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THE STAND-BY 
 
THE STAND-BY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND P. DOLE 
 
 Author of " Talks about Law 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1897, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
TO MY SON 
 
 HENRY HAILE DOLE 
 
 341033 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAET ONE ANTE-BELLUM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. CRIMSON AND BLUE . . . . . . 3 
 
 II. Miss DENMAN . , . . . . . 9 
 
 III. ON THE "MYRA-GLADYS" . . . . . 18 
 
 IV. " DON T Go ! " . " . . . . , . .21 
 
 V. LUCIFER .*....... . . , . . 27 
 
 VI. "THE PRESENTIMENT is FALSE" . . . .33 
 
 VII. THE BEGINNING . . , . . . 44 
 
 VIII. ON THE EIVER . . . . . . . . 50 
 
 IX. WHEREIN DANIELS DIFFER . .... . 57 
 
 X. " WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD" . . .65 
 
 XL A BET 73 
 
 PAET TWO-THE FIEST CAMPAIGN 
 
 I. IN EEM . . ... . . . . 83 
 
 II. THE LOCKOUT . 89 
 
 III. " I SHALL HATE You "... . . . 97 
 
 IV. THE TEETH OF THE LAW 105 
 
 V. PROSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY .... 115 
 
 VI. O LEARY 126 
 
 VII. TUNNELING 132 
 
 VIII. "I MUST SPEAK Now" 140 
 
 IX. COLLAPSE 146 
 
 ix 
 
* CONTENTS 
 
 PART THREE -THE LEAGUE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. FORMING THE LEAGUE 155 
 
 H. THE BILL 162 
 
 III. AN OFFER AND A PURCHASE .... 170 
 
 IV. ONE TO Six 175 
 
 V. THE VOICE OF MAMMON 181 
 
 VI. SEVEN DEVILS 185 
 
 VH. IN ITS MAJESTY 191 
 
 VIII. HER ANSWER . 199 
 
 IX. THE CONVENTION 204 
 
 X. "O DEATH, WHERE is THY VICTORY!" . . . 209 
 
 APPENDIX 219 
 
THE STAND-BY 
 
PAET ONE 
 
 
 ANTE-BELLUM 
 
THE STAND-BY 
 
 CRD1SON AND BLUE 
 
 )HERE had been excuses without end. There 
 always are when defeats seem disgraceful. 
 They said that their new shell had been too 
 light j that the water had been rough ; that 
 they had had the course across the eel-grass. The Yale 
 crew had lost its race by many lengths, and had become 
 an object of ridicule in the public press. 
 
 Harvard was laden with boating honors. The crew 
 that had won a large share of them, and had left Yale 
 almost out of sight, was to row with her again. 
 
 But Yale was hopeful, if not confident. Her under 
 graduates and thousands of her alumni knew that if 
 she was beaten it would be honorable defeat. The 
 sporting fraternity and the general public believed that 
 Harvard w^ould win, but they expected that Yale would 
 fight hard enough to make it a great race, and even 
 Harvard men admitted that it might be close. 
 
 3 
 
-STAND-BY 
 
 "You see, Senator Clifford/ said Tom Andrews, 
 and lie voiced the general opinion, "you see, we 
 would n t have had a ghost of a show if it had n t been 
 for the Stand-by. Harvard has a veteran crew, but 
 we ve got the captain. He s all brains and sand. 
 He won t make any errors, and he will keep every man 
 in his shell up to his work for every ounce of muscle 
 there is in him from start to finish." 
 
 The day was perfect. The broad expanse of water, 
 unruffled by a breeze, glistened in the sunlight like 
 burnished silver. All things favored a fair trial of 
 strength and skill. 
 
 From their quarters, a mile or more above, the rival 
 crews swept down the river, not at speed, but with 
 a good, swinging stroke that started the sweat and 
 limbered their muscles. 
 
 In addition to the cockswains they numbered sixteen 
 men, picked from many hundred. For months they 
 had worked to gain strength and endurance. For 
 months they had rowed, at first in the gymnasium 
 tanks, then, when spring came, on the harbor and the 
 river. For weeks they had retired at ten, and had 
 eaten at the training-table. For the time being, like 
 Samson and Hercules, they were men set apart from 
 their fellows, selected to uphold in a brief but agoniz 
 ing contest the honor of two great universities. 
 
 They were greeted with deafening cheers from the 
 "movable grand stand," the long train of platform- 
 cars that lined the west bank of the river. 
 
 " Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Arvard ! " yelled hundreds of Cambridge under-gradu- 
 ates, in perfect time. 
 
CRIMSON AND BLUE 5 
 
 " Harvard, Harvard, Harvard ! n shouted their thou 
 sands of friends. 
 
 Distinct as the voice of one man, loud as a peal of 
 thunder, came the answering cry : " Breke-kek-ex ko- 
 ax ko-ax ! Breke-kek-ex ko-ax ko-ax ! O op, O op, 
 parabalou ! Yale ! " 
 
 " Rah, rah, rah! Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Yale ! " shouted thousands who wore the blue. 
 
 " Hie, haee, hoc ! Hug-us, hug-us, hug-us ! Yum, 
 yum! Smack, smack! Vassar-r-r!" piped a mis 
 chievous ventriloquist, as the roar died away. 
 
 The boats took their places. 
 
 It was the moment of sickening dread that comes 
 before battle, but every man in the crews sat rigid and 
 quiet, ready to fight for the last inch, even when over 
 wrought muscles were thrilling with agony and an in 
 stant s respite was relief from supreme torture. 
 
 " Are you ready ? " There was a quiet response from 
 each boat, and then the crack of a pistol. 
 
 At the pistol s flash eight sinewy bodies bent to their 
 work for the glory of the crimson, and eight for the 
 glory of the blue. Harvard started with a magnificent 
 spurt and instantly took the lead. Yale followed 
 with thirty-two long, strong, uniform strokes to the 
 minute. For a mile the distance between the boats 
 did not perceptibly change. 
 
 The platform-cars, with their thousands of specta 
 tors, kept opposite the rowers, and ever and again 
 cheers burst forth like salvos of artillery: " Rah, 
 rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! Ar- 
 vard ! " " Breke-kek-ex ko-ax ko-ax ! Breke-kek-ex 
 ko-ax ko-ax ! O op, O op, parabalou ! Yale ! " " Har- 
 i* 
 
6 THE STAND-BY 
 
 vard, Harvard, Harvard !" " Yale, Yale, Yale !" The 
 excitement became intense. 
 
 Harvard maintained her lead till the second half of 
 the second mile, when she made a spurt, putting her 
 more than a length ahead. 
 
 The spurt was good generalship. It seemed to 
 presage easy victory. It disheartened Yale s friends. 
 It set Harvard s wild with enthusiasm. The cheers 
 for Harvard were deafening. The cries for Yale were 
 like a wail of despair. It was a terrible ordeal for a 
 new crew rowing against veterans flushed with victory, 
 an ordeal that nothing but indomitable will, iron dis 
 cipline, and perfect confidence in a leader could sustain. 
 A momentary discouragement, the least relaxation of 
 effort on the part of a single man, and Yale s chance 
 was hopelessly lost. 
 
 It was good generalship when Napoleon hurled his 
 Old Guard to foam itself away against the British 
 squares at Waterloo, for on a hundred battle-fields 
 it had carried all before it; but Englishmen and 
 Scotchmen were there to stay as conquerors or as 
 corpses. 
 
 At the end of the third mile Yale had raised her 
 stroke a trifle and was scarcely a length behind. Both 
 sides cheered frantically. 
 
 In the first quarter of the fourth and last mile Yale 
 spurted and began to creep up; but Harvard again 
 quickened, and the gain was lost. 
 
 In the last half Harvard began to show the exhaust 
 ing effect of her tremendous spurts, and her stroke 
 became ragged. 
 
 " Our boys have won the race all right," said Har- 
 
CRIMSON AND BLUE 7 
 
 vard men, "but if there ; s sand enough, left in those 
 fellows to make a handsome spurt, we won t have much 
 to spare." 
 
 " We ve still got a show," replied Yale men, " and 
 the Stand-by 11 fight her for all there is in it." 
 
 " Now," said the Yale captain to his crew, " a spurt 
 to the finish ! " 
 
 In that low, quiet tone was the fierce joy of conflict 
 and the inspiration of victory. The response came 
 from bare, brown, sinewy arms. Breath was too pre 
 cious for words. There was no sound save the quick, 
 regular dipping of the spoons, and the rushing of 
 the water, and the wild cheers from the west shore. 
 Under those long, powerful strokes the shell seemed 
 to rise like a flying-fish and fairly leap through the 
 water. 
 
 Harvard had made three great spurts, the last in the 
 last two minutes. It was not in flesh and blood to 
 make another so soon. Yale was gaining steadily; 
 then she touched barely touched a mass of floating 
 seaweed. It delayed her only an instant, but that in 
 stant brought the loss, as it seemed, of her only chance. 
 
 The rival crew so regarded it, and rowed with more 
 confidence. The spectators so understood it, and 
 " Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Arvard ! " burst forth like a peal of thunder. 
 
 An expression of ghastly despair flitted over the 
 faces of the Yale crew. " Now ! " exclaimed their cap 
 tain, and his voice, though low, stirred them like a 
 trumpet. The expression of despair vanished. His 
 spirit had recovered full possession of them the spirit 
 that in the supreme moment counts life nothing, vie- 
 
8 THE STAND-BY 
 
 tory everything. There was no flurry. The thirty-six 
 strokes to the minute had the regularity, sweep, and 
 power of the thirty- two. 
 
 Seconds passed. The cheering was continuous now, 
 the excitement was so intense. The boats were prow 
 and prow, and the finish was only half a dozen rods 
 away. 
 
 As the Yale cockswain glanced at his captain he saw 
 that his face looked drawn ; but the eyes themselves 
 were bright, the teeth were set, the stroke did not falter, 
 and the iron muscles still bent the strong oar like a 
 reed. 
 
 A moment later the boats swept past the line, Yale 
 three feet ahead, and her captain fell back into the 
 arms of the man behind him. 
 
 The honor of a great university was redeemed. It 
 was worth living for. It was worth dying for. 
 
 Smooth-cheeked freshmen, dignified seniors, and 
 gray-haired alumni, wild with excitement, rushed 
 down to the water to watch the crew as it boarded 
 the college launch. Anxiously, tenderly, proudly, the 
 captain was taken aboard. 
 
 From the harbor the guns of the yachts thundered 
 their salutes, but louder and longer and wilder than 
 the thunders of the cannon rose the cry from twenty 
 thousand throats : " Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! 
 Rah, rah, rah ! Yale ! " 
 
II 
 
 MISS DENMAN 
 
 )OU see," said Tom Andrews, " chum was n t 
 a boating man at first. We made him try 
 for the crew because we all knew there 
 was n t any one else who could bring out 
 as he could the full strength of every oar just when it 
 was needed most. It s a way he has of managing 
 men." 
 
 " Which means winning the battle of life," remarked 
 Senator Clifford. 
 
 " There s no knowing what he 11 be one of these 
 days," continued Tom. " He s the most popular man 
 in the class, and a Bones man." 
 
 "What s a Bones man?" asked Miss Clifford, a 
 rather plain young lady with a pleasant face. 
 
 " That s what I d like to know," said Tom. It s 
 a senior society, the most select and mysterious of the 
 college societies. He is n t enough of a dig to be 
 valedictorian, but he 11 win the De Forest, and that s 
 a great deal better." 
 
 " What is the De Forest ? " inquired Mrs. Clifford. 
 
 " It s the best Townsend." 
 
 9 
 
10 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "And what is a Townsend?" 
 
 "The six best writers and speakers in the senior 
 class get the Townsend prizes, and the best of the six 
 gets the De Forest. It s the highest literary honor a 
 Yale man can win. Craigin is one of the best writers 
 in our class, and the best speaker." 
 
 "He certainly has a warm advocate in you, Tom/ 7 
 said Mrs. Clifford. 
 
 " Why should n t he have ? He d stand by me to the 
 death. He s the Stand-by. That s what we all call 
 him, and we fellows size each other up pretty well, Mrs. 
 Clifford. He would n t go back on a friend if a pack 
 of wolves were at his throat. He s the whitest man I 
 know, and as brainy and brave as Uncle John Denman." 
 
 " Thank you ! " interrupted the beautiful girl. 
 
 "That s all right, Isabel! We know you think 
 there never was any one else in the world like your 
 father j but I tell you, Craigin s more like him in 
 some ways than you d believe, with all your gift for 
 reading people." 
 
 "Why, Tom, I was n t sarcastic. I was glad you 
 spoke that way about papa and your friend." 
 
 " You see, Senator Clifford," continued Tom, return 
 ing to his eulogy, " we fellows all feel that Craigin is 
 different from the rest of us lives on a higher plane, 
 as Prex would say. He s a little stiff and cranky in 
 some of his notions at least you d think so, and we 
 think so ; but we don t like him any the less for it, for 
 there is n t a bit of cant about him, and we all know 
 if he thought a thing was right he d stand by it, life 
 or death, and never flinch a hair." 
 
 " I d like" began the old statesman. 
 
MISS DENMAN 11 
 
 He did n t finish the sentence, for at that moment 
 several hundred college men, in the halls and corridors 
 of the hotel and in the streets close by, struck up their 
 
 " Oh ! the bulldog on the bank, 
 
 And the bullfrog in the pool ; 
 Oh ! the bulldog on the bank, 
 
 And the bullfrog in the pool ; 
 Oh ! the bulldog on the bank, 
 
 And the bullfrog in the pool ; 
 The bulldog called the bullfrog 
 
 A great big water fool. 
 
 " Singing, 
 
 Shool, shool, shool I rool, 
 Shool I shag-a-rack, shool-a-barb-a-cool, 
 
 The first time I saw her, 
 Shool I bally eel, 
 Dis cum bibble lola boo, slow reel. 
 
 " Saw my leg off, 
 Saw my leg off, 
 Saw my leg off 
 Short ! 
 
 " A boy he had an auger 
 
 That bored two holes at once ; 
 A boy he had an auger 
 
 That bored two holes at once ; 
 And we buried him in the lowlands, lowlands, 
 
 lowlands, 
 And we buried him in the lowlands, low ! 
 
 "Old Noah he did build an ark, 
 
 Luddy, fuddy, oh ! poor luddy, heigh-ho ! 
 To sail about in Central Park. 
 
 Luddy, fuddy, oh ! poor luddy, fuddy ! 
 Oh ! luddy, fuddy, poor luddy, heigh-ho ! " 
 
12 THE STAND-BY 
 
 After serenading the hotel for fifteen or twenty 
 minutes they started out through the town. Hundreds 
 of students marched up and down the streets, singing 
 their songs and yelling, " Breke-kek-ex ko-ax ko-ax ! 
 Breke-kek-ex ko-ax ko-ax ! O op, O op, parabalou ! 
 Craigin ! " Hundreds of men who were not up in " The 
 Frogs " of Aristophanes, from graduates of forty years 
 standing to the relatives and friends of mere fresh 
 men, joined the procession, shouting at the top of their 
 voices, " Rah, 7 rah, rah ! Rah, rah, rah ! Rah, rah, 
 rah ! Yale ! " 
 
 "Tom," said the senator, "I wish we might meet 
 your friend." 
 
 " I d set my heart on it," replied Tom. " I spoke to 
 the doctor about it awhile ago, and he said he thought 
 it would be all right in an hour or so. I 11 go and see 
 now." 
 
 In about fifteen minutes a shout came from the 
 hotel office, "Here s Craigin." The few bystanders 
 took it up. The news passed from lip to lip as beacon- 
 lights flash from hill fco hill, and from the marching 
 hosts down the street and from every part of the little 
 city, filled to overflowing with friends of old Yale, came 
 the exultant cry, "Craigin s all right! Rah for 
 Craigin ! Rah for the Stand-by ! " The procession 
 headed down street turned about. In a few minutes 
 the hotel was packed and surrounded with thousands 
 of men, shouting, " What s the matter with Craigin ? 
 He 7 s all right ! " Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed, 
 and the hubbub showed no signs of abating. Every 
 now and then the senator and his party heard single 
 voices shouting, " How are you, Craigin ? " " Bully for 
 
MISS DENMAN 13 
 
 you, Craigin ! " " God bless you, Craigin ! " and then 
 single voices were drowned in a mighty roar. 
 
 At last Tom returned with the hero of the day. 
 
 " Senator and Mrs. Clifford/ 7 he said, " allow me to 
 present my friend Mr. Craigin; Miss Clifford, Mr. 
 Craigin ; my cousin Miss Denman, Mr. Craigin. 77 
 
 Craigin had exchanged his rowing costume as 
 nearly Adam s as decency permitted for a fashion 
 ably cut and perfectly fitting summer suit of rough 
 navy blue. His ordinary weight of about two hundred 
 pounds had been reduced by training to one hundred 
 and seventy-five, and by the terrible contest through 
 which he had just passed to one hundred and sixty- 
 seven. He was five feet ten in height, straight as an 
 arrow, and of remarkable figure. His feet were rather 
 small than otherwise, his legs compact and shapely, 
 but not large. From the hips down there was nothing 
 striking in the outlines of his person. From the hips 
 up he thickened like a double wedge. His shoulders 
 were immensely broad in proportion to his hips, and 
 his chest was correspondingly full and deep. Another 
 peculiarity was the extraordinary length of his arms. 
 As the senator grasped the young man s hand he 
 noticed that, though small, it was hard, almost like 
 iron, and that the large wrist was like the pastern of 
 a thoroughbred trotter. The old man had a keen eye 
 for points in sporting matters as well as in things 
 legal and political. " H 7 m ! 77 he said to himself, " the 
 youngster could strike a knock-down blow with John 
 L. Sullivan. 77 
 
 If the " youngster 77 resembled the world s late cham 
 pion in length and strength of arms and in massiveness 
 
14 THE STAND-BY 
 
 of chest and shoulders, there was no hint of the prize 
 fighter in the noble face and head that crowned them. 
 It was a strong face, distinguished-looking rather than 
 handsome, with a determined chin, a beautiful and 
 sensitive mouth, a broad upper lip covered with a 
 brown mustache, a fine nose, and clear blue eyes. He 
 was evidently a blond, but training in the hot sun had 
 made his skin for the time being a mass of tan and 
 freckles. 
 
 For a moment they looked into each other s eyes 
 the hero of that great race, whose friend had declared 
 him brainy and brave as John Denman, and John 
 Denman s daughter, whose beauty would have distin 
 guished her among thousands. But more striking 
 than her beauty were Miss Denman s inimitable grace 
 of motion, and the strong, proud character manifest in 
 her radiant features and large dark eyes, 
 
 " We came over from Newport to see the race, and 
 have n t been disappointed," said the senator. "We 
 did n t have anything like this in my college days. 
 They say it 7 s the best on record. I congratulate you, 
 Mr. Craigin." 
 
 " I m glad Yale can accept congratulations/ 7 replied 
 Craigin. " But honors are about even, Senator Clifford 
 only three feet difference in four miles." 
 
 The terribly dry, choking sensation, and the feeling 
 of having been rasped internally from lungs to throat, 
 were gradually passing away ; but the athlete s voice, 
 naturally clear as a silver bell, still trembled and was 
 broken and husky. There was a pallor under his brown 
 skin, and under his eyes were large black circles. How 
 could it be otherwise ? He had put his life into that race. 
 
MISS DENMAN 15 
 
 Senator Clifford noticed it, and the modesty of the 
 young man s bearing and answer. It was the bearing 
 of one accustomed to good society and perfectly self- 
 possessed, yet evidently flattered by an introduction to 
 the famous statesman. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the senator, " that won t do ! I gave 
 you a non-negotiable congratulation, as we lawyers 
 would put it, one you can t indorse over to Yale and 
 Harvard. The others did well, but 1 7 m enough of a 
 sporting man, Mr. Craigin, to know that you won that 
 race only by putting your own brains and your own 
 life against victory. You see, they all understand it," 
 he remarked, as his voice was drowned by the deep, 
 harsh, guttural cry, in perfect time, from hundreds of 
 students in the street below: " Breke-kek-ex ko-ax 
 ko-ax ! Breke-kek-ex ko-ax ko-ax ! O op, O op, para- 
 balou ! Craigin ! " 
 
 The conversation became general, and, sitting oppo 
 site Miss Denman, Craigin forgot all about his triumph 
 and that he was under the doctor s care. 
 
 While the carriage was waiting to take the Cliffords 
 and Miss Denman to their train the senator took 
 Craigin aside for a little private conversation. 
 
 " My boy," he said, " I m very glad I Ve met you: 
 If you 11 permit it, I want to say that I Ve taken to 
 you greatly. I like you ; I believe in you. I hope the 
 time will come when I can serve you." 
 
 " I m very glad, proud, to have you feel that way 
 toward me." 
 
 " Tom says you re going into journalism." 
 
 "Yes, I Ve .intended to for a long time." 
 
 " If you are satisfied that that s your vocation, I 
 
16 THE STAND-BY 
 
 don t know as I would want to influence you against 
 it if I could j but I m an old man, and have seen a 
 great deal of the world, and I know you 11 take it as 
 kindly as I mean it if I suggest something for you to 
 think over." 
 
 " I certainly will. I shall be very thankful." 
 
 " You re not a man for a subordinate position, to 
 be a mere editorial writer ; and the managing editor 
 of a great paper is the slave of the counting-house, of 
 private interests and political expediency. He can t 
 have a nice conscience and be a success." 
 
 "Do you think so?" 
 
 " I know so. He can t be honest any more than a 
 politician can be, nor half as much." 
 
 " But, Senator Clifford, you re a politician, and every 
 body, even your enemies, says you re honest." 
 
 "Because I m honest according to the world s 
 standard. I never had a dollar that was n t fairly 
 mine, never was false to a client, never went back on 
 the Republican party, and I think I never lost a good 
 chance to give the Democrats hot shot that s my re 
 ligion; and, as to the rest, I take the world pretty 
 much as I find it. I ve got a low standard, don t pro 
 fess anything else, and live up to it. You ve got a 
 high standard, and I believe you live up to it. One 
 reason I take to you so much is because I ve found 
 the genuine article of your grade scarce as hen s teeth ; 
 and another is because I love a fighter all the world 
 loves a fighter." 
 
 " Do you think it s easier to get on with a nice con 
 science in law than it is as a managing editor ? " 
 
 " A hundred times. It may handicap a young law- 
 
MISS DENMAN 17 
 
 yer at first, but there s a class of clients in business 
 centers who are willing to pay large fees for absolute 
 honesty with brains and learning, and the profession 
 demands such men for the bench." 
 
 "Senator Clifford," said Miss Denman, returning 
 and laying her gloved hand on his shoulder, " the train 
 goes in seven minutes. If we don t start now we shall 
 all be left." 
 
 " Gad ! is n t she a bird ? " exclaimed one of Craigin s 
 classmates, thirty seconds later, as Craigin handed her 
 into the carriage. 
 
 " A bird ! " retorted another. " I say a pair of birds ! 
 And a finer pair never was mated." 
 
 That night Craigin left the banquet early by doctor s 
 orders, and went to bed and slept, and in his dreams 
 there came to him, not the mighty voice of thousands 
 of men shouting his praises, but a few and simple 
 words of a girl of seventeen. 
 
Ill 
 
 ON THE " MYRA-GLADYS " 
 
 iHE Earl and Countess of Throckmorton and 
 their two sons, Viscount Stadwick and the 
 Hon. Mr. Langdon, on their yachting trip 
 along the coast, stopped over a few days at 
 Newport. Years before the earl, as British ambassa 
 dor, and Senator Clifford, as American minister, had 
 represented their respective governments at one of 
 the great European capitals. The acquaintance there 
 formed had ripened into an intimate friendship, and 
 so it happened that when they met at Newport, just 
 after the great regatta, the senatorial party changed 
 their plans and went yachting with the earl s up the 
 coast of Labrador. 
 
 The senator had spent his boyhood on a rocky New 
 England farm. He had worked his way through col 
 lege by swinging his scythe in summer and teaching 
 district schools in winter. Unaided he had struggled 
 to front rank in his profession and to leadership in 
 American politics. His distinction was personal. No 
 son could inherit it. Even his modest fortune was al 
 most sure to be scattered or lost in the second or third 
 generation. He was a representative product of demo 
 cratic institutions, as his friend was of a great and 
 
 18 
 
ON THE "MYRA-GLADYS" 19 
 
 proud aristocracy the one of the man that dies, the 
 other of the family that goes on from age to age. 
 
 For the gigantic, fat, red-faced, red-whiskered, red 
 headed, jolly old Englishman, who wore a slouch-hat 
 and pea-jacket and smoked a corn-cob pipe on board 
 his yacht, and played ring-toss as merrily as a boy and 
 whist as seriously as if the fate of empires hung on it, 
 was one of the shrewdest statesmen, one of the richest 
 and most blue-blooded noblemen, in Europe, with a 
 pedigree crossing royal lines and stretching back into 
 the dark ages. The Cliffords and Isabel Denman well 
 knew how much of a personage he was, and that the 
 big, handsome young viscount, who was so attentive 
 to them all, especially to Isabel, as surely as he lived 
 would one day be one of the greatest of English peers. 
 
 The days passed swiftly as they skirted the coast of 
 Labrador. A rugged coast, indented with bays and 
 inlets and fine, deep harbors. " Dark and yellow 
 headlands towering over the waters, some grim and 
 naked, others clear in the pale green of mosses and 
 dwarf shrubbery. Eocky precipices, fantastic and pic 
 turesque in form, with stony vales winding alway 
 among the blue hills of the interior." Islands, islands 
 everywhere ! Majestic icebergs, slowly drifting south 
 ward, gleaming under the sunlight and under the moon 
 light in all the colors of the rainbow, like huge prisms ! 
 
 Stopping now and then at points of interest, Battle 
 Harbor, Ivuktoka, Point Rigoulette, Cape Webuck, Cape 
 Chudleigh, the party spent a month cruising to the 
 northernmost confines of the great peninsula and back 
 again. A month is a long time when young men and 
 maidens are together on a pleasure-yacht. They played 
 
20 THE STAND-BY 
 
 games; they sang songs; they danced, Mrs. Clifford 
 playing the piano and the old earl the fiddle. When 
 the fog settled down and there was nothing to see, they 
 improvised a little farce, and read the same books. 
 Most delightful of all were the moonlight evenings, 
 when they sat on deck wrapped in furs, and talked and 
 sang and gazed on the grand, stern outlines of the 
 desolate land and the ever-changing sea and the glory 
 of the northern heavens. 
 
 Long before the voyage was ended Isabel knew, 
 though no word had been spoken, that the heir to that 
 great earldom loved her with his whole heart, and real 
 ized that she was beginning to like him better than any 
 other young man she had ever met. 
 
 " Getting serious, is n t it ? " observed the earl, one 
 night as they were skirting the Maine coast on their 
 return. 
 
 " I m glad of it, John," replied the countess ; " she 11 
 be a woman among thousands only " 
 
 " Only what?" 
 
 " Only I wish she was n t a brewer s daughter ! " 
 
 "So do I! " exclaimed the earl. "It may be class 
 prejudice, but in spite of all Clifford says about the 
 man, I can t help it." 
 
 Isabel read their hearts like an open book the joy 
 with which they would welcome her as a daughter, the 
 distaste, which they supposed so carefully concealed, 
 for her father s plebeian occupation. It stung her to 
 the quick. 
 
 " He s a brewer," she said to herself, " but he s John 
 Denman. I ve never seen a man to stand beside him 
 unless unless it s the Stand-by." 
 
IV 
 
 "DON T GO!" 
 
 >T was senior vacation. Craigin was a De 
 Forest, and in three weeks would be a 
 B. A. and enter the great race of life. Ex 
 aminations had closed that day, and he and 
 Andrews were spending one of their last evenings to 
 gether in the old room in South College. 
 
 " Tom/ 7 he said, " you 7 re always talking about Aps- 
 leigh ; what sort of a place is it to live in ? " 
 "A daisy. Why?" 
 
 " That 7 s the why/ 7 replied Craigin, tossing his room 
 mate a letter. 
 
 Tom read as follows : 
 
 MR. WILLIAM H. CRAIGIN. 
 
 DEAR SIR : Our present editor is about to leave, and one of 
 your professors, an old friend and classmate of mine, says we 
 shall be extremely fortunate if we can get you to take his place. 
 There is one other Republican daily, the "Times," in our little 
 city. It is the oldest and one of the ablest papers in the State. 
 The " Tocsin " is a new paper, intended to voice more positive 
 convictions of right and wrong than the " Times " appears to 
 have, to lead rather than follow, and represent principles rather 
 than spoils. Of course we have a good deal to contend with. 
 2* 21 
 
22 THE STAND-BY 
 
 We can t pay you more than a hundred and fifty dollars a month 
 until we get on a better financial basis. We could not think of 
 offering you even that if it were not for the exceptionally good 
 things said of you. Will you come and see us? 
 Very sincerely yours, 
 
 HENRY HARNETT, 
 President of Tocsin Publishing Co. 
 
 " That >s just your kind of paper," said Andrews, as 
 he finished reading the letter. 
 
 " Then you d say go, would n t you ? " 
 
 Tom smoked reflectively for many minutes before 
 replying: "If you want my advice, Billy, don t go; 
 don t have anything to do with it." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because, as sure as you do, sooner or later you 11 
 lock horns with Uncle John." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " You won t say whatever the almighty dollar tells 
 you ; you 11 say what you honestly think." 
 
 " Of course, if I go." 
 
 "And you can t edit that kind of a paper in that 
 State without getting mixed up with the liquor 
 question." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, Uncle John, as you know, has a big brewery, 
 a big wholesale and retail liquor house, the two lead 
 ing hotels in Apsleigh, and controls the liquor business 
 in all that part of the State. He 7 s worth several 
 millions; but it is n t money gives him his grip so 
 much as the kind of man he is. He s one of the brav 
 est, most generous, tenderest-hearted old fellows on 
 earth. It is n t the money he gives so much as the 
 
"DON T GO!" 23 
 
 way he gives it, the good will that goes with it, the kind, 
 beautiful, Christ-like things he s doing all the time 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And he stands for just what cranks like you don t 
 believe in, making the liquor business decent instead 
 of trying to destroy it. They ve had the stiff est kind of 
 a prohibitory law up there for twenty years on paper 
 and all the law that amounts to anything is Uncle 
 John. If a man stands in with him and keeps a decent 
 place he knows he s all right, and he knows he 11 have 
 to shut up pretty d d quick if he sells to children and 
 drunken men and has rows and knock-downs and 
 drag-outs. For years and years the city governments 
 that have had these things in charge have been Uncle 
 John s shadow." 
 
 " Suppose we speak of him as his Koyal Highness, 
 John, King of Apsleigh," suggested Craigin. " T is n t 
 democratic, but it seems to hit the case as you put it." 
 
 " That s what they call him, King of Apsleigh/ and 
 I tell you, mighty few kings sit their thrones as he does 
 his. People love him. Then, since the great railroad 
 fight, they don t believe anybody can down him. The 
 railroad folks thought they had him where they could 
 squeeze him dry, and it ended with the railroad in his 
 breeches pocket. Those t Tocsin people know how 
 good-natured he is, that he 11 stand what most men 
 with his power would n t and give way in little things, 
 and of course they 11 want to press what they call re 
 forms as far as he 11 let em ; but if it should come to 
 a fight, a peasant would as soon think of standing up 
 against the Czar of all the Russias. That s where 
 
24 THE STAND-BY 
 
 they are n t like you. It 11 come to a fight if you go 
 there, and he 11 break you as he broke the railroad 
 that s why I say, don t go." 
 
 " Tom/ 7 inquired Craigin, pacing the floor, and writ 
 ing an imaginary letter on his left palm with the fore 
 finger of his right hand, " Tom, how does this sound ? 
 
 <HON. HENRY HAENETT. 
 
 DEAR SIR : Your favor is just received. The salary is more 
 than I hoped for at first, and the position highly satisfactory ; in 
 fact, I expected to begin as a reporter. It has been my ambition 
 to be connected with a paper that has positive convictions of 
 right and wrong and the courage to stand by them, that leads 
 rather than follows, and represents principles rather than spoils. 
 I would, therefore, gladly accept your offer were I not informed 
 that such a paper might offend the richest and most influential 
 man in your city. Under the circumstances, I think, it will be 
 safer and in every way better for me to find a community where 
 I can edit a paper of high moral tone and positive convictions 
 without offending anybody. 
 
 Tom, suppose I should put that in black and white 
 and send it to Mr. Harnett ? What would he think of 
 me ? What would the professor who has written to 
 him think of me ? " 
 
 " They M despise you, of course." 
 
 " Despise me ! The lowest party hack would despise 
 me as a coward and a hypocrite. Yet it s only putting 
 your suggestion into plain English. Tom, the first 
 principle of honesty is honesty with one s self. I 
 won t act on motives that I can t put in black and 
 white and publish to the world without shame." 
 
 " That s awfully pretty in theory," observed Tom. 
 
 " A theory does n t amount to Hannah Cook," re- 
 
"DON T GO!" 25 
 
 plied Craigin, " if it is n t true, if it won t stand the 
 test of living up to." 
 
 " It s pretty to look at and talk about/ 7 continued 
 Tom, " but it does n t wash in real life. If you ideal 
 ists could agree, and were as brave and self-sacrificing 
 as you talk, there s nothing you could n t do ; but 
 you re the only one of em I ever saw, if you thought 
 it a duty to stand on a railroad track, would stay there 
 and let a train run over you. I 11 admit it s sublime, 
 though to common people like me it looks a good deal 
 like suicide." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, Uncle John s made of the same kind of stuff 
 you are, only he has n t your principles and would n t 
 be handicapped with conscientious scruples. I ve no 
 doubt some of the l Tocsin people have principles as 
 radical as yours, and if they feel very strong and brave 
 maybe they 11 help you stir up the old lion ; but when 
 it comes to the crunching of bones they won t be 
 there." 
 
 " Crunching of bones ! Tom, these men, for the 
 public good and with hardly a chance of profit, have 
 put their money into what s as risky as a gold-mine, 
 and they offer to pay me more than they can afford be 
 cause they think I 11 stand by em. I think I see my 
 self, without a dollar of my own at stake, telling em 
 between the lines they 11 run away when it comes to a 
 crunching of bones ! " 
 
 For the first time in all their long comradeship 
 Andrews threw his arms around Craigin s neck and 
 kissed his forehead. " Chum," he cried pathetically, 
 " you know how proud I am of you. We all are, here. 
 
26 THE STAND-BY 
 
 We all know that you will be a famous man, a great 
 man, a useful man, if you don t let your quixotic 
 notions of duty run away with your common sense. 
 We 7 ve been like brothers for seven years, chum, and 
 I love you better than any one else in the world except 
 my mother, and next to you I love Uncle John. As 
 sure as you go, chum, I know there 11 misery come of 
 it. Don t go ! " 
 
 " I can t promise you to-night, old man," said Craigin, 
 greatly touched ; " I must sleep on it." 
 
 " I know just how it 11 be," replied Andrews, sadly ; 
 " you 11 sleep on it all right enough, and think it all 
 over, and the more chance there is of struggle and sac 
 rifice for an ideal, the more you 11 persuade yourself 
 it ; s your duty. I know it is n t a bit of use, but I 
 can t help saying, don t go ! " 
 
 Two days later Craigin packed his bag and started 
 for Apsleigh. 
 
LUCIFER 
 
 accepted the position at a salary of 
 two thousand dollars, half in treasury stock 
 at sixty cents on the dollar. He found 
 that Tom had not exaggerated Denman s 
 power, and that the desire to maintain a paper with 
 positive convictions was seasoned with a reasonable de 
 gree of worldly caution. Some of the stockholders also 
 seemed to be influenced quite as much by hostility to 
 the " Times " and other personal motives as by a wish 
 to promote the public good. 
 
 In talking over the purpose and policy of the paper, 
 the liquor question came up. 
 
 " It was established/ said Mr. Harnett, " to represent 
 the best wing of the Republican party. It is n t a 
 temperance organ in the sense that the * Congrega- 
 tionalist, for example, is a sectarian organ, though of 
 course it s on that side." 
 
 "I d much rather it would be as it is," replied 
 Craigin. " I could n t edit a paper as a lawyer pleads 
 a cause, regardless of his own convictions. I believe 
 in prohibition where public sentiment will sustain it. 
 
 27 
 
28 THE STAND-BY 
 
 I can t say yet that I believe in it as a hard and fast rule. 
 I have n t had a chance to think it out for myself." 
 
 Craigin was charmed with Apsleigh. As Andrews 
 had said, it was a daisy. On the afternoon of the 
 second day he saw a crowd collecting on one of the 
 principal streets, and joined it. 
 
 " He s a beauty, hain t he ? " exclaimed an old farmer. 
 
 " Harnsomest colt in the State," replied a flashy man, 
 with the positive tone of self-made authority. 
 
 " Too much of the old man in him for a hoss," said 
 another. 
 
 " F he sets up his Ebenezer ag in John Denman 
 there 11 be music, let me tell ye," prophesied a fourth. 
 
 Craigin gradually worked his way through the crowd 
 to the front. The animal referred to was a stallion of 
 price and pedigree, large, powerful, spirited, matchless 
 in form, black as midnight, beautiful as the day. His 
 name was Lucifer, which being interpreted is Son of 
 the Morning. It was evident that he had not a little 
 of the waywardness of the fallen angel. 
 
 Seated in a light buggy was a man quite as notice 
 able as the horse. His slouch-hat was tipped back, 
 revealing a massive forehead. His deep-set eyes were 
 keen and gray. His nose was sharp His mouth was 
 large, but well formed, and beneath his thin lips were 
 exceptionally handsome teeth. His chin was a fine and 
 strongly marked feature. His head and his thin, al 
 most bloodless face were covered with short, grizzled 
 hair. His frame was spare and considerably above 
 medium height. His age was about sixty. He wore 
 no driving-gloves, and was carelessly dressed in a well- 
 worn suit of iron gray. 
 
LUCIFEE 29 
 
 The colt s proud spirit rebelled under the process 
 known as breaking. He had stopped short, to start 
 again only at his own royal will and pleasure. His 
 master sat patiently for a few moments, occasionally 
 saying " Come/ 7 in soft, coaxing tones. After speak 
 ing several times he got out and, still holding the reins, 
 made a pretense of adjusting a buckle here and there, 
 as though he would impress on the animal that the halt 
 was most opportune. Having done this, he gently 
 stroked and patted him, fondled his head, talked to 
 him, and fed him cubes of white sugar. Then he re 
 turned to his buggy and again requested him to move 
 on. This operation was repeated several times with 
 out effect. " Come ! " said Denman, for the twentieth 
 time. His voice, though calm and low, was growing 
 stern. The soft, coaxing tone had disappeared. In 
 its place was an ominous ring, becoming more and 
 more distinct. Again and again the command was 
 repeated, each time more sternly than before. There 
 was no sign of obedience. Craigin wondered at the 
 man s self-control. Most men with a balky horse, in 
 the most public street of a city, would lose patience 
 much sooner j yet this man again got out, again ca 
 ressed and fed the animal, and tried to lead him. 
 
 " You had better step back," he said to the crowd, 
 when kindness had failed ; " you had better step back, 
 or some one may get hurt. Stand back ! n he repeated 
 sharply ; " I don t want any one hurt." 
 
 He kicked the robe under the seat and braced his 
 feet. His fingers tightened round the lines like a vise. 
 There was a dangerous light in his eyes. Drawing a 
 tough, heavyjwhip, quick and sharp as a flash of light- 
 
30 THE STAND-BY 
 
 ning lie struck the stallion a stinging blow on the 
 flank. A bloody wale followed the lash and left a 
 stain on the velvety coat. The powerful animal reared 
 and plunged ; but the bit, designed for such occasions 
 and used at the peril of breaking his jaw, brought him 
 sharply down. Again and again, keen as a knife, the 
 terrible lash descended upon his quivering flanks, criss 
 crossing them with bloody wales. The brute reared, 
 backed, plunged from side to side ; the man held him 
 calmly and with consummate skill, all the while pun 
 ishing him with relentless severity. At length, as the 
 animal backed suddenly and still more violently, the 
 wheel cramped and the buggy was upset. Denman 
 lighted on his feet with the adroitness of a cat j but as 
 he did so one of the wheels struck his leg between ankle 
 and knee, laying bare the bone for several inches. 
 
 A groan went up from the crowd as they caught a 
 glimpse of the mangled and bloody limb beneath the 
 torn garment that covered it; but, beyond a single 
 oath, Denman uttered no cry. He sprang to the stal 
 lion s head and seized the bit with an iron grip. The 
 muscles in his long, lean hands stood out like cords 
 of steel. The brute reared and plunged, fought with 
 feet and jaws. His master hung to him like death. 
 Several of the boldest of the spectators, Craigin among 
 them, rushed forward, and the stubborn creature, held 
 down by many hands, took the punishment that fol 
 lowed without sign of yielding. 
 
 " It s no good licking a balky horse," said Denman, 
 at length. " Bring that straw," pointing to a crate of 
 crockery that had just been opened; "we 11 see what 
 fire 11 do." 
 
LUCIFER 31 
 
 The straw was piled under the stallion s belly, and 
 lighted. Fire did not conquer him. He started back 
 with a snort of rage, dragging the men after him, 
 crushing the buggy like an egg-shell against a stone 
 post, nearly catching a bystander in that grim trap. 
 Thus brought to a standstill, he reared to his full 
 height, tearing himself loose even from Denman s 
 grip, and struck at his master s head with both fore 
 feet. The multitude s cry of horror was too tardy a 
 warning. In another instant Denman s career would 
 have been ended, but as the iron hoofs descended a 
 human body hurled itself against him like a thun 
 derbolt, dashing him to the ground just out of harm s 
 way. 
 
 He sprang up instantly and seized the bit. The 
 fire had been scattered, and with the help of ready 
 hands the horse was held. 
 
 " Mike," he said, " get the grays and a long chain." 
 
 In a few moments the grays, harnessed to a beer 
 cart, were driven up. One end of the chain was at 
 tached to the rear axle of the cart, and the other was 
 secured around the colt s neck. 
 
 Denman turned and grasped the hand of a stranger. 
 " I owe you my life," he said. 
 
 Then he addressed himself once more to Mike, the 
 driver. " Start up a little easy ! " His forbearance 
 was not yet wholly exhausted. 
 
 The chain was stretched taut. The colt lay back 
 on his haunches and pulled with all his strength. 
 
 " Come ! get up ! " cried Denman, lashing him with 
 the whip. 
 
 The infuriated animal plunged forward, made a 
 
32 THE STAND-BY 
 
 vicious attempt to bite, and then, rearing, struck at 
 his master for the second time with both fore feet. 
 
 " Mike," exclaimed the latter, springing back, " start 
 those horses d d sharp ! " 
 
 Mike obeyed. There was a desperate plunge, a 
 violent struggle, a crackling sound, a groan, a heavy 
 fall. The stallion was dead. His neck was broken. 
 
 " Where s the man who saved my life ? " inquired 
 Denman, when the tragedy was over. 
 
 He had disappeared, and no one in the crowd knew 
 who he was. 
 
VI 
 
 "THE PRESENTIMENT is FALSE" 
 
 next morning, as Craigin approached 
 the railway station, he saw the man whose 
 life he had saved, and the girl he had met 
 4^ at the great regatta. 
 "Here he is," cried Denman, springing from his 
 carriage regardless of a bandaged leg, and hastening 
 to meet him. 
 
 " I hope you were n t hurt," he said, observing large 
 rents in the young man s clothes, carefully pinned to 
 gether. 
 
 " Not to speak of, only a little cut on my hip," was 
 the reply. 
 
 "You put your life in place of mine," continued 
 
 Denman. " It was a great deal closer shave for you 
 
 than for me. You re not going on this train ? I 
 
 want you to come and see us ; I want to know you, 
 
 and I have n t even learned your name. Ah ! " glanc 
 
 ing at the card given him, "Isabel, you ve met Isa 
 
 bel, Isabel, he s Tom s chum; he s the Stand-by ! " 
 
 Isabel s words of thanks were few and simple. Her 
 
 tone and eyes thanked him most, and told him that 
 
 3 33 
 
34 THE STAND-BY 
 
 she cherished the life he had saved immeasurably above 
 her own. 
 
 In personal appearance he was quite different from 
 the Craigin she had seen the year before. He had 
 recovered the flesh trained off for the great race and 
 was no longer a gaunt mass of bone and muscle. A 
 heavy growth of chestnut hair, short but curly, adorned 
 the head that had been submitted to the barber s 
 clippers. Tan and freckles had disappeared, and the 
 complexion was a clear, rich blond. The black circles 
 under the eyes were, of course, gone. The husky voice 
 had become clear and musical as a silver bell. He 
 was dressed in a fashionably cut and very becoming 
 suit of Scotch tweed, with necktie to match. The 
 care which he evidently bestowed on such matters 
 made the torn coat and trousers the more noticeable 
 badges of honor, appealing to the girl s heart as 
 scarcely anything else could have done. 
 
 "Mr. Craigin, won t you stop over a few days?" 
 pressed Denman. " Won t you ? Can t you ? " 
 
 "Not now," replied Craigin, thanking him. "I 
 must go to Boston on this train, and from there home ; 
 but I m coming back in a month I m coming here 
 to live." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 There was a slight contraction of the eyebrows, that 
 passed like a flash of light. Craigin saw it, but did 
 not think of it till afterward. There was no awk 
 wardness in the exclamation, unf ollowed by comment, 
 for Denman was engaged in assisting Isabel from the 
 carriage and in taking out a traveling-bag and other 
 small articles. 
 
"THE PRESENTIMENT IS FALSE" 35 
 
 " Here s the train," he said to her, " and here s Tim 
 with the checks. My daughter starts for Newport 
 this morning, Mr. Craigin, to spend a few weeks with 
 the Cliffords." 
 
 As the train rumbled into the station, Denman, with 
 a good deal of a limp, led the way to a parlor-car. 
 When the chairs were taken he gave his daughter 
 hearty kisses and pressed a roll of bank-bills into her 
 hand. 
 
 " Good-by, Isabel ! n he said ; " write every day. 
 Good-by, little girl ! " 
 
 She twined her arms around his neck and returned 
 his kisses with interest. 
 
 " You know you re lame, papa," she said, " and you 
 must n t wait till the train starts. Good-by, papa ! " 
 
 Denman kissed her again, gave Craigin a cordial 
 hand-shake, and limped out. It was touching to see 
 the love that shone in his eyes as he stood by the 
 track looking at her; and there was the same light 
 in her eyes as she sat watching him till the cars left 
 the station. 
 
 " Papa hates to have me leave him so," she said at 
 last, turning to Craigin, " that it seems almost wicked 
 for me to go away ; but he won t let me stay at home." 
 
 As this extraordinary statement did not seem to 
 imply any family unpleasantness, Craigin promptly 
 inquired, "Why not!" 
 
 " He says he won t let me sacrifice my happiness to 
 his as if the happiest times I ever had were n t with 
 papa! You can t imagine how good he has always 
 been to me. As long ago as I can remember he used 
 to romp with me every evening, and then tell me 
 
36 THE STAND-BY 
 
 stories till I went to sleep. As I grew older he gave 
 me an hour every night, and we used to read fairy 
 tales and natural-history books together just like two 
 children. I Ve grown up with papa. Even when he 
 was putting his lif e into the railroad fight, as you did 
 into the great race, he never was too busy or too anx 
 ious to give an hour to his little girl that s what he 
 always calls me ; I shall be his little girl as long as we 
 live. He never spoke an angry word to me in his life. 
 
 "I want to show you something/ 7 she continued, 
 opening her traveling-bag. " There ! " she exclaimed, 
 producing a rich case lined with white satin. " Think 
 of giving those to a girl of eighteen for a birthday 
 present ! " 
 
 Craigin took the open case from the daintily gloved 
 hand. It contained a pair of diamond ear-drops and 
 a diamond brooch. They were too large and costly 
 if diamonds are permitted to a young girl to escape 
 the social law which limits such display before mar 
 riage. Without a flaw, limpid as water, brilliant as 
 stars, how they would flash from those perfect ears 
 and on that swelling throat ! 
 
 " I know girls don t wear such diamonds as those," 
 she said ; " but I shall, for papa chose them. It is n t 
 the diamonds I care for, though I do like diamonds, 
 it ? s the love that made him do it." 
 
 Why had she shown them ? Surely not from vanity ; 
 she was proud, not vain. Neither was she a girl to 
 wear her heart upon her sleeve and babble of sacred 
 things to strangers. Her life was in her father, but 
 it was not like her to proclaim it ; she was not in the 
 habit of trumpeting his praise. He was John Den- 
 
"THE PRESENTIMENT IS FALSE" 37 
 
 man, and well she knew that modesty is the jewel of 
 worth. Why, then, the second time she met him, did 
 she tell Craigin what she would not have told another f 
 Was it because she regarded him as a man apart from 
 and above other men? Was it because she dimly 
 foresaw a war of giants and an agonizing struggle 
 with her own heart ? 
 
 Beautiful things appealed strongly to the young 
 man, and the admiration he expressed for the gems 
 showed that he knew a good deal about their fine 
 points. 
 
 " Your father said you were going to stay at New 
 port with the Cliffords," he remarked on returning 
 the diamonds. 
 
 "Yes; Alice was my chum and classmate at Lake 
 Crescent. We graduated together two weeks ago. 
 That s why 1 m on such intimate terms with them ; 
 and then, Senator Clifford was one of papa s lawyers 
 in the railroad fight." 
 
 " I see by the papers that his doctors have ordered 
 him to go abroad this fall, and that he 11 take his 
 family with him." 
 
 " Yes ; and they ve given me the most pressing in 
 vitation to go with them." 
 
 " Are you going ? " 
 
 " I don t know. I don t want to leave papa, but he 
 wants me to go. He says it s an opportunity of a life 
 time to go with the Cliffords." 
 
 " An opportunity to hobnob with royalty ? " 
 
 " Well, the doors of palaces swing open to Senator 
 Clifford. He s a famous man." 
 
 "Of course. He has a European reputation. You ve 
 
38 THE STAND-BY 
 
 been abroad once, I know, for 1 ve heard Tom speak 
 of it." 
 
 " I went with papa when I was twelve years old. I 
 have n t been since then." 
 
 " A party of two f " 
 
 " Mama was with us." 
 
 She had been rolling the word " papa " like a sweet 
 morsel under her tongue, had frankly shown that he 
 was her glory and her idol, and her only mention of 
 her mother had been the incidental remark, "Mama 
 was with us." It shed a flood of light on the Denman 
 household, and she saw that Craigin had caught its full 
 significance. It could not be helped, and she quickly 
 turned the conversation to Apsleigh, in the course of 
 which she referred to her companion s engagement 
 with the " Tocsin." 
 
 "Why, how did you know that?" he exclaimed. 
 " It is n t out yet. It was n t settled till yesterday 
 afternoon." 
 
 " I knew it as soon as you said you were going to live 
 in Apsleigh. So did papa ; I saw it in his eyebrows." 
 
 " I can t imagine how you knew." 
 
 "As easy as one and one and one and one make 
 four just putting four things together. Tom said 
 you were going to be an editor; you said you were 
 going to live in Apsleigh ; I know what kind of a man 
 you are ; and I know the other papers would n t have 
 you if you d work for nothing." 
 
 "So Tom has been talking about me?" 
 
 " Yes ; he said if you thought a course was right 
 you d follow it straight to death and never flinch a 
 hair." 
 
"THE PRESENTIMENT IS FALSE" 39 
 
 " But lie does n t know ; I ve never been tried." 
 
 " He said lots of other things about you." 
 
 " Tom s a partial witness. He thinks a great deal 
 more of me than I deserve." 
 
 " What he said is true." 
 
 " You can t know that ; you ve never seen me but 
 twice." 
 
 "I do know it, not because Tom says so, for I 
 would n t take his judgment altogether where he likes 
 any one as much as he does you ; I know it myself." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "You ve studied Latin and Greek and conic sec 
 tions and Porter s Psychology, have n t you ? " she in 
 quired, with what appeared to be an abrupt change of 
 subject. 
 
 " I ve tried to j I don t know much about them." 
 
 " I don t know anything about them. I don t know 
 anything in a scholar s way of knowing things. There s 
 just one thing I can do well : I can read people. Now 
 and then I have to read them bit by bit, as you would 
 pick out hard Latin and Greek, and puzzle over them as 
 you would puzzle over mathematics and psychology ; 
 but I can read most people as easily as plain, every-day 
 English." 
 
 " I ve often heard Tom speak of it. It s a wonder 
 ful gift. How do you do it T " 
 
 " I don t know. I suppose I take it from papa. He s 
 got more brains in his little finger than I have in my 
 whole head. I can read people better than he can, but 
 he reads them better than any other man I ever saw. 
 At times he s had a lot of money to invest, and men 
 from far away have come to get him into their enter- 
 
40 THE STAND-BY 
 
 prises. As long ago as when I was a little girl eight 
 or ten years old, he used to bring them to the house, 
 and hold me on his knee while they talked over their 
 wine and cigars. I did n t understand anything about 
 the business, but I could tell whether they were hon 
 est or not." 
 
 " Do you mean that he put the judgment of a girl 
 eight years old before Bradstreet, and letters of intro 
 duction, and lifelong business reputations ? " 
 
 "That s what he did. Seems incredible to you, 
 does n t it ? But I told him right. It s helped him 
 so and pleased him so, I Ve made the cultivation of 
 my one gift the work of my life." 
 
 " Until you can read men like printed pages ? " 
 
 " It does n t seem to me any more wonderful, only 
 it is n t so common. The letters of the alphabet tell 
 you all sorts of things and play on all your feelings j 
 and you ? re so familiar with them you re not con 
 scious of noticing them, only the ideas they stand for, 
 are you ? If you d never heard of a book you d say 
 it was impossible, would n t you ? " 
 
 "Yes; but men have invented the alphabet, and 
 any one can learn how to use it." 
 
 " And God has put an alphabet in every man s face. 
 If you had a wicked scheme in your heart you could n t 
 look me in the eyes without my knowing it." 
 
 " Do you mean me in particular, or anybody ? " 
 
 " Well, I confess that was rather personal. A man 
 came to Apsleigh a couple of years ago with a mining 
 scheme. His references and the reports of experts 
 and all were first-class. Papa investigated it as care 
 fully as he could, and told me afterward it looked to 
 
"THE PRESENTIMENT IS FALSE" 41 
 
 him like a straight proposition and as if there were 
 an awful pile of money in it. I was at school, and he 
 wired for me to come home. We had a big dinner. 
 Of course I was the mining man s partner. I made 
 myself as agreeable to him as I could for four hours, 
 and worked the hardest I ever did in my life. He 
 was one of the smartest men I ever met, and his face 
 was the completest mask I ever saw. I don t believe 
 I could have read it if I had n t made him drink so 
 much champagne. The scheme turned out a gigantic 
 fraud. Papa said he d have lost hundreds of thou 
 sands of dollars if he d gone in, and would n t have 
 had his name linked with it for millions, and that I d 
 saved him." 
 
 " It was hard to read that man ? " 
 
 " Hard as conic sections." 
 
 " And easy to read me ? " 
 
 "Easy as a-b-c. I m going to say an awfully 
 frank, unconventional thing : I m sorry you re going 
 to edit the Tocsin. 7 I m almost sorry you re coming 
 to Apsleigh." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you re like papa in so many ways, and so 
 different in in what you call principles." 
 
 " I don t like his business, if that s what you mean," 
 said Craigin, bluntly, almost brutally. 
 
 " I don t know as that s any worse than what I said 
 to you," replied Isabel. " Hundreds of people in Aps 
 leigh don t like papa s business, but they don t dare 
 say so to him or to me. If you were like them I should 
 despise you." 
 
 Then they changed the conversation to less personal 
 
42 THE STAND-BY 
 
 matters. When two young people of opposite sex are 
 pleased with each other there are always plenty of 
 things to talk about. So it was with the Stand-by and 
 this strong, brilliant, unconventional girl. There was 
 Apsleigh, of which Craigin wanted to learn every 
 thing, college life, about which Isabel was inquisitive, 
 boarding-school reminiscences interesting to both, 
 athletics, Newport a thousand and one things, little 
 and big, that came and went, glittered and vanished, 
 like the ever- varying forms of a kaleidoscope. "Was 
 it incipient love, or merely the buoyant spirits of 
 youth, that irradiated even the most trivial subjects ? 
 Before they were aware they reached the junction 
 where both were to change cars. They walked up 
 and down the platform together till Isabel s train 
 came, and then parted like old friends. 
 
 Plain, honest speech and unconventional ways be 
 came the princess of Apsleigh and added greatly to 
 her charms. Princess she was by the divine right of 
 beauty and indescribable grace. As Craigin walked 
 the platform waiting for his own train, he found him 
 self repeating the familiar lines, " Et vera incessu pa- 
 tuit dea." 
 
 When once more on his journey he sat absorbed in 
 his own reflections, scarcely realizing the direction 
 they were taking or the consequences they might in 
 volve. " If she ever loves," he said to himself, " it will 
 be a strong man, strong like her father, and if she 
 loves, it will be with her whole soul." Before he knew 
 it he was dreaming dreams, and awoke with a pain in 
 his heart. 
 
 Without affectation, neither bold nor shy, and grate- 
 
"THE PEESENTIMENT IS FALSE" 43 
 
 ful for the service rendered her father, the girl had at 
 once, to all appearances, put the young man on the 
 footing most remote from that of a prospective lover 
 the footing of good comradeship. 
 
 What were her thoughts as she sat gazing out the 
 window, unmindful of the admiration she attracted? 
 " I wonder if he knows as much about most things as 
 he does about diamonds? He sees and reads more 
 than he studies, and remembers everything. I never 
 saw a wrist like that before, and his hand is smaller 
 than papa s. Papa and I used to read in the natural- 
 history book that the gorilla s arms are so long and 
 muscular, and his chest and shoulders so huge, that 
 they make him look deformed, and give him strength 
 to strangle a lion or twist a gun-barrel like a wisp of 
 hay. Mr. Craigin is almost like a gorilla, only it s 
 strength without deformity. His smile is the most 
 charming I ever saw, because it comes straight from 
 the heart. He s very distinguished-looking any 
 amount of brains j a noble, tender heart, and a will 
 like papa s. I wonder if I shall meet a young million 
 aire at Newport that >s fit to tie his shoes ? If the vis 
 count were only like him ! And yet no ! it can t be 
 true ! I won t believe it ! He saved papa s life the 
 presentiment is false ! " 
 
VII 
 
 THE BEGINNING 
 
 BEFORE he had been in Apsleigh a month 
 Craigin wrote a conservative editorial on 
 the liquor question. One evening shortly 
 afterward there was a knock at the door 
 of his sanctum. 
 " Come in," he said. 
 A big, burly man entered. 
 "Be you the new editor?" he inquired. 
 " Yes, sir. What can I do for you ? " 
 The tone was so hearty and the face so pleasant 
 that the stranger immediately extended a huge, toil- 
 hardened palm, and exclaimed, "N-you kin let me shake 
 yer hand ! 7 nd you kin print this ere in yer paper ! " 
 producing a business card. 
 
 "Mr. Jones?" said Craigin, glancing at the card, 
 and cordially taking the proffered hand. 
 
 " N-yaas ; John Rogers Jones, blacksmith, 52 Gar 
 land street that s me ; n-I expec I wos named fer 
 the man which died with his feet warm. N-I read that 
 piece o yourn, nd I sez ter my ole woman, l Maria/ sez 
 I, 1 7 d oughter put my sign inter that ere " Tocsin " 
 newspaper. 7 Nd here I be a-purpus. Haow much ? " 
 
 44 
 
THE BEGINNING 45 
 
 " Usual space for a year ? Twenty dollars." 
 
 " N-I in presedunt of the Temp rance Reform Club," 
 continued Jones, taking a twenty-dollar bill from a fat 
 pocket-book, " nd I thaot pYaps you 7 d make us er 
 leetle speech." 
 
 " A little speech?" 
 
 "N-yaas. N-I hain t a-goin ter tease yer, cos I 
 know you 11 gin us a lift anyhaow. N-I tole Maria, 
 1 Maria/ sez I, he 11 make us er darn good speech et 
 the public meetin , nd good speeches is source es hen s 
 teeth. " 
 
 " 1 7 ve heard of the club," said Craigin, filling out a 
 receipt, " but I don t know as much about it as I d 
 like to." 
 
 " N-I 11 tell you," said Jones, pocketing the receipt 
 and fishing out a brier- wood pipe. " D you mind 
 smokin ? " 
 
 "Smoke all you want to," replied Craigin, handing 
 him some matches. 
 
 "N-it makes it kinder easier ter talk. N-eight er 
 ten year back, afore I cum ter taown, one o the par 
 sons, he nd three er four more hot-headed fellers, they 
 went ter prosecutin , nd some o the rummies they sot 
 the meetin -haouse a-fire. N-that made folks pooty 
 r arin . But Denman he drawed his check fer five 
 thousan , nd went raound mongst the likker men nd 
 sez, sez he, l F you don t help undo what some cussid 
 fools ve bin doin , t will be laid ter the trade, the whole 
 on t. Nd so he got five thousan outer ; m. N-he 
 got fifteen thousan in all, nd it built a new meetin - 
 haouse, nd took the cuss all off, 7 nd thare was n t er 
 yap till Jorden nd Phelps cum two year ago. N-they 
 
46 THE STAND-BY 
 
 stuck ter what they called morel suashun, nd kep the 
 pot a-b ilin two or three weeks. N-I 7 d jus cum ter 
 taown, cos I could n t git trusted no more whare I 
 wos known j n-we wos awful poor. N-I chawed on ; t 
 er consid able spell, nd then I sez, < Maria/ sez I, <I 
 hain t goin ter drink no more, never n-I hain t, 
 nuther ; n-thare hain t no children cryin f er bread ter 
 our haouse naow, nd I ve got er good business, nd 
 my debts is paid nd munny in the bank. N-well, s I 
 wos sayin , Jorden nd Phelps they got up er reform 
 club, nd raised er pile o munny, nd put Dekin Follett 
 et the head on t. N-dekin he would n t spen er cent, 
 nd wanted ter have six prayer-meetin s er week, 
 nothin he likes s well s prayer-meetin s, cep figgerin 
 int res , nd the club it most petered out. N-wall, the 
 riffraff, s you might call em, they put up er job on 
 the ole man nd lected Jake Barrus, nd Jake he wos 
 er blasphemin , Tom Paine critter, wus n the dekin, 
 only t other way, nd he got em all sick on t, nd 
 fooled away the munny, nd run the club inter debt. 
 Nd then they put in me. N-I did n t want it, cos I 
 growed up n the backwoods nd did n t know enough ; 
 but I ve kinder split the diff rence betwixt dekin nd 
 Jake. N-anyhaow, the debts is paid nd the terbarker- 
 juice is cleaned up. Naow we re goin ter have public 
 meetin s once n er while, nd I ve kinder sot on you 
 fer the fust one." 
 
 "I can t promise without thinking it over," said 
 Craigin. 
 
 When his visitor departed, he paced the floor a long 
 time thinking it over. He was beginning to realize 
 that, for happiness or misery, Isabel Denman was all 
 
THE BEGINNING 47 
 
 the world to him. It was plain that she liked him. 
 Where was the impassable barrier? He could not 
 honestly escape voicing the principles of his paper- 
 even Denman would expect it; but to make public 
 speeches was beyond his professional duty and the 
 beginning of more aggressive work. Besides, his ideas 
 in regard to methods were not settled. Why not 
 pause to think and study? Why hastily antagonize 
 the Denmans ? Was it a sacrifice of principle to with 
 hold his feet from this first step? Love cried, "No, 
 no, no ! " He tried to reason, and in the agony of his 
 spirit reason seemed to mock him. Then, above the 
 conflict in his soul, he thought he heard a still, small 
 voice saying, " Yes." Kneeling on the office floor, he 
 swore : " I 11 live and die doing what I believe is right, 
 no matter what it costs, so help me God ! " Instantly 
 there streamed into his soul a flood of light that seemed 
 to come from heaven. " It is my only chance ! " he 
 exclaimed. " She reads hearts, and if I sacrifice my 
 sense of duty for her, she 11 know it and despise me." 
 
 When it was known that Craigin was to speak, peo 
 pleone at a time, fifteen or twenty in all gave him 
 hints as to what he should n t say. Last of all came 
 Deacon Follett also. 
 
 " I hope you won t say anything about the law," he 
 remarked, rubbing his lean chin. "It was kind of 
 understood when the club was organized. Most of 
 the liquor-dealers gave something. Mr. Denman gave 
 five hundred dollars." 
 
 " As a sop ? " 
 
 "N-no not that exactly ; but, you see, our people 
 are conservative. It won t do." 
 
48 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Won t do ! " exclaimed Craigin, with a feeling that 
 savored of contempt. " Won t do in free New England 
 to speak of existing laws ! Deacon Follett, we don t 
 live in Russia." 
 
 "No; but, you see, our people are conservative 
 and Mr. Denman gave five hundred dollars." 
 
 " The law makes liquor-selling a crime, and provides 
 heavy penalties for officials who do not enforce it," 
 said Craigin, at the close of the interview. " Whisky 
 is sold as openly as flour is. No Republican can 
 advocate a repeal of the law without sacrificing his 
 political future ; no man of any party can try to have 
 it enforced without being regarded as a common nui 
 sance, a disturber of the public peace. It s a queer 
 state of things. I won t say a word about it to-night, 
 Deacon Follett. I want time to study it out." 
 
 " Young blood s so hot," muttered the old usurer, 
 as he walked away. " I was afraid he d make a mess 
 of it ; but he takes good advice like plum-puddin ." 
 
 Craigin s boating record was well known, his ad 
 venture with the horse made him noted, and his edi 
 torials had attracted much attention. It was already 
 recognized that a strong man had come to Apsleigh. 
 Most of all, however, he was talked about in connec 
 tion with the Denmans. Everybody was curious to 
 hear him. The hall was filled to overflowing. His 
 stage-fright disappeared after the first sentences. 
 Words came as water flows when the fountains of the 
 great deep are broken up. Back of words were ideas, 
 facts, figures, arguments, conclusions. The lesson 
 pressed home was eradication of drinking tastes by 
 cultivating higher tastes and a nobler life, making 
 
THE BEGINNING 49 
 
 the club a reform club in a broader sense than had 
 ever been contemplated. 
 
 He knew that he spoke none the worse because Isa 
 bel s eyes looked up into his from the crowded hall. 
 In his dreams that night she stood beside him. He 
 stretched forth his arms. An impassable gulf opened 
 between them, widening, widening, ever widening. 
 She vanished forever as two mighty hosts closed in 
 horrible battle. He was leading one, her father the 
 other. 
 
 Craigin s speech was an event. From that time he 
 was the real head of the Reform Club. Harmony was 
 restored, the rooms were made attractive, private 
 meetings became informal and pleasant, and now and 
 then an evening was given to simple entertainments, 
 ending with good things to eat. Under the old order 
 members were expected to abstain from whisky, under 
 the new to live clean lives, be honest, pay their debts 
 if they could. As the months went by Craigin shaped 
 and molded the club more and more according to the 
 outlines he had traced. He drew to himself two or 
 three hundred people of the class it was designed to 
 benefit, lifting them to purer lives and nobler aspira 
 tions. Among them were women who associated him 
 with sober husbands, happy homes, credit at the gro 
 cer s, decent clothes for themselves and their children, 
 who looked upon him as a type of the One who spent 
 his life going about doing good. Among them were 
 men, rough and uncultivated most of them, in whose 
 hearts he kindled the divine flame of love, who would 
 have followed him unquestioningly to death. 
 
VIII 
 
 ON THE RIVER 
 
 }HERE are horses and dogs and guns and 
 boats and fishing-tackle at your service," 
 said Denman. " I keep em for my friends, 
 and it s a great pleasure to me to have 
 em used. There s always a spare knife and fork at 
 our table ; drop in as often as you can breakfast, 
 lunch, or dinner. We all play whist. We want you 
 to come and go just as Tom would if he were living 
 here." 
 
 Craigin hesitated, hardly knowing how to express 
 himself without giving offense. 
 
 The brewer instantly divined his thought. 
 
 "I don t want to compromise you," he continued; 
 " and I promise, if you ever feel called upon to fight 
 my business, I 11 hold you as free to do so as if we 
 were strangers. I like you, and I shall feel more hurt 
 than I can express if you let any scruples of that kind 
 stand between us as friends." 
 
 Craigin accepted these hospitalities in the spirit, 
 though not to the extent, they were offered, and his 
 intimacy with Denman himself was a source of great 
 pleasure. Even before Isabel s return from Newport 
 
 50 
 
ON THE RIVER 51 
 
 he saw clearly why father and daughter were all the 
 world to each other. Isabel inherited her father s 
 brains and her mother s beauty. But Mrs. Denman 
 was blessed with considerable tact and more indolence. 
 A late breakfast in bed, an elaborate toilet, embroidery 
 when she felt industrious, a light novel when she did 
 not, lunch, a siesta, a bath, a more elaborate toilet, a 
 drive, a call or two, dinner, and whist this was her 
 daily routine. As to the establishment, Denman kept 
 a competent housekeeper. The wife and mother had 
 no cares, and was as contented, as amiable, and as 
 purely ornamental as a petted pussy. She was still 
 extraordinarily beautiful, and had the faculty of say 
 ing little and appearing to be intelligent. Denman 
 kept open house. United States senators, governors, 
 congressmen, brewers, liquor-dealers, traders, horse 
 men, and plain Yankee farmers put their legs under 
 his sumptuous but democratic mahogany. The con 
 versation, from Gladstone s policy to the fine points 
 of a horse, was almost always good of its kind, and 
 Isabel, even when a little child, generally understood 
 it far better than did the beautiful woman, whose tact, 
 combined with her husband s pride, rarely permitted 
 her to betray her ignorance. 
 
 Denman sent Isabel to a fashionable boarding-school 
 at an early age, because she was practically mother 
 less and his company was almost exclusively mascu 
 line. For the same reasons he was glad to have her 
 spend her vacations with the Cliffords and get an 
 opportunity to mingle with the best European society. 
 
 Denman s grounds, almost a park in extent, sloped 
 back to the Apsleigh River. 
 
52 THE STAND-BY 
 
 One October afternoon Craigin came up from the 
 landing. 
 
 " I 7 ve bought a shell," he said, as Isabel met him in 
 the hall, " and have called to see if you 11 join me in 
 trying it. 77 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure, 77 she replied. " If you 11 
 excuse me, 1 7 11 be ready in a few minutes. 77 
 
 As she went to her room she recalled a remark she 
 had made weeks before and had not thought of since. 
 It was : " 1 7 ve always been accustomed to boats and 
 rowing, but I never was in a shell, and should like 
 nothing better than to try one. 77 
 
 " 1 7 m sure he bought it for me," she said to herself. 
 
 She soon returned, having exchanged her afternoon 
 dress of golden-brown silk with velvet trimmings of 
 a darker shade for a boating-suit of soft white flannel 
 full skirt, blouse waist, and cap adorned with 
 anchors embroidered in old-gold floss-silk. 
 
 " You 7 re the only girl of my acquaintance 1 7 d dare 
 take out in a shell, 77 observed Craigin, as they started 
 out together. 
 
 " The only one you 7 d dare drown ? 77 
 
 "The only one I would n 7 t be afraid of drowning, 
 for it 7 s as easily upset as a birch-bark canoe. 77 
 
 " So 7 s my own boat almost. 77 
 
 " Yes ; I did n 7 t dare ask you till I had tried it. I 
 knew if you could manage that, you could balance a 
 shell. 77 
 
 " When did you try it ? 77 
 
 " Oh, I took that liberty a good while ago. 77 
 
 The answer satisfied Isabel that the shell was bought 
 on her account. 
 
ON THE RIVER 53 
 
 " What a beauty ! " she exclaimed as they reached 
 the landing. 
 
 It was indeed a beauty a first-class Spanish cedar 
 Elliott, long, light as paper, slender as an arrow j made, 
 like a greyhound, for speed alone. 
 
 "Beg pardon! but the crew must go aboard to 
 receive the passenger/ 7 said Craigin, laying the boat 
 alongside the little wharf, and taking the rower s seat. 
 " There ! now 1 11 hold it steady for you." 
 
 When she was seated and the motion had died 
 away, he gently pushed off an oar s length from shore. 
 His first strokes barely stirred the water, and mean 
 while she watched closely every motion. The delicate 
 craft, trimmed almost to a feather s weight, glided 
 along without a tremor. 
 
 " Our cockswain himself could n t beat you ! " he 
 exclaimed at last, falling into a long, easy, regular 
 sweep, that indicated perfect confidence. Straight 
 away up the river they sped, mile after mile, the ath 
 lete at the oars, the girl at the rudder. 
 
 " Now let me row ! " she cried as they neared the 
 rapids and turned the bow homeward. 
 
 " I don t dare." 
 
 "I won t upset it, and if I do, I can swim like a 
 duck." 
 
 " Ducks are n t handicapped that way," he replied, 
 with an admiring glance at the costume, which strik 
 ingly set off her dark and splendid beauty, but was not 
 at all adapted for swimming. 
 
 " You can swim, can t you ? " she inquired. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then there can t be any danger." 
 
54 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " But a crab may mean getting wet." 
 
 "I m not afraid of water, and I won t catch 
 crabs." 
 
 He pulled up to a log and exchanged places. The 
 rolling seat cost her a crab or two, for the motion was 
 new to her ; but she quickly became accustomed to it, 
 and was delighted with the power it gave. The for 
 ests were robed in all the glories of Indian summer, 
 and the river rolled slowly on in its majesty, gleaming 
 in the sunlight, black in the shadow, unruffled by a 
 breeze. The girl was in the mood for testing her skill 
 and strength to the uttermost. There was something 
 almost fierce in her energy, yet none of it was wasted. 
 It was like the action of a thoroughbred horse, that 
 trots to the point of breaking and never breaks. The 
 shell sped on faster and faster. Each stroke left its 
 graceful swirl farther and still farther behind. Crai- 
 gin sat in the stern and watched the rower, divine in 
 the grace of motion, her glorious features flushed with 
 health, glowing with exercise, sparkling with exhila 
 ration. He caught also a glimpse of something more 
 the spirit of the moment. 
 
 Suddenly she rested the oars and sat motionless and 
 silent. 
 
 "I ve learned something in spite of boarding- 
 school ! " she exclaimed at last. " I can row and 
 swim and skate and ride a horse ladylike accom 
 plishments, are n t they? I was n t such a very bad 
 scholar, either ; I graduated fifth in my class." 
 
 " And I only fifteenth," remarked Craigin. 
 
 " Fifteenth in a class of two hundred is better than 
 fifth in a class of nine, is n t it ? " she replied. " Any- 
 
ON THE RIVER 55 
 
 how, what difference does it make ? I wish 1 7 d been 
 a man and had lived twenty-five years ago ! " 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because there was life worth living then, and 
 death worth dying." 
 
 " Not more then than now." 
 
 " What do you mean ? ;; 
 
 " That men must live and die to save the republic, 
 as they did twenty-five years ago." 
 
 " I know what you mean, for I heard your speech 
 the other night. You mean the liquor business." 
 
 "Yes $ that and other things that most of all." 
 
 " You really mean what you said, that it had done 
 more harm to English-speaking people than war and 
 famine and pestilence combined ? " 
 
 " That s what G-ladstone says. I believe it ; s true. 
 The nation could stand it well enough if the evil were 
 confined to drunkards themselves, but that s the small 
 est part of it." 
 
 " What did you mean by saying men must die ? " 
 
 "Something very different from what you were 
 thinking of. Not death at the cannon s mouth, a 
 nation s praise, a hero s name in song and story ; 
 that" 
 
 " That s a death brave men covet," interrupted Isabel. 
 
 " I meant a living death, fighting for God and the 
 manhood of men ; misunderstood, jeered at as a crank, 
 disowned by one s dearest friends, cut off from honors 
 and advancement, isolated, reviled, hated, persecuted, 
 belied." 
 
 " That s a death only the bravest can face." 
 
 "Thousands and tens of thousands must face it," 
 
56 THE STAND-BY 
 
 replied Craigin. " Do you know how the Turks took 
 Constantinople ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "There was a deep trench in front of the walls. 
 When they had made a breach in the walls, men flung 
 themselves into the trench until it was full, and horse, 
 foot, and artillery passed over them to victory." 
 
 " How horrible and heroic ! " 
 
 " In great reforms myriads of men must fling them 
 selves into living graves for the world to pass over 
 them to higher things. In one way or another, human 
 progress is over bleeding hearts. It always has been 
 so 5 it always will be so." 
 
 For several minutes not a word was spoken. Sud 
 denly there was a splash. A muskrat had dived from 
 the river bank. The boat had drifted close to the shore. 
 
 " If he thought a course were right," said Isabel to 
 herself, " he d follow it straight to death that kind 
 of death and never flinch a hair. He s a hero if 
 there ever was one ! And papa the terrible fight 
 the presentiment ! I won t believe it not yet ! " 
 
 What she said to the hero was quite different from 
 what she said to herself. " Don t you think it s your 
 turn to row now ? I 11 pull up to that boom, and we 11 
 change seats." 
 
 When once more seated in the stern she introduced 
 a momentous question : " I m to have a new traveling- 
 hat, and there are two at the house that are just too 
 lovely for anything. Mama and I can t tell which 
 we like the better. I 11 leave the choice to you." 
 
IX 
 
 WHEREIN DANIELS DIFFER 
 
 |T almost any time within twenty years the 
 liquor interest might have reported, "All 
 is quiet in Apsleigh." A quick ear could 
 now catch mutterings of a rising storm. 
 The Reform Club had acquired influence and position. 
 The " Tocsin " was gradually assuming a more aggres 
 sive tone. There was much agitation elsewhere, and 
 men began to ask one another if something could 
 not be done in Apsleigh. A temperance " union " was 
 formed. It included people of all shades of opinion, 
 from Eben Harpswell to people who drew the line at 
 getting drunk and selling to sots. This motley organi 
 zation began its career with a vast amount of talk. 
 Agreeing in nothing else, it finally agreed to vest its 
 powers and responsibilities in an executive committee, 
 upon which its members, with astonishing unanimity, 
 declined to serve. At length the twenty gentlemen 
 whose names stood first on the call, of whom ten were 
 clergymen, were conscripted, and were authorized to 
 do battle on the implied basis of " Heads we win, tails 
 you lose." 
 
 57 
 
58 THE STAND-BY 
 
 After many meetings the committee decided to ask 
 the city fathers to do what the law commanded and 
 their oaths of office required. A petition was circu 
 lated. Some signed because they wanted the law en 
 forced, more because they favored closing two or three 
 low dives, hundreds as a joke " to see the mayor and 
 aldermen wiggle/ and the great majority because they 
 were asked to and it cost them nothing. The city 
 fathers talked the petition over from week to week, 
 and received many intimations from influential mem 
 bers of the Temperance Union that a fight with Den- 
 man was not to be thought of. They were told that 
 nearly every one, except Harpswell and his small fol 
 lowing, would be satisfied if Bridget Maloney and 
 One-legged Gibbs were attended to. In due course 
 of time the old woman and the cripple retired from 
 mercantile pursuits and took refuge in the almshouse. 
 Three aldermen made themselves politically unavail 
 able by declaring that it was cowardly to prosecute 
 two paupers and let a millionaire sell barrels where 
 they had sold pints. The mayor and six aldermen 
 protested that prudence was not cowardice. They said 
 it would be better to go slowly and make thorough 
 work of it. They made thorough work of going slowly. 
 Months passed and nothing further was attempted. 
 The " Tocsin " published sarcastic and stinging edito 
 rials. A local Junius dipped his pen in gall. The 
 executive committee demanded that something should 
 be done. Mass-meetings were held. Prosecuting 
 members of the city government for criminal neglect 
 of duty was publicly discussed. 
 
 As the official year wore on the clamor died away 
 
WHEEEIN DANIELS DIFFER 59 1 
 
 and interest centered upon the next election. The 
 contest was sharp, and the mayor and his six liquor 
 colleagues were returned by a handsome majority. 
 There was a fly in the ointment. At each of the cau 
 cuses a resolution had been introduced instructing the 
 candidates, if elected, to enforce all laws of the State 
 so far as they were required to do so by statute and 
 official oaths. Objections to resolutions so worded 
 could hardly be made, and a free- whisky government 
 was elected on a prohibition platform. It was not 
 elected by anything like a strict party vote. It was 
 scarcely inaugurated before the demand for consistent 
 action became louder than ever. The five or six men 
 of peace on the executive committee had dropped out, 
 and the others were united and plucky. They waited 
 on the city fathers. 
 
 "Here is the law," said their chairman, opening a 
 book that lay on the table. " It is violated thousands 
 of times a day within gunshot of this council-chamber, 
 and you know it. Here is the statute requiring you 
 to enforce it, and making you liable to criminal prose 
 cution if you don t. Here are the instructions under 
 which you were elected, directing you to enforce all 
 laws so far as your official duty extends. I myself 
 heard you take your oaths to do so. Do you intend 
 to keep them or to violate them ? " 
 
 " This has been an extraordinary and painful- 
 interview," said the mayor when the committee had 
 withdrawn. " The situation is embarrassing very 
 and perhaps we had better take counsel." 
 
 The city solicitor was summoned. 
 
 " I don t believe in prohibition," he said ; " I believe 
 
60 THE STAND-BY 
 
 in license, and know most of you do ; but that s 
 neither here nor there. The statute is plain as day. 
 You have n t any choice in the matter." 
 
 " There 11 be the devil to pay if we go for John Den- 
 man/ remarked one of the aldermen. 
 
 u There 11 be the devil to pay anyway/ was the com 
 forting reply. "You re caught between the upper 
 and nether millstones, and they 11 grind you to 
 powder." 
 
 " Looks that way," wailed the mayor. 
 
 " Yes j you ve got the army blue on, and it s only 
 a question of being shot fighting or being shot trying 
 to dodge." 
 
 "We don t want to dodge," groaned the may 
 or, "and we don t want to be shot either." 
 
 His fat chin fell upon his chest, and great beads of 
 sweat stood on his brow. He seemed to shrink and 
 dwindle bodily, as if his portly figure were much too 
 conspicuous a target. 
 
 "Would you feel hurt if we should call in 
 other counsel?" he inquired at last, piteously. 
 
 " Hurt ! Should be delighted ! It s for you to say 
 whether to prosecute in behalf of the city, and if you 
 say prosecute, I won t sacrifice my honor by shirking 
 what the law puts on me j but I tell you, I don t hanker 
 after any part of it." 
 
 He was dismissed, and Mr. Woods, Denman s pro 
 fessional adviser, was called in. 
 
 " Unfortunately," said Woods, " we have a sumptu 
 ary law, and its enforcement is primarily committed 
 to you. In so unpleasant a matter, of course you 
 don t wish to exceed your duty ? " 
 
WHEREIN DANIELS DIFFER 61 
 
 " No," replied the mayor, promptly. 
 
 " But, as honest men, to do your duty, neither more 
 nor less ? " 
 
 " Y-yes," said the mayor, unconsciously shaking his 
 head. 
 
 " I m sorry to have to differ from my learned young 
 brother, your official counsel ; but it s an old legal 
 maxim that reason is the life of law, and even statutes 
 must be construed and enforced according to common 
 sense. The statute says you shall prosecute every 
 person guilty, and so forth. Literally that means any 
 person in the State. Have you the right to go from 
 county to county prosecuting at the expense of Aps- 
 leigh? Even Dr. Bradford would n t claim it means 
 what it says. What does it mean ? It says you shall 
 prosecute if you can obtain reasonable proof. In a 
 sense I can take a trip around the world j in another 
 I can t, for I can t afford the time and money. In a 
 sense you can sacrifice your business and turn spies ; 
 as language is commonly used and the law makes 
 that the rule in construing statutes you can t. It s 
 no part of your duty. It is n t what you were elected 
 to do." 
 
 " Mr. "Woods," inquired an alderman, he was a new 
 member who had not been considered dangerous, 
 "Mr. Woods r if men were murdered in this city as 
 openly as liquor is sold, if the statute made it our duty 
 to prosecute, and if we should fold our hands and say 
 we can t get evidence, what do you suppose the com 
 munity would do ? " 
 
 "It s against the law," replied Woods, "to drive 
 faster than a walk over Denman Bridge. It is n t 
 
62 THE STAND-BY 
 
 three hours since I saw the chairman of this over- 
 righteous committee violate that law. If there s no 
 difference between little things and big, why don t you 
 prosecute the Eev. Dr. Bradford ? " 
 
 "Is n t that a matter which the law leaves to our 
 discretion? Does it say we shall prosecute? Have 
 we taken any oath to do so ? " 
 
 " Well, it 7 s pretty much the same with the prohibi 
 tory law, in spite of the l shall and the oath. There s 
 a statute authorizing city councils to regulate the sale 
 of liquors and the places where they are sold. That 
 cuts prohibition as soap cuts grease, does n t it? 
 Amounts to a confession that it can t be enforced in 
 cities, does n t it? You ve spoken of murder, Mr. 
 Capen. What would you think of a statute making 
 it a capital offense side by side with another authoriz 
 ing city councils to regulate its commission and the 
 hours and places in which it may be committed ? " 
 
 " Which is the older," inquired Capen, " the prohibi 
 tory law or the law authorizing regulation ? " 
 
 "I don t know." 
 
 " If the prohibitory law is the more recent, would n t 
 it in effect repeal the other ? " 
 
 " These ordinances exist in every city in the State," 
 replied Woods, evading the question. 
 
 " Have n t been set up as defenses to liquor prose 
 cutions, have they?" persisted Capen. "Whatever 
 the law says city councils may do, it says the mayor 
 and aldermen l shall prosecute, does n t it ? Puts that 
 in our oath of office, does n t it ? Makes us liable to 
 criminal prosecution ourselves if we don t, does n t 
 it?" 
 
WHEREIN DANIELS DIFFEE 63 
 
 "Suppose it does? To be required to prosecute, 
 you must have reasonable proof. 7 
 
 " That is n t what the statute says, Mr. Woods. It 
 says l can obtain. Are n t liquors sold as openly in 
 this city as groceries are ? " 
 
 " What of it ? Reasonable proof is proof that gives 
 reasonable assurance of conviction. Men will leave 
 the State before they 11 testify in liquor cases. They 11 
 lie on the witness-stand when they d tell the truth 
 about anything else if it cost them thousands of dol 
 lars. Grand juries won t indict, and petty juries 
 won t convict, no matter how strong the evidence is." 
 
 "As bad as that?" 
 
 "I don t call it bad. It s just as it ought to be. 
 When it was death to steal a shilling, when it was im 
 prisonment and mutilation to tell the truth about men 
 in office, English juries redeemed English humanity 
 and English liberty by putting common justice and 
 common sense before their oaths, and all the world 
 honors them for it. Why not say what we all know ? 
 The prohibitory law is such a meddlesome and out 
 rageous interference with personal liberty that it s 
 impossible to enforce it in a free country. It never 
 was intended as anything but a sop to cranks. It was 
 understood that they were to have the law, and the 
 people the whisky. The Republican party has n t a 
 vote to spare. If a few hundred cranks should refuse 
 to vote the ticket without a law against kissing, mem 
 bers of the legislature would tumble over each other 
 in their haste to pass the law, and boys and girls 
 would kiss more than ever. Do you think those same 
 members of the legislature, if they were on a jury, 
 
64 THE STAND-BY 
 
 would let a fine young fellow be sent to jail for kissing 
 Ms girl?" 
 
 "Do you mean," interrupted Capen, "that if we 
 don t like the law we should disobey it and violate our 
 oaths?" 
 
 "The voters of this State don t want such oaths 
 kept, and take good care not to elect men who will 
 keep them. You re the servants, not the masters, of 
 the people, are n t you ? They want the law for politi 
 cal reasons only. They won t have it enforced. I 11 
 put it on this ground, if you like it better : the wicked 
 prejudice against the law, if you choose to call it so, 
 is an important fact to be taken into account in decid 
 ing what is the reasonable proof on which you are 
 required to act, that is, what proof is reasonably sure 
 to convict. It s an old maxim that the law does n t 
 demand impossibilities of anybody, not even of the 
 mayor and aldermen. If it should command you 
 to dip up the Atlantic Ocean with a quart pot, you 
 would n t be bound to do it, would you ? " 
 
 "What would you advise?" asked the mayor, 
 raising his head, with a sigh. 
 
 " You might authorize the city marshal, as chief of 
 police, to enforce the law, and instruct him to enforce 
 the ordinances." 
 
 " Authorized to enforce the law, and instructed to 
 regulate its violation ! " exclaimed Capen, when the 
 vote had been taken. " If we don t have the contempt 
 of honest men on both sides, it won t be because we 
 have n t earned it ! " 
 
" WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD" 
 
 ^RAIGIN published the particulars of that 
 session. He wrote editorials so biting and 
 caustic that they were copied far and wide, 
 even by journals that had no sympathy 
 with prohibition ; and far and wide people shook their 
 sides over the torment of the Apsleigh city fathers and 
 in imagination " saw 7 em wiggle." Every one laughed 
 at them. Some despised them. No one hated them. 
 They had avoided making enemies, and in the lottery 
 of politics they might soon be again " available " as 
 " prudent and conservative men. 7 
 
 Events took a different course. At a recent session 
 of the legislature an act had been passed declaring 
 that all buildings, places, and tenements used for the 
 illegal sale, or keeping for sale, of intoxicating liquors 
 were common nuisances, and might be enjoined or 
 abated as such upon the petition of twenty or more 
 legal voters. The legislature, occupied with a great 
 railroad fight, passed the act without thought or dis 
 cussion. When it adjourned people discovered, or 
 thought they did, that the new law was an irresistible 
 5 65 
 
66 THE STAND-BY 
 
 engine of warfare. Hope and fear, a desire to exalt 
 or condemn the law, ignorance of legal principles, and 
 sensational journalism combined to set the wildest 
 ideas afloat. Many imagined that the liquor traffic 
 could be abolished by petitioning the Supreme Court, 
 and even intelligent men supposed that an injunction 
 would be a perpetual encumbrance on real estate. 
 Armed, as they thought, with such a tremendous 
 weapon, advocates of prohibition became zealous for 
 war. For a time their confidence and the demoraliza 
 tion of the enemy made their imaginary advantage 
 real. In a number of the cities and large towns peti 
 tions under the nuisance act were sharply followed 
 by prosecutions under the old law, and many liquor- 
 dealers, bewildered and disheartened, made the best 
 terms they could, and were enjoined by consent. 
 Apsleigh alone had a Denman, and, while the war of 
 words went on, there seemed no disposition to come 
 to blows. 
 
 Weeks had passed into months when, one morning 
 in May, Eben Harpswell entered the county attorney s 
 office. If Harpswell had lived in the days of the In 
 quisition he would have gloried equally in going to 
 the stake himself and in sending others there for the 
 slightest differences of opinion. He was a man of 
 small caliber and great activity, utterly incapable of 
 comparing means with ends, sincere, narrow, fanatical. 
 
 " Mr. Strickland," he said, " I want you to enforce 
 the nuisance act. Here are the papers." 
 
 His manner was that of one claiming the right to 
 command and expecting it would be questioned. It 
 was the lawyer s first intimation of the proceedings. 
 
"WHERE ANGELS FEAK TO TREAD" 67 
 
 He controlled his impulse to swear, lighted his cus 
 tomary sedative, and mechanically read the papers 
 from beginning to end. 
 
 " What evidence have you got ? " he inquired at last. 
 
 "I ve got twenty names. What s the need of 
 evidence ? " 
 
 "I can t do anything without evidence," replied 
 Strickland, his voice trembling with indignation. 
 
 " I don t see why not. The law says l upon petition 
 of twenty or more legal voters. 7 It does n t say any 
 thing about evidence." 
 
 " Another law," exclaimed Strickland, " says that on 
 petition of one person a dangerous lunatic may be sent 
 to the madhouse ! Do you think that means without 
 proof that he s a dangerous lunatic ? " 
 
 " Then how s the new law any better than the old ? " 
 
 " I don t know that it is. It has n t been tried." 
 
 " Has n t been tried ! Have n t you read a news 
 paper for two months ? " 
 
 " Is a battle-ship tried before any one knows whether 
 her guns are steel or solder ? " 
 
 " Well, if the new law has n t been tried, it s high 
 time it was. I want you to go right ahead with those 
 papers. You can get evidence enough." 
 
 Strickland refilled his pipe and smoked in silence, 
 fighting hard for self-control, while his visitor eyed 
 him suspiciously. 
 
 " Mr. Harpswell," he said at length, " John Brown 
 tried to free four million slaves with a dozen men and 
 as many old muskets. His heart was right, but his 
 head was wrong. It s the same with you." 
 
 " 1 7 ve only done what s been done in other places." 
 
68 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Done in other places ! In other places the move 
 ment was led by influential men of all political parties, 
 evidence was collected beforehand, court was in session 
 instead of five months away, and there was no John 
 Denman. Even in those places it remains to be seen 
 whether it s anything more than a passing whirlwind. 
 It s different here. How you got three or four of 
 those names I can t imagine. They won t train with 
 you, and the rest will damn the movement in public 
 opinion from the sta,rt. You ve begun war without 
 a cartridge, or a gun to fire one in. You withdrew 
 from the Temperance Union, publicly declaring that 
 it had n t the courage of its convictions, and would n t 
 do anything, and never intended to do anything. The 
 members of its executive committee, whom you de 
 spised as cowards, have a glimmering idea of what 
 war with Denman means, and are quietly preparing 
 for it. You have cut off their only chance of victory." 
 
 " I had no idea" 
 
 " Of course you had n t ! If you had ideas, as many 
 as Denman, and were as squarely on the other side, 
 you could n t do a tenth of the mischief you ve done 
 already. The war has got to begin now, not because 
 you say so, but because you ve gone so far it can t 
 be helped. These signers can t hold their tongues a 
 couple of months." 
 
 That evening, after a hard day s work, Strickland 
 sat in a cheerful room, in anything but a cheerful 
 frame of mind. He had scarcely eaten since breakfast. 
 
 "What s the matter, darling?" asked his wife, 
 smoothing his forehead with two white hands, and 
 kissing it in a pretty way she had. 
 
"WHERE ANGELS FEAE TO TREAD" 69 
 
 He drew her upon his knee and kissed her. Then 
 he held her from him, so he could watch her face, and 
 said, " Bessie, how would you like to leave Apsleigh ? " 
 
 u Leave Apsleigh ! Why, Mark, what do you mean ? " 
 
 "Just what I say, dear. How would you like to 
 leave Apsleigh ? " 
 
 "What is the trouble, darling?" she said, kissing 
 him again. " It must be something dreadful. Have 
 you lost your money ? " 
 
 " No ; it is n t money. There s going to be a liquor 
 war." He told her all about it. "I Ve had a great 
 deal to enjoy and look forward to in Apsleigh," he 
 said, " but when this is over I shall have nothing. I 
 shall be ruined politically and professionally, half my 
 old friends will be enemies, and as to staying here, I d 
 rather be in my grave." 
 
 " Could n t you resign ? " 
 
 "On the eve of battle?" 
 
 " O Mark, I d rather see you dead than dishonored ! 
 But it won t be as bad as you think. You don t care 
 so very much about politics, do you ? And if it hurts 
 your business you say Wilcox makes more money 
 selling mortgages and things than you do practising 
 law : you might do something of that sort." 
 
 " Throw up the finest profession in the world and 
 turn mortgage-broker ! No, Bessie ; we 11 go West 
 and start again." 
 
 " I 11 go, Mark, when the time comes, but it won t 
 come. You have n t brought it about 5 you re only 
 where the law puts you ; and they 11 think all the 
 more of you for doing your duty." Then she added, 
 with a woman s inconsequence : " They won t do any- 
 
 5* 
 
70 THE STAND-BY 
 
 thing dreadful, burn the house or try to kill you, 
 will they?" 
 
 " I wish they would ! " 
 
 " O Mark ! " 
 
 " The house is insured, and I ? d as soon they d kill 
 me as not. T would n t be half as bad as what s be 
 fore me. I believe in prohibition where it s possible 
 if it ever is. I d be willing to die to make it win, 
 and killing me would raise a storm of public indigna 
 tion that would make it win. There s no hope of 
 anything of that kind. If there are Harpswells in 
 Denman s camp, he 11 make 7 em curl like whipped 
 hounds." 
 
 "Mark, what makes you so bitter against Harps- 
 well ? He means well." 
 
 " I know it." 
 
 " And Denman does n t. He s a bad man." 
 
 " No, Bessie 5 he is n t a bad man. He s a giant on 
 the wrong side." 
 
 " What s the difference, Mark ? " 
 
 " All the difference in the world. There never was 
 a worse cause than the slaveholders rebellion, and the 
 men who fought for it were just like those on our side. 
 Their greatest general was the finest kind of a man. 
 Denman s got more good in him than fifty common 
 men, though he won t scruple at anything to win this 
 fight. I could bear defeat from him, but to be ruined 
 by a fool in our own camp it s unbearable ! " 
 
 "If you should want to go, Mark, I 11 gladly go 
 anywhere in the world with you, anywhere you think 
 best. There s no place I can t be happy in with you 
 and our boy." 
 
"WHERE ANGELA FEAR TO TREAD" 71 
 
 " I know it, Bessie, and it is n t so much ourselves 
 I care about though I do want to keep this house for 
 our boy, because it was his great-grandfather s I 
 don t care as much about ourselves as I do about the 
 party." 
 
 "Why, Mark!" 
 
 " We have n t any votes to spare. I m afraid it 11 
 give the State to the Democrats." 
 
 " Suppose it does, Mark 1 What of it ? " 
 
 " Bessie ! " 
 
 " I know you re the best husband that ever was, 
 and I know how you love us both j but it hurts me, 
 Mark it seems awful to hear you say you care more 
 for the party than for yourself and me and our little 
 boy. I can t understand how any one can feel that 
 way." 
 
 " Bessie, you re a Christian if there ever was one." 
 
 " I try to be a Christian, Mark. Why ? " 
 
 " And you believe in the church of Christ ? " 
 
 " More than in anything else j more even than in 
 you, darling." 
 
 "Bessie, I believe in the Republican party as you 
 believe in the church j it s my religion." 
 
 " Mark ! I know you don t mean anything of the 
 kind ; but that seems almost like sacrilege to me." 
 
 " It is n t sacrilege, Bessie j it is my faith, like your 
 faith in the Christian church. I believe in God ; I be 
 lieve he has chosen our country to be the Moses of the 
 nations, and there s only one party in it fit for a divine 
 mission. It s through that party that government of 
 the people, by the people, and for the people has not 
 perished from the earth. It s the hope of the future 
 
72 THE STAND-BY 
 
 for this nation and for all nations. I believe the Re 
 publican party is God s instrument. More than any 
 other, I believe, it is founded on Christ s teachings." 
 
 " You must n t blame me, Mark, if I can t see any 
 thing divine in politics, I m only a woman, but, 
 darling, if the Republican party has God s purpose to 
 work out, you won t defeat it by doing what the law 
 makes it your duty to do, even if it does look as if it 
 might give the next election to the Democrats." 
 
XI 
 
 A BET 
 
 SABEL went abroad the November follow 
 ing Craigin s arrival in Apsleigh. During 
 her absence he wrote to her occasionally, 
 and received replies at irregular intervals, 
 written in her frank, unconventional way. In one of 
 her letters she said : " I have met Mr. Gladstone, and 
 have dined with the Prince of Wales. I mention these 
 events in the order of their importance." At another 
 time she wrote: "I have had a great honor for an 
 American girl and a plebeian a chance to marry an 
 echo of bygone centuries. Hundreds of years ago a 
 knight with a few companions held a narrow pass 
 against a mighty host until the king and his army 
 came, and the kingdom was saved from invasion. 
 Then he sank to the ground covered with wounds, and 
 as his life-blood ebbed away the king laid his sword 
 upon him and made him a count. And his descen 
 dant, the present count, can waltz like a dancing-master, 
 and play the fiddle 5 and he this dancing, fiddling 
 carpet-nobletold me of his great ancestor to induce 
 me to marry him. What do you think I told him ? 
 I told him if he would take me to the cathedral where 
 
 73 
 
74 THE STAND-BY 
 
 the bones of his great ancestor are buried, I would 
 marry the bones." 
 
 She returned from foreign lands about six months 
 before the Harpswell affair. Her dark and splendid 
 beauty had grown more dazzling than ever. It was 
 such as her mother s had been at twenty, with a lithe- 
 ness of form, a strength and activity of body, and a 
 grace of motion that the indolent belle, Miss Isabel 
 Andrews, had never possessed. She had cultivated her 
 special gift more than anything else, and among states 
 men and princes. Craigin knew she could read the 
 love in his heart, although she never appeared con 
 scious of it. Sometimes he half believed she loved 
 him in return, but of that she gave no sign. Their 
 relations of good comradeship were stopped from 
 going further by an indefinable barrier, as if each felt 
 the shadow of coming events. 
 
 One Thursday afternoon, one of his quarter-holidays, 
 Craigin took his gun and started for Ash Swamp. 
 There had been a fresh fall of snow, and although it 
 was not the most favorable time of day, he hoped to 
 bag a brace of partridges or a rabbit. In passing the 
 Denman mansion he saw Isabel coming down the 
 walk, and waiting for her at the gate a pair of superb, 
 milk-white horses attached to a single-seated, high- 
 backed Russian sleigh, with silver-tip bear robes and 
 silver screen. 
 
 "What a magnificent turnout ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Is n t it lovely?" replied Isabel. "It s a Christ 
 mas present from papa only it is n t Christmas yet. 
 He said Santa Claus ought to come with the snow. 
 I m going to try it for the first time. Grace Wyman 
 
A BET 75 
 
 was going with me, but she s telephoned that she has 
 company and can t. I shall have to go alone unless 
 you ve nothing better to do for an hour ? " 
 
 Thus ended the rabbit hunt. 
 
 The conversation drifted to life in great English 
 country houses. 
 
 " I d rather be an earl than President of the United 
 States," said Isabel, as she finished her description of 
 an earl s life. 
 
 " Why, I thought you a marvel of democracy for a 
 young lady who s been chaperoned by the Cliffords in 
 the courts of Europe." 
 
 "I m not," she protested emphatically. "I M be 
 lieve in a nobility, eldest son and all, if I did n t believe 
 a hundred times more in noblesse oblige. Americans 
 pretend to despise what they have n t got, and envy 
 and worship it in some one else. If they can go back 
 seventy-five years to a stupid side judge they plume 
 themselves on their birth, and would make fun of my 
 waiting-maid for giving herself airs with our cook, 
 just as a Vere de Vere would make fun of them. Per 
 haps it s all absurd, from Vere de Veres down, but I d 
 rather be absurd than a hypocrite. 1 11 venture to say 
 half the English aristocracy don t care as much for 
 blood as I do ? and I m every inch an American girl." 
 
 " What makes you care so much for it ? " 
 
 "For the same reason that people would want 
 whisky ten times as much as they do now if they 
 could n t get it because it s the one thing money 
 can t buy or brains win." 
 
 " But you thought more of meeting Gladstone than 
 of dining with the Prince of Wales ? " 
 
76 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "Yes; Gladstone is Gladstone, and the prince, if 
 it were n t for the accident of birth, would be a com 
 mon man." 
 
 "The French count had family enough, had n t 
 he?" 
 
 " He was the eleventh count in direct line." 
 
 " And you despised him ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Yet you say you care a great deal for family for 
 blood?" 
 
 " Yes, I do j but let me show you ! Come, ponies, 
 show the stuff you 7 re made of ! " 
 
 The road was level as a turnpike, the sleighing 
 superb. The colts, covering the ground with flying 
 feet, held their speed like veterans, their mistress 
 handling them with the skill of a trainer. 
 
 " Blood or not, they re trotters from forelock to 
 pastern ! " she exclaimed at length, checking them, and 
 glowing with pride. "Do you think I don t prize 
 them more because they come of famous stock ? But 
 what if Thunderbolt should carry himself like a scrub, 
 and claim the honors of the Derby just because his 
 great-great-great-grandmother won it ? He has a pedi 
 gree and does n t disgrace it." 
 
 " I see what you mean," said Craigin. " A man is 
 one who does great things ; family is a line of men." 
 
 " That s just it," replied Isabel. " The old count 
 who held the pass was a man. If his blood had kept 
 its virtue I d have bowed down and worshiped it ; but 
 eleven generations had turned it to water." 
 
 " Blood to water, and land to air ! " mused Craigin, 
 half to himself and half aloud. 
 
A BET 77 
 
 Isabel turned on him with flashing eyes. " Do you 
 think I despise a man because he 7 s poor ? " she cried. 
 "The count was rich, one of the richest men in his 
 province, but he was a coward. A boat upset; he 
 swam ashore, and left ladies to save themselves as best 
 they could." 
 
 " And had the presumption to propose to you after 
 that?" 
 
 " Do you think I 7 d have let the creature speak to 
 me after that ? But I knew what he was before. I 
 know a coward when I see one." 
 
 In the course of the winter the "Big Six" gave a 
 ball. A Big Six ball meant the best music in Boston, 
 the best people (from a society point of view) for forty 
 miles around, a deal of dress, much pleasure on the 
 part of those within the charmed circle, much envy on 
 the part of those without in a word, it was the social 
 event of a winter in Apsleigh. Craigin went with the 
 Denmans, and as they sat together at a corner of the 
 banquet-table they could not help overhearing a con 
 versation just outside, for the door had been left ajar, 
 and the young men spoke louder than they realized. 
 
 " She ? s the handsomest girl I ever saw," said one of 
 them. 
 
 " My sister 11 be wild about that white satin and the 
 diamonds," said the other. 
 
 " What are diamonds and Worth dresses to Isabel 
 Denman?" exclaimed the first speaker. "She d be 
 the belle of the ball just the same in a calico gown." 
 
 "What ? s she going to do!" queried the second 
 speaker. " Marry Craigin or the new Earl of Throck- 
 morton ? " 
 
78 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Marry Craigin I 11 bet you fifty dollars she does." 
 
 " AU right. 1 11 bet fifty on the earl. If she don t 
 have either, it s a stand-off." 
 
 "They say the earl s handsome, and an awfully 
 good fellow, and blue-blooded for a thousand years. 
 Isabel Denman would like a pedigree and a coronet as 
 much as anybody; but I tell you, Frank, she loves 
 Craigin, and an emperor could n t get her away 
 from him if he does n t get into a fight with the old 
 man." 
 
 " Fred, there won t be any fight. Craigin can t do 
 anything alone, and he s the only man in this city 
 that s got the sand to stand right up to John Denman 
 and give and take to a finish." 
 
 " Yes ; and the old man 11 have to be prodded mighty 
 hard before he 11 turn on a young fellow that saved 
 his life." 
 
 "It s kind of queer, though, to read his paper, 
 growing ranker and ranker every week, and see him 
 round with the Denmans the way he is ! " 
 
 " That s why I bet on him. Do you remember the 
 circus chap who was here last summer ? " 
 
 " The one who did n t wear tights or chalk his soles, 
 and rode six horses bareback, smoking and talking and 
 laughing as if it was n t any more of a trick than fall 
 ing off a log ? " 
 
 " Yes. It was n t so much the things he did as the 
 way he did em. Here s Craigin carrying himself the 
 same way captivates everybody, no one can quite tell 
 how. Denman despises a coward and worships a hero, 
 and Isabel ? s a chip of the old block. They don t like 
 what he s doing, but they like him all the better for 
 
A BET 79 
 
 having the sand to do it. I tell yon, it s going to beat 
 the earl ; he is n t in the race." 
 
 Of the four listeners Mrs. Denman alone showed 
 the embarrassment they all felt. Craigin would have 
 given all he had to read Isabel s thoughts as she read 
 his j but that he could not do. 
 
PAKE Two 
 
 -r 
 
 THE FIEST CAMPAIGN 
 
IN REM 
 
 jHE day and the hour came. The city clock 
 struck nine. The hostilities precipitated 
 by Harpswell began. The high sheriff, sev 
 en deputies, and twenty-three assistants 
 left convenient loitering-places and started, according 
 to previous agreement, for their respective scenes of 
 visitation. In five minutes it was generally known 
 that something unusual was taking place j in ten that 
 the long-talked-of liquor war had begun. Groups of 
 excited people stood about watching the officers, won 
 dering who had signed the complaints, whether they 
 would dare meddle with Denman, what he would do 
 if they did, and how it all would end. The drug 
 stores were not molested; the raid was confined to 
 other places where liquor was sold. At most of them 
 not a drop was found. Such was the case at each of 
 Denman s hotels. His wholesale warehouse, however, 
 contained hundreds of barrels. The secret had leaked, 
 but there had not been time to remove so large a stock. 
 Notwithstanding the substantial failure of the 
 search, the dealers were notified to appear before the 
 
 83 
 
84 THE STAND-BY 
 
 police court on the following morning, and not far 
 from a hundred witnesses, taken almost haphazard, 
 were summoned. At the appointed time the proceed 
 ings were adjourned to the county court-house, and 
 even that large building was packed to suffocation 
 with all sorts and conditions of people. One by one 
 the defendants pleaded not guilty, waived examination, 
 and gave bail. The strangest thing was their good 
 humor. The spectacle of a great organization like the 
 Temperance Union, and the executive committee with 
 its brave speeches, abandoning the field to Harpswell 
 was ludicrous, and, in spite of the dreaded nuisance 
 act, the movement was already known as the Cranks 
 War. 
 
 There were those who did not laugh. " Mr. Strick 
 land," said one of them, " this is none of our work ; we 
 wash our hands of it." 
 
 " Dr. Bradford," was the reply, " I wish you d step 
 up to my office." 
 
 The conference was a long one. 
 
 " This war is n t of my seeking," said Strickland. 
 " Pve never believed in getting too far ahead of public 
 opinion. But that 7 s neither here nor there. It s 
 come. Harpswell s a fool, and deserves a fool s fate ; 
 but, all the same, the only honorable course is to fight. 
 If we back out now, every temperance man in Apsleigh 
 has got to hunt his hole and stay in it till he dies." 
 
 That night the active members of the executive 
 committee held a protracted session, and unanimously 
 voted to enlist for the war. It had been declared, and 
 preparation for it was yet to be made. The city gov 
 ernment and city marshal were hostile. Most of the 
 
IN EEM 85 
 
 local leaders in politics were either hostile or waiting 
 to go with the majority, though a few were friendly 
 after the manner of Nicodemus, secretly and by night. 
 The wealth and influence of the city were, as it was 
 commonly put, " conservative." The Temperance 
 Union was in fact the Temperance Disunion. Half 
 the executive committee were clergymen, whose prac 
 tical wisdom was a subject of lay incredulity. Then 
 there was Harpswell, an object of terror to his friends 
 and of hope to his foes. 
 
 In Denman s storehouse, under a keeper, were some 
 forty thousand dollars worth of liquors, every drop of 
 which was liable to confiscation. The executive com 
 mittee proceeded to take the bull by the horns. The 
 process in rem, that is, against the liquors themselves, 
 was new to Strickland ; for in twenty years it had been 
 resorted to scarcely a dozen times in all the State. 
 He drew the papers as best he could, and every active 
 member of the executive committee signed and swore 
 to them. The service of these papers was the first in 
 timation that an enemy very different from Harpswell 
 had entered the field. 
 
 Denman occasionally lost his temper. From his 
 standpoint, he never before had such great provoca 
 tion. Within ten minutes after the warrant was served 
 a pair of grays attached to a beer wagon dashed down 
 Main street, turned the corner of Garland street, and 
 tore up to his storehouse at full speed. Denman 
 sprang to the ground before they stopped. Upon a pile 
 of barrels sat the sheriff s keeper, a brawny giant, two 
 hundred and fifty pounds of bone and muscle, motion 
 less as a graven image, grim and silent as a Roman 
 
86 THE STAND-BY 
 
 gladiator, and withal a man of known courage. For 
 a moment Denman glared at him without speaking ; 
 then he seized a barrel of Medf ord rum by the chimes, 
 tipped it over, and rolled it to the door. 
 
 "Here, Jim," he said, "take hold! Fly round 
 sharp ! " 
 
 He was thrust aside, and the barrel was rolled back 
 and set on end. 
 
 " Mr. Denman," said the keeper, " these liquors are 
 in my charge. You must let them alone." 
 
 " In your charge ? And who are you ? " cried the 
 owner, with an oath. 
 
 "Usually," was the calm reply, "I m only Dick 
 Spaulding, but "unconsciously quoting a great king 
 "to-day 1 m the State." 
 
 "Jim," said Denman, after bestowing a fervent 
 curse on Dick Spaulding, and the State too, "Jim, 
 call the boys ! Get every truckman you can ! We 11 
 have these liquors, State or no State ! Tell em I 11 
 pay em and stand by em." 
 
 " Mr. Denman," interposed Spaulding, drawing him 
 self up to his full height of six feet two, and looking 
 the magnate of Apsleigh squarely in the face, " if you 
 get these liquors, you 11 get them over my dead body, 
 and it won t be the only dead body, either. I m put 
 here to keep these liquors, and I shall do it. Mark 
 Strickland says the law 11 bear me out in it, life or 
 death." 
 
 "Well, then, it s death, for I 11 have em ! " 
 
 " Mr. Denman," said Woods, appearing at the door 
 way, " it won t do ! " 
 
 " What won t do ? Here s forty thousand dollars 
 
IN EEM 87 
 
 worth of liquor gone to hell! I don t care for the 
 money, but 77 The air was thick with profanity. 
 
 Gnashing his teeth, he hastened away, and met his 
 pastor at the corner of Main street. " See here ! n he 
 snarled, " I gave twenty thousand dollars to build your 
 church ! I subscribed half your salary ! I 7 ve paid 
 the last cent I ever shall, and, what 7 s more, your stay 
 in this town 7 11 be short ! You 7 re a fine specimen of 
 gratitude meddling with my business! You re a 
 Christian, you are. 77 
 
 " Mr. Denman, 77 replied the clergyman, " I have in 
 terfered because your business interferes with mine. 77 
 
 With a parting curse Denman rushed on, sprang up 
 a stairway, and burst into Strickland 7 s office. 
 
 " Have you made out papers for the seizure of my 
 goods? 77 he demanded. 
 
 " I have. 77 
 
 " What are you going to do with them ? " 
 
 " Have them condemned if necessary. 77 
 
 "No, you won 7 t! They 7 re worth forty thousand 
 dollars. 77 
 
 " I can 7 t help it if they 7 re worth forty millions. 77 
 
 " Well, 77 with a torrent of maledictions," 1 7 11 see 
 about that ! 1 7 11 have those liquors ! " 
 
 " No, you won 7 t ! 77 
 
 " 1 7 d like to know why? 77 
 
 " Because they 7 11 be defended with powder and lead 
 if necessary. 77 
 
 " I don 7 t care ad for powder and lead ! " 
 
 " You might for prison-bars, and that 7 s what it 
 would come to. Mr. Denman, I wish you well ; don 7 t 
 try it. 77 
 
88 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Wish me well ! Who and what are you, to wish 
 me well or ill ? " 
 
 He descended the stairway, leaving imprecations 
 behind him. An hour later he was himself again 
 a quiet, self-contained man of fertile brain and iron 
 will, preparing for such a fight as no one in Apsleigh 
 yet dreamed of. 
 
 " It >s a great day for Apsleigh ! exclaimed Harps- 
 well to a group of men who were watching the trans 
 portation of Denman s liquors to a county building. 
 
 " It was a great day for Charleston," replied one of 
 them, " when Sumter was bombarded." 
 
II 
 
 THE LOCKOUT 
 
 JHERE was a gathering on Apsleigh Avenue 
 in the evening of the " great day for Aps 
 leigh." According to society standards 
 the company was not select. Neither was 
 it festive, although the table was laden with fruits, 
 wines, liquors, and cigars. Occasionally there was a 
 bitter laugh, but curses were more frequent. In a 
 more important respect than profanity and refresh 
 ments, the meeting was strikingly unlike those of the 
 executive committee : there all held equal rank ; here, 
 by common consent, one man was dictator. 
 
 " It 7 s war," said Denman, calmly and grimly, as the 
 conference ended, "and war means money. Money 
 and public sentiment together are irresistible. We 
 have one ; we 11 have the other. Harpswell has al 
 ready won us half the battle. There must be no 
 demonstration, no insult to any one, no outrage of 
 any kind. The burning of another church would be 
 our ruin. If I don t sell in the State, the law can t 
 touch my brewery ; it will coin money for the fight. 
 Besides, the help are our friends, and I would n t shut 
 
 89 
 
90 THE STAND-BY 
 
 down and let em suffer, anyway. The nuisance act 
 can t be enforced if I retire from business in my other 
 places. I have retired. To-morrow morning every 
 guest and permanent boarder in my hotels will be 
 notified to leave. Next day at noon the houses will 
 be closed. My friends of the other hotels and the 
 restaurants will gladly do likewise. We 11 stand to 
 gether and lick these cranks, horse, foot, and dragoons, 
 till there is n t a grease spot left of em." 
 
 The Sunday after the hotels closed there was a 
 mass-meeting in the city hall. Harpswell was there 
 in high feather, and many others in feather not so 
 high. Dr. Bradford made the opening speech, a plain 
 statement of what the executive committee hoped to 
 accomplish, and an earnest appeal for support. Crai- 
 gin followed with a masterly ten minutes talk. He 
 asserted that no wrong had been so monstrous that, 
 at some time in the past, it had not been sanctioned 
 as inalienable right. " The divine right of kings," he 
 said, " the right to sit in place of God and judge of 
 other men s beliefs, the right of private vengeance, of 
 private war, of slavery all these have been unques 
 tioned by the world. Where are they now?" He 
 spoke of how the race is fighting its way steadily up 
 to the golden age, the age of the future, not the past. 
 "We are the Moses of the nations," so he claimed, 
 " and the fulfilment of our God-appointed leadership 
 depends less on blood and iron than on the virtue of 
 our citizens." Then, in a few words, he told how the 
 abuse of liquor makes for pauperism, disease, igno 
 rance, degradation, vice, and crime, for all vile things, 
 all things corrupting politics, all things that sap the 
 
THE LOCKOUT 91 
 
 nation s life. " A generation ago," he said, " the South 
 defied the law of the land. Men said it could not be 
 enforced. Business was disorganized. Government 
 bonds were wildcat investments. Billions of dollars 
 were thrown into a pit that seemed bottomless. Hun 
 dreds of thousands of brave men went to death ; hun 
 dreds of thousands more took their places. Righteous 
 law was enforced. Treason was suppressed, and in 
 suppressing it slavery was blotted out. From waste 
 and agony and death have come justice, peace, pros 
 perity, a recreated nation. Through all the ages men 
 will thank God for the grandeur and the glory of the 
 great uprising which saved government of the people, 
 by the people, for the people, to the peoples of the 
 earth. There is coming yet another great uprising. 
 Righteous law must be, and must be enforced. We 
 must work out our destiny. The perils of the future 
 must be met and done to death like treason and sla 
 very. It can be done. Brave men can do it." Then 
 he closed with an appeal to stand firm at all costs an 
 appeal so earnest, so impassioned, it made that great 
 audience for the moment kindred spirits with himself. 
 Closing the hotels had aroused the people. Severe 
 comments on Denman s course were well received 
 from unexpected sources, and in response to a call, and 
 on a canvass made before the meeting broke up, many 
 persons consented to open their houses to the travel 
 ing public. Arrangements were made for publishing 
 a directory of such houses, and delegates were chosen 
 to see that strangers were cared for on the arrival of 
 every train. The results of political and personal dis 
 like for Harpswell were in great measure counteracted 
 
92 THE STAND-BY 
 
 by the stand of the executive committee. The audacity 
 of an attack on Denman captivated the multitude. 
 The meeting closed with great enthusiasm. The 
 leaders were surprised and encouraged. At that time 
 volunteers were abundant, but, as in 61, powder and 
 shot, rifle and cannon, were wanting. 
 
 Weeks passed. All saloons and bar-rooms were 
 closed. Drunkenness disappeared. The city was 
 orderly beyond precedent. Some regarded the war 
 as ended, and were astonished that what had seemed 
 so difficult had proved so easy; others knew it had 
 scarcely begun. In the absence of stirring events the 
 business outlook became the chief topic of newspaper 
 discussion. All of the papers published interviews. 
 Stanch temperance men claimed that local trade in 
 the necessaries and comforts of life was increasing. 
 No one could deny that business from other places 
 was falling off with alarming rapidity. The crusad 
 ing spirit gradually fizzled away, like gas from soda- 
 water, while the shadow of the giant grew larger. 
 Forbearance under prosecution, or, as many put it, 
 persecution, and the extraordinary quiet and good 
 order, won over, as Denman had foreseen, influential 
 people whom anything like an outrage would have 
 made allies of the executive committee. It became 
 irksome to entertain the traveling public. Strangers 
 disliked the restraint of private houses and the con 
 sciousness of being unwelcome guests. Everybody 
 who could shunned the town. Rival towns took ad 
 vantage of the situation. Apsleigh was losing touch 
 with the business world, was in danger of becoming 
 isolated and decayed. Those who at first thought 
 
THE LOCKOUT 93 
 
 Denman had made a mistake in closing the hotels 
 began to look at it differently, and the reasons which 
 he gave for doing so in great measure transferred the 
 odium to the other side. Shortly after the hotels 
 closed he went away " to see about investments else 
 where." He did not return until the tide had begun 
 to set strongly his way. The next morning a " Times " 
 reporter found him at his office, to all appearance as 
 free from anxiety as if no rumor of trouble had ever 
 reached his ears. 
 
 " I called to interview you in regard to the hotels, 
 if you ve no objection," said the reporter. 
 
 " Not the slightest. Won t you have a cigar ? 1 ve 
 closed the houses because I don t want to run them at 
 a heavy loss." 
 
 " It s made a great stir." 
 
 " Of course. How do you like that cigar?" 
 
 " Best I ever smoked." 
 
 " Then you 11 do me a favor by taking the box. 
 Clifford has a plantation a few miles west of Havana, 
 best tobacco land on the island, best in the world, 
 and he s sent me a whole case." 
 
 "Really, Mr. Denman," exclaimed the reporter, 
 greatly flattered, "I don t think I ought to accept 
 such a present ! They re so choice and" 
 
 " Don t mention it ! " interrupted Denman. " I can t 
 get any more of Clifford, for he won t take pay j but 
 I ve arranged to buy of his agent, and shall have the 
 pleasure of treating my friends to what they can t find 
 outside of Cuba." 
 
 " It s a snap to be one of your friends. But I must 
 finish this interview and write it up for the type-set- 
 
94 THE STAND-BY 
 
 ters this afternoon. Perhaps I m trespassing on your 
 time ? " 
 
 " Not at all/ 7 said Denman, to whom the interview 
 was of great importance. 
 
 " You say you have closed your hotels because you 
 can t run them according to law without loss ? " 
 
 " Solely for that reason." 
 
 "The bar receipts must have been very large? 
 Excuse me for asking the question, Mr. Denman. I 
 would n t have you think" 
 
 " I m glad you asked it. When it s given out that 
 the hotels are closed because they can t be run in con 
 formity to law, and the reasons are not explained, 
 people take it for granted, as you did, that the bar 
 trade is a substantial part of the income. My hotels 
 would pay handsomely without selling a drop, if I 
 could only hold the custom." 
 
 "Which means that most people who travel want a 
 good deal of liquid refreshment, and won t go where 
 it is n t to be had ? " 
 
 "Not at all. Most of my guests drink very little, 
 and many of them nothing. It costs about as much 
 to run a train half full of passengers as if it were 
 crowded, does n t it ? " 
 
 "I should think so." 
 
 " And the receipts are only half as large. It s 
 much the same with a hotel. Whether it s full or 
 half full does n t make twenty per cent, difference in 
 expenses, and it makes a hundred per cent, difference 
 in receipts. Take the Apsleighshire House. With 
 two hundred guests the gross receipts are about eight 
 hundred dollars a day, and the net profits about two 
 
THE LOCKOUT 95 
 
 hundred. With only a hundred guests the daily re 
 ceipts are about four hundred dollars, and the expenses 
 about four hundred and eighty. There s nothing for 
 me to do but shut up my houses." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 " Most people away from home like a glass of wine 
 or beer at the table when they feel like it, or a night 
 cap when they go to bed. Whether they care much 
 for it or not, they resent being refused, and go away 
 mad and talk against the house. It s human nature. 
 Then, every one s especially liable to ailments away 
 from home, and wants to feel that he can get a little 
 whisky or something of that kind without calling in a 
 doctor he does n t know. There s another class an 
 important one: nine tenths of the men and women 
 who never drink won t patronize a temperance house." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because a house that s full can afford to set a 
 good table and have everything up to date, and a 
 house that is n t can t. People who don t drink are 
 as fond of good things to eat as anybody is, and ex 
 pect as much for their money." 
 
 " I m sure of that, Mr. Denman. I >ve reported all 
 sorts of banquets, and know that for eating the par 
 sons take the cake." 
 
 " You 11 notice," continued Denman, " that the es 
 timates I Ve given, in supposing the hundred guests 
 spend half as much as the two hundred, leave bar re 
 ceipts entirely out of account. As a rule, people who 
 spend money for drink spend for other extras, and 
 there s a big margin of profit in all kinds of extras. 
 Of course I don t deny that the bar receipts are quite 
 
96 THE STAND-BY 
 
 an item ; but they alone don t cut much figure in the 
 difference between a handsome profit and a heavy 
 loss." 
 
 " Yes j I see now just how it is." 
 
 " Of course you do. I ve been in the hotel business 
 twenty-five years, and think I know as much about it 
 as the ministers do. It would cost several thousand 
 dollars a month more to run my houses according to 
 law than it would to let them stand idle ; that s why 
 I closed them." 
 
 "Mr. Denman," said the reporter, "if people had 
 understood this matter, they would n t have blamed 
 you." 
 
 " Of course they would n t. No one can expect me 
 to throw money away." 
 
 "I shall want to make a very careful report of 
 this interview," continued the " Times " man. " I will 
 show it to you for correction." 
 
 " I wish you would. By the way, when those cigars 
 are gone, you 11 know where to find more of the same 
 kind." 
 
 Denman s reputation for truth was good. He was 
 too honest to lie, except as a war measure, and too 
 shrewd to lie and be caught. His statement had im 
 mense weight with the public. The " Tocsin " did not 
 accept it as altogether true and commented on it 
 severely. 
 
Ill 
 
 "I SHALL HATE YOU" 
 
 TSLEIGHSHIRE people already talked 
 about Craigin, as they long had about 
 Denman, as every one talks about noted 
 statesmen, generals, and pugilists. He 
 still frequented the house on Apsleigh Avenue. As 
 the speaker behind the door had said, the old man 
 was disposed to bear a great deal of prodding before 
 turning on the young fellow who had saved his life. 
 His good will was not yet changed to hate, and his 
 respect increased as his good will diminished. 
 
 " To publish what he did to-day, and sit here with 
 Isabel and wife and me playing whist, like one of the 
 family it s the coolest thing I ever saw ! " said the 
 old brewer to himself. He was so lost in admiration 
 that he lost the trick. 
 
 Isabel, Grace Wyman, Mr. Hobbs, Grace s lover, 
 and Craigin played lawn-tennis together one afternoon 
 not quite two months after the closing of the hotels. 
 When refreshments were served Miss Wyman and Mr. 
 Hobbs not unnaturally found themselves at one end 
 7 97 
 
98 THE STAND-BY 
 
 of the tennis-court, and Isabel and Craigin at the 
 other. 
 
 " We Ve been good friends a long time, have n t 
 we ? " said Isabel, putting down her plate, and abruptly 
 changing the topic of conversation. 
 
 " Yes, 77 replied Craigin ; " three years, counting from 
 the boat-race." 
 
 " It seems such a pity we must be enemies ! 1 7 m 
 more sorry than I can tell, but it can t be helped." 
 
 " Can t be helped?" 
 
 " You think your course is right and won t flinch 
 a hair, and this is hardly the beginning. Papa s 
 thought the World of you, in spite of all you Ve said 
 and done ; but it can t last much longer. He 11 hate 
 you pretty soon ; then I shall hate you too." 
 
 Her bearing was proud and firm, but her bosom 
 swelled, and Craigin thought he heard a faint sound 
 like the choking back of a sob. 
 
 "Hate me, right or wrong?" he said. 
 
 " Yes ; right or wrong." 
 
 "Right or wrong?" repeated Craigin. 
 
 "Papa s friends shall be my friends, and his ene 
 mies my enemies, right or wrong. I wanted to say 
 this," she continued before he could answer, "because 
 there s another thing I must say before it s too late. 
 It s this : I know there is n t anything cowardly or 
 dishonorable about you, and when papa and I hate 
 you, we 11 give you good, square, honest hate. One 
 can t hate an enemy one despises." 
 
 " I m sure" began Craigin. 
 
 She interrupted him with a question. "Do you 
 believe in presentiments ? " 
 
"I SHALL HATE YOU" 99 
 
 "I don t know. Why?" 
 
 "I do. I can t account for them not entirely. 
 All I know is, mine come to pass. Two years ago, 
 when you first came to Apsleigh, I ha4 a presentiment 
 that you and papa would be enemies ; it s never left 
 me. I would n t believe it, because you had saved 
 papa s life and because I did n t want to ; but it s 
 coming true. There s going to be a terrible fight. 
 It won t end this year, perhaps not next and papa 11 
 break you." 
 
 " Is that last a presentiment too ?" 
 
 " Are you stronger than the railroad company was ? 
 It tried to crush papa. Where is it now ? In his box 
 at the bank." 
 
 " Suppose he does break me ? what of it ? Men must 
 be broken, and hearts too, that right may triumph." 
 
 Isabel looked him full in the face, and after glanc 
 ing at the couple who had forgotten everything but 
 each other, said solemnly : " It is n t right ! It s 
 wrong ! It s wicked ! It s worse than wicked ; it s 
 mean ! I don t like the liquor business that is n t it 
 I hate it but have you ever read about the mas 
 sacre of St. Bartholomew ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "The Huguenots and Catholics were living to 
 gether, just the same as people lived together here 
 before you came, trading, visiting, marrying, making 
 money, having a good time, when all at once, at the 
 tolling of a great bell, the Catholics turned on the 
 Huguenots and cut their throats, men, women, and 
 little children. Was that a fair way to put down 
 heresy ? " 
 
100 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "No; it wasn t." 
 
 " It s the way people are treating papa. He s been 
 selling whisky and making beer ever since I was born. 
 They ve encouraged him to put hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars into the business ; they ve said what a fine 
 thing it was for Apsleigh to have it in the hands of a 
 man who could regulate it as he has ; and they ve stood, 
 hat in hand, begging for his money. They ve got 
 it, ministers and all, for their Reform Club, for their 
 churches, for everything they call good more than 
 any other ten men in town have given ; to poor folks, 
 that needed kind words and a helping hand, more than 
 any other hundred men have given; and now they 
 say it s blood-money, and are trying to rob him of 
 it. Ever since I can remember it s been nothing but 
 praises of papa. He s had all he could do to refuse 
 the honors they wanted to give him. They d have 
 made him governor, member of Congress, United 
 States senator, if he d only consented ; and now he s 
 John Denman, the criminal, and they re snarling at his 
 heels like a pack of curs round a lion. Why did n t 
 they do as you did let him understand in the first 
 place that they did n t like his business and would 
 crush it out if they could ? Because they did n t dare 
 to. That s why papa and I respect you and despise 
 them. That s why I say papa 11 break you because 
 they 11 run away by and by, like the cowards they 
 are, and leave you alone. I shall stand with papa to 
 the end. I d fight them if I were he. I hate the 
 business, but I d fight them just the same. There ! 
 I ve said what I wanted to ! " A touch of her father s 
 iron will half repressed the tremor of her voice as she 
 
"i SHALL 
 
 added, " I m glad it >s said, for we sha n t be on speak 
 ing terms much longer. Now let 7 s beat Mr. Hobbs 
 and Grace." 
 
 Craigin stayed to dinner and played a rubber of 
 whist, after which Denman, for the first time, intro 
 duced the subject on which they differed so widely. 
 
 " Do you know," he said, " that the new Unitarian 
 church was built to promote crime ? " 
 
 "Why, no ! " replied Craigin. "But I understand 
 you gave twenty thousand dollars toward building it." 
 
 "Yes; to promote the crimes perpetrated there 
 every Sunday. You and your minister and Henry 
 Harnett, and a lot more of the law-and-order people 
 of this city, are liable to fine and imprisonment for 
 blasphemy. There s one of the old blue-laws left 
 over in this State, entitled < An Act to Prevent Blas 
 phemy/ that makes it a crime to deny the divinity of 
 Christ. What would all you Unitarians do if you 
 should be prosecuted as criminals for worshiping God 
 decently, according to the dictates of your own con 
 sciences ? " 
 
 "We d say the law is an outrage against human 
 rights. We d appeal to the constitutional guaranties 
 of religious liberty." 
 
 " Suppose the courts should take the same position 
 they have in regard to certain other rights ? Suppose 
 they should say, l It is n t a question of religious liberty 
 at all. Fear of hell-fire keeps the masses from vice 
 and crime. Unitarians don t believe in hell-fire, and 
 so they re dangerous to public morals, to good govern 
 ment, to the very existence of free institutions, and 
 must be suppressed. It s a matter clearly within the 
 
102 !< ".. !HE~ -STAND-BY 
 
 police power of the State, for self-preservation is the 
 first law of States/" 
 
 " Then we d say that all men are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that higher 
 than any finite court or law or constitution is the 
 primary, eternal, and inalienable right of man to think 
 for himself on the great questions of God and immor 
 tality, and to speak his convictions with decent regard 
 for the rights and feelings of others." 
 
 "Which would be defying the law?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Resisting it by force, if necessary?" 
 
 " Yes ; if there were a fighting chance of success." 
 
 "You mean that it would justify taking up arms, 
 killing people, bringing on civil war ? " 
 
 " Yes j all the horrors of a religious war if there 
 were a fighting chance of success, not useless, hope 
 less bloodshed and misery." 
 
 " That would be rebellion treason ? " 
 
 " Yes, technically, if it failed j revolution if it suc 
 ceeded j a patriotic duty in either case." 
 
 " Well," said Denman, " you re the squarest man I 
 know. You ve seen all the time what I was driving 
 at, and have n t hedged a bit. Your position in this 
 matter is mine on the liquor question. This old law, 
 that s been on the statute-book for a couple of hun 
 dred years, has been used once since I can remember 
 to quiet a loud, foul-mouthed blasphemer who shocked 
 everybody ; but only a fanatic would dream of enforc 
 ing it against those who express religious opinions in 
 a decent way. The people of this State would n t 
 stand such an outrage twenty-four hours. The pro- 
 
"I SHALL HATE YOU" 103 
 
 hibitory law answers a like purpose. It does well 
 enough to shut up low dives, to keep men from selling 
 to drunkards and children j but the fact that one man in 
 a hundred eats too much pie or drinks too much beer 
 does n t give the State a moral right to take pie or 
 beer away from the other ninety-nine. I know the 
 courts in this State say it s within the police power, 
 the same as the courts of the Inquisition said religious 
 opinions were; but higher than any finite court or 
 law or constitution is the primary, eternal, and in 
 alienable right of man to eat and drink in moderation, 
 with decent regard for the rights and feelings of others. 
 There are tens of thousands of better men than I am, 
 men who have no pecuniary interests at stake, who 
 believe, as I do, that a prohibitory law is such an out 
 rageous and intolerable meddling with personal liberty 
 that anything necessary to resist it is justifiable. 7 
 
 " I think I understand how you look at it, Mr. Den- 
 man. 1 7 ve never doubted your sincerity." 
 
 " And I ve never doubted yours. I m sure I d 
 feel just the same if I had n t a dollar at stake ; but I 
 was induced to invest hundreds of thousands on the 
 general understanding that the law was only intended 
 to prevent abuses, and I ve always done all I could 
 to keep the business respectable. I had a hard strug 
 gle at first, but for twenty-five years most everything 
 I ve touched has turned to gold, and I could lose the 
 money I ve got tied up in this business without feel 
 ing it. I don t care much about the money, but I 
 won t be robbed of it. I think I ve a right to act as 
 the Unitarians of this State would act if they were 
 prosecuted for their religious opinions. I respect 
 
104 THE STAND-BY 
 
 you more than I do most any one I know j we ve 
 been good friends ; I owe you my life ; and I want to 
 tell you fair and plain that if this thing goes on I 
 sha n t shrink from necessary war measures. I m 
 outside the pale of the law, and of course you 11 
 understand that, if I were to be bound by what you 
 might consider fair fighting, I d be helpless. It s 
 only ten o clock, and I guess the cook >s fixing some 
 thing nice to eat ; let s have another rubber to get up 
 an appetite." 
 
 When Craigin went home, two hours later, Isabel 
 bade him good night with a steady voice. As soon 
 as he was gone the proud girl flung herself on her bed 
 and burst into uncontrollable sobs. 
 
 " It s the last- time," she moaned, " the last time we 
 shall ever meet as friends. It killed Harry, and now 
 it 11 break his heart and mine ! " 
 
IV 
 
 THE TEETH OF THE LAW 
 
 |HE executive committee held many sessions 
 during the two months of quiet that fol 
 lowed the seizure of Denman s liquors. 
 Strickland was often called. In the begin 
 ning he had said he would attend if sent for, and not 
 otherwise. He dwelt constantly on the necessity for 
 evidence. The sum and substance of his counsel was, 
 how to get it. 
 
 " I don t want to hire detectives, if I can help it," he 
 said. " They ? re expensive, and I don t like em. We 
 can t count on topers ; they all lie. If they tell the 
 truth, a jury won t believe em. It is n t my duty to 
 go hunting for evidence, and I won t do it. There s 
 a good deal to be had without hunting. The internal- 
 revenue collector s books are evidence against those 
 who have paid the United States tax, and they all 
 have. The books of the freight offices will show the 
 transportation of liquors in barrels, to whom delivered, 
 and when. The truckmen, if they don t lie, will fur 
 nish evidence of the same kind. The records of the 
 express office will show the delivery of the more ex- 
 
 105 
 
106 THE STAND-BY 
 
 pensive liquors, that come in smaller packages. All 
 the employees at the saloons, and most of the em 
 ployees and permanent guests at the hotels, have seen 
 the law violated daily. Some of them will tell the 
 truth. Bars and bar fixtures were found at all of the 
 places. Denman had forty thousand dollars worth 
 of liquors on hand. It is n t reasonable to suppose he 
 had all that for private use. All this and more can 
 be had without much hunting." 
 
 " I should think it ought to be enough," remarked 
 Dr. Bradford. 
 
 " We want the cases so strong," replied Strickland, 
 " that a jury can t say * Not guilty without perjury 
 plain as sunlight. Systematic work will make em so. 
 Every business man knows enough to hang half the 
 dealers in town, if it were murder instead of liquor- 
 selling. If you ask em about it, they re dumb as 
 oysters, but among themselves they talk. The liquor 
 men are talking all the time. Denman talks. He 
 pitched into one of you about meddling with his busi 
 ness, an admission of guilt, and he s been inter 
 viewed by the press. One thing leads to another a 
 rill to a brook, a brook to a river, a river to an ocean. 
 There s no limit to the evidence that half a dozen 
 shrewd, quiet men can accumulate in a few weeks." 
 
 From a carefully prepared list of thirty names half 
 a dozen men were selected, the fidelity, discretion, and 
 opportunities of each being a subject of anxious de 
 bate. Some were men of social position; not one 
 would have done detective work for pay. The work 
 given them did not interfere with their ordinary busi 
 ness. It was to keep their ears open, note down every 
 
THE TEETH OF THE LAW 107 
 
 night what they had heard during the day, together 
 with time, place, circumstances, and the names of all 
 present, and report to Strickland once a week. At 
 first their notes were enormous in quantity and almost 
 worthless in quality, for they had no idea of what was 
 legal evidence and what was not j but instruction set 
 them right, and before six weeks had elapsed the re 
 sults far exceeded expectations. It was no light task 
 to systematize evidence collected in this way; but 
 under Strickland s supervision the executive commit 
 tee did it thoroughly. Thirty-nine little books were 
 written, one for each defendant or firm. Each con 
 tained the names of the witnesses in the order in which 
 it was expected they would testify. Under each name 
 was an abstract of the evidence which it was expected 
 the witness would give. Every book was carefully 
 indexed for instant reference. The list of witnesses, 
 numbering several hundred, was mainly taken from 
 the respectable classes, and included a large sprin 
 kling of the elite of Apsleigh women as well as 
 men. At the same time another little book was in 
 process of compilation a digest of judicial decisions 
 and authorities bearing upon all questions liable 
 to arise. 
 
 At length Strickland stopped crying for more evi 
 dence. " Four of the defendants," he said, " have left 
 the State for good. Against all but one or two of the 
 rest we Ve got such a mass of testimony as I believe 
 was never yet laid before a jury in a liquor case. If 
 this work had been done to begin with if it had n t 
 been for Harps well I think we ? d stand a chance to 
 win the fight." 
 
108 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Don t you think so now?" exclaimed several at 
 once. 
 
 " No ; people believe the city will be ruined. Prop 
 erty-owners are scared to death j business men are 
 afraid of bankruptcy, working-men of hunger, and pa 
 triotic men of hurting the Republican party. They 
 won t pull together in anything as they used to do. 
 Their hands are against their neighbors, and there s 
 hate in their hearts. All this is laid at our doors. 
 Public sentiment is turning against us. Denman is 
 growing stronger every day. A political campaign is 
 at hand. The Democrats will declare for a license law. 
 Republicans are all at sixes and sevens. The term of 
 court will be just before election, and nothing can keep 
 politics out of the jury-room. We re beaten sure as 
 death, unless you dare" 
 
 "Dare what?" exclaimed Dr. Bradford, as Strick 
 land paused and scanned the faces of the listening 
 group. 
 
 11 Dare cut loose from precedent and fight Denman 
 as he 11 fight you. It s the only chance of victory. 
 I ve been thinking it over for a couple of months, 
 and looking up the decisions for a hundred years 
 back. The principle is established. I can t see why it 
 should n t be applied to liquor cases as well as to other 
 cases. I ve made up my mind that the teeth of the 
 prohibitory law have never yet been shown." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " cried the committee, almost 
 as one man. 
 
 " I mean this," replied Strickland : " that each day 
 for a year back on which a man has been a common 
 seller of spirituous liquors he has committed a distinct 
 
THE TEETH OF THE LAW 109 
 
 offense, for which he may be fined one hundred dollars 
 and be imprisoned six months ; that each day for a 
 year back on which the same man has kept spirituous 
 liquors for sale he has committed another distinct 
 offense, for which he may be fined fifty dollars ; that 
 each day for a year back on which the same man has 
 kept malt liquors, wine, or cider for sale he has com 
 mitted still another distinct offense, for which he may 
 be fined ten dollars ; that each sale of spirituous liquors 
 for a year back is still another distinct offense, pun 
 ishable by a fine of fifty dollars; that each sale of 
 malt liquors, wine, or cider for a year back is still an 
 other distinct offense, punishable by a fine of ten dol 
 lars; and that on each offense laid after conviction of 
 a prior offense the penalty may be increased from two 
 to fivefold. Furthermore, that on each offense charged 
 the man may be held to furnish bail in the sum of not 
 less than two hundred, and not more than four hun 
 dred, dollars. Leaving individual sales and what are 
 known as subsequent offenses entirely out of account, 
 a man may, in possible contemplation of law, if my 
 position is sound, be imprisoned for a good deal more 
 than one hundred years, be fined tens of thousands of 
 dollars, and be held to bail in several hundred thou 
 sands. The liquor traffic has practically ceased for 
 the past two months. The next term of court, from 
 which the statute of limitation would date, is three 
 months away. This disposes of five months. As to 
 the other seven, those books on the table cover every 
 day, Sundays excepted." 
 
 " This looks pretty savage ! " exclaimed one of the 
 committee. 
 
110 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "It is savage/ replied Strickland. "It s war. 
 You know what Sherman said : War >s hell, and the 
 more it s hell the sooner it 7 s over. There are two 
 ways of carrying it on : McClellan s way, and Grant s 
 way make-believe, and the real thing." 
 
 "You propose to fine these rumsellers fifty thou 
 sand dollars each, and shut them up for life j is that 
 it ? " inquired the Methodist member. 
 
 " Not if I can help it. I don t want any one fined 
 or imprisoned. My idea is to let them choose between 
 surrender on such conditions that they can be clapped 
 right into jail if they go into the business again, and 
 taking their chances with the law as the court may 
 hold it, and the evidence piled on that table a foot 
 deep." 
 
 "Do you think Denman will surrender?" inquired 
 Dr. Bradford. 
 
 " Denman surrender ! " exclaimed Strickland. " Not 
 while the world stands ! But the rest will have to, 
 and the decks will be cleared for the fight." 
 
 " This is a matter to be slept on," said Dr. Bradford. 
 " I move we adjourn till to-morrow evening." 
 
 On the following evening the committee assembled 
 with unusual promptness, but no one seemed in haste 
 to take up the question they had met to decide. 
 
 "I did n t like Strickland s slur on McClellan," 
 remarked the only Democrat on the committee. 
 "McClellan was a loyal man and a better general 
 than Grant. It s strange how politics blinds men ! " 
 
 " Strickland is unreasonable in his prejudices," re 
 marked the Eev. Francis Pemberton, whose allegiance 
 to the Republican party was wavering, and who was 
 
THE TEETH OF THE LAW 111 
 
 classed as doubtful in the canvass. " He believes in 
 prohibition, and has ten times the f eelin g against a third- 
 party Prohibitionist that he has against a rumseller." 
 
 " So have I ! " exclaimed the Hon. Silas Bean, who 
 was given to a plainness of speech that was often em 
 barrassing. " The rumseller only fights for his own 
 interests, and the third-party man stabs his friends in 
 the back." 
 
 " Gentlemen, I think it is time to call this meeting 
 to order," said Dr. Bradford, suddenly convinced of 
 the fact by the turn the conversation was taking. 
 
 After some debate, the committee decided to adopt 
 Strickland s suggestions. They sent for him, and spent 
 the night in arranging details. About a week later a 
 truckman brought some large boxes to the residence 
 of one of their number, and they began to hold pro 
 tracted sessions there. These sessions were peculiar. 
 There was no debate and little conversation. As many 
 members as could sat at a large table, and the rest sat 
 at smaller tables near by. Each was armed with a 
 pen. On one end of the large table was a pile of 
 printed blanks. A seal had been affixed to each blank, 
 and on each a certain month and day of the month 
 had been written in three places. This work had been 
 done by two young ladies who could keep a secret, 
 and who were spending ten hours a day up-stairs in 
 preparing more blanks. The member nearest the pile 
 took a blank, wrote his name on it, and passed it along. 
 His neighbor signed it, and passed it along. Thus it 
 went from man to man until it bore the names of all 
 the active members of the committee. This process 
 continued several hours at a time and several days in 
 
112 THE STAND-BY 
 
 succession. Occasionally, when Strickland dropped 
 in, the members held up their right hands and swore 
 that what they had signed was, in their belief, true. 
 Then Strickland wrote his name in two places on each 
 blank. After he had signed them, a young lady folded 
 them and made them up into little packages with 
 rubber bands around them. On the back of each blank 
 was a printed formula, showing, among other things, 
 the exact nature of the charge, and against whom 
 made. For example, there were three packages labeled 
 " October " on which Denman s name was printed : 
 one containing complaints charging him with being a 
 common seller, another with keeping spirituous liquors 
 for sale, and a third with keeping malt liquors for sale. 
 Each package contained one complaint for each week 
 day in the month. There were like packages against 
 thirty-four other individuals and firms, and Novem 
 ber was a repetition of October, and so on for seven 
 months. In all there were about seven hundred pack 
 ages and about eighteen thousand complaints. The 
 manual labor of writing one s name so many times 
 was no trifle, and every now and then a member would 
 get up, stretch his legs, and rub his stiff fingers. 
 
 "Have you any idea," asked the Rev. Chauncey 
 Watkins, at one of the first of these sessions, "that 
 a tenth of these papers will be used ? " 
 " No," replied Strickland ; " I have n t." 
 " Then what s the use of having so many ? " 
 " If we have them, we sha n t use them ; if we don t 
 have them, we shall be beaten for want of them. Our 
 only chance is to be overwhelmingly prepared at every 
 point." 
 
THE TEETH OF THE LAW 113 
 
 " But most of these men can t stand fifty complaints. 
 There s O Leary; he can t stand ten. What s the 
 need of five hundred ? " 
 
 " Mr. Watkins," said Strickland, " what makes Den- 
 man the power he is ? " 
 
 "Why, I suppose it s his money and brains and 
 courage." 
 
 " Yes, and one thing more, Mr. Watkins : he never 
 goes back on any one who stands by him. He won t 
 leave his old guard to die alone, as Napoleon did at 
 Waterloo. He would n t do such a thing for a throne, 
 and men will die for a man like that. If there s a 
 chance to save his friends, he 11 take it ; if there is n t, 
 he 11 tell em to make their peace and leave him to 
 fight it out alone." 
 
 " So you think," observed Watkins, " that O Leary 
 means Denman ? " 
 
 " Yes j and even Denman can t bear up under eigh 
 teen thousand prosecutions." 
 
 " I hope they have n t any idea of what we re doing," 
 said Dr. Bradford. "When Mrs. Skidmore went 
 through the hall awhile ago the door was open, and 
 she saw the papers piled up on the floor." 
 
 "Well, doctor," said the Unitarian minister, giving 
 his clerical brother a sly poke, "it 11 be as long as 
 eternal punishment before they guess." 
 
 u Doctor," said Strickland, as the meeting broke up, 
 " I want to smoke before going home j won t you come 
 into my office and look on ? " 
 
 " I wish Craigin was a little older," remarked Brad 
 ford, accepting the invitation. "He ? d be our Den 
 man." 
 
THE STAND-BY 
 
 " He s most as old as Napoleon was when he crossed 
 the Alps, older than Pitt was when he became prime 
 minister/ replied Strickland. " Before this thing ends 
 God knows how, I don t we 11 all be following his 
 lead, as the liquor men follow Denman. We d be as 
 crazy as Harpswell, doing what we are now, if it were n t 
 for his paper. We could n t make it understood, and 
 we d go down in a storm of public indignation." 
 
 " As far as I can make out," said Bradford, " neither 
 you nor Craigin think what we re doing now is going 
 to end the war ? " 
 
 " Craigin does n t. I would n t want it known, for 
 it would discourage some of the others. He thinks 
 we ve got to lose the first campaign." 
 
 " Why does he think so ? " 
 
 " Because that fool Harpswell made delay ruin, and 
 we had to begin before we were ready." 
 
 "You say you ve got all the law and all the evi 
 dence you want ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I m looking to next term of court. That s 
 as far as I can see. Craigin s got a longer head than 
 I have. He s looking way into the future. His plan 
 is to mold and fuse the temperance sentiment of this 
 county into one solid mass, to make temperance men 
 an army instead of a mob, to enlist on our side every 
 human motive, from pure philanthropy to greed of 
 gain and office. It seemed like a chimera to me when 
 he first spoke of it, but he s studying it out day and 
 night in all its details, and he believes it can be done." 
 
PROSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY 
 
 ^HE complaints measured fifteen bushels and 
 weighed half a ton. The battle was opened 
 by serving notice on each defendant and 
 summoning witnesses for the following 
 day. Hundreds of people, indignant at being sum 
 moned in liquor cases, found themselves among the 
 elite of the town, who wondered what they were 
 wanted for. The court-house was crowded. Even 
 standing-room was hard to get. 
 
 " I present a complaint against Mr. Denman," said 
 Strickland. 
 
 It charged Denman with being a common seller of 
 spirituous liquors on the day before the date of the 
 Harpswell prosecution. The names of the signers 
 created a sensation. 
 
 " Mr. Denman will plead not guilty, waive examina 
 tion, and furnish bail," said his counsel. 
 
 "I have another against Mr. O Leary," continued 
 Strickland. 
 
 Complaints against thirty-five different parties were 
 disposed of in the same manner. Strickland took 
 
 115 
 
116 THE STAND-BY 
 
 them from his coat pocket, and thus far the defense 
 had no intimation that more were coming. 
 
 " Here is a second complaint against Mr. Denman." 
 And he resorted to another pocket. It was exactly 
 like the first, except that the offense was laid on the 
 preceding day. 
 
 " Let me see that complaint ! " exclaimed Woods. 
 "What does this mean?" he demanded, on looking 
 at it. 
 
 " What does what mean ? " 
 
 " Two complaints for the same alleged offense. 
 Everything printed. Nothing in writing but dates and 
 signatures. How many of these things are there ? " 
 
 "In all, or against Mr. Denman?" 
 
 " Either both. 7 
 
 " Between five and six hundred against Mr. Den 
 man j about eighteen thousand in all." 
 
 A perceptible thrill ran through the court-room. 
 Men and women looked at Strickland and at each 
 other in blank amazement. Some of the defendants 
 turned pale. Denman, always pale, betrayed no sign 
 of emotion, except that his teeth were set. 
 
 " Eighteen thousand ! " Woods cried. " Preposter 
 ous ! Monstrous ! Impossible ! " 
 
 " I may as well state my position at once," Strick 
 land said. He did so in the midst of a death-like 
 silence. Then he gave the authorities on which he 
 relied, reading slowly from his little book, and waiting 
 for the judge and the counsel to take minutes of vol 
 ume and page. 
 
 "Suppose the law is as you claim, and suppose 
 you persist in this outrage, where 7 s the evidence to 
 
PROSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY 117 
 
 maintain eighteen thousand prosecutions ?" demanded 
 Woods. 
 
 " Here/ replied Strickland, pointing to thirty-five 
 large, thin books beside him; "here, and from this 
 cloud of witnesses. I want you to have time to inves 
 tigate the law. I want these defendants to understand 
 my position. I don t want any of them fined or im 
 prisoned, but simply that the lockout which is ruining 
 the town may be ended and the law obeyed." 
 
 "So you make opening the hotels a condition of 
 royal mercy/ sneered Woods. 
 
 " No ; the law has nothing to do with closing the 
 hotels and systematic diversion of business to other 
 towns. You can judge as well as I can whether self- 
 interest will change all this when it is understood that 
 the law must be obeyed. If you d like these matters 
 continued until to-morrow 7 
 
 "I think it would be well," interrupted the judge. 
 " I want to examine the law myself." 
 
 Judge Bond was not in sympathy with the liquor 
 traffic, but, like hundreds of other good men, he was 
 strongly opposed to the methods which Strickland 
 and the executive committee had adopted. He was a 
 good lawyer. He was also incorruptible, conscientious, 
 and impartial, and everybody knew it. He adjourned 
 court, determined to know, if possible, what the law 
 was. He hunted up all authorities within reach, read 
 them carefully, some of them several times, and then, 
 lighting his pipe, tried to consider, analyze, and weigh 
 them from all points of view. 
 
 Under the decisions it was clear that one might be 
 guilty as a common seller, as a keeper of spirituous 
 
 8* 
 
118 THE STAND-BY 
 
 liquors, and as a keeper of malt liquors all on the same 
 day. The question was whether he could be guilty of 
 each of these three distinct offenses on each day for 
 an indefinite period. No court, so far as he could find, 
 had ever decided that question. The principle, how 
 ever, had been applied time out of mind to common- 
 law nuisances. Was there could there be any rea 
 son why it should not equally apply to continuing 
 offenses against the prohibitory law. The more he 
 sought a logical answer in the affirmative, the harder 
 it seemed to find one. He found decisions from which 
 the inferences were irresistible. It had been held that 
 two prosecutions could be maintained at the same 
 term of court, one for being a common seller in Janu 
 ary, and another for being one in February. If two, 
 why not three hundred and sixty-five ? The law always 
 took account of fractions of months and of days, but 
 not of fractions of days. 
 
 The next morning the court-room was packed as 
 before, and the major part of the people stood outside 
 because they could not get inside. If Strickland s 
 legal position were sustained, the hearing would go 
 on ; if not, the eighteen thousand complaints would be 
 waste paper. As representing the affirmative, he ex 
 pected to open the argument. 
 
 " I won t trouble you now/ said the judge. " I 11 
 hear Brother Woods." 
 
 The remark indicated that the judge was strongly 
 inclined to Strickland s view. Woods, ignoring the 
 judicial decisions, made an eloquent speech on the 
 constitutional provisions in regard to unusual punish 
 ments and excessive bail, and threatened the commit- 
 
PEOSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY 119 
 
 tee with heavy damages for malicious prosecution. 
 Whether germane to the law or not, it was a stirring 
 appeal to a power mightier than law public opinion. 
 
 " I shall have to rule against you/ 7 said the judge. 
 
 " In that case," replied Woods, " I ask an adjourn 
 ment till Monday." 
 
 " I think the request is reasonable, 77 Strickland said. 
 
 " So do I/ 7 remarked the judge. 
 
 " Somehow/ 7 said Woods, when the defendants and 
 their counsel met for a conference, " somehow they 7 ve 
 picked up an almighty pile of evidence. I got a peep 
 at one of those books. It was written solid full of 
 what the witnesses will swear to. They were n 7 t sum 
 moned for bluff, and they are n 7 t the kind we can put 
 down as liars. 77 
 
 "How do you suppose they got it all? 77 inquired 
 one of the junior counsel. 
 
 " They have got it, and the question now is, what to 
 do about it. In some States we might pin the wit 
 nesses down to dates, but the rule 7 s so lax here that 
 dates don 7 t count, and Bond will stick to the law of 
 this State like bark to a tree. It 7 s a dead open and 
 shut on us, so far 7 s he 7 s concerned. It 7 s barely pos 
 sible a jury may let us out, but I don 7 t see how we 7 re 
 going to tide it over till it gets to 7 em. 7 
 
 " Did n t Strickland say he did n 7 t want any of us 
 to go to jail or pay a fine ? 77 inquired O Leary. 
 
 " Yes, if you 7 11 throw up your hands and make this 
 an infernal prohibition town. He says if you 7 11 plead 
 guilty, or nolo, to one complaint apiece for being com 
 mon sellers, he 7 11 have sentence suspended as long as 
 you keep out of the business, on the understanding 
 
120 THE STAND-BY 
 
 that if you ever go into it again he 11 have you im 
 prisoned on your plea, and prosecute you without 
 mercy for future offenses. You could n t ask anything 
 better, if it were n t for giving up the business. If 
 you accept, the slate is sponged, but it s good-by sell 
 ing whisky." 
 
 "What about the nuisance act?" asked another 
 junior counsel. 
 
 " Strickland won t stick for that. He s found out 
 that the old law s a confounded sight worse than the 
 new." 
 
 During this conversation Denman had been quietly 
 figuring. " As I make it," he at length said, " the bail 
 can t be less than about four millions, nor more than 
 about eight ; is that right, Woods ? " 
 
 "On the whole grist? I should say it must be 
 something like that." 
 
 " And the costs ? How much will they be ? " 
 
 " On all ? They 11 be a fortune." 
 
 " One or two hundred thousand dollars ? " 
 
 " Perhaps so ; perhaps more. It s impossible to 
 tell." 
 
 " I would n t care how much they were, if we could 
 hold the committee responsible for em. That was 
 all bluff, what you said about malicious prosecution, 
 was n t it, Woods ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I thought so ! Now, about those costs. It seems 
 to me we can use one or two hundred thousand a great 
 deal better in fighting the enemy than in paying costs 
 to the State." 
 
 "Mr. Denman, how can we fight the enemy? 
 
PROSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY 121 
 
 They ve got all the law. They ve piled up evidence 
 like the everlasting mountains. They ve got us solid, 
 and you know it. There s nothing we can do but 
 surrender." 
 
 " Surrender ! n cried the old man, with an oath. 
 " I 11 die behind prison-bars first ! I told my friends 
 here we d all stand together, and lick these cranks, 
 horse, foot, and dragoons, till there was n t a grease 
 spot left of em. I m going to do it. They must 
 make their peace, and let me fight it out alone. When 
 it s over they 11 share the victory." 
 
 " We won t do it ! " shouted half a dozen. 
 
 "We d be glad enough to make our peace," said 
 one, " but there won t a man of us leave you alone." 
 
 "Not one of us!" cried another. "We 11 stand 
 with John Denman to the death ! " 
 
 Every man echoed the verdict : " We 11 stand with 
 John Denman to the death ! " 
 
 " I knew it ! I knew it ! " Denman proudly exclaimed. 
 " But if you stay with me, it is to the death. If it 
 takes me to jail, it sha n t take you there. You must 
 leave me to save me. It is n t deserting me ; it s 
 
 freeing me for the fight; and, by , it will be a 
 
 fight before I m done with em ! " 
 
 " Mr. Denman," protested Woods, " they ; ve got the 
 law for every point they ve taken ; and as to evidence, 
 they Ve got the representative men and women of this 
 whole city. It s sheer madness to stand out." 
 
 " That s the way you lawyers talked about the rail 
 road. Law and evidence ! I tell you I 11 lick em, 
 spite of law and evidence ! " 
 
 When convinced that it was not deserting their 
 
122 THE STAND-BY 
 
 chief, the others made their peace, as he directed. A 
 stenographer was on hand when the hearing was re 
 sumed. Strickland filed a second complaint, the one 
 offered before the first adjournment. 
 
 " We waive the reading," said Woods. 
 
 " Do you waive examination also ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 The first witness was a leading physician. He tes 
 tified that he was called to the Apsleighshire House, 
 took a short cut through the bar-room, saw two bar 
 tenders and all the appurtenances of a bar, also six or 
 eight men drinking, and one paying for the drinks. 
 He gave the names .of three of the men. He fixed the 
 date by the charge in his fee-book, which was about a 
 month prior to the date set forth in the complaint. 
 
 Woods strenuously objected to the evidence, on the 
 ground that it did not apply to the day in question 
 and was too remote. He argued the point at length, 
 and cited numerous decisions from other States. 
 
 " But the decisions in this State" began Strick 
 land. 
 
 " We re bound by the law of this State," interrupted 
 the judge. " I shall have to admit the evidence." 
 
 " It s just as I told him ! " muttered Woods. 
 
 When the next complaint was filed he growled, 
 " You might as well put em all in together. We 11 
 waive reading. We don t want to spend the summer 
 here ! " 
 
 The papers, filling a large basket, were filed in 
 mass. Strickland put on witness after witness, to the 
 number of more than two hundred. Most of them 
 testified with extreme reluctance, but bit by bit the 
 
PROSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY 123 
 
 truth was drawn from them. Many greatly exceeded 
 expectations, knowing far more than was suspected. 
 Those who would have been inclined to lie, had the 
 cases depended on them alone, were swept along by 
 the great current of truth. All were subjected to a 
 searching cross-examination, and Denman s stenog 
 rapher took down every word they said. The hear 
 ing lasted ten days. At its close Denman was held on 
 every charge. 
 
 "In view of the extraordinary character of these 
 proceedings/ 7 said the judge, " I shall fix the bail as 
 low as the law permits. You will have to furnish 
 bonds, Mr. Denman, in the sum of one hundred and 
 nine thousand two hundred dollars." 
 
 "It 7 s just as I told you, only more of it," said 
 Woods, when the hearing was over. " They >ve got 
 us solid." 
 
 " Got us solid ! " exclaimed Denman. " We know 
 what we ; ve got to meet." 
 
 If the eighteen thousand prosecutions had struck 
 the liquor-dealers in the full tide of business, as might 
 have been the case but for HarpswelPs folly, and had 
 then been followed by complete amnesty on surrender, 
 the community would have regarded it as an extreme 
 measure. To adopt such extreme measures against 
 men who had stopped violating the law was regarded 
 by many as an outrage that could have no justifica 
 tion. Denman was not a man to let a misunderstand 
 ing of motives die for want of nursing, and the Demo 
 crats were anxious to keep it alive for purposes of 
 their own. The fight was chiefly between Republicans. 
 The fortunes of the party in State and nation were 
 
124 THE STAND-BY 
 
 balanced to a feather s weight. The State looked to 
 Apsleighshire for a majority, and as the State went so 
 might go the Union. No wonder that thousands of 
 Republicans stood aghast at the situation and felt 
 bitterly toward those who had brought on dissensions 
 at such a crisis. As Strickland had put it, he believed 
 in the Republican party as a Christian believes in the 
 church of Christ, and the political situation troubled 
 him more than everything else destroyed his appetite 
 and drove sleep from his pillow. 
 
 The executive committee tried to stay the tide. The 
 fact that they had to explain their reasons was against 
 them. The ministers devoted a Sunday to the subject, 
 thereby intensifying discord in their own congrega 
 tions, while failing to reach the great non-church-going 
 community. But the " Tocsin" reached thousands 
 who went neither to church nor to mass-meetings. It 
 had a stronger hold in the country towns than in 
 Apsleigh itself. On one page it gave naked facts ; on 
 another editorials, keen, fearless, masterful, that were 
 quoted and discussed far and wide. Every one read 
 the " Tocsin " it was outspoken for the enforcement 
 of law. Every one read the "Palladium"; it was 
 outspoken against it. The " Times " was of the her 
 maphrodite gender. Meanwhile the hotels remained 
 closed, trade continued to fall off, a large industry 
 that was expected to locate in Apsleigh went else 
 where, and people became more and more anxious and 
 distressed. 
 
 During this period, and after the surrender of all 
 the defendants, except Denman, on terms immeasur 
 ably more far-reaching and more easily enforced than 
 
PROSECUTIONS EXTRAORDINARY 125 
 
 the nuisance act, Strickland received the following 
 letter : 
 
 SIR : The petitions under the nuisance act were made in good 
 faith. We waive none of our rights to have the same enforced. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 EBEN HARPSWELL. 
 
 " I 11 put that letter among my curiosities," mused 
 Strickland; "and as to the freak himself, I wish 
 Barnum had him ! n 
 
VI 
 
 O LEAEY 
 
 ;R. CRAIGIN," said O Leary though of 
 Irish parentage, he was an American by 
 birth, and spoke without a brogue " I 
 most wish you had n t come." 
 " What makes you wish that ? " 
 " I ve hated you so. I wrote them nasty, unsigned 
 letters." 
 
 " Yes j I knew that long ago." 
 " You did ? " O Leary exclaimed in astonishment. 
 " 1 7 d seen your handwriting, and there were two or 
 three expressions I d heard you use. It s no sort of 
 consequence. Don t ever think of them again." 
 
 " You knew it all the time and have come to watch 
 with me ? " 
 
 "Just the same as you d do by me if I were sick 
 and you were well." 
 "Do you mean that ? " 
 
 "I know you would. Now, let s not think any 
 more about it." 
 
 Craigin smoothed the sick man s pillow, and eased 
 his pain by changing his position. His touch was 
 
 126 
 
O LEARY 127 
 
 gentle, his hand cool. He had the instincts of a 
 nurse and knew what to do. Most of all, he was full 
 of human sympathy. 
 
 "You do for me just like John Denman," said 
 O Leary. "He was here all last night. He s given 
 us flour and sugar, and tea and coffee, and meat, and 
 all sorts of things to eat and wear, and has paid the 
 rent for six months, and the doctor and everything ; 
 but it is n t so much that he came himself and 
 watched all night with me. He brought me them 
 splendid grapes from his hothouse brought em him 
 self. 7 
 
 O Leary had been caught in a machine and terribly 
 mangled. He suffered great pain, and required a 
 change of position every few minutes. 
 
 " I don t understand it at all ! " he exclaimed, as 
 Craigin, after patiently waiting on him for hours, was 
 improving a quiet moment by feeding him grapes. 
 
 " What is it you don t understand f " 
 
 " How you can hate whisky as you do, and be so 
 good to me." 
 
 " Let s not talk about that. You d be the same to 
 me if you had a chance." 
 
 " I want to talk about it. I shall feel better if I 
 do. Seems as if I could n t bear the pain only when 
 I m talking or moving, and I m so tired so tired ; 
 perhaps I can lay still a bit if you 11 let me talk. I 
 want to talk about them letters and the liquor busi 
 ness. It is n t so much that you ve come to watch 
 with me, for you ve got a kind heart and would do a 
 good turn for a sick dog. It s different from that. 
 You ve fit the trade ever since you come to town, 
 
128 THE STAND-BY 
 
 and you Ve done more n anybody else to drive me 
 out of it, and you ve known just how I ve hated you, 
 and all about them dirty, insulting letters and now 
 you treat me just as if I was one of your own kind of 
 folks and had always been your friend. You say if 
 you was sick and I was well I d do the same by you. 
 That s what gets me." 
 
 " I have n t any doubt you would." 
 
 " Then you don t look on me as a kind of devil, to 
 be taken care of, devil or not, because I m smashed 
 up ? You ain t a bit like old Deacon Follett, that sent 
 me them tracts. Seems s if you thought rum was 
 hell and rumsellers human just like other folks." 
 
 " That s exactly what I do think." 
 
 "I ve heard temperance lecturers talk as if we d 
 all murder our best friends for ten cents." 
 
 " So have I. It s an outrageous lie." 
 
 " T would be kinder sickly for a man to talk that 
 way about John Denman. You hate the business 
 worse n they do, and treat me like a brother as if 
 you thought I was n t a very bad brother, either." 
 
 " I don t think so. I never did." 
 
 " But you think the business I was in was bad ? " 
 
 " So bad the truth is the worst that can be said of it." 
 
 " That s what I can t understand how you can be 
 death on the business the way you are, and feel as 
 you do to me." 
 
 " Daddy," cried a shrill voice, " Daddy, Tommy want 
 stay with oo ! " A fine little fellow came pattering 
 into the room. " Daddy," he repeated, " Tommy want 
 stay with oo ! Tommy want some oo eat ! " 
 
O LEARY 129 
 
 He was not clean, this best of God s gifts to the 
 home, rich or poor, but Craigin took him on his knee 
 and fed him grapes and told him fairy stories until he 
 fell asleep. 
 
 When the boy was once more in bed O Leary re 
 turned to the old subject. " You think my business 
 was as bad as it could be," he said, " and you don t 
 think I was bad. How can a business be bad and the 
 men in it good ? " 
 
 " King David was a good man, was n t he ? " 
 
 " I guess so." 
 
 " He did what a man would be hung for nowadays. 
 Most two thousand years ago there was a Roman 
 emperor who hunted Christians to death and had men 
 trained to kill each other to make sport for the people. 
 He was one of the best men that ever lived." 
 
 "How could he be if he did such bad things?" 
 
 " No one thought of them as wrong or cruel then. 
 Two or three hundred years ago the best of people, 
 Protestants and Catholics alike, thought it was God s 
 work to burn Unitarians at the stake, but they did n t 
 think the African slave-trade was wrong. Only thirty 
 years ago the best people in the South sold men like 
 cattle, and millions of people in the North said it was 
 right. Now everybody says it was wrong. It s the 
 same with the liquor traffic. It s always been, just as 
 slavery had always been. People are only beginning 
 to find out that it s the greatest of all curses. By 
 and by, when they understand it a little better, they 11 
 crush it, and the world will move on to something 
 else." 
 
130 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Then you don t think a man must be bad because 
 he does bad things ? " 
 
 "No, not always. Right does n t change, but the 
 point of view does." 
 
 " I see what you mean. I never thought of it that 
 way before. 7 
 
 A few days later, as Craigin called to see his new 
 friend, he caught a glimpse of a familiar form van 
 ishing around a corner. On a table beside the bed 
 were the remains of the most delicate little supper 
 that a sick man could crave. 
 
 " Miss Denman s been here," said O Leary, with 
 tears of gratitude glistening in his eyes. " She sent 
 lots of things to us the other day, and now she s come 
 herself. See there ! she cooked and brought all that 
 with her own hands. Five minutes ago she sat by the 
 window where you are, talking and laughing with me 
 and cheering me up, just as if I was n t a poor man 
 and she worth her millions j and I could n t help feel 
 ing as if she was an angel with the light of heaven 
 shining in her eyes. Then she looked out the win 
 dow, and all of a sudden I could see her face grow 
 kind of drawn, like as if she was in pain, and first I 
 knew she d got on her things and was gone." O Leary 
 was a shrewd fellow, and he gave the editor a search 
 ing look. " She was here more n an hour," he con 
 tinued ; " and for all she s so rich and handsome, it s 
 just as easy to talk with her as it is with common 
 folks. I told her how you watched with me, and then 
 I would n t have thought I d have darst to I told 
 her everything you said about the liquor business and 
 the men in it." 
 
O LEAEY 131 
 
 " Wliat did she say ? " inquired Craigin, with a long 
 ing to know that overcame delicacy, for he and Isabel 
 had ceased to be on speaking terms. 
 
 " She looked as she did, only not so much so, when 
 she saw when she went away so quick, and she said, 
 might she give me some more chicken ? That >s all 
 she said." 
 
VII 
 
 TUNNELING 
 
 p-TH-THE L-ord is w-w-walking in h-his 
 g-g-garden t-t-to-d-d-day," observed a stut 
 tering wit, as Denman crossed the com 
 mon to Woods s office. 
 "Seen the paper this morning?" inquired Woods, 
 as Denman crossed the threshold. The lawyer was 
 reading one of Craigin s strongest editorials. " That 
 young man s got the making of a dozen Mariuses in 
 him." 
 
 "I don t know who Marius was," growled Denman. 
 " I know Craigin. I want to spare him if I can j but 
 if he does n t let up after next term of court, and he 
 won t, he 11 have to be put out of the way." 
 "Put out of the way?" gasped Woods. 
 " You need n t look so blank," said Denman, with a 
 bitter laugh. " I sha n t stick a dagger in his back. 
 Suppose I should control a majority of the stock in 
 his paper the young lion goes somewhere else to 
 roar, does n t he ? " 
 
 " It strikes me, if you ever want his paper out of 
 the way, it s now." 
 
 132 
 
TUNNELING 133 
 
 " It does, does it ? The thing can t be done in the 
 middle of a campaign ; t would make too much of a 
 howl. Besides, it may be bad for the party ; but so 
 
 far s I m concerned, I don t care a about the 
 
 paper till after those five hundred and forty-six com 
 plaints are disposed of. The greater the odds the 
 sweeter the victory." 
 
 "If it is victory." 
 
 "There s no <if about it. Did n t you tell the 
 mayor and aldermen the law could n t be enforced ? " 
 
 "Amounted to that." 
 
 " Tell em what you thought ? " 
 
 " Might have colored it a shade not much." 
 
 "Where s your new light?" 
 
 "How could I think Strickland would take the 
 position he has ? No one ever did before, and it 7 s 
 sound law. It s the same with the evidence im 
 pregnable as Gibraltar. Then, the cranks mean busi 
 ness at last, and they Ve got an organ that s a power 
 and that can t be flattered, bought, or scared." 
 
 "Woods," said Denman, with a grim smile, "do 
 you remember how you talked about the railroad fight, 
 fifteen years ago ? " 
 
 "Yes; and the best lawyers in this part of the 
 country talked the same way. Because you won then 
 where no one else could, it does n t follow that you 
 will now. You sweat gold ten years before you came 
 out ahead." 
 
 " The railroad folks have sweat it back three times 
 over, have n t they ? " 
 
 " Till there was n t anything more to sweat. Clif 
 ford never got it through his wool how you won. If 
 
 9* 
 
134 THE STAND-BY 
 
 he d known of the buying of Smalley and the fixing 
 of that deed, he d have given you back his twenty- 
 thousand-dollar retainer and washed his hands of the 
 whole business." 
 
 " Yes; Clifford s a lawyer, and fights by the rules 
 of the game. I won t get into a fight unless I >m right 
 and am driven to it, and then I 11 fight to win. I sold 
 my bay mare to Tuffts yesterday." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I told him I wanted to sell her because she was n t 
 sound and never would be. He d have paid me twice 
 as much if I d held my tongue." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " 1 7 d have cheated him if 1 7 d sold her for a sound 
 price. I sold her for just what I thought she was 
 worth." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " That was business. This is different ; it s war. 
 I can t help it. I ve done everything in reason to 
 avoid it. I m driven to it to keep these fanatics from 
 robbing the community of its natural rights and from 
 robbing me of hundreds of thousands of dollars, all in 
 the name of the law, and I shall do whatever s neces 
 sary to win. The Tocsin s helping me so far 7 s next 
 term of court 7 s concerned. The more it hounds on 
 the cranks, the more it stirs up the anti-cranks. 
 There 11 be cranks and anti-cranks on every jury, and 
 they won t agree." 
 
 " They 11 let you off if they can get the least shadow 
 of a pretext ; there 7 s no doubt about that j but how 
 can they ? The law s all against us, and the evidence 
 is piled up like the Alps." 
 
TUNNELING 135 
 
 "Alps have been tunneled, have n t they? When 
 are the jury-lists made up ? " 
 
 "Next month." 
 
 "I thought so/ 7 replied Denman, taking a memo 
 randum-book from his pocket. " First town s Ab- 
 bottsf ord ; first selectman, Thaddeus Foster. You re 
 counsel for the town, are n t you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Highway suit pending against it, is n t there ? " 
 
 "Yes; to be tried next term." 
 
 " And you want to talk it over with Foster before 
 the jury-lists are made out ? " 
 
 " I can t touch Foster on the jury-lists ; he 7 s hon 
 est as sunlight." 
 
 " Money honest could n t be bribed with a hundred 
 thousand dollars ; but who s the rabidest Democrat in 
 this county ? " 
 
 " I should say Thaddeus Foster." 
 
 "Yes; he s straight in everything else, and would 
 mortgage his soul to the devil for the Democracy. 
 He can t leave this office without talking about the 
 effect of these prosecutions on the party, and if you 
 suggest that all the complainants but one are Repub 
 licans, and hint that it s a pretty sharp test for a man 
 to stay with a party that persecutes him so, he s fixed. 
 He 11 turn it and twist it and chew on it till he makes 
 himself believe I 11 be a Democrat if the Democrats 
 help me out of this scrape. He looks on a Republican 
 turned Democrat like a soul saved from hell ; and if 
 he thinks I 11 come in and pull hard with the elect, 
 he 11 be mighty careful who goes on the jury from 
 Abbottsford." 
 
136 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " I ; 11 see Foster at once. I can fix him all right on 
 that cue." 
 
 " Next is Bunkerville pretty much all Bunker since 
 t was set off. I saved him from bankruptcy in the 
 panic of 73, and he d go through fire and blood for 
 me, only he s got a d d stiff conscience. If he can 
 help me and save his conscience, he 11 do it without 
 a word being said. It won t do to say anything, any 
 way." 
 
 Denman went on through the list. He had studied 
 the virtues, prejudices, peculiarities, and foibles of 
 every selectman in the county. He knew how to 
 touch secret springs of action. He bought one man 
 outright, he accommodated another with a loan, he 
 gave several a tip on choice investments ; but in most 
 cases the motives appealed to were less corrupt and 
 more subtle. One man hated ministers the war was 
 a ministers war j two had grudges against Strickland 
 Strickland had fostered strife for personal ambition. 
 One man had a dark secret which Denman had 
 learned, and of which he took advantage. Another 
 was chairman of a town library which Denman had 
 given and which bore his name. Many had business 
 relations with him of long standing; many were in 
 debted for favors ; many were filled with that grati 
 tude which is " a lively sense of future favors." All 
 knew him. Nearly all both feared and loved him. 
 Through all the county stretched innumerable feelers, 
 coarsely or delicately, as occasion required, but secretly 
 and skilfully touching all kinds of motives, interests, 
 and prejudices. 
 
 "You have n t mentioned Apsleigh," suggested 
 
TUNNELING 137 
 
 Woods, after they had spent hours in talking these 
 men over. 
 
 " No ; I don t think the city government 7 s very 
 fierce, do yon?" 
 
 " They say it s your shadow." 
 
 " Oh, no, not that ! but I guess I ve a little influence 
 with it still. Well, Woods, what do you think of the 
 defense as far as we ve got ? " 
 
 " It would win fast enough if there were n t such an 
 endless grist of evidence so strong that a man can t 
 vote for you without owning up he ; s perjured." 
 
 " Do you know," said Denman, with a laugh, " that 
 it 7 s the weakness of good lawyers to persuade them 
 selves that cases go according to the law and the evi 
 dence ? I m no lawyer, but 1 7 ve seen a good deal 
 of em. There s Clifford, one of the best in the coun 
 try ; same with him as t is with you. The smartest 
 of you stick to the theory as the old doctors did to 
 bleeding patients to death. Forty years ago a young 
 fellow up in Eochford girdled an orchard. He was 
 tracked home, and confessed it to the owner and four 
 others, two of em orthodox deacons. He happened to 
 get a lawyer who believed in something besides law 
 and evidence. He made the jury forget all about the 
 case on trial, and they brought in a verdict that old 
 Deacon Greene was a liar." 
 
 " Such things don t happen more n once in forty 
 years," replied Woods. 
 
 " Then the time s come round just in season for 
 me, has n t it? But that thing did n t happen. It 
 was n t chance j it was genius. I know you won t feel 
 hurt if I have a man with you he can t hold a candle 
 
138 THE STAND-BY 
 
 to you as a lawyer who can do anything he wants 
 to with a jury. He 7 11 give em plenty of excuses for 
 letting me out. It s going my way. I know what 
 1 m talking about, and if I did n t, 1 d give more for 
 one of Isabel s presentiments than for all your croak- 
 ings." 
 
 " There you go again on your pet superstition about 
 presentiments ! " 
 
 "It is n t superstition. I can t account for em. I 
 don t try. All I know is, Isabel s come true." 
 
 Though Denman, like Napoleon, had his pet super 
 stitions, like that great soldier he worked incessantly 
 and was ever alert for opportunities. For example, 
 just before the term of court a coarse, ill-looking fel 
 low entered his office. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr. Bates," said the brewer, in a 
 most cordial tone. 
 
 " Be you alone ? " inquired Bates. 
 
 " Yes," replied Denman, interrogatively and seduc 
 tively. 
 
 " I I ve been drawed as a jury," said the fellow, 
 coming to the point at once. 
 
 " Have you ? " said Denman, after which was a long 
 and awkward pause. 
 
 " You re a rich man, hain t you ? " inquired Bates, at 
 length. 
 
 " Fairly well fixed fairly." 
 
 " You hain t mean, nuther ? " 
 
 " That s for others to say, Mr. Bates, not me." 
 
 Another long pause, broken by the question, " Can t 
 nobody hear us ? " 
 
 " No j this room s ear-proof. Why ? " 
 
TUNNELING 139 
 
 " Cos I 11 tell you what, Denman," the low fellow 
 felt his power and was correspondingly insolent, " I 11 
 tell you what : you re a good feller, an I ve always 
 liked you ; gimme a couple of hundred an I 11 hang 
 that jury." 
 
 He had scarcely made this blunt proposal he knew 
 no more diplomatic way when he met a look that 
 astonished and paralyzed him. The cold shivers went 
 creeping down his back, and he seemed to shrivel 
 visibly under those keen gray eyes. 
 
 "And so," said Denman, at last, slowly and sternly, 
 " and so you propose that we commit a State-prison 
 crime together if I 11 give you two hundred dollars. 
 You have given me a chance to break up the trial and 
 send you to the penitentiary. Perhaps I shall tell, 
 and perhaps I sha n tj it depends do you under 
 stand?" 
 
 "Y-yes," replied Bates, faintly, as he arose with 
 trembling knees and slunk away. 
 
 When the door closed after him, the stern face wore 
 a smile of triumph. " That man s fixed," said Den 
 man to himself. " If I d bribed him he d told of it 
 afterward, and, ten to one, voted against me. Now he s 
 got nothing to tell, and terror 11 hold him tighter n 
 the Bank of England." 
 
 Something was done every day. The Alps were 
 vast and mighty, but they were beginning to be full 
 of little tunnels. 
 
VIII 
 
 "I MUST SPEAK NOW" 
 
 [NE evening, as Denman was smoking in the 
 library, Isabel stole up behind him, threw 
 an arm around his neck, pressed a kiss 
 upon his white forehead, and caressingly 
 ran her fingers through his grizzled hair. 
 
 He drew her to his knee and kissed her. 
 
 "Papa," she said, "how goes the war?" 
 
 "Not very well, according to Woods; he thinks 
 we re going to be licked." 
 
 " He s a good lawyer, is n t he ? " 
 
 " One of the best in the State in the regular way ; 
 but he does n t know how to shoot with an empty gun." 
 
 " So our case is an empty gun, is it f " 
 
 " Not even that. An empty gun s a good club ; we 
 have n t even a club." 
 
 " Yet you think we 11 win 1 " 
 
 "I m sure of it." 
 
 " You re not going to let Woods try those cases, 
 are you ? He s not the man at all." 
 
 " He 11 sit in court and furnish dignity and learn 
 ing. I ve got a New York lawyer who can make any- 
 
 140 
 
"I MUST SPEAK NOW" 141 
 
 thing lie wants to out of nothing make a jury think 
 the moon s a green cheese, and set em smelling of 
 the whey. It s coming out all right." 
 
 " Yes, papa." 
 
 "Is that one of your presentiments, little girl?" 
 
 " Yes, papa. But this law business is only the be 
 ginning. The real fight is coming later on." 
 
 "I call this pretty real; and it would be hardly a 
 growl if it were n t for Craigin." 
 
 " It is n t like what ? s coming, papa. He only stands 
 up for it in his paper now. He is n t the general yet." 
 
 " And how will it end when he is the general, my 
 prophetess ? " 
 
 " I don t know. You 11 do things to win that he 
 would n t for worlds. You ve your millions j but, 
 papa, God s on his side." 
 
 " God on his side ! And you too, Isabel ? " 
 
 Suddenly, convulsively, she threw both arms about 
 his neck and covered his face with kisses. 
 
 He drew her closer to him, tenderly stroked her 
 hair, and repeated, in a voice that was full of pain, 
 "And you too, Isabel?" 
 
 Springing from his knee, she stood before him with 
 shining eyes. " Papa," she said, " they are trying to 
 take your money and shut you up if you don t put 
 yourself in their power. I have n t a word to say 
 against anything to beat them in that. It 7 s right ; 
 it ? s self-defense. It s what s coming afterward that 
 troubles me. I told Craigin you d break him. Papa, 
 how can you? He sprang under the hoofs of that 
 great horse and saved your life ! He 7 s so square 
 and brave and noble, he won t hate you, whatever 
 
142 THE STAND-BY 
 
 you do. He is n t fighting you; it s the miserable 
 business." 
 " Isabel ! " 
 
 "Papa, I Ve never said anything about it before. 
 I must speak now. It is a miserable business, and it 
 would be crushed out in this place forever if it were n t 
 for you. I was a little girl when Harry died, and I 
 never thought much about it till within a year or two 
 never so much as now, till till we broke with 
 Craigin. Now I can t help thinking about it all the 
 time. I count them up, I can t help it, scores and 
 scores, rich and poor alike, that have gone to shame 
 and death since I can remember. They come to me 
 in my dreams the ghosts of these people your whisky 
 has killed. I saw them only last night, dead men 
 rising out of a sea of blood and tears, and among 
 them was brother Harry. O papa ! I never dared say 
 it before, not even to myself. Your great fortune 
 drips with blood, papa the blood of your own son ! " 
 The brave, tender-hearted old man hid his face in 
 his hands and sat like one stunned, uttering no sound. 
 " O papa ! " pleaded Isabel, laying her hand on his 
 shoulder, " I d rather take in washing than have you 
 sell whisky. You say the money s all for me. What s 
 a million more or less to me ? You Ve twenty times 
 as much already as I shall ever need. It is n t the 
 money you care for I know that 5 but you re so 
 strong, why can t you be strong enough to give up 
 your will ? You 11 beat them in court, papa. I know 
 they Ve piled up the evidence mountains high, but 
 they can t get a jury without men on it who love you, 
 who d face death for you, and if that New York lawyer 
 
"I MUST SPEAK NOW" 143 
 
 gives them the least little bit of an excuse they 11 let 
 you off. Beat them in court, papa, and then shut up 
 your brewery and open your hotels as temperance 
 houses. If you prove that you re mightier than the 
 law, papa, where s the shame of saying you re not 
 mightier than your love for your own little girl ? " 
 
 After waiting in vain for a reply, she went on in a 
 changed voice. There was something awful in the 
 low, sweet, solemn tone. " I won t go back on you, 
 papa. I love you so well, 1 11 stand with you to the 
 end, right or wrong so well, 1 11 stand with you fight 
 ing against God. Will you let your little girl do that, 
 papa ? If you hate Craigin, I 11 hate him too. If I 
 don t hate him, I shall love him more than all the 
 world besides more than I love even you, papa. I 
 can t help doing one or the other. It s almost killing 
 me, but, if you want me to, I 11 try to hate him for 
 your sake." 
 
 She glided away, and a moment later Denman heard 
 her, in her room up-stairs, sobbing as if her heart 
 would break. "Your great fortune drips with the 
 blood of your own son, papa ! " He knew that tem 
 perance cranks had said such things behind his back, 
 but these were the words of one who loved him so 
 well that she promised to stand with him fighting 
 against God one whom he loved a thousand times 
 more than his own life, more than everything else in 
 the world, except his own will. The past came back 
 to him, his joy and pride in the only pledge of his first 
 wife s love. What a bright, brave little fellow he was ! 
 And how his life went out in horror ! " I love you 
 so well, papa, that I 11 stand with you fighting against 
 
144 THE STAND-BY 
 
 God. Will you let your little girl do that?" The 
 great railroad fight, ten years in the darkest labyrinths 
 of the law, was nothing compared with the struggle 
 through which he passed before answering this ques 
 tion. Close the brewery! Open the hotels as tem 
 perance houses ! Yield everything the enemy cared 
 for ! He had sworn to fight it out to the death, to die 
 behind prison-bars rather than surrender. He had 
 promised his friends that they should share his vic 
 tory, and he had never yet gone back on his pledged 
 word. The prohibitory law had become a burning 
 issue instead of a dead letter. The Republican party 
 was divided into hostile camps, and the smaller, the 
 one with money and discipline, looked to him as its 
 leader. The fanatics were to be scourged into abject 
 submission, their law, odious from his point of view, 
 was to be repealed, and a license law was to recognize 
 what he regarded as the natural, inherent, and inalien 
 able right of personal liberty. All this Denman had 
 in view when he told his friends it should be no drawn 
 battle and that they should share his victory. And 
 at last within his heart had sprung up a consuming 
 passion for the political honors he could once have had 
 for the taking, not for themselves, but as the corona 
 tion of his cause. He believed in the justice of the 
 cause exactly as he had put it to Craigin, and the des 
 perate railroad litigation, involving his entire fortune, 
 had developed his inborn love of victory to overmaster 
 ing proportions ; but he idolized Isabel. The terrible 
 conflict in his soul raged all night. When it ended 
 his purpose was more inexorable than ever before. 
 From that time he was a changed man. He gave 
 
"I MUST SPEAK NOW" 145 
 
 still more lavishly and abounded still more in acts of 
 thoughtful kindness. If possible, his love for Isabel 
 increased. Her conduct won his boundless admira 
 tion. She bore her anguish in silence. As the weeks 
 went by and her form grew thinner and the roses 
 faded from her cheeks, it was pitiful to see how he 
 watched her and the delicate ways in which he tried 
 to atone for the one thing he denied her. He worked 
 and plotted day and night, and his genius shone 
 brighter than ever before ; but he aged from week to 
 week, his old smile was gone, his old laugh had become 
 forced and bitter. "Your great fortune drips with 
 the blood of your own son ! " " I love you so well, 
 I 11 stand with you fighting against God. Will you 
 let your little girl do that?" "It 7 s almost killing 
 me, but, if you want me to, I 11 try to hate him for 
 your sake ! " " How can you break him ? He sprang 
 under the hoofs of that great horse and saved your 
 life ! " These words from the lips he loved best were 
 always ringing in his ears, and, while his purpose was 
 unchangeable, he suffered the torments of the damned. 
 At last he hated the enemy who had stolen his daugh 
 ter s heart, hated him for saving his own life, and 
 often he muttered bitterly, "I wish the horse had 
 kiUed us both! 7 
 
 10 
 
IX 
 
 COLLAPSE 
 
 >T was the law that Denman could not be 
 tried until a grand jury had decided whe 
 ther there was enough evidence against 
 him to justify putting him on trial. 
 " Well, gentlemen/ said the county attorney, on the 
 morning of the second day that the grand jury was 
 in session. " we ve got through with everything but 
 the liquor cases." 
 
 " Mr. Strickland," pleaded one of the best men, " I 
 want to be excused. I 11 tell you why. My wife died 
 five years ago. She d been ailing ever since our 
 last baby was born, and in bed all the time for the 
 last three years. What with housekeepers bills and 
 doctors bills and all, I had to mortgage my farm. 
 Just after my wife died my barn was burned with 
 everything in it hay, grain, cattle, horses, farming 
 tools, all I had. I d been so hard up I d let the in 
 surance run out. As soon as the man who held the 
 mortgage found out that I had n t anything to pay 
 him with, he went right to work to foreclose. It was 
 winter, I had four little children, and my last dollar 
 
 146 
 
COLLAPSE 147 
 
 was gone. I d always worked hard and paid my bills, 
 and it seemed as if t would kill me to have my little 
 children taken away from me and put in the poorhouse, 
 but it stared em right in the face. I went to the 
 banks, and old Deacon Follett, and three or four other 
 rich men, and they all said they d be glad to help me 
 if they was n t so dreadful short; they all said they 
 were dreadful short. Then I went to John Denman 
 and told him just what I ve told you. He did n t say 
 a word about being dreadful short. He gave my hand 
 a grip, seems as if I could feel it now, and I saw 
 two big tears standing in his eyes. Then he just sat 
 down and wrote me a check for every dollar of that 
 mortgage and enough to give me a little start besides, 
 and told me I was to look out for the children first 
 and pay him when I could. That s all 1 ve got to say. 
 John Denman put me on my feet and kept my four 
 babies out of the poorhouse, and, proof or no proof, 
 oath or no oath, I won t go against him. You may 
 shut me up, just as you re trying to shut him up j I 
 won t do it ; all the same." 
 
 The New York lawyer who could make a jury be 
 lieve the moon was a green cheese could n t have 
 made a more effective appeal, or one more foreign to 
 the law and the evidence. The jurors looked at each 
 other and whispered among themselves. 
 
 "No one wants to shut you up, Mr. Adams," said 
 Strickland. "We 11 go up-stairs and tell the judge, 
 and I guess he 11 let you off." 
 
 " Let me off ! I can t sit on this case, either ! " cried 
 half a dozen. 
 
 " It is n t easy to get excused ; you must n t ask what 
 
148 THE STAND-BY 
 
 can t be done/ replied Strickland, hurrying away to 
 escape their importunities. 
 
 While he was gone the jurors talked. 
 
 "It 7 s just like Denman," said one. "There was 
 Weeks. All he left was a patent right. Folks thought 
 it was n t worth anything said it was only one of 
 Weeks s crazy inventions j but you bet Denman knows 
 a good thing when he sees it ! It was put up at auc 
 tion to pay the debts, and he bought it for most noth 
 ing, and took it to New York and sold it for thirty 
 thousand dollars spot cash. What d he do with the 
 money ? Put it in his own pocket, and let that sick 
 widow and her little girl go to the poorhouse, as old 
 Deacon Follett and lots of the pious folks would have 
 done ? Not a bit of it ! He bought thirty thousand 
 dollars worth of good six-per-cent. bonds in Mrs. 
 Weeks s name, and now, instead of being a pauper, 
 she s got eighteen hundred a year to live on. That ? s 
 the kind of a criminal John Denman is ! " 
 
 " There was Willie Brown," said another, " that poor 
 little orphan cripple j Denman sent him to a Boston 
 hospital and paid the doctors and nurses and board and 
 everything till he got well." 
 
 " l Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me ! " 
 exclaimed a third. 
 
 " J T would take a darn sight longer to tell what he 
 has done than what he has n t," said a fourth. " He s 
 the whitest man in these parts, if he is a rumseller." 
 
 " And he s been mighty judicious in handling it," 
 remarked another. " Has n t allowed any one to sell 
 right and left to drunkards and boys. Held a taut 
 
COLLAPSE 149 
 
 rein on the whole business. No knock-downs and 
 drag-outs. No rows. Apsleigh s been the quietest, 
 best-behaved city in the State for twenty years, all 
 through John Denman." 
 
 " The temperance folks admit that ! " cried half a 
 dozen. 
 
 " It used to be a nice, sociable, friendly kind of a 
 place to live in," said still another juryman; "and 
 now lifelong friends won t speak to each other, and 
 it s nothing but hate breaking up everything, from 
 churches to a rubber of whist. It s just as Mr. Dow 
 said : been the best city in the State for twenty years, 
 and now it s hell." 
 
 " I 01 be hanged if I 11 vote ag in John Denman ! " 
 exclaimed one of the roughest of the jurors. " He s 
 a bird, he is, a reg lar Jim Dandy, and if a feller wants 
 a little suthin in his insides, it ? s nobody s business 
 but hisn ! " 
 
 " But we are sworn to find according to the law and 
 the evidence, and if we do not we are perjured," pro 
 tested the foreman. 
 
 " That s so ! " assented one or two. 
 
 " But," urged a little jeweler of bookish tastes, " it 
 used to be the law, the greater the truth the worse the 
 libel, and all the world honors the jury that woiild n t 
 convict Captain Baillie for publishing the shameful 
 things done in Greenwich Hospital. How was it with 
 the Fugitive- slave Law ? Who blames juries now for 
 setting slaves free against law and evidence ? " 
 
 "This is not the Fugitive-slave Law," replied the 
 foreman. " Unless this great evil is rooted out, free 
 government cannot exist another hundred years." 
 10* 
 
150 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Can t it exist if Mrs. Frye has mince-pies and cider 
 apple-sass ? " piped a shrill voice. " She told my wife 
 t other day she could n t git no cider for mince-pies 
 and apple-sass, cause her husband was fraid of bein 
 a witness." 
 
 "Mr. Foreman," inquired the little jeweler, "is it 
 any worse for Mrs. Frye to have mince-pies and cider 
 apple-sauce than for the prosecuting attorney to smoke 
 an old clay pipe and drink coffee strong as lye ? " 
 
 Strickland s return put an end to the discussion. 
 The evidence was put in, piled up, as Woods said, like 
 the everlasting mountains. Some of the jurors sat 
 sullen and inattentive ; three or four stood with their 
 hands in their pockets, looking out of the windows; 
 one skilfully carved his monogram on the back of a 
 chair. When all the evidence was in Strickland in 
 structed the jury in regard to the law, and told them 
 that Denman s good qualities had nothing to do with 
 the case before them. He told them that, whether the 
 law was just or unjust, wise or foolish, was a question 
 for the legislative, not the judicial, department of the 
 State. He reminded them that they had taken an oath 
 to be governed by the law and the evidence, and by 
 that alone, and that they could not shrink from the 
 obligation without being guilty of perjury. Then 
 they voted. They numbered twenty, not counting 
 Adams, excused. Three voted " Bill," four voted " No 
 bill," thirteen declined to vote. 
 
 " Gentlemen, you must vote," said Strickland ; " the 
 law requires it. We 11 try again." 
 
 Five voted "Bill," fifteen voted "No bill." 
 
 Strickland urged them to ask questions in regard to 
 
COLLAPSE 151 
 
 the law, pressed them to name a flaw in the evidence 
 that could make a doubt possible in any sane mind, 
 insisted that free government must be a government 
 of law, and sharply rebuked them for violation of 
 sworn duty. Then he made them ballot again. The 
 ballot stood sixteen for Denman, four against him. 
 There was no occasion for the New York lawyer who 
 could make a jury think the moon a green cheese ; the 
 five hundred and forty-six complaints were waste 
 paper. 
 
 The attempt to confiscate the liquors proved equally 
 abortive. They had been stored in an isolated stone 
 building formerly used as a jail. The commissioners 
 appointed to examine them and report to the court 
 found nothing but empty casks. 
 
 The November election immediately followed. 
 Strickland, whose duty as prosecuting attorney re 
 lieved him from the odium of voluntary action, pulled 
 through with barely a tenth of his former majorities. 
 Every other candidate who had shown the slightest 
 anti-liquor proclivities was snowed under. For the 
 first time in twenty-five years city and county went 
 Democratic on the local ticket. Apsleigh, full of dis 
 sension and hate, losing business every day, cried for 
 peace. Prohibition was pronounced a chimera, and 
 Denman invincible. 
 
PAKT THKEE 
 
 
 THE LEAGUE 
 
FORMING THE LEAGUE 
 
 IT down a minute," said Strickland, as 
 Craigin dropped into his office. " I want 
 to read you this letter. It ; s to the chief 
 justice : 
 
 DEAR SIR : Having decided to leave Apsleigh as soon as I can 
 settle my affairs, I herewith tender my resignation as county 
 attorney. The gallant fight for my last election and a desire 
 not to shirk duty have caused me to think many times before 
 taking this step ; but, under the existing circumstances, I see 
 no objection to being governed by my personal interests." 
 
 " That s a good letter to light your pipe with," said 
 Craigin. " Let s look at it ! I 11 bet it took a day to 
 write it ! " he continued, after reading it carefully. 
 
 " What makes you think so ? " 
 
 " Because it ? s so short, hints so much, and says so 
 little." 
 
 "It took more >n that, for it s three boiled down. 
 The first was thirty pages, the second two, the third a 
 dozen lines." 
 
 "I wish you d read between these dozen lines. 
 What >s the English of it?" 
 
 155 
 
156 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " The English is, we re licked, and it >s woe to the 
 vanquished. If I stay here I shall be nothing but an 
 object-lesson of how men ruin themselves and their 
 friends trying to protect the public from itself. 1 ve 
 talked this over with Bradford and Harnett and several 
 of our best men. They all see it as I do." 
 
 " You did n t talk with me." 
 
 " Good reason why ! I knew you d say, < Fight on ! 
 Craigin, if going to the stake would give us victory, 
 I d go there with a light heart, but it s no use talk 
 ing of <ifs. We ve met our Waterloo, and you re 
 the only man won t own it." 
 
 " There are more temperance men than liquor men 
 in Apsleighshire, more even in Apsleigh." 
 
 " Yes, such as they are ! They go to mass-meetings, 
 sing Hold the Fort loud enough to be heard a mile, 
 put a cent in the hat, pat me on the back and say, 
 1 Good dog, Towser ! Sick im, Towser ! but they re 
 mighty careful not to get in the way of the old lion s 
 paw." 
 
 "You ve had a mighty tough time of it, old man, 
 and I don t wonder you feel this way, but don t you 
 know that some of the best fighting armies in history 
 have been made from worse material? I guess it s 
 better stuff than Cesar s tenth legion was to begin 
 with. The raw recruit turns pale at the smell of gun 
 powder and runs away; when discipline and battle 
 have made him a soldier he dies at the cannon s mouth 
 with a cheer on his lips. No matter about that now. 
 What do you mean by personal interests ? " 
 
 " No one knows better than you that it s the settled 
 policy to divert business from every one who s been 
 
FORMING THE LEAGUE 157 
 
 prominent on our side. If it were mere spite they d 
 get tired of it, but teaching us not to meddle with their 
 business is the most effective way of protecting them 
 selves. There is n t a doctor in town who can stand 
 an organized and systematic sneering away of his pro 
 fessional reputation. There s Edwards lost all his 
 patients on the liquor side and more n half on the 
 other. It s as bad, or worse, with a lawyer. 7 
 
 " Can t you make a living here ? " 
 
 "Not unless you call a thousand or two a year a 
 living. My family s entitled to what I can earn of the 
 good things of life. I don t want to live in a town as 
 full of hate as this will be for years to come. I want 
 to go where I can get on and enjoy life. It s a bitter 
 dose, all the same, to sell the house where my grand 
 father was born and where I hoped my grandchildren 
 would be born and live and die ; it s bitter as death. 
 But 1 7 m glad I did what I did, for I believe it was my 
 duty, and we might have won if it had n t been for 
 that fool Harpswell." 
 
 " And I tell you," replied Craigin, " we can win now. 
 I want you to promise me not to mail that letter for 
 a week." 
 
 He went to his office, and, writing down thirty 
 names, studied them with anxious care. One man was 
 wanting in tact, another timid, another rash, and so 
 on. He drew his pen through name after name, till 
 the list was reduced to sixteen. Then he reversed the 
 process and with still greater care sought among the 
 sixteen for ten, each of whom had special qualifications 
 and all of whom could work together as one person. 
 Though they varied widely in tastes, attainments, and 
 
158 THE STAND-BY 
 
 social position, he believed they were the ten best men 
 in Apsleigh for his purpose. He wrote to each, ask 
 ing him to call at his office the following evening. 
 Then he took a photograph from a private drawer, 
 and, as he sat looking at it as upon the face of a loved 
 one forever lost, memory went back to the dream of 
 two years before : the yawning gulf, the shining one 
 upon the farther brink, the armies closing in battle, 
 Denman leading one, himself the other. 
 
 The ten came at the appointed time. Among them 
 were those who had advised Strickland to resign. All 
 were disheartened. 
 
 " How would it do to look at the enemy s troubles 
 as well as our own?" inquired Craigin. "All the 
 liquor-dealers but Denman have sentences hanging 
 over them and can be shut up for six months at a 
 moment s notice. Denman himself has been driven 
 out of the business. It ; s a good beginning." 
 
 " A good beginning ! " exclaimed one of the gentle 
 men. " Do you call what we ve gone through only 
 the beginning ? " 
 
 " Yes. We 7 ve had the prostration of business, the 
 reign of terror, the agony and hate j now comes the 
 steady march to victory." 
 
 " To victory ! " cried several at once. 
 
 " As surely as God reigns if we rise to our oppor 
 tunities. We ve got rid of the saloon and the bar 
 room. We must get rid of the sneak-holes and the 
 pocket-bottle trade. Denman s influence used to be 
 against these things ; now the more drunkenness and 
 rowdyism, the stronger his argument that prohibition 
 can t prohibit and nothing but license can regulate. 
 Public opinion will sustain us in this, and Denman 
 
FORMING THE LEAGUE 159 
 
 himself can t say a word against it. We must win 
 over the almighty dollar and make it fight our battles. 
 They say we re ruining Apsleigh. We must answer 
 them with the logic of growth. If it were two thou 
 sand miles west the whole country would ring with its 
 attractions, and its population would double in five 
 years. New England enterprise and capital have over 
 looked it because it s right at home. We can boom 
 it with solid facts, for the public good and the triumph 
 of a righteous cause, instead of a money-making syn 
 dicate." 
 
 " That >s something worth thinking of ! " exclaimed 
 Harnett. 
 
 "It 7 s something worth doing/ replied Craigin. 
 " You ve been all over this country ; did you ever see 
 a prettier place ? " 
 
 "No," said Harnett, "I never did." 
 
 "Places," continued Craigin, "that can t compare 
 with it have been made famous. It s near centers of 
 business ; taxes are low, and can be cut down a third. 
 If its advantages were known, rich men would come 
 here to live and to invest money. It s one of the few 
 places in the United States where the benefit of long- 
 freight rates is n t offset by increased cost of produc 
 tion incident to large cities." 
 
 " I know our position gives us long rates," remarked 
 Harnett, " but I ve no idea what the difference is." 
 
 " From ten to twenty per cent.," said Craigin, " and 
 public attention has never been called to it." 
 
 " It s at least three per cent, a year on the capital 
 in my business," said Basil Hunt, a manufacturer of 
 fine furniture. " Hard- wood timber s another item. 
 It s the best point I know of for certain industries, and 
 
160 THE STAND-BY 
 
 they re industries that employ the best class of help. 
 I don t see why your idea might n t be carried out on a 
 large scale, Mr. Craigin, if we could once get started." 
 
 " There s where we have an advantage/ replied 
 Craigin. "Just now there s an epidemic of booms, 
 money-making schemes, most of em fakes. Ours will 
 be a novelty. Our position will be that the liquor in 
 terest, to carry its point, is trying to cripple the town, 
 and we, to carry ours, are giving it a prosperity it 
 never dreamed of. Men will talk about it. Great 
 newspapers and magazines will discuss it as a social 
 problem and write up the town as a matter of public 
 interest. When the city starts into new life, property 
 doubles in value, everybody s making money, and it s 
 understood that prohibition has brought it about, 
 where will the almighty dollar be ? " 
 
 " On the side where it s to be made, every time," 
 said Hunt. 
 
 "Yes, and that is n t all. When border ruffians 
 undertook to dragoon Kansas into slavery, the best 
 men in the North flocked there and made homes. We 
 shall get the same class of people here. We must have 
 attractive and self-supporting clubs to take the places 
 of the saloons. We must educate all the time. We 
 must have a county organization with branches in 
 every town. We must have a system of quietly getting 
 at how every man in the county stands, and if he s on 
 our side, what kind of work he s best fitted for. We 
 must make our men a trained and disciplined army, 
 and then then we must fight our fight." 
 
 " Nd haow?" asked John Rogers Jones. 
 
 " The liquor interest must be smitten at the polls by 
 
FOEMING THE LEAGUE 161 
 
 an organization more perfect than its own, officials 
 who have been false to their oaths of office must give 
 place to those who will be true, and the path of duty 
 must be the path to public honors." 
 
 u We re a pretty small band to undertake such great 
 things," remarked Dr. Bradford. 
 
 " Did n t Christ send twelve humble men to preach 
 the gospel to the world ? " inquired Craigin. 
 
 " But they had a divine mission." 
 
 " If it is n t a divine mission to lift this curse, in 
 God s name, what is 1 No matter ! Mohammed was 
 a camel-driver. Buddha wandered in poverty and 
 alone. Doctor, what s the text about the ten right 
 eous men who could have saved Sodom ? Is Apsleigh 
 worse than Sodom ? We differ about the inspiration 
 of the Bible, but the lesson s the same. Ten righteous 
 men with fearless hearts and long, cool heads can save 
 any city, for they will be a nucleus around which 
 thousands will rally. I Ve heard of a knight who 
 stood with a few companions and held a pass against 
 a host until the king and his army came. He died, but 
 he saved the nation. Gentlemen, if you 11 stand with 
 me, life or death, we 11 hold the pass till Apsleigh is 
 saved, till the king and his army come the king that 
 is the people, the army that is ballots." 
 
 " By God s help, we ten will hold the pass with you ! " 
 cried Bradford. 
 
 Not a man hung back. 
 
 " We 11 call our organization what it is," said Har- 
 
 nett : " the League for the Public Weal ; and may its 
 
 influence spread from county to county and from State 
 
 to State until this great curse is lifted from the land ! " 
 
 11 
 
II 
 
 THE BILL 
 
 jHE suppression of the pocket-bottle trade 
 and the dives was a mere matter of vigi 
 lance and energy. The defendants had no 
 standing in the community, and, as they 
 violated the federal revenue law as well as the State 
 prohibitory law, Uncle Sam helped hunt them down 
 and laid his heavy hand upon them. 
 
 In the mean time a license bill was introduced be 
 fore the legislature. The Democratic State convention 
 had declared for license. According to time-honored 
 precedent, the Republican State convention made ad 
 hesion to the prohibitory law a test of party loyalty. 
 Many Democrats, however, believed in prohibition, 
 many Republicans in license, and it was doubtful how 
 far party platforms would control. Both houses of 
 the legislature were Republican by narrow majorities. 
 The judiciary committee was evenly divided. The 
 sachem of the Democracy advocated license, on the 
 ground that prohibition had never been intended as 
 anything but political hypocrisy whereby Republicans 
 were to have votes, cranks law, and the people whisky. 
 
 162 
 
THE BILL 163 
 
 He was able and eloquent, and his voice was potent 
 beyond the councils of his tribe. But Denman was the 
 one man in the State without whom the passage of the 
 bill was impossible. Others made speeches j he fur 
 nished brains and money. The anti-liquor men were 
 also organizing as never before. On that side, as on 
 the other, the Apsleighshire delegation to the third 
 house had come to the front. The bill was discussed 
 everywhere, at all hours. 
 
 "It is n t a question of morals," said one. "It s a 
 question of finance. The State s full of summer 
 hotels. There s millions invested in em. Their 
 guests spend millions every year among our people. If 
 they ve got to submit to boarding-school rules they 
 won t come." 
 
 "I know a first-class summer hotel," replied Har- 
 nett, " that s always full the season through, and you 
 can t get a glass of wine there for love or money." 
 
 " Owned and filled by some religious organization, 
 is n t it?" 
 
 " No j and it s one of the best-paying properties on 
 the coast. The landlord says he won t have liquor or 
 disreputable women about, because they drive away 
 the best class of patrons." 
 
 "Any man who classes liquor and disreputable 
 women together s a fanatic. I ve no doubt there re 
 fanatics enough to make a few hotels for fanatics pay, 
 but prohibition enforced would bankrupt the State all 
 the same." 
 
 " The money, time, and life drink costs would double 
 its valuation in ten years ; would that bankrupt it ? " 
 inquired Craigin. 
 
164 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " If the manufacture could be stopped I d hold up 
 both hands for that," said a fat, red-nosed man ; " but, 
 as long as it 7 s made, people are going to have it, law 
 or no law. All you can do is to regulate abuses and 
 make the business respectable." 
 
 " The other day," interposed Dr. Bradford, " a woman 
 died in Paris. She d made a fortune keeping a brothel. 
 As she was dying she told her daughters she d look 
 down on them from her home in heaven and would 
 bless them if they d be good girls and carry on the 
 business respectably, as she had done." 
 
 " I know a doctor of divinity who has wine on his 
 table," said a flashily dressed man. 
 
 " You mean the Rev. Dr. Fielding of Seamouth ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, I do. He s a minister of liberal ideas and 
 common sense." 
 
 " He s a good man. He has the courage to stand 
 almost alone among the ministers of this State in op 
 position to what he honestly believes is fanaticism. 
 His ears would tingle if he knew how he s talked 
 about in the bar-rooms and worse places." 
 
 " How do you know ? Do you visit such places ? " 
 
 " We ve collected a vast deal of evidence in Apsleigh, 
 and one item of it is that copies of Dr. Fielding s wine 
 bills are circulated in these places to give them the 
 mantle of his respectability." 
 
 "I m against rum as much as any one," urged a 
 country member, " but if you can t stop it, why not do 
 the next best thing ? " 
 
 " Did you ever know anything to be done by saying 
 1 if it can t be ; ? " inquired Craigin. 
 
 "No, I never did." 
 
THE BILL 165 
 
 " Would you take away the poor man s beer ? " cried 
 the agent of a liquor house. 
 
 " Yes, and the rich man s champagne, and the mo 
 nopoly of selling it ! After the war/ continued Craigin, 
 returning to the country member, " there were thou 
 sands of political murders in the South. The feeling 
 was so strong against the government that it could n t 
 get evidence, to say nothing of convictions. Suppose 
 it had tried what you call the next best thing ? Sup 
 pose it had said, i Negroes and white Republicans will 
 be shot or lynched anyway ; we might as well make 
 this sort of thing respectable and get all the money 
 out of it we can ? " 
 
 " It would be damnable ! " 
 
 " Damnable to license crime, and right to license the 
 chief source of crime ? " 
 
 " I wish that editor would stay at home and mind 
 his own business ! " muttered a lobbyist, with an oath. 
 " I had Hayseed fixed j now I ve lost him ! " 
 
 " I don t see what niggers has to do with it ! " said 
 a cadaverous man of the kind that whisky makes thin 
 and pale. "I denounce sumptuary laws. They J re 
 inconsistent with personal liberty." 
 
 " That s exactly what the Liquor-dealers Associa 
 tion says, is n t it ? " inquired Craigin. 
 
 "Yes; what of it?" 
 
 "And has been copied word for word into the 
 Democratic State platform, has n t it ? " 
 
 " Yes, and it ; s gospel truth." 
 
 " Of course ! Why don t you have a plank against 
 burning heretics ? That s inconsistent with personal 
 liberty, too." 
 11* 
 
166 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " What good would it do ? Nobody wants to burn 
 heretics." 
 
 "Nobody wants sumptuary laws, either. Suppose 
 I should call your wood-pile a heretic ? " 
 
 " T would n t make it one." 
 
 " As much as what you call a sumptuary law makes 
 it one. My dear sir, what do you think a sumptuary 
 law is?" 
 
 " Why, I suppose it s a a liquor law." 
 
 "It s any law intended to limit private expenses. 
 The Spartans had laws against using any money that 
 was n t made of iron. The old Romans had a law 
 that women should n t wear dresses of more than one 
 color. The French had a law against wearing pointed 
 shoes. The English had a law that only the nobility 
 should eat more than one kind of meat at dinner, and 
 that common people should n t eat it more than once 
 a day. The Scotch had a law that no one under the 
 rank of a noble should eat pie. If the United States 
 should shut out Turkish rugs to keep people from 
 spending their money, it would be a sumptuary law ; 
 but if they should do so to keep out the Asiatic cholera, 
 it would n t be a sumptuary law. The liquor traffic 
 is worse than cholera, and the time s coming when 
 it 11 be quarantined from one end of this country to 
 the other." 
 
 " Not in your day, young man," cried an old farmer. 
 " What three quarters of the people are bound to have 
 they 11 get, law or no law ! " 
 
 " If that s so," asked Bradford, " why are all these 
 liquor men working so hard and spending so much for 
 license ? " 
 
THE BILL 167 
 
 "I 11 tell you why/ 7 said Denman, who had just 
 come in. " If the legislature should make it a crime 
 to sell breadstuifs, the flour-dealers, whether it hurt 
 their business or helped it, would resist being classed 
 with criminals. It 7 s the same with us." 
 
 So the war of words raged day after day and night 
 after night. The Democratic leaders had promised 
 nine tenths of their following ; a fourth of it defied the 
 party whip and voted against license. Denman made 
 no promises; but when the roll was called, to the 
 amazement of all, more than a fourth of the Republi 
 cans voted for the bill. It passed the House by a 
 majority of five. But it could not become a law with 
 out passing the Senate. 
 
 The room was large and airy, the windows were 
 open, the night was clear and cool. Why did Den 
 man moan and toss upon his bed ? Why did cold sweat 
 stand in beaded drops upon his brow ? What did he 
 see in the darkness and solitude of his chamber ? 
 
 He saw a man in the early prime of life, honored 
 of his fellows, loved and trusted most by those who 
 knew him best. He saw a wife whose life was in her 
 husband, who kissed him as he came and went, whose 
 heart had sung blithely all the day for five happy 
 years. He saw little children clustering round their 
 father s knee, climbing into his lap, throwing their tiny 
 arms about his neck, hugging him tight, laughing and 
 shouting in their joy. Again he saw the man, an out 
 cast, pitied, despised, shunned. He saw the woman 
 moaning out her life in speechless agony. He saw the 
 woeful children of a drunkard. He saw the end, the 
 
168 THE STAND-BY 
 
 horrible delirium. He heard the dying shrieks. He 
 heard the dropping of the sods upon dishonored clay, 
 and as they fell they seemed to spell over and over and 
 over again a single word " M-u-r-d-e-r." The vision 
 changed. The ghost of his dead Harry took the place 
 of the doomed man, and he heard the voice he loved 
 best crying, " Papa, your fortune drips with the blood 
 of your own son ! n 
 
 Then he awoke, and though he paced the floor in 
 agony and though his whole soul loathed the work 
 he had to do, his purpose never faltered. It was a 
 " necessary war measure." The position of each sena 
 tor was known. They stood a tie. The license bill 
 could not become a law unless Jared Marston was 
 disposed of. There was no other way to dispose of 
 him. He was fearless and incorruptible j but he had 
 been a drunkard. He had struggled to his feet several 
 times and had now stood five years without a fall, but 
 the appetite was still mighty within him. If he could 
 be made to taste wine it would end in a wild debauch, 
 he would not be present to cast his vote, and the bill 
 would become a law. 
 
 Denman was not present at the feast. He merely 
 suggested his object to the nominal giver and paid the 
 bills. The courses came and went, and the glasses 
 stood untouched at Marston s plate. 
 
 " Come, old man," said the host at last, " this cham 
 pagne is from the choicest vintage of fipernay. Just 
 one glass before we go ! Just one for friendship s 
 sake ! Gentlemen, we drink to the coming man of the 
 Senate ! Marston, you can t refuse that ! " 
 
 As Marston raised his glass to return the pledge he 
 
THE BILL 169 
 
 read the gleam of triumph in the tempter s eye, put 
 down the wine untasted, and left the room. Next day 
 he made the speech of the session. The license bill, 
 not the tempted senator, was lost. 
 
 The story of the banquet, though not of Denman s 
 share in it, got into the papers, and Isabel read it. 
 "That was n t war/ she said to herself. "It was 
 almost murder. Papa could n t have done such a 
 thing as that, and yet who else would furnish that 
 old brand of fipernay, worth its weight in gold ? " 
 
Ill 
 
 AN OFFER AND A PURCHASE 
 
 jHE " Tocsin" was a recognized and grow 
 ing power in the State ; it had a constantly 
 increasing subscription list, it was well 
 and economically managed, and it was be 
 coming bankrupt. Many business men declared they 
 would have nothing to do with the organ of the cranks 
 who were ruining the town. Others expressed regret 
 that decrease of trade compelled them to cut down 
 advertising expenses. The " Times " and the " Palla 
 dium," subsidized by Denman, pushed competition 
 below cost, and the " Tocsin " had to do business at a 
 loss or not at all. The first days of the new year were 
 black Fridays. From the first Craigin had taken half 
 his salary in treasury stock, which no longer had any 
 market value. The other half was six months in ar- 
 rear, with no prospect of payment. His cash assets 
 had dwindled to six dollars and fifty cents. At this 
 juncture he was oifered an assistant editorship on a 
 great city paper. 
 
 " Gilbert Riggs," he mused, as he read the letter for 
 the twentieth time, "offers me five hundred dollars 
 
 170 
 
AN OFFER AND A PURCHASE 171 
 
 a month ! Salary of a famous editorial writer ! 
 Queer ! What can he know about me ? Where have 
 I heard of him ? Ah, I remember now ! He s Den- 
 man s second cousin." 
 
 If Denman, without giving up his own will, could 
 have made Isabel happy by sacrificing ten times six 
 thousand a year, he would have done so gladly. 
 Craigin had no idea how much the affectionate old 
 man s heart was set on the acceptance of this offer ; 
 but, if his suspicion of its source were correct, he knew 
 that the gulf between him and the Denmans might 
 still be bridged. On the one hand was a ruined paper, 
 an unpaid salary, an empty pocket; on the other an 
 extraordinary opportunity. There was only a bare 
 suspicion that it might come through Denman. Why 
 should n t he accept ? Would n t he be a fool to de 
 cline ? Would n t it be sacrificing a future of useful 
 ness ? Did n t ministers of Christ almost always see a 
 higher call in a higher salary ? When did a minister 
 ever refuse to leave a weak and discordant church for 
 a strong and harmonious one? But the salary and 
 professional advancement, much as he longed for them, 
 were as nothing. Love, pulling at his heartstrings, 
 was stronger a thousandfold, and love said, " Go ! " 
 He remembered his promise of victory, the solemn 
 compact, " By God s help, we ten will hold the pass 
 with you till the king and his army come," his oath, 
 " I 11 live and die doing what I believe is right, cost 
 what it will, so help me God," and his mind was fixed. 
 "No matter how this offer comes," he said, "I 11 
 stay." 
 
 "You must go," said Harnett, when he saw the 
 
172 THE STAND-BY 
 
 letter. " It s a chance of a lifetime, and we can t run 
 much longer anyway." 
 
 " I Ve declined it." 
 
 " Declined it ! " 
 
 " We must hold the pass together till the king and 
 his army come." 
 
 One morning, a fortnight after declining the offer 
 of Gilbert Riggs, Craigin called at Harnett s house be 
 fore daylight. 
 
 " It s annual meeting this afternoon," he said, " and 
 last night I lay awake wondering why the small stock 
 holders had n t dropped into the office to talk things 
 over. They always have before. Not counting Abel 
 Gay s, we ve got only ninety-nine shares we can de 
 pend on $ if Denman s got the other hundred and 
 one" 
 
 " It s the end of the l Tocsin ! " exclaimed Harnett. 
 
 " Let s go right over to Abbottsford and see Gay," 
 said Craigin. 
 
 Denman had had a little business with his lawyer 
 the day before. " Woods," he had said, " when you go 
 over to Abbottsford this afternoon to make Gay s will, 
 I want you to buy his three shares of stock in the 
 Tocsin Company. I Ve picked up ninety-eight, and 
 left his to the last because he s so strong on the other 
 side, but he s such an innocent old man he won t sus 
 pect anything." 
 
 " How much shall I pay him f " 
 
 "All you can without exciting his suspicion the 
 more the better. His widow 11 need more n she 11 
 have. He s the kind of man that 11 want to leave 
 cash on hand for funeral expenses. He 11 talk it all 
 
AN OFFER AND A PURCHASE 173 
 
 over with you, and tell you what he s got, and ask you 
 what he d better sell. There won t be any trouble if 
 you work it right." 
 
 As Denman predicted, the sick man was talkative 
 and unsuspecting. 
 
 " Wall, I vum ! " exclaimed Gay, "if ye hain t an 
 honest lawyer ! I d no idee the stock was wu th a 
 quarter so much. Hain t never paid nothin . Must 
 been layin up money fer presses nd things, I guess. 
 It s at the Apsleigh Bank. I 11 give ye an order for 
 t now." 
 
 The offer was embarrassing, asHarnett was president 
 of the bank. 
 
 " I won t trouble you to do that," said Woods, " be 
 cause, you see, it would have to be sent down here for 
 you to sign. If you sign one of these blank proxies 
 it 11 do for now, and you can make over the stock any 
 time in a few days." 
 
 The proxy was signed, and Woods began counting 
 out the money. 
 
 " I won t take a cent," said Gay, " till I give ye the 
 stock; that s business. What s yer rush? I wish 
 ye d stay longer." 
 
 But the lawyer saw the doctor coming, and hurried 
 away with the proxy in his pocket. 
 
 " Wall, naow, I do vum ! " exclaimed Gay, when 
 Harnett and Craigin had opened his eyes. " Nd so 
 they want to bu st the paper ? Nd ye say them three 
 shares 11 do it ? Gold would n t have bought em if 
 I d known it, nd they sha n t have em naow if I can 
 help it ; but I ve signed somethin . Mother, won t ye 
 see if there hain t some more like it ? " 
 
174 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "Mother," who was his wife, and his junior by 
 twenty years, produced the box of papers. 
 
 " T was like this ere," said Gay. 
 
 " Why, it s only a proxy," replied Harnett. " You ve 
 a perfect right to revoke it this minute if you have n t 
 taken pay for the stock." 
 
 " I hain t," Gay answered, " nd, what s more, I won t, 
 nuther ! " 
 
 Woods attended the annual meeting without a doubt 
 of the result. 
 
 " I see you represent ninety-eight shares," remarked 
 the president of the company. 
 
 " Ninety-eight ! " exclaimed Woods. " I represent a 
 hundred and one." 
 
 " Only ninety-eight, Mr. Woods. Mr. Gay has re 
 voked the proxy he gave you yesterday. He has sold 
 the stock to me. Here is the certificate and here is 
 the transfer-book." 
 
IV 
 
 ONE TO SIX 
 
 T S bankruptcy if we don t do something 
 right off," said Craigin. " There must be 
 people in New York and Boston who d 
 give us job-work if they knew what we re 
 trying to do and how hard up we are." 
 
 " I had n t thought of that," replied Harnett. " I ve 
 a friend in New York who can give us lots of printing 
 and put us in the way of getting more. I 11 go and 
 see him." 
 
 He got a good contract, on condition that it should 
 be done at a specified time. With it came half a dozen 
 journeymen printers of a class familiar throughout 
 the country men who journey, working but a short 
 time in a place, the aristocracy of trampdom, bright, 
 intelligent, reckless, turbulent. A week passed, and 
 there were signs of trouble. The men became sullen 
 and insolent. Their leader, known as " Stub Short," 
 for the reason, probably, that he was tall, was a 
 skilled workman, and all day his pica had looked 
 like pi. 
 
 " We can t send out such work as that," said Craigin. 
 175 
 
176 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " It s better n we re paid for," replied Short, with 
 an oath. " If you don t like it, you can lump it." 
 
 Five minutes later the six new men demanded their 
 pay and left the office. Craigin at once wired for 
 more help, and had no difficulty in getting it. The 
 new type-setters, ten girls, came on an afternoon train. 
 That evening the editor worked late, and after he had 
 finished writing turned off the gas and sat in one of 
 his reveries. The city clock struck one, reminding 
 him that it was past his bedtime. As he arose to put 
 on his overcoat he heard stealthy footsteps outside. 
 He peeped out, and in the moonlight, just under the 
 counting-room windows, he saw the six journeymen 
 printers. There was a ventilator in one of the win 
 dows. He opened it noiselessly and listened, screen 
 ing himself with the curtain. 
 
 "When we Ve smashed his old printing-presses," 
 Short was saying, "it 11 bu st the whole shooting- 
 match. They have n t got any money to buy new 
 ones." 
 
 They were six to one, engaged in a State-prison 
 crime. Craigin had no fear for himself, and no com 
 punction about killing them if necessary. He had the 
 build of a prize-fighter, was a skilled boxer, was quick 
 as a cat, and had kept his muscle in good condition ; 
 above all, he was on the defensive and his presence 
 was unkDown. 
 
 A hard- wood ruler lay on his desk. He seized it 
 and once more peeped out. The men were stealthily 
 approaching the entrance of the building, Short bring 
 ing up the rear, the quarter from which danger was 
 apprehended. They had a skeleton key that fitted the 
 
ONE TO SIX 177 
 
 lock. Craigin took his position close to the door, and 
 as the first man entered he received a blow on the head 
 and fell without a groan. The next man was disposed 
 of in the same way. The others started back. 
 
 " There s only one man/ 7 cried Short, with an oath. 
 " Down him ! n 
 
 There was a wild rush, four to one. In taking his 
 position at the door Craigin had the advantage of the 
 first attack, but exposed himself to the danger of be 
 ing surrounded. It was now his object to reach the 
 double doors opening from the counting-room to his 
 private office, for the four would then be in front of 
 him. He retreated, getting in one good blow with his 
 ruler. It was the work of an instant. As he reached 
 his new position he saw a universe of stars and felt as 
 if he were floating through immeasurable space. Some 
 one had struck him a heavy blow from behind. He 
 staggered, almost fell, and the ruler dropped from his 
 hand. A foot struck it, and it went flying through the 
 open doors into the private office, beyond the reach of 
 the enemy. The stars, the celestial journey, passed 
 away, and in their place the tiger that sleeps in human 
 nature sprang forth. Craigin fought with a cool head 
 and a quick eye. He was hit several times, for they 
 all were at him at once, but now and again he got in 
 a blow that sent an enemy reeling to the floor. Three 
 and a half to one, one man had a broken arm, he 
 stood them off, punishing them worse than they pun 
 ished him, until Short became furious and reckless. 
 Like Craigin, he was a quick, powerful man and a 
 trained athlete. At some time in his vagrant career 
 he had been a circus tumbler, and had learned how to 
 12 
 
178 THE STAND-BY 
 
 do what would knock the life out of a man like a 
 cannon-ball. 
 
 " Stand back ! " he shouted, forgetting that the night 
 police might hear him. " Stand back! I 11 finish 
 him ! " 
 
 The next instant he was a wheel in air, then a 
 projectile, shooting forward, feet foremost, straight 
 for Craigin s abdomen. Craigin s alertness and 
 agility saved his lif e. He sprang backward and to the 
 left, barely escaping the tremendous blow. As Short 
 recovered himself with the skill that had won plaudits 
 in the circus ring Craigin s powerful shoulders shot 
 forward and his right arm straightened like a flash of 
 lightning. His knuckle-bones cracked and splintered 
 as his fist met the terrible momentum. Short fell as 
 an ox falls beneath a butcher s ax. While his com 
 rades stood stupidly staring at him two policemen 
 rushed in with revolvers drawn. 
 
 A few days later Craigin visited four of the journey 
 men printers at the hospital. 
 
 "I shall have to go to prison just the same," said 
 Short, speaking painfully through a broken jaw ; " but 
 I have n t got anything against you, and I m going 
 to tell you all about it. You used us as well as any 
 body could. I would n t have tried anything of that 
 sort if I had n t been hired to." 
 
 "Hired to?" 
 
 " I met a man near a lonely place I used to visit- 
 no matter what for. It was in the night and dark, and 
 he knew when I would be there. He told me if I d 
 get up a strike and smash your printing-presses he d 
 pay me three thousand dollars. He gave me a thou- 
 
ONE TO SIX 179 
 
 sand to show he meant business, and was to give me 
 the other two thousand that night, and hide us where 
 we could n t be found, and help us to get away. He 
 was n t far off at the time of the fight." 
 
 " Short, you 7 re lying to me ! " 
 
 " It s the living truth, so help me God ! The man 
 was got up so his own mother could n t swear to him, 
 and he tried to disguise his voice, but I knew it just 
 as well as I know yours. He was John Denman." 
 
 "John Denman ! " exclaimed Craigin. " Impossible ! " 
 
 Then he remembered Denman s warning : " I want 
 to tell you fair and plain that if this thing goes on I 
 sha n t shrink from necessary war measures. I m 
 outside the pale of the law, and of course you 11 
 understand that, if I were to be bound by what you 
 might consider fair fighting, I ? d be helpless." 
 
 " I know it was Denman," repeated Short. 
 
 " Short, I want you to promise me one thing j will 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes, I will, Mr. Craigin. I know you won t ask 
 what is n t fair to me." 
 
 " Don t tell any one." 
 
 " You mean what I ve told you about Denman ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "The cops found the money on me that night. 
 They ve been at me about it ever since, and I told ; em 
 the whole story to-day everything I Ve told you, and 
 all the particulars." 
 
 Though Short s statement was kept from the press, 
 it passed from lip to lip like wild-fire. The thousand 
 dollars found on his person strongly corroborated it, 
 and it was generally believed. As the community had 
 
180 THE STAND-BY 
 
 not adopted Denman s theory of " necessary war mea 
 sures," it hurt him and his cause immensely. It helped 
 Craigin more than almost anything else could have 
 done. It made him the idol of hundreds who had 
 been bitterly opposed to prohibition. It won him 
 universal admiration. All the world loves a fighter. 
 Denman realized how much he had lost, how much 
 Craigin had gained, but this was as nothing to his re 
 buke from the one he loved best. " Papa," she said, 
 the day after the attack on the printing-onice, " papa, 
 you were out late last night ! " He started as if a ser 
 pent had stung him, and shrank in horror from the 
 eyes he knew were reading his heart. His daughter s 
 face turned deathly pale, her lip curled, and her voice 
 trembled with withering scorn as she added, " I prom 
 ised to stand with John Denman, right or wrong, 
 fighting against God ; but I never promised to stand 
 with midnight ruffians, six to one ! Oh, it was cow 
 ardly!" 
 
THE VOICE OF MAMMON 
 
 )HE attempt to wreck the " Tocsin " aroused 
 an American sense of fair play and, by 
 bringing the Tocsin Publishing Com 
 pany its share of job-work and advertis 
 ing, put it on a paying basis. Craigin s pluck and 
 popularity, his dramatic midnight victory, one to six, 
 and the business ability and qualities of generalship 
 he had already shown, revived the courage of the anti- 
 liquor wing of the Republican party in Apsleighshire, 
 made him its unquestioned leader, and won for his 
 plans the financial backing of several wealthy men. 
 
 The city was still suffering greatly from want of a 
 hotel. Denman had made a standing offer to lease the 
 Apsleighshire House at a rental that would have been 
 reasonable in ordinary times and with a thriving bar 
 trade. Much to his surprise, the offer was accepted, 
 and good security for the payment of rent was given. 
 An experienced hotel man took the house, subject to 
 conditions imposed by the League, on a small percen 
 tage of gross receipts and a large one of net profits. 
 As soon as it was opened eleven persons under perfect 
 12* 181 
 
182 THE STAND-BY 
 
 system and hundreds who were fast learning system 
 set themselves at work to make it pay. Every week 
 a great sleigh-ride or some other entertainment ended 
 with a supper at the Apsleighshire House. While 
 snow still lingered on the hills a circular was prepared, 
 setting forth the charms of Apsleigh as a summer re 
 sort and the reasons for calling attention to them. 
 Letters were written to temperance men in all parts 
 of the country, asking the names of people who would 
 be likely to patronize such a house, and hundreds of 
 women wrote to friends, urging them to take their 
 summer outing in Apsleigh and to influence every one 
 they could to do the same. The " Tocsin " put the case 
 in such a way that the press from one end of the 
 country to the other took it up and discussed it. 
 People who had never heard of Apsleigh before be 
 came interested in it as a social problem, and it was 
 written about from all points of view. 
 
 The problem was not how to get visitors enough, but 
 what to do with so many. The League established a 
 bureau. People whose houses were large and whose 
 incomes were small were enabled to fill the one 
 and increase the other. Apsleighshire was a river, 
 lake, and mountain county, with fine drives and good 
 fishing, and the bureau extended its operations to all 
 the attractive portions of it. Taking great pains to 
 know what kind of entertainment would be given, 
 representing things as they were, and working for a 
 purpose that was understood far and near, it retained 
 and multiplied its patrons. Looking backward a few 
 months, the filling of the Apsleighshire House seemed 
 to belong to the day of small things. The League had 
 
THE VOICE OF MAMMON 183 
 
 made the county a popular resort and had put hun 
 dreds of thousands of dollars into the pockets of its 
 inhabitants. As it had charged commissions, it also 
 had a nice little sum of money on hand. 
 
 One morning the next winter Harnett entered the 
 " Tocsin " office with a Boston daily in his hand. 
 
 "Craigin," he exclaimed, "the Crawford Cutlery 
 Works at Steel Haven have been burned to the ground, 
 carelessness of a drunken workman, and I believe 
 we can get Crawford to rebuild here. 7 
 
 "What makes you think so?" 
 
 " I got acquainted with him last summer at Watch 
 Hill. He s one of our kind of people on the temper 
 ance question, and I told him all about what we re 
 trying to do. I told him about freight rates, and tax 
 ation, and cost of living, and everything. He said 
 then that he d had one very costly accident caused by 
 drunken workmen and was sick of it, and that if it 
 was n t for his big plant he d come. I could see he 
 meant what he said. We ve got the advantage of 
 Steel Haven in every way. If he rebuilds there he 11 
 have to pay taxes right along. If he comes here he 
 can get an exemption for ten years. Freight rates 
 here are ten per cent, lower, the cost of living for 
 workmen less, and wages about the same. Besides, 
 Crawford s made a large fortune and wants to live in 
 a place that is n t altogether a factory town, where 
 there are pleasant surroundings such as we have here, 
 and where his family can have better society and better 
 advantages. Let s go down there and talk it over with 
 him and see what we can do." 
 
 " We must take all the facts and figures we can get 
 
184 THE STAND-BY 
 
 that bear on the cost of doing business here/ 7 replied 
 Craigin. "We must be able to prove them. Seems 
 to me we d better take Basil Hunt with us, too j he s 
 a practical manufacturer." 
 
 " Now that I ve got to build from the foundations/ 
 said Crawford, after thoroughly investigating the facts 
 and figures, " I 11 do it in a community that s try 
 ing to build from the foundations too." 
 
 The money put in circulation by summer visitors 
 and by the great steel-works helped the League im 
 mensely. As soon as it was known why the steel 
 works were coming to Apsleigh, the mighty voice of 
 Mammon was heard on every street corner preaching 
 from a new text. 
 
VI 
 
 SEVEN DEVILS 
 
 R. BRADFORD/ said Craigin, one Monday 
 morning, " I heard your sermon yesterday 
 about the seven devils." 
 
 "Yes, I saw you there. I would n t 
 want to proselyte, even among you unbelieving Uni 
 tarians, but I 7 m always delighted to see you at my 
 church." 
 
 " Thanks ! 1 m glad to go now and then. My father 
 was of your creed almost as long as he lived, and 
 my ancestors were, from the time of the " Mayflower." 
 But about those seven devils! The man had one 
 devil. He pitched him out neck and heels, and cleaned 
 up the house, and put everything in apple-pie order. 
 Then, pretty soon, he got so lonesome all by himself 
 he could n t stand it, and so he went out and picked 
 up seven other devils and brought em home with him 
 and was worse off than ever. He wanted to draw the 
 line on that kind of company, but when it came to 
 doing it, he was n t quite equal to it. That sort of 
 thing s happening all the time, and we ; ve got to look 
 out for it here." 
 
 185 
 
186 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "What are you driving at now?" inquired the 
 clergyman. 
 
 "What I suggested when we formed the League. 
 There are hundreds of men and grown-up boys in town 
 who have places to eat and sleep, but no homes. A 
 boarding-house is n t a home. A good many of them 
 go into society of one kind or another and are on call 
 ing terms at private houses ; more, perhaps, are mem 
 bers of secret fraternities, Chautauquan circles, the 
 Y. M. C. A., and so forth but still there are hundreds 
 practically turned loose on the streets by the closing 
 of the saloons and bar-rooms, with really no place to 
 spend their evenings. We need a good substitute for 
 the saloons." 
 
 " Such as what?" 
 
 "A place with all their attractiveness and freedom, 
 without their evil influences a place attractive, not 
 to refined and educated people, but to that class of 
 men, and especially the men that society, and the 
 Masons, and Odd Fellows, and Knights of Pythias, and 
 Chautauquans, and the Y. M. C. A., and the churches 
 don t reach. It seems to me that we must have such 
 a place, and that whether we can make a success of it 
 depends mainly on you." 
 
 "On me! Why on me?" 
 
 " Because you ; re at the head of a great church and 
 are the leading orthodox minister in the city. No one 
 else can put the brakes on those who will want such 
 a place run on religious lines as you can do, if you 
 only will. The men we need to reach won t stand it. 
 They can go to lectures and churches and prayer-meet 
 ings and the Y. M. C. A., and all that sort of thing, if 
 
SEVEN DEVILS 187 
 
 they want to, but they don t want to. If we shoot too 
 high we sha n t hit our game. Lots of unselfish Chris 
 tian men, like Pemberton, for instance, would make 
 it a failure; and when it comes to such persons as 
 Deacon Follett and Mrs. Hudson you re about the 
 only one in town who can keep em from trying to 
 save souls." 
 
 " I see what you mean, but it sounds odd." 
 
 " Yes ? If they ever saved a soul it might be differ 
 ent. If these men feel free to enjoy themselves, no 
 end of good may come of it j but if Deacon Follett and 
 Mrs. Hudson get after em, they 11 run like sheep." 
 
 " I ve no doubt of it." 
 
 "The deacon would n t be allowed to infest the 
 Apsleigh Club with his prayers and tracts and to talk 
 down to the members as if they were outcasts of God. 
 My idea is to have what must be in the main a poor 
 man s club with all the unwritten social rights of a 
 rich man s club a place where they can enjoy them 
 selves in their own way, so long as it s innocent." 
 
 " That brings us to the question of what is innocent, 
 and I m afraid we can t agree among ourselves on 
 that any more than we can with Denman on the liquor 
 question." 
 
 " Perhaps so ; but that s where you can help again 
 more than any one else. We ve got to have cards and 
 billiards and tobacco." 
 
 " I don t see how such a club can be run without," 
 replied Bradford, "but I don t know what Brother 
 Pemberton will say. I m afraid he 11 say they re 
 associated with gambling- and drinking-places." 
 
 " So are oysters," observed Craigin. 
 
188 THE STAND-BY 
 
 "But oysters are associated with church festivals," 
 remarked Bradford. 
 
 " Yes, in homeopathic doses. They say the rule for 
 making church stews is one oyster to a barrel of stew. 
 But, doctor, the devil holds his grip because so many 
 people think what s used for him should n t be used 
 against him. Where s the common sense of giving 
 him the best of everything ? Take the theater ! Take 
 " Little Lord Fauntleroy, for instance ! The play, like 
 the story, is an evangel, teaching the simple loving- 
 kindness which made Christ, as I think, the greatest 
 of men, or, as you think, the Son of God." 
 
 "I don t believe even Brother Pemberton would 
 object to Little Lord Fauntleroy, " said Bradford. 
 "Perhaps he won t to cards and billiards under the 
 circumstances. Suppose I ring him up and get him 
 down here ? " 
 
 Somewhat to their surprise, the Rev. Francis Pem 
 berton did not object. "On general principles," he 
 said, " I don t approve of cards and billiards. In most 
 cases they re stepping-stones to things that are bad, 
 and are almost always a waste of time ; but in this case 
 they ; re stepping-stones to things that are good. Of 
 course I d rather have these men Methodists and take 
 them into my church, but I 11 do all I can to help in 
 your way, even if it is n t quite mine." 
 
 " I m awfully glad you can see it as we do ! " ex 
 claimed Craigin, grasping his hand. " With you and 
 Dr. Bradford for it, and Deacon Follett against it, 
 there won t be the slightest trouble." 
 
 " It 11 take considerable money, won t it ? " inquired 
 Bradford. 
 
SEVEN DEVILS 189 
 
 " We Ve got five thousand dollars that the bureau s 
 made for us. It seems to me that s enough to start 
 with," replied Craigin. 
 
 " Five thousand dollars ! n exclaimed Pemberton. 
 " Would you put all that into this club ? " 
 
 "Why not? It is n t more than one man in com 
 fortable circumstances would put into a house. We 
 could n t fit up an attractive saloon with less, and we ; ve 
 got to have more room than a saloon has. We Ve got 
 to have lots of room, all the appointments plain, but 
 comfortable of a good club, a parlor with piano, 
 carpets, and pictures, a gymnasium, smoking-, read 
 ing-, and billiard-rooms, a cafe. All these things cost 
 money. We Ve got to have a good manager at a liv 
 ing salary. We Ve got to do the square thing if we re 
 to make a success of it and make it pay." 
 
 " Make it pay ! " cried Bradford and Pemberton to 
 gether. 
 
 "We Ve made the hotel and bureau pay," replied 
 Craigin. " We 11 make this pay. Men who Ve spent 
 dollars every week in saloons won t kick over as much 
 every month for something better j if they do they re 
 not worth saving. We must n t treat them like pau 
 pers. It won t do to make them objects of charity. 
 Suppose the dues are only a dollar a month; the 
 billiard-tables will earn a good deal, and coffee, ice 
 cream, soda, mineral waters, cigars, tobacco, and the 
 like will bring in a good deal more." 
 
 " Would you sell tobacco and cigars ? " asked Pem 
 berton. 
 
 "Yes, if smoking is allowed on the premises and 
 men won t come together if they can t smoke." 
 
190 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " But lots of people will think it is n t consistent to 
 sell tobacco and keep others from selling beer." 
 
 " Of course ! But we draw a line between tobacco 
 and beer. If it s right to use a thing, it must be right 
 to sell it. If it s wrong to sell it, it must be wrong to 
 use it. The two things go together ; you can t sepa 
 rate them. I don t see how a man who drinks can say 
 a word against a man for selling without condemning 
 himself." 
 
 The Apsleigh Brotherhood became a great success. 
 Men who went from curiosity and because they had 
 nowhere else to go stayed because they liked it. It 
 was the history of the Reform Club repeated on a 
 larger scale. Craigin won their hearts before they 
 knew it, and those who could and those who could 
 not understand his self-sacrifice and moral heroism 
 loved the friendly grip of the scarred hand that had 
 smashed the ruffian s jaw. 
 
 Meanwhile other work was going on. Through all 
 the instrumentalities at its command the League was 
 secretly and systematically finding out how each man 
 in the county stood, what sort of a man he was, and, 
 if he were with them, what he could best do. Cap 
 tains were chosen, the county was divided into military 
 districts, and secret records began to show who, in 
 every hamlet, in every farm-house, would answer the 
 call to arms on the day of battle that was approaching. 
 
VII 
 
 IN ITS MAJESTY 
 
 ;R. CHARLES BYRD was the leading drug 
 gist in Apsleigh. 
 
 " That young man is not adapted to this 
 latitude/ he remarked one day, as Craigin 
 was passing. 
 
 " Neither was Jesus Christ," replied a customer. 
 Byrd raised his eyebrows with an expression of 
 pious horror. 
 
 " I mean what I say," continued the customer. " If 
 Christ had n t hit the scribes and Pharisees and rulers 
 of the synagogue he d have been the most fashionable 
 preacher of the day instead of the Crucified One, the 
 Light of the Ages. The same class that hunted him 
 to death would drive Craigin out of town if they 
 could ! " 
 
 "Why," exclaimed Byrd, "I I thought you were 
 one of the old board of aldermen ? " 
 
 "So I was, but I had the honor to belong to the 
 minority that did n t vote to perjure themselves." 
 
 Ex- Alderman Capen, having made his purchase and 
 freed his mind, went out; and Mr. Byrd inwardly 
 
 191 
 
192 THE STAND-BY 
 
 thanked God that he, Mr. Byrd, was not a sinner like 
 other men, and, above all, that he was not guilty of 
 blasphemy like Mr. Capen. Mr. Byrd was a pillar in 
 one of the churches. He lived on Apsleigh Avenue, 
 was a director in a bank, and, while not rich in the 
 sense that Denman was, could have put up collateral 
 for a hundred thousand dollars and still have had 
 a modest competence left. Mr. Byrd had thought it 
 proper to proceed against Bridget Maloney, who had 
 sold uncommonly poor whisky to uncommonly dis 
 reputable customers. He had approved the suppression 
 of the sneak-holes and the pocket-bottle trade, on high 
 moral grounds as well as for pecuniary reasons inci 
 dent to his business. If anything further was to be 
 done, the prosecution of Denman was unavoidable, for 
 he had handled, either wholesale or retail, most of the 
 liquor drunk in the county. The enforcement of law 
 against Mr. Byrd s drug store, sumptuous with plate- 
 glass and mahogany, was, in Mr. Byrd s opinion, quite 
 a different matter. 
 
 The "drought" had caused a great demand for 
 "medicine." Mr. Byrd was a law-abiding druggist 
 with customers who, he thought, might talk too freely 
 or stagger into the clutches of the police. He sold to 
 others as "a special favor," and, as these "special 
 favors" were somewhat hazardous, charged accord 
 ingly. The proscription of the regular trade brought 
 thousands of dollars to him. 
 
 One day he received an invitation to appear before 
 the police court, and although the occasion was not 
 festive nor the company select, it could not be declined. 
 He paid his fifty dollars and costs, and was warned 
 
IN ITS MAJESTY 193 
 
 that the next time it would be imprisonment. After 
 that he sold " medicine " more cautiously. It went by 
 all sorts of innocent names. He did not put the store 
 label on the bottles. He wrapped them in white paper, 
 guiltless of printers ink, and hid them in a dark corner 
 of the cellar. It was months before he was again 
 molested. The business was so profitable that his 
 avarice got the better of his discretion and he began 
 to conduct it on a larger scale. " They won t dare to 
 shut me up," he said to himself. " If I m caught, I 11 
 only get a hundred dollars and costs." At last he re 
 ceived a second invitation, which ominously set forth 
 the record of the preceding one and what had come 
 of it. 
 
 "We 11 plead nolo, pay the hundred dollars and 
 costs, and end it in the police court," said Woods, in 
 a private interview with the county attorney. 
 
 " Can t think of it," replied Strickland. 
 
 "Surely you don t mean to insist on imprison 
 ment?" 
 
 " That s just what I shall insist on if he s convicted." 
 
 So Mr. Byrd pleaded " Not guilty," and was bound 
 over to the county court close at hand. 
 
 His case had been anxiously discussed before the 
 second complaint was made. 
 
 " The geyser formations at the Yellowstone National 
 Park are as delicate as they are beautiful," said Har- 
 nett. "You can destroy in a minute what it would 
 take a hundred years to replace. Every one who 
 enters the park is presented with a copy of the rules 
 for their preservation, on which is conspicuously 
 printed, These rules will be enforced. The day be- 
 
194 THE STAND-BY 
 
 fore I got there a famous scientist threw a pebble into 
 a geyser. The guard arrested him. * I m Professor 
 Blank, sent here by the Secretary of the Interior/ said 
 the scientist. l My instructions would compel me to 
 arrest you just the same if you were the President of 
 the United States/ replied the soldier. The soldier re 
 ceived honorable mention. The scientist spent the 
 night in the guard-house, was tried by court martial 
 the next morning and heavily fined, and we met him 
 as he was being dishonorably conducted to the boun 
 daries of the park by mounted men in blue. A few 
 weeks before a Methodist minister and six ladies were 
 punished in the same way. The United States says 
 that those formations shall be saved, and if the Presi 
 dent went there and broke the law, he d be punished 
 just the same as if he were a cow-boy." 
 
 " Yet Byrd breaks the law all the time, and thinks 
 he s too big to be punished ! " exclaimed Craigin. 
 
 " He ? s nothing but a rich man/ remarked Dr. Brad 
 ford. "He s poor compared with Denman, and he 
 has n t any of the qualities that give Denman power." 
 
 " Does n t he count on a power Denman never had 1 " 
 suggested Craigin. 
 
 "A power Denman never had?" 
 
 "Yes. Take away Denman s millions, and he 7 d 
 still be a giant. Take away Byrd s hundred and fifty 
 thousand, and he d be nobody ; but, nobody or some 
 body, he s a representative druggist. The prosecution 
 of Denman hit those who bought and drank openly. 
 The prosecution of Byrd will strike at a more influen 
 tial class, those who hide under a mortar and pestle, 
 who drink, yet want to pass as temperance men and 
 
IN ITS MAJESTY 195 
 
 women. This is the power behind Byrd, the power 
 Denman wants against us." 
 
 " He s been fined," said Dr. Bradford, " and so have 
 the other druggists. It has n t stopped them. What 
 do you think had best be done ? " 
 
 " Push prohibition to its logical results," earnestly 
 replied Craigin. "Enforce law in all its majesty, as 
 it is enforced in the Yellowstone National Park on 
 the rich man s French brandy and champagne and 
 cordials, on the poor man s corn whisky and beer. 
 Denman wants us to try it, because he thinks it 11 
 break us. It would have broken us a year ago, but 
 the little books are getting fuller every day." 
 
 As Bradford remarked, Byrd individually was noth 
 ing but a rich man, nothing more than a druggist 
 buying cheap and selling dear. No one hated, loved, 
 or feared him. The evidence against him was over 
 whelming. The jury were not of the class that hides 
 under mortar and pestle, and they promptly convicted 
 him. After the verdict, Strickland briefly stated why 
 he asked for imprisonment. Woods pathetically urged 
 his client s social position, his gray hairs, his children 
 and his grandchildren. The judge, remarking that he 
 took the prisoner s sixty years and his otherwise good 
 character into account, gave him two months in the 
 house of correction. The church of which he was a 
 member excommunicated him. It was a terrible ex 
 ample to the Apsleighshire druggists. 
 
 Byrd certainly represented the class Craigin had 
 mentioned, but he also represented a far larger and 
 more influential class, one that included on occasion 
 nearly all the best people in the community j and the 
 
196 THE STAND-BY 
 
 members of the League and others, especially the 
 prosecuting attorney as the official representative of 
 the law, constantly encountered expostulations more 
 vigorous than polite. 
 
 "Mr. Strickland/ 7 exclaimed an indignant husband, 
 " we were in trouble last night ! The doctor said my 
 wife must have stimulants at once. I had n t a drop 
 in the house. I could n t send to Boston and wait two 
 or three days, could I ? I could n t get anything at a 
 drug store. I tried three, and they told me they were 
 sorry for me, but they could n t take the chances of 
 going to jail. I could have got liquor from the city 
 agency on a medical certificate stating the patient s 
 name, residence, sex, age, and malady, to be a matter 
 of public record and exposed in a public place forever, 
 but she declared she d rather die for want of it than 
 have that done. I could n t argue the case with a sick 
 woman. I broke into a neighbor s house at three 
 o clock in the morning and begged him, for the love 
 of God, to give me a little whisky. I got it all right ; 
 but I tell you, t would be a pretty how-d -you-do for 
 you, Mr. Prosecuting Attorney, if I had n t, and she d 
 died for want of it ! " 
 
 " Mr. Strickland," said another, " I don t know the 
 taste of any kind of liquor, but my mother is eighty- 
 nine years old and feeble, and the doctor says good 
 old sherry will help keep her up and prolong her life. 
 She says she won t have her name posted with the 
 people who are getting doctors prescriptions for all 
 sorts of imaginary diseases and making a farce of the 
 whole thing, like B. Gratz Brown dangling from 
 Horace Greeley s coat tails. I won t have my mother s 
 
IN ITS MAJESTY 197 
 
 name posted that way, either. I hate to smuggle wine 
 from Boston as if I were a criminal, but I have to. I 
 used to think I lived in a free country. I ve found 
 out I don t, and I d like to move away where I could 
 have a mouthful of free air." 
 
 "Well, Brother Strickland," remarked Woods, 
 "you re doing a good turn for the profession, any 
 way. Of course you know hundreds of men about 
 town are carrying life-insurance on their representa 
 tions that they re sound as nuts. If a time ever comes 
 when you re not prosecuting somebody, you d better 
 step over to the city liquor agency and examine the 
 choice assortment of diseases they ve got posted up 
 there. When the heirs try to realize on these policies 
 there 11 be music for us lawyers, as sure as there s a 
 God in Israel." 
 
 Craigin heard all these things and many more, and 
 fully appreciated them. He had come to believe that 
 the suppression of the liquor traffic, the voluntary or 
 involuntary total abstinence of the entire community, 
 would be the greatest public blessing that could pos 
 sibly be conferred, and that it more than justified all 
 the annoyance, restraint, bitterness, and suffering in 
 cident to its attainment. He never forgot his oath : 
 " I will live and die doing what I believe is right, cost 
 what it will, so help me God ! "and " cost what it 
 will" included others as well as himself. While he 
 shrank from no personal sacrifice, he was too good a 
 general not to be equally ready to sacrifice others. 
 He was satisfied that to let the drug stores become 
 select and high-class liquor stores would undermine 
 and ruin his cause, and he saw no chance of suc- 
 
 13* 
 
198 THE STAND-BY 
 
 cess except in an uncompromising enforcement of 
 law. 
 
 He had done what Denman wanted him to do. He 
 had made the issue stern and sharp. He had included 
 in relentless proscription except on terms humiliat 
 ing to all and intolerable to many refined and sensi 
 tive women, women in delicate health, the aged and 
 the sick. In the olden time the community would 
 have risen en masse against it; now it was divided. 
 The universally admitted sincerity of the man, his 
 well-known relinquishment of the girl he loved for the 
 cause he believed right, his popular qualities and com 
 manding ability, the attempt to wreck the "Tocsin" 
 by violence, the midnight fight, one to six, the making 
 of the county a summer resort, and the coming of the 
 great steel-worksall these things gave him a tre 
 mendous personal influence. Many people thought 
 he had made a fatal blunder in pushing prohibition to 
 such extremities, but no one denied that there were 
 still two giants in Apsleighshire, each worthy of the 
 other s steel. 
 
VIII 
 
 HER ANSWER 
 
 |PSLEIGrH had a distinguished visitor. 
 Servant-girls hastened to finish washing 
 their dishes to get a peep at him and to 
 hear and tell how he looked, what he wore, 
 what he had said, what he had done, and how he pro 
 gressed with his courtship. From maid to mistress, 
 from errand boy to merchant, feminine and masculine 
 curiosity were the same. Even the venerable Dr. 
 Bradford forgot writing on his next Sunday sermon 
 and sat at his study window, musing on the strange 
 inequalities of birth and fortune long after the young 
 man rode by. For this big, handsome fellow of five 
 and twenty was the elder son and heir of a famous 
 statesman, recently deceased, and in his own right was 
 no less a personage than the Right Honorable William 
 Percy Neville Langdon, Earl of Throckmorton, Vis 
 count Stadwick, Baron Muer, Baron Langdon, with 
 some of the finest estates and one of the oldest and 
 most illustrious pedigrees in the English peerage. 
 
 Though he registered at the Apsleighshire House, 
 he dined quite as often with the Denmans. He 
 played tennis, rode, drove, or boated with Isabel almost 
 
 199 
 
200 THE STAND-BY 
 
 daily, and she was so gracious to him that a darling 
 hope began to revive in her father s heart. 
 
 " I don t want to dictate, little girl/ 7 he said one day, 
 drawing her upon his knees and kissing her. " It 7 s 
 all in your hands. That 7 s the American way and the 
 right way. He 7 s a fine fellow, if he is an earl, and 
 he 7 d be a good husband to you. You 7 d have the 
 world at your feet, and if you should have a son, he 
 and those who come after him would be almost princes. 
 1 7 d hate to have you so far off, but, little girl, it 7 s 
 it 7 s just about killing me to see you breaking your 
 heart this way for my sake trying to fight down your 
 love for the other one. 77 He tightened his arms around 
 her, and, pressing her cheek to his, continued in a 
 pleading voice : " You re my joy and pride and life, 
 little girl. You know 1 7 d die, oh, so gladly, to make 
 you happy. I d do anything in the world for you, 
 except one. 1 7 m an old man a great deal older for 
 words you have said to me, my child. I 7 ve done 
 things that nothing but war against me would tempt 
 me to do, in war men are driven to things they loathe, 
 but I 7 ve never yet broken my pledged word. I 
 promised my friends, who are true as steel to me, 
 gave them the word of John Denman, that 1 7 d win 
 this fight for them, and I can 7 t go back on that, even 
 for my own little girl. Can t you be happy in any 
 other way ? Can 7 t you put your father s enemy out of 
 your heart ? Can t you learn to love this fine, hand 
 some, whole-souled young fellow, this great nobleman, 
 who will make you one of the greatest ladies in Europe 
 short of royalty itself? 7 
 
 She twined an arm about his neck, kissed his thin 
 
HER ANSWER 201 
 
 lips, and ran her fingers through his grizzled hair, as 
 had been her wont from childhood. Her chin quivered 
 and her voice was full of pain. 
 
 " papa," she pleaded, " don t ask me ! I will if I 
 can. I have tried am trying 5 oh, you don t know 
 how hard I m trying ! " 
 
 When riding with the earl next day she came sud 
 denly upon Craigin. Their eyes met for a single 
 instant. In that instant she read two things, his in 
 exorable purpose and his dumb agony of hopeless love, 
 and every nerve and fiber of her being thrilled with 
 sharp, sweet pain. " Tom said," she repeated to her 
 self, " if he thought a course were right, he d follow 
 it straight to death, and never flinch a hair j but he ; s 
 a thousand times braver and stronger than that, for 
 he loves me a thousand times better than his own life, 
 and he does n t flinch a hair even for love of me. I 
 love him ! I love him ! I love him ! I can t help it I 
 can t ! I never can ! And it s killing us both." 
 
 Yet she passed him without sign of recognition, and 
 the next moment, challenging the earl to a race, she 
 put her high-blooded Kentucky stallion to his utmost 
 speed, sweeping up the broad avenue like a tornado, 
 her habit fluttering in the breeze she made, with firm 
 lips and flashing eyes, bearing herself like a queen 
 born to the saddle. 
 
 Again and again, as a proposal was trembling on 
 the earl s lips, she evaded it and put him off put him 
 off till she could do so no longer. At last he forced a 
 hearing and went straight to the point, his voice quiv 
 ering with passion, blunt, almost brutal, in his direct 
 ness. 
 
202 THE STAND-BY 
 
 " Miss Denman Isabel," he said, "you know I love 
 you." 
 
 There was agony in her face as she looked up to 
 his. 
 
 " You know I love you," he repeated. 
 
 " Yes, I know it," she replied in a strained voice. 
 
 "And I have loved you all these years." 
 
 "I know it," she again replied. 
 
 " It was my father s dying wish, it is my mother s, 
 and I have your father s consent. Don t you can t 
 you love me ? Won t you be my wife f " 
 
 She sat in silence $ it might have been minutes it 
 seemed eternity to both. At length she arose and 
 stood before him. The anguish had vanished from 
 her face in the flush of her great sacrifice. Her choice 
 was made. 
 
 " I have had one strange, great gift from childhood," 
 she said, " the gift of reading people as you read books. 
 I have seen your heart from the beginning, and have 
 known that your love for me was strong and pure 
 and would not die. If your nature were selfish, cruel, 
 cowardly, or base in any way, I would know it. You 
 could not hide it from me. It is generous, brave, and 
 loving. I know you better than you think possible. 
 You are more than a nobleman : you are a noble man. 
 I am a woman, and a woman s happiness, her very life, 
 is marriage to a true man. I am but a woman, and 
 the honors you wish to share with me appeal to me 
 more strongly than you think. And I like you more 
 than I ever liked any other man. But that is not 
 love." 
 
 " O Isabel, then I may wait and hope ! It will be ! 
 
HER ANSWER 203 
 
 it must be ! it shall be ! More than you ever liked any 
 other man ! That that is all I hoped for, now." 
 
 She raised her hand imploringly. " You have not 
 heard me through. Forgive me if I have misled you 
 even for an instant. God knows how I have tried to 
 love you. When you have been about to speak I have 
 put you off j time and again I have put you off, think 
 ing that perhaps I might. If I have let you hope in 
 vain, forgive me for the pain I have caused you, for I 
 have longed to love you. It would have been, it would 
 be now, more than life; it would be release from 
 agony." 
 
 " Release from agony ? Isabel ! " 
 
 " Yes, release from agony. If I marry you, I must 
 pledge my word to love you. My father is a plain, 
 self-made man, a brewer, but no word of belted knight 
 was ever held more sacred than his. John Denman s 
 daughter cannot take your love, your name, your title, 
 and give you empty vows." 
 
 " But, Isabel, I won t ask you to love me as I love 
 you not yet. I 11 wait and hope." 
 
 " I have not yet told you all. I love another man. 
 I have tried to think I hated him j I have tried to hate 
 him, but love is stronger than my will. The more I 
 have tried to hate him, the more I have loved him. I 
 love him with my whole heart and soul, with all my 
 life, and he loves me, though he has never told me so 
 in words ; and I can never marry him, never speak to 
 him. He is my father s enemy." 
 
 With lifted head and shining eyes she stood before 
 him. Then suddenly she turned, and, dropping on a 
 sofa, sobbed as if her heart were broken. 
 
IX 
 
 THE CONVENTION 
 
 iNCE in six years congressional conventions 
 were held in Apsleigh. It was Apsleigh s 
 turn. The occasion always brought many 
 people into town, and the intensity of the 
 struggle between Denman and Strickland would natu 
 rally bring a far greater number than usual ; but the 
 shrewdest politicians in Denman s camp were amazed 
 at what they saw. The incoming trains were packed. 
 At stations for twenty miles around crowds were 
 waiting for means of transit. Extra trains were put 
 on. Every railway line, every highway, was thronged, 
 and all roads led to Apsleigh. The little city over 
 flowed with men. When asked the cause, thousands 
 gave the same reply : "We re sent for." 
 
 The delegates were divided into three classes, about 
 equally numerous: those pledged to Denman, those 
 pledged to Strickland, those unpledged and doubtful. 
 Woods presented Denman s name. He made a strong 
 speech, but it lacked the ring of confidence. Every 
 Denman delegate knew that the incoming of thousands 
 from the country was a bad omen. 
 
 When Woods sat down, Strickland took the floor 
 
 204 
 
THE CONVENTION 205 
 
 with a large package of little books under his arm. 
 A murmur ran through the hall. Was he going to 
 the indecent length of presenting his own name ? Or 
 was it some new surprise ? He began by saying that 
 he had allowed his own name to be used simply to aid 
 in a conspiracy to nominate Craigin without his know 
 ledge and in spite of his refusal to be a candidate. 
 The wild and prolonged applause that greeted this 
 announcement showed what a master stroke of policy 
 it was and carried consternation to Denman s followers. 
 Then Strickland sketched the man s career during the 
 four years he had lived in Apsleigh. It was slow work, 
 for every few sentences his voice was drowned with 
 cheers, and, as he dramatically touched upon the sav 
 ing of Denman s life and the midnight fight, one to 
 six, the cheers swelled into a deafening roar. When 
 it subsided he plied his hearers with prosaic facts and 
 figures : the rise in real estate shown by recent sales, 
 the increase in savings-bank deposits and in taxable 
 property, the decrease in the rate of taxation, in the 
 amount of unpaid taxes, of worthless store accounts 
 and chattel mortgages. 
 
 " Our State conventions," he continued, " have long 
 made adhesion to the prohibitory law a test of party 
 loyalty. Mr. Denman has accumulated millions by 
 violating that law. He bolted the nomination of a 
 Republican candidate for mayor and defeated him, 
 bolted my nomination and almost defeated me, solely 
 in the liquor interest. He has made it impossible to 
 elect city governments and city marshals that would 
 be true to their oaths of office. Time and again he 
 has refused the highest political honors this State 
 
206 THE STAND-BY 
 
 could give him; now he prostitutes his genius and 
 spends money without stint, as it never before was 
 spent in this State, simply and solely to force the coro 
 nation of a traffic that for nearly forty years has been 
 legislated against as a crime. The issue is squarely 
 raised in this district, and must be met." 
 
 As the music of a distant band floated through the 
 open windows his manner changed and became almost 
 majestic. "I had almost forgotten," he said, "that 
 I am not here to plead for Craigin s nomination. I 
 am here to demand it as the representative of irresis 
 tible power. Six hundred and thirty-two of the tem 
 perance Democrats of Apsleighshire are pledged to 
 vote for me ; every man of them and hundreds more 
 will vote for Craigin. Where are the two hundred 
 and ninety-one third-party voters of this county ? All 
 but Harpswell and some twenty more are back in the 
 ranks of temperance Republicans. What are these 
 little books ? They are the result of eighteen months 
 of secret, patient, systematic work. They are the 
 muster-roll of an army. They contain the names of 
 three thousand five hundred and fifty-eight Republi 
 cans of Apsleighshire who are pledged to vote for me ; 
 and because Denman has bolted candidates for loyalty 
 to our party platforms, every man of them is pledged 
 to scratch or paste his name. This is what they would 
 do for me $ but for Craigin it will be personal devo 
 tion to a beloved chief." 
 
 From the distant Miller Block came the roar of 
 thousands of voices cheering themselves hoarse. " Do 
 you hear that?" he continued. "The Strickland 
 banners are called in. The Craigin banners are un- 
 
THE CONVENTION 207 
 
 furled. The work that has been done secretly in this 
 county will be done openly in other counties. Picked 
 men will visit every village, every farm-house, telling 
 the story of the great fight for the enforcement of the 
 law, pledging votes for the man who has brought vic 
 tory out of defeat and has recreated Apsleighshire. If 
 the impossible should happen, if Denman should be 
 nominated, the same work will be done against him." 
 
 The wild cheers, drawing nearer and nearer, drowrted 
 the speaker s voice. At last, watching an opportunity 
 to make himself heard, he shouted, " The knight has 
 held the pass ! Look out the windows ! The king and 
 his army have come ! " 
 
 The delegates rushed to the windows. Down the 
 street, far as the eye could reach, was a line of men. 
 A band was at the head of the column, playing " Hail 
 to the Chief ! " Next came the clergy of Apsleighshire, 
 bearing the motto, " God and our homes. Every vote 
 for Craigin. Not a vote for Denman." Then five 
 hundred business men of Apsleigh, on their banner, 
 " Prohibition has filled our pockets. Every vote for 
 Craigin. Not a vote for Denman." Then Crawford, 
 at the head of two hundred and fifty of his work 
 men, their motto, "Prohibition brought us to Aps 
 leigh. Every vote for Craigin. Not a vote for 
 Denman." Then smaller industries, with their mot- 
 tos. Then the Apsleigh Brotherhood, four hundred 
 strong, with a beautiful silken flag, on which was 
 embroidered a bloody right hand, and below it the 
 words in great letters of pure gold, " Licked them, one 
 to six. Every vote for Craigin. Not a vote for Den 
 man." Of all the banners, no other was cheered like 
 
208 THE STAND-BY 
 
 this cheered till it seemed as if the little city rocked 
 with the sound ; for nothing else had made Craigin so 
 many friends, and cost Denman so many, as that grim 
 midnight fight. Last of all came the farmers from 
 every hill and valley of Apsleighshire, town by town, 
 in long array. Their mottos showed how Mammon 
 had won them. There they were, near two thousand 
 strong, every vote for Craigin, not a vote for Denman. 
 The secrecy and long repression were over. The sub 
 stitution of their beloved leader s name set his follow 
 ers wild with enthusiasm. The clamor of the band 
 was unheard amid the singing and the shouting of that 
 long array of men. The king and his army had come. 
 There was no enemy that could stand before them. 
 
 "Woods," exclaimed one of the Denman leaders, when 
 at length a semblance of order was restored in the con 
 vention, " Woods, you must withdraw our candidate." 
 
 "No, I won t," snarled Woods. "I d rather face 
 wolves than face John Denman if I did." 
 
 " But you must. You can t stand out in the face 
 of all this." 
 
 "What does he care for this compared to hauling 
 down his colors ? " 
 
 " Then let him sink alone ! He can t take the party 
 with him. Mr. Chairman," cried the delegate, stand 
 ing on a chair and shouting at the top of his voice, 
 " Mr. Chairman, as one of the original Denman men, 
 I move that William Henry Craigin be nominated by 
 acclamation." 
 
 The motion carried. Five minutes later cannon 
 thundered from a neighboring hill and church bells 
 rang forth their merriest peals. 
 
"O DEATH, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" 
 
 &ENMAN sat in the home office which he 
 called his library. In all but years he had 
 grown very old. Though he had aged 
 rapidly for months, he was older by a dec 
 ade than when he had left the house that morning. He 
 had come home at noon, confused, apathetic. Isabel 
 sat on a low stool beside him, with her head on his 
 knee and holding his hand, as she had used to do when 
 she was a little child. She did not speak, but often 
 kissed his long, thin fingers and looked up into his 
 face. 
 
 At length, although the Denman mansion was dis 
 tant from the business portion of the town, the music 
 of a band and the shouting of men became distinctly 
 audible. Then came the ringing of bells and the 
 booming of cannon. Denman seemed not to hear. 
 He sat in a stupor, with his head on his hand. A 
 sharp ring at the telephone aroused him. In going 
 to the instrument, only a few steps away, he staggered 
 like a drunken man. 
 
 " The worst has happened/ said the voice. " Craigin 
 has been nominated by acclamation." 
 u 209 
 
210 THE STAND-BY 
 
 There was a heavy fall. Denman was stricken with 
 apoplexy. 
 
 After several hours consciousness returned. His 
 right side was paralyzed j his face was drawn ; his left 
 eye remained open and immovable. His mind was 
 clear. He could talk but little and with great difficulty. 
 
 " Doctor/ 7 he said, " tell me the truth : shall I live 
 or die ? " 
 
 " I think it 7 s possible you may live for months." 
 
 "As I am?" 
 
 " I m afraid so." 
 
 " So bad as that ? " he said. " I hoped it would be 
 death." 
 
 " It may be, Mr. Denman. You will have another 
 shock. It may not come for weeks or months. It 
 may come any time." 
 
 " May come any time ? n 
 
 Death, even the living death of a paralytic, was 
 nothing to Denman compared with the bitterness of 
 defeat. He longed to die, for his pledge was unful 
 filled and his power to keep it was broken j but he had 
 one ruling passion left to gratify his love for Isabel. 
 
 A distinguished specialist, summoned by telegraph, 
 was ushered in. 
 
 " Doctor," said Denman, " for God s sake, tell me the 
 truth : how soon is the next stroke coming ? " 
 
 As the great specialist looked at the sick man he 
 saw at a glance what the other had failed to note, and 
 promptly answered, " It s on you now. If you have 
 anything to say, say it instantly. Your time is mea 
 sured by seconds." 
 
 A flash of the old unconquerable will lighted the 
 
"O DEATH, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" 211 
 
 stricken man s face. "Tell Dick," he said, "he shall 
 have ten thousand dollars if he gets Craigin here while 
 I can speak." 
 
 Seconds passed, and a carriage and pair standing at 
 the door tore down the long avenue with the speed 
 of the wind. Seconds lengthened into minutes. In 
 the halls and other rooms of the great house faithful 
 servants grieved for a master who had been always 
 generous, always kind. In a corner of her hus 
 band s bedroom Mrs. Denman hysterically sobbed and 
 shrieked unheeded. Isabel knelt beside her father, 
 uttering no sound, pressing his unparalyzed hand to 
 her lips, gazing into his face with great, dry, anguish- 
 stricken eyes. The two physicians there was naught 
 else they could do stood at the bedside and saw a 
 strange, an awful, an heroic thing. 
 
 Convulsively gripping his daughter s hand, the dying 
 man set his teeth and fixed his unparalyzed eye on the 
 great clock by the wall. Tick, tick, tick slowly and 
 solemnly the second-hand went round j tick, tick, tick, 
 and the long minute-hand moved moved as if it were 
 measuring the ages of eternity. Tick, tick, tick sixty 
 seconds like hours, and again it moved. Once, twice, 
 thrice, five, ten, fifteen, twenty twenty times it moved. 
 Twenty awful minutes, and still the teeth were set, the 
 eye was fixed and undimmed, and the grim fight for 
 another inch of life went on. " It s almost a miracle," 
 whispered the specialist to his medical brother. " The 
 stroke was falling as I entered. The man is holding 
 death back by the sheer power of his will." 
 
 Cragin had been kept from the convention on the 
 
212 THE STAND-BY 
 
 pretext that his presence would make it more difficult 
 to prevent a stampede from Strickland to himself. 
 His name mingled with cheers and borne on banners 
 was his first intimation of the conspiracy to nominate 
 him. The procession marched by, singing and shout 
 ing. It came back and gathered in a dense mass be 
 fore his office. Strickland, Harnett, and others rushed 
 in. " You re nominated," they exclaimed, " and must 
 make a speech ! " 
 
 He was dazed, and knew not what to say. They led 
 him to a little balcony in front of his office windows. 
 He was greeted with a mighty shout. Then all was 
 still. He stood speechless, vainly trying to collect 
 himself. Some one entered the balcony and said, 
 "John Denman is dying." The crowd below, won 
 dering at the delay, broke forth in renewed cheers. 
 Craigin tried to tell them, and his voice failed him. 
 
 " Fellow-citizens," said Harnett, coming to the rescue, 
 " we have just received sad news. It is reported that 
 Mr. Denman is dying." 
 
 There was no more thought of speeches ; there were 
 no more cheers. All at once, as never before, not 
 even in the days of his unquestioned power, men 
 realized Denman s greatness of soul, his fidelity to his 
 friends, his dauntless courage, his ever-abounding gen 
 erosity, his acts of thoughtful kindness, his cheerful 
 words, his genial smile, the cordial, honest grasp of his 
 hand. Of the thousands who had banded together to 
 break his power, hundreds had shared his bounty and 
 all had felt its influence. The very churches whose 
 bells had joyously pealed over his defeat had received 
 largely of his gifts. In all ways, save one, he had been 
 
"O DEATH, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" 213 
 
 so great a public benefactor, so wise and strong and 
 good, overshadowing all about him less by his millions 
 than by his greatness and his graciousness, it seemed as 
 if he could not die. Men spoke through tears, almost 
 in whispers. An awful silence reigned in Apsleigh. 
 
 Craigin found himself seated in his office chair, 
 scarcely knowing how he got there. Friends were 
 around him, but when they spoke to him he answered 
 in monosyllables and absently. They understood and 
 silently withdrew. The past came up before him. 
 Again he seemed to feel Tom Andrews s arms around 
 his neck and hear him saying: "The more chance 
 there is of struggle and sacrifice for an ideal, the more 
 you 11 persuade yourself it 7 s your duty." "We ve 
 been like brothers for seven years, chum, and I love 
 you better than any one else in the world except my 
 mother, and next to you I love Uncle John. As sure 
 as you go, chum, there 11 misery come of it." " I know 
 it is n t a bit of use, but I can t help saying, don t go ! " 
 Again he seemed to hear Denman say : " There are 
 horses and dogs and guns and boats and fishing-tackle 
 at your service. There 7 s always a spare knife and 
 fork at our table ; drop in as often as you can break 
 fast, lunch, or dinner. "We all play whist. We want 
 you to come and go just as Tom would if he were 
 living here." Again he seemed to go and come, less 
 as a welcome guest than as a member of the family. 
 The agonizing struggles in his own soul came back to 
 him love pulling at his heartstrings, the blind grop 
 ing in anguish of spirit to know what duty was, and 
 the solemn oath, "I 11 live and die doing what I 
 believe is right, cost what it will, so help me God ! n 
 
 15 
 
214 THE STAND-BY 
 
 He had kept his oath j he had done what he believed 
 was right ; but was it right ? 
 
 In his first awful struggle with himself he thought 
 he heard a still, small voice saying, "Yes." In his 
 agony and doubt and darkness he took it for the voice 
 of God. " The more chance there is of struggle and 
 sacrifice for an ideal/ 7 said Tom, "the more you 11 
 persuade yourself it s your duty." Had he persuaded 
 himself ? Was that still, small voice from heaven the 
 imagination of a racked and tortured soul ? Now he 
 seemed to hear the same voice, stern and relentless, in 
 thunder tones demanding, "Was it right?" 
 
 He saw Apsleigh as it was when first he came 
 easy-going, gay, social, full of kindliness. Again he 
 saw Apsleigh and Apsleighshire, divided into trained, 
 disciplined, and hostile camps, full of hate, every man s 
 hand against his neighbor, every man watching his 
 neighbor s acts and writing down his neighbor s words ; 
 total abstinence from intoxicating drink (the one su 
 preme private virtue) and compelling all others to 
 abstain (the supreme public virtue), twin-sister vir 
 tues, linked hand in hand. And then he heard, as it 
 seemed to him, a voice from the dead, saying : " Higher 
 than any finite court or law or constitution is the pri 
 mary, eternal, and inalienable right of man to eat and 
 drink in moderation, with decent regard for the rights 
 and feelings of others. A prohibitory law is such an 
 outrageous and intolerable meddling with personal lib 
 erty that anything necessary to resist it is justifiable ; 
 and I want to tell you fair and plain that if this thing 
 goes on, I sha n t shrink from necessary war measures." 
 
 The burden and intense strain of the long contest 
 
"O DEATH, WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" 215 
 
 would have broken a weaker man, and, exhausted as 
 he was, the terrible shock had unnerved him. He 
 could not reason ; he could only feel. Many hours 
 wore away, night came, and still he sat alone in his 
 misery, his elbows on his knees, his face buried in his 
 hands, the voice thundering in his ears, " Was it right ? " 
 Visions of horror came to him. Again he saw the 
 yawning gulf, the armies closing in battle, the shining 
 one upon the farther side. All tenderness and re 
 proach had gone from her eyes. They gleamed on 
 him from an infinite distance, hard and cold and piti 
 less, like stars on a midwinter night. The vision 
 changed. He saw a spacious chamber, a grandfather s 
 clock by the wall, a great, four-posted bed, a dead man 
 lying on it, a beautiful girl kneeling beside him, her 
 arms around him, kissing his cold lips, bathing his 
 white face with her tears, sobbing her life away. He 
 had no thought, no hope for himself, but his whole 
 heart went out to her in her agony of grief, and as he 
 tried to speak she sprang to her feet and shrieked, 
 " You killed him ! You killed him ! " As he shrank 
 back, appalled and conscience-stricken, beside her rose 
 a terrible, great mountain, clothed round about with 
 smoke and flame and lightnings, and from their midst 
 he heard an awful voice, like the voice of God from 
 Sinai, inexorably demanding, " Was it right?" 
 
 The sound of horses coming down the street at 
 breakneck speed aroused him. A carriage dashed up 
 to the door. A coatless, hatless man rushed in, stum 
 bling in the darkness. 
 
 " Quick ! " he exclaimed, " quick ! John Denman ; s 
 dying ! He wants yer ! " 
 
216 THE STAND-BY 
 
 Instantly Craigin was in the carriage and was 
 whirled away. The moment it stopped he was out 
 and up the steps, three at a bound. 
 
 " Craigin/ 7 said Denman, at once, " we ; ve both done 
 wrong. I want to be your friend more than your 
 friend. Isabel, Craigin, I shall die happy happy if 
 you promise me that nothing of all this shall stand 
 between you two." 
 
 Dropping on his knees beside the dying man, Craigin 
 clasped his hand and Isabel s, and said, " I promise." 
 
 " I promise too," said Isabel. 
 
 The poor drawn face lighted up with the old loving 
 smile, a smile so full of love and joy and peace, it 
 seemed as if heaven were shining there. 
 
 "Isabel, little gir " 
 
 While the pet name was on his lips the angel of 
 death smote him, and his brave spirit passed from 
 earth. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 15* 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 " BLESSED are the peacemakers : for they shall be called the 
 children of God." Jesus, Matt. v. 9. 
 
 " Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came 
 not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at 
 variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, 
 and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man s 
 foes shall be they of his own household." Jesus, Matt. x. 34-36. 
 
 "Be not among winebibbers ; among riotous eaters of flesh : 
 for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty : and 
 drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." Solomon, Prov. xxiii. 
 20, 21. 
 
 " The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, 
 Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publi 
 cans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children." 
 Jesus, Matt. xi. 19. 
 
 "Who hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? 
 who hath babbling? who hath wounds without cause? who hath 
 redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go 
 to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is 
 red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself 
 aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an 
 adder." Solomon, Prov. xxiii. 29-32. 
 
 "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee ; 
 and the mother of Jesus was there : and both Jesus was called, 
 and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, 
 the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. Jesus 
 
 219 
 
220 APPENDIX 
 
 saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine horn- 
 is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatso 
 ever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six water- 
 pots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, con 
 taining two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, Fill 
 the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 
 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the gover 
 nor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast 
 had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it 
 was, (but the servants which drew the water knew, ) the governor 
 of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man 
 at the beginning doth set forth good wine ; and when men have 
 well drunk, then that which is worse : but thou hast kept the 
 good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus in 
 Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory ; and his disciples 
 believed on him." John ii. 1-11. 
 
 " Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging : and whosoever is 
 deceived thereby is not wise." Solomon, Prov. xx. 1. 
 
 " Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach s 
 sake and thine often infirmities." St. Paul, 1 Tim. v. 23. 
 
 " Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink, that puttest 
 thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou may- 
 est look on their nakedness ! " Hab. ii. 15. 
 
 " He watereth the hills from his chambers : the earth is satis 
 fied with the fruit of thy works. He causeth the grass to grow 
 for the cattle, and herb for the service of man : that he may 
 bring forth food out of the earth ; and wine that maketh glad the 
 heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which 
 strengtheneth man s heart." David, Ps. civ. 13-15. 
 
 "Now if it be true that a vast proportion of the crimes which 
 government is instituted to prevent and repress have their origin 
 in the use of ardent spirits ; if our poorhouses, workhouses, jails, 
 and penitentiaries are tenanted in a great degree by those whose 
 first and chief impulse to crime came from the distillery and the 
 dram-shop ; if murder and theft, the most fearful outrages on 
 property and life, are most frequently the issues and consumma- 
 
APPENDIX 221 
 
 tion of intemperance, is not government bound to restrain by 
 legislation the vending of the stimulus to these terrible social 
 wrongs ? Is government never to act as a parent, never to re 
 move the causes or occasions of wrong-doing? Has it but one 
 instrument for repressing crime, namely, public, infamous pun 
 ishment, an evil only inferior to crime? Is government a 
 usurper? Does it wander beyond its sphere by imposing re 
 straints on an article which does no imaginable good ; which can 
 plead no benefit conferred on body or mind ; which unfits the 
 citizen for the discharge of his duty to his country ; and which, 
 above all, stirs up men to the perpetration of most of the 
 crimes from which it is the highest and most solemn office of 
 government to protect society?" Channing, Works, vol. ii., 
 p. 377. 
 
 " The object of this essay is to assert one very simple prin 
 ciple, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society 
 with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, 
 whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal 
 penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That prin 
 ciple is that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, in 
 dividually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action 
 of any of their number, is self -protection ; that the only pur 
 pose for which power can be rightfully exercised over a member 
 of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to 
 others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient 
 warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear be 
 cause it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him 
 happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be 
 wise or even right. . . . Without dwelling upon supposititious 
 cases, there are in our own day gross usurpations upon the 
 liberty of private life actually practised, and still greater ones 
 threatened, with some expectation of success, and opinions pro 
 posed which assert an unlimited right in the public not only to 
 prohibit by law everything which it thinks wrong, but, in order 
 to get at what it thinks wrong, to prohibit any number of things 
 which it admits to be innocent. Under the name of preventing 
 intemperance, the people of one English colony and of nearly 
 half the United States have been interdicted by law from mak- 
 
222 APPENDIX 
 
 ing any use whatever of fermented drinks, except for medical 
 purposes ; for prohibition of their sale is in fact, as it is intended 
 to be, prohibition of their use. And though the impracticability 
 of executing the law has caused its repeal in several of the 
 States which had adopted it, ... an attempt has been com 
 menced, and is prosecuted with considerable zeal by many of the 
 professed philanthropists, to agitate for a similar law in this 
 country. The association, or Alliance, as it terms itself, 
 which has been formed for this purpose, has acquired some 
 notoriety through the publicity given to a correspondence be 
 tween its secretary and one of the very few English public men 
 who hold that a politician s opinions ought to be founded on 
 principles. . . . The [secretary] of the Alliance, . . . how 
 ever, says : I claim as a citizen a right to legislate whenever 
 my social rights are invaded by the social act of another. 
 And now for the definition of these social rights. If anything 
 invades my social rights, certainly the traffic in strong drink 
 does. It destroys my primary right of security by constantly 
 creating and stimulating social disorder. It invades my right 
 of equality by deriving a profit from the creation of a misery I 
 am taxed to support. It impedes my right to free moral and in 
 tellectual development by surrounding my path with dangers, 
 and by weakening and demoralizing society, from which I have a 
 right to claim mutual aid and intercourse. A theory of social 
 rights the like of which probably never before found its way 
 into distinct language, being nothing short of this : that it is the 
 absolute social right of every individual that every other in 
 dividual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought; that 
 whosoever fails thereof in the smallest particular violates my 
 social right and entitles me to demand from the legislature the 
 removal of the grievance. So monstrous a principle is far more 
 dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no 
 violation of liberty which it would not justify ; it acknowledges 
 no right to any freedom whatever, except perhaps to that of 
 holding opinions in secret without ever disclosing them ; for the 
 moment an opinion which I consider noxious passes any one s 
 lips it invades all the social rights attributed to me by the 
 Alliance. The doctrine ascribes to all mankind a vested inter- 
 
APPENDIX 223 
 
 est in each other s moral, intellectual, and even physical per 
 fection, to be denned by each claimant according to his own 
 standard." John Stuart Mill, "Essay on Liberty." 
 
 " Virtue must come from within ; to this problem religion and 
 morality must direct themselves. But vice may come from with 
 out; to hinder this is the care of the statesman." Professor 
 F. W. Newman. 
 
 "It is mere mockery to ask us to put down drunkenness by 
 moral and religious means." Cardinal Manning. 
 
 " The principle of prohibition seems to me to be the only safe 
 and certain remedy for the evils of intemperance. This opinion 
 has been strengthened and confirmed by the hard labor of more 
 than twenty years in the temperance cause." Father Mathew. 
 
 "Liberty is a means and not an end." Dr. Arnold. 
 
 " Wholesome laws preserve us free 
 By stinting of our liberty." 
 
 " No man oppresses thee ; . . . but does not this stupid pew 
 ter pot oppress thee?" Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 " Between the one extreme of entire non-interference, and the 
 other extreme in which every citizen is to be transformed into a 
 grown-up baby with bib and pap-spoon, there lie innumerable 
 stopping-places ; and he who would have the state do more than 
 protect is required to say where he means to draw the line, and 
 to give us substantial reasons why it must be just there and 
 nowhere else." Herbert Spencer, " Social Statics," p. 316. 
 
 " The [Maine] law of itself, under a vigorous enforcement of 
 its provisions, has created a temperance sentiment which is mar 
 velous and to which opposition is powerless. In my opinion, 
 our remarkable temperance reform of to-day is the legitimate 
 child of the law." Senator William P. Frye. 
 
 "I have the honor unhesitatingly to concur." Senator Lot 
 M. Morrill. 
 
 " I concur in the foregoing statements ; and on the point of the 
 
224 APPENDIX 
 
 relative amount of liquors sold at present in Maine and in those 
 States where a system of license prevails, I am very sure, from 
 personal knowledge and observation, that the sales are im 
 measurably less in Maine." James G. Blaine. 
 
 " Men who have not the strength of mind to act thus [to con 
 trol their appetites] will not be made more self-reliant or more 
 fit to wrestle with the many temptations of the world by being 
 put into leading-strings and kept out of the sight of beer." 
 Wordsworth Donisthorpe, " Individualism : A System of Poli 
 tics," p. 79. 
 
 "There it stands, a shield to all the youth of the county 
 against the temptation to form drinking habits. Under its be 
 nign influence the number of tipplers is steadily decreasing, and 
 fewer young men begin to drink than when licensed houses gave 
 respectability to the habit. . . . It is as readily enforced as are 
 the laws against gambling, licentiousness, and others of similar 
 character. Its effect as regards crime is marked and conspicu 
 ous. Our jail is without inmates, except the sheriff, for more 
 than half the time." John S. Mann. 
 
 "The dangers in the road of social reconstruction under gov 
 ernment control are so grave that they can scarcely be exag 
 gerated, dangers arising not only from the serious chance of 
 inefficiency in the methods chosen, but from the transfer of 
 responsibilities by the establishment of national law in the 
 place of individual duty ; from the withdrawal of confidence in 
 the qualities of men in order to bestow it on the merits of ad 
 ministrations ; from the growing tendency to invoke the aid of 
 the state, and the declining belief in individual power." 
 G. J. Goschen. 
 
 " The effect of prohibitory laws is strikingly shown by the 
 comparatively vacant apartments in the jails of counties where 
 the local-option law is in force." Commissioners of Public 
 Charities of the State of Pennsylvania. 
 
 "I fail to see that decentralization can be an antidote to 
 democratic despotism. . . . Local despotism is the worst despo 
 tism. Decentralization cannot go further than the family, and 
 
APPENDIX 225 
 
 what kind of local government is more loathsome than the un 
 checked rule of a brutal paterfamilias? Local option in regard 
 to liquor and to other matters is part and parcel of a system of 
 decentralization which, for the trampling under foot of private 
 liberty and the crushing out of individuality, has no equal among 
 modern forms of government." Donisthorpe, "Individualism," 
 p. 88. 
 
 " What has become of this mass of corruption and disgusting 
 vice? . . . The Maine Law has swept it away forever." Davis, 
 "Maine Law Vindicated." 
 
 " The good old saying that you cannot make people moral by 
 act of Parliament has been and still is disregarded, but not with 
 impunity. Surely the state, which has conspicuously failed in 
 every single department of moralization by force, may be wisely 
 asked in future to mind its own business." Donisthorpe, " Essay 
 on the Limits of Liberty." 
 
 " A law, even when public sentiment is not exactly ready for 
 it, if its intention is supported by the public conscience, if its 
 operation naturally leads to better order, to greater happiness 
 and lower taxation, has a certain victory. Unquestionably the 
 Maine Law had it." George William Curtis. 
 
 "The ultimate issue of the struggle is certain. If any one 
 doubts the general preponderance of good over evil in human 
 nature, he has only to study the history of moral crusades. The 
 enthusiastic energy and self-devotion with which a great moral 
 cause inspires its soldiers always have prevailed, and always 
 will prevail, over any amount of self-interest or material power 
 arrayed on the other side." Goldwin Smith. 
 
 " The scale on which intoxicating drinks are used is enormous ; 
 the revenues derived by governments from this source are of the 
 greatest importance ; the persons concerned in vending them as 
 their entire business, or a part of it, are more numerous in cities 
 than those who pursue any other trade ; many employments 
 could not succeed without adding this sale to their other busi 
 ness ; and the most contrary opinions have currency in respect 
 to dealing with this vast evil of the United States and of other 
 
226 APPENDIX 
 
 Northern nations. There is no dispute as to the magnitude of 
 the evil ; the dispute touches the right, the feasibility of repress 
 ing it, and the best way of so doing. . . . Prohibition has been 
 supported on other grounds besides that of the evil growing out 
 of the sale and use of strong drink. It has been classed with the 
 sale of poisons, because the alcohol unmixed is a noxious sub 
 stance in the system. It has been said that to touch anything 
 which can intoxicate is a sin on account of the example thus 
 placed before the weak, which, if it were true, would only affect 
 the action of individuals acting in the light of personal duty, but 
 could not be a ground for legislation. It has been claimed that 
 much of the inferior spirituous liquor is adulterated, which may 
 be true, as it is of coffee, sugar, and even flour. But this, while 
 it calls for police inspection of the articles sold in the shops, 
 does not of itself call for prohibition. The grocer is bound to 
 ascertain, as far as he can, that his articles are what they pretend 
 to be and contain no noxious ingredients. And this will be gen 
 erally known by the price which is charged to him and by the 
 reputation which certain sellers or manufacturers acquire. And 
 there are chemical and other tests of spirituous liquors . Prohibi 
 tion, then, if the best means for suppressing drunkenness, must 
 be looked at simply as a means of getting rid of a very enormous 
 evil in society. Is it, or is it likely to become, an effectual pre 
 ventive? Experience in this country has proved that it is not 
 effectual." Woolsey, "Political Science," vol. ii., p. 426. 
 
 " Law and government are the sovereign influence in human 
 society; in the last resort they shape and control it at their 
 pleasure. Institutions depend on them and are by them formed 
 and modified. What they sanction will ever be generally con 
 sidered innocent ; what they condemn is thereby made a crime, 
 and if persisted in becomes rebellion." Thomas Arnold. 
 
 " It is better to allow men to do a great deal of evil than to re 
 strict individual liberty to such a degree that government and 
 law will be looked on as enemies. The evil, if it be plainly such, 
 and yet does not obviously or seriously threaten the existence or 
 the well-being of society, must be endured for the sake of free 
 dom, and be left to society and opinion to correct." Woolsey, 
 "Political Science," vol. i., p. 232. 
 
APPENDIX 227 
 
 " Make it as hard as possible for a man to go wrong, and as 
 easy as possible for a man to go right." Gladstone. 
 
 "But when a sect (reform party) becomes powerful, when its 
 favor is the road to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious 
 men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its 
 ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its 
 honest members in all the outward indications of zeal. No dis 
 cernment, no watchfulness on the part of ecclesiastical rulers 
 (party leaders) can prevent the intrusion of such false brethren. 
 The tares and the wheat must grow together. Soon the world 
 begins to find out that the godly are not better than other men, 
 and argues, with some justice, that if not better they must be 
 much worse. In no long time all those signs which were for 
 merly regarded as characteristic of a saint are regarded as char 
 acteristic of a knave." Macaulay. 
 
 "The state, in the enactment of its laws, must exercise its 
 judgment concerning what acts tend to corrupt the public 
 morals, impoverish the community, disturb the public repose, 
 injure the other public interests, or even impair the comfort of 
 individual members over which its protecting watch and care are 
 required. And the power to judge of this question is neces 
 sarily reposed alone in the legislature, from whose decision no 
 appeal can be taken, directly or indirectly, to any other depart 
 ment of the government. When, therefore, the legislature, 
 with this exclusive authority, has exercised right of judging 
 concerning this legislative question by the enactment of pro 
 hibitions like those discussed in this chapter, all other depart 
 ments of the government are bound by the decision, which no 
 court has a jurisdiction to review." Bishop on "Statutory 
 Crimes," sec. 995. 
 
 " It does not follow that a compulsory law embodies the will 
 of the people, because every man who is opposed to that law is 
 at least ten times more anxious to gain his end than his adver 
 saries are to gain theirs. He is ready to make far greater sacri 
 fices to attain it. One man rather wishes for what he regards 
 as a slight sanitary safeguard ; the other is determined not to sub 
 mit to a gross violation of his liberty. How differently the two 
 
228 APPENDIX 
 
 are actuated ! One man is willing to pay a farthing in the pound 
 for a desirable object ; the other is ready to risk property, and 
 perhaps life, to defeat that object. In such cases as this it is 
 sheer folly to pretend that counting heads is a fair indication of 
 the forces behind. Majorities, for their own sakes, would do 
 well not to bring minorities to bay." Donisthorpe, " Individual 
 ism," p. 46. 
 
 "The best way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it." U. S. 
 Grant. 
 
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