University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.
AN EXPOSURE.

Josie and Mr. Hollowbread discovered
Senator Ironman in his committee-room;
but unluckily that admirer of all the handsome
women in Washington was just then
giving audience to Mrs. John Vane, whom
he justly considered one of the handsomest;
and furthermore they beheld Squire Nancy
Appleyard lingering about the doors, as if
awaiting her turn for admission.

“I am not used to such low company as I
meet in the capital of my country,” scornfully
smiled Mrs. Murray, as she wheeled away.
“Couldn't you pass a law which should keep
out at least such women as wear pantaloons?”

“They are the least bewildering of all,” answered
Hollowbread, also smiling, but with
a disposition to sigh, for he had a sense that
he had himself been woefully bewitched by
feminine enchantments.

Josie made no answer to this speech, and
probably did not hear it.

At that moment she caught sight of bustling,
strutting, noisy General Bangs, engaged
in conversation with another tall and
gaunt gentleman, but of very different and
much nobler aspect, who was no other than
Colonel Murray.

“Let us get out of here,” she whispered.
“What can that hateful creature be gabbling
about to my uncle? I hope it is not my
business. Did you tell him not to mention
it to the Murrays? Oh, you ought to have
told him. I don't want them to guess; I
want to surprise them.”

“Yes—naturally,” puffed and sighed Mr.
Hollowbread, as they hurried away.

Speed and stairways necessarily worry a
stout gentleman who wears a tight surcingle,
and, moreover, this skulking evasion
made him feel undiguified, shamefaced, and
guilty, and finally he remembered that he
had himself blabbed the business to Colonel
Murray. However, after they had got out of
the Capitol unseen, Josie cheered him with
a triumphant little burst of merriment. It
seemed to him, when this pretty creature
giggled and sparkled her bright eyes in his
face, as if there were no distinction between
right and wrong, between honor and disgrace.

Having thus confounded all his moral
notions for him, she sent him back to legislate
for our beloved country, while she betook
herself light-heartedly to shopping.
That evening she was to dine at Mr. Banker
Allchin's, and Mrs. John Vane was to be
there also. Now Josie fervently desired to
eclipse, crush, and dethrone that queen of
society, and she believed that to do it she
must have a fresh outfit of small decorations.
Hence the shopping tour, the eagerness,
the gayety, and the sudden forgetfulness
of all trouble and evil.

The dinner took place, and was sumptuous.
Our heroine held revelry between Senator
Ironman and the honorable Smyler, and
outshone with the greatest ease her somewhat
uncultured rival. But the repast was
amply reported in the Newsmonger, and we
will not attempt to outdo the city editor.

During the evening Colonel Murray dropped
in upon the rector and wife. If he knew

of aught which displeased him, the fact did
not appear on his serene old visage. He
carried his long nose in the air, and looked
glassily through his large spectacles, and
smiled in his deliberate speech just as usual.
A tried soldier, and possessed of that important
soldierly characteristic, an even temper,
he habitually endured worries with
tranquillity. No one could have inferred
from his manner that he had heard all about
Josie's swindling claim, and was exceedingly
grieved and vexed because of it.

The two brothers were soon bucking and
butting at each other over the questions of
physical science as contentedly as if there
were no other cause of acrimony in the
world. We have not space to narrate the
sublime combat in full, but we must positively
describe the final rush of the gallant
colonel.

“Once more let me recall your obligations
to science,” he said. “Just consider how
much the theologian has learned concerning
the greatness of creation—consequently concerning
the greatness of the Creator, from the
astronomer and the naturalist. Remember
Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Laplace; remember
the thousands of worlds which you
know of, and which the fathers knew not of;
remember the microscopic revelations also,
as well as the telescopic ones; then say that
the scientist has taught you nothing about
God. Why, he might fairly address you clergymen
as Paul addressed the Athenians:
`Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, him
declare I unto you.”'

Twenty minutes of discussion had already
fired up the rector to the boiling-point.
Moreover, he was not a logical man, but, on
the contrary, an unfair-minded and prejudiced
one, just in proportion as he was warmhearted.
Consequently he replied antagonistically,
showing no gratitude at all toward
science, but rather mediæval contempt for
the same.

“Brother Julian, let me tell you a little
story,” he began, with a scoffing smile, as of
one who instructs a perverse inferior.

“Oh yes—one of your apologues, I suppose
—one of your parables,” sniffed the colonel.

“There was once a good missionary,” pursued
the rector. “He lived in the dark,
foolish old times when men knew very little,
and merely had faith—an humble faith.
He went out from his home to correct a
heathen people, a sea-faring and piratical
people, perhaps the Northmen. Well, these
heathen pirates took him in their ships all
round the world, and showed him how much
bigger it was than he had supposed. Then
they called upon him to adore the attraction
of gravitation and abjure his blessed Saviour.
It is my belief that the silly good man refused
to gratify them.”

“Oh, pshaw!” answered the colonel, indignantly.
“There you go again with your
assumptions that scientists look up to nature,
and not to nature's God.”

“And so they do,” asseverated the clergyman,
his blood boiling higher and higher all
the while. “You do yourself, Julian, as I
fear. I am really afraid you do. I believe
you do.”

“Don't, Mr. Murray!” put in the wife,
noting these repetitions, the heightened color,
and other signs of agitation. “You will
certainly send the blood to your head. Now,
do not get so excited!”

“Well, well, then I must quit the subject,”
stammered the rector. “I can not talk
about it patiently—I can not.”

“Let us drop it, then,” said the colonel,
with a sigh.

He really cared about the matter. In his
old age he had come to be aware of science,
and to make a pet of it; and he had something
like a pious desire to reconcile all men
to its teachings.

“By-the-way, I came around to speak of
something else,” he added. “It is an affair
which requires your instant attention, if you
are not too tired.”

Both the rector and Mrs. Murray pricked
up their gossip-loving ears and asked, eagerly,

“What is it? What is it?”

“The old story of the claim again. You
remember, a Congressman spoke to me about
it—a claim for a burned barn.”

“Yes — yes — exactly. What is it?” inquired
the old lady, all eyes except what
was ears.

The colonel went on to explain that General
Bangs had been at him that morning
about this barn-burning business.

“Howling and bawling in my ear,” the
old soldier put it, indignantly, “and making
a disagreeable coyote of himself.”

In short, Bangs had informed him that
Mrs. Murray, Junior, had a claim before the
Spoliation Committee to the amount of a
hundred thousand dollars, more or less.

“Horrible!” exclaimed the Reverend John
Murray, his pure and sensitive soul sending
tremors of indignation through his weak,
bloated physical part.

“Horrible!” echoed Mrs. Murray, beginning
to understand that here was something
to be wretched about, instead of merely a
lively item for her diary.

“It is a shameful intrigue,” pursued the
colonel. “If it is carried through, it will be
a disgrace to the family, a disgrace to each
one of us. I can not stand it. I can not
stand being blackened by other people, after
the white man's life that I have led. I have
always respected Government money. I
have held it as a sacred trust. At least a
million of it has passed through my hands
first and last, and I have never stolen a dollar
of it, never misappropriated a dollar, as I
hope and believe. If ever a shilling has

been lacking in my accounts, I have always
taken that shilling out of my own pocket and
put it into the public chest. I tell you,
John, that I would as soon have turned my
back on the battle-field as have wronged the
United States out of one penny. It is part
of a soldier's religion, this feeling is. It is
our eleventh commandment. And here I
have got to bear more or less of the stigma
of this swindle.”

The old officer spoke with an emotion
which in one of his habitual dignity and
calmness was pathetic. In response, the rector
nodded solemnly. Official integrity was
not in his view as necessary to salvation as
doctrinal correctness; but though it was
hardly godliness, and certainly not orthodoxy,
he held it in high respect.

“It is awful, Julian,” he murmured. “It is
hard upon you, and it is hard upon all of us.”

“A swindling claim—by a Murray!” cried
the colonel, his usually pallid old face (once
very blonde) crimsoning with shame and
wrath. “A hundred thousand dollars of
Government money for a worthless old barn
which had been paid for once! It is perfectly
tremendous. I was absolutely stupefied.
As soon as I could collect myself, I
told Bangs that I disapproved of it with
all my soul, and should oppose it by every
means in my power. You may imagine the
amazement of the low, humbugging black-leg.
`Why,' said he, `it will be a fortune
thrown into your family; it will take this
expensive little lady off your hands.' And
he is a legislator of the United States! has
charge of money wrung from the American
people! has taken an oath to do honestly
and legally and purely. He ought to be in
a common jail for conspiracy and perjury.
I had the greatest mind to slap his impudent,
leering face. I tell you, John, that
the duel went out too soon. We need it in
these very days to purify our political life.
Honest men ought to have a chance to shoot
the scoundrels who rob and disgrace them.”

“Thank God, there is a hell!” murmured
the rector. “`Vengeance is mine; I will
repay, saith the Lord.”'

“I will repay,” echoed Mrs. Murray, saying
litany rather inappropriately. The
truth is, that she was confounded, not
merely by the tale of this wretched intrigue,
but also by the fear of losing a highly
valued plaything. Notwithstanding that
Josie was out too much, and showed too
great a fondness for the society of uncertified
gentlemen, the old lady set great store
by her, and might even be said to love her.

“Thank God, she is not a Murray!” pursued
the colonel. “There is no Murray
blood in her veins.”

“Perhaps she is not altogether in fault,”
answered the clergyman. He had caught a
troubled glance from his wife, and had suddenly
remembered how useful Josie was in
amusing her, and, so to speak, in cheering
her venerable soul to remain in its body.
“There may be some one else at the bottom
of this,” he added, hoping that it might
be so.

“Mrs. Warden,” suggested Mrs. Murray,
eagerly. “She is a claim-hunter. I wish
Josie wasn't so intimate with her. But you
permit it, Mr. Murray, and you are friendly
to Mrs. Warden yourself; you know you
are!”

“She is a member of my church,” pleaded
Mr. Murray. “I can not cast her off, unless
she falls into damnable sin and heresy. Besides,
she is a silly, flighty, feather-headed
creature, an object of pity. And there is her
daughter, a worthy and lovely young woman,
what I call a pious soul by birthright.
She bears her mother on her back. For the
sake of the Æneas, I can't shut my door on
the Anchises.”

“Yes, Belle is a noble girl,” said the colonel.
“She is fit to belong to the regular
army. She is an officer and a gentleman.
Moreover, as for Mrs. Warden herself, I question
whether she would care to stir up and
push on rival claims. There are other people
who do that; there are people whose
profession it is; there are people who live
by the dirty trade. Probably there are a
hundred men in and about Congress who
thrive by inventing claims, engineering
them, and sharing the loot. Some of these
fellows may be responsible for our little
lady's naughtiness. But all the same we
must stop it.”

“Of course we must,” coincided the rector;
and even Mrs. Murray echoed, “Of
course we must.”

“We have had godly ancestors and a decent
race thus far,” pursued the clergyman.
“The only blot on our history, which I
know of, is that first claim for this accursed
barn; and that, so far as I can learn, was
made by a trustee, and not by a Murray. I
insist that the honor of our family never had
a stain upon it. And I will have no stain
now. We must induce Josephine to forego
this business. I would rather give her fifty
thousand dollars out of my own pocket than
have her proceed with it.”

Then he remembered that the great mass
of his wealth lay in that undivided estate
which had been the support and the pride of
the Murray race, and which had, no doubt,
done much toward preserving it from all
taint of low greed or of dishonesty. Such
moderate capital as he possessed outside of
this charmed treasure was all willed to his
wife; and nothing on earth, in his opinion,
could justify him in altering one word of
that sacred testament.

“No, I can not do that,” he said. “But,
if Huldah is willing, we can give something.
We might, perhaps, spare ten thousand dollars.”

Mrs. Murray nodded. It was not a cheerful
assent, for she valued money highly, as
do most old and feeble people. Nevertheless,
she did assent.

“I will double the sum,” offered the colonel.

“But first we ought to talk to her,” suggested
the lady, possibly hoping that the
money might be saved. “Somebody ought
to tell her how we feel about this thing. I
am sure she would be reasonable if she only
knew how we feel. She is so pleasant! so
amiable and cheerful—and amusing!” concluded
Mrs. Murray, yearning over her favorite
and her funds together.

“Certainly she will be reasonable,” declared
the rector, touched to the marrow by
a pathetic tremor in his wife's utterance,
and eager as always to spare her the smallest
worry. “I will speak to her myself,”
added this chicken-hearted hero, wondering
the while whether he would get the best of
the interview or the second best. “Don't
be in the least troubled, Huldah. I shall be
firm with her, but I shall be mild. She must
be spoken to. We can't have this kind of
thing going on. It disgraces our family,
and it disturbs you. I must and will stop it.
But I will be gentle with her.”

“You are so harsh, Mr. Murray,” replied
the old lady, who believed in his timorous
threats, as a right-minded goose believes in
the hissing and flapping of her gander.

“I am afraid, John, that you will find it
a hard job to bell the cat,” suggested Colonel
Murray, well aware of his brother's noncombativeness.
“I know that she is a sly
little puss, and I suspect that she has claws,
notwithstanding her nice purring. Had not
I better be your aid-de-camp, and deliver
your message?”

But this proposition frightened Mrs. Murray,
who knew that the old soldier always
did his duty like one under oath, and who
even stood herself in some awe of him. She
turned to her husband with a nervous jerk
and a glance of alarm, which caused him to
object at once.

“Leave it to me, Julian,” he said, lifting
himself slowly out of his arm-chair, and balancing
his portly form on his tender feet, as
formidable as a ruffled hen. “I am able for
her, God willing.”

“I do think Mr. Murray had better attend
to it,” urged Mrs. Murray, turning her eyes
imploringly upon the colonel.

“Very well, Huldah,” nodded the latter,
always considerate to the old lady, as he privately
called her.

And, with this understanding, that Rector
Murray should head off our sly and persevering
little claimant, the interview came
to an end.

Leaving the house, Colonel Murray chanced
upon Bradford in the street, and held with
him a dialogue worth noticing.

“Have you known any thing, major,” he
inquired, “of a claim which my niece by
marriage, Mrs. Augustus Murray, is trying
to push through Congress?”

“I have known of it,” confessed the young
man, beginning to color. “I have not aided
it, but I was aware of it.”

“Then I must say, major, that you have
not done a friendly thing in failing to reveal
it to me,” declared the old officer and gentleman,
in grave displeasure.

“I admit it, colonel,” bowed Bradford,
once, be it remembered, a staff-officer of
Murray's. “I see it distinctly, now that you
speak of it. I sincerely beg your pardon.”

The colonel bowed, lifted his hat with solemn
courtesy, hesitated a moment, and then
said, gently, “We all make our mistakes.”

However, he could talk no more about it;
he added a dry “Good-evening,” and walked
away.

Bradford went to his rooms in low spirits,
and never rested until he had written his
former chief a letter of apology, with such
explanations as he could add without attacking
his former sweetheart. It was one
of the best signs in this problematical character
that he should set so much store by
the good-will and good opinion of such a
spotless gentleman as Colonel Murray.