Chapter XXXV (1)

During the time which had elapsed since the night on which Eve Pascal and Reuben May renewed their bond of friendship many an anxious incident had occurred to test its value and cement its strength.

Jerrem and Adam were familiar names to Reuben now, and the men who bore them were often before his eyes and constantly in his thoughts. Prepared as Reuben had been for undergoing much awkwardness in delivering himself of the tale he had to tell, he found he had greatly underrated the pain and humiliation he actually felt when, through the interest of his friend, he found himself within the walls of Newgate and in the presence of Adam. Reuben was no coward, yet it needed all the strength of his strictly-disciplined mind to open up and lay bare before a rival's eyes those wounds which love had made and time had had no space to heal. He shrank from placing in front of Adam the picture of himself and Eve as they had stood in the days when, Adam all unknown, the balance of a happy future seemed trembling still within the hand of Fate; and he paused from time to time as he spoke, hoping some word or sign would make his task more easy; but Adam never spoke or turned aside his eyes, and under that fixed gaze Reuben was forced to tell his tale out to the end, constraining his pride to give out word for word what Eve had said in Adam's praise, and searing the green memory of his love by making his lips repeat those vows which she had told him bound her to another.

At length the task was ended, the jealous rage, the mad revenge, was all confessed; and satisfied that, whatever guilt it might please Adam to lay to his charge, he had at least shown that Eve was free from any shadow of stain, Reuben paused, and the two so strangely linked stood looking at each other with envy, jealousy, distrust clouding their minds, while a chord of sympathy drew them together as they recognized a similitude in their actions which made each self-abasement uttered find an echo in its listener's breast. Proud, stern, unyielding to emotion as both these men had lived, it was not in them to take comfort in the shifts and excuses weaker natures find: the hearts that had refused pity for their neighbors would not entreat it because they themselves now stood in need. As they had judged their fellows so they arraigned themselves, and thus unwittingly rendered the first atonement man is called upon to make.

The sight of Adam's strong, powerful form shaken and bowed down by the remorse he strove in vain to control moved Reuben strangely. The haggard pallor of his striking face, the sunken eyes, the untasted food, the unslept-in bed,--each told its tale of misery and woe, and opened out to Reuben a depth of despair his own experience hitherto had furnished him with no gauge to measure. What if with no further warning he fetched up Eve to Adam's aid? The thought would bear no hesitation: a thousand jealous "Noes" battled with the suggestion, but Reuben's better self resolved to have its way, and, seizing the opportunity of Adam's head being bent down in his arms, Reuben went swiftly out and along down to the keeper's room, where Eve had been left impatiently awaiting his return.

Although the grating of the hinge roused Adam, he neither stirred nor moved until, satisfied by the unbroken silence that Reuben had left him to himself, he ventured to raise his head. Where could he go? where hide himself from human gaze? And as the thought of all his shame came crowding to his mind he started up and wildly stared around, and then around again, seeing each time the walls, which looked so near, draw nearer still. No hope! no hope! Here he must live until the hour when those who brought him here would drag him forth to swear away his comrade's life. O God! how helpless he felt! and as he let himself drop down each limb gave way and nerveless fell, as if Dejection claimed him for her own. The time had been when Adam's mind was racked by thoughts of what lay in the hearts of those he had left behind: their pictured hatred and contempt stung him to madness; the words they would say, the curses they were uttering, seemed ever ringing in his ears. But Reuben's tale had for the time swept this away and filled its place with dark remorse for what he had done to Jerrem. True, Reuben had shown that Jerrem's hand had wrought his own and their destruction, but what of that? Adam through him had wreaked his vengeance on them all--had, Judas-like, delivered them to death: henceforth, branded and disgraced, he must be an outcast or a wanderer. As this fallen spectre of himself rose up and flitted in his sight a cry of wild despair burst forth, wrenched from the depths of his proud heart--a cry which some one near sent echoing back; and as it came his hands were caught, and Pity seemed to stretch her arms and fold him to her breast.

Was it a nightmare he was waking from--some hideous dream in which our bodies slumber while our fancies live a lifetime? Would this vision of Eve (for Eve it was who knelt close by his side, her arms around his neck) melt away and fade as many a one of her had done before? She calls him love--her love, the husband of her heart. What! he, this guilty outcast--can he be this to any one, and most of all to Eve?

A finger's touch seemed laid upon the veil which hitherto had shut out hope from Adam's view, and as it shrivelled up and rolled away the light revealed that Mercy still sat throned on high, and bowing down his head on Eve's neck he let his stricken soul take comfort in the thought.

* * * * *

But while Adam was thus cast down under suffering, sorrow had taken but a slight hold on Jerrem, who, after the first shock produced by the horrors of a place then branded as "the darkest seat of woe this side of hell," gradually regained his old elasticity, and was soon ready to treat, laugh and drink with all who came near him. His merry jokes, his quaint sea-songs, the free handling he gave to his plentiful supply of money,--all served to ensure his popularity, so that, instead of the man sunk under misery and despair whom Reuben, after leaving Adam, had girded himself up to encounter, he came upon Jerrem rollicking and gay, a prime favorite with all the authorities, and a choice spirit amid the crew of tried and untried prisoners who in those days crowded together in the foul wards of Newgate.

Fresh from the sight of Adam's dark remorse, filled with compunction at the thought of all the ills their joint passions had hurled on Jerrem's head, Reuben had invested Jerrem with a sense of wrong, to make reparation for which he had come prepared to offer whatever sacrifice he should demand. To find the man for whom all this feeling had been conjured up reckless and unconcerned, casting oaths against his ill-luck one moment and cutting jokes at his possible fate the next, jarred upon Reuben terribly, and made him at once decide that it would be worse than useless to urge upon him any necessity for taking thought for his soul when he was so utterly reckless as to what would become of his body. The story Reuben had to tell of himself and Eve, the betrayal, and the suspicions it had aroused against Eve in Adam, merely affected Jerrem as a matter for surprise and curiosity. He seemed pleased to hear that Eve was close at hand, but still expressed no wish to see her. He talked about Adam, and with a painful absence of all malice told Reuben to say to him that he'd best lay it thick on his back, so that the judge and jury would let the other chaps go free. The circumstance of being brought to London to be tried seemed to afford him immense satisfaction--a thing, he said, that hadn't happened for sixty years and more, since old ---- swung for it; and then he fell to wondering how soon that might be his fate, and if so how many from Polperro would make the stretch to come so far. He'd promise them it shouldn't be for nothing: he'd show the Cornishmen that he could cut his capers game. Only one subject seemed able to sober or subdue his reckless spirit, and this was any mention of Joan or Uncle Zebedee: to them the poor soul seemed to cling with all the love his nature could command. And when Reuben, instructed by Eve, told him how stricken down the old man lay, and farther on promised to write for him all the messages he wished to send to Joan, a heart of wax seemed given to his keeping, in which it now must be his care to mould the little good there yet was time to teach. And so it happened that in all his future visits--and every hour that Reuben had to spare was given up to Jerrem--Joan was the theme that threaded all their discourse, and by her power Jerrem's soft heart and softer nature became to Reuben as an open page, wherein he read of actions in which good and bad were so mixed up and jumbled that in the very midst of his reproof and condemnation Reuben was often forced to stand abashed before some act of generous pity which found no echo in his former life. And out of this humility, which grew in strength, there sprang forth greater merits than from all the weary efforts he made at working out his own atonement; for Reuben, like Adam, had been over-satisfied about his own rectitude, and took pride in the knowledge that if ever he had committed a wrong he had acknowledged it freely and expiated it to the uttermost farthing; while Jerrem, for the first time in his life brought to see guilt in what he had counted pleasure, scarce dared to listen to a hope of mercy for himself, but rather craved Reuben to beg it for the many who had been thoughtless sharers in his folly. His ruling desire was to see Joan once more, and no sooner was he told that the admiralty session had begun and that his day of trial, although not fixed, was near at hand, than he begged Reuben to write and ask Joan to delay her promised visit no longer; and this Reuben did, adding on his own account that, from what the lawyer said, it would be best she came at once by the coach which would reach London on the following Thursday week, on which day Reuben would be waiting to receive her.

Now, at the onset of this disaster had such a letter reached Polperro not a man in the place but, short of knowing it would cost his life, would have risked all else to go to London, and if Jerrem was to die give him courage by mustering round their comrade at the last. But the downpour of disaster had cowed these daring spirits, and the men who had not known what fear meant so long as success was secure now trembled and gave way under the superstitious certainty that Ill-luck was following them and Misfortune had marked them for her own. Their energies paralyzed, they succumbed to what they looked upon as Fate, and in most cases were seized without a struggle and led off to the nearest prisons without an effort on their own part toward resistance.

The money over which, from the small scope for spending it, they had seemed so lavish and reckless, when needed for lawyers and counsel and bribes went but a small way; and though they made a common purse of all their hoards, not a day passed without some house being stripped of the substance which adorned it, so that money might be got for the husband, the son, the brothers who had brought these treasures home. The women, on their knees, pressed on the farmers' wives their chintzes, their lace, their gaudy stock of jewelry, and when this market failed toiled along to Liskeard, Plymouth and Launceston, carrying their china, silver plate and bowls in the hope of finding somebody to buy them.

With a revenue cutter--often two--always in sight, landing parties of king's men, who, recalling ugly thoughts of the hated press-gang, roamed hither and thither, ready to seize any one who happened to show his face; with half the husbands, sons and brothers in Plymouth clink or Bodmin jail, and the rest skulking in farm-houses or lying hidden in the secret places; with plenty vanishing and poverty drawing nigh,--the past circumstances which had led to this desolation were swallowed up in the present misery it had entailed upon them; and though every one now knew the whole story as it stood--how that through Jerrem writing to Eve she had had it in her power to tell Reuben May, her former lover, who, led on by jealousy, had betrayed them to the revenue-men--so familiar had Reuben's good services to Jerrem become known that it was taken as only one more of his many friendly actions that he should write to Joan, urging her to come to London without delay, and promising to meet her and see that she was taken care of. If any among them thought that Joan would go probably to Eve's home, they made no mention of it, for Eve's name was by a tacit understanding banished from their mouths, and the memory of her lay as a seal to that dark sepulchre wherein, with bitter scorn and hate, Adam lay buried.

There was no question now of Uncle Zebedee going, for the confinement, the excitement and the degradation had been too much for the old man, whose free and happy life had never known trouble or restraint, and his mind had gradually weakened under the burden imposed upon it; so that now, except when some unexpected incident roused the flickering flame of memory, the past few months were blotted from his mind, and in company with Jonathan--who, broken down by ill-usage and turned out of prison to die, had managed to crawl back to the friends he knew he should find shelter with--he roamed about harmless and contented, always watching for the Lottery's return, and promising, when she did come back, that he would give them all a fling such as Polperro had not seen for many a day.

It was an easy matter to cheat him now, and when, her journey all arranged, Joan stepped into the boat which was to take her round to Plymouth and left old Zebedee standing on the shore, raising his thin cracked voice to fetch her ear with cheery messages for Jerrem and for Adam, whom she was going to meet, her cup of bitterness seemed to overflow.

_The Author of "Dorothy Fox."_

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A PIVOTAL POINT

We are but beginning to understand what this America of ours is to do for the Old World. If we consider it under the figure of a vast steamship journeying to the relief of the mother nations, surely the beef and the flour, the cotton and the corn, even the inventions, with which it is freighted, form the least portion of its immeasurable cargo of supplies. Now, imagining our republic to be such a vessel, if Alaska be the stern and Florida the prow turned toward the other hemisphere for the peaceful conquest thereof, then must New York on the left hand and Texas upon the right be, in the days to come, the great paddle-wheels which shall drive it onward--New York not more so in a commercial than Texas in an agricultural sense. But it is with Texas only that we have here to do, and this in order to detail certain things hitherto unpublished which may not be without their use to the Humes and Motleys, the Froudes and Macaulays, of our nation in the wonderful future.

It is well to bear in mind from the outset that Texas is by far the largest of the States. To get even an idea of this, place within its boundaries New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania: even then you must pack into the crevices between these two or three granite boulders each of the size of Massachusetts to make a solid territory as large as Texas. As to that, however, Alaska is vast, and so is Sahara. If you set out upon a journey south and south-westward, beginning at the Potomac, and visit every Southern State in its order upon the map, you will find--and that almost immediately upon your arrival in Texas--that you have reached that State of them all which surpasses the others as much in prosperity as it does in dimensions. Near as Texas is to the equator, the oxygen of its abnormal growth is perceived by the newcomer in almost his first breath. There is a combination of causes for this. The Puritan who landed on Plymouth Rock gave character to, and transmitted himself down, the after ages of New England history; and the same is true of the influence of the Connecticut Austin who in 1820 began the settlement of Texas. The lapse of two centuries may have given a more earthward direction to the old energy, but the energy itself is there; and, somehow, the character and history of this larger New England of the West have been along the same line. Everything has helped forward the prosperity of the State. General health, moderate taxation, fertility of soil, astonishing diversity of product, cheap and rapid construction of railroads along lines both of latitude and longitude, immeasurable reserves of alternate sections of land held sacred for education,--these are some of the causes which are attracting an immigration of about a hundred thousand a year to a realm so vast that the two millions already there seem but pioneers of the coming hosts.

But that which strikes the stranger most is the seemingly small proportion of negroes to whites in comparison with other Southern States; and this is becoming more marked every year. In one thing the population seems to be unanimous, and that is that Texas shall remain, vast as it is, one undivided State, a recent legislature having set apart three millions of acres toward the construction of a new capitol at Austin which shall be worthy of that one of the United States which is also, and in itself, an empire so much larger than Germany that to bring the balance to a level you must cast into the scale with it Jamaica, Holland, Denmark, Belgium and Greece. There is the momentum as of its enormous bulk in the prosperity of Texas; and not a man of us, however wide awake he is, but is a Rip Van Winkle as to what it is coming to be.

But all this is said in order to something else. Heaven knows that the history of Texas was romantic enough during the era of the mysterious Aztec, then of the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Mexican, and after that of the original and unadulterated Texan of the battles of '36, and yet there is a page, unprinted hitherto, of its annals, in connection with the Confederacy, which is, in some senses, the most interesting of all. To appreciate it one must remember that, unlike any other State, Texas was once a republic which had won its independence with its own sword. Of its own free will it deliberately abdicated its nationality as such to become one of the United States. When the fever of Secession set in, of all the Southern States it was, on account both of its size and strategic location, the most important. An anecdote in regard to Mr. Lincoln may illustrate this. One of the early settlers of Texas was a gentleman whom I will designate as Mr. S----. There is hardly a citizen of the State but will know who is meant, so long and thoroughly has he been recognized over its broad domain for his indomitable energy, sagacity and magnificent success, as well as for an integrity and high sense of honor unimpeached by any. Except as he was compelled by the very qualities of his clear-headed character to be a Union man during the rebellion, Mr. S---- has never meddled in politics, and no man stands higher to-day in the estimation of the best men in Texas than he. As a Union man he was obliged to absent himself from the State during the war, and was in Washington in 1864. As soon as Mr. Lincoln knew of his arrival he sent for him, and held three different interviews with him in regard to Texas. During these conversations the President dwelt at length and with the utmost energy upon the necessity, in a military sense, of Texas to the Federal cause. "If we held Texas," he said, "we should not only outflank the Confederacy by land, but by water also;" and he developed the statement in all its details. "Go back," he entreated Mr. S----, "and say to your State that if it will return to the Union the slaves will not be interfered with."

"But the Emancipation Proclamation has been issued," Mr. S---- exclaimed.

"No matter for that. We will consent to any plan for gradual emancipation the Texans will make," replied the President: "they may arrange for it not to go into effect for forty years to come if they will but return. We will fix it to suit them. One thing is certain," he went on: "even if the Confederacy should succeed with the other Southern States, we will never give up Texas. With it we can fence in the Confederacy, and whatever befalls we can never let Texas go--never!"

After much further conversation the President led Mr. S---- to the window and pointed to the trees. "Do you see," he said, "how the buds upon those boughs are swelling as they yield to the coming spring and summer? So is it in regard to the matters of which we are speaking: there is a Power mightier than we which, inevitable, irresistible, is dealing with them. Upon that Power we also can afford to wait. But we will never give up Texas, Mr. S----: never!"

Let it be added here, as casting light upon the characteristics of Texas, that it was never conquered by the Federal forces. Although attacked often and from almost every quarter, it invariably repelled the assault. When it succumbed at last it was from within, and not as the result of any victory achieved by Federal troops upon its own soil. But all this is merely to show that, superior in many respects to every other Southern State, the case of Texas was unique in almost every point of view; and this is stated with reference to what is now to follow.

When the rebellion began, General Sam Houston, who had been president of Texas when it was a republic, was governor of the State. In common with the overwhelming majority of the people, Houston was utterly hostile to Secession. With them he knew too well what Texas had been and how it had come into the Union. There was a certain grand inertia of the great State which resisted the noisy efforts of South Carolina to drag it out, as a stately ship resists, of itself and although its crew be passive, the attempts of a little tug to tow it along. Not one-fourth of the people of the State voted, when the test came, for Secession, and no man opposed it more determinedly than did its governor. If, like Texas among the States, he towered among men, almost a giant in stature and breadth of person, like Texas also he was peculiar every way. It required men of marked individuality to settle the country, to wrest it from Mexico, to erect it into a republic; and no Texan was more emphatically "himself and nobody else" than was the ponderous chief magistrate. Manifold stories illustrative of this are still afloat there: let one suffice, even if it shows also the weakness of the man. One morning when he was president of the republic the envoy from France called to confer with him upon an affair of critical importance. The executive mansion was but a log-cabin boarding-house at the time, and the only thing to be done was for the portly president to promenade up and down the long porch in front of the building, the envoy, who was the most polished and nervous of Frenchmen, walking by his side. But a small nurse-girl was engaged in drawing a screaming baby upon the porch in a roughly-constructed child's wagon. When he passed it the president said, with the politeness which always characterized him when anything female was in question, "Will you be so kind as to roll your charge somewhere else?" The nurse merely stared at him, and continued to drag the squalling infant up and down upon the squeaking wheels, the president and the envoy conferring together as well as they could as they walked. "My young friend," the former remonstrated at last as he halted before the girl, "I will esteem it a singular favor if you will go elsewhere." But it was little the nurse cared for the affairs of empires, and she paid no attention to the request. It so chanced that when the rival occupants of the porch passed each other the next time it was opposite the steep steps leading down into the yard, the Frenchman being upon that side. As the president came upon the rolling nuisance, now noisier than before, he whirled about. "I had rather," he shouted to the astonished girl, his face ablaze, his arms extended, "meet all hell in harness, and be dragged down the streets of the New Jerusalem by wild horses, than meet your horrible cart!" and, glancing around for his companion, he saw that in the violence of his explosion he had hurled the represented majesty of France down the steps and into the dirt.

He was an older man when Jeff Davis came along trundling _his_ species of nuisance upon their common path, but he was no milder in his denunciation. Morning, noon and night, in public addresses and in private conversation, he left no shadow of doubt in the mind of any as to his opinion of Secession and its certain result. "Texas and the Federal government are like two noble mastiffs," he told the people from the steps of the Capitol at Austin in the earliest days of the rebellion, "and these miserable politicians are like little curs snapping and snarling about them to provoke them to fight. When the mastiffs are launched at last into bloody battle these wretched curs, holding themselves carefully out of danger, will circle about the big dogs which are tearing each other to pieces, with their shrill bow-wow-wows." And the writer remembers how well the old hero imitated as he said it, and with more accuracy than dignity, the vicious feebleness of the querulous spaniels.

Nor was the governor backward in doing also what he could to save his State from the coming chaos. A well-known and efficient lawyer of Texas hastened to Washington and had an audience with President Buchanan at the very outset of things, commissioned, doubtless, to do so by General Houston. "Relieve the officer now in command of that department," he urged upon Buchanan, "and appoint Houston in his place. Do that, do it at once, and we can assure you that you need have no fear of seeing Texas secede." The poor President shrank aghast from the proposition. We know how clerical in appearance Mr. Buchanan was, especially in the spotless whiteness of his ample necktie. "When I mentioned Houston to him," the lawyer said afterward, "he turned as pale as his cravat."

What was to be done? Governor Houston demanded it of himself as he sat and whittled shingles in his easy-chair at the executive office in the basement of the Capitol. General Twiggs was in command of the United States troops in that department, and they comprised one-fourth of the entire army then at the disposal of the Federal government. There were one hundred and twenty-one commissioned officers then in Texas--three thousand troops in thirteen forts and ten camps, including seven companies of the Third Infantry. At the general's head-quarters in San Antonio were fifty-five thousand dollars in cash, and thirty-five thousand stand of arms and seventy cannon within reach, with horses, mules, ammunition, wagons, tents, in abundance. In other words, General Twiggs, with a disciplined army and military stores of the value of over three millions of dollars, was available for resistance to Secession. But what about the officer in command? When General Twiggs shortly before had gone on leave of absence to Georgia, he had left Robert E. Lee in charge, remarking even at that early date, "If Old Hickory were President he could hold things." But Twiggs had returned, and Lee had left Texas, saying, "I am going to Virginia to turn planter. There will be at least one soldier the less to do the fighting." Could the governor rely upon General Twiggs? Captain R.M. Potter of the army, then in Texas, assures the writer that Twiggs did it merely as a ruse and to save time, but the governor had received tidings from him two months before that he could rely upon him. As it was, the United States troops were scattered six hundred miles along the frontier, and something must be done, secretly and instantly. Governor Houston knew that he could count upon many thousand volunteers. And not upon men merely as Union men: throughout the State were multitudes of those whose devotion to Houston was more almost of a religious nature than a matter of politics. These "Houston men" would have rallied to him rifle in hand, more or less indifferent to the cause he espoused, so that if there was to be a fight, and Houston was to command, he could have had plenty of soldiers, whoever and whatever was to be fought for or against.

And so the old governor sat awaiting events, a King Canute upon the seashore, and the ocean already lapping his feet. Almost every one of the many papers of Texas was ablaze with the prairie-fires of Secession. Everywhere the men were being rapidly organized into companies, ladies were making and presenting banners, editors, recruits, haranguing politicians rushing into the affair as purely from sentimental considerations, and with as little sound consideration, as the youngest and most frivolous of the excited beauties who were decking out lovers and brothers to their death. But the Secession convention assembled at Austin: how could the governor prevent it? Resisting the importunities of inflamed, remonstrating, exasperated, vituperative, threatening men, the old man sat in the executive department silently whittling away, a cypress shingle in one hand, a jack-knife in the other. The swarming politicians could not but revere and be afraid of him. Was he not "Old Sam," "the hero of San Jacinto"? He had been president of the republic, United States Senator, possible President of the United States. He was, as has been said, a very large man, of commanding aspect, and he threw his whole weight, so to speak, into his detestation and denunciation of Jeff Davis and all his crew.

As he sat and whittled he could not but hear the uproar in the legislative hall overhead in which the convention was assembled: the vehement applause of clapping hands and stamping feet reached his ears, even if he could not hear the eloquence which had aroused it. So far, he had fired blank shot only from behind his entrenchments, but he outnumbered--and all knew it--in his one person, and ten times over, the throngs of brave but mistaken men discussing and rushing through grandiloquent resolutions above, not a man of whom but was thinking all along of the governor down stairs as of a sort of legitimate Guy Fawkes who might at any moment blow their noisy parliament to the moon. "What do you think Old Sam will do?" That was the question of the day with them beyond every other. Alas! that was the conundrum which the governor, ponder as he might, was so far unable to answer. He had conquered and driven out the Mexicans; had sent the Texan soldiers home with the one charge, "Go and plant corn;" had seen Texas grow into a republic under his care; had rejoiced when he had helped place it in the Union. Now the imperial State was in the act of being hurled into what he confidently regarded as the most causeless of catastrophes; but what could he do? That was the supreme question. "What can I do to prevent it? What ought I to do, to-day and before it is too late?"

Early one morning a man entered the executive office, locked the door behind him and walked up to the pondering governor, his felt hat in his hand. It was not his name, but I will content myself with calling him Jack Jones. You would not have looked at him a second time had you passed him in the street, for he was merely a tall, pallid-faced, pigeon-chested, stoop-shouldered victim, apparently, of consumption, and as mild as could be desired in tone and manner. Governor Houston knew him well, however--knew him so well that he gave him a cordial reception and listened to him to the end as his visitor proceeded to unfold his plans. They were exceedingly simple, and in substance this: "I hate these scoundrels of the convention as much as you do, governor, and you know it, and you know _me_! I have got eight hundred men of the same stripe up in Burnet county. We have plenty of guns and ammunition, and are more than ready. We can save Texas. Only say the word, governor, and we will clean out the convention in twenty-four hours. What do you say?"

The governor debated with himself as he sat. Suppose he consented. There would be a fight, possibly a bloody massacre. Might not the Secessionists call another convention to meet at Galveston, Houston, somewhere else? In any case, war, civil war in its worst form, would follow. Hat in hand, the messenger waited for his answer. "Thank you, but not quite yet," the governor said. "Go back to Burnet county and hold your men in readiness. When I send for you come, and come quick."

There was no time to be lost. "But these men: how am I to feed them when they come?" the chief magistrate asked of himself.

"About two months before the passage of the Secession ordinance," said the Mr. S---- to whom allusion has already been made, and in reluctant answer to the questioning of the writer, "General Houston, Mrs. Houston and some of their children drove out to my house in the country near Austin, ostensibly upon a friendly visit. General Houston and myself took seats on the porch, while the ladies retired to the parlor. After some of the usual small-talk, the general remarked of the roses then in bloom, 'I see you have a beautiful garden: let us take a walk among them.' We did so, but soon took our seats in the arbor. There, after pledging me to secrecy, he said, 'Although Mr. Lincoln is not yet inaugurated, he has sent a Mr. Lander to me as an agent to assure me of all the aid I need the day he takes office if I can but hold the State until then. General Twiggs,'the governor added,'has agreed to do what he can to help me. I have eight hundred men waiting to come at a word. Volunteers will pour in. I am sure that I can, with the aid of General Twiggs, hold Texas against any force the Confederacy can send. But my men must be supplied with powder and lead, and must be fed. Above all,' added the governor, 'they must have plenty of coffee. Can you undertake the task? I am not going to rob the State treasury, but I pledge you my honor as governor that you shall be paid in the end. Abundant assurances have been made me from Washington that the money will be on hand as soon as Lincoln is inaugurated, and no appropriation will be necessary from the State.'

"The next day," continued Mr. S---- in narrating the facts to me, "I saw the governor in his office. Locking himself with me into an inner apartment, we discussed the whole matter, and I agreed to supply five hundred thousand rations, and as many more as possible, the governor insisting again and again upon there being, whatever else might be lacking, an abundance of coffee. For these rations I was to be paid at the rate of thirty cents each, and transportation. The governor then wrote out the contract, spelling out every word aloud, according to his habit, as he did so. I hastened away with the contract duly signed, and, going down to Houston and Galveston, I purchased two hundred and fifty-seven sacks of Rio coffee to begin with--all I could find--and enough percussion-caps, bacon, rice and flour to meet the emergency impending. Meanwhile, I could not but laugh at what seemed to me the puerile efforts at fortification going on in Galveston;" and my friend paused, as he told me the story yesterday, to unroll and put into my hand the commission given him by the governor as quartermaster-general upon his staff with the rank of colonel.

"In two weeks," continued Mr. S----, "I was back again, but the instant the governor had locked me with him into his inner office he turned to me with rage in his face. 'Sir,' he said to me in a manner and tone of voice which I can never forget, 'Twiggs is a traitor!' Then he sank into a chair, the tears trickling down his heroic countenance, and sobbed like a child. He then clenched his fist and smote the table with what seemed to be a suppressed curse, long and deep. After he had somewhat recovered he repeated to me the message Captain Smith had brought him from Twiggs. It was in such cautious language as to the general's isolation and want of instructions from Washington that I suggested to Governor Houston that possibly he misunderstood General Twiggs. 'No, sir,' the governor exclaimed, again smiting the table with his huge fist, 'there can be no mistake. Twiggs is a traitor! We are to have a fearful civil war;' and he appealed to God for wisdom and protection in a manner which touched me to the heart. In a few weeks thereafter," added Mr. S----, "the ordinance of Secession was passed, and Twiggs surrendered everything to a stageload of politicians and a preconcerted show of a few men improvised as soldiers whom a corporal's guard of loyal men could have easily dispersed if there had been any one to give orders. About a year after this an ex-governor of Texas and an ardent Secessionist whispered to me in the street, 'Take my advice and destroy that contract with General Houston.' How it had become known that there was such a contract is and for ever will be a mystery to me. But the pity of the whole thing was that Governor Houston was not the man he had once been--was too old."

Mr. S---- was perhaps the largest merchant at the capital, but the choicest of his merchandise just then was seven tons of rifle-powder. This was seized ere long by the Confederate authorities. When Mr. S---- protested against it and refused Confederate money in payment, the State treasurer hastened to give him his price for the powder in silver thalers which happened to be rusting in the vaults. Would the Federal authorities have been as complaisant toward a man in their midst known to be a rebel and who refused greenbacks? Surely, as in the hesitation already alluded to of Twiggs and Lee, while the feelings of the leaders were fired their judgment must to the last have remained but half convinced as to the justice, and therefore ultimate success, of the Confederate cause. Gallant as, in most instances, they were, they would have struck more unhesitatingly, more vigorously, more victoriously, had every man been able to put his entire self, brain and conscience as well as heart, into the blow.

It was extremely little of themselves that the Union men of Texas invested in their show of obedience to Secession when that was required of them at last. How well the writer recalls the rueful aspect of a body of these who, to save themselves from worse things, had been organized into a military company! They comprised some of the best citizens of Austin, but Falstaff himself did not have, morally speaking, as forlorn a set of recruits when they formed into dismal lines under the trees of Court-house Square. Every man had his weapons, but they dispensed with music: gladly would they have marched and countermarched without a flag also. But there were ladies ardent in the cause of Secession who, unasked and with malicious haste, constructed a particularly large and gorgeous Confederate flag for them. If it was presented with enthusiasm, it was received by the dolorous warriors in sepulchral silence, and the wheelings hither and thither of the ununiformed heroes thereafter were more funereal, if possible, than before. The one spark of hope in every bosom was that in some way Governor Houston or somebody else might suddenly employ them against the flag, more hateful to them than Fluellen's leek, which they were constrained for the time to flaunt. "Never mind, men," a certain Mr. O---- in their ranks whispered to them as they sadly trudged along--"never you mind. Some day we may prove to be the _mucilage_ around which a Federal army will rally."

It so happened that the writer was about this time at the house of Captain Whitely, a noble-hearted officer of the army who remained true to the Union. It was in San Antonio, and one morning General Twiggs drove up in his carriage and entered the parlor. He was a large and unwieldy man, with an exceedingly red face, and he sat for a time in sombre silence. "Whitely," he said at last, "what can I do? The Southern people hate the North as Comanches do the whites, and the North returns the compliment. Five times have I written to General Scott, and not a word of instructions has he sent me. What can I do?"

Ignorant as the writer was of such matters, he easily conjectured, what Twiggs must have well known, that all despatches to and fro were intercepted. "Ah! what an opportunity!" he thought as he looked at the hesitating man--"what an opportunity for you to act on your own responsibility! You may become, if you do, as one of the immortals."

"You are my superior officer," was the only reply of Captain Whitely, who knew what Twiggs had already determined to do, himself in consequence thereof soon after a prisoner of war.

And so in a few days Governor Houston's fears were realized. Everything was surrendered to the Confederacy. As Twiggs rode through the streets of San Antonio with his disgraced army, many of them weeping as they went, in such triumphal procession as Rome never knew in its worst degradation, it was not for nothing that San Antonio had given a large majority against Secession. An old watchmaker known by everybody shouted as Twiggs went by, "Hurrah for General Hull!" But the people did not recognize the name of the man who in other days had dishonored America by his surrender. They should know what was meant. Mounting upon a goods box, his white hair upon the breeze, and in a voice heard by all, the aged patriot shouted, "Three cheers for Benedict Arnold!" In due time, as we know, the name of Twiggs was struck from the Army List as a coward and traitor, nor did he make a new name for himself in the Confederate ranks. The paymaster did not hand over the military chest to the new authorities. Was there not the half conviction as to Secession in this also? He placed it upon the porch of his house, and let them take it instead. I know not how true it is, but it is said that Davis could not be induced afterward to give employment to this man, whose name has slipped into oblivion from my memory also.

Somehow, there is always a flash of farce even in the agony of the darkest tragedy. When Twiggs surrendered his stores he demanded that somebody should receipt to him for the three millions of United States property which he gave up. Three small politicians stepped eagerly forward and signed the document. But Twiggs was not content. "I must have a more responsible name," he said. And so a Mr. M----, the wealthiest man in San Antonio, was brought in, and, "as a mere matter of form" he was told, he attached his name beneath that of the others. Afterward the possible import of what he had done began to dawn upon Mr. M----. One day, as he walked the troubled streets of San Antonio, he was observed to stop and soliloquize aloud. "A---- has signed that paper," he said to himself. "A----? Yes, he is worth about one thousand dollars. B----, he signed it, and he couldn't raise over three thousand to save his life. C----? Heavens! he is not worth one cent! Three millions of dollars! Good Lord! and _I_ am responsible for it all!" and, slapping his hand upon his forehead, he rushed away to digest the thing in private.

The hurly-burly is hushed into silence now. Good men and bad, gallant but mistaken heroes, and those who faltered not in the fiercest blowing of the terrible storm--the whole period has come and gone. Like the sudden "northers" peculiar to Texas, the tempest broke upon it and passed away, leaving its imperial expanse all the greener and more fruitful, as if enriched by the blood of so many of its noblest sons. But for my part, as I look back into the darkness of those days, the central figure of them all is that of the old governor sitting in his chair in the basement of the Capitol, the tumultuous convention in session overhead, sorrowfully meditating what it were best to do. As he sat a day came when the officer of the gathering up stairs summoned the old man three times to come forward and take the oath of allegiance, as governor, to the Confederacy. I remember as yesterday the call thrice repeated--"Sam Houston! Sam Houston! Sam Houston!" but the man sat silent, immovable, in his chair below, whittling steadily on. The pert lieutenant-governor stepped at last with brisk willingness upon the platform, and was sworn in to an official nothingness in Houston's place. Very early next morning, when the old man went as usual to his office, he found his seat occupied by his smirk successor, and there was nothing for him to do but to abandon his last hope of help from any quarter and retire. Withdrawing to his plantation, he died before the war ended, a Union man still.

WILLIAM M. BAKER.

THE MISTAKES OF TWO PEOPLE.

It seemed an extraordinary chance which brought those two people together upon that dirty little Neapolitan steamer. But then any incident of our human lives, divorced from the chain of cause and effect that has been forging since the world began, would seem an extraordinary chance, just as this did, which really was not extraordinary at all.

For the lady had been busy all winter in Rome copying in the Borghese Gallery, and it was not until she had found herself almost alone among the deserted rooms, whence all her companions of the year had fled before fear of the fever, that she had also sought some place where she could paint, and rest from painting when she would, the remainder of the summer. This and a second-class railway-ticket were what had brought her to Naples, where she had driven to the Mole and embarked upon the little steamer just five minutes before the gentleman, who had come from Rome in a first-class carriage, also stepped upon it.

His appearance there, just upon that day of all days, might be called stranger than hers. For, really, there was no reason whatever for his being there that sleepy midsummer day. Indeed, reason had nothing whatever to do with it. It was brought about by something quite remote from reason--by an indescribable longing, which was perhaps, however, as unyielding a link in the chain of cause and effect--or of destiny, let us say--as any more visible and tangible one.

These two people were not entirely strangers to each other. Fifteen years before they had spent a summer together in an old farm-house far away beyond where the sun would set this evening behind old Roman Baiæ. That farm-house was wonderfully picturesque, although picturesqueness had been none of its original builder's intention. It had been a sort of manor-house, built by a blond and robust English family in memory of the Elizabethan mansion in which, father and son and son's son, they had thriven and decayed across the sea. Generations had come and gone since then. The Tudor gables and overhanging stories, like the Tudor nose in Westminster Abbey, had felt the tooth of time. The nose is imperious still, although its royal end is broken off, and it points heavenward with its regal pride not in the least abated with its proportions. Unlike the Tudor nose, the Tudor gables had weakened, and sunk and bulged in all sorts of picturesquely-pusillanimous lines and curves under a soft veil of moss. The house had become a medley of quaint humps and protuberances, huddled together without rhyme or reason by the taste or needs of each succeeding heir. But, flooded and dashed with blooming, radiant neglect, throttled with many-fingered vines, the gray centre of a rainbow of wild brier, syringa, hollyhocks and sunflowers, it was a delight to artistic eyes.

"It's only 'cos pa's enjoyed such pore health for long back, and we bein' all girls, that the ole place looks so like creation," would always say one of the "girls," thus apologetic of the dilapidation and decay which were the chief means of the family's support. For never an artist passed that way that he did not stay his steps and beg to be sheltered by that quaint old roof for at least a day or two. And when, gone hence, the strolling artist would sing of the idyllic nook he had found in a crescent of hills by the sea, where heaven came down to earth and board was but two dollars a week, others of his kind would be sure to be lured by echo of his strain to the same spot.

Thus every summer for three years the house had been full of boarders. Its owners gained thus the means to live during all the year, and also were able to secure a reservoir of gossip and tittle-tattle from which to draw refreshing streams during all the arid days between October's late dahlias and the earliest roses of June.

The two people upon the Neapolitan steamer had met for the first time in the great dining-room one noon of June. It was at a farmer's dinner of beef, potatoes and dandelion-greens, finished with a sort of machicolated decoration of square pieces of rhubarb pie set beside each plate in saucers--nicked saucers, whereon indigo mandarins floated airily over sky-blue hills on their pious way from one indigo pagoda to another. Dancing vines at the open windows spread quaint, shifting embroidery over the coarse tablecloth, yellow walls and unpainted floor. The drowsy hum of bees was heard above the iron clatter of knives and forks. Sweet incense of myriad rose-censers floated above the vulgar odors of the meal, and the open doorway with its flat white doorstone was a picture-frame sculptured in foliage and bloom around a foreground of wild garden, of black sea-weed and sea-shell, roughened rocks, and then a borderless stretch of blue glittering sea and sky. There were half a dozen men and women around the table, who chanced at the moment the new boarder appeared to be elevating half a dozen noses in the air before the alkaline fumes of the hot biscuits.

She was rather a pretty little thing, with blue eyes, a collar all awry, and the headless, leafless stalks of what had once been red roses standing up valiantly in her brown hair.

"What a flutter-budget!" he thought as he saw by the swift, birdlike motion of her head that indeed flowers must needs have more than flower-like frames to remain long undecapitated amid all that breeziness.