Tales of the Chesapeake Part 26

He felt a mighty vanity overwhelm him to get recognition of some kind from Bellydown, who disdained even thunder for a language.

"Thou sprawling spirit, up yonder in the sky!" shouted Mr. Waples, with much firmness, "if thou art not mere nightmare, mere figment of the sciences, let me feel thy strength unequally, for once!"

The vast cloud object moved and yawned. Something like a small world, wearing a boot, smote Andrew Waples in the rear, as if the spirit above had kicked him on the proper spot. He felt a pain and a flying sensation, that was like paralysis on wings, and he never seemed to stop for years, until he fell and struck the ground, and, after an interval, looked around him.

He was in his room, at the United States Hotel, and had fallen out of bed. The clock in the Baptist church cupola struck two. On the gas bracket was pinned a written notice, not yet dry, that Andrew Waples had just started for the High Rock Spring.

But he knew that his adventure continued to be true, for when he went to breakfast at daylight, he found he had no stomach.

THE PHANTOM ARCHITECT.

Four hundred miles of brawling through many a mountain pa.s.s, From the shadow of the Catskills to the rocks of Havre de Grace, The Susquehanna flashes by willowy isles of May And deluges of April to the splendors of the bay.

It brings Otsego water and Juniata bright, Chenango's sunny current and dark Swatara's night, By booms of lumber winding and rafts of coal and ore, And gliding barges crossing the dams from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.

It is an aisle of silver along the mountain nave, Where towers the Alleghany reflected in its wave, By many a mine of treasure and many a borough quaint, And many a home of hero and tomb of simple saint.

The granite gates resign it to mingle with the bay, And softened bars of mountain stand glowing o'er the way; The wild game flock the offing; the great seine-barges go-- From battery to windla.s.s, and singing as they row.

The negroes watch the lighthouse, the trains upon the bridge, The little fisher's village strewn o'er the gra.s.sy ridge, The cannoneers that, paddling in stealthy rafts of brush, With their decoys around them, the juicy ducks do flush.

And oft by night, they whisper, a phantom architect Lurks round the Cape of Havre, of ruined intellect, Who had designed a city upon this eminence, To cover all the headland and rule the land from hence.

And sometimes men belated the phantom builder find, Lost on the darkened water and drifting with the wind; Then by his will a vision starts sudden on the night-- The city flas.h.i.+ng splendor o'er all that barren height.

Its dome of polished marble and tholus full of fire; The dying look of sunset just fading from the spire; The towers of its prisons, the spars and masts of fleets, And lines of lamps that clamber along the crowded streets.

The s.h.i.+ps of war at anchor in the indented ports, The thunder of the broadsides, the answer of the forts-- These by his invocation arise and flame and thrill, Raised on his faith tenacious and strengthened by his will.

My soul! there is a city, set like a diadem, Beyond a crystal river: the new Jerusalem.

The architect was lowly and walked with fishermen; But only He can open the blessed sight again.

THE LOBBY BROTHER.

I.

The express train going south on the Northern Central Railroad, March 3d, 186-, carried perhaps a score of newly-elected Congressmen, prepared to take their seats on the first day of the term. For every Congressman there were at least five followers, adventurers or clients, some distinguished by their tighter-fitting faces, signifying that they were men of commerce; others, by their unflagging and somewhat overstrained amiability, not to say sycophancy, signifying that out of the aforesaid Congressmen they expected something "fat."

Of the former cla.s.s the hardest type was unquestionably Jabel Blake, and the business which he had in hand with the freshly Honorable Arthur MacNair, who sat at his side reading the Pittsburg news-paper, was the establishment of a national bank at the town of Ross Valley, Pennsylvania.

Jabel Blake had as little the look of a bank president as had his representative the bearing of a politician. MacNair was a thin, almost fragile young person, with light-red hair and a freckled face and clear blue eyes, which nearly made a parson of him--a suggestion carried out by his plain guard and silver watch and his very sober, settled expression. The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, who had served three terms from the Apple-b.u.t.ter District, remarked of him, from the adjoining seat, "Made his canva.s.s, I s'pose, by a colporterin'

Methodist books, and stans ready to go to his hivinly home by way of the Injin Ring!"

But, in reality, the Congressman belonged to the same faith with his const.i.tuent and client--both Presbyterians like their great-grandfathers, who were Scotch pioneers among the spurs of the Alleghenies; and there still lived these twain, in fas.h.i.+on little changed--MacNair a lawyer at the court-house town, and Jabel Blake the creator, reviver, and capitalist of the hamlet of Ross Valley. Jabel was hard, large, bony, and dark, with pinched features and a whitish-gray eye, and a keen, thin, long voice high-pitched, every separate accent of which betrayed the love of money.

"It's an expensive trip," said Jabel Blake; "it's a costly trip. More men are made poor, Arthur MacNair, by travellin' than by sickness.

Twice a year to Pittsburg and twice to Phildelfy is the whole of my gadding. I stop, in Phildelfy, at the Camel Tavern, on Second Street, and a very expensive house--two dollars a day. At Was.h.i.+ngton they rob everybody, I'm told, and I shall be glad to get away with my clothes."

"Tut! Jabel," said MacNair, "brother Elk has taken rooms for me at Willards', and for the little time you stay at the capital you can lodge with us. A man who has elected a Congressman in spite of the Pennsylvania Railroad shouldn't grudge one visit in his life-time to Was.h.i.+ngton."

"Oh!" said Jabel, "I don't know as I begrudge that, though your election, Arty, cost me four hundred and seven dollars and--I've got it here in a book."

"I know that," said MacNair quietly; "don't read it again, Jabel. You behaved like a st.u.r.dy, indignant man, paid all my expenses, though you protested against an election in a moral land involving the expenditure of a dime, and though you pa.s.s for the closest man west of the mountains. And here we are, going upon errands of duty, as little worldly as we can be, yet not anxious to belittle ourselves or our district."

"I'd cheerfully given more, Arty, to beat that corporation. A twenty-dollar bill or so, you know! But money is tight. I've sc.r.a.ped and sc.r.a.ped for years to start my bank at Ross Valley, and every dollar wasted r.e.t.a.r.ds the village. You boys have cost me a sight of money. There's Elk's sword and horse, and the schooling of both of you, and the burying of your father, Jim MacNair, eighteen years ago this May. Dear! dear!"

The Honorable Perkiomen Trappe, catching a part of this remark, observed that Jabel Blake, judging by his appearance, shouldn't have buried MacNair's father, but devoured him. Jabel's unfeeling remark gave MacNair no apparent pain; but he said:

"Jabel, don't speak to Elk about father. He is not as patient as he should be, and perhaps in Was.h.i.+ngton they disguise some of the matters which we treat bluntly and openly. There's Kitty Dunlevy, you know, and she is a little proud."

The glazed, whitish eye of Jabel bore the similitude of a beam of satisfaction.

"It's nothing agin you boys," he said, "that Jim MacNair, your father, didn't do well. He wronged n.o.body but himself, as I made the stonecutter say over his grave. _That_ cost me upwards of eleven dollars, so I did _my_ duty by him. You boys don't seem to have his appet.i.te for liquor. You are a member of Congress, and Elk was one of the bravest ginerals in the war; and I don't see, if he saves his money and his health, but he is good enough even for Judge Dunlevy's girl."

Judge Dunlevy was the beau ideal of Jabel Blake, as the one eminent local statesman of the region round Ross Valley--the County Judge when Jabel was a child, the Supreme Justice of the State, and now a District Justice of the United States in a distant field. His reputation for purity, dignity, original social consideration, moral intrepidity, and direct Scotch sagacity had made his name a tower of strength in his native State. To Jabel's clannish and religious nature Judge Dunlevy represented the loftiest possibilities of human character; and that one of the two poor orphans--the sons of a wood-cutter and log-roller on the Alleghenies, and the victim of intemperance at last--whom Jabel had watched and partly reared, should now be betrothed to Catharine Dunlevy, the judge's only daughter, affected every remaining sentiment in Jabel's heart.

Absorbed in the contemplation of this honorable alliance, Jabel took out his account-book and absently cast up the additions, and so the long delay at Baltimore caused no remarks and the landscapes slipped by until, like the sharp oval of a colossal egg, the dome of the Capitol arose above the vacant lots of the suburbs of Was.h.i.+ngton.

A tall, handsome, manly gentleman in citizen black, standing expectantly on the platform of the station, came up and greeted MacNair with the word,

"Arthur!"

"Elk!"

And the brothers, legislator and soldier, stood contrasted as they clasped hands with the fondness of orphans of the same blood. They had no superficial resemblances, Arthur being small, clerical, freckled, and red-haired, with a staid face and dress and a stunted, ill-fed look, like the growth of an ungracious soil; Elk, straight and tall, with the breeding and clothing of a metropolitan man, with black eyes and black hair and a small "imperial" goatee upon his nether lip; with an adventurous nature and experience giving intonation to his regular face, and the lights and contrasts of youth, command, valor, sentiment, and professional a.s.sociations adding such distinction that every lady pa.s.senger going by looked at him, even in the din of a depot, with admiration.

To Jabel Blake, who came up lugging an ancient and large carpet-bag, and who repelled every urchin who wanted the job of carrying it, Elk MacNair spoke cordially but without enthusiasm.

"Jabel," he said, "if I hear you growl about money as long as you are here, I'll take you up to the Capitol and lose you among the coal-holes."

"It took many a grunt to make the money," said Jabel Blake, "and it's natural to growl at the loss of it."

By this time they had come to the street, and there in a livery barouche were the superb broad shoulders, fringed from above with fleece-white hair, of Judge Dunlevy. Health, wisdom, and hale, honorable age were expressed attributes of his body and face, and by his side, the flower of n.o.ble womanhood, sat Catharine, his child, worthy of her parentage. Both of them welcomed Arthur MacNair with that respectful warmth which acknowledged the nearness of his relations.h.i.+p to the approaching nuptials, and the Judge said:

"Great credit to Jabel Blake as a representative citizen, in that his eyes have seen the glory of these fine boys, to whom he has been so fast a friend!"

Jabel's gla.s.sy eyes shone, and his mouth unclosed like a smile in a fossil pair of jaws.

"It's the nighest I ever come to being paid for my investment in Arty and Elk," he said, "to get sech a compliment from Judge Dunlevy! They _are_ good boys, though they've cost me a powerful lot, and I hope they'll save their money, stick to their church, and never forgit Ross Valley, which claims the honor of a buildin' 'em up."

"Get up here, Jabel, and ride!" cried Elk. "Remember that coal-hole, old man!"