Berkley’s ironical reply was drowned in a renewed uproar as the
Massachusetts soldiers wheeled and began to file into the Astor
House, and the New York militia of the escort swung past hurrahing
for the first Northern troops to leave for the front.
That day Berkley lunched in imagination only, seriously inclined to exchange his present board and lodgings for a dish of glory and a cot in barracks.
That evening, too, after a boarding-house banquet, and after Burgess had done his offices, he took the air instead of other and more expensive distraction; and tired of it thoroughly, and of the solitary silver coin remaining in his pocket.
From his clubs he had already resigned; other and less innocent haunts of his were no longer possible; some desirable people still retained him on their lists, and their houses were probably open to him, but the social instinct was sick; he had no desire to go; no desire even to cross the river for a penny and look again on Ailsa Paige. So he had, as usual, the evening on his hands, nothing in his pockets, and a very weary heart, under a last year’s evening coat. And his lodgings were becoming a horror to him; the landlady’s cat had already killed two enormous rats In the hallway; also cabbage had been cooked in the kitchen that day. Which left him no other choice than to go out again and take more air.
Before midnight he had no longer any coin in his pockets, and he was not drunk yet. The situation seemed hopeless, and he found a policeman and inquired politely for the nearest recruiting station; but when he got there the station was closed, and his kicks on the door brought nobody but a prowling Bowery b’hoy, sullenly in quest of single combat. So Berkley, being at leisure, accommodated him, picked him up, propped him limply against a doorway, resumed his own hat and coat, and walked thoughtfully and unsteadily homeward, where he slept like an infant in spite of rats, cabbage, and a swollen lip.
Next day, however, matters were less cheerful. He had expected to realise a little money out of his last salable trinket — a diamond he had once taken for a debt. But it seemed that the stone couldn’t pass muster, and he bestowed it upon Burgess, breakfasted on coffee and sour bread, and sauntered downtown quite undisturbed in the brilliant April sunshine.
However, the prospect of a small commission from Craig & Son buoyed up his natural cheerfulness. All the way downtown he nourished his cane; he hummed lively tunes in his office as he studied his maps and carefully read the real estate reports in the daily papers; and then he wrote another of the letters which he never mailed, strolled out to Stephen’s desk for a little gossip, reported himself to Mr. Craig, and finally sallied forth to execute that gentleman’s behest upon an upper Fifth Avenue squatter who had declined to vacate property recently dedicated to blasting, the Irish, and general excavation.
In a few moments he found himself involved in the usual crowd. The 8th Massachusetts regiment was passing in the wake of the 6th, its sister regiment of the day before, and the enthusiasm and noise were tremendous.
However, he extricated himself and went about his business; found the squatter, argued with the squatter, gracefully dodged a brick from the wife of the squatter, laid a laughing complaint before the proper authorities, and then banqueted in imagination. What a luncheon he had! He was becoming a Lucullus at mental feasts.
Later, his business affairs and his luncheon terminated, attempting to enter Broadway at Grand Street, he got into a crowd so rough and ungovernable that he couldn’t get out of it — an unreasonable, obstinate, struggling mass of men, women, and children so hysterical that the wild demonstrations of the day previous, and of the morning, seemed as nothing compared to this dense, far-spread riot.
Broadway from Fourth to Cortlandt Streets was one tossing mass of flags overhead; one mad surge of humanity below. Through it battalions of almost exhausted police relieved each other in attempting to keep the roadway clear for the passing of the New York 7th on its way to Washington.
Driven, crushed, hurled back by the played-out police, the crowds had sagged back into the cross streets. But even here the police charged them repeatedly, and the bewildered people turned struggling to escape, stumbled, swayed, became panic-stricken and lost their heads.
A Broadway stage, stranded in Canal Street, was besieged as a refuge. Toward it Berkley had been borne in spite of his efforts to extricate himself, incidentally losing his hat in the confusion. At the same moment he heard a quiet, unterrified voice pronounce his name, caught a glimpse of Ailsa Paige swept past on the human wave, set his shoulders, stemmed the rush from behind, and into the momentary eddy created, Ailsa was tossed, undismayed, laughing, and pinned flat against the forward wheel of the stalled stage.
“Climb up!” he said. “Place your right foot on the hub! — now the left on the tire! — now step on my shoulder!”
There came a brutal rush from behind; he braced his back to it; she set one foot on the hub, the other on the tire, stepped to his shoulder, swung herself aloft, and crept up over the roof of the stage. Here he joined her, offering an arm to steady her as the stage shook under the impact of the reeling masses below.
“How did you get into this mob?” he asked.
“I was caught,” she said calmly, steadying herself by the arm he offered and glancing down at the peril below. “Celia and I were shopping in Grand Street at Lord and Taylor’s, and I thought I’d step out of the shop for a moment to see if the 7th was coming, and I ventured too far — I simply could not get back. . . . And — thank you for helping me.” She had entirely recovered her serenity; she released his arm and now stood cautiously balanced behind the driver’s empty seat, looking curiously out over the turbulent sea of people, where already hundreds of newsboys were racing hither and thither shouting an afternoon extra, which seemed to excite everybody within hearing to frenzy.
“Can you hear what they are shouting?” she inquired. “It seems to make people very angry.”
“They say that the 6th Massachusetts, which passed through here yesterday, was attacked by a mob in Baltimore.”
“Our soldiers!” she said, incredulous. Then, clenching her small hands: “If I were Colonel Lefferts of the 7th I’d march my men through Baltimore to-morrow!”
“I believe they expect to go through,” he said, amused. “That is what they are for.”
The rising uproar around was affecting her; the vivid colour in her lips and cheeks deepened. Berkley looked at her, at the cockade with its fluttering red-white-and-blue ribbons on her breast, at the clear, fearless eyes now brilliant with excitement and indignation.
“Have you thought of enlisting?” she asked abruptly, without glancing at him.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve ventured that far. It’s perfectly safe to think about it. You have no idea, Mrs. Paige, what warlike sentiments I cautiously entertain in my office chair.”
She turned nervously, with a sunny glint of gold hair and fluttering ribbons:
“Are you never perfectly serious, Mr. Berkley? Even at such a moment as this?”
“Always,” he insisted. “I was only philosophising upon these scenes of inexpensive patriotism which fill even the most urbane and peaceful among us full of truculence. . . . I recently saw my tailor wearing a sword, attired in the made-to-measure panoply of battle.”
“Did that strike you as humorous?”
“No, indeed; it fitted; I am only afraid he may find a soldier’s grave before I can settle our sartorial accounts.”
There was a levity to his pleasantries which sounded discordant to her amid the solemnly thrilling circumstances impending. For the flower of the city’s soldiery was going forth to battle — a thousand gay, thoughtless young fellows summoned from ledger, office, and counting-house; and all about her a million of their neighbours had gathered to see them go.
“Applause makes patriots. Why should I enlist when merely by cheering others I can stand here and create heroes in battalions?”
“I think,” she said, “that there was once another scoff
er who remained to pray.”
As he did not answer, she sent a swift side glance at him, found him tranquilly surveying the crowd below where, at the corner of Canal and Broadway, half a dozen Zouaves, clothed in their characteristic and brilliant uniforms and wearing hairy knapsacks trussed up behind, were being vociferously acclaimed by the people as they passed, bayonets fixed.
“More heroes,” he observed, “made immortal while you wait.”
And now Ailsa became aware of a steady, sustained sound audible above the tumult around them; a sound like surf washing on a distant reef.
“Do you hear that? It’s like the roar of the sea,” she said. “I believe they’re coming; I think I caught a strain of military music a moment ago!”
They rose on tiptoe, straining their ears; even the skylarking gamins who had occupied the stage top behind them, and the driver, who had reappeared, drunk, and resumed his reins and seat, stood up to listen.
Above the noise of the cheering, rolling steadily toward them over the human ocean, came the deadened throbbing of drums. A far, thin strain of military music rose, was lost, rose again; the double thudding of the drums sounded nearer; the tempest of cheers became terrific. Through it, at intervals, they could catch the clear marching music of the 7th as two platoons of police, sixty strong, arrived, forcing their way into view, followed by a full company of Zouaves.
Then pandemonium broke loose as the matchless regiment swung into sight. The polished instruments of the musicians flashed in the sun; over the slanting drums the drumsticks rose and fell, but in the thundering cheers not a sound could be heard from brass or parchment.
Field and staff passed headed by the colonel; behind jolted two howitzers; behind them glittered the sabre-bayonets of the engineers; then, filling the roadway from sidewalk to sidewalk the perfect ranks of the infantry swept by under burnished bayonets.
They wore their familiar gray and black uniforms, forage caps, and blue overcoats, and carried knapsacks with heavy blankets rolled on top. And New York went mad.
What the Household troops are to England the 7th is to America. In its ranks it carries the best that New York has to offer. The polished metal gorgets of its officers reflect a past unstained; its pedigree stretches to the cannon smoke fringing the Revolution.
To America the 7th was always The Guard; and now, in the lurid obscurity of national disaster, where all things traditional were crashing down, where doubt, distrust, the agony of indecision turned government to ridicule and law to anarchy, there was no doubt, no indecision in The Guard. Above the terrible clamour of political confusion rolled the drums of the 7th steadily beating the assembly; out of the dust of catastrophe emerged its disciplined gray columns. Doubters no longer doubted, uncertainty became conviction; in a situation without a precedent, the precedent was established; the corps d’elite of all state soldiery was answering the national summons; and once more the associated states of North America understood that they were first of all a nation indivisible.
Down from window and balcony and roof, sifting among the bayonets, fluttered an unbroken shower of tokens — gloves, flowers, handkerchiefs, tricoloured bunches of ribbon; and here and there a bracelet or some gem-set chain fell flashing through the sun.
Ailsa Craig, like thousands of her sisters, tore the red-white-and-blue rosette from her breast and flung it down among the bayonets with a tremulous little cheer.
Everywhere the crowd was breaking into the street; citizens marched with their hands on the shoulders of the soldiers; old gentlemen toddled along beside strapping sons; brothers passed arms around brothers; here and there a mother hung to the chevroned sleeve of son or husband who was striving to see ahead through blurring eyes; here and there some fair young girl, badged with the national colours, stretched out her arms from the crowd and laid her hands to the lips of her passing lover.
The last shining files of bayonets had passed; the city swarmed like an ant-hill.
Berkley’s voice was in her ears, cool, good-humoured:
“Perhaps we had better try to find Mrs. Craig. I saw Stephen in the crowd, and he saw us, so I do not think your sister-in-law will be worried.”
She nodded, suffered him to aid her in the descent to the sidewalk, then drew a deep, unsteady breath and gazed around as though awaking from a dream.
“It certainly was an impressive sight,” he said. “The Government may thank me for a number of heroes. I’m really quite hoarse.”
She made no comment.
“Even a thousand well-fed brokers in uniform are bound to be impressive,” he meditated aloud.
Her face flushed; she walked on ignoring his flippancy, ignoring everything concerning him until, crossing the street, she became aware that he wore no hat.
“Did you lose it?” she asked curtly,
“I don’t know what happened to that hysterical hat, Mrs. Paige.
Probably it went war mad and followed the soldiers to the ferry.
You can never count on hats. They’re flighty.”
“You will have to buy another,” she said, smiling.
“Oh, no,” he said carelessly, “what is the use. It will only follow the next regiment out of town. Shall we cross?”
“Mr. Berkley, do you propose to go about town with me, hatless?”
“You have an exceedingly beautiful one. Nobody will look at me.”
“Please be sensible!”
“I am. I’ll take you to Lord and Taylor’s, deliver you to your sister-in-law, and then slink home — —”
“But I don’t wish to go there with a hatless man! I can’t understand — —”
“Well, I’ll have to tell you if you drive me to it,” he said, looking at her very calmly, but a flush mounted to his cheek-bones; “I have no money — with me.”
“Why didn’t you say so? How absurd not to borrow it from me — —”
Something in his face checked her; then he laughed.
“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t know how poor I am,” he said.
“It doesn’t worry me, so it certainly will not worry you. I can’t
afford a hat for a few days — and I’ll leave you here if you wish.
Why do you look so shocked? Oh, well — then we’ll stop at Genin’s.
They know me there.”
They stopped at Genin’s and he bought a hat and charged it, giving his addresses in a low voice; but she heard it.
“Is it becoming?” he asked airily, examining the effect in a glass.
“Am I the bully boy with the eye of glass, Mrs. Paige?”
“You are, indeed,” she said, laughing. “Shall we find Celia?”
But they could not find her sister-in-law in the shop, which was now refilling with excited people.
“Celia non est,” he observed cheerfully. “The office is closed by this time. May I see you safely to Brooklyn?”
She turned to the ferry stage which was now drawing up at the curb; he assisted her to mount, then entered himself, humming under his breath:
”To Brooklyn! To Brooklyn!
So be it. Amen.
Clippity, Cloppity, back again!”
On the stony way to the ferry he chatted cheerfully, irresponsibly, but he soon became convinced that the girl beside him was not listening, so he talked at random to amuse himself, amiably accepting her pre-occupation.
“How those broker warriors did step out, in spite of Illinois Central and a sadly sagging list! At the morning board Pacific Mail fell 3 1/2, New York Central 1/4, Hudson River 1/4, Harlem preferred 1/2, Illinois Central 3/4. . . . I don’t care. . . . You won’t care, but the last quotations were Tennessee 6’s, 41, A 41 1/2. . . . There’s absolutely nothing doing in money or exchange. The bankers are asking 107 a 1/2 but sell nothing. On call you can borrow money at four and five per cent—” he glanced sideways at her, ironically, satisfied that she paid no heed— “you might, but I can’t, Ailsa. I can’t borrow anything from anybody at any per cent whatever. I know; I’ve t
ried. Meanwhile, few and tottering are my stocks, also they continue downward on their hellward way.
”Margins wiped, out in war,
Profits are scattered far,
I’ll to the nearest bar,
Ailsa oroon!”
he hummed to himself, walking-stick under his chin, his new hat not absolutely straight on his well-shaped head.
A ferry-boat lay in the slip; they walked forward and stood in the crowd by the bow chains. The flag new over Castle William; late sunshine turned river and bay to a harbour in fairyland, where, through the golden haze, far away between forests of pennant-dressed masts, a warship lay all aglitter, the sun striking fire from her guns and bright work, and setting every red bar of her flag ablaze.
“The Pocahontas, sloop of war from Charleston bar,” said a man in the crowd. “She came in this morning at high water. She got to Sumter too late.”
“Yes. Powhatan had already knocked the head off John Smith,” observed Berkley thoughtfully. “They did these things better in colonial days.”
Several people began to discuss the inaction of the fleet off Charleston bar during the bombardment; the navy was freely denounced and defended, and Berkley, pleased that he had started a row, listened complacently, inserting a word here and there calculated to incite several prominent citizens to fisticuffs. And the ferry-boat started with everybody getting madder.
But when fisticuffs appeared imminent in mid-stream, out of somewhat tardy consideration for Ailsa he set free the dove of peace.
“Perhaps,” he remarked pleasantly, “the fleet couldn’t cross the bar. I’ve heard of such things.”
And as nobody had thought of that, hostilities were averted.
Paddle-wheels churning, the rotund boat swung into the Brooklyn dock. Her gunwales rubbed and squeaked along the straining piles green with sea slime; deck chains clinked, cog-wheels clattered, the stifling smell of dock water gave place to the fresher odour of the streets.
“I would like to walk uptown,” said Ailsa Paige. “I really don’t care to sit still in a car for two miles. You need not come any farther — unless you care to.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 487
