CHAPTER X.
FOLLOWING UP THE PRINCE STREET MYSTERY--TOM LESLIE'S PECULIAR IDEAS--ACALL UPON SUPERINTENDENT KENNEDY--THE DEPARTURE OF A REGIMENT--JOSEYHARRIS IN A STREET-SQUALL--A RENCONTRE.
It was not to be supposed that Tom Leslie and Walter Lane Harding, afterthe expenditure of ten dollars, a whole night's rest and a considerableamount of bodily energy, in the investigation of what they called the'Prince Street mystery,' would permit it to remain uninvestigatedafterwards, so far as a little more money and a good deal more ofinquisitiveness could go in unravelling it. Even before they parted,late on the night of the adventure, they had discussed half a dozenplans for gaining admission to the house on Prince Street or that onEast 5--th, by fair means or foul. Harding, who was something of astickler for propriety in ordinary cases, in spite of the fact that hehad on that one occasion been inveigled into following a carriage andplaying spy under a front stoop--Harding expressed himself satisfiedthat there being now in their minds a sufficient certainty of theexistence of a disloyal organization in the city to make affidavits tothat effect a duty--the proper course would be to lay the matter at oncebefore the Superintendent of Police and request that a watch might beset upon the houses or some proceedings taken to "work up" the case forafter proceedings. The young merchant no doubt had more confidence inthis plan than he might otherwise have done, from the fact that a fewmonths previous a robbery had been committed at his place of business,and that upon his laying the matter at once before the policeauthorities, such steps had been taken as within two weeks secured thedetection of the leading culprit and the recovery of most of the missingproperty. Here was a detective "bridge" that had once "carried him safeover" in a commercial point of view: why would not the same bridge offerboth of them a safe footing when attempting to unravel a mystery ofdisloyalty?
Tom Leslie, as was natural to one of his temperament, took a differentview of the whole matter. Mysteries "bothered" the straight-forwardHarding; but to Tom they formed one of the necessities of existence--alittle less indispensable than his breakfast, but much more importantthan his cigar. Had he been precisely the sort of man for employingpolice agency where personal investigation was possible, he would neverhave climbed the tree in Prince Street or dragged Harding under thestoop of the brown-stone house. He suggested that Harding would not havemuch difficulty in making himself up for a postman, and getting insidethe up-town house in that capacity, trusting to his own skill to_remain_ within until he had made the necessary investigations; while asfor himself--well, he had no particular objections to enteringtemporarily upon the occupation of a tinker or a gatherer of old ragsand bottles, with a disguise from his friend Williams, the costumer, andworking the basement of the house on Prince Street, and the domesticstherein employed, in one of those capacities. He had no doubt whateverthat if he could only succeed in concealing himself in the sub-cellar orthe coal-vault, until the house should be closed for the night, he couldthen, with the aid of a few matches and a pair of list slippers carriedin the pocket, make a "rummage" of the premises which must proveeminently satisfactory. He did not seem to labor under any fear that thelittle accident of being discovered while lying perdu or while makinghis explorations, and arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island as anordinary sneak-thief, might possibly stand in the way. In fact, if allstories of his earlier life were to be credited, he had taken somepains, in more than one instance, to be arrested by the Police underwhat appeared to be suspicious circumstances, spend a night in thestation-house, and astound the Police Justices, who personally knew himsomewhat too well for their comfort, by his appearance as a verywoe-begone culprit in the morning. "_De gustibus non est_," etc.--thereis really no disputing about tastes, since St. Simeon Stylites roostedupon the top of a very inconvenient pillar, and the first ostrichinaugurated the dietary proclivities of the race by gobbling down asmall cart-load of cord-wood with a garnish of a peck of paving-stones!A night in a station-house may not be so very unpleasant a thing, whentaken from choice and with a certainty of the door being laughinglyopened in the morning: Whiskey Tom or Scratching Sall, who visit theinstitution perforce, for small burglaries or big vagrancies, with aprospect of "six months" or "two years" at the end, may form a verydifferent opinion of it!
Tom Leslie, as has been remarked, did not seem to have any fears of sucha result as an arrest, to his proposed spy-movements; but it cannot beconcealed that for a moment Walter Harding, who had before thought thathe knew him well, looked at him out of the corners of his eyes, withsome impression that he must unwittingly have been keeping company witha genteel house-breaker. At all events, Harding did not fall in with thespy-proposition, so far as his own action was concerned, alleging thatthere might be such a thing as a business man having other occupationsthan traversing the city in disguise as a volunteer detective; and sothat project, if any there had really been in the mind of Leslie, wasabandoned.
A resort to the police remained; for neither of the friends, after whatthey had seen and heard, could think of the whole affair being allowedto go by default. Superintendent Kennedy must be visited, after all; andthough Harding's business for the next day would interfere, it was morethan half agreed upon before they separated, that they would calltogether upon that official on the next day but one and lay the wholematter before him.
The agreement, though only half made, was better kept than many that aremade more conclusively; for at eleven o'clock on the day named Lesliemade his appearance at the place of business of Harding, and dragged himaway from a series of mercantile calculations over the desk, in which hehad more than half forgotten the existence of his friend as well as thewhole adventure of the chase and the mystery. He came up to the workpretty readily, however--the presence of the rattling, go-ahead Lesliealways having the effect of carrying him a little off his feet; and halfan hour afterwards the two friends had entered that melancholy-lookingfive-story brick building on the corner of Broome and Elm, then and tilllately known as the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police,--and werebeing shown by a policeman in attendance, with the blue of his suitundimmed by exposure to the weather and the brass of his buttonsradiantly untarnished, into the presence of John A. Kennedy,Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police District and for the timeProvost Marshal of the City of New York. They entered from the hall ofthe building by a side door to the left, in the rear of what had beenthe centre of the house when occupied as a private residence before NewYork moved up "above Bleecker,"--and advancing towards the front underthe guidance of the respectful official, passed the table at which satthe half-bald, stern-faced, and iron-gray Deputy SuperintendentCarpenter, through the door that had once separated the two parlors, andstood in the presence of another iron-gray man, seated writing at atable covered with books and papers, his back to the front of thebuilding, and the smooth-shaven and round-faced Inspector Leonard busilyexamining a roll of papers behind him in the corner.
Few men in this whole country have occupied a more marked position inthe public mind, during all this struggle, than Superintendent Kennedy,in his legitimate position at the head of the Police and in what we mustbelieve to have been his illegitimate one as Provost Marshal. He madehimself peculiarly conspicuous, and won the enmity of all the secessionwing of the Northern democracy, by stopping the shipment of arms to therebellious States, and blocking the apparent game of Mayor Wood and hisaiders and abettors to curry favor with the extreme South by trucklingto every one of its arrogant dictations. The enmity then created hasnever died, and can never die until those who hold it happen to diethemselves. At the same time, those who were and are unconditionallyloyal to the Union, have never judged the action of SuperintendentKennedy very harshly--aware that _something_ needed to be done toprevent the existing evil, and that only a man of his indomitable"pluck" could be found to apply the remedy at such a period.
A somewhat broader and more general charge has since been preferredagainst him--that in the exercise of the duties of Provost Marshal,which he assumed without propriety, he showed himself
a willing tool ofgovernmental despotism and displayed indefensible harshness andarrogance. There is something of truth in this charge, beyond aquestion,--as the impossibility of "touching pitch" without being"defiled," applies to intercourse with wrong-doers high in power as wellas to those in lower station. The station-houses of the New York policewere certainly made receptacles for accused parties whose crimes werevery different from those contemplated in their erection,--just as theforts in the harbors of New York and Boston have been made "Bastilles"for state-prisoners whose arrests were signally reckless and improper.Many of the prisoners, in both cases, have deserved more than all thepunishment received; but the blind uncertainty as to their guilt, andthe impossibility of discovering even the nature of the charges againstthem, have made those imprisonments equally indefensible and dangerous,and brought them at last to their end.
There is a woman at the bottom of almost every revolution--political aswell as social. Tradition tells us, though history is silent on thesubject, that the sad fate of the daughter of a French citizen, flunginto the Bastille for alleged complicity in a conspiracy during theearly days of Louis XVI., and dying there--rankled in the minds of theParisians much more than the wrongs done to thousands of brave and noblemen during the centuries previous, and furnished the burden of theterrible cry with which the men of 1789 thundered at the walls of thatold fortress of feudal oppression, and with which they butchered notonly De Launay, the Governor of the Bastille, but Flesselles, the_Provost Marshal_. The case of a woman--Mrs. Brinsmaid--was the lastdrop in the cup of endurance, here, and the event which we believe wasfinally and forever to close the melancholy doors of Lafayette andWarren, against arrest without charge and imprisonment withouttrial--spite of indemnity bills passed and unlimited powers conferredupon the President by a mad Congress.
Through all this, meanwhile, John A. Kennedy was unquestionably moresinned against than sinning--made the tool of worse and moreunscrupulous men, who used his hard conscientiousness and his narrowbigotry of mind, fostered by too long and too close connection with thelodges of secret societies--to carry out their own designs of despotism,without the nobility to stand between him and his possible sacrifice forobeying the very orders they had given. He is not the first man who hasbeen misused and placed in a false position, nor the last, as a latervictim of blind confidence and obedience, Burnside,[8] is very likely tobear sad witness.
[Footnote 8: January 25th, 1863.]
But all this while, for the purposes of this narrative, Tom Leslie andhis friend Harding have been standing unnoticed in the presence of theSuperintendent. Not very long in reality--scarcely longer than enabledthem to note the hair and closely-cut full beard of iron gray, the keenbut troubled eyes, that had scarcely yet ceased to moisten at the memoryof the loss of a dearly loved brother,[9] the face care-worn andanxious, and the shoulders bent over a little as he sat,--scarcelylonger time than this was given them, when the Superintendent laid downhis pen and said, sharply and decisively:
"Well, gentlemen?"
[Footnote 9: Col. William D. Kennedy, of the Tammany Regiment.]
There was nothing very cordial in the tone, and no indication that theSuperintendent considered it peculiarly his place to listen to all thepersons who came to him upon business; but perhaps this comparative_brusquerie_ is necessary, in the carrying on of any importantdepartment, to discourage bores and send idle people the sooner abouttheir business. It does not add to popularity, however, and may addmaterially to the opposite.
Under such circumstances, it did not need a very long period of time forTom Leslie, with the occasional assistance of Harding, whose memory wasmuch more accurate if not more retentive--to convey to theSuperintendent the main facts of their midnight adventure, with theimpression that adventure had made, of some disloyal movements going onin the City, and probably with extended ramifications elsewhere. Exceptto say that one of the women seen on that evening had before fallenunder his notice in Europe. Leslie did not allude to the episode of the"red woman," nor did he enter into the particulars of his previousmeetings with Dexter Ralston, though he asserted his knowledge of him asa Virginian of peculiar influence and a very ambiguous position. TheSuperintendent showed few signs of interest in the narration, though hissharp eye occasionally glanced at the face of the principal narrator,and though he two or three times made motions with the pencil lyingbefore him, which might have been merely listless occupation of hisfingers and might have been something very different.
"Well, gentlemen," said the Superintendent, when they had concluded. "Itis certainly a strange story you have been telling, and of course I donot question the entire veracity of your narration of what you saw or_thought_ you saw. But there is nothing proved, so far, that couldjustify any arrest, even if we could find the persons to arrest. I donot see that there is anything _I_ could do in the matter."
"I told you so!" said Leslie in a low voice to his friend. He hadopposed coming to the Superintendent at all, be it remembered.
"Nothing?--not even to set a watch upon the two houses we have named?"asked Harding, a good deal surprised and not a little out of temper.
"Humph!" answered the Superintendent. "This is not France under theEmpire, and I am not Fouche."
"The latter part of that sentence may probably be true: I have my doubtsabout the other!" thought Tom Leslie, though he waited a more prudentoccasion for communicating the thought to Harding.
"And so, Mr. Superintendent, you consider all this of no consequence?"said Harding, going back to first principles, and not by any meansimproving in the matter of temper.
"I did not say anything of the kind!" answered the Superintendent, hisface sterner but his voice even as before. "I said there was nothingupon which I could act, and the police force of the district is scarcelysufficient to set a watch around all the houses that may happen to havetraitors in them. I would advise you to say nothing of this affair toany other persons, if you have not yet done so; and if you see or hearof anything more that _will_ seem to justify an arrest, communicate withthis office again."
He did not say "good morning!" as a sign of dismissal, but his mannerindicated as much, and the two friends left him with merely anadditional nod. Harding was in decided dudgeon as the policeman of thebright blue cloth and the unimpeachable buttons accompanied them to thedoor, and muttered something very like "I'm d--d if I _do_ communicatewith that office again, in a hurry!" Leslie, who had seen more of policeoperations, both abroad and at home, than his friend, and who hadexpected little or nothing else from the first,--kept his good humoradmirably; and he bored Harding, before they had walked from the officeto Broadway, with the information that that was about all the thanks anyman ever received for attempting to do a service to government orindividuals, and a relation of how at Naples a couple of years before,he had attempted to save the life of an Englishman threatened withassassination, and been arrested and very nearly imprisoned for anattempt to stab the man himself, with his penknife or tooth-pick--henever knew precisely which!
The two friends were scarcely in the street, when the Superintendentcalled sharply:
"Mr. Carpenter!"
The Deputy was in the room in a moment. The Superintendent was writing afew words on a piece of paper.
"You heard the story those men were telling?"
"A part of it--perhaps all," answered the Deputy.
"There may be something in it--I think there _is_," continued theSuperintendent. "At all events, put those two houses"--handing him theslip of paper--"under close watch, and discover who enters and wholeaves them, and at what hours. Put B---- and another good man in chargeof the Prince Street house, and L---- and another good man at the one inEast 5-- Street. That is all."
The Deputy merely bowed and returned to his own table, beckoning to oneof the policemen near the door and giving the necessary orders to carryout the directions of his superior. So that almost by the time the twofriends reached Broadway, and certainly some time before Leslieconcluded his illustrative narration
of police management in Naples, thearrangement for which they had especially come, and which had beenapparently denied, was already in active operation. The reasons whichhad induced the Superintendent to underrate to Harding and Leslie theimportance of the intelligence he had just received, or which had led toso sudden a change of mind, will probably remain a mystery even afterthe profounder mysteries of governmental management during the war arebrought into broad daylight. There is no Sphynx like your "man inauthority," whether his reasons for silence be that he does not wishothers to know his intentions, or that he _does not know them himself_.
It was perhaps one o'clock when the two friends reached Broadway andturned downward to return to their different places of business--Hardingof course to his store near the Hospital, and Leslie to his little deskin the office of the _Daily Thundergust_, or anywhere else in the morefrequented parts of the town, where he might chance to pick up materialfor an item or an article. Broadway at that point and at that momentpresented an appearance that used to be extraordinary, but that of latemonths has been almost as common as its ordinary crowded condition. Oneof the Eastern regiments, that had just landed at the New Haven RailroadDepot, was on its way down to the Park Barracks, and the police had beenclearing the street of omnibuses and carriages to make room for them.The sidewalks on both sides were pretty well filled withspectators--idlers who never find anything better to do than gazing atstreet spectacles, and people of both sexes, with more or less ofbusiness on hand, who cannot avoid pausing for a moment when the policesweep by to clear the street and the tap of the bass-drum isheard,--just to see what the excitement is all about. In this instance afile of policemen extending almost from curb to curb were marchingabreast to keep the way clear in front of the regiment; close behindthem sounded the crashing of brass, the screaming of clarionet-reeds andthe tap of drums; and a little farther behind, over the heads of theadvancing column, a couple of flags caught the sun and waved softly inthe light summer air--one the glorious old banner, with its three colorsthat blend truth, purity and devotion till death,--and the other afringed and tasselled embroidery of dark blue silk, bearing the peculiararms of the one State that was sending forth more of its bravest sons todo battle for all.
"A Massachusetts regiment," said Harding. "One was to come down by theNew Haven Road, this morning."
"Yes," said Leslie. "You can afford half an hour more, while I canafford all day if I wish. Let us wait until the show passes." Theypaused accordingly and took shelter beside a lamp-post against thedownward pressure of the sidewalk crowd that was coming.
Nearer came the soldiers, their long line of sloped bayonets glancingoff the sunbeams with a peculiarly threatening aspect, and theirequipments showing the perfection which has been accorded by the Old BayState to all her troops, in contradistinction to the men of some of theother States, that have been allowed to go down to the conflict lookingmore like a mob of scarecrows than a body of trained soldiers. TheColonel, who rode first, lolled easily on his saddle, like one who hadnot mounted a horse for the first time when he first put on hissword-belts; the Captains of the various companies stepped out boldlyand clearly in front of their men, turning occasionally to see that theline was properly kept; and the rank and file tramped on, their stepalmost steady enough for the march of veteran troops, and the dullthunder of the fall of each thousand of feet on the solid pavement,making the most impressive sound in the world except that supplied bythe multitudinous clink of the iron hoofs of a cavalry squadron passingover the same stony road.
It was an impressive spectacle, like all of the same kind that havepreceded and followed it--a glorious spectacle, when the faces of mostof the men were observed, and nothing of the despairing dullness of theconscript's eye seen there, but the vigorous pride and determination ofmen who were going forth at the call of their country to battle for thatcountry to the death. And yet a sad spectacle, as all the others havebeen, when waste of life and mismanagement of power were taken into theaccount, and when the thinned ranks that should return, of the fullranks that went so proudly away, came to be remembered. Something ofthis latter feeling, and the peculiarities of the time, made the wavingof handkerchiefs and the clapping of hands less frequent and cordialthan the fine-looking fellows and their excellent appointments reallydeserved.
"The d--l take the politics and policy of Massachusetts!" broke out TomLeslie, when the array had half passed. "I do not like her, and neverdid. But she _does_ send out troops as the old Trojan horse poured outheroes; she _does_ know how to equip and take care of them, as _we_ donot; and they _fight_--oh, Harding, don't they?"
"Not any better than most of our New York troops, I fancy!" repliedHarding, an incarnate New Yorker, to the last observation.
"Not better, perhaps, but more steadily--not so dashingly, but moreinevitably," said Leslie, going into one of his fits of abstractphilosophy, where he must perforce be followed, like a maniac by hiskeeper. "Our New York boys go into the fight more as a spree--the NewEnglanders more as a duty. Our boys enjoy it--they endure it; and someone else than myself must decide which is the higher order of courage.Almost all the New Englanders are comparatively fanatics, while we havevery few indeed, unless it may be fanaticism to worship the oldflag--God bless it! If it could have been possible for England to beplunged into a general war with some other country, immediately afterthe Restoration, something like this same distinction would have beenseen. Sir Gervase Langford would have charged upon the foe, his feathersflying and his lady's colors woven into a love-knot above his cuirass,singing a roundelay of decidedly loose tendencies, precisely as he hadonce charged beside Prince Rupert on the bloody day of Long Marston; andMaster John Grimston would have snuffled a psalm through his nose andmade a thanksgiving prayer over a cut throat, swinging his longtwo-handed sword meanwhile, as he had done when mowing down the'malignants' at Naseby, under the very eye of Oliver himself. That wouldhave been an odd mixture for the same army; but we have an odder, whenthe neat-whiskered clerk from behind the dry-goods counter in thiscity--the rough fisherman from Cape Cod--the lumberman from the forestsof Maine--and the long, gangling squirrel-hunters from the wilds ofWisconsin,--all meet together to fight for the same cause."
"True," said Harding--"true. And I suppose that fanaticism _does_ fightwell. It has no fear of death, and very little of consequences. How muchdifference was there, I wonder, between Ali at the head of his Moslemhorde, fresh from the teachings of Mohammed himself, and fully impressedwith the belief that if he died he should go at once to the company ofthe Houris in Paradise,--and Cromwell--or Old John Brown--in acorresponding madness of supposed Christianity? Not much, eh?"
"Not much--none at all!" replied Leslie. "But see how long this oneregiment has been in filing past. Only one regiment--not much more thana thousand men, and yet the street seems full of the glisten of theirbayonets for half-a-mile. We have grown used to handling the phrases'thirty thousand,' 'fifty thousand,' 'one hundred thousand,' or even 'aquarter of a million' of men, just as glibly as we speak of one, two orten millions of money; and yet we realize very little of the force ofthose numbers. Fifty thousand men are considered to be no army--nothingmore than a skirmishing party, now-a-days; and yet to form it, forty orfifty such bodies of men as that which has just passed us must beincluded. Is it any wonder--after studying a thousand men in thismanner--that while we have many generals capable of managing five or tenthousand, very few can command fifty thousand without making a mess ofit, and a hundred thousand succeeds in crazing almost every one of ourcommanders?"
"Wonder? No, I should think not," said Harding, laughing. "I have puzzleenough, sometimes, with even that number of _figures_, and I should makea bad muddle of handling that quantity of men. But, by the way, did youever read that singular novel, 'Border War,' by a South-western writer,Jones, published several years ago?"
"I have skimmed it--never read it," said Leslie. "Remarkable book, Ishould say, to be read over now-a-days, when the event then handled asromance has become reality!"
/> "The numbers of his opposing forces, as compared with the actual armiesof the present day, are the great point of interest," said Harding. "Hemakes terrible blunders in guessing at the great battle-ground of thewar, as he lays the principal battles in Upper Maryland, Pennsylvaniaand New Jersey, and does not seem to contemplate the possibility ofthere being any fighting on _Southern_ soil. But his numbers--I think hemade each of the opposing forces number some one hundred and fifty ortwo hundred thousand men; and a sharp reviewer broke out into a loudguffaw over the impossibility that any such number of men could ever bearrayed against each other, on the soil of the United States, by anypossible convulsion. Only a few years have passed, and we have three orfour times his numbers in the fight on either side, with half a millionmore men to be called for."
"We are travelling fast--that is all," replied Leslie.
"You couldn't exactly inform me _where_, could you?" asked Harding."But,--phew!--w!--w!" looking at his watch, "the soldiers are gone andtime is up; I must look after my deposits before three."
"And what are we to do about our mystery?" asked Leslie, as the otherwas about to leave him. "Give that up altogether?--or will you agree totake a hand in at personal investigation?"
"Yes--no--I really do not know what to say, Tom!" was the reply ofHarding. "At all events, I have spent all the time I can spare to-day,looking after that and the soldiers. 'Business first and pleasureafterwards,' you know."
"Yes," said Leslie, "as the excellent Duke of Gloster remarked, when hefirst killed the old King and then murdered the young Princes."
"Pshaw!" replied Harding, "I think I may have heard that before."
"Very possibly," said Leslie, too much used to slight rebuffs to paythem any great attention.
"Well, I shall walk down faster than you--bye-bye, old fellow. Look inat my place to-morrow and let us see whether we can arrange to doanything more in opposition to His High Mightiness Superintendent andProvost Marshal Kennedy," said Harding, moving away.
"Look! look! over there!" said Leslie, just as his friend was leavinghim. "There is a piece of infernal impudence!"
The two friends were yet on the East side of Broadway, as they had comeout from Broome Street. The procession had passed from the street, andthe crowd on the sidewalks had materially cleared away. Leslie had beenlooking across at the passengers on the "shilling side." Two ladies,neatly dressed in street costume, and wearing light gypsies, werewalking together, downward. Behind them, and so close that he nearlytrod upon their dresses, a tall man was walking apparently upon tip-toeand leaning over so that his head was almost between theirs. He wasevidently not of their party--was apparently listening to theirconversation and scanning the necks and busts before him somewhat tooclosely; they all the while unconscious what a miserable libel onhumanity was dogging them. He looked foreign--perhaps French, especiallyin the extraordinary curve and bell of his black round hat,--waswell-dressed, and seemed to be gray-haired enough to know better.
"Impudence? I should think so," replied Harding, as he caught sight ofthe two girls and their unobserved follower. "That dirty hound would roba church! Oh, if I could only see that taller one turn around, now, andfetch him such a slap in the face that it would ring for a twelvemonth!Why, by Heavens, Leslie!" he said, looking closer. "I ought to know thatfigure, and I _do_. Come over, and let us see the end of this."
"And your bank account?" asked Leslie.
"Oh, never mind that--come along!" and in half a minute they were acrossthe street and close behind the ladies and their persecutor. The latterkept his place, dodging his head around at every opportunity as if toget a sight of the face of the taller girl, and both apparently yetunconscious of his presence.
"Do you see a policeman?" asked Harding, in a low voice. "I will havethat fellow taken up."
"Not a policeman!" answered Leslie. "If you know either of the ladies,take the scoundrel by the collar, or let _me_."
"I _do_ know the taller girl," said Harding, "and--"
Suddenly he was interrupted. The taller lady on the outside wheeledaround so suddenly as almost to throw the tip-toe follower off his feet,confronted him boldly, flung up the short light veil that depended fromher gypsy and partially hid her features, ineffable scorn and deliciousimpudence dancing at the same moment out of her dark eyes and flushedcheeks,--and burst out with:
"You have followed me long enough. Perhaps you want a better look? Hereit is! How do you like me?"
"Oh, Joe!" said the other lady, almost sinking with fright.
"Upon my honor, miss--ladies--it was all a mistake--I was not followingyou--that is--I thought--"
"You are lying, sir, and you know it!" spoke the strange girl, the wordsfairly hissing from her red lips and the coming tears already combatingwith anger in her voice. "You have followed us for more than a block,leaning over our very shoulders, and if I was only a man I would flogyou within an inch of your life!" Here pride and shame overcame anger,and the tears burst out in spite of her; so that by the time she hadconcluded she was nearly as weak and helpless as her frightenedcompanion.
The sneaking scoundrel attempted to get away, not less from the anger ofthe outraged girl than from the passers-by, a dozen or two of whom hadalready collected; but before he could make any movement in thatdirection, a hand--that of Walter Harding, was laid on his collar,swinging him violently around; and a small Malacca cane--that of TomLeslie, was laid about his shoulders and back with such good will thatthe human hound literally yelled with pain. "Serve him right!" "Give itto him!" and other exclamations of the same character, broke from thosewho had heard the girl's words and who saw the punishment; and in thirtyseconds he was perhaps as thoroughly-flogged a man as Broadway ever saw.Then Harding released him with a kick, and he made three howling leapsto an omnibus passing up, and disappeared inside. The impression on theminds of the spectators was that he would not much enjoy his ride; andthey no doubt had another impression in which we may fully share, thatthough vulgarism is "bred in the bone and will come out in the flesh,"yet the flogged man would be very careful of the locality in which heagain indulged in the same atrocious habit.
All this time the taller girl, though endeavoring to control heremotion, was literally sobbing with shame and anger, while yethalf-laughing at the sudden punishment of her persecutor. The other ladyhad been too much frightened to utter a second exclamation, and neitherhad paid any attention to the personality of their defenders.
But at this stage of the proceedings, Walter Harding lifted his hat (hishands having been too busy before) and approached the taller lady.
"Miss Harris, if I am not mistaken."
"Harris--that is my name, certainly," said the lady, "and you do notknow how much we thank you for your kindness, but--"
"But you don't remember me, eh?" This was said with a smile that broughtsome new expression to his face, and the wild girl instantly cried:
"Yes, I do remember you--you are--you are--" but she had not yetrecovered the name from the mists of forgetfulness, if she rememberedthe face.
"Walter Harding, merchant, of this city, Miss Josephine, and very gladto meet you again, even under such circumstances."
"Mr. Harding--oh yes, what a crazy head I have!" said the lady, smilesnow altogether taking the place of the struggling tears, and giving himboth her hands with the freedom of a school-girl--either inacknowledgment of his late service or as an apology for her momentaryforgetfulness. "Mr. Harding, of course! Newport--Purgatory--DumplingRocks--everywhere--what fish we caught and what a jolly month wehad--didn't we? And then to think that I should have forgotten you, evenfor a moment!"
The explanation of which is, that Walter Lane Harding had met MissJosephine Harris at Newport, in the summer of 1860, and that they hadbeen much pleased with the society of each other and companions in manya stroll and fishing-excursion. Probably neither believed, when theyparted, that two years would elapse without another meeting; but in thegreat Babel of city life it is only occasionally that we can manage tomake ou
rselves heard by each other, above the clattering of the hammersand the confusion of tongues. Had they been lovers, they would havefound each other before, no matter what stood in the way; butfriendships, even the warmest, have little of the fierce energy of love,and a very cobweb mesh of circumstances or business engagements can bindthe sentiment, while there is no cord spun in the long rope-walk oflife, strong enough to fetter the free limbs of the passion. That WalterHarding and Josephine Harris had only met by accident after two years,and yet both living in the same city and moving in the same walk ofsociety--proved that they might have _liked_ but had never _loved_.
The few passers-by who had collected around the ladies at the time ofthe insult, had separated when they proved to be in the company of maleacquaintances; and in a moment after the recognition between Harding andJoe Harris, the latter had introduced Miss Bell Crawford, the heroine ofthe cerise ribbon, to both the gentlemen; and she had received anintroduction which caused her to start and color singularly the momenttheir eyes met--to Mr. Tom Leslie, traveler, newspaper-correspondent,Jack-at-all-trades and general good fellow. Was that interested andconscious look repaid by another on the part of Tom Leslie, or had hehad sufficient time after seeing the young girl and before speaking toher, to recover from any agitation, pleasurable or the contrary,incident to the meeting? Did they know each other or only something _of_each other? Had they met before, and if so, when and where? Perhaps somelight may be thrown on all these questions, a little later in theprogress of this story.
At the present juncture two of the parties were hungry; the third whatis called "peckish," which means a _little_ hungry and quite capable ofbolting a sandwich or the wing of a cold turkey; and the fourth verymuch in a hurry and anxious to get away to his business.
"We sent our carriage home, knowing that we could not get throughBroadway while the troops were passing," said Bell Crawford, "withorders to have it call for us late in the afternoon, at a friend's housenear Union Square. We were just going down to Taylor's for a littlelunch, when this awkward affair occurred: may we ask you to join us,gentlemen?"
"Oh yes," said Josephine Harris, with her school-girl pleasure at theproposition ill-concealed. "That will be--yes, well, I may as well sayout what I think--that will be jolly."
"As for my friend Leslie here," said Harding, "_he_ has nothing to do,and can certainly ask no greater pleasure than to join you. We were justabout separating when we saw you. For myself, I _must_ forego thepleasure, for I have the misfortune to be a busy man, and I must reallywish you a hurried good-morning, leaving you in my friend's care."
With a promise to call upon the ladies at his earliest convenience, theyoung merchant hurried away, with every evidence that his thoughts wereintent upon the balance at his banker's and the question whether certainregular customers who were to have called during the morning had beenduly impressed by his clerks with the merits of certain choice styles ofgoods, rapidly on the rise, that he would himself have commended totheir particular attention. And yet there are odd mixtures, sometimes,even in the minds of merchants--mixtures in which customers becomeblended with curls and profits with profiles; for Walter Lane Harding,as he wasted yet one more moment to step into Gilsey's and light achoice Havana, indulged in a train of thought which might have beenshaped into words something in the manner following:
"A pretty woman--that Miss Crawford, decidedly ladylike--which the otheris _not_, however pleasant a companion. I should as soon think offalling in love with a handsome bombshell, as with _her_. No knowingwhen she might explode. Now if I had met _Miss Crawford_ at Newport twoyears ago, who knows but affairs might have been different? Heigho!" Andso Walter Harding went on to his business; while Tom Leslie, the memberof the party who was "peckish," accompanied the two girls, who weredecidedly hungry, to that over-gilt and tawdry caricature upon some ofthe palace-halls of the Old World, known as "Taylor's Saloon."
Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 Page 11
