The Iron Game Part 44

"I know all this already, dear madam. It has come to me from the boy's friends, and"--he hesitated a second--"and from his--or from those who are not his friends."

"Not his friends?" the mother cried, half rising. "Why, Mr. President, Jack hasn't an enemy in the world!"

"You came through from Richmond last week? Have you heard nothing from your son since you saw him?"

"Nothing. Oh, is there anything about him?"

"You have not even read the newspapers, I see."

"No, no; I have been so uncertain, so agitated, so constantly in attendance upon our members, that I have had no time to read or even talk. But, pray tell me! Your manner indicates that something has happened. O Mr. President, think of my anxiety! My only son!"

"Ah, Mrs. Sprague! It is I that should be pitied here. You came to me for comfort. You came in reliance on my power to restore your son, and I--I have the burden of telling you very grievous news. No, no, your son is not dead, have no fear of that, if in the end it prove a comfort.

Last night your townsman, Elisha Boone, came to me with his heart-broken daughter, demanding vengeance for his son's death, whom your boy had slain the very night you left him on the James. He shot Captain Boone in the house you visited, and defeated a well-arranged plan to capture the rebel chief, Davis. Not only this, but he endangered the escape of a number of sorely-worn prisoners who had succeeded in reaching the Rosedale place and halted only to make Davis's capture certain."

"My son shot Wesley! oh no, no; it can not be; or, if he did, it was because his own life was in peril. Ah! no, no, Mr. President, do not believe this. I know my son. I know the misery he endured in Wesley's company; endured like a hero; endured like a Sprague. He must have been in peril of his life."

"Dear madam, I feel for you. I feel with you, but these facts are all in the possession of the Secretary of War. Mr. Boone will no doubt give you all the details. If it can be made to seem as you say, have no fear that I will wink at mere revenge, or make the machinery of justice an instrument of family feuds. Get your lawyer; have the matter investigated, and rely upon me for every proper clemency and aid in your hard lot."

She had arisen long before, and, recognizing this as a dismissal, she bowed, unable to speak, and, with blinded eyes, staggered toward the two steps leading upward from the room. She would have fallen had the ready arm of the President not been near to support her. In the anteroom he said, huskily:

"Captain, send an orderly to accompany this lady to her carriage."

Merry was in the carriage. One glance at Mrs. Sprague's face told that dire news had been heard. She did not ask a question, but, embracing and supporting the sobbing mother, awaited patiently for the dreaded revelation. When at length the miserable story came in gaspings and sobs, the spinster exhibited an unexpected firmness.

"I don't believe a word of it. If Jack shot Wesley, it was because he was in some sort of treacherous business. You may depend upon it, that, when we get the true story, Jack's part will prove him in the right. I am going this instant to Boone to learn his source of information. He can have nothing but rumors."

"I will go. It is better for me to see Mr. Boone. He will not venture to misrepresent to me."

At Willards, where Boone was stopping, the ladies were obliged to wait a long time, and, in the end, it was Kate who appeared before them in deep black, with a half-yearning, half-defiant expression in the sadly worn face. They would never have recognized her, and, as it was, Merry started with a slight scream as the dark figure stopped before them.

"Papa begs to be excused. He supposes that you want to hear the particulars of the--the affair at Rosedale, and bids me tell you."

"O Kate, Kate, it is not true! it can not be true. Oh, you who knew Jack so well, you know that he never could have--have--"

Kate had seized a chair and drawn it before the two who sat on one of the long sofas that filled without adorning the vast hotel parlor, dim even at noonday in its semi-subterranean light.

"Yes, Mrs. Sprague, your son shot Wesley deliberately; shot him as deliberately as if I should draw a pistol and take your life now and here."

"And--and killed him?"

"He never spoke again. He--he--ah! I can not, I can not! We brought him here. His body is in the cemetery, waiting the military formalities."

"But tell us how it happened, Kate," Merry sobbed, entreatingly. "We know nothing but what you have told us. Tell us all. It is so startling, so awful, that we can not comprehend such a thing happening where we left everybody in the most friendly spirit."

Kate, struggling with her tears, told the story so far as she knew it, but of course she knew little beyond the mere fact that Wesley had come to his death in Mrs. Atterbury's room; that Jack stood over him with the smoking pistol, and owned that he had fired in the darkness. She told the tale as gently as might be, her own heart secretly pleading for everything of extenuation that might lessen Jack's guilt, but she had insensibly taken the darker view her father had instantly adopted, that Jack's enmity had led him to seize the chance to rid himself of a rival and enemy under cover of defending the Atterburys. She did not hint this to the mother, but Merry, knowing Boone, at once saw what the President's words meant. Boone had charged Jack with deliberate murder.

Dreading the realization of this by Mrs. Sprague at this time, Merry made a sign to Kate, who, comprehending at once, arose and begged to go back to her father, who was in need of her.

"Oh, if Olympia were here! she has so much self-control! she would advise so well what should he done!" the mother moaned, as she pa.s.sed down through the long, barrack-like parlor.

"But, dear Mrs. Sprague, Olympia is just where her good sense is most needed. She is near Jack. He needs comfort and counsel. You can have your lawyer, and you shall see the case isn't so bad as we have heard.

You must remember that the Boones are not likely to take an impartial view. It is only human nature that they should think the worst of the--the death of son and brother. Wait till we hear Jack's story, and you will see that it puts a different face on the matter."

"But it's Jack's disgrace and death they want. That was what the President meant. I didn't understand it then: I do understand it now.

They shall not murder him! I shall command him to remain in Richmond. I shall command him to join Vincent. The North is unworthy of such men as my son. He is too pure, too innocent, too high-minded to be understood by the coa.r.s.e natures that have come to power in the country. I shall not let this odious Boone destroy him as he ruined your brother."

"O Mrs. Sprague, think what you are saying! Think how fatal such words would be, if Jack were brought to trial. You see every day in the press how all are suspected of treason who were Democrats in the old days. I know very well that you do not mean this. Much as I love Jack, I would rather see him in his grave with the Union flag over him than in the rebel lines, a soldier of that bad cause. As to my poor brother, Boone was only an accident in his ruin. If it had not been Boone, it would have been some one else. Put the whole matter in the hands of Simon Brodie. He is almost a Sprague. He will see that the son of his old patron has justice."

Simon Brodie, of Warchester, was the chief advocate of the three counties. He had studied law with the late Senator Sprague, and, at his death, from partner succeeded to his lucrative law practice. He came at once to Washington at Mrs. Sprague's summons, and set about learning the status of the case. The affair was no easy matter to trace, but, after inconceivable delays and persistent misleading, he found that Jack was in the military archives charged with desertion, murder, and treason: desertion in quitting his company and regiment without orders, treason in consorting with armed rebels, and murder in joining with the enemies of the country to take the life of his commanding officer. Meanwhile, Mrs. Sprague and Merry had returned to Acredale, and the lawyer sent letters to Richmond setting forth the case to Jack--letters which, by some mysterious jugglery, never reached their address, as we have seen.

Nothing could be done until Jack was either exchanged or until his advocate had made out a doc.u.mentary case that could be presented to the military authorities. As he surmised, every one in authority had been prejudiced against Jack. The Congressman from Warchester dared not work against Boone, who was potent as a Cabinet minister in the councils of the Government. One of Senator Sprague's old friends, still in the Senate, advised Brodie to let Jack remain at Richmond till the peace came, "for," said he, "no Democrat nor any one identified with that party can hope for impartial justice here."

"But what am I to do? I can get no a.s.sistance here. Every bureau containing doc.u.ments bearing on the poor boy's case is either closed to me, or the officials so hostile that I can not work with or through them."

"You must go about the affair as if it were a State matter. You must go to McClellan. He is a young man of the most spotless honor, the most generous sympathies. He is as rigid as a Prussian in discipline, but his methods are enlightened and above board. He is the only man in authority that has any real conception of the magnitude of the struggle the North has entered upon. He is, however, miserably hampered. The new rulers have come down to Washington very much in the spirit of the Goths when they captured Rome. Every one is on the make. The contract system is something beyond the wildest excesses I ever read of in pillage and chicanery. Shoes by the million have been accepted that melt as soon as they are wet; garments are stacked mountain-high in the storehouses that blow into rags so soon as the air goes through them. Food, moldy, filthy, is acc.u.mulated on the wharves of Washington, Baltimore, and Alexandria that would be forbidden as infectious in any carefully guarded port in the world. Contracts for vessels have been signed where steamships are called for, and the contractor sends ca.n.a.l-boats. Lines of ships are paid for to run to ports not known in navigation; and the chief men in the great departments share the money with the rings--"

"But why don't you expose it?"

"Expose it? A word in the Senate against these villainies is set down as disloyalty. All that a rascal needs to gain any scope he pleases, is to say 'rebel sympathizer,' and Fort Warren or Lafayette is held up as a menace."

Among the confidential aides of McClellan Brodie knew intimately a young officer, the son of a distinguished lady, whose writings delighted cultivated people fifty years ago. This young man, Captain Churchland, had often been a guest at the Spragues, and to him Brodie went for advice. Inheriting a great deal of his mother's intellect, with a droll sense of humor, not then so well understood as the lighter school of writers have since made it, Churchland was the delight of the headquarters. He listened to the melancholy story of Jack's compromising plight.

"It's a bad fix--no mistake," he said, gravely; "but I suggest that your fiery young friend come home and shoot the father, marry the daughter, and, as a wife can't testify against the husband, your client is secure."

"Ah, captain, it's not a matter for joking. Think of his wretched mother."

"That's just what I do think of--murder's no joke, though it's more of a fine art than it was when De Quincey wrote. I'm perfectly serious. I would shoot the scoundrel Boone. Why, do you know the man has cleared a million dollars on rotten blankets since he came here? McClellan ordered a report made out showing his rascalities a few weeks ago. It was disapproved at the War Office, and the condemned blankets have gone to Halleck's army. Doesn't that deserve shooting? Napoleon directed all the army contractors to be hanged. I say shoot them. For every one put out of the way a thousand soldiers' lives will be saved."

"Well, well, let Boone go. It's Sprague I'm interested in."

"So am I. It is Sprague that Boone seems to be interested in, too, for he has filled the new Secretary with, what he himself would call, righteous wrath against the poor boy and his friends. But make your mind easy. The exchange of prisoners will soon begin. Sprague's turn will come among the first, and then I will keep track of the affair. Beyond that I can promise nothing. You may be sure, so far as purely military men have to do with the business, there will be impartial justice. When the politicians take hold, I can give no a.s.surance."

And with this cold comfort the disheartened lawyer betook himself to Acredale, where his report, guardedly given, brought no very strong hope to the anxious mother.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE WORLD WENT VERY ILL THEN.

Acredale was not the sleepy, sylvan scene we first saw it, when Mrs.

Sprague and Merry drove through the wide main street from the station, four months after they had quitted it in search of their soldier boys.

The stately elms still arched the highway to Warchester, but here and there rough gaps were seen in the trim hedge-rows. Staring new edifices jutted through these breaks upon the gra.s.sy walks, and building material lay heaped in confusion all along the graveled walks. Merry railed at these evidences of commercial invasion, wondering who had come to the village to transform it into city hideousness. Mrs. Sprague did not give much heed to her companion's speculations. Her mind was far away on the James, wondering where her boy was. It was very hard to settle down to the commonplaces of home life; but, even in all her distraction, Mrs.

Sprague saw that a change had come upon the people as well as the place.

With the war and its desolating sights fresh in her memory, she saw, with sorrow and aversion, that social life was gayer than it had ever been, that the rush for wealth had become a fever, and that the simple ways and homely joys of the past were now remitted to the very elderly.

The story of d.i.c.k's mad pursuit of Jack and the Caribees, after the disaster at Bull Run, was soon known in every home in the county.

Friends came from far and near to hear the exciting adventure; and the younger boys, who had been the lad's cla.s.smates in the academy, at once made up a company of youngsters, adorned by the name of the "Perley Rangers," to be in readiness for the hero's command when he should return.

The feud between the adherents of the houses of Sprague and Boone had become acrimoniously embittered by the point of view from which each side saw the conduct of Jack. Among the Boone feudatories he was set down as a traitor, a spy, a murderer. The first malignant rumors that reached the village after the battle were still maintained stoutly by the Boone lictors. Jack had ingloriously shirked his part in the battle with the Caribees; he had skulked in the bushes until the issue was decided, and then had followed the sympathies of his secession family; he had gone to the Atterburys, well known for their hatred to the North.