5.
CHAPTER XVI. THE GUNS OF SUMTER
Winter had vanished. Spring was come with a hush. Toward a little island set in the blue waters of Charleston harbor anxious eyes were strained.
Was the flag still there?
God alone may count the wives and mothers who listened in the still hours of the night for the guns of Sumter. One sultry night in April Stephen's mother awoke with fear in her heart, for she had heard them. Hark! that is the roar now, faint but sullen. That is the red flash far across the black Southern sky. For in our beds are the terrors and cruelties of life revealed to us. There is a demon to be faced, and nought alone.
Mrs. Brice was a brave woman. She walked that night with God.
Stephen, too, awoke. The lightning revealed her as she bent over him. On the wings of memory be flew back to his childhood in the great Boston house with the rounded front, and he saw the nursery with its high windows looking out across the Common. Often in the dark had she come to him thus, her gentle hand passing over aim to feel if he were covered.
"What is it, mother?" he said.
She said: "Stephen, I am afraid that the war has come."
He sat up, blindly. Even he did not guess the agony in her heart.
"You will have to go, Stephen."
It was long before his answer came.
"You know that I cannot, mother. We have nothing left but the little I earn. And if I were--" He did not finish the sentence, for he felt her trembling. But she said again, with that courage which seems woman's alone:
"Remember Wilton Brice. Stephen--I can get along. I can sew."
It was the hour he had dreaded, stolen suddenly upon him out of the night. How many times had he rehearsed this scene to himself! He, Stephen Brice, who had preached and slaved and drilled for the Union, a renegade to be shunned by friend and foe alike! He had talked for his country, but he would not risk his life for it. He heard them repeating the charge. He saw them passing him silently on the street. Shamefully he remembered the time, five months agone, when he had worn the very uniform of his Revolutionary ancestor. And high above the tier of his accusers he saw one face, and the look of it stung to the very quick of his soul.
Before the storm he had fallen asleep in sheer weariness of the struggle, that face shining through the black veil of the darkness. If he were to march away in the blue of his country (alas, not of hers!) she would respect him for risking life for conviction. If he stayed at home, she would not understand. It was his plain duty to his mother. And yet he knew that Virginia Carvel and the women like her were ready to follow with bare feet the march of the soldiers of the South.
The rain was come now, in a flood. Stephen's mother could not see in the blackness the bitterness on his face. Above the roar of the waters she listened for his voice.
"I will not go, mother," he said. "If at length every man is needed, that will be different."
"It is for you to decide, my son," she answered. "There are many ways in which you can serve your country here. But remember that you may have to face hard things."
"I have had to do that before, mother," he replied calmly. "I cannot leave you dependent upon charity."
She went back into her room to pray, for she knew that he had laid his ambition at her feet.
It was not until a week later that the dreaded news came. All through the Friday shells had rained on the little fort while Charleston looked on. No surrender yet. Through a wide land was that numbness which precedes action. Force of habit sent men to their places of business, to sit idle. A prayerful Sunday intervened. Sumter had fallen. South Carolina had shot to bits the flag she had once revered.
On the Monday came the call of President Lincoln for volunteers. Missouri was asked for her quota. The outraged reply of her governor went back,--never would she furnish troops to invade her sister states. Little did Governor Jackson foresee that Missouri was to stand fifth of all the Union in the number of men she was to give. To her was credited in the end even more men than stanch Massachusetts.
The noise of preparation was in the city--in the land. On the Monday morning, when Stephen went wearily to the office, he was met by Richter at the top of the stairs, who seized his shoulders and looked into his face. The light of the zealot was on Richter's own.
"We shall drill every night now, my friend, until further orders. It is the Leader's word. Until we go to the front, Stephen, to put down rebellion." Stephen sank into a chair, and bowed his head. What would he think,--this man who had fought and suffered and renounced his native land for his convictions? Who in this nobler allegiance was ready to die for them? How was he to confess to Richter, of all men?
"Carl," he said at length, "I--I cannot go."
"You--you cannot go? You who have done so much already! And why?"
Stephen did not answer. But Richter, suddenly divining, laid his hands impulsively on Stephen's shoulders.
"Ach, I see," he said. "Stephen, I have saved some money. It shall be for your mother while you are away."
At first Stephen was too surprised for speech. Then, in spite of his feelings, he stared at the German with a new appreciation of his character. Then he could merely shake his head.
"Is it not for the Union?" implored Richter, "I would give a fortune, if I had it. Ah, my friend, that would please me so. And I do not need the money now. I 'have--nobody."
Spring was in the air; the first faint smell of verdure wafted across the river on the wind. Stephen turned to the open window, tears of intense agony in his eyes. In that instant he saw the regiment marching, and the flag flying at its head.
"It is my duty to stay here, Carl," he said brokenly.
Richter took an appealing step toward him and stopped. He realized that with this young New Englander a decision once made was unalterable. In all his knowledge of Stephen he never remembered him to change. With the demonstrative sympathy of his race, he yearned to comfort him, and knew not how. Two hundred years of Puritanism had reared barriers not to be broken down.
At the end of the office the stern figure of the Judge appeared.
"Mr. Brice!" he said sharply.
Stephen followed him into the littered room behind the ground glass door, scarce knowing what to expect,--and scarce caring, as on that first day he had gone in there. Mr. Whipple himself closed the door, and then the transom. Stephen felt those keen eyes searching him from their hiding-place.
"Mr. Brice," he said at last, "the President has called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to crush this rebellion. They will go, and be swallowed up, and more will go to fill their places. Mr. Brice, people will tell you that the war will be over in ninety days. But I tell you, sir, that it will not be over in seven times ninety days." He brought down his fist heavily upon the table. "This, sir, will be a war to the death. One side or the other will fight until their blood is all let, and until their homes are all ruins." He darted at Stephen one look from under those fierce eyebrows. "Do you intend to go sir?"
Stephen met the look squarely. "No, sir," he answered, steadily, "not now."
"Humph," said the Judge. Then he began what seemed a never-ending search among the papers on his desk. At length he drew out a letter, put on his spectacles and read it, and finally put it down again.
"Stephen,"