_ CHAPTER I. THE BAITING OF THE ANCIENT LION
War and Peace had swapped corners that morning in the village of Fort Canibas. War was muttering at the end where two meeting-houses placidly faced each other across the street. Peace brooded over the ancient blockhouse, relic of the "Bloodless War," and upon the structure that Thelismer Thornton had converted from officers' barracks to his own uses as a dwelling.
At dawn a telegraph messenger jangled the bell in the dim hall of "The Barracks." It was an urgent cry from the chairman of the Republican State Committee. It announced his coming, and warned the autocrat of the North Country of the plot. The chairman knew. The plotters had been betrayed to him, and from his distance he enjoyed a perspective which is helpful in making political estimates. But Thelismer Thornton only chuckled over Luke Presson's fears. He went back to bed for another nap.
When he came down and ate breakfast alone in the big mess-room, which he had not allowed the carpenters to narrow by an inch, he was still amused by the chairman's panic. As a politician older than any of them, a man who had served his district fifty years in the legislature, he refused to believe--intrenched there in his fortress in the north--that there was danger abroad in the State.
"Reformers, eh?" He sneered the word aloud in the big room of echoes. "Well, I can show them one up here. There's Ivus Niles!"
And at that moment Ivus Niles was marching into the village from the Jo Quacca hills, torch for the tinder that had been prepared. It is said that a cow kicked over a lantern that started the conflagration of its generation. In times when political tinder is dry there have been great men who have underestimated reform torches.
It was a bland June morning. The Hon. Thelismer Thornton was bland, too, in agreement with the weather. A good politician always agrees with what cannot be helped.
He stood in the door of "The Barracks" and gazed out upon the rolling St. John hills--a lofty, ponderous hulk of a man, thatched with white hair, his big, round face cherubic still in spite of its wrinkles. He lighted a cigar, and gazed up into the cloudless sky with the mental endorsement that it was good caucus weather. Then he trudged out across the grass-plot and climbed into his favorite seat. It was an arm-chair set high in the tangle of the roots of an overturned spruce-tree. The politicians of the county called that seat "The Throne," and for a quarter of a century the Hon. Thelismer Thornton had been nicknamed "The Duke of Fort Canibas." Add that the nicknames were not ill bestowed. Such was the Hon. Thelismer Thornton.
He had brought newspapers in his pockets. He set his eyeglasses on his bulging nose, and began to read.
In the highway below him teams went jogging into the village. There were fuzzy Canadian horses pulling buckboards sagging under the weight of all the men who could cling on. There were top carriages and even a hayrack well loaded with men.
Occasionally the old man lifted his gaze from his reading and eyed the dusty wayfarers benignantly. He liked to know that the boys were turning out to the caucus. His perch was a lofty one. He could see that the one long street of Fort Canibas was well gridironed with teams--horses munching at hitching-posts, wagons thrusting their tails into the roadway.
It was quiet at Thornton's end of the village. There was merely twitter of birds in the silver poplar that shaded his seat, busy chatter of swallows, who were plastering up their mud nests under the eaves of the old blockhouse across the road from him. It was so quiet that he could hear a tumult at the other end of the village; it
was a tumult for calm Fort Canibas. A raucous voice bellowed oratory of some sort, and yells and laughter and cheers punctuated the speech. Thornton knew the voice, even at that distance, for the voice of "War Eagle" Niles. He grinned, reading his paper. The sound of that voice salted the article that he was skimming:
"--and the fight is beginning early this year. The reform leaders say they find the sentiment of the people to be with them, and so the reformers propose to do their effective work at the caucuses instead of waiting to lock horns with a legislature and lobby controlled by the old politicians of the State. There is a contest on even in that impregnable fortress of the old regime, the 'Duchy of Canibas.' It is said that the whole strength of the State reform movement is quietly behind the attempt to destroy Thelismer Thornton's control in the north country. His is one of the earliest caucuses, and the moral effect of the defeat of that ancient autocrat will be incalculable."
Still more broadly did Thornton smile. "War Eagle" Niles, down there, was a reformer. For forty years he had been bellowing against despots and existing order, and, for the Duke of Fort Canibas, he typified "Reform!" Visionary, windy, snarling, impracticable attempts to smash the machine!
Therefore, in his serene confidence--the confidence of an old man who has founded and knows the solidity of the foundations--Thelismer Thornton smoked peacefully at one end of the village of Fort Canibas, and allowed rebellion to roar at its pleasure in the other end.
Then he saw them coming, heard the growing murmur of many voices, the cackle of occasional laughter, and took especial note of "War Eagle" Ivus Niles, who led the parade. A fuzzy and ancient silk hat topped his head, a rusty frock-coat flapped about his legs, and he tugged along at the end of a cord a dirty buck sheep. A big crowd followed; but when they shuffled into the yard of "The Barracks" most of the men were grinning, as though they had come merely to look on at a show. The old man in his aureole of roots gazed at them with composure, and noted no hostility.
Niles and his buck sheep stood forth alone. The others were grouped in a half circle. Even upon the "War Eagle," Thornton gazed tolerantly. There was the glint of fun in his eyes when Niles formally removed his silk hat, balanced it, crown up, in the hook of his elbow, and prepared to deliver his message.
"The dynasty of the house of Thornton must end to-day!" boomed Niles, in his best orotund.
Thornton found eyes in the crowd that blinked appreciation. Quizzical wrinkles deepened in his broad face. He plucked a cigar from his waistcoat-pocket and held it down toward Mr. Niles.
"No, sir!" roared that irreconcilable. "I ain't holding out my porringer to Power--never again!"
"Power," repulsed, lighted the cigar from the one he was smoking, and snapped the butt at the sheep.
"I'm a lover of good oratory, Ivus," he said, placidly, "and I know you've come here loaded. Fire!" He clasped his upcocked knee with his big hands, fingers interlaced, and leaned back.
The crowd exchanged elbow-thrusts and winks. But the ripple of laughter behind did not take the edge off Mr. Niles's earnestness.
"Honorable Thornton, I do not mind your sneers and slurs. When I see my duty I go for it. I'm here before you to-day as Protest walking erect, man-fashion, on two legs, and with a visible emblem that talks plainer than words can talk. The people need visible emblems to remind them. Like I'm leading this sheep, so you have been leading the voters of this legislative district. The ring has been in here"--Mr. Niles savagely pinched the cartilage of his nose--"and you have held the end of the cord. That's the way you've been led, you people!" The orator whirled and included his concourse of listeners as objects of arraignment. "Here's the picture of you as voters right before your eyes. Do you propose to be sheep any longer?" He put his hat on his head, and shook a hairy fist at the Duke of Fort Canibas. "This ain't a dynasty, and you can't make it into one. I call on you to take note of the signs and act accordingly; for the people are awake and arming for the fray. And when the people are once awake they can't any more be bamboozled by a political despot than the war eagle, screaming across the blue dome of the everlasting heavens, will turn tail when he hears the twittering of a pewee!" Mr. Niles closed, as he always closed a speech, with the metaphor that had given him his sobriquet.
"That is real oratory, Ivus," stated Mr. Thornton, serenely; "I know it is, because a man who is listening to real oratory never understands what the orator is driving at."
The Hon. Thelismer Thornton usually spoke with a slow, dry, half-quizzical drawl. That drawl was effective now. He came down from his chair, carefully stepping on the roots, and loomed above Mr. Niles, amiable, tolerant, serene. His wrinkled crash suit, in whose ample folds his mighty frame bulked, contrasted oddly with the dusty, rusty black in which Mr. Niles defied the heat of the summer day.
"Now I am down where I can talk business, Ivus. What's the matter with you?"
"Look into the depths of your own soul, if you've got the moral eyesight to look through mud," declaimed Mr. Niles, refusing to descend from polemics to plain business, "and you'll see what is the matter. You have made yourself the voice by which this district has spoken in the halls of state for fifty years, and that voice is not the voice of the people!" He stood on tiptoe and roared the charge.
"It is certainly not your voice that I take down to the State House with me," broke in their representative. "Freight charges on it would more than eat up my mileage allowance. Now let's call off this bass-drum solo business. Pull down your kite. To business!" He snapped his fingers under Mr. Niles's nose.
One of those in the throng who had not smiled stepped forth and spoke before the disconcerted "War Eagle" had recovered his voice.
"Since I am no orator, perhaps I can talk business to you, Representative Thornton." He was a grave, repressed, earnest man, whose sunburned face, bowed shoulders, work-stained hands, and general air proclaimed the farmer. "We've come here on a matter of business, sir."
"Led by a buck sheep and a human windmill, eh?"
"Mr. Niles's notions of tactics are his own. I'm sorry to see him handle this thing as he has. It was coming up in the caucus this afternoon in the right way." Thornton was listening with interest, and the man went on with the boldness the humble often display after long and earnest pondering has made duty plain. "When I saw Niles pass through the street and the crowd following, I was afraid that a matter that's very serious to some of us would be turned into horseplay, and so I came along, too. But I am not led by a buck sheep, Mr. Thornton, nor are those who believe with me."
"Believe what?"
"That, after fifty years of honors at our hands, you should be willing to step aside."
The Hon. Thelismer Thornton dragged up his huge figure into the stiffness of resentment. He ran searching eyes over the faces before him. All were grave now, for the sounding of the first note of revolt in a half century makes for gravity. The Duke of Fort Canibas could not distinguish adherents from foes at that moment, when all faces were masked with deep attention. His eyes came back to the stubborn spokesman.
"Walt Davis," he said, "your grandfather put my name before the caucus that nominated me for the legislature fifty years ago, and your father and you have voted for me ever since. You and every other voter in this district know that I do not intend to run again. I have announced it. What do you mean, then, by coming here in this fashion?"
"You have given out that you are going to make your grandson our next representative."
"And this ain't a dynasty!" roared Mr. Niles.
"Is there anything the matter with my grandson?" But Davis did not retreat before the bent brows of the district god.
"The trouble with him is, that he's your grandson."
"And what fault do you find with me after all these years?" There was wrathful wonderment in the tone.
"If you're going to retire from office," returned Mr. Davis, doggedly, "there's no need of raking the thing over to make trouble and hard feelings. I've voted for you, like my folks did before me. You're welcome to all those votes, Representative Thornton, but neither you nor your grandson is going to get any more. And as I say, so say many others in this district."
"No crowned heads, no rings in the noses of the people," declared Niles, yanking the cord and producing a bleat of fury from his emblematic captive.
"I don't stand for Niles and his monkey business," protested Davis. "I'm on a different platform. All is, we propose to be represented from now on; not
mis-represented!"
Something like stupefaction succeeded the anger in the countenance of the Duke of Fort Canibas. Again he made careful scrutiny of the faces of his constituents. Then he turned his back on them and climbed up the twisted roots to his chair, sat down, faced them, caught his breath, and ejaculated, "Well, I'll be eternally d----d!"
He studied their faces for some time. But he was too good a politician to put much value on those human documents upraised to him. There were grins, subtle or humorous. There were a few scowls. One or two, tittering while they did it, urged the "War Eagle" on to fresh tirade. It was a mob that hardly knew its own mind, that was plain. But revolt was there. He felt it. It was one of those queer rebellions, starting with a joke for an excuse, but ready to settle into something serious. It was not so much hostility that he saw at that moment as something more dangerous--lack of respect.
"Look here, boys, I've been hearing that some of those cheap suckers from down State have been sneaking around this district. But I've never insulted you by believing you took any stock in that kind of cattle. We're neighbors here together. What's the matter with me? Out with your real grouch!"
"Look at this emblem I've brought," began Niles, oracularly, but Thornton was no longer in the mood that humored cranks. He jumped down, yanked the cord away from Niles, kicked the sheep and sent it scampering off with frightened bleats.
"If you fellows want an emblem, there's one," declared their indignant leader. "I'm all right for a joke--but the joke has got to stop when it has gone far enough."
He had sobered them. His disgusted glance swept their faces, and grins were gone. He went among them.
"Get around me, boys," he invited. "This isn't any stump speech. I'm going to talk business."
They did crowd around him, most of them, but Mr. Niles was still intractable. "You're right, it was your emblem just now! It has always been a kick from you and the rest of the high and mighty ones when you didn't want our wool."
"You're an infernal old liar and meddler, torched on by some one else!" retorted the Duke. "Now, boys, I see into this thing better than you do. Any time when I haven't used my district right, when I've betrayed you, or my word of advice isn't worth anything, I'll step out--and it won't need any bee of this kind to come around and serve notice on me. But I understand just what this shivaree means. Sneaks have come in here and lied behind my back and fooled some of you. Fools need to be saved from themselves. There are men in this State who would peel to their political shirts if they could lick Thelismer Thornton in his own district just now when the legislative caucuses are beginning. But I won't let you be fooled that way!"
"The name of 'Duke' fits you all right," piped Niles from a safe distance. "This is a dynasty and I've said it was, and now you're showing the cloven foot!"
Thornton disdained to reply. He continued to walk about among them. "They're trying to work you, boys," he went on. "I heard they were conniving to do business in this district, but I haven't insulted you by paying any attention to rumors. I want you to go down to that caucus this afternoon and vote for Harlan. You all know him. I'm an old man, and I want to see him started right before I get done. You all know what the Thorntons have done for you--and what they can do. I don't propose to see you swap horses while you're crossing the river."
But they did not rally in the good old way. There was something the matter with them. Those who dared to meet his gaze scowled. Those who looked away from him kept their eyes averted as though they were afraid to show their new faith. They had dared to march up to him behind Niles and his buck sheep, masking revolt under their grins. But Thornton realized that whoever had infected them had used the poison well. They had come to laugh; they remained to sulk. And they who had baited him with the unspeakable Niles understood their business when dealing with such an old lion as he.
"You need a guardian, you fellows," he said, contemptuously. "Your mutton marshal just fits you. But I'm going to keep you from buying the gold brick in politics you're reaching for now."
"Wouldn't it be a good idea, Squire Thornton, to let us run our own business awhile? You've done it for fifty years." It was still another of the rebels that spoke.
"If you had come to me like men, instead of playing hoodlums behind a lunatic and a sheep, I would have talked to you as men. But I say again you need a guardian."
"We won't vote for you nor none you name. We've been woke up."
The old man threw up both his hands and cracked his fingers into his palms. "And you're ready to take pap and paregoric from the first that come along, you infants!"
"You're showing yourself now, Duke Thornton!" shouted Niles. "You've used us like you'd use school-boys for fifty years, but you ain't dared to brag of it till now!"
Thornton strode out from among them. He tossed his big arms as though ridding himself of annoying insects. He had been stung out of self-control. It was not that he felt contempt for his people. He had always felt for them that sense of protection one assumes who has taken office from voters' hands for many years, has begged appropriations from the State treasury for them, has taken in hand their public affairs and administered them without bothering to ask advice. He realized all at once that jealousy and ingratitude must have been in their hearts for a long time. Now some influence had made them bold enough to display their feelings. Thornton had seen that sort of revolt many times before in the case of his friends in the public service. He had always felt pride in the belief that his own people were different--that his hold on them was that of the patriarch whom they loved and trusted.
The shock of it! He kept his face from them as he toiled up the steps of the old house. Tears sparkled in his eyes, sudden tears that astonished him. For a moment he felt old and broken and childish, and was not surprised that they had detected the weakness of a failing old man. He would have gone into "The Barracks" without showing them his face, but on the porch he was forced to turn. Some one had arrived, and arrived tempestuously. It was the Hon. Luke Presson, Chairman of the State Committee. He stepped down out of his automobile and walked around the crowd, spatting his gloved hands together, and looking them over critically. So he came to Thelismer Thornton, waiting on the steps, and shook his hand.
Mr. Presson was short and fat and rubicund, and, just now, plainly worried.
"This was the last place I expected to have to jump into, Thelismer," he complained. "I know the bunch has been wanting to get at you, but I didn't believe they'd try. I see that you and your boys here realize that you're up against a fight!"
He shuttled glances from face to face, and the general gloom impressed him. But it was plain that he did not understand that he was facing declared rebels.
"They've slipped five thousand dollars in here, Thelismer," he went on, speaking low. "They'd rather lug off this caucus than any fifty districts in the State."
"I don't believe there's men here that'll take money to vote against me," insisted Thornton. "But they've been lied to--that much I'll admit."
"You've been king here too long, Thelismer. You take too much for granted. They're bunching their hits here, I tell you. There are fifty thousand straddlers in this State ready to jump into the camp of the men that can lick the Duke of Fort Canibas--it gives a h----l of a line on futures! I thought you had your eye out better."
The deeper guile had masked itself behind such characters as Ivus Niles, and now Thornton realized it, and realized, too, to what a pass his trustful serenity, builded on the loyalty of the years, had brought him.
That strained, strange look of grieved surprise went out of his face. He lighted a cigar, gazing at his constituents over his scooped hands that held the match.
They stared at him, for his old poise had returned.
"This is the chairman of our State Committee, boys," he said, "come up to look over the field. He says there's a rumor going that Thornton can't carry his caucus this year." The Duke dropped into his quizzical drawl now. "I was just telling my friend Luke that it's queer how rumors get started." He walked to the porch-rail and leaned over it, his shaggy head dominating them. And then he threw the challenge at them. "The caucus is going to be held in the other end of the village--not here in my front dooryard. You'd better get over there. I don't need any such clutter here. Get there quick. There may be some people that you'll want to warn. Tell 'em old Thornton hasn't lost his grip."
He took Presson by the arm, and swung him hospitably in at the big door of "The Barracks." _