You're some years younger than me, but I expect you would have me convinced on your side if we went on.And maybe I'd convince you too, and then we'd be like old Jim Fletcher at New Salem.You'll have heard about Jim.He had a mighty quarrel with his neighbour about a hog, Jim alleging it was one of his lot and the neighbour claiming it for his.Well, they argued and argued, and the upshot was that Jim convinced the neighbour that the hog was Jim's, and the neighbour convinced Jim that the hog was the neighbour's, and neither of them would touch that hog, and they were worse friends than ever."Mr.Curtin rose and apologised to his companion.He had to see a man about a buggy and must leave Mr.Stanton to find his way back alone.
"Don't worry, George," said the long man."I'm going round your way and I'll see your friend home." As Mr.Stanton professed himself ready for bed, the little party by the stove broke up.Lincoln fetched from a corner a dilapidated carpet-bag full of papers, and an old green umbrella, handle-less, tied with string about the middle, and having his name sewn inside in straggling letters cut out of white muslin.He and Stanton went out-of-doors into the raw autumn night.
The town lay very quiet in a thin fog made luminous by a full moon.The long man walked with his feet turned a little inwards, accommodating his gait to the shorter stride of his companion.Mr.Stanton, having recovered from his momentary annoyance, was curious about this odd member of his own profession.Was it possible that in the whirligig of time a future could lie before one so uncouth and rustical? A democracy was an unaccountable thing, and these rude westerners might have to be reckoned with.
"You are ambitious of a political career, Mr.Lincoln?" he asked.
The other looked down with his shy crooked smile, and the Ohio lawyer suddenly realised that the man had his own attractiveness.
"Why, no, sir.I shouldn't like to say I was ambitious.I've no call to be, for the Almighty hasn't blessed me with any special gifts.You're different.It would be a shame to you if you didn't look high, for you're a young man with all the world before you.I'm getting middle-aged and Ihaven't done anything to be proud of yet, and I reckon I won't get the chance, and if I did I couldn't take advantage of it.I'm pretty fond of the old country, and if she wants me, why, she's only got to say so and I'll do what she tells me.But I don't see any clear road I want to travel.
..."
He broke off suddenly, and Stanton, looking up at him, saw that his face had changed utterly.The patient humorous look had gone and it was like a tragic mask, drawn and strained with suffering.They were passing by a little town cemetery and, as if by some instinct, had halted.
The place looked strange and pitiful in the hazy moonlight.It was badly tended, and most of the headstones were only of painted wood, warped and buckled by the weather.But in the dimness the rows of crosses and slabs seemed to extend into the far distance, and the moon gave them a cold, eerie whiteness as if they lay in the light of another world.A great sign came from Lincoln, and Stanton thought that he had never seen on mortal countenance such infinite sadness.
"Ambition!" he said."How dare we talk of ambition, when this is the end of it? All these people--decent people, kind people, once full of joy and purpose, and now all forgotten! It is not the buried bodies I mind, it is the buried hearts....I wonder if it means peace...."He stood there with head bowed and he seemed to be speaking to himself.
Stanton caught a phrase or two and found it was verse--banal verses, which were there and then fixed in his fly-paper memory."Tell me, my secret soul," it ran:
"Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith, Is there no resting-place From sorrow, sin, and death?
Is there no happy spot Where mortals may be blessed, Where grief may find a balm And weariness a rest?"The figure murmuring these lines seemed to be oblivious of his companion.
He stood gazing under the moon, like a gaunt statue of melancholy.Stanton spoke to him but got no answer, and presently took his own road home.He had no taste for histrionic scenes.And as he went his way he meditated.
Mad, beyond doubt.Not without power in him, but unbalanced, hysterical, alternating between buffoonery and these schoolgirl emotions.He reflected that if the American nation contained much stuff of this kind it might prove a difficult team to drive.He was thankful that he was going home next day to his orderly life.
II
Eighteen years have gone, and the lanky figure of Speed's store is revealed in new surroundings.In a big square room two men sat beside a table littered with the debris of pens, foolscap, and torn fragments of paper which marked the end of a Council.It was an evening at the beginning of April, and a fire burned in the big grate.One of the two sat at the table with his elbows on the mahogany, and his head supported by a hand.He was a man well on in middle life with a fine clean-cut face and the shapely mobile lips of the publicist and orator.It was the face of one habituated to platforms and assemblies, full of a certain selfconscious authority.But to-night its possessor seemed ill at ease.His cheeks were flushed and his eye distracted.
The other had drawn his chair to the fire, so that one side of him was lit by the late spring sun and one by the glow from the hearth.That figure we first saw in the Springfield store had altered little in the eighteen years.There was no grey in the coarse black hair, but the lines in the sallow face were deeper, and there were dark rings under the hollow.eyes.
The old suit of blue jeans had gone; and he wore now a frock-coat, obviously new, which was a little too full for his gaunt frame.His tie, as of old, was like a boot-lace.A new silk hat, with the nap badly ruffled, stood near on the top of a cabinet.
