Ailsa Paige

She stopped short, considering the printed page. Then, doubtfully:

"And what if, mad with wrongs themselves have wrought,
In their own treachery caught,
By their own fears made bold,
And leagued with him of old
Who long since, in the limits of the North,
Set up his evil throne, and warred with God—
What if, both mad and blinded in their rage
Our foes should fling us down the mortal gauge,
And with a hostile horde profane our sod!"

The girl reddened, sat breathing a little faster, eyes on the page; then:

"Nor would we shun the battleground!
. . . The winds in our defence
Shall seem to blow; to us the hills shall lend
Their firmness and their calm,
And in our stiffened sinews we shall blend
The strength of pine and palm!
Call up the clashing elements around
And test the right and wrong!
On one side creeds that dare to preach
What Christ and Paul refused to teach–"

"Oh!" she broke off with a sharp intake of breath; "Do they believe such things of us in the South, Celia?"

The pink fire deepened in Celia Craig's cheeks; her lips unclosed, tightened, as though a quick retort had been quickly reconsidered. She meditated. Then: "Honey-bell," she said tranquilly, "if we are bitter, try to remember that we are a nation in pain."

"A nation!"

"Dear, we have always been that—only the No'th has just found it out. Charleston is telling her now. God give that our cannon need not repeat it."

"But, Celia, the cannon can't! The same flag belongs to us both."

"Not when it flies over Sumter, Honey-bird." There came a subtle ringing sound in Celia Craig's voice; she leaned forward, taking the newspaper from Ailsa's idle fingers:

"Try to be fair," she said in unsteady tones. "God knows I am not trying to teach you secession, but suppose the guns on Governor's Island were suddenly swung round and pointed at this street? Would you care ve'y much what flag happened to be flying over Castle William? Listen to another warning from this stainless poet of the South." She opened the newspaper feverishly, glanced quickly down the columns, and holding it high under the chandelier, read in a hushed but distinct voice, picking out a verse here and there at random:

"Calm as that second summer which precedes
The first fall of the snow,
In the broad sunlight of heroic deeds
A city bides her foe.

"As yet, behind high ramparts stem and proud
Where bolted thunders sleep,
Dark Sumter like a battlemented cloud
Towers o'er the solemn deep.

"But still along the dim Atlantic's line
The only hostile smoke
Creeps like a harmless mist above the brine
From some frail floating oak.

"And still through streets re-echoing with trade
Walk grave and thoughtful men
Whose hands may one day wield the patriot's blade
As lightly as the pen.

"And maidens, with such eyes as would grow dim
Over a wounded hound
Seem each one to have caught the strength of him
Whose sword-knot she hath hound.

"Thus, girt without and garrisoned at home,
Day patient following day,
Old Charleston looks from roof and spire and dome
Across her tranquil bay.

"Shall the spring dawn, and she, still clad in steel,
And with an unscathed brow,
Watch o'er a sea unvexed by hostile keel
As fair and free as now?

"We know not. In the Temples of the Fates
God has inscribed her doom;
And, all untroubled in her faith she waits
Her triumph or her tomb!"

The hushed charm of their mother's voice fascinated the children. Troubled, uncertain, Ailsa rose, took a few irresolute steps toward the extension where her brother-in-law still paced to and fro in the darkness, the tip of his cigar aglow. Then she turned suddenly.

"Can't you understand, Ailsa?" asked her sister-in-law wistfully.

"Celia—dearest," she stammered, "I simply can't understand. . . . I thought the nation was greater than all–"

"The State is greater, dear. Good men will realise that when they see a sovereign people standing all alone for human truth and justice—standing with book and sword under God's favour, as sturdily as ever Israel stood in battle fo' the right!—I don't mean to be disloyal to my husband in saying this befo' my children. But you ask me, and I must tell the truth if I answer at all."

Slender, upright, transfigured with a flushed and girlish beauty wholly strange to them, she moved restlessly back and forth across the room, a slim, lovely, militant figure all aglow with inspiration, all aquiver with emotion too long and loyally suppressed.

Paige and Marye, astonished, watched her without a word. Ailsa stood with one hand resting on the mantel, a trifle pale but also silent, her startled eyes following this new incarnation wearing the familiar shape of Celia Craig.

"Ailsa!"

"Yes, dear."

"Can you think evil of a people who po' out their hearts in prayer and praise? Do traitors importune fo' blessings?"

She turned nervously to the piano and struck a ringing chord, another—and dropped to the chair, head bowed on her slim childish neck. Presently there stole through the silence a tremulous voice intoning the "Libera Nos," with its strange refrain:

"A furore Normanorum Libera nos, O Domme!" Then, head raised, the gas-light flashing on her dull-gold hair, her voice poured forth all that was swelling and swelling up in her bruised and stifled heart: