The Fortunes of Oliver Horn Part 33

"Block the tracks!"

A torrent of oaths broke loose as the words left his lips, and a rush was made for the pile of timber. Men struggled and fought like demons for the end of the great sticks, carrying them by main strength, crossing them over the rails, heaping them one on the other like a pile of huge jack-straws, a dozen men to a length, the mobs on the house-tops and in the windows cheering like mad. The ends of the heavy chains resting on the strip of dirt were now caught up and hauled along the cobbles to be intertwined with the squared timber; anchors weighing tons were pried up and dragged across the tracks by lines of men urged on by gray-haired old merchants in Quaker-cut dress coats, many of them bare-headed, who had yielded to the sudden unaccountable delirium that had seized upon everyone. Colonel Clayton, Carter Thom, and Mowbray could be seen working side by side with stevedores from the docks and the rabble from the shipyards. John Camblin, a millionnaire and nearly eighty years of age, head of the largest East India house on the wharves, his hat and wig gone, his coat split from the collar to the tails, was tugging at an anchor ten men could not have moved. Staid citizens, men who had not used an oath for years, stood on the sidewalks swearing like street-toughs; others looked out from their office-windows, the tears streaming down their cheeks. A woman with a coa.r.s.e shawl about her shoulders, her hair hanging loose, a broom in one hand, was haranguing the mob from the top of a tobacco hogshead, her curses filling the air.

Oliver held to his seat on the cross-piece of the awning, his teeth set, his eye fixed on the rapidly advancing cars, his mind wavering between two opinions--loyalty to his home, now invaded by troops whose bayonets might be turned upon his own people, and loyalty to the friends he loved--and to the woman who loved him!

The shouting now became a continuous roar. The front line of policemen, as they neared the obstructions, swung their clubs right and left, beating back the crowd. Then the rumbling cars, drawn by the horses, came to a halt. The barricades must be reckoned with.

Again there came the flashing of steel and the intermingling of blue and white uniforms. The troops were leaving the cars and were forming in line to pa.s.s the barricades; the officers marching in front, the compact ma.s.s following elbow to elbow, their eyes straight before them, their muskets flat against their shoulders.

The approaching column now deployed sharply, wheeled to the right of the obstruction, and became once more a solid ma.s.s, leaving the barricades behind them, the Chief of Police at the head of the line forcing the mob back to the curbstone, laying about him with his club, thumping heads and cracking wrists as he cleared the way.

The colonel of the regiment, his fatigue cap pulled over his eyes, sword in hand, shoulders erect, cape thrown back, was now abreast of the awning to which Oliver clung. Now and then he would glance furtively at the house-tops, as if expecting a missile.

The mob looked on sullenly, awed into submission by the gleaming bayonets. But for the shouts of the police, beating back the crowd, and the muttered curses, one would have thought a parade was in progress.

The first company had now pa.s.sed--pale, haggard-looking men, their lips twitching, showing little flecks of dried saliva caked in the corners of their mouths, their hands tight about the b.u.t.ts of their muskets.

Oliver looked on with beating heart. The dull, monotonous tramp of their feet strangely affected him.

As the second line of bayonets came abreast of the awning-post, a blacksmith in a red shirt and leather ap.r.o.n, his arms bared to the elbow, sprang from the packed sidewalk into the open s.p.a.ce between the troops and the gutter, lifted a paving stone high above his head and hurled it, with all his might, straight against the soldier nearest him. The man reeled, clutched at the comrade next him, and sank to the ground. Then, quick as an echo, a puff of white smoke burst out down the line of troops, and a sharp, ringing report split the air. The first shot of defence had been fired.

The whole column swayed as if breasting a gale.

Another and an answering shot now rang through the street. This came from a window filled with men gesticulating wildly. Instantly the troop wheeled, raised their muskets, and a line of fire and smoke belched forth.

A terrible fear, that paled men's faces, followed by a moment of ominous silence, seized upon the mob, and then a wild roar burst out from thousands of human throats. The rectangular body of soldiers and the ragged-edged mob merged into a common ma.s.s. Men wrenched the guns from the soldiers and beat them down with the b.u.t.t ends of the muskets.

Frenzied policemen hurled themselves into the midst of the disorganized militia, knocking up the ends of their muskets, begging the men to hold their fire. The air was thick with missiles; bricks from the house-tops; sticks of wood and coal from the fireplaces of the offices; iron bolts, castings, anything the crazed mob could find with which to kill their fellow-men. The roar was deafening, drowning the orders of the officers.

Oliver clung to his post, not knowing whether to drop into the seething ma.s.s or to run the risk of being shot where he was. Suddenly his eye singled out a soldier who stood at bay below him, swinging his musket, widening the circle about him with every blow. The soldier's movements were hampered by his heavy overcoat and army blanket slung across his shoulder. His face and neck were covered with blood and dirt, disfiguring him beyond recognition.

At the same instant Oliver became conscious that a man in blue overalls was creeping up on the soldier's rear to brain him with a cart-rung that he held in his hand.

A mist swam before the boy's eyes, and a great lump rose in his throat.

The cowardice of the attack incensed him; some of the hot blood of the old ancestor that had crossed the flood at Trenton flamed up in his face. With the quickness of a cat he dropped to the sidewalk, darted forward, struck the coward full in the face with his clenched fist, tumbling him to the ground, wrenched the rung from his hands, and, jumping in front of the now almost overpowered soldier, swung the heavy stick about him like a flail, clearing the s.p.a.ce before him.

The a.s.saulting crowd wavered, fell back, and then, maddened at Oliver's defence of the invader, with a wild yell of triumph, swept the two young men off their feet, throwing them bodily down the steps of a ship-chandler's shop, the soldier knocked senseless by a blow from a brick which had struck him full in the chest.

Oliver lay still for a moment, raised his head cautiously and, putting forth all his strength, twisted his arms around the stricken man and rolled with him into the cellar. Then, springing to his feet, he slammed the door behind them and slipped in the bolt, before the mob could guess his meaning.

Listening at the crack of the door for a moment and finding they were not pursued, he stood over the limp body, lifted it in his arms, laid it on a pile of sails, and ran to the rear of the cellar for a bucket standing under a grimy window, scarcely visible in the gloom, now that the door was shut.

Under the touch of the cold water, the soldier slowly opened his eyes, straining them toward Oliver, as if in pain.

The two men looked, intently at each other; the soldier pa.s.sing his hand across his forehead as if trying to clear his brain. Then lifting himself up on his elbow he gasped:

"Horn! Horn! My G.o.d!"

Oliver's heart stopped beating.

"Who are you?"

"John Grant."

Oliver saw only Margaret's face!

As though he were working for the woman he loved--doing what she would have done--he knelt beside the wounded man, wiped the blood and grime from his cheeks with his own handkerchief, loosening his coat, rubbing his hands, murmuring "Old fellow," "Dear John ": there was no time for other interchange of speech.

When at last Grant was on his feet the two men barricaded the doors more strongly, rolling heavy barrels against them, the sounds from the street seeming to indicate that an attack might be made upon them. But the mob had swept on and forgotten them, as mobs often do, while the fugitives waited, hardly daring to speak except in detached whispers, lest some one of the inmates of the warehouse overhead might hear them.

Toward noon a low tap was heard at the window, which was level with an alley in the rear, and a man's hand was thrust through a broken pane.

Oliver pressed Grant's arm, laid his finger on his lips, caught up a heavy hammer lying on an oil-barrel, crept noiselessly along the wall toward the sound, and stopped to listen. Then he heard his name called in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"Ma.r.s.e Ollie! Ma.r.s.e Ollie! Is you in here?"

"Who is it?" Oliver called back, crouching beneath the window, his fingers tight around the handle of the hammer.

"It's me, Ma.r.s.e Ollie."

"You! Malachi!"

"Ya.s.sir, I'se been a-followin' ye all de mawnin'; I see 'em tryin' to kill ye an' I tried to git to ye. I kin git through--yer needn't help me," and he squeezed himself under the raised sash. "Malachi like de snake--crawl through anywheres. An' ye ain't hurted?" he asked when he was inside. "De bressed Lord, ain't dat good! I been a-waitin' outside; I was feared dey'd see me if I tried de door."

"Where are the soldiers?"

"Gone. Ain't n.o.body outside at all. Mos' to de railroad by dis time, dey tells me. An' dere ain't nary soul 'bout dis place--all run away.

Come 'long wid me, son--I ain't gwine ter leabe ye a minute. Ma.r.s.e Richard'll be waitin'. Come 'long home, son. I been a-followin' ye all de mawnin'." The tears were in his eyes now. "An' ye ain't hurted," and he felt him all over with trembling hands.

John raised himself above the oil-barrels. He had heard the strange talk and was anxiously watching the approaching figures.

"It's all right, Grant--it's our Malachi," Oliver called out in his natural voice, now that there was no danger of being overheard.

The old man stopped and lifted both hands above his head.

"Gor'-a-mighty! an' he ain't dead?" His eyes had now become accustomed to the gloom.

"No; and just think, Mally, he is my own friend. Grant, this is our Malachi whom I told you about."

Grant stepped over the barrel and held out his hand to the old negro.

There are no cla.s.s distinctions where life and death are concerned.

"Glad to see you. Pretty close shave, but I guess I'm all right. They'd have done for me but for your master."

A council of war was now held. The uniform would be fatal if Grant were seen in it on the street. Malachi must crawl into the alley again, go over to Oliver's house, and return at dusk with one of Oliver's suits of clothes; the uniform and the blood-stained shirt could then be hidden in the cellar, and at dark, should the street still be deserted, the three would put on a bold front and walk out of the front door of the main warehouse over their heads. Once safe in the Horn house, they could perfect plans for Grant's rejoining his regiment.

Their immediate safety provided for, and Malachi gone, Oliver could wait no longer to ask about Margaret. He had been turning over in his mind how he had best broach the subject, when her brother solved the difficulty by saying:

"Father was the first man in Brookfleld to indorse the President's call for troops. He'd have come himself, old as he is, if I had not joined the regiment. He didn't like you, Horn; I always told him he was wrong.

He'll never forgive himself now when he hears what you have done for me," and he laid his hand affectionately on Oliver's shoulder as he spoke. "I liked you as soon as I saw you, and so did mother, and so does Madge, but father was always wrong about you. We told him so, again and again, and Madge said that father would see some day that you got your politeness from the Cavaliers and we got our plain speaking from the Puritans. The old gentleman was pretty mad about her saying so, I tell you, but she stuck to it. Madge is a dear girl, Horn. A fellow always knows just where to find Madge; no nonsense about her.

She's grown handsome, too--handsomer than ever. There's a new look in her face, somehow, lately. I tell her she's met somebody in New York she likes, but she won't acknowledge it."