Ailsa Paige

However, he extricated himself and went about his business; found the squatter, argued with the squatter, gracefully dodged a brick from the wife of the squatter, laid a laughing complaint before the proper authorities, and then banqueted in imagination. What a luncheon he had! He was becoming a Lucullus at mental feasts.

Later, his business affairs and his luncheon terminated, attempting to enter Broadway at Grand Street, he got into a crowd so rough and ungovernable that he couldn't get out of it—an unreasonable, obstinate, struggling mass of men, women, and children so hysterical that the wild demonstrations of the day previous, and of the morning, seemed as nothing compared to this dense, far-spread riot.

Broadway from Fourth to Cortlandt Streets was one tossing mass of flags overhead; one mad surge of humanity below. Through it battalions of almost exhausted police relieved each other in attempting to keep the roadway clear for the passing of the New York 7th on its way to Washington.

Driven, crushed, hurled back by the played-out police, the crowds had sagged back into the cross streets. But even here the police charged them repeatedly, and the bewildered people turned struggling to escape, stumbled, swayed, became panic-stricken and lost their heads.

A Broadway stage, stranded in Canal Street, was besieged as a refuge. Toward it Berkley had been borne in spite of his efforts to extricate himself, incidentally losing his hat in the confusion. At the same moment he heard a quiet, unterrified voice pronounce his name, caught a glimpse of Ailsa Paige swept past on the human wave, set his shoulders, stemmed the rush from behind, and into the momentary eddy created, Ailsa was tossed, undismayed, laughing, and pinned flat against the forward wheel of the stalled stage.

"Climb up!" he said. "Place your right foot on the hub!—now the left on the tire!—now step on my shoulder!"

There came a brutal rush from behind; he braced his back to it; she set one foot on the hub, the other on the tire, stepped to his shoulder, swung herself aloft, and crept up over the roof of the stage. Here he joined her, offering an arm to steady her as the stage shook under the impact of the reeling masses below.

"How did you get into this mob?" he asked.

"I was caught," she said calmly, steadying herself by the arm he offered and glancing down at the peril below. "Celia and I were shopping in Grand Street at Lord and Taylor's, and I thought I'd step out of the shop for a moment to see if the 7th was coming, and I ventured too far—I simply could not get back. . . . And—thank you for helping me." She had entirely recovered her serenity; she released his arm and now stood cautiously balanced behind the driver's empty seat, looking curiously out over the turbulent sea of people, where already hundreds of newsboys were racing hither and thither shouting an afternoon extra, which seemed to excite everybody within hearing to frenzy.

"Can you hear what they are shouting?" she inquired. "It seems to make people very angry."

"They say that the 6th Massachusetts, which passed through here yesterday, was attacked by a mob in Baltimore."

"Our soldiers!" she said, incredulous. Then, clenching her small hands: "If I were Colonel Lefferts of the 7th I'd march my men through Baltimore to-morrow!"

"I believe they expect to go through," he said, amused. "That is what they are for."

The rising uproar around was affecting her; the vivid colour in her lips and cheeks deepened. Berkley looked at her, at the cockade with its fluttering red-white-and-blue ribbons on her breast, at the clear, fearless eyes now brilliant with excitement and indignation.

"Have you thought of enlisting?" she asked abruptly, without glancing at him.

"Yes," he said, "I've ventured that far. It's perfectly safe to think about it. You have no idea, Mrs. Paige, what warlike sentiments I cautiously entertain in my office chair."

She turned nervously, with a sunny glint of gold hair and fluttering ribbons:

"Are you never perfectly serious, Mr. Berkley? Even at such a moment as this?"

"Always," he insisted. "I was only philosophising upon these scenes of inexpensive patriotism which fill even the most urbane and peaceful among us full of truculence. . . . I recently saw my tailor wearing a sword, attired in the made-to-measure panoply of battle."

"Did that strike you as humorous?"

"No, indeed; it fitted; I am only afraid he may find a soldier's grave before I can settle our sartorial accounts."

There was a levity to his pleasantries which sounded discordant to her amid the solemnly thrilling circumstances impending. For the flower of the city's soldiery was going forth to battle—a thousand gay, thoughtless young fellows summoned from ledger, office, and counting-house; and all about her a million of their neighbours had gathered to see them go.

"Applause makes patriots. Why should I enlist when merely by cheering others I can stand here and create heroes in battalions?"

"I think," she said, "that there was once another scoffer who remained to pray."

As he did not answer, she sent a swift side glance at him, found him tranquilly surveying the crowd below where, at the corner of Canal and Broadway, half a dozen Zouaves, clothed in their characteristic and brilliant uniforms and wearing hairy knapsacks trussed up behind, were being vociferously acclaimed by the people as they passed, bayonets fixed.

"More heroes," he observed, "made immortal while you wait."

And now Ailsa became aware of a steady, sustained sound audible above the tumult around them; a sound like surf washing on a distant reef.

"Do you hear that? It's like the roar of the sea," she said. "I believe they're coming; I think I caught a strain of military music a moment ago!"

They rose on tiptoe, straining their ears; even the skylarking gamins who had occupied the stage top behind them, and the driver, who had reappeared, drunk, and resumed his reins and seat, stood up to listen.

Above the noise of the cheering, rolling steadily toward them over the human ocean, came the deadened throbbing of drums. A far, thin strain of military music rose, was lost, rose again; the double thudding of the drums sounded nearer; the tempest of cheers became terrific. Through it, at intervals, they could catch the clear marching music of the 7th as two platoons of police, sixty strong, arrived, forcing their way into view, followed by a full company of Zouaves.

Then pandemonium broke loose as the matchless regiment swung into sight. The polished instruments of the musicians flashed in the sun; over the slanting drums the drumsticks rose and fell, but in the thundering cheers not a sound could be heard from brass or parchment.

Field and staff passed headed by the colonel; behind jolted two howitzers; behind them glittered the sabre-bayonets of the engineers; then, filling the roadway from sidewalk to sidewalk the perfect ranks of the infantry swept by under burnished bayonets.

They wore their familiar gray and black uniforms, forage caps, and blue overcoats, and carried knapsacks with heavy blankets rolled on top. And New York went mad.

What the Household troops are to England the 7th is to America. In its ranks it carries the best that New York has to offer. The polished metal gorgets of its officers reflect a past unstained; its pedigree stretches to the cannon smoke fringing the Revolution.

To America the 7th was always The Guard; and now, in the lurid obscurity of national disaster, where all things traditional were crashing down, where doubt, distrust, the agony of indecision turned government to ridicule and law to anarchy, there was no doubt, no indecision in The Guard. Above the terrible clamour of political confusion rolled the drums of the 7th steadily beating the assembly; out of the dust of catastrophe emerged its disciplined gray columns. Doubters no longer doubted, uncertainty became conviction; in a situation without a precedent, the precedent was established; the corps d'elite of all state soldiery was answering the national summons; and once more the associated states of North America understood that they were first of all a nation indivisible.

Down from window and balcony and roof, sifting among the bayonets, fluttered an unbroken shower of tokens—gloves, flowers, handkerchiefs, tricoloured bunches of ribbon; and here and there a bracelet or some gem-set chain fell flashing through the sun.

Ailsa Craig, like thousands of her sisters, tore the red-white-and-blue rosette from her breast and flung it down among the bayonets with a tremulous little cheer.

Everywhere the crowd was breaking into the street; citizens marched with their hands on the shoulders of the soldiers; old gentlemen toddled along beside strapping sons; brothers passed arms around brothers; here and there a mother hung to the chevroned sleeve of son or husband who was striving to see ahead through blurring eyes; here and there some fair young girl, badged with the national colours, stretched out her arms from the crowd and laid her hands to the lips of her passing lover.

The last shining files of bayonets had passed; the city swarmed like an ant-hill.

Berkley's voice was in her ears, cool, good-humoured:

"Perhaps we had better try to find Mrs. Craig. I saw Stephen in the crowd, and he saw us, so I do not think your sister-in-law will be worried."

She nodded, suffered him to aid her in the descent to the sidewalk, then drew a deep, unsteady breath and gazed around as though awaking from a dream.

"It certainly was an impressive sight," he said. "The Government may thank me for a number of heroes. I'm really quite hoarse."

She made no comment.

"Even a thousand well-fed brokers in uniform are bound to be impressive," he meditated aloud.

Her face flushed; she walked on ignoring his flippancy, ignoring everything concerning him until, crossing the street, she became aware that he wore no hat.

"Did you lose it?" she asked curtly,

"I don't know what happened to that hysterical hat, Mrs. Paige. Probably it went war mad and followed the soldiers to the ferry. You can never count on hats. They're flighty."

"You will have to buy another," she said, smiling.

"Oh, no," he said carelessly, "what is the use. It will only follow the next regiment out of town. Shall we cross?"