, we've missed you."

Virginia stood by, smiling, but her breath came deeply. Had she done
right? Could any good come of it all? Judge Whipple did not go in at the
door--He stood uncompromisingly planted on the threshold, his head flung
back, and actual fierceness in his stare.

"Do you guess we can keep off the subject, Comyn?" he demanded.

Even Mr. Carvel, so used to the Judge's ways, was a bit taken aback by
this question. It set him tugging at his goatee, and his voice was not
quite steady as he answered:

"God knows, Silas. We are human, and we can only try."

Then Mr. Whipple marched in. It lacked a quarter of an hour of dinner,
--a crucial period to tax the resources of any woman. Virginia led the
talk, but oh, the pathetic lameness of it. Her own mind was wandering
when it should not, and recollections she had tried to strangle had
sprung up once more. Only that morning in church she had lived over again
the scene by Mr. Brinsmade's gate, and it was then that a wayward but
resistless impulse to go to the Judge's office had seized her. The
thought of the old man lonely and bitter in his room decided her. On her
knees she prayed that she might save the bond between him and her father.
For the Colonel had been morose on Sundays, and had taken to reading the
Bible, a custom he had not had since she was a child.

In the dining-room Jackson, bowing and smiling, pulled out the Judge's
chair, and got his customary curt nod as a reward. Virginia carved.

"Oh, Uncle Silas," she cried, "I am so glad that we have a wild turkey.
And you shall have your side-bone." The girl carved deftly, feverishly,
talking the while, aided by that most kind and accomplished of hosts, her
father. In the corner the dreaded skeleton of the subject grinned
sardonically. Were they going to be able to keep it off? There was to be
no help from Judge Whipple, who sat in grim silence. A man who feels his
soul burning is not given to small talk. Virginia alone had ever
possessed the power to make him forget.

"Uncle Silas, I am sure there are some things about our trip that we
never told you. How we saw Napoleon and his beautiful Empress driving in
the Bois, and how Eugenie smiled and bowed at the people. I never saw
such enthusiasm in my life. And oh, I learned such a lot of French
history. All about Francis the First, and Pa took me to see his chateaus
along the Loire. Very few tourists go there. You really ought to have
gone with us."

Take care, Virginia!

"I had other work to do, Jinny," said the Judge.

Virginia rattled an.

"I told you that we stayed with a real lord in England, didn't I?" said
she. "He wasn't half as nice as the Prince. But he had a beautiful house
in Surrey, all windows, which was built in Elizabeth's time. They called
the architecture Tudor, didn't they, Pa?"

"Yes, dear," said the Colonel, smiling.

"The Countess was nice to me," continued the girl, "and took me to garden
parties. But Lord Jermyn was always talking politics."

The Colonel was stroking his goatee.

"Tell Silas about the house, Jinny--Jackson, help the Judge again."

"No," said Virginia, drawing a breath. "I'm going to tell him about that
queer club where my great-grand-father used to bet with Charles Fox. We
saw a great many places where Richard Carvel had been in England. That
was before the Revolution. Uncle Daniel read me some of his memoirs when
we were at Calvert House. I know that you would be interested in them,
Uncle Silas. He sailed under Paul Jones."

"And fought for his country and for his flag, Virginia," said the Judge,
who had scarcely spoken until then. "No, I could not bear to read them
now, when those who should love that country are leaving it in passion."

There was a heavy silence. Virginia did not dare to look at her father.
But the Colonel said, gently:

"Not in passion, Silas, but in sorrow."

The Judge tightened his lips. But the effort was beyond him, and the
flood within him broke loose.

"Colonel Carvel," he cried, "South Carolina is mad--She is departing in
sin, in order that a fiendish practice may be perpetuated. If her people
stopped to think they would know that slavery cannot exist except by
means of this Union. But let this milksop of a President do his worst. We
have chosen a man who has the strength to say, 'You shall not go!'"

It was an awful moment. The saving grace of it was that respect and love
for her father filled Virginia's heart. In his just anger Colonel Carvel
remembered that he was the host, and strove to think only of his
affection for his old friend.

"To invade a sovereign state, sir, is a crime against the sacred spirit
of this government," he said.

"There is no such thing as a sovereign state, sir," exclaimed the Judge,
hotly. I am an American, and not a Missourian."

"When the time comes, sir," said the Colonel, with dignity, "Missouri
will join with her sister sovereign states against oppression."

"Missouri will not secede, sir."

"Why not, sir!" demanded the Colonel.

Because, sir, when the worst comes, the Soothing Syrup men will rally for
the Union. And there are enough loyal people here to keep her straight."

"Dutchmen, sir! Hessians? Foreign Republican hirelings, sir," exclaimed
the Colonel, standing up. "We shall drive them like sheep if they oppose
us. You are drilling them now that they may murder your own blood when
you think the time is ripe."

The Colonel did not hear Virginia leave the room, so softly had she gone,
He made a grand figure of a man as he stood up, straight and tall, those
gray eyes a-kindle at last. But the fire died as quickly as it had
flared. Pity had come and quenched it,--pity that an unselfish life of
suffering and loneliness should be crowned with these. The Colonel longed
then to clasp his friend in his arms. Quarrels they had had by the
hundred, never yet a misunderstanding. God had given to Silas Whipple a
nature stern and harsh that repelled all save the charitable few whose
gift it was to see below the surface, and Colonel Carvel had been the
chief of them. But now the Judge's vision was clouded.

Steadying himself by his chair, he had risen glaring, the loose skin
twitching on his sallow face. He began firmly but his voice shook ere he
had finished.

"Colonel Carvel," said he, "I expect that the day has come when you go
your way and I go mine. It will be better if--we do not meet again, sir."

And so he turned from the man whose friendship had stayed him for the
score of years he had battled with his enemies, from that house which had
been for so long his only home. For the last time Jackson came forward to
help him with his coat. The Judge did not see him, nor did he see the
tearful face of a young girl leaning over the banisters above. Ice was on
the stones. And Mr. Whipple, blinded by a moisture strange to his eyes,
clung to the iron railing as he felt his way down the steps. Before he
reached the bottom a stronger arm had seize his own, and was helping him.

The Judge brushed his eyes with his sleeve, and turned a defiant face
upon Captain Elijah Brent--then his voice broke. His anger was suddenly
gone, and his thought had flown back to the Colonel's thousand charities.

"Lige," he said, "Lige, it has come."

In answer the Captain pressed the Judge's hand, nodding vigorously to
hide his rising emotion. There was a pause.

"And you, Lige?" said Mr. Whipple, presently.

"My God!" cried the Captain, "I wish I knew."

"Lige," said the Judge, gravely, "you're too good a man to be for
Soothing Syrup."

The Captain choked.

"You're too smart to be fooled, Lige," he said, with a note near to
pleading. "The time has come when you Bell people and the Douglas people
have got to decide. Never in my life did I know it to do good to dodge a
question. We've got to be white or black, Lige. Nobody's got much use for
the grays. And don't let yourself be fooled with Constitutional Union
Meetings, and compromises. The time is almost here, Lige, when it will
take a rascal to steer a middle course."

Captain Lige listened, and he shifted from one foot to the other, and
rubbed his hands, which were red. Some odd trick of the mind had put into
his head two people--Eliphalet Hopper and Jacob Cluyme. Was he like them?

"Lige, you've got to decide. Do you love your country, sir? Can you look
on while our own states defy us, and not lift a hand? Can you sit still
while the Governor and all the secessionists in this state are plotting
to take Missouri, too, out of the Union? The militia is riddled with
rebels, and the rest are forming companies of minute men."

"And you Black Republicans," the Captain cried "have organized your Dutch
Wideawakes, and are arming them to resist Americans born."

"They are Americans by our Constitution, sir, which the South pretends to
revere," cried the Judge. "And they are showing themselves better
Americans than many who have been on the soil for generations."

"My sympathies are with the South," said the Captain, doggedly, "and my
love is for the South."

"And your conscience?" said the Judge.

There was no answer. Both men raised their eyes to the house of him whose
loving hospitality had been a light in the lives of both. When at last
the Captain spoke, his voice was rent with feeling.

"Judge," he began, "when I was a poor young man on the old 'Vicksburg',
second officer under old Stetson, Colonel Carvel used to take me up to
his house on Fourth Street to dinner. And he gave me the clothes on my
back, so that I might not be ashamed before the fashion which came there.
He treated me like a son, sir. One day the sheriff sold the Vicksburg.
You remember it. That left me high and dry in the mud. Who bought her,
sir? Colonel Carvel. And he says to me, 'Lige, you're captain now, the
youngest captain on the river. And she's your boat. You can pay me
principal and interest when you get ready.'

"Judge Whipple, I never had any other home than right in, this house. I
never had any other pleasure than bringing Jinny presents, and tryin' to
show 'em gratitude. He took me into his house and cared for me at a time
when I wanted to go to the devil along with the stevedores when I was a
wanderer he kept me out of the streets, and out of temptation. Judge, I'd
a heap rather go down and jump off the stern of my boat than step in here
and tell him I'd fight for the North."

The Judge steadied himself on his hickory stick and walked off without a
word. For a while Captain Lige stood staring after him. Then he slowly
climbed the steps and disappeared.




CHAPTER, XV

MUTTERINGS

Early in the next year, 1861,--that red year in the Calendar of our
history,--several gentlemen met secretly in the dingy counting-room of a
prominent citizen to consider how the state of Missouri might be saved to
the Union. One of these gentlemen was Judge Whipple, another, Mr.
Brinsmade; and another a masterly and fearless lawyer who afterward
became a general, and who shall be mentioned in these pages as the
Leader. By his dash and boldness and statesmanlike grasp of a black
situation St. Louis was snatched from the very bosom of secession.

Alas, that chronicles may not stretch so as to embrace all great men of a
time. There is Captain Nathaniel Lyon,--name with the fateful ring.
Nathaniel Lyon, with the wild red hair and blue eye, born and bred a
soldier, ordered to St. Louis, and become subordinate to a wavering
officer of ordnance. Lyon was one who brooked no trifling. He had the
face of a man who knows his mind and intention; the quick speech and
action which go with this. Red tape made by the reel to bind him, he
broke. Courts-martial had no terrors for him. He proved the ablest of
lieutenants to the strong civilian who was the Leader. Both were the men
of the occasion. If God had willed that the South should win, there would
have been no occasion.

Even as Judge Whipple had said, the time was come for all men to decide.
Out of the way, all hopes of compromises that benumbed Washington. No
Constitutional Unionists, no Douglas Democrats, no Republicans now.

All must work to save the ship. The speech-making was not done with yet.
Partisanship must be overcome, and patriotism instilled in its place. One
day Stephen Brice saw the Leader go into Judge Whipple's room, and
presently he was sent for. After that he was heard of in various
out-of-the-way neighborhoods, exhorting all men to forget their quarrels
and uphold the flag.

The Leader himself knew not night from day in his toil,--in organizing,
conciliating, compelling when necessary. Letters passed between him and
Springfield. And, after that solemn inauguration, between him and
Washington. It was an open secret that the Governor of Missouri held out
his arms to Jefferson Davis, just elected President of the new Southern
Confederacy. It soon became plain to the feeblest brain what the Leader
and his friends had perceived long before, that the Governor intended to
use the militia (purged of Yankee sympathizers) to save the state for the
South.

The Government Arsenal, with its stores of arms and ammunition, was the
prize. This building and its grounds lay to the south of the City,
overlooking the river. It was in command of a doubting major of ordnance;
the corps of officers of Jefferson Barracks hard by was mottled with
secession. Trade was still. The Mississippi below was practically closed.
In all the South, Pickens and Sumter alone stood stanch to the flag. A
general, wearing the uniform of the army of the United States,
surrendered the whole state of Texas.

The St. Louis Arsenal was next in succession, and the little band of
regulars at the Barracks was powerless to save it. What could the Leader
and Captain Lyon do without troops? That was the question that rang in
Stephen's head, and in the heads of many others. For, if President
Lincoln sent troops to St. Louis, that would precipitate the trouble. And
the President had other uses for the handful in the army.

There came a rain-sodden night when a mysterious message arrived at the
little house in Olive Street. Both anxiety and pride were in Mrs. Brice's
eyes as they followed her son out of the door. At Twelfth Street two men
were lounging on the corners, each of whom glanced at him listessly as he
passed. He went up a dark and narrow stair into a lighted hall with
shrouded windows. Men with sober faces were forming line on the sawdust
of the floors. The Leader was there giving military orders in a low
voice. That marked the beginning of the aggressive Union movement.

Stephen, standing apart at the entrance, remarked that many of the men
were Germans. Indeed, he spied his friend Tiefel there, and presently
Richter came from the ranks to greet him.

"My friend," he said, "you are made second lieutenant of our company, the
Black Jaegers."

"But I have never drilled in my life," said Stephen.

"Never mind. Come and see the Leader."

The Leader, smiling a little, put a vigorous stop to his protestations,
and told him to buy a tactics. The next man Stephen saw was big Tom
Catherwood, who blushed to the line of his hair as he returned Stephen's
grip.

"Tom, what does this mean?" He asked.

"Well," said Tom, embarrassed, "a fellow has got to do what he think's
right."

"And your family?" asked Stephen.

A spasm crossed Tom's face.

"I reckon they'll disown me, Stephen, when they find it out."

Richter walked home as far as Stephen's house. He was to take the Fifth
Street car for South St. Louis. And they talked of Tom's courage, and of
the broad and secret military organization the Leader had planned that
night. But Stephen did not sleep till the dawn. Was he doing right? Could
he afford to risk his life in the war that was coming, and leave his
mother dependent upon charity?

It was shortly after this that Stephen paid his last visit for many a
long day upon Miss Puss Russell. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Puss was
entertaining, as usual, a whole parlor-full of young men, whose leanings
and sympathies Stephen divined while taking off his coat in the hall.
Then he heard Miss Russell cry:

"I believe that they are drilling those nasty Dutch hirelings in secret."

"I am sure they are," said George Catherwood. "One of the halls is on
Twelfth Street, and they have sentries posted out so that you can't get
near them. Pa has an idea that Tom goes there. And he told him that if he
ever got evidence of it, he'd show him the door."

"Do you really think that Tom is with the Yankees?" asked Jack Brinsmade.

"Tom's a fool," said George, with emphasis, "but he isn't a coward. He'd
just as soon tell Pa to-morrow that he was drilling if the Yankee leaders
wished it known."

"Virginia will never speak to him again," said Eugenie, in an awed voice.

"Pooh!" said Puss, "Tom never had a chance with Jinny. Did he, George?
Clarence is in high favor now. Did you ever know any one to change so,
since this military business has begun? He acts like a colonel. I hear
that they are thinking of making him captain of a company of dragoons."

"They are," George answered. "And that is the company I intend to join."

"Well," began Puss, with her usual recklessness, "it's a good thing for
Clarence that all this is happening. I know somebody else--"

Poor Stephen in the hall knew not whether to stay or fly. An accident
decided the question. Emily Russell came down the stairs at that instant
and spoke to him. As the two entered the parlor, there was a hush
pregnant with many things unsaid. Puss's face was scarlet, but her hand
was cold as she held it out to him. For the first time in that house he
felt like an intruder. Jack Brinsmade bowed with great ceremony, and took
his departure. There was scarcely a distant cordiality in the greeting of
the other young men. And Puss, whose tongue was loosed again, talked
rapidly of entertainments to which Stephen either had not been invited,
or from which he had stayed away. The rest of the company were almost
moodily silent.

Profoundly depressed, Stephen sat straight in the velvet chair, awaiting
a seasonable time to bring his visit to a close.

This was to be the last, then, of his intercourse with a warmhearted and
lovable people. This was to be the end of his friendship with this
impetuous and generous girl who had done so much to brighten his life
since he had come to St: Louis. Henceforth this house would be shut to
him, and all others save Mr. Brinsmade's.

Presently, in one of the intervals of Miss Russell's feverish talk, he
rose to go. Dusk was gathering, and a deep and ominous silence penetrated
like the shadows into the tall room. No words came to him. Impulsively,
almost tearfully, Puss put her hand in his. Then she pressed it
unexpectedly, so that he had to gulp down a lump that was in his throat.
Just then a loud cry was heard from without, the men jumped from their
chairs, and something heavy dropped on the carpet.

Some ran to the window, others to the door. Directly across the street
was the house of Mr. Harmsworth, a noted Union man. One of the third
story windows was open, and out of it was pouring a mass of gray wood
smoke. George Catherwood was the first to speak.

"I hope it will burn down," he cried.

Stephen picked up the object on the floor, which had dropped from his
pocket, and handed it to him.

It was a revolver.




THE CRISIS

By Winston Churchill


Volume 5.



CHAPTER XVI

THE GUNS OF SUMTER

Winter had vanished. Spring was come with a hush. Toward a little island
set in the blue waters of Charleston harbor anxious eyes were strained.

Was the flag still there?

God alone may count the wives and mothers who listened in the still hours
of the night for the guns of Sumter. One sultry night in April Stephen's
mother awoke with fear in her heart, for she had heard them. Hark! that
is the roar now, faint but sullen. That is the red flash far across the
black Southern sky. For in our beds are the terrors and cruelties of life
revealed to us. There is a demon to be faced, and nought alone.

Mrs. Brice was a brave woman. She walked that night with God.

Stephen, too, awoke. The lightning revealed her as she bent over him. On
the wings of memory be flew back to his childhood in the great Boston
house with the rounded front, and he saw the nursery with its high
windows looking out across the Common. Often in the dark had she come to
him thus, her gentle hand passing over aim to feel if he were covered.

"What is it, mother?" he said.

She said: "Stephen, I am afraid that the war has come."

He sat up, blindly. Even he did not guess the agony in her heart.

"You will have to go, Stephen."

It was long before his answer came.

"You know that I cannot, mother. We have nothing left but the little I
earn. And if I were--" He did not finish the sentence, for he felt her
trembling. But she said again, with that courage which seems woman's
alone:

"Remember Wilton Brice. Stephen--I can get along. I can sew."

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