"We'll shoot 'em on the run, damn 'em--like rabbits, sir," he said to Cobb as he entered, the Vermonter being the only man likely to communicate with the invaders and so make known the warlike intentions of at least one citizen, and the utter hopelessness of any prolonged resistance. Waggles, who had followed close on his master's heels, was too excited to sit down, but stood on three legs, his eye turned toward Talbot, as if wanting to pick up any game which Billy's trusty fowling-piece might bring down.
A quiet, repressed smile passed, over Oliver's face as he watched Waggles and his master; but he spoke no word to the Nimrod. He could not help thinking how Hank Pollard would handle the fashion-plate if he ever closed his great bony hands upon him.
Judge Bowman now joined the group, bowing to Richard rather coldly and planting himself squarely in front of Oliver.
"There's only one side to this question, young man, for you," he said. "Don't be fooled by those fellow up in New York. I know them--known them for years. Look up there"--and he pointed to the portrait of Oliver's ancestor above the mantel.
"What do you think he would do if he were alive to-day! Stick to your own, my boy--stick to your own!"
General Mactavish now hurried in, drawing off his white gloves as he entered the room, followed by Tom Gunning, Carter Thorn, and Mowbray, an up-country man. The four had been dining together and had also left the table on receipt of the Colonel's message. They evidently appreciated the gravity of the situation, for they stood just outside the excited group that filled the centre of the large room, listening eagerly to Richard's clear tones pleading for moderation--"in a crisis which," he urged, "required the greatest public restraint and self-control," and which would surely "plunge the State into the most horrible of wars" if those about him listened to the counsels of such men as Clayton and Judge Bowman.
During the whole discussion Amos Cobb stood silent, leaning against the mantel-piece, his cold gray eyes fixed on the excited throng, his thin lips curling now and then. When the Defence Committee, in spite of Richard's protest, had at last been formed, and its members formally instructed to meet the enemy outside the city and protest, first by voice and then, if necessary, by arms, against the unwarrantable invasion of the soil of their State, the Vermonter buttoned up his coat slowly, one button after another, fastened each one with a determined gesture, drew on his gloves, set his lips tight, singled out Oliver and Richard, shook their hands with the greatest warmth, and walked straight out of the club-house. Some time during the night he drove in a hack to Mr. Stiger's house; roused the old cashier from his sleep; took him and the big walled-town-key down to the bank; unlocked the vault and dragged from it two wooden boxes filled with gold coin, his own property, and which the month before he had deposited there for safe-keeping. These, with Stiger's assistance, he carried to the hack. Within the hour, the two boxes with their contents were locked up in bureau-drawer in his own house awaiting their immediate shipment to New York.
The next morning Malachi's wizened face was thrust inside Oliver's bedroom door. He was shaking with terror, his eyes almost starting from his head.
"Marse Ollie, Marse Ollie, git up quick as you kin!
De Yankees is come; de town is black wid 'em!"
Oliver sprang from his bed and stood half-dazed looking into Malachi's eyes.
"How do you know? Who told you?"
"I done seen 'em. Been up since daylight. Dey got guns wid 'em. Fo' Gawd dis is tur-ble!" The old man's voice trembled--he could hardly articulate.
Oliver hurried into his clothes; stepped noiselessly downstairs so as not to wake his father and mother, and, closing the front door softly behind him, stood for a moment on the top step. Should he forget the insults of the night before and go straight to Colonel Clayton, and try to dissuade him from his purpose, or should he find the regiment and warn them of their danger?
A vague sense of personal responsibility for whatever the day might bring forth took possession of him --as though the turning-point in his life had come, without his altogether realizing it. These men from the North were coming to his own town, where he had been born and brought up, and where they should be hospitably received. If Clayton had his way they would be met with clenched hands and perhaps with blows. That these invaders were armed, and that each man carried forty rounds of ammunition and was perfectly able to take care of himself, did not impress him. He only remembered that they were of the same blood as the men who had befriended him, and that they were in great personal danger.
The angry shouts of a crowd of men and boys approaching the Square from a side street, now attracted his attention. They rushed past Oliver without noticing him, and, hurrying on through the gate, crossed the park, in the direction of the railroad station and the docks. One of the mob, lacking a club, stopped long enough to wrench a paling from the rickety fence enclosing the Square, trampling the pretty crocuses and the yellow tulips under foot.
Each new arrival, seeing the gap, followed the first man's example, throwing the branches and tendrils to the ground as they worked, until the whole panel was wrecked and the vines were torn from their roots.
As they swept by the Clayton house, half a dozen men, led by the Colonel, ran down the steps, and joined the throng.
Oliver, seeing now that all his efforts for peace would be hopeless, ran through the Square close behind the shouting mob, dashed down a side street parallel to that through which the cars carrying the troops were to pass on their way to Washington, turned into an alley, and found himself on the waterfront, opposite one of the dock slips.
