Part 12 (1/2)
”I wish I could think so,” said the Lieutenant-Governor. ”G.o.d knows I'd willingly cut one of them off, if I thought its loss could benefit the commonwealth. But, as I've had occasion to say to others, in the present emergency I'm as helpless as a babe unborn. You see how things are going--one might as well appeal, so far as any hope of success is concerned, to McGrath himself as to Governor Abbott. There's no getting around it, Spencer. It's a declaration of anarchy pure and simple, and with the official seal of Alleghenia at the bottom of the doc.u.ment.
Iniquitous wrong is being done, not only to Mr. Rathbawne in refusing him the protection of the law to which he is ent.i.tled, but to the cause of the strikers themselves, if they can justly be said to have a cause.
Nothing ever was or ever will be gained for the benefit of the many by the violence of the few. It can only end in one way: by the interposition of the federal troops. You know what happened at Chicago.
It will be the same thing here; and before it is over we shall see people shot down like rats in the streets of Kenton City.”
”I hope it won't come to that,” said Cavendish; ”but even so, all's well that ends well. Provided that order is finally restored”--
”But what credit is it,” broke in Barclay, ”to the state of Alleghenia to have her law-breakers suppressed by the national government? Don't you see that it would be only a final proof that she is too incompetent or too indifferent to do it herself? From the point of view of the state's good name, I doubt which is worst, her present att.i.tude or the interference of federal force.”
”Will it come to the latter in any event?”
”Undoubtedly. They've already tried to prevent the delivery of Mr.
Rathbawne's mail, both at the mills and at his house. You know what that means, don't you? One carrier interfered with in the performance of his duty is sufficient excuse for mobilizing a brigade.”
”But the Governor”--
Barclay came forward, laid his hand on Cavendish's shoulder, and looked down at him, slowly nodding his head.
”The Governor of Alleghenia is a dyed-in-the-wool scoundrel, my good sir,” he said. ”It is his manifest duty to enforce the law rigidly and at once, and if the police of Kenton City cannot or will not a.s.sist him, to summon the militia to his aid. In that way only can the honor of Alleghenia be saved. And that is what Elijah Abbott will never do. There is anarchy open and flagrant in the streets of Kenton City--there is anarchy silent and sneering in the Governor's chair. G.o.d save the state!”
XI
YOUNG NISBET FINDS HIS TONGUE
”I have promised to marry Colonel Broadcastle,” announced Mrs. Wynyard when the silence had lasted twenty minutes.
Dorothy flung round from the window against which she had been mercilessly pressing her pretty nose.
”Why, Aunt Helen!” she exclaimed. ”You really are the most startlingly abrupt person I ever knew. Are you in earnest? What under the sun possessed you to do that?”
”I think it must have been Colonel Broadcastle,” answered Mrs. Wynyard, with an air of reflection. ”It was last night when he was showing us over the armory, after the review. He not only asked me, but appeared to have quite set his heart upon my giving him an affirmative answer. And he had been so extremely civil, Dorothy, about our seats and all that, that I thought it would seem rather ungracious to refuse the first favor he had ever asked of me. So I said yes.”
”Aunt Helen, Aunt Helen! One of these fine days you will be the death of me. Did any one _ever_ hear of such a reason for accepting a man?”
”I couldn't think of a better one for refusing him,” said Mrs. Wynyard serenely. ”So there you are!”
”Talk about logic!” said Dorothy. She came across the room, and seated herself beside her aunt. ”I never heard anything so exciting in my life!” she added. ”Do you really mean it? Are you really going to marry him?”
”That is the arrangement, as I understand it,” replied Mrs. Wynyard. ”Of course, I haven't his promise in writing, but I think I can trust him. I once looked him up in your father's business guide, and he had three A's after his name. I'm sure I don't know what they can stand for, if it's not Acquaintance, Appeal, and Acceptance. I don't really see what else I could have done. It seems to have all been arranged without consulting me at all. One can't very well set one's self up in opposition to a business guide, you know.”
”But he's old enough to be your father, Aunt Helen!”
”That's precisely the reason why there wouldn't have been any sense in my promising to be a sister to him. You see, I was quite helpless in the matter from start to finish.”
”And it was only last night that you called me preposterous!” laughed Dorothy. ”Really, Aunt Helen, people who live in gla.s.s houses shouldn't throw stones. I think you are the most absurd creature in the world. Do you love him?”
”I can even go so far as to say that I think I do,” said Mrs. Wynyard, without a break in her gravity. ”I have all the symptoms,--palpitation of the heart, a morbid craving for Sh.e.l.ley and chocolate caramels, a tendency to wake up singing, and a failing for flattening my nose against the window-pane for twenty minutes at a stretch without saying a word to my poor old aunt, on the mere chance that he may be coming down the avenue.”
The blush which Dorothy paid as tribute to this subtle innuendo came near to rivaling one of young Nisbet's celebrated performances in the same line.