In the Midst of Alarms, Robert Barr [read e book txt] 📗

out of sight, if there were any men of genius, which he seemed to doubt, and those on the top were there either through their own intrigues or because they had been forced up by circumstances. His opinions sometimes caused a look of pain to cross the face of the older man, who was enthusiastic in his quiet way, and had his heroes. He would have been a strong Republican if he had lived in the States; and he had watched the four-years' struggle, through the papers, with keen and absorbed interest. The North had been fighting, in his opinion, for the great and undying principle of human liberty, and had deservedly won. Yates had no such delusion. It was a politicians' war, he said. Principle wasn't in it. The North would have been quite willing to let slavery stand if the situation had not been forced by the firing on Fort Sumter. Then the conduct of the war did not at all meet the approval of Mr. Yates.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I suppose Grant will go down into history as a great general. The truth is that he simply knew how to subtract. That is all there is in it. He had the additional boon of an utter lack of imagination. We had many generals who were greater than Grant, but they were troubled with imaginations. Imagination will ruin the best general in the world. Now, take yourself, for example. If you were to kill a man unintentionally, your conscience would trouble you all the rest of your life. Think how you would feel, then, if you were to cause the death of ten thousand men all in a lump. It would break you down. The mistake an ordinary man makes may result in the loss of a few dollars, which can be replaced; but if a general makes a mistake, the loss can never be made up, for his mistakes are estimated by the lives of men. He says 'Go' when he should have said 'Come.' He says 'Attack' when he should have said 'Retreat.' What is the result? Five, ten, or fifteen thousand men, many of them better men than he is, left dead on the field. Grant had nothing of this feeling. He simply knew how to subtract, as I said before. It is like this: You have fifty thousand men and I have twenty-five thousand. When I kill twenty-five thousand of your men and you kill twenty-five thousand of my men, you have twenty-five thousand left and I have none. You are the victor, and the thoughtless crowd howls about you, but that does not make you out the greatest general by a long shot. If Lee had had Grant's number, and Grant had Lee's, the result would have been reversed. Grant set himself to do this little sum in subtraction, and he did it--did it probably as quickly as any other man would have done it, and he knew that when it was done the war would have to stop. That's all there was to it."

The older man shook his head. "I doubt," he said, "if history will take your view either of the motives of those in power or of the way the war was carried on. It was a great and noble struggle, heroically fought by those deluded people who were in the wrong, and stubbornly contested at immense self-sacrifice by those who were in the right."

"What a pity it was," said young Howard to the newspaper man, with a rudeness that drew a frown from his father, "that you didn't get to show 'em how to carry on the war."

"Well," said Yates, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, "I flatter myself that I would have given them some valuable pointers. Still, it is too late to bemoan their neglect now."

"Oh, you may have a chance yet," continued the unabashed young man. "They say the Fenians are coming over here this time sure. You ought to volunteer either on our side or on theirs, and show how a war ought to be carried on."

"Oh, there's nothing in the Fenian scare! They won't venture over. They fight with their mouths. It's the safest way."

"I believe you," said the youth significantly.

Perhaps it was because the boy had been so inconsiderate as to make these remarks that Yates received a cordial invitation from both Mr. and Mrs. Howard to visit the farm as often as he cared to do so. Of this privilege Yates resolved to avail himself, but he would have prized it more if Miss Margaret had added her word--which she did not, perhaps because she was so busy looking after the bread. Yates knew, however, that with a woman apparent progress is rarely synonymous with real progress. This knowledge soothed his disappointment.

As he walked back to the camp he reviewed his own feelings with something like astonishment. The march of events was rapid even for him, who was not slow in anything he undertook.

"It is the result of leisure," he said to himself. "It is the first breathing time I have had for fifteen years. Not two days of my vacation gone, and here I am hopelessly in love!"


CHAPTER VII.

Yates had intended to call at the Bartletts' and escort Renmark back to the woods; but when he got outside he forgot the existence of the professor, and wandered somewhat aimlessly up the side road, switching at the weeds that always grow in great profusion along the ditches of a Canadian country thoroughfare. The day was sunny and warm, and as Yates wandered on in the direction of the forest he thought of many things. He had feared that he would find life deadly dull so far from New York, without even the consolation of a morning-paper, the feverish reading of which had become a sort of vice with him, like smoking. He had imagined that he could not exist without his morning paper, but he now realized that it was not nearly so important a factor in life as he had supposed; yet he sighed when he thought of it, and wished he had one with him of current date. He could now, for the first time in many years, read a paper without that vague fear which always possessed him when he took up an opposition sheet, still damp from the press. Before he could enjoy it his habit was to scan it over rapidly to see if it contained any item of news which he himself had missed the previous day. The impending "scoop" hangs over the head of the newspaper man like the sword so often quoted. Great as the joy of beating the opposition press is, it never takes the poignancy of the sting away from a beating received. If a terrible disaster took place, and another paper gave fuller particulars than the _Argus_ did, Yates found himself almost wishing the accident had not occurred, although he recognized such a wish as decidedly unprofessional.

Richard's idea of the correct spirit in a reporter was exemplified by an old broken-down, out-of-work morning newspaper man, who had not long before committed suicide at an hour in the day too late for the evening papers to get the sensational item. He had sent in to the paper for which he formerly worked a full account of the fatality, accurately headed and sub-headed; and, in his note to the city editor, he told why he had chosen the hour of 7 P.M. as the time for his departure from an unappreciative world.

"Ah, well," said Yates under his breath, and suddenly pulling himself together, "I mustn't think of New York if I intend to stay here for a couple of weeks. I'll be city-sick the first thing I know, and then I'll make a break for the metropolis. This will never do. The air here is enchanting, it fills a man with new life. This is the spot for me, and I'll stick to it till I'm right again. Hang New York! But I mustn't think of Broadway or I'm done for."

He came to the spot in the road where he could see the white side of the tent under the dark trees, and climbed up on the rail fence, sitting there for a few moments. The occasional call of a quail from a neighboring field was the only sound that broke the intense stillness. The warm smell of spring was in the air. The buds had but recently broken, and the woods, intensely green, had a look of newness and freshness that was comforting to the eye and grateful to the other senses. The world seemed to be but lately made. The young man breathed deeply of the vivifying air, and said: "No, there's nothing the matter with this place, Dick. New York's a fool to it." Then, with a sigh, he added: "If I can stand it for two weeks. I wonder how the boys are getting on without me."

In spite of himself his thoughts kept drifting back to the great city, although he told himself that it wouldn't do. He gazed at the peaceful, spreading landscape, but his eyes were vacant and he saw nothing. The roar of the streets was in his ears. Suddenly his reverie was broken by a voice from the forest.

"I say, Yates, where's the bread?"

Yates looked quickly around, somewhat startled, and saw the professor coming toward him.

"The bread? I forgot all about it. No; I didn't either. They were baking--that was it. I am to go for it later in the day. What loot did you rake in, professor?"

"Vegetables mostly."

"That's all right. Have a good dinner?"

"Excellent."

"So did I. Renny, when you interrupted me, I was just counting the farmhouses in sight. What do you say to boarding round among them? You are a schoolmaster, and ought to know all about it. Isn't education in this country encouraged by paying the teacher as little as possible, and letting him take it out in eating his way from one house to another? Ever board around, Renny?"

"Never. If the custom once existed in Canada, it is out of date now."

"That's a pity. I hate to face my own cooking, Renmark. We become less brave as we grow older. By the way, how is old man Bartlett? As well as could be expected?"

"He seemed much as usual. Mrs. Bartlett has sent out two chairs to the tent; she fears we will get rheumatism if we sit on the ground."

"She is a kind woman, Renny, and a thoughtful. And that reminds me: I have a hammock somewhere among my belongings. I will swing it up. Chairs are comfortable, but a hammock is luxury."

Yates slid down from the fence top, and together the two men walked to the tent. The hammock was unfurled and slung between two trees. Yates tested it cautiously, and finally trusted himself to its restful folds of network. He was swaying indolently several feet from the ground when he said to Renmark:

"I call this paradise--paradise regained; but it will be paradise lost next month. Now, professor, I am ready to do the cooking, but I have a fancy for doing it by proxy. The general directs, and the useful prosaic man executes. Where are your vegetables, Renny? Potatoes and carrots, eh? Very good. Now, you may wash them, Renny; but first you must bring some water from the spring."

The professor was a patient man, and he obeyed. Yates continued to swing in the hammock alternating directions with rhapsodies on the beauties of the day and the stillness of the woods. Renmark said but little, and attended