by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER II
THE BROTHER AT THE SOUTH
Even five months before, when the Bellevite had sailed on her cruise,the rumble of coming events had been heard in the United States; and ithad been an open question whether or not war would grow out of thecomplications between the North and the South.
Only a few letters, and fewer newspapers, had reached the owner ofthe yacht; and he and his family on board had been very indifferentlyinformed in regard to the progress of political events at home. CaptainPassford was one of those who confidently believed that no very seriousdifficulty would result from the entanglements into which the countryhad been plunged by the secession of the most of the Southern States.
He would not admit even to himself that war was possible; and before hisdeparture he had scouted the idea of a conflict with arms between thebrothers of the North and the brothers of the South, as he styled them.
Captain Passford had been the master of a ship in former times, thoughhe had accumulated his vast fortune after he abandoned the sea. Hisfather was an Englishman, who had come to the United States as a youngman, had married, raised his two sons, and died in the city of New York.
These two sons, Horatio and Homer, were respectively forty-five andforty years of age. Both of them were married, and each of them had onlya son and a daughter. While Horatio had been remarkably successful inhis pursuit of wealth in the metropolis, he had kept himself clean andhonest, like so many of the wealthy men of the great city. When heretired from active business, he settled at Bonnydale on the Hudson.
His brother had been less successful as a business-man, and soonafter his marriage to a Northern lady he had purchased a plantation inAlabama, where both of his children had been born, and where he was aman of high standing, with wealth enough to maintain his position inluxury, though his fortune was insignificant compared with that of hisbrother.
Between the two brothers and their families the most kindly relationshad always existed; and each made occasional visits to the other, thoughthe distance which separated them was too great to permit of veryfrequent exchanges personally of brotherly love and kindness.
Possibly the fraternal feeling which subsisted between the two brothershad some influence upon the opinions of Horatio, for to him hostilitiesmeant making war upon his only brother, whom he cherished as warmly asif they had not been separated by a distance of over a thousand miles.
He measured the feelings of others by his own; and if all had felt ashe felt, war would have been an impossibility, however critical andmomentous the relations between the two sections.
Though his father had been born and bred in England, Horatio was moreintensely American than thousands who came out of Plymouth Rock stock;and he believed in the union of the States, unable to believe that anytrue citizen could tolerate the idea of a separation of any kind.
The first paper which Captain Passford read on the deck of the Bellevitecontained the details of the bombardment and capture of Fort Sumter; andthe others, a record of the events which had transpired in the fewsucceeding days after the news of actual war reached the North.
This terrible intelligence was unexpected to the owner of the yacht,believing, as he had, in the impossibility of war; and it seemed to himjust as though he and his cherished brother were already arrayed againsteach other on the battle-field.
The commotion between the two sections had begun before his departurefrom home on the yacht cruise, but his brother, perhaps because he wasfully instructed in regard to the Union sentiment of Horatio, wasstrangely reticent, and expressed no opinions of his own.
But Captain Passford, measuring his brother according to his ownstandard, was fully persuaded that Homer was as sound on the greatquestion as he was himself, though the excitement and violence aroundhim might have caused him to maintain a neutral position.
Certainly if the Northern brother had anticipated that a terriblewar was impending, he would not have permitted his daughter Florence,a beautiful young lady of seventeen, to reside during the winter in ahot-bed of secession and disunion. The papers informed him what had beendone at the North and at the South to initiate the war; and the thoughtthat Florry was now in the midst of the enemies of her country wasagonizing to him.
Though he felt that his country demanded his best energies, and thoughhe was ready and willing to give himself and his son to her in her hourof need, he felt that his first duty was to his own family, withinreasonable limits; and his earliest thoughts were directed to the safetyof his daughter, and then to the welfare of his brother and his family.
"War!" exclaimed Mrs. Passford, when her husband had announced sobriefly the situation which had caused such intense agitation in hissoul. "What do you mean by war, Horatio?"
"I mean all that terrible word can convey of destruction and death, and,worse yet, of hate and revenge between brothers of the same household!"replied the husband impressively. "Both the North and the South aresounding the notes of preparation. Men are gathering by thousands onboth sides, soon to meet on fields which must be drenched in the gore ofbrothers."
"But don't you think the trouble will be settled in some way, Horatio?"asked the anxious wife and mother; and her thoughts, like those of herhusband, reverted to the loving daughter then in the enemy's camp.
"I do not think so; that is impossible now. I did not believe that warwas possible: now I do not believe it will be over till one side or theother shall be exhausted," replied Captain Passford, wiping from hisbrow the perspiration which the intensity of his emotion produced."A civil war is the most bitter and terrible of all wars."
"I cannot understand it," added the lady.
"Is it really war, sir?" asked Christy, who had been an interestedlistener to all that had been said.
"It is really war, my son," replied the father earnestly. "It will bea war which cannot be carried to a conclusion by hirelings; but father,son, and brother must take part in it, against father, son, andbrother."
"It is terrible to think of," added Mrs. Passford with something likea shudder, though she was a strong-minded woman in the highest sense ofthe words.
Captain Passford then proceeded to inform his wife and son in regard toall the events which had transpired since he had received his latestpapers at Bermuda. They listened with the most intense interest, and thetrio were as solemn as though they had met to consider the dangerousillness of the absent member of the family.
The owner did not look upon the impending war as a sort of frolic, asdid many of the people at the North and the South, and he could notregard it as a trivial conflict which would be ended in a few weeksor a few months. To him it was the most terrible reality which hisimagination could picture; and more clearly than many eminent statesmen,he foresaw that it would be a long and fierce encounter.
"From what you say, Horatio, I judge that the South is already armingfor the conflict," said Mrs. Passford, after she had heard her husband'saccount of what had occurred on shore.
"The South has been preparing for war for months, and the North began tomake serious preparation for coming events as soon as Fort Sumter fell.Doubtless the South is better prepared for the event to-day than theNorth, though the greater population and vast resources of the latterwill soon make up for lost time," replied the captain.
"And Florry is right in the midst of the gathering armies of the South,"added the fond mother, wiping a tear from her eyes.
"She is; and, unless something is done at once to restore her to herhome, she may have to remain in the enemy's country for months, if notfor years," answered the father, with a slight trembling of the lips.
"But what can be done?" asked the mother anxiously.
"The answer to that question has agitated me more than any thing elsewhich has come to my mind for years, for I cannot endure the thought ofleaving her even a single month at any point which is as likely as anyother to become a battle-field in a few days or a few weeks," continuedCaptain Passford, with some return of the agitation which had beforeshaken h
im so terribly.
"Of course your brother Homer will take care of her," said the terrifiedmother, as she gazed earnestly into the expressive face of thestout-hearted man before her.
"Certainly he will do all for Florry that he would do for his ownchildren, but he may not long be able to save his own family from thehorrors of war."
"Do you think she will be in any actual danger, Horatio?"
"I have no doubt she will be as safe at Glenfield, if the conflict wereraging there, as she would be at Bonnydale under the same circumstances.From the nature of the case, the burden of the fighting, the havoc anddesolation, will be within the Southern States, and few, if any, of thebattle-fields will be on Northern soil, or at least as far north as ourhome."
"From what I have seen of the people near the residence of your brother,they are neither brutes nor savages," added the lady.
"No more than the people of the North; but war rouses the brute natureof most men, and there will be brutes and savages on both sides, fromthe very nature of the case."
"In his recent letters, I mean those that came before we sailed fromhome, Homer did not seem to take part with either side in the politicalconflict; and in those which came to us at the Azores and Bermuda, hedid not say a single word to indicate whether he is a secessionist, orin favor of the Union. Do you know how he stands, Horatio?"
"My means of knowing are the same as yours, and I can be no wiser thanyou are on this point, though I have my opinion," replied CaptainPassford.
"What is your opinion?"
"That he is as truly a Union man as I am."
"I am glad that he is."
"I do not say that he is a Union man; but judging from his silence, andwhat I know of him, I think he is. And it is as much a part of my desireand intention to bring him and his family out of the enemy's country asit is to recover Florry."
"Then we shall have them all at Bonnydale this summer?" suggested Mrs.Passford. "Nothing could suit me better."
"Though I am fully persuaded in my own mind that Homer will be true tohis country in this emergency, I may be mistaken. He has lived for manyyears at the South, and has been identified with the institutions ofthat locality, as I have been with those of the North. Though we bothlove the land of our fathers on the other side of the ocean, we haveboth been strongly American. As he always believed in the whole countryas a unit, I shall expect him to be more than willing to stand by hiscountry as it was, and as it should be."
"I hope you will find him so, but I am grievously sorry that Florry isnot with us."
"Tug-boat alongside, Captain Passford," said the commander.
The owner of the Bellevite wished the tug to wait his orders.