John Hunt Morgan

“ His remorse vanished all the quicker, and he was beginning to enjoy his clean shirt-front—a phrase his mind put by for his next story on any light social subject—before his hansom landed him at Wimbledon Station. The Acropolis, you [251] remember, is barely ten minutes cab from Waterloo, so this way did perfectly.
"John finds it do better," said Mrs. Eldridge, arriving in due course. "Only when he wants a walk he goes by East Putney, because the District saves him at the other end. Eight o'clock dinner, I suppose. Besides, they won't be punctual. They never are, nowadays." ”

“ If we weren’t caught, we’d starve.... The extraordinary thing is,” Hugh went on, in a puzzled voice, “that we can’t stay as we are. I’m happy as can be sitting here; yet I shall get up presently and put an end to this evening by going to bed. I don’t want to move. It’s glorious here in the dark.... Look at the lawn—like a great pool.”
“You want to lay hold on the instant,” John said. “You can’t any more than you can lay hold on eternity. They are the two infinities that meet somewhere. ”

“ He did not know that John had advanced farther than the first ramparts. In the morning, when he and Hugh had gone together to buy their China equipment, Margaret had come to offer feminine advice on materials. She had watched them turning over shirts, and hesitating, and retracting decisions in the manner of men at the counter. Women and their shopping? Oh, but men were infinitely worse! They had so small a field of choice, and yet they got lost in it. She laughed at this and a thousand trifles, and laughter is the truest ranging-arrow in love’s quiver. ”

“ To stray, even in dreams, beyond his steel wall was to expose himself to forces outside his experience, and now life seemed indefinably dangerous as it had never seemed before.
It is this sense of danger, experienced by all natures neither utterly animal nor merely trivial, that gives to love both its dignity and its finest colour. It is never more acute than in minds that have been isolated or confined, for to these the new world is new indeed. John was so much a stranger to the perilous country that as yet he did not call it by any name. ”

“ Mountain folk ain't curious in them ways. You'd better have let me sing to you about John Horn. Lucinda says she took her body away, but not her spirit. Says she can feel her any still and sunny day. I reckon Jonathan Morgan feels the same way. I don't know. [Pg 116] It's been a long time ago! Brother Carraway's dead and Jonathan Morgan is Brother Morgan now and preaches in the old church. Things air sure changing in this world! Last summer I heard him say myself that Christ was inside us and not outside—might never have been outside us, so much in the world being parable! ”

“ Glasgow,” he cried, and two hundred voices answered with a loud “Hurrah! we will do it!”
Little did Calhoun or they think that at that very time John Morgan, his forces defeated and scattered, was fleeing before the enemy. But like them, he had set his face toward Glasgow.
[pg 69] CHAPTER IV. MORGAN’S FIRST RAID. All through the month of April General Halleck had been concentrating the mighty armies of almost the entire West for the purpose of crushing Beauregard at Corinth. For a month the two armies lay but a few miles apart, almost daily skirmishes taking place between the outposts. ”

“ Leaving Shelbyville, we marched through Fayetteville to Huntsville; every where along the route the people flocked to see Morgan, and his progress was one continual ovation. When we reached Huntsville, the most beautiful town in Alabama (and now that Columbia is in ashes) perhaps in the entire South, we were received with the kindness and hospitality which characterize that generous, warm-hearted population. Huntsville, the birth-place of Morgan, greeted him like a mother indeed. For ten days we remained there; every man in the command the recipient of unwearying attention. ”

“ We shall have enough time in her absence to see Japan, and Hong-Kong, and Shanghai, or any other places you feel we ought to see. At present I want to see my son. Wild horses shall not move me.”
She had had enough of travelling. She liked to be settled in a home, and did not intend to trail about the seas at her husband’s heels.
Nick invited himself to dine, and John and Hugh, who would not ask for late leave that night, went ashore in the afternoon.
“Mr. Alter is always talking of you,” Margaret told him when, after tea, he had her alone. ”

“ He who stands alone in faith doubts at last; but two in faith are a sufficient army. And John had begun to doubt. His central beliefs were these: firstly, he believed that Art was a fine thing, a major force in life, not merely a slave to fan merchants or naval officers when they came, hot and tired, from their business in the City or on the bridge; secondly, he believed—to use a term as unrestrictive as his own opinion upon this matter—in political unselfishness. He had found the phrase once when driven into a corner during a trivial Gunroom argument about a newspaper article. ”

“ We shall fight, but if we are taken prisoners we shall be hanged. On the one hand I promise you plenty of fighting and lots of prize money, on the other there is the risk of being hanged."
"I will go with you."
"I knew you would. I came ashore purposely to meet you."
"To meet me? You do not know me."
"Don't I? Then perhaps I have made a mistake. I thought you were John Tempest——"
"That is my name; but how did you know me, and why did you want me?"
"You will ship with me?"
"I will."
"Give me your hand. We shall be comrades in many a fight. I am Captain Harry Vernon of the Lively Bee." ”

“ John answered: “I begin to see the wisdom of breaking snotties while they are young. I suppose it’s kinder in the long run.”
II
As autumn drew on to winter, the cold of Northern China closed down on Wei-hai-wei, and, after a short cruise to Ching-Wang-Tao, the Pathshire lay in harbour until Christmas-time. John saw little of Margaret, and never saw her alone. To meet her now was an exquisite agony, for her beauty, of which he seemed never before to have been fully aware, had that amazing power to baffle and astonish which is the attribute of ghosts. ”

“ It does no good to make yourself wretched.”
“But you think there’s cause?”
“Well, there’s a kind of glamour about Ordith, you know. And Margaret is very young as yet. I don’t suppose her mind is made up in any way.”
John rose and shivered. “We had better turn in,” he said. “The half-deck sentry thinks we are mad. ”

“ Alter’s vehemence. “We don’t write stories; that’s your job.”
“Yes; but I live outside the atmosphere. I am no good. But, to be sure, as you say, you don’t write stories, and here am I attacking my hosts. It reminds me of how——”
And the conversation drifted into stories of East and West, of land and sea, Mr. Alter being carefully silent when any midshipman showed a disposition to talk. Darkness fell, lights were switched on, and near the time of gin and bitters and the departure of the officers’ boat, John returned. ”

“ But, at present, it is only one of these poets, “John Morgan,” as he modestly signs himself, whom we are about to notice; and as some of our readers may be curious to see a specimen of the poetry of Seven Dials, we shall lay certain portions of John Morgan’s last effusion before them, pointing out the beauties and peculiarities of the compositions as we go along. After almost lawyer-like particularity as to dates and places, the poem begins with an invocation from the murderer in propria personæ.
“Oh! give attention awhile to me,
All you good people of each degree ”

“ CHAPTER XXIV IN WHICH SIR HENRY MORGAN APPEALS UNAVAILINGLY ALIKE TO THE PITY OF WOMAN, THE FORGIVENESS OF PRIEST, THE FRIENDSHIP OF COMRADE, AND THE HATRED OF MEN
nd bless me also, my father," cried Mercedes, kneeling by Alvarado's side.
"Most willingly, my fair daughter," answered the old man. "A fit helpmate indeed thou hast shown thyself for so brave a soldier. By your leave, your Excellency. You will indulge an old man's desire to bless the marriage of the son as he did that of the mother? ”

“ John said, “isn’t it amazing how beastliness spreads?”
“The women?” Hugh asked.
“No; at the moment I was thinking of Krame. But the women, too, if you like.”
“Oh, be damned to Krame! We are free of him.”
“Yes, we are, but others are not.”
“I’d forgotten them.”
“One does forget.”
Hugh looked at him. “Cheer up, John,” he said, “the sight of the women has made you [197] miserable. It’s no good being miserable about them. There’s nothing to be done.”
“I’m not miserable about them only. I’m angry because they are helpless, and we are helpless. I’m angry for all helpless things. ”

“ John exclaimed. “That [174] isn’t what I meant.... No; it’s just restlessness, I suppose. I feel that all the work we do is so like a housemaid’s—to-day’s routine the same as to-morrow’s. We never build or make anything. For all our work we leave nothing behind.”
“I don’t see your trouble,” Hugh said. “So long as life is pleasant I don’t want to leave anything behind.”
“We are missing so much. We get out of touch. In whatever progress there is we have no part.”
“I know we are missing a great deal. Every letter I get from outside makes me jealous of the people at home. ”

“ The expeditions sent out to capture John Morgan have all been failures. His own knowledge of the country is thorough, and besides, he has in his command men from every neighborhood, who know not only every road and cow-path in the locality, but every man, woman, and child. The people serve [222] him also, by advising him of all our movements. They guide him to our detachments when they are weak, and warn him away from them when strong. ”

“ Use it, I say!"
"Do you hear my father's words, Alvarado?" cried Mercedes sinking on her knees and stretching up her hands to him. "'Tis a sharp weapon. One touch will end it all, and you can follow." [Pg 385]
"God help me!" cried the unhappy young Captain, throwing aside the poniard and clasping his hands to his eyes. "I cannot! Hath no one here a point for me? If I have deserved well of you or the State, sir, bid them strike home."
"Live, young sir," interrupted Morgan, "there are other women in the world. ”

“ It was so good to be free of the King Arthur that, during the whole passage out, the world has seemed the best of all possible worlds. It isn’t—or it won’t be long. Oh, Hugh, it’s all very well—a happy ship, a good Wardroom, a good Sub, and no Gunroom persecution; but what does it all lead to? I want to do other things—things I shall never be able to do—and to meet other people.”
Hugh, believing that John was thinking particularly of Margaret, said: “At any rate, some of the ‘other people’ will be out East before long.” ”

“ André failed, and suffered an ignominious death; but his fame grows brighter with the centuries, while the traitor Arnold is still abhorred.
“Here is a belt containing ten thousand dollars in United States money,” said Morgan, handing him a belt. “You will need it; our money don’t go in the North.”
[pg 199] “Whew! you must have had your hand in Lincoln’s strong-box,” said Calhoun, as he took the money.
Morgan smiled as he answered: “A Yankee paymaster don’t come amiss once in a while.” ”

“ But we lack a ship."
"There's one yonder, man," cried Morgan, pointing up the harbor, where the lights of the Mary Rose twinkled in the blackness.
"To be sure the ship is there, but——"
"But what?"
"We've no force. The old men are gone."
"I am here," answered Morgan, "and you and Black Dog. And there are a few others left. Teach is new, but will serve; I heard his bull voice roaring [Pg 56] out from the tavern. And de Lussan and Velsers, and the rest. I've kept sight of ye. Curse it all, I let you live when I might have hanged you."
"You did, captain, you did. ”

“ We can not place the ladders which will give you access to yonder helpless town."
"Then to the men you go!" cried Morgan ruthlessly. "Forward here, two or three of you, take this woman! She chooses——"
"Death——" cried the abbess, snatching a dagger from the nearest hand and driving it into her breast, "rather than dishonor!"
She held herself proudly erect for a moment, swayed back and forth, and then fell prostrate upon the sand, the blood staining her white robe about the hilt of the poniard. She writhed and shuddered in agony where she lay, striving to say something. ”

“ Curse you! I'll ask no mercy for you!"
"My lord," gasped out Morgan, turning to the Viceroy in one final appeal, as two of the men dragged him to his feet again, "I have treasure. The galleon we captured—it is buried—I can lead you there."
"There is not a man of your following," said the Viceroy, "who would not gladly purchase life by the same means."
"And 'tis not needed," said the boatswain, "for I have told them where it lies."
"If Teach were here," said Morgan, "he would stand by me." ”

“ I was determined that there must be no concord with J. S. inside the circle; that this must be a special exception, like Father Huddleston and old Grouse in the gun-room. I was not long in anxiety; twenty-four hours after the book of sermons there came a copy of the threatened exposure—The British Association in Jeopardy, and Professor De Morgan in the Pillory without hope of escape. By James Smith, Esq. London and Liverpool, 8vo., 1866 (pp. 94) . This exposure consists of reprints from the Athenæum and Correspondent: of things new there is but one. ”

“ Then noticing the blanched faces of the soldiers, as they came rushing into the depot, he called out, “No use running, Emory, we can take the whole crowd prisoners, green as we look.”
And they did. There was no fight in the frightened men.
When the excitement was over Calhoun looked over the dispatches which he had captured, and found that a passenger train was due from the south in half an hour, and that it had orders to wait at Cave City for a freight train to pass, coming from the north. This was good news, and Morgan’s men waited, in glee, for the approaching trains. ”