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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #65588 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65588)
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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Evacuation of England, by L. P. (Louis
-Pope) Gratacap
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-
-Title: The Evacuation of England
-       The Twist in the Gulf Stream
-
-
-Author: L. P. (Louis Pope) Gratacap
-
-
-
-Release Date: June 10, 2021  [eBook #65588]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images digitized by the
-Google Books Library Project (http://books.google.com) and generously made
-available by HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/)
-
-
-
-Note: Images of the original pages are available through
-      HathiTrust Digital Library. See
-      https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433074864483
-
-
-
-
-
-THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND
-
-The Twist in the Gulf Stream
-
-by
-
-L. P. GRATACAP
-
-Author of
-“The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars,”
-“A Woman of the Ice Age”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-New York
-Brentano’S
-1908
-
-Copyright, 1908, by Brentano’s
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-
-  CHAPTER                                     PAGE
-     I. IN WASHINGTON, APRIL, 1909               5
-
-    II. THE LECTURE                             38
-
-   III. BALTIMORE, MAY 29, 1909                 66
-
-    IV. GETTYSBURG, MAY 30, 1909               102
-
-     V. THE EVICTION OF SCOTLAND               131
-
-    VI. THE TERROR OF IT                       170
-
-   VII. IN LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1910              195
-
-  VIII. THE EVACUATION                         231
-
-    IX. THE SPECTACLE                          274
-
-     X. ADDENDUM                               298
-
-
-
-
-THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-IN WASHINGTON, APRIL, 1909.
-
-
-Alexander Leacraft was regarding with as much interest as his
-constitutional lassitude permitted, the progress of a distinctly
-audible altercation on Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, D. C. The
-disputants had not felt it necessary, under the relaxing influences
-of a premature spring, to interpose any screen of secrecy, such as a
-less exposed position, or subdued voices, between themselves and the
-news-mongering (and hungering, let it be added) proletariat of our
-nation’s capital.
-
-A small crowd, composed of the singular human compound always
-pervasive and never to be avoided in Washington, which, in that centre
-of political sensations, is made up of street loafers, accidental
-tourists, perambulating babies, “niggers,” and presumptive statesmen,
-enclosed this “argument”; and from his elevated station, within the
-front parlor of the McKinley, Mr. Leacraft was afforded a very
-excellent view of and an equally distinct hearing of the disagreement
-and its principals.
-
-The two disputants were themselves sufficiently contrasted in
-appearance to have allured the casual passer-by to observe their
-contrasted methods in debate. One--the taller--was a thin, angular
-man with unnaturally long arms, a peculiar swaying habit of body, an
-elongated visage, terminating in a short, stubby growth of whiskers,
-and a sharp, crackling kind of voice, with unmistakable nasal faults.
-He seemed to be a southern man modified by a few imitations of the
-northern type.
-
-He was addressing a bulky, rather disdainful man in a checquered
-suit of clothes, who had advanced the season’s fashion by assuming a
-straw hat, and whose rosy face, broad and typical features, and yet
-not plethoric expansion of body, strong and stalwart frame betokened
-much animal force, and reserved power of action. He might have been a
-northern man. As Alexander Leacraft looked at them, it was the southern
-man who was speaking, and his uplifted arm, at regular intervals, rose
-and fell, as the palms of both hands met in a cadence of corroborative
-whacks. It may interest the reader to know that the particular time of
-this particular incident was April, 1909.
-
-“Let me tell you this, Mr. Tompkins,” drawled the southerner with
-loquacious ease, the crackle and sharpness of his intonation appearing
-as his excitement increased, “the necessities of our states demand
-the Canal at whatever cost. It will be the avenue for an export trade
-to the east, which will convert our stored powers of production into
-gold, and it will react upon the whole country north and south in a way
-that will make all previous prosperity look like nothing. Our cotton
-mills have grown, our mineral resources have been developed; Georgia
-and Alabama are to-day competing with your shaft furnaces and steel
-mills for the trade of the railroads, and builders; and for that matter
-we are building ourselves. We can support a population ten times all
-we have to-day; our resources have been just broached, but exhaustion
-is a thousand years away. Our rival has been Cuba. She has robbed us
-of trade; she has put our sugar plantations out of business; even
-her iron, which I will admit is superior in quality, has scaled our
-profits on raw ingots, but she can’t hold us down on cotton. Open up
-this canal, and we will gather the riches of the Orient; our ships will
-fill it with unbroken processions, and in the train of that commerce
-in cotton, every section of the Union will furnish its contribution to
-swell the argosies of trade. I tell you sir” and the excited speaker,
-conscious of an admiring sympathy in the crowd around him, raised his
-voice into a musical shout, in which the crackle was quite lost, “the
-commerce, the mercantile integrity of these United States will be
-restored, and American bottoms for American goods will be no longer a
-vain aspiration; it will be a realized dream, an actual fact.”
-
-He paused, as if the projectile force of his words had deprived him of
-breath, and then at the momentary opportunity Mr. Tompkins, in a clear
-and metallic voice, with a punctuative force of occasional hesitation,
-undertook his friend’s refutation.
-
-“I’m not contesting the fact, Mr. Snowden,” he said, “that the opening
-of the Canal means a good deal to your portion of the country. Does it
-mean as much to the rest of the country, and does it mean so much to
-you for a long time. You mention cotton. Do you know that the cotton
-cultivation of India and Egypt has increased enormously, and that it
-is grown with cheaper labor than you can command. You have made the
-negro acquainted with his value. You have raised his expectations, you
-have thrust him into a hundred avenues of occupation and every one of
-his new avocations adds a shilling a day to the worth per man of the
-remainder, who stick to field work and cultivate your cotton fields.
-The cotton of Egypt and the cotton of India, I mean its manufactured
-forms, will go through that canal to Asia and Japan and Polynesia just
-as surely as yours will, and it’ll go cheaper. It is poorer cotton, I
-know, but that will not effect the result.
-
-“That isn’t all. Brazil and the Argentine Republic are growing cotton,
-and they are doing well at it. Europe will take the raw stuff from them
-and keep up her present predominance in that market while she turns
-their cotton bolls into satinettes and ginghams for the almond-eyes
-of Asia. The canal, breaking down a barrier of separation between the
-two oceans, turns loose into the Pacific the whole frenzied, greedy
-and capable cohorts of European manufacture. It will make a common
-highway for Europe, and our unbuilt clippers and tramp steamers will
-stay unbuilt, or unused, to rot on their ways in the shipyards. The
-west coast will be sidetracked, and our trunk railroads will cut down
-their schedules and their dividends at the same time. Roosevelt put
-this canal through, and your southern votes helped to elect him against
-his protest, but brought to it by an overwhelming public sentiment that
-applauded his power to chain or sterilize trusts; and he promised last
-March to your southern rooters, at his inauguration, to see that before
-his present new term was over, before 1913, the canal would be opened,
-and perhaps he’ll make good.
-
-“You southerners elected Roosevelt, and you have killed the Democratic
-party. The new powers of growth of that party were most likely to
-develop among you, but you shoved aside the proffered offer of
-political supremacy, because you too had surrendered to the idols
-of Mammon, and were willing to sell your birth-right for a mess of
-pottage. Well! You’ve got the canal and you’ve got Roosevelt, and
-let me tell you Mr. Snowden,” and the restrained, almost nonchalant
-demeanor of Mr. Tompkins became suddenly charged with electric
-earnestness, “you’ll get Hell, too.”
-
-This admonitory expletive, uttered with a force that seemed to impart
-to it a physical objectivity, caused the increasing circle of auditors
-to retreat sensibly, and, without more consideration, giving a glance
-of mute scorn at the flushed face of the southerner, the speaker
-pressed his way through the little crowd, which, after a moment’s
-suspension of judgment, seemed reluctant to let him escape, and
-disappeared.
-
-His opponent was distinctly chagrined. The wrinkled lines about his
-peculiarly pleasant eyes, indicated his strained attention, and were
-not altogether unrelated to a sudden muscular movement in his clenched
-hands. His hopes, however, for some sort of forensic gratification
-might have been sensibly raised as he discovered himself the sole
-occupant of the small vacant spot on the side walk, walled in by
-a human investiture, the first line of which was made up of two
-pickaninnies, three newsboys, one rueful cur and some impromptu mothers
-who had taken the family babies out for air and recreation, but,
-overcome by the indigenous love of debate, had forgotten their mission,
-and held their charges in various attitudes of somnolence or furtive
-rebellion against the hedge of men behind them.
-
-It was evidently expected that the southern gentleman would relieve his
-feelings, and it was also evident from a few ejaculations hap-hazardly
-emitted from the concourse, that the majority of those present was in
-his favor.
-
-Mr. Snowden looked around him reflectively, and a sense of personal
-dignity forced its way against the almost over-powering impulse to
-appeal to popular approval, and convinced him that the place and the
-audience were inopportune for any further discussion. He could not,
-however, escape the demonstrated force of popular expectancy, and, with
-a consenting smile, a shrug of his shoulders, and with his hat raised
-above his head, swinging gently, he called out “Three cheers for Teddy
-and the Canal.”
-
-In an instant the group seized the invitation, and under the cover,
-if it may be so violently symbolized, of the cloud of vocality, his
-enthusiasm evoked, Mr. Snowden, like the fortuitous and directive
-deities of the epics, vanished.
-
-There remained an unsatisfied group to which more accessions were
-quickly made, the whole movement evidently animated by some emotion
-then predominant in the national capital. This group broke up into
-little knots of talkers, and as the day was closing, no urgency of
-business engagements and no immediate insistency of domestic duties
-interfered with the easily elicited Washingtonian tendency to settle,
-on the public curb, the vexed questions of state, if not to enlighten
-Providence on the more abstruse functions of His authority.
-
-Alexander Leacraft willingly surrendered himself to the study of this
-representative public _Althing_, and felt his exasperating torpor so
-much overcome by a new curiosity as to make him not averse to stepping
-out into the hall of the hotel, descending the steps into the street,
-and engaging himself in the capacity of a rotational listener at the
-various groups, sometimes not exceeding two men, who had become vocally
-animated, and felt themselves called upon to supply the deficiency of
-objurgation, so disagreeably emphasized by the sudden departure of the
-northern and southern disputants.
-
-The illuminative results of his ambulatory inspection, and his own
-expostulations or inquiry, may be thus succinctly summarized.
-
-Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, elected in his own behalf in 1905, as president
-of the United States, after having served out the unexpired term of
-William McKinley, who was assassinated in November, 1901, and with
-whom he had been elected as vice president, had been again re-elected
-in the fall of 1908, against his emphatic rejection, at first, of
-a joint nomination of the Republican and Democratic parties. The
-campaign, if campaign it could be called, had been one of the most
-extraordinary ever recorded, and in its features of popular clamor,
-the grotesque conflict of the personal repugnance of an unwilling
-candidate nominated against his will, and in defiance of his own
-repeated inhibitions to nominate him at all, because of his solemn
-promise that he would defer to the unwritten law of the country, and
-not serve a third term, was altogether unprecedented, and to some
-observers ominous. He was reminded that his first term, although
-practically four years, was still only an accident, that there was no
-subversion of the unwritten law, in his serving again, as his actual
-election as president had occurred but once, that his popularity among
-the people was of such an intense, almost self-devouring ardor, that it
-was an act of suicidal negation, of unpatriotic desertion to shun or
-reject the people’s obvious need, that a war, yet unfinished, had been
-begun by him against corporate interests, that its logical continuance
-devolved upon him, that the unique occasion of a unanimous nomination
-to the presidency carried with it a sublime primacy of interest, that
-cancelled all previous conditions, promises or wishes on his part,
-and laid an imperious command upon its subject that deprived him of
-volition, and absolutely dissolved into nothingness any apparent
-contradiction of his words and acts. Finally, it was insisted that the
-Panama Canal was nearing completion, that its remarkable advance was
-due to Mr. Roosevelt that this fact had been prepotent in shaping the
-councils of southern Democrats in proposing the, otherwise unwarranted,
-endorsement of a Republican nomination, that a strong minority
-sentiment had crystallized around an angry group of capitalists who
-were only too anxious to get rid of Roosevelt altogether, and that in
-the case of his refusal, these men would so manipulate the newspapers,
-and inflame public apprehension, against some possible outbreak of
-social radicalism, financial heresy, and anarchistic violence, that
-a reaction begun would become unmanageable, and some tool of the
-reactionaries, and the railroads, would be swept into office, and with
-him a servile Congress, and Roosevelt’s work, so aggressively and
-successfully prosecuted, would be all sacrificed. Nor was this all. The
-return to a divided nomination, with an unmistakable intention on the
-part of the conservatists to repeal all disadvantageous legislation to
-the monopolies, corporations and trusts, would at once precipitate a
-conflict of classes.
-
-A radical man, possibly a demagogue, would be placed in opposition to
-the choice of the plutocracy. His election was also not improbable.
-The powers of socialism, enormously strengthened by the adhesion of an
-educated class, might be triumphant, and the succeeding steps in social
-revolution would bring chaos.
-
-This dilemma was so pertinaciously displayed, so forcibly accentuated,
-that Roosevelt had yielded at the last moment, not insensibly affected
-(as what spirited man would not be) by the magnificent assemblies (mass
-meetings) throughout the country, tumultuously vociferating the call of
-the people.
-
-The southern people, with characteristic warmth, and through the
-suddenly consummated attachment of Senator Tillman to Roosevelt, and
-under the coercion of Senator Bailey’s logic and power of argumentative
-persuasion, had swelled the tide of popular approval. Roosevelt
-became an idol--his election was almost unanimous, a handful only of
-contestants having gathered in a kind of moral protest around Governor
-Hughes as a rival candidate. Governor Hughes’ nomination was achieved
-through a combination of opposite political interests, as anomalous as
-that which chose Roosevelt, and having precisely the same quality of
-coherence.
-
-It represented dissatisfied Republicans, an alienable remnant of
-Democrats, and had drawn into it a few sporadic political elements that
-barely sufficed to give it numerical significance. W. J. Bryan, who
-would have been otherwise a candidate himself, had endorsed Roosevelt,
-furnishing thereby an example of political abnegation which had
-enormously increased his popularity, and assured him the nomination
-of Nationalists, as the new fusionists were called, in 1913. This was
-also deemed a wise forethought, as a provision against the possible
-success of the rampant Hearstites. Hearst would have been the socialist
-candidate in the last campaign, had not the principal himself, on
-hearing of Roosevelt’s nomination, sapiently withdrawn, fearing defeat,
-which would have too seriously discredited him in the next national
-struggle.
-
-The Prohibitionists had, by an act of virtual self-repudiation, thrown
-their not inconsiderable vote to Roosevelt. The Socialists were the
-only important opponents of his election, and their surprising record
-made the prophetic warnings, which had convinced Roosevelt of the
-necessity of his candidacy, appear like a veritable intervention of
-Providence, at least this was the language commonly used with reference
-to it.
-
-Roosevelt had displayed remarkable self-control and consistent gravity,
-and had even, in a very extraordinary address at his inauguration,
-deprecated the unanimity of his election. He deplored the precarious
-dilemma of a country which found itself forced to do violence to its
-traditions in order to escape an imagined danger.
-
-Almost synchronous with his re-election, the announcement had been made
-that the Panama Canal, upon which the President in his former term, had
-exerted the utmost pressure of his inexhaustible enthusiasm, energy
-and exhortation, was advancing very rapidly, engineering difficulties
-unexpectedly had vanished, a system of extreme precision in the
-control of the work, itself largely the device of the President, had
-facilitated the entire operation, and a promise of still more rapid
-progress was made.
-
-This promise had produced a storm of southern enthusiasm. The south,
-completely restored in its financial autonomy, had been growing richer
-and richer, and their public men had not hesitated to paint, in the
-brightest colors, the further expansion of their prosperity with the
-opening of this avenue of commerce between the oceans, assuring its
-people the markets of Asia, and their rapid promotion to the political,
-social and financial primacy in the United States.
-
-Northern capitalists had not been incredulous to these predictions, and
-in a group of railroad magnates, whose interests seemed now seriously
-threatened, a sullen resentment was maintained against Roosevelt,
-in which the unmistakable notes of designs almost criminal had been
-detected. Mr. Tompkins, whose altercation with the southerner had led
-Leacraft into this voyage of interpellation and discovery, was a paid
-agent, in the employ of this cabal.
-
-Alexander Leacraft was an Englishman, inheriting an English temperament
-without English prejudices; he was fortunately free from the worst
-faults of that insular hesitancy which imparts the curious impression
-of timidity, and had advanced far enough in cosmopolitan observation to
-get rid of the queerness of provincial ignorance. He was indeed a sane
-and attractive man, and provided by nature with a forcible physique,
-a good face, and a really fascinating proclivity to make the best of
-things, admire his companions, and bend unremittingly to the pressure
-of his environment.
-
-He had not escaped the dangers incident to youth, and his heart had
-become attached to a lady of Baltimore--one of the undeviatingly arch
-and winning American girls--to whom he had been introduced by her
-brother, a commercial correspondent.
-
-The nature of his affairs--he was the secretary of an English company
-which operated some copper mines in Arizona and Canada--had made him a
-frequent visitor to the shores of the New World, and he had not been
-unwilling to express his hope that the United States would become his
-final home. These sentiments were quite honest, though it might have
-elicited the cynical observation that the capture of his affections by
-Miss Garrett had done more to weaken his loyalty to the crown than
-any dispassionate admiration of a Republican form of government. But
-the imputation would have been malicious. Leacraft did feel an earnest
-admiration for the American people, and yielded a genial acquiescence
-to the claims of popular suffrage. His connexion with America had been
-fortunate, and he had come in contact with men and women whose natures
-by endowment, and whose manners and habits, conversation and tastes, by
-inheritance and cultivation, were elevating and engaging--men and women
-whose nobility of sympathy with all things human was reflected in an
-art of living not only always decorous and refined, but guided, too, by
-the principles of urbanity and justice.
-
-The Garretts of Baltimore were a widely connected, and in numbers an
-imposing social element, and none of the various daughters of light
-and loveliness who bore that name more merited consideration in the
-eyes of manly youth than the capricious, captivating and elusive Sally.
-Her graces of manner were not less delightful than her conversation
-was spirited and roguish, and her assumption of a demure simplicity
-had often driven Alexander Leacraft to the limits of his English
-matter-of-fact credulity in explaining to her the relations of the King
-to Parliament, or the municipal acreage of the old City of London.
-All of which information this very well read and much travelled
-young woman, as might be expected, was possessed of, but just for the
-purposes of her feminine and cruel fancy, not too well disposed towards
-her patient suitor, disingenuously concealed. Sally really enjoyed
-the painstaking gravity with which the young Englishman explained the
-eternal principles of English rule, and the never-to-be-forgotten
-superiorities of London.
-
-Mr. Leacraft had met Sally under circumstances the most provocative of
-admiration. In her own home; where the sincerity of hospitality and the
-urgency of an American’s deference to the best instincts of courtesy,
-did not altogether mitigate her coquetry and mirthful affectations,
-and even, by the faintest gloss of repression, made them the more
-delicious. The Englishman was bewitched, and his infatuation declared
-itself so plainly that Sally--whose heart was quite untouched by his
-distress--tried the resources of her ingenuity to avoid meeting him
-alone.
-
-Leacraft, on the morrow of the day, whose close had so deeply inducted
-him into a study of American politics, expected to make a deferred
-visit to the Garretts at Baltimore, and he had quite firmly resolved
-that he would reveal his desperate extremity to Sally, and plead his
-best to show her how empty life would be to him without her, and that
-it would be shockingly obdurate in her to decline to regard him as the
-goal of her marital ambitions.
-
-He felt some fear of her revolting gayety, and his fears were not
-assuaged by the remembrance of any particular occasion when her conduct
-towards him permitted him to indulge in hopes. Still the thing must
-be done. His unrest must be quieted. To know the worst was better
-than this feverish anxiety of doubt. And besides, with a prudence not
-altogether British, he thought he could endure repulse better now than
-later, and in the event of that evil alternative, he could cast about
-him for alleviating resources which might be more easily found now,
-than if he waited longer, and if he continued to expose himself to the
-perilous encounter of her eyes, and the tantalizing caresses of her wit.
-
-When Leacraft returned to the hotel, he found a letter waiting for him,
-which he saw at once was from his friend, Ned Garrett. He tore it open
-and discovered, to his considerable discomfiture, that it postponed the
-event of his momentous proposal.
-
-It read:
-
-Dear Leacraft:
-
-Aunt Sophia is very sick at Litchfield, Conn. Mother and Sally have
-gone on. Can you put off your visit until May, say the 28th? You will
-find it dull here without Sally and Mother. I shall go with them as
-far as New York. We all intend, if Aunt Sophy concludes to remain in
-this bright world a little longer, and the Dr. endorses her good
-intentions, to visit Gettysburg on Memorial Day (Decoration old style).
-The President will deliver a memorial oration. Come with us and see the
-great battlefield, which is a wonderful monument to the nation’s dead,
-a beautiful picture itself, and probably you will see and hear things
-worth remembering besides. Write to the house, and I will get your
-letter when I return in two weeks. But do come.
-
-                              Yours sincerely,
-                                        Edward T. Garrett.
-
-Leacraft put down the letter slowly. He was disappointed. A summons to
-the west, to the mines in Arizona, had reached him just the day before,
-and he must get out there before a week was over. He had thought to
-have finished this affair first, and to find in the tiresome trip
-distraction, if Sally was unfavorable to his appeal, or unexpected
-interest if he succeeded in winning her assent. Still he could readily
-accept the invitation. He would be back in May, and, perhaps after all
-the occasion might be more favorable. Sally softened into a little
-sympathetic humor by her visit to her sick aunt, and he strengthened
-by the encouraging reflexion of having successfully dissipated the
-little cloud of misunderstanding, or worse, at the mines, might produce
-conditions psychologically adequate to bring about his victory.
-
-He stepped to the window. The view from it was always pleasing, at
-this moment in the descending shades of the closing day and with the
-vanishing lights hurrying westward beyond the Potomac, it possessed
-an ineffable loveliness. The great white spectre of the Washington
-monument, immaterialized and faintly roseate against the softly flaming
-skies, and brooding genius-like above the trees of the Reservation was
-always there, and that night it assumed the strangely deceptive but
-fascinating vagary of an exhalation, as if built up from the emanations
-of the earth, and the vapors of the air, remaining immobile in the
-still ether as a portent or a promise. The man’s face grew clouded as
-the fairy obelisk faded, and with the enveloping darkness became again
-discernible as a dull and stony pile.
-
-That evening Leacraft felt particularly restless and detached. He
-felt the need of entertainment, and of entertainment of a sort that
-would fix his faculty of thought, awaken speculation, and immerse him
-in reasonings and the intricacies of argument. The few theatrical
-bills presented no attractions more weighty than a clever comedian
-in a musical farce, a sensational melodrama (“much better,” said
-Leacraft), and vaudeville. Music was shunned; there was nothing quite
-serious offered, and then music has so many painful influences on the
-apprehensive mind, and is turned to such cruel uses in the economy of
-nature, for making uneasy lovers more agitated. No! he didn’t wish
-music. Baffled for an instant, he concluded to walk. Muscular exercise,
-mere translation on one’s legs, is a marvellous remedy for the
-diabolical blues, and then it can never be told what the Unseen holds
-for you, if you only go out to meet It in the streets, and amongst
-other people, hunting, perhaps, like yourself, diversion from their own
-inscrutable megrims. It--the Unseen--may quite divertingly mix you up
-in a comedy or a tragedy, or consolingly give you a glimpse of other
-human miseries immeasurably greater than your own.
-
-So walk it was. He had hardly covered two blocks towards the White
-House, when he met Dr. M--, the most amiable and accomplished editor
-of the National Museum, and one of those multi-facetted gentlemen
-who respond to every scientific thrill around them, and hold in the
-myriad piled up cells of their cerebral cortex the knowledge, selected,
-labelled and accessible, of the world. Leacraft knew the Doctor; had
-indeed consulted him upon a chemical reaction, in the elimination of
-cadmium from zinc. The Doctor, with genial fervor, grasped his hand,
-persuasively put his own disengaged hand on Leacraft’s back, and
-dexterously turned him around with the observation: “You are going the
-wrong way. Binn reads a paper to-night before the Geographical Society,
-over at the Museum, on a live subject. It’s about earthquakes and
-the Panama Canal. The matter has a good deal of present interest. The
-President may be there. It’s worth your while. Come along.”
-
-Leacraft jumped with pleasure, if an Englishman may be said ever
-to respond so animatedly to a welcome alternative. This met his
-requirements exactly. He would, in these surroundings and under the
-stimulation of an intellectual effort, in listening to a lecture
-which he hoped might possess literary merit as well, quite forget his
-immediate solicitudes.
-
-“It is curious,” resumed Dr. M--, as they directed their steps
-towards the umbrageous solitudes of the Reservation, “how inevitably
-many practical questions demand an answer at the hand of geology or
-physiography, which are however never consulted, and disaster follows.
-In the spring of 1906 a destructive outbreak of Vesuvius occurred,
-and much of the ensuing loss of life might have been prevented by
-reliance upon scientific warnings. Indeed, the loss of life on this
-last occasion of the volcano’s activity was greatly reduced through
-the premonitions of its approach by delicate instruments. For that
-matter, from the beginning, the vulcanologist, at least as soon as
-such a being was a more or less completed phenomenon in our scientific
-life, would have pointed out the considerable risk of living on the
-flanks of that querulous protuberance. But it can hardly be expected,
-I suppose, that large populations can effect a change in habitation as
-long as the dangers that threaten them occur at long intervals, and the
-human fatality of unreasoning trust in luck remains unchanged. Take
-for instance the case of the village of Torre del Greco, four and a
-half miles from the foot of Vesuvius. It has been overwhelmed seventeen
-times, but the inhabitants, the survivors, return after each extinction
-to renew their futile invocations for another chance.”
-
-“I suppose,” queried Leacraft, “that we are to be informed to-night
-whether the Canal from the scientific point of view is a safe
-investment?”
-
-“Perhaps,” doubtfully returned the doctor. “You see, it’s this way. In
-the spring of the year that saw the outpouring of lava that invaded
-the villages of southern Italy, San Francisco suffered from a serious
-earthquake that ruptured the public structures of the city, dislocated
-miles of railroad tracks, ruined the beautiful Stanford University,
-shook out the fronts of buildings, and precipitated a fire that all
-but wiped out the Queen City of the Pacific coast. It has been feared
-that some such seismic terror might demolish the superb structures of
-the canal, and we are to learn to-night whether these earth movements
-threaten the new waterway at the isthmus.”
-
-“I have reason to believe,” rejoined Leacraft, “that this canal has
-been itself a source of political disturbance, and that it is likely
-to effect convulsions in your body politic as dangerous in a social way
-as those which brought about the financial and physical upset at San
-Francisco.”
-
-“Don’t worry on that score,” replied his companion. “I can tell you
-that the political texture of this country is not to be worn to a
-frazzle by any collision of interests. Such things adjust themselves,
-and the way out only means a new entrance to brighter prospects and
-bigger undertakings. Yes, I guess someone will be hurt, but individuals
-don’t count if the whole people are benefited.”
-
-“Still,” remonstrated Leacraft, “the people is made up of individuals,
-and it’s simply a fact that you can’t disturb the equilibrium of one
-part of society without jostling the rest.”
-
-“In a way, yes,” slowly answered the doctor. “But it is quite clear to
-my mind that the enormous advantages of the canal will hide from sight
-the losses that may be inflicted on the railroads, in the dislocation
-of rates, and even that will be temporary, as the new business raises
-our population, and their passenger traffic touches higher and higher
-averages.”
-
-“The canal has been an expensive enterprise,” suggested Leacraft.
-“It would be a great misfortune if it brought any kind of material
-reverses.”
-
-“Rubbish,” retorted the doctor; “this prating is the madness or the
-envy of croakers and cranks. Do you think that a connexion between the
-oceans that will shorten the route from one to the other by nearly
-6,000 miles, and bring our eastern seaboard, with all its tremendous
-agencies of production within reach of a continent that is slowly
-becoming itself occidentalized, and demanding every day the equipment
-of the west, is a mercantile delusion? We are all gainers. It is a
-scheme of mutualization on a world-wide scale, but America distributes
-the profits and holds the surplus.”
-
-The two friends by this time had reached the entrance of the Museum,
-and passing through its symbolic portals, turned to the left, and found
-themselves in a dull room, portentously charged with an exhaustive
-exhibit of the commerce of all nations. Here, on tables and shelves,
-was displayed a wonderful assortment of primitive and modern ships,
-primeval dugouts, Philippine catamarans, Mediterranean pirogues,
-sloops, schooners, brigs, brigantines, barques, barkentines, luggers,
-lighters, caravals, Dutch monstrosities, models of those extraordinary
-ships which Motley has described as “built up like a tower, both
-at stem and stern, and presenting in their broad, bulbous prows
-their width of beam in proportion to their length, their depression
-amidships, and in other sins against symmetry, as much opposition to
-progress over the waves as could well be imagined,” the Latin trireme
-and the Greek trireme, the ironclads of France used in 1855, the
-monitors of the Civil War, the recent wonders in battleships, torpedo
-boats, and destroyers, with naphtha launches, submarine wonders, the
-old time American cutters, and models of the stately packets that
-once made the trip from New York to Portsmouth in fourteen days,
-with a various and diversified exhibit of yachts and pleasure boats,
-all burnished, japanned and varnished, and now dimly lustrous in the
-futile illumination of the room. Above them on the walls was a prolix
-illustration of the hydrography of the world; charts of currents,
-pelagic streams, areas of calms, submarine basins, maps of rainfalls,
-prevalent winds, storm regions, precipitation, barometric maxima and
-minima, and then still higher up on the walls, that dispensed knowledge
-over each square inch of their dusty and dusky surfaces, Leacraft
-descried the tabulations of tonnage of the merchant marine of the
-nations of the earth, with fabulous figures of imports and exports, and
-the staple products of this prolific and motherly old earth, caressed
-into fructification by the tireless arms of her scrambling broods of
-children.
-
-Leacraft was soon deserted by the doctor, who found occasion to wander
-among the slowly arriving scientific gentry and politely inquire after
-the health of the particular scientific offspring, whose tottering
-footsteps each one was engaged in nurturing into a more reliant
-attitude before the world. Leacraft found the dim room, with its
-preoccupied occupants vacantly settling into the seats around him, and
-its motley array of picturesque models strangely congenial. It soothed,
-by the abrupt strangeness of its contents, the subdued intellectual
-placidity of the audience, and by its mere physical retirement from
-the outer bustle of the streets, and the iterative commonplaces of
-the hotel corridor. The exact process of subduction would have been
-hard keenly to analyze, but Leacraft seemed to forget his personal
-disquietude, and develop into a congenital oneness with these earnest
-men and women around him, eager to know, and not too patient towards
-sophistry or pretension. He hardly cared to know who was who. It made
-no matter. They all seemed freed from the petty vanities of living, and
-now engrossed in the triumphant tasks of thought; and he felt himself
-elevated into a kind of mental abstraction which eagerly carried on its
-functions in an atmosphere of ideas.
-
-And yet how was it, that just above the little desk which was to
-receive the honorable burden of the lecturer’s manuscript, he suddenly
-distinctly saw the fair face, with its light blue eyes, its delicate
-blush of color, and the slightly mocking pout of the lips of Sally,
-the beloved. Leacraft almost rose upright in his astonishment at the
-impossible hallucination. He was leaning forward, half incredulous
-of the report of his own senses, and half subjected by a delicious
-whim that the apparition was an augury of success, when a commotion
-spreading on all sides of him roused his attention, and the vision
-fled. He would have willingly had it stay. People were rising in his
-vicinity, and soon the assembly was on its feet. Some one had entered
-who was the cause of this unusual excitement. “The President” came
-to his ears, murmured by a dozen persons near him, and he had hardly
-sprung to his own feet when, with many salutations, a strongly formed,
-rather bulky man, with a manner of almost nervous scrutiny passed
-by him moving down the aisle to the front. It was indeed President
-Roosevelt, and Leacraft, now startled into the most active interest,
-slipped forward a seat or two, to gain a position which might afford
-him a better view of this remarkable person. The audience remained
-standing until the President, escorted by a tall red-whiskered
-gentleman, whom Doctor M--, who had just turned up in search of his
-friend, whispered was Dr. George O. Smith, the distinguished Director
-of the Survey, had reached a seat reserved for him at the front of the
-hall.
-
-Leacraft now observed more closely the character of the convocation,
-and realized its composite and representative elements. Dr. M--,
-always himself immersed in the study of the lives, achievements and
-distinctions of the prominent men of the country, was an enthusiastic
-verbal _cicerone_ through the maze of faces which seemed suddenly to
-have condensed into a really crowded audience. Here was Dr. D--, the
-Alaskan explorer in the early days of the nineteenth century, the
-world recognized authority on the tertiary fossils of the east and
-west coasts, and a man of erudition and delightful literary skill.
-Beyond him sat Dr. M--, a quiet-faced man, curator of the National
-Museum, author of text books, and gifted with a singularly shrewd
-thoughtfulness. At his side sat the sphinx-featured F--, of Chicago,
-a gentle-minded scholar, to whom the Heavens had entrusted the
-secrets of their meteoritic denizens, and who, by a more fortunate
-circumstance, held a pen of consummate grace. Again at his side was the
-Jupiter-browed Ward, an erratic over the face of the globe, possessed
-with a transcendant enthusiasm for the same celestial visitors that
-F-- described, and chasing them with the zeal of a lynx in their most
-inaccessible quarries; a man of immense conviviality, and controlling
-the smouldering fires of a temper that defied reason or resistance.
-At the front of the rows of chairs, and not far from the cynosure
-of all eyes--the President--were two notable students of the past
-life of the globe, Professors O-- and S--, men whose studies in that
-amazing storehouse of extinct life which the West held sealed in its
-clays and marls, limestones and sandstones, had continued on higher
-and more certain levels the work of Marsh and Leidy and Cope, and who
-had transcribed before the whole world, in monuments of scientific
-precision, the most startling confessions of the fossil dead. To one
-side, on the same row, sat Prof. B--, known in two continents, for
-chemical learning, especially on that side of chemistry which mingles
-insensibly with the laws of matter. And whispering in his ear, with
-sundry emphatic nods, sat, next to him, Dr. R--, of Washington, learned
-in the ways of men’s digestion, and the enigmas of food and the arts of
-food-makers. In the row behind, the expressive head of Young, aureoled
-with years and honors, was seen, and at his side the face of Newcomb,
-who had set the seal of his genius and industry across the patterned
-stars. Here was A-- H--, the geologist, reticent and receptive, there
-C--, weighted with new responsibilities in furnishing time to the
-rapacious biologist, and in discovering new ways of making this old
-world. Behind them sat M--, wise beyond belief in bric-a-brac and
-brachiopods, vindictively assertive, and self-sacrificingly tender and
-kind. There was McG-- and I--, W--, A--, V--, and B-- W--, bringing
-to the speaker the homage of archæology, of petrology, of zoology,
-and morphology. In a group of motionless and eager attention were
-A--, the sage metereologist, beloved in two continents; B--, abstruse
-and difficult, meditative, as a man might be who kept his hand on
-the pulses of matter, and B--, skillful in weighing the atoms of the
-air, or probing the volcanoes of the moon. In one line, mingling in
-conversation that reached Leacraft’s ears as a strange jargon of
-conflicting sciences, were G--, H-- and H--k. And beyond them, mute,
-as if by mutual repulsion, sat F--, the agile scrutinizer of Nature’s
-crystals; P--, holding in his labyrinthine memory the names of half a
-universe of shells, and B--n, to whom each plant of the wayside bowed
-in recognition of a master’s knowledge of itself. Against the wall, in
-a triad of sympathy, was A--, the surgeon; S--, the neurologist, and
-R--. And alone, in an isolation that belied his intense geniality, was
-K--.
-
-And through all the scientific congeries, which were far more extended
-than Leacraft could recognize, or even Dr. M-- recall, was a more
-garrulous grouping of politicians, statesmen, diplomats, ministers, the
-well dressed circles of the rich, and the dillettantes, drawn to this
-unusual assemblage by the presence of the President.
-
-The quiet and dull room, faded, and with contents tiresomely drilled
-into the exact alignments of a museum hall, took on an almost brilliant
-appearance. The fancy amused itself with the thought that it too felt,
-in its stagnated life, the unique occasion, and shook itself into a
-momentary wakefulness, to note and record its distinguished guests,
-that its streaked walls tried to hide their unseemly rents, and the
-multiplied models and charts struggled to look recent and familiar and
-appreciative, amid such intellectual tumult.
-
-But now the audience was forgotten at that theatrical moment when
-the chairman and the lecturer advanced over the platform to assume
-the directive guidance of the evening. They did advance with that
-curious _gaucherie_ which somehow always disables the scientific man
-in his official and public utterances, and seems, by some trick of
-compensation, the more unredeemable as the unfortunate victim of its
-cynical attachment is the more distinguished and renowned.
-
-Dr. S-- stepped gingerly forward, a tall, effective man with hair
-hardly sanguine in color, and quite conventional in arrangement, with
-a cerebral development, that somehow disappointingly dwarfed the lower
-contours of his face, domed and broad as it was, with much scholarly
-promise. He was followed by the speaker of the evening, Mr. Binn,
-who seemed half inclined to screen himself from observation behind
-the utterly inadequate profile of the famous Director. The two men
-momentarily catching the full assault of the numerous eyes, each pair
-among them being the visible battery of a questioning and critical mind
-behind it, underwent an obvious confusion of intention and movement,
-and became somewhat mixed up with the table and chairs, and with each
-other. The Director extricated himself, came forward to the edge of the
-platform, and in a voice of half propitiatory jocularity, introduced
-the subject, and the speaker. He alluded to the favorable conjunction
-of the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of
-Science and that of the National Academy of Science, which brought
-so many eminent thinkers and observers together, and administered an
-especial emphasis to the question to be considered this evening. He
-mentioned, with a deferential bow in the direction of the President,
-that they had all been deeply honored by the presence of the Chief
-Executive of the Nation, to whom perhaps, more than to anyone else
-in the brilliant audience, the grave question of the structural and
-geological stability of the Isthmus of Darien, was one of overshadowing
-interest, and he congratulated everyone that the subject was in
-the hand “of one whose geological fame was beyond dispute, and his
-carefulness of statement unimpeached,” and the Director sat down,
-pulling off to one side of the stage, lest his own refulgence might dim
-the legitimate monopoly of that article by Dr. Binn. Leacraft observed
-that as the lecturer unrolled his manuscript on the reading desk, the
-President leaned outward, adjusted his eyeglasses, and scrutinized the
-geologist, who, from a rather embarrassed fumbling with his sheets,
-seemed conscious of the inquisition. A moment later, as if satisfied
-with his inspection, the President leaned back, bulky and immobile, and
-became an absorbed listener.
-
-Mr. Binn, well known for his lithological studies, and the possession
-of a good style, in the scientific sense, was a short man, evincing,
-under control, however, the peptic influences of years, with a face
-of decided legibility, in which sense and penetration seemed equally
-indicated.
-
-He had provided himself with charts, which had been distended in an
-irregular line above his head, and to these he occasionally referred.
-His reading of the important pages before him was clear and audible,
-but totally neglectful, of the informing appliances in elocution, of
-melody of voice, accent and deliberation. The lecture was brilliant and
-distinguished, and quite comparable in its qualities to the serious
-people who had gathered in great intellectual force to receive its
-instructions.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE LECTURE.
-
-
-      Note.--If the reader is too much interested in getting to
-      the upshot of this tale, let him skip the Lecture. But it
-      is a mistake. This Lecture was delivered by Mr. Binn on the
-      Ninth of April, 1909, and is well worth while.
-
-“Mr. President, Dr. Smith and Ladies and Gentlemen,” began the speaker;
-“The area of the Panama Isthmus and the West Indies has been an area
-of successional changes very considerable in their amount, very
-persistent in their frequency. It embraces a tropical area contiguous
-on its Pacific side to a meridional section of the earth which is very
-unstable, and which almost monopolizes the contemporaneous volcanic
-energy of the earth. It adjoins, or is limited itself on the east, in
-the Atlantic, by the Antillean islets, the emergent crests of submerged
-volcanic vents. It could be presumptively held, on these grounds, that
-the Isthmus itself partook of these characters of inequilibrated
-crustal motions. It might be affirmed, with a fair amount of precision,
-that its future history would continue this impression.
-
-“The West Indies, as defined by Hill, embracing the islands that with
-Cuba form a long convexity terminating in Trinidad, on the coast of S.
-America, represent to-day a disintegrated continent. They are supposed
-to have embodied a former geographical unity. It had terrestrial
-magnitude, and lay Atlantis-like between South America and North
-America, at a time when the present narrow neck of land upon which our
-eyes are now, as a nation, fixed with anxious preoccupation, was itself
-swept over by the confluent waters of the two oceans, and when at that
-point which now forms an attenuated avenue of intercourse between North
-and South America, the tides of a broad water way alternated in their
-allegiance to the East or West coasts of the separated continents; and
-possibly a precarious and fluctuating contribution from the warm Gulf
-Stream found its way into the Pacific.
-
-“The discussion of this question opens up for our consideration the
-examination of the geological structure of these oscillating terranes,
-as to what these are made up of, and it is evident that we must reach
-some general conclusion as to the succession of the strata composing
-them, and their relative positions to each other, as whether they are,
-in the language of stratigraphy, conformable or unconformable. The
-inference and argument are simple. If we find that the rocks composing
-these sections are crystalline, ancient, and deeply bedded formations,
-presumably coexistent, so to speak, with the original or very early
-formative beds of the world, and referable to its beginnings, we are
-permitted, by all the analogies of induction and deduction, to assume
-that these rocks have at least a relative stability. On the other hand
-if our examination reveals the fact that they are recent deposits, more
-or less unconsolidated, easily disturbed in their positions, easily
-readjusted in their molecular or physical structure, then by the most
-unexceptional and matter-of-fact observation, we shall regard them as
-questionably permanent, indeed as unmistakably non-resistant to the
-subterranean forces of terrestrial mutation.
-
-“Again it is clear that a pile of bricks, or of any other superimposed
-building blocks is the more secure, in its equilibrium, if the
-component parts overlie each other, along the broadest surfaces, and
-come in contact, or _fit_, as we say, in parallel position. If these
-bricks succeed each other in lines of brick that are flat, and then
-in lines that are vertical, or placed on their thinnest and narrowest
-edges, and these two contrasted positions alternate, or are irregularly
-disposed with reference to each other in the same wall, such a
-construction implies, involves, elements of weakness, and under the
-shock of any incident force would succumb in ruin more quickly, and
-more irretrievably than the former. If further, the latter building
-style had suffered ruptures and dislocations and the gaps or openings
-and broken surfaces of contact between its parts had been invaded
-or replaced by an irregular or incongruous assortment of ‘filling,’
-differing from the original bricks in substance, texture and hardness,
-then we have a third pattern of composition that again is weaker than
-either of its predecessors. But further. If this least massive and
-most vulnerable type of structure has been subjected to repeated and
-considerable strains of elevation and depression, and strains recurrent
-at short intervals, then, without inspection, we know that its interior
-coherence has been much shattered, and that it has undergone a
-progressive dilapidation.
-
-“But I am constrained to go one step farther in this hypothetical
-picture of structural defectiveness. To return to our wall of brick. It
-can be made up of bricks laid upon each other in consecutive tiers; it
-can be made up of tilted tiers of bricks, bricks laid on each other,
-but inclined to a horizontal plane, and finally it is conceivable that
-the bricks may be so arranged as to be inverted in their relations
-to the horizontal plane. The diagrams make clear these contrasted
-positions.
-
-“Now of all these types of structures the last obviously best meets
-the requirements of a type which will prove the least susceptible
-to dislocation. I think that can be apprehended almost without
-explanation. A moment’s reflexion will make it conspicuous.
-
-“The bricks tilted up in inclined tiers or beds, upon disturbance, if
-the cohesion between them is seriously impaired, tend to fall away
-from each other, and gravity increases the effects of the initial
-displacement. If the bricks lie flat they do not fall apart, upon the
-cessation of any push or upheaval, but remain disordered, falling back
-into some _quasi_-position of rest. If the bricks are inverted and form
-in section a series of lines converging to the base of the wall, their
-disarrangement is largely rectified by their own gravity, bringing them
-back into their first positions.
-
-“In Geology strata overlying each other, in succession, as the bricks
-do when on their flat faces are called _conformable_, if they succeed,
-one over the other, with the edges or summits of the lower, abutting
-against the horizontal surfaces of the next, as do the bricks when they
-are placed in flat and vertical positions, in alternating strips, that
-is _unconformability_.
-
-“If the strata are usually horizontal like the evenly piled series of
-bricks, they are called _undisturbed_; if inclined against each other,
-they are _inclined_, and they may make _monoclinals_, having one
-slope, or _anti-clinals_ when they lean up against each other like the
-opposite sides of a peaked roof; _or synclinal_ when inclined towards
-each other in an inverted position like the same roof overturned, with
-its ridge pole on the ground, and its inclined sides lifted into the
-air, or like the bricks in the last pattern of structure described.
-
-“When we carry these similes into nature, we have all kinds of rocks,
-and we have them in mountains, in planes, and all the familiar
-configuration of the earth’s surface.
-
-“Now we find that those portions of the earth immediately beneath
-our feet, extending for a mile or so into the surface of the earth,
-are variously made up of layers, strata, beds, formations, lying on
-one another, and _conformable_ or _unconformable_, _undisturbed_ or
-thrown into anticlinal or synclinal folds; that the material in its
-general mineral character, is limestone, marls, or sands and sandstone,
-slates, clays, metamorphic rocks like gneiss and quartzite, etc., and
-associated with them are granites which may have been melted lava-like
-rock before it cooled and crystallized, while there is plentiful
-evidence of abundant outflows of igneous, melted or viscid rocks;
-evidences of lines of eruption, of foci, or craters of eruption. Thus,
-as in the brick structure, where unrelated and later material has been
-introduced in fissures, gaps, openings, holes, etc., of the walls,
-we have some of the architecture of the earth, an original bedded
-structure invaded by very contrasted substances, and which give to that
-architecture, as in the brick wall of our homely illustration, lack of
-homogeneity, and lack of strength.
-
-“In the West Indies and on the Isthmus of Panama we have the states of
-instability which we have signalized, viz., secondary deposits of a
-somewhat loose and unconsolidated material, and wanting in the deeply
-bedded crystalline rocks which in New England, in the Adirondacks, and
-the Piedmont or higher regions abutting on the coastal plain in the
-northern United States, furnish a solid, and probably fundamentally
-deep seated pediment of resistance to shock. Again in the West Indies
-and in the Isthmus, we have the beds _unconformable_ over each
-other, which you will recall in our symbol of the brick wall, was a
-feature of weakness; also these unconformable beds are inclined in
-_anti-clinals_, a further aspect of structural insolvency; and further
-these beds have been widely, pervasively, in places, infiltrated and
-ruptured by subsequent introductions of volcanic substance, ashes,
-lavas and intrusive magmas. Thus the geological aggregates present the
-previously illustrated condition of fragility, and the absence of the
-so-called tectonic elements of rigidity. But still one step more in our
-disheartening study of this equatorial problem.
-
-“I, a few moments past, called your attention to the fact that ‘if this
-least massive and most vulnerable type of structure has been subjected
-to repeated and considerable strains of elevation and depression, and
-strains recurrent at short intervals, then, without inspection, we know
-that its interior has been much shattered, and that it has undergone a
-progressive dilapidation.’
-
-“Precisely such catastrophes are discovered in the history of the
-geological region now before us. The islands of the West Indies
-have been subjected to great changes of elevation. They have risen
-and fallen during the last geological age--the Tertiary--perhaps
-four times. In their rise they have gathered to themselves marginal
-extensions of land, now hidden beneath the ocean at comparatively
-slight depths, while they have at the same time doubtless become
-blended and unified into a great Antillean continent. This continent
-was dominated by volcanic protuberances whose growth upward, over
-accumulations of ashes, has been again symptomatic of undermining
-operations threatening later subsidence and submergence.
-
-“In our day we have been called on to deplore the ravages caused by the
-eruptions of Mt. Pelee and La Soufriere, on the Islands of Martinique
-and St. Vincent, and it is natural to insist that regions which have
-a precarious autonomy, in which such volcanoes can exist, must be
-regarded with diffidence, as permanent geographical areas.
-
-“It was pointed out by Prof. Robert T. Hill that the current, and
-formerly undisputed, conception that the Rocky Mountains of North
-America and the Andes of South America were not only analogous
-physiographically, but univalent in fact; that the continuous elevation
-of Central America brought them into an oblique alignment; and that
-their mutual prolongations met in the Isthmus of Panama, was erroneous.
-It involved a complete misconception. It was a geographical fallacy,
-and leads to misleading conclusions as to the permanency of this
-intermedian region, itself pre-eminently individualized and liberated
-from the circumstances and implications of either the Rocky Mountain
-Continent or the Andean Continent. This area has a different geological
-ancestry. To-day it invokes an especial treatment, and possibly expects
-a future, contrasted with that of the two great Continents whose
-longitudinal extension it contravenes by its east and west lines, by
-the prerogatives of a separate origin.
-
-“The Rocky Mountains terminate in the plateau of Mexico, ‘a little
-south,’ says Hill, ‘of the capital of that republic; and that the
-mountains have no orographic continuity, or other features in common
-with those of the Central American region.’
-
-“And the same authority, describing the terminus of the Andes,
-says, ‘The northern end of the Andean System lies entirely east of
-the Central American region, and is separated from it by the Rio
-Atrato--the most western of the great Rivers of Columbia. In fact, the
-deeply eroded drainage valley of this stream nearly severs the Pacific
-coast from the republic of Columbia, and the isthmian region, from the
-South American continent.’
-
-“The Central American volcanoes belong to the type that is repeated
-along the Caribbean shores of Colombia and Venezuela, and those in the
-Isthmus of Panama, and those of the great Antilles. The genesis of this
-American Mediterranean land-aggregate was in an independent geological
-impulse, and the land aggregate itself impinged by intersection upon
-the dominant land surfaces of North and South America. To bring
-together North and South America as a simultaneous geological phenomena
-is wrong, to make them other than an accidental geographical continuity
-questionable. It is this intermediate zone--the Antillean continent
-with lateral elongations, grasping within its continental solidarity
-the parallel zones of Central America and the Isthmus, that gives them
-terrestrial unity. Extend the axis of the Rocky Mountains, and it
-passes almost two thousand miles west of the coast of South America;
-extend the axis of the Andes and it bisects the western extremity of
-Cuba, and passes along the seaboard of the United States.
-
-“There is no exact geological identity here, although there is the
-strictest geographical homology. Each is the backbone of a continent,
-each upheaved and variously modified, igneously invaded sediments,
-derived from some pre-existent continent. They may be brought into a
-just comparison, but they are not strictly parts of one phenomenon.
-They are, however, more closely related to each other, than the
-Antillean areas are to either. This Antillean area, I shall here call
-the Columbian Continent, as the great discoverer landed at its two east
-and west extremities--the land-fall on San Salvador in the Bermudas,
-and on the coast of Honduras in Central America, as well as at Cuba,
-and at the mouths of the Orinoco--and his bones rested for a long
-time in the soil of San Domingo. It--this Columbean Continent--is a
-significant intercalation. It unites North and South America, but it
-unites them subject to the phases of its own generation.
-
-“Let us understand this. There is a system of growth, a law, if I may
-so term it, of geomorphic sameness in the development of large, or
-for that matter, small geological territories. The familiar story of
-the growth of our North American continent has been often told. It is
-a commonplace of text books. The wide, triangular Archæan nucleus to
-the north, the oldest rocks--outlines and outliers down the east,
-and the same in the west--drew the framing limits of the continent at
-the first, to be filled in, up and out, by the momentous additions
-through the ages of advancing time. In Europe less well or simply
-defined boundaries, the growth together rather of divided islands,
-prevailed, and the picture of development was quite varied, from the
-picture in this western world. Again in Africa, with edges of uplift
-and centres of depression another geological tale with its incidents
-and accessories infinitely modified, comes into view. And in this
-prevalence of structural style, we, geologically speaking, find a
-prevalence of certain geological phases or conditions.
-
-“What were these in the growth and disappearance of this Columbian
-continent? What they have been, we can, with rational probability,
-assume they will be.
-
-“The Columbian continent, I have called a dismembered, a fractionized
-continent. If from Cuba through Haiti, Porto Rico, and the lesser
-Antilles one land surface obtained, and the now submerged and
-radiating gorges, found only as submarine canyons, were above the
-ocean, becoming, as Prof. Spencer has laboriously proven, sub-aerial
-river valleys, we should have one presumable phase of this continent,
-the phase of its maximum cohesion and extension. And such a phase is
-measurably or, for purposes of argumentative inference, sensibly
-established. It is said with careful premeditation by Hill that ‘the
-numerous islets of its eastern border, the Bahamas and Windward chain,
-which extend from Florida to the mouth of the Orinoco, are merely the
-summits of steep submarine ridges, which divide the depths of the
-Atlantic from those of the Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean sea; were
-their waters a few feet lower, these ridges would completely landlock
-the seas from the ocean.’
-
-“When thus constituted, it afforded a display of physical features of
-astonishing contrasts, and its mere scenic resources were doubtless of
-unparalleled splendor, and, as to-day, it was involved in the luxuriant
-productivity of the tropics. Its mountains measuring now as high as
-eleven thousand feet above the sea level, were then thrust upward
-into stupendous peaks, by the addition of the sloping miles which are
-now below the ocean. We can imagine the extreme wonderfulness of this
-continent, uniting in an unbroken but marvellously varied expression
-of physical and vegetable contrast, the plains, valleys, and mountains
-of Cuba, the towering and draped peaks of Jamaica, the confusion of
-the gloomy vales and ranges of Hayti and San Domingo, the levels and
-coastal ranges of Porto Rico, and the manifold picturesque charms
-of the Lesser Antilles, lifting high into the ceaseless currents
-of the trade winds the smoking summits of a chain of disturbed
-volcanoes. All, in the boundless abundance of its natural endowment
-of loveliness, and productivity, formed an unique and extravagantly
-ornamented landscape, an area whose highest elevations contemplated
-the remote waters of the shrunk Atlantic, from pinnacles raised ten
-to twenty thousand feet above its azure waves. Nor is this all. This
-hypothetical--the Columbian--continent, may have had connexions with
-Central America through projecting and peninsulated capes, reaching
-through Jamaica to Yucatan or Honduras, and wide intervals of dividing
-gulfs of water, in all probability sundered it from North or South
-America, and it remained, as I here emphatically insist, it remains
-to-day, a geographical and geological phenomenon, unrelated to the
-great continents, to which through their preponderating value, the mind
-almost unpremeditatingly assigns it.
-
-“But at the period of this greatest elevation, when this tropical
-region assumed individual independence, and embodied a geognostic
-importance comparable to the vast continents it lay between--at this
-time--the Isthmus of Panama did not exist, and through a wide water-way
-the Atlantic mingled its tides with those of the Pacific.
-
-“We are thus led to believe that as between the West Indian terranes
-and the neck of land now embraced in the Isthmus of Panama, we have a
-relation of _Isostacy_.’”
-
-The speaker, armed with this formidable verbal equipment of attack upon
-his audience, had walked to the front of the platform, and, harboring
-some unusual confidence in his powers, had deserted his manuscript.
-_Isostacy_, he had realized, possessed probably unqualified novelty,
-and by way of assurance, lest its terrors might empty the hall, he
-assumed a colloquial relation to his dazed hearers, and offered an
-explanation of this unexpected mystery. “Isostacy,” he resumed, “is
-simply this: Equilibrium. It is the maintenance of average level--as
-if one part of the earth’s surface was pushed up, above a mean level,
-then the requirements of Isostacy would depress another part, below
-it. We can also call it the adjustment of a changing load, as if
-through depression, from the dumping upon the floor of the ocean of a
-great amount of sediment, derived from the land surface of the earth,
-neighboring areas of the land of the oceanic floors were raised. Two
-contiguous regions _might_--and,” the lecturer turned directly toward
-the President, who in his own earnestness of attention had elbowed
-himself round into a direct line with Mr. Binn, “in the case of the
-West Indian continent and the Isthmus of Panama, _have_ maintained
-between them, an up and down reciprocity of movement, as, when one was
-up, the other was down, and vice versa.”
-
-Mr. Binn looked introspectively at the walls and ceilings of the room,
-as if engaged in a mental rehearsal and review of his staggering
-statement, and returned to his desk and manuscript, satisfied that
-he had thrown the assembly into an uneasy apprehension of danger. He
-again began his reading: “It is true, if I understand Mr. Spencer
-correctly, that the Atlantic ocean was cut off by the elevation of the
-Columbian Continent from even the interior basins of the Caribbean Sea
-and the Gulf of Mexico, at least in early pliocene times; that these
-depressions were then broad plains receiving in part the drainage of
-the Antillean highlands; this again emptying into the Pacific ocean.
-But this is not a proven theory, and it involves an extravagant
-readjustment of the physical features of a region that to my mind more
-expressively can be considered immemorially permanent, in their general
-aspects, at least. I reiterate the reciprocity of movement between
-the Antillean Continent and the Isthmus of Panama. The cause I have
-suggested may be untenable--but there seems strong geological proof of
-some such alternating relation between the west and east sides of this
-inter-related region, the Great Antilles on one side, the Isthmus of
-Central America on the other.
-
-“Our survey of the question produces one impression, and that very
-forcibly, viz.: that this narrow ridge of separation is ephemeral,
-that it is perishable, that under the tests or against the shocks of
-earth strains, it will succumb, and”--the lecturer raised his voice,
-half turned deferentially to the chairman, Dr. Smith, who accepted the
-attention with an assenting nod--“again the waters of the two oceans
-will unite, and the impetuous violence of the rushing oceanic river,
-the Gulf Stream, that now races and boils through the Caribbean Sea,
-will fling its torrential waves across this divide into the Pacific.”
-
-The audience that with manifest absorption had thus far followed the
-speaker, was disturbed. A movement of chairs, a half audible protest of
-whispered incredulity, and a sensible emanation around him, of mental
-repugnance to such a catastrophe, made Leacraft momentarily turn his
-eyes from Mr. Binn to the frowning countenances at his side.
-
-“But,” the speaker raised his voice with reassuring quickness, as if
-to stay the emotional resistance he had aroused, “we have no reason to
-believe that in our lifetime, or the lifetimes of many generations yet
-to come, so strange a reversal of present conditions should occur. And
-again, that in this matter, we may be calmly judicial, we have reason
-at least for a moderate fear. Whatever state of unstable equilibrium,
-of unadjusted balance is implied, or actually is resident in this
-section of our earth, a section that has undergone the extremes of
-hypsometrical displacement, we may conceive that like the explosive
-cap, or the compressed spring, or the bent bow, it will win instant
-relief upon the impact of any force, deep-seated enough, and powerful
-enough, to liberate its tectonic strain.
-
-“I am thus brought to consider that world-wide source of terrestrial
-deformation--earthquakes; but I should forget the indulgence of your
-patience up to this point, if I should now undertake any partial review
-of these astonishing and alarming occurrences. I am deeply impressed,
-however, with an aspect of the subject that demands attention, that
-throws into sharp relief the prophecies of disaster, with which,
-willingly or unwillingly, we have all become familiar.”
-
-The lecturer here rolled forward to the front of the platform, a
-blackboard on which in colored chalks the earth, looking somewhat
-like a shortened egg, with its north and south poles situated on the
-long, flattened sides, was depicted; while a black line or axis drawn
-through it terminated in the Sahara Desert on one side, and near the
-Society Islands on the other. Two ominous circles in vermillion were
-described on it, concentric respectively with the ends of the black
-line, one sweeping along the western coast of North and South America,
-and crossing the Isthmus of Panama, the other encircling the coasts
-of Africa and gathering in their fatal course the Azores, Canaries,
-and the Cape Verde Islands. And on both these terrifying curves, in
-black letters, was printed the hypnotic intimation “Belt of Weakness
-or Earthquake Ring.” The effect on the audience was sufficiently
-impressive. The staring rude drawing around which a cyclone of blue
-scratches, purporting to be clouds, was expressively raging, intensely
-steeped the observers in a spell of wonder and trepidation. Even
-Leacraft, by the contagion of a common obsession, craned his neck, and
-fixed his eyes with a stupid absorption upon the crazy and paradoxical
-diagram.
-
-The speaker continued, noticing with undisguised satisfaction the
-ocular concentration produced by his obnoxious figure, with its
-anomalous portents: “It is well known that we have in the boundaries,
-or shore lines of the Pacific, a surprisingly larger number of
-earthquakes recorded, than anywhere else in the world, and this seems
-in some way coincident with the prevalence of active volcanoes in the
-same region. Prof. Haughton has enumerated for the world 407 volcanoes,
-225 of which are active. Of these latter, 172 are on the margin of
-the Pacific. Prof. Milne, who lived a long time in Japan, for the
-express purpose of studying the earthquake problem of those islands,
-has observed the surprising frequency of their earthquakes, and it
-is a volcanic zone they occupy. We have in contradistinction to this
-area about the Pacific a reversed circle which envelopes the western
-coast of Africa, and by this chart,” here the lecturer pushed back
-the blackboard, and, standing alongside of it, began, with a pointer
-of elucidation, a direct allocution to that subject of confusion, “we
-are made immediately cognizant of the opposite and yet symmetrical
-disposition of these zones. This should have from its simplicity and a
-quasi-permanency, in its phenomena--its earthquake phenomena--a general
-explanation. The explanation is not reassuring; it is not proven, but
-it is accepted by many, and has, for me, a very reasonable probability.
-Let us at least not recoil from its consideration.”
-
-Under the encouragement of this exhortation, the audience seemed to
-slide forward in their seats a few inches, with the impetus of a
-renewed hope.
-
-“This chart,” said the speaker, “presents to you the structural
-conception of Professors Jeans and Sollas, of the form of the earth.
-It is the shape more or less familiar to you, commonly known as a
-pear-shaped earth, the tip carrying the Sahara Desert on its bulging
-top, and its broader and inferior extremity holding the disturbed
-Pacific basin.
-
-“Now it makes a very practical difference what the shape of the
-earth is, because the shape affects the stability, has an important
-influence upon the fluctuating strains under its surface. Observe that
-the chart has developed, upon two circles of instability, these lines
-of weakness,” and the lecturer swept his pointer over the contrasted
-belts, one around Africa, and the other inflicting the west coast of
-North America with its ominous intersection. The pointer paused on
-the latter circle, stopping near the position of San Francisco. “You
-recall,” the speaker continued, “the terrifying affliction of this
-great city in 1906, and the pall of discouragement and gloom which
-it cast over the region in which the city naturally held the sway of
-mercantile supremacy. Now it was shown by Prof. H. H. Turner, the
-English astronomer, that San Francisco lies on one of the two great
-earthquake rings, which surround the end of the pear, as in this chart,
-like wrinkles produced by the crowding down of the protuberances under
-the force of gravitation. And, according to this view, such rings,
-marking lines of weakness and yielding in the rocks would not exist,
-if the earth was, in its shape, what we most usually assume to be its
-figure, an oblate spheroid, with the present north and south poles at
-the ends of its axis of rotation, to which axis of rotation the rest of
-the earth was symmetrically disposed.
-
-“The existence of these earthquake and volcanic rings was known before
-the pear theory had been defined, but then of course their relation
-with any peculiar form of the earth was not understood. The ring
-surrounding the Pacific, or butt end of the pear includes a large part
-of the shores of the Pacific Ocean, running from Alaska down to the
-western coast of South America, then across to the East Indies, and
-back, around the other side, through Japan. The other ring is somewhat
-smaller in diameter, including the earthquake regions of West Africa
-and the Atlantic Islands. Now the point of interest is this, as Garrett
-P. Serviss has significantly said, ‘If the pear hypothesis is accepted,
-and the two great earthquake rings are found to be definitely connected
-with the strains to which the planet is subjected in its effort to
-attain a state of equilibrium, under the forces of its own gravitation
-and rotation, which tend to compel it into spheroidal shape, then we
-have a perfectly rational explanation of the existence of certain
-places where earthquakes are sure to occur more or less frequently, and
-of other places, like eastern America, where they are very rare and
-never of maximum violence.’
-
-“Every one present this evening,” and the lecturer gave an embracing
-wave of his hand, “knows of the singular aberrancy in the rotational
-motion of the earth, which has been often geographically described
-as the ‘wobbling of the poles.’ Astronomers have proven a real
-tipping of the poles alternately to one side, and then to the other,
-a swaying of the poles like the recurrent oscillations of a top as
-it ‘goes to sleep.’ But this swaying in the earth’s case is periodic
-and unchanging. It is sometimes rather abrupt, and at other times
-the tipping is regulated and progressive; but it is established, and
-has had a generally accepted explanation, in the attraction of the
-swelling equatorial prominence of the earth by the sun and moon, while
-suggestions have also been made that it was due to internal shiftings
-of mass, or to changes of exterior weightings, through the alternate
-and variable formation and melting of polar snows.
-
-“But it has in the light of the present theory of the pear-shaped earth
-a new and rather startling explanation.
-
-“We are, however, this evening, not so much concerned with the broader
-cosmic aspects of this state of affairs, as with the immediate
-consequences to the permanence of our land surfaces.
-
-“The mechanics of this condition and its possible effectiveness in
-developing contrary placed zones of rupture can be easily conceived.
-This awkwardly conditioned sphere, revolving upon a shorter
-diameter--revolving also with astonishing velocity--and bearing at
-either extremity of its longer axis unequal masses, is obviously in a
-state of peripheral strain, that is, it is in strain at such distances
-from either of the disproportioned ends, the one in the south seas,
-the other in the desert of Sahara, as would represent the more or less
-sharply sloping surface from its average rotundity, towards these
-oblique extremities.
-
-“Gentlemen,” the speaker seemed excitedly rushing into danger, but
-with a fixed expression, aimed somewhere at the blank and uninfluential
-physiognomies at the back of the hall; like that of an engineer who
-can neither restrain nor reverse the speed which may either carry him
-safely over a tottering support or plunge his train to the bottom of
-the gulch; “Gentlemen, the Isthmus of Panama is in this zone; _the
-Canal is there_!” this last reminder uttered with no very reasonable
-deliberation, “and it is to my mind an absolutely established
-certainty, that the secular instability of that region, shown by
-geological investigation, will again become apparent; and”--he raised
-his voice with a kind of exhalation of defiance, as if he spurned
-equivocation and invited denial--“and, it will become apparent with
-increased violence.
-
-“This conclusion is unwelcome; it may seem destructive to those
-natural hopes which the approaching completion of this wonderful
-enterprise--the Panama Canal--have so freely and inevitably fostered.
-Science in the last resource to her councils must be austerely
-judicial. She cannot take cognizance of man’s projects or respect his
-hopes. The Panama Canal as part of the Isthmus of Panama participates
-in all the vicissitudes of the latter, and we know that those
-vicissitudes mean dislocation and subsidence. When such frightful
-results will happen, _it is impossible to say_; that they must happen,
-_we can positively assert_.”
-
-The lecture was over. The lecturer retreated, and again repeated his
-deferential nod to the chairman, Dr. Smith, as if importuning his
-assistance in corroboration of his mournful vaticination. The audience
-still remained immobile, coagulated into a sort of mental prostration
-by this dismal prophecy, and yet again as if contemplating, like a
-cat’s stagnation, preparatory to its murderous spring, some outward and
-physical resentment. And the spring came.
-
-In the middle of the hall arose a tall and alert figure, perhaps
-noticeably bent, as if from the effort of attention, or perchance from
-forensic habits; for the man, as Dr. M-- quickly informed Leacraft, was
-Senator Tillman, of South Carolina. The face of this sudden expostulant
-was handsome in the extreme, and the features, strongly marked, were
-blended together in an expression of youthfulness that seemed to win a
-strange charm from their association with the white hair, and the just
-beginning wrinkles of advancing years.
-
-Senator Tillman lost no time. His interruption was decisively
-intentional. It was part of an impulsive impassioned nature. Shaking
-his index finger, which, from long practice, pointed undeviatingly
-at the object of his remarks, the Senator, in a voice harsh and
-penetrating, began: “My dear sir, we are indebted to you for
-information. But we stop there. We are not required to credit you with
-prediction. This scientific discussion will not alter our confidence
-nor stop the work on the Canal. It can’t. I’m not inclined to think
-that this nation will be stultified by the oracles of geology; it is a
-matter of simple determination that science makes mistakes--and I would
-advise no one in this room within the hearing of your voice, and no one
-outside of it, to whose eyes your reported views will appear, to allow
-them a scintilla of serious import.
-
-“In 1906, Mark Smith, a voteless delegate to Congress from Arizona,
-told this story: ‘Once,’ commented Smith, ‘a couple of my friends were
-riding through a desolate bit of country in Arizona near the Mexican
-border. Presently they came upon a man who was hanging by the neck from
-the limb of a tree. A couple of buzzards were roosting above him, but
-they made no attack upon him. My friends drove away the buzzards and
-discovered on the breast of the dead man a placard bearing these words:
-“_This was a very bad man in some respects and a damn sight worse in
-others._“
-
-“‘My friends accounted for the moderation of the buzzards on the theory
-that they had read the placard.’
-
-“That was all Smith had to say, but it was assumed that he agreed with
-the opinion of the other men about the subject of their discussion.
-Well, I beg to say of science that it is very bad in some respects,
-and a damn sight worse in others, and its present conclusion in regard
-to the Isthmus of Panama is one of the latter.”
-
-The audience, long before this denoument to the Senator’s retort was
-reached, had arisen; the President had arisen also, and stood with
-his back to the stage, facing the Senator, steadily growing more
-unrestrained and angry. Leacraft and Dr. M-- were half standing,
-their hands supporting them on the backs of the chairs of the men
-in front of them. The scene was interesting, and the first movement
-toward repression of the Senator succumbed to curiosity, and in all
-directions, the intelligent faces about them were variously disturbed
-by symptoms of vexation or amusement. It was uncommonly entertaining.
-Mr. Binn and Dr. Smith, with becoming smiles of moderation, were drawn
-to the front of the platform, and no one, after the Senator had swung
-into the torrential flow of his remonstrance, thought of anything else
-but to catch, almost breathlessly, his words. When he concluded, a wave
-of laughter, genuine, but a little nervous, went through the assembly.
-Then the President stepped to the aisle, turned a moment to shake the
-hand of the lecturer, and offer him his congratulations, and bowed to
-Dr. Smith. In an instant the aisle way was clear. The President moved
-on between the applauding people, and as he came opposite Senator
-Tillman, who had himself pressed toward the egress, as if to intercept
-him he stopped. There was a quick, instinctive restraint. Everyone
-waited for his word. “Senator Tillman,” the President spoke with sharp
-emphasis, “I thank you for restoring our spirits. I remember Mark
-Smith. I remember he took my advice in accepting the Statehood Bill.
-You may have misapplied his story, but you have at least furnished us
-with a novel reason for encouragement.”
-
-Again the applause broke out, and the President disappeared, the
-audience decorously dispersed and followed him, and Leacraft and Dr.
-M-- soon found themselves on Pennsylvania avenue, walking rapidly and
-silently.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-BALTIMORE, MAY 29, 1909.
-
-
-Leacraft finished his task in the west. The disputes were smoothed
-out, the differences adjudicated, and a problem or so which had mixed
-up the overseer and the Mining Superintendent at the mines in an acute
-wrangle, disposed of. He was back to Washington on his way to Baltimore
-and Sally Garrett. The invitation from Ned Garrett to visit Baltimore
-and go with Sally and himself to Gettysburg on the twentieth of May,
-had been accepted, and every movement he had made, each step he had
-taken, since that memorable ninth of April when he first learned of the
-complexion of political affairs in the United States, and had heard Mr.
-Binn’s remarkable lecture, had been thoughtfully adjusted to getting
-back in time for the pleasure and the opportunity of seeing Sally.
-
-His own earnest desire to possess her for himself, to compel her
-wayward and tantalizing spirit to acknowledge his mastery had
-increased, and like most young men in similar relations to the unknown
-quantity of susceptibility in a popular young woman’s heart his anxiety
-grew with every lessening minute between the present and the moment
-of confession. But at any rate Leacraft felt no indecision. Come what
-might he had no misgivings about his own feelings, and lingered, with
-no trepidation, over the thought of asking Miss Garrett to marry him.
-Defeat was preferable to the hardship of doubt. He would be less
-miserable after rejection, if rejection it was, than he was now;
-tormented with an immeasurable uncertainty. And his English heaviness,
-that semi-sepulchral seriousness which by some amusing compensation
-in the gifts of Nature is mingled with the very substantial merits of
-these people, induced a rather grim sadness in his mind, and he reached
-the door of 72 Monument Square, Baltimore, with no actual palpitation,
-but with a strained sense of the importance of his own fate which made
-him grave.
-
-Leacraft had many personal merits. He had an excellent mind, a
-reasonably fearless heart, a sense of justice, itself the best gift of
-God to man, and a face, which if not distinguished by remarkable beauty
-became, under the excitement of feeling, and in the more propitious
-circumstances of good health, attractive, from a manly comeliness, not
-handsome perhaps, but certainly not commonplace. And he had physique.
-He was tall and strong, and his strength acknowledged obedience to an
-intelligence which made it formidable.
-
-The door of the quiet house before which he stood, opened and
-there--Leacraft almost stumbled into unconsciousness--_as if expecting
-him_, as if flying on the wings of--if not Love, something else
-uncommonly pleasant--as if impatient to cross the laggard moments which
-separated them--was Sally Garrett.
-
-It would be difficult to reproduce in words this difficult and puzzling
-young lady; difficult to impart by any means less effective than
-painting or have proven ineffective, unless somehow helped out by
-personal acquaintanceship--the impression which gave both to her active
-admirers, and to those who, for reasons best known to themselves,
-had tried to forget her charms. Sally was decidedly pretty, she
-readily, under the phases of excitement and gayety moved upward into
-the realms of beauty. She was fair, not large, delicately modelled,
-with perniciously accomplished eyes that looked out from beneath the
-pencilled eye-brows, and under their long lashes, with all kinds of
-provocative invitations, that were no sooner accepted than their
-desperate little giver revoked them with derision and anger.
-
-Her lips, of course met the most scrupulous requirements of the
-critic, and her teeth were as fatally perfect. In coloring she
-furnished an example of protean adaptibility. The emblems of fury were
-seen in her flushed cheeks, and the tokens of contrition in the same
-when they grew pale with grief. This was the secret of her compelling
-art. She bowed to all emotions, and as they controlled her they set
-upon her face the evidence of their presence, refined by the resistance
-of a nature which abhorred wrong feelings, improved by the welcome of a
-spirit which was magnanimous and sympathetic. No wonder that Leacraft
-loved her. No wonder that a bewildered lot of other young men were in a
-similar predicament.
-
-I presume at this point I owe some deference to feminine importunity.
-How was Sally dressed? Well; Sally had good taste, perhaps a trifle
-insubordinate by nature, but a rigorous subjection to good social
-usage had made it fairly unimpeachable. At that particular moment
-in the afternoon of May 27th, 1909, after his extrication from
-the subterranean embraces of the Baltimore and Ohio tunnel, and
-an uninspired walk along Charles street, Sally to Leacraft’s eyes
-presented the acme of sartorial perfection. She wore a white lisseree
-gown in which were inwoven threads of gray which gave it “atmosphere,”
-a kind of filmyness quite indescribable, but very inviting--above
-that, a waist of almost the same color, without the gray threads,
-and fitting tightly at the wrists with faintly voluminous sleeves--a
-stock of daffodill yellow encircled by an aqua-marine necklace, and in
-her clustering golden brown cascades of hair, rushed up into a chaste
-confinement between pearl-starred combs--she had thrust an amethyst
-aigrette. It was a willful thought, a vagary of sheer carelessness.
-But it looked well, and--Leacraft might have danced a jig (if he knew
-how) of pure ecstacy; and if his impurturbable nature would have
-permitted so gross a jest--it was one Leacraft had himself given her
-only last Christmas. You can see or infer ladies that your attractive
-sister, given, as I have tried to do, her natural adaptibility for
-embellishment, must have looked more than pleasing, that to a young
-man approaching her with idolatry in his heart and prayers on his lips
-she must have looked very nearly like the embodyment of the feminine
-ideal, like that inscrutable loveliness which first wins from a man his
-careless notice, and the next moment has him chained to its feet in
-servitude.
-
-Well; such were the circumstances, and Leacraft hastily removing his
-hat looked with all his eyes at the fair vision, and found himself
-embarrassed in speaking his formal salutation:
-
-“How do you do, Miss Garrett?” “Why, Mr. Leacraft,” replied the arch
-tormenter; “I thought it was Ned. He has just gone to get our tickets
-for to-morrow. And you, Mr. Leacraft, go with us? You will see our
-great battle field and hear our President. I’m sure you will find both
-wonderful. But come in, Mr. Leacraft.”
-
-The vision with intoxicating grace swung back the door and preceded the
-tongue-tied suitor to the parlor. Mr. Leacraft left his hat and valise
-in the hall, and followed. Another instant, they were both seated in
-the deep room from whose walls the portraits of ancient and meagre,
-or stately and peptic Garretts, looked down upon them, and in looking
-were amused or distressed, according to their nature, at the display of
-modern elegance, helped out by a tasteful condescension to antiquities
-and heirlooms.
-
-The next moment was successfully engaged in greeting Mrs. Garrett,
-the mother of the vision, a dignified and well preserved lady, who
-honored all her children’s friends with motherly hospitality, but
-resented mentally all masculine strategy, whose ulterior aims were
-the destruction of her daughter’s peace of mind. Her devotion to her
-daughter was itself part of a devotion which made every thing which
-bore the Garrett name sacred in her eyes, and which reflected a family
-pride, unmitigating in its self-exaction, unrelenting in its engrossing
-enmity to all that offended it.
-
-“Ned will be glad to find you here Mr. Leacraft. It was only last
-night that Ned said he wondered if you had got rid of the business
-engagements that took you out west, and expressed himself willing
-to believe that if you had, you would not forget his invitation for
-Decoration Day at Gettysburg.” It was the voice of Mrs. Garrett,
-a little somnolent in quality, with a subdued melodiousness, and
-monotonously even in tone.
-
-“Indeed, Mrs. Garrett, few things could have less readily escaped my
-mind. It has been an alleviation to think of it when I got bored with
-quarrelsome miners. Whatever good luck I have had in settling the
-mine troubles came from my own eagerness to get back to Baltimore,”
-and Leacraft turned with, actually, a very grave face towards the
-meditative Sally.
-
-“Oh, Mr. Leacraft,” said that unconscionable woman, “we have Ned’s old
-classmate, Brig Barry, to go with us to Gettysburg. He is in the army,
-a lieutenant, who has fought Indians on the reservations, has lots
-of medals for bravery and is just the best thing in the way of a man
-you ever saw. I half think your English prejudices will be a little
-discouraged when you see him, or else you will love him as well as we
-do,” and this merciless compound of mischief and bewitching beauty
-looked out of her blue gray eyes with an absurd intimation of solitude
-which half made Leacraft forget manners.
-
-“Yes,” acquiesced Mrs. Garrett, “Mr. Barry is a great favorite. I
-almost fear that Mr. Leacraft will find him unreasonably popular.”
-
-“I am sure,” replied that rapidly aspiring sycophant, “that I ought to
-feel no inclination to impugn Miss Garrett’s good taste.”
-
-This was so evident an affectation to shield a too obvious chagrin
-that the wicked object of the inuendo simply laughed outright and was
-vicious enough to reply that “she had never felt it necessary for her
-own comfort to have her own personal opinions endorsed by any one,” a
-cruel barb that lacerated the tender Englishman feelings immensely.
-
-The next instant the front door opened with a rough shake, and a
-commotion of hurrying feet announced the arrival of Ned Garrett. Ned
-Garrett was a typical American of the best breed, and with the most
-unmistakable marks of that American suavity, sweetness and splendid
-confidence, not a whit tainted with assumption or vanity, which makes
-the American man the best type of man the world over. He, too, was tall
-and fair, with fascinating aplomb, and a frank surrender to the claim
-of friendship, without a too credulous endorsement of all social paper
-not readily negotiable. As he saw Leacraft he ran to him with a glad
-welcome of surprise and pleasure. “Good, Burney; I am right glad to see
-you. I knew you would not forget us, and you will have great reason
-to be satisfied with yourself for coming. The affair at Gettysburg
-to-morrow will be splendid. The President will give us something
-characteristic, the day will be the Nation’s, and the reunion of the
-veterans of both sides--you know this country once tried to strangle
-itself with its own hands--will be honored by a tremendous turn-out
-of people. I know,”--with a laugh,--“that you Englishmen hate crowds,
-unless they are turned to good account in celebrating the Lord Mayor’s
-day, or the jubilee of a king, or something swell and uninteresting,
-but it won’t hurt you to see the meaning of a great land’s reverence
-for its fallen dead,” and the big fellow full of enthusiasm, his
-handsome countenance dilated with pride, shook Leacraft’s hand, who was
-quite as delighted to greet his friend, whom he appreciated on his own
-account, without considering his influential relations to the desirable
-Sally.
-
-Sally and her mother were now standing and, with, from the former a
-smile of approval and from the latter a gesture of satisfaction the two
-ladies departed, a servant appeared, and the young men ascended the
-stairs to prepare for dinner.
-
-A variety of intentions had been coursing through Leacraft’s mind,
-and while ostensibly he was engaged in the commonplaces of address
-an interior agitation of plans and designs, all indubitably pointed
-towards the denouement of his visit, were tingling through his cerebral
-cortex with various success. He felt a sudden pressure of prudence
-assert itself, as if by some sort of psychological premonition he was
-made aware of the danger of temerity.
-
-Left by Ned Garrett to assume the conventional apparel for dinner,
-and lingering with a delighted inspection of the details of his
-bedroom which he thought just reflected, to the nice point of a modest
-assertion of feminine adroitness, a really exquisite taste, he ran
-over the possible and best programme for the short campaign he felt it
-necessary to devise for the capture of the gentle and ethereal enemy.
-As he gazed, with increasing uneasiness, and poorly repressed envy
-at Henry’s piquant and picturesque colored sketches of “A Virginia
-Wedding,” and “The Departure of the Bride,” which offered themselves so
-suggestively between the white curtains on the saffron tinted paper,
-he came to this conclusion. He would that evening, if the occasion
-presented itself for a really favorable interview, let Sally know how
-much he thought of her, and how hopelessly unhappy he must become, if
-she could furnish him with no encouragement. That would do just now;
-but when they got to Gettysburg he might expect to find a convenient
-moment to be more explicit, indeed to urge her to the critical
-extremity of telling him what he might hope for.
-
-This progressive method he fancied promised the best results, and, his
-thoughts still recalling with infatuation the uncalled for insertion
-of his aigrette in her hair on the very day when he was expected, he
-imagined if there was not absolute surrender on Sally’s part now, there
-might be compromising negotiations for surrender later.
-
-With complacency, he looked at himself in the glass, walked to the
-hallway and descended. He had reached the broad stairway which entered
-the centre of the first floor of this sumptuous home, descending on the
-two sides in a series of separate steps, and then uniting into a wide
-terrace of steps, expanding upon the hall at the bottom, and guarded by
-a balustrade, which ended in two newel posts of surprising proportions,
-each carrying an enormous Rokewood vase, from which sprang a mingled
-white and red exuberance of sweet alyssum and geranium. As Leacraft
-stood at the top of the terrace of steps, he commanded a full view of
-the lower hall. And right beneath him, at the foot of the terrace,
-under the Rokewood vases, he saw Sally Garrett--the girl whom a moment
-ago he had with some unction and self-flattery ventured to think was
-not averse to his attentions--pinning on the lapel of the evening
-suit of a most offensively good looking young man, a _boutonniere_ of
-geranium and alyssum, filched (the theft was evident) from the great
-vase above their heads, and to accomplish which, it seemed to the
-maddened observation of Leacraft, that the young man must have lifted
-the young lady. This was a conjunction of agencies too terrible to
-dwell on with equanimity, and in pure fright Leacraft stopped a moment,
-and became an involuntary spy upon proceedings evidently not intended
-for an inspection so inimical as his.
-
-It was Sally’s voice: “Well, Brig, I must confess that as an accomplice
-in crime you are shockingly cool. It was quite unnecessary for you to
-expect more than the flowers; and yet”--Leacraft seemed to hit the
-balustrade with his foot. The interruption was perhaps involuntary. In
-Leacraft’s condition, human nature could not stand a more excruciating
-strain. Sally looked up. So did the young man. “Oh, Mr. Leacraft, this
-is fortunate. I want you and Mr. Barry to be excellent friends. Mr.
-Barry is wonderfully strong, and you are so wise. With his agility,
-and your advice, I will have two escorts to-morrow that will save me
-from any exertion of mind or body. Mr. Barry will help me over the
-hard places, and you will explain things. Pardon,” with a coquettish
-glance at her companion and a demure courtesy to Leacraft; “you must go
-through the usual introductions. My cousin, Mr. Barry, Mr. Leacraft.
-Remember, I rely upon both of you, and you must be as amicable as
-doves,” and with that equivocal enforcement of neutrality, this
-impossible beauty vanished.
-
-Ned Garrett appeared, and saved the situation, or at least diminished
-an insufferable embarrassment. The three men were the next instant
-summoned to dinner. They were met at the door of the dining-room by
-Mr. Garrett, a tall gentleman, still giving evidence of an athletic
-youth. Mr. Garrett was a man somewhat tormented with impatience, but
-genial withal, and possessing a singular power of rapid utterance,
-conjoined also with the power of business-like demonstration. He shook
-hands with Leacraft cordially, and addressed a salutation of flattering
-familiarity to Mr. Barry.
-
-Leacraft had suffered a very staggering blow, as he recalled the affair
-of the stairway, and he fell back, with only a half-satisfied security,
-upon Sally’s intimation that this unwelcome intruder--the Brig Barry of
-her previous encomiums--was a cousin. And the plague of it all was that
-he (Leacraft) was overpoweringly conscious of this same Brig Barry’s
-indisputable charms. Mr. Brig was a type of physical perfection. He
-carried on straight, but not too broad, shoulders, a finely shaped
-head, such which, at their best, are only seen in America; a head which
-announced to the world its intelligent emotions through the medium
-of an expressive face, wherein brown eyes, dark, straight eyebrows,
-a strong, large mouth, an aquiline nose, and blue veined temples,
-overhung by short, curled hair, combining their mutually enhancing
-details in making their young owner the target of feminine admiration.
-Cousins are by no means denied the privileges of marital union, and
-as there are all kinds of cousins, and the privilege is less and less
-questionable according to the numerical distance between them, it
-became a matter of preliminary importance for Leacraft to find out what
-kind of a cousin Brig Barry was to Sally Garrett.
-
-In pondering sadly over this uncertainty his well formed plans, so
-agreeably outlined during his toilet, fell into disorder, and, as it
-were, evaporated. His agony of heart was not relieved when he observed
-the cruel object of his misgivings. Sally was placed at his side at
-the dinner table; opposite them sat Mr. Barry and Ned Garrett, and the
-ends of the table commodiously accommodated Mr. and Mrs. Garrett. Sally
-was radiant; she was well dressed, and--Leacraft’s eyes first sought
-its place--the aigrette was gone, and he noticed, acutely conscious of
-all telltale signals of interference by others with his own designs,
-a solitaire diamond ring on her right hand. His discomfiture was
-complete. It was a sad discovery, and Sally, gleaming with a light of
-happiness it was not his good luck to dispense, relentlessly added
-to his distress by showering the loathed Brig Barry with glances of
-commendation and approval.
-
-But when could this engagement--he shuddered at the word--have been
-made? Leacraft, solicitous from the moment he entered the Baltimore
-house in the afternoon, had scanned that same hand with a jealous
-scrutiny, about two hours before, and it was guiltless of rings--quite
-free--he could have sworn to that. Was it possible that he had
-witnessed the closing rites of their pre-conjugal union from the top of
-the stairway? It was most likely. For a moment the unhappy man felt a
-swinging sensation, a kind of revolting nausea that put an actual pain
-in his heart, and a sudden impulse almost straightened him upon his
-legs, and would have sent him flying from the house, seized him, which
-only an indomitable Spartan furor of resistance, in his English soul,
-could have conquered.
-
-The next instant he, too, was smiling, even observing with pleasant
-alacrity that when Brig Barry raised his wine glass to his lips, his
-eyes fell invitingly upon Sally, and that flattered fairy responded by
-sipping from her own, not, indeed, that such telegraphy of signals was
-obvious or unmannerly; no! it required the jealous eyes of an irritable
-rival to have seen it at all. It certainly was a cruel ordeal. It
-certainly taxed Leacraft’s self-possession. It was so fathomless
-and unexpected. Not a word from Ned about it, and Sally had always
-before appeared austerely impartial. Perhaps it was a sudden fancy, an
-illusion, hopeless on her part, because she could never marry her own
-cousin. The Englishman rummaged painfully in his stock of conservative
-teachings to prove conclusively that so abhorrent a social impropriety
-could never be permitted. But there was the ring! Well, a ring; what
-of it? A common gift; nothing more. It was madness for him to jump at
-conclusions so recklessly. Two cousins admiring each other--yes, loving
-each other, in a beautiful, domestic family way--and separated for a
-long time, were naturally rejoicing in reunion. Stupid to attribute
-so much as he had done, under so slight provocation, to their mutual
-affection, the affection, doubtless, of a brother and sister; keener
-indeed, as why not?
-
-Ruminating thus propitiously, and only half conscious that he was
-going through the formalities of a course dinner, and was but poorly
-assisting the conversation, which consciously he thought had not yet
-developed into any consecutive line of talk, he suddenly seemed to come
-back to his senses, as these words proceeded with celerous distinctness
-from the lips of the older Garrett:
-
-“A despatch was received in the office this afternoon, about an hour
-ago, from Colon, which startled us a good deal. Three earthquake shocks
-have been felt in Colon, and an enormous tidal wave swept over Limon
-Bay, in the direction of Mindi. There was loss of life at Colon. The
-coast towards the _embouchure_ of the Chagres river has sunk sensibly,
-and a rumor prevailed at Colon, at the time the despatch was sent,
-that the walls of the great Culebra Cut had collapsed. This is bad
-news, if it is true, bad news for the President, bad news for the
-country. So enormous a disaster will be known at once, if it to be
-known at all. The fact that no press accounts have been given out makes
-me hope that our despatch is a mistake, a canard, perhaps.”
-
-“Oh! the poor President!” exclaimed the sympathetic Sally; “he will
-need his courage now. It can’t be so horrible. They surely can’t mean,
-papa, that the canal is destroyed. That would be too shameful.”
-
-“The operations of Nature,” said Ned Garrett, “are not generally
-susceptible to shame. Nature is about the most shameless thing on the
-face of the earth,” and they all smiled at the thought.
-
-“Yes,” said Mr. Barry--and Leacraft watched him with eager eyes, and
-listened with critical ears--“Nature has a happy way of discriminating
-between shame and compassion. She tries to make up for her cruelties by
-some new blessing, but she never tells anybody that her cruelties ever
-made her blush. If this news is a portent of worse; if the canal should
-be destroyed, if the isthmus is invaded by the oceans, a canal without
-locks will be given to us free of charge.”
-
-“And we have spent one hundred and thirty million dollars already. As a
-financial proposition, it is hard to see why we have not paid as much
-for one as for the other,” dryly commented Mr. Garrett. Leacraft felt
-it incumbent upon him to say something, and his fatal over-valuation
-of seriousness allured his tongue into a statement statistical and
-scientific, something which might impress Sally--but which only
-afflicted that young degenerate person with an immoderate preference
-for the way her cousin, Brig Barry, might have said the same thing.
-
-“I am rather curiously reminded,” began Leacraft, “of a lecture which
-I heard in Washington last April, in which the lecturer, Mr. Binn,
-ventured to offer a very alarming prediction as to the instability
-of the Central American zone, and especially the portions of it
-embraced in the isthmus. He was rebuked at the time in open meeting by
-a Senator, but if your information turns out to be correct, perhaps
-he is about to receive a stunning corroboration. It would be of some
-psychological interest to know whether Mr. Binn in that case preferred
-his own reputation to his country’s welfare.”
-
-“I heard of Binn’s talk,” remarked Brig Barry. “I was near the Mexican
-line, and we had had a brush with some greasers which were kicking at
-Uncle Sam’s tariff. A Washington paper turned up in camp, and there was
-Binn’s Jeremiad. I think the paper had it ‘Science Butting In,’” and,
-to Leacraft’s surprise, Sally laughed.
-
-But a moment later she turned to Leacraft with unaffected interest, and
-said, “But, Mr. Leacraft, do you think Mr. Binn knew?” and her voice
-was plaintive and concerned.
-
-“It is reserved for astronomy,” said Mr. Garrett, “to have prospective
-knowledge, to know the future exactly, with a calendar in one hand,
-and a watch in the other. I think it is not an imputation on the
-credibility of science to say that in other departments its knowledge
-of the future is speculative.”
-
-“Mr. Binn,” began Leacraft, “was not at all didactic, as regards
-time, but he was emphatic in the general scope of his predictions.
-He regarded the Isthmus and the Central American area as belonging
-in their geological habits to the West Indies, and he had a very
-poor opinion of the fidelity of the latter to implied obligations.
-He regarded it as capricious and wayward, unsubstantial in its
-composition, and a bit fickle in its attachments.” It was almost
-impossible not to think that the speaker was not putting a little
-bit of something more than science in his words. He continued: “His
-views also involved a curious reference to a rather topsy turvy theory
-that the earth was pear-shaped, and that the belt of earthquakes and
-crustal disorders along the borders of the Pacific resulted from this
-hypothetically crooked figure of the earth.”
-
-Brig Barry was listening with intense attention, and a whimsical
-glimmer of a smile turned the ends of his lips, while his eyes very
-gravely, with a slight contraction of their eyelids, watched Leacraft,
-with half inquisitorial perplexity.
-
-“I think,” he broke in, “that the West Indies will manage to take care
-of themselves. At least, present indications go to prove, that instead
-of disappearing, they are on their way to bigger things. Commander
-Beecham, who has just come from the Isle of Pines, told me yesterday,
-that the island was rising, that in a short time it might become part
-of Cuba. The question might then be asked, as we own the Isle of Pines,
-whether we had not annexed Cuba.”
-
-“I have heard of the Isle of Pines,” said Mrs. Garrett, “but hardly
-understand what it is. Perhaps a little enlightenment on the subject
-would not be unwelcome to the rest of you.”
-
-“Do, Brig,” pleaded Sally, “in the role of instructor you may be as
-successful in geography as in other subjects,” and Leacraft flushed and
-sat back hard, to resist the harsh blow of this subtle reminder of his
-worst suspicions.
-
-Mr. Barry looked around, as if to secure the suffrages of the
-company, and found every eye fixed upon him in expectation. It was
-his turn to impress Sally. He last looked at her, and as he did, he
-laughingly began: “I shall have no compunctions in being a trifle
-the schoolmaster. The Isle of Pines, Mrs. Garrett, lies in a deep
-bight or bay near the south coast of the western part of Cuba. There
-are some six hundred and thirty thousand acres in it, and it is but
-ninety-nine square miles less in extent than our little State of Rhode
-Island. This island bears a sort of filial relation to Cuba. It is part
-of the general chain of the insular mainlands of the Antilles. It is
-not a coral key or a mangrove swamp. It forms a plateau from fifty to
-one hundred feet above sea level, broken by ridges of hills or cliffs
-that start out over its surface like the bones on the back of a thin
-cow.” Sally’s deferential attention to Mr. Barry’s learning was here
-interrupted by a very audible titter.
-
-“I beg to remonstrate against any levity in my class, and I think, Miss
-Garrett, you owe me an apology for attempting to disturb my recital.”
-This mock rebuke completed Sally’s disorder. Her eyes, wet with tears
-of merriment, looked at Brig Barry, who had assumed himself the amusing
-expression of offended dignity, and she murmured, “Excuse me, sir,”
-with such a delicious mockery of piteous appeal that her father laughed
-aloud, but Leacraft maintained his stern reserve, with eyes uplifted
-from the face of his rival.
-
-“Small as this island is, it offers room for two mountain ridges at
-its northern end, which reach the respectable elevation of fifteen
-hundred feet, and are composed of limestones. There are other ridges
-in the island, lower and less steep. The whole island is surrounded by
-swamps, except towards the south, where it is rocky. Commander Beecham
-says that in the last month strange uplifts have been noticed, almost
-unaccompanied by any serious seismic--this last word, Miss Garrett, may
-affect you unpleasantly; it means earthquake,--disturbance and shoals
-and reefs are now bristling out of the sea, like the teeth on a comb.
-And another singular circumstance can be mentioned. The island abounds
-in warm springs, curative--for your benefit, Miss Garrett, I may say
-that the word means healing--for rheumatism and throat affections,
-and these springs are sinking; the water seems to recede within the
-recesses of the earth, while in other cases the subterranean channels
-have either crushed together, or have become filled up; the springs
-are simply not there; they have vanished; the Commander has made
-observations on the coast lines, and it seemed to him that they were
-all rising. The Cuban coast is rising, too. He came through Havana,
-and the shipways in the harbor have become so shallow that there was
-a gloomy prospect that the city would be cut off from the sea. I only
-heard all this strange news an hour ago, and I fear the excitement
-caused by meeting Miss Garrett is to be held responsible for my
-forgetting to mention it before.”
-
-The allusion was noticed by only Leacraft; the next voice was that of
-Mr. Garrett, whose face had darkened with apprehension. “Extraordinary!
-It may be that our despatch is correct. It may be that there is a sort
-of see-saw here, that as the West Indies rise, the Central American
-coast sinks. But why not a whisper of such occurrences in the papers?”
-
-“The see-saw fancy,” said Leacraft, now thoroughly aroused, and
-forgetting his immediate disappointment in the face of a formidable
-physical phenomenon, “was Mr. Binn’s. He gave me the feeling that he
-thought that, like an inflated surface, where the higher elevation of
-one part meant the lowering of another part, so the access of height
-in the West Indies meant the loss of height in the isthmus. And the
-provocation to any change would be earthquakes.”
-
-“As to the papers not publishing anything,” explained Barry, “there are
-no newspaper correspondents in the Isle of Pines, and I recall now that
-Beecham told me that the authorities at Havana were so frightened over
-the reports of the harbor masters, that that they had prohibited their
-circulation. The thing may prove grave enough.”
-
-“Let us hope,” said Ned Garrett, “that such rumors do not get abroad
-before to-morrow. They are only half-proven assertions, based upon some
-accidental and momentary circumstance. In a few days the Isle of Pines
-may be the same as it was, with the salt springs thrown in, and the
-harbor of Havana back again to its old position without so much as a
-jolt. The sea serpent is now advancing towards our shores at the summer
-resorts, why not a few nightmares from the tropics? A truce to ghosts.
-Let us drink to the President and the Canal.” The glasses were raised,
-their lips, before they touched the sparkling lymphs, offering, as if
-in silent prayer, to the consecration of the beaded wine, unuttered
-hopes for the country’s great head, and its great enterprise, had but
-felt the amber current flowing from the engraved chalices, musical with
-the tinkling of bits of ice, when,--a sharp cry of voices, a babel of
-tumultuous and precipitated outcries smote upon their ears, entering
-the open windows like an execrable assault. It was the shouting,
-thrilling with an unusual impetus of omen, of the newsboys, as if
-they had forgotten their mercantile relations to the news, which,
-whether of joy or grief, they commonly announce in the shrill yells of
-indifference and gloating expectation. Now their multitudinous voices
-mingled in a monstrous hoarseness, as if constrained by a personal and
-immediate sorrow and horror. Even ejaculations from men in the streets
-buying the papers from the hawkers, entered the room, and brought
-pallor to the cheeks of the mute company. Ned Garrett pushed back his
-chair and sprang to the door, followed by Brig Barry, and the rest
-stayed, immobile, like a stricken throng, waiting the next minute for
-an impending immolation.
-
-Scarcely thirty seconds had elapsed when the two men came back with
-the papers of the street, one having the _Baltimore Times_, the other
-holding in his hands the _Southern Herald_. The faces of both men were
-pale, and on the cheeks of Ned Garrett shone a trace of tears. Barry
-was the first to enter the room, and as Mr. Garrett, now standing at
-the head of the table, his body half turned towards the door, his face
-suffused with unchecked emotion--as Mr. Garrett said, “Well, what is
-it?” he faltered, and dropping the paper to his side, he faced the
-convulsed merchant, and was silent. It was Ned Garrett who cried out,
-“The Isthmus is crumbling to pieces and the Canal is doomed.”
-
-The order of events as we hear any sudden stroke of affliction, as we
-suddenly confront the inevitable bereavement, as we feel the sharp
-thrust of calamity penetrate our hearts, varies with temperaments
-and sex; but for the most part it reflects the order of events under
-physical attack, the stunned senses, and the reaction. It is in the
-reaction that the difference among men most visibly appears. Slowly
-Mrs. Garrett arose and left the room, and Sally, after a pause, during
-which she had stolen to the side of Brig Barry, and lifted the paper
-from his side, where it had fallen in his unnerved hands, followed her.
-
-The four men were left behind, and of them only Leacraft was seated.
-It was Leacraft who first spoke: “This is awful, but the Nation is
-far greater than any misfortune that can befall it.” The other three
-turned to him with one accord, as if saved from their own wretchedness,
-and moved in his direction as if to embrace him. It was the right
-word. It brought relief, and to one at least as he turned his back to
-the speaker it brought tears. Mr. Garrett the elder looked intensely
-at Leacraft, his eyes almost glittering with the sudden joy of
-consolation, and said, “Thank you, Mr. Leacraft, for that true word. It
-is the one we need. You are an Englishman, and your confidence in us is
-part of your own Anglo-Saxon strength, and part of your best knowledge
-that we are nourished by the same blood. Let us sit down, and you,
-Brig,” (Ned Garret’s back was still turned to them) “read the papers to
-us. The first reports may be much exaggerated.”
-
-Some servants had by this time collected in the room at the side of the
-butler’s pantry and waited there irresolute. Mrs. Garrett and Sally
-also softly returned, and took their places at the table; with them,
-as with Ned Garrett, the thought of the President’s misery unnerved
-them. Barry had spread the paper before him. The dark head lines swept
-across the sheet in ominous relief. They read:
-
-                          THE NATION’S LOSS.
-
-                EARTHQUAKES AND LAND SUBSIDENCE ENGULF
-                      THE ISTHMUS AND THE CANAL.
-
-                    THE AWFUL CATACLYSM OF NATURE.
-
-                    THE PRESIDENT DEEPLY AFFECTED.
-
-            THE MOST TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE IN MODERN TIMES.
-
-News from Aspinwall of the most appalling character has been received
-in Washington, and though an initial effort to conceal or suppress the
-despatches was made, wiser councils prevailed and the country will
-know the worst. America must now vindicate her courage and maintain
-the reputation she justly holds among the nations of the world for
-self-reliance and self-control.
-
-A long telegram received at the executive mansion in Washington
-to-day was given to the country by the orders of the President,
-after unavailing remonstrances from the members of the cabinet, who
-wanted the news withheld until confirmatory despatches were received.
-It is believed that these _were_ received, and that the President
-ordered the distribution of the news. In a word it announces the
-destruction of the Canal, and the submergence of the Canal zone,
-through a series of progressive changes in the earth’s surface at that
-section, accompanied by severe earthquake phenomena. The confluent
-waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will mingle over the buried
-structures of the Canal, and one hundred and fifty millions of dollars,
-representing the labor of three years, and nearly fifty thousand
-men, with an enormous accumulation of material, will have been spent
-in vain. The Nation’s credit remains unimpeached and unimpeachable,
-but the moral effects of this stupendous calamity can scarcely be
-over-estimated.
-
-
-THE STORY IN DETAIL.
-
-A series of quickly succeeding earthquakes shook the City of Panama
-on the evening of May 27th. They were slight in character, though
-distinguished by peculiar rotatory effects, turning natural objects
-half way round, and producing curious effects upon pedestrians who
-became dizzy under their influence. These seemed to have passed inland
-and to have accumulated in one severe shock at Miraflores, just as
-a number of waves in water, chasing each other, may combine to form
-a resultant wave higher than its components, and generally, if the
-confluence takes place in the right phase, of a height which is the sum
-of the heights of the smaller elements.
-
-At any rate, a most violent disturbance occurred at the latter place,
-throwing down houses, and opening hillsides, which was followed by an
-alarming sinking of the ground. The railroad track disappeared, part of
-the canal walls were swallowed up, an immense influx of water from La
-Boca poured in, and the former site of the village became a lake-like
-expanse. No further shocks were felt, although doubtless considerable
-dislocation farther west had taken place, and the locks on the Canal
-beyond the Culebra Cut, in the direction of Gamboa, San Pablo, and
-Tavernilla were perhaps impaired. As if the hidden energies of the
-earth had become reinforced, and the subterranean fires had renewed
-their devastating fury, on the morning of the 28th a sharp upheaval of
-the ground at Tavernilla, in the old delta plane of the Chagres river,
-took place, almost immediately succeeded by as rapid a collapse and
-depression. This alarming operation of the ground was repeated, upon
-a titanic scale in the submerged delta plane between Pena Blanca and
-Gatun. It was reported that at first small monticules of rock, mud, and
-sand, appeared in the vicinity of Agua Clara, but these proved to be
-ephemeral elevations, subsiding foot by foot, until with one monstrous
-convulsion the whole ridge of hills between Limon Bay, to the west
-on the Canal line, and Barrage at the old French dam, slipped bodily
-into the sea, with unutterable sounds, the rocks as it were exploding
-with immeasurable violence. The discharge of the mountain mass into
-the oceanic depths caused terrific tidal waves to rush outward, and
-north and south, in colossal walls of water. One of these swept upon
-the panic-stricken inhabitants of Colon, its solid phalanx suddenly
-approaching from the sea, and in conjunction with earthquakes that
-had emptied the houses of the horrified occupants, bringing them all
-to the verge of madness, from sheer fear. The skies, as if engaged in
-some hideous conspiracy of destruction, with the moving earth, suddenly
-darkened. Deluges of water poured from the ebony and swollen clouds,
-lightning in incessant lines of quivering brilliancy shot from their
-lurid depths, and thunders intensified by a thousand reverberations,
-shook the recesses of the trembling hills.
-
-It was not surprising that the spectators of these monstrous
-happenings, with their earth vanishing beneath their feet, the
-overcharged skies emptying the arsenals of their electric fires upon
-them, and the irresistible floods of the ocean, rising like avengers
-to overwhelm them, should have cast reason to the winds, and dumb with
-amazement, and insane almost with horror, should have sunk upon their
-knees, and waited for the engulfment, which was to them part of this
-preternatural ending of the world.
-
-Few were strong enough to resist the frightful strain, and the woods
-and hills near Colon were filled with men and women in all states of
-frenzy. Some with cowering limbs and bowed heads awaited the summons of
-death or the call of Judgment, while others, lost alike to reason and
-moderation, nakedly execrated Heaven, or, stark mad, plunged weapons of
-defence into the bodies of prostrate women.
-
-A few engineers at Colon had hastily constructed a camp on the higher
-hills towards the north, in which they were imitated by engineers at
-other points. These had communicated with the equipment at Colon, and
-it was from the latter city, which had at last accounts suffered little
-else than shocks of varying violence, but not destructive, that the
-first news had been sent.
-
-
-LATER ADVICES.
-
-From Allia Juela at an old dam station to the north of Gamboa, in the
-hills, and on the water tributaries of the Chagres, news has been
-just received that the pertubations continue, and that the areas
-about Aspinwall (Colon) are becoming progressively invaded by the
-sudden sinking movements, and the worst fears are entertained for the
-permanence of all sections of the Canal. A telegram received from
-Graytown, Nicaragua, announces the awakening of the volcanoes of Costa
-Rica, especially Poas and Irazu; steam and smoke are arising from other
-previously dormant peaks, and ashes have fallen in large amounts in the
-streets of Greytown. In an interview with Mr. F. C. Nicholas, the well
-known industrial prospector of Central America, that authority says
-the zone of possible disturbance may extend quite far, north and south
-of the Canal strip, though in his opinion the more disastrous results
-may be expected in the mountainous and volcanic chains along the old
-proposed route of the Nicaragua inter-oceanic canal. He has himself
-felt the tremors of the earth there and here ten or more years ago his
-ear caught, so slight however that it might have been only fancy, the
-faint rumbling of the mountains as if in travail, which at the time was
-interpreted by the guides as a premonition of storm. Mr. Nicholas added
-at the close of his interview that “when I left Colon after my visit to
-Nicaragua common report had it that in Nicaragua there was a valley of
-fire surrounded with blazing volcanoes, and that I had seen it--a good
-example of Spanish-American exaggeration. It may indeed now happen,
-that this fanciful picture might, in even a more extravagant and
-dreadful way, be realized, and the long pent up forces of the earth,
-slumbering through ages, become reawakened, with the most disastrous
-consequences to the whole Central American domain, through a contagious
-outbreak of volcanic forces and terrestrial subsidences.”
-
-Barry paused, and his eye travelled down the page of the paper. He
-stopped and exclaimed: “They’ve got wind of the things Beecham told
-me about. Listen. ‘The Isle of Pines is rising, and in the opinion of
-local authorities, the shoals at low water between it and Cuba will
-afford an almost unbroken transit to the greater island. The Windward
-Passage between Cuba and Hayti has been invaded by new reefs, and the
-Monas Passage between San Domingo and Porto Rico is also reported
-by sailing vessels recently arriving at Havana, to present unusual
-and uncharted features, as if the floor of the ocean was also there
-undergoing elevation.
-
-“‘These marvellous modifications of the earth’s surface seemed
-connected with renewed activity in the volcanic islands of the Lesser
-Antilles. Mt. Pelee is again reported to be in eruption on the island
-of Martinique, while La Soufriere, on St. Vincent, is in active
-eruption, and Dominica, Santa Lucia and the Barbados have been visited
-by unprecedented tides, which have been regarded as evidence of the
-subsidence of the foundations of the islands themselves.
-
-“‘We stand aghast before these incomprehensible phenomena; our minds
-recoil before the awful powers of the natural world; we stumble in
-darkness at the meaning of this inscrutable visitation; truly, we may
-recall the words of the psalmists: _Then the channels of the waters
-were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at thy
-rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils._’”
-
-Barry ceased reading. He had read all the paper contained. He turned
-mechanically to the sheet Ned Garrett had laid on the table, and
-glanced over it, remarking--“it is the same”--and then there was
-complete silence. It was Leacraft again who helped to restore their
-composure; “I think,” he said, “that in any event the water connexion
-between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans is assured. Suppose the
-canal structure, as it was supposed to be finally at its completion,
-is all swept away or rendered impossible, an obviously easier access
-from one ocean to the other is created. If a complete change in the
-relations of land to water surfaces is now in progress, if Mr. Binn’s
-disagreeable predictions are now about to be realized, a good many
-remarkable and not altogether regrettable conditions may supervene.
-The water-way may become a veritable strait, providing easy, unbroken
-and capacious connexions between the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific
-ocean--the islands of the West Indies may slowly converge into one
-land surface, and a new continent invite populations and industries,
-which the wild, slothful or decadent peoples of Central America, with
-their hot, fever laden and deleterious climates, could not encourage or
-support. We may be entering upon a new chapter in the history of the
-world, and in the history of nations. Who can tell upon what strange
-threshold we are standing? Let us wait and see. Man is subordinate
-to and the victim of circumstances. Circumstance also gives him his
-opportunities. What wonders may not the hand of God work in this
-marvellous reconstruction of land and water? And if two hundred
-millions of dollars, as representing the final cost of the Canal,
-seems to have been swallowed up, what of it? A nation whose annual
-appropriations--as I only read yesterday--are on the scale of six
-hundred millions a year, should regard with comparative complacence a
-loss of one-third of that amount, when it arises from a permanent and
-desirable change in physical, perhaps human, conditions.”
-
-As Leacraft was speaking, the little group of his auditors remained
-motionless, with--it did not escape Leacraft’s jealous notice--Sally
-and Brig at its centre, in a sort of mutually consoling contact, and
-the servants a little behind, in a scrutinizing attitude, anxious
-through a sense of sympathy with the evident distress of the household.
-
-Mr. Garrett spoke, and Leacraft rose to his feet. “We have indeed
-suffered a harsh blow, but it has its after thoughts of alleviating
-hope, and you have shown us that our alarm is more emotional than
-substantial. The country has been fed upon the proud anticipations of
-the accomplishment of this Canal. It has become a political question.
-It has colored the utterances of our public men. It has been the
-dream of the President, as the crowning work of a pre-eminent list
-of services to the nation. His energy has pushed it to the verge of
-completion, and in its prosecution the Nation and the President have
-become united in positive endorsement. It may all be right yet. Let us
-hope and pray so.”
-
-Flushed with real feeling, Mr. Garrett shook the hand of Leacraft, and
-in a sort of review, the rest imitated his example, and left the room,
-leaving Ned and Leacraft behind.
-
-It was then that Leacraft turned to Ned Garrett and said: “I thought I
-saw an engagement ring on the hand of your sister.” The statement was
-a question. Ned Garrett looked at his friend with singular intensity
-of interest and sympathy. He realized the anguish of the man who,
-loving his sister beyond all earthly price, forgot a country’s peril in
-the eagerness of his hope that perhaps his heart-breaking fears were
-unjustified. The two men were standing. Ned Garrett took Leacraft’s
-hand and placed his other hand upon his shoulder, and his earnest face
-uttered its inviolable commiseration: “Yes, Burney; Sally is engaged to
-Mr. Barry.” They turned and left the room.
-
-That night it was not the convulsions of nature breaking down the
-barriers of two words, and bringing into action new forces and new
-vicissitudes among the peoples of the earth, that marred the sleep of
-the restless Englishman. No; it was the face of Sally Garrett smiling
-into the bending face of Brig Barry, and touching his lips.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-GETTYSBURG, MAY 30TH, 1909.
-
-
-The Garrett party reached Gettysburg at mid-day, May 30th, 1909, having
-passed through, in the train from Baltimore, the delightfully rural
-scenes of western Maryland and southern Pennsylvania. Recent rains had
-swelled the brooks and expanded the ponds. The wide undulations of
-hills and vales were radiant in verdure, responding with the alacrity
-of new vegetation to the encouragement of the skies, that now in a
-broad arch of fleckless blue, seemed to bend over them in pride and
-emulation. A thousand pictures of loveliness, of homely domestic
-bliss, of agricultural plenty, of bucolic thrift and retirement, met
-their eyes, and Leacraft himself found a solace to his grieved soul
-in resting his eyes upon spots of soft and uninjured beauty, wherein
-nature and the gentle craft of pastoral life combined their artless
-charms to make the landscape serene and inviting to the eye.
-
-It was almost with regret that they left the train at Gettysburg.
-The noise or motion of the cars, and the uninterrupted succession of
-pleasant views from their windows had prevented conversation, in which
-none of them, from preoccupation, or from anxiety, from, in one person
-at least, sadness, or from, in this case to be exact, two persons,
-extreme happiness, cared to enter. And when Gettysburg was itself
-finally encountered, they found it in the last spasms of inordinate
-repletion. The most exorbitant greed of guide and hackman, guide-book
-man, publican and popcorn or peanut vendor, was abashed before a
-popular consumption that threatened to drive them into a confession
-of impotency. Everything that had cubic capacity, whether it moved or
-stood still, whether it was a vehicle or a house, was aching under
-the intolerable pressure of its human contents. Everywhere clouds of
-flags decorated the air. The houses were beribboned and beflagged,
-and innumerable lines crossing the streets in a web of suspensory
-confusion, carried pennants and pictures to the last limits of their
-carrying capacity, and to the bewilderment unutterable and admiration
-unrepressed of the crowds beneath them. These crowds had become almost
-stagnant because of the crowds in front of them, and these in turn
-by reason of other crowds in front of them, until the successional
-torpor seemed to reach out of sight, and presumably ended in some
-greater peripheral crowd, which, having attained its appointed place by
-choice or selection, refused to budge. To make their way, was almost
-impossible to the visitors, whether they besought the services of a
-driver, or tried the painful expedient of threading the human mass on
-foot. In this extremity they simply remained where they were at first
-arriving, hoping either the slow motion of the democratic assemblage
-would afford them some sort of escape, or at some critical moment
-the vast throng would resolve itself into dispersion, and under the
-influence of direction or force, get itself better adjusted to the
-requirements of its individuals.
-
-Now, it was understood by all the published programmes of that day’s
-exercises that the address of the President was to be delivered at
-that historic spot known as the High Water Mark, which marks the
-uprushing tide, the foaming crest and insurmountable limit of the
-Rebellion, which thereafter receded in wavering surges to the south.
-In the great reservation, devoted as a monument to the battle which
-saved the Union, this spot is central, and the acres stretched about it
-would accommodate an army. It was quite inexplicable why this annoying
-interference and congestion prevailed. It turned out to be a military
-precaution. The President was to be installed safely at the speaker’s
-stand, escorted by veterans of the north and south, before the people
-should be permitted to assemble around him, and a cordon of military
-enclosed the little village, keeping confined within it the straining
-and impatient visitors.
-
-The village of Gettysburg, which was used in the great battle as
-a hospital, and which entirely escaped injury in the three days’
-conflict, was more than a mile away from the place chosen for the
-ceremonies of the day. When the dam was removed it was seen there would
-be a dangerous stampede for position. Music, too, swept exhilaratingly
-over the throngs from the distant scene of the festivities, and its
-martial notes awakened to desperation the disappointed and vexed
-multitude. The large numbers twisted and irksomely tied up within the
-narrow streets, and turbulently mixed up on the little square of the
-village, groaned aloud.
-
-Voices suddenly rose high in altercation and abuse. A farmer whose
-rickety wagon, laden with his sons and daughters, had got packed
-between a curb and a particularly dense fragment of the crowd, made up
-of vituperative young men, and was in almost certain danger of being
-upset, was engaged in a lusty expostulation not unassisted by the quick
-and sharp lashes of his whip, over the heads of the dodging group. The
-latter, not averse to some retaliatory measures that might serve the
-purpose of freeing their general resentment at their imprisonment,
-attacked the irate proprietor of the wagon and pushed his shivering
-vehicle over, spilling its screaming and swearing occupants upon the
-heads of the bystanders, who were utterly unable to escape, and added
-their din to the commotion.
-
-This diversion, attended with laughter, shouts and cries of pain,
-had nearly subsided, when a new and more alarming disorder arose in
-the neighborhood of the Garrett party, who had betaken themselves
-to the porch of one of the souvenir shops. A wandering and aimless
-dog, suffering from kicks and repulses, had turned on some of its
-persecutors, and, yelping and snapping with inflamed and frightened
-eyes, had suddenly been diagnosed, by an inconsiderate observer,
-as “_mad_.” This information, as usually, proclaimed in a loud,
-denunciatory tone, raised in a second an indescribable hubbub. Room to
-run from the bewildered canine was not to be found, and the only thing
-to do for those in the vicinity, was to squeeze more violently against
-their companions, leaving a slender and irregular space in which the
-dog gyrated, biting at friend and foe alike. The undulous area of
-movement thus formed swayed to and fro, with the distracted struggles
-of the dog, and soon swung violently towards the Garretts, who became
-rudely jolted and pressed by frantic men and women, in whose legs
-apprehension of the dog’s teeth seemed to have produced extraordinary
-motions, for they shuffled and kicked and scrambled in a way very
-undignified and ridiculous. The upshot of it was to drive a frenzied
-pack of people towards the souvenir shop, in the hope of entering the
-shop, and evading the wretched canine somewhere beneath their skirts
-and trousers--an absurd design, as the shop itself was solid with
-condensed humanity.
-
-Brig Barry saw the danger, and quickly hustling Sally and Mrs. Garrett
-between the men of his party, told all to stand firmly, after knitting
-their arms within each other, forming an elastic and impenetrable wall.
-As it was, the colliding tides around them sent them on an unexpected
-orbit of translation, and a few minutes later they found themselves
-pushed towards the trolley tracks, not far from the dishevelled and
-malign looking local hotel, but in a less exposed and stormy quarter.
-
-And now a marvellous change took place. The barriers were down; the
-rolled up soldiers opened the avenues of approach; the President,
-members of his Cabinet, the Commissioners of the Reservation, and the
-veterans of the North and the South, were in place, and the delayed
-populace, released from its confinement, with instantaneous expansion,
-hurried over the roads and fields to the station of the High Water
-Mark on Cemetery Ridge. It was a picturesque spectacle. When the
-condensation was removed, it became apparent in how much splendor the
-girls and women of the country and the near and distant towns had
-been arrayed. They came from Harrisburg, from Emittsburg, along the
-fatal road that Longstreet’s rangers followed, from Taneytown, from
-Hagerstown, where Lee’s army had its rendezvous before the battle
-of Seminary Ridge; from Chambersburg, which Ewell had dragooned;
-from Wrightsville, where Early was balked by the burning of the
-Susquehanna Bridge, on the 29th of June; from Newville, from Hanover,
-from Fairfield, the belles and beaux had gathered, and with them no
-indifferent number of their fathers and mothers. They wore their best
-ginghams, and calicoes, and silks; the ancient trouseaus, refitted and
-remade, still imparted the aspect of richness to their wearers, who,
-ensconced beside their furrowed and tanned husbands, also refurbished,
-so to speak, with store clothes and a rainbow neck-tie, felt the
-novelty of life return, and something of the freshness of the glad
-morning of existence. The girls were most happy and the boys voluble
-and attentive. The caravan of vehicles would have tasked the vocabulary
-of Tattersalls, though it was not altogether so remarkable for the
-variety of its contents as the indefinite suggestion of varied ages in
-its parts. And here and there some time-worn carryall creaking under
-the infliction of an unusual load, and drawn by some Rosinante, whose
-feeble gait and frequent halts betokened a sad contemporaneity with the
-vehicle itself, offered a pathetic note in the hurrying splendor of the
-congregated regalia of the barn and stable and garage.
-
-The Garretts, once extricated from their embarrassed position, armed
-with passports, one in the hands of Brig Barry, and a special card in
-the possession of Mr. Garrett, as guest of the Chamber of Commerce of
-Baltimore, had little difficulty in securing the essential indulgences
-for a delightful day. In a three-seated coach wagon, with a splendid
-team of horses, they bowled along as far as the beginning of Hancock
-avenue, which leads from the National Cemetery to the Round Tops. Here
-they alighted and surveyed the wondrous scene. It was resplendent. A
-sun burning with the soft brilliancy of June bathed the grand distances
-towards the Blue Hills in light, while the Blue Hills themselves
-receded with artistic forbearance behind an atmosphere that veiled
-them in an evanescent purple and yet seemed to magnify their height.
-The slopes of Cemetery Ridge were covered by people, and the lower
-levels where the Codori farm buildings stood; the Peach Orchard, where
-Sickles and Longstreet met for the mastery; the grain field beyond,
-over whose long stretches Pickett’s charge was made, were filled with
-moving groups. The distant woods, the nearer groves, the grassy
-fields, Little and Big Round Top, all were transfigured in the golden
-blaze, and the innumerable monuments that gave the park-like Ridge a
-sort of scenic artifice, seemed to become accordant, in the vastness
-of the panorama, with its natural and simple features. The farm lands,
-the white houses, dotting fields, or emerging with human interest
-from lines of shadowing trees, the peace of the distant perspective,
-accorded a welcome contrast to the foreground of the picture, immersed
-in the waves of a popular assembly.
-
-Automobiles flying like clouds rushed along the far away roads,
-bicycles in undulating and streaming lines, grew large with rapid
-approach; the gathering spots of people merged together and became
-irregular squares, the squares united and became tracts, and the
-tracts, by an incessant accretion, coincided along their edges until
-Cemetery Ridge, the slopes towards Little Round Top and the field below
-the “angle,” where Cushing and Armistead died, were unbrokenly covered
-with the vast congregation, pulsating ceaselessly by an interior
-agitation everywhere.
-
-The heterogeneous assortment of conveyances were halted near the
-National Cemetery, and the people made their way to the enclosure,
-where the President was to address them, along the triumphal
-monument-enfiladed boulevard of Hancock avenue.
-
-The Garrett party had noticed the earnestness and apparent
-preoccupation of the people. The news of the previous night had spread
-its sinister announcements through the papers of the country, carried
-to every village on the myriad fingered currents of the telegraph. It
-had left its impress in the serious, sombre and sometimes dully frowned
-faces of the men. “I feel sorry for the President,” said Sally. “The
-Canal seemed almost himself, and the people thought of it and him
-together. What will he do?”
-
-“The President,” answered Ned Garrett, “will not flinch. Ever since he
-went down to the Isthmus in 1906, and made the dirt fly, he has watched
-the Canal with his whole heart in it. He knew what it meant for the
-country, for the world, and now”--the speaker hesitated--“he will know
-what to say and do. How I believe in that man!”
-
-“But I can’t see,” continued Brig Barry, “that the idea of the Canal is
-lost. Let us suppose there is a shifting and readjustment down there.
-The two oceans are left behind, not much different, and if the isthmus
-breaks down, splits up, and goes to thunder, there’s water enough to
-cover the remains, and we have the Canal anyway.”
-
-“But it isn’t our Canal any more,” ejaculated Sally. “It seems,” said
-Mr. Garrett, “as if our grief had been premature. There is enough to
-worry over in this frightful catastrophe, and its limits no one to-day
-can correctly estimate, but as Brig says, the Canal idea is saved,
-or at least it seems reasonable to believe that it may be. If Nature
-makes a bigger canal, if she changes the face of the earth enough, as
-Leacraft told us last night, to unite the oceans and make a strait, the
-commercial union of the western and eastern continents is secured on a
-larger scale. Perhaps our national pride must suffer some, but the fact
-remains, though, it would have saved our exchequer a handsome outlay,
-if nature, consulting our financial happiness, had done her work a
-little earlier.”
-
-“If we’d only waited,” sighed Mrs. Garrett, ruefully.
-
-They had reached the edges of the throngs who stood in the sun,
-engrossing every coigne of vantage, and an orderly, examining their
-tickets, conducted them through a narrow lane of envious gazers to
-a stand of seats to the south of the President’s rostrum. From this
-position their eyes fell directly upon the amazing outpouring of the
-people, an ocean of individuals, hopelessly cancelled from any chance
-to hear the President’s voice, yet extending outward in a solemn
-silence, and but furtively invaded by those busy concomitants of such
-public gatherings--button men and popcorn merchants. For the most part
-such annoyances were inordinately thrust aside, but scurrying over the
-most distant outposts of the mammoth audience, their eager shapes
-were seen, and inconstantly, borne inward by the breeze, the shrill
-invitation of their voices was heard.
-
-Leacraft fixed his eyes upon the President, and he was near enough to
-him to note his expression. President Roosevelt sat squarely facing
-the people--now crushing in with an irresistible impulse from the
-distributed masses before him. He seemed serious, at moments almost
-solemnly so, at others he turned to his companions with alacrity, and
-his face even smiled at some allusion or whispered comment. Again his
-eyes wandered dreamily--Leacraft thought sadly--to his notes, and then
-he moved restlessly and leaned forward, and even half rose, eagerly
-scanning the expectant faces. A jumping up of half a dozen men at the
-rear of the platform, a signal of a waved handkerchief, followed, and
-the band, stationed somewhere behind the distinguished occupants of the
-platform, began the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone not already standing
-rose, heads even uncovered, and the spirited strains seized by the
-concourse, were flung back in a torrent of vocality, that sounded like
-the far and near thunder of the ocean’s surges. It was overwhelming.
-As if before the spirit of the Nation, the living and the dead;
-those whose discarnate beings might seem rushing in upon them from
-the viewless depths of space, summoned again to the fields of their
-endeavor by the marshall air, hats were doffed in all directions,
-until scarcely a covered head among the men remained, and many eyes
-streamed with irrepressible tears. The note of a requiem, the prouder
-challenge of defiance, the lofty questioning of Hope, the loving
-clasp of fraternal patriotism, the aspirations of a race, solving
-“in the foremost files of time” the problem of the world’s political
-creed, seemed blended together, in the avalanche of sound. And it was
-maintained to the end, even the verses of the national anthem were well
-remembered, and that trying and unattainable high note, like the scream
-of the eagle, which closes the lips of most singers in dubious apathy,
-was now sustained. The President sang lustily, and then he stopped, his
-head bowed; he might have been in prayer. It was noticed by all and it
-almost seemed as if the music quailed and sank before the mystery of a
-man’s outpoured petition to his God.
-
-It was over. The music ceased, the frail voice of the chairman sounded
-its quavering invitation to prayer, and a clergyman arose and droned an
-invocation. The President was introduced and stood forward. He was well
-in view. One hand grasped the railing before him, the other clutched
-some separated papers, he looked well and the man’s vitality, his
-zealous unmitigated self exaction were realized. As he was seen, the
-tumult rose to a tremendous climax, cheers rolled forward and backward
-like the fluctuating billows of a sea; they receded to the outer
-margins far toward the Hagerstown road, where they vanished in murmurs,
-they crashed inward in volleying thunders, and the President stood
-erect, nerved to a steel-like rigidity; the air was swept with flags,
-the intoxication of the emotion increased, women palled before it, and
-men grew pale with the delirium of sudden enthusiasm. It seemed as if
-music alone could lead them back into the resignation of attention. It
-was a stupendous tribute. The man to whom it was given, had no reason
-for misgiving, no retributive judgments for his actions, to dread.
-Slowly, very slowly the cheering and cries died away, and then ensued a
-silence as remarkable and as impressive. The two contrasted states of
-the multitude might have been interpreted as a generous invitation to
-the man to speak, and as a judicial reservation of mind as to its own
-verdict when he had spoken. It almost seemed so, and the quick heart of
-the President might again have felt the palpitation of a doubt, whether
-he stood approved, or a critical people withdrew into the refuge of
-an impartial scrutiny. Leacraft felt all this, and he could not help
-also feeling a curious interest in the purely psychological enigma it
-presented.
-
-The President was speaking; his voice reached Leacraft thin and sharp:
-
-“My friends,” he began, “To-day we celebrate again the brave deaths
-of brave men, and the sacrifices they made for the maintenance of our
-common country. And we are gathered together on the battlefield which
-more than any other battlefield in that historic war, represented the
-culminating energies of both sides, the last vital contention for
-the mastery. These men left behind them the inestimable example of
-fortitude. And after the battle of Gettysburg it was more difficult
-for the southern man to continue the fight, in the face of disaster,
-with a depleted country behind him, and a foe flushed with victory,
-and drawing upon almost illimitable resources, than for his northern
-brother, for whom at last the tide of war seemed to have turned. We
-to-day need the lesson of this fortitude of the man in gray.
-
-“My friends, a disaster has overtaken us,”--the crowd before the
-President seemed to compress itself in a further effort to get closer
-to him, “and it is our duty to remain firm and unfalteringly confident.
-I can scarcely doubt that you all have heard that nature has destroyed
-the Nation’s work. The face of the earth at the Isthmus of Panama is
-altered. Our work, our expenditures, the lives of thousands of hard
-working men have been sacrificed, and we stand aghast before a natural
-revolution unequaled in our day, unparalled perhaps in all the annals
-of history; something which in its wide devastating power, crushes our
-pride, and for a moment makes us cease to think, to plan, to build. I
-come to you this morning with strange tidings--tidings so unspeakably
-great in their influence upon our knowledge, that I almost hesitate to
-pronounce them, lest I might find myself the victim of some horrible
-and wicked hoax. The Isthmus of Panama, from Quibo Island in Montijo
-Bay, on the west, to the confines of the valley of the Atrato River
-at the edge of the Columbia, on the east, is deviously, here with a
-regular movement of depression, in another place with violent shock,
-sinking beneath the waters of the opposite encroaching oceans that
-swings backward and forward on either side in awful tidal deluges.
-
-“The latest news confirms all the previous reports. Slowly, surely,
-even with hastening steps, the narrow neck of Panama, with its
-shallow shores, its long exposure of swamp and mud flats, with its
-crumbling hills, covered with tropical life will be engulfed, and the
-two continents of North and South America will return to a pristine
-condition of geographical autonomy. It is hard to believe. I cannot
-recount to you the wonderful pictures, terror-inspiring, and yet
-majestic with the majesty of Nature’s awful deeds, which have been sent
-to us. The loss of life has been considerable, but not proportionate
-to the stupendous agencies involved. After the first earthquake
-upheavals, the quickly succeeding disappearance of the solid ground
-furnished an adequate warning, and the populations along the canal-way
-at the villages and camps, and at Aspinwall and Panama, retreated to
-the hills, and with them the animal life, in a singular copartnership
-of fear. It is now regarded as certain, that we are about to see the
-last vestiges of the canal itself, the work of these last four years
-disappearing in the folding in and submergence of the rock strata.”
-
-The President then told the story of the catastrophe as it had been
-narrated in the despatches received at the White House. He painted in
-graphic words the shaking down of the hills, the dislodged blankets
-slipping from the hill sides like a shawl from a shuddering woman,
-carrying with them the crashing trees, the jungle growth, the entwined
-tendrilous creepers and vines, while above the trees, swaying toward
-each other and then outward as if following the crests and troughs
-of hidden waves, above these tottering trees, the birds in screaming
-volleys rose and fell. The bared rocks showed rents, and tremendous
-explosions sent their shattered fragments into the air, while long
-weird groans issued from the ground as if the buried foundations of the
-hills were undergoing the tortures of mutilation. In other places it
-had been quite different. The ground slowly seemed to melt away, and
-with a sort of shuddering succession of chills the land disappears.
-How long, how much further this swallowing up of the land will go no
-one can tell. But it has seemed to those who have some knowledge of
-the region that it may embrace the S shaped Isthmus only, and that the
-tapering ends of the bulwarks of elevation in the Rocky Mountain chain
-on the north, and the Andes on the south will resist this degradation,
-that Costa Rica on the north and Columbia on the south will rudely
-define the north and south edges of the new avenue or gateway of unions
-between the oceans, that the new canal in this way, reconstructed
-by the titanic convulsions of nature, will become a wide and useful
-passage for commerce.
-
-The President indulged the evident curiosity of his popular audience
-in a scientific discourse. His own interest was evident. He discussed
-earthquakes; he plunged into an essay on volcanoes; he spread
-luminously before the people the theories of the pear-shaped earth,
-the slipping of faults, the loading of the earth’s crust, the original
-formation of the deep creases in the earth’s surface, which now held
-its gathered waters. The President made a model expositor. He was clear
-and interesting. His style, his illustrative similes were attractive
-and deliberately helpful. It was almost amusing to note the contrasted
-effect of this improvised academic demonstration upon the people and
-upon the political sages of the platform. The former were attentive and
-absorbed. Their faces lit up with the quiet pleasure of intelligent
-appreciation, frequently at some pungent expression that pictured to
-them in stirring forcible photographic phrase the stifling struggle of
-land and water, the fierce unrest far down there in the tropics, which
-was unsettling the foundations of the earth, and slowly establishing a
-new order of things, pregnant with revolution in the day and fate of
-nations, carrying in its geological material insensate womb of meaning
-the dissolution of states, the upset and consternation of rulers,
-a menace to civilization, the ruthless unwavering threat to human
-accidents and institutions.
-
-To all this the political magnates listened with bored indifference.
-They expected a party appeal, some appetizing bid for popular suffrage,
-a shot at the South, a resounding puff for the Republican candidates,
-a public acknowledgement of their personal industry in securing the
-re-election of himself, new projects of expenditure, and a programme
-of national expansion. They turned and twisted, and some deliberately
-slept or engaged in low conversations with an expressive irony of
-shrugs and smiles.
-
-The President paused, his hands came together, and he leaned far
-forward, and a moment’s hesitancy marked the termination of his
-scientific periods. He continued, with sudden earnestness and vigour,
-with almost self-surrender to the impetus of his thought: “My friends,
-these are the facts, and no lamentations can change them. We must
-learn from the courage and devotion of the men who left this field
-defeated, to face this new predicament, not with resignation, simply,
-but with the constructive determination to seize this new turn in
-events and force it into our service, to make it only a more complete
-realization of our first designs. This is the triumph of Opportunity.
-Thus shall we wrest from the confusion of chance its empire of the
-fitting moment, and drive its scattered impulses into the straight, the
-narrow path of our strictest needs. The canal as a commercial necessity
-cannot be eclipsed or abandoned. The original project is replaced.
-Replaced by something greater, more permanent, more cosmopolitan. It
-becomes no longer a provincial fact, a national asset simply. It is a
-feature of the earth.
-
-“What exactly has happened, how complete is the transformation no one
-exactly knows, but if the assistance of engineering is still to be
-invoked it can only be in a way of a help to nature. The facts remain.
-
-“And now my friends a stranger possibility confronts us, nay it lifts
-up a sinister and awful, an ominous portent for the leading nations of
-the world. It seems likely that this physical alteration may mean a
-change in the climate of the older portion of the earth.”
-
-Again the President launched into a scientific lecture and he was
-fortunate, as at first, as alertly careful, as broadly popular, as
-adroitly technical, without obscurity. It was well received. And its
-conclusion was altogether wonderful. Leacraft had good reason to listen
-with all his ears.
-
-The President described the contrasted temperatures of similar
-latitudes in Europe and America, how England on the latitude of
-Labrador was warmer than New York which found its Adirondack
-mountains--chilled in the depth of winter to almost forty degrees
-below zero--on the same degree as southern France; itself the type
-and synonym of warmth. He made it clear how the thermal flood of warm
-waters upon the shores of Europe--heating the drifting airs above it
-till, laden with moisture, they too added their gifts of rain and
-warmth to Great Britain, and the shores of Scandinavia; how this Gulf
-Stream, a wayward impressionable wandering river pushing past Florida
-with a cubic capacity of seven hundred thousand cubic feet of water in
-half a second of time, and, held in its fluctuating course by the laws
-of gravity, how this marvellous oceanic flood, controlled the material
-conditions of England’s greatness; grasped, as it were, in the filmy
-fingers of its webbed and spreading tides, its wealth, its maritime
-supremacy, its intellectual distinction, its domestic thrift, and sunny
-sweetness. And then the President ended, and Leacraft bent forward,
-gripped the railing before him with sudden fierceness, a knell
-strangely appalling sounded in his ears, a portent widely distracting
-and unreasonable drove the color from his cheeks.
-
-The President ended with these words: “The Gulf Stream whipped into
-violent activity by the south east trade winds beats impetuously upon
-the islands of the West Indies, washes the beaches of Central America,
-and whirls its spinning tides within the Gulf of Mexico, and then,
-repulsed by the continuous shore lines of North America, returns to
-Europe bearing its mantle of verdure to be thrown over the hills, the
-capes, the valleys the western edges and islands of the Old World.
-But now the barrier is gone. The Gulf Stream before the strong and
-rapacious winds is no longer turned aside by impossible walls of land
-but triumphantly sweeps into the Pacific, and with it vanishes the
-glory of England. For ourselves it means singular disaster though it
-may bring compensating changes. If England disappears as a world power
-we are robbed of a friend, we have lost a market. What words shall
-measure the moral meaning of the first, what revenues express the
-yearly increasing value of the latter. We stand on the threshold of a
-New Era.”
-
-The termination of this remarkable address was its most momentous
-and unexpected announcement. As the President sat down, there was
-no applause, just a ripple of clapping hands as a half-hearted
-recognition of an invariable habit. The speech had been utterly
-robbed of political significance, despoiled of rhetorical or personal
-emphasis, it failed entirely as the usual thing in public oratory,
-and it left behind it an oppressive sense of impending changes.
-The President seemed depressed by his own vaticinations, and those
-around him, chilled into anxious forebodings, sat stiffly silent and
-unresponsive. The moment was saved from intolerable embarrassment by
-the band.
-
-The leader stepped forward, waved his baton and the solemn strains
-of America--the transplanted hymn of England--rose plaintively,
-like a prayer; to Leacraft it sounded like encouragement, like
-sympathy. Someone began to sing--hats came off, the guests rose, and
-the multitude sang. If the Star Spangled Banner had been exultant
-and triumphant, thronged with the memories of achievement and
-victory--America throbbed with supplication, and underneath the
-supplication, the fervor of allegiance, sacrifice and love. The
-peculiar awkwardness of an unusual, an unique predicament, was removed.
-The speakers following the President made no allusion to the Canal,
-and all the marvellous happenings far away in Central America. They
-led the people’s thought back again to the soil they stood upon, to
-the memories of a glorious past, to the hopes of the future, the
-realization of the present tasks, the reiteration of the nation’s
-wealth and happiness, its strength under misfortune, its illimitable
-resources. They were successful. The pall of misgivings which the
-President had invoked was lifted. The band broke out again with
-reassuring liveliness, and good humour and holiday satisfaction revived.
-
-Then came a procession through the Reservation to Big Round Top and
-back again on the lower ground past the Devil’s Den, and over the
-Emmetsburg road to Gettysburg, and in the clamorous excitement,
-the parade of uniforms, the brilliant atmosphere, congratulations
-and convivial indulgence, all the President’s words became clouded
-and unreal. And if the Isthmus was covered by water, if the Gulf
-Stream was deflected, if it meant blight for England, what of it?
-The United States would only become greater--its magnification would
-be unquestioned, boundless; the stars in their courses worked for
-them, and the mutations of the earth’s surface only brought to them
-unrivalled aptitudes for new chances, for new power.
-
-This was said a good many times by a good many kinds of men, and the
-intangible something it suggested, by repetition, assumed the force
-of demonstration. There was a distinguishable forgetfulness of the
-disasters that had come, and a listless thought of those that were
-threatened. A few observant and reflecting minds brooded over the
-strange catastrophe, and yielded an attention to their implications.
-This attitude sprang from knowledge, and in the case of Leacraft from
-a personal interest in the singular sequence of events which the
-President portrayed, and which even the placidity of an Englishman’s
-confidence in his destiny failed to contemplate as injurious fiction.
-It was a thing to be reflected upon, at least, and added its sombre
-influence to deepen the gloom of Leacraft’s disappointment. But it
-also gradually developed for him a remedial efficacy, not simply as
-a spurious employment for his thoughts, but through a substantial
-relevancy to his emotional needs.
-
-Leacraft’s mental inclinations carried him towards speculative
-forecasts. He had cultivated his predilections along all sorts of
-scientific horoscopes, and had enjoyed the indulgence of his fancy
-in studying nations and inventions, with a view to composing a plan
-or description of their future condition, phase and expression. He
-had arrived at some curious results, but they represented solely
-the changed surface of society, in its industrial, civic or social
-states, or else, in their more immaterial flights, pictured the
-enduring alterations of religious or philosophic systems. In all
-these speculations he had quite neglected the physical constants of
-the world, its climate and topography. His thought engaged itself
-with the mechanical structure of civilization, as affected by new
-discoveries, allied with an increasing utilitarianism, in which the
-individual vanishes before the imperious supervention of the State, the
-incorporated multitude, the abstract Wisdom of the most knowing minds,
-influenced by a solicitous paternalism for the Whole.
-
-But now he found himself confronted by a new exigency, the geological
-interferences of Nature, and it piqued his curiosity, it assailed his
-fancy with indubitable fascination. By reason of his intellectual
-proneness to these questions, which quite deeply occupied his mind, he
-felt at this moment that the tremendous and supreme chance of his own
-mighty nation, succumbing to the accidents of a tidal caprice might
-offer him an alternative refuge of interest which would help to dull
-the pain of his misfortune. So convulsing a spectacle as the pitiless
-war of nature upon the embedded bulwarks of a great commercial nation’s
-prosperity, terrified him as a possible historical fact. Above all, it
-terrified him as a British subject. It became so overwhelming in the
-magnitude of its effects that he shudderingly admitted to himself that
-his love for Sally suffered a relieving diminution, as though in such
-events the End of the World seemed precipitated, and all human ties
-became obliterated, were dissolved.
-
-The day closed in resplendent beauty. The sun curtained in a haze,
-shed a diffused glory through the upper sky, and sank at last in a
-grating of narrow bars of cloud, that lay across the west like reefs
-of gold, slowly transmuted into a purple nimbus upon the faintly
-turquoised ether. The great crowds dispersed, the troops escorted the
-President away, and music from near and far seemed to mingle dreamily
-with the mute harmonies of the sunset.
-
-The Garretts, with Mr. Leacraft and Brig Barry, returned that night by
-train to Baltimore. The night proved a sleepless and excited one for
-Leacraft. He felt ill at ease. There was much reason for uneasiness
-and heartache, and the hours passed in a dull series of mournful
-reflections upon his own trouble, and the immodest threat of nature at
-the prestige of his people.
-
-The next morning he entered the library and found Miss Garrett bending
-over the morning paper. She looked up as he appeared in the doorway,
-and there was for both a moment’s hesitation, before the morning’s
-greeting passed their lips. It was Sally who first spoke, and her voice
-was eager with alarm.
-
-“Mr. Leacraft, the President’s lecture--surely, it was nothing else--is
-all here. And there is more news from the Isthmus. The land is sinking,
-all sinking, and”--she turned to the paper--“almost all the canal has
-now disappeared beneath the assault of the waves, and a stormy waste of
-waters sweeps across the Isthmus of Panama. Isn’t it simply fearful?
-And nothing can be done.”
-
-“Miss Garrett,” answered Leacraft slowly, his eyes sadly resting upon
-her face, grown more beautiful, he thought, by the dwelling of a tender
-fearfulness in her eyes, “it is a fearful thing; an occurrence such as
-this is a pretty sharp shock to our sense of security. I can’t forget
-the President’s words. As an Englishman I really contemplate coming
-events with a positive terror. But there is something else, Miss Sally,
-I beg to speak about, another sorrow for me, though I must not permit
-my selfish regret to cloud your happiness.”
-
-Sally Garrett came quite close to Leacraft. She had a true estimate
-of his strong and dignified nature; she yielded the just homage
-of affectionate regard, but her heart had never been moved by the
-Englishman’s impressive seriousness. Leacraft was about to speak
-again when voices were heard approaching, and among them the vigorous
-intonations of Brig Barry. Leacraft stopped, and a shadow of suffering
-crossed his pale face. Sally understood too clearly. She put out her
-hand and seized his, and pressed it kindly, and Leacraft understood her
-sympathy.
-
-Brig and Ned Garrett came into the room, and soon the discussion of the
-strange events taking place at the Isthmus occupied the group, to which
-in a few minutes Mr. and Mrs. Garrett were added.
-
-Leacraft shortened his visit under the pretext of an engagement in New
-York, and it was years after that he again saw Miss Sally Garrett--then
-become Mrs. Brig Barry--after the stupendous facts on the following
-pages had made the Kingdom of Great Britain part of the Frozen North.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-THE EVICTION OF SCOTLAND.
-
-
-Alexander Leacraft was standing at a window in the upper story of the
-Caledonia Railroad station in Edinburgh, November 28th, 1909, and
-was gazing with fixed and tormented eyes upon an unusual scene. The
-sky beyond Carlton Hill was leaden grey with the blear dullness of a
-snow-laden atmosphere, and a singular and menacing bar of half-eclipsed
-red light, like a cooling bar of incandescent iron, shone with
-irregular palpitations through the descending sheets of snow. It was
-a strange and appalling picture. Already a week’s precipitation had
-filled up the deep moat of the Princes’ street gardens, choked up the
-tracks of the North British Railroad, mounded the ragged edges and
-wandering parapets of the Citadel, until its outlines were effaced in
-a colossal accumulation, like a titanic snowball, and a long incline
-of spotless snow sloped to St. Cuthbert’s Church, itself half buried
-in the powdery blanket. The blurred lineaments of Calton Hill, so
-familiar and so beloved by Scotchmen, were uncertainly descried, the
-Nelson monument, the unfinished peristyle, the mediaeval ranges of the
-penitentiary, the cheese box summit of the observatory (already the
-large group of buildings on the Pentland Hills had disappeared from
-sight), and the classic sombreness of the college fascade. Had Leacraft
-been near at hand, he would have seen that the monument to Scott--the
-tribute to one fame by the aspiring genius of another, dead before fame
-had quite enrolled him in her categories--was deeply buried, and that
-the inclined head of the Wizard was quickly vanishing under the piled
-up pillows of billowy snow.
-
-Alexander held a field-glass in his hand; the window at which he stood
-was open, and the snow blowing in upon it had raised a mound about
-his feet. The observer was, however, oblivious to this invasion; he
-leaned far out, and turned his inspection from point to point with
-rapid movements and obvious anxiety. A curious thing was happening
-immediately below him, and astonished him. In the leafless branches
-of the churchyard trees had gathered a vast concourse of crows, and
-the black-feathered congress was being momentarily augmented by new
-arrivals streaming in from all quarters, too evidently dislodged from
-more natural and habitual resorts. Their discordant cries seemed a
-melancholy symbol of doom. An awful silence otherwise possessed the
-Athens of the North. It was practically a deserted city, and its
-desertion was only part of a widespread calamity which now had begun
-the shocking chapter of national eviction.
-
-The usual hum and bustle of the streets had gone; the tramcars no
-longer trundled through its streets, and a half-hearted effort to make
-a path along the centre of Princes street accommodated a few distracted
-pedestrians and official retainers, yet unwilling to join the army of
-migration which had slowly moved away from a city, that the pitiless
-rigor of a new dispensation in climate had doomed to a wintry burial.
-
-Alexander Leacraft himself awaited reluctantly the departure of a train
-of emergency which was expected to carry away the last remnants of
-Edinburgh’s population. He had come to the unfortunate city freighted
-with misgivings, when the news reached London--itself experiencing
-peculiar vicissitudes--of the terrifying severity and earliness of the
-winter in Scotland. He recalled his forebodings, which the President’s
-speech had awakened, though the later reports of the complete reversal
-of the Gulf Stream into the Pacific, and the accomplished destruction
-of the Central American Neck of land had already stirred the scientific
-minds of England to the utterance of half-hearted warnings.
-
-The matter had now suddenly loomed up into a frightful reality, and the
-devastating storms sweeping out of the black heart of the north, had
-brought Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland into a common fate of
-extinction. The sheltering power of the Gulf Stream was removed from
-Great Britain, and the frost of the Arctic world, so long repulsed,
-but now no longer compressed within the Arctic circle, expanded with
-instantaneous certainty, spreading the shroud of its killing cold over
-the same latitudes in Europe that for ages had slept beneath its spell
-in America.
-
-The population in part of the north of Scotland had escaped by means
-of ships to other countries or to southern England. Many villages,
-isolated houses, and remote districts had suffered cruel hardships,
-and the entombed bodies of thousands of families waited for a recovery
-which perhaps only in ages “yet unborn” could come to them. The white
-burden of snow mantled the valleys and hillsides of Scotland, the
-higher hills of the Trossachs, and the Grampians, the defiant crest
-of Goat Fells in Arran, and the twin peaks of the Island of the Holy
-Mount. Enormous drifts had risen in white waves almost to the summit
-of Bruce’s monument at Sterling, and the old Abbey of Cambuskenneth
-had disappeared. Ice of great thickness prevailed in the Clyde, and
-the movement of the tides had forced it up in threatening hummocks
-upon the drab stone cottages and villas of Greenock and Gourock. From
-Aberdeen to Leith the cities had been slowly deserted, after desperate
-efforts to free them from their entombment. The trains going south
-to England were loaded with the rich contents of mansions and summer
-castles; agonizing scenes had been witnessed at a thousand points where
-the heart-broken people sadly turned their backs upon all they had,
-and all they loved and knew. Heroic rescues were as numerous as the
-occasions demanding courage and inflexible daring had been frequent.
-Throughout Great Britain the trembling soul of the nation shrunk upon
-itself with a nameless dread, as it suddenly found its existence
-confronted with the inexorable processes of nature, when the appalling
-and relentless squadrons of the Ice King, with vengeful speed, issued
-in all the fierce panoply of wind and hideous life-killing cold, from
-the last tenements of their abode, to slay a prosperous and proud
-people.
-
-Europe felt a sickening doubt as to the permanence of its life and
-works, and the autumn brought the shrewd and eager fingers of the cold
-into the streets and houses of Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne, Antwerp,
-Amsterdam, Ostend, Havre and even Paris. Attention to the vaticinations
-of science was mingled with the prophetic denunciations of religious
-frenzy. Pallor marked the features of the rulers of the people, and
-speechless stupor had seized the common people, who looked to the
-skies in pitiful confidence that their misery and desolation would
-touch the heart of that inscrutable Providence, who, reigning beyond
-the stars, held the reins of the winds and the bit of the frost in his
-multitudinous omniscience.
-
-But in England, and especially in Scotland, at the opening of the
-dreadful winter, the precipitation of snow had attained monstrous
-proportions. For four weeks the vault of the skies had been thick with
-falling clouds of snow.
-
-Leacraft left the window and descended the solitary halls, no longer
-swept by groups of tourists, to the street. A broken crease in the
-snow banks offered him a precarious access to Princes’ street. It
-appeared almost obliterated in places, at others it seemed a narrow
-slit between threatening walls of snow, that almost toppled over it,
-while blinding storms of fine particles, hissing over the undulous
-surface above, at times poured into the compressed chasm, filling it up
-many feet in a second of time. Abandoned cars, stalled one behind each
-other, for a block, both on Princes’ street and under the Castle, in
-the Lothian road, had become the refuge of the workers, and some were
-made into improvised hospitals and camps. A few relics, half-starved,
-and fainting with fatigue and exposure, were being treated with rough
-consideration in these accidental retreats, which, buried under snow,
-resembled caves, the feeble light of oil lamps and candles yielding a
-flickering illumination through the dull chill gloom within them.
-
-Leacraft made his way with difficulty to Princes’ street, and groped
-along the aisle that cut the street in two. Here he discovered a
-phalanx of men with sledges and mallets, who, by dint of passing to
-and fro, without clearing away the snow, were compressing it into a
-sort of solidity that gave a firm footing. With the continuous fall of
-snow, and the abrupt windfalls of snow drifting into the cut this path
-was rapidly rising, and was also most irregular in its outlines. At
-some points it rose high enough to permit anyone walking on it to see
-above the adjoining banks of snow. One of these elevations was directly
-opposite Hanover street, along which formerly ran the cars to the
-Botanic gardens. Leacraft had reached this spot and stood an instant
-upon the commanding back of pounded snow, looking with amazement upon
-the silent waste around him, the sunken gardens to the south marked
-by a wide superficial depression, with their terraces on either side
-outlined in shoulders of white. To the north, up the low hill that
-culminated in George street, he saw the houses on either side buried
-as high as their second stories in the snow, from which their attic
-stories emerged like titanic gravestones. The statue of George IV. had
-become the centre of a rotating whirl of snow that kept the nether
-limbs of that potentate from the encroaching crystals, but had carved
-out an inverted cone in the packs around him, whose curling edges hung
-over like cornices about the strangely excavated bowl. It was at this
-point that Leacraft’s ears caught a distant sound of mingled cries--a
-piteous union of a woman’s voice, quickly succeeded by the more robust
-shout of a man. The sounds seemed to rise and fall. They were at times
-almost lost in the rising roar of the wind, or reduced to ghost-like
-semblances of sound, and again they came with the clearest impact on
-his ears, the shrill scream, the longer resonant “Hallo,” or “Help.” It
-was impossible for him to determine whether the cries were answering
-each other, or whether they indicated a mutual and consentaneous peril.
-
-He was not alone in their detection. A number of figures--those of the
-men engaged in keeping the paths open--all sheeted like ghosts with a
-pellicle of icy snow, had slowly gathered about him, drawn together
-by this weird summons. A distinct horror possessed them. There was
-somewhere in the immobile and voiceless streets before them at least
-two perishing lives. Could they be found? Could they be extricated from
-their rising tomb of snow? At times the voices grew fainter, as if
-their subjects were surrendering their vitality to cold and exhaustion,
-and then again they sounded in the approaching darkness--there were
-now no lights at night in the doomed city--more appealingly clear as
-if by a despairing struggle of strength they hoped to prolong their
-fruitless invocation. No one spoke. Leacraft broke the silence.
-
-“We must save them,” he said.
-
-“It’s nae canny wark to do,” muttered one of the shapes nearest to him.
-
-“But it’s a grewsome matter to let them dee that wa,” urged a second.
-
-“Weel, weel, they’re nae the farst. The country side is as fu’ o
-corpses as a crow’s gizzard o’ oats,” admonished a third.
-
-Leacraft had been listening. He felt sure that the sounds proceeded
-from somewhere on George street, a little to the eastward of its
-intersection with Hanover. He suspected that the fugitives had taken
-refuge in St. Andrew’s Church. He turned to look at the muffled forms
-about him. “If two of you will help me, with snow-shoes we can reach
-them.”
-
-There was at first no response, only a protesting shrug, and a
-disposition to avoid any direct refusal by moving away. Leacraft
-spoke again. “The snow packs easily; we can get there on snow-shoes
-in a short time. There can be no danger. These unfortunate people are
-imprisoned in the church, I think; there’s a woman there; the man needs
-help to get her out; he probably could break his way over here, but he
-can’t drag her with him, and he won’t leave her. It’s murder to turn
-our backs on them.”
-
-Leacraft was alone, save for the presence of the second speaker. The
-rest had disappeared, and the thud of their mallets and the rattle of
-the sledges acquainted him with their distant operations.
-
-“Meester, I’ll gie ye a haud. There’s snaw-shoes down the track in a
-tram; I’ll hae them here in a jiffy.” He vanished down the long cut.
-
-Leacraft called after him: “Bring two bottles of whiskey. You can use
-my name for them at the hotel.”
-
-While he waited for the man’s return, Leacraft outlined a possible
-avenue of approach to the imprisoned couple, if couple it was. He could
-indistinctly see--the day was waning--that on the west side of Hanover
-street, by reason of the north-westerly direction of the storm, the
-housetops had formed a partial protection to the street below, and
-that the heavy ridged hill of snow occupied the centre of the street,
-lurching over against the west. Up the short slope this partial shelter
-continued, but in George street, beyond, the storm drove scurrying
-blasts of wind that whirled the snow upward in fantastic pirouetting
-volleys, and, doubtless, with wicked intent, had piled the drifts up
-in insurmountable entrenchments against the doors of the buildings on
-that street. The prospect of progress there was discouraging. Still
-there would be ways; the renewed calls nerved him to desperation.
-
-The volunteer returned with the snow-shoes, a pair for both of them,
-and an extra pair for the imprisoned man, and the bulging bulk of three
-bottles of whiskey. He explained the latter excess: “They gied me the
-thraw, and I had no heart to haud the ither back. Let well eneugh
-alone, I say.”
-
-“Now, my brave friend, we must know each other’s name, though we shall
-not be separated, as we must be tied together. But men working in peril
-become close companions,” said Leacraft to the man.
-
-“Weel, sir, it mak’s sma’ difference what name we go by, but, an’ you
-like it, just ca’ me Jim.”
-
-Leacraft opened one of the bottles of whiskey, and handed it to his
-companion, who eagerly accepted the invitation, and took so hearty a
-draught that Leacraft felt some misgivings over his usefulness. The man
-explained: “Ut’s no dram habit I have, sir, but the cauld ha’ gone to
-mee bains, an’ the wee drap pits fire in my sperit. It’s bonny stuff.
-It’s nae mickle harm to keep the fires burning in a blast like this.
-Tak’ my advice and do the same yoursel’, sir.”
-
-Leacraft was indeed not unwilling to follow this example, and thus
-reinforced, the two men plunged into the snow banks that with
-irregular surfaces of hills and valleys spread before them. They
-floundered desperately forward, finding that the snow-shoes were
-indispensable, and the precaution of being tied together most helpful.
-The calling voices, with intermittent pauses, were still heard, and
-both Leacraft and his companion exerted themselves to return the calls
-with reassurance. It was evident that they had, at least at times,
-been heard, for the distant shouts became timed to their own, and this
-indication of recognition served to strengthen and increase their
-efforts. The work was difficult, and with recurrent accesses of the
-storm’s fury, the snowy wreaths, detached from the cornices of the
-houses, or whirled from off the edges of the tumultuous drifts, blinded
-and overwhelmed them. Fortunately, the wind came in gusts, and it was
-this circumstance that permitted Leacraft first to hear the voices.
-Between the wintry assaults of the wind, in the pauses of its fury,
-they stumbled on, forcing their way under the shelter of the western
-houses, and, at the corner of George street, struck boldly out towards
-the monument, where Leacraft had discerned the inverted cone of snow.
-The cause of this formation was now apparent, and rendered their
-further progress more precarious. The wind surged down George street,
-and by a slight deflection in its course from the axis of the street
-itself, was thrown into a vertical motion at the corners of Hanover
-street, and became a cyclone, whose towering and fiercely moving walls
-were materialized to the eye in the successive shells of snow raised
-in oscillating spires above the tops of the houses, where it again
-was seized by the direct wind and sent in dusky masses skywards. The
-picture of George street at this point was appalling enough. The snow
-lay deeply piled in the street, forming a high central ridge, and
-crossing this obliquely were traverse drifts which had a slow motion
-down the street towards the Melvill memorial; these even at times
-coalesced, assuming the aspect of a big comber at sea, and advancing
-with similar menace. When these snow billows flowed into the depression
-about the statue, they filled it, and then the revolving winds, like a
-gigantic and invisible augur, excavated it again, tossing the snow out
-in spurts resembling the geyser-like bursts in front of a snow-plough.
-At such moments it would have been almost impossible to have crossed
-the spot, with the buffeting wind shaking with flagitious fury the
-folds of snow about the traveller and entombing him also in their
-rising sheets.
-
-Leacraft and Jim had just reached the eastern edge of the hollow
-described above, when one of the travelling billows of snow poured
-into the pit on its western margin, and the impetuous blasts began to
-dislodge the inrushing tide with incredible velocity. The shocks of
-snow overwhelmed the rescuers, and for a moment it seemed as if the
-contest between them and the fury of nature was too unequal a struggle.
-The support of the snow-shoes held them fairly well above the snow,
-but this onslaught knocked them down, and once down, the industrious
-drifts hastily began their entombment. To speak was impossible, and
-all Leacraft could do was to jerk the rope which connected them, as
-a summons for Jim to reach him. His purpose was obvious. Together,
-one or the other might make such a purchase of his companion as to
-extricate himself, and then assist his friend to rise. Jim understood
-the suggestion of the pull, and groped his way forward, and touched
-Leacraft, whom he found prostrate. His body offered a flooring for
-him to rise upon, and in this way he regained the surface, his head
-emerging into the blustering air. He quickly established himself and
-hauled Leacraft upward, who expected the movement, and had drawn his
-knees upward to help him regain his feet. The two men were now again
-upright and in action, but terribly exhausted and half immersed in the
-snow. The wave had passed and reformed partially after its disruption,
-while its north and south wings, which had escaped the passage of the
-pit, like white breakers, moved on before it.
-
-A simultaneous motion with both, which had something almost comic
-in it, and would not have, under different circumstances, escaped
-receiving its tribute of merriment, brought from the pockets of each
-the whisky bottles, that quickly contributed some of their contents
-to the renewal of their ebbing strength. As they carefully replaced
-the helpful vials, they heard again, but now more clearly, the renewed
-shouts of the imprisoned captives, and Jim, putting his hands to his
-mouth, screamed with all the force he could put into the effort,
-“Coming.” It carried, and something articulate returned, which to
-Leacraft sounded like “Come quick!”
-
-Their strength renewed, the two men began again their brave combat
-with the elements, and forced their way across the snow fields towards
-the houses on the north side of George street, which furnished a
-slight shield against the ferocity of the storm. A helpful lull in the
-blast enabled them to make their way more quickly. The walls of St.
-Andrew’s Church were near at hand, and all doubts as to the position
-of the voices were removed. The calls came very clearly to their ears.
-Creeping along the edges of the houses, they succeeded in reaching the
-church, and found that, on the back of the drifts, they were then at
-the level of its upper windows. The men peered into the darkness beyond
-the panes of glass and knocked vociferously. Voices and steps answered
-them. The next moment a man’s figure could be discerned advancing, and
-then the window opened. Leacraft entered first, followed by Jim, and
-both turned to the yet silent figure beside them. His silence lasted
-scarcely an instant. “God!” he exclaimed. “You have come none too soon!
-We should have died here! There is a young girl downstairs, a friend
-of mine. We started for the train, and just in front of the church she
-fainted. I drew her in here, as the door was open. A chill followed; I
-could not carry her away in this storm, and we were caught. It was our
-last chance. I can’t explain now the reason for our remaining so long
-behind the rest of the people who have left Edinburgh. We are here.
-Can you get us out? I can shift for myself, but Ethel--you see it is
-impossible. What--what--”
-
-Leacraft interrupted. “Explanations are not needed. We must all get out
-of this at once. We must take her between us, and fight our way back.”
-
-Already he had begun to move towards the flight of stairs near to them,
-to descend to the man’s companion, when the man seized him by the
-arm, passed him, calling to them to follow. They descended rapidly,
-and saw on the ground floor of the church, lying in a pew, with a
-flickering gas jet burning feebly above it, the figure of the woman
-the man had mentioned. She had propped herself on her hand and elbow,
-and gazed at the three faces looking down on her, with a frightened,
-still expression, in which relief and confidence, however, were not
-altogether absent. Jim had already brought out the whisky bottle, and,
-with unpractised directness, offered it to the girl. “Here, my leddy;
-tak’ a sip of this, and let it be a good one. An’, gentlemen,” turning
-to Leacraft and the stranger, “it’s awa’ with a’ o’ us, or the deil
-will mak’ our shrouds.”
-
-Leacraft turned to the man. “Have you snow-shoes?” he asked. “Yes,”
-answered the stranger. “Then,” continued Leacraft, “we will start. Out
-of the window upstairs. Jim, you go ahead, and I and the gentleman will
-carry the lady. Madame,” to the lady, “this is a forlorn trip, but it
-will soon be over, and I feel we can trust you to help us.”
-
-“Oh, yes,” came the rapid reply. The girl started to rise, and her
-companion helped her quickly to her feet. The party was ready, and
-without further words the four ascended the steps, made their way to
-the window, and after one glance at the raging weather outside, another
-reassurance for all from the indispensable bottles, the plunge was made.
-
-The two fugitives, if such was a proper designation for them, were well
-clothed, and the risk of exposure was avoided. It now was a question of
-physical endurance only, and partly, too, of some possible leniency in
-the weather. Already their previous steps were thickly buried in the
-flowing tides of snow, and Leacraft and Jim noted with apprehension
-that the wind seemed fiercer, and the way back towards Hanover street
-blacker and more obscure, with volleys of snow dust thrown upward in
-increasing clouds. For a moment the party hesitated, and Leacraft and
-Jim both seemed over-awed and perplexed. Almost at the same moment they
-cast their eyes towards the corner of George and St. David streets, and
-saw to their wonder and delight that the front of the Commercial Bank
-building was relatively clear of snow, and the intimation furnished by
-its appearance was that the way was more open on St. David street and
-that in that direction egress and safety lay.
-
-“This way,” was the laconic order from Leacraft, and they turned
-eastward. Leacraft and the stranger, who had given his name as Thomsen,
-supported the woman between them, and she was directed to throw her
-arms around their necks, and the sense of support to this frail girl,
-whose face, terrified and pale from weakness, yet had revealed to
-Leacraft a winning prettiness, made both men alert and strenuous. An
-obstacle of some seriousness stood before them; two heaped up mounds
-occupied the centre of the street. It was between these mimic hills
-that they made the fortunate discovery of the comparative freedom of
-the opposite corner, as it was in a measure the interposition of these
-very barriers that kept it so. But the passage--the cleft--between
-these mounds, that somehow seemed rigid points, underwent startling
-alterations. It was filled up with avalanches of snow, which at almost
-regular intervals were driven out by the massive wind pressure, and
-the dislodged bodies of snow were seen to spread out toward the south
-on the opposite side of the mounds from the observers’ position, in
-geyser-like spouts. It was necessary to thread this pass, but it would
-be inevitable danger if they were caught in one of the recurrent
-avalanches. Sinister as the chance seemed, it must be taken. And
-towards this triangular cut they slowly moved. Jim was in front of the
-little group, which, sheeted with snow, with bent heads and in silence,
-resembled Arctic explorers, as they are pictured bringing in some dying
-or exhausted companion.
-
-The wind was somewhat behind them, though in the collision of the
-reflected waves from the houses on the south side, the vexed air shot
-about them in a hundred contradictory directions, and held them in a
-tempest of draughts. And now they were at the northern slope of the
-mounds; the cut was open; it had been cleared a minute before. Through
-it they saw more plainly that the bank steps and the corner of St.
-David street presented more favorable conditions; a dash and they
-would effect their escape. Leacraft had not failed to notice that the
-intervals between the inexplicable down-rushes of snow into the gap,
-were about three minutes, and that something more than that time
-elapsed before their expulsion. He whispered to Thomsen, whose fatigue
-was becoming too evident, “Keep up, sir. Once through this hole, and we
-are safe.”
-
-During all this time since their entrance through the window of the
-church, Leacraft and Jim had remained tied together, and the strong,
-steady haul of the workman upon the rope now greatly assisted Leacraft,
-who was quite sensible that he must largely depend on his strength
-at this critical moment for their preservation. It was certainly no
-exaggeration to say that as they entered that rather inconspicuous
-gateway, between two snow drifts in George street, Edinburgh, in
-November 1909, they stood on that metropolitan thoroughfare, in the
-Jaws of Death. The simile may sound and look shockingly untrue. It is
-the exact truth. The white inclines rose on each side of them, and
-the width of the wintry embrasure was about twenty feet; in less than
-a minute even with their lagging steps they would have crossed it.
-Suddenly Leacraft felt himself pulled sideways; only the rope stretched
-tightly between himself and Jim saved him from falling, if falling
-it could be called, where they were so immersed in snow. Thomsen had
-dropped in his tracks and with a low cry of fear the woman’s arm
-slipped from his neck and she clung convulsively to Leacraft. It was
-critical. In a little more than two minutes they would probably be
-buried--which at this stage of exhaustion meant death. Leacraft tugged
-savagely at the rope, and the surprised Jim, almost thrown on his back,
-returned. A glance told him everything. Leacraft, without speaking,
-nodded to the motionless figure, beginning by reason of the icy chill
-smiting his face from the snow, to stir, and seizing the girl, passed
-on. Jim managed to jerk Thomsen to his feet, and half holding, half
-pushing him, hastened, lest Leacraft should feel his weight on the
-rope, and be hampered in his own struggles. It was slow work, the
-snow-shoes, so essential for their safety, could only be painfully
-shoved forwards beneath the snow. It was like wading in deep water but
-it was a likeness enormously enlarged in difficulty and strain.
-
-They had not pushed through the miniature defile when symptomatic
-showers of snow drifted in upon them in blinding columns. The avalanche
-was coming. The terror stricken Alpine climber, who, behind some serac
-on the lofty glacier, has his ears assaulted with the roar of the
-descending avalanche, in no literal sense has greater reason for fear
-than did those men in the streets of Edinburgh at that moment.
-
-Leacraft shouted, “On! On! On! One second and we are lost!” This
-despairing cry was not ill calculated to spur their efforts. The very
-agony of fright it summoned in the two men behind him gave them the
-strength of desperation. For one instant the spent muscles became
-steel. They floundered forward, and fell together almost in one heap
-beyond the portal of the two mounds as the swirling snow in torrents
-obliterated their outlines in new envelopes. Their fall toppled
-Leacraft over on his side. The confused objects, looking like some
-assortment of discarded bundles lay quiet, the darting cold had brought
-with it the treacherous drowsiness into their eyes, and had already
-begun to lock the keyholes of their senses. It was Jim who had roused
-himself to action. He struck Leacraft across the face with his gloved
-hand, and did the same to Thomsen, whom he again lifted to his feet.
-The smart of the stinging blow startled Leacraft on his legs; his nose
-bled, and he could feel the woman still stiffly clinging to him. It was
-Jim who now uttered the warning, “Get out o’ this. I hae the lugger
-all right. Get down to the bank.” Leacraft looked quickly. The bank
-steps were beneath them, and the vagaries of the storm alternately
-covered and cleared them of snow. Half rolling, he pitched down the
-slope, following Jim, who had his arm around Thomsen’s waist, and who,
-supporting himself on Jim’s shoulder, was manfully helping his rescuer.
-
-In a few minutes, with staggering steps and frequent falls, the four
-gained the protection of the bank. This refuge acted favorably. Their
-spirits revived, and the whisky flasks assisted. Their attitude toward
-the storm became a little defiant. “We can do it now. It’s only a step
-around to Princes street. Ethel, how do you feel?” It was the young
-Scotchman who spoke, and the young woman even smiled as she answered
-“O! Ned, we shall be saved! How can we thank this gentleman?” “Excuse
-me” blurted out Leacraft, “we won’t waste time just now in an exchange
-of civilities. The opportunity for that formality will come when we are
-all out of this.”
-
-He stepped almost impatiently to the edge of the building and found
-that a narrow crevice intervened between the drifts and the walls of
-the houses, and a further inspection revealed the utterly unexpected
-good luck, that this peculiar chimney way extended along the west side
-of St. David street to Princes street. Their safety seemed secured.
-In a few minutes after this welcome discovery, with careful steps,
-Leacraft insisting upon the Scotchman and himself lifting the young
-woman together, with Jim leading, the party slowly crept out and along
-the buildings on St. David street, and in a short time had reached
-Princes street, where more arms, vigorous legs, and robust bodies
-helped them through the shooting drifts into the open rift, that the
-men and sledges were still precariously maintaining.
-
-Leacraft hurried Thomsen and his charge to the hotel; he turned to Jim,
-and grasped his hand fervently, “You’ve been a true man, Jim. I shan’t
-forget this. Every one leaves Edinburgh to-night by the train. I want
-you in my compartment. This young woman and her friends will be with
-me. I’ll find you at the hotel before the train leaves. Watch for me.”
-As he spoke, and before the expostulation on Jim’s lips was uttered, a
-long hoarse whistle like a wail came to their ears. It was the warning
-of the trainmen fearful to delay longer their departure from the doomed
-city--and with it, hurrying steps, shouts and injunctions along the
-cut, indicated its recognition.
-
-“Come with me,” cried Leacraft, and together the men ran forwards,
-towards the Lothian road, finding themselves as they advanced in a
-jostling crowd, animated by but one hope, escape from the buried
-capital.
-
-The condition indicated in the foregoing narrative, may now be more
-explicitly reviewed. The dislocations and subsidences in the Caribbean
-and Central American areas had developed along constructional lines,
-and had swept away the lesser Antilles and the Isthmus.
-
-These formerly elevated points were simply projections upon two
-orogenic blocks of the earth’s crust, one extending from South America
-to Porto Rico, the other the narrower coastal shelf forming the
-isthmus. More plainly, these remarkable strips, curved in outline,
-and with a varying length of four hundred to five hundred miles,
-maintained a precarious stability with references to the adjoining
-edges against which they abutted, and when a shock, violent enough to
-rupture or release those edges, supervened they fell _out_ and _down_
-like a brick or stone from an arch. When the more eastern of these
-blocks, that on which the lesser Antilles stood, dropped, the oceanic
-heated currents of the equatorial belt of the Atlantic rushed into the
-Caribbean basin as usual, but with a perceptible acceleration. The
-currents did not meet the frictional resistance of an archipelago of
-small islands. Their progress westward continued, through the almost
-simultaneously created outlet into the Pacific, by the submergence
-of the isthmus. Upon the first report of President Roosevelt’s
-apprehensions that this catastrophe would involve a disastrous
-diversion of the Gulf Stream, European geographers had contemptuously
-treated it as impossible, and stigmatized it as “an amusing futility
-of envy.” They dwelt upon this fact, that the Gulf Stream did not
-invade the bent arm of water forming the eastern water boundary of
-the Isthmus of Panama, but shot across this somewhat withdrawn angle,
-passing with undiminished volume in a straight path beyond Honduras,
-into the capacious pocket of the Gulf of Mexico. “Let it be conceded,”
-began an authoritative refutation in the _London Times_, “that the
-structural impediment to the mixture of the waters of the Atlantic
-and Pacific existing in the Isthmus of Panama is removed. Does
-mixture follow? By no means, that is in no way subversive of present
-hydrographic conditions. There will be a marginal intermixture, of
-course, where there is actual contact, but it is presumptuous and
-opposed to experience to say that two enormous bodies of water will
-promiscuously exchange their contents through an opening, relatively
-to their volume and extent, what a pinhole would be to the juxtaposed
-masses of two great reservoirs. Further, this _disinclination_, as a
-physical impossibility, of the waters of the two contiguous bodies of
-practically equal density to diffuse into each other, is increased
-by the strength and velocity of the Gulf Stream itself, which rushes
-past the isthmus deflection, and instead of being turned aside into
-that narrow aperture, would exert a suctorial influence upon the tides
-of the Pacific, actually (though this is in no way insisted upon)
-reinforcing its own volume and momentum by their contributions.
-
-“There can be no valid reasons for anxiety in regard to the future of
-the kingdom so far--and that is very far indeed--as its prosperity and
-happiness depend upon a continuance of the supply of warm waters from
-the west.”
-
-The writer of this article in the _London Times_ had not realized, or
-had not heard of, the elevation of Cuba and the emergence of the broken
-range of keys between Cape Gracias de Dios and Jamaica, nor had he
-considered the “suctorial influence” of the Mexican current in the
-Pacific, southward on the west coast of Mexico and Central America upon
-the Atlantic areas, nor had he suspected the quantitative effect of a
-higher barometric pressure in the Atlantic over the pressure resident
-above the surface of the Pacific, a difference practically amounting to
-a push upon the surface distensions of the Atlantic in the direction
-of the Pacific, the very moment a _sensible_ union between them took
-place. And it was a _sensible_ union. His comparison of it to a pinhole
-was utterly misleading. Above a certain minimum, no matter what the
-size of the major bodies of water were, relatively, connection between
-them meant, under the circumstances, mixture, and a hole four hundred
-miles wide was much above that minimum. At the very moment when he
-penned this astute demonstration, the Gulf Stream had begun to throw
-its seething waters across the sunken isthmus. And the effects followed
-with startling rapidity. The author of the consoling reflections
-quoted, perhaps had hardly had time to have forgotten the obsequious
-reception his words received, when his admiring listeners were brought
-face to face with the worst consequences he had considered absurdly
-impossible.
-
-The summer in Great Britain had been noticeably colder, and with the
-passage of the autumnal equinox, the winds increased in strength,
-and brought with them a terrifying cold. All records were broken, and
-the sinking thermometers withdrawing their silver threads into the
-diminutive bulbs, became suddenly the chief subjects of conversation.
-The corridor of the Houses of Parliament, the state room of Windsor,
-the clubs of Pall Mall and the parlors of the West End, no less than
-the alcoves of London Bridge, the shops in White Friars, or the
-auction stalls of the Ghetto, buzzed with the endless comparison of
-observations made on these hitherto unnoticed instruments of precision,
-and their slightest variations took precedence in the daily prints,
-over the aphorisms of the prime minister or the nullities of the king.
-An enormously increased sale of thermometers accompanied the sinister
-records of the deepening cold; importations of them from the United
-States spread an unprecedented wonder throughout the world as to the
-meaning of this change in climate, and the range of temperature, as the
-season advanced, was as much an object of solicitude as the growing
-expenditures of London, and more talked about than the fancied rupture
-between Spain and France. Meteorological journals were besieged with
-subscribers; Abbe, Loomis, Ferrel were as much in demand at the book
-stores as Glaisher or Thomson; Flammarion was as popular as Tyndal,
-and the lectures delivered at the British Museum had such suffocating
-success that the Red Cross Societies of London conceived the idea
-of public instructions for a tuppenny, to replenish their forgotten
-treasuries. The pedestrian and the chance acquaintance of the tramway
-would interview each other on the prevalent topic of alarm, and quote
-Wells, and Boussingault, and Daniel, and Quetelet, Forbes, Helmersen,
-Kamtz and Kupffer with more unction and accuracy than he did the
-current prices of wool or barley.
-
-The fright began in the north, in Scotland. News first arrived from
-the Hebrides, of desolating cold and overwhelming snow storms; then
-the story was picked up by the Shetlands and Aberdeen, and then the
-really tragic fate of Iceland was recounted. The cable between Scotland
-and Iceland, completed in 1906, brought the tale. And a freezing
-tale it was. Iceland had become a snow heap; its interior valleys
-were filled up, from Heckla to Skaldbreid; from Skaldbreid to Esja
-one portentous blanket of snow had levelled all inequalities of the
-surface. The terror stricken inhabitants deserted their farms and
-fought their way to Reykjavik, leaving all they possessed of sheep,
-cattle and horses to be destroyed by the pitiless tooth of the Ice
-King. Reykjavik had been deserted; its people fleeing to ships and
-steamers as the remorseless winds piled up the white shrouds of its
-Arctic burial. The cable summoned assistance for those yet fighting for
-life on the water’s edge, where the sea air helped them to maintain a
-margin of cleared ground. Over ten feet had accumulated, and ceaseless
-blizzards, unchecked, and even increasing in fury, with a tireless and
-killing cold, had renewed the ice age within that boreal republic. The
-panic spread. From confidence and scorn the people of Scotland and
-England and Ireland plunged into the clamor of despair and maniacal
-forebodings. Religious fraternities of “Frigidists” were organized,
-whose exegesis made the prophecy of the End of the World a menace
-of destruction by ice. Geikie’s _Ice Age_, and Croll’s _Climate and
-Time_ were read by earl and bellboy, and in the midst of the general
-consternation, the publishers of these books, in cheap form, doubled
-their business capacity and their fortunes.
-
-Then came the sudden visitation of Edinburgh, with the scenes just
-recounted. The transference of these immense swarms of people, the
-evicted tenants of the north (poor creatures who had never owned
-the land they lived on except by the sufferance of some landlord
-duke or “gentleman,”) southward, was a task of difficulty. Sir
-John C--, was provost marshal of the city at the time (his father
-before him had held the same office), and had devised a scheme of
-goodly proportions and efficacy. He appointed wardens, who, with
-assistants selected by themselves, visited the families in the several
-bailiwicks in Edinburgh, and prepared them for the departure, and
-who also apportioned to the different wards of the town the streaming
-populations from all the neighboring villages, towns and the country
-sides. The railroads were seized by the government, and systematic
-transportation, begun and carried on night and day. They were taken
-to the larger seaports of England, and of course to London. Already
-secret misgivings that chilled the marrow of their bones, and made the
-blood circling in their hearts freeze with horror, were entertained
-by public men, that perchance this was not all, nor indeed the worst.
-Was the power of the Kingdom of Great Britain to be made the jest of
-the snowflake and the ice-cicle? The thought made reason totter, but
-new gleams of anticipation seemed suddenly to place upon that very
-thought the consecration of joy. They should be driven from their
-hearthstone to bring the English culture in other English lands, and
-emancipated men--men of the new type, like H. G. Wells--said that that
-culture, torn from the swaddling bands of a conventional tradition,
-the silly materialism of forms and dresses, of titles and classes, of
-imperialistic gew-gaws, and the impediments of habit, would expand
-into a modern civilization, which, carrying forward all the strains
-of strength, and imaginative and ideal aims, it had before, might
-incorporate in them the new procreative life of a liberal social state.
-Well! there was some consolation in that, but a consolation robbed of
-much positive consistency when all around them they saw the loss of
-trade, the paralysis of hope, the desertion of homes, and the rising
-threats of that inexorable and deaf deity--Nature.
-
-Leacraft had watched and waited. Every new development, each changing
-report, the wearily studied logs of the ships and steamers, the
-daily averages of temperature and rainfall, the swelling disorder in
-the climate of the United States, and confirmed rumors of the hot
-current--which might be the Gulf Stream--pouring, pouring northward,
-and hugging the shores of California and Washington and Oregon, and
-even repelling the cold from Alaska, supplying a stove to its shores,
-which, it was promptly surmised, would make of it a northern paradise,
-all, in a cumulative way, pointed to one result--the evacuation of
-England. His speculative mind hurried on to the picturing of the
-changed aspects of the national life, and he felt that for once
-Science, embodied in the laws of Nature, was about to put to flight the
-mentality of men, and pour the vials of its confusion over the proud,
-the boasting defiance of their thin optimism. And yet--what might not
-Opportunity perform? Perhaps the old receptacles of civilization needed
-emptying; their garnered seeds to be more quickly cast upon the winds
-of chance to germinate and flower again in the waste places of the
-world. And Leacraft hurried to and fro--a small inherited competency
-had dissolved his business bonds--a lonely, sad man, excited by the
-thoughts of the world’s trembling position on a new threshold of
-events, and thus forgetting the gnawing pains of his own disappointment.
-
-During September he had been at the far north of Scotland, and
-retreated day by day with the invading cold, fleeing with its fleeing
-people, southward. On the memorable evening whose events have been
-rehearsed, he had found Edinburgh practically voided, and left to its
-entombment. The work of getting the people away, of convincing the
-incredulous, of providing for the needy, of deporting the treasures
-of this great depository, had been hastily and imperfectly done. In
-spite of Sir John C--’s useful plans, it could not be different.
-Disorder, recriminations, riot and clashes were inevitable at a moment
-of such sudden penetrating terror. Blocks after blocks of private
-homes remained with little or nothing of their rich contents removed.
-This condition was understood, and predatory bands of desperate men
-broke into them, encamped in them and defied expulsion. They laughed
-at warnings, and after filling their improvised camps with coal and
-stores, prepared with exultation to enjoy this novel debauch. Furniture
-and household effects had been dumped or deserted in the streets, and
-almost any extemporaneous digging in the drifts would uncover books,
-clothing and utensils. A grotesque hogarthian aspect had been produced
-by the retreat of the cats to the houses, and their mingled swarms at
-windows and on sills, whither they were strangely followed by hordes of
-mice and rats, expelled from the country and filtering into the city
-in scampering lines before the weather had reached the height of its
-tempestuous inclemency.
-
-The documentary archives of the city had been locked up in great safes
-and left for more propitious days--in summer? This example had been
-imitated in thousands of the better class houses, as the professional,
-the _official_ opinion, still hesitated to contemplate the monstrous
-alternative of a permanent sepulture of their beautiful home.
-
-One thing had been accomplished, and it was well done. The people,
-those who would leave, had been gotten away. When on the tenth of
-September the first storm of snow began, and the mercury sunk to
-a few degrees below zero Fah., the suffering became intense. Soon
-the railroads were blocked. Enlightened opinion had received its
-instructions. The return of Scotland to the bondage of snow and ice was
-published, and the publications carried conviction to a great many.
-The loss of the Gulf Stream was at length acknowledged. The impetus
-of the discovery made the worst prophecies credible. The intensity of
-this acquiescence was astounding. It became a matter of faith that the
-population should vacate their own city, and they obeyed instructions
-unanimously with a touching self-surrender to fate. Great numbers
-left Leith by boats and steamers summoned from London. The railroads
-responded with promptitude, though, by reason of a sudden access of
-energy in the government, nothing less would have been tolerated,
-longer than was necessary to confiscate their property and franchises.
-The phenomenal desertion of the city by three hundred thousand souls
-seemed as fore-ordained, as obligatory in the regime of events, as the
-setting of the sun, or the return of the seasons.
-
-But no activity of all the available means of transportation would
-have sufficed to take a population of more than three hundred thousand
-men and women in less than two months away from the city, unless it
-had been supplemented by other means. And a strange and most effective
-movement accomplished completely what more recondite or artificial
-methods would have failed to secure. The “Frigidists,” the group of
-fanatical preachers and their followers, who found in the present
-calamity an opportunity for a religious propaganda, or, through the
-fermentation and clouded expectations of their own zeal, believed it to
-be the expression of a supernatural agency, had begun a street crusade
-(always in Edinburgh popular and familiar) to accomplish the removal
-of the people. These singular fanatics served a most benevolent end,
-and their strange hallucinations wisely aided the anxious efforts of
-the authorities. They arrayed themselves in white, and went bareheaded
-through the streets of the city, exhorting all who would listen to
-accept their interpretations of the approaching judgment. They wove
-their texts of prophecy with denunciations of sin, and with the
-crowding evidences of some astounding climatic change, repeated with
-accelerated eagerness in paper, pulpit and forum, they acquired a
-tyrannous control over the emotions of the populace.
-
-Then they quickly, and with excellent discernment, organized the
-people into small regiments, distributed to them white cockades and
-white rosettes and marched them out of the city, southward, over
-the frozen and snow-lined roads. This evacuation began scarcely
-soon enough for the best results. But it gave relief. These moving
-companies, accompanied with vans and horse carts, and vehicles of every
-description, gathering numbers along their way, grew in picturesque
-confusion, as flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were united to them,
-or the miners from the coal pits, and the artisans from the factories
-joined in the vast, singing army.
-
-Like the inexorable morality of the French mobs in the French
-Revolution, who scornfully resisted the temptations of their
-own hunger in a fierce zeal to protect private property, so an
-overmastering enthusiasm permeated those rough Scottish nomads, and
-they marched through the country rigorously just and honest. There
-was suffering and death among them, and nothing could have been
-more sublimely pathetic than the improvised services of burial that
-were held from time to time along the roads they crossed. Those who
-heard its vibrant and powerful melody will remember the eclipsing
-magnificence of the hymn, sung to the air of _Adestes Fideles_, which
-began with the words:
-
-  “Firm, faithful and tried,
-  With endless glory crowned.”
-
-The success of these “Frigidists” was phenomenal, but it also clearly
-arose from the awful portents of change which made the stoutest men
-quail, and not inaptly tested the scepticism of the boldest scoffers.
-The revolution in Nature had not only affected Scotland; its dire
-effects were felt in the whole of the Scandinavian area, and the
-more southern parts of Europe, which had owed some measure of their
-favorable winters to the direct or intermediate influence of the Gulf
-Stream, were now made to feel their sudden penury in its removal.
-
-A frightful stagnation invaded the European markets; a panic of doubt
-spread confusion everywhere, and those who controlled the sources of
-money, very soon checked its use in the avenues of trade, while of
-necessity speculation and the desire for speculation simultaneously
-vanished.
-
-It was the last train intending to leave Edinburgh that, on November
-28th, waited for the Provost Marshal, and the little army of workers,
-and which Leacraft also expected to take. The tracks southward had
-been patrolled by trains of cars or locomotives for every five miles,
-and these had kept the way cleared, while they reinforced each other
-at critical junctures. When this last connection between the muffled
-city and the south should be broken, then practically Scotland
-returned, over the sweep of sixty thousand years, to a geological phase
-_resembling_ that which Geikie, Scotland’s own great historian of
-nature, had described in these words: “All northern Europe and northern
-America disappeared beneath a thick crust of ice and snow, and the
-glaciers of such regions as Switzerland assumed gigantic proportions.
-This great sheet of land-ice levelled up the valleys of Britain, and
-stretched across our mountains and hills, down to the low latitudes
-of England, being only one connected or confluent series of mighty
-glaciers, the ice crept ever downwards, and onwards from the mountains,
-following the direction of the principal valleys, and pushing far out
-to sea, where it terminated at last in deep water, many miles away from
-what now forms the coast-line of our country. This sea of ice was of
-such extent that the glaciers of Scandinavia coalesced with those of
-Scotland, upon what is now the floor of the shallow North Sea, while
-a mighty stream of ice flowing outwards from the western seaboard
-obliterated the Hebrides, and sent its icebergs adrift in the deep
-waters of the Atlantic.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-THE TERROR OF IT.
-
-
-Leacraft and Jim reached the hotel at the Caledonian station, in a
-crowd of breathless men, all anxious to escape to more reassuring
-neighborhoods. Thomsen and the young lady so opportunely rescued had
-availed themselves of the restorative resources of the hotel, and had
-largely recovered from the exposure and scare of their experience.
-Leacraft met Sir John C-- standing at the entrance of the hotel, his
-face clouded with grief and anxiety. Strained to the last limit of
-endurance by his unwearied exertion to secure the safety of the people,
-and almost prostrated by the desolating sorrow of deserting the great
-city, the distinguished publisher expressed in his looks his intense
-misery of mind. Leacraft expressed a few words of condolence, which
-were hardly noticed, and then hurried to the former writing room of
-the hotel, where he found a fire burning, and a hastily prepared
-luncheon, around which a dense crowd of men were collected, filling the
-room almost to suffocation, greedily devouring the welcome repast, and
-muttering doubts of their eventually escaping at all if they remained
-any longer.
-
-“Sir John hates to get away,” commented one. “He just can’t make up
-his mind to go. His heart is broke. But what’s the use? We can’t stay
-here and be buried alive. The trainmen say it’s a hard job now to get
-through, and all the way to Glenarken is full of big drifts. I say we
-must shake this, and it’s nobody’s right to run our heads into danger
-for the whim of a little love for the old town. Sure, we are all hard
-enough up, and it’s we that has not got a roof to our heads, nor a bite
-to our stomachs that has the worst to fear. It’s a cruel sufferin’ to
-think of it at all; but so it is, and it’s no use fashing.”
-
-“Weel, weel,” said another, “it’s an awfu’ plight, and naebody can say
-what’s next. We maun better be dead than to pit our heads in a pother
-of snaw and wait for next simmer to melt us out.”
-
-“Simmer, man, is it!” exclaimed a rough cart-man with a huge ham
-sandwich in each hand, and his jaws working on the remnants of their
-predecessor. “Simmer! It’s all up with the simmers frae now to the end
-o’ the warld. It’s bonny Scotland good-bye, and mind you, man, you’ll
-never see gorze again on the Queen’s Drive, I’m thinking, and you’ll
-never tak’ your bonnet aff on Arthur’s seat, nor pluck the daisy on
-Holy Rood mead. You’ll never canter to the Pentlands, nor hear the sang
-of praise go up frae the Roslin chapel, and you’ll nae hear the bell
-toll frae Grey Friars kirk, nor mark time wi’ the Hielanders in St.
-Giles’, and you’ll never bide the chance when you can see old Hay’s
-shop in High street, nor watch the middlings stare their een out at
-John Knox’s hame. It’s ower by naw,” and the good fellow turned away
-in a choking effort to repress his own tears, and swallow the generous
-morsels he had bitten from his overloaded hands.
-
-Leacraft pressed by these disturbed groups, and found, after he
-had inducted Jim to the hospitalities of the various tables, his
-own strength and composure deserting him. He sank into a chair and
-covered his face with his hands. It seemed as if he had lived through
-some dreadful nightmare, and the weird and sickening sense of yet
-more miseries, rising thick and fast, covering with gloom a nation’s
-happiness, stunned him.
-
-A soft voice awoke him. He looked up hastily and saw the lady whose
-arms, half an hour before, had clung unresistingly around his neck.
-She was unquestionably very pretty, and the returning flush upon her
-cheeks gave the alabaster clearness of her brow a singular effrontery
-of beauty. Elsewhere, or under different circumstances, it would have
-produced in Leacraft a momentary suspicion of artifice. As it was, it
-held his attention long enough for him to notice that the hair covering
-her head luxuriantly was a raven black, and was gathered beneath the
-hood of a soft brown sealskin fur, which clothed her form, while two
-wonderful opal bracelets, relieved with ruby jewels, in alternating
-links, most incongruously graced her wrists, the gloves on her fingers
-were evidently distended by rings, and a superb necklace of diamonds
-and peridots encircled closely her neck, seen through the half-opened
-cape. Leacraft rose mechanically to his feet, still conscious of
-effort, and looked wonderingly at the young face, and at that of her
-companion, Mr. Thomsen, the Scotchman.
-
-“My cousin and I”--the voice was exquisitely gentle and
-expressive--“can never repay you. It is a slight thing to say to you
-how much we thank you, but it is not impossible that we can both yet
-show you our gratitude in some manner that will mean more than words,
-mean as much for you as your sacrifice meant for us. Is not that so,
-Ned?”
-
-She turned to Mr. Thomsen, who advanced and accosted Leacraft with
-courteous alacrity. “I am sure, sir, you appreciate our sense of
-devotion to yourself. You extricated my cousin and myself from a
-certain and dangerous imprisonment. It might have been something more
-dreadful. And perhaps,” with a reluctant gaze at the young woman, and
-a smile of understanding for Leacraft, “you may wish to understand
-better how the perilous predicament you found us in occurred. It was
-very simple. This lady, Miss Ethel Tobit,” Leacraft bowed, “was left
-with myself, her cousin, at the home of her father and mother, on Pitt
-street, to complete the packing of a quantity of valuables which were
-at the last moment to be placed in a safe and left there for recovery
-later; it does now seem as if that word was a poor mask for Never. We
-had brought food for the house, and felt no fears of escaping before
-the streets became impassable. Then this last storm broke, and this
-afternoon, late in the day, we started out--but we had waited too long.
-My cousin sank under the exertion; I was disabled by a fall, in which
-my side was seriously bruised. We took refuge in St. Andrew’s Church,
-whose doors stood providently unclosed, though to swing them out I
-had to dig with my hands a crevice for their movement, in the rising
-snow banks forcing them constantly back. Our vigil began. The city in
-all directions around us was deserted. We could hear the workers on
-Princes street occasionally, in the lulls of the hurricane, and the
-whistle from the station sent thrills of anguish through us, as we felt
-we should soon be alone in an empty city. It was as impossible for
-us in our crippled state to return to the house in Pitt street as to
-reach Princes street. We then began calling, and it was you, sir, who
-responded. I think hunger and thirst would have made it impossible,
-even in the day, for us to have left our retreat, and only the--”
-
-“Don’t, Ned,” cried the quivering girl; “don’t don’t! It’s too awful
-to think of. We need all our best spirits as it is--but to think--Oh!
-it’s too horrible!” And she hid her face against her cousin’s breast,
-and broke into sobs. Leacraft felt the embarrassment, and was ill at
-ease, though somehow at that mournful moment the sight of a beautiful
-woman seemed a compensation, and in this case, as she lifted her
-tearful face to Leacraft, piteously struggling to smile, it awoke in
-him a kind of ardor to be always near her. He looked almost tenderly
-at her and said: “I think I have every reason to thank my good fortune
-and this remarkable weather for a very pleasant adventure. Well, No!”
-he continued, as he caught the reproachful and grieving glance of Miss
-Tobit, “that is too cynical. Heaven knows we are all broken-hearted
-enough to-night to relinquish any false gayety, or even the appearance
-of it, but certainly, Miss Tobit, I hope this chance acquaintance will
-establish a friendship between us. It will be the only compensation for
-this night of agony, and perhaps for all the other nights of agony that
-still await us. You will not refuse it?”
-
-Miss Tobit turned instinctively to her friend, and Leacraft, betrayed
-into an earnestness perhaps somewhat out of place, had a fleeting
-glance of an evanescent smile, and then the words, even more sweetly
-spoken than at first, came to his ears:
-
-“It would be all your own fault if we fail to be friends. I am sure I
-can keep my side of the contract.”
-
-Mr. Thomsen watched this brief exchange of promises not altogether with
-approval, if the faintly forming frown on his face meant anything,
-and the evident inclination to take Miss Tobit away from Leacraft’s
-proximity. But he was entirely courteous, and with a half-whispered
-comment that, “It would not do now to tire their benefactor any more,”
-he moved off and drew the lady with him. And then the summons came from
-the other end of the room that all was in readiness, that Sir John was
-on the train, and that the attempt to reach the south was to be made.
-There was much confusion and some indecent precipitation to gain the
-door, and in the rush Leacraft lost sight of his newly made friends,
-but found, to his great satisfaction, Jim at his side, for Jim had
-turned out to be that sort of a fellow that meets predicaments with
-coolness, and quietly, without words, instills confidence.
-
-Leacraft was a little nettled over his seriousness with Miss Tobit,
-because it revealed again to himself that prosaic stiffness of language
-which he consciously recognized as having formed an element of failure
-with Miss Garrett, whose plastic wit found in it a source of amusement.
-He walked towards the door, wondering bitterly why women placed so much
-value on a turn of speech, or the accent of a compliment, when his
-musing discontent was interrupted by a hand laid on his arm. He turned
-around and saw a member of the Common Council of the city, associated
-with Sir John C-- in the last days of the city’s government. The
-stranger accosted him. “Mr. Leacraft, the Provost Marshal wishes you to
-share his compartment. He has a great desire to speak with you on the
-affairs of the city, and the dreadful things which seem to be before
-us. This way, sir,” and he motioned to a large parlor coach in the
-centre of the train.
-
-Leacraft retained him. Placing his hand on Jim’s shoulder, he said,
-“This man goes with me.” The councilman for a moment looked puzzled,
-but almost instantly rejoined, “Certainly, sir; your personal
-attendants are welcome.”
-
-Leacraft laughed and exclaimed, “No, sir, this is no personal attendant
-of mine. This is only a brave man, whom I am proud to call my friend,”
-and as he turned to Jim the latter gave him a glance of the sincerest
-gratitude and pride.
-
-The councilman waived the privilege of questions and nodding
-vigorously his assent, led Leacraft and Jim to the car of Sir John.
-
-It was a car of an American type, and comfortably provided with couches
-and seats, tables and easy chairs. A number of men were already in
-it, and some refreshments, with the circulation of bottles of Scotch
-whiskey, showed Leacraft the unappeasible claims of man’s appetite,
-even in the ruins of his own fortune.
-
-Sir John occupied a chair at a round table in a further corner of the
-compartment, and as Leacraft made his way towards him, the eyes of the
-city’s chief gazed at him in return with inexpressible weariness and
-sadness. Leacraft motioned Jim to a seat, and took the proffered hand
-of Sir John, who let his arm fall heavily on the table, and still kept
-his eyes fixed on Leacraft, motionless and silent. It was Leacraft who
-first spoke:
-
-“I think, Sir John, that it was a few years ago that I secured your
-intervention for a poor fellow who was condemned offhand, and you were
-willing to help me turn the law back in its course, that it might have
-an opportunity to find out what it was made for--murder or justice.”
-
-“Yes, I do recall it, and, Mr. Leacraft, do you know,” replied Sir
-John, “that that day seems unmercifully far away. It seems as if you
-and I lived then in another world, and as if we perhaps had died, and
-were living in quite a different one now, and one very much worse,
-however bad the old one was. I am too dazed with all this. I feel as
-if I must wake up and find it all a horrible nightmare. But there can
-be no excuse for self-deception with me. I have studied this question.
-I am one of the most convinced that Scotland is doomed. Yes,” and the
-speaker straightened himself with a movement of exhaustion, “that
-England is doomed, too, that we are about to see primal conditions
-returning which are normal physiographic states, but which will destroy
-our civilization. Listen,” and as Leacraft sank into a chair near
-him, he leaned again upon the table and spoke with a sort of eager
-impatience at his own logic, as if he invited and expected and hoped
-for contradiction. “Listen. The isothermals as they existed before
-this calamity were a travesty on the map; they were an outrage upon
-meteorological symmetry. See here,” and Sir John drew out a portfolio
-which he opened on the table before him; he opened it and displayed a
-Mercator projection of the world.
-
-He was about to continue when a shout, which had mingled with it
-a throb of grief, like a loud wail, entered their ears--Leacraft
-noticed at the moment that the train was moving; it had been moving
-for some time. He looked out of the compartment window. “We are
-leaving Edinburgh,” his voice sank to a sympathetic whisper, as Sir
-C-- suddenly turned to gaze, too, along with all the rest, upon the
-shrouded city.
-
-The snow was falling from a leaden sky, and the mantled city, with its
-higher buildings, here a spire, there a monument, like an irregular
-mound hiding a burial, was indistinctly, very partially, seen. The men
-and one woman--the Scotch girl saved that afternoon from the tomb of
-snow--were standing in the coaches, leaning out of the open windows, to
-fathom the dull, mottling obscurity of the air, to catch--to be forever
-remembered--some recognized feature of the great, beautiful habitation
-now left in the on-coming night time, to be buried in the whirling
-wreaths. Hidden between its hills, imperishable but unseen, and waiting
-for its resurrection again into the joy of life and usefulness--a
-dead city, save for those brigands who, like wolves or ghouls, dared
-death to fatten on abandoned riches, amid its solemn, terrifying
-loneliness! Strange vicissitude! and as Leacraft descried, in a blurred
-exaggeration of its natural size, the dome of St. George’s Church,
-opposite the Albert Memorial, a voice somewhere among the tearful and
-dumb gazers repeated this verse from Burns’ invocation to the honored
-and historic site:
-
-  With awe-struck thought and pitying tears,
-    I view that noble, stately dome
-  Where Scotia’s kings of other years,
-    Fam’d heroes, had their royal home.
-  Alas! how changed the times to come!
-    Their royal name low in the dust!
-  Their hapless race wild-wandering roam,
-    Tho’ rigid law cries out,’twas just!
-
-Though the train made a toilsome way and interrupted progress, with
-steam sweepers ahead of it, the city soon faded away. The eye could
-not long pierce that forest of descending veils of snow, the sepulchre
-would soon be accomplished, and the spectators shuddered at the thought
-of those voluntarily immured and hapless wretches, who had seized this
-chance for a few hours’ reckless pleasure, and then--their own death,
-murdered by each other’s hand in the furious combat for survival, or
-choked with the many fingers of the frost at their necks. And Leacraft
-remained at the window still looking, while Sir John patiently waited,
-staring at his map, or raising his eyes expectantly to Leacraft, to
-resume his attention.
-
-A bitter thought passed through Leacraft’s mind. Edinburgh had been
-faithless. Dressed in beauty, rich in reputation, nurtured in elegance
-and culture, she had been wickedly selfish. Her streets were filled
-with embruted men and women, with the vassals of drink and depravity;
-her picturesque quarters hid misery and vulgar need, unsanitary and
-simply mean corners of wretchedness, filled with creatures to whom life
-was an uneasy mixture of sleep and drunkenness. She had done nothing
-for these. Her life was part of the life of the whole kingdom, and the
-word of that life was selfishness, the stupid adhesion to conventional
-usage which kept the land from the people, which loaded taxes and
-rents upon a slaving many, for the perpetuation of an indulgent and
-luxurious life to the few. The upper surfaces of society, brilliant
-and dazzlingly sleek with pride, and puffed up with the vanity of
-knowledge, cushioned upon a contemptuous forgetfulness of duty, of
-sympathy, conceitedly viewing their reflections in Burke’s Peerage, or
-Chalmer’s Landed Gentry, begrudging every concession to modern sense
-of justice, denying the equality of men, fostering the silly homage of
-their inferiors, and rankly gathering around the idiocy of a futile
-monarchy. It was a class life, a class gospel, a class cultus, the
-arrogance of a classification of the humans of society, which made the
-joy of the world the prerogative of those who by birth or fortune found
-themselves foreordained to possess it, and who now--God willing--would
-fight every inch of their vantage ground to keep that advantage,
-believing that a fine suavity of demeanor, a generous support of
-fashion, a supercilious deference to education as an aristocratic
-embellishment, a pretentious clemency of judgement and an unfailing
-church attendance, would save them before any supernatural tribunal--if
-indeed such a tribunal existed--of particular blame. Those among them
-yet endowed with the pulses of human feeling, gentle in spirit and
-blessed with the better sentimentalities of religion, visited the
-poor, and dropped lunch baskets at their doors, and assumed the fine
-benison of stooping angels--a shallow thoughtlessness which did nothing
-for the regeneration of permanent social outrages. The unemployed
-might clamor, the poor might continue to multiply, and the young and
-ambitious might sail away on white wings to the new life of America,
-but the lord and landlord must still remain, because in the sight of
-the Lord God Almighty the lord and the landlord are part and parcel
-of the eternal order of things, an appanage of His eternal throne
-and a reflection of the rule of Heaven. And beneath all this was the
-sickly obsequiousness and snuffling adoration of ordinary men, which of
-course the lord and ladies despised, but which after all was helpful in
-keeping up the distinguished humbug.
-
-This on its best side, but there was a worse side. There was moral
-depravity; there was ruthless wickedness; there was a set so smart
-that they defied decency and rectitude, and travelled on the currents
-of their passions to all the maelstroms of moral rottenness. The King
-himself had violated the measures of sobriety and faithfulness. And
-this imposing and historical structure, must now totter to its fall
-before the drifting snowflake. Truly the simple shall confound the
-wise. Leacraft turned from his melancholy thoughts to the friendly face
-of Sir John, who, catching his eye, resumed his conversation.
-
-“This map will make it quite plain that the position of our nation
-as a commercial, as a political fabric, is a geographical absurdity,
-a necessary paradox. Look!” and Sir John pinned down the map on the
-table, and drew Leacraft down towards its attentive examination. “Here!
-is an occular demonstration of our false position, a charted proof that
-we are in a wrong place, a spot of possible change, that will reverse
-all previous experiences if the right conditions supervene. The change
-has come, and Scotland returns to its appointed allegiance. It belongs
-to the Kings of the Ice. See,” and he leaned over the map in a kind of
-ecstacy of despair, speaking rapidly as his fingers traced the lines
-he indicated. “See! consider these enormities. Land’s End and the
-Scilly Islands, where palms grow, are on the degree of 50 degree north
-latitude, which is the same as Notre Dame Bay in New Foundland, the
-same as Manitoba, the same as the most northern Kurile Islands. Do you
-know what the temperature of these places are? I will tell you. The
-average winter temperature of northern New Foundland is 10 degrees,
-that of Manitoba 9 degrees, and that of the Kurile Islands, 12 degrees.
-
-“The average temperature of Land’s End is 40 degrees. Well, that
-may not strike you as a contrast so sharp as to warrant my dire
-prediction, but you must learn to see in average temperatures much
-more than is simply indicated in the mere differences in degrees.
-Averages are utterly misleading, so far as they mean habitable
-conditions. A temperature of 0 for six months, and a temperature of 80
-degrees, for the remaining six months furnishes the harmless average
-of 40 degrees, but a land suffering from the affliction of a climate
-such as that, would be useless for the larger purposes of a civilized
-community. Averages produce an impression of uniformity, whereas they
-conceal the most obstreperous changes--and a small difference, such as
-you observe between the temperature of the Scilly islands, and these
-inclement and impossible districts of Canada or Kamtchatka, means that
-though all are on the same latitude, they are as diversely adapted
-for modern life as the tropics and the north pole. Why are the Scilly
-islands adapted for tulips and spring peas, when Manitoba yet sleeps in
-snow?
-
-“From the point of view of a primary instruction in temperature,
-hottest at the equator, coldest at the pole, and graded all the
-way between; it is a preposterous caprice. It is a caprice. And a
-civilization flourishing under the auspices of a caprice, will come
-to grief. Climate is a symbol of vagaries, contradictions and sudden
-affinities. It is the atmospheric expression for the feminine and the
-poetic in men. As a matter of fact contingencies of interfering land
-surfaces, of changing barometric pressure, of oceanic tides, of air
-currents, of solar radiation, combine into a labyrinth of possibilities
-to make places that ought to be cold, hot, and vice versa.
-
-“But they are evanescent possibilities, and the founders of empires
-who rely on them will some day be brought back with stunning, abject
-terror, as we now are, to the realization of first principles, that
-latitudes are invincible barriers to the diffusion of the race, and
-that the nations neglecting their plain meaning court disaster. Well;
-you know the explanation of all these whims of nature. The old story;
-the Gulf Stream with its millions of units of heat forced northward
-by wind pressure, and accelerated eastward by the equatorial velocity
-it starts out with, our insular position bathed in oceanic waters,
-holding immense deposits of the sun’s heat; the open seas north of
-us; the great furnace stores of heat in Africa, like a nearby factory
-heating our thin coasts. That is common knowledge--but these accidents
-of position, these migratory tides are holding in check invincible
-tendencies. Like a child’s push against an evenly balanced boulder
-they keep off the descent of disaster, but like another child’s push
-in the opposite direction, a sudden alteration of coast lines reduces
-our boasted exemption to a shadow, and London, Edinburgh, Liverpool,
-Glasgow, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburgh--the great cities of the
-world--pay at last the penalty of an infringement of nature’s Common
-Law.
-
-“Heat is life, and cold is death, and no blank optimism may hope for
-national achievement in the frosts of winter. Our civilization, the
-civilization of northern Europe, has overstepped the limits of climatic
-permission, as this globe is made. We are the victims of a deception.
-Primary conditions of temperature are returning, a meteorological hoax
-is exploded, and 50 degrees north latitude will mean in Europe what
-it has always meant elsewhere. But look at Edinburgh, look at these
-isothermals on the map, attributing to her the temperature of far
-southern latitudes. Too obvious an absurdity to last. True enough. Yes,
-but fugitive; an episode only. So flat a contradiction of the economy
-of this round earth should never have misled us. And we have had
-warnings--”
-
-Mr. C-- stopped; his agitation fairly choked him. Leacraft sympathized
-with the gentleman’s distress. His bitterness of heart had created a
-mental hallucination, an unbalanced affectation of epigram. Leacraft
-interposed: “Well, Sir John, the empire of Great Britain has no
-reason to regret its existence, even if it is based on a climatic
-fallacy. There have been some things done in it which no change in
-temperature will obliterate, unless the Ice Age is returning and we
-all decline into extinction north and south, and the Earth is again
-without form and void. You speak of caprices. How can you tell this
-is not a caprice, too, a monstrous subterfuge of Nature to teach us
-a lesson, letting us come back again when we are better, when we can
-feel and keep grateful to Her for letting us live at all. You err in
-deduction Sir John. A round Earth exposed to the sun’s heat with a
-zenith movement from 23,28 north latitude to 23,28 south latitude, must
-exhibit water currents flowing north, and bringing with them equatorial
-temperatures. Such a fact is as normal as that the same earth must be
-colder at the poles than at the equator. You are involved in a sophism,
-because you assume a principle which is imaginary, so far as its
-invariable truth is concerned.
-
-“And what warnings have we ever had?”
-
-“Warnings!” said Sir John, after a moment’s silence during which he
-regarded Leacraft with a guarded hopefulness, “Warnings! Many.” And he
-took out a note book from which he read. “The winters of 1544, 1608,
-1709, were terrific--the thermometer at Paris in 1709, sank to nine
-degrees below zero Fah. In 1788–1789, the river Seine froze over in
-November. Then there was 1794–5, 1798–9, when the rivers of Europe
-were frozen over. In 1795, the mercury in Paris registered ten degrees
-below zero, although at the same time in London the temperature was
-nearly seven degrees above zero. And then we have 1812–3 when Napoleon
-failed, defeated by the cold rather than the Russians. In 1819–20, in
-1829–30, in 1840–41, in 1853–4, 1870–71, during the Franco-German war,
-with the cold greater at the south than in the north of France, and
-when--this is worth noting--the Gulf Stream was driven backward by a
-north wind, and banked up, as it were, at Spain and Portugal; in all
-these years there were intensely cold winters, which if continued, and
-reinforced by storms, and increased by the disappearance of some of the
-helpful agencies that now keeps up our supply of caloric, would mean,
-could only mean our extinction.
-
-“Now as for degrees of cold--I quote from Flammarion--‘the greatest
-cold yet experienced has been twenty-four degrees below zero in France,
-five degrees below in England, twelve below in Belgium and Holland,
-sixty-seven degrees in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, forty-six in Russia,
-thirty-two in Germany, ten degrees below in Spain and Portugal.’ These
-are Fahrenheit records. These severities tell us our danger.”
-
-“It seems to me,” rejoined Leacraft, “that they tell us nothing of the
-sort. It is a mild madness to misconstrue them so completely. These
-extremes of temperatures are far lower than any we have observed, and
-yet we have been expelled from Scotland. It is the snow. These endless
-heaping torrents from the skies that have driven us out, and they--I
-do believe it--will continue; but it has no parallel. Nothing warned us
-of this--and as to our climatic safety, it was as fixed as the change
-of day to night when, without warning, without precedent, a bridge
-of mountains tumbles into a hole in the sea, another bridge rises as
-a dam, and either occurrence seemed about as likely as that the moon
-would fall into the sun. I think indeed the advantage of a guess might
-have lain with the latter supposition.”
-
-“Well. The snow; you say it will continue,” said Sir John with a sudden
-reflex action of revolt. “Why will it continue?”
-
-“I estimate the probability for that in this way,” answered Leacraft.
-“The atmosphere is a system of balances never at rest, unless in
-equilibrium, and never in equilibrium except at rare intervals, and
-then in limited and favored spots. This state of inequilibrium causes
-constant motion, currents, storms, winds and precipitation, whether
-of rain or snow, depending on temperature and position. Now the motor
-power of the movement in all this atmospheric mass is difference of
-temperature, the hot air rising and flowing to the poles, and the cold
-air of the poles descending and flowing to the equator. That is the
-A. B. C. of meteorological physics. But the revolution of the earth
-causes the cold polar winds to blow from the northeast and the warm
-equatorial winds to blow from the southwest, that is with reference
-to our position in the northern hemisphere. Now if we are undergoing
-a progressive refrigeration, the contrast in temperatures between our
-latitude and the temperature of the equator increases, and because
-of that, the velocity of the wind blowing from the latter increases
-too, and the moisture that these winds would have dropped over the
-equatorial zones is carried further north, and our annual precipitation
-is thereby increased--our snow falls become more continuous and
-thicker. Think what the removal of the Gulf Stream means. Croll has
-clearly shown that the heat bearing capacity of the Gulf Stream is
-enormous. It seems incredible. I recall some of his statements. He
-says that the Gulf Stream conveys as much heat as is received from the
-sun by over one million and a half square miles at the equator, and
-the amount thus conveyed is equal to all the heat which falls upon the
-globe within thirty-two miles on each side of the equator; further
-that the quantity of heat conveyed by the Gulf Stream in one year is
-equal to the heat which falls, on an average, on three millions and a
-half square miles of the arctic regions, and that there is actually
-therefore nearly one-half as much heat transferred from tropical
-regions by the Gulf Stream as is received from the sun by the entire
-Arctic regions, the quantity conveyed from the tropics by the stream to
-that received from the sun by the Arctic regions being nearly as two
-to five. And it is this fact of the tremendous drain that the Gulf
-Stream makes on the equatorial regions, those immense manufactories of
-heat, that its removal--meaning the sudden abstraction of this heat
-or much of it from our latitude--produces a more forceful interchange
-in the airs of the north and the south. It produces winds of a higher
-velocity, and because of this, the wind coming to us from the Equator
-does not so quickly free itself of its contained moisture. Croll has
-shown in his splendid work of theory and proof, that the winds warmed
-by the Gulf stream are the true causes for our unusual and exceptional
-heat above corresponding positions on the western side of the Atlantic
-basin. The Gulf Stream gone, these warming winds will bring us heat no
-longer. But they will bring us moisture, and in larger quantities, and
-then the process of refrigeration over our chilled coasts will turn
-that into snow. The snows will be deeper, and they will last longer. In
-this way, Croll, defending himself against the criticism of Findlay,
-shows that the winds--the anti-trades blowing from the south to replace
-the atmospheric emptiness--I suppose we might say vacuum--left by the
-descent of the cold winds from the poles, parted with the most of
-their moisture in the equatorial belt. Now by reason of their greater
-velocity they will not do that; they will reach us much less despoiled
-of their watery burdens.
-
-“Our highlands and our coast position make us natural condensers.
-To-day we have a rainfall in the year of about thirty inches. That may
-now be doubled. The southwest winds are our most general winds. Out of
-a thousand as a maximum, during the year, two hundred and twenty-five
-are from the southwest. These are wet winds. And in the same total
-there are one hundred and eleven south winds which also carry moisture,
-making a possible percentage of one third of all the winds that blow
-over us as rain winds, or now by reason of our altered state as snow
-makers. But this relative frequency will now be increased. There will
-be a longer continuation of the west winds, because as I have suggested
-they will be stronger. They are to-day most intense in the winter
-months. Our south and southwest winds gather moisture from a wide
-expanse of sea, the same expanse from which they formerly gathered heat
-from the Gulf Stream was widely diffused over the north Atlantic, both
-north and south, for as Croll shows, by reason of a high barometric
-pressure somewhere off the west of Maderia and a low pressure north of
-Iceland, the tendency of the air south of the English Isles at that
-point is to flow north. But these winds are no longer heat carriers.
-They bring moisture only. They bear to us through the air the winding
-sheets of our burial.”
-
-The two men looked at each other, and it was a look of anguish. The
-sudden cruel dreadfulness, the hideous mutation which might send the
-English people out of their land on the strange quest for a new home
-crushed them into an emotional inanition. They did not seem to exist.
-Their lips lost their color, and only the paralysis of stupor saved
-them from breaking down into sobs.
-
-It was a few moments later that Leacraft spoke. He asked, “And the
-people of Glasgow. How did they get away?”
-
-Sir John Clarke scarcely raised his head and his words scarcely formed
-an articulate whisper; “They went by steamers.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-IN LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1910.
-
-
-In the smoking room of the Bothwell Club, on Cheapside, back of St.
-Paul’s, London, on February 12th, in the year of grace, 1910, two men
-sat in attitudes of earnest attention. A third man older than either
-with his back to a blazing fire, whose simulated effect of comfort
-arose from the curling tendrills of gas flames that swept over another
-simulation of heaped up logs, was speaking with desperate emphasis. He
-seldom looked at his arrested auditors, nor indeed moved, except when
-he raised his head, and his eyes, strained with a hopeless longing,
-sought the gay frescoes of the ceiling, or when, in pauses of his
-declamations, he walked to a window and raising the curtain looked out
-upon the city, up to the dome of St. Paul’s, which rose like an Irkutsk
-igloo above a plain of snow.
-
-The man was Alexander Leacraft, the auditors were Mr. Archibald Edward
-Thomsen and Jim Skaith, both familiar to the reader as rescued and
-rescuing, in that awful day of November 28th, when the last little band
-of citizens, led by the provost-marshal, had slipped away in the storm
-from Edinburgh. Strange things had happened since then: much stranger
-were in store. The train in which Sir John C-- and his companions
-escaped, had made its way with painful slowness, and before the
-English line was reached had stopped repeatedly until it was necessary
-to desert it. And then the weary crowd of refugees had staggered on
-their way to a distant station, along a country side emptied of its
-inhabitants, with the low houses of the country people evident only as
-mounds of snow. And, with many struggles, with mutual assistance, with
-prayers and suffering, the men pushed on in the closest companionship,
-brought by the terrors and dangers of the journey into the usual
-unhesitating intimacy of peril. They took each other’s places in the
-work of excavation, helped all to flounder and press through the
-drifts, divided their company into the weak and strong, and so allotted
-tasks that the co-operation of all helped their common progress. Camps
-were made in which shelters were clumsily provided, with tents brought
-from Edinburgh, and which only the industry of the watchers saved also
-from burial in the tossing drifts.
-
-The frugal meals snatched by chance or at the favorable moments where
-inequalities of the ground permitted a more regular distribution and
-preparation of food served well enough. Now and then they espied a
-deserted house, and into this they crowded, enjoying the heat of fires
-made of the wood-work, the floors and windows of the house itself,
-while they dried their clothing, changed their shoes, and, gaining
-a respite and new strength, salleyed out again into the desolate
-landscape with its blue gray skies flaming with crimson, when the day
-set, and the snow cleared, and a sharpened icy edge of cold vibrated
-like an unseen but intensely realized cord stretched nippingly through
-the air. The leaders expected to reach a place called Tway stone, where
-a train was in waiting, which would carry them south of this immediate
-zone of the greatest snow falls. Grewsome sights were encountered, and
-the blanched faces of men turned away from the uncovered sepulchre of
-a horse and rider, now a child and mother, and sometimes in the wet
-morasses still unfrozen, beneath the towering ridges, the forlorn,
-immured body of a young woman with blanketed face and streaming hair.
-
-Leacraft and Thomsen, with Jim, worked unremittingly with the young
-Scotch woman. They patched up a rude litter and they carried her on
-this, trudging toilsomely along, and watching her needs. Their care was
-affectionate and touching, and soon other strong men offered their
-help, for gradually the sensation gained place--so quickly does the
-human fancy cling to the vaporous skirts of superstition--that the
-girl’s safety meant the rescue of all, that her security carried with
-it the common weal. She became a fetich, and they rejoiced in caring
-for her, as if contribution to her welfare conveyed its unseen benefits
-to all who engaged in the kind ministry. Nor did she fail, with the
-living hopefulness of youth, and with her fresh winning loveliness, to
-establish a return. Her smile, the lingering gratitude she showed to
-all, her own usefulness and ready help at the stop and waiting places
-when her eager intelligence watched and directed the provisioning and
-cooking, rewarded the toilers. She was quick and resourceful, cheerful
-in exhortation and advice, and certainly--to Leacraft--always lovely.
-Thomsen had forgotten his first resentment at Leacraft’s apparent
-admiration for his cousin. The two men had become very intimate. Both
-felt themselves on the edge of new events, which were in part to be
-shaped by the blind forces of the earth, and in larger part as they
-affected England, by the sagacity and steadfastness of men. They talked
-much over these things together. Both were sombre and frightened. The
-invincible powers of nature, the unconquerable ferocity of nature which
-is deaf to reason, blind to suffering, made them shrink and quail.
-To meet its urgency with make shifts was impossible, to resist it
-madness; the line of retreat was the only line of escape. They felt
-this; the thought became oppressively dominant. They began at first to
-hint at it, they ended, quite quickly too, in predicting it with mutual
-confessions of dismay.
-
-Both loved Miss Tobit, yet, as far as appearances went, only the
-guardian spirit of her dreams could have told the direction of her
-inclinations. Perhaps both seemed to her too dear, too much involved
-in the one peril with herself, to stand apart from each other in any
-guise or place of preference. Thomsen was the younger man, and he
-had the advantage of a handsome face, a fine form and a particularly
-deferential tenderness. Cupid and his mother are not slow to give such
-gifts their heartiest commendation. But Thomsen was generous to his
-somewhat reticent, and, probably not greatly feared rival, the prowess
-of beauty is generally undaunted and oftentimes magnanimous.
-
-When the worst hardships of their journey were over, and in the less
-afflicted regions of England, where at the time the snow falls were not
-as deep, or the winds as tempestuous, Leacraft had many chances to talk
-with Miss Tobit, and he found her extremely affable, well informed and
-sympathetic, certainly not endowed with the mischievous drollery and
-the roguish merriment of Miss Garrett, and therefore not so piquant,
-tantalizing, and desirable, but very kindly and soothing.
-
-The provost-marshal and most of the party went to Liverpool, whither,
-before, many of the inhabitants of Edinburgh had fled, but Leacraft
-and Thomsen kept on to London. They found conditions in London full
-of fright and trepidation, and the business interests floundering and
-collapsed. Leacraft took up his headquarters at the Bothwell Club, and
-Thomsen and his cousin found a home at a maiden aunt’s, in Claverhouse
-place.
-
-But much as Leacraft would have craved an indulgence of sympathy and
-response, the audience of sense and appreciation, and the agreeable
-picture before his eyes of acquiescent if not admiring beauty, the
-fatal progress of events in the world of England kept him away from
-Miss Tobit more than he wished. These events were far from reassuring;
-they were directly and successively catastrophic. Their logic seemed
-inexorable; and Europe became rigid with attention as it watched with
-most varying feelings of commiseration the tightening grasp of frost
-and snow, wind and tempest, upon the destiny of England. Not that an
-actual submergence beneath snowdrifts was threatened, a hyperboreal
-sepulchre under which every Englishman lay, like the Excelsior youth,
-“lifeless but beautiful.”
-
-No such shocking and shattering misery as had befallen Scotland had
-as yet engulfed England, especially its southern counties, but the
-darkening days brought more clearly to the observation of the most
-recalcitrant and obtuse, the most reluctant and temporizing, the fact
-that England’s climate was approaching that of Labrador, that the
-restraints of trade would soon become enormous, that its products
-would be unmitigatedly diminished and restricted, and that it could
-no longer raise wheat; that its railroads, for half the year, would
-endure a dangerous embargo; that its population would perish; that
-its industries would undergo the most serious curtailment; that
-foreign ports would absorb its commerce, steal its prestige, insinuate
-themselves, by its crippled resources, into the markets of the earth
-in its place; that the ramifications of disaster would penetrate its
-social, intellectual and political life, and cloud its mental horizon
-with the gaunt and stupid spectres of Torpor and Helplessness. This
-monstrous dilemma submerged all minor passions, and plunged England
-into the noisiest outbreak of argument, suggestion and panic-stricken
-questionings.
-
-Leacraft buried himself in the questions that now with the more forward
-and statesmanly thinkers were coming to the front with relentless
-insistence. Amongst these, conspicuously outstrode and outshone
-the rest, H. G. Wells, the brilliant author and prophet of the New
-Republicanism, whose book had five years before roused an intense and
-frightened protest from the servitors of antiquity, and the selfish
-lackies of a superannuated and mythical class system. Mr. Wells, with
-his trained skill in scientific deduction and the exercised powers of
-imagination, with a reckless and defiant desire to unravel the future,
-with the slenderest regard for the prejudices of religion or old-fogey
-political conservatism, was now half-deluded himself with the sudden
-dream of starting the English nation on new grounds. Released from
-the impedimenta of ceremonies and ruins, names and titles, furnished
-with a _tabula rasa_ where the new ideals of which he set himself up
-as a sort of avatar and preacher might most keenly set and develop
-themselves, he believed--as in a measure Leacraft did himself--that the
-English cultus would put on those insignia of the coming eras which
-meant intellectual emancipation, and a social and civil regime where
-the greatest happiness and the widest material prosperity would unite,
-in which, too, would not be wanting a radical rearrangement of the
-relations of the sexes, hinted at in the same author’s later books,
-but which again, naturally, by many who followed Mr. Wells a certain
-way, was indignantly repudiated. A more dignified and august group of
-men--among whom the names of Churchill, Chamberlain, Rosebery, Balfour,
-Prof. Stubbs, and Bryce led--had assembled themselves in a council of
-deeply concerned and profoundly patriotic advisers. These men secured
-a very noble elevation above the wild and unclassified miscellany
-of men and women who, with cries, denunciations, nostrums, whims,
-hallucinations, guesses and queries, deluged the pages of the _Times_,
-stood at the corners of the streets, where such standing was possible
-in the hard weather, and preached their fantastic mental wares. A still
-more obvious and ear-assailing group were the religious zealots, who
-thrive at moments of peril, filling the brains of their listeners with
-adjurations, exhortations, prayers, pictures and prophecies, for one
-moment doleful with wailing execrations of past wickedness, and the
-next piteously shrieking eloquent appeals for repentance and confession.
-
-The singular and amazing thing in all this was the convinced assent
-given to the prediction of Science. Whereas at first the geologists
-and the meteorologists belittled and ridiculed the warnings of the
-President, they now enlarged, extended and enforced them with a greater
-authority, and more illuminated reasoning. Hardly believing that the
-people of England would realize this approaching disaster, what it
-meant, what steps should be contemplated to escape its worst effects,
-how permanent and deep-seated were its causes, the British Association
-for the Advancement of Science had resolved itself into a body of
-educators. Lectures were given where practicable, leaflets circulated,
-letters published in the leading dailies, and a comprehensive
-educational crusade started--and with one object--to instill a deeper
-dread of the future, a distrust of the possibility of the longer
-occupancy of the British Islands, and yet a firm reliance that under
-changed auspices of place, the same civilization, with unchanged
-features, would still continue to rule the world.
-
-Parliament was constantly in session, and to it the worshipful English
-householder and pew-renter looked with unwavering faith, waiting for
-its sublime wisdom and intrinsic patience, to devise ways and means,
-and some safe policy of safety. Even the King became earnest, perhaps
-a little anxious, as among the most popular doctrinaire plebiscites
-was the reiterated need of an abolition of the discarded system of the
-royal household.
-
-From the midst of all this confusion, organized and disorganized
-movements, the collapse of trade, the desertion of workers, the
-sudden emergence of a thousand voices claiming, clamoring, debating,
-the physical wreck of business, the inflamed transcendentalism that
-saw ahead of the present moment, re-adjudication, rehabilitation,
-renovation of all social wrongs; and with the cruel winter breathing
-its desolating rigors, the snow rising in the streets, the poor dying
-from starvation or exposure, the steamers crowded to their taffrails,
-daily exporting the timid and selfish rich, or the pinched poor,
-escaping with a bare competency, to establish themselves under less
-penurious skies--from all this there suddenly grew into stalwart and
-national proportions, _the resolve to leave England_.
-
-It grew with a certain flaming ardor of noble hopes and resolves.
-It grew also with an agony of doubt. The whole implication of the
-idea was grievously wounding to pride, and it strained at the very
-heart-string of the English nature. To go away from England was to
-become _un-Englished_, to lose the rich heritage of pastoral beauty,
-the treasured wealth of historic associations, the spot and home of
-literary triumphs, the soil, the air, which by some impalpable union of
-efficacies made the English blood and temperament, and which could not
-be taken away to make the same fine product elsewhere. The pathos of
-it! A nation wandering homeless with its Lares and Penates in its arms,
-its face darkened with humiliation; its shoulders, that erstwhile bore
-the burdens of states, bowed with the shame of enforced desertion; its
-voice, that summoned the freemen of the earth to convocation, silent
-with fear, or perhaps broken by the irrepressible echo wrung from its
-own anguish, at turning its back on the cradle and the home of its
-greatness.
-
-_And yet it grew_--this same resolve--and eloquence, and poetry, and
-prayers, and science, and statescraft united to make it strong and
-beautiful, to blend in it the supernatural benisons of religion, the
-purified affections of the heart, and the resolute affirmations of
-conviction.
-
-“My friends,”--it was Leacraft speaking from the fireside of the
-Bothwell Club, in Cheapside, on the night of February 12th, 1910--“I
-think the speech to-day of the members from Scotland in Parliament was
-decisive. It leaves no alternative. We cannot hopelessly, in the face
-of this modern world’s competition, fight out a narrowing chance for
-existence under the conditions facing us. And it is an unmistakable
-alternative. Our climate has changed, and the change is irrevocable,
-and it is subversive, too. We must go away, taking all that we have
-with us. The English nation has reached a sublime crisis. We transplant
-our virtues; we will relinquish our failings; we have a world of our
-own to choose from, and we are given an opportunity unparalleled in
-history.”
-
-“It’s a great chance to begin all over again,” expostulated Jim.
-
-“Not at all,” resumed Leacraft, his voice rising with that peculiar
-English intonation of tenuity, which often animates their sluggist
-accents, if it does not soon soar into nasal squeaks;--“Not at all.
-We leave England with not a thing forgotten or lost. The machinery of
-our greatness is in our history, and in ourselves; the products of
-industry and art, so far as they are necessary fixtures, stay. What
-of it--a cathedral, a palace here and there? They often stand for
-things it would be best for us to forget, and under which perhaps only
-revolution and violence will make us forget, if we remain as we are.
-What stirs my imagination, what grows visibly before me”--both Thomsen
-and Jim watched intently the fervid Englishman, released into a sort
-of mystic clairvoyance--“is a new land which is a physical unit, which
-has known no political subdivision, which holds within it no inherited
-rages, and taunting bitternesses, as these islands do to-day. Let it be
-Australia, let it be South Africa--though there, I admit, is the memory
-of a bungle--but we enter it a single people, blended into homogeneity
-by adversity, and we set about the tremendously interesting task of
-re-creating England, at least in all things pertaining to her that are
-great and lovable.”
-
-“I fail to see,” said Thomsen, “that the probabilities are that way. On
-the contrary, freed from the geographical confinement of neighboring
-islands governed from London, in a new land, Irish, Scotch, English
-will segregate again, and then scatter, just as might mixed races of
-birds, who, while they are in the same cage mingle, but when they fly
-out, fall back into their natural groups, by the most certain of all
-animal tendencies, that ‘like seeks like.’”
-
-“Well, and what of it?” retorted Leacraft. “These elements are
-together in a new country. It is one. There is no history behind it of
-subjugation and ill treatment; there can be no reversion to bickerings
-and recriminations where even the monuments and milestones familiarly
-associated with injustice have disappeared. Besides, we leave behind
-the obnoxious, shameless law of entail--at least we shall be free of
-that disgrace--and at last--but,” he added, his voice again sinking to
-a pained whisper, “with what a wrench!”
-
-“Well, Mr. Leacraft,” spoke up Jim Skaith again, “it’s mair than moving
-that has to be done. There’s the new land to be bought and settled.
-There’s getting there, and biding there. There’s schools to be built,
-and hames and shops, and, it seems to me, with pardon for being so
-forward, that if it took so many years to make a great city, it’s no
-fule’s wark to sail ower the seas and pit it up again”; then, after a
-pause, “An’ it’s never the auld hame.”
-
-“No,” resumed Leacraft, “that is true. It’s not the old home, and a big
-city--the greatest--cannot be boxed up in straw and packing cloth and
-get set up by order in another place, with the precision of a movable
-bungalow. But we need not trifle. We all know that it’s no child’s
-work. We expect something very different from London. We can meet the
-emergencies of place and room. Our population can be distributed.
-Remember, we are on trial, and the new, strange chapter opening before
-us will bring again into view the inalienable fortitude and power of
-the English mind. It’s a test. The conditions are irreversible, and
-mind and character will win--must win--or slowly, surely, the stars of
-our ascendancy pale and disappear. Nature for a moment has thrown us
-in a great peril, but was it nature or ourselves that won us footholds
-throughout the world? Open coasts await us, hundreds of thousands
-will welcome us. The influences of a common language, ancestry and
-institutions have chained together the links of our supremacy around
-the world, and made of it an inseparable girdle. Shall we falter now,
-when nature again challenges our mind to quell her hostility, opposing
-her impediments of sense to our invisible treasuries of thought,
-invention and self-confidence? It is a new step--our best step,--in
-the march of human liberty. We need to be divorced from the material
-constants, amid which the long fought battle for free thought and
-action has been waged. We are yet entangled in the meshes of tradition,
-the stumbling blocks of convention--and now they are shattered. We rise
-to splendid hopes. Or shall we say it is retribution, it is punishment
-for many sins. Let it be so. A chastened pride will not hurt us, nor
-will it hurt our chances.”
-
-“Yes, Leacraft,” interrupted Thomsen, “I feel better to hear you talk
-this way, but I must look at some very disagreeable facts, too. They
-are not easily eliminated by words or fancies, and even seem to
-evince a provoking facility to become more numerous, the more they
-are considered. Take the mechanical problem of transportation. We are
-some forty millions of people. The extravagant powers of assimilation
-of the United States barely digests the one million of emigrants that
-come to their shores each year; what conceivable powers of absorption
-will dispose of our forty millions without an attack of industrial
-_gastritis_ that will induce the worst political convulsions. And the
-carrying skill and capacity of our whole merchant marine cannot in
-less than ten years take away this monstrous human cargo, together
-with all the colossal accumulation of paraphernalia, stocks, chattels,
-goods, treasures, books and belongings, that have gathered in this
-rich island, until they seem like a sort of pactolian alluvium that
-is indigenous and irremovable. Think of the women, the children! What
-method of domiciliation will you devise to accommodate these armies?
-And with this removal comes the crash of all domestic values, railroad
-stock, gas stock, mill stock, warehouses, land values, everything
-goes with the removal of the human vitality that gives them worth. It
-staggers the imagination to think how the disorganization radiates and
-increases in all directions. In 1905–6 this Great Britain consumed
-in one industry alone nearly four millions of bales of cotton, spun
-them out into merchantable goods on her fifty million spindles. Do you
-measure the almost unfathomable depths of distress the stoppage of this
-one industry means? Is it not better to fight it out here, to defeat
-Nature, if I may be allowed to copy your own enthusiasm, to put on our
-own heads the regalia of the Ice King, and _rule him_, wrest from him
-his own sceptre, and excel his power with the power of this new century
-of invention?”
-
-“Impossible.” Leacraft’s retort was quick and impetuous. “Impossible.
-No expedients of man overcome the deliberate intentions of Nature. We
-utilize her forces, but we may not deflect her purposes. It is the
-voice of that very science which has made us such powerful masters
-of her utilities that now tells us: _We must go._ To quote the words
-of Prof. Darwin, spoken at the Cape Town meeting of the British
-Association for the Advancement of Science, ‘Stability is further
-a property of relationship to surrounding conditions; it denotes
-adaptation to environment’; there can be no adaptation to this new
-environment, which will retain our former greatness. Nature opposes
-us, indeed, in forcing us away, but we thwart her niggardliness by
-subterfuge and endurance and courage. We can make her plastic enough
-for our purposes if we do not overstep the limits of her last negation.
-The practical question, the panic, the loss! Ah! Well, if all should
-be as it has been, if the inequalities still remained, the very moral
-significance and regeneration which I hope for could not come. It means
-the levelling process by which the New Brotherhood is visibly and
-violently enforced. And as to place and means, thousands upon thousands
-will establish themselves in America, blessing every community they
-enter, and being blessed in turn with opportunity. Australia and
-South Africa, and Canada, with millions upon millions of square miles
-of unused land, will furnish us with new homes. Revivification,
-regeneration, rehabilitation will be rapid. We shall not see its
-final outcome, but we shall know the virile impulse of self help at
-its inception. If social differences, if social pageantry, vanish,
-the constraining push of Christian tolerance and fellowship succeeds.
-Differences may emerge later, but they will be differences of endowment
-and industrious energy; no other. And as to the transportation problem,
-it can be solved. We should not all go at once. It may be a slow
-movement; perhaps the slower the better. But see how we become unified.
-Like refugees or shipwrecked outcasts, we shall help each other, and
-every man’s hand will help his neighbor, but also we shall organize on
-the basis of each man’s aptitude; the farmer to his ploughshare, the
-mechanic to his workshop, the preacher to his pulpit, the artist to his
-easel, the banker to his counting room; at last, an ideal assortment
-of talents.”
-
-Thomsen hid a slight yawn, and made a smile of incredulity serve
-the ends of a salutation of encouragement. “There’s no denying the
-contagion of your confidence, Leacraft, but really I think that we
-are all mournfully in the dark as to what we best can do; and in the
-meanwhile it’s a matter of positive terror what we are going to live
-on. I brought all the available cash I could for Ethel and myself, but
-already famine has unfurled its banners, and you know how cramped and
-shrunk our living has become in London. The Thames alone saves us from
-starvation. It’s no longer a question of having a bank balance, but the
-more definite and fundamental one of finding something to buy.
-
-“By the by, Balfour closes the debate at ten to-night. You have
-admission to the gallery of the Commons. Let us go down. It promises to
-be a fine effort. I only hope it’s not going to be a funeral oration.”
-
-Leacraft pulled out his watch and found the time a half-hour after
-nine. Yes, he would go; in fact he had already engaged a boatman at
-Blackfriars’ Bridge, to be in waiting for him at almost that very
-moment. Jim stepped to the window and looked out. The night was pure
-and clear. Huge hummocks of snow encumbered the streets below, and the
-moon blazed in the keen sky like some target of disaster.
-
-“Weel, Mr. Leacraft, you won’t want me along, and somehow I’d rather
-sit here and think over your own words, little as I believe it will all
-come oot so gude-like.”
-
-“No, Jim, keep the fire on, and watch out for us, and you might
-remember to brew us a stiff snack after your own heart; it won’t
-come amiss.” Jim assented with alacrity, and Leacraft and Mr.
-Thomsen, muffled up to their ears, and almost hermetically enclosed
-in fur ulsters, left the room, descended the stairs, and appeared at
-the doorway on the street. A tolerable path led through a part of
-Cheapside, but it was not their intention to follow that thoroughfare;
-they turned towards the church and clambered along a devious footway,
-that imitated the sinuous and irregular wanderings of a mountain
-trail. It led them to Ludgate Hill, where they encountered a few other
-travellers like themselves making their way to the bridge for the same
-purpose. Bridge street was just passable, and soon the ice-laden waters
-of the river were seen, blazoned like some spectacle of enchantment
-in the deluge of argent light. They found the boatman in the basement
-of the Hotel Royal, which was dead, to the last stories of its
-ornamented facade, silent and dark. It was a part of the indications
-that London already had lost its visitors. The barge men stole out of
-their retreat, and Leacraft and Thomsen followed them, the shadows of
-the party printed in ink on the winnowed snow. Two men accompanied
-the boat; one rowed and the other stood at the prow, pushing off
-the cakes of ice, and correcting the passage of the boat through
-the lanes of water, flowing like limpid threads of molten silver
-between the crunching and veering floes. Leacraft and Thomsen watched
-with fascinated eyes the broad terrace of the Victoria Embankment,
-illuminated with the moon’s effulgence, whose unchecked glory met a
-feeble rivalry in a few sickly gas mantels, and a solitary electric
-lamp. The noble houses of legislation--and to the eyes of Leacraft
-they never seemed more imbued with a supremely delicate and elevating
-beauty--rose from the water’s edge, like some creation of an inspired
-dreamer, woven of splintered rays of light, with pencilled lines of
-ebony filched from the darkest night. It embodied a loveliness past
-even the powers of thought to measure or describe. The houses flamed
-with light, and the strong light on the clock tower, announced the
-sitting of Parliament, sent back to the moon a terrestrial radiance,
-that resembled the pulsations of a fallen star. As they passed the
-Westminster Bridge, their eyes caught the distant lights of Lambeth
-Palace. Both knew that to-night the King dined with the Archbishop.
-
-Slowly their boat drew near the landing, and the two men who guided it
-motioned to its occupants to get ready to disembark, as the landing
-was deprived of its usual outfit, owing to the clogging cakes of ice
-which clung to the wall. The heavy nose of the boat was pushed into the
-wall, and Leacraft and Thomsen scrambled up the steps, and gained the
-walk which led to the Victoria Arch, and the entrance of the Parliament
-House. Here a jam was encountered, and the news was soon learned that
-Balfour had begun his speech an hour before the announced time, and was
-now engaged in the closing appeal on the motion before the house.
-
-And what was this motion? To explain it, it is necessary to rehearse
-some of the preceding events, which had finally eventuated in this
-most marvellous situation; a debate in the House of Parliament as to
-whether the English people should evacuate England. This momentous
-and world-moving spectacle was now actually contemplated by the
-fixed attention of every nation on the earth. Its awful solemnity,
-the convulsing pathos of it, the immense commercial dislocation it
-involved, its social agony, the calamitous doubts it summoned as to
-the stability of Europe itself, and the fiercer sudden question of
-the meaning of human existence on this planet, it aroused, made the
-debate of the English Parliament then pending the most extraordinary
-discussion ever known in human annals.
-
-The occasion for it had practically been forced or precipitated by the
-coercive power of scientific opinion. And the curious thing about this
-same scientific opinion was that it first resisted the overwhelming
-proof of the subsidence of the isthmus and the elevation of the
-Caribbean wall of transgression, and then fervently accepted it, with
-not one scintilla more of demonstration, and in accepting it proposed
-for itself the unwelcome task of convincing the English people that
-they should evacuate their country.
-
-It would be hard to conceive of anything to the English mind less
-conceivable than such a desertion. Its mere mention raised the most
-violent denunciation and poured a torrent of abuse upon the unfortunate
-advisors. The thought of it sapped the very foundations of the English
-sense of existence. It seemed the vertigo of madness. It deranged the
-most obvious assertions of common sense. It was an impeachment of the
-English reality. To think of it was a betrayal of trust, a breach of
-faith, a succinct defiance of the Almighty, a blasphemous rejection
-of the lessons of history, a timorous surrender to the threats of the
-weather.
-
-But later, when the Scottish population began to throw its inundating
-tides of people into England, and the Englishman read at his breakfast
-table of the floes of ice in the Clyde, and the buried Grampians, the
-insurmountable drifts about Stirling, and the incipient neve masses on
-Scuir-na-Gillean, in Skye, the reluctant embarkation of the merchants
-of Aberdeen, the closing of its great University, the shrinkage of
-business in Glasgow; when they realized that in truth the Atlantic
-and Pacific oceans had become united by a broad gateway through which
-the Gulf Stream, which erstwhile transported the heat of the equator
-to Europe, now emptied its torrid waters, bathing the western coasts
-of North America as far north as Alaska, and bringing to that Arctic
-country almost the same blessing of fructifying warmth with which it
-had before endowed England; when still further they began to hear, and
-to realize, by private letters, the affectionate summons and offers
-of the colonies, the overwhelming loyalty of the brothers across the
-sea, their frenzied eagerness to place their lands almost gratuitously
-in the hands of the mother people, and assume towards them the role
-of honored beneficiaries, then a strange, unwonted wondering began,
-as to whether it might not be best to look into the matter. And then
-intelligence aroused, with continued inspection, the impression grew,
-that indeed the prospects were alarming. The English mind, once
-startled in a certain direction, soon takes on an impetus proportionate
-to the inertia of its first movements, and therefore by a natural
-law of psychology and mechanics gains in accelerated velocity with
-each succeeding moment. So it was now. The industry of the scientific
-propaganda, its inventive persistency, was followed by the conversion
-of the large financial and commercial interests, and then a panic
-seized the great masses of the nation. Parliament took it up, the
-papers bulged and teemed with information, discussion, advice, and
-reports. A determining influence with the large trading classes was
-the decline, in some instances the positive disappearance of business,
-while to others not chained in insular possessions, a new world of
-adventure and chance seemed not altogether undesirable.
-
-The pressure of popular approval hastened, in the Parliament, the
-formulation of a plan for the slow and careful removal of the
-population. The Law of Exodus, as it was termed, was a thoroughly
-English legislative work. And that meant a wise, adequate and
-deliberate evacuation. It involved a re-tabulation, so to speak, of
-the wealth and occupations of the individuals of the country, and
-so adjusted their departure, their association, their duties, their
-facilities and trades, that the least competition would arise in the
-new quarters, and then they were also so distributed in the colonies,
-that they met the requirements of these, as it was ascertained, from
-the authorities, the latter demanded. Thousands upon thousands had
-already sailed away, forming for themselves combinations as their
-acquaintances and connexions permitted, and still other thousands, with
-property invested abroad made a home in the land in which their support
-lay. A singular consequence of the situation was the speculative
-gale it produced in America, where large amounts of unemployed or
-released capital took flight. It settled tumultuously in Wall Street,
-voraciously attacking every variety of security, and driving stock
-values out of sight in a tremendous boom that disconcerted the tried
-veterans of the famous mart.
-
-All the time the Londoner was himself gaining some convincing insight
-into the dread nature of the climatic change about him. The snows
-covered the greater part of the streets of London, the parks became
-desolate tracts, deserted, uncleared, unused, swept over by the
-freezing winds, and chased from end to end with buffeted wreaths of
-snow, whose ghostly swirling columns ran over the wintry exposures like
-a race of Titanic spirits, crossing each other in cyclonic confusion,
-or meeting in shivering collisions, dissolving in cloud-bursts of
-microscopic and penetrating needles of ice. The Thames was almost
-closed, the shipping stayed idle at the wharfs, almost unmitigated
-suffering spread among the poor, for miles the streets were only
-traversed by foot-paths worn by their occupants, and the strangest
-sights occurred in the smaller reservations like Lincoln Inn Fields,
-St. Paul’s Churchyard, the Temple Gardens, the Artillery Grounds,
-Finsbury Circus and other confined spaces. By a freak of circumstances,
-and the curious and entirely unexpected vagary of the winds, the snow
-piled up and up in these quarters, because of a peculiar inrush of
-wind from the converging streets around, and this sweeping effect
-continued until the mound of snow, circumvallating the buildings,
-reached to their windows or overtopped them, while in enclosures
-not pre-empted by buildings, as Highbury Fields, and the various
-cemeteries, the hills of snow formed colossal billows, which seemed
-like a phalanx of rigid waves tortured into fantastic pinnacles by
-the storms of wind. Such spectacles turned back the life-blood of the
-bravest, and converted the most recalcitrant objectors to the new view
-of the necessity of leaving the immemorial splendors of England’s
-Capital.
-
-It was a demoralizing and distressing picture of change, to visit
-the great docks on the Thames; the London docks, the Commercial and
-the West India docks, and in the place of the varied throngs, the
-miscellaneous rabble of laborers in which the forms, faces and even
-the dresses of the people of the world made a composite aggregate,
-which was a suggested reflex of the myriad-handed toil and industry of
-London, a significant hint of the immense wealth and opulent indulgence
-of the great metropolis--in place of all this, the harsh winds whistled
-over deserted yards, shrieked through the rigging of idle ships, or
-blew tempestuous volleys of rime and sleet across the river between
-Wapping and Rotherhithe. Before this awful change, English fortitude
-and confidence quailed, or wrapping itself in the reserve of bitterness
-and distrust, turned silently away, for an instant, at least, driven to
-confess that the time-honored legend of English destiny had become a
-perverted and silly shibboleth.
-
-February 12th, which has in meteorology, along with the twelfths of
-November, May and August, been isolated as the period of the ice
-saints, viz.: four periods characterized in an unaccountable manner by
-a fall in temperature--this 12th of February, 1910, had been determined
-by the Parliament for the closing of the great debate on the Motion of
-Evacuation. It was this night that Leacraft and Thomsen found so clear
-and cold, a keen and perilous intensity of cold probably never before
-experienced in the English islands, unless one, in his inenviable task
-of comparison could have found an equivalent in the Ice Age itself.
-
-When Leacraft and his companion attained the Victoria Tower, already
-the debate, on the motion which in an enlarged way had been before
-the English nation for more than a month, had reached its final
-stage. Balfour had been chosen to close, in a long peroration, the
-tremendous forensic display which had been limited to the walls of the
-Houses of Parliament. But it was only an episodic and distinguished
-incident in an argument which had convulsed every household in England,
-which had sent its clamorous assertions and appeals to the whole
-English-speaking people throughout the world, and which would, by all
-rational expectations, remain to the end of historic time the most
-startling venture in language, the most dramatic performance in oratory
-ever known.
-
-The two men hurried in, past the flaming chandeliers of the beautiful
-archway. Upon Leacraft showing his particular cards of admission,
-an attendant escorted them through the Royal Gallery, the House of
-Peers, the Peers’ Lobby, all of which were deserted. They chased in
-most indecorous fashion through the marvellous rooms, only intent upon
-catching the last words of the great speech whose purport and end
-was to empty those glorious apartments of their human interest, and
-bring expatriation upon all the memories they harbored. They passed
-through the Central Hall, the Commons’ Lobby, the Division Lobby, and
-were expeditiously inserted in the Reporters’ Gallery, where, backed
-up against the topmost wall, they surveyed the thronged mass beneath
-them. Every inch of space, every point of observation was packed, and
-the scene, on which a softened flood of light fell, with an enhancing
-effect of wonder, was eloquent in picturesque power and interest. Lords
-and ladies--to-night no interfering screen concealed the women--earls,
-dukes, baronets, the clergy, even bishops in their robes, merchants,
-men of science, bankers, and the whole House of Peers, standing at
-the bar of the House of Commons, were arrayed in a vast and irrelevant
-assemblage, pierced by one thought, the anguish of a supreme decision.
-And Balfour!
-
-Upon an erect and stalwart figure, moved by an instinct of regnancy at
-this sublime instant to stand free of his compeers in the broad way,
-between the benches of the Government and those of the Opposition,
-and facing the speaker--all the eyes of that assemblage were riveted.
-The classic sentences of Macaulay in describing the trial of Warren
-Hastings--hackneyed as they are by innumerable repetitions--might well
-apply to this unwonted and intense spectacle; “the long galleries were
-crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the
-emulations of an orator. There were gathered together from all parts
-of a great, free, enlightened and prosperous empire, grace and female
-loveliness and learning, the representatives of every science and
-every art.” And the comparison can be illuminatively emphasized. At
-the trial of the illustrious Pro-consul, curiosity in a man, sympathy
-with a race, admiration for the local splendor of a gorgeous scene,
-summoned to the hall of William Rufus the resplendent galaxy. But the
-motives were objective. In the present case, thought Leacraft, how
-pathetic, how tragic their subjective force. It was as if the children
-of a home, about to disappear in some horrible engulfment, calmly
-prepared to leave its threshold, but it was that sorrow multiplied by
-all the individuals of a nation, and magnified by the moral surrender
-of the associations of two thousand years. A nervous tension, that was
-expressed in the almost petrified stare of some faces, the startling
-pallor of others, the half-open lips, the strained attitudes, the
-involuntary shudders, the curious grieved looks of inattention,
-overmastered the assembly. Its contagious thrill seized Leacraft,
-and brought his mental receptivity up to a quickened pitch of almost
-deranged alertness, while every sense seemed preternaturally awake.
-
-He heard a woman sob somewhere in front of him, and far down the left
-gallery, in the glare and glitter, he saw a noble head, white-haired,
-but still wearing the flush of manhood’s prime upon his cheeks, leaning
-on a hand, and turned towards him, with unchecked tears coursing
-silently from its upraised eyes; he saw a little girl clasping the neck
-of her mother and father, as she sat half on the laps of each, and
-heard the soft lisp of her kisses on their brows; he saw the almost
-saturnine face of a dowager stonily gazing at the speaker, and, most
-strangely, he detected on her finger a topaz ring cut in _relievo_
-with the head of Queen Victoria; and yet, while his senses reported
-these trifles with startling keenness, they were also all enlisted in
-catching every gesture, every movement, every accent of the man whose
-plastic power of eloquence was there engaged in pleading for English
-abdication.
-
-How the words rang in his ears, how persuasively the voice sank and
-rose, and with what a soaring melody some of the cadences seemed
-to linger in the scented air. “Let us,” it said, “bow before the
-revelation of our own destiny. The ordination of Nature is the express
-reflection--nay, it is the objective expression of Divine will. Accept
-it with submission, with the subserviency of faith, and act on that
-condition with the abundance of that native resolution that from the
-time of Alfred has made our path upward, outward, onward.
-
-“I do not, sir, under-estimate the tremendous ordeal; I cannot be
-blind to the colossal undertaking. It resumes in one herculean
-exertion, all the efforts of our race through two thousand years. It
-is without precedent, or else it shall only be reverently compared
-to the exodus of the Children of God from Egypt. And in that light,
-sir, without subterfuge or apology, without extenuation of rhetoric,
-without ribaldry or vanity, I do regard it. We are solemnized by some
-vast scheme in the order of things to carry with us the genius of our
-civilization to another home, where its power and beauty shall both
-benefit others, and become themselves more powerful and more beautiful.
-We have lived through a stadium of progress and achievement. We
-certainly advance to the opening of another. Let the gathered
-multitudes of our race, here at its ancestral hearth, gird up their
-loins and accept the august command to go forth.
-
-“From the Witan of the Angles and the Saxons, through a feudal
-hierarchy to Magna Charta, through the provisions of Oxford, the Model
-Parliament of Edward I., by the rise in political privileges by the
-Towns, by Merchant gild and Craft gild, by the Good Parliament of 1376,
-by the relentless rebukes of Richard in the Merciless Parliament,
-by reason of popular censure and the eloquence of common men as
-with John Ball and the revolts of 1380, in the insurrection of Wat
-Tyler--followed as it was by shameless, mad ventures--through Wickliff,
-by the glories of the Tudors, the overthrow of the Stuarts, by Pym,
-Hampden, Cromwell, by William of Orange, by parliamentary reform and
-legislative extension--from the first glimmerings of civic life, to the
-light of the modern day, this nation has grown in strength, in reason,
-in the deliberate purpose of holding even the scales of Justice.
-
-“But, sir, with new positions, new prospects, new opportunities in
-illimitable areas of expansion, we enter upon undreamed of material
-enlargements. A greater London will, in the coming centuries appear, in
-which through the phase of exaltation we shall assume, will be seen the
-Miracle of Time, in which all we have learned, the highest technical
-skill, our loftiest constructive, creative mind will be realized.
-
-“The social power, the redemptive agencies, the final product of
-his thought, aspirations, skill, will be incorporated in this City
-of Man for men--the City of the Future--and it will be ours--all
-ours--_London rediviva, London redux, London sempieterna, et ne plus
-ultra_. A greater England shall be gathered within its walls. It will
-hold our sanctified patriotism, our emancipated reason, our ennobled,
-disciplined applied science, the embodyment of our imagination, and to
-its doors the world will gather, too, in fealty, in trust, in homage.
-
-“‘O et praesidium et dulce decus meum.’”
-
-The voice ceased, the speaker dropped dumbly into his seat, and for
-an instant, held his hands over features convulsed with feeling. The
-surprising thing then was--the awful silence, the deadness of that
-living, throbbing, almost frantic audience, who looking out upon a
-blackness of uncertainty felt the happy past, radiant with ease and
-fame, ceremonial and cultured luxury, slipping out of their possession
-forever, and uttered no sound.
-
-The Speaker of the House rose; there was a shifting of heads, the
-rustle of turning bodies, a simultaneous orientation, but no other
-sound, and Leacraft scanned the multitude more. Again the portentous
-silence; the Speaker with quite unusual ardor alluded to the imposing
-power and beauty of the speech, and put the motion.
-
-And then another thing more astonishing happened, that House of Commons
-leaped to its feet and shouted in one long, vibrant roar, “Aye! Aye!
-Aye!” The eager agony of the assemblage then split and tore the proud
-repression that had almost strangled it. Cry upon cry started from
-various points, and the clamor grew, the agitation took on the aspect
-of disorder and panic, and then it resolved itself into thundering
-cheers for the King, and then, with electrifying unanimity the
-multitude sang the national anthem.
-
-It was over. The House of Commons had ordered the evacuation of
-England; the House of Peers would follow their lead, and while that
-evacuation would take place slowly, covering a long space of time, and
-permit the recreant forces of nature to reform--if they would--the
-face of the world as it had been, while it had consideration for all
-the conflicting interests involved, and was so skillfully framed as to
-cause the least shock of derangement to the immense business agencies,
-still it was a surrender of the proudest people on the face of the
-earth to the blind powers of nature, and it meant for Englishmen a new
-heaven and a new earth.
-
-Leacraft and Thomsen returned that night to their lodgings at the
-Bothwell Club, through Pall Mall, where but a few of the clubs were
-still in action and as they moved painfully along over the debris and
-dirt, the disturbed and shapeless heaps of snow, the abandoned articles
-of furniture, in front of some houses, and saw the darkened fronts of
-others, with broken windows, and broached and falling doors, noted the
-signs of interior commotion in the treasury, the admiralty, the foreign
-and Indian offices, the war office and the horse guards, they felt that
-Parliament had already been forestalled, and that the evacuation of
-London and with it all England had already begun.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-THE EVACUATION.
-
-
-Events were moving rapidly. Ever since the Parliament, by a legislative
-decree, had authorized the desertion of England, and the eventful day
-approached when the King and his household, the Parliament itself, and
-the Church and the Titled Estate should, in a formal and expressive
-manner, leave England’s shores, the mass of the population had been
-diligently hunting about for refuge and occupation. Steamers and ships
-had scattered in all directions the fleeing multitudes. Relatives
-abroad, friends and even acquaintances offered homes and employment,
-no utility now was too small to be considered, nor any designation too
-insignificant to merit attention. This scampering was largely among
-those who felt the pinch already of idleness and the diminishing chance
-of work, among operatives and workmen, clerks and the bread winners of
-the middle class. The nobleman and the pauper did not stir.
-
-The English nation had decreed through its legislature, that the
-evacuation of the country should be conducted with pageantry, that the
-solemn parting should be enrolled in all time honored ceremony and
-stately pomp with which kings had been crowned, and for which, with
-all its heart and mind, the English nature cries out with unappeasible
-hunger. So the moment for the King’s departure, which meant the
-official desertion of the Old Home, might be justly compared to the
-flight of the queen bee in the bee colony when her faithful followers
-swarm after and upon her, and with resolute constancy create a new city
-about her inviolable person.
-
-The King was to leave England in June, 1910, and when he left with
-sumptuous and melancholy observance, with splendor of color and
-depth and power of music, with uniform and ritual, with prayer and
-chorus and prophecy, with august and intolerable grandeur, with the
-art of tradition and the ornaments of invention, he was to pass down
-to Tilbury and sail away beyond Gravesend to the new realm of his
-possession on the shores of Australia. It was a pretty hard thing to
-believe; it was a harder thing to do.
-
-But it was to be done with all the gorgeous effectiveness which
-accumulated traditions of centuries and the practice of every day and
-the mere resources in artifices and equipment of a magnificent realm
-could display. The day came with splendid beauty, the sun shone over
-an England which somewhat returned to the flowery loveliness of its
-olden sweet estate. The city had been cleared, though the snowfalls had
-reached the most unexpected depth, and the severity of the winter had
-been appalling. The meteorologists discovered the fact that the western
-and northwestern zones of extreme precipitation, those of eighty inches
-had moved inward, and had even exceeded this maximum, and the condition
-of the country was really extraordinary and desperate. The immense
-accumulations of snow in the outlying districts had risen to such
-heights that the low, long houses of the peasantry were covered and the
-aspect of the country was that of a Labrador landscape transplanted to
-southern latitudes, where trees, stone walls and villages assumed the
-place of the more familiar tundra, plains and stone floored plains.
-Suffering had been very general, and the importunity of nature had done
-more to convince the people that the necessity of removal was an actual
-threat, not to be avoided or placated, than the speeches, the tracts of
-the scientific societies, or the deliberations of statesmen and editors.
-
-But in London, on this twentieth of June, though the air bore the
-strange traces of the changed climate, in its tingling sharpness, yet
-this exhilaration only served the purpose of adding swiftness to the
-movement of the hosts of people in the streets, and a new and wonderful
-tremor of excitement to their eagerness in awaiting the development of
-the day’s great preparations.
-
-In the morning the King was to be enthroned in Westminster Abbey, and
-to receive the homage of the Peers, and, as usual at a coronation,
-the day itself was inaugurated with the firing of a royal salute at
-sunrise. A measure of the august and overpowering rites and observances
-that mark the assumption of a King’s rule was now to be gone through
-with, as a symbol and memento, before the King transferred his throne
-to another land; and this ceremonial was emblematic of the unbroken
-allegiance of the English nation to his removed majesty.
-
-The King was to ascend the theatre of the Abbey, and be lifted into His
-Throne by the Archbishops and Bishops, and other Peers of the kingdom,
-and being enthronized, or placed therein, all the great officers, those
-that bear the swords and sceptres, and the rest of the nobles, should
-stand round about the steps of the throne, and the Archbishop standing
-before the King should say the exhortation, beginning with the words,
-“Stand firm, and hold fast from henceforth the Seat of State of Royal
-and Imperial Dignity, which is this day delivered unto you in the Name
-and by the Authority of Almighty God, and by the hands of Us, the
-Bishops and Servants of God, though unworthy, etc, etc.”
-
-And then the homage being offered and accepted, the King attended and
-accompanied, the four swords--being the sword of Mercy, the sword of
-Justice to the Spirituality, the sword of Justice to the Temporality,
-and the sword of State--were to be carried before him. He should then
-descend from his throne crowned, and, carrying his Sceptre and Rod in
-his hands, should go into the area eastward of the theatre, and pass
-on through the door on the south side of the altar into King Edward’s
-Chapel, the organ and other instruments all the while playing.
-
-The King should then, standing before the altar, deliver the Sceptre
-with the Dove to the Archbishop, who would lay it upon the altar there.
-The King would then be disrobed of his imperial mantle, and be arrayed
-in his royal robe of purple velvet, by the Lord Great Chamberlain.
-
-The Archbishop should then place the orb in his majesty’s left hand.
-Then his majesty should proceed through the choir to the west door of
-the Abbey, in the same manner as he came, wearing his crown and bearing
-in his right hand the Sceptre, with the Cross, and in his left the orb;
-all Peers wearing their coronets, and the Archbishops and Bishops their
-caps.
-
-The interior arrangements in the Abbey were familiar. From the west
-door where the procession should enter to the screen which divides
-choir from nave, two rows of galleries were to be erected on each side
-of the centre aisle--the one gallery level with the vaultings, the
-other with the summit of the western door. These galleries should have
-their fronts fluted with crimson cloth richly draped at the top, and
-decorated with broad golden fringe at the bottom.
-
-On the floor of the centre aisle a slightly raised platform or carpeted
-way, should be laid down, along which the King and Queen, in procession
-should pass to the choir. This was to be matted over and covered with
-crimson cloth. On the pavement of the aisle bordering this carpeted way
-should stand the soldiery as a fence against interference.
-
-The theatre where the principal parts of the ceremony were to be
-enacted lies immediately under the central tower of the Abbey, and was
-a square formed by the intersection of the choir and the transcepts,
-extending nearly the whole breadth of the choir. On this square a
-platform was to be erected ascended by five steps. The summit of this
-platform and also the highest step leading to it, was to be covered
-with the richest cloth of gold. From that step down to the flooring of
-the theatre, all was covered with carpet of rich red or purple color
-bordered with gold. In the centre of the theatre the sumptuously
-draped chair was to be placed for the sovereign, in which he receives
-the homage of the Peers.
-
-This interior pomp and splendor escaped the observation of Leacraft,
-though he was not unfamiliar with the details of the solemn pageant,
-but now it hardly interested him. His mind by a natural emancipation
-from the thrall of such spectacles, dwelt rather on the attitude of the
-people in this extreme peril and solicitude. He felt inquisitive to
-learn their feelings, their hopes, their cohesiveness in the changed
-estate. Were they likely to resolve into a chaos of preferences with
-only the cry of _sauve qui peut_ in their mouths, or would they follow
-the new destinies, and preserve the nation. At length the populace were
-coming into their own. It was pretty evident that a King and Queen
-and Regalia, and Peers, and Peeresses, and a much surpliced Clergy,
-would not make a nation, without the workers, the rent payers, the men
-of action, the bread winners, the clerks, artisans, and merchants,
-the householder and his family, and that the sacred classes would be
-suddenly subjected to a _reductio ad absurdum_, if they formed the
-only inhabitants of the new regime and their titles lost their _raison
-d’etre_ with the disappearance of the untitled mass.
-
-After the rendering of the Homage at the Abbey, the Procession was to
-take place, and the King arriving at Tilbury, with the royal family,
-a selection of the Peers, the highest Episcopal prelates, and certain
-representative men from the Commons, including the Ministry, would be
-received on the Dreadnought, and with a glorious escort of the largest
-battleships, carrying the royal equipage, the furniture of Windsor
-Castle, and of St. James palace, and of the Buckingham mansion, the
-archives of the Parliament, at least a portion, steam away from England
-to Australia, to Melbourne. This Nucleus of Government holding the
-inseparable insignia, and the actual essence of the English nation
-would there, with pomp and solemn allegations, with rolling music and
-pious prayers, with thunders of the guns by the Navy, and the salute of
-the Army, be as it were reinstalled.
-
-But the route of the procession was not to be straight out of London.
-It comprised a broader purpose. It was proposed to circumvallate
-London, to impregnate it with the sentiment of the King’s leaving.
-It should be traversed and penetrated in all directions, gathering
-thus the public allegiance, and absorbing its loyalty, shedding the
-effulgence of the royal splendor upon the populace, and enchaining
-them anew to the principle and fact of English Sovreignty. It was a
-stupendous project. It involved stations and relays. Camps of the
-military were to be established at St. James Park, at Victoria Park, at
-Regent’s Park, at the West End near Paddington, at Wormwood Scrubs,
-and in the southern districts around Clapham Common and towards Putney.
-
-The King was to stop at resting places, and in the largest local
-churches, a reduced form of the Homage was to be instituted involving
-the _enthronization_, with the displays of the Regalia, and the
-jubilation, and the reverence of the people expressed, as always in the
-shouts--
-
-  God save King Edward!
-  Long live King Edward!
-  May the King live forever!
-
-The bells of the churches were to ring, the houses were to hang out
-their banners, flags were to cover the streets, bands stationed on
-prominent balconies, at points covering the entire long journey through
-and around the city, were to play national airs, that so there might
-be generated an overwhelming enthusiasm, a tumult of devotion, and
-thus constrain the Englishman afresh in the religion of the nation’s
-immortality.
-
-It was finely conceived, this elevation of the King. It was gorgeously
-executed. The imagination of the people was tremendously impressed, and
-the Ark of the Covenant of the eternal supremacy of the English crown
-seemed thus visibly incorporated, and presented to them. The procession
-was glittering, and it was majestic. It ponderously emphasized the
-English idea. There were really two processions, the first from
-Westminster to Buckingham Palace, the second through London. In the
-first--the King issued from Westminster, his crown borne before him,
-but holding in his right hand the Sceptre with the Cross, and in his
-left the Orb. Then began the most wonderful State ride through London.
-The superb chariot of the King surrounded by heralds, kings at arms,
-pursuivants, with judges, councillors, lords, and dignitaries, was
-followed by the open carriages of the nobility.
-
-The King was immersed in color. Garter--principal King-at-arms--was
-a miracle of dress. He wore a frock or tabard, crimson and gold
-emblazoned with the quarters of the United Kingdom. Then there was
-the Clarencieux of the South, and Norroy of the North--and the
-heralds of Lancaster, Somerset, Richmond, all wonderfully bedight,
-and the pursuivants--Rouge Croix, Rouge Dragon, Portcullis, and Blue
-Mantel--looking like the genii of a Christmas pantomime. And here with
-the King were the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord Steward, and the Master
-of the Horse. And there followed this cavalcade, surrounding the King
-like a many colored fringe, the carriages of the nobles wherein all the
-signs of degree, order, rank, were sumptuously shown. Here the robes of
-the Peers, crimson velvet edged with miniver--the capes furred with the
-same--and powdered with bars or rows of ermine, according to degree,
-rolled together in a bank of oscillating glory. Beneath the mantles
-a court dress, a uniform, or regimentals were descried. The coronets
-were even worn, and as the scintillating groups passed, eager admirers
-separated the coronet of the baron with its six silver equidistant
-balls, from the coronet of a viscount with sixteen, from the coronet
-of an earl with eight balls raised on points, and with glistening gold
-strawberry leaves between the points, from the coronet of a marquis
-with four gold strawberry leaves alternating with four silver balls,
-and from the coronet of a duke with the eight gold strawberry leaves.
-
-Nor did beauty hesitate to add its witchery to the sports of splendor,
-and in behalf of that ancient idea of Monarchy, which now was enlisted
-against a deep peril of mistrust and repudiation. The Peeresses formed
-part of the procession. Their scarlet kirtles over the petticoats of
-white satin and lace, their flowing sleeves slashed and furred, their
-cushioned trains heaped in confusion in the carriages, and relieved by
-shining plaques of silver silk, were still more bewilderingly graced by
-jewelry, by oceans of gems resplendently transfigured in the blazing
-sun. In this momentous pageant the limits of the spectacular were
-invaded, even distended, in which some saw not only a lack of good
-taste, but the pressure of a little fear.
-
-Even the church advanced the bold bid for admiration and wonder. It
-sent out its archbishops, bishops, rectors, canons, prebendaries and
-deacons, to compose parts of the vast exhibit to be interwoven in the
-variegated human carpet that filled the streets. Before the churches
-that were passed, choirs gathered and sang melodiously; the strong
-religious fibre of the English men and women was sedulously appealed
-to, or else it was the elemental flaming forward of their powerful
-conviction. At this strange moment there was less of pretence and trick
-than sincerity. The heart of the people was steadfastly united with the
-old traditions; they clung unbrokenly to the inheritance of English
-greatness. There was no reason to doubt their faith.
-
-The route of the second marvellous procession was from the Abbey
-through Bird Cage Walk past Victoria monument to Procession road, to
-the Strand, to Fleet street, over Ludgate hill, past St. Paul’s, to
-Cheapside, to Bishops street, to Shoreditch, to Hackney street, and so
-out to Victoria Park and Homerton. Back again to Highbury Fields, south
-by Essex road to Pentonville road, to Euston road, to Marylebone road,
-through Regents Park, through Hampstead road to Hampstead, to West
-Side, through Edgeware road to Hyde Park, and the Bays water to Holland
-park, to Hammersmith road, by Hammersmith bridge road to Castelnau;
-thence to Putney, to Battersea, to Clapham, to Camberwell, thence to
-Walworth road, by London road, by Waterloo road to Westminster bridge,
-to the Houses of Parliament, and on the banks of the river Thames to
-the Tower, and on through White Chapel, Mile End road, Bow road, to
-Bromley, to Stratford, to Barking, to Tilbury.
-
-Nothing so prodigious had ever been conceived; and the resources of the
-empire, of the military, and the squadrons of the colonists, who should
-again, as at the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, present the diversified
-elements of English power, would be involved.
-
-At Tilbury on the Essex bank, opposite Gravesend, where rise the low
-bastions of Tilbury Fort, originally constructed by Henry III, King
-Edward the VII, would in a fashion diverse, and with a different end in
-view, also declare that he “had the heart and stomach of a King, and of
-a King of England too,” as had said Queen Elizabeth. But now it should
-be said by a King unappalled by the invasion of the powers of the air,
-as she was before the power of Spain, but now said with undiminished
-confidence and high hope, though said too with obedience to the supreme
-mandate of expulsion.
-
-Before it took place, Leacraft and Thomsen began their long walk from
-Ludgate hill, and Leacraft intently watched the street crowds. He
-noted also with recording interest the groups in the balconies with
-lunch baskets. The expectant air everywhere was not unnoticeably
-mingled with a kind of frightened silence. There was not much noise,
-no indiscriminate hubbub in the streets, and where groups were
-encountered, hurrying to their destination, they were quiet and
-restrained. Tension was evident, a high strung expectancy verging with
-impalpable approach upon tears, and the agony of penitential promises.
-The fundamentally religious optimism of the Englishman was confounded,
-and his acceptance of invisible guidance made itself seen in faces
-desolated by the grief of tears.
-
-The preparations were remarkable and elaborate. The windows were filled
-with chairs. Platforms were erected, almost luxuriously draped with red
-cloth and scarlet velvet, and surging crowds in spots seemed to bely
-the significance of the portentous moment. From time to time as the two
-observers walked in the middle of the street, they stopped reluctantly
-to notice signs of mourning. These took on the form of trailing
-streamers of crape, hung upon white cloth and their singularity amid
-the almost bombastic surplusage of scarlet dressings, awoke protest and
-resentment. At one point there was a particularly conspicuous dismal
-challenge to the susceptibilities of the spectators in a balcony loaded
-with sombre trappings which gained a startling prominence because of
-the patriotic and cheerful decorations on either side of it. Before
-this lugubrious appeal a small group of malcontents had gathered, and
-were indulging in incendiary criticism.
-
-“Hits no use turning a sour face to the thing. What’s got to be, is
-got to be, and a little heart will keep a sour stomach from making
-itself sick. Hi say we’re hall in the same boat, and cheerfulness makes
-pleasant company. Such a show as that hought not to be tolerated, Hi
-say.” This belligerency came from the thick lips of a red faced man,
-who had his coat over his arm, and whose leathern leggings, corduroy
-knee breeches, and flaming weskit with a high collar strapped to his
-muscular neck by a pea green scarf, betokened a representative of the
-“fancy,” or an ostler turned out for a day’s holiday.
-
-“Indeed I think so,” squealed a thin, short man with a red nose and a
-curious habit of wiping his mouth with a yellow handkerchief. “It’s
-hard enough for the sufferin’ masses to leave hearth, home, and, I
-may say, family, not to be saddened more’n than is natural with these
-funereal suggestions.”
-
-“Well,” shouted a sturdy arrival on the other limit of the circle;
-“Let’s tear them down. The quickest way to cure trouble is to git
-rid of it. It’s rotten insultin’ to stick those weeds under our
-noses.” Under the influence of these defiant words the knot of men
-moved towards the objectionable drapery with evidently unfriendly
-intentions. But they had not been unobserved from the inside of
-the house on whose front these sad reminders hung. A window shot up
-and a tall slender woman advanced to the edge of the balcony. She
-was dressed deeply in black, her neck was surrounded by some white
-crepe stuff, and the sentiment, as Howells has it, of her dress was
-a pathetic suggestion of bereavement and misfortune. Her hair, yet
-luxuriant, was plentifully sprinkled with gray; her face had the
-authorized look of nobility and distinction. She was yet prepossessing,
-though the crowding years had brought her past middle life. The
-distinctive impression she made upon Leacraft, as he and Thomsen,
-somewhat withdrawn, watched the denouement of this street episode,
-was that of abiding sorrow, patiently borne, and doubtless united
-in her, with Christian resignation and unsullied piety. A beautiful
-picture of the English woman, who resolutely lives her earnest life of
-prayer and self-sacrifice, holding intensely to her heart some fond
-memory, wreathed in amaranth. And Leacraft, as an Englishman, blessed
-Providence there were such. The men on the street were a little abashed
-by the pale face and lofty mien of the lady who had recognized their
-purpose, and placed herself there to thwart it.
-
-She came forward and instantly spoke; her voice was excessively clear,
-but an underlying mellowness imparted an extreme sweetness to its
-tones.
-
-“My friends you wish these mourning signs taken away. They offend
-you. But when you know that they express to me the approaching loss
-of all my friends, you will not, I think, feel so harshly about them.
-The King, in a week, leaves the shores of England--the evacuation of
-England begins to-day--and with the King goes the great English nation
-and this wonderful city with all its memories, with its beauty, its
-historic power, its incessant interest, our common home for all our
-lifetimes, will dwindle and dwindle and disappear, lost in arctic snows
-and ice, at least so they tell us.
-
-“But I shall stay. In this house suffering has come to me; it has never
-left _me_. I shall not leave _it_. I mourn for those who in going away
-die to English pride, to English love, to English devotion, and”--she
-leaned out over the sullen men beneath her--“and die to me. These black
-films are for them.”
-
-She stopped. The men, worried and puzzled and surprised, looked a
-little sheepishly at each other.
-
-“Oh, well,” said he of the hostler type, “my leddy, no offense, seein’
-how you feel about it. Hi say--’ave your way.”
-
-“Yes, yes,” squealed the preacher, “if the empty badges of mournin’
-give ennyone--ennyone--satisfaction, why it’s not in reason to question
-their motives in this excroociating moment.”
-
-“Gad! the lady’s right,” shouted the former belligerent, whose prompt
-hint had at first nearly precipitated the riot, “She’s got the right
-ring--and I’m damned if anyone teches the rags there I’ll bust his
-cock-eyed head aff his shoulders.”
-
-This vociferous statement produced a hubbub of approval, and won many
-distinct admissions of entire acquiescence--and with these reassuring
-murmurs the lady retired, after telling her thanks, and the gathering
-withdrew down the street.
-
-Leacraft and Thomsen continued their way westward. Before them
-suddenly, after a half-hour’s sauntering, shone an avenue of military
-splendor. They were in Charing Cross, having pushed down the Strand,
-and they were on the south side of Trafalgar Square, and not far from
-the equestrian statue of Charles I. Trafalgar Square was filled with
-troops. The effect of color was transporting. The massed regiments of
-infantry were broken by parks of artillery, while immediately under
-Nelson’s column the Nineteenth Hussars--the “Dumpies of 1759,” the
-Fifteenth Hussars--“Elliott’s Light Horse,” the Sixteenth Lancers--“the
-Queen’s,” and the Thirteenth Hussars--“the ragged brigade”--were
-confusedly stationed, their mingling busbies and dependent bags looking
-like a garden patch.
-
-From point to point issued galloping videttes, carrying their pennants
-on lance-heads affixed to the stirrups, which undulated in the air,
-as the horses pranced and caracolled. The tramp of troops, the sighing
-of bugles, and the resounding surges of music, surrounded them. It was
-afternoon. The beginning of the first day’s procession from the Abbey
-doubtless was at hand. The stirring air communicated the thrills of an
-immense event, and the people, petrified into attention, stood crushed
-against each other in rows of forlorn expectancy. The suffocating
-excitement was unbearable, the more so because of its immobility.
-Leacraft decided to rush through London, and reach Victoria Park, the
-Hackney Marshes and Clapton, in order to determine the attitude, the
-action, of the poorer classes. Thomsen was unwilling to desert the
-fermenting throngs around Trafalgar Square, or miss, for a moment,
-the kaleidoscope of changing soldiery, and so Leacraft, leaving him,
-entered a hansom and shot off.
-
-He was not averse to this solitude. His affections for Miss Tobit had
-lately warmed into a less indifferent kindliness, and he began to
-feel a gnawing anxiety lest the pretty Scotch woman thought less of
-him--in the way lovers like--than she did of her cousin, the handsome
-and obnoxiously unconcerned Thomsen. Thomsen knew exactly Leacraft’s
-feelings, and regarded them with unconcealed forbearance, and--what
-was more provoking--with a frank condescension of sympathy. And yet
-the men had become good friends; they had talked long and seriously,
-with all the elements of critical guidance they could summon, about the
-strange reversal or revolution in the nation’s affairs. But at these
-moments they were in an impersonal frame of contact, and the personal
-exigencies which later crept between them, were all absent. Leacraft’s
-intellectual weight easily made itself felt in these discussions,
-and Thomsen, with cordial alacrity, assumed the obedient position of
-audience and pupil.
-
-As Leacraft was driven eastward in the swinging vehicle, he flung
-himself against its cushions, and again thought of the monstrous and
-incredible metamorphosis in the fortunes of his people. The vigorous
-life of ten centuries, with all its memories, the heaped up riches of
-its achievements, the splendid literary legacy of the past, with its
-art, its lineaments of beauty, its dusky shadows, the solicitous charm
-of its contrasted periods of history, the deep encrustation, nay,
-rather, the unfathomable deposits of character, and accomplishment
-which overlaid the Kingdom of England, and, in this city of London,
-the beating heart of its vast interests, thickly choked each avenue
-and current of its life--to abandon all this at the summons of a
-temperatural caprice, at the tempestuous whim of an earthquake, before
-the blind violence of frost and snow and ice, was the most unendurable
-of humiliations! It bit too deeply at the generalized assumption of
-the whole world, that man ruled the earth; it soured the contentment
-of his avid vanity, and to the Englishman it assailed the hitherto
-impregnable fortress of his heroic conceit. And yet--the old dream
-of a greater England arose, as it had arisen a hundred times before,
-in all these troubling and disconcerting months--an England leaping
-forward, as an exultant youth, bearing in his hands the trophies of new
-and brighter conquests, flushed under changed environments, with the
-inspiration of new ambitions, and new powers of creation, issuing into
-a greater chapter of human growth than had ever before been conceived
-or written.
-
-And yet what an eviction! This glorious old England, with its sweet
-homes, its innumerable beauties, its convincing happiness of downs and
-glade and gardens, flowering into clouds of blossoms, its lakes, its
-gentle streams, its æsthetic softness and dimness, its manifold and
-opulent charm of landscape, the hurrying and constant kisses of its
-moist skies, in league with all the graces of the seasons--to cast this
-aside, and begin again, elsewhere, in regions drear and sterile of all
-these things; ah! that was too hard! too hard! and, as he had often
-done, Leacraft covered his face with his hands and sobbed.
-
-Amid these fluctuating thoughts and feelings, the hansom swung with
-vehement oscillations along the streets, in the more deserted parts
-of London, and brought its occupant in sight of the Bethnal Green
-Museum, from which a diversion along Old Ford Road and Approach Road,
-flung him into Victoria Park, the huge playground of the poorer eastern
-section of the city. He was driven to the eastern part of the immense
-reservation, and was gratified to find a public meeting in progress,
-the exact thing he most wished to be present at, and to estimate.
-
-In a broad and treeless area of the park, with the grass showing
-hesitatingly after the long winter, but vivid also in spots, in the
-strong light of the afternoon, with an atmosphere strangely variant
-from the traditional, and, to Leacraft, much loved velvety softness
-and mellowed obscuration of former days, were gathered a multitude of
-people. They surrounded a speaker, who, on some sort of improvised
-platform, with a knot of associated leaders, with a swaying body and
-occasionally outstretched hands, was engaged in a harangue which was
-received with attention unattended by the slightest demonstration of
-assent or disapproval. It looked from a short distance almost like a
-devotional assembly, it seemed so reverently silent, and as Leacraft
-approached, this impression was partially at least verified, for the
-speaker’s hands ceased their agitated appeal, the occasional higher
-cries proceeding from his lips died away, and a song or hymn burst
-suddenly from the still motionless multitude. It lasted for an instant,
-perhaps a single verse, and as Leacraft drew near, another man from
-the platform group stood up, and stepped to the front of the small
-stand. At that precise moment the cannonading, agreed upon as a signal,
-announced the starting of the royal cortege, and the sad beginning
-of the imperial evacuation of England. It was heard with far away
-reverberations, as it was repeated from other nearer points, and this
-vagueness, by a congruity of effect with the dull misery weighing on
-Leacraft’s heart, seemed to give to it a deeper poignancy of grievous
-import. It produced the impression of an irrevocable doom. As the
-sounds were heard by the assembled crowds, the speaker lifted his hand
-and raised his face skyward, as if in supplication, the heads were all
-uncovered by one spontaneous impulse, and, caught in the same wave of
-feeling, Leacraft sought the invocation of his own blessing on the King
-and all he stood for.
-
-The interrupted speaker began his address. The man was a strong type.
-His face was somewhat leisurely framed in short whiskers, confined
-to his cheeks; his eyes were large, blue and unblinking, with a
-resolute look in them that had the merit of extorting, at least,
-a respectful recognition; his complexion met all the requirements
-of the English reputation for color, but it left no impression of
-having attained its superior brilliancy through less innocent means
-than exercise and personal care. His broad, high forehead--a little
-heightened in its expansive effect through the faltering recession of
-the iron grey hair that stood a little stiffly above it--rose above
-the admirably firm nose, whose size and contour formed to the reader
-of physiognomies another compelling admonition to give its wearer the
-rational allegiance of attention. The man’s voice was musical, with
-a single intonation that imparted to it much carrying power, and it
-yielded to certain tendencies of relaxation in speaking that gave it
-almost a feminine sweetness. Leacraft put him down for a labor leader
-of a sort, character and design belonging to the best elements of the
-current labor thought and organization; a man of that impressive stamp
-in modern adjustments of self-assertion, of which John Burns was so
-extraordinary an example.
-
-He had begun his speech as Leacraft, with insistent zeal, pushed his
-way deeply toward the centre and margins nearer the stage, of the
-attentive throng.
-
-“My friends, we must think for ourselves. We are not likely to have
-our thinking done for us to the best advantage. Now there are some
-plain, undeniable facts. They are the kind of facts which cannot be hid
-under a bushel basket, nor, for that matter, under a king’s crown. One
-of the most intelligible of these facts--and it is fundamental--is
-that the number of individual heads apportioned to the same number
-of paired legs make up the population, and units of population make
-nations, and nothing else can. An aggregate of gentlemen dressed in
-wigs, or holding truncheons sticking out of purple and gold-braided
-shawls never has, and, from sheer destitution, never could make a
-nation. By all the signs around us, and I am willing to accept them
-without any question, this country of ours is going to move; is about
-to begin housekeeping somewhere else, and I think it is an imperative
-necessity for the success of such a change that everyone living now on
-this island and calling himself an Englishman, must move also, and move
-to the same place (Hear, Hear,). But that moving is conditioned. It is
-indispensably necessary that we proclaim that condition, and insist
-upon its acceptance. We hold the situation in our own hands. We control
-the key to the future, to make or mar, or destroy the continuity of the
-English name. Why? Because if to-morrow the English workingman refused
-to follow the English flag to Australia, and took his wisdom, his tools
-and his savings somewhere else, that flag would lose twenty millions
-of subjects, and would wave over a remnant that could not ensure its
-protection or its support. (Hear, Hear). But the condition?”
-
-The speaker paused, sweeping his eyes over the sea of upturned faces,
-as if he was hunting through the chaotic assemblage for the disclosure
-of some particular visage which, either as an ally or an opponent,
-might receive the shock of his omnipotent secret. Whether he discovered
-the facial invitation or not, was not revealed in his subsequent
-action. He wheeled sideways to the stiffened line of men behind
-him--doubtless expectant and impatient numbers in the afternoon’s
-programme--and bringing his clenched right hand into the hollowed palm
-of his left hand, shouted, and not discordantly: “The condition is the
-abolition forever of the Law of Entail that to-day makes us a servile
-race.”
-
-Again he paused, as if so ponderous a statement, so fiercely declared,
-would elicit a demonstration--but to Leacraft’s abounding wonder, not
-a sound arose from the vast audience. Whether it was appalled, or
-thrilled, interested, or pleased, or dumbfounded, it gave no sign. Its
-immutable decree for the speaker to go on was its very silence. No
-public orator could conveniently, with respect to his own sensitive
-needs for public encouragement, stop there. But he had become cautious.
-He felt that perchance his auditors yet held mental reservations in
-favor of things as they were, as they wished them to continue.
-
-“I say, with all my heart and soul,” he went on, “stay with the
-Flag, stay with the King, stay with our lords and ladies, but on
-one condition as freemen, to whose keeping now in this hour of peril
-they are wholly given. Into your hands the God of Nations entrusts
-their fate, but that fate can only be propitious as you are true to
-yourselves, your children, and your children’s children.”
-
-Then came the long delayed approval. A wave of excited pleasure brushed
-across the crowds, and the hand-clapping, begun in many separate
-centres, ran together, and with shouts of acquiescence, with cheers,
-with central and periphera, agitation, the huge aggregate expressed its
-tumultuous adhesion. Leacraft felt that the loyalty of these people was
-not impaired, and that the logic of events would still hold them united
-in a consentaneous allegiance at least, to the idea of the English
-nation, though it was pretty evident that the democratic claims of a
-wider opportunity for personal, for family promotion, leavened all
-their feelings, and that in the new regime it might be expected, that a
-great deal of the present relation of the classes would be swept away,
-and that the old time idolatry of degree, the mere flunkeyism of homage
-to name and geneological prestige, among the masses, had shrunken into
-nothingness.
-
-The stage was again occupied by a speaker, who was interested in very
-practical and urgent questions, the _how_ and _where_ and _when_, the
-disposition of the emigrants to the new country, and he revelled in
-plans, provisions, details of occupancy, and employment. He showed
-conclusively the power and effectiveness of organization, and the
-surprising accommodations that can be extracted from the most forlorn
-prospects by a shrewd use of forethought and combination. Funds had
-been scraped together, settlements, as yet in the dream stage of
-realization created, and a practical socialism consummated in the
-confederation of a large numbers in one common venture. This aspect
-of the emigration was dwelt upon by the speaker with some rigor. It
-was a surprise to Leacraft, and lent a strange expression to the still
-irreconcilable spectacle of Englishmen looking for a new home.
-
-Leacraft soon tired of sums, schedules, names, and lists, and wandered
-away over the park through the scattered groups, many centred around
-one of those popular tribunes, who, by reason of a little more
-leisure, perhaps a little more application, and always much more
-labial facility, influence their class profoundly. The broad lawns
-were filled with these improvised parliaments, in which too banter,
-argument, retort, query, admonition bore a part. The perplexing thing
-was the average satisfaction shown by the people, a kind of holiday
-anticipation, as if they were off for an excursion. To them perhaps
-it seemed a new start in life, with the ground less encumbered by
-rivals, by restrictions, less shadowed by priority, and favors for a
-few, and by the intimidation of a necessary subserviency. They almost
-seemed happy in the thought of change. There was bitterness in this,
-and yet to Leacraft with his undissembling and emancipated mind it
-was understood. It meant _chance_ to these people--this removal; and
-to most of them chance never came, never could come as they were.
-And then to linger, was starvation, loneliness, disuse, death. The
-business of the country had enormously shrunken, its productive power
-had been halved, commerce was drifting in stronger and steadier
-currents elsewhere, and no where so strongly as to Germany, while the
-over mastering pre-eminence of America loomed up in proportions that
-paralysed conjecture.
-
-Pondering on all these things Leacraft, in his absorbed way, stumbled
-over a little girl on the edge of one of the shaded walks. He quickly
-stooped and picked her up, and confronted the young mother, already
-hastening to the rescue of her child.
-
-“I should have been more careful,” said the embarrassed gentleman.
-“Well, indeed we have all good reason to be thinking more than seeing,
-these times,” said the smiling mother, “I wonder what we’ll all be like
-this time, come twelve month.”
-
-“Oh, I dare say that we shall be doing much the same thing that we do
-here, in a different place--and then we shall be a year older;” the
-young woman laughed, and attested a complete willingness to talk more,
-as she raised the ruffled child from the grass and moved nearer to
-Leacraft. Nor was Leacraft indifferent. He felt nettled, and willful,
-with a subconsciousness of disappointment and fear. This human and
-healthy mother, with the fresh guerdon of her blushing youth in her
-arms, was a helpful companion, and then she carried the solace of some
-new story, perhaps a new need, and Leacraft was not averse to being
-sympathetic or helpful.
-
-“Willie, that’s my man, sir,” continued the girl, “is right glad to
-get away. Last Candlemas his mother died, and left Willie her savings,
-and that, and what we have, will tide us to America, and Willie he
-says that he can get a home, and have a little land, and Willie will
-be better of his sickness. He’s not here the day, because of his cough
-and the fever that he has. Ah! sir, it makes me chill at my heart to
-see him, and to think that we are going so far,” and the sweet face
-looked piteously at Leacraft, and the tears overran the sad gray eyes.
-Leacraft saw it all; a consumptive father, poor, out of work, staking
-everything now to reach that bourne, where the hopeless of all nations
-saw the welcome light of opportunity. As he thought of this he saw
-how great this avulsion was, what a tearing up of the roots of family
-and home life, and how ruthlessly they were to be planted in all
-sorts of soils, under alien skies, with inauspicious hands to tend
-and raise them. He turned to the young mother, and said, “It won’t
-seem so far, if a face from the old home greets you there. I shall be
-there also, and I will not only be glad to see you, but glad to help
-you, if you need it. Take this,” and opening his card case, he wrote
-an address in New York city. “If,” he continued, “you do not remain
-in New York, this will always find me. Good bye.” He extended his
-hand and shook with unaffected warmth the hand of the young English
-woman, to whom the future loomed up in misty and insecure, perhaps
-menacing shadows. How merciful is sympathy, with what a solacing hand
-it soothes the “ruffled brow of care,” and how genially it bids the
-springs of life still follow, and, for a moment at least, flow too in
-the sunlight of affection. The English woman seized Leacraft’s hand
-and pressed it tightly, and her face looked into his with almost an
-enamored thankfulness; she raised the baby girl and held it close to
-Leacraft, and the restrained Englishman kissed it with quaint shyness.
-At the instant, all the shifting helplessness about him moved him
-inexpressibly. Again they shook hands and the Englishman betrayed into
-emotional excess, walked rapidly away, reassuring her at the last that
-he would indeed be soon in America.
-
-A few feet away a different encounter swept him into a contrasted
-realm of emotional excitement. A rude brawling loafer, none too sober,
-and reckless in oaths and obscenity, had seized the small flags of two
-little boys--union jacks--and throwing them down on the ground, with
-an outburst of profanity trampled and defaced them. The Englishman
-inflamed and ardent, holding a wounded heart, stood stupified and
-insulted. The next instant and he had snatched the flags from their
-degradation, and with an instantaneous revulsion struck the culprit of
-this outrage squarely in the face. The blow was unmistakably adequate.
-The ruffian reeled and fell and failed to regain his feet, before a
-shout of applause greeted Leacraft and a concourse of men, who had
-hastened to the spot on the outcry of the children surrounded him with
-welcome salutation.
-
-“A fine blow--well hit and straight as a gunshot man! That was the
-right medicine for his complaint. I’m thinking that a little water
-might wash it down. I say, boys, let’s duck him, souse him in the lake.
-A tubbing might clean his sassy mouth, and a man is none too good to be
-rolled in the mud himself, who treads on the English flag.” The subject
-of this criticism was on his feet again in rather a belligerent mood,
-blinking and rolling his fists in a minatory fashion, and sputtering
-defiance, and presenting a transient spectacle of inebriety and
-coarseness that would have been ludicrous, if the temper of the men
-behind the new speaker had not seemed so hostile. Leacraft felt that
-they would do some serious mischief to the miserable delinquent, and he
-stepped in front of them interposing his body between the foremost of
-the ranks, and the, now somewhat intimidated drunkard.
-
-“I think my friends, that you should spare yourselves the trouble to
-punish this miscreant just now. Let him alone. Neither he or his kind
-are likely to hurt our flag. He has learned his lesson. To-day my
-friends it becomes us to command ourselves, and hold ourselves above
-resentment. We are all sad, our hearts are heavy, the old Manse is
-to be left and new conquests across the waters made, new homes. Ah!
-how large the vision grows.” The men had enclosed Leacraft in a dense
-circle. He saw that he had their attention, while the stumbling object
-of their first anger effected a shuffling retreat with ignominious
-haste. His ruse now was to entirely capture their thoughts. “It is a
-vision of a new England, one made so by our devotion, the fixed quality
-of our patriotism, an undeviating union among ourselves, and just pride
-in our history, our race, our King. It may be a better England; it can
-not be a more beautiful England. We are deeply stricken. While we bow
-to this necessity, let us make the grandest display of fortitude of
-resource, of hope, of courage, of skill, of judgment, ever known. In
-our disaster we shall again conquer the world and hold it submissive
-at our feet.”
-
-Leacraft had enough disengagement of thought to half smile to himself
-at this grandiloquent pretense, but he knew his audience. It was quite
-British, embued with that cloutish conceit which all popular masses in
-every successful nation instinctively display. He had appealed to their
-conceit, though not only to that, and they responded enthusiastically.
-As he finished this mild buncombe, not without some misgivings as
-to his own honesty, as he intended at first to repair to the United
-States, the men nearest to him grasped his hand, others shouted
-approbation, and still others in silence moved away shaking their
-heads. Leacraft talked with the men about him. He found that they had
-been assigned places in the scheme of emigration; some were going to
-Australia, with a systematic dispersion over the region, which most
-needed their labor, others to New Zealand into socialistic farming;
-others to the cape and Rhodesia and still others to Canada; so that his
-exalted sentiment of solidarity lost a little of its impressiveness.
-Leacraft lingered a while longer, and as the day ended in a refulgent
-sunset with church bells, near and far ringing to the services, that
-now for a week would be held at all hours, inaugurating an unbroken
-intercession at the throne of grace for the guidance and protection of
-the people, he left his cordial acquaintances and went westward.
-
-He reached Park Lane near the Kensington Gardens, Gloucester House,
-and the fountain of Thornycroft, the region of Mayfair, the dazzling
-centre, the illustrious apse of English social splendor, where the
-inherited privileges of life were not discordantly blended with the
-no less inherited gifts of fortune; that spot in all London which
-to relinquish, would seem to sound the depths of national disgrace.
-The moon swam in the lucent sky, the air was clear, but cold, and
-the familiar ravishing softness of the June nights as London knew
-them once, was gone; those illumined mists, the dewyness that spread
-from the ground to the enveloping air, and threw veil over veil of
-shimmering opacity upon arch and tower, sward, tree, bridge and storied
-palace, was all gone, too, and the beautiful neighborhood, as Leacraft
-wandered through it, from Cumberland Gate--where he saw snow still
-resting in sheltered recesses--along Park Lane to Hyde Park Corners,
-through Grosvenor Place to Chapel street, to Belgrave Square, was
-revealed in an aerial sincerity, that gave its splendor an almost
-scintillant loveliness, and drove still deeper into Leacraft’s heart
-the sense of a bewildering bereavement.
-
-The streets were filled with flying equipages, and the mansions were
-ablaze, the sidewalks held few pedestrians, and as Leacraft sorrowfully
-moved through the stately purlieus, music swept out from open windows
-or swinging doors. Often he paused and watched the descending occupants
-of the carriages; they were entrancing women and peerless men, their
-laughter was silvery and undismayed, unchecked by tears. Could it
-be possible that these inner esoteric circles of London high life
-and unimaginable wealth indulged in revelry; could not the crash and
-fall of empires turn the votaries of gayety to soberer thoughts, or
-stifle the intoxicating voice of pleasure? Leacraft wondered, and
-the weariness of a great suspense weighed him down; the ingrained
-Puritanism of his nature raged against this heartlessness, this
-indecent bravado, a mockery of joy, where all should be shadowed with
-the sighs of penitence and supplication.
-
-Leacraft was bitterly offended at this apparent heartlessness; it
-startled him beyond the limits of endurance; he looked for some
-representative of this foolish life, upon whom to turn with rebuke
-and denunciation. Leacraft wandered on in a disconsolate mood, and
-the growing indications, with the falling night, that the fashionable
-world of London was engaged, in a preconcerted way, to spend the last
-hours of its metropolitan sojourn in a spendthrift vortex of excitement
-and conviviality moved him to muttered objurgations. He had slipped
-past Hyde Park Corners, past the Apsley House, and had glided with
-hastening steps, as his passion of revolt, at this unseemly loss of
-self-respect, rose to a towering indignation, into Grosvenor Square.
-He stood facing the long facade, where in repetitive elegance, with
-columned porches and mansard roofs, and wall-like chimneys, the
-mansions of the very rich, illumined at all their windows, poured forth
-a torrent of light. Aggrieved and stupefied, he shot into Berkley
-Square, and still no interruption to the aspect of mad revelry. Could
-it be a frenzied spasm of indulgence, before separation forever from
-the bliss of the West End, that terrestrial paradise of swelldom and
-financial and social glory? He wondered. And thus wondering, he came
-to Devonshire House, fronting Piccadilly. The comfortable home, with
-its small brick work, peeking chimney pots, the low entablature and
-triple doors behind the iron gateway, and the unbroken watch of the
-woman-headed sphinxes, on either side of the elevated escutcheon of
-the Kingdom, was there, encompassed by its imprisoning walls--and
-here, too, the effrontery of lavish gayety assaulted his eyes. The
-gates were flung wide open, powdered footmen were ranged before the
-doors, arriving and departing carriages threaded Piccadilly with
-conscienceless celerity, music uttered its delicious melodies, and in
-them was no requiem note, no throb of sorrow, and the guests crowding
-into its dazzling halls seemed untouched by thoughts less careless
-than the joys of the fleeting moments, whose hurrying steps were
-bringing the dawn of disaster to England. Exasperated, Leacraft turned
-on his heel in disgust, and was going towards Leicester Square, when a
-sharp report somewhere on the side of the Geological Museum, and ahead
-of his position, startled him, and the next instant he saw a carriage,
-with prancing steeds, plunging down the street, the swaying figure of
-the driver denoting his complete loss of control, while on one side of
-the equipage, that side towards Leacraft, the pale face of a gentleman
-was seen, and beside him the distracted visage of an elderly lady.
-As the carriage approached Leacraft, it crossed the street, and the
-front wheels collided with the curbing. This administered a slight
-detention, and the struggling horses turned again to the opposite side
-of the thoroughfare. Quick to see his advantage, Leacraft sprang to the
-head of the nearer horse, and exerting all his strength, which was not
-inconsiderable, he succeeded in tripping the beast, and as it fell the
-traces holding its companion broke, and the freed creature raced away
-down the avenue. The driver leaped to the sidewalk and held the now
-imprisoned horse, which, starting to its feet, stood trembling beside
-him, while Leacraft hastened to the door of the vehicle to liberate its
-occupants.
-
-He had already been forstalled by the gentleman himself, who pushed
-the door back as Leacraft reached it and stepped to the walk,
-followed instantly by the lady in much commotion and disorder. Their
-agitation was short lived, and succumbed to the exercise of their own
-self-control. It was the gentleman who first spoke: “I am under the
-deepest obligation to you, sir, for your quickness and your courage.
-You may readily have saved us from a miserable fate. And”--Leacraft
-interrupted: “You were going to some _rendezvous_ of pleasure; this,
-sir, in my opinion, on the eve of the nation’s assassination deserved
-punishment.” The speech was crude, rude perhaps, and the bitter
-taunt smote the stranger like a physical blow. He recoiled from it
-as if the sting of a cowhide had crossed his face. His face itself
-was a study. He stared at Leacraft, and as the latter met his gaze
-unflinchingly the pale face, distinguished in outline, feature, and
-expression, flushed to the temples, while the eyes seated under bushy
-brows gazed at Leacraft with a peculiar earnestness, not relieved of
-the dangerous suggestion of a rising passion. His companion understood
-his excitement, she clutched his arm, and seemed to apprehend a
-physical outbreak. Then the mouth opened, and spoke, and the voice was
-unexpectedly calm, and the utterances measured: “We are under deep
-obligation to you sir, but it is difficult for me to restrain myself
-before the false statements you have ventured to make. Can you explain
-this insult?”
-
-He moved nearer to Leacraft who did not budge, but inspired with an
-increasing vigor of disgust, and eager to summarily remonstrate at the
-seeming cruelty of the parade about him, its grotesque wickedness,
-said: “I do not wish to take advantage of the accidental relations
-which have thus unexpectedly thrown us together. But surely it is
-known among men, and known bitterly among Englishmen that the shadows
-of an awful twilight are falling about them, and the Nation’s Day is
-closing. At such a crisis can it be possible for men and women, calling
-themselves English, in whom the memory of English fame and English
-glory, is still a present pride, can it be possible that at this moment
-they still consort for amusement, for display, for the fugitive follies
-of mutual admiration? This aristocracy is the head and forefront of the
-nation, and it should now be bowed in penitence, in supplication, in
-the agony of self inquiry, and it stupifies me to find them gay, when
-the heart of England is breaking with grief.”
-
-A curious metamorphosis worked in the lineaments of the gentleman he
-was addressing. The hard lines relaxed, and a wistful smile, that
-drew its occult meaning from the man’s interior sadness, stole softly
-over his face. He put out his hand, which Leacraft accepted, and he
-returned Leacraft’s pressure. There was an instant’s silence, and then
-the stranger spoke, still holding Leacraft’s hand, and retaining his
-undeviating inspection of Leacraft’s face, as if he would force upon
-himself the recognition of a friend.
-
-“These are just words, sir,” he began: “but how much you misunderstand
-what is going on here. This apparent revelry is an effort to keep from
-swooning: it is the forced continuance of a life familiar to us, when
-that life is to be crushed into nothingness; it is the defiance of
-habit, the revolt against extinction, the mortal protest against the
-infamous tyranny of circumstances. It is a delirium of indulgence, to
-forget what is coming upon us; a moment’s arbitrary refusal to think
-of the future, a dance, in whose whirl we shall remit the impulses of
-suicide. It is unreasonable, but its monstrous unreasonableness to
-you sir, measures our appalling sense of the disaster we can not stop
-to think of, measures the intensity of the recoil from obliteration;
-like the dressed and garlanded victim of an Aztec immolation we taste
-again the festive sweets upon which perhaps our cloyed appetites are no
-longer to feed. We are the sufferers in this eviction; the greatest,
-the poor, the artisan, laborer, the vast mediocrity lose something, but
-it amounts to little more than the exchange of one station here, for
-another of the same sort somewhere else. In a material sense our loss
-is incalculable; half our riches disappears but with that loss goes
-social prestige, title, and the moral consciousness of elevation, the
-breath of our nostrils. I, sir, am ----.” Leacraft did not move; his
-astonishment was too sharply focussed upon all the astounding previous
-confession. “And,” continued the man, “the ruin of worldly fortune
-seems small, after all, compared with the sacrifice of that dignified
-and sheltered life, which moved serenely, with every accompaniment of
-joy, in these delightful abodes, and under the protecting aegis of an
-inexpressible separation from the rest of the world. But”--he seemed
-to wish to justify himself, somehow, as he noticed the still petrified
-stare of Leacraft--“we have not been neglectful of the matters
-of adjustment. Committees have been appointed, plans laid, funds
-appropriated, agents despatched, for the selection of our new homes,
-and though we take our flight with lopped wings, our plumage may in
-time resume its former beauty. Do not misunderstand us because of these
-assemblies. We too carry deeper than you the pain of an unutterable
-grief.”
-
-He finished, and Leacraft drawn into a reverie over the singular
-confession, which was anything but reassuring, and partook, to his
-mind, of the dementia of the foolish victim of a depraved habit, was
-silent. He felt the imperious requirements of speech, but he could
-say nothing. He felt pity, he was not without sympathy, though
-perhaps in that matter, a certain savor of self denying control, and
-a practical judgment interfered with his approval of the hyperbole of
-the speaker. And, almost dreaming, he stood there while the stranger
-and his lady re-entered their carriage, to which the runaway horse had
-been reattached, and drove off. Leacraft watched them mechanically and
-then turned, walked down Piccadilly, crossed Green Park, and looked at
-Buckingham Palace. The huge structure was partially illuminated, and
-the square in front of it was filled with soldiers, many of whom were
-at rest around the Victoria Memorial. To an officer lounging near by,
-Leacraft said, “Can you tell me where the King is to-night?”
-
-“He sleeps at St. Leonards in Shoreditch,” was the laconic reply.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-THE SPECTACLE.
-
-
-It was two days later than the events narrated above, that Leacraft
-and Thomsen, with Miss Tobit between them, sat in a crowded window on
-Hammersmith road watching for the enormous procession that had been
-slowly winding through London, with offices and services, halts and
-functions, as the King sadly led the departure of the English people
-from the Mother of Nations.
-
-And the vast pageant approached. Down Kensington road its first
-glittering sallies were seen, the block of London police, a gorgeous
-cavalcade behind them of the peers of the realm, and in the
-immeasurable distance the shimmering parts, that looked stationary,
-and yet were coming on with ample speed. The blaring trumpets in the
-bands drew near, the street was cleared from curb to curb, the dense
-assemblage, covering stoop and roof, and leaning from every window
-became silent, the reiterated thud of the falling feet was heard,
-and in an instant the marching host was passing beneath them. The
-police and the peers of the realm passed in silence or with barely
-noticeable tokens of recognition. The peers presented a dazzling array,
-on superbly caparisoned horses, and in the regalia of their separate
-stations, with a bearing of unmistakable dignity, and possessing in
-a large measure the impress and gift of English manly beauty, they
-uttered the note of _caste_. Behind them came the marshalled Church,
-a wonderful picture; choirs of boys, surpliced and gowned, in open
-carriages, priests and bishops, in their robes of office, with flying
-standards of chapel, church or cathedral, golden lambs, crosses and
-crowns, figures and mottes on white silk or ruby silk, in wavering
-confusion, while hymns in wavering sopranos rose petulantly, or again
-with sustained vitality and strength. It appealed to the people
-strangely. They became very still, and faces contorted with sobs, or
-heads bowed to hide the unbidden tears for a few moments drew a veil of
-gloom over the splendid show. After the Church and the peers, a forest
-of equipages brought in view the marvellous display of the robed and
-crowned peeresses, and succeeding this shining cloud of matrons, that
-gave the touch of tenderness, the atmosphere of feminine companionship,
-and endurance, as if the mothers of England responded in this untoward
-hour with an embracing sympathy; after them came the King’s Household
-and the King, with outriders, equerries, and panoplied footmen, a
-miracle of ostentatious and ceremonial color. His equipage was drawn
-by ten jet black stallions, with diapers of the King’s colors on their
-backs, and a line of ancient guardsmen, with pikes in their hands,
-hedging them in, and a footman in sparkling white at the head of each
-horse. The King was himself robed in the gowns of his high estate, and
-was uncovered, the Crown resting on a cushion in front of him. A cheer
-rent the air, unfurled flags and fluttering handkerchiefs, turned a
-sea of faces into an ocean of white and red pennants. The King gravely
-acknowledged the salute and bowed to right and left. He was alone;
-the Queen had been enthroned among the peeresses. After the King came
-the Mayor of London, with all the antiquated grandeur of his office,
-coach, beef eaters, and all, and the people settled back again to their
-luncheons, which had been interrupted by the King.
-
-Then came the troops. The display was exhaustive. It was conceived upon
-a scale of imperial magnificence, and it appealed in the succession of
-its gorgeous units to the historic sense, to that divine purpose of
-continuity which every Englishman instinctively appropriates to his
-race and nation. It represented the chronological development of the
-English army. As its sonorous length defiled before Leacraft, he saw
-an objective symbol--nay, the corporeal fact--of England’s growing
-power; regiment after regiment made a pictorial calendar from 1660 to
-1900, and to the informed mind what a vista of martial glory, what
-a presentation of advance and retreat over the tractless wastes of
-the world, they made! It was a trampling chronicle of woe and fame,
-shame and satisfaction; it embodied the progress of ideas, the clash
-of political tendencies, the spreading domination of English rule; it
-was a panorama of battles, the tide of victory, the ebbing terrors
-of defeat; it reflected the pages of political designs, political
-subterfuge, political confusion; the music that swelled from its ranks
-now sent the long waves of its solemn processional melody through the
-thrilled spectators, now in limpid folk-songs, quivered delightfully in
-their ears, and now again summoned them to their feet with the stately
-and pious invocation of the nation’s hymn.
-
-The scarlet uniforms of the First Life Guards passed, and Maestricht,
-Boyne, the Peninsular, and Waterloo, flashed in view--the regiment
-which was raised in Holland by King Charles the Second, and was
-composed of eighty gentlemen, whose sobriquet of the “cheeses,” along
-with other Life Guards, had been acquired from the contemptuous
-refusal of their veterans to serve in them when remodelled, because
-they were no longer composed of gentlemen, but of cheesemongers.
-
-Again, the Second Life Guards revived the stained memory of the
-Stuarts, its own exile in the Netherlands, its return with the
-restoration; and its sea green facings pleasantly restored for a
-moment the face of the injured Queen Caroline. Here were the Royal
-Horse Guards, that inherited, or at least might claim the virtues of
-the Parliamentary army, which fought with dogmas at the ends of their
-pike-staffs, and convictions in their hearts. Now passed the First
-Dragoon Guards, that carried on its proud records the Battle of the
-Boyne in 1690, Oudenarde in 1708, Malplaquet in 1709, Fontenoy in 1745,
-Waterloo in 1815, and Pekin in 1860, though to Leacraft’s sensitive
-mind the last was an inscription of disgrace. The beating hoofs of the
-“Queen’s Bays,” the Second Dragoon Guards, hurried the reminiscent
-admirer back to Lucknow and the Indian Mutiny. The nodding plumes of
-the Prince of Wales, with the Rising Sun, and the Red Dragon which
-came in view with the Third Dragoon Guards, unfailingly recalled to
-the custodians of English military renown, that the regiment captured
-the standard and kettle drums of the Bavarian Guards at the Battle of
-Ramilies. Trampling on the heels of their horses, the lordly “Blue
-Horse” defiled past, and the Fifth Dragoon Guards, which supported
-the vital legend, “_Vestigia nulla retrorsum_,” and which captured
-four standards at the Battle of Blenheim. Still the endless lines
-advanced, wavered, stood still, and again with rattling and shivering
-harness, passed. Now it was the Second Dragoons, the Scotch Greys,
-raised in Scotland, and older than any other dragoons in the British
-army, that started the furious applause, an ovation not unintelligently
-bestowed--for it was they who captured the colors of the French at
-Ramilies, and their standards at Dettingen. Now it was the “Black
-Dragoons,” the Sixth, on its glistening horses--once part of the
-Inniskilling forces, and still bearing as its crest the Castle of
-Inniskilling; now the Eighth Hussars, whose Protestant fealty had made
-their founders defenders of William of Orange at the Battle of the
-Boyne, and who, with signal power, captured forty-four stands of colors
-and seventy-two guns at the Battle of Leswarree. Now the Fifteenth
-Hussars, who bore upon their helmets the dazzling inscription, “Five
-Battalions of French defeated and taken by this Regiment, with their
-Colors, and nine pieces of cannon, at Emsdorf, 16th of July, 1760.”
-Swelling hearts greeted the Grenadier Guards, rich in the legacy of the
-fame of the defeated French Imperial Guards.
-
-Here were the Dublin Fusileers--the “Green Linnets,” the “Die
-Hards”--the East Surries--the West Yorks--and Devons, who had been
-part of that indiscriminate blunder and glory--the Boer War.
-
-And now the infantry, in closing ranks, unrolled the endless phalanxes.
-Where regiments, as entire units, were absent, companies took their
-places, and English cheers saluted the swinging standards. The
-Thirty-fifth, which took the Royal Roussillon French Grenadiers at the
-Battle of Quebec--the Thirty-fourth, which impregnably covered the
-retreat from Fontenoy--the Thirty-ninth, which defended Gibraltar in
-1780, and captured the insurgents’ guns and standards at Maharajpore,
-in 1843, along with the Fortieth--the Forty-second, with the red heckle
-in its bonnets, to commemorate its capture of the French standards of
-the “Invincible Legion,” in 1801, as well as for its distinguished
-ardor in the Battle of Guildermalsen, in 1795, and the “Little Fighting
-Toms” stirred the crowds, and even to those who regarded the pageant
-with glances of bitterness, as the hollow mask of a cruel abdication,
-even to their glassy stare, this epic review brought a momentary gleam
-of gratitude and pride.
-
-Here was the Forty-sixth, whose colonel, with the English nonchalence
-which always wins so enduring a regard with Englishmen, in spite of
-a kind of artifice of mere stubbornness in it, preached a sermon
-to his men, under a heavy fire, about the Lacedemonians and their
-discipline--and which, at least to an American, awoke only hateful
-memories--and here the Fiftieth, “The Blind Half Hundred,” who fought
-with damaged eyes in Egypt, and who shone resplendent with courage and
-gallant sacrifice at Vimiera--Ah! and here was the Fifty-seventh--“the
-Die Hards”--which had thirty bullets through the King’s colors, and
-only one officer out of twenty-four, and one hundred and sixty-eight
-men out of five hundred and eighty-four left standing at Albuera. The
-people shouted and stormed, an avalanche of flags suddenly sprang up
-over the walled street, and at points showers of flowers and bags of
-fruit descended in a tornado of delight. Surely, if Englishmen had such
-blood in them, the nation would yet live.
-
-Here were the men from India, the regiments of the Seventy-third, the
-Seventy-fourth, wearing the badge of the “elephant,” the Seventy-sixth,
-too, that unfurled its victorious pennants at the Battle of Leswarree,
-and the Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth, and on, on, straight in
-the line, brave squadrons, whose illusive recognition in a numeral,
-connoted glorious deeds, defiant strength, the prodigal powers of
-the brave. The thundering salutations drowned the rollicking music
-of “Clear the Way,” the cry at Barrosso, which with fife and drum
-announced the approach of the Eighty-seventh--the Prince of Wales’ own
-Irish--and the Eighty-eighth, the Connaught Rangers, whose more loving
-sobriquet was “The Devil’s Own Connaught Boys,” from its gallantry
-in action, and its irregularities in quarters. Uniform and vanity
-with reciprocal enhancement made the Argyleshire Highlanders and the
-Gordon Highlanders and the Sutherland Highlanders an envious spectacle
-to manly youth, a vision of ingratiating heroes to feminine beauty.
-Again India sprang back to memory, perhaps not without, to souls of
-Leacraft’s fibre, inflicting some stinging stabs of remorse, when the
-One Hundred Foot, the One Hundred and Second Foot, “the Lambs,” the
-One Hundred and Third Foot, “the Old Toughs,” the One Hundred and
-Fourth Foot, and Seventh, and Eighth, and Ninth marched past, with
-ear shattering dim, in resplendent waves of color, and expressing the
-English temperament of reserved force, and intelligent determination,
-with, to the more analytical observer, a suggestion of brutal power in
-their sturdy and inelastic tramp.
-
-And then came the people of the Earth, from the ends of the world they
-came; the wild, the exotic, the uncouth, the suave, and treacherous,
-the mystic, the benign, the terrible, in all garbs, in vestures of wool
-and silk and cotton, in no small numbers without much vesture. It was
-a web of hues, a carpet of figures and dyes, a lithe and sinuous and
-portentous living worm, each zone of its immense length, as it swayed
-and twisted and halted, and then slipped on with ludicrous indecision
-and disorder, made up of races, ethnic blotches or flowers from the
-round prolific globe. The army had been history, the procession now
-became psychological, a review of temperaments, endowments, climates,
-proclivities and talents; nay it wore the aspect of a zoological
-medley, a vast menagery of animal products, that with growl and
-scream, trumpetings or fluttering wings gave to the congeries of
-men and women who walked among them, or with them, the sentiment
-and resemblance of the parade of the beasts before Adam. As if with
-England’s dislodgement, the shaken countries of the earth emptied out
-their populations in her wake, disturbed in all their resting places by
-her calamity; spilled from their hidden corners into the shining light
-of day, and bringing with them the animals of the fields and the birds
-of the air. And the air itself was cruelly brilliant. The severity of
-outlines, the sharp shadows, the nipping frostiness in the shades,
-where the sun was not found, told the weary story that England had lost
-her climate, and was swept back in a normal alignment with the cold and
-feeble countries of the pole.
-
-What is this odd group accentuated in the midst of all this confusion
-of types by a more bizarre strangeness, the quizzical fatuity and
-simpering idiocy of devotion--grinning _shikaris_ from the Tibet with
-prayer wheels--from the lofty valleys of Baltistan and Ladakh, from
-Kargil and Maulbek Chamba--incredible children from the East with their
-rotating brass wheels, with a woman or so, proudly walking among them
-carrying a burden of wealth in her turquoise and carnelian encrusted
-pberak bound around her head and terminating in a black knotted fringe
-behind her neck.
-
-And straggling on their tracks come the Malays from Pinang and
-Dindings, from Malaca and Singapore, the small brown men, enduring,
-brighteyed, straight black-haired, in jackets, trousers and
-sarongs--the tartan skirt fastened around the waist, and reaching to
-the knee--and with a raja sprinkled among them with a yellow umbrella
-over him, a dandy nonchalance printing his sleek cheek with dimples.
-And India, the nursery of religions, of dreams, of talking and sleeping
-and famishing men, followed, and for an instant Leacraft thought of
-Kim’s journey “from Umballa through Kalka and the Pinjore gardens near
-by up to Simla,” which Kipling told; he thought on “the flush of the
-morning laid along the distant snows; the branched cacti; tier upon
-tier the stony hillsides; the voices of a thousand water channels; the
-chatter of the monkeys, the solemn deodars, climbing one after another,
-with down-drooped branches; the vista of the plains rolled far out
-beneath them; the incessant twanging of the tonga horns and the wild
-rush of the led horses, the halt for prayers, the evening conference by
-the halting places, when camels and bullocks chewed solemnly together.”
-
-He closed his eyes in a revery, and the next opened them upon the very
-thing. Here were the bullocks, the monkeys, the camels, and here too
-came the hulking elephants. Dravidians from the southern peninsular, in
-shawls; the Hill tribes, in coats; the high caste Hindus, in skirts and
-turbans; Mussulmen from Cashmere, and a few Indian Princes, with their
-suites, in a coruscation of gem stones, made up a train of spectacles
-that drew the eager crowds together, almost to the obliteration of
-the narrow string of exotics that, a little shabbily, shuffled along
-between them, with however the Princes on horseback or swung in state
-in palanquins.
-
-But here came Egypt bearing her witness of the universality of that
-power which, with her, at least, had seemed to play the part of a
-benevolent trustee and guide. No longer the impetuous crowds crushed
-the line of march; behind the blaring band that now approached rode
-Lord Kitchener, Sirdar of the Egyptian army who had resumed his ancient
-post and from an overwrought sentiment for exoneration, announced his
-desire to remain there and thus efface the irreconcileable differences
-which had caused Lord Curzon’s retirement from India. It was a
-magnanimous action and had deeply ingratiated this popular hero in
-the favor of the nation. Lord Kitchener, with his staff, preceded,
-in military stateliness, and with smart precision, five regiments or
-groups of Egyptian soldiers. These were combined or selected so as to
-make a bouquet of colors, but essentially business like also in their
-serious regularity, a demeanor fortified to the point of affectation by
-the plaudits and unconcealed admiration of the hosts of people on the
-streets, and protruding from every point above them. There were Arab
-lancers--in light blue uniforms, almost too delicate in tone for daily
-travel, the bodies of the camel corps, with the blackest type of men in
-the Sudanese infantry regiments, assimilating to the soil of the desert
-in the color of their khaki costume, and then other details of the
-military organization, gleaming in immaculate white trousers and coats.
-It was unmistakably effective, and it imparted moral strength to this
-illimitable advertisement of physical power. It recalled the campaigns
-of Khartum and Omdurman, and memorialized that time-worn boast of
-the English rehabilitation of Egypt; a fact certainly, but not to be
-distinguished as a very incredible achievement.
-
-The spectacle closed with Zulus and Hottentots, the bushmen of
-Australia, some dejected New Zealanders, and a picturesque assortment
-of Jamaican negroes, who tramped along with amusement in their
-staring eyes, and a raggedness of deportment, reflecting the wasteful
-and careless way of the tropics. Nor were there wanting Greeks from
-Cyprus. And at the last the loyalty of the Colonies was splendidly
-emphasized, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Natal,
-Bermuda, the Bahamas, contributed a final burst of patriotic zeal,
-and seemed to open the wide earth, to their kindred in the English
-island, for home-making and re-establishment. Nor was the show of
-devotion fortuitous or hollow. It was sincere. It represented a sudden
-_rapprochement_, an instantaneous and valid impulse of sympathy and
-support. Nothing had ever happened in the history of the English
-people, which had had so vital an influence in stimulating unity
-among the English themselves, which so peremptorily flung them into
-each other’s arms, and in a great peril summoned to the surface the
-inextinguishable claims of blood, ancestry, tradition, instincts,
-and pride, advancing them to a solidarity never before realised.
-Its effects were very apparent. The pictures of Hope, lit up by the
-imaginative flamings of Ambition, almost at times, at this dread
-moment, gave to the future in the new habitations awaiting them, an
-unexpected salubrity and beauty. The English leaders dreamed of new
-achievements, a new literature, a greatness vastly exceeding all
-historic records.
-
-Three days after the parade, which Leacraft saw so magniloquently
-evolved in the streets of London, at Tilbury, the King left English
-soil, to transplant the symbols and the functions of the English
-government to Australia, and to begin the new experiment. The hills,
-the fields, the shores, were all too contracted to hold the army and
-the people, gathered in one sublime throb of loyalty and affection
-to witness the inexpressible event. The King wearing the uniform of
-a Field Marshall issued from a royal tent and with uncovered head
-moved towards the shore where his barge was moored. The moment was
-statuesque; the immeasurable multitude with a wave of heart breaking
-emotion uncovered; the national hymn played by a string and wind
-orchestra of four hundred pieces pierced the air with its magnificent
-undulation of melody, and a selected chorus led the engulfing tide
-of song. Amid the surges of vocal outpouring the parks of artillery
-belched their resounding salutes, the lines of war vessels with their
-crews at attention returned the iron throated call, and the King
-standing below the sweeping oars, turned for an instant towards the
-shore, and then regained his first posture of immovable fixture upon
-the pregnable sides of the Dreadnought, whither each stroke of those
-fateful oarsmen was swiftly sending him.
-
-The suspense was insupportable, the poignant crushing terror of it all,
-the incredible predicament of a nation bodily leaving its birth place,
-stunned the crowds, and in silence with a thousand varying episodes
-throughout its interminable acres, the populace stood, dumb as the
-unresponsive rock, apparently as apathetic as the herding cows.
-
-Then at sunfall the Dreadnought, followed by an escort of cruisers
-heavily churned the waters, and passed down the Thames, from its
-mouth into the Channel, and so on to the open sea, and with it went
-the concentrated expression of the Idea of the English empire--the
-King. How strangely immobile is Nature! A race which had covered
-its literary vestures with the garlands of poetry, wrought from the
-imagery in nature’s picture-book, which had spent its brain and
-industry in winning for nature new devotees, and new sacrifices of
-praises and idolatry, which had enthroned among its chiefest charms
-its surrender to the control of nature, in this hour of torturing
-doubt, disenthronement and eviction won no sign of recognition. The
-day closed brightly. The sun went down in a sky of unchecked splendor,
-and the moon-illuminated night bathed the ancient bastions of Tilbury
-with an argent sheen. The terrible event found no reflection in the
-august calmness and serenity of Nature. “Its withers were unwrung.”
-Enveloped in the processes of decay and change, the lapse of a kingdom
-was but a paltry contribution to the chronicle of destroyed continents,
-and shattered worlds. There was no contact between its mechanism
-and the obliteration of a sentiment, or an idea, or moral regime.
-Nothing short of a change in atmospheric pressure would bring tears to
-its face, or agony in its deportment. And what in any case was this
-desertion of a land, the removal of a people? It was subordinated to
-fluctuations of an oceanic river, to the up and down shiverings of
-the crust of the earth. It was a part of the huge drama part of the
-inlaid order of things, as determined at creation, when the ways and
-means of shaping the world, and all things in it, were inaugurated.
-Why should the disappearance of a condition shock a system of
-disappearances and appearances, which is another name for the unceasing
-orbit of revolutions in the face of the earth, and which is nature? An
-individual counts for nothing in the lapse of twenty-four hours gone
-or come. Why in the aeons gone and the aeons yet to come should the
-migration of a people, or the emptying of a vestige of the earth’s
-surface merit notice? And so the elements did not hasten to weep, or
-storm, or furiously proclaim their commiseration, and the whispering
-calls of the half revived summer from pond and wood and meadow retained
-their old time sweetness.
-
-Thus it happened, but from the mouth of men and women, and prompted
-deeply in their yearning soul, rose clouds of prayers that night, for
-the safety of the King, and ever and anon as troops marched over the
-roads in the cold summer night the hymn:
-
-    Lord of the Wave and Deep,
-        Save those at Sea,
-  Their path upon the Ocean keep,
-        And let them see
-    Thy hand each passing day,
-      Thy Ministry of Peace.
-
-was played with bewitching plaintiveness. Men and women stopped and
-sang it aloud as the regiments went by, and sometimes a company of
-troopers added with resounding vigor their sonorous refrain.
-
-The Prime Minister and Mr. Birrell, and Mr. Asquith, who had been
-associated in 1906, in the famous dead lock between the Commons
-and the House of Lords over the Educational Bill, prepared on the
-departure of the King a statement which really was a programme of
-evacuation. It contemplated a progressive transference of the people
-from England, a slowly consummated shrinkage of the business facilities
-and the moderated outflow of capital to the new centres of English
-activity. In this way some check would ensue to the frightful fall in
-the land values and rentals, apart from the practical consideration
-of the physical impossibility of at once removing forty millions of
-people. The government had usurped unusual powers in the creation
-of a Committee of Direction, which by a house to house canvass, an
-exhaustive survey of all titles, and a comparative estimate of the
-hardship imposed by emigration to different families, with immense
-labor, had prepared an itemized list of departure of the families
-of London. This plan had been copied in the large cities of the
-kingdom, and a co-operative scheme framed, which comprised a detailed
-prescription of the time of sailing, and the places of settlement
-for all persons listed. These lists were commonly referred to as the
-“Doomsday Rolls.” The scope of the committee’s power was comprehensive.
-It prohibited to individuals and to societies, federations and unions,
-independent action, without explicit conference with the committee. It
-proved to be a most helpful device, and lessened to the lowest possible
-percentage of hardship the suffering of the people.
-
-Leacraft and his new friends freed themselves from the jurisdiction
-of the committee, by announcing their intention to go to America, and
-upon ample evidence of their ability to do so, and their independent
-financial standing.
-
-It was fully understood that the evacuation was to be a sustained,
-gradual movement, with, however, an irreversible determination to
-make it finally complete. It was not believed that England had
-become utterly uninhabitable, or that some vestiges of its former
-occupation might not be still maintained. A part of the plan of
-evacuation involved an affectionate care of its greater monuments of
-architecture, if possible, though the fierceness of the winter winds
-augured unhappily for the success of this design. A regency of love
-at any rate was to be established, and as many links as possible of
-connection, sentimental and real, were to be left unbroken.
-
-And Edinburgh? Thomsen had woefully noted every day the scanty
-paragraphs which entered the papers, and which gave brief intimations
-of the devastating and continuous storms, which, through the winter,
-swept over Scotland. As if, in order that the impending changes
-might be most forcibly realized, and the loss of time averted from
-too leniently interpreting the enormous seasonal metamorphosis going
-on, nature had exhausted her power in developing disaster. Terrific
-gales had lashed the rocky coasts, fierce insatiable blizzards had
-devouringly raged in the interior, and the pitiless and untired skies
-had emptied avalanches of snow upon the southern counties of Scotland.
-Edinburgh became a storm centre. With whirling inconstancy the storms
-beat upon the doomed city from the East and West; buildings were almost
-buried in the banked up and superimposed drifts, crested ranges were
-in the streets, and palisades of snow tortured into fantastic shapes,
-towered over the outer eminences, fed from the blinding torrents of
-flakes driven off from the Pentland hills and the Salisbury Crags.
-These summits alone, in the whitened waste, lifted their scraped crowns
-to the thickened skies. Edinburgh had become a city of the Frost King,
-and his slumbering legions bivouacked on and around it, except when
-aroused to riotous commotions by the sudden descent of the whistling
-armies of the wind.
-
-These details were rather incoherently reported, as the spring
-advanced, and an occasional survivor from the north made his way
-out of the beleaguered capital. When the spring had fairly ripened
-into summer, an energetic effort was made to reach Edinburgh, and it
-succeeded. Scotland at that time became inundated, and though the
-enormous accumulations of snow refused at once to surrender their
-blockade, they were so deeply broached and undermined that the North
-British line pushed a train forward to the edge of the city, though
-unable to reach its depot in the heart of the city, by reason of the
-hammered wedge of snow which it encountered under the Castle’s cliffs.
-
-After cutting their way out, to the Lothian Road, the explorers
-began investigations and were horror stricken to find that immense
-conflagration had broken out, destroying great sections of the city,
-which owed its partial survival to the masses of invading snow. These
-fires had started in the houses occupied by the domestic bandits, who
-had seized the finest residences, provisioned them from the stores,
-and surrendered themselves to an orgy of rapine and indulgence, by
-which their own fears were stifled, through the excesses of their
-drunken dissipation. Hundreds of these unfortunates had perished in
-the flames, their recklessness had invoked. The picture of the noble
-and beautiful city was shocking. The fires had made inroads upon the
-attractive Princes street, and in the portions west of the Caledonian
-station, towards the Donaldson hospital, gaping openings and swept
-acres revealed the unchecked fury of the flames. While it was probable
-that the city might, with a return of auspicious conditions resume
-some of its old beauty it was also too plain that the veto of Nature
-had been indelibly written across all such plans. Glaciers had already
-begun their formation in the Highlands, and the incipient development
-of an Ice Age was forcibly proclaimed on every hand. The logic of
-events was unanswerable. The United Kingdom throughout all its parts
-must participate again in the benighted life of Labrador and Siberia.
-
-And Europe throughout its borders felt the poignant exasperation of
-the Arctic goad. It trembled with a new apprehension. The touch of
-those icy fingers, stretched out in myriad lines of approach, swarming
-like wavering steel points in thick onslaught from the crowded skies,
-made it suddenly anxious. It corrected its habits, it took council of
-piety and played with beseeching care its pretty role of devotee. Its
-ridiculous and wicked society, with futile haste filled the churches,
-and tried to forget its inherited cruelty, and even turned with an
-unexpected solicitude to the consideration of improving, in some sure
-way, the state of the untitled majority. Its scientific men rushed into
-congresses and explored their text books, and read and reread hopeless
-papers on the _why_ and _how_ of it, but being unable to invent another
-Gulf Stream, retired into dismal prognostications of a returning Ice
-Age. In fact deluded, as scientific men often are, by language, they
-embraced the thought of a “returning Ice Cap,” which would successfully
-force its way from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. They nervously
-began measurements of the Alpine glaciers, took temperatures, wandered
-up in the higher regions of the atmosphere in balloons, sounded the
-floor of the ocean, established meteorological stations everywhere,
-and became so excited and convinced that they were happily on hand at
-a critical geological juncture, that they succeeded in supplying a
-technical ground for panic.
-
-The statesmen and economists were more useful. They estimated the
-results of any continued lowering of the temperatures, the effects
-of climatic alterations on life and production, especially in grain,
-and found that the southern countries of Europe were in some danger,
-and the northern countries very really threatened with a commercial
-overthrow, as England had been. They too turned to the colonies of
-their respective countries for refuge. It looked as if the bursting
-receptacles of European Culture were about to explode and scatter over
-the ends of the world the germinal seeds of its civilization.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-ADDENDUM.
-
-
-“Histories leave oppressive legacies behind them. They may furnish
-subjects for art and literature and poetry, but, as in family
-inheritance, they burden posterity with considerable rubbish. Society
-does not quickly free itself from superstition, nor from its habits of
-thinking or of doing things. Even when they become anachronisms we are
-loathe to part from them, because, to our own detriment, we are fond of
-them. America has started fresh, and runs on the road of opportunity,
-while other nations must hobble and limp as best they can, with the
-clogs of old usage and prejudice hanging on their feet.”
-
-It was the voice of our friend Leacraft, and he was standing on a broad
-piazza built at the rear of a spacious villa on the topmost slopes
-of Staten Island, in the harbor of New York city, looking at the
-motionless ocean far beyond the fringe of land immediately before him,
-flushed by the setting sun. That luminary with glorious opulence had
-painted the sky a seething carmine in the west, and imparted its most
-delicate reminders of the morn to the eastern arches of the heavens,
-that hung above the sea. The picture was superbly satisfying. There
-was enough detail in the landscape, enough isolation of house and wood
-and field, of moor and strand, and not too much. The oncoming twilight
-softly blended these nearer things, yet left them palpable. But the day
-still flung its garlands of illumination over the broad skies; and the
-sensitive surfaces of the water with lavish sympathy repeated on its
-face the smiles of the blending zenith. And on either side of Leacraft
-stood Miss Tobit and Mr. Thomsen, and the month was June, and the year,
-narrated.
-
-Before we satisfy our curiosity more closely as to their relation, or
-note those changes which five years, however kindly inclined, must
-leave behind them, let us follow this conversation which of itself
-1915, five years after all the happenings previously may unroll some
-curtains of the past.
-
-“Well,” it was Thomsen who was now speaking, “then I suppose you are
-not willing to quarrel with the material revolution we have been
-through, because all that has come between the present and the past,
-like the sundering of Damocles’ sword, has saved us from the necessity
-of denuding ourselves of the old things, turning us loose in a fresh
-field, where we may play high jinks with all we once venerated, and
-where we may end by despising ourselves, for the very liberties you
-seem anxious for us to indulge in.”
-
-Leacraft motioned to the chairs, and the three sat down, in the
-same order as they stood. The place obviously was Leacraft’s, or he
-exercised some sort of control over it. And it was Miss Tobit’s voice
-which next took up the thread of talk--it was noticeable that Leacraft
-turned eagerly and looked at her, though his earnest face betrayed no
-symptoms of possession, in truth, a contemplative sadness for a moment
-rested on his features, vanishing even with its dawn.
-
-“Why give up old things? Why change and change and change? You call
-it progress. Is it anything but going around in a circle? You will
-come back to the very things you now reject, and some centuries hence
-the world will try the old experiments of Feudlism and Chivalry; and
-Kings by Divine Right will be as popular as elected Presidents--indeed,
-people may care some day as much as ever to say their prayers and go to
-church.”
-
-Both Leacraft and Thomsen laughed, but it was Leacraft who retorted,
-and he leaned far back in the Morris chair, his eyes bent upon the
-visionary ring of the horizon now webbed with bluescent shades.
-
-“I think there will be no returns, Mrs. Thomsen”--Ah! then Leacraft had
-lost again--“no Merry-go-round; our path, the path of humanity, is on
-and on and on, not always straight, not always level, and never final
-in its destinations. It was a physical chasm that separated the first
-colonies of this land from Europe. They brought with them traditions,
-customs, though luckily not of a very silly sort--but the lack of
-continuity with the whole antecedent history of England practically
-destroyed that history for them, and they began in untrammelled freedom
-to think for themselves and determine the essence of manhood, of worth,
-of liberty, of faith, of brotherhood, and their thinking throve upon
-nothing so much as the contemplation of the as yet, humanly speaking,
-unused world about them.
-
-“And the vicissitudes of living, the peril, the undiminished levy made
-by necessity upon their inventiveness, their industry, their courage,
-expelled the remaining vestiges of fealty to humbug, the pretense
-of class, the arrogance of office. They had wrested a living from
-Nature, under circumstances of unabashed familiarity with the cruelty
-of the savage, the obduracy of climate, and the grudging responses of
-a sterile soil, and they estimated worth by the hardihood of men who
-worked.
-
-“An American essayist has pointed out the emphasis laid by the
-northern, the Teutonic races, upon individual liberty. He says
-something like this: The Germanic race has been distinguished at
-all ages for its political capacity, and the possession of vigorous
-institutions of self-government; that there grew up among the nations
-of this race a well ordered system of government, based upon the right
-of the individual. And why was this? Because they knew of the hardships
-of living, and the fibre of liberty-loving natures were formed under
-the kneading strains of perpetual conflict. James McKinnon has pointed
-out the same thing in his History of Modern Liberty.
-
-“Arbitrary and selfish rule was most quickly crushed in Central Europe.
-No! we shall not return to the old follies, because we shall not be
-permitted to return; because struggle with Nature will never cease.”
-
-“Russia has been a cold country,” answered Thomsen; “and if the gauge
-of liberty is coldness, we should expect to have seen the fruits of
-popular government ripening, if you will permit the paradox, in its
-zero atmospheres; or if wildness and natural enemies--those that
-make housekeeping difficult, and a man’s skin a precious abode for
-his soul--why have not the negroes of Africa won over the images of
-rhetoric which have been wasted upon Greece and Rome--both, by-the-by,
-hot countries?”
-
-“Rome and Greece never knew what Liberty was in the modern sense. Both
-were types of class government. Before Christianity, there could be no
-ideal of freedom in its holiest meanings. As for Russia, the germs of
-liberty are yet buried there, but it is understood; an accident has put
-the autocracy in power, and like all beneficiaries of a system, its
-members fight for their living; besides, Russia has not left off its
-barbarism. But nothing under Heaven will keep her from being free. As
-to the negro, he lies too far back, too near to the origins, and, in
-any case, the dangers of the jungle are met by craft, rather than by
-consecutive exertion and daring.”
-
-“You regret that our new growth in the Pacific--the Australian
-England--has not put on the features of a republic, instead of
-preserving the heritage of the kingly and royal class institutions
-under which the old England flourished. Do you think that nations can
-safely try experiments, like children playing games, or chemists mixing
-solutions, which, in the latter case, may at any moment blow their
-heads off? I think not.”
-
-“I think,” Leacraft slowly replied, while Agnes Ethel Tobit--she who
-had become inferentially the wife of the handsome Thomsen--arose and,
-walking to her husband’s side, leaned over the back of his chair,
-thus looking down upon the speaker, who had turned towards Thomsen,
-as if her movement was dictated by a desire to hear his friend more
-distinctly; “I think that the finest, the most inspiring--yes, the
-most delicate and subtle virtues flourish in a republic, such as
-this Republic of the United States is. I confess, I am in love with
-it; I love its people. They are superbly human, and humanly noble.
-The American gentleman, and he lives on no particular and restricted
-level--you find him among the firemen, the policemen, the clerks, the
-fathers of families--this unique man is always gracious, delightful,
-unerringly just. I believe that these traits develop most naturally
-under the dispensations of equality, reasonably understood. I think the
-most fruitful national life ensues, when a nation stands fundamentally,
-in its government, and in its social conceptions, for common sense
-standards, and an unqualified acceptance of the principles of personal
-freedom. I like these Americans. To me, their ardor, their naturalness,
-their hearty friendship, their generous self-forgetfulness, and a
-certain deferential amusement at the foibles of less emancipated
-cultures, is fascinating. Of course, there are stupid rich Americans,
-dressed in most obnoxious livery of affectation and imitation, men and
-women who have treacherous tendencies in their feelings and desires,
-willing always to kick their own country, and willing to leave it, but
-never willing to relinquish the luxuries its prosperity has enabled
-them to enjoy. There are also hateful middle-class Americans, who
-deteriorate the impressions made by the best aspects of the American
-heart and mind; but the substance and the spirit of the American
-life, however much disguised, or, from momentary and economic reasons
-obscured, is to me the most palatable; it is palpably the best life
-now shown on the world; it is the most energizing, the most alert, and
-it carries the power of enormous assimilation, because it is built on
-the essence of manhood, the respect for the rights of others. I know
-what is in your thoughts and on the point of your tongue. You would
-ask: How about the Chinaman, the Negro, and the Japanese, perhaps?
-That is a long question, and has nothing to do with my contention, for
-in a nutshell, respect for others’ rights does not involve respect
-for others’ habits, and generous as the Americans are, they are not
-so stupid as to wish to imperil, for an unnecessary sentiment, the
-hard-gained benefits of their own national experiment. They have
-already leavened the whole earth; it’s not to be expected that they
-digest all of its rubbish as well. Let the rest of the world do
-something for itself, and clean its own social sloughs, by a little
-more admixture of freedom and sympathy.
-
-“All this may seem to you intensely disagreeable, perhaps a little
-disloyal, but you wrong me. If I might answer your question without
-more evasion. I would peremptorily declare that I hoped that the new
-England in Australia would put on the lineaments, nay, incorporate the
-very breath and body of this land. I know it has not; possibly it could
-not; possibly pernicious and selfish instrumentalities have made it
-impossible. Pardon my intractable enthusiasm, but do not mistrust my
-heart. It is always England’s. The night is too calm, too beautiful,
-to disgrace it with wrangling. Let us tell the story of the last years
-to each other. Mine is a short one, and can come last; but yours? Ah!
-well I know some of it,” and Leacraft, without constraint or any show
-of vacillating envy, smiled up in the face of the pretty woman who
-looked down at him, and deeply that woman’s heart honored him for his
-magnanimous courage.
-
-There was a pause for an instant, and then Thomsen began. He rose from
-his chair, and walking to the railing of the piazza, sat on it, half
-turned to the paling East, half towards Leacraft, and told the story of
-the transplanted English nation.
-
-That story can be told in more exacting phraseology than the colloquial
-method permits, and until his narrative becomes more personal, let
-us authentically review the events he rehearsed, which form a unique
-historic episode.
-
-With the departure of the King from the shores of England, the actual
-evacuation of the island began, and the means and ways of transferring
-the people previously thought out, were carefully applied.
-
-The moment the King and Parliament arrived in Australia, a predicament
-arose. The King was recognized as king, functional in Australia and in
-England, functional anywhere the English control was established; but
-the Parliament of England, as the highest law-giving legislature of
-the realm, did it supersede the regional legislation of Australia? Was
-the autonomic power of the provinces of Australia obliterated with the
-arrival of the supreme legislative body of the British Empire? There
-was one broad, obvious proposition. The remedy to all doubt, collision,
-and ambiguity was to resume in Australia the exact conditions which
-had vanished in England, and now naturally sought a restatement and
-erection in the land the King and Parliament had reached. And this was
-generally accepted. There was a cordial and almost precipitate display
-of adhesion to the new plan. It destroyed the independent existence
-of the various sections of Australia, and made the continental island
-a unit under the control of the Parliament, just as England had been.
-The enthusiasm which greeted this solution was adequate and convincing.
-It gave renewed hope to the patriotic and loyal souls who prayed and
-worked for the re-production of the England they had left. The King
-himself responded to this burst of practical allegiance with a wise
-and fervent expression of affection and thankfulness. It was a gem of
-deliberate composition, and was well received. Meetings of endorsement
-and proclamations of ratification were made everywhere, and in the
-tumult of acclamation it escaped notice that a formidable opposition
-had become organized for a forcible resistance to the whole scheme.
-This was over-awed or suppressed, not without a show of force, in
-which Thomsen had been himself engaged, and which brought about some
-adventures around the region at Mount Harwick, in New South Wales.
-
-Thomsen, after the conclusion had been reached that his own and
-Miss Tobit’s families should follow the stream of people going to
-Australia, rather, than was at first intended, to coincide with
-Leacraft’s wishes for them all to visit America, had sought employment
-in the Government’s service, among those to whom had been entrusted
-the regulation of this colossal emigration. He was therefore well
-acquainted with its various phases and results.
-
-When the King and the Parliament left England, over two millions had
-preceded them, being naturally, those who accepted the situation,
-and who, besides, were not specifically limited for their support to
-investments at home. They went everywhere, many to the continent, many
-to India, perhaps half to America, which grew more and more, before
-the eyes of the people, as the most natural, most desirable, the
-most friendly home. A large number strayed to Africa, and yet others
-sought the expanding possibilities of South America. Englishmen had
-acquired such extended interests, drew so largely upon the resources
-of the entire world for their support, that now in a way they found
-natural business refuges all over its varied surface. It was a happy
-consequence of the constraining littleness of their own island.
-
-The financial question was the real difficulty, apart from the harsh
-bereavement and hardship of the divorce from all their previous living
-and associations. It was solved, at least partially, by the Government
-issuing paper money, similar to the greenbacks, which carried the
-United States through the Civil War. These were furnished to applicants
-upon deposit of sworn, approved and examined statements of their
-property of all kinds in England. Twenty-five per cent of the amount
-thus appearing was given, or rather loaned, to the applicant, and
-with this he was enabled to make a start in the new quarters he had
-selected. The plan involved the assumption of an enormous burden by the
-Government, and an unqualified confidence in it by the people.
-
-Of course, England was not in any sense to become a depopulated island.
-Its real estate values, though shrunk to slender fractions of their
-former worth, would yet have some value, and whereas, in the case of a
-manufacturer, the Government made the loan upon his attested resources
-in machinery and certified correspondence, the risk was reduced
-sensibly within discoverable limits. Loss, agitation, dislocations, in
-many cases ruin, resulted, but the transfer of the manufacturing plants
-was made most skilfully, and before the factories in England were
-closed, the same products were being produced in Australia. The menace
-of the emergency had startled Englishmen into a really reasonable
-and adequate show of sense, quickness and resource; usually poor
-business men, torpid and conservative, shackled with a kind of mild and
-traditional laziness, they became, under the stimulation of the danger
-of extinction, active and wary, and intensive.
-
-In the meanwhile the climatic changes continued, and the face of the
-United Kingdom more and more altered under the infliction of the long
-and tempestuous winters, the cool, shortened summers, and the ice
-blockade about its coasts. For it had early become apparent that in
-some inexplicable way, the Arctic currents streamed down from the polar
-regions with reinforced volume and velocity, bringing with them the
-discharged masses of ice projected from their usual course westward,
-by the irruption into the Arctic Ocean through Behring Straits of the
-united oceanic rivers of the Gulf Stream and the currents from the
-Yellow Sea. Throughout the spring, the beleaguered coasts were deeply
-fringed with ice-floes and icebergs, whose chilling emanations created
-fogs, and wrapt the islands in cheerless cold. Each passing year had
-made more clear the surpassing wisdom of the evacuation. But a large
-population found that they could support themselves on the island, made
-up of the hardy, enduring types, the sailors, fishermen, and the boreal
-agriculturists--the farmer who entertains life successfully where the
-earth reluctantly yields her products, and the scant nature furnishes
-but few of the products of the soil. For now a most extraordinary thing
-happened. The refrigeration of Northern Europe had driven down towards
-the south the northern denizens. They eagerly seized the deserted land
-of the southerners, less accustomed to the niggardly responses of the
-field, and met the attacks of the climate with the accustomed patience
-and resistance to which they had become innured in their northern home.
-In this way the population of Iceland almost bodily left the bleak
-and ice-bound coasts of the Arctic island, that no longer offered the
-meagre semblance even of subsistence, which previously maintained its
-stubbornly hardy occupants. Nothing could have been more fortunate,
-as it retarded in some measure the shocking decline in the values of
-the land, and gave to all establishments that might otherwise have
-been turned into homes for owls and foxes a partial usefulness. Not
-indeed that the manufacturing interests would be considerably revived,
-but warehouses and buildings connected with manufacturing or shipping
-business would be made into storehouses, and the castles and large
-manor houses were converted into curious communal colonies, where
-those boreal people most joyfully repaired and developed profitable
-communities.
-
-Large numbers of the very poor found in the exodus of the well paid or
-employed classes above them, a grand chance to renew their own luck.
-They became keepers of the deserted buildings; they fraternized with
-the newcomers, and freed from the incubus of a superimposed social
-repression, became happy and industrious.
-
-To all the brands and grades of the surviving or deserted inhabitants
-came increasing numbers of Scandinavians; important fractions of the
-Scotch settled on the coasts of England, and even immigrants from
-Newfoundland and Canada were tempted to seize the strange opportunity
-to occupy vast and abandoned cities, which furnished them in many
-instances with palatial shelters, but which later became repellant
-and unpleasant abodes, from which they too willingly withdrew to the
-smaller settlements.
-
-The tragedy of the big cities was complete. They were melancholy
-wastes, their empty streets seemed baleful and dismal. They gave
-ghostly thrills of terror, even in the noon-day, to the passers
-by--silent graves of past memories--the speechless, vacant, staring
-windows in the unlit rooms were like the open but expressionless
-eyes of corpses, and the awful fall of silence through the labyrinth
-of ways, roads, lanes, places, squares, alleys, descended upon the
-wanderer, caught by some malign trick of adventure within their
-voiceless, motionless depths, with the benumbing touch of the grave.
-He hastened his steps; he ran to escape the deadly stupor, the
-inexpressible gloom of loneliness, where every aspect betokened life.
-The solitude of nature inspires, draws to the lips an involuntary
-prayer, or places in the heart the movements of hope, but this hideous
-contradiction of signs and effect weighed like lead upon the spirit,
-and forced from the shrinking heart the ejaculations of despair.
-
-Never on earth was there such a picture of dejected grandeur, as this
-emptied metropolis of the world presented; never before had a great
-city become its own tomb, through the flight of its inhabitants; never
-in any record of disaster, whether by earthquake, pestilence, flood or
-vulcanism, was there such obliteration as followed the withdrawal of
-the citizens of London from their own capital.
-
-The thick blanket of the snow was thrown over it in winter, and its
-emergent domes, pinnacles, obelisks and needles offered a fantastic
-similitude to mortuary monuments, or else beneath the yellow moon its
-piercing whiteness, like a titanic face of someone killed, smote the
-blue black skies above it with remorse.
-
-But in Australia the English strength revived and broadened; it
-promised to make a gigantic social revolution; it worked strangely
-enough in unison with the newly awakened hopes of the King to restore
-an accustomed prestige to the Crown. This political phenomenon
-attracted the attention of the civilized world. The King in a most
-adroit proclamation to the people had peculiarly enlisted their
-sympathy by his veiled complaint of the habitual loss of power, and
-the encroachments upon the kingly prerogatives of the self-constituted
-Cabinet of Ministers. The King’s action was always tacitly prescribed
-and anticipated. He was a puppet, dressed in regalia, with no shadow
-of power, real and personal. And this he resented, but his language
-was the sentences of diplomacy, and lost the individual note entirely
-in a concerned and measured argument, restrained by every possible
-regard for the present custom, urging a greater confidence in the
-King’s wishes, and a larger precinct of action for his judgment. This
-momentous promulgation was contemptuously referred to by its critics
-as “the Ourselves” letter, but it met a favorable reception and it
-enlisted the cordial endorsement of the House of Lords, nor was it
-altogether resented by the House of Commons. The achievement of this
-success led the King into a further step of interference, in the
-appointments and in the personnel of the Cabinet, and he succeeded
-further in impressing his wishes upon a number of important bills
-passing through the Parliament. In short, by a persistent pressure,
-seconded by friends among the people, and a growing following in the
-legislature, he had inserted his views, and extorted from the grudging
-concessions of the Commons’ recognition of the royal prerogatives.
-He had shown himself unusually active in resource, in suggestions,
-and in intercourse with the people. His examples had been followed
-with enthusiasm by the nobility, who, so to speak, spread themselves
-before the observation of the nation, and exerted an unaccustomed
-generosity and ubiquitous energy in practically assisting the work of
-rehabilitation. At a general election, many candidates were discussed
-and elected upon this issue, viz.: the restoration to the King of
-kingly power.
-
-“And so, you see,” Thomsen concluded, “the unexpected happens, as it
-always does. We moved to an ultra-democratic _milieu_, a veritable
-nest of fads and socialistic temerities and experiments, and lo! the
-reaction sets in, and in Australia the King may recover the power, lost
-with the Stuarts, and the monarchial principle gets a shove ahead,
-which, with prosperity, and in England, no impulse short of the fiat
-of the Almighty, could have secured for it. A prophet who would have
-foretold that, would have scored a poor success in 1900 as a state
-maker.”
-
-Before he had finished speaking, Leacraft had left his chair, and was
-walking to and fro near the speaker--and then he advanced to the edge
-of the few steps that led from the piazza to the open swards beneath
-them, which were fringed by an emergent crown of trees growing thickly
-in some lower crease or hollow of the ground, beyond which again the
-eye fell to the foot swells, and the undulations of land far off, in
-the flats, just beginning to twinkle with lights.
-
-Leacraft spoke slowly, his eyes still fixed upon the distance, as if in
-revery, but his measured words came clearly to his two friends, carried
-by a voice which, always melodious and cultured, now gained a sort of
-passionate yearning, and then again was approved as disinterestedly
-clean and judicial: “All this is an episode. Nothing more. The future
-of the races of the world means the widening scope of the Republican
-idea. There can be no other. Education forbids its extinction. Yes,
-and Authority endorses it. This sudden foolishness in Australia will
-only invoke a perilous reaction. There can be to-day in governmental
-systems only varied applications of the one thought; the rule of the
-people through an appeal to the people’s choice of rulers. It is
-fundamentally common sense in an era of enlightenment, to begin with;
-but since the United States have eclipsed all nations, and raised the
-standards of individual action beyond all previous estimates, this
-conclusion has coercively been accepted, that through the influences
-propagated under this popular freedom of control, the finest, the
-richest, the sweetest, the most magnanimous types of character are also
-engendered and completed. A kind of psychological logic is involved.
-A vast psychic power of selection sets in, and irrevocably the most
-noble, the most disenthralled natures slowly appear. In comparison
-with their best results, the representatives of other cultures appear
-dwindling and abortive. And why? Because in the least limited field of
-opportunity the unrestrained power of nature to make character must
-of necessity evolve consummate and supreme examples. Nothing is more
-demonstrable. It must be conceded, I grant, that at first the crop of
-temperaments is marked more by rash hardihood, strident vulgarities,
-and climbing audacity, but these very qualities, which in the naming
-seem so distasteful, mature naturally, in later generations, into
-devoted courage, æsthetic spontaneity; juices of the fruit when green
-form the basis of its later richness.
-
-“I know the tiresome and hackneyed nonsense, and the mean-spirited
-sneers of the European at the American, for his lack of culture,
-his defect in polish, his money-getting haste. And it’s all a lie!”
-Leacraft wheeled round as if on a pivot, and even in the pale light the
-Thomsens could see that his face flushed, and the stern decision of his
-voice betrayed the fires of resentment. “Who is it that these precious
-pretenders of Europe look to when they have famine and disaster; who
-has taught the lessons of sympathy, of open-hearted helpfulness, and
-unswerving generosity, or made them recognize in their own natures the
-almost exterminated seeds of kindness? As to culture, let me tell you
-in all seriousness that the idle glamour of a scholar’s diction does
-not weigh a barleycorn as against the flashing splendor of an honest
-and sincere spirit; as to polish, who made the European regard Woman as
-something better than the helpless ally of his lust, and the chained
-companion to his exultant vanity? Woman has gained a new empire of
-dignity in these new lands; she for once triumphs in the unquenched
-assertion of her rights. As to money-making greed, where under the
-canopy will you find a more meanly mercenary race than these same
-Europeans, inert panderers to pleasure for money, fortune hunters, and
-silent spectators of atrocities, if the risk of money loss stops their
-way to succor. I know the dolts and traitors on the American soil,
-the men and women who sell their birthright for the mess of pottage
-contained in a gilded name in Europe, or the hollow mockery of a
-coat-of-arms. These are the tattooed children of humbug--careless and
-ungrateful, indolent and self-seeking, lured by that strange beauty
-which Europe, for some inscrutable reason, seems to keep, and of which
-even I, an Englishman, feel jealous, for the sake of a country which
-may not be so good-looking, but which becomes every day more sublimely
-the appointed pattern of the future state. Well! my friends, you must
-pardon these ‘wild and whirling words.’ They may strike you as an
-unseemly tirade, but if you knew this land as well as I do, you, too,
-might trespass beyond the limits of moderation in its defense. But
-other matters have for you a less doubtful interest. The great physical
-revolution which has left its mark no less in the political world
-than in the material, has become consolidated and solidified into a
-permanent feature of the earth. The broad engulfment of the land at the
-isthmus has established an open way to the Pacific from the Atlantic,
-and the initial formation of the barrier northward from the Caribbean
-Sea by the erection of a ridge from Cuba to Yucatan, and partially from
-Jamaica to Honduras, this latter connexion the singular sequel to the
-disturbance which overwhelmed Kingston in 1907, has advanced far enough
-to effectually assist the momentous deflection of the Gulf Stream from
-the Atlantic. And another transformation has thereby been achieved.
-The alien mass of hot water pouring into the Pacific at the isthmus,
-when no longer propelled by the easterly winds, resumes its original
-impetus of rotary direction, and streams, sweeping northward, along the
-coasts of California, Oregon and Washington, bringing in its further
-extension warmth to British America and Alaska. By this amelioration
-of its climate, Alaska has specially profited. Its numerous mineral
-resources have been more exhaustively explored, and the wealth of its
-boundless areas promises returns beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.
-
-“The convulsions which were so dismally foretold, in the social and
-political fabric of this country, never occurred. They were quite
-lost sight of in the wonderful happenings of the world, and the trite
-aphorism that the spirit of discontent is best overcome by an appeal
-to the spirit of curiosity, obtained an almost ludicrous illustration
-in the subsidence of every murmur of schism and contention, as the
-amazement grew over the upset of the temporalities of the world, as
-the earth readjusted its members for another, let us hope, long and
-uneventful slumber.
-
-“For myself, perhaps I should deprecate your censure by an apology.
-It is true, I did not follow the fortunes of my country, though with
-my mind I ardently canvassed and considered them. The very interests
-which brought me to this land were English, and my superintendence
-and success with them, has in a few ways made the survival of not
-a few Englishmen possible at this crisis. Really, my best place of
-helpfulness was here. Jim has been with me, and has proved invaluable,
-and that poor woman, whom I told you about meeting in Victoria Park,
-the night before we saw the great procession of evacuation, was found
-by me, and now Jim is her husband. There’s nothing shocking about it.
-Her first husband died of consumption. It was a foregone conclusion.
-Jim showed himself a big-hearted friend, and the girl learned to think
-the world of him. And when she was alone, what could have been better
-from any point of view than that she should have married him?
-
-“And for me, Mrs. Thomsen, there is peace, too.” Leacraft moved to the
-doorway of the broad hall that divided the spacious house. He pushed
-it open, and as the light from the interior fell upon his face, the
-visitors saw the smile of an abiding happiness upon the thoughtful
-countenance, and Agnes Ethel Thomsen utter a prayer of thankfulness
-that _he_ had found contentment.
-
-
-
-
-      *      *      *      *      *      *
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s note:
-
-Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
-predominant preference was found in the original book.
-
-Many, but by no means all, simple typographical errors were corrected.
-Unpaired quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious,
-and otherwise left unpaired.
-
-Page 5: Transcriber removed redundant book title.
-
-Page 257: “with central and periphera, agitation,” was printed that way.
-
-Page 282: “ear shattering dim” was printed that way.
-
-
-
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-<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Evacuation of England, by L. P. (Louis
-Pope) Gratacap</h1>
-<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
-and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
-restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
-under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
-eBook or online at <a
-href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not
-located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the
-country where you are located before using this ebook.</p>
-<p>Title: The Evacuation of England</p>
-<p>       The Twist in the Gulf Stream</p>
-<p>Author: L. P. (Louis Pope) Gratacap</p>
-<p>Release Date: June 10, 2021  [eBook #65588]</p>
-<p>Language: English</p>
-<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p>
-<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND***</p>
-<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard,<br />
-    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
-    (http://www.pgdp.net)<br />
-    from page images digitized by<br />
-    the Google Books Library Project<br />
-    (https://books.google.com)<br />
-    and generously made available by<br />
-    HathiTrust Digital Library<br />
-    (https://www.hathitrust.org/)</h4>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
-  <tr>
-    <td valign="top">
-      Note:
-    </td>
-    <td>
-      Images of the original pages are available through
-      HathiTrust Digital Library. See
-      https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433074864483
-    </td>
-  </tr>
-</table>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr class="pgx" />
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter" id="cover">
-  <img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" />
-</div>
-
-<h1>THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND</h1>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div class="newpage p4 center">
-<p class="xlarge vspace wspace">
-THE<br />
-<span class="larger"><span class="smcap">Evacuation of England</span></span></p>
-
-<p class="p2 wspace">THE TWIST IN THE GULF STREAM</p>
-
-<p class="p4 larger wspace"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br />
-L. P. GRATACAP</p>
-
-<p class="p1 small wspace">AUTHOR OF<br />
-“THE CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE LIFE IN MARS,”<br />
-“A WOMAN OF THE ICE AGE”</p>
-
-<p class="p4 larger wspace">NEW YORK<br />
-<span class="larger gesperrt">BRENTANO’S</span><br />
-1908
-</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<p class="newpage p4 wspace smaller"><i>Copyright, 1908, by Brentano’s</i></p>
-</div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
-</div>
-
-<table id="toc" summary="Contents">
-<tr class="small">
-  <td class="tdr nolpad">CHAPTER</td>
-  <td> </td>
-  <td class="tdr">PAGE</td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">I.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In Washington, April, 1909</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_5">5</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">II.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Lecture</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_38">38</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">III.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Baltimore, May 29, 1909</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_66">66</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">IV.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Gettysburg, May 30, 1909</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_102">102</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">V.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Eviction of Scotland</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_131">131</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">VI.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Terror of It</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_170">170</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">VII.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">In London, February, 1910</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_195">195</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">VIII.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Evacuation</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_231">231</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">IX.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">The Spectacle</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_274">274</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="tdr top">X.</td>
-  <td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">Addendum</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#toclink_298">298</a></td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span></p>
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_EVACUATION_OF_ENGLAND"><span class="larger">THE EVACUATION OF ENGLAND</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_5" class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">IN WASHINGTON, APRIL, 1909.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Alexander Leacraft was regarding with as much
-interest as his constitutional lassitude permitted,
-the progress of a distinctly audible altercation on
-Pennsylvania avenue, Washington, D. C. The disputants
-had not felt it necessary, under the relaxing
-influences of a premature spring, to interpose
-any screen of secrecy, such as a less exposed position,
-or subdued voices, between themselves and
-the news-mongering (and hungering, let it be added)
-proletariat of our nation’s capital.</p>
-
-<p>A small crowd, composed of the singular human
-compound always pervasive and never to be avoided
-in Washington, which, in that centre of political
-sensations, is made up of street loafers, accidental
-tourists, perambulating babies, “niggers,” and
-presumptive statesmen, enclosed this “argument”;
-and from his elevated station, within the front parlor<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
-of the McKinley, Mr. Leacraft was afforded a
-very excellent view of and an equally distinct hearing
-of the disagreement and its principals.</p>
-
-<p>The two disputants were themselves sufficiently
-contrasted in appearance to have allured the casual
-passer-by to observe their contrasted methods
-in debate. One—the taller—was a thin, angular
-man with unnaturally long arms, a peculiar swaying
-habit of body, an elongated visage, terminating
-in a short, stubby growth of whiskers, and a sharp,
-crackling kind of voice, with unmistakable nasal
-faults. He seemed to be a southern man modified
-by a few imitations of the northern type.</p>
-
-<p>He was addressing a bulky, rather disdainful
-man in a checquered suit of clothes, who had advanced
-the season’s fashion by assuming a straw
-hat, and whose rosy face, broad and typical features,
-and yet not plethoric expansion of body,
-strong and stalwart frame betokened much animal
-force, and reserved power of action. He might
-have been a northern man. As Alexander Leacraft
-looked at them, it was the southern man who
-was speaking, and his uplifted arm, at regular intervals,
-rose and fell, as the palms of both hands
-met in a cadence of corroborative whacks. It may
-interest the reader to know that the particular time
-of this particular incident was April, 1909.</p>
-
-<p>“Let me tell you this, Mr. Tompkins,” drawled
-the southerner with loquacious ease, the crackle and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
-sharpness of his intonation appearing as his excitement
-increased, “the necessities of our states
-demand the Canal at whatever cost. It will be
-the avenue for an export trade to the east, which
-will convert our stored powers of production into
-gold, and it will react upon the whole country north
-and south in a way that will make all previous
-prosperity look like nothing. Our cotton mills
-have grown, our mineral resources have been developed;
-Georgia and Alabama are to-day competing
-with your shaft furnaces and steel mills for the
-trade of the railroads, and builders; and for that
-matter we are building ourselves. We can support
-a population ten times all we have to-day; our resources
-have been just broached, but exhaustion is
-a thousand years away. Our rival has been Cuba.
-She has robbed us of trade; she has put our sugar
-plantations out of business; even her iron, which I
-will admit is superior in quality, has scaled our
-profits on raw ingots, but she can’t hold us down
-on cotton. Open up this canal, and we will gather
-the riches of the Orient; our ships will fill it with
-unbroken processions, and in the train of that commerce
-in cotton, every section of the Union will
-furnish its contribution to swell the argosies of
-trade. I tell you sir” and the excited speaker, conscious
-of an admiring sympathy in the crowd
-around him, raised his voice into a musical shout,
-in which the crackle was quite lost, “the commerce,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
-the mercantile integrity of these United States will
-be restored, and American bottoms for American
-goods will be no longer a vain aspiration; it will
-be a realized dream, an actual fact.”</p>
-
-<p>He paused, as if the projectile force of
-his words had deprived him of breath, and then
-at the momentary opportunity Mr. Tompkins, in a
-clear and metallic voice, with a punctuative force
-of occasional hesitation, undertook his friend’s
-refutation.</p>
-
-<p>“I’m not contesting the fact, Mr. Snowden,” he
-said, “that the opening of the Canal means a good
-deal to your portion of the country. Does it mean
-as much to the rest of the country, and does it mean
-so much to you for a long time. You mention cotton.
-Do you know that the cotton cultivation of
-India and Egypt has increased enormously, and
-that it is grown with cheaper labor than you can
-command. You have made the negro acquainted
-with his value. You have raised his expectations,
-you have thrust him into a hundred avenues of occupation
-and every one of his new avocations adds
-a shilling a day to the worth per man of the remainder,
-who stick to field work and cultivate your
-cotton fields. The cotton of Egypt and the cotton
-of India, I mean its manufactured forms, will go
-through that canal to Asia and Japan and Polynesia
-just as surely as yours will, and it’ll go
-cheaper. It is poorer cotton, I know, but that will<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
-not effect the result.</p>
-
-<p>“That isn’t all. Brazil and the Argentine Republic
-are growing cotton, and they are doing well
-at it. Europe will take the raw stuff from them
-and keep up her present predominance in that market
-while she turns their cotton bolls into satinettes
-and ginghams for the almond-eyes of Asia. The
-canal, breaking down a barrier of separation between
-the two oceans, turns loose into the Pacific
-the whole frenzied, greedy and capable cohorts of
-European manufacture. It will make a common
-highway for Europe, and our unbuilt clippers and
-tramp steamers will stay unbuilt, or unused, to rot
-on their ways in the shipyards. The west coast will
-be sidetracked, and our trunk railroads will cut
-down their schedules and their dividends at the
-same time. Roosevelt put this canal through, and
-your southern votes helped to elect him against his
-protest, but brought to it by an overwhelming
-public sentiment that applauded his power to chain
-or sterilize trusts; and he promised last March to
-your southern rooters, at his inauguration, to see
-that before his present new term was over, before
-1913, the canal would be opened, and perhaps he’ll
-make good.</p>
-
-<p>“You southerners elected Roosevelt, and you
-have killed the Democratic party. The new powers
-of growth of that party were most likely to develop
-among you, but you shoved aside the proffered offer<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
-of political supremacy, because you too had surrendered
-to the idols of Mammon, and were willing
-to sell your birth-right for a mess of pottage.
-Well! You’ve got the canal and you’ve got Roosevelt,
-and let me tell you Mr. Snowden,” and the restrained,
-almost nonchalant demeanor of Mr.
-Tompkins became suddenly charged with electric
-earnestness, “you’ll get Hell, too.”</p>
-
-<p>This admonitory expletive, uttered with a force
-that seemed to impart to it a physical objectivity,
-caused the increasing circle of auditors to retreat
-sensibly, and, without more consideration, giving a
-glance of mute scorn at the flushed face of the
-southerner, the speaker pressed his way through
-the little crowd, which, after a moment’s suspension
-of judgment, seemed reluctant to let him escape,
-and disappeared.</p>
-
-<p>His opponent was distinctly chagrined. The
-wrinkled lines about his peculiarly pleasant eyes,
-indicated his strained attention, and were not altogether
-unrelated to a sudden muscular movement
-in his clenched hands. His hopes, however, for some
-sort of forensic gratification might have been sensibly
-raised as he discovered himself the sole occupant
-of the small vacant spot on the side walk,
-walled in by a human investiture, the first line of
-which was made up of two pickaninnies, three
-newsboys, one rueful cur and some impromptu
-mothers who had taken the family babies out for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
-air and recreation, but, overcome by the indigenous
-love of debate, had forgotten their mission, and
-held their charges in various attitudes of somnolence
-or furtive rebellion against the hedge of men
-behind them.</p>
-
-<p>It was evidently expected that the southern gentleman
-would relieve his feelings, and it was also
-evident from a few ejaculations hap-hazardly emitted
-from the concourse, that the majority of those
-present was in his favor.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Snowden looked around him reflectively,
-and a sense of personal dignity forced its way
-against the almost over-powering impulse to appeal
-to popular approval, and convinced him that
-the place and the audience were inopportune for
-any further discussion. He could not, however,
-escape the demonstrated force of popular expectancy,
-and, with a consenting smile, a shrug
-of his shoulders, and with his hat raised above his
-head, swinging gently, he called out “Three cheers
-for Teddy and the Canal.”</p>
-
-<p>In an instant the group seized the invitation, and
-under the cover, if it may be so violently symbolized,
-of the cloud of vocality, his enthusiasm evoked,
-Mr. Snowden, like the fortuitous and directive
-deities of the epics, vanished.</p>
-
-<p>There remained an unsatisfied group to which
-more accessions were quickly made, the whole
-movement evidently animated by some emotion<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
-then predominant in the national capital. This
-group broke up into little knots of talkers, and as
-the day was closing, no urgency of business engagements
-and no immediate insistency of domestic
-duties interfered with the easily elicited Washingtonian
-tendency to settle, on the public curb,
-the vexed questions of state, if not to enlighten
-Providence on the more abstruse functions of His
-authority.</p>
-
-<p>Alexander Leacraft willingly surrendered himself
-to the study of this representative public
-<em>Althing</em>, and felt his exasperating torpor so much
-overcome by a new curiosity as to make him not
-averse to stepping out into the hall of the hotel,
-descending the steps into the street, and engaging
-himself in the capacity of a rotational listener at
-the various groups, sometimes not exceeding two
-men, who had become vocally animated, and felt
-themselves called upon to supply the deficiency
-of objurgation, so disagreeably emphasized by the
-sudden departure of the northern and southern disputants.</p>
-
-<p>The illuminative results of his ambulatory inspection,
-and his own expostulations or inquiry,
-may be thus succinctly summarized.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, elected in his own behalf
-in 1905, as president of the United States, after
-having served out the unexpired term of William
-McKinley, who was assassinated in November,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
-1901, and with whom he had been elected as
-vice president, had been again re-elected in the fall
-of 1908, against his emphatic rejection, at first, of
-a joint nomination of the Republican and Democratic
-parties. The campaign, if campaign it could
-be called, had been one of the most extraordinary
-ever recorded, and in its features of popular clamor,
-the grotesque conflict of the personal repugnance
-of an unwilling candidate nominated against
-his will, and in defiance of his own repeated inhibitions
-to nominate him at all, because of his solemn
-promise that he would defer to the unwritten law of
-the country, and not serve a third term, was altogether
-unprecedented, and to some observers ominous.
-He was reminded that his first term, although
-practically four years, was still only an
-accident, that there was no subversion of the unwritten
-law, in his serving again, as his actual
-election as president had occurred but once, that
-his popularity among the people was of such an
-intense, almost self-devouring ardor, that it was
-an act of suicidal negation, of unpatriotic desertion
-to shun or reject the people’s obvious need, that a
-war, yet unfinished, had been begun by him against
-corporate interests, that its logical continuance
-devolved upon him, that the unique occasion of a
-unanimous nomination to the presidency carried
-with it a sublime primacy of interest, that cancelled
-all previous conditions, promises or wishes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
-on his part, and laid an imperious command upon
-its subject that deprived him of volition, and absolutely
-dissolved into nothingness any apparent contradiction
-of his words and acts. Finally, it was
-insisted that the Panama Canal was nearing completion,
-that its remarkable advance was due to
-Mr. Roosevelt that this fact had been prepotent
-in shaping the councils of southern Democrats in
-proposing the, otherwise unwarranted, endorsement
-of a Republican nomination, that a strong
-minority sentiment had crystallized around an
-angry group of capitalists who were only too anxious
-to get rid of Roosevelt altogether, and that in
-the case of his refusal, these men would so manipulate
-the newspapers, and inflame public apprehension,
-against some possible outbreak of social radicalism,
-financial heresy, and anarchistic violence,
-that a reaction begun would become unmanageable,
-and some tool of the reactionaries, and the railroads,
-would be swept into office, and with him a
-servile Congress, and Roosevelt’s work, so aggressively
-and successfully prosecuted, would be all
-sacrificed. Nor was this all. The return to a divided
-nomination, with an unmistakable intention
-on the part of the conservatists to repeal all disadvantageous
-legislation to the monopolies, corporations
-and trusts, would at once precipitate a conflict
-of classes.</p>
-
-<p>A radical man, possibly a demagogue, would be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
-placed in opposition to the choice of the plutocracy.
-His election was also not improbable. The powers
-of socialism, enormously strengthened by the adhesion
-of an educated class, might be triumphant,
-and the succeeding steps in social revolution would
-bring chaos.</p>
-
-<p>This dilemma was so pertinaciously displayed, so
-forcibly accentuated, that Roosevelt had yielded at
-the last moment, not insensibly affected (as what
-spirited man would not be) by the magnificent assemblies
-(mass meetings) throughout the country,
-tumultuously vociferating the call of the people.</p>
-
-<p>The southern people, with characteristic warmth,
-and through the suddenly consummated attachment
-of Senator Tillman to Roosevelt, and under the
-coercion of Senator Bailey’s logic and power of
-argumentative persuasion, had swelled the tide of
-popular approval. Roosevelt became an idol—his
-election was almost unanimous, a handful only of
-contestants having gathered in a kind of moral
-protest around Governor Hughes as a rival candidate.
-Governor Hughes’ nomination was achieved
-through a combination of opposite political interests,
-as anomalous as that which chose Roosevelt,
-and having precisely the same quality of coherence.</p>
-
-<p>It represented dissatisfied Republicans, an
-alienable remnant of Democrats, and had drawn
-into it a few sporadic political elements that barely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
-sufficed to give it numerical significance. W. J. Bryan,
-who would have been otherwise a candidate
-himself, had endorsed Roosevelt, furnishing thereby
-an example of political abnegation which had
-enormously increased his popularity, and assured
-him the nomination of Nationalists, as the new fusionists
-were called, in 1913. This was also deemed
-a wise forethought, as a provision against the possible
-success of the rampant Hearstites. Hearst
-would have been the socialist candidate in the last
-campaign, had not the principal himself, on hearing
-of Roosevelt’s nomination, sapiently withdrawn,
-fearing defeat, which would have too seriously
-discredited him in the next national struggle.</p>
-
-<p>The Prohibitionists had, by an act of virtual self-repudiation,
-thrown their not inconsiderable vote
-to Roosevelt. The Socialists were the only important
-opponents of his election, and their surprising
-record made the prophetic warnings, which had
-convinced Roosevelt of the necessity of his candidacy,
-appear like a veritable intervention of Providence,
-at least this was the language commonly used
-with reference to it.</p>
-
-<p>Roosevelt had displayed remarkable self-control
-and consistent gravity, and had even, in a very extraordinary
-address at his inauguration, deprecated
-the unanimity of his election. He deplored the
-precarious dilemma of a country which found itself
-forced to do violence to its traditions in order<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
-to escape an imagined danger.</p>
-
-<p>Almost synchronous with his re-election, the announcement
-had been made that the Panama Canal,
-upon which the President in his former term, had
-exerted the utmost pressure of his inexhaustible
-enthusiasm, energy and exhortation, was advancing
-very rapidly, engineering difficulties unexpectedly
-had vanished, a system of extreme precision in the
-control of the work, itself largely the device of the
-President, had facilitated the entire operation, and
-a promise of still more rapid progress was made.</p>
-
-<p>This promise had produced a storm of southern
-enthusiasm. The south, completely restored in its
-financial autonomy, had been growing richer and
-richer, and their public men had not hesitated to
-paint, in the brightest colors, the further expansion
-of their prosperity with the opening of this
-avenue of commerce between the oceans, assuring
-its people the markets of Asia, and their rapid promotion
-to the political, social and financial primacy
-in the United States.</p>
-
-<p>Northern capitalists had not been incredulous
-to these predictions, and in a group of railroad
-magnates, whose interests seemed now seriously
-threatened, a sullen resentment was maintained
-against Roosevelt, in which the unmistakable notes
-of designs almost criminal had been detected. Mr.
-Tompkins, whose altercation with the southerner
-had led Leacraft into this voyage of interpellation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
-and discovery, was a paid agent, in the employ of
-this cabal.</p>
-
-<p>Alexander Leacraft was an Englishman, inheriting
-an English temperament without English
-prejudices; he was fortunately free from the worst
-faults of that insular hesitancy which imparts the
-curious impression of timidity, and had advanced
-far enough in cosmopolitan observation to get rid
-of the queerness of provincial ignorance. He was
-indeed a sane and attractive man, and provided by
-nature with a forcible physique, a good face, and
-a really fascinating proclivity to make the best of
-things, admire his companions, and bend unremittingly
-to the pressure of his environment.</p>
-
-<p>He had not escaped the dangers incident to
-youth, and his heart had become attached to a lady
-of Baltimore—one of the undeviatingly arch and
-winning American girls—to whom he had been introduced
-by her brother, a commercial correspondent.</p>
-
-<p>The nature of his affairs—he was the secretary
-of an English company which operated some copper
-mines in Arizona and Canada—had made him
-a frequent visitor to the shores of the New World,
-and he had not been unwilling to express his hope
-that the United States would become his final
-home. These sentiments were quite honest, though
-it might have elicited the cynical observation that
-the capture of his affections by Miss Garrett had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
-done more to weaken his loyalty to the crown than
-any dispassionate admiration of a Republican form
-of government. But the imputation would have
-been malicious. Leacraft did feel an earnest admiration
-for the American people, and yielded a
-genial acquiescence to the claims of popular suffrage.
-His connexion with America had been fortunate,
-and he had come in contact with men and
-women whose natures by endowment, and whose
-manners and habits, conversation and tastes, by
-inheritance and cultivation, were elevating and
-engaging—men and women whose nobility of sympathy
-with all things human was reflected in an art
-of living not only always decorous and refined, but
-guided, too, by the principles of urbanity and justice.</p>
-
-<p>The Garretts of Baltimore were a widely connected,
-and in numbers an imposing social element,
-and none of the various daughters of light and
-loveliness who bore that name more merited consideration
-in the eyes of manly youth than the capricious,
-captivating and elusive Sally. Her graces
-of manner were not less delightful than her conversation
-was spirited and roguish, and her assumption
-of a demure simplicity had often driven Alexander
-Leacraft to the limits of his English matter-of-fact
-credulity in explaining to her the relations
-of the King to Parliament, or the municipal acreage
-of the old City of London. All of which information<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
-this very well read and much travelled
-young woman, as might be expected, was possessed
-of, but just for the purposes of her feminine and
-cruel fancy, not too well disposed towards her patient
-suitor, disingenuously concealed. Sally really
-enjoyed the painstaking gravity with which the
-young Englishman explained the eternal principles
-of English rule, and the never-to-be-forgotten
-superiorities of London.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Leacraft had met Sally under circumstances
-the most provocative of admiration. In her own
-home; where the sincerity of hospitality and the
-urgency of an American’s deference to the best instincts
-of courtesy, did not altogether mitigate her
-coquetry and mirthful affectations, and even, by the
-faintest gloss of repression, made them the more
-delicious. The Englishman was bewitched, and his
-infatuation declared itself so plainly that Sally—whose
-heart was quite untouched by his distress—tried
-the resources of her ingenuity to avoid meeting
-him alone.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft, on the morrow of the day, whose close
-had so deeply inducted him into a study of American
-politics, expected to make a deferred visit to
-the Garretts at Baltimore, and he had quite firmly
-resolved that he would reveal his desperate extremity
-to Sally, and plead his best to show her how
-empty life would be to him without her, and that it
-would be shockingly obdurate in her to decline to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
-regard him as the goal of her marital ambitions.</p>
-
-<p>He felt some fear of her revolting gayety, and his
-fears were not assuaged by the remembrance of any
-particular occasion when her conduct towards him
-permitted him to indulge in hopes. Still the thing
-must be done. His unrest must be quieted. To
-know the worst was better than this feverish anxiety
-of doubt. And besides, with a prudence not
-altogether British, he thought he could endure repulse
-better now than later, and in the event of that
-evil alternative, he could cast about him for alleviating
-resources which might be more easily found
-now, than if he waited longer, and if he continued
-to expose himself to the perilous encounter of her
-eyes, and the tantalizing caresses of her wit.</p>
-
-<p>When Leacraft returned to the hotel, he found
-a letter waiting for him, which he saw at once was
-from his friend, Ned Garrett. He tore it open and
-discovered, to his considerable discomfiture, that
-it postponed the event of his momentous proposal.</p>
-
-<p>It read:</p>
-
-<p class="p1">Dear Leacraft:</p>
-
-<p>Aunt Sophia is very sick at Litchfield, Conn.
-Mother and Sally have gone on. Can you put off
-your visit until May, say the 28th? You will find
-it dull here without Sally and Mother. I shall go
-with them as far as New York. We all intend, if
-Aunt Sophy concludes to remain in this bright
-world a little longer, and the Dr. endorses her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
-good intentions, to visit Gettysburg on Memorial
-Day (Decoration old style). The President will
-deliver a memorial oration. Come with us and
-see the great battlefield, which is a wonderful monument
-to the nation’s dead, a beautiful picture itself,
-and probably you will see and hear things worth
-remembering besides. Write to the house, and I
-will get your letter when I return in two weeks. But
-do come.</p>
-
-<p class="sigright">
-<span class="l6">Yours sincerely,</span><br />
-Edward T. Garrett.
-</p>
-
-<p class="p1">Leacraft put down the letter slowly. He was
-disappointed. A summons to the west, to the mines
-in Arizona, had reached him just the day before,
-and he must get out there before a week was over.
-He had thought to have finished this affair first,
-and to find in the tiresome trip distraction, if Sally
-was unfavorable to his appeal, or unexpected interest
-if he succeeded in winning her assent. Still
-he could readily accept the invitation. He would
-be back in May, and, perhaps after all the occasion
-might be more favorable. Sally softened into a little
-sympathetic humor by her visit to her sick aunt,
-and he strengthened by the encouraging reflexion
-of having successfully dissipated the little cloud of
-misunderstanding, or worse, at the mines, might
-produce conditions psychologically adequate to
-bring about his victory.</p>
-
-<p>He stepped to the window. The view from it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
-was always pleasing, at this moment in the descending
-shades of the closing day and with the
-vanishing lights hurrying westward beyond the
-Potomac, it possessed an ineffable loveliness. The
-great white spectre of the Washington monument,
-immaterialized and faintly roseate against the
-softly flaming skies, and brooding genius-like above
-the trees of the Reservation was always there, and
-that night it assumed the strangely deceptive but
-fascinating vagary of an exhalation, as if built up
-from the emanations of the earth, and the vapors
-of the air, remaining immobile in the still ether as
-a portent or a promise. The man’s face grew
-clouded as the fairy obelisk faded, and with the
-enveloping darkness became again discernible as a
-dull and stony pile.</p>
-
-<p>That evening Leacraft felt particularly restless
-and detached. He felt the need of entertainment,
-and of entertainment of a sort that would fix his
-faculty of thought, awaken speculation, and immerse
-him in reasonings and the intricacies of argument.
-The few theatrical bills presented no attractions
-more weighty than a clever comedian
-in a musical farce, a sensational melodrama
-(“much better,” said Leacraft), and vaudeville.
-Music was shunned; there was nothing quite serious
-offered, and then music has so many painful
-influences on the apprehensive mind, and is turned
-to such cruel uses in the economy of nature, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
-making uneasy lovers more agitated. No! he didn’t
-wish music. Baffled for an instant, he concluded to
-walk. Muscular exercise, mere translation on one’s
-legs, is a marvellous remedy for the diabolical
-blues, and then it can never be told what the Unseen
-holds for you, if you only go out to meet It in the
-streets, and amongst other people, hunting, perhaps,
-like yourself, diversion from their own inscrutable
-megrims. It—the Unseen—may quite
-divertingly mix you up in a comedy or a tragedy,
-or consolingly give you a glimpse of other human
-miseries immeasurably greater than your own.</p>
-
-<p>So walk it was. He had hardly covered two
-blocks towards the White House, when he met Dr.
-M—, the most amiable and accomplished editor
-of the National Museum, and one of those multi-facetted
-gentlemen who respond to every scientific
-thrill around them, and hold in the myriad piled
-up cells of their cerebral cortex the knowledge, selected,
-labelled and accessible, of the world. Leacraft
-knew the Doctor; had indeed consulted him
-upon a chemical reaction, in the elimination of cadmium
-from zinc. The Doctor, with genial fervor,
-grasped his hand, persuasively put his own disengaged
-hand on Leacraft’s back, and dexterously
-turned him around with the observation: “You
-are going the wrong way. Binn reads a paper to-night
-before the Geographical Society, over at the
-Museum, on a live subject. It’s about earthquakes<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
-and the Panama Canal. The matter has a good
-deal of present interest. The President may be
-there. It’s worth your while. Come along.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft jumped with pleasure, if an Englishman
-may be said ever to respond so animatedly
-to a welcome alternative. This met his requirements
-exactly. He would, in these surroundings
-and under the stimulation of an intellectual effort,
-in listening to a lecture which he hoped might possess
-literary merit as well, quite forget his immediate
-solicitudes.</p>
-
-<p>“It is curious,” resumed Dr. M—, as they directed
-their steps towards the umbrageous solitudes
-of the Reservation, “how inevitably many
-practical questions demand an answer at the hand
-of geology or physiography, which are however
-never consulted, and disaster follows. In the
-spring of 1906 a destructive outbreak of Vesuvius
-occurred, and much of the ensuing loss of
-life might have been prevented by reliance upon
-scientific warnings. Indeed, the loss of life on this
-last occasion of the volcano’s activity was greatly
-reduced through the premonitions of its approach
-by delicate instruments. For that matter, from the
-beginning, the vulcanologist, at least as soon as such
-a being was a more or less completed phenomenon
-in our scientific life, would have pointed out the considerable
-risk of living on the flanks of that querulous
-protuberance. But it can hardly be expected,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
-I suppose, that large populations can effect
-a change in habitation as long as the dangers that
-threaten them occur at long intervals, and the human
-fatality of unreasoning trust in luck remains
-unchanged. Take for instance the case of the village
-of Torre del Greco, four and a half miles
-from the foot of Vesuvius. It has been overwhelmed
-seventeen times, but the inhabitants, the
-survivors, return after each extinction to renew
-their futile invocations for another chance.”</p>
-
-<p>“I suppose,” queried Leacraft, “that we are to
-be informed to-night whether the Canal from the
-scientific point of view is a safe investment?”</p>
-
-<p>“Perhaps,” doubtfully returned the doctor.
-“You see, it’s this way. In the spring of the year
-that saw the outpouring of lava that invaded the
-villages of southern Italy, San Francisco suffered
-from a serious earthquake that ruptured the public
-structures of the city, dislocated miles of railroad
-tracks, ruined the beautiful Stanford University,
-shook out the fronts of buildings, and precipitated
-a fire that all but wiped out the Queen City of the
-Pacific coast. It has been feared that some such
-seismic terror might demolish the superb structures
-of the canal, and we are to learn to-night
-whether these earth movements threaten the new
-waterway at the isthmus.”</p>
-
-<p>“I have reason to believe,” rejoined Leacraft,
-“that this canal has been itself a source of political<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
-disturbance, and that it is likely to effect convulsions
-in your body politic as dangerous in a social
-way as those which brought about the financial
-and physical upset at San Francisco.”</p>
-
-<p>“Don’t worry on that score,” replied his companion.
-“I can tell you that the political texture
-of this country is not to be worn to a frazzle by
-any collision of interests. Such things adjust
-themselves, and the way out only means a new entrance
-to brighter prospects and bigger undertakings.
-Yes, I guess someone will be hurt, but individuals
-don’t count if the whole people are benefited.”</p>
-
-<p>“Still,” remonstrated Leacraft, “the people is
-made up of individuals, and it’s simply a fact that
-you can’t disturb the equilibrium of one part of
-society without jostling the rest.”</p>
-
-<p>“In a way, yes,” slowly answered the doctor.
-“But it is quite clear to my mind that the enormous
-advantages of the canal will hide from sight
-the losses that may be inflicted on the railroads, in
-the dislocation of rates, and even that will be temporary,
-as the new business raises our population,
-and their passenger traffic touches higher and higher
-averages.”</p>
-
-<p>“The canal has been an expensive enterprise,”
-suggested Leacraft. “It would be a great misfortune
-if it brought any kind of material reverses.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span></p>
-
-<p>“Rubbish,” retorted the doctor; “this prating
-is the madness or the envy of croakers and cranks.
-Do you think that a connexion between the oceans
-that will shorten the route from one to the other
-by nearly 6,000 miles, and bring our eastern seaboard,
-with all its tremendous agencies of production
-within reach of a continent that is slowly becoming
-itself occidentalized, and demanding every
-day the equipment of the west, is a mercantile delusion?
-We are all gainers. It is a scheme of
-mutualization on a world-wide scale, but America
-distributes the profits and holds the surplus.”</p>
-
-<p>The two friends by this time had reached the entrance
-of the Museum, and passing through its
-symbolic portals, turned to the left, and found
-themselves in a dull room, portentously charged
-with an exhaustive exhibit of the commerce of all
-nations. Here, on tables and shelves, was displayed
-a wonderful assortment of primitive and modern
-ships, primeval dugouts, Philippine catamarans,
-Mediterranean pirogues, sloops, schooners,
-brigs, brigantines, barques, barkentines, luggers,
-lighters, caravals, Dutch monstrosities, models of
-those extraordinary ships which Motley has described
-as “built up like a tower, both at stem and
-stern, and presenting in their broad, bulbous prows
-their width of beam in proportion to their length,
-their depression amidships, and in other sins
-against symmetry, as much opposition to progress<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
-over the waves as could well be imagined,” the Latin
-trireme and the Greek trireme, the ironclads of
-France used in 1855, the monitors of the Civil War,
-the recent wonders in battleships, torpedo boats,
-and destroyers, with naphtha launches, submarine
-wonders, the old time American cutters, and models
-of the stately packets that once made the trip
-from New York to Portsmouth in fourteen days,
-with a various and diversified exhibit of yachts
-and pleasure boats, all burnished, japanned and
-varnished, and now dimly lustrous in the futile
-illumination of the room. Above them on the walls
-was a prolix illustration of the hydrography of the
-world; charts of currents, pelagic streams, areas
-of calms, submarine basins, maps of rainfalls,
-prevalent winds, storm regions, precipitation,
-barometric maxima and minima, and then still
-higher up on the walls, that dispensed knowledge
-over each square inch of their dusty and dusky
-surfaces, Leacraft descried the tabulations of tonnage
-of the merchant marine of the nations of the
-earth, with fabulous figures of imports and exports,
-and the staple products of this prolific and
-motherly old earth, caressed into fructification by
-the tireless arms of her scrambling broods of children.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft was soon deserted by the doctor, who
-found occasion to wander among the slowly arriving
-scientific gentry and politely inquire after the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
-health of the particular scientific offspring, whose
-tottering footsteps each one was engaged in nurturing
-into a more reliant attitude before the world.
-Leacraft found the dim room, with its preoccupied
-occupants vacantly settling into the seats around
-him, and its motley array of picturesque models
-strangely congenial. It soothed, by the abrupt
-strangeness of its contents, the subdued intellectual
-placidity of the audience, and by its mere physical
-retirement from the outer bustle of the streets, and
-the iterative commonplaces of the hotel corridor.
-The exact process of subduction would have been
-hard keenly to analyze, but Leacraft seemed to forget
-his personal disquietude, and develop into a
-congenital oneness with these earnest men and women
-around him, eager to know, and not too patient
-towards sophistry or pretension. He hardly cared to
-know who was who. It made no matter. They all
-seemed freed from the petty vanities of living,
-and now engrossed in the triumphant tasks of
-thought; and he felt himself elevated into a kind
-of mental abstraction which eagerly carried on its
-functions in an atmosphere of ideas.</p>
-
-<p>And yet how was it, that just above the little
-desk which was to receive the honorable burden of
-the lecturer’s manuscript, he suddenly distinctly
-saw the fair face, with its light blue eyes, its delicate
-blush of color, and the slightly mocking pout
-of the lips of Sally, the beloved. Leacraft almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
-rose upright in his astonishment at the impossible
-hallucination. He was leaning forward, half incredulous
-of the report of his own senses, and half subjected
-by a delicious whim that the apparition was
-an augury of success, when a commotion spreading
-on all sides of him roused his attention, and the
-vision fled. He would have willingly had it stay.
-People were rising in his vicinity, and soon the assembly
-was on its feet. Some one had entered who
-was the cause of this unusual excitement. “The
-President” came to his ears, murmured by a dozen
-persons near him, and he had hardly sprung to his
-own feet when, with many salutations, a strongly
-formed, rather bulky man, with a manner of almost
-nervous scrutiny passed by him moving down
-the aisle to the front. It was indeed President
-Roosevelt, and Leacraft, now startled into the most
-active interest, slipped forward a seat or two, to
-gain a position which might afford him a better
-view of this remarkable person. The audience remained
-standing until the President, escorted by a
-tall red-whiskered gentleman, whom Doctor M—,
-who had just turned up in search of his friend,
-whispered was Dr. George O. Smith, the distinguished
-Director of the Survey, had reached a
-seat reserved for him at the front of the hall.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft now observed more closely the character
-of the convocation, and realized its composite and
-representative elements. Dr. M—, always himself<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
-immersed in the study of the lives, achievements
-and distinctions of the prominent men of the country,
-was an enthusiastic verbal <i xml:lang="it" lang="it">cicerone</i> through
-the maze of faces which seemed suddenly to have
-condensed into a really crowded audience. Here
-was Dr. D—, the Alaskan explorer in the early
-days of the nineteenth century, the world recognized
-authority on the tertiary fossils of the east and
-west coasts, and a man of erudition and delightful
-literary skill. Beyond him sat Dr. M—, a quiet-faced
-man, curator of the National Museum, author
-of text books, and gifted with a singularly shrewd
-thoughtfulness. At his side sat the sphinx-featured
-F—, of Chicago, a gentle-minded scholar, to whom
-the Heavens had entrusted the secrets of their meteoritic
-denizens, and who, by a more fortunate circumstance,
-held a pen of consummate grace. Again
-at his side was the Jupiter-browed Ward, an
-erratic over the face of the globe, possessed with
-a transcendant enthusiasm for the same celestial
-visitors that F— described, and chasing them with
-the zeal of a lynx in their most inaccessible quarries;
-a man of immense conviviality, and controlling
-the smouldering fires of a temper that defied
-reason or resistance. At the front of the rows of
-chairs, and not far from the cynosure of all eyes—the
-President—were two notable students of the
-past life of the globe, Professors O— and S—, men
-whose studies in that amazing storehouse of extinct<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
-life which the West held sealed in its clays and
-marls, limestones and sandstones, had continued on
-higher and more certain levels the work of Marsh
-and Leidy and Cope, and who had transcribed before
-the whole world, in monuments of scientific
-precision, the most startling confessions of the fossil
-dead. To one side, on the same row, sat Prof.
-B—, known in two continents, for chemical learning,
-especially on that side of chemistry which mingles
-insensibly with the laws of matter. And whispering
-in his ear, with sundry emphatic nods, sat,
-next to him, Dr. R—, of Washington, learned in
-the ways of men’s digestion, and the enigmas of
-food and the arts of food-makers. In the row behind,
-the expressive head of Young, aureoled with
-years and honors, was seen, and at his side the face
-of Newcomb, who had set the seal of his genius
-and industry across the patterned stars. Here
-was A— H—, the geologist, reticent and receptive,
-there C—, weighted with new responsibilities in
-furnishing time to the rapacious biologist, and in
-discovering new ways of making this old world.
-Behind them sat M—, wise beyond belief in bric-a-brac
-and brachiopods, vindictively assertive, and
-self-sacrificingly tender and kind. There was
-McG— and I—, W—, A—, V—, and B— W—,
-bringing to the speaker the homage of archæology,
-of petrology, of zoology, and morphology. In a
-group of motionless and eager attention were A—,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
-the sage metereologist, beloved in two continents;
-B—, abstruse and difficult, meditative, as a man
-might be who kept his hand on the pulses of matter,
-and B—, skillful in weighing the atoms of the air,
-or probing the volcanoes of the moon. In one line,
-mingling in conversation that reached Leacraft’s
-ears as a strange jargon of conflicting sciences,
-were G—, H— and H—k. And beyond them, mute,
-as if by mutual repulsion, sat F—, the agile scrutinizer
-of Nature’s crystals; P—, holding in his labyrinthine
-memory the names of half a universe of
-shells, and B—n, to whom each plant of the wayside
-bowed in recognition of a master’s knowledge
-of itself. Against the wall, in a triad of sympathy,
-was A—, the surgeon; S—, the neurologist, and
-R—. And alone, in an isolation that belied his intense
-geniality, was K—.</p>
-
-<p>And through all the scientific congeries, which
-were far more extended than Leacraft could recognize,
-or even Dr. M— recall, was a more garrulous
-grouping of politicians, statesmen, diplomats,
-ministers, the well dressed circles of the rich,
-and the dillettantes, drawn to this unusual assemblage
-by the presence of the President.</p>
-
-<p>The quiet and dull room, faded, and with contents
-tiresomely drilled into the exact alignments
-of a museum hall, took on an almost brilliant appearance.
-The fancy amused itself with the
-thought that it too felt, in its stagnated life, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
-unique occasion, and shook itself into a momentary
-wakefulness, to note and record its distinguished
-guests, that its streaked walls tried to hide
-their unseemly rents, and the multiplied models
-and charts struggled to look recent and familiar
-and appreciative, amid such intellectual tumult.</p>
-
-<p>But now the audience was forgotten at that theatrical
-moment when the chairman and the lecturer
-advanced over the platform to assume the
-directive guidance of the evening. They did advance
-with that curious <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">gaucherie</i> which somehow
-always disables the scientific man in his official
-and public utterances, and seems, by some trick of
-compensation, the more unredeemable as the unfortunate
-victim of its cynical attachment is the more
-distinguished and renowned.</p>
-
-<p>Dr. S— stepped gingerly forward, a tall, effective
-man with hair hardly sanguine in color, and
-quite conventional in arrangement, with a cerebral
-development, that somehow disappointingly dwarfed
-the lower contours of his face, domed and broad
-as it was, with much scholarly promise. He was
-followed by the speaker of the evening, Mr. Binn,
-who seemed half inclined to screen himself from
-observation behind the utterly inadequate profile
-of the famous Director. The two men momentarily
-catching the full assault of the numerous eyes, each
-pair among them being the visible battery of a
-questioning and critical mind behind it, underwent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
-an obvious confusion of intention and movement,
-and became somewhat mixed up with the table and
-chairs, and with each other. The Director extricated
-himself, came forward to the edge of the platform,
-and in a voice of half propitiatory jocularity,
-introduced the subject, and the speaker. He alluded
-to the favorable conjunction of the meeting of
-the American Association for the Advancement of
-Science and that of the National Academy of Science,
-which brought so many eminent thinkers and
-observers together, and administered an especial
-emphasis to the question to be considered this evening.
-He mentioned, with a deferential bow in the
-direction of the President, that they had all been
-deeply honored by the presence of the Chief Executive
-of the Nation, to whom perhaps, more than
-to anyone else in the brilliant audience, the grave
-question of the structural and geological stability
-of the Isthmus of Darien, was one of overshadowing
-interest, and he congratulated everyone that
-the subject was in the hand “of one whose geological
-fame was beyond dispute, and his carefulness
-of statement unimpeached,” and the Director
-sat down, pulling off to one side of the stage, lest
-his own refulgence might dim the legitimate monopoly
-of that article by Dr. Binn. Leacraft observed
-that as the lecturer unrolled his manuscript
-on the reading desk, the President leaned outward,
-adjusted his eyeglasses, and scrutinized the geologist,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
-who, from a rather embarrassed fumbling
-with his sheets, seemed conscious of the inquisition.
-A moment later, as if satisfied with his inspection,
-the President leaned back, bulky and immobile, and
-became an absorbed listener.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Binn, well known for his lithological studies,
-and the possession of a good style, in the scientific
-sense, was a short man, evincing, under control,
-however, the peptic influences of years, with a face
-of decided legibility, in which sense and penetration
-seemed equally indicated.</p>
-
-<p>He had provided himself with charts, which had
-been distended in an irregular line above his head,
-and to these he occasionally referred. His reading
-of the important pages before him was clear
-and audible, but totally neglectful, of the informing
-appliances in elocution, of melody of voice,
-accent and deliberation. The lecture was brilliant
-and distinguished, and quite comparable in its
-qualities to the serious people who had gathered in
-great intellectual force to receive its instructions.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_38" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE LECTURE.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-
-<p>Note.—If the reader is too much interested in getting to
-the upshot of this tale, let him skip the Lecture. But it is a
-mistake. This Lecture was delivered by Mr. Binn on the
-Ninth of April, 1909, and is well worth while.</p>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Mr. President, Dr. Smith and Ladies and
-Gentlemen,” began the speaker; “The area of the
-Panama Isthmus and the West Indies has been an
-area of successional changes very considerable in
-their amount, very persistent in their frequency.
-It embraces a tropical area contiguous on its Pacific
-side to a meridional section of the earth which
-is very unstable, and which almost monopolizes the
-contemporaneous volcanic energy of the earth. It
-adjoins, or is limited itself on the east, in the Atlantic,
-by the Antillean islets, the emergent crests
-of submerged volcanic vents. It could be presumptively
-held, on these grounds, that the Isthmus
-itself partook of these characters of inequilibrated<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
-crustal motions. It might be affirmed, with
-a fair amount of precision, that its future history
-would continue this impression.</p>
-
-<p>“The West Indies, as defined by Hill, embracing
-the islands that with Cuba form a long convexity
-terminating in Trinidad, on the coast of S. America,
-represent to-day a disintegrated continent.
-They are supposed to have embodied a former geographical
-unity. It had terrestrial magnitude, and
-lay Atlantis-like between South America and North
-America, at a time when the present narrow neck
-of land upon which our eyes are now, as a nation,
-fixed with anxious preoccupation, was itself swept
-over by the confluent waters of the two oceans, and
-when at that point which now forms an attenuated
-avenue of intercourse between North and South
-America, the tides of a broad water way alternated
-in their allegiance to the East or West coasts of the
-separated continents; and possibly a precarious
-and fluctuating contribution from the warm Gulf
-Stream found its way into the Pacific.</p>
-
-<p>“The discussion of this question opens up for our
-consideration the examination of the geological
-structure of these oscillating terranes, as to what
-these are made up of, and it is evident that we must
-reach some general conclusion as to the succession
-of the strata composing them, and their relative positions
-to each other, as whether they are, in the
-language of stratigraphy, conformable or unconformable.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
-The inference and argument are simple.
-If we find that the rocks composing these sections
-are crystalline, ancient, and deeply bedded formations,
-presumably coexistent, so to speak, with the
-original or very early formative beds of the world,
-and referable to its beginnings, we are permitted,
-by all the analogies of induction and deduction, to
-assume that these rocks have at least a relative stability.
-On the other hand if our examination reveals
-the fact that they are recent deposits, more
-or less unconsolidated, easily disturbed in their positions,
-easily readjusted in their molecular or physical
-structure, then by the most unexceptional and
-matter-of-fact observation, we shall regard them as
-questionably permanent, indeed as unmistakably
-non-resistant to the subterranean forces of terrestrial
-mutation.</p>
-
-<p>“Again it is clear that a pile of bricks, or of any
-other superimposed building blocks is the more secure,
-in its equilibrium, if the component parts
-overlie each other, along the broadest surfaces, and
-come in contact, or <em>fit</em>, as we say, in parallel position.
-If these bricks succeed each other in lines
-of brick that are flat, and then in lines that are vertical,
-or placed on their thinnest and narrowest
-edges, and these two contrasted positions alternate,
-or are irregularly disposed with reference to each
-other in the same wall, such a construction implies,
-involves, elements of weakness, and under the shock<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
-of any incident force would succumb in ruin more
-quickly, and more irretrievably than the former.
-If further, the latter building style had suffered
-ruptures and dislocations and the gaps or openings
-and broken surfaces of contact between its
-parts had been invaded or replaced by an irregular
-or incongruous assortment of ‘filling,’ differing
-from the original bricks in substance, texture
-and hardness, then we have a third pattern of
-composition that again is weaker than either of its
-predecessors. But further. If this least massive
-and most vulnerable type of structure has been
-subjected to repeated and considerable strains of
-elevation and depression, and strains recurrent at
-short intervals, then, without inspection, we know
-that its interior coherence has been much shattered,
-and that it has undergone a progressive dilapidation.</p>
-
-<p>“But I am constrained to go one step farther
-in this hypothetical picture of structural defectiveness.
-To return to our wall of brick. It can be
-made up of bricks laid upon each other in consecutive
-tiers; it can be made up of tilted tiers of
-bricks, bricks laid on each other, but inclined to a
-horizontal plane, and finally it is conceivable that
-the bricks may be so arranged as to be inverted in
-their relations to the horizontal plane. The diagrams
-make clear these contrasted positions.</p>
-
-<p>“Now of all these types of structures the last<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
-obviously best meets the requirements of a type
-which will prove the least susceptible to dislocation.
-I think that can be apprehended almost without
-explanation. A moment’s reflexion will make it
-conspicuous.</p>
-
-<p>“The bricks tilted up in inclined tiers or beds,
-upon disturbance, if the cohesion between them is
-seriously impaired, tend to fall away from each
-other, and gravity increases the effects of the initial
-displacement. If the bricks lie flat they do not fall
-apart, upon the cessation of any push or upheaval,
-but remain disordered, falling back into some
-<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">quasi</i>-position of rest. If the bricks are inverted
-and form in section a series of lines converging to
-the base of the wall, their disarrangement is largely
-rectified by their own gravity, bringing them
-back into their first positions.</p>
-
-<p>“In Geology strata overlying each other, in succession,
-as the bricks do when on their flat faces
-are called <em>conformable</em>, if they succeed, one over
-the other, with the edges or summits of the lower,
-abutting against the horizontal surfaces of the next,
-as do the bricks when they are placed in flat and
-vertical positions, in alternating strips, that is
-<em>unconformability</em>.</p>
-
-<p>“If the strata are usually horizontal like the
-evenly piled series of bricks, they are called <em>undisturbed</em>;
-if inclined against each other, they are
-<em>inclined</em>, and they may make <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">monoclinals</i>, having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
-one slope, or <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">anti-clinals</i> when they lean up against
-each other like the opposite sides of a peaked roof;
-<em>or synclinal</em> when inclined towards each other in
-an inverted position like the same roof overturned,
-with its ridge pole on the ground, and its inclined
-sides lifted into the air, or like the bricks in the
-last pattern of structure described.</p>
-
-<p>“When we carry these similes into nature, we
-have all kinds of rocks, and we have them in mountains,
-in planes, and all the familiar configuration
-of the earth’s surface.</p>
-
-<p>“Now we find that those portions of the earth
-immediately beneath our feet, extending for a mile
-or so into the surface of the earth, are variously
-made up of layers, strata, beds, formations, lying
-on one another, and <em>conformable</em> or <em>unconformable</em>,
-<em>undisturbed</em> or thrown into anticlinal or synclinal
-folds; that the material in its general mineral character,
-is limestone, marls, or sands and sandstone,
-slates, clays, metamorphic rocks like gneiss and
-quartzite, etc., and associated with them are granites
-which may have been melted lava-like rock before
-it cooled and crystallized, while there is plentiful
-evidence of abundant outflows of igneous, melted or
-viscid rocks; evidences of lines of eruption, of foci,
-or craters of eruption. Thus, as in the brick structure,
-where unrelated and later material has been
-introduced in fissures, gaps, openings, holes, etc.,
-of the walls, we have some of the architecture of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
-the earth, an original bedded structure invaded by
-very contrasted substances, and which give to that
-architecture, as in the brick wall of our homely
-illustration, lack of homogeneity, and lack of
-strength.</p>
-
-<p>“In the West Indies and on the Isthmus of Panama
-we have the states of instability which we have
-signalized, viz., secondary deposits of a somewhat
-loose and unconsolidated material, and wanting
-in the deeply bedded crystalline rocks which in New
-England, in the Adirondacks, and the Piedmont
-or higher regions abutting on the coastal plain in
-the northern United States, furnish a solid, and
-probably fundamentally deep seated pediment of
-resistance to shock. Again in the West Indies and
-in the Isthmus, we have the beds <em>unconformable</em>
-over each other, which you will recall in our symbol
-of the brick wall, was a feature of weakness;
-also these unconformable beds are inclined in <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">anti-clinals</i>,
-a further aspect of structural insolvency;
-and further these beds have been widely, pervasively,
-in places, infiltrated and ruptured by subsequent
-introductions of volcanic substance, ashes,
-lavas and intrusive magmas. Thus the geological
-aggregates present the previously illustrated condition
-of fragility, and the absence of the so-called
-tectonic elements of rigidity. But still one step
-more in our disheartening study of this equatorial
-problem.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span></p>
-
-<p>“I, a few moments past, called your attention
-to the fact that ‘if this least massive and most vulnerable
-type of structure has been subjected to repeated
-and considerable strains of elevation and
-depression, and strains recurrent at short intervals,
-then, without inspection, we know that its
-interior has been much shattered, and that it has
-undergone a progressive dilapidation.’</p>
-
-<p>“Precisely such catastrophes are discovered in
-the history of the geological region now before us.
-The islands of the West Indies have been subjected
-to great changes of elevation. They have risen and
-fallen during the last geological age—the Tertiary—perhaps
-four times. In their rise they have gathered
-to themselves marginal extensions of land, now
-hidden beneath the ocean at comparatively slight
-depths, while they have at the same time doubtless
-become blended and unified into a great Antillean
-continent. This continent was dominated by volcanic
-protuberances whose growth upward, over
-accumulations of ashes, has been again symptomatic
-of undermining operations threatening later
-subsidence and submergence.</p>
-
-<p>“In our day we have been called on to deplore
-the ravages caused by the eruptions of Mt. Pelee
-and La Soufriere, on the Islands of Martinique
-and St. Vincent, and it is natural to insist that regions
-which have a precarious autonomy, in which
-such volcanoes can exist, must be regarded with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
-diffidence, as permanent geographical areas.</p>
-
-<p>“It was pointed out by Prof. Robert T. Hill that
-the current, and formerly undisputed, conception
-that the Rocky Mountains of North America and
-the Andes of South America were not only analogous
-physiographically, but univalent in fact; that
-the continuous elevation of Central America
-brought them into an oblique alignment; and that
-their mutual prolongations met in the Isthmus of
-Panama, was erroneous. It involved a complete
-misconception. It was a geographical fallacy, and
-leads to misleading conclusions as to the permanency
-of this intermedian region, itself pre-eminently
-individualized and liberated from the circumstances
-and implications of either the Rocky
-Mountain Continent or the Andean Continent.
-This area has a different geological ancestry. To-day
-it invokes an especial treatment, and possibly
-expects a future, contrasted with that of the two
-great Continents whose longitudinal extension it
-contravenes by its east and west lines, by the prerogatives
-of a separate origin.</p>
-
-<p>“The Rocky Mountains terminate in the plateau
-of Mexico, ‘a little south,’ says Hill, ‘of the
-capital of that republic; and that the mountains
-have no orographic continuity, or other features in
-common with those of the Central American region.’</p>
-
-<p>“And the same authority, describing the terminus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
-of the Andes, says, ‘The northern end of the
-Andean System lies entirely east of the Central
-American region, and is separated from it by the
-Rio Atrato—the most western of the great Rivers
-of Columbia. In fact, the deeply eroded drainage
-valley of this stream nearly severs the Pacific
-coast from the republic of Columbia, and the isthmian
-region, from the South American continent.’</p>
-
-<p>“The Central American volcanoes belong to the
-type that is repeated along the Caribbean shores of
-Colombia and Venezuela, and those in the Isthmus
-of Panama, and those of the great Antilles. The
-genesis of this American Mediterranean land-aggregate
-was in an independent geological impulse,
-and the land aggregate itself impinged by
-intersection upon the dominant land surfaces of
-North and South America. To bring together
-North and South America as a simultaneous geological
-phenomena is wrong, to make them other
-than an accidental geographical continuity questionable.
-It is this intermediate zone—the Antillean
-continent with lateral elongations, grasping
-within its continental solidarity the parallel zones
-of Central America and the Isthmus, that gives
-them terrestrial unity. Extend the axis of the
-Rocky Mountains, and it passes almost two thousand
-miles west of the coast of South America;
-extend the axis of the Andes and it bisects the
-western extremity of Cuba, and passes along the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
-seaboard of the United States.</p>
-
-<p>“There is no exact geological identity here, although
-there is the strictest geographical homology.
-Each is the backbone of a continent, each upheaved
-and variously modified, igneously invaded sediments,
-derived from some pre-existent continent.
-They may be brought into a just comparison, but
-they are not strictly parts of one phenomenon.
-They are, however, more closely related to each
-other, than the Antillean areas are to either. This
-Antillean area, I shall here call the Columbian
-Continent, as the great discoverer landed at its
-two east and west extremities—the land-fall on San
-Salvador in the Bermudas, and on the coast of Honduras
-in Central America, as well as at Cuba, and
-at the mouths of the Orinoco—and his bones rested
-for a long time in the soil of San Domingo. It—this
-Columbean Continent—is a significant intercalation.
-It unites North and South America, but
-it unites them subject to the phases of its own generation.</p>
-
-<p>“Let us understand this. There is a system of
-growth, a law, if I may so term it, of geomorphic
-sameness in the development of large, or for that
-matter, small geological territories. The familiar
-story of the growth of our North American continent
-has been often told. It is a commonplace of
-text books. The wide, triangular Archæan nucleus
-to the north, the oldest rocks—outlines and outliers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
-down the east, and the same in the west—drew the
-framing limits of the continent at the first, to be
-filled in, up and out, by the momentous additions
-through the ages of advancing time. In Europe
-less well or simply defined boundaries, the growth
-together rather of divided islands, prevailed, and
-the picture of development was quite varied, from
-the picture in this western world. Again in Africa,
-with edges of uplift and centres of depression another
-geological tale with its incidents and accessories
-infinitely modified, comes into view. And in
-this prevalence of structural style, we, geologically
-speaking, find a prevalence of certain geological
-phases or conditions.</p>
-
-<p>“What were these in the growth and disappearance
-of this Columbian continent? What they have
-been, we can, with rational probability, assume
-they will be.</p>
-
-<p>“The Columbian continent, I have called a dismembered,
-a fractionized continent. If from Cuba
-through Haiti, Porto Rico, and the lesser Antilles
-one land surface obtained, and the now submerged
-and radiating gorges, found only as submarine
-canyons, were above the ocean, becoming, as Prof.
-Spencer has laboriously proven, sub-aerial river
-valleys, we should have one presumable phase of
-this continent, the phase of its maximum cohesion
-and extension. And such a phase is measurably
-or, for purposes of argumentative inference, sensibly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
-established. It is said with careful premeditation
-by Hill that ‘the numerous islets of its eastern
-border, the Bahamas and Windward chain,
-which extend from Florida to the mouth of the
-Orinoco, are merely the summits of steep submarine
-ridges, which divide the depths of the Atlantic
-from those of the Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean
-sea; were their waters a few feet lower, these
-ridges would completely landlock the seas from the
-ocean.’</p>
-
-<p>“When thus constituted, it afforded a display of
-physical features of astonishing contrasts, and its
-mere scenic resources were doubtless of unparalleled
-splendor, and, as to-day, it was involved in the
-luxuriant productivity of the tropics. Its mountains
-measuring now as high as eleven thousand
-feet above the sea level, were then thrust upward
-into stupendous peaks, by the addition of the sloping
-miles which are now below the ocean. We can
-imagine the extreme wonderfulness of this continent,
-uniting in an unbroken but marvellously varied
-expression of physical and vegetable contrast,
-the plains, valleys, and mountains of Cuba, the
-towering and draped peaks of Jamaica, the confusion
-of the gloomy vales and ranges of Hayti and
-San Domingo, the levels and coastal ranges of
-Porto Rico, and the manifold picturesque charms
-of the Lesser Antilles, lifting high into the ceaseless
-currents of the trade winds the smoking summits<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
-of a chain of disturbed volcanoes. All, in the
-boundless abundance of its natural endowment of
-loveliness, and productivity, formed an unique and
-extravagantly ornamented landscape, an area
-whose highest elevations contemplated the remote
-waters of the shrunk Atlantic, from pinnacles
-raised ten to twenty thousand feet above its azure
-waves. Nor is this all. This hypothetical—the
-Columbian—continent, may have had connexions
-with Central America through projecting and peninsulated
-capes, reaching through Jamaica to Yucatan
-or Honduras, and wide intervals of dividing
-gulfs of water, in all probability sundered it from
-North or South America, and it remained, as I
-here emphatically insist, it remains to-day, a geographical
-and geological phenomenon, unrelated to
-the great continents, to which through their preponderating
-value, the mind almost unpremeditatingly
-assigns it.</p>
-
-<p>“But at the period of this greatest elevation,
-when this tropical region assumed individual independence,
-and embodied a geognostic importance
-comparable to the vast continents it lay between—at
-this time—the Isthmus of Panama did not exist,
-and through a wide water-way the Atlantic mingled
-its tides with those of the Pacific.</p>
-
-<p>“We are thus led to believe that as between the
-West Indian terranes and the neck of land now embraced
-in the Isthmus of Panama, we have a relation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
-of <em>Isostacy</em>.’”</p>
-
-<p>The speaker, armed with this formidable verbal
-equipment of attack upon his audience, had walked
-to the front of the platform, and, harboring some
-unusual confidence in his powers, had deserted his
-manuscript. <em>Isostacy</em>, he had realized, possessed
-probably unqualified novelty, and by way of assurance,
-lest its terrors might empty the hall, he assumed
-a colloquial relation to his dazed hearers,
-and offered an explanation of this unexpected
-mystery. “Isostacy,” he resumed, “is simply
-this: Equilibrium. It is the maintenance of average
-level—as if one part of the earth’s surface was
-pushed up, above a mean level, then the requirements
-of Isostacy would depress another part, below
-it. We can also call it the adjustment of a
-changing load, as if through depression, from the
-dumping upon the floor of the ocean of a great
-amount of sediment, derived from the land surface
-of the earth, neighboring areas of the land of the
-oceanic floors were raised. Two contiguous regions
-<em>might</em>—and,” the lecturer turned directly toward
-the President, who in his own earnestness of
-attention had elbowed himself round into a direct
-line with Mr. Binn, “in the case of the West Indian
-continent and the Isthmus of Panama, <em>have</em>
-maintained between them, an up and down reciprocity
-of movement, as, when one was up, the other
-was down, and vice versa.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span></p>
-
-<p>Mr. Binn looked introspectively at the walls and
-ceilings of the room, as if engaged in a mental rehearsal
-and review of his staggering statement, and
-returned to his desk and manuscript, satisfied that
-he had thrown the assembly into an uneasy apprehension
-of danger. He again began his reading:
-“It is true, if I understand Mr. Spencer correctly,
-that the Atlantic ocean was cut off by the elevation
-of the Columbian Continent from even the interior
-basins of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of
-Mexico, at least in early pliocene times; that these
-depressions were then broad plains receiving in
-part the drainage of the Antillean highlands; this
-again emptying into the Pacific ocean. But this is
-not a proven theory, and it involves an extravagant
-readjustment of the physical features of a region
-that to my mind more expressively can be considered
-immemorially permanent, in their general aspects,
-at least. I reiterate the reciprocity of movement
-between the Antillean Continent and the Isthmus
-of Panama. The cause I have suggested may
-be untenable—but there seems strong geological
-proof of some such alternating relation between the
-west and east sides of this inter-related region, the
-Great Antilles on one side, the Isthmus of Central
-America on the other.</p>
-
-<p>“Our survey of the question produces one impression,
-and that very forcibly, viz.: that this narrow
-ridge of separation is ephemeral, that it is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
-perishable, that under the tests or against the
-shocks of earth strains, it will succumb, and”—the
-lecturer raised his voice, half turned deferentially
-to the chairman, Dr. Smith, who accepted the
-attention with an assenting nod—“again the waters
-of the two oceans will unite, and the impetuous violence
-of the rushing oceanic river, the Gulf Stream,
-that now races and boils through the Caribbean Sea,
-will fling its torrential waves across this divide into
-the Pacific.”</p>
-
-<p>The audience that with manifest absorption had
-thus far followed the speaker, was disturbed. A
-movement of chairs, a half audible protest of whispered
-incredulity, and a sensible emanation around
-him, of mental repugnance to such a catastrophe,
-made Leacraft momentarily turn his eyes from
-Mr. Binn to the frowning countenances at his side.</p>
-
-<p>“But,” the speaker raised his voice with reassuring
-quickness, as if to stay the emotional resistance
-he had aroused, “we have no reason to believe
-that in our lifetime, or the lifetimes of many generations
-yet to come, so strange a reversal of present
-conditions should occur. And again, that in this
-matter, we may be calmly judicial, we have reason
-at least for a moderate fear. Whatever state of
-unstable equilibrium, of unadjusted balance is implied,
-or actually is resident in this section of our
-earth, a section that has undergone the extremes of
-hypsometrical displacement, we may conceive that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
-like the explosive cap, or the compressed spring, or
-the bent bow, it will win instant relief upon the impact
-of any force, deep-seated enough, and powerful
-enough, to liberate its tectonic strain.</p>
-
-<p>“I am thus brought to consider that world-wide
-source of terrestrial deformation—earthquakes;
-but I should forget the indulgence of your patience
-up to this point, if I should now undertake any
-partial review of these astonishing and alarming
-occurrences. I am deeply impressed, however, with
-an aspect of the subject that demands attention, that
-throws into sharp relief the prophecies of disaster,
-with which, willingly or unwillingly, we have all
-become familiar.”</p>
-
-<p>The lecturer here rolled forward to the front of
-the platform, a blackboard on which in colored
-chalks the earth, looking somewhat like a shortened
-egg, with its north and south poles situated on the
-long, flattened sides, was depicted; while a black
-line or axis drawn through it terminated in the Sahara
-Desert on one side, and near the Society Islands
-on the other. Two ominous circles in vermillion
-were described on it, concentric respectively
-with the ends of the black line, one sweeping along
-the western coast of North and South America, and
-crossing the Isthmus of Panama, the other encircling
-the coasts of Africa and gathering in their
-fatal course the Azores, Canaries, and the Cape
-Verde Islands. And on both these terrifying<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
-curves, in black letters, was printed the hypnotic intimation
-“Belt of Weakness or Earthquake Ring.”
-The effect on the audience was sufficiently impressive.
-The staring rude drawing around which a
-cyclone of blue scratches, purporting to be clouds,
-was expressively raging, intensely steeped the observers
-in a spell of wonder and trepidation. Even
-Leacraft, by the contagion of a common obsession,
-craned his neck, and fixed his eyes with a stupid
-absorption upon the crazy and paradoxical diagram.</p>
-
-<p>The speaker continued, noticing with undisguised
-satisfaction the ocular concentration produced by
-his obnoxious figure, with its anomalous portents:
-“It is well known that we have in the boundaries,
-or shore lines of the Pacific, a surprisingly larger
-number of earthquakes recorded, than anywhere
-else in the world, and this seems in some way coincident
-with the prevalence of active volcanoes in
-the same region. Prof. Haughton has enumerated
-for the world 407 volcanoes, 225 of which are active.
-Of these latter, 172 are on the margin of the
-Pacific. Prof. Milne, who lived a long time in
-Japan, for the express purpose of studying the
-earthquake problem of those islands, has observed
-the surprising frequency of their earthquakes, and
-it is a volcanic zone they occupy. We have in contradistinction
-to this area about the Pacific a reversed
-circle which envelopes the western coast of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
-Africa, and by this chart,” here the lecturer pushed
-back the blackboard, and, standing alongside of it,
-began, with a pointer of elucidation, a direct allocution
-to that subject of confusion, “we are made
-immediately cognizant of the opposite and yet symmetrical
-disposition of these zones. This should
-have from its simplicity and a quasi-permanency,
-in its phenomena—its earthquake phenomena—a
-general explanation. The explanation is not reassuring;
-it is not proven, but it is accepted by many,
-and has, for me, a very reasonable probability. Let
-us at least not recoil from its consideration.”</p>
-
-<p>Under the encouragement of this exhortation, the
-audience seemed to slide forward in their seats a
-few inches, with the impetus of a renewed hope.</p>
-
-<p>“This chart,” said the speaker, “presents to you
-the structural conception of Professors Jeans and
-Sollas, of the form of the earth. It is the shape
-more or less familiar to you, commonly known as a
-pear-shaped earth, the tip carrying the Sahara Desert
-on its bulging top, and its broader and inferior
-extremity holding the disturbed Pacific basin.</p>
-
-<p>“Now it makes a very practical difference what
-the shape of the earth is, because the shape affects
-the stability, has an important influence upon the
-fluctuating strains under its surface. Observe that
-the chart has developed, upon two circles of instability,
-these lines of weakness,” and the lecturer
-swept his pointer over the contrasted belts, one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
-around Africa, and the other inflicting the west
-coast of North America with its ominous intersection.
-The pointer paused on the latter circle, stopping
-near the position of San Francisco. “You recall,”
-the speaker continued, “the terrifying affliction
-of this great city in 1906, and the pall of discouragement
-and gloom which it cast over the region
-in which the city naturally held the sway of
-mercantile supremacy. Now it was shown by Prof.
-H. H. Turner, the English astronomer, that San
-Francisco lies on one of the two great earthquake
-rings, which surround the end of the pear, as in
-this chart, like wrinkles produced by the crowding
-down of the protuberances under the force of gravitation.
-And, according to this view, such rings,
-marking lines of weakness and yielding in the rocks
-would not exist, if the earth was, in its shape, what
-we most usually assume to be its figure, an oblate
-spheroid, with the present north and south poles at
-the ends of its axis of rotation, to which axis of rotation
-the rest of the earth was symmetrically disposed.</p>
-
-<p>“The existence of these earthquake and volcanic
-rings was known before the pear theory had been
-defined, but then of course their relation with any
-peculiar form of the earth was not understood. The
-ring surrounding the Pacific, or butt end of the pear
-includes a large part of the shores of the Pacific
-Ocean, running from Alaska down to the western<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
-coast of South America, then across to the East
-Indies, and back, around the other side, through
-Japan. The other ring is somewhat smaller in diameter,
-including the earthquake regions of West
-Africa and the Atlantic Islands. Now the point of
-interest is this, as Garrett P. Serviss has significantly
-said, ‘If the pear hypothesis is accepted, and
-the two great earthquake rings are found to be
-definitely connected with the strains to which the
-planet is subjected in its effort to attain a state of
-equilibrium, under the forces of its own gravitation
-and rotation, which tend to compel it into spheroidal
-shape, then we have a perfectly rational explanation
-of the existence of certain places where earthquakes
-are sure to occur more or less frequently,
-and of other places, like eastern America, where
-they are very rare and never of maximum violence.’</p>
-
-<p>“Every one present this evening,” and the lecturer
-gave an embracing wave of his hand, “knows
-of the singular aberrancy in the rotational motion
-of the earth, which has been often geographically
-described as the ‘wobbling of the poles.’ Astronomers
-have proven a real tipping of the poles alternately
-to one side, and then to the other, a swaying
-of the poles like the recurrent oscillations of a top
-as it ‘goes to sleep.’ But this swaying in the
-earth’s case is periodic and unchanging. It is
-sometimes rather abrupt, and at other times the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
-tipping is regulated and progressive; but it is established,
-and has had a generally accepted explanation,
-in the attraction of the swelling equatorial
-prominence of the earth by the sun and moon, while
-suggestions have also been made that it was due to
-internal shiftings of mass, or to changes of exterior
-weightings, through the alternate and variable formation
-and melting of polar snows.</p>
-
-<p>“But it has in the light of the present theory of
-the pear-shaped earth a new and rather startling
-explanation.</p>
-
-<p>“We are, however, this evening, not so much concerned
-with the broader cosmic aspects of this state
-of affairs, as with the immediate consequences to
-the permanence of our land surfaces.</p>
-
-<p>“The mechanics of this condition and its possible
-effectiveness in developing contrary placed
-zones of rupture can be easily conceived. This
-awkwardly conditioned sphere, revolving upon a
-shorter diameter—revolving also with astonishing
-velocity—and bearing at either extremity of its
-longer axis unequal masses, is obviously in a state
-of peripheral strain, that is, it is in strain at such
-distances from either of the disproportioned ends,
-the one in the south seas, the other in the desert of
-Sahara, as would represent the more or less sharply
-sloping surface from its average rotundity, towards
-these oblique extremities.</p>
-
-<p>“Gentlemen,” the speaker seemed excitedly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
-rushing into danger, but with a fixed expression,
-aimed somewhere at the blank and uninfluential
-physiognomies at the back of the hall; like that of
-an engineer who can neither restrain nor reverse
-the speed which may either carry him safely over
-a tottering support or plunge his train to the bottom
-of the gulch; “Gentlemen, the Isthmus of Panama
-is in this zone; <em>the Canal is there</em>!” this last
-reminder uttered with no very reasonable deliberation,
-“and it is to my mind an absolutely established
-certainty, that the secular instability of that
-region, shown by geological investigation, will
-again become apparent; and”—he raised his voice
-with a kind of exhalation of defiance, as if he
-spurned equivocation and invited denial—“and, it
-will become apparent with increased violence.</p>
-
-<p>“This conclusion is unwelcome; it may seem destructive
-to those natural hopes which the approaching
-completion of this wonderful enterprise—the
-Panama Canal—have so freely and inevitably
-fostered. Science in the last resource to her councils
-must be austerely judicial. She cannot take
-cognizance of man’s projects or respect his hopes.
-The Panama Canal as part of the Isthmus of Panama
-participates in all the vicissitudes of the latter,
-and we know that those vicissitudes mean dislocation
-and subsidence. When such frightful results
-will happen, <em>it is impossible to say</em>; that they must
-happen, <em>we can positively assert</em>.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span></p>
-
-<p>The lecture was over. The lecturer retreated,
-and again repeated his deferential nod to the
-chairman, Dr. Smith, as if importuning his assistance
-in corroboration of his mournful vaticination.
-The audience still remained immobile, coagulated
-into a sort of mental prostration by this
-dismal prophecy, and yet again as if contemplating,
-like a cat’s stagnation, preparatory to its murderous
-spring, some outward and physical resentment.
-And the spring came.</p>
-
-<p>In the middle of the hall arose a tall and alert figure,
-perhaps noticeably bent, as if from the effort
-of attention, or perchance from forensic habits;
-for the man, as Dr. M— quickly informed Leacraft,
-was Senator Tillman, of South Carolina.
-The face of this sudden expostulant was handsome
-in the extreme, and the features, strongly marked,
-were blended together in an expression of youthfulness
-that seemed to win a strange charm from their
-association with the white hair, and the just beginning
-wrinkles of advancing years.</p>
-
-<p>Senator Tillman lost no time. His interruption
-was decisively intentional. It was part of an impulsive
-impassioned nature. Shaking his index
-finger, which, from long practice, pointed undeviatingly
-at the object of his remarks, the Senator,
-in a voice harsh and penetrating, began: “My
-dear sir, we are indebted to you for information.
-But we stop there. We are not required to credit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
-you with prediction. This scientific discussion will
-not alter our confidence nor stop the work on the
-Canal. It can’t. I’m not inclined to think that this
-nation will be stultified by the oracles of geology;
-it is a matter of simple determination that science
-makes mistakes—and I would advise no one in this
-room within the hearing of your voice, and no one
-outside of it, to whose eyes your reported views
-will appear, to allow them a scintilla of serious import.</p>
-
-<p>“In 1906, Mark Smith, a voteless delegate to
-Congress from Arizona, told this story: ‘Once,’
-commented Smith, ‘a couple of my friends were riding
-through a desolate bit of country in Arizona
-near the Mexican border. Presently they came
-upon a man who was hanging by the neck from
-the limb of a tree. A couple of buzzards were
-roosting above him, but they made no attack upon
-him. My friends drove away the buzzards and
-discovered on the breast of the dead man a placard
-bearing these words: “<em>This was a very bad man
-in some respects and a damn sight worse in
-others.</em>“</p>
-
-<p>“‘My friends accounted for the moderation of
-the buzzards on the theory that they had read the
-placard.’</p>
-
-<p>“That was all Smith had to say, but it was assumed
-that he agreed with the opinion of the other
-men about the subject of their discussion. Well, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
-beg to say of science that it is very bad in some respects,
-and a damn sight worse in others, and its
-present conclusion in regard to the Isthmus of
-Panama is one of the latter.”</p>
-
-<p>The audience, long before this denoument to the
-Senator’s retort was reached, had arisen; the President
-had arisen also, and stood with his back to the
-stage, facing the Senator, steadily growing more
-unrestrained and angry. Leacraft and Dr. M—
-were half standing, their hands supporting them
-on the backs of the chairs of the men in front of
-them. The scene was interesting, and the first
-movement toward repression of the Senator succumbed
-to curiosity, and in all directions, the intelligent
-faces about them were variously disturbed
-by symptoms of vexation or amusement. It was uncommonly
-entertaining. Mr. Binn and Dr. Smith,
-with becoming smiles of moderation, were
-drawn to the front of the platform, and no one,
-after the Senator had swung into the torrential
-flow of his remonstrance, thought of anything else
-but to catch, almost breathlessly, his words. When
-he concluded, a wave of laughter, genuine, but a
-little nervous, went through the assembly. Then
-the President stepped to the aisle, turned a moment
-to shake the hand of the lecturer, and offer him his
-congratulations, and bowed to Dr. Smith. In an
-instant the aisle way was clear. The President
-moved on between the applauding people, and as he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
-came opposite Senator Tillman, who had himself
-pressed toward the egress, as if to intercept him
-he stopped. There was a quick, instinctive restraint.
-Everyone waited for his word. “Senator
-Tillman,” the President spoke with sharp emphasis,
-“I thank you for restoring our spirits. I
-remember Mark Smith. I remember he took my
-advice in accepting the Statehood Bill. You may
-have misapplied his story, but you have at least
-furnished us with a novel reason for encouragement.”</p>
-
-<p>Again the applause broke out, and the President
-disappeared, the audience decorously dispersed
-and followed him, and Leacraft and Dr. M— soon
-found themselves on Pennsylvania avenue, walking
-rapidly and silently.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_66" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">BALTIMORE, MAY 29, 1909.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Leacraft finished his task in the west. The disputes
-were smoothed out, the differences adjudicated,
-and a problem or so which had mixed up the
-overseer and the Mining Superintendent at the
-mines in an acute wrangle, disposed of. He was
-back to Washington on his way to Baltimore and
-Sally Garrett. The invitation from Ned Garrett
-to visit Baltimore and go with Sally and himself
-to Gettysburg on the twentieth of May, had been
-accepted, and every movement he had made, each
-step he had taken, since that memorable ninth of
-April when he first learned of the complexion of
-political affairs in the United States, and had
-heard Mr. Binn’s remarkable lecture, had been
-thoughtfully adjusted to getting back in time for
-the pleasure and the opportunity of seeing Sally.</p>
-
-<p>His own earnest desire to possess her for himself,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
-to compel her wayward and tantalizing spirit
-to acknowledge his mastery had increased, and like
-most young men in similar relations to the unknown
-quantity of susceptibility in a popular
-young woman’s heart his anxiety grew with every
-lessening minute between the present and the moment
-of confession. But at any rate Leacraft felt
-no indecision. Come what might he had no misgivings
-about his own feelings, and lingered, with
-no trepidation, over the thought of asking Miss
-Garrett to marry him. Defeat was preferable to
-the hardship of doubt. He would be less miserable
-after rejection, if rejection it was, than he was
-now; tormented with an immeasurable uncertainty.
-And his English heaviness, that semi-sepulchral
-seriousness which by some amusing compensation
-in the gifts of Nature is mingled with the
-very substantial merits of these people, induced a
-rather grim sadness in his mind, and he reached the
-door of 72 Monument Square, Baltimore, with no
-actual palpitation, but with a strained sense of the
-importance of his own fate which made him grave.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft had many personal merits. He had an
-excellent mind, a reasonably fearless heart, a sense
-of justice, itself the best gift of God to man, and a
-face, which if not distinguished by remarkable
-beauty became, under the excitement of feeling,
-and in the more propitious circumstances of good
-health, attractive, from a manly comeliness, not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
-handsome perhaps, but certainly not commonplace.
-And he had physique. He was tall and strong, and
-his strength acknowledged obedience to an intelligence
-which made it formidable.</p>
-
-<p>The door of the quiet house before which he
-stood, opened and there—Leacraft almost stumbled
-into unconsciousness—<em>as if expecting him</em>, as if flying
-on the wings of—if not Love, something else
-uncommonly pleasant—as if impatient to cross the
-laggard moments which separated them—was
-Sally Garrett.</p>
-
-<p>It would be difficult to reproduce in words this
-difficult and puzzling young lady; difficult to impart
-by any means less effective than painting or
-have proven ineffective, unless somehow helped
-out by personal acquaintanceship—the impression
-which gave both to her active admirers, and to
-those who, for reasons best known to themselves,
-had tried to forget her charms. Sally was decidedly
-pretty, she readily, under the phases of excitement
-and gayety moved upward into the realms
-of beauty. She was fair, not large, delicately modelled,
-with perniciously accomplished eyes that
-looked out from beneath the pencilled eye-brows,
-and under their long lashes, with all kinds of provocative
-invitations, that were no sooner accepted
-than their desperate little giver revoked them with
-derision and anger.</p>
-
-<p>Her lips, of course met the most scrupulous requirements<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
-of the critic, and her teeth were as fatally
-perfect. In coloring she furnished an example
-of protean adaptibility. The emblems of fury
-were seen in her flushed cheeks, and the tokens of
-contrition in the same when they grew pale with
-grief. This was the secret of her compelling art.
-She bowed to all emotions, and as they controlled
-her they set upon her face the evidence of their
-presence, refined by the resistance of a nature
-which abhorred wrong feelings, improved by the
-welcome of a spirit which was magnanimous and
-sympathetic. No wonder that Leacraft loved her.
-No wonder that a bewildered lot of other young
-men were in a similar predicament.</p>
-
-<p>I presume at this point I owe some deference to
-feminine importunity. How was Sally dressed?
-Well; Sally had good taste, perhaps a trifle insubordinate
-by nature, but a rigorous subjection to
-good social usage had made it fairly unimpeachable.
-At that particular moment in the afternoon
-of May 27th, 1909, after his extrication from the
-subterranean embraces of the Baltimore and Ohio
-tunnel, and an uninspired walk along Charles
-street, Sally to Leacraft’s eyes presented the acme
-of sartorial perfection. She wore a white lisseree
-gown in which were inwoven threads of gray
-which gave it “atmosphere,” a kind of filmyness
-quite indescribable, but very inviting—above that,
-a waist of almost the same color, without the gray<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
-threads, and fitting tightly at the wrists with faintly
-voluminous sleeves—a stock of daffodill yellow
-encircled by an aqua-marine necklace, and in her
-clustering golden brown cascades of hair, rushed
-up into a chaste confinement between pearl-starred
-combs—she had thrust an amethyst aigrette.
-It was a willful thought, a vagary of sheer carelessness.
-But it looked well, and—Leacraft might
-have danced a jig (if he knew how) of pure ecstacy;
-and if his impurturbable nature would have
-permitted so gross a jest—it was one Leacraft had
-himself given her only last Christmas. You can
-see or infer ladies that your attractive sister, given,
-as I have tried to do, her natural adaptibility
-for embellishment, must have looked more than
-pleasing, that to a young man approaching her
-with idolatry in his heart and prayers on his lips
-she must have looked very nearly like the embodyment
-of the feminine ideal, like that inscrutable
-loveliness which first wins from a man his careless
-notice, and the next moment has him chained
-to its feet in servitude.</p>
-
-<p>Well; such were the circumstances, and Leacraft
-hastily removing his hat looked with all his eyes at
-the fair vision, and found himself embarrassed in
-speaking his formal salutation:</p>
-
-<p>“How do you do, Miss Garrett?” “Why, Mr.
-Leacraft,” replied the arch tormenter; “I thought
-it was Ned. He has just gone to get our tickets for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
-to-morrow. And you, Mr. Leacraft, go with us?
-You will see our great battle field and hear our
-President. I’m sure you will find both wonderful.
-But come in, Mr. Leacraft.”</p>
-
-<p>The vision with intoxicating grace swung back
-the door and preceded the tongue-tied suitor to the
-parlor. Mr. Leacraft left his hat and valise in the
-hall, and followed. Another instant, they were both
-seated in the deep room from whose walls the portraits
-of ancient and meagre, or stately and peptic
-Garretts, looked down upon them, and in looking
-were amused or distressed, according to their nature,
-at the display of modern elegance, helped out
-by a tasteful condescension to antiquities and heirlooms.</p>
-
-<p>The next moment was successfully engaged in
-greeting Mrs. Garrett, the mother of the vision, a
-dignified and well preserved lady, who honored
-all her children’s friends with motherly hospitality,
-but resented mentally all masculine strategy,
-whose ulterior aims were the destruction of her
-daughter’s peace of mind. Her devotion to her
-daughter was itself part of a devotion which made
-every thing which bore the Garrett name sacred in
-her eyes, and which reflected a family pride, unmitigating
-in its self-exaction, unrelenting in its engrossing
-enmity to all that offended it.</p>
-
-<p>“Ned will be glad to find you here Mr. Leacraft.
-It was only last night that Ned said he wondered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
-if you had got rid of the business engagements that
-took you out west, and expressed himself willing
-to believe that if you had, you would not forget his
-invitation for Decoration Day at Gettysburg.” It
-was the voice of Mrs. Garrett, a little somnolent in
-quality, with a subdued melodiousness, and monotonously
-even in tone.</p>
-
-<p>“Indeed, Mrs. Garrett, few things could have
-less readily escaped my mind. It has been an alleviation
-to think of it when I got bored with quarrelsome
-miners. Whatever good luck I have had
-in settling the mine troubles came from my own
-eagerness to get back to Baltimore,” and Leacraft
-turned with, actually, a very grave face towards
-the meditative Sally.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Mr. Leacraft,” said that unconscionable
-woman, “we have Ned’s old classmate, Brig Barry,
-to go with us to Gettysburg. He is in the army,
-a lieutenant, who has fought Indians on the reservations,
-has lots of medals for bravery and is just the
-best thing in the way of a man you ever saw. I
-half think your English prejudices will be a little
-discouraged when you see him, or else you will love
-him as well as we do,” and this merciless compound
-of mischief and bewitching beauty looked
-out of her blue gray eyes with an absurd intimation
-of solitude which half made Leacraft forget
-manners.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” acquiesced Mrs. Garrett, “Mr. Barry is a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
-great favorite. I almost fear that Mr. Leacraft
-will find him unreasonably popular.”</p>
-
-<p>“I am sure,” replied that rapidly aspiring sycophant,
-“that I ought to feel no inclination to impugn
-Miss Garrett’s good taste.”</p>
-
-<p>This was so evident an affectation to shield a too
-obvious chagrin that the wicked object of the inuendo
-simply laughed outright and was vicious
-enough to reply that “she had never felt it necessary
-for her own comfort to have her own personal
-opinions endorsed by any one,” a cruel barb
-that lacerated the tender Englishman feelings immensely.</p>
-
-<p>The next instant the front door opened with a
-rough shake, and a commotion of hurrying feet announced
-the arrival of Ned Garrett. Ned Garrett
-was a typical American of the best breed, and with
-the most unmistakable marks of that American
-suavity, sweetness and splendid confidence, not a
-whit tainted with assumption or vanity, which
-makes the American man the best type of man the
-world over. He, too, was tall and fair, with fascinating
-aplomb, and a frank surrender to the claim of
-friendship, without a too credulous endorsement
-of all social paper not readily negotiable. As he
-saw Leacraft he ran to him with a glad welcome of
-surprise and pleasure. “Good, Burney; I am right
-glad to see you. I knew you would not forget us,
-and you will have great reason to be satisfied with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
-yourself for coming. The affair at Gettysburg to-morrow
-will be splendid. The President will give
-us something characteristic, the day will be the
-Nation’s, and the reunion of the veterans of both
-sides—you know this country once tried to strangle
-itself with its own hands—will be honored by a
-tremendous turn-out of people. I know,”—with a
-laugh,—“that you Englishmen hate crowds, unless
-they are turned to good account in celebrating the
-Lord Mayor’s day, or the jubilee of a king, or something
-swell and uninteresting, but it won’t hurt you
-to see the meaning of a great land’s reverence for
-its fallen dead,” and the big fellow full of enthusiasm,
-his handsome countenance dilated with pride,
-shook Leacraft’s hand, who was quite as delighted
-to greet his friend, whom he appreciated on his own
-account, without considering his influential relations
-to the desirable Sally.</p>
-
-<p>Sally and her mother were now standing and,
-with, from the former a smile of approval and
-from the latter a gesture of satisfaction the two
-ladies departed, a servant appeared, and the young
-men ascended the stairs to prepare for dinner.</p>
-
-<p>A variety of intentions had been coursing
-through Leacraft’s mind, and while ostensibly he
-was engaged in the commonplaces of address an
-interior agitation of plans and designs, all indubitably
-pointed towards the denouement of his visit,
-were tingling through his cerebral cortex with various<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
-success. He felt a sudden pressure of prudence
-assert itself, as if by some sort of psychological
-premonition he was made aware of the danger
-of temerity.</p>
-
-<p>Left by Ned Garrett to assume the conventional
-apparel for dinner, and lingering with a delighted
-inspection of the details of his bedroom which he
-thought just reflected, to the nice point of a modest
-assertion of feminine adroitness, a really exquisite
-taste, he ran over the possible and best programme
-for the short campaign he felt it necessary to devise
-for the capture of the gentle and ethereal enemy.
-As he gazed, with increasing uneasiness, and poorly
-repressed envy at Henry’s piquant and picturesque
-colored sketches of “A Virginia Wedding,” and
-“The Departure of the Bride,” which offered
-themselves so suggestively between the white curtains
-on the saffron tinted paper, he came to this
-conclusion. He would that evening, if the occasion
-presented itself for a really favorable interview,
-let Sally know how much he thought of her, and
-how hopelessly unhappy he must become, if she
-could furnish him with no encouragement. That
-would do just now; but when they got to Gettysburg
-he might expect to find a convenient moment
-to be more explicit, indeed to urge her to the critical
-extremity of telling him what he might hope
-for.</p>
-
-<p>This progressive method he fancied promised<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
-the best results, and, his thoughts still recalling
-with infatuation the uncalled for insertion of his
-aigrette in her hair on the very day when he was
-expected, he imagined if there was not absolute surrender
-on Sally’s part now, there might be compromising
-negotiations for surrender later.</p>
-
-<p>With complacency, he looked at himself in the
-glass, walked to the hallway and descended. He
-had reached the broad stairway which entered the
-centre of the first floor of this sumptuous home, descending
-on the two sides in a series of separate
-steps, and then uniting into a wide terrace of steps,
-expanding upon the hall at the bottom, and guarded
-by a balustrade, which ended in two newel posts
-of surprising proportions, each carrying an enormous
-Rokewood vase, from which sprang a mingled
-white and red exuberance of sweet alyssum
-and geranium. As Leacraft stood at the top of the
-terrace of steps, he commanded a full view of the
-lower hall. And right beneath him, at the foot of
-the terrace, under the Rokewood vases, he saw Sally
-Garrett—the girl whom a moment ago he had with
-some unction and self-flattery ventured to think
-was not averse to his attentions—pinning on the
-lapel of the evening suit of a most offensively good
-looking young man, a <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">boutonniere</i> of geranium and
-alyssum, filched (the theft was evident) from the
-great vase above their heads, and to accomplish
-which, it seemed to the maddened observation of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
-Leacraft, that the young man must have lifted the
-young lady. This was a conjunction of agencies too
-terrible to dwell on with equanimity, and in pure
-fright Leacraft stopped a moment, and became an
-involuntary spy upon proceedings evidently not
-intended for an inspection so inimical as his.</p>
-
-<p>It was Sally’s voice: “Well, Brig, I must confess
-that as an accomplice in crime you are shockingly
-cool. It was quite unnecessary for you to
-expect more than the flowers; and yet”—Leacraft
-seemed to hit the balustrade with his foot. The
-interruption was perhaps involuntary. In Leacraft’s
-condition, human nature could not stand a
-more excruciating strain. Sally looked up. So
-did the young man. “Oh, Mr. Leacraft, this is fortunate.
-I want you and Mr. Barry to be excellent
-friends. Mr. Barry is wonderfully strong, and you
-are so wise. With his agility, and your advice,
-I will have two escorts to-morrow that will save
-me from any exertion of mind or body. Mr. Barry
-will help me over the hard places, and you will explain
-things. Pardon,” with a coquettish glance at
-her companion and a demure courtesy to Leacraft;
-“you must go through the usual introductions. My
-cousin, Mr. Barry, Mr. Leacraft. Remember, I
-rely upon both of you, and you must be as amicable
-as doves,” and with that equivocal enforcement of
-neutrality, this impossible beauty vanished.</p>
-
-<p>Ned Garrett appeared, and saved the situation,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
-or at least diminished an insufferable embarrassment.
-The three men were the next instant summoned
-to dinner. They were met at the door of
-the dining-room by Mr. Garrett, a tall gentleman,
-still giving evidence of an athletic youth. Mr. Garrett
-was a man somewhat tormented with impatience,
-but genial withal, and possessing a singular
-power of rapid utterance, conjoined also with the
-power of business-like demonstration. He shook
-hands with Leacraft cordially, and addressed a
-salutation of flattering familiarity to Mr. Barry.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft had suffered a very staggering blow,
-as he recalled the affair of the stairway, and he
-fell back, with only a half-satisfied security, upon
-Sally’s intimation that this unwelcome intruder—the
-Brig Barry of her previous encomiums—was
-a cousin. And the plague of it all was that he
-(Leacraft) was overpoweringly conscious of this
-same Brig Barry’s indisputable charms. Mr. Brig
-was a type of physical perfection. He carried on
-straight, but not too broad, shoulders, a finely
-shaped head, such which, at their best, are only
-seen in America; a head which announced to the
-world its intelligent emotions through the medium
-of an expressive face, wherein brown eyes, dark,
-straight eyebrows, a strong, large mouth, an
-aquiline nose, and blue veined temples, overhung by
-short, curled hair, combining their mutually enhancing
-details in making their young owner the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
-target of feminine admiration. Cousins are by no
-means denied the privileges of marital union, and
-as there are all kinds of cousins, and the privilege
-is less and less questionable according to the numerical
-distance between them, it became a matter
-of preliminary importance for Leacraft to find out
-what kind of a cousin Brig Barry was to Sally Garrett.</p>
-
-<p>In pondering sadly over this uncertainty his well
-formed plans, so agreeably outlined during his toilet,
-fell into disorder, and, as it were, evaporated.
-His agony of heart was not relieved when he observed
-the cruel object of his misgivings. Sally
-was placed at his side at the dinner table; opposite
-them sat Mr. Barry and Ned Garrett, and the ends
-of the table commodiously accommodated Mr. and
-Mrs. Garrett. Sally was radiant; she was well
-dressed, and—Leacraft’s eyes first sought its place—the
-aigrette was gone, and he noticed, acutely conscious
-of all telltale signals of interference by
-others with his own designs, a solitaire diamond
-ring on her right hand. His discomfiture was complete.
-It was a sad discovery, and Sally, gleaming
-with a light of happiness it was not his good luck
-to dispense, relentlessly added to his distress by
-showering the loathed Brig Barry with glances of
-commendation and approval.</p>
-
-<p>But when could this engagement—he shuddered
-at the word—have been made? Leacraft, solicitous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
-from the moment he entered the Baltimore house in
-the afternoon, had scanned that same hand with a
-jealous scrutiny, about two hours before, and it
-was guiltless of rings—quite free—he could have
-sworn to that. Was it possible that he had witnessed
-the closing rites of their pre-conjugal union
-from the top of the stairway? It was most likely.
-For a moment the unhappy man felt a swinging
-sensation, a kind of revolting nausea that put an
-actual pain in his heart, and a sudden impulse almost
-straightened him upon his legs, and would
-have sent him flying from the house, seized him,
-which only an indomitable Spartan furor of resistance,
-in his English soul, could have conquered.</p>
-
-<p>The next instant he, too, was smiling, even observing
-with pleasant alacrity that when Brig
-Barry raised his wine glass to his lips, his eyes
-fell invitingly upon Sally, and that flattered fairy
-responded by sipping from her own, not, indeed,
-that such telegraphy of signals was obvious or unmannerly;
-no! it required the jealous eyes of an
-irritable rival to have seen it at all. It certainly
-was a cruel ordeal. It certainly taxed Leacraft’s
-self-possession. It was so fathomless and unexpected.
-Not a word from Ned about it, and Sally had
-always before appeared austerely impartial. Perhaps
-it was a sudden fancy, an illusion, hopeless
-on her part, because she could never marry her own
-cousin. The Englishman rummaged painfully in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
-his stock of conservative teachings to prove conclusively
-that so abhorrent a social impropriety
-could never be permitted. But there was the ring!
-Well, a ring; what of it? A common gift; nothing
-more. It was madness for him to jump at conclusions
-so recklessly. Two cousins admiring each
-other—yes, loving each other, in a beautiful, domestic
-family way—and separated for a long time,
-were naturally rejoicing in reunion. Stupid to
-attribute so much as he had done, under so slight
-provocation, to their mutual affection, the affection,
-doubtless, of a brother and sister; keener indeed,
-as why not?</p>
-
-<p>Ruminating thus propitiously, and only half conscious
-that he was going through the formalities of
-a course dinner, and was but poorly assisting the
-conversation, which consciously he thought had not
-yet developed into any consecutive line of talk, he
-suddenly seemed to come back to his senses, as these
-words proceeded with celerous distinctness from
-the lips of the older Garrett:</p>
-
-<p>“A despatch was received in the office this afternoon,
-about an hour ago, from Colon, which startled
-us a good deal. Three earthquake shocks have been
-felt in Colon, and an enormous tidal wave swept
-over Limon Bay, in the direction of Mindi. There
-was loss of life at Colon. The coast towards the
-<i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">embouchure</i> of the Chagres river has sunk sensibly,
-and a rumor prevailed at Colon, at the time the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
-despatch was sent, that the walls of the great Culebra
-Cut had collapsed. This is bad news, if it is
-true, bad news for the President, bad news for the
-country. So enormous a disaster will be known
-at once, if it to be known at all. The fact that no
-press accounts have been given out makes me hope
-that our despatch is a mistake, a canard, perhaps.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh! the poor President!” exclaimed the sympathetic
-Sally; “he will need his courage now. It
-can’t be so horrible. They surely can’t mean,
-papa, that the canal is destroyed. That would be
-too shameful.”</p>
-
-<p>“The operations of Nature,” said Ned Garrett,
-“are not generally susceptible to shame. Nature
-is about the most shameless thing on the face of the
-earth,” and they all smiled at the thought.</p>
-
-<p>“Yes,” said Mr. Barry—and Leacraft watched
-him with eager eyes, and listened with critical
-ears—“Nature has a happy way of discriminating
-between shame and compassion. She tries to make
-up for her cruelties by some new blessing, but she
-never tells anybody that her cruelties ever made her
-blush. If this news is a portent of worse; if the
-canal should be destroyed, if the isthmus is invaded
-by the oceans, a canal without locks will be
-given to us free of charge.”</p>
-
-<p>“And we have spent one hundred and thirty million
-dollars already. As a financial proposition, it
-is hard to see why we have not paid as much for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
-one as for the other,” dryly commented Mr. Garrett.
-Leacraft felt it incumbent upon him to say
-something, and his fatal over-valuation of seriousness
-allured his tongue into a statement statistical
-and scientific, something which might impress
-Sally—but which only afflicted that young degenerate
-person with an immoderate preference for
-the way her cousin, Brig Barry, might have said
-the same thing.</p>
-
-<p>“I am rather curiously reminded,” began Leacraft,
-“of a lecture which I heard in Washington
-last April, in which the lecturer, Mr. Binn, ventured
-to offer a very alarming prediction as to the
-instability of the Central American zone, and especially
-the portions of it embraced in the isthmus.
-He was rebuked at the time in open meeting by a
-Senator, but if your information turns out to be
-correct, perhaps he is about to receive a stunning
-corroboration. It would be of some psychological
-interest to know whether Mr. Binn in that case preferred
-his own reputation to his country’s welfare.”</p>
-
-<p>“I heard of Binn’s talk,” remarked Brig
-Barry. “I was near the Mexican line, and we had
-had a brush with some greasers which were kicking
-at Uncle Sam’s tariff. A Washington paper
-turned up in camp, and there was Binn’s Jeremiad.
-I think the paper had it ‘Science Butting
-In,’” and, to Leacraft’s surprise, Sally laughed.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span></p>
-
-<p>But a moment later she turned to Leacraft with
-unaffected interest, and said, “But, Mr. Leacraft,
-do you think Mr. Binn knew?” and her voice was
-plaintive and concerned.</p>
-
-<p>“It is reserved for astronomy,” said Mr. Garrett,
-“to have prospective knowledge, to know the
-future exactly, with a calendar in one hand, and
-a watch in the other. I think it is not an imputation
-on the credibility of science to say that in
-other departments its knowledge of the future is
-speculative.”</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Binn,” began Leacraft, “was not at all
-didactic, as regards time, but he was emphatic in
-the general scope of his predictions. He regarded
-the Isthmus and the Central American area as belonging
-in their geological habits to the West Indies,
-and he had a very poor opinion of the fidelity
-of the latter to implied obligations. He regarded
-it as capricious and wayward, unsubstantial in its
-composition, and a bit fickle in its attachments.”
-It was almost impossible not to think that the
-speaker was not putting a little bit of something
-more than science in his words. He continued:
-“His views also involved a curious reference to a
-rather topsy turvy theory that the earth was pear-shaped,
-and that the belt of earthquakes and
-crustal disorders along the borders of the Pacific
-resulted from this hypothetically crooked figure
-of the earth.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p>
-
-<p>Brig Barry was listening with intense attention,
-and a whimsical glimmer of a smile turned the
-ends of his lips, while his eyes very gravely, with
-a slight contraction of their eyelids, watched Leacraft,
-with half inquisitorial perplexity.</p>
-
-<p>“I think,” he broke in, “that the West Indies
-will manage to take care of themselves. At least,
-present indications go to prove, that instead of
-disappearing, they are on their way to bigger
-things. Commander Beecham, who has just come
-from the Isle of Pines, told me yesterday, that the
-island was rising, that in a short time it might
-become part of Cuba. The question might then
-be asked, as we own the Isle of Pines, whether we
-had not annexed Cuba.”</p>
-
-<p>“I have heard of the Isle of Pines,” said Mrs.
-Garrett, “but hardly understand what it is. Perhaps
-a little enlightenment on the subject would
-not be unwelcome to the rest of you.”</p>
-
-<p>“Do, Brig,” pleaded Sally, “in the role of instructor
-you may be as successful in geography as
-in other subjects,” and Leacraft flushed and sat
-back hard, to resist the harsh blow of this subtle
-reminder of his worst suspicions.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Barry looked around, as if to secure the suffrages
-of the company, and found every eye fixed
-upon him in expectation. It was his turn to impress
-Sally. He last looked at her, and as he did,
-he laughingly began: “I shall have no compunctions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
-in being a trifle the schoolmaster. The Isle
-of Pines, Mrs. Garrett, lies in a deep bight or bay
-near the south coast of the western part of Cuba.
-There are some six hundred and thirty thousand
-acres in it, and it is but ninety-nine square miles
-less in extent than our little State of Rhode Island.
-This island bears a sort of filial relation to Cuba.
-It is part of the general chain of the insular mainlands
-of the Antilles. It is not a coral key or a
-mangrove swamp. It forms a plateau from fifty to
-one hundred feet above sea level, broken by ridges
-of hills or cliffs that start out over its surface like
-the bones on the back of a thin cow.” Sally’s
-deferential attention to Mr. Barry’s learning was
-here interrupted by a very audible titter.</p>
-
-<p>“I beg to remonstrate against any levity in my
-class, and I think, Miss Garrett, you owe me an
-apology for attempting to disturb my recital.”
-This mock rebuke completed Sally’s disorder. Her
-eyes, wet with tears of merriment, looked at Brig
-Barry, who had assumed himself the amusing expression
-of offended dignity, and she murmured,
-“Excuse me, sir,” with such a delicious mockery
-of piteous appeal that her father laughed aloud,
-but Leacraft maintained his stern reserve, with
-eyes uplifted from the face of his rival.</p>
-
-<p>“Small as this island is, it offers room for two
-mountain ridges at its northern end, which reach
-the respectable elevation of fifteen hundred feet,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
-and are composed of limestones. There are other
-ridges in the island, lower and less steep. The
-whole island is surrounded by swamps, except towards
-the south, where it is rocky. Commander
-Beecham says that in the last month strange uplifts
-have been noticed, almost unaccompanied by
-any serious seismic—this last word, Miss Garrett,
-may affect you unpleasantly; it means earthquake,—disturbance
-and shoals and reefs are now bristling
-out of the sea, like the teeth on a comb. And
-another singular circumstance can be mentioned.
-The island abounds in warm springs, curative—for
-your benefit, Miss Garrett, I may say that the
-word means healing—for rheumatism and throat
-affections, and these springs are sinking; the water
-seems to recede within the recesses of the earth,
-while in other cases the subterranean channels
-have either crushed together, or have become filled
-up; the springs are simply not there; they have
-vanished; the Commander has made observations
-on the coast lines, and it seemed to him that they
-were all rising. The Cuban coast is rising, too.
-He came through Havana, and the shipways in
-the harbor have become so shallow that there was a
-gloomy prospect that the city would be cut off from
-the sea. I only heard all this strange news an hour
-ago, and I fear the excitement caused by meeting
-Miss Garrett is to be held responsible for my forgetting
-to mention it before.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span></p>
-
-<p>The allusion was noticed by only Leacraft;
-the next voice was that of Mr. Garrett, whose face
-had darkened with apprehension. “Extraordinary!
-It may be that our despatch is correct. It
-may be that there is a sort of see-saw here, that
-as the West Indies rise, the Central American
-coast sinks. But why not a whisper of such occurrences
-in the papers?”</p>
-
-<p>“The see-saw fancy,” said Leacraft, now thoroughly
-aroused, and forgetting his immediate disappointment
-in the face of a formidable physical
-phenomenon, “was Mr. Binn’s. He gave me the
-feeling that he thought that, like an inflated surface,
-where the higher elevation of one part meant
-the lowering of another part, so the access of
-height in the West Indies meant the loss of height
-in the isthmus. And the provocation to any change
-would be earthquakes.”</p>
-
-<p>“As to the papers not publishing anything,”
-explained Barry, “there are no newspaper correspondents
-in the Isle of Pines, and I recall now
-that Beecham told me that the authorities at Havana
-were so frightened over the reports of the
-harbor masters, that that they had prohibited their
-circulation. The thing may prove grave enough.”</p>
-
-<p>“Let us hope,” said Ned Garrett, “that such
-rumors do not get abroad before to-morrow. They
-are only half-proven assertions, based upon
-some accidental and momentary circumstance. In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
-a few days the Isle of Pines may be the same as
-it was, with the salt springs thrown in, and the
-harbor of Havana back again to its old position
-without so much as a jolt. The sea serpent is now
-advancing towards our shores at the summer resorts,
-why not a few nightmares from the tropics?
-A truce to ghosts. Let us drink to the President
-and the Canal.” The glasses were raised, their
-lips, before they touched the sparkling lymphs,
-offering, as if in silent prayer, to the consecration
-of the beaded wine, unuttered hopes for the country’s
-great head, and its great enterprise, had but
-felt the amber current flowing from the engraved
-chalices, musical with the tinkling of bits of ice,
-when,—a sharp cry of voices, a babel of tumultuous
-and precipitated outcries smote upon their
-ears, entering the open windows like an execrable
-assault. It was the shouting, thrilling with an unusual
-impetus of omen, of the newsboys, as if they
-had forgotten their mercantile relations to the
-news, which, whether of joy or grief, they commonly
-announce in the shrill yells of indifference
-and gloating expectation. Now their multitudinous
-voices mingled in a monstrous hoarseness, as
-if constrained by a personal and immediate sorrow
-and horror. Even ejaculations from men in
-the streets buying the papers from the hawkers,
-entered the room, and brought pallor to the cheeks
-of the mute company. Ned Garrett pushed back<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
-his chair and sprang to the door, followed by Brig
-Barry, and the rest stayed, immobile, like a stricken
-throng, waiting the next minute for an impending
-immolation.</p>
-
-<p>Scarcely thirty seconds had elapsed when the
-two men came back with the papers of the street,
-one having the <i>Baltimore Times</i>, the other holding
-in his hands the <i>Southern Herald</i>. The faces of
-both men were pale, and on the cheeks of Ned
-Garrett shone a trace of tears. Barry was the
-first to enter the room, and as Mr. Garrett, now
-standing at the head of the table, his body half
-turned towards the door, his face suffused with
-unchecked emotion—as Mr. Garrett said, “Well,
-what is it?” he faltered, and dropping the paper
-to his side, he faced the convulsed merchant, and
-was silent. It was Ned Garrett who cried out,
-“The Isthmus is crumbling to pieces and the Canal
-is doomed.”</p>
-
-<p>The order of events as we hear any sudden
-stroke of affliction, as we suddenly confront the
-inevitable bereavement, as we feel the sharp thrust
-of calamity penetrate our hearts, varies with temperaments
-and sex; but for the most part it reflects
-the order of events under physical attack, the stunned
-senses, and the reaction. It is in the reaction
-that the difference among men most visibly appears.
-Slowly Mrs. Garrett arose and left the room,
-and Sally, after a pause, during which she had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
-stolen to the side of Brig Barry, and lifted the paper
-from his side, where it had fallen in his unnerved
-hands, followed her.</p>
-
-<p>The four men were left behind, and of them only
-Leacraft was seated. It was Leacraft who first
-spoke: “This is awful, but the Nation is far greater
-than any misfortune that can befall it.” The other
-three turned to him with one accord, as if saved
-from their own wretchedness, and moved in his
-direction as if to embrace him. It was the right
-word. It brought relief, and to one at least as he
-turned his back to the speaker it brought tears. Mr.
-Garrett the elder looked intensely at Leacraft, his
-eyes almost glittering with the sudden joy of consolation,
-and said, “Thank you, Mr. Leacraft, for
-that true word. It is the one we need. You are an
-Englishman, and your confidence in us is part of
-your own Anglo-Saxon strength, and part of your
-best knowledge that we are nourished by the same
-blood. Let us sit down, and you, Brig,” (Ned Garret’s
-back was still turned to them) “read the papers
-to us. The first reports may be much exaggerated.”</p>
-
-<p>Some servants had by this time collected in the
-room at the side of the butler’s pantry and waited
-there irresolute. Mrs. Garrett and Sally also softly
-returned, and took their places at the table; with
-them, as with Ned Garrett, the thought of the President’s
-misery unnerved them. Barry had spread<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
-the paper before him. The dark head lines swept
-across the sheet in ominous relief. They read:</p>
-
-<p class="center p1 b1 vspace2 wspace smaller">
-<span class="large">THE NATION’S LOSS.</span><br />
-
-EARTHQUAKES AND LAND SUBSIDENCE ENGULF<br />
-THE ISTHMUS AND THE CANAL.<br />
-
-<span class="smcap larger">The Awful Cataclysm of Nature.</span><br />
-
-THE PRESIDENT DEEPLY AFFECTED.<br />
-
-THE MOST TERRIBLE CATASTROPHE IN MODERN TIMES.
-</p>
-
-<p>News from Aspinwall of the most appalling character
-has been received in Washington, and though
-an initial effort to conceal or suppress the despatches
-was made, wiser councils prevailed and the
-country will know the worst. America must now
-vindicate her courage and maintain the reputation
-she justly holds among the nations of the world for
-self-reliance and self-control.</p>
-
-<p>A long telegram received at the executive mansion
-in Washington to-day was given to the country
-by the orders of the President, after unavailing
-remonstrances from the members of the cabinet,
-who wanted the news withheld until confirmatory
-despatches were received. It is believed that these
-<em>were</em> received, and that the President ordered the
-distribution of the news. In a word it announces
-the destruction of the Canal, and the submergence
-of the Canal zone, through a series of progressive
-changes in the earth’s surface at that section, accompanied<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
-by severe earthquake phenomena. The
-confluent waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
-will mingle over the buried structures of the Canal,
-and one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, representing
-the labor of three years, and nearly fifty
-thousand men, with an enormous accumulation of
-material, will have been spent in vain. The Nation’s
-credit remains unimpeached and unimpeachable,
-but the moral effects of this stupendous calamity
-can scarcely be over-estimated.</p>
-
-<h3>THE STORY IN DETAIL.</h3>
-
-<p>A series of quickly succeeding earthquakes shook
-the City of Panama on the evening of May 27th.
-They were slight in character, though distinguished
-by peculiar rotatory effects, turning natural objects
-half way round, and producing curious effects upon
-pedestrians who became dizzy under their influence.
-These seemed to have passed inland and to have
-accumulated in one severe shock at Miraflores, just
-as a number of waves in water, chasing each other,
-may combine to form a resultant wave higher than
-its components, and generally, if the confluence
-takes place in the right phase, of a height which is
-the sum of the heights of the smaller elements.</p>
-
-<p>At any rate, a most violent disturbance occurred
-at the latter place, throwing down houses, and opening
-hillsides, which was followed by an alarming
-sinking of the ground. The railroad track disappeared,
-part of the canal walls were swallowed up,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
-an immense influx of water from La Boca poured
-in, and the former site of the village became a lake-like
-expanse. No further shocks were felt, although
-doubtless considerable dislocation farther west had
-taken place, and the locks on the Canal beyond the
-Culebra Cut, in the direction of Gamboa, San Pablo,
-and Tavernilla were perhaps impaired. As if the
-hidden energies of the earth had become reinforced,
-and the subterranean fires had renewed their devastating
-fury, on the morning of the 28th a sharp upheaval
-of the ground at Tavernilla, in the old delta
-plane of the Chagres river, took place, almost immediately
-succeeded by as rapid a collapse and depression.
-This alarming operation of the ground
-was repeated, upon a titanic scale in the submerged
-delta plane between Pena Blanca and Gatun. It was
-reported that at first small monticules of rock, mud,
-and sand, appeared in the vicinity of Agua Clara,
-but these proved to be ephemeral elevations, subsiding
-foot by foot, until with one monstrous convulsion
-the whole ridge of hills between Limon Bay,
-to the west on the Canal line, and Barrage at the
-old French dam, slipped bodily into the sea, with
-unutterable sounds, the rocks as it were exploding
-with immeasurable violence. The discharge of the
-mountain mass into the oceanic depths caused terrific
-tidal waves to rush outward, and north and
-south, in colossal walls of water. One of these
-swept upon the panic-stricken inhabitants of Colon,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
-its solid phalanx suddenly approaching from
-the sea, and in conjunction with earthquakes that
-had emptied the houses of the horrified occupants,
-bringing them all to the verge of madness, from
-sheer fear. The skies, as if engaged in some hideous
-conspiracy of destruction, with the moving
-earth, suddenly darkened. Deluges of water poured
-from the ebony and swollen clouds, lightning in
-incessant lines of quivering brilliancy shot from
-their lurid depths, and thunders intensified by a
-thousand reverberations, shook the recesses of the
-trembling hills.</p>
-
-<p>It was not surprising that the spectators of these
-monstrous happenings, with their earth vanishing
-beneath their feet, the overcharged skies emptying
-the arsenals of their electric fires upon them, and
-the irresistible floods of the ocean, rising like avengers
-to overwhelm them, should have cast reason
-to the winds, and dumb with amazement, and insane
-almost with horror, should have sunk upon
-their knees, and waited for the engulfment, which
-was to them part of this preternatural ending of
-the world.</p>
-
-<p>Few were strong enough to resist the frightful
-strain, and the woods and hills near Colon were
-filled with men and women in all states of frenzy.
-Some with cowering limbs and bowed heads
-awaited the summons of death or the call of
-Judgment, while others, lost alike to reason and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
-moderation, nakedly execrated Heaven, or, stark
-mad, plunged weapons of defence into the bodies
-of prostrate women.</p>
-
-<p>A few engineers at Colon had hastily constructed
-a camp on the higher hills towards the north, in
-which they were imitated by engineers at other
-points. These had communicated with the equipment
-at Colon, and it was from the latter city, which
-had at last accounts suffered little else than shocks
-of varying violence, but not destructive, that the
-first news had been sent.</p>
-
-<h3>LATER ADVICES.</h3>
-
-<p>From Allia Juela at an old dam station to the
-north of Gamboa, in the hills, and on the water tributaries
-of the Chagres, news has been just received
-that the pertubations continue, and that the areas
-about Aspinwall (Colon) are becoming progressively
-invaded by the sudden sinking movements, and
-the worst fears are entertained for the permanence
-of all sections of the Canal. A telegram received
-from Graytown, Nicaragua, announces the awakening
-of the volcanoes of Costa Rica, especially Poas
-and Irazu; steam and smoke are arising from other
-previously dormant peaks, and ashes have fallen in
-large amounts in the streets of Greytown. In an
-interview with Mr. F. C. Nicholas, the well known
-industrial prospector of Central America, that
-authority says the zone of possible disturbance may
-extend quite far, north and south of the Canal strip,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
-though in his opinion the more disastrous results
-may be expected in the mountainous and volcanic
-chains along the old proposed route of the Nicaragua
-inter-oceanic canal. He has himself felt the
-tremors of the earth there and here ten or more
-years ago his ear caught, so slight however that it
-might have been only fancy, the faint rumbling of
-the mountains as if in travail, which at the time was
-interpreted by the guides as a premonition of storm.
-Mr. Nicholas added at the close of his interview
-that “when I left Colon after my visit to Nicaragua
-common report had it that in Nicaragua there was
-a valley of fire surrounded with blazing volcanoes,
-and that I had seen it—a good example of Spanish-American
-exaggeration. It may indeed now happen,
-that this fanciful picture might, in even a more
-extravagant and dreadful way, be realized, and the
-long pent up forces of the earth, slumbering
-through ages, become reawakened, with the most
-disastrous consequences to the whole Central American
-domain, through a contagious outbreak of volcanic
-forces and terrestrial subsidences.”</p>
-
-<p>Barry paused, and his eye travelled down the
-page of the paper. He stopped and exclaimed:
-“They’ve got wind of the things Beecham told me
-about. Listen. ‘The Isle of Pines is rising, and in
-the opinion of local authorities, the shoals at low
-water between it and Cuba will afford an almost
-unbroken transit to the greater island. The Windward<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
-Passage between Cuba and Hayti has been invaded
-by new reefs, and the Monas Passage between
-San Domingo and Porto Rico is also reported
-by sailing vessels recently arriving at Havana, to
-present unusual and uncharted features, as if the
-floor of the ocean was also there undergoing elevation.</p>
-
-<p>“‘These marvellous modifications of the earth’s
-surface seemed connected with renewed activity in
-the volcanic islands of the Lesser Antilles. Mt. Pelee
-is again reported to be in eruption on the island of
-Martinique, while La Soufriere, on St. Vincent, is
-in active eruption, and Dominica, Santa Lucia and
-the Barbados have been visited by unprecedented
-tides, which have been regarded as evidence of the
-subsidence of the foundations of the islands themselves.</p>
-
-<p>“‘We stand aghast before these incomprehensible
-phenomena; our minds recoil before the
-awful powers of the natural world; we stumble in
-darkness at the meaning of this inscrutable visitation;
-truly, we may recall the words of the psalmists:
-<em>Then the channels of the waters were seen,
-and the foundations of the world were discovered
-at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath
-of Thy nostrils.</em>’”</p>
-
-<p>Barry ceased reading. He had read all the paper
-contained. He turned mechanically to the sheet
-Ned Garrett had laid on the table, and glanced over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
-it, remarking—“it is the same”—and then there
-was complete silence. It was Leacraft again who
-helped to restore their composure; “I think,” he
-said, “that in any event the water connexion between
-the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans is assured.
-Suppose the canal structure, as it was supposed to
-be finally at its completion, is all swept away or
-rendered impossible, an obviously easier access
-from one ocean to the other is created. If a complete
-change in the relations of land to water surfaces
-is now in progress, if Mr. Binn’s disagreeable
-predictions are now about to be realized, a good
-many remarkable and not altogether regrettable
-conditions may supervene. The water-way may
-become a veritable strait, providing easy, unbroken
-and capacious connexions between the Caribbean
-Sea and the Pacific ocean—the islands of the West
-Indies may slowly converge into one land surface,
-and a new continent invite populations and industries,
-which the wild, slothful or decadent peoples
-of Central America, with their hot, fever laden and
-deleterious climates, could not encourage or support.
-We may be entering upon a new chapter in
-the history of the world, and in the history of nations.
-Who can tell upon what strange threshold
-we are standing? Let us wait and see. Man is
-subordinate to and the victim of circumstances.
-Circumstance also gives him his opportunities.
-What wonders may not the hand of God work in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
-this marvellous reconstruction of land and water?
-And if two hundred millions of dollars, as representing
-the final cost of the Canal, seems to have
-been swallowed up, what of it? A nation whose
-annual appropriations—as I only read yesterday—are
-on the scale of six hundred millions a year,
-should regard with comparative complacence a loss
-of one-third of that amount, when it arises from
-a permanent and desirable change in physical, perhaps
-human, conditions.”</p>
-
-<p>As Leacraft was speaking, the little group of his
-auditors remained motionless, with—it did not escape
-Leacraft’s jealous notice—Sally and Brig at
-its centre, in a sort of mutually consoling contact,
-and the servants a little behind, in a scrutinizing
-attitude, anxious through a sense of sympathy with
-the evident distress of the household.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Garrett spoke, and Leacraft rose to his feet.
-“We have indeed suffered a harsh blow, but it has
-its after thoughts of alleviating hope, and you have
-shown us that our alarm is more emotional than
-substantial. The country has been fed upon the
-proud anticipations of the accomplishment of this
-Canal. It has become a political question. It has
-colored the utterances of our public men. It has
-been the dream of the President, as the crowning
-work of a pre-eminent list of services to the nation.
-His energy has pushed it to the verge of completion,
-and in its prosecution the Nation and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
-President have become united in positive endorsement.
-It may all be right yet. Let us hope and
-pray so.”</p>
-
-<p>Flushed with real feeling, Mr. Garrett shook the
-hand of Leacraft, and in a sort of review, the rest
-imitated his example, and left the room, leaving
-Ned and Leacraft behind.</p>
-
-<p>It was then that Leacraft turned to Ned Garrett
-and said: “I thought I saw an engagement ring on
-the hand of your sister.” The statement was a
-question. Ned Garrett looked at his friend with
-singular intensity of interest and sympathy. He
-realized the anguish of the man who, loving his
-sister beyond all earthly price, forgot a country’s
-peril in the eagerness of his hope that perhaps his
-heart-breaking fears were unjustified. The two
-men were standing. Ned Garrett took Leacraft’s
-hand and placed his other hand upon his shoulder,
-and his earnest face uttered its inviolable commiseration:
-“Yes, Burney; Sally is engaged to Mr.
-Barry.” They turned and left the room.</p>
-
-<p>That night it was not the convulsions of nature
-breaking down the barriers of two words, and
-bringing into action new forces and new vicissitudes
-among the peoples of the earth, that marred
-the sleep of the restless Englishman. No; it was
-the face of Sally Garrett smiling into the bending
-face of Brig Barry, and touching his lips.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_102" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">GETTYSBURG, MAY 30TH, 1909.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>The Garrett party reached Gettysburg at mid-day,
-May 30th, 1909, having passed through, in the
-train from Baltimore, the delightfully rural scenes
-of western Maryland and southern Pennsylvania.
-Recent rains had swelled the brooks and expanded
-the ponds. The wide undulations of hills and vales
-were radiant in verdure, responding with the alacrity
-of new vegetation to the encouragement of the
-skies, that now in a broad arch of fleckless blue,
-seemed to bend over them in pride and emulation.
-A thousand pictures of loveliness, of homely domestic
-bliss, of agricultural plenty, of bucolic
-thrift and retirement, met their eyes, and Leacraft
-himself found a solace to his grieved soul in resting
-his eyes upon spots of soft and uninjured beauty,
-wherein nature and the gentle craft of pastoral life<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
-combined their artless charms to make the landscape
-serene and inviting to the eye.</p>
-
-<p>It was almost with regret that they left the train
-at Gettysburg. The noise or motion of the cars,
-and the uninterrupted succession of pleasant views
-from their windows had prevented conversation,
-in which none of them, from preoccupation, or
-from anxiety, from, in one person at least, sadness,
-or from, in this case to be exact, two persons, extreme
-happiness, cared to enter. And when
-Gettysburg was itself finally encountered, they
-found it in the last spasms of inordinate repletion.
-The most exorbitant greed of guide and hackman,
-guide-book man, publican and popcorn or peanut
-vendor, was abashed before a popular consumption
-that threatened to drive them into a confession of
-impotency. Everything that had cubic capacity,
-whether it moved or stood still, whether it was a
-vehicle or a house, was aching under the intolerable
-pressure of its human contents. Everywhere
-clouds of flags decorated the air. The houses were
-beribboned and beflagged, and innumerable lines
-crossing the streets in a web of suspensory confusion,
-carried pennants and pictures to the last limits
-of their carrying capacity, and to the bewilderment
-unutterable and admiration unrepressed of
-the crowds beneath them. These crowds had become
-almost stagnant because of the crowds in
-front of them, and these in turn by reason of other<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
-crowds in front of them, until the successional torpor
-seemed to reach out of sight, and presumably
-ended in some greater peripheral crowd, which,
-having attained its appointed place by choice or
-selection, refused to budge. To make their way,
-was almost impossible to the visitors, whether they
-besought the services of a driver, or tried the painful
-expedient of threading the human mass on foot.
-In this extremity they simply remained where they
-were at first arriving, hoping either the slow motion
-of the democratic assemblage would afford
-them some sort of escape, or at some critical moment
-the vast throng would resolve itself into dispersion,
-and under the influence of direction or
-force, get itself better adjusted to the requirements
-of its individuals.</p>
-
-<p>Now, it was understood by all the published programmes
-of that day’s exercises that the address of
-the President was to be delivered at that historic
-spot known as the High Water Mark, which marks
-the uprushing tide, the foaming crest and insurmountable
-limit of the Rebellion, which thereafter
-receded in wavering surges to the south. In the
-great reservation, devoted as a monument to the
-battle which saved the Union, this spot is central,
-and the acres stretched about it would accommodate
-an army. It was quite inexplicable why this
-annoying interference and congestion prevailed.
-It turned out to be a military precaution. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
-President was to be installed safely at the speaker’s
-stand, escorted by veterans of the north and
-south, before the people should be permitted to
-assemble around him, and a cordon of military
-enclosed the little village, keeping confined within
-it the straining and impatient visitors.</p>
-
-<p>The village of Gettysburg, which was used in
-the great battle as a hospital, and which entirely
-escaped injury in the three days’ conflict, was
-more than a mile away from the place chosen for
-the ceremonies of the day. When the dam was removed
-it was seen there would be a dangerous
-stampede for position. Music, too, swept exhilaratingly
-over the throngs from the distant scene of
-the festivities, and its martial notes awakened to
-desperation the disappointed and vexed multitude.
-The large numbers twisted and irksomely tied up
-within the narrow streets, and turbulently mixed
-up on the little square of the village, groaned
-aloud.</p>
-
-<p>Voices suddenly rose high in altercation and
-abuse. A farmer whose rickety wagon, laden with
-his sons and daughters, had got packed between
-a curb and a particularly dense fragment of the
-crowd, made up of vituperative young men, and
-was in almost certain danger of being upset, was
-engaged in a lusty expostulation not unassisted by
-the quick and sharp lashes of his whip, over the
-heads of the dodging group. The latter, not averse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
-to some retaliatory measures that might serve the
-purpose of freeing their general resentment at
-their imprisonment, attacked the irate proprietor
-of the wagon and pushed his shivering vehicle
-over, spilling its screaming and swearing occupants
-upon the heads of the bystanders, who were
-utterly unable to escape, and added their din to the
-commotion.</p>
-
-<p>This diversion, attended with laughter, shouts
-and cries of pain, had nearly subsided, when a new
-and more alarming disorder arose in the neighborhood
-of the Garrett party, who had betaken themselves
-to the porch of one of the souvenir shops.
-A wandering and aimless dog, suffering from
-kicks and repulses, had turned on some of its persecutors,
-and, yelping and snapping with inflamed
-and frightened eyes, had suddenly been diagnosed,
-by an inconsiderate observer, as “<em>mad</em>.” This
-information, as usually, proclaimed in a loud, denunciatory
-tone, raised in a second an indescribable
-hubbub. Room to run from the bewildered canine
-was not to be found, and the only thing to do for
-those in the vicinity, was to squeeze more violently
-against their companions, leaving a slender and
-irregular space in which the dog gyrated,
-biting at friend and foe alike. The undulous area
-of movement thus formed swayed to and fro, with
-the distracted struggles of the dog, and soon swung
-violently towards the Garretts, who became rudely<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
-jolted and pressed by frantic men and women, in
-whose legs apprehension of the dog’s teeth seemed
-to have produced extraordinary motions, for they
-shuffled and kicked and scrambled in a way very
-undignified and ridiculous. The upshot of it was to
-drive a frenzied pack of people towards the souvenir
-shop, in the hope of entering the shop, and
-evading the wretched canine somewhere beneath
-their skirts and trousers—an absurd design, as the
-shop itself was solid with condensed humanity.</p>
-
-<p>Brig Barry saw the danger, and quickly hustling
-Sally and Mrs. Garrett between the men of his party,
-told all to stand firmly, after knitting their
-arms within each other, forming an elastic and impenetrable
-wall. As it was, the colliding tides
-around them sent them on an unexpected orbit of
-translation, and a few minutes later they found
-themselves pushed towards the trolley tracks, not
-far from the dishevelled and malign looking local
-hotel, but in a less exposed and stormy quarter.</p>
-
-<p>And now a marvellous change took place. The
-barriers were down; the rolled up soldiers opened
-the avenues of approach; the President, members
-of his Cabinet, the Commissioners of the Reservation,
-and the veterans of the North and the South,
-were in place, and the delayed populace, released
-from its confinement, with instantaneous expansion,
-hurried over the roads and fields to the station of
-the High Water Mark on Cemetery Ridge. It was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
-a picturesque spectacle. When the condensation
-was removed, it became apparent in how much
-splendor the girls and women of the country and
-the near and distant towns had been arrayed. They
-came from Harrisburg, from Emittsburg, along the
-fatal road that Longstreet’s rangers followed, from
-Taneytown, from Hagerstown, where Lee’s army
-had its rendezvous before the battle of Seminary
-Ridge; from Chambersburg, which Ewell had dragooned;
-from Wrightsville, where Early was
-balked by the burning of the Susquehanna Bridge,
-on the 29th of June; from Newville, from Hanover,
-from Fairfield, the belles and beaux had gathered,
-and with them no indifferent number of their fathers
-and mothers. They wore their best ginghams,
-and calicoes, and silks; the ancient trouseaus, refitted
-and remade, still imparted the aspect of richness
-to their wearers, who, ensconced beside their
-furrowed and tanned husbands, also refurbished,
-so to speak, with store clothes and a rainbow neck-tie,
-felt the novelty of life return, and something
-of the freshness of the glad morning of existence.
-The girls were most happy and the boys voluble
-and attentive. The caravan of vehicles would have
-tasked the vocabulary of Tattersalls, though it was
-not altogether so remarkable for the variety of its
-contents as the indefinite suggestion of varied ages
-in its parts. And here and there some time-worn
-carryall creaking under the infliction of an unusual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
-load, and drawn by some Rosinante, whose feeble
-gait and frequent halts betokened a sad contemporaneity
-with the vehicle itself, offered a pathetic
-note in the hurrying splendor of the congregated
-regalia of the barn and stable and garage.</p>
-
-<p>The Garretts, once extricated from their embarrassed
-position, armed with passports, one in the
-hands of Brig Barry, and a special card in the
-possession of Mr. Garrett, as guest of the Chamber
-of Commerce of Baltimore, had little difficulty
-in securing the essential indulgences for a delightful
-day. In a three-seated coach wagon, with a
-splendid team of horses, they bowled along as far
-as the beginning of Hancock avenue, which leads
-from the National Cemetery to the Round Tops.
-Here they alighted and surveyed the wondrous
-scene. It was resplendent. A sun burning with
-the soft brilliancy of June bathed the grand distances
-towards the Blue Hills in light, while the
-Blue Hills themselves receded with artistic forbearance
-behind an atmosphere that veiled them in an
-evanescent purple and yet seemed to magnify their
-height. The slopes of Cemetery Ridge were covered
-by people, and the lower levels where the Codori
-farm buildings stood; the Peach Orchard,
-where Sickles and Longstreet met for the mastery;
-the grain field beyond, over whose long stretches
-Pickett’s charge was made, were filled with moving
-groups. The distant woods, the nearer groves, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
-grassy fields, Little and Big Round Top, all were
-transfigured in the golden blaze, and the innumerable
-monuments that gave the park-like Ridge a
-sort of scenic artifice, seemed to become accordant,
-in the vastness of the panorama, with its natural
-and simple features. The farm lands, the white
-houses, dotting fields, or emerging with human interest
-from lines of shadowing trees, the peace of
-the distant perspective, accorded a welcome contrast
-to the foreground of the picture, immersed in
-the waves of a popular assembly.</p>
-
-<p>Automobiles flying like clouds rushed along the
-far away roads, bicycles in undulating and streaming
-lines, grew large with rapid approach; the
-gathering spots of people merged together and became
-irregular squares, the squares united and became
-tracts, and the tracts, by an incessant accretion,
-coincided along their edges until Cemetery
-Ridge, the slopes towards Little Round Top and the
-field below the “angle,” where Cushing and Armistead
-died, were unbrokenly covered with the vast
-congregation, pulsating ceaselessly by an interior
-agitation everywhere.</p>
-
-<p>The heterogeneous assortment of conveyances
-were halted near the National Cemetery, and the
-people made their way to the enclosure, where the
-President was to address them, along the triumphal
-monument-enfiladed boulevard of Hancock
-avenue.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span></p>
-
-<p>The Garrett party had noticed the earnestness
-and apparent preoccupation of the people. The
-news of the previous night had spread its sinister
-announcements through the papers of the country,
-carried to every village on the myriad fingered
-currents of the telegraph. It had left its impress
-in the serious, sombre and sometimes dully
-frowned faces of the men. “I feel sorry for the
-President,” said Sally. “The Canal seemed
-almost himself, and the people thought of it and
-him together. What will he do?”</p>
-
-<p>“The President,” answered Ned Garrett, “will
-not flinch. Ever since he went down to the Isthmus
-in 1906, and made the dirt fly, he has watched
-the Canal with his whole heart in it. He knew
-what it meant for the country, for the world, and
-now”—the speaker hesitated—“he will know what
-to say and do. How I believe in that man!”</p>
-
-<p>“But I can’t see,” continued Brig Barry, “that
-the idea of the Canal is lost. Let us suppose there
-is a shifting and readjustment down there. The
-two oceans are left behind, not much different, and
-if the isthmus breaks down, splits up, and goes to
-thunder, there’s water enough to cover the remains,
-and we have the Canal anyway.”</p>
-
-<p>“But it isn’t our Canal any more,” ejaculated
-Sally. “It seems,” said Mr. Garrett, “as if our
-grief had been premature. There is enough to
-worry over in this frightful catastrophe, and its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
-limits no one to-day can correctly estimate, but as
-Brig says, the Canal idea is saved, or at least it
-seems reasonable to believe that it may be. If Nature
-makes a bigger canal, if she changes the face
-of the earth enough, as Leacraft told us last night,
-to unite the oceans and make a strait, the commercial
-union of the western and eastern continents
-is secured on a larger scale. Perhaps our national
-pride must suffer some, but the fact remains,
-though, it would have saved our exchequer a handsome
-outlay, if nature, consulting our financial happiness,
-had done her work a little earlier.”</p>
-
-<p>“If we’d only waited,” sighed Mrs. Garrett,
-ruefully.</p>
-
-<p>They had reached the edges of the throngs who
-stood in the sun, engrossing every coigne of vantage,
-and an orderly, examining their tickets, conducted
-them through a narrow lane of envious gazers
-to a stand of seats to the south of the President’s
-rostrum. From this position their eyes fell directly
-upon the amazing outpouring of the people,
-an ocean of individuals, hopelessly cancelled from
-any chance to hear the President’s voice, yet extending
-outward in a solemn silence, and but furtively
-invaded by those busy concomitants of such
-public gatherings—button men and popcorn merchants.
-For the most part such annoyances were
-inordinately thrust aside, but scurrying over the
-most distant outposts of the mammoth audience,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
-their eager shapes were seen, and inconstantly,
-borne inward by the breeze, the shrill invitation of
-their voices was heard.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft fixed his eyes upon the President, and
-he was near enough to him to note his expression.
-President Roosevelt sat squarely facing the people—now
-crushing in with an irresistible impulse
-from the distributed masses before him. He
-seemed serious, at moments almost solemnly so,
-at others he turned to his companions with alacrity,
-and his face even smiled at some allusion or
-whispered comment. Again his eyes wandered
-dreamily—Leacraft thought sadly—to his notes,
-and then he moved restlessly and leaned forward,
-and even half rose, eagerly scanning the expectant
-faces. A jumping up of half a dozen men at the
-rear of the platform, a signal of a waved handkerchief,
-followed, and the band, stationed somewhere
-behind the distinguished occupants of the platform,
-began the Star Spangled Banner. Everyone not
-already standing rose, heads even uncovered, and
-the spirited strains seized by the concourse, were
-flung back in a torrent of vocality, that sounded
-like the far and near thunder of the ocean’s surges.
-It was overwhelming. As if before the spirit of the
-Nation, the living and the dead; those whose discarnate
-beings might seem rushing in upon them
-from the viewless depths of space, summoned again
-to the fields of their endeavor by the marshall air,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
-hats were doffed in all directions, until scarcely a
-covered head among the men remained, and many
-eyes streamed with irrepressible tears. The note
-of a requiem, the prouder challenge of defiance, the
-lofty questioning of Hope, the loving clasp of fraternal
-patriotism, the aspirations of a race, solving
-“in the foremost files of time” the problem of the
-world’s political creed, seemed blended together,
-in the avalanche of sound. And it was maintained
-to the end, even the verses of the national anthem
-were well remembered, and that trying and unattainable
-high note, like the scream of the eagle,
-which closes the lips of most singers in dubious
-apathy, was now sustained. The President sang
-lustily, and then he stopped, his head bowed; he
-might have been in prayer. It was noticed by all
-and it almost seemed as if the music quailed and
-sank before the mystery of a man’s outpoured petition
-to his God.</p>
-
-<p>It was over. The music ceased, the frail voice
-of the chairman sounded its quavering invitation
-to prayer, and a clergyman arose and droned an
-invocation. The President was introduced and
-stood forward. He was well in view. One hand
-grasped the railing before him, the other clutched
-some separated papers, he looked well and the
-man’s vitality, his zealous unmitigated self exaction
-were realized. As he was seen, the tumult rose
-to a tremendous climax, cheers rolled forward and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
-backward like the fluctuating billows of a sea; they
-receded to the outer margins far toward the
-Hagerstown road, where they vanished in murmurs,
-they crashed inward in volleying thunders,
-and the President stood erect, nerved to a steel-like
-rigidity; the air was swept with flags, the intoxication
-of the emotion increased, women palled before
-it, and men grew pale with the delirium of sudden
-enthusiasm. It seemed as if music alone could lead
-them back into the resignation of attention. It was
-a stupendous tribute. The man to whom it was
-given, had no reason for misgiving, no retributive
-judgments for his actions, to dread. Slowly, very
-slowly the cheering and cries died away, and then
-ensued a silence as remarkable and as impressive.
-The two contrasted states of the multitude might
-have been interpreted as a generous invitation to
-the man to speak, and as a judicial reservation of
-mind as to its own verdict when he had spoken. It
-almost seemed so, and the quick heart of the President
-might again have felt the palpitation of a
-doubt, whether he stood approved, or a critical people
-withdrew into the refuge of an impartial scrutiny.
-Leacraft felt all this, and he could not help
-also feeling a curious interest in the purely psychological
-enigma it presented.</p>
-
-<p>The President was speaking; his voice reached
-Leacraft thin and sharp:</p>
-
-<p>“My friends,” he began, “To-day we celebrate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
-again the brave deaths of brave men, and the sacrifices
-they made for the maintenance of our common
-country. And we are gathered together on the
-battlefield which more than any other battlefield
-in that historic war, represented the culminating
-energies of both sides, the last vital contention for
-the mastery. These men left behind them the inestimable
-example of fortitude. And after the battle
-of Gettysburg it was more difficult for the southern
-man to continue the fight, in the face of disaster,
-with a depleted country behind him, and a foe
-flushed with victory, and drawing upon almost
-illimitable resources, than for his northern brother,
-for whom at last the tide of war seemed to have
-turned. We to-day need the lesson of this fortitude
-of the man in gray.</p>
-
-<p>“My friends, a disaster has overtaken us,”—the
-crowd before the President seemed to compress itself
-in a further effort to get closer to him, “and it
-is our duty to remain firm and unfalteringly confident.
-I can scarcely doubt that you all have
-heard that nature has destroyed the Nation’s work.
-The face of the earth at the Isthmus of Panama is
-altered. Our work, our expenditures, the lives of
-thousands of hard working men have been sacrificed,
-and we stand aghast before a natural revolution
-unequaled in our day, unparalled perhaps in
-all the annals of history; something which in its
-wide devastating power, crushes our pride, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
-for a moment makes us cease to think, to plan, to
-build. I come to you this morning with strange tidings—tidings
-so unspeakably great in their influence
-upon our knowledge, that I almost hesitate to
-pronounce them, lest I might find myself the victim
-of some horrible and wicked hoax. The Isthmus
-of Panama, from Quibo Island in Montijo Bay, on
-the west, to the confines of the valley of the Atrato
-River at the edge of the Columbia, on the east, is
-deviously, here with a regular movement of depression,
-in another place with violent shock, sinking
-beneath the waters of the opposite encroaching
-oceans that swings backward and forward on either
-side in awful tidal deluges.</p>
-
-<p>“The latest news confirms all the previous reports.
-Slowly, surely, even with hastening steps,
-the narrow neck of Panama, with its shallow shores,
-its long exposure of swamp and mud flats, with its
-crumbling hills, covered with tropical life will be
-engulfed, and the two continents of North and
-South America will return to a pristine condition of
-geographical autonomy. It is hard to believe. I
-cannot recount to you the wonderful pictures, terror-inspiring,
-and yet majestic with the majesty of
-Nature’s awful deeds, which have been sent to us.
-The loss of life has been considerable, but not proportionate
-to the stupendous agencies involved. After
-the first earthquake upheavals, the quickly succeeding
-disappearance of the solid ground furnished<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
-an adequate warning, and the populations along
-the canal-way at the villages and camps, and at Aspinwall
-and Panama, retreated to the hills, and with
-them the animal life, in a singular copartnership of
-fear. It is now regarded as certain, that we are
-about to see the last vestiges of the canal itself, the
-work of these last four years disappearing in the
-folding in and submergence of the rock strata.”</p>
-
-<p>The President then told the story of the catastrophe
-as it had been narrated in the despatches received
-at the White House. He painted in graphic
-words the shaking down of the hills, the dislodged
-blankets slipping from the hill sides like a shawl
-from a shuddering woman, carrying with them the
-crashing trees, the jungle growth, the entwined tendrilous
-creepers and vines, while above the trees,
-swaying toward each other and then outward as if
-following the crests and troughs of hidden waves,
-above these tottering trees, the birds in screaming
-volleys rose and fell. The bared rocks showed
-rents, and tremendous explosions sent their shattered
-fragments into the air, while long weird
-groans issued from the ground as if the buried
-foundations of the hills were undergoing the tortures
-of mutilation. In other places it had been
-quite different. The ground slowly seemed to melt
-away, and with a sort of shuddering succession of
-chills the land disappears. How long, how much
-further this swallowing up of the land will go no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
-one can tell. But it has seemed to those who have
-some knowledge of the region that it may embrace
-the S shaped Isthmus only, and that the tapering
-ends of the bulwarks of elevation in the Rocky
-Mountain chain on the north, and the Andes on the
-south will resist this degradation, that Costa Rica
-on the north and Columbia on the south will rudely
-define the north and south edges of the new avenue
-or gateway of unions between the oceans, that the
-new canal in this way, reconstructed by the titanic
-convulsions of nature, will become a wide and useful
-passage for commerce.</p>
-
-<p>The President indulged the evident curiosity of
-his popular audience in a scientific discourse. His
-own interest was evident. He discussed earthquakes;
-he plunged into an essay on volcanoes; he
-spread luminously before the people the theories of
-the pear-shaped earth, the slipping of faults, the
-loading of the earth’s crust, the original formation
-of the deep creases in the earth’s surface, which
-now held its gathered waters. The President made
-a model expositor. He was clear and interesting.
-His style, his illustrative similes were attractive
-and deliberately helpful. It was almost amusing to
-note the contrasted effect of this improvised academic
-demonstration upon the people and upon the
-political sages of the platform. The former were
-attentive and absorbed. Their faces lit up with the
-quiet pleasure of intelligent appreciation, frequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
-at some pungent expression that pictured
-to them in stirring forcible photographic phrase
-the stifling struggle of land and water, the fierce
-unrest far down there in the tropics, which was unsettling
-the foundations of the earth, and slowly
-establishing a new order of things, pregnant with
-revolution in the day and fate of nations, carrying
-in its geological material insensate womb of meaning
-the dissolution of states, the upset and consternation
-of rulers, a menace to civilization, the ruthless
-unwavering threat to human accidents and institutions.</p>
-
-<p>To all this the political magnates listened with
-bored indifference. They expected a party appeal,
-some appetizing bid for popular suffrage, a shot
-at the South, a resounding puff for the Republican
-candidates, a public acknowledgement of their personal
-industry in securing the re-election of himself,
-new projects of expenditure, and a programme
-of national expansion. They turned and twisted,
-and some deliberately slept or engaged in low
-conversations with an expressive irony of shrugs
-and smiles.</p>
-
-<p>The President paused, his hands came together,
-and he leaned far forward, and a moment’s hesitancy
-marked the termination of his scientific periods.
-He continued, with sudden earnestness and
-vigour, with almost self-surrender to the impetus
-of his thought: “My friends, these are the facts,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
-and no lamentations can change them. We must
-learn from the courage and devotion of the men
-who left this field defeated, to face this new predicament,
-not with resignation, simply, but with the
-constructive determination to seize this new turn in
-events and force it into our service, to make it only
-a more complete realization of our first designs.
-This is the triumph of Opportunity. Thus shall we
-wrest from the confusion of chance its empire of
-the fitting moment, and drive its scattered impulses
-into the straight, the narrow path of our strictest
-needs. The canal as a commercial necessity cannot
-be eclipsed or abandoned. The original project is
-replaced. Replaced by something greater, more
-permanent, more cosmopolitan. It becomes no
-longer a provincial fact, a national asset simply. It
-is a feature of the earth.</p>
-
-<p>“What exactly has happened, how complete is
-the transformation no one exactly knows, but if the
-assistance of engineering is still to be invoked it can
-only be in a way of a help to nature. The facts
-remain.</p>
-
-<p>“And now my friends a stranger possibility
-confronts us, nay it lifts up a sinister and awful,
-an ominous portent for the leading nations of the
-world. It seems likely that this physical alteration
-may mean a change in the climate of the older portion
-of the earth.”</p>
-
-<p>Again the President launched into a scientific<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
-lecture and he was fortunate, as at first, as alertly
-careful, as broadly popular, as adroitly technical,
-without obscurity. It was well received. And its
-conclusion was altogether wonderful. Leacraft
-had good reason to listen with all his ears.</p>
-
-<p>The President described the contrasted temperatures
-of similar latitudes in Europe and America,
-how England on the latitude of Labrador was warmer
-than New York which found its Adirondack
-mountains—chilled in the depth of winter to almost
-forty degrees below zero—on the same degree as
-southern France; itself the type and synonym of
-warmth. He made it clear how the thermal flood
-of warm waters upon the shores of Europe—heating
-the drifting airs above it till, laden with moisture,
-they too added their gifts of rain and warmth
-to Great Britain, and the shores of Scandinavia;
-how this Gulf Stream, a wayward impressionable
-wandering river pushing past Florida with a cubic
-capacity of seven hundred thousand cubic feet of
-water in half a second of time, and, held in its fluctuating
-course by the laws of gravity, how this marvellous
-oceanic flood, controlled the material conditions
-of England’s greatness; grasped, as it were,
-in the filmy fingers of its webbed and spreading
-tides, its wealth, its maritime supremacy, its intellectual
-distinction, its domestic thrift, and sunny
-sweetness. And then the President ended, and
-Leacraft bent forward, gripped the railing before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
-him with sudden fierceness, a knell strangely appalling
-sounded in his ears, a portent widely distracting
-and unreasonable drove the color from his
-cheeks.</p>
-
-<p>The President ended with these words: “The
-Gulf Stream whipped into violent activity by the
-south east trade winds beats impetuously upon the
-islands of the West Indies, washes the beaches of
-Central America, and whirls its spinning tides
-within the Gulf of Mexico, and then, repulsed by
-the continuous shore lines of North America,
-returns to Europe bearing its mantle of verdure
-to be thrown over the hills, the capes, the valleys
-the western edges and islands of the Old World.
-But now the barrier is gone. The Gulf Stream
-before the strong and rapacious winds is no longer
-turned aside by impossible walls of land but triumphantly
-sweeps into the Pacific, and with it vanishes
-the glory of England. For ourselves it means
-singular disaster though it may bring compensating
-changes. If England disappears as a world
-power we are robbed of a friend, we have lost a
-market. What words shall measure the moral
-meaning of the first, what revenues express the
-yearly increasing value of the latter. We stand
-on the threshold of a New Era.”</p>
-
-<p>The termination of this remarkable address was
-its most momentous and unexpected announcement.
-As the President sat down, there was no applause,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
-just a ripple of clapping hands as a half-hearted
-recognition of an invariable habit. The speech had
-been utterly robbed of political significance, despoiled
-of rhetorical or personal emphasis, it failed
-entirely as the usual thing in public oratory, and it
-left behind it an oppressive sense of impending
-changes. The President seemed depressed by his
-own vaticinations, and those around him, chilled
-into anxious forebodings, sat stiffly silent and
-unresponsive. The moment was saved from intolerable
-embarrassment by the band.</p>
-
-<p>The leader stepped forward, waved his baton
-and the solemn strains of America—the transplanted
-hymn of England—rose plaintively, like a
-prayer; to Leacraft it sounded like encouragement,
-like sympathy. Someone began to sing—hats
-came off, the guests rose, and the multitude
-sang. If the Star Spangled Banner had been exultant
-and triumphant, thronged with the memories
-of achievement and victory—America
-throbbed with supplication, and underneath the
-supplication, the fervor of allegiance, sacrifice and
-love. The peculiar awkwardness of an unusual, an
-unique predicament, was removed. The speakers
-following the President made no allusion to the
-Canal, and all the marvellous happenings far away
-in Central America. They led the people’s thought
-back again to the soil they stood upon, to the memories
-of a glorious past, to the hopes of the future,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
-the realization of the present tasks, the reiteration
-of the nation’s wealth and happiness, its strength
-under misfortune, its illimitable resources. They
-were successful. The pall of misgivings which the
-President had invoked was lifted. The band broke
-out again with reassuring liveliness, and good humour
-and holiday satisfaction revived.</p>
-
-<p>Then came a procession through the Reservation
-to Big Round Top and back again on the lower
-ground past the Devil’s Den, and over the Emmetsburg
-road to Gettysburg, and in the clamorous excitement,
-the parade of uniforms, the brilliant atmosphere,
-congratulations and convivial indulgence,
-all the President’s words became clouded
-and unreal. And if the Isthmus was covered by
-water, if the Gulf Stream was deflected, if it meant
-blight for England, what of it? The United States
-would only become greater—its magnification
-would be unquestioned, boundless; the stars in
-their courses worked for them, and the mutations of
-the earth’s surface only brought to them unrivalled
-aptitudes for new chances, for new power.</p>
-
-<p>This was said a good many times by a good many
-kinds of men, and the intangible something it suggested,
-by repetition, assumed the force of demonstration.
-There was a distinguishable forgetfulness
-of the disasters that had come, and a listless
-thought of those that were threatened. A few observant
-and reflecting minds brooded over the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
-strange catastrophe, and yielded an attention to
-their implications. This attitude sprang from
-knowledge, and in the case of Leacraft from a personal
-interest in the singular sequence of events
-which the President portrayed, and which even the
-placidity of an Englishman’s confidence in his destiny
-failed to contemplate as injurious fiction. It
-was a thing to be reflected upon, at least, and added
-its sombre influence to deepen the gloom of Leacraft’s
-disappointment. But it also gradually developed
-for him a remedial efficacy, not simply as
-a spurious employment for his thoughts, but
-through a substantial relevancy to his emotional
-needs.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft’s mental inclinations carried him towards
-speculative forecasts. He had cultivated his
-predilections along all sorts of scientific horoscopes,
-and had enjoyed the indulgence of his fancy in
-studying nations and inventions, with a view to
-composing a plan or description of their future
-condition, phase and expression. He had arrived
-at some curious results, but they represented solely
-the changed surface of society, in its industrial,
-civic or social states, or else, in their more immaterial
-flights, pictured the enduring alterations of
-religious or philosophic systems. In all these speculations
-he had quite neglected the physical constants
-of the world, its climate and topography.
-His thought engaged itself with the mechanical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
-structure of civilization, as affected by new discoveries,
-allied with an increasing utilitarianism, in
-which the individual vanishes before the imperious
-supervention of the State, the incorporated multitude,
-the abstract Wisdom of the most knowing
-minds, influenced by a solicitous paternalism for
-the Whole.</p>
-
-<p>But now he found himself confronted by a new
-exigency, the geological interferences of Nature,
-and it piqued his curiosity, it assailed his fancy
-with indubitable fascination. By reason of his intellectual
-proneness to these questions, which quite
-deeply occupied his mind, he felt at this moment
-that the tremendous and supreme chance of his
-own mighty nation, succumbing to the accidents
-of a tidal caprice might offer him an alternative
-refuge of interest which would help to dull
-the pain of his misfortune. So convulsing a spectacle
-as the pitiless war of nature upon the embedded
-bulwarks of a great commercial nation’s
-prosperity, terrified him as a possible historical
-fact. Above all, it terrified him as a British subject.
-It became so overwhelming in the magnitude
-of its effects that he shudderingly admitted to himself
-that his love for Sally suffered a relieving
-diminution, as though in such events the End of the
-World seemed precipitated, and all human ties became
-obliterated, were dissolved.</p>
-
-<p>The day closed in resplendent beauty. The sun<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
-curtained in a haze, shed a diffused glory through
-the upper sky, and sank at last in a grating of
-narrow bars of cloud, that lay across the west like
-reefs of gold, slowly transmuted into a purple nimbus
-upon the faintly turquoised ether. The great
-crowds dispersed, the troops escorted the President
-away, and music from near and far seemed to mingle
-dreamily with the mute harmonies of the sunset.</p>
-
-<p>The Garretts, with Mr. Leacraft and Brig Barry,
-returned that night by train to Baltimore. The
-night proved a sleepless and excited one for Leacraft.
-He felt ill at ease. There was much reason
-for uneasiness and heartache, and the hours passed
-in a dull series of mournful reflections upon his
-own trouble, and the immodest threat of nature at
-the prestige of his people.</p>
-
-<p>The next morning he entered the library and
-found Miss Garrett bending over the morning paper.
-She looked up as he appeared in the doorway,
-and there was for both a moment’s hesitation,
-before the morning’s greeting passed their lips. It
-was Sally who first spoke, and her voice was eager
-with alarm.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Leacraft, the President’s lecture—surely,
-it was nothing else—is all here. And there is more
-news from the Isthmus. The land is sinking, all
-sinking, and”—she turned to the paper—“almost
-all the canal has now disappeared beneath the assault
-of the waves, and a stormy waste of waters<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
-sweeps across the Isthmus of Panama. Isn’t it
-simply fearful? And nothing can be done.”</p>
-
-<p>“Miss Garrett,” answered Leacraft slowly, his
-eyes sadly resting upon her face, grown more
-beautiful, he thought, by the dwelling of a tender
-fearfulness in her eyes, “it is a fearful thing; an
-occurrence such as this is a pretty sharp shock to
-our sense of security. I can’t forget the President’s
-words. As an Englishman I really contemplate
-coming events with a positive terror. But there is
-something else, Miss Sally, I beg to speak about,
-another sorrow for me, though I must not permit
-my selfish regret to cloud your happiness.”</p>
-
-<p>Sally Garrett came quite close to Leacraft. She
-had a true estimate of his strong and dignified nature;
-she yielded the just homage of affectionate
-regard, but her heart had never been moved by the
-Englishman’s impressive seriousness. Leacraft
-was about to speak again when voices were heard
-approaching, and among them the vigorous intonations
-of Brig Barry. Leacraft stopped, and a shadow
-of suffering crossed his pale face. Sally understood
-too clearly. She put out her hand and seized
-his, and pressed it kindly, and Leacraft understood
-her sympathy.</p>
-
-<p>Brig and Ned Garrett came into the room, and
-soon the discussion of the strange events taking
-place at the Isthmus occupied the group, to which
-in a few minutes Mr. and Mrs. Garrett were added.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span></p>
-
-<p>Leacraft shortened his visit under the pretext
-of an engagement in New York, and it was years after
-that he again saw Miss Sally Garrett—then become
-Mrs. Brig Barry—after the stupendous facts
-on the following pages had made the Kingdom of
-Great Britain part of the Frozen North.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_131" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE EVICTION OF SCOTLAND.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Alexander Leacraft was standing at a window
-in the upper story of the Caledonia Railroad station
-in Edinburgh, November 28th, 1909, and was
-gazing with fixed and tormented eyes upon an unusual
-scene. The sky beyond Carlton Hill was
-leaden grey with the blear dullness of a snow-laden
-atmosphere, and a singular and menacing
-bar of half-eclipsed red light, like a cooling bar of
-incandescent iron, shone with irregular palpitations
-through the descending sheets of snow. It
-was a strange and appalling picture. Already a
-week’s precipitation had filled up the deep moat of
-the Princes’ street gardens, choked up the tracks
-of the North British Railroad, mounded the ragged
-edges and wandering parapets of the Citadel, until
-its outlines were effaced in a colossal accumulation,
-like a titanic snowball, and a long incline of spotless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
-snow sloped to St. Cuthbert’s Church, itself half
-buried in the powdery blanket. The blurred lineaments
-of Calton Hill, so familiar and so beloved
-by Scotchmen, were uncertainly descried, the Nelson
-monument, the unfinished peristyle, the mediaeval
-ranges of the penitentiary, the cheese box summit
-of the observatory (already the large group of
-buildings on the Pentland Hills had disappeared
-from sight), and the classic sombreness of the college
-fascade. Had Leacraft been near at hand, he
-would have seen that the monument to Scott—the
-tribute to one fame by the aspiring genius of another,
-dead before fame had quite enrolled him in
-her categories—was deeply buried, and that the inclined
-head of the Wizard was quickly vanishing
-under the piled up pillows of billowy snow.</p>
-
-<p>Alexander held a field-glass in his hand; the
-window at which he stood was open, and the snow
-blowing in upon it had raised a mound about his
-feet. The observer was, however, oblivious to this
-invasion; he leaned far out, and turned his inspection
-from point to point with rapid movements and
-obvious anxiety. A curious thing was happening
-immediately below him, and astonished him. In the
-leafless branches of the churchyard trees had gathered
-a vast concourse of crows, and the black-feathered
-congress was being momentarily augmented
-by new arrivals streaming in from all quarters,
-too evidently dislodged from more natural and habitual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
-resorts. Their discordant cries seemed a
-melancholy symbol of doom. An awful silence
-otherwise possessed the Athens of the North. It
-was practically a deserted city, and its desertion
-was only part of a widespread calamity which now
-had begun the shocking chapter of national eviction.</p>
-
-<p>The usual hum and bustle of the streets had gone;
-the tramcars no longer trundled through its streets,
-and a half-hearted effort to make a path along the
-centre of Princes street accommodated a few distracted
-pedestrians and official retainers, yet unwilling
-to join the army of migration which had
-slowly moved away from a city, that the pitiless
-rigor of a new dispensation in climate had doomed
-to a wintry burial.</p>
-
-<p>Alexander Leacraft himself awaited reluctantly
-the departure of a train of emergency which was expected
-to carry away the last remnants of Edinburgh’s
-population. He had come to the unfortunate
-city freighted with misgivings, when the news
-reached London—itself experiencing peculiar vicissitudes—of
-the terrifying severity and earliness of
-the winter in Scotland. He recalled his forebodings,
-which the President’s speech had awakened, though
-the later reports of the complete reversal of the
-Gulf Stream into the Pacific, and the accomplished
-destruction of the Central American Neck of land
-had already stirred the scientific minds of England<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
-to the utterance of half-hearted warnings.</p>
-
-<p>The matter had now suddenly loomed up into
-a frightful reality, and the devastating storms
-sweeping out of the black heart of the north, had
-brought Scotland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland
-into a common fate of extinction. The sheltering
-power of the Gulf Stream was removed from Great
-Britain, and the frost of the Arctic world, so long
-repulsed, but now no longer compressed within the
-Arctic circle, expanded with instantaneous certainty,
-spreading the shroud of its killing cold over the
-same latitudes in Europe that for ages had slept
-beneath its spell in America.</p>
-
-<p>The population in part of the north of Scotland
-had escaped by means of ships to other countries or
-to southern England. Many villages, isolated
-houses, and remote districts had suffered cruel
-hardships, and the entombed bodies of thousands of
-families waited for a recovery which perhaps only
-in ages “yet unborn” could come to them. The
-white burden of snow mantled the valleys and hillsides
-of Scotland, the higher hills of the Trossachs,
-and the Grampians, the defiant crest of Goat Fells
-in Arran, and the twin peaks of the Island of the
-Holy Mount. Enormous drifts had risen in white
-waves almost to the summit of Bruce’s monument
-at Sterling, and the old Abbey of Cambuskenneth
-had disappeared. Ice of great thickness prevailed
-in the Clyde, and the movement of the tides had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
-forced it up in threatening hummocks upon the
-drab stone cottages and villas of Greenock and
-Gourock. From Aberdeen to Leith the cities had
-been slowly deserted, after desperate efforts to free
-them from their entombment. The trains going
-south to England were loaded with the rich contents
-of mansions and summer castles; agonizing
-scenes had been witnessed at a thousand points
-where the heart-broken people sadly turned their
-backs upon all they had, and all they loved and
-knew. Heroic rescues were as numerous as the
-occasions demanding courage and inflexible daring
-had been frequent. Throughout Great Britain the
-trembling soul of the nation shrunk upon itself
-with a nameless dread, as it suddenly found its existence
-confronted with the inexorable processes
-of nature, when the appalling and relentless squadrons
-of the Ice King, with vengeful speed, issued
-in all the fierce panoply of wind and hideous life-killing
-cold, from the last tenements of their abode,
-to slay a prosperous and proud people.</p>
-
-<p>Europe felt a sickening doubt as to the permanence
-of its life and works, and the autumn brought
-the shrewd and eager fingers of the cold into the
-streets and houses of Hamburg, Berlin, Cologne,
-Antwerp, Amsterdam, Ostend, Havre and even
-Paris. Attention to the vaticinations of science
-was mingled with the prophetic denunciations of
-religious frenzy. Pallor marked the features of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
-the rulers of the people, and speechless stupor had
-seized the common people, who looked to the skies
-in pitiful confidence that their misery and desolation
-would touch the heart of that inscrutable Providence,
-who, reigning beyond the stars, held the
-reins of the winds and the bit of the frost in his
-multitudinous omniscience.</p>
-
-<p>But in England, and especially in Scotland, at
-the opening of the dreadful winter, the precipitation
-of snow had attained monstrous proportions.
-For four weeks the vault of the skies had been thick
-with falling clouds of snow.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft left the window and descended the solitary
-halls, no longer swept by groups of tourists,
-to the street. A broken crease in the snow banks
-offered him a precarious access to Princes’ street.
-It appeared almost obliterated in places, at others
-it seemed a narrow slit between threatening walls
-of snow, that almost toppled over it, while blinding
-storms of fine particles, hissing over the undulous
-surface above, at times poured into the compressed
-chasm, filling it up many feet in a second of time.
-Abandoned cars, stalled one behind each other, for
-a block, both on Princes’ street and under the Castle,
-in the Lothian road, had become the refuge
-of the workers, and some were made into improvised
-hospitals and camps. A few relics, half-starved,
-and fainting with fatigue and exposure,
-were being treated with rough consideration in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
-these accidental retreats, which, buried under snow,
-resembled caves, the feeble light of oil lamps and
-candles yielding a flickering illumination through
-the dull chill gloom within them.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft made his way with difficulty to Princes’
-street, and groped along the aisle that cut the
-street in two. Here he discovered a phalanx of
-men with sledges and mallets, who, by dint of passing
-to and fro, without clearing away the snow,
-were compressing it into a sort of solidity that
-gave a firm footing. With the continuous fall of
-snow, and the abrupt windfalls of snow drifting
-into the cut this path was rapidly rising, and was
-also most irregular in its outlines. At some points
-it rose high enough to permit anyone walking on it
-to see above the adjoining banks of snow. One of
-these elevations was directly opposite Hanover
-street, along which formerly ran the cars to the
-Botanic gardens. Leacraft had reached this spot
-and stood an instant upon the commanding back of
-pounded snow, looking with amazement upon the
-silent waste around him, the sunken gardens to the
-south marked by a wide superficial depression, with
-their terraces on either side outlined in shoulders of
-white. To the north, up the low hill that culminated
-in George street, he saw the houses on either
-side buried as high as their second stories in the
-snow, from which their attic stories emerged like
-titanic gravestones. The statue of George IV. had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
-become the centre of a rotating whirl of snow that
-kept the nether limbs of that potentate from the
-encroaching crystals, but had carved out an inverted
-cone in the packs around him, whose curling
-edges hung over like cornices about the strangely
-excavated bowl. It was at this point that Leacraft’s
-ears caught a distant sound of mingled cries—a
-piteous union of a woman’s voice, quickly succeeded
-by the more robust shout of a man. The sounds
-seemed to rise and fall. They were at times almost
-lost in the rising roar of the wind, or reduced to
-ghost-like semblances of sound, and again they
-came with the clearest impact on his ears, the shrill
-scream, the longer resonant “Hallo,” or “Help.”
-It was impossible for him to determine whether the
-cries were answering each other, or whether they
-indicated a mutual and consentaneous peril.</p>
-
-<p>He was not alone in their detection. A number
-of figures—those of the men engaged in keeping
-the paths open—all sheeted like ghosts with a pellicle
-of icy snow, had slowly gathered about him,
-drawn together by this weird summons. A distinct
-horror possessed them. There was somewhere
-in the immobile and voiceless streets before
-them at least two perishing lives. Could they be
-found? Could they be extricated from their rising
-tomb of snow? At times the voices grew fainter,
-as if their subjects were surrendering their
-vitality to cold and exhaustion, and then again they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
-sounded in the approaching darkness—there were
-now no lights at night in the doomed city—more
-appealingly clear as if by a despairing struggle of
-strength they hoped to prolong their fruitless invocation.
-No one spoke. Leacraft broke the silence.</p>
-
-<p>“We must save them,” he said.</p>
-
-<p>“It’s nae canny wark to do,” muttered one of the
-shapes nearest to him.</p>
-
-<p>“But it’s a grewsome matter to let them dee that
-wa,” urged a second.</p>
-
-<p>“Weel, weel, they’re nae the farst. The country
-side is as fu’ o corpses as a crow’s gizzard o’
-oats,” admonished a third.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft had been listening. He felt sure that
-the sounds proceeded from somewhere on George
-street, a little to the eastward of its intersection
-with Hanover. He suspected that the fugitives had
-taken refuge in St. Andrew’s Church. He turned
-to look at the muffled forms about him. “If two
-of you will help me, with snow-shoes we can reach
-them.”</p>
-
-<p>There was at first no response, only a protesting
-shrug, and a disposition to avoid any direct refusal
-by moving away. Leacraft spoke again.
-“The snow packs easily; we can get there on
-snow-shoes in a short time. There can be no danger.
-These unfortunate people are imprisoned in
-the church, I think; there’s a woman there; the
-man needs help to get her out; he probably could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
-break his way over here, but he can’t drag her with
-him, and he won’t leave her. It’s murder to turn
-our backs on them.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft was alone, save for the presence of the
-second speaker. The rest had disappeared, and
-the thud of their mallets and the rattle of the
-sledges acquainted him with their distant operations.</p>
-
-<p>“Meester, I’ll gie ye a haud. There’s snaw-shoes
-down the track in a tram; I’ll hae them here
-in a jiffy.” He vanished down the long cut.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft called after him: “Bring two bottles
-of whiskey. You can use my name for them at the
-hotel.”</p>
-
-<p>While he waited for the man’s return, Leacraft
-outlined a possible avenue of approach to the imprisoned
-couple, if couple it was. He could indistinctly
-see—the day was waning—that on the west
-side of Hanover street, by reason of the north-westerly
-direction of the storm, the housetops had
-formed a partial protection to the street below, and
-that the heavy ridged hill of snow occupied the centre
-of the street, lurching over against the west.
-Up the short slope this partial shelter continued,
-but in George street, beyond, the storm drove scurrying
-blasts of wind that whirled the snow upward
-in fantastic pirouetting volleys, and, doubtless,
-with wicked intent, had piled the drifts up in insurmountable
-entrenchments against the doors of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
-buildings on that street. The prospect of progress
-there was discouraging. Still there would be
-ways; the renewed calls nerved him to desperation.</p>
-
-<p>The volunteer returned with the snow-shoes, a
-pair for both of them, and an extra pair for the
-imprisoned man, and the bulging bulk of three bottles
-of whiskey. He explained the latter excess:
-“They gied me the thraw, and I had no heart to
-haud the ither back. Let well eneugh alone, I
-say.”</p>
-
-<p>“Now, my brave friend, we must know each
-other’s name, though we shall not be separated, as
-we must be tied together. But men working in
-peril become close companions,” said Leacraft to
-the man.</p>
-
-<p>“Weel, sir, it mak’s sma’ difference what name
-we go by, but, an’ you like it, just ca’ me Jim.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft opened one of the bottles of whiskey,
-and handed it to his companion, who eagerly accepted
-the invitation, and took so hearty a draught
-that Leacraft felt some misgivings over his usefulness.
-The man explained: “Ut’s no dram habit
-I have, sir, but the cauld ha’ gone to mee bains,
-an’ the wee drap pits fire in my sperit. It’s bonny
-stuff. It’s nae mickle harm to keep the fires burning
-in a blast like this. Tak’ my advice and do the
-same yoursel’, sir.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft was indeed not unwilling to follow this
-example, and thus reinforced, the two men plunged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
-into the snow banks that with irregular surfaces of
-hills and valleys spread before them. They floundered
-desperately forward, finding that the snow-shoes
-were indispensable, and the precaution of being
-tied together most helpful. The calling voices,
-with intermittent pauses, were still heard, and
-both Leacraft and his companion exerted themselves
-to return the calls with reassurance. It was
-evident that they had, at least at times, been heard,
-for the distant shouts became timed to their own,
-and this indication of recognition served to
-strengthen and increase their efforts. The work
-was difficult, and with recurrent accesses of the
-storm’s fury, the snowy wreaths, detached from
-the cornices of the houses, or whirled from off the
-edges of the tumultuous drifts, blinded and overwhelmed
-them. Fortunately, the wind came in
-gusts, and it was this circumstance that permitted
-Leacraft first to hear the voices. Between the wintry
-assaults of the wind, in the pauses of its fury,
-they stumbled on, forcing their way under the
-shelter of the western houses, and, at the corner of
-George street, struck boldly out towards the monument,
-where Leacraft had discerned the inverted
-cone of snow. The cause of this formation was
-now apparent, and rendered their further progress
-more precarious. The wind surged down George
-street, and by a slight deflection in its course from
-the axis of the street itself, was thrown into a vertical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
-motion at the corners of Hanover street, and
-became a cyclone, whose towering and fiercely
-moving walls were materialized to the eye in the
-successive shells of snow raised in oscillating spires
-above the tops of the houses, where it again was
-seized by the direct wind and sent in dusky masses
-skywards. The picture of George street at this
-point was appalling enough. The snow lay deeply
-piled in the street, forming a high central ridge,
-and crossing this obliquely were traverse drifts
-which had a slow motion down the street towards
-the Melvill memorial; these even at times coalesced,
-assuming the aspect of a big comber at sea,
-and advancing with similar menace. When these
-snow billows flowed into the depression about the
-statue, they filled it, and then the revolving winds,
-like a gigantic and invisible augur, excavated it
-again, tossing the snow out in spurts resembling
-the geyser-like bursts in front of a snow-plough.
-At such moments it would have been almost impossible
-to have crossed the spot, with the buffeting
-wind shaking with flagitious fury the folds of snow
-about the traveller and entombing him also in their
-rising sheets.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft and Jim had just reached the eastern
-edge of the hollow described above, when one of
-the travelling billows of snow poured into the pit
-on its western margin, and the impetuous blasts began
-to dislodge the inrushing tide with incredible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
-velocity. The shocks of snow overwhelmed the rescuers,
-and for a moment it seemed as if the contest
-between them and the fury of nature was too unequal
-a struggle. The support of the snow-shoes
-held them fairly well above the snow, but this onslaught
-knocked them down, and once down, the industrious
-drifts hastily began their entombment.
-To speak was impossible, and all Leacraft could do
-was to jerk the rope which connected them, as a
-summons for Jim to reach him. His purpose was
-obvious. Together, one or the other might make
-such a purchase of his companion as to extricate
-himself, and then assist his friend to rise. Jim
-understood the suggestion of the pull, and groped
-his way forward, and touched Leacraft, whom he
-found prostrate. His body offered a flooring for
-him to rise upon, and in this way he regained the
-surface, his head emerging into the blustering air.
-He quickly established himself and hauled Leacraft
-upward, who expected the movement, and had
-drawn his knees upward to help him regain his
-feet. The two men were now again upright and in
-action, but terribly exhausted and half immersed
-in the snow. The wave had passed and reformed
-partially after its disruption, while its north and
-south wings, which had escaped the passage of the
-pit, like white breakers, moved on before it.</p>
-
-<p>A simultaneous motion with both, which had
-something almost comic in it, and would not have,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
-under different circumstances, escaped receiving
-its tribute of merriment, brought from the pockets
-of each the whisky bottles, that quickly contributed
-some of their contents to the renewal of their ebbing
-strength. As they carefully replaced the helpful
-vials, they heard again, but now more clearly,
-the renewed shouts of the imprisoned captives, and
-Jim, putting his hands to his mouth, screamed with
-all the force he could put into the effort,
-“Coming.” It carried, and something articulate
-returned, which to Leacraft sounded like “Come
-quick!”</p>
-
-<p>Their strength renewed, the two men began
-again their brave combat with the elements, and
-forced their way across the snow fields towards the
-houses on the north side of George street, which
-furnished a slight shield against the ferocity of the
-storm. A helpful lull in the blast enabled them to
-make their way more quickly. The walls of St. Andrew’s
-Church were near at hand, and all doubts
-as to the position of the voices were removed. The
-calls came very clearly to their ears. Creeping
-along the edges of the houses, they succeeded in
-reaching the church, and found that, on the back
-of the drifts, they were then at the level of its upper
-windows. The men peered into the darkness beyond
-the panes of glass and knocked vociferously.
-Voices and steps answered them. The next moment
-a man’s figure could be discerned advancing,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
-and then the window opened. Leacraft entered
-first, followed by Jim, and both turned to the yet
-silent figure beside them. His silence lasted scarcely
-an instant. “God!” he exclaimed. “You have
-come none too soon! We should have died here!
-There is a young girl downstairs, a friend of mine.
-We started for the train, and just in front of the
-church she fainted. I drew her in here, as the
-door was open. A chill followed; I could not carry
-her away in this storm, and we were caught. It
-was our last chance. I can’t explain now the reason
-for our remaining so long behind the rest of
-the people who have left Edinburgh. We are here.
-Can you get us out? I can shift for myself, but
-Ethel—you see it is impossible. <span class="locked">What—what—”</span></p>
-
-<p>Leacraft interrupted. “Explanations are not
-needed. We must all get out of this at once. We
-must take her between us, and fight our way back.”</p>
-
-<p>Already he had begun to move towards the flight
-of stairs near to them, to descend to the man’s companion,
-when the man seized him by the arm,
-passed him, calling to them to follow. They descended
-rapidly, and saw on the ground floor of the
-church, lying in a pew, with a flickering gas jet
-burning feebly above it, the figure of the woman the
-man had mentioned. She had propped herself on
-her hand and elbow, and gazed at the three faces
-looking down on her, with a frightened, still expression,
-in which relief and confidence, however,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
-were not altogether absent. Jim had already
-brought out the whisky bottle, and, with unpractised
-directness, offered it to the girl. “Here, my
-leddy; tak’ a sip of this, and let it be a good one.
-An’, gentlemen,” turning to Leacraft and the
-stranger, “it’s awa’ with a’ o’ us, or the deil will
-mak’ our shrouds.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft turned to the man. “Have you snow-shoes?”
-he asked. “Yes,” answered the stranger.
-“Then,” continued Leacraft, “we will start. Out
-of the window upstairs. Jim, you go ahead, and
-I and the gentleman will carry the lady. Madame,”
-to the lady, “this is a forlorn trip, but it will soon
-be over, and I feel we can trust you to help us.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, yes,” came the rapid reply. The girl started
-to rise, and her companion helped her quickly
-to her feet. The party was ready, and without
-further words the four ascended the steps, made
-their way to the window, and after one glance
-at the raging weather outside, another reassurance
-for all from the indispensable bottles, the plunge
-was made.</p>
-
-<p>The two fugitives, if such was a proper designation
-for them, were well clothed, and the risk of exposure
-was avoided. It now was a question of
-physical endurance only, and partly, too, of some
-possible leniency in the weather. Already their
-previous steps were thickly buried in the flowing
-tides of snow, and Leacraft and Jim noted with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
-apprehension that the wind seemed fiercer, and the
-way back towards Hanover street blacker and more
-obscure, with volleys of snow dust thrown upward
-in increasing clouds. For a moment the party
-hesitated, and Leacraft and Jim both seemed
-over-awed and perplexed. Almost at the same moment
-they cast their eyes towards the corner of
-George and St. David streets, and saw to their wonder
-and delight that the front of the Commercial
-Bank building was relatively clear of snow, and
-the intimation furnished by its appearance was that
-the way was more open on St. David street and that
-in that direction egress and safety lay.</p>
-
-<p>“This way,” was the laconic order from Leacraft,
-and they turned eastward. Leacraft and
-the stranger, who had given his name as Thomsen,
-supported the woman between them, and she was
-directed to throw her arms around their necks, and
-the sense of support to this frail girl, whose face,
-terrified and pale from weakness, yet had revealed
-to Leacraft a winning prettiness, made both men
-alert and strenuous. An obstacle of some seriousness
-stood before them; two heaped up mounds
-occupied the centre of the street. It was between
-these mimic hills that they made the fortunate discovery
-of the comparative freedom of the opposite
-corner, as it was in a measure the interposition of
-these very barriers that kept it so. But the passage—the
-cleft—between these mounds, that somehow<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
-seemed rigid points, underwent startling alterations.
-It was filled up with avalanches of snow,
-which at almost regular intervals were driven out
-by the massive wind pressure, and the dislodged
-bodies of snow were seen to spread out toward the
-south on the opposite side of the mounds from the
-observers’ position, in geyser-like spouts. It was
-necessary to thread this pass, but it would be inevitable
-danger if they were caught in one of the
-recurrent avalanches. Sinister as the chance
-seemed, it must be taken. And towards this triangular
-cut they slowly moved. Jim was in front
-of the little group, which, sheeted with snow, with
-bent heads and in silence, resembled Arctic explorers,
-as they are pictured bringing in some
-dying or exhausted companion.</p>
-
-<p>The wind was somewhat behind them, though in
-the collision of the reflected waves from the houses
-on the south side, the vexed air shot about them in
-a hundred contradictory directions, and held them
-in a tempest of draughts. And now they were at
-the northern slope of the mounds; the cut was open;
-it had been cleared a minute before. Through it
-they saw more plainly that the bank steps and the
-corner of St. David street presented more favorable
-conditions; a dash and they would effect their escape.
-Leacraft had not failed to notice that the
-intervals between the inexplicable down-rushes of
-snow into the gap, were about three minutes, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
-that something more than that time elapsed before
-their expulsion. He whispered to Thomsen, whose
-fatigue was becoming too evident, “Keep up, sir.
-Once through this hole, and we are safe.”</p>
-
-<p>During all this time since their entrance through
-the window of the church, Leacraft and Jim had
-remained tied together, and the strong, steady haul
-of the workman upon the rope now greatly assisted
-Leacraft, who was quite sensible that he must
-largely depend on his strength at this critical moment
-for their preservation. It was certainly no
-exaggeration to say that as they entered that rather
-inconspicuous gateway, between two snow drifts
-in George street, Edinburgh, in November 1909,
-they stood on that metropolitan thoroughfare, in
-the Jaws of Death. The simile may sound and look
-shockingly untrue. It is the exact truth. The
-white inclines rose on each side of them, and the
-width of the wintry embrasure was about twenty
-feet; in less than a minute even with their lagging
-steps they would have crossed it. Suddenly Leacraft
-felt himself pulled sideways; only the rope stretched
-tightly between himself and Jim saved him from
-falling, if falling it could be called, where they were
-so immersed in snow. Thomsen had dropped in his
-tracks and with a low cry of fear the woman’s arm
-slipped from his neck and she clung convulsively to
-Leacraft. It was critical. In a little more than two
-minutes they would probably be buried—which at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
-this stage of exhaustion meant death. Leacraft
-tugged savagely at the rope, and the surprised Jim,
-almost thrown on his back, returned. A glance told
-him everything. Leacraft, without speaking, nodded
-to the motionless figure, beginning by reason of
-the icy chill smiting his face from the snow, to stir,
-and seizing the girl, passed on. Jim managed to
-jerk Thomsen to his feet, and half holding, half
-pushing him, hastened, lest Leacraft should feel his
-weight on the rope, and be hampered in his own
-struggles. It was slow work, the snow-shoes, so
-essential for their safety, could only be painfully
-shoved forwards beneath the snow. It was like
-wading in deep water but it was a likeness enormously
-enlarged in difficulty and strain.</p>
-
-<p>They had not pushed through the miniature defile
-when symptomatic showers of snow drifted in upon
-them in blinding columns. The avalanche was coming.
-The terror stricken Alpine climber, who, behind
-some serac on the lofty glacier, has his ears
-assaulted with the roar of the descending avalanche,
-in no literal sense has greater reason for
-fear than did those men in the streets of Edinburgh
-at that moment.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft shouted, “On! On! On! One second and
-we are lost!” This despairing cry was not ill calculated
-to spur their efforts. The very agony of fright
-it summoned in the two men behind him gave them
-the strength of desperation. For one instant the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
-spent muscles became steel. They floundered forward,
-and fell together almost in one heap beyond
-the portal of the two mounds as the swirling snow
-in torrents obliterated their outlines in new envelopes.
-Their fall toppled Leacraft over on his side.
-The confused objects, looking like some assortment
-of discarded bundles lay quiet, the darting cold had
-brought with it the treacherous drowsiness into
-their eyes, and had already begun to lock the keyholes
-of their senses. It was Jim who had roused
-himself to action. He struck Leacraft across the
-face with his gloved hand, and did the same to
-Thomsen, whom he again lifted to his feet. The
-smart of the stinging blow startled Leacraft on his
-legs; his nose bled, and he could feel the woman
-still stiffly clinging to him. It was Jim who now
-uttered the warning, “Get out o’ this. I hae the
-lugger all right. Get down to the bank.” Leacraft
-looked quickly. The bank steps were beneath
-them, and the vagaries of the storm alternately
-covered and cleared them of snow. Half
-rolling, he pitched down the slope, following Jim,
-who had his arm around Thomsen’s waist, and
-who, supporting himself on Jim’s shoulder, was
-manfully helping his rescuer.</p>
-
-<p>In a few minutes, with staggering steps and frequent
-falls, the four gained the protection of the
-bank. This refuge acted favorably. Their spirits
-revived, and the whisky flasks assisted. Their attitude<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
-toward the storm became a little defiant.
-“We can do it now. It’s only a step around to
-Princes street. Ethel, how do you feel?” It was
-the young Scotchman who spoke, and the young
-woman even smiled as she answered “O! Ned, we
-shall be saved! How can we thank this gentleman?”
-“Excuse me” blurted out Leacraft, “we
-won’t waste time just now in an exchange of civilities.
-The opportunity for that formality will come
-when we are all out of this.”</p>
-
-<p>He stepped almost impatiently to the edge of the
-building and found that a narrow crevice intervened
-between the drifts and the walls of the
-houses, and a further inspection revealed the utterly
-unexpected good luck, that this peculiar chimney
-way extended along the west side of St. David
-street to Princes street. Their safety seemed secured.
-In a few minutes after this welcome discovery,
-with careful steps, Leacraft insisting upon
-the Scotchman and himself lifting the young woman
-together, with Jim leading, the party slowly
-crept out and along the buildings on St. David
-street, and in a short time had reached Princes
-street, where more arms, vigorous legs, and robust
-bodies helped them through the shooting drifts into
-the open rift, that the men and sledges were still
-precariously maintaining.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft hurried Thomsen and his charge to the
-hotel; he turned to Jim, and grasped his hand fervently,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
-“You’ve been a true man, Jim. I shan’t
-forget this. Every one leaves Edinburgh to-night
-by the train. I want you in my compartment.
-This young woman and her friends will be with
-me. I’ll find you at the hotel before the train
-leaves. Watch for me.” As he spoke, and before
-the expostulation on Jim’s lips was uttered, a long
-hoarse whistle like a wail came to their ears. It
-was the warning of the trainmen fearful to delay
-longer their departure from the doomed city—and
-with it, hurrying steps, shouts and injunctions
-along the cut, indicated its recognition.</p>
-
-<p>“Come with me,” cried Leacraft, and together
-the men ran forwards, towards the Lothian road,
-finding themselves as they advanced in a jostling
-crowd, animated by but one hope, escape from the
-buried capital.</p>
-
-<p>The condition indicated in the foregoing narrative,
-may now be more explicitly reviewed. The
-dislocations and subsidences in the Caribbean and
-Central American areas had developed along constructional
-lines, and had swept away the lesser
-Antilles and the Isthmus.</p>
-
-<p>These formerly elevated points were simply projections
-upon two orogenic blocks of the earth’s
-crust, one extending from South America to Porto
-Rico, the other the narrower coastal shelf forming
-the isthmus. More plainly, these remarkable
-strips, curved in outline, and with a varying length<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
-of four hundred to five hundred miles, maintained
-a precarious stability with references to the adjoining
-edges against which they abutted, and when
-a shock, violent enough to rupture or release those
-edges, supervened they fell <em>out</em> and <em>down</em> like a
-brick or stone from an arch. When the more eastern
-of these blocks, that on which the lesser Antilles
-stood, dropped, the oceanic heated currents of
-the equatorial belt of the Atlantic rushed into the
-Caribbean basin as usual, but with a perceptible acceleration.
-The currents did not meet the frictional
-resistance of an archipelago of small islands. Their
-progress westward continued, through the almost
-simultaneously created outlet into the Pacific, by
-the submergence of the isthmus. Upon the first
-report of President Roosevelt’s apprehensions that
-this catastrophe would involve a disastrous diversion
-of the Gulf Stream, European geographers
-had contemptuously treated it as impossible, and
-stigmatized it as “an amusing futility of envy.”
-They dwelt upon this fact, that the Gulf Stream
-did not invade the bent arm of water forming the
-eastern water boundary of the Isthmus of Panama,
-but shot across this somewhat withdrawn angle,
-passing with undiminished volume in a straight
-path beyond Honduras, into the capacious pocket of
-the Gulf of Mexico. “Let it be conceded,” began
-an authoritative refutation in the <i>London Times</i>,
-“that the structural impediment to the mixture of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
-the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific existing in
-the Isthmus of Panama is removed. Does mixture
-follow? By no means, that is in no way subversive
-of present hydrographic conditions. There
-will be a marginal intermixture, of course, where
-there is actual contact, but it is presumptuous and
-opposed to experience to say that two enormous
-bodies of water will promiscuously exchange their
-contents through an opening, relatively to their volume
-and extent, what a pinhole would be to the
-juxtaposed masses of two great reservoirs. Further,
-this <em>disinclination</em>, as a physical impossibility,
-of the waters of the two contiguous bodies of practically
-equal density to diffuse into each other, is
-increased by the strength and velocity of the Gulf
-Stream itself, which rushes past the isthmus deflection,
-and instead of being turned aside into that
-narrow aperture, would exert a suctorial influence
-upon the tides of the Pacific, actually (though this
-is in no way insisted upon) reinforcing its own volume
-and momentum by their contributions.</p>
-
-<p>“There can be no valid reasons for anxiety in
-regard to the future of the kingdom so far—and
-that is very far indeed—as its prosperity and happiness
-depend upon a continuance of the supply
-of warm waters from the west.”</p>
-
-<p>The writer of this article in the <i>London Times</i>
-had not realized, or had not heard of, the elevation
-of Cuba and the emergence of the broken range<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
-of keys between Cape Gracias de Dios and Jamaica,
-nor had he considered the “suctorial influence” of
-the Mexican current in the Pacific, southward on
-the west coast of Mexico and Central America upon
-the Atlantic areas, nor had he suspected the quantitative
-effect of a higher barometric pressure in the
-Atlantic over the pressure resident above the surface
-of the Pacific, a difference practically amounting
-to a push upon the surface distensions of the
-Atlantic in the direction of the Pacific, the very
-moment a <em>sensible</em> union between them took place.
-And it was a <em>sensible</em> union. His comparison of
-it to a pinhole was utterly misleading. Above a certain
-minimum, no matter what the size of the major
-bodies of water were, relatively, connection between
-them meant, under the circumstances, mixture, and
-a hole four hundred miles wide was much above
-that minimum. At the very moment when he
-penned this astute demonstration, the Gulf Stream
-had begun to throw its seething waters across the
-sunken isthmus. And the effects followed with
-startling rapidity. The author of the consoling reflections
-quoted, perhaps had hardly had time to
-have forgotten the obsequious reception his words
-received, when his admiring listeners were brought
-face to face with the worst consequences he had considered
-absurdly impossible.</p>
-
-<p>The summer in Great Britain had been noticeably
-colder, and with the passage of the autumnal equinox,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
-the winds increased in strength, and brought
-with them a terrifying cold. All records were broken,
-and the sinking thermometers withdrawing
-their silver threads into the diminutive bulbs, became
-suddenly the chief subjects of conversation.
-The corridor of the Houses of Parliament, the
-state room of Windsor, the clubs of Pall Mall and
-the parlors of the West End, no less than the alcoves
-of London Bridge, the shops in White Friars,
-or the auction stalls of the Ghetto, buzzed with the
-endless comparison of observations made on these
-hitherto unnoticed instruments of precision, and
-their slightest variations took precedence in the
-daily prints, over the aphorisms of the prime minister
-or the nullities of the king. An enormously increased
-sale of thermometers accompanied the sinister
-records of the deepening cold; importations
-of them from the United States spread an unprecedented
-wonder throughout the world as to the meaning
-of this change in climate, and the range of temperature,
-as the season advanced, was as much an object
-of solicitude as the growing expenditures of
-London, and more talked about than the fancied
-rupture between Spain and France. Meteorological
-journals were besieged with subscribers; Abbe,
-Loomis, Ferrel were as much in demand at the book
-stores as Glaisher or Thomson; Flammarion was
-as popular as Tyndal, and the lectures delivered at
-the British Museum had such suffocating success<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
-that the Red Cross Societies of London conceived
-the idea of public instructions for a tuppenny, to
-replenish their forgotten treasuries. The pedestrian
-and the chance acquaintance of the tramway would
-interview each other on the prevalent topic of
-alarm, and quote Wells, and Boussingault, and
-Daniel, and Quetelet, Forbes, Helmersen, Kamtz
-and Kupffer with more unction and accuracy than
-he did the current prices of wool or barley.</p>
-
-<p>The fright began in the north, in Scotland. News
-first arrived from the Hebrides, of desolating cold
-and overwhelming snow storms; then the story
-was picked up by the Shetlands and Aberdeen, and
-then the really tragic fate of Iceland was recounted.
-The cable between Scotland and Iceland, completed
-in 1906, brought the tale. And a freezing
-tale it was. Iceland had become a snow heap; its
-interior valleys were filled up, from Heckla to
-Skaldbreid; from Skaldbreid to Esja one portentous
-blanket of snow had levelled all inequalities
-of the surface. The terror stricken inhabitants
-deserted their farms and fought their way to Reykjavik,
-leaving all they possessed of sheep, cattle
-and horses to be destroyed by the pitiless tooth of
-the Ice King. Reykjavik had been deserted; its
-people fleeing to ships and steamers as the remorseless
-winds piled up the white shrouds of its Arctic
-burial. The cable summoned assistance for those
-yet fighting for life on the water’s edge, where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
-the sea air helped them to maintain a margin of
-cleared ground. Over ten feet had accumulated,
-and ceaseless blizzards, unchecked, and even increasing
-in fury, with a tireless and killing cold,
-had renewed the ice age within that boreal republic.
-The panic spread. From confidence and scorn the
-people of Scotland and England and Ireland plunged
-into the clamor of despair and maniacal forebodings.
-Religious fraternities of “Frigidists” were
-organized, whose exegesis made the prophecy of the
-End of the World a menace of destruction by ice.
-Geikie’s <i>Ice Age</i>, and Croll’s <i>Climate and Time</i>
-were read by earl and bellboy, and in the midst of
-the general consternation, the publishers of these
-books, in cheap form, doubled their business capacity
-and their fortunes.</p>
-
-<p>Then came the sudden visitation of Edinburgh,
-with the scenes just recounted. The transference
-of these immense swarms of people, the evicted tenants
-of the north (poor creatures who had never
-owned the land they lived on except by the sufferance
-of some landlord duke or “gentleman,”)
-southward, was a task of difficulty. Sir John C—,
-was provost marshal of the city at the time (his
-father before him had held the same office), and
-had devised a scheme of goodly proportions and
-efficacy. He appointed wardens, who, with assistants
-selected by themselves, visited the families
-in the several bailiwicks in Edinburgh, and prepared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
-them for the departure, and who also apportioned
-to the different wards of the town the
-streaming populations from all the neighboring
-villages, towns and the country sides. The railroads
-were seized by the government, and systematic
-transportation, begun and carried on night and
-day. They were taken to the larger seaports of
-England, and of course to London. Already secret
-misgivings that chilled the marrow of their bones,
-and made the blood circling in their hearts freeze
-with horror, were entertained by public men, that
-perchance this was not all, nor indeed the worst.
-Was the power of the Kingdom of Great Britain to
-be made the jest of the snowflake and the ice-cicle?
-The thought made reason totter, but new gleams
-of anticipation seemed suddenly to place upon that
-very thought the consecration of joy. They should
-be driven from their hearthstone to bring the English
-culture in other English lands, and emancipated
-men—men of the new type, like H. G. Wells—said
-that that culture, torn from the swaddling
-bands of a conventional tradition, the silly materialism
-of forms and dresses, of titles and classes, of
-imperialistic gew-gaws, and the impediments of
-habit, would expand into a modern civilization,
-which, carrying forward all the strains of
-strength, and imaginative and ideal aims, it had
-before, might incorporate in them the new procreative
-life of a liberal social state. Well! there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
-was some consolation in that, but a consolation
-robbed of much positive consistency when all
-around them they saw the loss of trade, the paralysis
-of hope, the desertion of homes, and the rising
-threats of that inexorable and deaf deity—Nature.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft had watched and waited. Every new
-development, each changing report, the wearily
-studied logs of the ships and steamers, the daily
-averages of temperature and rainfall, the swelling
-disorder in the climate of the United States, and
-confirmed rumors of the hot current—which might
-be the Gulf Stream—pouring, pouring northward,
-and hugging the shores of California and Washington
-and Oregon, and even repelling the cold from
-Alaska, supplying a stove to its shores, which, it
-was promptly surmised, would make of it a northern
-paradise, all, in a cumulative way, pointed to
-one result—the evacuation of England. His speculative
-mind hurried on to the picturing of the changed
-aspects of the national life, and he felt that for
-once Science, embodied in the laws of Nature, was
-about to put to flight the mentality of men, and
-pour the vials of its confusion over the proud, the
-boasting defiance of their thin optimism. And yet—what
-might not Opportunity perform? Perhaps
-the old receptacles of civilization needed emptying;
-their garnered seeds to be more quickly cast upon
-the winds of chance to germinate and flower again
-in the waste places of the world. And Leacraft<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
-hurried to and fro—a small inherited competency
-had dissolved his business bonds—a lonely, sad
-man, excited by the thoughts of the world’s trembling
-position on a new threshold of events, and
-thus forgetting the gnawing pains of his own disappointment.</p>
-
-<p>During September he had been at the far north
-of Scotland, and retreated day by day with the
-invading cold, fleeing with its fleeing people, southward.
-On the memorable evening whose events
-have been rehearsed, he had found Edinburgh practically
-voided, and left to its entombment. The work
-of getting the people away, of convincing the incredulous,
-of providing for the needy, of deporting
-the treasures of this great depository, had been hastily
-and imperfectly done. In spite of Sir John
-C—’s useful plans, it could not be different. Disorder,
-recriminations, riot and clashes were inevitable
-at a moment of such sudden penetrating terror.
-Blocks after blocks of private homes remained
-with little or nothing of their rich contents removed.
-This condition was understood, and predatory
-bands of desperate men broke into them, encamped
-in them and defied expulsion. They
-laughed at warnings, and after filling their improvised
-camps with coal and stores, prepared with exultation
-to enjoy this novel debauch. Furniture
-and household effects had been dumped or deserted
-in the streets, and almost any extemporaneous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
-digging in the drifts would uncover books,
-clothing and utensils. A grotesque hogarthian aspect
-had been produced by the retreat of the cats
-to the houses, and their mingled swarms at windows
-and on sills, whither they were strangely followed
-by hordes of mice and rats, expelled from the
-country and filtering into the city in scampering
-lines before the weather had reached the height of
-its tempestuous inclemency.</p>
-
-<p>The documentary archives of the city had been
-locked up in great safes and left for more propitious
-days—in summer? This example had been
-imitated in thousands of the better class houses, as
-the professional, the <em>official</em> opinion, still hesitated
-to contemplate the monstrous alternative of a permanent
-sepulture of their beautiful home.</p>
-
-<p>One thing had been accomplished, and it was
-well done. The people, those who would leave, had
-been gotten away. When on the tenth of September
-the first storm of snow began, and the mercury
-sunk to a few degrees below zero Fah., the suffering
-became intense. Soon the railroads were blocked.
-Enlightened opinion had received its instructions.
-The return of Scotland to the bondage of snow
-and ice was published, and the publications carried
-conviction to a great many. The loss of the
-Gulf Stream was at length acknowledged. The
-impetus of the discovery made the worst prophecies
-credible. The intensity of this acquiescence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
-was astounding. It became a matter of faith that
-the population should vacate their own city, and
-they obeyed instructions unanimously with a touching
-self-surrender to fate. Great numbers left
-Leith by boats and steamers summoned from London.
-The railroads responded with promptitude,
-though, by reason of a sudden access of energy in
-the government, nothing less would have been tolerated,
-longer than was necessary to confiscate their
-property and franchises. The phenomenal desertion
-of the city by three hundred thousand souls
-seemed as fore-ordained, as obligatory in the regime
-of events, as the setting of the sun, or the return
-of the seasons.</p>
-
-<p>But no activity of all the available means of
-transportation would have sufficed to take a population
-of more than three hundred thousand men and
-women in less than two months away from the city,
-unless it had been supplemented by other means.
-And a strange and most effective movement accomplished
-completely what more recondite or
-artificial methods would have failed to secure. The
-“Frigidists,” the group of fanatical preachers and
-their followers, who found in the present calamity
-an opportunity for a religious propaganda, or,
-through the fermentation and clouded expectations
-of their own zeal, believed it to be the expression
-of a supernatural agency, had begun a street crusade
-(always in Edinburgh popular and familiar)<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
-to accomplish the removal of the people. These
-singular fanatics served a most benevolent end, and
-their strange hallucinations wisely aided the anxious
-efforts of the authorities. They arrayed themselves
-in white, and went bareheaded through the
-streets of the city, exhorting all who would listen to
-accept their interpretations of the approaching
-judgment. They wove their texts of prophecy with
-denunciations of sin, and with the crowding evidences
-of some astounding climatic change, repeated
-with accelerated eagerness in paper, pulpit
-and forum, they acquired a tyrannous control over
-the emotions of the populace.</p>
-
-<p>Then they quickly, and with excellent discernment,
-organized the people into small regiments,
-distributed to them white cockades and white rosettes
-and marched them out of the city, southward,
-over the frozen and snow-lined roads. This
-evacuation began scarcely soon enough for the
-best results. But it gave relief. These moving
-companies, accompanied with vans and horse carts,
-and vehicles of every description, gathering numbers
-along their way, grew in picturesque confusion,
-as flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were
-united to them, or the miners from the coal pits,
-and the artisans from the factories joined in the
-vast, singing army.</p>
-
-<p>Like the inexorable morality of the French mobs
-in the French Revolution, who scornfully resisted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
-the temptations of their own hunger in a fierce
-zeal to protect private property, so an overmastering
-enthusiasm permeated those rough Scottish
-nomads, and they marched through the country
-rigorously just and honest. There was suffering
-and death among them, and nothing could have been
-more sublimely pathetic than the improvised services
-of burial that were held from time to time
-along the roads they crossed. Those who heard its
-vibrant and powerful melody will remember the
-eclipsing magnificence of the hymn, sung to the air
-of <i>Adestes Fideles</i>, which began with the words:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Firm, faithful and tried,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">With endless glory crowned.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The success of these “Frigidists” was phenomenal,
-but it also clearly arose from the awful portents
-of change which made the stoutest men
-quail, and not inaptly tested the scepticism of the
-boldest scoffers. The revolution in Nature had
-not only affected Scotland; its dire effects were
-felt in the whole of the Scandinavian area, and the
-more southern parts of Europe, which had owed
-some measure of their favorable winters to the direct
-or intermediate influence of the Gulf Stream,
-were now made to feel their sudden penury in its
-removal.</p>
-
-<p>A frightful stagnation invaded the European
-markets; a panic of doubt spread confusion everywhere,
-and those who controlled the sources of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
-money, very soon checked its use in the avenues of
-trade, while of necessity speculation and the desire
-for speculation simultaneously vanished.</p>
-
-<p>It was the last train intending to leave Edinburgh
-that, on November 28th, waited for the Provost
-Marshal, and the little army of workers, and
-which Leacraft also expected to take. The tracks
-southward had been patrolled by trains of cars or
-locomotives for every five miles, and these had
-kept the way cleared, while they reinforced each
-other at critical junctures. When this last connection
-between the muffled city and the south should
-be broken, then practically Scotland returned, over
-the sweep of sixty thousand years, to a geological
-phase <em>resembling</em> that which Geikie, Scotland’s
-own great historian of nature, had described in
-these words: “All northern Europe and northern
-America disappeared beneath a thick crust of ice
-and snow, and the glaciers of such regions as Switzerland
-assumed gigantic proportions. This great
-sheet of land-ice levelled up the valleys of Britain,
-and stretched across our mountains and hills, down
-to the low latitudes of England, being only one connected
-or confluent series of mighty glaciers, the
-ice crept ever downwards, and onwards from the
-mountains, following the direction of the principal
-valleys, and pushing far out to sea, where it
-terminated at last in deep water, many miles away
-from what now forms the coast-line of our country.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
-This sea of ice was of such extent that the glaciers
-of Scandinavia coalesced with those of Scotland,
-upon what is now the floor of the shallow North
-Sea, while a mighty stream of ice flowing outwards
-from the western seaboard obliterated the Hebrides,
-and sent its icebergs adrift in the deep waters of
-the Atlantic.”</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_170" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE TERROR OF IT.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Leacraft and Jim reached the hotel at the Caledonian
-station, in a crowd of breathless men, all
-anxious to escape to more reassuring neighborhoods.
-Thomsen and the young lady so opportunely
-rescued had availed themselves of the restorative
-resources of the hotel, and had largely recovered
-from the exposure and scare of their experience.
-Leacraft met Sir John C— standing
-at the entrance of the hotel, his face clouded with
-grief and anxiety. Strained to the last limit of endurance
-by his unwearied exertion to secure the
-safety of the people, and almost prostrated by the
-desolating sorrow of deserting the great city, the
-distinguished publisher expressed in his looks his
-intense misery of mind. Leacraft expressed a few
-words of condolence, which were hardly noticed,
-and then hurried to the former writing room of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
-hotel, where he found a fire burning, and a hastily
-prepared luncheon, around which a dense crowd of
-men were collected, filling the room almost to suffocation,
-greedily devouring the welcome repast,
-and muttering doubts of their eventually escaping
-at all if they remained any longer.</p>
-
-<p>“Sir John hates to get away,” commented one.
-“He just can’t make up his mind to go. His heart
-is broke. But what’s the use? We can’t stay here
-and be buried alive. The trainmen say it’s a hard
-job now to get through, and all the way to Glenarken
-is full of big drifts. I say we must shake
-this, and it’s nobody’s right to run our heads into
-danger for the whim of a little love for the old
-town. Sure, we are all hard enough up, and it’s we
-that has not got a roof to our heads, nor a bite to
-our stomachs that has the worst to fear. It’s a
-cruel sufferin’ to think of it at all; but so it is,
-and it’s no use fashing.”</p>
-
-<p>“Weel, weel,” said another, “it’s an awfu’
-plight, and naebody can say what’s next. We
-maun better be dead than to pit our heads in a
-pother of snaw and wait for next simmer to melt
-us out.”</p>
-
-<p>“Simmer, man, is it!” exclaimed a rough cart-man
-with a huge ham sandwich in each hand, and
-his jaws working on the remnants of their predecessor.
-“Simmer! It’s all up with the simmers
-frae now to the end o’ the warld. It’s bonny Scotland<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
-good-bye, and mind you, man, you’ll never see
-gorze again on the Queen’s Drive, I’m thinking, and
-you’ll never tak’ your bonnet aff on Arthur’s seat,
-nor pluck the daisy on Holy Rood mead. You’ll
-never canter to the Pentlands, nor hear the sang
-of praise go up frae the Roslin chapel, and you’ll
-nae hear the bell toll frae Grey Friars kirk, nor
-mark time wi’ the Hielanders in St. Giles’, and
-you’ll never bide the chance when you can see
-old Hay’s shop in High street, nor watch the
-middlings stare their een out at John Knox’s
-hame. It’s ower by naw,” and the good fellow
-turned away in a choking effort to repress his own
-tears, and swallow the generous morsels he had
-bitten from his overloaded hands.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft pressed by these disturbed groups, and
-found, after he had inducted Jim to the hospitalities
-of the various tables, his own strength and
-composure deserting him. He sank into a chair
-and covered his face with his hands. It seemed as
-if he had lived through some dreadful nightmare,
-and the weird and sickening sense of yet more miseries,
-rising thick and fast, covering with gloom a
-nation’s happiness, stunned him.</p>
-
-<p>A soft voice awoke him. He looked up hastily
-and saw the lady whose arms, half an hour before,
-had clung unresistingly around his neck. She was
-unquestionably very pretty, and the returning
-flush upon her cheeks gave the alabaster clearness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
-of her brow a singular effrontery of beauty. Elsewhere,
-or under different circumstances, it would
-have produced in Leacraft a momentary suspicion
-of artifice. As it was, it held his attention long
-enough for him to notice that the hair covering her
-head luxuriantly was a raven black, and was gathered
-beneath the hood of a soft brown sealskin fur,
-which clothed her form, while two wonderful opal
-bracelets, relieved with ruby jewels, in alternating
-links, most incongruously graced her wrists, the
-gloves on her fingers were evidently distended by
-rings, and a superb necklace of diamonds and
-peridots encircled closely her neck, seen through
-the half-opened cape. Leacraft rose mechanically
-to his feet, still conscious of effort, and looked wonderingly
-at the young face, and at that of her companion,
-Mr. Thomsen, the Scotchman.</p>
-
-<p>“My cousin and I”—the voice was exquisitely
-gentle and expressive—“can never repay you. It
-is a slight thing to say to you how much we thank
-you, but it is not impossible that we can both yet
-show you our gratitude in some manner that will
-mean more than words, mean as much for you as
-your sacrifice meant for us. Is not that so, Ned?”</p>
-
-<p>She turned to Mr. Thomsen, who advanced and
-accosted Leacraft with courteous alacrity. “I am
-sure, sir, you appreciate our sense of devotion to
-yourself. You extricated my cousin and myself
-from a certain and dangerous imprisonment. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
-might have been something more dreadful. And
-perhaps,” with a reluctant gaze at the young woman,
-and a smile of understanding for Leacraft,
-“you may wish to understand better how the perilous
-predicament you found us in occurred. It
-was very simple. This lady, Miss Ethel Tobit,”
-Leacraft bowed, “was left with myself, her cousin,
-at the home of her father and mother, on Pitt
-street, to complete the packing of a quantity of valuables
-which were at the last moment to be placed
-in a safe and left there for recovery later; it does
-now seem as if that word was a poor mask for
-Never. We had brought food for the house, and
-felt no fears of escaping before the streets became
-impassable. Then this last storm broke, and this
-afternoon, late in the day, we started out—but we
-had waited too long. My cousin sank under the
-exertion; I was disabled by a fall, in which my
-side was seriously bruised. We took refuge in St.
-Andrew’s Church, whose doors stood providently
-unclosed, though to swing them out I had to dig
-with my hands a crevice for their movement, in the
-rising snow banks forcing them constantly back.
-Our vigil began. The city in all directions around
-us was deserted. We could hear the workers on
-Princes street occasionally, in the lulls of the hurricane,
-and the whistle from the station sent thrills
-of anguish through us, as we felt we should soon be
-alone in an empty city. It was as impossible for us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>
-in our crippled state to return to the house in Pitt
-street as to reach Princes street. We then began
-calling, and it was you, sir, who responded. I
-think hunger and thirst would have made it impossible,
-even in the day, for us to have left our
-retreat, and only <span class="locked">the—”</span></p>
-
-<p>“Don’t, Ned,” cried the quivering girl; “don’t
-don’t! It’s too awful to think of. We need all our
-best spirits as it is—but to think—Oh! it’s too horrible!”
-And she hid her face against her cousin’s
-breast, and broke into sobs. Leacraft felt the embarrassment,
-and was ill at ease, though somehow
-at that mournful moment the sight of a beautiful
-woman seemed a compensation, and in this case, as
-she lifted her tearful face to Leacraft, piteously
-struggling to smile, it awoke in him a kind of ardor
-to be always near her. He looked almost tenderly
-at her and said: “I think I have every reason
-to thank my good fortune and this remarkable
-weather for a very pleasant adventure. Well,
-No!” he continued, as he caught the reproachful
-and grieving glance of Miss Tobit, “that is too
-cynical. Heaven knows we are all broken-hearted
-enough to-night to relinquish any false gayety, or
-even the appearance of it, but certainly, Miss
-Tobit, I hope this chance acquaintance will establish
-a friendship between us. It will be the only
-compensation for this night of agony, and perhaps
-for all the other nights of agony that still await us.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
-You will not refuse it?”</p>
-
-<p>Miss Tobit turned instinctively to her friend, and
-Leacraft, betrayed into an earnestness perhaps
-somewhat out of place, had a fleeting glance of
-an evanescent smile, and then the words, even more
-sweetly spoken than at first, came to his ears:</p>
-
-<p>“It would be all your own fault if we fail to be
-friends. I am sure I can keep my side of the contract.”</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Thomsen watched this brief exchange of
-promises not altogether with approval, if the faintly
-forming frown on his face meant anything, and
-the evident inclination to take Miss Tobit away
-from Leacraft’s proximity. But he was entirely
-courteous, and with a half-whispered comment that,
-“It would not do now to tire their benefactor any
-more,” he moved off and drew the lady with him.
-And then the summons came from the other end
-of the room that all was in readiness, that Sir John
-was on the train, and that the attempt to reach the
-south was to be made. There was much confusion
-and some indecent precipitation to gain the door,
-and in the rush Leacraft lost sight of his newly
-made friends, but found, to his great satisfaction,
-Jim at his side, for Jim had turned out to be that
-sort of a fellow that meets predicaments with coolness,
-and quietly, without words, instills confidence.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft was a little nettled over his seriousness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
-with Miss Tobit, because it revealed again to himself
-that prosaic stiffness of language which he consciously
-recognized as having formed an element
-of failure with Miss Garrett, whose plastic wit
-found in it a source of amusement. He walked towards
-the door, wondering bitterly why women
-placed so much value on a turn of speech, or the
-accent of a compliment, when his musing discontent
-was interrupted by a hand laid on his arm. He
-turned around and saw a member of the Common
-Council of the city, associated with Sir John C—
-in the last days of the city’s government. The
-stranger accosted him. “Mr. Leacraft, the Provost
-Marshal wishes you to share his compartment. He
-has a great desire to speak with you on the affairs
-of the city, and the dreadful things which seem to
-be before us. This way, sir,” and he motioned to
-a large parlor coach in the centre of the train.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft retained him. Placing his hand on
-Jim’s shoulder, he said, “This man goes with me.”
-The councilman for a moment looked puzzled, but
-almost instantly rejoined, “Certainly, sir; your
-personal attendants are welcome.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft laughed and exclaimed, “No, sir, this
-is no personal attendant of mine. This is only a
-brave man, whom I am proud to call my friend,”
-and as he turned to Jim the latter gave him a glance
-of the sincerest gratitude and pride.</p>
-
-<p>The councilman waived the privilege of questions<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
-and nodding vigorously his assent, led Leacraft
-and Jim to the car of Sir John.</p>
-
-<p>It was a car of an American type, and comfortably
-provided with couches and seats, tables and
-easy chairs. A number of men were already in it,
-and some refreshments, with the circulation of bottles
-of Scotch whiskey, showed Leacraft the unappeasible
-claims of man’s appetite, even in the ruins
-of his own fortune.</p>
-
-<p>Sir John occupied a chair at a round table in a
-further corner of the compartment, and as Leacraft
-made his way towards him, the eyes of the
-city’s chief gazed at him in return with inexpressible
-weariness and sadness. Leacraft motioned Jim
-to a seat, and took the proffered hand of Sir John,
-who let his arm fall heavily on the table, and still
-kept his eyes fixed on Leacraft, motionless and silent.
-It was Leacraft who first spoke:</p>
-
-<p>“I think, Sir John, that it was a few years ago
-that I secured your intervention for a poor fellow
-who was condemned offhand, and you were willing
-to help me turn the law back in its course, that it
-might have an opportunity to find out what it was
-made for—murder or justice.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, I do recall it, and, Mr. Leacraft, do you
-know,” replied Sir John, “that that day seems unmercifully
-far away. It seems as if you and I lived
-then in another world, and as if we perhaps had
-died, and were living in quite a different one now,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
-and one very much worse, however bad the old one
-was. I am too dazed with all this. I feel as if I
-must wake up and find it all a horrible nightmare.
-But there can be no excuse for self-deception with
-me. I have studied this question. I am one of the
-most convinced that Scotland is doomed. Yes,”
-and the speaker straightened himself with a movement
-of exhaustion, “that England is doomed, too,
-that we are about to see primal conditions returning
-which are normal physiographic states, but
-which will destroy our civilization. Listen,” and
-as Leacraft sank into a chair near him, he leaned
-again upon the table and spoke with a sort of eager
-impatience at his own logic, as if he invited and expected
-and hoped for contradiction. “Listen. The
-isothermals as they existed before this calamity
-were a travesty on the map; they were an outrage
-upon meteorological symmetry. See here,” and
-Sir John drew out a portfolio which he opened on
-the table before him; he opened it and displayed a
-Mercator projection of the world.</p>
-
-<p>He was about to continue when a shout, which
-had mingled with it a throb of grief, like a loud
-wail, entered their ears—Leacraft noticed at the
-moment that the train was moving; it had been
-moving for some time. He looked out of the compartment
-window. “We are leaving Edinburgh,”
-his voice sank to a sympathetic whisper, as Sir
-C— suddenly turned to gaze, too, along with all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
-rest, upon the shrouded city.</p>
-
-<p>The snow was falling from a leaden sky, and the
-mantled city, with its higher buildings, here a
-spire, there a monument, like an irregular mound
-hiding a burial, was indistinctly, very partially,
-seen. The men and one woman—the Scotch girl
-saved that afternoon from the tomb of snow—were
-standing in the coaches, leaning out of the open
-windows, to fathom the dull, mottling obscurity
-of the air, to catch—to be forever remembered—some
-recognized feature of the great, beautiful
-habitation now left in the on-coming night time,
-to be buried in the whirling wreaths. Hidden between
-its hills, imperishable but unseen, and waiting
-for its resurrection again into the joy of life
-and usefulness—a dead city, save for those brigands
-who, like wolves or ghouls, dared death to
-fatten on abandoned riches, amid its solemn, terrifying
-loneliness! Strange vicissitude! and as Leacraft
-descried, in a blurred exaggeration of its natural
-size, the dome of St. George’s Church, opposite
-the Albert Memorial, a voice somewhere among
-the tearful and dumb gazers repeated this verse
-from Burns’ invocation to the honored and historic
-site:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">With awe-struck thought and pitying tears,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">I view that noble, stately dome</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Where Scotia’s kings of other years,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Fam’d heroes, had their royal home.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Alas! how changed the times to come!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Their royal name low in the dust!</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Their hapless race wild-wandering roam,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Tho’ rigid law cries out,’twas just!</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Though the train made a toilsome way and interrupted
-progress, with steam sweepers ahead of it,
-the city soon faded away. The eye could not long
-pierce that forest of descending veils of snow, the
-sepulchre would soon be accomplished, and the
-spectators shuddered at the thought of those voluntarily
-immured and hapless wretches, who had
-seized this chance for a few hours’ reckless pleasure,
-and then—their own death, murdered by each
-other’s hand in the furious combat for survival,
-or choked with the many fingers of the frost at
-their necks. And Leacraft remained at the window
-still looking, while Sir John patiently waited, staring
-at his map, or raising his eyes expectantly to
-Leacraft, to resume his attention.</p>
-
-<p>A bitter thought passed through Leacraft’s mind.
-Edinburgh had been faithless. Dressed in beauty,
-rich in reputation, nurtured in elegance and culture,
-she had been wickedly selfish. Her streets
-were filled with embruted men and women, with the
-vassals of drink and depravity; her picturesque
-quarters hid misery and vulgar need, unsanitary
-and simply mean corners of wretchedness, filled
-with creatures to whom life was an uneasy mixture
-of sleep and drunkenness. She had done nothing
-for these. Her life was part of the life of the whole
-kingdom, and the word of that life was selfishness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
-the stupid adhesion to conventional usage which
-kept the land from the people, which loaded taxes
-and rents upon a slaving many, for the perpetuation
-of an indulgent and luxurious life to the few. The
-upper surfaces of society, brilliant and dazzlingly
-sleek with pride, and puffed up with the vanity
-of knowledge, cushioned upon a contemptuous forgetfulness
-of duty, of sympathy, conceitedly viewing
-their reflections in Burke’s Peerage, or Chalmer’s
-Landed Gentry, begrudging every concession
-to modern sense of justice, denying the equality of
-men, fostering the silly homage of their inferiors,
-and rankly gathering around the idiocy of a futile
-monarchy. It was a class life, a class gospel, a
-class cultus, the arrogance of a classification of the
-humans of society, which made the joy of the world
-the prerogative of those who by birth or fortune
-found themselves foreordained to possess it, and
-who now—God willing—would fight every inch of
-their vantage ground to keep that advantage, believing
-that a fine suavity of demeanor, a generous
-support of fashion, a supercilious deference to
-education as an aristocratic embellishment, a pretentious
-clemency of judgement and an unfailing
-church attendance, would save them before any supernatural
-tribunal—if indeed such a tribunal existed—of
-particular blame. Those among them yet
-endowed with the pulses of human feeling, gentle
-in spirit and blessed with the better sentimentalities<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
-of religion, visited the poor, and dropped lunch
-baskets at their doors, and assumed the fine benison
-of stooping angels—a shallow thoughtlessness
-which did nothing for the regeneration of permanent
-social outrages. The unemployed might clamor,
-the poor might continue to multiply, and the
-young and ambitious might sail away on white
-wings to the new life of America, but the lord and
-landlord must still remain, because in the sight of
-the Lord God Almighty the lord and the landlord
-are part and parcel of the eternal order of things,
-an appanage of His eternal throne and a reflection
-of the rule of Heaven. And beneath all this was the
-sickly obsequiousness and snuffling adoration of ordinary
-men, which of course the lord and ladies despised,
-but which after all was helpful in keeping
-up the distinguished humbug.</p>
-
-<p>This on its best side, but there was a worse side.
-There was moral depravity; there was ruthless
-wickedness; there was a set so smart that they defied
-decency and rectitude, and travelled on the
-currents of their passions to all the maelstroms of
-moral rottenness. The King himself had violated
-the measures of sobriety and faithfulness. And
-this imposing and historical structure, must now
-totter to its fall before the drifting snowflake.
-Truly the simple shall confound the wise. Leacraft
-turned from his melancholy thoughts to the friendly
-face of Sir John, who, catching his eye, resumed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
-his conversation.</p>
-
-<p>“This map will make it quite plain that the
-position of our nation as a commercial, as a political
-fabric, is a geographical absurdity, a necessary
-paradox. Look!” and Sir John pinned down
-the map on the table, and drew Leacraft
-down towards its attentive examination. “Here!
-is an occular demonstration of our false
-position, a charted proof that we are in a
-wrong place, a spot of possible change, that will
-reverse all previous experiences if the right conditions
-supervene. The change has come, and Scotland
-returns to its appointed allegiance. It belongs
-to the Kings of the Ice. See,” and he leaned over the
-map in a kind of ecstacy of despair, speaking rapidly
-as his fingers traced the lines he indicated. “See!
-consider these enormities. Land’s End and the
-Scilly Islands, where palms grow, are on the degree
-of 50 degree north latitude, which is the same as
-Notre Dame Bay in New Foundland, the same as
-Manitoba, the same as the most northern Kurile
-Islands. Do you know what the temperature of
-these places are? I will tell you. The average
-winter temperature of northern New Foundland
-is 10 degrees, that of Manitoba 9 degrees, and that
-of the Kurile Islands, 12 degrees.</p>
-
-<p>“The average temperature of Land’s End is 40
-degrees. Well, that may not strike you as a contrast
-so sharp as to warrant my dire prediction,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
-but you must learn to see in average temperatures
-much more than is simply indicated in the mere
-differences in degrees. Averages are utterly misleading,
-so far as they mean habitable conditions.
-A temperature of 0 for six months, and a temperature
-of 80 degrees, for the remaining six months
-furnishes the harmless average of 40 degrees, but
-a land suffering from the affliction of a climate
-such as that, would be useless for the larger purposes
-of a civilized community. Averages produce
-an impression of uniformity, whereas they conceal
-the most obstreperous changes—and a small difference,
-such as you observe between the temperature
-of the Scilly islands, and these inclement and impossible
-districts of Canada or Kamtchatka, means
-that though all are on the same latitude, they are as
-diversely adapted for modern life as the tropics
-and the north pole. Why are the Scilly islands
-adapted for tulips and spring peas, when Manitoba
-yet sleeps in snow?</p>
-
-<p>“From the point of view of a primary instruction
-in temperature, hottest at the equator, coldest
-at the pole, and graded all the way between; it is
-a preposterous caprice. It is a caprice. And a
-civilization flourishing under the auspices of a
-caprice, will come to grief. Climate is a symbol
-of vagaries, contradictions and sudden affinities.
-It is the atmospheric expression for the feminine
-and the poetic in men. As a matter of fact contingencies<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
-of interfering land surfaces, of changing
-barometric pressure, of oceanic tides, of air
-currents, of solar radiation, combine into a labyrinth
-of possibilities to make places that ought to
-be cold, hot, and vice versa.</p>
-
-<p>“But they are evanescent possibilities, and the
-founders of empires who rely on them will some
-day be brought back with stunning, abject terror,
-as we now are, to the realization of first principles,
-that latitudes are invincible barriers to the diffusion
-of the race, and that the nations neglecting
-their plain meaning court disaster. Well; you
-know the explanation of all these whims of nature.
-The old story; the Gulf Stream with its millions of
-units of heat forced northward by wind pressure,
-and accelerated eastward by the equatorial velocity
-it starts out with, our insular position bathed in
-oceanic waters, holding immense deposits of the
-sun’s heat; the open seas north of us; the great
-furnace stores of heat in Africa, like a nearby factory
-heating our thin coasts. That is common
-knowledge—but these accidents of position, these
-migratory tides are holding in check invincible tendencies.
-Like a child’s push against an evenly
-balanced boulder they keep off the descent of disaster,
-but like another child’s push in the opposite
-direction, a sudden alteration of coast lines reduces
-our boasted exemption to a shadow, and London,
-Edinburgh, Liverpool, Glasgow, Paris, Amsterdam,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
-Berlin, Hamburgh—the great cities of the
-world—pay at last the penalty of an infringement
-of nature’s Common Law.</p>
-
-<p>“Heat is life, and cold is death, and no blank
-optimism may hope for national achievement in the
-frosts of winter. Our civilization, the civilization
-of northern Europe, has overstepped the limits of
-climatic permission, as this globe is made. We are
-the victims of a deception. Primary conditions of
-temperature are returning, a meteorological hoax
-is exploded, and 50 degrees north latitude will
-mean in Europe what it has always meant elsewhere.
-But look at Edinburgh, look at these isothermals
-on the map, attributing to her the temperature
-of far southern latitudes. Too obvious an absurdity
-to last. True enough. Yes, but fugitive;
-an episode only. So flat a contradiction of the
-economy of this round earth should never have
-misled us. And we have had <span class="locked">warnings—”</span></p>
-
-<p>Mr. C— stopped; his agitation fairly choked
-him. Leacraft sympathized with the gentleman’s
-distress. His bitterness of heart had created a
-mental hallucination, an unbalanced affectation of
-epigram. Leacraft interposed: “Well, Sir John,
-the empire of Great Britain has no reason to regret
-its existence, even if it is based on a climatic fallacy.
-There have been some things done in it
-which no change in temperature will obliterate, unless
-the Ice Age is returning and we all decline into<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
-extinction north and south, and the Earth is again
-without form and void. You speak of caprices.
-How can you tell this is not a caprice, too, a monstrous
-subterfuge of Nature to teach us a lesson, letting
-us come back again when we are better, when
-we can feel and keep grateful to Her for letting us
-live at all. You err in deduction Sir John. A
-round Earth exposed to the sun’s heat with a zenith
-movement from 23,28 north latitude to 23,28
-south latitude, must exhibit water currents flowing
-north, and bringing with them equatorial temperatures.
-Such a fact is as normal as that the same
-earth must be colder at the poles than at the equator.
-You are involved in a sophism, because you assume
-a principle which is imaginary, so far as its
-invariable truth is concerned.</p>
-
-<p>“And what warnings have we ever had?”</p>
-
-<p>“Warnings!” said Sir John, after a moment’s
-silence during which he regarded Leacraft with a
-guarded hopefulness, “Warnings! Many.” And
-he took out a note book from which he read. “The
-winters of 1544, 1608, 1709, were terrific—the thermometer
-at Paris in 1709, sank to nine degrees below
-zero Fah. In 1788–1789, the river Seine froze
-over in November. Then there was 1794–5, 1798–9,
-when the rivers of Europe were frozen over. In
-1795, the mercury in Paris registered ten degrees
-below zero, although at the same time in London the
-temperature was nearly seven degrees above zero.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
-And then we have 1812–3 when Napoleon failed,
-defeated by the cold rather than the Russians. In
-1819–20, in 1829–30, in 1840–41, in 1853–4, 1870–71,
-during the Franco-German war, with the cold
-greater at the south than in the north of France,
-and when—this is worth noting—the Gulf Stream
-was driven backward by a north wind, and banked
-up, as it were, at Spain and Portugal; in all these
-years there were intensely cold winters, which if
-continued, and reinforced by storms, and increased
-by the disappearance of some of the helpful agencies
-that now keeps up our supply of caloric, would
-mean, could only mean our extinction.</p>
-
-<p>“Now as for degrees of cold—I quote from Flammarion—‘the
-greatest cold yet experienced has
-been twenty-four degrees below zero in France, five
-degrees below in England, twelve below in Belgium
-and Holland, sixty-seven degrees in Denmark, Sweden
-and Norway, forty-six in Russia, thirty-two in
-Germany, ten degrees below in Spain and Portugal.’
-These are Fahrenheit records. These severities
-tell us our danger.”</p>
-
-<p>“It seems to me,” rejoined Leacraft, “that they
-tell us nothing of the sort. It is a mild madness to
-misconstrue them so completely. These extremes of
-temperatures are far lower than any we have observed,
-and yet we have been expelled from Scotland.
-It is the snow. These endless heaping torrents
-from the skies that have driven us out, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
-they—I do believe it—will continue; but it has no
-parallel. Nothing warned us of this—and as to our
-climatic safety, it was as fixed as the change of day
-to night when, without warning, without precedent,
-a bridge of mountains tumbles into a hole in the sea,
-another bridge rises as a dam, and either occurrence
-seemed about as likely as that the moon would fall
-into the sun. I think indeed the advantage of a
-guess might have lain with the latter supposition.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well. The snow; you say it will continue,” said
-Sir John with a sudden reflex action of revolt.
-“Why will it continue?”</p>
-
-<p>“I estimate the probability for that in this way,”
-answered Leacraft. “The atmosphere is a system
-of balances never at rest, unless in equilibrium, and
-never in equilibrium except at rare intervals, and
-then in limited and favored spots. This state of
-inequilibrium causes constant motion, currents,
-storms, winds and precipitation, whether of rain or
-snow, depending on temperature and position. Now
-the motor power of the movement in all this atmospheric
-mass is difference of temperature, the hot
-air rising and flowing to the poles, and the cold air
-of the poles descending and flowing to the equator.
-That is the A. B. C. of meteorological physics. But
-the revolution of the earth causes the cold polar
-winds to blow from the northeast and the warm
-equatorial winds to blow from the southwest, that is
-with reference to our position in the northern hemisphere.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
-Now if we are undergoing a progressive
-refrigeration, the contrast in temperatures between
-our latitude and the temperature of the equator increases,
-and because of that, the velocity of the wind
-blowing from the latter increases too, and the moisture
-that these winds would have dropped over
-the equatorial zones is carried further north, and
-our annual precipitation is thereby increased—our
-snow falls become more continuous and thicker.
-Think what the removal of the Gulf Stream means.
-Croll has clearly shown that the heat bearing capacity
-of the Gulf Stream is enormous. It seems incredible.
-I recall some of his statements. He says
-that the Gulf Stream conveys as much heat as is
-received from the sun by over one million and a
-half square miles at the equator, and the amount
-thus conveyed is equal to all the heat which falls upon
-the globe within thirty-two miles on each side of
-the equator; further that the quantity of heat conveyed
-by the Gulf Stream in one year is equal to the
-heat which falls, on an average, on three millions
-and a half square miles of the arctic regions, and
-that there is actually therefore nearly one-half as
-much heat transferred from tropical regions by the
-Gulf Stream as is received from the sun by the entire
-Arctic regions, the quantity conveyed from the
-tropics by the stream to that received from the sun
-by the Arctic regions being nearly as two to five.
-And it is this fact of the tremendous drain that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
-Gulf Stream makes on the equatorial regions, those
-immense manufactories of heat, that its removal—meaning
-the sudden abstraction of this heat or
-much of it from our latitude—produces a more
-forceful interchange in the airs of the north and the
-south. It produces winds of a higher velocity, and
-because of this, the wind coming to us from the
-Equator does not so quickly free itself of its contained
-moisture. Croll has shown in his splendid
-work of theory and proof, that the winds warmed
-by the Gulf stream are the true causes for our unusual
-and exceptional heat above corresponding positions
-on the western side of the Atlantic basin.
-The Gulf Stream gone, these warming winds will
-bring us heat no longer. But they will bring us
-moisture, and in larger quantities, and then the process
-of refrigeration over our chilled coasts will
-turn that into snow. The snows will be deeper, and
-they will last longer. In this way, Croll, defending
-himself against the criticism of Findlay, shows that
-the winds—the anti-trades blowing from the south
-to replace the atmospheric emptiness—I suppose we
-might say vacuum—left by the descent of the cold
-winds from the poles, parted with the most of their
-moisture in the equatorial belt. Now by reason of
-their greater velocity they will not do that; they
-will reach us much less despoiled of their watery
-burdens.</p>
-
-<p>“Our highlands and our coast position make us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
-natural condensers. To-day we have a rainfall in
-the year of about thirty inches. That may now be
-doubled. The southwest winds are our most general
-winds. Out of a thousand as a maximum, during
-the year, two hundred and twenty-five are from
-the southwest. These are wet winds. And in the
-same total there are one hundred and eleven south
-winds which also carry moisture, making a possible
-percentage of one third of all the winds that blow
-over us as rain winds, or now by reason of our altered
-state as snow makers. But this relative frequency
-will now be increased. There will be a longer
-continuation of the west winds, because as I
-have suggested they will be stronger. They are
-to-day most intense in the winter months. Our
-south and southwest winds gather moisture from
-a wide expanse of sea, the same expanse from
-which they formerly gathered heat from the Gulf
-Stream was widely diffused over the north Atlantic,
-both north and south, for as Croll shows, by reason
-of a high barometric pressure somewhere off
-the west of Maderia and a low pressure north of
-Iceland, the tendency of the air south of the English
-Isles at that point is to flow north. But these winds
-are no longer heat carriers. They bring moisture
-only. They bear to us through the air the winding
-sheets of our burial.”</p>
-
-<p>The two men looked at each other, and it was a
-look of anguish. The sudden cruel dreadfulness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
-the hideous mutation which might send the English
-people out of their land on the strange quest for a
-new home crushed them into an emotional inanition.
-They did not seem to exist. Their lips lost
-their color, and only the paralysis of stupor saved
-them from breaking down into sobs.</p>
-
-<p>It was a few moments later that Leacraft spoke.
-He asked, “And the people of Glasgow. How did
-they get away?”</p>
-
-<p>Sir John Clarke scarcely raised his head and his
-words scarcely formed an articulate whisper;
-“They went by steamers.”</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_195" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">IN LONDON, FEBRUARY, 1910.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>In the smoking room of the Bothwell Club, on
-Cheapside, back of St. Paul’s, London, on February
-12th, in the year of grace, 1910, two men sat in attitudes
-of earnest attention. A third man older than
-either with his back to a blazing fire, whose simulated
-effect of comfort arose from the curling tendrills
-of gas flames that swept over another simulation
-of heaped up logs, was speaking with desperate
-emphasis. He seldom looked at his arrested
-auditors, nor indeed moved, except when he raised
-his head, and his eyes, strained with a hopeless
-longing, sought the gay frescoes of the ceiling, or
-when, in pauses of his declamations, he walked to a
-window and raising the curtain looked out upon the
-city, up to the dome of St. Paul’s, which rose like
-an Irkutsk igloo above a plain of snow.</p>
-
-<p>The man was Alexander Leacraft, the auditors<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
-were Mr. Archibald Edward Thomsen and Jim
-Skaith, both familiar to the reader as rescued and
-rescuing, in that awful day of November 28th,
-when the last little band of citizens, led by the provost-marshal,
-had slipped away in the storm from
-Edinburgh. Strange things had happened since
-then: much stranger were in store. The train in
-which Sir John C— and his companions escaped,
-had made its way with painful slowness, and
-before the English line was reached had stopped
-repeatedly until it was necessary to desert it. And
-then the weary crowd of refugees had staggered
-on their way to a distant station, along a
-country side emptied of its inhabitants, with the
-low houses of the country people evident only as
-mounds of snow. And, with many struggles, with
-mutual assistance, with prayers and suffering, the
-men pushed on in the closest companionship,
-brought by the terrors and dangers of the journey
-into the usual unhesitating intimacy of peril. They
-took each other’s places in the work of excavation,
-helped all to flounder and press through the drifts,
-divided their company into the weak and strong,
-and so allotted tasks that the co-operation of all
-helped their common progress. Camps were made
-in which shelters were clumsily provided, with
-tents brought from Edinburgh, and which only the
-industry of the watchers saved also from burial in
-the tossing drifts.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span></p>
-
-<p>The frugal meals snatched by chance or at the
-favorable moments where inequalities of the
-ground permitted a more regular distribution and
-preparation of food served well enough. Now and
-then they espied a deserted house, and into this
-they crowded, enjoying the heat of fires made of the
-wood-work, the floors and windows of the house itself,
-while they dried their clothing, changed their
-shoes, and, gaining a respite and new strength, salleyed
-out again into the desolate landscape with its
-blue gray skies flaming with crimson, when the day
-set, and the snow cleared, and a sharpened icy edge
-of cold vibrated like an unseen but intensely realized
-cord stretched nippingly through the air. The
-leaders expected to reach a place called Tway stone,
-where a train was in waiting, which would carry
-them south of this immediate zone of the greatest
-snow falls. Grewsome sights were encountered,
-and the blanched faces of men turned away from
-the uncovered sepulchre of a horse and rider, now
-a child and mother, and sometimes in the wet morasses
-still unfrozen, beneath the towering ridges,
-the forlorn, immured body of a young woman with
-blanketed face and streaming hair.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft and Thomsen, with Jim, worked unremittingly
-with the young Scotch woman. They
-patched up a rude litter and they carried her on
-this, trudging toilsomely along, and watching her
-needs. Their care was affectionate and touching,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
-and soon other strong men offered their help, for
-gradually the sensation gained place—so quickly
-does the human fancy cling to the vaporous skirts
-of superstition—that the girl’s safety meant the
-rescue of all, that her security carried with it the
-common weal. She became a fetich, and they rejoiced
-in caring for her, as if contribution to her
-welfare conveyed its unseen benefits to all who engaged
-in the kind ministry. Nor did she fail, with
-the living hopefulness of youth, and with her fresh
-winning loveliness, to establish a return. Her
-smile, the lingering gratitude she showed to all,
-her own usefulness and ready help at the stop and
-waiting places when her eager intelligence watched
-and directed the provisioning and cooking, rewarded
-the toilers. She was quick and resourceful,
-cheerful in exhortation and advice, and certainly—to
-Leacraft—always lovely. Thomsen had forgotten
-his first resentment at Leacraft’s apparent admiration
-for his cousin. The two men had become
-very intimate. Both felt themselves on the edge of
-new events, which were in part to be shaped by the
-blind forces of the earth, and in larger part as they
-affected England, by the sagacity and steadfastness
-of men. They talked much over these things
-together. Both were sombre and frightened. The
-invincible powers of nature, the unconquerable ferocity
-of nature which is deaf to reason, blind to suffering,
-made them shrink and quail. To meet its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
-urgency with make shifts was impossible, to resist
-it madness; the line of retreat was the only line of
-escape. They felt this; the thought became oppressively
-dominant. They began at first to hint at it,
-they ended, quite quickly too, in predicting it with
-mutual confessions of dismay.</p>
-
-<p>Both loved Miss Tobit, yet, as far as appearances
-went, only the guardian spirit of her dreams
-could have told the direction of her inclinations.
-Perhaps both seemed to her too dear, too much involved
-in the one peril with herself, to stand apart
-from each other in any guise or place of preference.
-Thomsen was the younger man, and he had the advantage
-of a handsome face, a fine form and a particularly
-deferential tenderness. Cupid and his
-mother are not slow to give such gifts their heartiest
-commendation. But Thomsen was generous to
-his somewhat reticent, and, probably not greatly
-feared rival, the prowess of beauty is generally undaunted
-and oftentimes magnanimous.</p>
-
-<p>When the worst hardships of their journey were
-over, and in the less afflicted regions of England,
-where at the time the snow falls were not as deep,
-or the winds as tempestuous, Leacraft had many
-chances to talk with Miss Tobit, and he found her
-extremely affable, well informed and sympathetic,
-certainly not endowed with the mischievous drollery
-and the roguish merriment of Miss Garrett,
-and therefore not so piquant, tantalizing, and desirable,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
-but very kindly and soothing.</p>
-
-<p>The provost-marshal and most of the party went
-to Liverpool, whither, before, many of the inhabitants
-of Edinburgh had fled, but Leacraft and
-Thomsen kept on to London. They found conditions
-in London full of fright and trepidation, and
-the business interests floundering and collapsed.
-Leacraft took up his headquarters at the Bothwell
-Club, and Thomsen and his cousin found a home at
-a maiden aunt’s, in Claverhouse place.</p>
-
-<p>But much as Leacraft would have craved an indulgence
-of sympathy and response, the audience of
-sense and appreciation, and the agreeable picture
-before his eyes of acquiescent if not admiring beauty,
-the fatal progress of events in the world of
-England kept him away from Miss Tobit more
-than he wished. These events were far from reassuring;
-they were directly and successively catastrophic.
-Their logic seemed inexorable; and Europe
-became rigid with attention as it watched with
-most varying feelings of commiseration the tightening
-grasp of frost and snow, wind and tempest,
-upon the destiny of England. Not that an actual
-submergence beneath snowdrifts was threatened,
-a hyperboreal sepulchre under which every Englishman
-lay, like the Excelsior youth, “lifeless but
-beautiful.”</p>
-
-<p>No such shocking and shattering misery as had
-befallen Scotland had as yet engulfed England, especially<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
-its southern counties, but the darkening
-days brought more clearly to the observation of the
-most recalcitrant and obtuse, the most reluctant and
-temporizing, the fact that England’s climate was
-approaching that of Labrador, that the restraints
-of trade would soon become enormous, that its products
-would be unmitigatedly diminished and restricted,
-and that it could no longer raise wheat;
-that its railroads, for half the year, would endure
-a dangerous embargo; that its population would
-perish; that its industries would undergo the most
-serious curtailment; that foreign ports would absorb
-its commerce, steal its prestige, insinuate
-themselves, by its crippled resources, into the markets
-of the earth in its place; that the ramifications
-of disaster would penetrate its social, intellectual
-and political life, and cloud its mental horizon with
-the gaunt and stupid spectres of Torpor and Helplessness.
-This monstrous dilemma submerged all
-minor passions, and plunged England into the
-noisiest outbreak of argument, suggestion and
-panic-stricken questionings.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft buried himself in the questions that
-now with the more forward and statesmanly thinkers
-were coming to the front with relentless insistence.
-Amongst these, conspicuously outstrode and
-outshone the rest, H. G. Wells, the brilliant author
-and prophet of the New Republicanism, whose book
-had five years before roused an intense and frightened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
-protest from the servitors of antiquity, and
-the selfish lackies of a superannuated and mythical
-class system. Mr. Wells, with his trained skill in
-scientific deduction and the exercised powers of
-imagination, with a reckless and defiant desire to
-unravel the future, with the slenderest regard for
-the prejudices of religion or old-fogey political conservatism,
-was now half-deluded himself with the
-sudden dream of starting the English nation on
-new grounds. Released from the impedimenta of
-ceremonies and ruins, names and titles, furnished
-with a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">tabula rasa</i> where the new ideals of which
-he set himself up as a sort of avatar and preacher
-might most keenly set and develop themselves, he
-believed—as in a measure Leacraft did himself—that
-the English cultus would put on those insignia
-of the coming eras which meant intellectual emancipation,
-and a social and civil regime where the
-greatest happiness and the widest material prosperity
-would unite, in which, too, would not be
-wanting a radical rearrangement of the relations
-of the sexes, hinted at in the same author’s later
-books, but which again, naturally, by many who
-followed Mr. Wells a certain way, was indignantly
-repudiated. A more dignified and august group of
-men—among whom the names of Churchill,
-Chamberlain, Rosebery, Balfour, Prof. Stubbs,
-and Bryce led—had assembled themselves in a
-council of deeply concerned and profoundly patriotic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
-advisers. These men secured a very noble
-elevation above the wild and unclassified miscellany
-of men and women who, with cries, denunciations,
-nostrums, whims, hallucinations, guesses and
-queries, deluged the pages of the <i>Times</i>, stood at the
-corners of the streets, where such standing was
-possible in the hard weather, and preached their
-fantastic mental wares. A still more obvious and
-ear-assailing group were the religious zealots, who
-thrive at moments of peril, filling the brains of
-their listeners with adjurations, exhortations,
-prayers, pictures and prophecies, for one moment
-doleful with wailing execrations of past wickedness,
-and the next piteously shrieking eloquent appeals
-for repentance and confession.</p>
-
-<p>The singular and amazing thing in all this was
-the convinced assent given to the prediction of
-Science. Whereas at first the geologists and the
-meteorologists belittled and ridiculed the warnings
-of the President, they now enlarged, extended and
-enforced them with a greater authority, and more
-illuminated reasoning. Hardly believing that the
-people of England would realize this approaching
-disaster, what it meant, what steps should be contemplated
-to escape its worst effects, how permanent
-and deep-seated were its causes, the British
-Association for the Advancement of Science had
-resolved itself into a body of educators. Lectures
-were given where practicable, leaflets circulated,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
-letters published in the leading dailies, and a comprehensive
-educational crusade started—and with
-one object—to instill a deeper dread of the future, a
-distrust of the possibility of the longer occupancy
-of the British Islands, and yet a firm reliance that
-under changed auspices of place, the same civilization,
-with unchanged features, would still continue
-to rule the world.</p>
-
-<p>Parliament was constantly in session, and to it
-the worshipful English householder and pew-renter
-looked with unwavering faith, waiting for its sublime
-wisdom and intrinsic patience, to devise ways
-and means, and some safe policy of safety. Even
-the King became earnest, perhaps a little anxious,
-as among the most popular doctrinaire plebiscites
-was the reiterated need of an abolition of the discarded
-system of the royal household.</p>
-
-<p>From the midst of all this confusion, organized
-and disorganized movements, the collapse of trade,
-the desertion of workers, the sudden emergence of
-a thousand voices claiming, clamoring, debating, the
-physical wreck of business, the inflamed transcendentalism
-that saw ahead of the present moment, re-adjudication,
-rehabilitation, renovation of all social
-wrongs; and with the cruel winter breathing
-its desolating rigors, the snow rising in the streets,
-the poor dying from starvation or exposure, the
-steamers crowded to their taffrails, daily exporting
-the timid and selfish rich, or the pinched poor, escaping<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
-with a bare competency, to establish themselves
-under less penurious skies—from all this
-there suddenly grew into stalwart and national
-proportions, <em>the resolve to leave England</em>.</p>
-
-<p>It grew with a certain flaming ardor of noble
-hopes and resolves. It grew also with an agony of
-doubt. The whole implication of the idea was
-grievously wounding to pride, and it strained at
-the very heart-string of the English nature. To
-go away from England was to become
-<em>un-Englished</em>, to lose the rich heritage of pastoral
-beauty, the treasured wealth of historic associations,
-the spot and home of literary triumphs, the
-soil, the air, which by some impalpable union of
-efficacies made the English blood and temperament,
-and which could not be taken away to make the
-same fine product elsewhere. The pathos of it! A
-nation wandering homeless with its Lares and Penates
-in its arms, its face darkened with humiliation;
-its shoulders, that erstwhile bore the burdens
-of states, bowed with the shame of enforced desertion;
-its voice, that summoned the freemen of the
-earth to convocation, silent with fear, or perhaps
-broken by the irrepressible echo wrung from its
-own anguish, at turning its back on the cradle and
-the home of its greatness.</p>
-
-<p><em>And yet it grew</em>—this same resolve—and eloquence,
-and poetry, and prayers, and science, and
-statescraft united to make it strong and beautiful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
-to blend in it the supernatural benisons of religion,
-the purified affections of the heart, and the resolute
-affirmations of conviction.</p>
-
-<p>“My friends,”—it was Leacraft speaking from
-the fireside of the Bothwell Club, in Cheapside, on
-the night of February 12th, 1910—“I think the
-speech to-day of the members from Scotland in Parliament
-was decisive. It leaves no alternative. We
-cannot hopelessly, in the face of this modern
-world’s competition, fight out a narrowing chance
-for existence under the conditions facing us. And
-it is an unmistakable alternative. Our climate has
-changed, and the change is irrevocable, and it is
-subversive, too. We must go away, taking all that
-we have with us. The English nation has reached a
-sublime crisis. We transplant our virtues; we will
-relinquish our failings; we have a world of our
-own to choose from, and we are given an opportunity
-unparalleled in history.”</p>
-
-<p>“It’s a great chance to begin all over again,” expostulated
-Jim.</p>
-
-<p>“Not at all,” resumed Leacraft, his voice rising
-with that peculiar English intonation of tenuity,
-which often animates their sluggist accents, if it
-does not soon soar into nasal squeaks;—“Not at
-all. We leave England with not a thing forgotten
-or lost. The machinery of our greatness is in
-our history, and in ourselves; the products of industry
-and art, so far as they are necessary fixtures,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
-stay. What of it—a cathedral, a palace here and
-there? They often stand for things it would be best
-for us to forget, and under which perhaps only
-revolution and violence will make us forget, if we
-remain as we are. What stirs my imagination,
-what grows visibly before me”—both Thomsen
-and Jim watched intently the fervid Englishman,
-released into a sort of mystic clairvoyance—“is a
-new land which is a physical unit, which has known
-no political subdivision, which holds within it no
-inherited rages, and taunting bitternesses, as these
-islands do to-day. Let it be Australia, let it be
-South Africa—though there, I admit, is the memory
-of a bungle—but we enter it a single people,
-blended into homogeneity by adversity, and we set
-about the tremendously interesting task of re-creating
-England, at least in all things pertaining to
-her that are great and lovable.”</p>
-
-<p>“I fail to see,” said Thomsen, “that the probabilities
-are that way. On the contrary, freed from
-the geographical confinement of neighboring islands
-governed from London, in a new land, Irish,
-Scotch, English will segregate again, and then
-scatter, just as might mixed races of birds, who,
-while they are in the same cage mingle, but when
-they fly out, fall back into their natural groups, by
-the most certain of all animal tendencies, that ‘like
-seeks like.’”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, and what of it?” retorted Leacraft.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
-“These elements are together in a new country. It
-is one. There is no history behind it of subjugation
-and ill treatment; there can be no reversion
-to bickerings and recriminations where even the
-monuments and milestones familiarly associated
-with injustice have disappeared. Besides, we leave
-behind the obnoxious, shameless law of entail—at
-least we shall be free of that disgrace—and at last—but,”
-he added, his voice again sinking to a
-pained whisper, “with what a wrench!”</p>
-
-<p>“Well, Mr. Leacraft,” spoke up Jim Skaith again,
-“it’s mair than moving that has to be done. There’s
-the new land to be bought and settled. There’s getting
-there, and biding there. There’s schools to
-be built, and hames and shops, and, it seems to me,
-with pardon for being so forward, that if it took so
-many years to make a great city, it’s no fule’s wark
-to sail ower the seas and pit it up again”; then,
-after a pause, “An’ it’s never the auld hame.”</p>
-
-<p>“No,” resumed Leacraft, “that is true. It’s
-not the old home, and a big city—the greatest—cannot
-be boxed up in straw and packing cloth
-and get set up by order in another place, with the
-precision of a movable bungalow. But we need not
-trifle. We all know that it’s no child’s work. We
-expect something very different from London. We
-can meet the emergencies of place and room. Our
-population can be distributed. Remember, we are
-on trial, and the new, strange chapter opening before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
-us will bring again into view the inalienable
-fortitude and power of the English mind. It’s a
-test. The conditions are irreversible, and mind
-and character will win—must win—or slowly,
-surely, the stars of our ascendancy pale and disappear.
-Nature for a moment has thrown us in a
-great peril, but was it nature or ourselves that won
-us footholds throughout the world? Open coasts
-await us, hundreds of thousands will welcome us.
-The influences of a common language, ancestry and
-institutions have chained together the links of our
-supremacy around the world, and made of it an
-inseparable girdle. Shall we falter now, when nature
-again challenges our mind to quell her hostility,
-opposing her impediments of sense to our invisible
-treasuries of thought, invention and self-confidence?
-It is a new step—our best step,—in
-the march of human liberty. We need to be divorced
-from the material constants, amid which the
-long fought battle for free thought and action has
-been waged. We are yet entangled in the meshes
-of tradition, the stumbling blocks of convention—and
-now they are shattered. We rise to splendid
-hopes. Or shall we say it is retribution, it is punishment
-for many sins. Let it be so. A chastened
-pride will not hurt us, nor will it hurt our chances.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, Leacraft,” interrupted Thomsen, “I feel
-better to hear you talk this way, but I must look at
-some very disagreeable facts, too. They are not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
-easily eliminated by words or fancies, and even
-seem to evince a provoking facility to become more
-numerous, the more they are considered. Take the
-mechanical problem of transportation. We are
-some forty millions of people. The extravagant
-powers of assimilation of the United States barely
-digests the one million of emigrants that come to
-their shores each year; what conceivable powers of
-absorption will dispose of our forty millions without
-an attack of industrial <em>gastritis</em> that will induce
-the worst political convulsions. And the carrying
-skill and capacity of our whole merchant
-marine cannot in less than ten years take away
-this monstrous human cargo, together with all the
-colossal accumulation of paraphernalia, stocks,
-chattels, goods, treasures, books and belongings,
-that have gathered in this rich island, until they
-seem like a sort of pactolian alluvium that is indigenous
-and irremovable. Think of the women, the
-children! What method of domiciliation will you
-devise to accommodate these armies? And with
-this removal comes the crash of all domestic values,
-railroad stock, gas stock, mill stock, warehouses,
-land values, everything goes with the removal of
-the human vitality that gives them worth. It staggers
-the imagination to think how the disorganization
-radiates and increases in all directions. In
-1905–6 this Great Britain consumed in one industry
-alone nearly four millions of bales of cotton, spun<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
-them out into merchantable goods on her fifty million
-spindles. Do you measure the almost unfathomable
-depths of distress the stoppage of this one
-industry means? Is it not better to fight it out
-here, to defeat Nature, if I may be allowed to copy
-your own enthusiasm, to put on our own heads the
-regalia of the Ice King, and <em>rule him</em>, wrest from
-him his own sceptre, and excel his power with the
-power of this new century of invention?”</p>
-
-<p>“Impossible.” Leacraft’s retort was quick and
-impetuous. “Impossible. No expedients of man
-overcome the deliberate intentions of Nature. We
-utilize her forces, but we may not deflect her purposes.
-It is the voice of that very science which
-has made us such powerful masters of her utilities
-that now tells us: <em>We must go.</em> To quote the
-words of Prof. Darwin, spoken at the Cape Town
-meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
-of Science, ‘Stability is further a property
-of relationship to surrounding conditions; it
-denotes adaptation to environment’; there can be
-no adaptation to this new environment, which will
-retain our former greatness. Nature opposes us,
-indeed, in forcing us away, but we thwart her
-niggardliness by subterfuge and endurance and
-courage. We can make her plastic enough for our
-purposes if we do not overstep the limits of her last
-negation. The practical question, the panic, the
-loss! Ah! Well, if all should be as it has been,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
-if the inequalities still remained, the very moral
-significance and regeneration which I hope for
-could not come. It means the levelling process by
-which the New Brotherhood is visibly and violently
-enforced. And as to place and means, thousands
-upon thousands will establish themselves in
-America, blessing every community they enter,
-and being blessed in turn with opportunity. Australia
-and South Africa, and Canada, with millions
-upon millions of square miles of unused land,
-will furnish us with new homes. Revivification,
-regeneration, rehabilitation will be rapid. We
-shall not see its final outcome, but we shall know
-the virile impulse of self help at its inception. If
-social differences, if social pageantry, vanish, the
-constraining push of Christian tolerance and fellowship
-succeeds. Differences may emerge later,
-but they will be differences of endowment and industrious
-energy; no other. And as to the transportation
-problem, it can be solved. We should not
-all go at once. It may be a slow movement; perhaps
-the slower the better. But see how we become
-unified. Like refugees or shipwrecked outcasts, we
-shall help each other, and every man’s hand will
-help his neighbor, but also we shall organize on the
-basis of each man’s aptitude; the farmer to his
-ploughshare, the mechanic to his workshop, the
-preacher to his pulpit, the artist to his easel, the
-banker to his counting room; at last, an ideal assortment<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
-of talents.”</p>
-
-<p>Thomsen hid a slight yawn, and made a smile of
-incredulity serve the ends of a salutation of encouragement.
-“There’s no denying the contagion
-of your confidence, Leacraft, but really I think that
-we are all mournfully in the dark as to what we best
-can do; and in the meanwhile it’s a matter of positive
-terror what we are going to live on. I brought
-all the available cash I could for Ethel and myself,
-but already famine has unfurled its banners, and
-you know how cramped and shrunk our living has
-become in London. The Thames alone saves us
-from starvation. It’s no longer a question of having
-a bank balance, but the more definite and fundamental
-one of finding something to buy.</p>
-
-<p>“By the by, Balfour closes the debate at ten to-night.
-You have admission to the gallery of the
-Commons. Let us go down. It promises to be a
-fine effort. I only hope it’s not going to be a funeral
-oration.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft pulled out his watch and found the time
-a half-hour after nine. Yes, he would go; in fact
-he had already engaged a boatman at Blackfriars’
-Bridge, to be in waiting for him at almost that very
-moment. Jim stepped to the window and looked
-out. The night was pure and clear. Huge hummocks
-of snow encumbered the streets below, and
-the moon blazed in the keen sky like some target of
-disaster.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span></p>
-
-<p>“Weel, Mr. Leacraft, you won’t want me along,
-and somehow I’d rather sit here and think over
-your own words, little as I believe it will all come
-oot so gude-like.”</p>
-
-<p>“No, Jim, keep the fire on, and watch out for us,
-and you might remember to brew us a stiff snack
-after your own heart; it won’t come amiss.” Jim
-assented with alacrity, and Leacraft and Mr.
-Thomsen, muffled up to their ears, and almost hermetically
-enclosed in fur ulsters, left the room, descended
-the stairs, and appeared at the doorway on
-the street. A tolerable path led through a part of
-Cheapside, but it was not their intention to follow
-that thoroughfare; they turned towards the church
-and clambered along a devious footway, that imitated
-the sinuous and irregular wanderings of a
-mountain trail. It led them to Ludgate Hill, where
-they encountered a few other travellers like themselves
-making their way to the bridge for the same
-purpose. Bridge street was just passable, and soon
-the ice-laden waters of the river were seen, blazoned
-like some spectacle of enchantment in the deluge of
-argent light. They found the boatman in the basement
-of the Hotel Royal, which was dead, to the last
-stories of its ornamented facade, silent and dark.
-It was a part of the indications that London already
-had lost its visitors. The barge men stole
-out of their retreat, and Leacraft and Thomsen followed
-them, the shadows of the party printed in ink<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
-on the winnowed snow. Two men accompanied
-the boat; one rowed and the other stood at the
-prow, pushing off the cakes of ice, and correcting
-the passage of the boat through the lanes of water,
-flowing like limpid threads of molten silver between
-the crunching and veering floes. Leacraft
-and Thomsen watched with fascinated eyes the
-broad terrace of the Victoria Embankment, illuminated
-with the moon’s effulgence, whose unchecked
-glory met a feeble rivalry in a few sickly
-gas mantels, and a solitary electric lamp. The noble
-houses of legislation—and to the eyes of Leacraft
-they never seemed more imbued with a supremely
-delicate and elevating beauty—rose from
-the water’s edge, like some creation of an inspired
-dreamer, woven of splintered rays of light, with
-pencilled lines of ebony filched from the darkest
-night. It embodied a loveliness past even the powers
-of thought to measure or describe. The houses
-flamed with light, and the strong light on the clock
-tower, announced the sitting of Parliament, sent
-back to the moon a terrestrial radiance, that resembled
-the pulsations of a fallen star. As they passed
-the Westminster Bridge, their eyes caught the distant
-lights of Lambeth Palace. Both knew that to-night
-the King dined with the Archbishop.</p>
-
-<p>Slowly their boat drew near the landing, and
-the two men who guided it motioned to its occupants
-to get ready to disembark, as the landing was deprived<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
-of its usual outfit, owing to the clogging
-cakes of ice which clung to the wall. The heavy
-nose of the boat was pushed into the wall, and Leacraft
-and Thomsen scrambled up the steps, and
-gained the walk which led to the Victoria Arch, and
-the entrance of the Parliament House. Here a
-jam was encountered, and the news was soon learned
-that Balfour had begun his speech an hour before
-the announced time, and was now engaged in
-the closing appeal on the motion before the house.</p>
-
-<p>And what was this motion? To explain it, it is
-necessary to rehearse some of the preceding events,
-which had finally eventuated in this most marvellous
-situation; a debate in the House of Parliament
-as to whether the English people should evacuate
-England. This momentous and world-moving
-spectacle was now actually contemplated by the
-fixed attention of every nation on the earth. Its awful
-solemnity, the convulsing pathos of it, the immense
-commercial dislocation it involved, its social
-agony, the calamitous doubts it summoned as to
-the stability of Europe itself, and the fiercer sudden
-question of the meaning of human existence on
-this planet, it aroused, made the debate of the English
-Parliament then pending the most extraordinary
-discussion ever known in human annals.</p>
-
-<p>The occasion for it had practically been forced
-or precipitated by the coercive power of scientific
-opinion. And the curious thing about this same<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
-scientific opinion was that it first resisted the
-overwhelming proof of the subsidence of the isthmus
-and the elevation of the Caribbean wall of
-transgression, and then fervently accepted it, with
-not one scintilla more of demonstration, and in accepting
-it proposed for itself the unwelcome task of
-convincing the English people that they should
-evacuate their country.</p>
-
-<p>It would be hard to conceive of anything to the
-English mind less conceivable than such a desertion.
-Its mere mention raised the most violent denunciation
-and poured a torrent of abuse upon the
-unfortunate advisors. The thought of it sapped
-the very foundations of the English sense of existence.
-It seemed the vertigo of madness. It deranged
-the most obvious assertions of common
-sense. It was an impeachment of the English reality.
-To think of it was a betrayal of trust, a breach
-of faith, a succinct defiance of the Almighty, a
-blasphemous rejection of the lessons of history, a
-timorous surrender to the threats of the weather.</p>
-
-<p>But later, when the Scottish population began to
-throw its inundating tides of people into England,
-and the Englishman read at his breakfast table of
-the floes of ice in the Clyde, and the buried Grampians,
-the insurmountable drifts about Stirling, and
-the incipient neve masses on Scuir-na-Gillean, in
-Skye, the reluctant embarkation of the merchants
-of Aberdeen, the closing of its great University, the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
-shrinkage of business in Glasgow; when they realized
-that in truth the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
-had become united by a broad gateway through
-which the Gulf Stream, which erstwhile transported
-the heat of the equator to Europe, now emptied its
-torrid waters, bathing the western coasts of North
-America as far north as Alaska, and bringing to
-that Arctic country almost the same blessing of
-fructifying warmth with which it had before endowed
-England; when still further they began to
-hear, and to realize, by private letters, the affectionate
-summons and offers of the colonies, the
-overwhelming loyalty of the brothers across the
-sea, their frenzied eagerness to place their lands
-almost gratuitously in the hands of the mother people,
-and assume towards them the role of honored
-beneficiaries, then a strange, unwonted wondering
-began, as to whether it might not be best to look
-into the matter. And then intelligence aroused,
-with continued inspection, the impression grew,
-that indeed the prospects were alarming. The English
-mind, once startled in a certain direction, soon
-takes on an impetus proportionate to the inertia of
-its first movements, and therefore by a natural law
-of psychology and mechanics gains in accelerated
-velocity with each succeeding moment. So it was
-now. The industry of the scientific propaganda, its
-inventive persistency, was followed by the conversion
-of the large financial and commercial interests,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
-and then a panic seized the great masses of the
-nation. Parliament took it up, the papers bulged
-and teemed with information, discussion, advice,
-and reports. A determining influence with the
-large trading classes was the decline, in some instances
-the positive disappearance of business,
-while to others not chained in insular possessions,
-a new world of adventure and chance seemed not
-altogether undesirable.</p>
-
-<p>The pressure of popular approval hastened, in
-the Parliament, the formulation of a plan for the
-slow and careful removal of the population. The
-Law of Exodus, as it was termed, was a thoroughly
-English legislative work. And that meant a wise,
-adequate and deliberate evacuation. It involved a
-re-tabulation, so to speak, of the wealth and occupations
-of the individuals of the country, and so adjusted
-their departure, their association, their duties,
-their facilities and trades, that the least competition
-would arise in the new quarters, and then
-they were also so distributed in the colonies, that
-they met the requirements of these, as it was ascertained,
-from the authorities, the latter demanded.
-Thousands upon thousands had already sailed
-away, forming for themselves combinations as their
-acquaintances and connexions permitted, and still
-other thousands, with property invested abroad
-made a home in the land in which their support
-lay. A singular consequence of the situation was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
-the speculative gale it produced in America, where
-large amounts of unemployed or released capital
-took flight. It settled tumultuously in Wall Street,
-voraciously attacking every variety of security,
-and driving stock values out of sight in a tremendous
-boom that disconcerted the tried veterans of
-the famous mart.</p>
-
-<p>All the time the Londoner was himself gaining
-some convincing insight into the dread nature of
-the climatic change about him. The snows covered
-the greater part of the streets of London, the parks
-became desolate tracts, deserted, uncleared, unused,
-swept over by the freezing winds, and chased
-from end to end with buffeted wreaths of snow,
-whose ghostly swirling columns ran over the wintry
-exposures like a race of Titanic spirits, crossing
-each other in cyclonic confusion, or meeting in shivering
-collisions, dissolving in cloud-bursts of microscopic
-and penetrating needles of ice. The
-Thames was almost closed, the shipping stayed idle
-at the wharfs, almost unmitigated suffering spread
-among the poor, for miles the streets were only traversed
-by foot-paths worn by their occupants, and
-the strangest sights occurred in the smaller reservations
-like Lincoln Inn Fields, St. Paul’s Churchyard,
-the Temple Gardens, the Artillery Grounds,
-Finsbury Circus and other confined spaces. By a
-freak of circumstances, and the curious and entirely
-unexpected vagary of the winds, the snow piled up<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
-and up in these quarters, because of a peculiar inrush
-of wind from the converging streets around,
-and this sweeping effect continued until the mound
-of snow, circumvallating the buildings, reached to
-their windows or overtopped them, while in enclosures
-not pre-empted by buildings, as Highbury
-Fields, and the various cemeteries, the hills of snow
-formed colossal billows, which seemed like a phalanx
-of rigid waves tortured into fantastic pinnacles
-by the storms of wind. Such spectacles turned
-back the life-blood of the bravest, and converted
-the most recalcitrant objectors to the new view of
-the necessity of leaving the immemorial splendors
-of England’s Capital.</p>
-
-<p>It was a demoralizing and distressing picture of
-change, to visit the great docks on the Thames; the
-London docks, the Commercial and the West India
-docks, and in the place of the varied throngs, the
-miscellaneous rabble of laborers in which the forms,
-faces and even the dresses of the people of the
-world made a composite aggregate, which was a
-suggested reflex of the myriad-handed toil and industry
-of London, a significant hint of the immense
-wealth and opulent indulgence of the great metropolis—in
-place of all this, the harsh winds whistled
-over deserted yards, shrieked through the rigging
-of idle ships, or blew tempestuous volleys of rime
-and sleet across the river between Wapping and
-Rotherhithe. Before this awful change, English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
-fortitude and confidence quailed, or wrapping itself
-in the reserve of bitterness and distrust, turned
-silently away, for an instant, at least, driven to confess
-that the time-honored legend of English destiny
-had become a perverted and silly shibboleth.</p>
-
-<p>February 12th, which has in meteorology, along
-with the twelfths of November, May and August,
-been isolated as the period of the ice saints, viz.:
-four periods characterized in an unaccountable
-manner by a fall in temperature—this 12th of February,
-1910, had been determined by the Parliament
-for the closing of the great debate on the Motion of
-Evacuation. It was this night that Leacraft and
-Thomsen found so clear and cold, a keen and perilous
-intensity of cold probably never before experienced
-in the English islands, unless one, in his inenviable
-task of comparison could have found an
-equivalent in the Ice Age itself.</p>
-
-<p>When Leacraft and his companion attained the
-Victoria Tower, already the debate, on the motion
-which in an enlarged way had been before the English
-nation for more than a month, had reached its
-final stage. Balfour had been chosen to close, in
-a long peroration, the tremendous forensic display
-which had been limited to the walls of the Houses of
-Parliament. But it was only an episodic and distinguished
-incident in an argument which had convulsed
-every household in England, which had sent
-its clamorous assertions and appeals to the whole<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
-English-speaking people throughout the world, and
-which would, by all rational expectations, remain to
-the end of historic time the most startling venture
-in language, the most dramatic performance in oratory
-ever known.</p>
-
-<p>The two men hurried in, past the flaming chandeliers
-of the beautiful archway. Upon Leacraft
-showing his particular cards of admission, an attendant
-escorted them through the Royal Gallery,
-the House of Peers, the Peers’ Lobby, all of which
-were deserted. They chased in most indecorous
-fashion through the marvellous rooms, only intent
-upon catching the last words of the great speech
-whose purport and end was to empty those glorious
-apartments of their human interest, and bring expatriation
-upon all the memories they harbored.
-They passed through the Central Hall, the Commons’
-Lobby, the Division Lobby, and were expeditiously
-inserted in the Reporters’ Gallery, where,
-backed up against the topmost wall, they surveyed
-the thronged mass beneath them. Every inch of
-space, every point of observation was packed, and
-the scene, on which a softened flood of light fell,
-with an enhancing effect of wonder, was eloquent
-in picturesque power and interest. Lords and
-ladies—to-night no interfering screen concealed
-the women—earls, dukes, baronets, the clergy, even
-bishops in their robes, merchants, men of science,
-bankers, and the whole House of Peers, standing at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
-the bar of the House of Commons, were arrayed in
-a vast and irrelevant assemblage, pierced by one
-thought, the anguish of a supreme decision. And
-Balfour!</p>
-
-<p>Upon an erect and stalwart figure, moved by an
-instinct of regnancy at this sublime instant to stand
-free of his compeers in the broad way, between the
-benches of the Government and those of the Opposition,
-and facing the speaker—all the eyes of that
-assemblage were riveted. The classic sentences of
-Macaulay in describing the trial of Warren Hastings—hackneyed
-as they are by innumerable repetitions—might
-well apply to this unwonted and intense
-spectacle; “the long galleries were crowded
-by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears
-or the emulations of an orator. There were gathered
-together from all parts of a great, free,
-enlightened and prosperous empire, grace and female
-loveliness and learning, the representatives of
-every science and every art.” And the comparison
-can be illuminatively emphasized. At the trial of
-the illustrious Pro-consul, curiosity in a man, sympathy
-with a race, admiration for the local splendor
-of a gorgeous scene, summoned to the hall of
-William Rufus the resplendent galaxy. But the
-motives were objective. In the present case, thought
-Leacraft, how pathetic, how tragic their subjective
-force. It was as if the children of a home, about to
-disappear in some horrible engulfment, calmly prepared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
-to leave its threshold, but it was that sorrow
-multiplied by all the individuals of a nation, and
-magnified by the moral surrender of the associations
-of two thousand years. A nervous tension,
-that was expressed in the almost petrified stare of
-some faces, the startling pallor of others, the half-open
-lips, the strained attitudes, the involuntary
-shudders, the curious grieved looks of inattention,
-overmastered the assembly. Its contagious thrill
-seized Leacraft, and brought his mental receptivity
-up to a quickened pitch of almost deranged alertness,
-while every sense seemed preternaturally
-awake.</p>
-
-<p>He heard a woman sob somewhere in front of
-him, and far down the left gallery, in the glare and
-glitter, he saw a noble head, white-haired, but still
-wearing the flush of manhood’s prime upon his
-cheeks, leaning on a hand, and turned towards him,
-with unchecked tears coursing silently from its
-upraised eyes; he saw a little girl clasping the neck
-of her mother and father, as she sat half on the laps
-of each, and heard the soft lisp of her kisses on
-their brows; he saw the almost saturnine face of a
-dowager stonily gazing at the speaker, and, most
-strangely, he detected on her finger a topaz ring cut
-in <em>relievo</em> with the head of Queen Victoria; and
-yet, while his senses reported these trifles with
-startling keenness, they were also all enlisted in
-catching every gesture, every movement, every accent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
-of the man whose plastic power of eloquence
-was there engaged in pleading for English abdication.</p>
-
-<p>How the words rang in his ears, how persuasively
-the voice sank and rose, and with what a
-soaring melody some of the cadences seemed to
-linger in the scented air. “Let us,” it said, “bow
-before the revelation of our own destiny. The
-ordination of Nature is the express reflection—nay,
-it is the objective expression of Divine will. Accept
-it with submission, with the subserviency of
-faith, and act on that condition with the abundance
-of that native resolution that from the time of Alfred
-has made our path upward, outward, onward.</p>
-
-<p>“I do not, sir, under-estimate the tremendous ordeal;
-I cannot be blind to the colossal undertaking.
-It resumes in one herculean exertion, all the efforts
-of our race through two thousand years. It is
-without precedent, or else it shall only be reverently
-compared to the exodus of the Children of God
-from Egypt. And in that light, sir, without subterfuge
-or apology, without extenuation of rhetoric,
-without ribaldry or vanity, I do regard it. We are
-solemnized by some vast scheme in the order of
-things to carry with us the genius of our civilization
-to another home, where its power and beauty
-shall both benefit others, and become themselves
-more powerful and more beautiful. We have lived
-through a stadium of progress and achievement.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
-We certainly advance to the opening of another.
-Let the gathered multitudes of our race, here at
-its ancestral hearth, gird up their loins and accept
-the august command to go forth.</p>
-
-<p>“From the Witan of the Angles and the Saxons,
-through a feudal hierarchy to Magna Charta,
-through the provisions of Oxford, the Model Parliament
-of Edward I., by the rise in political privileges
-by the Towns, by Merchant gild and Craft
-gild, by the Good Parliament of 1376, by the relentless
-rebukes of Richard in the Merciless Parliament,
-by reason of popular censure and the eloquence
-of common men as with John Ball and the
-revolts of 1380, in the insurrection of Wat Tyler—followed
-as it was by shameless, mad ventures—through
-Wickliff, by the glories of the Tudors, the
-overthrow of the Stuarts, by Pym, Hampden,
-Cromwell, by William of Orange, by parliamentary
-reform and legislative extension—from the
-first glimmerings of civic life, to the light of the
-modern day, this nation has grown in strength, in
-reason, in the deliberate purpose of holding even
-the scales of Justice.</p>
-
-<p>“But, sir, with new positions, new prospects, new
-opportunities in illimitable areas of expansion, we
-enter upon undreamed of material enlargements.
-A greater London will, in the coming centuries appear,
-in which through the phase of exaltation we
-shall assume, will be seen the Miracle of Time, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
-which all we have learned, the highest technical
-skill, our loftiest constructive, creative mind will be
-realized.</p>
-
-<p>“The social power, the redemptive agencies, the
-final product of his thought, aspirations, skill, will
-be incorporated in this City of Man for men—the
-City of the Future—and it will be ours—all ours—<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">London
-rediviva, London redux, London sempieterna,
-et ne plus ultra</i>. A greater England shall
-be gathered within its walls. It will hold our sanctified
-patriotism, our emancipated reason, our ennobled,
-disciplined applied science, the embodyment
-of our imagination, and to its doors the world
-will gather, too, in fealty, in trust, in homage.</p>
-
-<p>“‘O et praesidium et dulce decus meum.’”</p>
-
-<p>The voice ceased, the speaker dropped dumbly
-into his seat, and for an instant, held his hands over
-features convulsed with feeling. The surprising
-thing then was—the awful silence, the deadness of
-that living, throbbing, almost frantic audience, who
-looking out upon a blackness of uncertainty felt the
-happy past, radiant with ease and fame, ceremonial
-and cultured luxury, slipping out of their possession
-forever, and uttered no sound.</p>
-
-<p>The Speaker of the House rose; there was a
-shifting of heads, the rustle of turning bodies, a
-simultaneous orientation, but no other sound, and
-Leacraft scanned the multitude more. Again the
-portentous silence; the Speaker with quite unusual<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
-ardor alluded to the imposing power and beauty of
-the speech, and put the motion.</p>
-
-<p>And then another thing more astonishing happened,
-that House of Commons leaped to its feet
-and shouted in one long, vibrant roar, “Aye! Aye!
-Aye!” The eager agony of the assemblage then
-split and tore the proud repression that had almost
-strangled it. Cry upon cry started from various
-points, and the clamor grew, the agitation took on
-the aspect of disorder and panic, and then it resolved
-itself into thundering cheers for the King, and
-then, with electrifying unanimity the multitude
-sang the national anthem.</p>
-
-<p>It was over. The House of Commons had ordered
-the evacuation of England; the House of Peers
-would follow their lead, and while that evacuation
-would take place slowly, covering a long space of
-time, and permit the recreant forces of nature to
-reform—if they would—the face of the world as
-it had been, while it had consideration for all the
-conflicting interests involved, and was so skillfully
-framed as to cause the least shock of derangement
-to the immense business agencies, still it was a
-surrender of the proudest people on the face of the
-earth to the blind powers of nature, and it meant
-for Englishmen a new heaven and a new earth.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft and Thomsen returned that night to
-their lodgings at the Bothwell Club, through Pall
-Mall, where but a few of the clubs were still in action<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
-and as they moved painfully along over the
-debris and dirt, the disturbed and shapeless heaps
-of snow, the abandoned articles of furniture, in
-front of some houses, and saw the darkened fronts
-of others, with broken windows, and broached and
-falling doors, noted the signs of interior commotion
-in the treasury, the admiralty, the foreign and Indian
-offices, the war office and the horse guards,
-they felt that Parliament had already been forestalled,
-and that the evacuation of London and with
-it all England had already begun.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_231" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE EVACUATION.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>Events were moving rapidly. Ever since the
-Parliament, by a legislative decree, had authorized
-the desertion of England, and the eventful day approached
-when the King and his household, the
-Parliament itself, and the Church and the Titled
-Estate should, in a formal and expressive manner,
-leave England’s shores, the mass of the population
-had been diligently hunting about for refuge and
-occupation. Steamers and ships had scattered in
-all directions the fleeing multitudes. Relatives
-abroad, friends and even acquaintances offered
-homes and employment, no utility now was too
-small to be considered, nor any designation too insignificant
-to merit attention. This scampering
-was largely among those who felt the pinch already
-of idleness and the diminishing chance of work,
-among operatives and workmen, clerks and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
-bread winners of the middle class. The nobleman
-and the pauper did not stir.</p>
-
-<p>The English nation had decreed through its legislature,
-that the evacuation of the country should
-be conducted with pageantry, that the solemn parting
-should be enrolled in all time honored ceremony
-and stately pomp with which kings had been crowned,
-and for which, with all its heart and mind, the
-English nature cries out with unappeasible hunger.
-So the moment for the King’s departure, which
-meant the official desertion of the Old Home,
-might be justly compared to the flight of the queen
-bee in the bee colony when her faithful followers
-swarm after and upon her, and with resolute constancy
-create a new city about her inviolable person.</p>
-
-<p>The King was to leave England in June, 1910,
-and when he left with sumptuous and melancholy
-observance, with splendor of color and depth and
-power of music, with uniform and ritual, with
-prayer and chorus and prophecy, with august and
-intolerable grandeur, with the art of tradition and
-the ornaments of invention, he was to pass down
-to Tilbury and sail away beyond Gravesend to the
-new realm of his possession on the shores of Australia.
-It was a pretty hard thing to believe; it was
-a harder thing to do.</p>
-
-<p>But it was to be done with all the gorgeous effectiveness
-which accumulated traditions of centuries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
-and the practice of every day and the mere resources
-in artifices and equipment of a magnificent
-realm could display. The day came with splendid
-beauty, the sun shone over an England which somewhat
-returned to the flowery loveliness of its olden
-sweet estate. The city had been cleared, though the
-snowfalls had reached the most unexpected depth,
-and the severity of the winter had been appalling.
-The meteorologists discovered the fact that the
-western and northwestern zones of extreme precipitation,
-those of eighty inches had moved inward,
-and had even exceeded this maximum, and the condition
-of the country was really extraordinary and
-desperate. The immense accumulations of snow in
-the outlying districts had risen to such heights that
-the low, long houses of the peasantry were covered
-and the aspect of the country was that of a Labrador
-landscape transplanted to southern latitudes,
-where trees, stone walls and villages assumed the
-place of the more familiar tundra, plains and stone
-floored plains. Suffering had been very general,
-and the importunity of nature had done more to
-convince the people that the necessity of removal
-was an actual threat, not to be avoided or placated,
-than the speeches, the tracts of the scientific societies,
-or the deliberations of statesmen and editors.</p>
-
-<p>But in London, on this twentieth of June, though
-the air bore the strange traces of the changed climate,
-in its tingling sharpness, yet this exhilaration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
-only served the purpose of adding swiftness
-to the movement of the hosts of people in the
-streets, and a new and wonderful tremor of excitement
-to their eagerness in awaiting the development
-of the day’s great preparations.</p>
-
-<p>In the morning the King was to be enthroned in
-Westminster Abbey, and to receive the homage of
-the Peers, and, as usual at a coronation, the day
-itself was inaugurated with the firing of a royal
-salute at sunrise. A measure of the august and
-overpowering rites and observances that mark the
-assumption of a King’s rule was now to be gone
-through with, as a symbol and memento, before the
-King transferred his throne to another land; and
-this ceremonial was emblematic of the unbroken allegiance
-of the English nation to his removed majesty.</p>
-
-<p>The King was to ascend the theatre of the Abbey,
-and be lifted into His Throne by the Archbishops
-and Bishops, and other Peers of the kingdom, and
-being enthronized, or placed therein, all the great
-officers, those that bear the swords and sceptres,
-and the rest of the nobles, should stand round about
-the steps of the throne, and the Archbishop standing
-before the King should say the exhortation, beginning
-with the words, “Stand firm, and hold fast
-from henceforth the Seat of State of Royal and Imperial
-Dignity, which is this day delivered unto you
-in the Name and by the Authority of Almighty<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
-God, and by the hands of Us, the Bishops and Servants
-of God, though unworthy, etc, etc.”</p>
-
-<p>And then the homage being offered and accepted,
-the King attended and accompanied, the four
-swords—being the sword of Mercy, the sword of
-Justice to the Spirituality, the sword of Justice to
-the Temporality, and the sword of State—were to
-be carried before him. He should then descend
-from his throne crowned, and, carrying his Sceptre
-and Rod in his hands, should go into the area
-eastward of the theatre, and pass on through the
-door on the south side of the altar into King Edward’s
-Chapel, the organ and other instruments all
-the while playing.</p>
-
-<p>The King should then, standing before the altar,
-deliver the Sceptre with the Dove to the Archbishop,
-who would lay it upon the altar there. The
-King would then be disrobed of his imperial mantle,
-and be arrayed in his royal robe of purple velvet,
-by the Lord Great Chamberlain.</p>
-
-<p>The Archbishop should then place the orb in his
-majesty’s left hand. Then his majesty should
-proceed through the choir to the west door of the
-Abbey, in the same manner as he came, wearing
-his crown and bearing in his right hand the Sceptre,
-with the Cross, and in his left the orb; all Peers
-wearing their coronets, and the Archbishops and
-Bishops their caps.</p>
-
-<p>The interior arrangements in the Abbey were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
-familiar. From the west door where the procession
-should enter to the screen which divides choir from
-nave, two rows of galleries were to be erected on
-each side of the centre aisle—the one gallery level
-with the vaultings, the other with the summit of the
-western door. These galleries should have their
-fronts fluted with crimson cloth richly draped at
-the top, and decorated with broad golden fringe at
-the bottom.</p>
-
-<p>On the floor of the centre aisle a slightly raised
-platform or carpeted way, should be laid down,
-along which the King and Queen, in procession
-should pass to the choir. This was to be matted over
-and covered with crimson cloth. On the pavement
-of the aisle bordering this carpeted way
-should stand the soldiery as a fence against interference.</p>
-
-<p>The theatre where the principal parts of the
-ceremony were to be enacted lies immediately under
-the central tower of the Abbey, and was a
-square formed by the intersection of the choir and
-the transcepts, extending nearly the whole breadth
-of the choir. On this square a platform was to be
-erected ascended by five steps. The summit of this
-platform and also the highest step leading to it, was
-to be covered with the richest cloth of gold. From
-that step down to the flooring of the theatre, all was
-covered with carpet of rich red or purple color bordered
-with gold. In the centre of the theatre the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
-sumptuously draped chair was to be placed for the
-sovereign, in which he receives the homage of the
-Peers.</p>
-
-<p>This interior pomp and splendor escaped the observation
-of Leacraft, though he was not unfamiliar
-with the details of the solemn pageant, but now
-it hardly interested him. His mind by a natural
-emancipation from the thrall of such spectacles,
-dwelt rather on the attitude of the people in this
-extreme peril and solicitude. He felt inquisitive
-to learn their feelings, their hopes, their cohesiveness
-in the changed estate. Were they likely to resolve
-into a chaos of preferences with only the cry
-of <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">sauve qui peut</i> in their mouths, or would they
-follow the new destinies, and preserve the nation.
-At length the populace were coming into their
-own. It was pretty evident that a King and Queen
-and Regalia, and Peers, and Peeresses, and a much
-surpliced Clergy, would not make a nation, without
-the workers, the rent payers, the men of action, the
-bread winners, the clerks, artisans, and merchants,
-the householder and his family, and that the sacred
-classes would be suddenly subjected to a <i xml:lang="la" lang="la">reductio
-ad absurdum</i>, if they formed the only inhabitants
-of the new regime and their titles lost their
-<em>raison d’etre</em> with the disappearance of the untitled
-mass.</p>
-
-<p>After the rendering of the Homage at the Abbey,
-the Procession was to take place, and the King arriving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
-at Tilbury, with the royal family, a selection
-of the Peers, the highest Episcopal prelates, and
-certain representative men from the Commons, including
-the Ministry, would be received on the
-Dreadnought, and with a glorious escort of the largest
-battleships, carrying the royal equipage, the
-furniture of Windsor Castle, and of St. James palace,
-and of the Buckingham mansion, the archives
-of the Parliament, at least a portion, steam away
-from England to Australia, to Melbourne. This
-Nucleus of Government holding the inseparable insignia,
-and the actual essence of the English nation
-would there, with pomp and solemn allegations,
-with rolling music and pious prayers, with thunders
-of the guns by the Navy, and the salute of the
-Army, be as it were reinstalled.</p>
-
-<p>But the route of the procession was not to be
-straight out of London. It comprised a broader
-purpose. It was proposed to circumvallate London,
-to impregnate it with the sentiment of the King’s
-leaving. It should be traversed and penetrated in
-all directions, gathering thus the public allegiance,
-and absorbing its loyalty, shedding the effulgence
-of the royal splendor upon the populace, and enchaining
-them anew to the principle and fact of
-English Sovreignty. It was a stupendous project.
-It involved stations and relays. Camps of the military
-were to be established at St. James Park, at
-Victoria Park, at Regent’s Park, at the West End<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>
-near Paddington, at Wormwood Scrubs, and in the
-southern districts around Clapham Common and
-towards Putney.</p>
-
-<p>The King was to stop at resting places, and in the
-largest local churches, a reduced form of the Homage
-was to be instituted involving the <em>enthronization</em>,
-with the displays of the Regalia, and the jubilation,
-and the reverence of the people expressed,
-as always in the <span class="locked">shouts—</span></p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">God save King Edward!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Long live King Edward!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">May the King live forever!</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The bells of the churches were to ring, the houses
-were to hang out their banners, flags were to cover
-the streets, bands stationed on prominent balconies,
-at points covering the entire long journey through
-and around the city, were to play national airs, that
-so there might be generated an overwhelming enthusiasm,
-a tumult of devotion, and thus constrain
-the Englishman afresh in the religion of the nation’s
-immortality.</p>
-
-<p>It was finely conceived, this elevation of the
-King. It was gorgeously executed. The imagination
-of the people was tremendously impressed,
-and the Ark of the Covenant of the eternal supremacy
-of the English crown seemed thus visibly incorporated,
-and presented to them. The procession
-was glittering, and it was majestic. It ponderously
-emphasized the English idea. There were really<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
-two processions, the first from Westminster to
-Buckingham Palace, the second through London.
-In the first—the King issued from Westminster, his
-crown borne before him, but holding in his right
-hand the Sceptre with the Cross, and in his left the
-Orb. Then began the most wonderful State ride
-through London. The superb chariot of the King
-surrounded by heralds, kings at arms, pursuivants,
-with judges, councillors, lords, and dignitaries, was
-followed by the open carriages of the nobility.</p>
-
-<p>The King was immersed in color. Garter—principal
-King-at-arms—was a miracle of dress.
-He wore a frock or tabard, crimson and gold emblazoned
-with the quarters of the United Kingdom.
-Then there was the Clarencieux of the South, and
-Norroy of the North—and the heralds of Lancaster,
-Somerset, Richmond, all wonderfully bedight, and
-the pursuivants—Rouge Croix, Rouge Dragon,
-Portcullis, and Blue Mantel—looking like the
-genii of a Christmas pantomime. And here with
-the King were the Lord Chamberlain, the Lord
-Steward, and the Master of the Horse. And there
-followed this cavalcade, surrounding the King like
-a many colored fringe, the carriages of the nobles
-wherein all the signs of degree, order, rank, were
-sumptuously shown. Here the robes of the Peers,
-crimson velvet edged with miniver—the capes furred
-with the same—and powdered with bars or
-rows of ermine, according to degree, rolled together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
-in a bank of oscillating glory. Beneath the
-mantles a court dress, a uniform, or regimentals
-were descried. The coronets were even worn, and
-as the scintillating groups passed, eager admirers
-separated the coronet of the baron with its six silver
-equidistant balls, from the coronet of a viscount
-with sixteen, from the coronet of an earl with
-eight balls raised on points, and with glistening
-gold strawberry leaves between the points, from
-the coronet of a marquis with four gold strawberry
-leaves alternating with four silver balls, and from
-the coronet of a duke with the eight gold strawberry
-leaves.</p>
-
-<p>Nor did beauty hesitate to add its witchery to the
-sports of splendor, and in behalf of that ancient
-idea of Monarchy, which now was enlisted against
-a deep peril of mistrust and repudiation. The
-Peeresses formed part of the procession. Their
-scarlet kirtles over the petticoats of white satin and
-lace, their flowing sleeves slashed and furred, their
-cushioned trains heaped in confusion in the carriages,
-and relieved by shining plaques of silver
-silk, were still more bewilderingly graced by jewelry,
-by oceans of gems resplendently transfigured in
-the blazing sun. In this momentous pageant the
-limits of the spectacular were invaded, even distended,
-in which some saw not only a lack of good
-taste, but the pressure of a little fear.</p>
-
-<p>Even the church advanced the bold bid for admiration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
-and wonder. It sent out its archbishops,
-bishops, rectors, canons, prebendaries and deacons,
-to compose parts of the vast exhibit to be interwoven
-in the variegated human carpet that filled the
-streets. Before the churches that were passed,
-choirs gathered and sang melodiously; the strong
-religious fibre of the English men and women was
-sedulously appealed to, or else it was the elemental
-flaming forward of their powerful conviction. At
-this strange moment there was less of pretence and
-trick than sincerity. The heart of the people was
-steadfastly united with the old traditions; they
-clung unbrokenly to the inheritance of English
-greatness. There was no reason to doubt their
-faith.</p>
-
-<p>The route of the second marvellous procession
-was from the Abbey through Bird Cage Walk past
-Victoria monument to Procession road, to the
-Strand, to Fleet street, over Ludgate hill, past St.
-Paul’s, to Cheapside, to Bishops street, to Shoreditch,
-to Hackney street, and so out to Victoria
-Park and Homerton. Back again to Highbury
-Fields, south by Essex road to Pentonville road, to
-Euston road, to Marylebone road, through Regents
-Park, through Hampstead road to Hampstead, to
-West Side, through Edgeware road to Hyde Park,
-and the Bays water to Holland park, to Hammersmith
-road, by Hammersmith bridge road to Castelnau;
-thence to Putney, to Battersea, to Clapham,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
-to Camberwell, thence to Walworth road, by London
-road, by Waterloo road to Westminster
-bridge, to the Houses of Parliament, and on the
-banks of the river Thames to the Tower, and on
-through White Chapel, Mile End road, Bow road,
-to Bromley, to Stratford, to Barking, to Tilbury.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing so prodigious had ever been conceived;
-and the resources of the empire, of the military, and
-the squadrons of the colonists, who should again,
-as at the Jubilee of Queen Victoria, present the
-diversified elements of English power, would be
-involved.</p>
-
-<p>At Tilbury on the Essex bank, opposite Gravesend,
-where rise the low bastions of Tilbury Fort,
-originally constructed by Henry III, King Edward
-the VII, would in a fashion diverse, and with a different
-end in view, also declare that he “had the
-heart and stomach of a King, and of a King of England
-too,” as had said Queen Elizabeth. But now
-it should be said by a King unappalled by the invasion
-of the powers of the air, as she was before
-the power of Spain, but now said with undiminished
-confidence and high hope, though said too with
-obedience to the supreme mandate of expulsion.</p>
-
-<p>Before it took place, Leacraft and Thomsen began
-their long walk from Ludgate hill, and Leacraft
-intently watched the street crowds. He noted
-also with recording interest the groups in the balconies
-with lunch baskets. The expectant air everywhere<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
-was not unnoticeably mingled with a kind
-of frightened silence. There was not much noise,
-no indiscriminate hubbub in the streets, and where
-groups were encountered, hurrying to their destination,
-they were quiet and restrained. Tension
-was evident, a high strung expectancy verging with
-impalpable approach upon tears, and the agony of
-penitential promises. The fundamentally religious
-optimism of the Englishman was confounded, and
-his acceptance of invisible guidance made itself
-seen in faces desolated by the grief of tears.</p>
-
-<p>The preparations were remarkable and elaborate.
-The windows were filled with chairs. Platforms
-were erected, almost luxuriously draped with red
-cloth and scarlet velvet, and surging crowds in
-spots seemed to bely the significance of the portentous
-moment. From time to time as the two observers
-walked in the middle of the street, they
-stopped reluctantly to notice signs of mourning.
-These took on the form of trailing streamers of
-crape, hung upon white cloth and their singularity
-amid the almost bombastic surplusage of scarlet
-dressings, awoke protest and resentment. At one
-point there was a particularly conspicuous dismal
-challenge to the susceptibilities of the spectators
-in a balcony loaded with sombre trappings which
-gained a startling prominence because of the patriotic
-and cheerful decorations on either side of it.
-Before this lugubrious appeal a small group of malcontents<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>
-had gathered, and were indulging in incendiary
-criticism.</p>
-
-<p>“Hits no use turning a sour face to the thing.
-What’s got to be, is got to be, and a little heart will
-keep a sour stomach from making itself sick. Hi
-say we’re hall in the same boat, and cheerfulness
-makes pleasant company. Such a show as that
-hought not to be tolerated, Hi say.” This belligerency
-came from the thick lips of a red faced man,
-who had his coat over his arm, and whose leathern
-leggings, corduroy knee breeches, and flaming weskit
-with a high collar strapped to his muscular neck
-by a pea green scarf, betokened a representative of
-the “fancy,” or an ostler turned out for a day’s
-holiday.</p>
-
-<p>“Indeed I think so,” squealed a thin, short man
-with a red nose and a curious habit of wiping his
-mouth with a yellow handkerchief. “It’s hard
-enough for the sufferin’ masses to leave hearth,
-home, and, I may say, family, not to be saddened
-more’n than is natural with these funereal suggestions.”</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” shouted a sturdy arrival on the other
-limit of the circle; “Let’s tear them down. The
-quickest way to cure trouble is to git rid of it. It’s
-rotten insultin’ to stick those weeds under our
-noses.” Under the influence of these defiant words
-the knot of men moved towards the objectionable
-drapery with evidently unfriendly intentions.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
-But they had not been unobserved from the
-inside of the house on whose front these
-sad reminders hung. A window shot up and
-a tall slender woman advanced to the edge
-of the balcony. She was dressed deeply
-in black, her neck was surrounded by some white
-crepe stuff, and the sentiment, as Howells has it,
-of her dress was a pathetic suggestion of bereavement
-and misfortune. Her hair, yet luxuriant, was
-plentifully sprinkled with gray; her face had the
-authorized look of nobility and distinction. She
-was yet prepossessing, though the crowding years
-had brought her past middle life. The distinctive
-impression she made upon Leacraft, as he and
-Thomsen, somewhat withdrawn, watched the denouement
-of this street episode, was that of abiding
-sorrow, patiently borne, and doubtless united in
-her, with Christian resignation and unsullied piety.
-A beautiful picture of the English woman, who
-resolutely lives her earnest life of prayer and self-sacrifice,
-holding intensely to her heart some fond
-memory, wreathed in amaranth. And Leacraft, as
-an Englishman, blessed Providence there were
-such. The men on the street were a little abashed
-by the pale face and lofty mien of the lady who had
-recognized their purpose, and placed herself there
-to thwart it.</p>
-
-<p>She came forward and instantly spoke; her voice
-was excessively clear, but an underlying mellowness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
-imparted an extreme sweetness to its tones.</p>
-
-<p>“My friends you wish these mourning signs taken
-away. They offend you. But when you know
-that they express to me the approaching loss of all
-my friends, you will not, I think, feel so harshly
-about them. The King, in a week, leaves the shores
-of England—the evacuation of England begins to-day—and
-with the King goes the great English nation
-and this wonderful city with all its memories,
-with its beauty, its historic power, its incessant interest,
-our common home for all our lifetimes, will
-dwindle and dwindle and disappear, lost in arctic
-snows and ice, at least so they tell us.</p>
-
-<p>“But I shall stay. In this house suffering has
-come to me; it has never left <em>me</em>. I shall not leave
-<em>it</em>. I mourn for those who in going away die to
-English pride, to English love, to English devotion,
-and”—she leaned out over the sullen men beneath
-her—“and die to me. These black films are for
-them.”</p>
-
-<p>She stopped. The men, worried and puzzled and
-surprised, looked a little sheepishly at each other.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, well,” said he of the hostler type, “my
-leddy, no offense, seein’ how you feel about it. Hi
-say—’ave your way.”</p>
-
-<p>“Yes, yes,” squealed the preacher, “if the empty
-badges of mournin’ give ennyone—ennyone—satisfaction,
-why it’s not in reason to question their motives
-in this excroociating moment.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span></p>
-
-<p>“Gad! the lady’s right,” shouted the former belligerent,
-whose prompt hint had at first nearly precipitated
-the riot, “She’s got the right ring—and
-I’m damned if anyone teches the rags there I’ll bust
-his cock-eyed head aff his shoulders.”</p>
-
-<p>This vociferous statement produced a hubbub of
-approval, and won many distinct admissions of entire
-acquiescence—and with these reassuring murmurs
-the lady retired, after telling her thanks, and
-the gathering withdrew down the street.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft and Thomsen continued their way westward.
-Before them suddenly, after a half-hour’s
-sauntering, shone an avenue of military splendor.
-They were in Charing Cross, having pushed down
-the Strand, and they were on the south side of
-Trafalgar Square, and not far from the equestrian
-statue of Charles I. Trafalgar Square was filled
-with troops. The effect of color was transporting.
-The massed regiments of infantry were broken by
-parks of artillery, while immediately under Nelson’s
-column the Nineteenth Hussars—the “Dumpies
-of 1759,” the Fifteenth Hussars—“Elliott’s
-Light Horse,” the Sixteenth Lancers—“the
-Queen’s,” and the Thirteenth Hussars—“the ragged
-brigade”—were confusedly stationed, their
-mingling busbies and dependent bags looking like
-a garden patch.</p>
-
-<p>From point to point issued galloping videttes,
-carrying their pennants on lance-heads affixed to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
-the stirrups, which undulated in the air, as the
-horses pranced and caracolled. The tramp of
-troops, the sighing of bugles, and the resounding
-surges of music, surrounded them. It was afternoon.
-The beginning of the first day’s procession
-from the Abbey doubtless was at hand. The stirring
-air communicated the thrills of an immense
-event, and the people, petrified into attention, stood
-crushed against each other in rows of forlorn expectancy.
-The suffocating excitement was unbearable,
-the more so because of its immobility. Leacraft
-decided to rush through London, and reach
-Victoria Park, the Hackney Marshes and Clapton,
-in order to determine the attitude, the action, of the
-poorer classes. Thomsen was unwilling to desert
-the fermenting throngs around Trafalgar Square,
-or miss, for a moment, the kaleidoscope of changing
-soldiery, and so Leacraft, leaving him, entered
-a hansom and shot off.</p>
-
-<p>He was not averse to this solitude. His affections
-for Miss Tobit had lately warmed into a
-less indifferent kindliness, and he began to feel a
-gnawing anxiety lest the pretty Scotch woman
-thought less of him—in the way lovers like—than
-she did of her cousin, the handsome and obnoxiously
-unconcerned Thomsen. Thomsen knew exactly
-Leacraft’s feelings, and regarded them with unconcealed
-forbearance, and—what was more provoking—with
-a frank condescension of sympathy. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
-yet the men had become good friends; they had
-talked long and seriously, with all the elements of
-critical guidance they could summon, about the
-strange reversal or revolution in the nation’s affairs.
-But at these moments they were in an impersonal
-frame of contact, and the personal exigencies
-which later crept between them, were all absent.
-Leacraft’s intellectual weight easily made
-itself felt in these discussions, and Thomsen, with
-cordial alacrity, assumed the obedient position of
-audience and pupil.</p>
-
-<p>As Leacraft was driven eastward in the swinging
-vehicle, he flung himself against its cushions, and
-again thought of the monstrous and incredible metamorphosis
-in the fortunes of his people. The vigorous
-life of ten centuries, with all its memories,
-the heaped up riches of its achievements, the splendid
-literary legacy of the past, with its art, its lineaments
-of beauty, its dusky shadows, the solicitous
-charm of its contrasted periods of history, the deep
-encrustation, nay, rather, the unfathomable deposits
-of character, and accomplishment which
-overlaid the Kingdom of England, and, in this city
-of London, the beating heart of its vast interests,
-thickly choked each avenue and current of its life—to
-abandon all this at the summons of a temperatural
-caprice, at the tempestuous whim of an earthquake,
-before the blind violence of frost and snow
-and ice, was the most unendurable of humiliations!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
-It bit too deeply at the generalized assumption of
-the whole world, that man ruled the earth; it
-soured the contentment of his avid vanity, and to
-the Englishman it assailed the hitherto impregnable
-fortress of his heroic conceit. And yet—the old
-dream of a greater England arose, as it had arisen
-a hundred times before, in all these troubling and
-disconcerting months—an England leaping forward,
-as an exultant youth, bearing in his hands
-the trophies of new and brighter conquests, flushed
-under changed environments, with the inspiration
-of new ambitions, and new powers of creation,
-issuing into a greater chapter of human growth
-than had ever before been conceived or written.</p>
-
-<p>And yet what an eviction! This glorious old
-England, with its sweet homes, its innumerable
-beauties, its convincing happiness of downs and
-glade and gardens, flowering into clouds of blossoms,
-its lakes, its gentle streams, its æsthetic softness
-and dimness, its manifold and opulent charm
-of landscape, the hurrying and constant kisses of
-its moist skies, in league with all the graces of the
-seasons—to cast this aside, and begin again, elsewhere,
-in regions drear and sterile of all these
-things; ah! that was too hard! too hard! and, as
-he had often done, Leacraft covered his face with
-his hands and sobbed.</p>
-
-<p>Amid these fluctuating thoughts and feelings, the
-hansom swung with vehement oscillations along<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
-the streets, in the more deserted parts of London,
-and brought its occupant in sight of the Bethnal
-Green Museum, from which a diversion along Old
-Ford Road and Approach Road, flung him into
-Victoria Park, the huge playground of the poorer
-eastern section of the city. He was driven to the
-eastern part of the immense reservation, and was
-gratified to find a public meeting in progress, the
-exact thing he most wished to be present at, and
-to estimate.</p>
-
-<p>In a broad and treeless area of the park, with
-the grass showing hesitatingly after the long winter,
-but vivid also in spots, in the strong light of the
-afternoon, with an atmosphere strangely variant
-from the traditional, and, to Leacraft, much loved
-velvety softness and mellowed obscuration of former
-days, were gathered a multitude of people.
-They surrounded a speaker, who, on some sort of
-improvised platform, with a knot of associated
-leaders, with a swaying body and occasionally outstretched
-hands, was engaged in a harangue which
-was received with attention unattended by the
-slightest demonstration of assent or disapproval.
-It looked from a short distance almost like a devotional
-assembly, it seemed so reverently silent, and
-as Leacraft approached, this impression was partially
-at least verified, for the speaker’s hands
-ceased their agitated appeal, the occasional higher
-cries proceeding from his lips died away, and a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>
-song or hymn burst suddenly from the still motionless
-multitude. It lasted for an instant, perhaps
-a single verse, and as Leacraft drew near, another
-man from the platform group stood up, and
-stepped to the front of the small stand. At that
-precise moment the cannonading, agreed upon as a
-signal, announced the starting of the royal cortege,
-and the sad beginning of the imperial evacuation of
-England. It was heard with far away reverberations,
-as it was repeated from other nearer points,
-and this vagueness, by a congruity of effect with
-the dull misery weighing on Leacraft’s heart, seemed
-to give to it a deeper poignancy of grievous import.
-It produced the impression of an irrevocable
-doom. As the sounds were heard by the assembled
-crowds, the speaker lifted his hand and raised his
-face skyward, as if in supplication, the heads were
-all uncovered by one spontaneous impulse, and,
-caught in the same wave of feeling, Leacraft sought
-the invocation of his own blessing on the King and
-all he stood for.</p>
-
-<p>The interrupted speaker began his address. The
-man was a strong type. His face was somewhat
-leisurely framed in short whiskers, confined to his
-cheeks; his eyes were large, blue and unblinking,
-with a resolute look in them that had the merit of
-extorting, at least, a respectful recognition; his
-complexion met all the requirements of the English
-reputation for color, but it left no impression of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
-having attained its superior brilliancy through less
-innocent means than exercise and personal care.
-His broad, high forehead—a little heightened in its
-expansive effect through the faltering recession of
-the iron grey hair that stood a little stiffly above it—rose
-above the admirably firm nose, whose size
-and contour formed to the reader of physiognomies
-another compelling admonition to give its wearer
-the rational allegiance of attention. The man’s
-voice was musical, with a single intonation that imparted
-to it much carrying power, and it yielded to
-certain tendencies of relaxation in speaking that
-gave it almost a feminine sweetness. Leacraft put
-him down for a labor leader of a sort, character and
-design belonging to the best elements of the current
-labor thought and organization; a man of that
-impressive stamp in modern adjustments of self-assertion,
-of which John Burns was so extraordinary
-an example.</p>
-
-<p>He had begun his speech as Leacraft, with insistent
-zeal, pushed his way deeply toward the centre
-and margins nearer the stage, of the attentive
-throng.</p>
-
-<p>“My friends, we must think for ourselves. We
-are not likely to have our thinking done for us to
-the best advantage. Now there are some plain, undeniable
-facts. They are the kind of facts which
-cannot be hid under a bushel basket, nor, for that
-matter, under a king’s crown. One of the most intelligible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
-of these facts—and it is fundamental—is
-that the number of individual heads apportioned to
-the same number of paired legs make up the population,
-and units of population make nations, and
-nothing else can. An aggregate of gentlemen
-dressed in wigs, or holding truncheons sticking out
-of purple and gold-braided shawls never has, and,
-from sheer destitution, never could make a nation.
-By all the signs around us, and I am willing to
-accept them without any question, this country of
-ours is going to move; is about to begin housekeeping
-somewhere else, and I think it is an imperative
-necessity for the success of such a change that
-everyone living now on this island and calling himself
-an Englishman, must move also, and move to
-the same place (Hear, Hear,). But that moving is
-conditioned. It is indispensably necessary that we
-proclaim that condition, and insist upon its acceptance.
-We hold the situation in our own hands. We
-control the key to the future, to make or mar, or
-destroy the continuity of the English name. Why?
-Because if to-morrow the English workingman refused
-to follow the English flag to Australia, and
-took his wisdom, his tools and his savings somewhere
-else, that flag would lose twenty millions of
-subjects, and would wave over a remnant that could
-not ensure its protection or its support. (Hear,
-Hear). But the condition?”</p>
-
-<p>The speaker paused, sweeping his eyes over the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>
-sea of upturned faces, as if he was hunting through
-the chaotic assemblage for the disclosure of some
-particular visage which, either as an ally or an
-opponent, might receive the shock of his omnipotent
-secret. Whether he discovered the facial invitation
-or not, was not revealed in his subsequent
-action. He wheeled sideways to the stiffened
-line of men behind him—doubtless expectant and
-impatient numbers in the afternoon’s programme—and
-bringing his clenched right hand into the
-hollowed palm of his left hand, shouted, and not
-discordantly: “The condition is the abolition forever
-of the Law of Entail that to-day makes us a
-servile race.”</p>
-
-<p>Again he paused, as if so ponderous a statement,
-so fiercely declared, would elicit a demonstration—but
-to Leacraft’s abounding wonder, not a sound
-arose from the vast audience. Whether it was appalled,
-or thrilled, interested, or pleased, or dumbfounded,
-it gave no sign. Its immutable decree for
-the speaker to go on was its very silence. No public
-orator could conveniently, with respect to his own
-sensitive needs for public encouragement, stop
-there. But he had become cautious. He felt that
-perchance his auditors yet held mental reservations
-in favor of things as they were, as they wished them
-to continue.</p>
-
-<p>“I say, with all my heart and soul,” he went on,
-“stay with the Flag, stay with the King, stay with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
-our lords and ladies, but on one condition as freemen,
-to whose keeping now in this hour of peril
-they are wholly given. Into your hands the God
-of Nations entrusts their fate, but that fate can
-only be propitious as you are true to yourselves,
-your children, and your children’s children.”</p>
-
-<p>Then came the long delayed approval. A wave
-of excited pleasure brushed across the crowds, and
-the hand-clapping, begun in many separate centres,
-ran together, and with shouts of acquiescence,
-with cheers, with central and periphera, agitation,
-the huge aggregate expressed its tumultuous
-adhesion. Leacraft felt that the loyalty of
-these people was not impaired, and that the logic
-of events would still hold them united in a consentaneous
-allegiance at least, to the idea of the
-English nation, though it was pretty evident that
-the democratic claims of a wider opportunity for
-personal, for family promotion, leavened all their
-feelings, and that in the new regime it might be
-expected, that a great deal of the present relation
-of the classes would be swept away, and that the
-old time idolatry of degree, the mere flunkeyism
-of homage to name and geneological prestige,
-among the masses, had shrunken into nothingness.</p>
-
-<p>The stage was again occupied by a speaker, who
-was interested in very practical and urgent questions,
-the <em>how</em> and <em>where</em> and <em>when</em>, the disposition
-of the emigrants to the new country, and he revelled<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>
-in plans, provisions, details of occupancy, and
-employment. He showed conclusively the power
-and effectiveness of organization, and the surprising
-accommodations that can be extracted from
-the most forlorn prospects by a shrewd use of forethought
-and combination. Funds had been
-scraped together, settlements, as yet in the dream
-stage of realization created, and a practical socialism
-consummated in the confederation of a large
-numbers in one common venture. This aspect of
-the emigration was dwelt upon by the speaker with
-some rigor. It was a surprise to Leacraft, and lent
-a strange expression to the still irreconcilable
-spectacle of Englishmen looking for a new home.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft soon tired of sums, schedules, names,
-and lists, and wandered away over the park
-through the scattered groups, many centred
-around one of those popular tribunes, who, by
-reason of a little more leisure, perhaps a little more
-application, and always much more labial facility,
-influence their class profoundly. The broad lawns
-were filled with these improvised parliaments, in
-which too banter, argument, retort, query, admonition
-bore a part. The perplexing thing was the
-average satisfaction shown by the people, a kind
-of holiday anticipation, as if they were off for an
-excursion. To them perhaps it seemed a new start
-in life, with the ground less encumbered by rivals,
-by restrictions, less shadowed by priority, and favors<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
-for a few, and by the intimidation of a necessary
-subserviency. They almost seemed happy in
-the thought of change. There was bitterness in
-this, and yet to Leacraft with his undissembling
-and emancipated mind it was understood. It meant
-<em>chance</em> to these people—this removal; and to most
-of them chance never came, never could come as
-they were. And then to linger, was starvation,
-loneliness, disuse, death. The business of the country
-had enormously shrunken, its productive power
-had been halved, commerce was drifting in
-stronger and steadier currents elsewhere, and no
-where so strongly as to Germany, while the over
-mastering pre-eminence of America loomed up in
-proportions that paralysed conjecture.</p>
-
-<p>Pondering on all these things Leacraft, in his
-absorbed way, stumbled over a little girl on the
-edge of one of the shaded walks. He quickly
-stooped and picked her up, and confronted the
-young mother, already hastening to the rescue of
-her child.</p>
-
-<p>“I should have been more careful,” said the embarrassed
-gentleman. “Well, indeed we have all
-good reason to be thinking more than seeing, these
-times,” said the smiling mother, “I wonder what
-we’ll all be like this time, come twelve month.”</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I dare say that we shall be doing much the
-same thing that we do here, in a different place—and
-then we shall be a year older;” the young woman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
-laughed, and attested a complete willingness to
-talk more, as she raised the ruffled child from the
-grass and moved nearer to Leacraft. Nor was
-Leacraft indifferent. He felt nettled, and willful,
-with a subconsciousness of disappointment and
-fear. This human and healthy mother, with the
-fresh guerdon of her blushing youth in her arms,
-was a helpful companion, and then she carried the
-solace of some new story, perhaps a new need, and
-Leacraft was not averse to being sympathetic or
-helpful.</p>
-
-<p>“Willie, that’s my man, sir,” continued the girl,
-“is right glad to get away. Last Candlemas his
-mother died, and left Willie her savings, and that,
-and what we have, will tide us to America, and
-Willie he says that he can get a home, and have a
-little land, and Willie will be better of his sickness.
-He’s not here the day, because of his cough and the
-fever that he has. Ah! sir, it makes me chill at my
-heart to see him, and to think that we are going so
-far,” and the sweet face looked piteously at Leacraft,
-and the tears overran the sad gray eyes.
-Leacraft saw it all; a consumptive father, poor, out
-of work, staking everything now to reach that
-bourne, where the hopeless of all nations saw the
-welcome light of opportunity. As he thought of
-this he saw how great this avulsion was, what a
-tearing up of the roots of family and home life, and
-how ruthlessly they were to be planted in all sorts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
-of soils, under alien skies, with inauspicious hands
-to tend and raise them. He turned to the young
-mother, and said, “It won’t seem so far, if a face
-from the old home greets you there. I shall be
-there also, and I will not only be glad to see you,
-but glad to help you, if you need it. Take this,” and
-opening his card case, he wrote an address in New
-York city. “If,” he continued, “you do not remain
-in New York, this will always find me. Good
-bye.” He extended his hand and shook with unaffected
-warmth the hand of the young English
-woman, to whom the future loomed up in misty and
-insecure, perhaps menacing shadows. How merciful
-is sympathy, with what a solacing hand it soothes
-the “ruffled brow of care,” and how genially
-it bids the springs of life still follow, and, for a
-moment at least, flow too in the sunlight of affection.
-The English woman seized Leacraft’s hand
-and pressed it tightly, and her face looked into his
-with almost an enamored thankfulness; she raised
-the baby girl and held it close to Leacraft, and the
-restrained Englishman kissed it with quaint shyness.
-At the instant, all the shifting helplessness
-about him moved him inexpressibly. Again they
-shook hands and the Englishman betrayed into
-emotional excess, walked rapidly away, reassuring
-her at the last that he would indeed be soon in
-America.</p>
-
-<p>A few feet away a different encounter swept him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
-into a contrasted realm of emotional excitement.
-A rude brawling loafer, none too sober, and reckless
-in oaths and obscenity, had seized the small flags of
-two little boys—union jacks—and throwing them
-down on the ground, with an outburst of profanity
-trampled and defaced them. The Englishman inflamed
-and ardent, holding a wounded heart, stood
-stupified and insulted. The next instant and he had
-snatched the flags from their degradation, and with
-an instantaneous revulsion struck the culprit of
-this outrage squarely in the face. The blow was
-unmistakably adequate. The ruffian reeled and
-fell and failed to regain his feet, before a shout of
-applause greeted Leacraft and a concourse of men,
-who had hastened to the spot on the outcry of the
-children surrounded him with welcome salutation.</p>
-
-<p>“A fine blow—well hit and straight as a gunshot
-man! That was the right medicine for his
-complaint. I’m thinking that a little water might
-wash it down. I say, boys, let’s duck him, souse
-him in the lake. A tubbing might clean his sassy
-mouth, and a man is none too good to be rolled in
-the mud himself, who treads on the English flag.”
-The subject of this criticism was on his feet again
-in rather a belligerent mood, blinking and rolling
-his fists in a minatory fashion, and sputtering defiance,
-and presenting a transient spectacle of inebriety
-and coarseness that would have been ludicrous,
-if the temper of the men behind the new<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
-speaker had not seemed so hostile. Leacraft felt
-that they would do some serious mischief to the
-miserable delinquent, and he stepped in front of
-them interposing his body between the foremost of
-the ranks, and the, now somewhat intimidated
-drunkard.</p>
-
-<p>“I think my friends, that you should spare yourselves
-the trouble to punish this miscreant just now.
-Let him alone. Neither he or his kind are likely to
-hurt our flag. He has learned his lesson. To-day
-my friends it becomes us to command ourselves,
-and hold ourselves above resentment. We are all
-sad, our hearts are heavy, the old Manse is to be
-left and new conquests across the waters made,
-new homes. Ah! how large the vision grows.”
-The men had enclosed Leacraft in a dense circle.
-He saw that he had their attention, while the stumbling
-object of their first anger effected a shuffling
-retreat with ignominious haste. His ruse now was
-to entirely capture their thoughts. “It is a vision
-of a new England, one made so by our devotion,
-the fixed quality of our patriotism, an undeviating
-union among ourselves, and just pride in our history,
-our race, our King. It may be a better England;
-it can not be a more beautiful England. We
-are deeply stricken. While we bow to this necessity,
-let us make the grandest display of fortitude
-of resource, of hope, of courage, of skill, of judgment,
-ever known. In our disaster we shall again<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
-conquer the world and hold it submissive at our
-feet.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft had enough disengagement of thought
-to half smile to himself at this grandiloquent pretense,
-but he knew his audience. It was quite British,
-embued with that cloutish conceit which all
-popular masses in every successful nation instinctively
-display. He had appealed to their conceit,
-though not only to that, and they responded enthusiastically.
-As he finished this mild buncombe, not
-without some misgivings as to his own honesty, as
-he intended at first to repair to the United States,
-the men nearest to him grasped his hand, others
-shouted approbation, and still others in silence
-moved away shaking their heads. Leacraft talked
-with the men about him. He found that they had
-been assigned places in the scheme of emigration;
-some were going to Australia, with a systematic
-dispersion over the region, which most needed
-their labor, others to New Zealand into socialistic
-farming; others to the cape and Rhodesia and still
-others to Canada; so that his exalted sentiment of
-solidarity lost a little of its impressiveness. Leacraft
-lingered a while longer, and as the day ended
-in a refulgent sunset with church bells, near and
-far ringing to the services, that now for a week
-would be held at all hours, inaugurating an unbroken
-intercession at the throne of grace for the guidance
-and protection of the people, he left his cordial<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
-acquaintances and went westward.</p>
-
-<p>He reached Park Lane near the Kensington Gardens,
-Gloucester House, and the fountain of
-Thornycroft, the region of Mayfair, the dazzling
-centre, the illustrious apse of English social splendor,
-where the inherited privileges of life were
-not discordantly blended with the no less inherited
-gifts of fortune; that spot in all London which to
-relinquish, would seem to sound the depths of
-national disgrace. The moon swam in the lucent
-sky, the air was clear, but cold, and the familiar
-ravishing softness of the June nights as London
-knew them once, was gone; those illumined mists,
-the dewyness that spread from the ground to the
-enveloping air, and threw veil over veil of shimmering
-opacity upon arch and tower, sward, tree,
-bridge and storied palace, was all gone, too, and
-the beautiful neighborhood, as Leacraft wandered
-through it, from Cumberland Gate—where he saw
-snow still resting in sheltered recesses—along Park
-Lane to Hyde Park Corners, through Grosvenor
-Place to Chapel street, to Belgrave Square, was
-revealed in an aerial sincerity, that gave its splendor
-an almost scintillant loveliness, and drove still
-deeper into Leacraft’s heart the sense of a bewildering
-bereavement.</p>
-
-<p>The streets were filled with flying equipages, and
-the mansions were ablaze, the sidewalks held few
-pedestrians, and as Leacraft sorrowfully moved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
-through the stately purlieus, music swept out from
-open windows or swinging doors. Often he paused
-and watched the descending occupants of the carriages;
-they were entrancing women and peerless
-men, their laughter was silvery and undismayed,
-unchecked by tears. Could it be possible that these
-inner esoteric circles of London high life and unimaginable
-wealth indulged in revelry; could not the
-crash and fall of empires turn the votaries of gayety
-to soberer thoughts, or stifle the intoxicating
-voice of pleasure? Leacraft wondered, and the
-weariness of a great suspense weighed him down;
-the ingrained Puritanism of his nature raged
-against this heartlessness, this indecent bravado,
-a mockery of joy, where all should be shadowed
-with the sighs of penitence and supplication.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft was bitterly offended at this apparent
-heartlessness; it startled him beyond the limits of
-endurance; he looked for some representative of
-this foolish life, upon whom to turn with rebuke
-and denunciation. Leacraft wandered on in a disconsolate
-mood, and the growing indications, with
-the falling night, that the fashionable world of London
-was engaged, in a preconcerted way, to spend
-the last hours of its metropolitan sojourn in a
-spendthrift vortex of excitement and conviviality
-moved him to muttered objurgations. He had
-slipped past Hyde Park Corners, past the Apsley
-House, and had glided with hastening steps, as his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
-passion of revolt, at this unseemly loss of self-respect,
-rose to a towering indignation, into Grosvenor
-Square. He stood facing the long facade,
-where in repetitive elegance, with columned
-porches and mansard roofs, and wall-like chimneys,
-the mansions of the very rich, illumined at
-all their windows, poured forth a torrent of light.
-Aggrieved and stupefied, he shot into Berkley
-Square, and still no interruption to the aspect of
-mad revelry. Could it be a frenzied spasm of indulgence,
-before separation forever from the bliss
-of the West End, that terrestrial paradise of swelldom
-and financial and social glory? He wondered.
-And thus wondering, he came to Devonshire
-House, fronting Piccadilly. The comfortable
-home, with its small brick work, peeking chimney
-pots, the low entablature and triple doors behind
-the iron gateway, and the unbroken watch of the
-woman-headed sphinxes, on either side of the elevated
-escutcheon of the Kingdom, was there, encompassed
-by its imprisoning walls—and here, too,
-the effrontery of lavish gayety assaulted his eyes.
-The gates were flung wide open, powdered footmen
-were ranged before the doors, arriving and
-departing carriages threaded Piccadilly with conscienceless
-celerity, music uttered its delicious melodies,
-and in them was no requiem note, no throb of
-sorrow, and the guests crowding into its dazzling
-halls seemed untouched by thoughts less careless<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>
-than the joys of the fleeting moments, whose hurrying
-steps were bringing the dawn of disaster to
-England. Exasperated, Leacraft turned on his
-heel in disgust, and was going towards Leicester
-Square, when a sharp report somewhere on the
-side of the Geological Museum, and ahead of his
-position, startled him, and the next instant he saw
-a carriage, with prancing steeds, plunging down
-the street, the swaying figure of the driver denoting
-his complete loss of control, while on one side
-of the equipage, that side towards Leacraft, the
-pale face of a gentleman was seen, and beside him
-the distracted visage of an elderly lady. As the
-carriage approached Leacraft, it crossed the street,
-and the front wheels collided with the curbing.
-This administered a slight detention, and the
-struggling horses turned again to the opposite side
-of the thoroughfare. Quick to see his advantage,
-Leacraft sprang to the head of the nearer horse,
-and exerting all his strength, which was not inconsiderable,
-he succeeded in tripping the beast, and
-as it fell the traces holding its companion broke,
-and the freed creature raced away down the avenue.
-The driver leaped to the sidewalk and held
-the now imprisoned horse, which, starting to its
-feet, stood trembling beside him, while Leacraft
-hastened to the door of the vehicle to liberate its
-occupants.</p>
-
-<p>He had already been forstalled by the gentleman<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span>
-himself, who pushed the door back as Leacraft
-reached it and stepped to the walk, followed instantly
-by the lady in much commotion and disorder.
-Their agitation was short lived, and succumbed
-to the exercise of their own self-control. It
-was the gentleman who first spoke: “I am under
-the deepest obligation to you, sir, for your quickness
-and your courage. You may readily have
-saved us from a miserable fate. And”—Leacraft
-interrupted: “You were going to some <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">rendezvous</i>
-of pleasure; this, sir, in my opinion, on the eve of
-the nation’s assassination deserved punishment.”
-The speech was crude, rude perhaps, and the bitter
-taunt smote the stranger like a physical blow.
-He recoiled from it as if the sting of a cowhide
-had crossed his face. His face itself was a study.
-He stared at Leacraft, and as the latter met his
-gaze unflinchingly the pale face, distinguished in
-outline, feature, and expression, flushed to the temples,
-while the eyes seated under bushy brows
-gazed at Leacraft with a peculiar earnestness, not
-relieved of the dangerous suggestion of a rising
-passion. His companion understood his excitement,
-she clutched his arm, and seemed to apprehend
-a physical outbreak. Then the mouth opened,
-and spoke, and the voice was unexpectedly calm,
-and the utterances measured: “We are under deep
-obligation to you sir, but it is difficult for me to
-restrain myself before the false statements you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
-have ventured to make. Can you explain this insult?”</p>
-
-<p>He moved nearer to Leacraft who did not budge,
-but inspired with an increasing vigor of disgust,
-and eager to summarily remonstrate at the seeming
-cruelty of the parade about him, its grotesque
-wickedness, said: “I do not wish to take advantage
-of the accidental relations which have thus
-unexpectedly thrown us together. But surely it
-is known among men, and known bitterly among
-Englishmen that the shadows of an awful twilight
-are falling about them, and the Nation’s Day is
-closing. At such a crisis can it be possible for men
-and women, calling themselves English, in whom
-the memory of English fame and English glory,
-is still a present pride, can it be possible that at
-this moment they still consort for amusement, for
-display, for the fugitive follies of mutual admiration?
-This aristocracy is the head and forefront
-of the nation, and it should now be bowed in penitence,
-in supplication, in the agony of self inquiry,
-and it stupifies me to find them gay, when the
-heart of England is breaking with grief.”</p>
-
-<p>A curious metamorphosis worked in the lineaments
-of the gentleman he was addressing. The
-hard lines relaxed, and a wistful smile, that drew
-its occult meaning from the man’s interior sadness,
-stole softly over his face. He put out his hand,
-which Leacraft accepted, and he returned Leacraft’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
-pressure. There was an instant’s silence,
-and then the stranger spoke, still holding Leacraft’s
-hand, and retaining his undeviating inspection
-of Leacraft’s face, as if he would force upon
-himself the recognition of a friend.</p>
-
-<p>“These are just words, sir,” he began: “but
-how much you misunderstand what is going on
-here. This apparent revelry is an effort to keep
-from swooning: it is the forced continuance of a
-life familiar to us, when that life is to be crushed
-into nothingness; it is the defiance of habit, the revolt
-against extinction, the mortal protest against
-the infamous tyranny of circumstances. It is a delirium
-of indulgence, to forget what is coming upon
-us; a moment’s arbitrary refusal to think of the
-future, a dance, in whose whirl we shall remit the
-impulses of suicide. It is unreasonable, but its
-monstrous unreasonableness to you sir, measures
-our appalling sense of the disaster we can not stop
-to think of, measures the intensity of the recoil
-from obliteration; like the dressed and garlanded
-victim of an Aztec immolation we taste again the
-festive sweets upon which perhaps our cloyed appetites
-are no longer to feed. We are the sufferers
-in this eviction; the greatest, the poor, the artisan,
-laborer, the vast mediocrity lose something, but
-it amounts to little more than the exchange of one
-station here, for another of the same sort somewhere
-else. In a material sense our loss is incalculable;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
-half our riches disappears but with that
-loss goes social prestige, title, and the moral consciousness
-of elevation, the breath of our
-nostrils. I, sir, am ——.” Leacraft did not
-move; his astonishment was too sharply focussed
-upon all the astounding previous confession.
-“And,” continued the man, “the
-ruin of worldly fortune seems small, after all, compared
-with the sacrifice of that dignified and sheltered
-life, which moved serenely, with every accompaniment
-of joy, in these delightful abodes, and
-under the protecting aegis of an inexpressible
-separation from the rest of the world. But”—he
-seemed to wish to justify himself, somehow, as
-he noticed the still petrified stare of Leacraft—“we
-have not been neglectful of the matters of adjustment.
-Committees have been appointed, plans
-laid, funds appropriated, agents despatched, for
-the selection of our new homes, and though we take
-our flight with lopped wings, our plumage may in
-time resume its former beauty. Do not misunderstand
-us because of these assemblies. We too carry
-deeper than you the pain of an unutterable grief.”</p>
-
-<p>He finished, and Leacraft drawn into a reverie
-over the singular confession, which was anything
-but reassuring, and partook, to his mind, of the dementia
-of the foolish victim of a depraved habit,
-was silent. He felt the imperious requirements of
-speech, but he could say nothing. He felt pity, he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
-was not without sympathy, though perhaps in that
-matter, a certain savor of self denying control, and
-a practical judgment interfered with his approval
-of the hyperbole of the speaker. And, almost
-dreaming, he stood there while the stranger and his
-lady re-entered their carriage, to which the runaway
-horse had been reattached, and drove off.
-Leacraft watched them mechanically and then turned,
-walked down Piccadilly, crossed Green Park,
-and looked at Buckingham Palace. The huge
-structure was partially illuminated, and the square
-in front of it was filled with soldiers, many of
-whom were at rest around the Victoria Memorial.
-To an officer lounging near by, Leacraft said,
-“Can you tell me where the King is to-night?”</p>
-
-<p>“He sleeps at St. Leonards in Shoreditch,” was
-the laconic reply.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_274" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">THE SPECTACLE.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>It was two days later than the events narrated
-above, that Leacraft and Thomsen, with Miss Tobit
-between them, sat in a crowded window on Hammersmith
-road watching for the enormous procession
-that had been slowly winding through London,
-with offices and services, halts and functions,
-as the King sadly led the departure of the English
-people from the Mother of Nations.</p>
-
-<p>And the vast pageant approached. Down Kensington
-road its first glittering sallies were seen,
-the block of London police, a gorgeous cavalcade
-behind them of the peers of the realm, and in the
-immeasurable distance the shimmering parts, that
-looked stationary, and yet were coming on with
-ample speed. The blaring trumpets in the bands
-drew near, the street was cleared from curb to
-curb, the dense assemblage, covering stoop and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>
-roof, and leaning from every window became silent,
-the reiterated thud of the falling feet was
-heard, and in an instant the marching host was
-passing beneath them. The police and the peers of
-the realm passed in silence or with barely noticeable
-tokens of recognition. The peers presented
-a dazzling array, on superbly caparisoned horses,
-and in the regalia of their separate stations, with a
-bearing of unmistakable dignity, and possessing in
-a large measure the impress and gift of English
-manly beauty, they uttered the note of <em>caste</em>. Behind
-them came the marshalled Church, a wonderful
-picture; choirs of boys, surpliced and gowned,
-in open carriages, priests and bishops, in their
-robes of office, with flying standards of chapel,
-church or cathedral, golden lambs, crosses and
-crowns, figures and mottes on white silk or ruby
-silk, in wavering confusion, while hymns in wavering
-sopranos rose petulantly, or again with sustained
-vitality and strength. It appealed to the
-people strangely. They became very still, and
-faces contorted with sobs, or heads bowed to hide
-the unbidden tears for a few moments drew a veil
-of gloom over the splendid show. After the Church
-and the peers, a forest of equipages brought in
-view the marvellous display of the robed and
-crowned peeresses, and succeeding this shining
-cloud of matrons, that gave the touch of tenderness,
-the atmosphere of feminine companionship, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>
-endurance, as if the mothers of England responded
-in this untoward hour with an embracing sympathy;
-after them came the King’s Household and
-the King, with outriders, equerries, and panoplied
-footmen, a miracle of ostentatious and ceremonial
-color. His equipage was drawn by ten jet black
-stallions, with diapers of the King’s colors on
-their backs, and a line of ancient guardsmen, with
-pikes in their hands, hedging them in, and a footman
-in sparkling white at the head of each horse.
-The King was himself robed in the gowns of his
-high estate, and was uncovered, the Crown resting
-on a cushion in front of him. A cheer rent the air,
-unfurled flags and fluttering handkerchiefs, turned
-a sea of faces into an ocean of white and red pennants.
-The King gravely acknowledged the salute
-and bowed to right and left. He was alone; the
-Queen had been enthroned among the peeresses.
-After the King came the Mayor of London, with
-all the antiquated grandeur of his office, coach, beef
-eaters, and all, and the people settled back again
-to their luncheons, which had been interrupted by
-the King.</p>
-
-<p>Then came the troops. The display was exhaustive.
-It was conceived upon a scale of imperial
-magnificence, and it appealed in the succession of
-its gorgeous units to the historic sense, to that divine
-purpose of continuity which every Englishman
-instinctively appropriates to his race and nation.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span>
-It represented the chronological development
-of the English army. As its sonorous length
-defiled before Leacraft, he saw an objective symbol—nay,
-the corporeal fact—of England’s growing
-power; regiment after regiment made a pictorial
-calendar from 1660 to 1900, and to the informed
-mind what a vista of martial glory, what a presentation
-of advance and retreat over the tractless
-wastes of the world, they made! It was a trampling
-chronicle of woe and fame, shame and satisfaction;
-it embodied the progress of ideas, the
-clash of political tendencies, the spreading domination
-of English rule; it was a panorama of battles,
-the tide of victory, the ebbing terrors of defeat;
-it reflected the pages of political designs, political
-subterfuge, political confusion; the music
-that swelled from its ranks now sent the long waves
-of its solemn processional melody through the
-thrilled spectators, now in limpid folk-songs, quivered
-delightfully in their ears, and now again summoned
-them to their feet with the stately and pious
-invocation of the nation’s hymn.</p>
-
-<p>The scarlet uniforms of the First Life Guards
-passed, and Maestricht, Boyne, the Peninsular, and
-Waterloo, flashed in view—the regiment which was
-raised in Holland by King Charles the Second, and
-was composed of eighty gentlemen, whose sobriquet
-of the “cheeses,” along with other Life Guards,
-had been acquired from the contemptuous refusal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
-of their veterans to serve in them when remodelled,
-because they were no longer composed of gentlemen,
-but of cheesemongers.</p>
-
-<p>Again, the Second Life Guards revived the
-stained memory of the Stuarts, its own exile in the
-Netherlands, its return with the restoration; and
-its sea green facings pleasantly restored for a
-moment the face of the injured Queen Caroline.
-Here were the Royal Horse Guards, that inherited,
-or at least might claim the virtues of the Parliamentary
-army, which fought with dogmas at the
-ends of their pike-staffs, and convictions in their
-hearts. Now passed the First Dragoon Guards,
-that carried on its proud records the Battle of the
-Boyne in 1690, Oudenarde in 1708, Malplaquet in
-1709, Fontenoy in 1745, Waterloo in 1815, and Pekin
-in 1860, though to Leacraft’s sensitive mind
-the last was an inscription of disgrace. The beating
-hoofs of the “Queen’s Bays,” the Second Dragoon
-Guards, hurried the reminiscent admirer back
-to Lucknow and the Indian Mutiny. The nodding
-plumes of the Prince of Wales, with the Rising
-Sun, and the Red Dragon which came in view with
-the Third Dragoon Guards, unfailingly recalled to
-the custodians of English military renown, that the
-regiment captured the standard and kettle drums
-of the Bavarian Guards at the Battle of Ramilies.
-Trampling on the heels of their horses, the lordly
-“Blue Horse” defiled past, and the Fifth Dragoon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span>
-Guards, which supported the vital legend, “<i xml:lang="la" lang="la">Vestigia
-nulla retrorsum</i>,” and which captured four
-standards at the Battle of Blenheim. Still the endless
-lines advanced, wavered, stood still, and again
-with rattling and shivering harness, passed. Now
-it was the Second Dragoons, the Scotch Greys,
-raised in Scotland, and older than any other dragoons
-in the British army, that started the furious
-applause, an ovation not unintelligently bestowed—for
-it was they who captured the colors of the
-French at Ramilies, and their standards at Dettingen.
-Now it was the “Black Dragoons,” the
-Sixth, on its glistening horses—once part of the
-Inniskilling forces, and still bearing as its crest
-the Castle of Inniskilling; now the Eighth Hussars,
-whose Protestant fealty had made their
-founders defenders of William of Orange at the
-Battle of the Boyne, and who, with signal power,
-captured forty-four stands of colors and seventy-two
-guns at the Battle of Leswarree. Now the
-Fifteenth Hussars, who bore upon their helmets
-the dazzling inscription, “Five Battalions of
-French defeated and taken by this Regiment, with
-their Colors, and nine pieces of cannon, at Emsdorf,
-16th of July, 1760.” Swelling hearts greeted
-the Grenadier Guards, rich in the legacy of the
-fame of the defeated French Imperial Guards.</p>
-
-<p>Here were the Dublin Fusileers—the “Green
-Linnets,” the “Die Hards”—the East Surries—the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span>
-West Yorks—and Devons, who had been part
-of that indiscriminate blunder and glory—the Boer
-War.</p>
-
-<p>And now the infantry, in closing ranks, unrolled
-the endless phalanxes. Where regiments, as entire
-units, were absent, companies took their places, and
-English cheers saluted the swinging standards.
-The Thirty-fifth, which took the Royal Roussillon
-French Grenadiers at the Battle of Quebec—the
-Thirty-fourth, which impregnably covered the retreat
-from Fontenoy—the Thirty-ninth, which defended
-Gibraltar in 1780, and captured the insurgents’
-guns and standards at Maharajpore, in 1843,
-along with the Fortieth—the Forty-second, with
-the red heckle in its bonnets, to commemorate its
-capture of the French standards of the “Invincible
-Legion,” in 1801, as well as for its distinguished
-ardor in the Battle of Guildermalsen, in
-1795, and the “Little Fighting Toms” stirred the
-crowds, and even to those who regarded the pageant
-with glances of bitterness, as the hollow mask
-of a cruel abdication, even to their glassy stare, this
-epic review brought a momentary gleam of gratitude
-and pride.</p>
-
-<p>Here was the Forty-sixth, whose colonel, with
-the English nonchalence which always wins so enduring
-a regard with Englishmen, in spite of a
-kind of artifice of mere stubbornness in it, preached
-a sermon to his men, under a heavy fire, about the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span>
-Lacedemonians and their discipline—and which, at
-least to an American, awoke only hateful memories—and
-here the Fiftieth, “The Blind Half Hundred,”
-who fought with damaged eyes in Egypt,
-and who shone resplendent with courage and gallant
-sacrifice at Vimiera—Ah! and here was the
-Fifty-seventh—“the Die Hards”—which had thirty
-bullets through the King’s colors, and only one
-officer out of twenty-four, and one hundred and
-sixty-eight men out of five hundred and eighty-four
-left standing at Albuera. The people shouted and
-stormed, an avalanche of flags suddenly sprang
-up over the walled street, and at points showers of
-flowers and bags of fruit descended in a tornado
-of delight. Surely, if Englishmen had such blood
-in them, the nation would yet live.</p>
-
-<p>Here were the men from India, the regiments of
-the Seventy-third, the Seventy-fourth, wearing the
-badge of the “elephant,” the Seventy-sixth, too,
-that unfurled its victorious pennants at the Battle
-of Leswarree, and the Seventy-seventh and Seventy-eighth,
-and on, on, straight in the line, brave
-squadrons, whose illusive recognition in a numeral,
-connoted glorious deeds, defiant strength, the prodigal
-powers of the brave. The thundering salutations
-drowned the rollicking music of “Clear the
-Way,” the cry at Barrosso, which with fife and
-drum announced the approach of the Eighty-seventh—the
-Prince of Wales’ own Irish—and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span>
-Eighty-eighth, the Connaught Rangers, whose more
-loving sobriquet was “The Devil’s Own Connaught
-Boys,” from its gallantry in action, and its irregularities
-in quarters. Uniform and vanity with reciprocal
-enhancement made the Argyleshire Highlanders
-and the Gordon Highlanders and the
-Sutherland Highlanders an envious spectacle to
-manly youth, a vision of ingratiating heroes to
-feminine beauty. Again India sprang back to
-memory, perhaps not without, to souls of Leacraft’s
-fibre, inflicting some stinging stabs of remorse,
-when the One Hundred Foot, the One Hundred
-and Second Foot, “the Lambs,” the One
-Hundred and Third Foot, “the Old Toughs,” the
-One Hundred and Fourth Foot, and Seventh, and
-Eighth, and Ninth marched past, with ear shattering
-dim, in resplendent waves of color, and expressing
-the English temperament of reserved
-force, and intelligent determination, with, to the
-more analytical observer, a suggestion of brutal
-power in their sturdy and inelastic tramp.</p>
-
-<p>And then came the people of the Earth, from
-the ends of the world they came; the wild, the exotic,
-the uncouth, the suave, and treacherous, the
-mystic, the benign, the terrible, in all garbs, in
-vestures of wool and silk and cotton, in no small
-numbers without much vesture. It was a web of
-hues, a carpet of figures and dyes, a lithe and sinuous
-and portentous living worm, each zone of its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
-immense length, as it swayed and twisted and
-halted, and then slipped on with ludicrous indecision
-and disorder, made up of races, ethnic blotches
-or flowers from the round prolific globe. The
-army had been history, the procession now became
-psychological, a review of temperaments, endowments,
-climates, proclivities and talents; nay it
-wore the aspect of a zoological medley, a vast menagery
-of animal products, that with growl and
-scream, trumpetings or fluttering wings gave to
-the congeries of men and women who walked
-among them, or with them, the sentiment and resemblance
-of the parade of the beasts before Adam.
-As if with England’s dislodgement, the shaken
-countries of the earth emptied out their populations
-in her wake, disturbed in all their resting
-places by her calamity; spilled from their hidden
-corners into the shining light of day, and bringing
-with them the animals of the fields and the birds of
-the air. And the air itself was cruelly brilliant.
-The severity of outlines, the sharp shadows, the
-nipping frostiness in the shades, where the sun was
-not found, told the weary story that England had
-lost her climate, and was swept back in a normal
-alignment with the cold and feeble countries of the
-pole.</p>
-
-<p>What is this odd group accentuated in the midst
-of all this confusion of types by a more bizarre
-strangeness, the quizzical fatuity and simpering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span>
-idiocy of devotion—grinning <i xml:lang="hi" lang="hi">shikaris</i> from the
-Tibet with prayer wheels—from the lofty valleys
-of Baltistan and Ladakh, from Kargil and Maulbek
-Chamba—incredible children from the East
-with their rotating brass wheels, with a woman or
-so, proudly walking among them carrying a burden
-of wealth in her turquoise and carnelian encrusted
-pberak bound around her head and terminating
-in a black knotted fringe behind her neck.</p>
-
-<p>And straggling on their tracks come the Malays
-from Pinang and Dindings, from Malaca and Singapore,
-the small brown men, enduring, brighteyed,
-straight black-haired, in jackets, trousers and sarongs—the
-tartan skirt fastened around the waist,
-and reaching to the knee—and with a raja sprinkled
-among them with a yellow umbrella over him,
-a dandy nonchalance printing his sleek cheek with
-dimples. And India, the nursery of religions, of
-dreams, of talking and sleeping and famishing
-men, followed, and for an instant Leacraft thought
-of Kim’s journey “from Umballa through Kalka
-and the Pinjore gardens near by up to Simla,”
-which Kipling told; he thought on “the flush of
-the morning laid along the distant snows; the
-branched cacti; tier upon tier the stony hillsides;
-the voices of a thousand water channels; the chatter
-of the monkeys, the solemn deodars, climbing
-one after another, with down-drooped branches;
-the vista of the plains rolled far out beneath them;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span>
-the incessant twanging of the tonga horns and the
-wild rush of the led horses, the halt for prayers,
-the evening conference by the halting places, when
-camels and bullocks chewed solemnly together.”</p>
-
-<p>He closed his eyes in a revery, and the next
-opened them upon the very thing. Here were the
-bullocks, the monkeys, the camels, and here too
-came the hulking elephants. Dravidians from the
-southern peninsular, in shawls; the Hill tribes, in
-coats; the high caste Hindus, in skirts and turbans;
-Mussulmen from Cashmere, and a few Indian
-Princes, with their suites, in a coruscation of gem
-stones, made up a train of spectacles that drew the
-eager crowds together, almost to the obliteration of
-the narrow string of exotics that, a little shabbily,
-shuffled along between them, with however the
-Princes on horseback or swung in state in palanquins.</p>
-
-<p>But here came Egypt bearing her witness of the
-universality of that power which, with her, at least,
-had seemed to play the part of a benevolent trustee
-and guide. No longer the impetuous crowds
-crushed the line of march; behind the blaring band
-that now approached rode Lord Kitchener, Sirdar
-of the Egyptian army who had resumed his ancient
-post and from an overwrought sentiment for exoneration,
-announced his desire to remain there and
-thus efface the irreconcileable differences which
-had caused Lord Curzon’s retirement from India.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>
-It was a magnanimous action and had deeply ingratiated
-this popular hero in the favor of the nation.
-Lord Kitchener, with his staff, preceded, in
-military stateliness, and with smart precision, five
-regiments or groups of Egyptian soldiers. These
-were combined or selected so as to make a bouquet
-of colors, but essentially business like also in their
-serious regularity, a demeanor fortified to the
-point of affectation by the plaudits and unconcealed
-admiration of the hosts of people on the streets,
-and protruding from every point above them.
-There were Arab lancers—in light blue uniforms,
-almost too delicate in tone for daily travel, the
-bodies of the camel corps, with the blackest type of
-men in the Sudanese infantry regiments, assimilating
-to the soil of the desert in the color of their
-khaki costume, and then other details of the military
-organization, gleaming in immaculate white
-trousers and coats. It was unmistakably effective,
-and it imparted moral strength to this illimitable
-advertisement of physical power. It recalled the
-campaigns of Khartum and Omdurman, and memorialized
-that time-worn boast of the English rehabilitation
-of Egypt; a fact certainly, but not to
-be distinguished as a very incredible achievement.</p>
-
-<p>The spectacle closed with Zulus and Hottentots,
-the bushmen of Australia, some dejected New Zealanders,
-and a picturesque assortment of Jamaican
-negroes, who tramped along with amusement in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span>
-their staring eyes, and a raggedness of deportment,
-reflecting the wasteful and careless way of the
-tropics. Nor were there wanting Greeks from Cyprus.
-And at the last the loyalty of the Colonies
-was splendidly emphasized, Canada, Australia,
-South Africa, New Zealand, Natal, Bermuda, the
-Bahamas, contributed a final burst of patriotic
-zeal, and seemed to open the wide earth, to their
-kindred in the English island, for home-making
-and re-establishment. Nor was the show of devotion
-fortuitous or hollow. It was sincere. It
-represented a sudden <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">rapprochement</i>, an instantaneous
-and valid impulse of sympathy and support.
-Nothing had ever happened in the history of the
-English people, which had had so vital an influence
-in stimulating unity among the English themselves,
-which so peremptorily flung them into each other’s
-arms, and in a great peril summoned to the surface
-the inextinguishable claims of blood, ancestry, tradition,
-instincts, and pride, advancing them to a
-solidarity never before realised. Its effects were
-very apparent. The pictures of Hope, lit up by
-the imaginative flamings of Ambition, almost at
-times, at this dread moment, gave to the future in
-the new habitations awaiting them, an unexpected
-salubrity and beauty. The English leaders dreamed
-of new achievements, a new literature, a greatness
-vastly exceeding all historic records.</p>
-
-<p>Three days after the parade, which Leacraft saw<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span>
-so magniloquently evolved in the streets of London,
-at Tilbury, the King left English soil, to
-transplant the symbols and the functions of the English
-government to Australia, and to begin the
-new experiment. The hills, the fields, the shores,
-were all too contracted to hold the army and the
-people, gathered in one sublime throb of loyalty
-and affection to witness the inexpressible event.
-The King wearing the uniform of a Field Marshall
-issued from a royal tent and with uncovered
-head moved towards the shore where his barge was
-moored. The moment was statuesque; the immeasurable
-multitude with a wave of heart breaking
-emotion uncovered; the national hymn played by
-a string and wind orchestra of four hundred pieces
-pierced the air with its magnificent undulation of
-melody, and a selected chorus led the engulfing tide
-of song. Amid the surges of vocal outpouring the
-parks of artillery belched their resounding salutes,
-the lines of war vessels with their crews at attention
-returned the iron throated call, and the King
-standing below the sweeping oars, turned for an
-instant towards the shore, and then regained his
-first posture of immovable fixture upon the
-pregnable sides of the Dreadnought, whither each
-stroke of those fateful oarsmen was swiftly sending
-him.</p>
-
-<p>The suspense was insupportable, the poignant
-crushing terror of it all, the incredible predicament<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>
-of a nation bodily leaving its birth place,
-stunned the crowds, and in silence with a thousand
-varying episodes throughout its interminable acres,
-the populace stood, dumb as the unresponsive
-rock, apparently as apathetic as the herding cows.</p>
-
-<p>Then at sunfall the Dreadnought, followed by an
-escort of cruisers heavily churned the waters, and
-passed down the Thames, from its mouth into the
-Channel, and so on to the open sea, and with it went
-the concentrated expression of the Idea of the English
-empire—the King. How strangely immobile
-is Nature! A race which had covered its literary
-vestures with the garlands of poetry, wrought from
-the imagery in nature’s picture-book, which had
-spent its brain and industry in winning for nature
-new devotees, and new sacrifices of praises and
-idolatry, which had enthroned among its chiefest
-charms its surrender to the control of nature, in
-this hour of torturing doubt, disenthronement and
-eviction won no sign of recognition. The day
-closed brightly. The sun went down in a sky of
-unchecked splendor, and the moon-illuminated
-night bathed the ancient bastions of Tilbury with
-an argent sheen. The terrible event found no reflection
-in the august calmness and serenity of
-Nature. “Its withers were unwrung.” Enveloped
-in the processes of decay and change, the
-lapse of a kingdom was but a paltry contribution to
-the chronicle of destroyed continents, and shattered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>
-worlds. There was no contact between its mechanism
-and the obliteration of a sentiment, or an idea,
-or moral regime. Nothing short of a change in
-atmospheric pressure would bring tears to its face,
-or agony in its deportment. And what in any case
-was this desertion of a land, the removal of a people?
-It was subordinated to fluctuations of an
-oceanic river, to the up and down shiverings of the
-crust of the earth. It was a part of the huge drama
-part of the inlaid order of things, as determined at
-creation, when the ways and means of shaping the
-world, and all things in it, were inaugurated. Why
-should the disappearance of a condition shock a
-system of disappearances and appearances, which
-is another name for the unceasing orbit of revolutions
-in the face of the earth, and which is nature?
-An individual counts for nothing in the lapse of
-twenty-four hours gone or come. Why in the
-aeons gone and the aeons yet to come should the
-migration of a people, or the emptying of a vestige
-of the earth’s surface merit notice? And so the
-elements did not hasten to weep, or storm, or furiously
-proclaim their commiseration, and the whispering
-calls of the half revived summer from pond
-and wood and meadow retained their old time
-sweetness.</p>
-
-<p>Thus it happened, but from the mouth of men
-and women, and prompted deeply in their yearning
-soul, rose clouds of prayers that night, for the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span>
-safety of the King, and ever and anon as troops
-marched over the roads in the cold summer night
-the hymn:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent2">Lord of the Wave and Deep,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">Save those at Sea,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Their path upon the Ocean keep,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">And let them see</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Thy hand each passing day,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Thy Ministry of Peace.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="in0">was played with bewitching plaintiveness. Men
-and women stopped and sang it aloud as the regiments
-went by, and sometimes a company of troopers
-added with resounding vigor their sonorous
-refrain.</p>
-
-<p>The Prime Minister and Mr. Birrell, and Mr.
-Asquith, who had been associated in 1906,
-in the famous dead lock between the Commons and
-the House of Lords over the Educational Bill, prepared
-on the departure of the King a statement
-which really was a programme of evacuation. It
-contemplated a progressive transference of the
-people from England, a slowly consummated
-shrinkage of the business facilities and the moderated
-outflow of capital to the new centres of English
-activity. In this way some check would ensue
-to the frightful fall in the land values and rentals,
-apart from the practical consideration of the physical
-impossibility of at once removing forty millions
-of people. The government had usurped unusual
-powers in the creation of a Committee of
-Direction, which by a house to house canvass, an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span>
-exhaustive survey of all titles, and a comparative
-estimate of the hardship imposed by emigration to
-different families, with immense labor, had prepared
-an itemized list of departure of the families
-of London. This plan had been copied in the large
-cities of the kingdom, and a co-operative scheme
-framed, which comprised a detailed prescription
-of the time of sailing, and the places of settlement
-for all persons listed. These lists were commonly
-referred to as the “Doomsday Rolls.” The scope
-of the committee’s power was comprehensive. It
-prohibited to individuals and to societies, federations
-and unions, independent action, without explicit
-conference with the committee. It proved to
-be a most helpful device, and lessened to the lowest
-possible percentage of hardship the suffering of the
-people.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft and his new friends freed themselves
-from the jurisdiction of the committee, by announcing
-their intention to go to America, and upon ample
-evidence of their ability to do so, and their independent
-financial standing.</p>
-
-<p>It was fully understood that the evacuation was
-to be a sustained, gradual movement, with, however,
-an irreversible determination to make it finally
-complete. It was not believed that England
-had become utterly uninhabitable, or that some vestiges
-of its former occupation might not be still
-maintained. A part of the plan of evacuation involved<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>
-an affectionate care of its greater monuments
-of architecture, if possible, though the fierceness
-of the winter winds augured unhappily for the
-success of this design. A regency of love at any
-rate was to be established, and as many links as
-possible of connection, sentimental and real, were
-to be left unbroken.</p>
-
-<p>And Edinburgh? Thomsen had woefully noted
-every day the scanty paragraphs which entered the
-papers, and which gave brief intimations of the
-devastating and continuous storms, which, through
-the winter, swept over Scotland. As if, in order
-that the impending changes might be most forcibly
-realized, and the loss of time averted from too
-leniently interpreting the enormous seasonal metamorphosis
-going on, nature had exhausted her
-power in developing disaster. Terrific gales had
-lashed the rocky coasts, fierce insatiable blizzards
-had devouringly raged in the interior, and the pitiless
-and untired skies had emptied avalanches of
-snow upon the southern counties of Scotland.
-Edinburgh became a storm centre. With whirling
-inconstancy the storms beat upon the doomed city
-from the East and West; buildings were almost
-buried in the banked up and superimposed drifts,
-crested ranges were in the streets, and palisades of
-snow tortured into fantastic shapes, towered over
-the outer eminences, fed from the blinding torrents
-of flakes driven off from the Pentland hills and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span>
-Salisbury Crags. These summits alone, in the
-whitened waste, lifted their scraped crowns to the
-thickened skies. Edinburgh had become a city of
-the Frost King, and his slumbering legions bivouacked
-on and around it, except when aroused to
-riotous commotions by the sudden descent of the
-whistling armies of the wind.</p>
-
-<p>These details were rather incoherently reported,
-as the spring advanced, and an occasional survivor
-from the north made his way out of the beleaguered
-capital. When the spring had fairly ripened into
-summer, an energetic effort was made to reach Edinburgh,
-and it succeeded. Scotland at that time
-became inundated, and though the enormous accumulations
-of snow refused at once to surrender
-their blockade, they were so deeply broached and
-undermined that the North British line pushed a
-train forward to the edge of the city, though unable
-to reach its depot in the heart of the city, by reason
-of the hammered wedge of snow which it encountered
-under the Castle’s cliffs.</p>
-
-<p>After cutting their way out, to the Lothian Road,
-the explorers began investigations and were horror
-stricken to find that immense conflagration had
-broken out, destroying great sections of the city,
-which owed its partial survival to the masses of
-invading snow. These fires had started in the
-houses occupied by the domestic bandits, who had
-seized the finest residences, provisioned them from<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span>
-the stores, and surrendered themselves to an orgy
-of rapine and indulgence, by which their own fears
-were stifled, through the excesses of their drunken
-dissipation. Hundreds of these unfortunates had
-perished in the flames, their recklessness had invoked.
-The picture of the noble and beautiful city
-was shocking. The fires had made inroads upon
-the attractive Princes street, and in the portions
-west of the Caledonian station, towards the Donaldson
-hospital, gaping openings and swept acres revealed
-the unchecked fury of the flames. While it
-was probable that the city might, with a return of
-auspicious conditions resume some of its old beauty
-it was also too plain that the veto of Nature had
-been indelibly written across all such plans. Glaciers
-had already begun their formation in the
-Highlands, and the incipient development of an Ice
-Age was forcibly proclaimed on every hand. The
-logic of events was unanswerable. The United
-Kingdom throughout all its parts must participate
-again in the benighted life of Labrador and Siberia.</p>
-
-<p>And Europe throughout its borders felt the poignant
-exasperation of the Arctic goad. It trembled
-with a new apprehension. The touch of those icy
-fingers, stretched out in myriad lines of approach,
-swarming like wavering steel points in thick onslaught
-from the crowded skies, made it suddenly
-anxious. It corrected its habits, it took council of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>
-piety and played with beseeching care its pretty
-role of devotee. Its ridiculous and wicked society,
-with futile haste filled the churches, and tried to
-forget its inherited cruelty, and even turned with
-an unexpected solicitude to the consideration of
-improving, in some sure way, the state of the untitled
-majority. Its scientific men rushed into congresses
-and explored their text books, and read and
-reread hopeless papers on the <em>why</em> and <em>how</em> of it,
-but being unable to invent another Gulf Stream,
-retired into dismal prognostications of a returning
-Ice Age. In fact deluded, as scientific men often
-are, by language, they embraced the thought of a
-“returning Ice Cap,” which would successfully
-force its way from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.
-They nervously began measurements of the Alpine
-glaciers, took temperatures, wandered up in the
-higher regions of the atmosphere in balloons,
-sounded the floor of the ocean, established meteorological
-stations everywhere, and became so excited
-and convinced that they were happily on hand
-at a critical geological juncture, that they succeeded
-in supplying a technical ground for panic.</p>
-
-<p>The statesmen and economists were more useful.
-They estimated the results of any continued lowering
-of the temperatures, the effects of climatic alterations
-on life and production, especially in grain,
-and found that the southern countries of Europe
-were in some danger, and the northern countries<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>
-very really threatened with a commercial overthrow,
-as England had been. They too turned to
-the colonies of their respective countries for refuge.
-It looked as if the bursting receptacles of
-European Culture were about to explode and scatter
-over the ends of the world the germinal seeds of
-its civilization.</p>
-
-<hr />
-
-<div id="toclink_298" class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.<br />
-
-<span class="subhead">ADDENDUM.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>“Histories leave oppressive legacies behind
-them. They may furnish subjects for art and literature
-and poetry, but, as in family inheritance, they
-burden posterity with considerable rubbish. Society
-does not quickly free itself from superstition,
-nor from its habits of thinking or of doing things.
-Even when they become anachronisms we are
-loathe to part from them, because, to our own detriment,
-we are fond of them. America has started
-fresh, and runs on the road of opportunity, while
-other nations must hobble and limp as best they
-can, with the clogs of old usage and prejudice hanging
-on their feet.”</p>
-
-<p>It was the voice of our friend Leacraft, and he
-was standing on a broad piazza built at the rear of
-a spacious villa on the topmost slopes of Staten Island,
-in the harbor of New York city, looking at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>
-motionless ocean far beyond the fringe of land immediately
-before him, flushed by the setting sun.
-That luminary with glorious opulence had painted
-the sky a seething carmine in the west, and imparted
-its most delicate reminders of the morn to the
-eastern arches of the heavens, that hung above the
-sea. The picture was superbly satisfying. There
-was enough detail in the landscape, enough isolation
-of house and wood and field, of moor and
-strand, and not too much. The oncoming twilight
-softly blended these nearer things, yet left them
-palpable. But the day still flung its garlands of illumination
-over the broad skies; and the sensitive
-surfaces of the water with lavish sympathy repeated
-on its face the smiles of the blending zenith. And
-on either side of Leacraft stood Miss Tobit and Mr.
-Thomsen, and the month was June, and the year,
-narrated.</p>
-
-<p>Before we satisfy our curiosity more closely as
-to their relation, or note those changes which five
-years, however kindly inclined, must leave behind
-them, let us follow this conversation which of itself
-1915, five years after all the happenings previously
-may unroll some curtains of the past.</p>
-
-<p>“Well,” it was Thomsen who was now speaking,
-“then I suppose you are not willing to quarrel with
-the material revolution we have been through, because
-all that has come between the present and the
-past, like the sundering of Damocles’ sword, has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span>
-saved us from the necessity of denuding ourselves
-of the old things, turning us loose in a fresh field,
-where we may play high jinks with all we once venerated,
-and where we may end by despising ourselves,
-for the very liberties you seem anxious for
-us to indulge in.”</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft motioned to the chairs, and the three sat
-down, in the same order as they stood. The place
-obviously was Leacraft’s, or he exercised some sort
-of control over it. And it was Miss Tobit’s voice
-which next took up the thread of talk—it was noticeable
-that Leacraft turned eagerly and looked at
-her, though his earnest face betrayed no symptoms
-of possession, in truth, a contemplative sadness for
-a moment rested on his features, vanishing even
-with its dawn.</p>
-
-<p>“Why give up old things? Why change and
-change and change? You call it progress. Is it
-anything but going around in a circle? You will
-come back to the very things you now reject, and
-some centuries hence the world will try the old experiments
-of Feudlism and Chivalry; and Kings
-by Divine Right will be as popular as elected Presidents—indeed,
-people may care some day as much
-as ever to say their prayers and go to church.”</p>
-
-<p>Both Leacraft and Thomsen laughed, but it was
-Leacraft who retorted, and he leaned far back in
-the Morris chair, his eyes bent upon the visionary
-ring of the horizon now webbed with bluescent<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span>
-shades.</p>
-
-<p>“I think there will be no returns, Mrs. Thomsen”—Ah!
-then Leacraft had lost again—“no
-Merry-go-round; our path, the path of humanity, is
-on and on and on, not always straight, not always
-level, and never final in its destinations. It was a
-physical chasm that separated the first colonies of
-this land from Europe. They brought with them
-traditions, customs, though luckily not of a very
-silly sort—but the lack of continuity with the whole
-antecedent history of England practically destroyed
-that history for them, and they began in untrammelled
-freedom to think for themselves and determine
-the essence of manhood, of worth, of liberty,
-of faith, of brotherhood, and their thinking throve
-upon nothing so much as the contemplation of the
-as yet, humanly speaking, unused world about
-them.</p>
-
-<p>“And the vicissitudes of living, the peril, the undiminished
-levy made by necessity upon their inventiveness,
-their industry, their courage, expelled
-the remaining vestiges of fealty to humbug, the
-pretense of class, the arrogance of office. They had
-wrested a living from Nature, under circumstances
-of unabashed familiarity with the cruelty of the
-savage, the obduracy of climate, and the grudging
-responses of a sterile soil, and they estimated
-worth by the hardihood of men who worked.</p>
-
-<p>“An American essayist has pointed out the emphasis<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span>
-laid by the northern, the Teutonic races,
-upon individual liberty. He says something like
-this: The Germanic race has been distinguished
-at all ages for its political capacity, and the possession
-of vigorous institutions of self-government;
-that there grew up among the nations of this race
-a well ordered system of government, based upon
-the right of the individual. And why was this?
-Because they knew of the hardships of living, and
-the fibre of liberty-loving natures were formed under
-the kneading strains of perpetual conflict.
-James McKinnon has pointed out the same thing in
-his History of Modern Liberty.</p>
-
-<p>“Arbitrary and selfish rule was most quickly
-crushed in Central Europe. No! we shall not return
-to the old follies, because we shall not be permitted
-to return; because struggle with Nature
-will never cease.”</p>
-
-<p>“Russia has been a cold country,” answered
-Thomsen; “and if the gauge of liberty is coldness,
-we should expect to have seen the fruits of popular
-government ripening, if you will permit the paradox,
-in its zero atmospheres; or if wildness and
-natural enemies—those that make housekeeping difficult,
-and a man’s skin a precious abode for his
-soul—why have not the negroes of Africa won
-over the images of rhetoric which have been wasted
-upon Greece and Rome—both, by-the-by, hot countries?”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span></p>
-
-<p>“Rome and Greece never knew what Liberty was
-in the modern sense. Both were types of class government.
-Before Christianity, there could be no
-ideal of freedom in its holiest meanings. As for
-Russia, the germs of liberty are yet buried there,
-but it is understood; an accident has put the autocracy
-in power, and like all beneficiaries of a system,
-its members fight for their living; besides,
-Russia has not left off its barbarism. But nothing
-under Heaven will keep her from being free. As
-to the negro, he lies too far back, too near to the
-origins, and, in any case, the dangers of the jungle
-are met by craft, rather than by consecutive exertion
-and daring.”</p>
-
-<p>“You regret that our new growth in the Pacific—the
-Australian England—has not put on the features
-of a republic, instead of preserving the heritage
-of the kingly and royal class institutions under
-which the old England flourished. Do you
-think that nations can safely try experiments, like
-children playing games, or chemists mixing solutions,
-which, in the latter case, may at any moment
-blow their heads off? I think not.”</p>
-
-<p>“I think,” Leacraft slowly replied, while Agnes
-Ethel Tobit—she who had become inferentially
-the wife of the handsome Thomsen—arose and,
-walking to her husband’s side, leaned over the back
-of his chair, thus looking down upon the speaker,
-who had turned towards Thomsen, as if her movement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span>
-was dictated by a desire to hear his friend
-more distinctly; “I think that the finest, the most
-inspiring—yes, the most delicate and subtle virtues
-flourish in a republic, such as this Republic of the
-United States is. I confess, I am in love with it; I
-love its people. They are superbly human, and
-humanly noble. The American gentleman, and he
-lives on no particular and restricted level—you
-find him among the firemen, the policemen, the
-clerks, the fathers of families—this unique man is
-always gracious, delightful, unerringly just. I believe
-that these traits develop most naturally under
-the dispensations of equality, reasonably understood.
-I think the most fruitful national life ensues,
-when a nation stands fundamentally, in its
-government, and in its social conceptions, for common
-sense standards, and an unqualified acceptance
-of the principles of personal freedom. I like these
-Americans. To me, their ardor, their naturalness,
-their hearty friendship, their generous self-forgetfulness,
-and a certain deferential amusement at the
-foibles of less emancipated cultures, is fascinating.
-Of course, there are stupid rich Americans,
-dressed in most obnoxious livery of affectation and
-imitation, men and women who have treacherous
-tendencies in their feelings and desires, willing
-always to kick their own country, and willing to
-leave it, but never willing to relinquish the luxuries
-its prosperity has enabled them to enjoy.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span>
-There are also hateful middle-class Americans, who
-deteriorate the impressions made by the best aspects
-of the American heart and mind; but the substance
-and the spirit of the American life, however
-much disguised, or, from momentary and economic
-reasons obscured, is to me the most palatable; it is
-palpably the best life now shown on the world; it
-is the most energizing, the most alert, and it carries
-the power of enormous assimilation, because it
-is built on the essence of manhood, the respect for
-the rights of others. I know what is in your
-thoughts and on the point of your tongue. You
-would ask: How about the Chinaman, the Negro,
-and the Japanese, perhaps? That is a long question,
-and has nothing to do with my contention, for
-in a nutshell, respect for others’ rights does not involve
-respect for others’ habits, and generous as
-the Americans are, they are not so stupid as to wish
-to imperil, for an unnecessary sentiment, the hard-gained
-benefits of their own national experiment.
-They have already leavened the whole earth; it’s
-not to be expected that they digest all of its rubbish
-as well. Let the rest of the world do something for
-itself, and clean its own social sloughs, by a little
-more admixture of freedom and sympathy.</p>
-
-<p>“All this may seem to you intensely disagreeable,
-perhaps a little disloyal, but you wrong me. If I
-might answer your question without more evasion.
-I would peremptorily declare that I hoped that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>
-new England in Australia would put on the lineaments,
-nay, incorporate the very breath and body
-of this land. I know it has not; possibly it could
-not; possibly pernicious and selfish instrumentalities
-have made it impossible. Pardon my intractable
-enthusiasm, but do not mistrust my heart. It
-is always England’s. The night is too calm, too
-beautiful, to disgrace it with wrangling. Let us
-tell the story of the last years to each other. Mine
-is a short one, and can come last; but yours? Ah!
-well I know some of it,” and Leacraft, without constraint
-or any show of vacillating envy, smiled up in
-the face of the pretty woman who looked down
-at him, and deeply that woman’s heart honored him
-for his magnanimous courage.</p>
-
-<p>There was a pause for an instant, and then Thomsen
-began. He rose from his chair, and walking to
-the railing of the piazza, sat on it, half turned to
-the paling East, half towards Leacraft, and told the
-story of the transplanted English nation.</p>
-
-<p>That story can be told in more exacting phraseology
-than the colloquial method permits, and until
-his narrative becomes more personal, let us authentically
-review the events he rehearsed, which form a
-unique historic episode.</p>
-
-<p>With the departure of the King from the shores
-of England, the actual evacuation of the island began,
-and the means and ways of transferring the
-people previously thought out, were carefully applied.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span></p>
-
-<p>The
-moment the King and Parliament arrived in
-Australia, a predicament arose. The King was recognized
-as king, functional in Australia and in
-England, functional anywhere the English control
-was established; but the Parliament of England,
-as the highest law-giving legislature of the realm,
-did it supersede the regional legislation of Australia?
-Was the autonomic power of the provinces
-of Australia obliterated with the arrival of the supreme
-legislative body of the British Empire?
-There was one broad, obvious proposition. The
-remedy to all doubt, collision, and ambiguity was
-to resume in Australia the exact conditions which
-had vanished in England, and now naturally sought
-a restatement and erection in the land the King
-and Parliament had reached. And this was generally
-accepted. There was a cordial and almost precipitate
-display of adhesion to the new plan. It
-destroyed the independent existence of the various
-sections of Australia, and made the continental
-island a unit under the control of the Parliament,
-just as England had been. The enthusiasm
-which greeted this solution was adequate and convincing.
-It gave renewed hope to the patriotic and
-loyal souls who prayed and worked for the re-production
-of the England they had left. The King
-himself responded to this burst of practical allegiance
-with a wise and fervent expression of affection<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>
-and thankfulness. It was a gem of deliberate
-composition, and was well received. Meetings of
-endorsement and proclamations of ratification were
-made everywhere, and in the tumult of acclamation
-it escaped notice that a formidable opposition had
-become organized for a forcible resistance to the
-whole scheme. This was over-awed or suppressed,
-not without a show of force, in which Thomsen had
-been himself engaged, and which brought about
-some adventures around the region at Mount Harwick,
-in New South Wales.</p>
-
-<p>Thomsen, after the conclusion had been reached
-that his own and Miss Tobit’s families should follow
-the stream of people going to Australia, rather,
-than was at first intended, to coincide with Leacraft’s
-wishes for them all to visit America, had
-sought employment in the Government’s service,
-among those to whom had been entrusted the regulation
-of this colossal emigration. He was therefore
-well acquainted with its various phases and results.</p>
-
-<p>When the King and the Parliament left England,
-over two millions had preceded them, being
-naturally, those who accepted the situation, and
-who, besides, were not specifically limited for their
-support to investments at home. They went everywhere,
-many to the continent, many to India, perhaps
-half to America, which grew more and more,
-before the eyes of the people, as the most natural,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span>
-most desirable, the most friendly home. A large
-number strayed to Africa, and yet others sought
-the expanding possibilities of South America.
-Englishmen had acquired such extended interests,
-drew so largely upon the resources of the entire
-world for their support, that now in a way they
-found natural business refuges all over its varied
-surface. It was a happy consequence of the constraining
-littleness of their own island.</p>
-
-<p>The financial question was the real difficulty,
-apart from the harsh bereavement and hardship of
-the divorce from all their previous living and associations.
-It was solved, at least partially, by the
-Government issuing paper money, similar to the
-greenbacks, which carried the United States
-through the Civil War. These were furnished to
-applicants upon deposit of sworn, approved and
-examined statements of their property of all kinds
-in England. Twenty-five per cent of the amount
-thus appearing was given, or rather loaned, to the
-applicant, and with this he was enabled to make a
-start in the new quarters he had selected. The
-plan involved the assumption of an enormous burden
-by the Government, and an unqualified confidence
-in it by the people.</p>
-
-<p>Of course, England was not in any sense to become
-a depopulated island. Its real estate values,
-though shrunk to slender fractions of their former
-worth, would yet have some value, and whereas,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span>
-in the case of a manufacturer, the Government
-made the loan upon his attested resources in machinery
-and certified correspondence, the risk was
-reduced sensibly within discoverable limits. Loss,
-agitation, dislocations, in many cases ruin, resulted,
-but the transfer of the manufacturing plants
-was made most skilfully, and before the factories
-in England were closed, the same products were being
-produced in Australia. The menace of the
-emergency had startled Englishmen into a really
-reasonable and adequate show of sense, quickness
-and resource; usually poor business men, torpid
-and conservative, shackled with a kind of mild and
-traditional laziness, they became, under the stimulation
-of the danger of extinction, active and wary,
-and intensive.</p>
-
-<p>In the meanwhile the climatic changes continued,
-and the face of the United Kingdom more and more
-altered under the infliction of the long and tempestuous
-winters, the cool, shortened summers, and
-the ice blockade about its coasts. For it had early
-become apparent that in some inexplicable way,
-the Arctic currents streamed down from the polar
-regions with reinforced volume and velocity, bringing
-with them the discharged masses of ice projected
-from their usual course westward, by the
-irruption into the Arctic Ocean through Behring
-Straits of the united oceanic rivers of the Gulf
-Stream and the currents from the Yellow Sea.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span>
-Throughout the spring, the beleaguered coasts were
-deeply fringed with ice-floes and icebergs, whose
-chilling emanations created fogs, and wrapt the islands
-in cheerless cold. Each passing year had
-made more clear the surpassing wisdom of the
-evacuation. But a large population found that they
-could support themselves on the island, made up
-of the hardy, enduring types, the sailors, fishermen,
-and the boreal agriculturists—the farmer who entertains
-life successfully where the earth reluctantly
-yields her products, and the scant nature furnishes
-but few of the products of the soil. For now
-a most extraordinary thing happened. The refrigeration
-of Northern Europe had driven down towards
-the south the northern denizens. They eagerly
-seized the deserted land of the southerners, less
-accustomed to the niggardly responses of the field,
-and met the attacks of the climate with the accustomed
-patience and resistance to which they had
-become innured in their northern home. In this
-way the population of Iceland almost bodily left
-the bleak and ice-bound coasts of the Arctic island,
-that no longer offered the meagre semblance
-even of subsistence, which previously maintained
-its stubbornly hardy occupants. Nothing could
-have been more fortunate, as it retarded in some
-measure the shocking decline in the values of the
-land, and gave to all establishments that might
-otherwise have been turned into homes for owls<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span>
-and foxes a partial usefulness. Not indeed that the
-manufacturing interests would be considerably revived,
-but warehouses and buildings connected with
-manufacturing or shipping business would be made
-into storehouses, and the castles and large manor
-houses were converted into curious communal colonies,
-where those boreal people most joyfully repaired
-and developed profitable communities.</p>
-
-<p>Large numbers of the very poor found in the
-exodus of the well paid or employed classes above
-them, a grand chance to renew their own luck.
-They became keepers of the deserted buildings;
-they fraternized with the newcomers, and freed
-from the incubus of a superimposed social repression,
-became happy and industrious.</p>
-
-<p>To all the brands and grades of the surviving
-or deserted inhabitants came increasing numbers
-of Scandinavians; important fractions of the
-Scotch settled on the coasts of England, and even
-immigrants from Newfoundland and Canada were
-tempted to seize the strange opportunity to occupy
-vast and abandoned cities, which furnished them
-in many instances with palatial shelters, but which
-later became repellant and unpleasant abodes, from
-which they too willingly withdrew to the smaller
-settlements.</p>
-
-<p>The tragedy of the big cities was complete. They
-were melancholy wastes, their empty streets seemed
-baleful and dismal. They gave ghostly thrills of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span>
-terror, even in the noon-day, to the passers by—silent
-graves of past memories—the speechless,
-vacant, staring windows in the unlit rooms were
-like the open but expressionless eyes of corpses,
-and the awful fall of silence through the labyrinth
-of ways, roads, lanes, places, squares, alleys, descended
-upon the wanderer, caught by some malign
-trick of adventure within their voiceless, motionless
-depths, with the benumbing touch of the grave.
-He hastened his steps; he ran to escape the deadly
-stupor, the inexpressible gloom of loneliness, where
-every aspect betokened life. The solitude of nature
-inspires, draws to the lips an involuntary
-prayer, or places in the heart the movements of
-hope, but this hideous contradiction of signs and
-effect weighed like lead upon the spirit, and forced
-from the shrinking heart the ejaculations of despair.</p>
-
-<p>Never on earth was there such a picture of dejected
-grandeur, as this emptied metropolis of the
-world presented; never before had a great city
-become its own tomb, through the flight of its inhabitants;
-never in any record of disaster, whether
-by earthquake, pestilence, flood or vulcanism, was
-there such obliteration as followed the withdrawal
-of the citizens of London from their own capital.</p>
-
-<p>The thick blanket of the snow was thrown over
-it in winter, and its emergent domes, pinnacles, obelisks
-and needles offered a fantastic similitude<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span>
-to mortuary monuments, or else beneath the yellow
-moon its piercing whiteness, like a titanic face
-of someone killed, smote the blue black skies above
-it with remorse.</p>
-
-<p>But in Australia the English strength revived
-and broadened; it promised to make a gigantic
-social revolution; it worked strangely enough in
-unison with the newly awakened hopes of the King
-to restore an accustomed prestige to the Crown.
-This political phenomenon attracted the attention
-of the civilized world. The King in a most adroit
-proclamation to the people had peculiarly enlisted
-their sympathy by his veiled complaint of the habitual
-loss of power, and the encroachments upon
-the kingly prerogatives of the self-constituted Cabinet
-of Ministers. The King’s action was always
-tacitly prescribed and anticipated. He was a puppet,
-dressed in regalia, with no shadow of power,
-real and personal. And this he resented, but his
-language was the sentences of diplomacy, and lost
-the individual note entirely in a concerned and
-measured argument, restrained by every possible
-regard for the present custom, urging a greater
-confidence in the King’s wishes, and a larger precinct
-of action for his judgment. This momentous
-promulgation was contemptuously referred to by
-its critics as “the Ourselves” letter, but it met a
-favorable reception and it enlisted the cordial endorsement
-of the House of Lords, nor was it altogether<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span>
-resented by the House of Commons. The
-achievement of this success led the King into a further
-step of interference, in the appointments and
-in the personnel of the Cabinet, and he succeeded
-further in impressing his wishes upon a number of
-important bills passing through the Parliament. In
-short, by a persistent pressure, seconded by friends
-among the people, and a growing following in the
-legislature, he had inserted his views, and extorted
-from the grudging concessions of the Commons’
-recognition of the royal prerogatives. He had
-shown himself unusually active in resource, in
-suggestions, and in intercourse with the people. His
-examples had been followed with enthusiasm by the
-nobility, who, so to speak, spread themselves before
-the observation of the nation, and exerted an
-unaccustomed generosity and ubiquitous energy in
-practically assisting the work of rehabilitation. At
-a general election, many candidates were discussed
-and elected upon this issue, viz.: the restoration to
-the King of kingly power.</p>
-
-<p>“And so, you see,” Thomsen concluded, “the
-unexpected happens, as it always does. We moved
-to an ultra-democratic <i xml:lang="fr" lang="fr">milieu</i>, a veritable nest of
-fads and socialistic temerities and experiments,
-and lo! the reaction sets in, and in Australia the
-King may recover the power, lost with the Stuarts,
-and the monarchial principle gets a shove ahead,
-which, with prosperity, and in England, no impulse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span>
-short of the fiat of the Almighty, could have
-secured for it. A prophet who would have foretold
-that, would have scored a poor success in 1900 as a
-state maker.”</p>
-
-<p>Before he had finished speaking, Leacraft had
-left his chair, and was walking to and fro near the
-speaker—and then he advanced to the edge of the
-few steps that led from the piazza to the open
-swards beneath them, which were fringed by an
-emergent crown of trees growing thickly in some
-lower crease or hollow of the ground, beyond which
-again the eye fell to the foot swells, and the undulations
-of land far off, in the flats, just beginning to
-twinkle with lights.</p>
-
-<p>Leacraft spoke slowly, his eyes still fixed upon
-the distance, as if in revery, but his measured words
-came clearly to his two friends, carried by a voice
-which, always melodious and cultured, now gained
-a sort of passionate yearning, and then again was
-approved as disinterestedly clean and judicial:
-“All this is an episode. Nothing more. The future
-of the races of the world means the widening
-scope of the Republican idea. There can be no other.
-Education forbids its extinction. Yes, and Authority
-endorses it. This sudden foolishness in Australia
-will only invoke a perilous reaction. There
-can be to-day in governmental systems only varied
-applications of the one thought; the rule of the people
-through an appeal to the people’s choice of rulers.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span>
-It is fundamentally common sense in an era
-of enlightenment, to begin with; but since the United
-States have eclipsed all nations, and raised the
-standards of individual action beyond all previous
-estimates, this conclusion has coercively been accepted,
-that through the influences propagated under
-this popular freedom of control, the finest, the
-richest, the sweetest, the most magnanimous types
-of character are also engendered and completed. A
-kind of psychological logic is involved. A vast
-psychic power of selection sets in, and irrevocably
-the most noble, the most disenthralled natures
-slowly appear. In comparison with their best results,
-the representatives of other cultures appear
-dwindling and abortive. And why? Because in
-the least limited field of opportunity the unrestrained
-power of nature to make character must
-of necessity evolve consummate and supreme examples.
-Nothing is more demonstrable. It must be
-conceded, I grant, that at first the crop of temperaments
-is marked more by rash hardihood,
-strident vulgarities, and climbing audacity, but
-these very qualities, which in the naming seem so
-distasteful, mature naturally, in later generations,
-into devoted courage, æsthetic spontaneity; juices
-of the fruit when green form the basis of its later
-richness.</p>
-
-<p>“I know the tiresome and hackneyed nonsense,
-and the mean-spirited sneers of the European at the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span>
-American, for his lack of culture, his defect in
-polish, his money-getting haste. And it’s all a
-lie!” Leacraft wheeled round as if on a pivot,
-and even in the pale light the Thomsens could see
-that his face flushed, and the stern decision of his
-voice betrayed the fires of resentment. “Who is
-it that these precious pretenders of Europe look
-to when they have famine and disaster; who has
-taught the lessons of sympathy, of open-hearted
-helpfulness, and unswerving generosity, or made
-them recognize in their own natures the almost exterminated
-seeds of kindness? As to culture, let
-me tell you in all seriousness that the idle glamour
-of a scholar’s diction does not weigh a barleycorn
-as against the flashing splendor of an honest and
-sincere spirit; as to polish, who made the European
-regard Woman as something better than the helpless
-ally of his lust, and the chained companion to
-his exultant vanity? Woman has gained a new
-empire of dignity in these new lands; she for once
-triumphs in the unquenched assertion of her rights.
-As to money-making greed, where under the canopy
-will you find a more meanly mercenary race
-than these same Europeans, inert panderers to
-pleasure for money, fortune hunters, and silent
-spectators of atrocities, if the risk of money loss
-stops their way to succor. I know the dolts and
-traitors on the American soil, the men and women
-who sell their birthright for the mess of pottage<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span>
-contained in a gilded name in Europe, or the hollow
-mockery of a coat-of-arms. These are the tattooed
-children of humbug—careless and ungrateful, indolent
-and self-seeking, lured by that strange beauty
-which Europe, for some inscrutable reason,
-seems to keep, and of which even I, an Englishman,
-feel jealous, for the sake of a country which may
-not be so good-looking, but which becomes every
-day more sublimely the appointed pattern of the
-future state. Well! my friends, you must pardon
-these ‘wild and whirling words.’ They may strike
-you as an unseemly tirade, but if you knew this land
-as well as I do, you, too, might trespass beyond the
-limits of moderation in its defense. But other matters
-have for you a less doubtful interest. The
-great physical revolution which has left its mark
-no less in the political world than in the material,
-has become consolidated and solidified into a permanent
-feature of the earth. The broad engulfment
-of the land at the isthmus has established an
-open way to the Pacific from the Atlantic, and
-the initial formation of the barrier northward
-from the Caribbean Sea by the erection of a ridge
-from Cuba to Yucatan, and partially from Jamaica
-to Honduras, this latter connexion the singular sequel
-to the disturbance which overwhelmed Kingston
-in 1907, has advanced far enough to effectually
-assist the momentous deflection of the Gulf Stream
-from the Atlantic. And another transformation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span>
-has thereby been achieved. The alien mass of hot
-water pouring into the Pacific at the isthmus, when
-no longer propelled by the easterly winds, resumes
-its original impetus of rotary direction, and
-streams, sweeping northward, along the coasts of
-California, Oregon and Washington, bringing in
-its further extension warmth to British America
-and Alaska. By this amelioration of its climate,
-Alaska has specially profited. Its numerous mineral
-resources have been more exhaustively explored,
-and the wealth of its boundless areas promises
-returns beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.</p>
-
-<p>“The convulsions which were so dismally foretold,
-in the social and political fabric of this country,
-never occurred. They were quite lost sight of
-in the wonderful happenings of the world, and the
-trite aphorism that the spirit of discontent is best
-overcome by an appeal to the spirit of curiosity,
-obtained an almost ludicrous illustration in the subsidence
-of every murmur of schism and contention,
-as the amazement grew over the upset of the temporalities
-of the world, as the earth readjusted its
-members for another, let us hope, long and uneventful
-slumber.</p>
-
-<p>“For myself, perhaps I should deprecate your
-censure by an apology. It is true, I did not follow
-the fortunes of my country, though with my mind
-I ardently canvassed and considered them. The
-very interests which brought me to this land were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span>
-English, and my superintendence and success with
-them, has in a few ways made the survival of not a
-few Englishmen possible at this crisis. Really, my
-best place of helpfulness was here. Jim has been
-with me, and has proved invaluable, and that poor
-woman, whom I told you about meeting in Victoria
-Park, the night before we saw the great procession
-of evacuation, was found by me, and now
-Jim is her husband. There’s nothing shocking
-about it. Her first husband died of consumption.
-It was a foregone conclusion. Jim showed himself
-a big-hearted friend, and the girl learned to
-think the world of him. And when she was alone,
-what could have been better from any point of view
-than that she should have married him?</p>
-
-<p>“And for me, Mrs. Thomsen, there is peace, too.”
-Leacraft moved to the doorway of the broad hall
-that divided the spacious house. He pushed it open,
-and as the light from the interior fell upon his face,
-the visitors saw the smile of an abiding happiness
-upon the thoughtful countenance, and Agnes Ethel
-Thomsen utter a prayer of thankfulness that <em>he</em> had
-found contentment.</p>
-
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr />
-
-<div class="chapter"><div class="transnote">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Note</h2>
-
-<p>Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
-consistent when a predominant preference was found
-in the original book.</p>
-
-<p>Many, but by no means all, simple typographical
-errors were corrected. Unpaired
-quotation marks were remedied when the change was
-obvious, and otherwise left unpaired.</p>
-
-<p><a href="#Page_5">Page 5</a>: Transcriber removed redundant book title.</p>
-
-<p><a href="#Page_257">Page 257</a>: “with central and periphera, agitation,”
-was printed that way.</p>
-
-<p><a href="#Page_282">Page 282</a>: “ear shattering dim” was printed that way.</p>
-</div></div>
-
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<p>&nbsp;</p>
-<hr class="pgx" />
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