Alfred Henry Lewis

“ Calhoun would have led us to the left where no man could be sure of national continuance over night. But the General ruled; he was for the right hand. By his iron courage, and the brisk, white clearness of his mental lights, the General was to triumph. As descendant of such victory the States were to be unified and secession beaten down. Nor shall that hour find its morning in all time when the mighty excellences of the General's labors are not to have their evidence, and the tree he planted bear into the hands of men its fruits upon the earth. ”

“ The General would defend Duff Green, although I am sure he had his measure from the start. The General, retorting to my charge of selfishness and vanity, would say: “Of course, Duff's selfish; that's why I enjoy him. I like selfish folk; they are easy to understand, easy to start or stop. One has but to bait his trap with their interest and, presto! there they are in the morning caught sharp and fast for his use. And again, your selfish folk are content with much less than will suffice your disinterested folk who truly love you.” ”

“ And yet, as may the Amazon have ultimate well-head in some rivulet as thin as a thread, or a spring so little that a gourd might serve for its exhaustion, so did the General come to select his place in this business of upholding the Union against those who would pull it down, as incident to bucklering a woman—poor and slight and feeble, she was; the beautiful Peg O'Neal!—who for her loveliness was envied and for her goodness was hated and for her origin as a tavern-keeper's daughter was contemned by those proud folk who named themselves the nation's court of fashion. ”

“ I know not on what uplands of conjecture the General's thoughts were grazing; for myself, I was dwelling on Peg, for I could still feel that soft, warm collar of her two arms clasping my neck.
It is trenching on the wondrous, too, how the sweet image of a woman will train one's soul for war. No sooner would I take Peg upon the back of my meditations, than they straightway went plunging off to her enemies, and to tire themselves with vain circlings of how best to refute the malice of her foes and return upon their wicked heads the most of cruelty. ”

“ Why, you flounder in abyssmal ignorance of yourself. To study another with a hope of light, one should first own some liberal knowledge of one's self. To have gone about to teach you that difficult lesson of Peg, you, who are as unaware of yourself as any bush or tree or tuft of grass, would have been as truly wise, and a task well worth one's while, as would be a discussion of Moore with that savage of the woods who has yet to hear of the alphabet. However, we will rest content with you as you are, oh, watch-dog! oh, slave of Peg, wearing her mark! ”

“ Defeat for our enemies; triumph for our friends; those were our watchwords.
You may believe I went into November and looked winterward with a load off my soul, when now the General's health was come back; and with it his temper to wrangle and clash with me; also his mighty heart was restored, hot as Hecla and as volcanic, against those who, mongering Nullification, would forge a Calhoun treason down among the rice fields.
As for Peg, there stood no limit to her satisfaction when the fight for the General's life was won, and he in fairer health than at any hour since we came. ”

“ I wanted only Peg, would heed no other call, and whether it were right or wrong or black or white I cared not. Caught fast in the mills, I was wholly ground between Peg and my mighty love for her. In a supreme egotism and the selfishness that goes wanting heart or conscience, I would set torch to the skies before I gave her up.
It is the fair wellhead of amazement how a man is thus strange to himself; how he will defeat his own best prophecy and be as opposite as night and day to all he promised. Folk have never accounted me weak, and I myself would have said I was a man of stone. ”

“ Rivera came back, bearing the swords wrapped from casual eye in the folds of a cloak. I drew one—a plain rapier or Spanish sword—and of as superb temper as any to come from its birth-forge of Toledo.
“They are brothers, those swords,” said Noah; “there is none better. I had them from the hands of that Bey who branded us as heathen, and so fretted the friend of Henry Clay. And since, in a pastime such as we go about, a fullest confidence in one's weapon is important, you will prefer these for me if the choice be given you.” ”

“ Like a great captain who in the wake of victory makes speed to again strike the enemy while yet the latter is disorganized and before he can re-collect formation or even hope, Peg was next and swiftly in the field with that dinner for her glory at the Russian legation, tendered by the wily Baron Krudener—he of the earrings and the scarlet heels. The Tartar, as the General called him, zealous for the favor of the General and Van Buren, was keen to note how a civility done Peg would become a key to the best good will of both. ”

“ Then from a corner of the East Room I announced the fact with a loud voice.
It was as though my words bore a charm; in a twinkling the White House proper approached desertion. Folk decent and civilized might again move about, and quiet ones have peace. The mob never came back, for I made it my duty that no lack of punch should occur on the lawn; there the uproarious remained and drank, and at last—those who could walk—they drifted away, each deviously to his habitat, and something akin to quiet settled again about the eaves and rafters of the mansion. ”

“ As Pigeon-breast resumed the perpendicular, he crooked his gallant arm invitingly and would lead Peg to her place.
But Peg drew back, as much to my bewilderment as that of the wonder-smitten Pigeon-breast himself, and with a manner coldly polite said:
“There is a mistake, sir; I could have promised you no dance, since I do not know you.”
“Mistake!” gasped Pigeon-breast.
“Mistake,” repeated Peg, with, if anything, an access of ice. “I never before saw you; I could have put you down for no dance. One does not dance with strangers.” Then to me: “Your arm, if you please.” ”

“ Peg began to weep, and I could hear the sharp catching of her sobs. Suddenly the moan came sighing up to me:
“Oh, if there were no such word as right or justice or duty, but only love—just love!” Then with a quick backward twist of her form that was like an impulse, and as replete of a swift grace as any suppleness of that long ago leopard whereof she would so often make me think, Peg turned herself in my arms, and with her own encircling my neck lay crying on my bosom. ”

“ I had lived a life half-bitted, and for the main with bridle on my neck; the last I cared for were the frowns or the smiles of folk. If it were a woman to talk against the teeth of my fancy, I would turn my back on her; if a man, I had a way to gag his tongue if it should be no better than the butt of my pistol. And yet, however loose my habit or dull my knowledge of those matters, I did not go without a fashion of cold shock on Peg's behalf when I was so far my own man again as to dwell on our position—we, plodding through the snow and the darkness, locked in that carriage. ”

“ For myself, and I take no shame for it, I say freely that of the charges laid against her by common tongue, I was convinced of her innocence by the mere beauty of her face, just as the loveliness of that Greek girl aforetime convinced the judges and wrought a verdict in her favor. There be flowers so purely beautiful as to refuse and refute a stain; and such a blossom was the lustrous Peg O'Neal. ”

“ We were standing in front of that portrait of Washington which Dolly Madison once slashed from its frame to save from vandal British.
“Come,” said Peg, tugging at my wrist with the two hands of her, “I'm weary of these. Doubtless he was a wondrous fine gentleman”—pointing to the painted figure of our first president—“and lived well aware of it, himself, as one may know by the satisfied smirk of him. But show me some other picture, one more beautiful and less grand—and not so satisfied with itself, and respectable. All the folk I hate are respectable, and I begin to loathe the word!” ”

“ Suddenly her head was in its old resting place over my heart, with the cloak to again become its cover.
“Watch-dog,” whispered Peg, and I might tell how deeply she was stricken by the quaver of her voice, as much as by a trembling that swept her as a gust rumples the surface of a tarn; “watch-dog, I felt that I would not live unless I saw you. Do you contemn me? Do you own shame for your little friend? I could not help it; I sent for Rivera, and made him fetch this carriage. We are alone—hidden from the world's eyes. I have torn a night from the hands of Time to be no one's night save ours. ”

“ I asked.
“Watch-dog, I'll tell you what it will not mean.” Peg spoke in a tone of tired earnestness. “It will not mean sympathy or love or trust. Society, as we've agreed, is like a mountain. And like a mountain, you find less and less of vegetation as you climb—fewer of the green, good virtues that stand so thickly rank in the poor valleys below. As you climb, it would turn ever barer and colder; and at the last no virtues—nothing but lichens and livid mosses. We are at the summit, watch-dog. ”

“ Who is she, to be so daft as to refuse the fragrance of a thousand blossoms to find one serpent and be stung by it?” Peg crowed high and long, deeming herself a princess of chop-logic. “But a man should watch a woman,” she concluded; “the woman wants him to.”
“And why?” said I, becoming curious.
“Because she likes to feel herself tethered by his vigilance.”
“But why?” I insisted. “Is not freedom dear to a woman?”
“Yes, but love is more dear. See what she gains when she barters only a little freedom for a world of love.” ”

“ There be occasions when politeness to a man is a fair thing thrown away; also, there be occasions when politeness to a woman is nothing better than a waste of justice. Watch-dog, you should have pocketed the 'gentleman' for use on a languid day; you should have been all 'man.' You should have seized me by the shoulder; you should have made me go or stay, or talk or stand mute, as you willed. It was for that”—and Peg gave me this gravely, like some confidant Pythoness sure of her Apollo-inspired word—“it was for that, watch-dog, you were made the stronger of us two.” ”

“ When I tell you how Calhoun is my enemy, would you still urge on me this prince of duplicity for a statesman whose word is worth a following? Calhoun, for a plan or a principle, can not be relied on. He is congenitally bad, and will propose nothing that is true or high.” Here, as the General's anger began to tower, he would strike viciously at old weeds, dead and winter-bitten, which ranked the path we traversed, cutting them down with his hickory stick as with a saber; Rhetz still silent, without voice. ”

“ The honor of a woman—to safeguard her good fame—is the first duty of a man. It is before friendship, before patriotism; it has precedence over things public or private. What you offer spells ruin for a woman—ruin for Peg whom my wife has loved and kissed! I will not do it. I say it again: Eaton for the cabinet it should be though it were the last act of my life. More; if I were capable of beginning my administration with treason to a friend, I might surely look to conclude it with treason to the people. ”

“ I could feel her heart-throbs become firmer and more slow as she lay in my arms, and it was in them I read the truth of her resolve.
“Watch-dog,” said Peg in a way most sweetly solemn, “I think nothing of myself. If it were I alone to be unmade, I'd never leave your arms again. Come weal, come woe, here would I bide, and while your arms were round me the worst would change to be the best. But I will not see you under the mire of men's tongues. Dear one, you would die! You are one whose life grows on his honor like a flower on its stem; disgrace would cut you down and you would die. ”

“ Then, seeing my flowers: “How now! how now! and when was Mars a gardener and has the world turned girl! These should be thin days and bloodless, when the starkest saber that ever rode on my bridle hand—he whom the Creeks called the 'Big Death'—loiters with woman's wares and learns to twine a posy.”
“They are for Peg,” said I, more nettled than I showed, for it struck me he talked a deal about nothing at all.
“Oh, they are for Peg,” he repeated, his glance whimsical, yet narrow and intent; “they are for Peg!” ”

“ I walked on and on, with no clear purpose until the thing to strike my notice was how here before me sprawled that vine which, on a summer day, Peg characterized for its wanderings and said it was like her.
Why I should go seeking this vine is by no means plain; and yet I must have owned to some hope of its succor, since I stood long to consider it, and cast about with my eyes if, by any luck of nature, a stout true tree stood at hand which might be given it for support. There was none; the poor vine must live and die unwedded on the loveless ground. ”

“ It is not a hand's-breadth behind a miracle how a girl—and you a steady man of years, and twice her age—will wrap you in perplexities like a parcel. It was so with me; the witch would wind and unwind me as though I were a ball of knitting-yarn! She would darn and patch her laughter with me!
“Watch-dog,” said Peg, severely, “watchdog, you know you are jealous! And how long do you count it since I told you that jealously was but love turned upside down?” This came off trippingly, and with superior wave of wrist, as settling a thing beyond debate. ”

“ Also, for that the General is ardent and prone to mix private passion with his public thought, he arrives at a hatred of nullification, finding it a prime principle among those enemies whom he faces for the sake of poor Peg O'Neal. It is the great fire kindled of a small thing, this, the General's war to sustain the Union against ones who already searched for its life. He rides into the lists for a woman's name, and all unknowingly he bears the country's future on the point of his spear. ”

“ Noah laughed lightly. “The faithful Rivera,” he went on, “has, however, certain advantages. There is a compensation, an equilibrium, in nature. Rivera, slow of brain, possesses the muscle-power of a Hercules; moreover, in those twin arts of boxing and wrestling, it's to be doubted if his over-lord exists. Some day, in some moment of brutality—being now and again overtaken of such—I shall have Rivera to England to beat Bendigo and Ward. The prize-ring is his one opening for eminence. And I—as does the immortal Byron, who has more pride of fisticuffs than verse—applaud the ring.” ”