Gleazen

“ We lay a long time in the garden, with the stars shining above us and yellow lights streaming out of the house, and I thought of how skillfully Arnold Lamont had concealed his interest in what Gleazen and Matterson had said in a language they thought none of us could understand. But when the racing and shouting had gone, and come, and gone again, and when we both were convinced that all danger was past, we rose and stretched ourselves and went up to the house and knocked. ”

“ That my uncle would gladly have been rid of the fellow, for all his grand airs and the pocketfuls of money that he would throw out on the bar at the inn or on the counter at the store, I very well knew; I sometimes saw him wince at Gleazen's effrontery, or start to retort with his customary sharpness, and then go red or pale and press his lips to a straight line. Yet I could not imagine why this should be. If any other man had treated him so, Uncle Seth would have turned on him with the sharpest words at his command. ”

“ So we sat in the wagon on a wharf by the harbor, where the clean salt water licked at the piling and rose slowly with the incoming tide, while our two leaders bickered together.
At last, in anger, Seth Upham cried: "I swear I'll not go. I'll hold back the brig. I'll keep my money. You shall hang."
Gleazen laughed a low laugh that was more threatening by far than if as usual he had laughed with a great roar. "No, you don't, Seth," he quietly said. "You know the stakes that you've put up and you know that the winnings will be big. ”

“ Say what you will against Matterson in most respects, in that emergency he was the man who saved us. Throwing the helmsman from the wheel so violently that he fell clean over the companion ladder and down to the spar-deck, he seized the wheel and cried in a voice as hard as steel, "Gleazen, be still! Be still, I say! Now, Captain North, with head yards aback and after yards braced for the starboard tack, we'll make it."
Captain North, with an able man at the wheel,—to pay the devil his due,—gave orders in swift succession and the brig came back on her course and rose to meet the breakers. ”

“ Never before had the business of the store been better; never [Pg 17] before had there been more mortgages and notes locked up in the big safe; never had our affairs of every description flourished so famously. But whereas, in other seasons of greater than ordinary prosperity, Uncle Seth had become almost genial, I had never seen him so dictatorial and testy as now. Some secret fear seemed to haunt him from day to day and from week to week.
Thinking back on that morning when Cornelius Gleazen first came to our store, I remembered a certain sentence he had spoken. ”

“ It is a matter to be argued when the time comes. But—what will you take on board for a cargo at Rio Pongo?"
As if Arnold's question implied permission for him also to have his say, the trader spread both hands in a gesture of despair at such ignorance as it manifested.
"'What weel you get?' Ah, me—"
"Yes, what will you get?" Arnold reiterated, quietly smiling at the irony of his question.
"We'll get a cargo all right when we get there," Gleazen asserted. "We'll let it go at that. Captain North, bring the brig about on a course, say, of approximately west by north." He bent over the chart. ”

“ We met Dr. van der Helde again to-day. He is a brave man, and he is very pleasant, too. He has been working in Dixmude, but no one is there any more, and he wants to start a new post. He wants to go to Pervyse, and he wishes you and Scotch and me to go with him and run a dressing-station for the soldiers."
"Pervyse!" cried Mrs. Bracher. "Why, my dear girl, Pervyse is nothing but a rubbish heap. They've shot it to pieces. There's no one at Pervyse."
"The soldiers are there," replied Hilda; "they come in from the trenches with a [26] finger off or a flesh wound. ”

“ Why are you out here? Why isn't a hospital good enough for you, back in Furnes or Dunkirk?"
"I remember," returned Hilda. "I'll tell you. I could answer you by saying that we're out to help, and that would be true, too. But it wouldn't be quite the whole truth, for there's a tang of adventure in Pervyse, where we can see the outposts of the other fellows, that there isn't in the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg, let us say. Yes, we're out to help. But we're out for another reason, too. For generations now, you men have had a monopoly of physical courage. ”

“ The hours wore on, and six o'clock came, but no sign of Gleeson, nor had Sandy returned with any answer.
“And yet I am positive he is not from home,” said Darcy. “He pledged himself not to leave this until the whole business was completed. Honest Tom Gleeson is a man to keep to the strictest letter of his word.”
“I 'd not think that less likely,” said Daly, sententiously, “if the world had spared him the epithet. I hate the cant of calling a man by some title that should be common to all men,—at least, to all gentlemen.” ”

“ Bracher's flying visits to Furnes.
"I could hardly call it hot," replied the nurse. "The walls of our house, that is, the fragments of them left standing, are full of shrapnel. The road outside our door is dented with shell holes. Every house in the village is shot full of metal. There's a battery of seven Belgian guns spitting away in our back-yard. But we don't call it hot, because we hate to exaggerate."
"I'll have to come out and see you," he said, with a smile.
He became a frequent visitor at Pervyse.
"Rollo is wonderful," exclaimed Hilda. ”

“ When the three women went to Pervyse, and the fame of them spread through the Belgian Army, the Doctor was as happy [147] as if a grandchild had won the Derby. He was glad when Mrs. Bracher and "Scotch" received the purple ribbon and the starry silver medal for faithful service in a parlous place. He was now very happy that Hilda's fame had sprung to England, taken root, and bloomed in so choice a way. He had a curiously sweet nature, the Doctor, a nature without animosities, absent-minded, filmed with dreams, and those dreams large, bold and kindly.
"Your car is better than a medal," he said ”

“ This is as good as an endowed hospital bed. It's like the King's touch; it heals everyone who comes near. May its shadow never grow less."
"I hope they won't shoot away its bonnet," said Hilda; "there's nothing so dead-looking as a wrecked ambulance. I saw one the other day on the Oestkirke road. It looked like a summer-resort place in winter."
[148]
"No danger," replied the Doctor, who was of a buoyant cast; "you are born lucky. You're one of the Fortunate Seven. You know there are Seven Fortunate born in each generation. All the good things come to them without striving. ”

“ Bracher, and the silent, charming Scotch. The band bashed the cymbals and beat the drum, and the wind instruments roared approval. And the modest young King saluted the two brave ladies.
In a shop door, a couple of hundred yards from the ceremony, Hilda was standing quietly watching the joyous crowds and their King. Pushing through the throng that hemmed her in, a massive man came and stood by her.
"Ah, Mr. Barkleigh," said Hilda, "this is a surprise."
"It's a shame," he began.
"What's a shame?" asked Hilda.
"Why aren't they decorating you? You're the bravest of the lot." ”

“ To the Delban leader's question Glayne replied cautiously, "The Guardians have landed on their feet in every major crisis for the last thousand years. Perhaps we want to land feet-first this time."
"That is quite understandable, Captain," replied Gort Bro-Doral, cautious in his turn.
"When one side in a battle has unlimited strength," Glayne continued, "the wise man has no difficulty in deciding whom he will support. ”

“ This valiant Belgian soldier was a mystic of war.
In the trenches and at the hospitals, Hilda had met a race of prophets, men who carry about foreknowledge and premonitions. Sturdy bearded fellows who salute you as men about to die. They are perfectly cheery, as brave as the unthinking at their side, but they tramp firmly to a certain end. War lets loose the rich life of subconsciousness which most mortals keep bottled up in the sleepy secular days of humdrum. Peril and sudden death uncork those heady vapors, and sharpen the super-senses. ”

“ Bracher.
"The very first thing they will do—they will place a gun on top of the trench, and rake this whole town. They [82] can rake the road that leads to Furnes. It would cut off your retreat to Furnes."
That meant the only escape for the women would be through the back-yard, and over fields knee-deep in mud, where dead horses lie loosely buried in hummock graves.
"What do you think we had better do?" asked Hilda. "To leave now seems like shirking our job."
"There'll be no job for you, if the enemy come through to-night," returned the Commandant; "they'll do the job. ”

“ Every man had his rosary beads out, reciting the prayers in response to Father Gleeson, just as if at the Confraternity at home, instead of having to face death in a thousand hideous forces the following morning."
And then our sergeant-major tells us how Father Gleeson went down the ranks saying words of comfort, bidding good-bye to the officers, and "telling the men to keep up the honour of the regiment."
At dawn the German position was subjected to an intense bombardment for seven minutes to sweep the wire out of the way. Then the query came from the officers: “Are you ready, lads?” ”

“ When his mind once gripped an idea, it carried it through to the terminal station. Hilda turned on him vigorously.
"You realize, don't you," she said, "that Belgium didn't bring on this war? You remember that it was some one else that came pouncing down upon her. It seems almost a pity, doesn't it, to smash this beauty and hunt these nice people?"
[179]
"It's all wrong," he said; "it's all wrong."
Wetteren Hospital—brick walls and stone floors, the clatter of wooden shoes in the outer corridor, where peasants shuffled. ”

“ Gleason, “I never sent it.”
“Just like Mittie,” cried Miss Thusa, “she’s always doing something to spite Helen. I heard her say myself once, that she despised her, because everybody took her part. Take her part—sure enough. The Lord Almighty knows that a person has to be abused before we can take their part.”
“Hush!” exclaimed Mr. Gleason, mortified as this disclosure of Mittie’s unamiable disposition, and shocked at the instance first made known to him. ”

“ There was room for everybody but wounded. Fortunately there were few wounded in those early days when rescuers tingled for the chance to serve and see. So the Ghent experience was a probation rather than a fulfilled success. Then the enemy descended from fallen Antwerp, and the Corps sped away, ahead of the vast gray Prussian machine, through Bruges and Ostend, to Furnes. Here, too, in Furnes, the Corps was still trying to find its place in the immense and intricate scheme of war.
The man that saved them from their fogged incertitude was a Belgian doctor, a military Red Cross worker. ”

“ Lastly, the woman.
"Yes, we'll take her," said the good-hearted Tommies, who lent a hand in unloading the car. But their officer was firm.
"We have no room," he said; "we must keep this hospital for the soldiers. I wish I could help you."
"But what am I to do with her?" asked Hilda in dismay.
"I am sorry," said the officer. He walked away.
"The same old story," said Hilda; "no place for the old in war-time. They'll turn us away from all the hospitals. Anyone who isn't a soldier might as well be dead as in trouble."
The old woman lay on the stretcher [130] in the street. ”

“ One morning after breakfast, Lord Glenfallen had been for some time walking silently up and down the room, buried in his moody reflections, when pausing suddenly, and turning towards me, he exclaimed:
“I have it—I have it! We must go abroad, and stay there too; and if that does not answer, why—why, we must try some more effectual expedient. [241] Lady Glenfallen, I have become involved in heavy embarrassments. A wife, you know, must share the fortunes of her husband, for better for worse; but I will waive my right if you prefer remaining here—here at Cahergillagh. ”

“ It would only subject his family to reprisal by the German military power. He belongs to the 46th Reserve Infantry Regiment, 5 Reserve Corps. He has a knack at homely details. He enters a deserted house where the pendulum of the clock still swings and ticks and sounds the hours. He believes himself under the direct protection and guidance of God. He sees it when a shell explodes, killing his comrades. He speaks of the beauty of the dead French officers, as he sees [183] them lying in a railway station. He is skeptical about the lies told against French and Belgians. ”

“ At twenty-one fifteen, you and I attempt to maneuver Gort Bro-Doral and General Ganser together in conversation. At that moment Lieutenant Harbin will land on the roof of the palace, attacking the guards there. Then we will hustle the two Delbans into the elevator, take them to the roof, and escape with Harbin in the flier. In the meantime Graysen will have blasted off in the Algol; we will intercept him twenty miles over Topo Gulf."
"Exactly," Glayne said. "Everything is going well so far. We've just received permission to land a liberty party so we don't have to worry about that anymore." ”

“ And now Hilda's car had actually come to her, there at the dressing-station in Pervyse. The brand new motor ambulance was standing in the roadway, waiting her need. Its brown canopy was shiny in the sun. A huge Red Cross [145] adorned either side with a crimson splash that ought to be visible on a dark night. The thirty horse-power engine purred and obeyed with the sympathy of a high-strung horse. Seats and stretchers inside were clean and fresh for stricken men. From Hilda's own home town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, had come a friendship's garland of one hundred dollars. ”