The Candidate: A Political Romance
"Go on with the story," said the men, doubtfully. On the stage there was
a general waking-up. Correspondents and politicians alike recognized the
Honorable Herbert's new manner, and they bent forward with interest.
"My story," said Mr. Heathcote, "is of a man who had a fond and perhaps
too generous father. This father had suffered great hardships, and he
wished to save his son from them. What more natural? But perhaps, in his
tenderness, he did the son a wrong. So this son grew up, not seeing the
rough side of life, and finding all things easy. He lived in a part of
the country that is old and rich, where what is called necessity you
call luxury. He knew nothing of the world except that portion of it to
which he was used. What more natural? Is not that human nature
everywhere? He saw himself petted and admired, and in the course of time
he felt himself a person of importance. Is not that natural, too?"
He paused and looked over the audience, which was silent and attentive,
held by the interest of something unusual and the deep, almost painful,
earnestness of Mr. Heathcote's manner.
"What's he coming to?" whispered Hobart.
"I don't know; wait and see," replied Harley.
"Thus the man grew up to know only a little world," the Honorable
Herbert went on, "and he did not know how little it was. He was like a
prisoner in a gorgeous room, who sees, without, snow and storm that
cannot touch him, but who is a prisoner nevertheless. Those whom he met
and with whom he lived his daily life were like him, and they thought
they were the heart of this world. Everything about them was golden;
they saw that people wished to hear of them, to read of them, to know
all that they did, and their view of their importance grew every day.
What more natural? Was not that human nature?"
"I think I see which way he is going," whispered Hobart.
Harley nodded. The audience was still and intent, hanging on the words
of the speaker.
"This youth," continued Mr. Heathcote, "was sent by-and-by to Europe to
have his education finished, and there all the ideas formed by his life
in this country were confirmed in him. He saw a society, organized
centuries ago, in which every man found a definite place for life
assigned to him, in accordance with what fortune had done for him at
birth. There he received deference and homage, even more than before,
and the great, changing world, with its mighty tides and storms that
flowed about his little group, leaving it untouched, was yet unknown to
him.
"He came back to his own country, and the strong father who had
sheltered him died. He was filled with an ambition to be a political
power, as his father had been, and the dead hand brought him the place.
Then he came into the West to join in a great political campaign, but it
was his first real excursion into the real world, and his ignorance was
heavy upon him."
A deep "Ah!" ran through the crowd, and Harley noticed a sudden look of
respect upon the brown faces. They were beginning to see where the
thread of the story would lead. Then Harley glanced at old Senator
Curtis, whose lips moved tremulously for a moment. "King" Plummer was
regarding the committeeman with astonished interest.
"This man, I repeat," continued Mr. Heathcote, "came West with his
ignorance, I might almost say with his sins heavy upon him, but it was
not his fault; it was the fault, rather, of circumstances. He seemed a
strange, a grotesque figure to these people of the West, but they should
not have forgotten that they also seemed strange to him. It has been
said that it takes many kinds of people to make a world, and they cannot
all be alike. One point of view may differ from another point of view,
and both may be right. If this man did anything wrong--and he admits
that he did--he did it in ignorance. There were some with him who knew
both points of view who might have helped him, but who did not; instead,
they made life hard; they put countless difficulties in his way; they
made him feel very wretched, very mean, and very little. He saw the
other point of view at last, but he was not permitted to show that he
saw it; he was put in such a position that his pride would not let him."
The crowd suddenly burst into cheers. The keen Western men understood,
and the mountain-slope gave back the echo, "Hurrah for Heathcote!" The
Honorable Herbert's figure swelled and his eyes flashed. Grateful water
was falling at last on the parched desert sands.
"But, friends," he continued, "this man, though his lesson has been
rough, comes to you with no resentment. He has broken the bars of his
prison; he is in the real world at last, and he comes to you asking to
be one of you, to give and take with the crowd. Will you have him?"
"Yes!" a chorus of a thousand voices roared against the side of the
mountain and came back in a thunderous echo.
Old Senator Curtis sprang to his feet, seized Mr. Heathcote by the hand,
and shouted:
"Gentlemen, I, too, need to apologize, and also I want to introduce to
you a real man, Mr. Herbert Henry Heathcote."
"Put me down for an apology, too," said "King" Plummer, in his big,
booming tones.
Jimmy Grayson, on the outskirts of the crowd, returning to learn what
the noise was about, saw and heard all, and murmured to a friend:
"There is now a new member of our group, and all is well again."
XII
CHURCHILL STRIKES
The conversion and adoption of Mr. Heathcote, as Hobart called it, was a
pleasant incident in several senses, bringing much quiet gratification
to them all, and particularly and obviously to the candidate. A hostile
element, one intended by others to be hostile and interfering, had
become friendly, which, of itself, was a great gain. Moreover, the
smoothness of social intercourse was increased, and there, too, was a
new type, adding to the variety and interest of the group.
The only one not pleased was Churchill, who had expected much from Mr.
Heathcote, and who now, as he considered it, saw the committeeman turn
traitor. It was not a matter that he could handle fully in his
despatches to the _Monitor_, being too intangible to allow of bald
assertion, and he was reduced to indirect statement. This not satisfying
him at all, he wrote a long letter to Mr. Goodnight, both for the sake
of the cause and for the sake of his own feelings, which had been much
lacerated. Its production cost him a great deal of thought and labor;
but he had his reward, as its perusal after completion proved to him
that it was a masterpiece.
Churchill showed quite clearly to Mr. Goodnight the steady decay of the
candidate's character and the lower levels to which his campaign was
falling. In the security of a private letter it was not necessary for
him to spare words, and Churchill spoke his mind forcibly about the
manner in which Jimmy Grayson was pandering to the "common people," the
"ignorant mob," the "million-footed." Churchill himself, although not
old, had taken long ago the measure of these foolish common people, and
he despised them, his contempt giving him a very pleasant conviction of
his own superiority.
He also poured a few vials of wrath upon the head of Mr. Heathcote, whom
he characterized as a coward, not able to stand up against petty
persecution, and from the committeeman he passed on to others of Mr.
Grayson's immediate following, taking "King" Plummer next. Mr. Plummer,
in his opinion, was an excellent type of democracy run to riot. He was
one of the "boys" in every sense. He was wofully wanting in personal
dignity, speaking to everybody in the most familiar manner, and
encouraging the same form of address towards himself; he failed utterly
to recognize the superiority of some other men, and he was grossly
ignorant, knowing nothing whatever of Europe and the vast work that had
been done there for civilization and order. Moreover, he could not be
induced, even by the well-informed, to take any interest in the Old
World, and once had had the rudeness to say to Churchill himself, "What
in the devil is Europe to us?"
Churchill thus subjected the views of "King" Plummer to the process of
elaboration because they had made a vivid impression upon him. He and
the "King" had never been able to get on together, the mountaineer
treating him with rough indifference, and Churchill returning it with a
hauteur which he considered very effective. To Churchill men of "King"
Plummer's type seemed the greatest danger the country could have. Their
lack of respect for diplomacy, their want of form and ceremony, their
brutal habit of calling things by their names, were in his opinion
revolutionary. He did not see how dealings with foreign nations, which
always loomed very large to him, could be conducted by such men. Always
in his mind was the question, What would they say in London and Vienna
and Berlin? and the _Monitor_, which he served faithfully, confirmed him
through its tone in this mental state. Still drawing his inspiration
from the _Monitor_, he regarded a sneer as invariably the best weapon;
if you were opposed to anything, the proper way to attack it was by
sneering at it; then, not having used argument, you never put yourself
in a position to have your arguments refuted.
From "King" Plummer, Churchill passed to some of his associates--like
the _Monitor_, he never hesitated to befoul his own nest--and he told
Mr. Goodnight how the candidate was using them, how they had wholly
fallen under the spell of his undeniable charm of manner, and how they
wrote to please him rather than to tell the truth.
As he sealed his long letter, Churchill felt the conscious glow of
right-doing and stern self-sacrifice. He had written thus for the good
of the party and the good of the country, and he was strengthened, too,
by the feeling that he could not possibly be wrong. The _Monitor_
cultivated the sense of omniscience, which it communicated in turn to
all the members of its staff.
He passed Sylvia Morgan on his way from the hotel reading-room to the
lobby to mail his letter, and when he met her he quickly turned down
the address on the envelope, in order that she might not see it. It was
done by impulse, and Churchill, for the first time, had a feeling of
guilt that made him angry.
"That must be a love letter, Mr. Churchill," said Sylvia, teasing him
with the easy freedom of the West. "Do you write her twenty-four pages,
or only twenty?"
"I have no love except my work, Miss Morgan," replied Churchill,
assuming his most grandiose air.
"Is that a permanent affection, or a passing fancy?"
Her face expressed the most eager interest, as if she could not possibly
be happy until she had Churchill's answer. The words were frivolous, but
her manner was most deferential, and Churchill concluded that she was
expressing respect in as far as what he considered her shallow nature
could do so.
"It is, I hope, a permanent passion, Miss Morgan," he replied, gravely.
"There is a pleasure in doing one's duty, particularly under
disagreeable circumstances, which I am happy to say I have felt more
than once, and custom usually strengthens one who walks in the right
path."
Still in this mood of contemplation, he regarded her, and he thought he
saw a slight look of awe appear in her eyes. His opinion of her rose at
once. While not able to show merit of the highest degree, she could
perceive it in others, and this differentiated her from the rest of the
group. Churchill allowed himself to see that she had a fine face and a
slender, beautiful figure, and he felt it a pity that she should be
thrown away on a crude, rough old mountaineer like Plummer.
"I often think, Miss Morgan," he said, "that if you had lived in the
East awhile you could have been quite a match for any woman whom I have
ever known."