Part 15 (1/2)

”Well,” exclaimed Hilland, as he pa.s.sed into the house with his wife, ”I admit that Graham has changed. He was always great on tramps, but I never knew him to care for a horse before.”

Grace felt that he had changed ever since he had leaned for support against the apple-tree by which he was now pa.s.sing down the frozen walk, but she only said, ”I never saw such superb horsemans.h.i.+p.”

She had not thought Graham exactly fine-looking in former days; but in his absence his slight figure had filled out, and his every movement was instinct with reserved force. The experiences through which he had pa.s.sed removed him, as she was conscious, beyond the sphere of ordinary men. Even his marked reticence about himself and his views was stimulating to the imagination. Whether he had conquered his old regard for her she could not tell. He certainly no longer avoided her, and he treated her with the frank courtesy he would naturally extend to his friend's wife. But he spent far more time with his aunt than with them; and it became daily more and more evident that he accepted the major's view, and was preparing for what he believed would be a long and doubtful conflict. Since it must come, he welcomed the inevitable, for in his condition of mind it was essential that he should be intensely occupied. Although his aunt had to admit that he was a little peculiar, his manner was simple and quiet; and when he joined his friends on their drives or at their fireside, he was usually as genial as they could desire, and his tenderness for his aunt daily increased the respect which he had already won from Grace.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CALL TO ARMS

On the 4th of March, 1861, was inaugurated as President the best friend the South ever had. He would never have deceived or misled her. In all the b.l.o.o.d.y struggle that followed, although hated, scoffed at, and maligned as the vilest monster of earth, he never by word or act manifested a vindictive spirit toward her. Firm and sagacious, Lincoln would have protected the South in her const.i.tutional rights, though every man at the North had become an abolitionist. Slavery, however, had long been doomed, like other relics of barbarism, by the spirit of the age; and his wisdom and that of men like him, with the logic of events and the irresistible force of the world's opinion, would have found some peaceful, gradual remedy for an evil which wrought even more injury to the master than to the bondman. In his inaugural address he repeated that he had ”no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it existed.”

An unanswerable argument against disunion, and an earnest appeal to reason and lawful remedy, he followed by a most impressive declaration of peace and good-will: ”In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

The government will not a.s.sail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it.”

These were n.o.ble words, and to all minds not confused by the turmoil, pa.s.sion, and prejudices of the hour, they presented the issue squarely.

If the leaders of the South desired peaceful negotiation, the way was opened, the opportunity offered; if they were resolved on the destruction of the Union, Lincoln's oath meant countless men and countless treasure to defend it.

Men almost held their breath in suspense. The air became thick with rumors of compromise and peace. Even late in March, Mr. Seward, the President's chief adviser, ”believed and argued that the revolution throughout the South had spent its force and was on the wane; and that the evacuation of Sumter and the manifestation of kindness and confidence to the Rebel and Border States would undermine the conspiracy, strengthen the Union sentiment and Union majorities, and restore allegiance and healthy political action without resort to civil war.”

To Graham, who, in common with millions in their homes, was studying the problem, this course seemed so rational and so advantageous to all concerned, that he accepted it as the outline of the future. The old major shook his head and growled, ”You don't know the South; it's too late; their blood is up.”

Hilland added exultantly, ”Neither do you know the North, Graham. There will come a tidal wave soon that will carry Mr. Seward and the hesitating President to the boundaries of Mexico.”

The President was not hesitating, in the weak sense of the word.

Equally removed from Mr. Buchanan's timidity and Mr. Seward's optimistic confidence, he was feeling his way, gathering the reins into his hands, and seeking to comprehend an issue then too obscure and vast for mortal mind to grasp. What is plain to-day was not plain then.

It speedily became evident, however, that all talk of compromise on the part of the Southern leaders was deceptive--that they were relentlessly pursuing the course marked out from the first, hoping, undoubtedly, that the government would be paralyzed by their allies at the North, and that their purposes would be effected by negotiation and foreign intervention.

And so the skies grew darker and the political and social atmosphere so thick with doubt and discordant counsels that the horizon narrowed about even those on the mountain-top of power. All breathed heavily and felt the oppression that precedes some convulsion of nature.

At length, on the morning of the 12th of April, as the darkness which foreruns the dawn was lifting from Charleston Harbor, and Sumter lay like a shadow on the waves, a gun was fired whose echoes repeated themselves around the world. They were heard in every home North and South, and their meaning was unmistakable. The flash of that mortar gun and of the others that followed was as the lightning burning its way across the vault of heaven, revealing everything with intense vividness, and rending and consuming all noxious vapors. The clouds rolled speedily away, and from the North came the sound of ”a rus.h.i.+ng, mighty wind.”

The crisis and the leader came together. The news reached Was.h.i.+ngton on Sat.u.r.day. On Sunday Mr. Lincoln drafted his memorable call to arms, and on Monday it was telegraphed throughout the land. The response to that call forms one of the sublimest chapters of history.

In the St. John cottage, as in nearly all other homes, differences of opinion on minor questions melted into nothingness.

Graham read the electric words aloud, and his friend's only excited comment was:

”Graham, you will go.”

”Not yet,” was the quiet response ”and I sincerely hope you will not.”

”How can a man do otherwise?”

”Because he is a man, and not an infuriated animal. I've been very chary in giving my opinion on this subject, as you know. You also know that I have read and thought about it almost constantly since my return. I share fully in Major St. John's views that this affair is not to be settled by a mad rush southward of undisciplined Northern men. I have traced the history of Southern regiments and officers in the Revolution and in our later wars, and I a.s.sure you that we are on the eve of a gigantic conflict. In that degree that we believe the government right, we, as rational men, should seek to render it effective service. The government does not need a mob: it needs soldiers, and such are neither you nor I. I have informed myself somewhat on the militia system of the country, and there are plenty of organized regiments of somewhat disciplined men who can go at an hour's notice. If you went now, you--a millionaire--would not count for as much as an Irishman who had spent a few months in a drill-room. The time may come when you can equip a regiment if you choose. Moreover, you have a controlling voice in large business interests; and this struggle is doomed from the start if not sustained financially.”

”Mr. Graham is right,” said Grace, emphatically. ”Even my woman's reason makes so much clear to me.”

”Your woman's reason would serve most men better than their own,” was his smiling reply. Then, as he looked into her lovely face, pale at the bare thought that her husband was going into danger, he placed his hand on Hilland's shoulder and continued, ”Warren, there are other sacred claims besides those of patriotism. The cause should grow desperate indeed before you leave that wife.”