The Best Short Stories of 1918 Part 36

"Then it was that Lady Maurya took Lieutenant Templar by himself, and she brought him into the very hall where she told me the story, and she said to him (and how could any creature of earth or heaven have resisted her, for she has all the beauty and all the allurements of both?): 'Why were your wings all purple and gold when you came flying to save us that morning?'

"And he answered her: 'The shadow of the earth upon the skies, and a touch of dawn.'

"'But there was no dawn,' she said. 'And when you came to the great monster why did your wings change to flaming scarlet, so bright that no eyes could rest upon them?'

"'The rising sun,' he said.

"And she answered: 'But there was no rising sun.'

"And then he looked at her for a long time while neither spoke, and at last: 'How could you send the thing to earth without a single shot?' she asked.

"And he answered, after a moment: 'Because in me is all the strength of that bright ardor which has led young warriors to die in battle for the right since earth began. And now my strength is most mightily renewed with the strength of all the lads who were the first to die for England.

Was not your brother one of these? Such souls are the stuff of which are made the angels and archangels and all the heavenly host.'

"And as she looked at him, standing before her, it seemed to her, in the dim light, that instead of the evening clothes he had been wearing she saw again a glint of black armor as on the morning when he had first come to them, and then, like Elsa, she asked him who he was, and he, like Lohengrin, was gone.

"But from that day to this there has been no more sorrowing at Mallorie Abbey."

The great northeaster had stopped its wild howling at the very moment that Vinton was adding: "They have never known which of them it was-whether it was Michael-or Gabriel-or Raphael!"

Ware poked the fire and said nothing.

"Do you believe it?" asked Ware's sister.

"What an impossible word that word 'believe' is! What does it mean?"

"And do you like the idea-the idea of losing one's ident.i.ty in one great superlative being like that?"

Vinton thought a moment, and then he said: "When I remember that all the trouble on this earth comes in the train of that infernal thing we call the ego it seems to me that the heavenly things must indeed arise from its complete surrender. Yes," he continued more slowly, "yes, I think I like it very much."

THE TOAST TO FORTY-FIVE

_By_ WILLIAM DUDLEY PELLEY From _The Pictorial Review_ _Copyright, 1918, by The Pictorial Review Company._ _Copyright, 1919, by William Dudley Pelley._

In this little Vermont town of Paris, on the top floor of the red-brick post-office block, over half a century have been located the quarters of Farrington Post, Paris Chapter, G. A. R.

In the rooms of Farrington Post-under a gla.s.s case filled with countless other relics belonging to Captain Jonathan Farrington's company, that marched away one hundred and seven strong that forenoon in '61-has been kept a bottle of rare old wine.

That wine was old when those stalwart young Vermonters who followed Captain John Farrington were children. Through half a century it has occupied its place in that gla.s.s case; during that long time it has been viewed by many visitors to our town; over and over again has the story of "The Toast to Forty-five" been told until that double-quart of priceless vintage has become one of our chief sights of interest to the stranger within the gates. It was not through accident or chance that this bottle of wine was saved. Up to last August there was a pretty sentiment connected with that bottle of wine and why it should have been preserved thus throughout the years.

Up to last August, indeed! Because that bottle is no longer under the gla.s.s case in the Grand Army rooms in the post-office block. It has been taken from among those relics of yesterday; the seal has been broken; the contents have been poured out. Glistening red as the blood which those lads of '61 shed for the principles in which they believed, that liquor was consumed in the pledging of a toast.

When the homefolks suggested that the county give a dinner to the returned heroes on the sixteenth day of August, 1866-Bennington Battle Day and a holiday in Vermont always-Dashing Captain Jack Fuller was not the one to quash the suggestion. "Dashing Jack" had been the man to take John Farrington's place when John lost his life at Gettysburg. He was a great dude, was Captain Jack; a lover of the dramatic and the spectacular; with the pomp of soldiering verily in his blood and the vanity of many generations of Fullers in his fiber.

On the night of August 16, 1866, "The Toast to Forty-five Banquet" was held on the top floor of the old Vermont House. It took place in the big room with the spring dance-floor. That old Paris hostelry was burned in '73. In the course of that affair, Dashing Jack arose and made a speech-likewise a proposal.

The flower of Vermont of the Sixties was gathered about those tables.

There were young men to whom fame and fortune afterward would come.

There were st.u.r.dy beautiful girls in quaint dresses that in succeeding years would mother sons and daughters who are the pride and glory of Vermont of the present. The lights shone on gloriously happy faces. Two hundred voices turned the room into vocal pandemonium. It was several minutes before Dashing Captain Jack could gain their attention and make himself heard.

When finally all eyes were turned upon him, they saw that he was holding high in his right hand a bottle of wine.

"Ye gallant sons and daughters of Vermont! Tonight is a great night!"

cried Jack in ringing, self-confident, magnetic tones. "We are attending a dinner tonight that will be remembered in the history of our town and State long after the last comrade now within sound of my voice has gone to make his bivouac with the ill.u.s.trious Company Forty-five-the name which we have given the forty-five brave lads who marched away with us but who were not destined by a higher providence to march back. On this night, therefore, beholding this wine before me, it has occurred to me to propose the inauguration of a rite-almost a sacred rite-the like of which no Post has ever heard."

The room was now very quiet. And Captain Jack reveled in the drama of the scene.

"In this room," he cried, "-in sound of my voice at this moment, are two boys who will be the very last to join Company Forty-five. Sooner or later we shall all be called to answer to our names in the Great Muster; but some will be called sooner than others. There will certainly come a day in the years which lie ahead when there will be only two remaining of this company of sixty-two here to-night. Think of it, boys! Just _two_! Look into one another's faces and ask yourselves-who are those two-which of you will they be?"

The room was strangely silent. The smiles died on the faces of many women. Dashing Captain Jack indicated the wine he held in his hand.

"Here is the thing which I propose; to make the annual dinners of Farrington Post different from any other reunions which shall ever be held:

"I hold in my hand the last unsealed bottle of the vintage which we have tasted to-night in our first toast in peace to the missing lads that have made that peace possible. Let this last bottle be saved. Year after year we will have our annual dinners. Year after year, as we gather round the board, familiar faces will be missing. Many will fall by the way. At last-will be only two comrades-of this roomful here to-night.

And when at last those two shall face one another and think back to this first banquet in the dim and sacred past-when they alone remain-when sixty have gone to join old Forty-five and they realize that perhaps before another year is pa.s.sed, they will have joined that ill.u.s.trious company also-let them break the seal on this bottle. Let them fill their gla.s.ses. Let them clink those crystal rims together and drink the last toast to those who have gone. And when the seal on this bottle thus is broken, let our reunions be held no more."

They drank, and the next morning the banquet was a thing of history.

Year after year those veterans have gathered about the board and gazed on that rare old vintage, wondering whether he was to be one of the two to drink that final toast to Forty-five-and under what circ.u.mstances.

Each has realized that before another August sixteenth came around, certain familiar faces were to be missing. Dashing Captain Jack started something far more dramatic than he realized.

Poor Captain Jack! He married one of the Kingsley girls that year and a little son was born to them. A month and a day after the birth of that son he was killed in an accident on the old New York Railroad. He was the first to join Forty-five!

Sixty-two men sat down to that first banquet. In 1900 the number was thirty-less than half. In 1910 there were eleven veterans. Since 1910 the old soldiers have been going rapidly.

At the Post dinner of August 16, 1912, the ranks of Captain Jack's company had dwindled to four old men. There was Uncle Joe Fodder, the commander; Martin Chisholm, who made his money in the grist-mill; Henry Weston, who for seven years had been an inmate of the State Soldier's Home; and-old Wilbur Nieson, who spent his days hanging around the street corners and stores.

The reunion ended as forty-six other reunions had ended, excepting that they did not talk their battles over again so vehemently as on former occasions. Indeed, they had talked themselves out. They were "waiting"

now, and the old bottle of wine set in the center of their table was a symbol of fatalism, mute testimony to the inexorable law of human life.

Next day we reported it as usual in our local paper.

At about ten-thirty o'clock of the following evening-to be exact, the seventeenth day of August, 1912-Mrs. Samuel Hod, wife of the _Telegraph's_ editor, while working in her kitchen, heard a frightful scream come from somewhere in the neighborhood.

Mrs. Hod rushed to the door. Outside was a clear, warm summer night.

Across the picket fence that separated the Hod yard from the rear yards of the houses facing on Pleasant Street, she could see a light in the kitchen of the Fuller boy's house-young Jack Fuller, grandson of Dashing Captain Jack of years gone by. The neighborhood was very quiet during those two minutes she stood there listening in her fright.

Then suddenly that scream was repeated-sharp, clear, terrible! It came from the home across the picket fence. It was Betty Fuller screaming.

From the agony in the cries something ghastly had happened. Mrs. Hod ran through her house and called to her husband. Sam helped his wife over the back fence and they made their way under the Fuller clothes-line, through the back shed, and into the little sitting-room.