The Conflict Part 26

Thus, within five minutes, Victor was lying upon a couch in the parlor of Colman's cottage, and within ten minutes Dr. Charlton was beside him and was at work. Selma and Jane and Mrs. Colman were in the room. The others--a steadily increasing crowd--were on the steps outside, in the front yard, were filling the narrow street. Colman had organized fifty Leaguers into a guard, to be ready for any emergencies. Over the tops of the low houses could be seen the vast cloud of smoke from the fire; the air was heavy with the odors of burning wood; faintly came sounds of engines, of jubilant drunken shouts.

"A fracture of the skull and of the jaw-bone. Not necessarily serious," was Dr. Charlton's verdict.

The young man, unconscious, ghastly pale, with his thick hair mussed about his brow and on the right side clotted with blood, lay breathing heavily. Ellen Clearwater came in and Mrs. Colman whispered to her the doctor's cheering statement. She went to Jane and said in an undertone:

"We can go now, Jane. Come on."

Jane seemed not to hear. She was regarding the face of the young man on the couch.

Ellen touched her arm. "We're intruding on these people," she whispered. "Let's go. We've done all we can."

Selma did not hear, but she saw and understood.

"Yes--you'd better go, Jane," she said. "Mrs. Colman and I will do everything that's necessary."

Jane did not heed. She advanced a step nearer the couch. "You are sure, doctor?" she said, and her voice sounded unnatural.

"Yes, miss----" He glanced at her face. "Yes, Miss Hastings. He'll be out in less than ten days, as good as ever. It's a very simple affair."

Jane glanced round. "Is there a telephone? I wish to send for Dr.

Alban."

"I'd be glad to see him," said Dr. Charlton. "But I a.s.sure you it's unnecessary."

"We don't want Dr. Alban," said Selma curtly. "Go home, Jane, and let us alone."

"I shall go bring Dr. Alban," said Jane.

Selma took her by the arm and compelled her into the hall, and closed the door into the room where Victor lay. "You must go home, Jane," she said quietly. "We know what to do with our leader. And we could not allow Dr. Alban here."

"Victor must have the best," said Jane.

She and Selma looked at each other, and Selma understood.

"He HAS the best," said she, gentle with an effort.

"Dr. Alban is the best," said Jane.

"The most fas.h.i.+onable," said Selma. "Not the best." With restraint, "Go home. Let us alone. This is no place for you--for Martin Hastings' daughter."

Jane, looking and acting like one in a trance, tried to push past her and reenter the room. Selma stood firm. She said: "If you do not go I shall have these men take you to your carriage. You do not know what you are doing."

Jane looked at her. "I love him," she said.

"So do we," said Selma. "And he belongs to US. You must go. Come!"

She seized her by the arm, and beckoning one of the waiting Leaguers to her a.s.sistance she pushed her quietly but relentlessly along the hall, out of the house, out of the yard and into the carriage. Then she closed the door, while Jane sank back against the cus.h.i.+ons.

"Yes, he belongs to you," said Jane; "but I love him. Oh, Selma!"

Selma suddenly burst into tears. "Go, Jane, dear. You MUST go," she cried.

"At least I'll wait here until--until they are sure," said Jane. "You can't refuse me that, Selma."

"But they are sure," said Selma. "You must go with your friends. Here they come."

When Ellen Clearwater and Joe Wetherbe--the second son of the chief owner of the First National--reached the curb, Selma said to Wetherbe:

"Please stand aside. I've something to say to this lady."

When Wetherbe had withdrawn, she said: "Miss Hastings is--not quite herself. You had better take her home alone."

Jane leaned from the open carriage window. "Ellen," said she, "I am going to stay here until Victor recovers consciousness, and I am SURE."

"He has just come around," said Ellen. "He is certain to get well.

His mind is clear."

"I must see for myself," cried Jane.

Selma was preventing her leaving the carriage when Ellen quietly interfered with a significant look for Selma. "Jane," she said, "you can't go in. The doctor has just put every one out but his a.s.sistant and a nurse that has come."

Jane hesitated, drew back into the corner of the carriage. "Tell Mr.

Wetherbe to go his own way," said Ellen aside to Selma, and she got in beside Jane.

"To Mr. Hastings'," said Selma to the driver. The carriage drove away.

She gave Ellen's message to Wetherbe and returned to the house. Victor was still unconscious; he did not come to himself until toward daylight. And then it was clear to them all that Dr. Charlton's encouraging diagnosis was correct.

Public opinion in Remsen City was publicly articulate by means of three daily newspapers--the Pioneer, the Star, and the Free Press. The Star and the Free Press were owned by the same group of capitalists who controlled the gas company and the water works. The Pioneer was owned by the traction interests. Both groups of capitalists were jointly interested in the railways, the banks and in the princ.i.p.al factories.

The Pioneer was Republican, was regarded as the organ of d.i.c.k Kelly.

The Star was Democratic, spoke less cordially of Kelly and always called for House, Mr. House, or Joseph House, Esquire. The Free Press posed as independent with Democratic leanings. It indulged in admirable essays against corruption, gang rule and bossism. But it was never specific and during campaigns was meek and mild. For nearly a dozen years there had not been a word of truth upon any subject important to the people of Remsen City in the columns of any of the three. During wars between rival groups of capitalists a half-truth was now and then timidly uttered, but never a word of "loose talk," of "anarchy," of anything but the entirely "safe, sane and conservative."

Thus, any one who might have witnessed the scenes in Market Square on Thursday evening would have been not a little astonished to read the accounts presented the next day by the three newspapers. According to all three the Workingmen's League, long a menace to the public peace, had at last brought upon Remsen City the shame of a riot in which two men, a woman and four children had lost their lives and more than a hundred, "including the notorious Victor Dorn," had been injured. And after the riot the part of the mob that was hostile to "the Dorn gang"

had swept down upon the office of the New Day, had wrecked it, and had set fire to the building, with the result that five houses were burned before the flames could be put out. The Free Press published, as a mere rumor, that the immediate cause of the outbreak had been an impending "scurrilous attack" in the New Day upon one of the political gangs of the slums and its leader. The a.s.sociated Press, sending forth an account of the riot to the entire country, represented it as a fight between rival gangs of workmen precipitated by the insults and menaces of a "socialistic party led by a young operator named Dorn." Dorn's faction had aroused in the ma.s.s of the workingmen a fear that this spread of "socialistic and anarchistic ideas" would cause a general shut down of factories and a flight of the capital that was "giving employment to labor."

A version of the causes and the events, somewhat nearer the truth, was talked about Remsen City. But all the respectable cla.s.ses were well content with what their newspapers printed. And, while some broad-minded respectabilities spoke of the affair as an outrage, none of them was disposed to think that any real wrong had been done.

Victor Dorn and his crowd of revolutionists had got, after all, only their deserts.

After forty-eight hours of careful study of public opinion, d.i.c.k Kelly decided that Remsen City was taking the dose as he had antic.i.p.ated. He felt emboldened to proceed to his final move in the campaign against "anarchy" in his beloved city. On the second morning after the riot, all three newspapers published double-headed editorials calling upon the authorities to safeguard the community against another such degrading and dangerous upheaval. "It is time that the distinction between liberty and license be sharply drawn." After editorials in this vein had been repeated for several days, after sundry bodies of eminently respectable citizens--the Merchants' a.s.sociation, the Taxpayers' League, the Chamber of Commerce--had pa.s.sed indignant and appealing resolutions, after two priests, a clergyman and four preachers had sermonized against "the leniency of const.i.tuted authority with criminal anarchy," Mr. Kelly had the City Attorney go before Judge Lansing and ask for an injunction.

Judge Lansing promptly granted the injunction. The New Day was enjoined from appearing. The Workingmen's League was enjoined from holding meetings.

Then the County Prosecutor, also a henchman of Kelly's, secured from the Grand Jury--composed of farmers, merchants and owners of factories--indictments against Thomas Colman and Victor Dorn for inciting a riot.

Meanwhile Victor Dorn was rapidly recovering. With rare restraint young Dr. Charlton did not fuss and fret and meddle, did not hamper nature with his blundering efforts to a.s.sist, did not stuff "nourishment" into his patient to decay and to produce poisonous blood.

He let the young man's superb vitality work the inevitable and speedy cure. Thus, wounds and shocks, that have often been mistreated by doctors into mortal, pa.s.sed so quickly that only Selma Gordon and the doctor himself realized how grave Victor's case had been. The day he was indicted--just a week from the riot--he was sitting up and was talking freely.

"Won't it set him back if I tell him all that has occurred?" said Selma.