The Faithful City: a romance

Chapter I The

City lay white and splendid beneath a burning sky. Travellers from the Old World were struck with wonder, even after wearisome recitals of the glory they should encounter, when they turned the last bend in the long road, and descended the Marian hill. Down, down, down ! and every step a revelation. All roads converged to the one point — all turrets clustered round a single Tower, the pride of the City. Sparkling with crystalline treasures, the mountains rose beyond serried roofs which gleamed in the full light of the sun. Small wonder that the travellers halted many a time before they reached the base of the hill, and entered the City at last. Two or three men in Harrisburg were in the habit of speaking fancifully, and they said that the City had sprung into being in a single night. Such dreamers were rare, for several reasons.

In the first place, men had built the streets, and those streets had sprung from a soil red with blood — soil still vocal with the agony of unforgotten labour through a waste of years. The graveyards still groaned on the green slopes A without the walls, but now, in the strenuous heat of summer, no man heard or heeded them, and the past was past. Troubles enough for an active generation lay in store. The present was rife with duties, but for the faithful citizen, that duty of delicate speech, which makes the breath of life sweet enough for the elegant among the nations, was not to be reckoned amongst them. So language halted. The people of Harrisburg were weaklings in thought and voice, but they loved and they hated better than the rest of their kind, and this should be a good augury for a history of action.

Down, down into the City two travellers went, as many travellers before them. The road was thick with white dust, which sprang from under their feet at the instant touch, and left a cloud at their horses' heels. Both men, as they went abreast, seemed to be of one mind, each longing to reach the City, each tired and spent with the long heat of the day, but each glowing at heart with a sense of the great splendour stretched out in advance of them. They came to a standstill again, at the point where the image of Mary juts from a rock at the roadside, and the great Tower of Harrisburg first meets the sight, cleaving the sky in the far distance below. ' There, Havelock, is the Tower ! ' It was the taller of the two men who spoke. He sat his horse better than his companion. The beast pricked up his ears.

The friend waited a moment, shading his eyes with his hand. ' I see — and the City stretches itself out in the foreground. The design will grow clearer when we go on again.' 'All of it a work of twenty years, Havelock, returned the other, with a glance upwards, as though to the sun. ' Lock, stock, and barrel ! One man's work, one man's wisdom.' ' I do not wonder you are proud of your kinsman, Jim.' ' All the prouder seeing that he is what his mother made him. It's not the Harris in him that has turned to fire and honour.' 'Then the father? He was no great shakes, eh?' ' My mother's sister made a man of him, but that is all you could say. After her death he drooped. It was a case of the plant that thrives in a stagnant sort of way down in a cellar, but can't be left to take care of itself in the light.

Such a man was old Tom Harris. He has none of the credit that belongs to the maker of Harrisburg. But the mother of Ben — that is a different matter.' He turned and looked at the statue resting in the rock behind him. ' Now, if they have souls in Harrisburg — : ' Which we shall know in time — ' ' Which we shall know in time, as you say — if they have souls, they will erect a statue to Ben's mother right in the heart of the City.' Havelock smiled. ' The old piety hardly survives,' he said. ' Men have forgotten the saints. I doubt if they have time to obey natural laws.' ' Away from Harrisburg — yes. But here vou may find something to upset your calculations ' A new sensation is the breath of life,' said Havelock. He handed his flask to his friend. ' Harrisburg is a stronghold of primitive emotions.' ' Good ! ' ' In Harrisburg, men are men, and women are women.' ' Good ! ' ' I speak from hearsay, but I am convinced we shall soon know it for ourselves.

You, Havelock, come of a martial stock. What if you prove your metal here in Harrisburg, and strike another blow for the good of mankind and the honour of your race ? ' ' I could wish nothing better,' replied the other. ' But tell me more of this man Harris — this wonderful kinsman of yours? The public achievements I have learnt already : go beyond them. I want to know the man — his life, his method. Then I shall under stand his will.' ' It'll take a deal of understanding,' said Jim, and frowned as he spoke. The knitted brow recalled his own mother's face — that expression which was a commonplace of know ledge in the fevered life of Harrisburg. Even as he spoke you heard the veritable voice of the great Ben himself. Neither accident, nor distance, nor any other touch of that which is mortal, can obliterate the action of blood.

Jim was proud of the fact, and loved him self the better accordingly. Havelock only nodded. ' Very well. I will begin at the beginning. You are ready ? ' ' All right.' ' Don't expect a glorious ancestry. There's no humbug about the rise of Harrisburg from the desolation of the plains. It's a case of all ginger bread and no gilt.' ' So much the better,' said Havelock, as he lit his pipe and made himself comfortable. The Virgin herself smiled down at the pair from above. ' Fire away, Jim ! ' said he. ' Well, it's a simple enough story to begin with. I spoke just now of old Tom Harris. The name describes him. You go back for a dozen genera tions, through the whole Christian alphabet — Tom, James, George, John, Peter, and so on, and then backwards till you come to Tom again. The Benjamins come now and again in due course, and seem to get their more than double mess of pottage as a rule.' ' Benjamin is no Christian name,' Havelock said. ' Christian is the epithet to be applied to a spirit, not to a substance,' was the answer. ' And spirits are beyond periods.

But that's nothing to the point. Old Tom kept a bookseller's shop.' ' That's substantial enough.' Jim frowned again. Havelock was sorry. He did not mean to interrupt, he said. ' A bookseller's shop in Villiers Street, Holborn. That is where the story begins, so that Harrisburg takes its rise from the London clay. Looking at the white and the blue, above and below, you might not think it, but Ben owes something to London, all the same, for London sharpened his wits, and his mother was a London woman. You can see many cities from the dome of St Paul's — Harrisburg is one of them. ' Well, for one reason and another, the shop — Tom's shop, the bookshop — failed to thrive. But Mary Harris did not live to see the day of the brokers, nor yet, what would have distressed her far more, the day of the dapper young man who took over the business and treated the books as if they had been the merest goods and chattels, to be bought and paid for, and there an end of them.

No; that she was spared, and, dying, she left her Benjamin — the only one out of what once she had called a sturdy family — to the care of the world and his own devices, never doubting as to his eventual prosperity, and so anticipating, with confi dence, her own good fortune and good fame. ' Few years remained to old Tom. He did not long survive the disgrace which attended the dispersal of his goods. He passed, however, several happy years in the asylum which opened its doors to receive him, in the company of a few old cronies who cherished his shadowy greatness with the same care that they bestowed upon their own. ' That is the end of Ben's father. Now we come to Ben himself, and his will be a story worth telling by the time it is finished. I can give you a glimpse of the beginning, if you like.' 'Go on,' Havelock said. ' I only speak from the knowledge of family pride,' said Jim, as he swept his hand in the direction of the City, ' for never have I descended this hill before, and so I shall be just as much a stranger when we reach that point, as you yourself.

But I have dreamt of this encounter too often to be ashamed of devoting my thoughts to what I shall see there, and all my notions on the subject of Harrisburg rise from what I know of the man — the man who made it what it is, the man who may make it more or less in the time to come — Ben Harris, the one man in the world I hold to be a hero. It is something to be capable of hero worship after one is turned thirty. Let's hope it may not go the way of all enthusiasms ! ' Well, you see the even track of the streets, the broad and regular sweep of the whole concern, in the way of the New World — even from here you can take a measure and discern the plan. But, can't you look back just the length of a lad's life and imagine the early beginnings? ' First, the untidy creek and the low, mud huts, and the coarse life, and the grumbling herd of busy speculators.

Then the ground sparkles and the strain begins ! Here and there you catch an angry note, or the spell of an eagle eye, as the mountains ring out their own music, which the winds take up and waft away across the sea — that song of Gold, that song of Glory ! — one land taking it from another till the°chorus is complete. The men at the creek hear it fail and fall, and their sinews crack. But it is raised again, and the toil of death begins. ' They are all alike, these men at the creek. They have had their battle with the world, and nearly always the world has called them worsted. You know what that means. They have done with fools' work ; now comes wisdom. You don't catch one man giving in to another. There's no weak talk of sympathy and friendship. Nothing but men fighting for dear life, one against the other, till Ben comes.

Then things are changed ! ' Ben Harris, who stands six foot two in his shoes — he, at any rate, is a man. It may be a year — it may be two years — before they find it out, but when they get to know it, not only things are changed, the men are changed as well. ' You, Havelock, know what that means. Route marching is hard work for Tommy, and he has been known to sulk over that, or else, maybe, over his rations, but he don't quarrel with it if his leader does the hardest pull without a murmur, or laughs at short commons for all the world as though he enjoyed 'em. There you have Ben's role. Men only serve when they must. Heroes only spring to life when the occasions are heroic. They were catching one another by the throat when Ben came. He stopped that and gave them something to do.' Here Jim paused, and Havelock spoke out as one who finds voice in spite of himself. ' So he made them build the City.' Jim looked into space. ' That Tower is the highest in this hemisphere.' ' And he began ?

How ? ' ' Started with an ideal, and cleared his mind of cant. That Tower is the monument of a man's death ; and with a man's death Harrisburg came into being. Ben seized a critical moment to prove himself a leader of men. When you get down into the City you will understand. All this might still be an enigma if I talked till sunset. It will be different when you tread the streets, and stand in the shadow of that Tower yourself So they went on again.

Chapter II With

early morning, the wide streets awoke to their brisk and brilliant life. Banners flared against the blue sky, and on the air now and again came the note of a trumpet. Men, women, children all stirred with the dawn. It was the first day of October — a mighty day in the annals of Harrisburg. Thereby hangs a tale which has yet to be told. Builders of cities and makers of history must do their work with a touch of sentiment. Benjamin Harris, urging himself to his double part, was the very man to set high store by the red-letter days of his calendar. So, when he played the part of judge, he was careful to invest every act with a fine solemnity ; as to-day, when the City, though the light barely streaked the sky in the east, throbbed and tingled with movement, curiosity, and an un certain quiver of alarm.

The falling night had found Jim Smith and Havelock his friend, spent with the long journey in the heat, ready for sleep. As they came through the gate which raises a double tower on either side of its portcullis, and supports that flying flag which displays the motto of a challenge to the world, something struck upon the nerves of both men and told them that they entered the City at a critical moment. They halted, hailing a dark youth with clean limbs. He spoke with a twinkle and in a southern lingo. Soon they were in possession of half-a-dozen certainties. For one thing, to-morrow was the crowning day of the Tower, which meant a whole dictionary of achievements. Then it was the death day of Jose, and of his treachery. In short, the first of October spelt each year, in Harrisburg, a fresh chapter of anniversaries. ' Here comes the tale I said you should know as soon as we were through the gates,' said Jim, inter posing once again in his staccato tones.

Then he turned to the boy, assuming the traveller and stranger in an instant. ' Who was Jose ? ' he asked. The lad laughed merrily. Loiterers started and stopped that they might listen. One and another lifted eyes to the dusty strangers, then paused and joined the group. There was a little jostling, a little inquiry. ' Let's hear all,' said Havelock. The people, thronging and pressing round them, made a bright crowd on the inward side of the gate. All complexions were bronzed, the men's and the women's alike. The face of the boy was browner than any ; only the travellers seemed to have a sign of pallor from the long struggle with the heat. A woman noted it. She was carrying a burden of fruit, which she set down at the edge of the circle. First she caught the signal of curiosity vvith her eye, then with her ear.

Hers were a buxom form and merry countenance, upon which half a score were beaming while she laughed. Just as she raised her voice there was a clatter of hoofs. The lad turned, and the crowd with h'm. ' Senn ! Senn, my boy ! ' cried the matron loudly. From the crowd, as it lurched towards the strangers' horses, there came a murmur. Senn's hand was on Jim's bridle. The wide street buzzed with its new commotion. Havelock and his friend looked down upon a happy crew — happy, indeed, but surging and unsatisfied. Who might these travellers be ? But there was no time for vague questioning, no place for any answer; the eye of authority was upon them, and the gleam of its uniform turned the corner with a flash. No man, no woman even, can gainsay a scarlet coat and gold braid on the eve of a festival.

Senn was ready enough for his tale. He had looked at the clustered faces ; he had caught the woman's eye. ' Jose's life and death, my boy, tell it us again, traitor and all, for the sake of to-morrow. But let them rest that need it ! ' she had cried, and the strangers might be set in a trice on the broad stone by the water-trough, so that he could declaim to the multitude from a horseback point of vantage. Only he felt the touch of a heavy hand on his shoulder, and his tongue was tied. A curse on authority — but heaven forgive him if the thought should rise above his breath ! Half the crowd melted away — half, that is, in mere numbers, for the best remained. Senn, himself, was not going to budge an inch ; he knew his ground, and the strangers were anxious to hear what he had to tell. Besides, he knew that the gruff voices at his elbow were only aping severity, and he had his answer ready.

The leader of the four, who had come up by this time, leant down to hear what Senn had to say. ' Strangers, these, who want to know why Harris burg is making merry, and what we mean to do to morrow, and who was Jose, and the truth concerning the Tower, and much else, all of which I can tell them. Isn't it well that honest burghers should gather round and listen, captain ? ' ' Orders are orders, boy ! ' ' Whose orders ? What orders ? ' ' Not mine, my lad. There's only one man's orders need be obeyed in Harrisburg.' 'God save Benjamin Harris!' cried a voice in the rear. The decimated group took up the acclamation. All this the strangers keenly noted. ' Ay, ay, that's well enough,' replied the captain, with a nod aside to his men, ' well enough, and we won't think of sedition. All men don't want to talk treason when they meet, no ; and there is no great chance for a conspiracy hatched in the open street.

But orders are orders, boy, and strangers are strangers, and the word is, Move ! ' He turned to the two men, saluting with a flourish of politeness. ' I am an officer of the Harrisburg police,' he said. ' You will have the goodness to inform me as to your destination. This is a free city, but there are laws. Strangers who enter here are informed that they remain under observation during their sojourn, understanding that they are free to go whitherso ever they will without let or hindrance.' ' Leave this to me,' said Jim to his friend. ' You require no passport, no proof of identity ? ' ' Simply, sir, that you and your friend shall inform me where you intend to reside during your stay in this city, and the length of time to which that stay is likely to extend.' ' We cannot speak definitely with respect to either of these things.' ' For your own protection, sirs, it will be advisable that you should have some plan.' ' Benjamin Harris is my kinsman.

His name must be enough to protect me.' ' There, sir, I beg to hold you mistaken. You are less safe as being kin to the ruler of Harrisburg, than you would be as his lowest enemy. We must all the more know where you go.' ' And the alternative ? ' ' We should have to ask you to consider yourselves under arrest.' Havelock shrugged his shoulders, and the speaker smiled. 'You may see the point of balancing your own peril against the peril of the City,' he said, with emphasis. ' The place is full, and you may easily fall into a foul nest.' Then he turned to Senn. ' You, boy, who are you ? I know your face.' It was a warm look that brightened in answer. ' Senn, the son of Reuben Sarle, your worship.' 'Ah!' The man turned with his worshipful air backwards and spoke in a low tone to one of his followers.

A few words fell audibly here and there. ' No, nothing hazardous in letting them go.' ' Always discoverable.' ' As long as they did not throw themselves into some bed of thorns.' ' They were men ; they would understand. There should be no cause for any disturbance. They would certainly accept a word of warning and see truth.' The leader turned again to Jim. ' You know, gentlemen, that you cannot be sure of a roof over your heads in Harrisburg. That means more than you may suppose at first sight. It is a case that concerns your own protection. You cannot be permitted to seek shelter haphazard ; you do not know the city, and you miscalculate the danger. ' We should have no objection to your escort,' Jim replied, ' but we are well able to take care of ourselves.' Senn's eyes were gleaming. ' The gentlemen could trust themselves to me,' he said. ' At least there's no treachery beneath the roof of Reuben Sarle, though the room be cramped and the space fairly crowded up these busy times ! ' Those who stood by listening now put in a word. ' Old Reuben Sarle, at any rate, had been beyond suspicion.

Was he not the right-hand man of Benjamin himself? Didn't he ruin himself, body and all, for the sake of the City? There could be little chance of his son dealing ill with the strangers, let alone their own strong arms, and the captain's eye everlastingly upon them. There could be small likeli hood of harm, either way.' ' Enough chatter ! ' The captain's black eyebrows nearly met one another as he spoke. ' Let the crowd, what is left of it, disperse ! ' ' And you, gentlemen, whatever your purpose may be here in Harrisburg, so long as you keep clear of treason, you may yet find life worth living, even in a free city. But I don't put any trust in appearances, — no more need you. We shall meet again. I shall take it for granted that you will find a resting place beneath Sarle's roof. If you go elsewhere, you may be thankful that you can't do so without our knowing all about it.

In any case you are under observation.' He wheeled round and made a sweeping gesture. The horses of his men plunged at the word of com mand. Little was left of the crowd in a minute's time. Senn was still at Jim's side, and the three watched the band of horsemen out of sight before another word was said. Havelock laughed a trifle uneasily. ' That's what I call a quaint kind of a welcome. What do you think of doing, Jim ? ' ' It seems to me that it all promises well. I should say that this lad's offer of a shake-down is a free gift from Providence. We must sleep somewhere.' ' Or die. I don't think I very much mind which. If I get a good snooze I shall be ready for resurrection.' ' I hope it will be a lively one. You, Senn, can you conduct us to your father's ? You can explain things by the way.' ' It's not half a mile from this spot.

You know, sirs, that you have no need to fear. We are among the staunchest of the citizens. My father bears the scars of more than one fight for the freedom of the City. My mother made the rope that hanged Jose — the devil ! I can tell you the whole truth of it. I was weaned upon it, and all the twenty years of my life I have been rehearsing it, more or less. There are times in store which mean the renewal ofthe struggle, and that is why the police are so precious wideawake. They won't let anyone into the place without levelling their glances upon him, sharp enough, as you have seen ; but that is fair and honest, for now you know what you must expect, and beside that, ten to one something will happen to make you open your eyes before many days are over. The grass doesn't ex actly grow beneath our feet.' The boy, walking between the two horses, which went their slowest pace readily, lowered his voice till it sank into a whisper. ' And to-morrow is a critical day.

Some people might think you were in league with the enemy. Perhaps you wonder that I trust you. I am not afraid. You will see why. To come under our roof means safety for you — true, but it couldn't mean danger to us in any case. You will see the reason. Indeed, when you said you were kin to Benjamin Harris, I believed you. We don't believe everything in Harrisburg.' The boy set his teeth and grinned. 'Oh, no, we have met liars in Harrisburg. They were very honest men to look at. Jose himself might have stood for a statue of the holy Gabriel. But practice helps us to detect the false and discern the true.' Neither Jim nor his friend spoke much. The youth talked on, and they both listened, riding limply all the while and longing for a change of position. The boy kept up his racy and voluble chatter, but seemed, nevertheless, to be holding something back, which was not lost upon Jim, tired though he was.

Senn's countenance reflected some, at least, of those primitive emotions of which they had called this City of the South a stronghold on the road. He had the brawny arms, the sinewy limbs, of the natural man. Plainly each year of his twenty had done the work of his development, till he stood before them a well knit, well-grown figure, fit for a soldier's life — possibly even for a hero's — though as yet the line on his upper lip was thin and slight. Dark eyebrows and a wealth of curly hair marked the Spaniard in him. His rich, southern complexion completed the picture. And Jim swore to himself that the chance of their meeting was a stroke of luck. He meant to find work — strong work, hard work, a life's work, some thing to feed upon in old age, here in his kinsman's city. Havelock was steel and grit incarnate, and would never fail when there was anything to be done, He himself felt confident of brain power.

No moment passed without some scheme thumping, grinding in his head, some conscious growth struggling to burst its confines and win a way through the world. But it must take a combination of great qualities to carve the road to success. Havelock was taciturn strength. All adventures would come to him as heralds of stern and welcome duty. He was certain to tackle the forlornest chance and get the best of it, if human force could do it. Senn, the boy, alert and keen, meant the first of essentials — a knowledge of the situation. With that, and with the critical hazard which ever attends a republic in the throes, prolonged and merciless, of birth and growth ; and with his own wild, nervous energy, his own feverish ambition ; what could better the prospect? The half mile was soon covered, but to the travellers, in spite of Senn's vivacity, it seemed an age of cobbled space.

The streets were full, and gaiety grew with the sinking sun. Jim and his friend, as they passed through the great square, marked the animated scene with fading vision. The great Tower loomed up above them, dwarfing the very crowds which swarmed at its base ; and the streamers, from its dizzy stories and intricate network of iron and steel, flapped indistinctly before their eyes. They heard only as though Senn were speaking in a slow undertone, some fable as to the history of the Tower. Their spirits revived a little, when, in obedience to his gesture, they turned from the broad and busy square, down into a narrow street, with sloping pavements and high, turreted houses on either side ; an avenue of waving colour. A woman's face, here and there, leaned over a balcony. In a moment they halted.

The house, alone in the alley, was undecorated, but there was a device over the main door which singled it out from the houses on either side. The men alighted. They felt, indeed, that they were home at last after a long journey, and their joints relaxed with the relief that sprang up through the whole frame when they touched the ground with their feet. There was no one within the doorway. Senn ran in, gave a low whistle, and was out again in an instant. ' There's only my father in,' he said. ' Everyone's B afoot to-night, but there'll not be much breathing space in an hour or two.' He lost no time in leading the horses away. ' Wait you here, sirs, while I find a stall for these poor beasts. We may find them useful before you think. They must have food. I can manage alone. You need have no fear.' ' We trust you, boy,' Jim replied. 'We are like giants at the mercy of David,' laughed Havelock. ' The lad might play any part.' ' I should say there is something more abroad than meets the eye.' ' The police and their attitude, you mean ?