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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Storm Centre
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35423]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM CENTRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Val Wooff and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE STORM CENTRE
+  _A NOVEL_
+
+
+  BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
+
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON," "A
+  SPECTRE OF POWER," "IN THE STRANGER-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 MACMILLAN 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 the
+quiet, book-lined room, the turbulent drums fitfully beating in tented
+camps far down the Tennessee River. Through the broad, old-fashioned
+window he saw the purple hills opposite begin to glow with a myriad of
+golden gleams, pulsing like fireflies, that told of thousands of troops
+in bivouac. He read the mystic message of the signal lights, shining
+with 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-begloomed
+town, and now and again the great blare of the brasses came widely
+surging on the raw vernal gusts. In the shadowy grove in front of this
+suburban home his own battery of horse-artillery was parked. It had
+earlier made its way over many an obstacle, and, oddly enough, through
+its agency he was recently enabled to penetrate the exclusive reserve
+of this Southern household, always hitherto coldly aloof and averse 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 during
+the trial practice of a new gun, lest in the firing the glass be
+shattered by the concussion of the air. His name was unusual, and seeing
+it on the card recalled many pleasant reminiscences to the mind of old
+Judge Roscoe. Another "Fluellen Baynell" had been his college chum, and
+inquiry developed the fact that this Federal captain of artillery was
+the son of this ancient friend. An interchange of calls ensued. And here
+sat Captain Baynell in the storm centre, the quiet of evening closing
+in, the lamp on the table serenely aglow, the wood fire flashing on the
+high brass andirons and fender, the lion delineated on the velvet rug
+respectfully crouching beneath his feet. But in this suave environment
+he was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, for the old colored
+servant who had admitted him and replenished the fire, and whom he had
+politely greeted as "Uncle Ephraim," in deference to his age, now
+loitered, volubly criticising the unseen, unknown inmates of the house,
+who would probably overhear, for at any moment the big oak door might
+usher them into the room.
+
+His excuses for his master's delay to appear absorbed but little time,
+and he assiduously brushed the polished stone hearth with a turkey wing
+to justify his lingering in conversation with the guest. Unexpected
+business had called Judge Roscoe to the town, thus preventing him from
+being present upon the arrival of Captain Baynell, invited to partake of
+tea _en famille_.
+
+"But den, he 'lowed dat Miss Leonora--dat's Mrs. Gwynn, his niece, a
+widder 'oman--would be ready, but Marster mought hev' knowed dat Miss
+Leonora ain't never ready for nuffin till day arter ter-morrow! Den
+dere's de ladies--dey hes been dressin' fur ye fur better dan an hour.
+But shucks! de ladies is so vain dat dey is jus' ez liable ter keep on
+dressin' fur anodder hour yit!"
+
+This was indubitably flattering information; but Captain Baynell, a
+blond man of thirty, of a military stiffness in his brilliant uniform,
+and of a most uncompromising dignity, glanced with an uneasy monition at
+the door, a trifle ajar. He was sensible, notwithstanding, of an
+unusually genial glow of expectation. The rude society of camps was
+unacceptable to a man of his exacting temperament, and, the sentiment of
+the country being so adverse to the cause he represented, he had had
+scant opportunities here to enter social circles of the grade that would
+elsewhere have welcomed him. He had not adequately realized how he had
+missed these refinements and felt the deprivation of his isolation till
+the moment of meeting the ladies of Judge Roscoe's household was at
+hand. He had hardly expected, however, to create so great a flutter
+amongst them, and he was at once secretly elated and disdainful.
+
+Although a stranger to the ladies, the officer was well known to the old
+servant. The guns had hardly been unlimbered in the beautiful grove in
+front of the house ere the ancient slave had appeared in the camp to
+express his ebullient patriotism, to thank his liberators for his
+freedom,--for this was the result of the advance of the Federal army, a
+military measure and not as yet a legal enactment.
+
+Despite his exuberant rhetoric, there was something tenuous about his
+fervent protestations, and the fact that he still adhered to his
+master's service suggested a devotion to the old régime incongruous with
+his loudly proclaimed welcome of the new day.
+
+"Why don't you leave your servitude, then, Uncle Ephraim?" one of the
+younger officers had tentatively asked him.
+
+"Dat is jes' whut I say!" diplomatically replied Uncle Ephraim, who thus
+came to be called "the double-faced Janus."
+
+Now indeed, instead of a vaunt of liberty, he was disposed to apologize,
+for the sake of the credit of the house, that there were no more slaves
+to make a braver show in servitude.
+
+"Dey ain't got no butler now,--he's in a restauroar up north,--nor no
+car'age driver; dat fool nigger went off wid de Union army, an' got
+killed in a scrimmage. He would hev' stayed wid Marster, dough, if de
+Fed'ral folks hedn't tuk de hosses off wid de cavalry; he 'lowed he wuz
+too lonesome yere, wid jes' nuffin' but two-footed cattle ter 'sociate
+wid."
+
+Once more he whisked the turkey wing along the clean, smooth hearth;
+then, still on his knees before the fire, he again addressed himself to
+the explanations he deemed fit as to the reduced status of his master's
+household.
+
+"Me an' my wife is all de servants dey got now--she's Chaney, de cook in
+de kitchen. Dey hatter scuse me, fur I never waited in de house afore.
+No, sah! jes' a wuckin' hand; jes' a cawnfield hand, out'n de cawnfield
+straight!"
+
+Whisk went the turkey wing.
+
+"Dat's whut I tell Miss Leonora,--dat's Mrs. Gwynn, de widder 'oman,
+Marster's niece whut's been takin' keer ob de house yere sence his wife
+died,--I say I dunno no better when I break de dishes, an' Miss Leonora,
+she say a b'ar outer a holler tree would know better. Yah! yah!"
+
+The officer, feeling these domestic confidences a burden, began to
+scrutinize with an appearance of interest the Dresden china shepherd and
+shepherdess at either end of the tall white wooden mantelpiece, and then
+the clock of the same ware in the centre.
+
+Old Janus mistook the nature of his motive. "'Tis gittin' late fur
+shore! Gawd! dem ladies is a-dressin' an' a-dressin' yit! It's a pity
+Miss Leonora--dat's de widder 'oman--don't fix _herself_ up some; looks
+ole, fur true, similar to a ole gran'mammy of a 'oman. But, sah, whut
+did she ever marry dat man fur?"
+
+Captain Baynell, in the stress of an unusual embarrassment, rose and
+walked to one of the tall book-cases, affecting to examine the title of
+a long row of books, but the old servant was not sensitive; he resorted
+to the simple expedient of raising his voice to follow the guest in a
+detail that brought Captain Baynell back to his chair in unseemly haste,
+where a lower tone was practicable.
+
+"She could hev' married my Marster's son, Julius, an' him de flower ob
+de flock! But no! She jus' would marry dis yere Gwynn feller, whut
+nobody wanted her ter marry, an' eloped wid him--she did! An' shore
+'nuff, dey do say he pulled her round de house by de hair ob her head,
+dough some 'lows he jus' bruk a chair ober her head!"
+
+The officer was a brave man, but now he was in the extremity of panic.
+What if some one were at the door on the point of entering?--the "widder
+'oman" herself, for instance!
+
+"I don't need you any longer, Uncle Ephraim," he ventured to
+remonstrate.
+
+"I'm gwine, Cap'n, jus' as soon as I git through wid de ha'th," and
+Uncle Ephraim gave it a perfunctory whisk.
+
+He interpolated an explanation of his diligence. "I don't want Miss
+Leonora--dat's de widder 'oman--ter be remarkin' on it. Nobody kin do
+nuthin' ter suit her but Chaney, dis cook dey got, who belong ter Miss
+Leonora, an' befo' de War used ter be her waitin'-'oman. Chaney is all
+de estate Miss Leonora hes got lef,--an' ye know dat sort o' property
+ain't wurf much in dis happy day o' freedom. Miss Leonora wuz rich once
+in her own right. But she flung her marriage-settlements--dat dey had
+fixed to tie up her property so Gwynn couldn't sell it nor waste
+it--right inter de fiah! She declared she would marry a man whut she
+could trust wid her fortune! An'," the narrator concluded his story
+impressively, "when dat man died--his horse throwed him an' bruk his
+neck--I wondered dey didn't beat de drum fur joy, 'twuz sich a crownin'
+mercy! But he hed spent all her fortune 'fore he went!"
+
+The whisking wing was still; Uncle Ephraim's eyes dwelt on the fire with
+a glow of deep speculation. He lowered his voice mysteriously.
+
+"Dat man wuz de poorest stuff ter make an angel out'n ever you see! I
+dunno _whut's_ become of him."
+
+There was a stir outside, a footfall; and, as Captain Baynell sprang to
+his feet, feeling curiously guilty in receiving, however unwillingly,
+these revelations of the history of the family, Judge Roscoe entered,
+his welcome the more cordial and expressed because he noticed a certain
+constraint in his guest's manner, which he ascribed to the unintentional
+breach of decorum in the failure to properly receive him.
+
+"I had hoped my niece, Mrs. Gwynn, might have been here to save you a
+dull half hour, or perhaps my granddaughters--where are the ladies and
+Mrs. Gwynn, Ephraim?" he broke off to ask of "the double-faced Janus,"
+scuttling out with his basket of chips and his turkey wing.
+
+"De ladies is dressin' ter see de company," replied Janus, with a grin
+wide enough to decorate both his faces. "Miss Leonora, she is helpin'
+'em!"
+
+Captain Baynell experienced renewed embarrassment, but Judge Roscoe
+laughed with obvious relish.
+
+The host, pale, thin, nervous, old, was of a type ill calculated to
+endure the stress of excitement and turmoil of incident of the Civil
+War; indeed, he might have succumbed utterly in the mortality of the
+aged, so general at that period, but for the incongruous rest and
+inaction of the storm centre. The town was heavily garrisoned by the
+Federal forces; the firing line was far afield. He had two sons in the
+Confederate army, but too distant for news, for speculation, for aught
+but anxiety and prayer. The elder of them was a widower, the father of
+"the ladies," and hence in his absence Judge Roscoe's charge of his
+granddaughters.
+
+The phrase "the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn" grated on Captain Baynell. It
+seemed incongruous with the punctilious old Southern gentleman to make a
+discourteous distinction thus between his granddaughters and his niece.
+Baynell dated his sympathy with her from that moment. However old and
+faded and reduced the house-keeperish "widder 'oman" might be, it was an
+affront to thus segregate her. He felt an antagonism toward "the ladies"
+in their exclusive aristocratic designation even before he heard the
+first dainty touch of their slippered feet upon the great stairway, or a
+gush of fairylike treble laughter. As a silken rustle along the hall
+heralded their bedizened approach, he arose ceremoniously to greet them.
+
+The door flew open with a wide swing; his eyes rested on nothing beyond,
+for he was looking two feet over range. There rushed into the room three
+little girls, six and eight years of age, all hanging back for a moment
+till their grandfather's encouraging "Come, ladies!" nerved them for the
+introduction of Captain Baynell. Although sensible of a deep
+disappointment and a sudden cessation of interest in the storm centre,
+he could hardly refrain from laughing at the downfall of his own
+confident expectations.
+
+Yet "the ladies," in their way, were well worth looking at, and their
+diligent care of their toilette had not been in vain. The two younger
+ones were twins, very rosy, with golden hair, delicately curled and
+perfumed. The other was far more beautiful than either. Her hair was of
+a chestnut hue; her dark blue eyes were eloquent with meaning--"speaking
+eyes." She had an exquisitely fair complexion and an entrancing smile,
+and amidst the twittering words and fluttering laughter of the others
+she was silent; it was a sinister, weighty, significant silence.
+
+"A deaf mute," her grandfather explained with a note of pathos and pain.
+
+Captain Baynell's acceptance of the fact had the requisite touch of
+sympathy and interest, but no more. How could he imagine that the
+child's infirmity could ever concern him, could be a factor of import in
+the most notable crisis of his life!
+
+Indeed, he might have forgotten it within the hour had naught else
+riveted his attention to the house. He had begun to look forward to a
+dull evening,--the reaction from the expectation of charming feminine
+society of a congenial age. "The ladies" failed in that particular,
+lovely though they were in the quaint costumes of the day, the
+golden-haired twins respectively in faint blue and dark red "satin
+faced" merino, the brown-haired child in rich orange. Over their bodices
+all three wore sheer spencers of embroidered Swiss muslin, with
+embroidered ruffles below the waist line. This was encircled with
+silken sashes, the tint of their gowns. The skirts were short, showing
+long, white, clocked stockings and red morocco slippers with elastic
+crossing the instep. The trio were swift in making advances into
+friendship, and soon were swarming about the officer, counting his
+shining buttons with great particularity, and squealing with greedy
+delight when an unexpected row was discovered on the seam of each of his
+sleeves.
+
+As the door again opened, the very aspect of the room altered--a new
+presence pervaded the life of Fluellen Baynell that made the idea of
+strife indeed alien, aloof; the past a forgotten trifle; the future
+remote, in indifferent abeyance, and the momentous present the chief
+experience of his existence. It was partially the effect of surprise,
+although other elements exerted a potent influence.
+
+Instead of the forlorn, faded "widder 'oman" of his fancy, there
+appeared a girlish shape, whose young, fair face was a magnet to all the
+romance within him. What mattered it with such beauty that the
+expression was a dreary lassitude, the pose indifference, the garb a
+shabby black dress worn with no touch of distinction, no thought, no
+care for appearances. As he rose, with "the ladies" affectionately
+clinging about him, and bowed low in the moment of introduction, his
+searching eyes discerned every minute detail. It was like a sun picture
+upon his consciousness, realized and fixed in his mind as if he had
+known it forever. And with a sudden ignoble recollection his face
+flushed from his forehead to his high military collar. Was it her hair,
+the old gossip had said, or was it a chair?
+
+It was impossible to look at her without noticing her hair. A rich,
+golden brown, it waved back from her white brow in heavy undulations,
+caught and coiled in a great glittering knot at the back of her head,
+with no ornament, simplicity itself. Certainly, he reflected, no
+preparations were in progress in this quarter for his captivation. One
+of the ready-made crape collars of the period was about her neck, the
+delicate, fine contour of her throat displayed by the cut of her dress.
+Her luminous gray eyes, with their long black lashes, cast upon him a
+mere glance, cool, casual, unfriendly, it might even seem, if it were
+worth her languid while.
+
+He sought to win her to some demonstration of interest when they were
+presently at table, with old Janus skirmishing about the dining room
+with a silver salver, hindering the meal rather than serving it. Only
+conventional courtesy characterized her, although she gave Baynell a
+radiant smile when offering a second cup of tea; an official smile, so
+to speak, strictly appertaining to her pose as hostess, as she sat
+behind the massive silver tea service that had been in the Roscoe family
+for many years.
+
+She left the conversation almost wholly to the gentlemen when they had
+returned to the library. Quiescent, inexpressive, she leaned back in a
+great arm-chair, her beautiful eyes fixed reflectively on the fire. The
+three "ladies," on a small sofa, apparently listened too, the little
+dumb girl seeming the most attentive of the trio, to the half-hearted,
+guarded, diplomatic discussion of politics, such as was possible in
+polite society to men of opposing factions in those heady, bitter days.
+Only once, when Baynell was detailing the names of his brothers to
+gratify Judge Roscoe's interest in the family of his ancient friend, did
+Mrs. Gwynn suggest her individuality. She suddenly rose.
+
+"You would like to see the portraits of Judge Roscoe's sons," she said
+as definitely as if he had asked this privilege. It may not have been
+the fact, but Baynell felt that she was making amends to the absent for
+the apostasy of "entertaining a Yankee officer," as the phrase went in
+that day, by exhibiting with pride their cherished images and forcing
+him to perform polite homage before them.
+
+He meekly followed, however, as she took from a wide-mouthed jar on the
+table a handful of tapers, made of rolled paper, and, lighting one at
+the fire, led the way across the wide hall and into the cold, drear
+gloom of the drawing-rooms. There in the dim light from the hall
+chandelier, shining through the open door, she flitted from lamp to
+lamp, and instantly there was a chill, white glitter throughout the
+great apartments, showing the floriated velvet carpets, affected at that
+time, the carved rosewood furniture upholstered with satin damask of
+green and gold, the lambrequins of a harmonizing brocade and lace
+curtains at the windows, the grand piano, and marble-topped tables, and
+on the walls a great inexpressive mirror, above each of the white marble
+mantelpieces, and some large oil paintings, chiefly the portraits of the
+family.
+
+The three "ladies" gathered under the picture of their father with the
+fervor of pilgrims at a votive shrine. Clarence Roscoe's portrait seemed
+to gaze down at them smilingly. He it was who had given his little
+daughters their quaint, formal sobriquet of "the ladies," the phrase
+seriously accepted by others, until no longer recognized as a nickname.
+Suddenly the deaf mute rushed back to officiously claim the officer's
+attention. Her brilliant eyes were aglow; the fascination of her smile
+transfigured her face; she was now gazing at another portrait. This was
+of a very young man, extraordinarily handsome, in full Confederate
+uniform, and, carrying her hand to her forehead with the most spirited
+air imaginable, she gave the military salute.
+
+"That is her sign for Julius," cried Mrs. Gwynn, delightedly. "We have
+seen many armies with banners, but Julius is her ideal of a soldier, and
+the only one in all the world whom she distinguishes by the military
+salute."
+
+"My younger son," explained Judge Roscoe; while "the ladies" with their
+quick transitions from subject to subject were sidling about the rooms,
+sinking their feet as deep as possible into the soft pile of the velvet
+carpets, and feeling with their slim fingers the rich gloss of the satin
+damask coverings, complacent in the consciousness that it was all very
+fine and revelling in a sense of luxury. Poor little ladies!
+
+But Mrs. Gwynn with a word presently sent them scuttling back to the
+warmth of the library. As she began to extinguish the lamps Baynell
+offered to assist. She accepted civilly, of course, but with the
+unnoting, casual acquiescence that had begun to pique him, and as they
+closed the door upon the shadowy deserted apartments he thought they
+were of a grewsome favor, that the evening was of an untoward drift, and
+he lingered only for the conventional interval after returning to the
+library before he took his leave.
+
+As the door closed after him he noted that the stars were in the dark
+sky. The wind was laid. The lights in the many camps had all
+disappeared, for "taps" had sounded. Now and again in close succession
+he heard the clocks in divers towers in Roanoke City striking the hour.
+There was no token of military occupation in all the land, save that
+from far away on a turnpike toward the dark west came the dull
+continuous roll of wagon wheels as an endless forage train made its way
+into the town; and as he passed out of the portico, a sentry posted on
+the gravelled drive in front of the house challenged him. He had ordered
+a guard to be stationed there for its protection against wandering
+marauders, so remote was the place. He gave the countersign, and took
+his way down through the great oak and tulip trees of the grove that his
+authority had also been exerted to preserve. His father's old friend had
+this claim upon his courtesy, he felt, for century oaks cannot be
+replaced in a fortnight, and without them the home would indeed be
+bereft.
+
+Thinking still of the placid storm centre, Leonora Gwynn's face was
+continually in his mind; the tones of her voice echoed in his revery.
+And then suddenly he heard his step ringing on the frosty ground with a
+new spirit; he felt his finger tips tingle; his face glowed with rancor.
+The man was dead, and this indeed was well! But--profane thought! was it
+her hair? her beautiful hair? "The coward! the despicable villain!" he
+called aloud between his set teeth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The next day naught of interest would Baynell detail of his venture into
+the storm centre. His invitation to the house of Judge Roscoe, somewhat
+noted for the vigor of his rebellious sentiments, resentful, implacable,
+even heady in the assumptions of his age, had roused the curiosity of
+Baynell's two most intimate friends concerning the traits of that
+secluded inner exclusive circle which only the accident of ancient
+association had enabled him to penetrate. In the tedium of camp routine
+even slight matters were of interest, and it was the habit of the three
+to compare notes and relate for mutual entertainment their varied
+experiences since last they had met.
+
+The battery of six pieces which Baynell commanded enjoyed a certain
+renown as a crack corps, and spectators were gathering to witness the
+gun-drill,--a number of soldiers from the adjoining cavalry and infantry
+camps, a few of the railroad hands from the repair work on a neighboring
+track, and a contingent of freedmen, jubilantly idle. Standing a little
+apart from these was a group, chiefly mounted, consisting of several
+officers of the different arms of the service, military experts,
+critically observant, among whom was Colonel Vertnor Ashley, who
+commanded a volunteer regiment of horse, and a younger man, Lieutenant
+Seymour of the infantry.
+
+It was a fine fresh morning, with white clouds scudding across a densely
+blue sky chased by the wind, the grass springing into richer verdure,
+the buds bourgeoning, with almost the effect of leaflets already, in the
+great oak and tulip trees of the grove. Daffodils were blooming here and
+there, scattered throughout the sward,--even beneath the carriages of
+the guns a score perhaps, untrampled still, reared aloft the golden
+"candlesticks" with an illuminating effect. The warm sun was flashing
+with an embellishing glitter on the rows of the white tents of the army
+on the hills around the little city as far as the eye could reach. The
+deep, broad river, here and there dazzling with lustrous stretches of
+ripples, was full of craft,--coal-barges, skiffs, gunboats, the ordinary
+steam-packets, flatboats, and rafts; the peculiar dull roar of a railway
+train heavily laden, transporting troops, came to the ear as the engine,
+shrieking like a monster, rushed upon the bridge with its great
+consignment of crowded humanity in the long line of box cars, an
+additional locomotive assisting the speed of the transit.
+
+"Come here, Ashley, and see if you can make anything of Baynell," said
+the infantry lieutenant, whose regiment lay in camp a little to the
+west, as the colonel reined in his horse under the tree where Seymour
+was hanging on to Baynell's stirrup-leather. "He hasn't a syllable to
+say. I want to know what is the name of that pretty girl at Judge
+Roscoe's."
+
+Ashley came riding up with his inimitable pompous swagger, half the
+result of jocose bravado, half of genuine and justifiable vanity. It
+went very well with the suggestions of his high cavalry boots, his
+clanking sword, and his jingling spurs. His somewhat broad ruddy face
+had the merit of a sidelong glance of great archness, delivered from a
+pair of vivacious hazel eyes, and he twirled his handsome, long, dark
+mustache with the air of a conqueror at the very mention of a pretty
+girl.
+
+"I can tell you more about Judge Roscoe's family than Fluellen Baynell
+ever will," Ashley declared gayly. "So ask _me_ what you want to know,
+Mark, and don't intrude on Nellie's finical delicacy."
+
+Throughout the campaign Colonel Ashley's squadrons had coöperated with
+Baynell's artillery. The officers had come to know and respect each
+other well in the stress of danger and mutual dependence. It may be
+doubted whether any other man alive could with impunity have called
+Fluellen Baynell "Nellie."
+
+Baynell was in full uniform, splendidly mounted, awaiting the hour
+appointed, and now and again casting his eye on the camp "street" at
+some distance, the stable precincts all a turmoil of hurrying drivers
+and artillerymen harnessing horses and adjusting accoutrements, while a
+continuous hum of voices, jangling of metal, and tramping of steeds came
+on the air. He withdrew his attention with an effort.
+
+"Why, what do you want me to tell?" he demanded sarcastically;--"what
+they had for supper?"
+
+"No--no--but just be neighborly. For sheer curiosity I want to know his
+daughter's name," persisted the lieutenant of infantry.
+
+"Judge Roscoe has no daughter," replied Baynell.
+
+"His granddaughter, then."
+
+"His granddaughters are children--I have forgotten their names."
+
+"Well, _who_ is that young lady there?--a beauty of beauties. I caught a
+glimpse of her at the window the day we pitched our camp in the peach
+orchard over there."
+
+"She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," solemnly declared
+Ashley, who had artistic proclivities. "I never saw a face like
+that--such chiselling, so perfect--unless it were some fine antique
+cameo. It has the contour, the lines, the dignity, of a Diana! And her
+hair is really exquisite! Who is she, Fluellen?"
+
+Baynell was conscious of the constraint very perceptible in his voice as
+he replied, "She is Judge Roscoe's niece, Mrs. Gwynn."
+
+Ashley stared. "_Mrs.!_ Why, she doesn't look twenty years old!" Then,
+with sudden illumination, "Why--that must be the '_widder 'oman!_'" with
+an unctuous imitation of old Ephraim's elocution. "I _am_ surprised.
+Mrs. Gwynn! 'De widder 'oman!'" He broke off to laugh at a sudden
+recollection.
+
+"I wish you could have heard old Janus's account of his effort to clean
+the knives to suit her. She seems to be in command of the commissariat
+up there. The old darkey came into camp, searching for the methods of
+polishing metals that the soldiers use for their accoutrements.
+'Brilliancy without labor,' was Uncle Ephraim's desideratum. I gave him
+some rotten-stone. His sketch of how the judgment day would overtake him
+still polishing knives for the 'widder 'oman' was worth hearing."
+
+Baynell would not have so considered it--thus far apart were the friends
+in prejudice and temperament. Yet there was no derogation in the simple
+gossip. To the campaigners the Roscoe household was but the temporary
+incident of the mental landscape, and the confidential bit of criticism
+and comment served only to make conversation and pass the time.
+
+All of Vertnor Ashley's traits were on a broad scale, genial and open.
+He had the best opinion imaginable of himself, and somehow the world
+shared it--so ingratiating was his joviality. His very defects were
+obviated and went for naught. Although, being only of middle height,
+his tendency to portliness threatened the grace of his proportions, he
+was esteemed a fine figure and a handsome man. He made a brave show in
+the saddle, and was a magnificent presentment of a horseman. He was a
+poor drill; his discipline was lax, for he dearly loved popularity and
+fostered this incense to his vanity. He was adored in his regiment, and
+he never put foot in stirrup to ride in or out of camp that even this
+casual appearance was not cheered to the echo. "That must be Vert
+Ashley, or a rabbit!" was a usual speculation upon the sound of sudden
+shouting, for the opportunity to chase a rabbit was a precious break in
+the monotony of the life of the rank and file.
+
+Baynell's coming and going, on the contrary, was greeted with no
+demonstration. He was a rigid disciplinarian. He exacted every capacity
+for work that the men possessed, and his battery was one of the most
+efficient of the horse artillery in the service. But when it came to the
+test of battle, the cannoneers could not shout loud and long enough.
+They were sure of fine execution and yet of careful avoidance of the
+reckless sacrifice of their lives and the capture of their guns, often
+returning, indeed, from action, covered with glory, having lost not one
+man, not so much as a sponge-staff. So fine an officer could well
+dispense with the arts that fostered popularity and ministered to
+vanity. Thus the slightest peccadillo made the offender and the wooden
+horse acquaint.
+
+None of Baynell's qualities were of the jovial order. He was a martinet,
+a technical expert in the science of gunnery, a stern and martial leader
+of men. His mind was an orderly assimilation of valuable information,
+his consciousness a repelling exclusive assortment of sensitive fibres.
+He had a high and exacting moral sense, and his pride of many various
+kinds passed all bounds. He listened with aghast dismay to the story of
+Mrs. Gwynn's unhappy married life that Ashley rehearsed,--the ordinary
+gossip of the day, to be heard everywhere,--and then a discussion took
+place as to whether or not the horse that killed her husband were the
+vicious charger now ridden by the colonel of a certain regiment.
+
+"It couldn't be," said Ashley, "that happened nearly a year ago."
+
+This talk hung on for a long time, as it seemed to Baynell. Yet he did
+not welcome its conclusion, for a greater source of irritation was to
+come.
+
+"But now that you have a footing there, Fluellen, I want you to
+introduce me," said Colonel Ashley, who was a person of consideration in
+high and select circles at home, and spoke easily from the
+vantage-ground of an acknowledged social position. "I should be glad to
+meet Mrs. Gwynn. I never saw any one whose appearance so impressed me."
+
+"Take me with you when you two call," the lieutenant, all unprescient,
+interjected casually. The next moment he was flushing angrily, for,
+impossible as it seemed, Baynell was declining in set terms.
+
+"My footing there would not justify me in asking to introduce my
+friends," he said. "I should be afraid of a refusal."
+
+Ashley, too, cast a swift, indignant glance upon him. Then, "I'll risk
+it," he said easily; for ill-humor with him was "about face" so suddenly
+that it was hardly to be recognized.
+
+Baynell showed a stiff distaste for the persistence, but maintained his
+position.
+
+"Judge Roscoe made it plain that it was only for the sake of his
+friendship with my father that he offered any civility to me--no
+concession politically. My status as an officer of the 'Yankee army' is
+an offence and a stumbling-block to him."
+
+"Bless his fire-eating soul! I don't want to convert him from his
+treason. I desire only to call on the lady."
+
+"I myself could not call on Mrs. Gwynn," protested Baynell. "She hardly
+spoke a word to me."
+
+"It will be quite sufficient for her to listen to me," laughed Ashley.
+
+"She took only the most casual notice of my presence--barely to give me
+a cup of tea."
+
+"Now, Baynell," said the lieutenant, exceedingly wroth. "I want you to
+understand that I take this very ill of you."
+
+He was a tall, spare young fellow, with light, straight brown hair, a
+light-brown mustache, and a keen, excitable blue eye, which showed
+well-opened and alert from under the dark brim of his cap as he looked
+upward, still standing at the side of Baynell's restive horse. "I think
+it a very poor return for similar courtesy. I took _you_ with me to call
+on Miss Fisher--and--"
+
+"This is a very different case. I, personally, am not on terms with Mrs.
+Gwynn. Besides, she is very different from Miss Fisher, who entertains
+general society. Mrs. Gwynn is a widow--in deep mourning."
+
+"But it _is_ told in Gath that widows are not usually inconsolable,"
+suggested Ashley, with a brightening of his arch eyes, and still
+laughing it off.
+
+"I am much affronted, Captain Baynell," declared the irascible
+lieutenant. "I consider this personal. And I will get even with you for
+this!"
+
+"And I will get an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn without your kind
+offices," declared Ashley, with a jocular imitation of their young
+friend's indignant manner.
+
+"I shall be very happy if you can meet her in any appropriate way. It is
+not appropriate for me, cognizant of their ardent rebel sympathies and
+intense antagonism to the Union cause and antipathy to all its
+supporters, to ask to introduce my friends of the invading 'Yankee
+army,'" Baynell replied with stiff hauteur.
+
+Just then the bugle sang out, its mandatory, clear, golden tones lifting
+into the sunshine with such a full buoyant effect that it was like the
+very spirit of martial courage transmuted into sound. Baynell instantly
+put his horse into motion, and rode off through the brilliant air and
+the sparse shadows of the budding trees. His blond hair and mustache,
+gilded by the sunlight, had as decorative an effect as his gold lace;
+his blue eyes glittered with a stern, vigilant light; his face was
+flushed, something unusual, for he was wont to be pale, and his erect,
+imposing, soldierly figure sat his spirited young charger with the
+firmness of a centaur. The eyes of all the group followed him, several
+commenting on his handsome appearance, his fine bearing, his splendid
+horse, and his great value as an officer.
+
+"He is an admirable fellow," declared Dr. Grindley, a surgeon on his way
+to the hospital hard by. He had paused at a little distance, and had not
+heard the conversation.
+
+"If he were not such a prig," Ashley assented dubiously. "Such an
+uncompromising stickler on trifles! Any other man in the world would
+have slurred the matter over, and never kept the promise of the
+introduction. If inconvenient or undesirable, he might have postponed
+the call indefinitely."
+
+"He is a most confounded prig," said Lieutenant Seymour, in great
+irritation.
+
+"Baynell must have everything out--to the bitter end," said Ashley.
+
+"I'd like to break his head! I'd like to break his face--with my fist,"
+exclaimed the lieutenant, petulantly, clenching his hand again and
+again. He detailed the tenor of the conversation to the surgeon as the
+group watched the manoeuvring battery. "Isn't that a dog-in-the-manger-ish
+trick, Dr. Grindley? He wants to keep his Roscoes to himself. Mrs. Gwynn
+won't speak to him, and so he wants nobody else to go there whom she
+_might_ speak to!"
+
+Baynell, still uncomfortably conscious of the rancor he had roused, had
+taken his position in the centre, just the regulation twelve paces in
+front of the leading horses, with the music four paces distant from the
+right of the first gun. As the sound blared out gayly on the crisp,
+clear, vernal breeze, the glittering ranks, every soldier mounted on a
+strong, fresh steed, moved forward swiftly, with the gun-carriages and
+caissons each drawn by a team of six horses. The air was full of the
+tramp of hoofs and the clangor of heavy, revolving wheels, ever and anon
+punctuated by the sharp monition, "Obstacle!" as one of the giant oaks
+of the grove intervened and the direction of the march of a piece was
+obliqued. The efficiency of the battery was very evident. The drill was
+almost perfect, despite the difficulty of manoeuvring among the trees.
+But when the ranks passed from the grove they swept like a whirlwind
+over the open spaces of the adjoining pasture-lands, the whole battery
+swinging here and there in sharp turns, never losing the prescribed
+intervals of the relative distance of squads, and guns, and
+caissons--all like some single intricate piece of connected mechanism,
+impossible of disassociation in its several parts. Ever and anon the
+clear tenor tones of the captain rang out with a trumpet-like effect,
+and the refrain of the subalterns and non-commissioned officers
+commanding the sections followed in their various clamors, while the
+great whirling congeries of horses and men and wheels and guns obeyed
+the sound like some automatic creation of the ingenuity of man. Once the
+surgeon bent an attentive ear.
+
+"By sections--break from the right to march to left!" called the
+commander, with a sudden "catch" in the tones.
+
+"Caissons forward! Trot! March!" came from a different voice.
+
+"Section forward, guide left!" thundered a basso profundo.
+
+"March!" cried the captain, sharply.
+
+"March!" came the subaltern's echo.
+
+As the moving panorama turned and wheeled and shifted, the surgeon
+commented in a spirit of forecast:--
+
+"If that fellow doesn't pay some attention to his bronchial tubes, they
+will pay some attention to him, and that promptly."
+
+So promptly indeed was this prophecy verified that within the next few
+days old Ephraim, who purveyed all the news of the period to the remote
+secluded country house, informed Judge Roscoe that Captain Baynell was
+seriously ill with bronchitis and threatened with pneumonia. In order to
+have indoor protection and treatment he was to be removed as soon as
+possible to the hospital near the town. Judge Roscoe verified this rumor
+upon hastening to camp, and with hospitable warmth he invited the son of
+his old schoolmate to sojourn instead in his house; for in the college
+days to which he was fond of recurring he had been taken into the home
+of the elder Fluellen Baynell, and nursed by his friend's mother through
+a typhoid attack. To repay the obligation thus was peculiarly acceptable
+to a man of his type. But Baynell hardly heeded the detail of the
+hospitable precedent. He needed no persuasion, and thereafter he seemed
+more than ever lapsed in the serenities of the storm centre, ensconced
+in one of the great square upper bedrooms, with the spare furnishing of
+heavy mahogany that gave an idea of so much space, the order of the day
+when the plethora of decoration, the "cosy corner," the wall pocket, the
+"art drapery," the crowded knickknackery, did not obtain. For more than
+a week Baynell could not rise; the surgeon visited him at regular
+intervals, and Judge Roscoe appeared unfailingly each morning in the
+sick room; but the rest of the family remained invisible, and held
+unsympathetically aloof.
+
+This was a shrewd loss to Ashley, for although he had called at first
+with genuine anxiety as to his friend's state, the humors of the
+situation appealed to him as time wore on, and he recollected with the
+enhanced interest of enforced idleness his boast that he would compass
+an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn, despite Baynell's stiff refusal. Seymour
+still resented the circumstance so seriously that he had withheld all
+manifestations of sympathy or concern, and this, the kind Ashley
+considered, carried the matter much too far. He thought it might effect
+a general reconciliation if he should meet Mrs. Gwynn by accident, when
+he fancied he would not fear to introduce any one whom he considered fit
+for good society. Thus, after he had ceased to be apprehensive
+concerning Baynell's condition, he called on him again and again, but
+hearing never a light footfall on the stair or the flutter of flounces
+that might promise a realization of his quest. He was all unconscious
+that his project had an unwitting ally in Judge Roscoe himself. For more
+than once Judge Roscoe was uncomfortably visited by hospitable
+monitions.
+
+"I should have liked to ask Colonel Ashley to dine with us," he said
+tentatively to Mrs. Gwynn. "He was leaving the house just as the meal
+was being served. Old Ephraim--confound the old fellow--has no sort of
+tact. He brought in the soup to Captain Baynell with Colonel Ashley
+sitting by the bedside! It was indeed a hint to beat a retreat. I was--I
+was mortified. I was really mortified not to ask him to stay."
+
+"Heavens, Uncle Gerald!--what are you dreaming about? Ask people to
+dine, and no trained servant to wait on the table--and this china--and
+the ladies in their pinafores!" And Mrs. Gwynn glanced scoffingly around
+the domestic board, for the place had once been famous for the elegance
+of its entertainments; but the balls, the "wine suppers," the formal
+late dinners of many courses, had come to an end with the conclusion of
+the period of prosperity, and the perfectly trained service had vanished
+with the vanishing butler and his corps of assistants whom he himself
+had rigorously drilled in the school of the pantry, in strict accordance
+with old traditions.
+
+"Well, we have better china," said the judge, inexorably. "And the
+pinafores don't grow on the ladies; we have excellent precedent for
+believing they can be dispensed with."
+
+Mrs. Gwynn fixed him with a resolute eye. "I don't intend to have the
+ladies taken from their studies in the forenoon to dress for company and
+distract their minds with fascinating gentlemen. Besides it is too great
+a compliment to receive an absolute stranger informally, as one of
+ourselves,--as we treat Captain Baynell,--and it is almost impossible
+to entertain Colonel Ashley otherwise. You forget that we have no
+trained servants. And I am not going to trust the handling of my aunt's
+beautiful old Sèvres dinner set to our inexperienced factotum--oh, the
+idea! It makes me shudder to think of the nicks and smashings. It ought
+to be kept intact for Julius's wife when he takes one, or for Clarence's
+if he should ever marry again. A stray Yankee officer isn't sufficient
+justification for risking it."
+
+"He has called so often, and has been so kind to Captain Baynell."
+
+"Well, so have I been kind to Captain Baynell, and here am I eating on
+the everyday china--no Sèvres for me! And I am going to be kinder still,
+for he is allowed to have some dessert to-day, and I have spread this
+tray with mine own hands."
+
+She touched a call-bell, and, as old Janus appeared, "Take this tray
+upstairs to Captain Baynell," she said, as she transferred it, "be
+careful--don't tilt it so!" Then, as the old servant left the room, she
+resumed, addressing Judge Roscoe: "You can sentimentalize about your
+precious Captain Baynell, if you like, on the score of old friendship. I
+can appreciate the claims of old friendship, especially as he has been
+so ill, and possibly was better off here than at the hospital. But to go
+in generally for entertaining Yankee officers,--and all our near and
+dear out yonder in those cold wet trenches, half starved, and ragged,
+and wounded, and dying,--indeed, no! For my own part, I couldn't be
+induced to spread a board for another one, except at the point of the
+bayonet."
+
+"Colonel Ashley don't wear no bayonet," interposed Adelaide, glibly.
+
+"He's got him a sword," acceded Geraldine.
+
+"A long sword, clickety-clank," suggested the first "lady."
+
+"Clickety, clickety-clank," echoed the other, with brightening eyes.
+
+"Don't eat with your fingers--nor the spoon; take the fork." Mrs.
+Gwynn's admonitory aside was hardly an interruption.
+
+"That is a very narrow view, Leonora," the judge contended. "There can
+be no parity between the fervor of convictions on the issues of a great
+national question and merely human predilections as between individuals.
+Patriotism is not license for rancor. I have shown my devotion to the
+Southern cause. I have risked the lives of my dear, dear sons. I have
+expended much in its interests; I have endangered and lost my fortune.
+The future of all I hold dear is in jeopardy in many aspects. But I _do
+not_ feel bound for that reason to hate individually every
+fellow-creature who has opposite convictions, to which he has a right,
+and takes up arms to sustain them."
+
+"Well--_I do_! Being a woman, and having no reasoning capacities, there
+is no necessity for me to be logical on the subject. I feel what I
+feel, without qualification. And I know what I know without either legal
+proof or ocular demonstration. You are welcome to your intellect, Uncle
+Gerald! Much good may it do you! Intuition is enough for me. Meantime
+the Sèvres is safe on the shelves."
+
+Beaten from the field as Judge Roscoe must needs be when his vaunted
+ratiocination was no available weapon, he held stanchly nevertheless to
+his own opinion, helpless though he was in the domestic administration.
+He adopted such measures as were practicable to comport with his own
+view. Flattered by Ashley's interest in Baynell and recognizant of the
+frequency of his visits, never dreaming that a glimpse of Mrs. Gwynn was
+their ultimate object, he took occasion to offer him such slight
+courtesies as opportunity presented.
+
+One day when they were descending the stairs Judge Roscoe chanced to
+comment on the fine bouquet of a certain choice old wine. He still
+hoarded a few costly bottles of an ancient importation, and with a
+sudden thought he insisted on pausing in the library to take a glass and
+finish a discussion happily begun by the invalid's bedside. The room was
+vacant, as the colonel's keen glance swiftly assured him, and the
+judge's order for wine was inaugurated through the bell-cord, which
+jangling summons old Ephraim answered somewhat procrastinatingly. The
+expression of surprise in the old darkey's eyes, even admonitory
+dissuasion, as he hearkened to the demand, very definitely nettled the
+judge and secretly amused Ashley, who divined the old servitor's doubts
+as to gaining the permission of "de widder 'oman." The host was more
+relieved than he cared to acknowledge to himself when the factotum
+presently reappeared, bearing a tray, with the old-fashioned
+red-and-white Bohemian wine-glasses and decanter which contained the
+rare vintage, and he felt with a sigh that he was still supreme in his
+own house, despite the sway of Mrs. Gwynn. He recognized the more
+gratefully, however, her influence in the perfection of the service and
+the solemnly careful, preternaturally watchful step of old Ephraim, as
+he bore about the delicate glass with all the effect of treading on
+eggs,--finally depositing it on the table and withdrawing at his
+habitual plunging gait.
+
+Although Ashley dawdled as he listened and sipped his wine languorously,
+no rustle of draperies rewarded his attentive ear, no graceful presence
+gladdened his expectant eye. And when at last he could linger no longer,
+he took up his hope even as he had laid it down, in the expectation of a
+luckier day.
+
+"Come again, my dear sir, whenever you can. I am always glad to see you,
+and your presence cheers Captain Baynell. His father was my dearest
+friend. I felt his death as if he had been a brother. I have grown
+greatly attached to his son, who closely resembles him. Anything you can
+do for Captain Baynell I appreciate as a personal favor. Come again!
+Come again soon!"
+
+Perhaps if Colonel Ashley had not been so bereft of the normal interests
+of life, in this interval of inactivity, his curiosity as to that
+fleeting glimpse of a beautiful woman might not have maintained its
+whetted edge. Perhaps constantly recurrent disappointment roused his
+persistence. He came again and yet again, and still he saw no member of
+the family save Judge Roscoe. Even the surgeon commented. "There is a
+considerable feminine garrison up there," he said one day; "I often hear
+mention of the ladies, but they never make a sally. I suspect the old
+judge is more of a fire-eater than he shows nowadays, for his womenfolks
+are evidently straight-out 'Secesh'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Captain Baynell himself, throughout his illness, saw naught of the
+feminine inmates of the house, but the first day of convalescence that
+he was able to be out of his room and to descend the stairs, unsteadily
+enough and holding to the balustrade all the way, he was very civilly
+greeted by Mrs. Gwynn when he suddenly appeared at the library door.
+
+She glanced up with obvious surprise, then advanced with the light, airy
+elegance that was naturally appurtenant to her slight figure, and seemed
+no more a conscious pose or gait than the buoyancy of a bird or a
+butterfly. She shook hands with him, hoped he was better, congratulated
+him on the happy termination of so serious an illness, cautioned him
+against exposure to the chilly uncertain weather, drew a great arm-chair
+nearer to the fire, and as he seated himself she piled up some old
+numbers of _Blackwood's Magazine_ and the _Edinburgh Review_ on a little
+table close to his elbow.
+
+Her regard for his comfort--casual, even official, so to speak, though
+it was, the attentive, considerate expression of her beautiful eyes,
+the kindly tones of her dulcet, drawling voice--affected him like a
+benediction. He was still feeble, tremulous, and his heart throbbed with
+sudden surges of emotion. He was grateful, recognizant, flattered,
+although the provision for his mental entertainment bore also the
+interpretation that he need not trouble himself to talk.
+
+Therefore he affected to read, and she sat apparently oblivious of his
+presence, crocheting a fichu-like garment, called a "sontag" in those
+days, destined for a friend, evidently, not for her own sombre wear. The
+material was of an ultramarine blue zephyr, with a border of flecked
+black and white. She was making no great speed, for often the long,
+white bone needle fell from her listless grasp, and with her beautiful
+eyes on the fire, her face no longer a cold, impassive mask, but all
+unconscious, soft, wistful, sweet, showing her real identity, she would
+lose herself in revery till some interruption--Judge Roscoe's entrance,
+the "ladies" and their demands, old Ephraim seeking orders--would rouse
+her with a start as from a veritable dream.
+
+As the days went thus slowly by it soon came to pass that Baynell could
+not be silent. Her presence here flattered him, but he did not reflect
+that the library was the gathering-place of all the family; it held,
+too, the only fire, except his own, in the house, a fact which he,
+forgetful of the scarcity of fuel which the army had occasioned, did not
+appreciate. She could hardly withdraw, and, with her work in her hand,
+she could not ignore her uncle's guest.
+
+Sometimes he caught himself covertly studying her expression, marvelling
+at its complete absorption;--at the strange fact that so slight a token
+of such deep introspection showed on the surface. It was like some
+expanse of still, clear waters--one can only know that here are
+unmeasured fathoms, abysses of unexplored depths. Her meditation, her
+obvious brooding thought, seemed significant; yet sometimes he was prone
+to deem this merely the cast of her noble, reflective features, her
+expansive brow, the comprehensive intelligence of her limpid eyes,--all
+so beautiful, yet endowed with something far beyond mere beauty. Now and
+again he read aloud a passage which specially struck his attention, and
+occasionally her comments jarred on his preconceived opinion of her, or,
+rather, of what a woman so young, so favored, so graciously endowed,
+ought to feel and think. One day, particularly, he was much impressed by
+this. Some benignant philosopher, reaching out both hands to the happy
+time of the millennium, had given voice to the theory that man's
+inhumanity to man, particularly in the more cultured circles, was the
+result of scant mutual knowledge--if we but knew the sorrows of others,
+how hate would be metamorphosed to pity, the bruised reed unbroken! This
+sentiment mightily pleased Captain Baynell, and he read it aloud.
+
+It seemed potently to arrest her attention. She laid her work down on
+her knee and gazed steadily at him.
+
+"If we could know the secret heartache--the blighted aspiration--the
+denied longing--the bruised pride of others?"
+
+As he signified assent, she gazed steadily at him for a moment longer in
+silence. Then--
+
+"If we only knew!" she cried,--"Christian brethren,--what a laughing,
+jeering, gibing world we should be!"
+
+Once more she took her work in her hands, once more exclaimed, "If we
+only knew!" and paused to laugh aloud with a low icy tone. Then she
+inserted the dexterous needle into the fashioning of the "shell" and
+bent her reflective, smiling face over the swift serpentines of the
+"zephyr."
+
+Captain Baynell was shocked in some sort. This frank unconscious
+cynicism was out of keeping with so much grace and charm. He was hardly
+ready to argue the question. He was dismayed by a sense of futility. If
+she had thought this, it was enough to show her inmost nature. A
+substituted, cultivated conviction does not uproot the spontaneous
+productions of the mind. It is only foisted in their midst. He was
+silent in his turn, and presently fell to fluttering the leaves of his
+book and reading with slight interest and only a superficial appearance
+of absorption.
+
+If we only knew the sorrows of others! Mrs. Gwynn's satiric eyes glowed
+with the uncomfortable thought that hers at all events had been public
+enough. If openness be a claim for sympathy, she might well be entitled
+to receive balm of all her world. It seared every sensitive fibre within
+her to realize how much of her intimate inner life they all knew,--her
+friends, who masked this knowledge with a casual face, but talked over
+her foolish miseries among themselves with the mingled gusto of gossip,
+the superiority of contemptuous commiseration, and a rabid zest of
+speculation concerning such poor reserves as she had been able to
+maintain. Much of this drifted back to her knowledge through her old
+colored nurse, who since her childhood had remained her special
+attendant, though now officiating as cook to the Roscoe household, and
+by all respectfully called "Aunt Chaney." Her association with other
+cooks and ladies' maids enabled her to become well informed as to what
+was said and known in other households of these affairs. As Aunt Chaney
+detailed the gossip, she herself would burst into painful tears at the
+humiliating disclosures, exclaiming ever and anon, "Oh, de debbil was
+busy, shorely, de day dee married dat man!"
+
+But despite her burden of sympathetic woe, she would gather her powers
+to compass a debonair assurance toward observant outsiders and
+optimistically toss her head. "De man was good-looking to
+_de_straction," she would loftily asseverate, in defence of the
+situation, "and he didn't live long, nohow."
+
+Continuing, she would remind her hearers that she had been opposed to
+her young mistress's marriage, "But shucks! de pore chile saw how the
+other gals wuz runnin' arter Rufus Allerton Gwynn,--dat Fisher gal tried
+hard fur true, an' not married yit,--an' dat made Leonora Gwynn--Leonora
+Roscoe dat wuz--think mo' of his bein' so taken up with her! De
+hansomes' man in de whole country! He didn't live long!"
+
+This gallant outward show did not prevent the iron from entering the old
+nurse's soul especially as she detailed the gossip of Miss Fisher's
+maid, Leanna, who overheard the conversation of her mistress with two
+particular girl-cronies beside the midnight fire, pending the duty of
+brushing the long hair of the Fisher enchantress, which, being of a
+thrice-gilded red tint, required much care and gave her much trouble. It
+gave trouble elsewhere. Its flaring glories kept others awake besides
+poor Leanna, plying the brush nightly one "solid hour by the clock." For
+the fair Miss Mildred Fisher was a famous belle, and many hearts had
+been entangled in those glittering meshes.
+
+This trio had been Leonora Gwynn's intimate coterie, and she knew just
+how they looked as they sat half undressed in the chilly midnight before
+the dying fire in a great bedroom, in the home of one of the three,
+their tresses--Maude Eldon's dark, and Margaret Duncan's brown, and
+Mildred Fisher's red-gold, with Leanna's interested face leaning above
+their gilded shimmer--hanging down over dressing-sacques or nightgowns,
+while they actively gesticulated at each other with handglass or brush,
+and with spirit disputed whether it was a chair which Rufus Gwynn had
+broken over Leonora's head, or did he merely drag her around by the
+hair--"Think of that, my dear,--by her hair!"
+
+It was a poor consolation, but this neither they, nor any other, would
+ever know. With the reflection Leonora set her even little teeth
+together as she still dreamily gazed into the fire.
+
+Other more obvious facts she could not conceal. Her stringent, hopeless
+poverty would bring a piteous expression to Judge Roscoe's face as
+occasion required him to seek to gather together some humble remnants of
+the estate her husband had recklessly flung away, for he had dissipated
+her fortune as well as desolated her heart. She needed no reminder, and
+indeed no word passed Judge Roscoe's lips of the settlements that he had
+drawn when he discovered that, despite all remonstrances, his orphaned
+niece was bent upon this marriage. Though Rufus Gwynn protested that he
+would sign them, she had tossed them into the fire like a heroine of
+romance, grandiloquently declaring that she would not trust herself to a
+man to whom she could not trust her fortune.
+
+How pleased her lover had been! How gay, gallant, triumphant! Later he
+found his account in her folly and a more substantial value than
+flattered pride, for by reason of her marriage the financial control of
+her guardian was abrogated, and her thousands slipped through her
+husband's fingers like sand at the gaming-table, the wine-rooms, the
+race-track, as with his wild, riotous companions he went his swift way
+to destruction and death. And even this did not alienate her, for her
+early admiration and foolish adoration had a continuance that a devotion
+for a worthier object rarely attains, and she loved him long, despite
+financial reverses and wicked waste and cruelty and neglect. She could
+have forgiven him aught, all, but his own unworthiness. Who can gauge
+the sophistries, the extenuations, the hopes, that delude a woman who
+clings to an ideal of her own tender fashioning, the dream of a fond
+heart, and the sacrifice of a loving young life. He left her not one
+vain imagining that she might still hold dear amidst the wreck of her
+existence.
+
+The crisis came at the end of a quarrel,--one of his own making,--a
+quarrel about a horse that he wished to sell;--oh, the trifle--the
+trifle that had wrought such woe!
+
+As she thought of it anew, sitting before the fire, she laid the work
+upon her knee and unconsciously wrung her hands. The next moment she
+felt the eyes of the officer lifted toward her in a cursory glance. She
+affected to shift the rings on her fingers, then took up the
+crochet-needle and bent her head to the deft fashioning of shells.
+
+Now she could think unmolested, think of what she could never forget!
+Yet why should she canvass the details again and again, save that she
+must. The event marked an epoch of final significance in her life,--the
+moment that her dream fled and she awakened to the stern fact that she
+had ceased to love. And at first it was a trifle, a mere trifle, that
+had inaugurated this amazing change. Her husband wished to sell the
+horse, her horse, that Judge Roscoe had given her a week before. The
+gift had come, she knew, as an overture of reconciliation, as there had
+been much hard feeling between Judge Roscoe and his niece. For after her
+elopement and marriage he promptly applied to the chancery court seeking
+to protect her future by securing the settlement on her of certain funds
+of her estate, urging the fact of her minority and the spendthrift
+character of her husband. Leonora vehemently opposed the petition, and
+owing to the efforts of her counsel to gain time and the law's delays,
+she came of age before any decree could be granted, and then defeated
+the measure by making a full legal waiver of her rights in favor of her
+husband. But, at length, when pity overmastered Judge Roscoe's just
+anger, she welcomed a token of his renewed cordiality. She did not feel
+at liberty to sell the gift, she had remonstrated. It was not bestowed
+as a resource--to sell. She feared to wound her kinsman. What was the
+pressing necessity for money? Why not manage as if the horse had not
+been given her?
+
+The contention waxed high as she stood in habit and hat just in the
+vestibule with the horse outside hitched to the block, for Judge Roscoe
+was coming to ride with her. She held fast, for a wonder; she seldom
+could resist; but the horse was not theirs _to sell_. Rufus Gwynn
+suddenly turned at last, sprang up the stairs, three steps at a time,
+and as he came bounding down again she saw the glint of steel in his
+hand.
+
+Even now she shuddered.
+
+"It is growing colder," Captain Baynell said. (How observant that man
+seemed to be!) "Allow me to mend the fire."
+
+He stirred the hickory logs, and as the yellow flames shot up the
+chimney he sank back into his great chair, and she took up the thread of
+her work and her reminiscences together.
+
+She honestly thought her husband had intended to kill her. Somehow the
+veil dropped from her eyes, and she knew him for the fiend he was even
+before the dastardly act that revealed him unqualified.
+
+But it was not she on whom his spite was to fall. Such deeds bring
+retribution. Only the horse--the glossy, graceful, spirited animal,
+turning his lustrous confiding eyes toward the house as the door
+opened, whinnying a low joyous welcome, anticipative of the breezy
+gallop--received the bullet just below the ear.
+
+It was then and afterward like the distraught agony of a confused dream.
+She heard her own screams as if they had been uttered by another; she
+saw the great bulk of the horse lying in the road, struggling
+frightfully, futilely, whether with conscious pain or merely the last
+reserves of muscular energy she did not know; she noted the gathering
+crowd, dismayed, bewildered, angry; she knew that her husband had
+hastily galloped off, a trifle out of countenance because of certain
+threats of some brawny Irish railroad hands going home with their
+dinner-pails who had seen the whole occurrence. Then Judge Roscoe had
+ridden up at last to accompany her as of old, thinking how pretty and
+pleased she would be on the new horse,--for equestrianism was the vaunt
+of the girls of that day and she had been a famous horsewoman,--and
+feeling a great pity because of her privations, and her cruel folly, and
+her unworthy husband. When he saw what had just occurred, he said
+instantly, "You must come home with me, Leonora; you are not safe." And
+she had answered, "Take me with you--quick--quick! So that I may never
+see that coward again." Thus she had left her husband forever.
+
+"Shall I draw up the blind?" asked Captain Baynell, seeing her fumble
+for her zephyr.
+
+"No, thank you; there is still light sufficient, I think. The days are
+growing longer."
+
+Again, in the silence of the quiet room, the spell of her reminiscences
+resumed its sway. She recalled the promises that had not sufficed; no
+explanations extenuated the facts; no lures could avail; her resolution
+was taken and held firm. She laughed when, with full confidence in her
+unshaken love for him, her husband appealed to her by their mutual
+devotion. She was simply enlightened. But she resented the satisfaction
+that Judge Roscoe and his wife obviously felt in the separation, and the
+knowledge of the secret triumph of all her friends who had opposed the
+match. She was embittered, humiliated, broken-spirited, yet she
+maintained throughout a mask of placidity to the world, inquisitive,
+pitying, ridiculing, as she knew it to be. The separation passed as
+temporary. She was making a visit to her former home. This feint had the
+more countenance when a sudden need for her presence arose. Her aunt
+fell ill and died, and soon there came tidings of the death of Clarence
+Roscoe's wife while he was far away in the Confederate army. The three
+little girls were all alone.
+
+"Bring them here, Uncle Gerald. I will take charge of them," Leonora had
+said. "Perhaps I can feel less dependent then."
+
+And Judge Roscoe, who had borne his own losses like a philosopher, had
+tears in his eyes for her losses. "Oh, poor Leonora!" he had exclaimed.
+"Your very presence is a boon, my dear. But for _you_ to be so stricken
+and desolate and--"
+
+He was about to say "robbed," but the facts forbade him; for Gwynn's
+legal rights rendered her position as difficult as unenviable. In her
+own house she had contrived to hold her belongings together. Now, day by
+day, came tidings of the sale of her special personal effects--her
+carriage, her domestic animals, her furniture, the very pictures on the
+walls; then had followed a letter from her husband, regretting all his
+misdeeds and promising infinite rehabilitation if she would but forgive
+him. Naught could provoke a remonstrance, could stimulate Leonora to
+action, could induce a return.
+
+Judge Roscoe had said but little. He had the deep-seated juridical
+respect for the relation of man and wife as a creation of law, as well
+as an institution of God. When he was appealed to, he felt it his duty
+to place impartially before her the husband's arguments, and promises,
+and protestations, but he experienced intense relief when she tersely
+dismissed Rufus Gwynn's plea for a reconciliation. "I know him now," she
+replied.
+
+"An' 'fore de Lawd, _I_ knows him too!" her old nurse declared; "I jes'
+uped an' I sez, 'Marse Rufe, ye hev' got sech a notion o' sellin' out,
+ye mought sell old Chaney--ef ennybody would buy sech a contraption in
+dese days! So I'm goin' over to my old home at Judge Roscoe's place, to
+wait on Miss Leonora. I knows she needs me, an' I 'spect she's watchin'
+fur me now.' An' Marse Rufe, he says, 'Aunt Chaney, I don't know _what_
+you are talking about! Go over there, an' welcome! An' try to get my
+wife to see I was just overtaken in my temper and desperate; _you_
+persuade her to come back, Aunt Chaney.' Dat's what de debbil said ter
+me. I always heard dat de debbil had a club foot. But, mon, he ain't.
+Two long, slim, handsome feet, an' his boots, sah, made in New Orleens!"
+
+The end had come characteristically at last! A horse, furiously ridden,
+brutally beaten, reared suddenly, lost his balance, fell backward,
+crushing the rider and breaking his neck. And so Rufus Gwynn reached his
+goal, and his wife was free at last.
+
+Free as some defenceless, hunted, tremulous animal, miraculously
+escaping fierce fangs, and a furious rush of a murderous pursuit;
+forever dominated by the sense of disaster, and despair, and flight;
+forever looking backward, forever hearkening to the echoes of the
+troublous past--exhausted, listless, hopeless, every impulse of volition
+stunned.
+
+It was well for her, doubtless, that the insistent duties of the care of
+her uncle's household had grown difficult in the changed conditions
+induced by the war; that the education, the training, the well-being, of
+the motherless little "ladies"--all restricted by the ever narrowing
+opportunity of the beleaguered town, and overshadowed by the impending
+clouds of disaster--appealed to her womanly heart and her maternal
+instincts. Their needs had roused her interest, stimulated her
+invention, elicited her self-control, that she might more definitely
+control them.
+
+In the days of Captain Baynell's convalescence he had unique
+opportunities for observing the methods that had prevailed under her
+management, for all the life of the house revolved about the one big
+fire in the library. Sometimes, as he and Judge Roscoe sat there with
+papers and books and cigars, presumably oblivious of the minutiæ of the
+household matters, while the fire flared and the tobacco smoke hung in
+blue wreaths about the stuccoed ceiling and the carved ornaments of the
+tall book-cases, he fancied that it was the characteristic interest in
+trifles animating an invalid which caused him to smilingly watch the
+scholastic struggles of the "ladies,"--their turmoils with "jogaphy,"
+for it was decreed that they should learn somewhat of the earth on which
+they lived; the anguish inflicted by that potent instrument of torture,
+the Blue Speller; the bowed head of juvenile despair on the wooden rim
+of the slate, over the mysteries of "subscraction," as the "lady" sobbed
+softly, under her breath, for loud weepings were interdicted, however
+poignant the woe might be. Mrs. Gwynn was indeed unfeeling in these
+crises and often sarcastic. "You might use your sponge to wipe away
+your tears, Geraldine," she would say, with that curt icy inflection of
+her soft voice. "I notice it is too dry for use on your slate."
+
+Each slate had a string to which was attached a small sponge and a short
+slate-pencil, capable of an excruciating creak, which often set the
+judge's teeth on edge; as he would wince from the sound, Mrs. Gwynn
+would comment in this wise, "I have often heard that learned ladies do
+not contribute to household comfort,--so your Honor must suffer for the
+erudition that we have here."
+
+And the activities of "subscraction" were never abated.
+
+Baynell had at first a certain shrinking to witness the lessons of the
+deaf-mute, pitying the poor deprived child, so young, so tender, so
+pretty, so plaintive in her infirmity, shut out from all the usual
+avenues of knowledge. He would take up his book and withdraw his
+attention. But after a time there was suddenly forced upon his
+observation the superior judgment and acumen and careful altruistic
+thought exerted in these small matters by Mrs. Gwynn. Inexpert in the
+manual alphabet, she wasted no time nor labor on its acquisition for
+herself; but, notwithstanding this, "subscraction" had no terrors for
+Lucille. So practised was she in the domain of demonstration that her
+slate was swiftly covered with figures, and her sponge had no necessity
+to be diverted to the incongruous function of wiping her bright eyes.
+All the questions were put in writing and answered by the little
+deaf-mute with correct spelling and a most legible and creditable
+chirography, over which Captain Baynell found himself exclaiming with
+delighted surprise, while the cheeks both of the scholar and teacher
+flushed with pride and gratification, as they exchanged congratulatory
+smiles. So far from being the sport of her limitations and humiliated by
+them, Lucille was pressed forward to excel, and the twins gazed upon her
+as a miracle of learning, and often craved the privilege of scanning her
+slate, and imitating the childish flourishes of her capital letters. In
+naught was she permitted to feel her deficiencies--so craftily tender
+was her preceptress. The hour which the twins devoted to playing scales
+on the grand piano--being snugly buttoned up in sacques to protect them
+from the chill of the great parlors, and often called across the hall to
+warm their fingers at the library fire--Lucille sat at her
+drawing-board, and although she had only an ordinary degree of talent,
+she acquired a deftness and a proficiency that made the result
+remarkable for a child of her age; her leisure was encouraged to express
+itself in sketching from nature, and she went about much of the time
+pleasantly engrossed, holding up a pencil at a stiff angle and at
+arm's-length to take accurate measurement of relative distances and
+details of perspective.
+
+Baynell was a man who could be allured by a pretty face, but he could
+never have fallen in love with a woman merely for her beauty. He was
+possessed of insistent ideals, and now and then these were shattered by
+an evidence of Mrs. Gwynn's incongruously bitter cynicism, or a touch of
+repellent hardness and an icy coldness unpleasing in one so young, and
+all his preconceived prejudices were to adjust anew. He was beginning at
+last to feel that he must seek to realize her nature, rather than to fit
+her into the niche awaiting the conventional goddess of his fancy. She
+had other traits as inconsistent with her youth, her grace, her beauty,
+her lissome gait, her delicate hand; and these were homespun virtues, so
+plain, so good, so useful, so aggressive--such as one may fancy are
+designed to compensate the possessor for limitations in a more graceful
+sort,--according with an angular frame, a near-sighted vision, a rasping
+voice. There was scant need to look so beautiful, so daintily
+speculative, as she sat and cast up the judge's household accounts in a
+big red book that seemed full of cobweb perplexities and strenuous
+calculations to make both ends meet. Sometimes she brought it over to
+her uncle and, placing it before his reluctant gaze, pointed out some
+item of his own extravagance with a dignity of rebuke and a look of
+superior wisdom that might have realized to the imagination Minerva
+herself. Such a wealth of good house-keeping lore, so accurately
+applied, might have justified any amount of feminine ugliness.
+
+Her tender, far-sighted, commiserative appreciation of the deaf-mute's
+limitations, and the simple measures that had so far nullified them and
+utilized all the child's capacity, were incongruous with the iron rule
+under which the three were held.
+
+"I am afraid the ladies are giving you a great deal of trouble,
+Leonora," her uncle said one day, apologetically, when absolute mutiny
+seemed abroad amongst them.
+
+"Not half so much trouble as I intend to give them," Mrs. Gwynn replied
+resolutely.
+
+Their meek, mild, readjusted little faces after the scholastic hours
+were over were enough to move a heart of stone, and now and again Judge
+Roscoe glanced uneasily at them, and at last said inappropriately
+enough:--
+
+"I am afraid you have not had a happy morning, ladies."
+
+"They have been brought to hear reason," Mrs. Gwynn observed dryly. "And
+I have heard reason, too,--the Fourth Line of the Multiplication Table
+recited backward four times, standing facing the wall. It is an exercise
+that tends to subdue the angry passions. Allow me to commend it for
+general experiment."
+
+Baynell sought to laugh the episode off genially with the "ladies," but
+the three little faces looked for permission to ridicule this dire
+experience, and as Mrs. Gwynn's countenance maintained a blank
+inscrutability, they did not venture to make merry over their miseries
+of the "Four Line," now happily overpast.
+
+The scholastic duties were well over by noon, except perhaps for the
+scale-playing on the grand piano, and the "ladies" roamed at will about
+the house, or in the parterre if the weather were dry, or played at
+battledore and shuttlecock or graces in the long gallery enclosed with
+Venetian blinds. If it rained they were permitted to repair to the
+kitchen, where Aunt Chaney, a very tall, portly woman, with a stately
+gruffness, obviously spurious, accommodated them with bits of dough, to
+be moulded into ducks and pigs, and assigned them a small section of the
+stove whereon to bake these triumphs of the plastic art. Doll's dresses
+were here laundered, being washed in a small cedar noggin owned in
+common by the trio, and a miniature sad-iron, heated by special
+permission on Aunt Chaney's stove, was brought into requisition.
+Sometimes Aunt Chaney was in a softened mood, and fluted a ruffle on a
+wax baby's skirt, and told wonderful tales about Mrs. Gwynn's dresses in
+her girlhood, "flounced to the waist, and crimped to a charm." Thence
+the transition was easy to the details of her young mistress's social
+triumphs and celebrated beauty, with lovers in gangs, all sighing like
+furnaces and represented as rolling in riches and riding splendid and
+prancing horses, the final special zest of each story being the
+fruitless jealousy of the red-headed Miss Mildred Fisher, eating her
+heart out,--this to the immature imagination of the "ladies" literally
+resembled the chickens' hearts which were so daintily chopped to garnish
+the dish of fried pullets amidst the parsley.
+
+As the rain beat against the windows and the evening fell, the trio
+thought many a loitering-place less attractive than the chimney-nook
+behind the stove in Aunt Chaney's kitchen, regaled with her stories as
+she cooked, and now and then a spoonful of some dainty, administered
+with the curt command, "Open yer mouf, ladies!"
+
+Thus it was that the library was almost deserted when Colonel Ashley
+called more than once. Captain Baynell he found, and occasionally the
+judge also. He always selected the afternoons, and after a time he was
+wont to glance about with such a keen, predatory expression that the
+truth began to dawn vaguely on Captain Baynell. Vanity is so robust an
+endowment that it had been easy enough for the recipient of these visits
+to appropriate wholly the interest that prompted them. It struck Baynell
+with an indignant sense of impropriety when he began to remember
+Ashley's ardent desire to meet Mrs. Gwynn, his admiration of the glimpse
+of her beauty that had once been vouchsafed him, and to connect this
+with his manifestation of good comradeship and eager solicitude
+concerning his friend's health. Baynell was infinitely out of
+countenance for a moment.
+
+"Why, confound the fellow! He doesn't care a fig whether I live or die."
+Then he was sensible of a rising anger, that he should be made the
+subterfuge of a systematic endeavor to casually meet Mrs. Gwynn,--likely
+to prove successful in the last instance. For lowering clouds overspread
+the sky when Ashley entered late in the afternoon, and a storm so
+violent, so tumultuous, broke with such sudden fury that it was
+impossible for him to take leave had he desired this. Baynell knew that
+nothing was further from his comrade's wish. Ashley reconciled himself
+so swiftly to Judge Roscoe's insistence that he should remain to tea
+that it might seem he had come for that express purpose.
+
+"Dat man," soliloquized the "double-faced Janus" impressively, "mus'
+hev' smelled de perfume of dat ar flummery plumb ter de camp. Chaney wuz
+jes' dishin' up when he ring de door-bell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Now, face to face with the long-sought opportunity, Colonel Ashley was
+grievously disappointed. A woman--young, singularly beautiful, dressed
+like a middle-aged frump, with the manners of a matron of fifty, staid,
+reserved, inattentive, uninterested!
+
+The incongruity affected him like a discourtesy; its rarity had no
+attractions for him, nor in the slightest degree roused his curiosity.
+He had expected charm, glow, responsiveness, coquetry,--all the various
+traits that attend on beauty and youth. Even a conscious hauteur would
+have had its special grace and piqued an effort to win her to
+cordiality, but here was the inexpressiveness, the indifference, of an
+elderly woman, one tired, despondent, done with the world--civil,
+indeed, as behooved her rearing, her station, but unnoting--really apart
+from all the interests of the present and all thought for the future.
+And, certainly, Mrs. Gwynn's life might be considered already lived out
+in her past.
+
+The rain fell in sheets, and Colonel Ashley wished himself back in camp,
+despite the flavor of the flummery. As they sat at table, now and again
+a vivid glare of lightning revealed through the windows the expanse of
+falling water, closely wrought as a silver-gray fabric, and the flash of
+white foam from its impact with the ground. The house seemed to rock
+with the reverberations of the bursts of thunder.
+
+When they were once more in the library, Colonel Ashley found himself
+with a long evening on his hands; his chum, Baynell, had fallen into one
+of his frequent fits of silent reflectiveness as he smoked, and Judge
+Roscoe, an ascetic, quiet, uncongenial old man, of opposite political
+convictions,--which placed an embargo on all the topics of the day,--did
+not seem to promise much in the way of lively companionship.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn still lingered in the dining room, and the little "ladies"
+explained that her old nurse, who was now the cook, was afflicted with a
+"misery," seeming to bear some relation to neuralgia, and needed help to
+get through with her work, "Uncle Ephraim being a poor dependence" where
+the handling of crockery was concerned.
+
+The "ladies," with true feminine coquetry, affected a shy reserve, and
+rather retreated from the expansive jovial bonhomie of Colonel Ashley's
+hearty advances toward them, albeit they were wont to press their
+attentions upon the inexpressive Captain Baynell. They met with
+fluttering downcast glances the engaging twinkle of Ashley's bright dark
+eyes. They replied with demure little clipped monosyllables to his gay
+sallies, and indeed Colonel Ashley bade fair to discharge the task of
+entertaining himself throughout the evening, till he luckily asked one
+of them what she liked best to play--graces or battledore and
+shuttlecock, Geraldine having brought in a grace-hoop and now holding it
+in her hands before her as she stood in the flicker of the fire.
+
+"I like cards best," Adelaide volunteered unexpectedly.
+
+"Have you a pack of cards? Then let's have a game!" Ashley cried gayly;
+"though I'm afraid you can beat me at anything I try."
+
+There was a shrill jubilance of juvenile acclaim. The three, their
+ringlets waving, their cheeks flushing, the short skirts of their gay
+attire--blue, and crimson, and orange--fluttering joyfully, were
+instantly placing the chairs about the little card-table and climbing
+into them, while Colonel Ashley took the cards and dealt them with many
+airy fancy touches, to the amazement and admiration of the "ladies."
+With his versatile capacity for all sorts of enjoyment, the incident was
+beginning to have a certain zest for him, involving no sacrifice either
+of inclination or time. Baynell realized how Ashley also valued the
+pose. He had an intuitive perception of Ashley's own relish of its
+incongruity,--the gallant colonel of cavalry, who had successfully
+measured blades with the fiercest swordsmen and masters of fence, to be
+now lending himself gently to play with three little children, whose
+soft eyes glowed upon him with radiant admiration and tenderest
+confidence, while the firelight flared and flickered within and the
+storm raged without! Baynell knew that it was with an appreciated
+sacrifice of the perfect proportions of the situation that Ashley
+finally dealt cards for his friend and Judge Roscoe; he would have
+preferred to exclude them, if he might, and have the whole stage for the
+effects of his own dramatic personality. But never, in all his weavings
+of romance about himself, was Ashley guilty of even the slightest
+injustice or discourtesy or forgetfulness of the claims of others; hence
+his character was almost as fine and lovable as he feigned, or as it
+would have seemed, had but his foible of self-appreciation,
+self-gratulation, borne a juster proportion and been rendered less
+obvious by his own cheerful, unconscious, transparent candor. There was
+no guile in him, and the smile was quite genuine with which he took up
+his cards and affected to look anxiously through them to discern if Fate
+lurked therein in the presence of the Old Maid.
+
+For it was this dread game that the "ladies" had chosen, and a serious
+affair it is when regarded from their standpoint. Ashley had now no need
+of his own sentiments or mental processes or artistic poses to minister
+to his entertainment. It was quite sufficient to watch the faces of the
+"ladies" as the "draw" went round, each player in turn taking at random
+an unseen card from the hand of the next neighbor to the left, the
+whole pack of course having been dealt. The heavy terror of doom was
+attendant upon the unwelcome pasteboard. Once, as this harbinger of Fate
+passed on, a gleeful squeal announced that a "lady" had escaped the
+anguish of the prospect of single blessedness.
+
+"That's not fair, Ger'ldine!" exclaimed Adelaide, reprovingly; "you have
+told ever'body that Gran'pa has drawed the Old Maid!"
+
+"I jus' couldn't help it--I was _so glad_ she was gone," apologized the
+contrite Geraldine.
+
+"It makes no difference, my precious, for I have two of the queens, and
+they are a pair," said Judge Roscoe, and as he threw the mates on the
+table the "ladies" placed their hands on their lips to stifle the aghast
+"Ohs!" and "Ahs!" that trembled on utterance, and gazed on their
+fellow-gamesters with great, excited, round eyes. For the crisis had
+supervened. Of course one of the queens had been withdrawn from the pack
+at the commencement of the game, in order to leave an odd queen as the
+Old Maid. Since two had just been discarded there remained the prophetic
+spinster, and each "lady's" delicate little fingers trembled on the
+"draw." Ashley could scarcely preserve a becoming gravity and
+inexpressiveness as the pleading beseeching eyes of his next neighbor
+were cast up to his countenance, seeking to read there some intimation
+of the character of the card she had selected. More than once the
+choice was precipitately abandoned at the last moment and another card
+snatched at hysteric haphazard. Then when an insignificant five of
+diamonds or three of spades was revealed,--what joy of relief, what
+deep-drawn sighs of relaxed tension, what activity of little slippered
+feet under the table, unable to be still, fairly dancing with pleasure
+that the Old Maid with her awful augury still held aloof and went the
+rounds elsewhere! Then--the eagerness of expectation and the renewed
+jeopardy of doubt.
+
+"On my word, this is sport!" exclaimed Colonel Ashley. "This is better
+than a 'small stake to give an interest to the game,'--eh, Judge?"
+
+"It's a _big_ stake," said Geraldine, at his elbow, "the Old Maid is!"
+
+The desperate suspense, the anguish of jeopardy, continued, and at
+length Geraldine had but one card left, Colonel Ashley holding two; the
+other players having matched and tabled the rest of the pack were now
+out of the game. Seeing how seriously the doom of spinsterhood was
+regarded, Colonel Ashley sought to prevent his little neighbor from
+drawing the fateful pasteboard by craftily shifting the cards in his
+hand as she was about to take hold of the grim-visaged queen. Geraldine
+detected the motion instantly, with deep suspicion misinterpreted his
+intention, and laid hold on the card he had manoeuvred to retain. Her
+crestfallen dismay betrayed the disaster. With wide, fearfully
+prescient eyes she nevertheless gathered all her faculties for the final
+effort. Cautiously holding her two cards under the table, she shifted
+them, interchanged them back and forth, then tremulously permitted him
+to draw. This done, he placidly placed two fives on the table.
+
+There was a moment of impressive silence while the "lady" held before
+her eyes in her babyish fingers the single card, and gazed petrified on
+the Medusa-like visage of the Old Maid. Then, as a murmur of awe arose
+from the other "ladies," looking pityingly upon her, yet blissful in
+their own escape, she burst into tears, and, bowing her golden head in
+her arms on the table, wept copiously, though softly, silently, mindful
+that Cousin Leonora allowed no "loud whooping in weeps," her little
+shoulders shaken by her sobs.
+
+Colonel Ashley could but laugh as he protested, "This is truly
+flattering to masculine vanity." Then, his kindly impulses uppermost,
+"Come, Miss Geraldine, let's have another round. There must be more Old
+Maids still hiding out in this crowd. Let's see who they are."
+
+Adelaide looked alarmed as the stricken one lifted her head to the
+prospect of the company that misery loves.
+
+"I wish I was like Cousin Leonora, born a widow-woman," she remarked,
+regarding the doubtful future askance.
+
+"Widow-womans can marry,--Aunt Chaney says they can," Geraldine
+declared, as she took up the cards of the new deal.
+
+"Well, you would speak more properer if you said 'widow-_womens_' than
+'widow-_womans_,'" rejoined the critical Adelaide, rendered tart by her
+renewed jeopardy and the sudden termination of the definite sense of
+escape.
+
+While each player's hand was full of cards, the three queens still
+amongst them, the interest was not so tense as the first few draws went
+round and Mrs. Gwynn's entrance from the dining room created some stir.
+
+Baynell and Ashley rose to offer her a chair, and the latter proposed to
+deal her a hand in the game.
+
+"Not this round," she returned, "as the game has already commenced.
+Besides, I am quite chilly. I shall sit by the fire and read the evening
+paper until you play out the hand."
+
+She seated herself near the fire, shivered once or twice, and held out
+her dainty fingers to it with exactly the utilitarian manner of some
+elderly woman, whose house-keeping errands have detained her in the
+cold, and who extends gnarled, misshapen, chapped, wrinkled hands,
+soliciting comfort from the warmth. Then she took up the paper and held
+the sheet to catch the lamplight from the centre-table upon it.
+
+"Why doesn't she put on her 'specs'? She knows she needs them," Colonel
+Ashley said to himself in a sort of whimsical exasperation. Her figure
+was slim and girlish, sylphlike as she reclined in the large fauteuil;
+her hair glittered golden in the flicker of the fire and the sheen of
+the lamp; her face, with its serious expression intent on the closely
+printed columns, might almost seem a sculptor's study of perfect facial
+symmetry. Her incongruous indifference, her elderly assumptions,--if,
+indeed, she was conscious of the effect of her manner,--all betokened
+that she considered it no part of her duty, and certainly no point of
+interest, to entertain young men.
+
+"We are mere boys to her, Baynell and I; she'll never see her sixtieth
+birthday again. I have known younger grandmothers," was Colonel Ashley's
+farcical thought.
+
+Her nullity of attitude toward him was so complete that she limited the
+possibilities of his imagination. He began to devote himself to the
+gentle pursuit in hand with a freshened ardor.
+
+Around and around the draw went, almost in absolute silence. Now and
+again the tabling of matching cards sounded with the sharp impact of
+triumph, but this was growing infrequent as the hands were thus
+depleted. The firelight flickered on the incongruous group,--the bearded
+faces of the military men, the gold-laced uniforms, with buttons
+glimmering like points of light, the infantine softness of the "ladies,"
+with their fluttering ringlets and gala attire, the gray head and
+ascetic aspect of the judge. The heat had enhanced the odor of a bowl
+of violets on the table in the centre of the room; as the flames rose
+and fell, the lion on the rug seemed to stir about, to rouse from his
+lair.
+
+Outside the rain still fell in torrents; the tumult of the gush from the
+gutter hard by gave intimations of great volume of overflow. At long
+intervals a drop fell hissing down the chimney on the coals where the
+fire had burned to a white heat. The wind sang like a trump, and from
+far away the reverberations of a train of cars came with a sort of
+muffled sonority that was almost indistinguishable from the vibrations
+of the earth. One hardly knew whether the approach of the train was felt
+or heard.
+
+"I can't see how a locomotive can keep the rails in such a night as
+this," Colonel Ashley remarked, lifting his head to listen. "I had
+rather my command would be playing the duck down there in the puddles
+than crossing that half-submerged bridge on that troop train."
+
+"Are they transporting troops now?" asked Judge Roscoe, casually. He was
+a lawyer and knew the general inappropriateness and inadmissibility of a
+leading question. He had, however, no interest in the response, for the
+transit of troops did not necessarily intimate reënforcements to the
+garrison, and hence the expectation of attack, but perhaps merely the
+intention of distant activity.
+
+Captain Baynell lifted his eyes from his cards, and a glance of
+warning, of upbraiding, flashed into the jovial dark eyes of Colonel
+Ashley. Judge Roscoe perceived it with surprise and a sort of
+uncomfortable monition that he and his guest, the son of his cherished
+friend, were in reality in opposition in a most important crisis of the
+life of each--in effect, national enemies. He had not thus regarded
+their standpoint, and the idea that this was Baynell's conviction
+wounded him. He hardly thought the warning glance in his own house
+either necessary or in good form, and he was not ill pleased to subtly
+perceive that Ashley secretly resented it.
+
+"A troop train, I should judge, by the sound," Ashley said hardily, his
+head still poised in a listening pose. "Evidently heavily laden; might
+be horses, though," he continued speculatively. He would not submit to
+be checked or disciplined into prudential considerations by Baynell,
+especially as Judge Roscoe must have noted the warning sign, which
+itself would tend to convert a simple casual remark into a significant
+disclosure. He said to himself that he knew the proper limitations of
+conversation, and was the last man in the world to let slip a hint that
+might by any means inform or even prompt the enemy. Moreover, Judge
+Roscoe was not deaf, and could distinguish the deep rumble of cars laden
+with troops from the usual sound of the running-gear of a train of
+ordinary freight and passengers. He went on casually and with an
+expansive effect of frankness: "Horses, most probably; there is a
+cavalry regiment in town that has been at the front as dismounted
+troops, and I think an order is out for horses for their use as cavalry
+again; they have been pressing horses all over the county yesterday and
+the day before. Winstead's troopers, you know," he added, addressing
+Baynell. "I saw him to-day. He says his men all seem pigeon-toed, or
+web-footed, or something. They were of no use afoot, although they have
+done very well in the saddle."
+
+"An'--an' did they wear boots on birds' feet an' web-toes?" asked the
+amazed Geraldine, innocently.
+
+"Oh--oh, _Ger'ldine_!" screamed the superior Adelaide. "He means walkin'
+this-a-way," and her hands went across the table in a "toeing-in" gait,
+illustrative of the defect known as "pigeon toes."
+
+"Aw--aw--_I_ know now!" said the instructed "lady," wofully out of
+countenance. Then she turned to draw from her neighbor's hand with much
+doubt and circumspection, for the matched pile in the centre was now
+large and the remaining cards had become few.
+
+At that moment Mrs. Gwynn glanced up from the paper; she had been
+reading an account of a recent spirited skirmish at the front.
+
+"What is the difference between shrapnel and grape-shot?" she asked of
+the company at large.
+
+Baynell, the artillery expert, rejoiced to enlighten her. He turned in
+his chair and promptly took the word from the others. Few experts can
+answer any simple question categorically. Not only did he explain the
+missiles in question, but also how they had happened to be what they
+were, and the earlier stages of their development. He gave his views on
+their relative value and the possibility of their future utility,--all
+while Ashley, who now sat next him, as they had chanced to shift their
+chairs when Mrs. Gwynn had entered, waited with quiet and polite
+patience for him to draw. Baynell did this at haphazard at last, and
+whether it was accident or Fate that the significant card was
+practically thrust into his heedless hand by the mischievous Ashley, his
+countenance fell at beholding the prognosis of single blessedness, so
+palpably, so preposterously, that the jovial Ashley could not restrain
+his bantering laughter. Baynell instantly presented the cards to him to
+draw in turn, but either favored by luck or having acquired some
+surreptitious unfair knowledge of the outer aspect of the card, Ashley
+avoided the ill-omened pasteboard, and Baynell was at last left with the
+single card in his hand, while his triumphant friend made the room
+riotous with laughter, and the three "ladies" bent compassionate, tender
+eyes upon him, as if they anticipated the conventional gush of tears.
+They had grown very fond of him, and deeply felt the disaster that had
+befallen him.
+
+"Oh, Captain Baynell, never mind! never mind!" cried the inspirational
+Adelaide. "_We'll_ marry you! _We'll_ marry you! You needn't be _so_
+anxious!"
+
+Once more Ashley's ringing merriment amazed the sympathetic "ladies."
+
+Lucille cast a burning glance of reproof upon him. Then she held up
+three fingers to Captain Baynell to intimate that three brides awaited
+him.
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Ashley. "Here's a settler for Utah, Judge. That's
+evidently the place for this fellow 'when this cruel war is over'!"
+
+Judge Roscoe smilingly watched the benignant, commiserating little
+countenances.
+
+Adelaide had gone around the table and was hanging on the arm of Captain
+Baynell's chair as she proffered consolation.
+
+"Colonel Ashley wouldn't think it so mighty funny if _he_ had the Old
+Maid! But _don't_ mind, Captain. Why, _I_ know _Cousin Leonora_ would
+marry you, if nobody else would,--she always does anything when nobody
+else wants to."
+
+The silver tones were singularly clear, and for a moment the group sat
+in appalled silence. Ashley did not laugh, though his face was still
+distended with the risible muscles. It was like a laughing mask--the
+form without the fact. He did not dare even to glance toward the chair
+where Mrs. Gwynn imperturbably perused the war news, nor yet at the
+stony terror which he felt was petrified on his friend's face. At that
+moment a vivid white light quivered horribly through the room and the
+repetitious crashing clamor of the thunder was like a cannonade at close
+quarters. A great fibrous sound of the riving of timber told that a tree
+hard by had been split by the bolt; the torrents descended with
+redoubled force, and the massive old house seemed to rock.
+
+And in the moment of comparative quiet a new, strange sound intruded
+itself on recognition,--that most uncanny voice, the cry of a horse in
+the extremity of terror. It came again and again; at each successive
+peal of the thunder and recurrent furious flare of lightning it seemed
+nearer. It had a subterranean effect; and then after the crash of
+falling objects, as if some barrier had been overthrown, the iteration
+of unmistakable hoof beats on stone flagging announced that there was a
+horse in the cellar.
+
+This phenomenon obviously indicated an effort to save the animal from
+the impress of horses for army service, which had been in progress for
+days and to which Colonel Ashley had alluded. Far away in the
+wine-cellar, in the safe precincts under the back drawing-room, which
+was rarely used nowadays, the horse had evidently been ensconced, and
+but for the storm his presence might have continued indefinitely
+undetected. The tremendous conflict of the powers of the air, the
+unfamiliar place, the loneliness, had stricken the creature with panic
+fright, and, doubtless hearing human voices in the library, he had
+overthrown temporary obstacles, burst down inadequate doors, and
+following the genial sound was now stamping and whinnying just beneath
+the floor. Colonel Ashley, affecting to note nothing unusual, dealt the
+cards anew, and commented on the fury of the tempest.
+
+"I fancy you have lost one of your fine ancestral oaks, Judge. That bolt
+struck timber with a vengeance."
+
+"We have the consolation of a prospect of firewood," responded Judge
+Roscoe. "But I doubt if it struck only one of the trees."
+
+"I think I never before saw such a flash as that," remarked Ashley.
+
+The horse in the cellar protested that _he_ never had. Then he fairly
+yelped at a comparatively mild suffusion followed by a dull roar of
+thunder, evidently anticipating a renewal of the pyrotechnic horrors
+that had so terrified him.
+
+Judge Roscoe maintained an imperturbable aspect, despite a certain
+mortification and a sense of derogation of dignity. He recognized this
+as a scheme of old Ephraim's. More than once he had so contrived the
+disappearance of the last milch cow that his master possessed as to save
+her from the foraging parties bent on beef. Chickens had experiences of
+invisibility that were not fatal, and though the carriage pair and the
+judge's saddle-horse had been the victims of surprise,--impressed long
+ago,--the old servant had again and again rescued a beautiful animal
+that Mrs. Gwynn owned and which had been a second gift from Judge
+Roscoe. Hearing betimes of the press orders from the soldiers, the
+"double-faced Janus" had besought Judge Roscoe to leave the concealment
+of Acrobat to him; and, although only a passive factor in the
+enterprise, Judge Roscoe, as much surprised at the denouement as any one
+else, was forced to bear the brunt of the lamentable fiasco in which the
+secret had become public.
+
+Baynell, though silent, looked extremely annoyed.
+
+"This rainfall will raise the river considerably," Ashley commented.
+
+"Shouldn't be surprised if the lower portions of the town are flooded
+already," said Judge Roscoe, throwing out a pair of matched cards.
+
+"Those precincts are very ill situated," said Ashley.
+
+The Houyhnhnm in the cellar protested that he was, too.
+
+"High water must occasion considerable suffering among the poorer
+class," rejoined the judge.
+
+"But the locality could have been easily avoided in laying out Roanoke
+City. Draw, Captain--" Ashley broke off suddenly, being forced to remind
+the preoccupied Baynell of his turn to supply his hand.
+
+"The commercial convenience of wharfage at low stages of water was
+doubtless the inducement," explained Judge Roscoe.
+
+"To be sure,--minimizes the distance for loading freights," assented
+Ashley.
+
+"Yes, the drays come to the very decks of the boats."
+
+"_That_ was a pretty sharp flash," said Ashley.
+
+"Oh, it was--it was!" whooped the Houyhnhnm from out the cellar. He
+evidently executed a sort of intricate passado, to judge from the sound
+of his hysteric hoofs on the stone flagging.
+
+"I hope your fine grove will sustain no more casualties," said Ashley.
+
+"I hope, myself, the house won't be struck," whimpered the speculative
+Adelaide.
+
+"Me, too! Me, too!" cried the horse.
+
+"Draw, Captain,"--once more Ashley had occasion to rouse the absorbed
+Baynell.
+
+At every inapposite, disaffected remark that the horse in the cellar saw
+fit to interject into the conversation, the twins, evidently well aware
+of the betrayal of the domestic secret by his loud-voiced intrusion into
+the apartment beneath the library, fully apprehending the disaster, at
+first looked aghast at each other, then referred it to the adjustment of
+superior wisdom by a long, earnest gaze at their grandfather.
+
+Judge Roscoe could ill sustain the expectation of their childish
+comment. But he felt that his dignity was involved in ignoring that
+aught was amiss. His composure emulated Ashley's resolute placidity and
+well-bred, conventional determination to admittedly hear and see naught
+that was not intentionally addressed by his host to his observation.
+Baynell gave no outward and obvious sign of notice, but the subcurrent
+of brooding thought that occupied his mind was token of his evident
+comprehension and a nettled annoyance. Perhaps they all felt the relief
+from the tension when Ashley, suddenly glancing toward the window, saw
+between the long red curtains the section of a clearing sky and the
+glitter of a star.
+
+"The storm is over," he said. "I think, Judge, we might venture out now
+to view the damage. I trust there is not much timber down."
+
+The three men trooped heavily out into the hall, and suddenly the
+challenge of the sentry rang forth, simultaneously with the sound of the
+approach of horses' hoofs and the jingle of military accoutrements.
+Colonel Ashley's groom had bethought himself to bring up his master's
+charger in case he should care, since the weather had cleared, to return
+to camp. This Ashley preferred, despite Judge Roscoe's cordial
+insistence that he could put him up for the night without the slightest
+inconvenience.
+
+As Ashley took leave of the family and galloped down the avenue in the
+chill damp air, and over the spongy turf, now and then constrained to
+turn aside to avoid fallen boughs, he had not even a vague prevision
+how short an interval was to elapse before chance should bring him back.
+His expectation of meeting a charming young lady, with perhaps the
+sequel of an interesting flirtation, in which all his best qualities as
+squire of dames should be elicited for the admiration of the fair,--his
+preëminence in singing, in quoting poetry, in saying pretty things, in
+horsemanship, above all the killing glances of his arch dark eyes, to
+say naught of the relish he always experienced in his own excellent pose
+as a lover, one of his favorite rôles,--all had been nullified by Mrs.
+Gwynn's unresponsiveness. His vanity was touched, upon reflecting on the
+events of the evening. He did not feel entreated according to his merits
+by her attitude of a faded and elderly widow-woman, and his relegation
+to the puerilities of the little Old Maids, or little "ladies," or
+whatever they called themselves (certainly not the first), with Baynell
+playing the stick, and the old judge merely a galvanized Opinion. He
+resolved that he would stick to camp hereafter. He knew a game of "Draw"
+with no Old Maid in the pack, and he would solace his spare time with
+such diversion as it might afford, and look to the drill of his
+squadrons.
+
+Nevertheless the moisture of the storm was scarcely sun-dried the next
+afternoon before he was again galloping up the long avenue of the grove
+and inquiring of old Janus, appropriately playing janitor, if Captain
+Baynell were within, as he had some special business with him.
+
+As on other occasions there was no glimpse or sound of feminine presence
+in the halls or on the stairs as he followed the old servant up the
+softly padded ascent. He fancied the old negro was much disaffected; he
+had a plaintive, remonstrant submissiveness, and a sort of curious,
+shadowy, aged look that seemed a concomitant of a sullen reproach. Had
+they been beyond earshot of the household, Ashley would have bidden the
+old man out with his grievance, but naught was said, and presently the
+door of Captain Baynell's bedroom closed upon him.
+
+"Did you know that Tompkins had sent up here and impressed Mrs. Gwynn's
+horse?"
+
+Baynell had not risen from a seat at an escritoire, where he seemed to
+have been writing, and Ashley was half across the room and had flung
+himself into a chair before the fire ere his friend could lay down the
+pen.
+
+"Yes, I knew it."
+
+"Why--why--how did he know they had the animal in the cellar? He was up
+here the day before yesterday, and that old darkey told him that the
+horse had already been pressed into service."
+
+"He must have been put into the cellar earlier. You know we heard the
+animal there last night."
+
+"Why--why--" Colonel Ashley stammered in his haste--"how did _Tompkins_
+know?"
+
+"How?--why, of course I notified him--this morning."
+
+Vertnor Ashley was altogether inarticulate. Baynell replied to the
+surprise in his face.
+
+"Why--whatever did you think I should do?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, of course!--as I held mine! Why, I thought you were a
+friend of these people."
+
+Baynell looked at him, surprised in turn. "And so I am."
+
+"And they have been kindness itself to you!"
+
+"But do they expect me to return their kindness by helping them deceive
+the government, or to hold back supplies the army needs? They are
+mistaken if they do! It is a matter of conscience!"
+
+"Oh, a _little_ thing like that--" Ashley snapped his fingers--"a lady's
+horse!"
+
+"It is a matter of conscience!" Baynell reiterated.
+
+"I tell you, my friend, I wouldn't have such a conscience as that in the
+house! It's a selfish beast--a raging monster! exceedingly deadly to the
+interests of other folks," Ashley retorted with his bright eyes aglow.
+
+Baynell glanced out of the great window, with its white, embroidered
+muslin curtains, between which he could see the ranges in the distance,
+Roanoke in the mid-spaces, the white tents of the girdle of encampments
+on all the hillsides about the little city; at intervals, held in
+cup-like hollows, were great glittering ponds of water, the
+accumulations of the storm, glassing the clouds like mirrors, and
+realizing to the eye the geologist's description of the prehistoric days
+when lakes were here.
+
+A sudden suspicion was in Ashley's mind. His resolution was taken on the
+instant. "I hope you will advance no objection; but I intend to see Mrs.
+Gwynn and Judge Roscoe, and assure them that _I_ had no part in giving
+this information to the quartermaster's department."
+
+Baynell looked at him with an indignant retort rising to his lips, then
+laughed satirically.
+
+"Do you imagine I left _you_ under that imputation?"
+
+"You consider it no imputation, but a duty. Now I don't see my duty in
+that light. And I prefer to make my position clear to them."
+
+Baynell already had his hand on the bell-cord, and it was with pointed
+alacrity that he gave the order when old Ephraim appeared--"Please say
+to Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe that Colonel Ashley and Captain Baynell
+wish to speak to them a few minutes on a matter of business if they are
+at leisure."
+
+Uncle Ephraim, in whose soul the misadventure about the horse was
+rankling deep, surlily assented, closed the door, and took his way
+downstairs.
+
+"I recken _you_ kin speak ter dem," he soliloquized,--"mos' ennything
+kin speak hyar. Who'd 'a' thought dat ar horse, dat Ac'obat, would set
+out ter talk ter de folks in de lawberry, like no four-footed one hev'
+done since de days ob Balaam's ass. But I ain't never hearn dat de ass
+was fool enough ter got hisse'f pressed inter de Fed'ral army. 'Fore de
+Lawd, dat horse wish now he had held his tongue an' stayed in de
+wine-cellar, wid dat good feed, whar I put him."
+
+Once in the library, the traits which so endeared Vertnor Ashley to
+himself, and eke to others, were amply in evidence. He was gentle,
+deferential, thoroughly straightforward and frank, albeit he saw the
+subject was a mortification to Judge Roscoe and abated his sense of his
+own dignity; still Ashley gave no offence.
+
+"I understand. It was a matter of conscience with Captain Baynell," said
+Judge Roscoe, seeking to dispose of the question in few words. "I can
+have no displeasure against a man for obeying the dictates of his own
+conscience, as every man must."
+
+"Well, I am happy to say I had no conscience in the matter," said
+Colonel Ashley.
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, with her curt, low, icy tone. "We have
+indeed fallen on evil times. Captain Baynell has conscience enough to
+destroy us all, if only he sees fit. And Colonel Ashley, by his own
+admission, has no conscience at all. Between the two we _must_ come to
+grief."
+
+"It seems to me a trifle," Ashley persisted smilingly, "brought to my
+attention accidentally on a hospitable occasion. For aught _I_ knew, you
+might have a permit, or the horse might have been a condemned animal,
+unsound, thus escaping the requisition. I had no orders to investigate
+your domestic affairs, nor to search for animals evading the impress.
+The men detailed to that duty are presumed to be capable of discharging
+it."
+
+"I assure you we have no feeling on that account--no antagonism--" began
+Judge Roscoe.
+
+"I desire you to realize that _nothing_ would have induced me to report
+the presence of the horse here," Ashley interrupted; "though," he added,
+checking himself, "I do not wish to reflect on Captain Baynell's
+procedure!"
+
+"He thought himself justified, indeed obligated," interposed Judge
+Roscoe.
+
+"Of course I greatly regretted the necessity, which seemed forced on me,
+as I saw the matter," said Baynell.
+
+"I fully appreciate that you take a different view," began Ashley.
+
+"'O give ye good even. Here's a million of manners,'" quoted Mrs. Gwynn,
+satirically, smiling from one to the other as each sought to press
+forward his own view, yet to cast no reflections on the probity of the
+standpoint of the other.
+
+Judge Roscoe laughed. He was an admirer of what he called
+"understanding in women," and the mere flavor of a Shakespearian
+collocation of words refreshed his spirit like an oasis in a desert.
+
+Ashley looked at her doubtfully. He wondered that they could forgive
+Baynell for this gratuitous bit of official tyranny, as it seemed to
+him, and also the serious loss of the value of the horse. He said to
+himself that almost any rule is constrained to exceptions. He thought
+Baynell's course was small-minded, unjustifiable, and an ungrateful
+requital of hospitality, such as only important interests might warrant.
+He did not reckon on the strength of the attachment which Judge Roscoe,
+despite politics, had formed for his dear friend's son, or for his
+respect for the coercive force of a man's convictions of the
+requirements of duty. It was a sort of Brutus-like urgency which
+appealed to a high sense of probity and which commended itself to the
+ex-judge, accustomed to deal with subtle differentiations of moral
+intent as well as intricate principles of sheer law.
+
+As for Mrs. Gwynn--it was sufficient that she had lost the horse. She
+cared too little for either man as an individual to consider the
+delicate adjustment of the problem of official integrity involved.
+
+"I surely should have lost every claim to your good opinion if I had
+glozed it over and passed it by for personal reasons," Baynell argued
+after Ashley had gone.
+
+She looked at him speculatively for an instant, wondering what possible
+claim he could fancy he possessed to her good opinion.
+
+"If you think impressing a horse is a recommendation, a great many
+citizens of this town have cause to hold the quartermaster-general in
+high esteem. A perfect drove of horses passed here this afternoon. I
+looked for Acrobat, but I did not see him."
+
+He was taken aback at this turn. "But you know, of course, it was
+against my own will--my own preference--the horse--it was a sacrifice on
+my part!"
+
+"So glad to know it; I thought the sacrifice was mine!"
+
+He shifted the subject.
+
+"Judge Roscoe has kindly given me permission to stable here my own
+horses,--not belonging to the service,--and to use the pasture, and I
+hope you will ride one that I think is particularly suitable for a lady.
+Judge Roscoe, to show that he bears no malice, is riding another one to
+Roanoke City this afternoon."
+
+She said that she had lost her equestrian tastes. But she listened quite
+civilly while he argued the ethics anew, and, as her interest in the
+subject had waned with the dissolving view of her horse and she did not
+care for the question in the abstract, she did not controvert his theory
+or relish placing obstacles to the justification of his course.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Baynell's disposition to recur to the subject inaugurated a habit of
+conversation with Mrs. Gwynn after the scholastic hours of the "ladies,"
+when he sat in the library through the long afternoons. The vast subject
+of the abstract values of right and wrong, the ultimate decrees of
+conscience, whether in matters of great or minute importance, might seem
+inexhaustible in itself. But he gradually drifted therefrom into a
+discursive monologue of many things. He began to talk of himself as
+never before, as he had never dreamed that he could. He described his
+friends and acquaintances; he rehearsed his experiences; he even
+repeated traditional stories of his father's college life, and the mad
+pranks which the staid Judge Roscoe had played in the callow days of
+their youth, thus emphasizing the bond of intimacy and his own claim to
+recognition as a hereditary friend; he went farther and detailed his own
+intimate plans for the future.
+
+Throughout she maintained a conventional pose of courteous attention.
+Surely, he thought, he must have roused some responsive interest. For
+himself, in all his life, he had never experienced moments so surcharged
+with significance, with pleasure, with importance. One day he concluded
+a long exposition of thought and conviction, intensely vital to him, by
+making a direct appeal to her opinion. She looked up with half-startled
+eyes, then hesitatingly replied, while a quick, deep flush sprang into
+her pale cheeks. Elated, confident, victorious, he beheld the color rise
+and glow, and noted her lingering, conscious embarrassment; for the
+subject was unimportant save as it concerned him, and why, but for his
+sake, should she blush and falter in sweet confusion?
+
+How could he know that hardly one word in ten had she heard! Absent,
+absorbed, she was silently turning again and again the ashes of the dead
+past, while he, insistently, clamorously, was knocking at the door of
+the living present.
+
+Step by step she had been retracing her early foolish fondness for the
+man who had been her husband. How could she have been so blind! she was
+asking herself. Why could she not have seen him with the eyes of
+others,--that wise, kindly, far-sighted vision which scanned the present
+with caution for her sake, and by its gauge measured the future with an
+unerring and an appalled accuracy? How contemptuously, like a heroine of
+romance indeed, she had flouted the well-meant opposition of her
+relatives to her marriage! They had proved wise prophets. Drunkard,
+gambler, spendthrift, he had wrecked her fortune and embittered her
+whole life. The two years she had spent with him seemed an æon of
+misery. They had obliterated the past as well as excluded the future.
+Somehow she could not look beyond them into her earlier days save upon
+those gradations of events--the swift courtship, the egregious,
+headstrong, romantic resolution, the foolish love founded on false
+ideals which led her at last to the altar, so confiding, so happy, so
+disdainful of the grave faces and the disapproving shaking heads of all
+her elder kith and kindred, so triumphant in setting them at naught and
+enhancing Rufus Gwynn's victory with the quelling of their every claim.
+
+In these long, quiet afternoons she would silently canvass humiliating
+details--when was it that she had first known him for the liar he was;
+when had she admitted to herself his inherent falsity? Even the truth
+had faltered for his sake. She had eagerly sought to deceive herself--to
+gloze over his lies, now told for a purpose, and constrained to their
+misleading device, now thrown off without intention or effect, as if the
+false were the more native incident of his moral atmosphere. Perhaps,
+with the love that possessed her, she, too, might have acquired the
+proclivity; she meditated on this possibility with a bowed head. At
+first, when he lied to her, she herself could not distinguish the truth
+from the false in his words. She had found herself at sea without a
+rudder. However she might have desired to protect him, whether she might
+have bent in time to deceit for his sake, there is a sort of monopoly
+in falsehood. It is a game at which two cannot play to good effect. The
+first time he struck her full in the face was in the fury which
+possessed him, when, through her agency, a lie had been fairly fixed
+upon him. She had given him as her authority for a statement she made to
+Judge Roscoe, and her uncle had, in repeating it to him, discovered the
+lie--the blatant open lie--that could not be qualified or gainsaid.
+
+And she had forgiven this, both the word and the blow. How strange! She
+made allowances for his irritation, for his mortification at the
+discovery by a man so upright, so ascetic, so unsympathetic with any
+moral weakness as Judge Roscoe. She offered to herself excuses which
+even she, however, in her inmost soul, hardly accepted--for the lie
+itself! He desired to avoid reproaches for mistaken arrangements about
+money matters, she had said to herself; he shrank from contention with
+her thus. Never dreaming that she might be questioned, he had been led
+to palliate, to distort the facts. For at first she would have no
+traffic with the ignoble word "lie." The restrictions of her own phrases
+began to have a sort of terror for her. She could no longer talk freely.
+She hardly dared make the most obvious statement concerning any simple
+fact of household affairs, or amusements, or visits, or friends, lest,
+in his prodigal untruth, for no reason,--the abandonment of folly, or a
+momentary whim,--he should have committed himself and her unequivocally
+to some different effect. She hesitated, stammered, when she was in
+company,--faltered, blushed,--she who used to be so different!--while
+all her world stared. And when they were alone, he would storm at her
+for it, furiously mimicking her distressful uncertainty, her tremulous
+solicitude lest she openly convict him of lying continually. She sought
+to give him no occasion for anger, not that she so dreaded the hurt of
+his heavy hand, but that she might save him from the ignominy of
+striking his wife. She studied his face and conformed to his whims, and
+anticipated his wants, and forbore vexation. Her subjection was so
+obvious that while her own near friends raged inwardly, divining that he
+was unkind, their casual acquaintance sportively fleered, never dreaming
+how their arrows sped to the mark.
+
+Their fleers nettled him; he was specially out of countenance one day
+because of a careless shaft of Mildred Fisher's.
+
+"It is one of the beautiful aspects of matrimony that the law once
+recognized the right of a man to correct his wife with 'a stick not
+thicker than his thumb'; let me see the size of your thumb, Mr.
+Gwynn,--it must be that which keeps Leonora in this edifying state of
+subjection."
+
+And when she had gayly gone her way, Rufus Gwynn bitterly upbraided his
+wife.
+
+"Damn you!" he had cried; "can't you hold up your head at all?"
+
+Then it was that she had donned her most charming toilette--a dress of
+heavy white satin simple yet queenly--and had gone to one of those balls
+of the early times of the Confederacy, where the cavaliers were many and
+gay; she was all smiles and bright eyes, though these were the only
+jewels she wore, for had she not discovered at the moment of opening the
+case that her diamonds--Rufus Gwynn's own bridal gift to her--were
+missing!--sold, pawned, given away, it was never known. Thus seeking her
+duty in these devious ways and to do his choice credit, as a wife
+should, her charm held a court about her,--even Mildred Fisher, who
+loved splendor, ablaze with the collection of precious stones at her
+disposal, her mother's, her grandmother's, and her aunt's, was eclipsed.
+The glittering officers followed the beautiful young wife in the
+promenade, and stood about and awaited the cessation of the whirl as she
+waltzed with one of the number, and devoutly held her bouquet while in
+the banqueting room, and drank her health and toasted her happiness, and
+broke her fan, soliciting a breeze for her comfort. The result?--When in
+the carriage homeward bound, she was fit to throw herself out of the
+window and under the wheels in sheer terror of the demon of jealousy she
+had aroused. Her husband loaded her with curses, he foamed at the mouth
+as he threatened the men with whom she had danced, more than one of
+whom he had himself introduced for the purpose. He protested he would
+shoot Julius Roscoe because he had _not_ asked her to dance, but had
+turned pale when he saw her, and had stood in the shadows of the columns
+at the upper end of the ball room and with melancholy, love-lorn eyes
+watched her in the waltz. When she declared she had not seen Julius, she
+had not spoken to him--"You dare not!" he cried. And but that she
+clutched his arm, he would have sprung from the vehicle in motion to
+hide in the shrubbery--the pine hedge--as they passed Judge Roscoe's
+gate, to shoot Julius in the back as he went home from the ball,--in the
+back, in the darkness, from ambush, that none might know! Then as her
+husband could not force himself from her grasp, he turned and struck her
+across the face twice, heavily.
+
+All her soldier friends, old playmates, youthful compeers, elder
+associates, marched away without a farewell word from her,--a last
+farewell it would have been to many, who, alack, came never marching
+back again; for she was denied at the door to all callers, since her
+bruises were so deep and lacerated that she must needs keep her room in
+order that the conjugal happiness might not be impugned. For still she
+made excuses for Gwynn, sought to shield him from himself. He had begun
+to drink heavily under the sting of the universal financial disasters
+occasioned by the war which he also shared, supplemented by heavy
+losses at the gaming table and the race track and often "was not
+himself," as she phrased it. He was expert at repentance, practised in
+confession, and had a positive ingenuity for shifting responsibility to
+stronger shoulders. He could burst into torrents of protesting tears,
+and dramatically fling himself on his knees at her feet, and bury his
+face in her hands, covering them with kisses, and craving her pardon and
+help. And she would once more, inconsistently, hopefully, take up her
+faith in him anew, albeit it had all the tearful tremors of
+despair,--believing, yet doubting, with a strange duality of emotion
+impossible to the analysis of reason. Thus the curtain was rung up
+again, and the terrible tragedy of her life on this limited stage went
+on apace.
+
+He had infinite ingenuity in concealment, abetted by her silence in
+suffering which her pride fostered. Albeit her friends had divined his
+unkindness, the extent of his brutality was not suspected by them until
+one night when frightful screams had been heard to issue from the house,
+despite the closed and shuttered windows of winter weather. These were
+elicited by the sheer agony of being dragged by the hair through the
+rooms and halls and down the stairs, and thrust out into the chill of
+the fierce January freeze. She was given hardly time for the instinct of
+flight to assert itself, to rise up with wild eyes looking adown the
+snowy street; for the door opened, and he dragged her within once more,
+as a watchman of the precinct, Roanoke City being at this time heavily
+policed, ascended the steps to the portico with an inquiry as to the
+sound. He was satisfied with the explanation from the husband that Mrs.
+Gwynn was suffering with a violent attack of hysterics. But the next
+day, while the mistress of the house, bruised and almost shattered, lay
+half unconscious in her own room, the housemaid, in the hall polishing
+the stair rail and wainscot, was terrified to draw out here and there
+from the balusters great bloody lengths of Mrs. Gwynn's beautiful hair
+which had caught and held as she was dragged by it down the stairs. This
+rumor, taken in connection with the explanation of her screams offered
+by her husband to the watchman, occasioned Mrs. Gwynn's relatives great
+anxiety for her safety. It was with the view of discovering from her the
+truth, insisting on its disclosure as a matter of paramount importance,
+that Judge Roscoe as her nearest kinsman and former guardian had
+suggested a ride with her, when in the quiet of an uninterrupted
+conversation he intended to remonstrate against her lack of candor, seek
+to ascertain the facts, and then devise some measures looking toward the
+betterment of the unhappy situation.
+
+The slaughter by Rufus Gwynn of the unoffending horse had eliminated the
+necessity alike of remonstrance or advice. Her ideals, her hope, her
+love, were destroyed as by one blow. Her resolution of separation was
+taken and, albeit her anxious friends feared her capacity for
+forgiveness was not exhausted, it proved final. The end came on the day
+that Rufus Gwynn's horse, rearing under whip and spur, and falling,
+broke his rider's neck.
+
+This was her romance and her awakening from love's young dream. These
+were the scenes that she lived over and over. This was her past that
+every moment of leisure converted into her present,--palpable, visible,
+vital,--and her future seemed bounded only by the possibilities of
+retrospect.
+
+With the many-thonged scourge of her memory how could she listen to the
+monologue of this stranger! Thus it was that her attentive attitude was
+suddenly stultified by his direct appeal to her. Thus she had reddened
+and faltered in embarrassment for the rude solecism, and gathered her
+faculties for some hesitant semblance of polite response.
+
+Lapsed in the delight of his fool's paradise, Baynell discerned naught
+of the truth. Left presently alone in the library, he serenely watched
+through the long window the slow progress of the shadows following the
+golden vernal sunshine throughout the grove. The wind faintly stirred,
+barely enough to shake the bells of the pink and darkly blue hyacinths
+standing tall and full in the parterre at one side of the house. The
+plangent tone of a single key, struck on the grand piano, fell on the
+stillness within, and after a time another, and slowly still another, in
+doubting ascension of the gamut, as one of the "ladies" submitted to the
+cruelty of a music lesson. His lip smilingly curved at the thought. And
+still gazing out in serene languor, all unprescient, he once more noted
+the spring sun of that momentous day slowly westering, westering.
+
+A red sky it found at the horizon; a chill wind starting up over a
+purple earth spangled with golden camp-fires. Presently the world was
+sunk in a slate-tinted gloom, and the night came on raw and dark, with
+moon and stars showing only in infrequent glimpses through gusty clouds.
+A great fire had burned out on the library hearth; the group had
+genially sat together till the candles were guttering in their sockets
+in the old crystal-hung candelabra. Judge Roscoe still lingered,
+smoking, meditating before the embers. All the house was asleep, silent
+save for the martial tread of the sentry walking to and fro before the
+portico. Suddenly Judge Roscoe heard a sound, alien, startling,--a sound
+at the side window. The room was illumined by a pervasive red glow from
+the embers, in which he saw his own shadow, gigantic, gesticulatory, as
+he rose to his feet, listening again to--silence! Only the wind rustling
+in the lilac hedge, only the ring of the sentry's step, crisp and clear
+on the frosty air.
+
+The moment that the soldier turned to retrace his way to the farther
+side of the house, there came once more that grating sound at the
+window, distinct, definite, of sinister import.
+
+For one instant Judge Roscoe was tempted to call for the sentry's aid.
+The next the shutter opened, the sash glided up noiselessly, and, as the
+old gentleman gazed spellbound with starting eyes and chin a-quiver, a
+tiny flame flickered up, keenly white amongst the embers, illuminating
+the room, revealing the object at the window. Only for one moment; for
+in a frenzy of energy Judge Roscoe had caught up the heavy velvet rug
+and, as he held it against the aperture of the chimney, the room once
+more sunk into indistinguishable gloom; the sudden bounding entrance of
+an agile figure was wholly invisible to the sentry, albeit he was almost
+immediately under the window, peering in with a stern "Who goes there?"
+
+"There seems something amiss with the catch of the shutter," said the
+placid voice of the master of the house, who had left the rug still
+standing on its thick edge before the chimney place. "Can you help me
+there? Thank you very much."
+
+The sentry muttered a sheepish apology, pleading the unusual noise at
+this hour. His excuse was cheerfully accepted. "It is well to be on the
+alert. Good night!"
+
+"Good night, sir!" And once more there sounded through the sombre air
+the martial beat of the sentry's tread on the frosty ground.
+
+Then two men in the darkness within, reaching out in the gloom, fell
+into each other's arms with tears of joy, but presently reproaches too.
+"Oh, my son, my son! why did you come here?"
+
+"Came a-visiting!" said a voice out of the obscurity, with a boy's
+buoyant laughter. "The picket-lines are so close to-night, I couldn't
+resist slipping in. Is Leonora here? How are my dear little nieces,--the
+'ladies'?"
+
+"Oh, Julius! My boy, this is so dangerous!"
+
+"I'd risk ten times more to hear your dear voice again--" with a
+rib-cracking hug--"only think, father, it's more than two years now
+since I have seen you! I want to see Leonora ten minutes and kiss the
+'ladies,' and then I'm off again in a day or so, and none the wiser."
+
+"No, no, that is out of the question! No one must know. The camps are
+too close; you must have seen them, even in the grove."
+
+"Why, I can lie low."
+
+"And there is a--" Judge Roscoe hardly knew how to voice it--"a--a
+Yankee officer in the house."
+
+"Thunderation! The dickens there is! Why--"
+
+"There is no time to explain; you must go back at once, while the
+Federal pickets are so close, and you can slip through the line. It's
+just at the creek."
+
+"But they have thrown it out since dark, five miles. Our fellows
+skedaddled back to their support. And I tell you it will never do for me
+to be caught inside the lines. The Yankees might think I was spying
+around!"
+
+Judge Roscoe turned faint and sick. Then, rising to the emergency, and
+considering the suspicions the sound of voices here at this hour of the
+night might excite in the mind of the sentry, he grasped his son's arm,
+with a warning clutch imposing silence, and led him along the dark hall,
+groping up the staircase. As the boy was about to bolt in the direction
+of his former chamber, his father turned the corner to the second
+flight.
+
+"Sky parlor, is it?" the young daredevil muttered, as they stumbled
+together up the steep ascent to the garret.
+
+A dreary place it showed as they entered, large, low ceiled, extending
+above the whole expanse of the square portion of the house. It was
+lighted only by the windows at either side; through one of these pale
+watery glimmers were falling from a moon which rolled heavily like a
+derelict in the surges of the clouds. This sufficed to show to each the
+other's beloved face; and that Judge Roscoe's ribs were not fractured in
+the hugs of the filial young bear betokened the enduring strength of his
+ancient physique.
+
+The place was sorely neglected since the reduction of the service in the
+old house. Cobwebs had congregated about ceiling and windows; the dust
+was thick on rows of old trunks, which annotated the journeyings of the
+family since the hair-covered, brass-studded style was the latest
+fashion to the sole leather receptacle that bore the initials of Judge
+Roscoe's dead wife, and the gigantic "Saratoga" that had served in Mrs.
+Gwynn's famous wedding journey. There were many specimens of broken
+chairs, and some glimmering branching girandoles, five feet high, that
+had illumined the house at one of the great weddings of long ago. A
+large cedar chest, proof against moths, preserved the ancient shawls and
+gowns of beauties of by-gone times, who little thought this ephemeral
+toggery would survive them. Certain antiquated pieces of furniture,
+hardly meet for the more modern assortment below,--chests of drawers
+surmounted by quaint little cabinets with looking-glasses, a lumbering
+wardrobe that seemed built for high water and stood on four long
+stilt-like legs, a pair of old mantel mirrors, wide and low, with
+tarnished gilded frames, dividing the reflecting surface into three
+equal sections, a great barometer that surlily threatened stormy
+weather, clumsy bureaus, bedsteads, each with four tall "cluster posts"
+surmounted by testers of red, quilled cloth drawn to a brass star in the
+centre, fire-dogs and fenders of dull brass--all were grouped here and
+there. One of these bedsteads had been occupied on some occasion when
+the house had been overcrowded, for the cords that sufficed in lieu of
+the more modern slats now supported a huge feather-bed. Judge Roscoe
+threw on it a carriage rug that had been hung to air on a cord which was
+stretched across one corner of the room. He almost fainted at a sudden,
+frightened clutch upon his arm, and, turning, saw his son in the agonies
+of panic, his teeth chattering, his eyes starting out of his head, his
+hand pointing tremulously toward the bed, as if bereft of his senses,
+demanding to be informed what that object might be. It was the
+time-honored joke of the young Southern soldiers that they had not seen
+or slept in a bedstead for so long that the mere sight of so
+unaccustomed a thing threw them into convulsions of fear. His father
+forgave the genuine tremors the joke had occasioned him for the joker's
+sake, and as Julius, flinging off his cap, coat, and boots, stretched
+out at his long length luxuriously, he stood by the pillow and
+admonished him of the plan of the campaign.
+
+The Yankee officer had been ill, Judge Roscoe explained, and,
+convalescing now, joined the family in their usual gathering places--the
+library, dining room, on the portico, in the grove. If Leonora or the
+"ladies" knew of the presence here of Julius, they could hardly preserve
+in this close association with the enemy an unaffected aspect; so
+significant a secret might be betrayed in facial expression, a tone of
+voice, a nervous start. This would be fatal; his life might prove the
+forfeit. It was a mistake to come, and this mistake must forthwith be
+annulled. Despite the man in the house, Julius could lie perdu here in
+the garret, observing every precaution of secrecy, till the ever
+shifting picket-line should be drawn close enough to enable him to hope
+to reach it without challenge. They would confide in trusty old Ephraim.
+He would maintain a watch and bring them news. And old Ephraim, too,
+would bring up food, cautiously purloined from the table.
+
+"The typical raven! appropriately black!" murmured Julius.
+
+"Are you hungry now, dear?" Judge Roscoe asked disconsolately, after
+telling him that he must wait till morning.
+
+"If you have such a thing as the photograph of a chicken about you, I
+should be glad to see it," Julius murmured demurely.
+
+Judge Roscoe bent down and kissed him good night on the forehead, then
+turned to pick his way carefully among the debris of the old furniture.
+Soon he had reached the stairway, and noiseless as a shadow he flitted
+down the flight.
+
+The young officer lay for a while intently listening, but no stir
+reached his ear; naught; absolute stillness. For a long time, despite
+his fatigue, the change, the pleasant warmth, the soft luxury of the
+feather-bed, would not let him slumber. He was used to the canopy of
+heaven, the chill ground, the tumult of rain; the sense of a roof above
+his head was unaccustomed, and he was stiflingly aware of its
+propinquity. Nevertheless he contrasted its comfort with his own recent
+plight and that of his comrades a few miles away, lying now asleep under
+the security of their camp-guards, some still in the mud of the
+trenches, all on the cold ground, shelterless, half frozen, half
+starved, ill, destitute, but fired with a martial ardor and a zeal for
+the Southern cause which no hardship could damp, and only death itself
+might quench. As he gazed about at the grotesqueries of the great room,
+now in the sheen of the moon, and now in the shadow of the cloud, he
+thought how little he had anticipated finding the enemy here ensconced
+in his place in his father's house, a convalescent, "the son of an old
+friend, of whom we have all grown very fond." He raged inwardly at the
+destruction of his cherished plans wrought by the mere presence of the
+Federal officer. The joy of his visit was brought to naught. Dangerous
+as it would have been under the best auspices, its peril was now great
+and imminent. Instead of the meeting his thoughts had cherished,--the
+sweets of the stolen hours at the domestic fireside, with the dear faces
+that he loved, the dulcet voices for which he yearned,--he was to skulk
+here, undreamed of, like some unhappy ghost haunting a lonely place,
+fortunate indeed if he might chance to be able to make off elusively
+after the fashion of the spectral gentry, without becoming a ghost in
+serious earnest by the event of capture, or catching the pistol ball of
+the Yankee officer. So much he had risked for this visit--life and
+limb!--and to be relegated to the surplusage of the garret, the
+loneliness, the desolate moon, the deserted dust of the unfrequented
+place! He was to approach none of them--none of the hearthstone group!
+There was to be no joyous greeting, no stealthy laughter, no interchange
+of loving words, and clasps, and kisses. He was still young; his eyes
+filled, his throat closed. But that shadowy glimpse of his dear
+father--he had had that boon!
+
+"I'll remember it, if I bite the dust in the next skirmish. And the
+question is to get away--for the next skirmish!"
+
+Once more he fell to studying mechanically the grouping of the archaic,
+disordered furniture; the shifting of the shadows amongst it as a cloud
+sped by with the wind; the spare boughs of a bare aspen tree etched on
+the floor by the moon, shining down through the high windows; and that
+melancholy orb itself, suggestive of a futile vanished past, a time
+forgotten, and spent illusions, the familiar of loneliness, and the deep
+empty hours of the midnight--itself a spectre of a dead planet, haunting
+its wonted pathway of the skies. When its light ceased to fill his
+lustrous, contemplative eyes he did not know, but as the moon passed on
+to the west, his melancholy gaze had ceased to follow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Joy came in the morning when the raven alighted. The "two-faced Janus"
+was wreathed in smiles, bent double with chuckles, and tears of delight
+sparkled in his eyes.
+
+"How dee is growed!" he whispered cautiously. "Mannish now, fur true.
+Gawd! de han'somest one ob de fam'ly!" For, with the refreshment of
+sleep and the substance, not merely the similitude, of fried chicken,
+waffles, and coffee, Julius, in the gray uniform of a first lieutenant,
+made a very gallant show despite the incongruities of the piled-up
+lumber of the old garret. He had a keen, high, alert profile, his nose a
+trifle aquiline; his complexion was fair and florid; his eyes were a
+fiery brown, his hair, of the same rich tint, was now and again tossed
+impatiently backward, the style of the day being an inconvenient length,
+for it was worn to hang about the collar. He had a breezy, offhand,
+impetuous manner, evidently only bridled in by rigorous training to
+decorous forms, and he stood six feet one inch in his stockings, taller
+now by one inch more in his boots, which the old servant had helped him
+to draw on. "Lawd-a-massy! dis de baby?" cried the old negro,
+admiringly, still on his knees, contemplating the young officer as he
+took a turn through the apartment with his straight-brimmed cap on his
+head and his hand on his sword. "'Fore Gawd, whut sorter baby is dis
+yere--over six feet high?"
+
+"Wish I was a baby for about two hours, Uncle Ephraim! You could carry
+me 'pickaback' through the Yankee lines!"
+
+"Hue-come ye run dem lines, Marse Julius? I reckon, dough, you hatter
+see Miss Leonora," said the discerning old darkey. "'Fore de Lawd, she
+hed better be wearin' dem widder's weeds fur de good match she flung
+away in you 'stead o' fur dat ar broken-necked man whut's daid, praise
+de Lamb!"
+
+If Julius joined in this pious thanksgiving, he made no outward sign. He
+only flushed slightly as he asked constrainedly, "Is she wearing
+mourning yet?"
+
+"Yes, sah, to be shore. Dis yere Yankee man, whut ole Marster an' de
+'ladies' an' all invited to stay yere, he is gwine round Miss Leonora
+mighty smilin' an' perlite an' humble. Dat man behaves lak he is mos'
+too modes' ter say his prayers! 'Anything ye got lef' over, good Lawd,
+will do Baynell, especially a lef'-over widder 'oman!' Dat's his
+petition ter de throne ob grace!"
+
+Oh, double-faced Janus!--now partisan of the Rebel, erstwhile so
+friendly with "de Yankee man."
+
+"Ef 'twarn't fur him, yer Pa could come up yere an' smoke a _see_gar an'
+talk, an' Miss Leonora an' de ladies mought play kyerds wid dee wunst in
+a while, wid dem blinds kept closed."
+
+"He isn't such an awful Tartar, is he, Uncle Ephraim?" said Julius,
+plaintively, allured by this picture. "Wouldn't he wink at it, if he
+missed them or heard voices, or caught a suspicion of my being here?
+They have been so good to him--and I am doing nothing aggressive--only
+visiting the family."
+
+"_Lawsy--Lawsy--Lawsy-massy, no! No!_" cried Uncle Ephraim, in extreme
+agitation and with the utmost emphasis of negation. "Dat man is
+afflicted wid a powerful oneasy conscience, Marse Julius!"
+
+And he detailed with the most convincing and graphic diction the
+disaster that had befallen the too-confiding Acrobat.
+
+Julius was very definitely impressed with the imminence of his peril.
+"The son of Belial!" he exclaimed in dismay.
+
+"Naw sah,--_dat_ ain't his daddy's Christian name," said Uncle Ephraim,
+ingenuously. "'Tain't Benial!--dough it's mighty nigh ez comical. Hit's
+'_Fluellen_'--same ez dis man's. I hearn ole Marster call it--but what
+you laffin' at? Dee bed better come out'n dat duck-fit! Folks can hear
+ye giggling plumb down ter de Big Gate!"
+
+He was constrained to take himself downstairs presently, lest he be
+missed, although longing to continue his discourse. His caution in his
+departure, his crafty listening for sounds from below before he would
+trust his foot to the stair, his swift, gliding transit to the more
+accustomed region of the second story, the art he expended in concealing
+in a dust cloth the bowl in which he had conveyed "the forage," as
+Julius called it--all were eminently reassuring to the man who stood in
+such imminent peril for a casual whim as he gazed after "the raven's"
+flight.
+
+Solitary, silent, isolated, the day became intolerably dull to the young
+soldier as it wore on. He dared not absorb himself in a book, although
+there were many old magazines in a case which stood near the stairs, for
+thus he might fail to note an approach. Once he heard the treble babble
+of two of the "ladies" and the strange, infrequent harsh tone of the
+deaf-mute, and he paused to murmur, "Bless their dear little souls!"
+with a tender smile on his face. And suddenly, his attention still bent
+upon the region below stairs, so unconscious of his presence above,
+there came to him the full, mellow sound of a stranger's voice, a
+well-bred, decorous voice with a conventional but pleasant laugh; and
+then, both in the hallway now, Leonora's drawling contralto, with its
+cantabile effects, her speech seeming more beautiful than the singing of
+other women. The front door closed with a bang, and Julius realized
+that they had gone forth together. He stood in vague wonderment and
+displeasure. Was it possible, he asked himself, that she really received
+this man's attentions, appeared publicly in his company, accepted his
+escort? Then, to assure himself, he sprang to the window and looked out
+upon the grove.
+
+There was the graceful figure of his dreams in her plain black bombazine
+dress worn without the slightest challenge to favor, the black crape
+veil floating backward from the ethereally fair face, the glittering
+gold-flecked brown hair beneath the white ruche, called the "widow's
+cap," in the edge of her bonnet. Her fine gray eyes were cast toward the
+house with a languid smile as the "ladies" tapped on the pane of the
+library window and signed farewell. Beside her Julius scanned a tall,
+well-set-up man in a blue uniform and the insignia of a captain of
+artillery, with blond hair and beard, a grave, handsome face, a
+dignified manner, a presence implying many worldly and social values.
+
+This walk was an occasion of moment to Baynell. The opportunity had
+arisen in the simplest manner.
+
+There was to be the funeral of a friend of Judge Roscoe's in the
+neighborhood, and at the table he had been arranging how "the family
+should be represented," to use his formal phrase, for business
+necessitated his absence.
+
+"But I will walk over with _you_, Leonora, although I cannot stay for
+the services. I will call by for you later."
+
+It was natural, both in the interests of civility and his own pleasure,
+that Baynell should offer to take the old gentleman's place, urging that
+an officer was the most efficient escort in the unsettled state of the
+country; and, indeed, how could they refuse? He, however, thought only
+of her acceptability to him. Apart from her beauty he had never known a
+woman who so conformed to his ideals of the appropriate, despite the
+grotesque folly of her blighted romance. It was only her nobility of
+nature, he argued, that had compassed her unhappiness in that instance.
+The graces of her magnanimity would not have been wasted on him, he
+protested inwardly. He appreciated that they were fine and high
+qualities thus cast before swine and ruthlessly trampled underfoot. She
+herself had lacked in naught--but the unworthy subject of the largess of
+her heart.
+
+It was Baynell who talked as they took their way through the grove and
+down the hill. Now and again she lifted her eyes, murmured assent,
+seemed to listen, always subacutely following the trend of her own
+reflections.
+
+He would not intrude into the house of affliction, being a stranger, he
+said, and therefore he strolled about outside during the melancholy
+obsequies, patiently waiting till she came out again and joined him. She
+seemed cast down, agitated; he thought her of a delicately sensitive
+organization.
+
+"How familiar death is becoming in these war times!" she said drearily,
+when they were out of the crowd once more and fairly homeward bound.
+"There was not one woman of the hundred in that house who is not wearing
+mourning."
+
+She rarely introduced a topic, and, with more alacrity than the subject
+might warrant, he spoke in responsive vein on the increased losses in
+battle as arms are improved, presently drifting to the comparison of
+statistics of the mortality in hospitals, the relative chances for life
+under shell or musketry fire, the destructive efficacy of sabre cuts,
+and the military value of cavalry charges. The cavalry fought much now
+on foot, he said, using the carbine, but this reduced the efficiency of
+the force one-fourth, the necessary discount for horse-holders; he
+thought there was great value in the cavalry charge, with the unsheathed
+sabre; it was like the rush of a cyclone; only few troops, well
+disciplined, could hold their ground before it; thus he pursued the
+subject of cognate interest to his profession. And meantime she was
+thinking only of these women, mourning their dead and dear, while
+she--the hypocrite--wore the garb of the bereaved to emphasize her
+merciful and gracious release. She wondered how she had ever endured it,
+she who hated deceit, a fanciful pose, and the empty conventions, she
+who did not mourn save for her lost exaltations, her wasted affection,
+the hopeless aspirations--all the dear, sweet illusions of life! Perhaps
+she had owed some compliance with the customs of mere widowhood, the
+outward respect to the status. Well, then, she had paid it; farther than
+this she would not go.
+
+The next morning as Captain Baynell took his seat at the breakfast-table
+she was coming in through the glass door from the parterre at one side
+of the dining room, arrayed in a mazarine blue mousseline-de-laine
+flecked with pink, a trifle old-fashioned in make, with a bunch of pink
+hyacinths in her hand, their delicate cold fragrance filling all the
+room.
+
+Even a man less desirous of being deceived than Baynell might well have
+deduced a personal application. He was sufficiently conversant with the
+conventions of feminine attire to be aware that this change was
+something of the most sudden. His finical delicacy was pained to a
+certain extent that the casting off her widow's weeds could be
+interpreted as a challenge to a fresh romance. But he argued that if
+this were for his encouragement, surely he should not cavil at her
+candor, for it would require a bolder man than he to offer his heart and
+hand under the shadow of that swaying crape veil. Nevertheless when his
+added confidence showed in his elated eyes, his assured manner, she
+stared at him for a moment with a surprise so obvious that it chilled
+the hope ardently aglow in his consciousness. The next instant realizing
+that all the eyes at the table were fixed on her blooming attire, noting
+the change, she flushed in confusion and vexation. She had not counted
+on being an object of attention and speculation.
+
+Judge Roscoe's ready tact mitigated the stress of the situation.
+"Leonora," he said, "you look like the spring! That combination of
+sky-blue and peach-blow was always a favorite with your aunt,--French
+taste, she called it. It seems to me that the dyes of dress goods were
+more delicate then than now; that is not something new, is it?"
+
+"Oh, no; a worn-out thing, as old as the hills!" she answered casually.
+
+And so the subject dropped.
+
+It was renewed in a different quarter.
+
+Old Ephraim was sitting on the floor in the garret, while his young
+master, adroitly balanced in a crazy arm-chair with three legs, was
+scraping with a spoon the bottom of the bowl that had contained "the
+forage."
+
+Julius made these meals as long as he dared, so yearning he was for the
+news of the dear home life below, so tantalized by its propinquity and
+yet its remoteness. He was barred from it by his peril and the presence
+of the Federal officer as if he were a thousand miles away. But old
+Ephraim came freshly from its scenes; from the table that he served,
+around which the familiar faces were grouped; from the fireside he
+replenished, musical with the voices that Julius loved. He caught a
+glimpse, he heard an echo, through the old gossip's talk, and thus the
+symposium was prolonged. The old negro told the neighborhood news as
+well; who was dead, and how and why they died; who was married, and how
+and when this occurred; what ladies "received Yankee officers," for some
+there were who put off and on their political prejudices as easily as an
+old glove; what homes had been seized for military purposes or destroyed
+by the operations of war.
+
+"De Yankees built a fote on Marse Frank Devrett's hill," he remarked of
+the home of a relative of the Roscoes.
+
+"Which side," demanded the boy; "toward the river?"
+
+"Todes de souf."
+
+"Pshaw! Uncle Ephraim, it couldn't be the south; the crest of the hill
+slopes that way," Julius contradicted, still actively plying the spoon.
+"You don't know north from south; you don't know gee from haw!"
+
+"'Twas de souf, now! 'Twas de souf!" protested the old servant.
+
+"Now look here," argued Julius, beginning to draw with the spoon upon
+the broad, dusty top of a cedar chest close by. "Here is the Dripping
+Spring road, and here runs the turnpike. Now here is the rise of the
+hill, and--"
+
+"Dar is Gen'al Belden's cavalry brigade camped at de foot," put in Uncle
+Ephraim, rising on his knees, taking a casual interest in cartography.
+
+"And here is the bend of the river,"--the bowl of the spoon made a great
+swirl to imply the broad sweep of the noble Tennessee.
+
+"Dat's whar dey got some infantry, four reg'ments."
+
+"I see," with several dabs to mark the spot, "convenient for
+embarkation."
+
+"An' dar," said the old man, unaware of any significance in the
+disclosure, "is one o' dem big siege batteries hid ahint de bresh--"
+
+"Masked, hey? to protect launching and prevent approach by water; they
+_are_ fixed up mighty nice! And here goes the slope of the hill to the
+fort."
+
+"No, dat's de ravelin, de covered way, an' de par'pet."
+
+"As far down as this, Uncle Ephraim? surely not!"
+
+"Now, ye ain't so much ez chipped de shell ob dis soldierin' business,
+ye nuffin' but a onhatched deedie! An' yere I been takin' ye fur a
+perfessed soldier-man! You lissen! _yere_ is de covered way ob de
+ravelin, outside ob a redoubt, whar dey got a big traverse wid a
+powder-magazine built into it. I been up dar when dis artillery captain
+sent his wagons arter his ammunition."
+
+"About where is the magazine located?" demanded Julius, gravely intent.
+
+"Jes' dar--dar--"
+
+"No, no!" cried the Confederate officer, in a loud, elated voice.
+
+The old servant caught him by the sleeve, trembling and with a warning
+finger lifted. Then they were both silent, intently listening.
+
+The sunlight across the garret floor lay still, save for the bright bar
+of glittering, dancing motes. The tall aspen tree by the window made no
+sound as it touched the pane with its white velvet buds. A wasp
+noiselessly flickered up and down the glass. Absolute quietude, save for
+a gentle, continuous murmur of voices in conversation in the library
+below.
+
+"I'se gwine ter take myse'f away from yere," said old Janus, loweringly,
+his eyes full of reproach, his nerves shaken by the sudden fright. "Ye
+ain't fitten fur dis yere soldierin' business; jes' pipped de shell. You
+gwine ter git yerself cotched by dat ar Yankee man whut we-all done
+loaded ourself up wid, an' _den_ whar will ye be? He done got well
+enough ter knock down a muel, an' I dunno _why_ he don't go on back ter
+his camp. Done wore out his welcome yere, good-fashion!"
+
+But Julius had entirely recovered from the _contretemps_. He was gazing
+in fixed intentness at the map drawn in the dust on the smooth, polished
+top of the cedar chest.
+
+"Uncle Ephraim," he said in an impressive whisper, "this powder-magazine
+is built right over a cave! I _know_, because there is a hole, a sort of
+grotto down in the grove, where you can go in; and in half a mile you
+come right up against the wall of my cousin Frank Devrett's cellar. We
+played off ghost tricks there one Christmas, the Devrett boys and me,
+singing and howling in the cave, and it made a great mystery in the
+house, frightening my Cousin Alice; but Cousin Frank was in the secret."
+
+"Gimme--gimme dat spoon! I don't keer if de Yankees built deir magazine
+in de _well_ instead ob de cellar. I'm gwine away 'fore dat widder 'oman
+begins arter me 'bout dat spoon an' bowl! Gimme de bowl, sah, it's de
+salad bowl!"
+
+"Oh, I see," still pondering on the map; "they utilized part of the
+cellar, the wine vault, blown out of the solid rock, for the bottom of
+the powder-magazine to save work, and then covered it over with the
+traverse, and--"
+
+"Gimme dat bowl, Marse Julius, dat widder 'oman will be on our track
+direc'ly. She keeps up wid every silver spoon as if she expected ter own
+'em one day! But shucks! _you_ gwine ter miss her again, wid all dis
+foolishness ob playin' Rebel soldier. Dat ar widder 'oman is all dressed
+out in blue an' pink ter-day, an' dat Yankee man smile same ez a
+possum!"
+
+Julius Roscoe's absorption dropped in an instant. "You are an egregious
+old fraud!" he cried impetuously. "I saw her myself, yesterday, dressed
+in deep mourning."
+
+"Thankee, sah!" hoarsely whispered the infuriated old negro. "Ye'se
+powerful perlite ter pore ole Ephraim, whut's worked faithful fur you
+Roscoes all de days ob his life. I reckon I'se toted ye a thousand miles
+on dis ole back! An' I larned _ye_ how ter feesh an' ter dig in the
+gyarden,--dough ye is a mighty pore hand wid a hoe,--an' ter set traps
+fur squir'ls, an' how ter find de wild bee tree. An' dem fine house
+sarvants never keered half so much fur ye ez de ole cawnfield hand; an'
+now dey hes all lef', an' de plantation gangs have all gone, too, an' ye
+would lack yer vittles ef 'twarn't fur de ole cawnfield hand! I'll fetch
+ye yer breakfus', sah, in de mornin', fur all ye are so perlite.
+Thankee, kindly, sah, callin' _me_ names!"
+
+And he took his way down the stair. Albeit in danger of capture and
+death, Julius flew across the floor to the head of the flight,
+beguilingly beckoning the old negro to return, for the ministering raven
+had cast up reproachful eyes as he faced about on the first landing.
+Although obviously relenting, and placated by the tacit apology, the old
+servant obdurately shook his head surlily. Julius jocosely menaced him
+with his fists; then, as the gray head finally disappeared, the young
+man with a sudden change of sentiment strode restlessly up and down the
+clear space of the garret, feeling more cast down and ill at ease than
+ever before.
+
+"Oh, why did I come home!" Julius said over and again, reflecting on his
+heady venture and its scanty joy. It seemed that the great unhappiness
+of his life was about to be repeated under his eyes; once before he had
+witnessed the woman he loved won by another man. Then, however, he was
+scarcely more than a mere boy; now he was older, and the defeat would go
+more harshly with him. But was he not even to enter the lists, to break
+a lance for her favor? Although he had controverted the idea of her
+doffing her weeds in this connection, he now nothing doubted the fact.
+Her choice was made, the die was cast. And he stood here a fugitive in
+his father's house, in peril of capture--nay, it might be even his neck,
+the shameful death of a spy--that he might once more look upon her face!
+
+He could not be calm, he could no longer be still; and ceaselessly
+treading to and fro after the house had long grown quiet, and the
+brilliant radiance of the moon was everywhere falling through the broad,
+tall windows, his restless spirit was tempted beyond the bounds of the
+shadowy staircase that he might at least, wandering like some unhappy
+ghost, see again the old familiar haunts. He passed through the halls,
+silent, slow, unafraid, as if invested with invisibility. He was grave,
+heavy-hearted, as aloof from all it once meant as if he were indeed
+some sad spirit revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Now and again he
+paused to gaze on some arrangement of sofas or chairs familiar to his
+earlier youth. By this big window always lay the backgammon-board. There
+was the old guitar, with memory, moonlight, romantic dreams, all
+entangled in the strings! It had been a famous joke to drag that light
+card-table before the pier glass, which reflected the hand of the unwary
+gamester. He sank down in a great fauteuil in the library, and through
+the long window on the opposite side of the room he could see the sheen
+of the moonlight lying as of old amidst the familiar grove.
+
+The sentry, with his cap and light blue overcoat, its cape fluttering in
+the breeze, ever and anon marched past, his musket shouldered, all
+unaware of the eyes that watched him; the budding trees cast scant
+shadows, spare and linear, on the dewy turf; the flowers bloomed all
+ghostly white in the parterre at one side. So might he indeed revisit
+the scene were he dead, Julius thought; so might he silently,
+listlessly, gaze upon it, his share annulled, his hope bereft.
+
+Were he really dead, he wondered, could he look calmly at Leonora's book
+where she had laid it down? He knew its owner from her habit of marking
+the place with a flower; it held a long blooming rod of the _Pyrus
+Japonica_, the blossoms showing a scarlet glow even in the pallid
+moonlight. One of the "ladies" had cast on the floor her "nun's
+bonnet," a tube-like straw covering, fitted with lining and curtain of
+blue barège and blue ribbons; that belonged to Adelaide, he was sure,
+the careless one, for the bonnets of the other two "nuns" hung primly on
+the rack in the side hall. His father's pen and open portfolio lay on
+the desk, and there too was the pipe that had solaced some knotty
+perplexity of his business affairs, growing complicated now in the
+commercial earthquake that the war had superinduced.
+
+Without doubt more troublous times yet were in store. Julius rose
+suddenly. He must not add to these trials! He must exert every capacity
+to compass his safe withdrawal from this heady venture, for his father's
+sake as well as his own. With this monition of duty the poor ghost bade
+farewell to the scene that so allured him, the old home atmosphere so
+dear to his sense of exile, and took his way silently, softly, up the
+stairs.
+
+He met the dawn at the head of the flight, filtering down from a high
+window. It fell quite distinct on the map of the town and its defences
+that he had drawn, in the dust on the polished top of the cedar chest,
+and suddenly a thought came to him altogether congruous with the garish
+day.
+
+"I know a chief of artillery who would like mightily to hear where that
+masked battery is! I do believe he could reach it from Sugar Loaf
+Pinnacle if he could get a few guns up there!"
+
+Then he was reminded anew of the subterranean secret passage from the
+grotto in the grove through the cave to the cellar of the old Devrett
+place, where now there was a powder-magazine. "I'd like to get out of
+the lines with that map set in my head precisely." He thought for a
+minute with great concentration. "Better still, I'll draw it off on
+paper."
+
+He had half a mind to take Uncle Ephraim into his confidence to procure
+pencils and paper, but a prudent monition swayed him. This was going
+far, very far! He would possess himself of the map duly drawn, but he
+would share this secret with no one. He resolved that when next the
+family should be out of the house, for daily they and their invalid
+guest strolled for exercise in the grove or wandered among the flowers
+in the old-fashioned garden, he would then venture into the library
+quietly and secure the materials.
+
+The opportunity, however, did not occur till late in the afternoon. He
+did not postpone the quest for a midnight hazard, for he daily hoped
+that with the darkness might come news of the drawing in of the
+picket-lines, affording him a better chance to make a run for escape.
+Hence it so happened that when the elder members of the household came
+in to tea, they found the "ladies" already at the table, the twins
+gloomily whimpering, the dumb child with an elated yet scornful air, her
+bright eyes dancing.
+
+They had seen a ghost, the twins protested.
+
+"Oh, fie! fie!" their grandfather uneasily rebuked them, and Captain
+Baynell turned with the leniency of the happy and consequently the
+easily pleased to inquire into this juvenile mystery.
+
+Oh, yes, they _had_ seen a ghost! a truly true ghost! They mopped their
+eyes with their diminutive handkerchiefs and wept in great depression of
+spirit. It was in the library, they further detailed, just about dark.
+And it had seen them! It scrabbled and scrunched along the wall! And
+they both drew up their shoulders to their ears to imitate the shrinking
+attitude of a ghost who would fain shun observation and get out of the
+way.
+
+Little Lucille laughed fleeringly, understanding from the motion of
+their lips what they had said. She gazed around with lustrous, excited
+eyes; then, she turned toward Baynell, and with infinite élan, she
+smartly delivered the military salute.
+
+"Why," cried Mrs. Gwynn, on the impulse of the moment, "Lucille says it
+is Julius Roscoe; that is her sign for him. What is all this foolery,
+Lucille?"
+
+But just then Uncle Ephraim, in his functions as waiter, overturned the
+large, massive coffee urn, holding much scalding fluid, upon the table,
+causing the group to scatter to avoid contact with the turbulent flood.
+The "widder 'oman" struggled valiantly to keep her temper, and said
+only a little of what she thought. The rearrangement of the table, with
+her awkward and untrained servant, for the service of the meal so
+occupied her faculties that the matter passed from her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Miss Mildred Fisher was one of the happiest of women, and this was the
+result of her own peculiar temperament, although she enjoyed the
+endowments of a kind fate, for she came of a good family and had a fine
+fortune in expectation. Her resolute intention was to make the best of
+everything. With a strong, fresh, buoyant physique and an indomitable
+spirit it became evident to her in the early stages of this effort that
+the world is a fairly pleasant planet to live on. Her red hair--a
+capital defect in those days, when Titian's name was never associated
+with anything so unfashionable, and which bowed to the earth the soul of
+many an otherwise deserving damsel--was most skilfully manipulated, and
+dressed in fleecy billows, usually surmounted with an elaborate comb of
+carved tortoise-shell, but on special occasions with a cordon of very
+fine pearls, as if to attract the attention that other flame-haired
+people avoided by the humblest coiffure. By reason of this management it
+was described sometimes as auburn, and even golden, but this last was
+the aberration usually of youths who had lost their own heads, red and
+otherwise, for Mildred was a bewildering coquette. She had singularly
+fine hazel eyes, which she used rather less for the purpose of vision
+than for the destruction of the peace of man. Her complexion of that
+delicate fairness so often concomitant of red hair did not present the
+usual freckles. In fact it was the subject of much solicitous care. She
+wore so many veils and mufflers that her identity often might well be a
+matter of doubt as far as her features could be discerned, and Seymour,
+being a very glib young lieutenant, once facetiously threatened her with
+arrest for going masked and presumably entertaining designs pernicious
+to the welfare of the army. That she did entertain such designs, in a
+different sense, was indeed obvious, for with her determination to make
+the best of everything, Miss Fisher had resolved to harass the heart of
+the invader the moment a personable man with a creditable letter of
+introduction presented himself. For she "received the Yankees," as the
+phrase went, while others closed their doors and steeled their hearts in
+bitterness.
+
+"We _all_ receive the Yankees," she was wont to say smilingly. "It is a
+family failing with us. My father and five brothers in the Confederate
+vanguard are waiting now to receive Yankees--as many Yankees as care to
+come to Bear-grass Creek."
+
+"Oh, Miss Fisher!" remonstrated the gay young lieutenant, perceiving her
+drift; "how can you consign me so heartlessly to six red-handed
+Rebels!"
+
+"Only red-headed as yet, fiery,--_all_ of them! They'll be red-handed
+enough after you and they come to blows!"
+
+This mimic warfare had a certain zest, and many were the youths among
+the officers of the garrison who liked to "talk politics" in this vein
+with "Sister Millie," as she was often designated in jocose allusion to
+the five fiery-haired brothers. And indeed, as the Fisher family was so
+numerously represented in the Confederate army, she considered that her
+Southern partisanship was thus comprehensively demonstrated, and she
+felt peculiarly at liberty to make merry with the enemy if the enemy
+would be merry in turn.
+
+Very merry and good-natured the enemy was pleased to be as far as she
+was concerned. They wrote home for social credentials. They secured
+introductions from brother-officers who had the entrée, and especially
+courted for this purpose were two elderly colonels who had been
+classmates of her father's at West Point, where he was educated,
+although he had resigned from the army many years ago. The two had
+sought and naturally had found a cordial welcome at the home of his
+wife, sister, and mother. It was natural, too, that they should feel and
+exert a sort of prudential care of the household, in the midst of
+inimical soldiers, and although their ancient companion-in-arms was in
+an adverse force hardly fifty miles away, they regarded this as merely
+the political aspect of the situation, which did not diminish their
+amity and bore no relation to their personal sentiment, as they came and
+went in his house on the footing of friends of the family. Now and again
+the incongruity was brought home to them by some audacity of Mildred
+Fisher's.
+
+"If you should meet papa, Colonel Monette," she said one day as one of
+these elderly officers was going out to command a scouting
+expedition--"if you _should_ meet papa, don't fail to reintroduce
+yourself, and give him our prettiest compliments."
+
+The elderly officer was a literal-minded campaigner, and as he put his
+foot in the stirrup he felt rather dolorously that if ever he did meet
+Guy Fisher again, it would probably be at point-blank range where one
+would have to swallow the other's pistol ball.
+
+The war, however, was seldom so seriously regarded at the Fisher
+mansion, one of the fine modern houses of the town,--brick with heavy
+limestone facings and much iron grille work, perched up on a double
+terrace, from which two flights of stone steps descended to the
+pavement. The more youthful officers contrived to import fruits and
+hothouse flowers, the fresh books and sheet music of the day, and they
+stood by the piano and wagged their heads to the march in "Faust," which
+was all the rage at that time, and sped around nimbly to the vibrations
+of its waltz, that might have made a pair of spurs dance. She had a
+very pretty wit of an exaggerated tenor, and it seemed to whet the
+phrase of every one who was associated with "The Fair One with the
+Equivocal Locks," as an imitator of her methods had dubbed her.
+
+No order was so strictly enforced as to touch her mother's and her
+aunt's household. Their poultry roosted in peace. Their firearms were
+left by officers conducting searches through citizens' houses and
+confiscating pistols, guns, and knives.
+
+"_We_ are as capable of armed rebellion as ever," she would declare
+joyously.
+
+Miss Fisher's favorite horse bore her airy weight as jauntily down the
+street as if no impress had desolated equestrian society. On these
+occasions she was always accompanied by two or three officers, sometimes
+more, and there was a fable in circulation that once the cavalcade was
+so numerous that the guard was turned out at the fort, the sentries
+mistaking the gayly caparisoned approach for the major general
+commanding the division and his mounted escort.
+
+She sang in a very high soprano voice and with a considerable degree of
+culture, but one may be free to say that her rendering of "Il Bacio" and
+"La Farfalletta" was by no means the triumph of art that it seemed to
+Seymour, and it was suggested to the mind of several of the elder
+officers that there ought to be something more arduous for him to do
+than to languish over the piano in a sentimental daze, fairly
+hypnotized by the simpler melodies--"Her bright smile haunts me still"
+and "Sweet Evangeline."
+
+Serious thoughts were sometimes his portion, and Vertnor Ashley now and
+again received the benefit of them.
+
+"I heard some news when I was in town to-day--and I don't believe it,"
+Seymour said as he sat on a camp-stool on the grass in front of the
+colonel's tent.
+
+The so-called "street" of the cavalry encampment lay well to the rear.
+Hardly a sound emanated therefrom save now and then the echo of a step,
+the jingling of a spur or sabre, and sometimes voices in drowsy
+talk--perhaps a snatch of song or the thrumming of a guitar. A sort of
+luminous hush pervaded the atmosphere of the sunny spring afternoon. The
+shadows slanted long on the lush blue-grass that, despite the trampling
+to which it had been subjected, sent a revivifying impetus from its
+thickly interlaced mat of roots and spread a turf like dark rich velvet.
+The impulse of bloom was rife throughout nature--in a sort of praise
+offering for the grace of the spring. Humble untoward sprigs of
+vegetation, nameless, one would think, unnoticed, must needs wear a tiny
+corolla or offer a chalice full of dew--so minute, so apart from
+observation, that their very creation seemed a work of supererogation.
+The dandelions' rich golden glow was instarred along the roadside, and
+there was a bunch of wood violets in the roots of the maple near
+Ashley's head, the branches of the tree holding far down their dark
+garnet blossoms with here and there clusters of flat wing-like
+seed-pods, striped with green and brown. A few paces distant was a
+tulip-tree, gloriously aflare with red and yellow blooms through all its
+boughs to the height of eighty feet, and between was swung Ashley's
+hammock with Ashley luxuriously disposed therein. His eyes were on the
+infinite roseate ranges of the Great Smoky Mountains in the amethystine
+distance; the purple Chilhowee darkly loomed closer at hand, and about
+the foot-hills was belted the placid cestus of tents, all gleaming
+white, while the splendid curves of the river, mirroring the sky, vied
+with the golden west. Nothing could have more picturesquely suggested
+the warrior in his hours of ease. The consciousness of one's own graces
+ought to add a zest to their value, especially when vanity is as
+absolutely harmless as Vertnor Ashley's enjoyment of his own good
+opinion of himself.
+
+"What news? Why don't you believe it? Grape-vine?" asked Ashley.
+(Grape-vine was the telegraph of irresponsible rumor.)
+
+"No--no--nothing fresh from the army. I heard a rumor to-day about Miss
+Fisher--that she is engaged to be married."
+
+"I am not surprised--the contrary would surprise me."
+
+Seymour looked alarmed. "Had you heard it, too?"
+
+"No; but from what I have seen of 'Sister Millie,' as they call her
+about here, I should say she is a fine recruiting officer."
+
+There was an interval of silence, while Ashley swung back and forth in
+the hammock and Seymour sat in a clumped posture on the camp-stool, his
+hands on his knees, and his gloomy eyes on the square toes of his new
+boots. At length he resumed:--
+
+"Did you ever hear of a fellow that hails from somewhere near here named
+Lloyd?"
+
+"Lawrence Lloyd?"
+
+"That's the man," said Seymour.
+
+"I've heard of him. That's the Lloyd place a little down the river,--old
+brick house, but all torn down now--burned by Gibdon's men; good-sized
+park, or 'grove,' as they call it. That's the man, is it? Commanded some
+Rebel cavalry in the Bear-grass Creek skirmish."
+
+"Fought like a bear with a sore head--mad about his house, I suppose."
+
+"If I _knew_ that Miss Fisher was engaged to him, I would send her a
+barrel or two of fine old books that I rescued from Gibdon's
+men--thought I'd save 'em for the owner. They made a bonfire of the
+library there."
+
+"Lloyd used 'em up in a raid last fall--Gibdon's fellows. I don't blame
+'em. But, say Miss Fisher has not been fair to me if she is engaged to
+that man."
+
+"I always thought Miss Fisher was particularly fair--owing to a
+sun-bonnet, rather than to a just mind."
+
+"You think she would treat me as she has--encourage me to make a fool of
+myself--if she is engaged to another man?"
+
+"I think she is likelier to be engaged to five than 'another.'"
+
+"You should not say that, Ashley," retorted Seymour, gravely. "It is not
+appropriate. You should not say that," he urged again.
+
+"Oh, I mean no offence, and certainly no disrespect to the lovely Miss
+Fisher, who is my heart's delight. But you have heard the five-swain
+story?"
+
+As Seymour looked an inquiry--
+
+"Five Rebs in camp, all homesick, very blue, on a Sunday morning," began
+Ashley, graphically; "all sitting on logs, each brooding over his
+fiancée's ivory-type. And, as misery loves company, one sympathized with
+another, and, by way of boastfulness, showed the beautiful counterfeit
+presentment of his lady-love. Their clamors brought up the rest of the
+five, and _each_ had the identical photograph of Miss Millie Fisher. She
+was engaged to all five! There was nothing else they could do--so they
+held a prayer-meeting!"
+
+"What bosh!" exclaimed Seymour, fretfully. "People are always at some
+extravagant story about her like that. It isn't true, of course."
+
+"It is as much like her as if it were true," Ashley declared laughingly.
+
+The serious, not to say petulant traits of Seymour were intensified by
+the conscious jeopardy of his happiness, and the continual doubt in his
+mind as to whether he had any ground for hope at all.
+
+"By George! if I knew she was engaged--or--if I knew--anything at all
+about anything--I'd cut it all, and give it up. I don't want to be a
+source of amusement to her--or to be made a show of. Sometimes, I pledge
+you my word, I feel like a dancing bear."
+
+"Miss Fisher has something of the style of a bear-ward, it must be
+confessed," said Ashley. "I fancied at one time she had a notion of
+getting a chain on me--she is enterprising, you know."
+
+Then, after a moment, "Why _don't_ you cut it all, Mark?"
+
+"Oh," cried Seymour, with an accent of positive pain, "I can't.
+Sometimes I believe she _does_ care--she makes me believe it."
+
+"Well," smiled Ashley, banteringly, "you dance very prettily--not a bit
+clumsily--a very creditable sort of bear."
+
+Another interval of silence ensued.
+
+"I blame Baynell for all this," said Seymour, sullenly.
+
+"Why? Is he a rival?"
+
+"No. But it was not at all serious--I wasn't so dead gone, I mean--when
+I wanted him to take me to the Roscoes'. If I had had some other place
+to visit--some other people to know--some distraction of a reasonable
+social circle, she couldn't have brought me to such a--a--"
+
+"--state of captivity," suggested Ashley.
+
+"Well, you know, seeing nobody else of one's own sort--and a charming
+girl--and nothing to do but to watch her sing--and hear her talk--and
+all the other men wild about her--and--it's--it's--"
+
+"You'll forget it all before long," suggested the consolatory Ashley.
+"You know we are here to-day and gone to-morrow, in a sense that General
+Orders make less permanent than Scripture. If the word should come to
+break camp and march--how little you would be thinking of Miss Fisher."
+
+"I suppose you were never in love, Ashley," Seymour said, a trifle
+drearily, adding mentally, "except with yourself!"
+
+"I!" exclaimed Ashley, twirling his mustache. "Oh, I have had my sad
+experiences, too--but I have survived them--and partially forgotten
+them."
+
+"I have no interest now in going to the Roscoes'. Mrs. Fisher offered to
+introduce me. She and Miss Millie are going there to-morrow to some sort
+of a sewing-circle--they just want an officer's escort through the
+suburbs, I know. That sewing-circle is a fraud, and ought to be
+interdicted. They pretend to sew and knit for the hospitals here and
+Confederate prisoners, and I feel sure they smuggle the lint and clothes
+and supplies through the lines to Rebels openly in arms. I hate to go."
+
+"Well, now, I'll engage to eat all the homespun cotton shirts that Miss
+Fisher ever makes for the Rebel in arms, or any other man. You need have
+no punctilio on that score."
+
+"Oh, it isn't that. I hate to meet Baynell--what is he staying on there
+for? He is as rugged now as ever in his life. Is he in love with the
+widow?"
+
+"He has a queer way of showing it if he is." And Ashley detailed the
+circumstance of the impressing of the horse. Seymour listened with a
+look of searching, keen intentness.
+
+"Baynell would never have done that in this world," he declared, "if you
+had not been there to hear the neighing, too. Why, it stands to reason.
+The family must have known the horse might whinny at any moment. They
+relied on his winking at it, and he would have done it if you had not
+been there. He took that pose of being so regardful of the needs of the
+service because he has been favoring the Roscoes in every way
+imaginable. Why, hardly anybody else has a stick of timber left, and
+every day houses are seized for military occupation, and the owners
+turned adrift, but _I_ know that when one of his men stole only a plank
+from Judge Roscoe's fence, he had the fellow tied up by his thumbs with
+the plank on his back for hours in the sun. That was for the sake of
+_discipline_, my dear fellow--not for Judge Roscoe's plank. On the
+contrary--quite the reverse!"
+
+Seymour wagged his satiric head, unconvinced, and Ashley remembered
+afterward that he vaguely wished that Baynell would not make so definite
+a point about these matters, provoking a sort of comment that ordinary
+conduct could hardly incur. Baynell ought to be in camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Baynell, himself, reached the same conclusion the next evening, but by
+an altogether different process of reasoning.
+
+He had noticed the unusual stir among the "ladies" early in the
+afternoon and a sort of festival aspect that the old house was taking
+on. The parlors were opened and a glow of sunshine illumined the windows
+and showed the grove from a new aspect--the choicer view where the slope
+was steep. The river rounded the point of woods, and there was a great
+stretch of cliffs opposite; beyond were woods again, reaching to the
+foot-hills that clustered about the base of the distant mountains
+bounding the prospect. The glimpse seen through the rooms was like a
+great painting in intense, clear, fine colors, and he paused for a
+moment to glance at it as he passed down the hall, for all the doors
+were standing broadly aflare and all the windows were open to the
+summer-like zephyr that played through the house.
+
+"Oh, Captain Baynell!" cried Adelaide, catching sight of him and gasping
+in the sheer joy of the anticipation of a great occasion. "The
+Sewing-Society is going to meet here, and you can come in, too! Mayn't
+he come in, Cousin Leonora?"
+
+Mrs. Gwynn was filling a large bowl on a centre-table with a gorgeous
+cluster of deep red tulips, and Baynell noticed that she had thrust two
+or three into the dense knot of fair hair at the nape of her neck. As
+she turned around one of the swaying bells was still visible, giving its
+note of fervid brilliancy to her face. Her dress was a white mull, of
+simple make--old, even with a delicate darn on one of its floating open
+sleeves, but to one familiar with her appearance in the sombre garb of
+widowhood she seemed radiant in a sort of splendor. What was then called
+a "Spanish waist," a deeply pointed girdle of black velvet, flecked with
+tiny red tufts, made the sylphlike grace of her figure more pronounced,
+and at her throat was a collarette of the same material. Her cheeks were
+flushed. It had been a busy day--with the morning lessons, with the
+arrangement of the parlors, the array of materials, the setting of the
+sewing-machines in order, including two or three of the earlier
+hand-power contrivances, sent in expressly from the neighbors, the
+baskets for lint,--one could hear even now the whirring of the
+grindstone as old Ephraim put a keener edge on the scissors. Last but
+not least Leonora had accomplished the bedizenment of the "ladies."
+
+Adelaide was not born to blush unseen. She realized the solecism that
+her vanity lured her to commit, yet she said hardily, "Look at _me_,
+Captain--I'm got me a magenta sash!"
+
+"And it's beautiful!" cried Baynell, responsively. "And so are you!"
+
+Mrs. Gwynn glanced down at her reprovingly and was out of countenance
+for a moment.
+
+"How odious it is to give to colors the names of battles," she
+said,--"Magenta and Solferino!"
+
+"This is a beautiful color, though," said Baynell.
+
+"But the name gives such an ensanguined suggestion," she objected.
+
+Her eye critically scanned the three "ladies" in their short white mull
+dresses and magenta sashes, each with a bow of black velvet in her hair,
+as they led Captain Baynell into the room, and it did not occur to her
+till too late to canvass the acceptability of the presence of the Yankee
+officer to the ladies of the vicinity, assembling in this choice
+symposium, who had some of them the cruel associations of death itself
+with the very sight of the uniform.
+
+Whether it were good breeding, or the magnanimity that exempts the unit
+from the responsibility of the multitude, or a realization that Judge
+Roscoe's guest, be he whom he might, was entitled to the consideration
+of all in the Roscoe house, there was no demonstration of even the
+slightest antagonism. The usual civility of salutation in acknowledging
+the introduction served to withhold from Captain Baynell himself the
+fact that he could hardly hope to be _persona grata_; and ensconced in
+an arm-chair at the window overlooking the lovely landscape, he found a
+certain amusement and entertainment in watching the zealous industry of
+the little Roscoe "ladies," who were very competent lint-pickers and
+boasted some prodigies of performance. A large old linen crumb-cloth,
+laundered for the occasion, had been spread in the corner between the
+rear and side windows of the back parlor, so that the flying lint should
+not bespeck the velvet carpet, or an overturned basket work injury, and
+here in their three little chairs they sat and competed with each other,
+appealing to Captain Baynell to time them by his watch.
+
+Now and then their comments, after the manner of their age, were keenly
+malapropos and occasioned a sense of embarrassment.
+
+"Don't you reckon Ac'obat is homesick by this time, Captain?" demanded
+Adelaide.
+
+"Look out of the window, Captain--you can see the grating to the
+wine-cellar where he could put his nose out to take the air," said
+Geraldine.
+
+"An' he thought the lightning could come in there to take
+him--kee--kee--" giggled Adelaide.
+
+"Oh, _wasn't_ he a foolish horse!" commented Geraldine, regretfully.
+
+"Uncle Ephraim said Ac'obat had no religion else he'd have stayed where
+he was put like a Christian," Adelaide observed.
+
+"Oh, but he was _just_ a horse--poor Ac'obat!"
+
+At this moment emulation seized Geraldine. "Oh, my--just look how
+Lucille is double-quickin' about that lint pickin'!"
+
+And a busy silence ensued.
+
+The large rooms were half full of members of the society. In those days
+the infinite resources of the "ready-made" had not penetrated to these
+regions, and doubtless the work of such eager and industrious coteries
+carried comfort and help farther than one can readily imagine, and the
+organized aid of woman's needle was an appreciable blessing. Two or
+three matrons, with that wise, capable look of the able house-sovereign,
+when scissors, or a dish, or a vial of medicine is in hand, sat with
+broad "lapboards" across their knees, and cut and cut the coarse
+garments with the skill of experts, till great piles were lying on the
+floor, caught up with a stitch to hold component parts together and
+passed on to the younger ladies at the sewing-machines that whirred and
+whirred like the droning bees forever at the jessamine blooming about
+the windows. Nothing could be more unbeautiful or uninviting than the
+aspect of these stout garments, unless it were to the half-clad soldier
+in the trenches to whom they came like an embodied benediction. The
+thought of him--that unknown, unnamed beneficiary, for whose grisly
+needs they wrought--was often, perhaps, in the mind of each.
+
+"And oh!" cried Adelaide, "while I'm pickin' lint for this hospital, I
+dust know some little girl away out yonder in the Confederacy is
+pickin' lint too--an' if my papa was to get wounded, they'd have
+plenty."
+
+"Pickin' fast, she is, like us!" cried the hastening Geraldine.
+
+The deft-fingered mute, discerning their meaning by the motion of their
+lips, redoubled her speed.
+
+Others were sewing by hand, and one very old lady had knitted some
+lamb's wool socks, which were passed about and greatly admired; she was
+complacent, almost coquettish, so bland was her smile under these
+compliments.
+
+And into this scene of placid and almost pious labor came Miss Mildred
+Fisher presently, leading her "dancing bear."
+
+If there were any question of the acceptability of the enforced presence
+of a Yankee officer, either in the mind of the Sewing-Circle or
+Lieutenant Seymour, it was not allowed to smoulder in discomfort, but
+set ablaze to burn itself out.
+
+"I know you are all just perfectly amazed at our assurance in bringing a
+Yankee officer here,--_don't_ be mortified, Lieutenant Seymour,--but
+mamma wouldn't hear of coming without a valiant man-at-arms as an
+escort, so I begged and prayed him to come, and now I want you all to
+beg and pray him to stay!"
+
+Then she introduced him to several ladies, while Mrs. Fisher, always the
+mainspring of the executive committee, a keen, thin, birdlike woman,
+swift of motion and of a graceful presence, but prone to settle moot
+points with a decisive and not altogether amiable peck, gave him no
+attention, but darting from group to group devoted herself wholly to the
+business in hand. She seemed altogether oblivious, too, of Mildred's
+whims, which were to her an old story. Seldom, indeed, had Mildred
+Fisher looked more audaciously sparkling. Her fairness was enhanced by
+the black velvet facing of her white Leghorn turban, encircled with one
+of those beautiful long white ostrich plumes then so much affected that,
+after passing around the crown, fell in graceful undulations over the
+equivocal locks and almost to the shoulder of her black-and-white
+checked walking suit of "summer silk," trimmed with a narrow
+black-and-white fringe.
+
+"Grandma sent these socks and shirts--" she said officiously, taking a
+bundle from a neat colored maid who had followed her--"and I brought my
+thimble--here it is--golden gold--and a large brass thimble for Mr.
+Seymour. You wouldn't think he has so much affinity for brass--to look
+at him now! I intend to make him sew, too. Mrs. Clinton, I know you
+think I am just _awful_," turning apologetically upon the very old lady
+her sweet confiding eyes. "But--oh, Mrs. Warren--before I forget it, I
+want to let you know that your son was _not_ wounded in that Bear-grass
+Creek skirmish at all. I have a letter from one of my brothers--brother
+number four--and he says it is a mistake; your son was not hurt, but
+distinguished himself greatly. Here's the letter. I can't tell you _how_
+it came through the lines, for Lieutenant Seymour might _repeat_ it; he
+has the l-o-n-g-e-s-t tongue, though you wouldn't think it, to see him
+now, speechless as he is."
+
+Lieutenant Seymour rallied sufficiently to protest he couldn't get in a
+word edgewise, and Mrs. Gwynn, with her official sense of hospitality
+and a real pity for anything that Millie Fisher had undertaken to
+torment on whatever score, adopted the tone of the conversation, and
+said with a smile that he might consider himself "begged and prayed" to
+remain.
+
+Lieutenant Seymour was instantly placed at ease by this episode, but
+Mrs. Gwynn experienced a vague disquietude because of the genuine
+surprise that expressed itself in Mildred Fisher's face as that
+comprehensive feminine glance of instantaneous appraisement of attire
+took account of her whole costume. Leonora had not reckoned on this
+development when, in that sudden revulsion of feeling, she had discarded
+the fictitious semblance of mourning for the villain who had been the
+curse of her life. The momentary glance passed as if it had not been,
+but she could not at once rid herself of a sense of disadvantage. She
+knew that to others as well the change must seem strange--yet, why
+should it? All knew that her widow's weeds had been but an empty
+form--what significance could the fact possess that they were worn for a
+time as a concession to convention, then laid aside? She could not long
+lend herself, however, to the absorption of reflection. The present was
+strenuous.
+
+Miss Fisher was bent on investing Lieutenant Seymour with the thimble
+and requiring him to thread a needle for himself, while she soberly and
+with despatch basted a towel which she destined him to hem. The comedy
+relief that these arrangements afforded to the serious business of the
+day was very indulgently regarded, and her bursts of silvery laughter
+and the young officer's frantic pleas for mercy--utterly futile, as all
+who knew Millie Fisher foresaw they must be--brought a smile to grave
+faces and relaxed the tension of the situation, placing the unwelcome
+presence of the unasked visitor in the category of one of Millie
+Fisher's many freaks.
+
+Seymour had a very limited sense of humor and could not endure to be
+made ridiculous, even to gladden so merry a lady-love; but when she
+declared that she would transfer the whole paraphernalia--thimble,
+needle, towel, and all--to Captain Baynell, and let him do the hemming,
+Seymour, all unaware of the secret amusement his sudden consent afforded
+the company, showed that he preferred that she should make him ludicrous
+rather than compliment another man by her mirthful ridicule.
+
+"Now, there you go! Hurrah! Make haste! Not such a big stitch! Now, Mr.
+Seymour, let me tell you, Hercules with the distaff was not a
+circumstance to you!"
+
+And the Sewing-Circle could but laugh.
+
+Upstairs in the quiet old attic these evidences of hilarity rose with an
+intimation of poignant contrast. The dreary entourage of broken
+furniture and dusty trunks and chests, the silence and loneliness,--no
+motion but the vague shifting of the motes in the slant of the sun, no
+sound but the unshared mirth below, in his own home,--this seemed a more
+remote exile. Julius felt actually further from the ancestral roof than
+when he lay many miles away in the trenches in the cold spring rains,
+with never a canopy but the storm, nor a candle but the flash of the
+lightning. He sat quite still in the great arm-chair that his weight
+deftly balanced on its three legs, his head bent to a pose of attention,
+his cap slightly on one side of his long auburn locks, his eyes full of
+a sort of listening interest, divining even more than he heard. He was
+young enough, mercurial enough, to yearn wistfully after the fun,--the
+refined "home-folks fun" of the domestic circle, the family and their
+friends,--to which he had been so long a stranger; not the riotous
+dissipation of the wilder phases of army life nor the animal spirits,
+the "horse-play," of camp comrades. Sometimes at a sudden outburst of
+laughter, dominated by Millie Fisher's silvery trills of mirth, his own
+lips would curve in sympathy, albeit this was but the shell of the
+joke, its zest unimagined, and light would spring into his clear dark
+eyes responsive to the sound. Now and again he frowned as he noted men's
+voices, not his father's nor well-remembered tones of old friends. They
+had been less frequent than the women's voices, but now they came at
+closer intervals, with an unfamiliar accent, with a different pitch, and
+he began to realize that here were the Yankee officers.
+
+"Upon my word, they seem to be having a fine time," he said
+sarcastically.
+
+In the next acclaim he could distinguish, besides the tones of the
+invaders and the ringing vibration from Millie Fisher that led every
+laugh, Leonora's drawling contralto accents, now and again punctuated
+with a suggestion of mirth, and high above all the callow chirp of the
+twin "ladies." He lifted his head and looked at the wasps, building
+their cells on the window lintel, the broad, dreary spaces of the attic;
+and he beheld, as it were, in contrast, his own expectation, the
+welcome, the cherished guest, the guarded secret, the open-hearted talks
+with his father, with the "ladies," with her whom, since widowed, he
+might call to himself, without derogation to his affection or disrespect
+to her, his "best beloved." The hardship it was that for the bleak
+actuality he should have risked his capture, his life,--yes, even his
+neck! His hand trembled upon the map, wrought out to every detail of
+his discoveries, that he kept now in his breast, and now shifted to the
+sole of his boot, and now slid in the lining of his coat-pocket, always
+seeking the safest hiding-place,--forever seeking, forever doubting the
+wisdom of his selection.
+
+But the map--that was something! He had gained this precious knowledge.
+Only to get away with it, unharmed, unchallenged, unmolested! This was
+the problem. This was worth coming for.
+
+"I'll give you some more active entertainment before long, my fine
+squires of dames," he apostrophized the strangers triumphantly. Then he
+experienced a species of rage that they should be so merry--and he, he
+must not see Leonora's face, must not touch her hand, must not tell her
+all he felt; this would have been dear to him even if she had not cared
+to listen. It would have been like the votive offering at a shrine, like
+a prayer from out the fulness of the heart.
+
+There was presently the tinkle of glasses and spoons, intimating the
+serving of refreshments. "I'd like to see old Uncle Ephraim playing
+butler. He must step about as gingerly as a gobbler on hot tin," Julius
+said to himself with a smile. "I'll bet a million of dollars he has
+saved me my share--on a high shelf in the pantry it is right now, in a
+covered dish; and if Leonora should come across it, she would think the
+old man was thieving on his own account. Such are the insincerities of
+circumstantial evidence!"
+
+The genial hubbub in the parlors below was resumed after the decorous
+service of salad and sherbet, and became even more animated when Colonel
+Ashley chanced to call to see Baynell on a matter affecting their
+respective commands. He had of course no idea that he would find Baynell
+engaged with the Sewing-Society, but he met Miss Fisher on her own
+ground, as it were, and there ensued an encounter of wits, a gay joust,
+neither being more sincere than the other, nor with any _arrière pensée_
+of irritable feeling to treat a feint as a threat or to cause a thrust
+to rankle.
+
+Seymour did not welcome him. The prig, Baynell, as he regarded the
+captain, was so null, so stiffly inexpressive, that his presence had
+sunk out of account, and the young lieutenant felt that he could rely to
+a degree on the quiet kindness of the mature dames at work. They did not
+laugh at his sewing over much, although they noted with secret amusement
+that, being of the ambitious temper which cannot endure to be found
+lacking, he had bent his whole energies to the endeavor, and had sewed,
+indeed, as well as it was possible for a lieutenant of infantry to do on
+a first lesson. He had a sort of pride in his performance as he handed
+it up to Miss Fisher, and she showed it to Ashley with an air of
+pronounced amaze.
+
+"A well-conducted Rebel," she said at last, solemnly, "grounded in the
+proper conviction as to the ordinance of secession and the doctrine of
+States' Rights, would go into strong convulsions if he should have to
+bathe with that towel in a hospital. That wavering hem is an epitome of
+all the Yankee crooks, and quirks, and skips, and evasions, and
+concealments of the straight path that typifies right and justice, and
+Mason and Dixon's line! Therefore out it comes!"
+
+As Ashley's joyous laughter rang out with its crisp, genial intonations,
+the listening exile in the attic again involuntarily smiled in sympathy,
+albeit the next moment he was frowning in jealous discomfort, with a
+poignant sense of supersedure. Here, under his own roof-tree--his
+father's home!
+
+Lieutenant Seymour protested with ardor, and in truth he was aghast at
+the prospect. He had taken so much pains. He had wrought with his whole
+soul. He had imagined that he had hemmed so well. Although he had lost
+all thought of Baynell in his interest in the exercises of the
+afternoon, now that Ashley was at hand to witness his discomfiture he
+became resentfully conscious of the presence of the other officer. He
+was suddenly mindful that he could not appear to distinguished advantage
+as the butt of a joke, however mirthful and merry, and this pointed the
+fact that he was not gracing the introduction here which he had earlier
+sought through Baynell's kind offices, and had been, as he thought,
+most impertinently refused. He forgot the grounds of the declination and
+took no heed of the circumstance that they included Ashley's request as
+well as his own. He did not realize that had it fallen to Ashley's lot
+to hem the towel and thread the needle and wear the brass thimble in a
+genuine sewing-circle, his genial gay adaptability would have accorded
+so well with the humor of the company that the jest itself would have
+been blunted. Its edge was whetted by Lieutenant Seymour's serious
+disfavor, the red embarrassment of his countenance, even the stiff lock
+of hair, at the apex of the back of the skull, that stood out and
+quivered with his eager insistence, as he rose erect and held on to the
+towel and looked both angrily and pleadingly at Miss Fisher.
+
+"I hope you will not be mutinous and disobedient," she said gravely. "I
+should be sorry to discipline you with the weapons of the society."
+
+She threatened to pierce his fingers with a very sharp needle, and as he
+hastily withdrew one hand, shifting the towel to the other, she opened a
+very keen pair of shears; as he evaded this she brought up the needle,
+enfilading his retreat.
+
+As he stood among a crowd of ladies, insisting that his work should be
+spared with a vehemence which most of them thought was only a humorous
+affectation and a part of the fun, he noted that Baynell was laughing
+too, slightly, languidly. Baynell was standing beside the low, marble
+mantelpiece, with one elbow upon it, the light from the flaming west
+full on his trim blond beard and hair, his handsome, distinguished face,
+the manly grace of the attitude. Seymour resented with an infinite
+rancor at that moment the contrast with his own flushed, fatigued,
+tousled, agitated, persistent, querulous personality. He could not have
+given up to save his life, and yet he could but despise himself for
+holding on.
+
+"You had better stop pushing me to the wall," he said, and this was
+literal, for he gave back step by step at each feint of the needle; "you
+had better be looking out for Captain Baynell. He might have an attack
+of conscience at any moment, and have all the fruits of your industry
+seized and confiscated as contraband of war. You must remember he had
+Mrs. Gwynn's horse impressed."
+
+Baynell was rigid with an intense displeasure. Twice he was about to
+speak--twice, mindful of the presence of ladies, he hesitated. Then he
+said, quite casually, though visibly with a heedful self-control:--
+
+"That was because of an order, calling for all citizens' horses in this
+district for cavalry."
+
+"With which _you_ had as much to do as last year's snow. Just see, Miss
+Fisher,"--Seymour waved his hand toward the piles of clothing,--"'all
+the coats and garments that Dorcas made'; for Captain Baynell might
+report that they are intended to give aid and comfort to the enemy!--to
+be smuggled out of the lines! He has a dangerous conscience!"
+
+There was a sudden agitated flutter in the coterie. The beautiful aged
+countenance of Mrs. Clinton was overcast with a sort of tremor of
+fright. A sense of discovery, as of a moral paralysis, pervaded the
+atmosphere. A long significant pause ensued. Then with the intimations
+of a stanch reserve of resolution,--a sort of "die in the last ditch"
+spirit,--those more efficient members of the association, middle-aged,
+competent, experienced matrons, recovered their dignified equanimity and
+went on with the examining and counting of the results of the day's work
+and the contributions from without,--Mrs. Fisher, the acting secretary,
+receiving the reports of the conferring squads and jotting the
+enumeration down during the sorting and folding of the completed
+product.
+
+Baynell, apparently losing self-control, had started angrily forward.
+Ashley, grave, perturbed, had changed color--even he was at a loss. One
+might not say what a moment so charged with angry potentialities might
+bring forth. But nothing, no collocation of invented circumstances
+seemed capable of baffling Miss Fisher. She was equal to any emergency.
+She had snatched the towel from the lieutenant's hand, and, flying to
+meet Baynell, her smiling face incongruous with a serious, steady light
+in her eyes, she stopped him midway the room.
+
+"Now do me the favor to look at that," she cried gayly, presenting the
+hem for inspection; "wouldn't you despise an enemy who could take aid
+and comfort from such a hem as that?"
+
+"A good soldier should never despise the enemy," replied Baynell,
+seeking to adopt her mood and repeating the truism with an air of
+banter.
+
+"Well, then, to fit the phrase to your precision, such an enemy would
+deserve to be despised! What--going--Mrs. Clinton? It _is_ getting
+late."
+
+It was not the usual hour of their separation, but to a very old woman
+the turmoils of war were overwhelming. As long as the idea of conflict
+was expressed in the satisfaction of being able to aid in her little way
+the needy with the work of her own hands,--to knit as she sat by her
+desolate fireside and wrought for the unknown comrades of her dead sons;
+to join friends in furnishing blankets and making stout clothes for the
+soldiers; to bottle her famous blackberry cordial, and to pick lint for
+the hospitals,--it seemed to have some gentle phase, to bear a human
+heart. But when the heady tumult, the secret inquisitions, the bitter
+rancors, the cruelty of bloodshed, and the savagery of death that
+constitute the incorporate entity of the great monster, War, were
+reasserted with menace, her gentle, wrinkled hands fell, her hope fled.
+The grave was kind in those days to the aged.
+
+Ashley had contrived to give Seymour a glance so significant that he
+heeded its meaning, though he was already repentant and cowed by the
+fear of Miss Fisher's displeasure. His heart beat fast as she turned her
+face all rippling with smiles toward him, albeit he told himself in the
+same breath that she would have smiled exactly so sweetly had she been
+as angry as he deserved. For Miss Fisher was not in the business of
+philanthropy. She had no call to play missionary to any petulant young
+man's rôle of heathen.
+
+"Are you going to take mamma and me home?" she asked, "or are you going
+to leave us to be eaten up by the cows homeward bound?"
+
+Now and again might be heard the fitful clanking of a bell as the cows,
+wending their way along the river bank, paused to graze and once more
+took up their leisurely progress toward the town. The sunlight was
+reddening through the rooms. It had painted on the walls arabesques of
+the lace curtains of the western windows; the glow touched with a sort
+of revivifying effect the family portraits. Groups of the members of the
+society having resumed their bonnets and swaying crape veils were going
+from one to another and commenting on the likeness to the subject and
+the resemblance to other members of the family, and one or two of
+artistic bent discussed the relative merits of the artists, for several
+canvases were painted by eminent brushes. All were going home, though in
+the grove the mocking-birds were singing with might and main, but there
+indeed in the moonlight they would sing the night through with a
+romantic jubilance impossible to describe.
+
+Ashley, with the ready tact and good breeding which caused him so much
+to be admired, and so much to admire himself, passed by the more
+attractive of the younger members of the Circle, and did not even heed
+the half-veiled challenge of Miss Fisher to join her party homeward, for
+she had become exceedingly exasperated with Lieutenant Seymour, and had
+Colonel Ashley been attainable, she would have made the younger man
+rabid with jealousy on the walk to the town.
+
+But no! He offered his services as escort to Mrs. Clinton, who looked
+suspiciously and helplessly at him like some tender old baby.
+
+"There is no necessity, but I thank you very much," she said; "I came
+alone."
+
+The engaging Ashley would not be denied. He had noticed, he said, that
+to-day some droves of mules were being driven into town, and the
+heedless soldiers raced along perfectly regardless of what was in the
+roads before them. They should have some order taken with them, really.
+
+"Oh, _don't_ report them," said the old lady. "The--the discipline of
+the army is so--so _painful_."
+
+"But there are no painless methods yet discovered of making men obey,"
+said Ashley, laughing.
+
+She still looked at him, doubtfully, as a mouse might contemplate the
+graces of a very suave cat. But when Julius gazed out from the garret
+window at the departing group, he was duly impressed with the handsome
+colonel of cavalry conducting the aged lady on one arm and bearing her
+delicate little extra shawl on the other, while Mrs. Fisher with Mildred
+and her "dancing bear," who had taken some clumsy steps that day, made
+off toward Roanoke City, and the other ladies variously dispersed,
+Captain Baynell attending the party only to the end of the drive.
+
+Ashley's graceful persistence was justified by the meeting of some of
+the reckless muleteers in full run down the road, with furious cries and
+snapping whips and turbulent clatter of animals and men. As his
+tremulous charge shrunk back aghast, he simply lifted his sword "like a
+wand of authority," as she always described it, and the noisy rout was
+turned aside, as if by magic, into a byway, leaving the whole stretch of
+the turnpike for the passage of the gallant cavalier and one aged lady.
+
+When Baynell came back through the grove and into the house, the parlor
+doors still stood open. The western radiance was yet red on the walls,
+albeit the moon was in the sky. The crumb-cloth that had protected the
+carpet from lint was gone, the sewing-machines had vanished, all traces
+of the work were removed, and wonted order was restored among chairs and
+tables. The rear apartment was as he had seen it hitherto, save that the
+windows on the western balcony were open, and Mrs. Gwynn, in her white
+dress, was standing at the vanishing point of the perspective, glimpsed
+through the swaying curtains and a delicate climbing vine. He hardly
+hesitated, but passed through the rooms and stepped out, meeting her
+surprised eyes as she leaned one hand on the iron railing of the
+balcony.
+
+"I want to speak to you," he said. "I want to know if you think I should
+have made it plain to those ladies this afternoon that they need fear no
+interference from me?"
+
+"Oh, I think they understood," she said listlessly, as if it was no
+great matter.
+
+Her eyes were fixed on the purple western hills. The last vermilion
+segment of the great solar sphere was slipping beyond them, the sunset
+gun boomed from the fort, and the flag fluttered down the staff.
+
+"I felt very keenly the position in which I was placed."
+
+She merely glanced at him and then gazed at the outline of the fort
+against the red sky, all flecked and barred with dazzling flakes of
+amber. The rampart remained massive and heavy, but the sentry-boxes,
+giving their queer little castellated effect, were growing indistinct in
+the distance.
+
+"I was tempted to express my resentment, but I was afraid of going too
+far--of getting into a wrangle with that fellow--"
+
+"Oh, _that_ would have been unpardonable; in the presence of Mrs.
+Clinton and the rest of the Circle!" she said definitely.
+
+"I am _so_ glad you approve my course," he rejoined with an air of
+relief.
+
+Once more she looked at him as he stood beside her. A white jessamine
+clambered up the stone pillar at the outer corner of the grille work.
+Its blossoms wavered about her; a hummingbird flickered in and out and
+was still for a moment, the light showing the jewelled effect of the
+emblazonment of red and gold and green of his minute plumage, then was
+distinguishable only as a gauzy suggestion of wings. The moon was in her
+face, ethereal, delicate, seeming to him entrancingly beautiful. He
+stipulated to himself that it was not this that swayed him. He loved her
+beauty, but only because it was hers. He did not love her for her
+beauty. They were close distinctions, but they made an appreciable
+difference to him. She did not hold his conscience. She did not dictate
+his sense of right. This was apart from her, a sanction too sacred for
+any woman, any human soul to control. Yet he sighed with relief to feel
+the coincidence of his thought and hers.
+
+"You know, about your horse--it was a matter of conscience with me--a
+sense of duty--a matter of conformity to my oath as a soldier and my
+knowledge of the needs of the service. I would not for any consideration
+evade or fail to forward in letter and spirit any detail even of a
+special order that merely chanced to come to my notice, and with which I
+was not otherwise concerned. Not for your sake--not even to win your
+approval, precious as that must always be to me, nor to avoid your
+displeasure, and I believe that is the strongest coercion that could be
+exerted upon me. But the destination of the work done by the
+Sewing-Circle--that is different. I have no information that it is other
+than is claimed. I am not bound to nourish suspicions, nor to
+investigate mysteries, nor to take action on details of circumstantial
+evidence."
+
+He paused. There was something in her face that he did not
+understand;--something stunned, blankly silent, and inexpressive. He
+went on eagerly, the enforced repression of the afternoon finding outlet
+in a flood of words.
+
+"Lieutenant Seymour understands my position thoroughly well, as Colonel
+Ashley does. They take a different view--their construction of their
+duty is more lenient. I don't know why--perhaps because they are
+volunteers, and the whole war to them is a temporary occupation. But
+orders are to be obeyed else they would not be issued. If any exceptions
+were intended, a permit would be granted."
+
+He paused again, looking straight at her with such confident, lucid,
+trusting eyes,--and she felt that she must say something to divert their
+gaze.
+
+"Exceptions, such as Miss Fisher's favorite mount, Madcap? How pretty
+Mildred was to-day! Really beautiful; don't you think so?"
+
+"No." His expression was so tender, so wistful, yet so confident, that,
+amazed, embarrassed, she felt her color begin to flame in her cheeks.
+"How could she seem beautiful where you are,--the loveliest woman in all
+the world and the best beloved."
+
+"Captain Baynell!" she exclaimed, hardly believing that she heard him
+aright. "I do not understand the manner in which you have seen fit to
+speak to me this evening." She paused abruptly, for he was looking at
+her with a palpable surprise.
+
+"You must know--you must have seen--that I love you!" he said hastily.
+"Almost from the moment that I first saw you I have loved you--but more
+and more, hour by hour, and day by day, as I have learned to know you,
+to appreciate you--so perfect and so peerless!"
+
+"You surprise me beyond measure. I must beg--I insist that you do not
+continue to speak to me in this strain."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you did not know it--that you did not perceive
+it?"
+
+"I did not dream it for one moment," she replied.
+
+It seemed as if he could not accept her meaning. He pondered on the
+words as if they might develop some difference.
+
+"You afflict me beyond expression!" he exclaimed with a sort of
+desperate breathlessness. "You destroy my dearest hopes. How could you
+fail--how could I fancy! I--I would not suggest the subject as long as
+your mourning attire repelled it, but--but--since--since--I--I thought
+you knew all my heart and I might speak!"
+
+"You thought I laid aside a widow's weeds to challenge your avowal!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, in her icy, curt, soft tones.
+
+"Oh, Leonora--for God's sake--put on it no interpretation except that I
+love you--I adore you; and I thought such hearty, whole-souled affection
+must awaken some interest, some response. I could hardly be silent
+except I so feared precipitancy. I spoke as soon as I might without rank
+offence."
+
+Even then, in the presence of an agitation, a humiliation peculiarly
+keen to a man of his type, he was not first in Mrs. Gwynn's thoughts.
+She was reviewing the day and wondering if this connection between the
+lack of the widow's weeds and the presence of the Yankee officer was
+suggested to any of the sewing contingent. A vague gesture, a pause, a
+remembered facial expression, sudden, involuntary, at the sight of him
+and her,--all had a new interpretation in the sequence of this
+disclosure. They had thought it the equivalent of the acceptance of a
+new suitor, and the supposed favored lover had thought so himself!
+
+The recollection of her woful married life, with its train of
+barbarities, and rancors, and terrors, both grotesque and horrible, that
+still tortured her present--the leisure moments of her laborious
+days--was bitterly brought to mind for a moment. That she, of all the
+women in the world--that _she_ should be contemplating matrimony anew!
+She gave a light laugh that had in it so little mirth, was so little
+apposite to ridicule, that he did not feel it a fleer.
+
+"You did not mean it, then?"
+
+"Not for one moment."
+
+"You did not have me in mind?"
+
+"No--no--never at all!"
+
+"Leonora--Mrs. Gwynn--this is like death to me--I--I--"
+
+"I am very sorry--"
+
+"I do not reproach you," he interrupted. "It is my own folly, my own
+fault! But I have lived on this hope; it is all the life I have. You do
+not withdraw it utterly? May I not think that in time--"
+
+"No--no--I have no intention of ever marrying again. I--I--was
+not--not--happy."
+
+"But I am different--" he hesitated. He could not exactly find words to
+protest his conviction of his superiority to her husband, a man she had
+loved once. "I mean--we are congenial. I am very considerably older; I
+am nearly thirty-one. My views in life are fixed, definite; my
+occupation is settled. Might not--"
+
+"I am sorry, Captain Baynell; I would not willingly add to the
+unhappiness, real or imaginary, of any one--but all this is worse than
+useless. I must ask you not to recur to the subject. And now I must
+leave you, for the 'ladies' are going to bed, and I must hear them say
+their prayers."
+
+He seemed about to detain her with further protestations, then desisted,
+evidently with a hopeless realization of futility.
+
+"Ask them to remember me in their petitions," he only said with a dreary
+sort of smile.
+
+He had always seemed to love the "ladies" fraternally, with lenient
+admiration, and she liked this tender little domestic trait in the midst
+of his unyielding gravity and inexorable stiffness. She hesitated in the
+moonlight with some stir of genuine sympathy, and held out her hand as
+she passed. He caught it and covered it with kisses. She drew it hastily
+from him, and Baynell was left alone on the balcony; the scene before
+him, the vernal glamours of the moon, the umbrageous trees, the sweet
+spring flowers, the sheen of the river, the bivouacs of the hills, the
+fort on the height,--these things seemed unrealities and mere shadows as
+he faced the fragments of that nullity, his broken dream, the only
+positive actuality in all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+That night, so long his step went to and fro in his room as he paced the
+floor, for he could not sleep and he could not be still, that the Rebel,
+hidden in the attic, was visited by grave monitions concerning his
+neighbor and did not venture out to roam the stairways and halls and the
+unoccupied precincts of the ground floor as he was wont to do.
+
+"'The son of Belial' has something on his mind, to a certainty, and I
+hope to the powers 'tisn't me," Julius said now and again, as he
+listened. He had sat long in his rickety arm-chair in the broad slant of
+the moonlight, that fell athwart the dim furniture and the gray shadows,
+for the night continued fair and the moon was specially brilliant. Once
+in the clear glow he saw distinctly in the further spaces the figure of
+a man, watchful-eyed, eager, springing toward him as he moved, and he
+experienced the cold chill of despair before he realized that it was his
+own reflection in a dull mirror at the opposite side of the great room
+that had elicited this apparition of terror. He took himself quickly out
+of the range of its reflection.
+
+"Two Johnny Rebs are a crowd in this garret! I have just about room
+enough for myself. I'm not recruiting."
+
+He crept silently to the bed and lay down at full length, all dressed
+and booted as he was, his hands clasped under his head, with the
+moonlight in his eyes and illuminating his sleepless pillow, still
+listening to the regular step marching to and fro in the room below.
+
+Julius did not court slumber.
+
+"I must keep the watch with you, my fine fellow," he said resolutely.
+
+Though there was a strong coercion to wakefulness in the propinquity of
+that spirit of unrest which possessed his enemy so close at hand, his
+eyes once grew heavy-lidded and opened with a sudden start as, half
+dreaming, he fancied a stealthy approach. He sprang from the recumbent
+posture, and the floor creaked under the abrupt movement. This gave him
+pause, and he slowly collected his faculties. Surely the stranger would
+hardly venture, even under the relentless scourge of his own wakeful
+thoughts, to roam about the house in search of peace or the surcease of
+mental tyranny that change might effect. This might savor of disrespect
+to his host, yet Julius canvassed the suggestion. These were untoward
+times, and strange people were queerly mannered. The officer must have
+learned in the length of his residence here that the great vacant attic
+was untenanted wholly, and of course he knew that the ground floor was
+altogether unoccupied by night. He might descend and light the library
+lamp and read. He might indeed roam the deserted rooms with the same
+sort of satisfaction that Julius himself had already felt in the great
+spaces, the absolute quiet, the still moonlight, the long abeyance of
+day with its procrastination of the sordid problems and the toilsome
+business of life. If he had chanced to meet the Rebel on the stairs, he
+would scarcely have thought the apparition a spectral manifestation, as
+the poor little twins had construed the encounter in the library, for
+old Janus, trembling and terrified, had detailed the significance of the
+scene in the dining room afterward, and the eagerness of Julius to get
+away, to be off, had been redoubled. Daily he had hoped for news of the
+approach of the picket-lines, and daily the old servant wrung his hands
+and made his report, of which the burden was, "Wuss an' wuss!"--or
+detailed a "scrimmage" in which "dem scand'lous Rebs had run like
+tuckies, an' deir line is furder off dan it eber was afore!"
+
+The Confederate officer, nevertheless, had hitherto felt a degree of
+safety in the attic and had the resources of a manly patience to await
+the event. This nocturnal eccentricity on the part of the guest of the
+house, however, roused new forebodings. It bore in its own conditions
+the inception of added danger. It was unprecedented. It marked a
+turbulent restlessness and the element of change. In the evidently
+agitated state of the stranger's nerves, some trifle, the scamper of a
+rat, the dislodgment of the rickety old cornice of this bedstead, the
+fall of one of the girandoles, teetering over there on a chest of
+drawers, might rouse him with its clamor and justify the ascent of the
+attic stairs to investigate its source. These were troublous times.
+There were stories forever afloat of lawless marauders. Smoke-houses
+were broken into and pillaged. Mansions were robbed and fired, and their
+tenants, chiefly women and children, fleeing into the cornfields to
+hide, watched the roof-tree flare. It was hard for the authorities to
+find and fix the responsibility for these dread deeds in remote
+inaccessible spots, and it would be culpable neglect for this Federal
+officer to tolerate the suggestion of an ill-omened noise or an
+unaccustomed presence without seeking out its cause. Evidently any
+accident would bring him upstairs. It was equally obvious that the
+garret was no place to sleep to-night! Julius, as he lay on the pillow,
+could hardly rid himself of the idea of approach. Ever and anon he
+looked for the stealthy shadow of which he had dreamed, climbing in the
+moonbeams along the balusters of the stairway. Finally he stole silently
+out of the reach of the moonlight to a darker corner of the room,--the
+deep recess of one of the windows which the shadow of a great branch of
+the white pine made duskier still. The tall tree, with its full,
+sempervirent boughs, showed the varying nocturnal tints that color may
+compass, uninformed by the sun,--the cool suggestion of a fair dull
+green where the moonbeams glistered, the fibrous leaves tipped with a
+dim sparkle; the deep umbrageous verdure where the darkness lurked and
+yet did not annul the vestige of tone. As he reclined on the
+window-seat, he discerned farther down a faint flare of artificial
+light. It described a regularly barred square amidst the pine needles,
+and he presently recognized it as the light from the window of Captain
+Baynell's room. Now and again it flickered in a way that told how the
+disregarded candle was beginning to gutter in the socket. Still to and
+fro the regular footfalls went, muffled on the heavy carpet, but in the
+dead hush of night perceptible enough to the watching listener. At last
+with a final flare the taper burned out, but the moon was in the windows
+along the western side of the house, and still to and fro went the
+steps, betokening the turmoil of unquiet thoughts. Julius watched how
+the moonbeams shifted from bough to bough as the slow night lingered. He
+heard the bells from the city towers mark the hour and the recurrent
+echo from the rocky banks of the river: then one far away, belated,
+faint, scarcely perceived, beat out the tally of the time on some remote
+cliff. Once more the air fell silent save for the jubilee of the
+mocking-birds, for spring had come, and skies were fair, and the
+gossamer moon was a-swing in the night, and love, and life, and home
+were dear, and the incredibly sweet, brilliant delight of song arose in
+pæans of joy and faith. Even this waned after a time. A wind with the
+thrills of dawn in its wings sprang up, and Julius shivered with the
+chill. The dew was cold and thick in the pines, and the sward glittered
+like a sheet of water.
+
+At last all was quiet and silent in the room below. Julius listened
+intently. No creak of opening door; no footfall on the stair. Now, he
+told himself, was the moment of danger, when he could no longer be
+assured of the man's movements, and could not even guess at his
+intentions. He listened--still--still to silence. Silence absolute,
+null.
+
+A bird stirred with a half-awakened chirp. The sky showed a clearer
+tone, a vague blue, growing ever more definite. In the stillness, with
+an elastic, leaping sound, strong and sweet, the call of a bugle rang
+out suddenly from the fort on the heights, and, behold, with a flash of
+red on the water, and a flare of gold in the sky, the sweet spring day
+was early here.
+
+It came glowing on with all the graces and soft splendors of the season
+as if it bore, too, none of the prosaic recall to the labors and sordid
+routine and unavailing troubles and vexations of the workaday world. The
+camps were alive, the drums were beating, and all the echoes of the
+hills gave voice to martial summons. The flag was floating anew from the
+heights of the fort in the fresh and fragrant sunshine, and now and
+again a bar or two of the music of a military band in the distance came
+on the wind. The clatter of wagon wheels was audible from the stony
+streets of the little city. The shriek of a locomotive split the air as
+an incoming train whizzed across the bridge. The river craft steamed and
+puffed, and blockaded the landing, now backing water and now forging
+forward, remonstrating with bells and whistles in strenuous dialogue.
+
+It was a day like yesterday, yet to Baynell all the world had changed.
+No day could ever be the same. Life itself was made up of depreciated
+values. The blow had fallen so heavily, so suddenly, so conclusively.
+All, all was dead! It was much with a sense of decorous observance, of
+reverential respect, that he made haste to bury his slain hopes, his
+foolish dream, his ardent expectations out of sight, never to rise
+again. It was unwise to linger here, but not because of his own
+interest, he said to himself. It would not unfit him for his duty. This
+was all that was left to him. His feeling for this had never swerved. It
+was unaffected--all apart from what had come and gone. But his presence
+could but be distasteful to her. And any moment might reveal his state
+of feeling to others--to Judge Roscoe, who would resent it if it should
+suggest an unwelcome urgency. And the neighbors--he had not been
+unnoting of the glances of surprise that had already greeted that
+radiant figure in white and red yesterday. While he winced a little
+from the realization that his sudden departure would illustrate the sad
+plight of a love-lorn suitor, disregarded and cast aside,--for he had a
+thousand keen susceptibilities to pride,--and he would fain the tongues
+of gossips should forbear this sacred theme, it were best that he should
+go, and that shortly.
+
+When he appeared at the breakfast-table, pale and a trifle haggard, he
+gave no other token of his long vigil and the radical change that he had
+suffered in his life and prospects. He was a man of theory. He valued
+his self-respect. He insisted on his self-control. He had exerted all
+his capacities, summoned all the resources of his courage; and this was
+the more needed because of the unconventional, informal footing on which
+he stood with the family. To say farewell and ride away might seem easy
+enough, but this was like quitting a home with affectionate domestic
+claims. When he said that he thought he must return to camp to-day, the
+twin "ladies" laid down knife and fork to enter their protest. They
+lifted their voices in plaintive entreaty, and the deaf-mute looked at
+Baynell with limpid eyes and a quivering lip. But Uncle Ephraim,
+bringing in the waffles, had a vague suggestion of "It's time, too," in
+the wag of his head. Judge Roscoe doubtless experienced a vivid
+realization of the advantage to accrue to the young soldier in the
+attic, whose security in his hiding-place was so endangered by the
+presence of the Federal officer, for he was very guarded even in his
+first cordial phrases, and thenceforward said no more than policy
+required. The twin "ladies," however, continued to loudly urge that the
+captain might find lizards in his cot; and asked if his tent had a
+floor; and warned him that frogs were everywhere now. "Tree-toads,
+o-o-oh! with injer-rubber feet," cried Geraldine, shudderingly, "that
+blow out and climb!"
+
+"And you'll have _no_ little girl to put a lump of sugar in your
+after-dinner coffee, Captain," said Adelaide, impressing the merits of
+her methods.
+
+"And no little girl to bring you a lighted taper for your cigar," chimed
+in Geraldine.
+
+"It's _my_ turn to-day, Ger'ldine," cried the enterprising Adelaide,
+springing from her chair to monopolize the precious privilege.
+
+"No--no! mine--_mine_! You had it yesterday!" cried Geraldine, racing
+after her out of the room.
+
+"'Twas day before!" protested Adelaide's voice far up the hallway.
+
+"You had better get your cigar-case ready, to bestow the boon on the
+first comer," suggested Mrs. Gwynn. She had entirely recovered her
+equanimity, as he perceived. The state of his unsought affections was
+naught to her. The wreck of his heart--she had known wrecked hearts for
+a more bitter cause! Doubtless she thought the pain transitory in his
+case; already its contemplation seemed to have passed from her mind
+like a tale that is told. She was sedately suave as always, barely
+attentive, preoccupied, her usual manner, so incongruous with her youth
+and beauty, so at variance with her attire from the old wardrobe of
+by-gone days,--the fresh white lawn, flecked with light blue, the
+ruffles finished with "footing," and with a bobinet scarf about her
+throat, wherein was thrust a pin of a single rose carved in coral. She
+was like some dainty maiden, no refugee from the world, sad and widowed.
+
+She led the way to the library, partly to see that the "ladies" did not
+set themselves aflame as their short skirts flickered about the small
+dully burning fire, still lighted night and morning against the chill of
+the crisp vernal air. They were, indeed, leaping back and forth over the
+fender with some temerity, and Baynell, seating himself by the table,
+his cigar between his teeth, thought it best to dispose of both the
+lighted spills by not drawing at all till both were alternately offered
+and the extinction of each secured. Then, as the "ladies" flew back to
+the dining room and out to the parterre, having volunteered to gather
+the rest of the flowers for the vases, Leonora and Baynell were left for
+the time together.
+
+It gratified him to perceive that she did not fear the introduction of
+the subject anew. She experienced not even a momentary embarrassment.
+She understood him so well, and the plane of his emotion.
+
+The early morning sunshine was in the cheerful library windows; a
+mocking-bird on a vine outside swayed so close, as he sang, that his
+shadow continually flickered over the sill; the flowers were all freshly
+abloom, and Mrs. Gwynn was standing on the opposite side of the table,
+her hands full of the spring blossoms that lay already on a tray,
+preparing to fill the great blue and white Wedgwood bowl.
+
+Baynell, commenting on the splendor of the tulips as he smoked his
+cigar, spoke of the craze for speculation in the bulb that had existed
+in Holland, and said he had once seen an old book of illustrations of
+famous prize-takers, with fabulous prices; he had always wondered how
+they compared with the results of modern culture and the infinite
+variety to which the bloom had been brought, and he had often wished to
+see the book again.
+
+"Why, we have that!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, pausing with her hands full
+of the gold variety "flamed" with scarlet. She glanced uncertainly
+toward the bookshelves, then suddenly remembering--"Oh, I know now where
+it is;--in the old bookcase upstairs, at the head of the third flight. I
+will call one of the ladies to go for it."
+
+Baynell rose, his lighted cigar between his lips. "Don't trouble them;
+let me go!"
+
+Julius heard the swift step of a young man on the stair. He knew that
+the crucial moment had come. And yet for the sake of the safety of his
+father, who had concealed him here, he dared not defend himself with his
+pistols. He had not a moment for flight or to seek a hiding-place. He
+could only nerve his powers to meet the crisis as best he might.
+
+Baynell, taken wholly by surprise, felt his senses reel when, like the
+grotesque inconsequence of a dream, a man in the uniform of a
+Confederate officer in the quiet, peaceful house confronted him at the
+head of the flight.
+
+"You are my prisoner!" Baynell mechanically gasped, clutching Julius
+with one hand and drawing his pistol with the other. "You are my
+prisoner!"
+
+"In a horn!" retorted Julius, delivering his enemy a blow between the
+eyes which flung Baynell, stunned and bleeding, down the flight to the
+landing, while the boy went by him like a flash.
+
+That swift fiery figure, with its gray regimentals and its brass and
+steel glitter, covered with blood, passed Leonora like some gory
+apparition as she stood in the library door, amazed, pallid, breathless,
+summoned by the sound of loud voices and the reverberating clamors of
+the collision on the stairs. Julius dashed through the drawing-rooms,
+opened the window on the western balcony, sprang over the rail, and
+disappeared swiftly among the low boughs of the row of evergreen shrubs
+planted there in old times as a wind-break, and stretching along the
+crest of the hill.
+
+And placidly in the sunshine the sentry paced his beat before the south
+portico, the reaches of the drive in sight, the appropriate entrance of
+the place, all unconscious of aught amiss, seeing nothing, hearing
+nothing,--till suddenly, with an effect of confusion, like the
+distortions of a delirium, he was aware that the grove was full of
+Federal soldiers, chiefly from the infantry regiment camped in the
+orchard to the west,--soldiers in wild disorder, hatless, shoeless,
+coatless, many of them,--all armed, all howling with an unexplained
+excitement, racing frantically hither and thither, bushwhacking with
+their rifles every bough in their reach. And now they came at full run,
+still howling and wild, toward the house.
+
+"Halt!" cried the sentry. "Halt!"
+
+The advance came surging on, regardless.
+
+"Halt, or I fire!" once more the guard warned the onset. And he levelled
+his weapon.
+
+They clamored out words at him, all madly intermingled, all
+unintelligible, approaching still at full run.
+
+Perhaps the sentinel had some excusable regard for his own safety, for
+in the unexplained excitement that possessed them, they were less
+soldiery than a frantic mob. He had warrant enough to fire into the
+midst of the crowd. But it seemed that he might in a moment have been
+torn limb from limb. He interpreted his duty on the side of caution. He
+cocked his weapon, fired into the air, and called lustily upon the
+"Corporal of the guard." The mass surged into the house, some by the
+front door, some by the open library window, others scaled the balcony
+and pressed through the drawing-rooms and into the hall.
+
+The terrified children clung to the skirt of Mrs. Gwynn's dress, as
+amazed and bewildered she stood in the wide long hall, by the great
+carved newel of the stairs, while with frantic interrogatories--"Where
+is he? Where is he? Who is he?"--the intruders searched every nook and
+cranny of the lower floor. Destruction, the inadvertent incident of
+haste, or the concomitant of clumsy accoutrements, seemed to attend
+their steps. Now sounded the shiver of glass as a soldier burst through
+one of the long French windows of the dining room. A trooper caught his
+huge cavalry spurs in the meshes of a lace curtain in one of the parlors
+and brought down cornice, lambrequin, and all with a crash. The crystal
+shades of the hall chandelier were not proof against a bayonet, held
+unduly aloft at the posture of Shoulder Arms. A tussle for precedence
+knocked a weighty marble statue, half life-size, out of the niche at the
+turn of the staircase. These casualties and the attendant noise, the
+heavy tramp of booted feet, the raucous sonority of their voices as they
+called suggestions to each other, all intensified the terror, the
+tumult of their uncontrolled and turbulent presence.
+
+As a score raced up the stairs a sudden hush fell upon the rout. Those
+still below apprehended developments of moment and pressed to the scene.
+The foremost had encountered Judge Roscoe and old Ephraim bearing down
+to the second story the prostrate body of Captain Baynell, all dripping
+with blood, while the floor of the stairs to the attic showed the stains
+of the fall.
+
+The unexpected spectacle stayed the tumult for a moment. Then as a
+hoarse murmur rose, Judge Roscoe turned toward the foremost standing at
+the foot of the attic flight.
+
+"Lend a hand here," he said with a calm, steady voice. Then, looking
+over the balustrade to those below, "Has the surgeon come?"
+
+The question went from one to another--"Has the surgeon come?" to those
+that filled the halls and made sudden excursions to and fro in the
+adjoining rooms as suspicion of hiding-places occurred to them; to
+others that gorged the main staircase, packed close at its head, with
+necks craning forward, and ears and eyes intent to hear and see what had
+chanced.
+
+By this time officers were in the house and the unwelcome voice of
+command curtailed the activities of the mob and reduced it speedily to
+the aspect of soldiery. The voice of command had irate intonations, and
+one or two of the younger officers showed a disposition to lay about
+with the flat of their swords, as a "wand of authority" indeed, but,
+apparently inadvertently, dealing blows that had tingling intimations.
+They cleared the mansion quickly, the unruly manifestation serving to
+minimize its provocation.
+
+To Judge Roscoe's infinite relief the officers were disposed to regard
+the disturbance as one of those inexplicable attacks of folly which
+sometimes lay hold on a mass of men, but which would be incapable of
+affecting them as individuals. For a search-party organized on a strict
+military principle had carefully ransacked every portion of the house
+and cellar and also the attic,--where no traces betrayed recent
+habitation,--examined all the vineyard, hedges, shrubbery, and even the
+boughs of the great trees, and invaded the stable, barn, crib,
+ice-house, poultry yards, dairy, kennel, dove-cote, the miscellaneous
+outbuildings, sties and byres, all empty, devoid even of the usual
+domestic animals--absolutely with no result. No Confederate fugitive,
+covered with blood or in any other plight, was found, and in the
+thrice-guarded camps that surrounded the place escape seemed impossible.
+The ranking officer who ordered the search naturally believed that the
+sudden conviction of the presence of a Confederate soldier in the house
+was a sheer delusion, promulgated and distorted by rumor. Some story of
+Captain Baynell's fall and wound, caught possibly from the messenger
+sent to fetch the surgeon, had been misunderstood. This he considered
+was the only reasonable explanation. No one, he argued, could have
+escaped under the circumstances. No Rebel was in the house or in the
+grounds. It was impossible for a man to have fled except into the midst
+of the camps.
+
+Notwithstanding the conviction thus reached, special precautionary
+measures were taken. New sentries were stationed on the rear and west of
+the house as well as in front. These posts were to be visited by a
+sergeant with a patrol, twice during the night. If any Rebel had
+contrived to escape from the place, he would find it difficult indeed to
+reënter it. These duties concluded, the officer dismissed the whole
+matter as a canard or one of the inexplicable manifestations of human
+folly, and departed, leaving quiet descending upon the distracted scene.
+
+It was the cook, Aunt Chaney, who had been sent at full speed for the
+surgeon. She had vaguely understood from old Ephraim's aspect and
+frantic mandate that something terrifying had befallen the household,
+and she did not realize until afterward the sacrifice of dignity her
+aspect must have presented as she ran, fatly waddling, over the hill,
+across the commons, and then up a path to a hospital on an eminence
+overlooking the town, formerly a Medical College. She was bonnetless,
+limping actively, for one of her large, loose slippers had gone, and
+gone forever. Its loss destroyed the equipoise of her gait; her unshod
+foot was pierced with stones and chilled with the damp ground; her
+sleeves were rolled up, her arms held out at a bandy angle, for her
+fingers were dripping with cake-batter, and she did not have sufficient
+composure to wring them free till she was following the surgeon home.
+
+The condition of the messenger intimated the seriousness of the call,
+and the surgeon hardly waited to hear more than the wild appeal--"Come
+at once! Captain Baynell has killed his-self--Heabenly Friend! I wish he
+could hev' tuk enny other premises ter hev' c'mitted the deed." As she
+toiled along behind the surgeon, "Oh, my Lawd an' King!" she panted at
+intervals.
+
+Baynell remained unconscious for some time. When at length he came to
+himself he was lying quietly in the great, commodious bedroom that he
+had of late occupied in the storm centre, the green Venetian blinds half
+closed, the afternoon sunlight softly flecking the carpet, the air of
+high decorum and gentle nurture which so characterized the place
+peculiarly in evidence, and old Ephraim noiselessly flitting about with
+a palm-leaf fan in his hand, ready to annihilate any vagrant fly with
+enough temerity to appear.
+
+"Ye los' yer balance, sah, an' fell down de steers," he unctuously
+explained.
+
+"I know--I remember that--but who--where is that Rebel officer?"
+
+"I reckon ye mus' hev' drempt about him, Cap'n," the "double-faced
+Janus" responded casually, with the superior air of humoring a delusion.
+"Ye been talkin' 'bout him afore whenst ye wuz deelerious. But dar ain't
+none ob dem miser'ble slave-drivers round dese diggin's now'-days,
+praise de Lawd! Freedom come wid de Union army."
+
+This assurance convinced the Federal officer. The old servant's interest
+was so obviously with the invading force that his motive was not open to
+question. Moreover, it was not the first time that Baynell had dreamed
+of the Confederate officer, the erstwhile lover of Leonora Gwynn, whose
+splendid portrait hung on the wall, and whom she often mentioned with
+interest.
+
+When the surgeon next called he expressed to his patient great surprise:
+"It is very natural that in your state of convalescence you should grow
+dizzy and fall; but I can't for my life understand how you contrived to
+get such a blow from the edge of a step. It has all the style about it
+of a hit straight from the shoulder of an expert boxer. Uncle Ephraim
+doesn't happen to be something of a pugilist, now?" he added jocosely,
+smiling and glancing at the old negro.
+
+"I don't happen to be nuffin, sah, dat ain't perlite," grinned the
+amenable "Janus."
+
+"Your friends downstairs seemed frightened out of their wits,
+Baynell,--lest your wound should be imputed to them, I suppose," the
+surgeon said openly, for he did not consider the presence of the
+ex-slave.
+
+"Yes, sah!" put in Uncle Ephraim, "eider me or Marster, or de widder
+'oman, or de ladies air sure bound ter hev' knocked him up dat way, kase
+'twould take a puffick reel-foot man ter fall downstairs dat fashion.
+Yah! Yah!"
+
+It did not occur to Baynell to doubt this statement, and not one word
+did he say to the surgeon of his dream of the presence of the
+Confederate officer. He made no effort to account for the disaster,
+merely lending himself to the surgeon's view that he had grown suddenly
+dizzy and the stairs were steep in the third flight.
+
+This gave the surgeon a disquieting sense of suspicion some time
+afterward. When returning from his tour of duty at the hospital he was
+again in the camp, he heard there the amazing rumor among the soldiers
+that a Confederate officer, covered with blood, had been seen to issue
+from the Roscoe house and with lightning-like speed disappear among the
+shrubbery. He wondered that Baynell should not have mentioned the
+commotion, forgetting that as he was unconscious he might be still
+unaware of the fact.
+
+Dr. Grindley was not of a designing nature; but he was consciously
+experimenting when he said, rather banteringly, on his next visit, "How
+about the notion that there was a Confederate officer concealed in this
+house?"
+
+Baynell looked annoyed. He had heard as yet not an allusion to the raid
+upon the house during the period of his insensibility, and he did not
+know that the presence of a Confederate officer had even been rumored.
+He supposed that the doctor referred to the chance question he had asked
+Uncle Ephraim, and he deprecated the fact that the old man should have
+heedlessly repeated this. The dream of the altercation, as he fancied
+the recollection, was still vague in his mind, and with that quality of
+unreality and so blended with other visions of his delirium and fever
+that he in naught doubted its tenuous state as a figment of a disordered
+brain.
+
+"There was no Rebel," he said somewhat gruffly.
+
+"That was all merely the love of sensation?" asked the surgeon.
+
+"Of course," Baynell assented, and fell silent.
+
+This had been the conclusion among the officers of the surrounding camp,
+and it was not surprising to the surgeon that Baynell should share it,
+but there was a consciousness, a mortification, in his manner, that
+implied a personal interest and forced the question to be dropped. The
+surgeon had no wish to press it, and moreover he was anxious to avoid
+exciting the patient. He had some doubt as to the result of the fall; he
+was meditating seriously on symptoms which indicated that the skull had
+sustained a fracture. But when he remarked that all might be well if
+Captain Baynell remained quiet and stirred as little as possible, he was
+surprised and dismayed by the vehemence with which the patient declared
+that he must move; he must leave the house; he could not, he would not
+stay under this roof another night, not even an hour longer. He
+requested the surgeon to make arrangements to attend him elsewhere, and
+rang the bell to send a message to camp directing his servant to come
+and get his personal effects. Only a sleeping-potion could restrain this
+determination at the time, and the next day a return of the fever and
+delirium solved the surgeon's problem how to bend the will of the
+refractory patient to the demands of his own best interests.
+
+Uncle Ephraim found some difficulty in sustaining with composure the
+disasters and excitement and fears that crowded in upon him. He must
+play his part with requisite spirit when in presence of the public, and
+he must suffer in silence and alone. He dared not seek to confer apart
+with his master as to the next step, lest he rouse suspicion that they
+had some secret understanding, and had indeed harbored the enemy. He
+dared not confide his troubles even to his wife, Aunt Chaney, although
+he yearned for sympathy, for reassurance. The old cook, however, had not
+been admitted to any detail of the secret presence of Julius in the
+house. For aught she knew, even now, he was five hundred miles away.
+
+The perversity of the falling out of events dismayed and daunted old
+Ephraim. Only that morning--the morning of that momentous day--Captain
+Baynell had announced at the table the termination of his visit.
+
+"An' it wuz time, too. 'Fore de Lawd, it wuz surely time," the old
+servant grumbled, in surly retrospect. For had the officer but taken his
+leave and his cigar together, how different it might all have been!
+"Marse Julius mought hev' seen Miss Leonora, an' mebbe de ladies, an'
+come down inter de house an' smoked a _see_gar wid his Pa. Lawdy, massy!
+wid de curtains drawed, an' de blinds down. Dat's whut he honed for! Oh,
+'fore Gawd, I dunno whar dat baby-chile--dat pore leetle Julius--is
+now!"
+
+His face caught a fleeting grimace to remember the height of the
+"baby-chile,"--but as helpless, as forlorn, as some tiny waif, and oh,
+so terribly threatened in this beleaguered, in this thrice-guarded,
+town!
+
+When at last he was dismissed from his station in the sick room by the
+sinking of Baynell into slumber under the influence of the sedative
+administered by the surgeon, old Ephraim, succumbing both in physique
+and in spirit, even in gait, stumbled downstairs and took his way into
+the kitchen to find some talk of trifles, some stir of the familiar
+duties, that might enable him to be rid of his unquiet thoughts, of his
+dread prognostications, of his sheer terror of the future. He sunk into
+a wooden chair beside the stove, for the cooking of supper was already
+under way. He was feeling very old and weary. His countenance seemed to
+have collapsed in some sort, so did his usual expression of brisk
+satisfaction and dapper respectfulness and reserve of intelligence prop
+and sustain its contours. Its bony structure now seemed withdrawn. It
+was a sort of dilapidated mask of desolation. He drew a long sigh. And
+then he said:--
+
+"Dis is a tur'ble, tur'ble world, mon!"
+
+"Dis world is a long sight better dan de nex' world for _you_!" said his
+wife, rancorously prophetic. "You hear _me_!"
+
+The imperious Chaney had not collapsed. Her "head-handkercher" was
+bestowed in a turban that had two high standing ends like tufts of
+feathers above her black, resolute face. Her black eyes snapped as she
+looked beyond him, not at him. She was stepping about, stoutly, firmly,
+audibly, in her Sunday shoes, for no amount of mourning materialized the
+lost slip-shod _chaussure_--pressed deep in the mud of the highway by
+wagon-wheels and the uninformed hoof of an unimaginative army mule.
+
+Uncle Ephraim gazed up in growing anxiety, not to say fright, for Aunt
+Chaney's mood was not suave. She suddenly paused on the other side of
+the stove, and, gesticulating across it with a long spoon, demanded:
+"You--ole--_dee_stracted--cawnfield--hand! What fur did you send _me_
+fur de doctor-man?"
+
+"Whut you go fur, den?"
+
+Aunt Chaney reflected on her appearance on the highway, in her old
+homespun dress, "coat," as she called it, one slipper, no bonnet, the
+cake-dough dripping from her hands. She remembered that some wagoners of
+a forage train, struck by her agitated aspect, had looked back to laugh
+from their high perches among the hay and fodder; she remembered that
+some little imp-like boys had twitted her, calling after her in their
+high, callow chirp, and sorry was she that she had not left all to chase
+them--to chase them till they died of fright! She--_she_ who was
+accustomed to flaunt in a "changeable" silk, and her bonnet had an
+ostrich plume! She wore a bracelet, too, on grand occasions, and this
+was gold, solid and heavy, fine and engraved, for "Miss Leonora" herself
+had it bought in New Orleans expressly for her, after she had discovered
+and unaided extinguished a midnight fire. Not that old Chaney would have
+wasted all this splendor on the errand for the doctor. If she had
+thought but for a moment, she would have garbed herself as now, as she
+did instantly on her return home, to save her self-respect,--in a purple
+calico and a clean, white, domestic apron, with her respected and
+respectable green-and-white checked sun-bonnet, all laundered, as ever,
+to absolute perfection. Her haste had destroyed her judgment.
+
+"Whyn't ye tole me dat de man hed jes' fell downsteers,--when ye come
+out yere, howlin' lak a painter wid a misery in his jaw. I 'lowed de
+Yankee had deestroyed his-self on dese yere premises."
+
+"So did I! So did I! He bled--and _bled_!" Old Ephraim paused, his face
+fallen. The association of ideas brought by the mention of blood was
+uncanny.
+
+"What ailed de man dat he hatter fall downsteers?"
+
+"I dunno." The denial was pat.
+
+"Whut's he come down here fightin' in the War without he's able ter keep
+from fallin' downsteers? De Roscoes kin stan' up! I'll say dat fur 'em."
+
+"Dey kin dat," replied the "double-faced Janus" admiringly, thinking of
+Julius.
+
+"How long he gwine stay?"
+
+"'Twell he git well, I reckon."
+
+"Den _I_ say dis ain't no house nor home. Dis is horspital Number
+Forty--dat's whut. Marse Gerald Roscoe ain't got no more sense 'n a
+good-sized chicken, dough he _is_ a jedge, ter hev' dat man yere fur
+Miss Leonora ter keer fur, an' take ter marryin' agin 'fore her old
+sweetheart, Julius Roscoe, kin git home. 'Fore de Lawd, I stood it ez
+long ez dere seemed enny end to it, but now--" she banged her pots, and
+pans, and kettles about with virulence.
+
+"Marse Julius," she continued, "_he's_ de man fur Leonora Roscoe,--_I_
+ain't gwine call her 'Gwynn,'--Marse Julius is good-hearted and
+free-handed; I knowed him from a baby, an' he wuz a big one! I always
+knowed he war in love wid her ever since dat Christmas up at the Devrett
+place, when he an' some o' dem limber-jack Devrett boys got inter de
+wall or inter de groun'--I dunno whar--an' sung right inter de company's
+ear, powerful mysterious,--skeered 'em all! Marse Julius, he tuk his
+guitar an' sung,--'Oh, my love's like a red, red rose!' An' she looked
+lak one while she listened, fur she knowed his voice. I wuz peekin' in
+at de company at de winder--Lawd--Lawd! I 'lowed _dat_ would be a
+match--but yere come along dat Gwynn feller!"
+
+A sudden white flare of burning lard spread over the red-hot stove, for
+Uncle Ephraim had sprung up so abruptly as to strike the long handle of
+the skillet and overturn the utensil.
+
+"Ain't ye got no mo' use of yer haid 'n ter go buttin' 'roun' de
+kitchen, lak a ole deestracted Billy-goat, lak you is!" Aunt Chaney
+demanded.
+
+As the smoke circled about she snatched up the skillet with its flaming
+contents.
+
+"Git out my kitchen, else I'll scald de grizzled woolly soul out'n you!"
+
+"Bress de Lawd, 'oman, _I_ ain't wantin' ter stay in yer kitchen," said
+Uncle Ephraim, suddenly spry and saucy and brisk,--a trifle more brisk,
+indeed, accelerating his pace toward the door, as she took two or three
+long, agile, elastic steps toward him.
+
+"I got other feesh ter fry!" he chuckled to himself.
+
+For the blazing lard but typified a certain illumination in old
+Ephraim's mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was a clear, gusty night when he emerged on the lawn at the side
+entrance of the house. For two hours with the faint and freakish light
+of candle ends he had been rummaging over old chests and boxes in the
+attic. The aspect of the desolate, deserted place that had held his
+young master, a tenant dear to his loyal heart, wrung from him a sigh.
+Sometimes he dropped his hands, lifted himself from his crouching
+attitude to a kneeling posture, looked wistfully about the dreary, dusty
+silence, shook his head sorrowfully to and fro, and then once more
+addressed himself to his search. When he began to find the various
+articles he desired, he grew tremulous, agitated. His breath was fast,
+and now and again he must needs check himself in his disposition to
+fluent soliloquy lest some one overhear in his sonorous voice such
+significant words as would reveal his intention. When these seizures
+supervened, he became anxious concerning the possible betrayal of his
+enterprise by the feeble light cast from the windows, and ever and anon
+he screened the bit of candle behind a trunk or some massive piece of
+furniture. He knew that the house was a marked spot; the events of the
+day had rendered the locality of special and suspicious interest to all
+the camps in the vicinity. Many an eye was turned thither, he was aware,
+as the evening drew on, and in fact he hardly dared to light the tiny
+tapers till he had heard tattoo sound and taps beat. The tents were lost
+in darkness and slumber, but there were the camp and quarter guards, and
+soon would come the patrol and grand rounds. The sentries about the
+house gave him less anxiety.
+
+"They be 'bleeged to know we-all keep some of our stuff in the
+garrit--mought be huntin' fur suthin' fur dat ar Yankee man's nicked
+haid. But _I ain't_!" he soliloquized.
+
+When at last he had found all he desired, he extinguished the light and
+quietly waited. Thus in the darkness the place was even more grewsome
+with its associations of concealment and flight, the imminence of his
+young master's capture and violent death. He heard his heart plunge at
+every stir of the wind, every clash of the boughs, and he muttered: "Dat
+pore chile wuz denied a light. His Pa p'intedly wouldn't 'low him a
+candle, fur fear folks would spy it out. An' here he set an' waited in
+de ever-lastin' night!"
+
+Old Ephraim suffered here in the dark from a terror which had loosed its
+hold on his young master long ago,--the fear of the supernatural. Ghosts
+of many types, "ha'nts," headless horrors, spectral sounds from the
+other world, direful prognostications of signs, all in grisly procession
+passed and repassed and crowded the garret to suffocation. It would be
+impossible to imagine what the old gray-headed negro saw and heard as he
+crouched on the dusty floor, and listened to the rout of the wind in the
+trees, and watched the eerie aspect of the old furniture, itself
+associated with the long-gone dead, as the moon and the gust-driven
+shadowy clouds flickered and faded and flickered and faded across the
+dim spaces. When suddenly a shrill sound pierced the ghostly solitude,
+he fell prone in complete surrender on the floor, terrified, his nerves
+almost shattered. An inarticulate scream came again and again, and then
+a low chuckling chatter. A screech-owl, a tiny thing, had alighted on
+the window-sill, and hearing the stir, turned its head without shifting
+its body, its great round eyes encountering the reproachful rolling
+stare of old Ephraim as he tremulously gathered himself from the floor.
+Taking a package under his arm under the long coat he wore, he at last
+went noiselessly and swiftly down the stairs.
+
+He looked out heedfully for Judge Roscoe, whom he did not wish to
+encounter.
+
+"Marster hes been a jedge, an' dey say he hes set on de bench--dough I
+dunno whut fur dat's so oncommon, fur mos' ennybody kin set on a bench!
+He's sot in his own cushioned arm-chair in de lawbrary whut kin lean
+backwards on a spring, and recline his foots upwards, an' dat's a deal
+ch'icer dan enny bench I knows on! But he's been a jedge, an' he's got
+book-larnin', but somehow I 'low he ain't tricky enough ter be up ter
+_dis_ kink. I ain't gwine ter let him know nuffin'."
+
+When fairly out of the house all suggestion of secrecy and caution
+vanished. The old darkey flung his feet on the stone steps with a noisy
+impact, and before he reached the pavement, he had burst into song,
+marking the time with an emphatic rhythm--a wide blare of melody with a
+great baritone voice, that sounded far down the bosky recesses of the
+grove, all dappled with shadow and sheen.
+
+        "Rise an' shine, _children_!
+         Rise an' _shine_, children!
+         Rise an' shine, _children_!
+     De angels bid me ter come along!
+     O-h-h, I want ter go ter heaben when I die--"
+
+He broke off suddenly. He did not wait to be challenged by the sentry as
+he turned, but greeted him with a sort of plaintive humility and a
+mendicant's confiding manner.
+
+"Marse Soldier, could ye gimme a chaw of terbacker, please, sir?"
+
+The soldier would not have allowed even one of his own officers to pass
+from the house or enter it without the countersign, but he was thrown
+off his guard by this personal appeal; and although he could not comply
+with the request, not being given to the bad habit of "chawin'
+terbacker," he shifted his weapon from hand to hand while he rummaged
+his pockets for "fine-cut" for the pipe of old Ephraim--the fraud, who
+was amply supplied.
+
+"Neb mind--neb mind," the old man said deprecatingly. "Thanky, sah,
+thanky! Dere's anodder soldier round de front po'ch--mebbe he's got a
+chaw!"
+
+And this sentinel, having listened to the colloquy with his comrade, as
+well as distance would permit, adopted his friendly tactics and was able
+to produce the requisite "chaw." He naturally supposed the countersign
+had been demanded and given at the door whence the servant of the house
+emerged, for after unctuous and profuse thanks old Ephraim swung off
+down the hill with another great gush of song--"I want ter go ter heaben
+when I die--" echoing far over the grove and the silent camps beyond.
+
+Listening to the resounding progress of his departure the first sentry
+thought of course that in letting him pass his comrade had taken the
+countersign. It was only a vague thought, however, cast after him. "That
+old night-hawk is bound for the river, I guess, going fishing," for
+nocturnal angling was the favorite sport of the darkeys of the region.
+
+The soldier did not even notice when the surge of the chant gave way to
+a musical whistle, still carrying the air with great spirit and a sort
+of enthusiasm of rhythm, "An' de angels bid me ter come along." Still
+less did he discriminate the difference in the change of sound, not
+immediately apparent, so elusive was it, and difficult to describe, when
+a whistle of a different timbre took up the air and finished the
+phrase--"I'll shout salvation as I fly!" After a pause Uncle Ephraim was
+in the distance, humming now, and soon all sound ceased. Both the
+sentinels would have sworn he had quitted the grove.
+
+But it was not alone the wind among the young firs that tossed their
+branches to and fro, when trembling, terrorized, casting now and then a
+horrified, rebuking glance at the radiant moon, as the flying scud drew
+back and left the sphere undimmed, he sought the spot he had marked when
+the responsive whistle had apprised him that his signal was understood
+and answered. At length he paused to catch his breath and wipe the cold
+drops from his brow.
+
+"Lawdy massy! dese yere shines dat dis yere Rebel cuts up will be de
+death ob me--ef dey ain't de death ob himse'f fust!"
+
+He judged from his close observation he was on the spot--yet he could
+not ascertain it. Suddenly hard by the roots of a great lush specimen of
+a Norway spruce, the boughs lying far on the ground, his foot slipped on
+the thick spread of the fallen needles. He could not recover himself. He
+was going down--down. His courage all evaporated. He would have
+screamed if he could. In his terror he had almost lost consciousness
+till all at once he felt a strong grasp of aid and heard a familiar
+smothered laugh that restored his faculties with the realization of
+success and the recognition of a friend at hand.
+
+"Hesh! Hesh!" he said imperatively. "Dat laffin' an' laffin' is gwine
+ter be de _de_struction ob you an' all yer house, an' 'fore de Lawd, ole
+Ephraim, too!"
+
+He had no response, but he had submitted himself to guidance. He was
+being led along a downward course in a narrow subterranean passage, his
+feet shuffling and kicking uncertainly as he ludicrously sought for the
+ground and to accommodate his gait to the easy accustomed stride of his
+conductor. They made more than one turn before Julius paused and said:
+"We might as well stop here, Uncle Ephraim. We can sit down on the
+rocks. Did my father send me any message? Is the officer much hurt?"
+
+"Do you think you kin pitch folks down them steep steers, an' not hurt
+'em, you owdacious, mis_chie_vious chile! His head is consider'ble
+nicked,--an' dat's a fac'!"
+
+"Is that all?" said Julius, evidently much relieved. "What word did my
+father send me?"
+
+"No word! He didn't know whar dee is--an' I didn't tell him whar I was
+goin' ter hunt fur dee."
+
+"Oh, but he _must_ know--he must not be left so uneasy. Oh, how I wish I
+had never come to disturb and endanger my good father!"
+
+It was dark, and he did not care that Uncle Ephraim should hear his
+sobs.
+
+"Now, look-a-yere, Marse Julius, chile--de less folks knows 'bout dee,
+de less dey is liable ter be anxious. What you reckon I brung dee?"
+
+"Some supper?"
+
+"Lawd, no! I ain't hed time ter git ye supper."
+
+"Some money? I don't want any money. My father gave me money in case of
+any necessity when I was to run the pickets--_gold_!" He chinked some
+coins alluringly in his pocket.
+
+"'Tain't money. It's--_cloes_!"
+
+"Clothes?" said Julius, uncertainly.
+
+"'Twas dat ar tarrifyin' Rebel uniform dat got dee in dis trouble
+ter-day. Ye got ter change dem cloes. Ye can't run de pickets, an' ye
+can't git out'n de lines nohow in dem cloes."
+
+Julius hesitated. The uniform was in one sense a protection. To be taken
+in his proper character, even lurking in hiding, did not necessarily
+expose him to the accusation of being a spy which capture in disguise
+would inevitably fix upon him.
+
+"What clothes did you bring,--Aunt Chaney's?" he asked, prefiguring a
+female disguise, and reflecting on the ample size and notable height of
+the cook.
+
+A sort of sharp yelp of dismay came out of the darkness. Old Ephraim
+wriggled and shuffled his feet audibly on the rocks in his effort at
+emphasis and absolute negation.
+
+"Marse Julius you is gone _de_ranged! Surely, surely, you is los' what
+sense you ever had! Chaney wouldn't loan ye ez much ez a apern or a
+skirt out'n her chist ter save ye from de pit o' perdition! I hes been
+reckless and darin' in my time, but de Lawd knows I never was so forsook
+by Providence as ter set out ter carry off any wearin' apparel belongin'
+ter dat 'oman, what's gin ober ter de love o' de cloes in her chist. Dat
+chist is de idol ob dat _de_stracted heathen 'oman, an' de debbil will
+burn her well for de love o' de vanities she's got tucked away dar.
+Chaney's cloes! Gawd A'mighty! _Chaney's_ cloes! Borry _Chaney's_
+cloes!"
+
+"Well, whose clothes, then, Uncle Ephraim? You know I couldn't get into
+the citizen's clothes I left at home. I'm three inches taller, and a
+deal stouter. And it would be dangerous to try to buy clothes."
+
+"Lissen; I disremembered dere wuz a trunk in de garret what wuz brung
+down from de Devrett place when de Yankees tore down de house an' built
+de fort. It b'longed ter yer cousin Frank's wife's brother, an' wuz sent
+home atter de war broke out when he died in some outlandish place--I
+dunno whar, in heathen land. As I knowed he wuz tall an' spare, I 'lowed
+de cloes mought fit dee. So I opened de trunk--an' de cloes wuz
+comical; but not as comical as a Rebel uniform in dese days an' dis
+place."
+
+Julius had a vague vision of himself, robed in the comicalities of the
+dress of the Orient,--Japanese or Arabian or Turkish,--seeking an escape
+in obscurity and inconspicuousness, through the closely drawn Federal
+lines.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Ephraim!" he whined, almost in tears, because of the futility
+of every device, every hope.
+
+"You wait till I show dem ter dee!" exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, hustling
+out the bundle from under his coat.
+
+It proved to be a small portmanteau that had been itself enclosed in the
+trunk. This much was discernible by the sense of touch. Old Ephraim
+placed it on the ground, and then, lowering his voice mysteriously, he
+asked solemnly, "Marse Julius, is you sure acquainted with dis place?"
+
+"I certainly am," declared Julius, the tense vibration of triumph in his
+voice. "I know it from end to end!"
+
+"Den, ef I wuz ter strike a light, could dem sentries see hit at de
+furder e-end?"
+
+"Not to save their souls. We're ever so far down, and the tunnel has
+already made three turns."
+
+"Ef dey wuz ter follow us, dey couldn't crope up unbeknownst on us?"
+
+"They'd break their necks at the entrance if they didn't know the place
+or have a ladder."
+
+"Dere is a ladder ter de stable, dough," the old man urged, vaguely
+uneasy.
+
+"We'd hear 'em putting it down."
+
+"Dat's so! Dat's so!" cried Uncle Ephraim, all cheerful alacrity once
+more.
+
+He forthwith struck a match and lighted one of his candle ends, which he
+fixed on the ledge of the rock by holding it inverted for a few minutes,
+then on the hot drippings placing the taper erect. He had shielded it
+with his hand during this process, and on perceiving no draught
+whatever, looked up in amazement at the strange surroundings--a rugged
+stone tunnel stretching far along into the dense blackness of the
+distance, fifteen feet in height, perhaps, and of varying width,--about
+ten feet where they stood; evidently this was an offshoot of some
+extensive subterranean system, not uncommon in the cavernous limestone
+country, therefore exciting scant interest, and perhaps never heretofore
+explored, even in part, save by Julius and the Devrett boys when it
+might be made a factor in Christmas fun.
+
+"De Lawd-a-massy," exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, looking about in awe and by
+no means prepossessed in favor of the aspect of the place. "Is disher de
+bestibule ob hell?"
+
+But the attention of Julius was concentrated on the portmanteau, a very
+genteel-looking receptacle, which when open disclosed the garments that
+Uncle Ephraim considered so comical. They were, indeed, a contrast with
+his standard of proper attire for a "gemman of quality"--this being the
+judge's fine black broadcloth, with a black satin waistcoat and stock,
+and with linen laid in plaits, the collar standing in two sharp points.
+But for the first time that day Julius had a sudden hope of deliverance.
+No kaftan, kimono, nor burnoose as he had feared, but he was turning in
+his hands a soft, rough-surfaced tweed of a dark fawn color, with tiny
+checks of the style called invisible, the coat bound with a silk braid
+on which Uncle Ephraim laid a finger of doubt and inquiry, looking
+drearily up into the young man's face. For this was a novel finish
+indeed in those days.
+
+"These are of English make," said the discerning Julius, beginning to
+understand that the foreign "heathen land" to which old Ephraim had
+referred was England. Julius now remembered that his cousin's
+brother-in-law, James Wrayburn, had been sojourning there at the time of
+his death. The garments had lain in the garret for more than a year, but
+in those days so slow was the transmission of styles across the Atlantic
+that the cut was by no means antiquated, indeed was in accord with the
+fashion that was familiar on the main street of the town. There was a
+hat of soft felt of a deep brown, and the old servant had added from the
+trunk two or three white Marseilles waistcoats and some neckties and
+linen.
+
+"Dee got on good new boots," he observed, glancing down at the young
+man's feet.
+
+"Ought to be--cost me six hundred dollars!" said Julius.
+
+"Lo!--my Heabenly Friend!" exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, falling back aghast,
+unaccustomed to the inflations of the currency of the Confederacy.
+
+When the transformation was complete, he looked up from his knees, in
+which lowly posture he had assisted in drawing down the trousers over
+the boots, and smiled broadly in satisfaction.
+
+"Dar now!" he exclaimed. "'Fore de Lawd, ye look plumb beau-some in dem
+comical cloes. Dey becomes ye! Dat they does--dough I ain't never see no
+such color as they got, 'dout 'twuz on a cow!"
+
+He made up a bundle of the Confederate uniform and stowed it away on one
+of the ledges. "I don't want dem Yankees ter ever git no closer ter dis
+yere shed snake-skin dan dey is now."
+
+But after the old man had been assisted to clamber out of "the vestibule
+of hell" by the stalwart arm of his young master and had disappeared
+among the firs, Julius made up the uniform into a compact bundle, packed
+it into the portmanteau, and, putting out the candle, sat down in the
+obscurities of the subterranean passage to await the enhanced
+opportunity for escape that the dark clouds, now gathering about the
+moon, might bring to the fortuitous collocation of circumstance.
+
+When the sentries next heard any suggestion of Uncle Ephraim's presence,
+he was still singing on his return,--now and then humming and whistling
+as he came. He was approaching the house from the driveway, having
+indeed been to the river; he was bringing home a goodly mess of fish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+An hour later there was a more significant landfall than the fate of
+these finny trophies. Few of the river craft kept their dates of arrival
+with certainty, and this was especially the case with the general
+packets. Though the water was high, the operations of the Confederates
+rendered the passage sometimes unsafe, sometimes impracticable. Now and
+again the Federal authorities pressed a boat into government service for
+a time and released it to its owners and its old traffic when the
+emergency was past. Therefore on this dull night, when no sign or news
+was received of the _Calypso_, overdue some ten hours, the wharf became
+deserted. Hardly a light showed on the river banks or along the spread
+of the stream, save indistinct gleams in the misty gloom where the
+picket boats kept up a ceaseless vigilant patrol. The gunboats, with a
+vaguely saurian suggestion lay with their noses in the mud. Here and
+there in allotted berths were the ordinary steamboats with their
+curiously flimsy aspect, as if constructed of white cardboard, silent,
+disgorged, asleep. The rafts, the coal-barges, the humble skiffs, and
+flatboats were all tied up for the night. The town had lapsed to
+silence and slumber as the hour waxed late. The great pale stream seemed
+as vacant as the great pale sky.
+
+Suddenly far down the river two lights, close together, high in the air,
+red and green, shimmering through the mist, struck the attention of a
+wanderer along the high bluffs near Judge Roscoe's house, even before a
+hoarse, remonstrant, outspreading sound, the clamor of the whistle three
+times repeated, hailing the landing, invaded the murky air. It was a
+spell to rouse all the precincts of the river bank. Lights flickered
+here and there. Hack drivers, who had given up the expectation of the
+boat's arrival at any hour that would admit of the transfer of the
+passengers to the hotel, heard the sound from afar, harnessed their
+teams in haste, and the carriages came rattling turbulently down the
+stony declivity to the wharf. Baggage vans, empty and curiously noisy,
+recklessly jolted along, careening ill-poised and light without their
+wonted burdens. The omnibuses, with the glow of their dim little front
+windows to distinguish their approach, were soon on the scene; the
+driver of one was vociferating with a hackman, because of the lack of
+lighted carriage lamps, which had caused a collision and the wrenching
+away of the door and the cover of the step of the "bus," swaying open
+for want of a cautionary pull on the cord. Loud and turbulent did this
+wrangle grow, and presently it was punctuated by blows. The crowd that
+the mere sound of a fight summons from invisibility was almost instantly
+swaying about the scene and hindering the efforts of the police, who
+found it necessary to interfere, and while both participants were
+arrested and hurried off to the station in the clutches of the law, they
+left their respective vehicles like white elephants in the hands of the
+remainder of the force, two of whom must needs mount the boxes to
+restrain the "cattle," as the hack driver mournfully called his beasts
+in commending them to police protection. The horses plunged and reared,
+terrified at the apparition of the _Calypso_, now manoeuvring and turning
+in the river, the paddles beating upon the water with a splashing impact
+as the side-wheels slowly revolved. The ripples were all aglow with the
+reflection of her red furnace fires, and her cabin lights sent long
+avenues of white evanescent radiance into the vague riparian glooms. The
+jangle of the pilot bells and the sound of the exhaust pipes came
+alternately on the air. And presently the great white structure was
+motionless, towering up into the gray uncertainties of the night, the
+black chimneys seeming to fairly touch the clouds, the lacelike guards
+filled with flitting figures all in wild commotion pressing toward the
+stairway.
+
+Albeit the discharge of the freight would not take place till morning,
+the scene was one of great confusion. In accordance with the regulation
+which the military occupation of the country required, the passengers
+rendered up their passes on deck to the officer who had boarded the
+vessel for the purpose of receiving them, permitting the travellers to
+depart one by one through a guarded gate, but it was impossible to
+identify them after they were once on the wharf. Hence there was naught
+to distinguish from the other passengers a gentleman carrying a
+portmanteau, who entered an omnibus, save that the wharf lamps might
+have shown that he was handsome, taller than common, with a fine
+presence and gait, and clad in garments of unmistakably English cut and
+make. The night clerk of the hotel evidently saw nothing else unusual in
+the stranger as he stood under the gas-jet to register at the desk in
+the office, almost deserted at this hour--not even in the momentary
+hesitation when he had the pen in hand. He wrote "John Wray, Junior,
+Manchester, England," had a room assigned to him, and passed on to the
+late supper, for which Uncle Ephraim's negligence had prepared him to do
+ample justice.
+
+Julius did not appear next morning at the usual breakfast hour. The
+terrors of the Chinese gong, that was wont to rouse the laggards as it
+howled about the hotel under the belaborings of a stalwart waiter,
+failed to stimulate his activity or break his slumber. The fatigues and
+dangers Julius had encountered had prostrated him. He was unconsciously
+recuperating, gathering strength for the rebound. He did not wake,
+indeed, till near noon. He turned once or twice luxuriously in the
+comfortably sheeted bed--at his home they had not dared to purloin linen
+from the household store to furnish his couch in the attic--and then,
+with his hands clasped under his head, he lay with a mind almost vacant
+of any conscious process, mechanically, quietly, taking in the details
+of the place. The sun sifted in at a crevice of the green shutters of
+the window that opened to the floor and gave upon a wide gallery
+without--now and again he heard at considerable intervals the passing of
+a footstep on this gallery. He noticed the wind stir and the flicker of
+the shadow of foliage on the blinds. The room was in the second story,
+and he knew that there were trees in a space at the rear of the
+old-fashioned little hotel. The furniture was of a highly varnished,
+cleanly, straw-colored aspect, of some cheap wood that refreshingly made
+no pretentions to be aught but what it was, for on the bureau drawers,
+the head and foot-boards of the bed, and on the rocking-chair was
+painted a gay little bouquet of flowers in natural but intense tints. A
+fresh Chinese matting was on the floor, and muslin curtains hung from
+poles supported on pins that had a great brass rosette or boss at the
+extremity. The building enclosed a quadrangle, bounded by the river at
+the lower end. On each of the other three sides the wide galleries of
+the three-story brick edifice overlooked the grassy space. He had
+learned that the hotel had gone into the hands of a new proprietor, but
+even were it otherwise he hardly feared recognition, although he had
+been born and reared in the immediate vicinity. At his time of life a
+few years work great changes. The boy of nineteen was hardly to be
+identified in the man of twenty-two, with his mustached lips, his
+broadened shoulders, his three inches of added height, and the
+composure, confidence, and capability conferred by those years of
+activity and emergency and responsibility working at high pressure. Some
+old resident might recognize the Roscoe eye, but he knew he could trust
+the kindly associations of "auld lang syne" to avoid the sifting of a
+casual recollection. Besides, this was hardly likely to befall, for the
+town was an ever shifting kaleidoscope of confused humanity. It was full
+of strangers,--Federal officers, on service and unattached, on leave of
+absence, wounded, and their families; special correspondents; hospital
+nurses; emissaries of the Sanitary Commission; enterprising promoters of
+all manner of jobs, and the horde of nondescript non-combatants that
+hangs on the rear of every army, seeking the many methods of securing a
+windfall from the vast expenditures of money and goods necessary to
+maintain a great force on a war footing. He was hardly likely to meet
+any one who had ever known him, or even his father, in his stay at the
+hotel, which he must contrive by some method to make as short as
+practicable. Then suddenly a great dismay fell upon him. He lifted his
+head and gasped as he looked about him for something that was gone! His
+treacherous memory!--in the prostration of his mental faculties by
+excitement and fatigue, in the lull of his long slumber, he had
+forgotten the alias he had registered as his own name on his entrance to
+the hotel. He thought of half a dozen of the most usual nomenclature,
+striving to goad his mind to a recognition of each in turn as the one he
+had selected. He was in desperation. True, he might have an opportunity
+to study the register and could recognize his own handwriting. But
+something--anything might occur in the interval in which it might be
+necessary to give the name he had assumed, and any incongruity with the
+registered alias would be fatal. Every casual step along the hall on one
+side, or the gallery on the other, threw him into a sudden tremor as he
+prefigured a stoppage, a knock, an inquiry--"Are you Mr. Alfred
+Jones?--here's a note for you. Messenger waits for an answer."
+
+"And _I_ don't know whether to answer as Mr. Jones or not!" he said to
+himself in a panic. He might turn away a note of warning from his
+father, who possibly had recognized his handwriting on the register, of
+greeting from Leonora in whose face he had seen an appalled
+commiseration as he sped past her yesterday in his father's hall; or it
+might be that some Confederate agent within the lines would hear of his
+plight and contrive this way to communicate with him. No matter how
+cautiously worded, his was not a correspondence at this juncture to
+decline to receive, and to turn lightly over to the investigating
+scrutiny of all the A. Joneses to whom it might be presented. On the
+other hand he might "throw all the fat in the fire," should he meddle
+with the large correspondence of the Jones family by opening sealed
+missives bearing their name, obviously not intended for him, if he had
+registered as Abner Smith.
+
+Julius was about to spring up, throw on his clothes, and rush to the
+register, when the name struck him with the force of conviction. _John
+Wray_--That was it! _Manchester, England!_ The address had been selected
+to take advantage of the typically English clothes. He meditated upon it
+as he sat upright in bed. He had added the "Junior," for the sake of
+verisimilitude. He smiled with satisfaction to have regained it.
+Then--"I must have something to fix that in my memory," he said.
+
+He looked fruitlessly about. He had no paper, save the map in the lining
+of his boot, no pencil, no pen and ink, naught for a memorandum. Then
+with his gay youthful inconsequence--"Constant repetition will settle
+it--Mr. John Wray--Mr. John Wray; Mr. John Wray. How do you do to-day?"
+
+He threw himself back on his pillow, laughing at the unintentional
+rhyme.
+
+"I'm a poet--if I did but know it!"
+
+His irrepressible youthful mirth found its account in the most untoward
+trifles.
+
+"There it is again!" he said to himself, "I have destroyed the sequence
+of my ideas. I am just as likely now to say, 'I am Mr. Poet'--or perhaps
+with the notion that I have got to butt out of this somehow--'I am Mr.
+Goat!'"
+
+He laughed again, yawned lazily, stretched his arms upward, and fell
+back luxuriously on the bed, resting his tired muscles.
+
+He lay staring at the design of the wall-paper, which was in scrolls of
+brown that, as they whorled over clear enamelled spaces of creamy white,
+enclosed an outline in fainter browns and yellow,--a scene of waves
+breaking on rocks and surmounted by a lighthouse; a far and foreign
+suggestion to this deeply inland nook, and refreshing, for there was
+more than vernal warmth in the air. And presently, still repeating--"Mr.
+John Wray, how do you do to-day?" he slipped off into a half-conscious
+doze from which he was roused only by a knock at the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Downstairs in the hotel there had been the usual stir of the morning.
+Till a late hour the punkahs had swung back and forth above the long
+tables in the dining room, each furnished with one of those primitive
+contrivances for the banishment of flies. The swaying of the pendent
+fringes of paper rivalled the rustling of the trees in the quadrangle
+outside, on which the broad, long windows looked, as each punkah-cord
+was pulled by a specimen of the cheerful and alert pickaninny of that
+day, keenly interested in all that occurred. Others ran in and out of
+the kitchen, bearing to the waiters, to be dispensed among the guests,
+interminable relays of the waffles of those times, golden brown,
+delicately rich, soft, yet crisp, of a peculiar lightness,--a kind that
+will be seen no more, despite the food inventions and dietetic
+improvements, for the artists of that choice cookery are all dead and
+their receipts only serve to mark the decadence of proficiency.
+
+Strangers of all sorts, officers of the army, civilians from every
+quarter of the north, filled the public apartments, aimlessly chatting,
+discussing the news from the front, smoking matutinal cigars, buying
+papers from the omnipresent newsboys, or reading them in the big
+arm-chairs within or on the benches under the trees in the quadrangle,
+glimpsed in attractive verdure through the open doors of the office.
+There was continual passing through the halls, and groups filled the
+verandas and stood about on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, for the
+great brick pillars that supported the roof of the arcade at the height
+of the third story were anchored at the curb of the pavement, and this
+colonnade illustrated the forgotten architect's idea of impressiveness.
+
+In the gay sunshine, the streets, with substantial two and three storied
+buildings on either side, with much effect of big airy windows and now
+and again a high, iron-railed balcony, were congested with traffic. The
+pavements were crowded with pedestrians of varying aspect,--freedmen in
+rags, idle, exhaustlessly zealous of sensation, grotesquely slouching
+along, eying the shop windows, seeing all that there was to be seen;
+soldiers in uniform on furlough; citizens of a new migration, having
+almost superseded the old townsmen, so limited were the latter in number
+in comparison with the present population of the gorged town; ladies,
+many the wives and daughters of Federal officers, with an unfamiliar
+accent and walk, and with toilettes of a more recent style than
+characterized the native exponents of fashion. Now and again some
+passing body of troops filled the avenue,--cavalry, with guidon and
+trumpet, or a jaunty progress of infantry, to the fife and drum and the
+tune of "The girl I left behind me!"
+
+At this period the war had focussed a sort of superficial prosperity
+here. The counters were covered with Northern goods to supply the needs
+and excite the extravagance of this medley of congregated humanity.
+Street venders howled their wares in raucous voices that added to the
+unintelligible clamors of the old highways that were wont to be so dull
+and quiet and decorous.
+
+The paving stones roared with the reverberation of wheels. Sometimes
+endless trains of white-hooded army wagons defiled by; again heavy open
+transfers; sometimes an ambulance anguish-laden passed slowly, taking
+the crown of the causeway. Occasionally a light-wheeled buggy whisked
+about with the unmistakable effect of display and with a military
+charioteer handling the ribbons, who found the Tennessee blooded
+roadsters much to his mind. And forever the dray, laden with cotton
+bales sometimes, and sometimes with boxes, or barrels, or hogsheads,
+took its drag-tailed way to the depots or to the wharf. All was
+dominated by the presence of the mule--in force, driven loose in
+hundreds through the town to some remote scene of usefulness, now
+drawing the great transfers and drays, now giving an exhibition of the
+peculiar pertinacity of mule nature by planted hoofs and ears laid back
+and a resolution of immovableness, bringing the whole tumultuous noisy
+rout to a blockade of such intricacy and cumbrous obstructiveness that
+one might wonder by what magic the interlocked wheels, the twisted
+harness, the crowded beasts, the whistling, long-thonged whips and
+shouting, swearing men were ever disentangled.
+
+These incidents impeded progress, and the passengers from the noon
+railroad train were disposed to complain and comment, and seemed fit
+subjects for sympathy, as they interchanged petulant accounts of
+experiences at the hotel desk, waiting to register. One was apparently
+not unknown to the clerk now in charge, an affable functionary to the
+deserving few, altogether stiff and unapproachable to the general
+public. He was the day clerk, and a far more magnificent individual than
+the forlorn night bird that languished behind the desk with no company
+but the wee sma' hours of the clock, and the somnolent bell-boys on
+their bench, and the watchman, walking hither and thither like a ghost
+as if his only mission were to be about, and the incoming traveller. The
+day clerk's courtesy had the grace of a personal compliment as he
+hurried the book away from the last signer and passed it on to another
+in the line,--a somewhat portly, red-faced, middle-aged gentleman, with
+short side-whiskers, of the hairbrush effect and a pale hue, not
+definitely gray, for he seemed hardly old enough for such tokens of
+years, and yet the flaxen tint had lost its earlier lustre. His hair was
+of the same shade, and he wore a stiff hat, a suit of "pepper-and-salt,"
+and a dark overcoat of light weight.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Wray," said the clerk, handing him the pen. "I am
+sorry I can't give you a room to yourself, but I can put you a bed in
+your son's room."
+
+The pen was poised uncertainly--the gentleman with the side-whiskers
+stared.
+
+"Your son got in last night," explained the clerk.
+
+The gentleman still silently stared. He had a close, compact mouth, a
+cautious mouth, and the lips were now compressed with an expression of
+waiting incommunicativeness. He evidently had not expected to be
+confronted with a ready-made family.
+
+The clerk surprised in turn cast on him a glance of keen intentness. In
+these strenuous times every stranger in the town was liable to suspicion
+as a Confederate emissary. "I was not on duty, myself, but I thought I
+saw--ah--here it is," turning the page of the register, "John Wray,
+Junior, Manchester, England."
+
+For one moment the portly gentleman gazed at the signature as if
+dumfounded. Then with an air of ready recognition he justified his
+previous manifestations of extreme surprise by explaining the mistake of
+the clerk as to the matter of identity.
+
+"Oh, aw, a distant relative," he said, at last. "Ah, aw,--he is the son
+of a cousin of the same name as mine, 'John Wray.' The younger man is to
+be associated with me in business. What room? Number ninety?"
+
+And as he was assigned to that haven he took the pen and wrote, "John
+Wray, Manchester, England."
+
+Thus it was that, awakened by the brisk tap at the door, Julius, leaning
+out of bed, turned the key, and reached out for the pitcher of ice water
+for which, being warm and thirsty, he had a drowsy impression that he
+had rung the bell. Perceiving his mistake, and lifting himself on his
+elbow, Julius beheld entering this blond and robust stranger, an
+inexplicable apparition, too solid for a spectre, too prosaic for a
+fancy.
+
+The visitor stood, when the door had closed, gazing silently down at the
+recumbent figure, while Julius, amazed at the form which his Nemesis had
+taken, gazed up silently and lugubriously at the intruder.
+
+All the methods of Mr. John Wray were in conformity with his portly
+rotundity, his slow respectability, his unimaginative commercialism.
+
+The young man found speech first. "Why this unexpected pleasure?" he
+asked ceremoniously, but with a satiric inflection.
+
+"Sorry to intrude, I'm sure," said the elder. "But my name is John Wray
+of Manchester, England."
+
+The skies had fallen on Julius. He strove to recover himself.
+
+"And do you like it?" he asked vacuously.
+
+"_You_ seemed to like it well enough to register it."
+
+"With a 'Junior,' if you please."
+
+The other fixed him with a stare of round blue eyes. "I think I
+understand you, sir."
+
+"Very possibly," said poor Julius. "I am not very deep."
+
+He was thinking that this was doubtless a military detective, a very
+usual factor for ferreting out schemes, obnoxious to the Federal
+government and in aid of the Confederacy. He determined to hold hard and
+sell his life dear.
+
+"Have you any letters or papers--any written communication for me?"
+
+"None whatever," Julius ventured.
+
+"You knew you would meet me here?" the older man apparently wished to
+say as little as he might.
+
+"I fancied I should meet you, but not in this manner," said Julius, also
+enigmatical.
+
+The portly gentleman looked painfully nonplussed and ill at ease, as he
+sat in the light little yellow rocking-chair, which now and again
+treacherously tilted backward and caused him a momentary but agitated
+effort at equilibrium, and Julius vaguely remembered to have heard that
+rocking-chairs were not popular in England, and reflected that this
+worthy was not accustomed to have his centre of gravity so jeopardized.
+
+"I think I should have had ampler voucher. You will pardon me for saying
+this?" remarked the stranger, at length.
+
+"I will pardon you for saying anything you like," said Julius, politely.
+
+"The Company informed me that a young man familiar with the country--a
+native, in fact--would meet me here and that I should be afforded means
+to identify him. I fancied he would have letters. But when I saw the
+register I supposed this the mark of identification. Am I right?"
+
+"My dear sir, you must not expect me to guarantee your impressions,"
+said Julius. He was glad he was in bed. He felt that he could not have
+stood up. "I should say, judging from the effect your valuable mental
+qualities make upon me, that any impression you see fit to entertain
+would be amply justified by the fact."
+
+He did not know how to appraise the distinction of his own manner and
+special attractiveness, and he was both amazed and amused to note how
+Mr. John Wray of Manchester, England, expanded under the compliment.
+
+"I see, I see--I suppose this is even better than a letter, which might
+have been stolen, or transferred, or--however, or--shall we proceed to
+our commercial affairs?"
+
+"I don't usually transact commercial affairs in my night-shirt," said
+Julius, "but if I look sufficiently businesslike to suit you--just fire
+away; it's all the same to me."
+
+He was growing reckless. The risk involved in this war of words with the
+supposed detective was overwhelming his reserves. He did not know
+certainly of what the man suspected him, how fully informed he might
+have become. He knew it was imprudent to suggest his withdrawal, for the
+effort at escape might precipitate immediate arrest. Yet he could no
+longer spar back and forth.
+
+"However," he said, as if with a second thought, "I _should_ like a
+dabble of a bath, first, and to get on my duds, and to have a whack at
+breakfast, or dinner,--whichever is on parade by this time."
+
+"Certainly--certainly--by all means. I will meet you in the hotel
+office, and shall we dine together at two?" He held out the dial of his
+watch.
+
+"At two," assented Julius.
+
+His friend was in such polite haste to be gone that he shuffled and
+plunged awkwardly on his gaitered feet, fairly stumbling over his
+portmanteau near the door as he opened it; then he went down the hall
+with a brisk, elastic step. Julius lay dumfounded, staring at the
+portmanteau, which was of an English make and bore the letters, J. Wray,
+Manchester, England, on one side. He rose and turned it about. It had
+not been hastily arranged to mislead him. The lettering had been done
+long ago. The receptacle was evidently travel-worn, and stamped deep in
+the bottom was the makers' name, trunk manufacturers, Manchester,
+England.
+
+Julius dressed in haste, his heart once more agitated with the hope of
+deliverance. He could hardly control his nerves, his eager desire that
+this might prove merely an odd coincidence, instead of a detective's
+deep-laid scheme. It began to seem that the man's name might be really
+John Wray of Manchester, England, some army jobber, or speculator,
+perhaps--the country was full of them. He said he had expected to meet
+an "agent of the company," who knew the country.
+
+"_I_ know the country," said Julius, capably; "I know the country to a
+t-y ty. I can give him all the information he wants, free, gratis, and
+for nothing."
+
+Yet in naught, he resolved, would he betray himself. This mistake, on
+the contrary, might open to him some means of getting through the lines
+and back to his command with this map--this precious plan of the
+defences of the place that would be of distinct value to the cause of
+the Confederacy.
+
+He therefore cast aside his half-formulated scheme of seeking escape
+from the supposed detective through the street. He had remembered that
+there were stairs on the galleries, leading from one floor to another,
+and thence to the quadrangle, as well as the great main staircase from
+the hallways into the office. He at last took his way, however, down
+this main staircase, with its blatant publicity, and its shifting groups
+of Federal officers and busy, newly imported civilians. He recognized
+the wisdom of his boldness almost immediately. Mr. John Wray of
+Manchester, England, standing conferring amicably with a cluster of
+worthies of that marked commercial aspect, alertness, and vim of
+expression, which imply the successful business man of the heady,
+venturesome type, since known as "plungers," turned and perceived him,
+and catching his eye beckoned to him with great empressement.
+
+"Allow me, gentlemen, to introduce Mr. John Wray, Junior--the son of my
+cousin, John Wray," he said.
+
+There ensued the usual greetings, the usual stir of hand-shaking, and if
+any eye in the office had chanced to note the newcomer with the faint
+suggestion of doubt or interest or suspicion, which a stranger is apt to
+excite, it evaporated at once, for the elder Mr. Wray was well known in
+the hotel and the town, having been here often before, and was a very
+sufficient voucher for any kinsman.
+
+Genial indeed this group proved at dinner, seated on either side of the
+upper portion of one of the long tables. Julius found it accorded with
+his subsidiary character as youthful kinsman of one of the chief
+spokesmen to maintain an intelligent and receptive silence. Once or
+twice one of the more jovial of his newly acquired cousin's _confrères_
+gave him a glance and lifted his wine-glass with a nod, as who should
+say, "To you, sir," in the midst of the general discourse.
+
+This was eagerly commercial, for the most part, and piecing the details
+together as he plied his knife and fork, Julius learned that his new
+friend was interested in a flourishing American concern which had large
+government contracts for ready-made army clothing, the woollen cloth and
+other textile fabrics being supplied from Manchester, and was indeed one
+of the English agents. He could not reconcile anything that he heard
+with a requisite for caution or for any service which he could perform,
+necessitating secrecy or an alias, or his sudden and affectionate
+adoption as a kinsman.
+
+"It is a trait of piety to trust in Providence," Julius reflected in
+this quiescent state. "But I doubt if my confiding reliance in this fix
+can be set down to my credit. For the Lord knows there's nothing else to
+do!"
+
+He created the impression of a decorous, well-bred youth, and in the
+fashionable English clothes he looked little less British than the elder
+John Wray. There was so much good-fellowship that it was natural that
+the postprandial cigars with a decanter and glasses should be taken out
+to a summer-house in the quadrangle, where at one extremity the river
+had a slant of the westering sun on its surface. The hills of the
+distance were of a dull grapelike blue against an intensely turquoise
+sky; the magnolia trees above their heads already bore fine cream-white
+blossoms among the densely green and glossy foliage, and the surrounding
+town was cut off from sight and sound by the three encompassing sides of
+the hotel. Yet it was not a solitary place. No one looking at the group
+could imagine it had been chosen for seclusion. From the galleries of
+each of the three stories a glance could command it. Guests were
+continually sauntering into and out of the office. Here and there a
+Federal officer strolled along the little esplanade above the
+water-side. On the lower veranda two elderly men--one a chaplain--were
+playing very slowly and with great circumspection a game of chess. There
+were onlookers here, with whom time seemed no object, calmly studying
+the moves, solaced by a meditative cigar, and at long intervals showing
+a flicker of excitement at the magic word, "Check!"
+
+The summer-house had already a thatch of vines, but bare columns upheld
+the roof, and it occupied a little circular space of gravel, whence a
+broad gravel walk ran toward each point of the compass. An approach
+could be instantly observed, a step instantly heard, and therefore it
+did not seem to Julius altogether incongruous that business of
+importance and details of secrecy should presently be broached. The
+table in the centre was all at once covered with papers, and he began to
+understand the mysteries that had hitherto baffled him when gradually
+the details of a very bold and extensive blockade-running scheme were
+unfolded.
+
+This was in defiance, of course, of the Federal regulations, and in so
+far militated against no interest of the government that Julius had
+sworn to serve. But it was a private enterprise for personal profit, and
+whether the export of cotton from the country to England at this
+juncture accorded with the policy of the Confederate States he had no
+means of knowing. At one time, he was aware, there existed an impression
+that the official withholding of such shipments as could be effected by
+running the blockade tended to create such paucity of the staple in the
+English market as might influence the already pronounced disposition of
+the British to interfere in aid of the Confederacy, and bringing the war
+to an end remove this restriction of manufactures and trade. All this
+was beyond his province. He held very still, remained keenly observant,
+watching for the loophole that might enable him to quit these tortuous
+ways for the very simple matter of fighting the battles of his section.
+After these various turmoils of doubt, and hope, and despair, it would
+be a mere trifle to charge with his company to the muzzles of the
+biggest howitzers that ever bellowed.
+
+He discovered that these men were in correspondence with secret agents
+in the Confederacy; they spoke of various depots of the cotton which
+presently developed as mere caches--bales hidden in swamps, to be
+brought out only by such craft as could navigate bayous, or in deserted
+gin-houses on abandoned plantations, or in old tumble-down warehouses on
+the outskirts of towns,--never much at any one point, but all that could
+be found and bought, and concealed and held, to be gotten away at last
+to a foreign market. The system sought to reach to the Gulf of Mexico,
+to gather up the scattered wayside stores, and either by taking
+advantage of some lapse of Federal vigilance, or else by strategy, to
+run the blockade with a ship-load, and away for England! Thus the
+enterprise was contrary to the policy of both factions. The Company's
+gold would recruit the endurance of the South, and yet he knew that the
+Confederate authorities had put the torch to thousands of bales rather
+than let the cotton fall into their enemy's hands--the precious
+commodity, then selling at amazing prices in the markets of New York.
+
+Suddenly his own personality came into the scheme with an abruptness
+that made his head whirl.
+
+"How is it," demanded a sharp-featured man, who had sparse sandy hair,
+very straight, very thin, the head almost bald on top extending the
+effect of the forehead, watery-blue eyes that nevertheless made out very
+accurately the surrounding country, metaphorically considered, a
+somewhat wrinkled face albeit he was not old--"how is it that your
+cousin should be so well acquainted with the country? I take it that he
+is an Englishman, too!"
+
+"Why, no, he is not," candidly answered Mr. John Wray, and Julius had an
+instinct to clutch at him from across the table to hinder the divulging
+of the imposture, "and, in fact, he is not my kinsman at all. I should
+be extremely glad if he were," and he smiled suavely across the table at
+Julius. "He is, I understand, a native of this region." And forthwith he
+told the story of the register.
+
+The spare, businesslike man, whose name was Burrage, at once laid his
+cigar down on the table with its ash carefully disposed over the edge.
+
+"And did he bring no letters?"
+
+"None; very properly. It is most unwise to multiply papers in the hands
+of outside parties."
+
+"But he should have had something definite."
+
+"I think the registry of the name very definite." Mr. John Wray reddened
+slightly. He was not in the habit of being called in question for
+precipitancy.
+
+"It strikes me as a most fantastic whim on the part of the Company. You
+might not have interpreted it correctly--taken as you were by surprise,"
+Mr. Burrage rejoined. Then, "Did _you_ have any specific instructions to
+guide you personally?" The querist turned full on the young man, much to
+Mr. John Wray's disapproval. But Julius answered easily:--
+
+"None at all. It is my business to hold myself subject to orders."
+
+"What is your name?" queried Mr. Burrage.
+
+"At present--John Wray, very much at your service," Julius replied
+glibly; then with a sudden recollection of the vicissitudes of "Mr.
+Poet" and "Mr. Goat," he burst into his irresistible laugh, that cleared
+the frown from the brow of the actual Mr. John Wray and his colleagues,
+and caused the officers pacing along the esplanade, their shadows long
+now in the sun, to glance in the direction of the sound, sympathetic
+with the unknown jest.
+
+Mr. Burrage pressed the matter no farther, but as he took up his cigar
+again, filliping off the ash with a delicate gesture, and placed it
+between his teeth once more, no physiognomist would have been required
+to discern in his resolute facial expression a firm determination to
+have full advices on this subject before he should ever lose sight of
+the very prepossessing young man introduced by Mr. John Wray.
+
+"He goes out with the little steamboat down the river. I think a packet
+leaves to-morrow." Mr. Wray began to explain the simplicity of the
+duties devolving upon Julius in order to demonstrate his own
+perspicacity and regard for precaution. "At her stoppages he visits the
+plantations on his list, notifies the men in charge of the cotton to get
+it out on the rafts and flatboats and to be ready to float down--there's
+a full sufficiency of water on the shoals now--to where the steamer we
+have chartered, bought, in fact, can pick it up. Then he returns on the
+next packet. It is a trip of a hundred miles or so."
+
+Julius felt his heart beat tumultuously in the prospect of escape--to be
+out of the town once more! But to-morrow! what in the interval might
+betide!
+
+"The point is to have our own steamboat clear fairly with the
+upper-country consignment. The rest she picks up as she goes. She is
+known as a packet to the river pickets; they won't be aware she has
+changed her trade till she has gone. But meantime to get the cotton
+collected it is necessary to have a man familiar with the country. On
+the way down or the return trip, in the distracted state of the region,
+politically, and its physical aspect as a nearly unexplored wilderness,
+it would be simply impossible for a stranger to cope with any disasters
+or difficulties, if one could be found to undertake the trip."
+
+Julius was astonished at himself when he heard his own voice blandly
+suggest--"Come with me, Mr. Burrage! You would enjoy the trip--beautiful
+scenery! I should have the benefit of your long experience in matters of
+business, and you could avail yourself of my knowledge of the country
+and the people--the methods and the manners."
+
+He was in admiration of his own astuteness. His intuition had captured
+the emergency. He had perceived in Mr. Burrage's face unmistakable
+indications that he would play the obstructive. He would detain the
+supposed agent here, and would not intrust him with the necessary
+instructions in this difficult and most compromising business, until the
+fullest advices could be had from the distant promoters of the
+enterprise, who were presumed to have sent hither "John Wray, Junior."
+
+The suggestion of Julius met with instantaneous favor among the group,
+except, indeed, that Mr. Burrage himself looked disconcerted, surprised,
+definitely at a loss. It removed all possible objections to the
+employment of this agent with no other credentials than the name on the
+register--but at this moment Mr. Burrage thought that perhaps the
+coincidence would have struck him with more force had the name been his
+own and the registry anticipated his arrival. Time was of importance. No
+one more than the experienced man of business realizes the Protean
+capacity for change appertaining to that combination of cause and
+effect called opportunity. What is possible to-day may be relegated to
+the regions of everlasting regret to-morrow. Everything was favorable at
+the moment, feasible. The future stood with the boon of success in an
+outstretched hand. Delay was hardly to be contemplated. The proposition
+that Mr. Burrage should accompany the agent of his own company on a tour
+of important negotiation, and at no sacrifice of personal ease, was at
+once so reasonable and so indicative of the fairest intentions that he
+was ashamed of the cautionary doubt he had entertained. All at once the
+journey seemed too much trouble. The matter had already been adjusted,
+he said. The plan might well stand as Mr. Wray had arranged it.
+
+But Mr. Wray, too, added his insistence. "Nothing could be better," he
+declared.
+
+And as Mr. Burrage demurred, and half apologized, and was distinctly out
+of countenance, Mr. Wray compassionately overlooked all his disquieting
+cautions and protested with cordiality that the change would be an
+advantage. Some difficulty might arise, some reluctance to deliver the
+cotton they had already purchased, some doubt as to the locality where
+it was stored,--they used this expression rather than "hidden," though
+Julius apprehended that its cache was now a cane-brake and now a rock
+house or cave, and now a tongue of dry land in a network of bayous and
+swamps,--some failure of facilities in respect to men or water carriage
+or land transportation, with all of which this young gentleman, new to
+the arrangements and the enterprise, might find it difficult to cope
+successfully. Such unforeseen obstacles might require a divergence from
+the original plan and the agent's instructions. But Mr. Burrage, a
+member of the Company, could meet and provide for all these emergencies,
+and yet with such a guide be as assured and as confident of his footing
+in this strange country as if he himself were a native. It was the
+happiest suggestion! It enabled him to make a long arm, as it were, and
+manipulate the matter in effect without a proxy.
+
+"And meantime it will be strange indeed if I cannot make a long leg!"
+thought Julius, triumphantly.
+
+The actual Mr. Wray was treated everywhere with all possible
+consideration and due regard to the fact that he was a British subject.
+The neutrality of Great Britain was considered exceedingly precarious,
+and there was no disposition to twist the tail of the Lion, albeit this
+appendage was whisked about in a way that ever and anon provoked that
+catastrophe. The British Lion was supposed in some quarters to be
+solicitous of a grievance which would justify a roar of exceeding wrath.
+In this instance, however, there was no necessity of withholding the
+favor asked by a British subject, Mr. John Wray,--for a pass for his
+cousin, Mr. John Wray, Junior, of Manchester, England, and his friend,
+Mr. Alfred Burrage.
+
+That night the two slept on the crowded steamer, as she was to cast off
+at a very early hour. Long, long did Julius lie awake in his berth in
+the tiny stateroom peculiar to the architecture of the "stern-wheeler."
+The good Mr. Burrage in the berth below snored in satisfaction with the
+events of the day, untroubled as to the morrow. Julius had been so
+tormented by vacillations, by the untoward "about-face" movements of the
+probable, so hampered by the unexpected, so repeatedly disappointed,
+that even now he could not believe in his good fortune. Something,
+somehow, would snatch the cup from his lips. But in the midst of his
+turmoil of emotion he had a distinct sense of gratitude that the
+preservation of his safety had involved no forwarding of equivocal
+interests. The affairs of the Company were doubtless such as many were
+seeking to prosecute with varying chances of success. He would report
+the scheme to his commanding officer, however, and he could forecast the
+reply, "One of hundreds." But, at all events, the map in his boot-lining
+was a matter of no slight import. He could hardly wait to spread it on a
+drumhead before his Colonel's eyes, and solicit the honor of leading the
+enterprise he had planned.
+
+But was he, indeed, destined to escape, to come off scatheless from this
+heady venture!
+
+"If ever I see the command again, by thunder, I'll stick to them as long
+as I live. If ever I can lay hold of my sword again, I swear my right
+hand shall never be far from its hilt!"
+
+In the early hours of the night the loading of the cargo was still
+unfinished. The calls of the deck-hands, the vociferations of the mate,
+which were of an intensity, a fervor, a mad strenuousness, that might
+seem never heard before out of Bedlam, the clash and commotion of boxes
+and barrels, the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, for the lower
+deck was given over to the transportation of army supplies, sounded
+erratically, now louder, now moderated, dying away and again rising in
+agitated vibrations. Sometimes, as he lay, a great flare of light
+illumined the tiny apartment as the torches, carried by the roustabouts
+on shore, cast eerie vistas into the darkness, and he could see the
+closely fitted white planking of the ceiling just above his head, the
+white coverlet, and through the glass door, that served too as window,
+the railing of the guards without and the dim glimpse of the first
+street of the town--River Avenue--about on a level with his eye, so deep
+was the declivity to the wharf.
+
+Quiet came gradually. The grating and shifting of the cargo ceased
+first; the boat was fully loaded at length. Then the voices became
+subdued,--once a snatch of song, and again a burst of laughing banter
+between the roustabouts going up into the town and the deck-hands about
+to turn in on the boat. Now it was so quiet that he could distinguish
+the flow of the current. Yet he could not sleep. Once he seemed near
+unconsciousness when he heard the clash of iron as the stoker was
+banking the fires, for steam was up. Then Julius lay in unbroken
+silence, till an owl hooted from out the Roscoe woods down the river.
+There was home! He thought of his father with so filial a tenderness
+that the mere recollection might be accounted a prayer. In that dense
+mass of foliage off toward the west, under the stars and the moon, stood
+the silent house, invisible at the distance, but every slant of the
+roof, every contour of the chimneys, every window and door,--nay, every
+moulding of the cornice, was as present to his contemplation as if he
+beheld it in floods of matutinal sunshine. "Oh, bless it!" he breathed.
+"Bless it, and all it holds!"
+
+With dreary melancholy he fell to gazing out at the real instead,--at
+the vague slant to the wharf in the flickering moonlight, and the dim
+warning glow of a lantern on an obstructive pile of brick on the crest
+of River Avenue. Somehow the trivial thing had a spell to hold his eyes,
+as he watched it with a mournful, dull apprehension of what might
+betide, for he feared to hope still to escape--so often had this hope
+allured and disappointed him. Would something happen at the last
+moment--and what would the next disaster be?
+
+Therefore when he suddenly became sensible that the boat was moving
+swiftly, strongly, in midcurrent under a full head of steam, he felt a
+great revulsion of emotion. Floods of sunshine suffused the guards and,
+shining through the glass section of the door, sent a wakening beam into
+his face. A glance without apprised him that while he slept the town was
+left far behind, the fort, the camps, the pickets, all the features of
+grim-visaged war, and now great forest masses pressed down to the craggy
+banks on either side. The moment of deliverance was near,--it was at
+hand,--and as he dressed in the extreme of haste, he listened
+expectantly for the whistle of the boat, for it was approaching a little
+town on the opposite side where a landing was always made. Julius hardly
+feared the entrance of any passenger who might recognize him, but he
+took his way into the saloon and asked for breakfast, in order that thus
+employed he might have time to reconnoitre. The boat, however, barely
+touched the wharf, and when he emerged and joined Mr. Burrage on the
+deck there was something so breezily triumphant in his manner that the
+observant elder man looked askance at him with a conscious lack of
+comprehension. He thought he was evidently mistaken if he had imagined
+he had gauged this youth. His breeding was far above his humble and
+subsidiary employment, and his manner singularly well poised and
+assured. There was a hint of dignity, of command, in his pose and the
+glance of his eye. He was perfectly courteous; he did not forget to
+apologize for a lapse of attention, albeit absorbed in a certain
+undercurrent of excitement. He did not hear what Mr. Burrage had said of
+the news from the front in the morning paper, and upon its repetition
+accepted the proffered sheet with thanks and threw himself into a chair
+beside his elderly fellow-passenger. He had hardly read ten words before
+he lifted his head with a certain alert expectancy, like the head of a
+listening deer. The whistle of the boat had sounded again, the hoarse,
+discordant howl common to river steamers, an acoustic infliction even at
+a distance, and truly lamentable close at hand, but it was not this that
+had caught his attention. The boat was turning in midstream and heading
+for the shore, now backing at the signal of her pilot's bells,
+peremptorily jangling, now going forward with a jerk, and again swinging
+slowly around, and at last slipping forward easily toward the wood-yard
+where great piles of ready-cut fuel awaited her.
+
+An alien sound had also caught Mr. Burrage's attention.
+
+"What is that?" he demanded of the captain of the steamboat, who held a
+field-glass and was looking eagerly toward the woods.
+
+"Musketry," replied the captain, succinctly.
+
+"There is some engagement taking place in the forest?" inquired Mr.
+Burrage.
+
+"Seems so," said the captain.
+
+"And are you--are you going to land?"
+
+"Must have wood--that's my regular depot," returned the steamboatman.
+
+"You had best return to Roanoke City instead," urged Mr. Burrage,
+aghast.
+
+"Need wood for _that_!"
+
+"But the boat will be captured by the Rebels. Why don't you burn the
+freight?"
+
+"Beeves ain't convenient for fuel on the hoof."
+
+"Oh, I reckon the captain can wood and get off," said Julius,
+good-naturedly, reassuring Mr. Burrage. "Nobody is thinking about this
+boat now." Then, as a sharper volley smote the air, he added, "I think
+I'll look into this a bit," rose and took his way through the groups of
+excited passengers and down to the lower deck.
+
+The "mud clerk," the roustabouts, the wood-yard contingent, made quick
+work of fuelling the steamer, and she was once more in midstream,
+forging ahead at high speed, before it occurred to Mr. Burrage to
+compare notes with his young colleague and ascertain if he had learned
+aught of what forces were engaged.
+
+He was not easily found, and Mr. Burrage asked the captain of his
+whereabouts.
+
+"He must have got left by the boat," said the captain, as if the packet
+were a sentient thing and subject to whims.
+
+Mr. Burrage, gravely disturbed, caused inquiry to be circulated among
+the hands and officials,--all, in effect, who had set foot on _terra
+firma_.
+
+"Who? that young dandy with the long hair?" said the "mud clerk,"
+staring, his measuring staff still in his hand. "Why, that man
+_intended_ to land. He had his portmanteau and walked off along the road
+as unconcerned as if he was going home. I was too busy measuring the
+wood to pass the time of day, thinking the riverbank was alive with
+guerillas."
+
+His departure remained a mystery to Mr. Burrage. As to the topographical
+features of his involved scheme he was powerless to prosecute this phase
+alone. The simple expedient of sticking to the packet and retracing his
+way on her return trip brought him at last to a consultation with his
+_confrères_, who also long pondered fruitlessly on the strange meeting
+and its result. About this time the agent or guide, provided by the
+Company, presented himself with due credentials from the main office,--a
+heavy, dull, somewhat sullen man, with no further capacity, or will,
+indeed, than a lenient interpretation of his duty might require.
+
+"I always shall think," Mr. Wray used to say, "that we suffered a great
+loss in that young man--that John Wray, Junior."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+In these days the picket lines were seldom stationary; one or the other
+faction continually drew in close these outlying guards, as if by
+presentiment,--an unexplained monition of caution, or perhaps because of
+some vague rumor of danger. Now and again, by a sudden belligerent
+impulse, they were impetuously attacked and driven in; but apparently in
+pursuance of no definite plan of aggression emanating from the main
+body. A few days of surly silence and stillness would ensue, and then
+the opposing force would return the warlike compliment with interest,
+holding the enemy's ground and kindling bivouac fires from the embers
+they had left. It seemed a sort of game of tag--a grim game; for the
+loss of life in these futile manoeuvres amounted to far more in the long
+run than the few casualties in each skirmish might indicate. Sometimes
+these feints were entirely relinquished, and intervals of absolute
+inaction continued so long that it might seem a matter of doubt why the
+two lines were there at all, with so vague a similitude of war.
+Occasionally they lay so near that the individual soldiers, forgetful of
+sectional enmity, gave rein to mere human interest in the opportunities
+afforded by a common tongue and an apprehended and familiar range of
+feeling. A lot of tobacco, thrown into a group about a bivouac fire by
+an unseen hand one night, brought the next night a package of "hard
+tack" from over the way. Now and again long-range conversations were
+held, full of kindly curiosity, or humorously abusive, the questionable
+wit of which mightily rejoiced the heart of the lonely sentinel, and
+upon his relief all the jokes were duly rehearsed when once more in
+camp, he himself, of course, represented as coming off winner in the
+wordy war, being able to appropriate all the good things said by the
+enemy. The loud, cheerful, "Say, air you the galoot ez wuz swapping lies
+with Ben Smith day 'fore yestiddy?" and the response, "Smith, _Smith_,
+you say. I dis-remember the name. I guess I never heard it afore!" all
+were much more commendable from a merely humanitarian point of view than
+the singing of the minié ball or the hissing shriek of a shell that had
+been wont to intrude on the bland quietude of the sweet spring air.
+
+Thus it was that Miss Mildred Fisher, accompanied by Lieutenant Seymour
+and one of her father's ancient friends, Colonel Monette, himself
+attended by a very smart orderly, riding out of Roanoke City down the
+long turnpike road, saw naught that might indicate active hostilities.
+The picturesque tents in the distance about the town, the outline of
+the forts against the blue sky, and afar off a gunboat in the river,
+were all still, all silent, all as suave as the painted incident of a
+picture on the wall. The turnpike itself bore heavy tokens of the war in
+the deeply worn holes and wheel tracks of the great wagon and artillery
+trains, wrought during the wet weather of the winter. It was hard going
+on the horses, and precluded that brisk pace and easy motion which are
+essential to the pleasure of the equestrian. Mildred Fisher, indeed,
+delighted in a breakneck speed, and it may be doubted whether it was
+altogether a happy animal which had the honor of bearing her light
+weight. As they reached a "cut off," where a "dirt road" had been
+recently repaired and put into fine condition to obviate the obstacles
+of the main travelled way, Miss Fisher proposed that they should "let
+the horses out" along this detour for a bit. Then she challenged the two
+officers for a race.
+
+They could but accede, and indeed it would have been difficult to deny
+her aught. The elder looked at her with an almost paternal pride, the
+other with a sort of surly adoration, tempered by many a grievance and
+many a realized imperfection in his idol, and a spirit of revolt against
+the sunny whims and again the cold caprice which he and others sustained
+at her hands. Seymour had little to complain of just now; yet, if she
+smiled on him and his heart warmed to the sunshine of her eyes, the
+next moment he was saying to himself that it meant nothing, it was not
+for his sake; for she was smiling with the same degree of brightness on
+that whiskerando, the elderly colonel. Her face was exquisitely fair,
+and in horseback exercise--the luxury she loved--she tolerated no veil
+to protect the perfection of her complexion. Her fluffy red hair had a
+sheen rather like gold, because of the contrast with her damson-tinted
+cloth riding-habit. The hat was of the low-crowned style then worn with
+a feather, and this was a long ostrich plume of the same damson tint,
+curling down over her hair, and shading to a lighter purple. Her hazel
+eyes were full of joy like a child's. Her mouth was not closed for a
+moment,--its red lips emitting disconnected exclamations, laughter, gay
+banter, and sometimes just held apart, silently taking the swift rush of
+the air, showing the rows of even white teeth and a glimpse of the
+deeper red of the interior, like the heart of a crimson flower.
+
+She tore along like the wind itself. "Madcap," who had raced before,
+and, sooth to say, with more numerous spectators, had thrust his head
+forward, striking out a long stride, and the soft, elastic, dirt road
+fairly flew beneath his compact hoofs. The skirt of the
+riding-habit--much longer than in the later fashions--floated out in the
+breeze of the flight, and Colonel Monette, who did not really approve
+outdoor sports for women, expected momently to see it catch in a thorn
+tree of the thickets that lined the road, or on some stake of the
+fragments of a ridered rail fence, and tear her from the saddle. Then,
+her foot being held by the stirrup perhaps, she might be dragged by
+Madcap or brained by one blow of the ironshod hoofs. Thus his heart was
+in his mouth, and he was eminently appreciative of the folly of the
+elderly wight who seeks to share the pleasures of the young.
+
+The lieutenant, being young himself, was not so cautiously and
+altruistically apprehensive. He admired Miss Fisher's dash and courage
+and buoyant spirit of enjoyment, and, having a good horse, he pressed
+Madcap to his best devoir. Colonel Monette, to keep them in sight at
+all, was compelled to make very good speed, and went galloping and
+plunging down the road in a wild and reckless manner.
+
+It was the elder officer who was first visited by compunctions in behalf
+of the horses.
+
+"Halt!" he cried. "Halt! Miss Fisher is the winner--as she always is!
+Halt! Lieutenant Seymour!" Then in a lower voice when he could be heard
+to speak, "We shall have the horses badly blown," he said with an
+admonitory cadence, which reminded Seymour that a military man's whole
+duty does not consist in scampering after a harum-scarum girl in a race
+with two wild young horses.
+
+Seeing that she was not followed, Miss Fisher reined in after several
+wild plunges from Madcap, who felt that he had not had his run half out,
+and snorted with much surprise in his full bright eyes as, turning in
+the road, he saw the two mounted officers far behind, stationary and
+waiting. The victor should never be unduly elated, but Madcap expressed
+his glee of triumph chiefly in his heels, curvetting and prancing,
+presently kicking up so uncontrollably, the excitement of the contest,
+the joy of racing, still surging in his veins and tense in his muscles,
+that the officers might well have feared some disaster to the girl. They
+at once put their steeds in motion to go to her assistance, but Madcap,
+with outstretched head, viewing their start, suddenly made a bounding
+_volte-face_ in the road, and with the bit between his teeth set out at
+a pace that discounted his former efforts and carried him out of sight
+in a few minutes.
+
+Miss Fisher, with all the courage of the red-headed Fisher family,
+albeit she had become pale and breathless, settled herself firmly in the
+saddle, held the reins in close, now and then essaying a sharp jerk,
+first with the right then quickly with the left hand--and it was as much
+as she could do to keep the saddle at these moments--to displace the
+grasp of his teeth on the bit. For a time these manoeuvres failed, but at
+last the road became rougher, brambles appeared in its midst, the
+intention of repair had evidently ceased, and running at full tilt was
+no longer any great fun. The horse voluntarily slowed his pace, and the
+sudden jerk right and left snatched the bit from his teeth. He might
+still have pranced and curvetted, for the spirit of speed was not
+satiated, but his foot slipped on the uneven gullied ground, he
+stumbled, and being a town horse and seeing nowhere any promise of a
+good road, he resigned himself to the guidance of his rider, thinking
+perhaps she knew more of the country than he.
+
+While she breathed him for a time, she looked about her along the curves
+of the road, seeing nothing of her companions, and realizing that she
+was quite alone. This gave her a sentiment of uneasiness for a moment;
+then she reflected that her friends were doubtless riding forward to
+overtake her. She drew up the reins, intending to turn, and, retracing
+her way, to meet them.
+
+The place was all unfamiliar. So swift had been her transit that she had
+not had a moment's contemplation of the surroundings. She stood at the
+summit of a gentle slope and could look off toward stretches of forest,
+here and there interspersed with considerable acreage of cleared ground,
+evidently formerly farm land, now abandoned in the stress of war and the
+presence of contending armies. The correctness of this conclusion was
+confirmed by the sight of two gaunt chimneys at no great distance,
+between which lay a mass of charred timbers,--once the dwelling, now
+burned to the ground. The scene was an epitome of desolation, despite
+the sunshine, which indeed here was but a lonely splendor; despite the
+brilliance of the trumpet vine, tangled in remnants of the fence, in
+many a bush, and swaying in long lengths, its scarlet bugles flaring,
+from the boughs of overshadowing trees; despite the appeal of the elder
+blossoms of creamy, lacelike delicacy, catching her eye in the thickets,
+which were so lush, so green, so favored by the rich earth and the
+prodigal season. She was sensible of a clutch of dread on that merry
+spirit of hers before she heard a sound--a significant sound that
+stilled the pulsations of her heart and sent her blood cold. It was the
+unmistakable sinister sibilance of a shell. She saw the tiny white puff
+rise up above the forest, skim through the air, drop among the thickets,
+and then she heard the detonation of an explosion. Before she could draw
+her breath there came a sudden volley of musketry at a distance,--she
+knew that for the demonstration of regular soldiers, firing at the
+word,--then ensued another, and again only a patter of dropping shots.
+She wondered that her companions did not overtake her--she must find
+them--she must rejoin them,--when suddenly an object started up from the
+side of the road, the sight of which palsied her every muscle. A man it
+was who had lain in the bushes on the hillside, a man so covered with
+blood that he had lost every semblance of humanity. The blood still came
+in a steady stream from his mouth, impelled in jets, as if it were under
+the impulse of a pump, and he held his hand to his stomach, whence too
+there came blood, dripping down from his fingers. In sickened, aghast
+dismay she watched his approach, and as he passed she found her voice
+and called to him to stop,--might she not help him stanch his wounds?
+His staring eyes gazed vacantly forward with no recognition of the
+meaning of her words, and he walked deliriously on, every step sending
+the blood forward, draining the vital currents to exhaustion. Now she
+dared not turn, she could not pass that hideous apparition. She
+shuddered and trembled and rode irresolutely forward, just to be
+moving--hardly with a realized intention. Suddenly the road curved, and
+the scene of the conflict was before her.
+
+The woods were dense on three sides of a wide stretch of fields that
+were springing green with new verdure; a portion had even been ploughed
+and bedded up for cotton; here and there lay strange objects in curious
+attitudes, which she did not at once recognize as slain men. Among them
+were scattered carbines, horses already dead, and more than one in
+scrambling agonies of dying. In the farthest vista field-guns were
+evidently getting in battery, ready to sweep from the earth a little
+force of dismounted cavalrymen who had come to close quarters with
+infantry and who were fighting on foot with carbines. The minié balls
+now and then sang sharply in the air, and in the excitement she did not
+realize the danger. Suddenly a puff of smoke rose from the battery, the
+shell winging its way high above the infantry line and at last falling
+among the dismounted cavalrymen, who, perceiving the situation to be
+hopeless, wavered, sought to rally, and at last broke and ran to the
+horse-holders hidden in the thickets. Thither the shells pursued them,
+bursting all along the plain, and as Mildred Fisher gazed she saw three
+men on the field, powerless to reach the shelter. One was wounded,--an
+officer, evidently,--and the other two were seeking to support him to
+his horse hard by. At this moment a fragment of shell killed the animal
+before their eyes.
+
+"Ride out! Ride out!" cried Millie Fisher to a horse-holder that she
+observed close by in the woods. He was mounted himself, and he held the
+bridles of three horses. He looked half bewildered, pale, disabled. A
+shell burst prematurely, out of range and wide of aim, high in the air
+above their heads.
+
+"I can't," he said; "I'm hit!"
+
+"Give _me_ the line, then!" she cried.
+
+He was past reasoning, beyond surprise, stunned by the clamors and
+succumbing to wounds.
+
+The next moment, the three great horses in a leash, Madcap led his
+wildest chase across that stricken plain, now shying aside as some
+wounded man lifted a ghastly face almost beneath his hoofs, or pitifully
+sought to crawl away like a maimed and dying beast. The thunder of the
+frenzied gallop shook the ground; the group of men, for whom the rescue
+was designed, turned a startled and amazed gaze as the horses came on
+abreast, snorting and neighing and with tossing manes and wild eyes,
+rushing like the steeds of Automedon.
+
+"The gallant little game-cock!" exclaimed Jim Fisher, eying the supposed
+horse-holder from beside the smoking guns of his battery in the
+distance. "Now, I'm glad to spare him if never another man goes clear!"
+
+For the Confederate cavalry were starting out in pursuit, and to let the
+squadrons pass without danger the cannonade was discontinued. The
+bugle's mandate, "Cease firing!" rose lilting into the air, and there
+was sudden silence among the guns. As Captain Fisher disengaged the
+strap of his field-glass seeking to adjust it, he noted that there was
+something continually flying out at the side of the young soldier's
+saddle. One glance through the magnifying lenses at the floating folds
+of the riding-habit and the radiant face crowned by the purple
+plume--and Jim Fisher almost fell under the wheel of the limber as it
+was run up to the gun-carriage. "My God, Watt!" he exclaimed to his
+first lieutenant who was also his brother, "that--that--cavalryman
+is--is Sister Millie!"
+
+When she was at last with them, for in tumultuous agitation they had
+rushed forward to meet her, beckoning and shouting, and their kisses had
+smeared the gunpowder from their grim countenances to her lovely roseate
+cheeks, they began to experience the reactionary effects of their fright
+and scolded her with great rancor, declaring repeatedly they felt much
+disposed, even yet, to slap her. All of which had no effect at all on
+Millie Fisher. They tried æsthetic methods of reducing her to see her
+deed from their standpoint.
+
+"I thought you were a patriotic girl, Sister," one of them urged. "And
+see, now--you have helped three Yankees to escape!"
+
+"I _am_ patriotic--more patriotic than anybody," she asseverated. "But I
+forgot they were Yankees--they were just three men in great danger!"
+
+"But _you_ were in great danger, Sister, I--I--might have shot you!"
+
+"Didn't you feel funny when you found out who 'twas?" she queried with a
+giggle of great zest.
+
+"I felt mighty funny," said Jim Fisher, grimly. "I suppose few men have
+ever felt so funny!"
+
+Few men have ever looked less funny than he as he reflected on the
+episode. He recovered his equanimity only gradually, but especially
+after he had been able to make arrangements to convey intelligence to
+his mother within the Federal lines as to his sister's safety. This was
+rendered possible by a flag of truce sent out almost immediately by
+Colonel Monette, who with Lieutenant Seymour was in the greatest anxiety
+as to her fate, feeling a sense of responsibility in the matter. She
+insisted on adding a line addressed to the younger officer, bidding him
+sing daily with his hand on his heart:--
+
+     "'Would I were with thee!'--_In the Confederate lines!_"
+
+if he expected her to conserve any faith in his constancy.
+
+That evening Jim Fisher almost regained his wonted cheerfulness. The
+other four brothers had gathered together to welcome the unexpected
+guest, and as they sat around a great wood fire in an old deserted
+farm-house, a primitive structure built of logs, with Millie and the
+youngest, favorite brother, Walter, in the centre, it seemed so joyful a
+reunion that he was almost tempted to forgive the manner in which it had
+come about.
+
+Jim Fisher's body-servant, Cæsar, cooked a supper for them, in a room
+across an open passage, consisting of corn-bread, bean-coffee, bacon,
+and a chicken, which last came as a miracle, as he mysteriously
+expressed it, upon inquiry--"as de mussy ob Providence!" Cæsar was a
+brisk young darkey, with a capacity for a sullen and lowering change,
+and with a great distaste for ridicule, induced by much suffering as the
+butt of the practical jokes of his young masters, for among so many
+Fisher boys one or another must needs be always disposed for mirth.
+
+"You needn't ax me so p'inted 'bout dat chicken's pedigree, Marse Watt,"
+Cæsar was beguiled into retorting acrimoniously. "Naw, sah. I dunno. I
+dunno whedder hit's Dominicky or Shanghai. An' _ye_ have no call to know
+whedder hit's foreign or native! _I_ tell you hit's fried--an' dat's all
+I'm _gwine_ ter tell you!--fried ter a turn! An' if you bed enny
+religion, you'd say grace, an' give Miss Millie a piece while it's hot.
+Naw, sah! naw, Marse Watt! I _ain't_ no robber! Marse Jim--you hear what
+Marse Watt done call me! Naw, sah! I don't expec' ter see Satan!--not
+_dis week_, nohow."
+
+Cæsar was glad to gather up the fragments and make off to the kitchen
+opposite, where he sat before the fire and crunched the last bone of the
+precious fowl, and grinned over the adroit methods of its capture on
+this great occasion, for such a luxury could hardly be bought at any
+price, in Confederate money or any other currency.
+
+After supper was despatched something of a levee was held; so many of
+Miss Millie Fisher's old friends--officers in the military force--called
+to renew the acquaintance of happier times. And as she recognized the
+more intimate old playfellows or neighbors, with a gush of delighted
+little screams and a musical acclaim of their Christian names, sometimes
+an old half-forgotten nickname, other guests, later acquaintances, were
+envious and wistful, and sought to stem the tide of reminiscence, the
+"Don't you remembers" and "Oh-h-h, wasn't it funny?" and to impress the
+values of the present, despite the lures of the past.
+
+She was delightfully gracious and gay with them all, and perhaps she had
+never seemed more lovely than the flicker of the firelight revealed her,
+for there were no other means of illumination. She stood to receive in
+the centre of the floor, radiant in her dark purple riding-habit and
+hat, the military figures, all in full uniform, clustering about her,
+some resting on their swords, some half leaning on a comrade's shoulder,
+while jest and repartee went around, the laughter now and again making
+the rafters ring. It was with reluctance that they gradually tore
+themselves away in obedience to a realization that after so long a
+separation the family might desire to spend the evening alone, for three
+of the brothers must needs repair to their own command at some distance
+at break of day, and it might be long before they could all be together
+once more.
+
+So at last, the visitors gone, the door barred, the night wearing on,
+the Fishers gathered round the replenished fire, for the air was chill
+and the warmth was as welcome as the light. The deserted house was
+entirely bare of furniture, and as the force was a "flying column,"
+flung forward without the impediments of baggage trains or tents, there
+was not even a camp-stool available. Millie and Watt sat side by side on
+a billet of wood, their arms around each other's waists to preserve the
+equilibrium, and the rest of the brothers half reclined on the saddles
+on the floor. And every face was smiling, and every head was red. Again
+and again a shout of laughter went up, as she detailed the news of the
+town,--and some very queer things, indeed, she told,--and Watt, the
+lieutenant, responded with the news of the battery and the camp.
+
+Perhaps he felt that his prestige as a wit was threatened, for once he
+said, "I'd give a hundred dollars, Sister, to be assured that all you
+are telling is the truth."
+
+"I wouldn't give a brass thimble to be assured that all _you_ are
+telling is the truth, for I know 'tisn't!" retorted Millie.
+
+"Oh, I meant in Confederate money!" He lowered the face value of his
+bid.
+
+They kept late hours that night; but at last, when the fire was burning
+low and great masses of coals had accumulated, they swung a military
+cloak hammock-wise across a corner of a little inner room, hardly more
+than a cupboard, and this Millie Fisher in her new rôle as a campaigner
+found a comfortable bed enough. The restricted apartment had no window,
+and no door save the one opening into the larger room; and this she set
+ajar, making Walter place a great solid shot against it lest it close,
+declaring that if that catastrophe should supervene, she should die of
+solitary fright. The five Fisher brothers were well within call and
+sight, as they clustered around the embers, talking for a time in low
+voices of what had chanced in the interval of their separation. For only
+Jim and Watt were together in the same company. They commented on the
+relative cost and value of their _chaussure_, as they stretched out
+their long, booted legs, with their feet on the hearth, and compared the
+wearing qualities of the soles and upper leather. They looked kindly
+into each other's faces and laughed as they made a point, and between
+the two younger brothers, Watt and Lucien, there was a disposition to
+horse-play, manifested in unexpected tweaks, that each was glad to
+receive as a compliment, so did separation and the sense of an imminent
+and ever environing danger soften and make tender their fraternal
+sentiment. But first one, then another, flung his cloak around him and,
+pillowing his head on his saddle, lay down to rest, the two younger
+brothers the last of all.
+
+And now--silence. The dull red light of the embers gloomed on the daubed
+and chinked walls of the old log house, with its rude puncheon floor.
+The five prostrate, cloaked figures upon it were still, asleep. Here and
+there from amongst the arms, placed ready to seize at a moment's notice,
+came a keen steely gleam. Mildred could hear the sentry's tread outside
+up and down before the door. Once, far away, she noted the measured
+tramp of marching feet, then a challenge, and anon, "Stand! Grand
+Rounds! Advance, Sergeant, with the countersign!" and presently the
+march was resumed in the distance. And again--silence! Only the wind
+astir in the forest, only the rustle of the lush foliage. All--how
+different from her dainty bedroom where she had spent last night, the
+downy couch, the silken coverlet, the velvet carpet, the lace curtains,
+the tremulous flicker of the wind in the flower-stand on the balcony!
+
+"Hugh!" she said suddenly.
+
+Every red head on the floor had lifted at the sound, and every hand had
+clutched a weapon.
+
+"What's the matter, Sister?"
+
+"I--I--believe there must be a flying squirrel or--or--something in the
+wall. Don't they build in old walls? I've seen that in some book."
+
+Jim and Hugh arose and investigated the wall of the inner room by means
+of a torch of light-wood.
+
+"Why, Sister, it is as solid as a rock!" Jim asseverated. "There's no
+flying squirrel here."
+
+He extinguished the flaming torch in the ashes banked in the
+chimney-place in the larger room, and again the two brothers laid
+themselves down to rest, with their feet on the hearth.
+
+Once more the silence of the night, the vague crumbling of the ash, the
+measured sound of the sentry's tread. There was no echo of the passing
+of time--but how leaden-footed! How slowly fared the night! How
+motionless lay those cloaked figures, each with his head on his saddle!
+
+"Watt," her voice came plaintively out of the gloom. "I'm scared!"
+
+This time, though all stirred, they did not rise.
+
+"Pshaw! Scared of what?"
+
+She did not answer. Only after a time she queried irrelevantly, "Can
+mice climb?"
+
+"Did you see that in a book, too?" asked Watt.
+
+"They can only climb under certain conditions," opined Hugh, sleepily.
+
+"But they'd scorn to intrude on a lady in a hammock, Sister," declared
+George.
+
+"Oh, hush, George!" said Jim, authoritatively. "No mouse can get up
+there, Sister. Why don't you go to sleep?"
+
+"I can't," said Millie Fisher, plaintively. "I saw so many awful things
+to-day!"
+
+"You had better think about mice," said Watt, quickly, to effect a
+diversion. "They are minute, but monstrous. Just imagine how one could
+scale the wall, and taking its tail under its left arm spring across to
+your hammock, and run along, say, the nape of your neck! Oh-h-h!
+wouldn't that be just _aw-w-wful_!"
+
+"Oh, hush, Watt!" said Jim. "Just compose your mind, Sister. Shut your
+eyes and think about nothing."
+
+"Think how nearly you scared a gallant captain of artillery out of his
+seven senses to-day," suggested Watt, anew. "I thought Jim would get run
+over by the gun-carriages and the caissons, whether or no. He was so
+scatter-brained, and white, and wild-eyed, and blundering--nearly under
+the horses' feet."
+
+Millie Fisher gave a pleased little laugh.
+
+"Was he? Was he, truly?"
+
+"He was, for a fact. Few captains of artillery have the opportunity to
+make their own sister a target in a regular knock-down-and-drag-out
+fight. I thought I was going to have to support the gentleman off the
+field of battle. He couldn't stand up for a while."
+
+"How funny!" exclaimed Millie Fisher, delightedly. "Just _too_ funny."
+
+She shifted her position in the hammock, closed her eyes, and when she
+opened them again the sun was flaring into the open door and window of
+the large room, and all the five Fisher brothers were up and fully
+accoutred for the duty of the service, and she was requested to get out
+of the hammock that it might again be turned into a cloak.
+
+The details of her exploit were brought back to the main body of the
+Federal army and bruited abroad by the men whom she had rescued from
+death or capture. One of these, the officer, was much disposed to vaunt
+his gratitude and sense of obligation, and as Miss Millie Fisher was as
+well known as the river itself, the incident created no small stir in
+many different circles. The girl was held to be a prodigy of courage.
+All the men of the family were known to be brave, eke to say, fractious.
+There had been seldom a row of any sort, in several generations, in
+which a Fisher's red head had not been in the thick of it, and held
+high. There were several who were now men of mark, but never had aught
+else so appealed to their pulse of pride, their close bond of union in
+family ties and clannish affection for which they were noted. Great were
+the boastings of the Fisher brothers, each feeling that he shone by
+reflected light, and echoes of their vain-glorious brag were borne to
+the storm centre by that mysterious means of communication known as the
+Grape-vine Telegraph.
+
+One day Seymour detailed, with a touch of bitter sarcasm, the rumor that
+Jim Fisher had declared that Sister Millie could stampede the whole
+Yankee army if she had the chance. With his customary bluntness Seymour
+had broached the subject on a hospitable occasion, in a group both of
+officers and civilians. The latter said nothing, leaving it to the
+comrades of the men who had benefited by her hair-brained bravery and
+dashing equestrianism to controvert the hyperbole. But Ashley's tact was
+so rooted in good nature that it was difficult to take him amiss. He
+could not say, he declared, whether she could stampede the army, but he
+could testify that she had captured it.
+
+The Grape-vine was shortly burdened with other rumors that were of far
+more import to Seymour, who was of a serious mind, and of an exacting,
+not to say, petulant, temper. These traits had been intensified by his
+recent subjection to the whims and caprices of a coquette of exceptional
+capacity, for his feelings were deeply involved. He was truly in love,
+and all his dearest interests hung on the uncertain telegraphy of the
+Grape-vine. It was an unhappy time for him, when he doubted in a rush of
+hope, and again believed sunk in the despondency of absolute despair,
+having almost as much foundation for the one as the other, the reports
+of her marriage to Lawrence Lloyd.
+
+This time the Grape-vine had proved a reliable medium of information.
+Colonel Lloyd had sought and secured leave of absence long enough to
+ride fifty miles across country to greet her as soon as he had heard she
+was within the Confederacy. When her father joined the family party
+Colonel Lloyd laid siege for his consent to an immediate marriage.
+
+They had long been engaged, he urged.
+
+"I had almost forgotten that," Millie interpolated. She had promised her
+assistance in the persuasion of her father, and thus she fulfilled her
+pledge.
+
+"There is no reason for further delay," Lloyd insisted.
+
+"I _have_ been a _débutante_ these--four--years!" she suggested
+demurely.
+
+Lloyd submitted that he hoped there were no objections to him in Colonel
+Fisher's estimation.
+
+"Except such as are insuperable--you'll never be any better," suggested
+Millie.
+
+It would be undesirable, even dangerous, Lloyd argued, to send her back
+to her home in Roanoke City with a flag of truce in the present state of
+conflict.
+
+"But it is not at all dull there--" she interrupted vivaciously. "Some
+very nice Yankee officers are in society there--several old friends of
+yours, papa. Colonel Monette and Lieutenant-Colonel Blake of the regular
+army--old classmates of yours. And some others whom you don't
+know--Captain Baynell, who is _very_ handsome, and Colonel Ashley--he
+belongs to the volunteers; he is most agreeable and highly thought of,
+and oh--of course Lieutenant Seymour--oh, it is _not_ dull there!"
+
+Lloyd looked at her in blank dismay, and the blank dismay on the face of
+her father was nearly as marked, but the latter's anxiety was due to a
+different cause--what would his wife decide if she were here!--for
+every one who knew the Fishers was well aware that Guy Fisher, albeit a
+man of much force in his own domain of business or military life, "sung
+mighty small" in all matters in which his wife had concern.
+
+Lloyd rallied to the attack and continued to explain that he had orders
+detaching him, showing that he would be stationary, in command of a fort
+in the far South for some time, and that Millie would be in a position
+to be comfortable.
+
+"But can I ride horseback there?" she stipulated. "I have just found out
+what I can do in that line!"
+
+She liked to describe this conversation afterward. Her lover was the
+most serious and literal-minded of men, anxious and doubtful, and her
+father the prey of vacillation and indecision. They looked alternately
+at her and at each other with an expression of startled bewilderment as
+she spoke, seeking to adjust what she had said with their own knowledge
+of the facts.
+
+The flying column was once more in motion, and one evening, after a
+considerable distance southward had been accomplished, the leave both of
+Colonel Fisher and Colonel Lloyd being close upon expiration and
+decision exigent, the doubting, anxious father gave his consent.
+
+The young people were married like campaigners under a tree in a
+beautiful magnolia grove, the rhododendron blooming everywhere in the
+woods and the mocking-birds in full song. Colonel Lloyd was in uniform,
+armed and spurred, Miss Fisher in her hat and riding-habit, which last
+she wore with peculiar elegance; as the skirts of the day were of great
+length, the superfluous folds were caught up and carried over one arm,
+and it was said she had attained her graceful proficiency in this art,
+which was esteemed of much difficulty, by constant practice before the
+long mirror in her wardrobe at home. She used to tell afterward of the
+beautiful site, the velvet turf, the magnolia blooms, the rhododendron
+blossoms, the singing mocking-birds. Then she would enumerate the
+brilliant martial assemblage that witnessed the ceremony, the men of
+high rank in full uniform; the wives of a number of them--refugees in
+the Confederacy "seeking for a home," as the sardonically humorous song
+of that day phrased it--also graced the occasion. Her father and
+brothers, all the six Fisher men, were present, and she used to say,
+with the tone of an after-thought, but with a glint of mischief in her
+eye, "_And_ Colonel Lloyd--_he_ was there, too!"
+
+There, but hardly up to the standard. He was a man whose courage had
+been of especial note, even in those days when bravery seemed the rule.
+He had had, too, exceptional opportunities to display his mettle. But on
+this occasion his terror was so palpable that he trembled perceptibly;
+he was pale and agitated; he fumbled for the ring and occasioned a
+general fear that he might let it fall--altogether furnishing an
+admirable exhibition of the stage fright usual with bridegrooms.
+
+All these details did she observe and recollect and even his gravity
+would relax as she rehearsed them in after years. It was considered one
+of the evidences of her incurable frivolity that she seemed to care
+nothing for that momentous incident of her experience in those days,
+hardly to remember it,--the exploit by which she had saved the lives of
+three men, sore harassed and beset; but she found endless source of
+interest in the reminiscence of trifles such as the incongruous aspect
+of the chaplain who officiated at the wedding ceremony, with his spurs
+showing on his reverend heels beneath his surplice, and the brass
+buttons on his sleeves as he lifted his hands in benediction,--which
+afforded her a glee of retrospect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+After the escape of Julius Roscoe time held to a tranquil pace in the
+placidities of the storm centre. The rose-red dawns burst into bloom and
+the days flowered whitely, full of fragrance and singing birds, of
+loitering sunshine and light-winged breezes. One by one the still noons
+glowed and glistered, expanding into summer radiance, and dulled
+gradually to the mellow splendors of the sunset. Then fell the serene
+dusk, blue on the far-away mountains, violet nearer at hand, with a
+white star in the sky, and a bugle's strain leaping into the air like a
+thing of life, a vivified sound. And all the panorama of troops, and
+forts, and camps, and cannon might be some magnificent military
+spectacle, so remote seemed the war--so unreal. Every morning the
+"ladies" wrought at their lessons in the library, and Leonora cut their
+small summer garments and helped the seamstress, who came in by the day,
+to sew. Despite these absorptions Mrs. Gwynn managed to find leisure to
+read aloud to Judge Roscoe his favorite old novels, and essays, and dull
+antiquated histories. She evolved subjects of controversy on which to
+argue with him, and was facetious and found occasion to call him "Your
+Honour" oftener than heretofore. For he had grown old suddenly; his step
+had lost its elasticity; he looked up a cane that had once been
+presented to him by some fraternity; his hair was turning white
+and--worst sign of all--he was not sorry to be approaching the end.
+
+"The night is long, and the day is a burden," he once said.
+
+Then, when she reminded him of duty, he recanted. But he had obviously
+fallen into that indifference to life incident to advancing age, and was
+sensible of a not involuntary gravitation toward the tomb. Later he
+asked her if she did not think those lines of Stephen Hawes's had a most
+mellow and languorous cadence,--
+
+     "For though the day appear ever so long,
+     At last the bell ringeth to even-song."
+
+He showed great anxiety concerning Captain Baynell's recovery, but he
+had never mentioned to her the fact of Julius's presence in the house.
+She knew that he and probably old Ephraim had been aware of it, but this
+was only a constructive knowledge on her part, and founded on no
+assurance. When once more Baynell was able to come downstairs, she
+perceived that he himself had no remote consciousness of his assailant.
+He had entirely accepted the theory of a fall instead of a collision,
+and was only a little deprecatory and embarrassed at being so long in
+getting himself away.
+
+"Positively my last appearance!" He was reduced even to the hackneyed
+phrase.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn made the conventional polite protest, and the "ladies"
+joyously and affectionately flocked around him, and his heart expanded
+to the grave kindness of his host. Nevertheless he appreciated a subtle
+change. Despite the enhancing charm of the season, which even a few days
+had wrought to a deeper perfection, the place had somehow fallen under a
+tinge of gloom. But the roses were blooming at the windows, the lilies
+stood in ranks, tall and stately, in the borders, the humming-birds were
+rioting all day in the honeysuckle vines over the rear galleries and the
+side porch, the breeze swept back and forth through the dim, perfumed,
+wide spaces of the house, which seemed expanded, with all the doors
+open. Sometimes he attributed the change to the tempered light, for all
+the trees were in full leaf, and the deeply umbrageous boughs
+transmitted scarce a beam to the windows, once so sunny; much of the
+time, too, the shutters were partially closed. And though the children
+flitted about like little fairies, in their thin white dresses, and Mrs.
+Gwynn, garbed, too, in white, seemed, with her floating draperies, in
+the transparent green twilight, like some ethereal dream of youth and
+beauty, there was a pervasive sense of despondency, of domestic
+discomfort, of impending disaster. Sometimes he attributed the change to
+one or two untoward chances, a revelation of the real character of war
+that happened to be presented to the observation of the household. The
+"ladies" came clamoring in one day, all wide-eyed and half distraught.
+With that relish of horror characteristic of ignorance, a negro woman, a
+visitor of Aunt Chaney's, had detailed to them the sentence of a soldier
+to be shot for some military crime--shot, as he knelt on his own coffin.
+Presently they heard the music of the band playing a funeral march along
+the turnpike as the poor wretch was taken out with a detail from the
+city limits; then, only the drum, a terrible sound, a dull, muffled
+thud, at intervals, that barely timed the marching footfall, while the
+victim was in the midst! And still the vibration of the mournful drum,
+seeking out every responsive nerve of terror within the shuddering
+children!
+
+Their painful, tearless cries, their clinging hands, their frantic
+appeals for help for the doomed creature--would no one help him!--were
+most pathetic.
+
+And though Leonora could shut the windows and gravely explain, then tell
+a story and divert the moment,--they were so young, so plastic, so
+trustful,--no ingenuity could find a satisfactory method to account for
+the anti-climax of the tragedy, when within the hour came the same
+detail, marching briskly back along the turnpike, with fife and drum
+playing a waggish tune. The wide, daunted eyes of the children, their
+paling cheeks, their breathless silence, annotated the lesson in
+brutality, in the essential heartlessness of the world, except for the
+tutored graces of a cultivated philanthropy. For a long time one or the
+other would wake in the night to cry out that she heard the muffled
+drum,--they were taking the man out to shoot him, kneeling on his
+coffin,--and again and again would come the plaintive query, "And is
+nobody, _nobody_ sorry?"
+
+The incident passed with the events of the crowded time, but even within
+the domestic periphery harmony had ceased to reign as of yore. Old
+Ephraim was a bit sullen, gloomy, did his work with an ill grace, and
+repudiated all acquaintance with "Brer Rabbit" and "Brer Fox." The
+soldiers in the neighboring camps--possibly to secure an influence, his
+alienation from the interest of his quasi-owner, in order to ferret out
+more of the mystery concerning the Confederate officer, possibly only
+animated by political fervor, and it may be with a spice of mischief,
+finding amusement in the old negro's garrulous grotesqueries--had been
+talking to him of slavery, making the most of his grievances, setting
+them in order before him, and urging him to rouse himself to the great
+opportunities of freedom.
+
+"I done make up my mind," he said autocratically, one day in the
+kitchen. "I gwine realize on my forty acres an' a muel!"
+
+For this substantial bonanza freedom was supposed to confer on each
+ex-slave.
+
+"Forty acres an' a mule!" the old cook echoed in derisive incredulity
+and with a scornful black face. "You _done_ realize on de mule--a mule
+is whut you is, sure! Here's yer mule! An' now you go out an' fotch me a
+pail of water, else I'll make ye realize on enough good land ter kiver
+ye! Dat's whut! It'll be six feet--not forty acres,--but it kin do yer
+job!"
+
+He might have made a fractious politician but for this adverse
+influence, for he had the variant moods of a mercurial nature, and in
+gloom showed a morose perversity that could have been easily manipulated
+into a spurious sense of martyrdom, lacking a tutored ratiocination to
+enable him to discriminate the facts. But despite his failings, his
+ignorance, the bewildering changes in his surroundings, never a word
+concerning his young master escaped his lips, never an inadvertent
+allusion, a disastrous whisper. He scarcely allowed himself a thought, a
+speculation.
+
+"Fust thing I know," he reflected warily, "I'll be talkin' ter myself.
+They always tole me dat walls had ears!"
+
+A day or two of murky weather seemed to penetrate the mental atmosphere
+as well. It was perhaps the inauguration of the chill interval known as
+"blackberry winter." Everywhere the great brambles were snowy with
+bloom, and in the house the "ladies" shivered and clasped their cold
+elbows in the sleeves of their thin summer dresses till the fenders and
+fire-dogs were brought out once more, and the flicker of hearthstone
+flames made cheery the aspect of the library, and dispensed a genial
+warmth. The air was moist; the trains ran with a dull roar and an
+undertone of reverberation; there was a collision of boats in the fog on
+the river, involving loss of life, and one night, the window being up,
+the sentry in passing called Captain Baynell out on the portico. He said
+he hesitated to summon the corporal of the guard, lest the sound should
+pass before the non-commissioned officer could come.
+
+"What sound?" asked Baynell.
+
+"Listen, sir," said the sentry.
+
+The night was dark. There was no moon. The stars now and then glimmering
+through the mists afforded scant illumination to the earth. The fires of
+the troops in bivouac about the town shone like thousands of
+constellations, reflected by the earth. The wind was surging fitfully
+among the pines. There was a dull iterative beat, rather felt than
+heard.
+
+"The train?" suggested Baynell.
+
+"The train is in, sir."
+
+"Must have been a freight," Baynell hazarded, for the indefinite
+vibration had ceased.
+
+"That's 'hep, hep, hep,'--that's marching feet, sir,--that's what it
+is!"
+
+"Well, what of that?" Baynell demanded. "It's the corporal of the guard
+going out with the relief."
+
+"It's too early----"
+
+"Grand Rounds, possibly."
+
+"It's too near," objected the man. "It's very near."
+
+The wind struck their faces with a dank fillip of dew. The vine hard by
+was dripping; they could hear the drops fall, and a silent interval, and
+again a falling drop.
+
+"There is nothing now," said Baynell. "It was doubtless some patrol. The
+air is very moist, and sounds are heavier than usual."
+
+"This seemed to me very near, sir," said the soldier, discontentedly. He
+wished he had fired his piece and called for the corporal of the guard.
+He had hesitated, for the corporal had scant patience with a military
+zealot who was forever discovering causes of alarm without foundation,
+and this exercise of judgment was a strain on a soldier's sense of duty.
+He had expected the captain to respond to the mere suggestion of a
+secret approach, remembering the search for the hidden Rebel officer.
+But Baynell had never heard of that episode!
+
+Suddenly all the camps broke into a turbulence of sound. A hundred drums
+were beating the tattoo. From down the valley and over the river the
+bugle iterated the strain. Near the town and along the hills it was
+duplicated anew, and all the echoes of the crags and the rocks of the
+river bank repeated it, and called out the mandate, and sang it again in
+a different key; at last it died into a fitful repetition; silence once
+more; an absolute hush.
+
+A rocket went up from the fort hard by; another rose, starlike and
+stately, from unseen regions beyond a hill. Presently the lights were
+dying out like magic all along the encampments, as if some great
+cataclysm were among the stellular reflections, blotting them from the
+sphere of being. The constellations above glowed more brightly as the
+earth darkened. The wind was gathering force. Baynell listened as the
+boughs clashed and surged together.
+
+"You doubtless heard the patrol," he said. And again--"The air is dank."
+
+Then he turned and went within; the soldier marched back and forth, as
+he was destined to do for some time yet, and listened with all the keen
+intentness of which he was capable. And heard nothing.
+
+The next morning--it was still before dawn--a sudden sharp clamor rose
+from a redoubt within which was a powder magazine near the main works,
+lying on the hither side of the river. The mischief which the earlier
+sentinel at the Roscoe place anticipated had come; how, whence,--the man
+now on duty hardly knew. He fired his rifle and called for the guard.
+Then a few sharp reports, and a tumult of shouting sounded from the
+redoubt. A general alarm ensued. The drums were beating the long roll
+in the infantry camps,--a nerve-thrilling, terrifying vibration; and the
+sharp cry, "Fall in!--Fall in!" was like an incident of the keen, rare,
+matutinal air, the iterative command sounding like an echo from every
+quarter in which the lines of tents were beginning to glimmer dimly.
+From where the cavalry horses were picketed in long rows came the clash
+of accoutrements and the tramp of hoofs as the trumpets sang "Boots and
+Saddles!" Once a courier--a shadowy, mounted figure, half
+distinguishable in the gray obscurity, seeming gigantic, like some
+horseman of a fable--dashed past in the gloom, going or coming none
+could know whither. The clamors increased, the shots multiplied, then
+the clear, chill light came gradually over the turmoils of darkness and
+sudden surprise. The first rays of the sun struck upon the Confederate
+flag flying from the redoubt, and its paroled garrison were trooping
+across to the main line of fortifications, bearing the miraculous story
+that they had awakened to find the work full of Confederate soldiers who
+seemed to have mined their way into the place from some subterranean
+access, and who were now in the name of Julius Roscoe, their ranking
+officer, demanding the surrender of the fort which the redoubt
+overlooked.
+
+The Federal commander would have shelled them out of their precarious
+advantage with very hearty good-will, but he feared for the stores of
+powder, which he really could not spare. Moreover, the explosion of the
+magazine at such close quarters could but result in the total demolition
+of the main work and its valuable armament, inflicting also great
+destruction of life. Thus, although the burly and experienced warrior,
+Colonel Deltz, was fairly rampant with indignation at the insignificance
+of this bold enemy both in point of the subordinate rank of the leader
+and the small number of the force, he was fain to hold parley, instead
+of opening fire upon the redoubt at once and wiping the raiders, with
+one hand, as it were, from the face of the earth. It may be doubted if
+any capable and trusted military expert ever discharged a more
+distasteful duty. Nevertheless, it was performed _secundum artem_, with
+every show of those amenities which of all professional courtesies have
+the slightest root in truth and real feeling. He invited the surrender
+of the redoubt, ignoring the demand for the surrender of the fort as a
+puerile and impudent folly, offering the usual fine and humane
+suggestions touching the avoidance of the useless effusion of blood,
+such as often before have been heard when a sophistry must needs fill
+the breach in lieu of force. When this was declined, Julius Roscoe was
+reminded, in the most cautious terms, of the personal jeopardy incurred
+by a commander who undertakes to hold out an untenable position. Julius
+Roscoe's reply, couched in the same strain of courteous phraseology,
+such, indeed, as might have been employed by a general of division,
+deliberating on articles of capitulation involving the well-being of an
+army, intimated that he was popularly supposed to be able to take care
+of himself; that so far from being unprepared to hold the redoubt which
+he had captured, he had means at his disposal to possess himself of the
+fort itself, and if its garrison would but await his onset, he should be
+happy to entertain Colonel Deltz in his own quarters at dinner in a
+campaigner's simple way--say, at one of the clock.
+
+These covert allusions to the signal advantages of his situation showed
+that Lieutenant Roscoe was fully apprized of the very large quantity of
+ammunition stored in the magazine, and the tone of his rejoinder
+intimated that he would avail himself to the uttermost of its
+efficiency. The works were close enough to render visible the
+occupations of the Confederates. Though gaunt and half-starved, many
+ragged and barefoot, they were as merry as grigs and as industrious as
+beavers, destroying such Federal stores as they could not remove,
+spiking or otherwise disabling the ordnance that they could not
+use,--the heavy howitzers at the embrasures,--and briskly preparing to
+serve the barbette battery, that they had shifted to command the fort
+and a line of intrenchments taken at a grievous disadvantage in the
+rear, and some lighter swivel artillery that could sweep all the horizon
+within range.
+
+It was a sight to stir the gorge of a professed soldier and a martinet.
+If aught of action could have availed, the colonel would have welcomed a
+fierce and summary devoir. But the true soldier rarely allows personal
+antagonism or a sentimental theory to influence the line of conduct to
+which duty and prudence alike point. He swallowed his fury, and it was a
+great gulp for a heady and choleric man who had lived by burning
+gunpowder--lo, these many years. He perceived that his garrison, able to
+descry the antics of the Confederates in the redoubt, were apprized of
+their own imminent peril from the magazine in the hands of their
+enemy--now, practically a mine. There was a doubt among his observant
+officers as to whether the reckless band were taking any of the usual
+precautions, requisite in dealing with so extensive a store of
+explosives, as they joyfully loaded the cannon. Under these
+circumstances, attack being out of the question, Colonel Deltz could
+hardly be assured of the efficiency of his force in defence. His
+garrison were palsied by surprise, the mysterious appearance of the
+Confederates, and the impunity of their situation. They could only be
+shelled out of the redoubt by the jeopardy of the powder magazine
+itself, and its explosion would destroy the lives of the besiegers as
+well as the besieged. Hence strategy was requisite. The fort was
+gradually evacuated as a lure to draw the raiders into the main works,
+where they could be dealt with, thus quitting their post of advantage.
+
+Later in the day from a knob called Sugar Loaf Pinnacle an artillery
+fire opened, the shells falling at first at uncertain intervals, seeking
+to ascertain the range; then, in fast and furious succession, hurtling
+down upon the guns of the masked battery beside the river. The missiles
+seemed but tiny clouds of white smoke, each with a heart of fire, the
+fuse redly burning against the densely blue sky, till dropping
+elastically to the moment of explosion it was resolved into a fiercely
+white focus with rayonnant fibres and stunning clamors.
+
+The town itself was hardly in danger during this riverside bombardment,
+unless, indeed, from some accident of defective marksmanship. But with
+all the world gone mad, the atmosphere itself a field of pyrotechnic
+magnificence, the familiar old mountains but a background to display the
+curves a flying shell might describe, now and again bursting in mid-air
+ere it reached its billet, the non-combatant populace was
+panic-stricken. Streets were deserted. All ordinary vocations ceased.
+The more substantial buildings of brick or stone were crowded, their
+walls presumed to be capable of resisting at least the spent balls, wide
+of aim, for these were often endowed with such a residue of energy as
+still to be destructive. Cellars were in request, and while the darkness
+precluded the terrifying glare of the bursting projectiles, nevertheless
+the tremendous clamor of the detonation, the wild reverberations of the
+echoes, the shouts of cheering men, the sound of bugles and drums and of
+voices in command in the distance, gave intimations of what was going
+forward, and uncertainty perhaps enhanced fear.
+
+"Dar, now, de Yankee man's battery is done gone too!" exclaimed Uncle
+Ephraim, as the voice of authority rang out sharply, with all its
+echo-like variants in the subalterns' commands. The clangor of
+accoutrements, the heavy but swift roll of the wheels of gun-carriages
+and caissons, the tumultuous hoof-beats of horses at full gallop, the
+spirited cheering of the artillerymen, filled the air--and then silence
+ensued, deep and dark, the stone walls of the cellar vaguely glimmering
+with one candle set on the head of a barrel.
+
+"He's gone wid 'em,--dat man! Time dat bugle blow he tore dat bandage
+off his haid--nicked or no,--dat he did!"
+
+Uncle Ephraim was seated on an inverted cotton basket, and Aunt Chaney,
+with the three "ladies" clustered about her knees, sat on the flight of
+steps that led down from a cautiously closed door. The "ladies" kept
+their fingers in their ears as a protection against sound, but the
+deaf-mute, strangely enough, was the most acute to discern the crash,
+possibly by reason of the vibrations of the air, since she could not
+hear the detonation of the shells.
+
+Somehow the sturdy courage of that soldierly shout was reassuring.
+
+"Dere ain't no danger, ladies," declared Aunt Chaney. Then, "Oh, my
+King!" she cried in an altered voice, while the three "ladies" hid their
+faces in the folds of her apron as a terrific explosion took place in
+mid-air, the pieces of the shell falling burning in the grove.
+
+"Jus' lissen at dat owdacious Julius!" muttered Uncle Ephraim,
+indignantly. "I never 'lowed he war gwine ter kick up sech a tarrifyin'
+commotion as dis yere, nohow."
+
+"I wish Gran'pa would come down here," whined one of the twins.
+
+"Where the cannon-balls can't catch him," whimpered the other.
+
+"What you talking about, ladies?" demanded the old cook, rising to the
+occasion. "You 'spec' a gemman lak yer gran'pa gwine sit in de cellar,
+lak--lak a 'tater!"--the simile suggested by a bushel-basket half full
+of Irish potatoes for late planting in the "garden spot."
+
+The "ladies," reassured by the joke, laughed shrilly, a little off the
+key, and clung to her comfortable fat arm that so inspired their
+confidence.
+
+"_I_ gwine sit in de cellar tell _I_ sprout lak a 'tater, ef disher
+tribulation ain't ober 'twell den," declared Uncle Ephraim. "Dar now!
+lissen ter dat!" as once more the clamorous air broke forth with sound.
+
+The "ladies" exclaimed in piteous accents.
+
+"Dat ain't nuffin ter hurt, honey," Aunt Chaney reassured her trembling
+charges. "Dese triflin' sodjers ain't got much aim. Yer gran'pa an' yer
+cousin Leonora wouldn't stay up dere in de lawbrary ef dere was
+destruction comin'."
+
+"Then why do _you_ come in the cellar?" asked the logical Adelaide.
+
+"Jes' ter git shet o' de terror ob seein' it, honey!" replied Aunt
+Chaney. "I ain't no perfessor ob war, nohow, an' my eyes ain't practised
+ter shellin' an' big shootin'."
+
+"Me, neither," said Adelaide.
+
+"Nor me," whimpered Geraldine.
+
+"De cannon-balls ain't gwine kill us, dough. We gwine live a long time,"
+Aunt Chaney optimistically protested. "I ain't s'prised none ef when de
+war is ober an' we tell 'bout dis fight, we gwine make out dat when de
+shellin' wuz at de wust, you three ladies an' me jus' stood up on de
+highest aidge ob de rampart ob de fort, an' 'structed de men how ter
+fire de cannon, an' p'inted out de shells flyin' through de air wid dat
+ar actial little forefinger, an' kep' up de courage ob de troops."
+
+"On which side, Aunt Chaney?" asked Adelaide, the reasonable.
+
+"On bofe sides, honey," said Aunt Chaney, "'cordin' ter de politics ob
+dem we is talkin' to!"
+
+A rat whisked over the floor, across the dim slant of light that fell
+from the candle on the head of the barrel. Uncle Ephraim, his elbows on
+his knees, his gray head slightly canted in a listening attitude,
+smiled vaguely, pleased like a child himself with Aunt Chaney's sketch.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Chaney!--_do_ you s'pose we'll tell it _that_ way?" cried
+Adelaide, meditating on the flattering contrast.
+
+"Dat's de ve'y way de tales 'bout dis war is gwine be tole, honey, you
+mark my words," declared the prophetess.
+
+The contrast of the imaginative future account with the troublous
+actuality of the present so delighted Adelaide that she spelled it off
+on her fingers to Lucille, both repairing to the side of the barrel
+where the candle was glimmering, in order to have the light on their
+twinkling fingers in the manual alphabet. The humors of the expectation,
+the incongruity of their martial efficiency, the boastful resources of
+the future, elicited bursts of delighted gigglings, and when the next
+shell exploded, neither took notice of the hurtling bomb shrieking over
+the house and bound for the river.
+
+The rest of the populace were enjoying no such solace from any waggish
+interpretation of the future. The present, that single momentous day,
+was for them as much of time as they cared to contemplate. Doubtless the
+satisfaction was very general among the citizens, regardless of
+political prepossessions, when it became known that Captain Baynell with
+a detachment of horse artillery had gone out and taken up a position
+that had enabled him at last to silence the Confederate guns on the
+pinnacle, not, however, before the masked battery by the river was
+practically dismounted.
+
+Now both infantry and cavalry were ordered out in an effort to intercept
+the venturesome Rebel artillerymen as they sought to descend from their
+steep pinnacle of rock. The dust on the turnpike, redly aflare in the
+sunset rays, betokened the progress of the march, and now and then it
+was harassed by shells and grape from the swivel guns of the fort, for
+Roscoe's limited command had not been able to bring the heavier ordnance
+of the embrasures to bear upon the camps around the town.
+
+The whole community was in a panic, for this might soon betide. But a
+gunboat came, as it chanced, up the river, took a position of advantage,
+and with great precision of aim soon shelled the little force out of the
+main work. Their capture was momently expected, but they made good their
+retreat to their former position in the redoubt, with the intention
+unquestionably of escaping thence by the secret passage which had
+afforded them access. In leaving, however, the powder magazine was blown
+up by accident or design, destroying the integrity of the whole
+fortification, and shattering nearly every pane of glass in the town,
+the force of the concussion indeed bringing the tower of the hospital
+hard by to the ground. That the raiders had perished was not doubted,
+till news came of a sharp skirmish which took place under cover of
+darkness at the mouth of a sort of grotto in Judge Roscoe's grove, and
+in the confusion, surprise, and obscurity all escaped save some
+half-dozen left dead upon the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+With these important works wrecked and dismantled, with the destruction
+of great stores of ammunition and artillery which obviously placed the
+system of defence in an imperfect condition, with the difficulty of
+repair and supply which time and distance and insufficiency of
+transportation rendered insurmountable, with the elation of victory that
+so dashing an exploit, so thoroughly consummated, must communicate to
+the Confederate troops, an attack by them in force was daily expected.
+The capture of Roanoke City was considered an event of the near future,
+anticipated with joy or gloom, according to the several interests of the
+varied population, but in any case regarded as a foregone conclusion.
+Daily the Northern trains, heavily laden, bore away passengers who had
+no wish to become citizens of the Southern Confederacy. Perishable
+effects, stocks of goods of the order that a battle would endanger or
+destroy, were shipped to calmer regions. Reinforcements came by every
+train, by every boat, till all the resources of the country were
+strained to maintain them, and still the Southerners had not advanced to
+the opportunity. It was one of those occasions of the Civil War when
+the hand that took was not strong enough to hold. The Confederate force
+near the town was inadequately supplied to enable it to do more than
+seize the advantage, which must needs be relinquished. Its slim
+resources admitted of no permanent occupation of the town, and the empty
+glory of the capture of Roanoke City would have been offset by the
+disastrous necessity of the evacuation of the post. Gradually the
+Federal lines were extended until they lay almost as before the raid on
+the works. The Confederate ranks had been depleted to furnish
+reinforcements to a more practicable point. They were falling back, and
+now and again sudden sallies brought in prisoners from such a distance
+as told the story.
+
+The town was once more secure, work was begun on the dismantled
+fortifications, and daily the question of how so hazardous an enterprise
+could have been devised and executed revived in interest. The commanding
+general had not the loss of the town itself to account for, as at one
+time was probable, but for the destruction of a great store of
+ammunition, as well as the loss of life, of guns, of the works
+themselves, representing many thousands of dollars and the labor of
+regiments. All, however, seemed hardly commensurate with the disaster he
+would sustain in point of reputation. That such a dashing, destructive
+exploit could be planned and consummated under his own ceaselessly
+vigilant eyes appeared little short of the miraculous, and for his own
+justification he looked needfully into its inception.
+
+It was discovered that there was a natural subterranean passage from the
+grove of Judge Roscoe's place to a cellar, a portion of which had
+constituted the powder magazine on the Devrett hill, and that this had
+been exploded by means of a slow match through the grotto, previously
+prepared, enabling the raiders to effect their escape. It was further
+ascertained that Julius Roscoe, who had led the enterprise, had been in
+hiding for some time at his father's home, and had been seen as he
+issued thence covered with blood, evidently fresh from some personal
+altercation with a Federal officer, for weeks a guest in the house.
+Although bruised and bleeding, this officer could offer no account of
+his wounds save a fall, impossible to have produced them; he had raised
+no alarm, and had given no report of the presence of an enemy, whose
+intrusion had wrought such damage and disaster to the Union cause.
+
+One detail led to another, each discovery unveiled cognate mysteries,
+the disclosure of trifles brought forward circumstances of importance.
+The claim of the sentinel posted at Judge Roscoe's portico that he had
+fired the first shot which raised the alarm, evoked the fact that an
+earlier sentry had told Captain Baynell that he had heard marching
+feet--a moving column in the cadenced step, he described it now--near,
+very near, that murky night, and that Captain Baynell had waived it away
+with the suggestion of "a corporal of the guard with the relief"--at
+that hour!--when the next relief would not be due till nearly
+midnight,--and had gone back into the parlor, where Mrs. Gwynn had begun
+to sing, "Her bright smile haunts me still."
+
+This account reminded several of his camp-fellows that, having been in
+town on leave, they had met that dark night on the turnpike a force
+marching in column, and naturally thinking this only the removal of
+Federal troops from some point to another, here, so far within the
+lines, they had quietly stood aside and watched the shadowy progress.
+Nothing amiss had occurred to their minds. The men had all their
+officers duly in position, and they were marching silently and with
+great regularity. But by reference to the various written reports, it
+was easily ascertained that there was no shifting of troops that day, no
+assignment of a company to any duty which would have taken them out at
+that hour, no detail reporting for service. Still following in the
+footsteps of this column, something more was learned from a young negro,
+who had been out to fish that night, which was the delight of the
+plantation darkey at this season of the year, and had cast his lines
+from under the bluff near Judge Roscoe's place; the night being foggy,
+he had not noticed, till they were very near, the approach of three or
+four large open boats, filled with soldiers, to judge by the rifles, who
+were rowing very fast and hard against the current and keeping close in
+to the shore. When they landed and beached the boats they were very
+quiet, fell into order, and marched off without a word, except the
+necessary curt commands. It had never occurred to him to give the alarm.
+He had taken none. They had rowed so close in to shore, he thought, to
+avoid such a collision as had happened in the mists earlier in the
+night, when a large barge was run down by a gunboat and sunk. Doubtless
+if they had passed the picket boats, the misty invisibility of all the
+surface of the water protected them, but for the most part the patrol of
+the river pickets was further down-stream. As they had come, so they had
+gone, and the matter remained a nine days' wonder. The commanding
+general almost choked when he thought of it.
+
+"This is going to be a serious matter for Baynell," said Colonel Ashley,
+one day. He had called at Judge Roscoe's partly because he did not wish
+to break off with abrupt rudeness an acquaintance which he had persisted
+in forming, and partly because he was not willing in the circumstances
+that had arisen to seem to shun the house.
+
+Judge Roscoe was not at home, but Mrs. Gwynn was in the parlor. Ashley
+had asked her to sing. There was something "delightfully dreary," as he
+described it, in the searching, romantic, melancholy cadences of her
+sweet contralto voice. He had not intended to open his heart, but
+somehow the mood induced by her singing, the quiet of the dim, secluded,
+cool drawing-rooms, with the old-fashioned, high, stucco ceiling, and
+the shadowy green gloom of the trees without, prevailed with him, and he
+spoke upon impulse.
+
+"What matter?" she asked. She had wheeled half around on the
+piano-stool, and sat, her slim figure in its white dress, delicate and
+erect, one white arm, visible through the thin fabric, outstretched to
+the keyboard, the hand toying with resolving chords.
+
+He had been standing beside the piano as she sang, but now, with the air
+of inviting serious discussion, he seated himself in one of the stiff
+arm-chairs of the carved rosewood "parlor set" of that day, and replied
+gravely:----
+
+"His association with Julius Roscoe."
+
+Her eyes widened with genuine amazement.
+
+"It seems," proceeded Ashley, slowly, "that a dozen or two of the
+soldiers, who claimed to have seen a Confederate officer on the balcony
+here, recognized him as Julius Roscoe, when he reappeared in command of
+the forces that captured the redoubt. And the surgeon has always
+insisted that Baynell's hurt was a blow, not a fall. There is a good
+deal of smothered talk in various quarters."
+
+He stroked his mustache contemplatively, looked vaguely about the room,
+and sighed in a certain disconsolateness.
+
+"I don't understand," said Mrs. Gwynn, sharply, fixing intent eyes upon
+him. "How can Captain Baynell be called in question?"
+
+"Oh, the general theory--however well or ill grounded--is that young
+Roscoe was here on a reconnoitring expedition of some sort, or perhaps
+merely on a visit to his kindred, and that Baynell winked at his
+presence on account of friendship with the family, instead of arresting
+him, as he should have done. It's an immense pity. Baynell is a fine
+officer."
+
+Mrs. Gwynn had turned pale with excitement.
+
+"But _none of us_ knew that Julius Roscoe was in the house!" she
+exclaimed. She hesitated a moment as the words passed her lips. Judge
+Roscoe's reticence on the subject might imply some knowledge of the
+harbored Rebel.
+
+Ashley was suddenly tense with energy.
+
+"Don't imagine for one moment, my dear madam, that I have any desire to
+extract information from you. It is no concern of mine how he came or
+went. I only mention the subject because it is very much on my mind and
+heart. And I don't see any satisfactory end to it. I have a great
+respect for Baynell as a man, and especially as an artillerist, and
+somehow in these campaigns I have contrived to get fond of the
+fellow!--though he is about as stiff, and unresponsive, and prejudiced,
+and priggish a bundle of animal fibre as ever called himself human."
+
+"Why, he doesn't give me that idea," exclaimed Leonora, her eyes
+widening. "He seems unguarded, and impulsive, and ardent."
+
+Colonel Ashley was very considerably her senior and far too experienced
+to be ingenuous himself. He made no comment on the conviction her words
+created within him. He only looked at her in silence, receiving her
+remark with courteous attention. Then he resumed:----
+
+"Of course in a civil war there are always some instances of undue
+leniency,--the pressure of circumstances induces it,--but rarely indeed
+such as this; it amounts to aiding and abetting the enemy, however
+unpremeditated. Young Roscoe could not have secured the means or
+information for his destructive raid had not Baynell permitted him to be
+housed here. Doubtless, however, Baynell thought it a mere visit of the
+boy to his father's family."
+
+"But Captain Baynell never dreamed that Julius Roscoe was in the house!"
+she exclaimed.
+
+"That's just what he says he _did_--dreamed that he saw him! I can rely
+on you not to repeat my words. But I have had no confidential talk with
+him."
+
+"I am sure--I _know_--they were never together for a moment."
+
+"The surgeon says that Roscoe's knuckles cut to the bone," commented
+Ashley, with a significant smile. But the triumphs of stultifying Mrs.
+Gwynn in conversation were all inadequate to restore his usual serene
+satisfaction, and once more he looked restlessly about the rooms and
+sighed.
+
+"What do you think Captain Baynell was guilty of? Permitting an enemy to
+remain within the lines, _perdu_, unsuspected, to gather information,
+and make off with it--conniving at the concealment, and assisting the
+escape of an enemy? And _you_ call yourself his friend!"
+
+Leonora's cheeks were flushed. Her voice rang with a tense vibration.
+She fixed her interlocutor with a challenging eye.
+
+"Oh--I don't _know_ what he intended," replied Ashley, almost irritably.
+"Doubtless he had some high-minded motive, so intricate that he can
+never explain it, and nobody else can ever unravel it. I only know he
+has played the fool,--and I _fear_ he has ruined himself irretrievably."
+
+"But you don't answer my question--what do _you think_ he has done?"
+
+Ashley might have responded that his conclusions were not subject to her
+inquisition. But his suave methods of thought and conduct could not
+compass this unmannerly retort. Moreover, it was a relief to his
+feelings to canvass the matter so paramount in his mind with an
+irresponsible woman, rather than with his brother officers, among whom
+it was rife, thereby sending his speculations and doubts and views
+abroad as threads to be wrought into the warp and woof of their
+opinion, and possibly give undue substance and color to the character of
+the fabric.
+
+"Why,--of course this is just my own view,--formed on what I hear from
+outsiders,--and I think it is the general view. Baynell knew the young
+man was hidden in the house, on a stolen visit to his father, thinking
+he had no ultimate intentions but to escape at a convenient opportunity.
+These separations must be very cruel indeed, with no means of
+communication. Baynell, though very wrongfully, _might_ have indulged
+this concealment from motives of--ah--er--friendship to the family, for
+young Roscoe would undoubtedly have been dealt with as a spy, had he
+been captured in lurking here. The two _may_ have been more or less
+associated,--certainly they came together in an altercation that
+resulted in blows. _I_ think Baynell possibly discovered Roscoe's
+scheme, and threatened him with arrest. Roscoe knocked him down the
+stairs and fled from the house to the grotto, considering this safe, for
+he might have crossed from the balcony to the firs without observation
+if he had been lucky, as at that time none of us knew that the grotto
+existed. Now these are _my_ conclusions--but for the integrity of the
+service Baynell's acts and his motives must be sifted. They may not bear
+to an impartial mind even so liberal a construction as this. It is a
+threatening situation, and I am apprehensive--I am very apprehensive."
+
+Mrs. Gwynn's hand fell with a discordant crash on the keys of the piano.
+
+"Why--why--what can they do to him?" she gasped.
+
+Vertnor Ashley shied from the subject like a frightened horse.
+
+"Ah--oh--ah--er--well," he said, "let us not think of that." He paused
+abruptly. Then, "To forecast the immediate future is enough of disaster.
+There is already said to be an official investigation on the cards. No
+doubt charges will be preferred, and he will be brought to a
+court-martial."
+
+He sighed again, and looked about futilely, as if for suggestion. He
+rose at length, and with his pleasant, cordial manner and a smile of
+deprecating apology, he said, "I am afraid my grim subjects do not
+commend me for a lady's parlor." Then with a light change of tone, "So
+much obliged for that lovely little French song--what is it--_Quel est
+cet attrait qui m'attire_? I want to be able to distinguish it, for may
+I not ask for it again some time?" And bowing, and smiling, and
+prosperous, he took his graceful departure.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn stood motionless, her eyes on the carpet, her mind almost
+dazed by the magnitude, by the terrors, of the subjects of her
+contemplation. She felt she must be more certain; she could not leave
+this disastrous complication thus. She could not speak to this man,
+friendly though he had seemed, lest she betray some fact of her own
+knowledge that might be of disadvantage to another who had meant no
+ill--nay, she was sure had done no ill. Then she was beset by the
+realization of the sophistry of circumstance. But if circumstance could
+be adduced against Baynell, should it not equally prevail in his favor?
+When she, knowing naught of the lurking Julius, had sent to his
+hiding-place this Federal officer, did not instantly the clamors of
+discovery resound through the house? She could hear even now in the
+tones of his voice, steadied and sonorous by the habit of command, sharp
+and decisive on the air, the words, "You are my prisoner!" twice
+repeated, that had summoned her, stricken with sudden panic, from her
+flowers on the library table to the hall, where she saw the balustrade
+of the stairs still shaking with the concussion of a heavy fall. And as
+she stood there, another moment--barely a moment--brought the apparition
+of Julius, flying as if for his life, a pistol in his hand, and covered
+with blood. Dreams! Who said aught of dreams! This was not the course a
+man would take who desired to shield a concealed Rebel. There was no
+eye-witness of the altercation. But she, on the lower floor, had heard
+it all--the swift ascent for the book, the exclamation of amazement,
+then the stern voice of command, the words of arrest, the impact of the
+blow, and the clamors of the fall. Then the flight; she had seen Julius,
+fleeing for safety, fleeing from the house into the very teeth of the
+camps.
+
+Should not Baynell know this, the event that preceded the long
+insensibility which had so blunted his impressions, his recollections?
+She resolved to confer with Judge Roscoe. How much he knew of Julius
+Roscoe's lurking visit, how much he cared for her to know, she could not
+be sure. She suspected that old Ephraim was fully informed, for without
+his services the visitor could hardly have been maintained. But neither
+had been at hand at the moment of discovery, of collision.
+
+When Judge Roscoe came in she submitted this question to his judgment.
+To her surprise he did not canvass the matter. He said at once: "By all
+means Captain Baynell ought to know this. It would be best to send for
+him and explain to him what you saw and heard,--the whole occurrence.
+Captain Baynell should be made aware of all the details of the actual
+event that you more nearly than any one else witnessed."
+
+The house in these summer days, with the shutters half closed and the
+doors all open, seemed more retired, more solitary, than when all the
+busy life of the place was drawn to the focus of the library fire. She
+was quite alone, as she traversed the hall and sat down to write at the
+library table. The "ladies" were playing out of doors, close in to the
+window under a tree. Judge Roscoe had business in the town and walked
+thither leaning rather heavily on his cane, for no news came of Acrobat,
+and somehow he no longer cared to ride the glossy iron-gray that Captain
+Baynell still left grazing in his pastures. So still were all the
+precincts she feared she might not find a messenger as she went out on
+the latticed gallery searching for old Ephraim. But there he sat in the
+sun in front of the kitchen door. He was not wont to be so silent. He
+said naught when she handed him the missive with her instructions, but
+he looked unwilling, with a sort of warning wisdom in his expression,
+and several times turned the note gingerly in his hand, as if he thought
+it might explode. He would fain have remonstrated against the renewal of
+communication with the elements that had brought so much disquiet into
+the calm life of the old house hitherto. But his lips were sealed so far
+as the "Yankee man" and Julius were concerned. And he would maintain
+that he had never seen or heard of the grotto till indeed it was blown
+up.
+
+"All dese young folks is a stiff-necked and tarrifyin' generation, an'
+ef dey will leave ole Ephraim in peace, he p'intedly won't pester dem,"
+he said to himself.
+
+Therefore, merely murmuring acquiescence, "Yes'm, yes'm, yes'm," while
+he received his orders, he put on his hat which he had hitherto held in
+his hand, and walked off briskly to the tent of the artillery captain.
+
+The succinct dignified tone of Mrs. Gwynn's note requesting to see
+Captain Baynell at his earliest convenience on a matter of business
+precluded effectually any false sentimental hopes, had any communication
+from her been calculated to raise them. He was already mounted, having
+just returned from afternoon parade; and saying to Uncle Ephraim that he
+would wait on Mrs. Gwynn immediately, he wheeled his horse and forthwith
+disappeared in the midst of the shadow and sheen of the full-leaved
+grove.
+
+Baynell had changed, changed immeasurably, since she had last seen him.
+Always quiet and sedate, his gravity had intensified to sternness, his
+dignified composure to a cold, impenetrable reserve, his attentive
+interest to a sort of wary vigilance, all giving token of the effect
+wrought in his mental and moral endowment by the knowledge of the
+suspicions entertained concerning his actions, and the charges that were
+being formulated against him.
+
+In one sense these had already slain him. His individuality was gone. He
+would be no more what once he was. His pride, so strong, so vivid, as
+essential an element of his being as his breath, as his soul, had been
+done to death. It had been a noble endowment, despite its exactions, and
+maintained high standards and sought finer issues. It had died with the
+woe of a thousand deaths, that calumny should touch his name; that
+accusation could ever find a foothold in his life; that treachery should
+come to investigation in his deeds.
+
+She rather wondered at his calmness, the self-possession expressed in
+his manner, his face. He had himself well in hand. He was not nervous.
+His haggard pallor told what the sleepless hours of self-communing
+brought to him, yet he was strong enough to confront the future. He
+would give battle to the false charge, the lying circumstance, the
+implacable phalanxes of the probabilities. The truth was intrinsically
+worth fighting for, in any event, and even now his heart could swell
+with the conviction that the truth could only demonstrate the impeccancy
+of his official record.
+
+He met her with that grave, conventional, inexpressive courtesy which
+had always characterized him, and it was a little difficult, in her
+unusual flutter and agitation, to find a suitable beginning.
+
+She had seated herself in the library at the table where she had written
+the note, and she was mechanically trifling with an ivory paper-knife,
+the portfolio and paper still lying before her. He took a chair near at
+hand and waited, not seeking to inaugurate the conversation.
+
+"I sent for you, Captain Baynell, because I have heard something--there
+are rumors--"
+
+He did not take the word from her, nor help her out. He sat quietly
+waiting.
+
+"In short, I think you ought to know that I overheard all that passed
+between you and Julius Roscoe on the stairs that morning."
+
+Captain Baynell's rejoinder surprised her.
+
+"Then he was really in the house?" he said meditatively.
+
+"Oh, yes,--though I did not know it till he dashed past me in the hall.
+Two minutes had not elapsed since you had left me here standing by the
+table."
+
+She detailed the circumstances, and when she had finished speaking he
+thanked her simply, and said that the facts would be of value to him.
+
+"I thought you ought to know them, hearing Colonel Ashley describe the
+various rumors afloat--but, but these--they--they will soon die out?"
+She looked at him appealingly.
+
+He did not answer immediately. Then--
+
+"I shall be court-martialled," he said succinctly.
+
+Her heart seemed almost to stand still in the presence of this great
+threat, yet she strove against its menace.
+
+"Of course I know this is serious, and must trouble all your friends,"
+she said vaguely. "But doubtless--doubtless there will be an acquittal."
+
+"It is a matter of liberty, and life itself," he said. "But I do not
+care for either,--I deprecate the reflections on my character as a
+soldier." He hesitated for one moment, then broke out with sudden
+passion, "I care for the jeopardy of my honor--my sacred honor!"
+
+There was an interval of stillness so long that a slant of the sunset
+light might seem to have moved on the floor. The soft babble of the
+voices of the children came in at the open window; the mocking-bird's
+jubilance rose from among the magnolia blooms outside. The great bowl on
+the table was full of roses, and she eyed their magnificence absently,
+seeing nothing, remembering all that Ashley had said, and realizing how
+difficult it would be to convince even him, with all his friendly
+good-will, of the simplicity of the motives that had precipitated the
+real events, so grimly metamorphosed in the monstrous mischances of war.
+
+"Oh--" she cried suddenly, with a poignant accent, "that this should
+have fallen upon you in the house of your friends! We can never forgive
+ourselves, and you can never forgive us!"
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," he said heartily; "I have no grievance
+against this kind roof. I could not expect Judge Roscoe to betray his
+own son, and deliver him up to capture, to death as a spy--because I
+happened to be here, a temporary guest. And I could not expect the young
+man to voluntarily surrender--for my convenience. No--I blame no one."
+
+"You are magnanimous!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, her luminous gray eyes
+shining through tears as she looked at him.
+
+"Only omniscience could have foreseen and guarded against this
+disastrous complication of adverse circumstances. But the results are
+serious enough to justify doubt and provoke investigation. Knowing the
+simple truth, it seems a little difficult to see how it can fail to be
+easily established--it is the imputation that afflicts me. I am not used
+to contemplate myself as a traitor--with my motives."
+
+"Oh, it is so unjust--so rancorously untrue! You arrested him the moment
+you saw him--although he was in Judge Roscoe's house. You must have
+known that he was Judge Roscoe's son."
+
+"I recognized him from his portrait--" Baynell checked himself. He would
+not have liked to say how often, with what jealous appraisement of its
+manly beauty and interest of suggestion, he had studied the portrait of
+Julius on the parlor wall, knowing him as a man who had loved Leonora
+Gwynn, and fearing him as a man whom possibly Leonora Gwynn loved.
+
+"But I was obliged to arrest him on the spot--why, I was in honor
+bound."
+
+His face suddenly fell--in this most intimate essential of true
+gentlemanhood, in this dearest requisition of a soldier's faith, that is
+yet the commonest principle of the humblest campaigner, he was held to
+have failed, in point of honor. He was held to have paltered and played
+a double part, to have betrayed alike his country, the fair name of his
+corps, and his own unsullied record. And this was the fiat of
+fair-minded men, comrades, countrymen, to be expressed in the preferred
+charges.
+
+Bankrupt in all he held dear, he shrank from seeming to beg the sheer
+empty bounty of her sympathy. He hardly cared to face these reflections
+in her presence. He arose to go, and it was with composed, conventional
+courtesy, as inexpressive as if he were some casual friendly caller,
+that he took his leave, resolutely ignoring all the tragedy of the
+situation.
+
+The next day came the news that charges having been duly preferred he
+had been placed in arrest to await the action of the general
+court-martial to be assembled in the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Ashley, in common with a number of Baynell's friends, did not recognize
+a fair spirit in the inception of the investigation. The military
+authorities in Roanoke City seemed rancorously keen to prove that naught
+within the scope of their own duty could have averted the disasters of
+the battle of the redoubt. The moral gymnastic of shunting the blame was
+actively in progress. The proof of treachery within the lines,
+individual failure of duty, would explain to the Department far more to
+the justification of the commander of the garrison of the town the
+losses both of life and material, and the jeopardy of the whole
+position, than admission of the fact that the military of the post had
+been outwitted, and that the enemy was entitled to salvos of applause
+for a very gallant exploit. Indeed, only specific details from one
+familiar with the interior of the works, to which, of course, citizens
+were not admitted, could have informed Julius Roscoe of the location of
+the powder magazine and enabled him to utilize in this connection his
+own early familiarity with the surroundings. Thus the theory that Julius
+Roscoe could not have accomplished its destruction had he not been
+harbored, even helped, by the connivance of a personal friend in the
+lines, and that friend, a Federal officer, was far more popular among
+the military authorities than the simple fact that a Rebel had been
+detected visiting his father's house by a Federal officer, a guest
+therein, promptly arrested, and in the altercation the one had been hurt
+and the other had escaped. Had the capture of the redoubt never occurred
+later as a sequence, this transient encounter of Baynell's would hardly
+have elicited a momentary notice.
+
+The aspect of the court-martial was far from reassuring even to men of
+worldly experience on broad lines. The impassive, serious, bearded
+faces, the military figures in full-dress uniform, the brilliant
+insignia of high rank being specially pronounced, for of course no
+officer of lower degree than that of the prisoner was permitted to sit,
+were ranged on each side of a long table on a low rostrum in a large
+room, formerly a fraternity hall, in a commercial building now devoted
+to military purposes. The spectacle might well have made the heart
+quail. It seemed so expressive of the arbitrary decrees of absolute
+force, oblivious of justice, untempered by mercy!
+
+A jury as an engine of the law must needs be considered essentially
+imperfect, and subject to many deteriorating influences, only available
+as the best device for eliciting fact and appraising crises that the
+slow development of human morals has yet presented. But to a peaceful
+civilian a jury of ignorant, shock-headed rustics might seem a safe and
+reasonable repository of the dearest values of life and reputation in
+comparison with this warlike phalanx, combining the functions of both
+judge and jury, the very atmosphere of destruction sucked in with every
+respiration.
+
+The president, a brevet brigadier-general, at the head of the table, was
+of a peculiarly fierce physiognomy, that yet was stony cruel. The
+judge-advocate at the foot had the look of laying down the law by main
+force. He had a keenly aggressive manner. He was a captain of cavalry,
+brusque, alert; he had dark side whiskers and a glancing dark eye, and
+was the only man on the rostrum attired in an undress uniform. His
+multifarious functions as the official prosecutor for the government,
+and also adviser to the court, and yet attorney for the prisoner to a
+degree,--by a theory similar to the ancient fiction of English law that
+the judge is counsel for the accused,--would seem, in civilian
+estimation, to render him "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once," as
+Mrs. Malaprop would say, or a military presentment of Pooh-Bah. The
+nominal military accuser, acting in concert with the judge-advocate,
+seated at a little distance, was conscious of sustaining an unpopular
+_rôle_, and it had tinged his manner with disadvantage. The prisoner
+appeared without any restraint, of course, but wearing no sword. The
+special values of his presence, his handsome face, his blond hair and
+beard that had a glitter not unlike the gold lace of his full-dress
+uniform, his fine figure and highbred, reserved manner, were very marked
+in his conspicuous position, occupying a chair at a small table on the
+right of the judge-advocate. Baynell had a calm dignity and a look of
+steady, immovable courage incongruous with his plight, arraigned on so
+base a charge, and yet a sort of blighted, wounded dismay, as
+unmistakable as a burn, was on his face, that might have moved even one
+who had cared naught for him to resentment, to protest for his sake.
+
+The light of the unshaded windows, broad, of ample height, and eight or
+ten in number on one side of the room, brought out in fine detail every
+feature of the scene within. Beneath no sign of the town appeared, as
+the murmur of traffic rose softly, for the building was one of the few
+three-story structures, and the opposite roofs were low. The aspect of
+the far-away mountains, framed in each of the apertures, with the
+intense clarity of the light and the richness of tint of the approaching
+summer solstice, was like a sublimated gallery of pictures, painted with
+a full brush and of kindred types. Here were the repetitious long
+ranges, with the mouldings of the foot-hills at the base, and again a
+single great dome, amongst its mysterious shimmering clouds, filled the
+canvas. Now in the background were crowded all the varying mountain
+forms, while a glittering vacant reach of the Tennessee River stretched
+out into the distance. And again a bridge crossed the currents, light
+and airy in effect, seeming to spring elastically from its piers, in the
+strong curves of the suspended arches, while a sail-boat, with its head
+tucked down shyly as the breeze essayed to chuck it under the chin,
+passed through and out of sight. Another window showed the wind in a
+bluffer mood, wrestling with the storm clouds; showed, too, that rain
+was falling in a different county, and the splendors of the iris hung
+over far green valleys that gleamed prismatically with a secondary
+reflection.
+
+The room was crowded with spectators, both military and civilian,
+finding seats on the benches which were formerly used in the fraternity
+gatherings and which were still in place. The case had attracted much
+public attention. There were few denizens of the town who had not had
+individual experiences of interest pending the storming of the fort, and
+this fact invested additional details with peculiar zest and whetted the
+edge of curiosity as to the inception of the plan and the means by which
+Julius Roscoe's exploit had become practicable. The effect of the
+imposing character of the court was manifested in the perfect decorum
+observed by the general public. There was scarcely a stir during the
+opening of the proceedings. The order convening the court was read to
+the accused, and he was offered his right to challenge any member of
+the court-martial for bias or other incompetency. Baynell declined to
+avail himself of this privilege. There ensued a moment of silence. Then,
+with a metallic clangor, for every member wore his sword, the court
+rose, and, all standing, a glittering array, the oath was administered
+to each of the thirteen by the judge-advocate. Afterward the president
+of the court, of course the ranking officer present, himself
+administered the oath to the judge-advocate, and the prosecution opened.
+
+The military accuser was the first witness sworn and interrogated, but
+the prosecution had much other testimony tending to show that the
+prisoner had been living in great amity with persons notoriously of
+sentiments antagonistic to the Union cause, as exemplified by his long
+stay in Judge Roscoe's house; that he was in correspondence and even in
+intimate association with a Rebel in hiding under the same roof; that
+either with treacherous intent, or for personal reasons, he had
+leniently permitted this enemy in arms to lie _perdu_ within the lines
+and subsequently to escape with such information as had resulted in
+great loss of men, materials, and money to the Federal government; that
+he had been apprised, by the sentinel at the door, of the approach of a
+body of troops the night before the attack on the redoubt took place,
+and that he nefariously or negligently declined to investigate the
+incident. Most of this evidence, however, was circumstantial.
+
+The defence met it strenuously at every point. The intimacy between
+Judge Roscoe and the Baynell family was shown to be of a far earlier
+date, and the friendship utterly devoid of any connection with political
+interests; in this relation the accused had in every instance
+subordinated his personal feeling to his military duty, even going so
+far as to cause the property of his host's niece to be seized for
+military service,--the impressment of the horse, which Colonel Ashley
+testified he had at that time considered an unwarrantable bit of
+official tyranny, some individuals being allowed to retain their horses
+through the interposition of army officers among their friends.
+
+Colonel Ashley testified further that the prisoner was such a stickler
+on trifles, as to seek to check him, a person of responsibility and
+discretion, an experienced officer, in expressing some casual
+speculations in the presence of Judge Roscoe concerning troops on an
+incoming train.
+
+The accused admitted that he had not investigated the sound of marching
+troops in the thrice-guarded lines of the encampment, but urged it was
+no part of his duty and impracticable. Small detachments were coming and
+going at all hours of the night. If an officer of the guard, going out
+with the relief or a patrol, had seen fit to march across Judge Roscoe's
+grove, it was no concern of his nor of the sentinel's. He had no
+divination of the proximity of the enemy.
+
+Perhaps the ardor of the witnesses, called in Captain Baynell's behalf,
+when the prosecution had rested at length, made an impression
+unfavorable to the idea of impartiality. More than one on
+cross-examination was constrained to acknowledge that he was swayed by
+the sense of the prisoner's hitherto unimpugnable record, and his high
+standing as a soldier. No such admission could be wrung from Judge
+Roscoe, skilled in all the details of the effect of testimony. His plain
+asseverations that his son had come to his house, not knowing that a
+Federal officer was a temporary inmate, the account of the simple
+measures taken to defeat the guest's observation or detection of the
+young Rebel's propinquity, the reasonableness of his quietly awaiting an
+opportunity to run the pickets when a chance meeting resulted in
+discovery and a collision--all went far to establish the fact that the
+presence of Julius Roscoe was but one of those stolen visits home in
+which the adventurous Southern soldiers delighted and of which Captain
+Baynell had no sort of knowledge till the moment of their encounter,
+when Julius rushed forth to the gaze of all the camp.
+
+This was the point of difficulty with the prosecution, the point of
+danger with the defence,--the adequacy of the proof as to the prisoner's
+knowledge of the presence of the Rebel in hiding, harbored in the house.
+For this the prosecution had the apparition of the Confederate officer,
+covered with blood and later identified as Julius Roscoe, and the
+condition of Baynell's wound, which the surgeon swore was a "facer,"
+delivered by an expert boxer. Evidently this came from an altercation,
+in which both had forborne the use of weapons, thus suggesting some
+collision of interests, as between personal associates or former friends
+rather than a hand-to-hand conflict of armed enemies.
+
+On this vital point, to form the conclusions of military men, Baynell
+could command no testimony save that of the Roscoe household,--the most
+important witness of course being the judge himself, who had devised and
+controlled all the methods to keep the Federal officer unsuspicious and
+tranquil, and to maintain the lurking Rebel in security. The anxiety of
+the authorities to fix the responsibility for the disclosure of the
+military information concerning the interior of the works, which only
+one familiar with the location of the magazine could have given, had
+induced them to ignore Judge Roscoe's shelter of their enemy, thus
+avoiding the entanglement of a slighter matter with the paramount
+consideration under investigation. While the fact that his feelings as a
+father must needs have coerced Judge Roscoe into harboring and
+protecting his son and requiring his servant to minister to his wants,
+still the recital of the concealment of his presence affronted the
+sentiment of the court-martial, even though Judge Roscoe's part was
+obviously restricted to the sojourn of the Confederate officer in his
+house, for he had no knowledge of the details of the escape and
+subsequent adventures.
+
+The course of the proceedings of such a body was not competent to afford
+any very marked relaxations in the line of comedy relief. But certainly
+old Ephraim, when summoned to the stand, must have been in any other
+presence a mark of irresistible derision, not unkind, to be sure, and
+devoid of bitterness.
+
+Keenly conscious that he had been discovered in details which to "Marse
+Soldier" were a stumbling-block and an offence, and that his own
+prestige for political loyalty was shattered,--for he doubted if it were
+possible to so present the contradiction of his conviction of his
+interest and yet his adherence to old custom and fidelity in such a
+guise that the brevet brigadier would do aught but snort at it,--he
+came, bowing repeatedly, cringing almost to the earth, his hat in his
+hand, his worn face seamed in a thousand new wrinkles, and looking
+nearly eighty years of age. The formidable embodiment of military
+justice fixed him with a stern comprehensive gaze, and the brigadier,
+who had no realization of the martial terrors of his own appearance,
+sought to reassure him by saying in his deep bluff voice, "Come forward,
+Uncle Ephraim, come forward." The old negro started violently, then
+bowed once more in humble deprecation. Suddenly he perceived Baynell.
+In his relief to recognize the face of a friend he forgot the purport of
+the assemblage, and broke out with a high senile chirp.
+
+"_You_ here, Cap'n! Well, sah! I is p'intedly s'prised." Then
+recollecting the situation, he was covered with confusion, especially as
+Baynell remained immovable and unresponsive, and once more old Ephraim
+bowed to the earth.
+
+Not a little doubt had been felt by the court when deliberating upon the
+admissibility of the testimony of the old negro. It was contrary to the
+civil law of the state and contravened also the theory of the unbounded
+influence over the slave which the master exerts. In view of the pending
+abolition of slavery, both considerations might be considered abrogated,
+and since this testimony was of great importance to the prosecution as
+well as to the defence, bearing directly on the main point at issue,--as
+a freedman he was duly sworn. The members of the court-martial had ample
+opportunity to test the degree of patience with which they had been
+severally endowed as the old darkey was engineered through the
+preliminary statements; inducted into the witness-chair on the left hand
+of the judge-advocate, his hat inverted at his feet, with his red
+bandanna handkerchief filling its crown; induced to give over his
+acquiescent iteration, "Yes, sah! Yes, sah! jes' ez _you_ say!"
+regardless of the significance of the question; and at last fairly
+launched on the rendering of his testimony. The prosecution, however,
+soon thought he was no such fool as he seemed, for the details of the
+earlier sojourn of Julius had a simplicity that was coercive of
+credence. The old servant stated, as if it were a matter of prime
+importance, that he had to feed him in the salad-bowl. He "das'ent fetch
+Marse Julius a plate 'kase de widder 'oman, dat's Miss Leonora, mought
+miss it. But _he_ didn't keer, little Julius didn't,"--then to explain
+the familiarity of the address he stated that "Julius de youngest ob
+Marster's chillen--de Baby-chile." Old Ephraim repeated this expression
+often, thinking it mitigated the fall from political grace which he
+himself had suffered, because of the leniency which must be shown to a
+"Baby-chile." And now and then, at first, the court-martial, though far
+from lacking in brainy endowment and keen perception, were at sea to
+understand that the "Baby-chile" would have been allowed to smoke a
+_see_gar,--he being "plumb desperate" for tobacco,--except so anxious
+was Judge Roscoe to avoid attracting the suspicion of Captain Baynell,
+who would "have tuk little Julius in quick as a dog snappin' at a fly!
+Yes--sah--yes--Cap'n," with a deprecatory side glance at Baynell. "De
+Baby-chile couldn't even dare to smoke, fur fear de Cap'n mought smell
+it from out de garret. De Baby-chile wanted a _see_gar so bad he sont
+his Pa forty messages a day. But his Pa didn't allow him ter light
+one--not one; he jes' gnawed the e-end."
+
+It required, too, some mental readjustment to recognize the "Baby-chile"
+in the young Samson, who had almost carried off the gates of the town
+itself, the key of the whole department, on his stalwart back. This
+phrase was even more frequently repeated as Uncle Ephraim entered upon
+the details of Julius's escape and his attack on Baynell--it seemed to
+mitigate the intensity with which he played at the game of war to speak
+of it as the freaks of a "Baby-chile."
+
+The witness could produce no replies to the question, and indeed he had
+no recollection, as to how Julius Roscoe became possessed of the facts
+concerning the works, for old Ephraim did not realize that he himself
+had afforded this information--acquired in aimlessly tagging after the
+detail sent for ammunition, the negroes coming and going with scant
+restriction in the camps of their liberators. But very careful was he to
+let fall no word of the citizen's dress he had conveyed to the
+"Baby-chile" in the grotto, under cover of night.
+
+"Bress Gawd!" he said to himself, "it's de Cap'n on trial--_not me_!"
+
+He detailed with great candor the lies he had told Captain Baynell,
+when, emerging from his long insensibility, he had asked about the Rebel
+officer. "It was a dream," the witness had told "Cap'n." In Captain
+Baynell's earlier illness he had often been delirious, and it had amused
+him when he recovered to hear the quaint things he had said; sometimes
+"Cap'n" himself described to Judge Roscoe or to the surgeon the queer
+sights he had seen, the results of the morphine administered. So in this
+instance he had hardly seemed surprised, but had let it pass like the
+rest.
+
+Uncle Ephraim did not vary these statements in any degree, not even
+under the ordeal of cross-examination. Indeed, he stood this remarkably
+well and left the impression he had made unimpaired. But when he was
+told that he might stand aside, and it entered into his comprehension
+that the phrase meant that he might leave the room, he fairly chirped
+with glee and obvious relief.
+
+"Thankee, Marse Gen'al!" he said to the youngest member of the court, a
+captain, to whom he had persisted in addressing most of his replies, and
+had continuously promoted to the rank of general, as if this high
+station obviously best accorded with the young officer's deserts.
+
+Old Ephraim scuttled off to the door, stumbling and hirpling in his
+haste and agitation, and it had not closed on him, when his "Bress de
+Lawd! he done delivered me f'om dem dat would have devoured me!"
+resounded through the room.
+
+There was a laugh outside--somebody in the corridor opined that the
+court-martial wanted no such tough old morsel, but not a smile touched
+the serious faces on each side of the table, and the next witness was
+summoned.
+
+This was Mrs. Gwynn. She produced an effect of sober elegance in her
+dress of gray barège, wearing a simple hat of lacelike straw of the same
+tint, with velvet knots of a darker gray, on her beautiful golden-brown
+hair. The court-martial, guaranteed to have no heart, had, as far as
+perceptible impression was concerned, no eyes. They looked stolidly at
+her as, with a swift and adaptive intelligence, she complied with the
+formalities, and her testimony was under way.
+
+So youthful, so girlish and fair of face, so sylphlike in form was she,
+that her appearance was of far more significance in their estimation
+than their apparent lack of appreciation might betoken. More than one
+who had begun to incline to the views of the prosecution thought that he
+beheld here the influence which had fostered treason and brought a fine
+officer to a forgetfulness of his oath, a disregard of his duty, and the
+destruction of every value of life and every consolation of death.
+
+Her manner, however, was not that of a siren. All the incongruities of
+her aspect were specially pronounced as she sat in the clear light of
+the window and looked steadfastly at each querist in turn, so soberly,
+so earnestly, with so little consciousness of her beauty, that it seemed
+in something to lack, as if a more definite aplomb and intention of
+display could enhance the fact.
+
+Apparently it was a conclusive testimony that she was giving, for it was
+presently developed that she did not know that Julius Roscoe was in the
+house; that she herself had suggested to Captain Baynell to go in search
+of a book up the stairs to his hiding-place, from which there was no
+other mode of egress; that in less than two minutes she heard Captain
+Baynell's loud exclamations of surprise, and the words in his voice,
+very quick and decisive--"You are my prisoner!" twice repeated. She had
+rushed to the door of the hall to hear a crash as of a fall, and she saw
+the balustrade of the staircase, which was the same structure throughout
+the three stories, shaking, as Julius Roscoe, covered with blood, dashed
+by her and out into the balcony. She knew that Baynell was delirious
+subsequently, and that he was kept in ignorance as to what had
+occasioned his fall.
+
+There was a degree of discomfiture on the part of the prosecution. It
+was not that the judge-advocate was specially bloody-minded or
+vindictive. He had a part to play, and it behooved him to play it well.
+It would seem that if the prosecution broke down on so obvious and
+simple a case, which had been the nucleus of so much disaster, blame
+might attach to him, by the mere accident of his position. These
+reflections rendered him ingenious, and with the license of
+cross-examination he began with personalities.
+
+"You have stated that you are a widow?"
+
+"Yes. I am the widow of Rufus Allerton Gwynn."
+
+"You do not wear widow's weeds?"
+
+"No. I have laid them aside."
+
+"In contemplation of matrimony?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is not the accused your accepted suitor?"
+
+"No."
+
+Baynell was looking down at a paper in his hand. His eyelids flickered,
+then he looked up steadily, with a face of quiet attention.
+
+A member of the court preferred the demand:--
+
+"Was he ever a suitor for your hand?"
+
+"Yes." Her face had flushed, but she kept her eyes steadily fixed on the
+questioner.
+
+The president of the court cleared his throat as if minded to speak.
+Then obviously with the view of avoiding misunderstandings as to dates
+he formulated the query: "Was this recent? May I ask _when_ you declined
+his proposal?"
+
+"I am not certain of the date," she replied. "It was--let me think--it
+was the evening of a day when the neighborhood sewing-circle met at my
+uncle's house. I remember, now--it was the sixth of May."
+
+"Did Captain Baynell attend the meeting of the sewing-circle?"--the
+judge-advocate permitted himself an edge of satire.
+
+"He was present, and Colonel Ashley, and Lieutenant Seymour."
+
+"Oh!" said the judge-advocate, at a loss.
+
+At a loss and doubtful, but encouraged. To his mind she offered the key
+to the situation. Keenly susceptible to feminine influence himself, he
+fancied he could divine its effect on another man. He proceeded warily,
+reducing his question to writing, while on various faces ranged about
+the table appeared a shade of doubt and even reprobation of the tone he
+was taking.
+
+"You have laid aside the insignia of mourning--yet you do not
+contemplate matrimony. You are very young."
+
+"I am twenty-three--as I have already stated."
+
+"You may live a long time. You may live to grow old. You propose to live
+alone the remainder of your days. Did you tell Captain Baynell that?"
+
+"In effect, yes."
+
+Her face had grown crimson, then paled, then the color came again in
+patches. But her voice did not falter, and she looked at her
+interlocutor with an admirable steadiness. The president again cleared
+his throat as if about to speak. The shade of disapprobation deepened on
+the listening faces.
+
+The judge-advocate leaned forward, wrote swiftly, then read in a
+tantalizing tone, as of one who has a clincher in reserve:--
+
+"Now was not that a mere feminine subterfuge? You know you could hardly
+be _sure_ that you will never marry again--at your age."
+
+Once more the president cleared his throat, but he spoke this time.
+
+"Do you desire to push this line of investigation farther?" he said,
+objection eloquent in his deep, full voice.
+
+"One moment, sir." The judge-advocate had been feeling his way very
+cautiously, but he was flustered by the interruption, and he was
+conscious that he put his next question less adroitly than he had
+intended.
+
+"Why are you so sure, if I may ask?"
+
+There was a tense silence. She said to herself that this was no time or
+place for finical delicacy. A man's life, his honor, all he held dear,
+were in jeopardy, and it had fallen to her to say words that must needs
+affect the result. She answered steadily. "My reply to Captain Baynell
+was not actuated by any objections to him. I know nothing of him but
+what is greatly to his credit." She hesitated for a moment. She had
+grown very white, and her eyes glittered, but her voice was still firm
+as she went on:----
+
+"There is no reason why I should not speak freely under these
+circumstances, for every one knows--every one who is cognizant of our
+family affairs--that my married life was extremely wretched. I was very
+unhappy, and I told Captain Baynell that I would never marry again."
+
+Dead silence reigned for a moment. They had all heard the story of her
+hard fate. The discussion as to whether a chair had been merely broken
+over her head, or she had been dragged about her home one woful midnight
+by the masses of her beautiful hair, was insistently suggested as the
+sunlight lay athwart it now, and the breeze moved its tendrils
+caressingly. The eyes of the court-martial looked at the judge-advocate
+with fiery reproach, and the heart of the court-martial beat for her for
+the moment with chivalric partisanship.
+
+For the first time Baynell seemed to lose his composure. His face was
+scarlet, his hands trembled. He was biting his under lip violently in an
+effort at self-control; he was experiencing an agony of sympathy and
+regret that this should be forced upon her, of helpless fury that he
+could be of no avail.
+
+Still once more the president cleared his throat, this time
+peremptorily. The judge-advocate, considerably out of countenance,
+hastily forestalled him, that he might justify his course by bringing
+out the point he desired to elicit, reading his question aloud for its
+submission to the court, though her last reply had rendered his clincher
+of little force.
+
+"Did you say to Captain Baynell that you have no intention of marrying
+again merely as a subterfuge--to soften the blow, because you expect to
+marry Lieutenant Roscoe as soon as the war is over?"
+
+His suspicion that Baynell had been accessory to the concealment of
+young Roscoe so long as he did not fear him as a rival was evident.
+Baynell turned suddenly and stared with startled eyes in which an amazed
+dismay contended with futile anger that this,--such a motive--such a
+course of action, could be attributed to him.
+
+She replied only to the obvious question, evidently not realizing the
+implication. The tension was over; her color had returned; her voice was
+casual.
+
+"No. I have no thought of marrying Lieutenant Roscoe."
+
+"Has he asked you to marry him?"
+
+"Long ago,--when he was a mere boy."
+
+"And again since your widowhood?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You have seen him since?"
+
+"Only that morning when he rushed past me in the hall," she replied, not
+apprehending the trend of his questions.
+
+"Captain Baynell must have had some reason to think you would marry him,
+or he would not have asked you. You rejected him one evening. The next
+morning he arrested Lieutenant Roscoe, who had been in hiding in the
+house,--was there some understanding between you and Captain
+Baynell,--had he earlier forborne this arrest in the expectation of your
+consent, and was the arrest made in revenge on a rival whom he fancied a
+successful suitor?"
+
+She looked at the judge-advocate with a horrified amazement eloquent on
+her face.
+
+"No! No! Oh," she cried in a poignant voice, "if you knew Captain
+Baynell, you could not, you would not, advance such implications against
+him,--who is the very soul of honor."
+
+The judge-advocate was again for an instant out of countenance.
+
+"You thought so little of him yourself as to reject his addresses," he
+said by way of recovering himself.
+
+She was absorbed in the importance of the crisis. She did not realize
+the effect of her words until after she had uttered them.
+
+"I did not appreciate his character then," she said simply.
+
+Once more there was an interval of tense and significant silence.
+Baynell, suddenly pale to the lips, lifted startled eyes as if he sought
+to assure himself that he had heard aright. Then he bent his gaze on the
+paper in his hand.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn, tremulous with excitement, appreciated a moment later the
+inadvertent and personal admission, and a burning flush sprang into her
+cheeks. The judge-advocate took instant advantage of her loss of poise.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that--that you would not reject him
+again? Will you explain?" he read his question with a twinkling eye that
+nettled and harassed her.
+
+A member of the court-martial objected to the interrogation as
+"frivolous and unnecessary," and therefore it was not addressed to the
+witness. A pause ensued.
+
+The brevet brigadier cleared his throat.
+
+"Have you concluded this line of investigation?" he said to the
+judge-advocate, for the prosecution was obviously breaking down.
+
+"I believe we are about through," said the judge-advocate, vacuously,
+looking at a list in his hand, "that is"--to the accused--"if you have
+no questions to put in reëxamination." And as Mrs. Gwynn was permitted
+to depart from the room, he still busied himself with his list. "Three
+names, yet. These are the children, sir."
+
+Every member of the household of Judge Roscoe was summoned as a witness
+for the defence, to seek to establish Baynell's innocence in these
+difficult circumstances, even the little girls, and indeed otherwise the
+prosecution would have subpoenaed them on the theory that if there were
+any treachery, the children had not the artifice to conceal it. So far
+this testimony was unequivocal. Judge Roscoe had sworn to the simple
+facts and the measures taken to avoid the notice of the Federal officer.
+Uncle Ephraim's testimony, save for the withheld episode of the grotto,
+the exact truth, was corroborative, but suffered somewhat from his
+reputation for wearing two faces, his sobriquet of "Janus" being adduced
+by the prosecution. Mrs. Gwynn had affirmed that she herself did not
+know or suspect the presence of Julius in the house, so completely was
+he held _perdu_. The agitated little twins, each examined as to her
+knowledge of the obligations of an oath and sworn, separately testified
+in curiously clipped, suppressed voices that they knew nothing, heard
+nothing, saw nothing of Julius Roscoe in the house.
+
+In the face of this unanimity it seemed impossible to prove aught save
+that in one of those hazardous visits home, so dear to the rash young
+Southern soldiers, the father had taken successful precautions to defeat
+suspicion; and the Confederate officer had shown great adroitness in
+carrying out the plan of his campaign which his observations inside the
+lines had suggested.
+
+On the last day of the trial Captain Baynell was beginning to breathe
+more freely, all the testimony having been taken except the necessarily
+formal questioning of the dumb child. As she was sworn and interrogated,
+one of the other children, sworn anew for the purpose, acted as her
+interpreter, being more accustomed than the elders to the use of the
+manual alphabet. The court-room was interested in the quaint situation.
+The aspect of the two little children, in their white summer attire, in
+this incongruous environment, with their tiny hands lifted in signalling
+to each other, their eyes shining with excitement, touched the
+spectators to smiles and a stir of pleasant sympathy. Now and then
+Geraldine's silvery treble faltered while repeating the question, to
+demonstrate her comprehension of it, and she desisted from her task to
+gaze in blue-eyed wonder over her shoulder at the crowd. The deaf-mute
+was passed over cursorily by the defence, only summoned in fact that no
+one of the household might be omitted or seem feared. Suddenly one of
+the members of the court asked a question in cross-examination. In civil
+life this officer, a colonel of volunteers, had been an aurist of some
+note and the physician in attendance in a deaf-and-dumb asylum. He was a
+portly, robust man, whose prematurely gray hair and mustache were at
+variance with his florid complexion and his bright, still youthful, dark
+eyes. He had a manner peculiarly composed, bland, yet commanding. He
+leaned forward abruptly on the table; with an intent, questioning gaze
+he caught the child's eyes as she stood lounging against the tall
+witness-chair. Then as he lifted his hands it was obvious that he was
+far more expert in the manual alphabet than Geraldine. In three minutes
+it was evident to the assembled members of the court-martial on each
+side of the long table, the president at its head, the judge-advocate at
+its foot, that the line of communication was as perfect as if both
+spoke. Delighted to meet a stranger who could converse fluently with
+her, the child's blue eyes glittered, her cheek flushed; she was
+continually laughing and tossing back the curls of her rich chestnut
+hair, as if she wished to be free of its weight while she gave every
+capacity to this matter. And yet in her youth, her innocence, her
+inexperience, she knew naught of the ultimate significance of the
+detail.
+
+It was an evidence of the degree to which she was isolated by her
+infirmity, how slight was her participation in the subtler interests of
+the life about her, that she had no remote conception of the intents and
+results of the investigation. Even her curiosity was manacled--it
+stretched no grasp for the fact. She did not question. She did not dream
+that it concerned Captain Baynell. She had no idea that trouble had
+fallen upon him. Tears to her expressed woe, or a visage of sadness, or
+the environment of poverty or physical hurt--but this bright room, with
+its crowd of intent spectators; this splendid array of uniformed men of
+an august aspect; her own friend, Captain Baynell, present, himself in
+full regimentals, calm, composed, quiet, as was his wont, looking over a
+paper in his hand--how was the restricted creature to imagine that this
+was the arena of a life-and-death conflict.
+
+"Yes!" the little waxen-white fingers flashed forth. "Yes, indeed, she
+had known that Soldier-Boy was in the house. That was Julius!"
+
+She gave the military salute with her accustomed grace and spirit,
+lifting her hand to the brim of her hat, and looked laughing along the
+line of stern, bearded faces and military figures on either side of the
+long table.
+
+The other "ladies" did not know that Soldier-Boy was there, though they
+saw him, and she saw him, too! It was in the library, and it was just
+about dusk. They were surprised, and came and told the family that they
+had seen a ghost. They knew no better! They were young and they were
+little. They were only six, the twins, and she was eight; a great girl
+indeed!
+
+Once more she tossed back her hair, and, with her eyes intent from under
+the wide Leghorn brim of her hat, bedecked with bows of a broad white
+ribbon with fluffy fringed edges, she watched his white military
+gauntlets, uplifted as he asked the next question on his slow fingers.
+
+How her own swiftly flickered!
+
+Yes, indeed, she had told the family better. It was no ghost, but only
+Soldier-Boy! She had told Captain Baynell. She wanted him to see
+Soldier-Boy. He was beautiful--the most beautiful member of the family!
+
+Oh, yes, Baynell knew he was in the house. She had told him by her sign.
+When she had first shown him Soldier-Boy's fine portrait, they had told
+him what she meant.
+
+No! Captain Baynell had not forgotten! For when she said it was no
+ghost, but Soldier-Boy, Cousin Leonora cried out, "Oh, she means Julius;
+that is her sign for him!" Cousin Leonora did not use the manual
+alphabet; she read the motion of her lips. None of them used the
+alphabet except a little bit; Soldier-Boy the best of all.
+
+Throughout there was a continual ripple of excitement among the members
+and several heads were dubiously shaken. More than once Baynell's
+counsel sought to interpose an objection,--mindful of the preposterous
+restrictions of his position, swiftly writing his views, transmitted, as
+if he himself were dumb, through the prisoner to the judge-advocate and
+by him to the court. The testimony of the witness could not be legally
+taken this way, he insisted, merely by the repetition of what she had
+said, by a member of the court-martial for the benefit of the rest.
+
+The peculiar petulance of those who lack a sense was manifested in the
+acrimony which shone in the child's eyes as she perceived that he sought
+to restrict and repress her statement of her views. When he ventured
+himself to ask her a question, having some knowledge of the manual
+alphabet, she merely gazed at his awkward gesticulations with an
+expression of polite tolerance, making no attempt to answer, then cast
+up her eyes, as who should say, "Saw ever anybody the like of that!" and
+catching the intent gaze of the brigadier, she burst into a sly
+coquettish ripple of laughter that had all the effect of a roguish
+aside. Then, turning to the ex-surgeon, her fingers flickered forth the
+hope that he would come and see her and talk. When the war was over, she
+was going back to school where she had learned the manual
+alphabet,--there, although dumb, they talked much.
+
+The mention of the word "school" suggested an idea which obviated the
+difficulty as to how this extraordinary testimony could be put into such
+shape as to render it available, impervious to cavil, strictly in
+accordance with precedent in the case of witnesses who are "mute by the
+visitation of God." The cross-examiner asked her if she could write. How
+she tossed her head in pride and scorn of the question! Write--of course
+she could write. Cousin Leonora had taught her.
+
+When she was placed in a chair, and mounted on a great book beside the
+judge-advocate--looking like a learned mushroom under her big white hat,
+her white flounced skirts fluttering out, her long white hose and
+slippered feet dangling--he wrote the questions and accommodated her
+with a blotting-pad and pen, and it may be doubted if ever hitherto a
+small bunch of fabric and millinery contained so much vainglory. In
+truth the triumph atoned for many a soundless day--to note the surprise
+on his solemn visage, between his Burnside whiskers, as she glanced
+covertly up into his face, watching the effect of her first answer, five
+or six lines of clear, round handwriting, sensibly expressed, and
+perfectly spelled. She wrote much the more legibly of the two, and once
+there occurred a break when one of the members of the court asked a
+question in writing, and she was constrained to put one hand before her
+face to laugh gleefully, for one of his capital letters was so bad--she
+was great on capitals--that she must needs ask what was meant by it.
+
+Baynell, in reëxamination, himself wrote to ask what he had said when he
+was told that the ghost in the library was Julius Roscoe.
+
+"Nothing," she wrote in answer, all unaware how she was destroying him.
+"Nothing at all. You just looked at me and then looked at Cousin Leonora.
+But Grandpa said, 'Oh, fie! oh, fie!' all the time."
+
+Thus the extraordinary testimony was taken. The paper, with her answers
+in her round childish characters and flourishing capitals, all as plain
+as print and exhibiting a thorough comprehension of what she was asked,
+was handed to each of the members of the court-martial, here and there
+eliciting a murmur of surprise at her proficiency. The prosecution, that
+had practically broken down, now had the point of the sword at the
+throat of the defence.
+
+There was naught further necessary but to confront the earlier witnesses
+with this episode. Mrs. Gwynn, recalled, stared in amazement for a
+moment as a question was put as to the significant event of the
+discovery of a ghost in the library, one afternoon. Then as the
+reminiscence grew clear to her mind, she rehearsed the circumstance,
+stating in great confusion that she had disregarded it at the time, and
+had forgotten it since.
+
+So unimportant, was it?
+
+She had thought it merely some folly of the children's; they were always
+taking silly little frights. She did remember that she had told Captain
+Baynell once before that the military salute was the child's sign for
+Julius Roscoe, and that she had repeated this information then.
+No--Captain Baynell made no search in the library where the supposed
+ghost was seen,--no,--nor elsewhere.
+
+When Mrs. Gwynn, under the stress of these revelations, broke down and
+burst into tears, the eyes of the members of the court-martial intently
+regarding her were unsympathetic eyes, despite her beauty and
+charm,--the more unsympathetic because Judge Roscoe had also remembered
+these circumstances, stating, however, that they had not alarmed him,
+for Captain Baynell evidently did not understand.
+
+"Is his knowledge of English, then, so limited?" he was ironically
+asked.
+
+Old Ephraim, too, was able to recollect the fact of the child's
+disclosure of the presence of Julius Roscoe in the house to Captain
+Baynell,--declaring, though, that he himself had hindered its
+comprehension by upsetting the coffee urn full of scalding coffee, which
+he had just brought to the table where the group were sitting, thus
+effecting a diversion of interest.
+
+All the witnesses were dismissed at last, and the final formal defence
+was presented in writing. The room was cleared and the judge-advocate
+read aloud to the members of the court the proceedings from the
+beginning. Laboriously, earnestly, impartially, they bent their minds to
+weigh all the details, and then for a time they sat in secluded
+deliberation--a long time, despite the fact that the conclusions of the
+majority admitted of no doubt. Several of the members revolted against
+the inevitable result, argued with vehemence, recapitulated all in
+Baynell's favor with the fervor of eager partisans, and at last
+protested with a passion of despair against the decision, for the
+finding was adverse and the unanimity of two-thirds of the votes
+rendered the penalty death.
+
+The sentence was of course kept secret until it should be approved and
+formally promulgated by authority. But the public had readily divined
+the result and anticipated naught from the revision of the proceedings.
+
+Suspense is itself a species of calamity. It has all the poignant
+acuteness of hope without the buoyancy of a sustained expectation, and
+all the anguish of despair without its sense of conclusiveness and the
+surcease of striving. Pending the review of the action of the
+court-martial Baynell discovered the wondrous scope of human suffering
+disassociated from physical pain. He had seriously thought he might die
+of his wounded pride, thus touched in honor, in patriotism, in life
+itself, and therefore he was amazed by the degree of solace he
+experienced in the sight of a woman's tears shed for his sake. For to
+Leonora Gwynn he seemed a persecuted martyr, with all a soldier's valor
+and a saint's impeccability. No one could know better than she the
+falsity of the charges against him, and in her resentment against the
+unhappy chances and the military law that had overwhelmed him, and her
+absolute despair for his fate, he enlisted all her heart. Those high and
+noble qualities which he possessed and which she revered were elicited
+in the extremity of his mortal peril. His exacting conscientiousness;
+his steadfast courage on the brink of despair; his absolute truth; his
+constancy in adversity; his strict sense of justice which would not
+suffer him to blame his friends whose concealments had wrought his ruin,
+nor his enemies who seemed indeed rancorously zealous in aspersing him
+that they might exculpate themselves at his risk; his lofty sense of
+honor which he valued more than life itself,--all showed in genuine
+proportions in the bleak unidealizing light which an actual vital crisis
+brings to bear on the incidents of personal character.
+
+She had even a more tender sympathy for his simpler traits, the filial
+friendship which he still manifested for Judge Roscoe, his affectionate
+remembrance of the little children of the household, the blended pride
+and delicacy with which he restrained all expression of the feeling he
+entertained toward her, that might seem to seek to utilize and magnify
+her unguarded admissions on the witness-stand,--influenced, as he
+feared, by her anxiety lest her rejection of his suit should militate to
+his disadvantage in the estimation of the court. In truth, however,
+there was scant need of his reserve on this point, for she made no
+disguise of her sentiment toward him. It became obvious, not only to
+him, but to all with whom she spoke. Indeed, she would have married him
+then, that she might be near him, that she might share his calamities,
+even while his disgrace, his everlasting contumely, seemed already
+accomplished, and he had scarcely a chance for life itself. And yet,
+hardly less than he, she valued those finer vibrations of chivalric
+ethics to which his every fibre thrilled. "I know that you are the very
+soul of honor," she said to him, "and that this certain assurance ought
+to be sufficient to nullify the stings of calumny,--but I had rather
+that you had died long ago, that I had never seen you, that I were dead
+myself, than that your record as a soldier, your probity as a man, the
+truth, the eternal truth, should even be questioned."
+
+Judge Roscoe, too, was infinitely dismayed by this strange blunder of
+circumstance, and flinched under the sense of responsibility, of a
+breach of hospitality, albeit unintentional, that his guest should incur
+so desperate a disaster by reason of a sojourn under his roof. Baynell
+was constrained to comfort them both, but in the hope to which he
+magnanimously affected to appeal he had scant confidence indeed.
+
+Even amidst the turmoil of his emotions and the crisis of his personal
+jeopardy he did not forget that the hand that hurled the bolts of doom
+had been innocent of cruel intent. "Never let her know," he warned Judge
+Roscoe, again and again. For although the testimony of the deaf-mute
+must needs have been elicited, she would be grieved to learn that she
+had wrought all these woes. Though literally the truth, it had the
+deceptive functions of a lie. It traduced him. It convicted him, the
+faithful soldier, of treachery. It hurled him down from his honorable
+esteem, and he seemed the basest of the base, traitor to his comrades,
+false to his oath, renegade to his cause, recreant to every sanction
+that can control a gentleman, and stained with blood-guiltiness for
+every life that was sacrificed in the skirmish by reason of his secret
+colloguing with the enemy.
+
+Nevertheless, he tenderly considered how frightful a shock she would
+experience should she realize that it was she who had set this hideous
+monster of falsehood grimly a-stalk as fact. "But never let her know!"
+he insisted with an unselfish thoughtfulness that endeared him the more
+to those who already loved him. In that silent life of hers, so much
+apart, he would fain that not even a vague echo of reproach should
+sound. In those mute thoughts, which none might divine, he would not
+evoke a suggestion of regret. One could hardly forecast the effect, he
+urged. A sorrow like this might prove beyond the reach of reason, of
+remonstrance, of consolation. She loved him, the silent, little thing!
+and he loved her. Never, never, let her know.
+
+And thus, although in the storm centre all else was changed, swept with
+sudden gusts of tempestuous grief, now and again reverberating with
+strange echoes of tumults beyond, all a-tremor with terror and frightful
+presage, calm still prevailed in her restricted little life. But to
+maintain this placidity was not without its special difficulties. More
+than once her grandfather's deep depression caught her intelligent
+attention, and she would pause to gaze wistfully, helplessly, sadly,
+upon him. Upon discovering Leonora in tears one day she flung herself on
+her knees beside her cousin, and kissing her hands wept and sobbed
+bitterly in sympathy with she knew not what. Sometimes she was moved to
+ask the dreary little twins if aught were amiss, and when they shook
+their heads in negation, she promptly signed that she did not believe
+them. Once she came perilously near the solution of the mystery that
+baffled her. Missing the visits of Baynell, who of course was still in
+arrest, she asked the twins if he were ill, and when they hysterically
+protested that he was well, a shadow of aghast apprehension hovered
+over her face, and she solemnly queried if he were dead.
+
+The phrase, "Never let her know," was like a dying wish, as sacred, as
+imperative, and Judge Roscoe hastily interfered to assure her that
+Baynell was indeed alive and well, and affected to rebuke the twins,
+saying that they were getting so dull and slow in the manual alphabet
+that they could scarcely answer a simple question of their sister's, and
+set them to spelling on their fingers under Lucille's instruction the
+first stanza of "The boy stood on the burning deck."
+
+Thus the continued calm of her life was akin to the quiet languors of
+the sweet summer evening so mutely reddening in the west, so softly
+changing to the azure and silver of twilight, so splendid in the vast
+diffusive radiance of the soundless moon. All the growths were as
+speechless. The rose was full of the voiceless dew. What need of words
+when the magnolia buds burst into bloom without a rustle. With a placid
+heart she watched the echoless march of the constellations. The daily
+brightening of the sumptuous season, the vivid presentment of the great
+pageant of the distant mountains glowed noiselessly. Amidst this
+encompassing hush, in suave content she thought out her inconceivable,
+unexpressed thoughts, with a smile in her eyes and the seal of eternal
+silence on her lips. For his behest was a sacred charge,--and she did
+not know,--she never knew!
+
+The evidence on which Baynell had been convicted and which had seemed so
+conclusive to the general court-martial, present during the testimony of
+the deaf-mute and its subsequent unwilling confirmation by the other
+witnesses for the defence, was not so decisive on a calm revision of the
+papers. The doubt remained as to how much he could be presumed to
+understand from the peculiar methods of the dumb child's disclosure and
+the scattered haphazard comments of the household. The circumstances
+were deemed by the reviewing authorities extra hazardous, difficult, and
+peculiar. The matter hung for a time in abeyance, but at last the court
+was ordered to reconvene for the rectification of certain irregularities
+in its proceedings, and for the reconsideration of its action in this
+case.
+
+The interval of time which had elapsed, with its proclivity to annul the
+effects of surprise and the first convincing force of a definite and
+irrefutable testimony, had served to foster doubt, not of the fact
+itself, but as to Baynell's comprehension of it. Perhaps the incredulity
+obviously entertained in high quarters rendered certain members of the
+court-martial less sure of the justifiability of their own conclusions.
+The maturer deliberation of the body accomplished the amendment of those
+points in the record which had challenged criticism, and the ripened
+judgment exercised in the reconsideration was manifested in such
+modifications of the view of the evidence adduced that, although several
+members still adhered to the earlier findings, the strength of the
+opposing opinion was so recruited that a majority of the number
+concurred in it, and the vote resulted in an acquittal.
+
+Hence Captain Baynell had again the stern pleasure of leading his
+battery into action. His pride never fully recovered its elasticity
+after the days of his humiliation, but his martyrdom was not altogether
+without guerdon. His marriage to Leonora, which was a true union of
+hearts and hands, took place almost immediately. Compassion, faith, the
+admiration of strength and courage in adversity, proved more potent
+elements with Leonora Gwynn than her appreciation of the prowess that
+stormed the fort.
+
+Beyond his promotion and a captain's shoulder straps, Julius Roscoe
+gained naught by his signal victory. Although he seemed to meet his
+disappointment in love jauntily enough, he went abroad almost
+immediately after the cessation of hostilities in America, and still
+later attained distinction as a soldier of fortune especially in the
+Franco-Prussian war. Now and again echoes from those foreign drum-beats
+penetrated the tranquillities of the storm centre, and Lucille, looking
+over the shoulders of the other two "ladies," officiously opening the
+evening paper to discern some item perchance of the absent, would
+glance up elated at the elders of the group, lifting her hand to her
+forehead with that spirited military salute, so expressive of
+Soldier-Boy.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE COMMON LOT
+
+By ROBERT HERRICK
+
+Author of "The Real World," "The Web of Life," "The Gospel of Freedom,"
+etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Mr. Herrick has written a novel of searching insight and absorbing
+interest; a first-rate story ... sincere to the very core in its matter
+and in its art."--HAMILTON W. MABIE.
+
+"The book is a bit of the living America of to-day, a true picture of
+one of its most significant phases ... living, throbbing with
+reality."--_New York Evening Mail._
+
+"Novels of its style and quality are few and far between ... he tells a
+story that is worth the telling ... it is a study of life as he sees it,
+and as thousands of his readers try to avoid seeing it."--_Boston
+Transcript._
+
+
+THE QUEEN'S QUAIR, or The Six Years' Tragedy
+
+By MAURICE HEWLETT
+
+Author of "Richard Yea-and-Nay," "The Forest Lovers," etc., etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Mr. Hewlett has produced in this book an enthralling work. It is at
+once a chronicle of certain momentous years in the life of his famous
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+is profoundly absorbing, and no one among the novelists of to-day save
+Mr. Hewlett could have written it. No one else could have sustained such
+a long narrative on so high a level with such consummate art."--_New York
+Tribune._
+
+"No piece of historical fiction has so adequately described the career
+of the unfortunate and misguided Queen of Scotland, and no other writer
+has approached Mr. Hewlett in dramatic power and literary skill. He uses
+words that express his meaning precisely.... His conciseness of forcible
+expression is indeed admirable. The story, too, is full of action and
+commands undivided attention. Mary's portrait leaves a lasting
+impression."--_Boston Budget._
+
+
+DOCTOR TOM, The Coroner of Brett
+
+By JOHN WILLIAMS STREETER
+
+Author of "The Fat of the Land," etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"A good story of the Kentucky mountains. The reader is caught at the
+start and held to the end."--_New York Sun._
+
+"One of the best and manliest novels that have appeared in a
+year."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+THE CROSSING
+
+By WINSTON CHURCHILL
+
+Author of "Richard Carvel," "The Crisis," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Mr. Churchill's work, for one reason or another, always commands the
+attention of a large reading public."--_The Criterion._
+
+"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting
+adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both
+in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial._
+
+"Mr. Churchill's romance fills in a gap which history has been unable to
+span, that gives life and color, even the very soul, to events which
+otherwise treated would be cold and dark and inanimate."--Mr. HORACE R.
+HUDSON in the _San Francisco Chronicle_.
+
+
+WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND
+
+By F. MARION CRAWFORD
+
+Author of "The Heart of Rome," "Saracinesca," "Via Crucis," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY HORACE T. CARPENTER
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Not since George Eliot's 'Romola' brought her to her foreordained place
+among literary immortals has there appeared in English fiction a
+character at once so strong and sensitive, so entirely and consistently
+human, so urgent and compelling in its appeal to sustained, sympathetic
+interest."--_Philadelphia North American._
+
+"She is the most womanly woman Mr. Crawford has given us in many a day,
+and after her another peasant, bloody, brooding Ercole, is most
+alive."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._
+
+
+THE QUEST OF JOHN CHAPMAN
+
+_THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN HERO_
+
+By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D.D.
+
+Author of "The Influence of Christ in Modern Life," etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"In this story Mr. Hillis has woven the life of the Middle West, the
+heroism and holiness of those descendants of the New England Puritans
+who emigrated still further into the wilderness. The story is of great
+spiritual significance, and yet of the earth, earthy--hence its strength
+and vitality.--_Montreal Daily Star._
+
+"No practised technist takes hold of his reader's interest with a
+prompter or surer grip than does this author at the very outset. Nowhere
+else in his book does he demonstrate his fitness for the work of fiction
+better than in the purely creative work. The style leaves little to be
+desired, for Dr. Hillis is, as we all know, a stylist. What perhaps is a
+surprise and also a pleasure, is the dramatic power revealed by the
+author. The book is forceful, its poetic opportunities are never missed,
+it is vivid and striking in its scenes, and pathos is a powerful element
+in the work."--_Brooklyn Daily Eagle._
+
+
+THE TWO CAPTAINS
+
+_A STORY OF BONAPARTE AND NELSON_
+
+By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
+
+Author of "A Little Traitor to the South," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+The action takes place in the years 1793 and 1798. The historic
+incidents centre around the siege of Toulon in Southern France in 1793,
+in which General Bonaparte first attracts the attention of the world to
+his genius; and the epoch-marking Battle of the Nile in the Bay of
+Aboukir, in Egypt, in 1798, in which Admiral Nelson forever shatters the
+Frenchman's dream of empire in the East. The story revolves around the
+love of Captain Robert Macartney, an Irishman who is an officer in the
+English Navy under Nelson, and Louise de Vaudémont, granddaughter of
+Vice-Admiral de Vaudémont, a great Royalist noble and officer of the old
+Navy of France before the Revolution. One of the leading characters is
+Bréboeuf, a silent Breton sailor--he does not speak a dozen words in the
+whole story--who interferes at critical points to promote the welfare of
+the young lovers in most striking and unconventional ways. The coast of
+Provence, the land of the minstrel and the troubadour, the city of
+Toulon, grim-walled, cannon-circled, the blue waters of the
+Mediterranean, the great ships-of-the-line, the sandy shores of Egypt,
+the ancient city of Alexandria, the palace of the Khedive, the Bay of
+Aboukir, are the successive settings of the dramatic story. General
+Bonaparte and Admiral Nelson both take prominent parts in the romance,
+and the characters of these fascinating men are described with fidelity,
+accuracy, and brilliancy.
+
+
+THE SECRET WOMAN
+
+By EDEN PHILLPOTTS
+
+Author of "The American Prisoner," "My Devon Year," etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+Rude and romantic characters, descriptions of lonely and picturesque
+Devonshire scenery, and a simple plot in which love and passion play
+strong parts, are part of the secret of Mr. Eden Phillpotts' very strong
+hold on the public. Slow-acting and slow-speaking but deep-feeling
+peasants play their parts in each drama amid a characteristically wild
+but sympathetic environment. The present powerful story shows the author
+at his best. The real tragedy is not in the actual murder and in the
+shadow of the gallows, but in the moral situation and the intense,
+engrossing moral struggle. Despite certain faults, each character in the
+story is of high mind and purpose, unselfish and deserving of respect.
+What might else be a gloomy theme is relieved by the minor characters.
+The talk of the Devonshire rustics is amusing, and every minor figure in
+the book is a distinct, true-to-nature character. The descriptions of
+external nature are done with feeling and knowledge; in this field no
+other living romancer equals Mr. Phillpotts. This work has some of the
+great qualities of serious literature--single in purpose, deep in study
+of motive and passion.
+
+
+THE WOMAN ERRANT
+
+Being Some Chapters from the Wonder Book of Barbara
+
+By the author of "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," etc.
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL GREFÉ
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"This clear-visioned writer, calmly surveying life from the wholesome
+vantage ground of a modest, contented suburban home, is not merely
+entertaining each year a growing number of appreciative readers, but she
+is inculcating in her own incisive way much of that same wise and simple
+philosophy of life that forms the enduring charm of the essays of
+Charles Wagner."--_New York Globe._
+
+
+RECENT FICTION
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50 each
+
+BARNES--THE UNPARDONABLE WAR. By JAMES BARNES, author of "Yankee Ships
+and Yankee Sailors," "Drake and his Yeomen," etc.
+
+     A queer turn in the political game; a clever scheme in
+     Newspaper Row; a perfectly plausible invention; these are a
+     few of the elements of interest in this absorbing story.
+
+DAVIS--FALAISE OF THE BLESSED VOICE: A Tale of the Youth of St. Louis,
+King of France. By WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS, author of "A Friend of Cæsar,"
+"God Wills It," etc.
+
+     A quick-moving, interesting tale of the development of the
+     young King Louis IX of France under the stress of a great
+     crisis.
+
+DEEPING--LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. By WARWICK DEEPING, author of "Uther and
+Igraine." With illustrations by W. Benda.
+
+     "A vigorous story ... told in the spirit of pure romance."--_New York
+     Evening Post._
+
+
+HOUSMAN--SABRINA WARHAM: The Story of Her Youth. By LAURENCE HOUSMAN,
+author of "Gods and Their Makers," etc.
+
+     A fascinating study of a woman's youth in one of the coast
+     counties of England, a carefully drawn picture of ever
+     interesting human types.
+
+LOVETT--RICHARD GRESHAM. By ROBERT MORSS LOVETT.
+
+     "Goes forward determinedly from a singular opening to an
+     unsuspected close, without faltering or wavering ... a very
+     honest piece of workmanship."--_New York Evening Post._
+
+
+LUTHER--THE MASTERY. By MARK LEE LUTHER, author of "The Henchman," "The
+Favor of Princes," etc.
+
+     A vigorous and convincing story of modern practical politics,
+     so notably strong in its sense of reality as to give the
+     reader the thrill of a privileged glimpse into the mysteries
+     of the one great game.
+
+OVERTON--CAPTAINS OF THE WORLD. By GWENDOLEN OVERTON, author of "Anne
+Carmel," "The Heritage of Unrest," etc.
+
+     An unusually fascinating book ... has the double attractive
+     power of earnestness and a subject which compels sympathetic
+     attention.
+
+POTTER--THE FLAME GATHERERS. By MARGARET HORTON POTTER, author of "Istar
+of Babylon," etc.
+
+     "A wonderful romance of intensity and color."--_Book News._
+
+SINCLAIR--MANASSAS. By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "Springtime and Harvest,"
+etc.
+
+     "In no single volume which we can call to mind have the
+     undercurrents of feeling, so intense and so varied, that
+     swayed men's minds in those troublous times, been so fully and
+     well portrayed."--_The Times Dispatch_ (Richmond).
+
+WEBSTER--TRAITOR AND LOYALIST: Or, The Man who Found his Country. By
+HENRY KITCHELL WEBSTER, author of "Roger Drake: Captain of Industry," "The
+Banker and the Bear," etc. With illustrations by Joseph Cummings Chase.
+
+    Mr. Webster's new romance is one in which love and war
+    contribute a full quota of interest, intrigue, thrilling
+    suspense, and hairbreadth escapes.
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+There is some arcane and inconsistent spelling and dialect. These have
+been preserved as far as possible.
+
+Only obvious typographical errors such as letters being transposed have
+been corrected and hyphenation has been made consistent.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock
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+ <title> The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock. </title>
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+
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+    body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;}
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+    .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;}
+
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+
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Storm Centre
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35423]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM CENTRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Val Wooff and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/old_books.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE STORM CENTRE</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/printers_logo.jpg" alt="" /></div>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE STORM CENTRE</span><br />
+<span class="big"><i>A NOVEL</i></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">BY<br />
+<span class="big">CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK</span><br />
+<small>AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON," "A SPECTRE <br />OF POWER," "IN THE
+STRANGER-PEOPLE'S COUNTRY,"<br /> "THE PROPHET OF THE GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS,"<br />
+"WHERE THE BATTLE WAS FOUGHT," ETC.</small></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">New York<br />THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />LONDON: MACMILLAN &amp; CO., LTD.<br />1905</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1905,<br />
+By THE MCMILLAN COMPANY</p>
+<p class="center">Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1905.</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Norwood Press </p>
+<p class="center">J. S. Cushing &amp; Co.&mdash;Berwick &amp; Smith Co.</p>
+<p class="center">Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. </p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="giant">THE STORM CENTRE</span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p>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 the
+quiet, book-lined room, the turbulent drums fitfully beating in tented
+camps far down the Tennessee River. Through the broad, old-fashioned
+window he saw the purple hills opposite begin to glow with a myriad of
+golden gleams, pulsing like fireflies, that told of thousands of troops
+in bivouac. He read the mystic message of the signal lights, shining
+with 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-begloomed
+town, and now and again the great blare of the brasses came widely
+surging on the raw vernal gusts. In the shadowy grove in front of this
+suburban home his own battery of horse-artillery was parked. It had
+earlier made its way over many an obstacle, and, oddly enough, through
+its agency he was recently enabled to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> penetrate the exclusive
+reserve of this Southern household, always hitherto coldly aloof and
+averse to the invader.</p>
+
+<p>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 during
+the trial practice of a new gun, lest in the firing the glass be
+shattered by the concussion of the air. His name was unusual, and seeing
+it on the card recalled many pleasant reminiscences to the mind of old
+Judge Roscoe. Another "Fluellen Baynell" had been his college chum, and
+inquiry developed the fact that this Federal captain of artillery was
+the son of this ancient friend. An interchange of calls ensued. And here
+sat Captain Baynell in the storm centre, the quiet of evening closing
+in, the lamp on the table serenely aglow, the wood fire flashing on the
+high brass andirons and fender, the lion delineated on the velvet rug
+respectfully crouching beneath his feet. But in this suave environment
+he was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, for the old colored
+servant who had admitted him and replenished the fire, and whom he had
+politely greeted as "Uncle Ephraim," in deference to his age, now
+loitered, volubly criticising the unseen, unknown inmates of the house,
+who would probably overhear, for at any moment the big oak door might
+usher them into the room.</p>
+
+<p>His excuses for his master's delay to appear absorbed but little time,
+and he assiduously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> brushed the polished stone hearth with a
+turkey wing to justify his lingering in conversation with the guest.
+Unexpected business had called Judge Roscoe to the town, thus preventing
+him from being present upon the arrival of Captain Baynell, invited to
+partake of tea <i>en famille</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"But den, he 'lowed dat Miss Leonora&mdash;dat's Mrs. Gwynn, his niece,
+a widder 'oman&mdash;would be ready, but Marster mought hev' knowed dat
+Miss Leonora ain't never ready for nuffin till day arter ter-morrow! Den
+dere's de ladies&mdash;dey hes been dressin' fur ye fur better dan an
+hour. But shucks! de ladies is so vain dat dey is jus' ez liable ter
+keep on dressin' fur anodder hour yit!"</p>
+
+<p>This was indubitably flattering information; but Captain Baynell, a
+blond man of thirty, of a military stiffness in his brilliant uniform,
+and of a most uncompromising dignity, glanced with an uneasy monition at
+the door, a trifle ajar. He was sensible, notwithstanding, of an
+unusually genial glow of expectation. The rude society of camps was
+unacceptable to a man of his exacting temperament, and, the sentiment of
+the country being so adverse to the cause he represented, he had had
+scant opportunities here to enter social circles of the grade that would
+elsewhere have welcomed him. He had not adequately realized how he had
+missed these refinements and felt the deprivation of his isolation till
+the moment of meeting the ladies of Judge Roscoe's household<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> was at hand. He had hardly expected,
+however, to create so great a flutter amongst them, and he was at once
+secretly elated and disdainful.</p>
+
+<p>Although a stranger to the ladies, the officer was well known to the old
+servant. The guns had hardly been unlimbered in the beautiful grove in
+front of the house ere the ancient slave had appeared in the camp to
+express his ebullient patriotism, to thank his liberators for his
+freedom,&mdash;for this was the result of the advance of the Federal
+army, a military measure and not as yet a legal enactment.</p>
+
+<p>Despite his exuberant rhetoric, there was something tenuous about his
+fervent protestations, and the fact that he still adhered to his
+master's service suggested a devotion to the old r&eacute;gime
+incongruous with his loudly proclaimed welcome of the new day.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you leave your servitude, then, Uncle Ephraim?" one of the
+younger officers had tentatively asked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat is jes' whut I say!" diplomatically replied Uncle Ephraim, who thus
+came to be called "the double-faced Janus."</p>
+
+<p>Now indeed, instead of a vaunt of liberty, he was disposed to apologize,
+for the sake of the credit of the house, that there were no more slaves
+to make a braver show in servitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Dey ain't got no butler now,&mdash;he's in a restauroar up
+north,&mdash;nor no car'age driver; dat fool nigger went off wid de
+Union army,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> an' got killed in a scrimmage. He would hev' stayed
+wid Marster, dough, if de Fed'ral folks hedn't tuk de hosses off wid de
+cavalry; he 'lowed he wuz too lonesome yere, wid jes' nuffin' but
+two-footed cattle ter 'sociate wid."</p>
+
+<p>Once more he whisked the turkey wing along the clean, smooth hearth;
+then, still on his knees before the fire, he again addressed himself to
+the explanations he deemed fit as to the reduced status of his master's
+household.</p>
+
+<p>"Me an' my wife is all de servants dey got now&mdash;she's Chaney, de
+cook in de kitchen. Dey hatter scuse me, fur I never waited in de house
+afore. No, sah! jes' a wuckin' hand; jes' a cawnfield hand, out'n de
+cawnfield straight!"</p>
+
+<p>Whisk went the turkey wing.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's whut I tell Miss Leonora,&mdash;dat's Mrs. Gwynn, de widder
+'oman, Marster's niece whut's been takin' keer ob de house yere sence
+his wife died,&mdash;I say I dunno no better when I break de dishes, an'
+Miss Leonora, she say a b'ar outer a holler tree would know better. Yah!
+yah!"</p>
+
+<p>The officer, feeling these domestic confidences a burden, began to
+scrutinize with an appearance of interest the Dresden china shepherd and
+shepherdess at either end of the tall white wooden mantelpiece, and then
+the clock of the same ware in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>Old Janus mistook the nature of his motive. "'Tis gittin' late fur
+shore! Gawd! dem ladies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> is a-dressin' an' a-dressin' yit! It's a
+pity Miss Leonora&mdash;dat's de widder 'oman&mdash;don't fix <i>herself</i>
+up some; looks ole, fur true, similar to a ole gran'mammy of a 'oman.
+But, sah, whut did she ever marry dat man fur?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell, in the stress of an unusual embarrassment, rose and
+walked to one of the tall book-cases, affecting to examine the title of
+a long row of books, but the old servant was not sensitive; he resorted
+to the simple expedient of raising his voice to follow the guest in a
+detail that brought Captain Baynell back to his chair in unseemly haste,
+where a lower tone was practicable.</p>
+
+<p>"She could hev' married my Marster's son, Julius, an' him de flower ob
+de flock! But no! She jus' would marry dis yere Gwynn feller, whut
+nobody wanted her ter marry, an' eloped wid him&mdash;she did! An' shore
+'nuff, dey do say he pulled her round de house by de hair ob her head,
+dough some 'lows he jus' bruk a chair ober her head!"</p>
+
+<p>The officer was a brave man, but now he was in the extremity of panic.
+What if some one were at the door on the point of entering?&mdash;the
+"widder 'oman" herself, for instance!</p>
+
+<p>"I don't need you any longer, Uncle Ephraim," he ventured to
+remonstrate.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm gwine, Cap'n, jus' as soon as I git through wid de ha'th," and
+Uncle Ephraim gave it a perfunctory whisk.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>He interpolated an explanation of his diligence. "I don't want Miss
+Leonora&mdash;dat's de widder 'oman&mdash;ter be remarkin' on it. Nobody
+kin do nuthin' ter suit her but Chaney, dis cook dey got, who belong ter
+Miss Leonora, an' befo' de War used ter be her waitin'-'oman. Chaney is
+all de estate Miss Leonora hes got lef,&mdash;an' ye know dat sort o'
+property ain't wurf much in dis happy day o' freedom. Miss Leonora wuz
+rich once in her own right. But she flung her
+marriage-settlements&mdash;dat dey had fixed to tie up her property so
+Gwynn couldn't sell it nor waste it&mdash;right inter de fiah! She
+declared she would marry a man whut she could trust wid her fortune!
+An'," the narrator concluded his story impressively, "when dat man
+died&mdash;his horse throwed him an' bruk his neck&mdash;I wondered dey
+didn't beat de drum fur joy, 'twuz sich a crownin' mercy! But he hed
+spent all her fortune 'fore he went!"</p>
+
+<p>The whisking wing was still; Uncle Ephraim's eyes dwelt on the fire with
+a glow of deep speculation. He lowered his voice mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat man wuz de poorest stuff ter make an angel out'n ever you see! I
+dunno <i>whut's</i> become of him."</p>
+
+<p>There was a stir outside, a footfall; and, as Captain Baynell sprang to
+his feet, feeling curiously guilty in receiving, however unwillingly,
+these revelations of the history of the family,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> Judge Roscoe
+entered, his welcome the more cordial and expressed because he noticed a
+certain constraint in his guest's manner, which he ascribed to the
+unintentional breach of decorum in the failure to properly receive him.</p>
+
+<p>"I had hoped my niece, Mrs. Gwynn, might have been here to save you a
+dull half hour, or perhaps my granddaughters&mdash;where are the ladies
+and Mrs. Gwynn, Ephraim?" he broke off to ask of "the double-faced
+Janus," scuttling out with his basket of chips and his turkey wing.</p>
+
+<p>"De ladies is dressin' ter see de company," replied Janus, with a grin
+wide enough to decorate both his faces. "Miss Leonora, she is helpin'
+'em!"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell experienced renewed embarrassment, but Judge Roscoe
+laughed with obvious relish.</p>
+
+<p>The host, pale, thin, nervous, old, was of a type ill calculated to
+endure the stress of excitement and turmoil of incident of the Civil
+War; indeed, he might have succumbed utterly in the mortality of the
+aged, so general at that period, but for the incongruous rest and
+inaction of the storm centre. The town was heavily garrisoned by the
+Federal forces; the firing line was far afield. He had two sons in the
+Confederate army, but too distant for news, for speculation, for aught
+but anxiety and prayer. The elder of them was a widower, the father of
+"the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> ladies," and hence in his absence Judge Roscoe's charge of
+his granddaughters.</p>
+
+<p>The phrase "the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn" grated on Captain Baynell. It
+seemed incongruous with the punctilious old Southern gentleman to make a
+discourteous distinction thus between his granddaughters and his niece.
+Baynell dated his sympathy with her from that moment. However old and
+faded and reduced the house-keeperish "widder 'oman" might be, it was an
+affront to thus segregate her. He felt an antagonism toward "the ladies"
+in their exclusive aristocratic designation even before he heard the
+first dainty touch of their slippered feet upon the great stairway, or a
+gush of fairylike treble laughter. As a silken rustle along the hall
+heralded their bedizened approach, he arose ceremoniously to greet them.</p>
+
+<p>The door flew open with a wide swing; his eyes rested on nothing beyond,
+for he was looking two feet over range. There rushed into the room three
+little girls, six and eight years of age, all hanging back for a moment
+till their grandfather's encouraging "Come, ladies!" nerved them for the
+introduction of Captain Baynell. Although sensible of a deep
+disappointment and a sudden cessation of interest in the storm centre,
+he could hardly refrain from laughing at the downfall of his own
+confident expectations.</p>
+
+<p>Yet "the ladies," in their way, were well worth looking at, and their
+diligent care of their toilette<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> had not been in vain. The two
+younger ones were twins, very rosy, with golden hair, delicately curled
+and perfumed. The other was far more beautiful than either. Her hair was
+of a chestnut hue; her dark blue eyes were eloquent with
+meaning&mdash;"speaking eyes." She had an exquisitely fair complexion
+and an entrancing smile, and amidst the twittering words and fluttering
+laughter of the others she was silent; it was a sinister, weighty,
+significant silence.</p>
+
+<p>"A deaf mute," her grandfather explained with a note of pathos and pain.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell's acceptance of the fact had the requisite touch of
+sympathy and interest, but no more. How could he imagine that the
+child's infirmity could ever concern him, could be a factor of import in
+the most notable crisis of his life!</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, he might have forgotten it within the hour had naught else
+riveted his attention to the house. He had begun to look forward to a
+dull evening,&mdash;the reaction from the expectation of charming
+feminine society of a congenial age. "The ladies" failed in that
+particular, lovely though they were in the quaint costumes of the day,
+the golden-haired twins respectively in faint blue and dark red "satin
+faced" merino, the brown-haired child in rich orange. Over their bodices
+all three wore sheer spencers of embroidered Swiss muslin, with
+embroidered ruffles below the waist line. This was encircled with
+silken<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> sashes, the tint of their gowns. The skirts were short,
+showing long, white, clocked stockings and red morocco slippers with
+elastic crossing the instep. The trio were swift in making advances into
+friendship, and soon were swarming about the officer, counting his
+shining buttons with great particularity, and squealing with greedy
+delight when an unexpected row was discovered on the seam of each of his
+sleeves.</p>
+
+<p>As the door again opened, the very aspect of the room altered&mdash;a
+new presence pervaded the life of Fluellen Baynell that made the idea of
+strife indeed alien, aloof; the past a forgotten trifle; the future
+remote, in indifferent abeyance, and the momentous present the chief
+experience of his existence. It was partially the effect of surprise,
+although other elements exerted a potent influence.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of the forlorn, faded "widder 'oman" of his fancy, there
+appeared a girlish shape, whose young, fair face was a magnet to all the
+romance within him. What mattered it with such beauty that the
+expression was a dreary lassitude, the pose indifference, the garb a
+shabby black dress worn with no touch of distinction, no thought, no
+care for appearances. As he rose, with "the ladies" affectionately
+clinging about him, and bowed low in the moment of introduction, his
+searching eyes discerned every minute detail. It was like a sun picture
+upon his consciousness, realized and fixed in his mind as<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> if he had known it forever. And with
+a sudden ignoble recollection his face flushed from his forehead to his
+high military collar. Was it her hair, the old gossip had said, or was
+it a chair?</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to look at her without noticing her hair. A rich,
+golden brown, it waved back from her white brow in heavy undulations,
+caught and coiled in a great glittering knot at the back of her head,
+with no ornament, simplicity itself. Certainly, he reflected, no
+preparations were in progress in this quarter for his captivation. One
+of the ready-made crape collars of the period was about her neck, the
+delicate, fine contour of her throat displayed by the cut of her dress.
+Her luminous gray eyes, with their long black lashes, cast upon him a
+mere glance, cool, casual, unfriendly, it might even seem, if it were
+worth her languid while.</p>
+
+<p>He sought to win her to some demonstration of interest when they were
+presently at table, with old Janus skirmishing about the dining room
+with a silver salver, hindering the meal rather than serving it. Only
+conventional courtesy characterized her, although she gave Baynell a
+radiant smile when offering a second cup of tea; an official smile, so
+to speak, strictly appertaining to her pose as hostess, as she sat
+behind the massive silver tea service that had been in the Roscoe family
+for many years.</p>
+
+<p>She left the conversation almost wholly to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> gentlemen when
+they had returned to the library. Quiescent, inexpressive, she leaned
+back in a great arm-chair, her beautiful eyes fixed reflectively on the
+fire. The three "ladies," on a small sofa, apparently listened too, the
+little dumb girl seeming the most attentive of the trio, to the
+half-hearted, guarded, diplomatic discussion of politics, such as was
+possible in polite society to men of opposing factions in those heady,
+bitter days. Only once, when Baynell was detailing the names of his
+brothers to gratify Judge Roscoe's interest in the family of his ancient
+friend, did Mrs. Gwynn suggest her individuality. She suddenly rose.</p>
+
+<p>"You would like to see the portraits of Judge Roscoe's sons," she said
+as definitely as if he had asked this privilege. It may not have been
+the fact, but Baynell felt that she was making amends to the absent for
+the apostasy of "entertaining a Yankee officer," as the phrase went in
+that day, by exhibiting with pride their cherished images and forcing
+him to perform polite homage before them.</p>
+
+<p>He meekly followed, however, as she took from a wide-mouthed jar on the
+table a handful of tapers, made of rolled paper, and, lighting one at
+the fire, led the way across the wide hall and into the cold, drear
+gloom of the drawing-rooms. There in the dim light from the hall
+chandelier, shining through the open door, she flitted from lamp to
+lamp, and instantly there was a chill,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> white glitter throughout
+the great apartments, showing the floriated velvet carpets, affected at
+that time, the carved rosewood furniture upholstered with satin damask
+of green and gold, the lambrequins of a harmonizing brocade and lace
+curtains at the windows, the grand piano, and marble-topped tables, and
+on the walls a great inexpressive mirror, above each of the white marble
+mantelpieces, and some large oil paintings, chiefly the portraits of the
+family.</p>
+
+<p>The three "ladies" gathered under the picture of their father with the
+fervor of pilgrims at a votive shrine. Clarence Roscoe's portrait seemed
+to gaze down at them smilingly. He it was who had given his little
+daughters their quaint, formal sobriquet of "the ladies," the phrase
+seriously accepted by others, until no longer recognized as a nickname.
+Suddenly the deaf mute rushed back to officiously claim the officer's
+attention. Her brilliant eyes were aglow; the fascination of her smile
+transfigured her face; she was now gazing at another portrait. This was
+of a very young man, extraordinarily handsome, in full Confederate
+uniform, and, carrying her hand to her forehead with the most spirited
+air imaginable, she gave the military salute.</p>
+
+<p>"That is her sign for Julius," cried Mrs. Gwynn, delightedly. "We have
+seen many armies with banners, but Julius is her ideal of a soldier, and
+the only one in all the world whom she distinguishes by the military
+salute."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>"My younger son," explained Judge Roscoe; while "the ladies" with their
+quick transitions from subject to subject were sidling about the rooms,
+sinking their feet as deep as possible into the soft pile of the velvet
+carpets, and feeling with their slim fingers the rich gloss of the satin
+damask coverings, complacent in the consciousness that it was all very
+fine and revelling in a sense of luxury. Poor little ladies!</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Gwynn with a word presently sent them scuttling back to the
+warmth of the library. As she began to extinguish the lamps Baynell
+offered to assist. She accepted civilly, of course, but with the
+unnoting, casual acquiescence that had begun to pique him, and as they
+closed the door upon the shadowy deserted apartments he thought they
+were of a grewsome favor, that the evening was of an untoward drift, and
+he lingered only for the conventional interval after returning to the
+library before he took his leave.</p>
+
+<p>As the door closed after him he noted that the stars were in the dark
+sky. The wind was laid. The lights in the many camps had all
+disappeared, for "taps" had sounded. Now and again in close succession
+he heard the clocks in divers towers in Roanoke City striking the hour.
+There was no token of military occupation in all the land, save that
+from far away on a turnpike toward the dark west came the dull
+continuous roll of wagon wheels as an endless forage train made its way
+into the town; and as he passed out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> of the portico, a sentry
+posted on the gravelled drive in front of the house challenged him. He
+had ordered a guard to be stationed there for its protection against
+wandering marauders, so remote was the place. He gave the countersign,
+and took his way down through the great oak and tulip trees of the grove
+that his authority had also been exerted to preserve. His father's old
+friend had this claim upon his courtesy, he felt, for century oaks
+cannot be replaced in a fortnight, and without them the home would
+indeed be bereft.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking still of the placid storm centre, Leonora Gwynn's face was
+continually in his mind; the tones of her voice echoed in his revery.
+And then suddenly he heard his step ringing on the frosty ground with a
+new spirit; he felt his finger tips tingle; his face glowed with rancor.
+The man was dead, and this indeed was well! But&mdash;profane thought!
+was it her hair? her beautiful hair? "The coward! the despicable
+villain!" he called aloud between his set teeth.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p>The next day naught of interest would Baynell detail of his venture into
+the storm centre. His invitation to the house of Judge Roscoe, somewhat
+noted for the vigor of his rebellious sentiments, resentful, implacable,
+even heady in the assumptions of his age, had roused the curiosity of
+Baynell's two most intimate friends concerning the traits of that
+secluded inner exclusive circle which only the accident of ancient
+association had enabled him to penetrate. In the tedium of camp routine
+even slight matters were of interest, and it was the habit of the three
+to compare notes and relate for mutual entertainment their varied
+experiences since last they had met.</p>
+
+<p>The battery of six pieces which Baynell commanded enjoyed a certain
+renown as a crack corps, and spectators were gathering to witness the
+gun-drill,&mdash;a number of soldiers from the adjoining cavalry and
+infantry camps, a few of the railroad hands from the repair work on a
+neighboring track, and a contingent of freedmen, jubilantly idle.
+Standing a little apart from these was a group, chiefly mounted,
+consisting of several officers of the different arms of the
+service,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> military experts, critically observant, among whom was
+Colonel Vertnor Ashley, who commanded a volunteer regiment of horse, and
+a younger man, Lieutenant Seymour of the infantry.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine fresh morning, with white clouds scudding across a densely
+blue sky chased by the wind, the grass springing into richer verdure,
+the buds bourgeoning, with almost the effect of leaflets already, in the
+great oak and tulip trees of the grove. Daffodils were blooming here and
+there, scattered throughout the sward,&mdash;even beneath the carriages
+of the guns a score perhaps, untrampled still, reared aloft the golden
+"candlesticks" with an illuminating effect. The warm sun was flashing
+with an embellishing glitter on the rows of the white tents of the army
+on the hills around the little city as far as the eye could reach. The
+deep, broad river, here and there dazzling with lustrous stretches of
+ripples, was full of craft,&mdash;coal-barges, skiffs, gunboats, the
+ordinary steam-packets, flatboats, and rafts; the peculiar dull roar of
+a railway train heavily laden, transporting troops, came to the ear as
+the engine, shrieking like a monster, rushed upon the bridge with its
+great consignment of crowded humanity in the long line of box cars, an
+additional locomotive assisting the speed of the transit.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, Ashley, and see if you can make anything of Baynell," said
+the infantry lieutenant, whose regiment lay in camp a little to<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> the west, as the colonel reined in
+his horse under the tree where Seymour was hanging on to Baynell's
+stirrup-leather. "He hasn't a syllable to say. I want to know what is
+the name of that pretty girl at Judge Roscoe's."</p>
+
+<p>Ashley came riding up with his inimitable pompous swagger, half the
+result of jocose bravado, half of genuine and justifiable vanity. It
+went very well with the suggestions of his high cavalry boots, his
+clanking sword, and his jingling spurs. His somewhat broad ruddy face
+had the merit of a sidelong glance of great archness, delivered from a
+pair of vivacious hazel eyes, and he twirled his handsome, long, dark
+mustache with the air of a conqueror at the very mention of a pretty
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"I can tell you more about Judge Roscoe's family than Fluellen Baynell
+ever will," Ashley declared gayly. "So ask <i>me</i> what you want to know,
+Mark, and don't intrude on Nellie's finical delicacy."</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the campaign Colonel Ashley's squadrons had co&ouml;perated
+with Baynell's artillery. The officers had come to know and respect each
+other well in the stress of danger and mutual dependence. It may be
+doubted whether any other man alive could with impunity have called
+Fluellen Baynell "Nellie."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell was in full uniform, splendidly mounted, awaiting the hour
+appointed, and now and again casting his eye on the camp "street" at
+some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> distance, the stable precincts all a turmoil of hurrying
+drivers and artillerymen harnessing horses and adjusting accoutrements,
+while a continuous hum of voices, jangling of metal, and tramping of
+steeds came on the air. He withdrew his attention with an effort.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what do you want me to tell?" he demanded
+sarcastically;&mdash;"what they had for supper?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no&mdash;but just be neighborly. For sheer curiosity I want to
+know his daughter's name," persisted the lieutenant of infantry.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge Roscoe has no daughter," replied Baynell.</p>
+
+<p>"His granddaughter, then."</p>
+
+<p>"His granddaughters are children&mdash;I have forgotten their names."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, <i>who</i> is that young lady there?&mdash;a beauty of beauties. I
+caught a glimpse of her at the window the day we pitched our camp in the
+peach orchard over there."</p>
+
+<p>"She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," solemnly declared
+Ashley, who had artistic proclivities. "I never saw a face like
+that&mdash;such chiselling, so perfect&mdash;unless it were some fine
+antique cameo. It has the contour, the lines, the dignity, of a Diana!
+And her hair is really exquisite! Who is she, Fluellen?"</p>
+
+<p>Baynell was conscious of the constraint very perceptible in his voice as
+he replied, "She is Judge Roscoe's niece, Mrs. Gwynn."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>Ashley stared. "<i>Mrs.!</i> Why, she doesn't look twenty years old!" Then,
+with sudden illumination, "Why&mdash;that must be the '<i>widder 'oman!</i>'"
+with an unctuous imitation of old Ephraim's elocution. "I <i>am</i>
+surprised. Mrs. Gwynn! 'De widder 'oman!'" He broke off to laugh at a
+sudden recollection.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you could have heard old Janus's account of his effort to clean
+the knives to suit her. She seems to be in command of the commissariat
+up there. The old darkey came into camp, searching for the methods of
+polishing metals that the soldiers use for their accoutrements.
+'Brilliancy without labor,' was Uncle Ephraim's desideratum. I gave him
+some rotten-stone. His sketch of how the judgment day would overtake him
+still polishing knives for the 'widder 'oman' was worth hearing."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell would not have so considered it&mdash;thus far apart were the
+friends in prejudice and temperament. Yet there was no derogation in the
+simple gossip. To the campaigners the Roscoe household was but the
+temporary incident of the mental landscape, and the confidential bit of
+criticism and comment served only to make conversation and pass the
+time.</p>
+
+<p>All of Vertnor Ashley's traits were on a broad scale, genial and open.
+He had the best opinion imaginable of himself, and somehow the world
+shared it&mdash;so ingratiating was his joviality. His very defects were
+obviated and went for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> naught. Although, being only of middle
+height, his tendency to portliness threatened the grace of his
+proportions, he was esteemed a fine figure and a handsome man. He made a
+brave show in the saddle, and was a magnificent presentment of a
+horseman. He was a poor drill; his discipline was lax, for he dearly
+loved popularity and fostered this incense to his vanity. He was adored
+in his regiment, and he never put foot in stirrup to ride in or out of
+camp that even this casual appearance was not cheered to the echo. "That
+must be Vert Ashley, or a rabbit!" was a usual speculation upon the
+sound of sudden shouting, for the opportunity to chase a rabbit was a
+precious break in the monotony of the life of the rank and file.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell's coming and going, on the contrary, was greeted with no
+demonstration. He was a rigid disciplinarian. He exacted every capacity
+for work that the men possessed, and his battery was one of the most
+efficient of the horse artillery in the service. But when it came to the
+test of battle, the cannoneers could not shout loud and long enough.
+They were sure of fine execution and yet of careful avoidance of the
+reckless sacrifice of their lives and the capture of their guns, often
+returning, indeed, from action, covered with glory, having lost not one
+man, not so much as a sponge-staff. So fine an officer could well
+dispense with the arts that fostered popularity and ministered to
+vanity.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> Thus the slightest peccadillo made the offender and the
+wooden horse acquaint.</p>
+
+<p>None of Baynell's qualities were of the jovial order. He was a martinet,
+a technical expert in the science of gunnery, a stern and martial leader
+of men. His mind was an orderly assimilation of valuable information,
+his consciousness a repelling exclusive assortment of sensitive fibres.
+He had a high and exacting moral sense, and his pride of many various
+kinds passed all bounds. He listened with aghast dismay to the story of
+Mrs. Gwynn's unhappy married life that Ashley rehearsed,&mdash;the
+ordinary gossip of the day, to be heard everywhere,&mdash;and then a
+discussion took place as to whether or not the horse that killed her
+husband were the vicious charger now ridden by the colonel of a certain
+regiment.</p>
+
+<p>"It couldn't be," said Ashley, "that happened nearly a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>This talk hung on for a long time, as it seemed to Baynell. Yet he did
+not welcome its conclusion, for a greater source of irritation was to
+come.</p>
+
+<p>"But now that you have a footing there, Fluellen, I want you to
+introduce me," said Colonel Ashley, who was a person of consideration in
+high and select circles at home, and spoke easily from the
+vantage-ground of an acknowledged social position. "I should be glad to
+meet Mrs. Gwynn. I never saw any one whose appearance so impressed
+me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>"Take me with you when you two call," the lieutenant, all unprescient,
+interjected casually. The next moment he was flushing angrily, for,
+impossible as it seemed, Baynell was declining in set terms.</p>
+
+<p>"My footing there would not justify me in asking to introduce my
+friends," he said. "I should be afraid of a refusal."</p>
+
+<p>Ashley, too, cast a swift, indignant glance upon him. Then, "I'll risk
+it," he said easily; for ill-humor with him was "about face" so suddenly
+that it was hardly to be recognized.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell showed a stiff distaste for the persistence, but maintained his
+position.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge Roscoe made it plain that it was only for the sake of his
+friendship with my father that he offered any civility to me&mdash;no
+concession politically. My status as an officer of the 'Yankee army' is
+an offence and a stumbling-block to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless his fire-eating soul! I don't want to convert him from his
+treason. I desire only to call on the lady."</p>
+
+<p>"I myself could not call on Mrs. Gwynn," protested Baynell. "She hardly
+spoke a word to me."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be quite sufficient for her to listen to me," laughed Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"She took only the most casual notice of my presence&mdash;barely to
+give me a cup of tea."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Baynell," said the lieutenant, exceedingly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> wroth. "I want
+you to understand that I take this very ill of you."</p>
+
+<p>He was a tall, spare young fellow, with light, straight brown hair, a
+light-brown mustache, and a keen, excitable blue eye, which showed
+well-opened and alert from under the dark brim of his cap as he looked
+upward, still standing at the side of Baynell's restive horse. "I think
+it a very poor return for similar courtesy. I took <i>you</i> with me to call
+on Miss Fisher&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"This is a very different case. I, personally, am not on terms with Mrs.
+Gwynn. Besides, she is very different from Miss Fisher, who entertains
+general society. Mrs. Gwynn is a widow&mdash;in deep mourning."</p>
+
+<p>"But it <i>is</i> told in Gath that widows are not usually inconsolable,"
+suggested Ashley, with a brightening of his arch eyes, and still
+laughing it off.</p>
+
+<p>"I am much affronted, Captain Baynell," declared the irascible
+lieutenant. "I consider this personal. And I will get even with you for
+this!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I will get an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn without your kind
+offices," declared Ashley, with a jocular imitation of their young
+friend's indignant manner.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be very happy if you can meet her in any appropriate way. It is
+not appropriate for me, cognizant of their ardent rebel sympathies and
+intense antagonism to the Union cause and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> antipathy to all its
+supporters, to ask to introduce my friends of the invading 'Yankee
+army,'" Baynell replied with stiff hauteur.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the bugle sang out, its mandatory, clear, golden tones lifting
+into the sunshine with such a full buoyant effect that it was like the
+very spirit of martial courage transmuted into sound. Baynell instantly
+put his horse into motion, and rode off through the brilliant air and
+the sparse shadows of the budding trees. His blond hair and mustache,
+gilded by the sunlight, had as decorative an effect as his gold lace;
+his blue eyes glittered with a stern, vigilant light; his face was
+flushed, something unusual, for he was wont to be pale, and his erect,
+imposing, soldierly figure sat his spirited young charger with the
+firmness of a centaur. The eyes of all the group followed him, several
+commenting on his handsome appearance, his fine bearing, his splendid
+horse, and his great value as an officer.</p>
+
+<p>"He is an admirable fellow," declared Dr. Grindley, a surgeon on his way
+to the hospital hard by. He had paused at a little distance, and had not
+heard the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"If he were not such a prig," Ashley assented dubiously. "Such an
+uncompromising stickler on trifles! Any other man in the world would
+have slurred the matter over, and never kept the promise of the
+introduction. If inconvenient or undesirable, he might have postponed
+the call indefinitely."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>"He is a most confounded prig," said Lieutenant Seymour, in great
+irritation.</p>
+
+<p>"Baynell must have everything out&mdash;to the bitter end," said Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to break his head! I'd like to break his face&mdash;with my
+fist," exclaimed the lieutenant, petulantly, clenching his hand again
+and again. He detailed the tenor of the conversation to the surgeon as
+the group watched the man&#339;uvring battery. "Isn't that a
+dog-in-the-manger-ish trick, Dr. Grindley? He wants to keep his Roscoes
+to himself. Mrs. Gwynn won't speak to him, and so he wants nobody else
+to go there whom she <i>might</i> speak to!"</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, still uncomfortably conscious of the rancor he had roused, had
+taken his position in the centre, just the regulation twelve paces in
+front of the leading horses, with the music four paces distant from the
+right of the first gun. As the sound blared out gayly on the crisp,
+clear, vernal breeze, the glittering ranks, every soldier mounted on a
+strong, fresh steed, moved forward swiftly, with the gun-carriages and
+caissons each drawn by a team of six horses. The air was full of the
+tramp of hoofs and the clangor of heavy, revolving wheels, ever and anon
+punctuated by the sharp monition, "Obstacle!" as one of the giant oaks
+of the grove intervened and the direction of the march of a piece was
+obliqued. The efficiency of the battery was very evident. The drill was
+almost perfect, despite the difficulty of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> man&#339;uvring among
+the trees. But when the ranks passed from the grove they swept like a
+whirlwind over the open spaces of the adjoining pasture-lands, the whole
+battery swinging here and there in sharp turns, never losing the
+prescribed intervals of the relative distance of squads, and guns, and
+caissons&mdash;all like some single intricate piece of connected
+mechanism, impossible of disassociation in its several parts. Ever and
+anon the clear tenor tones of the captain rang out with a trumpet-like
+effect, and the refrain of the subalterns and non-commissioned officers
+commanding the sections followed in their various clamors, while the
+great whirling congeries of horses and men and wheels and guns obeyed
+the sound like some automatic creation of the ingenuity of man. Once the
+surgeon bent an attentive ear.</p>
+
+<p>"By sections&mdash;break from the right to march to left!" called the
+commander, with a sudden "catch" in the tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Caissons forward! Trot! March!" came from a different voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Section forward, guide left!" thundered a basso profundo.</p>
+
+<p>"March!" cried the captain, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"March!" came the subaltern's echo.</p>
+
+<p>As the moving panorama turned and wheeled and shifted, the surgeon
+commented in a spirit of forecast:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If that fellow doesn't pay some attention to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> his bronchial
+tubes, they will pay some attention to him, and that promptly."</p>
+
+<p>So promptly indeed was this prophecy verified that within the next few
+days old Ephraim, who purveyed all the news of the period to the remote
+secluded country house, informed Judge Roscoe that Captain Baynell was
+seriously ill with bronchitis and threatened with pneumonia. In order to
+have indoor protection and treatment he was to be removed as soon as
+possible to the hospital near the town. Judge Roscoe verified this rumor
+upon hastening to camp, and with hospitable warmth he invited the son of
+his old schoolmate to sojourn instead in his house; for in the college
+days to which he was fond of recurring he had been taken into the home
+of the elder Fluellen Baynell, and nursed by his friend's mother through
+a typhoid attack. To repay the obligation thus was peculiarly acceptable
+to a man of his type. But Baynell hardly heeded the detail of the
+hospitable precedent. He needed no persuasion, and thereafter he seemed
+more than ever lapsed in the serenities of the storm centre, ensconced
+in one of the great square upper bedrooms, with the spare furnishing of
+heavy mahogany that gave an idea of so much space, the order of the day
+when the plethora of decoration, the "cosy corner," the wall pocket, the
+"art drapery," the crowded knickknackery, did not obtain. For more than
+a week Baynell could not rise; the surgeon visited him at regular
+intervals, and Judge Roscoe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> appeared unfailingly each morning in
+the sick room; but the rest of the family remained invisible, and held
+unsympathetically aloof.</p>
+
+<p>This was a shrewd loss to Ashley, for although he had called at first
+with genuine anxiety as to his friend's state, the humors of the
+situation appealed to him as time wore on, and he recollected with the
+enhanced interest of enforced idleness his boast that he would compass
+an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn, despite Baynell's stiff refusal. Seymour
+still resented the circumstance so seriously that he had withheld all
+manifestations of sympathy or concern, and this, the kind Ashley
+considered, carried the matter much too far. He thought it might effect
+a general reconciliation if he should meet Mrs. Gwynn by accident, when
+he fancied he would not fear to introduce any one whom he considered fit
+for good society. Thus, after he had ceased to be apprehensive
+concerning Baynell's condition, he called on him again and again, but
+hearing never a light footfall on the stair or the flutter of flounces
+that might promise a realization of his quest. He was all unconscious
+that his project had an unwitting ally in Judge Roscoe himself. For more
+than once Judge Roscoe was uncomfortably visited by hospitable
+monitions.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have liked to ask Colonel Ashley to dine with us," he said
+tentatively to Mrs. Gwynn. "He was leaving the house just as the meal
+was being served. Old Ephraim&mdash;confound the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>
+fellow&mdash;has no sort of tact. He brought in the soup to Captain
+Baynell with Colonel Ashley sitting by the bedside! It was indeed a hint
+to beat a retreat. I was&mdash;I was mortified. I was really mortified
+not to ask him to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens, Uncle Gerald!&mdash;what are you dreaming about? Ask people to
+dine, and no trained servant to wait on the table&mdash;and this
+china&mdash;and the ladies in their pinafores!" And Mrs. Gwynn glanced
+scoffingly around the domestic board, for the place had once been famous
+for the elegance of its entertainments; but the balls, the "wine
+suppers," the formal late dinners of many courses, had come to an end
+with the conclusion of the period of prosperity, and the perfectly
+trained service had vanished with the vanishing butler and his corps of
+assistants whom he himself had rigorously drilled in the school of the
+pantry, in strict accordance with old traditions.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we have better china," said the judge, inexorably. "And the
+pinafores don't grow on the ladies; we have excellent precedent for
+believing they can be dispensed with."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn fixed him with a resolute eye. "I don't intend to have the
+ladies taken from their studies in the forenoon to dress for company and
+distract their minds with fascinating gentlemen. Besides it is too great
+a compliment to receive an absolute stranger informally, as one of
+ourselves,&mdash;as we treat Captain Baynell,&mdash;and it is
+almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> impossible to entertain Colonel Ashley otherwise. You
+forget that we have no trained servants. And I am not going to trust the
+handling of my aunt's beautiful old S&egrave;vres dinner set to our
+inexperienced factotum&mdash;oh, the idea! It makes me shudder to think
+of the nicks and smashings. It ought to be kept intact for Julius's wife
+when he takes one, or for Clarence's if he should ever marry again. A
+stray Yankee officer isn't sufficient justification for risking it."</p>
+
+<p>"He has called so often, and has been so kind to Captain Baynell."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, so have I been kind to Captain Baynell, and here am I eating on
+the everyday china&mdash;no S&egrave;vres for me! And I am going to be
+kinder still, for he is allowed to have some dessert to-day, and I have
+spread this tray with mine own hands."</p>
+
+<p>She touched a call-bell, and, as old Janus appeared, "Take this tray
+upstairs to Captain Baynell," she said, as she transferred it, "be
+careful&mdash;don't tilt it so!" Then, as the old servant left the room,
+she resumed, addressing Judge Roscoe: "You can sentimentalize about your
+precious Captain Baynell, if you like, on the score of old friendship. I
+can appreciate the claims of old friendship, especially as he has been
+so ill, and possibly was better off here than at the hospital. But to go
+in generally for entertaining Yankee officers,&mdash;and all our near
+and dear out yonder in those cold wet trenches, half<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> starved,
+and ragged, and wounded, and dying,&mdash;indeed, no! For my own part, I
+couldn't be induced to spread a board for another one, except at the
+point of the bayonet."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Ashley don't wear no bayonet," interposed Adelaide, glibly.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got him a sword," acceded Geraldine.</p>
+
+<p>"A long sword, clickety-clank," suggested the first "lady."</p>
+
+<p>"Clickety, clickety-clank," echoed the other, with brightening eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't eat with your fingers&mdash;nor the spoon; take the fork." Mrs.
+Gwynn's admonitory aside was hardly an interruption.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a very narrow view, Leonora," the judge contended. "There can
+be no parity between the fervor of convictions on the issues of a great
+national question and merely human predilections as between individuals.
+Patriotism is not license for rancor. I have shown my devotion to the
+Southern cause. I have risked the lives of my dear, dear sons. I have
+expended much in its interests; I have endangered and lost my fortune.
+The future of all I hold dear is in jeopardy in many aspects. But I <i>do
+not</i> feel bound for that reason to hate individually every
+fellow-creature who has opposite convictions, to which he has a right,
+and takes up arms to sustain them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;<i>I do</i>! Being a woman, and having no reasoning capacities,
+there is no necessity for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> me to be logical on the subject. I
+feel what I feel, without qualification. And I know what I know without
+either legal proof or ocular demonstration. You are welcome to your
+intellect, Uncle Gerald! Much good may it do you! Intuition is enough
+for me. Meantime the S&egrave;vres is safe on the shelves."</p>
+
+<p>Beaten from the field as Judge Roscoe must needs be when his vaunted
+ratiocination was no available weapon, he held stanchly nevertheless to
+his own opinion, helpless though he was in the domestic administration.
+He adopted such measures as were practicable to comport with his own
+view. Flattered by Ashley's interest in Baynell and recognizant of the
+frequency of his visits, never dreaming that a glimpse of Mrs. Gwynn was
+their ultimate object, he took occasion to offer him such slight
+courtesies as opportunity presented.</p>
+
+<p>One day when they were descending the stairs Judge Roscoe chanced to
+comment on the fine bouquet of a certain choice old wine. He still
+hoarded a few costly bottles of an ancient importation, and with a
+sudden thought he insisted on pausing in the library to take a glass and
+finish a discussion happily begun by the invalid's bedside. The room was
+vacant, as the colonel's keen glance swiftly assured him, and the
+judge's order for wine was inaugurated through the bell-cord, which
+jangling summons old Ephraim answered somewhat procrastinatingly.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> The expression of surprise in the
+old darkey's eyes, even admonitory dissuasion, as he hearkened to the
+demand, very definitely nettled the judge and secretly amused Ashley,
+who divined the old servitor's doubts as to gaining the permission of
+"de widder 'oman." The host was more relieved than he cared to
+acknowledge to himself when the factotum presently reappeared, bearing a
+tray, with the old-fashioned red-and-white Bohemian wine-glasses and
+decanter which contained the rare vintage, and he felt with a sigh that
+he was still supreme in his own house, despite the sway of Mrs. Gwynn.
+He recognized the more gratefully, however, her influence in the
+perfection of the service and the solemnly careful, preternaturally
+watchful step of old Ephraim, as he bore about the delicate glass with
+all the effect of treading on eggs,&mdash;finally depositing it
+on the table and withdrawing at his habitual plunging gait.</p>
+
+<p>Although Ashley dawdled as he listened and sipped his wine languorously,
+no rustle of draperies rewarded his attentive ear, no graceful presence
+gladdened his expectant eye. And when at last he could linger no longer,
+he took up his hope even as he had laid it down, in the expectation of a
+luckier day.</p>
+
+<p>"Come again, my dear sir, whenever you can. I am always glad to see you,
+and your presence cheers Captain Baynell. His father was my dearest
+friend. I felt his death as if he had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> a brother. I have
+grown greatly attached to his son, who closely resembles him. Anything
+you can do for Captain Baynell I appreciate as a personal favor. Come
+again! Come again soon!"</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps if Colonel Ashley had not been so bereft of the normal interests
+of life, in this interval of inactivity, his curiosity as to that
+fleeting glimpse of a beautiful woman might not have maintained its
+whetted edge. Perhaps constantly recurrent disappointment roused his
+persistence. He came again and yet again, and still he saw no member of
+the family save Judge Roscoe. Even the surgeon commented. "There is a
+considerable feminine garrison up there," he said one day; "I often hear
+mention of the ladies, but they never make a sally. I suspect the old
+judge is more of a fire-eater than he shows nowadays, for his womenfolks
+are evidently straight-out 'Secesh'!"</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell himself, throughout his illness, saw naught of the
+feminine inmates of the house, but the first day of convalescence that
+he was able to be out of his room and to descend the stairs, unsteadily
+enough and holding to the balustrade all the way, he was very civilly
+greeted by Mrs. Gwynn when he suddenly appeared at the library door.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced up with obvious surprise, then advanced with the light, airy
+elegance that was naturally appurtenant to her slight figure, and seemed
+no more a conscious pose or gait than the buoyancy of a bird or a
+butterfly. She shook hands with him, hoped he was better, congratulated
+him on the happy termination of so serious an illness, cautioned him
+against exposure to the chilly uncertain weather, drew a great arm-chair
+nearer to the fire, and as he seated himself she piled up some old
+numbers of <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> and the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> on a little
+table close to his elbow.</p>
+
+<p>Her regard for his comfort&mdash;casual, even official, so to speak,
+though it was, the attentive, considerate expression of her beautiful
+eyes, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> kindly tones of her dulcet, drawling
+voice&mdash;affected him like a benediction. He was still feeble,
+tremulous, and his heart throbbed with sudden surges of emotion. He was
+grateful, recognizant, flattered, although the provision for his mental
+entertainment bore also the interpretation that he need not trouble
+himself to talk.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore he affected to read, and she sat apparently oblivious of his
+presence, crocheting a fichu-like garment, called a "sontag" in those
+days, destined for a friend, evidently, not for her own sombre wear. The
+material was of an ultramarine blue zephyr, with a border of flecked
+black and white. She was making no great speed, for often the long,
+white bone needle fell from her listless grasp, and with her beautiful
+eyes on the fire, her face no longer a cold, impassive mask, but all
+unconscious, soft, wistful, sweet, showing her real identity, she would
+lose herself in revery till some interruption&mdash;Judge Roscoe's
+entrance, the "ladies" and their demands, old Ephraim seeking
+orders&mdash;would rouse her with a start as from a veritable dream.</p>
+
+<p>As the days went thus slowly by it soon came to pass that Baynell could
+not be silent. Her presence here flattered him, but he did not reflect
+that the library was the gathering-place of all the family; it held,
+too, the only fire, except his own, in the house, a fact which he,
+forgetful of the scarcity of fuel which the army had occasioned, did not
+appreciate. She could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> hardly withdraw, and, with her work in her
+hand, she could not ignore her uncle's guest.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he caught himself covertly studying her expression, marvelling
+at its complete absorption;&mdash;at the strange fact that so slight a
+token of such deep introspection showed on the surface. It was like some
+expanse of still, clear waters&mdash;one can only know that here are
+unmeasured fathoms, abysses of unexplored depths. Her meditation, her
+obvious brooding thought, seemed significant; yet sometimes he was prone
+to deem this merely the cast of her noble, reflective features, her
+expansive brow, the comprehensive intelligence of her limpid
+eyes,&mdash;all so beautiful, yet endowed with something far beyond mere
+beauty. Now and again he read aloud a passage which specially struck his
+attention, and occasionally her comments jarred on his preconceived
+opinion of her, or, rather, of what a woman so young, so favored, so
+graciously endowed, ought to feel and think. One day, particularly, he
+was much impressed by this. Some benignant philosopher, reaching out
+both hands to the happy time of the millennium, had given voice to the
+theory that man's inhumanity to man, particularly in the more cultured
+circles, was the result of scant mutual knowledge&mdash;if we but knew
+the sorrows of others, how hate would be metamorphosed to pity, the
+bruised reed unbroken! This sentiment mightily pleased Captain Baynell,
+and he read it aloud.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>It seemed potently to arrest her attention. She laid her work down on
+her knee and gazed steadily at him.</p>
+
+<p>"If we could know the secret heartache&mdash;the blighted
+aspiration&mdash;the denied longing&mdash;the bruised pride of others?"</p>
+
+<p>As he signified assent, she gazed steadily at him for a moment longer in
+silence. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If we only knew!" she cried,&mdash;"Christian brethren,&mdash;what a
+laughing, jeering, gibing world we should be!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more she took her work in her hands, once more exclaimed, "If we
+only knew!" and paused to laugh aloud with a low icy tone. Then she
+inserted the dexterous needle into the fashioning of the "shell" and
+bent her reflective, smiling face over the swift serpentines of the
+"zephyr."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell was shocked in some sort. This frank unconscious
+cynicism was out of keeping with so much grace and charm. He was hardly
+ready to argue the question. He was dismayed by a sense of futility. If
+she had thought this, it was enough to show her inmost nature. A
+substituted, cultivated conviction does not uproot the spontaneous
+productions of the mind. It is only foisted in their midst. He was
+silent in his turn, and presently fell to fluttering the leaves of his
+book and reading with slight interest and only a superficial appearance
+of absorption.</p>
+
+<p>If we only knew the sorrows of others! Mrs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> Gwynn's satiric eyes
+glowed with the uncomfortable thought that hers at all events had been
+public enough. If openness be a claim for sympathy, she might well be
+entitled to receive balm of all her world. It seared every sensitive
+fibre within her to realize how much of her intimate inner life they all
+knew,&mdash;her friends, who masked this knowledge with a casual face,
+but talked over her foolish miseries among themselves with the mingled
+gusto of gossip, the superiority of contemptuous commiseration, and a
+rabid zest of speculation concerning such poor reserves as she had been
+able to maintain. Much of this drifted back to her knowledge through her
+old colored nurse, who since her childhood had remained her special
+attendant, though now officiating as cook to the Roscoe household, and
+by all respectfully called "Aunt Chaney." Her association with other
+cooks and ladies' maids enabled her to become well informed as to what
+was said and known in other households of these affairs. As Aunt Chaney
+detailed the gossip, she herself would burst into painful tears at the
+humiliating disclosures, exclaiming ever and anon, "Oh, de debbil was
+busy, shorely, de day dee married dat man!"</p>
+
+<p>But despite her burden of sympathetic woe, she would gather her powers
+to compass a debonair assurance toward observant outsiders and
+optimistically toss her head. "De man was good-looking to
+<i>de</i>straction," she would loftily<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> asseverate, in defence of the
+situation, "and he didn't live long, nohow."</p>
+
+<p>Continuing, she would remind her hearers that she had been opposed to
+her young mistress's marriage, "But shucks! de pore chile saw how the
+other gals wuz runnin' arter Rufus Allerton Gwynn,&mdash;dat Fisher gal
+tried hard fur true, an' not married yit,&mdash;an' dat made Leonora
+Gwynn&mdash;Leonora Roscoe dat wuz&mdash;think mo' of his bein' so taken
+up with her! De hansomes' man in de whole country! He didn't live long!"</p>
+
+<p>This gallant outward show did not prevent the iron from entering the old
+nurse's soul especially as she detailed the gossip of Miss Fisher's
+maid, Leanna, who overheard the conversation of her mistress with two
+particular girl-cronies beside the midnight fire, pending the duty of
+brushing the long hair of the Fisher enchantress, which, being of a
+thrice-gilded red tint, required much care and gave her much trouble. It
+gave trouble elsewhere. Its flaring glories kept others awake besides
+poor Leanna, plying the brush nightly one "solid hour by the clock." For
+the fair Miss Mildred Fisher was a famous belle, and many hearts had
+been entangled in those glittering meshes.</p>
+
+<p>This trio had been Leonora Gwynn's intimate coterie, and she knew just
+how they looked as they sat half undressed in the chilly midnight before
+the dying fire in a great bedroom, in the home of one of the three,
+their tresses&mdash;Maude<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> Eldon's dark, and Margaret Duncan's
+brown, and Mildred Fisher's red-gold, with Leanna's interested face
+leaning above their gilded shimmer&mdash;hanging down over
+dressing-sacques or nightgowns, while they actively gesticulated at each
+other with handglass or brush, and with spirit disputed whether it was a
+chair which Rufus Gwynn had broken over Leonora's head, or did he merely
+drag her around by the hair&mdash;"Think of that, my dear,&mdash;by her
+hair!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a poor consolation, but this neither they, nor any other, would
+ever know. With the reflection Leonora set her even little teeth
+together as she still dreamily gazed into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Other more obvious facts she could not conceal. Her stringent, hopeless
+poverty would bring a piteous expression to Judge Roscoe's face as
+occasion required him to seek to gather together some humble remnants of
+the estate her husband had recklessly flung away, for he had dissipated
+her fortune as well as desolated her heart. She needed no reminder, and
+indeed no word passed Judge Roscoe's lips of the settlements that he had
+drawn when he discovered that, despite all remonstrances, his orphaned
+niece was bent upon this marriage. Though Rufus Gwynn protested that he
+would sign them, she had tossed them into the fire like a heroine of
+romance, grandiloquently declaring that she would not trust herself to a
+man to whom she could not trust her fortune.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>How pleased her lover had been! How gay, gallant, triumphant! Later he
+found his account in her folly and a more substantial value than
+flattered pride, for by reason of her marriage the financial control of
+her guardian was abrogated, and her thousands slipped through her
+husband's fingers like sand at the gaming-table, the wine-rooms, the
+race-track, as with his wild, riotous companions he went his swift way
+to destruction and death. And even this did not alienate her, for her
+early admiration and foolish adoration had a continuance that a devotion
+for a worthier object rarely attains, and she loved him long, despite
+financial reverses and wicked waste and cruelty and neglect. She could
+have forgiven him aught, all, but his own unworthiness. Who can gauge
+the sophistries, the extenuations, the hopes, that delude a woman who
+clings to an ideal of her own tender fashioning, the dream of a fond
+heart, and the sacrifice of a loving young life. He left her not one
+vain imagining that she might still hold dear amidst the wreck of her
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>The crisis came at the end of a quarrel,&mdash;one of his own
+making,&mdash;a quarrel about a horse that he wished to sell;&mdash;oh,
+the trifle&mdash;the trifle that had wrought such woe!</p>
+
+<p>As she thought of it anew, sitting before the fire, she laid the work
+upon her knee and unconsciously wrung her hands. The next moment she
+felt the eyes of the officer lifted toward her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> in a cursory
+glance. She affected to shift the rings on her fingers, then took up the
+crochet-needle and bent her head to the deft fashioning of shells.</p>
+
+<p>Now she could think unmolested, think of what she could never forget!
+Yet why should she canvass the details again and again, save that she
+must. The event marked an epoch of final significance in her
+life,&mdash;the moment that her dream fled and she awakened to the stern
+fact that she had ceased to love. And at first it was a trifle, a mere
+trifle, that had inaugurated this amazing change. Her husband wished to
+sell the horse, her horse, that Judge Roscoe had given her a week
+before. The gift had come, she knew, as an overture of reconciliation,
+as there had been much hard feeling between Judge Roscoe and his niece.
+For after her elopement and marriage he promptly applied to the chancery
+court seeking to protect her future by securing the settlement on her of
+certain funds of her estate, urging the fact of her minority and the
+spendthrift character of her husband. Leonora vehemently opposed the
+petition, and owing to the efforts of her counsel to gain time and the
+law's delays, she came of age before any decree could be granted, and
+then defeated the measure by making a full legal waiver of her rights in
+favor of her husband. But, at length, when pity overmastered Judge
+Roscoe's just anger, she welcomed a token of his renewed cordiality. She
+did not feel at liberty to sell the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> gift, she had remonstrated.
+It was not bestowed as a resource&mdash;to sell. She feared to wound her
+kinsman. What was the pressing necessity for money? Why not manage as if
+the horse had not been given her?</p>
+
+<p>The contention waxed high as she stood in habit and hat just in the
+vestibule with the horse outside hitched to the block, for Judge Roscoe
+was coming to ride with her. She held fast, for a wonder; she seldom
+could resist; but the horse was not theirs <i>to sell</i>. Rufus Gwynn
+suddenly turned at last, sprang up the stairs, three steps at a time,
+and as he came bounding down again she saw the glint of steel in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>Even now she shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"It is growing colder," Captain Baynell said. (How observant that man
+seemed to be!) "Allow me to mend the fire."</p>
+
+<p>He stirred the hickory logs, and as the yellow flames shot up the
+chimney he sank back into his great chair, and she took up the thread of
+her work and her reminiscences together.</p>
+
+<p>She honestly thought her husband had intended to kill her. Somehow the
+veil dropped from her eyes, and she knew him for the fiend he was even
+before the dastardly act that revealed him unqualified.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not she on whom his spite was to fall. Such deeds bring
+retribution. Only the horse&mdash;the glossy, graceful, spirited animal,
+turning his lustrous confiding eyes toward the house<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> as the door
+opened, whinnying a low joyous welcome, anticipative of the breezy
+gallop&mdash;received the bullet just below the ear.</p>
+
+<p>It was then and afterward like the distraught agony of a confused dream.
+She heard her own screams as if they had been uttered by another; she
+saw the great bulk of the horse lying in the road, struggling
+frightfully, futilely, whether with conscious pain or merely the last
+reserves of muscular energy she did not know; she noted the gathering
+crowd, dismayed, bewildered, angry; she knew that her husband had
+hastily galloped off, a trifle out of countenance because of certain
+threats of some brawny Irish railroad hands going home with their
+dinner-pails who had seen the whole occurrence. Then Judge Roscoe had
+ridden up at last to accompany her as of old, thinking how pretty and
+pleased she would be on the new horse,&mdash;for equestrianism was the
+vaunt of the girls of that day and she had been a famous
+horsewoman,&mdash;and feeling a great pity because of her privations,
+and her cruel folly, and her unworthy husband. When he saw what had just
+occurred, he said instantly, "You must come home with me, Leonora; you
+are not safe." And she had answered, "Take me with
+you&mdash;quick&mdash;quick! So that I may never see that coward again."
+Thus she had left her husband forever.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I draw up the blind?" asked Captain Baynell, seeing her fumble
+for her zephyr.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>"No, thank you; there is still light sufficient, I think. The days are
+growing longer."</p>
+
+<p>Again, in the silence of the quiet room, the spell of her reminiscences
+resumed its sway. She recalled the promises that had not sufficed; no
+explanations extenuated the facts; no lures could avail; her resolution
+was taken and held firm. She laughed when, with full confidence in her
+unshaken love for him, her husband appealed to her by their mutual
+devotion. She was simply enlightened. But she resented the satisfaction
+that Judge Roscoe and his wife obviously felt in the separation, and the
+knowledge of the secret triumph of all her friends who had opposed the
+match. She was embittered, humiliated, broken-spirited, yet she
+maintained throughout a mask of placidity to the world, inquisitive,
+pitying, ridiculing, as she knew it to be. The separation passed as
+temporary. She was making a visit to her former home. This feint had the
+more countenance when a sudden need for her presence arose. Her aunt
+fell ill and died, and soon there came tidings of the death of Clarence
+Roscoe's wife while he was far away in the Confederate army. The three
+little girls were all alone.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring them here, Uncle Gerald. I will take charge of them," Leonora had
+said. "Perhaps I can feel less dependent then."</p>
+
+<p>And Judge Roscoe, who had borne his own losses like a philosopher, had
+tears in his eyes for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> her losses. "Oh, poor Leonora!" he had
+exclaimed. "Your very presence is a boon, my dear. But for <i>you</i> to be
+so stricken and desolate and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was about to say "robbed," but the facts forbade him; for Gwynn's
+legal rights rendered her position as difficult as unenviable. In her
+own house she had contrived to hold her belongings together. Now, day by
+day, came tidings of the sale of her special personal effects&mdash;her
+carriage, her domestic animals, her furniture, the very pictures on the
+walls; then had followed a letter from her husband, regretting all his
+misdeeds and promising infinite rehabilitation if she would but forgive
+him. Naught could provoke a remonstrance, could stimulate Leonora to
+action, could induce a return.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe had said but little. He had the deep-seated juridical
+respect for the relation of man and wife as a creation of law, as well
+as an institution of God. When he was appealed to, he felt it his duty
+to place impartially before her the husband's arguments, and promises,
+and protestations, but he experienced intense relief when she tersely
+dismissed Rufus Gwynn's plea for a reconciliation. "I know him now," she
+replied.</p>
+
+<p>"An' 'fore de Lawd, <i>I</i> knows him too!" her old nurse declared; "I jes'
+uped an' I sez, 'Marse Rufe, ye hev' got sech a notion o' sellin' out,
+ye mought sell old Chaney&mdash;ef ennybody would buy sech a contraption
+in dese days! So I'm goin' over to my old home at Judge Roscoe's<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> place, to wait on Miss Leonora. I
+knows she needs me, an' I 'spect she's watchin' fur me now.' An' Marse
+Rufe, he says, 'Aunt Chaney, I don't know <i>what</i> you are talking about!
+Go over there, an' welcome! An' try to get my wife to see I was just
+overtaken in my temper and desperate; <i>you</i> persuade her to come back,
+Aunt Chaney.' Dat's what de debbil said ter me. I always heard dat de
+debbil had a club foot. But, mon, he ain't. Two long, slim, handsome
+feet, an' his boots, sah, made in New Orleens!"</p>
+
+<p>The end had come characteristically at last! A horse, furiously ridden,
+brutally beaten, reared suddenly, lost his balance, fell backward,
+crushing the rider and breaking his neck. And so Rufus Gwynn reached his
+goal, and his wife was free at last.</p>
+
+<p>Free as some defenceless, hunted, tremulous animal, miraculously
+escaping fierce fangs, and a furious rush of a murderous pursuit;
+forever dominated by the sense of disaster, and despair, and flight;
+forever looking backward, forever hearkening to the echoes of the
+troublous past&mdash;exhausted, listless, hopeless, every impulse of
+volition stunned.</p>
+
+<p>It was well for her, doubtless, that the insistent duties of the care of
+her uncle's household had grown difficult in the changed conditions
+induced by the war; that the education, the training, the well-being, of
+the motherless little "ladies"&mdash;all restricted by the ever
+narrowing opportunity<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> of the beleaguered town, and overshadowed
+by the impending clouds of disaster&mdash;appealed to her womanly heart
+and her maternal instincts. Their needs had roused her interest,
+stimulated her invention, elicited her self-control, that she might more
+definitely control them.</p>
+
+<p>In the days of Captain Baynell's convalescence he had unique
+opportunities for observing the methods that had prevailed under her
+management, for all the life of the house revolved about the one big
+fire in the library. Sometimes, as he and Judge Roscoe sat there with
+papers and books and cigars, presumably oblivious of the minuti&aelig;
+of the household matters, while the fire flared and the tobacco smoke
+hung in blue wreaths about the stuccoed ceiling and the carved ornaments
+of the tall book-cases, he fancied that it was the characteristic
+interest in trifles animating an invalid which caused him to smilingly
+watch the scholastic struggles of the "ladies,"&mdash;their turmoils
+with "jogaphy," for it was decreed that they should learn somewhat of
+the earth on which they lived; the anguish inflicted by that potent
+instrument of torture, the Blue Speller; the bowed head of juvenile
+despair on the wooden rim of the slate, over the mysteries of
+"subscraction," as the "lady" sobbed softly, under her breath, for loud
+weepings were interdicted, however poignant the woe might be. Mrs. Gwynn
+was indeed unfeeling in these crises and often sarcastic. "You might use
+your sponge to wipe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> away your tears, Geraldine," she would say,
+with that curt icy inflection of her soft voice. "I notice it is too dry
+for use on your slate."</p>
+
+<p>Each slate had a string to which was attached a small sponge and a short
+slate-pencil, capable of an excruciating creak, which often set the
+judge's teeth on edge; as he would wince from the sound, Mrs. Gwynn
+would comment in this wise, "I have often heard that learned ladies do
+not contribute to household comfort,&mdash;so your Honor must suffer for
+the erudition that we have here."</p>
+
+<p>And the activities of "subscraction" were never abated.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell had at first a certain shrinking to witness the lessons of the
+deaf-mute, pitying the poor deprived child, so young, so tender, so
+pretty, so plaintive in her infirmity, shut out from all the usual
+avenues of knowledge. He would take up his book and withdraw his
+attention. But after a time there was suddenly forced upon his
+observation the superior judgment and acumen and careful altruistic
+thought exerted in these small matters by Mrs. Gwynn. Inexpert in the
+manual alphabet, she wasted no time nor labor on its acquisition for
+herself; but, notwithstanding this, "subscraction" had no terrors for
+Lucille. So practised was she in the domain of demonstration that her
+slate was swiftly covered with figures, and her sponge had no necessity
+to be diverted to the incongruous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> function of wiping her bright
+eyes. All the questions were put in writing and answered by the little
+deaf-mute with correct spelling and a most legible and creditable
+chirography, over which Captain Baynell found himself exclaiming with
+delighted surprise, while the cheeks both of the scholar and teacher
+flushed with pride and gratification, as they exchanged congratulatory
+smiles. So far from being the sport of her limitations and humiliated by
+them, Lucille was pressed forward to excel, and the twins gazed upon her
+as a miracle of learning, and often craved the privilege of scanning her
+slate, and imitating the childish flourishes of her capital letters. In
+naught was she permitted to feel her deficiencies&mdash;so craftily
+tender was her preceptress. The hour which the twins devoted to playing
+scales on the grand piano&mdash;being snugly buttoned up in sacques to
+protect them from the chill of the great parlors, and often called
+across the hall to warm their fingers at the library fire&mdash;Lucille
+sat at her drawing-board, and although she had only an ordinary degree
+of talent, she acquired a deftness and a proficiency that made the
+result remarkable for a child of her age; her leisure was encouraged to
+express itself in sketching from nature, and she went about much of the
+time pleasantly engrossed, holding up a pencil at a stiff angle and at
+arm's-length to take accurate measurement of relative distances and
+details of perspective.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>Baynell was a man who could be allured by a pretty face, but he could
+never have fallen in love with a woman merely for her beauty. He was
+possessed of insistent ideals, and now and then these were shattered by
+an evidence of Mrs. Gwynn's incongruously bitter cynicism, or a touch of
+repellent hardness and an icy coldness unpleasing in one so young, and
+all his preconceived prejudices were to adjust anew. He was beginning at
+last to feel that he must seek to realize her nature, rather than to fit
+her into the niche awaiting the conventional goddess of his fancy. She
+had other traits as inconsistent with her youth, her grace, her beauty,
+her lissome gait, her delicate hand; and these were homespun virtues, so
+plain, so good, so useful, so aggressive&mdash;such as one may fancy are
+designed to compensate the possessor for limitations in a more graceful
+sort,&mdash;according with an angular frame, a near-sighted vision, a
+rasping voice. There was scant need to look so beautiful, so daintily
+speculative, as she sat and cast up the judge's household accounts in a
+big red book that seemed full of cobweb perplexities and strenuous
+calculations to make both ends meet. Sometimes she brought it over to
+her uncle and, placing it before his reluctant gaze, pointed out some
+item of his own extravagance with a dignity of rebuke and a look of
+superior wisdom that might have realized to the imagination Minerva
+herself. Such a wealth of good house-keeping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> lore, so accurately
+applied, might have justified any amount of feminine ugliness.</p>
+
+<p>Her tender, far-sighted, commiserative appreciation of the deaf-mute's
+limitations, and the simple measures that had so far nullified them and
+utilized all the child's capacity, were incongruous with the iron rule
+under which the three were held.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid the ladies are giving you a great deal of trouble,
+Leonora," her uncle said one day, apologetically, when absolute mutiny
+seemed abroad amongst them.</p>
+
+<p>"Not half so much trouble as I intend to give them," Mrs. Gwynn replied
+resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>Their meek, mild, readjusted little faces after the scholastic hours
+were over were enough to move a heart of stone, and now and again Judge
+Roscoe glanced uneasily at them, and at last said inappropriately
+enough:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you have not had a happy morning, ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"They have been brought to hear reason," Mrs. Gwynn observed dryly. "And
+I have heard reason, too,&mdash;the Fourth Line of the Multiplication
+Table recited backward four times, standing facing the wall. It is an
+exercise that tends to subdue the angry passions. Allow me to commend it
+for general experiment."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell sought to laugh the episode off genially with the "ladies," but
+the three little faces looked for permission to ridicule this dire
+experience, and as Mrs. Gwynn's countenance maintained a<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> blank inscrutability, they did not
+venture to make merry over their miseries of the "Four Line," now
+happily overpast.</p>
+
+<p>The scholastic duties were well over by noon, except perhaps for the
+scale-playing on the grand piano, and the "ladies" roamed at will about
+the house, or in the parterre if the weather were dry, or played at
+battledore and shuttlecock or graces in the long gallery enclosed with
+Venetian blinds. If it rained they were permitted to repair to the
+kitchen, where Aunt Chaney, a very tall, portly woman, with a stately
+gruffness, obviously spurious, accommodated them with bits of dough, to
+be moulded into ducks and pigs, and assigned them a small section of the
+stove whereon to bake these triumphs of the plastic art. Doll's dresses
+were here laundered, being washed in a small cedar noggin owned in
+common by the trio, and a miniature sad-iron, heated by special
+permission on Aunt Chaney's stove, was brought into requisition.
+Sometimes Aunt Chaney was in a softened mood, and fluted a ruffle on a
+wax baby's skirt, and told wonderful tales about Mrs. Gwynn's dresses in
+her girlhood, "flounced to the waist, and crimped to a charm." Thence
+the transition was easy to the details of her young mistress's social
+triumphs and celebrated beauty, with lovers in gangs, all sighing like
+furnaces and represented as rolling in riches and riding splendid and
+prancing horses, the final special zest of each story being the<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> fruitless jealousy of the red-headed
+Miss Mildred Fisher, eating her heart out,&mdash;this to the immature
+imagination of the "ladies" literally resembled the chickens' hearts
+which were so daintily chopped to garnish the dish of fried pullets
+amidst the parsley.</p>
+
+<p>As the rain beat against the windows and the evening fell, the trio
+thought many a loitering-place less attractive than the chimney-nook
+behind the stove in Aunt Chaney's kitchen, regaled with her stories as
+she cooked, and now and then a spoonful of some dainty, administered
+with the curt command, "Open yer mouf, ladies!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that the library was almost deserted when Colonel Ashley
+called more than once. Captain Baynell he found, and occasionally the
+judge also. He always selected the afternoons, and after a time he was
+wont to glance about with such a keen, predatory expression that the
+truth began to dawn vaguely on Captain Baynell. Vanity is so robust an
+endowment that it had been easy enough for the recipient of these visits
+to appropriate wholly the interest that prompted them. It struck Baynell
+with an indignant sense of impropriety when he began to remember
+Ashley's ardent desire to meet Mrs. Gwynn, his admiration of the glimpse
+of her beauty that had once been vouchsafed him, and to connect this
+with his manifestation of good comradeship and eager solicitude
+concerning his friend's health.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> Baynell was infinitely out of
+countenance for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, confound the fellow! He doesn't care a fig whether I live or die."
+Then he was sensible of a rising anger, that he should be made the
+subterfuge of a systematic endeavor to casually meet Mrs.
+Gwynn,&mdash;likely to prove successful in the last instance. For
+lowering clouds overspread the sky when Ashley entered late in the
+afternoon, and a storm so violent, so tumultuous, broke with such sudden
+fury that it was impossible for him to take leave had he desired this.
+Baynell knew that nothing was further from his comrade's wish. Ashley
+reconciled himself so swiftly to Judge Roscoe's insistence that he
+should remain to tea that it might seem he had come for that express
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat man," soliloquized the "double-faced Janus" impressively, "mus'
+hev' smelled de perfume of dat ar flummery plumb ter de camp. Chaney wuz
+jes' dishin' up when he ring de door-bell!"</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p>Now, face to face with the long-sought opportunity, Colonel Ashley was
+grievously disappointed. A woman&mdash;young, singularly beautiful,
+dressed like a middle-aged frump, with the manners of a matron of fifty,
+staid, reserved, inattentive, uninterested!</p>
+
+<p>The incongruity affected him like a discourtesy; its rarity had no
+attractions for him, nor in the slightest degree roused his curiosity.
+He had expected charm, glow, responsiveness, coquetry,&mdash;all the
+various traits that attend on beauty and youth. Even a conscious hauteur
+would have had its special grace and piqued an effort to win her to
+cordiality, but here was the inexpressiveness, the indifference, of an
+elderly woman, one tired, despondent, done with the world&mdash;civil,
+indeed, as behooved her rearing, her station, but unnoting&mdash;really
+apart from all the interests of the present and all thought for the
+future. And, certainly, Mrs. Gwynn's life might be considered already
+lived out in her past.</p>
+
+<p>The rain fell in sheets, and Colonel Ashley wished himself back in camp,
+despite the flavor of the flummery. As they sat at table, now and again
+a vivid glare of lightning revealed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> through the windows the
+expanse of falling water, closely wrought as a silver-gray fabric, and
+the flash of white foam from its impact with the ground. The house
+seemed to rock with the reverberations of the bursts of thunder.</p>
+
+<p>When they were once more in the library, Colonel Ashley found himself
+with a long evening on his hands; his chum, Baynell, had fallen into one
+of his frequent fits of silent reflectiveness as he smoked, and Judge
+Roscoe, an ascetic, quiet, uncongenial old man, of opposite political
+convictions,&mdash;which placed an embargo on all the topics of the
+day,&mdash;did not seem to promise much in the way of lively
+companionship.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn still lingered in the dining room, and the little "ladies"
+explained that her old nurse, who was now the cook, was afflicted with a
+"misery," seeming to bear some relation to neuralgia, and needed help to
+get through with her work, "Uncle Ephraim being a poor dependence" where
+the handling of crockery was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>The "ladies," with true feminine coquetry, affected a shy reserve, and
+rather retreated from the expansive jovial bonhomie of Colonel Ashley's
+hearty advances toward them, albeit they were wont to press their
+attentions upon the inexpressive Captain Baynell. They met with
+fluttering downcast glances the engaging twinkle of Ashley's bright dark
+eyes. They replied with demure little clipped monosyllables to his
+gay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> sallies, and indeed Colonel Ashley bade fair to discharge
+the task of entertaining himself throughout the evening, till he luckily
+asked one of them what she liked best to play&mdash;graces or battledore
+and shuttlecock, Geraldine having brought in a grace-hoop and now
+holding it in her hands before her as she stood in the flicker of the
+fire.</p>
+
+<p>"I like cards best," Adelaide volunteered unexpectedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a pack of cards? Then let's have a game!" Ashley cried gayly;
+"though I'm afraid you can beat me at anything I try."</p>
+
+<p>There was a shrill jubilance of juvenile acclaim. The three, their
+ringlets waving, their cheeks flushing, the short skirts of their gay
+attire&mdash;blue, and crimson, and orange&mdash;fluttering joyfully,
+were instantly placing the chairs about the little card-table and
+climbing into them, while Colonel Ashley took the cards and dealt them
+with many airy fancy touches, to the amazement and admiration of the
+"ladies." With his versatile capacity for all sorts of enjoyment, the
+incident was beginning to have a certain zest for him, involving no
+sacrifice either of inclination or time. Baynell realized how Ashley
+also valued the pose. He had an intuitive perception of Ashley's own
+relish of its incongruity,&mdash;the gallant colonel of cavalry, who had
+successfully measured blades with the fiercest swordsmen and masters of
+fence, to be now lending himself gently to play with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> three
+little children, whose soft eyes glowed upon him with radiant admiration
+and tenderest confidence, while the firelight flared and flickered
+within and the storm raged without! Baynell knew that it was with an
+appreciated sacrifice of the perfect proportions of the situation that
+Ashley finally dealt cards for his friend and Judge Roscoe; he would
+have preferred to exclude them, if he might, and have the whole stage
+for the effects of his own dramatic personality. But never, in all his
+weavings of romance about himself, was Ashley guilty of even the
+slightest injustice or discourtesy or forgetfulness of the claims of
+others; hence his character was almost as fine and lovable as he
+feigned, or as it would have seemed, had but his foible of
+self-appreciation, self-gratulation, borne a juster proportion and been
+rendered less obvious by his own cheerful, unconscious, transparent
+candor. There was no guile in him, and the smile was quite genuine with
+which he took up his cards and affected to look anxiously through them
+to discern if Fate lurked therein in the presence of the Old Maid.</p>
+
+<p>For it was this dread game that the "ladies" had chosen, and a serious
+affair it is when regarded from their standpoint. Ashley had now no need
+of his own sentiments or mental processes or artistic poses to minister
+to his entertainment. It was quite sufficient to watch the faces of the
+"ladies" as the "draw" went round, each player in turn taking at random
+an unseen card<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> from the hand of the next neighbor to the left,
+the whole pack of course having been dealt. The heavy terror of doom was
+attendant upon the unwelcome pasteboard. Once, as this harbinger of Fate
+passed on, a gleeful squeal announced that a "lady" had escaped the
+anguish of the prospect of single blessedness.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not fair, Ger'ldine!" exclaimed Adelaide, reprovingly; "you have
+told ever'body that Gran'pa has drawed the Old Maid!"</p>
+
+<p>"I jus' couldn't help it&mdash;I was <i>so glad</i> she was gone," apologized
+the contrite Geraldine.</p>
+
+<p>"It makes no difference, my precious, for I have two of the queens, and
+they are a pair," said Judge Roscoe, and as he threw the mates on the
+table the "ladies" placed their hands on their lips to stifle the aghast
+"Ohs!" and "Ahs!" that trembled on utterance, and gazed on their
+fellow-gamesters with great, excited, round eyes. For the crisis had
+supervened. Of course one of the queens had been withdrawn from the pack
+at the commencement of the game, in order to leave an odd queen as the
+Old Maid. Since two had just been discarded there remained the prophetic
+spinster, and each "lady's" delicate little fingers trembled on the
+"draw." Ashley could scarcely preserve a becoming gravity and
+inexpressiveness as the pleading beseeching eyes of his next neighbor
+were cast up to his countenance, seeking to read there some intimation
+of the character of the card she had selected. More than once the<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> choice was precipitately abandoned
+at the last moment and another card snatched at hysteric haphazard. Then
+when an insignificant five of diamonds or three of spades was
+revealed,&mdash;what joy of relief, what deep-drawn sighs of relaxed
+tension, what activity of little slippered feet under the table, unable
+to be still, fairly dancing with pleasure that the Old Maid with her
+awful augury still held aloof and went the rounds elsewhere!
+Then&mdash;the eagerness of expectation and the renewed jeopardy of
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"On my word, this is sport!" exclaimed Colonel Ashley. "This is better
+than a 'small stake to give an interest to the game,'&mdash;eh, Judge?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a <i>big</i> stake," said Geraldine, at his elbow, "the Old Maid is!"</p>
+
+<p>The desperate suspense, the anguish of jeopardy, continued, and at
+length Geraldine had but one card left, Colonel Ashley holding two; the
+other players having matched and tabled the rest of the pack were now
+out of the game. Seeing how seriously the doom of spinsterhood was
+regarded, Colonel Ashley sought to prevent his little neighbor from
+drawing the fateful pasteboard by craftily shifting the cards in his
+hand as she was about to take hold of the grim-visaged queen. Geraldine
+detected the motion instantly, with deep suspicion misinterpreted his
+intention, and laid hold on the card he had man&#339;uvred to retain.
+Her crestfallen dismay betrayed the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> disaster. With wide,
+fearfully prescient eyes she nevertheless gathered all her faculties for
+the final effort. Cautiously holding her two cards under the table, she
+shifted them, interchanged them back and forth, then tremulously
+permitted him to draw. This done, he placidly placed two fives on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of impressive silence while the "lady" held before
+her eyes in her babyish fingers the single card, and gazed petrified on
+the Medusa-like visage of the Old Maid. Then, as a murmur of awe arose
+from the other "ladies," looking pityingly upon her, yet blissful in
+their own escape, she burst into tears, and, bowing her golden head in
+her arms on the table, wept copiously, though softly, silently, mindful
+that Cousin Leonora allowed no "loud whooping in weeps," her little
+shoulders shaken by her sobs.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Ashley could but laugh as he protested, "This is truly
+flattering to masculine vanity." Then, his kindly impulses uppermost,
+"Come, Miss Geraldine, let's have another round. There must be more Old
+Maids still hiding out in this crowd. Let's see who they are."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide looked alarmed as the stricken one lifted her head to the
+prospect of the company that misery loves.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was like Cousin Leonora, born a widow-woman," she remarked,
+regarding the doubtful future askance.</p>
+
+<p>"Widow-womans can marry,&mdash;Aunt Chaney<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> says they can,"
+Geraldine declared, as she took up the cards of the new deal.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you would speak more properer if you said 'widow-<i>womens</i>' than
+'widow-<i>womans</i>,'" rejoined the critical Adelaide, rendered tart by her
+renewed jeopardy and the sudden termination of the definite sense of
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>While each player's hand was full of cards, the three queens still
+amongst them, the interest was not so tense as the first few draws went
+round and Mrs. Gwynn's entrance from the dining room created some stir.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell and Ashley rose to offer her a chair, and the latter proposed to
+deal her a hand in the game.</p>
+
+<p>"Not this round," she returned, "as the game has already commenced.
+Besides, I am quite chilly. I shall sit by the fire and read the evening
+paper until you play out the hand."</p>
+
+<p>She seated herself near the fire, shivered once or twice, and held out
+her dainty fingers to it with exactly the utilitarian manner of some
+elderly woman, whose house-keeping errands have detained her in the
+cold, and who extends gnarled, misshapen, chapped, wrinkled hands,
+soliciting comfort from the warmth. Then she took up the paper and held
+the sheet to catch the lamplight from the centre-table upon it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doesn't she put on her 'specs'? She knows she needs them," Colonel
+Ashley said to himself in a sort of whimsical exasperation.<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> Her figure was slim and girlish,
+sylphlike as she reclined in the large fauteuil; her hair glittered
+golden in the flicker of the fire and the sheen of the lamp; her face,
+with its serious expression intent on the closely printed columns, might
+almost seem a sculptor's study of perfect facial symmetry. Her
+incongruous indifference, her elderly assumptions,&mdash;if, indeed, she
+was conscious of the effect of her manner,&mdash;all betokened that she
+considered it no part of her duty, and certainly no point of interest,
+to entertain young men.</p>
+
+<p>"We are mere boys to her, Baynell and I; she'll never see her sixtieth
+birthday again. I have known younger grandmothers," was Colonel Ashley's
+farcical thought.</p>
+
+<p>Her nullity of attitude toward him was so complete that she limited the
+possibilities of his imagination. He began to devote himself to the
+gentle pursuit in hand with a freshened ardor.</p>
+
+<p>Around and around the draw went, almost in absolute silence. Now and
+again the tabling of matching cards sounded with the sharp impact of
+triumph, but this was growing infrequent as the hands were thus
+depleted. The firelight flickered on the incongruous group,&mdash;the
+bearded faces of the military men, the gold-laced uniforms, with buttons
+glimmering like points of light, the infantine softness of the "ladies,"
+with their fluttering ringlets and gala attire, the gray head and
+ascetic aspect of the judge. The heat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> had enhanced the odor of a
+bowl of violets on the table in the centre of the room; as the flames
+rose and fell, the lion on the rug seemed to stir about, to rouse from
+his lair.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the rain still fell in torrents; the tumult of the gush from the
+gutter hard by gave intimations of great volume of overflow. At long
+intervals a drop fell hissing down the chimney on the coals where the
+fire had burned to a white heat. The wind sang like a trump, and from
+far away the reverberations of a train of cars came with a sort of
+muffled sonority that was almost indistinguishable from the vibrations
+of the earth. One hardly knew whether the approach of the train was felt
+or heard.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't see how a locomotive can keep the rails in such a night as
+this," Colonel Ashley remarked, lifting his head to listen. "I had
+rather my command would be playing the duck down there in the puddles
+than crossing that half-submerged bridge on that troop train."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they transporting troops now?" asked Judge Roscoe, casually. He was
+a lawyer and knew the general inappropriateness and inadmissibility of a
+leading question. He had, however, no interest in the response, for the
+transit of troops did not necessarily intimate re&euml;nforcements to
+the garrison, and hence the expectation of attack, but perhaps merely
+the intention of distant activity.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell lifted his eyes from his cards,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> and a glance of
+warning, of upbraiding, flashed into the jovial dark eyes of Colonel
+Ashley. Judge Roscoe perceived it with surprise and a sort of
+uncomfortable monition that he and his guest, the son of his cherished
+friend, were in reality in opposition in a most important crisis of the
+life of each&mdash;in effect, national enemies. He had not thus regarded
+their standpoint, and the idea that this was Baynell's conviction
+wounded him. He hardly thought the warning glance in his own house
+either necessary or in good form, and he was not ill pleased to subtly
+perceive that Ashley secretly resented it.</p>
+
+<p>"A troop train, I should judge, by the sound," Ashley said hardily, his
+head still poised in a listening pose. "Evidently heavily laden; might
+be horses, though," he continued speculatively. He would not submit to
+be checked or disciplined into prudential considerations by Baynell,
+especially as Judge Roscoe must have noted the warning sign, which
+itself would tend to convert a simple casual remark into a significant
+disclosure. He said to himself that he knew the proper limitations of
+conversation, and was the last man in the world to let slip a hint that
+might by any means inform or even prompt the enemy. Moreover, Judge
+Roscoe was not deaf, and could distinguish the deep rumble of cars laden
+with troops from the usual sound of the running-gear of a train of
+ordinary freight and passengers. He went on casually and with an
+expansive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> effect of frankness: "Horses, most probably; there is
+a cavalry regiment in town that has been at the front as dismounted
+troops, and I think an order is out for horses for their use as cavalry
+again; they have been pressing horses all over the county yesterday and
+the day before. Winstead's troopers, you know," he added, addressing
+Baynell. "I saw him to-day. He says his men all seem pigeon-toed, or
+web-footed, or something. They were of no use afoot, although they have
+done very well in the saddle."</p>
+
+<p>"An'&mdash;an' did they wear boots on birds' feet an' web-toes?" asked
+the amazed Geraldine, innocently.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;oh, <i>Ger'ldine</i>!" screamed the superior Adelaide. "He means
+walkin' this-a-way," and her hands went across the table in a
+"toeing-in" gait, illustrative of the defect known as "pigeon toes."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw&mdash;aw&mdash;<i>I</i> know now!" said the instructed "lady," wofully
+out of countenance. Then she turned to draw from her neighbor's hand
+with much doubt and circumspection, for the matched pile in the centre
+was now large and the remaining cards had become few.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Mrs. Gwynn glanced up from the paper; she had been
+reading an account of a recent spirited skirmish at the front.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the difference between shrapnel and grape-shot?" she asked of
+the company at large.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, the artillery expert, rejoiced to enlighten<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> her. He
+turned in his chair and promptly took the word from the others. Few
+experts can answer any simple question categorically. Not only did he
+explain the missiles in question, but also how they had happened to be
+what they were, and the earlier stages of their development. He gave his
+views on their relative value and the possibility of their future
+utility,&mdash;all while Ashley, who now sat next him, as they had
+chanced to shift their chairs when Mrs. Gwynn had entered, waited with
+quiet and polite patience for him to draw. Baynell did this at haphazard
+at last, and whether it was accident or Fate that the significant card
+was practically thrust into his heedless hand by the mischievous Ashley,
+his countenance fell at beholding the prognosis of single blessedness,
+so palpably, so preposterously, that the jovial Ashley could not
+restrain his bantering laughter. Baynell instantly presented the cards
+to him to draw in turn, but either favored by luck or having acquired
+some surreptitious unfair knowledge of the outer aspect of the card,
+Ashley avoided the ill-omened pasteboard, and Baynell was at last left
+with the single card in his hand, while his triumphant friend made the
+room riotous with laughter, and the three "ladies" bent compassionate,
+tender eyes upon him, as if they anticipated the conventional gush of
+tears. They had grown very fond of him, and deeply felt the disaster
+that had befallen him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>"Oh, Captain Baynell, never mind! never mind!" cried the inspirational
+Adelaide. "<i>We'll</i> marry you! <i>We'll</i> marry you! You needn't be <i>so</i>
+anxious!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more Ashley's ringing merriment amazed the sympathetic "ladies."</p>
+
+<p>Lucille cast a burning glance of reproof upon him. Then she held up
+three fingers to Captain Baynell to intimate that three brides awaited
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" laughed Ashley. "Here's a settler for Utah, Judge. That's
+evidently the place for this fellow 'when this cruel war is over'!"</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe smilingly watched the benignant, commiserating little
+countenances.</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide had gone around the table and was hanging on the arm of Captain
+Baynell's chair as she proffered consolation.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Ashley wouldn't think it so mighty funny if <i>he</i> had the Old
+Maid! But <i>don't</i> mind, Captain. Why, <i>I</i> know <i>Cousin Leonora</i> would
+marry you, if nobody else would,&mdash;she always does anything when
+nobody else wants to."</p>
+
+<p>The silver tones were singularly clear, and for a moment the group sat
+in appalled silence. Ashley did not laugh, though his face was still
+distended with the risible muscles. It was like a laughing
+mask&mdash;the form without the fact. He did not dare even to glance
+toward the chair where Mrs. Gwynn imperturbably perused the war news,
+nor yet at the stony terror which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> felt was petrified on his
+friend's face. At that moment a vivid white light quivered horribly
+through the room and the repetitious crashing clamor of the thunder was
+like a cannonade at close quarters. A great fibrous sound of the riving
+of timber told that a tree hard by had been split by the bolt; the
+torrents descended with redoubled force, and the massive old house
+seemed to rock.</p>
+
+<p>And in the moment of comparative quiet a new, strange sound intruded
+itself on recognition,&mdash;that most uncanny voice, the cry of a horse
+in the extremity of terror. It came again and again; at each successive
+peal of the thunder and recurrent furious flare of lightning it seemed
+nearer. It had a subterranean effect; and then after the crash of
+falling objects, as if some barrier had been overthrown, the iteration
+of unmistakable hoof beats on stone flagging announced that there was a
+horse in the cellar.</p>
+
+<p>This phenomenon obviously indicated an effort to save the animal from
+the impress of horses for army service, which had been in progress for
+days and to which Colonel Ashley had alluded. Far away in the
+wine-cellar, in the safe precincts under the back drawing-room, which
+was rarely used nowadays, the horse had evidently been ensconced, and
+but for the storm his presence might have continued indefinitely
+undetected. The tremendous conflict of the powers of the air, the
+unfamiliar place, the loneliness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> had stricken the creature with
+panic fright, and, doubtless hearing human voices in the library, he had
+overthrown temporary obstacles, burst down inadequate doors, and
+following the genial sound was now stamping and whinnying just beneath
+the floor. Colonel Ashley, affecting to note nothing unusual, dealt the
+cards anew, and commented on the fury of the tempest.</p>
+
+<p>"I fancy you have lost one of your fine ancestral oaks, Judge. That bolt
+struck timber with a vengeance."</p>
+
+<p>"We have the consolation of a prospect of firewood," responded Judge
+Roscoe. "But I doubt if it struck only one of the trees."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I never before saw such a flash as that," remarked Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>The horse in the cellar protested that <i>he</i> never had. Then he fairly
+yelped at a comparatively mild suffusion followed by a dull roar of
+thunder, evidently anticipating a renewal of the pyrotechnic horrors
+that had so terrified him.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe maintained an imperturbable aspect, despite a certain
+mortification and a sense of derogation of dignity. He recognized this
+as a scheme of old Ephraim's. More than once he had so contrived the
+disappearance of the last milch cow that his master possessed as to save
+her from the foraging parties bent on beef. Chickens had experiences of
+invisibility that were not fatal, and though the carriage pair and the
+judge's saddle-horse had been the victims of
+surprise,&mdash;impressed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> long ago,&mdash;the old servant had
+again and again rescued a beautiful animal that Mrs. Gwynn owned and
+which had been a second gift from Judge Roscoe. Hearing betimes of the
+press orders from the soldiers, the "double-faced Janus" had besought
+Judge Roscoe to leave the concealment of Acrobat to him; and, although
+only a passive factor in the enterprise, Judge Roscoe, as much surprised
+at the denouement as any one else, was forced to bear the brunt of the
+lamentable fiasco in which the secret had become public.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, though silent, looked extremely annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"This rainfall will raise the river considerably," Ashley commented.</p>
+
+<p>"Shouldn't be surprised if the lower portions of the town are flooded
+already," said Judge Roscoe, throwing out a pair of matched cards.</p>
+
+<p>"Those precincts are very ill situated," said Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>The Houyhnhnm in the cellar protested that he was, too.</p>
+
+<p>"High water must occasion considerable suffering among the poorer
+class," rejoined the judge.</p>
+
+<p>"But the locality could have been easily avoided in laying out Roanoke
+City. Draw, Captain&mdash;" Ashley broke off suddenly, being forced to
+remind the preoccupied Baynell of his turn to supply his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"The commercial convenience of wharfage at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> low stages of water
+was doubtless the inducement," explained Judge Roscoe.</p>
+
+<p>"To be sure,&mdash;minimizes the distance for loading freights,"
+assented Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the drays come to the very decks of the boats."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>That</i> was a pretty sharp flash," said Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it was&mdash;it was!" whooped the Houyhnhnm from out the cellar. He
+evidently executed a sort of intricate passado, to judge from the sound
+of his hysteric hoofs on the stone flagging.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope your fine grove will sustain no more casualties," said Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope, myself, the house won't be struck," whimpered the speculative
+Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"Me, too! Me, too!" cried the horse.</p>
+
+<p>"Draw, Captain,"&mdash;once more Ashley had occasion to rouse the
+absorbed Baynell.</p>
+
+<p>At every inapposite, disaffected remark that the horse in the cellar saw
+fit to interject into the conversation, the twins, evidently well aware
+of the betrayal of the domestic secret by his loud-voiced intrusion into
+the apartment beneath the library, fully apprehending the disaster, at
+first looked aghast at each other, then referred it to the adjustment of
+superior wisdom by a long, earnest gaze at their grandfather.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe could ill sustain the expectation of their childish
+comment. But he felt that his dignity was involved in ignoring that
+aught was amiss. His composure emulated Ashley's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> resolute
+placidity and well-bred, conventional determination to admittedly hear
+and see naught that was not intentionally addressed by his host to his
+observation. Baynell gave no outward and obvious sign of notice, but the
+subcurrent of brooding thought that occupied his mind was token of his
+evident comprehension and a nettled annoyance. Perhaps they all felt the
+relief from the tension when Ashley, suddenly glancing toward the
+window, saw between the long red curtains the section of a clearing sky
+and the glitter of a star.</p>
+
+<p>"The storm is over," he said. "I think, Judge, we might venture out now
+to view the damage. I trust there is not much timber down."</p>
+
+<p>The three men trooped heavily out into the hall, and suddenly the
+challenge of the sentry rang forth, simultaneously with the sound of the
+approach of horses' hoofs and the jingle of military accoutrements.
+Colonel Ashley's groom had bethought himself to bring up his master's
+charger in case he should care, since the weather had cleared, to return
+to camp. This Ashley preferred, despite Judge Roscoe's cordial
+insistence that he could put him up for the night without the slightest
+inconvenience.</p>
+
+<p>As Ashley took leave of the family and galloped down the avenue in the
+chill damp air, and over the spongy turf, now and then constrained to
+turn aside to avoid fallen boughs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> he had not even a vague
+prevision how short an interval was to elapse before chance should bring
+him back. His expectation of meeting a charming young lady, with perhaps
+the sequel of an interesting flirtation, in which all his best qualities
+as squire of dames should be elicited for the admiration of the
+fair,&mdash;his pre&euml;minence in singing, in quoting poetry, in
+saying pretty things, in horsemanship, above all the killing glances of
+his arch dark eyes, to say naught of the relish he always experienced in
+his own excellent pose as a lover, one of his favorite
+r&ocirc;les,&mdash;all had been nullified by Mrs. Gwynn's
+unresponsiveness. His vanity was touched, upon reflecting on the events
+of the evening. He did not feel entreated according to his merits by her
+attitude of a faded and elderly widow-woman, and his relegation to the
+puerilities of the little Old Maids, or little "ladies," or whatever
+they called themselves (certainly not the first), with Baynell playing
+the stick, and the old judge merely a galvanized Opinion. He resolved
+that he would stick to camp hereafter. He knew a game of "Draw" with no
+Old Maid in the pack, and he would solace his spare time with such
+diversion as it might afford, and look to the drill of his squadrons.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the moisture of the storm was scarcely sun-dried the next
+afternoon before he was again galloping up the long avenue of the grove
+and inquiring of old Janus, appropriately<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> playing janitor, if
+Captain Baynell were within, as he had some special business with him.</p>
+
+<p>As on other occasions there was no glimpse or sound of feminine presence
+in the halls or on the stairs as he followed the old servant up the
+softly padded ascent. He fancied the old negro was much disaffected; he
+had a plaintive, remonstrant submissiveness, and a sort of curious,
+shadowy, aged look that seemed a concomitant of a sullen reproach. Had
+they been beyond earshot of the household, Ashley would have bidden the
+old man out with his grievance, but naught was said, and presently the
+door of Captain Baynell's bedroom closed upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you know that Tompkins had sent up here and impressed Mrs. Gwynn's
+horse?"</p>
+
+<p>Baynell had not risen from a seat at an escritoire, where he seemed to
+have been writing, and Ashley was half across the room and had flung
+himself into a chair before the fire ere his friend could lay down the
+pen.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I knew it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why&mdash;how did he know they had the animal in the cellar?
+He was up here the day before yesterday, and that old darkey told him
+that the horse had already been pressed into service."</p>
+
+<p>"He must have been put into the cellar earlier. You know we heard the
+animal there last night."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>"Why&mdash;why&mdash;" Colonel Ashley stammered in his haste&mdash;"how
+did <i>Tompkins</i> know?"</p>
+
+<p>"How?&mdash;why, of course I notified him&mdash;this morning."</p>
+
+<p>Vertnor Ashley was altogether inarticulate. Baynell replied to the
+surprise in his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;whatever did you think I should do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue, of course!&mdash;as I held mine! Why, I thought you
+were a friend of these people."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell looked at him, surprised in turn. "And so I am."</p>
+
+<p>"And they have been kindness itself to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"But do they expect me to return their kindness by helping them deceive
+the government, or to hold back supplies the army needs? They are
+mistaken if they do! It is a matter of conscience!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a <i>little</i> thing like that&mdash;" Ashley snapped his
+fingers&mdash;"a lady's horse!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is a matter of conscience!" Baynell reiterated.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, my friend, I wouldn't have such a conscience as that in the
+house! It's a selfish beast&mdash;a raging monster! exceedingly deadly
+to the interests of other folks," Ashley retorted with his bright eyes
+aglow.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell glanced out of the great window, with its white, embroidered
+muslin curtains, between which he could see the ranges in the distance,
+Roanoke in the mid-spaces, the white tents of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> the girdle of
+encampments on all the hillsides about the little city; at intervals,
+held in cup-like hollows, were great glittering ponds of water, the
+accumulations of the storm, glassing the clouds like mirrors, and
+realizing to the eye the geologist's description of the prehistoric days
+when lakes were here.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden suspicion was in Ashley's mind. His resolution was taken on the
+instant. "I hope you will advance no objection; but I intend to see Mrs.
+Gwynn and Judge Roscoe, and assure them that <i>I</i> had no part in giving
+this information to the quartermaster's department."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell looked at him with an indignant retort rising to his lips, then
+laughed satirically.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you imagine I left <i>you</i> under that imputation?"</p>
+
+<p>"You consider it no imputation, but a duty. Now I don't see my duty in
+that light. And I prefer to make my position clear to them."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell already had his hand on the bell-cord, and it was with pointed
+alacrity that he gave the order when old Ephraim appeared&mdash;"Please
+say to Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe that Colonel Ashley and Captain
+Baynell wish to speak to them a few minutes on a matter of business if
+they are at leisure."</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ephraim, in whose soul the misadventure about the horse was
+rankling deep, surlily assented, closed the door, and took his way
+downstairs.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>"I recken <i>you</i> kin speak ter dem," he soliloquized,&mdash;"mos'
+ennything kin speak hyar. Who'd 'a' thought dat ar horse, dat Ac'obat,
+would set out ter talk ter de folks in de lawberry, like no four-footed
+one hev' done since de days ob Balaam's ass. But I ain't never hearn dat
+de ass was fool enough ter got hisse'f pressed inter de Fed'ral army.
+'Fore de Lawd, dat horse wish now he had held his tongue an' stayed in
+de wine-cellar, wid dat good feed, whar I put him."</p>
+
+<p>Once in the library, the traits which so endeared Vertnor Ashley to
+himself, and eke to others, were amply in evidence. He was gentle,
+deferential, thoroughly straightforward and frank, albeit he saw the
+subject was a mortification to Judge Roscoe and abated his sense of his
+own dignity; still Ashley gave no offence.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand. It was a matter of conscience with Captain Baynell," said
+Judge Roscoe, seeking to dispose of the question in few words. "I can
+have no displeasure against a man for obeying the dictates of his own
+conscience, as every man must."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am happy to say I had no conscience in the matter," said
+Colonel Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, with her curt, low, icy tone. "We have
+indeed fallen on evil times. Captain Baynell has conscience enough to
+destroy us all, if only he sees fit. And Colonel Ashley, by his own
+admission, has<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> no conscience at all. Between the two we <i>must</i>
+come to grief."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me a trifle," Ashley persisted smilingly, "brought to my
+attention accidentally on a hospitable occasion. For aught <i>I</i> knew, you
+might have a permit, or the horse might have been a condemned animal,
+unsound, thus escaping the requisition. I had no orders to investigate
+your domestic affairs, nor to search for animals evading the impress.
+The men detailed to that duty are presumed to be capable of discharging
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you we have no feeling on that account&mdash;no
+antagonism&mdash;" began Judge Roscoe.</p>
+
+<p>"I desire you to realize that <i>nothing</i> would have induced me to report
+the presence of the horse here," Ashley interrupted; "though," he added,
+checking himself, "I do not wish to reflect on Captain Baynell's
+procedure!"</p>
+
+<p>"He thought himself justified, indeed obligated," interposed Judge
+Roscoe.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I greatly regretted the necessity, which seemed forced on me,
+as I saw the matter," said Baynell.</p>
+
+<p>"I fully appreciate that you take a different view," began Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"'O give ye good even. Here's a million of manners,'" quoted Mrs. Gwynn,
+satirically, smiling from one to the other as each sought to press
+forward his own view, yet to cast no reflections on the probity of the
+standpoint of the other.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe laughed. He was an admirer of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> what he called
+"understanding in women," and the mere flavor of a Shakespearian
+collocation of words refreshed his spirit like an oasis in a desert.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley looked at her doubtfully. He wondered that they could forgive
+Baynell for this gratuitous bit of official tyranny, as it seemed to
+him, and also the serious loss of the value of the horse. He said to
+himself that almost any rule is constrained to exceptions. He thought
+Baynell's course was small-minded, unjustifiable, and an ungrateful
+requital of hospitality, such as only important interests might warrant.
+He did not reckon on the strength of the attachment which Judge Roscoe,
+despite politics, had formed for his dear friend's son, or for his
+respect for the coercive force of a man's convictions of the
+requirements of duty. It was a sort of Brutus-like urgency which
+appealed to a high sense of probity and which commended itself to the
+ex-judge, accustomed to deal with subtle differentiations of moral
+intent as well as intricate principles of sheer law.</p>
+
+<p>As for Mrs. Gwynn&mdash;it was sufficient that she had lost the horse.
+She cared too little for either man as an individual to consider the
+delicate adjustment of the problem of official integrity involved.</p>
+
+<p>"I surely should have lost every claim to your good opinion if I had
+glozed it over and passed it by for personal reasons," Baynell argued
+after Ashley had gone.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>She looked at him speculatively for an instant, wondering what possible
+claim he could fancy he possessed to her good opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"If you think impressing a horse is a recommendation, a great many
+citizens of this town have cause to hold the quartermaster-general in
+high esteem. A perfect drove of horses passed here this afternoon. I
+looked for Acrobat, but I did not see him."</p>
+
+<p>He was taken aback at this turn. "But you know, of course, it was
+against my own will&mdash;my own preference&mdash;the horse&mdash;it was
+a sacrifice on my part!"</p>
+
+<p>"So glad to know it; I thought the sacrifice was mine!"</p>
+
+<p>He shifted the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge Roscoe has kindly given me permission to stable here my own
+horses,&mdash;not belonging to the service,&mdash;and to use the
+pasture, and I hope you will ride one that I think is particularly
+suitable for a lady. Judge Roscoe, to show that he bears no malice, is
+riding another one to Roanoke City this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>She said that she had lost her equestrian tastes. But she listened quite
+civilly while he argued the ethics anew, and, as her interest in the
+subject had waned with the dissolving view of her horse and she did not
+care for the question in the abstract, she did not controvert his theory
+or relish placing obstacles to the justification of his course.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p>Baynell's disposition to recur to the subject inaugurated a habit of
+conversation with Mrs. Gwynn after the scholastic hours of the "ladies,"
+when he sat in the library through the long afternoons. The vast subject
+of the abstract values of right and wrong, the ultimate decrees of
+conscience, whether in matters of great or minute importance, might seem
+inexhaustible in itself. But he gradually drifted therefrom into a
+discursive monologue of many things. He began to talk of himself as
+never before, as he had never dreamed that he could. He described his
+friends and acquaintances; he rehearsed his experiences; he even
+repeated traditional stories of his father's college life, and the mad
+pranks which the staid Judge Roscoe had played in the callow days of
+their youth, thus emphasizing the bond of intimacy and his own claim to
+recognition as a hereditary friend; he went farther and detailed his own
+intimate plans for the future.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout she maintained a conventional pose of courteous attention.
+Surely, he thought, he must have roused some responsive interest. For
+himself, in all his life, he had never experienced moments so surcharged
+with significance, with pleasure, with importance.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> One day he
+concluded a long exposition of thought and conviction, intensely vital
+to him, by making a direct appeal to her opinion. She looked up with
+half-startled eyes, then hesitatingly replied, while a quick, deep flush
+sprang into her pale cheeks. Elated, confident, victorious, he beheld
+the color rise and glow, and noted her lingering, conscious
+embarrassment; for the subject was unimportant save as it concerned him,
+and why, but for his sake, should she blush and falter in sweet
+confusion?</p>
+
+<p>How could he know that hardly one word in ten had she heard! Absent,
+absorbed, she was silently turning again and again the ashes of the dead
+past, while he, insistently, clamorously, was knocking at the door of
+the living present.</p>
+
+<p>Step by step she had been retracing her early foolish fondness for the
+man who had been her husband. How could she have been so blind! she was
+asking herself. Why could she not have seen him with the eyes of
+others,&mdash;that wise, kindly, far-sighted vision which scanned the
+present with caution for her sake, and by its gauge measured the future
+with an unerring and an appalled accuracy? How contemptuously, like a
+heroine of romance indeed, she had flouted the well-meant opposition of
+her relatives to her marriage! They had proved wise prophets. Drunkard,
+gambler, spendthrift, he had wrecked her fortune and embittered her
+whole life. The two years she had spent with him seemed an
+&aelig;on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> of misery. They had obliterated the past as well as
+excluded the future. Somehow she could not look beyond them into her
+earlier days save upon those gradations of events&mdash;the swift
+courtship, the egregious, headstrong, romantic resolution, the foolish
+love founded on false ideals which led her at last to the altar, so
+confiding, so happy, so disdainful of the grave faces and the
+disapproving shaking heads of all her elder kith and kindred, so
+triumphant in setting them at naught and enhancing Rufus Gwynn's victory
+with the quelling of their every claim.</p>
+
+<p>In these long, quiet afternoons she would silently canvass humiliating
+details&mdash;when was it that she had first known him for the liar he
+was; when had she admitted to herself his inherent falsity? Even the
+truth had faltered for his sake. She had eagerly sought to deceive
+herself&mdash;to gloze over his lies, now told for a purpose, and
+constrained to their misleading device, now thrown off without intention
+or effect, as if the false were the more native incident of his moral
+atmosphere. Perhaps, with the love that possessed her, she, too, might
+have acquired the proclivity; she meditated on this possibility with a
+bowed head. At first, when he lied to her, she herself could not
+distinguish the truth from the false in his words. She had found herself
+at sea without a rudder. However she might have desired to protect him,
+whether she might have bent in time to deceit for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> sake,
+there is a sort of monopoly in falsehood. It is a game at which two
+cannot play to good effect. The first time he struck her full in the
+face was in the fury which possessed him, when, through her agency, a
+lie had been fairly fixed upon him. She had given him as her authority
+for a statement she made to Judge Roscoe, and her uncle had, in
+repeating it to him, discovered the lie&mdash;the blatant open
+lie&mdash;that could not be qualified or gainsaid.</p>
+
+<p>And she had forgiven this, both the word and the blow. How strange! She
+made allowances for his irritation, for his mortification at the
+discovery by a man so upright, so ascetic, so unsympathetic with any
+moral weakness as Judge Roscoe. She offered to herself excuses which
+even she, however, in her inmost soul, hardly accepted&mdash;for the lie
+itself! He desired to avoid reproaches for mistaken arrangements about
+money matters, she had said to herself; he shrank from contention with
+her thus. Never dreaming that she might be questioned, he had been led
+to palliate, to distort the facts. For at first she would have no
+traffic with the ignoble word "lie." The restrictions of her own phrases
+began to have a sort of terror for her. She could no longer talk freely.
+She hardly dared make the most obvious statement concerning any simple
+fact of household affairs, or amusements, or visits, or friends, lest,
+in his prodigal untruth, for no reason,&mdash;the abandonment of folly,
+or a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> momentary whim,&mdash;he should have committed himself and
+her unequivocally to some different effect. She hesitated, stammered,
+when she was in company,&mdash;faltered, blushed,&mdash;she who used to
+be so different!&mdash;while all her world stared. And when they were
+alone, he would storm at her for it, furiously mimicking her distressful
+uncertainty, her tremulous solicitude lest she openly convict him of
+lying continually. She sought to give him no occasion for anger, not
+that she so dreaded the hurt of his heavy hand, but that she might save
+him from the ignominy of striking his wife. She studied his face and
+conformed to his whims, and anticipated his wants, and forbore vexation.
+Her subjection was so obvious that while her own near friends raged
+inwardly, divining that he was unkind, their casual acquaintance
+sportively fleered, never dreaming how their arrows sped to the mark.</p>
+
+<p>Their fleers nettled him; he was specially out of countenance one day
+because of a careless shaft of Mildred Fisher's.</p>
+
+<p>"It is one of the beautiful aspects of matrimony that the law once
+recognized the right of a man to correct his wife with 'a stick not
+thicker than his thumb'; let me see the size of your thumb, Mr.
+Gwynn,&mdash;it must be that which keeps Leonora in this edifying state
+of subjection."</p>
+
+<p>And when she had gayly gone her way, Rufus Gwynn bitterly upbraided his
+wife.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>"Damn you!" he had cried; "can't you hold up your head at all?"</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that she had donned her most charming toilette&mdash;a dress
+of heavy white satin simple yet queenly&mdash;and had gone to one of
+those balls of the early times of the Confederacy, where the cavaliers
+were many and gay; she was all smiles and bright eyes, though these were
+the only jewels she wore, for had she not discovered at the moment of
+opening the case that her diamonds&mdash;Rufus Gwynn's own bridal gift
+to her&mdash;were missing!&mdash;sold, pawned, given away, it was never
+known. Thus seeking her duty in these devious ways and to do his choice
+credit, as a wife should, her charm held a court about her,&mdash;even
+Mildred Fisher, who loved splendor, ablaze with the collection of
+precious stones at her disposal, her mother's, her grandmother's, and
+her aunt's, was eclipsed. The glittering officers followed the beautiful
+young wife in the promenade, and stood about and awaited the cessation
+of the whirl as she waltzed with one of the number, and devoutly held
+her bouquet while in the banqueting room, and drank her health and
+toasted her happiness, and broke her fan, soliciting a breeze for her
+comfort. The result?&mdash;When in the carriage homeward bound, she was
+fit to throw herself out of the window and under the wheels in sheer
+terror of the demon of jealousy she had aroused. Her husband loaded her
+with curses, he foamed at the mouth as he threatened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the men
+with whom she had danced, more than one of whom he had himself
+introduced for the purpose. He protested he would shoot Julius Roscoe
+because he had <i>not</i> asked her to dance, but had turned pale when he saw
+her, and had stood in the shadows of the columns at the upper end of the
+ball room and with melancholy, love-lorn eyes watched her in the waltz.
+When she declared she had not seen Julius, she had not spoken to
+him&mdash;"You dare not!" he cried. And but that she clutched his arm,
+he would have sprung from the vehicle in motion to hide in the
+shrubbery&mdash;the pine hedge&mdash;as they passed Judge Roscoe's gate,
+to shoot Julius in the back as he went home from the ball,&mdash;in the
+back, in the darkness, from ambush, that none might know! Then as her
+husband could not force himself from her grasp, he turned and struck her
+across the face twice, heavily.</p>
+
+<p>All her soldier friends, old playmates, youthful compeers, elder
+associates, marched away without a farewell word from her,&mdash;a last
+farewell it would have been to many, who, alack, came never marching
+back again; for she was denied at the door to all callers, since her
+bruises were so deep and lacerated that she must needs keep her room in
+order that the conjugal happiness might not be impugned. For still she
+made excuses for Gwynn, sought to shield him from himself. He had begun
+to drink heavily under the sting of the universal financial disasters
+occasioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> by the war which he also shared, supplemented by
+heavy losses at the gaming table and the race track and often "was not
+himself," as she phrased it. He was expert at repentance, practised in
+confession, and had a positive ingenuity for shifting responsibility to
+stronger shoulders. He could burst into torrents of protesting tears,
+and dramatically fling himself on his knees at her feet, and bury his
+face in her hands, covering them with kisses, and craving her pardon and
+help. And she would once more, inconsistently, hopefully, take up her
+faith in him anew, albeit it had all the tearful tremors of
+despair,&mdash;believing, yet doubting, with a strange duality of
+emotion impossible to the analysis of reason. Thus the curtain was rung
+up again, and the terrible tragedy of her life on this limited stage
+went on apace.</p>
+
+<p>He had infinite ingenuity in concealment, abetted by her silence in
+suffering which her pride fostered. Albeit her friends had divined his
+unkindness, the extent of his brutality was not suspected by them until
+one night when frightful screams had been heard to issue from the house,
+despite the closed and shuttered windows of winter weather. These were
+elicited by the sheer agony of being dragged by the hair through the
+rooms and halls and down the stairs, and thrust out into the chill of
+the fierce January freeze. She was given hardly time for the instinct of
+flight to assert itself, to rise up with wild eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> looking adown
+the snowy street; for the door opened, and he dragged her within once
+more, as a watchman of the precinct, Roanoke City being at this time
+heavily policed, ascended the steps to the portico with an inquiry as to
+the sound. He was satisfied with the explanation from the husband that
+Mrs. Gwynn was suffering with a violent attack of hysterics. But the
+next day, while the mistress of the house, bruised and almost shattered,
+lay half unconscious in her own room, the housemaid, in the hall
+polishing the stair rail and wainscot, was terrified to draw out here
+and there from the balusters great bloody lengths of Mrs. Gwynn's
+beautiful hair which had caught and held as she was dragged by it down
+the stairs. This rumor, taken in connection with the explanation of her
+screams offered by her husband to the watchman, occasioned Mrs. Gwynn's
+relatives great anxiety for her safety. It was with the view of
+discovering from her the truth, insisting on its disclosure as a matter
+of paramount importance, that Judge Roscoe as her nearest kinsman and
+former guardian had suggested a ride with her, when in the quiet of an
+uninterrupted conversation he intended to remonstrate against her lack
+of candor, seek to ascertain the facts, and then devise some measures
+looking toward the betterment of the unhappy situation.</p>
+
+<p>The slaughter by Rufus Gwynn of the unoffending horse had eliminated the
+necessity alike<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> of remonstrance or advice. Her ideals, her hope,
+her love, were destroyed as by one blow. Her resolution of separation
+was taken and, albeit her anxious friends feared her capacity for
+forgiveness was not exhausted, it proved final. The end came on the day
+that Rufus Gwynn's horse, rearing under whip and spur, and falling,
+broke his rider's neck.</p>
+
+<p>This was her romance and her awakening from love's young dream. These
+were the scenes that she lived over and over. This was her past that
+every moment of leisure converted into her present,&mdash;palpable,
+visible, vital,&mdash;and her future seemed bounded only by the
+possibilities of retrospect.</p>
+
+<p>With the many-thonged scourge of her memory how could she listen to the
+monologue of this stranger! Thus it was that her attentive attitude was
+suddenly stultified by his direct appeal to her. Thus she had reddened
+and faltered in embarrassment for the rude solecism, and gathered her
+faculties for some hesitant semblance of polite response.</p>
+
+<p>Lapsed in the delight of his fool's paradise, Baynell discerned naught
+of the truth. Left presently alone in the library, he serenely watched
+through the long window the slow progress of the shadows following the
+golden vernal sunshine throughout the grove. The wind faintly stirred,
+barely enough to shake the bells of the pink and darkly blue hyacinths
+standing tall and full in the parterre at one side of the house. The
+plangent tone of a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> single key, struck on the grand piano, fell
+on the stillness within, and after a time another, and slowly still
+another, in doubting ascension of the gamut, as one of the "ladies"
+submitted to the cruelty of a music lesson. His lip smilingly curved at
+the thought. And still gazing out in serene languor, all unprescient, he
+once more noted the spring sun of that momentous day slowly westering,
+westering.</p>
+
+<p>A red sky it found at the horizon; a chill wind starting up over a
+purple earth spangled with golden camp-fires. Presently the world was
+sunk in a slate-tinted gloom, and the night came on raw and dark, with
+moon and stars showing only in infrequent glimpses through gusty clouds.
+A great fire had burned out on the library hearth; the group had
+genially sat together till the candles were guttering in their sockets
+in the old crystal-hung candelabra. Judge Roscoe still lingered,
+smoking, meditating before the embers. All the house was asleep, silent
+save for the martial tread of the sentry walking to and fro before the
+portico. Suddenly Judge Roscoe heard a sound, alien, startling,&mdash;a
+sound at the side window. The room was illumined by a pervasive red glow
+from the embers, in which he saw his own shadow, gigantic,
+gesticulatory, as he rose to his feet, listening again to&mdash;silence!
+Only the wind rustling in the lilac hedge, only the ring of the sentry's
+step, crisp and clear on the frosty air.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>The moment that the soldier turned to retrace his way to the farther
+side of the house, there came once more that grating sound at the
+window, distinct, definite, of sinister import.</p>
+
+<p>For one instant Judge Roscoe was tempted to call for the sentry's aid.
+The next the shutter opened, the sash glided up noiselessly, and, as the
+old gentleman gazed spellbound with starting eyes and chin a-quiver, a
+tiny flame flickered up, keenly white amongst the embers, illuminating
+the room, revealing the object at the window. Only for one moment; for
+in a frenzy of energy Judge Roscoe had caught up the heavy velvet rug
+and, as he held it against the aperture of the chimney, the room once
+more sunk into indistinguishable gloom; the sudden bounding entrance of
+an agile figure was wholly invisible to the sentry, albeit he was almost
+immediately under the window, peering in with a stern "Who goes there?"</p>
+
+<p>"There seems something amiss with the catch of the shutter," said the
+placid voice of the master of the house, who had left the rug still
+standing on its thick edge before the chimney place. "Can you help me
+there? Thank you very much."</p>
+
+<p>The sentry muttered a sheepish apology, pleading the unusual noise at
+this hour. His excuse was cheerfully accepted. "It is well to be on the
+alert. Good night!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, sir!" And once more there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> sounded through the
+sombre air the martial beat of the sentry's tread on the frosty ground.</p>
+
+<p>Then two men in the darkness within, reaching out in the gloom, fell
+into each other's arms with tears of joy, but presently reproaches too.
+"Oh, my son, my son! why did you come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Came a-visiting!" said a voice out of the obscurity, with a boy's
+buoyant laughter. "The picket-lines are so close to-night, I couldn't
+resist slipping in. Is Leonora here? How are my dear little
+nieces,&mdash;the 'ladies'?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Julius! My boy, this is so dangerous!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd risk ten times more to hear your dear voice again&mdash;" with a
+rib-cracking hug&mdash;"only think, father, it's more than two years now
+since I have seen you! I want to see Leonora ten minutes and kiss the
+'ladies,' and then I'm off again in a day or so, and none the wiser."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, that is out of the question! No one must know. The camps are
+too close; you must have seen them, even in the grove."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I can lie low."</p>
+
+<p>"And there is a&mdash;" Judge Roscoe hardly knew how to voice
+it&mdash;"a&mdash;a Yankee officer in the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Thunderation! The dickens there is! Why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no time to explain; you must go back at once, while the
+Federal pickets are so close, and you can slip through the line. It's
+just at the creek."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>"But they have thrown it out since dark, five miles. Our fellows
+skedaddled back to their support. And I tell you it will never do for me
+to be caught inside the lines. The Yankees might think I was spying
+around!"</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe turned faint and sick. Then, rising to the emergency, and
+considering the suspicions the sound of voices here at this hour of the
+night might excite in the mind of the sentry, he grasped his son's arm,
+with a warning clutch imposing silence, and led him along the dark hall,
+groping up the staircase. As the boy was about to bolt in the direction
+of his former chamber, his father turned the corner to the second
+flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Sky parlor, is it?" the young daredevil muttered, as they stumbled
+together up the steep ascent to the garret.</p>
+
+<p>A dreary place it showed as they entered, large, low ceiled, extending
+above the whole expanse of the square portion of the house. It was
+lighted only by the windows at either side; through one of these pale
+watery glimmers were falling from a moon which rolled heavily like a
+derelict in the surges of the clouds. This sufficed to show to each the
+other's beloved face; and that Judge Roscoe's ribs were not fractured in
+the hugs of the filial young bear betokened the enduring strength of his
+ancient physique.</p>
+
+<p>The place was sorely neglected since the reduction of the service in the
+old house. Cobwebs had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> congregated about ceiling and windows;
+the dust was thick on rows of old trunks, which annotated the
+journeyings of the family since the hair-covered, brass-studded style
+was the latest fashion to the sole leather receptacle that bore the
+initials of Judge Roscoe's dead wife, and the gigantic "Saratoga" that
+had served in Mrs. Gwynn's famous wedding journey. There were many
+specimens of broken chairs, and some glimmering branching girandoles,
+five feet high, that had illumined the house at one of the great
+weddings of long ago. A large cedar chest, proof against moths,
+preserved the ancient shawls and gowns of beauties of by-gone times, who
+little thought this ephemeral toggery would survive them. Certain
+antiquated pieces of furniture, hardly meet for the more modern
+assortment below,&mdash;chests of drawers surmounted by quaint little
+cabinets with looking-glasses, a lumbering wardrobe that seemed built
+for high water and stood on four long stilt-like legs, a pair of old
+mantel mirrors, wide and low, with tarnished gilded frames, dividing the
+reflecting surface into three equal sections, a great barometer that
+surlily threatened stormy weather, clumsy bureaus, bedsteads, each with
+four tall "cluster posts" surmounted by testers of red, quilled cloth
+drawn to a brass star in the centre, fire-dogs and fenders of dull
+brass&mdash;all were grouped here and there. One of these bedsteads had
+been occupied on some occasion when the house had been overcrowded, for
+the cords<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> that sufficed in lieu of the more modern slats now
+supported a huge feather-bed. Judge Roscoe threw on it a carriage rug
+that had been hung to air on a cord which was stretched across one
+corner of the room. He almost fainted at a sudden, frightened clutch
+upon his arm, and, turning, saw his son in the agonies of panic, his
+teeth chattering, his eyes starting out of his head, his hand pointing
+tremulously toward the bed, as if bereft of his senses, demanding to be
+informed what that object might be. It was the time-honored joke of the
+young Southern soldiers that they had not seen or slept in a bedstead
+for so long that the mere sight of so unaccustomed a thing threw them
+into convulsions of fear. His father forgave the genuine tremors the
+joke had occasioned him for the joker's sake, and as Julius, flinging
+off his cap, coat, and boots, stretched out at his long length
+luxuriously, he stood by the pillow and admonished him of the plan of
+the campaign.</p>
+
+<p>The Yankee officer had been ill, Judge Roscoe explained, and,
+convalescing now, joined the family in their usual gathering
+places&mdash;the library, dining room, on the portico, in the grove. If
+Leonora or the "ladies" knew of the presence here of Julius, they could
+hardly preserve in this close association with the enemy an unaffected
+aspect; so significant a secret might be betrayed in facial expression,
+a tone of voice, a nervous start. This would be fatal; his life might
+prove the forfeit. It was a mistake to come, and this mistake must<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> forthwith be annulled. Despite
+the man in the house, Julius could lie perdu here in the garret,
+observing every precaution of secrecy, till the ever shifting
+picket-line should be drawn close enough to enable him to hope to reach
+it without challenge. They would confide in trusty old Ephraim. He would
+maintain a watch and bring them news. And old Ephraim, too, would bring
+up food, cautiously purloined from the table.</p>
+
+<p>"The typical raven! appropriately black!" murmured Julius.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hungry now, dear?" Judge Roscoe asked disconsolately, after
+telling him that he must wait till morning.</p>
+
+<p>"If you have such a thing as the photograph of a chicken about you, I
+should be glad to see it," Julius murmured demurely.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe bent down and kissed him good night on the forehead, then
+turned to pick his way carefully among the debris of the old furniture.
+Soon he had reached the stairway, and noiseless as a shadow he flitted
+down the flight.</p>
+
+<p>The young officer lay for a while intently listening, but no stir
+reached his ear; naught; absolute stillness. For a long time, despite
+his fatigue, the change, the pleasant warmth, the soft luxury of the
+feather-bed, would not let him slumber. He was used to the canopy of
+heaven, the chill ground, the tumult of rain; the sense of a roof above
+his head was unaccustomed, and he was stiflingly aware of its
+propinquity. Nevertheless he contrasted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> its comfort with his
+own recent plight and that of his comrades a few miles away, lying now
+asleep under the security of their camp-guards, some still in the mud of
+the trenches, all on the cold ground, shelterless, half frozen, half
+starved, ill, destitute, but fired with a martial ardor and a zeal for
+the Southern cause which no hardship could damp, and only death itself
+might quench. As he gazed about at the grotesqueries of the great room,
+now in the sheen of the moon, and now in the shadow of the cloud, he
+thought how little he had anticipated finding the enemy here ensconced
+in his place in his father's house, a convalescent, "the son of an old
+friend, of whom we have all grown very fond." He raged inwardly at the
+destruction of his cherished plans wrought by the mere presence of the
+Federal officer. The joy of his visit was brought to naught. Dangerous
+as it would have been under the best auspices, its peril was now great
+and imminent. Instead of the meeting his thoughts had
+cherished,&mdash;the sweets of the stolen hours at the domestic
+fireside, with the dear faces that he loved, the dulcet voices for which
+he yearned,&mdash;he was to skulk here, undreamed of, like some unhappy
+ghost haunting a lonely place, fortunate indeed if he might chance to be
+able to make off elusively after the fashion of the spectral gentry,
+without becoming a ghost in serious earnest by the event of capture, or
+catching the pistol ball of the Yankee officer. So much he had risked
+for this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> visit&mdash;life and limb!&mdash;and to be relegated
+to the surplusage of the garret, the loneliness, the desolate moon, the
+deserted dust of the unfrequented place! He was to approach none of
+them&mdash;none of the hearthstone group! There was to be no joyous
+greeting, no stealthy laughter, no interchange of loving words, and
+clasps, and kisses. He was still young; his eyes filled, his throat
+closed. But that shadowy glimpse of his dear father&mdash;he had had
+that boon!</p>
+
+<p>"I'll remember it, if I bite the dust in the next skirmish. And the
+question is to get away&mdash;for the next skirmish!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more he fell to studying mechanically the grouping of the archaic,
+disordered furniture; the shifting of the shadows amongst it as a cloud
+sped by with the wind; the spare boughs of a bare aspen tree etched on
+the floor by the moon, shining down through the high windows; and that
+melancholy orb itself, suggestive of a futile vanished past, a time
+forgotten, and spent illusions, the familiar of loneliness, and the deep
+empty hours of the midnight&mdash;itself a spectre of a dead planet,
+haunting its wonted pathway of the skies. When its light ceased to fill
+his lustrous, contemplative eyes he did not know, but as the moon passed
+on to the west, his melancholy gaze had ceased to follow.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p>Joy came in the morning when the raven alighted. The "two-faced Janus"
+was wreathed in smiles, bent double with chuckles, and tears of delight
+sparkled in his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"How dee is growed!" he whispered cautiously. "Mannish now, fur true.
+Gawd! de han'somest one ob de fam'ly!" For, with the refreshment of
+sleep and the substance, not merely the similitude, of fried chicken,
+waffles, and coffee, Julius, in the gray uniform of a first lieutenant,
+made a very gallant show despite the incongruities of the piled-up
+lumber of the old garret. He had a keen, high, alert profile, his nose a
+trifle aquiline; his complexion was fair and florid; his eyes were a
+fiery brown, his hair, of the same rich tint, was now and again tossed
+impatiently backward, the style of the day being an inconvenient length,
+for it was worn to hang about the collar. He had a breezy, offhand,
+impetuous manner, evidently only bridled in by rigorous training to
+decorous forms, and he stood six feet one inch in his stockings, taller
+now by one inch more in his boots, which the old servant had helped him
+to draw on. "Lawd-a-massy! dis de baby?" cried the old negro,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> admiringly, still on his knees,
+contemplating the young officer as he took a turn through the apartment
+with his straight-brimmed cap on his head and his hand on his sword.
+"'Fore Gawd, whut sorter baby is dis yere&mdash;over six feet high?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wish I was a baby for about two hours, Uncle Ephraim! You could carry
+me 'pickaback' through the Yankee lines!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hue-come ye run dem lines, Marse Julius? I reckon, dough, you hatter
+see Miss Leonora," said the discerning old darkey. "'Fore de Lawd, she
+hed better be wearin' dem widder's weeds fur de good match she flung
+away in you 'stead o' fur dat ar broken-necked man whut's daid, praise
+de Lamb!"</p>
+
+<p>If Julius joined in this pious thanksgiving, he made no outward sign. He
+only flushed slightly as he asked constrainedly, "Is she wearing
+mourning yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sah, to be shore. Dis yere Yankee man, whut ole Marster an' de
+'ladies' an' all invited to stay yere, he is gwine round Miss Leonora
+mighty smilin' an' perlite an' humble. Dat man behaves lak he is mos'
+too modes' ter say his prayers! 'Anything ye got lef' over, good Lawd,
+will do Baynell, especially a lef'-over widder 'oman!' Dat's his
+petition ter de throne ob grace!"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, double-faced Janus!&mdash;now partisan of the Rebel, erstwhile so
+friendly with "de Yankee man."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>"Ef 'twarn't fur him, yer Pa could come up yere an' smoke a <i>see</i>gar an'
+talk, an' Miss Leonora an' de ladies mought play kyerds wid dee wunst in
+a while, wid dem blinds kept closed."</p>
+
+<p>"He isn't such an awful Tartar, is he, Uncle Ephraim?" said Julius,
+plaintively, allured by this picture. "Wouldn't he wink at it, if he
+missed them or heard voices, or caught a suspicion of my being here?
+They have been so good to him&mdash;and I am doing nothing
+aggressive&mdash;only visiting the family."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Lawsy&mdash;Lawsy&mdash;Lawsy-massy, no! No!</i>" cried Uncle Ephraim, in
+extreme agitation and with the utmost emphasis of negation. "Dat man is
+afflicted wid a powerful oneasy conscience, Marse Julius!"</p>
+
+<p>And he detailed with the most convincing and graphic diction the
+disaster that had befallen the too-confiding Acrobat.</p>
+
+<p>Julius was very definitely impressed with the imminence of his peril.
+"The son of Belial!" he exclaimed in dismay.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw sah,&mdash;<i>dat</i> ain't his daddy's Christian name," said Uncle
+Ephraim, ingenuously. "'Tain't Benial!&mdash;dough it's mighty nigh ez
+comical. Hit's '<i>Fluellen</i>'&mdash;same ez dis man's. I hearn ole Marster
+call it&mdash;but what you laffin' at? Dee bed better come out'n dat
+duck-fit! Folks can hear ye giggling plumb down ter de Big Gate!"</p>
+
+<p>He was constrained to take himself downstairs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> presently, lest
+he be missed, although longing to continue his discourse. His caution in
+his departure, his crafty listening for sounds from below before he
+would trust his foot to the stair, his swift, gliding transit to the
+more accustomed region of the second story, the art he expended in
+concealing in a dust cloth the bowl in which he had conveyed "the
+forage," as Julius called it&mdash;all were eminently reassuring to the
+man who stood in such imminent peril for a casual whim as he gazed after
+"the raven's" flight.</p>
+
+<p>Solitary, silent, isolated, the day became intolerably dull to the young
+soldier as it wore on. He dared not absorb himself in a book, although
+there were many old magazines in a case which stood near the stairs, for
+thus he might fail to note an approach. Once he heard the treble babble
+of two of the "ladies" and the strange, infrequent harsh tone of the
+deaf-mute, and he paused to murmur, "Bless their dear little souls!"
+with a tender smile on his face. And suddenly, his attention still bent
+upon the region below stairs, so unconscious of his presence above,
+there came to him the full, mellow sound of a stranger's voice, a
+well-bred, decorous voice with a conventional but pleasant laugh; and
+then, both in the hallway now, Leonora's drawling contralto, with its
+cantabile effects, her speech seeming more beautiful than the singing of
+other women. The front door closed with a bang, and Julius
+realized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> that they had gone forth together. He stood in vague
+wonderment and displeasure. Was it possible, he asked himself, that she
+really received this man's attentions, appeared publicly in his company,
+accepted his escort? Then, to assure himself, he sprang to the window
+and looked out upon the grove.</p>
+
+<p>There was the graceful figure of his dreams in her plain black bombazine
+dress worn without the slightest challenge to favor, the black crape
+veil floating backward from the ethereally fair face, the glittering
+gold-flecked brown hair beneath the white ruche, called the "widow's
+cap," in the edge of her bonnet. Her fine gray eyes were cast toward the
+house with a languid smile as the "ladies" tapped on the pane of the
+library window and signed farewell. Beside her Julius scanned a tall,
+well-set-up man in a blue uniform and the insignia of a captain of
+artillery, with blond hair and beard, a grave, handsome face, a
+dignified manner, a presence implying many worldly and social values.</p>
+
+<p>This walk was an occasion of moment to Baynell. The opportunity had
+arisen in the simplest manner.</p>
+
+<p>There was to be the funeral of a friend of Judge Roscoe's in the
+neighborhood, and at the table he had been arranging how "the family
+should be represented," to use his formal phrase, for business
+necessitated his absence.</p>
+
+<p>"But I will walk over with <i>you</i>, Leonora,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> although I cannot
+stay for the services. I will call by for you later."</p>
+
+<p>It was natural, both in the interests of civility and his own pleasure,
+that Baynell should offer to take the old gentleman's place, urging that
+an officer was the most efficient escort in the unsettled state of the
+country; and, indeed, how could they refuse? He, however, thought only
+of her acceptability to him. Apart from her beauty he had never known a
+woman who so conformed to his ideals of the appropriate, despite the
+grotesque folly of her blighted romance. It was only her nobility of
+nature, he argued, that had compassed her unhappiness in that instance.
+The graces of her magnanimity would not have been wasted on him, he
+protested inwardly. He appreciated that they were fine and high
+qualities thus cast before swine and ruthlessly trampled underfoot. She
+herself had lacked in naught&mdash;but the unworthy subject of the
+largess of her heart.</p>
+
+<p>It was Baynell who talked as they took their way through the grove and
+down the hill. Now and again she lifted her eyes, murmured assent,
+seemed to listen, always subacutely following the trend of her own
+reflections.</p>
+
+<p>He would not intrude into the house of affliction, being a stranger, he
+said, and therefore he strolled about outside during the melancholy
+obsequies, patiently waiting till she came out again and joined him. She
+seemed cast down,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> agitated; he thought her of a delicately
+sensitive organization.</p>
+
+<p>"How familiar death is becoming in these war times!" she said drearily,
+when they were out of the crowd once more and fairly homeward bound.
+"There was not one woman of the hundred in that house who is not wearing
+mourning."</p>
+
+<p>She rarely introduced a topic, and, with more alacrity than the subject
+might warrant, he spoke in responsive vein on the increased losses in
+battle as arms are improved, presently drifting to the comparison of
+statistics of the mortality in hospitals, the relative chances for life
+under shell or musketry fire, the destructive efficacy of sabre cuts,
+and the military value of cavalry charges. The cavalry fought much now
+on foot, he said, using the carbine, but this reduced the efficiency of
+the force one-fourth, the necessary discount for horse-holders; he
+thought there was great value in the cavalry charge, with the unsheathed
+sabre; it was like the rush of a cyclone; only few troops, well
+disciplined, could hold their ground before it; thus he pursued the
+subject of cognate interest to his profession. And meantime she was
+thinking only of these women, mourning their dead and dear, while
+she&mdash;the hypocrite&mdash;wore the garb of the bereaved to emphasize
+her merciful and gracious release. She wondered how she had ever endured
+it, she who hated deceit, a fanciful pose, and the empty<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> conventions, she who did not
+mourn save for her lost exaltations, her wasted affection, the hopeless
+aspirations&mdash;all the dear, sweet illusions of life! Perhaps she had
+owed some compliance with the customs of mere widowhood, the outward
+respect to the status. Well, then, she had paid it; farther than this
+she would not go.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning as Captain Baynell took his seat at the breakfast-table
+she was coming in through the glass door from the parterre at one side
+of the dining room, arrayed in a mazarine blue mousseline-de-laine
+flecked with pink, a trifle old-fashioned in make, with a bunch of pink
+hyacinths in her hand, their delicate cold fragrance filling all the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Even a man less desirous of being deceived than Baynell might well have
+deduced a personal application. He was sufficiently conversant with the
+conventions of feminine attire to be aware that this change was
+something of the most sudden. His finical delicacy was pained to a
+certain extent that the casting off her widow's weeds could be
+interpreted as a challenge to a fresh romance. But he argued that if
+this were for his encouragement, surely he should not cavil at her
+candor, for it would require a bolder man than he to offer his heart and
+hand under the shadow of that swaying crape veil. Nevertheless when his
+added confidence showed in his elated eyes, his assured manner, she
+stared at him for a moment with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> surprise so obvious that it
+chilled the hope ardently aglow in his consciousness. The next instant
+realizing that all the eyes at the table were fixed on her blooming
+attire, noting the change, she flushed in confusion and vexation. She
+had not counted on being an object of attention and speculation.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe's ready tact mitigated the stress of the situation.
+"Leonora," he said, "you look like the spring! That combination of
+sky-blue and peach-blow was always a favorite with your
+aunt,&mdash;French taste, she called it. It seems to me that the dyes of
+dress goods were more delicate then than now; that is not something new,
+is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; a worn-out thing, as old as the hills!" she answered casually.</p>
+
+<p>And so the subject dropped.</p>
+
+<p>It was renewed in a different quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Old Ephraim was sitting on the floor in the garret, while his young
+master, adroitly balanced in a crazy arm-chair with three legs, was
+scraping with a spoon the bottom of the bowl that had contained "the
+forage."</p>
+
+<p>Julius made these meals as long as he dared, so yearning he was for the
+news of the dear home life below, so tantalized by its propinquity and
+yet its remoteness. He was barred from it by his peril and the presence
+of the Federal officer as if he were a thousand miles away. But old
+Ephraim came freshly from its scenes;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> from the table that he
+served, around which the familiar faces were grouped; from the fireside
+he replenished, musical with the voices that Julius loved. He caught a
+glimpse, he heard an echo, through the old gossip's talk, and thus the
+symposium was prolonged. The old negro told the neighborhood news as
+well; who was dead, and how and why they died; who was married, and how
+and when this occurred; what ladies "received Yankee officers," for some
+there were who put off and on their political prejudices as easily as an
+old glove; what homes had been seized for military purposes or destroyed
+by the operations of war.</p>
+
+<p>"De Yankees built a fote on Marse Frank Devrett's hill," he remarked of
+the home of a relative of the Roscoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Which side," demanded the boy; "toward the river?"</p>
+
+<p>"Todes de souf."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! Uncle Ephraim, it couldn't be the south; the crest of the hill
+slopes that way," Julius contradicted, still actively plying the spoon.
+"You don't know north from south; you don't know gee from haw!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas de souf, now! 'Twas de souf!" protested the old servant.</p>
+
+<p>"Now look here," argued Julius, beginning to draw with the spoon upon
+the broad, dusty top of a cedar chest close by. "Here is the Dripping
+Spring road, and here runs the turnpike.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> Now here is the rise
+of the hill, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dar is Gen'al Belden's cavalry brigade camped at de foot," put in Uncle
+Ephraim, rising on his knees, taking a casual interest in cartography.</p>
+
+<p>"And here is the bend of the river,"&mdash;the bowl of the spoon made a
+great swirl to imply the broad sweep of the noble Tennessee.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's whar dey got some infantry, four reg'ments."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," with several dabs to mark the spot, "convenient for
+embarkation."</p>
+
+<p>"An' dar," said the old man, unaware of any significance in the
+disclosure, "is one o' dem big siege batteries hid ahint de
+bresh&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Masked, hey? to protect launching and prevent approach by water; they
+<i>are</i> fixed up mighty nice! And here goes the slope of the hill to the
+fort."</p>
+
+<p>"No, dat's de ravelin, de covered way, an' de par'pet."</p>
+
+<p>"As far down as this, Uncle Ephraim? surely not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, ye ain't so much ez chipped de shell ob dis soldierin' business,
+ye nuffin' but a onhatched deedie! An' yere I been takin' ye fur a
+perfessed soldier-man! You lissen! <i>yere</i> is de covered way ob de
+ravelin, outside ob a redoubt, whar dey got a big traverse wid a
+powder-magazine built into it. I been up dar when dis artillery captain
+sent his wagons arter his ammunition."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>"About where is the magazine located?" demanded Julius, gravely intent.</p>
+
+<p>"Jes' dar&mdash;dar&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried the Confederate officer, in a loud, elated voice.</p>
+
+<p>The old servant caught him by the sleeve, trembling and with a warning
+finger lifted. Then they were both silent, intently listening.</p>
+
+<p>The sunlight across the garret floor lay still, save for the bright bar
+of glittering, dancing motes. The tall aspen tree by the window made no
+sound as it touched the pane with its white velvet buds. A wasp
+noiselessly flickered up and down the glass. Absolute quietude, save for
+a gentle, continuous murmur of voices in conversation in the library
+below.</p>
+
+<p>"I'se gwine ter take myse'f away from yere," said old Janus, loweringly,
+his eyes full of reproach, his nerves shaken by the sudden fright. "Ye
+ain't fitten fur dis yere soldierin' business; jes' pipped de shell. You
+gwine ter git yerself cotched by dat ar Yankee man whut we-all done
+loaded ourself up wid, an' <i>den</i> whar will ye be? He done got well
+enough ter knock down a muel, an' I dunno <i>why</i> he don't go on back ter
+his camp. Done wore out his welcome yere, good-fashion!"</p>
+
+<p>But Julius had entirely recovered from the <i>contretemps</i>. He was gazing
+in fixed intentness at the map drawn in the dust on the smooth, polished
+top of the cedar chest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>"Uncle Ephraim," he said in an impressive whisper, "this powder-magazine
+is built right over a cave! I <i>know</i>, because there is a hole, a sort of
+grotto down in the grove, where you can go in; and in half a mile you
+come right up against the wall of my cousin Frank Devrett's cellar. We
+played off ghost tricks there one Christmas, the Devrett boys and me,
+singing and howling in the cave, and it made a great mystery in the
+house, frightening my Cousin Alice; but Cousin Frank was in the secret."</p>
+
+<p>"Gimme&mdash;gimme dat spoon! I don't keer if de Yankees built deir
+magazine in de <i>well</i> instead ob de cellar. I'm gwine away 'fore dat
+widder 'oman begins arter me 'bout dat spoon an' bowl! Gimme de bowl,
+sah, it's de salad bowl!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see," still pondering on the map; "they utilized part of the
+cellar, the wine vault, blown out of the solid rock, for the bottom of
+the powder-magazine to save work, and then covered it over with the
+traverse, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Gimme dat bowl, Marse Julius, dat widder 'oman will be on our track
+direc'ly. She keeps up wid every silver spoon as if she expected ter own
+'em one day! But shucks! <i>you</i> gwine ter miss her again, wid all dis
+foolishness ob playin' Rebel soldier. Dat ar widder 'oman is all dressed
+out in blue an' pink ter-day, an' dat Yankee man smile same ez a
+possum!"</p>
+
+<p>Julius Roscoe's absorption dropped in an instant.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> "You are an
+egregious old fraud!" he cried impetuously. "I saw her myself,
+yesterday, dressed in deep mourning."</p>
+
+<p>"Thankee, sah!" hoarsely whispered the infuriated old negro. "Ye'se
+powerful perlite ter pore ole Ephraim, whut's worked faithful fur you
+Roscoes all de days ob his life. I reckon I'se toted ye a thousand miles
+on dis ole back! An' I larned <i>ye</i> how ter feesh an' ter dig in the
+gyarden,&mdash;dough ye is a mighty pore hand wid a hoe,&mdash;an' ter
+set traps fur squir'ls, an' how ter find de wild bee tree. An' dem fine
+house sarvants never keered half so much fur ye ez de ole cawnfield
+hand; an' now dey hes all lef', an' de plantation gangs have all gone,
+too, an' ye would lack yer vittles ef 'twarn't fur de ole cawnfield
+hand! I'll fetch ye yer breakfus', sah, in de mornin', fur all ye are so
+perlite. Thankee, kindly, sah, callin' <i>me</i> names!"</p>
+
+<p>And he took his way down the stair. Albeit in danger of capture and
+death, Julius flew across the floor to the head of the flight,
+beguilingly beckoning the old negro to return, for the ministering raven
+had cast up reproachful eyes as he faced about on the first landing.
+Although obviously relenting, and placated by the tacit apology, the old
+servant obdurately shook his head surlily. Julius jocosely menaced him
+with his fists; then, as the gray head finally disappeared, the young
+man with a sudden change of sentiment strode restlessly up and down the
+clear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> space of the garret, feeling more cast down and ill at
+ease than ever before.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, why did I come home!" Julius said over and again, reflecting on his
+heady venture and its scanty joy. It seemed that the great unhappiness
+of his life was about to be repeated under his eyes; once before he had
+witnessed the woman he loved won by another man. Then, however, he was
+scarcely more than a mere boy; now he was older, and the defeat would go
+more harshly with him. But was he not even to enter the lists, to break
+a lance for her favor? Although he had controverted the idea of her
+doffing her weeds in this connection, he now nothing doubted the fact.
+Her choice was made, the die was cast. And he stood here a fugitive in
+his father's house, in peril of capture&mdash;nay, it might be even his
+neck, the shameful death of a spy&mdash;that he might once more look
+upon her face!</p>
+
+<p>He could not be calm, he could no longer be still; and ceaselessly
+treading to and fro after the house had long grown quiet, and the
+brilliant radiance of the moon was everywhere falling through the broad,
+tall windows, his restless spirit was tempted beyond the bounds of the
+shadowy staircase that he might at least, wandering like some unhappy
+ghost, see again the old familiar haunts. He passed through the halls,
+silent, slow, unafraid, as if invested with invisibility. He was grave,
+heavy-hearted, as aloof<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> from all it once meant as if he were
+indeed some sad spirit revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Now and
+again he paused to gaze on some arrangement of sofas or chairs familiar
+to his earlier youth. By this big window always lay the
+backgammon-board. There was the old guitar, with memory, moonlight,
+romantic dreams, all entangled in the strings! It had been a famous joke
+to drag that light card-table before the pier glass, which reflected the
+hand of the unwary gamester. He sank down in a great fauteuil in the
+library, and through the long window on the opposite side of the room he
+could see the sheen of the moonlight lying as of old amidst the familiar
+grove.</p>
+
+<p>The sentry, with his cap and light blue overcoat, its cape fluttering in
+the breeze, ever and anon marched past, his musket shouldered, all
+unaware of the eyes that watched him; the budding trees cast scant
+shadows, spare and linear, on the dewy turf; the flowers bloomed all
+ghostly white in the parterre at one side. So might he indeed revisit
+the scene were he dead, Julius thought; so might he silently,
+listlessly, gaze upon it, his share annulled, his hope bereft.</p>
+
+<p>Were he really dead, he wondered, could he look calmly at Leonora's book
+where she had laid it down? He knew its owner from her habit of marking
+the place with a flower; it held a long blooming rod of the <i>Pyrus
+Japonica</i>, the blossoms showing a scarlet glow even in the pallid
+moonlight.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> One of the "ladies" had cast on the floor her "nun's
+bonnet," a tube-like straw covering, fitted with lining and curtain of
+blue bar&egrave;ge and blue ribbons; that belonged to Adelaide, he was
+sure, the careless one, for the bonnets of the other two "nuns" hung
+primly on the rack in the side hall. His father's pen and open portfolio
+lay on the desk, and there too was the pipe that had solaced some knotty
+perplexity of his business affairs, growing complicated now in the
+commercial earthquake that the war had superinduced.</p>
+
+<p>Without doubt more troublous times yet were in store. Julius rose
+suddenly. He must not add to these trials! He must exert every capacity
+to compass his safe withdrawal from this heady venture, for his father's
+sake as well as his own. With this monition of duty the poor ghost bade
+farewell to the scene that so allured him, the old home atmosphere so
+dear to his sense of exile, and took his way silently, softly, up the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p>He met the dawn at the head of the flight, filtering down from a high
+window. It fell quite distinct on the map of the town and its defences
+that he had drawn, in the dust on the polished top of the cedar chest,
+and suddenly a thought came to him altogether congruous with the garish
+day.</p>
+
+<p>"I know a chief of artillery who would like mightily to hear where that
+masked battery is! I do believe he could reach it from Sugar Loaf
+Pinnacle if he could get a few guns up there!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>Then he was reminded anew of the subterranean secret passage from the
+grotto in the grove through the cave to the cellar of the old Devrett
+place, where now there was a powder-magazine. "I'd like to get out of
+the lines with that map set in my head precisely." He thought for a
+minute with great concentration. "Better still, I'll draw it off on
+paper."</p>
+
+<p>He had half a mind to take Uncle Ephraim into his confidence to procure
+pencils and paper, but a prudent monition swayed him. This was going
+far, very far! He would possess himself of the map duly drawn, but he
+would share this secret with no one. He resolved that when next the
+family should be out of the house, for daily they and their invalid
+guest strolled for exercise in the grove or wandered among the flowers
+in the old-fashioned garden, he would then venture into the library
+quietly and secure the materials.</p>
+
+<p>The opportunity, however, did not occur till late in the afternoon. He
+did not postpone the quest for a midnight hazard, for he daily hoped
+that with the darkness might come news of the drawing in of the
+picket-lines, affording him a better chance to make a run for escape.
+Hence it so happened that when the elder members of the household came
+in to tea, they found the "ladies" already at the table, the twins
+gloomily whimpering, the dumb child with an elated yet scornful air, her
+bright eyes dancing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>They had seen a ghost, the twins protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, fie! fie!" their grandfather uneasily rebuked them, and Captain
+Baynell turned with the leniency of the happy and consequently the
+easily pleased to inquire into this juvenile mystery.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes, they <i>had</i> seen a ghost! a truly true ghost! They mopped their
+eyes with their diminutive handkerchiefs and wept in great depression of
+spirit. It was in the library, they further detailed, just about dark.
+And it had seen them! It scrabbled and scrunched along the wall! And
+they both drew up their shoulders to their ears to imitate the shrinking
+attitude of a ghost who would fain shun observation and get out of the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>Little Lucille laughed fleeringly, understanding from the motion of
+their lips what they had said. She gazed around with lustrous, excited
+eyes; then, she turned toward Baynell, and with infinite &eacute;lan,
+she smartly delivered the military salute.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," cried Mrs. Gwynn, on the impulse of the moment, "Lucille says it
+is Julius Roscoe; that is her sign for him. What is all this foolery,
+Lucille?"</p>
+
+<p>But just then Uncle Ephraim, in his functions as waiter, overturned the
+large, massive coffee urn, holding much scalding fluid, upon the table,
+causing the group to scatter to avoid contact with the turbulent flood.
+The "widder 'oman"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> struggled valiantly to keep her temper, and
+said only a little of what she thought. The rearrangement of the table,
+with her awkward and untrained servant, for the service of the meal so
+occupied her faculties that the matter passed from her mind.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p>Miss Mildred Fisher was one of the happiest of women, and this was the
+result of her own peculiar temperament, although she enjoyed the
+endowments of a kind fate, for she came of a good family and had a fine
+fortune in expectation. Her resolute intention was to make the best of
+everything. With a strong, fresh, buoyant physique and an indomitable
+spirit it became evident to her in the early stages of this effort that
+the world is a fairly pleasant planet to live on. Her red hair&mdash;a
+capital defect in those days, when Titian's name was never associated
+with anything so unfashionable, and which bowed to the earth the soul of
+many an otherwise deserving damsel&mdash;was most skilfully manipulated,
+and dressed in fleecy billows, usually surmounted with an elaborate comb
+of carved tortoise-shell, but on special occasions with a cordon of very
+fine pearls, as if to attract the attention that other flame-haired
+people avoided by the humblest coiffure. By reason of this management it
+was described sometimes as auburn, and even golden, but this last was
+the aberration usually of youths who had lost their own heads, red and
+otherwise, for Mildred was a bewildering coquette. She had singularly
+fine hazel eyes,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> which she used rather less for the purpose of
+vision than for the destruction of the peace of man. Her complexion of
+that delicate fairness so often concomitant of red hair did not present
+the usual freckles. In fact it was the subject of much solicitous care.
+She wore so many veils and mufflers that her identity often might well
+be a matter of doubt as far as her features could be discerned, and
+Seymour, being a very glib young lieutenant, once facetiously threatened
+her with arrest for going masked and presumably entertaining designs
+pernicious to the welfare of the army. That she did entertain such
+designs, in a different sense, was indeed obvious, for with her
+determination to make the best of everything, Miss Fisher had resolved
+to harass the heart of the invader the moment a personable man with a
+creditable letter of introduction presented himself. For she "received
+the Yankees," as the phrase went, while others closed their doors and
+steeled their hearts in bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>all</i> receive the Yankees," she was wont to say smilingly. "It is a
+family failing with us. My father and five brothers in the Confederate
+vanguard are waiting now to receive Yankees&mdash;as many Yankees as
+care to come to Bear-grass Creek."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Miss Fisher!" remonstrated the gay young lieutenant, perceiving her
+drift; "how can you consign me so heartlessly to six red-handed
+Rebels!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>"Only red-headed as yet, fiery,&mdash;<i>all</i> of them! They'll be
+red-handed enough after you and they come to blows!"</p>
+
+<p>This mimic warfare had a certain zest, and many were the youths among
+the officers of the garrison who liked to "talk politics" in this vein
+with "Sister Millie," as she was often designated in jocose allusion to
+the five fiery-haired brothers. And indeed, as the Fisher family was so
+numerously represented in the Confederate army, she considered that her
+Southern partisanship was thus comprehensively demonstrated, and she
+felt peculiarly at liberty to make merry with the enemy if the enemy
+would be merry in turn.</p>
+
+<p>Very merry and good-natured the enemy was pleased to be as far as she
+was concerned. They wrote home for social credentials. They secured
+introductions from brother-officers who had the entr&eacute;e, and
+especially courted for this purpose were two elderly colonels who had
+been classmates of her father's at West Point, where he was educated,
+although he had resigned from the army many years ago. The two had
+sought and naturally had found a cordial welcome at the home of his
+wife, sister, and mother. It was natural, too, that they should feel and
+exert a sort of prudential care of the household, in the midst of
+inimical soldiers, and although their ancient companion-in-arms was in
+an adverse force hardly fifty miles away, they regarded this as merely
+the political aspect of the situation, which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> did not diminish
+their amity and bore no relation to their personal sentiment, as they
+came and went in his house on the footing of friends of the family. Now
+and again the incongruity was brought home to them by some audacity of
+Mildred Fisher's.</p>
+
+<p>"If you should meet papa, Colonel Monette," she said one day as one of
+these elderly officers was going out to command a scouting
+expedition&mdash;"if you <i>should</i> meet papa, don't fail to reintroduce
+yourself, and give him our prettiest compliments."</p>
+
+<p>The elderly officer was a literal-minded campaigner, and as he put his
+foot in the stirrup he felt rather dolorously that if ever he did meet
+Guy Fisher again, it would probably be at point-blank range where one
+would have to swallow the other's pistol ball.</p>
+
+<p>The war, however, was seldom so seriously regarded at the Fisher
+mansion, one of the fine modern houses of the town,&mdash;brick with
+heavy limestone facings and much iron grille work, perched up on a
+double terrace, from which two flights of stone steps descended to the
+pavement. The more youthful officers contrived to import fruits and
+hothouse flowers, the fresh books and sheet music of the day, and they
+stood by the piano and wagged their heads to the march in "Faust," which
+was all the rage at that time, and sped around nimbly to the vibrations
+of its waltz, that might have made a pair of spurs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> dance. She
+had a very pretty wit of an exaggerated tenor, and it seemed to whet the
+phrase of every one who was associated with "The Fair One with the
+Equivocal Locks," as an imitator of her methods had dubbed her.</p>
+
+<p>No order was so strictly enforced as to touch her mother's and her
+aunt's household. Their poultry roosted in peace. Their firearms were
+left by officers conducting searches through citizens' houses and
+confiscating pistols, guns, and knives.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>We</i> are as capable of armed rebellion as ever," she would declare
+joyously.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fisher's favorite horse bore her airy weight as jauntily down the
+street as if no impress had desolated equestrian society. On these
+occasions she was always accompanied by two or three officers, sometimes
+more, and there was a fable in circulation that once the cavalcade was
+so numerous that the guard was turned out at the fort, the sentries
+mistaking the gayly caparisoned approach for the major general
+commanding the division and his mounted escort.</p>
+
+<p>She sang in a very high soprano voice and with a considerable degree of
+culture, but one may be free to say that her rendering of "Il Bacio" and
+"La Farfalletta" was by no means the triumph of art that it seemed to
+Seymour, and it was suggested to the mind of several of the elder
+officers that there ought to be something more arduous for him to do
+than to languish over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the piano in a sentimental daze, fairly
+hypnotized by the simpler melodies&mdash;"Her bright smile haunts me
+still" and "Sweet Evangeline."</p>
+
+<p>Serious thoughts were sometimes his portion, and Vertnor Ashley now and
+again received the benefit of them.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard some news when I was in town to-day&mdash;and I don't believe
+it," Seymour said as he sat on a camp-stool on the grass in front of the
+colonel's tent.</p>
+
+<p>The so-called "street" of the cavalry encampment lay well to the rear.
+Hardly a sound emanated therefrom save now and then the echo of a step,
+the jingling of a spur or sabre, and sometimes voices in drowsy
+talk&mdash;perhaps a snatch of song or the thrumming of a guitar. A sort
+of luminous hush pervaded the atmosphere of the sunny spring afternoon.
+The shadows slanted long on the lush blue-grass that, despite the
+trampling to which it had been subjected, sent a revivifying impetus
+from its thickly interlaced mat of roots and spread a turf like dark
+rich velvet. The impulse of bloom was rife throughout nature&mdash;in a
+sort of praise offering for the grace of the spring. Humble untoward
+sprigs of vegetation, nameless, one would think, unnoticed, must needs
+wear a tiny corolla or offer a chalice full of dew&mdash;so minute, so
+apart from observation, that their very creation seemed a work of
+supererogation. The dandelions' rich golden glow was instarred along the
+roadside, and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> was a bunch of wood violets in the roots of
+the maple near Ashley's head, the branches of the tree holding far down
+their dark garnet blossoms with here and there clusters of flat
+wing-like seed-pods, striped with green and brown. A few paces distant
+was a tulip-tree, gloriously aflare with red and yellow blooms through
+all its boughs to the height of eighty feet, and between was swung
+Ashley's hammock with Ashley luxuriously disposed therein. His eyes were
+on the infinite roseate ranges of the Great Smoky Mountains in the
+amethystine distance; the purple Chilhowee darkly loomed closer at hand,
+and about the foot-hills was belted the placid cestus of tents, all
+gleaming white, while the splendid curves of the river, mirroring the
+sky, vied with the golden west. Nothing could have more picturesquely
+suggested the warrior in his hours of ease. The consciousness of one's
+own graces ought to add a zest to their value, especially when vanity is
+as absolutely harmless as Vertnor Ashley's enjoyment of his own good
+opinion of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"What news? Why don't you believe it? Grape-vine?" asked Ashley.
+(Grape-vine was the telegraph of irresponsible rumor.)</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no&mdash;nothing fresh from the army. I heard a rumor to-day
+about Miss Fisher&mdash;that she is engaged to be married."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not surprised&mdash;the contrary would surprise me."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>Seymour looked alarmed. "Had you heard it, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; but from what I have seen of 'Sister Millie,' as they call her
+about here, I should say she is a fine recruiting officer."</p>
+
+<p>There was an interval of silence, while Ashley swung back and forth in
+the hammock and Seymour sat in a clumped posture on the camp-stool, his
+hands on his knees, and his gloomy eyes on the square toes of his new
+boots. At length he resumed:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear of a fellow that hails from somewhere near here named
+Lloyd?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lawrence Lloyd?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's the man," said Seymour.</p>
+
+<p>"I've heard of him. That's the Lloyd place a little down the
+river,&mdash;old brick house, but all torn down now&mdash;burned by
+Gibdon's men; good-sized park, or 'grove,' as they call it. That's the
+man, is it? Commanded some Rebel cavalry in the Bear-grass Creek
+skirmish."</p>
+
+<p>"Fought like a bear with a sore head&mdash;mad about his house, I
+suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"If I <i>knew</i> that Miss Fisher was engaged to him, I would send her a
+barrel or two of fine old books that I rescued from Gibdon's
+men&mdash;thought I'd save 'em for the owner. They made a bonfire of the
+library there."</p>
+
+<p>"Lloyd used 'em up in a raid last fall&mdash;Gibdon's fellows. I don't
+blame 'em. But, say<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> Miss Fisher has not been fair to me if she
+is engaged to that man."</p>
+
+<p>"I always thought Miss Fisher was particularly fair&mdash;owing to a
+sun-bonnet, rather than to a just mind."</p>
+
+<p>"You think she would treat me as she has&mdash;encourage me to make a
+fool of myself&mdash;if she is engaged to another man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think she is likelier to be engaged to five than 'another.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You should not say that, Ashley," retorted Seymour, gravely. "It is not
+appropriate. You should not say that," he urged again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I mean no offence, and certainly no disrespect to the lovely Miss
+Fisher, who is my heart's delight. But you have heard the five-swain
+story?"</p>
+
+<p>As Seymour looked an inquiry&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Five Rebs in camp, all homesick, very blue, on a Sunday morning," began
+Ashley, graphically; "all sitting on logs, each brooding over his
+fianc&eacute;e's ivory-type. And, as misery loves company, one sympathized with
+another, and, by way of boastfulness, showed the beautiful counterfeit
+presentment of his lady-love. Their clamors brought up the rest of the
+five, and <i>each</i> had the identical photograph of Miss Millie Fisher. She
+was engaged to all five! There was nothing else they could do&mdash;so
+they held a prayer-meeting!"</p>
+
+<p>"What bosh!" exclaimed Seymour, fretfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> "People are always
+at some extravagant story about her like that. It isn't true, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"It is as much like her as if it were true," Ashley declared laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>The serious, not to say petulant traits of Seymour were intensified by
+the conscious jeopardy of his happiness, and the continual doubt in his
+mind as to whether he had any ground for hope at all.</p>
+
+<p>"By George! if I knew she was engaged&mdash;or&mdash;if I
+knew&mdash;anything at all about anything&mdash;I'd cut it all, and give
+it up. I don't want to be a source of amusement to her&mdash;or to be
+made a show of. Sometimes, I pledge you my word, I feel like a dancing
+bear."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Fisher has something of the style of a bear-ward, it must be
+confessed," said Ashley. "I fancied at one time she had a notion of
+getting a chain on me&mdash;she is enterprising, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a moment, "Why <i>don't</i> you cut it all, Mark?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Seymour, with an accent of positive pain, "I can't.
+Sometimes I believe she <i>does</i> care&mdash;she makes me believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," smiled Ashley, banteringly, "you dance very prettily&mdash;not a
+bit clumsily&mdash;a very creditable sort of bear."</p>
+
+<p>Another interval of silence ensued.</p>
+
+<p>"I blame Baynell for all this," said Seymour, sullenly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>"Why? Is he a rival?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But it was not at all serious&mdash;I wasn't so dead gone, I
+mean&mdash;when I wanted him to take me to the Roscoes'. If I had had
+some other place to visit&mdash;some other people to know&mdash;some
+distraction of a reasonable social circle, she couldn't have brought me
+to such a&mdash;a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;state of captivity," suggested Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know, seeing nobody else of one's own sort&mdash;and a
+charming girl&mdash;and nothing to do but to watch her sing&mdash;and
+hear her talk&mdash;and all the other men wild about
+her&mdash;and&mdash;it's&mdash;it's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll forget it all before long," suggested the consolatory Ashley.
+"You know we are here to-day and gone to-morrow, in a sense that General
+Orders make less permanent than Scripture. If the word should come to
+break camp and march&mdash;how little you would be thinking of Miss
+Fisher."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you were never in love, Ashley," Seymour said, a trifle
+drearily, adding mentally, "except with yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"I!" exclaimed Ashley, twirling his mustache. "Oh, I have had my sad
+experiences, too&mdash;but I have survived them&mdash;and partially
+forgotten them."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no interest now in going to the Roscoes'. Mrs. Fisher offered to
+introduce me. She and Miss Millie are going there to-morrow to some sort
+of a sewing-circle&mdash;they just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> want an officer's escort
+through the suburbs, I know. That sewing-circle is a fraud, and ought to
+be interdicted. They pretend to sew and knit for the hospitals here and
+Confederate prisoners, and I feel sure they smuggle the lint and clothes
+and supplies through the lines to Rebels openly in arms. I hate to go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, I'll engage to eat all the homespun cotton shirts that Miss
+Fisher ever makes for the Rebel in arms, or any other man. You need have
+no punctilio on that score."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it isn't that. I hate to meet Baynell&mdash;what is he staying on
+there for? He is as rugged now as ever in his life. Is he in love with
+the widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has a queer way of showing it if he is." And Ashley detailed the
+circumstance of the impressing of the horse. Seymour listened with a
+look of searching, keen intentness.</p>
+
+<p>"Baynell would never have done that in this world," he declared, "if you
+had not been there to hear the neighing, too. Why, it stands to reason.
+The family must have known the horse might whinny at any moment. They
+relied on his winking at it, and he would have done it if you had not
+been there. He took that pose of being so regardful of the needs of the
+service because he has been favoring the Roscoes in every way
+imaginable. Why, hardly anybody else has a stick of timber left, and
+every day houses are seized for military occupation, and the<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> owners turned adrift, but <i>I</i>
+know that when one of his men stole only a plank from Judge Roscoe's
+fence, he had the fellow tied up by his thumbs with the plank on his
+back for hours in the sun. That was for the sake of <i>discipline</i>, my
+dear fellow&mdash;not for Judge Roscoe's plank. On the
+contrary&mdash;quite the reverse!"</p>
+
+<p>Seymour wagged his satiric head, unconvinced, and Ashley remembered
+afterward that he vaguely wished that Baynell would not make so definite
+a point about these matters, provoking a sort of comment that ordinary
+conduct could hardly incur. Baynell ought to be in camp.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p>Baynell, himself, reached the same conclusion the next evening, but by
+an altogether different process of reasoning.</p>
+
+<p>He had noticed the unusual stir among the "ladies" early in the
+afternoon and a sort of festival aspect that the old house was taking
+on. The parlors were opened and a glow of sunshine illumined the windows
+and showed the grove from a new aspect&mdash;the choicer view where the
+slope was steep. The river rounded the point of woods, and there was a
+great stretch of cliffs opposite; beyond were woods again, reaching to
+the foot-hills that clustered about the base of the distant mountains
+bounding the prospect. The glimpse seen through the rooms was like a
+great painting in intense, clear, fine colors, and he paused for a
+moment to glance at it as he passed down the hall, for all the doors
+were standing broadly aflare and all the windows were open to the
+summer-like zephyr that played through the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Captain Baynell!" cried Adelaide, catching sight of him and gasping
+in the sheer joy of the anticipation of a great occasion. "The
+Sewing-Society is going to meet here, and you can come in, too! Mayn't
+he come in, Cousin Leonora?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>Mrs. Gwynn was filling a large bowl on a centre-table with a gorgeous
+cluster of deep red tulips, and Baynell noticed that she had thrust two
+or three into the dense knot of fair hair at the nape of her neck. As
+she turned around one of the swaying bells was still visible, giving its
+note of fervid brilliancy to her face. Her dress was a white mull, of
+simple make&mdash;old, even with a delicate darn on one of its floating
+open sleeves, but to one familiar with her appearance in the sombre garb
+of widowhood she seemed radiant in a sort of splendor. What was then
+called a "Spanish waist," a deeply pointed girdle of black velvet,
+flecked with tiny red tufts, made the sylphlike grace of her figure more
+pronounced, and at her throat was a collarette of the same material. Her
+cheeks were flushed. It had been a busy day&mdash;with the morning
+lessons, with the arrangement of the parlors, the array of materials,
+the setting of the sewing-machines in order, including two or three of
+the earlier hand-power contrivances, sent in expressly from the
+neighbors, the baskets for lint,&mdash;one could hear even now the
+whirring of the grindstone as old Ephraim put a keener edge on the
+scissors. Last but not least Leonora had accomplished the bedizenment of
+the "ladies."</p>
+
+<p>Adelaide was not born to blush unseen. She realized the solecism that
+her vanity lured her to commit, yet she said hardily, "Look at <i>me</i>,
+Captain&mdash;I'm got me a magenta sash!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>"And it's beautiful!" cried Baynell, responsively. "And so are you!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn glanced down at her reprovingly and was out of countenance
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"How odious it is to give to colors the names of battles," she
+said,&mdash;"Magenta and Solferino!"</p>
+
+<p>"This is a beautiful color, though," said Baynell.</p>
+
+<p>"But the name gives such an ensanguined suggestion," she objected.</p>
+
+<p>Her eye critically scanned the three "ladies" in their short white mull
+dresses and magenta sashes, each with a bow of black velvet in her hair,
+as they led Captain Baynell into the room, and it did not occur to her
+till too late to canvass the acceptability of the presence of the Yankee
+officer to the ladies of the vicinity, assembling in this choice
+symposium, who had some of them the cruel associations of death itself
+with the very sight of the uniform.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it were good breeding, or the magnanimity that exempts the unit
+from the responsibility of the multitude, or a realization that Judge
+Roscoe's guest, be he whom he might, was entitled to the consideration
+of all in the Roscoe house, there was no demonstration of even the
+slightest antagonism. The usual civility of salutation in acknowledging
+the introduction served to withhold from Captain Baynell himself the
+fact that he could hardly hope to be <i>persona grata</i>;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> and
+ensconced in an arm-chair at the window overlooking the lovely
+landscape, he found a certain amusement and entertainment in watching
+the zealous industry of the little Roscoe "ladies," who were very
+competent lint-pickers and boasted some prodigies of performance. A
+large old linen crumb-cloth, laundered for the occasion, had been spread
+in the corner between the rear and side windows of the back parlor, so
+that the flying lint should not bespeck the velvet carpet, or an
+overturned basket work injury, and here in their three little chairs
+they sat and competed with each other, appealing to Captain Baynell to
+time them by his watch.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then their comments, after the manner of their age, were keenly
+malapropos and occasioned a sense of embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you reckon Ac'obat is homesick by this time, Captain?" demanded
+Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out of the window, Captain&mdash;you can see the grating to the
+wine-cellar where he could put his nose out to take the air," said
+Geraldine.</p>
+
+<p>"An' he thought the lightning could come in there to take
+him&mdash;kee&mdash;kee&mdash;" giggled Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>wasn't</i> he a foolish horse!" commented Geraldine, regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Ephraim said Ac'obat had no religion else he'd have stayed where
+he was put like a Christian," Adelaide observed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but he was <i>just</i> a horse&mdash;poor Ac'obat!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>At this moment emulation seized Geraldine. "Oh, my&mdash;just look how
+Lucille is double-quickin' about that lint pickin'!"</p>
+
+<p>And a busy silence ensued.</p>
+
+<p>The large rooms were half full of members of the society. In those days
+the infinite resources of the "ready-made" had not penetrated to these
+regions, and doubtless the work of such eager and industrious coteries
+carried comfort and help farther than one can readily imagine, and the
+organized aid of woman's needle was an appreciable blessing. Two or
+three matrons, with that wise, capable look of the able house-sovereign,
+when scissors, or a dish, or a vial of medicine is in hand, sat with
+broad "lapboards" across their knees, and cut and cut the coarse
+garments with the skill of experts, till great piles were lying on the
+floor, caught up with a stitch to hold component parts together and
+passed on to the younger ladies at the sewing-machines that whirred and
+whirred like the droning bees forever at the jessamine blooming about
+the windows. Nothing could be more unbeautiful or uninviting than the
+aspect of these stout garments, unless it were to the half-clad soldier
+in the trenches to whom they came like an embodied benediction. The
+thought of him&mdash;that unknown, unnamed beneficiary, for whose grisly
+needs they wrought&mdash;was often, perhaps, in the mind of each.</p>
+
+<p>"And oh!" cried Adelaide, "while I'm pickin' lint for this hospital, I
+dust know some little girl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> away out yonder in the Confederacy
+is pickin' lint too&mdash;an' if my papa was to get wounded, they'd have
+plenty."</p>
+
+<p>"Pickin' fast, she is, like us!" cried the hastening Geraldine.</p>
+
+<p>The deft-fingered mute, discerning their meaning by the motion of their
+lips, redoubled her speed.</p>
+
+<p>Others were sewing by hand, and one very old lady had knitted some
+lamb's wool socks, which were passed about and greatly admired; she was
+complacent, almost coquettish, so bland was her smile under these
+compliments.</p>
+
+<p>And into this scene of placid and almost pious labor came Miss Mildred
+Fisher presently, leading her "dancing bear."</p>
+
+<p>If there were any question of the acceptability of the enforced presence
+of a Yankee officer, either in the mind of the Sewing-Circle or
+Lieutenant Seymour, it was not allowed to smoulder in discomfort, but
+set ablaze to burn itself out.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are all just perfectly amazed at our assurance in bringing a
+Yankee officer here,&mdash;<i>don't</i> be mortified, Lieutenant
+Seymour,&mdash;but mamma wouldn't hear of coming without a valiant
+man-at-arms as an escort, so I begged and prayed him to come, and now I
+want you all to beg and pray him to stay!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she introduced him to several ladies, while Mrs. Fisher, always the
+mainspring of the executive committee, a keen, thin, birdlike<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> woman, swift of motion and of a
+graceful presence, but prone to settle moot points with a decisive and
+not altogether amiable peck, gave him no attention, but darting from
+group to group devoted herself wholly to the business in hand. She
+seemed altogether oblivious, too, of Mildred's whims, which were to her
+an old story. Seldom, indeed, had Mildred Fisher looked more audaciously
+sparkling. Her fairness was enhanced by the black velvet facing of her
+white Leghorn turban, encircled with one of those beautiful long white
+ostrich plumes then so much affected that, after passing around the
+crown, fell in graceful undulations over the equivocal locks and almost
+to the shoulder of her black-and-white checked walking suit of "summer
+silk," trimmed with a narrow black-and-white fringe.</p>
+
+<p>"Grandma sent these socks and shirts&mdash;" she said officiously,
+taking a bundle from a neat colored maid who had followed her&mdash;"and
+I brought my thimble&mdash;here it is&mdash;golden gold&mdash;and a
+large brass thimble for Mr. Seymour. You wouldn't think he has so much
+affinity for brass&mdash;to look at him now! I intend to make him sew,
+too. Mrs. Clinton, I know you think I am just <i>awful</i>," turning
+apologetically upon the very old lady her sweet confiding eyes.
+"But&mdash;oh, Mrs. Warren&mdash;before I forget it, I want to let you
+know that your son was <i>not</i> wounded in that Bear-grass Creek skirmish
+at all. I have a letter from one of my brothers&mdash;brother
+number<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> four&mdash;and he says it is a mistake; your son was not
+hurt, but distinguished himself greatly. Here's the letter. I can't tell
+you <i>how</i> it came through the lines, for Lieutenant Seymour might
+<i>repeat</i> it; he has the l-o-n-g-e-s-t tongue, though you wouldn't think
+it, to see him now, speechless as he is."</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Seymour rallied sufficiently to protest he couldn't get in a
+word edgewise, and Mrs. Gwynn, with her official sense of hospitality
+and a real pity for anything that Millie Fisher had undertaken to
+torment on whatever score, adopted the tone of the conversation, and
+said with a smile that he might consider himself "begged and prayed" to
+remain.</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Seymour was instantly placed at ease by this episode, but
+Mrs. Gwynn experienced a vague disquietude because of the genuine
+surprise that expressed itself in Mildred Fisher's face as that
+comprehensive feminine glance of instantaneous appraisement of attire
+took account of her whole costume. Leonora had not reckoned on this
+development when, in that sudden revulsion of feeling, she had discarded
+the fictitious semblance of mourning for the villain who had been the
+curse of her life. The momentary glance passed as if it had not been,
+but she could not at once rid herself of a sense of disadvantage. She
+knew that to others as well the change must seem strange&mdash;yet, why
+should it? All knew that her widow's weeds had been but<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> an empty form&mdash;what
+significance could the fact possess that they were worn for a time as a
+concession to convention, then laid aside? She could not long lend
+herself, however, to the absorption of reflection. The present was
+strenuous.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fisher was bent on investing Lieutenant Seymour with the thimble
+and requiring him to thread a needle for himself, while she soberly and
+with despatch basted a towel which she destined him to hem. The comedy
+relief that these arrangements afforded to the serious business of the
+day was very indulgently regarded, and her bursts of silvery laughter
+and the young officer's frantic pleas for mercy&mdash;utterly futile, as
+all who knew Millie Fisher foresaw they must be&mdash;brought a smile to
+grave faces and relaxed the tension of the situation, placing the
+unwelcome presence of the unasked visitor in the category of one of
+Millie Fisher's many freaks.</p>
+
+<p>Seymour had a very limited sense of humor and could not endure to be
+made ridiculous, even to gladden so merry a lady-love; but when she
+declared that she would transfer the whole paraphernalia&mdash;thimble,
+needle, towel, and all&mdash;to Captain Baynell, and let him do the
+hemming, Seymour, all unaware of the secret amusement his sudden consent
+afforded the company, showed that he preferred that she should make him
+ludicrous rather than compliment another man by her mirthful ridicule.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, there you go! Hurrah! Make haste!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> Not such a big stitch!
+Now, Mr. Seymour, let me tell you, Hercules with the distaff was not a
+circumstance to you!"</p>
+
+<p>And the Sewing-Circle could but laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Upstairs in the quiet old attic these evidences of hilarity rose with an
+intimation of poignant contrast. The dreary entourage of broken
+furniture and dusty trunks and chests, the silence and
+loneliness,&mdash;no motion but the vague shifting of the motes in the
+slant of the sun, no sound but the unshared mirth below, in his own
+home,&mdash;this seemed a more remote exile. Julius felt actually
+further from the ancestral roof than when he lay many miles away in the
+trenches in the cold spring rains, with never a canopy but the storm,
+nor a candle but the flash of the lightning. He sat quite still in the
+great arm-chair that his weight deftly balanced on its three legs, his
+head bent to a pose of attention, his cap slightly on one side of his
+long auburn locks, his eyes full of a sort of listening interest,
+divining even more than he heard. He was young enough, mercurial enough,
+to yearn wistfully after the fun,&mdash;the refined "home-folks fun" of
+the domestic circle, the family and their friends,&mdash;to which he had
+been so long a stranger; not the riotous dissipation of the wilder
+phases of army life nor the animal spirits, the "horse-play," of camp
+comrades. Sometimes at a sudden outburst of laughter, dominated by
+Millie Fisher's silvery trills of mirth, his own lips would curve in
+sympathy,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> albeit this was but the shell of the joke, its zest
+unimagined, and light would spring into his clear dark eyes responsive
+to the sound. Now and again he frowned as he noted men's voices, not his
+father's nor well-remembered tones of old friends. They had been less
+frequent than the women's voices, but now they came at closer intervals,
+with an unfamiliar accent, with a different pitch, and he began to
+realize that here were the Yankee officers.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, they seem to be having a fine time," he said
+sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>In the next acclaim he could distinguish, besides the tones of the
+invaders and the ringing vibration from Millie Fisher that led every
+laugh, Leonora's drawling contralto accents, now and again punctuated
+with a suggestion of mirth, and high above all the callow chirp of the
+twin "ladies." He lifted his head and looked at the wasps, building
+their cells on the window lintel, the broad, dreary spaces of the attic;
+and he beheld, as it were, in contrast, his own expectation, the
+welcome, the cherished guest, the guarded secret, the open-hearted talks
+with his father, with the "ladies," with her whom, since widowed, he
+might call to himself, without derogation to his affection or disrespect
+to her, his "best beloved." The hardship it was that for the bleak
+actuality he should have risked his capture, his life,&mdash;yes, even
+his neck! His hand trembled upon the map,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> wrought out to every
+detail of his discoveries, that he kept now in his breast, and now
+shifted to the sole of his boot, and now slid in the lining of his
+coat-pocket, always seeking the safest hiding-place,&mdash;forever
+seeking, forever doubting the wisdom of his selection.</p>
+
+<p>But the map&mdash;that was something! He had gained this precious
+knowledge. Only to get away with it, unharmed, unchallenged, unmolested!
+This was the problem. This was worth coming for.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll give you some more active entertainment before long, my fine
+squires of dames," he apostrophized the strangers triumphantly. Then he
+experienced a species of rage that they should be so merry&mdash;and he,
+he must not see Leonora's face, must not touch her hand, must not tell
+her all he felt; this would have been dear to him even if she had not
+cared to listen. It would have been like the votive offering at a
+shrine, like a prayer from out the fulness of the heart.</p>
+
+<p>There was presently the tinkle of glasses and spoons, intimating the
+serving of refreshments. "I'd like to see old Uncle Ephraim playing
+butler. He must step about as gingerly as a gobbler on hot tin," Julius
+said to himself with a smile. "I'll bet a million of dollars he has
+saved me my share&mdash;on a high shelf in the pantry it is right now,
+in a covered dish; and if Leonora should come across it, she would think
+the old man was thieving on his own account. Such are the insincerities
+of circumstantial evidence!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>The genial hubbub in the parlors below was resumed after the decorous
+service of salad and sherbet, and became even more animated when Colonel
+Ashley chanced to call to see Baynell on a matter affecting their
+respective commands. He had of course no idea that he would find Baynell
+engaged with the Sewing-Society, but he met Miss Fisher on her own
+ground, as it were, and there ensued an encounter of wits, a gay joust,
+neither being more sincere than the other, nor with any <i>arri&egrave;re
+pens&eacute;e</i> of irritable feeling to treat a feint as a threat or to
+cause a thrust to rankle.</p>
+
+<p>Seymour did not welcome him. The prig, Baynell, as he regarded the
+captain, was so null, so stiffly inexpressive, that his presence had
+sunk out of account, and the young lieutenant felt that he could rely to
+a degree on the quiet kindness of the mature dames at work. They did not
+laugh at his sewing over much, although they noted with secret amusement
+that, being of the ambitious temper which cannot endure to be found
+lacking, he had bent his whole energies to the endeavor, and had sewed,
+indeed, as well as it was possible for a lieutenant of infantry to do on
+a first lesson. He had a sort of pride in his performance as he handed
+it up to Miss Fisher, and she showed it to Ashley with an air of
+pronounced amaze.</p>
+
+<p>"A well-conducted Rebel," she said at last, solemnly, "grounded in the
+proper conviction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> as to the ordinance of secession and the
+doctrine of States' Rights, would go into strong convulsions if he
+should have to bathe with that towel in a hospital. That wavering hem is
+an epitome of all the Yankee crooks, and quirks, and skips, and
+evasions, and concealments of the straight path that typifies right and
+justice, and Mason and Dixon's line! Therefore out it comes!"</p>
+
+<p>As Ashley's joyous laughter rang out with its crisp, genial intonations,
+the listening exile in the attic again involuntarily smiled in sympathy,
+albeit the next moment he was frowning in jealous discomfort, with a
+poignant sense of supersedure. Here, under his own roof-tree&mdash;his
+father's home!</p>
+
+<p>Lieutenant Seymour protested with ardor, and in truth he was aghast at
+the prospect. He had taken so much pains. He had wrought with his whole
+soul. He had imagined that he had hemmed so well. Although he had lost
+all thought of Baynell in his interest in the exercises of the
+afternoon, now that Ashley was at hand to witness his discomfiture he
+became resentfully conscious of the presence of the other officer. He
+was suddenly mindful that he could not appear to distinguished advantage
+as the butt of a joke, however mirthful and merry, and this pointed the
+fact that he was not gracing the introduction here which he had earlier
+sought through Baynell's kind offices, and had been, as he<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> thought, most impertinently
+refused. He forgot the grounds of the declination and took no heed of
+the circumstance that they included Ashley's request as well as his own.
+He did not realize that had it fallen to Ashley's lot to hem the towel
+and thread the needle and wear the brass thimble in a genuine
+sewing-circle, his genial gay adaptability would have accorded so well
+with the humor of the company that the jest itself would have been
+blunted. Its edge was whetted by Lieutenant Seymour's serious disfavor,
+the red embarrassment of his countenance, even the stiff lock of hair,
+at the apex of the back of the skull, that stood out and quivered with
+his eager insistence, as he rose erect and held on to the towel and
+looked both angrily and pleadingly at Miss Fisher.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you will not be mutinous and disobedient," she said gravely. "I
+should be sorry to discipline you with the weapons of the society."</p>
+
+<p>She threatened to pierce his fingers with a very sharp needle, and as he
+hastily withdrew one hand, shifting the towel to the other, she opened a
+very keen pair of shears; as he evaded this she brought up the needle,
+enfilading his retreat.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood among a crowd of ladies, insisting that his work should be
+spared with a vehemence which most of them thought was only a humorous
+affectation and a part of the fun, he noted that Baynell was laughing
+too, slightly,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> languidly. Baynell was standing beside the low,
+marble mantelpiece, with one elbow upon it, the light from the flaming
+west full on his trim blond beard and hair, his handsome, distinguished
+face, the manly grace of the attitude. Seymour resented with an infinite
+rancor at that moment the contrast with his own flushed, fatigued,
+tousled, agitated, persistent, querulous personality. He could not have
+given up to save his life, and yet he could but despise himself for
+holding on.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better stop pushing me to the wall," he said, and this was
+literal, for he gave back step by step at each feint of the needle; "you
+had better be looking out for Captain Baynell. He might have an attack
+of conscience at any moment, and have all the fruits of your industry
+seized and confiscated as contraband of war. You must remember he had
+Mrs. Gwynn's horse impressed."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell was rigid with an intense displeasure. Twice he was about to
+speak&mdash;twice, mindful of the presence of ladies, he hesitated. Then
+he said, quite casually, though visibly with a heedful
+self-control:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That was because of an order, calling for all citizens' horses in this
+district for cavalry."</p>
+
+<p>"With which <i>you</i> had as much to do as last year's snow. Just see, Miss
+Fisher,"&mdash;Seymour waved his hand toward the piles of
+clothing,&mdash;"'all the coats and garments that Dorcas made';<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> for Captain Baynell might report
+that they are intended to give aid and comfort to the enemy!&mdash;to be
+smuggled out of the lines! He has a dangerous conscience!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden agitated flutter in the coterie. The beautiful aged
+countenance of Mrs. Clinton was overcast with a sort of tremor of
+fright. A sense of discovery, as of a moral paralysis, pervaded the
+atmosphere. A long significant pause ensued. Then with the intimations
+of a stanch reserve of resolution,&mdash;a sort of "die in the last
+ditch" spirit,&mdash;those more efficient members of the association,
+middle-aged, competent, experienced matrons, recovered their dignified
+equanimity and went on with the examining and counting of the results of
+the day's work and the contributions from without,&mdash;Mrs. Fisher,
+the acting secretary, receiving the reports of the conferring squads and
+jotting the enumeration down during the sorting and folding of the
+completed product.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, apparently losing self-control, had started angrily forward.
+Ashley, grave, perturbed, had changed color&mdash;even he was at a loss.
+One might not say what a moment so charged with angry potentialities
+might bring forth. But nothing, no collocation of invented circumstances
+seemed capable of baffling Miss Fisher. She was equal to any emergency.
+She had snatched the towel from the lieutenant's hand, and, flying to
+meet Baynell, her smiling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> face incongruous with a serious,
+steady light in her eyes, she stopped him midway the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Now do me the favor to look at that," she cried gayly, presenting the
+hem for inspection; "wouldn't you despise an enemy who could take aid
+and comfort from such a hem as that?"</p>
+
+<p>"A good soldier should never despise the enemy," replied Baynell,
+seeking to adopt her mood and repeating the truism with an air of
+banter.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, to fit the phrase to your precision, such an enemy would
+deserve to be despised! What&mdash;going&mdash;Mrs. Clinton? It <i>is</i>
+getting late."</p>
+
+<p>It was not the usual hour of their separation, but to a very old woman
+the turmoils of war were overwhelming. As long as the idea of conflict
+was expressed in the satisfaction of being able to aid in her little way
+the needy with the work of her own hands,&mdash;to knit as she sat by
+her desolate fireside and wrought for the unknown comrades of her dead
+sons; to join friends in furnishing blankets and making stout clothes
+for the soldiers; to bottle her famous blackberry cordial, and to pick
+lint for the hospitals,&mdash;it seemed to have some gentle phase, to
+bear a human heart. But when the heady tumult, the secret inquisitions,
+the bitter rancors, the cruelty of bloodshed, and the savagery of death
+that constitute the incorporate entity of the great monster, War, were
+reasserted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> with menace, her gentle, wrinkled hands fell, her
+hope fled. The grave was kind in those days to the aged.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley had contrived to give Seymour a glance so significant that he
+heeded its meaning, though he was already repentant and cowed by the
+fear of Miss Fisher's displeasure. His heart beat fast as she turned her
+face all rippling with smiles toward him, albeit he told himself in the
+same breath that she would have smiled exactly so sweetly had she been
+as angry as he deserved. For Miss Fisher was not in the business of
+philanthropy. She had no call to play missionary to any petulant young
+man's r&ocirc;le of heathen.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to take mamma and me home?" she asked, "or are you going
+to leave us to be eaten up by the cows homeward bound?"</p>
+
+<p>Now and again might be heard the fitful clanking of a bell as the cows,
+wending their way along the river bank, paused to graze and once more
+took up their leisurely progress toward the town. The sunlight was
+reddening through the rooms. It had painted on the walls arabesques of
+the lace curtains of the western windows; the glow touched with a sort
+of revivifying effect the family portraits. Groups of the members of the
+society having resumed their bonnets and swaying crape veils were going
+from one to another and commenting on the likeness to the subject and
+the resemblance to other members of the family, and one or two of
+artistic bent discussed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the relative merits of the artists, for
+several canvases were painted by eminent brushes. All were going home,
+though in the grove the mocking-birds were singing with might and main,
+but there indeed in the moonlight they would sing the night through with
+a romantic jubilance impossible to describe.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley, with the ready tact and good breeding which caused him so much
+to be admired, and so much to admire himself, passed by the more
+attractive of the younger members of the Circle, and did not even heed
+the half-veiled challenge of Miss Fisher to join her party homeward, for
+she had become exceedingly exasperated with Lieutenant Seymour, and had
+Colonel Ashley been attainable, she would have made the younger man
+rabid with jealousy on the walk to the town.</p>
+
+<p>But no! He offered his services as escort to Mrs. Clinton, who looked
+suspiciously and helplessly at him like some tender old baby.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no necessity, but I thank you very much," she said; "I came
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>The engaging Ashley would not be denied. He had noticed, he said, that
+to-day some droves of mules were being driven into town, and the
+heedless soldiers raced along perfectly regardless of what was in the
+roads before them. They should have some order taken with them, really.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i> report them," said the old lady. "The&mdash;the discipline
+of the army is so&mdash;so <i>painful</i>."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>"But there are no painless methods yet discovered of making men obey,"
+said Ashley, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>She still looked at him, doubtfully, as a mouse might contemplate the
+graces of a very suave cat. But when Julius gazed out from the garret
+window at the departing group, he was duly impressed with the handsome
+colonel of cavalry conducting the aged lady on one arm and bearing her
+delicate little extra shawl on the other, while Mrs. Fisher with Mildred
+and her "dancing bear," who had taken some clumsy steps that day, made
+off toward Roanoke City, and the other ladies variously dispersed,
+Captain Baynell attending the party only to the end of the drive.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley's graceful persistence was justified by the meeting of some of
+the reckless muleteers in full run down the road, with furious cries and
+snapping whips and turbulent clatter of animals and men. As his
+tremulous charge shrunk back aghast, he simply lifted his sword "like a
+wand of authority," as she always described it, and the noisy rout was
+turned aside, as if by magic, into a byway, leaving the whole stretch of
+the turnpike for the passage of the gallant cavalier and one aged lady.</p>
+
+<p>When Baynell came back through the grove and into the house, the parlor
+doors still stood open. The western radiance was yet red on the walls,
+albeit the moon was in the sky. The crumb-cloth that had protected the
+carpet from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> lint was gone, the sewing-machines had vanished,
+all traces of the work were removed, and wonted order was restored among
+chairs and tables. The rear apartment was as he had seen it hitherto,
+save that the windows on the western balcony were open, and Mrs. Gwynn,
+in her white dress, was standing at the vanishing point of the
+perspective, glimpsed through the swaying curtains and a delicate
+climbing vine. He hardly hesitated, but passed through the rooms and
+stepped out, meeting her surprised eyes as she leaned one hand on the
+iron railing of the balcony.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to speak to you," he said. "I want to know if you think I should
+have made it plain to those ladies this afternoon that they need fear no
+interference from me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I think they understood," she said listlessly, as if it was no
+great matter.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were fixed on the purple western hills. The last vermilion
+segment of the great solar sphere was slipping beyond them, the sunset
+gun boomed from the fort, and the flag fluttered down the staff.</p>
+
+<p>"I felt very keenly the position in which I was placed."</p>
+
+<p>She merely glanced at him and then gazed at the outline of the fort
+against the red sky, all flecked and barred with dazzling flakes of
+amber. The rampart remained massive and heavy, but the sentry-boxes,
+giving their queer little castellated effect, were growing indistinct in
+the distance.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>"I was tempted to express my resentment, but I was afraid of going too
+far&mdash;of getting into a wrangle with that fellow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>that</i> would have been unpardonable; in the presence of Mrs.
+Clinton and the rest of the Circle!" she said definitely.</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>so</i> glad you approve my course," he rejoined with an air of
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>Once more she looked at him as he stood beside her. A white jessamine
+clambered up the stone pillar at the outer corner of the grille work.
+Its blossoms wavered about her; a hummingbird flickered in and out and
+was still for a moment, the light showing the jewelled effect of the
+emblazonment of red and gold and green of his minute plumage, then was
+distinguishable only as a gauzy suggestion of wings. The moon was in her
+face, ethereal, delicate, seeming to him entrancingly beautiful. He
+stipulated to himself that it was not this that swayed him. He loved her
+beauty, but only because it was hers. He did not love her for her
+beauty. They were close distinctions, but they made an appreciable
+difference to him. She did not hold his conscience. She did not dictate
+his sense of right. This was apart from her, a sanction too sacred for
+any woman, any human soul to control. Yet he sighed with relief to feel
+the coincidence of his thought and hers.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, about your horse&mdash;it was a matter of conscience with
+me&mdash;a sense of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>duty&mdash;a matter of conformity to my
+oath as a soldier and my knowledge of the needs of the service. I would
+not for any consideration evade or fail to forward in letter and spirit
+any detail even of a special order that merely chanced to come to my
+notice, and with which I was not otherwise concerned. Not for your
+sake&mdash;not even to win your approval, precious as that must always
+be to me, nor to avoid your displeasure, and I believe that is the
+strongest coercion that could be exerted upon me. But the destination of
+the work done by the Sewing-Circle&mdash;that is different. I have no
+information that it is other than is claimed. I am not bound to nourish
+suspicions, nor to investigate mysteries, nor to take action on details
+of circumstantial evidence."</p>
+
+<p>He paused. There was something in her face that he did not
+understand;&mdash;something stunned, blankly silent, and inexpressive.
+He went on eagerly, the enforced repression of the afternoon finding
+outlet in a flood of words.</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Seymour understands my position thoroughly well, as Colonel
+Ashley does. They take a different view&mdash;their construction of
+their duty is more lenient. I don't know why&mdash;perhaps because they
+are volunteers, and the whole war to them is a temporary occupation. But
+orders are to be obeyed else they would not be issued. If any exceptions
+were intended, a permit would be granted."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>He paused again, looking straight at her with such confident, lucid,
+trusting eyes,&mdash;and she felt that she must say something to divert
+their gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Exceptions, such as Miss Fisher's favorite mount, Madcap? How pretty
+Mildred was to-day! Really beautiful; don't you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." His expression was so tender, so wistful, yet so confident, that,
+amazed, embarrassed, she felt her color begin to flame in her cheeks.
+"How could she seem beautiful where you are,&mdash;the loveliest woman
+in all the world and the best beloved."</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Baynell!" she exclaimed, hardly believing that she heard him
+aright. "I do not understand the manner in which you have seen fit to
+speak to me this evening." She paused abruptly, for he was looking at
+her with a palpable surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"You must know&mdash;you must have seen&mdash;that I love you!" he said
+hastily. "Almost from the moment that I first saw you I have loved
+you&mdash;but more and more, hour by hour, and day by day, as I have
+learned to know you, to appreciate you&mdash;so perfect and so
+peerless!"</p>
+
+<p>"You surprise me beyond measure. I must beg&mdash;I insist that you do
+not continue to speak to me in this strain."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say that you did not know it&mdash;that you did not
+perceive it?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>"I did not dream it for one moment," she replied.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed as if he could not accept her meaning. He pondered on the
+words as if they might develop some difference.</p>
+
+<p>"You afflict me beyond expression!" he exclaimed with a sort of
+desperate breathlessness. "You destroy my dearest hopes. How could you
+fail&mdash;how could I fancy! I&mdash;I would not suggest the subject as
+long as your mourning attire repelled it,
+but&mdash;but&mdash;since&mdash;since&mdash;I&mdash;I thought you knew
+all my heart and I might speak!"</p>
+
+<p>"You thought I laid aside a widow's weeds to challenge your avowal!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, in her icy, curt, soft tones.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Leonora&mdash;for God's sake&mdash;put on it no interpretation
+except that I love you&mdash;I adore you; and I thought such hearty,
+whole-souled affection must awaken some interest, some response. I could
+hardly be silent except I so feared precipitancy. I spoke as soon as I
+might without rank offence."</p>
+
+<p>Even then, in the presence of an agitation, a humiliation peculiarly
+keen to a man of his type, he was not first in Mrs. Gwynn's thoughts.
+She was reviewing the day and wondering if this connection between the
+lack of the widow's weeds and the presence of the Yankee officer was
+suggested to any of the sewing contingent. A vague gesture, a pause, a
+remembered facial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> expression, sudden, involuntary, at the sight
+of him and her,&mdash;all had a new interpretation in the sequence of
+this disclosure. They had thought it the equivalent of the acceptance of
+a new suitor, and the supposed favored lover had thought so himself!</p>
+
+<p>The recollection of her woful married life, with its train of
+barbarities, and rancors, and terrors, both grotesque and horrible, that
+still tortured her present&mdash;the leisure moments of her laborious
+days&mdash;was bitterly brought to mind for a moment. That she, of all
+the women in the world&mdash;that <i>she</i> should be contemplating
+matrimony anew! She gave a light laugh that had in it so little mirth,
+was so little apposite to ridicule, that he did not feel it a fleer.</p>
+
+<p>"You did not mean it, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for one moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You did not have me in mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no&mdash;never at all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Leonora&mdash;Mrs. Gwynn&mdash;this is like death to
+me&mdash;I&mdash;I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very sorry&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not reproach you," he interrupted. "It is my own folly, my own
+fault! But I have lived on this hope; it is all the life I have. You do
+not withdraw it utterly? May I not think that in time&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no&mdash;I have no intention of ever marrying again.
+I&mdash;I&mdash;was not&mdash;not&mdash;happy."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>"But I am different&mdash;" he hesitated. He could not exactly find
+words to protest his conviction of his superiority to her husband, a man
+she had loved once. "I mean&mdash;we are congenial. I am very
+considerably older; I am nearly thirty-one. My views in life are fixed,
+definite; my occupation is settled. Might not&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry, Captain Baynell; I would not willingly add to the
+unhappiness, real or imaginary, of any one&mdash;but all this is worse
+than useless. I must ask you not to recur to the subject. And now I must
+leave you, for the 'ladies' are going to bed, and I must hear them say
+their prayers."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed about to detain her with further protestations, then desisted,
+evidently with a hopeless realization of futility.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask them to remember me in their petitions," he only said with a dreary
+sort of smile.</p>
+
+<p>He had always seemed to love the "ladies" fraternally, with lenient
+admiration, and she liked this tender little domestic trait in the midst
+of his unyielding gravity and inexorable stiffness. She hesitated in the
+moonlight with some stir of genuine sympathy, and held out her hand as
+she passed. He caught it and covered it with kisses. She drew it hastily
+from him, and Baynell was left alone on the balcony; the scene before
+him, the vernal glamours of the moon, the umbrageous trees, the sweet
+spring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> flowers, the sheen of the river, the bivouacs of the
+hills, the fort on the height,&mdash;these things seemed unrealities and
+mere shadows as he faced the fragments of that nullity, his broken
+dream, the only positive actuality in all his life.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p>That night, so long his step went to and fro in his room as he paced the
+floor, for he could not sleep and he could not be still, that the Rebel,
+hidden in the attic, was visited by grave monitions concerning his
+neighbor and did not venture out to roam the stairways and halls and the
+unoccupied precincts of the ground floor as he was wont to do.</p>
+
+<p>"'The son of Belial' has something on his mind, to a certainty, and I
+hope to the powers 'tisn't me," Julius said now and again, as he
+listened. He had sat long in his rickety arm-chair in the broad slant of
+the moonlight, that fell athwart the dim furniture and the gray shadows,
+for the night continued fair and the moon was specially brilliant. Once
+in the clear glow he saw distinctly in the further spaces the figure of
+a man, watchful-eyed, eager, springing toward him as he moved, and he
+experienced the cold chill of despair before he realized that it was his
+own reflection in a dull mirror at the opposite side of the great room
+that had elicited this apparition of terror. He took himself quickly out
+of the range of its reflection.</p>
+
+<p>"Two Johnny Rebs are a crowd in this garret!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> I have just about
+room enough for myself. I'm not recruiting."</p>
+
+<p>He crept silently to the bed and lay down at full length, all dressed
+and booted as he was, his hands clasped under his head, with the
+moonlight in his eyes and illuminating his sleepless pillow, still
+listening to the regular step marching to and fro in the room below.</p>
+
+<p>Julius did not court slumber.</p>
+
+<p>"I must keep the watch with you, my fine fellow," he said resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>Though there was a strong coercion to wakefulness in the propinquity of
+that spirit of unrest which possessed his enemy so close at hand, his
+eyes once grew heavy-lidded and opened with a sudden start as, half
+dreaming, he fancied a stealthy approach. He sprang from the recumbent
+posture, and the floor creaked under the abrupt movement. This gave him
+pause, and he slowly collected his faculties. Surely the stranger would
+hardly venture, even under the relentless scourge of his own wakeful
+thoughts, to roam about the house in search of peace or the surcease of
+mental tyranny that change might effect. This might savor of disrespect
+to his host, yet Julius canvassed the suggestion. These were untoward
+times, and strange people were queerly mannered. The officer must have
+learned in the length of his residence here that the great vacant attic
+was untenanted wholly, and of course he knew that the ground floor
+was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> altogether unoccupied by night. He might descend and light
+the library lamp and read. He might indeed roam the deserted rooms with
+the same sort of satisfaction that Julius himself had already felt in
+the great spaces, the absolute quiet, the still moonlight, the long
+abeyance of day with its procrastination of the sordid problems and the
+toilsome business of life. If he had chanced to meet the Rebel on the
+stairs, he would scarcely have thought the apparition a spectral
+manifestation, as the poor little twins had construed the encounter in
+the library, for old Janus, trembling and terrified, had detailed the
+significance of the scene in the dining room afterward, and the
+eagerness of Julius to get away, to be off, had been redoubled. Daily he
+had hoped for news of the approach of the picket-lines, and daily the
+old servant wrung his hands and made his report, of which the burden
+was, "Wuss an' wuss!"&mdash;or detailed a "scrimmage" in which "dem
+scand'lous Rebs had run like tuckies, an' deir line is furder off dan it
+eber was afore!"</p>
+
+<p>The Confederate officer, nevertheless, had hitherto felt a degree of
+safety in the attic and had the resources of a manly patience to await
+the event. This nocturnal eccentricity on the part of the guest of the
+house, however, roused new forebodings. It bore in its own conditions
+the inception of added danger. It was unprecedented. It marked a
+turbulent restlessness and the element of change. In the evidently
+agitated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> state of the stranger's nerves, some trifle, the
+scamper of a rat, the dislodgment of the rickety old cornice of this
+bedstead, the fall of one of the girandoles, teetering over there on a
+chest of drawers, might rouse him with its clamor and justify the ascent
+of the attic stairs to investigate its source. These were troublous
+times. There were stories forever afloat of lawless marauders.
+Smoke-houses were broken into and pillaged. Mansions were robbed and
+fired, and their tenants, chiefly women and children, fleeing into the
+cornfields to hide, watched the roof-tree flare. It was hard for the
+authorities to find and fix the responsibility for these dread deeds in
+remote inaccessible spots, and it would be culpable neglect for this
+Federal officer to tolerate the suggestion of an ill-omened noise or an
+unaccustomed presence without seeking out its cause. Evidently any
+accident would bring him upstairs. It was equally obvious that the
+garret was no place to sleep to-night! Julius, as he lay on the pillow,
+could hardly rid himself of the idea of approach. Ever and anon he
+looked for the stealthy shadow of which he had dreamed, climbing in the
+moonbeams along the balusters of the stairway. Finally he stole silently
+out of the reach of the moonlight to a darker corner of the
+room,&mdash;the deep recess of one of the windows which the shadow of a
+great branch of the white pine made duskier still. The tall tree, with
+its full, sempervirent boughs, showed the varying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> nocturnal
+tints that color may compass, uninformed by the sun,&mdash;the cool
+suggestion of a fair dull green where the moonbeams glistered, the
+fibrous leaves tipped with a dim sparkle; the deep umbrageous verdure
+where the darkness lurked and yet did not annul the vestige of tone. As
+he reclined on the window-seat, he discerned farther down a faint flare
+of artificial light. It described a regularly barred square amidst the
+pine needles, and he presently recognized it as the light from the
+window of Captain Baynell's room. Now and again it flickered in a way
+that told how the disregarded candle was beginning to gutter in the
+socket. Still to and fro the regular footfalls went, muffled on the
+heavy carpet, but in the dead hush of night perceptible enough to the
+watching listener. At last with a final flare the taper burned out, but
+the moon was in the windows along the western side of the house, and
+still to and fro went the steps, betokening the turmoil of unquiet
+thoughts. Julius watched how the moonbeams shifted from bough to bough
+as the slow night lingered. He heard the bells from the city towers mark
+the hour and the recurrent echo from the rocky banks of the river: then
+one far away, belated, faint, scarcely perceived, beat out the tally of
+the time on some remote cliff. Once more the air fell silent save for
+the jubilee of the mocking-birds, for spring had come, and skies were
+fair, and the gossamer moon was a-swing in the night, and love,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> life, and home were dear, and the incredibly sweet,
+brilliant delight of song arose in p&aelig;ans of joy and faith. Even
+this waned after a time. A wind with the thrills of dawn in its wings
+sprang up, and Julius shivered with the chill. The dew was cold and
+thick in the pines, and the sward glittered like a sheet of water.</p>
+
+<p>At last all was quiet and silent in the room below. Julius listened
+intently. No creak of opening door; no footfall on the stair. Now, he
+told himself, was the moment of danger, when he could no longer be
+assured of the man's movements, and could not even guess at his
+intentions. He listened&mdash;still&mdash;still to silence. Silence
+absolute, null.</p>
+
+<p>A bird stirred with a half-awakened chirp. The sky showed a clearer
+tone, a vague blue, growing ever more definite. In the stillness, with
+an elastic, leaping sound, strong and sweet, the call of a bugle rang
+out suddenly from the fort on the heights, and, behold, with a flash of
+red on the water, and a flare of gold in the sky, the sweet spring day
+was early here.</p>
+
+<p>It came glowing on with all the graces and soft splendors of the season
+as if it bore, too, none of the prosaic recall to the labors and sordid
+routine and unavailing troubles and vexations of the workaday world. The
+camps were alive, the drums were beating, and all the echoes of the
+hills gave voice to martial summons. The flag was floating anew from the
+heights of the fort in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> fresh and fragrant sunshine, and now
+and again a bar or two of the music of a military band in the distance
+came on the wind. The clatter of wagon wheels was audible from the stony
+streets of the little city. The shriek of a locomotive split the air as
+an incoming train whizzed across the bridge. The river craft steamed and
+puffed, and blockaded the landing, now backing water and now forging
+forward, remonstrating with bells and whistles in strenuous dialogue.</p>
+
+<p>It was a day like yesterday, yet to Baynell all the world had changed.
+No day could ever be the same. Life itself was made up of depreciated
+values. The blow had fallen so heavily, so suddenly, so conclusively.
+All, all was dead! It was much with a sense of decorous observance, of
+reverential respect, that he made haste to bury his slain hopes, his
+foolish dream, his ardent expectations out of sight, never to rise
+again. It was unwise to linger here, but not because of his own
+interest, he said to himself. It would not unfit him for his duty. This
+was all that was left to him. His feeling for this had never swerved. It
+was unaffected&mdash;all apart from what had come and gone. But his
+presence could but be distasteful to her. And any moment might reveal
+his state of feeling to others&mdash;to Judge Roscoe, who would resent
+it if it should suggest an unwelcome urgency. And the neighbors&mdash;he
+had not been unnoting of the glances of surprise that had already
+greeted that radiant figure in white and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> red yesterday. While
+he winced a little from the realization that his sudden departure would
+illustrate the sad plight of a love-lorn suitor, disregarded and cast
+aside,&mdash;for he had a thousand keen susceptibilities to
+pride,&mdash;and he would fain the tongues of gossips should forbear
+this sacred theme, it were best that he should go, and that shortly.</p>
+
+<p>When he appeared at the breakfast-table, pale and a trifle haggard, he
+gave no other token of his long vigil and the radical change that he had
+suffered in his life and prospects. He was a man of theory. He valued
+his self-respect. He insisted on his self-control. He had exerted all
+his capacities, summoned all the resources of his courage; and this was
+the more needed because of the unconventional, informal footing on which
+he stood with the family. To say farewell and ride away might seem easy
+enough, but this was like quitting a home with affectionate domestic
+claims. When he said that he thought he must return to camp to-day, the
+twin "ladies" laid down knife and fork to enter their protest. They
+lifted their voices in plaintive entreaty, and the deaf-mute looked at
+Baynell with limpid eyes and a quivering lip. But Uncle Ephraim,
+bringing in the waffles, had a vague suggestion of "It's time, too," in
+the wag of his head. Judge Roscoe doubtless experienced a vivid
+realization of the advantage to accrue to the young soldier in the
+attic, whose security in his hiding-place was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> so endangered by
+the presence of the Federal officer, for he was very guarded even in his
+first cordial phrases, and thenceforward said no more than policy
+required. The twin "ladies," however, continued to loudly urge that the
+captain might find lizards in his cot; and asked if his tent had a
+floor; and warned him that frogs were everywhere now. "Tree-toads,
+o-o-oh! with injer-rubber feet," cried Geraldine, shudderingly, "that
+blow out and climb!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you'll have <i>no</i> little girl to put a lump of sugar in your
+after-dinner coffee, Captain," said Adelaide, impressing the merits of
+her methods.</p>
+
+<p>"And no little girl to bring you a lighted taper for your cigar," chimed
+in Geraldine.</p>
+
+<p>"It's <i>my</i> turn to-day, Ger'ldine," cried the enterprising Adelaide,
+springing from her chair to monopolize the precious privilege.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no! mine&mdash;<i>mine</i>! You had it yesterday!" cried Geraldine,
+racing after her out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas day before!" protested Adelaide's voice far up the hallway.</p>
+
+<p>"You had better get your cigar-case ready, to bestow the boon on the
+first comer," suggested Mrs. Gwynn. She had entirely recovered her
+equanimity, as he perceived. The state of his unsought affections was
+naught to her. The wreck of his heart&mdash;she had known wrecked hearts
+for a more bitter cause! Doubtless she thought the pain transitory in
+his case; already<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> its contemplation seemed to have passed from
+her mind like a tale that is told. She was sedately suave as always,
+barely attentive, preoccupied, her usual manner, so incongruous with her
+youth and beauty, so at variance with her attire from the old wardrobe
+of by-gone days,&mdash;the fresh white lawn, flecked with light blue,
+the ruffles finished with "footing," and with a bobinet scarf about her
+throat, wherein was thrust a pin of a single rose carved in coral. She
+was like some dainty maiden, no refugee from the world, sad and widowed.</p>
+
+<p>She led the way to the library, partly to see that the "ladies" did not
+set themselves aflame as their short skirts flickered about the small
+dully burning fire, still lighted night and morning against the chill of
+the crisp vernal air. They were, indeed, leaping back and forth over the
+fender with some temerity, and Baynell, seating himself by the table,
+his cigar between his teeth, thought it best to dispose of both the
+lighted spills by not drawing at all till both were alternately offered
+and the extinction of each secured. Then, as the "ladies" flew back to
+the dining room and out to the parterre, having volunteered to gather
+the rest of the flowers for the vases, Leonora and Baynell were left for
+the time together.</p>
+
+<p>It gratified him to perceive that she did not fear the introduction of
+the subject anew. She experienced not even a momentary
+embarrassment.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> She understood him so well, and the plane of his
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>The early morning sunshine was in the cheerful library windows; a
+mocking-bird on a vine outside swayed so close, as he sang, that his
+shadow continually flickered over the sill; the flowers were all freshly
+abloom, and Mrs. Gwynn was standing on the opposite side of the table,
+her hands full of the spring blossoms that lay already on a tray,
+preparing to fill the great blue and white Wedgwood bowl.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, commenting on the splendor of the tulips as he smoked his
+cigar, spoke of the craze for speculation in the bulb that had existed
+in Holland, and said he had once seen an old book of illustrations of
+famous prize-takers, with fabulous prices; he had always wondered how
+they compared with the results of modern culture and the infinite
+variety to which the bloom had been brought, and he had often wished to
+see the book again.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, we have that!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, pausing with her hands full
+of the gold variety "flamed" with scarlet. She glanced uncertainly
+toward the bookshelves, then suddenly remembering&mdash;"Oh, I know now
+where it is;&mdash;in the old bookcase upstairs, at the head of the
+third flight. I will call one of the ladies to go for it."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell rose, his lighted cigar between his lips. "Don't trouble them;
+let me go!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>Julius heard the swift step of a young man on the stair. He knew that
+the crucial moment had come. And yet for the sake of the safety of his
+father, who had concealed him here, he dared not defend himself with his
+pistols. He had not a moment for flight or to seek a hiding-place. He
+could only nerve his powers to meet the crisis as best he might.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, taken wholly by surprise, felt his senses reel when, like the
+grotesque inconsequence of a dream, a man in the uniform of a
+Confederate officer in the quiet, peaceful house confronted him at the
+head of the flight.</p>
+
+<p>"You are my prisoner!" Baynell mechanically gasped, clutching Julius
+with one hand and drawing his pistol with the other. "You are my
+prisoner!"</p>
+
+<p>"In a horn!" retorted Julius, delivering his enemy a blow between the
+eyes which flung Baynell, stunned and bleeding, down the flight to the
+landing, while the boy went by him like a flash.</p>
+
+<p>That swift fiery figure, with its gray regimentals and its brass and
+steel glitter, covered with blood, passed Leonora like some gory
+apparition as she stood in the library door, amazed, pallid, breathless,
+summoned by the sound of loud voices and the reverberating clamors of
+the collision on the stairs. Julius dashed through the drawing-rooms,
+opened the window on the western balcony, sprang over the rail, and
+disappeared swiftly among the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> low boughs of the row of
+evergreen shrubs planted there in old times as a wind-break, and
+stretching along the crest of the hill.</p>
+
+<p>And placidly in the sunshine the sentry paced his beat before the south
+portico, the reaches of the drive in sight, the appropriate entrance of
+the place, all unconscious of aught amiss, seeing nothing, hearing
+nothing,&mdash;till suddenly, with an effect of confusion, like the
+distortions of a delirium, he was aware that the grove was full of
+Federal soldiers, chiefly from the infantry regiment camped in the
+orchard to the west,&mdash;soldiers in wild disorder, hatless, shoeless,
+coatless, many of them,&mdash;all armed, all howling with an unexplained
+excitement, racing frantically hither and thither, bushwhacking with
+their rifles every bough in their reach. And now they came at full run,
+still howling and wild, toward the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" cried the sentry. "Halt!"</p>
+
+<p>The advance came surging on, regardless.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt, or I fire!" once more the guard warned the onset. And he levelled
+his weapon.</p>
+
+<p>They clamored out words at him, all madly intermingled, all
+unintelligible, approaching still at full run.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the sentinel had some excusable regard for his own safety, for
+in the unexplained excitement that possessed them, they were less
+soldiery than a frantic mob. He had warrant enough to fire into the
+midst of the crowd. But it seemed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> that he might in a moment
+have been torn limb from limb. He interpreted his duty on the side of
+caution. He cocked his weapon, fired into the air, and called lustily
+upon the "Corporal of the guard." The mass surged into the house, some
+by the front door, some by the open library window, others scaled the
+balcony and pressed through the drawing-rooms and into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>The terrified children clung to the skirt of Mrs. Gwynn's dress, as
+amazed and bewildered she stood in the wide long hall, by the great
+carved newel of the stairs, while with frantic
+interrogatories&mdash;"Where is he? Where is he? Who is he?"&mdash;the
+intruders searched every nook and cranny of the lower floor.
+Destruction, the inadvertent incident of haste, or the concomitant of
+clumsy accoutrements, seemed to attend their steps. Now sounded the
+shiver of glass as a soldier burst through one of the long French
+windows of the dining room. A trooper caught his huge cavalry spurs in
+the meshes of a lace curtain in one of the parlors and brought down
+cornice, lambrequin, and all with a crash. The crystal shades of the
+hall chandelier were not proof against a bayonet, held unduly aloft at
+the posture of Shoulder Arms. A tussle for precedence knocked a weighty
+marble statue, half life-size, out of the niche at the turn of the
+staircase. These casualties and the attendant noise, the heavy tramp of
+booted feet, the raucous sonority of their voices as they called
+suggestions to each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> other, all intensified the terror, the
+tumult of their uncontrolled and turbulent presence.</p>
+
+<p>As a score raced up the stairs a sudden hush fell upon the rout. Those
+still below apprehended developments of moment and pressed to the scene.
+The foremost had encountered Judge Roscoe and old Ephraim bearing down
+to the second story the prostrate body of Captain Baynell, all dripping
+with blood, while the floor of the stairs to the attic showed the stains
+of the fall.</p>
+
+<p>The unexpected spectacle stayed the tumult for a moment. Then as a
+hoarse murmur rose, Judge Roscoe turned toward the foremost standing at
+the foot of the attic flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Lend a hand here," he said with a calm, steady voice. Then, looking
+over the balustrade to those below, "Has the surgeon come?"</p>
+
+<p>The question went from one to another&mdash;"Has the surgeon come?" to
+those that filled the halls and made sudden excursions to and fro in the
+adjoining rooms as suspicion of hiding-places occurred to them; to
+others that gorged the main staircase, packed close at its head, with
+necks craning forward, and ears and eyes intent to hear and see what had
+chanced.</p>
+
+<p>By this time officers were in the house and the unwelcome voice of
+command curtailed the activities of the mob and reduced it speedily to
+the aspect of soldiery. The voice of command had irate intonations, and
+one or two of the younger<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> officers showed a disposition to lay
+about with the flat of their swords, as a "wand of authority" indeed,
+but, apparently inadvertently, dealing blows that had tingling
+intimations. They cleared the mansion quickly, the unruly manifestation
+serving to minimize its provocation.</p>
+
+<p>To Judge Roscoe's infinite relief the officers were disposed to regard
+the disturbance as one of those inexplicable attacks of folly which
+sometimes lay hold on a mass of men, but which would be incapable of
+affecting them as individuals. For a search-party organized on a strict
+military principle had carefully ransacked every portion of the house
+and cellar and also the attic,&mdash;where no traces betrayed recent
+habitation,&mdash;examined all the vineyard, hedges, shrubbery, and even
+the boughs of the great trees, and invaded the stable, barn, crib,
+ice-house, poultry yards, dairy, kennel, dove-cote, the miscellaneous
+outbuildings, sties and byres, all empty, devoid even of the usual
+domestic animals&mdash;absolutely with no result. No Confederate
+fugitive, covered with blood or in any other plight, was found, and in
+the thrice-guarded camps that surrounded the place escape seemed
+impossible. The ranking officer who ordered the search naturally
+believed that the sudden conviction of the presence of a Confederate
+soldier in the house was a sheer delusion, promulgated and distorted by
+rumor. Some story of Captain Baynell's fall and wound, caught possibly
+from the messenger sent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> to fetch the surgeon, had been
+misunderstood. This he considered was the only reasonable explanation.
+No one, he argued, could have escaped under the circumstances. No Rebel
+was in the house or in the grounds. It was impossible for a man to have
+fled except into the midst of the camps.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the conviction thus reached, special precautionary
+measures were taken. New sentries were stationed on the rear and west of
+the house as well as in front. These posts were to be visited by a
+sergeant with a patrol, twice during the night. If any Rebel had
+contrived to escape from the place, he would find it difficult indeed to
+re&euml;nter it. These duties concluded, the officer dismissed the whole
+matter as a canard or one of the inexplicable manifestations of human
+folly, and departed, leaving quiet descending upon the distracted scene.</p>
+
+<p>It was the cook, Aunt Chaney, who had been sent at full speed for the
+surgeon. She had vaguely understood from old Ephraim's aspect and
+frantic mandate that something terrifying had befallen the household,
+and she did not realize until afterward the sacrifice of dignity her
+aspect must have presented as she ran, fatly waddling, over the hill,
+across the commons, and then up a path to a hospital on an eminence
+overlooking the town, formerly a Medical College. She was bonnetless,
+limping actively, for one of her large, loose slippers had gone, and
+gone forever.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> Its loss destroyed the equipoise of her gait; her
+unshod foot was pierced with stones and chilled with the damp ground;
+her sleeves were rolled up, her arms held out at a bandy angle, for her
+fingers were dripping with cake-batter, and she did not have sufficient
+composure to wring them free till she was following the surgeon home.</p>
+
+<p>The condition of the messenger intimated the seriousness of the call,
+and the surgeon hardly waited to hear more than the wild
+appeal&mdash;"Come at once! Captain Baynell has killed
+his-self&mdash;Heabenly Friend! I wish he could hev' tuk enny other
+premises ter hev' c'mitted the deed." As she toiled along behind the
+surgeon, "Oh, my Lawd an' King!" she panted at intervals.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell remained unconscious for some time. When at length he came to
+himself he was lying quietly in the great, commodious bedroom that he
+had of late occupied in the storm centre, the green Venetian blinds half
+closed, the afternoon sunlight softly flecking the carpet, the air of
+high decorum and gentle nurture which so characterized the place
+peculiarly in evidence, and old Ephraim noiselessly flitting about with
+a palm-leaf fan in his hand, ready to annihilate any vagrant fly with
+enough temerity to appear.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye los' yer balance, sah, an' fell down de steers," he unctuously
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>"I know&mdash;I remember that&mdash;but who&mdash;where is that Rebel
+officer?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>"I reckon ye mus' hev' drempt about him, Cap'n," the "double-faced
+Janus" responded casually, with the superior air of humoring a delusion.
+"Ye been talkin' 'bout him afore whenst ye wuz deelerious. But dar ain't
+none ob dem miser'ble slave-drivers round dese diggin's now'-days,
+praise de Lawd! Freedom come wid de Union army."</p>
+
+<p>This assurance convinced the Federal officer. The old servant's interest
+was so obviously with the invading force that his motive was not open to
+question. Moreover, it was not the first time that Baynell had dreamed
+of the Confederate officer, the erstwhile lover of Leonora Gwynn, whose
+splendid portrait hung on the wall, and whom she often mentioned with
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>When the surgeon next called he expressed to his patient great surprise:
+"It is very natural that in your state of convalescence you should grow
+dizzy and fall; but I can't for my life understand how you contrived to
+get such a blow from the edge of a step. It has all the style about it
+of a hit straight from the shoulder of an expert boxer. Uncle Ephraim
+doesn't happen to be something of a pugilist, now?" he added jocosely,
+smiling and glancing at the old negro.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't happen to be nuffin, sah, dat ain't perlite," grinned the
+amenable "Janus."</p>
+
+<p>"Your friends downstairs seemed frightened out of their wits,
+Baynell,&mdash;lest your wound should be imputed to them, I suppose,"
+the surgeon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> said openly, for he did not consider the presence
+of the ex-slave.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sah!" put in Uncle Ephraim, "eider me or Marster, or de widder
+'oman, or de ladies air sure bound ter hev' knocked him up dat way, kase
+'twould take a puffick reel-foot man ter fall downstairs dat fashion.
+Yah! Yah!"</p>
+
+<p>It did not occur to Baynell to doubt this statement, and not one word
+did he say to the surgeon of his dream of the presence of the
+Confederate officer. He made no effort to account for the disaster,
+merely lending himself to the surgeon's view that he had grown suddenly
+dizzy and the stairs were steep in the third flight.</p>
+
+<p>This gave the surgeon a disquieting sense of suspicion some time
+afterward. When returning from his tour of duty at the hospital he was
+again in the camp, he heard there the amazing rumor among the soldiers
+that a Confederate officer, covered with blood, had been seen to issue
+from the Roscoe house and with lightning-like speed disappear among the
+shrubbery. He wondered that Baynell should not have mentioned the
+commotion, forgetting that as he was unconscious he might be still
+unaware of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Grindley was not of a designing nature; but he was consciously
+experimenting when he said, rather banteringly, on his next visit, "How
+about the notion that there was a Confederate officer concealed in this
+house?"</p>
+
+<p>Baynell looked annoyed. He had heard as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> yet not an allusion to
+the raid upon the house during the period of his insensibility, and he
+did not know that the presence of a Confederate officer had even been
+rumored. He supposed that the doctor referred to the chance question he
+had asked Uncle Ephraim, and he deprecated the fact that the old man
+should have heedlessly repeated this. The dream of the altercation, as
+he fancied the recollection, was still vague in his mind, and with that
+quality of unreality and so blended with other visions of his delirium
+and fever that he in naught doubted its tenuous state as a figment of a
+disordered brain.</p>
+
+<p>"There was no Rebel," he said somewhat gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"That was all merely the love of sensation?" asked the surgeon.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," Baynell assented, and fell silent.</p>
+
+<p>This had been the conclusion among the officers of the surrounding camp,
+and it was not surprising to the surgeon that Baynell should share it,
+but there was a consciousness, a mortification, in his manner, that
+implied a personal interest and forced the question to be dropped. The
+surgeon had no wish to press it, and moreover he was anxious to avoid
+exciting the patient. He had some doubt as to the result of the fall; he
+was meditating seriously on symptoms which indicated that the skull had
+sustained a fracture. But when he remarked that all might be well if
+Captain Baynell remained quiet and stirred as little as possible, he was
+surprised and dismayed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> by the vehemence with which the patient
+declared that he must move; he must leave the house; he could not, he
+would not stay under this roof another night, not even an hour longer.
+He requested the surgeon to make arrangements to attend him elsewhere,
+and rang the bell to send a message to camp directing his servant to
+come and get his personal effects. Only a sleeping-potion could restrain
+this determination at the time, and the next day a return of the fever
+and delirium solved the surgeon's problem how to bend the will of the
+refractory patient to the demands of his own best interests.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ephraim found some difficulty in sustaining with composure the
+disasters and excitement and fears that crowded in upon him. He must
+play his part with requisite spirit when in presence of the public, and
+he must suffer in silence and alone. He dared not seek to confer apart
+with his master as to the next step, lest he rouse suspicion that they
+had some secret understanding, and had indeed harbored the enemy. He
+dared not confide his troubles even to his wife, Aunt Chaney, although
+he yearned for sympathy, for reassurance. The old cook, however, had not
+been admitted to any detail of the secret presence of Julius in the
+house. For aught she knew, even now, he was five hundred miles away.</p>
+
+<p>The perversity of the falling out of events dismayed and daunted old
+Ephraim. Only that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> morning&mdash;the morning of that momentous
+day&mdash;Captain Baynell had announced at the table the termination of
+his visit.</p>
+
+<p>"An' it wuz time, too. 'Fore de Lawd, it wuz surely time," the old
+servant grumbled, in surly retrospect. For had the officer but taken his
+leave and his cigar together, how different it might all have been!
+"Marse Julius mought hev' seen Miss Leonora, an' mebbe de ladies, an'
+come down inter de house an' smoked a <i>see</i>gar wid his Pa. Lawdy, massy!
+wid de curtains drawed, an' de blinds down. Dat's whut he honed for! Oh,
+'fore Gawd, I dunno whar dat baby-chile&mdash;dat pore leetle
+Julius&mdash;is now!"</p>
+
+<p>His face caught a fleeting grimace to remember the height of the
+"baby-chile,"&mdash;but as helpless, as forlorn, as some tiny waif, and
+oh, so terribly threatened in this beleaguered, in this thrice-guarded,
+town!</p>
+
+<p>When at last he was dismissed from his station in the sick room by the
+sinking of Baynell into slumber under the influence of the sedative
+administered by the surgeon, old Ephraim, succumbing both in physique
+and in spirit, even in gait, stumbled downstairs and took his way into
+the kitchen to find some talk of trifles, some stir of the familiar
+duties, that might enable him to be rid of his unquiet thoughts, of his
+dread prognostications, of his sheer terror of the future. He sunk into
+a wooden chair beside the stove, for the cooking of supper was already
+under way.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> He was feeling very old and weary. His countenance
+seemed to have collapsed in some sort, so did his usual expression of
+brisk satisfaction and dapper respectfulness and reserve of intelligence
+prop and sustain its contours. Its bony structure now seemed withdrawn.
+It was a sort of dilapidated mask of desolation. He drew a long sigh.
+And then he said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dis is a tur'ble, tur'ble world, mon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dis world is a long sight better dan de nex' world for <i>you</i>!" said his
+wife, rancorously prophetic. "You hear <i>me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The imperious Chaney had not collapsed. Her "head-handkercher" was
+bestowed in a turban that had two high standing ends like tufts of
+feathers above her black, resolute face. Her black eyes snapped as she
+looked beyond him, not at him. She was stepping about, stoutly, firmly,
+audibly, in her Sunday shoes, for no amount of mourning materialized the
+lost slip-shod <i>chaussure</i>&mdash;pressed deep in the mud of the highway
+by wagon-wheels and the uninformed hoof of an unimaginative army mule.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ephraim gazed up in growing anxiety, not to say fright, for Aunt
+Chaney's mood was not suave. She suddenly paused on the other side of
+the stove, and, gesticulating across it with a long spoon, demanded:
+"You&mdash;ole&mdash;<i>dee</i>stracted&mdash;cawnfield&mdash;hand! What fur
+did you send <i>me</i> fur de doctor-man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whut you go fur, den?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>Aunt Chaney reflected on her appearance on the highway, in her old
+homespun dress, "coat," as she called it, one slipper, no bonnet, the
+cake-dough dripping from her hands. She remembered that some wagoners of
+a forage train, struck by her agitated aspect, had looked back to laugh
+from their high perches among the hay and fodder; she remembered that
+some little imp-like boys had twitted her, calling after her in their
+high, callow chirp, and sorry was she that she had not left all to chase
+them&mdash;to chase them till they died of fright! She&mdash;<i>she</i> who
+was accustomed to flaunt in a "changeable" silk, and her bonnet had an
+ostrich plume! She wore a bracelet, too, on grand occasions, and this
+was gold, solid and heavy, fine and engraved, for "Miss Leonora" herself
+had it bought in New Orleans expressly for her, after she had discovered
+and unaided extinguished a midnight fire. Not that old Chaney would have
+wasted all this splendor on the errand for the doctor. If she had
+thought but for a moment, she would have garbed herself as now, as she
+did instantly on her return home, to save her self-respect,&mdash;in a
+purple calico and a clean, white, domestic apron, with her respected and
+respectable green-and-white checked sun-bonnet, all laundered, as ever,
+to absolute perfection. Her haste had destroyed her judgment.</p>
+
+<p>"Whyn't ye tole me dat de man hed jes' fell downsteers,&mdash;when ye
+come out yere, howlin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> lak a painter wid a misery in his jaw. I
+'lowed de Yankee had deestroyed his-self on dese yere premises."</p>
+
+<p>"So did I! So did I! He bled&mdash;and <i>bled</i>!" Old Ephraim paused, his
+face fallen. The association of ideas brought by the mention of blood
+was uncanny.</p>
+
+<p>"What ailed de man dat he hatter fall downsteers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno." The denial was pat.</p>
+
+<p>"Whut's he come down here fightin' in the War without he's able ter keep
+from fallin' downsteers? De Roscoes kin stan' up! I'll say dat fur 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Dey kin dat," replied the "double-faced Janus" admiringly, thinking of
+Julius.</p>
+
+<p>"How long he gwine stay?"</p>
+
+<p>"'Twell he git well, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Den <i>I</i> say dis ain't no house nor home. Dis is horspital Number
+Forty&mdash;dat's whut. Marse Gerald Roscoe ain't got no more sense 'n a
+good-sized chicken, dough he <i>is</i> a jedge, ter hev' dat man yere fur
+Miss Leonora ter keer fur, an' take ter marryin' agin 'fore her old
+sweetheart, Julius Roscoe, kin git home. 'Fore de Lawd, I stood it ez
+long ez dere seemed enny end to it, but now&mdash;" she banged her pots,
+and pans, and kettles about with virulence.</p>
+
+<p>"Marse Julius," she continued, "<i>he's</i> de man fur Leonora
+Roscoe,&mdash;<i>I</i> ain't gwine call her 'Gwynn,'&mdash;Marse Julius is
+good-hearted and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> free-handed; I knowed him from a baby, an' he
+wuz a big one! I always knowed he war in love wid her ever since dat
+Christmas up at the Devrett place, when he an' some o' dem limber-jack
+Devrett boys got inter de wall or inter de groun'&mdash;I dunno
+whar&mdash;an' sung right inter de company's ear, powerful
+mysterious,&mdash;skeered 'em all! Marse Julius, he tuk his guitar an'
+sung,&mdash;'Oh, my love's like a red, red rose!' An' she looked lak one
+while she listened, fur she knowed his voice. I wuz peekin' in at de
+company at de winder&mdash;Lawd&mdash;Lawd! I 'lowed <i>dat</i> would be a
+match&mdash;but yere come along dat Gwynn feller!"</p>
+
+<p>A sudden white flare of burning lard spread over the red-hot stove, for
+Uncle Ephraim had sprung up so abruptly as to strike the long handle of
+the skillet and overturn the utensil.</p>
+
+<p>"Ain't ye got no mo' use of yer haid 'n ter go buttin' 'roun' de
+kitchen, lak a ole deestracted Billy-goat, lak you is!" Aunt Chaney
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>As the smoke circled about she snatched up the skillet with its flaming
+contents.</p>
+
+<p>"Git out my kitchen, else I'll scald de grizzled woolly soul out'n you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bress de Lawd, 'oman, <i>I</i> ain't wantin' ter stay in yer kitchen," said
+Uncle Ephraim, suddenly spry and saucy and brisk,&mdash;a trifle more
+brisk, indeed, accelerating his pace toward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> door, as she
+took two or three long, agile, elastic steps toward him.</p>
+
+<p>"I got other feesh ter fry!" he chuckled to himself.</p>
+
+<p>For the blazing lard but typified a certain illumination in old
+Ephraim's mind.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p>It was a clear, gusty night when he emerged on the lawn at the side
+entrance of the house. For two hours with the faint and freakish light
+of candle ends he had been rummaging over old chests and boxes in the
+attic. The aspect of the desolate, deserted place that had held his
+young master, a tenant dear to his loyal heart, wrung from him a sigh.
+Sometimes he dropped his hands, lifted himself from his crouching
+attitude to a kneeling posture, looked wistfully about the dreary, dusty
+silence, shook his head sorrowfully to and fro, and then once more
+addressed himself to his search. When he began to find the various
+articles he desired, he grew tremulous, agitated. His breath was fast,
+and now and again he must needs check himself in his disposition to
+fluent soliloquy lest some one overhear in his sonorous voice such
+significant words as would reveal his intention. When these seizures
+supervened, he became anxious concerning the possible betrayal of his
+enterprise by the feeble light cast from the windows, and ever and anon
+he screened the bit of candle behind a trunk or some massive piece of
+furniture. He knew that the house was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> a marked spot; the events
+of the day had rendered the locality of special and suspicious interest
+to all the camps in the vicinity. Many an eye was turned thither, he was
+aware, as the evening drew on, and in fact he hardly dared to light the
+tiny tapers till he had heard tattoo sound and taps beat. The tents were
+lost in darkness and slumber, but there were the camp and quarter
+guards, and soon would come the patrol and grand rounds. The sentries
+about the house gave him less anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"They be 'bleeged to know we-all keep some of our stuff in the
+garrit&mdash;mought be huntin' fur suthin' fur dat ar Yankee man's
+nicked haid. But <i>I ain't</i>!" he soliloquized.</p>
+
+<p>When at last he had found all he desired, he extinguished the light and
+quietly waited. Thus in the darkness the place was even more grewsome
+with its associations of concealment and flight, the imminence of his
+young master's capture and violent death. He heard his heart plunge at
+every stir of the wind, every clash of the boughs, and he muttered: "Dat
+pore chile wuz denied a light. His Pa p'intedly wouldn't 'low him a
+candle, fur fear folks would spy it out. An' here he set an' waited in
+de ever-lastin' night!"</p>
+
+<p>Old Ephraim suffered here in the dark from a terror which had loosed its
+hold on his young master long ago,&mdash;the fear of the supernatural.
+Ghosts of many types, "ha'nts," headless horrors,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> spectral
+sounds from the other world, direful prognostications of signs, all in
+grisly procession passed and repassed and crowded the garret to
+suffocation. It would be impossible to imagine what the old gray-headed
+negro saw and heard as he crouched on the dusty floor, and listened to
+the rout of the wind in the trees, and watched the eerie aspect of the
+old furniture, itself associated with the long-gone dead, as the moon
+and the gust-driven shadowy clouds flickered and faded and flickered and
+faded across the dim spaces. When suddenly a shrill sound pierced the
+ghostly solitude, he fell prone in complete surrender on the floor,
+terrified, his nerves almost shattered. An inarticulate scream came
+again and again, and then a low chuckling chatter. A screech-owl, a tiny
+thing, had alighted on the window-sill, and hearing the stir, turned its
+head without shifting its body, its great round eyes encountering the
+reproachful rolling stare of old Ephraim as he tremulously gathered
+himself from the floor. Taking a package under his arm under the long
+coat he wore, he at last went noiselessly and swiftly down the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>He looked out heedfully for Judge Roscoe, whom he did not wish to
+encounter.</p>
+
+<p>"Marster hes been a jedge, an' dey say he hes set on de
+bench&mdash;dough I dunno whut fur dat's so oncommon, fur mos' ennybody
+kin set on a bench! He's sot in his own cushioned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> arm-chair in
+de lawbrary whut kin lean backwards on a spring, and recline his foots
+upwards, an' dat's a deal ch'icer dan enny bench I knows on! But he's
+been a jedge, an' he's got book-larnin', but somehow I 'low he ain't
+tricky enough ter be up ter <i>dis</i> kink. I ain't gwine ter let him know
+nuffin'."</p>
+
+<p>When fairly out of the house all suggestion of secrecy and caution
+vanished. The old darkey flung his feet on the stone steps with a noisy
+impact, and before he reached the pavement, he had burst into song,
+marking the time with an emphatic rhythm&mdash;a wide blare of melody
+with a great baritone voice, that sounded far down the bosky recesses of
+the grove, all dappled with shadow and sheen.</p>
+
+<p><span style="margin-left: 4.75em;">"Rise an' shine, <i>children</i>!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Rise an' <i>shine</i>, children!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">Rise an' shine, <i>children</i>!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">De angels bid me ter come along!</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O-h-h, I want ter go ter heaben when I die&mdash;"</span><br /></p>
+
+<p>He broke off suddenly. He did not wait to be challenged by the sentry as
+he turned, but greeted him with a sort of plaintive humility and a
+mendicant's confiding manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Marse Soldier, could ye gimme a chaw of terbacker, please, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The soldier would not have allowed even one of his own officers to pass
+from the house or enter it without the countersign, but he was thrown
+off his guard by this personal appeal;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> and although he could
+not comply with the request, not being given to the bad habit of
+"chawin' terbacker," he shifted his weapon from hand to hand while he
+rummaged his pockets for "fine-cut" for the pipe of old
+Ephraim&mdash;the fraud, who was amply supplied.</p>
+
+<p>"Neb mind&mdash;neb mind," the old man said deprecatingly. "Thanky, sah,
+thanky! Dere's anodder soldier round de front po'ch&mdash;mebbe he's got
+a chaw!"</p>
+
+<p>And this sentinel, having listened to the colloquy with his comrade, as
+well as distance would permit, adopted his friendly tactics and was able
+to produce the requisite "chaw." He naturally supposed the countersign
+had been demanded and given at the door whence the servant of the house
+emerged, for after unctuous and profuse thanks old Ephraim swung off
+down the hill with another great gush of song&mdash;"I want ter go ter
+heaben when I die&mdash;" echoing far over the grove and the silent
+camps beyond.</p>
+
+<p>Listening to the resounding progress of his departure the first sentry
+thought of course that in letting him pass his comrade had taken the
+countersign. It was only a vague thought, however, cast after him. "That
+old night-hawk is bound for the river, I guess, going fishing," for
+nocturnal angling was the favorite sport of the darkeys of the region.</p>
+
+<p>The soldier did not even notice when the surge of the chant gave way to
+a musical whistle, still<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> carrying the air with great spirit and
+a sort of enthusiasm of rhythm, "An' de angels bid me ter come along."
+Still less did he discriminate the difference in the change of sound,
+not immediately apparent, so elusive was it, and difficult to describe,
+when a whistle of a different timbre took up the air and finished the
+phrase&mdash;"I'll shout salvation as I fly!" After a pause Uncle
+Ephraim was in the distance, humming now, and soon all sound ceased.
+Both the sentinels would have sworn he had quitted the grove.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not alone the wind among the young firs that tossed their
+branches to and fro, when trembling, terrorized, casting now and then a
+horrified, rebuking glance at the radiant moon, as the flying scud drew
+back and left the sphere undimmed, he sought the spot he had marked when
+the responsive whistle had apprised him that his signal was understood
+and answered. At length he paused to catch his breath and wipe the cold
+drops from his brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Lawdy massy! dese yere shines dat dis yere Rebel cuts up will be de
+death ob me&mdash;ef dey ain't de death ob himse'f fust!"</p>
+
+<p>He judged from his close observation he was on the spot&mdash;yet he
+could not ascertain it. Suddenly hard by the roots of a great lush
+specimen of a Norway spruce, the boughs lying far on the ground, his
+foot slipped on the thick spread of the fallen needles. He could not
+recover himself. He was going down&mdash;down. His courage<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> all evaporated. He would have
+screamed if he could. In his terror he had almost lost consciousness
+till all at once he felt a strong grasp of aid and heard a familiar
+smothered laugh that restored his faculties with the realization of
+success and the recognition of a friend at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Hesh! Hesh!" he said imperatively. "Dat laffin' an' laffin' is gwine
+ter be de <i>de</i>struction ob you an' all yer house, an' 'fore de Lawd, ole
+Ephraim, too!"</p>
+
+<p>He had no response, but he had submitted himself to guidance. He was
+being led along a downward course in a narrow subterranean passage, his
+feet shuffling and kicking uncertainly as he ludicrously sought for the
+ground and to accommodate his gait to the easy accustomed stride of his
+conductor. They made more than one turn before Julius paused and said:
+"We might as well stop here, Uncle Ephraim. We can sit down on the
+rocks. Did my father send me any message? Is the officer much hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you kin pitch folks down them steep steers, an' not hurt
+'em, you owdacious, mis<i>chie</i>vious chile! His head is consider'ble
+nicked,&mdash;an' dat's a fac'!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" said Julius, evidently much relieved. "What word did my
+father send me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No word! He didn't know whar dee is&mdash;an' I didn't tell him whar I
+was goin' ter hunt fur dee."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>"Oh, but he <i>must</i> know&mdash;he must not be left so uneasy. Oh, how I
+wish I had never come to disturb and endanger my good father!"</p>
+
+<p>It was dark, and he did not care that Uncle Ephraim should hear his
+sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, look-a-yere, Marse Julius, chile&mdash;de less folks knows 'bout
+dee, de less dey is liable ter be anxious. What you reckon I brung dee?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some supper?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lawd, no! I ain't hed time ter git ye supper."</p>
+
+<p>"Some money? I don't want any money. My father gave me money in case of
+any necessity when I was to run the pickets&mdash;<i>gold</i>!" He chinked
+some coins alluringly in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tain't money. It's&mdash;<i>cloes</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Clothes?" said Julius, uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas dat ar tarrifyin' Rebel uniform dat got dee in dis trouble
+ter-day. Ye got ter change dem cloes. Ye can't run de pickets, an' ye
+can't git out'n de lines nohow in dem cloes."</p>
+
+<p>Julius hesitated. The uniform was in one sense a protection. To be taken
+in his proper character, even lurking in hiding, did not necessarily
+expose him to the accusation of being a spy which capture in disguise
+would inevitably fix upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"What clothes did you bring,&mdash;Aunt Chaney's?" he asked, prefiguring
+a female disguise, and reflecting on the ample size and notable height
+of the cook.</p>
+
+<p>A sort of sharp yelp of dismay came out of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> darkness. Old
+Ephraim wriggled and shuffled his feet audibly on the rocks in his
+effort at emphasis and absolute negation.</p>
+
+<p>"Marse Julius you is gone <i>de</i>ranged! Surely, surely, you is los' what
+sense you ever had! Chaney wouldn't loan ye ez much ez a apern or a
+skirt out'n her chist ter save ye from de pit o' perdition! I hes been
+reckless and darin' in my time, but de Lawd knows I never was so forsook
+by Providence as ter set out ter carry off any wearin' apparel belongin'
+ter dat 'oman, what's gin ober ter de love o' de cloes in her chist. Dat
+chist is de idol ob dat <i>de</i>stracted heathen 'oman, an' de debbil will
+burn her well for de love o' de vanities she's got tucked away dar.
+Chaney's cloes! Gawd A'mighty! <i>Chaney's</i> cloes! Borry <i>Chaney's</i>
+cloes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, whose clothes, then, Uncle Ephraim? You know I couldn't get into
+the citizen's clothes I left at home. I'm three inches taller, and a
+deal stouter. And it would be dangerous to try to buy clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"Lissen; I disremembered dere wuz a trunk in de garret what wuz brung
+down from de Devrett place when de Yankees tore down de house an' built
+de fort. It b'longed ter yer cousin Frank's wife's brother, an' wuz sent
+home atter de war broke out when he died in some outlandish
+place&mdash;I dunno whar, in heathen land. As I knowed he wuz tall an'
+spare, I 'lowed de cloes mought fit dee. So I opened de trunk&mdash;an'
+de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> cloes wuz comical; but not as comical as a Rebel uniform in
+dese days an' dis place."</p>
+
+<p>Julius had a vague vision of himself, robed in the comicalities of the
+dress of the Orient,&mdash;Japanese or Arabian or Turkish,&mdash;seeking
+an escape in obscurity and inconspicuousness, through the closely drawn
+Federal lines.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle Ephraim!" he whined, almost in tears, because of the futility
+of every device, every hope.</p>
+
+<p>"You wait till I show dem ter dee!" exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, hustling
+out the bundle from under his coat.</p>
+
+<p>It proved to be a small portmanteau that had been itself enclosed in the
+trunk. This much was discernible by the sense of touch. Old Ephraim
+placed it on the ground, and then, lowering his voice mysteriously, he
+asked solemnly, "Marse Julius, is you sure acquainted with dis place?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly am," declared Julius, the tense vibration of triumph in his
+voice. "I know it from end to end!"</p>
+
+<p>"Den, ef I wuz ter strike a light, could dem sentries see hit at de
+furder e-end?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to save their souls. We're ever so far down, and the tunnel has
+already made three turns."</p>
+
+<p>"Ef dey wuz ter follow us, dey couldn't crope up unbeknownst on us?"</p>
+
+<p>"They'd break their necks at the entrance if they didn't know the place
+or have a ladder."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>"Dere is a ladder ter de stable, dough," the old man urged, vaguely
+uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"We'd hear 'em putting it down."</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's so! Dat's so!" cried Uncle Ephraim, all cheerful alacrity once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>He forthwith struck a match and lighted one of his candle ends, which he
+fixed on the ledge of the rock by holding it inverted for a few minutes,
+then on the hot drippings placing the taper erect. He had shielded it
+with his hand during this process, and on perceiving no draught
+whatever, looked up in amazement at the strange surroundings&mdash;a
+rugged stone tunnel stretching far along into the dense blackness of the
+distance, fifteen feet in height, perhaps, and of varying
+width,&mdash;about ten feet where they stood; evidently this was an
+offshoot of some extensive subterranean system, not uncommon in the
+cavernous limestone country, therefore exciting scant interest, and
+perhaps never heretofore explored, even in part, save by Julius and the
+Devrett boys when it might be made a factor in Christmas fun.</p>
+
+<p>"De Lawd-a-massy," exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, looking about in awe and by
+no means prepossessed in favor of the aspect of the place. "Is disher de
+bestibule ob hell?"</p>
+
+<p>But the attention of Julius was concentrated on the portmanteau, a very
+genteel-looking receptacle, which when open disclosed the garments that
+Uncle Ephraim considered so comical. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> were, indeed, a
+contrast with his standard of proper attire for a "gemman of
+quality"&mdash;this being the judge's fine black broadcloth, with a
+black satin waistcoat and stock, and with linen laid in plaits, the
+collar standing in two sharp points. But for the first time that day
+Julius had a sudden hope of deliverance. No kaftan, kimono, nor burnoose
+as he had feared, but he was turning in his hands a soft, rough-surfaced
+tweed of a dark fawn color, with tiny checks of the style called
+invisible, the coat bound with a silk braid on which Uncle Ephraim laid
+a finger of doubt and inquiry, looking drearily up into the young man's
+face. For this was a novel finish indeed in those days.</p>
+
+<p>"These are of English make," said the discerning Julius, beginning to
+understand that the foreign "heathen land" to which old Ephraim had
+referred was England. Julius now remembered that his cousin's
+brother-in-law, James Wrayburn, had been sojourning there at the time of
+his death. The garments had lain in the garret for more than a year, but
+in those days so slow was the transmission of styles across the Atlantic
+that the cut was by no means antiquated, indeed was in accord with the
+fashion that was familiar on the main street of the town. There was a
+hat of soft felt of a deep brown, and the old servant had added from the
+trunk two or three white Marseilles waistcoats and some neckties and
+linen.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>"Dee got on good new boots," he observed, glancing down at the young
+man's feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ought to be&mdash;cost me six hundred dollars!" said Julius.</p>
+
+<p>"Lo!&mdash;my Heabenly Friend!" exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, falling back
+aghast, unaccustomed to the inflations of the currency of the
+Confederacy.</p>
+
+<p>When the transformation was complete, he looked up from his knees, in
+which lowly posture he had assisted in drawing down the trousers over
+the boots, and smiled broadly in satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Dar now!" he exclaimed. "'Fore de Lawd, ye look plumb beau-some in dem
+comical cloes. Dey becomes ye! Dat they does&mdash;dough I ain't never
+see no such color as they got, 'dout 'twuz on a cow!"</p>
+
+<p>He made up a bundle of the Confederate uniform and stowed it away on one
+of the ledges. "I don't want dem Yankees ter ever git no closer ter dis
+yere shed snake-skin dan dey is now."</p>
+
+<p>But after the old man had been assisted to clamber out of "the vestibule
+of hell" by the stalwart arm of his young master and had disappeared
+among the firs, Julius made up the uniform into a compact bundle, packed
+it into the portmanteau, and, putting out the candle, sat down in the
+obscurities of the subterranean passage to await the enhanced
+opportunity for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> escape that the dark clouds, now gathering
+about the moon, might bring to the fortuitous collocation of
+circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>When the sentries next heard any suggestion of Uncle Ephraim's presence,
+he was still singing on his return,&mdash;now and then humming and
+whistling as he came. He was approaching the house from the driveway,
+having indeed been to the river; he was bringing home a goodly mess of
+fish.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p>An hour later there was a more significant landfall than the fate of
+these finny trophies. Few of the river craft kept their dates of arrival
+with certainty, and this was especially the case with the general
+packets. Though the water was high, the operations of the Confederates
+rendered the passage sometimes unsafe, sometimes impracticable. Now and
+again the Federal authorities pressed a boat into government service for
+a time and released it to its owners and its old traffic when the
+emergency was past. Therefore on this dull night, when no sign or news
+was received of the <i>Calypso</i>, overdue some ten hours, the wharf became
+deserted. Hardly a light showed on the river banks or along the spread
+of the stream, save indistinct gleams in the misty gloom where the
+picket boats kept up a ceaseless vigilant patrol. The gunboats, with a
+vaguely saurian suggestion lay with their noses in the mud. Here and
+there in allotted berths were the ordinary steamboats with their
+curiously flimsy aspect, as if constructed of white cardboard, silent,
+disgorged, asleep. The rafts, the coal-barges, the humble skiffs, and
+flatboats were all tied up for the night. The town had lapsed to<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> silence and slumber as the hour
+waxed late. The great pale stream seemed as vacant as the great pale
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly far down the river two lights, close together, high in the air,
+red and green, shimmering through the mist, struck the attention of a
+wanderer along the high bluffs near Judge Roscoe's house, even before a
+hoarse, remonstrant, outspreading sound, the clamor of the whistle three
+times repeated, hailing the landing, invaded the murky air. It was a
+spell to rouse all the precincts of the river bank. Lights flickered
+here and there. Hack drivers, who had given up the expectation of the
+boat's arrival at any hour that would admit of the transfer of the
+passengers to the hotel, heard the sound from afar, harnessed their
+teams in haste, and the carriages came rattling turbulently down the
+stony declivity to the wharf. Baggage vans, empty and curiously noisy,
+recklessly jolted along, careening ill-poised and light without their
+wonted burdens. The omnibuses, with the glow of their dim little front
+windows to distinguish their approach, were soon on the scene; the
+driver of one was vociferating with a hackman, because of the lack of
+lighted carriage lamps, which had caused a collision and the wrenching
+away of the door and the cover of the step of the "bus," swaying open
+for want of a cautionary pull on the cord. Loud and turbulent did this
+wrangle grow, and presently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> it was punctuated by blows. The
+crowd that the mere sound of a fight summons from invisibility was
+almost instantly swaying about the scene and hindering the efforts of
+the police, who found it necessary to interfere, and while both
+participants were arrested and hurried off to the station in the
+clutches of the law, they left their respective vehicles like white
+elephants in the hands of the remainder of the force, two of whom must
+needs mount the boxes to restrain the "cattle," as the hack driver
+mournfully called his beasts in commending them to police protection.
+The horses plunged and reared, terrified at the apparition of the
+<i>Calypso</i>, now man&#339;uvring and turning in the river, the paddles
+beating upon the water with a splashing impact as the side-wheels slowly
+revolved. The ripples were all aglow with the reflection of her red
+furnace fires, and her cabin lights sent long avenues of white
+evanescent radiance into the vague riparian glooms. The jangle of the
+pilot bells and the sound of the exhaust pipes came alternately on the
+air. And presently the great white structure was motionless, towering up
+into the gray uncertainties of the night, the black chimneys seeming to
+fairly touch the clouds, the lacelike guards filled with flitting
+figures all in wild commotion pressing toward the stairway.</p>
+
+<p>Albeit the discharge of the freight would not take place till morning,
+the scene was one of great confusion. In accordance with the
+regulation<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> which the military occupation of the country
+required, the passengers rendered up their passes on deck to the officer
+who had boarded the vessel for the purpose of receiving them, permitting
+the travellers to depart one by one through a guarded gate, but it was
+impossible to identify them after they were once on the wharf. Hence
+there was naught to distinguish from the other passengers a gentleman
+carrying a portmanteau, who entered an omnibus, save that the wharf
+lamps might have shown that he was handsome, taller than common, with a
+fine presence and gait, and clad in garments of unmistakably English cut
+and make. The night clerk of the hotel evidently saw nothing else
+unusual in the stranger as he stood under the gas-jet to register at the
+desk in the office, almost deserted at this hour&mdash;not even in the
+momentary hesitation when he had the pen in hand. He wrote "John Wray,
+Junior, Manchester, England," had a room assigned to him, and passed on
+to the late supper, for which Uncle Ephraim's negligence had prepared
+him to do ample justice.</p>
+
+<p>Julius did not appear next morning at the usual breakfast hour. The
+terrors of the Chinese gong, that was wont to rouse the laggards as it
+howled about the hotel under the belaborings of a stalwart waiter,
+failed to stimulate his activity or break his slumber. The fatigues and
+dangers Julius had encountered had prostrated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> him. He was
+unconsciously recuperating, gathering strength for the rebound. He did
+not wake, indeed, till near noon. He turned once or twice luxuriously in
+the comfortably sheeted bed&mdash;at his home they had not dared to
+purloin linen from the household store to furnish his couch in the
+attic&mdash;and then, with his hands clasped under his head, he lay with
+a mind almost vacant of any conscious process, mechanically, quietly,
+taking in the details of the place. The sun sifted in at a crevice of
+the green shutters of the window that opened to the floor and gave upon
+a wide gallery without&mdash;now and again he heard at considerable
+intervals the passing of a footstep on this gallery. He noticed the wind
+stir and the flicker of the shadow of foliage on the blinds. The room
+was in the second story, and he knew that there were trees in a space at
+the rear of the old-fashioned little hotel. The furniture was of a
+highly varnished, cleanly, straw-colored aspect, of some cheap wood that
+refreshingly made no pretentions to be aught but what it was, for on the
+bureau drawers, the head and foot-boards of the bed, and on the
+rocking-chair was painted a gay little bouquet of flowers in natural but
+intense tints. A fresh Chinese matting was on the floor, and muslin
+curtains hung from poles supported on pins that had a great brass
+rosette or boss at the extremity. The building enclosed a quadrangle,
+bounded by the river at the lower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> end. On each of the other
+three sides the wide galleries of the three-story brick edifice
+overlooked the grassy space. He had learned that the hotel had gone into
+the hands of a new proprietor, but even were it otherwise he hardly
+feared recognition, although he had been born and reared in the
+immediate vicinity. At his time of life a few years work great changes.
+The boy of nineteen was hardly to be identified in the man of
+twenty-two, with his mustached lips, his broadened shoulders, his three
+inches of added height, and the composure, confidence, and capability
+conferred by those years of activity and emergency and responsibility
+working at high pressure. Some old resident might recognize the Roscoe
+eye, but he knew he could trust the kindly associations of "auld lang
+syne" to avoid the sifting of a casual recollection. Besides, this was
+hardly likely to befall, for the town was an ever shifting kaleidoscope
+of confused humanity. It was full of strangers,&mdash;Federal officers,
+on service and unattached, on leave of absence, wounded, and their
+families; special correspondents; hospital nurses; emissaries of the
+Sanitary Commission; enterprising promoters of all manner of jobs, and
+the horde of nondescript non-combatants that hangs on the rear of every
+army, seeking the many methods of securing a windfall from the vast
+expenditures of money and goods necessary to maintain a great force on a
+war footing. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> was hardly likely to meet any one who had ever
+known him, or even his father, in his stay at the hotel, which he must
+contrive by some method to make as short as practicable. Then suddenly a
+great dismay fell upon him. He lifted his head and gasped as he looked
+about him for something that was gone! His treacherous memory!&mdash;in
+the prostration of his mental faculties by excitement and fatigue, in
+the lull of his long slumber, he had forgotten the alias he had
+registered as his own name on his entrance to the hotel. He thought of
+half a dozen of the most usual nomenclature, striving to goad his mind
+to a recognition of each in turn as the one he had selected. He was in
+desperation. True, he might have an opportunity to study the register
+and could recognize his own handwriting. But something&mdash;anything
+might occur in the interval in which it might be necessary to give the
+name he had assumed, and any incongruity with the registered alias would
+be fatal. Every casual step along the hall on one side, or the gallery
+on the other, threw him into a sudden tremor as he prefigured a
+stoppage, a knock, an inquiry&mdash;"Are you Mr. Alfred
+Jones?&mdash;here's a note for you. Messenger waits for an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>I</i> don't know whether to answer as Mr. Jones or not!" he said to
+himself in a panic. He might turn away a note of warning from his
+father, who possibly had recognized his handwriting on the register, of
+greeting from Leonora<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> in whose face he had seen an appalled
+commiseration as he sped past her yesterday in his father's hall; or it
+might be that some Confederate agent within the lines would hear of his
+plight and contrive this way to communicate with him. No matter how
+cautiously worded, his was not a correspondence at this juncture to
+decline to receive, and to turn lightly over to the investigating
+scrutiny of all the A. Joneses to whom it might be presented. On the
+other hand he might "throw all the fat in the fire," should he meddle
+with the large correspondence of the Jones family by opening sealed
+missives bearing their name, obviously not intended for him, if he had
+registered as Abner Smith.</p>
+
+<p>Julius was about to spring up, throw on his clothes, and rush to the
+register, when the name struck him with the force of conviction. <i>John
+Wray</i>&mdash;That was it! <i>Manchester, England!</i> The address had been
+selected to take advantage of the typically English clothes. He
+meditated upon it as he sat upright in bed. He had added the "Junior,"
+for the sake of verisimilitude. He smiled with satisfaction to have
+regained it. Then&mdash;"I must have something to fix that in my
+memory," he said.</p>
+
+<p>He looked fruitlessly about. He had no paper, save the map in the lining
+of his boot, no pencil, no pen and ink, naught for a memorandum. Then
+with his gay youthful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>inconsequence&mdash;"Constant repetition will
+settle it&mdash;Mr. John Wray&mdash;Mr. John Wray; Mr. John Wray. How do
+you do to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>He threw himself back on his pillow, laughing at the unintentional
+rhyme.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm a poet&mdash;if I did but know it!"</p>
+
+<p>His irrepressible youthful mirth found its account in the most untoward
+trifles.</p>
+
+<p>"There it is again!" he said to himself, "I have destroyed the sequence
+of my ideas. I am just as likely now to say, 'I am Mr. Poet'&mdash;or
+perhaps with the notion that I have got to butt out of this
+somehow&mdash;'I am Mr. Goat!'"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed again, yawned lazily, stretched his arms upward, and fell
+back luxuriously on the bed, resting his tired muscles.</p>
+
+<p>He lay staring at the design of the wall-paper, which was in scrolls of
+brown that, as they whorled over clear enamelled spaces of creamy white,
+enclosed an outline in fainter browns and yellow,&mdash;a scene of waves
+breaking on rocks and surmounted by a lighthouse; a far and foreign
+suggestion to this deeply inland nook, and refreshing, for there was
+more than vernal warmth in the air. And presently, still
+repeating&mdash;"Mr. John Wray, how do you do to-day?" he slipped off
+into a half-conscious doze from which he was roused only by a knock at
+the door.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p>Downstairs in the hotel there had been the usual stir of the morning.
+Till a late hour the punkahs had swung back and forth above the long
+tables in the dining room, each furnished with one of those primitive
+contrivances for the banishment of flies. The swaying of the pendent
+fringes of paper rivalled the rustling of the trees in the quadrangle
+outside, on which the broad, long windows looked, as each punkah-cord
+was pulled by a specimen of the cheerful and alert pickaninny of that
+day, keenly interested in all that occurred. Others ran in and out of
+the kitchen, bearing to the waiters, to be dispensed among the guests,
+interminable relays of the waffles of those times, golden brown,
+delicately rich, soft, yet crisp, of a peculiar lightness,&mdash;a kind
+that will be seen no more, despite the food inventions and dietetic
+improvements, for the artists of that choice cookery are all dead and
+their receipts only serve to mark the decadence of proficiency.</p>
+
+<p>Strangers of all sorts, officers of the army, civilians from every
+quarter of the north, filled the public apartments, aimlessly chatting,
+discussing the news from the front, smoking matutinal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> cigars,
+buying papers from the omnipresent newsboys, or reading them in the big
+arm-chairs within or on the benches under the trees in the quadrangle,
+glimpsed in attractive verdure through the open doors of the office.
+There was continual passing through the halls, and groups filled the
+verandas and stood about on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, for the
+great brick pillars that supported the roof of the arcade at the height
+of the third story were anchored at the curb of the pavement, and this
+colonnade illustrated the forgotten architect's idea of impressiveness.</p>
+
+<p>In the gay sunshine, the streets, with substantial two and three storied
+buildings on either side, with much effect of big airy windows and now
+and again a high, iron-railed balcony, were congested with traffic. The
+pavements were crowded with pedestrians of varying
+aspect,&mdash;freedmen in rags, idle, exhaustlessly zealous of
+sensation, grotesquely slouching along, eying the shop windows, seeing
+all that there was to be seen; soldiers in uniform on furlough; citizens
+of a new migration, having almost superseded the old townsmen, so
+limited were the latter in number in comparison with the present
+population of the gorged town; ladies, many the wives and daughters of
+Federal officers, with an unfamiliar accent and walk, and with toilettes
+of a more recent style than characterized the native exponents of
+fashion. Now and again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> some passing body of troops filled the
+avenue,&mdash;cavalry, with guidon and trumpet, or a jaunty progress of
+infantry, to the fife and drum and the tune of "The girl I left behind
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>At this period the war had focussed a sort of superficial prosperity
+here. The counters were covered with Northern goods to supply the needs
+and excite the extravagance of this medley of congregated humanity.
+Street venders howled their wares in raucous voices that added to the
+unintelligible clamors of the old highways that were wont to be so dull
+and quiet and decorous.</p>
+
+<p>The paving stones roared with the reverberation of wheels. Sometimes
+endless trains of white-hooded army wagons defiled by; again heavy open
+transfers; sometimes an ambulance anguish-laden passed slowly, taking
+the crown of the causeway. Occasionally a light-wheeled buggy whisked
+about with the unmistakable effect of display and with a military
+charioteer handling the ribbons, who found the Tennessee blooded
+roadsters much to his mind. And forever the dray, laden with cotton
+bales sometimes, and sometimes with boxes, or barrels, or hogsheads,
+took its drag-tailed way to the depots or to the wharf. All was
+dominated by the presence of the mule&mdash;in force, driven loose in
+hundreds through the town to some remote scene of usefulness, now
+drawing the great transfers and drays, now giving an exhibition of the
+peculiar pertinacity of mule nature by planted hoofs and<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> ears laid back and a resolution
+of immovableness, bringing the whole tumultuous noisy rout to a blockade
+of such intricacy and cumbrous obstructiveness that one might wonder by
+what magic the interlocked wheels, the twisted harness, the crowded
+beasts, the whistling, long-thonged whips and shouting, swearing men
+were ever disentangled.</p>
+
+<p>These incidents impeded progress, and the passengers from the noon
+railroad train were disposed to complain and comment, and seemed fit
+subjects for sympathy, as they interchanged petulant accounts of
+experiences at the hotel desk, waiting to register. One was apparently
+not unknown to the clerk now in charge, an affable functionary to the
+deserving few, altogether stiff and unapproachable to the general
+public. He was the day clerk, and a far more magnificent individual than
+the forlorn night bird that languished behind the desk with no company
+but the wee sma' hours of the clock, and the somnolent bell-boys on
+their bench, and the watchman, walking hither and thither like a ghost
+as if his only mission were to be about, and the incoming traveller. The
+day clerk's courtesy had the grace of a personal compliment as he
+hurried the book away from the last signer and passed it on to another
+in the line,&mdash;a somewhat portly, red-faced, middle-aged gentleman,
+with short side-whiskers, of the hairbrush effect and a pale hue, not
+definitely gray,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> for he seemed hardly old enough for such
+tokens of years, and yet the flaxen tint had lost its earlier lustre.
+His hair was of the same shade, and he wore a stiff hat, a suit of
+"pepper-and-salt," and a dark overcoat of light weight.</p>
+
+<p>"Glad to see you, Mr. Wray," said the clerk, handing him the pen. "I am
+sorry I can't give you a room to yourself, but I can put you a bed in
+your son's room."</p>
+
+<p>The pen was poised uncertainly&mdash;the gentleman with the
+side-whiskers stared.</p>
+
+<p>"Your son got in last night," explained the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman still silently stared. He had a close, compact mouth, a
+cautious mouth, and the lips were now compressed with an expression of
+waiting incommunicativeness. He evidently had not expected to be
+confronted with a ready-made family.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk surprised in turn cast on him a glance of keen intentness. In
+these strenuous times every stranger in the town was liable to suspicion
+as a Confederate emissary. "I was not on duty, myself, but I thought I
+saw&mdash;ah&mdash;here it is," turning the page of the register, "John
+Wray, Junior, Manchester, England."</p>
+
+<p>For one moment the portly gentleman gazed at the signature as if
+dumfounded. Then with an air of ready recognition he justified his
+previous manifestations of extreme surprise by explaining the mistake of
+the clerk as to the matter of identity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>"Oh, aw, a distant relative," he said, at last. "Ah, aw,&mdash;he is the
+son of a cousin of the same name as mine, 'John Wray.' The younger man
+is to be associated with me in business. What room? Number ninety?"</p>
+
+<p>And as he was assigned to that haven he took the pen and wrote, "John
+Wray, Manchester, England."</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that, awakened by the brisk tap at the door, Julius, leaning
+out of bed, turned the key, and reached out for the pitcher of ice water
+for which, being warm and thirsty, he had a drowsy impression that he
+had rung the bell. Perceiving his mistake, and lifting himself on his
+elbow, Julius beheld entering this blond and robust stranger, an
+inexplicable apparition, too solid for a spectre, too prosaic for a
+fancy.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor stood, when the door had closed, gazing silently down at the
+recumbent figure, while Julius, amazed at the form which his Nemesis had
+taken, gazed up silently and lugubriously at the intruder.</p>
+
+<p>All the methods of Mr. John Wray were in conformity with his portly
+rotundity, his slow respectability, his unimaginative commercialism.</p>
+
+<p>The young man found speech first. "Why this unexpected pleasure?" he
+asked ceremoniously, but with a satiric inflection.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to intrude, I'm sure," said the elder.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> "But my name is
+John Wray of Manchester, England."</p>
+
+<p>The skies had fallen on Julius. He strove to recover himself.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you like it?" he asked vacuously.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> seemed to like it well enough to register it."</p>
+
+<p>"With a 'Junior,' if you please."</p>
+
+<p>The other fixed him with a stare of round blue eyes. "I think I
+understand you, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Very possibly," said poor Julius. "I am not very deep."</p>
+
+<p>He was thinking that this was doubtless a military detective, a very
+usual factor for ferreting out schemes, obnoxious to the Federal
+government and in aid of the Confederacy. He determined to hold hard and
+sell his life dear.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any letters or papers&mdash;any written communication for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"None whatever," Julius ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew you would meet me here?" the older man apparently wished to
+say as little as he might.</p>
+
+<p>"I fancied I should meet you, but not in this manner," said Julius, also
+enigmatical.</p>
+
+<p>The portly gentleman looked painfully nonplussed and ill at ease, as he
+sat in the light little yellow rocking-chair, which now and again
+treacherously tilted backward and caused him a momentary but agitated
+effort at equilibrium, and Julius vaguely remembered to have<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> heard that rocking-chairs were
+not popular in England, and reflected that this worthy was not
+accustomed to have his centre of gravity so jeopardized.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I should have had ampler voucher. You will pardon me for saying
+this?" remarked the stranger, at length.</p>
+
+<p>"I will pardon you for saying anything you like," said Julius, politely.</p>
+
+<p>"The Company informed me that a young man familiar with the
+country&mdash;a native, in fact&mdash;would meet me here and that I
+should be afforded means to identify him. I fancied he would have
+letters. But when I saw the register I supposed this the mark of
+identification. Am I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear sir, you must not expect me to guarantee your impressions,"
+said Julius. He was glad he was in bed. He felt that he could not have
+stood up. "I should say, judging from the effect your valuable mental
+qualities make upon me, that any impression you see fit to entertain
+would be amply justified by the fact."</p>
+
+<p>He did not know how to appraise the distinction of his own manner and
+special attractiveness, and he was both amazed and amused to note how
+Mr. John Wray of Manchester, England, expanded under the compliment.</p>
+
+<p>"I see, I see&mdash;I suppose this is even better than a letter, which
+might have been stolen, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> transferred, or&mdash;however,
+or&mdash;shall we proceed to our commercial affairs?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't usually transact commercial affairs in my night-shirt," said
+Julius, "but if I look sufficiently businesslike to suit you&mdash;just
+fire away; it's all the same to me."</p>
+
+<p>He was growing reckless. The risk involved in this war of words with the
+supposed detective was overwhelming his reserves. He did not know
+certainly of what the man suspected him, how fully informed he might
+have become. He knew it was imprudent to suggest his withdrawal, for the
+effort at escape might precipitate immediate arrest. Yet he could no
+longer spar back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>"However," he said, as if with a second thought, "I <i>should</i> like a
+dabble of a bath, first, and to get on my duds, and to have a whack at
+breakfast, or dinner,&mdash;whichever is on parade by this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;certainly&mdash;by all means. I will meet you in the
+hotel office, and shall we dine together at two?" He held out the dial
+of his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"At two," assented Julius.</p>
+
+<p>His friend was in such polite haste to be gone that he shuffled and
+plunged awkwardly on his gaitered feet, fairly stumbling over his
+portmanteau near the door as he opened it; then he went down the hall
+with a brisk, elastic step. Julius lay dumfounded, staring at the<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> portmanteau, which was of an
+English make and bore the letters, J. Wray, Manchester, England, on one
+side. He rose and turned it about. It had not been hastily arranged to
+mislead him. The lettering had been done long ago. The receptacle was
+evidently travel-worn, and stamped deep in the bottom was the makers'
+name, trunk manufacturers, Manchester, England.</p>
+
+<p>Julius dressed in haste, his heart once more agitated with the hope of
+deliverance. He could hardly control his nerves, his eager desire that
+this might prove merely an odd coincidence, instead of a detective's
+deep-laid scheme. It began to seem that the man's name might be really
+John Wray of Manchester, England, some army jobber, or speculator,
+perhaps&mdash;the country was full of them. He said he had expected to
+meet an "agent of the company," who knew the country.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> know the country," said Julius, capably; "I know the country to a
+t-y ty. I can give him all the information he wants, free, gratis, and
+for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>Yet in naught, he resolved, would he betray himself. This mistake, on
+the contrary, might open to him some means of getting through the lines
+and back to his command with this map&mdash;this precious plan of the
+defences of the place that would be of distinct value to the cause of
+the Confederacy.</p>
+
+<p>He therefore cast aside his half-formulated<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> scheme of seeking
+escape from the supposed detective through the street. He had remembered
+that there were stairs on the galleries, leading from one floor to
+another, and thence to the quadrangle, as well as the great main
+staircase from the hallways into the office. He at last took his way,
+however, down this main staircase, with its blatant publicity, and its
+shifting groups of Federal officers and busy, newly imported civilians.
+He recognized the wisdom of his boldness almost immediately. Mr. John
+Wray of Manchester, England, standing conferring amicably with a cluster
+of worthies of that marked commercial aspect, alertness, and vim of
+expression, which imply the successful business man of the heady,
+venturesome type, since known as "plungers," turned and perceived him,
+and catching his eye beckoned to him with great empressement.</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me, gentlemen, to introduce Mr. John Wray, Junior&mdash;the son
+of my cousin, John Wray," he said.</p>
+
+<p>There ensued the usual greetings, the usual stir of hand-shaking, and if
+any eye in the office had chanced to note the newcomer with the faint
+suggestion of doubt or interest or suspicion, which a stranger is apt to
+excite, it evaporated at once, for the elder Mr. Wray was well known in
+the hotel and the town, having been here often before, and was a very
+sufficient voucher for any kinsman.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>Genial indeed this group proved at dinner, seated on either side of the
+upper portion of one of the long tables. Julius found it accorded with
+his subsidiary character as youthful kinsman of one of the chief
+spokesmen to maintain an intelligent and receptive silence. Once or
+twice one of the more jovial of his newly acquired cousin's
+<i>confr&egrave;res</i> gave him a glance and lifted his wine-glass with a
+nod, as who should say, "To you, sir," in the midst of the general
+discourse.</p>
+
+<p>This was eagerly commercial, for the most part, and piecing the details
+together as he plied his knife and fork, Julius learned that his new
+friend was interested in a flourishing American concern which had large
+government contracts for ready-made army clothing, the woollen cloth and
+other textile fabrics being supplied from Manchester, and was indeed one
+of the English agents. He could not reconcile anything that he heard
+with a requisite for caution or for any service which he could perform,
+necessitating secrecy or an alias, or his sudden and affectionate
+adoption as a kinsman.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a trait of piety to trust in Providence," Julius reflected in
+this quiescent state. "But I doubt if my confiding reliance in this fix
+can be set down to my credit. For the Lord knows there's nothing else to
+do!"</p>
+
+<p>He created the impression of a decorous, well-bred youth, and in the
+fashionable English clothes he looked little less British than the elder
+John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> Wray. There was so much good-fellowship that it was
+natural that the postprandial cigars with a decanter and glasses should
+be taken out to a summer-house in the quadrangle, where at one extremity
+the river had a slant of the westering sun on its surface. The hills of
+the distance were of a dull grapelike blue against an intensely
+turquoise sky; the magnolia trees above their heads already bore fine
+cream-white blossoms among the densely green and glossy foliage, and the
+surrounding town was cut off from sight and sound by the three
+encompassing sides of the hotel. Yet it was not a solitary place. No one
+looking at the group could imagine it had been chosen for seclusion.
+From the galleries of each of the three stories a glance could command
+it. Guests were continually sauntering into and out of the office. Here
+and there a Federal officer strolled along the little esplanade above
+the water-side. On the lower veranda two elderly men&mdash;one a
+chaplain&mdash;were playing very slowly and with great circumspection a
+game of chess. There were onlookers here, with whom time seemed no
+object, calmly studying the moves, solaced by a meditative cigar, and at
+long intervals showing a flicker of excitement at the magic word,
+"Check!"</p>
+
+<p>The summer-house had already a thatch of vines, but bare columns upheld
+the roof, and it occupied a little circular space of gravel, whence a
+broad gravel walk ran toward each point of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> the compass. An
+approach could be instantly observed, a step instantly heard, and
+therefore it did not seem to Julius altogether incongruous that business
+of importance and details of secrecy should presently be broached. The
+table in the centre was all at once covered with papers, and he began to
+understand the mysteries that had hitherto baffled him when gradually
+the details of a very bold and extensive blockade-running scheme were
+unfolded.</p>
+
+<p>This was in defiance, of course, of the Federal regulations, and in so
+far militated against no interest of the government that Julius had
+sworn to serve. But it was a private enterprise for personal profit, and
+whether the export of cotton from the country to England at this
+juncture accorded with the policy of the Confederate States he had no
+means of knowing. At one time, he was aware, there existed an impression
+that the official withholding of such shipments as could be effected by
+running the blockade tended to create such paucity of the staple in the
+English market as might influence the already pronounced disposition of
+the British to interfere in aid of the Confederacy, and bringing the war
+to an end remove this restriction of manufactures and trade. All this
+was beyond his province. He held very still, remained keenly observant,
+watching for the loophole that might enable him to quit these tortuous
+ways for the very simple matter of fighting the battles of his section.
+After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> these various turmoils of doubt, and hope, and despair,
+it would be a mere trifle to charge with his company to the muzzles of
+the biggest howitzers that ever bellowed.</p>
+
+<p>He discovered that these men were in correspondence with secret agents
+in the Confederacy; they spoke of various depots of the cotton which
+presently developed as mere caches&mdash;bales hidden in swamps, to be
+brought out only by such craft as could navigate bayous, or in deserted
+gin-houses on abandoned plantations, or in old tumble-down warehouses on
+the outskirts of towns,&mdash;never much at any one point, but all that
+could be found and bought, and concealed and held, to be gotten away at
+last to a foreign market. The system sought to reach to the Gulf of
+Mexico, to gather up the scattered wayside stores, and either by taking
+advantage of some lapse of Federal vigilance, or else by strategy, to
+run the blockade with a ship-load, and away for England! Thus the
+enterprise was contrary to the policy of both factions. The Company's
+gold would recruit the endurance of the South, and yet he knew that the
+Confederate authorities had put the torch to thousands of bales rather
+than let the cotton fall into their enemy's hands&mdash;the precious
+commodity, then selling at amazing prices in the markets of New York.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly his own personality came into the scheme with an abruptness
+that made his head whirl.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>"How is it," demanded a sharp-featured man, who had sparse sandy hair,
+very straight, very thin, the head almost bald on top extending the
+effect of the forehead, watery-blue eyes that nevertheless made out very
+accurately the surrounding country, metaphorically considered, a
+somewhat wrinkled face albeit he was not old&mdash;"how is it that your
+cousin should be so well acquainted with the country? I take it that he
+is an Englishman, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no, he is not," candidly answered Mr. John Wray, and Julius had an
+instinct to clutch at him from across the table to hinder the divulging
+of the imposture, "and, in fact, he is not my kinsman at all. I should
+be extremely glad if he were," and he smiled suavely across the table at
+Julius. "He is, I understand, a native of this region." And forthwith he
+told the story of the register.</p>
+
+<p>The spare, businesslike man, whose name was Burrage, at once laid his
+cigar down on the table with its ash carefully disposed over the edge.</p>
+
+<p>"And did he bring no letters?"</p>
+
+<p>"None; very properly. It is most unwise to multiply papers in the hands
+of outside parties."</p>
+
+<p>"But he should have had something definite."</p>
+
+<p>"I think the registry of the name very definite." Mr. John Wray reddened
+slightly. He was not in the habit of being called in question for
+precipitancy.</p>
+
+<p>"It strikes me as a most fantastic whim on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> part of the
+Company. You might not have interpreted it correctly&mdash;taken as you
+were by surprise," Mr. Burrage rejoined. Then, "Did <i>you</i> have any
+specific instructions to guide you personally?" The querist turned full
+on the young man, much to Mr. John Wray's disapproval. But Julius
+answered easily:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"None at all. It is my business to hold myself subject to orders."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your name?" queried Mr. Burrage.</p>
+
+<p>"At present&mdash;John Wray, very much at your service," Julius replied
+glibly; then with a sudden recollection of the vicissitudes of "Mr.
+Poet" and "Mr. Goat," he burst into his irresistible laugh, that cleared
+the frown from the brow of the actual Mr. John Wray and his colleagues,
+and caused the officers pacing along the esplanade, their shadows long
+now in the sun, to glance in the direction of the sound, sympathetic
+with the unknown jest.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burrage pressed the matter no farther, but as he took up his cigar
+again, filliping off the ash with a delicate gesture, and placed it
+between his teeth once more, no physiognomist would have been required
+to discern in his resolute facial expression a firm determination to
+have full advices on this subject before he should ever lose sight of
+the very prepossessing young man introduced by Mr. John Wray.</p>
+
+<p>"He goes out with the little steamboat down the river. I think a packet
+leaves to-morrow."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Mr. Wray began to explain the simplicity of
+the duties devolving upon Julius in order to demonstrate his own
+perspicacity and regard for precaution. "At her stoppages he visits the
+plantations on his list, notifies the men in charge of the cotton to get
+it out on the rafts and flatboats and to be ready to float
+down&mdash;there's a full sufficiency of water on the shoals
+now&mdash;to where the steamer we have chartered, bought, in fact, can
+pick it up. Then he returns on the next packet. It is a trip of a
+hundred miles or so."</p>
+
+<p>Julius felt his heart beat tumultuously in the prospect of
+escape&mdash;to be out of the town once more! But to-morrow! what in the
+interval might betide!</p>
+
+<p>"The point is to have our own steamboat clear fairly with the
+upper-country consignment. The rest she picks up as she goes. She is
+known as a packet to the river pickets; they won't be aware she has
+changed her trade till she has gone. But meantime to get the cotton
+collected it is necessary to have a man familiar with the country. On
+the way down or the return trip, in the distracted state of the region,
+politically, and its physical aspect as a nearly unexplored wilderness,
+it would be simply impossible for a stranger to cope with any disasters
+or difficulties, if one could be found to undertake the trip."</p>
+
+<p>Julius was astonished at himself when he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> heard his own voice
+blandly suggest&mdash;"Come with me, Mr. Burrage! You would enjoy the
+trip&mdash;beautiful scenery! I should have the benefit of your long
+experience in matters of business, and you could avail yourself of my
+knowledge of the country and the people&mdash;the methods and the
+manners."</p>
+
+<p>He was in admiration of his own astuteness. His intuition had captured
+the emergency. He had perceived in Mr. Burrage's face unmistakable
+indications that he would play the obstructive. He would detain the
+supposed agent here, and would not intrust him with the necessary
+instructions in this difficult and most compromising business, until the
+fullest advices could be had from the distant promoters of the
+enterprise, who were presumed to have sent hither "John Wray, Junior."</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion of Julius met with instantaneous favor among the group,
+except, indeed, that Mr. Burrage himself looked disconcerted, surprised,
+definitely at a loss. It removed all possible objections to the
+employment of this agent with no other credentials than the name on the
+register&mdash;but at this moment Mr. Burrage thought that perhaps the
+coincidence would have struck him with more force had the name been his
+own and the registry anticipated his arrival. Time was of importance. No
+one more than the experienced man of business realizes the Protean
+capacity for change appertaining<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> to that combination of cause
+and effect called opportunity. What is possible to-day may be relegated
+to the regions of everlasting regret to-morrow. Everything was favorable
+at the moment, feasible. The future stood with the boon of success in an
+outstretched hand. Delay was hardly to be contemplated. The proposition
+that Mr. Burrage should accompany the agent of his own company on a tour
+of important negotiation, and at no sacrifice of personal ease, was at
+once so reasonable and so indicative of the fairest intentions that he
+was ashamed of the cautionary doubt he had entertained. All at once the
+journey seemed too much trouble. The matter had already been adjusted,
+he said. The plan might well stand as Mr. Wray had arranged it.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Wray, too, added his insistence. "Nothing could be better," he
+declared.</p>
+
+<p>And as Mr. Burrage demurred, and half apologized, and was distinctly out
+of countenance, Mr. Wray compassionately overlooked all his disquieting
+cautions and protested with cordiality that the change would be an
+advantage. Some difficulty might arise, some reluctance to deliver the
+cotton they had already purchased, some doubt as to the locality where
+it was stored,&mdash;they used this expression rather than "hidden,"
+though Julius apprehended that its cache was now a cane-brake and now a
+rock house or cave, and now a tongue of dry land in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> a network
+of bayous and swamps,&mdash;some failure of facilities in respect to men
+or water carriage or land transportation, with all of which this young
+gentleman, new to the arrangements and the enterprise, might find it
+difficult to cope successfully. Such unforeseen obstacles might require
+a divergence from the original plan and the agent's instructions. But
+Mr. Burrage, a member of the Company, could meet and provide for all
+these emergencies, and yet with such a guide be as assured and as
+confident of his footing in this strange country as if he himself were a
+native. It was the happiest suggestion! It enabled him to make a long
+arm, as it were, and manipulate the matter in effect without a proxy.</p>
+
+<p>"And meantime it will be strange indeed if I cannot make a long leg!"
+thought Julius, triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>The actual Mr. Wray was treated everywhere with all possible
+consideration and due regard to the fact that he was a British subject.
+The neutrality of Great Britain was considered exceedingly precarious,
+and there was no disposition to twist the tail of the Lion, albeit this
+appendage was whisked about in a way that ever and anon provoked that
+catastrophe. The British Lion was supposed in some quarters to be
+solicitous of a grievance which would justify a roar of exceeding wrath.
+In this instance, however, there was no necessity of withholding the
+favor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> asked by a British subject, Mr. John Wray,&mdash;for a
+pass for his cousin, Mr. John Wray, Junior, of Manchester, England, and
+his friend, Mr. Alfred Burrage.</p>
+
+<p>That night the two slept on the crowded steamer, as she was to cast off
+at a very early hour. Long, long did Julius lie awake in his berth in
+the tiny stateroom peculiar to the architecture of the "stern-wheeler."
+The good Mr. Burrage in the berth below snored in satisfaction with the
+events of the day, untroubled as to the morrow. Julius had been so
+tormented by vacillations, by the untoward "about-face" movements of the
+probable, so hampered by the unexpected, so repeatedly disappointed,
+that even now he could not believe in his good fortune. Something,
+somehow, would snatch the cup from his lips. But in the midst of his
+turmoil of emotion he had a distinct sense of gratitude that the
+preservation of his safety had involved no forwarding of equivocal
+interests. The affairs of the Company were doubtless such as many were
+seeking to prosecute with varying chances of success. He would report
+the scheme to his commanding officer, however, and he could forecast the
+reply, "One of hundreds." But, at all events, the map in his boot-lining
+was a matter of no slight import. He could hardly wait to spread it on a
+drumhead before his Colonel's eyes, and solicit the honor of leading the
+enterprise he had planned.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>But was he, indeed, destined to escape, to come off scatheless from this
+heady venture!</p>
+
+<p>"If ever I see the command again, by thunder, I'll stick to them as long
+as I live. If ever I can lay hold of my sword again, I swear my right
+hand shall never be far from its hilt!"</p>
+
+<p>In the early hours of the night the loading of the cargo was still
+unfinished. The calls of the deck-hands, the vociferations of the mate,
+which were of an intensity, a fervor, a mad strenuousness, that might
+seem never heard before out of Bedlam, the clash and commotion of boxes
+and barrels, the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, for the lower
+deck was given over to the transportation of army supplies, sounded
+erratically, now louder, now moderated, dying away and again rising in
+agitated vibrations. Sometimes, as he lay, a great flare of light
+illumined the tiny apartment as the torches, carried by the roustabouts
+on shore, cast eerie vistas into the darkness, and he could see the
+closely fitted white planking of the ceiling just above his head, the
+white coverlet, and through the glass door, that served too as window,
+the railing of the guards without and the dim glimpse of the first
+street of the town&mdash;River Avenue&mdash;about on a level with his
+eye, so deep was the declivity to the wharf.</p>
+
+<p>Quiet came gradually. The grating and shifting of the cargo ceased
+first; the boat was fully loaded at length. Then the voices became
+subdued,&mdash;once<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> a snatch of song, and again a burst of
+laughing banter between the roustabouts going up into the town and the
+deck-hands about to turn in on the boat. Now it was so quiet that he
+could distinguish the flow of the current. Yet he could not sleep. Once
+he seemed near unconsciousness when he heard the clash of iron as the
+stoker was banking the fires, for steam was up. Then Julius lay in
+unbroken silence, till an owl hooted from out the Roscoe woods down the
+river. There was home! He thought of his father with so filial a
+tenderness that the mere recollection might be accounted a prayer. In
+that dense mass of foliage off toward the west, under the stars and the
+moon, stood the silent house, invisible at the distance, but every slant
+of the roof, every contour of the chimneys, every window and
+door,&mdash;nay, every moulding of the cornice, was as present to his
+contemplation as if he beheld it in floods of matutinal sunshine. "Oh,
+bless it!" he breathed. "Bless it, and all it holds!"</p>
+
+<p>With dreary melancholy he fell to gazing out at the real
+instead,&mdash;at the vague slant to the wharf in the flickering
+moonlight, and the dim warning glow of a lantern on an obstructive pile
+of brick on the crest of River Avenue. Somehow the trivial thing had a
+spell to hold his eyes, as he watched it with a mournful, dull
+apprehension of what might betide, for he feared to hope still to
+escape&mdash;so often had this hope<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> allured and disappointed
+him. Would something happen at the last moment&mdash;and what would the
+next disaster be?</p>
+
+<p>Therefore when he suddenly became sensible that the boat was moving
+swiftly, strongly, in midcurrent under a full head of steam, he felt a
+great revulsion of emotion. Floods of sunshine suffused the guards and,
+shining through the glass section of the door, sent a wakening beam into
+his face. A glance without apprised him that while he slept the town was
+left far behind, the fort, the camps, the pickets, all the features of
+grim-visaged war, and now great forest masses pressed down to the craggy
+banks on either side. The moment of deliverance was near,&mdash;it was
+at hand,&mdash;and as he dressed in the extreme of haste, he listened
+expectantly for the whistle of the boat, for it was approaching a little
+town on the opposite side where a landing was always made. Julius hardly
+feared the entrance of any passenger who might recognize him, but he
+took his way into the saloon and asked for breakfast, in order that thus
+employed he might have time to reconnoitre. The boat, however, barely
+touched the wharf, and when he emerged and joined Mr. Burrage on the
+deck there was something so breezily triumphant in his manner that the
+observant elder man looked askance at him with a conscious lack of
+comprehension. He thought he was evidently mistaken if he had imagined
+he had gauged this youth. His<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> breeding was far above his humble
+and subsidiary employment, and his manner singularly well poised and
+assured. There was a hint of dignity, of command, in his pose and the
+glance of his eye. He was perfectly courteous; he did not forget to
+apologize for a lapse of attention, albeit absorbed in a certain
+undercurrent of excitement. He did not hear what Mr. Burrage had said of
+the news from the front in the morning paper, and upon its repetition
+accepted the proffered sheet with thanks and threw himself into a chair
+beside his elderly fellow-passenger. He had hardly read ten words before
+he lifted his head with a certain alert expectancy, like the head of a
+listening deer. The whistle of the boat had sounded again, the hoarse,
+discordant howl common to river steamers, an acoustic infliction even at
+a distance, and truly lamentable close at hand, but it was not this that
+had caught his attention. The boat was turning in midstream and heading
+for the shore, now backing at the signal of her pilot's bells,
+peremptorily jangling, now going forward with a jerk, and again swinging
+slowly around, and at last slipping forward easily toward the wood-yard
+where great piles of ready-cut fuel awaited her.</p>
+
+<p>An alien sound had also caught Mr. Burrage's attention.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" he demanded of the captain of the steamboat, who held a
+field-glass and was looking eagerly toward the woods.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>"Musketry," replied the captain, succinctly.</p>
+
+<p>"There is some engagement taking place in the forest?" inquired Mr.
+Burrage.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems so," said the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"And are you&mdash;are you going to land?"</p>
+
+<p>"Must have wood&mdash;that's my regular depot," returned the
+steamboatman.</p>
+
+<p>"You had best return to Roanoke City instead," urged Mr. Burrage,
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Need wood for <i>that</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the boat will be captured by the Rebels. Why don't you burn the
+freight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Beeves ain't convenient for fuel on the hoof."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I reckon the captain can wood and get off," said Julius,
+good-naturedly, reassuring Mr. Burrage. "Nobody is thinking about this
+boat now." Then, as a sharper volley smote the air, he added, "I think
+I'll look into this a bit," rose and took his way through the groups of
+excited passengers and down to the lower deck.</p>
+
+<p>The "mud clerk," the roustabouts, the wood-yard contingent, made quick
+work of fuelling the steamer, and she was once more in midstream,
+forging ahead at high speed, before it occurred to Mr. Burrage to
+compare notes with his young colleague and ascertain if he had learned
+aught of what forces were engaged.</p>
+
+<p>He was not easily found, and Mr. Burrage asked the captain of his
+whereabouts.</p>
+
+<p>"He must have got left by the boat," said the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> captain, as if
+the packet were a sentient thing and subject to whims.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Burrage, gravely disturbed, caused inquiry to be circulated among
+the hands and officials,&mdash;all, in effect, who had set foot on
+<i>terra firma</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Who? that young dandy with the long hair?" said the "mud clerk,"
+staring, his measuring staff still in his hand. "Why, that man
+<i>intended</i> to land. He had his portmanteau and walked off along the road
+as unconcerned as if he was going home. I was too busy measuring the
+wood to pass the time of day, thinking the riverbank was alive with
+guerillas."</p>
+
+<p>His departure remained a mystery to Mr. Burrage. As to the topographical
+features of his involved scheme he was powerless to prosecute this phase
+alone. The simple expedient of sticking to the packet and retracing his
+way on her return trip brought him at last to a consultation with his
+<i>confr&egrave;res</i>, who also long pondered fruitlessly on the strange
+meeting and its result. About this time the agent or guide, provided by
+the Company, presented himself with due credentials from the main
+office,&mdash;a heavy, dull, somewhat sullen man, with no further
+capacity, or will, indeed, than a lenient interpretation of his duty
+might require.</p>
+
+<p>"I always shall think," Mr. Wray used to say, "that we suffered a great
+loss in that young man&mdash;that John Wray, Junior."</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<p>In these days the picket lines were seldom stationary; one or the other
+faction continually drew in close these outlying guards, as if by
+presentiment,&mdash;an unexplained monition of caution, or perhaps
+because of some vague rumor of danger. Now and again, by a sudden
+belligerent impulse, they were impetuously attacked and driven in; but
+apparently in pursuance of no definite plan of aggression emanating from
+the main body. A few days of surly silence and stillness would ensue,
+and then the opposing force would return the warlike compliment with
+interest, holding the enemy's ground and kindling bivouac fires from the
+embers they had left. It seemed a sort of game of tag&mdash;a grim game;
+for the loss of life in these futile man&#339;uvres amounted to far more
+in the long run than the few casualties in each skirmish might indicate.
+Sometimes these feints were entirely relinquished, and intervals of
+absolute inaction continued so long that it might seem a matter of doubt
+why the two lines were there at all, with so vague a similitude of war.
+Occasionally they lay so near that the individual soldiers, forgetful of
+sectional enmity, gave rein to mere human interest<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> in the
+opportunities afforded by a common tongue and an apprehended and
+familiar range of feeling. A lot of tobacco, thrown into a group about a
+bivouac fire by an unseen hand one night, brought the next night a
+package of "hard tack" from over the way. Now and again long-range
+conversations were held, full of kindly curiosity, or humorously
+abusive, the questionable wit of which mightily rejoiced the heart of
+the lonely sentinel, and upon his relief all the jokes were duly
+rehearsed when once more in camp, he himself, of course, represented as
+coming off winner in the wordy war, being able to appropriate all the
+good things said by the enemy. The loud, cheerful, "Say, air you the
+galoot ez wuz swapping lies with Ben Smith day 'fore yestiddy?" and the
+response, "Smith, <i>Smith</i>, you say. I dis-remember the name. I guess I
+never heard it afore!" all were much more commendable from a merely
+humanitarian point of view than the singing of the mini&eacute; ball or
+the hissing shriek of a shell that had been wont to intrude on the bland
+quietude of the sweet spring air.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it was that Miss Mildred Fisher, accompanied by Lieutenant Seymour
+and one of her father's ancient friends, Colonel Monette, himself
+attended by a very smart orderly, riding out of Roanoke City down the
+long turnpike road, saw naught that might indicate active hostilities.
+The picturesque tents in the distance about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> town, the
+outline of the forts against the blue sky, and afar off a gunboat in the
+river, were all still, all silent, all as suave as the painted incident
+of a picture on the wall. The turnpike itself bore heavy tokens of the
+war in the deeply worn holes and wheel tracks of the great wagon and
+artillery trains, wrought during the wet weather of the winter. It was
+hard going on the horses, and precluded that brisk pace and easy motion
+which are essential to the pleasure of the equestrian. Mildred Fisher,
+indeed, delighted in a breakneck speed, and it may be doubted whether it
+was altogether a happy animal which had the honor of bearing her light
+weight. As they reached a "cut off," where a "dirt road" had been
+recently repaired and put into fine condition to obviate the obstacles
+of the main travelled way, Miss Fisher proposed that they should "let
+the horses out" along this detour for a bit. Then she challenged the two
+officers for a race.</p>
+
+<p>They could but accede, and indeed it would have been difficult to deny
+her aught. The elder looked at her with an almost paternal pride, the
+other with a sort of surly adoration, tempered by many a grievance and
+many a realized imperfection in his idol, and a spirit of revolt against
+the sunny whims and again the cold caprice which he and others sustained
+at her hands. Seymour had little to complain of just now; yet, if she
+smiled on him and his heart warmed to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> the sunshine of her eyes,
+the next moment he was saying to himself that it meant nothing, it was
+not for his sake; for she was smiling with the same degree of brightness
+on that whiskerando, the elderly colonel. Her face was exquisitely fair,
+and in horseback exercise&mdash;the luxury she loved&mdash;she tolerated
+no veil to protect the perfection of her complexion. Her fluffy red hair
+had a sheen rather like gold, because of the contrast with her
+damson-tinted cloth riding-habit. The hat was of the low-crowned style
+then worn with a feather, and this was a long ostrich plume of the same
+damson tint, curling down over her hair, and shading to a lighter
+purple. Her hazel eyes were full of joy like a child's. Her mouth was
+not closed for a moment,&mdash;its red lips emitting disconnected
+exclamations, laughter, gay banter, and sometimes just held apart,
+silently taking the swift rush of the air, showing the rows of even
+white teeth and a glimpse of the deeper red of the interior, like the
+heart of a crimson flower.</p>
+
+<p>She tore along like the wind itself. "Madcap," who had raced before,
+and, sooth to say, with more numerous spectators, had thrust his head
+forward, striking out a long stride, and the soft, elastic, dirt road
+fairly flew beneath his compact hoofs. The skirt of the
+riding-habit&mdash;much longer than in the later fashions&mdash;floated
+out in the breeze of the flight, and Colonel Monette, who did not really
+approve outdoor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> sports for women, expected momently to see it
+catch in a thorn tree of the thickets that lined the road, or on some
+stake of the fragments of a ridered rail fence, and tear her from the
+saddle. Then, her foot being held by the stirrup perhaps, she might be
+dragged by Madcap or brained by one blow of the ironshod hoofs. Thus his
+heart was in his mouth, and he was eminently appreciative of the folly
+of the elderly wight who seeks to share the pleasures of the young.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant, being young himself, was not so cautiously and
+altruistically apprehensive. He admired Miss Fisher's dash and courage
+and buoyant spirit of enjoyment, and, having a good horse, he pressed
+Madcap to his best devoir. Colonel Monette, to keep them in sight at
+all, was compelled to make very good speed, and went galloping and
+plunging down the road in a wild and reckless manner.</p>
+
+<p>It was the elder officer who was first visited by compunctions in behalf
+of the horses.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" he cried. "Halt! Miss Fisher is the winner&mdash;as she always
+is! Halt! Lieutenant Seymour!" Then in a lower voice when he could be
+heard to speak, "We shall have the horses badly blown," he said with an
+admonitory cadence, which reminded Seymour that a military man's whole
+duty does not consist in scampering after a harum-scarum girl in a race
+with two wild young horses.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>Seeing that she was not followed, Miss Fisher reined in after several
+wild plunges from Madcap, who felt that he had not had his run half out,
+and snorted with much surprise in his full bright eyes as, turning in
+the road, he saw the two mounted officers far behind, stationary and
+waiting. The victor should never be unduly elated, but Madcap expressed
+his glee of triumph chiefly in his heels, curvetting and prancing,
+presently kicking up so uncontrollably, the excitement of the contest,
+the joy of racing, still surging in his veins and tense in his muscles,
+that the officers might well have feared some disaster to the girl. They
+at once put their steeds in motion to go to her assistance, but Madcap,
+with outstretched head, viewing their start, suddenly made a bounding
+<i>volte-face</i> in the road, and with the bit between his teeth set out at
+a pace that discounted his former efforts and carried him out of sight
+in a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Fisher, with all the courage of the red-headed Fisher family,
+albeit she had become pale and breathless, settled herself firmly in the
+saddle, held the reins in close, now and then essaying a sharp jerk,
+first with the right then quickly with the left hand&mdash;and it was as
+much as she could do to keep the saddle at these moments&mdash;to
+displace the grasp of his teeth on the bit. For a time these
+man&#339;uvres failed, but at last the road became rougher, brambles
+appeared in its midst, the intention of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> repair had evidently
+ceased, and running at full tilt was no longer any great fun. The horse
+voluntarily slowed his pace, and the sudden jerk right and left snatched
+the bit from his teeth. He might still have pranced and curvetted, for
+the spirit of speed was not satiated, but his foot slipped on the uneven
+gullied ground, he stumbled, and being a town horse and seeing nowhere
+any promise of a good road, he resigned himself to the guidance of his
+rider, thinking perhaps she knew more of the country than he.</p>
+
+<p>While she breathed him for a time, she looked about her along the curves
+of the road, seeing nothing of her companions, and realizing that she
+was quite alone. This gave her a sentiment of uneasiness for a moment;
+then she reflected that her friends were doubtless riding forward to
+overtake her. She drew up the reins, intending to turn, and, retracing
+her way, to meet them.</p>
+
+<p>The place was all unfamiliar. So swift had been her transit that she had
+not had a moment's contemplation of the surroundings. She stood at the
+summit of a gentle slope and could look off toward stretches of forest,
+here and there interspersed with considerable acreage of cleared ground,
+evidently formerly farm land, now abandoned in the stress of war and the
+presence of contending armies. The correctness of this conclusion was
+confirmed by the sight of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> two gaunt chimneys at no great
+distance, between which lay a mass of charred timbers,&mdash;once the
+dwelling, now burned to the ground. The scene was an epitome of
+desolation, despite the sunshine, which indeed here was but a lonely
+splendor; despite the brilliance of the trumpet vine, tangled in
+remnants of the fence, in many a bush, and swaying in long lengths, its
+scarlet bugles flaring, from the boughs of overshadowing trees; despite
+the appeal of the elder blossoms of creamy, lacelike delicacy, catching
+her eye in the thickets, which were so lush, so green, so favored by the
+rich earth and the prodigal season. She was sensible of a clutch of
+dread on that merry spirit of hers before she heard a sound&mdash;a
+significant sound that stilled the pulsations of her heart and sent her
+blood cold. It was the unmistakable sinister sibilance of a shell. She
+saw the tiny white puff rise up above the forest, skim through the air,
+drop among the thickets, and then she heard the detonation of an
+explosion. Before she could draw her breath there came a sudden volley
+of musketry at a distance,&mdash;she knew that for the demonstration of
+regular soldiers, firing at the word,&mdash;then ensued another, and
+again only a patter of dropping shots. She wondered that her companions
+did not overtake her&mdash;she must find them&mdash;she must rejoin
+them,&mdash;when suddenly an object started up from the side of the
+road, the sight of which palsied her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> every muscle. A man it was
+who had lain in the bushes on the hillside, a man so covered with blood
+that he had lost every semblance of humanity. The blood still came in a
+steady stream from his mouth, impelled in jets, as if it were under the
+impulse of a pump, and he held his hand to his stomach, whence too there
+came blood, dripping down from his fingers. In sickened, aghast dismay
+she watched his approach, and as he passed she found her voice and
+called to him to stop,&mdash;might she not help him stanch his wounds?
+His staring eyes gazed vacantly forward with no recognition of the
+meaning of her words, and he walked deliriously on, every step sending
+the blood forward, draining the vital currents to exhaustion. Now she
+dared not turn, she could not pass that hideous apparition. She
+shuddered and trembled and rode irresolutely forward, just to be
+moving&mdash;hardly with a realized intention. Suddenly the road curved,
+and the scene of the conflict was before her.</p>
+
+<p>The woods were dense on three sides of a wide stretch of fields that
+were springing green with new verdure; a portion had even been ploughed
+and bedded up for cotton; here and there lay strange objects in curious
+attitudes, which she did not at once recognize as slain men. Among them
+were scattered carbines, horses already dead, and more than one in
+scrambling agonies of dying. In the farthest vista field-guns were
+evidently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> getting in battery, ready to sweep from the earth a
+little force of dismounted cavalrymen who had come to close quarters
+with infantry and who were fighting on foot with carbines. The
+mini&eacute; balls now and then sang sharply in the air, and in the
+excitement she did not realize the danger. Suddenly a puff of smoke rose
+from the battery, the shell winging its way high above the infantry line
+and at last falling among the dismounted cavalrymen, who, perceiving the
+situation to be hopeless, wavered, sought to rally, and at last broke
+and ran to the horse-holders hidden in the thickets. Thither the shells
+pursued them, bursting all along the plain, and as Mildred Fisher gazed
+she saw three men on the field, powerless to reach the shelter. One was
+wounded,&mdash;an officer, evidently,&mdash;and the other two were
+seeking to support him to his horse hard by. At this moment a fragment
+of shell killed the animal before their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ride out! Ride out!" cried Millie Fisher to a horse-holder that she
+observed close by in the woods. He was mounted himself, and he held the
+bridles of three horses. He looked half bewildered, pale, disabled. A
+shell burst prematurely, out of range and wide of aim, high in the air
+above their heads.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," he said; "I'm hit!"</p>
+
+<p>"Give <i>me</i> the line, then!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>He was past reasoning, beyond surprise, stunned by the clamors and
+succumbing to wounds.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>The next moment, the three great horses in a leash, Madcap led his
+wildest chase across that stricken plain, now shying aside as some
+wounded man lifted a ghastly face almost beneath his hoofs, or pitifully
+sought to crawl away like a maimed and dying beast. The thunder of the
+frenzied gallop shook the ground; the group of men, for whom the rescue
+was designed, turned a startled and amazed gaze as the horses came on
+abreast, snorting and neighing and with tossing manes and wild eyes,
+rushing like the steeds of Automedon.</p>
+
+<p>"The gallant little game-cock!" exclaimed Jim Fisher, eying the supposed
+horse-holder from beside the smoking guns of his battery in the
+distance. "Now, I'm glad to spare him if never another man goes clear!"</p>
+
+<p>For the Confederate cavalry were starting out in pursuit, and to let the
+squadrons pass without danger the cannonade was discontinued. The
+bugle's mandate, "Cease firing!" rose lilting into the air, and there
+was sudden silence among the guns. As Captain Fisher disengaged the
+strap of his field-glass seeking to adjust it, he noted that there was
+something continually flying out at the side of the young soldier's
+saddle. One glance through the magnifying lenses at the floating folds
+of the riding-habit and the radiant face crowned by the purple
+plume&mdash;and Jim Fisher almost fell under the wheel of the limber as
+it was run up to the gun-carriage. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>"My God, Watt!" he exclaimed
+to his first lieutenant who was also his brother,
+"that&mdash;that&mdash;cavalryman is&mdash;is Sister Millie!"</p>
+
+<p>When she was at last with them, for in tumultuous agitation they had
+rushed forward to meet her, beckoning and shouting, and their kisses had
+smeared the gunpowder from their grim countenances to her lovely roseate
+cheeks, they began to experience the reactionary effects of their fright
+and scolded her with great rancor, declaring repeatedly they felt much
+disposed, even yet, to slap her. All of which had no effect at all on
+Millie Fisher. They tried &aelig;sthetic methods of reducing her to see
+her deed from their standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were a patriotic girl, Sister," one of them urged. "And
+see, now&mdash;you have helped three Yankees to escape!"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>am</i> patriotic&mdash;more patriotic than anybody," she asseverated.
+"But I forgot they were Yankees&mdash;they were just three men in great
+danger!"</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>you</i> were in great danger, Sister, I&mdash;I&mdash;might have shot
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you feel funny when you found out who 'twas?" she queried with a
+giggle of great zest.</p>
+
+<p>"I felt mighty funny," said Jim Fisher, grimly. "I suppose few men have
+ever felt so funny!"</p>
+
+<p>Few men have ever looked less funny than he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> as he reflected on
+the episode. He recovered his equanimity only gradually, but especially
+after he had been able to make arrangements to convey intelligence to
+his mother within the Federal lines as to his sister's safety. This was
+rendered possible by a flag of truce sent out almost immediately by
+Colonel Monette, who with Lieutenant Seymour was in the greatest anxiety
+as to her fate, feeling a sense of responsibility in the matter. She
+insisted on adding a line addressed to the younger officer, bidding him
+sing daily with his hand on his heart:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p> "'Would I were with thee!'&mdash;<i>In the Confederate lines!</i>"<br /> </p>
+
+<p>if he expected her to conserve any faith in his constancy.</p>
+
+<p>That evening Jim Fisher almost regained his wonted cheerfulness. The
+other four brothers had gathered together to welcome the unexpected
+guest, and as they sat around a great wood fire in an old deserted
+farm-house, a primitive structure built of logs, with Millie and the
+youngest, favorite brother, Walter, in the centre, it seemed so joyful a
+reunion that he was almost tempted to forgive the manner in which it had
+come about.</p>
+
+<p>Jim Fisher's body-servant, C&aelig;sar, cooked a supper for them, in a
+room across an open passage, consisting of corn-bread, bean-coffee,
+bacon, and a chicken, which last came as a miracle, as he mysteriously
+expressed it, upon inquiry&mdash;"as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> de mussy ob Providence!"
+C&aelig;sar was a brisk young darkey, with a capacity for a sullen and
+lowering change, and with a great distaste for ridicule, induced by much
+suffering as the butt of the practical jokes of his young masters, for
+among so many Fisher boys one or another must needs be always disposed
+for mirth.</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't ax me so p'inted 'bout dat chicken's pedigree, Marse Watt,"
+C&aelig;sar was beguiled into retorting acrimoniously. "Naw, sah. I
+dunno. I dunno whedder hit's Dominicky or Shanghai. An' <i>ye</i> have no
+call to know whedder hit's foreign or native! <i>I</i> tell you hit's
+fried&mdash;an' dat's all I'm <i>gwine</i> ter tell you!&mdash;fried ter a
+turn! An' if you bed enny religion, you'd say grace, an' give Miss
+Millie a piece while it's hot. Naw, sah! naw, Marse Watt! I <i>ain't</i> no
+robber! Marse Jim&mdash;you hear what Marse Watt done call me! Naw, sah!
+I don't expec' ter see Satan!&mdash;not <i>dis week</i>, nohow."</p>
+
+<p>C&aelig;sar was glad to gather up the fragments and make off to the
+kitchen opposite, where he sat before the fire and crunched the last
+bone of the precious fowl, and grinned over the adroit methods of its
+capture on this great occasion, for such a luxury could hardly be bought
+at any price, in Confederate money or any other currency.</p>
+
+<p>After supper was despatched something of a levee was held; so many of
+Miss Millie Fisher's old friends&mdash;officers in the military
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>force&mdash;called to renew the acquaintance of happier times. And as
+she recognized the more intimate old playfellows or neighbors, with a
+gush of delighted little screams and a musical acclaim of their
+Christian names, sometimes an old half-forgotten nickname, other guests,
+later acquaintances, were envious and wistful, and sought to stem the
+tide of reminiscence, the "Don't you remembers" and "Oh-h-h, wasn't it
+funny?" and to impress the values of the present, despite the lures of
+the past.</p>
+
+<p>She was delightfully gracious and gay with them all, and perhaps she had
+never seemed more lovely than the flicker of the firelight revealed her,
+for there were no other means of illumination. She stood to receive in
+the centre of the floor, radiant in her dark purple riding-habit and
+hat, the military figures, all in full uniform, clustering about her,
+some resting on their swords, some half leaning on a comrade's shoulder,
+while jest and repartee went around, the laughter now and again making
+the rafters ring. It was with reluctance that they gradually tore
+themselves away in obedience to a realization that after so long a
+separation the family might desire to spend the evening alone, for three
+of the brothers must needs repair to their own command at some distance
+at break of day, and it might be long before they could all be together
+once more.</p>
+
+<p>So at last, the visitors gone, the door barred,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> the night
+wearing on, the Fishers gathered round the replenished fire, for the air
+was chill and the warmth was as welcome as the light. The deserted house
+was entirely bare of furniture, and as the force was a "flying column,"
+flung forward without the impediments of baggage trains or tents, there
+was not even a camp-stool available. Millie and Watt sat side by side on
+a billet of wood, their arms around each other's waists to preserve the
+equilibrium, and the rest of the brothers half reclined on the saddles
+on the floor. And every face was smiling, and every head was red. Again
+and again a shout of laughter went up, as she detailed the news of the
+town,&mdash;and some very queer things, indeed, she told,&mdash;and
+Watt, the lieutenant, responded with the news of the battery and the
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he felt that his prestige as a wit was threatened, for once he
+said, "I'd give a hundred dollars, Sister, to be assured that all you
+are telling is the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't give a brass thimble to be assured that all <i>you</i> are
+telling is the truth, for I know 'tisn't!" retorted Millie.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I meant in Confederate money!" He lowered the face value of his
+bid.</p>
+
+<p>They kept late hours that night; but at last, when the fire was burning
+low and great masses of coals had accumulated, they swung a military
+cloak hammock-wise across a corner of a little inner room, hardly more
+than a cupboard, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> this Millie Fisher in her new r&ocirc;le
+as a campaigner found a comfortable bed enough. The restricted apartment
+had no window, and no door save the one opening into the larger room;
+and this she set ajar, making Walter place a great solid shot against it
+lest it close, declaring that if that catastrophe should supervene, she
+should die of solitary fright. The five Fisher brothers were well within
+call and sight, as they clustered around the embers, talking for a time
+in low voices of what had chanced in the interval of their separation.
+For only Jim and Watt were together in the same company. They commented
+on the relative cost and value of their <i>chaussure</i>, as they stretched
+out their long, booted legs, with their feet on the hearth, and compared
+the wearing qualities of the soles and upper leather. They looked kindly
+into each other's faces and laughed as they made a point, and between
+the two younger brothers, Watt and Lucien, there was a disposition to
+horse-play, manifested in unexpected tweaks, that each was glad to
+receive as a compliment, so did separation and the sense of an imminent
+and ever environing danger soften and make tender their fraternal
+sentiment. But first one, then another, flung his cloak around him and,
+pillowing his head on his saddle, lay down to rest, the two younger
+brothers the last of all.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;silence. The dull red light of the embers gloomed on the
+daubed and chinked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> walls of the old log house, with its rude
+puncheon floor. The five prostrate, cloaked figures upon it were still,
+asleep. Here and there from amongst the arms, placed ready to seize at a
+moment's notice, came a keen steely gleam. Mildred could hear the
+sentry's tread outside up and down before the door. Once, far away, she
+noted the measured tramp of marching feet, then a challenge, and anon,
+"Stand! Grand Rounds! Advance, Sergeant, with the countersign!" and
+presently the march was resumed in the distance. And
+again&mdash;silence! Only the wind astir in the forest, only the rustle
+of the lush foliage. All&mdash;how different from her dainty bedroom
+where she had spent last night, the downy couch, the silken coverlet,
+the velvet carpet, the lace curtains, the tremulous flicker of the wind
+in the flower-stand on the balcony!</p>
+
+<p>"Hugh!" she said suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Every red head on the floor had lifted at the sound, and every hand had
+clutched a weapon.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;believe there must be a flying squirrel
+or&mdash;or&mdash;something in the wall. Don't they build in old walls?
+I've seen that in some book."</p>
+
+<p>Jim and Hugh arose and investigated the wall of the inner room by means
+of a torch of light-wood.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Sister, it is as solid as a rock!" Jim asseverated. "There's no
+flying squirrel here."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>He extinguished the flaming torch in the ashes banked in the
+chimney-place in the larger room, and again the two brothers laid
+themselves down to rest, with their feet on the hearth.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the silence of the night, the vague crumbling of the ash, the
+measured sound of the sentry's tread. There was no echo of the passing
+of time&mdash;but how leaden-footed! How slowly fared the night! How
+motionless lay those cloaked figures, each with his head on his saddle!</p>
+
+<p>"Watt," her voice came plaintively out of the gloom. "I'm scared!"</p>
+
+<p>This time, though all stirred, they did not rise.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! Scared of what?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer. Only after a time she queried irrelevantly, "Can
+mice climb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see that in a book, too?" asked Watt.</p>
+
+<p>"They can only climb under certain conditions," opined Hugh, sleepily.</p>
+
+<p>"But they'd scorn to intrude on a lady in a hammock, Sister," declared
+George.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush, George!" said Jim, authoritatively. "No mouse can get up
+there, Sister. Why don't you go to sleep?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," said Millie Fisher, plaintively. "I saw so many awful things
+to-day!"</p>
+
+<p>"You had better think about mice," said Watt, quickly, to effect a
+diversion. "They are minute, but monstrous. Just imagine how one could
+scale the wall, and taking its tail under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> its left arm spring
+across to your hammock, and run along, say, the nape of your neck!
+Oh-h-h! wouldn't that be just <i>aw-w-wful</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hush, Watt!" said Jim. "Just compose your mind, Sister. Shut your
+eyes and think about nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Think how nearly you scared a gallant captain of artillery out of his
+seven senses to-day," suggested Watt, anew. "I thought Jim would get run
+over by the gun-carriages and the caissons, whether or no. He was so
+scatter-brained, and white, and wild-eyed, and blundering&mdash;nearly
+under the horses' feet."</p>
+
+<p>Millie Fisher gave a pleased little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Was he? Was he, truly?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was, for a fact. Few captains of artillery have the opportunity to
+make their own sister a target in a regular knock-down-and-drag-out
+fight. I thought I was going to have to support the gentleman off the
+field of battle. He couldn't stand up for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"How funny!" exclaimed Millie Fisher, delightedly. "Just <i>too</i> funny."</p>
+
+<p>She shifted her position in the hammock, closed her eyes, and when she
+opened them again the sun was flaring into the open door and window of
+the large room, and all the five Fisher brothers were up and fully
+accoutred for the duty of the service, and she was requested to get out
+of the hammock that it might again be turned into a cloak.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>The details of her exploit were brought back to the main body of the
+Federal army and bruited abroad by the men whom she had rescued from
+death or capture. One of these, the officer, was much disposed to vaunt
+his gratitude and sense of obligation, and as Miss Millie Fisher was as
+well known as the river itself, the incident created no small stir in
+many different circles. The girl was held to be a prodigy of courage.
+All the men of the family were known to be brave, eke to say, fractious.
+There had been seldom a row of any sort, in several generations, in
+which a Fisher's red head had not been in the thick of it, and held
+high. There were several who were now men of mark, but never had aught
+else so appealed to their pulse of pride, their close bond of union in
+family ties and clannish affection for which they were noted. Great were
+the boastings of the Fisher brothers, each feeling that he shone by
+reflected light, and echoes of their vain-glorious brag were borne to
+the storm centre by that mysterious means of communication known as the
+Grape-vine Telegraph.</p>
+
+<p>One day Seymour detailed, with a touch of bitter sarcasm, the rumor that
+Jim Fisher had declared that Sister Millie could stampede the whole
+Yankee army if she had the chance. With his customary bluntness Seymour
+had broached the subject on a hospitable occasion, in a group both of
+officers and civilians. The latter said nothing, leaving it to the
+comrades of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> the men who had benefited by her hair-brained
+bravery and dashing equestrianism to controvert the hyperbole. But
+Ashley's tact was so rooted in good nature that it was difficult to take
+him amiss. He could not say, he declared, whether she could stampede the
+army, but he could testify that she had captured it.</p>
+
+<p>The Grape-vine was shortly burdened with other rumors that were of far
+more import to Seymour, who was of a serious mind, and of an exacting,
+not to say, petulant, temper. These traits had been intensified by his
+recent subjection to the whims and caprices of a coquette of exceptional
+capacity, for his feelings were deeply involved. He was truly in love,
+and all his dearest interests hung on the uncertain telegraphy of the
+Grape-vine. It was an unhappy time for him, when he doubted in a rush of
+hope, and again believed sunk in the despondency of absolute despair,
+having almost as much foundation for the one as the other, the reports
+of her marriage to Lawrence Lloyd.</p>
+
+<p>This time the Grape-vine had proved a reliable medium of information.
+Colonel Lloyd had sought and secured leave of absence long enough to
+ride fifty miles across country to greet her as soon as he had heard she
+was within the Confederacy. When her father joined the family party
+Colonel Lloyd laid siege for his consent to an immediate marriage.</p>
+
+<p>They had long been engaged, he urged.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>"I had almost forgotten that," Millie interpolated. She had promised her
+assistance in the persuasion of her father, and thus she fulfilled her
+pledge.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no reason for further delay," Lloyd insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>have</i> been a <i>d&eacute;butante</i> these&mdash;four&mdash;years!" she
+suggested demurely.</p>
+
+<p>Lloyd submitted that he hoped there were no objections to him in Colonel
+Fisher's estimation.</p>
+
+<p>"Except such as are insuperable&mdash;you'll never be any better,"
+suggested Millie.</p>
+
+<p>It would be undesirable, even dangerous, Lloyd argued, to send her back
+to her home in Roanoke City with a flag of truce in the present state of
+conflict.</p>
+
+<p>"But it is not at all dull there&mdash;" she interrupted vivaciously.
+"Some very nice Yankee officers are in society there&mdash;several old
+friends of yours, papa. Colonel Monette and Lieutenant-Colonel Blake of
+the regular army&mdash;old classmates of yours. And some others whom you
+don't know&mdash;Captain Baynell, who is <i>very</i> handsome, and Colonel
+Ashley&mdash;he belongs to the volunteers; he is most agreeable and
+highly thought of, and oh&mdash;of course Lieutenant Seymour&mdash;oh,
+it is <i>not</i> dull there!"</p>
+
+<p>Lloyd looked at her in blank dismay, and the blank dismay on the face of
+her father was nearly as marked, but the latter's anxiety was due to a
+different cause&mdash;what would his wife decide if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> she were
+here!&mdash;for every one who knew the Fishers was well aware that Guy
+Fisher, albeit a man of much force in his own domain of business or
+military life, "sung mighty small" in all matters in which his wife had
+concern.</p>
+
+<p>Lloyd rallied to the attack and continued to explain that he had orders
+detaching him, showing that he would be stationary, in command of a fort
+in the far South for some time, and that Millie would be in a position
+to be comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>"But can I ride horseback there?" she stipulated. "I have just found out
+what I can do in that line!"</p>
+
+<p>She liked to describe this conversation afterward. Her lover was the
+most serious and literal-minded of men, anxious and doubtful, and her
+father the prey of vacillation and indecision. They looked alternately
+at her and at each other with an expression of startled bewilderment as
+she spoke, seeking to adjust what she had said with their own knowledge
+of the facts.</p>
+
+<p>The flying column was once more in motion, and one evening, after a
+considerable distance southward had been accomplished, the leave both of
+Colonel Fisher and Colonel Lloyd being close upon expiration and
+decision exigent, the doubting, anxious father gave his consent.</p>
+
+<p>The young people were married like campaigners under a tree in a
+beautiful magnolia grove, the rhododendron blooming everywhere in the
+woods and the mocking-birds in full song. Colonel Lloyd<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> was in uniform, armed and
+spurred, Miss Fisher in her hat and riding-habit, which last she wore
+with peculiar elegance; as the skirts of the day were of great length,
+the superfluous folds were caught up and carried over one arm, and it
+was said she had attained her graceful proficiency in this art, which
+was esteemed of much difficulty, by constant practice before the long
+mirror in her wardrobe at home. She used to tell afterward of the
+beautiful site, the velvet turf, the magnolia blooms, the rhododendron
+blossoms, the singing mocking-birds. Then she would enumerate the
+brilliant martial assemblage that witnessed the ceremony, the men of
+high rank in full uniform; the wives of a number of them&mdash;refugees
+in the Confederacy "seeking for a home," as the sardonically humorous
+song of that day phrased it&mdash;also graced the occasion. Her father
+and brothers, all the six Fisher men, were present, and she used to say,
+with the tone of an after-thought, but with a glint of mischief in her
+eye, "<i>And</i> Colonel Lloyd&mdash;<i>he</i> was there, too!"</p>
+
+<p>There, but hardly up to the standard. He was a man whose courage had
+been of especial note, even in those days when bravery seemed the rule.
+He had had, too, exceptional opportunities to display his mettle. But on
+this occasion his terror was so palpable that he trembled perceptibly;
+he was pale and agitated; he fumbled for the ring and occasioned a
+general fear that he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> might let it fall&mdash;altogether
+furnishing an admirable exhibition of the stage fright usual with
+bridegrooms.</p>
+
+<p>All these details did she observe and recollect and even his gravity
+would relax as she rehearsed them in after years. It was considered one
+of the evidences of her incurable frivolity that she seemed to care
+nothing for that momentous incident of her experience in those days,
+hardly to remember it,&mdash;the exploit by which she had saved the
+lives of three men, sore harassed and beset; but she found endless
+source of interest in the reminiscence of trifles such as the
+incongruous aspect of the chaplain who officiated at the wedding
+ceremony, with his spurs showing on his reverend heels beneath his
+surplice, and the brass buttons on his sleeves as he lifted his hands in
+benediction,&mdash;which afforded her a glee of retrospect.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<p>After the escape of Julius Roscoe time held to a tranquil pace in the
+placidities of the storm centre. The rose-red dawns burst into bloom and
+the days flowered whitely, full of fragrance and singing birds, of
+loitering sunshine and light-winged breezes. One by one the still noons
+glowed and glistered, expanding into summer radiance, and dulled
+gradually to the mellow splendors of the sunset. Then fell the serene
+dusk, blue on the far-away mountains, violet nearer at hand, with a
+white star in the sky, and a bugle's strain leaping into the air like a
+thing of life, a vivified sound. And all the panorama of troops, and
+forts, and camps, and cannon might be some magnificent military
+spectacle, so remote seemed the war&mdash;so unreal. Every morning the
+"ladies" wrought at their lessons in the library, and Leonora cut their
+small summer garments and helped the seamstress, who came in by the day,
+to sew. Despite these absorptions Mrs. Gwynn managed to find leisure to
+read aloud to Judge Roscoe his favorite old novels, and essays, and dull
+antiquated histories. She evolved subjects of controversy on which to
+argue with him, and was facetious and found<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> occasion to call
+him "Your Honour" oftener than heretofore. For he had grown old
+suddenly; his step had lost its elasticity; he looked up a cane that had
+once been presented to him by some fraternity; his hair was turning
+white and&mdash;worst sign of all&mdash;he was not sorry to be
+approaching the end.</p>
+
+<p>"The night is long, and the day is a burden," he once said.</p>
+
+<p>Then, when she reminded him of duty, he recanted. But he had obviously
+fallen into that indifference to life incident to advancing age, and was
+sensible of a not involuntary gravitation toward the tomb. Later he
+asked her if she did not think those lines of Stephen Hawes's had a most
+mellow and languorous cadence,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p> "For though the day appear ever so long,<br /> At last the bell ringeth to
+even-song."<br /> </p>
+
+<p>He showed great anxiety concerning Captain Baynell's recovery, but he
+had never mentioned to her the fact of Julius's presence in the house.
+She knew that he and probably old Ephraim had been aware of it, but this
+was only a constructive knowledge on her part, and founded on no
+assurance. When once more Baynell was able to come downstairs, she
+perceived that he himself had no remote consciousness of his assailant.
+He had entirely accepted the theory of a fall instead of a collision,
+and was only a little deprecatory and embarrassed at being so long in
+getting himself away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>"Positively my last appearance!" He was reduced even to the hackneyed
+phrase.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn made the conventional polite protest, and the "ladies"
+joyously and affectionately flocked around him, and his heart expanded
+to the grave kindness of his host. Nevertheless he appreciated a subtle
+change. Despite the enhancing charm of the season, which even a few days
+had wrought to a deeper perfection, the place had somehow fallen under a
+tinge of gloom. But the roses were blooming at the windows, the lilies
+stood in ranks, tall and stately, in the borders, the humming-birds were
+rioting all day in the honeysuckle vines over the rear galleries and the
+side porch, the breeze swept back and forth through the dim, perfumed,
+wide spaces of the house, which seemed expanded, with all the doors
+open. Sometimes he attributed the change to the tempered light, for all
+the trees were in full leaf, and the deeply umbrageous boughs
+transmitted scarce a beam to the windows, once so sunny; much of the
+time, too, the shutters were partially closed. And though the children
+flitted about like little fairies, in their thin white dresses, and Mrs.
+Gwynn, garbed, too, in white, seemed, with her floating draperies, in
+the transparent green twilight, like some ethereal dream of youth and
+beauty, there was a pervasive sense of despondency, of domestic
+discomfort, of impending disaster. Sometimes he attributed the change to
+one or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span> two untoward chances, a revelation of the real character
+of war that happened to be presented to the observation of the
+household. The "ladies" came clamoring in one day, all wide-eyed and
+half distraught. With that relish of horror characteristic of ignorance,
+a negro woman, a visitor of Aunt Chaney's, had detailed to them the
+sentence of a soldier to be shot for some military crime&mdash;shot, as
+he knelt on his own coffin. Presently they heard the music of the band
+playing a funeral march along the turnpike as the poor wretch was taken
+out with a detail from the city limits; then, only the drum, a terrible
+sound, a dull, muffled thud, at intervals, that barely timed the
+marching footfall, while the victim was in the midst! And still the
+vibration of the mournful drum, seeking out every responsive nerve of
+terror within the shuddering children!</p>
+
+<p>Their painful, tearless cries, their clinging hands, their frantic
+appeals for help for the doomed creature&mdash;would no one help
+him!&mdash;were most pathetic.</p>
+
+<p>And though Leonora could shut the windows and gravely explain, then tell
+a story and divert the moment,&mdash;they were so young, so plastic, so
+trustful,&mdash;no ingenuity could find a satisfactory method to account
+for the anti-climax of the tragedy, when within the hour came the same
+detail, marching briskly back along the turnpike, with fife and drum
+playing a waggish tune. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> wide, daunted eyes of the children,
+their paling cheeks, their breathless silence, annotated the lesson in
+brutality, in the essential heartlessness of the world, except for the
+tutored graces of a cultivated philanthropy. For a long time one or the
+other would wake in the night to cry out that she heard the muffled
+drum,&mdash;they were taking the man out to shoot him, kneeling on his
+coffin,&mdash;and again and again would come the plaintive query, "And
+is nobody, <i>nobody</i> sorry?"</p>
+
+<p>The incident passed with the events of the crowded time, but even within
+the domestic periphery harmony had ceased to reign as of yore. Old
+Ephraim was a bit sullen, gloomy, did his work with an ill grace, and
+repudiated all acquaintance with "Brer Rabbit" and "Brer Fox." The
+soldiers in the neighboring camps&mdash;possibly to secure an influence,
+his alienation from the interest of his quasi-owner, in order to ferret
+out more of the mystery concerning the Confederate officer, possibly
+only animated by political fervor, and it may be with a spice of
+mischief, finding amusement in the old negro's garrulous
+grotesqueries&mdash;had been talking to him of slavery, making the most
+of his grievances, setting them in order before him, and urging him to
+rouse himself to the great opportunities of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"I done make up my mind," he said autocratically, one day in the
+kitchen. "I gwine realize on my forty acres an' a muel!"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>For this substantial bonanza freedom was supposed to confer on each
+ex-slave.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty acres an' a mule!" the old cook echoed in derisive incredulity
+and with a scornful black face. "You <i>done</i> realize on de mule&mdash;a
+mule is whut you is, sure! Here's yer mule! An' now you go out an' fotch
+me a pail of water, else I'll make ye realize on enough good land ter
+kiver ye! Dat's whut! It'll be six feet&mdash;not forty acres,&mdash;but
+it kin do yer job!"</p>
+
+<p>He might have made a fractious politician but for this adverse
+influence, for he had the variant moods of a mercurial nature, and in
+gloom showed a morose perversity that could have been easily manipulated
+into a spurious sense of martyrdom, lacking a tutored ratiocination to
+enable him to discriminate the facts. But despite his failings, his
+ignorance, the bewildering changes in his surroundings, never a word
+concerning his young master escaped his lips, never an inadvertent
+allusion, a disastrous whisper. He scarcely allowed himself a thought, a
+speculation.</p>
+
+<p>"Fust thing I know," he reflected warily, "I'll be talkin' ter myself.
+They always tole me dat walls had ears!"</p>
+
+<p>A day or two of murky weather seemed to penetrate the mental atmosphere
+as well. It was perhaps the inauguration of the chill interval known as
+"blackberry winter." Everywhere the great brambles were snowy with
+bloom, and in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> the house the "ladies" shivered and clasped their
+cold elbows in the sleeves of their thin summer dresses till the fenders
+and fire-dogs were brought out once more, and the flicker of hearthstone
+flames made cheery the aspect of the library, and dispensed a genial
+warmth. The air was moist; the trains ran with a dull roar and an
+undertone of reverberation; there was a collision of boats in the fog on
+the river, involving loss of life, and one night, the window being up,
+the sentry in passing called Captain Baynell out on the portico. He said
+he hesitated to summon the corporal of the guard, lest the sound should
+pass before the non-commissioned officer could come.</p>
+
+<p>"What sound?" asked Baynell.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, sir," said the sentry.</p>
+
+<p>The night was dark. There was no moon. The stars now and then glimmering
+through the mists afforded scant illumination to the earth. The fires of
+the troops in bivouac about the town shone like thousands of
+constellations, reflected by the earth. The wind was surging fitfully
+among the pines. There was a dull iterative beat, rather felt than
+heard.</p>
+
+<p>"The train?" suggested Baynell.</p>
+
+<p>"The train is in, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Must have been a freight," Baynell hazarded, for the indefinite
+vibration had ceased.</p>
+
+<p>"That's 'hep, hep, hep,'&mdash;that's marching feet, sir,&mdash;that's
+what it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what of that?" Baynell demanded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> "It's the corporal of
+the guard going out with the relief."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too early&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Grand Rounds, possibly."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too near," objected the man. "It's very near."</p>
+
+<p>The wind struck their faces with a dank fillip of dew. The vine hard by
+was dripping; they could hear the drops fall, and a silent interval, and
+again a falling drop.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing now," said Baynell. "It was doubtless some patrol. The
+air is very moist, and sounds are heavier than usual."</p>
+
+<p>"This seemed to me very near, sir," said the soldier, discontentedly. He
+wished he had fired his piece and called for the corporal of the guard.
+He had hesitated, for the corporal had scant patience with a military
+zealot who was forever discovering causes of alarm without foundation,
+and this exercise of judgment was a strain on a soldier's sense of duty.
+He had expected the captain to respond to the mere suggestion of a
+secret approach, remembering the search for the hidden Rebel officer.
+But Baynell had never heard of that episode!</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly all the camps broke into a turbulence of sound. A hundred drums
+were beating the tattoo. From down the valley and over the river the
+bugle iterated the strain. Near the town and along the hills it was
+duplicated anew, and all the echoes of the crags and the rocks<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> of the river bank repeated it,
+and called out the mandate, and sang it again in a different key; at
+last it died into a fitful repetition; silence once more; an absolute
+hush.</p>
+
+<p>A rocket went up from the fort hard by; another rose, starlike and
+stately, from unseen regions beyond a hill. Presently the lights were
+dying out like magic all along the encampments, as if some great
+cataclysm were among the stellular reflections, blotting them from the
+sphere of being. The constellations above glowed more brightly as the
+earth darkened. The wind was gathering force. Baynell listened as the
+boughs clashed and surged together.</p>
+
+<p>"You doubtless heard the patrol," he said. And again&mdash;"The air is
+dank."</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned and went within; the soldier marched back and forth, as
+he was destined to do for some time yet, and listened with all the keen
+intentness of which he was capable. And heard nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning&mdash;it was still before dawn&mdash;a sudden sharp
+clamor rose from a redoubt within which was a powder magazine near the
+main works, lying on the hither side of the river. The mischief which
+the earlier sentinel at the Roscoe place anticipated had come; how,
+whence,&mdash;the man now on duty hardly knew. He fired his rifle and
+called for the guard. Then a few sharp reports, and a tumult of shouting
+sounded from the redoubt. A general alarm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> ensued. The drums
+were beating the long roll in the infantry camps,&mdash;a
+nerve-thrilling, terrifying vibration; and the sharp cry, "Fall
+in!&mdash;Fall in!" was like an incident of the keen, rare, matutinal
+air, the iterative command sounding like an echo from every quarter in
+which the lines of tents were beginning to glimmer dimly. From where the
+cavalry horses were picketed in long rows came the clash of
+accoutrements and the tramp of hoofs as the trumpets sang "Boots and
+Saddles!" Once a courier&mdash;a shadowy, mounted figure, half
+distinguishable in the gray obscurity, seeming gigantic, like some
+horseman of a fable&mdash;dashed past in the gloom, going or coming none
+could know whither. The clamors increased, the shots multiplied, then
+the clear, chill light came gradually over the turmoils of darkness and
+sudden surprise. The first rays of the sun struck upon the Confederate
+flag flying from the redoubt, and its paroled garrison were trooping
+across to the main line of fortifications, bearing the miraculous story
+that they had awakened to find the work full of Confederate soldiers who
+seemed to have mined their way into the place from some subterranean
+access, and who were now in the name of Julius Roscoe, their ranking
+officer, demanding the surrender of the fort which the redoubt
+overlooked.</p>
+
+<p>The Federal commander would have shelled them out of their precarious
+advantage with very hearty good-will, but he feared for the stores
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> powder, which he really could not spare. Moreover, the
+explosion of the magazine at such close quarters could but result in the
+total demolition of the main work and its valuable armament, inflicting
+also great destruction of life. Thus, although the burly and experienced
+warrior, Colonel Deltz, was fairly rampant with indignation at the
+insignificance of this bold enemy both in point of the subordinate rank
+of the leader and the small number of the force, he was fain to hold
+parley, instead of opening fire upon the redoubt at once and wiping the
+raiders, with one hand, as it were, from the face of the earth. It may
+be doubted if any capable and trusted military expert ever discharged a
+more distasteful duty. Nevertheless, it was performed <i>secundum artem</i>,
+with every show of those amenities which of all professional courtesies
+have the slightest root in truth and real feeling. He invited the
+surrender of the redoubt, ignoring the demand for the surrender of the
+fort as a puerile and impudent folly, offering the usual fine and humane
+suggestions touching the avoidance of the useless effusion of blood,
+such as often before have been heard when a sophistry must needs fill
+the breach in lieu of force. When this was declined, Julius Roscoe was
+reminded, in the most cautious terms, of the personal jeopardy incurred
+by a commander who undertakes to hold out an untenable position. Julius
+Roscoe's reply, couched in the same strain of courteous phraseology,
+such, indeed, as might<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> have been employed by a general of
+division, deliberating on articles of capitulation involving the
+well-being of an army, intimated that he was popularly supposed to be
+able to take care of himself; that so far from being unprepared to hold
+the redoubt which he had captured, he had means at his disposal to
+possess himself of the fort itself, and if its garrison would but await
+his onset, he should be happy to entertain Colonel Deltz in his own
+quarters at dinner in a campaigner's simple way&mdash;say, at one of the
+clock.</p>
+
+<p>These covert allusions to the signal advantages of his situation showed
+that Lieutenant Roscoe was fully apprized of the very large quantity of
+ammunition stored in the magazine, and the tone of his rejoinder
+intimated that he would avail himself to the uttermost of its
+efficiency. The works were close enough to render visible the
+occupations of the Confederates. Though gaunt and half-starved, many
+ragged and barefoot, they were as merry as grigs and as industrious as
+beavers, destroying such Federal stores as they could not remove,
+spiking or otherwise disabling the ordnance that they could not
+use,&mdash;the heavy howitzers at the embrasures,&mdash;and briskly
+preparing to serve the barbette battery, that they had shifted to
+command the fort and a line of intrenchments taken at a grievous
+disadvantage in the rear, and some lighter swivel artillery that could
+sweep all the horizon within range.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sight to stir the gorge of a professed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span> soldier and a
+martinet. If aught of action could have availed, the colonel would have
+welcomed a fierce and summary devoir. But the true soldier rarely allows
+personal antagonism or a sentimental theory to influence the line of
+conduct to which duty and prudence alike point. He swallowed his fury,
+and it was a great gulp for a heady and choleric man who had lived by
+burning gunpowder&mdash;lo, these many years. He perceived that his
+garrison, able to descry the antics of the Confederates in the redoubt,
+were apprized of their own imminent peril from the magazine in the hands
+of their enemy&mdash;now, practically a mine. There was a doubt among
+his observant officers as to whether the reckless band were taking any
+of the usual precautions, requisite in dealing with so extensive a store
+of explosives, as they joyfully loaded the cannon. Under these
+circumstances, attack being out of the question, Colonel Deltz could
+hardly be assured of the efficiency of his force in defence. His
+garrison were palsied by surprise, the mysterious appearance of the
+Confederates, and the impunity of their situation. They could only be
+shelled out of the redoubt by the jeopardy of the powder magazine
+itself, and its explosion would destroy the lives of the besiegers as
+well as the besieged. Hence strategy was requisite. The fort was
+gradually evacuated as a lure to draw the raiders into the main works,
+where they could be dealt with, thus quitting their post of
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>Later in the day from a knob called Sugar Loaf Pinnacle an artillery
+fire opened, the shells falling at first at uncertain intervals, seeking
+to ascertain the range; then, in fast and furious succession, hurtling
+down upon the guns of the masked battery beside the river. The missiles
+seemed but tiny clouds of white smoke, each with a heart of fire, the
+fuse redly burning against the densely blue sky, till dropping
+elastically to the moment of explosion it was resolved into a fiercely
+white focus with rayonnant fibres and stunning clamors.</p>
+
+<p>The town itself was hardly in danger during this riverside bombardment,
+unless, indeed, from some accident of defective marksmanship. But with
+all the world gone mad, the atmosphere itself a field of pyrotechnic
+magnificence, the familiar old mountains but a background to display the
+curves a flying shell might describe, now and again bursting in mid-air
+ere it reached its billet, the non-combatant populace was
+panic-stricken. Streets were deserted. All ordinary vocations ceased.
+The more substantial buildings of brick or stone were crowded, their
+walls presumed to be capable of resisting at least the spent balls, wide
+of aim, for these were often endowed with such a residue of energy as
+still to be destructive. Cellars were in request, and while the darkness
+precluded the terrifying glare of the bursting projectiles, nevertheless
+the tremendous clamor of the detonation, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> wild
+reverberations of the echoes, the shouts of cheering men, the sound of
+bugles and drums and of voices in command in the distance, gave
+intimations of what was going forward, and uncertainty perhaps enhanced
+fear.</p>
+
+<p>"Dar, now, de Yankee man's battery is done gone too!" exclaimed Uncle
+Ephraim, as the voice of authority rang out sharply, with all its
+echo-like variants in the subalterns' commands. The clangor of
+accoutrements, the heavy but swift roll of the wheels of gun-carriages
+and caissons, the tumultuous hoof-beats of horses at full gallop, the
+spirited cheering of the artillerymen, filled the air&mdash;and then
+silence ensued, deep and dark, the stone walls of the cellar vaguely
+glimmering with one candle set on the head of a barrel.</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone wid 'em,&mdash;dat man! Time dat bugle blow he tore dat
+bandage off his haid&mdash;nicked or no,&mdash;dat he did!"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ephraim was seated on an inverted cotton basket, and Aunt Chaney,
+with the three "ladies" clustered about her knees, sat on the flight of
+steps that led down from a cautiously closed door. The "ladies" kept
+their fingers in their ears as a protection against sound, but the
+deaf-mute, strangely enough, was the most acute to discern the crash,
+possibly by reason of the vibrations of the air, since she could not
+hear the detonation of the shells.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow the sturdy courage of that soldierly shout was reassuring.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>"Dere ain't no danger, ladies," declared Aunt Chaney. Then, "Oh, my
+King!" she cried in an altered voice, while the three "ladies" hid their
+faces in the folds of her apron as a terrific explosion took place in
+mid-air, the pieces of the shell falling burning in the grove.</p>
+
+<p>"Jus' lissen at dat owdacious Julius!" muttered Uncle Ephraim,
+indignantly. "I never 'lowed he war gwine ter kick up sech a tarrifyin'
+commotion as dis yere, nohow."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish Gran'pa would come down here," whined one of the twins.</p>
+
+<p>"Where the cannon-balls can't catch him," whimpered the other.</p>
+
+<p>"What you talking about, ladies?" demanded the old cook, rising to the
+occasion. "You 'spec' a gemman lak yer gran'pa gwine sit in de cellar,
+lak&mdash;lak a 'tater!"&mdash;the simile suggested by a bushel-basket
+half full of Irish potatoes for late planting in the "garden spot."</p>
+
+<p>The "ladies," reassured by the joke, laughed shrilly, a little off the
+key, and clung to her comfortable fat arm that so inspired their
+confidence.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I</i> gwine sit in de cellar tell <i>I</i> sprout lak a 'tater, ef disher
+tribulation ain't ober 'twell den," declared Uncle Ephraim. "Dar now!
+lissen ter dat!" as once more the clamorous air broke forth with sound.</p>
+
+<p>The "ladies" exclaimed in piteous accents.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat ain't nuffin ter hurt, honey," Aunt Chaney reassured her trembling
+charges. "Dese triflin'<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> sodjers ain't got much aim. Yer gran'pa
+an' yer cousin Leonora wouldn't stay up dere in de lawbrary ef dere was
+destruction comin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why do <i>you</i> come in the cellar?" asked the logical Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"Jes' ter git shet o' de terror ob seein' it, honey!" replied Aunt
+Chaney. "I ain't no perfessor ob war, nohow, an' my eyes ain't practised
+ter shellin' an' big shootin'."</p>
+
+<p>"Me, neither," said Adelaide.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor me," whimpered Geraldine.</p>
+
+<p>"De cannon-balls ain't gwine kill us, dough. We gwine live a long time,"
+Aunt Chaney optimistically protested. "I ain't s'prised none ef when de
+war is ober an' we tell 'bout dis fight, we gwine make out dat when de
+shellin' wuz at de wust, you three ladies an' me jus' stood up on de
+highest aidge ob de rampart ob de fort, an' 'structed de men how ter
+fire de cannon, an' p'inted out de shells flyin' through de air wid dat
+ar actial little forefinger, an' kep' up de courage ob de troops."</p>
+
+<p>"On which side, Aunt Chaney?" asked Adelaide, the reasonable.</p>
+
+<p>"On bofe sides, honey," said Aunt Chaney, "'cordin' ter de politics ob
+dem we is talkin' to!"</p>
+
+<p>A rat whisked over the floor, across the dim slant of light that fell
+from the candle on the head of the barrel. Uncle Ephraim, his elbows on
+his knees, his gray head slightly canted in a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> listening
+attitude, smiled vaguely, pleased like a child himself with Aunt
+Chaney's sketch.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Aunt Chaney!&mdash;<i>do</i> you s'pose we'll tell it <i>that</i> way?" cried
+Adelaide, meditating on the flattering contrast.</p>
+
+<p>"Dat's de ve'y way de tales 'bout dis war is gwine be tole, honey, you
+mark my words," declared the prophetess.</p>
+
+<p>The contrast of the imaginative future account with the troublous
+actuality of the present so delighted Adelaide that she spelled it off
+on her fingers to Lucille, both repairing to the side of the barrel
+where the candle was glimmering, in order to have the light on their
+twinkling fingers in the manual alphabet. The humors of the expectation,
+the incongruity of their martial efficiency, the boastful resources of
+the future, elicited bursts of delighted gigglings, and when the next
+shell exploded, neither took notice of the hurtling bomb shrieking over
+the house and bound for the river.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the populace were enjoying no such solace from any waggish
+interpretation of the future. The present, that single momentous day,
+was for them as much of time as they cared to contemplate. Doubtless the
+satisfaction was very general among the citizens, regardless of
+political prepossessions, when it became known that Captain Baynell with
+a detachment of horse artillery had gone out and taken up a position
+that had enabled him at last to silence the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> Confederate guns on
+the pinnacle, not, however, before the masked battery by the river was
+practically dismounted.</p>
+
+<p>Now both infantry and cavalry were ordered out in an effort to intercept
+the venturesome Rebel artillerymen as they sought to descend from their
+steep pinnacle of rock. The dust on the turnpike, redly aflare in the
+sunset rays, betokened the progress of the march, and now and then it
+was harassed by shells and grape from the swivel guns of the fort, for
+Roscoe's limited command had not been able to bring the heavier ordnance
+of the embrasures to bear upon the camps around the town.</p>
+
+<p>The whole community was in a panic, for this might soon betide. But a
+gunboat came, as it chanced, up the river, took a position of advantage,
+and with great precision of aim soon shelled the little force out of the
+main work. Their capture was momently expected, but they made good their
+retreat to their former position in the redoubt, with the intention
+unquestionably of escaping thence by the secret passage which had
+afforded them access. In leaving, however, the powder magazine was blown
+up by accident or design, destroying the integrity of the whole
+fortification, and shattering nearly every pane of glass in the town,
+the force of the concussion indeed bringing the tower of the hospital
+hard by to the ground. That the raiders had perished was not doubted,
+till news came of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> a sharp skirmish which took place under cover
+of darkness at the mouth of a sort of grotto in Judge Roscoe's grove,
+and in the confusion, surprise, and obscurity all escaped save some
+half-dozen left dead upon the ground.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<p>With these important works wrecked and dismantled, with the destruction
+of great stores of ammunition and artillery which obviously placed the
+system of defence in an imperfect condition, with the difficulty of
+repair and supply which time and distance and insufficiency of
+transportation rendered insurmountable, with the elation of victory that
+so dashing an exploit, so thoroughly consummated, must communicate to
+the Confederate troops, an attack by them in force was daily expected.
+The capture of Roanoke City was considered an event of the near future,
+anticipated with joy or gloom, according to the several interests of the
+varied population, but in any case regarded as a foregone conclusion.
+Daily the Northern trains, heavily laden, bore away passengers who had
+no wish to become citizens of the Southern Confederacy. Perishable
+effects, stocks of goods of the order that a battle would endanger or
+destroy, were shipped to calmer regions. Reinforcements came by every
+train, by every boat, till all the resources of the country were
+strained to maintain them, and still the Southerners had not advanced to
+the opportunity. It was one of those occasions<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> of the Civil War
+when the hand that took was not strong enough to hold. The Confederate
+force near the town was inadequately supplied to enable it to do more
+than seize the advantage, which must needs be relinquished. Its slim
+resources admitted of no permanent occupation of the town, and the empty
+glory of the capture of Roanoke City would have been offset by the
+disastrous necessity of the evacuation of the post. Gradually the
+Federal lines were extended until they lay almost as before the raid on
+the works. The Confederate ranks had been depleted to furnish
+reinforcements to a more practicable point. They were falling back, and
+now and again sudden sallies brought in prisoners from such a distance
+as told the story.</p>
+
+<p>The town was once more secure, work was begun on the dismantled
+fortifications, and daily the question of how so hazardous an enterprise
+could have been devised and executed revived in interest. The commanding
+general had not the loss of the town itself to account for, as at one
+time was probable, but for the destruction of a great store of
+ammunition, as well as the loss of life, of guns, of the works
+themselves, representing many thousands of dollars and the labor of
+regiments. All, however, seemed hardly commensurate with the disaster he
+would sustain in point of reputation. That such a dashing, destructive
+exploit could be planned and consummated under his own ceaselessly
+vigilant eyes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> appeared little short of the miraculous, and for
+his own justification he looked needfully into its inception.</p>
+
+<p>It was discovered that there was a natural subterranean passage from the
+grove of Judge Roscoe's place to a cellar, a portion of which had
+constituted the powder magazine on the Devrett hill, and that this had
+been exploded by means of a slow match through the grotto, previously
+prepared, enabling the raiders to effect their escape. It was further
+ascertained that Julius Roscoe, who had led the enterprise, had been in
+hiding for some time at his father's home, and had been seen as he
+issued thence covered with blood, evidently fresh from some personal
+altercation with a Federal officer, for weeks a guest in the house.
+Although bruised and bleeding, this officer could offer no account of
+his wounds save a fall, impossible to have produced them; he had raised
+no alarm, and had given no report of the presence of an enemy, whose
+intrusion had wrought such damage and disaster to the Union cause.</p>
+
+<p>One detail led to another, each discovery unveiled cognate mysteries,
+the disclosure of trifles brought forward circumstances of importance.
+The claim of the sentinel posted at Judge Roscoe's portico that he had
+fired the first shot which raised the alarm, evoked the fact that an
+earlier sentry had told Captain Baynell that he had heard marching
+feet&mdash;a moving column in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> cadenced step, he described
+it now&mdash;near, very near, that murky night, and that Captain Baynell
+had waived it away with the suggestion of "a corporal of the guard with
+the relief"&mdash;at that hour!&mdash;when the next relief would not be
+due till nearly midnight,&mdash;and had gone back into the parlor, where
+Mrs. Gwynn had begun to sing, "Her bright smile haunts me still."</p>
+
+<p>This account reminded several of his camp-fellows that, having been in
+town on leave, they had met that dark night on the turnpike a force
+marching in column, and naturally thinking this only the removal of
+Federal troops from some point to another, here, so far within the
+lines, they had quietly stood aside and watched the shadowy progress.
+Nothing amiss had occurred to their minds. The men had all their
+officers duly in position, and they were marching silently and with
+great regularity. But by reference to the various written reports, it
+was easily ascertained that there was no shifting of troops that day, no
+assignment of a company to any duty which would have taken them out at
+that hour, no detail reporting for service. Still following in the
+footsteps of this column, something more was learned from a young negro,
+who had been out to fish that night, which was the delight of the
+plantation darkey at this season of the year, and had cast his lines
+from under the bluff near Judge Roscoe's place; the night being foggy,
+he had not noticed, till they were very near, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> approach of
+three or four large open boats, filled with soldiers, to judge by the
+rifles, who were rowing very fast and hard against the current and
+keeping close in to the shore. When they landed and beached the boats
+they were very quiet, fell into order, and marched off without a word,
+except the necessary curt commands. It had never occurred to him to give
+the alarm. He had taken none. They had rowed so close in to shore, he
+thought, to avoid such a collision as had happened in the mists earlier
+in the night, when a large barge was run down by a gunboat and sunk.
+Doubtless if they had passed the picket boats, the misty invisibility of
+all the surface of the water protected them, but for the most part the
+patrol of the river pickets was further down-stream. As they had come,
+so they had gone, and the matter remained a nine days' wonder. The
+commanding general almost choked when he thought of it.</p>
+
+<p>"This is going to be a serious matter for Baynell," said Colonel Ashley,
+one day. He had called at Judge Roscoe's partly because he did not wish
+to break off with abrupt rudeness an acquaintance which he had persisted
+in forming, and partly because he was not willing in the circumstances
+that had arisen to seem to shun the house.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe was not at home, but Mrs. Gwynn was in the parlor. Ashley
+had asked her to sing. There was something "delightfully<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> dreary," as he described it, in
+the searching, romantic, melancholy cadences of her sweet contralto
+voice. He had not intended to open his heart, but somehow the mood
+induced by her singing, the quiet of the dim, secluded, cool
+drawing-rooms, with the old-fashioned, high, stucco ceiling, and the
+shadowy green gloom of the trees without, prevailed with him, and he
+spoke upon impulse.</p>
+
+<p>"What matter?" she asked. She had wheeled half around on the
+piano-stool, and sat, her slim figure in its white dress, delicate and
+erect, one white arm, visible through the thin fabric, outstretched to
+the keyboard, the hand toying with resolving chords.</p>
+
+<p>He had been standing beside the piano as she sang, but now, with the air
+of inviting serious discussion, he seated himself in one of the stiff
+arm-chairs of the carved rosewood "parlor set" of that day, and replied
+gravely:&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"His association with Julius Roscoe."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes widened with genuine amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems," proceeded Ashley, slowly, "that a dozen or two of the
+soldiers, who claimed to have seen a Confederate officer on the balcony
+here, recognized him as Julius Roscoe, when he reappeared in command of
+the forces that captured the redoubt. And the surgeon has always
+insisted that Baynell's hurt was a blow, not a fall. There is a good
+deal of smothered talk in various quarters."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>He stroked his mustache contemplatively, looked vaguely about the room,
+and sighed in a certain disconsolateness.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand," said Mrs. Gwynn, sharply, fixing intent eyes upon
+him. "How can Captain Baynell be called in question?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the general theory&mdash;however well or ill grounded&mdash;is that
+young Roscoe was here on a reconnoitring expedition of some sort, or
+perhaps merely on a visit to his kindred, and that Baynell winked at his
+presence on account of friendship with the family, instead of arresting
+him, as he should have done. It's an immense pity. Baynell is a fine
+officer."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn had turned pale with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>none of us</i> knew that Julius Roscoe was in the house!" she
+exclaimed. She hesitated a moment as the words passed her lips. Judge
+Roscoe's reticence on the subject might imply some knowledge of the
+harbored Rebel.</p>
+
+<p>Ashley was suddenly tense with energy.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't imagine for one moment, my dear madam, that I have any desire to
+extract information from you. It is no concern of mine how he came or
+went. I only mention the subject because it is very much on my mind and
+heart. And I don't see any satisfactory end to it. I have a great
+respect for Baynell as a man, and especially as an artillerist, and
+somehow in these campaigns I have contrived to get fond of the
+fellow!&mdash;though he is about as stiff, and unresponsive,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> and prejudiced, and priggish a
+bundle of animal fibre as ever called himself human."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, he doesn't give me that idea," exclaimed Leonora, her eyes
+widening. "He seems unguarded, and impulsive, and ardent."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Ashley was very considerably her senior and far too experienced
+to be ingenuous himself. He made no comment on the conviction her words
+created within him. He only looked at her in silence, receiving her
+remark with courteous attention. Then he resumed:&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Of course in a civil war there are always some instances of undue
+leniency,&mdash;the pressure of circumstances induces it,&mdash;but
+rarely indeed such as this; it amounts to aiding and abetting the enemy,
+however unpremeditated. Young Roscoe could not have secured the means or
+information for his destructive raid had not Baynell permitted him to be
+housed here. Doubtless, however, Baynell thought it a mere visit of the
+boy to his father's family."</p>
+
+<p>"But Captain Baynell never dreamed that Julius Roscoe was in the house!"
+she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what he says he <i>did</i>&mdash;dreamed that he saw him! I can
+rely on you not to repeat my words. But I have had no confidential talk
+with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure&mdash;I <i>know</i>&mdash;they were never together for a moment."</p>
+
+<p>"The surgeon says that Roscoe's knuckles cut to the bone," commented
+Ashley, with a significant<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> smile. But the triumphs of
+stultifying Mrs. Gwynn in conversation were all inadequate to restore
+his usual serene satisfaction, and once more he looked restlessly about
+the rooms and sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think Captain Baynell was guilty of? Permitting an enemy to
+remain within the lines, <i>perdu</i>, unsuspected, to gather information,
+and make off with it&mdash;conniving at the concealment, and assisting
+the escape of an enemy? And <i>you</i> call yourself his friend!"</p>
+
+<p>Leonora's cheeks were flushed. Her voice rang with a tense vibration.
+She fixed her interlocutor with a challenging eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;I don't <i>know</i> what he intended," replied Ashley, almost
+irritably. "Doubtless he had some high-minded motive, so intricate that
+he can never explain it, and nobody else can ever unravel it. I only
+know he has played the fool,&mdash;and I <i>fear</i> he has ruined himself
+irretrievably."</p>
+
+<p>"But you don't answer my question&mdash;what do <i>you think</i> he has
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>Ashley might have responded that his conclusions were not subject to her
+inquisition. But his suave methods of thought and conduct could not
+compass this unmannerly retort. Moreover, it was a relief to his
+feelings to canvass the matter so paramount in his mind with an
+irresponsible woman, rather than with his brother officers, among whom
+it was rife, thereby sending his speculations and doubts and views
+abroad as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> threads to be wrought into the warp and woof of their
+opinion, and possibly give undue substance and color to the character of
+the fabric.</p>
+
+<p>"Why,&mdash;of course this is just my own view,&mdash;formed on what I
+hear from outsiders,&mdash;and I think it is the general view. Baynell
+knew the young man was hidden in the house, on a stolen visit to his
+father, thinking he had no ultimate intentions but to escape at a
+convenient opportunity. These separations must be very cruel indeed,
+with no means of communication. Baynell, though very wrongfully, <i>might</i>
+have indulged this concealment from motives
+of&mdash;ah&mdash;er&mdash;friendship to the family, for young Roscoe
+would undoubtedly have been dealt with as a spy, had he been captured in
+lurking here. The two <i>may</i> have been more or less
+associated,&mdash;certainly they came together in an altercation that
+resulted in blows. <i>I</i> think Baynell possibly discovered Roscoe's
+scheme, and threatened him with arrest. Roscoe knocked him down the
+stairs and fled from the house to the grotto, considering this safe, for
+he might have crossed from the balcony to the firs without observation
+if he had been lucky, as at that time none of us knew that the grotto
+existed. Now these are <i>my</i> conclusions&mdash;but for the integrity of
+the service Baynell's acts and his motives must be sifted. They may not
+bear to an impartial mind even so liberal a construction as this. It is
+a threatening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> situation, and I am apprehensive&mdash;I am very
+apprehensive."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn's hand fell with a discordant crash on the keys of the piano.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why&mdash;what can they do to him?" she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>Vertnor Ashley shied from the subject like a frightened horse.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah&mdash;oh&mdash;ah&mdash;er&mdash;well," he said, "let us not think
+of that." He paused abruptly. Then, "To forecast the immediate future is
+enough of disaster. There is already said to be an official
+investigation on the cards. No doubt charges will be preferred, and he
+will be brought to a court-martial."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed again, and looked about futilely, as if for suggestion. He
+rose at length, and with his pleasant, cordial manner and a smile of
+deprecating apology, he said, "I am afraid my grim subjects do not
+commend me for a lady's parlor." Then with a light change of tone, "So
+much obliged for that lovely little French song&mdash;what is
+it&mdash;<i>Quel est cet attrait qui m'attire</i>? I want to be able to
+distinguish it, for may I not ask for it again some time?" And bowing,
+and smiling, and prosperous, he took his graceful departure.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn stood motionless, her eyes on the carpet, her mind almost
+dazed by the magnitude, by the terrors, of the subjects of her
+contemplation. She felt she must be more certain;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> she could not
+leave this disastrous complication thus. She could not speak to this
+man, friendly though he had seemed, lest she betray some fact of her own
+knowledge that might be of disadvantage to another who had meant no
+ill&mdash;nay, she was sure had done no ill. Then she was beset by the
+realization of the sophistry of circumstance. But if circumstance could
+be adduced against Baynell, should it not equally prevail in his favor?
+When she, knowing naught of the lurking Julius, had sent to his
+hiding-place this Federal officer, did not instantly the clamors of
+discovery resound through the house? She could hear even now in the
+tones of his voice, steadied and sonorous by the habit of command, sharp
+and decisive on the air, the words, "You are my prisoner!" twice
+repeated, that had summoned her, stricken with sudden panic, from her
+flowers on the library table to the hall, where she saw the balustrade
+of the stairs still shaking with the concussion of a heavy fall. And as
+she stood there, another moment&mdash;barely a moment&mdash;brought the
+apparition of Julius, flying as if for his life, a pistol in his hand,
+and covered with blood. Dreams! Who said aught of dreams! This was not
+the course a man would take who desired to shield a concealed Rebel.
+There was no eye-witness of the altercation. But she, on the lower
+floor, had heard it all&mdash;the swift ascent for the book, the
+exclamation of amazement, then the stern voice of command, the words
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> arrest, the impact of the blow, and the clamors of the fall.
+Then the flight; she had seen Julius, fleeing for safety, fleeing from
+the house into the very teeth of the camps.</p>
+
+<p>Should not Baynell know this, the event that preceded the long
+insensibility which had so blunted his impressions, his recollections?
+She resolved to confer with Judge Roscoe. How much he knew of Julius
+Roscoe's lurking visit, how much he cared for her to know, she could not
+be sure. She suspected that old Ephraim was fully informed, for without
+his services the visitor could hardly have been maintained. But neither
+had been at hand at the moment of discovery, of collision.</p>
+
+<p>When Judge Roscoe came in she submitted this question to his judgment.
+To her surprise he did not canvass the matter. He said at once: "By all
+means Captain Baynell ought to know this. It would be best to send for
+him and explain to him what you saw and heard,&mdash;the whole
+occurrence. Captain Baynell should be made aware of all the details of
+the actual event that you more nearly than any one else witnessed."</p>
+
+<p>The house in these summer days, with the shutters half closed and the
+doors all open, seemed more retired, more solitary, than when all the
+busy life of the place was drawn to the focus of the library fire. She
+was quite alone, as she traversed the hall and sat down to write at
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> library table. The "ladies" were playing out of doors,
+close in to the window under a tree. Judge Roscoe had business in the
+town and walked thither leaning rather heavily on his cane, for no news
+came of Acrobat, and somehow he no longer cared to ride the glossy
+iron-gray that Captain Baynell still left grazing in his pastures. So
+still were all the precincts she feared she might not find a messenger
+as she went out on the latticed gallery searching for old Ephraim. But
+there he sat in the sun in front of the kitchen door. He was not wont to
+be so silent. He said naught when she handed him the missive with her
+instructions, but he looked unwilling, with a sort of warning wisdom in
+his expression, and several times turned the note gingerly in his hand,
+as if he thought it might explode. He would fain have remonstrated
+against the renewal of communication with the elements that had brought
+so much disquiet into the calm life of the old house hitherto. But his
+lips were sealed so far as the "Yankee man" and Julius were concerned.
+And he would maintain that he had never seen or heard of the grotto till
+indeed it was blown up.</p>
+
+<p>"All dese young folks is a stiff-necked and tarrifyin' generation, an'
+ef dey will leave ole Ephraim in peace, he p'intedly won't pester dem,"
+he said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, merely murmuring acquiescence, "Yes'm, yes'm, yes'm," while
+he received his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> orders, he put on his hat which he had hitherto
+held in his hand, and walked off briskly to the tent of the artillery
+captain.</p>
+
+<p>The succinct dignified tone of Mrs. Gwynn's note requesting to see
+Captain Baynell at his earliest convenience on a matter of business
+precluded effectually any false sentimental hopes, had any communication
+from her been calculated to raise them. He was already mounted, having
+just returned from afternoon parade; and saying to Uncle Ephraim that he
+would wait on Mrs. Gwynn immediately, he wheeled his horse and forthwith
+disappeared in the midst of the shadow and sheen of the full-leaved
+grove.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell had changed, changed immeasurably, since she had last seen him.
+Always quiet and sedate, his gravity had intensified to sternness, his
+dignified composure to a cold, impenetrable reserve, his attentive
+interest to a sort of wary vigilance, all giving token of the effect
+wrought in his mental and moral endowment by the knowledge of the
+suspicions entertained concerning his actions, and the charges that were
+being formulated against him.</p>
+
+<p>In one sense these had already slain him. His individuality was gone. He
+would be no more what once he was. His pride, so strong, so vivid, as
+essential an element of his being as his breath, as his soul, had been
+done to death. It had been a noble endowment, despite its exactions, and
+maintained high standards and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> sought finer issues. It had died
+with the woe of a thousand deaths, that calumny should touch his name;
+that accusation could ever find a foothold in his life; that treachery
+should come to investigation in his deeds.</p>
+
+<p>She rather wondered at his calmness, the self-possession expressed in
+his manner, his face. He had himself well in hand. He was not nervous.
+His haggard pallor told what the sleepless hours of self-communing
+brought to him, yet he was strong enough to confront the future. He
+would give battle to the false charge, the lying circumstance, the
+implacable phalanxes of the probabilities. The truth was intrinsically
+worth fighting for, in any event, and even now his heart could swell
+with the conviction that the truth could only demonstrate the impeccancy
+of his official record.</p>
+
+<p>He met her with that grave, conventional, inexpressive courtesy which
+had always characterized him, and it was a little difficult, in her
+unusual flutter and agitation, to find a suitable beginning.</p>
+
+<p>She had seated herself in the library at the table where she had written
+the note, and she was mechanically trifling with an ivory paper-knife,
+the portfolio and paper still lying before her. He took a chair near at
+hand and waited, not seeking to inaugurate the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent for you, Captain Baynell, because I have heard
+something&mdash;there are rumors&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>He did not take the word from her, nor help her out. He sat quietly
+waiting.</p>
+
+<p>"In short, I think you ought to know that I overheard all that passed
+between you and Julius Roscoe on the stairs that morning."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Baynell's rejoinder surprised her.</p>
+
+<p>"Then he was really in the house?" he said meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes,&mdash;though I did not know it till he dashed past me in the
+hall. Two minutes had not elapsed since you had left me here standing by
+the table."</p>
+
+<p>She detailed the circumstances, and when she had finished speaking he
+thanked her simply, and said that the facts would be of value to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you ought to know them, hearing Colonel Ashley describe the
+various rumors afloat&mdash;but, but these&mdash;they&mdash;they will
+soon die out?" She looked at him appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer immediately. Then&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be court-martialled," he said succinctly.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart seemed almost to stand still in the presence of this great
+threat, yet she strove against its menace.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I know this is serious, and must trouble all your friends,"
+she said vaguely. "But doubtless&mdash;doubtless there will be an
+acquittal."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a matter of liberty, and life itself," he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> said. "But I
+do not care for either,&mdash;I deprecate the reflections on my
+character as a soldier." He hesitated for one moment, then broke out
+with sudden passion, "I care for the jeopardy of my honor&mdash;my
+sacred honor!"</p>
+
+<p>There was an interval of stillness so long that a slant of the sunset
+light might seem to have moved on the floor. The soft babble of the
+voices of the children came in at the open window; the mocking-bird's
+jubilance rose from among the magnolia blooms outside. The great bowl on
+the table was full of roses, and she eyed their magnificence absently,
+seeing nothing, remembering all that Ashley had said, and realizing how
+difficult it would be to convince even him, with all his friendly
+good-will, of the simplicity of the motives that had precipitated the
+real events, so grimly metamorphosed in the monstrous mischances of war.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;" she cried suddenly, with a poignant accent, "that this
+should have fallen upon you in the house of your friends! We can never
+forgive ourselves, and you can never forgive us!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing to forgive," he said heartily; "I have no grievance
+against this kind roof. I could not expect Judge Roscoe to betray his
+own son, and deliver him up to capture, to death as a spy&mdash;because
+I happened to be here, a temporary guest. And I could not expect the
+young man to voluntarily surrender&mdash;for my convenience. No&mdash;I
+blame no one."</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>"You are magnanimous!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, her luminous gray eyes
+shining through tears as she looked at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Only omniscience could have foreseen and guarded against this
+disastrous complication of adverse circumstances. But the results are
+serious enough to justify doubt and provoke investigation. Knowing the
+simple truth, it seems a little difficult to see how it can fail to be
+easily established&mdash;it is the imputation that afflicts me. I am not
+used to contemplate myself as a traitor&mdash;with my motives."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it is so unjust&mdash;so rancorously untrue! You arrested him the
+moment you saw him&mdash;although he was in Judge Roscoe's house. You
+must have known that he was Judge Roscoe's son."</p>
+
+<p>"I recognized him from his portrait&mdash;" Baynell checked himself. He
+would not have liked to say how often, with what jealous appraisement of
+its manly beauty and interest of suggestion, he had studied the portrait
+of Julius on the parlor wall, knowing him as a man who had loved Leonora
+Gwynn, and fearing him as a man whom possibly Leonora Gwynn loved.</p>
+
+<p>"But I was obliged to arrest him on the spot&mdash;why, I was in honor
+bound."</p>
+
+<p>His face suddenly fell&mdash;in this most intimate essential of true
+gentlemanhood, in this dearest requisition of a soldier's faith, that is
+yet the commonest principle of the humblest campaigner,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> he was held to have failed, in
+point of honor. He was held to have paltered and played a double part,
+to have betrayed alike his country, the fair name of his corps, and his
+own unsullied record. And this was the fiat of fair-minded men,
+comrades, countrymen, to be expressed in the preferred charges.</p>
+
+<p>Bankrupt in all he held dear, he shrank from seeming to beg the sheer
+empty bounty of her sympathy. He hardly cared to face these reflections
+in her presence. He arose to go, and it was with composed, conventional
+courtesy, as inexpressive as if he were some casual friendly caller,
+that he took his leave, resolutely ignoring all the tragedy of the
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>The next day came the news that charges having been duly preferred he
+had been placed in arrest to await the action of the general
+court-martial to be assembled in the town.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<p>Ashley, in common with a number of Baynell's friends, did not recognize
+a fair spirit in the inception of the investigation. The military
+authorities in Roanoke City seemed rancorously keen to prove that naught
+within the scope of their own duty could have averted the disasters of
+the battle of the redoubt. The moral gymnastic of shunting the blame was
+actively in progress. The proof of treachery within the lines,
+individual failure of duty, would explain to the Department far more to
+the justification of the commander of the garrison of the town the
+losses both of life and material, and the jeopardy of the whole
+position, than admission of the fact that the military of the post had
+been outwitted, and that the enemy was entitled to salvos of applause
+for a very gallant exploit. Indeed, only specific details from one
+familiar with the interior of the works, to which, of course, citizens
+were not admitted, could have informed Julius Roscoe of the location of
+the powder magazine and enabled him to utilize in this connection his
+own early familiarity with the surroundings. Thus the theory that Julius
+Roscoe could not have accomplished its destruction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span> had he not
+been harbored, even helped, by the connivance of a personal friend in
+the lines, and that friend, a Federal officer, was far more popular
+among the military authorities than the simple fact that a Rebel had
+been detected visiting his father's house by a Federal officer, a guest
+therein, promptly arrested, and in the altercation the one had been hurt
+and the other had escaped. Had the capture of the redoubt never occurred
+later as a sequence, this transient encounter of Baynell's would hardly
+have elicited a momentary notice.</p>
+
+<p>The aspect of the court-martial was far from reassuring even to men of
+worldly experience on broad lines. The impassive, serious, bearded
+faces, the military figures in full-dress uniform, the brilliant
+insignia of high rank being specially pronounced, for of course no
+officer of lower degree than that of the prisoner was permitted to sit,
+were ranged on each side of a long table on a low rostrum in a large
+room, formerly a fraternity hall, in a commercial building now devoted
+to military purposes. The spectacle might well have made the heart
+quail. It seemed so expressive of the arbitrary decrees of absolute
+force, oblivious of justice, untempered by mercy!</p>
+
+<p>A jury as an engine of the law must needs be considered essentially
+imperfect, and subject to many deteriorating influences, only available
+as the best device for eliciting fact and appraising crises that the
+slow development of human morals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> has yet presented. But to a
+peaceful civilian a jury of ignorant, shock-headed rustics might seem a
+safe and reasonable repository of the dearest values of life and
+reputation in comparison with this warlike phalanx, combining the
+functions of both judge and jury, the very atmosphere of destruction
+sucked in with every respiration.</p>
+
+<p>The president, a brevet brigadier-general, at the head of the table, was
+of a peculiarly fierce physiognomy, that yet was stony cruel. The
+judge-advocate at the foot had the look of laying down the law by main
+force. He had a keenly aggressive manner. He was a captain of cavalry,
+brusque, alert; he had dark side whiskers and a glancing dark eye, and
+was the only man on the rostrum attired in an undress uniform. His
+multifarious functions as the official prosecutor for the government,
+and also adviser to the court, and yet attorney for the prisoner to a
+degree,&mdash;by a theory similar to the ancient fiction of English law
+that the judge is counsel for the accused,&mdash;would seem, in civilian
+estimation, to render him "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once," as
+Mrs. Malaprop would say, or a military presentment of Pooh-Bah. The
+nominal military accuser, acting in concert with the judge-advocate,
+seated at a little distance, was conscious of sustaining an unpopular
+<i>r&ocirc;le</i>, and it had tinged his manner with disadvantage. The
+prisoner appeared without any restraint, of course, but<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> wearing no sword. The special
+values of his presence, his handsome face, his blond hair and beard that
+had a glitter not unlike the gold lace of his full-dress uniform, his
+fine figure and highbred, reserved manner, were very marked in his
+conspicuous position, occupying a chair at a small table on the right of
+the judge-advocate. Baynell had a calm dignity and a look of steady,
+immovable courage incongruous with his plight, arraigned on so base a
+charge, and yet a sort of blighted, wounded dismay, as unmistakable as a
+burn, was on his face, that might have moved even one who had cared
+naught for him to resentment, to protest for his sake.</p>
+
+<p>The light of the unshaded windows, broad, of ample height, and eight or
+ten in number on one side of the room, brought out in fine detail every
+feature of the scene within. Beneath no sign of the town appeared, as
+the murmur of traffic rose softly, for the building was one of the few
+three-story structures, and the opposite roofs were low. The aspect of
+the far-away mountains, framed in each of the apertures, with the
+intense clarity of the light and the richness of tint of the approaching
+summer solstice, was like a sublimated gallery of pictures, painted with
+a full brush and of kindred types. Here were the repetitious long
+ranges, with the mouldings of the foot-hills at the base, and again a
+single great dome, amongst its mysterious shimmering clouds, filled the
+canvas. Now in the background were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> crowded all the varying
+mountain forms, while a glittering vacant reach of the Tennessee River
+stretched out into the distance. And again a bridge crossed the
+currents, light and airy in effect, seeming to spring elastically from
+its piers, in the strong curves of the suspended arches, while a
+sail-boat, with its head tucked down shyly as the breeze essayed to
+chuck it under the chin, passed through and out of sight. Another window
+showed the wind in a bluffer mood, wrestling with the storm clouds;
+showed, too, that rain was falling in a different county, and the
+splendors of the iris hung over far green valleys that gleamed
+prismatically with a secondary reflection.</p>
+
+<p>The room was crowded with spectators, both military and civilian,
+finding seats on the benches which were formerly used in the fraternity
+gatherings and which were still in place. The case had attracted much
+public attention. There were few denizens of the town who had not had
+individual experiences of interest pending the storming of the fort, and
+this fact invested additional details with peculiar zest and whetted the
+edge of curiosity as to the inception of the plan and the means by which
+Julius Roscoe's exploit had become practicable. The effect of the
+imposing character of the court was manifested in the perfect decorum
+observed by the general public. There was scarcely a stir during the
+opening of the proceedings. The order convening the court was read to
+the accused, and he was offered his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> right to challenge any
+member of the court-martial for bias or other incompetency. Baynell
+declined to avail himself of this privilege. There ensued a moment of
+silence. Then, with a metallic clangor, for every member wore his sword,
+the court rose, and, all standing, a glittering array, the oath was
+administered to each of the thirteen by the judge-advocate. Afterward
+the president of the court, of course the ranking officer present,
+himself administered the oath to the judge-advocate, and the prosecution
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>The military accuser was the first witness sworn and interrogated, but
+the prosecution had much other testimony tending to show that the
+prisoner had been living in great amity with persons notoriously of
+sentiments antagonistic to the Union cause, as exemplified by his long
+stay in Judge Roscoe's house; that he was in correspondence and even in
+intimate association with a Rebel in hiding under the same roof; that
+either with treacherous intent, or for personal reasons, he had
+leniently permitted this enemy in arms to lie <i>perdu</i> within the lines
+and subsequently to escape with such information as had resulted in
+great loss of men, materials, and money to the Federal government; that
+he had been apprised, by the sentinel at the door, of the approach of a
+body of troops the night before the attack on the redoubt took place,
+and that he nefariously or negligently declined to investigate the
+incident. Most of this evidence, however, was circumstantial.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>The defence met it strenuously at every point. The intimacy between
+Judge Roscoe and the Baynell family was shown to be of a far earlier
+date, and the friendship utterly devoid of any connection with political
+interests; in this relation the accused had in every instance
+subordinated his personal feeling to his military duty, even going so
+far as to cause the property of his host's niece to be seized for
+military service,&mdash;the impressment of the horse, which Colonel
+Ashley testified he had at that time considered an unwarrantable bit of
+official tyranny, some individuals being allowed to retain their horses
+through the interposition of army officers among their friends.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Ashley testified further that the prisoner was such a stickler
+on trifles, as to seek to check him, a person of responsibility and
+discretion, an experienced officer, in expressing some casual
+speculations in the presence of Judge Roscoe concerning troops on an
+incoming train.</p>
+
+<p>The accused admitted that he had not investigated the sound of marching
+troops in the thrice-guarded lines of the encampment, but urged it was
+no part of his duty and impracticable. Small detachments were coming and
+going at all hours of the night. If an officer of the guard, going out
+with the relief or a patrol, had seen fit to march across Judge Roscoe's
+grove, it was no concern of his nor of the sentinel's. He had no
+divination of the proximity of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>Perhaps the ardor of the witnesses, called in Captain Baynell's behalf,
+when the prosecution had rested at length, made an impression
+unfavorable to the idea of impartiality. More than one on
+cross-examination was constrained to acknowledge that he was swayed by
+the sense of the prisoner's hitherto unimpugnable record, and his high
+standing as a soldier. No such admission could be wrung from Judge
+Roscoe, skilled in all the details of the effect of testimony. His plain
+asseverations that his son had come to his house, not knowing that a
+Federal officer was a temporary inmate, the account of the simple
+measures taken to defeat the guest's observation or detection of the
+young Rebel's propinquity, the reasonableness of his quietly awaiting an
+opportunity to run the pickets when a chance meeting resulted in
+discovery and a collision&mdash;all went far to establish the fact that
+the presence of Julius Roscoe was but one of those stolen visits home in
+which the adventurous Southern soldiers delighted and of which Captain
+Baynell had no sort of knowledge till the moment of their encounter,
+when Julius rushed forth to the gaze of all the camp.</p>
+
+<p>This was the point of difficulty with the prosecution, the point of
+danger with the defence,&mdash;the adequacy of the proof as to the
+prisoner's knowledge of the presence of the Rebel in hiding, harbored in
+the house. For this the prosecution had the apparition of the
+Confederate officer,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> covered with blood and later identified as
+Julius Roscoe, and the condition of Baynell's wound, which the surgeon
+swore was a "facer," delivered by an expert boxer. Evidently this came
+from an altercation, in which both had forborne the use of weapons, thus
+suggesting some collision of interests, as between personal associates
+or former friends rather than a hand-to-hand conflict of armed enemies.</p>
+
+<p>On this vital point, to form the conclusions of military men, Baynell
+could command no testimony save that of the Roscoe household,&mdash;the
+most important witness of course being the judge himself, who had
+devised and controlled all the methods to keep the Federal officer
+unsuspicious and tranquil, and to maintain the lurking Rebel in
+security. The anxiety of the authorities to fix the responsibility for
+the disclosure of the military information concerning the interior of
+the works, which only one familiar with the location of the magazine
+could have given, had induced them to ignore Judge Roscoe's shelter of
+their enemy, thus avoiding the entanglement of a slighter matter with
+the paramount consideration under investigation. While the fact that his
+feelings as a father must needs have coerced Judge Roscoe into harboring
+and protecting his son and requiring his servant to minister to his
+wants, still the recital of the concealment of his presence affronted
+the sentiment of the court-martial, even though Judge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> Roscoe's
+part was obviously restricted to the sojourn of the Confederate officer
+in his house, for he had no knowledge of the details of the escape and
+subsequent adventures.</p>
+
+<p>The course of the proceedings of such a body was not competent to afford
+any very marked relaxations in the line of comedy relief. But certainly
+old Ephraim, when summoned to the stand, must have been in any other
+presence a mark of irresistible derision, not unkind, to be sure, and
+devoid of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>Keenly conscious that he had been discovered in details which to "Marse
+Soldier" were a stumbling-block and an offence, and that his own
+prestige for political loyalty was shattered,&mdash;for he doubted if it
+were possible to so present the contradiction of his conviction of his
+interest and yet his adherence to old custom and fidelity in such a
+guise that the brevet brigadier would do aught but snort at it,&mdash;he
+came, bowing repeatedly, cringing almost to the earth, his hat in his
+hand, his worn face seamed in a thousand new wrinkles, and looking
+nearly eighty years of age. The formidable embodiment of military
+justice fixed him with a stern comprehensive gaze, and the brigadier,
+who had no realization of the martial terrors of his own appearance,
+sought to reassure him by saying in his deep bluff voice, "Come forward,
+Uncle Ephraim, come forward." The old negro started violently, then
+bowed once more in humble deprecation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> Suddenly he perceived
+Baynell. In his relief to recognize the face of a friend he forgot the
+purport of the assemblage, and broke out with a high senile chirp.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> here, Cap'n! Well, sah! I is p'intedly s'prised." Then
+recollecting the situation, he was covered with confusion, especially as
+Baynell remained immovable and unresponsive, and once more old Ephraim
+bowed to the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Not a little doubt had been felt by the court when deliberating upon the
+admissibility of the testimony of the old negro. It was contrary to the
+civil law of the state and contravened also the theory of the unbounded
+influence over the slave which the master exerts. In view of the pending
+abolition of slavery, both considerations might be considered abrogated,
+and since this testimony was of great importance to the prosecution as
+well as to the defence, bearing directly on the main point at
+issue,&mdash;as a freedman he was duly sworn. The members of the
+court-martial had ample opportunity to test the degree of patience with
+which they had been severally endowed as the old darkey was engineered
+through the preliminary statements; inducted into the witness-chair on
+the left hand of the judge-advocate, his hat inverted at his feet, with
+his red bandanna handkerchief filling its crown; induced to give over
+his acquiescent iteration, "Yes, sah! Yes, sah! jes' ez <i>you</i> say!"
+regardless of the significance of the question; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> at last
+fairly launched on the rendering of his testimony. The prosecution,
+however, soon thought he was no such fool as he seemed, for the details
+of the earlier sojourn of Julius had a simplicity that was coercive of
+credence. The old servant stated, as if it were a matter of prime
+importance, that he had to feed him in the salad-bowl. He "das'ent fetch
+Marse Julius a plate 'kase de widder 'oman, dat's Miss Leonora, mought
+miss it. But <i>he</i> didn't keer, little Julius didn't,"&mdash;then to
+explain the familiarity of the address he stated that "Julius de
+youngest ob Marster's chillen&mdash;de Baby-chile." Old Ephraim repeated
+this expression often, thinking it mitigated the fall from political
+grace which he himself had suffered, because of the leniency which must
+be shown to a "Baby-chile." And now and then, at first, the
+court-martial, though far from lacking in brainy endowment and keen
+perception, were at sea to understand that the "Baby-chile" would have
+been allowed to smoke a <i>see</i>gar,&mdash;he being "plumb desperate" for
+tobacco,&mdash;except so anxious was Judge Roscoe to avoid attracting
+the suspicion of Captain Baynell, who would "have tuk little Julius in
+quick as a dog snappin' at a fly! Yes&mdash;sah&mdash;yes&mdash;Cap'n,"
+with a deprecatory side glance at Baynell. "De Baby-chile couldn't even
+dare to smoke, fur fear de Cap'n mought smell it from out de garret. De
+Baby-chile wanted a <i>see</i>gar so bad he sont his Pa forty messages a
+day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> But his Pa didn't allow him ter light one&mdash;not one;
+he jes' gnawed the e-end."</p>
+
+<p>It required, too, some mental readjustment to recognize the "Baby-chile"
+in the young Samson, who had almost carried off the gates of the town
+itself, the key of the whole department, on his stalwart back. This
+phrase was even more frequently repeated as Uncle Ephraim entered upon
+the details of Julius's escape and his attack on Baynell&mdash;it seemed
+to mitigate the intensity with which he played at the game of war to
+speak of it as the freaks of a "Baby-chile."</p>
+
+<p>The witness could produce no replies to the question, and indeed he had
+no recollection, as to how Julius Roscoe became possessed of the facts
+concerning the works, for old Ephraim did not realize that he himself
+had afforded this information&mdash;acquired in aimlessly tagging after
+the detail sent for ammunition, the negroes coming and going with scant
+restriction in the camps of their liberators. But very careful was he to
+let fall no word of the citizen's dress he had conveyed to the
+"Baby-chile" in the grotto, under cover of night.</p>
+
+<p>"Bress Gawd!" he said to himself, "it's de Cap'n on trial&mdash;<i>not
+me</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>He detailed with great candor the lies he had told Captain Baynell,
+when, emerging from his long insensibility, he had asked about the Rebel
+officer. "It was a dream," the witness had told<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> "Cap'n." In
+Captain Baynell's earlier illness he had often been delirious, and it
+had amused him when he recovered to hear the quaint things he had said;
+sometimes "Cap'n" himself described to Judge Roscoe or to the surgeon
+the queer sights he had seen, the results of the morphine administered.
+So in this instance he had hardly seemed surprised, but had let it pass
+like the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Ephraim did not vary these statements in any degree, not even
+under the ordeal of cross-examination. Indeed, he stood this remarkably
+well and left the impression he had made unimpaired. But when he was
+told that he might stand aside, and it entered into his comprehension
+that the phrase meant that he might leave the room, he fairly chirped
+with glee and obvious relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Thankee, Marse Gen'al!" he said to the youngest member of the court, a
+captain, to whom he had persisted in addressing most of his replies, and
+had continuously promoted to the rank of general, as if this high
+station obviously best accorded with the young officer's deserts.</p>
+
+<p>Old Ephraim scuttled off to the door, stumbling and hirpling in his
+haste and agitation, and it had not closed on him, when his "Bress de
+Lawd! he done delivered me f'om dem dat would have devoured me!"
+resounded through the room.</p>
+
+<p>There was a laugh outside&mdash;somebody in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span> corridor opined
+that the court-martial wanted no such tough old morsel, but not a smile
+touched the serious faces on each side of the table, and the next
+witness was summoned.</p>
+
+<p>This was Mrs. Gwynn. She produced an effect of sober elegance in her
+dress of gray bar&egrave;ge, wearing a simple hat of lacelike straw of
+the same tint, with velvet knots of a darker gray, on her beautiful
+golden-brown hair. The court-martial, guaranteed to have no heart, had,
+as far as perceptible impression was concerned, no eyes. They looked
+stolidly at her as, with a swift and adaptive intelligence, she complied
+with the formalities, and her testimony was under way.</p>
+
+<p>So youthful, so girlish and fair of face, so sylphlike in form was she,
+that her appearance was of far more significance in their estimation
+than their apparent lack of appreciation might betoken. More than one
+who had begun to incline to the views of the prosecution thought that he
+beheld here the influence which had fostered treason and brought a fine
+officer to a forgetfulness of his oath, a disregard of his duty, and the
+destruction of every value of life and every consolation of death.</p>
+
+<p>Her manner, however, was not that of a siren. All the incongruities of
+her aspect were specially pronounced as she sat in the clear light of
+the window and looked steadfastly at each querist in turn, so soberly,
+so earnestly, with so little consciousness of her beauty, that it seemed
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> something to lack, as if a more definite aplomb and
+intention of display could enhance the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Apparently it was a conclusive testimony that she was giving, for it was
+presently developed that she did not know that Julius Roscoe was in the
+house; that she herself had suggested to Captain Baynell to go in search
+of a book up the stairs to his hiding-place, from which there was no
+other mode of egress; that in less than two minutes she heard Captain
+Baynell's loud exclamations of surprise, and the words in his voice,
+very quick and decisive&mdash;"You are my prisoner!" twice repeated. She
+had rushed to the door of the hall to hear a crash as of a fall, and she
+saw the balustrade of the staircase, which was the same structure
+throughout the three stories, shaking, as Julius Roscoe, covered with
+blood, dashed by her and out into the balcony. She knew that Baynell was
+delirious subsequently, and that he was kept in ignorance as to what had
+occasioned his fall.</p>
+
+<p>There was a degree of discomfiture on the part of the prosecution. It
+was not that the judge-advocate was specially bloody-minded or
+vindictive. He had a part to play, and it behooved him to play it well.
+It would seem that if the prosecution broke down on so obvious and
+simple a case, which had been the nucleus of so much disaster, blame
+might attach to him, by the mere accident of his position. These
+reflections rendered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> him ingenious, and with the license of
+cross-examination he began with personalities.</p>
+
+<p>"You have stated that you are a widow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am the widow of Rufus Allerton Gwynn."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not wear widow's weeds?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I have laid them aside."</p>
+
+<p>"In contemplation of matrimony?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Is not the accused your accepted suitor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Baynell was looking down at a paper in his hand. His eyelids flickered,
+then he looked up steadily, with a face of quiet attention.</p>
+
+<p>A member of the court preferred the demand:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Was he ever a suitor for your hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." Her face had flushed, but she kept her eyes steadily fixed on the
+questioner.</p>
+
+<p>The president of the court cleared his throat as if minded to speak.
+Then obviously with the view of avoiding misunderstandings as to dates
+he formulated the query: "Was this recent? May I ask <i>when</i> you declined
+his proposal?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not certain of the date," she replied. "It was&mdash;let me
+think&mdash;it was the evening of a day when the neighborhood
+sewing-circle met at my uncle's house. I remember, now&mdash;it was the
+sixth of May."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Captain Baynell attend the meeting of the sewing-circle?"&mdash;the
+judge-advocate permitted himself an edge of satire.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span>"He was present, and Colonel Ashley, and Lieutenant Seymour."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said the judge-advocate, at a loss.</p>
+
+<p>At a loss and doubtful, but encouraged. To his mind she offered the key
+to the situation. Keenly susceptible to feminine influence himself, he
+fancied he could divine its effect on another man. He proceeded warily,
+reducing his question to writing, while on various faces ranged about
+the table appeared a shade of doubt and even reprobation of the tone he
+was taking.</p>
+
+<p>"You have laid aside the insignia of mourning&mdash;yet you do not
+contemplate matrimony. You are very young."</p>
+
+<p>"I am twenty-three&mdash;as I have already stated."</p>
+
+<p>"You may live a long time. You may live to grow old. You propose to live
+alone the remainder of your days. Did you tell Captain Baynell that?"</p>
+
+<p>"In effect, yes."</p>
+
+<p>Her face had grown crimson, then paled, then the color came again in
+patches. But her voice did not falter, and she looked at her
+interlocutor with an admirable steadiness. The president again cleared
+his throat as if about to speak. The shade of disapprobation deepened on
+the listening faces.</p>
+
+<p>The judge-advocate leaned forward, wrote swiftly, then read in a
+tantalizing tone, as of one who has a clincher in reserve:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now was not that a mere feminine subterfuge?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a></span> You know you
+could hardly be <i>sure</i> that you will never marry again&mdash;at your
+age."</p>
+
+<p>Once more the president cleared his throat, but he spoke this time.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you desire to push this line of investigation farther?" he said,
+objection eloquent in his deep, full voice.</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, sir." The judge-advocate had been feeling his way very
+cautiously, but he was flustered by the interruption, and he was
+conscious that he put his next question less adroitly than he had
+intended.</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you so sure, if I may ask?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a tense silence. She said to herself that this was no time or
+place for finical delicacy. A man's life, his honor, all he held dear,
+were in jeopardy, and it had fallen to her to say words that must needs
+affect the result. She answered steadily. "My reply to Captain Baynell
+was not actuated by any objections to him. I know nothing of him but
+what is greatly to his credit." She hesitated for a moment. She had
+grown very white, and her eyes glittered, but her voice was still firm
+as she went on:&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There is no reason why I should not speak freely under these
+circumstances, for every one knows&mdash;every one who is cognizant of
+our family affairs&mdash;that my married life was extremely wretched. I
+was very unhappy, and I told Captain Baynell that I would never marry
+again."</p>
+
+<p>Dead silence reigned for a moment. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span> had all heard the story
+of her hard fate. The discussion as to whether a chair had been merely
+broken over her head, or she had been dragged about her home one woful
+midnight by the masses of her beautiful hair, was insistently suggested
+as the sunlight lay athwart it now, and the breeze moved its tendrils
+caressingly. The eyes of the court-martial looked at the judge-advocate
+with fiery reproach, and the heart of the court-martial beat for her for
+the moment with chivalric partisanship.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Baynell seemed to lose his composure. His face was
+scarlet, his hands trembled. He was biting his under lip violently in an
+effort at self-control; he was experiencing an agony of sympathy and
+regret that this should be forced upon her, of helpless fury that he
+could be of no avail.</p>
+
+<p>Still once more the president cleared his throat, this time
+peremptorily. The judge-advocate, considerably out of countenance,
+hastily forestalled him, that he might justify his course by bringing
+out the point he desired to elicit, reading his question aloud for its
+submission to the court, though her last reply had rendered his clincher
+of little force.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you say to Captain Baynell that you have no intention of marrying
+again merely as a subterfuge&mdash;to soften the blow, because you
+expect to marry Lieutenant Roscoe as soon as the war is over?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span>His suspicion that Baynell had been accessory to the concealment of
+young Roscoe so long as he did not fear him as a rival was evident.
+Baynell turned suddenly and stared with startled eyes in which an amazed
+dismay contended with futile anger that this,&mdash;such a
+motive&mdash;such a course of action, could be attributed to him.</p>
+
+<p>She replied only to the obvious question, evidently not realizing the
+implication. The tension was over; her color had returned; her voice was
+casual.</p>
+
+<p>"No. I have no thought of marrying Lieutenant Roscoe."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he asked you to marry him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Long ago,&mdash;when he was a mere boy."</p>
+
+<p>"And again since your widowhood?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You have seen him since?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only that morning when he rushed past me in the hall," she replied, not
+apprehending the trend of his questions.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Baynell must have had some reason to think you would marry him,
+or he would not have asked you. You rejected him one evening. The next
+morning he arrested Lieutenant Roscoe, who had been in hiding in the
+house,&mdash;was there some understanding between you and Captain
+Baynell,&mdash;had he earlier forborne this arrest in the expectation of
+your consent, and was the arrest made in revenge on a rival whom he
+fancied a successful suitor?"</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span>She looked at the judge-advocate with a horrified amazement eloquent on
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! Oh," she cried in a poignant voice, "if you knew Captain
+Baynell, you could not, you would not, advance such implications against
+him,&mdash;who is the very soul of honor."</p>
+
+<p>The judge-advocate was again for an instant out of countenance.</p>
+
+<p>"You thought so little of him yourself as to reject his addresses," he
+said by way of recovering himself.</p>
+
+<p>She was absorbed in the importance of the crisis. She did not realize
+the effect of her words until after she had uttered them.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not appreciate his character then," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>Once more there was an interval of tense and significant silence.
+Baynell, suddenly pale to the lips, lifted startled eyes as if he sought
+to assure himself that he had heard aright. Then he bent his gaze on the
+paper in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gwynn, tremulous with excitement, appreciated a moment later the
+inadvertent and personal admission, and a burning flush sprang into her
+cheeks. The judge-advocate took instant advantage of her loss of poise.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean by that&mdash;that you would not reject him
+again? Will you explain?" he read his question with a twinkling eye that
+nettled and harassed her.</p>
+
+<p>A member of the court-martial objected to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</a></span> interrogation as
+"frivolous and unnecessary," and therefore it was not addressed to the
+witness. A pause ensued.</p>
+
+<p>The brevet brigadier cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you concluded this line of investigation?" he said to the
+judge-advocate, for the prosecution was obviously breaking down.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe we are about through," said the judge-advocate, vacuously,
+looking at a list in his hand, "that is"&mdash;to the accused&mdash;"if
+you have no questions to put in re&euml;xamination." And as Mrs. Gwynn
+was permitted to depart from the room, he still busied himself with his
+list. "Three names, yet. These are the children, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Every member of the household of Judge Roscoe was summoned as a witness
+for the defence, to seek to establish Baynell's innocence in these
+difficult circumstances, even the little girls, and indeed otherwise the
+prosecution would have subpoenaed them on the theory that if there were
+any treachery, the children had not the artifice to conceal it. So far
+this testimony was unequivocal. Judge Roscoe had sworn to the simple
+facts and the measures taken to avoid the notice of the Federal officer.
+Uncle Ephraim's testimony, save for the withheld episode of the grotto,
+the exact truth, was corroborative, but suffered somewhat from his
+reputation for wearing two faces, his sobriquet of "Janus" being adduced
+by the prosecution. Mrs. Gwynn had affirmed that she herself did not
+know or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</a></span> suspect the presence of Julius in the house, so
+completely was he held <i>perdu</i>. The agitated little twins, each examined
+as to her knowledge of the obligations of an oath and sworn, separately
+testified in curiously clipped, suppressed voices that they knew
+nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing of Julius Roscoe in the house.</p>
+
+<p>In the face of this unanimity it seemed impossible to prove aught save
+that in one of those hazardous visits home, so dear to the rash young
+Southern soldiers, the father had taken successful precautions to defeat
+suspicion; and the Confederate officer had shown great adroitness in
+carrying out the plan of his campaign which his observations inside the
+lines had suggested.</p>
+
+<p>On the last day of the trial Captain Baynell was beginning to breathe
+more freely, all the testimony having been taken except the necessarily
+formal questioning of the dumb child. As she was sworn and interrogated,
+one of the other children, sworn anew for the purpose, acted as her
+interpreter, being more accustomed than the elders to the use of the
+manual alphabet. The court-room was interested in the quaint situation.
+The aspect of the two little children, in their white summer attire, in
+this incongruous environment, with their tiny hands lifted in signalling
+to each other, their eyes shining with excitement, touched the
+spectators to smiles and a stir of pleasant sympathy. Now and then
+Geraldine's silvery treble faltered while repeating the question,
+to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</a></span> demonstrate her comprehension of it, and she desisted from
+her task to gaze in blue-eyed wonder over her shoulder at the crowd. The
+deaf-mute was passed over cursorily by the defence, only summoned in
+fact that no one of the household might be omitted or seem feared.
+Suddenly one of the members of the court asked a question in
+cross-examination. In civil life this officer, a colonel of volunteers,
+had been an aurist of some note and the physician in attendance in a
+deaf-and-dumb asylum. He was a portly, robust man, whose prematurely
+gray hair and mustache were at variance with his florid complexion and
+his bright, still youthful, dark eyes. He had a manner peculiarly
+composed, bland, yet commanding. He leaned forward abruptly on the
+table; with an intent, questioning gaze he caught the child's eyes as
+she stood lounging against the tall witness-chair. Then as he lifted his
+hands it was obvious that he was far more expert in the manual alphabet
+than Geraldine. In three minutes it was evident to the assembled members
+of the court-martial on each side of the long table, the president at
+its head, the judge-advocate at its foot, that the line of communication
+was as perfect as if both spoke. Delighted to meet a stranger who could
+converse fluently with her, the child's blue eyes glittered, her cheek
+flushed; she was continually laughing and tossing back the curls of her
+rich chestnut hair, as if she wished to be free of its weight while
+she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</a></span> gave every capacity to this matter. And yet in her youth,
+her innocence, her inexperience, she knew naught of the ultimate
+significance of the detail.</p>
+
+<p>It was an evidence of the degree to which she was isolated by her
+infirmity, how slight was her participation in the subtler interests of
+the life about her, that she had no remote conception of the intents and
+results of the investigation. Even her curiosity was manacled&mdash;it
+stretched no grasp for the fact. She did not question. She did not dream
+that it concerned Captain Baynell. She had no idea that trouble had
+fallen upon him. Tears to her expressed woe, or a visage of sadness, or
+the environment of poverty or physical hurt&mdash;but this bright room,
+with its crowd of intent spectators; this splendid array of uniformed
+men of an august aspect; her own friend, Captain Baynell, present,
+himself in full regimentals, calm, composed, quiet, as was his wont,
+looking over a paper in his hand&mdash;how was the restricted creature
+to imagine that this was the arena of a life-and-death conflict.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" the little waxen-white fingers flashed forth. "Yes, indeed, she
+had known that Soldier-Boy was in the house. That was Julius!"</p>
+
+<p>She gave the military salute with her accustomed grace and spirit,
+lifting her hand to the brim of her hat, and looked laughing along
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</a></span> line of stern, bearded faces and military figures on either
+side of the long table.</p>
+
+<p>The other "ladies" did not know that Soldier-Boy was there, though they
+saw him, and she saw him, too! It was in the library, and it was just
+about dusk. They were surprised, and came and told the family that they
+had seen a ghost. They knew no better! They were young and they were
+little. They were only six, the twins, and she was eight; a great girl
+indeed!</p>
+
+<p>Once more she tossed back her hair, and, with her eyes intent from under
+the wide Leghorn brim of her hat, bedecked with bows of a broad white
+ribbon with fluffy fringed edges, she watched his white military
+gauntlets, uplifted as he asked the next question on his slow fingers.</p>
+
+<p>How her own swiftly flickered!</p>
+
+<p>Yes, indeed, she had told the family better. It was no ghost, but only
+Soldier-Boy! She had told Captain Baynell. She wanted him to see
+Soldier-Boy. He was beautiful&mdash;the most beautiful member of the
+family!</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes, Baynell knew he was in the house. She had told him by her sign.
+When she had first shown him Soldier-Boy's fine portrait, they had told
+him what she meant.</p>
+
+<p>No! Captain Baynell had not forgotten! For when she said it was no
+ghost, but Soldier-Boy, Cousin Leonora cried out, "Oh, she means Julius;
+that is her sign for him!" Cousin Leonora did not use the manual
+alphabet; she read the motion<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</a></span> of her lips. None of them used
+the alphabet except a little bit; Soldier-Boy the best of all.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout there was a continual ripple of excitement among the members
+and several heads were dubiously shaken. More than once Baynell's
+counsel sought to interpose an objection,&mdash;mindful of the
+preposterous restrictions of his position, swiftly writing his views,
+transmitted, as if he himself were dumb, through the prisoner to the
+judge-advocate and by him to the court. The testimony of the witness
+could not be legally taken this way, he insisted, merely by the
+repetition of what she had said, by a member of the court-martial for
+the benefit of the rest.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiar petulance of those who lack a sense was manifested in the
+acrimony which shone in the child's eyes as she perceived that he sought
+to restrict and repress her statement of her views. When he ventured
+himself to ask her a question, having some knowledge of the manual
+alphabet, she merely gazed at his awkward gesticulations with an
+expression of polite tolerance, making no attempt to answer, then cast
+up her eyes, as who should say, "Saw ever anybody the like of that!" and
+catching the intent gaze of the brigadier, she burst into a sly
+coquettish ripple of laughter that had all the effect of a roguish
+aside. Then, turning to the ex-surgeon, her fingers flickered forth the
+hope that he would come and see her and talk. When the war was over, she
+was going back to school where she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</a></span> had learned the manual
+alphabet,&mdash;there, although dumb, they talked much.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of the word "school" suggested an idea which obviated the
+difficulty as to how this extraordinary testimony could be put into such
+shape as to render it available, impervious to cavil, strictly in
+accordance with precedent in the case of witnesses who are "mute by the
+visitation of God." The cross-examiner asked her if she could write. How
+she tossed her head in pride and scorn of the question! Write&mdash;of
+course she could write. Cousin Leonora had taught her.</p>
+
+<p>When she was placed in a chair, and mounted on a great book beside the
+judge-advocate&mdash;looking like a learned mushroom under her big white
+hat, her white flounced skirts fluttering out, her long white hose and
+slippered feet dangling&mdash;he wrote the questions and accommodated
+her with a blotting-pad and pen, and it may be doubted if ever hitherto
+a small bunch of fabric and millinery contained so much vainglory. In
+truth the triumph atoned for many a soundless day&mdash;to note the
+surprise on his solemn visage, between his Burnside whiskers, as she
+glanced covertly up into his face, watching the effect of her first
+answer, five or six lines of clear, round handwriting, sensibly
+expressed, and perfectly spelled. She wrote much the more legibly of the
+two, and once there occurred a break when one of the members of the
+court asked a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</a></span> question in writing, and she was constrained to
+put one hand before her face to laugh gleefully, for one of his capital
+letters was so bad&mdash;she was great on capitals&mdash;that she must
+needs ask what was meant by it.</p>
+
+<p>Baynell, in re&euml;xamination, himself wrote to ask what he had said
+when he was told that the ghost in the library was Julius Roscoe.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing," she wrote in answer, all unaware how she was destroying him.
+"Nothing at all. You just looked at me and then looked at Cousin Leonora.
+But Grandpa said, 'Oh, fie! oh, fie!' all the time."</p>
+
+<p>Thus the extraordinary testimony was taken. The paper, with her answers
+in her round childish characters and flourishing capitals, all as plain
+as print and exhibiting a thorough comprehension of what she was asked,
+was handed to each of the members of the court-martial, here and there
+eliciting a murmur of surprise at her proficiency. The prosecution, that
+had practically broken down, now had the point of the sword at the
+throat of the defence.</p>
+
+<p>There was naught further necessary but to confront the earlier witnesses
+with this episode. Mrs. Gwynn, recalled, stared in amazement for a
+moment as a question was put as to the significant event of the
+discovery of a ghost in the library, one afternoon. Then as the
+reminiscence grew clear to her mind, she rehearsed the circumstance,
+stating in great confusion that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</a></span> had disregarded it at the
+time, and had forgotten it since.</p>
+
+<p>So unimportant, was it?</p>
+
+<p>She had thought it merely some folly of the children's; they were always
+taking silly little frights. She did remember that she had told Captain
+Baynell once before that the military salute was the child's sign for
+Julius Roscoe, and that she had repeated this information then.
+No&mdash;Captain Baynell made no search in the library where the
+supposed ghost was seen,&mdash;no,&mdash;nor elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Gwynn, under the stress of these revelations, broke down and
+burst into tears, the eyes of the members of the court-martial intently
+regarding her were unsympathetic eyes, despite her beauty and
+charm,&mdash;the more unsympathetic because Judge Roscoe had also
+remembered these circumstances, stating, however, that they had not
+alarmed him, for Captain Baynell evidently did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Is his knowledge of English, then, so limited?" he was ironically
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Old Ephraim, too, was able to recollect the fact of the child's
+disclosure of the presence of Julius Roscoe in the house to Captain
+Baynell,&mdash;declaring, though, that he himself had hindered its
+comprehension by upsetting the coffee urn full of scalding coffee, which
+he had just brought to the table where the group were sitting, thus
+effecting a diversion of interest.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</a></span>All the witnesses were dismissed at last, and the final formal defence
+was presented in writing. The room was cleared and the judge-advocate
+read aloud to the members of the court the proceedings from the
+beginning. Laboriously, earnestly, impartially, they bent their minds to
+weigh all the details, and then for a time they sat in secluded
+deliberation&mdash;a long time, despite the fact that the conclusions of
+the majority admitted of no doubt. Several of the members revolted
+against the inevitable result, argued with vehemence, recapitulated all
+in Baynell's favor with the fervor of eager partisans, and at last
+protested with a passion of despair against the decision, for the
+finding was adverse and the unanimity of two-thirds of the votes
+rendered the penalty death.</p>
+
+<p>The sentence was of course kept secret until it should be approved and
+formally promulgated by authority. But the public had readily divined
+the result and anticipated naught from the revision of the proceedings.</p>
+
+<p>Suspense is itself a species of calamity. It has all the poignant
+acuteness of hope without the buoyancy of a sustained expectation, and
+all the anguish of despair without its sense of conclusiveness and the
+surcease of striving. Pending the review of the action of the
+court-martial Baynell discovered the wondrous scope of human suffering
+disassociated from physical pain. He had seriously thought he might die
+of his wounded<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</a></span> pride, thus touched in honor, in patriotism, in
+life itself, and therefore he was amazed by the degree of solace he
+experienced in the sight of a woman's tears shed for his sake. For to
+Leonora Gwynn he seemed a persecuted martyr, with all a soldier's valor
+and a saint's impeccability. No one could know better than she the
+falsity of the charges against him, and in her resentment against the
+unhappy chances and the military law that had overwhelmed him, and her
+absolute despair for his fate, he enlisted all her heart. Those high and
+noble qualities which he possessed and which she revered were elicited
+in the extremity of his mortal peril. His exacting conscientiousness;
+his steadfast courage on the brink of despair; his absolute truth; his
+constancy in adversity; his strict sense of justice which would not
+suffer him to blame his friends whose concealments had wrought his ruin,
+nor his enemies who seemed indeed rancorously zealous in aspersing him
+that they might exculpate themselves at his risk; his lofty sense of
+honor which he valued more than life itself,&mdash;all showed in genuine
+proportions in the bleak unidealizing light which an actual vital crisis
+brings to bear on the incidents of personal character.</p>
+
+<p>She had even a more tender sympathy for his simpler traits, the filial
+friendship which he still manifested for Judge Roscoe, his affectionate
+remembrance of the little children of the household, the blended pride
+and delicacy with which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</a></span> he restrained all expression of the
+feeling he entertained toward her, that might seem to seek to utilize
+and magnify her unguarded admissions on the
+witness-stand,&mdash;influenced, as he feared, by her anxiety lest her
+rejection of his suit should militate to his disadvantage in the
+estimation of the court. In truth, however, there was scant need of his
+reserve on this point, for she made no disguise of her sentiment toward
+him. It became obvious, not only to him, but to all with whom she spoke.
+Indeed, she would have married him then, that she might be near him,
+that she might share his calamities, even while his disgrace, his
+everlasting contumely, seemed already accomplished, and he had scarcely
+a chance for life itself. And yet, hardly less than he, she valued those
+finer vibrations of chivalric ethics to which his every fibre thrilled.
+"I know that you are the very soul of honor," she said to him, "and that
+this certain assurance ought to be sufficient to nullify the stings of
+calumny,&mdash;but I had rather that you had died long ago, that I had
+never seen you, that I were dead myself, than that your record as a
+soldier, your probity as a man, the truth, the eternal truth, should
+even be questioned."</p>
+
+<p>Judge Roscoe, too, was infinitely dismayed by this strange blunder of
+circumstance, and flinched under the sense of responsibility, of a
+breach of hospitality, albeit unintentional, that his guest should incur
+so desperate a disaster by reason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</a></span> of a sojourn under his roof.
+Baynell was constrained to comfort them both, but in the hope to which
+he magnanimously affected to appeal he had scant confidence indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Even amidst the turmoil of his emotions and the crisis of his personal
+jeopardy he did not forget that the hand that hurled the bolts of doom
+had been innocent of cruel intent. "Never let her know," he warned Judge
+Roscoe, again and again. For although the testimony of the deaf-mute
+must needs have been elicited, she would be grieved to learn that she
+had wrought all these woes. Though literally the truth, it had the
+deceptive functions of a lie. It traduced him. It convicted him, the
+faithful soldier, of treachery. It hurled him down from his honorable
+esteem, and he seemed the basest of the base, traitor to his comrades,
+false to his oath, renegade to his cause, recreant to every sanction
+that can control a gentleman, and stained with blood-guiltiness for
+every life that was sacrificed in the skirmish by reason of his secret
+colloguing with the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, he tenderly considered how frightful a shock she would
+experience should she realize that it was she who had set this hideous
+monster of falsehood grimly a-stalk as fact. "But never let her know!"
+he insisted with an unselfish thoughtfulness that endeared him the more
+to those who already loved him. In that silent life of hers, so much
+apart, he would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</a></span> fain that not even a vague echo of reproach
+should sound. In those mute thoughts, which none might divine, he would
+not evoke a suggestion of regret. One could hardly forecast the effect,
+he urged. A sorrow like this might prove beyond the reach of reason, of
+remonstrance, of consolation. She loved him, the silent, little thing!
+and he loved her. Never, never, let her know.</p>
+
+<p>And thus, although in the storm centre all else was changed, swept with
+sudden gusts of tempestuous grief, now and again reverberating with
+strange echoes of tumults beyond, all a-tremor with terror and frightful
+presage, calm still prevailed in her restricted little life. But to
+maintain this placidity was not without its special difficulties. More
+than once her grandfather's deep depression caught her intelligent
+attention, and she would pause to gaze wistfully, helplessly, sadly,
+upon him. Upon discovering Leonora in tears one day she flung herself on
+her knees beside her cousin, and kissing her hands wept and sobbed
+bitterly in sympathy with she knew not what. Sometimes she was moved to
+ask the dreary little twins if aught were amiss, and when they shook
+their heads in negation, she promptly signed that she did not believe
+them. Once she came perilously near the solution of the mystery that
+baffled her. Missing the visits of Baynell, who of course was still in
+arrest, she asked the twins if he were ill, and when they hysterically
+protested<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</a></span> that he was well, a shadow of aghast apprehension
+hovered over her face, and she solemnly queried if he were dead.</p>
+
+<p>The phrase, "Never let her know," was like a dying wish, as sacred, as
+imperative, and Judge Roscoe hastily interfered to assure her that
+Baynell was indeed alive and well, and affected to rebuke the twins,
+saying that they were getting so dull and slow in the manual alphabet
+that they could scarcely answer a simple question of their sister's, and
+set them to spelling on their fingers under Lucille's instruction the
+first stanza of "The boy stood on the burning deck."</p>
+
+<p>Thus the continued calm of her life was akin to the quiet languors of
+the sweet summer evening so mutely reddening in the west, so softly
+changing to the azure and silver of twilight, so splendid in the vast
+diffusive radiance of the soundless moon. All the growths were as
+speechless. The rose was full of the voiceless dew. What need of words
+when the magnolia buds burst into bloom without a rustle. With a placid
+heart she watched the echoless march of the constellations. The daily
+brightening of the sumptuous season, the vivid presentment of the great
+pageant of the distant mountains glowed noiselessly. Amidst this
+encompassing hush, in suave content she thought out her inconceivable,
+unexpressed thoughts, with a smile in her eyes and the seal of eternal
+silence on her lips. For<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</a></span> his behest was a sacred
+charge,&mdash;and she did not know,&mdash;she never knew!</p>
+
+<p>The evidence on which Baynell had been convicted and which had seemed so
+conclusive to the general court-martial, present during the testimony of
+the deaf-mute and its subsequent unwilling confirmation by the other
+witnesses for the defence, was not so decisive on a calm revision of the
+papers. The doubt remained as to how much he could be presumed to
+understand from the peculiar methods of the dumb child's disclosure and
+the scattered haphazard comments of the household. The circumstances
+were deemed by the reviewing authorities extra hazardous, difficult, and
+peculiar. The matter hung for a time in abeyance, but at last the court
+was ordered to reconvene for the rectification of certain irregularities
+in its proceedings, and for the reconsideration of its action in this
+case.</p>
+
+<p>The interval of time which had elapsed, with its proclivity to annul the
+effects of surprise and the first convincing force of a definite and
+irrefutable testimony, had served to foster doubt, not of the fact
+itself, but as to Baynell's comprehension of it. Perhaps the incredulity
+obviously entertained in high quarters rendered certain members of the
+court-martial less sure of the justifiability of their own conclusions.
+The maturer deliberation of the body accomplished the amendment of those
+points in the record which had challenged criticism, and the
+ripened<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</a></span> judgment exercised in the reconsideration was
+manifested in such modifications of the view of the evidence adduced
+that, although several members still adhered to the earlier findings,
+the strength of the opposing opinion was so recruited that a majority of
+the number concurred in it, and the vote resulted in an acquittal.</p>
+
+<p>Hence Captain Baynell had again the stern pleasure of leading his
+battery into action. His pride never fully recovered its elasticity
+after the days of his humiliation, but his martyrdom was not altogether
+without guerdon. His marriage to Leonora, which was a true union of
+hearts and hands, took place almost immediately. Compassion, faith, the
+admiration of strength and courage in adversity, proved more potent
+elements with Leonora Gwynn than her appreciation of the prowess that
+stormed the fort.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond his promotion and a captain's shoulder straps, Julius Roscoe
+gained naught by his signal victory. Although he seemed to meet his
+disappointment in love jauntily enough, he went abroad almost
+immediately after the cessation of hostilities in America, and still
+later attained distinction as a soldier of fortune especially in the
+Franco-Prussian war. Now and again echoes from those foreign drum-beats
+penetrated the tranquillities of the storm centre, and Lucille, looking
+over the shoulders of the other two "ladies," officiously opening the
+evening paper to discern some item perchance of the absent,<span class='pagenum'><a
+name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</a></span> would glance up elated at the
+elders of the group, lifting her hand to her forehead with that spirited
+military salute, so expressive of Soldier-Boy.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<div class="verts">
+<p class="center"><span class="big">THE COMMON LOT</span><br />
+By ROBERT HERRICK</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "The Real World," "The Web of Life," "The Gospel of Freedom,"
+etc.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td><td>12mo</td><td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"Mr. Herrick has written a novel of searching insight and absorbing
+interest; a first-rate story ... sincere to the very core in its matter
+and in its art."&mdash;<span class="smcap">Hamilton W. Mabie.</span></p>
+
+<p>"The book is a bit of the living America of to-day, a true picture of
+one of its most significant phases ... living, throbbing with
+reality."&mdash;<i>New York Evening Mail.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Novels of its style and quality are few and far between ... he tells a
+story that is worth the telling ... it is a study of life as he sees it,
+and as thousands of his readers try to avoid seeing it."&mdash;<i>Boston
+Transcript.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">The Queen's Quair, or The Six Years' Tragedy</span></p>
+<p class="center">By MAURICE HEWLETT</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "Richard Yea-and-Nay," "The Forest Lovers," etc., etc.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hewlett has produced in this book an enthralling work. It is at
+once a chronicle of certain momentous years in the life of his famous
+heroine and a searching study of her character.... 'The Queen's Quair'
+is profoundly absorbing, and no one among the novelists of to-day save
+Mr. Hewlett could have written it. No one else could have sustained such
+a long narrative on so high a level with such consummate art."&mdash;<i>New York Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>"No piece of historical fiction has so adequately described the career
+of the unfortunate and misguided Queen of Scotland, and no other writer
+has approached Mr. Hewlett in dramatic power and literary skill. He uses
+words that express his meaning precisely.... His conciseness of forcible
+expression is indeed admirable. The story, too, is full of action and
+commands undivided attention. Mary's portrait leaves a lasting
+impression."&mdash;<i>Boston Budget.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">DOCTOR TOM, The Coroner of Brett</span></p>
+<p class="center">By JOHN WILLIAMS STREETER</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "The Fat of the Land," etc.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"A good story of the Kentucky mountains. The reader is caught at the
+start and held to the end."&mdash;<i>New York Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>"One of the best and manliest novels that have appeared in a year."</p>
+
+<p class="right">&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press.</i><br /> </p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">THE CROSSING</span></p>
+<p class="center">By WINSTON CHURCHILL</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "Richard Carvel," "The Crisis," etc.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illustrated in Colors</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"Mr. Churchill's work, for one reason or another, always commands the
+attention of a large reading public."&mdash;<i>The Criterion.</i></p>
+
+<p>"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting
+adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both
+in detail and in spirit."&mdash;<i>The Dial.</i><br /></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Churchill's romance fills in a gap which history has been unable to
+span, that gives life and color, even the very soul, to events which
+otherwise treated would be cold and dark and inanimate."&mdash;Mr.
+<span class="smcap">Horace R. Hudson</span> in the <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i>.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND</span></p>
+<p class="center">By F. MARION CRAWFORD</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "The Heart of Rome," "Saracinesca," "Via Crucis," etc.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illustrated by Horace T. Carpenter</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"Not since George Eliot's 'Romola' brought her to her foreordained place
+among literary immortals has there appeared in English fiction a
+character at once so strong and sensitive, so entirely and consistently
+human, so urgent and compelling in its appeal to sustained, sympathetic
+interest."&mdash;<i>Philadelphia North American.</i></p>
+
+<p>"She is the most womanly woman Mr. Crawford has given us in many a day,
+and after her another peasant, bloody, brooding Ercole, is most
+alive."&mdash;<i>Boston Daily Advertiser.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">THE QUEST OF JOHN CHAPMAN</span><br /><i>THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN HERO</i></p>
+<p class="center">By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D.D.</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "The Influence of Christ in Modern Life," etc.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"In this story Mr. Hillis has woven the life of the Middle West, the
+heroism and holiness of those descendants of the New England Puritans
+who emigrated still further into the wilderness. The story is of great
+spiritual significance, and yet of the earth, earthy&mdash;hence its
+strength and vitality.&mdash;<i>Montreal Daily Star.</i></p>
+
+<p>"No practised technist takes hold of his reader's interest with a
+prompter or surer grip than does this author at the very outset. Nowhere
+else in his book does he demonstrate his fitness for the work of fiction
+better than in the purely creative work. The style leaves little to be
+desired, for Dr. Hillis is, as we all know, a stylist. What perhaps is a
+surprise and also a pleasure, is the dramatic power revealed by the
+author. The book is forceful, its poetic opportunities are never missed,
+it is vivid and striking in its scenes, and pathos is a powerful element
+in the work."&mdash;<i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">THE TWO CAPTAINS</span><br /><i>A STORY OF BONAPARTE AND NELSON</i></p>
+<p class="center">By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "A Little Traitor to the South," etc.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Illustrated</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>The action takes place in the years 1793 and 1798. The historic
+incidents centre around the siege of Toulon in Southern France in 1793,
+in which General Bonaparte first attracts the attention of the world to
+his genius; and the epoch-marking Battle of the Nile in the Bay of
+Aboukir, in Egypt, in 1798, in which Admiral Nelson forever shatters the
+Frenchman's dream of empire in the East. The story revolves around the
+love of Captain Robert Macartney, an Irishman who is an officer in the
+English Navy under Nelson, and Louise de Vaud&eacute;mont, granddaughter
+of Vice-Admiral de Vaud&eacute;mont, a great Royalist noble and officer
+of the old Navy of France before the Revolution. One of the leading
+characters is Br&oelig;boeuf, a silent Breton sailor&mdash;he does not
+speak a dozen words in the whole story&mdash;who interferes at critical
+points to promote the welfare of the young lovers in most striking and
+unconventional ways. The coast of Provence, the land of the minstrel and
+the troubadour, the city of Toulon, grim-walled, cannon-circled, the
+blue waters of the Mediterranean, the great ships-of-the-line, the sandy
+shores of Egypt, the ancient city of Alexandria, the palace of the
+Khedive, the Bay of Aboukir, are the successive settings of the dramatic
+story. General Bonaparte and Admiral Nelson both take prominent parts in
+the romance, and the characters of these fascinating men are described
+with fidelity, accuracy, and brilliancy.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">THE SECRET WOMAN</span></p>
+<p class="center">By EDEN PHILLPOTTS</p>
+<p class="center">Author of "The American Prisoner," "My Devon Year," etc.</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>Rude and romantic characters, descriptions of lonely and picturesque
+Devonshire scenery, and a simple plot in which love and passion play
+strong parts, are part of the secret of Mr. Eden Phillpotts' very strong
+hold on the public. Slow-acting and slow-speaking but deep-feeling
+peasants play their parts in each drama amid a characteristically wild
+but sympathetic environment. The present powerful story shows the author
+at his best. The real tragedy is not in the actual murder and in the
+shadow of the gallows, but in the moral situation and the intense,
+engrossing moral struggle. Despite certain faults, each character in the
+story is of high mind and purpose, unselfish and deserving of respect.
+What might else be a gloomy theme is relieved by the minor characters.
+The talk of the Devonshire rustics is amusing, and every minor figure in
+the book is a distinct, true-to-nature character. The descriptions of
+external nature are done with feeling and knowledge; in this field no
+other living romancer equals Mr. Phillpotts. This work has some of the
+great qualities of serious literature&mdash;single in purpose, deep in
+study of motive and passion.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">THE WOMAN ERRANT</span><br />Being Some Chapters from the Wonder Book of Barbara</p>
+<p class="center">By the author of "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," etc.</p>
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">With Illustrations by Will Gref&eacute;</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>"This clear-visioned writer, calmly surveying life from the wholesome
+vantage ground of a modest, contented suburban home, is not merely
+entertaining each year a growing number of appreciative readers, but she
+is inculcating in her own incisive way much of that same wise and simple
+philosophy of life that forms the enduring charm of the essays of
+Charles Wagner."&mdash;<i>New York Globe.</i></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="big">RECENT FICTION</span></p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="10" summary="book details">
+<tr><td>Cloth</td> <td>12mo</td> <td>$1.50 each</td></tr></table>
+
+<p class="quote">BARNES&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Unpardonable War.</span> By <span class="smcap">James Barnes</span>, author of "Yankee
+Ships and Yankee Sailors," "Drake and his Yeomen," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">A queer turn in the political game; a clever scheme in Newspaper Row; a
+    perfectly plausible invention; these are a few of the elements of
+interest in this absorbing story.</p>
+
+<p class="quote">DAVIS&mdash;<span class="smcap">Falaise of the Blessed Voice</span>: A Tale of the Youth of St.
+Louis, King of France. By <span class="smcap">William Stearns Davis</span>, author of "A Friend of
+C&aelig;sar," "God Wills It," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">A quick-moving, interesting tale of the development of the young King
+Louis IX of France under the stress of a great crisis.</p>
+
+<p class="quote">DEEPING&mdash;<span class="smcap">Love among the Ruins</span>. By <span class="smcap">Warwick Deeping</span>, author of "Uther
+and Igraine." With illustrations by W. Benda.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"A vigorous story ... told in the spirit of pure romance."</p>
+
+<p class="right"> &mdash;<i>New York Evening Post.</i><br /> </p>
+
+<p class="quote">HOUSMAN&mdash;<span class="smcap">Sabrina Warham</span>: The Story of Her Youth. By <span class="smcap">Laurence
+Housman</span>, author of "Gods and Their Makers," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">A fascinating study of a woman's youth in one of the coast counties of
+England, a carefully drawn picture of ever interesting human types.</p>
+
+<p class="quote">LOVETT&mdash;<span class="smcap">Richard Gresham.</span> By <span class="smcap">Robert Morss Lovett</span>.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"Goes forward determinedly from a singular opening to an unsuspected
+close, without faltering or wavering ... a very honest piece of
+workmanship."</p>
+
+<p class="right"> &mdash;<i>New York Evening Post.</i><br /></p>
+
+
+<p class="quote">LUTHER&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Mastery</span>. By <span class="smcap">Mark Lee Luther</span>, author of "The Henchman,"
+"The Favor of Princes," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">A vigorous and convincing story of modern practical politics, so notably
+strong in its sense of reality as to give the reader the thrill of a
+privileged glimpse into the mysteries of the one great game.</p>
+
+<p class="quote">OVERTON&mdash;<span class="smcap">Captains of the World</span>. By <span class="smcap">Gwendolen Overton</span>, author of
+"Anne Carmel," "The Heritage of Unrest," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">An unusually fascinating book ... has the double attractive power of
+earnestness and a subject which compels sympathetic attention.</p>
+
+<p class="quote">POTTER&mdash;<span class="smcap">The Flame Gatherers</span>. By <span class="smcap">Margaret Horton Potter</span>, author of
+"Istar of Babylon," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"A wonderful romance of intensity and color."&mdash;<i>Book News.</i></p>
+
+<p class="quote">SINCLAIR&mdash;<span class="smcap">Manassas.</span> By <span class="smcap">Upton Sinclair</span>, author of "Springtime and
+Harvest," etc.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">"In no single volume which we can call to mind have the undercurrents of
+feeling, so intense and so varied, that swayed men's minds in those
+troublous times, been so fully and well portrayed."&mdash;<i>The Times
+Dispatch</i> (Richmond).</p>
+
+<p class="quote">WEBSTER&mdash;<span class="smcap">Traitor and Loyalist</span>: Or, The Man who Found his Country.
+By <span class="smcap">Henry Kitchell Webster</span>, author of "Roger Drake: Captain of Industry,"
+"The Banker and the Bear," etc. With illustrations by Joseph Cummings
+Chase.</p>
+
+<p class="blockquot">Mr. Webster's new romance is one in which love and war contribute a full
+quota of interest, intrigue, thrilling suspense, and hairbreadth escapes.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</p>
+
+<p class="center">64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York</p></div>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><strong>Transcriber's Notes:</strong></p>
+
+<p>The original text contains some arcane and inconsistent spelling and dialect. These have been preserved as far as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Only obvious typographical errors such as letters being transposed havebeen corrected and hyphenation has been made consistent.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM CENTRE ***
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Storm Centre
+
+Author: Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+Release Date: February 27, 2011 [EBook #35423]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM CENTRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Val Wooff and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE STORM CENTRE
+  _A NOVEL_
+
+
+  BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
+
+
+  AUTHOR OF "THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON," "A
+  SPECTRE OF POWER," "IN THE STRANGER-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 MACMILLAN 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 the
+quiet, book-lined room, the turbulent drums fitfully beating in tented
+camps far down the Tennessee River. Through the broad, old-fashioned
+window he saw the purple hills opposite begin to glow with a myriad of
+golden gleams, pulsing like fireflies, that told of thousands of troops
+in bivouac. He read the mystic message of the signal lights, shining
+with 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-begloomed
+town, and now and again the great blare of the brasses came widely
+surging on the raw vernal gusts. In the shadowy grove in front of this
+suburban home his own battery of horse-artillery was parked. It had
+earlier made its way over many an obstacle, and, oddly enough, through
+its agency he was recently enabled to penetrate the exclusive reserve
+of this Southern household, always hitherto coldly aloof and averse 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 during
+the trial practice of a new gun, lest in the firing the glass be
+shattered by the concussion of the air. His name was unusual, and seeing
+it on the card recalled many pleasant reminiscences to the mind of old
+Judge Roscoe. Another "Fluellen Baynell" had been his college chum, and
+inquiry developed the fact that this Federal captain of artillery was
+the son of this ancient friend. An interchange of calls ensued. And here
+sat Captain Baynell in the storm centre, the quiet of evening closing
+in, the lamp on the table serenely aglow, the wood fire flashing on the
+high brass andirons and fender, the lion delineated on the velvet rug
+respectfully crouching beneath his feet. But in this suave environment
+he was beginning to feel somewhat embarrassed, for the old colored
+servant who had admitted him and replenished the fire, and whom he had
+politely greeted as "Uncle Ephraim," in deference to his age, now
+loitered, volubly criticising the unseen, unknown inmates of the house,
+who would probably overhear, for at any moment the big oak door might
+usher them into the room.
+
+His excuses for his master's delay to appear absorbed but little time,
+and he assiduously brushed the polished stone hearth with a turkey wing
+to justify his lingering in conversation with the guest. Unexpected
+business had called Judge Roscoe to the town, thus preventing him from
+being present upon the arrival of Captain Baynell, invited to partake of
+tea _en famille_.
+
+"But den, he 'lowed dat Miss Leonora--dat's Mrs. Gwynn, his niece, a
+widder 'oman--would be ready, but Marster mought hev' knowed dat Miss
+Leonora ain't never ready for nuffin till day arter ter-morrow! Den
+dere's de ladies--dey hes been dressin' fur ye fur better dan an hour.
+But shucks! de ladies is so vain dat dey is jus' ez liable ter keep on
+dressin' fur anodder hour yit!"
+
+This was indubitably flattering information; but Captain Baynell, a
+blond man of thirty, of a military stiffness in his brilliant uniform,
+and of a most uncompromising dignity, glanced with an uneasy monition at
+the door, a trifle ajar. He was sensible, notwithstanding, of an
+unusually genial glow of expectation. The rude society of camps was
+unacceptable to a man of his exacting temperament, and, the sentiment of
+the country being so adverse to the cause he represented, he had had
+scant opportunities here to enter social circles of the grade that would
+elsewhere have welcomed him. He had not adequately realized how he had
+missed these refinements and felt the deprivation of his isolation till
+the moment of meeting the ladies of Judge Roscoe's household was at
+hand. He had hardly expected, however, to create so great a flutter
+amongst them, and he was at once secretly elated and disdainful.
+
+Although a stranger to the ladies, the officer was well known to the old
+servant. The guns had hardly been unlimbered in the beautiful grove in
+front of the house ere the ancient slave had appeared in the camp to
+express his ebullient patriotism, to thank his liberators for his
+freedom,--for this was the result of the advance of the Federal army, a
+military measure and not as yet a legal enactment.
+
+Despite his exuberant rhetoric, there was something tenuous about his
+fervent protestations, and the fact that he still adhered to his
+master's service suggested a devotion to the old regime incongruous with
+his loudly proclaimed welcome of the new day.
+
+"Why don't you leave your servitude, then, Uncle Ephraim?" one of the
+younger officers had tentatively asked him.
+
+"Dat is jes' whut I say!" diplomatically replied Uncle Ephraim, who thus
+came to be called "the double-faced Janus."
+
+Now indeed, instead of a vaunt of liberty, he was disposed to apologize,
+for the sake of the credit of the house, that there were no more slaves
+to make a braver show in servitude.
+
+"Dey ain't got no butler now,--he's in a restauroar up north,--nor no
+car'age driver; dat fool nigger went off wid de Union army, an' got
+killed in a scrimmage. He would hev' stayed wid Marster, dough, if de
+Fed'ral folks hedn't tuk de hosses off wid de cavalry; he 'lowed he wuz
+too lonesome yere, wid jes' nuffin' but two-footed cattle ter 'sociate
+wid."
+
+Once more he whisked the turkey wing along the clean, smooth hearth;
+then, still on his knees before the fire, he again addressed himself to
+the explanations he deemed fit as to the reduced status of his master's
+household.
+
+"Me an' my wife is all de servants dey got now--she's Chaney, de cook in
+de kitchen. Dey hatter scuse me, fur I never waited in de house afore.
+No, sah! jes' a wuckin' hand; jes' a cawnfield hand, out'n de cawnfield
+straight!"
+
+Whisk went the turkey wing.
+
+"Dat's whut I tell Miss Leonora,--dat's Mrs. Gwynn, de widder 'oman,
+Marster's niece whut's been takin' keer ob de house yere sence his wife
+died,--I say I dunno no better when I break de dishes, an' Miss Leonora,
+she say a b'ar outer a holler tree would know better. Yah! yah!"
+
+The officer, feeling these domestic confidences a burden, began to
+scrutinize with an appearance of interest the Dresden china shepherd and
+shepherdess at either end of the tall white wooden mantelpiece, and then
+the clock of the same ware in the centre.
+
+Old Janus mistook the nature of his motive. "'Tis gittin' late fur
+shore! Gawd! dem ladies is a-dressin' an' a-dressin' yit! It's a pity
+Miss Leonora--dat's de widder 'oman--don't fix _herself_ up some; looks
+ole, fur true, similar to a ole gran'mammy of a 'oman. But, sah, whut
+did she ever marry dat man fur?"
+
+Captain Baynell, in the stress of an unusual embarrassment, rose and
+walked to one of the tall book-cases, affecting to examine the title of
+a long row of books, but the old servant was not sensitive; he resorted
+to the simple expedient of raising his voice to follow the guest in a
+detail that brought Captain Baynell back to his chair in unseemly haste,
+where a lower tone was practicable.
+
+"She could hev' married my Marster's son, Julius, an' him de flower ob
+de flock! But no! She jus' would marry dis yere Gwynn feller, whut
+nobody wanted her ter marry, an' eloped wid him--she did! An' shore
+'nuff, dey do say he pulled her round de house by de hair ob her head,
+dough some 'lows he jus' bruk a chair ober her head!"
+
+The officer was a brave man, but now he was in the extremity of panic.
+What if some one were at the door on the point of entering?--the "widder
+'oman" herself, for instance!
+
+"I don't need you any longer, Uncle Ephraim," he ventured to
+remonstrate.
+
+"I'm gwine, Cap'n, jus' as soon as I git through wid de ha'th," and
+Uncle Ephraim gave it a perfunctory whisk.
+
+He interpolated an explanation of his diligence. "I don't want Miss
+Leonora--dat's de widder 'oman--ter be remarkin' on it. Nobody kin do
+nuthin' ter suit her but Chaney, dis cook dey got, who belong ter Miss
+Leonora, an' befo' de War used ter be her waitin'-'oman. Chaney is all
+de estate Miss Leonora hes got lef,--an' ye know dat sort o' property
+ain't wurf much in dis happy day o' freedom. Miss Leonora wuz rich once
+in her own right. But she flung her marriage-settlements--dat dey had
+fixed to tie up her property so Gwynn couldn't sell it nor waste
+it--right inter de fiah! She declared she would marry a man whut she
+could trust wid her fortune! An'," the narrator concluded his story
+impressively, "when dat man died--his horse throwed him an' bruk his
+neck--I wondered dey didn't beat de drum fur joy, 'twuz sich a crownin'
+mercy! But he hed spent all her fortune 'fore he went!"
+
+The whisking wing was still; Uncle Ephraim's eyes dwelt on the fire with
+a glow of deep speculation. He lowered his voice mysteriously.
+
+"Dat man wuz de poorest stuff ter make an angel out'n ever you see! I
+dunno _whut's_ become of him."
+
+There was a stir outside, a footfall; and, as Captain Baynell sprang to
+his feet, feeling curiously guilty in receiving, however unwillingly,
+these revelations of the history of the family, Judge Roscoe entered,
+his welcome the more cordial and expressed because he noticed a certain
+constraint in his guest's manner, which he ascribed to the unintentional
+breach of decorum in the failure to properly receive him.
+
+"I had hoped my niece, Mrs. Gwynn, might have been here to save you a
+dull half hour, or perhaps my granddaughters--where are the ladies and
+Mrs. Gwynn, Ephraim?" he broke off to ask of "the double-faced Janus,"
+scuttling out with his basket of chips and his turkey wing.
+
+"De ladies is dressin' ter see de company," replied Janus, with a grin
+wide enough to decorate both his faces. "Miss Leonora, she is helpin'
+'em!"
+
+Captain Baynell experienced renewed embarrassment, but Judge Roscoe
+laughed with obvious relish.
+
+The host, pale, thin, nervous, old, was of a type ill calculated to
+endure the stress of excitement and turmoil of incident of the Civil
+War; indeed, he might have succumbed utterly in the mortality of the
+aged, so general at that period, but for the incongruous rest and
+inaction of the storm centre. The town was heavily garrisoned by the
+Federal forces; the firing line was far afield. He had two sons in the
+Confederate army, but too distant for news, for speculation, for aught
+but anxiety and prayer. The elder of them was a widower, the father of
+"the ladies," and hence in his absence Judge Roscoe's charge of his
+granddaughters.
+
+The phrase "the ladies and Mrs. Gwynn" grated on Captain Baynell. It
+seemed incongruous with the punctilious old Southern gentleman to make a
+discourteous distinction thus between his granddaughters and his niece.
+Baynell dated his sympathy with her from that moment. However old and
+faded and reduced the house-keeperish "widder 'oman" might be, it was an
+affront to thus segregate her. He felt an antagonism toward "the ladies"
+in their exclusive aristocratic designation even before he heard the
+first dainty touch of their slippered feet upon the great stairway, or a
+gush of fairylike treble laughter. As a silken rustle along the hall
+heralded their bedizened approach, he arose ceremoniously to greet them.
+
+The door flew open with a wide swing; his eyes rested on nothing beyond,
+for he was looking two feet over range. There rushed into the room three
+little girls, six and eight years of age, all hanging back for a moment
+till their grandfather's encouraging "Come, ladies!" nerved them for the
+introduction of Captain Baynell. Although sensible of a deep
+disappointment and a sudden cessation of interest in the storm centre,
+he could hardly refrain from laughing at the downfall of his own
+confident expectations.
+
+Yet "the ladies," in their way, were well worth looking at, and their
+diligent care of their toilette had not been in vain. The two younger
+ones were twins, very rosy, with golden hair, delicately curled and
+perfumed. The other was far more beautiful than either. Her hair was of
+a chestnut hue; her dark blue eyes were eloquent with meaning--"speaking
+eyes." She had an exquisitely fair complexion and an entrancing smile,
+and amidst the twittering words and fluttering laughter of the others
+she was silent; it was a sinister, weighty, significant silence.
+
+"A deaf mute," her grandfather explained with a note of pathos and pain.
+
+Captain Baynell's acceptance of the fact had the requisite touch of
+sympathy and interest, but no more. How could he imagine that the
+child's infirmity could ever concern him, could be a factor of import in
+the most notable crisis of his life!
+
+Indeed, he might have forgotten it within the hour had naught else
+riveted his attention to the house. He had begun to look forward to a
+dull evening,--the reaction from the expectation of charming feminine
+society of a congenial age. "The ladies" failed in that particular,
+lovely though they were in the quaint costumes of the day, the
+golden-haired twins respectively in faint blue and dark red "satin
+faced" merino, the brown-haired child in rich orange. Over their bodices
+all three wore sheer spencers of embroidered Swiss muslin, with
+embroidered ruffles below the waist line. This was encircled with
+silken sashes, the tint of their gowns. The skirts were short, showing
+long, white, clocked stockings and red morocco slippers with elastic
+crossing the instep. The trio were swift in making advances into
+friendship, and soon were swarming about the officer, counting his
+shining buttons with great particularity, and squealing with greedy
+delight when an unexpected row was discovered on the seam of each of his
+sleeves.
+
+As the door again opened, the very aspect of the room altered--a new
+presence pervaded the life of Fluellen Baynell that made the idea of
+strife indeed alien, aloof; the past a forgotten trifle; the future
+remote, in indifferent abeyance, and the momentous present the chief
+experience of his existence. It was partially the effect of surprise,
+although other elements exerted a potent influence.
+
+Instead of the forlorn, faded "widder 'oman" of his fancy, there
+appeared a girlish shape, whose young, fair face was a magnet to all the
+romance within him. What mattered it with such beauty that the
+expression was a dreary lassitude, the pose indifference, the garb a
+shabby black dress worn with no touch of distinction, no thought, no
+care for appearances. As he rose, with "the ladies" affectionately
+clinging about him, and bowed low in the moment of introduction, his
+searching eyes discerned every minute detail. It was like a sun picture
+upon his consciousness, realized and fixed in his mind as if he had
+known it forever. And with a sudden ignoble recollection his face
+flushed from his forehead to his high military collar. Was it her hair,
+the old gossip had said, or was it a chair?
+
+It was impossible to look at her without noticing her hair. A rich,
+golden brown, it waved back from her white brow in heavy undulations,
+caught and coiled in a great glittering knot at the back of her head,
+with no ornament, simplicity itself. Certainly, he reflected, no
+preparations were in progress in this quarter for his captivation. One
+of the ready-made crape collars of the period was about her neck, the
+delicate, fine contour of her throat displayed by the cut of her dress.
+Her luminous gray eyes, with their long black lashes, cast upon him a
+mere glance, cool, casual, unfriendly, it might even seem, if it were
+worth her languid while.
+
+He sought to win her to some demonstration of interest when they were
+presently at table, with old Janus skirmishing about the dining room
+with a silver salver, hindering the meal rather than serving it. Only
+conventional courtesy characterized her, although she gave Baynell a
+radiant smile when offering a second cup of tea; an official smile, so
+to speak, strictly appertaining to her pose as hostess, as she sat
+behind the massive silver tea service that had been in the Roscoe family
+for many years.
+
+She left the conversation almost wholly to the gentlemen when they had
+returned to the library. Quiescent, inexpressive, she leaned back in a
+great arm-chair, her beautiful eyes fixed reflectively on the fire. The
+three "ladies," on a small sofa, apparently listened too, the little
+dumb girl seeming the most attentive of the trio, to the half-hearted,
+guarded, diplomatic discussion of politics, such as was possible in
+polite society to men of opposing factions in those heady, bitter days.
+Only once, when Baynell was detailing the names of his brothers to
+gratify Judge Roscoe's interest in the family of his ancient friend, did
+Mrs. Gwynn suggest her individuality. She suddenly rose.
+
+"You would like to see the portraits of Judge Roscoe's sons," she said
+as definitely as if he had asked this privilege. It may not have been
+the fact, but Baynell felt that she was making amends to the absent for
+the apostasy of "entertaining a Yankee officer," as the phrase went in
+that day, by exhibiting with pride their cherished images and forcing
+him to perform polite homage before them.
+
+He meekly followed, however, as she took from a wide-mouthed jar on the
+table a handful of tapers, made of rolled paper, and, lighting one at
+the fire, led the way across the wide hall and into the cold, drear
+gloom of the drawing-rooms. There in the dim light from the hall
+chandelier, shining through the open door, she flitted from lamp to
+lamp, and instantly there was a chill, white glitter throughout the
+great apartments, showing the floriated velvet carpets, affected at that
+time, the carved rosewood furniture upholstered with satin damask of
+green and gold, the lambrequins of a harmonizing brocade and lace
+curtains at the windows, the grand piano, and marble-topped tables, and
+on the walls a great inexpressive mirror, above each of the white marble
+mantelpieces, and some large oil paintings, chiefly the portraits of the
+family.
+
+The three "ladies" gathered under the picture of their father with the
+fervor of pilgrims at a votive shrine. Clarence Roscoe's portrait seemed
+to gaze down at them smilingly. He it was who had given his little
+daughters their quaint, formal sobriquet of "the ladies," the phrase
+seriously accepted by others, until no longer recognized as a nickname.
+Suddenly the deaf mute rushed back to officiously claim the officer's
+attention. Her brilliant eyes were aglow; the fascination of her smile
+transfigured her face; she was now gazing at another portrait. This was
+of a very young man, extraordinarily handsome, in full Confederate
+uniform, and, carrying her hand to her forehead with the most spirited
+air imaginable, she gave the military salute.
+
+"That is her sign for Julius," cried Mrs. Gwynn, delightedly. "We have
+seen many armies with banners, but Julius is her ideal of a soldier, and
+the only one in all the world whom she distinguishes by the military
+salute."
+
+"My younger son," explained Judge Roscoe; while "the ladies" with their
+quick transitions from subject to subject were sidling about the rooms,
+sinking their feet as deep as possible into the soft pile of the velvet
+carpets, and feeling with their slim fingers the rich gloss of the satin
+damask coverings, complacent in the consciousness that it was all very
+fine and revelling in a sense of luxury. Poor little ladies!
+
+But Mrs. Gwynn with a word presently sent them scuttling back to the
+warmth of the library. As she began to extinguish the lamps Baynell
+offered to assist. She accepted civilly, of course, but with the
+unnoting, casual acquiescence that had begun to pique him, and as they
+closed the door upon the shadowy deserted apartments he thought they
+were of a grewsome favor, that the evening was of an untoward drift, and
+he lingered only for the conventional interval after returning to the
+library before he took his leave.
+
+As the door closed after him he noted that the stars were in the dark
+sky. The wind was laid. The lights in the many camps had all
+disappeared, for "taps" had sounded. Now and again in close succession
+he heard the clocks in divers towers in Roanoke City striking the hour.
+There was no token of military occupation in all the land, save that
+from far away on a turnpike toward the dark west came the dull
+continuous roll of wagon wheels as an endless forage train made its way
+into the town; and as he passed out of the portico, a sentry posted on
+the gravelled drive in front of the house challenged him. He had ordered
+a guard to be stationed there for its protection against wandering
+marauders, so remote was the place. He gave the countersign, and took
+his way down through the great oak and tulip trees of the grove that his
+authority had also been exerted to preserve. His father's old friend had
+this claim upon his courtesy, he felt, for century oaks cannot be
+replaced in a fortnight, and without them the home would indeed be
+bereft.
+
+Thinking still of the placid storm centre, Leonora Gwynn's face was
+continually in his mind; the tones of her voice echoed in his revery.
+And then suddenly he heard his step ringing on the frosty ground with a
+new spirit; he felt his finger tips tingle; his face glowed with rancor.
+The man was dead, and this indeed was well! But--profane thought! was it
+her hair? her beautiful hair? "The coward! the despicable villain!" he
+called aloud between his set teeth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The next day naught of interest would Baynell detail of his venture into
+the storm centre. His invitation to the house of Judge Roscoe, somewhat
+noted for the vigor of his rebellious sentiments, resentful, implacable,
+even heady in the assumptions of his age, had roused the curiosity of
+Baynell's two most intimate friends concerning the traits of that
+secluded inner exclusive circle which only the accident of ancient
+association had enabled him to penetrate. In the tedium of camp routine
+even slight matters were of interest, and it was the habit of the three
+to compare notes and relate for mutual entertainment their varied
+experiences since last they had met.
+
+The battery of six pieces which Baynell commanded enjoyed a certain
+renown as a crack corps, and spectators were gathering to witness the
+gun-drill,--a number of soldiers from the adjoining cavalry and infantry
+camps, a few of the railroad hands from the repair work on a neighboring
+track, and a contingent of freedmen, jubilantly idle. Standing a little
+apart from these was a group, chiefly mounted, consisting of several
+officers of the different arms of the service, military experts,
+critically observant, among whom was Colonel Vertnor Ashley, who
+commanded a volunteer regiment of horse, and a younger man, Lieutenant
+Seymour of the infantry.
+
+It was a fine fresh morning, with white clouds scudding across a densely
+blue sky chased by the wind, the grass springing into richer verdure,
+the buds bourgeoning, with almost the effect of leaflets already, in the
+great oak and tulip trees of the grove. Daffodils were blooming here and
+there, scattered throughout the sward,--even beneath the carriages of
+the guns a score perhaps, untrampled still, reared aloft the golden
+"candlesticks" with an illuminating effect. The warm sun was flashing
+with an embellishing glitter on the rows of the white tents of the army
+on the hills around the little city as far as the eye could reach. The
+deep, broad river, here and there dazzling with lustrous stretches of
+ripples, was full of craft,--coal-barges, skiffs, gunboats, the ordinary
+steam-packets, flatboats, and rafts; the peculiar dull roar of a railway
+train heavily laden, transporting troops, came to the ear as the engine,
+shrieking like a monster, rushed upon the bridge with its great
+consignment of crowded humanity in the long line of box cars, an
+additional locomotive assisting the speed of the transit.
+
+"Come here, Ashley, and see if you can make anything of Baynell," said
+the infantry lieutenant, whose regiment lay in camp a little to the
+west, as the colonel reined in his horse under the tree where Seymour
+was hanging on to Baynell's stirrup-leather. "He hasn't a syllable to
+say. I want to know what is the name of that pretty girl at Judge
+Roscoe's."
+
+Ashley came riding up with his inimitable pompous swagger, half the
+result of jocose bravado, half of genuine and justifiable vanity. It
+went very well with the suggestions of his high cavalry boots, his
+clanking sword, and his jingling spurs. His somewhat broad ruddy face
+had the merit of a sidelong glance of great archness, delivered from a
+pair of vivacious hazel eyes, and he twirled his handsome, long, dark
+mustache with the air of a conqueror at the very mention of a pretty
+girl.
+
+"I can tell you more about Judge Roscoe's family than Fluellen Baynell
+ever will," Ashley declared gayly. "So ask _me_ what you want to know,
+Mark, and don't intrude on Nellie's finical delicacy."
+
+Throughout the campaign Colonel Ashley's squadrons had cooperated with
+Baynell's artillery. The officers had come to know and respect each
+other well in the stress of danger and mutual dependence. It may be
+doubted whether any other man alive could with impunity have called
+Fluellen Baynell "Nellie."
+
+Baynell was in full uniform, splendidly mounted, awaiting the hour
+appointed, and now and again casting his eye on the camp "street" at
+some distance, the stable precincts all a turmoil of hurrying drivers
+and artillerymen harnessing horses and adjusting accoutrements, while a
+continuous hum of voices, jangling of metal, and tramping of steeds came
+on the air. He withdrew his attention with an effort.
+
+"Why, what do you want me to tell?" he demanded sarcastically;--"what
+they had for supper?"
+
+"No--no--but just be neighborly. For sheer curiosity I want to know his
+daughter's name," persisted the lieutenant of infantry.
+
+"Judge Roscoe has no daughter," replied Baynell.
+
+"His granddaughter, then."
+
+"His granddaughters are children--I have forgotten their names."
+
+"Well, _who_ is that young lady there?--a beauty of beauties. I caught a
+glimpse of her at the window the day we pitched our camp in the peach
+orchard over there."
+
+"She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen," solemnly declared
+Ashley, who had artistic proclivities. "I never saw a face like
+that--such chiselling, so perfect--unless it were some fine antique
+cameo. It has the contour, the lines, the dignity, of a Diana! And her
+hair is really exquisite! Who is she, Fluellen?"
+
+Baynell was conscious of the constraint very perceptible in his voice as
+he replied, "She is Judge Roscoe's niece, Mrs. Gwynn."
+
+Ashley stared. "_Mrs.!_ Why, she doesn't look twenty years old!" Then,
+with sudden illumination, "Why--that must be the '_widder 'oman!_'" with
+an unctuous imitation of old Ephraim's elocution. "I _am_ surprised.
+Mrs. Gwynn! 'De widder 'oman!'" He broke off to laugh at a sudden
+recollection.
+
+"I wish you could have heard old Janus's account of his effort to clean
+the knives to suit her. She seems to be in command of the commissariat
+up there. The old darkey came into camp, searching for the methods of
+polishing metals that the soldiers use for their accoutrements.
+'Brilliancy without labor,' was Uncle Ephraim's desideratum. I gave him
+some rotten-stone. His sketch of how the judgment day would overtake him
+still polishing knives for the 'widder 'oman' was worth hearing."
+
+Baynell would not have so considered it--thus far apart were the friends
+in prejudice and temperament. Yet there was no derogation in the simple
+gossip. To the campaigners the Roscoe household was but the temporary
+incident of the mental landscape, and the confidential bit of criticism
+and comment served only to make conversation and pass the time.
+
+All of Vertnor Ashley's traits were on a broad scale, genial and open.
+He had the best opinion imaginable of himself, and somehow the world
+shared it--so ingratiating was his joviality. His very defects were
+obviated and went for naught. Although, being only of middle height,
+his tendency to portliness threatened the grace of his proportions, he
+was esteemed a fine figure and a handsome man. He made a brave show in
+the saddle, and was a magnificent presentment of a horseman. He was a
+poor drill; his discipline was lax, for he dearly loved popularity and
+fostered this incense to his vanity. He was adored in his regiment, and
+he never put foot in stirrup to ride in or out of camp that even this
+casual appearance was not cheered to the echo. "That must be Vert
+Ashley, or a rabbit!" was a usual speculation upon the sound of sudden
+shouting, for the opportunity to chase a rabbit was a precious break in
+the monotony of the life of the rank and file.
+
+Baynell's coming and going, on the contrary, was greeted with no
+demonstration. He was a rigid disciplinarian. He exacted every capacity
+for work that the men possessed, and his battery was one of the most
+efficient of the horse artillery in the service. But when it came to the
+test of battle, the cannoneers could not shout loud and long enough.
+They were sure of fine execution and yet of careful avoidance of the
+reckless sacrifice of their lives and the capture of their guns, often
+returning, indeed, from action, covered with glory, having lost not one
+man, not so much as a sponge-staff. So fine an officer could well
+dispense with the arts that fostered popularity and ministered to
+vanity. Thus the slightest peccadillo made the offender and the wooden
+horse acquaint.
+
+None of Baynell's qualities were of the jovial order. He was a martinet,
+a technical expert in the science of gunnery, a stern and martial leader
+of men. His mind was an orderly assimilation of valuable information,
+his consciousness a repelling exclusive assortment of sensitive fibres.
+He had a high and exacting moral sense, and his pride of many various
+kinds passed all bounds. He listened with aghast dismay to the story of
+Mrs. Gwynn's unhappy married life that Ashley rehearsed,--the ordinary
+gossip of the day, to be heard everywhere,--and then a discussion took
+place as to whether or not the horse that killed her husband were the
+vicious charger now ridden by the colonel of a certain regiment.
+
+"It couldn't be," said Ashley, "that happened nearly a year ago."
+
+This talk hung on for a long time, as it seemed to Baynell. Yet he did
+not welcome its conclusion, for a greater source of irritation was to
+come.
+
+"But now that you have a footing there, Fluellen, I want you to
+introduce me," said Colonel Ashley, who was a person of consideration in
+high and select circles at home, and spoke easily from the
+vantage-ground of an acknowledged social position. "I should be glad to
+meet Mrs. Gwynn. I never saw any one whose appearance so impressed me."
+
+"Take me with you when you two call," the lieutenant, all unprescient,
+interjected casually. The next moment he was flushing angrily, for,
+impossible as it seemed, Baynell was declining in set terms.
+
+"My footing there would not justify me in asking to introduce my
+friends," he said. "I should be afraid of a refusal."
+
+Ashley, too, cast a swift, indignant glance upon him. Then, "I'll risk
+it," he said easily; for ill-humor with him was "about face" so suddenly
+that it was hardly to be recognized.
+
+Baynell showed a stiff distaste for the persistence, but maintained his
+position.
+
+"Judge Roscoe made it plain that it was only for the sake of his
+friendship with my father that he offered any civility to me--no
+concession politically. My status as an officer of the 'Yankee army' is
+an offence and a stumbling-block to him."
+
+"Bless his fire-eating soul! I don't want to convert him from his
+treason. I desire only to call on the lady."
+
+"I myself could not call on Mrs. Gwynn," protested Baynell. "She hardly
+spoke a word to me."
+
+"It will be quite sufficient for her to listen to me," laughed Ashley.
+
+"She took only the most casual notice of my presence--barely to give me
+a cup of tea."
+
+"Now, Baynell," said the lieutenant, exceedingly wroth. "I want you to
+understand that I take this very ill of you."
+
+He was a tall, spare young fellow, with light, straight brown hair, a
+light-brown mustache, and a keen, excitable blue eye, which showed
+well-opened and alert from under the dark brim of his cap as he looked
+upward, still standing at the side of Baynell's restive horse. "I think
+it a very poor return for similar courtesy. I took _you_ with me to call
+on Miss Fisher--and--"
+
+"This is a very different case. I, personally, am not on terms with Mrs.
+Gwynn. Besides, she is very different from Miss Fisher, who entertains
+general society. Mrs. Gwynn is a widow--in deep mourning."
+
+"But it _is_ told in Gath that widows are not usually inconsolable,"
+suggested Ashley, with a brightening of his arch eyes, and still
+laughing it off.
+
+"I am much affronted, Captain Baynell," declared the irascible
+lieutenant. "I consider this personal. And I will get even with you for
+this!"
+
+"And I will get an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn without your kind
+offices," declared Ashley, with a jocular imitation of their young
+friend's indignant manner.
+
+"I shall be very happy if you can meet her in any appropriate way. It is
+not appropriate for me, cognizant of their ardent rebel sympathies and
+intense antagonism to the Union cause and antipathy to all its
+supporters, to ask to introduce my friends of the invading 'Yankee
+army,'" Baynell replied with stiff hauteur.
+
+Just then the bugle sang out, its mandatory, clear, golden tones lifting
+into the sunshine with such a full buoyant effect that it was like the
+very spirit of martial courage transmuted into sound. Baynell instantly
+put his horse into motion, and rode off through the brilliant air and
+the sparse shadows of the budding trees. His blond hair and mustache,
+gilded by the sunlight, had as decorative an effect as his gold lace;
+his blue eyes glittered with a stern, vigilant light; his face was
+flushed, something unusual, for he was wont to be pale, and his erect,
+imposing, soldierly figure sat his spirited young charger with the
+firmness of a centaur. The eyes of all the group followed him, several
+commenting on his handsome appearance, his fine bearing, his splendid
+horse, and his great value as an officer.
+
+"He is an admirable fellow," declared Dr. Grindley, a surgeon on his way
+to the hospital hard by. He had paused at a little distance, and had not
+heard the conversation.
+
+"If he were not such a prig," Ashley assented dubiously. "Such an
+uncompromising stickler on trifles! Any other man in the world would
+have slurred the matter over, and never kept the promise of the
+introduction. If inconvenient or undesirable, he might have postponed
+the call indefinitely."
+
+"He is a most confounded prig," said Lieutenant Seymour, in great
+irritation.
+
+"Baynell must have everything out--to the bitter end," said Ashley.
+
+"I'd like to break his head! I'd like to break his face--with my fist,"
+exclaimed the lieutenant, petulantly, clenching his hand again and
+again. He detailed the tenor of the conversation to the surgeon as the
+group watched the manoeuvring battery. "Isn't that a dog-in-the-manger-ish
+trick, Dr. Grindley? He wants to keep his Roscoes to himself. Mrs. Gwynn
+won't speak to him, and so he wants nobody else to go there whom she
+_might_ speak to!"
+
+Baynell, still uncomfortably conscious of the rancor he had roused, had
+taken his position in the centre, just the regulation twelve paces in
+front of the leading horses, with the music four paces distant from the
+right of the first gun. As the sound blared out gayly on the crisp,
+clear, vernal breeze, the glittering ranks, every soldier mounted on a
+strong, fresh steed, moved forward swiftly, with the gun-carriages and
+caissons each drawn by a team of six horses. The air was full of the
+tramp of hoofs and the clangor of heavy, revolving wheels, ever and anon
+punctuated by the sharp monition, "Obstacle!" as one of the giant oaks
+of the grove intervened and the direction of the march of a piece was
+obliqued. The efficiency of the battery was very evident. The drill was
+almost perfect, despite the difficulty of manoeuvring among the trees.
+But when the ranks passed from the grove they swept like a whirlwind
+over the open spaces of the adjoining pasture-lands, the whole battery
+swinging here and there in sharp turns, never losing the prescribed
+intervals of the relative distance of squads, and guns, and
+caissons--all like some single intricate piece of connected mechanism,
+impossible of disassociation in its several parts. Ever and anon the
+clear tenor tones of the captain rang out with a trumpet-like effect,
+and the refrain of the subalterns and non-commissioned officers
+commanding the sections followed in their various clamors, while the
+great whirling congeries of horses and men and wheels and guns obeyed
+the sound like some automatic creation of the ingenuity of man. Once the
+surgeon bent an attentive ear.
+
+"By sections--break from the right to march to left!" called the
+commander, with a sudden "catch" in the tones.
+
+"Caissons forward! Trot! March!" came from a different voice.
+
+"Section forward, guide left!" thundered a basso profundo.
+
+"March!" cried the captain, sharply.
+
+"March!" came the subaltern's echo.
+
+As the moving panorama turned and wheeled and shifted, the surgeon
+commented in a spirit of forecast:--
+
+"If that fellow doesn't pay some attention to his bronchial tubes, they
+will pay some attention to him, and that promptly."
+
+So promptly indeed was this prophecy verified that within the next few
+days old Ephraim, who purveyed all the news of the period to the remote
+secluded country house, informed Judge Roscoe that Captain Baynell was
+seriously ill with bronchitis and threatened with pneumonia. In order to
+have indoor protection and treatment he was to be removed as soon as
+possible to the hospital near the town. Judge Roscoe verified this rumor
+upon hastening to camp, and with hospitable warmth he invited the son of
+his old schoolmate to sojourn instead in his house; for in the college
+days to which he was fond of recurring he had been taken into the home
+of the elder Fluellen Baynell, and nursed by his friend's mother through
+a typhoid attack. To repay the obligation thus was peculiarly acceptable
+to a man of his type. But Baynell hardly heeded the detail of the
+hospitable precedent. He needed no persuasion, and thereafter he seemed
+more than ever lapsed in the serenities of the storm centre, ensconced
+in one of the great square upper bedrooms, with the spare furnishing of
+heavy mahogany that gave an idea of so much space, the order of the day
+when the plethora of decoration, the "cosy corner," the wall pocket, the
+"art drapery," the crowded knickknackery, did not obtain. For more than
+a week Baynell could not rise; the surgeon visited him at regular
+intervals, and Judge Roscoe appeared unfailingly each morning in the
+sick room; but the rest of the family remained invisible, and held
+unsympathetically aloof.
+
+This was a shrewd loss to Ashley, for although he had called at first
+with genuine anxiety as to his friend's state, the humors of the
+situation appealed to him as time wore on, and he recollected with the
+enhanced interest of enforced idleness his boast that he would compass
+an introduction to Mrs. Gwynn, despite Baynell's stiff refusal. Seymour
+still resented the circumstance so seriously that he had withheld all
+manifestations of sympathy or concern, and this, the kind Ashley
+considered, carried the matter much too far. He thought it might effect
+a general reconciliation if he should meet Mrs. Gwynn by accident, when
+he fancied he would not fear to introduce any one whom he considered fit
+for good society. Thus, after he had ceased to be apprehensive
+concerning Baynell's condition, he called on him again and again, but
+hearing never a light footfall on the stair or the flutter of flounces
+that might promise a realization of his quest. He was all unconscious
+that his project had an unwitting ally in Judge Roscoe himself. For more
+than once Judge Roscoe was uncomfortably visited by hospitable
+monitions.
+
+"I should have liked to ask Colonel Ashley to dine with us," he said
+tentatively to Mrs. Gwynn. "He was leaving the house just as the meal
+was being served. Old Ephraim--confound the old fellow--has no sort of
+tact. He brought in the soup to Captain Baynell with Colonel Ashley
+sitting by the bedside! It was indeed a hint to beat a retreat. I was--I
+was mortified. I was really mortified not to ask him to stay."
+
+"Heavens, Uncle Gerald!--what are you dreaming about? Ask people to
+dine, and no trained servant to wait on the table--and this china--and
+the ladies in their pinafores!" And Mrs. Gwynn glanced scoffingly around
+the domestic board, for the place had once been famous for the elegance
+of its entertainments; but the balls, the "wine suppers," the formal
+late dinners of many courses, had come to an end with the conclusion of
+the period of prosperity, and the perfectly trained service had vanished
+with the vanishing butler and his corps of assistants whom he himself
+had rigorously drilled in the school of the pantry, in strict accordance
+with old traditions.
+
+"Well, we have better china," said the judge, inexorably. "And the
+pinafores don't grow on the ladies; we have excellent precedent for
+believing they can be dispensed with."
+
+Mrs. Gwynn fixed him with a resolute eye. "I don't intend to have the
+ladies taken from their studies in the forenoon to dress for company and
+distract their minds with fascinating gentlemen. Besides it is too great
+a compliment to receive an absolute stranger informally, as one of
+ourselves,--as we treat Captain Baynell,--and it is almost impossible
+to entertain Colonel Ashley otherwise. You forget that we have no
+trained servants. And I am not going to trust the handling of my aunt's
+beautiful old Sevres dinner set to our inexperienced factotum--oh, the
+idea! It makes me shudder to think of the nicks and smashings. It ought
+to be kept intact for Julius's wife when he takes one, or for Clarence's
+if he should ever marry again. A stray Yankee officer isn't sufficient
+justification for risking it."
+
+"He has called so often, and has been so kind to Captain Baynell."
+
+"Well, so have I been kind to Captain Baynell, and here am I eating on
+the everyday china--no Sevres for me! And I am going to be kinder still,
+for he is allowed to have some dessert to-day, and I have spread this
+tray with mine own hands."
+
+She touched a call-bell, and, as old Janus appeared, "Take this tray
+upstairs to Captain Baynell," she said, as she transferred it, "be
+careful--don't tilt it so!" Then, as the old servant left the room, she
+resumed, addressing Judge Roscoe: "You can sentimentalize about your
+precious Captain Baynell, if you like, on the score of old friendship. I
+can appreciate the claims of old friendship, especially as he has been
+so ill, and possibly was better off here than at the hospital. But to go
+in generally for entertaining Yankee officers,--and all our near and
+dear out yonder in those cold wet trenches, half starved, and ragged,
+and wounded, and dying,--indeed, no! For my own part, I couldn't be
+induced to spread a board for another one, except at the point of the
+bayonet."
+
+"Colonel Ashley don't wear no bayonet," interposed Adelaide, glibly.
+
+"He's got him a sword," acceded Geraldine.
+
+"A long sword, clickety-clank," suggested the first "lady."
+
+"Clickety, clickety-clank," echoed the other, with brightening eyes.
+
+"Don't eat with your fingers--nor the spoon; take the fork." Mrs.
+Gwynn's admonitory aside was hardly an interruption.
+
+"That is a very narrow view, Leonora," the judge contended. "There can
+be no parity between the fervor of convictions on the issues of a great
+national question and merely human predilections as between individuals.
+Patriotism is not license for rancor. I have shown my devotion to the
+Southern cause. I have risked the lives of my dear, dear sons. I have
+expended much in its interests; I have endangered and lost my fortune.
+The future of all I hold dear is in jeopardy in many aspects. But I _do
+not_ feel bound for that reason to hate individually every
+fellow-creature who has opposite convictions, to which he has a right,
+and takes up arms to sustain them."
+
+"Well--_I do_! Being a woman, and having no reasoning capacities, there
+is no necessity for me to be logical on the subject. I feel what I
+feel, without qualification. And I know what I know without either legal
+proof or ocular demonstration. You are welcome to your intellect, Uncle
+Gerald! Much good may it do you! Intuition is enough for me. Meantime
+the Sevres is safe on the shelves."
+
+Beaten from the field as Judge Roscoe must needs be when his vaunted
+ratiocination was no available weapon, he held stanchly nevertheless to
+his own opinion, helpless though he was in the domestic administration.
+He adopted such measures as were practicable to comport with his own
+view. Flattered by Ashley's interest in Baynell and recognizant of the
+frequency of his visits, never dreaming that a glimpse of Mrs. Gwynn was
+their ultimate object, he took occasion to offer him such slight
+courtesies as opportunity presented.
+
+One day when they were descending the stairs Judge Roscoe chanced to
+comment on the fine bouquet of a certain choice old wine. He still
+hoarded a few costly bottles of an ancient importation, and with a
+sudden thought he insisted on pausing in the library to take a glass and
+finish a discussion happily begun by the invalid's bedside. The room was
+vacant, as the colonel's keen glance swiftly assured him, and the
+judge's order for wine was inaugurated through the bell-cord, which
+jangling summons old Ephraim answered somewhat procrastinatingly. The
+expression of surprise in the old darkey's eyes, even admonitory
+dissuasion, as he hearkened to the demand, very definitely nettled the
+judge and secretly amused Ashley, who divined the old servitor's doubts
+as to gaining the permission of "de widder 'oman." The host was more
+relieved than he cared to acknowledge to himself when the factotum
+presently reappeared, bearing a tray, with the old-fashioned
+red-and-white Bohemian wine-glasses and decanter which contained the
+rare vintage, and he felt with a sigh that he was still supreme in his
+own house, despite the sway of Mrs. Gwynn. He recognized the more
+gratefully, however, her influence in the perfection of the service and
+the solemnly careful, preternaturally watchful step of old Ephraim, as
+he bore about the delicate glass with all the effect of treading on
+eggs,--finally depositing it on the table and withdrawing at his
+habitual plunging gait.
+
+Although Ashley dawdled as he listened and sipped his wine languorously,
+no rustle of draperies rewarded his attentive ear, no graceful presence
+gladdened his expectant eye. And when at last he could linger no longer,
+he took up his hope even as he had laid it down, in the expectation of a
+luckier day.
+
+"Come again, my dear sir, whenever you can. I am always glad to see you,
+and your presence cheers Captain Baynell. His father was my dearest
+friend. I felt his death as if he had been a brother. I have grown
+greatly attached to his son, who closely resembles him. Anything you can
+do for Captain Baynell I appreciate as a personal favor. Come again!
+Come again soon!"
+
+Perhaps if Colonel Ashley had not been so bereft of the normal interests
+of life, in this interval of inactivity, his curiosity as to that
+fleeting glimpse of a beautiful woman might not have maintained its
+whetted edge. Perhaps constantly recurrent disappointment roused his
+persistence. He came again and yet again, and still he saw no member of
+the family save Judge Roscoe. Even the surgeon commented. "There is a
+considerable feminine garrison up there," he said one day; "I often hear
+mention of the ladies, but they never make a sally. I suspect the old
+judge is more of a fire-eater than he shows nowadays, for his womenfolks
+are evidently straight-out 'Secesh'!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Captain Baynell himself, throughout his illness, saw naught of the
+feminine inmates of the house, but the first day of convalescence that
+he was able to be out of his room and to descend the stairs, unsteadily
+enough and holding to the balustrade all the way, he was very civilly
+greeted by Mrs. Gwynn when he suddenly appeared at the library door.
+
+She glanced up with obvious surprise, then advanced with the light, airy
+elegance that was naturally appurtenant to her slight figure, and seemed
+no more a conscious pose or gait than the buoyancy of a bird or a
+butterfly. She shook hands with him, hoped he was better, congratulated
+him on the happy termination of so serious an illness, cautioned him
+against exposure to the chilly uncertain weather, drew a great arm-chair
+nearer to the fire, and as he seated himself she piled up some old
+numbers of _Blackwood's Magazine_ and the _Edinburgh Review_ on a little
+table close to his elbow.
+
+Her regard for his comfort--casual, even official, so to speak, though
+it was, the attentive, considerate expression of her beautiful eyes,
+the kindly tones of her dulcet, drawling voice--affected him like a
+benediction. He was still feeble, tremulous, and his heart throbbed with
+sudden surges of emotion. He was grateful, recognizant, flattered,
+although the provision for his mental entertainment bore also the
+interpretation that he need not trouble himself to talk.
+
+Therefore he affected to read, and she sat apparently oblivious of his
+presence, crocheting a fichu-like garment, called a "sontag" in those
+days, destined for a friend, evidently, not for her own sombre wear. The
+material was of an ultramarine blue zephyr, with a border of flecked
+black and white. She was making no great speed, for often the long,
+white bone needle fell from her listless grasp, and with her beautiful
+eyes on the fire, her face no longer a cold, impassive mask, but all
+unconscious, soft, wistful, sweet, showing her real identity, she would
+lose herself in revery till some interruption--Judge Roscoe's entrance,
+the "ladies" and their demands, old Ephraim seeking orders--would rouse
+her with a start as from a veritable dream.
+
+As the days went thus slowly by it soon came to pass that Baynell could
+not be silent. Her presence here flattered him, but he did not reflect
+that the library was the gathering-place of all the family; it held,
+too, the only fire, except his own, in the house, a fact which he,
+forgetful of the scarcity of fuel which the army had occasioned, did not
+appreciate. She could hardly withdraw, and, with her work in her hand,
+she could not ignore her uncle's guest.
+
+Sometimes he caught himself covertly studying her expression, marvelling
+at its complete absorption;--at the strange fact that so slight a token
+of such deep introspection showed on the surface. It was like some
+expanse of still, clear waters--one can only know that here are
+unmeasured fathoms, abysses of unexplored depths. Her meditation, her
+obvious brooding thought, seemed significant; yet sometimes he was prone
+to deem this merely the cast of her noble, reflective features, her
+expansive brow, the comprehensive intelligence of her limpid eyes,--all
+so beautiful, yet endowed with something far beyond mere beauty. Now and
+again he read aloud a passage which specially struck his attention, and
+occasionally her comments jarred on his preconceived opinion of her, or,
+rather, of what a woman so young, so favored, so graciously endowed,
+ought to feel and think. One day, particularly, he was much impressed by
+this. Some benignant philosopher, reaching out both hands to the happy
+time of the millennium, had given voice to the theory that man's
+inhumanity to man, particularly in the more cultured circles, was the
+result of scant mutual knowledge--if we but knew the sorrows of others,
+how hate would be metamorphosed to pity, the bruised reed unbroken! This
+sentiment mightily pleased Captain Baynell, and he read it aloud.
+
+It seemed potently to arrest her attention. She laid her work down on
+her knee and gazed steadily at him.
+
+"If we could know the secret heartache--the blighted aspiration--the
+denied longing--the bruised pride of others?"
+
+As he signified assent, she gazed steadily at him for a moment longer in
+silence. Then--
+
+"If we only knew!" she cried,--"Christian brethren,--what a laughing,
+jeering, gibing world we should be!"
+
+Once more she took her work in her hands, once more exclaimed, "If we
+only knew!" and paused to laugh aloud with a low icy tone. Then she
+inserted the dexterous needle into the fashioning of the "shell" and
+bent her reflective, smiling face over the swift serpentines of the
+"zephyr."
+
+Captain Baynell was shocked in some sort. This frank unconscious
+cynicism was out of keeping with so much grace and charm. He was hardly
+ready to argue the question. He was dismayed by a sense of futility. If
+she had thought this, it was enough to show her inmost nature. A
+substituted, cultivated conviction does not uproot the spontaneous
+productions of the mind. It is only foisted in their midst. He was
+silent in his turn, and presently fell to fluttering the leaves of his
+book and reading with slight interest and only a superficial appearance
+of absorption.
+
+If we only knew the sorrows of others! Mrs. Gwynn's satiric eyes glowed
+with the uncomfortable thought that hers at all events had been public
+enough. If openness be a claim for sympathy, she might well be entitled
+to receive balm of all her world. It seared every sensitive fibre within
+her to realize how much of her intimate inner life they all knew,--her
+friends, who masked this knowledge with a casual face, but talked over
+her foolish miseries among themselves with the mingled gusto of gossip,
+the superiority of contemptuous commiseration, and a rabid zest of
+speculation concerning such poor reserves as she had been able to
+maintain. Much of this drifted back to her knowledge through her old
+colored nurse, who since her childhood had remained her special
+attendant, though now officiating as cook to the Roscoe household, and
+by all respectfully called "Aunt Chaney." Her association with other
+cooks and ladies' maids enabled her to become well informed as to what
+was said and known in other households of these affairs. As Aunt Chaney
+detailed the gossip, she herself would burst into painful tears at the
+humiliating disclosures, exclaiming ever and anon, "Oh, de debbil was
+busy, shorely, de day dee married dat man!"
+
+But despite her burden of sympathetic woe, she would gather her powers
+to compass a debonair assurance toward observant outsiders and
+optimistically toss her head. "De man was good-looking to
+_de_straction," she would loftily asseverate, in defence of the
+situation, "and he didn't live long, nohow."
+
+Continuing, she would remind her hearers that she had been opposed to
+her young mistress's marriage, "But shucks! de pore chile saw how the
+other gals wuz runnin' arter Rufus Allerton Gwynn,--dat Fisher gal tried
+hard fur true, an' not married yit,--an' dat made Leonora Gwynn--Leonora
+Roscoe dat wuz--think mo' of his bein' so taken up with her! De
+hansomes' man in de whole country! He didn't live long!"
+
+This gallant outward show did not prevent the iron from entering the old
+nurse's soul especially as she detailed the gossip of Miss Fisher's
+maid, Leanna, who overheard the conversation of her mistress with two
+particular girl-cronies beside the midnight fire, pending the duty of
+brushing the long hair of the Fisher enchantress, which, being of a
+thrice-gilded red tint, required much care and gave her much trouble. It
+gave trouble elsewhere. Its flaring glories kept others awake besides
+poor Leanna, plying the brush nightly one "solid hour by the clock." For
+the fair Miss Mildred Fisher was a famous belle, and many hearts had
+been entangled in those glittering meshes.
+
+This trio had been Leonora Gwynn's intimate coterie, and she knew just
+how they looked as they sat half undressed in the chilly midnight before
+the dying fire in a great bedroom, in the home of one of the three,
+their tresses--Maude Eldon's dark, and Margaret Duncan's brown, and
+Mildred Fisher's red-gold, with Leanna's interested face leaning above
+their gilded shimmer--hanging down over dressing-sacques or nightgowns,
+while they actively gesticulated at each other with handglass or brush,
+and with spirit disputed whether it was a chair which Rufus Gwynn had
+broken over Leonora's head, or did he merely drag her around by the
+hair--"Think of that, my dear,--by her hair!"
+
+It was a poor consolation, but this neither they, nor any other, would
+ever know. With the reflection Leonora set her even little teeth
+together as she still dreamily gazed into the fire.
+
+Other more obvious facts she could not conceal. Her stringent, hopeless
+poverty would bring a piteous expression to Judge Roscoe's face as
+occasion required him to seek to gather together some humble remnants of
+the estate her husband had recklessly flung away, for he had dissipated
+her fortune as well as desolated her heart. She needed no reminder, and
+indeed no word passed Judge Roscoe's lips of the settlements that he had
+drawn when he discovered that, despite all remonstrances, his orphaned
+niece was bent upon this marriage. Though Rufus Gwynn protested that he
+would sign them, she had tossed them into the fire like a heroine of
+romance, grandiloquently declaring that she would not trust herself to a
+man to whom she could not trust her fortune.
+
+How pleased her lover had been! How gay, gallant, triumphant! Later he
+found his account in her folly and a more substantial value than
+flattered pride, for by reason of her marriage the financial control of
+her guardian was abrogated, and her thousands slipped through her
+husband's fingers like sand at the gaming-table, the wine-rooms, the
+race-track, as with his wild, riotous companions he went his swift way
+to destruction and death. And even this did not alienate her, for her
+early admiration and foolish adoration had a continuance that a devotion
+for a worthier object rarely attains, and she loved him long, despite
+financial reverses and wicked waste and cruelty and neglect. She could
+have forgiven him aught, all, but his own unworthiness. Who can gauge
+the sophistries, the extenuations, the hopes, that delude a woman who
+clings to an ideal of her own tender fashioning, the dream of a fond
+heart, and the sacrifice of a loving young life. He left her not one
+vain imagining that she might still hold dear amidst the wreck of her
+existence.
+
+The crisis came at the end of a quarrel,--one of his own making,--a
+quarrel about a horse that he wished to sell;--oh, the trifle--the
+trifle that had wrought such woe!
+
+As she thought of it anew, sitting before the fire, she laid the work
+upon her knee and unconsciously wrung her hands. The next moment she
+felt the eyes of the officer lifted toward her in a cursory glance. She
+affected to shift the rings on her fingers, then took up the
+crochet-needle and bent her head to the deft fashioning of shells.
+
+Now she could think unmolested, think of what she could never forget!
+Yet why should she canvass the details again and again, save that she
+must. The event marked an epoch of final significance in her life,--the
+moment that her dream fled and she awakened to the stern fact that she
+had ceased to love. And at first it was a trifle, a mere trifle, that
+had inaugurated this amazing change. Her husband wished to sell the
+horse, her horse, that Judge Roscoe had given her a week before. The
+gift had come, she knew, as an overture of reconciliation, as there had
+been much hard feeling between Judge Roscoe and his niece. For after her
+elopement and marriage he promptly applied to the chancery court seeking
+to protect her future by securing the settlement on her of certain funds
+of her estate, urging the fact of her minority and the spendthrift
+character of her husband. Leonora vehemently opposed the petition, and
+owing to the efforts of her counsel to gain time and the law's delays,
+she came of age before any decree could be granted, and then defeated
+the measure by making a full legal waiver of her rights in favor of her
+husband. But, at length, when pity overmastered Judge Roscoe's just
+anger, she welcomed a token of his renewed cordiality. She did not feel
+at liberty to sell the gift, she had remonstrated. It was not bestowed
+as a resource--to sell. She feared to wound her kinsman. What was the
+pressing necessity for money? Why not manage as if the horse had not
+been given her?
+
+The contention waxed high as she stood in habit and hat just in the
+vestibule with the horse outside hitched to the block, for Judge Roscoe
+was coming to ride with her. She held fast, for a wonder; she seldom
+could resist; but the horse was not theirs _to sell_. Rufus Gwynn
+suddenly turned at last, sprang up the stairs, three steps at a time,
+and as he came bounding down again she saw the glint of steel in his
+hand.
+
+Even now she shuddered.
+
+"It is growing colder," Captain Baynell said. (How observant that man
+seemed to be!) "Allow me to mend the fire."
+
+He stirred the hickory logs, and as the yellow flames shot up the
+chimney he sank back into his great chair, and she took up the thread of
+her work and her reminiscences together.
+
+She honestly thought her husband had intended to kill her. Somehow the
+veil dropped from her eyes, and she knew him for the fiend he was even
+before the dastardly act that revealed him unqualified.
+
+But it was not she on whom his spite was to fall. Such deeds bring
+retribution. Only the horse--the glossy, graceful, spirited animal,
+turning his lustrous confiding eyes toward the house as the door
+opened, whinnying a low joyous welcome, anticipative of the breezy
+gallop--received the bullet just below the ear.
+
+It was then and afterward like the distraught agony of a confused dream.
+She heard her own screams as if they had been uttered by another; she
+saw the great bulk of the horse lying in the road, struggling
+frightfully, futilely, whether with conscious pain or merely the last
+reserves of muscular energy she did not know; she noted the gathering
+crowd, dismayed, bewildered, angry; she knew that her husband had
+hastily galloped off, a trifle out of countenance because of certain
+threats of some brawny Irish railroad hands going home with their
+dinner-pails who had seen the whole occurrence. Then Judge Roscoe had
+ridden up at last to accompany her as of old, thinking how pretty and
+pleased she would be on the new horse,--for equestrianism was the vaunt
+of the girls of that day and she had been a famous horsewoman,--and
+feeling a great pity because of her privations, and her cruel folly, and
+her unworthy husband. When he saw what had just occurred, he said
+instantly, "You must come home with me, Leonora; you are not safe." And
+she had answered, "Take me with you--quick--quick! So that I may never
+see that coward again." Thus she had left her husband forever.
+
+"Shall I draw up the blind?" asked Captain Baynell, seeing her fumble
+for her zephyr.
+
+"No, thank you; there is still light sufficient, I think. The days are
+growing longer."
+
+Again, in the silence of the quiet room, the spell of her reminiscences
+resumed its sway. She recalled the promises that had not sufficed; no
+explanations extenuated the facts; no lures could avail; her resolution
+was taken and held firm. She laughed when, with full confidence in her
+unshaken love for him, her husband appealed to her by their mutual
+devotion. She was simply enlightened. But she resented the satisfaction
+that Judge Roscoe and his wife obviously felt in the separation, and the
+knowledge of the secret triumph of all her friends who had opposed the
+match. She was embittered, humiliated, broken-spirited, yet she
+maintained throughout a mask of placidity to the world, inquisitive,
+pitying, ridiculing, as she knew it to be. The separation passed as
+temporary. She was making a visit to her former home. This feint had the
+more countenance when a sudden need for her presence arose. Her aunt
+fell ill and died, and soon there came tidings of the death of Clarence
+Roscoe's wife while he was far away in the Confederate army. The three
+little girls were all alone.
+
+"Bring them here, Uncle Gerald. I will take charge of them," Leonora had
+said. "Perhaps I can feel less dependent then."
+
+And Judge Roscoe, who had borne his own losses like a philosopher, had
+tears in his eyes for her losses. "Oh, poor Leonora!" he had exclaimed.
+"Your very presence is a boon, my dear. But for _you_ to be so stricken
+and desolate and--"
+
+He was about to say "robbed," but the facts forbade him; for Gwynn's
+legal rights rendered her position as difficult as unenviable. In her
+own house she had contrived to hold her belongings together. Now, day by
+day, came tidings of the sale of her special personal effects--her
+carriage, her domestic animals, her furniture, the very pictures on the
+walls; then had followed a letter from her husband, regretting all his
+misdeeds and promising infinite rehabilitation if she would but forgive
+him. Naught could provoke a remonstrance, could stimulate Leonora to
+action, could induce a return.
+
+Judge Roscoe had said but little. He had the deep-seated juridical
+respect for the relation of man and wife as a creation of law, as well
+as an institution of God. When he was appealed to, he felt it his duty
+to place impartially before her the husband's arguments, and promises,
+and protestations, but he experienced intense relief when she tersely
+dismissed Rufus Gwynn's plea for a reconciliation. "I know him now," she
+replied.
+
+"An' 'fore de Lawd, _I_ knows him too!" her old nurse declared; "I jes'
+uped an' I sez, 'Marse Rufe, ye hev' got sech a notion o' sellin' out,
+ye mought sell old Chaney--ef ennybody would buy sech a contraption in
+dese days! So I'm goin' over to my old home at Judge Roscoe's place, to
+wait on Miss Leonora. I knows she needs me, an' I 'spect she's watchin'
+fur me now.' An' Marse Rufe, he says, 'Aunt Chaney, I don't know _what_
+you are talking about! Go over there, an' welcome! An' try to get my
+wife to see I was just overtaken in my temper and desperate; _you_
+persuade her to come back, Aunt Chaney.' Dat's what de debbil said ter
+me. I always heard dat de debbil had a club foot. But, mon, he ain't.
+Two long, slim, handsome feet, an' his boots, sah, made in New Orleens!"
+
+The end had come characteristically at last! A horse, furiously ridden,
+brutally beaten, reared suddenly, lost his balance, fell backward,
+crushing the rider and breaking his neck. And so Rufus Gwynn reached his
+goal, and his wife was free at last.
+
+Free as some defenceless, hunted, tremulous animal, miraculously
+escaping fierce fangs, and a furious rush of a murderous pursuit;
+forever dominated by the sense of disaster, and despair, and flight;
+forever looking backward, forever hearkening to the echoes of the
+troublous past--exhausted, listless, hopeless, every impulse of volition
+stunned.
+
+It was well for her, doubtless, that the insistent duties of the care of
+her uncle's household had grown difficult in the changed conditions
+induced by the war; that the education, the training, the well-being, of
+the motherless little "ladies"--all restricted by the ever narrowing
+opportunity of the beleaguered town, and overshadowed by the impending
+clouds of disaster--appealed to her womanly heart and her maternal
+instincts. Their needs had roused her interest, stimulated her
+invention, elicited her self-control, that she might more definitely
+control them.
+
+In the days of Captain Baynell's convalescence he had unique
+opportunities for observing the methods that had prevailed under her
+management, for all the life of the house revolved about the one big
+fire in the library. Sometimes, as he and Judge Roscoe sat there with
+papers and books and cigars, presumably oblivious of the minutiae of the
+household matters, while the fire flared and the tobacco smoke hung in
+blue wreaths about the stuccoed ceiling and the carved ornaments of the
+tall book-cases, he fancied that it was the characteristic interest in
+trifles animating an invalid which caused him to smilingly watch the
+scholastic struggles of the "ladies,"--their turmoils with "jogaphy,"
+for it was decreed that they should learn somewhat of the earth on which
+they lived; the anguish inflicted by that potent instrument of torture,
+the Blue Speller; the bowed head of juvenile despair on the wooden rim
+of the slate, over the mysteries of "subscraction," as the "lady" sobbed
+softly, under her breath, for loud weepings were interdicted, however
+poignant the woe might be. Mrs. Gwynn was indeed unfeeling in these
+crises and often sarcastic. "You might use your sponge to wipe away
+your tears, Geraldine," she would say, with that curt icy inflection of
+her soft voice. "I notice it is too dry for use on your slate."
+
+Each slate had a string to which was attached a small sponge and a short
+slate-pencil, capable of an excruciating creak, which often set the
+judge's teeth on edge; as he would wince from the sound, Mrs. Gwynn
+would comment in this wise, "I have often heard that learned ladies do
+not contribute to household comfort,--so your Honor must suffer for the
+erudition that we have here."
+
+And the activities of "subscraction" were never abated.
+
+Baynell had at first a certain shrinking to witness the lessons of the
+deaf-mute, pitying the poor deprived child, so young, so tender, so
+pretty, so plaintive in her infirmity, shut out from all the usual
+avenues of knowledge. He would take up his book and withdraw his
+attention. But after a time there was suddenly forced upon his
+observation the superior judgment and acumen and careful altruistic
+thought exerted in these small matters by Mrs. Gwynn. Inexpert in the
+manual alphabet, she wasted no time nor labor on its acquisition for
+herself; but, notwithstanding this, "subscraction" had no terrors for
+Lucille. So practised was she in the domain of demonstration that her
+slate was swiftly covered with figures, and her sponge had no necessity
+to be diverted to the incongruous function of wiping her bright eyes.
+All the questions were put in writing and answered by the little
+deaf-mute with correct spelling and a most legible and creditable
+chirography, over which Captain Baynell found himself exclaiming with
+delighted surprise, while the cheeks both of the scholar and teacher
+flushed with pride and gratification, as they exchanged congratulatory
+smiles. So far from being the sport of her limitations and humiliated by
+them, Lucille was pressed forward to excel, and the twins gazed upon her
+as a miracle of learning, and often craved the privilege of scanning her
+slate, and imitating the childish flourishes of her capital letters. In
+naught was she permitted to feel her deficiencies--so craftily tender
+was her preceptress. The hour which the twins devoted to playing scales
+on the grand piano--being snugly buttoned up in sacques to protect them
+from the chill of the great parlors, and often called across the hall to
+warm their fingers at the library fire--Lucille sat at her
+drawing-board, and although she had only an ordinary degree of talent,
+she acquired a deftness and a proficiency that made the result
+remarkable for a child of her age; her leisure was encouraged to express
+itself in sketching from nature, and she went about much of the time
+pleasantly engrossed, holding up a pencil at a stiff angle and at
+arm's-length to take accurate measurement of relative distances and
+details of perspective.
+
+Baynell was a man who could be allured by a pretty face, but he could
+never have fallen in love with a woman merely for her beauty. He was
+possessed of insistent ideals, and now and then these were shattered by
+an evidence of Mrs. Gwynn's incongruously bitter cynicism, or a touch of
+repellent hardness and an icy coldness unpleasing in one so young, and
+all his preconceived prejudices were to adjust anew. He was beginning at
+last to feel that he must seek to realize her nature, rather than to fit
+her into the niche awaiting the conventional goddess of his fancy. She
+had other traits as inconsistent with her youth, her grace, her beauty,
+her lissome gait, her delicate hand; and these were homespun virtues, so
+plain, so good, so useful, so aggressive--such as one may fancy are
+designed to compensate the possessor for limitations in a more graceful
+sort,--according with an angular frame, a near-sighted vision, a rasping
+voice. There was scant need to look so beautiful, so daintily
+speculative, as she sat and cast up the judge's household accounts in a
+big red book that seemed full of cobweb perplexities and strenuous
+calculations to make both ends meet. Sometimes she brought it over to
+her uncle and, placing it before his reluctant gaze, pointed out some
+item of his own extravagance with a dignity of rebuke and a look of
+superior wisdom that might have realized to the imagination Minerva
+herself. Such a wealth of good house-keeping lore, so accurately
+applied, might have justified any amount of feminine ugliness.
+
+Her tender, far-sighted, commiserative appreciation of the deaf-mute's
+limitations, and the simple measures that had so far nullified them and
+utilized all the child's capacity, were incongruous with the iron rule
+under which the three were held.
+
+"I am afraid the ladies are giving you a great deal of trouble,
+Leonora," her uncle said one day, apologetically, when absolute mutiny
+seemed abroad amongst them.
+
+"Not half so much trouble as I intend to give them," Mrs. Gwynn replied
+resolutely.
+
+Their meek, mild, readjusted little faces after the scholastic hours
+were over were enough to move a heart of stone, and now and again Judge
+Roscoe glanced uneasily at them, and at last said inappropriately
+enough:--
+
+"I am afraid you have not had a happy morning, ladies."
+
+"They have been brought to hear reason," Mrs. Gwynn observed dryly. "And
+I have heard reason, too,--the Fourth Line of the Multiplication Table
+recited backward four times, standing facing the wall. It is an exercise
+that tends to subdue the angry passions. Allow me to commend it for
+general experiment."
+
+Baynell sought to laugh the episode off genially with the "ladies," but
+the three little faces looked for permission to ridicule this dire
+experience, and as Mrs. Gwynn's countenance maintained a blank
+inscrutability, they did not venture to make merry over their miseries
+of the "Four Line," now happily overpast.
+
+The scholastic duties were well over by noon, except perhaps for the
+scale-playing on the grand piano, and the "ladies" roamed at will about
+the house, or in the parterre if the weather were dry, or played at
+battledore and shuttlecock or graces in the long gallery enclosed with
+Venetian blinds. If it rained they were permitted to repair to the
+kitchen, where Aunt Chaney, a very tall, portly woman, with a stately
+gruffness, obviously spurious, accommodated them with bits of dough, to
+be moulded into ducks and pigs, and assigned them a small section of the
+stove whereon to bake these triumphs of the plastic art. Doll's dresses
+were here laundered, being washed in a small cedar noggin owned in
+common by the trio, and a miniature sad-iron, heated by special
+permission on Aunt Chaney's stove, was brought into requisition.
+Sometimes Aunt Chaney was in a softened mood, and fluted a ruffle on a
+wax baby's skirt, and told wonderful tales about Mrs. Gwynn's dresses in
+her girlhood, "flounced to the waist, and crimped to a charm." Thence
+the transition was easy to the details of her young mistress's social
+triumphs and celebrated beauty, with lovers in gangs, all sighing like
+furnaces and represented as rolling in riches and riding splendid and
+prancing horses, the final special zest of each story being the
+fruitless jealousy of the red-headed Miss Mildred Fisher, eating her
+heart out,--this to the immature imagination of the "ladies" literally
+resembled the chickens' hearts which were so daintily chopped to garnish
+the dish of fried pullets amidst the parsley.
+
+As the rain beat against the windows and the evening fell, the trio
+thought many a loitering-place less attractive than the chimney-nook
+behind the stove in Aunt Chaney's kitchen, regaled with her stories as
+she cooked, and now and then a spoonful of some dainty, administered
+with the curt command, "Open yer mouf, ladies!"
+
+Thus it was that the library was almost deserted when Colonel Ashley
+called more than once. Captain Baynell he found, and occasionally the
+judge also. He always selected the afternoons, and after a time he was
+wont to glance about with such a keen, predatory expression that the
+truth began to dawn vaguely on Captain Baynell. Vanity is so robust an
+endowment that it had been easy enough for the recipient of these visits
+to appropriate wholly the interest that prompted them. It struck Baynell
+with an indignant sense of impropriety when he began to remember
+Ashley's ardent desire to meet Mrs. Gwynn, his admiration of the glimpse
+of her beauty that had once been vouchsafed him, and to connect this
+with his manifestation of good comradeship and eager solicitude
+concerning his friend's health. Baynell was infinitely out of
+countenance for a moment.
+
+"Why, confound the fellow! He doesn't care a fig whether I live or die."
+Then he was sensible of a rising anger, that he should be made the
+subterfuge of a systematic endeavor to casually meet Mrs. Gwynn,--likely
+to prove successful in the last instance. For lowering clouds overspread
+the sky when Ashley entered late in the afternoon, and a storm so
+violent, so tumultuous, broke with such sudden fury that it was
+impossible for him to take leave had he desired this. Baynell knew that
+nothing was further from his comrade's wish. Ashley reconciled himself
+so swiftly to Judge Roscoe's insistence that he should remain to tea
+that it might seem he had come for that express purpose.
+
+"Dat man," soliloquized the "double-faced Janus" impressively, "mus'
+hev' smelled de perfume of dat ar flummery plumb ter de camp. Chaney wuz
+jes' dishin' up when he ring de door-bell!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Now, face to face with the long-sought opportunity, Colonel Ashley was
+grievously disappointed. A woman--young, singularly beautiful, dressed
+like a middle-aged frump, with the manners of a matron of fifty, staid,
+reserved, inattentive, uninterested!
+
+The incongruity affected him like a discourtesy; its rarity had no
+attractions for him, nor in the slightest degree roused his curiosity.
+He had expected charm, glow, responsiveness, coquetry,--all the various
+traits that attend on beauty and youth. Even a conscious hauteur would
+have had its special grace and piqued an effort to win her to
+cordiality, but here was the inexpressiveness, the indifference, of an
+elderly woman, one tired, despondent, done with the world--civil,
+indeed, as behooved her rearing, her station, but unnoting--really apart
+from all the interests of the present and all thought for the future.
+And, certainly, Mrs. Gwynn's life might be considered already lived out
+in her past.
+
+The rain fell in sheets, and Colonel Ashley wished himself back in camp,
+despite the flavor of the flummery. As they sat at table, now and again
+a vivid glare of lightning revealed through the windows the expanse of
+falling water, closely wrought as a silver-gray fabric, and the flash of
+white foam from its impact with the ground. The house seemed to rock
+with the reverberations of the bursts of thunder.
+
+When they were once more in the library, Colonel Ashley found himself
+with a long evening on his hands; his chum, Baynell, had fallen into one
+of his frequent fits of silent reflectiveness as he smoked, and Judge
+Roscoe, an ascetic, quiet, uncongenial old man, of opposite political
+convictions,--which placed an embargo on all the topics of the day,--did
+not seem to promise much in the way of lively companionship.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn still lingered in the dining room, and the little "ladies"
+explained that her old nurse, who was now the cook, was afflicted with a
+"misery," seeming to bear some relation to neuralgia, and needed help to
+get through with her work, "Uncle Ephraim being a poor dependence" where
+the handling of crockery was concerned.
+
+The "ladies," with true feminine coquetry, affected a shy reserve, and
+rather retreated from the expansive jovial bonhomie of Colonel Ashley's
+hearty advances toward them, albeit they were wont to press their
+attentions upon the inexpressive Captain Baynell. They met with
+fluttering downcast glances the engaging twinkle of Ashley's bright dark
+eyes. They replied with demure little clipped monosyllables to his gay
+sallies, and indeed Colonel Ashley bade fair to discharge the task of
+entertaining himself throughout the evening, till he luckily asked one
+of them what she liked best to play--graces or battledore and
+shuttlecock, Geraldine having brought in a grace-hoop and now holding it
+in her hands before her as she stood in the flicker of the fire.
+
+"I like cards best," Adelaide volunteered unexpectedly.
+
+"Have you a pack of cards? Then let's have a game!" Ashley cried gayly;
+"though I'm afraid you can beat me at anything I try."
+
+There was a shrill jubilance of juvenile acclaim. The three, their
+ringlets waving, their cheeks flushing, the short skirts of their gay
+attire--blue, and crimson, and orange--fluttering joyfully, were
+instantly placing the chairs about the little card-table and climbing
+into them, while Colonel Ashley took the cards and dealt them with many
+airy fancy touches, to the amazement and admiration of the "ladies."
+With his versatile capacity for all sorts of enjoyment, the incident was
+beginning to have a certain zest for him, involving no sacrifice either
+of inclination or time. Baynell realized how Ashley also valued the
+pose. He had an intuitive perception of Ashley's own relish of its
+incongruity,--the gallant colonel of cavalry, who had successfully
+measured blades with the fiercest swordsmen and masters of fence, to be
+now lending himself gently to play with three little children, whose
+soft eyes glowed upon him with radiant admiration and tenderest
+confidence, while the firelight flared and flickered within and the
+storm raged without! Baynell knew that it was with an appreciated
+sacrifice of the perfect proportions of the situation that Ashley
+finally dealt cards for his friend and Judge Roscoe; he would have
+preferred to exclude them, if he might, and have the whole stage for the
+effects of his own dramatic personality. But never, in all his weavings
+of romance about himself, was Ashley guilty of even the slightest
+injustice or discourtesy or forgetfulness of the claims of others; hence
+his character was almost as fine and lovable as he feigned, or as it
+would have seemed, had but his foible of self-appreciation,
+self-gratulation, borne a juster proportion and been rendered less
+obvious by his own cheerful, unconscious, transparent candor. There was
+no guile in him, and the smile was quite genuine with which he took up
+his cards and affected to look anxiously through them to discern if Fate
+lurked therein in the presence of the Old Maid.
+
+For it was this dread game that the "ladies" had chosen, and a serious
+affair it is when regarded from their standpoint. Ashley had now no need
+of his own sentiments or mental processes or artistic poses to minister
+to his entertainment. It was quite sufficient to watch the faces of the
+"ladies" as the "draw" went round, each player in turn taking at random
+an unseen card from the hand of the next neighbor to the left, the
+whole pack of course having been dealt. The heavy terror of doom was
+attendant upon the unwelcome pasteboard. Once, as this harbinger of Fate
+passed on, a gleeful squeal announced that a "lady" had escaped the
+anguish of the prospect of single blessedness.
+
+"That's not fair, Ger'ldine!" exclaimed Adelaide, reprovingly; "you have
+told ever'body that Gran'pa has drawed the Old Maid!"
+
+"I jus' couldn't help it--I was _so glad_ she was gone," apologized the
+contrite Geraldine.
+
+"It makes no difference, my precious, for I have two of the queens, and
+they are a pair," said Judge Roscoe, and as he threw the mates on the
+table the "ladies" placed their hands on their lips to stifle the aghast
+"Ohs!" and "Ahs!" that trembled on utterance, and gazed on their
+fellow-gamesters with great, excited, round eyes. For the crisis had
+supervened. Of course one of the queens had been withdrawn from the pack
+at the commencement of the game, in order to leave an odd queen as the
+Old Maid. Since two had just been discarded there remained the prophetic
+spinster, and each "lady's" delicate little fingers trembled on the
+"draw." Ashley could scarcely preserve a becoming gravity and
+inexpressiveness as the pleading beseeching eyes of his next neighbor
+were cast up to his countenance, seeking to read there some intimation
+of the character of the card she had selected. More than once the
+choice was precipitately abandoned at the last moment and another card
+snatched at hysteric haphazard. Then when an insignificant five of
+diamonds or three of spades was revealed,--what joy of relief, what
+deep-drawn sighs of relaxed tension, what activity of little slippered
+feet under the table, unable to be still, fairly dancing with pleasure
+that the Old Maid with her awful augury still held aloof and went the
+rounds elsewhere! Then--the eagerness of expectation and the renewed
+jeopardy of doubt.
+
+"On my word, this is sport!" exclaimed Colonel Ashley. "This is better
+than a 'small stake to give an interest to the game,'--eh, Judge?"
+
+"It's a _big_ stake," said Geraldine, at his elbow, "the Old Maid is!"
+
+The desperate suspense, the anguish of jeopardy, continued, and at
+length Geraldine had but one card left, Colonel Ashley holding two; the
+other players having matched and tabled the rest of the pack were now
+out of the game. Seeing how seriously the doom of spinsterhood was
+regarded, Colonel Ashley sought to prevent his little neighbor from
+drawing the fateful pasteboard by craftily shifting the cards in his
+hand as she was about to take hold of the grim-visaged queen. Geraldine
+detected the motion instantly, with deep suspicion misinterpreted his
+intention, and laid hold on the card he had manoeuvred to retain. Her
+crestfallen dismay betrayed the disaster. With wide, fearfully
+prescient eyes she nevertheless gathered all her faculties for the final
+effort. Cautiously holding her two cards under the table, she shifted
+them, interchanged them back and forth, then tremulously permitted him
+to draw. This done, he placidly placed two fives on the table.
+
+There was a moment of impressive silence while the "lady" held before
+her eyes in her babyish fingers the single card, and gazed petrified on
+the Medusa-like visage of the Old Maid. Then, as a murmur of awe arose
+from the other "ladies," looking pityingly upon her, yet blissful in
+their own escape, she burst into tears, and, bowing her golden head in
+her arms on the table, wept copiously, though softly, silently, mindful
+that Cousin Leonora allowed no "loud whooping in weeps," her little
+shoulders shaken by her sobs.
+
+Colonel Ashley could but laugh as he protested, "This is truly
+flattering to masculine vanity." Then, his kindly impulses uppermost,
+"Come, Miss Geraldine, let's have another round. There must be more Old
+Maids still hiding out in this crowd. Let's see who they are."
+
+Adelaide looked alarmed as the stricken one lifted her head to the
+prospect of the company that misery loves.
+
+"I wish I was like Cousin Leonora, born a widow-woman," she remarked,
+regarding the doubtful future askance.
+
+"Widow-womans can marry,--Aunt Chaney says they can," Geraldine
+declared, as she took up the cards of the new deal.
+
+"Well, you would speak more properer if you said 'widow-_womens_' than
+'widow-_womans_,'" rejoined the critical Adelaide, rendered tart by her
+renewed jeopardy and the sudden termination of the definite sense of
+escape.
+
+While each player's hand was full of cards, the three queens still
+amongst them, the interest was not so tense as the first few draws went
+round and Mrs. Gwynn's entrance from the dining room created some stir.
+
+Baynell and Ashley rose to offer her a chair, and the latter proposed to
+deal her a hand in the game.
+
+"Not this round," she returned, "as the game has already commenced.
+Besides, I am quite chilly. I shall sit by the fire and read the evening
+paper until you play out the hand."
+
+She seated herself near the fire, shivered once or twice, and held out
+her dainty fingers to it with exactly the utilitarian manner of some
+elderly woman, whose house-keeping errands have detained her in the
+cold, and who extends gnarled, misshapen, chapped, wrinkled hands,
+soliciting comfort from the warmth. Then she took up the paper and held
+the sheet to catch the lamplight from the centre-table upon it.
+
+"Why doesn't she put on her 'specs'? She knows she needs them," Colonel
+Ashley said to himself in a sort of whimsical exasperation. Her figure
+was slim and girlish, sylphlike as she reclined in the large fauteuil;
+her hair glittered golden in the flicker of the fire and the sheen of
+the lamp; her face, with its serious expression intent on the closely
+printed columns, might almost seem a sculptor's study of perfect facial
+symmetry. Her incongruous indifference, her elderly assumptions,--if,
+indeed, she was conscious of the effect of her manner,--all betokened
+that she considered it no part of her duty, and certainly no point of
+interest, to entertain young men.
+
+"We are mere boys to her, Baynell and I; she'll never see her sixtieth
+birthday again. I have known younger grandmothers," was Colonel Ashley's
+farcical thought.
+
+Her nullity of attitude toward him was so complete that she limited the
+possibilities of his imagination. He began to devote himself to the
+gentle pursuit in hand with a freshened ardor.
+
+Around and around the draw went, almost in absolute silence. Now and
+again the tabling of matching cards sounded with the sharp impact of
+triumph, but this was growing infrequent as the hands were thus
+depleted. The firelight flickered on the incongruous group,--the bearded
+faces of the military men, the gold-laced uniforms, with buttons
+glimmering like points of light, the infantine softness of the "ladies,"
+with their fluttering ringlets and gala attire, the gray head and
+ascetic aspect of the judge. The heat had enhanced the odor of a bowl
+of violets on the table in the centre of the room; as the flames rose
+and fell, the lion on the rug seemed to stir about, to rouse from his
+lair.
+
+Outside the rain still fell in torrents; the tumult of the gush from the
+gutter hard by gave intimations of great volume of overflow. At long
+intervals a drop fell hissing down the chimney on the coals where the
+fire had burned to a white heat. The wind sang like a trump, and from
+far away the reverberations of a train of cars came with a sort of
+muffled sonority that was almost indistinguishable from the vibrations
+of the earth. One hardly knew whether the approach of the train was felt
+or heard.
+
+"I can't see how a locomotive can keep the rails in such a night as
+this," Colonel Ashley remarked, lifting his head to listen. "I had
+rather my command would be playing the duck down there in the puddles
+than crossing that half-submerged bridge on that troop train."
+
+"Are they transporting troops now?" asked Judge Roscoe, casually. He was
+a lawyer and knew the general inappropriateness and inadmissibility of a
+leading question. He had, however, no interest in the response, for the
+transit of troops did not necessarily intimate reenforcements to the
+garrison, and hence the expectation of attack, but perhaps merely the
+intention of distant activity.
+
+Captain Baynell lifted his eyes from his cards, and a glance of
+warning, of upbraiding, flashed into the jovial dark eyes of Colonel
+Ashley. Judge Roscoe perceived it with surprise and a sort of
+uncomfortable monition that he and his guest, the son of his cherished
+friend, were in reality in opposition in a most important crisis of the
+life of each--in effect, national enemies. He had not thus regarded
+their standpoint, and the idea that this was Baynell's conviction
+wounded him. He hardly thought the warning glance in his own house
+either necessary or in good form, and he was not ill pleased to subtly
+perceive that Ashley secretly resented it.
+
+"A troop train, I should judge, by the sound," Ashley said hardily, his
+head still poised in a listening pose. "Evidently heavily laden; might
+be horses, though," he continued speculatively. He would not submit to
+be checked or disciplined into prudential considerations by Baynell,
+especially as Judge Roscoe must have noted the warning sign, which
+itself would tend to convert a simple casual remark into a significant
+disclosure. He said to himself that he knew the proper limitations of
+conversation, and was the last man in the world to let slip a hint that
+might by any means inform or even prompt the enemy. Moreover, Judge
+Roscoe was not deaf, and could distinguish the deep rumble of cars laden
+with troops from the usual sound of the running-gear of a train of
+ordinary freight and passengers. He went on casually and with an
+expansive effect of frankness: "Horses, most probably; there is a
+cavalry regiment in town that has been at the front as dismounted
+troops, and I think an order is out for horses for their use as cavalry
+again; they have been pressing horses all over the county yesterday and
+the day before. Winstead's troopers, you know," he added, addressing
+Baynell. "I saw him to-day. He says his men all seem pigeon-toed, or
+web-footed, or something. They were of no use afoot, although they have
+done very well in the saddle."
+
+"An'--an' did they wear boots on birds' feet an' web-toes?" asked the
+amazed Geraldine, innocently.
+
+"Oh--oh, _Ger'ldine_!" screamed the superior Adelaide. "He means walkin'
+this-a-way," and her hands went across the table in a "toeing-in" gait,
+illustrative of the defect known as "pigeon toes."
+
+"Aw--aw--_I_ know now!" said the instructed "lady," wofully out of
+countenance. Then she turned to draw from her neighbor's hand with much
+doubt and circumspection, for the matched pile in the centre was now
+large and the remaining cards had become few.
+
+At that moment Mrs. Gwynn glanced up from the paper; she had been
+reading an account of a recent spirited skirmish at the front.
+
+"What is the difference between shrapnel and grape-shot?" she asked of
+the company at large.
+
+Baynell, the artillery expert, rejoiced to enlighten her. He turned in
+his chair and promptly took the word from the others. Few experts can
+answer any simple question categorically. Not only did he explain the
+missiles in question, but also how they had happened to be what they
+were, and the earlier stages of their development. He gave his views on
+their relative value and the possibility of their future utility,--all
+while Ashley, who now sat next him, as they had chanced to shift their
+chairs when Mrs. Gwynn had entered, waited with quiet and polite
+patience for him to draw. Baynell did this at haphazard at last, and
+whether it was accident or Fate that the significant card was
+practically thrust into his heedless hand by the mischievous Ashley, his
+countenance fell at beholding the prognosis of single blessedness, so
+palpably, so preposterously, that the jovial Ashley could not restrain
+his bantering laughter. Baynell instantly presented the cards to him to
+draw in turn, but either favored by luck or having acquired some
+surreptitious unfair knowledge of the outer aspect of the card, Ashley
+avoided the ill-omened pasteboard, and Baynell was at last left with the
+single card in his hand, while his triumphant friend made the room
+riotous with laughter, and the three "ladies" bent compassionate, tender
+eyes upon him, as if they anticipated the conventional gush of tears.
+They had grown very fond of him, and deeply felt the disaster that had
+befallen him.
+
+"Oh, Captain Baynell, never mind! never mind!" cried the inspirational
+Adelaide. "_We'll_ marry you! _We'll_ marry you! You needn't be _so_
+anxious!"
+
+Once more Ashley's ringing merriment amazed the sympathetic "ladies."
+
+Lucille cast a burning glance of reproof upon him. Then she held up
+three fingers to Captain Baynell to intimate that three brides awaited
+him.
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed Ashley. "Here's a settler for Utah, Judge. That's
+evidently the place for this fellow 'when this cruel war is over'!"
+
+Judge Roscoe smilingly watched the benignant, commiserating little
+countenances.
+
+Adelaide had gone around the table and was hanging on the arm of Captain
+Baynell's chair as she proffered consolation.
+
+"Colonel Ashley wouldn't think it so mighty funny if _he_ had the Old
+Maid! But _don't_ mind, Captain. Why, _I_ know _Cousin Leonora_ would
+marry you, if nobody else would,--she always does anything when nobody
+else wants to."
+
+The silver tones were singularly clear, and for a moment the group sat
+in appalled silence. Ashley did not laugh, though his face was still
+distended with the risible muscles. It was like a laughing mask--the
+form without the fact. He did not dare even to glance toward the chair
+where Mrs. Gwynn imperturbably perused the war news, nor yet at the
+stony terror which he felt was petrified on his friend's face. At that
+moment a vivid white light quivered horribly through the room and the
+repetitious crashing clamor of the thunder was like a cannonade at close
+quarters. A great fibrous sound of the riving of timber told that a tree
+hard by had been split by the bolt; the torrents descended with
+redoubled force, and the massive old house seemed to rock.
+
+And in the moment of comparative quiet a new, strange sound intruded
+itself on recognition,--that most uncanny voice, the cry of a horse in
+the extremity of terror. It came again and again; at each successive
+peal of the thunder and recurrent furious flare of lightning it seemed
+nearer. It had a subterranean effect; and then after the crash of
+falling objects, as if some barrier had been overthrown, the iteration
+of unmistakable hoof beats on stone flagging announced that there was a
+horse in the cellar.
+
+This phenomenon obviously indicated an effort to save the animal from
+the impress of horses for army service, which had been in progress for
+days and to which Colonel Ashley had alluded. Far away in the
+wine-cellar, in the safe precincts under the back drawing-room, which
+was rarely used nowadays, the horse had evidently been ensconced, and
+but for the storm his presence might have continued indefinitely
+undetected. The tremendous conflict of the powers of the air, the
+unfamiliar place, the loneliness, had stricken the creature with panic
+fright, and, doubtless hearing human voices in the library, he had
+overthrown temporary obstacles, burst down inadequate doors, and
+following the genial sound was now stamping and whinnying just beneath
+the floor. Colonel Ashley, affecting to note nothing unusual, dealt the
+cards anew, and commented on the fury of the tempest.
+
+"I fancy you have lost one of your fine ancestral oaks, Judge. That bolt
+struck timber with a vengeance."
+
+"We have the consolation of a prospect of firewood," responded Judge
+Roscoe. "But I doubt if it struck only one of the trees."
+
+"I think I never before saw such a flash as that," remarked Ashley.
+
+The horse in the cellar protested that _he_ never had. Then he fairly
+yelped at a comparatively mild suffusion followed by a dull roar of
+thunder, evidently anticipating a renewal of the pyrotechnic horrors
+that had so terrified him.
+
+Judge Roscoe maintained an imperturbable aspect, despite a certain
+mortification and a sense of derogation of dignity. He recognized this
+as a scheme of old Ephraim's. More than once he had so contrived the
+disappearance of the last milch cow that his master possessed as to save
+her from the foraging parties bent on beef. Chickens had experiences of
+invisibility that were not fatal, and though the carriage pair and the
+judge's saddle-horse had been the victims of surprise,--impressed long
+ago,--the old servant had again and again rescued a beautiful animal
+that Mrs. Gwynn owned and which had been a second gift from Judge
+Roscoe. Hearing betimes of the press orders from the soldiers, the
+"double-faced Janus" had besought Judge Roscoe to leave the concealment
+of Acrobat to him; and, although only a passive factor in the
+enterprise, Judge Roscoe, as much surprised at the denouement as any one
+else, was forced to bear the brunt of the lamentable fiasco in which the
+secret had become public.
+
+Baynell, though silent, looked extremely annoyed.
+
+"This rainfall will raise the river considerably," Ashley commented.
+
+"Shouldn't be surprised if the lower portions of the town are flooded
+already," said Judge Roscoe, throwing out a pair of matched cards.
+
+"Those precincts are very ill situated," said Ashley.
+
+The Houyhnhnm in the cellar protested that he was, too.
+
+"High water must occasion considerable suffering among the poorer
+class," rejoined the judge.
+
+"But the locality could have been easily avoided in laying out Roanoke
+City. Draw, Captain--" Ashley broke off suddenly, being forced to remind
+the preoccupied Baynell of his turn to supply his hand.
+
+"The commercial convenience of wharfage at low stages of water was
+doubtless the inducement," explained Judge Roscoe.
+
+"To be sure,--minimizes the distance for loading freights," assented
+Ashley.
+
+"Yes, the drays come to the very decks of the boats."
+
+"_That_ was a pretty sharp flash," said Ashley.
+
+"Oh, it was--it was!" whooped the Houyhnhnm from out the cellar. He
+evidently executed a sort of intricate passado, to judge from the sound
+of his hysteric hoofs on the stone flagging.
+
+"I hope your fine grove will sustain no more casualties," said Ashley.
+
+"I hope, myself, the house won't be struck," whimpered the speculative
+Adelaide.
+
+"Me, too! Me, too!" cried the horse.
+
+"Draw, Captain,"--once more Ashley had occasion to rouse the absorbed
+Baynell.
+
+At every inapposite, disaffected remark that the horse in the cellar saw
+fit to interject into the conversation, the twins, evidently well aware
+of the betrayal of the domestic secret by his loud-voiced intrusion into
+the apartment beneath the library, fully apprehending the disaster, at
+first looked aghast at each other, then referred it to the adjustment of
+superior wisdom by a long, earnest gaze at their grandfather.
+
+Judge Roscoe could ill sustain the expectation of their childish
+comment. But he felt that his dignity was involved in ignoring that
+aught was amiss. His composure emulated Ashley's resolute placidity and
+well-bred, conventional determination to admittedly hear and see naught
+that was not intentionally addressed by his host to his observation.
+Baynell gave no outward and obvious sign of notice, but the subcurrent
+of brooding thought that occupied his mind was token of his evident
+comprehension and a nettled annoyance. Perhaps they all felt the relief
+from the tension when Ashley, suddenly glancing toward the window, saw
+between the long red curtains the section of a clearing sky and the
+glitter of a star.
+
+"The storm is over," he said. "I think, Judge, we might venture out now
+to view the damage. I trust there is not much timber down."
+
+The three men trooped heavily out into the hall, and suddenly the
+challenge of the sentry rang forth, simultaneously with the sound of the
+approach of horses' hoofs and the jingle of military accoutrements.
+Colonel Ashley's groom had bethought himself to bring up his master's
+charger in case he should care, since the weather had cleared, to return
+to camp. This Ashley preferred, despite Judge Roscoe's cordial
+insistence that he could put him up for the night without the slightest
+inconvenience.
+
+As Ashley took leave of the family and galloped down the avenue in the
+chill damp air, and over the spongy turf, now and then constrained to
+turn aside to avoid fallen boughs, he had not even a vague prevision
+how short an interval was to elapse before chance should bring him back.
+His expectation of meeting a charming young lady, with perhaps the
+sequel of an interesting flirtation, in which all his best qualities as
+squire of dames should be elicited for the admiration of the fair,--his
+preeminence in singing, in quoting poetry, in saying pretty things, in
+horsemanship, above all the killing glances of his arch dark eyes, to
+say naught of the relish he always experienced in his own excellent pose
+as a lover, one of his favorite roles,--all had been nullified by Mrs.
+Gwynn's unresponsiveness. His vanity was touched, upon reflecting on the
+events of the evening. He did not feel entreated according to his merits
+by her attitude of a faded and elderly widow-woman, and his relegation
+to the puerilities of the little Old Maids, or little "ladies," or
+whatever they called themselves (certainly not the first), with Baynell
+playing the stick, and the old judge merely a galvanized Opinion. He
+resolved that he would stick to camp hereafter. He knew a game of "Draw"
+with no Old Maid in the pack, and he would solace his spare time with
+such diversion as it might afford, and look to the drill of his
+squadrons.
+
+Nevertheless the moisture of the storm was scarcely sun-dried the next
+afternoon before he was again galloping up the long avenue of the grove
+and inquiring of old Janus, appropriately playing janitor, if Captain
+Baynell were within, as he had some special business with him.
+
+As on other occasions there was no glimpse or sound of feminine presence
+in the halls or on the stairs as he followed the old servant up the
+softly padded ascent. He fancied the old negro was much disaffected; he
+had a plaintive, remonstrant submissiveness, and a sort of curious,
+shadowy, aged look that seemed a concomitant of a sullen reproach. Had
+they been beyond earshot of the household, Ashley would have bidden the
+old man out with his grievance, but naught was said, and presently the
+door of Captain Baynell's bedroom closed upon him.
+
+"Did you know that Tompkins had sent up here and impressed Mrs. Gwynn's
+horse?"
+
+Baynell had not risen from a seat at an escritoire, where he seemed to
+have been writing, and Ashley was half across the room and had flung
+himself into a chair before the fire ere his friend could lay down the
+pen.
+
+"Yes, I knew it."
+
+"Why--why--how did he know they had the animal in the cellar? He was up
+here the day before yesterday, and that old darkey told him that the
+horse had already been pressed into service."
+
+"He must have been put into the cellar earlier. You know we heard the
+animal there last night."
+
+"Why--why--" Colonel Ashley stammered in his haste--"how did _Tompkins_
+know?"
+
+"How?--why, of course I notified him--this morning."
+
+Vertnor Ashley was altogether inarticulate. Baynell replied to the
+surprise in his face.
+
+"Why--whatever did you think I should do?"
+
+"Hold your tongue, of course!--as I held mine! Why, I thought you were a
+friend of these people."
+
+Baynell looked at him, surprised in turn. "And so I am."
+
+"And they have been kindness itself to you!"
+
+"But do they expect me to return their kindness by helping them deceive
+the government, or to hold back supplies the army needs? They are
+mistaken if they do! It is a matter of conscience!"
+
+"Oh, a _little_ thing like that--" Ashley snapped his fingers--"a lady's
+horse!"
+
+"It is a matter of conscience!" Baynell reiterated.
+
+"I tell you, my friend, I wouldn't have such a conscience as that in the
+house! It's a selfish beast--a raging monster! exceedingly deadly to the
+interests of other folks," Ashley retorted with his bright eyes aglow.
+
+Baynell glanced out of the great window, with its white, embroidered
+muslin curtains, between which he could see the ranges in the distance,
+Roanoke in the mid-spaces, the white tents of the girdle of encampments
+on all the hillsides about the little city; at intervals, held in
+cup-like hollows, were great glittering ponds of water, the
+accumulations of the storm, glassing the clouds like mirrors, and
+realizing to the eye the geologist's description of the prehistoric days
+when lakes were here.
+
+A sudden suspicion was in Ashley's mind. His resolution was taken on the
+instant. "I hope you will advance no objection; but I intend to see Mrs.
+Gwynn and Judge Roscoe, and assure them that _I_ had no part in giving
+this information to the quartermaster's department."
+
+Baynell looked at him with an indignant retort rising to his lips, then
+laughed satirically.
+
+"Do you imagine I left _you_ under that imputation?"
+
+"You consider it no imputation, but a duty. Now I don't see my duty in
+that light. And I prefer to make my position clear to them."
+
+Baynell already had his hand on the bell-cord, and it was with pointed
+alacrity that he gave the order when old Ephraim appeared--"Please say
+to Mrs. Gwynn and Judge Roscoe that Colonel Ashley and Captain Baynell
+wish to speak to them a few minutes on a matter of business if they are
+at leisure."
+
+Uncle Ephraim, in whose soul the misadventure about the horse was
+rankling deep, surlily assented, closed the door, and took his way
+downstairs.
+
+"I recken _you_ kin speak ter dem," he soliloquized,--"mos' ennything
+kin speak hyar. Who'd 'a' thought dat ar horse, dat Ac'obat, would set
+out ter talk ter de folks in de lawberry, like no four-footed one hev'
+done since de days ob Balaam's ass. But I ain't never hearn dat de ass
+was fool enough ter got hisse'f pressed inter de Fed'ral army. 'Fore de
+Lawd, dat horse wish now he had held his tongue an' stayed in de
+wine-cellar, wid dat good feed, whar I put him."
+
+Once in the library, the traits which so endeared Vertnor Ashley to
+himself, and eke to others, were amply in evidence. He was gentle,
+deferential, thoroughly straightforward and frank, albeit he saw the
+subject was a mortification to Judge Roscoe and abated his sense of his
+own dignity; still Ashley gave no offence.
+
+"I understand. It was a matter of conscience with Captain Baynell," said
+Judge Roscoe, seeking to dispose of the question in few words. "I can
+have no displeasure against a man for obeying the dictates of his own
+conscience, as every man must."
+
+"Well, I am happy to say I had no conscience in the matter," said
+Colonel Ashley.
+
+"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, with her curt, low, icy tone. "We have
+indeed fallen on evil times. Captain Baynell has conscience enough to
+destroy us all, if only he sees fit. And Colonel Ashley, by his own
+admission, has no conscience at all. Between the two we _must_ come to
+grief."
+
+"It seems to me a trifle," Ashley persisted smilingly, "brought to my
+attention accidentally on a hospitable occasion. For aught _I_ knew, you
+might have a permit, or the horse might have been a condemned animal,
+unsound, thus escaping the requisition. I had no orders to investigate
+your domestic affairs, nor to search for animals evading the impress.
+The men detailed to that duty are presumed to be capable of discharging
+it."
+
+"I assure you we have no feeling on that account--no antagonism--" began
+Judge Roscoe.
+
+"I desire you to realize that _nothing_ would have induced me to report
+the presence of the horse here," Ashley interrupted; "though," he added,
+checking himself, "I do not wish to reflect on Captain Baynell's
+procedure!"
+
+"He thought himself justified, indeed obligated," interposed Judge
+Roscoe.
+
+"Of course I greatly regretted the necessity, which seemed forced on me,
+as I saw the matter," said Baynell.
+
+"I fully appreciate that you take a different view," began Ashley.
+
+"'O give ye good even. Here's a million of manners,'" quoted Mrs. Gwynn,
+satirically, smiling from one to the other as each sought to press
+forward his own view, yet to cast no reflections on the probity of the
+standpoint of the other.
+
+Judge Roscoe laughed. He was an admirer of what he called
+"understanding in women," and the mere flavor of a Shakespearian
+collocation of words refreshed his spirit like an oasis in a desert.
+
+Ashley looked at her doubtfully. He wondered that they could forgive
+Baynell for this gratuitous bit of official tyranny, as it seemed to
+him, and also the serious loss of the value of the horse. He said to
+himself that almost any rule is constrained to exceptions. He thought
+Baynell's course was small-minded, unjustifiable, and an ungrateful
+requital of hospitality, such as only important interests might warrant.
+He did not reckon on the strength of the attachment which Judge Roscoe,
+despite politics, had formed for his dear friend's son, or for his
+respect for the coercive force of a man's convictions of the
+requirements of duty. It was a sort of Brutus-like urgency which
+appealed to a high sense of probity and which commended itself to the
+ex-judge, accustomed to deal with subtle differentiations of moral
+intent as well as intricate principles of sheer law.
+
+As for Mrs. Gwynn--it was sufficient that she had lost the horse. She
+cared too little for either man as an individual to consider the
+delicate adjustment of the problem of official integrity involved.
+
+"I surely should have lost every claim to your good opinion if I had
+glozed it over and passed it by for personal reasons," Baynell argued
+after Ashley had gone.
+
+She looked at him speculatively for an instant, wondering what possible
+claim he could fancy he possessed to her good opinion.
+
+"If you think impressing a horse is a recommendation, a great many
+citizens of this town have cause to hold the quartermaster-general in
+high esteem. A perfect drove of horses passed here this afternoon. I
+looked for Acrobat, but I did not see him."
+
+He was taken aback at this turn. "But you know, of course, it was
+against my own will--my own preference--the horse--it was a sacrifice on
+my part!"
+
+"So glad to know it; I thought the sacrifice was mine!"
+
+He shifted the subject.
+
+"Judge Roscoe has kindly given me permission to stable here my own
+horses,--not belonging to the service,--and to use the pasture, and I
+hope you will ride one that I think is particularly suitable for a lady.
+Judge Roscoe, to show that he bears no malice, is riding another one to
+Roanoke City this afternoon."
+
+She said that she had lost her equestrian tastes. But she listened quite
+civilly while he argued the ethics anew, and, as her interest in the
+subject had waned with the dissolving view of her horse and she did not
+care for the question in the abstract, she did not controvert his theory
+or relish placing obstacles to the justification of his course.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Baynell's disposition to recur to the subject inaugurated a habit of
+conversation with Mrs. Gwynn after the scholastic hours of the "ladies,"
+when he sat in the library through the long afternoons. The vast subject
+of the abstract values of right and wrong, the ultimate decrees of
+conscience, whether in matters of great or minute importance, might seem
+inexhaustible in itself. But he gradually drifted therefrom into a
+discursive monologue of many things. He began to talk of himself as
+never before, as he had never dreamed that he could. He described his
+friends and acquaintances; he rehearsed his experiences; he even
+repeated traditional stories of his father's college life, and the mad
+pranks which the staid Judge Roscoe had played in the callow days of
+their youth, thus emphasizing the bond of intimacy and his own claim to
+recognition as a hereditary friend; he went farther and detailed his own
+intimate plans for the future.
+
+Throughout she maintained a conventional pose of courteous attention.
+Surely, he thought, he must have roused some responsive interest. For
+himself, in all his life, he had never experienced moments so surcharged
+with significance, with pleasure, with importance. One day he concluded
+a long exposition of thought and conviction, intensely vital to him, by
+making a direct appeal to her opinion. She looked up with half-startled
+eyes, then hesitatingly replied, while a quick, deep flush sprang into
+her pale cheeks. Elated, confident, victorious, he beheld the color rise
+and glow, and noted her lingering, conscious embarrassment; for the
+subject was unimportant save as it concerned him, and why, but for his
+sake, should she blush and falter in sweet confusion?
+
+How could he know that hardly one word in ten had she heard! Absent,
+absorbed, she was silently turning again and again the ashes of the dead
+past, while he, insistently, clamorously, was knocking at the door of
+the living present.
+
+Step by step she had been retracing her early foolish fondness for the
+man who had been her husband. How could she have been so blind! she was
+asking herself. Why could she not have seen him with the eyes of
+others,--that wise, kindly, far-sighted vision which scanned the present
+with caution for her sake, and by its gauge measured the future with an
+unerring and an appalled accuracy? How contemptuously, like a heroine of
+romance indeed, she had flouted the well-meant opposition of her
+relatives to her marriage! They had proved wise prophets. Drunkard,
+gambler, spendthrift, he had wrecked her fortune and embittered her
+whole life. The two years she had spent with him seemed an aeon of
+misery. They had obliterated the past as well as excluded the future.
+Somehow she could not look beyond them into her earlier days save upon
+those gradations of events--the swift courtship, the egregious,
+headstrong, romantic resolution, the foolish love founded on false
+ideals which led her at last to the altar, so confiding, so happy, so
+disdainful of the grave faces and the disapproving shaking heads of all
+her elder kith and kindred, so triumphant in setting them at naught and
+enhancing Rufus Gwynn's victory with the quelling of their every claim.
+
+In these long, quiet afternoons she would silently canvass humiliating
+details--when was it that she had first known him for the liar he was;
+when had she admitted to herself his inherent falsity? Even the truth
+had faltered for his sake. She had eagerly sought to deceive herself--to
+gloze over his lies, now told for a purpose, and constrained to their
+misleading device, now thrown off without intention or effect, as if the
+false were the more native incident of his moral atmosphere. Perhaps,
+with the love that possessed her, she, too, might have acquired the
+proclivity; she meditated on this possibility with a bowed head. At
+first, when he lied to her, she herself could not distinguish the truth
+from the false in his words. She had found herself at sea without a
+rudder. However she might have desired to protect him, whether she might
+have bent in time to deceit for his sake, there is a sort of monopoly
+in falsehood. It is a game at which two cannot play to good effect. The
+first time he struck her full in the face was in the fury which
+possessed him, when, through her agency, a lie had been fairly fixed
+upon him. She had given him as her authority for a statement she made to
+Judge Roscoe, and her uncle had, in repeating it to him, discovered the
+lie--the blatant open lie--that could not be qualified or gainsaid.
+
+And she had forgiven this, both the word and the blow. How strange! She
+made allowances for his irritation, for his mortification at the
+discovery by a man so upright, so ascetic, so unsympathetic with any
+moral weakness as Judge Roscoe. She offered to herself excuses which
+even she, however, in her inmost soul, hardly accepted--for the lie
+itself! He desired to avoid reproaches for mistaken arrangements about
+money matters, she had said to herself; he shrank from contention with
+her thus. Never dreaming that she might be questioned, he had been led
+to palliate, to distort the facts. For at first she would have no
+traffic with the ignoble word "lie." The restrictions of her own phrases
+began to have a sort of terror for her. She could no longer talk freely.
+She hardly dared make the most obvious statement concerning any simple
+fact of household affairs, or amusements, or visits, or friends, lest,
+in his prodigal untruth, for no reason,--the abandonment of folly, or a
+momentary whim,--he should have committed himself and her unequivocally
+to some different effect. She hesitated, stammered, when she was in
+company,--faltered, blushed,--she who used to be so different!--while
+all her world stared. And when they were alone, he would storm at her
+for it, furiously mimicking her distressful uncertainty, her tremulous
+solicitude lest she openly convict him of lying continually. She sought
+to give him no occasion for anger, not that she so dreaded the hurt of
+his heavy hand, but that she might save him from the ignominy of
+striking his wife. She studied his face and conformed to his whims, and
+anticipated his wants, and forbore vexation. Her subjection was so
+obvious that while her own near friends raged inwardly, divining that he
+was unkind, their casual acquaintance sportively fleered, never dreaming
+how their arrows sped to the mark.
+
+Their fleers nettled him; he was specially out of countenance one day
+because of a careless shaft of Mildred Fisher's.
+
+"It is one of the beautiful aspects of matrimony that the law once
+recognized the right of a man to correct his wife with 'a stick not
+thicker than his thumb'; let me see the size of your thumb, Mr.
+Gwynn,--it must be that which keeps Leonora in this edifying state of
+subjection."
+
+And when she had gayly gone her way, Rufus Gwynn bitterly upbraided his
+wife.
+
+"Damn you!" he had cried; "can't you hold up your head at all?"
+
+Then it was that she had donned her most charming toilette--a dress of
+heavy white satin simple yet queenly--and had gone to one of those balls
+of the early times of the Confederacy, where the cavaliers were many and
+gay; she was all smiles and bright eyes, though these were the only
+jewels she wore, for had she not discovered at the moment of opening the
+case that her diamonds--Rufus Gwynn's own bridal gift to her--were
+missing!--sold, pawned, given away, it was never known. Thus seeking her
+duty in these devious ways and to do his choice credit, as a wife
+should, her charm held a court about her,--even Mildred Fisher, who
+loved splendor, ablaze with the collection of precious stones at her
+disposal, her mother's, her grandmother's, and her aunt's, was eclipsed.
+The glittering officers followed the beautiful young wife in the
+promenade, and stood about and awaited the cessation of the whirl as she
+waltzed with one of the number, and devoutly held her bouquet while in
+the banqueting room, and drank her health and toasted her happiness, and
+broke her fan, soliciting a breeze for her comfort. The result?--When in
+the carriage homeward bound, she was fit to throw herself out of the
+window and under the wheels in sheer terror of the demon of jealousy she
+had aroused. Her husband loaded her with curses, he foamed at the mouth
+as he threatened the men with whom she had danced, more than one of
+whom he had himself introduced for the purpose. He protested he would
+shoot Julius Roscoe because he had _not_ asked her to dance, but had
+turned pale when he saw her, and had stood in the shadows of the columns
+at the upper end of the ball room and with melancholy, love-lorn eyes
+watched her in the waltz. When she declared she had not seen Julius, she
+had not spoken to him--"You dare not!" he cried. And but that she
+clutched his arm, he would have sprung from the vehicle in motion to
+hide in the shrubbery--the pine hedge--as they passed Judge Roscoe's
+gate, to shoot Julius in the back as he went home from the ball,--in the
+back, in the darkness, from ambush, that none might know! Then as her
+husband could not force himself from her grasp, he turned and struck her
+across the face twice, heavily.
+
+All her soldier friends, old playmates, youthful compeers, elder
+associates, marched away without a farewell word from her,--a last
+farewell it would have been to many, who, alack, came never marching
+back again; for she was denied at the door to all callers, since her
+bruises were so deep and lacerated that she must needs keep her room in
+order that the conjugal happiness might not be impugned. For still she
+made excuses for Gwynn, sought to shield him from himself. He had begun
+to drink heavily under the sting of the universal financial disasters
+occasioned by the war which he also shared, supplemented by heavy
+losses at the gaming table and the race track and often "was not
+himself," as she phrased it. He was expert at repentance, practised in
+confession, and had a positive ingenuity for shifting responsibility to
+stronger shoulders. He could burst into torrents of protesting tears,
+and dramatically fling himself on his knees at her feet, and bury his
+face in her hands, covering them with kisses, and craving her pardon and
+help. And she would once more, inconsistently, hopefully, take up her
+faith in him anew, albeit it had all the tearful tremors of
+despair,--believing, yet doubting, with a strange duality of emotion
+impossible to the analysis of reason. Thus the curtain was rung up
+again, and the terrible tragedy of her life on this limited stage went
+on apace.
+
+He had infinite ingenuity in concealment, abetted by her silence in
+suffering which her pride fostered. Albeit her friends had divined his
+unkindness, the extent of his brutality was not suspected by them until
+one night when frightful screams had been heard to issue from the house,
+despite the closed and shuttered windows of winter weather. These were
+elicited by the sheer agony of being dragged by the hair through the
+rooms and halls and down the stairs, and thrust out into the chill of
+the fierce January freeze. She was given hardly time for the instinct of
+flight to assert itself, to rise up with wild eyes looking adown the
+snowy street; for the door opened, and he dragged her within once more,
+as a watchman of the precinct, Roanoke City being at this time heavily
+policed, ascended the steps to the portico with an inquiry as to the
+sound. He was satisfied with the explanation from the husband that Mrs.
+Gwynn was suffering with a violent attack of hysterics. But the next
+day, while the mistress of the house, bruised and almost shattered, lay
+half unconscious in her own room, the housemaid, in the hall polishing
+the stair rail and wainscot, was terrified to draw out here and there
+from the balusters great bloody lengths of Mrs. Gwynn's beautiful hair
+which had caught and held as she was dragged by it down the stairs. This
+rumor, taken in connection with the explanation of her screams offered
+by her husband to the watchman, occasioned Mrs. Gwynn's relatives great
+anxiety for her safety. It was with the view of discovering from her the
+truth, insisting on its disclosure as a matter of paramount importance,
+that Judge Roscoe as her nearest kinsman and former guardian had
+suggested a ride with her, when in the quiet of an uninterrupted
+conversation he intended to remonstrate against her lack of candor, seek
+to ascertain the facts, and then devise some measures looking toward the
+betterment of the unhappy situation.
+
+The slaughter by Rufus Gwynn of the unoffending horse had eliminated the
+necessity alike of remonstrance or advice. Her ideals, her hope, her
+love, were destroyed as by one blow. Her resolution of separation was
+taken and, albeit her anxious friends feared her capacity for
+forgiveness was not exhausted, it proved final. The end came on the day
+that Rufus Gwynn's horse, rearing under whip and spur, and falling,
+broke his rider's neck.
+
+This was her romance and her awakening from love's young dream. These
+were the scenes that she lived over and over. This was her past that
+every moment of leisure converted into her present,--palpable, visible,
+vital,--and her future seemed bounded only by the possibilities of
+retrospect.
+
+With the many-thonged scourge of her memory how could she listen to the
+monologue of this stranger! Thus it was that her attentive attitude was
+suddenly stultified by his direct appeal to her. Thus she had reddened
+and faltered in embarrassment for the rude solecism, and gathered her
+faculties for some hesitant semblance of polite response.
+
+Lapsed in the delight of his fool's paradise, Baynell discerned naught
+of the truth. Left presently alone in the library, he serenely watched
+through the long window the slow progress of the shadows following the
+golden vernal sunshine throughout the grove. The wind faintly stirred,
+barely enough to shake the bells of the pink and darkly blue hyacinths
+standing tall and full in the parterre at one side of the house. The
+plangent tone of a single key, struck on the grand piano, fell on the
+stillness within, and after a time another, and slowly still another, in
+doubting ascension of the gamut, as one of the "ladies" submitted to the
+cruelty of a music lesson. His lip smilingly curved at the thought. And
+still gazing out in serene languor, all unprescient, he once more noted
+the spring sun of that momentous day slowly westering, westering.
+
+A red sky it found at the horizon; a chill wind starting up over a
+purple earth spangled with golden camp-fires. Presently the world was
+sunk in a slate-tinted gloom, and the night came on raw and dark, with
+moon and stars showing only in infrequent glimpses through gusty clouds.
+A great fire had burned out on the library hearth; the group had
+genially sat together till the candles were guttering in their sockets
+in the old crystal-hung candelabra. Judge Roscoe still lingered,
+smoking, meditating before the embers. All the house was asleep, silent
+save for the martial tread of the sentry walking to and fro before the
+portico. Suddenly Judge Roscoe heard a sound, alien, startling,--a sound
+at the side window. The room was illumined by a pervasive red glow from
+the embers, in which he saw his own shadow, gigantic, gesticulatory, as
+he rose to his feet, listening again to--silence! Only the wind rustling
+in the lilac hedge, only the ring of the sentry's step, crisp and clear
+on the frosty air.
+
+The moment that the soldier turned to retrace his way to the farther
+side of the house, there came once more that grating sound at the
+window, distinct, definite, of sinister import.
+
+For one instant Judge Roscoe was tempted to call for the sentry's aid.
+The next the shutter opened, the sash glided up noiselessly, and, as the
+old gentleman gazed spellbound with starting eyes and chin a-quiver, a
+tiny flame flickered up, keenly white amongst the embers, illuminating
+the room, revealing the object at the window. Only for one moment; for
+in a frenzy of energy Judge Roscoe had caught up the heavy velvet rug
+and, as he held it against the aperture of the chimney, the room once
+more sunk into indistinguishable gloom; the sudden bounding entrance of
+an agile figure was wholly invisible to the sentry, albeit he was almost
+immediately under the window, peering in with a stern "Who goes there?"
+
+"There seems something amiss with the catch of the shutter," said the
+placid voice of the master of the house, who had left the rug still
+standing on its thick edge before the chimney place. "Can you help me
+there? Thank you very much."
+
+The sentry muttered a sheepish apology, pleading the unusual noise at
+this hour. His excuse was cheerfully accepted. "It is well to be on the
+alert. Good night!"
+
+"Good night, sir!" And once more there sounded through the sombre air
+the martial beat of the sentry's tread on the frosty ground.
+
+Then two men in the darkness within, reaching out in the gloom, fell
+into each other's arms with tears of joy, but presently reproaches too.
+"Oh, my son, my son! why did you come here?"
+
+"Came a-visiting!" said a voice out of the obscurity, with a boy's
+buoyant laughter. "The picket-lines are so close to-night, I couldn't
+resist slipping in. Is Leonora here? How are my dear little nieces,--the
+'ladies'?"
+
+"Oh, Julius! My boy, this is so dangerous!"
+
+"I'd risk ten times more to hear your dear voice again--" with a
+rib-cracking hug--"only think, father, it's more than two years now
+since I have seen you! I want to see Leonora ten minutes and kiss the
+'ladies,' and then I'm off again in a day or so, and none the wiser."
+
+"No, no, that is out of the question! No one must know. The camps are
+too close; you must have seen them, even in the grove."
+
+"Why, I can lie low."
+
+"And there is a--" Judge Roscoe hardly knew how to voice it--"a--a
+Yankee officer in the house."
+
+"Thunderation! The dickens there is! Why--"
+
+"There is no time to explain; you must go back at once, while the
+Federal pickets are so close, and you can slip through the line. It's
+just at the creek."
+
+"But they have thrown it out since dark, five miles. Our fellows
+skedaddled back to their support. And I tell you it will never do for me
+to be caught inside the lines. The Yankees might think I was spying
+around!"
+
+Judge Roscoe turned faint and sick. Then, rising to the emergency, and
+considering the suspicions the sound of voices here at this hour of the
+night might excite in the mind of the sentry, he grasped his son's arm,
+with a warning clutch imposing silence, and led him along the dark hall,
+groping up the staircase. As the boy was about to bolt in the direction
+of his former chamber, his father turned the corner to the second
+flight.
+
+"Sky parlor, is it?" the young daredevil muttered, as they stumbled
+together up the steep ascent to the garret.
+
+A dreary place it showed as they entered, large, low ceiled, extending
+above the whole expanse of the square portion of the house. It was
+lighted only by the windows at either side; through one of these pale
+watery glimmers were falling from a moon which rolled heavily like a
+derelict in the surges of the clouds. This sufficed to show to each the
+other's beloved face; and that Judge Roscoe's ribs were not fractured in
+the hugs of the filial young bear betokened the enduring strength of his
+ancient physique.
+
+The place was sorely neglected since the reduction of the service in the
+old house. Cobwebs had congregated about ceiling and windows; the dust
+was thick on rows of old trunks, which annotated the journeyings of the
+family since the hair-covered, brass-studded style was the latest
+fashion to the sole leather receptacle that bore the initials of Judge
+Roscoe's dead wife, and the gigantic "Saratoga" that had served in Mrs.
+Gwynn's famous wedding journey. There were many specimens of broken
+chairs, and some glimmering branching girandoles, five feet high, that
+had illumined the house at one of the great weddings of long ago. A
+large cedar chest, proof against moths, preserved the ancient shawls and
+gowns of beauties of by-gone times, who little thought this ephemeral
+toggery would survive them. Certain antiquated pieces of furniture,
+hardly meet for the more modern assortment below,--chests of drawers
+surmounted by quaint little cabinets with looking-glasses, a lumbering
+wardrobe that seemed built for high water and stood on four long
+stilt-like legs, a pair of old mantel mirrors, wide and low, with
+tarnished gilded frames, dividing the reflecting surface into three
+equal sections, a great barometer that surlily threatened stormy
+weather, clumsy bureaus, bedsteads, each with four tall "cluster posts"
+surmounted by testers of red, quilled cloth drawn to a brass star in the
+centre, fire-dogs and fenders of dull brass--all were grouped here and
+there. One of these bedsteads had been occupied on some occasion when
+the house had been overcrowded, for the cords that sufficed in lieu of
+the more modern slats now supported a huge feather-bed. Judge Roscoe
+threw on it a carriage rug that had been hung to air on a cord which was
+stretched across one corner of the room. He almost fainted at a sudden,
+frightened clutch upon his arm, and, turning, saw his son in the agonies
+of panic, his teeth chattering, his eyes starting out of his head, his
+hand pointing tremulously toward the bed, as if bereft of his senses,
+demanding to be informed what that object might be. It was the
+time-honored joke of the young Southern soldiers that they had not seen
+or slept in a bedstead for so long that the mere sight of so
+unaccustomed a thing threw them into convulsions of fear. His father
+forgave the genuine tremors the joke had occasioned him for the joker's
+sake, and as Julius, flinging off his cap, coat, and boots, stretched
+out at his long length luxuriously, he stood by the pillow and
+admonished him of the plan of the campaign.
+
+The Yankee officer had been ill, Judge Roscoe explained, and,
+convalescing now, joined the family in their usual gathering places--the
+library, dining room, on the portico, in the grove. If Leonora or the
+"ladies" knew of the presence here of Julius, they could hardly preserve
+in this close association with the enemy an unaffected aspect; so
+significant a secret might be betrayed in facial expression, a tone of
+voice, a nervous start. This would be fatal; his life might prove the
+forfeit. It was a mistake to come, and this mistake must forthwith be
+annulled. Despite the man in the house, Julius could lie perdu here in
+the garret, observing every precaution of secrecy, till the ever
+shifting picket-line should be drawn close enough to enable him to hope
+to reach it without challenge. They would confide in trusty old Ephraim.
+He would maintain a watch and bring them news. And old Ephraim, too,
+would bring up food, cautiously purloined from the table.
+
+"The typical raven! appropriately black!" murmured Julius.
+
+"Are you hungry now, dear?" Judge Roscoe asked disconsolately, after
+telling him that he must wait till morning.
+
+"If you have such a thing as the photograph of a chicken about you, I
+should be glad to see it," Julius murmured demurely.
+
+Judge Roscoe bent down and kissed him good night on the forehead, then
+turned to pick his way carefully among the debris of the old furniture.
+Soon he had reached the stairway, and noiseless as a shadow he flitted
+down the flight.
+
+The young officer lay for a while intently listening, but no stir
+reached his ear; naught; absolute stillness. For a long time, despite
+his fatigue, the change, the pleasant warmth, the soft luxury of the
+feather-bed, would not let him slumber. He was used to the canopy of
+heaven, the chill ground, the tumult of rain; the sense of a roof above
+his head was unaccustomed, and he was stiflingly aware of its
+propinquity. Nevertheless he contrasted its comfort with his own recent
+plight and that of his comrades a few miles away, lying now asleep under
+the security of their camp-guards, some still in the mud of the
+trenches, all on the cold ground, shelterless, half frozen, half
+starved, ill, destitute, but fired with a martial ardor and a zeal for
+the Southern cause which no hardship could damp, and only death itself
+might quench. As he gazed about at the grotesqueries of the great room,
+now in the sheen of the moon, and now in the shadow of the cloud, he
+thought how little he had anticipated finding the enemy here ensconced
+in his place in his father's house, a convalescent, "the son of an old
+friend, of whom we have all grown very fond." He raged inwardly at the
+destruction of his cherished plans wrought by the mere presence of the
+Federal officer. The joy of his visit was brought to naught. Dangerous
+as it would have been under the best auspices, its peril was now great
+and imminent. Instead of the meeting his thoughts had cherished,--the
+sweets of the stolen hours at the domestic fireside, with the dear faces
+that he loved, the dulcet voices for which he yearned,--he was to skulk
+here, undreamed of, like some unhappy ghost haunting a lonely place,
+fortunate indeed if he might chance to be able to make off elusively
+after the fashion of the spectral gentry, without becoming a ghost in
+serious earnest by the event of capture, or catching the pistol ball of
+the Yankee officer. So much he had risked for this visit--life and
+limb!--and to be relegated to the surplusage of the garret, the
+loneliness, the desolate moon, the deserted dust of the unfrequented
+place! He was to approach none of them--none of the hearthstone group!
+There was to be no joyous greeting, no stealthy laughter, no interchange
+of loving words, and clasps, and kisses. He was still young; his eyes
+filled, his throat closed. But that shadowy glimpse of his dear
+father--he had had that boon!
+
+"I'll remember it, if I bite the dust in the next skirmish. And the
+question is to get away--for the next skirmish!"
+
+Once more he fell to studying mechanically the grouping of the archaic,
+disordered furniture; the shifting of the shadows amongst it as a cloud
+sped by with the wind; the spare boughs of a bare aspen tree etched on
+the floor by the moon, shining down through the high windows; and that
+melancholy orb itself, suggestive of a futile vanished past, a time
+forgotten, and spent illusions, the familiar of loneliness, and the deep
+empty hours of the midnight--itself a spectre of a dead planet, haunting
+its wonted pathway of the skies. When its light ceased to fill his
+lustrous, contemplative eyes he did not know, but as the moon passed on
+to the west, his melancholy gaze had ceased to follow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Joy came in the morning when the raven alighted. The "two-faced Janus"
+was wreathed in smiles, bent double with chuckles, and tears of delight
+sparkled in his eyes.
+
+"How dee is growed!" he whispered cautiously. "Mannish now, fur true.
+Gawd! de han'somest one ob de fam'ly!" For, with the refreshment of
+sleep and the substance, not merely the similitude, of fried chicken,
+waffles, and coffee, Julius, in the gray uniform of a first lieutenant,
+made a very gallant show despite the incongruities of the piled-up
+lumber of the old garret. He had a keen, high, alert profile, his nose a
+trifle aquiline; his complexion was fair and florid; his eyes were a
+fiery brown, his hair, of the same rich tint, was now and again tossed
+impatiently backward, the style of the day being an inconvenient length,
+for it was worn to hang about the collar. He had a breezy, offhand,
+impetuous manner, evidently only bridled in by rigorous training to
+decorous forms, and he stood six feet one inch in his stockings, taller
+now by one inch more in his boots, which the old servant had helped him
+to draw on. "Lawd-a-massy! dis de baby?" cried the old negro,
+admiringly, still on his knees, contemplating the young officer as he
+took a turn through the apartment with his straight-brimmed cap on his
+head and his hand on his sword. "'Fore Gawd, whut sorter baby is dis
+yere--over six feet high?"
+
+"Wish I was a baby for about two hours, Uncle Ephraim! You could carry
+me 'pickaback' through the Yankee lines!"
+
+"Hue-come ye run dem lines, Marse Julius? I reckon, dough, you hatter
+see Miss Leonora," said the discerning old darkey. "'Fore de Lawd, she
+hed better be wearin' dem widder's weeds fur de good match she flung
+away in you 'stead o' fur dat ar broken-necked man whut's daid, praise
+de Lamb!"
+
+If Julius joined in this pious thanksgiving, he made no outward sign. He
+only flushed slightly as he asked constrainedly, "Is she wearing
+mourning yet?"
+
+"Yes, sah, to be shore. Dis yere Yankee man, whut ole Marster an' de
+'ladies' an' all invited to stay yere, he is gwine round Miss Leonora
+mighty smilin' an' perlite an' humble. Dat man behaves lak he is mos'
+too modes' ter say his prayers! 'Anything ye got lef' over, good Lawd,
+will do Baynell, especially a lef'-over widder 'oman!' Dat's his
+petition ter de throne ob grace!"
+
+Oh, double-faced Janus!--now partisan of the Rebel, erstwhile so
+friendly with "de Yankee man."
+
+"Ef 'twarn't fur him, yer Pa could come up yere an' smoke a _see_gar an'
+talk, an' Miss Leonora an' de ladies mought play kyerds wid dee wunst in
+a while, wid dem blinds kept closed."
+
+"He isn't such an awful Tartar, is he, Uncle Ephraim?" said Julius,
+plaintively, allured by this picture. "Wouldn't he wink at it, if he
+missed them or heard voices, or caught a suspicion of my being here?
+They have been so good to him--and I am doing nothing aggressive--only
+visiting the family."
+
+"_Lawsy--Lawsy--Lawsy-massy, no! No!_" cried Uncle Ephraim, in extreme
+agitation and with the utmost emphasis of negation. "Dat man is
+afflicted wid a powerful oneasy conscience, Marse Julius!"
+
+And he detailed with the most convincing and graphic diction the
+disaster that had befallen the too-confiding Acrobat.
+
+Julius was very definitely impressed with the imminence of his peril.
+"The son of Belial!" he exclaimed in dismay.
+
+"Naw sah,--_dat_ ain't his daddy's Christian name," said Uncle Ephraim,
+ingenuously. "'Tain't Benial!--dough it's mighty nigh ez comical. Hit's
+'_Fluellen_'--same ez dis man's. I hearn ole Marster call it--but what
+you laffin' at? Dee bed better come out'n dat duck-fit! Folks can hear
+ye giggling plumb down ter de Big Gate!"
+
+He was constrained to take himself downstairs presently, lest he be
+missed, although longing to continue his discourse. His caution in his
+departure, his crafty listening for sounds from below before he would
+trust his foot to the stair, his swift, gliding transit to the more
+accustomed region of the second story, the art he expended in concealing
+in a dust cloth the bowl in which he had conveyed "the forage," as
+Julius called it--all were eminently reassuring to the man who stood in
+such imminent peril for a casual whim as he gazed after "the raven's"
+flight.
+
+Solitary, silent, isolated, the day became intolerably dull to the young
+soldier as it wore on. He dared not absorb himself in a book, although
+there were many old magazines in a case which stood near the stairs, for
+thus he might fail to note an approach. Once he heard the treble babble
+of two of the "ladies" and the strange, infrequent harsh tone of the
+deaf-mute, and he paused to murmur, "Bless their dear little souls!"
+with a tender smile on his face. And suddenly, his attention still bent
+upon the region below stairs, so unconscious of his presence above,
+there came to him the full, mellow sound of a stranger's voice, a
+well-bred, decorous voice with a conventional but pleasant laugh; and
+then, both in the hallway now, Leonora's drawling contralto, with its
+cantabile effects, her speech seeming more beautiful than the singing of
+other women. The front door closed with a bang, and Julius realized
+that they had gone forth together. He stood in vague wonderment and
+displeasure. Was it possible, he asked himself, that she really received
+this man's attentions, appeared publicly in his company, accepted his
+escort? Then, to assure himself, he sprang to the window and looked out
+upon the grove.
+
+There was the graceful figure of his dreams in her plain black bombazine
+dress worn without the slightest challenge to favor, the black crape
+veil floating backward from the ethereally fair face, the glittering
+gold-flecked brown hair beneath the white ruche, called the "widow's
+cap," in the edge of her bonnet. Her fine gray eyes were cast toward the
+house with a languid smile as the "ladies" tapped on the pane of the
+library window and signed farewell. Beside her Julius scanned a tall,
+well-set-up man in a blue uniform and the insignia of a captain of
+artillery, with blond hair and beard, a grave, handsome face, a
+dignified manner, a presence implying many worldly and social values.
+
+This walk was an occasion of moment to Baynell. The opportunity had
+arisen in the simplest manner.
+
+There was to be the funeral of a friend of Judge Roscoe's in the
+neighborhood, and at the table he had been arranging how "the family
+should be represented," to use his formal phrase, for business
+necessitated his absence.
+
+"But I will walk over with _you_, Leonora, although I cannot stay for
+the services. I will call by for you later."
+
+It was natural, both in the interests of civility and his own pleasure,
+that Baynell should offer to take the old gentleman's place, urging that
+an officer was the most efficient escort in the unsettled state of the
+country; and, indeed, how could they refuse? He, however, thought only
+of her acceptability to him. Apart from her beauty he had never known a
+woman who so conformed to his ideals of the appropriate, despite the
+grotesque folly of her blighted romance. It was only her nobility of
+nature, he argued, that had compassed her unhappiness in that instance.
+The graces of her magnanimity would not have been wasted on him, he
+protested inwardly. He appreciated that they were fine and high
+qualities thus cast before swine and ruthlessly trampled underfoot. She
+herself had lacked in naught--but the unworthy subject of the largess of
+her heart.
+
+It was Baynell who talked as they took their way through the grove and
+down the hill. Now and again she lifted her eyes, murmured assent,
+seemed to listen, always subacutely following the trend of her own
+reflections.
+
+He would not intrude into the house of affliction, being a stranger, he
+said, and therefore he strolled about outside during the melancholy
+obsequies, patiently waiting till she came out again and joined him. She
+seemed cast down, agitated; he thought her of a delicately sensitive
+organization.
+
+"How familiar death is becoming in these war times!" she said drearily,
+when they were out of the crowd once more and fairly homeward bound.
+"There was not one woman of the hundred in that house who is not wearing
+mourning."
+
+She rarely introduced a topic, and, with more alacrity than the subject
+might warrant, he spoke in responsive vein on the increased losses in
+battle as arms are improved, presently drifting to the comparison of
+statistics of the mortality in hospitals, the relative chances for life
+under shell or musketry fire, the destructive efficacy of sabre cuts,
+and the military value of cavalry charges. The cavalry fought much now
+on foot, he said, using the carbine, but this reduced the efficiency of
+the force one-fourth, the necessary discount for horse-holders; he
+thought there was great value in the cavalry charge, with the unsheathed
+sabre; it was like the rush of a cyclone; only few troops, well
+disciplined, could hold their ground before it; thus he pursued the
+subject of cognate interest to his profession. And meantime she was
+thinking only of these women, mourning their dead and dear, while
+she--the hypocrite--wore the garb of the bereaved to emphasize her
+merciful and gracious release. She wondered how she had ever endured it,
+she who hated deceit, a fanciful pose, and the empty conventions, she
+who did not mourn save for her lost exaltations, her wasted affection,
+the hopeless aspirations--all the dear, sweet illusions of life! Perhaps
+she had owed some compliance with the customs of mere widowhood, the
+outward respect to the status. Well, then, she had paid it; farther than
+this she would not go.
+
+The next morning as Captain Baynell took his seat at the breakfast-table
+she was coming in through the glass door from the parterre at one side
+of the dining room, arrayed in a mazarine blue mousseline-de-laine
+flecked with pink, a trifle old-fashioned in make, with a bunch of pink
+hyacinths in her hand, their delicate cold fragrance filling all the
+room.
+
+Even a man less desirous of being deceived than Baynell might well have
+deduced a personal application. He was sufficiently conversant with the
+conventions of feminine attire to be aware that this change was
+something of the most sudden. His finical delicacy was pained to a
+certain extent that the casting off her widow's weeds could be
+interpreted as a challenge to a fresh romance. But he argued that if
+this were for his encouragement, surely he should not cavil at her
+candor, for it would require a bolder man than he to offer his heart and
+hand under the shadow of that swaying crape veil. Nevertheless when his
+added confidence showed in his elated eyes, his assured manner, she
+stared at him for a moment with a surprise so obvious that it chilled
+the hope ardently aglow in his consciousness. The next instant realizing
+that all the eyes at the table were fixed on her blooming attire, noting
+the change, she flushed in confusion and vexation. She had not counted
+on being an object of attention and speculation.
+
+Judge Roscoe's ready tact mitigated the stress of the situation.
+"Leonora," he said, "you look like the spring! That combination of
+sky-blue and peach-blow was always a favorite with your aunt,--French
+taste, she called it. It seems to me that the dyes of dress goods were
+more delicate then than now; that is not something new, is it?"
+
+"Oh, no; a worn-out thing, as old as the hills!" she answered casually.
+
+And so the subject dropped.
+
+It was renewed in a different quarter.
+
+Old Ephraim was sitting on the floor in the garret, while his young
+master, adroitly balanced in a crazy arm-chair with three legs, was
+scraping with a spoon the bottom of the bowl that had contained "the
+forage."
+
+Julius made these meals as long as he dared, so yearning he was for the
+news of the dear home life below, so tantalized by its propinquity and
+yet its remoteness. He was barred from it by his peril and the presence
+of the Federal officer as if he were a thousand miles away. But old
+Ephraim came freshly from its scenes; from the table that he served,
+around which the familiar faces were grouped; from the fireside he
+replenished, musical with the voices that Julius loved. He caught a
+glimpse, he heard an echo, through the old gossip's talk, and thus the
+symposium was prolonged. The old negro told the neighborhood news as
+well; who was dead, and how and why they died; who was married, and how
+and when this occurred; what ladies "received Yankee officers," for some
+there were who put off and on their political prejudices as easily as an
+old glove; what homes had been seized for military purposes or destroyed
+by the operations of war.
+
+"De Yankees built a fote on Marse Frank Devrett's hill," he remarked of
+the home of a relative of the Roscoes.
+
+"Which side," demanded the boy; "toward the river?"
+
+"Todes de souf."
+
+"Pshaw! Uncle Ephraim, it couldn't be the south; the crest of the hill
+slopes that way," Julius contradicted, still actively plying the spoon.
+"You don't know north from south; you don't know gee from haw!"
+
+"'Twas de souf, now! 'Twas de souf!" protested the old servant.
+
+"Now look here," argued Julius, beginning to draw with the spoon upon
+the broad, dusty top of a cedar chest close by. "Here is the Dripping
+Spring road, and here runs the turnpike. Now here is the rise of the
+hill, and--"
+
+"Dar is Gen'al Belden's cavalry brigade camped at de foot," put in Uncle
+Ephraim, rising on his knees, taking a casual interest in cartography.
+
+"And here is the bend of the river,"--the bowl of the spoon made a great
+swirl to imply the broad sweep of the noble Tennessee.
+
+"Dat's whar dey got some infantry, four reg'ments."
+
+"I see," with several dabs to mark the spot, "convenient for
+embarkation."
+
+"An' dar," said the old man, unaware of any significance in the
+disclosure, "is one o' dem big siege batteries hid ahint de bresh--"
+
+"Masked, hey? to protect launching and prevent approach by water; they
+_are_ fixed up mighty nice! And here goes the slope of the hill to the
+fort."
+
+"No, dat's de ravelin, de covered way, an' de par'pet."
+
+"As far down as this, Uncle Ephraim? surely not!"
+
+"Now, ye ain't so much ez chipped de shell ob dis soldierin' business,
+ye nuffin' but a onhatched deedie! An' yere I been takin' ye fur a
+perfessed soldier-man! You lissen! _yere_ is de covered way ob de
+ravelin, outside ob a redoubt, whar dey got a big traverse wid a
+powder-magazine built into it. I been up dar when dis artillery captain
+sent his wagons arter his ammunition."
+
+"About where is the magazine located?" demanded Julius, gravely intent.
+
+"Jes' dar--dar--"
+
+"No, no!" cried the Confederate officer, in a loud, elated voice.
+
+The old servant caught him by the sleeve, trembling and with a warning
+finger lifted. Then they were both silent, intently listening.
+
+The sunlight across the garret floor lay still, save for the bright bar
+of glittering, dancing motes. The tall aspen tree by the window made no
+sound as it touched the pane with its white velvet buds. A wasp
+noiselessly flickered up and down the glass. Absolute quietude, save for
+a gentle, continuous murmur of voices in conversation in the library
+below.
+
+"I'se gwine ter take myse'f away from yere," said old Janus, loweringly,
+his eyes full of reproach, his nerves shaken by the sudden fright. "Ye
+ain't fitten fur dis yere soldierin' business; jes' pipped de shell. You
+gwine ter git yerself cotched by dat ar Yankee man whut we-all done
+loaded ourself up wid, an' _den_ whar will ye be? He done got well
+enough ter knock down a muel, an' I dunno _why_ he don't go on back ter
+his camp. Done wore out his welcome yere, good-fashion!"
+
+But Julius had entirely recovered from the _contretemps_. He was gazing
+in fixed intentness at the map drawn in the dust on the smooth, polished
+top of the cedar chest.
+
+"Uncle Ephraim," he said in an impressive whisper, "this powder-magazine
+is built right over a cave! I _know_, because there is a hole, a sort of
+grotto down in the grove, where you can go in; and in half a mile you
+come right up against the wall of my cousin Frank Devrett's cellar. We
+played off ghost tricks there one Christmas, the Devrett boys and me,
+singing and howling in the cave, and it made a great mystery in the
+house, frightening my Cousin Alice; but Cousin Frank was in the secret."
+
+"Gimme--gimme dat spoon! I don't keer if de Yankees built deir magazine
+in de _well_ instead ob de cellar. I'm gwine away 'fore dat widder 'oman
+begins arter me 'bout dat spoon an' bowl! Gimme de bowl, sah, it's de
+salad bowl!"
+
+"Oh, I see," still pondering on the map; "they utilized part of the
+cellar, the wine vault, blown out of the solid rock, for the bottom of
+the powder-magazine to save work, and then covered it over with the
+traverse, and--"
+
+"Gimme dat bowl, Marse Julius, dat widder 'oman will be on our track
+direc'ly. She keeps up wid every silver spoon as if she expected ter own
+'em one day! But shucks! _you_ gwine ter miss her again, wid all dis
+foolishness ob playin' Rebel soldier. Dat ar widder 'oman is all dressed
+out in blue an' pink ter-day, an' dat Yankee man smile same ez a
+possum!"
+
+Julius Roscoe's absorption dropped in an instant. "You are an egregious
+old fraud!" he cried impetuously. "I saw her myself, yesterday, dressed
+in deep mourning."
+
+"Thankee, sah!" hoarsely whispered the infuriated old negro. "Ye'se
+powerful perlite ter pore ole Ephraim, whut's worked faithful fur you
+Roscoes all de days ob his life. I reckon I'se toted ye a thousand miles
+on dis ole back! An' I larned _ye_ how ter feesh an' ter dig in the
+gyarden,--dough ye is a mighty pore hand wid a hoe,--an' ter set traps
+fur squir'ls, an' how ter find de wild bee tree. An' dem fine house
+sarvants never keered half so much fur ye ez de ole cawnfield hand; an'
+now dey hes all lef', an' de plantation gangs have all gone, too, an' ye
+would lack yer vittles ef 'twarn't fur de ole cawnfield hand! I'll fetch
+ye yer breakfus', sah, in de mornin', fur all ye are so perlite.
+Thankee, kindly, sah, callin' _me_ names!"
+
+And he took his way down the stair. Albeit in danger of capture and
+death, Julius flew across the floor to the head of the flight,
+beguilingly beckoning the old negro to return, for the ministering raven
+had cast up reproachful eyes as he faced about on the first landing.
+Although obviously relenting, and placated by the tacit apology, the old
+servant obdurately shook his head surlily. Julius jocosely menaced him
+with his fists; then, as the gray head finally disappeared, the young
+man with a sudden change of sentiment strode restlessly up and down the
+clear space of the garret, feeling more cast down and ill at ease than
+ever before.
+
+"Oh, why did I come home!" Julius said over and again, reflecting on his
+heady venture and its scanty joy. It seemed that the great unhappiness
+of his life was about to be repeated under his eyes; once before he had
+witnessed the woman he loved won by another man. Then, however, he was
+scarcely more than a mere boy; now he was older, and the defeat would go
+more harshly with him. But was he not even to enter the lists, to break
+a lance for her favor? Although he had controverted the idea of her
+doffing her weeds in this connection, he now nothing doubted the fact.
+Her choice was made, the die was cast. And he stood here a fugitive in
+his father's house, in peril of capture--nay, it might be even his neck,
+the shameful death of a spy--that he might once more look upon her face!
+
+He could not be calm, he could no longer be still; and ceaselessly
+treading to and fro after the house had long grown quiet, and the
+brilliant radiance of the moon was everywhere falling through the broad,
+tall windows, his restless spirit was tempted beyond the bounds of the
+shadowy staircase that he might at least, wandering like some unhappy
+ghost, see again the old familiar haunts. He passed through the halls,
+silent, slow, unafraid, as if invested with invisibility. He was grave,
+heavy-hearted, as aloof from all it once meant as if he were indeed
+some sad spirit revisiting the glimpses of the moon. Now and again he
+paused to gaze on some arrangement of sofas or chairs familiar to his
+earlier youth. By this big window always lay the backgammon-board. There
+was the old guitar, with memory, moonlight, romantic dreams, all
+entangled in the strings! It had been a famous joke to drag that light
+card-table before the pier glass, which reflected the hand of the unwary
+gamester. He sank down in a great fauteuil in the library, and through
+the long window on the opposite side of the room he could see the sheen
+of the moonlight lying as of old amidst the familiar grove.
+
+The sentry, with his cap and light blue overcoat, its cape fluttering in
+the breeze, ever and anon marched past, his musket shouldered, all
+unaware of the eyes that watched him; the budding trees cast scant
+shadows, spare and linear, on the dewy turf; the flowers bloomed all
+ghostly white in the parterre at one side. So might he indeed revisit
+the scene were he dead, Julius thought; so might he silently,
+listlessly, gaze upon it, his share annulled, his hope bereft.
+
+Were he really dead, he wondered, could he look calmly at Leonora's book
+where she had laid it down? He knew its owner from her habit of marking
+the place with a flower; it held a long blooming rod of the _Pyrus
+Japonica_, the blossoms showing a scarlet glow even in the pallid
+moonlight. One of the "ladies" had cast on the floor her "nun's
+bonnet," a tube-like straw covering, fitted with lining and curtain of
+blue barege and blue ribbons; that belonged to Adelaide, he was sure,
+the careless one, for the bonnets of the other two "nuns" hung primly on
+the rack in the side hall. His father's pen and open portfolio lay on
+the desk, and there too was the pipe that had solaced some knotty
+perplexity of his business affairs, growing complicated now in the
+commercial earthquake that the war had superinduced.
+
+Without doubt more troublous times yet were in store. Julius rose
+suddenly. He must not add to these trials! He must exert every capacity
+to compass his safe withdrawal from this heady venture, for his father's
+sake as well as his own. With this monition of duty the poor ghost bade
+farewell to the scene that so allured him, the old home atmosphere so
+dear to his sense of exile, and took his way silently, softly, up the
+stairs.
+
+He met the dawn at the head of the flight, filtering down from a high
+window. It fell quite distinct on the map of the town and its defences
+that he had drawn, in the dust on the polished top of the cedar chest,
+and suddenly a thought came to him altogether congruous with the garish
+day.
+
+"I know a chief of artillery who would like mightily to hear where that
+masked battery is! I do believe he could reach it from Sugar Loaf
+Pinnacle if he could get a few guns up there!"
+
+Then he was reminded anew of the subterranean secret passage from the
+grotto in the grove through the cave to the cellar of the old Devrett
+place, where now there was a powder-magazine. "I'd like to get out of
+the lines with that map set in my head precisely." He thought for a
+minute with great concentration. "Better still, I'll draw it off on
+paper."
+
+He had half a mind to take Uncle Ephraim into his confidence to procure
+pencils and paper, but a prudent monition swayed him. This was going
+far, very far! He would possess himself of the map duly drawn, but he
+would share this secret with no one. He resolved that when next the
+family should be out of the house, for daily they and their invalid
+guest strolled for exercise in the grove or wandered among the flowers
+in the old-fashioned garden, he would then venture into the library
+quietly and secure the materials.
+
+The opportunity, however, did not occur till late in the afternoon. He
+did not postpone the quest for a midnight hazard, for he daily hoped
+that with the darkness might come news of the drawing in of the
+picket-lines, affording him a better chance to make a run for escape.
+Hence it so happened that when the elder members of the household came
+in to tea, they found the "ladies" already at the table, the twins
+gloomily whimpering, the dumb child with an elated yet scornful air, her
+bright eyes dancing.
+
+They had seen a ghost, the twins protested.
+
+"Oh, fie! fie!" their grandfather uneasily rebuked them, and Captain
+Baynell turned with the leniency of the happy and consequently the
+easily pleased to inquire into this juvenile mystery.
+
+Oh, yes, they _had_ seen a ghost! a truly true ghost! They mopped their
+eyes with their diminutive handkerchiefs and wept in great depression of
+spirit. It was in the library, they further detailed, just about dark.
+And it had seen them! It scrabbled and scrunched along the wall! And
+they both drew up their shoulders to their ears to imitate the shrinking
+attitude of a ghost who would fain shun observation and get out of the
+way.
+
+Little Lucille laughed fleeringly, understanding from the motion of
+their lips what they had said. She gazed around with lustrous, excited
+eyes; then, she turned toward Baynell, and with infinite elan, she
+smartly delivered the military salute.
+
+"Why," cried Mrs. Gwynn, on the impulse of the moment, "Lucille says it
+is Julius Roscoe; that is her sign for him. What is all this foolery,
+Lucille?"
+
+But just then Uncle Ephraim, in his functions as waiter, overturned the
+large, massive coffee urn, holding much scalding fluid, upon the table,
+causing the group to scatter to avoid contact with the turbulent flood.
+The "widder 'oman" struggled valiantly to keep her temper, and said
+only a little of what she thought. The rearrangement of the table, with
+her awkward and untrained servant, for the service of the meal so
+occupied her faculties that the matter passed from her mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Miss Mildred Fisher was one of the happiest of women, and this was the
+result of her own peculiar temperament, although she enjoyed the
+endowments of a kind fate, for she came of a good family and had a fine
+fortune in expectation. Her resolute intention was to make the best of
+everything. With a strong, fresh, buoyant physique and an indomitable
+spirit it became evident to her in the early stages of this effort that
+the world is a fairly pleasant planet to live on. Her red hair--a
+capital defect in those days, when Titian's name was never associated
+with anything so unfashionable, and which bowed to the earth the soul of
+many an otherwise deserving damsel--was most skilfully manipulated, and
+dressed in fleecy billows, usually surmounted with an elaborate comb of
+carved tortoise-shell, but on special occasions with a cordon of very
+fine pearls, as if to attract the attention that other flame-haired
+people avoided by the humblest coiffure. By reason of this management it
+was described sometimes as auburn, and even golden, but this last was
+the aberration usually of youths who had lost their own heads, red and
+otherwise, for Mildred was a bewildering coquette. She had singularly
+fine hazel eyes, which she used rather less for the purpose of vision
+than for the destruction of the peace of man. Her complexion of that
+delicate fairness so often concomitant of red hair did not present the
+usual freckles. In fact it was the subject of much solicitous care. She
+wore so many veils and mufflers that her identity often might well be a
+matter of doubt as far as her features could be discerned, and Seymour,
+being a very glib young lieutenant, once facetiously threatened her with
+arrest for going masked and presumably entertaining designs pernicious
+to the welfare of the army. That she did entertain such designs, in a
+different sense, was indeed obvious, for with her determination to make
+the best of everything, Miss Fisher had resolved to harass the heart of
+the invader the moment a personable man with a creditable letter of
+introduction presented himself. For she "received the Yankees," as the
+phrase went, while others closed their doors and steeled their hearts in
+bitterness.
+
+"We _all_ receive the Yankees," she was wont to say smilingly. "It is a
+family failing with us. My father and five brothers in the Confederate
+vanguard are waiting now to receive Yankees--as many Yankees as care to
+come to Bear-grass Creek."
+
+"Oh, Miss Fisher!" remonstrated the gay young lieutenant, perceiving her
+drift; "how can you consign me so heartlessly to six red-handed
+Rebels!"
+
+"Only red-headed as yet, fiery,--_all_ of them! They'll be red-handed
+enough after you and they come to blows!"
+
+This mimic warfare had a certain zest, and many were the youths among
+the officers of the garrison who liked to "talk politics" in this vein
+with "Sister Millie," as she was often designated in jocose allusion to
+the five fiery-haired brothers. And indeed, as the Fisher family was so
+numerously represented in the Confederate army, she considered that her
+Southern partisanship was thus comprehensively demonstrated, and she
+felt peculiarly at liberty to make merry with the enemy if the enemy
+would be merry in turn.
+
+Very merry and good-natured the enemy was pleased to be as far as she
+was concerned. They wrote home for social credentials. They secured
+introductions from brother-officers who had the entree, and especially
+courted for this purpose were two elderly colonels who had been
+classmates of her father's at West Point, where he was educated,
+although he had resigned from the army many years ago. The two had
+sought and naturally had found a cordial welcome at the home of his
+wife, sister, and mother. It was natural, too, that they should feel and
+exert a sort of prudential care of the household, in the midst of
+inimical soldiers, and although their ancient companion-in-arms was in
+an adverse force hardly fifty miles away, they regarded this as merely
+the political aspect of the situation, which did not diminish their
+amity and bore no relation to their personal sentiment, as they came and
+went in his house on the footing of friends of the family. Now and again
+the incongruity was brought home to them by some audacity of Mildred
+Fisher's.
+
+"If you should meet papa, Colonel Monette," she said one day as one of
+these elderly officers was going out to command a scouting
+expedition--"if you _should_ meet papa, don't fail to reintroduce
+yourself, and give him our prettiest compliments."
+
+The elderly officer was a literal-minded campaigner, and as he put his
+foot in the stirrup he felt rather dolorously that if ever he did meet
+Guy Fisher again, it would probably be at point-blank range where one
+would have to swallow the other's pistol ball.
+
+The war, however, was seldom so seriously regarded at the Fisher
+mansion, one of the fine modern houses of the town,--brick with heavy
+limestone facings and much iron grille work, perched up on a double
+terrace, from which two flights of stone steps descended to the
+pavement. The more youthful officers contrived to import fruits and
+hothouse flowers, the fresh books and sheet music of the day, and they
+stood by the piano and wagged their heads to the march in "Faust," which
+was all the rage at that time, and sped around nimbly to the vibrations
+of its waltz, that might have made a pair of spurs dance. She had a
+very pretty wit of an exaggerated tenor, and it seemed to whet the
+phrase of every one who was associated with "The Fair One with the
+Equivocal Locks," as an imitator of her methods had dubbed her.
+
+No order was so strictly enforced as to touch her mother's and her
+aunt's household. Their poultry roosted in peace. Their firearms were
+left by officers conducting searches through citizens' houses and
+confiscating pistols, guns, and knives.
+
+"_We_ are as capable of armed rebellion as ever," she would declare
+joyously.
+
+Miss Fisher's favorite horse bore her airy weight as jauntily down the
+street as if no impress had desolated equestrian society. On these
+occasions she was always accompanied by two or three officers, sometimes
+more, and there was a fable in circulation that once the cavalcade was
+so numerous that the guard was turned out at the fort, the sentries
+mistaking the gayly caparisoned approach for the major general
+commanding the division and his mounted escort.
+
+She sang in a very high soprano voice and with a considerable degree of
+culture, but one may be free to say that her rendering of "Il Bacio" and
+"La Farfalletta" was by no means the triumph of art that it seemed to
+Seymour, and it was suggested to the mind of several of the elder
+officers that there ought to be something more arduous for him to do
+than to languish over the piano in a sentimental daze, fairly
+hypnotized by the simpler melodies--"Her bright smile haunts me still"
+and "Sweet Evangeline."
+
+Serious thoughts were sometimes his portion, and Vertnor Ashley now and
+again received the benefit of them.
+
+"I heard some news when I was in town to-day--and I don't believe it,"
+Seymour said as he sat on a camp-stool on the grass in front of the
+colonel's tent.
+
+The so-called "street" of the cavalry encampment lay well to the rear.
+Hardly a sound emanated therefrom save now and then the echo of a step,
+the jingling of a spur or sabre, and sometimes voices in drowsy
+talk--perhaps a snatch of song or the thrumming of a guitar. A sort of
+luminous hush pervaded the atmosphere of the sunny spring afternoon. The
+shadows slanted long on the lush blue-grass that, despite the trampling
+to which it had been subjected, sent a revivifying impetus from its
+thickly interlaced mat of roots and spread a turf like dark rich velvet.
+The impulse of bloom was rife throughout nature--in a sort of praise
+offering for the grace of the spring. Humble untoward sprigs of
+vegetation, nameless, one would think, unnoticed, must needs wear a tiny
+corolla or offer a chalice full of dew--so minute, so apart from
+observation, that their very creation seemed a work of supererogation.
+The dandelions' rich golden glow was instarred along the roadside, and
+there was a bunch of wood violets in the roots of the maple near
+Ashley's head, the branches of the tree holding far down their dark
+garnet blossoms with here and there clusters of flat wing-like
+seed-pods, striped with green and brown. A few paces distant was a
+tulip-tree, gloriously aflare with red and yellow blooms through all its
+boughs to the height of eighty feet, and between was swung Ashley's
+hammock with Ashley luxuriously disposed therein. His eyes were on the
+infinite roseate ranges of the Great Smoky Mountains in the amethystine
+distance; the purple Chilhowee darkly loomed closer at hand, and about
+the foot-hills was belted the placid cestus of tents, all gleaming
+white, while the splendid curves of the river, mirroring the sky, vied
+with the golden west. Nothing could have more picturesquely suggested
+the warrior in his hours of ease. The consciousness of one's own graces
+ought to add a zest to their value, especially when vanity is as
+absolutely harmless as Vertnor Ashley's enjoyment of his own good
+opinion of himself.
+
+"What news? Why don't you believe it? Grape-vine?" asked Ashley.
+(Grape-vine was the telegraph of irresponsible rumor.)
+
+"No--no--nothing fresh from the army. I heard a rumor to-day about Miss
+Fisher--that she is engaged to be married."
+
+"I am not surprised--the contrary would surprise me."
+
+Seymour looked alarmed. "Had you heard it, too?"
+
+"No; but from what I have seen of 'Sister Millie,' as they call her
+about here, I should say she is a fine recruiting officer."
+
+There was an interval of silence, while Ashley swung back and forth in
+the hammock and Seymour sat in a clumped posture on the camp-stool, his
+hands on his knees, and his gloomy eyes on the square toes of his new
+boots. At length he resumed:--
+
+"Did you ever hear of a fellow that hails from somewhere near here named
+Lloyd?"
+
+"Lawrence Lloyd?"
+
+"That's the man," said Seymour.
+
+"I've heard of him. That's the Lloyd place a little down the river,--old
+brick house, but all torn down now--burned by Gibdon's men; good-sized
+park, or 'grove,' as they call it. That's the man, is it? Commanded some
+Rebel cavalry in the Bear-grass Creek skirmish."
+
+"Fought like a bear with a sore head--mad about his house, I suppose."
+
+"If I _knew_ that Miss Fisher was engaged to him, I would send her a
+barrel or two of fine old books that I rescued from Gibdon's
+men--thought I'd save 'em for the owner. They made a bonfire of the
+library there."
+
+"Lloyd used 'em up in a raid last fall--Gibdon's fellows. I don't blame
+'em. But, say Miss Fisher has not been fair to me if she is engaged to
+that man."
+
+"I always thought Miss Fisher was particularly fair--owing to a
+sun-bonnet, rather than to a just mind."
+
+"You think she would treat me as she has--encourage me to make a fool of
+myself--if she is engaged to another man?"
+
+"I think she is likelier to be engaged to five than 'another.'"
+
+"You should not say that, Ashley," retorted Seymour, gravely. "It is not
+appropriate. You should not say that," he urged again.
+
+"Oh, I mean no offence, and certainly no disrespect to the lovely Miss
+Fisher, who is my heart's delight. But you have heard the five-swain
+story?"
+
+As Seymour looked an inquiry--
+
+"Five Rebs in camp, all homesick, very blue, on a Sunday morning," began
+Ashley, graphically; "all sitting on logs, each brooding over his
+fiancee's ivory-type. And, as misery loves company, one sympathized with
+another, and, by way of boastfulness, showed the beautiful counterfeit
+presentment of his lady-love. Their clamors brought up the rest of the
+five, and _each_ had the identical photograph of Miss Millie Fisher. She
+was engaged to all five! There was nothing else they could do--so they
+held a prayer-meeting!"
+
+"What bosh!" exclaimed Seymour, fretfully. "People are always at some
+extravagant story about her like that. It isn't true, of course."
+
+"It is as much like her as if it were true," Ashley declared laughingly.
+
+The serious, not to say petulant traits of Seymour were intensified by
+the conscious jeopardy of his happiness, and the continual doubt in his
+mind as to whether he had any ground for hope at all.
+
+"By George! if I knew she was engaged--or--if I knew--anything at all
+about anything--I'd cut it all, and give it up. I don't want to be a
+source of amusement to her--or to be made a show of. Sometimes, I pledge
+you my word, I feel like a dancing bear."
+
+"Miss Fisher has something of the style of a bear-ward, it must be
+confessed," said Ashley. "I fancied at one time she had a notion of
+getting a chain on me--she is enterprising, you know."
+
+Then, after a moment, "Why _don't_ you cut it all, Mark?"
+
+"Oh," cried Seymour, with an accent of positive pain, "I can't.
+Sometimes I believe she _does_ care--she makes me believe it."
+
+"Well," smiled Ashley, banteringly, "you dance very prettily--not a bit
+clumsily--a very creditable sort of bear."
+
+Another interval of silence ensued.
+
+"I blame Baynell for all this," said Seymour, sullenly.
+
+"Why? Is he a rival?"
+
+"No. But it was not at all serious--I wasn't so dead gone, I mean--when
+I wanted him to take me to the Roscoes'. If I had had some other place
+to visit--some other people to know--some distraction of a reasonable
+social circle, she couldn't have brought me to such a--a--"
+
+"--state of captivity," suggested Ashley.
+
+"Well, you know, seeing nobody else of one's own sort--and a charming
+girl--and nothing to do but to watch her sing--and hear her talk--and
+all the other men wild about her--and--it's--it's--"
+
+"You'll forget it all before long," suggested the consolatory Ashley.
+"You know we are here to-day and gone to-morrow, in a sense that General
+Orders make less permanent than Scripture. If the word should come to
+break camp and march--how little you would be thinking of Miss Fisher."
+
+"I suppose you were never in love, Ashley," Seymour said, a trifle
+drearily, adding mentally, "except with yourself!"
+
+"I!" exclaimed Ashley, twirling his mustache. "Oh, I have had my sad
+experiences, too--but I have survived them--and partially forgotten
+them."
+
+"I have no interest now in going to the Roscoes'. Mrs. Fisher offered to
+introduce me. She and Miss Millie are going there to-morrow to some sort
+of a sewing-circle--they just want an officer's escort through the
+suburbs, I know. That sewing-circle is a fraud, and ought to be
+interdicted. They pretend to sew and knit for the hospitals here and
+Confederate prisoners, and I feel sure they smuggle the lint and clothes
+and supplies through the lines to Rebels openly in arms. I hate to go."
+
+"Well, now, I'll engage to eat all the homespun cotton shirts that Miss
+Fisher ever makes for the Rebel in arms, or any other man. You need have
+no punctilio on that score."
+
+"Oh, it isn't that. I hate to meet Baynell--what is he staying on there
+for? He is as rugged now as ever in his life. Is he in love with the
+widow?"
+
+"He has a queer way of showing it if he is." And Ashley detailed the
+circumstance of the impressing of the horse. Seymour listened with a
+look of searching, keen intentness.
+
+"Baynell would never have done that in this world," he declared, "if you
+had not been there to hear the neighing, too. Why, it stands to reason.
+The family must have known the horse might whinny at any moment. They
+relied on his winking at it, and he would have done it if you had not
+been there. He took that pose of being so regardful of the needs of the
+service because he has been favoring the Roscoes in every way
+imaginable. Why, hardly anybody else has a stick of timber left, and
+every day houses are seized for military occupation, and the owners
+turned adrift, but _I_ know that when one of his men stole only a plank
+from Judge Roscoe's fence, he had the fellow tied up by his thumbs with
+the plank on his back for hours in the sun. That was for the sake of
+_discipline_, my dear fellow--not for Judge Roscoe's plank. On the
+contrary--quite the reverse!"
+
+Seymour wagged his satiric head, unconvinced, and Ashley remembered
+afterward that he vaguely wished that Baynell would not make so definite
+a point about these matters, provoking a sort of comment that ordinary
+conduct could hardly incur. Baynell ought to be in camp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Baynell, himself, reached the same conclusion the next evening, but by
+an altogether different process of reasoning.
+
+He had noticed the unusual stir among the "ladies" early in the
+afternoon and a sort of festival aspect that the old house was taking
+on. The parlors were opened and a glow of sunshine illumined the windows
+and showed the grove from a new aspect--the choicer view where the slope
+was steep. The river rounded the point of woods, and there was a great
+stretch of cliffs opposite; beyond were woods again, reaching to the
+foot-hills that clustered about the base of the distant mountains
+bounding the prospect. The glimpse seen through the rooms was like a
+great painting in intense, clear, fine colors, and he paused for a
+moment to glance at it as he passed down the hall, for all the doors
+were standing broadly aflare and all the windows were open to the
+summer-like zephyr that played through the house.
+
+"Oh, Captain Baynell!" cried Adelaide, catching sight of him and gasping
+in the sheer joy of the anticipation of a great occasion. "The
+Sewing-Society is going to meet here, and you can come in, too! Mayn't
+he come in, Cousin Leonora?"
+
+Mrs. Gwynn was filling a large bowl on a centre-table with a gorgeous
+cluster of deep red tulips, and Baynell noticed that she had thrust two
+or three into the dense knot of fair hair at the nape of her neck. As
+she turned around one of the swaying bells was still visible, giving its
+note of fervid brilliancy to her face. Her dress was a white mull, of
+simple make--old, even with a delicate darn on one of its floating open
+sleeves, but to one familiar with her appearance in the sombre garb of
+widowhood she seemed radiant in a sort of splendor. What was then called
+a "Spanish waist," a deeply pointed girdle of black velvet, flecked with
+tiny red tufts, made the sylphlike grace of her figure more pronounced,
+and at her throat was a collarette of the same material. Her cheeks were
+flushed. It had been a busy day--with the morning lessons, with the
+arrangement of the parlors, the array of materials, the setting of the
+sewing-machines in order, including two or three of the earlier
+hand-power contrivances, sent in expressly from the neighbors, the
+baskets for lint,--one could hear even now the whirring of the
+grindstone as old Ephraim put a keener edge on the scissors. Last but
+not least Leonora had accomplished the bedizenment of the "ladies."
+
+Adelaide was not born to blush unseen. She realized the solecism that
+her vanity lured her to commit, yet she said hardily, "Look at _me_,
+Captain--I'm got me a magenta sash!"
+
+"And it's beautiful!" cried Baynell, responsively. "And so are you!"
+
+Mrs. Gwynn glanced down at her reprovingly and was out of countenance
+for a moment.
+
+"How odious it is to give to colors the names of battles," she
+said,--"Magenta and Solferino!"
+
+"This is a beautiful color, though," said Baynell.
+
+"But the name gives such an ensanguined suggestion," she objected.
+
+Her eye critically scanned the three "ladies" in their short white mull
+dresses and magenta sashes, each with a bow of black velvet in her hair,
+as they led Captain Baynell into the room, and it did not occur to her
+till too late to canvass the acceptability of the presence of the Yankee
+officer to the ladies of the vicinity, assembling in this choice
+symposium, who had some of them the cruel associations of death itself
+with the very sight of the uniform.
+
+Whether it were good breeding, or the magnanimity that exempts the unit
+from the responsibility of the multitude, or a realization that Judge
+Roscoe's guest, be he whom he might, was entitled to the consideration
+of all in the Roscoe house, there was no demonstration of even the
+slightest antagonism. The usual civility of salutation in acknowledging
+the introduction served to withhold from Captain Baynell himself the
+fact that he could hardly hope to be _persona grata_; and ensconced in
+an arm-chair at the window overlooking the lovely landscape, he found a
+certain amusement and entertainment in watching the zealous industry of
+the little Roscoe "ladies," who were very competent lint-pickers and
+boasted some prodigies of performance. A large old linen crumb-cloth,
+laundered for the occasion, had been spread in the corner between the
+rear and side windows of the back parlor, so that the flying lint should
+not bespeck the velvet carpet, or an overturned basket work injury, and
+here in their three little chairs they sat and competed with each other,
+appealing to Captain Baynell to time them by his watch.
+
+Now and then their comments, after the manner of their age, were keenly
+malapropos and occasioned a sense of embarrassment.
+
+"Don't you reckon Ac'obat is homesick by this time, Captain?" demanded
+Adelaide.
+
+"Look out of the window, Captain--you can see the grating to the
+wine-cellar where he could put his nose out to take the air," said
+Geraldine.
+
+"An' he thought the lightning could come in there to take
+him--kee--kee--" giggled Adelaide.
+
+"Oh, _wasn't_ he a foolish horse!" commented Geraldine, regretfully.
+
+"Uncle Ephraim said Ac'obat had no religion else he'd have stayed where
+he was put like a Christian," Adelaide observed.
+
+"Oh, but he was _just_ a horse--poor Ac'obat!"
+
+At this moment emulation seized Geraldine. "Oh, my--just look how
+Lucille is double-quickin' about that lint pickin'!"
+
+And a busy silence ensued.
+
+The large rooms were half full of members of the society. In those days
+the infinite resources of the "ready-made" had not penetrated to these
+regions, and doubtless the work of such eager and industrious coteries
+carried comfort and help farther than one can readily imagine, and the
+organized aid of woman's needle was an appreciable blessing. Two or
+three matrons, with that wise, capable look of the able house-sovereign,
+when scissors, or a dish, or a vial of medicine is in hand, sat with
+broad "lapboards" across their knees, and cut and cut the coarse
+garments with the skill of experts, till great piles were lying on the
+floor, caught up with a stitch to hold component parts together and
+passed on to the younger ladies at the sewing-machines that whirred and
+whirred like the droning bees forever at the jessamine blooming about
+the windows. Nothing could be more unbeautiful or uninviting than the
+aspect of these stout garments, unless it were to the half-clad soldier
+in the trenches to whom they came like an embodied benediction. The
+thought of him--that unknown, unnamed beneficiary, for whose grisly
+needs they wrought--was often, perhaps, in the mind of each.
+
+"And oh!" cried Adelaide, "while I'm pickin' lint for this hospital, I
+dust know some little girl away out yonder in the Confederacy is
+pickin' lint too--an' if my papa was to get wounded, they'd have
+plenty."
+
+"Pickin' fast, she is, like us!" cried the hastening Geraldine.
+
+The deft-fingered mute, discerning their meaning by the motion of their
+lips, redoubled her speed.
+
+Others were sewing by hand, and one very old lady had knitted some
+lamb's wool socks, which were passed about and greatly admired; she was
+complacent, almost coquettish, so bland was her smile under these
+compliments.
+
+And into this scene of placid and almost pious labor came Miss Mildred
+Fisher presently, leading her "dancing bear."
+
+If there were any question of the acceptability of the enforced presence
+of a Yankee officer, either in the mind of the Sewing-Circle or
+Lieutenant Seymour, it was not allowed to smoulder in discomfort, but
+set ablaze to burn itself out.
+
+"I know you are all just perfectly amazed at our assurance in bringing a
+Yankee officer here,--_don't_ be mortified, Lieutenant Seymour,--but
+mamma wouldn't hear of coming without a valiant man-at-arms as an
+escort, so I begged and prayed him to come, and now I want you all to
+beg and pray him to stay!"
+
+Then she introduced him to several ladies, while Mrs. Fisher, always the
+mainspring of the executive committee, a keen, thin, birdlike woman,
+swift of motion and of a graceful presence, but prone to settle moot
+points with a decisive and not altogether amiable peck, gave him no
+attention, but darting from group to group devoted herself wholly to the
+business in hand. She seemed altogether oblivious, too, of Mildred's
+whims, which were to her an old story. Seldom, indeed, had Mildred
+Fisher looked more audaciously sparkling. Her fairness was enhanced by
+the black velvet facing of her white Leghorn turban, encircled with one
+of those beautiful long white ostrich plumes then so much affected that,
+after passing around the crown, fell in graceful undulations over the
+equivocal locks and almost to the shoulder of her black-and-white
+checked walking suit of "summer silk," trimmed with a narrow
+black-and-white fringe.
+
+"Grandma sent these socks and shirts--" she said officiously, taking a
+bundle from a neat colored maid who had followed her--"and I brought my
+thimble--here it is--golden gold--and a large brass thimble for Mr.
+Seymour. You wouldn't think he has so much affinity for brass--to look
+at him now! I intend to make him sew, too. Mrs. Clinton, I know you
+think I am just _awful_," turning apologetically upon the very old lady
+her sweet confiding eyes. "But--oh, Mrs. Warren--before I forget it, I
+want to let you know that your son was _not_ wounded in that Bear-grass
+Creek skirmish at all. I have a letter from one of my brothers--brother
+number four--and he says it is a mistake; your son was not hurt, but
+distinguished himself greatly. Here's the letter. I can't tell you _how_
+it came through the lines, for Lieutenant Seymour might _repeat_ it; he
+has the l-o-n-g-e-s-t tongue, though you wouldn't think it, to see him
+now, speechless as he is."
+
+Lieutenant Seymour rallied sufficiently to protest he couldn't get in a
+word edgewise, and Mrs. Gwynn, with her official sense of hospitality
+and a real pity for anything that Millie Fisher had undertaken to
+torment on whatever score, adopted the tone of the conversation, and
+said with a smile that he might consider himself "begged and prayed" to
+remain.
+
+Lieutenant Seymour was instantly placed at ease by this episode, but
+Mrs. Gwynn experienced a vague disquietude because of the genuine
+surprise that expressed itself in Mildred Fisher's face as that
+comprehensive feminine glance of instantaneous appraisement of attire
+took account of her whole costume. Leonora had not reckoned on this
+development when, in that sudden revulsion of feeling, she had discarded
+the fictitious semblance of mourning for the villain who had been the
+curse of her life. The momentary glance passed as if it had not been,
+but she could not at once rid herself of a sense of disadvantage. She
+knew that to others as well the change must seem strange--yet, why
+should it? All knew that her widow's weeds had been but an empty
+form--what significance could the fact possess that they were worn for a
+time as a concession to convention, then laid aside? She could not long
+lend herself, however, to the absorption of reflection. The present was
+strenuous.
+
+Miss Fisher was bent on investing Lieutenant Seymour with the thimble
+and requiring him to thread a needle for himself, while she soberly and
+with despatch basted a towel which she destined him to hem. The comedy
+relief that these arrangements afforded to the serious business of the
+day was very indulgently regarded, and her bursts of silvery laughter
+and the young officer's frantic pleas for mercy--utterly futile, as all
+who knew Millie Fisher foresaw they must be--brought a smile to grave
+faces and relaxed the tension of the situation, placing the unwelcome
+presence of the unasked visitor in the category of one of Millie
+Fisher's many freaks.
+
+Seymour had a very limited sense of humor and could not endure to be
+made ridiculous, even to gladden so merry a lady-love; but when she
+declared that she would transfer the whole paraphernalia--thimble,
+needle, towel, and all--to Captain Baynell, and let him do the hemming,
+Seymour, all unaware of the secret amusement his sudden consent afforded
+the company, showed that he preferred that she should make him ludicrous
+rather than compliment another man by her mirthful ridicule.
+
+"Now, there you go! Hurrah! Make haste! Not such a big stitch! Now, Mr.
+Seymour, let me tell you, Hercules with the distaff was not a
+circumstance to you!"
+
+And the Sewing-Circle could but laugh.
+
+Upstairs in the quiet old attic these evidences of hilarity rose with an
+intimation of poignant contrast. The dreary entourage of broken
+furniture and dusty trunks and chests, the silence and loneliness,--no
+motion but the vague shifting of the motes in the slant of the sun, no
+sound but the unshared mirth below, in his own home,--this seemed a more
+remote exile. Julius felt actually further from the ancestral roof than
+when he lay many miles away in the trenches in the cold spring rains,
+with never a canopy but the storm, nor a candle but the flash of the
+lightning. He sat quite still in the great arm-chair that his weight
+deftly balanced on its three legs, his head bent to a pose of attention,
+his cap slightly on one side of his long auburn locks, his eyes full of
+a sort of listening interest, divining even more than he heard. He was
+young enough, mercurial enough, to yearn wistfully after the fun,--the
+refined "home-folks fun" of the domestic circle, the family and their
+friends,--to which he had been so long a stranger; not the riotous
+dissipation of the wilder phases of army life nor the animal spirits,
+the "horse-play," of camp comrades. Sometimes at a sudden outburst of
+laughter, dominated by Millie Fisher's silvery trills of mirth, his own
+lips would curve in sympathy, albeit this was but the shell of the
+joke, its zest unimagined, and light would spring into his clear dark
+eyes responsive to the sound. Now and again he frowned as he noted men's
+voices, not his father's nor well-remembered tones of old friends. They
+had been less frequent than the women's voices, but now they came at
+closer intervals, with an unfamiliar accent, with a different pitch, and
+he began to realize that here were the Yankee officers.
+
+"Upon my word, they seem to be having a fine time," he said
+sarcastically.
+
+In the next acclaim he could distinguish, besides the tones of the
+invaders and the ringing vibration from Millie Fisher that led every
+laugh, Leonora's drawling contralto accents, now and again punctuated
+with a suggestion of mirth, and high above all the callow chirp of the
+twin "ladies." He lifted his head and looked at the wasps, building
+their cells on the window lintel, the broad, dreary spaces of the attic;
+and he beheld, as it were, in contrast, his own expectation, the
+welcome, the cherished guest, the guarded secret, the open-hearted talks
+with his father, with the "ladies," with her whom, since widowed, he
+might call to himself, without derogation to his affection or disrespect
+to her, his "best beloved." The hardship it was that for the bleak
+actuality he should have risked his capture, his life,--yes, even his
+neck! His hand trembled upon the map, wrought out to every detail of
+his discoveries, that he kept now in his breast, and now shifted to the
+sole of his boot, and now slid in the lining of his coat-pocket, always
+seeking the safest hiding-place,--forever seeking, forever doubting the
+wisdom of his selection.
+
+But the map--that was something! He had gained this precious knowledge.
+Only to get away with it, unharmed, unchallenged, unmolested! This was
+the problem. This was worth coming for.
+
+"I'll give you some more active entertainment before long, my fine
+squires of dames," he apostrophized the strangers triumphantly. Then he
+experienced a species of rage that they should be so merry--and he, he
+must not see Leonora's face, must not touch her hand, must not tell her
+all he felt; this would have been dear to him even if she had not cared
+to listen. It would have been like the votive offering at a shrine, like
+a prayer from out the fulness of the heart.
+
+There was presently the tinkle of glasses and spoons, intimating the
+serving of refreshments. "I'd like to see old Uncle Ephraim playing
+butler. He must step about as gingerly as a gobbler on hot tin," Julius
+said to himself with a smile. "I'll bet a million of dollars he has
+saved me my share--on a high shelf in the pantry it is right now, in a
+covered dish; and if Leonora should come across it, she would think the
+old man was thieving on his own account. Such are the insincerities of
+circumstantial evidence!"
+
+The genial hubbub in the parlors below was resumed after the decorous
+service of salad and sherbet, and became even more animated when Colonel
+Ashley chanced to call to see Baynell on a matter affecting their
+respective commands. He had of course no idea that he would find Baynell
+engaged with the Sewing-Society, but he met Miss Fisher on her own
+ground, as it were, and there ensued an encounter of wits, a gay joust,
+neither being more sincere than the other, nor with any _arriere pensee_
+of irritable feeling to treat a feint as a threat or to cause a thrust
+to rankle.
+
+Seymour did not welcome him. The prig, Baynell, as he regarded the
+captain, was so null, so stiffly inexpressive, that his presence had
+sunk out of account, and the young lieutenant felt that he could rely to
+a degree on the quiet kindness of the mature dames at work. They did not
+laugh at his sewing over much, although they noted with secret amusement
+that, being of the ambitious temper which cannot endure to be found
+lacking, he had bent his whole energies to the endeavor, and had sewed,
+indeed, as well as it was possible for a lieutenant of infantry to do on
+a first lesson. He had a sort of pride in his performance as he handed
+it up to Miss Fisher, and she showed it to Ashley with an air of
+pronounced amaze.
+
+"A well-conducted Rebel," she said at last, solemnly, "grounded in the
+proper conviction as to the ordinance of secession and the doctrine of
+States' Rights, would go into strong convulsions if he should have to
+bathe with that towel in a hospital. That wavering hem is an epitome of
+all the Yankee crooks, and quirks, and skips, and evasions, and
+concealments of the straight path that typifies right and justice, and
+Mason and Dixon's line! Therefore out it comes!"
+
+As Ashley's joyous laughter rang out with its crisp, genial intonations,
+the listening exile in the attic again involuntarily smiled in sympathy,
+albeit the next moment he was frowning in jealous discomfort, with a
+poignant sense of supersedure. Here, under his own roof-tree--his
+father's home!
+
+Lieutenant Seymour protested with ardor, and in truth he was aghast at
+the prospect. He had taken so much pains. He had wrought with his whole
+soul. He had imagined that he had hemmed so well. Although he had lost
+all thought of Baynell in his interest in the exercises of the
+afternoon, now that Ashley was at hand to witness his discomfiture he
+became resentfully conscious of the presence of the other officer. He
+was suddenly mindful that he could not appear to distinguished advantage
+as the butt of a joke, however mirthful and merry, and this pointed the
+fact that he was not gracing the introduction here which he had earlier
+sought through Baynell's kind offices, and had been, as he thought,
+most impertinently refused. He forgot the grounds of the declination and
+took no heed of the circumstance that they included Ashley's request as
+well as his own. He did not realize that had it fallen to Ashley's lot
+to hem the towel and thread the needle and wear the brass thimble in a
+genuine sewing-circle, his genial gay adaptability would have accorded
+so well with the humor of the company that the jest itself would have
+been blunted. Its edge was whetted by Lieutenant Seymour's serious
+disfavor, the red embarrassment of his countenance, even the stiff lock
+of hair, at the apex of the back of the skull, that stood out and
+quivered with his eager insistence, as he rose erect and held on to the
+towel and looked both angrily and pleadingly at Miss Fisher.
+
+"I hope you will not be mutinous and disobedient," she said gravely. "I
+should be sorry to discipline you with the weapons of the society."
+
+She threatened to pierce his fingers with a very sharp needle, and as he
+hastily withdrew one hand, shifting the towel to the other, she opened a
+very keen pair of shears; as he evaded this she brought up the needle,
+enfilading his retreat.
+
+As he stood among a crowd of ladies, insisting that his work should be
+spared with a vehemence which most of them thought was only a humorous
+affectation and a part of the fun, he noted that Baynell was laughing
+too, slightly, languidly. Baynell was standing beside the low, marble
+mantelpiece, with one elbow upon it, the light from the flaming west
+full on his trim blond beard and hair, his handsome, distinguished face,
+the manly grace of the attitude. Seymour resented with an infinite
+rancor at that moment the contrast with his own flushed, fatigued,
+tousled, agitated, persistent, querulous personality. He could not have
+given up to save his life, and yet he could but despise himself for
+holding on.
+
+"You had better stop pushing me to the wall," he said, and this was
+literal, for he gave back step by step at each feint of the needle; "you
+had better be looking out for Captain Baynell. He might have an attack
+of conscience at any moment, and have all the fruits of your industry
+seized and confiscated as contraband of war. You must remember he had
+Mrs. Gwynn's horse impressed."
+
+Baynell was rigid with an intense displeasure. Twice he was about to
+speak--twice, mindful of the presence of ladies, he hesitated. Then he
+said, quite casually, though visibly with a heedful self-control:--
+
+"That was because of an order, calling for all citizens' horses in this
+district for cavalry."
+
+"With which _you_ had as much to do as last year's snow. Just see, Miss
+Fisher,"--Seymour waved his hand toward the piles of clothing,--"'all
+the coats and garments that Dorcas made'; for Captain Baynell might
+report that they are intended to give aid and comfort to the enemy!--to
+be smuggled out of the lines! He has a dangerous conscience!"
+
+There was a sudden agitated flutter in the coterie. The beautiful aged
+countenance of Mrs. Clinton was overcast with a sort of tremor of
+fright. A sense of discovery, as of a moral paralysis, pervaded the
+atmosphere. A long significant pause ensued. Then with the intimations
+of a stanch reserve of resolution,--a sort of "die in the last ditch"
+spirit,--those more efficient members of the association, middle-aged,
+competent, experienced matrons, recovered their dignified equanimity and
+went on with the examining and counting of the results of the day's work
+and the contributions from without,--Mrs. Fisher, the acting secretary,
+receiving the reports of the conferring squads and jotting the
+enumeration down during the sorting and folding of the completed
+product.
+
+Baynell, apparently losing self-control, had started angrily forward.
+Ashley, grave, perturbed, had changed color--even he was at a loss. One
+might not say what a moment so charged with angry potentialities might
+bring forth. But nothing, no collocation of invented circumstances
+seemed capable of baffling Miss Fisher. She was equal to any emergency.
+She had snatched the towel from the lieutenant's hand, and, flying to
+meet Baynell, her smiling face incongruous with a serious, steady light
+in her eyes, she stopped him midway the room.
+
+"Now do me the favor to look at that," she cried gayly, presenting the
+hem for inspection; "wouldn't you despise an enemy who could take aid
+and comfort from such a hem as that?"
+
+"A good soldier should never despise the enemy," replied Baynell,
+seeking to adopt her mood and repeating the truism with an air of
+banter.
+
+"Well, then, to fit the phrase to your precision, such an enemy would
+deserve to be despised! What--going--Mrs. Clinton? It _is_ getting
+late."
+
+It was not the usual hour of their separation, but to a very old woman
+the turmoils of war were overwhelming. As long as the idea of conflict
+was expressed in the satisfaction of being able to aid in her little way
+the needy with the work of her own hands,--to knit as she sat by her
+desolate fireside and wrought for the unknown comrades of her dead sons;
+to join friends in furnishing blankets and making stout clothes for the
+soldiers; to bottle her famous blackberry cordial, and to pick lint for
+the hospitals,--it seemed to have some gentle phase, to bear a human
+heart. But when the heady tumult, the secret inquisitions, the bitter
+rancors, the cruelty of bloodshed, and the savagery of death that
+constitute the incorporate entity of the great monster, War, were
+reasserted with menace, her gentle, wrinkled hands fell, her hope fled.
+The grave was kind in those days to the aged.
+
+Ashley had contrived to give Seymour a glance so significant that he
+heeded its meaning, though he was already repentant and cowed by the
+fear of Miss Fisher's displeasure. His heart beat fast as she turned her
+face all rippling with smiles toward him, albeit he told himself in the
+same breath that she would have smiled exactly so sweetly had she been
+as angry as he deserved. For Miss Fisher was not in the business of
+philanthropy. She had no call to play missionary to any petulant young
+man's role of heathen.
+
+"Are you going to take mamma and me home?" she asked, "or are you going
+to leave us to be eaten up by the cows homeward bound?"
+
+Now and again might be heard the fitful clanking of a bell as the cows,
+wending their way along the river bank, paused to graze and once more
+took up their leisurely progress toward the town. The sunlight was
+reddening through the rooms. It had painted on the walls arabesques of
+the lace curtains of the western windows; the glow touched with a sort
+of revivifying effect the family portraits. Groups of the members of the
+society having resumed their bonnets and swaying crape veils were going
+from one to another and commenting on the likeness to the subject and
+the resemblance to other members of the family, and one or two of
+artistic bent discussed the relative merits of the artists, for several
+canvases were painted by eminent brushes. All were going home, though in
+the grove the mocking-birds were singing with might and main, but there
+indeed in the moonlight they would sing the night through with a
+romantic jubilance impossible to describe.
+
+Ashley, with the ready tact and good breeding which caused him so much
+to be admired, and so much to admire himself, passed by the more
+attractive of the younger members of the Circle, and did not even heed
+the half-veiled challenge of Miss Fisher to join her party homeward, for
+she had become exceedingly exasperated with Lieutenant Seymour, and had
+Colonel Ashley been attainable, she would have made the younger man
+rabid with jealousy on the walk to the town.
+
+But no! He offered his services as escort to Mrs. Clinton, who looked
+suspiciously and helplessly at him like some tender old baby.
+
+"There is no necessity, but I thank you very much," she said; "I came
+alone."
+
+The engaging Ashley would not be denied. He had noticed, he said, that
+to-day some droves of mules were being driven into town, and the
+heedless soldiers raced along perfectly regardless of what was in the
+roads before them. They should have some order taken with them, really.
+
+"Oh, _don't_ report them," said the old lady. "The--the discipline of
+the army is so--so _painful_."
+
+"But there are no painless methods yet discovered of making men obey,"
+said Ashley, laughing.
+
+She still looked at him, doubtfully, as a mouse might contemplate the
+graces of a very suave cat. But when Julius gazed out from the garret
+window at the departing group, he was duly impressed with the handsome
+colonel of cavalry conducting the aged lady on one arm and bearing her
+delicate little extra shawl on the other, while Mrs. Fisher with Mildred
+and her "dancing bear," who had taken some clumsy steps that day, made
+off toward Roanoke City, and the other ladies variously dispersed,
+Captain Baynell attending the party only to the end of the drive.
+
+Ashley's graceful persistence was justified by the meeting of some of
+the reckless muleteers in full run down the road, with furious cries and
+snapping whips and turbulent clatter of animals and men. As his
+tremulous charge shrunk back aghast, he simply lifted his sword "like a
+wand of authority," as she always described it, and the noisy rout was
+turned aside, as if by magic, into a byway, leaving the whole stretch of
+the turnpike for the passage of the gallant cavalier and one aged lady.
+
+When Baynell came back through the grove and into the house, the parlor
+doors still stood open. The western radiance was yet red on the walls,
+albeit the moon was in the sky. The crumb-cloth that had protected the
+carpet from lint was gone, the sewing-machines had vanished, all traces
+of the work were removed, and wonted order was restored among chairs and
+tables. The rear apartment was as he had seen it hitherto, save that the
+windows on the western balcony were open, and Mrs. Gwynn, in her white
+dress, was standing at the vanishing point of the perspective, glimpsed
+through the swaying curtains and a delicate climbing vine. He hardly
+hesitated, but passed through the rooms and stepped out, meeting her
+surprised eyes as she leaned one hand on the iron railing of the
+balcony.
+
+"I want to speak to you," he said. "I want to know if you think I should
+have made it plain to those ladies this afternoon that they need fear no
+interference from me?"
+
+"Oh, I think they understood," she said listlessly, as if it was no
+great matter.
+
+Her eyes were fixed on the purple western hills. The last vermilion
+segment of the great solar sphere was slipping beyond them, the sunset
+gun boomed from the fort, and the flag fluttered down the staff.
+
+"I felt very keenly the position in which I was placed."
+
+She merely glanced at him and then gazed at the outline of the fort
+against the red sky, all flecked and barred with dazzling flakes of
+amber. The rampart remained massive and heavy, but the sentry-boxes,
+giving their queer little castellated effect, were growing indistinct in
+the distance.
+
+"I was tempted to express my resentment, but I was afraid of going too
+far--of getting into a wrangle with that fellow--"
+
+"Oh, _that_ would have been unpardonable; in the presence of Mrs.
+Clinton and the rest of the Circle!" she said definitely.
+
+"I am _so_ glad you approve my course," he rejoined with an air of
+relief.
+
+Once more she looked at him as he stood beside her. A white jessamine
+clambered up the stone pillar at the outer corner of the grille work.
+Its blossoms wavered about her; a hummingbird flickered in and out and
+was still for a moment, the light showing the jewelled effect of the
+emblazonment of red and gold and green of his minute plumage, then was
+distinguishable only as a gauzy suggestion of wings. The moon was in her
+face, ethereal, delicate, seeming to him entrancingly beautiful. He
+stipulated to himself that it was not this that swayed him. He loved her
+beauty, but only because it was hers. He did not love her for her
+beauty. They were close distinctions, but they made an appreciable
+difference to him. She did not hold his conscience. She did not dictate
+his sense of right. This was apart from her, a sanction too sacred for
+any woman, any human soul to control. Yet he sighed with relief to feel
+the coincidence of his thought and hers.
+
+"You know, about your horse--it was a matter of conscience with me--a
+sense of duty--a matter of conformity to my oath as a soldier and my
+knowledge of the needs of the service. I would not for any consideration
+evade or fail to forward in letter and spirit any detail even of a
+special order that merely chanced to come to my notice, and with which I
+was not otherwise concerned. Not for your sake--not even to win your
+approval, precious as that must always be to me, nor to avoid your
+displeasure, and I believe that is the strongest coercion that could be
+exerted upon me. But the destination of the work done by the
+Sewing-Circle--that is different. I have no information that it is other
+than is claimed. I am not bound to nourish suspicions, nor to
+investigate mysteries, nor to take action on details of circumstantial
+evidence."
+
+He paused. There was something in her face that he did not
+understand;--something stunned, blankly silent, and inexpressive. He
+went on eagerly, the enforced repression of the afternoon finding outlet
+in a flood of words.
+
+"Lieutenant Seymour understands my position thoroughly well, as Colonel
+Ashley does. They take a different view--their construction of their
+duty is more lenient. I don't know why--perhaps because they are
+volunteers, and the whole war to them is a temporary occupation. But
+orders are to be obeyed else they would not be issued. If any exceptions
+were intended, a permit would be granted."
+
+He paused again, looking straight at her with such confident, lucid,
+trusting eyes,--and she felt that she must say something to divert their
+gaze.
+
+"Exceptions, such as Miss Fisher's favorite mount, Madcap? How pretty
+Mildred was to-day! Really beautiful; don't you think so?"
+
+"No." His expression was so tender, so wistful, yet so confident, that,
+amazed, embarrassed, she felt her color begin to flame in her cheeks.
+"How could she seem beautiful where you are,--the loveliest woman in all
+the world and the best beloved."
+
+"Captain Baynell!" she exclaimed, hardly believing that she heard him
+aright. "I do not understand the manner in which you have seen fit to
+speak to me this evening." She paused abruptly, for he was looking at
+her with a palpable surprise.
+
+"You must know--you must have seen--that I love you!" he said hastily.
+"Almost from the moment that I first saw you I have loved you--but more
+and more, hour by hour, and day by day, as I have learned to know you,
+to appreciate you--so perfect and so peerless!"
+
+"You surprise me beyond measure. I must beg--I insist that you do not
+continue to speak to me in this strain."
+
+"Do you mean to say that you did not know it--that you did not perceive
+it?"
+
+"I did not dream it for one moment," she replied.
+
+It seemed as if he could not accept her meaning. He pondered on the
+words as if they might develop some difference.
+
+"You afflict me beyond expression!" he exclaimed with a sort of
+desperate breathlessness. "You destroy my dearest hopes. How could you
+fail--how could I fancy! I--I would not suggest the subject as long as
+your mourning attire repelled it, but--but--since--since--I--I thought
+you knew all my heart and I might speak!"
+
+"You thought I laid aside a widow's weeds to challenge your avowal!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, in her icy, curt, soft tones.
+
+"Oh, Leonora--for God's sake--put on it no interpretation except that I
+love you--I adore you; and I thought such hearty, whole-souled affection
+must awaken some interest, some response. I could hardly be silent
+except I so feared precipitancy. I spoke as soon as I might without rank
+offence."
+
+Even then, in the presence of an agitation, a humiliation peculiarly
+keen to a man of his type, he was not first in Mrs. Gwynn's thoughts.
+She was reviewing the day and wondering if this connection between the
+lack of the widow's weeds and the presence of the Yankee officer was
+suggested to any of the sewing contingent. A vague gesture, a pause, a
+remembered facial expression, sudden, involuntary, at the sight of him
+and her,--all had a new interpretation in the sequence of this
+disclosure. They had thought it the equivalent of the acceptance of a
+new suitor, and the supposed favored lover had thought so himself!
+
+The recollection of her woful married life, with its train of
+barbarities, and rancors, and terrors, both grotesque and horrible, that
+still tortured her present--the leisure moments of her laborious
+days--was bitterly brought to mind for a moment. That she, of all the
+women in the world--that _she_ should be contemplating matrimony anew!
+She gave a light laugh that had in it so little mirth, was so little
+apposite to ridicule, that he did not feel it a fleer.
+
+"You did not mean it, then?"
+
+"Not for one moment."
+
+"You did not have me in mind?"
+
+"No--no--never at all!"
+
+"Leonora--Mrs. Gwynn--this is like death to me--I--I--"
+
+"I am very sorry--"
+
+"I do not reproach you," he interrupted. "It is my own folly, my own
+fault! But I have lived on this hope; it is all the life I have. You do
+not withdraw it utterly? May I not think that in time--"
+
+"No--no--I have no intention of ever marrying again. I--I--was
+not--not--happy."
+
+"But I am different--" he hesitated. He could not exactly find words to
+protest his conviction of his superiority to her husband, a man she had
+loved once. "I mean--we are congenial. I am very considerably older; I
+am nearly thirty-one. My views in life are fixed, definite; my
+occupation is settled. Might not--"
+
+"I am sorry, Captain Baynell; I would not willingly add to the
+unhappiness, real or imaginary, of any one--but all this is worse than
+useless. I must ask you not to recur to the subject. And now I must
+leave you, for the 'ladies' are going to bed, and I must hear them say
+their prayers."
+
+He seemed about to detain her with further protestations, then desisted,
+evidently with a hopeless realization of futility.
+
+"Ask them to remember me in their petitions," he only said with a dreary
+sort of smile.
+
+He had always seemed to love the "ladies" fraternally, with lenient
+admiration, and she liked this tender little domestic trait in the midst
+of his unyielding gravity and inexorable stiffness. She hesitated in the
+moonlight with some stir of genuine sympathy, and held out her hand as
+she passed. He caught it and covered it with kisses. She drew it hastily
+from him, and Baynell was left alone on the balcony; the scene before
+him, the vernal glamours of the moon, the umbrageous trees, the sweet
+spring flowers, the sheen of the river, the bivouacs of the hills, the
+fort on the height,--these things seemed unrealities and mere shadows as
+he faced the fragments of that nullity, his broken dream, the only
+positive actuality in all his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+That night, so long his step went to and fro in his room as he paced the
+floor, for he could not sleep and he could not be still, that the Rebel,
+hidden in the attic, was visited by grave monitions concerning his
+neighbor and did not venture out to roam the stairways and halls and the
+unoccupied precincts of the ground floor as he was wont to do.
+
+"'The son of Belial' has something on his mind, to a certainty, and I
+hope to the powers 'tisn't me," Julius said now and again, as he
+listened. He had sat long in his rickety arm-chair in the broad slant of
+the moonlight, that fell athwart the dim furniture and the gray shadows,
+for the night continued fair and the moon was specially brilliant. Once
+in the clear glow he saw distinctly in the further spaces the figure of
+a man, watchful-eyed, eager, springing toward him as he moved, and he
+experienced the cold chill of despair before he realized that it was his
+own reflection in a dull mirror at the opposite side of the great room
+that had elicited this apparition of terror. He took himself quickly out
+of the range of its reflection.
+
+"Two Johnny Rebs are a crowd in this garret! I have just about room
+enough for myself. I'm not recruiting."
+
+He crept silently to the bed and lay down at full length, all dressed
+and booted as he was, his hands clasped under his head, with the
+moonlight in his eyes and illuminating his sleepless pillow, still
+listening to the regular step marching to and fro in the room below.
+
+Julius did not court slumber.
+
+"I must keep the watch with you, my fine fellow," he said resolutely.
+
+Though there was a strong coercion to wakefulness in the propinquity of
+that spirit of unrest which possessed his enemy so close at hand, his
+eyes once grew heavy-lidded and opened with a sudden start as, half
+dreaming, he fancied a stealthy approach. He sprang from the recumbent
+posture, and the floor creaked under the abrupt movement. This gave him
+pause, and he slowly collected his faculties. Surely the stranger would
+hardly venture, even under the relentless scourge of his own wakeful
+thoughts, to roam about the house in search of peace or the surcease of
+mental tyranny that change might effect. This might savor of disrespect
+to his host, yet Julius canvassed the suggestion. These were untoward
+times, and strange people were queerly mannered. The officer must have
+learned in the length of his residence here that the great vacant attic
+was untenanted wholly, and of course he knew that the ground floor was
+altogether unoccupied by night. He might descend and light the library
+lamp and read. He might indeed roam the deserted rooms with the same
+sort of satisfaction that Julius himself had already felt in the great
+spaces, the absolute quiet, the still moonlight, the long abeyance of
+day with its procrastination of the sordid problems and the toilsome
+business of life. If he had chanced to meet the Rebel on the stairs, he
+would scarcely have thought the apparition a spectral manifestation, as
+the poor little twins had construed the encounter in the library, for
+old Janus, trembling and terrified, had detailed the significance of the
+scene in the dining room afterward, and the eagerness of Julius to get
+away, to be off, had been redoubled. Daily he had hoped for news of the
+approach of the picket-lines, and daily the old servant wrung his hands
+and made his report, of which the burden was, "Wuss an' wuss!"--or
+detailed a "scrimmage" in which "dem scand'lous Rebs had run like
+tuckies, an' deir line is furder off dan it eber was afore!"
+
+The Confederate officer, nevertheless, had hitherto felt a degree of
+safety in the attic and had the resources of a manly patience to await
+the event. This nocturnal eccentricity on the part of the guest of the
+house, however, roused new forebodings. It bore in its own conditions
+the inception of added danger. It was unprecedented. It marked a
+turbulent restlessness and the element of change. In the evidently
+agitated state of the stranger's nerves, some trifle, the scamper of a
+rat, the dislodgment of the rickety old cornice of this bedstead, the
+fall of one of the girandoles, teetering over there on a chest of
+drawers, might rouse him with its clamor and justify the ascent of the
+attic stairs to investigate its source. These were troublous times.
+There were stories forever afloat of lawless marauders. Smoke-houses
+were broken into and pillaged. Mansions were robbed and fired, and their
+tenants, chiefly women and children, fleeing into the cornfields to
+hide, watched the roof-tree flare. It was hard for the authorities to
+find and fix the responsibility for these dread deeds in remote
+inaccessible spots, and it would be culpable neglect for this Federal
+officer to tolerate the suggestion of an ill-omened noise or an
+unaccustomed presence without seeking out its cause. Evidently any
+accident would bring him upstairs. It was equally obvious that the
+garret was no place to sleep to-night! Julius, as he lay on the pillow,
+could hardly rid himself of the idea of approach. Ever and anon he
+looked for the stealthy shadow of which he had dreamed, climbing in the
+moonbeams along the balusters of the stairway. Finally he stole silently
+out of the reach of the moonlight to a darker corner of the room,--the
+deep recess of one of the windows which the shadow of a great branch of
+the white pine made duskier still. The tall tree, with its full,
+sempervirent boughs, showed the varying nocturnal tints that color may
+compass, uninformed by the sun,--the cool suggestion of a fair dull
+green where the moonbeams glistered, the fibrous leaves tipped with a
+dim sparkle; the deep umbrageous verdure where the darkness lurked and
+yet did not annul the vestige of tone. As he reclined on the
+window-seat, he discerned farther down a faint flare of artificial
+light. It described a regularly barred square amidst the pine needles,
+and he presently recognized it as the light from the window of Captain
+Baynell's room. Now and again it flickered in a way that told how the
+disregarded candle was beginning to gutter in the socket. Still to and
+fro the regular footfalls went, muffled on the heavy carpet, but in the
+dead hush of night perceptible enough to the watching listener. At last
+with a final flare the taper burned out, but the moon was in the windows
+along the western side of the house, and still to and fro went the
+steps, betokening the turmoil of unquiet thoughts. Julius watched how
+the moonbeams shifted from bough to bough as the slow night lingered. He
+heard the bells from the city towers mark the hour and the recurrent
+echo from the rocky banks of the river: then one far away, belated,
+faint, scarcely perceived, beat out the tally of the time on some remote
+cliff. Once more the air fell silent save for the jubilee of the
+mocking-birds, for spring had come, and skies were fair, and the
+gossamer moon was a-swing in the night, and love, and life, and home
+were dear, and the incredibly sweet, brilliant delight of song arose in
+paeans of joy and faith. Even this waned after a time. A wind with the
+thrills of dawn in its wings sprang up, and Julius shivered with the
+chill. The dew was cold and thick in the pines, and the sward glittered
+like a sheet of water.
+
+At last all was quiet and silent in the room below. Julius listened
+intently. No creak of opening door; no footfall on the stair. Now, he
+told himself, was the moment of danger, when he could no longer be
+assured of the man's movements, and could not even guess at his
+intentions. He listened--still--still to silence. Silence absolute,
+null.
+
+A bird stirred with a half-awakened chirp. The sky showed a clearer
+tone, a vague blue, growing ever more definite. In the stillness, with
+an elastic, leaping sound, strong and sweet, the call of a bugle rang
+out suddenly from the fort on the heights, and, behold, with a flash of
+red on the water, and a flare of gold in the sky, the sweet spring day
+was early here.
+
+It came glowing on with all the graces and soft splendors of the season
+as if it bore, too, none of the prosaic recall to the labors and sordid
+routine and unavailing troubles and vexations of the workaday world. The
+camps were alive, the drums were beating, and all the echoes of the
+hills gave voice to martial summons. The flag was floating anew from the
+heights of the fort in the fresh and fragrant sunshine, and now and
+again a bar or two of the music of a military band in the distance came
+on the wind. The clatter of wagon wheels was audible from the stony
+streets of the little city. The shriek of a locomotive split the air as
+an incoming train whizzed across the bridge. The river craft steamed and
+puffed, and blockaded the landing, now backing water and now forging
+forward, remonstrating with bells and whistles in strenuous dialogue.
+
+It was a day like yesterday, yet to Baynell all the world had changed.
+No day could ever be the same. Life itself was made up of depreciated
+values. The blow had fallen so heavily, so suddenly, so conclusively.
+All, all was dead! It was much with a sense of decorous observance, of
+reverential respect, that he made haste to bury his slain hopes, his
+foolish dream, his ardent expectations out of sight, never to rise
+again. It was unwise to linger here, but not because of his own
+interest, he said to himself. It would not unfit him for his duty. This
+was all that was left to him. His feeling for this had never swerved. It
+was unaffected--all apart from what had come and gone. But his presence
+could but be distasteful to her. And any moment might reveal his state
+of feeling to others--to Judge Roscoe, who would resent it if it should
+suggest an unwelcome urgency. And the neighbors--he had not been
+unnoting of the glances of surprise that had already greeted that
+radiant figure in white and red yesterday. While he winced a little
+from the realization that his sudden departure would illustrate the sad
+plight of a love-lorn suitor, disregarded and cast aside,--for he had a
+thousand keen susceptibilities to pride,--and he would fain the tongues
+of gossips should forbear this sacred theme, it were best that he should
+go, and that shortly.
+
+When he appeared at the breakfast-table, pale and a trifle haggard, he
+gave no other token of his long vigil and the radical change that he had
+suffered in his life and prospects. He was a man of theory. He valued
+his self-respect. He insisted on his self-control. He had exerted all
+his capacities, summoned all the resources of his courage; and this was
+the more needed because of the unconventional, informal footing on which
+he stood with the family. To say farewell and ride away might seem easy
+enough, but this was like quitting a home with affectionate domestic
+claims. When he said that he thought he must return to camp to-day, the
+twin "ladies" laid down knife and fork to enter their protest. They
+lifted their voices in plaintive entreaty, and the deaf-mute looked at
+Baynell with limpid eyes and a quivering lip. But Uncle Ephraim,
+bringing in the waffles, had a vague suggestion of "It's time, too," in
+the wag of his head. Judge Roscoe doubtless experienced a vivid
+realization of the advantage to accrue to the young soldier in the
+attic, whose security in his hiding-place was so endangered by the
+presence of the Federal officer, for he was very guarded even in his
+first cordial phrases, and thenceforward said no more than policy
+required. The twin "ladies," however, continued to loudly urge that the
+captain might find lizards in his cot; and asked if his tent had a
+floor; and warned him that frogs were everywhere now. "Tree-toads,
+o-o-oh! with injer-rubber feet," cried Geraldine, shudderingly, "that
+blow out and climb!"
+
+"And you'll have _no_ little girl to put a lump of sugar in your
+after-dinner coffee, Captain," said Adelaide, impressing the merits of
+her methods.
+
+"And no little girl to bring you a lighted taper for your cigar," chimed
+in Geraldine.
+
+"It's _my_ turn to-day, Ger'ldine," cried the enterprising Adelaide,
+springing from her chair to monopolize the precious privilege.
+
+"No--no! mine--_mine_! You had it yesterday!" cried Geraldine, racing
+after her out of the room.
+
+"'Twas day before!" protested Adelaide's voice far up the hallway.
+
+"You had better get your cigar-case ready, to bestow the boon on the
+first comer," suggested Mrs. Gwynn. She had entirely recovered her
+equanimity, as he perceived. The state of his unsought affections was
+naught to her. The wreck of his heart--she had known wrecked hearts for
+a more bitter cause! Doubtless she thought the pain transitory in his
+case; already its contemplation seemed to have passed from her mind
+like a tale that is told. She was sedately suave as always, barely
+attentive, preoccupied, her usual manner, so incongruous with her youth
+and beauty, so at variance with her attire from the old wardrobe of
+by-gone days,--the fresh white lawn, flecked with light blue, the
+ruffles finished with "footing," and with a bobinet scarf about her
+throat, wherein was thrust a pin of a single rose carved in coral. She
+was like some dainty maiden, no refugee from the world, sad and widowed.
+
+She led the way to the library, partly to see that the "ladies" did not
+set themselves aflame as their short skirts flickered about the small
+dully burning fire, still lighted night and morning against the chill of
+the crisp vernal air. They were, indeed, leaping back and forth over the
+fender with some temerity, and Baynell, seating himself by the table,
+his cigar between his teeth, thought it best to dispose of both the
+lighted spills by not drawing at all till both were alternately offered
+and the extinction of each secured. Then, as the "ladies" flew back to
+the dining room and out to the parterre, having volunteered to gather
+the rest of the flowers for the vases, Leonora and Baynell were left for
+the time together.
+
+It gratified him to perceive that she did not fear the introduction of
+the subject anew. She experienced not even a momentary embarrassment.
+She understood him so well, and the plane of his emotion.
+
+The early morning sunshine was in the cheerful library windows; a
+mocking-bird on a vine outside swayed so close, as he sang, that his
+shadow continually flickered over the sill; the flowers were all freshly
+abloom, and Mrs. Gwynn was standing on the opposite side of the table,
+her hands full of the spring blossoms that lay already on a tray,
+preparing to fill the great blue and white Wedgwood bowl.
+
+Baynell, commenting on the splendor of the tulips as he smoked his
+cigar, spoke of the craze for speculation in the bulb that had existed
+in Holland, and said he had once seen an old book of illustrations of
+famous prize-takers, with fabulous prices; he had always wondered how
+they compared with the results of modern culture and the infinite
+variety to which the bloom had been brought, and he had often wished to
+see the book again.
+
+"Why, we have that!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, pausing with her hands full
+of the gold variety "flamed" with scarlet. She glanced uncertainly
+toward the bookshelves, then suddenly remembering--"Oh, I know now where
+it is;--in the old bookcase upstairs, at the head of the third flight. I
+will call one of the ladies to go for it."
+
+Baynell rose, his lighted cigar between his lips. "Don't trouble them;
+let me go!"
+
+Julius heard the swift step of a young man on the stair. He knew that
+the crucial moment had come. And yet for the sake of the safety of his
+father, who had concealed him here, he dared not defend himself with his
+pistols. He had not a moment for flight or to seek a hiding-place. He
+could only nerve his powers to meet the crisis as best he might.
+
+Baynell, taken wholly by surprise, felt his senses reel when, like the
+grotesque inconsequence of a dream, a man in the uniform of a
+Confederate officer in the quiet, peaceful house confronted him at the
+head of the flight.
+
+"You are my prisoner!" Baynell mechanically gasped, clutching Julius
+with one hand and drawing his pistol with the other. "You are my
+prisoner!"
+
+"In a horn!" retorted Julius, delivering his enemy a blow between the
+eyes which flung Baynell, stunned and bleeding, down the flight to the
+landing, while the boy went by him like a flash.
+
+That swift fiery figure, with its gray regimentals and its brass and
+steel glitter, covered with blood, passed Leonora like some gory
+apparition as she stood in the library door, amazed, pallid, breathless,
+summoned by the sound of loud voices and the reverberating clamors of
+the collision on the stairs. Julius dashed through the drawing-rooms,
+opened the window on the western balcony, sprang over the rail, and
+disappeared swiftly among the low boughs of the row of evergreen shrubs
+planted there in old times as a wind-break, and stretching along the
+crest of the hill.
+
+And placidly in the sunshine the sentry paced his beat before the south
+portico, the reaches of the drive in sight, the appropriate entrance of
+the place, all unconscious of aught amiss, seeing nothing, hearing
+nothing,--till suddenly, with an effect of confusion, like the
+distortions of a delirium, he was aware that the grove was full of
+Federal soldiers, chiefly from the infantry regiment camped in the
+orchard to the west,--soldiers in wild disorder, hatless, shoeless,
+coatless, many of them,--all armed, all howling with an unexplained
+excitement, racing frantically hither and thither, bushwhacking with
+their rifles every bough in their reach. And now they came at full run,
+still howling and wild, toward the house.
+
+"Halt!" cried the sentry. "Halt!"
+
+The advance came surging on, regardless.
+
+"Halt, or I fire!" once more the guard warned the onset. And he levelled
+his weapon.
+
+They clamored out words at him, all madly intermingled, all
+unintelligible, approaching still at full run.
+
+Perhaps the sentinel had some excusable regard for his own safety, for
+in the unexplained excitement that possessed them, they were less
+soldiery than a frantic mob. He had warrant enough to fire into the
+midst of the crowd. But it seemed that he might in a moment have been
+torn limb from limb. He interpreted his duty on the side of caution. He
+cocked his weapon, fired into the air, and called lustily upon the
+"Corporal of the guard." The mass surged into the house, some by the
+front door, some by the open library window, others scaled the balcony
+and pressed through the drawing-rooms and into the hall.
+
+The terrified children clung to the skirt of Mrs. Gwynn's dress, as
+amazed and bewildered she stood in the wide long hall, by the great
+carved newel of the stairs, while with frantic interrogatories--"Where
+is he? Where is he? Who is he?"--the intruders searched every nook and
+cranny of the lower floor. Destruction, the inadvertent incident of
+haste, or the concomitant of clumsy accoutrements, seemed to attend
+their steps. Now sounded the shiver of glass as a soldier burst through
+one of the long French windows of the dining room. A trooper caught his
+huge cavalry spurs in the meshes of a lace curtain in one of the parlors
+and brought down cornice, lambrequin, and all with a crash. The crystal
+shades of the hall chandelier were not proof against a bayonet, held
+unduly aloft at the posture of Shoulder Arms. A tussle for precedence
+knocked a weighty marble statue, half life-size, out of the niche at the
+turn of the staircase. These casualties and the attendant noise, the
+heavy tramp of booted feet, the raucous sonority of their voices as they
+called suggestions to each other, all intensified the terror, the
+tumult of their uncontrolled and turbulent presence.
+
+As a score raced up the stairs a sudden hush fell upon the rout. Those
+still below apprehended developments of moment and pressed to the scene.
+The foremost had encountered Judge Roscoe and old Ephraim bearing down
+to the second story the prostrate body of Captain Baynell, all dripping
+with blood, while the floor of the stairs to the attic showed the stains
+of the fall.
+
+The unexpected spectacle stayed the tumult for a moment. Then as a
+hoarse murmur rose, Judge Roscoe turned toward the foremost standing at
+the foot of the attic flight.
+
+"Lend a hand here," he said with a calm, steady voice. Then, looking
+over the balustrade to those below, "Has the surgeon come?"
+
+The question went from one to another--"Has the surgeon come?" to those
+that filled the halls and made sudden excursions to and fro in the
+adjoining rooms as suspicion of hiding-places occurred to them; to
+others that gorged the main staircase, packed close at its head, with
+necks craning forward, and ears and eyes intent to hear and see what had
+chanced.
+
+By this time officers were in the house and the unwelcome voice of
+command curtailed the activities of the mob and reduced it speedily to
+the aspect of soldiery. The voice of command had irate intonations, and
+one or two of the younger officers showed a disposition to lay about
+with the flat of their swords, as a "wand of authority" indeed, but,
+apparently inadvertently, dealing blows that had tingling intimations.
+They cleared the mansion quickly, the unruly manifestation serving to
+minimize its provocation.
+
+To Judge Roscoe's infinite relief the officers were disposed to regard
+the disturbance as one of those inexplicable attacks of folly which
+sometimes lay hold on a mass of men, but which would be incapable of
+affecting them as individuals. For a search-party organized on a strict
+military principle had carefully ransacked every portion of the house
+and cellar and also the attic,--where no traces betrayed recent
+habitation,--examined all the vineyard, hedges, shrubbery, and even the
+boughs of the great trees, and invaded the stable, barn, crib,
+ice-house, poultry yards, dairy, kennel, dove-cote, the miscellaneous
+outbuildings, sties and byres, all empty, devoid even of the usual
+domestic animals--absolutely with no result. No Confederate fugitive,
+covered with blood or in any other plight, was found, and in the
+thrice-guarded camps that surrounded the place escape seemed impossible.
+The ranking officer who ordered the search naturally believed that the
+sudden conviction of the presence of a Confederate soldier in the house
+was a sheer delusion, promulgated and distorted by rumor. Some story of
+Captain Baynell's fall and wound, caught possibly from the messenger
+sent to fetch the surgeon, had been misunderstood. This he considered
+was the only reasonable explanation. No one, he argued, could have
+escaped under the circumstances. No Rebel was in the house or in the
+grounds. It was impossible for a man to have fled except into the midst
+of the camps.
+
+Notwithstanding the conviction thus reached, special precautionary
+measures were taken. New sentries were stationed on the rear and west of
+the house as well as in front. These posts were to be visited by a
+sergeant with a patrol, twice during the night. If any Rebel had
+contrived to escape from the place, he would find it difficult indeed to
+reenter it. These duties concluded, the officer dismissed the whole
+matter as a canard or one of the inexplicable manifestations of human
+folly, and departed, leaving quiet descending upon the distracted scene.
+
+It was the cook, Aunt Chaney, who had been sent at full speed for the
+surgeon. She had vaguely understood from old Ephraim's aspect and
+frantic mandate that something terrifying had befallen the household,
+and she did not realize until afterward the sacrifice of dignity her
+aspect must have presented as she ran, fatly waddling, over the hill,
+across the commons, and then up a path to a hospital on an eminence
+overlooking the town, formerly a Medical College. She was bonnetless,
+limping actively, for one of her large, loose slippers had gone, and
+gone forever. Its loss destroyed the equipoise of her gait; her unshod
+foot was pierced with stones and chilled with the damp ground; her
+sleeves were rolled up, her arms held out at a bandy angle, for her
+fingers were dripping with cake-batter, and she did not have sufficient
+composure to wring them free till she was following the surgeon home.
+
+The condition of the messenger intimated the seriousness of the call,
+and the surgeon hardly waited to hear more than the wild appeal--"Come
+at once! Captain Baynell has killed his-self--Heabenly Friend! I wish he
+could hev' tuk enny other premises ter hev' c'mitted the deed." As she
+toiled along behind the surgeon, "Oh, my Lawd an' King!" she panted at
+intervals.
+
+Baynell remained unconscious for some time. When at length he came to
+himself he was lying quietly in the great, commodious bedroom that he
+had of late occupied in the storm centre, the green Venetian blinds half
+closed, the afternoon sunlight softly flecking the carpet, the air of
+high decorum and gentle nurture which so characterized the place
+peculiarly in evidence, and old Ephraim noiselessly flitting about with
+a palm-leaf fan in his hand, ready to annihilate any vagrant fly with
+enough temerity to appear.
+
+"Ye los' yer balance, sah, an' fell down de steers," he unctuously
+explained.
+
+"I know--I remember that--but who--where is that Rebel officer?"
+
+"I reckon ye mus' hev' drempt about him, Cap'n," the "double-faced
+Janus" responded casually, with the superior air of humoring a delusion.
+"Ye been talkin' 'bout him afore whenst ye wuz deelerious. But dar ain't
+none ob dem miser'ble slave-drivers round dese diggin's now'-days,
+praise de Lawd! Freedom come wid de Union army."
+
+This assurance convinced the Federal officer. The old servant's interest
+was so obviously with the invading force that his motive was not open to
+question. Moreover, it was not the first time that Baynell had dreamed
+of the Confederate officer, the erstwhile lover of Leonora Gwynn, whose
+splendid portrait hung on the wall, and whom she often mentioned with
+interest.
+
+When the surgeon next called he expressed to his patient great surprise:
+"It is very natural that in your state of convalescence you should grow
+dizzy and fall; but I can't for my life understand how you contrived to
+get such a blow from the edge of a step. It has all the style about it
+of a hit straight from the shoulder of an expert boxer. Uncle Ephraim
+doesn't happen to be something of a pugilist, now?" he added jocosely,
+smiling and glancing at the old negro.
+
+"I don't happen to be nuffin, sah, dat ain't perlite," grinned the
+amenable "Janus."
+
+"Your friends downstairs seemed frightened out of their wits,
+Baynell,--lest your wound should be imputed to them, I suppose," the
+surgeon said openly, for he did not consider the presence of the
+ex-slave.
+
+"Yes, sah!" put in Uncle Ephraim, "eider me or Marster, or de widder
+'oman, or de ladies air sure bound ter hev' knocked him up dat way, kase
+'twould take a puffick reel-foot man ter fall downstairs dat fashion.
+Yah! Yah!"
+
+It did not occur to Baynell to doubt this statement, and not one word
+did he say to the surgeon of his dream of the presence of the
+Confederate officer. He made no effort to account for the disaster,
+merely lending himself to the surgeon's view that he had grown suddenly
+dizzy and the stairs were steep in the third flight.
+
+This gave the surgeon a disquieting sense of suspicion some time
+afterward. When returning from his tour of duty at the hospital he was
+again in the camp, he heard there the amazing rumor among the soldiers
+that a Confederate officer, covered with blood, had been seen to issue
+from the Roscoe house and with lightning-like speed disappear among the
+shrubbery. He wondered that Baynell should not have mentioned the
+commotion, forgetting that as he was unconscious he might be still
+unaware of the fact.
+
+Dr. Grindley was not of a designing nature; but he was consciously
+experimenting when he said, rather banteringly, on his next visit, "How
+about the notion that there was a Confederate officer concealed in this
+house?"
+
+Baynell looked annoyed. He had heard as yet not an allusion to the raid
+upon the house during the period of his insensibility, and he did not
+know that the presence of a Confederate officer had even been rumored.
+He supposed that the doctor referred to the chance question he had asked
+Uncle Ephraim, and he deprecated the fact that the old man should have
+heedlessly repeated this. The dream of the altercation, as he fancied
+the recollection, was still vague in his mind, and with that quality of
+unreality and so blended with other visions of his delirium and fever
+that he in naught doubted its tenuous state as a figment of a disordered
+brain.
+
+"There was no Rebel," he said somewhat gruffly.
+
+"That was all merely the love of sensation?" asked the surgeon.
+
+"Of course," Baynell assented, and fell silent.
+
+This had been the conclusion among the officers of the surrounding camp,
+and it was not surprising to the surgeon that Baynell should share it,
+but there was a consciousness, a mortification, in his manner, that
+implied a personal interest and forced the question to be dropped. The
+surgeon had no wish to press it, and moreover he was anxious to avoid
+exciting the patient. He had some doubt as to the result of the fall; he
+was meditating seriously on symptoms which indicated that the skull had
+sustained a fracture. But when he remarked that all might be well if
+Captain Baynell remained quiet and stirred as little as possible, he was
+surprised and dismayed by the vehemence with which the patient declared
+that he must move; he must leave the house; he could not, he would not
+stay under this roof another night, not even an hour longer. He
+requested the surgeon to make arrangements to attend him elsewhere, and
+rang the bell to send a message to camp directing his servant to come
+and get his personal effects. Only a sleeping-potion could restrain this
+determination at the time, and the next day a return of the fever and
+delirium solved the surgeon's problem how to bend the will of the
+refractory patient to the demands of his own best interests.
+
+Uncle Ephraim found some difficulty in sustaining with composure the
+disasters and excitement and fears that crowded in upon him. He must
+play his part with requisite spirit when in presence of the public, and
+he must suffer in silence and alone. He dared not seek to confer apart
+with his master as to the next step, lest he rouse suspicion that they
+had some secret understanding, and had indeed harbored the enemy. He
+dared not confide his troubles even to his wife, Aunt Chaney, although
+he yearned for sympathy, for reassurance. The old cook, however, had not
+been admitted to any detail of the secret presence of Julius in the
+house. For aught she knew, even now, he was five hundred miles away.
+
+The perversity of the falling out of events dismayed and daunted old
+Ephraim. Only that morning--the morning of that momentous day--Captain
+Baynell had announced at the table the termination of his visit.
+
+"An' it wuz time, too. 'Fore de Lawd, it wuz surely time," the old
+servant grumbled, in surly retrospect. For had the officer but taken his
+leave and his cigar together, how different it might all have been!
+"Marse Julius mought hev' seen Miss Leonora, an' mebbe de ladies, an'
+come down inter de house an' smoked a _see_gar wid his Pa. Lawdy, massy!
+wid de curtains drawed, an' de blinds down. Dat's whut he honed for! Oh,
+'fore Gawd, I dunno whar dat baby-chile--dat pore leetle Julius--is
+now!"
+
+His face caught a fleeting grimace to remember the height of the
+"baby-chile,"--but as helpless, as forlorn, as some tiny waif, and oh,
+so terribly threatened in this beleaguered, in this thrice-guarded,
+town!
+
+When at last he was dismissed from his station in the sick room by the
+sinking of Baynell into slumber under the influence of the sedative
+administered by the surgeon, old Ephraim, succumbing both in physique
+and in spirit, even in gait, stumbled downstairs and took his way into
+the kitchen to find some talk of trifles, some stir of the familiar
+duties, that might enable him to be rid of his unquiet thoughts, of his
+dread prognostications, of his sheer terror of the future. He sunk into
+a wooden chair beside the stove, for the cooking of supper was already
+under way. He was feeling very old and weary. His countenance seemed to
+have collapsed in some sort, so did his usual expression of brisk
+satisfaction and dapper respectfulness and reserve of intelligence prop
+and sustain its contours. Its bony structure now seemed withdrawn. It
+was a sort of dilapidated mask of desolation. He drew a long sigh. And
+then he said:--
+
+"Dis is a tur'ble, tur'ble world, mon!"
+
+"Dis world is a long sight better dan de nex' world for _you_!" said his
+wife, rancorously prophetic. "You hear _me_!"
+
+The imperious Chaney had not collapsed. Her "head-handkercher" was
+bestowed in a turban that had two high standing ends like tufts of
+feathers above her black, resolute face. Her black eyes snapped as she
+looked beyond him, not at him. She was stepping about, stoutly, firmly,
+audibly, in her Sunday shoes, for no amount of mourning materialized the
+lost slip-shod _chaussure_--pressed deep in the mud of the highway by
+wagon-wheels and the uninformed hoof of an unimaginative army mule.
+
+Uncle Ephraim gazed up in growing anxiety, not to say fright, for Aunt
+Chaney's mood was not suave. She suddenly paused on the other side of
+the stove, and, gesticulating across it with a long spoon, demanded:
+"You--ole--_dee_stracted--cawnfield--hand! What fur did you send _me_
+fur de doctor-man?"
+
+"Whut you go fur, den?"
+
+Aunt Chaney reflected on her appearance on the highway, in her old
+homespun dress, "coat," as she called it, one slipper, no bonnet, the
+cake-dough dripping from her hands. She remembered that some wagoners of
+a forage train, struck by her agitated aspect, had looked back to laugh
+from their high perches among the hay and fodder; she remembered that
+some little imp-like boys had twitted her, calling after her in their
+high, callow chirp, and sorry was she that she had not left all to chase
+them--to chase them till they died of fright! She--_she_ who was
+accustomed to flaunt in a "changeable" silk, and her bonnet had an
+ostrich plume! She wore a bracelet, too, on grand occasions, and this
+was gold, solid and heavy, fine and engraved, for "Miss Leonora" herself
+had it bought in New Orleans expressly for her, after she had discovered
+and unaided extinguished a midnight fire. Not that old Chaney would have
+wasted all this splendor on the errand for the doctor. If she had
+thought but for a moment, she would have garbed herself as now, as she
+did instantly on her return home, to save her self-respect,--in a purple
+calico and a clean, white, domestic apron, with her respected and
+respectable green-and-white checked sun-bonnet, all laundered, as ever,
+to absolute perfection. Her haste had destroyed her judgment.
+
+"Whyn't ye tole me dat de man hed jes' fell downsteers,--when ye come
+out yere, howlin' lak a painter wid a misery in his jaw. I 'lowed de
+Yankee had deestroyed his-self on dese yere premises."
+
+"So did I! So did I! He bled--and _bled_!" Old Ephraim paused, his face
+fallen. The association of ideas brought by the mention of blood was
+uncanny.
+
+"What ailed de man dat he hatter fall downsteers?"
+
+"I dunno." The denial was pat.
+
+"Whut's he come down here fightin' in the War without he's able ter keep
+from fallin' downsteers? De Roscoes kin stan' up! I'll say dat fur 'em."
+
+"Dey kin dat," replied the "double-faced Janus" admiringly, thinking of
+Julius.
+
+"How long he gwine stay?"
+
+"'Twell he git well, I reckon."
+
+"Den _I_ say dis ain't no house nor home. Dis is horspital Number
+Forty--dat's whut. Marse Gerald Roscoe ain't got no more sense 'n a
+good-sized chicken, dough he _is_ a jedge, ter hev' dat man yere fur
+Miss Leonora ter keer fur, an' take ter marryin' agin 'fore her old
+sweetheart, Julius Roscoe, kin git home. 'Fore de Lawd, I stood it ez
+long ez dere seemed enny end to it, but now--" she banged her pots, and
+pans, and kettles about with virulence.
+
+"Marse Julius," she continued, "_he's_ de man fur Leonora Roscoe,--_I_
+ain't gwine call her 'Gwynn,'--Marse Julius is good-hearted and
+free-handed; I knowed him from a baby, an' he wuz a big one! I always
+knowed he war in love wid her ever since dat Christmas up at the Devrett
+place, when he an' some o' dem limber-jack Devrett boys got inter de
+wall or inter de groun'--I dunno whar--an' sung right inter de company's
+ear, powerful mysterious,--skeered 'em all! Marse Julius, he tuk his
+guitar an' sung,--'Oh, my love's like a red, red rose!' An' she looked
+lak one while she listened, fur she knowed his voice. I wuz peekin' in
+at de company at de winder--Lawd--Lawd! I 'lowed _dat_ would be a
+match--but yere come along dat Gwynn feller!"
+
+A sudden white flare of burning lard spread over the red-hot stove, for
+Uncle Ephraim had sprung up so abruptly as to strike the long handle of
+the skillet and overturn the utensil.
+
+"Ain't ye got no mo' use of yer haid 'n ter go buttin' 'roun' de
+kitchen, lak a ole deestracted Billy-goat, lak you is!" Aunt Chaney
+demanded.
+
+As the smoke circled about she snatched up the skillet with its flaming
+contents.
+
+"Git out my kitchen, else I'll scald de grizzled woolly soul out'n you!"
+
+"Bress de Lawd, 'oman, _I_ ain't wantin' ter stay in yer kitchen," said
+Uncle Ephraim, suddenly spry and saucy and brisk,--a trifle more brisk,
+indeed, accelerating his pace toward the door, as she took two or three
+long, agile, elastic steps toward him.
+
+"I got other feesh ter fry!" he chuckled to himself.
+
+For the blazing lard but typified a certain illumination in old
+Ephraim's mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+It was a clear, gusty night when he emerged on the lawn at the side
+entrance of the house. For two hours with the faint and freakish light
+of candle ends he had been rummaging over old chests and boxes in the
+attic. The aspect of the desolate, deserted place that had held his
+young master, a tenant dear to his loyal heart, wrung from him a sigh.
+Sometimes he dropped his hands, lifted himself from his crouching
+attitude to a kneeling posture, looked wistfully about the dreary, dusty
+silence, shook his head sorrowfully to and fro, and then once more
+addressed himself to his search. When he began to find the various
+articles he desired, he grew tremulous, agitated. His breath was fast,
+and now and again he must needs check himself in his disposition to
+fluent soliloquy lest some one overhear in his sonorous voice such
+significant words as would reveal his intention. When these seizures
+supervened, he became anxious concerning the possible betrayal of his
+enterprise by the feeble light cast from the windows, and ever and anon
+he screened the bit of candle behind a trunk or some massive piece of
+furniture. He knew that the house was a marked spot; the events of the
+day had rendered the locality of special and suspicious interest to all
+the camps in the vicinity. Many an eye was turned thither, he was aware,
+as the evening drew on, and in fact he hardly dared to light the tiny
+tapers till he had heard tattoo sound and taps beat. The tents were lost
+in darkness and slumber, but there were the camp and quarter guards, and
+soon would come the patrol and grand rounds. The sentries about the
+house gave him less anxiety.
+
+"They be 'bleeged to know we-all keep some of our stuff in the
+garrit--mought be huntin' fur suthin' fur dat ar Yankee man's nicked
+haid. But _I ain't_!" he soliloquized.
+
+When at last he had found all he desired, he extinguished the light and
+quietly waited. Thus in the darkness the place was even more grewsome
+with its associations of concealment and flight, the imminence of his
+young master's capture and violent death. He heard his heart plunge at
+every stir of the wind, every clash of the boughs, and he muttered: "Dat
+pore chile wuz denied a light. His Pa p'intedly wouldn't 'low him a
+candle, fur fear folks would spy it out. An' here he set an' waited in
+de ever-lastin' night!"
+
+Old Ephraim suffered here in the dark from a terror which had loosed its
+hold on his young master long ago,--the fear of the supernatural. Ghosts
+of many types, "ha'nts," headless horrors, spectral sounds from the
+other world, direful prognostications of signs, all in grisly procession
+passed and repassed and crowded the garret to suffocation. It would be
+impossible to imagine what the old gray-headed negro saw and heard as he
+crouched on the dusty floor, and listened to the rout of the wind in the
+trees, and watched the eerie aspect of the old furniture, itself
+associated with the long-gone dead, as the moon and the gust-driven
+shadowy clouds flickered and faded and flickered and faded across the
+dim spaces. When suddenly a shrill sound pierced the ghostly solitude,
+he fell prone in complete surrender on the floor, terrified, his nerves
+almost shattered. An inarticulate scream came again and again, and then
+a low chuckling chatter. A screech-owl, a tiny thing, had alighted on
+the window-sill, and hearing the stir, turned its head without shifting
+its body, its great round eyes encountering the reproachful rolling
+stare of old Ephraim as he tremulously gathered himself from the floor.
+Taking a package under his arm under the long coat he wore, he at last
+went noiselessly and swiftly down the stairs.
+
+He looked out heedfully for Judge Roscoe, whom he did not wish to
+encounter.
+
+"Marster hes been a jedge, an' dey say he hes set on de bench--dough I
+dunno whut fur dat's so oncommon, fur mos' ennybody kin set on a bench!
+He's sot in his own cushioned arm-chair in de lawbrary whut kin lean
+backwards on a spring, and recline his foots upwards, an' dat's a deal
+ch'icer dan enny bench I knows on! But he's been a jedge, an' he's got
+book-larnin', but somehow I 'low he ain't tricky enough ter be up ter
+_dis_ kink. I ain't gwine ter let him know nuffin'."
+
+When fairly out of the house all suggestion of secrecy and caution
+vanished. The old darkey flung his feet on the stone steps with a noisy
+impact, and before he reached the pavement, he had burst into song,
+marking the time with an emphatic rhythm--a wide blare of melody with a
+great baritone voice, that sounded far down the bosky recesses of the
+grove, all dappled with shadow and sheen.
+
+        "Rise an' shine, _children_!
+         Rise an' _shine_, children!
+         Rise an' shine, _children_!
+     De angels bid me ter come along!
+     O-h-h, I want ter go ter heaben when I die--"
+
+He broke off suddenly. He did not wait to be challenged by the sentry as
+he turned, but greeted him with a sort of plaintive humility and a
+mendicant's confiding manner.
+
+"Marse Soldier, could ye gimme a chaw of terbacker, please, sir?"
+
+The soldier would not have allowed even one of his own officers to pass
+from the house or enter it without the countersign, but he was thrown
+off his guard by this personal appeal; and although he could not comply
+with the request, not being given to the bad habit of "chawin'
+terbacker," he shifted his weapon from hand to hand while he rummaged
+his pockets for "fine-cut" for the pipe of old Ephraim--the fraud, who
+was amply supplied.
+
+"Neb mind--neb mind," the old man said deprecatingly. "Thanky, sah,
+thanky! Dere's anodder soldier round de front po'ch--mebbe he's got a
+chaw!"
+
+And this sentinel, having listened to the colloquy with his comrade, as
+well as distance would permit, adopted his friendly tactics and was able
+to produce the requisite "chaw." He naturally supposed the countersign
+had been demanded and given at the door whence the servant of the house
+emerged, for after unctuous and profuse thanks old Ephraim swung off
+down the hill with another great gush of song--"I want ter go ter heaben
+when I die--" echoing far over the grove and the silent camps beyond.
+
+Listening to the resounding progress of his departure the first sentry
+thought of course that in letting him pass his comrade had taken the
+countersign. It was only a vague thought, however, cast after him. "That
+old night-hawk is bound for the river, I guess, going fishing," for
+nocturnal angling was the favorite sport of the darkeys of the region.
+
+The soldier did not even notice when the surge of the chant gave way to
+a musical whistle, still carrying the air with great spirit and a sort
+of enthusiasm of rhythm, "An' de angels bid me ter come along." Still
+less did he discriminate the difference in the change of sound, not
+immediately apparent, so elusive was it, and difficult to describe, when
+a whistle of a different timbre took up the air and finished the
+phrase--"I'll shout salvation as I fly!" After a pause Uncle Ephraim was
+in the distance, humming now, and soon all sound ceased. Both the
+sentinels would have sworn he had quitted the grove.
+
+But it was not alone the wind among the young firs that tossed their
+branches to and fro, when trembling, terrorized, casting now and then a
+horrified, rebuking glance at the radiant moon, as the flying scud drew
+back and left the sphere undimmed, he sought the spot he had marked when
+the responsive whistle had apprised him that his signal was understood
+and answered. At length he paused to catch his breath and wipe the cold
+drops from his brow.
+
+"Lawdy massy! dese yere shines dat dis yere Rebel cuts up will be de
+death ob me--ef dey ain't de death ob himse'f fust!"
+
+He judged from his close observation he was on the spot--yet he could
+not ascertain it. Suddenly hard by the roots of a great lush specimen of
+a Norway spruce, the boughs lying far on the ground, his foot slipped on
+the thick spread of the fallen needles. He could not recover himself. He
+was going down--down. His courage all evaporated. He would have
+screamed if he could. In his terror he had almost lost consciousness
+till all at once he felt a strong grasp of aid and heard a familiar
+smothered laugh that restored his faculties with the realization of
+success and the recognition of a friend at hand.
+
+"Hesh! Hesh!" he said imperatively. "Dat laffin' an' laffin' is gwine
+ter be de _de_struction ob you an' all yer house, an' 'fore de Lawd, ole
+Ephraim, too!"
+
+He had no response, but he had submitted himself to guidance. He was
+being led along a downward course in a narrow subterranean passage, his
+feet shuffling and kicking uncertainly as he ludicrously sought for the
+ground and to accommodate his gait to the easy accustomed stride of his
+conductor. They made more than one turn before Julius paused and said:
+"We might as well stop here, Uncle Ephraim. We can sit down on the
+rocks. Did my father send me any message? Is the officer much hurt?"
+
+"Do you think you kin pitch folks down them steep steers, an' not hurt
+'em, you owdacious, mis_chie_vious chile! His head is consider'ble
+nicked,--an' dat's a fac'!"
+
+"Is that all?" said Julius, evidently much relieved. "What word did my
+father send me?"
+
+"No word! He didn't know whar dee is--an' I didn't tell him whar I was
+goin' ter hunt fur dee."
+
+"Oh, but he _must_ know--he must not be left so uneasy. Oh, how I wish I
+had never come to disturb and endanger my good father!"
+
+It was dark, and he did not care that Uncle Ephraim should hear his
+sobs.
+
+"Now, look-a-yere, Marse Julius, chile--de less folks knows 'bout dee,
+de less dey is liable ter be anxious. What you reckon I brung dee?"
+
+"Some supper?"
+
+"Lawd, no! I ain't hed time ter git ye supper."
+
+"Some money? I don't want any money. My father gave me money in case of
+any necessity when I was to run the pickets--_gold_!" He chinked some
+coins alluringly in his pocket.
+
+"'Tain't money. It's--_cloes_!"
+
+"Clothes?" said Julius, uncertainly.
+
+"'Twas dat ar tarrifyin' Rebel uniform dat got dee in dis trouble
+ter-day. Ye got ter change dem cloes. Ye can't run de pickets, an' ye
+can't git out'n de lines nohow in dem cloes."
+
+Julius hesitated. The uniform was in one sense a protection. To be taken
+in his proper character, even lurking in hiding, did not necessarily
+expose him to the accusation of being a spy which capture in disguise
+would inevitably fix upon him.
+
+"What clothes did you bring,--Aunt Chaney's?" he asked, prefiguring a
+female disguise, and reflecting on the ample size and notable height of
+the cook.
+
+A sort of sharp yelp of dismay came out of the darkness. Old Ephraim
+wriggled and shuffled his feet audibly on the rocks in his effort at
+emphasis and absolute negation.
+
+"Marse Julius you is gone _de_ranged! Surely, surely, you is los' what
+sense you ever had! Chaney wouldn't loan ye ez much ez a apern or a
+skirt out'n her chist ter save ye from de pit o' perdition! I hes been
+reckless and darin' in my time, but de Lawd knows I never was so forsook
+by Providence as ter set out ter carry off any wearin' apparel belongin'
+ter dat 'oman, what's gin ober ter de love o' de cloes in her chist. Dat
+chist is de idol ob dat _de_stracted heathen 'oman, an' de debbil will
+burn her well for de love o' de vanities she's got tucked away dar.
+Chaney's cloes! Gawd A'mighty! _Chaney's_ cloes! Borry _Chaney's_
+cloes!"
+
+"Well, whose clothes, then, Uncle Ephraim? You know I couldn't get into
+the citizen's clothes I left at home. I'm three inches taller, and a
+deal stouter. And it would be dangerous to try to buy clothes."
+
+"Lissen; I disremembered dere wuz a trunk in de garret what wuz brung
+down from de Devrett place when de Yankees tore down de house an' built
+de fort. It b'longed ter yer cousin Frank's wife's brother, an' wuz sent
+home atter de war broke out when he died in some outlandish place--I
+dunno whar, in heathen land. As I knowed he wuz tall an' spare, I 'lowed
+de cloes mought fit dee. So I opened de trunk--an' de cloes wuz
+comical; but not as comical as a Rebel uniform in dese days an' dis
+place."
+
+Julius had a vague vision of himself, robed in the comicalities of the
+dress of the Orient,--Japanese or Arabian or Turkish,--seeking an escape
+in obscurity and inconspicuousness, through the closely drawn Federal
+lines.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Ephraim!" he whined, almost in tears, because of the futility
+of every device, every hope.
+
+"You wait till I show dem ter dee!" exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, hustling
+out the bundle from under his coat.
+
+It proved to be a small portmanteau that had been itself enclosed in the
+trunk. This much was discernible by the sense of touch. Old Ephraim
+placed it on the ground, and then, lowering his voice mysteriously, he
+asked solemnly, "Marse Julius, is you sure acquainted with dis place?"
+
+"I certainly am," declared Julius, the tense vibration of triumph in his
+voice. "I know it from end to end!"
+
+"Den, ef I wuz ter strike a light, could dem sentries see hit at de
+furder e-end?"
+
+"Not to save their souls. We're ever so far down, and the tunnel has
+already made three turns."
+
+"Ef dey wuz ter follow us, dey couldn't crope up unbeknownst on us?"
+
+"They'd break their necks at the entrance if they didn't know the place
+or have a ladder."
+
+"Dere is a ladder ter de stable, dough," the old man urged, vaguely
+uneasy.
+
+"We'd hear 'em putting it down."
+
+"Dat's so! Dat's so!" cried Uncle Ephraim, all cheerful alacrity once
+more.
+
+He forthwith struck a match and lighted one of his candle ends, which he
+fixed on the ledge of the rock by holding it inverted for a few minutes,
+then on the hot drippings placing the taper erect. He had shielded it
+with his hand during this process, and on perceiving no draught
+whatever, looked up in amazement at the strange surroundings--a rugged
+stone tunnel stretching far along into the dense blackness of the
+distance, fifteen feet in height, perhaps, and of varying width,--about
+ten feet where they stood; evidently this was an offshoot of some
+extensive subterranean system, not uncommon in the cavernous limestone
+country, therefore exciting scant interest, and perhaps never heretofore
+explored, even in part, save by Julius and the Devrett boys when it
+might be made a factor in Christmas fun.
+
+"De Lawd-a-massy," exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, looking about in awe and by
+no means prepossessed in favor of the aspect of the place. "Is disher de
+bestibule ob hell?"
+
+But the attention of Julius was concentrated on the portmanteau, a very
+genteel-looking receptacle, which when open disclosed the garments that
+Uncle Ephraim considered so comical. They were, indeed, a contrast with
+his standard of proper attire for a "gemman of quality"--this being the
+judge's fine black broadcloth, with a black satin waistcoat and stock,
+and with linen laid in plaits, the collar standing in two sharp points.
+But for the first time that day Julius had a sudden hope of deliverance.
+No kaftan, kimono, nor burnoose as he had feared, but he was turning in
+his hands a soft, rough-surfaced tweed of a dark fawn color, with tiny
+checks of the style called invisible, the coat bound with a silk braid
+on which Uncle Ephraim laid a finger of doubt and inquiry, looking
+drearily up into the young man's face. For this was a novel finish
+indeed in those days.
+
+"These are of English make," said the discerning Julius, beginning to
+understand that the foreign "heathen land" to which old Ephraim had
+referred was England. Julius now remembered that his cousin's
+brother-in-law, James Wrayburn, had been sojourning there at the time of
+his death. The garments had lain in the garret for more than a year, but
+in those days so slow was the transmission of styles across the Atlantic
+that the cut was by no means antiquated, indeed was in accord with the
+fashion that was familiar on the main street of the town. There was a
+hat of soft felt of a deep brown, and the old servant had added from the
+trunk two or three white Marseilles waistcoats and some neckties and
+linen.
+
+"Dee got on good new boots," he observed, glancing down at the young
+man's feet.
+
+"Ought to be--cost me six hundred dollars!" said Julius.
+
+"Lo!--my Heabenly Friend!" exclaimed Uncle Ephraim, falling back aghast,
+unaccustomed to the inflations of the currency of the Confederacy.
+
+When the transformation was complete, he looked up from his knees, in
+which lowly posture he had assisted in drawing down the trousers over
+the boots, and smiled broadly in satisfaction.
+
+"Dar now!" he exclaimed. "'Fore de Lawd, ye look plumb beau-some in dem
+comical cloes. Dey becomes ye! Dat they does--dough I ain't never see no
+such color as they got, 'dout 'twuz on a cow!"
+
+He made up a bundle of the Confederate uniform and stowed it away on one
+of the ledges. "I don't want dem Yankees ter ever git no closer ter dis
+yere shed snake-skin dan dey is now."
+
+But after the old man had been assisted to clamber out of "the vestibule
+of hell" by the stalwart arm of his young master and had disappeared
+among the firs, Julius made up the uniform into a compact bundle, packed
+it into the portmanteau, and, putting out the candle, sat down in the
+obscurities of the subterranean passage to await the enhanced
+opportunity for escape that the dark clouds, now gathering about the
+moon, might bring to the fortuitous collocation of circumstance.
+
+When the sentries next heard any suggestion of Uncle Ephraim's presence,
+he was still singing on his return,--now and then humming and whistling
+as he came. He was approaching the house from the driveway, having
+indeed been to the river; he was bringing home a goodly mess of fish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+An hour later there was a more significant landfall than the fate of
+these finny trophies. Few of the river craft kept their dates of arrival
+with certainty, and this was especially the case with the general
+packets. Though the water was high, the operations of the Confederates
+rendered the passage sometimes unsafe, sometimes impracticable. Now and
+again the Federal authorities pressed a boat into government service for
+a time and released it to its owners and its old traffic when the
+emergency was past. Therefore on this dull night, when no sign or news
+was received of the _Calypso_, overdue some ten hours, the wharf became
+deserted. Hardly a light showed on the river banks or along the spread
+of the stream, save indistinct gleams in the misty gloom where the
+picket boats kept up a ceaseless vigilant patrol. The gunboats, with a
+vaguely saurian suggestion lay with their noses in the mud. Here and
+there in allotted berths were the ordinary steamboats with their
+curiously flimsy aspect, as if constructed of white cardboard, silent,
+disgorged, asleep. The rafts, the coal-barges, the humble skiffs, and
+flatboats were all tied up for the night. The town had lapsed to
+silence and slumber as the hour waxed late. The great pale stream seemed
+as vacant as the great pale sky.
+
+Suddenly far down the river two lights, close together, high in the air,
+red and green, shimmering through the mist, struck the attention of a
+wanderer along the high bluffs near Judge Roscoe's house, even before a
+hoarse, remonstrant, outspreading sound, the clamor of the whistle three
+times repeated, hailing the landing, invaded the murky air. It was a
+spell to rouse all the precincts of the river bank. Lights flickered
+here and there. Hack drivers, who had given up the expectation of the
+boat's arrival at any hour that would admit of the transfer of the
+passengers to the hotel, heard the sound from afar, harnessed their
+teams in haste, and the carriages came rattling turbulently down the
+stony declivity to the wharf. Baggage vans, empty and curiously noisy,
+recklessly jolted along, careening ill-poised and light without their
+wonted burdens. The omnibuses, with the glow of their dim little front
+windows to distinguish their approach, were soon on the scene; the
+driver of one was vociferating with a hackman, because of the lack of
+lighted carriage lamps, which had caused a collision and the wrenching
+away of the door and the cover of the step of the "bus," swaying open
+for want of a cautionary pull on the cord. Loud and turbulent did this
+wrangle grow, and presently it was punctuated by blows. The crowd that
+the mere sound of a fight summons from invisibility was almost instantly
+swaying about the scene and hindering the efforts of the police, who
+found it necessary to interfere, and while both participants were
+arrested and hurried off to the station in the clutches of the law, they
+left their respective vehicles like white elephants in the hands of the
+remainder of the force, two of whom must needs mount the boxes to
+restrain the "cattle," as the hack driver mournfully called his beasts
+in commending them to police protection. The horses plunged and reared,
+terrified at the apparition of the _Calypso_, now manoeuvring and turning
+in the river, the paddles beating upon the water with a splashing impact
+as the side-wheels slowly revolved. The ripples were all aglow with the
+reflection of her red furnace fires, and her cabin lights sent long
+avenues of white evanescent radiance into the vague riparian glooms. The
+jangle of the pilot bells and the sound of the exhaust pipes came
+alternately on the air. And presently the great white structure was
+motionless, towering up into the gray uncertainties of the night, the
+black chimneys seeming to fairly touch the clouds, the lacelike guards
+filled with flitting figures all in wild commotion pressing toward the
+stairway.
+
+Albeit the discharge of the freight would not take place till morning,
+the scene was one of great confusion. In accordance with the regulation
+which the military occupation of the country required, the passengers
+rendered up their passes on deck to the officer who had boarded the
+vessel for the purpose of receiving them, permitting the travellers to
+depart one by one through a guarded gate, but it was impossible to
+identify them after they were once on the wharf. Hence there was naught
+to distinguish from the other passengers a gentleman carrying a
+portmanteau, who entered an omnibus, save that the wharf lamps might
+have shown that he was handsome, taller than common, with a fine
+presence and gait, and clad in garments of unmistakably English cut and
+make. The night clerk of the hotel evidently saw nothing else unusual in
+the stranger as he stood under the gas-jet to register at the desk in
+the office, almost deserted at this hour--not even in the momentary
+hesitation when he had the pen in hand. He wrote "John Wray, Junior,
+Manchester, England," had a room assigned to him, and passed on to the
+late supper, for which Uncle Ephraim's negligence had prepared him to do
+ample justice.
+
+Julius did not appear next morning at the usual breakfast hour. The
+terrors of the Chinese gong, that was wont to rouse the laggards as it
+howled about the hotel under the belaborings of a stalwart waiter,
+failed to stimulate his activity or break his slumber. The fatigues and
+dangers Julius had encountered had prostrated him. He was unconsciously
+recuperating, gathering strength for the rebound. He did not wake,
+indeed, till near noon. He turned once or twice luxuriously in the
+comfortably sheeted bed--at his home they had not dared to purloin linen
+from the household store to furnish his couch in the attic--and then,
+with his hands clasped under his head, he lay with a mind almost vacant
+of any conscious process, mechanically, quietly, taking in the details
+of the place. The sun sifted in at a crevice of the green shutters of
+the window that opened to the floor and gave upon a wide gallery
+without--now and again he heard at considerable intervals the passing of
+a footstep on this gallery. He noticed the wind stir and the flicker of
+the shadow of foliage on the blinds. The room was in the second story,
+and he knew that there were trees in a space at the rear of the
+old-fashioned little hotel. The furniture was of a highly varnished,
+cleanly, straw-colored aspect, of some cheap wood that refreshingly made
+no pretentions to be aught but what it was, for on the bureau drawers,
+the head and foot-boards of the bed, and on the rocking-chair was
+painted a gay little bouquet of flowers in natural but intense tints. A
+fresh Chinese matting was on the floor, and muslin curtains hung from
+poles supported on pins that had a great brass rosette or boss at the
+extremity. The building enclosed a quadrangle, bounded by the river at
+the lower end. On each of the other three sides the wide galleries of
+the three-story brick edifice overlooked the grassy space. He had
+learned that the hotel had gone into the hands of a new proprietor, but
+even were it otherwise he hardly feared recognition, although he had
+been born and reared in the immediate vicinity. At his time of life a
+few years work great changes. The boy of nineteen was hardly to be
+identified in the man of twenty-two, with his mustached lips, his
+broadened shoulders, his three inches of added height, and the
+composure, confidence, and capability conferred by those years of
+activity and emergency and responsibility working at high pressure. Some
+old resident might recognize the Roscoe eye, but he knew he could trust
+the kindly associations of "auld lang syne" to avoid the sifting of a
+casual recollection. Besides, this was hardly likely to befall, for the
+town was an ever shifting kaleidoscope of confused humanity. It was full
+of strangers,--Federal officers, on service and unattached, on leave of
+absence, wounded, and their families; special correspondents; hospital
+nurses; emissaries of the Sanitary Commission; enterprising promoters of
+all manner of jobs, and the horde of nondescript non-combatants that
+hangs on the rear of every army, seeking the many methods of securing a
+windfall from the vast expenditures of money and goods necessary to
+maintain a great force on a war footing. He was hardly likely to meet
+any one who had ever known him, or even his father, in his stay at the
+hotel, which he must contrive by some method to make as short as
+practicable. Then suddenly a great dismay fell upon him. He lifted his
+head and gasped as he looked about him for something that was gone! His
+treacherous memory!--in the prostration of his mental faculties by
+excitement and fatigue, in the lull of his long slumber, he had
+forgotten the alias he had registered as his own name on his entrance to
+the hotel. He thought of half a dozen of the most usual nomenclature,
+striving to goad his mind to a recognition of each in turn as the one he
+had selected. He was in desperation. True, he might have an opportunity
+to study the register and could recognize his own handwriting. But
+something--anything might occur in the interval in which it might be
+necessary to give the name he had assumed, and any incongruity with the
+registered alias would be fatal. Every casual step along the hall on one
+side, or the gallery on the other, threw him into a sudden tremor as he
+prefigured a stoppage, a knock, an inquiry--"Are you Mr. Alfred
+Jones?--here's a note for you. Messenger waits for an answer."
+
+"And _I_ don't know whether to answer as Mr. Jones or not!" he said to
+himself in a panic. He might turn away a note of warning from his
+father, who possibly had recognized his handwriting on the register, of
+greeting from Leonora in whose face he had seen an appalled
+commiseration as he sped past her yesterday in his father's hall; or it
+might be that some Confederate agent within the lines would hear of his
+plight and contrive this way to communicate with him. No matter how
+cautiously worded, his was not a correspondence at this juncture to
+decline to receive, and to turn lightly over to the investigating
+scrutiny of all the A. Joneses to whom it might be presented. On the
+other hand he might "throw all the fat in the fire," should he meddle
+with the large correspondence of the Jones family by opening sealed
+missives bearing their name, obviously not intended for him, if he had
+registered as Abner Smith.
+
+Julius was about to spring up, throw on his clothes, and rush to the
+register, when the name struck him with the force of conviction. _John
+Wray_--That was it! _Manchester, England!_ The address had been selected
+to take advantage of the typically English clothes. He meditated upon it
+as he sat upright in bed. He had added the "Junior," for the sake of
+verisimilitude. He smiled with satisfaction to have regained it.
+Then--"I must have something to fix that in my memory," he said.
+
+He looked fruitlessly about. He had no paper, save the map in the lining
+of his boot, no pencil, no pen and ink, naught for a memorandum. Then
+with his gay youthful inconsequence--"Constant repetition will settle
+it--Mr. John Wray--Mr. John Wray; Mr. John Wray. How do you do to-day?"
+
+He threw himself back on his pillow, laughing at the unintentional
+rhyme.
+
+"I'm a poet--if I did but know it!"
+
+His irrepressible youthful mirth found its account in the most untoward
+trifles.
+
+"There it is again!" he said to himself, "I have destroyed the sequence
+of my ideas. I am just as likely now to say, 'I am Mr. Poet'--or perhaps
+with the notion that I have got to butt out of this somehow--'I am Mr.
+Goat!'"
+
+He laughed again, yawned lazily, stretched his arms upward, and fell
+back luxuriously on the bed, resting his tired muscles.
+
+He lay staring at the design of the wall-paper, which was in scrolls of
+brown that, as they whorled over clear enamelled spaces of creamy white,
+enclosed an outline in fainter browns and yellow,--a scene of waves
+breaking on rocks and surmounted by a lighthouse; a far and foreign
+suggestion to this deeply inland nook, and refreshing, for there was
+more than vernal warmth in the air. And presently, still repeating--"Mr.
+John Wray, how do you do to-day?" he slipped off into a half-conscious
+doze from which he was roused only by a knock at the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Downstairs in the hotel there had been the usual stir of the morning.
+Till a late hour the punkahs had swung back and forth above the long
+tables in the dining room, each furnished with one of those primitive
+contrivances for the banishment of flies. The swaying of the pendent
+fringes of paper rivalled the rustling of the trees in the quadrangle
+outside, on which the broad, long windows looked, as each punkah-cord
+was pulled by a specimen of the cheerful and alert pickaninny of that
+day, keenly interested in all that occurred. Others ran in and out of
+the kitchen, bearing to the waiters, to be dispensed among the guests,
+interminable relays of the waffles of those times, golden brown,
+delicately rich, soft, yet crisp, of a peculiar lightness,--a kind that
+will be seen no more, despite the food inventions and dietetic
+improvements, for the artists of that choice cookery are all dead and
+their receipts only serve to mark the decadence of proficiency.
+
+Strangers of all sorts, officers of the army, civilians from every
+quarter of the north, filled the public apartments, aimlessly chatting,
+discussing the news from the front, smoking matutinal cigars, buying
+papers from the omnipresent newsboys, or reading them in the big
+arm-chairs within or on the benches under the trees in the quadrangle,
+glimpsed in attractive verdure through the open doors of the office.
+There was continual passing through the halls, and groups filled the
+verandas and stood about on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, for the
+great brick pillars that supported the roof of the arcade at the height
+of the third story were anchored at the curb of the pavement, and this
+colonnade illustrated the forgotten architect's idea of impressiveness.
+
+In the gay sunshine, the streets, with substantial two and three storied
+buildings on either side, with much effect of big airy windows and now
+and again a high, iron-railed balcony, were congested with traffic. The
+pavements were crowded with pedestrians of varying aspect,--freedmen in
+rags, idle, exhaustlessly zealous of sensation, grotesquely slouching
+along, eying the shop windows, seeing all that there was to be seen;
+soldiers in uniform on furlough; citizens of a new migration, having
+almost superseded the old townsmen, so limited were the latter in number
+in comparison with the present population of the gorged town; ladies,
+many the wives and daughters of Federal officers, with an unfamiliar
+accent and walk, and with toilettes of a more recent style than
+characterized the native exponents of fashion. Now and again some
+passing body of troops filled the avenue,--cavalry, with guidon and
+trumpet, or a jaunty progress of infantry, to the fife and drum and the
+tune of "The girl I left behind me!"
+
+At this period the war had focussed a sort of superficial prosperity
+here. The counters were covered with Northern goods to supply the needs
+and excite the extravagance of this medley of congregated humanity.
+Street venders howled their wares in raucous voices that added to the
+unintelligible clamors of the old highways that were wont to be so dull
+and quiet and decorous.
+
+The paving stones roared with the reverberation of wheels. Sometimes
+endless trains of white-hooded army wagons defiled by; again heavy open
+transfers; sometimes an ambulance anguish-laden passed slowly, taking
+the crown of the causeway. Occasionally a light-wheeled buggy whisked
+about with the unmistakable effect of display and with a military
+charioteer handling the ribbons, who found the Tennessee blooded
+roadsters much to his mind. And forever the dray, laden with cotton
+bales sometimes, and sometimes with boxes, or barrels, or hogsheads,
+took its drag-tailed way to the depots or to the wharf. All was
+dominated by the presence of the mule--in force, driven loose in
+hundreds through the town to some remote scene of usefulness, now
+drawing the great transfers and drays, now giving an exhibition of the
+peculiar pertinacity of mule nature by planted hoofs and ears laid back
+and a resolution of immovableness, bringing the whole tumultuous noisy
+rout to a blockade of such intricacy and cumbrous obstructiveness that
+one might wonder by what magic the interlocked wheels, the twisted
+harness, the crowded beasts, the whistling, long-thonged whips and
+shouting, swearing men were ever disentangled.
+
+These incidents impeded progress, and the passengers from the noon
+railroad train were disposed to complain and comment, and seemed fit
+subjects for sympathy, as they interchanged petulant accounts of
+experiences at the hotel desk, waiting to register. One was apparently
+not unknown to the clerk now in charge, an affable functionary to the
+deserving few, altogether stiff and unapproachable to the general
+public. He was the day clerk, and a far more magnificent individual than
+the forlorn night bird that languished behind the desk with no company
+but the wee sma' hours of the clock, and the somnolent bell-boys on
+their bench, and the watchman, walking hither and thither like a ghost
+as if his only mission were to be about, and the incoming traveller. The
+day clerk's courtesy had the grace of a personal compliment as he
+hurried the book away from the last signer and passed it on to another
+in the line,--a somewhat portly, red-faced, middle-aged gentleman, with
+short side-whiskers, of the hairbrush effect and a pale hue, not
+definitely gray, for he seemed hardly old enough for such tokens of
+years, and yet the flaxen tint had lost its earlier lustre. His hair was
+of the same shade, and he wore a stiff hat, a suit of "pepper-and-salt,"
+and a dark overcoat of light weight.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Wray," said the clerk, handing him the pen. "I am
+sorry I can't give you a room to yourself, but I can put you a bed in
+your son's room."
+
+The pen was poised uncertainly--the gentleman with the side-whiskers
+stared.
+
+"Your son got in last night," explained the clerk.
+
+The gentleman still silently stared. He had a close, compact mouth, a
+cautious mouth, and the lips were now compressed with an expression of
+waiting incommunicativeness. He evidently had not expected to be
+confronted with a ready-made family.
+
+The clerk surprised in turn cast on him a glance of keen intentness. In
+these strenuous times every stranger in the town was liable to suspicion
+as a Confederate emissary. "I was not on duty, myself, but I thought I
+saw--ah--here it is," turning the page of the register, "John Wray,
+Junior, Manchester, England."
+
+For one moment the portly gentleman gazed at the signature as if
+dumfounded. Then with an air of ready recognition he justified his
+previous manifestations of extreme surprise by explaining the mistake of
+the clerk as to the matter of identity.
+
+"Oh, aw, a distant relative," he said, at last. "Ah, aw,--he is the son
+of a cousin of the same name as mine, 'John Wray.' The younger man is to
+be associated with me in business. What room? Number ninety?"
+
+And as he was assigned to that haven he took the pen and wrote, "John
+Wray, Manchester, England."
+
+Thus it was that, awakened by the brisk tap at the door, Julius, leaning
+out of bed, turned the key, and reached out for the pitcher of ice water
+for which, being warm and thirsty, he had a drowsy impression that he
+had rung the bell. Perceiving his mistake, and lifting himself on his
+elbow, Julius beheld entering this blond and robust stranger, an
+inexplicable apparition, too solid for a spectre, too prosaic for a
+fancy.
+
+The visitor stood, when the door had closed, gazing silently down at the
+recumbent figure, while Julius, amazed at the form which his Nemesis had
+taken, gazed up silently and lugubriously at the intruder.
+
+All the methods of Mr. John Wray were in conformity with his portly
+rotundity, his slow respectability, his unimaginative commercialism.
+
+The young man found speech first. "Why this unexpected pleasure?" he
+asked ceremoniously, but with a satiric inflection.
+
+"Sorry to intrude, I'm sure," said the elder. "But my name is John Wray
+of Manchester, England."
+
+The skies had fallen on Julius. He strove to recover himself.
+
+"And do you like it?" he asked vacuously.
+
+"_You_ seemed to like it well enough to register it."
+
+"With a 'Junior,' if you please."
+
+The other fixed him with a stare of round blue eyes. "I think I
+understand you, sir."
+
+"Very possibly," said poor Julius. "I am not very deep."
+
+He was thinking that this was doubtless a military detective, a very
+usual factor for ferreting out schemes, obnoxious to the Federal
+government and in aid of the Confederacy. He determined to hold hard and
+sell his life dear.
+
+"Have you any letters or papers--any written communication for me?"
+
+"None whatever," Julius ventured.
+
+"You knew you would meet me here?" the older man apparently wished to
+say as little as he might.
+
+"I fancied I should meet you, but not in this manner," said Julius, also
+enigmatical.
+
+The portly gentleman looked painfully nonplussed and ill at ease, as he
+sat in the light little yellow rocking-chair, which now and again
+treacherously tilted backward and caused him a momentary but agitated
+effort at equilibrium, and Julius vaguely remembered to have heard that
+rocking-chairs were not popular in England, and reflected that this
+worthy was not accustomed to have his centre of gravity so jeopardized.
+
+"I think I should have had ampler voucher. You will pardon me for saying
+this?" remarked the stranger, at length.
+
+"I will pardon you for saying anything you like," said Julius, politely.
+
+"The Company informed me that a young man familiar with the country--a
+native, in fact--would meet me here and that I should be afforded means
+to identify him. I fancied he would have letters. But when I saw the
+register I supposed this the mark of identification. Am I right?"
+
+"My dear sir, you must not expect me to guarantee your impressions,"
+said Julius. He was glad he was in bed. He felt that he could not have
+stood up. "I should say, judging from the effect your valuable mental
+qualities make upon me, that any impression you see fit to entertain
+would be amply justified by the fact."
+
+He did not know how to appraise the distinction of his own manner and
+special attractiveness, and he was both amazed and amused to note how
+Mr. John Wray of Manchester, England, expanded under the compliment.
+
+"I see, I see--I suppose this is even better than a letter, which might
+have been stolen, or transferred, or--however, or--shall we proceed to
+our commercial affairs?"
+
+"I don't usually transact commercial affairs in my night-shirt," said
+Julius, "but if I look sufficiently businesslike to suit you--just fire
+away; it's all the same to me."
+
+He was growing reckless. The risk involved in this war of words with the
+supposed detective was overwhelming his reserves. He did not know
+certainly of what the man suspected him, how fully informed he might
+have become. He knew it was imprudent to suggest his withdrawal, for the
+effort at escape might precipitate immediate arrest. Yet he could no
+longer spar back and forth.
+
+"However," he said, as if with a second thought, "I _should_ like a
+dabble of a bath, first, and to get on my duds, and to have a whack at
+breakfast, or dinner,--whichever is on parade by this time."
+
+"Certainly--certainly--by all means. I will meet you in the hotel
+office, and shall we dine together at two?" He held out the dial of his
+watch.
+
+"At two," assented Julius.
+
+His friend was in such polite haste to be gone that he shuffled and
+plunged awkwardly on his gaitered feet, fairly stumbling over his
+portmanteau near the door as he opened it; then he went down the hall
+with a brisk, elastic step. Julius lay dumfounded, staring at the
+portmanteau, which was of an English make and bore the letters, J. Wray,
+Manchester, England, on one side. He rose and turned it about. It had
+not been hastily arranged to mislead him. The lettering had been done
+long ago. The receptacle was evidently travel-worn, and stamped deep in
+the bottom was the makers' name, trunk manufacturers, Manchester,
+England.
+
+Julius dressed in haste, his heart once more agitated with the hope of
+deliverance. He could hardly control his nerves, his eager desire that
+this might prove merely an odd coincidence, instead of a detective's
+deep-laid scheme. It began to seem that the man's name might be really
+John Wray of Manchester, England, some army jobber, or speculator,
+perhaps--the country was full of them. He said he had expected to meet
+an "agent of the company," who knew the country.
+
+"_I_ know the country," said Julius, capably; "I know the country to a
+t-y ty. I can give him all the information he wants, free, gratis, and
+for nothing."
+
+Yet in naught, he resolved, would he betray himself. This mistake, on
+the contrary, might open to him some means of getting through the lines
+and back to his command with this map--this precious plan of the
+defences of the place that would be of distinct value to the cause of
+the Confederacy.
+
+He therefore cast aside his half-formulated scheme of seeking escape
+from the supposed detective through the street. He had remembered that
+there were stairs on the galleries, leading from one floor to another,
+and thence to the quadrangle, as well as the great main staircase from
+the hallways into the office. He at last took his way, however, down
+this main staircase, with its blatant publicity, and its shifting groups
+of Federal officers and busy, newly imported civilians. He recognized
+the wisdom of his boldness almost immediately. Mr. John Wray of
+Manchester, England, standing conferring amicably with a cluster of
+worthies of that marked commercial aspect, alertness, and vim of
+expression, which imply the successful business man of the heady,
+venturesome type, since known as "plungers," turned and perceived him,
+and catching his eye beckoned to him with great empressement.
+
+"Allow me, gentlemen, to introduce Mr. John Wray, Junior--the son of my
+cousin, John Wray," he said.
+
+There ensued the usual greetings, the usual stir of hand-shaking, and if
+any eye in the office had chanced to note the newcomer with the faint
+suggestion of doubt or interest or suspicion, which a stranger is apt to
+excite, it evaporated at once, for the elder Mr. Wray was well known in
+the hotel and the town, having been here often before, and was a very
+sufficient voucher for any kinsman.
+
+Genial indeed this group proved at dinner, seated on either side of the
+upper portion of one of the long tables. Julius found it accorded with
+his subsidiary character as youthful kinsman of one of the chief
+spokesmen to maintain an intelligent and receptive silence. Once or
+twice one of the more jovial of his newly acquired cousin's _confreres_
+gave him a glance and lifted his wine-glass with a nod, as who should
+say, "To you, sir," in the midst of the general discourse.
+
+This was eagerly commercial, for the most part, and piecing the details
+together as he plied his knife and fork, Julius learned that his new
+friend was interested in a flourishing American concern which had large
+government contracts for ready-made army clothing, the woollen cloth and
+other textile fabrics being supplied from Manchester, and was indeed one
+of the English agents. He could not reconcile anything that he heard
+with a requisite for caution or for any service which he could perform,
+necessitating secrecy or an alias, or his sudden and affectionate
+adoption as a kinsman.
+
+"It is a trait of piety to trust in Providence," Julius reflected in
+this quiescent state. "But I doubt if my confiding reliance in this fix
+can be set down to my credit. For the Lord knows there's nothing else to
+do!"
+
+He created the impression of a decorous, well-bred youth, and in the
+fashionable English clothes he looked little less British than the elder
+John Wray. There was so much good-fellowship that it was natural that
+the postprandial cigars with a decanter and glasses should be taken out
+to a summer-house in the quadrangle, where at one extremity the river
+had a slant of the westering sun on its surface. The hills of the
+distance were of a dull grapelike blue against an intensely turquoise
+sky; the magnolia trees above their heads already bore fine cream-white
+blossoms among the densely green and glossy foliage, and the surrounding
+town was cut off from sight and sound by the three encompassing sides of
+the hotel. Yet it was not a solitary place. No one looking at the group
+could imagine it had been chosen for seclusion. From the galleries of
+each of the three stories a glance could command it. Guests were
+continually sauntering into and out of the office. Here and there a
+Federal officer strolled along the little esplanade above the
+water-side. On the lower veranda two elderly men--one a chaplain--were
+playing very slowly and with great circumspection a game of chess. There
+were onlookers here, with whom time seemed no object, calmly studying
+the moves, solaced by a meditative cigar, and at long intervals showing
+a flicker of excitement at the magic word, "Check!"
+
+The summer-house had already a thatch of vines, but bare columns upheld
+the roof, and it occupied a little circular space of gravel, whence a
+broad gravel walk ran toward each point of the compass. An approach
+could be instantly observed, a step instantly heard, and therefore it
+did not seem to Julius altogether incongruous that business of
+importance and details of secrecy should presently be broached. The
+table in the centre was all at once covered with papers, and he began to
+understand the mysteries that had hitherto baffled him when gradually
+the details of a very bold and extensive blockade-running scheme were
+unfolded.
+
+This was in defiance, of course, of the Federal regulations, and in so
+far militated against no interest of the government that Julius had
+sworn to serve. But it was a private enterprise for personal profit, and
+whether the export of cotton from the country to England at this
+juncture accorded with the policy of the Confederate States he had no
+means of knowing. At one time, he was aware, there existed an impression
+that the official withholding of such shipments as could be effected by
+running the blockade tended to create such paucity of the staple in the
+English market as might influence the already pronounced disposition of
+the British to interfere in aid of the Confederacy, and bringing the war
+to an end remove this restriction of manufactures and trade. All this
+was beyond his province. He held very still, remained keenly observant,
+watching for the loophole that might enable him to quit these tortuous
+ways for the very simple matter of fighting the battles of his section.
+After these various turmoils of doubt, and hope, and despair, it would
+be a mere trifle to charge with his company to the muzzles of the
+biggest howitzers that ever bellowed.
+
+He discovered that these men were in correspondence with secret agents
+in the Confederacy; they spoke of various depots of the cotton which
+presently developed as mere caches--bales hidden in swamps, to be
+brought out only by such craft as could navigate bayous, or in deserted
+gin-houses on abandoned plantations, or in old tumble-down warehouses on
+the outskirts of towns,--never much at any one point, but all that could
+be found and bought, and concealed and held, to be gotten away at last
+to a foreign market. The system sought to reach to the Gulf of Mexico,
+to gather up the scattered wayside stores, and either by taking
+advantage of some lapse of Federal vigilance, or else by strategy, to
+run the blockade with a ship-load, and away for England! Thus the
+enterprise was contrary to the policy of both factions. The Company's
+gold would recruit the endurance of the South, and yet he knew that the
+Confederate authorities had put the torch to thousands of bales rather
+than let the cotton fall into their enemy's hands--the precious
+commodity, then selling at amazing prices in the markets of New York.
+
+Suddenly his own personality came into the scheme with an abruptness
+that made his head whirl.
+
+"How is it," demanded a sharp-featured man, who had sparse sandy hair,
+very straight, very thin, the head almost bald on top extending the
+effect of the forehead, watery-blue eyes that nevertheless made out very
+accurately the surrounding country, metaphorically considered, a
+somewhat wrinkled face albeit he was not old--"how is it that your
+cousin should be so well acquainted with the country? I take it that he
+is an Englishman, too!"
+
+"Why, no, he is not," candidly answered Mr. John Wray, and Julius had an
+instinct to clutch at him from across the table to hinder the divulging
+of the imposture, "and, in fact, he is not my kinsman at all. I should
+be extremely glad if he were," and he smiled suavely across the table at
+Julius. "He is, I understand, a native of this region." And forthwith he
+told the story of the register.
+
+The spare, businesslike man, whose name was Burrage, at once laid his
+cigar down on the table with its ash carefully disposed over the edge.
+
+"And did he bring no letters?"
+
+"None; very properly. It is most unwise to multiply papers in the hands
+of outside parties."
+
+"But he should have had something definite."
+
+"I think the registry of the name very definite." Mr. John Wray reddened
+slightly. He was not in the habit of being called in question for
+precipitancy.
+
+"It strikes me as a most fantastic whim on the part of the Company. You
+might not have interpreted it correctly--taken as you were by surprise,"
+Mr. Burrage rejoined. Then, "Did _you_ have any specific instructions to
+guide you personally?" The querist turned full on the young man, much to
+Mr. John Wray's disapproval. But Julius answered easily:--
+
+"None at all. It is my business to hold myself subject to orders."
+
+"What is your name?" queried Mr. Burrage.
+
+"At present--John Wray, very much at your service," Julius replied
+glibly; then with a sudden recollection of the vicissitudes of "Mr.
+Poet" and "Mr. Goat," he burst into his irresistible laugh, that cleared
+the frown from the brow of the actual Mr. John Wray and his colleagues,
+and caused the officers pacing along the esplanade, their shadows long
+now in the sun, to glance in the direction of the sound, sympathetic
+with the unknown jest.
+
+Mr. Burrage pressed the matter no farther, but as he took up his cigar
+again, filliping off the ash with a delicate gesture, and placed it
+between his teeth once more, no physiognomist would have been required
+to discern in his resolute facial expression a firm determination to
+have full advices on this subject before he should ever lose sight of
+the very prepossessing young man introduced by Mr. John Wray.
+
+"He goes out with the little steamboat down the river. I think a packet
+leaves to-morrow." Mr. Wray began to explain the simplicity of the
+duties devolving upon Julius in order to demonstrate his own
+perspicacity and regard for precaution. "At her stoppages he visits the
+plantations on his list, notifies the men in charge of the cotton to get
+it out on the rafts and flatboats and to be ready to float down--there's
+a full sufficiency of water on the shoals now--to where the steamer we
+have chartered, bought, in fact, can pick it up. Then he returns on the
+next packet. It is a trip of a hundred miles or so."
+
+Julius felt his heart beat tumultuously in the prospect of escape--to be
+out of the town once more! But to-morrow! what in the interval might
+betide!
+
+"The point is to have our own steamboat clear fairly with the
+upper-country consignment. The rest she picks up as she goes. She is
+known as a packet to the river pickets; they won't be aware she has
+changed her trade till she has gone. But meantime to get the cotton
+collected it is necessary to have a man familiar with the country. On
+the way down or the return trip, in the distracted state of the region,
+politically, and its physical aspect as a nearly unexplored wilderness,
+it would be simply impossible for a stranger to cope with any disasters
+or difficulties, if one could be found to undertake the trip."
+
+Julius was astonished at himself when he heard his own voice blandly
+suggest--"Come with me, Mr. Burrage! You would enjoy the trip--beautiful
+scenery! I should have the benefit of your long experience in matters of
+business, and you could avail yourself of my knowledge of the country
+and the people--the methods and the manners."
+
+He was in admiration of his own astuteness. His intuition had captured
+the emergency. He had perceived in Mr. Burrage's face unmistakable
+indications that he would play the obstructive. He would detain the
+supposed agent here, and would not intrust him with the necessary
+instructions in this difficult and most compromising business, until the
+fullest advices could be had from the distant promoters of the
+enterprise, who were presumed to have sent hither "John Wray, Junior."
+
+The suggestion of Julius met with instantaneous favor among the group,
+except, indeed, that Mr. Burrage himself looked disconcerted, surprised,
+definitely at a loss. It removed all possible objections to the
+employment of this agent with no other credentials than the name on the
+register--but at this moment Mr. Burrage thought that perhaps the
+coincidence would have struck him with more force had the name been his
+own and the registry anticipated his arrival. Time was of importance. No
+one more than the experienced man of business realizes the Protean
+capacity for change appertaining to that combination of cause and
+effect called opportunity. What is possible to-day may be relegated to
+the regions of everlasting regret to-morrow. Everything was favorable at
+the moment, feasible. The future stood with the boon of success in an
+outstretched hand. Delay was hardly to be contemplated. The proposition
+that Mr. Burrage should accompany the agent of his own company on a tour
+of important negotiation, and at no sacrifice of personal ease, was at
+once so reasonable and so indicative of the fairest intentions that he
+was ashamed of the cautionary doubt he had entertained. All at once the
+journey seemed too much trouble. The matter had already been adjusted,
+he said. The plan might well stand as Mr. Wray had arranged it.
+
+But Mr. Wray, too, added his insistence. "Nothing could be better," he
+declared.
+
+And as Mr. Burrage demurred, and half apologized, and was distinctly out
+of countenance, Mr. Wray compassionately overlooked all his disquieting
+cautions and protested with cordiality that the change would be an
+advantage. Some difficulty might arise, some reluctance to deliver the
+cotton they had already purchased, some doubt as to the locality where
+it was stored,--they used this expression rather than "hidden," though
+Julius apprehended that its cache was now a cane-brake and now a rock
+house or cave, and now a tongue of dry land in a network of bayous and
+swamps,--some failure of facilities in respect to men or water carriage
+or land transportation, with all of which this young gentleman, new to
+the arrangements and the enterprise, might find it difficult to cope
+successfully. Such unforeseen obstacles might require a divergence from
+the original plan and the agent's instructions. But Mr. Burrage, a
+member of the Company, could meet and provide for all these emergencies,
+and yet with such a guide be as assured and as confident of his footing
+in this strange country as if he himself were a native. It was the
+happiest suggestion! It enabled him to make a long arm, as it were, and
+manipulate the matter in effect without a proxy.
+
+"And meantime it will be strange indeed if I cannot make a long leg!"
+thought Julius, triumphantly.
+
+The actual Mr. Wray was treated everywhere with all possible
+consideration and due regard to the fact that he was a British subject.
+The neutrality of Great Britain was considered exceedingly precarious,
+and there was no disposition to twist the tail of the Lion, albeit this
+appendage was whisked about in a way that ever and anon provoked that
+catastrophe. The British Lion was supposed in some quarters to be
+solicitous of a grievance which would justify a roar of exceeding wrath.
+In this instance, however, there was no necessity of withholding the
+favor asked by a British subject, Mr. John Wray,--for a pass for his
+cousin, Mr. John Wray, Junior, of Manchester, England, and his friend,
+Mr. Alfred Burrage.
+
+That night the two slept on the crowded steamer, as she was to cast off
+at a very early hour. Long, long did Julius lie awake in his berth in
+the tiny stateroom peculiar to the architecture of the "stern-wheeler."
+The good Mr. Burrage in the berth below snored in satisfaction with the
+events of the day, untroubled as to the morrow. Julius had been so
+tormented by vacillations, by the untoward "about-face" movements of the
+probable, so hampered by the unexpected, so repeatedly disappointed,
+that even now he could not believe in his good fortune. Something,
+somehow, would snatch the cup from his lips. But in the midst of his
+turmoil of emotion he had a distinct sense of gratitude that the
+preservation of his safety had involved no forwarding of equivocal
+interests. The affairs of the Company were doubtless such as many were
+seeking to prosecute with varying chances of success. He would report
+the scheme to his commanding officer, however, and he could forecast the
+reply, "One of hundreds." But, at all events, the map in his boot-lining
+was a matter of no slight import. He could hardly wait to spread it on a
+drumhead before his Colonel's eyes, and solicit the honor of leading the
+enterprise he had planned.
+
+But was he, indeed, destined to escape, to come off scatheless from this
+heady venture!
+
+"If ever I see the command again, by thunder, I'll stick to them as long
+as I live. If ever I can lay hold of my sword again, I swear my right
+hand shall never be far from its hilt!"
+
+In the early hours of the night the loading of the cargo was still
+unfinished. The calls of the deck-hands, the vociferations of the mate,
+which were of an intensity, a fervor, a mad strenuousness, that might
+seem never heard before out of Bedlam, the clash and commotion of boxes
+and barrels, the lowing of cattle and bleating of sheep, for the lower
+deck was given over to the transportation of army supplies, sounded
+erratically, now louder, now moderated, dying away and again rising in
+agitated vibrations. Sometimes, as he lay, a great flare of light
+illumined the tiny apartment as the torches, carried by the roustabouts
+on shore, cast eerie vistas into the darkness, and he could see the
+closely fitted white planking of the ceiling just above his head, the
+white coverlet, and through the glass door, that served too as window,
+the railing of the guards without and the dim glimpse of the first
+street of the town--River Avenue--about on a level with his eye, so deep
+was the declivity to the wharf.
+
+Quiet came gradually. The grating and shifting of the cargo ceased
+first; the boat was fully loaded at length. Then the voices became
+subdued,--once a snatch of song, and again a burst of laughing banter
+between the roustabouts going up into the town and the deck-hands about
+to turn in on the boat. Now it was so quiet that he could distinguish
+the flow of the current. Yet he could not sleep. Once he seemed near
+unconsciousness when he heard the clash of iron as the stoker was
+banking the fires, for steam was up. Then Julius lay in unbroken
+silence, till an owl hooted from out the Roscoe woods down the river.
+There was home! He thought of his father with so filial a tenderness
+that the mere recollection might be accounted a prayer. In that dense
+mass of foliage off toward the west, under the stars and the moon, stood
+the silent house, invisible at the distance, but every slant of the
+roof, every contour of the chimneys, every window and door,--nay, every
+moulding of the cornice, was as present to his contemplation as if he
+beheld it in floods of matutinal sunshine. "Oh, bless it!" he breathed.
+"Bless it, and all it holds!"
+
+With dreary melancholy he fell to gazing out at the real instead,--at
+the vague slant to the wharf in the flickering moonlight, and the dim
+warning glow of a lantern on an obstructive pile of brick on the crest
+of River Avenue. Somehow the trivial thing had a spell to hold his eyes,
+as he watched it with a mournful, dull apprehension of what might
+betide, for he feared to hope still to escape--so often had this hope
+allured and disappointed him. Would something happen at the last
+moment--and what would the next disaster be?
+
+Therefore when he suddenly became sensible that the boat was moving
+swiftly, strongly, in midcurrent under a full head of steam, he felt a
+great revulsion of emotion. Floods of sunshine suffused the guards and,
+shining through the glass section of the door, sent a wakening beam into
+his face. A glance without apprised him that while he slept the town was
+left far behind, the fort, the camps, the pickets, all the features of
+grim-visaged war, and now great forest masses pressed down to the craggy
+banks on either side. The moment of deliverance was near,--it was at
+hand,--and as he dressed in the extreme of haste, he listened
+expectantly for the whistle of the boat, for it was approaching a little
+town on the opposite side where a landing was always made. Julius hardly
+feared the entrance of any passenger who might recognize him, but he
+took his way into the saloon and asked for breakfast, in order that thus
+employed he might have time to reconnoitre. The boat, however, barely
+touched the wharf, and when he emerged and joined Mr. Burrage on the
+deck there was something so breezily triumphant in his manner that the
+observant elder man looked askance at him with a conscious lack of
+comprehension. He thought he was evidently mistaken if he had imagined
+he had gauged this youth. His breeding was far above his humble and
+subsidiary employment, and his manner singularly well poised and
+assured. There was a hint of dignity, of command, in his pose and the
+glance of his eye. He was perfectly courteous; he did not forget to
+apologize for a lapse of attention, albeit absorbed in a certain
+undercurrent of excitement. He did not hear what Mr. Burrage had said of
+the news from the front in the morning paper, and upon its repetition
+accepted the proffered sheet with thanks and threw himself into a chair
+beside his elderly fellow-passenger. He had hardly read ten words before
+he lifted his head with a certain alert expectancy, like the head of a
+listening deer. The whistle of the boat had sounded again, the hoarse,
+discordant howl common to river steamers, an acoustic infliction even at
+a distance, and truly lamentable close at hand, but it was not this that
+had caught his attention. The boat was turning in midstream and heading
+for the shore, now backing at the signal of her pilot's bells,
+peremptorily jangling, now going forward with a jerk, and again swinging
+slowly around, and at last slipping forward easily toward the wood-yard
+where great piles of ready-cut fuel awaited her.
+
+An alien sound had also caught Mr. Burrage's attention.
+
+"What is that?" he demanded of the captain of the steamboat, who held a
+field-glass and was looking eagerly toward the woods.
+
+"Musketry," replied the captain, succinctly.
+
+"There is some engagement taking place in the forest?" inquired Mr.
+Burrage.
+
+"Seems so," said the captain.
+
+"And are you--are you going to land?"
+
+"Must have wood--that's my regular depot," returned the steamboatman.
+
+"You had best return to Roanoke City instead," urged Mr. Burrage,
+aghast.
+
+"Need wood for _that_!"
+
+"But the boat will be captured by the Rebels. Why don't you burn the
+freight?"
+
+"Beeves ain't convenient for fuel on the hoof."
+
+"Oh, I reckon the captain can wood and get off," said Julius,
+good-naturedly, reassuring Mr. Burrage. "Nobody is thinking about this
+boat now." Then, as a sharper volley smote the air, he added, "I think
+I'll look into this a bit," rose and took his way through the groups of
+excited passengers and down to the lower deck.
+
+The "mud clerk," the roustabouts, the wood-yard contingent, made quick
+work of fuelling the steamer, and she was once more in midstream,
+forging ahead at high speed, before it occurred to Mr. Burrage to
+compare notes with his young colleague and ascertain if he had learned
+aught of what forces were engaged.
+
+He was not easily found, and Mr. Burrage asked the captain of his
+whereabouts.
+
+"He must have got left by the boat," said the captain, as if the packet
+were a sentient thing and subject to whims.
+
+Mr. Burrage, gravely disturbed, caused inquiry to be circulated among
+the hands and officials,--all, in effect, who had set foot on _terra
+firma_.
+
+"Who? that young dandy with the long hair?" said the "mud clerk,"
+staring, his measuring staff still in his hand. "Why, that man
+_intended_ to land. He had his portmanteau and walked off along the road
+as unconcerned as if he was going home. I was too busy measuring the
+wood to pass the time of day, thinking the riverbank was alive with
+guerillas."
+
+His departure remained a mystery to Mr. Burrage. As to the topographical
+features of his involved scheme he was powerless to prosecute this phase
+alone. The simple expedient of sticking to the packet and retracing his
+way on her return trip brought him at last to a consultation with his
+_confreres_, who also long pondered fruitlessly on the strange meeting
+and its result. About this time the agent or guide, provided by the
+Company, presented himself with due credentials from the main office,--a
+heavy, dull, somewhat sullen man, with no further capacity, or will,
+indeed, than a lenient interpretation of his duty might require.
+
+"I always shall think," Mr. Wray used to say, "that we suffered a great
+loss in that young man--that John Wray, Junior."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+In these days the picket lines were seldom stationary; one or the other
+faction continually drew in close these outlying guards, as if by
+presentiment,--an unexplained monition of caution, or perhaps because of
+some vague rumor of danger. Now and again, by a sudden belligerent
+impulse, they were impetuously attacked and driven in; but apparently in
+pursuance of no definite plan of aggression emanating from the main
+body. A few days of surly silence and stillness would ensue, and then
+the opposing force would return the warlike compliment with interest,
+holding the enemy's ground and kindling bivouac fires from the embers
+they had left. It seemed a sort of game of tag--a grim game; for the
+loss of life in these futile manoeuvres amounted to far more in the long
+run than the few casualties in each skirmish might indicate. Sometimes
+these feints were entirely relinquished, and intervals of absolute
+inaction continued so long that it might seem a matter of doubt why the
+two lines were there at all, with so vague a similitude of war.
+Occasionally they lay so near that the individual soldiers, forgetful of
+sectional enmity, gave rein to mere human interest in the opportunities
+afforded by a common tongue and an apprehended and familiar range of
+feeling. A lot of tobacco, thrown into a group about a bivouac fire by
+an unseen hand one night, brought the next night a package of "hard
+tack" from over the way. Now and again long-range conversations were
+held, full of kindly curiosity, or humorously abusive, the questionable
+wit of which mightily rejoiced the heart of the lonely sentinel, and
+upon his relief all the jokes were duly rehearsed when once more in
+camp, he himself, of course, represented as coming off winner in the
+wordy war, being able to appropriate all the good things said by the
+enemy. The loud, cheerful, "Say, air you the galoot ez wuz swapping lies
+with Ben Smith day 'fore yestiddy?" and the response, "Smith, _Smith_,
+you say. I dis-remember the name. I guess I never heard it afore!" all
+were much more commendable from a merely humanitarian point of view than
+the singing of the minie ball or the hissing shriek of a shell that had
+been wont to intrude on the bland quietude of the sweet spring air.
+
+Thus it was that Miss Mildred Fisher, accompanied by Lieutenant Seymour
+and one of her father's ancient friends, Colonel Monette, himself
+attended by a very smart orderly, riding out of Roanoke City down the
+long turnpike road, saw naught that might indicate active hostilities.
+The picturesque tents in the distance about the town, the outline of
+the forts against the blue sky, and afar off a gunboat in the river,
+were all still, all silent, all as suave as the painted incident of a
+picture on the wall. The turnpike itself bore heavy tokens of the war in
+the deeply worn holes and wheel tracks of the great wagon and artillery
+trains, wrought during the wet weather of the winter. It was hard going
+on the horses, and precluded that brisk pace and easy motion which are
+essential to the pleasure of the equestrian. Mildred Fisher, indeed,
+delighted in a breakneck speed, and it may be doubted whether it was
+altogether a happy animal which had the honor of bearing her light
+weight. As they reached a "cut off," where a "dirt road" had been
+recently repaired and put into fine condition to obviate the obstacles
+of the main travelled way, Miss Fisher proposed that they should "let
+the horses out" along this detour for a bit. Then she challenged the two
+officers for a race.
+
+They could but accede, and indeed it would have been difficult to deny
+her aught. The elder looked at her with an almost paternal pride, the
+other with a sort of surly adoration, tempered by many a grievance and
+many a realized imperfection in his idol, and a spirit of revolt against
+the sunny whims and again the cold caprice which he and others sustained
+at her hands. Seymour had little to complain of just now; yet, if she
+smiled on him and his heart warmed to the sunshine of her eyes, the
+next moment he was saying to himself that it meant nothing, it was not
+for his sake; for she was smiling with the same degree of brightness on
+that whiskerando, the elderly colonel. Her face was exquisitely fair,
+and in horseback exercise--the luxury she loved--she tolerated no veil
+to protect the perfection of her complexion. Her fluffy red hair had a
+sheen rather like gold, because of the contrast with her damson-tinted
+cloth riding-habit. The hat was of the low-crowned style then worn with
+a feather, and this was a long ostrich plume of the same damson tint,
+curling down over her hair, and shading to a lighter purple. Her hazel
+eyes were full of joy like a child's. Her mouth was not closed for a
+moment,--its red lips emitting disconnected exclamations, laughter, gay
+banter, and sometimes just held apart, silently taking the swift rush of
+the air, showing the rows of even white teeth and a glimpse of the
+deeper red of the interior, like the heart of a crimson flower.
+
+She tore along like the wind itself. "Madcap," who had raced before,
+and, sooth to say, with more numerous spectators, had thrust his head
+forward, striking out a long stride, and the soft, elastic, dirt road
+fairly flew beneath his compact hoofs. The skirt of the
+riding-habit--much longer than in the later fashions--floated out in the
+breeze of the flight, and Colonel Monette, who did not really approve
+outdoor sports for women, expected momently to see it catch in a thorn
+tree of the thickets that lined the road, or on some stake of the
+fragments of a ridered rail fence, and tear her from the saddle. Then,
+her foot being held by the stirrup perhaps, she might be dragged by
+Madcap or brained by one blow of the ironshod hoofs. Thus his heart was
+in his mouth, and he was eminently appreciative of the folly of the
+elderly wight who seeks to share the pleasures of the young.
+
+The lieutenant, being young himself, was not so cautiously and
+altruistically apprehensive. He admired Miss Fisher's dash and courage
+and buoyant spirit of enjoyment, and, having a good horse, he pressed
+Madcap to his best devoir. Colonel Monette, to keep them in sight at
+all, was compelled to make very good speed, and went galloping and
+plunging down the road in a wild and reckless manner.
+
+It was the elder officer who was first visited by compunctions in behalf
+of the horses.
+
+"Halt!" he cried. "Halt! Miss Fisher is the winner--as she always is!
+Halt! Lieutenant Seymour!" Then in a lower voice when he could be heard
+to speak, "We shall have the horses badly blown," he said with an
+admonitory cadence, which reminded Seymour that a military man's whole
+duty does not consist in scampering after a harum-scarum girl in a race
+with two wild young horses.
+
+Seeing that she was not followed, Miss Fisher reined in after several
+wild plunges from Madcap, who felt that he had not had his run half out,
+and snorted with much surprise in his full bright eyes as, turning in
+the road, he saw the two mounted officers far behind, stationary and
+waiting. The victor should never be unduly elated, but Madcap expressed
+his glee of triumph chiefly in his heels, curvetting and prancing,
+presently kicking up so uncontrollably, the excitement of the contest,
+the joy of racing, still surging in his veins and tense in his muscles,
+that the officers might well have feared some disaster to the girl. They
+at once put their steeds in motion to go to her assistance, but Madcap,
+with outstretched head, viewing their start, suddenly made a bounding
+_volte-face_ in the road, and with the bit between his teeth set out at
+a pace that discounted his former efforts and carried him out of sight
+in a few minutes.
+
+Miss Fisher, with all the courage of the red-headed Fisher family,
+albeit she had become pale and breathless, settled herself firmly in the
+saddle, held the reins in close, now and then essaying a sharp jerk,
+first with the right then quickly with the left hand--and it was as much
+as she could do to keep the saddle at these moments--to displace the
+grasp of his teeth on the bit. For a time these manoeuvres failed, but at
+last the road became rougher, brambles appeared in its midst, the
+intention of repair had evidently ceased, and running at full tilt was
+no longer any great fun. The horse voluntarily slowed his pace, and the
+sudden jerk right and left snatched the bit from his teeth. He might
+still have pranced and curvetted, for the spirit of speed was not
+satiated, but his foot slipped on the uneven gullied ground, he
+stumbled, and being a town horse and seeing nowhere any promise of a
+good road, he resigned himself to the guidance of his rider, thinking
+perhaps she knew more of the country than he.
+
+While she breathed him for a time, she looked about her along the curves
+of the road, seeing nothing of her companions, and realizing that she
+was quite alone. This gave her a sentiment of uneasiness for a moment;
+then she reflected that her friends were doubtless riding forward to
+overtake her. She drew up the reins, intending to turn, and, retracing
+her way, to meet them.
+
+The place was all unfamiliar. So swift had been her transit that she had
+not had a moment's contemplation of the surroundings. She stood at the
+summit of a gentle slope and could look off toward stretches of forest,
+here and there interspersed with considerable acreage of cleared ground,
+evidently formerly farm land, now abandoned in the stress of war and the
+presence of contending armies. The correctness of this conclusion was
+confirmed by the sight of two gaunt chimneys at no great distance,
+between which lay a mass of charred timbers,--once the dwelling, now
+burned to the ground. The scene was an epitome of desolation, despite
+the sunshine, which indeed here was but a lonely splendor; despite the
+brilliance of the trumpet vine, tangled in remnants of the fence, in
+many a bush, and swaying in long lengths, its scarlet bugles flaring,
+from the boughs of overshadowing trees; despite the appeal of the elder
+blossoms of creamy, lacelike delicacy, catching her eye in the thickets,
+which were so lush, so green, so favored by the rich earth and the
+prodigal season. She was sensible of a clutch of dread on that merry
+spirit of hers before she heard a sound--a significant sound that
+stilled the pulsations of her heart and sent her blood cold. It was the
+unmistakable sinister sibilance of a shell. She saw the tiny white puff
+rise up above the forest, skim through the air, drop among the thickets,
+and then she heard the detonation of an explosion. Before she could draw
+her breath there came a sudden volley of musketry at a distance,--she
+knew that for the demonstration of regular soldiers, firing at the
+word,--then ensued another, and again only a patter of dropping shots.
+She wondered that her companions did not overtake her--she must find
+them--she must rejoin them,--when suddenly an object started up from the
+side of the road, the sight of which palsied her every muscle. A man it
+was who had lain in the bushes on the hillside, a man so covered with
+blood that he had lost every semblance of humanity. The blood still came
+in a steady stream from his mouth, impelled in jets, as if it were under
+the impulse of a pump, and he held his hand to his stomach, whence too
+there came blood, dripping down from his fingers. In sickened, aghast
+dismay she watched his approach, and as he passed she found her voice
+and called to him to stop,--might she not help him stanch his wounds?
+His staring eyes gazed vacantly forward with no recognition of the
+meaning of her words, and he walked deliriously on, every step sending
+the blood forward, draining the vital currents to exhaustion. Now she
+dared not turn, she could not pass that hideous apparition. She
+shuddered and trembled and rode irresolutely forward, just to be
+moving--hardly with a realized intention. Suddenly the road curved, and
+the scene of the conflict was before her.
+
+The woods were dense on three sides of a wide stretch of fields that
+were springing green with new verdure; a portion had even been ploughed
+and bedded up for cotton; here and there lay strange objects in curious
+attitudes, which she did not at once recognize as slain men. Among them
+were scattered carbines, horses already dead, and more than one in
+scrambling agonies of dying. In the farthest vista field-guns were
+evidently getting in battery, ready to sweep from the earth a little
+force of dismounted cavalrymen who had come to close quarters with
+infantry and who were fighting on foot with carbines. The minie balls
+now and then sang sharply in the air, and in the excitement she did not
+realize the danger. Suddenly a puff of smoke rose from the battery, the
+shell winging its way high above the infantry line and at last falling
+among the dismounted cavalrymen, who, perceiving the situation to be
+hopeless, wavered, sought to rally, and at last broke and ran to the
+horse-holders hidden in the thickets. Thither the shells pursued them,
+bursting all along the plain, and as Mildred Fisher gazed she saw three
+men on the field, powerless to reach the shelter. One was wounded,--an
+officer, evidently,--and the other two were seeking to support him to
+his horse hard by. At this moment a fragment of shell killed the animal
+before their eyes.
+
+"Ride out! Ride out!" cried Millie Fisher to a horse-holder that she
+observed close by in the woods. He was mounted himself, and he held the
+bridles of three horses. He looked half bewildered, pale, disabled. A
+shell burst prematurely, out of range and wide of aim, high in the air
+above their heads.
+
+"I can't," he said; "I'm hit!"
+
+"Give _me_ the line, then!" she cried.
+
+He was past reasoning, beyond surprise, stunned by the clamors and
+succumbing to wounds.
+
+The next moment, the three great horses in a leash, Madcap led his
+wildest chase across that stricken plain, now shying aside as some
+wounded man lifted a ghastly face almost beneath his hoofs, or pitifully
+sought to crawl away like a maimed and dying beast. The thunder of the
+frenzied gallop shook the ground; the group of men, for whom the rescue
+was designed, turned a startled and amazed gaze as the horses came on
+abreast, snorting and neighing and with tossing manes and wild eyes,
+rushing like the steeds of Automedon.
+
+"The gallant little game-cock!" exclaimed Jim Fisher, eying the supposed
+horse-holder from beside the smoking guns of his battery in the
+distance. "Now, I'm glad to spare him if never another man goes clear!"
+
+For the Confederate cavalry were starting out in pursuit, and to let the
+squadrons pass without danger the cannonade was discontinued. The
+bugle's mandate, "Cease firing!" rose lilting into the air, and there
+was sudden silence among the guns. As Captain Fisher disengaged the
+strap of his field-glass seeking to adjust it, he noted that there was
+something continually flying out at the side of the young soldier's
+saddle. One glance through the magnifying lenses at the floating folds
+of the riding-habit and the radiant face crowned by the purple
+plume--and Jim Fisher almost fell under the wheel of the limber as it
+was run up to the gun-carriage. "My God, Watt!" he exclaimed to his
+first lieutenant who was also his brother, "that--that--cavalryman
+is--is Sister Millie!"
+
+When she was at last with them, for in tumultuous agitation they had
+rushed forward to meet her, beckoning and shouting, and their kisses had
+smeared the gunpowder from their grim countenances to her lovely roseate
+cheeks, they began to experience the reactionary effects of their fright
+and scolded her with great rancor, declaring repeatedly they felt much
+disposed, even yet, to slap her. All of which had no effect at all on
+Millie Fisher. They tried aesthetic methods of reducing her to see her
+deed from their standpoint.
+
+"I thought you were a patriotic girl, Sister," one of them urged. "And
+see, now--you have helped three Yankees to escape!"
+
+"I _am_ patriotic--more patriotic than anybody," she asseverated. "But I
+forgot they were Yankees--they were just three men in great danger!"
+
+"But _you_ were in great danger, Sister, I--I--might have shot you!"
+
+"Didn't you feel funny when you found out who 'twas?" she queried with a
+giggle of great zest.
+
+"I felt mighty funny," said Jim Fisher, grimly. "I suppose few men have
+ever felt so funny!"
+
+Few men have ever looked less funny than he as he reflected on the
+episode. He recovered his equanimity only gradually, but especially
+after he had been able to make arrangements to convey intelligence to
+his mother within the Federal lines as to his sister's safety. This was
+rendered possible by a flag of truce sent out almost immediately by
+Colonel Monette, who with Lieutenant Seymour was in the greatest anxiety
+as to her fate, feeling a sense of responsibility in the matter. She
+insisted on adding a line addressed to the younger officer, bidding him
+sing daily with his hand on his heart:--
+
+     "'Would I were with thee!'--_In the Confederate lines!_"
+
+if he expected her to conserve any faith in his constancy.
+
+That evening Jim Fisher almost regained his wonted cheerfulness. The
+other four brothers had gathered together to welcome the unexpected
+guest, and as they sat around a great wood fire in an old deserted
+farm-house, a primitive structure built of logs, with Millie and the
+youngest, favorite brother, Walter, in the centre, it seemed so joyful a
+reunion that he was almost tempted to forgive the manner in which it had
+come about.
+
+Jim Fisher's body-servant, Caesar, cooked a supper for them, in a room
+across an open passage, consisting of corn-bread, bean-coffee, bacon,
+and a chicken, which last came as a miracle, as he mysteriously
+expressed it, upon inquiry--"as de mussy ob Providence!" Caesar was a
+brisk young darkey, with a capacity for a sullen and lowering change,
+and with a great distaste for ridicule, induced by much suffering as the
+butt of the practical jokes of his young masters, for among so many
+Fisher boys one or another must needs be always disposed for mirth.
+
+"You needn't ax me so p'inted 'bout dat chicken's pedigree, Marse Watt,"
+Caesar was beguiled into retorting acrimoniously. "Naw, sah. I dunno. I
+dunno whedder hit's Dominicky or Shanghai. An' _ye_ have no call to know
+whedder hit's foreign or native! _I_ tell you hit's fried--an' dat's all
+I'm _gwine_ ter tell you!--fried ter a turn! An' if you bed enny
+religion, you'd say grace, an' give Miss Millie a piece while it's hot.
+Naw, sah! naw, Marse Watt! I _ain't_ no robber! Marse Jim--you hear what
+Marse Watt done call me! Naw, sah! I don't expec' ter see Satan!--not
+_dis week_, nohow."
+
+Caesar was glad to gather up the fragments and make off to the kitchen
+opposite, where he sat before the fire and crunched the last bone of the
+precious fowl, and grinned over the adroit methods of its capture on
+this great occasion, for such a luxury could hardly be bought at any
+price, in Confederate money or any other currency.
+
+After supper was despatched something of a levee was held; so many of
+Miss Millie Fisher's old friends--officers in the military force--called
+to renew the acquaintance of happier times. And as she recognized the
+more intimate old playfellows or neighbors, with a gush of delighted
+little screams and a musical acclaim of their Christian names, sometimes
+an old half-forgotten nickname, other guests, later acquaintances, were
+envious and wistful, and sought to stem the tide of reminiscence, the
+"Don't you remembers" and "Oh-h-h, wasn't it funny?" and to impress the
+values of the present, despite the lures of the past.
+
+She was delightfully gracious and gay with them all, and perhaps she had
+never seemed more lovely than the flicker of the firelight revealed her,
+for there were no other means of illumination. She stood to receive in
+the centre of the floor, radiant in her dark purple riding-habit and
+hat, the military figures, all in full uniform, clustering about her,
+some resting on their swords, some half leaning on a comrade's shoulder,
+while jest and repartee went around, the laughter now and again making
+the rafters ring. It was with reluctance that they gradually tore
+themselves away in obedience to a realization that after so long a
+separation the family might desire to spend the evening alone, for three
+of the brothers must needs repair to their own command at some distance
+at break of day, and it might be long before they could all be together
+once more.
+
+So at last, the visitors gone, the door barred, the night wearing on,
+the Fishers gathered round the replenished fire, for the air was chill
+and the warmth was as welcome as the light. The deserted house was
+entirely bare of furniture, and as the force was a "flying column,"
+flung forward without the impediments of baggage trains or tents, there
+was not even a camp-stool available. Millie and Watt sat side by side on
+a billet of wood, their arms around each other's waists to preserve the
+equilibrium, and the rest of the brothers half reclined on the saddles
+on the floor. And every face was smiling, and every head was red. Again
+and again a shout of laughter went up, as she detailed the news of the
+town,--and some very queer things, indeed, she told,--and Watt, the
+lieutenant, responded with the news of the battery and the camp.
+
+Perhaps he felt that his prestige as a wit was threatened, for once he
+said, "I'd give a hundred dollars, Sister, to be assured that all you
+are telling is the truth."
+
+"I wouldn't give a brass thimble to be assured that all _you_ are
+telling is the truth, for I know 'tisn't!" retorted Millie.
+
+"Oh, I meant in Confederate money!" He lowered the face value of his
+bid.
+
+They kept late hours that night; but at last, when the fire was burning
+low and great masses of coals had accumulated, they swung a military
+cloak hammock-wise across a corner of a little inner room, hardly more
+than a cupboard, and this Millie Fisher in her new role as a campaigner
+found a comfortable bed enough. The restricted apartment had no window,
+and no door save the one opening into the larger room; and this she set
+ajar, making Walter place a great solid shot against it lest it close,
+declaring that if that catastrophe should supervene, she should die of
+solitary fright. The five Fisher brothers were well within call and
+sight, as they clustered around the embers, talking for a time in low
+voices of what had chanced in the interval of their separation. For only
+Jim and Watt were together in the same company. They commented on the
+relative cost and value of their _chaussure_, as they stretched out
+their long, booted legs, with their feet on the hearth, and compared the
+wearing qualities of the soles and upper leather. They looked kindly
+into each other's faces and laughed as they made a point, and between
+the two younger brothers, Watt and Lucien, there was a disposition to
+horse-play, manifested in unexpected tweaks, that each was glad to
+receive as a compliment, so did separation and the sense of an imminent
+and ever environing danger soften and make tender their fraternal
+sentiment. But first one, then another, flung his cloak around him and,
+pillowing his head on his saddle, lay down to rest, the two younger
+brothers the last of all.
+
+And now--silence. The dull red light of the embers gloomed on the daubed
+and chinked walls of the old log house, with its rude puncheon floor.
+The five prostrate, cloaked figures upon it were still, asleep. Here and
+there from amongst the arms, placed ready to seize at a moment's notice,
+came a keen steely gleam. Mildred could hear the sentry's tread outside
+up and down before the door. Once, far away, she noted the measured
+tramp of marching feet, then a challenge, and anon, "Stand! Grand
+Rounds! Advance, Sergeant, with the countersign!" and presently the
+march was resumed in the distance. And again--silence! Only the wind
+astir in the forest, only the rustle of the lush foliage. All--how
+different from her dainty bedroom where she had spent last night, the
+downy couch, the silken coverlet, the velvet carpet, the lace curtains,
+the tremulous flicker of the wind in the flower-stand on the balcony!
+
+"Hugh!" she said suddenly.
+
+Every red head on the floor had lifted at the sound, and every hand had
+clutched a weapon.
+
+"What's the matter, Sister?"
+
+"I--I--believe there must be a flying squirrel or--or--something in the
+wall. Don't they build in old walls? I've seen that in some book."
+
+Jim and Hugh arose and investigated the wall of the inner room by means
+of a torch of light-wood.
+
+"Why, Sister, it is as solid as a rock!" Jim asseverated. "There's no
+flying squirrel here."
+
+He extinguished the flaming torch in the ashes banked in the
+chimney-place in the larger room, and again the two brothers laid
+themselves down to rest, with their feet on the hearth.
+
+Once more the silence of the night, the vague crumbling of the ash, the
+measured sound of the sentry's tread. There was no echo of the passing
+of time--but how leaden-footed! How slowly fared the night! How
+motionless lay those cloaked figures, each with his head on his saddle!
+
+"Watt," her voice came plaintively out of the gloom. "I'm scared!"
+
+This time, though all stirred, they did not rise.
+
+"Pshaw! Scared of what?"
+
+She did not answer. Only after a time she queried irrelevantly, "Can
+mice climb?"
+
+"Did you see that in a book, too?" asked Watt.
+
+"They can only climb under certain conditions," opined Hugh, sleepily.
+
+"But they'd scorn to intrude on a lady in a hammock, Sister," declared
+George.
+
+"Oh, hush, George!" said Jim, authoritatively. "No mouse can get up
+there, Sister. Why don't you go to sleep?"
+
+"I can't," said Millie Fisher, plaintively. "I saw so many awful things
+to-day!"
+
+"You had better think about mice," said Watt, quickly, to effect a
+diversion. "They are minute, but monstrous. Just imagine how one could
+scale the wall, and taking its tail under its left arm spring across to
+your hammock, and run along, say, the nape of your neck! Oh-h-h!
+wouldn't that be just _aw-w-wful_!"
+
+"Oh, hush, Watt!" said Jim. "Just compose your mind, Sister. Shut your
+eyes and think about nothing."
+
+"Think how nearly you scared a gallant captain of artillery out of his
+seven senses to-day," suggested Watt, anew. "I thought Jim would get run
+over by the gun-carriages and the caissons, whether or no. He was so
+scatter-brained, and white, and wild-eyed, and blundering--nearly under
+the horses' feet."
+
+Millie Fisher gave a pleased little laugh.
+
+"Was he? Was he, truly?"
+
+"He was, for a fact. Few captains of artillery have the opportunity to
+make their own sister a target in a regular knock-down-and-drag-out
+fight. I thought I was going to have to support the gentleman off the
+field of battle. He couldn't stand up for a while."
+
+"How funny!" exclaimed Millie Fisher, delightedly. "Just _too_ funny."
+
+She shifted her position in the hammock, closed her eyes, and when she
+opened them again the sun was flaring into the open door and window of
+the large room, and all the five Fisher brothers were up and fully
+accoutred for the duty of the service, and she was requested to get out
+of the hammock that it might again be turned into a cloak.
+
+The details of her exploit were brought back to the main body of the
+Federal army and bruited abroad by the men whom she had rescued from
+death or capture. One of these, the officer, was much disposed to vaunt
+his gratitude and sense of obligation, and as Miss Millie Fisher was as
+well known as the river itself, the incident created no small stir in
+many different circles. The girl was held to be a prodigy of courage.
+All the men of the family were known to be brave, eke to say, fractious.
+There had been seldom a row of any sort, in several generations, in
+which a Fisher's red head had not been in the thick of it, and held
+high. There were several who were now men of mark, but never had aught
+else so appealed to their pulse of pride, their close bond of union in
+family ties and clannish affection for which they were noted. Great were
+the boastings of the Fisher brothers, each feeling that he shone by
+reflected light, and echoes of their vain-glorious brag were borne to
+the storm centre by that mysterious means of communication known as the
+Grape-vine Telegraph.
+
+One day Seymour detailed, with a touch of bitter sarcasm, the rumor that
+Jim Fisher had declared that Sister Millie could stampede the whole
+Yankee army if she had the chance. With his customary bluntness Seymour
+had broached the subject on a hospitable occasion, in a group both of
+officers and civilians. The latter said nothing, leaving it to the
+comrades of the men who had benefited by her hair-brained bravery and
+dashing equestrianism to controvert the hyperbole. But Ashley's tact was
+so rooted in good nature that it was difficult to take him amiss. He
+could not say, he declared, whether she could stampede the army, but he
+could testify that she had captured it.
+
+The Grape-vine was shortly burdened with other rumors that were of far
+more import to Seymour, who was of a serious mind, and of an exacting,
+not to say, petulant, temper. These traits had been intensified by his
+recent subjection to the whims and caprices of a coquette of exceptional
+capacity, for his feelings were deeply involved. He was truly in love,
+and all his dearest interests hung on the uncertain telegraphy of the
+Grape-vine. It was an unhappy time for him, when he doubted in a rush of
+hope, and again believed sunk in the despondency of absolute despair,
+having almost as much foundation for the one as the other, the reports
+of her marriage to Lawrence Lloyd.
+
+This time the Grape-vine had proved a reliable medium of information.
+Colonel Lloyd had sought and secured leave of absence long enough to
+ride fifty miles across country to greet her as soon as he had heard she
+was within the Confederacy. When her father joined the family party
+Colonel Lloyd laid siege for his consent to an immediate marriage.
+
+They had long been engaged, he urged.
+
+"I had almost forgotten that," Millie interpolated. She had promised her
+assistance in the persuasion of her father, and thus she fulfilled her
+pledge.
+
+"There is no reason for further delay," Lloyd insisted.
+
+"I _have_ been a _debutante_ these--four--years!" she suggested
+demurely.
+
+Lloyd submitted that he hoped there were no objections to him in Colonel
+Fisher's estimation.
+
+"Except such as are insuperable--you'll never be any better," suggested
+Millie.
+
+It would be undesirable, even dangerous, Lloyd argued, to send her back
+to her home in Roanoke City with a flag of truce in the present state of
+conflict.
+
+"But it is not at all dull there--" she interrupted vivaciously. "Some
+very nice Yankee officers are in society there--several old friends of
+yours, papa. Colonel Monette and Lieutenant-Colonel Blake of the regular
+army--old classmates of yours. And some others whom you don't
+know--Captain Baynell, who is _very_ handsome, and Colonel Ashley--he
+belongs to the volunteers; he is most agreeable and highly thought of,
+and oh--of course Lieutenant Seymour--oh, it is _not_ dull there!"
+
+Lloyd looked at her in blank dismay, and the blank dismay on the face of
+her father was nearly as marked, but the latter's anxiety was due to a
+different cause--what would his wife decide if she were here!--for
+every one who knew the Fishers was well aware that Guy Fisher, albeit a
+man of much force in his own domain of business or military life, "sung
+mighty small" in all matters in which his wife had concern.
+
+Lloyd rallied to the attack and continued to explain that he had orders
+detaching him, showing that he would be stationary, in command of a fort
+in the far South for some time, and that Millie would be in a position
+to be comfortable.
+
+"But can I ride horseback there?" she stipulated. "I have just found out
+what I can do in that line!"
+
+She liked to describe this conversation afterward. Her lover was the
+most serious and literal-minded of men, anxious and doubtful, and her
+father the prey of vacillation and indecision. They looked alternately
+at her and at each other with an expression of startled bewilderment as
+she spoke, seeking to adjust what she had said with their own knowledge
+of the facts.
+
+The flying column was once more in motion, and one evening, after a
+considerable distance southward had been accomplished, the leave both of
+Colonel Fisher and Colonel Lloyd being close upon expiration and
+decision exigent, the doubting, anxious father gave his consent.
+
+The young people were married like campaigners under a tree in a
+beautiful magnolia grove, the rhododendron blooming everywhere in the
+woods and the mocking-birds in full song. Colonel Lloyd was in uniform,
+armed and spurred, Miss Fisher in her hat and riding-habit, which last
+she wore with peculiar elegance; as the skirts of the day were of great
+length, the superfluous folds were caught up and carried over one arm,
+and it was said she had attained her graceful proficiency in this art,
+which was esteemed of much difficulty, by constant practice before the
+long mirror in her wardrobe at home. She used to tell afterward of the
+beautiful site, the velvet turf, the magnolia blooms, the rhododendron
+blossoms, the singing mocking-birds. Then she would enumerate the
+brilliant martial assemblage that witnessed the ceremony, the men of
+high rank in full uniform; the wives of a number of them--refugees in
+the Confederacy "seeking for a home," as the sardonically humorous song
+of that day phrased it--also graced the occasion. Her father and
+brothers, all the six Fisher men, were present, and she used to say,
+with the tone of an after-thought, but with a glint of mischief in her
+eye, "_And_ Colonel Lloyd--_he_ was there, too!"
+
+There, but hardly up to the standard. He was a man whose courage had
+been of especial note, even in those days when bravery seemed the rule.
+He had had, too, exceptional opportunities to display his mettle. But on
+this occasion his terror was so palpable that he trembled perceptibly;
+he was pale and agitated; he fumbled for the ring and occasioned a
+general fear that he might let it fall--altogether furnishing an
+admirable exhibition of the stage fright usual with bridegrooms.
+
+All these details did she observe and recollect and even his gravity
+would relax as she rehearsed them in after years. It was considered one
+of the evidences of her incurable frivolity that she seemed to care
+nothing for that momentous incident of her experience in those days,
+hardly to remember it,--the exploit by which she had saved the lives of
+three men, sore harassed and beset; but she found endless source of
+interest in the reminiscence of trifles such as the incongruous aspect
+of the chaplain who officiated at the wedding ceremony, with his spurs
+showing on his reverend heels beneath his surplice, and the brass
+buttons on his sleeves as he lifted his hands in benediction,--which
+afforded her a glee of retrospect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+After the escape of Julius Roscoe time held to a tranquil pace in the
+placidities of the storm centre. The rose-red dawns burst into bloom and
+the days flowered whitely, full of fragrance and singing birds, of
+loitering sunshine and light-winged breezes. One by one the still noons
+glowed and glistered, expanding into summer radiance, and dulled
+gradually to the mellow splendors of the sunset. Then fell the serene
+dusk, blue on the far-away mountains, violet nearer at hand, with a
+white star in the sky, and a bugle's strain leaping into the air like a
+thing of life, a vivified sound. And all the panorama of troops, and
+forts, and camps, and cannon might be some magnificent military
+spectacle, so remote seemed the war--so unreal. Every morning the
+"ladies" wrought at their lessons in the library, and Leonora cut their
+small summer garments and helped the seamstress, who came in by the day,
+to sew. Despite these absorptions Mrs. Gwynn managed to find leisure to
+read aloud to Judge Roscoe his favorite old novels, and essays, and dull
+antiquated histories. She evolved subjects of controversy on which to
+argue with him, and was facetious and found occasion to call him "Your
+Honour" oftener than heretofore. For he had grown old suddenly; his step
+had lost its elasticity; he looked up a cane that had once been
+presented to him by some fraternity; his hair was turning white
+and--worst sign of all--he was not sorry to be approaching the end.
+
+"The night is long, and the day is a burden," he once said.
+
+Then, when she reminded him of duty, he recanted. But he had obviously
+fallen into that indifference to life incident to advancing age, and was
+sensible of a not involuntary gravitation toward the tomb. Later he
+asked her if she did not think those lines of Stephen Hawes's had a most
+mellow and languorous cadence,--
+
+     "For though the day appear ever so long,
+     At last the bell ringeth to even-song."
+
+He showed great anxiety concerning Captain Baynell's recovery, but he
+had never mentioned to her the fact of Julius's presence in the house.
+She knew that he and probably old Ephraim had been aware of it, but this
+was only a constructive knowledge on her part, and founded on no
+assurance. When once more Baynell was able to come downstairs, she
+perceived that he himself had no remote consciousness of his assailant.
+He had entirely accepted the theory of a fall instead of a collision,
+and was only a little deprecatory and embarrassed at being so long in
+getting himself away.
+
+"Positively my last appearance!" He was reduced even to the hackneyed
+phrase.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn made the conventional polite protest, and the "ladies"
+joyously and affectionately flocked around him, and his heart expanded
+to the grave kindness of his host. Nevertheless he appreciated a subtle
+change. Despite the enhancing charm of the season, which even a few days
+had wrought to a deeper perfection, the place had somehow fallen under a
+tinge of gloom. But the roses were blooming at the windows, the lilies
+stood in ranks, tall and stately, in the borders, the humming-birds were
+rioting all day in the honeysuckle vines over the rear galleries and the
+side porch, the breeze swept back and forth through the dim, perfumed,
+wide spaces of the house, which seemed expanded, with all the doors
+open. Sometimes he attributed the change to the tempered light, for all
+the trees were in full leaf, and the deeply umbrageous boughs
+transmitted scarce a beam to the windows, once so sunny; much of the
+time, too, the shutters were partially closed. And though the children
+flitted about like little fairies, in their thin white dresses, and Mrs.
+Gwynn, garbed, too, in white, seemed, with her floating draperies, in
+the transparent green twilight, like some ethereal dream of youth and
+beauty, there was a pervasive sense of despondency, of domestic
+discomfort, of impending disaster. Sometimes he attributed the change to
+one or two untoward chances, a revelation of the real character of war
+that happened to be presented to the observation of the household. The
+"ladies" came clamoring in one day, all wide-eyed and half distraught.
+With that relish of horror characteristic of ignorance, a negro woman, a
+visitor of Aunt Chaney's, had detailed to them the sentence of a soldier
+to be shot for some military crime--shot, as he knelt on his own coffin.
+Presently they heard the music of the band playing a funeral march along
+the turnpike as the poor wretch was taken out with a detail from the
+city limits; then, only the drum, a terrible sound, a dull, muffled
+thud, at intervals, that barely timed the marching footfall, while the
+victim was in the midst! And still the vibration of the mournful drum,
+seeking out every responsive nerve of terror within the shuddering
+children!
+
+Their painful, tearless cries, their clinging hands, their frantic
+appeals for help for the doomed creature--would no one help him!--were
+most pathetic.
+
+And though Leonora could shut the windows and gravely explain, then tell
+a story and divert the moment,--they were so young, so plastic, so
+trustful,--no ingenuity could find a satisfactory method to account for
+the anti-climax of the tragedy, when within the hour came the same
+detail, marching briskly back along the turnpike, with fife and drum
+playing a waggish tune. The wide, daunted eyes of the children, their
+paling cheeks, their breathless silence, annotated the lesson in
+brutality, in the essential heartlessness of the world, except for the
+tutored graces of a cultivated philanthropy. For a long time one or the
+other would wake in the night to cry out that she heard the muffled
+drum,--they were taking the man out to shoot him, kneeling on his
+coffin,--and again and again would come the plaintive query, "And is
+nobody, _nobody_ sorry?"
+
+The incident passed with the events of the crowded time, but even within
+the domestic periphery harmony had ceased to reign as of yore. Old
+Ephraim was a bit sullen, gloomy, did his work with an ill grace, and
+repudiated all acquaintance with "Brer Rabbit" and "Brer Fox." The
+soldiers in the neighboring camps--possibly to secure an influence, his
+alienation from the interest of his quasi-owner, in order to ferret out
+more of the mystery concerning the Confederate officer, possibly only
+animated by political fervor, and it may be with a spice of mischief,
+finding amusement in the old negro's garrulous grotesqueries--had been
+talking to him of slavery, making the most of his grievances, setting
+them in order before him, and urging him to rouse himself to the great
+opportunities of freedom.
+
+"I done make up my mind," he said autocratically, one day in the
+kitchen. "I gwine realize on my forty acres an' a muel!"
+
+For this substantial bonanza freedom was supposed to confer on each
+ex-slave.
+
+"Forty acres an' a mule!" the old cook echoed in derisive incredulity
+and with a scornful black face. "You _done_ realize on de mule--a mule
+is whut you is, sure! Here's yer mule! An' now you go out an' fotch me a
+pail of water, else I'll make ye realize on enough good land ter kiver
+ye! Dat's whut! It'll be six feet--not forty acres,--but it kin do yer
+job!"
+
+He might have made a fractious politician but for this adverse
+influence, for he had the variant moods of a mercurial nature, and in
+gloom showed a morose perversity that could have been easily manipulated
+into a spurious sense of martyrdom, lacking a tutored ratiocination to
+enable him to discriminate the facts. But despite his failings, his
+ignorance, the bewildering changes in his surroundings, never a word
+concerning his young master escaped his lips, never an inadvertent
+allusion, a disastrous whisper. He scarcely allowed himself a thought, a
+speculation.
+
+"Fust thing I know," he reflected warily, "I'll be talkin' ter myself.
+They always tole me dat walls had ears!"
+
+A day or two of murky weather seemed to penetrate the mental atmosphere
+as well. It was perhaps the inauguration of the chill interval known as
+"blackberry winter." Everywhere the great brambles were snowy with
+bloom, and in the house the "ladies" shivered and clasped their cold
+elbows in the sleeves of their thin summer dresses till the fenders and
+fire-dogs were brought out once more, and the flicker of hearthstone
+flames made cheery the aspect of the library, and dispensed a genial
+warmth. The air was moist; the trains ran with a dull roar and an
+undertone of reverberation; there was a collision of boats in the fog on
+the river, involving loss of life, and one night, the window being up,
+the sentry in passing called Captain Baynell out on the portico. He said
+he hesitated to summon the corporal of the guard, lest the sound should
+pass before the non-commissioned officer could come.
+
+"What sound?" asked Baynell.
+
+"Listen, sir," said the sentry.
+
+The night was dark. There was no moon. The stars now and then glimmering
+through the mists afforded scant illumination to the earth. The fires of
+the troops in bivouac about the town shone like thousands of
+constellations, reflected by the earth. The wind was surging fitfully
+among the pines. There was a dull iterative beat, rather felt than
+heard.
+
+"The train?" suggested Baynell.
+
+"The train is in, sir."
+
+"Must have been a freight," Baynell hazarded, for the indefinite
+vibration had ceased.
+
+"That's 'hep, hep, hep,'--that's marching feet, sir,--that's what it
+is!"
+
+"Well, what of that?" Baynell demanded. "It's the corporal of the guard
+going out with the relief."
+
+"It's too early----"
+
+"Grand Rounds, possibly."
+
+"It's too near," objected the man. "It's very near."
+
+The wind struck their faces with a dank fillip of dew. The vine hard by
+was dripping; they could hear the drops fall, and a silent interval, and
+again a falling drop.
+
+"There is nothing now," said Baynell. "It was doubtless some patrol. The
+air is very moist, and sounds are heavier than usual."
+
+"This seemed to me very near, sir," said the soldier, discontentedly. He
+wished he had fired his piece and called for the corporal of the guard.
+He had hesitated, for the corporal had scant patience with a military
+zealot who was forever discovering causes of alarm without foundation,
+and this exercise of judgment was a strain on a soldier's sense of duty.
+He had expected the captain to respond to the mere suggestion of a
+secret approach, remembering the search for the hidden Rebel officer.
+But Baynell had never heard of that episode!
+
+Suddenly all the camps broke into a turbulence of sound. A hundred drums
+were beating the tattoo. From down the valley and over the river the
+bugle iterated the strain. Near the town and along the hills it was
+duplicated anew, and all the echoes of the crags and the rocks of the
+river bank repeated it, and called out the mandate, and sang it again in
+a different key; at last it died into a fitful repetition; silence once
+more; an absolute hush.
+
+A rocket went up from the fort hard by; another rose, starlike and
+stately, from unseen regions beyond a hill. Presently the lights were
+dying out like magic all along the encampments, as if some great
+cataclysm were among the stellular reflections, blotting them from the
+sphere of being. The constellations above glowed more brightly as the
+earth darkened. The wind was gathering force. Baynell listened as the
+boughs clashed and surged together.
+
+"You doubtless heard the patrol," he said. And again--"The air is dank."
+
+Then he turned and went within; the soldier marched back and forth, as
+he was destined to do for some time yet, and listened with all the keen
+intentness of which he was capable. And heard nothing.
+
+The next morning--it was still before dawn--a sudden sharp clamor rose
+from a redoubt within which was a powder magazine near the main works,
+lying on the hither side of the river. The mischief which the earlier
+sentinel at the Roscoe place anticipated had come; how, whence,--the man
+now on duty hardly knew. He fired his rifle and called for the guard.
+Then a few sharp reports, and a tumult of shouting sounded from the
+redoubt. A general alarm ensued. The drums were beating the long roll
+in the infantry camps,--a nerve-thrilling, terrifying vibration; and the
+sharp cry, "Fall in!--Fall in!" was like an incident of the keen, rare,
+matutinal air, the iterative command sounding like an echo from every
+quarter in which the lines of tents were beginning to glimmer dimly.
+From where the cavalry horses were picketed in long rows came the clash
+of accoutrements and the tramp of hoofs as the trumpets sang "Boots and
+Saddles!" Once a courier--a shadowy, mounted figure, half
+distinguishable in the gray obscurity, seeming gigantic, like some
+horseman of a fable--dashed past in the gloom, going or coming none
+could know whither. The clamors increased, the shots multiplied, then
+the clear, chill light came gradually over the turmoils of darkness and
+sudden surprise. The first rays of the sun struck upon the Confederate
+flag flying from the redoubt, and its paroled garrison were trooping
+across to the main line of fortifications, bearing the miraculous story
+that they had awakened to find the work full of Confederate soldiers who
+seemed to have mined their way into the place from some subterranean
+access, and who were now in the name of Julius Roscoe, their ranking
+officer, demanding the surrender of the fort which the redoubt
+overlooked.
+
+The Federal commander would have shelled them out of their precarious
+advantage with very hearty good-will, but he feared for the stores of
+powder, which he really could not spare. Moreover, the explosion of the
+magazine at such close quarters could but result in the total demolition
+of the main work and its valuable armament, inflicting also great
+destruction of life. Thus, although the burly and experienced warrior,
+Colonel Deltz, was fairly rampant with indignation at the insignificance
+of this bold enemy both in point of the subordinate rank of the leader
+and the small number of the force, he was fain to hold parley, instead
+of opening fire upon the redoubt at once and wiping the raiders, with
+one hand, as it were, from the face of the earth. It may be doubted if
+any capable and trusted military expert ever discharged a more
+distasteful duty. Nevertheless, it was performed _secundum artem_, with
+every show of those amenities which of all professional courtesies have
+the slightest root in truth and real feeling. He invited the surrender
+of the redoubt, ignoring the demand for the surrender of the fort as a
+puerile and impudent folly, offering the usual fine and humane
+suggestions touching the avoidance of the useless effusion of blood,
+such as often before have been heard when a sophistry must needs fill
+the breach in lieu of force. When this was declined, Julius Roscoe was
+reminded, in the most cautious terms, of the personal jeopardy incurred
+by a commander who undertakes to hold out an untenable position. Julius
+Roscoe's reply, couched in the same strain of courteous phraseology,
+such, indeed, as might have been employed by a general of division,
+deliberating on articles of capitulation involving the well-being of an
+army, intimated that he was popularly supposed to be able to take care
+of himself; that so far from being unprepared to hold the redoubt which
+he had captured, he had means at his disposal to possess himself of the
+fort itself, and if its garrison would but await his onset, he should be
+happy to entertain Colonel Deltz in his own quarters at dinner in a
+campaigner's simple way--say, at one of the clock.
+
+These covert allusions to the signal advantages of his situation showed
+that Lieutenant Roscoe was fully apprized of the very large quantity of
+ammunition stored in the magazine, and the tone of his rejoinder
+intimated that he would avail himself to the uttermost of its
+efficiency. The works were close enough to render visible the
+occupations of the Confederates. Though gaunt and half-starved, many
+ragged and barefoot, they were as merry as grigs and as industrious as
+beavers, destroying such Federal stores as they could not remove,
+spiking or otherwise disabling the ordnance that they could not
+use,--the heavy howitzers at the embrasures,--and briskly preparing to
+serve the barbette battery, that they had shifted to command the fort
+and a line of intrenchments taken at a grievous disadvantage in the
+rear, and some lighter swivel artillery that could sweep all the horizon
+within range.
+
+It was a sight to stir the gorge of a professed soldier and a martinet.
+If aught of action could have availed, the colonel would have welcomed a
+fierce and summary devoir. But the true soldier rarely allows personal
+antagonism or a sentimental theory to influence the line of conduct to
+which duty and prudence alike point. He swallowed his fury, and it was a
+great gulp for a heady and choleric man who had lived by burning
+gunpowder--lo, these many years. He perceived that his garrison, able to
+descry the antics of the Confederates in the redoubt, were apprized of
+their own imminent peril from the magazine in the hands of their
+enemy--now, practically a mine. There was a doubt among his observant
+officers as to whether the reckless band were taking any of the usual
+precautions, requisite in dealing with so extensive a store of
+explosives, as they joyfully loaded the cannon. Under these
+circumstances, attack being out of the question, Colonel Deltz could
+hardly be assured of the efficiency of his force in defence. His
+garrison were palsied by surprise, the mysterious appearance of the
+Confederates, and the impunity of their situation. They could only be
+shelled out of the redoubt by the jeopardy of the powder magazine
+itself, and its explosion would destroy the lives of the besiegers as
+well as the besieged. Hence strategy was requisite. The fort was
+gradually evacuated as a lure to draw the raiders into the main works,
+where they could be dealt with, thus quitting their post of advantage.
+
+Later in the day from a knob called Sugar Loaf Pinnacle an artillery
+fire opened, the shells falling at first at uncertain intervals, seeking
+to ascertain the range; then, in fast and furious succession, hurtling
+down upon the guns of the masked battery beside the river. The missiles
+seemed but tiny clouds of white smoke, each with a heart of fire, the
+fuse redly burning against the densely blue sky, till dropping
+elastically to the moment of explosion it was resolved into a fiercely
+white focus with rayonnant fibres and stunning clamors.
+
+The town itself was hardly in danger during this riverside bombardment,
+unless, indeed, from some accident of defective marksmanship. But with
+all the world gone mad, the atmosphere itself a field of pyrotechnic
+magnificence, the familiar old mountains but a background to display the
+curves a flying shell might describe, now and again bursting in mid-air
+ere it reached its billet, the non-combatant populace was
+panic-stricken. Streets were deserted. All ordinary vocations ceased.
+The more substantial buildings of brick or stone were crowded, their
+walls presumed to be capable of resisting at least the spent balls, wide
+of aim, for these were often endowed with such a residue of energy as
+still to be destructive. Cellars were in request, and while the darkness
+precluded the terrifying glare of the bursting projectiles, nevertheless
+the tremendous clamor of the detonation, the wild reverberations of the
+echoes, the shouts of cheering men, the sound of bugles and drums and of
+voices in command in the distance, gave intimations of what was going
+forward, and uncertainty perhaps enhanced fear.
+
+"Dar, now, de Yankee man's battery is done gone too!" exclaimed Uncle
+Ephraim, as the voice of authority rang out sharply, with all its
+echo-like variants in the subalterns' commands. The clangor of
+accoutrements, the heavy but swift roll of the wheels of gun-carriages
+and caissons, the tumultuous hoof-beats of horses at full gallop, the
+spirited cheering of the artillerymen, filled the air--and then silence
+ensued, deep and dark, the stone walls of the cellar vaguely glimmering
+with one candle set on the head of a barrel.
+
+"He's gone wid 'em,--dat man! Time dat bugle blow he tore dat bandage
+off his haid--nicked or no,--dat he did!"
+
+Uncle Ephraim was seated on an inverted cotton basket, and Aunt Chaney,
+with the three "ladies" clustered about her knees, sat on the flight of
+steps that led down from a cautiously closed door. The "ladies" kept
+their fingers in their ears as a protection against sound, but the
+deaf-mute, strangely enough, was the most acute to discern the crash,
+possibly by reason of the vibrations of the air, since she could not
+hear the detonation of the shells.
+
+Somehow the sturdy courage of that soldierly shout was reassuring.
+
+"Dere ain't no danger, ladies," declared Aunt Chaney. Then, "Oh, my
+King!" she cried in an altered voice, while the three "ladies" hid their
+faces in the folds of her apron as a terrific explosion took place in
+mid-air, the pieces of the shell falling burning in the grove.
+
+"Jus' lissen at dat owdacious Julius!" muttered Uncle Ephraim,
+indignantly. "I never 'lowed he war gwine ter kick up sech a tarrifyin'
+commotion as dis yere, nohow."
+
+"I wish Gran'pa would come down here," whined one of the twins.
+
+"Where the cannon-balls can't catch him," whimpered the other.
+
+"What you talking about, ladies?" demanded the old cook, rising to the
+occasion. "You 'spec' a gemman lak yer gran'pa gwine sit in de cellar,
+lak--lak a 'tater!"--the simile suggested by a bushel-basket half full
+of Irish potatoes for late planting in the "garden spot."
+
+The "ladies," reassured by the joke, laughed shrilly, a little off the
+key, and clung to her comfortable fat arm that so inspired their
+confidence.
+
+"_I_ gwine sit in de cellar tell _I_ sprout lak a 'tater, ef disher
+tribulation ain't ober 'twell den," declared Uncle Ephraim. "Dar now!
+lissen ter dat!" as once more the clamorous air broke forth with sound.
+
+The "ladies" exclaimed in piteous accents.
+
+"Dat ain't nuffin ter hurt, honey," Aunt Chaney reassured her trembling
+charges. "Dese triflin' sodjers ain't got much aim. Yer gran'pa an' yer
+cousin Leonora wouldn't stay up dere in de lawbrary ef dere was
+destruction comin'."
+
+"Then why do _you_ come in the cellar?" asked the logical Adelaide.
+
+"Jes' ter git shet o' de terror ob seein' it, honey!" replied Aunt
+Chaney. "I ain't no perfessor ob war, nohow, an' my eyes ain't practised
+ter shellin' an' big shootin'."
+
+"Me, neither," said Adelaide.
+
+"Nor me," whimpered Geraldine.
+
+"De cannon-balls ain't gwine kill us, dough. We gwine live a long time,"
+Aunt Chaney optimistically protested. "I ain't s'prised none ef when de
+war is ober an' we tell 'bout dis fight, we gwine make out dat when de
+shellin' wuz at de wust, you three ladies an' me jus' stood up on de
+highest aidge ob de rampart ob de fort, an' 'structed de men how ter
+fire de cannon, an' p'inted out de shells flyin' through de air wid dat
+ar actial little forefinger, an' kep' up de courage ob de troops."
+
+"On which side, Aunt Chaney?" asked Adelaide, the reasonable.
+
+"On bofe sides, honey," said Aunt Chaney, "'cordin' ter de politics ob
+dem we is talkin' to!"
+
+A rat whisked over the floor, across the dim slant of light that fell
+from the candle on the head of the barrel. Uncle Ephraim, his elbows on
+his knees, his gray head slightly canted in a listening attitude,
+smiled vaguely, pleased like a child himself with Aunt Chaney's sketch.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Chaney!--_do_ you s'pose we'll tell it _that_ way?" cried
+Adelaide, meditating on the flattering contrast.
+
+"Dat's de ve'y way de tales 'bout dis war is gwine be tole, honey, you
+mark my words," declared the prophetess.
+
+The contrast of the imaginative future account with the troublous
+actuality of the present so delighted Adelaide that she spelled it off
+on her fingers to Lucille, both repairing to the side of the barrel
+where the candle was glimmering, in order to have the light on their
+twinkling fingers in the manual alphabet. The humors of the expectation,
+the incongruity of their martial efficiency, the boastful resources of
+the future, elicited bursts of delighted gigglings, and when the next
+shell exploded, neither took notice of the hurtling bomb shrieking over
+the house and bound for the river.
+
+The rest of the populace were enjoying no such solace from any waggish
+interpretation of the future. The present, that single momentous day,
+was for them as much of time as they cared to contemplate. Doubtless the
+satisfaction was very general among the citizens, regardless of
+political prepossessions, when it became known that Captain Baynell with
+a detachment of horse artillery had gone out and taken up a position
+that had enabled him at last to silence the Confederate guns on the
+pinnacle, not, however, before the masked battery by the river was
+practically dismounted.
+
+Now both infantry and cavalry were ordered out in an effort to intercept
+the venturesome Rebel artillerymen as they sought to descend from their
+steep pinnacle of rock. The dust on the turnpike, redly aflare in the
+sunset rays, betokened the progress of the march, and now and then it
+was harassed by shells and grape from the swivel guns of the fort, for
+Roscoe's limited command had not been able to bring the heavier ordnance
+of the embrasures to bear upon the camps around the town.
+
+The whole community was in a panic, for this might soon betide. But a
+gunboat came, as it chanced, up the river, took a position of advantage,
+and with great precision of aim soon shelled the little force out of the
+main work. Their capture was momently expected, but they made good their
+retreat to their former position in the redoubt, with the intention
+unquestionably of escaping thence by the secret passage which had
+afforded them access. In leaving, however, the powder magazine was blown
+up by accident or design, destroying the integrity of the whole
+fortification, and shattering nearly every pane of glass in the town,
+the force of the concussion indeed bringing the tower of the hospital
+hard by to the ground. That the raiders had perished was not doubted,
+till news came of a sharp skirmish which took place under cover of
+darkness at the mouth of a sort of grotto in Judge Roscoe's grove, and
+in the confusion, surprise, and obscurity all escaped save some
+half-dozen left dead upon the ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+With these important works wrecked and dismantled, with the destruction
+of great stores of ammunition and artillery which obviously placed the
+system of defence in an imperfect condition, with the difficulty of
+repair and supply which time and distance and insufficiency of
+transportation rendered insurmountable, with the elation of victory that
+so dashing an exploit, so thoroughly consummated, must communicate to
+the Confederate troops, an attack by them in force was daily expected.
+The capture of Roanoke City was considered an event of the near future,
+anticipated with joy or gloom, according to the several interests of the
+varied population, but in any case regarded as a foregone conclusion.
+Daily the Northern trains, heavily laden, bore away passengers who had
+no wish to become citizens of the Southern Confederacy. Perishable
+effects, stocks of goods of the order that a battle would endanger or
+destroy, were shipped to calmer regions. Reinforcements came by every
+train, by every boat, till all the resources of the country were
+strained to maintain them, and still the Southerners had not advanced to
+the opportunity. It was one of those occasions of the Civil War when
+the hand that took was not strong enough to hold. The Confederate force
+near the town was inadequately supplied to enable it to do more than
+seize the advantage, which must needs be relinquished. Its slim
+resources admitted of no permanent occupation of the town, and the empty
+glory of the capture of Roanoke City would have been offset by the
+disastrous necessity of the evacuation of the post. Gradually the
+Federal lines were extended until they lay almost as before the raid on
+the works. The Confederate ranks had been depleted to furnish
+reinforcements to a more practicable point. They were falling back, and
+now and again sudden sallies brought in prisoners from such a distance
+as told the story.
+
+The town was once more secure, work was begun on the dismantled
+fortifications, and daily the question of how so hazardous an enterprise
+could have been devised and executed revived in interest. The commanding
+general had not the loss of the town itself to account for, as at one
+time was probable, but for the destruction of a great store of
+ammunition, as well as the loss of life, of guns, of the works
+themselves, representing many thousands of dollars and the labor of
+regiments. All, however, seemed hardly commensurate with the disaster he
+would sustain in point of reputation. That such a dashing, destructive
+exploit could be planned and consummated under his own ceaselessly
+vigilant eyes appeared little short of the miraculous, and for his own
+justification he looked needfully into its inception.
+
+It was discovered that there was a natural subterranean passage from the
+grove of Judge Roscoe's place to a cellar, a portion of which had
+constituted the powder magazine on the Devrett hill, and that this had
+been exploded by means of a slow match through the grotto, previously
+prepared, enabling the raiders to effect their escape. It was further
+ascertained that Julius Roscoe, who had led the enterprise, had been in
+hiding for some time at his father's home, and had been seen as he
+issued thence covered with blood, evidently fresh from some personal
+altercation with a Federal officer, for weeks a guest in the house.
+Although bruised and bleeding, this officer could offer no account of
+his wounds save a fall, impossible to have produced them; he had raised
+no alarm, and had given no report of the presence of an enemy, whose
+intrusion had wrought such damage and disaster to the Union cause.
+
+One detail led to another, each discovery unveiled cognate mysteries,
+the disclosure of trifles brought forward circumstances of importance.
+The claim of the sentinel posted at Judge Roscoe's portico that he had
+fired the first shot which raised the alarm, evoked the fact that an
+earlier sentry had told Captain Baynell that he had heard marching
+feet--a moving column in the cadenced step, he described it now--near,
+very near, that murky night, and that Captain Baynell had waived it away
+with the suggestion of "a corporal of the guard with the relief"--at
+that hour!--when the next relief would not be due till nearly
+midnight,--and had gone back into the parlor, where Mrs. Gwynn had begun
+to sing, "Her bright smile haunts me still."
+
+This account reminded several of his camp-fellows that, having been in
+town on leave, they had met that dark night on the turnpike a force
+marching in column, and naturally thinking this only the removal of
+Federal troops from some point to another, here, so far within the
+lines, they had quietly stood aside and watched the shadowy progress.
+Nothing amiss had occurred to their minds. The men had all their
+officers duly in position, and they were marching silently and with
+great regularity. But by reference to the various written reports, it
+was easily ascertained that there was no shifting of troops that day, no
+assignment of a company to any duty which would have taken them out at
+that hour, no detail reporting for service. Still following in the
+footsteps of this column, something more was learned from a young negro,
+who had been out to fish that night, which was the delight of the
+plantation darkey at this season of the year, and had cast his lines
+from under the bluff near Judge Roscoe's place; the night being foggy,
+he had not noticed, till they were very near, the approach of three or
+four large open boats, filled with soldiers, to judge by the rifles, who
+were rowing very fast and hard against the current and keeping close in
+to the shore. When they landed and beached the boats they were very
+quiet, fell into order, and marched off without a word, except the
+necessary curt commands. It had never occurred to him to give the alarm.
+He had taken none. They had rowed so close in to shore, he thought, to
+avoid such a collision as had happened in the mists earlier in the
+night, when a large barge was run down by a gunboat and sunk. Doubtless
+if they had passed the picket boats, the misty invisibility of all the
+surface of the water protected them, but for the most part the patrol of
+the river pickets was further down-stream. As they had come, so they had
+gone, and the matter remained a nine days' wonder. The commanding
+general almost choked when he thought of it.
+
+"This is going to be a serious matter for Baynell," said Colonel Ashley,
+one day. He had called at Judge Roscoe's partly because he did not wish
+to break off with abrupt rudeness an acquaintance which he had persisted
+in forming, and partly because he was not willing in the circumstances
+that had arisen to seem to shun the house.
+
+Judge Roscoe was not at home, but Mrs. Gwynn was in the parlor. Ashley
+had asked her to sing. There was something "delightfully dreary," as he
+described it, in the searching, romantic, melancholy cadences of her
+sweet contralto voice. He had not intended to open his heart, but
+somehow the mood induced by her singing, the quiet of the dim, secluded,
+cool drawing-rooms, with the old-fashioned, high, stucco ceiling, and
+the shadowy green gloom of the trees without, prevailed with him, and he
+spoke upon impulse.
+
+"What matter?" she asked. She had wheeled half around on the
+piano-stool, and sat, her slim figure in its white dress, delicate and
+erect, one white arm, visible through the thin fabric, outstretched to
+the keyboard, the hand toying with resolving chords.
+
+He had been standing beside the piano as she sang, but now, with the air
+of inviting serious discussion, he seated himself in one of the stiff
+arm-chairs of the carved rosewood "parlor set" of that day, and replied
+gravely:----
+
+"His association with Julius Roscoe."
+
+Her eyes widened with genuine amazement.
+
+"It seems," proceeded Ashley, slowly, "that a dozen or two of the
+soldiers, who claimed to have seen a Confederate officer on the balcony
+here, recognized him as Julius Roscoe, when he reappeared in command of
+the forces that captured the redoubt. And the surgeon has always
+insisted that Baynell's hurt was a blow, not a fall. There is a good
+deal of smothered talk in various quarters."
+
+He stroked his mustache contemplatively, looked vaguely about the room,
+and sighed in a certain disconsolateness.
+
+"I don't understand," said Mrs. Gwynn, sharply, fixing intent eyes upon
+him. "How can Captain Baynell be called in question?"
+
+"Oh, the general theory--however well or ill grounded--is that young
+Roscoe was here on a reconnoitring expedition of some sort, or perhaps
+merely on a visit to his kindred, and that Baynell winked at his
+presence on account of friendship with the family, instead of arresting
+him, as he should have done. It's an immense pity. Baynell is a fine
+officer."
+
+Mrs. Gwynn had turned pale with excitement.
+
+"But _none of us_ knew that Julius Roscoe was in the house!" she
+exclaimed. She hesitated a moment as the words passed her lips. Judge
+Roscoe's reticence on the subject might imply some knowledge of the
+harbored Rebel.
+
+Ashley was suddenly tense with energy.
+
+"Don't imagine for one moment, my dear madam, that I have any desire to
+extract information from you. It is no concern of mine how he came or
+went. I only mention the subject because it is very much on my mind and
+heart. And I don't see any satisfactory end to it. I have a great
+respect for Baynell as a man, and especially as an artillerist, and
+somehow in these campaigns I have contrived to get fond of the
+fellow!--though he is about as stiff, and unresponsive, and prejudiced,
+and priggish a bundle of animal fibre as ever called himself human."
+
+"Why, he doesn't give me that idea," exclaimed Leonora, her eyes
+widening. "He seems unguarded, and impulsive, and ardent."
+
+Colonel Ashley was very considerably her senior and far too experienced
+to be ingenuous himself. He made no comment on the conviction her words
+created within him. He only looked at her in silence, receiving her
+remark with courteous attention. Then he resumed:----
+
+"Of course in a civil war there are always some instances of undue
+leniency,--the pressure of circumstances induces it,--but rarely indeed
+such as this; it amounts to aiding and abetting the enemy, however
+unpremeditated. Young Roscoe could not have secured the means or
+information for his destructive raid had not Baynell permitted him to be
+housed here. Doubtless, however, Baynell thought it a mere visit of the
+boy to his father's family."
+
+"But Captain Baynell never dreamed that Julius Roscoe was in the house!"
+she exclaimed.
+
+"That's just what he says he _did_--dreamed that he saw him! I can rely
+on you not to repeat my words. But I have had no confidential talk with
+him."
+
+"I am sure--I _know_--they were never together for a moment."
+
+"The surgeon says that Roscoe's knuckles cut to the bone," commented
+Ashley, with a significant smile. But the triumphs of stultifying Mrs.
+Gwynn in conversation were all inadequate to restore his usual serene
+satisfaction, and once more he looked restlessly about the rooms and
+sighed.
+
+"What do you think Captain Baynell was guilty of? Permitting an enemy to
+remain within the lines, _perdu_, unsuspected, to gather information,
+and make off with it--conniving at the concealment, and assisting the
+escape of an enemy? And _you_ call yourself his friend!"
+
+Leonora's cheeks were flushed. Her voice rang with a tense vibration.
+She fixed her interlocutor with a challenging eye.
+
+"Oh--I don't _know_ what he intended," replied Ashley, almost irritably.
+"Doubtless he had some high-minded motive, so intricate that he can
+never explain it, and nobody else can ever unravel it. I only know he
+has played the fool,--and I _fear_ he has ruined himself irretrievably."
+
+"But you don't answer my question--what do _you think_ he has done?"
+
+Ashley might have responded that his conclusions were not subject to her
+inquisition. But his suave methods of thought and conduct could not
+compass this unmannerly retort. Moreover, it was a relief to his
+feelings to canvass the matter so paramount in his mind with an
+irresponsible woman, rather than with his brother officers, among whom
+it was rife, thereby sending his speculations and doubts and views
+abroad as threads to be wrought into the warp and woof of their
+opinion, and possibly give undue substance and color to the character of
+the fabric.
+
+"Why,--of course this is just my own view,--formed on what I hear from
+outsiders,--and I think it is the general view. Baynell knew the young
+man was hidden in the house, on a stolen visit to his father, thinking
+he had no ultimate intentions but to escape at a convenient opportunity.
+These separations must be very cruel indeed, with no means of
+communication. Baynell, though very wrongfully, _might_ have indulged
+this concealment from motives of--ah--er--friendship to the family, for
+young Roscoe would undoubtedly have been dealt with as a spy, had he
+been captured in lurking here. The two _may_ have been more or less
+associated,--certainly they came together in an altercation that
+resulted in blows. _I_ think Baynell possibly discovered Roscoe's
+scheme, and threatened him with arrest. Roscoe knocked him down the
+stairs and fled from the house to the grotto, considering this safe, for
+he might have crossed from the balcony to the firs without observation
+if he had been lucky, as at that time none of us knew that the grotto
+existed. Now these are _my_ conclusions--but for the integrity of the
+service Baynell's acts and his motives must be sifted. They may not bear
+to an impartial mind even so liberal a construction as this. It is a
+threatening situation, and I am apprehensive--I am very apprehensive."
+
+Mrs. Gwynn's hand fell with a discordant crash on the keys of the piano.
+
+"Why--why--what can they do to him?" she gasped.
+
+Vertnor Ashley shied from the subject like a frightened horse.
+
+"Ah--oh--ah--er--well," he said, "let us not think of that." He paused
+abruptly. Then, "To forecast the immediate future is enough of disaster.
+There is already said to be an official investigation on the cards. No
+doubt charges will be preferred, and he will be brought to a
+court-martial."
+
+He sighed again, and looked about futilely, as if for suggestion. He
+rose at length, and with his pleasant, cordial manner and a smile of
+deprecating apology, he said, "I am afraid my grim subjects do not
+commend me for a lady's parlor." Then with a light change of tone, "So
+much obliged for that lovely little French song--what is it--_Quel est
+cet attrait qui m'attire_? I want to be able to distinguish it, for may
+I not ask for it again some time?" And bowing, and smiling, and
+prosperous, he took his graceful departure.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn stood motionless, her eyes on the carpet, her mind almost
+dazed by the magnitude, by the terrors, of the subjects of her
+contemplation. She felt she must be more certain; she could not leave
+this disastrous complication thus. She could not speak to this man,
+friendly though he had seemed, lest she betray some fact of her own
+knowledge that might be of disadvantage to another who had meant no
+ill--nay, she was sure had done no ill. Then she was beset by the
+realization of the sophistry of circumstance. But if circumstance could
+be adduced against Baynell, should it not equally prevail in his favor?
+When she, knowing naught of the lurking Julius, had sent to his
+hiding-place this Federal officer, did not instantly the clamors of
+discovery resound through the house? She could hear even now in the
+tones of his voice, steadied and sonorous by the habit of command, sharp
+and decisive on the air, the words, "You are my prisoner!" twice
+repeated, that had summoned her, stricken with sudden panic, from her
+flowers on the library table to the hall, where she saw the balustrade
+of the stairs still shaking with the concussion of a heavy fall. And as
+she stood there, another moment--barely a moment--brought the apparition
+of Julius, flying as if for his life, a pistol in his hand, and covered
+with blood. Dreams! Who said aught of dreams! This was not the course a
+man would take who desired to shield a concealed Rebel. There was no
+eye-witness of the altercation. But she, on the lower floor, had heard
+it all--the swift ascent for the book, the exclamation of amazement,
+then the stern voice of command, the words of arrest, the impact of the
+blow, and the clamors of the fall. Then the flight; she had seen Julius,
+fleeing for safety, fleeing from the house into the very teeth of the
+camps.
+
+Should not Baynell know this, the event that preceded the long
+insensibility which had so blunted his impressions, his recollections?
+She resolved to confer with Judge Roscoe. How much he knew of Julius
+Roscoe's lurking visit, how much he cared for her to know, she could not
+be sure. She suspected that old Ephraim was fully informed, for without
+his services the visitor could hardly have been maintained. But neither
+had been at hand at the moment of discovery, of collision.
+
+When Judge Roscoe came in she submitted this question to his judgment.
+To her surprise he did not canvass the matter. He said at once: "By all
+means Captain Baynell ought to know this. It would be best to send for
+him and explain to him what you saw and heard,--the whole occurrence.
+Captain Baynell should be made aware of all the details of the actual
+event that you more nearly than any one else witnessed."
+
+The house in these summer days, with the shutters half closed and the
+doors all open, seemed more retired, more solitary, than when all the
+busy life of the place was drawn to the focus of the library fire. She
+was quite alone, as she traversed the hall and sat down to write at the
+library table. The "ladies" were playing out of doors, close in to the
+window under a tree. Judge Roscoe had business in the town and walked
+thither leaning rather heavily on his cane, for no news came of Acrobat,
+and somehow he no longer cared to ride the glossy iron-gray that Captain
+Baynell still left grazing in his pastures. So still were all the
+precincts she feared she might not find a messenger as she went out on
+the latticed gallery searching for old Ephraim. But there he sat in the
+sun in front of the kitchen door. He was not wont to be so silent. He
+said naught when she handed him the missive with her instructions, but
+he looked unwilling, with a sort of warning wisdom in his expression,
+and several times turned the note gingerly in his hand, as if he thought
+it might explode. He would fain have remonstrated against the renewal of
+communication with the elements that had brought so much disquiet into
+the calm life of the old house hitherto. But his lips were sealed so far
+as the "Yankee man" and Julius were concerned. And he would maintain
+that he had never seen or heard of the grotto till indeed it was blown
+up.
+
+"All dese young folks is a stiff-necked and tarrifyin' generation, an'
+ef dey will leave ole Ephraim in peace, he p'intedly won't pester dem,"
+he said to himself.
+
+Therefore, merely murmuring acquiescence, "Yes'm, yes'm, yes'm," while
+he received his orders, he put on his hat which he had hitherto held in
+his hand, and walked off briskly to the tent of the artillery captain.
+
+The succinct dignified tone of Mrs. Gwynn's note requesting to see
+Captain Baynell at his earliest convenience on a matter of business
+precluded effectually any false sentimental hopes, had any communication
+from her been calculated to raise them. He was already mounted, having
+just returned from afternoon parade; and saying to Uncle Ephraim that he
+would wait on Mrs. Gwynn immediately, he wheeled his horse and forthwith
+disappeared in the midst of the shadow and sheen of the full-leaved
+grove.
+
+Baynell had changed, changed immeasurably, since she had last seen him.
+Always quiet and sedate, his gravity had intensified to sternness, his
+dignified composure to a cold, impenetrable reserve, his attentive
+interest to a sort of wary vigilance, all giving token of the effect
+wrought in his mental and moral endowment by the knowledge of the
+suspicions entertained concerning his actions, and the charges that were
+being formulated against him.
+
+In one sense these had already slain him. His individuality was gone. He
+would be no more what once he was. His pride, so strong, so vivid, as
+essential an element of his being as his breath, as his soul, had been
+done to death. It had been a noble endowment, despite its exactions, and
+maintained high standards and sought finer issues. It had died with the
+woe of a thousand deaths, that calumny should touch his name; that
+accusation could ever find a foothold in his life; that treachery should
+come to investigation in his deeds.
+
+She rather wondered at his calmness, the self-possession expressed in
+his manner, his face. He had himself well in hand. He was not nervous.
+His haggard pallor told what the sleepless hours of self-communing
+brought to him, yet he was strong enough to confront the future. He
+would give battle to the false charge, the lying circumstance, the
+implacable phalanxes of the probabilities. The truth was intrinsically
+worth fighting for, in any event, and even now his heart could swell
+with the conviction that the truth could only demonstrate the impeccancy
+of his official record.
+
+He met her with that grave, conventional, inexpressive courtesy which
+had always characterized him, and it was a little difficult, in her
+unusual flutter and agitation, to find a suitable beginning.
+
+She had seated herself in the library at the table where she had written
+the note, and she was mechanically trifling with an ivory paper-knife,
+the portfolio and paper still lying before her. He took a chair near at
+hand and waited, not seeking to inaugurate the conversation.
+
+"I sent for you, Captain Baynell, because I have heard something--there
+are rumors--"
+
+He did not take the word from her, nor help her out. He sat quietly
+waiting.
+
+"In short, I think you ought to know that I overheard all that passed
+between you and Julius Roscoe on the stairs that morning."
+
+Captain Baynell's rejoinder surprised her.
+
+"Then he was really in the house?" he said meditatively.
+
+"Oh, yes,--though I did not know it till he dashed past me in the hall.
+Two minutes had not elapsed since you had left me here standing by the
+table."
+
+She detailed the circumstances, and when she had finished speaking he
+thanked her simply, and said that the facts would be of value to him.
+
+"I thought you ought to know them, hearing Colonel Ashley describe the
+various rumors afloat--but, but these--they--they will soon die out?"
+She looked at him appealingly.
+
+He did not answer immediately. Then--
+
+"I shall be court-martialled," he said succinctly.
+
+Her heart seemed almost to stand still in the presence of this great
+threat, yet she strove against its menace.
+
+"Of course I know this is serious, and must trouble all your friends,"
+she said vaguely. "But doubtless--doubtless there will be an acquittal."
+
+"It is a matter of liberty, and life itself," he said. "But I do not
+care for either,--I deprecate the reflections on my character as a
+soldier." He hesitated for one moment, then broke out with sudden
+passion, "I care for the jeopardy of my honor--my sacred honor!"
+
+There was an interval of stillness so long that a slant of the sunset
+light might seem to have moved on the floor. The soft babble of the
+voices of the children came in at the open window; the mocking-bird's
+jubilance rose from among the magnolia blooms outside. The great bowl on
+the table was full of roses, and she eyed their magnificence absently,
+seeing nothing, remembering all that Ashley had said, and realizing how
+difficult it would be to convince even him, with all his friendly
+good-will, of the simplicity of the motives that had precipitated the
+real events, so grimly metamorphosed in the monstrous mischances of war.
+
+"Oh--" she cried suddenly, with a poignant accent, "that this should
+have fallen upon you in the house of your friends! We can never forgive
+ourselves, and you can never forgive us!"
+
+"There is nothing to forgive," he said heartily; "I have no grievance
+against this kind roof. I could not expect Judge Roscoe to betray his
+own son, and deliver him up to capture, to death as a spy--because I
+happened to be here, a temporary guest. And I could not expect the young
+man to voluntarily surrender--for my convenience. No--I blame no one."
+
+"You are magnanimous!" exclaimed Mrs. Gwynn, her luminous gray eyes
+shining through tears as she looked at him.
+
+"Only omniscience could have foreseen and guarded against this
+disastrous complication of adverse circumstances. But the results are
+serious enough to justify doubt and provoke investigation. Knowing the
+simple truth, it seems a little difficult to see how it can fail to be
+easily established--it is the imputation that afflicts me. I am not used
+to contemplate myself as a traitor--with my motives."
+
+"Oh, it is so unjust--so rancorously untrue! You arrested him the moment
+you saw him--although he was in Judge Roscoe's house. You must have
+known that he was Judge Roscoe's son."
+
+"I recognized him from his portrait--" Baynell checked himself. He would
+not have liked to say how often, with what jealous appraisement of its
+manly beauty and interest of suggestion, he had studied the portrait of
+Julius on the parlor wall, knowing him as a man who had loved Leonora
+Gwynn, and fearing him as a man whom possibly Leonora Gwynn loved.
+
+"But I was obliged to arrest him on the spot--why, I was in honor
+bound."
+
+His face suddenly fell--in this most intimate essential of true
+gentlemanhood, in this dearest requisition of a soldier's faith, that is
+yet the commonest principle of the humblest campaigner, he was held to
+have failed, in point of honor. He was held to have paltered and played
+a double part, to have betrayed alike his country, the fair name of his
+corps, and his own unsullied record. And this was the fiat of
+fair-minded men, comrades, countrymen, to be expressed in the preferred
+charges.
+
+Bankrupt in all he held dear, he shrank from seeming to beg the sheer
+empty bounty of her sympathy. He hardly cared to face these reflections
+in her presence. He arose to go, and it was with composed, conventional
+courtesy, as inexpressive as if he were some casual friendly caller,
+that he took his leave, resolutely ignoring all the tragedy of the
+situation.
+
+The next day came the news that charges having been duly preferred he
+had been placed in arrest to await the action of the general
+court-martial to be assembled in the town.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Ashley, in common with a number of Baynell's friends, did not recognize
+a fair spirit in the inception of the investigation. The military
+authorities in Roanoke City seemed rancorously keen to prove that naught
+within the scope of their own duty could have averted the disasters of
+the battle of the redoubt. The moral gymnastic of shunting the blame was
+actively in progress. The proof of treachery within the lines,
+individual failure of duty, would explain to the Department far more to
+the justification of the commander of the garrison of the town the
+losses both of life and material, and the jeopardy of the whole
+position, than admission of the fact that the military of the post had
+been outwitted, and that the enemy was entitled to salvos of applause
+for a very gallant exploit. Indeed, only specific details from one
+familiar with the interior of the works, to which, of course, citizens
+were not admitted, could have informed Julius Roscoe of the location of
+the powder magazine and enabled him to utilize in this connection his
+own early familiarity with the surroundings. Thus the theory that Julius
+Roscoe could not have accomplished its destruction had he not been
+harbored, even helped, by the connivance of a personal friend in the
+lines, and that friend, a Federal officer, was far more popular among
+the military authorities than the simple fact that a Rebel had been
+detected visiting his father's house by a Federal officer, a guest
+therein, promptly arrested, and in the altercation the one had been hurt
+and the other had escaped. Had the capture of the redoubt never occurred
+later as a sequence, this transient encounter of Baynell's would hardly
+have elicited a momentary notice.
+
+The aspect of the court-martial was far from reassuring even to men of
+worldly experience on broad lines. The impassive, serious, bearded
+faces, the military figures in full-dress uniform, the brilliant
+insignia of high rank being specially pronounced, for of course no
+officer of lower degree than that of the prisoner was permitted to sit,
+were ranged on each side of a long table on a low rostrum in a large
+room, formerly a fraternity hall, in a commercial building now devoted
+to military purposes. The spectacle might well have made the heart
+quail. It seemed so expressive of the arbitrary decrees of absolute
+force, oblivious of justice, untempered by mercy!
+
+A jury as an engine of the law must needs be considered essentially
+imperfect, and subject to many deteriorating influences, only available
+as the best device for eliciting fact and appraising crises that the
+slow development of human morals has yet presented. But to a peaceful
+civilian a jury of ignorant, shock-headed rustics might seem a safe and
+reasonable repository of the dearest values of life and reputation in
+comparison with this warlike phalanx, combining the functions of both
+judge and jury, the very atmosphere of destruction sucked in with every
+respiration.
+
+The president, a brevet brigadier-general, at the head of the table, was
+of a peculiarly fierce physiognomy, that yet was stony cruel. The
+judge-advocate at the foot had the look of laying down the law by main
+force. He had a keenly aggressive manner. He was a captain of cavalry,
+brusque, alert; he had dark side whiskers and a glancing dark eye, and
+was the only man on the rostrum attired in an undress uniform. His
+multifarious functions as the official prosecutor for the government,
+and also adviser to the court, and yet attorney for the prisoner to a
+degree,--by a theory similar to the ancient fiction of English law that
+the judge is counsel for the accused,--would seem, in civilian
+estimation, to render him "like Cerberus, three gentlemen at once," as
+Mrs. Malaprop would say, or a military presentment of Pooh-Bah. The
+nominal military accuser, acting in concert with the judge-advocate,
+seated at a little distance, was conscious of sustaining an unpopular
+_role_, and it had tinged his manner with disadvantage. The prisoner
+appeared without any restraint, of course, but wearing no sword. The
+special values of his presence, his handsome face, his blond hair and
+beard that had a glitter not unlike the gold lace of his full-dress
+uniform, his fine figure and highbred, reserved manner, were very marked
+in his conspicuous position, occupying a chair at a small table on the
+right of the judge-advocate. Baynell had a calm dignity and a look of
+steady, immovable courage incongruous with his plight, arraigned on so
+base a charge, and yet a sort of blighted, wounded dismay, as
+unmistakable as a burn, was on his face, that might have moved even one
+who had cared naught for him to resentment, to protest for his sake.
+
+The light of the unshaded windows, broad, of ample height, and eight or
+ten in number on one side of the room, brought out in fine detail every
+feature of the scene within. Beneath no sign of the town appeared, as
+the murmur of traffic rose softly, for the building was one of the few
+three-story structures, and the opposite roofs were low. The aspect of
+the far-away mountains, framed in each of the apertures, with the
+intense clarity of the light and the richness of tint of the approaching
+summer solstice, was like a sublimated gallery of pictures, painted with
+a full brush and of kindred types. Here were the repetitious long
+ranges, with the mouldings of the foot-hills at the base, and again a
+single great dome, amongst its mysterious shimmering clouds, filled the
+canvas. Now in the background were crowded all the varying mountain
+forms, while a glittering vacant reach of the Tennessee River stretched
+out into the distance. And again a bridge crossed the currents, light
+and airy in effect, seeming to spring elastically from its piers, in the
+strong curves of the suspended arches, while a sail-boat, with its head
+tucked down shyly as the breeze essayed to chuck it under the chin,
+passed through and out of sight. Another window showed the wind in a
+bluffer mood, wrestling with the storm clouds; showed, too, that rain
+was falling in a different county, and the splendors of the iris hung
+over far green valleys that gleamed prismatically with a secondary
+reflection.
+
+The room was crowded with spectators, both military and civilian,
+finding seats on the benches which were formerly used in the fraternity
+gatherings and which were still in place. The case had attracted much
+public attention. There were few denizens of the town who had not had
+individual experiences of interest pending the storming of the fort, and
+this fact invested additional details with peculiar zest and whetted the
+edge of curiosity as to the inception of the plan and the means by which
+Julius Roscoe's exploit had become practicable. The effect of the
+imposing character of the court was manifested in the perfect decorum
+observed by the general public. There was scarcely a stir during the
+opening of the proceedings. The order convening the court was read to
+the accused, and he was offered his right to challenge any member of
+the court-martial for bias or other incompetency. Baynell declined to
+avail himself of this privilege. There ensued a moment of silence. Then,
+with a metallic clangor, for every member wore his sword, the court
+rose, and, all standing, a glittering array, the oath was administered
+to each of the thirteen by the judge-advocate. Afterward the president
+of the court, of course the ranking officer present, himself
+administered the oath to the judge-advocate, and the prosecution opened.
+
+The military accuser was the first witness sworn and interrogated, but
+the prosecution had much other testimony tending to show that the
+prisoner had been living in great amity with persons notoriously of
+sentiments antagonistic to the Union cause, as exemplified by his long
+stay in Judge Roscoe's house; that he was in correspondence and even in
+intimate association with a Rebel in hiding under the same roof; that
+either with treacherous intent, or for personal reasons, he had
+leniently permitted this enemy in arms to lie _perdu_ within the lines
+and subsequently to escape with such information as had resulted in
+great loss of men, materials, and money to the Federal government; that
+he had been apprised, by the sentinel at the door, of the approach of a
+body of troops the night before the attack on the redoubt took place,
+and that he nefariously or negligently declined to investigate the
+incident. Most of this evidence, however, was circumstantial.
+
+The defence met it strenuously at every point. The intimacy between
+Judge Roscoe and the Baynell family was shown to be of a far earlier
+date, and the friendship utterly devoid of any connection with political
+interests; in this relation the accused had in every instance
+subordinated his personal feeling to his military duty, even going so
+far as to cause the property of his host's niece to be seized for
+military service,--the impressment of the horse, which Colonel Ashley
+testified he had at that time considered an unwarrantable bit of
+official tyranny, some individuals being allowed to retain their horses
+through the interposition of army officers among their friends.
+
+Colonel Ashley testified further that the prisoner was such a stickler
+on trifles, as to seek to check him, a person of responsibility and
+discretion, an experienced officer, in expressing some casual
+speculations in the presence of Judge Roscoe concerning troops on an
+incoming train.
+
+The accused admitted that he had not investigated the sound of marching
+troops in the thrice-guarded lines of the encampment, but urged it was
+no part of his duty and impracticable. Small detachments were coming and
+going at all hours of the night. If an officer of the guard, going out
+with the relief or a patrol, had seen fit to march across Judge Roscoe's
+grove, it was no concern of his nor of the sentinel's. He had no
+divination of the proximity of the enemy.
+
+Perhaps the ardor of the witnesses, called in Captain Baynell's behalf,
+when the prosecution had rested at length, made an impression
+unfavorable to the idea of impartiality. More than one on
+cross-examination was constrained to acknowledge that he was swayed by
+the sense of the prisoner's hitherto unimpugnable record, and his high
+standing as a soldier. No such admission could be wrung from Judge
+Roscoe, skilled in all the details of the effect of testimony. His plain
+asseverations that his son had come to his house, not knowing that a
+Federal officer was a temporary inmate, the account of the simple
+measures taken to defeat the guest's observation or detection of the
+young Rebel's propinquity, the reasonableness of his quietly awaiting an
+opportunity to run the pickets when a chance meeting resulted in
+discovery and a collision--all went far to establish the fact that the
+presence of Julius Roscoe was but one of those stolen visits home in
+which the adventurous Southern soldiers delighted and of which Captain
+Baynell had no sort of knowledge till the moment of their encounter,
+when Julius rushed forth to the gaze of all the camp.
+
+This was the point of difficulty with the prosecution, the point of
+danger with the defence,--the adequacy of the proof as to the prisoner's
+knowledge of the presence of the Rebel in hiding, harbored in the house.
+For this the prosecution had the apparition of the Confederate officer,
+covered with blood and later identified as Julius Roscoe, and the
+condition of Baynell's wound, which the surgeon swore was a "facer,"
+delivered by an expert boxer. Evidently this came from an altercation,
+in which both had forborne the use of weapons, thus suggesting some
+collision of interests, as between personal associates or former friends
+rather than a hand-to-hand conflict of armed enemies.
+
+On this vital point, to form the conclusions of military men, Baynell
+could command no testimony save that of the Roscoe household,--the most
+important witness of course being the judge himself, who had devised and
+controlled all the methods to keep the Federal officer unsuspicious and
+tranquil, and to maintain the lurking Rebel in security. The anxiety of
+the authorities to fix the responsibility for the disclosure of the
+military information concerning the interior of the works, which only
+one familiar with the location of the magazine could have given, had
+induced them to ignore Judge Roscoe's shelter of their enemy, thus
+avoiding the entanglement of a slighter matter with the paramount
+consideration under investigation. While the fact that his feelings as a
+father must needs have coerced Judge Roscoe into harboring and
+protecting his son and requiring his servant to minister to his wants,
+still the recital of the concealment of his presence affronted the
+sentiment of the court-martial, even though Judge Roscoe's part was
+obviously restricted to the sojourn of the Confederate officer in his
+house, for he had no knowledge of the details of the escape and
+subsequent adventures.
+
+The course of the proceedings of such a body was not competent to afford
+any very marked relaxations in the line of comedy relief. But certainly
+old Ephraim, when summoned to the stand, must have been in any other
+presence a mark of irresistible derision, not unkind, to be sure, and
+devoid of bitterness.
+
+Keenly conscious that he had been discovered in details which to "Marse
+Soldier" were a stumbling-block and an offence, and that his own
+prestige for political loyalty was shattered,--for he doubted if it were
+possible to so present the contradiction of his conviction of his
+interest and yet his adherence to old custom and fidelity in such a
+guise that the brevet brigadier would do aught but snort at it,--he
+came, bowing repeatedly, cringing almost to the earth, his hat in his
+hand, his worn face seamed in a thousand new wrinkles, and looking
+nearly eighty years of age. The formidable embodiment of military
+justice fixed him with a stern comprehensive gaze, and the brigadier,
+who had no realization of the martial terrors of his own appearance,
+sought to reassure him by saying in his deep bluff voice, "Come forward,
+Uncle Ephraim, come forward." The old negro started violently, then
+bowed once more in humble deprecation. Suddenly he perceived Baynell.
+In his relief to recognize the face of a friend he forgot the purport of
+the assemblage, and broke out with a high senile chirp.
+
+"_You_ here, Cap'n! Well, sah! I is p'intedly s'prised." Then
+recollecting the situation, he was covered with confusion, especially as
+Baynell remained immovable and unresponsive, and once more old Ephraim
+bowed to the earth.
+
+Not a little doubt had been felt by the court when deliberating upon the
+admissibility of the testimony of the old negro. It was contrary to the
+civil law of the state and contravened also the theory of the unbounded
+influence over the slave which the master exerts. In view of the pending
+abolition of slavery, both considerations might be considered abrogated,
+and since this testimony was of great importance to the prosecution as
+well as to the defence, bearing directly on the main point at issue,--as
+a freedman he was duly sworn. The members of the court-martial had ample
+opportunity to test the degree of patience with which they had been
+severally endowed as the old darkey was engineered through the
+preliminary statements; inducted into the witness-chair on the left hand
+of the judge-advocate, his hat inverted at his feet, with his red
+bandanna handkerchief filling its crown; induced to give over his
+acquiescent iteration, "Yes, sah! Yes, sah! jes' ez _you_ say!"
+regardless of the significance of the question; and at last fairly
+launched on the rendering of his testimony. The prosecution, however,
+soon thought he was no such fool as he seemed, for the details of the
+earlier sojourn of Julius had a simplicity that was coercive of
+credence. The old servant stated, as if it were a matter of prime
+importance, that he had to feed him in the salad-bowl. He "das'ent fetch
+Marse Julius a plate 'kase de widder 'oman, dat's Miss Leonora, mought
+miss it. But _he_ didn't keer, little Julius didn't,"--then to explain
+the familiarity of the address he stated that "Julius de youngest ob
+Marster's chillen--de Baby-chile." Old Ephraim repeated this expression
+often, thinking it mitigated the fall from political grace which he
+himself had suffered, because of the leniency which must be shown to a
+"Baby-chile." And now and then, at first, the court-martial, though far
+from lacking in brainy endowment and keen perception, were at sea to
+understand that the "Baby-chile" would have been allowed to smoke a
+_see_gar,--he being "plumb desperate" for tobacco,--except so anxious
+was Judge Roscoe to avoid attracting the suspicion of Captain Baynell,
+who would "have tuk little Julius in quick as a dog snappin' at a fly!
+Yes--sah--yes--Cap'n," with a deprecatory side glance at Baynell. "De
+Baby-chile couldn't even dare to smoke, fur fear de Cap'n mought smell
+it from out de garret. De Baby-chile wanted a _see_gar so bad he sont
+his Pa forty messages a day. But his Pa didn't allow him ter light
+one--not one; he jes' gnawed the e-end."
+
+It required, too, some mental readjustment to recognize the "Baby-chile"
+in the young Samson, who had almost carried off the gates of the town
+itself, the key of the whole department, on his stalwart back. This
+phrase was even more frequently repeated as Uncle Ephraim entered upon
+the details of Julius's escape and his attack on Baynell--it seemed to
+mitigate the intensity with which he played at the game of war to speak
+of it as the freaks of a "Baby-chile."
+
+The witness could produce no replies to the question, and indeed he had
+no recollection, as to how Julius Roscoe became possessed of the facts
+concerning the works, for old Ephraim did not realize that he himself
+had afforded this information--acquired in aimlessly tagging after the
+detail sent for ammunition, the negroes coming and going with scant
+restriction in the camps of their liberators. But very careful was he to
+let fall no word of the citizen's dress he had conveyed to the
+"Baby-chile" in the grotto, under cover of night.
+
+"Bress Gawd!" he said to himself, "it's de Cap'n on trial--_not me_!"
+
+He detailed with great candor the lies he had told Captain Baynell,
+when, emerging from his long insensibility, he had asked about the Rebel
+officer. "It was a dream," the witness had told "Cap'n." In Captain
+Baynell's earlier illness he had often been delirious, and it had amused
+him when he recovered to hear the quaint things he had said; sometimes
+"Cap'n" himself described to Judge Roscoe or to the surgeon the queer
+sights he had seen, the results of the morphine administered. So in this
+instance he had hardly seemed surprised, but had let it pass like the
+rest.
+
+Uncle Ephraim did not vary these statements in any degree, not even
+under the ordeal of cross-examination. Indeed, he stood this remarkably
+well and left the impression he had made unimpaired. But when he was
+told that he might stand aside, and it entered into his comprehension
+that the phrase meant that he might leave the room, he fairly chirped
+with glee and obvious relief.
+
+"Thankee, Marse Gen'al!" he said to the youngest member of the court, a
+captain, to whom he had persisted in addressing most of his replies, and
+had continuously promoted to the rank of general, as if this high
+station obviously best accorded with the young officer's deserts.
+
+Old Ephraim scuttled off to the door, stumbling and hirpling in his
+haste and agitation, and it had not closed on him, when his "Bress de
+Lawd! he done delivered me f'om dem dat would have devoured me!"
+resounded through the room.
+
+There was a laugh outside--somebody in the corridor opined that the
+court-martial wanted no such tough old morsel, but not a smile touched
+the serious faces on each side of the table, and the next witness was
+summoned.
+
+This was Mrs. Gwynn. She produced an effect of sober elegance in her
+dress of gray barege, wearing a simple hat of lacelike straw of the same
+tint, with velvet knots of a darker gray, on her beautiful golden-brown
+hair. The court-martial, guaranteed to have no heart, had, as far as
+perceptible impression was concerned, no eyes. They looked stolidly at
+her as, with a swift and adaptive intelligence, she complied with the
+formalities, and her testimony was under way.
+
+So youthful, so girlish and fair of face, so sylphlike in form was she,
+that her appearance was of far more significance in their estimation
+than their apparent lack of appreciation might betoken. More than one
+who had begun to incline to the views of the prosecution thought that he
+beheld here the influence which had fostered treason and brought a fine
+officer to a forgetfulness of his oath, a disregard of his duty, and the
+destruction of every value of life and every consolation of death.
+
+Her manner, however, was not that of a siren. All the incongruities of
+her aspect were specially pronounced as she sat in the clear light of
+the window and looked steadfastly at each querist in turn, so soberly,
+so earnestly, with so little consciousness of her beauty, that it seemed
+in something to lack, as if a more definite aplomb and intention of
+display could enhance the fact.
+
+Apparently it was a conclusive testimony that she was giving, for it was
+presently developed that she did not know that Julius Roscoe was in the
+house; that she herself had suggested to Captain Baynell to go in search
+of a book up the stairs to his hiding-place, from which there was no
+other mode of egress; that in less than two minutes she heard Captain
+Baynell's loud exclamations of surprise, and the words in his voice,
+very quick and decisive--"You are my prisoner!" twice repeated. She had
+rushed to the door of the hall to hear a crash as of a fall, and she saw
+the balustrade of the staircase, which was the same structure throughout
+the three stories, shaking, as Julius Roscoe, covered with blood, dashed
+by her and out into the balcony. She knew that Baynell was delirious
+subsequently, and that he was kept in ignorance as to what had
+occasioned his fall.
+
+There was a degree of discomfiture on the part of the prosecution. It
+was not that the judge-advocate was specially bloody-minded or
+vindictive. He had a part to play, and it behooved him to play it well.
+It would seem that if the prosecution broke down on so obvious and
+simple a case, which had been the nucleus of so much disaster, blame
+might attach to him, by the mere accident of his position. These
+reflections rendered him ingenious, and with the license of
+cross-examination he began with personalities.
+
+"You have stated that you are a widow?"
+
+"Yes. I am the widow of Rufus Allerton Gwynn."
+
+"You do not wear widow's weeds?"
+
+"No. I have laid them aside."
+
+"In contemplation of matrimony?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is not the accused your accepted suitor?"
+
+"No."
+
+Baynell was looking down at a paper in his hand. His eyelids flickered,
+then he looked up steadily, with a face of quiet attention.
+
+A member of the court preferred the demand:--
+
+"Was he ever a suitor for your hand?"
+
+"Yes." Her face had flushed, but she kept her eyes steadily fixed on the
+questioner.
+
+The president of the court cleared his throat as if minded to speak.
+Then obviously with the view of avoiding misunderstandings as to dates
+he formulated the query: "Was this recent? May I ask _when_ you declined
+his proposal?"
+
+"I am not certain of the date," she replied. "It was--let me think--it
+was the evening of a day when the neighborhood sewing-circle met at my
+uncle's house. I remember, now--it was the sixth of May."
+
+"Did Captain Baynell attend the meeting of the sewing-circle?"--the
+judge-advocate permitted himself an edge of satire.
+
+"He was present, and Colonel Ashley, and Lieutenant Seymour."
+
+"Oh!" said the judge-advocate, at a loss.
+
+At a loss and doubtful, but encouraged. To his mind she offered the key
+to the situation. Keenly susceptible to feminine influence himself, he
+fancied he could divine its effect on another man. He proceeded warily,
+reducing his question to writing, while on various faces ranged about
+the table appeared a shade of doubt and even reprobation of the tone he
+was taking.
+
+"You have laid aside the insignia of mourning--yet you do not
+contemplate matrimony. You are very young."
+
+"I am twenty-three--as I have already stated."
+
+"You may live a long time. You may live to grow old. You propose to live
+alone the remainder of your days. Did you tell Captain Baynell that?"
+
+"In effect, yes."
+
+Her face had grown crimson, then paled, then the color came again in
+patches. But her voice did not falter, and she looked at her
+interlocutor with an admirable steadiness. The president again cleared
+his throat as if about to speak. The shade of disapprobation deepened on
+the listening faces.
+
+The judge-advocate leaned forward, wrote swiftly, then read in a
+tantalizing tone, as of one who has a clincher in reserve:--
+
+"Now was not that a mere feminine subterfuge? You know you could hardly
+be _sure_ that you will never marry again--at your age."
+
+Once more the president cleared his throat, but he spoke this time.
+
+"Do you desire to push this line of investigation farther?" he said,
+objection eloquent in his deep, full voice.
+
+"One moment, sir." The judge-advocate had been feeling his way very
+cautiously, but he was flustered by the interruption, and he was
+conscious that he put his next question less adroitly than he had
+intended.
+
+"Why are you so sure, if I may ask?"
+
+There was a tense silence. She said to herself that this was no time or
+place for finical delicacy. A man's life, his honor, all he held dear,
+were in jeopardy, and it had fallen to her to say words that must needs
+affect the result. She answered steadily. "My reply to Captain Baynell
+was not actuated by any objections to him. I know nothing of him but
+what is greatly to his credit." She hesitated for a moment. She had
+grown very white, and her eyes glittered, but her voice was still firm
+as she went on:----
+
+"There is no reason why I should not speak freely under these
+circumstances, for every one knows--every one who is cognizant of our
+family affairs--that my married life was extremely wretched. I was very
+unhappy, and I told Captain Baynell that I would never marry again."
+
+Dead silence reigned for a moment. They had all heard the story of her
+hard fate. The discussion as to whether a chair had been merely broken
+over her head, or she had been dragged about her home one woful midnight
+by the masses of her beautiful hair, was insistently suggested as the
+sunlight lay athwart it now, and the breeze moved its tendrils
+caressingly. The eyes of the court-martial looked at the judge-advocate
+with fiery reproach, and the heart of the court-martial beat for her for
+the moment with chivalric partisanship.
+
+For the first time Baynell seemed to lose his composure. His face was
+scarlet, his hands trembled. He was biting his under lip violently in an
+effort at self-control; he was experiencing an agony of sympathy and
+regret that this should be forced upon her, of helpless fury that he
+could be of no avail.
+
+Still once more the president cleared his throat, this time
+peremptorily. The judge-advocate, considerably out of countenance,
+hastily forestalled him, that he might justify his course by bringing
+out the point he desired to elicit, reading his question aloud for its
+submission to the court, though her last reply had rendered his clincher
+of little force.
+
+"Did you say to Captain Baynell that you have no intention of marrying
+again merely as a subterfuge--to soften the blow, because you expect to
+marry Lieutenant Roscoe as soon as the war is over?"
+
+His suspicion that Baynell had been accessory to the concealment of
+young Roscoe so long as he did not fear him as a rival was evident.
+Baynell turned suddenly and stared with startled eyes in which an amazed
+dismay contended with futile anger that this,--such a motive--such a
+course of action, could be attributed to him.
+
+She replied only to the obvious question, evidently not realizing the
+implication. The tension was over; her color had returned; her voice was
+casual.
+
+"No. I have no thought of marrying Lieutenant Roscoe."
+
+"Has he asked you to marry him?"
+
+"Long ago,--when he was a mere boy."
+
+"And again since your widowhood?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You have seen him since?"
+
+"Only that morning when he rushed past me in the hall," she replied, not
+apprehending the trend of his questions.
+
+"Captain Baynell must have had some reason to think you would marry him,
+or he would not have asked you. You rejected him one evening. The next
+morning he arrested Lieutenant Roscoe, who had been in hiding in the
+house,--was there some understanding between you and Captain
+Baynell,--had he earlier forborne this arrest in the expectation of your
+consent, and was the arrest made in revenge on a rival whom he fancied a
+successful suitor?"
+
+She looked at the judge-advocate with a horrified amazement eloquent on
+her face.
+
+"No! No! Oh," she cried in a poignant voice, "if you knew Captain
+Baynell, you could not, you would not, advance such implications against
+him,--who is the very soul of honor."
+
+The judge-advocate was again for an instant out of countenance.
+
+"You thought so little of him yourself as to reject his addresses," he
+said by way of recovering himself.
+
+She was absorbed in the importance of the crisis. She did not realize
+the effect of her words until after she had uttered them.
+
+"I did not appreciate his character then," she said simply.
+
+Once more there was an interval of tense and significant silence.
+Baynell, suddenly pale to the lips, lifted startled eyes as if he sought
+to assure himself that he had heard aright. Then he bent his gaze on the
+paper in his hand.
+
+Mrs. Gwynn, tremulous with excitement, appreciated a moment later the
+inadvertent and personal admission, and a burning flush sprang into her
+cheeks. The judge-advocate took instant advantage of her loss of poise.
+
+"I don't know what you mean by that--that you would not reject him
+again? Will you explain?" he read his question with a twinkling eye that
+nettled and harassed her.
+
+A member of the court-martial objected to the interrogation as
+"frivolous and unnecessary," and therefore it was not addressed to the
+witness. A pause ensued.
+
+The brevet brigadier cleared his throat.
+
+"Have you concluded this line of investigation?" he said to the
+judge-advocate, for the prosecution was obviously breaking down.
+
+"I believe we are about through," said the judge-advocate, vacuously,
+looking at a list in his hand, "that is"--to the accused--"if you have
+no questions to put in reexamination." And as Mrs. Gwynn was permitted
+to depart from the room, he still busied himself with his list. "Three
+names, yet. These are the children, sir."
+
+Every member of the household of Judge Roscoe was summoned as a witness
+for the defence, to seek to establish Baynell's innocence in these
+difficult circumstances, even the little girls, and indeed otherwise the
+prosecution would have subpoenaed them on the theory that if there were
+any treachery, the children had not the artifice to conceal it. So far
+this testimony was unequivocal. Judge Roscoe had sworn to the simple
+facts and the measures taken to avoid the notice of the Federal officer.
+Uncle Ephraim's testimony, save for the withheld episode of the grotto,
+the exact truth, was corroborative, but suffered somewhat from his
+reputation for wearing two faces, his sobriquet of "Janus" being adduced
+by the prosecution. Mrs. Gwynn had affirmed that she herself did not
+know or suspect the presence of Julius in the house, so completely was
+he held _perdu_. The agitated little twins, each examined as to her
+knowledge of the obligations of an oath and sworn, separately testified
+in curiously clipped, suppressed voices that they knew nothing, heard
+nothing, saw nothing of Julius Roscoe in the house.
+
+In the face of this unanimity it seemed impossible to prove aught save
+that in one of those hazardous visits home, so dear to the rash young
+Southern soldiers, the father had taken successful precautions to defeat
+suspicion; and the Confederate officer had shown great adroitness in
+carrying out the plan of his campaign which his observations inside the
+lines had suggested.
+
+On the last day of the trial Captain Baynell was beginning to breathe
+more freely, all the testimony having been taken except the necessarily
+formal questioning of the dumb child. As she was sworn and interrogated,
+one of the other children, sworn anew for the purpose, acted as her
+interpreter, being more accustomed than the elders to the use of the
+manual alphabet. The court-room was interested in the quaint situation.
+The aspect of the two little children, in their white summer attire, in
+this incongruous environment, with their tiny hands lifted in signalling
+to each other, their eyes shining with excitement, touched the
+spectators to smiles and a stir of pleasant sympathy. Now and then
+Geraldine's silvery treble faltered while repeating the question, to
+demonstrate her comprehension of it, and she desisted from her task to
+gaze in blue-eyed wonder over her shoulder at the crowd. The deaf-mute
+was passed over cursorily by the defence, only summoned in fact that no
+one of the household might be omitted or seem feared. Suddenly one of
+the members of the court asked a question in cross-examination. In civil
+life this officer, a colonel of volunteers, had been an aurist of some
+note and the physician in attendance in a deaf-and-dumb asylum. He was a
+portly, robust man, whose prematurely gray hair and mustache were at
+variance with his florid complexion and his bright, still youthful, dark
+eyes. He had a manner peculiarly composed, bland, yet commanding. He
+leaned forward abruptly on the table; with an intent, questioning gaze
+he caught the child's eyes as she stood lounging against the tall
+witness-chair. Then as he lifted his hands it was obvious that he was
+far more expert in the manual alphabet than Geraldine. In three minutes
+it was evident to the assembled members of the court-martial on each
+side of the long table, the president at its head, the judge-advocate at
+its foot, that the line of communication was as perfect as if both
+spoke. Delighted to meet a stranger who could converse fluently with
+her, the child's blue eyes glittered, her cheek flushed; she was
+continually laughing and tossing back the curls of her rich chestnut
+hair, as if she wished to be free of its weight while she gave every
+capacity to this matter. And yet in her youth, her innocence, her
+inexperience, she knew naught of the ultimate significance of the
+detail.
+
+It was an evidence of the degree to which she was isolated by her
+infirmity, how slight was her participation in the subtler interests of
+the life about her, that she had no remote conception of the intents and
+results of the investigation. Even her curiosity was manacled--it
+stretched no grasp for the fact. She did not question. She did not dream
+that it concerned Captain Baynell. She had no idea that trouble had
+fallen upon him. Tears to her expressed woe, or a visage of sadness, or
+the environment of poverty or physical hurt--but this bright room, with
+its crowd of intent spectators; this splendid array of uniformed men of
+an august aspect; her own friend, Captain Baynell, present, himself in
+full regimentals, calm, composed, quiet, as was his wont, looking over a
+paper in his hand--how was the restricted creature to imagine that this
+was the arena of a life-and-death conflict.
+
+"Yes!" the little waxen-white fingers flashed forth. "Yes, indeed, she
+had known that Soldier-Boy was in the house. That was Julius!"
+
+She gave the military salute with her accustomed grace and spirit,
+lifting her hand to the brim of her hat, and looked laughing along the
+line of stern, bearded faces and military figures on either side of the
+long table.
+
+The other "ladies" did not know that Soldier-Boy was there, though they
+saw him, and she saw him, too! It was in the library, and it was just
+about dusk. They were surprised, and came and told the family that they
+had seen a ghost. They knew no better! They were young and they were
+little. They were only six, the twins, and she was eight; a great girl
+indeed!
+
+Once more she tossed back her hair, and, with her eyes intent from under
+the wide Leghorn brim of her hat, bedecked with bows of a broad white
+ribbon with fluffy fringed edges, she watched his white military
+gauntlets, uplifted as he asked the next question on his slow fingers.
+
+How her own swiftly flickered!
+
+Yes, indeed, she had told the family better. It was no ghost, but only
+Soldier-Boy! She had told Captain Baynell. She wanted him to see
+Soldier-Boy. He was beautiful--the most beautiful member of the family!
+
+Oh, yes, Baynell knew he was in the house. She had told him by her sign.
+When she had first shown him Soldier-Boy's fine portrait, they had told
+him what she meant.
+
+No! Captain Baynell had not forgotten! For when she said it was no
+ghost, but Soldier-Boy, Cousin Leonora cried out, "Oh, she means Julius;
+that is her sign for him!" Cousin Leonora did not use the manual
+alphabet; she read the motion of her lips. None of them used the
+alphabet except a little bit; Soldier-Boy the best of all.
+
+Throughout there was a continual ripple of excitement among the members
+and several heads were dubiously shaken. More than once Baynell's
+counsel sought to interpose an objection,--mindful of the preposterous
+restrictions of his position, swiftly writing his views, transmitted, as
+if he himself were dumb, through the prisoner to the judge-advocate and
+by him to the court. The testimony of the witness could not be legally
+taken this way, he insisted, merely by the repetition of what she had
+said, by a member of the court-martial for the benefit of the rest.
+
+The peculiar petulance of those who lack a sense was manifested in the
+acrimony which shone in the child's eyes as she perceived that he sought
+to restrict and repress her statement of her views. When he ventured
+himself to ask her a question, having some knowledge of the manual
+alphabet, she merely gazed at his awkward gesticulations with an
+expression of polite tolerance, making no attempt to answer, then cast
+up her eyes, as who should say, "Saw ever anybody the like of that!" and
+catching the intent gaze of the brigadier, she burst into a sly
+coquettish ripple of laughter that had all the effect of a roguish
+aside. Then, turning to the ex-surgeon, her fingers flickered forth the
+hope that he would come and see her and talk. When the war was over, she
+was going back to school where she had learned the manual
+alphabet,--there, although dumb, they talked much.
+
+The mention of the word "school" suggested an idea which obviated the
+difficulty as to how this extraordinary testimony could be put into such
+shape as to render it available, impervious to cavil, strictly in
+accordance with precedent in the case of witnesses who are "mute by the
+visitation of God." The cross-examiner asked her if she could write. How
+she tossed her head in pride and scorn of the question! Write--of course
+she could write. Cousin Leonora had taught her.
+
+When she was placed in a chair, and mounted on a great book beside the
+judge-advocate--looking like a learned mushroom under her big white hat,
+her white flounced skirts fluttering out, her long white hose and
+slippered feet dangling--he wrote the questions and accommodated her
+with a blotting-pad and pen, and it may be doubted if ever hitherto a
+small bunch of fabric and millinery contained so much vainglory. In
+truth the triumph atoned for many a soundless day--to note the surprise
+on his solemn visage, between his Burnside whiskers, as she glanced
+covertly up into his face, watching the effect of her first answer, five
+or six lines of clear, round handwriting, sensibly expressed, and
+perfectly spelled. She wrote much the more legibly of the two, and once
+there occurred a break when one of the members of the court asked a
+question in writing, and she was constrained to put one hand before her
+face to laugh gleefully, for one of his capital letters was so bad--she
+was great on capitals--that she must needs ask what was meant by it.
+
+Baynell, in reexamination, himself wrote to ask what he had said when he
+was told that the ghost in the library was Julius Roscoe.
+
+"Nothing," she wrote in answer, all unaware how she was destroying him.
+"Nothing at all. You just looked at me and then looked at Cousin Leonora.
+But Grandpa said, 'Oh, fie! oh, fie!' all the time."
+
+Thus the extraordinary testimony was taken. The paper, with her answers
+in her round childish characters and flourishing capitals, all as plain
+as print and exhibiting a thorough comprehension of what she was asked,
+was handed to each of the members of the court-martial, here and there
+eliciting a murmur of surprise at her proficiency. The prosecution, that
+had practically broken down, now had the point of the sword at the
+throat of the defence.
+
+There was naught further necessary but to confront the earlier witnesses
+with this episode. Mrs. Gwynn, recalled, stared in amazement for a
+moment as a question was put as to the significant event of the
+discovery of a ghost in the library, one afternoon. Then as the
+reminiscence grew clear to her mind, she rehearsed the circumstance,
+stating in great confusion that she had disregarded it at the time, and
+had forgotten it since.
+
+So unimportant, was it?
+
+She had thought it merely some folly of the children's; they were always
+taking silly little frights. She did remember that she had told Captain
+Baynell once before that the military salute was the child's sign for
+Julius Roscoe, and that she had repeated this information then.
+No--Captain Baynell made no search in the library where the supposed
+ghost was seen,--no,--nor elsewhere.
+
+When Mrs. Gwynn, under the stress of these revelations, broke down and
+burst into tears, the eyes of the members of the court-martial intently
+regarding her were unsympathetic eyes, despite her beauty and
+charm,--the more unsympathetic because Judge Roscoe had also remembered
+these circumstances, stating, however, that they had not alarmed him,
+for Captain Baynell evidently did not understand.
+
+"Is his knowledge of English, then, so limited?" he was ironically
+asked.
+
+Old Ephraim, too, was able to recollect the fact of the child's
+disclosure of the presence of Julius Roscoe in the house to Captain
+Baynell,--declaring, though, that he himself had hindered its
+comprehension by upsetting the coffee urn full of scalding coffee, which
+he had just brought to the table where the group were sitting, thus
+effecting a diversion of interest.
+
+All the witnesses were dismissed at last, and the final formal defence
+was presented in writing. The room was cleared and the judge-advocate
+read aloud to the members of the court the proceedings from the
+beginning. Laboriously, earnestly, impartially, they bent their minds to
+weigh all the details, and then for a time they sat in secluded
+deliberation--a long time, despite the fact that the conclusions of the
+majority admitted of no doubt. Several of the members revolted against
+the inevitable result, argued with vehemence, recapitulated all in
+Baynell's favor with the fervor of eager partisans, and at last
+protested with a passion of despair against the decision, for the
+finding was adverse and the unanimity of two-thirds of the votes
+rendered the penalty death.
+
+The sentence was of course kept secret until it should be approved and
+formally promulgated by authority. But the public had readily divined
+the result and anticipated naught from the revision of the proceedings.
+
+Suspense is itself a species of calamity. It has all the poignant
+acuteness of hope without the buoyancy of a sustained expectation, and
+all the anguish of despair without its sense of conclusiveness and the
+surcease of striving. Pending the review of the action of the
+court-martial Baynell discovered the wondrous scope of human suffering
+disassociated from physical pain. He had seriously thought he might die
+of his wounded pride, thus touched in honor, in patriotism, in life
+itself, and therefore he was amazed by the degree of solace he
+experienced in the sight of a woman's tears shed for his sake. For to
+Leonora Gwynn he seemed a persecuted martyr, with all a soldier's valor
+and a saint's impeccability. No one could know better than she the
+falsity of the charges against him, and in her resentment against the
+unhappy chances and the military law that had overwhelmed him, and her
+absolute despair for his fate, he enlisted all her heart. Those high and
+noble qualities which he possessed and which she revered were elicited
+in the extremity of his mortal peril. His exacting conscientiousness;
+his steadfast courage on the brink of despair; his absolute truth; his
+constancy in adversity; his strict sense of justice which would not
+suffer him to blame his friends whose concealments had wrought his ruin,
+nor his enemies who seemed indeed rancorously zealous in aspersing him
+that they might exculpate themselves at his risk; his lofty sense of
+honor which he valued more than life itself,--all showed in genuine
+proportions in the bleak unidealizing light which an actual vital crisis
+brings to bear on the incidents of personal character.
+
+She had even a more tender sympathy for his simpler traits, the filial
+friendship which he still manifested for Judge Roscoe, his affectionate
+remembrance of the little children of the household, the blended pride
+and delicacy with which he restrained all expression of the feeling he
+entertained toward her, that might seem to seek to utilize and magnify
+her unguarded admissions on the witness-stand,--influenced, as he
+feared, by her anxiety lest her rejection of his suit should militate to
+his disadvantage in the estimation of the court. In truth, however,
+there was scant need of his reserve on this point, for she made no
+disguise of her sentiment toward him. It became obvious, not only to
+him, but to all with whom she spoke. Indeed, she would have married him
+then, that she might be near him, that she might share his calamities,
+even while his disgrace, his everlasting contumely, seemed already
+accomplished, and he had scarcely a chance for life itself. And yet,
+hardly less than he, she valued those finer vibrations of chivalric
+ethics to which his every fibre thrilled. "I know that you are the very
+soul of honor," she said to him, "and that this certain assurance ought
+to be sufficient to nullify the stings of calumny,--but I had rather
+that you had died long ago, that I had never seen you, that I were dead
+myself, than that your record as a soldier, your probity as a man, the
+truth, the eternal truth, should even be questioned."
+
+Judge Roscoe, too, was infinitely dismayed by this strange blunder of
+circumstance, and flinched under the sense of responsibility, of a
+breach of hospitality, albeit unintentional, that his guest should incur
+so desperate a disaster by reason of a sojourn under his roof. Baynell
+was constrained to comfort them both, but in the hope to which he
+magnanimously affected to appeal he had scant confidence indeed.
+
+Even amidst the turmoil of his emotions and the crisis of his personal
+jeopardy he did not forget that the hand that hurled the bolts of doom
+had been innocent of cruel intent. "Never let her know," he warned Judge
+Roscoe, again and again. For although the testimony of the deaf-mute
+must needs have been elicited, she would be grieved to learn that she
+had wrought all these woes. Though literally the truth, it had the
+deceptive functions of a lie. It traduced him. It convicted him, the
+faithful soldier, of treachery. It hurled him down from his honorable
+esteem, and he seemed the basest of the base, traitor to his comrades,
+false to his oath, renegade to his cause, recreant to every sanction
+that can control a gentleman, and stained with blood-guiltiness for
+every life that was sacrificed in the skirmish by reason of his secret
+colloguing with the enemy.
+
+Nevertheless, he tenderly considered how frightful a shock she would
+experience should she realize that it was she who had set this hideous
+monster of falsehood grimly a-stalk as fact. "But never let her know!"
+he insisted with an unselfish thoughtfulness that endeared him the more
+to those who already loved him. In that silent life of hers, so much
+apart, he would fain that not even a vague echo of reproach should
+sound. In those mute thoughts, which none might divine, he would not
+evoke a suggestion of regret. One could hardly forecast the effect, he
+urged. A sorrow like this might prove beyond the reach of reason, of
+remonstrance, of consolation. She loved him, the silent, little thing!
+and he loved her. Never, never, let her know.
+
+And thus, although in the storm centre all else was changed, swept with
+sudden gusts of tempestuous grief, now and again reverberating with
+strange echoes of tumults beyond, all a-tremor with terror and frightful
+presage, calm still prevailed in her restricted little life. But to
+maintain this placidity was not without its special difficulties. More
+than once her grandfather's deep depression caught her intelligent
+attention, and she would pause to gaze wistfully, helplessly, sadly,
+upon him. Upon discovering Leonora in tears one day she flung herself on
+her knees beside her cousin, and kissing her hands wept and sobbed
+bitterly in sympathy with she knew not what. Sometimes she was moved to
+ask the dreary little twins if aught were amiss, and when they shook
+their heads in negation, she promptly signed that she did not believe
+them. Once she came perilously near the solution of the mystery that
+baffled her. Missing the visits of Baynell, who of course was still in
+arrest, she asked the twins if he were ill, and when they hysterically
+protested that he was well, a shadow of aghast apprehension hovered
+over her face, and she solemnly queried if he were dead.
+
+The phrase, "Never let her know," was like a dying wish, as sacred, as
+imperative, and Judge Roscoe hastily interfered to assure her that
+Baynell was indeed alive and well, and affected to rebuke the twins,
+saying that they were getting so dull and slow in the manual alphabet
+that they could scarcely answer a simple question of their sister's, and
+set them to spelling on their fingers under Lucille's instruction the
+first stanza of "The boy stood on the burning deck."
+
+Thus the continued calm of her life was akin to the quiet languors of
+the sweet summer evening so mutely reddening in the west, so softly
+changing to the azure and silver of twilight, so splendid in the vast
+diffusive radiance of the soundless moon. All the growths were as
+speechless. The rose was full of the voiceless dew. What need of words
+when the magnolia buds burst into bloom without a rustle. With a placid
+heart she watched the echoless march of the constellations. The daily
+brightening of the sumptuous season, the vivid presentment of the great
+pageant of the distant mountains glowed noiselessly. Amidst this
+encompassing hush, in suave content she thought out her inconceivable,
+unexpressed thoughts, with a smile in her eyes and the seal of eternal
+silence on her lips. For his behest was a sacred charge,--and she did
+not know,--she never knew!
+
+The evidence on which Baynell had been convicted and which had seemed so
+conclusive to the general court-martial, present during the testimony of
+the deaf-mute and its subsequent unwilling confirmation by the other
+witnesses for the defence, was not so decisive on a calm revision of the
+papers. The doubt remained as to how much he could be presumed to
+understand from the peculiar methods of the dumb child's disclosure and
+the scattered haphazard comments of the household. The circumstances
+were deemed by the reviewing authorities extra hazardous, difficult, and
+peculiar. The matter hung for a time in abeyance, but at last the court
+was ordered to reconvene for the rectification of certain irregularities
+in its proceedings, and for the reconsideration of its action in this
+case.
+
+The interval of time which had elapsed, with its proclivity to annul the
+effects of surprise and the first convincing force of a definite and
+irrefutable testimony, had served to foster doubt, not of the fact
+itself, but as to Baynell's comprehension of it. Perhaps the incredulity
+obviously entertained in high quarters rendered certain members of the
+court-martial less sure of the justifiability of their own conclusions.
+The maturer deliberation of the body accomplished the amendment of those
+points in the record which had challenged criticism, and the ripened
+judgment exercised in the reconsideration was manifested in such
+modifications of the view of the evidence adduced that, although several
+members still adhered to the earlier findings, the strength of the
+opposing opinion was so recruited that a majority of the number
+concurred in it, and the vote resulted in an acquittal.
+
+Hence Captain Baynell had again the stern pleasure of leading his
+battery into action. His pride never fully recovered its elasticity
+after the days of his humiliation, but his martyrdom was not altogether
+without guerdon. His marriage to Leonora, which was a true union of
+hearts and hands, took place almost immediately. Compassion, faith, the
+admiration of strength and courage in adversity, proved more potent
+elements with Leonora Gwynn than her appreciation of the prowess that
+stormed the fort.
+
+Beyond his promotion and a captain's shoulder straps, Julius Roscoe
+gained naught by his signal victory. Although he seemed to meet his
+disappointment in love jauntily enough, he went abroad almost
+immediately after the cessation of hostilities in America, and still
+later attained distinction as a soldier of fortune especially in the
+Franco-Prussian war. Now and again echoes from those foreign drum-beats
+penetrated the tranquillities of the storm centre, and Lucille, looking
+over the shoulders of the other two "ladies," officiously opening the
+evening paper to discern some item perchance of the absent, would
+glance up elated at the elders of the group, lifting her hand to her
+forehead with that spirited military salute, so expressive of
+Soldier-Boy.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+THE COMMON LOT
+
+By ROBERT HERRICK
+
+Author of "The Real World," "The Web of Life," "The Gospel of Freedom,"
+etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Mr. Herrick has written a novel of searching insight and absorbing
+interest; a first-rate story ... sincere to the very core in its matter
+and in its art."--HAMILTON W. MABIE.
+
+"The book is a bit of the living America of to-day, a true picture of
+one of its most significant phases ... living, throbbing with
+reality."--_New York Evening Mail._
+
+"Novels of its style and quality are few and far between ... he tells a
+story that is worth the telling ... it is a study of life as he sees it,
+and as thousands of his readers try to avoid seeing it."--_Boston
+Transcript._
+
+
+THE QUEEN'S QUAIR, or The Six Years' Tragedy
+
+By MAURICE HEWLETT
+
+Author of "Richard Yea-and-Nay," "The Forest Lovers," etc., etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Mr. Hewlett has produced in this book an enthralling work. It is at
+once a chronicle of certain momentous years in the life of his famous
+heroine and a searching study of her character.... 'The Queen's Quair'
+is profoundly absorbing, and no one among the novelists of to-day save
+Mr. Hewlett could have written it. No one else could have sustained such
+a long narrative on so high a level with such consummate art."--_New York
+Tribune._
+
+"No piece of historical fiction has so adequately described the career
+of the unfortunate and misguided Queen of Scotland, and no other writer
+has approached Mr. Hewlett in dramatic power and literary skill. He uses
+words that express his meaning precisely.... His conciseness of forcible
+expression is indeed admirable. The story, too, is full of action and
+commands undivided attention. Mary's portrait leaves a lasting
+impression."--_Boston Budget._
+
+
+DOCTOR TOM, The Coroner of Brett
+
+By JOHN WILLIAMS STREETER
+
+Author of "The Fat of the Land," etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"A good story of the Kentucky mountains. The reader is caught at the
+start and held to the end."--_New York Sun._
+
+"One of the best and manliest novels that have appeared in a
+year."--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+THE CROSSING
+
+By WINSTON CHURCHILL
+
+Author of "Richard Carvel," "The Crisis," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED IN COLORS
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Mr. Churchill's work, for one reason or another, always commands the
+attention of a large reading public."--_The Criterion._
+
+"'The Crossing' is a thoroughly interesting book, packed with exciting
+adventure and sentimental incident, yet faithful to historical fact both
+in detail and in spirit."--_The Dial._
+
+"Mr. Churchill's romance fills in a gap which history has been unable to
+span, that gives life and color, even the very soul, to events which
+otherwise treated would be cold and dark and inanimate."--Mr. HORACE R.
+HUDSON in the _San Francisco Chronicle_.
+
+
+WHOSOEVER SHALL OFFEND
+
+By F. MARION CRAWFORD
+
+Author of "The Heart of Rome," "Saracinesca," "Via Crucis," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY HORACE T. CARPENTER
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"Not since George Eliot's 'Romola' brought her to her foreordained place
+among literary immortals has there appeared in English fiction a
+character at once so strong and sensitive, so entirely and consistently
+human, so urgent and compelling in its appeal to sustained, sympathetic
+interest."--_Philadelphia North American._
+
+"She is the most womanly woman Mr. Crawford has given us in many a day,
+and after her another peasant, bloody, brooding Ercole, is most
+alive."--_Boston Daily Advertiser._
+
+
+THE QUEST OF JOHN CHAPMAN
+
+_THE STORY OF A FORGOTTEN HERO_
+
+By NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS, D.D.
+
+Author of "The Influence of Christ in Modern Life," etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"In this story Mr. Hillis has woven the life of the Middle West, the
+heroism and holiness of those descendants of the New England Puritans
+who emigrated still further into the wilderness. The story is of great
+spiritual significance, and yet of the earth, earthy--hence its strength
+and vitality.--_Montreal Daily Star._
+
+"No practised technist takes hold of his reader's interest with a
+prompter or surer grip than does this author at the very outset. Nowhere
+else in his book does he demonstrate his fitness for the work of fiction
+better than in the purely creative work. The style leaves little to be
+desired, for Dr. Hillis is, as we all know, a stylist. What perhaps is a
+surprise and also a pleasure, is the dramatic power revealed by the
+author. The book is forceful, its poetic opportunities are never missed,
+it is vivid and striking in its scenes, and pathos is a powerful element
+in the work."--_Brooklyn Daily Eagle._
+
+
+THE TWO CAPTAINS
+
+_A STORY OF BONAPARTE AND NELSON_
+
+By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
+
+Author of "A Little Traitor to the South," etc.
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+The action takes place in the years 1793 and 1798. The historic
+incidents centre around the siege of Toulon in Southern France in 1793,
+in which General Bonaparte first attracts the attention of the world to
+his genius; and the epoch-marking Battle of the Nile in the Bay of
+Aboukir, in Egypt, in 1798, in which Admiral Nelson forever shatters the
+Frenchman's dream of empire in the East. The story revolves around the
+love of Captain Robert Macartney, an Irishman who is an officer in the
+English Navy under Nelson, and Louise de Vaudemont, granddaughter of
+Vice-Admiral de Vaudemont, a great Royalist noble and officer of the old
+Navy of France before the Revolution. One of the leading characters is
+Breboeuf, a silent Breton sailor--he does not speak a dozen words in the
+whole story--who interferes at critical points to promote the welfare of
+the young lovers in most striking and unconventional ways. The coast of
+Provence, the land of the minstrel and the troubadour, the city of
+Toulon, grim-walled, cannon-circled, the blue waters of the
+Mediterranean, the great ships-of-the-line, the sandy shores of Egypt,
+the ancient city of Alexandria, the palace of the Khedive, the Bay of
+Aboukir, are the successive settings of the dramatic story. General
+Bonaparte and Admiral Nelson both take prominent parts in the romance,
+and the characters of these fascinating men are described with fidelity,
+accuracy, and brilliancy.
+
+
+THE SECRET WOMAN
+
+By EDEN PHILLPOTTS
+
+Author of "The American Prisoner," "My Devon Year," etc.
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+Rude and romantic characters, descriptions of lonely and picturesque
+Devonshire scenery, and a simple plot in which love and passion play
+strong parts, are part of the secret of Mr. Eden Phillpotts' very strong
+hold on the public. Slow-acting and slow-speaking but deep-feeling
+peasants play their parts in each drama amid a characteristically wild
+but sympathetic environment. The present powerful story shows the author
+at his best. The real tragedy is not in the actual murder and in the
+shadow of the gallows, but in the moral situation and the intense,
+engrossing moral struggle. Despite certain faults, each character in the
+story is of high mind and purpose, unselfish and deserving of respect.
+What might else be a gloomy theme is relieved by the minor characters.
+The talk of the Devonshire rustics is amusing, and every minor figure in
+the book is a distinct, true-to-nature character. The descriptions of
+external nature are done with feeling and knowledge; in this field no
+other living romancer equals Mr. Phillpotts. This work has some of the
+great qualities of serious literature--single in purpose, deep in study
+of motive and passion.
+
+
+THE WOMAN ERRANT
+
+Being Some Chapters from the Wonder Book of Barbara
+
+By the author of "The Garden of a Commuter's Wife," etc.
+
+WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILL GREFE
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50
+
+"This clear-visioned writer, calmly surveying life from the wholesome
+vantage ground of a modest, contented suburban home, is not merely
+entertaining each year a growing number of appreciative readers, but she
+is inculcating in her own incisive way much of that same wise and simple
+philosophy of life that forms the enduring charm of the essays of
+Charles Wagner."--_New York Globe._
+
+
+RECENT FICTION
+
+Cloth 12mo $1.50 each
+
+BARNES--THE UNPARDONABLE WAR. By JAMES BARNES, author of "Yankee Ships
+and Yankee Sailors," "Drake and his Yeomen," etc.
+
+     A queer turn in the political game; a clever scheme in
+     Newspaper Row; a perfectly plausible invention; these are a
+     few of the elements of interest in this absorbing story.
+
+DAVIS--FALAISE OF THE BLESSED VOICE: A Tale of the Youth of St. Louis,
+King of France. By WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS, author of "A Friend of Caesar,"
+"God Wills It," etc.
+
+     A quick-moving, interesting tale of the development of the
+     young King Louis IX of France under the stress of a great
+     crisis.
+
+DEEPING--LOVE AMONG THE RUINS. By WARWICK DEEPING, author of "Uther and
+Igraine." With illustrations by W. Benda.
+
+     "A vigorous story ... told in the spirit of pure romance."--_New York
+     Evening Post._
+
+
+HOUSMAN--SABRINA WARHAM: The Story of Her Youth. By LAURENCE HOUSMAN,
+author of "Gods and Their Makers," etc.
+
+     A fascinating study of a woman's youth in one of the coast
+     counties of England, a carefully drawn picture of ever
+     interesting human types.
+
+LOVETT--RICHARD GRESHAM. By ROBERT MORSS LOVETT.
+
+     "Goes forward determinedly from a singular opening to an
+     unsuspected close, without faltering or wavering ... a very
+     honest piece of workmanship."--_New York Evening Post._
+
+
+LUTHER--THE MASTERY. By MARK LEE LUTHER, author of "The Henchman," "The
+Favor of Princes," etc.
+
+     A vigorous and convincing story of modern practical politics,
+     so notably strong in its sense of reality as to give the
+     reader the thrill of a privileged glimpse into the mysteries
+     of the one great game.
+
+OVERTON--CAPTAINS OF THE WORLD. By GWENDOLEN OVERTON, author of "Anne
+Carmel," "The Heritage of Unrest," etc.
+
+     An unusually fascinating book ... has the double attractive
+     power of earnestness and a subject which compels sympathetic
+     attention.
+
+POTTER--THE FLAME GATHERERS. By MARGARET HORTON POTTER, author of "Istar
+of Babylon," etc.
+
+     "A wonderful romance of intensity and color."--_Book News._
+
+SINCLAIR--MANASSAS. By UPTON SINCLAIR, author of "Springtime and Harvest,"
+etc.
+
+     "In no single volume which we can call to mind have the
+     undercurrents of feeling, so intense and so varied, that
+     swayed men's minds in those troublous times, been so fully and
+     well portrayed."--_The Times Dispatch_ (Richmond).
+
+WEBSTER--TRAITOR AND LOYALIST: Or, The Man who Found his Country. By
+HENRY KITCHELL WEBSTER, author of "Roger Drake: Captain of Industry," "The
+Banker and the Bear," etc. With illustrations by Joseph Cummings Chase.
+
+    Mr. Webster's new romance is one in which love and war
+    contribute a full quota of interest, intrigue, thrilling
+    suspense, and hairbreadth escapes.
+
+
+THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+
+64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+There is some arcane and inconsistent spelling and dialect. These have
+been preserved as far as possible.
+
+Only obvious typographical errors such as letters being transposed have
+been corrected and hyphenation has been made consistent.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Storm Centre, by Charles Egbert Craddock
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORM CENTRE ***
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