Guy Wetmore Carryl

“ Abbott—McGrath—their machinations and their misdeeds—their lies and their ambitions—their power and their pride,—they were newts that fouled a pool, gnats in the sunshine, cinders on the snow. Towering above them, ready, at an instant's notice, [Pg 175] to crush them out of being, was the rock of ages, the righteous spirit of Alleghenia, integral and indestructible, illumined by the ancient, undimmed, and eternal sense of rectitude inherent in the American people! ”

“ Hence the unparalleled venom of the strike at the Rathbawne Mills. McGrath's dual sense of wounded vanity prescribed a course of surpassing vindictiveness. His personal resentment, reinforced by consummate appreciation of the adversaries with whom he had to deal, dictated a safe road to revenge, which enabled him to fling wide the floodgates of his long-stored animosity, secure in his knowledge of having the upper hand. Disorder, calumny, outrage, even open anarchy—he could venture upon them unafraid. ”

“ No one brought within the radius of his personal magnetism long resisted it. It was only those who judged him from a distance, as did the press and the rank and file of his party, or those who deliberately misinterpreted him, as did his political enemies, who permitted themselves anything short of enthusiasm for John Barclay. And this faculty for attracting admiration and commanding respect, this infallible kindness and this inherent dignity, were never made manifest to so great advantage as in his attitude toward his inferiors. ”

“ I would clap that man McGrath into jail for iniquitous inciting to riot, and place Colonel Broadcastle, at the head of his regiment, in charge of the city to restore order and the reign of law, and to redeem Alleghenia from the disgrace that is overwhelming her. Do? Before God, the Republic, and the state, Governor Abbott, I would do my duty as a man! ”

“ The usual smooth course of the convention, upset by this unlooked-for resistance from two quarters, staggered helplessly, and was on the point of coming to a deadlock. It was Michael McGrath's shrewd perception of the situation which solved the problem. In a brief, impassioned speech he laid the claims of his faction before the delegates, winding up with a stirring picture of the coöperation of labor and reform, now possible, which held the convention in spellbound silence for ten seconds after he had closed, and then set the hall ringing to cheers and vigorously plied hands and feet. ”

“ I was jealous, Natalie, insanely jealous. I could forgive him everything now."
"That hurts me, John. I'm so happy, boy dear, that I want everybody else to be happy as well. Oh, why is it that a girl must always have that one thought on her mind, which is so hard, so hard?—I mean the thought of the good men, the true, brave, loyal men, whom she has cared for, who have been her best friends perhaps, and yet whom she has been forced to hurt bitterly because they asked her for something she was not able to give. A man has so much easier a road! ”

“ I've had big responsibilities, but never a responsibility that I felt as I feel this one. If I hold out, I know what people and the newspapers will say,—how they'll blackguard me,—but I'm not afraid of that. I'm not even thinking of it. No, and I'm not thinking of what the strain may mean to me. Every man's turn is sure to come—why not one way as well as another? But what I am thinking of is the result upon the lives of these people whom I've made, as surely as if I were another Creator. And McGrath's another Beelzebub! ”

“ The huge armory of the Ninth, transformed, by the same system which had metamorphosed the personnel of the regiment itself, from a gaunt, barn-like structure, ill-fitted to its purpose in all but size, to the most cheerful, as well as the most completely equipped, of Alleghenian arsenals, was blazing with light and echoing to the sound of many voices. A steady stream of people poured in at the heavy doors, now standing wide, but significant, with their great timbers, elaborate locks and bolts, and precautionary peep-holes, of the possibility of an attitude less hospitable. ”

“ What a shame, is it not, that such a man as he should be powerless to do the work I think God intended for him? And what a shame that Alleghenia, needing his clear head and [Pg 226] his strong arm and his loyal heart as she does in this hour of emergency, should only be sneering at him as a coward and a cad!"
"I cannot believe," answered Cavendish, "that the venom of the 'Record' is to be taken as the sentiment of the state. There must be many—there must be a majority of Alleghenians who know, as we know, that no better man breathes than John Barclay." ”

“ When men are driven to desperation, when women turn to shame in order [Pg 218] to maintain life, when children are heard crying in our streets for bread, to whom shall we point as the author of it all? To Peter Rathbawne, a poor, doddering old man, barely responsible now, if rumor is to be believed, for what he does? No! To John Hamilton Barclay, Lieutenant-Governor of Alleghenia! ”

“ 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 assist 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. ”

“ I'm thankful we all have it—though as for your Aunt Helen, hers is about like that of a fly."
"Flies have very good appetites—judging from all I've seen, that is," said Dorothy, "so I don't think she is to be commiserated on that account."
"That was only a figure of speech, my dear," replied Mrs. Rathbawne, with engaging placidity. "Mercy! but I'm glad to get home. We've had a positively exhausting day with Natalie's shopping, and the worst of it is to think what a lot more there is to do. A wedding certainly is an undertaking, Mr. Nisbet." ”

“ Rathbawne had returned to the table, and, with his fore-arms across the back of a chair, and one foot on the lower cross-bar, was staring vacantly at his autographs, his hands moulding and remoulding each other into an infinity of forms. Natalie was at the window, her face in the crevice between the curtains. The same impulse had prompted both father and daughter. There are some things which it is better not to watch. ”

“ Governor who avowedly stood ready to sanction the most extreme pretensions of the notoriously corrupt party which had secured him his election,—here, surely, were good and sufficient reasons for the generously bestowed disapproval of Alleghenia's sister states. In all the personnel of her government there was but one man sincerely devoted to her advancement on the lines of integrity and non-partisanship. And that man was Lieutenant-Governor Barclay, whose influence on the trend of affairs was approximately that of the proverbial fly on the hub of the revolving wheel. ”

“ Since one side knows your views, there is no reason why the other should not be informed as well. Mr. McGrath is the president of the Union. It is best that he should know the attitude of the state authorities in this controversy."
"I am not in a position to question your wishes, sir. You should know best."
"One cannot pretend to be infallible, Mr. Barclay," answered the Governor, rubbing his hands. "One can only do what seems to be right and proper under the circumstances. By our conversation of yesterday, I in a measure put the negotiations with Mr. Rathbawne into your hands." ”

“ For all his freckles, and his nose that was too little, and his mouth that was too large, "the ugliest of the Nisbet boys"—he had often been called that!—was very emphatically good to look upon.
"A big man?" answered Dorothy. "Yes, I think I should like to marry a big man. I want him very clean, too—very clean!—morally, as well as otherwise. And honest as the day is long. And not too bright! I don't want to be continually trying to live up to his brain, and continually failing. It is fatal to one's self-respect, that sort of thing. ”

“ Then followed the most remarkable manifestation of popular sentiment ever known in Alleghenia. As Barclay had once said of them, the citizens of his long degraded state were less vicious than callous, and their callousness was effectively cured by the dramatic event which had removed a corrupt official from the head of the state government, and put in his place a man whose first acts were proofs positive of strength, integrity, and singleness of purpose. The revulsion of feeling was overwhelming. Even the press which had sneered at and cried down John Barclay was forced to the other extreme. ”

“ One man dies in order that two may live. A confederacy—as in the case of our own Rebellion—perishes in order that a nation may endure. Everywhere, in short, the individual sacrifices his individual existence in order that it may contribute to and fertilize the growth of his species. So far as I am concerned, I am perfectly content to have it so. I should ask nothing better, when my own time comes, than the assurance that, in one way or another, my death had a significance,—that it was for a person or a principle, and not merely a natural phenomenon. ”

“ I can't act with the conviction of omniscience. I've been the most independent of men. I've made my own fortune with my own brains. I've done as I saw fit, and the results have seemed to indicate that I've been oftener right than wrong. But now, I'm at a loss. It's not the men I'm thinking of so much. They ought to be able to make their own way, as I've made mine. It's the women and children dependent upon them—the women and children who have no voice in the matter, and yet who are bound to suffer most by a strike. ”

“ The Lieutenant-Governor returned to his apartment for lunch. Cavendish was still sleeping as he had left him, with a stalwart negro porter, summoned from the Capitol by telephone early that morning, watching in a chair. Under Barclay's orders, a carpenter had already removed the splintered door of the wine-closet, and an upholsterer had replaced it by a slender brass rod from which swung a velvet curtain. With his own hands the Lieutenant-Governor had taken away the fallen bottle, mopped up the pool of absinthe, and put the room to rights. ”

“ The Governor shook his head.
"Dearest," he said, "you're on the wrong track, just as I have been, a dozen times since the petition came. Don't you suppose I've thought of all that? Its significance, not only to me, but, as you say, to the state, is so [Pg 262] tremendous that, at the first glance, it seems to be an unanswerable argument. But—don't you see?—no sophistry, no contemplation of the results achieved, can ever make it justifiable for a man to arrogate to himself the power of taking human life, which is the prerogative of God and the law alone. ”

“ The chief executive had flung back into their very faces the appeal to his [Pg 165] conscience of the most influential men in Kenton City; the police, even now seated about their station stoves, were sniggling at the predicament of the public which paid them for its protection against precisely the kind of thing which they openly tolerated and encouraged; yes, and even the militia, the guarantee of law and order, Broadcastle's own command, were decked out in tinsel and pipeclay, strutting to music in a palpable bid for applause and admiration. ”

“ And, part and indissoluble portion of its inspiring memories and illustrious destinies, the star of Alleghenia yet blazed upon its azure field! He had been living in a world of unrealities, in a valley of shadow, grayed by portents of failure and despair. His eyes had been narrowed to see the pitfalls which lined his path, to the stumbling-blocks, the briers, the indescribable sordidness of his personal position and his immediate surroundings. ”

“ As Cavendish came out of the Rathbawne residence, Bradbury Avenue was splashed with huge blotches of dazzling yellow, where the light of the westwardly sun poured between the houses and was spilled upon the smooth pavement. The man choked slightly at the after-taste of the raw whiskey he had just swallowed, but almost immediately he smiled. ”