The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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"You must take down a book, so that, in case the curious remark us, our
_tete-a-tete_ may not be regarded as conspiracy."
"No one would be apt to associate you with such a thing," Jack said,
vaguely.
"I don't know. Like all conspiracies, this Confederate comedy is
suspicious."
"Comedy, Mrs. Gannat? Why, I never saw people so earnest! I can't
imagine the surroundings of Cromwell more methodic."
"Ah, yes; those who have all to lose by the crash when it comes, are
bending every energy to impress the North that we are all of one mind
down here; we are not. I am talking frankly with you, because my friend
Mrs. Lanview has made me fully acquainted with your circumstances. I
have asked you for a talk here because I dare not have you at my house.
No one suspects my loyalty to this Davis masquerade; but there are many
of us who are doing, and shall do, all the better work for the Union
cause. You are just the man needed for a great work here; you are
believed to be secretly in favor of the Confederate cause--an
ambassador, in short. Now, the special purpose of this talk is this: The
men caught at Rosedale three weeks ago are to be tried before a military
court. If you and this young man Perley could escape before the event,
it would be impossible to convict them. Mrs. Lanview tells me that you
are very closely allied to the younger prisoner, Moore, and that for his
sake you will do all in your power to avoid testifying."
"I will cut out my tongue before a syllable from me shall bring danger
to that noble fellow!"
"Exactly. I expected as much. Now, can you not manage to inspire Perley
with the same sentiment? If you can, we feel confident that the court
will be unable to secure evidence sufficient to convict. I leave the
details to your own ingenuity. Your absence would deprive the
judge-advocate of the vital witnesses, but your refusal to testify would
only bring you into danger, and prolong the proceedings; and with time
we hope to effect an escape. Sh! As I say, Mr. Sprague, the heart of the
South beats with one impulse, the triumph of the noblest inspiration of
a great people."
The warning and sudden change in topic were caused by the apparition of
a dame who came rustling in, a vision of youthful charms and
vivaciousness.
"Mrs. Didier Rodney--Mr. Sprague," Mrs. Gannat said, cordially. "You are
sent by inspiration, for I am doing my poor best to convince this
obdurate Yankee to turn from evil courses and do a duty by the country
that will in future make his name illustrious."
"And I have no doubt you have shaken his obstinacy, if there be any
left," Mrs. Rodney murmured, studying Jack attentively. "I have just
been dining at the Executive Mansion, and Mr. Davis, hearing your name,
lamented that women were not eligible to office. If they were, he
declared that Mistress Gannat should be appointed ambassadress to
France, and that, within ten days of her reception at the Tuileries,
there would be a treaty of alliance signed between France and the
Confederacy!"
"I take that as rather an admission of weakness on your President's
part," Jack said, as the lady glanced inquiringly at him, "since it is a
poor cause that requires the strongest advocates."
"Ah! a Southern man would never have said a thing so uncivil as that,"
Mrs. Rodney cried, reproachfully. "You pay Mrs. Gannat a compliment at
the cost of the Confederacy."
"And Mr. Davis paid me a compliment at the expense of the truth, so the
account is squared," the elder lady said, serenely.
"Well, Mr. Davis is here himself by this time, and you shall talk it out
with him," Mrs. Rodney retorted, as a rustle at the door announced
new-comers. A half-dozen ladies came trooping in, among them Mrs. Davis
and several of the Cabinet ladies.
"We heard you were here, Madame Gannat," the President's wife murmured,
graciously. "And since you wouldn't come to us, we have come to you."
Mrs. Gannat arose to receive the great lady, and when she had exchanged
salutations with the rest she presented Jack.
"Ah! the hero of the Rosedale affair," and as Mrs. Davis said this she
looked keenly at the young man. She was, he owned, an extremely graceful
woman, of a mature beauty, admirable manner, and, as she talked, he
remarked keen intelligence, with an occasional evidence of reading, if
not high education. She was dressed in simpler taste than her "court,"
as it was the fashion then to style the Cabinet group. A few jewels were
half hidden in the rare lace that covered her bodice, but she was
ungloved, and in no sense in the full-dress understood in the North, at
a gathering of the sort. The talk became general. Jack, not knowing the
personages, simply listened. There was animated discussion as to whether
Mistress Judge this, and Mistress General that, or Mistress Senator the
other, would be in the capital in time for the opening of the new
Congress in December.
"Mr. Davis is very anxious to have the occasion made a grand one, and I
reckon that every one of account in the Confederacy will he here." Mrs.
Davis said, with conviction.
"The scene will be worthy of a great painting, like the Long Parliament,
or the meeting of the Three Estates, at Versailles," Mrs. Rodney added,
in a glow of anticipation.
This amusing pedantry rather taxed the historical knowledge of most of
the ladies, and to divert the talk Mrs. Monteith, a Cabinet lady, said:
"Who has read the account in the Yankee papers of Lincoln and his wife
at a reception of the diplomatic corps? It is too funny. The Lincoln
woman was a Southerner. She has some good blood, and ought to know
better. She was dressed like a dowdy, and when the ministers bowed she
gave them her hand and said, 'How d'ye do?'"
"It will really be a liberal education, to the North to have a capital
like ours near them, where their public men can learn manners, and where
Northern ladies can see how to conduct themselves in public," Mrs.
Rodney broke in, laughing. "It is not often a great people go to war for
an idea, but we are taking up the gage of battle to teach our
inferiors manners."
"We taught them how to run at Manassas," Mrs. Starlow, a Senator's dame,
remarked.
"I'm afraid they have learned the lesson so well that we shall never
teach them how to stand," Mrs. Davis added, gayly.
"Ah! friends, we are teaching each other how to die--let us not forget
that," Mrs. Gannat murmured, gently, and there was a sudden hush in the
exchange of vivacities. Before the strain could he renewed, Mrs.
Atterbury entered hastily, crying:
"The gentlemen are all distracted. We are going to have an old-time
minuet, such as my mother used to dance with Justice Marshall and Tom
Mayo. The President is going to lead with Mistress Wendolph, and all the
rest of you are assigned, by command of the Executive."
"Humph! a military despotism?" asked Mrs. Renfrew, a young bride of the
Executive Mansion, whose husband was confidential adviser of the
President. "I don't think I shall obey. I shall show the honesty of my
rebel blood by selecting my own partner, unless some one asks me
very humbly."
"Shall I go on my knees, Mrs. Renfrew?--I know no humbler attitude,"
Jack said, hastily presenting himself.
"Oh, yes, sir; there is something humbler than the knees."
"Yes? What, pray?"
"Repentance. Deny your name; no longer be a Montague--that is, a Yankee.
Give me the hand of a rebel. Then I shall believe you."
"I am a rebel."
"Ah! you have been converted?"
"I never was perverted."
"You have been with us all the time?"
"I have been here a long time!"
"And you are a rebel. Oh, I must tell Mr. Davis!"
"He knows it, I think."
"Oh, no, he can not; for it was only a few moments since that he said to
Mrs. Atterbury that the son of Senator Sprague, the friend of Calhoun
and the comrade of Hayne, should be in the ranks of the young nobility
upholding our sacred cause."
"I am, however, a rebel--a rebel to all these fascinations I see about
me, a rebel to your beauty, a rebel to all you desire."
"Pah! you odious Yankee; I felt certain that you had not come to your
senses."
"I don't think I ever lost them--though I never had enough to make such
a spirit as yours lament their loss." The rest of the ladies had passed
out; and, as this repartee went on. Jack led his petulant companion into
the large drawing-room, where he instantly recognized the President with
Mrs. Wendolph on his arm. He towered above the mass of the dancers,
eying the admiring groups with attentive scrutiny. He was in evening
dress, but, unlike the larger number of the eminent partisans in the
rooms, had no insignia, military or otherwise, to denote exalted rank.
As the President was to lead off, to keep up the character of a court
minuet, the middle of the large room was left uncrowded. The music began
what Jack thought at first was a funeral march, but with the first bars
the tall, slender figure of the President bent almost double, while the
lady seemed fairly seated on the floor, she bent down and back so far.
She had adjusted a prodigious silken train, which swept and swirled in
many bewildering folds as she slowly turned, courtesied, tripped forward
and retreated, with such bending and twisting as would turn a
ballet-master mad with envy. In all the movement of the overture the two
dancers merely touched the tips of each other's fingers, and when the
solemn measure came to a close the President slid across the floor in
one graceful, immense pirouette, handing the lady who confronted him,
bent nearly to the ground, into her seat. There was an outburst of
applause, and then the assembly took places, repeating, in as far as the
mass would permit, the stately evolutions of the leader.
Later, a Virginia reel followed, danced with old-time _verve_, some of
the more accomplished dancers bounding over the floor in pigeon-wings,
such as were cut by the nimble a hundred years ago, when Richmond danced
in honor of Washington and Lafayette. There was no end of drinking among
the men, and as soon as the dancing seemed at its height the matrons
began to gather into groups and send out signals to the younger ladies.
The feast ended in drinking-bouts between dispersed bodies, who seemed
to know the names of all the servants, and ordered as liberally as if in
their own houses. In the _melee_ of separation, Jack felt a hand on
his shoulder.
"Remember, every moment is precious. Many lives, perhaps a great
campaign, depend upon your discretion, promptitude, and loyalty. Be
ready when the signal reaches you, and remember you do not know me
beyond the civility of a presentation, and do not like me."
Jack had hardly turned as these words were whispered in his ear, and he
gave the kind lady's hand a warm pressure, as she moved away unremarked
in the throng.
Jack, confiding Mrs. Gannat's disclosures to Olympia, was elated by his
sister's enthusiasm, and was strengthened in his conviction that he was
doing right by her approval.
"But you know, Polly, that--I--I, too, must be of the party? I must fly
to the Union lines."
"Of course you will! I should be ashamed of you were you to let such a
chance pass. It is the only thing to do; it is your duty as a soldier to
be with your flag; any means to get to it is justified. The Atterburys
will feel hurt, perhaps outraged, but I can soon convince them that you
have only done what Vincent would do, and whatever he would do they will
soon see is right for you to do, even though it may bring them into
temporary disgrace with the authorities. Of late I have begun to suspect
that the Atterburys are to blame for your detention."
"What do you mean to blame? Surely they can not hasten the slow business
of negotiation?"
"No; but I'm convinced that they have given out hopes that you can be
seduced into a soldier of secession. It is common talk in the
drawing-rooms I have visited, where I was not always recognized as your
sister. The silly tale has angered me, but for prudence sake I kept
silent. I have heard in a score of places that the Atterburys were
detaining you until another reverse to the Union arms should convince
you of the uselessness of remaining in the service of the
abolitionists."
"O Polly, it must be a joke! They little know me, who could suspect me
of such dishonor! Surely the Atterburys can't think me so base as that.
What have I ever done to justify such a stigma?"
"You wrong them there. They hold that you are wanting in loyalty to our
father's memory in espousing the cause of men who were his enemies--men
who strove to ruin his political life. It is in being a soldier of the
Union that they look upon you as recreant to the traditions of your
family and your party."
"Well, I shall make a hard struggle for escape. If I fail, they will at
least see that I am in earnest--that I put country before family or
party, or anything else that men hold dear. Heavens! to think of being
held in such bondage! I could stand it with more patience if I were in
prison sharing the hard lines of the fellows. But to be here; to be hand
in glove with these boasting, audacious coxcombs, and forced to listen
to their callow banter of us and our army, it makes me feel like a sneak
and a traitor, and I'm glad that I see the end."
"But do you see the end? Prudence is one of the wisest counselors in
war. You are very rash, and you must take all your measures carefully.
It won't do to rush into a trap, as you did at Manassas; and, O Jack,
what is to become of Dick? He is not in the lists. He has no standing
here, and is at the mercy of any one who chooses to accuse him of
being a spy."
"By George, you're right! I hadn't thought of that. He must go with me.
I had thought it better to leave him. He is so happy with Rosa that I
fancied he would remain contentedly until the war ends. But he is in
constant danger. He is forever tantalizing the people that visit the
house, who make slighting allusions to the Northern armies, and very
likely some rebel patriot will take the trouble to inquire about him."
"But even if this were not a peril, he would never consent to remain
here if you were gone. I think he would give up Rosa rather than be
separated from you."
"Yes, the impulsive little beggar, I believe he would," Jack said, his
eyes glistening. "That will compel us to take him into the secret. In
fact, I don't see how it can be managed without him; and then his
testimony would convict the prisoners. I hadn't thought of that. But
now, Polly, about yourself. What's to become of you?"
"I have my plans laid. Mrs. Myrason, the wife of one of Johnston's
generals, is going to the front next week. I shall insist to-night on
accompanying her, as some of our physicians are going to be sent through
the lines at the same time. There is really no reason for my remaining
here, now that you are well. I have already broached the subject to Mrs.
Atterbury, and I shall inform her at once that I am decided. She will
not suspect anything, as she knew I was half-tempted to go North when
mamma went. The important thing for you, now, is to give your whole mind
to the rescue, and have no fears for me. If you can convince Dick to go
with you, all will be well. If he proves obstinate, hand him over to
me." Jack laughed.
"Polly, you should have been the first-born of the house of Sprague; you
have twice the sense that I have."
"It isn't sense that wins in war; it is daring and resolution, and you
have all that."
When Jack had cautiously laid the situation before his young Patroclus,
that precocious warrior at once justified the confidence reposed in him.
"Rosa has promised to marry me as soon as the war is over. She can't
expect me to hang around here like a peg-top on a string. Besides, I
wouldn't stay where you are not, Jacko, even if I lost my sweetheart for
good and all."
There was a piteous quaver in the treble voice, and, forgetting that he
was no longer a school-boy, he brushed his eyes furtively with his
coat-sleeve, as Jack pretended preoccupation with his shoe-string.
"You're a brick, Dick. I think I have confided that to you before--but
you are a brick, made of the best straw in the field of life, and you
shall be a general one of these days--your shrill voice shall let slip
the dogs of war and cry havoc to the enemy. You shall return to
Acredale--proud Acredale--your brows bound with victorious wreaths, and
all the small boys perched on the spreading oaks to salute you."
"I think I have heard something like that before, my blarneying
Plantagenet. You shall be the Percy of the North, and command the great
battle. You shall meet and vanquish fifty Harrys, and cry, 'God for
Union, liberty, and the laws.'"
"Bravo! You know your Shakespeare if you don't know prudence. However,
we're plotters now, and you must take on your wisest humor. You must not
breathe a word to Rosa. Love is a freebooter in confidences. It has no
conscience, as it has no law. It is an immense friction on the sober
relations of life. It is cousin to the god of lies--Mercury. So be
warned that while your heart is Rosa's your reason's your country's,
your friends', and you have a chance now to employ it to the profit of
both! You must be ready to evade Rosa's infinite questioning with
innocent plausibilities, for you must bear in mind that, however much
she may love you, she, like you, loves her cause, her people--more, in
fact, for you have seen that these passionate Southerners have made a
religion of the war, and, like all enthusiasts, they will go any
lengths, deny all ties; glory, faith, in personal sacrifices and
heart-wrenchings, to make the South triumph. So, without being false to
your love, you must deceive, to be true to your country; for to lull
love's suspicions a man must regulate the two currents of his life, the
heart and brain. Keep the heart in check and let the brain rule in such
affairs as we have on hand."
"Phew Jack! you talk like a college professor. You're deeper than a
well; and what was the other thing Mercutio said?"
"Ah! Mercutio said so much that Shakespeare got frightened and let
Tybalt kill him. So beware of saying too much. That's your great danger,
Dick; your tongue is terrible--mostly to your friends."
"Is it, indeed? I have a friend who doesn't think so."
"No, because she considers your tongue part of herself now."
"I don't see why she should; she has enough of her own."
"In wooing-time no woman ever had enough tongue."
"How changed you are from what you were at Acredale, Jack! I never heard
you talk so deep and bookish."
"I had no need at Acredale, Dick. There I was a boy--lived as a boy,
romped as a boy, and loved boyish things. But a man ripens swiftly in
war--you yourself have. You are no longer the mischief-maker and tom-boy
that terrified your family and set the gossips agog in the dear old
village. Mind broadens swiftly in war. That one dreadful day at Bull Run
enlarged my faculties, or trained them rather, as much as a course in
college. Something very serious came into my life that day. It had its
effect on you too. It fairly revolutionized Vint; we may not have
exactly put away boyishness and boyish things--please God, I hope to be
a boy many a year yet--but we have been made to think as men, act as
men, and realize that there are consequences and responsibilities in
life such as we could not have realized in ten years in time of peace."
Dick listened during this solemn comedy of immature doctrinal induction,
his eyes dilating with wonder and admiration. Jack, in the _role_ of
sage, delighted him, and he straightway confided to Rosa that he
couldn't understand how any girl could love another man while Jack was
to be had.
"He's so clever, so brave, so manly. He knows so much, and yet never
takes the trouble to let any one see it. Ah, Rosa, I wish I were
like Jack!"
"I think Jack's very nice, but I know somebody that's much nicer," Rosa
replied, busy with a rough material that was plainly intended for the
Southern warriors.
"Ah! but if you really knew all about Jack, you wouldn't look at anybody
else," Dick cried, pensively, tangling his long legs in the young
girl's work.
"There, you clumsy fellow; you've ruined this seam, and I must get this
work done before noon. We're all going to the provost prison to take
garments to the recruits. You may come if you'll be very good and help
me with these supplies."
"May I? I will sew on the buttons. Oh, you think I can't? Just give me a
needle." And sure enough Dick, gravely arming himself from the store in
Rosa's "catch-all," set to fastening the big buttons as composedly as if
he had been brought up in a tailor's shop. It was in this sartorial
industry that Jack, coming in, presently discovered the pair.
"You've turned Dick into a seamstress, have you, Rosalind? You're an
amazing little magician. Dick's sewing heretofore has been of the common
boy-sort--wild oats."
"No, Mr. Jack, I'm no magician. Dick is a very sensible fellow, and,
like Richelieu in the play, he ekes out the lion's skin with the fox's."
"I didn't come to add to the stores of your wisdom. This is the day set,
as I understand it, for us to go to the prison and relieve the distress
of the victims of war. Do I understand that we, Dick and I, are to go
and have our patriotic hearts torn by the sight of woes that fortune, in
the shape of the Atterburys, keeps us from?"
"Of course you are. We couldn't think of going without you. There, my
work is done. We'll have lunch and then start," Rosa said, rising and
directing Dick to fill the large wicker basket with the garments.
Fashion and idleness make strange pastimes. The recreation to which Jack
and Dick were bidden was a visit to the melancholy shambles where the
heterogeneous mass of unclassified prisoners were detained. It was a
long, gabled building on the brink of the river, from whose low, grated
windows the culprits could catch glimpses of the James, tumbling over
its sedgy, sometimes rocky bed. A few yards from it arose the grim walls
of what had been a tobacco-factory, now the never-to-be forgotten
Libby Prison.
It was an animated and curious group that made up Jack's party. They
were piloted by a young aide on the staff of General Lee, and, as his
entire mind was engrossed in making his court to Rosa, the pilgrims were
given the widest latitude for investigation. On the lower tier he
pointed out the cells of the Rosedale prisoners, where, as you may
imagine, Jack and Dick, without giving a sign, kept their wits alert.
Jones--the "most desperate of the conspirators against the President,
the special agent of Butler"--was in a cell by himself, constantly
guarded by a sentinel.
"This, Sprague," said the young aide, lowering his voice as he came
abreast of Jones's cell, "is the man the Government has the strongest
proof against. He is proved to have come into our lines from the Warwick
River, to have managed to escape from Castle Thunder, and to have led
the miscreants to Rosedale. Your own and young Perley's testimony after
that will swing him higher than a spy was ever swung before."
These words, begun in a low tone, were made clearer and louder by the
sudden cessation of chatter among the visiting group. Jones, who seemed
to have come to his grating when the suppressed laughter sounded in the
dark corridor, heard every word of the official's speech. He was no
longer the bearded desperado Jack had seen in the _melee_ at
Rosedale--there was a certain distinction in the poise of the head, an
inborn gentility in the impassive contemplation with which he met the
furtive scrutiny of the curious visitors. Jack he eyed with something of
surprise, but when Dick pushed suddenly in front of the timorous group
of young women, he started, changed color, and averted his face; then,
as if suddenly recalling himself, turned and devoured the lad with a
strange, yearning tenderness. Dick met the gaze with his habitual easy
gayety, and, turning to Jack, said, impulsively:
"I should never recognize this man as the bandit who fired the shot that
night--are you really the Jones that choked and wounded me at Rosedale?"
Dick advanced quite close to the wicked as he asked this.
"And who may you be, if I am permitted to ask a question?" the prisoner
replied vaguely, all the time devouring the boy with his dilating eyes.
"I am Richard Perley, of Acredale, a soldier of the Union and a friend
of all who suffer in its cause." Dick murmured the last words so low
that the group of visitors did not catch them, and, adding to them an
emphasis of the eye that the prisoner seemed too agitated to notice, he
continued, as Jack pushed nearer; "This is certainly not the man we saw
at Rosedale. But I have seen you somewhere. Tell me, have I not?"
"I can tell you nothing--I--I" As he said this Jones backed against the
wall. The guard sprang forward in alarm. The women, of course, cried out
in many keys, most of them skurrying away toward the staircase.
"Water!" Jack cried. "Guard, have you no water handy?"
"No, sir; the canteen was broken, and there is none nearer than the
guard-room."