Fibble, D.D. Part 7

At the outset we had had with us a courier specially engaged for the occasion; but, detecting in him an inclination to slur important details in relation to the lives and works of the Old Masters whose handicraft greeted us murally on every side, I soon dispensed with his services and took over his task. Whereas he had been content to dismiss this or that artist with but a perfunctory line, I preferred to give dates, data and all important facts.

I had moved with the young ladies through several galleries, now consulting the guidebook, which I carried in my right hand, now pointing with my left to this or that conspicuous example of the genius of a Rubens, a Rembrandt or a t.i.tian, and, I presume, had been thus engaged for the better part of two hours, when a sudden subconscious instinct subtly warned me that I was alone. Astonished, I spun on my heel. My youthful companions were no longer with me. Five minutes before they had been at my skirts; of that I was sure; in fact, it seemed but a few moments since I had heard the prattle of their voices, yet now the whole train had vanished, as it were, into thin air, leaving no trace behind them.

I shall not deny that I was alarmed. I hurried this way and that, seeking them--even calling their names aloud. All was in vain. My agitated and rapid movements but served to attract the attention of a considerable number of idlers of various nationalities, many of whom persistently followed me about until a functionary in uniform interfered, thus bringing my search to an end for the time being.

Whether my helpless charges, deprived now of the guiding hand and brain of a responsible and vigilant protector, were yet wandering about, without leadership, without guardianship, in the complex and mystifying ramifications of that vast pile, or, worse still, were lost in the great city, I had no way of knowing. I could but fear the worst. My brain became a prey to increasing dread.

In great distress of spirit, I hurried from the edifice and set out afoot for our hotel, meaning on my arrival there to enlist the aid of the proprietor in notifying the police department and inaugurating a general search for those poor young ladies through the proper channels.

However, owing to a striking similarity in the appearance of the various streets of the town, I myself became slightly confused. I must have wandered on and on for miles. The shades of night were falling when at last, footsore, despondent and exhausted, I reached my goal.

To my inexpressible relief, I found all eight gathered at the hotel dining table, discussing the various viands provided for their delectation, and chattering as gaily as though nothing untoward had occurred. I came to a halt in the doorway, panting. Explanations followed. It would appear that, having been seized with a simultaneous desire to visit a near-by glove shop, which some among them had noted in pa.s.sing at the moment of our entry into the Louvre, they had returned to examine and purchase of its wares; and so great was their haste, so impetuous their decision that, one and all, they had neglected to inform me of their purpose, each vowing she thought the others had addressed me on the subject and obtained my consent.

Think of it, Mister President, I ask you! Here were eight rational beings, all standing at the threshold of life, all at a most impressionable age, who valued the chance to acquire such minor and inconsequential chattels as kid gloves above a period of pleasurable instruction in a magnificent treasure trove of the Old Masters. In my then spent condition the admission, so frankly vouchsafed, left me well-nigh speechless. I could only murmur: "Young ladies, you pain me, you grieve me, you hurt me, you astound me! But you are so young, and I forgive you." I then withdrew to my own apartment and rang for an attendant to bring a basin of hot water in which I might lave my blistered pedal extremities. Later, arnica was also required.

The following day, on returning from a small errand in the neighbourhood, as I entered the _rue_ or street on which our hostel fronted I was startled out of all composure to behold Miss Flora Canbee, of Louisville, Kentucky, and Miss Hilda Slicker, of Seattle, Washington, in animated conversation with two young men, one of whom was tall and dark and the other slight and fair, but both apparelled in the habiliments peculiar to officers in the French Army.

For a moment I could scarcely believe my eyes. I think I paused to readjust the gla.s.ses I wear, fearing my trusty lenses might have played me false; but it was true. As I hurriedly advanced, with amazement and displeasure writ large on my countenance, Miss Canbee proceeded to disarm my mounting suspicions by informing me that the two officers were her first cousins, and then introduced them to me. They responded to my cordial salutation in excellent English, Miss Canbee casually adding, as though to make conversation:

"Of course you remember, Doctor Fibble, my having told you several times that my mother was French?"

To this I could only reply in all sincerity that the fact of her having told me so had entirely escaped my mind, which was quite true. Yet ordinarily my memory for trifles is excellent, and I can only attribute to press of other cares my failure now to recall the circ.u.mstance.

I could well understand why Miss Canbee felt constrained to obtain permission to spend the afternoon in converse with her cousins in preference to joining the rest of us in a long walk in the warm, bright sunshine along the quays of the River Seine, this being an excursion I had planned at luncheon; but why--as I repeatedly asked myself--why should Miss Hilda Slicker manifest pique to a marked degree when I insisted on her accompanying us? She, surely, could feel no personal interest in two young French officers whose acquaintance she had just formed and who were in no degree related to her by ties of blood-kinship.

Such happenings as the two I have just narrated went far to convince me that even the refining and elevating influences of foreign travel, when prosecuted under the most agreeable and congenial of auspices, might not suffice in all instances to curb the naturally frivolous and unheeding tendencies of growing young persons of the opposite s.e.x, between the given ages of seventeen and twenty.

I may also state that the task of mastering the idiomatic eccentricities of the French language gave me some small inconvenience. With Greek, with Latin, with Hebrew, I am on terms of more or less familiarity; but until this present occasion the use of modern tongues other than our own have never impressed me as an accomplishment worthy to be undertaken by one who is busied with the more serious acquirements of learning.

However, some days before sailing I had secured a work ent.i.tled "French in Thirty Lessons," the author being our teacher of modern languages at Fernbridge, Miss McGillicuddy by name, and at spare intervals had diligently applied myself to its contents.

On reaching France, however, I found the jargon or patois spoken generally by the natives to differ so materially from the purer forms as set forth in this work that perforce I had recourse to a small manual containing, in parallel columns, sentences in English and their Gallic equivalents, and thereafter never ventured abroad without carrying this volume in my pocket. Even so, no matter how careful my enunciation, I frequently encountered difficulty in making my intent clear to the understanding of the ordinary gendarme or cab driver, or what not. Nor will I deny that in other essential regards Paris was to me disappointing. The life pursued by many of the inhabitants after nightfall impressed me as frivolous in the extreme and not to be countenanced by right-thinking people; in the public highways automobiles and other vehicles manoeuvred with disconcerting recklessness and abandon; and, after England, the tea seemed inferior.

Until this time no intimation of impending war had intruded on our thoughts. To be sure, some days before our departure from Fernbridge I had perused accounts in the public prints of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Heir Apparent of Austria-Hungary and his lady somewhere in the Balkans, but I for one regarded this deplorable event as a thing liable to occur in any unsettled foreign community where the inhabitants speak in strange tongues and follow strange customs. Never for one moment did I dream that this crime might have an effect on the peace of the world at large.

Presently, however, I began to note an air of feverish activity among the denizens of Paris; and one morning toward the end of our first week's sojourn in their midst I discerned a large body of troops moving along one of the princ.i.p.al boulevards, accompanied by cheering throngs.

Still I felt no alarm, my explanation to my young ladies for this patriotic exhibition being that undoubtedly these abnormal and emotional people were merely celebrating one of their national gala or fete days.

In fancied security, therefore, we continued to visit cemeteries, cathedrals, art galleries, tombs, and so on, until, almost like a bolt from the sky, came tidings that certain neighbouring states had interchanged declarations of war and the French forces were preparing to mobilise. Simultaneously one realised that American visitors were departing elsewhere in considerable numbers.

I was not frightened, but I shall not deny that I felt concern. I was a man, and a man must face with fort.i.tude and resolution whatever vicissitudes the immediate future may bring forth--else he is no man; but what of these tender and immature young females who had been entrusted to my keeping? I must act, and act at once. I summoned them to my presence; and after begging them to remain calm and to refrain from tears, I disclosed to them the facts that had come to my notice.

Continuing, I informed them that though the rumours of prospective hostilities were doubtlessly exaggerated and perhaps largely unfounded, nevertheless I deemed it the part of wisdom to return without delay to England, there to remain until conditions on the Continent a.s.sumed a more pacific aspect.

Enormously to my surprise, my wards, with one voice, demurred to the suggestion. Miss Canbee spoke up, saying--I reproduce her words almost literally--that a really-truly war would be a perfect lark and that she thought it would be just dear if they all volunteered as nurses, or daughters of the regiment, or something. She announced, furthermore, that she meant to wire that night to her father for permission to enlist and pick out her uniform the very first thing in the morning. Strangely, her deluded companions greeted this remarkable statement with seeming approbation. All speaking at once, they began discussing details of costume, and so on. I was thunderstruck! It required outright sternness of demeanour and utterance on my part to check their exuberant outbursts of misguided enthusiasm.

Nevertheless, another twenty-four hours was to ensue before I felt that their spirits had been sufficiently curbed to permit of my making preparations for our departure. Judge of my feelings when I found that no travelling accommodations could be procured, every departing train for the coast being crowded far beyond its customary capacity!

Ah, Mister President, could I but depict for you the scenes that now succeeded--the congestion at the booking offices; the intense confusion prevalent at all the railroad stations; the increasing popular apprehension everywhere displayed; the martial yet disconcerting sound of troops on the march through the streets; the inability to procure suitable means of vehicular transportation about the city. In those hours my nervous system sustained a succession of shocks from which, I fear me, I shall never entirely recover.

Yet I would not have you believe that I lost my intellectual poise and composure. Without, I may have appeared distraught; within, my brain continued its ordained functions. Indeed, my mind operated with a most unwonted celerity. Scarcely a minute pa.s.sed that some new expedient did not flash into my thoughts; and only the inability to carry them out, due to the prevalent conditions and the obstinacy of railroad employes and others to whom I appealed, prevented the immediate execution of a considerable number of my plans.

Never for one instant was my mind or my body inactive. I would not undertake to compute the number of miles I travelled on foot that day in going from place to place--from consular office to amba.s.sadorial headquarters, always to find each place densely thronged with a.s.semblages of my hara.s.sed and frenzied fellow country people; from railroad terminal to booking office and back again, or vice versa, as the case might be and frequently was; from money changer's to tourist agency; from tourist agency to hotel, there to offer hurried words of comfort to my eight charges; and then to dart forth again, hither and yon, on some well-intentioned but entirely fruitless errand.

To my ministrations I ascribe the cheerfulness and light-heartedness the young ladies continued to evince throughout this trying period. From their demeanour one actually might have imagined that they lacked totally in appreciation of the gravity of the situation.

Not soon, if ever, shall I cease to recall my inward misgivings when, late in the afternoon of this distracting day, I returned from my third or fourth unsuccessful call at the booking office to learn they had disobeyed my express admonition that they remain securely indoors during my absences. The manager led me to the door of his establishment and pointed to a spot on the sidewalk some number of paces distant. There I beheld all eight of them standing at the curbing, giving vent to signs and sounds of approval as a column of troops pa.s.sed along the boulevard.

I started toward them, being minded to chide them severely for their foolhardiness in venturing forth from the confines of the hotel without male protection; but, at this juncture, I was caught unawares in a dense ma.s.s of boisterous and excited resident Parisians, who swept up suddenly from behind, enveloping me in their midst.

Thus entangled and surrounded, I was borne on and onward, protesting as I went and endeavouring by every polite means within my power to extricate myself from the press. Yet, so far as one might observe, none paid the slightest heed to one's request for room and air until suddenly the crowd parted, with cheers, and through the opening my wards appeared led by the Misses Flora Canbee and Evelyn Maud Peacher, the latter of Peoria, Illinois. These two accepted my outstretched hands and, with their aid and the aid of the remaining six, I managed to attain the comparatively safe refuge of a near-by shop doorway, but in a sadly jostled state as to one's nerves and much disordered as to one's wardrobe. Hearing my voice uplifted in entreaty as I was carried by them, they had n.o.bly responded; and, because of the impulse of the throng, which accorded to frail maidenhood what was denied to stalwart masculinity, they had succeeded in reaching my side.

So great was my relief at being rescued, I forbore altogether from scolding them; and, besides, my thoughts were distracted into other and even more perturbing channels when a search of my person revealed to me that unknown persons had taken advantage of the excitement of the moment to invade my pockets and make away with such minor belongings as a silver watch, a fountain pen, a spectacle case, a slightly used handkerchief, an unused one carried for emergencies, and the neat patent-clasp purse in which I customarily kept an amount of small change for casual purchases. I lost no time in getting my charges indoors, for it was quite plain that there must be thieves about.

In the midst of all this I despatched the first of a series of cablegrams to Mr. William Jennings Bryan. I realise now that I should have addressed you direct, but at the moment it seemed to me fitting that the head of our State Department should be advised of our situation.

From memory I am able to reproduce the language of this first message.

It ran:

Am detained here, with eight young lady students of Fernbridge Seminary. Have absolutely no desire to become personally involved in present European crisis. Kindly notify American Amba.s.sador to have French Government provide special train for our immediate use. Pressing and urgent!

Having signed this with my full name, and with my temporary address added, I hastened with it to the nearest cable office. The official to whom I tendered it apparently knew no English, but from his manner I gathered that he felt disinclined to accept and transmit it. I was in no mood to be thwarted by petty technicalities, however, and on my pressing into his hand a considerable amount of money in five-franc notes he took both currency and cablegram, with a shrug of his shoulders, signifying acquiescence.

It was because I tarried on and on amid tumultuous scenes for another twenty-four hours, awaiting the taking of proper steps by Mr. Bryan, that more precious time was lost. Hour after hour, within the refuge of our hotel parlour, itself a most depressing chamber, I sat, my hands clasped, my charges cl.u.s.tered about me, our trunks packed, our lesser belongings bestowed for travel, awaiting word from him. None came. I am loath to make the accusation direct, but I must tell you that I never had from Mr. Bryan any acknowledgment of this original cablegram or of the other and even more insistently appealing telegrams I filed in rapid sequence; nor, so far as I have been able to ascertain, did he in the least bestir himself on behalf of Fernbridge Seminary for Young Ladies.

Regarding this callous indifference, this official slothfulness, this inability to rise to the needs of a most pressing emergency, I refrain absolutely from comment, leaving it for you, sir, to judge. It would be of no avail for Mr. Bryan to deny having received my messages, because in each and every instance I insisted on leaving the money to pay for transmission.

I shall not harrow your sensibilities by a complete and detailed recital of the nerve-racking adventures that immediately succeeded. I may only liken my state of mind to that so graphically described in the well-known and popular story of the uxoricide, Bluebeard, wherein it is told how the vigilant Anne stood on the outer ramparts straining her eyes in the direction whither succour might reasonably be expected to materialise, being deceived at least once by the dust cloud created by a flock of sheep, and tortured meantime by the melancholy accents of her sister, the present wife of the monster, who continually entreated to be told whether she, Anne, saw any one coming.

The tale is probably imaginary in character to a very considerable degree, though based, I believe, on fact; but a.s.suredly the author depicted my own emotions in this interim. One moment I felt as one of the sisters must have felt, the next as the other sister must have felt; and, again, I shared the composite emotions of both at once, not to mention the feelings probably inherent in the shepherd of the flock, since my wards might well be likened, I thought, to helpless young sheep. By this comparison I mean no disrespect; the simile is employed because of its aptness and for no other reason. It would ill become me, of all men, to refer slightingly to any of our student-body, we at Fernbridge making it our policy ever to receive only the daughters of families having undoubted social standing in their respective communities. I trust this explanation is entirely satisfactory to all concerned.

Let us go forward, Mister President, to the moment when, after many false alarms, many alternations of hope, of doubt, of despair, then hope again, we finally found ourselves aboard a train ostensibly destined for Boulogne or Calais; albeit a train of the most inferior accommodations conceivable and crowded to the utmost by unhappy travellers, among whom fleeing Americans vastly predominated. Our heavy luggage was left behind us, abandoned to unsympathetic hands. Of food seemly to allay the natural cravings of the human appet.i.te there was little or none to be had, even at augmented prices. Actually one might not procure so small a thing as a cup of tea.

My trunk, my neatly strapped steamer rug, my large yellow valise, and sundry smaller articles, were gone, I knew not whither. I did but know they had vanished utterly; wherefore I adhered with the clutch of desperation to my umbrella and my small black portmanteau. Even my collection of a.s.sorted souvenir postcards of European views, whereof I had contemplated making an alb.u.med gift to my Great-Aunt Paulina, on my return to my beloved native land, was irretrievably lost to me forever.

Still, we moved--haltingly and slowly, it is true, and with frequent stoppages. None the less, we moved; progress was definitely being made in the direction of the seaboard, and in contemplation of this fact one found an infinitesimal measure of consolation, gleaming, so to speak, against a dark cloud of forebodings, like one lone starry orb in a storm-envisaged firmament. During the early part of our journey I could not fail to give heed to the amazing att.i.tude maintained by the young ladies. Repeatedly, as we paused on a siding to permit the pa.s.sage of a laden troop train, I detected them in the act of waving hand or kerchief at the soldiery.

And once I actually overheard Miss Marble remark to Miss Canbee that she, for one, was sorry we were going away from hostilities rather than toward them. One could scarce credit one's ears! Could it be true, as students of psychology have repeatedly affirmed, that the spirit of youth is unquenchable, even in the presence of impending peril? Or, had my own precept and example stimulated these young women into a display of seeming light-heartedness? Perhaps both--certainly the latter. As for me, my one consuming thought now was to bid farewell forever to the sh.o.r.es of a land where war is permitted to eventuate with such abruptness and with so little consideration for visiting noncombatants.

To those about me I made no secret of my desire in this regard, speaking with such intensity as to produce a quavering of the voice.

Certain decided views, entirely in accordance with my own, were so succinctly expressed by a gentleman who shared the compartment into which I was huddled with some eight or nine others that I cannot forbear from repeating them here.

This gentleman, a Mr. John K. Botts, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and evidently a person of much wealth and no small importance in his home city, said things had come to a pretty pa.s.s when a freeborn American citizen who had been coming to Europe every summer for years, always spending his money like water and never asking the price of anything in advance, but just planking down whatever the grafters wanted for it, should have his motor car confiscated and his trunks held up on him and his plans all disarranged, just because a lot of these foreigners thought they wanted to fight one another over something. He said that he had actually been threatened with arrest by a measly army captain whom he, Mr. Botts, could buy and sell a hundred times over without ever feeling it. He was strongly in favour of wiring our Government to order the warring nations to suspend hostilities until all the Americans in Europe could get back home, and mentioned thirty days as a suitable time for this purpose.

With regard to this last suggestion I heartily concurred; and my second cablegram to Mr. Bryan, filed while en route, embodied the thought, for which I now wish to give Mr. John K. Botts due credit as its creator. To insure prompt delivery into Mr. Bryan's hands, I sent the message in duplicate, one copy being addressed to him at the State Department, in Washington, and the other in care of the Silvery Bells Lecture and Chautauqua Bureau, in the event that he might be on the platform rather than at his desk.

I should have asked Mr. Botts to sign the cablegrams with me jointly but for the fact that after the first two hours of travel he was no longer with us. He left the train at a way station a few miles from Paris, with a view, as he announced, to chartering a special train from the military forces to convey him, regardless of expense, to his destination, and failed to return. Days elapsed before I learned through roundabout sources that he had been detained in quasi custody because of a groundless suspicion on the part of the native authorities that he was mildly demented, though how such a theory could have been harboured by any one is, I admit, entirely beyond my comprehension.

Nightfall loomed imminent when we reached the town of Abbevilliers, a place of approximately twenty thousand inhabitants. In happier and less chaotic times one might have spent a pleasant and profitable day, or perhaps two days, in Abbevilliers, for here, so the guidebook informed me, was to be found a Gothic cathedral of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, an ancient fortress, and a natural history collection; but now my ambition was to pa.s.s Abbevilliers by with the greatest possible despatch.

Yet, what was one to do when soldiers in uniform and led by officers entered the train and required the pa.s.sengers to vacate forthwith, on the excuse that the coaches were required for the transportation of troops? Protests were presented, but all to no avail, the officers remaining obdurate in the face of entreaties, objurgations, and even offers of money by a number of individuals hailing from various sections of the United States and elsewhere. We detrained; there was, in fact, no other course left to us.

Pausing at the station long enough to indite and leave behind a cablegram acquainting Mr. Bryan with this newest outrage, I set forth, with my eight cl.u.s.tering wards, to find suitable quarters for the night.

We visited hotel after hotel, to be met everywhere with the statement that each already was full to overflowing with refugees. At last, spent and discouraged, I obtained shelter for my little expedition beneath the roof of a small and emphatically untidy establishment on the sh.o.r.es of that turbid stream, the River Somme. For the accommodation of the young ladies two small rooms were available, but to my profound distaste I was informed that I must sleep through the night on--hear this, Mister President!--on a billiard table!