Complete weird tales of.., p.515
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 515
“Sir?”
“Hell! I say don’t behave like a servant to me.”
“I am a servant, sir.”
“You’re not mine.”
“Yes, sir, I am. Will you wear this coat this evening, sir?”
“God knows,” said the young fellow, sitting down and gazing about at the melancholy poverty of the place. . . . “Is there any of that corn whisky?”
“No, sir.”
“Damn it, you said there was this morning!”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
The man lied placidly; the master looked at him, then laughed.
“Poor old Burgess,” he said aloud as though to himself; “there wasn’t a skinful in that bottle. Well, I can’t get drunk, I can’t lie here and count from six to midnight and keep my sanity, I can’t smoke — you rascal, where’s my cigar? And I certainly can’t go out anywhere because I haven’t any money.”
“You might take the air on the avenue, sir. Your clothes are in order.”
“Poor Burgess! That was your amusement, wasn’t it? — to see me go out discreetly perfumed, in fine linen and purple, brave as the best of them in club and hall, in ballroom and supper room, and in every lesser hell from Crystal Palace cinders to Canal.
“Poor Burgess! Even the seventy-five pretty waitresses at the Gaities would turn up their seventy-five retrousse noses at a man with pockets as empty as mine.”
“Your clothes are fashionable. So is your figger, sir.”
“That settles it?” protested the young fellow, weak with laughter. “Burgess, don’t go! Don’t ever go! I do need you. Oh I do want you, Burgess. Because there never will be anybody exactly like you, and I’ve only one life in which to observe you, study you, and mentally digest you. You won’t go, will you?”
“No sir,” said Burgess with dignity.
CHAPTER VI
THERE WAS INCIPIENT demoralisation already in the offices of Craig & Son. Young gentlemen perched on high benches still searched city maps and explored high-way and by-way with compass and pencil-point, but their ears were alert to every shout from the streets, and their interest remained centred in the newspaper bulletins across the way, where excited crowds clamoured for details not forthcoming.
All day, just outside the glass doors of the office, Broadway streamed with people; and here, where the human counter currents running north and south encountered amid the racket of omnibuses, carts, carriages, and drays, a vast overflow spread turbulently, eddying out around the recruiting stations and newspaper offices which faced the City Park.
Sidewalks swarmed, the park was packed solid. Overhead flags flew from every flag pole, over every portal, across every alley and street and square — big nags, little flags, flags of silk, of cotton, of linen, of bunting, all waving wide in the spring sunshine, or hanging like great drenched flowers in the winnowing April rain.
And it was very hard for the young gentlemen in the offices of
Craig & Son to keep their minds on their business.
Berkley had a small room to himself, a chair, a desk, a city map suspended against the wall, and no clients. Such occasional commissions as Craig & Son were able to give him constituted his sole source of income.
He also had every variety of time on his hands — leisure to walk to the window and walk back again, and then walk all around the room — leisure to go out and solicit business in a city where already business was on the edge of chaos and still sliding — leisure to sit for hours in his chair and reflect upon anything he chose — leisure to be hungry and satisfy the inclination with philosophy. He was perfectly at liberty to choose any subject and think about it. But he spent most of his time in trying to prevent himself from thinking.
However, from his window, the street views now were usually interesting; he was an unconvinced spectator of the mob which started for the Daily News office, hissing, cat-calling, yelling: “Show your colours!” “Run up your colours!” He saw the mob visit the Journal of Commerce, and then turn on the Herald, yelling insult and bellowing threats which promptly inspired that journal to execute a political flip-flap that set the entire city smiling.
Stephen, who had conceived a younger man’s furtive admiration for Berkley and his rumoured misdemeanours, often came into his room when opportunity offered. That morning he chanced in for a moment and found Berkley at the window chewing the end of a pencil, perhaps in lieu of the cigar he could no longer afford.
“These are spectacular times,” observed the latter, with a gesture toward the street below. “Observe yonder ladylike warrior in brand-new regimentals. Apparently, Stephen, he’s a votary of Mars and pants for carnage; but in reality he continues to remain the sartorial artist whose pants are more politely emitted. He emitted these—” patting his trousers with a ruler. “On what goose has this my tailor fed that he hath grown so sightly!”
They stood watching the crowds, once brightened only by the red shirts of firemen or the blue and brass of a policeman, but now varied with weird uniforms, or parts of uniforms, constructed on every known and unknown pattern, military and unmilitary, foreign and domestic. The immortal army at Coventry was not more variegated.
“There’s a new poster across the street,” said Stephen. He indicated a big advertisement decorated with a flying eagle.
DOWN WITH SECESSION!
The Government Appeals to the
New York Fire Department for One Regiment of Zouaves!
Companies will select their own officers. The roll is
at Engine House 138, West Broadway.
ELSWORTH, COL: ZOUAVES.
“That’s a good, regiment to enlist in, isn’t it?” said the boy restlessly.
“Cavalry for me,” replied Berkley, unsmiling; “they can run faster.”
“I’m serious,” said Stephen. “If I had a chance—” He turned on Berkley: “Why don’t you, enlist? There’s nothing to stop you, is there?”
“Nothing except constitutional timidity.”
“Then why don’t you?”
Berkley laughed. “Well, for one thing, I’m not sure how I’d behave in battle. I might be intelligent enough to run; I might be ass enough to fight. The enemy would have to take its chances.”
The boy laughed, too, turned to the window, and suddenly caught
Berkley by the arm:
“Look! There’s something going on down by the Astor House!”
“A Massachusetts regiment of embattled farmers arrived in this hamlet last night. I believe they are to pass by here on their way to Washington,” remarked Berkley, opening the window and leaning out.
Already dense crowds of people were pushing, fighting, forcing their way past the windows, driven before double lines of police; already distant volleys of cheers sounded; the throb of drums became audible; the cheering sounded shriller, nearer.
Past the windows, through Broadway, hordes of ragged street arabs came running, scattered into night before another heavy escort of police. And now the on-coming drums could be heard more distinctly; and now two dusty officers marched into view, a colonel of Massachusetts infantry attended by a quartermaster of New York militia.
Behind them tramped the regimental band of the 6th Massachusetts, instruments slung; behind these, filling the street from gutter to gutter, surged the sweating drummers, deafening every ear with their racket; then followed the field and staff, then the Yankee regiment, wave on wave of bayonets choking the thoroughfare far as the eye could see, until there seemed no end to their coming, and the cheering had become an unbroken howl.
Stephen turned to Berkley: “A fellow can’t see too much of this kind of thing and stand it very long. Those soldiers are no older than I am!”
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 scoffer 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.
