THE STORM CENTRE
THE STORM CENTRE
A NOVEL
BY
CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON," "A SPECTRE
OF POWER," "IN THESTRANGER-PEOPLE'S COUNTRY,"
"THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS,"
"WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT," ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
1905
Copyright, 1905,
By THE MCMILLAN COMPANY
Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1905.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
THE STORM CENTRE
CHAPTER I
The place reminded him then and later of the storm centre of a cyclone.Outside the tempests of Civil War raged. He could hear, as he sat in thequiet, book-lined room, the turbulent drums fitfully beating in tentedcamps far down the Tennessee River. Through the broad, old-fashionedwindow he saw the purple hills opposite begin to glow with a myriad ofgolden gleams, pulsing like fireflies, that told of thousands of troopsin bivouac. He read the mystic message of the signal lights, shiningwith a different lustre, moving athwart the eminence, then back again,expunged in blackness as a fort across the river flashed out an answer.A military band was playing at headquarters, down in the night-begloomedtown, and now and again the great blare of the brasses came widelysurging on the raw vernal gusts. In the shadowy grove in front of thissuburban home his own battery of horse-artillery was parked. It hadearlier made its way over many an obstacle, and, oddly enough, throughits agency he was recently enabled to[Pg 2] penetrate the exclusivereserve of this Southern household, always hitherto coldly aloof andaverse to the invader.
He had chanced to send a pencilled message on his card to the mansion.It merely expressed a warning to lift the sashes of the windows duringthe trial practice of a new gun, lest in the firing the glass beshattered by the concussion of the air. His name was unusual, and seeingit on the card recalled many pleasant reminiscences to the mind of oldJudge Roscoe. Another "Fluellen Baynell" had been his college chum, andinquiry developed the fact that this Federal captain of artillery wasthe son of this ancient friend. An interchange of calls ensued. And heresat Captain Baynell in the storm centre, the quiet of evening closingin, the lamp on the table serenely aglow, the wood fire flashing on thehigh brass andirons and fender, the lion delineated on the velvet rugrespectfully crouching beneath his feet. But in this suave environmenthe was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, for the old coloredservant who had admitted him and replenished the fire, and whom he hadpolitely greeted as "Uncle Ephraim," in deference to his age, nowloitered, volubly criti