University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

The Mersey burning and sinking at
once; a rabble of drunken, panic-stricken
sailors and firemen tumbling into the large
boats; the few passengers, the ship's officers,
and perhaps a dozen of the crew, huddled
around the quarter-deck boats; the captain
stamping, threatening, pistol in hand, directing
the embarkation; — such was the
disorderly and unpromising state of affairs.

Brien's pistol was not the only one flourished,
for Tom Beaumont and Wilkins drew
and cocked revolvers, and even the mild Duffy
produced a derringer. Under the moral
effect of this artillery, the getting of things
and people into the boats began to go on
as it should aboard an Anglo-Saxon wreck.
“Heave in those water breakers”; in they
went with a “Yo-hee-oh.” “Now the bread
boxes”; and the bread boxes followed.
“Here, you, sir, man the starboard boat;
Mr. Wilson, take charge of the other one.”

Two trustworthy men were now in each
little craft, ready to cast off tackles on
touching the water, and to make fast towlines.
“Let go, slowly; ease away, men,
steady; there she floats.”

“Now then, ladies,” and the captain
turned to his passengers. “Mrs. Chester
first.”

Mrs. Chester, far more eager to go first
than the captain was to have her, went
down a rope in the grasp of a stout sailor,
clutching him as if she meant to tear and
devour him.

“Now, Miss Beaumont,” was the captain's
next call. “Look alive, there below. Haul
up under the counter. Some strong man
here for Miss Beaumont.”

“I!” shouted Tom, pushing a sailor
aside. “I 'll take care of my sister. Hold
on to me, Kate.”

“O Tom! be careful,” was the girl's
prayer as she threw her arms around the
young fellow's neck.

“Hold hard!” screamed the captain.
But it was too late; the boy had missed his
hold or lost it; and both brother and sister
went into the dark ocean. There was a
general groan, a rush to the bulwarks, and a
hesitation. Who could swim? It is a notorious
fact that sailors are seldom good swimmers.
Now came another splash; it was
our tall McAlister, who had gone under with
a header; and then there followed an awful
suspense.

“Here 's one,” shouted a sailor in the boat,
leaning over and dragging in some wet object.
It was Tom Beaumont, no more able
to swim than to fly, and saved by the merest
accident, happening to rise in the right
place. His first words were, “Where is she?”

He had scarcely strangled this out, when
there was a general cry of joy from all those
staring men, standing as they were on a
burning and sinking wreck. The light of the
flames showed a head on the surface, twenty
feet astern of the small boat, and under it,
almost submerged by it, another head, this
last being that of a man, while the first was
that of a woman. It was McAlister, laden
and almost borne under by the weight of the
girl whom he was striving to save.

“Drop the boat astern,” roared Captain
Brien. “Give him a hand.”

In another minute the two were drawn
in board, the girl pale, cold, and nearly
strangled still, the man breathless with his
struggle under water. There was no time
for changing of clothing; the steady sinking
of the ship gave warning that the embarkation
must hasten; and all that could be
done for the wet ones was to bring them
some blankets from the nearest state-room.

This was the only accident to the party
on the quarter-deck. In twenty minutes or
thereabouts from the springing of the leak
every living soul had abandoned the vessel,
and the crowded boats were pulling rapidly
away to escape the flurry of her foundering.
It was a gloomy and ill-promising voyage,
that upon which they were now entering.
The wreck, already low in the water, but
blazing throughout its midships and sending
up superb piles of flame from its paddle-boxes,
only made the darkness of ocean visible.
A considerable sea was running, tossing
the little craft uncomfortably, if not
dangerously, and sending in splashes of
spray which soon made all equally wet. In
a few minutes every one was chilled through,
notwithstanding that the temperature was
mild and almost summer-like. McAlister
and Tom Beaumont combined in wrapping
all the blankets around Kate.

“It is useless,” she smiled; “I shall only
be the wetter for them.”

Mrs. Chester, sunk in discomfort and despair
too deep for words, gave no sign of
existence, except groaning.

“This is ugly, ain't it, Wilkins?” muttered
the shivering Duffy.

“This is a big lot better than going clean
under,” returned Wilkins, his elbows on his
knees and his head between his hands. “By
Jove, the more miserable I am, the more I
want to live. It 's always so.”

“Sick, Wilkins?” presently inquired
Duffy.

“No, I just don't like to look at it. Show
me land, and I 'll sit up straight enough.”

“We are all right now,” struck up the
captain from the sternsheets, falling into his
characteristic strain of bragging and humbug,
no doubt because he thought it would
cheer the women. “It 's only a little wetting.
See land to-morrow, and tell our
stories at home next day. In a month from
now it will all be a good joke. We would n't
have missed it for anything.”

“Except me,” he added to himself, remembering
ruefully his damaged fame as a
sailor, and his injured prospects as chief
commander in the new line.

Baling almost constantly, the unfortunates
rowed due west, making what headway
could be made. They had sailed for half an
hour when of a sudden the broad flicker of
light behind them vanished, and, looking
backward, they could no longer see the
Mersey.

“It seems like the death of a friend,”
murmured Kate. “I am sorry for the poor
ship.”

“That 's so,” answered Captain Brien, his
heart warming more than ever towards the
girl. “She was a beautiful boat, was n't
she?”

“I 'm glad the miserable thing is sunk,”
mumbled Mrs. Chester, who never quite
forgave anybody or anything which had
caused her trouble.

Presently Kate Beaumont said in a low
voice to Frank McAlister: “It was you
who saved me. Was it not?”

“I was so fortunate,” he replied in a tone
which was like an utterance of thanksgiving.

“I knew it. But I have been so stupefied!
I shall be indebted to you all my life.”

“No,” he said, and would perhaps have
been tempted to try to press her hand, had
it not been defended from him by wet
blankets.

And so that conversation, meaning we will
not undertake to say how much, came to an
end.

But we must not prolong this voyage.
It was an adventure which had nothing
more to signalize it than what has been described.
In the morning there was a cry of
“Sail ho”; then came deliverance from
danger and discomfort; then a short trip to
Charleston, South Carolina. It was their
destination. Yes, the Mersey was the first
and only boat of the famous line which
Charleston attempted to call into being for
the sake of having direct trade with
England and setting herself right before the
world as the maritime rival of New York.

In Charleston the Southern hotel par
excellence, the house where the great planter
of those days stopped when he returned
from Europe, or when he came to the city
with his family to do shopping and attend
the races, was the Charleston Hotel. It was
in the huge front piazza of this house that
Frank McAlister, refreshed, newly attired,
brushed, and anointed, encountered that
ancient friend of his family, Major John
Lawson, the descendant (so said the Major)
of the De Lauzuns.

“Why, my dear fellow! Why, my de-ar
fel-low!” cried the Major, smiling up to
his eyebrows and shaking hands for a minute
together, though gently, tenderly, O
how affectionately! “Why, is it possible!
why, is it paw-si-ble!” he went on, in a
high, ecstatic soprano of wonder, somewhat
as if he were talking to a child. “And so
it is you, is it?” patting his shoulder.
“Why, bless my body, so it is. I would n't
have known you. What an amazing development!”
and the Major fell back a yard
to stare at the young giant with an air of
playful, petting amazement. “Taller by
three inches than your grenadier of a father!
Why, if the old Frederick of Prussia
had been alive, you would have been kidnapped
for his regiment of giants. The Potsdam
regiment,” explained the Major, not a
little proud of this bit of military history.
“But no; you don't want to be told how
you have grown; you have been at other
and wiser business as well. Why, tell me
all about it. Why, I could listen to you
forever.”

No words can describe the blandness
and the unctuous flattery of the Major's
manner. It was like warm olive-oil, poured
over your head and flying all down your
beard and vestments in an instant. No
time was allowed you for resistance; before
you could think, there was the Major letting
it on from his inexhaustible cruet. His
utterance was soft and cajoling, running
through a wide gamut of affettuoso tones, a
favorite close being high soprano or falsetto.
His face was prematurely wrinkled with
smirking and grimacing. It was haunted
with smiles which appeared and vanished
like fire-flies. Now one shone out on his
cheekbone; now another glimmered on his
forehead; now a third capered along his
wide mouth. Then again his whole countenance
broke up into them, putting you in
mind of the flashings of a shattered looking-glass,
or the radiances of a breezy sheet
of water in the sunshine. As for his thin,
genteel figure, it was so lubricated with
constant bowing and gesturing, that it was
as supple as an eel.

Meanwhile there was a slyness in his
gray eyes and humorous twinkling in the
crow's-feet at their corners, which caused
you to doubt whether he were not secretly
laughing at you under his mask of flattery.
The truth is that the Major did amuse
himself with the simplicity of human vanity.
He complimented upon principle; he had
made a formula for his guidance in this matter,
and he stuck to it in practice; as Talleyrand
(was it?) said, “Lie always, something
will stick,” so he said, “Flatter
always, something will stick.” But we
must not consider him as some straightforward,
bitter persons did, a mere hypocrite.
He was a good fellow; liked honestly
to make people feel comfortable; offered
them compliments, because he had little else
to spare.

McAlister gave the Major a brief and
plain statement of his life abroad. There
had been four years at Oxford, three
years at Gottingen, and one year in
travel.

“You are a prodigy,” grinned and fluted
the Major, his voice quavering high into
falsetto. “Why, you are a praw-di-gy.
You must be a miracle of learning. There
is n't another man in the State who has
passed his life to such advantage. You
have come home to lift us poor South-Carolinians
out of the slough of our ignorance
and conceit. And the son, too, of my excellent
old friend Judge McAlister! I am
delighted beyond measure.”

“There is much for me to learn, no doubt,
as well as something to teach,” replied
Frank, in his manly, plain way, so different
from the frisky, supple graces of the Major.
“I do believe, however, that I shall have

something to tell you, that is, in a year or
two.”

“O, but you have something to tell us
now.” And the soft Lawson fingers patted
the huge McAlister arm. “You must begin
at once.”

“I suspect,” continued Frank, “that there
is wealth in the State which we know little
about. There are mines to be sunk yet in
our up-country. And this shore region, if
I am not much mistaken is crammed with
phosphates.”

Phosphates! The word was beyond the
Major's tether. He did not know what
phosphates might be, and did not believe
he should care. He proceeded to smother
the youngster's learning with appropriate
compliment.

“Ah, there comes out the old canny
Scotch blood,” he smiled. “Or is it Scotch-Irish?
Ah, Scotch! A most intelligent and
industrious people. The best practical race
that we have in the State. Brave, too; brave
as lions; what a race! The perfervidum Scotorum
is world-wide famous. By the way,
have you letters from your father? I have n't
met him, bless my body! for months.”

“Yes, I found letters here. My father,
I thank you, is well. The whole family
also.”

“And you visit them soon, of course?
Return to the paternal hearth? Do give
my kindest regards, my most profound respects,
to your father. Noble man! A pillar,
sir! A pillar of society! And, by the way,
— bless me, how could I forget it, — but
what an escape! Saved from the sea and
from fire! You must be a marked man,
set apart for some wonderful fate. But
the Mersey lost! Our steamer lost! Our
steamer! What a calamity! What,” and
here the Major's voice fairly whimpered,
“a ca-lam-i-ty! And, by the way,” descending
to a confidential whisper, “you had
Beaumonts aboard. Your old — enemies.
I hope nothing disagreeable.”

“Embarrassments,” answered the young
man, slightly shrugging his shoulders.

“Dear me! I am excessively grieved.
But nothing that will lead to a — a —?”
inquired the old gossip, imitating the motion
of raising a pistol.

“O no. At least, I trust not. I sincerely
hope not.”

“Let us hope so,” said the Major, in a
tone which reminded one of the formula,
“Let us pray.” “Why, it would be infamous,”
he went on. “In view of your noble
behavior, it would be in the highest degree
unreasonable. Saved the young lady's life,
I understand. Ah! I surprise you; you
had no idea that your fame would find you
out so soon. Modest,” — another patting
here, — “modest, mod-est! But, you see,
I met one of your Hartland business-men,
— a nice sort of a commonplace fellow
named Duffy, I believe, — and accidentally,
quite accidentally, heard the story from him.
And so you saved Miss Kate Beaumont's
life? What a wonderful — providence,
shall we call it? I told you truly, that you
were a marked man, a man set apart for
some extraordinary destiny. And Miss
Beaumont? I have n't seen her since she
was a mere child. How did you like the
young lady?”

“An admirable girl,” said the brave McAlister,
not without a slight blush. “What
I saw of her led me to respect her profoundly.”

The Major's small, cunning gray eyes
twinkled with the joy of a veteran intriguer,
not to say matchmaker.

“Why, my dear fellow! why, my d-e-a-r
fel-low!” he whispered, snuggling up to the
youngster, and fondling his mighty arm.
“If this should end in a reconciliation
between the families, what an event! South
Carolina could afford to rejoice in the loss
of the Mersey. What a romance! Why
not? Romeo and Juliet in the South?
Bless me, my dear young friend, why not?
Stranger things have happened.”

“You forget the fate of Romeo and
Juliet,” replied McAlister, with a gravity
which revealed how seriously he was taking
this matter.

But the Major would not hear of carrying
out the parallel; he guessed like lightning
at his young friend's state of mind, and he
prophesied smooth things; indeed, when
did he ever prophesy any other?

“O no!” he laughed, waving away the
suggestion of a tragedy. “Nothing of
the sort, my dear Mr. McAlister. We shall
see, if you only wish it, a better ending than
that. Why, bless you, man, the Beaumonts
are not barbarians of the Middle Ages.
They — I remember the old feud — I respect
your natural prejudices — but they,
you will excuse me for saying so, are South
Carolina gentlemen. They have the polish
and humanity — you will surely pardon me
— of the nineteenth century.”

“I am sure that I wish to think well of
them. I will tell you, moreover, that I only
wait an opportunity to show them that I
feel kindly towards them.”

“An opportunity!” smiled and fifed the
Major, — “an opportunity! It has come,
and you have improved it. Improved it
nobly, superbly, beautifully. Now it is their
turn. You have saved the life of their
daughter and sister. They must thank you.
They must call upon you. They will. We
shall see. Then, Romeo and Juliet, with
a happy ending. Yes,” closed the Major,
fairly singing his hint for a pastoral, “Rome-o
and Jul-iet in South Car-o-li-na!”

“They — the men, I mean — must call

on me, of course or the matter is ended,”
observed McAlister. He spoke slowly and
gravely; he was sincerely anxious to receive
that peacemaking visit; he did not
care how plainly the Major should perceive
his anxiety; indeed, he scarcely thought of
him at the moment.

“Certainly. They must. If they don't
they are — Well, let us be charitable.
But I can't conceive that they should not
call. It is Tom, I believe, who is with the
ladies. Well, Tom is young; but Tom
knows what chivalry demands; born of one
of our own good families; a race of gentlemen
— excuse me. Of course Tom Beaumont
will make his bow to you before he
leaves Charleston.”

And the Major, in his excellent, gossiping
soul, meant to call on Tom and flatter him
into doing what was handsome. It must be
understood that this man was by instinct a
matchmaker; he liked women, liked to
pay court to them, liked to see others do the
same; and now, guessing that Frank was
smitten with Miss Beaumont, he wanted
him to woo her and win her. Besides, what
a charming history, what an inexhaustible
theme of conversation with ladies, what a
subject to decorate all over with flowers
from Shakespeare, would be this healing of
an old family feud by means of a love-match!
For the Major was a littérateur, in the amateur
sense; could quote eternally from
standard authors, especially in verse; wrote
also a kind of poetical prose, much admired
by some of the women to whom he read it.

But Major Lawson had other strong
points. He did love — as what South-Carolinian
of those days did not love? — to talk
about fighting. Wars, duels, adventures
with robbers, putting down of insurrections,
and even family feuds, were all pure honey
to him. He groaned over them, to be sure;
but his lamentation was simple humbug; it
was the merest rose-water philanthropy; in
his soul he feasted on them. Next to love-making,
and far beyond politics, he revelled
in talking of combats. Not that he had ever
had a fight; there was no man in the State
more pacific. His title of Major did not
signify war, nor even so much as service in
the militia. He had been an aide-de-camp
to a Governor; just an honorary aide-de-camp,
with nothing to do; that was the
whole sum of his martial life. His title, too,
was really Captain, for he was only a Major
by courtesy, familiar friends having breveted
him at their dinner-tables.

Well, this peaceful, courteous creature
must now turn to the old bloody feud between
the Beaumonts and the McAlisters, and
prattle of it with something like a licking of
the chops.

“Terrible history!” he said, with the
sorrow of a dog over a toothsome bone.
“If we could only put an end to it! No
less than nine valuable lives have been sacrificed
to this Moloch since I came to the
age of manhood, — four McAlisters and five
Beaumonts; not to mention the side difficulties
which it has brought about between
friends of the two houses, — the Montagues
and Capulets,” he poetically added. “I well
remember the excitement, the furor, which
was raised by the — the meeting between
your excellent father and Randolph Beaumont,
the elder brother of Peyton. The State
fairly shuddered with anxiety. Fairly shuddered!”
And the Major shook himself in
his black dress-coat. “Both men practised
for months, — for months, sir! Each knew
it must come. Prepared himself, sadly and
sternly, like a gentleman. Randolph declared
that he would spoil McAlister's handsome
face for him. Your father was a remarkably
fine-looking fellow; not like you, who resemble
your mother, — but still handsome. Indeed,
he is now; a king of men; a Saul!
Well, sir, Randolph practised at the head;
had a figure set up for that purpose in his
yard; used to hit the top of it with beautiful
precision; really beau-ti-ful! Of your father's
preparations I will say nothing. Perhaps
the subject is unpleasant to you. But it was
a stern necessity. He must take his precautions
or he must forfeit his valuable life.
Well, the day came; no preventing it. An
admirable exhibition of courage. Two shots
in quick succession. Randolph Beaumont
sent a shot through McAlister's hair, and fell
with a ball in his own heart. My God,
what an excitement! The whole State
shook, sir!”

McAlister had listened to this reminiscence
with an amount of disrelish which
surprised himself. It was not the first time
that he had heard the story, and heretofore
he had always heard it with interest. But
childhood's ideas had more or less died out
of him; during the last few years a passion
for studies had dulled the combative instinct
within him; and within the past week Miss
Kate Beaumont had made him hate the family
feud.

“I never heard my father allude to the
tragedy but once,” he said to the Major,
rather coldly. “It was only a word, and I
thought it was a word of regret.”

The old gossip started. Had he made a
mistake in chanting to the son the prowess
of the father?

“O, of course!” he hurriedly assented.
“Your father is a wise, practical, humane
gentleman. Could n't look upon the matter
otherwise than as a woful necessity, mere
self-preservation. Certainly.”

And so the Major suspended his raw-head
and bloody-bones reminiscences. It was a
disappointment to him, for there were still
several nice joints to pick, and, dear me,

how sweet they were! There, for instance,
was the late duel between R. Bruce McAlister,
our Frank's senior brother, and
the present eldest son of the house of Beaumont.
No deaths, to be sure; only a shot
through a leg and another through an arm;
but even so much was savory.

“Sad, sad business!” groaned the Major,
bringing down the corners of his mouth decorously,
as people will do at funerals and the
like, even when they don't care a straw.
“All politics, — purely result of politics;
not bitterness, I am glad to say. Simply a
struggle between high-minded gentlemen,
each of whom honestly and sadly believes
the other mistaken. Opposition, as you are
no doubt aware, between the supporters of
the electoral system and the so-called parish
representation. Your family, as original up-country
gentlemen, naturally support the
former. The Beaumonts, as original low-country
people, are the extreme advance
guard of the parishes.”

“That is it, is it?” said Frank. “I never
knew before what was the origin of the dispute.
I was such a mere boy when I left home.”

“That, and other things similar. Bless
my soul!” and here the Major fluted his
sweetest, “have I got to teach you the antiquities,
the fasti, of your family? Why,
the first McAlister of Hartland — your noble
deceased grandfather — was one of the supporters
of our grand old Horry — Marion's
Horry — in his efforts to establish the common-school
system in South Carolina. Naturally
on the side of the people. A born
Gracchus. And yet nature's gentleman, the
truest of aristocrats.”

“A supporter of education,” said Frank.
“Well, I thank him for that. I am of his
party. Depend upon it, Major, that our
State needs education, and that I shall do
my poor best towards educating it.”

“Amen!” pronounced the Major, solemnly,
as if it were the thing that he had
most at heart. “Well, my best wishes.
Delighted to have seen you, — de-light-ed!
Carry my respects to your family. And as
for the Beaumonts,” he added with a knowing,
matchmaking, tender whisper; “they
will call on you,” in a lower whisper; “they
will,” almost inaudible.

And so, nodding and smiling, and, one
might almost say, kissing his fingers, Major
Lawson ambled away.

Would the Beaumonts call? Would
Tom Beaumont come to say a civil word to
the man who had saved his sister's life? Or
would he, remembering only the ancient
hostility of the two names, leave Charleston
without a sign of friendship?

Such were the questions which chased
each other through the brain of the young
gentleman who paced alone the piazza of
the Charleston Hotel.