The Long Roll Page 3

  CHAPTER II

  THE HILLTOP

  On the court house portico sat the prominent men of the county, lawyersand planters, men of name and place, moulders of thought and leaders inaction. Out of these came the speakers. One by one, they stepped intothe clear space between the pillars. Such a man was cool and weighty,such a man was impassioned and persuasive. Now the tense crowdlistened, hardly breathing, now it broke into wild applause. Thespeakers dealt with an approaching tempest, and with a gesture theychecked off the storm clouds. "_Protection for the manufacturing Northat the expense of the agricultural South_--an old storm centre!_Territorial Rights_--once a speck in the west, not so large as a man'shand, and now beneath it, the wrangling and darkened land! _The Bondageof the African Race_--a heavy cloud! Our English fathers raised it; ournorthern brethren dwelled with it; the currents of the air fixed it inthe South. At no far day we will pass from under it. In the mean time wewould not have it _burst_. In that case underneath it would lie ruinedfields and wrecked homes, and out of its elements would come a fearfulpestilence! _The Triumph of the Republican Party_--no slight darkeningof the air is that, no drifting mist of the morning! It is the triumphof that party which proclaims the Constitution a covenant with death andan agreement with hell!--of that party which tolled the bells, and firedthe minute guns, and draped its churches with black, and all-hailed assaint and martyr the instigator of a bloody and servile insurrection ina sister State, the felon and murderer, John Brown! The Radical, theBlack Republican, faction, sectional rule, fanaticism, violation of theConstitution, aggression, tyranny, and wrong--all these are in the bosomof that cloud!--_The Sovereignty of the State._ Where is the tempestwhich threatens here? _Not_ here, Virginians! but in the pleasingassertion of the North, 'There is no sovereignty of the State!' 'A Stateis merely to the Union what a county is to a State.' O shades of JohnRandolph of Roanoke, of Patrick Henry, of Mason and Madison, ofWashington and Jefferson! O shade of John Marshall even, whom we used tothink too Federal! The Union! We thought of the Union as a goldenthread--at the most we thought of it as a strong servant we had madebetween us, we thirteen artificers--a beautiful Talus to walk our coastsand cry 'All's well!' We thought so--by the gods, we think so yet! That_is_ our Union--the golden thread, the faithful servant; not the monsterthat Frankenstein made, not this Minotaur swallowing States! _TheSovereignty of the State!_ Virginia fought seven years for thesovereignty of Virginia, wrung it, eighty years ago, from Great Britain,and has not since resigned it! Being different in most things, possiblythe North is different also in this. It may be that those States haverenounced the liberty they fought for. Possibly Massachusetts--the years1803, 1811, and 1844 to the contrary--does regard herself as a county.Possibly Connecticut--for all that there was a HartfordConvention!--sees herself in the same light. Possibly. 'Brutus saith 'tis so, and Brutus is an honourable man!' But Virginia has not renounced!Eighty years ago she wrote a certain motto on her shield. To-day theletters burn bright! Unterrified then she entered this league from whichwe hoped so much. Unterrified to-morrow, should a slurring hand be laidupon that shield, will she leave it!"

  Allan Gold, from the schoolhouse on Thunder Run, listened with aswelling heart, then, amid the applause which followed the last speaker,edged his way along the crowded old brick pavement to where, not farfrom the portico, he made out the broad shoulders, the waving dark hair,and the slouch hat of a young man with whom he was used to discuss thesequestions. Hairston Breckinridge glanced down at the pressure upon hisarm, recognized the hand, and pursued, half aloud, the current of histhought. "I don't believe I'll go back to the university. I don'tbelieve any of us will go back to the university.--Hello, Allan!"

  "I'm for the preservation of the Union," said Allan. "I can't help it.We made it, and we've loved it."

  "I'm for it, too," answered the other, "in reason. I'm not for it out ofreason. In these affairs out of reason is out of honour. There's nothingsacred in the word _Union_ that men should bow down and worship it! It'sthe thing behind the word that counts--and whoever says thatMassachusetts and Virginia, and Illinois and Texas are united just nowis a fool or a liar!--Who's this Colonel Anderson is bringing forward?Ah, we'll have the Union now!"

  "Who is it?"

  "Albemarle man, staying at Lauderdale.--Major in the army, home onfurlough.--Old-line Whig. I've been at his brother's place, nearCharlottesville--"

  From the portico came a voice. "I am sure that few in Botetourt need anintroduction here. We, no more than others, are free from vanity, and wethink we know a hero by intuition. Men of Botetourt, we have the honourto listen to Major Fauquier Cary, who carried the flag up Chapultepec!"

  Amid applause a man of perhaps forty years, spare, bronzed, andsoldierly, entered the clear space between the pillars, threw out hisarm with an authoritative gesture, and began to speak in an odd, dry,attractive voice. "You are too good!" he said clearly. "I'm afraid youdon't know Fauquier Cary very well, after all. He's no hero--worse luck!He's only a Virginian, trying to do the right as he sees it, out yonderon the plains with the Apaches and the Comanches and the sage brush andthe desert--"

  There was an interruption. "How about Chapultepec?"--"And the RioGrande?"--"Didn't we hear something about a fight in Texas?"

  The speaker laughed. "A fight in Texas? Folk, folk, if you knew how manyfights there are in Texas--and how meritorious it is to keep out ofthem! No; I'm only a Virginian out there." He regarded the throng withhis magnetic smile, his slight and fine air of gaiety in storm. "As youknow, I am by no means the only Virginian, and they are heroes, theothers, if you like!--real, old-line heroes, brave as the warriors inHomer, and a long sight better men! I am happy to report to his kinsmenhere that General Joseph E. Johnston is in health--still lovingastronomy, still reading du Guesclin, still studying the Art of War.He's a soldier's soldier, and that, in its way, is as fine a thing as apoet's poet! I see men before me who are of the blood of the Lees. Outthere by the Rio Grande is a Colonel Robert E. Lee, of whom Virginia maywell be proud! There are few heights in those western deserts, but hecarries his height with him. He's marked for greatness. And there are'Beauty' Stuart, and Dabney Maury, the best of fellows, and EdwardDillon, and Walker and George Thomas, and many another good man andtrue. First and last, there's a deal of old Virginia following Mars, outyonder! We've got Hardee, too, from Georgia, and Van Dorn fromMississippi, and Albert Sidney Johnston from Kentucky--no better men inHomer, no better men! And there are others as soldierly--McClellan withwhom I graduated at West Point, Fitz-John Porter, Hancock, Sedgwick,Sykes, and Averell. McClellan and Hancock are from Pennsylvania,Fitz-John Porter is from New Hampshire, Sedgwick from Connecticut, Sykesfrom Delaware, and Averell from New York. And away, away out yonder, inthe midst of sage brush and Apaches, when any of us chance to meetaround a camp-fire, there we sit, while coyotes are yelling off in thedark, there we sit and tell stories of home, of Virginia andPennsylvania, of Georgia and New Hampshire!"

  He paused, drew himself up, looked out over the throng to the mountains,studied for a moment their long, clean line, then dropped his glance andspoke in a changed tone, with a fiery suddenness, a lunge as of a triedrapier, quick and startling.

  "Men of Botetourt! I speak for my fellow soldiers of the Army of theUnited States when I say that, out yonder, we are blithe to fight withmarauding Comanches, with wolves and with grizzlies, but that we arenot--oh, we are not--ready to fight with each other! Brother againstbrother--comrade against comrade--friend against friend--to quarrel inthe same tongue and to slay the man with whom you've faced a thousanddangers--no, we are not ready for that!

  "Virginians! I will not believe that the permanent dissolution of thisgreat Union is come! I will not believe that we stand to-day in dangerof internecine war! Men of Botetourt, go slow--go slow! The Right of theState--I grant it! I was bred in that doctrine, as were you all.Albemarle no whit behind Botetourt in that! The BotetourtResolutions--amen to much, to very much in the Botetourt Resolutions!South Carolina! Let South Carolina
go in peace! It is her right!Remembering old comradeship, old battlefields, old defeats, oldvictories, we shall still be friends. If the Gulf States go, still it istheir right, immemorial, incontrovertible!--The right ofself-government. We are of one blood and the country is wide. God-speedboth to Lot and to Abraham! On some sunny future day may their childrendraw together and take hands again! So much for the seceding States. ButVirginia,--but Virginia made possible the Union,--let her stand fast init in this day of storm! in this Convention let her voice be heard--as Iknow it will be heard--for wisdom, for moderation, for patience! So, orsoon or late, she will mediate between the States, she will once againmake the ring complete, she will be the saviour of this great historicConfederation which our fathers made!"

  A minute or two more and he ended his speech. As he moved from betweenthe pillars, there was loud applause. The county was largely Whig,honestly longing--having put on record what it thought of the presentmischief and the makers of it--for a peaceful solution of all troubles.As for the army, county and State were proud of the army, and proud ofthe Virginians within it. It was amid cheering that Fauquier Cary leftthe portico. At the head of the steps, however, there came a question."One moment, Major Cary! What if the North declines to evacuate FortSumter? What if she attempts to reinforce it? What if she declares for a_compulsory_ Union?"

  Cary paused a moment. "She will not, she will not! There are politiciansin the North whom I'll not defend! But the people--the people--thepeople are neither fools nor knaves! They were born North and we wereborn South and that is the chief difference between us! A _Compulsory_Union! That is a contradiction in terms. Individuals and States,harmoniously minded, unite for the sweetness of Union and for thefurtherance of common interests. When the minds are discordant, and theinterests opposed, one may be bound to another by Conquest--nototherwise! What said Hamilton? _To coerce a State would be one of themaddest projects ever devised!_" He descended the court house steps tothe grassy, crowded yard. Here acquaintances claimed him, and here, atlast, the surge of the crowd brought him within a yard of Allan Gold andhis companion. The latter spoke. "Major Cary, you don't remember me. I'mHairston Breckinridge, sir, and I've been once or twice to Greenwoodwith Edward. I was there Christmas before last, when you came homewounded--"

  The older man put out a ready hand. "Yes, yes, I do remember! We had amerry Christmas! I am glad to meet you again, Mr. Breckinridge. Is thisyour brother?"

  "No, sir. It's Allan Gold, from Thunder Run."

  "I am pleased to meet you, sir," said Allan. "You have been saying whatI should like to have been able to say myself."

  "I am pleased that you are pleased. Are you, too, from the university?"

  "No, sir. I couldn't go. I teach the school on Thunder Run."

  "Allan knows more," said Hairston Breckinridge, "than many of us who areat the university. But we mustn't keep you, sir."

  In effect they could do so no longer. Major Cary was swept away byacquaintances and connections. The day was declining, the final speakerdrawing to an end, the throng beginning to shiver in the deepening cold.The speaker gave his final sentence; the town band crashed indeterminedly with "Home, Sweet Home." To its closing strains the countypeople, afoot, on horseback, in old, roomy, high-swung carriages, tookthis road and that. The townsfolk, still excited, still discussing,lingered awhile round the court house or on the verandah of the oldhotel, but at last these groups dissolved also. The units betookthemselves home to fireside and supper, and the sun set behind theAlleghenies.

  Allan Gold, striding over the hills toward Thunder Run, caught up withthe miller from Mill Creek, and the two walked side by side until theirroads diverged. The miller was a slow man, but to-day there was a red inhis cheek and a light in his eye. "Just so," he said shortly. "They mustkeep out of my mill race or they'll get caught in the wheel."

  "Mr. Green," said Allan, "how much of all this trouble do you suppose isreally about the negro? I was brought up to wish that Virginia had neverheld a slave."

  "So were most of us. You don't hold any."

  "No."

  "No more I don't. No more does Tom Watts. Nor Anderson West. Nor theTaylors. Nor five sixths of the farming folk about here. Nor seveneighths of the townspeople. We don't own a negro, and I don't know thatwe ever did own one. Not long ago I asked Colonel Anderson a lot ofquestions about the matter. He says the census this year gives Virginiaone million and fifty thousand white people, and of these the fiftythousand hold slaves and the one million don't. The fifty thousand'smostly in the tide-water counties, too,--mighty little of it on thisside the Blue Ridge! Ain't anybody ever accused Virginians of not beinggood to servants! and it don't take more'n half an eye to see that theservants love their white people. For slavery itself, I ain'tquarrelling for it, and neither was Colonel Anderson. He said it wasabhorrent in the sight of God and man. He said the old House ofBurgesses used to try to stop the bringing in of negroes, and that theColony was always appealing to the king against the traffic. He saidthat in 1778, two years after Virginia declared her Independence, shepassed the statute prohibiting the slave trade. He said that she was thefirst country in the civilized world to stop the trade--passed herstatute thirty years before England! He said that all our greatRevolutionary men hated slavery and worked for the emancipation of thenegroes who were here; that men worked openly and hard for it until1832. Then came the Nat Turner Insurrection, when they killed all thosewomen and children, and then rose the hell-fire-for-all, bitter-'n-gallAbolition people stirring gunpowder with a lighted stick, holding onlike grim death and in perfect safety fifteen hundred miles from wherethe explosion was due! And as they denounce without thinking, so a lotof men have risen with us to advocate without thinking. And underneathall the clamour, there goes on, all the time, quiet and steady, afreeing of negroes by deed and will, a settling them in communities infree States, a belonging to and supporting Colonization Societies. Thereare now forty thousand free negroes in Virginia, and Heaven knows howmany have been freed and established elsewhere! It is our best peoplewho make these wills, freeing their slaves, and in Virginia, at least,everybody, sooner or later, follows the best people. 'Gradualmanumission, Mr. Green,' that's what Colonel Anderson said, 'withcolonization in Africa if possible. The difficulties are enough to turna man's hair grey, but,' said he, 'slavery's knell has struck, and we'llput an end to it in Virginia peacefully and with some approach towisdom--if only they'll stop stirring the gunpowder!'"

  The miller raised his large head, with its effect of white powder fromthe mill, and regarded the landscape. "'We're all mighty blind, poorcreatures,' as the preacher says, but I reckon one day we'll find theright way, both for us and for that half million poor, dark-skinned,lovable, never-knew-any-better, pretty-happy-on-the-whole,way-behind-the-world people that King James and King Charles and KingGeorge saddled us with, not much to their betterment and to our certainhurt. I reckon we'll find it. But I'm damned if I'm going to take theNorth's word for it that she has the way! Her old way was to sell hernegroes South."

  "I've thought and thought," said Allan. "People mean well, and yetthere's such a dreadful lot of tragedy in the world!"

  "I agree with you there," quoth the miller. "And I certainly don't denythat slavery's responsible for a lot of bitter talk and a lot ofred-hot feeling; for some suffering to some negroes, too, and for a dealof harm to almost all whites. And I, for one, will be powerful glad whenevery negro, man and woman, is free. They can never really grow untilthey are free--I'll acknowledge that. And if they want to go back totheir own country I'd pay my mite to help them along. I think I owe itto them--even though as far as I know I haven't a forbear that ever didthem wrong. Trouble is, don't any of them want to go back! You couldn'tscare them worse than to tell them you were going to help them back totheir fatherland! The Lauderdale negroes, for instance--never see onethat he isn't laughing! And Tullius at Three Oaks,--_he'd_ say hecouldn't possibly think of going--must stay at Three Oaks and look afterMiss Margaret and the children! No, it isn't an
easy subject, look at itany way you will. But as between us and the North, it ain't the mainsubject of quarrel--not by a long shot it ain't! The quarrel's that aman wants to take all the grist, mine as well as his, and grind it inhis mill! Well, I won't let him--that's all. And here's your road toThunder Run."

  Allan strode on alone over the frozen hills. Before him sprang therampart of the mountains, magnificently drawn against the eastern sky.To either hand lay the fallow fields, rolled the brown hills, rose theshadowy bulk of forest trees, showed the green of winter wheat. Theevening was cold, but without wind and soundless. The birds had flownsouth, the cattle were stalled, the sheep folded. There was only theearth, field and hill and mountain, the up and down of a narrow road,and the glimmer of a distant stream. The sunset had been red, and itleft a colour that flared to the zenith.

  The young man, tall, blond, with grey-blue eyes and short, fair beard,covered with long strides the frozen road. It led him over a lofty hillwhose summit commanded a wide prospect. Allan, reaching this height,hesitated a moment, then crossed to a grey zigzag of rail fence, and,leaning his arms upon it, looked forth over hill and vale, forest andstream. The afterglow was upon the land. He looked at the mountains, thegreat mountains, long and clean of line as the marching rollers of agiant sea, not split or jagged, but even, unbroken, and old, old, theoldest almost in the world. Now the ancient forest clothed them, whilethey were given, by some constant trick of the light, the distant,dreamy blue from which they took their name. The Blue Ridge--the BlueRidge--and then the hills and the valleys, and all the rushing creeks,and the grandeur of the trees, and to the east, steel clear between thesycamores and the willows, the river--the upper reaches of the riverJames.

  The glow deepened. From a farmhouse in the valley came the sound of abell. Allan straightened himself, lifting his arms from the grey oldrails. He spoke aloud.

  Breathes there the man with soul so dead,--

  The bell rang again, the rose suffused the sky to the zenith. The youngman drew a long breath, and, turning, began to descend the hill.

  Before him, at a turn of the road and overhanging a precipitous hollow,in the spring carpeted with bloodroot, but now thick with dead leaves,lay a giant oak, long ago struck down by lightning. The branches hadbeen cut away, but the blackened trunk remained, and from it as vantagepoint one received another great view of the rolling mountains and thevalleys between. Allan Gold, coming down the hill, became aware, firstof a horse fastened to a wayside sapling, then of a man seated upon thefallen oak, his back to the road, his face to the darkening prospect.Below him the winter wind made a rustling in the dead leaves. Evidentlyanother had paused to admire the view, or to collect and mould betweenthe hands of the soul the crowding impressions of a decisive day. Itwas, apparently, the latter purpose; for as Allan approached the ravinethere came to him out of the dusk, in a controlled but vibrant voice,the following statement, repeated three times: "We are going to havewar.--We are going to have war.--We are going to have war."

  Allan sent his own voice before him. "I trust in God that's nottrue!--It's Richard Cleave, there, isn't it?"

  The figure on the oak, swinging itself around, sat outlined against theviolet sky. "Yes, Richard Cleave. It's a night to make one think,Allan--to make one think--to make one think!" Laying his hand on thetrunk beside him, he sprang lightly down to the roadside, where heproceeded to brush dead leaf and bark from his clothing with an oldgauntlet. When he spoke it was still in the same moved, vibrating voice."War's my _metier_. That's a curious thing to be said by a countrylawyer in peaceful old Virginia in this year of grace! But like manyanother curious thing, it's true! I was never on a field of battle, butI know all about a field of battle."

  He shook his head, lifted his hand, and flung it out toward themountains. "I don't want war, mind you, Allan! That is, the great streamat the bottom doesn't want it. War is a word that means agony to manyand a set-back to all. Reason tells me that, and my heart wishes theworld neither agony nor set-back, and I give my word for peace.Only--only--before this life I must have fought all along the line!"

  His eyes lightened. Against the paling sky, in the wintry air, hispowerful frame, not tall, but deep-chested, broad-shouldered, lookedlarger than life. "I don't talk this way often--as you'll grant!" hesaid, and laughed. "But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, liftedevery man out of himself!"

  "If war came," said Allan, "it couldn't be a long war, could it? Afterthe first battle we'd come to an understanding."

  "Would we?" answered the other. "Would we?--God knows! In the past ithas been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was thewar."

  As he spoke he moved across to the sapling where was fastened his horse,loosed him, and sprang into the saddle. The horse, a magnificent bay,took the road, and the three began the long descent. It was very coldand still, a crescent moon in the sky, and lights beginning to shinefrom the farmhouses in the valley.

  "Though I teach school," said Allan, "I like the open. I like to dothings with my hands, and I like to go in and out of the woods. Perhaps,all the way behind us, I was a hunter, with a taste for books! Mygrandfather was a scout in the Revolution, and his father was aranger.... God knows, _I_ don't want war! But if it comes I'll go. We'llall go, I reckon."

  "Yes, we'll all go," said Cleave. "We'll need to go."

  The one rode, the other walked in silence for a time; then said thefirst, "I shall ride to Lauderdale after supper and talk to FauquierCary."

  "You and he are cousins, aren't you?"

  "Third cousins. His mother was a Dandridge--Unity Dandridge."

  "I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier poet--thattype."

  "Yes, it is old and fine, in men and in women."

  "He does not want war."

  "No."

  "Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility atall--he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work forpeace, and that war between brothers is horrible."

  "It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk."

  They went on in silence for a time, over the winter road, through thecrystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed intenseand cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains, golden andsharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered.

  "If there should be war," asked Allan, "what will they do, all theVirginians in the army--Lee and Johnston and Stuart, Maury and Thomasand the rest?"

  "They'll come home."

  "Resigning their commissions?"

  "Resigning their commissions."

  Allan sighed. "That would be a hard thing to have to do."

  "They'll do it. Wouldn't you?"

  The teacher from Thunder Run looked from the dim valley and thehousehold lamps up to the marching stars. "Yes. If my State called, Iwould do it."

  "This is what will happen," said Cleave. "There are times when a mansees clearly, and I see clearly to-day. The North does not intend toevacuate Fort Sumter. Instead, sooner or later, she'll try to reinforceit. That will be the beginning of the end. South Carolina will reducethe fort. The North will preach a holy war. War there will be--whetherholy or not remains to be seen. Virginia will be called upon to furnishher quota of troops with which to coerce South Carolina and the GulfStates back into the Union. Well--do you think she will give them?"

  Allan gave a short laugh. "No!"

  "That is what will happen. And then--and then a greater State than anywill be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army willcome home."

  The wood gave way to open country, softly swelling fields, willowcopses, and clear running streams. In the crystal air the mountain wallsseemed near at hand, above shone Orion, icily brilliant. The lawyer froma dim old house in a grove of oaks and the school-teacher from ThunderRun went on in silence for a time; then the latter spoke.

  "Hairston Breckinridge says that Major Cary's niece is with him atLauderdale."

  "Yes. Judith Cary."


  "That's the beautiful one, isn't it?"

  "They are all said to be beautiful--the three Greenwood Carys. But--Yes,that is the beautiful one."

  He began to hum a song, and as he did so he lifted his wide soft hat androde bareheaded.

  "It's strange to me," said Allan presently, "that any one should be gayto-day."

  As he spoke he glanced up at the face of the man riding beside him onthe great bay. There was yet upon the road a faint after-light--enoughlight to reveal that there were tears on Cleave's cheek. InvoluntarilyAllan uttered an exclamation.

  The other, breaking off his chant, quite simply put up a gauntleted handand wiped the moisture away. "Gay!" he repeated. "I'm not gay. What gaveyou such an idea? I tell you that though I've never been in a war, Iknow all about war!"