The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him by Paul Leicester Ford

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While the regiment still breakfasted it became conscious of a monotonous
sound, growing steadily in volume. Then came the tap of the drum, and
the regiment rose from a half-eaten meal, and lined up as if on parade.
Several of the members remarked crossly: "Why couldn't they wait ten
minutes?"

The next moment the head of another regiment swung from Chambers Street
into the square. It was greeted by hisses and groans from the denizens
of the park, but this lack of politeness was more than atoned for, by
the order: "Present arms," passed down the immovable line awaiting it.
After a return salute the commanding officers advanced and once more
saluted.

"In obedience to orders from headquarters, I have the honor to report my
regiment to you, Colonel Stirling, and await your orders," said the
officer of the "visiting" regiment, evidently trying not to laugh.

"Let your men break ranks, and breakfast, Major Rivington," said Peter.
In two minutes dandy and mick were mingled, exchanging experiences, as
they sliced meat off the same ham-bones and emptied the same cracker
boxes. What was more, each was respecting and liking the other. One
touch of danger is almost as efficacious as one touch of nature. It is
not the differences in men which make ill-feeling or want of sympathy,
it is differences in conditions.

In the mean time, Peter, Ray and Ogden had come together over their
grub, much as if it was a legal rather than an illegal trouble to be
dealt with.

"Where were you?" asked Peter.

"At the Sixty-third Street terminals," said Ray. "We didn't have any fun
at all. As quiet as a cow. You always were lucky! Excuse me, Peter, I
oughtn't to have said it," Ray continued, seeing Peter's face. "It's
this wretched American trick of joking at everything."

Ogden, to change the subject, asked: "Did you really say 'damn'?"

"Yes."

"But I thought you disapproved of cuss words."

"I do. But the crowd wouldn't believe that I was honest in my intention
to protect the substitutes. They thought I was too much of a politician
to dare to do it. So I swore, thinking they would understand that as
they would not anything else. I hoped it might save actual firing. But
they became so enraged that they didn't care if we did shoot."

Just then one of the crowd shrieked, "Down with the blood-suckers. On to
freedom. Freedom of life, of property, of food, of water, of air, of
land. Destroy the money power!"

"If we ever get to the freedom he wants," said Ray, "we'll utilize that
chap for supplying free gas."

"Splendid raw material for free soap," said Ogden.

"He's not the only one," said Ray. "I haven't had a wash in nine hours,
and salt meats are beginning to pall."

"There are plenty of fellows out there will eat it for you, Ray," said
Peter, "and plenty more who have not washed in weeks."

"It's their own fault."

"Yes. But if you burn or cut yourself, through ignorance, that doesn't
make the pain any the less."

"They don't look like a crowd which could give us trouble."

"They are just the kind who can. They are men lifted off their common
sense, and therefore capable of thinking they can do anything, just as
John Brown expected to conquer Virginia with forty men."

"But there's no danger of their getting the upper hand."

"No. Yet I wish we had orders to clear the Park now, while there are
comparatively few here, or else to go back to our armories, and let them
have their meeting in peace. Our being here will only excite them."

"Hear that," said Ray, as the crowd gave a great roar as another
regiment came up Park Place, across the Park and spread out so as to
cover Broadway.

As they sat, New Yorkers began to rise and begin business. But many
seemed to have none, and drifted into the Park. Some idlers came from
curiosity, but most seemed to have some purpose other than the mere
spectacle. From six till ten they silted in imperceptibly from twenty
streets. As fast as the crowd grew, regiments appeared, and taking up
positions, lay at ease. There was something terrible about the quiet way
in which both crowd and troops increased. The mercury was not high, but
it promised to be a hot morning in New York. All the car lines took off
their cars. Trucks disappeared from the streets. The exchanges and the
banks closed their doors, and many hundred shops followed their example.
New York almost came to a standstill as order and anarchy faced each
other.

While these antagonistic forces still gathered, a man who had been
yelling to his own coterie of listeners in that dense crowd, extracted
himself, and limped towards Peter.

"Mr. Stirling," he shouted, "come out from those murderers. I want to
tell you something."

Peter went forward. "What is it, Podds?" he asked.

Podds dropped his voice. "We're out for blood to-day. But I don't want
yours, if you do murder my fellow-men. Get away from here, quick. Hide
yourself before the people rise in their might."

Peter smiled sadly. "How are Mrs. Podds and the children?" he asked
kindly.

"What is a family at such a moment?" shrieked Podds.

"The world is my family. I love the whole world, and I'm going to
revolutionize it. I'm going to give every man his rights. The gutters
shall reek with blood, and every plutocrat's castle shall be levelled to
the soil. But I'll spare you, for though you are one of the classes,
it's your ignorance, not your disposition, that makes you one. Get away
from here. Get away before it's too late."

Just then the sound of a horse's feet was heard, and a staff officer
came cantering from a side street into the square. He saluted Peter and
said, "Colonel Stirling, the governor has issued a proclamation
forbidding the meeting and parade. General Canfield orders you to clear
the Park, by pushing the mob towards Broadway. The regiments have been
drawn in so as to leave a free passage down the side streets."

"Don't try to move us a foot," screamed Podds, "or there'll be blood. We
claim the right of free meeting and free speech."

Even as he spoke, the two regiments formed, stiffened, fixed bayonets,
and moved forward, as if they were machines rather than two thousand
men.

"Brethren," yelled Podds, "the foot of the tyrant is on us. Rise. Rise
in your might." Then Podds turned to find the rigid line of bayonets
close upon him. He gave a spring, and grappled with Peter, throwing his
arms about Peter's neck. Peter caught him by the throat with his free
arm.

"Don't push me off," shrieked Podds in his ear, "it's coming," and he
clung with desperate energy to Peter.

Peter gave a twist with his arm. He felt the tight clasp relax, and the
whole figure shudder. He braced his arm for a push, intending to send
Podds flying across the street.

But suddenly there was a flash, as of lightning. Then a crash. Then the
earth shook, cobble-stones, railroad tracks, anarchists, and soldiers,
rose in the air, leaving a great chasm in crowd and street. Into that
chasm a moment later, stones, rails, anarchists, and soldiers fell,
leaving nothing but a thick cloud of overhanging dust. Underneath that
great dun pall lay soldier and anarchist, side by side, at last at
peace. The one died for his duty, the other died for his idea. The world
was none the better, but went on unchanged.

CHAPTER LVII

HAPPINESS

The evening on which Peter had left Grey-Court, Leonore had been moved
"for sundry reasons" to go to her piano and sing an English ballad
entitled "Happiness." She had song it several times, and with gusto.

The next morning she read the political part of the papers. "I don't see
anything to have taken him back," she said "but I am really glad, for he
was getting hard to manage. I couldn't send him away, but now I hope
he'll stay there." Then Leonore fluttered all day, in the true Newport
style, with no apparent thought of her "friend."

But something at a dinner that evening interested her.

"I'm ashamed," said the hostess, "of my shortage of men. Marlow was
summoned back to New York last night, by business, quite unexpectedly,
and Mr. Dupont telegraphed me this afternoon that he was detained
there."

"It's curious," said Dorothy. "Mr. Rivington and my brother came on
Tuesday expecting to stay for a week, but they had special delivery
letters yesterday, and both started for New York. They would not tell me
what it was."

"Mr. Stirling received a special delivery, too," said Leonore, "and
started at once. And he wouldn't tell."

"How extraordinary!" said the hostess. "There must be something very
good at the roof-gardens."

"It has something to do with headwears," said Leonore, not hiding her
light under a bushel.

"Headwear?" said a man.

"Yes," said Leonore. "I only had a glimpse of the heading, but I saw
'Headwears N.G.S.N.Y.'"

A sudden silence fell, no one laughing at the mistake.

"What's the matter?" asked Leonore.

"We are wondering what will happen," said the host, "if men go in for
headwear too."

"They do that already," said a man, "but unlike women, they do it on the
inside, not the outside of the head."

But nobody laughed, and the dinner seemed to drag from that moment.

Leonore and Dorothy had come together, and as soon as they were in their
carriage, Leonore said, "What a dull dinner it was?"

"Oh, Leonore," cried Dorothy, "don't talk about dinners. I've kept up
till now, bu--" and Dorothy's sentence melted into a sob.

"Is it home, Mrs. Rivington?" asked the tiger, sublimely unconscious, as
a good servant should be, of this dialogue, and of his mistress's tears.

"No, Portman, the Club," sobbed Dorothy.

"Dorothy," begged Leonore, "what is it?"

"Don't you understand?" sobbed Dorothy. "All this fearful anarchist
talk and discontent? And my poor, poor darling! Oh, don't talk to me."
Dorothy became inarticulate once more.

"How foolish married women are!" thought Leonore, even while putting her
arm around Dorothy, and trying blindly to comfort her.

"Is it a message, Mrs. Rivington?" asked the man, opening the
carriage-door.

"Ask for Mr. Melton, or Mr. Duer, and say Mrs. Rivington wishes to see
one of them." Dorothy dried her eyes, and braced up. Before Leonore had
time to demand an explanation, Peter's gentlemanly scoundrel was at the
door.

"What is it, Mrs. Rivington?" he asked.

"Mr. Duer, is there any bad news from New York?"

"Yes. A great strike on the Central is on, and the troops have been
called in to keep order."

"Is that all the news?" asked Dorothy.

"Yes."

"Thank you," said Dorothy. "Home, Portman."

The two women were absolutely silent during the drive. But they kissed
each other in parting, not with the peck which women so often give each
other, but with a true kiss. And when Leonore, in crossing the porch,
encountered the mastiff which Peter had given her, she stopped and
kissed him too, very tenderly. What is more, she brought him inside,
which was against the rules, and put him down before the fire. Then she
told the footman to bring her the evening-papers, and sitting down on
the rug by Betise, proceeded to search them, not now for the political
outlook, but for the labor troubles. Leonore suddenly awoke to the fact
that there were such things as commercial depressions and unemployed.
She read it all with the utmost care. She read the outpourings of the
Anarchists, in a combination of indignation, amazement and fear, "I
never dreamed there could be such fearful wretches!" she said. There was
one man--a fellow named Podds--whom the paper reported as shrieking in
Union Square to a select audience:

"Rise! Wipe from the face of the earth the money power! Kill!
Kill! Only by blood atonement can we lead the way to better
things. To a universal brotherhood of love. Down with rich men!
Down with their paid hirelings, the troops! Blow them in pieces!"

"Oh!" cried Leonore shuddering. "It's fearful. I wish some one would
blow you in pieces!" Thereby was she proving herself not unlike Podds.
All humanity have something of the Anarchist in them. Then Leonore
turned to the mastiff and told him some things. Of how bad the strikers
were, and how terrible were the Anarchists. "Yes, dear," she said, "I
wish we had them here, and then you could treat them as they deserve,
wouldn't you, Betise? I'm so glad he has my luck-piece!"

A moment later her father and another man came into the hall from the
street, compelling Leonore to assume a more proper attitude.

"Hello, Dot!" said Watts. "Still up? Vaughan and I are going to have a
game of billiards. Won't you score for us?"

"Yes," said Leonore.

"Bad news from New York, isn't it?" said Vaughan, nonchalantly, as he
stood back after his first play.

Leonore saw her father make a grimace at Vaughan, which Vaughan did not
see. She said, "What?"

"I missed," said Watts. "Your turn, Will."

"Tell me the news before you shoot?" said Leonore.

"The collision of the strikers and the troops."

"Was any one hurt?" asked Leonore, calmly scoring two to her father's
credit.

"Yes. Eleven soldiers and twenty-two strikers."

"What regiment was it?" asked Leonore.

"Colonel Stirling's," said Vaughan, making a brilliant _masse_.
"Fortunately it's a Mick regiment, so we needn't worry over who was
killed."

Leonore thought to herself: "You are as bad every bit as Podds!" Aloud
she said, "Did it say who were killed?"

"No. The dispatch only said fourteen dead."

"That was a beautiful shot," said Leonore. "You ought to run the game
out with that position. I think, papa, that I'll go to bed. I find I'm a
little tired. Good-night, Mr. Vaughan." Leonore went upstairs, slowly,
deep in thought. She did not ring for her maid. On the contrary she lay
down on her bed in her dinner-gown, to its everlasting detriment. "I
know he isn't hurt," she said, "because I should feel it. But I wish the
telegram had said." She hardly believed herself, apparently, for she
buried her head in the pillow, and began to sob quietly. "If I only had
said good-bye," she moaned.

Early the next morning Watts found Leonore in the hall.

"How pale my Dot is!" he exclaimed.

"I didn't sleep well," said Leonore.

"Aren't you going to ride with me?"

"No. I don't feel like it this morning," said Leonore.

As Watts left the hall, a servant entered it.

"I had to wait, Miss D'Alloi," he said. "No papers are for sale till
eight o'clock."

Leonore took the newspaper silently and went to the library. Then she
opened it and looked at the first column. She read it hurriedly.

"I knew he wasn't hurt," she said, "because I would have felt it, and
because he had my luck piece." Then she stepped out of one of the
windows, called Betise to her, and putting her arms about his neck,
kissed him.

When the New York papers came things were even better, for they recorded
the end of the strike. Leonore even laughed over that big, big D. "I
can't imagine him getting so angry," she said "He must have a temper,
after all." She sang a little, as she fixed the flowers in the vases,
and one of the songs was "Happiness." Nor did she snub a man who hinted
at afternoon tea, as she had a poor unfortunate who suggested tennis
earlier in the day.

While they were sipping their tea, however, Watts came in from the club.

"Helen," he said, going to the bay window farthest from the tea-table,
"come here I want to say something."

They whispered for a moment, and then Mrs. D'Alloi came back to her tea.

"Won't you have a cup, papa?" asked Leonore.

"'Not to-day, dear," said Watts, with an unusual tenderness in his
voice.

Leonore was raising a spoon to her mouth, but suddenly her hand trembled
a little. After a glance at her father and mother, she pushed her
tea-cup into the centre of the table as if she had finished it, though
it had just been poured. Then she turned and began to talk and laugh
with the caller.

But the moment the visitor was out of the room, Leonore said:

"What is it, papa?"

Watts was standing by the fire. He hesitated. Then he groaned. Then he
went to the door. "Ask your mother," he said, and went out of the room.

"Mamma?" said Leonore.

"Don't excite yourself, dear," said her mother. "I'll tell you
to-morrow."

Leonore was on her feet. "No," she said huskily, "tell me now."

"Wait till we've had dinner."

"Mamma," cried Leonore, appealingly, "don't you see that--that--that I
suffer more by not knowing it? Tell me."

"Oh, Leonore," cried her mother, "don't look that way. I'll tell you;
but don't look that way!"

"What?"

Mrs. D'Alloi put her arms about Leonore. "The Anarchists have exploded a
bomb."

"Yes?" said Leonore.

"And it killed a great many of the soldiers."

"Not--?"

"Yes."

"Thank you, mamma," said Leonore. She unclasped her mother's arms, and
went towards the door.

"Leonore," cried her mother, "stay here with me, dear."

"I'd rather be alone," said Leonore, quietly. She went upstairs to her
room and sank down by an ottoman which stood in the middle of the floor.
She sat silent and motionless, for over an hour, looking straight before
her at nothing, as Peter had so often done. Is it harder to lose out of
life the man or woman whom one loves, or to see him or her happy in the
love of another. Is the hopelessness of the impossible less or greater
than the hopelessness of the unattainable?

Finally Leonore rose, and touched her bell. When her maid came she said,
"Get me my travelling dress." Ten minutes later she came into the
library, saying to Watts.

"Papa, I want you to take me to New York, by the first train."

"Are you crazy, my darling?" cried Watts. "With riots and Anarchists all
over the city."

"I must go to New York," said Leonore. "If you won't take me, I'll go
with madame."

"Not for a moment--" began Watts.

"Papa," cried Leonore, "don't you see it's killing me? I can't bear
it--" and Leonore stopped.

"Yes, Watts, we must," said Mrs. D'Alloi.

Two hours later they were all three rolling towards New York. It was a
five hours' ride, but Leonore sat the whole distance without speaking,
or showing any consciousness of her surroundings. For every turn of
those wheels seemed to fall into a rhythmic repetition of: "If I had
only said 'good-bye.'"

The train was late in arriving, and Watts tried to induce Leonore to go
to a hotel for the night. She only said "No. Take me to him," but it was
in a voice which Watts could not disregard. So after a few questions at
the terminal, which produced no satisfactory information, Watts told the
cabman to drive to the City Hall Park.

They did not reach it, however, for at the corner of Centre Street and
Chambers, there came a cry of "halt," and the cab had to stop.

"You can't pass this line," said the sentry. "You must go round by
Broadway."

"Why?" asked Watts.

"The street is impassable."

Watts got out, and held a whispered dialogue with the sentry. This
resulted in the summoning of the officer of the watch. In the mean time
Leonore descended and joined them. Watts turned and said to her: "The
sentry says he's here."

Presently an officer came up.

"An' what do the likes av yez want at this time av night?" he inquired
crossly. "Go away wid yez."

"Oh, Captain Moriarty," said Leonore, "won't you let me see him? I'm
Miss D'Alloi."

"Shure," said Dennis, "yez oughtn't to be afther disturbin' him. It's
two nights he's had no sleep."

Leonore suddenly put her hand on Dennis's arm. "He's not killed?" she
whispered, as if she could not breathe, and the figure swayed a little.

"Divil a bit! They got it wrong entirely. It was that dirty spalpeen av
a Podds."

"Are you sure?" said Leonore, pleadingly. "You are not deceiving me?"

"Begobs," said Dennis, "do yez think Oi could stand here wid a dry eye
if he was dead?"

Leonore put her head on Dennis's shoulder, and began to sob softly. For
a moment Dennis looked aghast at the results of his speech, but suddenly
his face changed. "Shure," he whispered, "we all love him just like
that, an that's why the Blessed Virgin saved him for us."

Then Leonore, with tears in her eyes, said, "I felt it," in the most
joyful of voices. A voice that had a whole _Te Deum_ in it.

"Won't you let me see him?" she begged. "I won't wake him, I promise
you."

"That yez shall," said Dennis. "Will yez take my arm?" The four passed
within the lines. "Step careful," he continued. "There's pavin' stones,
and rails, and plate-glass everywheres. It looks like there'd been a
primary itself."

All thought that was the best of jokes and laughed. They passed round a
great chasm in the street and sidewalk. Then they came to long rows of
bodies stretched on the grass, or rather what was left of the grass, in
the Park. Leonore shuddered. "Are they all dead?" she whispered. "Dead!
Shurely not. It's the regiment sleepin'," she was told. They passed
between these rows for a little distance. "This is him," said Dennis,
"sleepin' like a babby." Dennis turned his back and began to describe
the explosion to Mrs. D'Alloi and Watts.

There, half covered with a blanket, wrapped in a regulation great coat,
his head pillowed on a roll of newspapers, lay Peter. Leonore knelt down
on the ground beside him, regardless of the proprieties or the damp. She
listened to hear if he was breathing, and when she found that he
actually was, her face had on it a little thanksgiving proclamation of
its own. Then with the prettiest of motherly manners, she softly pulled
the blanket up and tucked it in about his arms. Then she looked to see
if there was not something else to do. But there was nothing. So she
made more. "The poor dear oughtn't to sleep without something on his
head. He'll take cold." She took her handkerchief and tried to fix it so
that it should protect Peter's head. She tried four different ways, any
one of which would have served; but each time she thought of a better
way, and had to try once more. She probably would have thought of a
fifth, if Peter had not suddenly opened his eyes.

"Oh!" said Leonore, "what a shame? I've waked you up. And just as I had
fixed it right."

Peter studied the situation calmly, without moving a muscle. He looked
at the kneeling figure for some time. Then he looked up at the arc light
a little distance away. Then he looked at the City Hall clock. Then his
eyes came back to Leonore. "Peter," he said finally, "this is getting to
be a monomania. You must stop it."

"What?" said Leonore, laughing at his manner as if it was intended as a
joke.

Peter put out his hand and touched Leonore's dress. Then he rose quickly
to his feet. "What is the matter?" he asked.

"Hello," cried Watts. "Have you come to? Well. Here we are, you see. All
the way from Newport to see you in fragments, only to be disappointed.
Shake!"

Peter said nothing for a moment. But after he had shaken hands, he said,
"It's very good of you to have thought of me."

"Oh," explained Leonore promptly, "I'm always anxious about my friends.
Mamma will tell you I am."

Peter turned to Leonore, who had retired behind her mother. "Such
friends are worth having," he said, with a strong emphasis on "friends."

Then Leonore came out from behind her mother. "'How nice he's stupid,"
she thought. "He is Peter Simple, after all."

"Well," said Watts, "'your friends are nearly dying with hunger and want
of sleep, so the best thing we can do, since we needn't hunt for you in
scraps, is to go to the nearest hotel. Where is that?"

"You'll have to go uptown," said Peter. "Nothing down here is open at
this time."

"I'm not sleepy," said Leonore, "but I am so hungry!"

"Serves you right for eating no din--" Watts started to say, but Leonore
interjected, in an unusually loud voice. "Can't you get us something?"

"Nothing; that will do for you, I'm afraid," said Peter. "I had Dennett
send up one of his coffee-boilers so that the men should have hot coffee
through the night, and there's a sausage-roll man close to him who's
doing a big business. But they'll hardly serve your purpose."

"The very thing," cried Watts. "What a lark!"

"I can eat anything," said Leonore.

So they went over to the stands. Peter's blanket was spread on the
sidewalk, and three Newport swells, and the Democratic nominee for
governor sat upon it, with their feet in the gutter, and drank half-bean
coffee and ate hot sausage rolls, made all the hotter by the undue
amount of mustard which the cook would put in. What is worse, they
enjoyed it as much as if it was the finest of dinners. Would not society
have been scandalized had it known of their doings?

How true it is that happiness is in a mood rather than in a moment. How
eagerly we prepare for and pursue the fickle sprite, only to find our
preparations and chase giving nothing but dullness, fatigue, and ennui.
But then how often without exertion or warning, the sprite is upon us,
and tinges the whole atmosphere. So it was at this moment, with two of
the four. The coffee might have been all beans, and yet it would have
been better than the best served in Viennese cafes. The rolls might have
had even a more weepy amount of mustard, and yet the burning and the
tears would only have been the more of a joke. The sun came up, as they
ate, talked and laughed, touching everything about them with gold, but
it might have poured torrents, and the two would have been as happy.

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