Chapter VI: Part 6

"_Bonjour, monsieur._ We amuse ourselves well, and forget a little," said Du Vallon. "Ah, the Vicomte de Courval! Enchanted to see you here. Allow me to present Monsieur de Malerive. He is making a fortune with the ice-cream, but he condescends to give us a lesson now and then. Gentlemen, the Vicomte de Courval." The foils were lowered and men bowed. Scarce any knew him, but several came forward and said pleasant things, while, as they left to return to their fencing, Schmidt made his brief comments. "That is the Chevalier Pontgibaud, Rene,--the slight man,--a good soldier in the American war. The Vicomte de Noailles is a partner of Bingham."

"Indeed!" said Rene. "He is in trade, as I am--a Noailles!"

"Yes; may you be as lucky. He has made a fortune, they say."

"Take a turn with the marquis," said Du Vallon. The marquis taught fencing. De Courval replied, "With pleasure," and the clatter of foils began again, while Du Vallon and Schmidt fell apart into quiet talk.

"The young man is a clerk and I hear has won credit and money. _Bon chien, bonne chasse._ Do you know his story? Ah, my sad Avignon! La Rochefoucauld told me they killed his father; but of course you know all about it."

"No, I have heard but little," said Schmidt. "I know only that his father was murdered. Des Aguilliers told me that; but as De Courval has not, does not, speak of it, I presume him to have his reasons. Pray let us leave it here."

"As you please, _mon ami_." But Du Vallon thought the German strangely lacking in curiosity.

The time passed pleasantly. De Courval did better with Tiernay, who taught French to the young women and was in the shabby splendor of clothes which, like their owner, had seen better days.

They went away late. Yes, he was to have lessons from Du Vallon, who had courteously criticized his defense as weak. But the remedy had answered the German's purpose. Here was something to learn which as yet the young man did badly. The lessons went on, and Schmidt at times carried him away into the country with fowling-pieces, and they came home loaded with wood pigeons; and once, to De Courval's joy, from the Welsh hills with a bear on the back of their chaise and rattles for Pearl from what De Courval called the _serpent a sonnettes_--"a nice Jacobin snake, _Mademoiselle_." And so the quiet life went on in the Quaker house with books, walks, and the round of simple duties, while the young man regained his former vigor.

The spring came in with flowers and blossoms in the garden, and, on the 21st of May, Citizen Genet was to arrive in this year of '93. The French frigate _Ambuscade_, lying in the river and hearing from Chester in due season, was to warn the republicans with her guns of the coming of the minister.

"Come," said Schmidt, as the casements shook with the signal of three cannon. "Pearl said she would like to see it, and the farce will be good. We are going to be amused; and why not?"

"Will Friend de Courval go with us?" asked Margaret. Walks with the young woman were somehow of late not so easily had. Her mother had constantly for her some interfering duties. He was glad to go.

At the signal-guns, thousands of patriots gathered in front of the State House, and in what then was called the Mall, to the south of it. Schmidt and the young people paused on the skirts of the noisy crowd, where were many full of liquor and singing the "Marseillaise" with drunken variations of the tune. "A sight to please the devil of laughter," said Schmidt. "There are saints for the virtues, why not devils for men's follies? The mischief mill for the grinding out of French Jacobins from Yankee grain will not run long. Let us go on around the Mall and get before these foolish folk. Ah, to insult this perfect day of May with drunkenness! Is there not enough of gladness in the upspring of things that men must crave the flattery of drink?" He was in one of those moods when he was not always, as he said, understandable, and when his English took on queer ways.

Pausing before the gray jail at the corner of Delaware, Sixth Street, and Walnut, they saw the poor debtors within thrust out between the bars of the windows long rods with bags at the end to solicit alms. Schmidt emptied his pockets of shillings, and they went on, the girl in horror at the blasphemies of those who got no coin. Said Schmidt: "Our friend Wynne lay there in the war for months. Ask Madam Darthea for the tale, De Courval. 'T is pretty, and worth the ear of attention. When I rule the world there will be no prisons. I knew them once too well."

So rare were these glimpses of a life they knew not of that both young people, surprised, turned to look at him.

"Wert thou in jail, sir?" said the Pearl.

"Did I say so? Life is a jail, my good Margaret; we are all prisoners." The girl understood, and asked no more. Crossing the Potter's Field, now Washington Square, they leaped over the brook that ran through it from the northwest.

"Here below us lie the dead prisoners of your war, Pearl. The jail was safe, but now they are free. God rest their souls! There's room for more." Scarcely was there room in that summer of '93. Passing the Bettering House on Spruce Street Road, and so on and out to the Schuylkill, they crossed the floating bridge, and from the deep cutting where Gray's Lane descended to the river, climbed the slope, and sat down and waited.

Very soon across the river thousands of men gathered and a few women. The bridge was lined with people and some collected on the bank and in the lane below them, on the west side of the stream.

Hauterive, the French consul at New York, and Mr. Duponceau and Alexander Dallas of the Democratic Club, stood near the water on the west end of the bridge, waiting to welcome Genet. "I like it very well," said Schmidt; "but the play will not run long."

"Oh, they are coming!" cried Margaret. This was interesting. She was curious, excited and with her bonnet off, as De Courval saw, bright-eyed, eager, and with isles of color mysteriously passing over her face, like rose clouds at evening.

A group of horsemen appeared on the top of the hill above them, one in front. "Genet, I suppose," said De Courval. A good-looking man, florid, smiling, the tricolor on the hat in his hand, he bowed to right and left, and honored with a special salute mademoiselle, near-by on the bank. He had the triumphant air of a very self-conscious conqueror. Cheers greeted him. "_Vive la republique!_ D----George Washington! Hurrah for Citizen Genet!" with waving of French flags. He stopped below them in the lane. A boy in the long pantaloons of protest, with the red cap of the republic on his head, was lifted up to present a bouquet of three colors made of paper flowers. Citizen Genet gave him the fraternal kiss of liberty, and again the crowd cheered. "Are these people crazy?" asked the Quaker maiden, used to Friends' control of emotion.

"Mad? Yes, a little." Genet had paused at the bridge. Mr. Dallas was making him welcome to the capital. David Rittenhouse stood by, silent in adoration, his attention divided between Genet and a big bun, for he had missed his dinner.

"It is all real," said the German. "The bun doth equally well convince. Oh, David, didst thou but dream how comic thou art!" Meanwhile De Courval by turns considered the fair face and the crowd, too tragically reminded to be, like Schmidt, altogether amused.

But surely here indeed was comedy, and for many of this careless multitude a sad ending of politics in the near summer months.

The crowd at the water's-edge closed around Genet, while the group of four or five men on horseback who followed him came to a halt on the roadway just below where were seated Schmidt and his companions. The riders looked around them, laughing. Then one spoke to a young secretary, and the man thus addressed, turning, took off his hat and bowed low to the Quaker maid.

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried De Courval, springing up as the attaches moved on. "_C'est Carteaux!_ It is he!"

Schmidt heard him; the girl to the left of Schmidt less plainly. "What is it?" she cried to De Courval. His face as she saw it was of a sudden white, the eyes wide open, staring, the jaw set, the hands half-open, the figure as of a wild creature about to leap on its prey. "Take care!" said Schmidt. "Take care! Keep quiet!" He laid a strong hand on De Courval's shoulder. "Come away! People are looking at you."

"Yes, yes." He straightened, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

"Art thou ill?" asked Margaret.

"No, no. I am glad--glad as never before. Let us go. It will keep. It will keep." She looked at him with wonder. They climbed the bank and went up the hill across the Woodlands, Andrew Hamilton's estate, and homeward by the middle ferry at High Street, no one speaking.

The girl, troubled and apprehensive, walked on, getting now and then from the bonnet's seclusion a quick side glance at a face a little flushed and wearing a look of unwonted satisfaction. Schmidt was as silent as his companions. Comedy again, he thought, and as ever behind it the shadow tragedy. "If I were that man, I should be afraid--a secretary of this accursed envoy. I must know more. Ah, here is the other man behind the every-day De Courval."

De Courval went in and up-stairs to his room and at the five-o'clock supper showed no sign of the storm which had swept over him. After the meal he followed his mother, and as usual read aloud to her a chapter of the French Bible. Then at dusk he pulled out on the river, and, finding refreshment in a cold plunge, rowed to shore, returning in full control of the power to consider with Schmidt, as now he knew he must do, a situation not so simple as it seemed when he set eyes on his enemy.

"I have been waiting for you, Rene. I guess enough to know this for a very grave matter. You will want to tell me."

"I have often wanted to talk to you, but, as you may or may not know, it was also too painful to discuss until the need came; but now it has come."

"You will talk to me, Rene, or not, as seems the better to you."

"I shall speak, and frankly; but, sir, wait a little."

Without replying further, the German took up a book and read. The young man let fall his head on his hands, his elbows on a table. He had tried to forget, but now again with closed eyes and, with that doubtful gift of visual recall already mentioned he saw the great, dimly lighted hall at Avignon, the blood-stained murderers, the face of his father, his vain appeal. The tears rained through his fingers. He seemed to hear again: "Yvonne! Yvonne!" and at last to see, with definiteness sharpened by the morning's scene, the sudden look of ferocity in a young man's face--a man not much older than himself. He had thought to hear from it a plea for mercy. Ah, and to-day he had seen it gay with laughter. One day it would not laugh. He wiped away tears as he rose. The German gentleman caught him to his broad breast. "What is it, my son? Ah, I would that you were my son! Let us have it out--all of it. I, too, have had my share of sorrow. Let me hear, and tell it quietly. Then we can talk."

Thus it came about that with a sense of relief Rene told his story of failing fortunes, of their chateau in ruins, and of how, on his return from Avignon, he had found his mother in a friendly farm refuge. He told, too, with entire self-command of the tragedy in the papal city, his vain pursuit of Carteaux, their flight to England, and how on the voyage his mother had wrung from him the whole account of his father's death.

"Does she know his name?" asked Schmidt.

"Carteaux? Yes. I should not have told it, but I did. She would have me tell it."

"And that is all." For a little while the German, lighting his pipe, walked up and down the room without a word. Then at last, sitting down, he said: "Rene, what do you mean to do?"

"Kill him."

"Yes, of course," said Schmidt, coolly; "but--let us think a little. Do you mean to shoot him as one would a mad dog?"

"Certainly; and why not?"

"You ask 'Why not?' Suppose you succeed? Of course you would have to fly, leave your mother alone; or, to be honest with you, if you were arrested, the death of this dog would be, as men would look at it, the murder of an official of the French legation. You know the intensity of party feeling here. You would be as sure to die by the gallows as any common criminal; and--there again is the mother to make a man hesitate."

"That is all true; but what can I do, sir? Must I sit down and wait?"

"For the present, yes. Opinion will change. Time is the magician of opportunities. The man will be here long. Wait. Go back to your work. Say nothing. There are, of course, the ordinary ways--a quarrel, a duel--"

"Yes, yes; anything--something--"

"Anything--something, yes; but what thing? You must not act rashly. Leave it to me to think over; and promise me to do nothing rash--to do nothing in fact just yet."

De Courval saw only too clearly that his friend was wiser than he. After a moment of silence he said: "I give you my word, sir. And how can I thank you?"

"By not thanking me, not a rare form of thanks. Now go to bed."

When alone, Schmidt said to himself: "Some day he will lose his head, and then the tiger will leap. It was clear from what I saw, and who could sit quiet and give it up? Not I. A duel? If this man I have learned to love had Du Vallon's wrist of steel or mine, it would be easy to know what to do. Ah, if one could know that rascal's fence--or if I--no; the boy would never forgive me; and to cheat a man out of a just vengeance were as bad as to cheat him of a woman's love." As for killing a man with whom he had no personal quarrel, the German, unreproached by conscience, considered the matter entirely in his relation to De Courval. And here, as he sat in thought, even a duel troubled him, and it was sure to come; for soon or late, in the limited society of the city, these two men would meet. He was deeply disturbed. An accident to De Courval was possible; well, perhaps his death. He foresaw even this as possible, since duels in that time were not the serio-comic encounters of the French duel of to-day.

As Schmidt sat in self-counsel as to what was advisable he felt with curious joy that his affection for the young noble was disturbing his judgment of what as a gentleman he would have advised. The situation was, as he saw, of terrible significance. A large experience of men and events failed to assist him to see his way.

No less bewildered and even more deeply troubled, De Courval lay awake, and, as the hours went by, thought and thought the thing over from every point of view. Had he met Carteaux that morning alone, away from men, he knew that he would have throttled the slighter man with his strong young hands, glad of the joy of brute contact and of personal infliction of the death penalty with no more merciful weapon than his own strength. He thrilled at the idea; but Schmidt, coldly reasonable, had brought him down to the level of common-sense appreciation of unregarded difficulties. His mother! He knew her now far better than ever. His mother would say, "Go, my son." She would send him out to take his chances with this man, as for centuries the women of her race had sent their men to battle. He was more tender for her than she would be for herself. His indecision, the product of a larger duty to her lonely, helpless life, increased by what Schmidt had urged, left him without a helpful thought, while ever and ever in the darkness he felt, as his friend had felt, that in some moment of opportune chance he should lose for her and himself all thought of consequences.

Perhaps of those who saw the episode of sudden passionate anger in Gray's Lane none was more puzzled and none more curious than Margaret Swanwick. Anything as abrupt and violent as De Courval's irritation was rare in her life of tranquil experiences, and nothing she had seen of him prepared her for this outbreak. Of late, it is to be confessed, De Courval had been a frequent guest of her thoughts, and what concerned him began greatly to concern her. Something forbade her to ask of Schmidt an explanation of what she had seen. Usually she was more frank with him than with any one else, and why now, she thought, should she not question him? But then, as if relieved by the decision, she concluded that it was not her business, and put aside the curiosity, but not completely the anxiety which lay behind it.

If she told her mother and asked of her what De Courval's behavior might have meant, she was sure that her eagerness would be reproved by a phrase which Mrs. Swanwick used on fitting occasions--"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's secrets." Many things were to happen before the girl would come to understand why, in the quiet of a May morning, a rather reserved gentleman had of a sudden looked like a wild animal.

XIII

A cheering crowd escorted Genet to Oeller's Hotel. A few days later Washington received the minister, De Ternant's successor, with a coldly formal speech, and the envoy came away in wrath; for had he not seen in the parlor of the President, medallions of decapitated Citizen Capet and his family? His insolent demands for money owing to France, but not yet due, and for a new and more liberal compact, are matters of history. There were wild claims for the right of French consuls to condemn prizes without intermediation of our courts, and yet more and more absurd requests and specious arguments, to which Jefferson replied with decision, but with more tenderness than pleased the Federalists.

When the privateer _Citizen Genet_ anchored off Market Street wharf, two enlisted Americans on board were arrested, and the cabinet, being of one opinion, the President ordered the privateer to leave. Genet appealed to the Secretary of State for delay and against this inconceivable wrong to a sister republic, and as the cabinet remained firm, and the democrats raged, the town was for days on the verge of riot and bloodshed.

On the 27th of May, while on an errand for Mr. Wynne, about four in the afternoon, De Courval saw the crowd going into Oeller's Hotel for a great dinner in honor of Genet. On the steps stood a man waving the tricolor. It was Carteaux. "_Mon Dieu!_" murmured De Courval, "shall I get used to it?" His errand took him past the house of the Vice-President, John Adams. Servants and friends were carrying in muskets. A noisy mob hooted and drifted away to Oeller's. There had been threats of destroying the house, and Adams meant to be ready. The young man went on deep in thought. In front of the Senate House he bowed to Edmund Randolph, an occasional visitor at the Quaker salon and now Attorney-General at the age of thirty-eight.

Returning, De Courval met Stephen Girard, who stopped him. Short, sallow, a little bald, and still slight of build, he was watching with a look of amusement the noisy mob in front of the hotel. "_Ah, bonjour, monsieur._ And you would not go as my supercargo. It is open for the asking." He spoke French of course. "These yonder are children, but they are not as serious as they think themselves. Come this afternoon to my farm on the neck and eat of my strawberries. There will be the French consul-general and the secretary Carteaux. No politics, mind you. My heart is with the revolutionary government at home, but my politics in America are here," and he struck his breeches' pocket. "I am not for war, _monsieur_."

De Courval excused himself, and went away murmuring: "Again, again! It must end. I must make it end. Ah, mother, mother!"

Schmidt, troubled by the young man's gloom and loss of spirits, did all he could, but characteristically made no effort to reopen a subject on which he had as yet reached no other decision than the counsel of delay.

The mother questioned her son. It was nothing. He was not quite well, and the heat of July was great. The German was yet more disturbed when one evening after the fencing lesson Du Vallon said: "I had here to-day two of the staff of that _sacre_ Citizen Genet. There is already talk of his recall for insolence to the President. _Le bon Dieu_ be praised!"

"Why, Marquis, do you permit these cattle to come here?"

"One must live, Monsieur Schmidt."

"Perhaps."

"One of them is a pleasure to fence with--a Monsieur Carteaux, a meager Jacobin. I could not touch him."

"I should like to, with the buttons off the foils," said Schmidt.

"I also. That does make a difference."

Schmidt went away thoughtful. The next afternoon, feeling the moist heat, the vicomtesse went to Darthea at Merion. The two men fenced as usual, while mother and daughter sat in shadow on the porch, and a faint, cool air came up from the river.

"_Ach, du lieber Himmel!_ but it is hot!" cried the German, casting down his foil. "You are doing better. Let us go and cool off in the river. Come."

They went down the garden, picking the ripe plums as they went. "What is wrong with you, Rene? You promised me."

"It is the heat. Miss Margaret looks ill. No one could endure it, and in the counting-house it is dreadful, and with no work to distract me."

"The Pearl goes again to Gray Court to-morrow," said the German.

"Indeed."

"Yes. I shall miss her, but it is as well. And, you, Rene--it is not the heat. Why do you put me off with such excuses?"

"Well, no. It is of course that villain," and he told of Girard and the invitation.

"Rene, a day will come when you will meet that man, and then the thing will somehow end. You cannot go on suffering as you are doing."

"I know; but a devil of indecision pursues me."

"An angel, perhaps."

"Oh, yes. Pity me. My mother stands like a wall I may not pass between me and him. It is horrible to think that she--she is protecting my father's murderer. If I told her, by Heaven! she would bid me go and kill him. You do not know her. She would do it; but, then, who knows what might chance? If I die, she is alone, friendless. I fear to risk it. _Mon Dieu_, sir, I am afraid!"

"And yet some day you will have to put an end to all this doubt. Comfort yourself with this: Fate, which plays with us will take you in hand. Let it go just now."

"I will try to. I will. If I were as these good Quakers--ah, me, I should sit down,"--and he smiled,--"and thee and thou Providence, and be quiet in the armor of meek unresistance."

"They do kill flies," said the German.

"Ah, I wish then they would attend to the mosquitos," cried De Courval, laughing.

"As to non-resistance, friend, it hath its limitations. Did I tell thee of Daniel Offley? My Pearl told me," and he related the defeat of the blacksmith.

"Insolent," said Rene.

"No; the man believed that he had a mission. I should like to have his conscience for a week or two, to see how it feels; and, as for non-resistance, canst thou keep a secret?"

"I? Why not? What is it?" He was curious. As they talked, standing beside the river, Rene watched the flat stones he threw ricochet on the water.

"Once on a time, as they say in Madame Swanwick's book of sixty-five tales, by Nancy Skyrin, a man, one Schmidt, came into the dining-room and sat down quietly to read at an open window for the sake of the breeze from the river. It might have been on Second Day. It chanced to be the same time a Quaker man who hath of late come often sat without on the step of the porch, a proper lad, and young, very neat in gray. Near by sat a maid. Up from the river came the little god who is of all religions and did tempt the young man. The man within lost interest in his book."

Then Rene gave up the game of skip-stone, and, turning, said, "_Mon Dieu_, you did not listen?"

"Did he not? He had listened to the talk in the book, and wherefore not to them? It amused him more. For a little the maid did not seem greatly displeased."

"She did not seem displeased?"

"No. And then--and then that Friend who was perverted into a lover would _brusquer_ matters, as you say, and did make a venture, being tempted by the little devil called Cupid. The man who listened did not see it, but it does seem probable she was kissed, because thereupon was heard a resounding smack, and feeling that here had been a flagrant departure from non-resistance, the man within, having been satisfactorily indiscreet, fell to reading again and the Quaker went away doubly wounded. Dost thou like my story, Friend de Courval?"

"No, I do not." He was flushing, angry.

"I told you I had no conscience."

"Upon my word, I believe you. Why did you not kick him?"

"I leave you the privilege."

"Come. I hate your story,"--and laughing, despite his wrath,--"your conscience needs a bath."

"Perhaps." And they went down to the boat, the German still laughing.

"What amuses you?"

"Nothing. Nothing amuses one as much as nothing. I should have been a diplomatist at the court of Love." And to himself: "Is it well for these children? Here is another tangle, and if--if anything should go amiss here are three sad hearts. D----the Jacobin cur! I ought to kill him. That would settle things."

For many days De Courval saw nothing of his enemy. Schmidt, who owned many houses and mortgages and good irredeemable ground rents, was busy.

Despite the fear of foreign war and the rage of parties, the city was prosperous and the increase of chariots, coaches, and chaises so great as to cause remark. House rents rose, the rich of the gay set drank, danced, gambled, and ran horses on the road we still call Race Street. Wages were high. All the wide land felt confidence, and speculation went on, for the poor in lotteries, for the rich in impossible canals never to see water.

On August 6 of this fatal year '93, Uncle Josiah came to fetch the Pearl away for a visit, and, glad as usual to be the bearer of bad news, told Schmidt that a malignant fever had killed a child of Dr. Hodge and three more. It had come from the _Sans Culottes_, privateer, or because of damaged coffee fetched from he knew not where.

The day after, Dr. Redman, President of the College of Physicians, was of opinion that this was the old disease of 1762--the yellow plague. Schmidt listened in alarm. Before the end of August three hundred were dead, almost every new case being fatal. On August 20, Schmidt was gone for a day. On his return at evening he said: "I have rented a house on the hill above the Falls of Schuylkill. We move out to-morrow. I know this plague. _El vomito_ they call it in the West Indies."

Mrs. Swanwick protested.

"No," he said; "I must have my way. You have cared for me in sickness and health these five years. Now it is my turn. This disease will pass along the water-front. You are not safe an hour." She gave way to his wishes as usual, and next day they were pleasantly housed in the country.

Business ceased as if by agreement, and the richer families, if not already in the country, began to flee. The doom of a vast desertion and of multiplying deaths fell on the gay and prosperous city. By September 10 every country farm was crowded with fugitives, and tents received thousands along the Schuylkill and beyond it. Sooner or later some twenty-three thousand escaped, and whole families camped in the open air and in all weather. More would have gone from the city, but the shops were shut, money ceased to circulate, and even the middle class lacked means to flee. Moreover, there was no refuge open, since all the towns near by refused to receive even those who could afford to leave. Hence many stayed who would gladly have gone.

Madame de Courval was at Merion, and Margaret had now rejoined her mother, brought over by her uncle. He had ventured into the city and seen Matthew Clarkson, the mayor, on business. He would talk no business. "Terrible time," said Josiah--"terrible! Not a man will do business." Did he feel for these dying and the dead? Schmidt doubted it, and questioned him quietly. The doctors were not agreed, and Rush bled every one. He, Josiah, was not going back. Half a dozen notes he held had been protested; a terrible calamity, but fine for debtors; a neat excuse.

Mr. Wynne had closed his counting-house, and was absent on the Ohio, and De Courval was left to brood; for now the French legation had gone to the country, the cabinet fled to Germantown, and the President long before to Mount Vernon for his summer rest.

The day after Josiah's visit, Schmidt left a letter on Mrs. Swanwick's table, and rode away to town without other farewell.

"Look at that, my friend," said the widow to Rene, and burst into tears. He read and re-read the letter:

DEAR MADAM: The city has no nurses, and help is needed, and
money. I have a note from Girard. He has what Wetherill once
described as the courage of the penny, not the cowardice of the
dollar. I go to help him, for how long I know not, and to do what
I can. My love to my friend Rene. I shall open your house. I have
taken the key. I shall write when I can. I leave in my desk
money. Use it. I owe what no money can ever repay.

I am, as always, your obedient, humble servant,

_J. S._

There was consternation in the home and at Merion, where he was a favorite, and at the Hill, which Gainor had filled with guests; but day after day went by without news. No one would carry letters. Few would even open those from the city. The flying men and women told frightful stories. And now it was September. Two weeks had gone by without a word from Schmidt. The "National Gazette" was at an end, and the slanderer Freneau gone. Only one newspaper still appeared, and the flight went on: all fled who could.

At length De Courval could bear it no longer. He had no horse, and set off afoot to see his mother at Merion, saying nothing of his intention to Mrs. Swanwick. He learned that Wynne was still on the Ohio; ignorant of the extent of the calamity at home.

"Mother," he said, "again I must go into danger. Mr. Schmidt has gone to the city to care for the sick. For two weeks we have been without news of him. I can bear it no longer. I must go and see what has become of him."

"Well, and why, my son, should you risk your life for a man of whom you know nothing? When before you said it was a call of duty I bade you go. Now I will not."

"Mother, for a time we lived on that man's generous bounty."

"What!" she cried.

"Yes. It was made possible for me because I had the good fortune to save him from drowning. I did not tell you."

"No, of course not."

He told briefly the story of his rescue of the German.

"If he is well, I must know it. He is more than merely my friend. If he is ill, I must care for him. If he is dead--oh, dear mother, I must go!"

"I forbid it absolutely. If you go, it is against my will."

He saw that she meant it. It was vain to protest. He rose.

"I have no time to lose, mother. Pray for me."

"That I do always, but I shall not forgive you; no--yes, kiss me. I did not mean that; but think of my life, of yours, what it owes me. You will not go, my son."

"Yes, I am going. I should be base, a coward, ungrateful, if I did not go. Good-by, mother. Let them know at Mrs. Swanwick's."

He was gone. She sat still a little while, and then rising, she looked out and saw him go down the garden path, a knapsack on his back.

"His father would never have left me. Ah, but he is my son--all of him. He was right to go, and I was weak, but, my God, life is very hard!" For a moment she looked after his retreating figure, and then, fearless, quiet, and self-contained, took up again the never-finished embroidery.

XIV

In the summer of 1793, the city of Penn numbered forty-five thousand souls, and lay in the form of an irregularly bounded triangle, the apex being about seven squares, as we say, west of the Delaware. From this it spread eastward, widening until the base, thinly builded with shops, homes, and warehouses, extended along the Delaware River a distance of about two miles from Callowhill Street to Cedar. It was on the parts nearest to the river that the death-cloud lay.

De Courval had walked from the Falls of Schuylkill late in the morning, and, after having been ferried across the Schuylkill, passed by forest and farm roads over a familiar, rolling country, and arrived at Merion, in the Welsh barony, where he parted from his mother. To this distance he was now to add the seven miles which would bring him to the city.

He soon reached the Lancaster road, and after securing a bowl of bread and milk, for which he paid the exorbitant price of two shillings at a farm-house, he lay down in the woods and, lighting his meerschaum pipe, rested during the early afternoon, glad of shelter from the moist heat of the September day.

He had much to think about. His mother he dismissed, smiling. If, after what he had said, he had not obeyed the call of duty and gratitude, he knew full well that she would have been surprised, despite her protests and the terror with which his errand filled her. He, too, felt it, for it is the form which peril takes rather than equality of risk which makes disease appal many a man for whom war has the charm which awakens the lust of contest, and not such alarm as the presence of the unseen foe which gives no quarter. He dismissed his fears with a silent appeal for strength and support.

He thought then of his enemy. Where was he? This pestilence, the inexplicable act of an all-powerful God, had for a time been set as a barrier between him and his foe. If either he or Carteaux died of it, there was an end of all the indecisions that affection had put in his way. He had a moral shock at the idea that he was unwilling to believe it well that the will of God should lose him the fierce joy of a personal vengeance. How remote seemed such a feeling from the religious calm of the Quaker home! And then a rosy face, a slight, gray-clad figure, came before him with the clearness of visual perception which was one of his mental peculiarities. The sense of difference of rank which his mother had never lost, and would never lose, he had long since put aside. Margaret's refinement, her young beauty, her gay sweetness, her variety of charm, he recalled as he lay; nor against these was there for him any available guard of common sense, that foe of imprudent love, to sum up the other side with the arithmetic of worldly wisdom. He rose, disturbed a little at the consciousness of a power beginning to get beyond his control, and went on his way down the long, dusty road, refreshed by the fair angel company of Love and Longing.

Very soon he was recalled from his dreams. As he came within a mile of the city, he saw tents as for an army, camp-fires, people cooking, men, women, and children lying about by the roadside and in the orchards or the woods. Two hungry-looking mechanics begged help of him. He gave them each a shilling and went on. The nearer shore of the quiet Schuylkill was lined with tents. Over the middle-ferry floating bridge came endlessly all manner of vehicles packed with scared people, the continuous drift from town of all who could afford to fly, a pitiful sight in the closing day. Beyond the river were more tents and half-starved families.

At dusk, as he went eastward on Market Street, there were fewer people, and beyond Sixth Street almost none. The taverns were closed. Commerce was at an end. Turning south, he crossed the bridge over Dock Creek at Second Street and was soon in a part of the city where death and horror had left only those whom disease, want of means, or some stringent need, forbade to leave their homes. Twenty-four thousand then or later fled the town. A gallant few who could have gone, stayed from a sense of duty.

Exposure at night was said to be fatal, so that all who could were shut up indoors, or came out in fear only to feed with pitch and fence palings the fires kindled in the streets which were supposed to give protection, but were forbidden later. A canopy of rank tar-smoke hung over the town and a dull, ruddy glow from these many fires. Grass grew in the roadway of the once busy street, and strange silence reigned where men were used to move amid the noises of trade. As he walked on deep in thought, a woman ran out of a house, crying: "They are dead! All are dead!" She stopped him. "Is my baby dead, too?"

"I--I do not know," he said, looking at the wasted, yellow face of the child in her arms. She left it on the pavement, and ran away screaming. He had never in his life touched the dead; but now, though with repugnance, he picked up the little body and laid it on a door-step. Was it really dead? he asked himself. He stood a minute looking at the corpse; then he touched it. It was unnaturally hot, as are the dead of this fever. Not seeing well in the dusk, and feeling a strange responsibility, he laid a hand on the child's heart. It was still. He moved away swiftly through the gathering gloom of deserted streets. On Front Street, near Lombard, a man, seeing him approach, ran from him across the way. A little farther, the sense of solitude and loneliness grew complete as the night closed dark about him. He had been long on his way.

A half-naked man ran out of an alley and, standing before him, cried: "The plague is come upon us because they have numbered the people. Death! death! you will die for this sin." The young man, thus halted, stood appalled and then turned to look after the wild prophet of disaster, who ran up Lombard Street, his sinister cries lost as he disappeared in the gloom. Rene recalled that somewhere in the Bible he had read of how a plague had come on the Israelites for having numbered the people. Long afterward he learned that a census of Philadelphia had been taken in 1792. He stood still a moment in the gloom, amid the silence of the deserted city and then of a sudden moved rapidly onward.

He had reached the far edge of the town, his mind upon Schmidt, when he saw to his surprise by the glow of a dying fire a familiar form. "Mr. Girard!" he cried, in pleased surprise; for in the country little was as yet known of the disregard of death with which this man and many more were quietly nursing the sick and keeping order in a town where, except the comparatively immune negroes, few aided, and where the empty homes were being plundered. The quick thought passed through Rene's mind that he had heard this man called an atheist by Daniel Offley.

He said to Girard: "Ah, Monsieur, have you seen Monsieur Schmidt?"

"Not for three days. He has been busy as the best. There is one man who knows not fear. Where is he, Vicomte?"

"We do not know. We have heard nothing since he left us two weeks ago. But he meant to live in Mrs. Swanwick's house."

"Let us go and see," said Girard; and with the man who already counted his wealth in millions Rene hurried on. At the house they entered easily, for the door was open, and went up-stairs.

In Schmidt's room, guided by his delirious cries, they found him. Girard struck a light from his steel and flint, and presently they had candles lighted, and saw the yellow face, and the horrors of the _vomito_, in the disordered room.

"_Mon Dieu!_ but this is sad!" said Girard. "Ah, the brave gentleman! You will stay? I shall send you milk and food at once. Give him water freely, and the milk. Bathe him. Are you afraid?"

"I--yes; but I came for this, and I am here to stay."

"I shall send you a doctor; but they are of little use."

"Is there any precaution to take?"

"Yes. Live simply. Smoke your pipe--I believe in that. You can get cooler water by hanging out in the air demijohns and bottles wrapped in wet linen--a West-Indian way, and the well water is cold. I shall come back to-morrow." And so advising, he left him.

De Courval set the room in order, and lighted his pipe, after obeying Girard's suggestions. At intervals he sponged the hot body of the man who was retching in agony of pain, babbling and crying out about courts and princes and a woman--ever of a woman dead and of some prison life. De Courval heard his delirious revelations with wonder and a pained sense of learning the secrets of a friend.

In an hour came Dr. Rush, with his quiet manner and thin, intellectual face. Like most of those of his profession, the death of some of whom in this battle with disease a tablet in the College of Physicians records to-day, he failed of no duty to rich or poor. But for those who disputed his views of practice he had only the most virulent abuse. A firm friend, an unpardoning hater, and in some ways far ahead of his time, was the man who now sat down as he said: "I must bleed him at once. Calomel and blood-letting are the only safety, sir. I bled Dr. Griffith seventy-five ounces to-day. He will get well." The doctor bled everybody, and over and over.

His voice seemed to rouse Schmidt. He cried out: "Take away that horse leech. He will kill me." He fought them both and tore the bandage from his arm. The doctor at last gave up, unused to resistance. "Give him the calomel powders."

"Out with your drugs!" cried the sick man, striking at him in fury, and then falling back in delirium again, yellow and flushed. The doctor left in disgust, with his neat wrist ruffles torn. On the stair he said: "He will die, but I shall call to-morrow. He will be dead, I fear."

"Is he gone?" gasped Schmidt, when, returning, Rene sat down by his bedside.

"Yes, sir; but he will come again."

"I do not want him. I want air--air." As he spoke, he rose on his elbow and looked about him. "I knew you would come. I should never have sent for you. _Mein Gott!_" he cried hoarsely, looking at the room and the bedclothes. "Horrible!" His natural refinement was shocked at what he saw. "_Ach!_ to die like a wallowing pig is a torture of disgust! An insult, this disease and torment." Then wandering again: "I pray you, sir, to hold me excused."

The distracted young man never forgot that night. The German at dawn, crying, "Air, air!" got up, and despite all De Courval could do staggered out to the upper porch and lay uncovered on a mattress upon which De Courval dragged him. The milk and food came, and at six o'clock Stephen Girard.

"I have been up all night," he said; "but here is a black to help you."

To De Courval's delight, it was old Cicero, who, lured by high wages given to the negro, whom even the pest passed by, had left the widow's service.

"Now," said Girard, "here is help. Pay him well. Our friend will die, I fear; and, sir, you are a brave man, but do not sit here all day."

De Courval, in despair at his verdict, thanked him. But the friend was not to die. Cicero proved faithful, and cooked and nursed and Rene, as the hours of misery went on, began to hope. The fever lessened in a day or two, but Schmidt still lay on the porch, speechless, yellow and wasted, swearing furiously at any effort to get him back to bed. As the days ran on he grew quiet and rejoiced to feel the cool breeze from the river and had a smile for Rene and a brief word of cheer for Girard, who came hither daily, heroically uncomplaining, spending his strength lavishly and his money with less indifference. Schmidt, back again in the world of human interests, listened to his talk with Rene, himself for the most part silent.

Twice a day, when thus in a measure relieved, as the flood served, De Courval rowed out on the river, and came back refreshed by his swim. He sent comforting notes by Cicero to his mother and to Mrs. Swanwick, and a message of remembrance to Margaret, and was careful to add that he had "fumed" the letters with sulphur, that things were better with Schmidt, and he himself was well. Cicero came back with glad replies and fruit and milk and lettuce and fresh eggs and what not, while day after day three women prayed at morning and night for those whom in their different ways they loved.

One afternoon Dr. Rush came again and said it was amazing, but it would have been still better if he had been let to bleed him, telling how he had bled Dr. Mease six times in five days, and now he was safe. But here he considered that he would be no further needed. Schmidt had listened civilly to the doctor with the mild, tired, blue eyes and delicate features; feeling, with the inflowing tide of vigor, a return of his normal satisfaction in the study of man, he began, to De Courval's joy, to amuse himself.

"Do you bleed the Quakers, too?" he asked.

"Why not?" said the doctor, puzzled.

"Have they as much blood as other people? You look to be worn out. Pray do not go. Sit down. Cicero shall give you some chocolate."

The doctor liked few things better than a chance to talk. He sat down again as desired, saying: "Yes, I am tired; but though I had only three hours' sleep last night, I am still, through the divine Goodness, in perfect health. Yesterday was a triumph for mercury, jalap, and bleeding. They saved at least a hundred lives."

"Are the doctors all of your way of thinking?"

"No, sir. I have to combat prejudice and falsehood. Sir, they are murderers."

"Sad, very sad!" remarked Schmidt.

"I have one satisfaction. I grieve for the blindness of men, but I nourish a belief that my labor is acceptable to Heaven. Malice and slander are my portion on earth; but my opponents will have their reward hereafter."

"Most comforting!" murmured Schmidt. "But what a satisfaction to be sure you are right!"

"Yes, to know, sir, that I am right and these my enemies wrong, does console me; and, too, to feel that I am humbly following in the footsteps of my Master. But I must go. The chocolate is good. My thanks. If you relapse, let me know, and the lancet will save you. Good-by."

When Rene returned, having attended the doctor to the door, Schmidt was smiling.

"Ah, my son," he said, "only in the Old Testament will you find a man like that--malice and piety, with a belief in himself no man, no reason, can disturb."

"Yes, I heard him with wonder."

"He has done me good, but now I am tired. He has gone--he said so--to visit Miss Gainor, at the Hill. I should like to hear her talk to him."

An attack of gout had not improved that lady's temper, and she cruelly mocked at the great doctor's complaints of his colleagues. When she heard of De Courval, and how at last he would not agree to have Schmidt held for the doctor to bleed him she said he was a fine fellow; and to the doctor's statement that he was a fool, she retorted: "You have changed your religion twice, I do hear. When you are born again, try to be born a fool."

The doctor, enraged, would have gone at once, but the gout was in solid possession, and the threat to send for Dr. Chovet held him. He laughed, outwardly at least, and did not go. The next day he, too, was in the grip of the fever, and was bled to his satisfaction, recovering later to resume his gallant work.

And now that, after another week, Schmidt, a ghastly frame of a man, began to eat, but still would not talk, De Courval, who had never left him except for his swim or to walk in the garden, leaving Cicero in charge, went out into the streets to find a shop and that rare article, tobacco.

It was now well on into this fatal September. The deaths were three hundred a week. The sick no man counted, but probably half of those attacked died. At night in his vigils, De Courval heard negroes, with push-carts or dragging chaises, cry: "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!" The bodies were let down from upper windows by ropes or left outside of the doorways until the death-cart came and took them away.

It was about noon when Rene left the house. As he neared the center of the city, there were more people in the streets than he expected to see; but all wore a look of anxiety and avoided one another, walking in the middle of the roadway. No one shook hands with friend or kinsman. Many smoked; most of them wore collars of tarred rope, or chewed garlic, or held to their faces vials of "vinegar of the four thieves" once popular in the plague. He twice saw men, stricken as they walked, creep away like animals, beseeching help from those who fled in dismay. Every hour had its sickening tragedy.

As he stood on Second Street looking at a man chalking the doors of infected houses, a lightly clad young woman ran forth screaming. He stopped her. "What is it? Can I help you?" A great impulse of desire to aid came over him, a feeling of pitiful self-appeal to the manhood of his courage.

"Let me go! My husband has it. I won't stay! I am too young to die."

A deadly fear fell upon the young Huguenot. "I, too, am young, and may die," he murmured; but he went in and up-stairs. He saw an old man, yellow and convulsed; but being powerless to help him, he went out to find some one.