The Ramrodders Part 34

"Take Everett across to the committee-room and call in the men who were to present him," directed the Duke, releasing the chairman. "And it's up to you two to give 'em a story that will hold 'em. It's short notice, but you've got General Waymouth for a text! Look here, Dave," he whirled on Everett, who was frantically protesting, "your strength was the strength the boys of the machine put behind you. It hasn't been personal strength. You can't afford to be a blasted fool now, even if you are crazy mad. You've been lecturing considerably the past few weeks on 'party exigencies.' This is one. It's an exigency that will put you before a grand jury if you don't tread careful. Get across there, you and Presson! I'm eating dirt myself. Get down on your hands and knees with me, and make believe you like it!"

He hustled them out.

The band was rioting through a jolly melange of popular melodies.

The old man hesitated a moment, and then walked across to the General.

"Vard, politics is most always a case of dog eat dog, but I want to a.s.sure you that I'm not hungry just now if you are not! And my grandson seems to have more political foresight than I gave him credit for. I'm getting old, I see!"

He did not give them opportunity to answer. He swung about and went to Spinney.

"I reckon they'll raise your guard, now, Arba," he said, nodding at the stolid and plain men. "There isn't much more that you can do, either to harm or help. You'd better pull a chair out to the edge of the stage there, and listen to what a h--l of a fellow you are when your orators nominate you. Then before the applause dies away, you'd better start for home. It'll be a good time to get away while Presson is busy!" It was plain that, lacking any other object, the Duke was venting the last of his spleen on this wretched victim of the game. "Before you go, give me one of those 'Honest Arba' ribbons. I keep a sc.r.a.p-book of jokes!"

The abject candidate had no word to offer in reply. He was white and trembling, for after Presson's early declaration it had seemed that the whole shameful story was to be thundered in the ears of those two thousand men sitting yonder.

"You can suit yourself as to your further movements, Spinney," said the General, noting the man's distress.

"There's a rear exit from this hall," remarked the Duke, significantly.

Spinney went out, hanging his head.

"Well, there's at least one cur eliminated from the politics of this State," blurted Harlan, gratefully.

"Eliminated!" sneered his grandfather. "The first man you'll meet in the legislative lobby next winter, sugar on his speech and alum on his finger, so that he can get a good firm grip of your b.u.t.tonhole, will be Arba Spinney, drawing his salary as the paid agent of half-a-dozen schemers. He may seem a little wilted just now, but he's a hardy perennial--you needn't worry about _him_."

"I think you're the man to take these doc.u.ments to the Committee on Resolutions, Thelismer," stated the General, drawing out the planks he had submitted the evening before. "You can explain why they should be inserted--and I have modified them somewhat. I have no desire to frighten the party at the outset."

The Duke took the papers, and departed without a word. The men of the affidavits returned to their delegations on the floor of the convention, gratification in their faces, as well as a sense of the importance of the secret they were guarding.

The band gave a final bellow, and the business of the convention proceeded.

General Waymouth and Harlan took chairs into their little room and sat down to wait. The sounds came to them mellowed by distance, but distinct. They followed the procession of events.

Spinney's name was presented by an up-country spellbinder who had copied logic, diction, and demagogic arguments from his chief. But all the thrill, swing, and excitement of the Spinney movement were gone. Red fire, hilarity, and stimulants could not be used to spice this daylight gathering of men ranged in orderly rows on their settees--and subtle suggestion had already gone abroad. Yet the undercurrent of opposition to the further dictation by the party ring was shown by the applause that greeted every reference by the speaker to the conditions that existed in the party. On the text of Spinney, personating Protest, the orator preached to willing converts who clamored for change, even though no better leader than Spinney offered. Spinney got perfunctory applause; suggested change was cheered tumultuously.

The convention was ripe for revolution against dominant conditions, without exactly understanding how to rebel wisely and well.

Suddenly a clarion voice raised itself from the convention floor. They in the little room could hear every word.

"That's Linton," said the General, calmly. "He balked under my pat, but he's plunging into the traces handsomely under the whip!"

"Linton! After refusing? Is he presenting your name?"

"Oh, he's a politician, and one must allow a politician to weigh out his stock of goods on his own scales, and hope that he will give good measure. I'll be grateful in this instance, Mr. Thornton. They've picked out an able young speaker!"

In spite of his resentful opinion of Linton, an opinion into which he would not admit to himself that jealousy entered, Harlan, as he listened, had to acknowledge the ability of the young lawyer.

First he caught the attention of his auditors, then he skilfully suggested that he was preparing a surprise. With appealing frankness that won the interest and sympathy of the Spinney adherents, he agreed with them that the times demanded changes and reforms. He urged that these should be undertaken within the party, and then, earnestly but delicately, he hinted that the reformers had not picked the right leader. As delicately he suggested, next, that an extreme partisan, bound far in advance of nomination by factional pledges and trades that he must carry out, was not the right man to extricate the party, either.

Lastly, he came to the crux of his speech, plunging into the theme with pa.s.sionate eloquence that brought moisture to the eyes of Harlan. That young man was not thinking of the orator, then. His thoughts were on the old man at whose side he sat--the old man who listened in dignified patience.

Now the delegates sniffed the truth. A word had put them on the trail.

They were not sure. But they suspected. And mere suspicion sent them upon their settees, cheering wildly. Distrust of Spinney, sullen disloyalty to the machine-created Everett, furnished a soil in which hope for another solution of the tangle sprang with miraculous growth.

Linton waited until the roar of voices died away. They again listened breathlessly, wondering whether their own hopes had beguiled them.

"From the storied past, gentlemen of the convention, we draw precept and example, lesson and moral, hope and inspiration. As nature has stored in the bowels of the earth the oil that serves the lighthouse beacons of to-day, so life has stored in various reservoirs human experience that can light the path through troublous times in these latter days. Written on the scroll of history, limned on the page of law, we find the words of the fathers, sane and helpful thought and good counsel. In days of doubt and worry and despair we may meet the fathers on the written page.

But, oh, how grand a blessing for the human race could we sit at their feet beholding them in the flesh and receive their teachings! If only they, the fathers, might take us by the hand and lead us through the devious tangles of public policy! To-day we meet here in perplexed division as to the standard-bearer for our next campaign. If up from that past of sage counsel and unfaltering faith there might come one who could stand forth and expound the lessons that we need, we might take heart and travel boldly on. But, gentlemen, I bring you a message of greater hope--more profound a blessing. Up from that past comes the standard-bearer _himself_! His wise kindliness meets every test of honest gentleman; scholars.h.i.+p crowns his brow, Law holds her torch aloft that his feet may tread the safe way; war from him has taken tribute, but to him has given a hero's deathless laurels. Once in her history this State welcomed him to her councils as her gracious overlord, and now--"

There was no doubt in their minds now. A window-shaking demonstration bore down his voice.

Linton seized upon the beginning of silence.

"Now once again his State, groping for a hand to lead her forth to stability and progress, sees his hand and seeks to grasp it, supplicating him: 'O father, guide me! O wise man, teach me! O hero, save me!' And I name to you, gentlemen, for the candidate of the Republican party--"

He leaped upon a settee and voiced the name of General Varden Waymouth with all the strength of his trumpet voice. But no one heard what he said. They all knew what he was to say. They did not need the spoken name.

That convention had been ripening for a stampede. Its component delegates had contained the stampede fever for weeks before they a.s.sembled. Men leaped and screamed. It was a storm of enthusiasm; two thousand feet furnished the thunder-roar; hats went up and came down like pelting rain; and voices bellowed like the bursting wind volleys of the gale.

Here and there, gesticulating men were trying to make seconding speeches, but the words were lost. The chairman of the convention, grim and pale and wondering just how much damage this overturn signified to his personal interests, nodded recognition to these speakers, and allowed them to waste their words upon the welter of mere sound.

He also recognized other men who arose. He knew them for Spinney's adherents and divined what they were trying to say. And having divined it, he was promptly inspired to get in with the rush of those who were climbing aboard the band-wagon.

He advanced to the edge of the platform, and by tossing his arms secured a moment of silence. He had his own salvation to look after.

"I am glad, inexpressibly pleased, that as chairman of your convention I can now declare myself for General Waymouth; for the convention has but one name before it--the name of Arba Spinney has been withdrawn!"

When the tumult began again--almost delirium this time--David Everett appeared from the wings, white, stricken, overwhelmed by the suddenness with which the prize had been s.n.a.t.c.hed beyond his reach, driven out upon the stage by the State Committee like a whipped cur forced to perform his little trick in public. He began to speak, but the delegates did not listen--they knew what he was saying, and were cheering him. Not all of it was enthusiasm for General Waymouth; men instantly realized that a nasty split in the party had been bridged; men felt that in this new candidate both factions had the owners.h.i.+p that puts one "in right." A united party could now march to the polls.

The nomination was by acclamation!

They came to General Waymouth, where he stood patiently at the door of his room--the committee appointed to escort him before the convention.

He signalled for them to precede him--his hand was inside the arm of Harlan Thornton, and he did not withdraw it even to shake the eager hands that were outstretched. He walked upon the stage with the young man, and, still holding his arm, faced the hurricane of enthusiasm until it had blown itself out.

It was a breathless hush in which he spoke.

"Our party, in State Convention a.s.sembled, has to-day declared for honesty." They did not exactly understand, but they gave voice like hounds unleashed. That sentiment complimented them. "I pledge the last strength of my old age to the task you have imposed upon me. Give me your pledge, man to man, in return. Shall it be for all of us: honesty in principle and unswerving obedience to every party profession we make?

I await your 'Yes'!"

It came like a thunderclap--two thousand voices shouting it.

He stood there, his hand upraised, waiting again until the hush was upon them once more. They were ready for the usual speech of acceptance. But he said simply this:

"I accept the trust!"

He put his hand behind Harlan's guarding elbow and retired.

"A carriage at once, Mr. Thornton," he directed. "I must save myself for performance, not parade."