_ CHAPTER XXIV. A SENATOR ENLIGHTENED
"But, lying at Bayou Sara this morning," said the senator, "everything worth counting left us behind again."
"For the time being," said Hugh.
"Good for you," said the senator. "Mr. pilot, this paper, of a hundred signatures, petitions this boat to put off her foreigners at Natchez Island. If that is refused, when and where are we likely to overhaul the _Antelope_?"
"_Antelope_? Let's see. We'd still be a-many a bend behind the _Antelope_ at sundown but fo' one thing. At Natchez she's got to discharge an all-fired lot o' casting an' boilers, things she can't put ashore 'ithout han'spikes, block-an'-taickle an' all han's a-cuss'n' to oncet. Like as not we'll catch her right there."
"Good again; sundown!" said the senator. "Now, commodore, this petition begs----"
The commodore tried to wave him to Hugh but the senator's big hand gently prevented. "It begs," he went on, "and every friend of Gideon Hayle and John Courteney on this boat insists, that Madame Hayle be required to leave this suicidal work she's doing and with her daughter and youngest son be put aboard the _Antelope_ to join her husband ahead of all bad news." With his under lip pushed out he smiled into the commodore's serene face.
Hugh spoke. "The _Votaress_ being slow?" he inquired.
"Not at all! But, my young friend, the _Votaress_ can't hold funerals and outrun the _Antelope_ at the same time."
The commodore had turned to Watson: "Want to see me?" The two moved a few paces aft.
"Then it isn't," Hugh asked the senator, "that your hundred signers of this thing are afraid madame will get the cholera?" He took the petition's free end between thumb and finger and softly pulled. But its holder held on.
"Why, yes," said the holder-on, "we fear that, too. Good Lord, she may have the contagion now!" It gave him grim amusement to note that the grandson's face was as quiet as the old man's, yet as hard and heavy as any of the _Antelope's_ big castings. He thought how much better it were to have this chap for an adherent than opponent.
"Yet you're all willing," slowly pressed Hugh, while--with their pull on the paper increasing--they here and the commodore and Watson yonder returned the bow of the bishop as he came from below and passed on up to the sick-room--"you're willing to send the cholera aboard the _Antelope_?"
"Willing, my God, no, sir! compelled!--to risk it--for the sake of Gideon Hayle and his people and of you and yours, in a great public interest centring in you and them." The speaker smilingly tapped the hard-pulled document so lately urged upon the grandfather. "We couldn't _write_ that--in this paper. When I've explained _that_ I'll hand you _this_--don't pull it."
"Well, then, let go of it," said Hugh, with a light jerk which put it wholly into his possession.
The senator's eyes blazed, but when he saw that Hugh's, though as much too wide as his own, looked out of a face as set and hard as ever, he recovered his suavity, puffed his cigar, waved it abroad, and said: "That's all right. Take that to the captain at once, will you?"
"No," replied Hugh, the wrestler's nimble art being as far, far away from him as the "happy land" of the children's hymn, which the cornet was essaying below.
"No?" questioned the tolerant senator.
"No." Small knots of passengers, the squire in one, the general in another, had drawn within eavesdropping range and Hugh lowered his voice. "Not till I hear what you couldn't write," he said. "When you've explained _that_ I'll hand him _this_. No one's in his room, come there."
As they reached its door and the senator passed in, Hugh was joined by the grandfather and Watson and detained some moments in private council, with Watson as chief speaker. Then the commodore returned leisurely forward toward the captain's chair while Watson sought the texas roof and pilot-house, and Hugh shut himself in with the senator.
They sat with the writing-table between them. "I wish," said the senator, "I had a son like you. I'd say: 'My son, the worst notion in this land to-day is that always the first thing to do is fight, and that the only thing to fight with is hot shot. Don't you believe it! Don't think every man's your enemy the moment he differs with you. He may be your best friend. And don't think every enemy wants to stab you in the back.' But, Lord! I needn't offer a father's advice to you, with such a father--and grandfather--as you've got.
"Now, here we are. It's idle for me to tell you what we wanted to put in that paper and couldn't, if you can't believe that maybe, after all, I'm a peacemaker and your friend, hunh? I don't set up to be your only friend or only your friend or your friend only for your sake. Frankly, my ruling passion is for the community as a whole; the old Jacksonian passion for the people, sir. If I'm meddling it's because I see a situation that right on its surface threatens one misfortune, and at bottom another and bigger one, to them, the people--a public misfortune. I don't want to avert just the cholera, here to-day, gone to-morrow; I want to avert the lasting public misfortune of a Courteney-Hayle feud. There, sir! That's my hand! Cards right down on the table! Oh, I'm nothing if not outspoken, flat-footed! A lot of those signers don't see that bottom meaning. They don't need to. But, sir, _you_ know--your grandfather's always known--that by every instinct the Hayles, even to the sons-in-law, are fighters. They don't know any way to succeed, in anything, but to fight. It's the Old Hickory in them. Old Hickory always fought, your Harry of the West has always compromised. The Hayles loathe tact. They don't know the power of concession as you Courteneys do. And that's why your only way to succeed with them is to _con_cede something. Not everything, not principle--good Lord, not principle! yet something definite, visible, conciliatory, hunh?
"Mind you, I hold no brief for them. I know those twins haven't behaved right a minute. But no Hayle's been let into this affair, from first to last."
The falsehood was so rash a slip that its author paused, but when Hugh's face showed no change he resumed: "Sir, it is in your interest we ask you to put those foreigners off. If you don't you'll rouse public resentment up and down this river a hundred miles wide for a thousand miles. And if, keeping them aboard, you don't put Madam Hayle and her daughter on some other boat, and anything happens to them on this one, you'll have Gideon Hayle and his sons--and his sons-in-law--for your mortal enemies the rest of your lives, long or short--and with public sympathy all on their side. Oh, I'm nothing if not outspoken! Why, my dear boy, if you don't think I'm telling you this in friendship----"
"Call it so. But stop it, at once."
"Why--you say that--to me?"
"I do. Stop it, at once, or we'll call it----"
"Ridiculous! What will you call it, sir?"
"Mutiny. The captain has so ordered--and arranged."
The inquirer drew breath, leaned forward on an elbow, and stared. The stare was returned. The senator began to smile. Hugh did not. The smile grew. Hugh's gaze was fixed. The smiler smiled yet more, but in vain. Abruptly he ha-haed.
"We'll call it that till you prove it's not," said Hugh.
"Did you ever hear of a poker face?" asked the senator.
"No, sir."
"You've got one, now; youngest I ever saw. I wish I had it--haw, haw! Where'd you find it? I doubt if ever in your life you've had any real contact with any real guile."
"I have," said Hugh, very quiet, very angry, yet with a joy of disclosure, communicative at last by sheer stress of so much kept unsaid. "And I've never got over it."
"Well, well! When was that?"
"All through the most important ten years of my life."
"Of your life! Good gracious! Which were they?"
"The first ten. A guile seemingly so guileless that yours, compared with it, is botch work."
The two were still looking into each other's eyes when the latch clicked and John Courteney stepped in. _