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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Crisis, Volume 7, by Winston Churchill
+
+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 Crisis, Volume 7
+
+Author: Winston Churchill
+
+Release Date: October 19, 2004 [EBook #5394]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRISIS, VOLUME 7 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+By Winston Churchill
+
+
+Volume 7.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WITH THE ARMIES OF THE WEST
+
+We are at Memphis,--for a while,--and the Christmas season is approaching
+once more. And yet we must remember that war recognizes no Christmas, nor
+Sunday, nor holiday. The brown river, excited by rains, whirled seaward
+between his banks of yellow clay. Now the weather was crisp and cold, now
+hazy and depressing, and again a downpour. Memphis had never seen such
+activity. A spirit possessed the place, a restless spirit called William
+T. Sherman. He prodded Memphis and laid violent hold of her. She groaned,
+protested, turned over, and woke up, peopled by a new people. When these
+walked, they ran, and they wore a blue uniform. They spoke rapidly and
+were impatient. Rain nor heat nor tempest kept them in. And yet they
+joked, and Memphis laughed (what was left of her), and recognized a bond
+of fellowship. The General joked, and the Colonels and the Commissary and
+the doctors, down to the sutlers and teamsters and the salt tars under
+Porter, who cursed the dishwater Mississippi, and also a man named Eads,
+who had built the new-fangled iron boxes officially known as gunboats.
+The like of these had never before been seen in the waters under the
+earth. The loyal citizens--loyal to the South--had been given permission
+to leave the city. The General told the assistant quartermaster to hire
+their houses and slaves for the benefit of the Federal Government.
+Likewise he laid down certain laws to the Memphis papers defining
+treason. He gave out his mind freely to that other army of occupation,
+the army of speculation, that flocked thither with permits to trade in
+cotton. The speculators gave the Confederates gold, which they needed
+most, for the bales, which they could not use at all.
+
+The forefathers of some of these gentlemen were in old Egypt under
+Pharaoh--for whom they could have had no greater respect and fear than
+their descendants had in New Egypt for Grant or Sherman. Yankees were
+there likewise in abundance. And a certain acquaintance of ours
+materially added to his fortune by selling in Boston the cotton which
+cost him fourteen cents, at thirty cents.
+
+One day the shouting and the swearing and the running to and fro came to
+a climax. Those floating freaks which were all top and drew nothing, were
+loaded down to the guards with army stores and animals and wood and men,
+--men who came from every walk in life.
+
+Whistles bellowed, horses neighed. The gunboats chased hither and
+thither, and at length the vast processions paddled down the stream with
+naval precision, under the watchful eyes of a real admiral.
+
+Residents of Memphis from the river's bank watched the pillar of smoke
+fade to the southward and ruminated on the fate of Vicksburg. The General
+paced the deck in thought. A little later he wrote to the
+Commander-in-Chief at Washington, "The valley of the Mississippi is
+America."
+
+Vicksburg taken, this vast Confederacy would be chopped in two.
+
+Night fell to the music of the paddles, to the scent of the officers'
+cigars, to the blood-red vomit of the tall stacks and the smoky flame of
+the torches. Then Christmas Day dawned, and there was Vicksburg lifted
+two hundred feet above the fever swamps, her court-house shining in the
+morning sun. Vicksburg, the well-nigh impregnable key to America's
+highway. When old Vick made his plantation on the Walnut Hills, he chose
+a site for a fortress of the future Confederacy that Vauban would have
+delighted in.
+
+Yes, there were the Walnut Hills, high bluffs separated from the
+Mississippi by tangled streams and bayous, and on their crests the
+Parrotts scowled. It was a queer Christmas Day indeed, bright and warm;
+no snow, no turkeys nor mince pies, no wine, but just hardtack and bacon
+and foaming brown water.
+
+On the morrow the ill-assorted fleet struggled up the sluggish Yazoo,
+past impenetrable forests where the cypress clutched at the keels, past
+long-deserted cotton fields, until it came at last to the black ruins of
+a home. In due time the great army was landed. It spread out by brigade
+and division and regiment and company, the men splashing and paddling
+through the Chickasaw and the swamps toward the bluffs. The Parrotts
+began to roar. A certain regiment, boldly led, crossed the bayou at a
+narrow place and swept resistless across the sodden fields to where the
+bank was steepest. The fire from the battery scorched the hair of their
+heads. But there they stayed, scooping out the yellow clay with torn
+hands, while the Parrotts, with lowered muzzles, ploughed the slope with
+shells. There they stayed, while the blue lines quivered and fell back
+through the forests on that short winter's afternoon, dragging their
+wounded from the stagnant waters. But many were left to die in agony in
+the solitude.
+
+Like a tall emblem of energy, General Sherman stood watching the attack
+and repulse, his eyes ever alert. He paid no heed to the shells which
+tore the limbs from the trees about him, or sent the swamp water in thick
+spray over his staff. Now and again a sharp word broke from his lips, a
+forceful home thrust at one of the leaders of his columns.
+
+"What regiment stayed under the bank?"
+
+"Sixth Missouri, General," said an aide, promptly.
+
+The General sat late in the Admiral's gunboat that night, but when he
+returned to his cabin in the Forest Queen, he called for a list of
+officers of the Sixth Missouri. His finger slipping down the roll paused
+at a name among the new second lieutenants.
+
+"Did the boys get back?" he asked. "Yes, General, when it fell dark."
+
+"Let me see the casualties,--quick."
+
+That night a fog rolled up from the swamps, and in the morning jack-staff
+was hid from pilot-house. Before the attack could be renewed, a political
+general came down the river with a letter in his pocket from Washington,
+by virtue of which he took possession of the three army core, and their
+chief, subpoenaed the fleet and the Admiral, and went off to capture
+Arkansas Post.
+
+Vicksburg had a breathing spell.
+
+Three weeks later, when the army was resting at Napoleon, Arkansas, a
+self-contained man, with a brown beard arrived from Memphis, and took
+command. This way General U. S. Grant. He smoked incessantly in his
+cabin. He listened. He spoke but seldom. He had look in his face that
+boded ill to any that might oppose him. Time and labor be counted as
+nothing, compared with the accomplishment of an object. Back to Vicksburg
+paddled the fleet and transports. Across the river from the city, on the
+pasty mud behind the levee's bank were dumped Sherman's regiments,
+condemned to week of ditch-digging, that the gunboats might arrive at the
+bend of the Mississippi below by a canal, out of reach of the batteries.
+Day in and day out they labored, officer and men. Sawing off stumps under
+the water, knocking poisonous snakes by scores from the branches, while
+the river rose and rose and rose, and the rain crept by inches under
+their tent flies, and the enemy walked the parapet of Vicksburg and
+laughed. Two gunboats accomplished the feat of running the batteries,
+that their smiles might be sobered.
+
+To the young officers who were soiling their uniform with the grease of
+saws, whose only fighting was against fever and water snakes, the news of
+an expedition into the Vicksburg side of the river was hailed with caps
+in the air. To be sure, the saw and axe, and likewise the levee and the
+snakes, were to be there, too. But there was likely to be a little
+fighting. The rest of the corps that was to stay watched grimly as the
+detachment put off in the little 'Diligence' and 'Silver Wave'.
+
+All the night the smoke-pipes were batting against the boughs of oak and
+cottonwood, and snapping the trailing vines. Some other regiments went by
+another route. The ironclads, followed in hot haste by General Sherman in
+a navy tug, had gone ahead, and were even then shoving with their noses
+great trunks of trees in their eagerness to get behind the Rebels. The
+Missouri regiment spread out along the waters, and were soon waist deep,
+hewing a path for the heavier transports to come. Presently the General
+came back to a plantation half under water, where Black Bayou joins Deer
+Creek, to hurry the work in cleaning out that Bayou. The light transports
+meanwhile were bringing up more troops from a second detachment. All
+through the Friday the navy great guns were heard booming in the
+distance, growing quicker and quicker, until the quivering air shook the
+hanging things in that vast jungle. Saws stopped, and axes were poised
+over shoulders, and many times that day the General lifted his head
+anxiously. As he sat down in the evening in a slave cabin redolent with
+corn pone and bacon, the sound still hovered among the trees and rolled
+along the still waters.
+
+The General slept lightly. It was three o'clock Saturday morning when the
+sharp challenge of a sentry broke the silence. A negro, white eyed,
+bedraggled, and muddy, stood in the candle light under the charge of a
+young lieutenant. The officer saluted, and handed the General a roll of
+tobacco.
+
+"I found this man in the swamp, sir. He has a message from the Admiral--"
+
+The General tore open the roll and took from it a piece of tissue paper
+which he spread out and held under the candle. He turned to a staff
+officer who had jumped from his bed and was hurrying into his coat.
+
+"Porter's surrounded," he said. The order came in a flash. "Kilby Smith
+and all men here across creek to relief at once. I'll take canoe through
+bayou to Hill's and hurry reenforcements."
+
+The staff officer paused, his hand on the latch of the door.
+
+"But your escort, General. You're not going through that sewer in a canoe
+without an escort!"
+
+"I guess they won't look for a needle in that haystack," the General
+answered. For a brief second he eyed the lieutenant. "Get back to your
+regiment, Brice, if you want to go," he said.
+
+Stephen saluted and went out. All through the painful march that
+followed, though soaked in swamp water and bruised by cypress knees, he
+thought of Sherman in his canoe, winding unprotected through the black
+labyrinth, risking his life that more men might be brought to the rescue
+of the gunboats.
+
+The story of that rescue has been told most graphically by Sherman
+himself. How he picked up the men at work on the bayou and marched them
+on a coal barge; how he hitched the barge to a navy tug; how he met the
+little transport with a fresh load of troops, and Captain Elijah Brent's
+reply when the General asked if he would follow him. "As long as the boat
+holds together, General." And he kept his word. The boughs hammered at
+the smoke-pipes until they went by the board, and the pilothouse fell
+like a pack of cards on the deck before they had gone three miles and a
+half. Then the indomitable Sherman disembarked, a lighted candle in his
+hand, and led a stiff march through thicket and swamp and breast-deep
+backwater, where the little drummer boys carried their drums on their
+heads. At length, when they were come to some Indian mounds, they found a
+picket of three, companies of the force which had reached the flat the
+day before, and had been sent down to prevent the enemy from obstructing
+further the stream below the fleet.
+
+"The Admiral's in a bad way, sir," said the Colonel who rode up to meet
+the General. "He's landlocked. Those clumsy ironclads of his can't move
+backward or forward, and the Rebs have been peppering him for two days."
+
+Just then a fusillade broke from the thickets, nipping the branches from
+the cottonwoods about them.
+
+"Form your line," said the General. "Drive 'em out."
+
+The force swept forward, with the three picket companies in the swamp on
+the right. And presently they came in sight of the shapeless ironclads
+with their funnels belching smoke, a most remarkable spectacle. How
+Porter had pushed them there was one of the miracles of the war.
+
+Then followed one of a thousand memorable incidents in the life of a
+memorable man. General Sherman, jumping on the bare back of a scrawny
+horse, cantered through the fields. And the bluejackets, at sight of that
+familiar figure, roared out a cheer that might have shaken the drops from
+the wet boughs. The Admiral and the General stood together on the deck,
+their hands clasped. And the Colonel astutely remarked, as he rode up in
+answer to a summons, that if Porter was the only man whose daring could
+have pushed a fleet to that position, Sherman was certainly the only man
+who could have got him out of it.
+
+"Colonel," said the General, "that move was well executed, sir. Admiral,
+did the Rebs put a bullet through your rum casks? We're just a little
+tired. And now," he added, wheeling on the Colonel when each had a glass
+in his hand, "who was in command of that company on the right, in the
+swamp? He handled them like a regular."
+
+"He's a second lieutenant, General, in the Sixth Missouri. Captain
+wounded at Hindman, and first lieutenant fell out down below. His name is
+Brice, I believe."
+
+"I thought so," said the General.
+
+Some few days afterward, when the troops were slopping around again at
+Young's Point, opposite Vicksburg, a gentleman arrived on a boat from St.
+Louis. He paused on the levee to survey with concern and astonishment the
+flood of waters behind it, and then asked an officer the way to General
+Sherman's headquarters. The officer, who was greatly impressed by the
+gentleman's looks, led him at once to a trestle bridge which spanned the
+distance from the levee bank over the flood to a house up to its first
+floor in the backwaters. The orderly saluted.
+
+"Who shall I say, sir?"
+
+The officer looked inquiringly at the gentleman, who gave his name.
+
+The officer could not repress a smile at the next thing that happened.
+Out hurried the General himself, with both hands outstretched.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he cried, "if it isn't Brinsmade. Come right in, come
+right in and take dinner. The boys will be glad to see you. I'll send and
+tell Grant you're here. Brinsmade, if it wasn't for you and your friends
+on the Western Sanitary Commission, we'd all have been dead of fever and
+bad food long ago." The General sobered abruptly. "I guess a good many of
+the boys are laid up now," he added.
+
+"I've come down to do what I can, General," responded Mr. Brinsmade,
+gravely. "I want to go through all the hospitals to see that our nurses
+are doing their duty and that the stores are properly distributed."
+
+"You shall, sir, this minute," said the General. He dropped instantly the
+affairs which he had on hand, and without waiting for dinner the two
+gentlemen went together through the wards where the fever raged. The
+General surprised his visitor by recognizing private after private in the
+cots, and he always had a brief word of cheer to brighten their faces, to
+make them follow him with wistful eyes as he passed beyond them. "That's
+poor Craig," he would say, "corporal, Third Michigan. They tell me he
+can't live," and "That's Olcott, Eleventh Indiana. Good God!" cried the
+General, when they were out in the air again, "how I wish some of these
+cotton traders could get a taste of this fever. They keep well--the
+vultures--And by the way, Brinsmade, the man who gave me no peace at all
+at Memphis was from your city. Why, I had to keep a whole corps on duty
+to watch him."
+
+"What was his name, sir?" Mr. Brinsmade asked.
+
+"Hopper!" cried the General, with feeling. "Eliphalet Hopper. As long as
+I live I shall never forget it. How the devil did he get a permit? What
+are they about at Washington?"
+
+"You surprise me," said Mr. Brinsmade. "He has always seemed inoffensive,
+and I believe he is a prominent member of one of our churches."
+
+"I guess that's so," answered the General, dryly. "I ever I set eyes on
+him again, he's clapped into the guardhouse. He knows it, too."
+
+"Speaking of St. Louis, General," said Mr. Brinsmade, presently, "have
+you ever heard of Stephen Brice? joined your army last autumn. You may
+remember talking to him one evening at my house."
+
+"He's one of my boys!" cried the General. "Remember him? Guess I do!" He
+paused on the very brink of relating again the incident at Camp Jackson,
+when Stephen had saved the life of Mr. Brinsmade's own son. "Brinsmade,
+for three days I've had it on my mind to send for that boy. I'll have him
+at headquarters now. I like him," cried General Sherman, with tone and
+gesture there was no mistaking. And good Mr. Brinsmade, who liked
+Stephen, too, rejoiced at the story he would have to tell the widow. "He
+has spirit, Brinsmade. I told him to let me know when he was ready to go
+to war. No such thing. He never came near me. The first thing I hear of
+him is that he's digging holes in the clay of Chickasaw Bluff, and his
+cap is fanned off by the blast of a Parrott six feet above his head. Next
+thing he turns up on that little expedition we took to get Porter to sea
+again. When we got to the gunboats, there was Brice's company on the
+flank. He handled those men surprisingly, sir--surprisingly. I shouldn't
+have blamed the boy if one or two Rebs got by him. But no, he swept the
+place clean." By this time they had come back to the bridge leading to
+headquarters, and the General beckoned quickly to an orderly.
+
+"My compliments to Lieutenant Stephen Brice, Sixth Missouri, and ask him
+to report here at once. At once, you understand!"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+It so happened that Mr. Brice's company were swinging axes when the
+orderly arrived, and Mr. Brice had an axe himself, and was up to his boot
+tops in yellow mud.
+
+The orderly, who had once been an Iowa farmer, was near grinning when he
+gave the General's message and saw the lieutenant gazing ruefully at his
+clothes.
+
+Entering headquarters, Stephen paused at the doorway of the big room
+where the officers of the different staffs were scattered about, smoking,
+while the negro servants were removing the dishes from the table. The
+sunlight, reflected from the rippling water outside, danced on the
+ceiling. At the end of the room sat General Sherman, his uniform, as
+always, a trifle awry. His soft felt hat with the gold braid was tilted
+forward, and his feet, booted and spurred, were crossed. Small wonder
+that the Englishman who sought the typical American found him in Sherman.
+
+The sound that had caught Stephen's attention was the General's voice,
+somewhat high-pitched, in the key that he used in telling a story. These
+were his closing words.
+
+"Sin gives you a pretty square deal, boys, after all. Generally a man
+says, 'Well, I can resist, but I'll have my fun just this once.' That's
+the way it happens. They tell you that temptation comes irresistibly.
+Don't believe it. Do you, Mr. Brice? Come over here, sir. Here's a friend
+of yours."
+
+Stephen made his way to the General, whose bright eyes wandered rapidly
+over him as he added:
+
+"This is the condition my officers report in, Brinsmade,--mud from head
+to heel."
+
+Stephen had sense enough to say nothing, but the staff officers laughed,
+and Mr. Brinsmade smiled as he rose and took Stephen's hand.
+
+"I am delighted to see that you are well, sir," said he, with that formal
+kindliness which endeared him to all. "Your mother will be rejoiced at my
+news of you. You will be glad to hear that I left her well, Stephen."
+
+Stephen inquired for Mrs. Brinsmade and Anne.
+
+"They are well, sir, and took pleasure in adding to a little box which
+your mother sent. Judge Whipple put in a box of fine cigars, although he
+deplores the use of tobacco."
+
+"And the Judge, Mr. Brinsmade--how is he?"
+
+The good gentleman's face fell.
+
+"He is ailing, sir, it grieves me to say. He is in bed, sir. But he is
+ably looked after. Your mother desired to have him moved to her house,
+but he is difficult to stir from his ways, and he would not leave his
+little room. He is ably nursed. We have got old Nancy, Hester's mother,
+to stay with him at night, and Mrs. Brice divides the day with Miss Jinny
+Carvel, who comes in from Bellegarde every afternoon."
+
+"Miss Carvel?" exclaimed Stephen, wondering if he heard aright. And at
+the mention of her name he tingled.
+
+"None other, sir," answered Mr. Brinsmade. "She has been much honored for
+it. You may remember that the Judge was a close friend of her father's
+before the war. And--well, they quarrelled, sir. The Colonel went South,
+you know."
+
+"When--when was the Judge taken ill, Mr. Brinsmade?" Stephen asked. The
+thought of Virginia and his mother caring for him together was strangely
+sweet.
+
+"Two days before I left, sir, Dr. Polk had warned him not to do so much.
+But the Doctor tells me that he can see no dangerous symptoms."
+
+Stephen inquired now of Mr. Brinsmade how long he was to be with them.
+
+"I am going on to the other camps this afternoon," said he. "But I should
+like a glimpse of your quarters, Stephen, if you will invite me. Your
+mother would like a careful account of you, and Mr. Whipple, and--your
+many friends in St. Louis."
+
+"You will find my tent a little wet, air," replied Stephen, touched.
+
+Here the General, who had been sitting by watching them with a very
+curious expression, spoke up.
+
+"That's hospitality for you, Brinsmade!"
+
+Stephen and Mr. Brinsmade made their way across plank and bridge to
+Stephen's tent, and his mess servant arrived in due time with the package
+from home. But presently, while they sat talking of many things, the
+canvas of the fly was thrust back with a quick movement, and who should
+come stooping in but General Sherman himself. He sat down on a cracker
+box. Stephen rose confusedly.
+
+"Well, well, Brice," said the General, winking at Mr. Brinsmade, "I think
+you might have invited me to the feast. Where are those cigars Mr.
+Brinsmade was talking about?"
+
+Stephen opened the box with alacrity. The General chose one and lighted
+it.
+
+"Don't smoke, eh?" he inquired. "Why, yes, sir, when I can."
+
+"Then light up, sir," said the General, "and sit down, I've been thinking
+lately of court-martialing you, but I decided to come 'round and talk it
+over with you first. That isn't strictly according to the rules of the
+service. Look here, Mr. Brice, why did you leave St. Louis?"
+
+"They began to draft, sir, and I couldn't stand it any longer."
+
+"But you wouldn't have been drafted. You were in the Home Guards, if I
+remember right. And Mr. Brinsmade tells me you were useful in many ways
+What was your rank in the Home Guards?"
+
+"Lieutenant colonel, sir."
+
+"And what are you here?"
+
+"A second lieutenant in temporary command, General."  "You have commanded
+men?"
+
+"Not in action, sir. I felt that that was different."
+
+"Couldn't they do better for you than a second-lieutenancy?"
+
+Stephen did not reply at once, Mr. Brinsmade spoke up, "They offered him
+a lieutenant-colonelcy."
+
+The General was silent a moment: Then he said "Do you remember meeting me
+on the boat when I was leaving St. Louis, after the capture of Fort
+Henry?"
+
+Stephen smiled. "Very well, General," he replied, General Sherman leaned
+forward.
+
+"And do you remember I said to you, 'Brice, when you get ready to come
+into this war, let me know.' Why didn't you do it?"
+
+Stephen thought a minute. Then he said gravely, but with just a suspicion
+of humor about his mouth:-- "General, if I had done that, you wouldn't be
+here in my tent to-day."
+
+Like lightning the General was on his feet, his hand on Stephen's
+shoulder.
+
+"By gad, sir," he cried, delighted, "so I wouldn't."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A STRANGE MEETING
+
+The story of the capture of Vicksburg is the old, old story of failure
+turned into success, by which man is made immortal. It involves the
+history of a general who never retraced his steps, who cared neither for
+mugwump murmurs nor political cabals, who took both blame and praise with
+equanimity. Through month after month of discouragement, and work gone
+for naught, and fever and death, his eyes never left his goal. And by
+grace of the wisdom of that President who himself knew sorrow and
+suffering and defeat and unjust censure, General Grant won.
+
+Boldness did it. The canal abandoned, one red night fleet and transports
+swept around the bend and passed the city's heights, on a red river. The
+Parrotts and the Dahlgrens roared, and the high bluffs flung out the
+sound over the empty swamp land.
+
+Then there came the landing below, and the cutting loose from a base
+--unheard of. Corps behind cursed corps ahead for sweeping the country
+clear of forage. Battles were fought. Confederate generals in Mississippi
+were bewildered.
+
+One night, while crossing with his regiment a pontoon bridge, Stephen
+Brice heard a shout raised on the farther shore. Sitting together on a
+log under a torch, two men in slouch hats were silhouetted. That one
+talking with rapid gestures was General Sherman. The impassive profile of
+the other, the close-cropped beard and the firmly held cigar that seemed
+to go with it,--Stephen recognized as that of the strange Captain Grant
+who had stood beside him in the street by the Arsenal He had not changed
+a whit. Motionless, he watched corps after corps splash by, artillery,
+cavalry, and infantry, nor gave any sign that he heard their plaudits.
+
+At length the army came up behind the city to a place primeval, where the
+face of the earth was sore and tortured, worn into deep gorges by the
+rains, and flung up in great mounds. Stripped of the green magnolias and
+the cane, the banks of clay stood forth in hideous yellow nakedness, save
+for a lonely stunted growth, or a bare trunk that still stood tottering
+on the edge of a banks its pitiful withered roots reaching out below. The
+May weather was already sickly hot.
+
+First of all there was a murderous assault, and a still more murderous
+repulse. Three times the besiegers charged, sank their color staffs into
+the redoubts, and three times were driven back. Then the blue army
+settled into the earth and folded into the ravines. Three days in that
+narrow space between the lines lay the dead and wounded suffering untold
+agonies in the moist heat. Then came a truce to bury the dead, to bring
+back what was left of the living.
+
+The doomed city had no rest. Like clockwork from the Mississippi's banks
+beyond came the boom and shriek of the coehorns on the barges. The big
+shells hung for an instant in the air like birds of prey, and then could
+be seen swooping down here and there, while now and anon a shaft of smoke
+rose straight to the sky, the black monument of a home.
+
+Here was work in the trenches, digging the flying sap by night and
+deepening it by day, for officers and men alike. From heaven a host of
+blue ants could be seen toiling in zigzags forward, ever forward, along
+the rude water-cuts and through the hills. A waiting carrion from her
+vantage point on high marked one spot then another where the blue ants
+disappeared, and again one by one came out of the burrow to hurry down
+the trench,--each with his ball of clay.
+
+In due time the ring of metal and sepulchred voices rumbled in the ground
+beneath the besieged. Counter mines were started, and through the narrow
+walls of earth commands and curses came. Above ground the saps were so
+near that a strange converse became the rule. It was "Hello, Reb!"
+"Howdy, Yank!" Both sides were starving, the one for tobacco and the
+other for hardtack and bacon. These necessities were tossed across,
+sometimes wrapped in the Vicksburg news-sheet printed on the white side
+of a homely green wall paper. At other times other amenities were
+indulged in. Hand-grenades were thrown and shells with lighted fuses
+rolled down on the heads of acquaintances of the night before, who
+replied from wooden coehorns hooped with iron.
+
+The Union generals learned (common item in a siege) that the citizens of
+Vicksburg were eating mule meat. Not an officer or private in the
+Vicksburg armies who does not remember the 25th of June, and the hour of
+three in an afternoon of pitiless heat. Silently the long blue files
+wound into position behind the earth barriers which hid them from the
+enemy, coiled and ready to strike when the towering redoubt on the
+Jackson road should rise heavenwards. By common consent the rifle crack
+of day and night was hushed, and even the Parrotts were silent. Stillness
+closed around the white house of Shirley once more, but not the stillness
+it had known in its peaceful homestead days. This was the stillness of
+the death prayer. Eyes staring at the big redoubt were dimmed. At last,
+to those near, a little wisp of blue smoke crept out.
+
+Then the earth opened with a quake. The sun was darkened, and a hot blast
+fanned the upturned faces. In the sky, through the film of shattered
+clay, little black dots scurried, poised, and fell again as arms and legs
+and head less trunks and shapeless bits of wood and iron. Scarcely had
+the dust settled when the sun caught the light of fifty thousand
+bayonets, and a hundred shells were shrieking across the crater's edge.
+Earth to earth, alas, and dust to dust! Men who ran across that rim of a
+summer's after-noon died in torture under tier upon tier of their
+comrades,--and so the hole was filled.
+
+An upright cannon marks the spot where a scrawny oak once stood on a
+scarred and baked hillside, outside of the Confederate lines at
+Vicksburg. Under the scanty shade of that tree, on the eve of the
+Nation's birthday, stood two men who typified the future and the past. As
+at Donelson, a trick of Fortune's had delivered one comrade of old into
+the hands of another. Now she chose to kiss the one upon whom she had
+heaped obscurity and poverty and contumely. He had ceased to think or
+care about Fortune. And hence, being born a woman, she favored him.
+
+The two armies watched and were still. They noted the friendly greeting
+of old comrades, and after that they saw the self-contained Northerner
+biting his cigar, as one to whom the pleasantries of life were past and
+gone. The South saw her General turn on his heel. The bitterness of his
+life was come. Both sides honored him for the fight he had made. But war
+does not reward a man according to his deserts.
+
+The next day--the day our sundered nation was born Vicksburg surrendered:
+the obstinate man with the mighty force had conquered. See the gray
+regiments marching silently in the tropic heat into the folds of that
+blue army whose grip has choked them at last. Silently, too, the blue
+coats stand, pity and admiration on the brick-red faces. The arms are
+stacked and surrendered, officers and men are to be parolled when the
+counting is finished. The formations melt away, and those who for months
+have sought each other's lives are grouped in friendly talk. The coarse
+army bread is drawn eagerly from the knapsacks of the blue, smoke quivers
+above a hundred fires, and the smell of frying bacon brings a wistful
+look into the gaunt faces. Tears stand in the eyes of many a man as he
+eats the food his Yankee brothers have given him on the birthday of their
+country.
+
+Within the city it is the same. Stephen Brice, now a captain in General
+Lauman's brigade, sees with thanksgiving the stars and stripes flutter
+from the dome of that court-house which he had so long watched from afar.
+
+Later on, down a side street, he pauses before a house with its face
+blown away. On the verge of one of its jagged floors is an old
+four-posted bed, and beside it a child's cot is standing pitifully,--the
+tiny pillow still at the head and the little sheets thrown across the
+foot. So much for one of the navy's shells.
+
+While he was thinking of the sadness of it all, a little scene was acted:
+the side door of the house opened, a weeping woman came out, and with her
+was a tall Confederate Colonel of cavalry. Gallantly giving her his arm,
+he escorted her as far as the little gate, where she bade him good by
+with much feeling. With an impulsive movement he drew some money from his
+pocket, thrust it upon her, and started hurriedly away that he might not
+listen to her thanks. Such was his preoccupation that he actually brushed
+into Stephen, who was standing beside a tree. He stopped and bowed.
+
+"Excuse me, seh," he said contritely. "I beg your pardon, seh."
+
+"Certainly," said Stephen, smiling; it was my fault for getting in your
+way."
+
+"Not at all, seh," said the cavalry Colonel; "my clumsiness, seh." He did
+not pass on, but stood pulling with some violence a very long mustache.
+"Damn you Yankees," he continued, in the same amiable tone, "you've
+brought us a heap of misfortune. Why, seh, in another week we'd been
+fo'ced to eat niggers."
+
+The Colonel made such a wry face that Stephen laughed in spite of
+himself. He had marked the man's charitable action, and admired his
+attempt to cover it. The Colonel seemed to be all breadth, like a card.
+His shoulders were incredible. The face was scant, perchance from lack of
+food, the nose large, with a curved rim, and the eyes blue gray. He wore
+clay-flecked cavalry boots, and was six feet five if an inch, so that
+Stephen's six seemed insignificant beside him.
+
+"Captain," he said, taking in Stephen's rank, "so we won't qua'l as to
+who's host heah. One thing's suah," he added, with a twinkle, "I've been
+heah longest. Seems like ten yeahs since I saw the wife and children down
+in the Palmetto State. I can't offer you a dinner, seh. We've eaten all
+the mules and rats and sugar cane in town." (His eye seemed to
+interpolate that Stephen wouldn't be there otherwise.) "But I can offer
+you something choicer than you have in the No'th."
+
+Whereupon he drew from his hip a dented silver flask. The Colonel
+remarked that Stephen's eyes fell on the coat of arms.
+
+"Prope'ty of my grandfather, seh, of Washington's Army. My name is
+Jennison,--Catesby Jennison, at your service, seh," he said. "You have
+the advantage of me, Captain."
+
+"My name is Brice," said Stephen.
+
+The big Colonel bowed decorously, held out a great, wide hand, and
+thereupon unscrewed the flask. Now Stephen had never learned to like
+straight whiskey, but he took down his share without a face. The exploit
+seemed to please the Colonel, who, after he likewise had done the liquor
+justice, screwed on the lid with ceremony, offered Stephen his arm with
+still greater ceremony, and they walked off down the street together.
+Stephen drew from his pocket several of Judge Whipple's cigars, to which
+his new friend gave unqualified praise.
+
+On every hand Vicksburg showed signs of hard usage. Houses with gaping
+chasms in their sides, others mere heaps of black ruins; great trees
+felled, cabins demolished, and here and there the sidewalk ploughed
+across from curb to fence.
+
+"Lordy," exclaimed the Colonel. "Lordy I how my ears ache since your
+damned coehorns have stopped. The noise got to be silence with us, seh,
+and yesterday I reckoned a hundred volcanoes had bust. Tell me," said he
+"when the redoubt over the Jackson road was blown up, they said a nigger
+came down in your lines alive. Is that so?"
+
+"Yes," said Stephen, smiling; "he struck near the place where my company
+was stationed. His head ached a mite. That seemed to be all."
+
+"I reckon he fell on it," said Colonel Catesby Jennison, as if it were a
+matter of no special note.
+
+"And now tell me something," said Stephen. "How did you burn our
+sap-rollers?"
+
+This time the Colonel stopped, and gave himself up to hearty laughter.
+
+"Why, that was a Yankee trick, sure enough," he cried. "Some ingenious
+cuss soaked port fire in turpentine, and shot the wad in a large-bore
+musket."
+
+"We thought you used explosive bullets."
+
+The Colonel laughed again, still more heartily. "Explosive bullets!
+--Good Lord, it was all we could do to get percussion caps. Do you know how
+we got percussion caps, seh? Three of our officers--dare-devils, seh
+--floated down the Mississippi on logs. One fellow made his way back with
+two hundred thousand. He's the pride of our Vicksburg army. Not afraid of
+hell. A chivalrous man, a forlorn-hope man. The night you ran the
+batteries he and some others went across to your side in skiffs--in
+skiffs, seh, I say--and set fire to the houses in De Soto, that we might
+see to shoot. And then he came back in the face of our own batteries and
+your guns. That man was wounded by a trick of fate, by a cussed bit of
+shell from your coehorns while eating his dinner in Vicksburg. He's
+pretty low, now, poor fellow," added the Colonel, sadly.
+
+"Where is he?" demanded Stephen, fired with a desire to see the man.
+
+"Well, he ain't a great ways from here," said the Colonel. "Perhaps you
+might be able to do something for him," he continued thoughtfully. "I'd
+hate to see him die. The doctor says he'll pull through if he can get
+care and good air and good food." He seized Stephen's arm in a fierce
+grip. "You ain't fooling?" he said.
+
+"Indeed I am not," said Stephen.
+
+"No," said the Colonel, thoughtfully, as to himself, "you don't look like
+the man to fool."
+
+Whereupon he set out with great strides, in marked contrast to his former
+languorous gait, and after a while they came to a sort of gorge, where
+the street ran between high banks of clay. There Stephen saw the
+magazines which the Confederates had dug out, and of which he had heard.
+But he saw something, too, of which he had not heard, Colonel Catesby
+Jennison stopped before an open doorway in the yellow bank and knocked. A
+woman's voice called softly to him to enter.
+
+They went into a room hewn out of the solid clay. Carpet was stretched on
+the floor, paper was on the walls, and even a picture. There was a little
+window cut like a port in a prison cell, and under it a bed, beside which
+a middle-aged lady was seated. She had a kindly face which seemed to
+Stephen a little pinched as she turned to them with a gesture of
+restraint. She pointed to the bed, where a sheet lay limply over the
+angles of a wasted frame. The face was to the wall.
+
+"Hush!" said the lady,--"it is the first time in two days that he has
+slept."
+
+But the sleeper stirred wearily, and woke with a start. He turned over.
+The face, so yellow and peaked, was of the type that grows even more
+handsome in sickness, and in the great fever-stricken eyes a high spirit
+burned. For an instant only the man stared at Stephen, and then he
+dragged himself to the wall.
+
+The eyes of the other two were both fixed on the young Union Captain.
+
+"My God!" cried Jennison, seizing Stephen's rigid arm, "does he look as
+bad as that? We've seen him every day."
+
+"I--I know him," answered Stephen. He stepped quickly to the bedside, and
+bent over it. "Colfax!" he said. "Colfax!"
+
+"This is too much, Jennison," came from the bed a voice that was
+pitifully weak; "why do you bring Yankees in here?"
+
+"Captain Brice is a friend of yours, Colfax," said the Colonel, tugging
+at his mustache.
+
+"Brice?" repeated Clarence, "Brice? Does he come from St. Louis?"
+
+"Do you come from St. Louis, sir?"
+
+"Yes. I have met Captain Colfax--"
+
+"Colonel, sir."
+
+"Colonel Colfax, before the war! And if he would like to go to St. Louis,
+I think I can have it arranged at once."
+
+In silence they waited for Clarence's answer Stephen well knew what was
+passing in his mind, and guessed at his repugnance to accept a favor from
+a Yankee. He wondered whether there was in this case a special
+detestation. And so his mind was carried far to the northward to the
+memory of that day in the summer-house on the Meramee heights. Virginia
+had not loved her cousin then--of that Stephen was sure. But now,--now
+that the Vicksburg army was ringing with his praise, now that he was
+unfortunate--Stephen sighed. His comfort was that he would be the
+instrument.
+
+The lady in her uneasiness smoothed the single sheen that covered the
+sick man. From afar came the sound of cheering, and it was this that
+seemed to rouse him. He faced them again, impatiently.
+
+"I have reason to remember Mr. Brice," he said steadily. And then, with
+some vehemence, "What is he doing in Vicksburg?"
+
+Stephen looked at Jennison, who winced.
+
+"The city has surrendered," said that officer.
+
+They counted on a burst of anger. Colfax only groaned.
+
+"Then you can afford to be generous," he said, with a bitter laugh. "But
+you haven't whipped us yet, by a good deal. Jennison," he cried,
+"Jennison, why in hell did you give up?"
+
+"Colfax," said Stephen, coming forward, "you're too sick a man to talk.
+I'll look up the General. It may be that I can have you sent North
+to-day."
+
+"You can do as you please," said Clarence, coldly, "with a--prisoner."
+
+The blood rushed to Stephen's face. Bowing to the lady, he strode out of
+the room. Colonel Jennison, running after him, caught him in the street.
+
+"You're not offended, Brice?" he said. "He's sick--and God Almighty, he's
+proud--I reckon," he added with a touch of humility that went straight to
+Stephen's heart. "I reckon that some of us are too derned proud--But we
+ain't cold."
+
+Stephen grasped his hand.
+
+"Offended!" he said. "I admire the man. I'll go to the General directly.
+But just let me thank you. And I hope, Colonel, that we may meet again
+--as friends." "Hold on, seh," said Colonel Catesby Jennison; "we may as
+well drink to that."
+
+Fortunately, as Stephen drew near the Court House, he caught sight of a
+group of officers seated on its steps, and among them he was quick to
+recognize General Sherman.
+
+"Brice," said the General, returning his salute, "been celebrating this
+glorious Fourth with some of our Rebel friends?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Stephen, "and I came to ask a favor for one of
+them." Seeing that the General's genial, interested expression did not
+change, he was emboldened to go on. "This is one of their colonels, sir.
+You may have heard of him. He is the man who floated down the river on a
+log and brought back two hundred thousand percussion caps--"
+
+"Good Lord," interrupted the General, "I guess we all heard of him after
+that. What else has he done to endear himself?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"Well, General, he rowed across the river in a skiff the night we ran
+these batteries, and set fire to De Soto to make targets for their
+gunners."
+
+"I'd like to see that man," said the General, in his eager way. "Where is
+he?"
+
+"What I was going to tell you, sir. After he went through all this, he
+was hit by a piece of mortar shell, while sitting at his dinner. He's
+rather far gone now, General, and they say he can't live unless he can be
+sent North. I--I know who he is in St. Louis. And I thought that as long
+as the officers are to be paroled I might get your permission to send him
+up to-day."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Colfax, sir."
+
+The General laughed. "I know the breed," said he, "I'll bet he didn't
+thank you."
+
+"No, sir, he didn't."
+
+"I like his grit," said the General, emphatically, "These young bloods
+are the backbone of this rebellion, Brice. They were made for war. They
+never did anything except horse-racing and cock-fighting. They ride like
+the devil, fight like the devil, but don't care a picayune for anything.
+Walker had some of 'em. Crittenden had some. And, good Lord, how they
+hate a Yankee! I know this Colfax, too. He's a cousin of that
+fine-looking girl Brinsmade spoke of. They say he's engaged to her. Be a
+pity to disappoint her--eh?"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+"Why, Captain, I believe you would like to marry her yourself! Take my
+advice, sir, and don't try to tame any wildcats."
+
+"I'm glad to do a favor for that young man," said the General, when
+Stephen had gone off with the slip of paper he had given him. "I like to
+do that kind of a favor for any officer, when I can. Did you notice how
+he flared up when I mentioned the girl?"
+
+This is why Clarence Colfax found himself that evening on a hospital
+steamer of the Sanitary Commission, bound north for St. Louis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BELLEGARDE ONCE MORE
+
+Supper at Bellegarde was not the simple meal it had been for a year past
+at Colonel Carvel's house in town. Mrs. Colfax was proud of her table,
+proud of her fried chickens and corn fritters and her desserts. How
+Virginia chafed at those suppers, and how she despised the guests whom
+her aunt was in the habit of inviting to some of them! And when none was
+present, she was forced to listen to Mrs. Colfax's prattle about the
+fashions, her tirades against the Yankees.
+
+"I'm sure he must be dead," said that lady, one sultry evening in July.
+Her tone, however, was not one of conviction. A lazy wind from the river
+stirred the lawn of Virginia's gown. The girl, with her hand on the
+wicker back of the chair, was watching a storm gather to the eastward,
+across the Illinois prairie.
+
+"I don't see why you say that, Aunt Lillian," she replied. "Bad news
+travels faster than good."
+
+"And not a word from Comyn. It is cruel of him not to send us a line,
+telling us where his regiment is."
+
+Virginia did not reply. She had long since learned that the wisdom of
+silence was the best for her aunt's unreasonableness. Certainly, if
+Clarence's letters could not pass the close lines of the Federal troops,
+news of her father's Texas regiment could not come from Red River.
+
+"How was Judge Whipple to-day?" asked Mrs. Colfax presently.
+
+"Very weak. He doesn't seem to improve much."
+
+"I can't see why Mrs. Brice,--isn't that her name?--doesn't take him to
+her house. Yankee women are such prudes."
+
+Virginia began to rock slowly, and her foot tapped the porch.
+
+"Mrs. Brice has begged the Judge to come to her. But he says he has lived
+in those rooms, and that he will die there,--when the time comes."
+
+"How you worship that woman, Virginia! You have become quite a Yankee
+yourself, I believe, spending whole days with her, nursing that old man."
+
+"The Judge is an old friend of my father's; I think he would wish it,"
+replied the girl, in a lifeless voice.
+
+Her speech did not reveal all the pain and resentment she felt. She
+thought of the old man racked with pain and suffering in the heat, lying
+patient on his narrow bed, the only light of life remaining the presence
+of the two women. They came day by day, and often Margaret Brice had
+taken the place of the old negress who sat with him at night. Worship
+Margaret Brice! Yes, it was worship; it had been worship since the day
+she and her father had gone to the little whitewashed hospital.
+Providence had brought them together at the Judge's bedside. The
+marvellous quiet power of the older woman had laid hold of the girl in
+spite of all barriers.
+
+Often when the Judge's pain was eased sufficiently for him to talk, he
+would speak of Stephen. The mother never spoke of her son, but a light
+would come into her eyes at this praise of him which thrilled Virginia to
+see. And when the good lady was gone, and the Judge had fallen into
+slumber, it would still haunt her.
+
+Was it out of consideration for her that Mrs. Brice would turn the Judge
+from this topic which he seemed to love best? Virginia could not admit to
+herself that she resented this. She had heard Stephen's letters to the
+Judge. They came every week. Strong and manly they were, with plenty of
+praises for the Southern defenders of Vicksburg. Only yesterday Virginia
+had read one of these to Mr. Whipple, her face burning. Well that his
+face was turned to the window, and that Stephen's mother was not there!
+
+"He says very little about himself," Mr. Whipple complained. "Had it not
+been for Brinsmade, we should never know that Sherman had his eye on him,
+and had promoted him. We should never have known of that exploit at
+Chickasaw Bluff. But what a glorious victory was Grant's capture of
+Vicksburg, on the Fourth of July! I guess we'll make short work of the
+Rebels now."
+
+No, the Judge had not changed much, even in illness. He would never
+change. Virginia laid the letter down, and tears started to her eyes as
+she repressed a retort. It was not the first time this had happened. At
+every Union victory Mr. Whipple would loose his tongue. How strange that,
+with all his thought of others, he should fall short here!
+
+One day, after unusual forbearance, Mrs. Brice had overtaken Virginia on
+the stairway. Well she knew the girl's nature, and how difficult she must
+have found repression. Margaret Brice had taken her hand.
+
+"My dear," she had said, "you are a wonderful woman." That was all. But
+Virginia had driven back to Belle. garde with a strange elation in her
+heart.
+
+Some things the Judge had forborne to mention, and for this Virginia was
+thankful. One was the piano. But she had overheard Shadrach telling old
+Nancy how Mrs. Brice had pleaded with him to move it, that he might have
+more room and air. He had been obdurate. And Colonel Carvel's name had
+never once passed his lips.
+
+Many a night the girl had lain awake listening to the steamboats as they
+toiled against the river's current, while horror held her. Horror lest
+her father at that moment be in mortal agony amongst the heaps left by
+the battle's surges; heaps in which, like mounds of ashes, the fire was
+not yet dead. Fearful tales she had heard in the prison hospitals of
+wounded men lying for days in the Southern sun between the trenches at
+Vicksburg, or freezing amidst the snow and sleet at Donelson.
+
+Was her bitterness against the North not just? What a life had been
+Colonel Carvel's! It had dawned brightly. One war had cost him his wife.
+Another, and he had lost his fortune, his home, his friends, all that was
+dear to him. And that daughter, whom he loved best in all the world, he
+was perchance to see no more.
+
+Mrs. Colfax, yawning, had taken a book and gone to bed. Still Virginia
+sat on the porch, while the frogs sang of rain, and the lightning
+quivered across the eastern sky. She heard the crunch of wheels in the
+gravel.
+
+A bar of light, peopled by moths, slanted out of the doorway and fell on
+a closed carriage. A gentleman slowly ascended the steps. Virginia
+recognized him as Mr. Brinsmade.
+
+"Your cousin Clarence has come home, my dear," he said. "He was among the
+captured at Vicksburg, and is paroled by General Grant."
+
+Virginia gave a little cry and started forward. But he held her hands.
+
+"He has been wounded!"
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, "yes. Oh, tell me, Mr. Brinsmade, tell me--all--"
+
+"No, he is not dead, but he is very low. Mr. Russell has been kind enough
+to come with me."
+
+She hurried to call the servants. But they were all there in the light,
+in African postures of terror,--Alfred, and Sambo, and Mammy Easter, and
+Ned. They lifted the limp figure in gray, and carried it into the hall
+chamber, his eyes closed, his face waxen under a beard brown and shaggy.
+Heavily, Virginia climbed the stairs to break the news to her aunt.
+
+There is little need to dwell on the dark days which followed--Clarence
+hanging between life and death. That his life was saved was due to
+Virginia and to Mammy Easter, and in no particle to his mother. Mrs.
+Colfax flew in the face of all the known laws of nursing, until Virginia
+was driven to desperation, and held a council of war with Dr. Polk. Then
+her aunt grew jealous, talked of a conspiracy, and threatened to send for
+Dr. Brown--which Dr. Polk implored her to do. By spells she wept, when
+they quietly pushed her from the room and locked the door. She would
+creep in to him in the night during Mammy Easter's watches and talk him
+into a raging fever. But Virginia slept lightly and took the alarm. More
+than one scene these two had in the small hours, while Ned was riding
+post haste over the black road to town for the Doctor.
+
+By the same trusty messenger did Virginia contrive to send a note to Mrs.
+Brice, begging her to explain her absence to Judge Whipple. By day or
+night Virginia did not leave Bellegarde. And once Dr. Polk, while walking
+in the garden, found the girl fast asleep on a bench, her sewing on her
+lap. Would that a master had painted his face as he looked down at her!
+
+'Twas he who brought Virginia daily news of Judge Whipple. Bad news,
+alas! for he seemed to miss her greatly. He had become more querulous and
+exacting with patient Mrs. Brice, and inquired for her continually.
+
+She would not go. But often, when he got into his buggy the Doctor found
+the seat filled with roses and fresh fruit. Well he knew where to carry
+them.
+
+What Virginia's feelings were at this time no one will ever know. God had
+mercifully given her occupation, first with the Judge, and later, when
+she needed it more, with Clarence. It was she whom he recognized first of
+all, whose name was on his lips in his waking moments. With the petulance
+of returning reason, he pushed his mother away. Unless Virginia was at
+his bedside when he awoke, his fever rose. He put his hot hand into her
+cool one, and it rested there sometimes for hours. Then, and only then,
+did he seem contented.
+
+The wonder was that her health did not fail. People who saw her during
+that fearful summer, fresh and with color in her cheeks, marvelled.
+Great-hearted Puss Russell, who came frequently to inquire, was quieted
+before her friend, and the frank and jesting tongue was silent in that
+presence. Anne Brinsmade came with her father and wondered. A miracle had
+changed Virginia. Her poise, her gentleness, her dignity, were the
+effects which people saw. Her force people felt. And this is why we
+cannot of ourselves add one cubit to our stature. It is God who changes,
+--who cleanses us of our levity with the fire of trial. Happy, thrice
+happy, those whom He chasteneth. And yet how many are there who could not
+bear the fire--who would cry out at the flame.
+
+Little by little Clarence mended, until he came to sit out on the porch
+in the cool of the afternoon. Then he would watch for hours the tassels
+stirring over the green fields of corn and the river running beyond,
+while the two women sat by. At times, when Mrs. Colfax's headaches came
+on, and Virginia was alone with him, he would talk of the war; sometimes
+of their childhood, of the mad pranks they played here at Bellegarde, of
+their friends. Only when Virginia read to him the Northern account of the
+battles would he emerge from a calm sadness into excitement; and he
+clenched his fists and tried to rise when he heard of the capture of
+Jackson and the fall of Port Hudson. Of love he spoke not a word, and now
+that he was better he ceased to hold her hand. But often when she looked
+up from her book, she would surprise his dark eyes fixed upon her, and a
+look in them of but one interpretation. She was troubled.
+
+The Doctor came but every other day now, in the afternoon. It was his
+custom to sit for a while on the porch chatting cheerily with Virginia,
+his stout frame filling the rocking-chair. Dr. Polk's indulgence was
+gossip--though always of a harmless nature: how Mr. Cluyme always managed
+to squirm over to the side which was in favor, and how Maude Catherwood's
+love-letter to a certain dashing officer of the Confederate army had been
+captured and ruthlessly published in the hateful Democrat. It was the
+Doctor who gave Virginia news of the Judge, and sometimes he would
+mention Mrs. Brice. Then Clarence would raise his head; and once (she saw
+with trepidation) he had opened his lips to speak.
+
+One day the Doctor came, and Virginia looked into his face and divined
+that he had something to tell her. He sat but a few moments, and when he
+arose to go he took her hand.
+
+"I have a favor to beg of you, Jinny," he said, "Judge has lost his nurse.
+Do you think Clarence could spare you for a little while every day? I
+shouldn't ask it," Dr. Polk continued, somewhat hurriedly for him, "but
+the Judge cannot bear a stranger near him, and I am afraid to have him
+excited while in this condition."
+
+"Mrs. Brice is ill?" she cried. And Clarence, watching, saw her color go.
+
+"No," replied Dr. Polk, "but her son Stephen has come home from the army.
+He was transferred to Lauman's brigade, and then he was wounded." He
+jangled the keys in his pocket and continued "It seems that he had no
+business in the battle. Johnston in his retreat had driven animals into
+all the ponds and shot them, and in the hot weather the water was soon
+poisoned. Mr. Brice was scarcely well enough to stand when they made the
+charge, and he is now in a dreadful condition He is a fine fellow," added
+the Doctor, with a sigh, "General Sherman sent a special physician to the
+boat with him. He is--" Subconsciously the Doctor's arm sought Virginia's
+back, as though he felt her swaying. But he was looking at Clarence, who
+had jerked himself forward in his chair, his thin hands convulsively
+clutching at the arms of it. He did not appear to see Virginia.
+
+"Stephen Brice, did you say?" he cried, "will he die?"
+
+In his astonishment the Doctor passed his palm across his brow, and for a
+moment he did not answer. Virginia had taken a step from him, and was
+standing motionless, almost rigid, her eyes on his face.
+
+"Die?" he said, repeating the word mechanically; "my God, I hope not. The
+danger is over, and he is resting easily. If he were not," he said
+quickly and forcibly, "I should not be here."
+
+The Doctor's mare passed more than one fleet--footed trotter on the road.
+to town that day. And the Doctor's black servant heard his master utter
+the word "fool" twice, and with great emphasis.
+
+For a long time Virginia stood on the end of the porch, until the heaving
+of the buggy harness died on the soft road, She felt Clarence gaze upon
+her before she turned to face him.
+
+"Virginia!" He had called her so of late. "Yes, dear."
+
+"Virginia, sit here a moment; I have something to tell you."
+
+She came and took the chair beside him, her heart beating, her breast
+rising and falling. She looked into his eyes, and her own lashes fell
+before the hopelessness there But he put out his fingers wasted by
+illness, and she took them in her own.
+
+He began slowly, as if every word cost him pain.
+
+"Virginia, we were children together here. I cannot remember the time
+when I did not love you, when I did not think of you as my wife. All I
+did when we played together was to try to win your applause. That was my
+nature I could not help it. Do you remember the day I climbed out on the
+rotten branch of the big pear tree yonder to get you that pear--when I
+fell on the roof of Alfred's cabin? I did not feel the pain. It was
+because you kissed it and cried over me. You are crying now," he said
+tenderly. "Don't, Jinny. It isn't to make you sad that I am saying this.
+
+"I have had a great deal of time to think lately, Jinny, I was not
+brought up seriously,--to be a man. I have been thinking of that day just
+before you were eighteen, when you rode out here. How well I remember it.
+It was a purple day. The grapes were purple, and a purple haze was over
+there across the river. You had been cruel to me. You were grown a woman
+then, and I was still nothing but a boy. Do you remember the doe coming
+out of the forest, and how she ran screaming when I tried to kiss you?
+You told me I was good for nothing. Please don't interrupt me. It was
+true what you said, that I was wild and utterly useless, I had never
+served or pleased any but myself,--and you. I had never studied or
+worked, You were right when you told me I must learn something,--do
+something,--become of some account in the world. I am just as useless to
+day."
+
+"Clarence, after what you have done for the South?"
+
+He smiled with peculiar bitterness.
+
+"What have I done for her?" he added. "Crossed the river and burned
+houses. I could not build them again. Floated down the river on a log
+after a few percussion caps. That did not save Vicksburg."
+
+"And how many had the courage to do that?" she exclaimed.
+
+"Pooh," he said, "courage! the whole South has it, Courage! If I did not
+have that, I would send Sambo to my father's room for his ebony box and
+blow my brains out. No, Jinny, I am nothing but a soldier of fortune. I
+never possessed any quality but a wild spirit for adventure, to shirk
+work. I wanted to go with Walker, you remember. I wanted to go to Kansas.
+I wanted to distinguish myself," he added with a gesture. "But that is
+all gone now, Jinny. I wanted to distinguish myself for you. Now I see
+how an earnest life might have won you. No, I have not done yet."
+
+She raised her head, frightened, and looked at him searchingly.
+
+"One day," he said, "one day a good many years ago you and I and Uncle
+Comyn were walking along Market Street in front of Judge Whipple's
+office, and a slave auction was going on. A girl was being sold on whom
+you had set your heart. There was some one in the crowd, a Yankee, who
+bid her in and set her free. Do you remember him?"
+
+He saw her profile, her lips parted, her look far away, She inclined her
+head.
+
+"Yes," said her cousin, "so do I remember him. He has crossed my path
+many times since, Virginia. And mark what I say--it was he whom you had
+in mind on that birthday when you implored me to make something of
+myself, It was Stephen Brice."
+
+Her eyes flashed upon him quickly.
+
+"Oh, how dare you?" she cried.
+
+"I dare anything, Virginia," he answered quietly. "I am not blaming you.
+And I am sure that you did not realize that he was the ideal which you
+had in mind."
+
+The impression of him has never left it. Fate is in it. Again, that night
+at the Brinsmades', when we were in fancy dress, I felt that I had lost
+you when I got back. He had been there when I was away, and gone again.
+And--and--you never told me."
+
+"It was a horrible mistake, Max," she faltered. "I was waiting for you
+down the road, and stopped his horse instead. It--it was nothing--"
+
+"It was fate, Jinny. In that half-hour I lost you. How I hated that man,"
+he cried, "how I hated him?"
+
+"Hated!" exclaimed Virginia, involuntarily. "Oh, no!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "hated! I would have killed him if I could. But now--"
+
+"But now?"
+
+"Now he has saved my life. I have not--I could not tell you before: He
+came into the place where I was lying in Vicksburg, and they told him
+that my only chance was to come North, I turned my back upon him,
+insulted him. Yet he went to Sherman and had me brought home--to you,
+Virginia. If he loves you,--and I have long suspected that he does--"
+
+"Oh, no," she cried, hiding her face "No."
+
+"I know he loves you, Jinny," her cousin continued calmly, inexorably.
+"And you know that he does. You must feel that he does. It was a brave
+thing to do, and a generous. He knew that you were engaged to me. He
+thought that he was saving me for you. He was giving up the hope of
+marrying you himself."
+
+Virginia sprang to her feet. Unless you had seen her then, you had never
+known the woman in her glory.
+
+"Marry a Yankee!" she cried. "Clarence Colfax, have you known and loved
+me all my life that you might accuse me of this? Never, never, never!"
+Transformed, he looked incredulous admiration.
+
+"Jinny, do you mean it?" he cried.
+
+In answer she bent down with all that gentleness and grace that was hers,
+and pressed her lips to his forehead. Long after she had disappeared in
+the door he sat staring after her.
+
+But later, when Mammy Easter went to call her mistress for supper, she
+found her with her face buried in the pillows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN JUDGE WHIPPLE'S OFFICE
+
+After this Virginia went to the Judge's bedside every day, in the
+morning, when Clarence took his sleep. She read his newspapers to him
+when he was well enough. She read the detested Missouri Democrat, which I
+think was the greatest trial Virginia ever had to put up with. To have
+her beloved South abused, to have her heroes ridiculed, was more than she
+could bear. Once, when the Judge was perceptibly better, she flung the
+paper out of the window, and left the room. He called her back
+penitently.
+
+"My dear," he said, smiling admiration, "forgive an old bear. A selfish
+old bear, Jinny; my only excuse is my love for the Union. When you are
+not here, I lie in agony, lest she has suffered some mortal blow unknown
+to me, Jinny. And if God sees fit to spare our great country, the day
+will come when you will go down on your knees and thank Him for the
+inheritance which He saved for your children. You are a good woman, my
+dear, and a strong one. I have hoped that you will see the right. That
+you will marry a great citizen, one unwavering in his service and
+devotion to our Republic." The Judge's voice trembled with earnestness as
+he spoke. And the gray eyes under the shaggy brows were alight with the
+sacred fire of his life's purpose. Undaunted as her spirit was, she could
+not answer him then.
+
+Once, only once, he said to her: "Virginia, I loved your father better
+than any man I ever knew. Please God I may see him again before I die."
+
+He never spoke of the piano. But sometimes at twilight his eyes would
+rest on the black cloth that hid it.
+
+Virginia herself never touched that cloth to her it seemed the shroud
+upon a life of happiness that was dead and gone.
+
+Virginia had not been with Judge Whipple during the critical week after
+Stephen was brought home. But Anne had told her that his anxiety was a
+pitiful thing to see, and that it had left him perceptibly weaker.
+Certain it was that he was failing fast. So fast that on some days
+Virginia, watching him, would send Ned or Shadrach in hot haste for Dr.
+Polk.
+
+At noon Anne would relieve Virginia,--Anne or her mother,--and frequently
+Mr. Brinsmade would come likewise. For it is those who have the most to
+do who find the most time for charitable deeds. As the hour for their
+coming drew near, the Judge would be seeking the clock, and scarce did
+Anne's figure appear in the doorway before the question had arisen to his
+lips--"And how is my young Captain to-day?"
+
+That is what he called him,--"My young Captain." Virginia's choice of her
+cousin, and her devotion to him, while seemingly natural enough, had
+drawn many a sigh from Anne. She thought it strange that Virginia herself
+had never once asked her about Stephen's condition and she spoke of this
+one day to the Judge with as much warmth as she was capable of.
+
+"Jinny's heart is like steel where a Yankee is concerned. If her best
+friend were a Yankee--"
+
+Judge Whipple checked her, smiling.
+
+"She has been very good to one Yankee I know of," he said. "And as for
+Mrs. Brice, I believe she worships her."
+
+"But when I said that Stephen was much better to-day, she swept out of
+the room as if she did not care whether he lived or died."
+
+"Well, Anne," the Judge had answered, "you women are a puzzle to me. I
+guess you don't understand yourselves," he added.
+
+That was a strange month in the life of Clarence Colfax,--the last of his
+recovery, while he was waiting for the news of his exchange. Bellegarde
+was never more beautiful, for Mrs. Colfax had no whim of letting the
+place run down because a great war was in progress. Though devoted to the
+South, she did not consecrate her fortune to it. Clarence gave as much as
+he could.
+
+Whole afternoons Virginia and he would sit in the shaded arbor seat; or
+at the cool of the day descend to the bench on the lower tier of the
+summer garden, to steep, as it were, in the blended perfumes of the roses
+and the mignonettes and the pinks. He was soberer than of old. Often
+through the night he pondered on the change in her. She, too, was grave.
+But he was troubled to analyze her gravity, her dignity. Was this merely
+strength of character, the natural result of the trials through which she
+had passed, the habit acquired of being the Helper and comforter instead
+of the helped and comforted? Long years afterward the brightly colored
+portrait of her remained in his eye,--the simple linen gown of pink or
+white, the brown hair shining in the sunlight, the graceful poise of the
+head. And the background of flowers--flowers everywhere, far from the
+field of war.
+
+Sometimes, when she brought his breakfast on a tray in the morning, there
+was laughter in her eyes. In the days gone by they had been all laughter.
+
+They were engaged. She was to be his wife. He said it over to himself
+many, many times in the day. He would sit for a space, feasting his eyes
+upon her until she lifted her look to his, and the rich color flooded her
+face. He was not a lover to sit quietly by, was Clarence. And yet, as the
+winged days flew on, that is what he did, It was not that she did not
+respond to his advances, he did not make them. Nor could he have told
+why. Was it the chivalry inherited from a long life of Colfaxes who were
+gentlemen? Not wholly. Something of awe had crept into his feeling for
+her.
+
+As the month wore on, and the time drew near for him to go back to the
+war, a state that was not quite estrangement, and yet something very like
+it, set in. Poor Clarence. Doubts bothered him, and he dared not give
+them voice. By night he would plan his speeches,--impassioned, imploring.
+To see her in her marvellous severity was to strike him dumb. Horrible
+thought! Whether she loved him, whether she did not love him, she would
+not give him up. Through the long years of their lives together, he would
+never know. He was not a weak man now, was Clarence Colfax. He was merely
+a man possessed of a devil, enchained by the power of self-repression
+come upon her whom he loved.
+
+And day by day that power seemed to grow more intense,--invulnerable.
+Among her friends and in the little household it had raised Virginia to
+heights which she herself did not seem to realize. She was become the
+mistress of Bellegarde. Mrs. Colfax was under its sway, and doubly
+miserable because Clarence would listen to her tirades no more.
+
+"When are you to be married?" she had ventured to ask him once. Nor had
+she taken pains to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
+
+His answer, bringing with it her remembrance of her husband at certain
+times when it was not safe to question him, had silenced her. Addison
+Colfax had not been a quiet man. When he was quiet he was dangerous.
+
+"Whenever Virginia is ready, mother," he had replied. Whenever Virginia
+was ready! He knew in his heart that if he were to ask her permission to
+send for Dr, Posthelwaite to-morrow that she would say yes. Tomorrow
+came,--and with it a great envelope, an official, answer to Clarence's
+report that he was fit for duty once more. He had been exchanged. He was
+to proceed to Cairo, there to await the arrival of the transport
+Indianapolis, which was to carry five hundred officers and men from
+Sandusky Prison, who were going back to fight once more for the
+Confederacy. O that they might have seen the North, all those brave men
+who made that sacrifice. That they might have realized the numbers and
+the resources and the wealth arrayed against them!
+
+It was a cool day for September, a perfect day, an auspicious day, and
+yet it went the way of the others before it. This was the very fulness of
+the year, the earth giving out the sweetness of her maturity, the corn in
+martial ranks, with golden plumes nodding. The forest still in its glory
+of green. They walked in silence the familiar paths, and Alfred, clipping
+the late roses for the supper table, shook his white head as they passed
+him. The sun, who had begun to hurry on his southward journey, went to
+bed at six. The few clothes Clarence was to take with him had been packed
+by Virginia in his bag, and the two were standing in the twilight on the
+steps of the house, when Ned came around the corner. He called his young
+mistress by name, but she did not hear him. He called again.
+
+"Miss Jinny!"
+
+She started as from a sleep, and paused.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Johnson," said she, and smiled. He wore that air of mystery so
+dear to darkeys.
+
+"Gemmen to see you, Miss Jinny."
+
+"A gentleman!" she said in surprise. "Where?"
+
+The negro pointed to the lilac shrubbery.
+
+"Thar!"
+
+"What's all this nonsense, Ned?" said Clarence, sharply: "If a man is
+there, bring him here at once."
+
+"Reckon he won't come, Marse Clarence." said Ned, "He fearful skeered ob
+de light ob day. He got suthin very pertickler fo' Miss Jinny."
+
+"Do you know him?" Clarence demanded.
+
+"No sah--yessah--leastwise I'be seed 'um. Name's Robimson."
+
+The word was hardly out of his mouth before Virginia had leaped down the
+four feet from the porch to the flower-bed and was running across the
+lawn toward the shrubbery. Parting the bushes after her, Clarence found
+his cousin confronting a large man, whom he recognized as the carrier who
+brought messages from the South.
+
+"What's the matter, Jinny?" he demanded.
+
+"Pa has got through the lines," she said breathlessly. "He--he came up to
+see me. Where is he, Robinson?"
+
+"He went to Judge Whipple's rooms, ma'am. They say the Judge is dying. I
+reckoned you knew it, Miss Jinny," Robinson added contritely.
+
+"Clarence," she said, "I must go at once."
+
+"I will go with you," he said; "you cannot go alone." In a twinkling Ned
+and Sambo had the swift pair of horses harnessed, and the light carriage
+was flying over the soft clay road toward the city. As they passed Mr.
+Brinsmade's place, the moon hung like a great round lantern under the
+spreading trees about the house. Clarence caught a glimpse of his
+cousin's face in the light. She was leaning forward, her gaze fixed
+intently on the stone posts which stood like monuments between the bushes
+at the entrance. Then she drew back again into the dark corner of the
+barouche. She was startled by a sharp challenge, and the carriage
+stopped. Looking out, she saw the provost's guard like black card figures
+on the road, and Ned fumbling for his pass.
+
+On they drove into the city streets until the dark bulk of the Court
+House loomed in front of them, and Ned drew rein at the little stairway
+which led to the Judge's rooms. Virginia, leaping out of the carriage,
+flew up the steps and into the outer office, and landed in the Colonel's
+arms.
+
+"Jinny!"
+
+"Oh, Pa!" she cried. "Why do you risk your life in this way? If the
+Yankees catch you--"
+
+"They won't catch me, honey," he answered, kissing her. Then he held her
+out at arm's length and gazed earnestly into her face. Trembling, she
+searched his own. "Pa, how old you look!"
+
+"I'm not precisely young, my dear," he said, smiling. His hair was nearly
+white, and his face scared. But he was a fine erect figure of a man,
+despite the shabby clothes he wore, and the mud-bespattered boots.
+
+"Pa," she whispered, "it was foolhardy to come here. Why did you come to
+St. Louis at all?"
+
+"I came to see you, Jinny, I reckon. And when I got home to-night and
+heard Silas was dying, I just couldn't resist. He's the oldest friend
+I've got in St. Louis, honey and now--now--"
+
+"Pa, you've been in battle?"
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And you weren't hurt; I thank God for that," she whispered. After a
+while: "Is Uncle Silas dying?"
+
+"Yes, Jinny; Dr. Polk is in there now, and says that he can't last
+through the night. Silas has been asking for you, honey, over and over.
+He says you were very good to him,--that you and Mrs. Brice gave up
+everything to nurse him."
+
+"She did," Virginia faltered. "She was here night and day until her son
+came home. She is a noble woman--"
+
+"Her son?" repeated the Colonel. "Stephen Brice? Silas has done nothing
+the last half-hour but call his name. He says he must see the boy before
+he dies. Polk says he is not strong enough to come."
+
+"Oh, no, he is not strong enough," cried Virginia. The Colonel looked
+down at her queerly. "Where is Clarence?" he asked.
+
+She had not thought of Clarence. She turned hurriedly, glanced around the
+room, and then peered down the dark stairway.
+
+"Why, he came in with me. I wonder why he did not follow me up?"
+
+"Virginia."
+
+"Yes, Pa."
+
+"Virginia, are you happy?"
+
+"Why, yes, Pa."
+
+"Are you going to marry Clarence?" he asked.
+
+"I have promised," she said simply.
+
+Then after a long pause, seeing her father said nothing, she added,
+"Perhaps he was waiting for you to see me alone. I will go down to see if
+he is in the carriage."
+
+The Colonel started with her, but she pulled him back in alarm.
+
+"You will be seen, Pa," she cried. "How can you be so reckless?"
+
+He stayed at the top of the passage, holding open the door that she might
+have light. When she reached the sidewalk, there was Ned standing beside
+the horses, and the carriage empty.
+
+"Ned!"
+
+"Yass'm, Miss Jinny."
+
+"Where's Mr. Clarence?"
+
+"He done gone, Miss Tinny."
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"Yass'm. Fust I seed was a man plump out'n Willums's, Miss Jinny. He was
+a-gwine shufflin' up de street when Marse Clarence put out after him,
+pos' has'e. Den he run."
+
+She stood for a moment on the pavement in thought, and paused on the
+stairs again, wondering whether it were best to tell her father. Perhaps
+Clarence had seen--she caught her breath at the thought and pushed open
+the door.
+
+"Oh, Pa, do you think you are safe here?" she cried. "Why, yes, honey, I
+reckon so," he answered. "Where's Clarence?"
+
+"Ned says he ran after a man who was hiding in an entrance. Pa, I am
+afraid they are watching the place."
+
+"I don't think so, Jinny. I came here with Polk, in his buggy, after
+dark."
+
+Virginia, listening, heard footsteps on the stairs, and seized her
+father's sleeve.
+
+"Think of the risk you are running, Pa," she whispered. She would have
+dragged him to the closet. But it was too late. The door opened, and Mr.
+Brinsmade entered, and with him a lady veiled.
+
+At sight of Mr. Carvel Mr. Brinsmade started back in surprise. How long
+he stared at his old friend Virginia could not say. It seemed to her an
+eternity. But Mrs. Brice has often told since how straight the Colonel
+stood, his fine head thrown back, as he returned the glance. Then Mr.
+Brinsmade came forward, with his hand outstretched.
+
+"Comyn," said he, his voice breaking a little, "I have known you these
+many years as a man of unstained honor. You are safe with me. I ask no
+questions. God will judge whether I have done my duty."
+
+Mr. Carvel took his friend's hand. "Thank you, Calvin," he said. "I give
+you my word of honor as a gentleman that I came into this city for no
+other reason than to see my daughter. And hearing that my old friend was
+dying, I could not resist the temptation, sir--"
+
+Mr. Brinsmade finished for him. And his voice shook.
+
+"To come to his bedside. How many men do you think would risk their lives
+so, Mrs. Brice?"
+
+"Not many, indeed, Mr. Brinsmade," she answered. "Thank God he will now
+die happy. I know it has been much on his mind."
+
+The Colonel bowed over her hand.
+
+"And in his name, madam,--in the name of my oldest and best friend,--I
+thank you for what you have done for him. I trust that you will allow me
+to add that I have learned from my daughter to respect and admire you. I
+hope that your son is doing well."
+
+"He is, thank you, Colonel Carvel. If he but knew that the Judge were
+dying, I could not have kept him at home. Dr. Polk says that he must not
+leave the house, or undergo any excitement."
+
+Just then the door of the inner room opened, and Dr. Polk came out. He
+bowed gravely to Mrs. Brice and Mr. Brinsmade, and he patted Virginia.
+
+"The Judge is still asleep," he said gently. "And--he may not wake up in
+this world."
+
+Silently, sadly, they went together into that little room where so much
+of Judge Whipple's life had been spent. How little it was! And how
+completely they filled it,--these five people and the big Rothfield
+covered with the black cloth. Virginia pressed her father's arm as they
+leaned against it, and brushed her eyes. The Doctor turned the wick of
+the night-lamp.
+
+What was that upon the sleeper's face from which they drew back? A smile?
+Yes, and a light. The divine light which is shed upon those who have
+lived for others, who have denied themselves the lusts of the flesh, For
+a long space, perhaps an hour, they stayed, silent save for a low word
+now and again from the Doctor as he felt the Judge's heart. Tableaux from
+the past floated before Virginia's eyes. Of the old days, of the happy
+days in Locust Street, of the Judge quarrelling with her father, and she
+and Captain Lige smiling nearby. And she remembered how sometimes when
+the controversy was finished the Judge would rub his nose and say:
+
+"It's my turn now, Lige."
+
+Whereupon the Captain would open the piano, and she would play the hymn
+that he liked best. It was "Lead, Kindly Light."
+
+What was it in Silas Whipple's nature that courted the pain of memories?
+What pleasure could it have been all through his illness to look upon
+this silent and cruel reminder of days gone by forever? She had heard
+that Stephen Brice had been with the Judge when he had bid it in. She
+wondered that he had allowed it, for they said that he was the only one
+who had ever been known to break the Judge's will. Virginia's eyes rested
+on Margaret Brice, who was seated at the head of the bed, smoothing the
+pillows The strength of Stephen's features were in hers, but not the
+ruggedness. Her features were large, indeed, yet stanch and softened. The
+widow, as if feeling Virginia's look upon her, glanced up from the
+Judge's face and smiled at her. The girl colored with pleasure, and again
+at the thought which she had had of the likeness between mother and son.
+
+Still the Judge slept on, while they watched. And at length the thought
+of Clarence crossed Virginia's mind.
+
+Why had he not returned? Perhaps he was in the office without. Whispering
+to her father, she stole out on tiptoe. The office was empty. Descending
+to the street, she was unable to gain any news of Clarence from Ned, who
+was becoming alarmed likewise.
+
+Perplexed and troubled, she climbed the stairs again. No sound came from
+the Judge's room Perhaps Clarence would be back at any moment. Perhaps
+her father was in danger. She sat down to think,--her elbows on the desk
+in front of her, her chin in her hand, her eyes at the level of a line of
+books which stood on end.--Chitty's Pleadings, Blackstone, Greenleaf on
+Evidence. Absently; as a person whose mind is in trouble, she reached out
+and took one of them down and opened it. Across the flyleaf, in a high
+and bold hand, was written the name, Stephen Atterbury Brice.
+
+It was his desk! She was sitting in his chair!
+
+She dropped the book, and, rising abruptly, crossed quickly to the other
+side of the room. Then she turned, hesitatingly, and went back. This was
+his desk--his chair, in which he had worked so faithfully for the man who
+lay dying beyond the door. For him whom they all loved--whose last hours
+they were were to soothe. Wars and schisms may part our bodies, but
+stronger ties unite our souls. Through Silas Whipple, through his mother,
+Virginia knew that she was woven of one piece with Stephen Brice. In a
+thousand ways she was reminded, lest she drive it from her belief. She
+might marry another, and that would not matter.
+
+She sank again into his chair, and gave herself over to the thoughts
+crowding in her heart. How the threads of his life ran next to hers, and
+crossed and recrossed them. The slave auction, her dance with him, the
+Fair, the meeting at Mr. Brinsmade's gate,--she knew them all. Her love
+and admiration for his mother. Her dreams of him--for she did dream of
+him. And now he had saved Clarence's life that she might marry her
+cousin. Was it true that she would marry Clarence? That seemed to her
+only a dream. It had never seemed real. Again she glanced at the
+signature in the book, as if fascinated by the very strength of it. She
+turned over a few pages of the book, "Supposing the defendant's counsel
+essays to prove by means of--" that was his writing again, a marginal,
+note. There were marginal notes on every page--even the last was covered
+with them, And then at the end, "First reading, February, 1858. Second
+reading, July, 1858. Bought with some of money obtained by first article
+for M. D." That capacity for work, incomparable gift, was what she had
+always coveted the most. Again she rested her elbows on the desk and her
+chin on her hands, and sighed unconsciously.
+
+She had not heard the step on the stair. She had not seen the door open.
+She did not know that any one wage in the room until she heard his voice,
+and then she thought that she was dreaming.
+
+"Miss Carvel!"
+
+"Yes?" Her head did not move. He took a step toward her.
+
+"Miss Carvel!"
+
+Slowly she raised her face to his, unbelief and wonder in her eyes,
+--unbelief and wonder and fright. No; it could not be he. But when she met
+the quality of his look, the grave tenderness of it, she trembled, and
+our rendered her own to the page where his handwriting quivered and
+became a blur.
+
+He never knew the effort it cost her to rise and confront him. She
+herself had not measured or fathomed the power which his very person
+exhaled. It seemed to have come upon him suddenly. He needed not to have
+spoken for her to have felt that. What it was she could not tell. She
+knew alone that it was nigh irresistible, and she grasped the back of the
+chair as though material support might sustain her.
+
+"Is he--dead?"
+
+She was breathing hard.
+
+"No," she said. "Not--not yet, They are waiting for the end."
+
+"And you?" he asked in grave surprise, glancing at the door of the
+Judge's room.
+
+Then she remembered Clarence.
+
+"I am waiting for my cousin," she said.
+
+Even as she spoke she was with this man again at the Brinsmade gate.
+Those had been her very words! Intuition told her that he, too, was
+thinking of that time. Now he had found her at his desk, and, as if that
+were not humiliation enough, with one of his books taken down and laid
+open at his signature. Suffused, she groped for words to carry her on.
+
+"I am waiting for Clarence, Mr. Brice. He was here, and is gone
+somewhere."
+
+He did not seem to take account of the speech. And his silence--goad to
+indiscretion--pressed her to add:-- "You saved him, Mr. Brice. I--we all
+--thank you so much. And that is not all I want to say. It is a poor
+enough acknowledgment of what you did,--for we have not always treated
+you well." Her voice faltered almost to faintness, as he raised his hand
+in pained protest. But she continued: "I shall regard it as a debt I can
+never repay. It is not likely that in my life to come I can ever help
+you, but I shall pray for that opportunity."
+
+He interrupted her.
+
+"I did nothing, Miss Carvel, nothing that the most unfeeling man in our
+army would not do. Nothing that I would not have done for the merest
+stranger."
+
+"You saved him for me," she said.
+
+O fateful words that spoke of themselves! She turned away from him for
+very shame, and yet she heard him saying:-- "Yes, I saved him for you."
+
+His voice was in the very note of the sadness which has the strength to
+suffer, to put aside the thought of self. A note to which her soul
+responded with anguish when she turned to him with the natural cry of
+woman.
+
+"Oh, you ought not to have come here to-night. Why did you come? The
+Doctor forbade it. The consequences may kill you."
+
+"It does not matter much," he answered. "The Judge was dying."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"I guessed it,--because my mother had left me."
+
+"Oh, you ought not to have come!" she said again.
+
+"The Judge has been my benefactor," he answered quietly. I could walk,
+and it was my duty to come."
+
+"You did not walk!" she gasped.
+
+He smiled, "I had no carriage," he said.
+
+With the instinct of her sex she seized the chair and placed it under
+him. "You must sit down at once," she cried.
+
+"But I am not tired," he replied.
+
+"Oh, you must sit down, you must, Captain Brice." He started at the
+title, which came so prettily from her lips, "Won't you please!" she said
+pleadingly.
+
+He sat down. And, as the sun peeps out of a troubled sky, she smiled.
+
+"It is your chair," she said.
+
+He glanced at the book, and the bit of sky was crimson. But still he said
+nothing.
+
+"It is your book," she stammered. "I did not know that it was yours when
+I took it down. I--I was looking at it while I was waiting for Clarence."
+
+"It is dry reading," he remarked, which was not what he wished to say.
+
+"And yet--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"And yet you have read it twice." The confession had slipped to her lips.
+
+She was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking down at him. Still he
+did not look at her. All the will that was left him averted his head. And
+the seal of honor was upon his speech. And he wondered if man were ever
+more tempted.
+
+Then the evil spread its wings, and soared away into the night. And the
+moment was past. Peace seemed to come upon them both, quieting the tumult
+in their hearts, and giving them back their reason. Respect like wise
+came to the girl,--respect that was akin to awe. It was he who spoke
+first.
+
+"My mother has me how faithfully you nursed the Judge, Miss Carvel. It
+was a very noble thing to do."
+
+"Not noble at all," she replied hastily, "your mother did the most of it,
+And he is an old friend of my father--"
+
+"It was none the less noble," said Stephen, warmly, "And he quarrelled
+with Colonel Carvel."
+
+"My father quarrelled with him," she corrected. "It was well that I
+should make some atonement. And yet mine was no atonement, I love Judge
+Whipple. It was a--a privilege to see your mother every day--oh, how he
+would talk of you! I think he loves you better than any one on this
+earth."
+
+"Tell me about him," said Stephen, gently.
+
+Virginia told him, and into the narrative she threw the whole of her
+pent-up self. How patient the Judge had been, and the joy he had derived
+from Stephen's letters. "You were very good to write to him so often,"
+she said. It seemed like a dream to Stephen, like one of the many dreams
+of her, the mystery of which was of the inner life beyond our ken. He
+could not recall a time when she had not been rebellious, antagonistic.
+And now--as he listened to her voice, with its exquisite low tones and
+modulations, as he sat there in this sacred intimacy, perchance to be the
+last in his life, he became dazed. His eyes, softened, with supreme
+eloquence cried out that she, was his, forever and forever. The magnetic
+force which God uses to tie the worlds together was pulling him to her.
+And yet the Puritan resisted.
+
+Then the door swung open, and Clarence Colfax, out of breath, ran into
+the room. He stopped short when he saw them, his hand fell to his sides,
+and his words died on his lips. Virginia did not stir.
+
+It was Stephen who rose to meet him, and with her eyes the girl followed
+his motions. The broad and loosely built frame of the Northerner, his
+shoulders slightly stooping, contrasted with Clarence's slighter figure,
+erect, compact, springy. The Southerner's eye, for that moment, was flint
+struck with the spark from the steel. Stephen's face, thinned by illness,
+was grave. The eyes kindly, yet penetrating. For an instant they stood
+thus regarding each other, neither offering a hand. It was Stephen who
+spoke first, and if there was a trace of emotion in his voice, one who
+was listening intently failed to mark it.
+
+"I am glad to see that you have recovered, Colonel Colfax," he said.
+
+"I should indeed be without gratitude if I did not thank Captain Brice
+for my life," answered Clarence. Virginia flushed. She had detected the
+undue accent on her cousin's last words, and she glanced apprehensively
+at Stephen. His forceful reply surprised them both.
+
+"Miss Carvel has already thanked me sufficiently, sir," he said. "I am
+happy to have been able to have done you a good turn, and at the same
+time to have served her so well. It was she who saved your life. It is to
+her your thanks are chiefly due. I believe that I am not going too far,
+Colonel Colfax," he added, "when I congratulate you both."
+
+Before her cousin could recover, Virginia slid down from the desk and had
+come between them. How her eyes shone and her lip trembled as she gazed
+at him, Stephen has never forgotten. What a woman she was as she took her
+cousin's arm and made him a curtsey.
+
+"What you have done may seem a light thing to you, Captain Brice," she
+said. "That is apt to be the way with those who have big hearts. You have
+put upon Colonel Colfax, and upon me, a life's obligation."
+
+When she began to speak, Clarence raised his head. As he glanced,
+incredulous, from her to Stephen, his look gradually softened, and when
+she had finished, his manner had become again frank, boyish, impetuous
+--nay, penitent. He seized Stephen's hand.
+
+"Forgive me, Brice," he cried. "Forgive me. I should have known better.
+I--I did you an injustice, and you, Virginia. I was a fool--a scoundrel."
+Stephen shook his head.
+
+"No, you were neither," he said. Then upon his face came the smile of one
+who has the strength to renounce, all that is dearest to him--that smile
+of the unselfish, sweetest of all. It brought tears to Virginia. She was
+to see it once again, upon the features of one who bore a cross,
+--Abraham Lincoln. Clarence looked, and then he turned away toward the door
+to the stairway, as one who walks blindly, in a sorrow.
+
+His hand was on the knob when Virginia seemed to awake. She flew after
+him:
+
+"Wait!" she whispered.
+
+Then she raised her eyes, slowly, to Stephen, who was standing motionless
+beside his chair.
+
+"Captain Brice!"
+
+"Yes," he answered.
+
+"My father is in the Judge's room," she said.
+
+"Your father!" he exclaimed. "I thought--"
+
+"That he was an officer in the Confederate Army. So he is." Her head went
+up as she spoke.
+
+Stephen stared at her, troubled. Suddenly her manner, changed. She took a
+step toward him, appealingly.
+
+"Oh, he is not a spy," she cried. "He has given Mr Brinsmade his word
+that he came here for no other purpose than to see me. Then he heard that
+the Judge was dying--"
+
+"He has given his word to Mr. Brinsmade?
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then," said Stephen, "what Mr. Brinsmade sanctions is not for me to
+question."
+
+She gave him yet another look, a fleeting one which he did not see. Then
+she softly opened the door and passed into the room of the dying man.
+Stephen followed her. As for Clarence, he stood for a space staring after
+them. Then he went noiselessly down the stairs into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT
+
+When the Judge opened his eyes for the last time in this world, they fell
+first upon the face of his old friend, Colonel Carvel. Twice he tried to
+speak his name, and twice he failed. The third time he said it faintly.
+
+"Comyn!"
+
+"Yes, Silas."
+
+"Comyn, what are you doing here?
+
+"I reckon I came to see you, Silas," answered the Colonel.
+
+"To see me die," said the Judge, grimly.
+
+Colonel Carvel's face twitched, and the silence in that little room
+seemed to throb.
+
+"Comyn," said the Judge again, "I heard that you had gone South to fight
+against your country. I see you here. Can it be that you have at last
+returned in your allegiances to the flag for which your forefathers
+died?"
+
+Poor Colonel Carvel
+
+"I am still of the same mind, Silas," he said.
+
+The Judge turned his face away, his thin lips moving as in prayer. But
+they knew that he was not praying, "Silas," said Mr. Carvel, "we were
+friends for twenty years. Let us be friends again, before--"
+
+"Before I die," the Judge interrupted, "I am ready to die. Yes, I am
+ready. I have had a hard life, Comyn, and few friends. It was my fault.
+I--I did not know how to make them. Yet no man ever valued those few more
+than! But," he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last, "I would
+that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out. For it will be
+stamped out." To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on a distant
+point, and the light of prophecy was in them. "I would that God had
+spared me to see this Union supreme once more. Yes, it will be supreme. A
+high destiny is reserved for this nation--! I think the highest of all on
+this earth." Amid profound silence he leaned back on the pillows from
+which he had risen, his breath coming fast. None dared look at the
+neighbor beside them.
+
+It was Stephen's mother who spoke. "Would you not like to see a
+clergyman, Judge?" she asked.
+
+The look on his face softened as he turned to her.
+
+"No, madam," he answered; "you are clergyman enough for me. You are near
+enough to God--there is no one in this room who is not worthy to stand in
+the presence of death. Yet I wish that a clergyman were here, that he
+might listen to one thing I have to say. When I was a boy I worked my way
+down the river to New York, to see the city. I met a bishop there. He
+said to me, 'Sit down, my son, I want to talk to you. I know your father
+in Albany. You are Senator Whipple's son.' I said to him, 'No, sir, I am
+not Senator Whipple's son. I am no relation of his.' If the bishop had
+wished to talk to me after that, Mrs. Brice, he might have made my life a
+little easier--a little sweeter. I know that they are not all like that.
+But it was by just such things that I was embittered when I was a boy."
+He stopped, and when he spoke again, it was more slowly, more gently,
+than any of them had heard him speak in all his life before. "I wish that
+some of the blessings which I am leaving now had come to me then--when I
+was a boy. I might have done my little share in making the world a
+brighter place to live in, as all of you have done. Yes, as all of you
+are now doing for me. I am leaving the world with a better opinion of it
+than I ever held in life. God hid the sun from me when I was a little
+child. Margaret Brice," he said, "if I had had such a mother as you, I
+would have been softened then. I thank God that He sent you when He did."
+
+The widow bowed her head, and a tear fell upon his pillow.
+
+"I have done nothing," she murmured, "nothing."
+
+"So shall they answer at the last whom He has chosen," said the Judge. "I
+was sick, and ye visited me. He has promised to remember those who do
+that. Hold up your head, my daughter. God has been good to you. He has
+given you a son whom all men may look in the face, of whom you need never
+be ashamed. Stephen," said the Judge, "come here."
+
+Stephen made his way to the bedside, but because of the moisture in his
+eyes he saw but dimly the gaunt face. And yet he shrank back in awe at
+the change in it. So must all of the martyrs have looked when the fire of
+the faggots licked their feet. So must John Bunyan have stared through
+his prison bars at the sky.
+
+"Stephen," he said, "you have been faithful in a few things. So shall you
+be made ruler over many things. The little I have I leave to you, and the
+chief of this is an untarnished name. I know that you will be true to it
+because I have tried your strength. Listen carefully to what I have to
+say, for I have thought over it long. In the days gone by our fathers
+worked for the good of the people, and they had no thought of gain. A
+time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone in this
+Republic. Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, and the
+waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save the
+incorruptible. Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood. You and
+those like you will remember how your fathers governed,--strongly,
+sternly, justly. It was so that they governed themselves.
+
+"Be vigilant. Serve your city, serve your state, but above all serve your
+country."
+
+He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, and
+reached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's. "I was harsh with you at
+first, my son," he went on. "I wished to try you. And when I had tried
+you I wished your mind to open, to keep pace with the growth of this
+nation. I sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born again
+--in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back--I saw it
+in your face. O God," he cried, with sudden eloquence. "I would that his
+hands--Abraham Lincoln's hands--might be laid upon all who complain and
+cavil and criticise, and think of the little things in life: I would that
+his spirit might possess their spirit!"
+
+He stopped again. They marvelled and were awed, for never in all his days
+had such speech broken from this man. "Good-by, Stephen," he said, when
+they thought he was not to speak again. "Hold the image of Abraham
+Lincoln in front of you. Never forget him. You--you are a man after his
+own heart--and--and mine."
+
+The last word was scarcely audible. They started for ward, for his eyes
+were closed. But presently he stirred again, and opened them.
+
+"Brinsmade," he said, "Brinsmade, take care of my orphan girls. Send
+Shadrach here."
+
+The negro came forth, shuffling and sobbing, from the doorway.
+
+"You ain't gwine away, Marse Judge?"
+
+"Yes, Shadrach, good-by. You have served me well, I have left you
+provided for."
+
+Shadrach kissed the hand of whose secret charity he knew so much. Then
+the Judge withdrew it, and motioned to him to rise. He called his oldest
+friend by name. And Colonel Carvel came from the corner where he had been
+listening, with his face drawn.
+
+"Good-by, Comyn. You were my friend when there was none other. You were
+true to me when the hand of every man was against me. You--you have
+risked your life to come to me here, May God spare it for Virginia."
+
+At the sound of her name, the girl started. She came and bent over him.
+And when she kissed him on the forehead, he trembled.
+
+"Uncle Silas!" she faltered.
+
+Weakly he reached up and put his hands on her shoulders. He whispered in
+her ear. The tears came and lay wet upon her lashes as she undid the
+button at his throat.
+
+There, on a piece of cotton twine, hung a little key, She took it off,
+but still his hands held her.
+
+"I have saved it for you, my dear," he said. "God bless you--" why did
+his eyes seek Stephen's?--"and make your life happy. Virginia--will you
+play my hymn--once more--once more?"
+
+They lifted the night lamp from the piano, and the medicine. It was
+Stephen who stripped it of the black cloth it had worn, who stood by
+Virginia ready to lift the lid when she had turned the lock. The girl's
+exaltation gave a trembling touch divine to the well-remembered chords,
+and those who heard were lifted, lifted far above and beyond the power of
+earthly spell.
+
+       "Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
+        Lead Thou me on
+        The night is dark, and I am far from home;
+        Lead Thou me on.
+        Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see
+        The distant scene; one step enough for me."
+
+A sigh shook Silas Whipple's wasted frame, and he died.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Crisis, Volume 7, by Winston Churchill
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+The Project Gutenberg Ebook The Crisis, Volume 7, by Winston Churchill
+WC#57 in our series by Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston)
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+Title: The Crisis, Volume 7.
+
+Author: Winston Churchill (USA author, not Sir Winston Churchill)
+
+Release Date: March, 2004  [EBook #5394]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on June 28, 2002]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRISIS, V7, BY CHURCHILL ***
+
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+
+This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
+
+
+
+[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
+file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
+entire meal of them.  D.W.]
+
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+
+
+
+THE CRISIS
+
+By Winston Churchill
+
+
+Volume 7.
+
+
+VII.      With the Armies of the West
+VIII.     A Strange Meeting
+IX.       Bellegarde Once More
+X.        In Judge Whipple's Office
+XI.       Lead, Kindly Light
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+WITH THE ARMIES OF THE WEST
+
+We are at Memphis,--for a while,--and the Christmas season is approaching
+once more.  And yet we must remember that war recognizes no Christmas,
+nor Sunday, nor holiday.  The brown river, excited by rains, whirled
+seaward between his banks of yellow clay.  Now the weather was crisp and
+cold, now hazy and depressing, and again a downpour.  Memphis had never
+seen such activity.  A spirit possessed the place, a restless spirit
+called William T. Sherman.  He prodded Memphis and laid violent hold of
+her.  She groaned, protested, turned over, and woke up, peopled by a new
+people.  When these walked, they ran, and they wore a blue uniform.  They
+spoke rapidly and were impatient.  Rain nor heat nor tempest kept them
+in.  And yet they joked, and Memphis laughed (what was left of her), and
+recognized a bond of fellowship.  The General joked, and the Colonels and
+the Commissary and the doctors, down to the sutlers and teamsters and the
+salt tars under Porter, who cursed the dishwater Mississippi, and also a
+man named Eads, who had built the new-fangled iron boxes officially known
+as gunboats.  The like of these had never before been seen in the waters
+under the earth.  The loyal citizens--loyal to the South--had been given
+permission to leave the city.  The General told the assistant
+quartermaster to hire their houses and slaves for the benefit of the
+Federal Government.  Likewise he laid down certain laws to the Memphis
+papers defining treason.  He gave out his mind freely to that other army
+of occupation, the army of speculation, that flocked thither with permits
+to trade in cotton.  The speculators gave the Confederates gold, which
+they needed most, for the bales, which they could not use at all.
+
+The forefathers of some of these gentlemen were in old Egypt under
+Pharaoh--for whom they could have had no greater respect and fear than
+their descendants had in New Egypt for Grant or Sherman.  Yankees were
+there likewise in abundance.  And a certain acquaintance of ours
+materially added to his fortune by selling in Boston the cotton which
+cost him fourteen cents, at thirty cents.
+
+One day the shouting and the swearing and the running to and fro came to
+a climax.  Those floating freaks which were all top and drew nothing,
+were loaded down to the guards with army stores and animals and wood and
+men,--men who came from every walk in life.
+
+Whistles bellowed, horses neighed.  The gunboats chased hither and
+thither, and at length the vast processions paddled down the stream with
+naval precision, under the watchful eyes of a real admiral.
+
+Residents of Memphis from the river's bank watched the pillar of smoke
+fade to the southward and ruminated on the fate of Vicksburg.  The
+General paced the deck in thought.  A little later he wrote to the
+Commander-in-Chief at Washington, "The valley of the Mississippi is
+America."
+
+Vicksburg taken, this vast Confederacy would be chopped in two.
+
+Night fell to the music of the paddles, to the scent of the officers'
+cigars, to the blood-red vomit of the tall stacks and the smoky flame of
+the torches.  Then Christmas Day dawned, and there was Vicksburg lifted
+two hundred feet above the fever swamps, her court-house shining in the
+morning sun.  Vicksburg, the well-nigh impregnable key to America's
+highway.  When old Vick made his plantation on the Walnut Hills, he chose
+a site for a fortress of the future Confederacy that Vauban would have
+delighted in.
+
+Yes, there were the Walnut Hills, high bluffs separated from the
+Mississippi by tangled streams and bayous, and on their crests the
+Parrotts scowled.  It was a queer Christmas Day indeed, bright and warm;
+no snow, no turkeys nor mince pies, no wine, but just hardtack and bacon
+and foaming brown water.
+
+On the morrow the ill-assorted fleet struggled up the sluggish Yazoo,
+past impenetrable forests where the cypress clutched at the keels, past
+long-deserted cotton fields, until it came at last to the black ruins of
+a home.  In due time the great army was landed.  It spread out by brigade
+and division and regiment and company, the men splashing and paddling
+through the Chickasaw and the swamps toward the bluffs.  The Parrotts
+began to roar.  A certain regiment, boldly led, crossed the bayou at a
+narrow place and swept resistless across the sodden fields to where the
+bank was steepest.  The fire from the battery scorched the hair of their
+heads.  But there they stayed, scooping out the yellow clay with torn
+hands, while the Parrotts, with lowered muzzles, ploughed the slope with
+shells.  There they stayed, while the blue lines quivered and fell back
+through the forests on that short winter's afternoon, dragging their
+wounded from the stagnant waters.  But many were left to die in agony in
+the solitude.
+
+Like a tall emblem of energy, General Sherman stood watching the attack
+and repulse, his eyes ever alert.  He paid no heed to the shells which
+tore the limbs from the trees about him, or sent the swamp water in thick
+spray over his staff.  Now and again a sharp word broke from his lips, a
+forceful home thrust at one of the leaders of his columns.
+
+"What regiment stayed under the bank?"
+
+"Sixth Missouri, General," said an aide, promptly.
+
+The General sat late in the Admiral's gunboat that night, but when he
+returned to his cabin in the Forest Queen, he called for a list of
+officers of the Sixth Missouri.  His finger slipping down the roll paused
+at a name among the new second lieutenants.
+
+"Did the boys get back?" he asked.  "Yes, General, when it fell dark."
+
+"Let me see the casualties,--quick,"
+
+That night a fog rolled up from the swamps, and in the morning jack-
+staff was hid from pilot-house.  Before the attack could be renewed,
+a political general came down the river with a letter in his pocket from
+Washington, by virtue of which he took possession of the three army core,
+and their chief, subpoenaed the fleet and the Admiral, and went off to
+capture Arkansas Post.
+
+Vicksburg had a breathing spell.
+
+Three weeks later, when the army was resting at Napoleon, Arkansas, a
+self-contained man, with a brown beard arrived from Memphis, and took
+command.  This way General U. S. Grant.  He smoked incessantly in his
+cabin.  He listened.  He spoke but seldom.  He had look in his face that
+boded ill to any that might oppose him.  Time and labor be counted as
+nothing, compared with the accomplishment of an object.  Back to
+Vicksburg paddled the fleet and transports.  Across the river from the
+city, on the pasty mud behind the levee's bank were dumped Sherman's
+regiments, condemned to week of ditch-digging, that the gunboats might
+arrive at the bend of the Mississippi below by a canal, out of reach of
+the batteries.  Day in and day out they labored, officer and men.  Sawing
+off stumps under the water, knocking poisonous snakes by scores from the
+branches, while the river rose and rose and rose, and the rain crept by
+inches under their tent flies, and the enemy walked the parapet of
+Vicksburg and laughed.  Two gunboats accomplished the feat of running the
+batteries, that their smiles might be sobered.
+
+To the young officers who were soiling their uniform with the grease of
+saws, whose only fighting was against fever and water snakes, the news of
+an expedition into the Vicksburg side of the river was hailed with caps
+in the air.  To be sure, the saw and axe, and likewise the levee and the
+snakes, were to be there, too.  But there was likely to be a little
+fighting.  The rest of the corps that was to stay watched grimly as the
+detachment put off in the little 'Diligence' and 'Silver Wave'.
+
+All the night the smoke-pipes were batting against the boughs of oak and
+cottonwood, and snapping the trailing vines.  Some other regiments went
+by another route.  The ironclads, followed in hot haste by General
+Sherman in a navy tug, had gone ahead, and were even then shoving with
+their noses great trunks of trees in their eagerness to get behind the
+Rebels.  The Missouri regiment spread out along the waters, and were soon
+waist deep, hewing a path for the heavier transports to come.  Presently
+the General came back to a plantation half under water, where Black Bayou
+joins Deer Creek, to hurry the work in cleaning out that Bayou.  The
+light transports meanwhile were bringing up more troops from a second
+detachment.  All through the Friday the navy great guns were heard
+booming in the distance, growing quicker and quicker, until the quivering
+air shook the hanging things in that vast jungle.  Saws stopped, and axes
+were poised over shoulders, and many times that day the General lifted
+his head anxiously.  As he sat down in the evening in a slave cabin
+redolent with corn pone and bacon, the sound still hovered among the
+trees and rolled along the still waters.
+
+The General slept lightly.  It was three o'clock Saturday morning when
+the sharp challenge of a sentry broke the silence.  A negro, white eyed,
+bedraggled, and muddy, stood in the candle light under the charge of a
+young lieutenant.  The officer saluted, and handed the General a roll of
+tobacco.
+
+"I found this man in the swamp, sir. He has a message from the Admiral--"
+
+The General tore open the roll and took from it a piece of tissue paper
+which he spread out and held under the candle.  He turned to a staff
+officer who had jumped from his bed and was hurrying into his coat.
+
+"Porter's surrounded," he said.  The order came in a flash.  "Kilby Smith
+and all men here across creek to relief at once.  I'll take canoe through
+bayou to Hill's and hurry reenforcements."
+
+The staff officer paused, his hand on the latch of the door.
+
+"But your escort, General.  You're not going through that sewer in a
+canoe without an escort!"
+
+"I guess they won't look for a needle in that haystack," the General
+answered.  For a brief second he eyed the lieutenant.  "Get back to your
+regiment, Brice, if you want to go," he said.
+
+Stephen saluted and went out.  All through the painful march that
+followed, though soaked in swamp water and bruised by cypress knees, he
+thought of Sherman in his canoe, winding unprotected through the black
+labyrinth, risking his life that more men might be brought to the rescue
+of the gunboats.
+
+The story of that rescue has been told most graphically by Sherman
+himself.  How he picked up the men at work on the bayou and marched them
+on a coal barge; how he hitched the barge to a navy tug; how he met the
+little transport with a fresh load of troops, and Captain Elijah Brent's
+reply when the General asked if he would follow him.  "As long as the
+boat holds together, General."  And he kept his word.  The boughs
+hammered at the smoke-pipes until they went by the board, and the
+pilothouse fell like a pack of cards on the deck before they
+had gone three miles and a half.  Then the indomitable Sherman
+disembarked, a lighted candle in his hand, and led a stiff march through
+thicket and swamp and breast-deep backwater, where the little drummer
+boys carried their drums on their heads.  At length, when they were come
+to some Indian mounds, they found a picket of three, companies of the
+force which had reached the flat the day before, and had been sent down
+to prevent the enemy from obstructing further the stream below the fleet.
+
+"The Admiral's in a bad way, sir," said the Colonel who rode up to meet
+the General.  "He's landlocked.  Those clumsy ironclads of his can't move
+backward or forward, and the Rebs have been peppering him for two days."
+
+Just then a fusillade broke from the thickets, nipping the branches from
+the cottonwoods about them.
+
+"Form your line," said the General.  "Drive 'em out."
+
+The force swept forward, with the three picket companies in the swamp on
+the right.  And presently they came in sight of the shapeless ironclads
+with their funnels belching smoke, a most remarkable spectacle.  How
+Porter had pushed them there was one of the miracles of the war.
+
+Then followed one of a thousand memorable incidents in the life of a
+memorable man.  General Sherman, jumping on the bare back of a scrawny
+horse, cantered through the fields.  And the bluejackets, at sight of
+that familiar figure, roared out a cheer that might have shaken the drops
+from the wet boughs.  The Admiral and the General stood together on the
+deck, their hands clasped.  And the Colonel astutely remarked, as he rode
+up in answer to a summons, that if Porter was the only man whose daring
+could have pushed a fleet to that position, Sherman was certainly the
+only man who could have got him out of it.
+
+"Colonel," said the General, "that move was well executed, sir.  Admiral,
+did the Rebs put a bullet through your rum casks?  We're just a little
+tired.  And now," he added, wheeling on the Colonel when each had a glass
+in his hand, "who was in command of that company on the right, in the
+swamp?  He handled them like a regular."
+
+"He's a second lieutenant, General, in the Sixth Missouri.  Captain
+wounded at Hindman, and first lieutenant fell out down below.  His name
+is Brice, I believe."
+
+"I thought so," said the General.
+
+Some few days afterward, when the troops were slopping around again at
+Young's Point, opposite Vicksburg, a gentleman arrived on a boat from St.
+Louis.  He paused on the levee to survey with concern and astonishment
+the flood of waters behind it, and then asked an officer the way to
+General Sherman's headquarters.  The officer, who was greatly impressed
+by the gentleman's looks, led him at once to a trestle bridge which
+spanned the distance from the levee bank over the flood to a house up to
+its first floor in the backwaters.  The orderly saluted.
+
+"Who shall I say, sir?"
+
+The officer looked inquiringly at the gentleman, who gave his name.
+
+The officer could not repress a smile at the next thing that happened.
+Out hurried the General himself, with both hands outstretched.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he cried, "if it isn't  Brinsmade.  Come right in, come
+right in and take dinner.  The boys will be glad to see you.  I'll send
+and tell Grant you're here.  Brinsmade, if it wasn't for you and your
+friends on the Western Sanitary Commission, we'd all have been dead of
+fever and bad food long ago."  The General sobered abruptly.  "I guess a
+good many of the boys are laid up now," he added.
+
+"I've come down to do what I can, General," responded Mr. Brinsmade,
+gravely.  "I want to go through all the hospitals to see that our nurses
+are doing their duty and that the stores are properly distributed."
+
+"You shall, sir, this minute," said the General.  He dropped instantly
+the affairs which he had on hand, and without waiting for dinner the two
+gentlemen went together through the wards where the fever raged.  The
+General surprised his visitor by recognizing private after private in the
+cots, and he always had a brief word of cheer to brighten their faces, to
+make them follow him with wistful eyes as he passed beyond them."  That's
+poor Craig," he would say, "corporal, Third Michigan.  They tell me he
+can't live," and "That's Olcott, Eleventh Indiana.  Good God!" cried the
+General, when they were out in the air again, "how I wish some of these
+cotton traders could get a taste of this fever.  They keep well--the
+vultures--And by the way, Brinsmade, the man who gave me no peace at all
+at Memphis was from your city.  Why, I had to keep a whole corps on duty
+to watch him."
+
+"What was his name, sir?" Mr. Brinsmade asked.
+
+"Hopper!" cried the General, with feeling.  "Eliphalet Hopper.  As long
+as I live I shall never forget it.  How the devil did he get a permit?
+What are they about at Washington?"
+
+"You surprise me," said Mr. Brinsmade.  "He has always seemed
+inoffensive, and I believe he is a prominent member of one of our
+churches."
+
+"I guess that's so," answered the General, dryly.  "I ever I set eyes on
+him again, he's clapped into the guardhouse.  He knows it, too."
+
+"Speaking of St. Louis, General," said Mr. Brinsmade, presently, have you
+ever heard of Stephen Brice? joined your army last autumn.  You may
+remember talking to him one evening at my house."
+
+"He's one of my boys!" cried the General.  "Remember him?  Guess I do!"
+He paused on the very brink of relating again the incident at Camp
+Jackson, when Stephen had saved the life of Mr. Brinsmade's own son.
+"Brinsmade, for three days I've had it on my mind to send for that boy.
+I'll have him at headquarters now.  I like him," cried General Sherman,
+with tone and gesture there was no mistaking.  And good Mr. Brinsmade,
+who liked Stephen, too, rejoiced at the story he would have to tell the
+widow.  "He has spirit, Brinsmade.  I told him to let me know when he was
+ready to go to war.  No such thing.  He never came near me.  The first
+thing I hear of him is that he's digging holes in the clay of Chickasaw
+Bluff, and his cap is fanned off by the blast of a Parrott six feet above
+his head.  Next thing he turns up on that little expedition we took to
+get Porter to sea again.  When we got to the gunboats, there was Brice's
+company on the flank.  He handled those men surprisingly, sir--
+surprisingly.  I shouldn't have blamed the boy if one or two Rebs got by
+him.  But no, he swept the place clean."  By this time they had come back
+to the bridge leading to headquarters, and the General beckoned quickly
+to an orderly.
+
+"My compliments to Lieutenant Stephen Brice, Sixth Missouri, and ask him
+to report here at once.  At once, you understand!"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+It so happened that Mr. Brice's company were swinging axes when the
+orderly arrived, and Mr. Brice had an axe himself, and was up to his boot
+tops in yellow mud.
+
+The orderly, who had once been an Iowa farmer, was near grinning when he
+gave the General's message and saw the lieutenant gazing ruefully at his
+clothes.
+
+Entering headquarters, Stephen paused at the doorway of the big room
+where the officers of the different staffs were scattered about, smoking,
+while the negro servants were removing the dishes from the table.  The
+sunlight, reflected from the rippling water outside, danced on the
+ceiling.  At the end of the room sat General Sherman, his uniform, as
+always, a trifle awry.  His soft felt hat with the gold braid was tilted
+forward, and his feet, booted and spurred, were crossed.  Small wonder
+that the Englishman who sought the typical American found him in Sherman.
+
+The sound that had caught Stephen's attention was the General's voice,
+somewhat high-pitched, in the key that he used in telling a story.  These
+were his closing words.
+
+"Sin gives you a pretty square deal, boys, after all.  Generally a man
+says, 'Well, I can resist, but I'll have my fun just this once.'  That's
+the way it happens.  They tell you that temptation comes irresistibly.
+Don't believe it.  Do you, Mr. Brice?  Come over here, sir.  Here's a
+friend of yours."
+
+Stephen made his way to the General, whose bright eyes wandered rapidly
+over him as he added:
+
+"This is the condition my officers report in, Brinsmade,--mud from head
+to heel."
+
+Stephen had sense enough to say nothing, but the staff officers laughed,
+and Mr. Brinsmade smiled as he rose and took Stephen's hand.
+
+"I am delighted to see that you are well, sir," said he, with that formal
+kindliness which endeared him to all.  "Your mother will be rejoiced at my
+news of you.  You will be glad to hear that I left her well, Stephen."
+
+Stephen inquired for Mrs. Brinsmade and Anne.
+
+"They are well, sir, and took pleasure in adding to a little box which
+your mother sent.  Judge Whipple put in a box of fine cigars, although he
+deplores the use of tobacco."
+
+"And the Judge, Mr. Brinsmade--how is he?  The good gentleman's face
+fell.
+
+"He is ailing, sir, it grieves me to say.  He is in bed, sir.  But he is
+ably looked after.  Your mother desired to have him moved to her house,
+but he is difficult to stir from his ways, and he would not leave his
+little room.  He is ably nursed.  We have got old Nancy, Hester's mother,
+to stay with him at night, and Mrs. Brice divides the day with Miss Jinny
+Carvel, who comes in from Bellegarde every afternoon."
+
+"Miss Carvel?"  exclaimed Stephen, wondering if he heard aright.  And at
+the mention of her name he tingled.
+
+"None other, sir," answered Mr. Brinsmade.  "She has been much honored
+for it.  You may remember that the Judge was a close friend of her
+father's before the war.  And--well, they quarrelled, sir.  The Colonel
+went South, you know."
+
+"When--when was the Judge taken ill, Mr. Brinsmade?" Stephen asked.  The
+thought of Virginia and his mother caring for him together was strangely
+sweet.
+
+"Two days before I left, sir, Dr. Polk had warned him not to do so much.
+But the Doctor tells me that he can see no dangerous symptoms."
+
+Stephen inquired now of Mr. Brinsmade how long he was to be with them.
+
+"I am going on to the other camps this afternoon," said he.  "But I
+should like a glimpse of your quarters, Stephen, if you will invite me.
+Your mother would like a careful account of you, and Mr. Whipple, and--
+your many friends in St. Louis."
+
+"You will find  my tent a little wet, air," replied Stephen, touched.
+
+Here the General, who had been sitting by watching them with a very
+curious expression, spoke up.
+
+"That's hospitality for you, Brinsmade!"
+
+Stephen and Mr. Brinsmade made their way across plank and bridge to
+Stephen's tent, and his mess servant arrived in due time with the package
+from home.  But presently, while they sat talking of many things, the
+canvas of the fly was thrust back with a quick movement, and who should
+come stooping in but General Sherman himself.  He sat down on a cracker
+box.  Stephen rose confusedly.
+
+"Well, well, Brice," said the General, winking at Mr. Brinsmade, "I think
+you might have invited me to the feast.  Where are those cigars Mr.
+Brinsmade was talking about?"
+
+Stephen opened the box with alacrity.  The General chose one and lighted
+it.
+
+"Don't smoke, eh?" he inquired.  "Why, yes, sir, when I can."
+
+"Then light up, sir," said the General, "and sit down, I've been thinking
+lately of court-martialing you, but I decided to come 'round and talk it
+over with you first.  That isn't strictly according to the rules of the
+service.  Look here, Mr. Brice, why did you leave St. Louis?"
+
+"They began to draft, sir, and I couldn't stand it any longer."
+
+"But you wouldn't have been drafted.  You were in the Home Guards, if I
+remember right.  And Mr. Brinsmade tells me you were useful in many ways
+What was your rank in the Home Guards?"
+
+"Lieutenant colonel, sir."
+
+"And what are you here?"
+
+"A second lieutenant in temporary command, General."   "You have
+commanded men?"
+
+"Not in action, sir.  I felt that that was different."
+
+"Couldn't they do better for you than a second-lieutenancy?"
+
+Stephen did not reply at once,  Mr. Brinsmade spoke up, "They offered him
+a lieutenant-colonelcy."
+
+The General was silent a moment: Then he said "Do you remember meeting me
+on the boat when I was leaving St. Louis, after the capture of Fort
+Henry?"
+
+Stephen smiled.  "Very well, General," he replied, General Sherman leaned
+forward.
+
+"And do you remember I said to you, 'Brice, when you get ready to come
+into this war, let me know.'  Why didn't you do it?"
+
+Stephen thought a minute.  Then he said gravely, but with just a
+suspicion of humor about his mouth:--
+
+"General, if I had done that, you wouldn't be here in my tent to-day."
+
+Like lightning the General was on his feet, his hand on Stephen's
+shoulder.
+
+"By gad, sir," he cried, delighted, "so I wouldn't."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A STRANGE MEETING
+
+The story of the capture of Vicksburg is the old, old story of failure
+turned into success, by which man is made immortal.  It involves the
+history of a general who never retraced his steps, who cared neither for
+mugwump murmurs nor political cabals, who took both blame and praise with
+equanimity.  Through month after month of discouragement, and work gone
+for naught, and fever and death, his eyes never left his goal.  And by
+grace of the wisdom of that President who himself knew sorrow and
+suffering and defeat and unjust censure, General Grant won.
+
+Boldness did it.  The canal abandoned, one red night fleet and transports
+swept around the bend and passed the city's heights, on a red river.  The
+Parrotts and the Dahlgrens roared, and the high bluffs flung out the
+sound over the empty swamp land.
+
+Then there came the landing below, and the cutting loose from a base--
+unheard of.  Corps behind cursed corps ahead for sweeping the country
+clear of forage.  Battles were fought.  Confederate generals in
+Mississippi were bewildered.
+
+One night, while crossing with his regiment a pontoon bridge, Stephen
+Brice heard a shout raised on the farther shore.  Sitting together on a
+log under a torch, two men in slouch hats were silhouetted.  That one
+talking with rapid gestures was General Sherman.  The impassive profile
+of the other, the close-cropped beard and the firmly held cigar that
+seemed to go with it,--Stephen recognized as that of the strange Captain
+Grant who had stood beside him in the street by the Arsenal  He had not
+changed a whit.  Motionless, he watched corps after corps splash by,
+artillery, cavalry, and infantry, nor gave any sign that he heard their
+plaudits.
+
+At length the army came up behind the city to a place primeval, where the
+face of the earth was sore and tortured, worn into deep gorges by the
+rains, and flung up in great mounds.  Stripped of the green magnolias and
+the cane, the banks of clay stood forth in hideous yellow nakedness, save
+for a lonely stunted growth, or a bare trunk that still stood tottering
+on the edge of a banks its pitiful withered roots reaching out below.
+The May weather was already sickly hot.
+
+First of all there was a murderous assault, and a still more murderous
+repulse.  Three times the besiegers charged, sank their color staffs into
+the redoubts, and three times were driven back.  Then the blue army
+settled into the earth and folded into the ravines.  Three days in that
+narrow space between the lines lay the dead and wounded suffering untold
+agonies in the moist heat.  Then came a truce to bury the dead, to bring
+back what was left of the living.
+
+The doomed city had no rest.  Like clockwork from the Mississippi's banks
+beyond came the boom and shriek of the coehorns on the barges.  The big
+shells hung for an instant in the air like birds of prey, and then could
+be seen swooping down here and there, while now and anon a shaft of smoke
+rose straight to the sky, the black monument of a home.
+
+Here was work in the trenches, digging the flying sap by night and
+deepening it by day, for officers and men alike.  From heaven a host of
+blue ants could be seen toiling in zigzags forward, ever forward, along
+the rude water-cuts and through the hills.  A waiting carrion from her
+vantage point on high marked one spot then another where the blue ants
+disappeared, and again one by one came out of the burrow to hurry down
+the trench,--each with his ball of clay.
+
+In due time the ring of metal and sepulchred voices rumbled in the ground
+beneath the besieged.  Counter mines were started, and through the narrow
+walls of earth commands and curses came.  Above ground the saps were so
+near that a strange converse became the rule.  It was "Hello, Reb!"
+"Howdy, Yank!"  Both sides were starving, the one for tobacco and the
+other for hardtack and bacon.  These necessities were tossed across,
+sometimes wrapped in the Vicksburg news-sheet printed on the white side
+of a homely green wall paper.  At other times other amenities were
+indulged in.  Hand-grenades were thrown and shells with lighted fuses
+rolled down on the heads of acquaintances of the night before, who
+replied from wooden coehorns hooped with iron.
+
+The Union generals learned (common item in a siege) that the citizens of
+Vicksburg were eating mule meat.  Not an officer or private in the
+Vicksburg armies who does not remember the 25th of June, and the hour of
+three in an afternoon of pitiless heat.  Silently the long blue files
+wound into position behind the earth barriers which hid them from the
+enemy, coiled and ready to strike when the towering redoubt on the
+Jackson road should rise heavenwards.  By common consent the rifle crack
+of day and night was hushed, and even the Parrotts were silent.
+Stillness closed around the white house of Shirley once more, but not the
+stillness it had known in its peaceful homestead days.  This was the
+stillness of the death prayer.  Eyes staring at the big redoubt were
+dimmed.  At last, to those near, a little wisp of blue smoke crept out.
+
+Then the earth opened with a quake.  The sun was darkened, and a hot
+blast fanned the upturned faces.  In the sky, through the film of
+shattered clay, little black dots scurried, poised, and fell again as
+arms and legs and head less trunks and shapeless bits of wood and iron.
+Scarcely had the dust settled when the sun caught the light of fifty
+thousand bayonets, and a hundred shells were shrieking across the
+crater's edge.  Earth to earth, alas, and dust to dust!  Men who ran
+across that rim of a summer's after-noon died in torture under tier upon
+tier of their comrades,--and so the hole was filled.
+
+An upright cannon marks the spot where a scrawny oak once stood on a
+scarred and baked hillside, outside of the Confederate lines at
+Vicksburg.  Under the scanty shade of that tree, on the eve of the
+Nation's birthday, stood two men who typified the future and the past.
+As at Donelson, a trick of Fortune's had delivered one comrade of old
+into the hands of another.  Now she chose to kiss the one upon whom she
+had heaped obscurity and poverty and contumely.  He had ceased to think
+or care about Fortune.  And hence, being born a woman, she favored him.
+
+The two armies watched and were still.  They noted the friendly greeting
+of old comrades, and after that they saw the self-contained Northerner
+biting his cigar, as one to whom the pleasantries of life were past and
+gone.  The South saw her General turn on his heel.  The bitterness of his
+life was come.  Both sides honored him for the fight he had made.  But
+war does not reward a man according to his deserts.
+
+The next day--the day our sundered nation was born Vicksburg surrendered:
+the obstinate man with the mighty force had conquered.  See the gray
+regiments marching silently in the tropic heat into the folds of that
+blue army whose grip has choked them at last.  Silently, too, the blue
+coats stand, pity and admiration on the brick-red faces.  The arms are
+stacked and surrendered, officers and men are to be parolled when the
+counting is finished.  The formations melt away, and those who for months
+have sought each other's lives are grouped in friendly talk.  The coarse
+army bread is drawn eagerly from the knapsacks of the blue, smoke quivers
+above a hundred fires, and the smell of frying bacon brings a wistful
+look into the gaunt faces.  Tears stand in the eyes of many a man as he
+eats the food his Yankee brothers have given him on the birthday of their
+country.
+
+Within the city it is the same.  Stephen Brice, now a captain in General
+Lauman's brigade, sees with thanksgiving the stars and stripes flutter
+from the dome of that court-house which he had so long watched from afar,
+
+Later on, down a side street, he pauses before a house with its face
+blown away.  On the verge of one of its jagged floors is an old four-
+posted bed, and beside it a child's cot is standing pitifully,--the tiny
+pillow still at the head and the little sheets thrown across the foot.
+So much for one of the navy's shells.
+
+While he was thinking of the sadness of it all, a little scene was acted:
+the side door of the house opened, a weeping woman came out, and with her
+was a tall Confederate Colonel of cavalry.  Gallantly giving her his arm,
+he escorted her as far as the little gate, where she bade him good by
+with much feeling.  With an impulsive movement he drew some money from
+his pocket, thrust it upon her, and started hurriedly away that he might
+not listen to her thanks.  Such was his preoccupation that he actually
+brushed into Stephen, who was standing beside a tree.  He stopped and
+bowed.
+
+"Excuse me, seh," he said contritely.  "I beg your pardon, seh."
+
+"Certainly," said Stephen, smiling; it was my fault for getting in your
+way."
+
+"Not at all, seh," said the cavalry Colonel; "my clumsiness, seh."  He
+did not pass on, but stood pulling with some violence a very long
+mustache.  "Damn you Yankees," he continued, in the same amiable tone,
+"you've brought us a heap of misfortune.  Why, seh, in another week we'd
+been fo'ced to eat niggers."
+
+The Colonel made such a wry face that Stephen laughed in spite of
+himself.  He had marked the man's charitable action, and admired his
+attempt to cover it.  The Colonel seemed to be all breadth, like a card.
+His shoulders were incredible.  The face was scant, perchance from lack
+of food, the nose large, with a curved rim, and the eyes blue gray.  He
+wore clay-flecked cavalry boots, and was six feet five if an inch, so
+that Stephen's six seemed insignificant beside him.
+
+"Captain," he said, taking in Stephen's rank, "so we won't qua'l as to
+who's host heah.  One thing's suah," he added, with a twinkle, "I've been
+heah longest.  Seems like ten yeahs since I saw the wife and children
+down in the Palmetto State.  I can't offer you a dinner, seh.  We've
+eaten all the mules and rats and sugar cane in town."  (His eye seemed to
+interpolate that Stephen wouldn't be there otherwise.)  "But I can offer
+you something choicer than you have in the No'th."
+
+Whereupon he drew from his hip a dented silver flask.  The Colonel
+remarked that Stephen's eyes fell on the coat of arms.
+
+"Prope'ty of my grandfather, seh, of Washington's Army.  My name is
+Jennison,--Catesby Jennison, at your service, seh," he said.  "You have
+the advantage of me, Captain."
+
+"My name is Brice," said Stephen.
+
+The big Colonel bowed decorously, held out a great, wide hand, and
+thereupon unscrewed the flask.  Now Stephen had never learned to like
+straight whiskey, but he took down his share without a face.  The exploit
+seemed to please the Colonel, who, after he likewise had done the liquor
+justice, screwed on the lid with ceremony, offered Stephen his arm with
+still greater ceremony, and they walked off down the street together.
+Stephen drew from his pocket several of Judge Whipple's cigars, to which
+his new friend gave unqualified praise.
+
+On every hand Vicksburg showed signs of hard usage.  Houses with gaping
+chasms in their sides, others mere heaps of black ruins; great trees
+felled, cabins demolished, and here and there the sidewalk ploughed
+across from curb to fence.
+
+"Lordy," exclaimed the Colonel.  "Lordy I how my ears ache since your
+damned coehorns have stopped.  The noise got to be silence with us, seh,
+and yesterday I reckoned a hundred volcanoes had bust.  Tell me," said he
+"when the redoubt over the Jackson road was blown up, they said a nigger
+came down in your lines alive.  Is that so?"
+
+"Yes," said Stephen, smiling; "he struck near the place where my company
+was stationed.  His head ached a mite.  That seemed to be all."
+
+"I reckon he fell on it," said Colonel Catesby Jennison, as if it were a
+matter of no special note.
+
+"And now tell me something," said Stephen.  "How did you burn our sap-
+rollers?"
+
+This time the Colonel stopped, and gave himself up to hearty laughter.
+
+"Why, that was a Yankee trick, sure enough," he cried.  "Some ingenious
+cuss soaked port fire in turpentine, and shot the wad in a large-bore
+musket."
+
+"We thought you used explosive bullets."
+
+The Colonel laughed again, still more heartily.  "Explosive bullets!--
+Good Lord, it was all we could do to get percussion caps.  Do you know
+how we got percussion caps, seh?  Three of our officers--dare-devils,
+seh--floated down the Mississippi on logs.  One fellow made his way back
+with two hundred thousand.  He's the pride of our Vicksburg army.  Not
+afraid of hell.  A chivalrous man, a forlorn-hope man.  The night you ran
+the batteries he and some others went across to your side in skiffs--in
+skiffs, seh, I say--and set fire to the houses in De Soto, that we might
+see to shoot.  And then he came back in the face of our own batteries and
+your guns.  That man was wounded by a trick of fate, by a cussed bit of
+shell from your coehorns while eating his dinner in Vicksburg.  He's
+pretty low, now, poor fellow," added the Colonel, sadly.
+
+"Where is he?" demanded Stephen, fired with a desire to see the man.
+
+"Well, he ain't a great ways from here," said the Colonel.  "Perhaps you
+might be able to do something for him," he continued thoughtfully.  I'd
+hate to see him die.  The doctor says he'll pull through if he can get
+care and good air and good food."  He seized Stephen's arm in a fierce
+grip.  "You ain't fooling?" he said.  "Indeed I am not," said Stephen.
+
+"No," said the Colonel, thoughtfully, as to himself, "you don't look like
+the man to fool."
+
+Whereupon he set out with great strides, in marked contrast to his former
+languorous gait, and after a while they came to a sort of gorge, where
+the street ran between high banks of clay.  There Stephen saw the
+magazines which the Confederates had dug out, and of which he had heard.
+But he saw something, too, of which he had not heard, Colonel Catesby
+Jennison stopped before an open doorway in the yellow bank and knocked.
+A woman's voice called softly to him to enter.
+
+They went into a room hewn out of the solid clay.  Carpet was stretched
+on the floor, paper was on the walls, and even a picture.  There was a
+little window cut like a port in a prison cell, and under it a bed,
+beside which a middle-aged lady was seated.  She had a kindly face which
+seemed to Stephen a little pinched as she turned to them with a gesture
+of restraint.  She pointed to the bed, where a sheet lay limply over the
+angles of a wasted frame.  The face was to the wall.
+
+"Hush!" said the lady,--"it is the first time in two days that he has
+slept."
+
+But the sleeper stirred wearily, and woke with a start.  He turned over.
+The face, so yellow and peaked, was of the type that grows even more
+handsome in sickness, and in the great fever-stricken eyes a high spirit
+burned.  For an instant only the man stared at Stephen, and then he
+dragged himself to the wall.
+
+The eyes of the other two were both fixed on the young Union Captain.
+
+"My God!" cried Jennison, seizing Stephen's rigid arm, "does he look as
+bad as that?  We've seen him every day."
+
+"I--I know him," answered Stephen.  He stepped quickly to the bedside,
+and bent over it.  "Colfax!" he said.  "Colfax!"
+
+"This is too much, Jennison," came from the bed a voice that was
+pitifully weak; "why do you bring Yankees in here?"
+
+"Captain Brice is a friend of yours, Colfax," said the Colonel, tugging
+at his mustache.
+
+"Brice?" repeated Clarence, "Brice?  Does he come from St. Louis?"
+
+"Do you come from St. Louis, sir?"
+
+"Yes.  I have met Captain Colfax--
+
+"Colonel, sir."
+
+"Colonel Colfax, before the war!  And if he would like to go to St.Louis,
+I think I can have it arranged at once.
+
+In silence they waited for Clarence's answer  Stephen well knew what was
+passing in his mind, and guessed at his repugnance to accept a favor from
+a Yankee.  He wondered whether there was in this case a special
+detestation.  And so his mind was carried far to the northward to the
+memory of that day in the summer-house on the Meramee heights.  Virginia
+had not loved her cousin then--of that Stephen was sure.  But now,--now
+that the Vicksburg army was ringing with his praise, now that he was
+unfortunate--Stephen sighed.  His comfort was that he would be the
+instrument.
+
+The lady in her uneasiness smoothed the single sheen that covered the
+sick man.  From afar came the sound of cheering, and it was this that
+seemed to rouse him.  He faced them again, impatiently.
+
+"I have reason to remember Mr. Brice," he said steadily.  And then, with
+some vehemence, "What is he doing in Vicksburg?"
+
+Stephen looked at Jennison, who winced,
+
+"The city has surrendered," said that officer.
+
+They counted on a burst of anger.  Colfax only groaned.
+
+"Then you can afford to be generous," he said, with a bitter laugh.
+"But you haven't whipped us yet, by a good deal.  Jennison," he cried,
+"Jennison, why in hell did you give up?"
+
+"Colfax," said Stephen, coming forward, "you're too sick a man to talk.
+I'll look up the General.  It may be that I can have you sent North
+to-day."
+
+"You can do as you please," said Clarence, coldly, "with a--prisoner."
+
+The blood rushed to Stephen's face.  Bowing to the lady, he strode out of
+the room.  Colonel Jennison, running after him, caught him in the street.
+
+"You're not offended, Brice?" he said.  "He's sick--and God Almighty,
+he's proud--I reckon," he added with a touch of humility that went
+straight to Stephen's heart.  "I reckon that some of us are too derned
+proud--But we ain't cold."
+
+Stephen grasped his hand.
+
+"Offended!" he said.  "I admire the man.  I'll go to the General
+directly.  But just let me thank you.  And I hope, Colonel, that we may
+meet again--as friends."  "Hold on, seh," said Colonel Catesby Jennison;
+"we may as well drink to that."
+
+Fortunately, as Stephen drew near the Court House, he caught sight of
+a group of officers seated on its steps, and among them he was quick to
+recognize General Sherman.
+
+"Brice," said the General, returning his salute, "been celebrating this
+glorious Fourth with some of our Rebel friends?"
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Stephen, "and I came to ask a favor for one of
+them."  Seeing that the General's genial, interested expression did not
+change, he was emboldened to go on.  "This is one of their colonels, sir.
+You may have heard of him.  He is the man who floated down the river on a
+log and brought back two hundred thousand percussion caps--"
+
+"Good Lord," interrupted the General, "I guess we all heard of him after
+that.  What else has he done to endear himself?" he asked, with a smile.
+
+"Well, General, he rowed across the river in a skiff the night we ran
+these batteries, and set fire to De Soto to make targets for their
+gunners."
+
+"I'd like to see that man," said the General, in his eager way.  "Where
+is he?"
+
+"What I was going to tell you, sir.  After he went through all this, he
+was hit by a piece of mortar shell, while sitting at his dinner.  He's
+rather far gone now, General, and they say he can't live unless he can be
+sent North.  I--I know who he is in St. Louis.  And I thought that as
+long as the officers are to be paroled I might get your permission to
+send him up to-day."
+
+"What's his name?"
+
+"Colfax, sir."
+
+The General laughed.  "I know the breed," said he, "I'll bet he didn't
+thank you."
+
+"No, sir, he didn't."
+
+"I like  his  grit,"  said  the  General,  emphatically, "These young
+bloods are the backbone of this rebellion, Brice.  They were made for
+war.  They never did anything except horse-racing and cock-fighting.
+They ride like the devil, fight like the devil, but don't care a picayune
+for anything.  Walker had some of 'em.  Crittenden had some.  And, good
+Lord, how they hate a Yankee!  I know this Colfax, too.  He's a cousin of
+that fine-looking girl Brinsmade spoke of.  They say he's engaged to her.
+Be a pity to disappoint her--eh?"
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+"Why, Captain, I believe you would like to marry her yourself!  Take my
+advice, sir, and don't try to tame any wildcats."
+
+"I'm glad to do a favor for that young man," said the General, when
+Stephen had gone off with the slip of paper he had given him.  "I like to
+do that kind of a favor for any officer, when I can.  Did you notice how
+he flared up when I mentioned the girl?"
+
+This is why Clarence Colfax found himself that evening on a hospital
+steamer of the Sanitary Commission, bound north for St. Louis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+BELLEGARDE ONCE MORE
+
+Supper at Bellegarde was not the simple meal it had been for a year past
+at Colonel Carvel's house in town.  Mrs. Colfax was proud of her table,
+proud of her fried chickens and corn fritters and her desserts.  How
+Virginia chafed at those suppers, and how she despised the guests whom
+her aunt was in the habit of inviting to some of them!  And when none was
+present, she was forced to listen to Mrs. Colfax's prattle about the
+fashions, her tirades against the Yankees.
+
+"I'm sure he must be dead," said that lady, one sultry evening in July.
+Her tone, however, was not one of conviction.  A lazy wind from the river
+stirred the lawn of Virginia's gown.  The girl, with her hand on the
+wicker back of the chair, was watching a storm gather to the eastward,
+across the Illinois prairie.
+
+"I don't see why you say that, Aunt Lillian," she replied.  "Bad news
+travels faster than good."
+
+"And not a word from Comyn.  It is cruel of him not to send us a line,
+telling us where his regiment is."
+
+Virginia did not reply.  She had long since learned that the wisdom of
+silence was the best for her aunt's unreasonableness.  Certainly, if
+Clarence's letters could not pass the close lines of the Federal troops,
+news of her father's Texas regiment could not come from Red River.
+
+"How was Judge Whipple to-day?" asked Mrs. Colfax presently.
+
+"Very weak.  He doesn't seem to improve much."
+
+"I can't see why Mrs. Brice,--isn't that her name?--doesn't take him to
+her house.  Yankee women are such prudes."
+
+Virginia began to rock slowly, and her foot tapped the porch.
+
+"Mrs. Brice has begged the Judge to come to her.  But he says he has
+lived in those rooms, and that he will die there,--when the time comes."
+
+"How you worship that woman, Virginia!  You have become quite a Yankee
+yourself, I believe, spending whole days with her, nursing that old man."
+
+"The Judge is an old friend of my father's; I think he would wish it,"
+replied the girl, in a lifeless voice.
+
+Her speech did not reveal all the pain and resentment she felt.  She
+thought of the old man racked with pain and suffering in the heat, lying
+patient on his narrow bed, the only light of life remaining the presence
+of the two women.  They came day by day, and often Margaret Brice had
+taken the place of the old negress who sat with him at night.  Worship
+Margaret Brice!  Yes, it was worship; it had been worship since the day
+she and her father had gone to the little whitewashed hospital.
+Providence had brought them together at the Judge's bedside.  The
+marvellous quiet power of the older woman had laid hold of the girl in
+spite of all barriers.
+
+Often when the Judge's pain was eased sufficiently for him to talk, he
+would speak of Stephen.  The mother never spoke of her son, but a light
+would come into her eyes at this praise of him which thrilled Virginia
+to see.  And when the good lady was gone, and the Judge had fallen into
+slumber, it would still haunt her.
+
+Was it out of consideration for her that Mrs. Brice would turn the Judge
+from this topic which he seemed to love best?  Virginia could not admit
+to herself that she resented this.  She had heard Stephen's letters to
+the Judge.  They came every week.  Strong and manly they were, with
+plenty of praises for the Southern defenders of Vicksburg.  Only
+yesterday Virginia had read one of these to Mr. Whipple, her face
+burning.  Well that his face was turned to the window, and that Stephen's
+mother was not there!
+
+"He says very little about himself," Mr. Whipple complained.  "Had it not
+been for Brinsmade, we should never know that Sherman had his eye on him,
+and had promoted him.  We should never have known of that exploit at
+Chickasaw Bluff.  But what a glorious victory was Grant's capture of
+Vicksburg, on the Fourth of July!  I guess we'll make short work of the
+Rebels now."
+
+No, the Judge had not changed much, even in illness.  He would never
+change.  Virginia laid the letter down, and tears started to her eyes as
+she repressed a retort.  It was not the first time this had happened.  At
+every Union victory Mr. Whipple would loose his tongue.  How strange
+that, with all his thought of others, he should fall short here!
+
+One day, after unusual forbearance, Mrs. Brice had overtaken Virginia on
+the stairway.  Well she knew the girl's nature, and how difficult she
+must have found repression.  Margaret Brice had taken her hand.
+
+"My dear," she had said, "you are a wonderful woman."  That was all.  But
+Virginia had driven back to Belle.  garde with a strange elation in her
+heart.
+
+Some things the Judge had forborne to mention, and for this Virginia was
+thankful.  One was the piano.  But she had overheard Shadrach telling old
+Nancy how Mrs. Brice had pleaded with him to move it, that he might have
+more room and air.  He had been obdurate.  And Colonel Carvel's name had
+never once passed his lips.
+
+Many a night the girl had lain awake listening to the steamboats as they
+toiled against the river's current, while horror held her.  Horror lest
+her father at that moment be in mortal agony amongst the heaps left by
+the battle's surges; heaps in which, like mounds of ashes, the fire was
+not yet dead.  Fearful tales she had heard in the prison hospitals of
+wounded men lying for days in the Southern sun between the trenches at
+Vicksburg, or freezing amidst the snow and sleet at Donelson.
+
+Was her bitterness against the North not just?  What a life had been
+Colonel Carvel's!  It had dawned brightly.  One war had cost him his
+wife.  Another, and he had lost his fortune, his home, his friends, all
+that was dear to him.  And that daughter, whom he loved best in all the
+world, he was perchance to see no more.
+
+Mrs. Colfax, yawning, had taken a book and gone to bed.  Still Virginia
+sat on the porch, while the frogs sang of rain, and the lightning
+quivered across the eastern sky.  She heard the crunch of wheels in the
+gravel.
+
+A bar of light, peopled by moths, slanted out of the doorway and fell on
+a closed carriage.  A gentleman slowly ascended the steps.  Virginia
+recognized him as Mr. Brinsmade.
+
+"Your cousin Clarence has come home, my dear," he said.  "He was among
+the captured at Vicksburg, and is paroled by General Grant."
+
+Virginia gave a little cry and started forward.  But he held her hands.
+
+"He has been wounded!"
+
+"Yes," she exclaimed, "yes.  Oh, tell me, Mr. Brinsmade, tell me--all--"
+
+"No, he is not dead, but he is very low.  Mr. Russell has been kind
+enough to come with me."
+
+She hurried to call the servants.  But they were all there in the light,
+in African postures of terror,--Alfred, and Sambo, and Mammy Easter, and
+Ned.  They lifted the limp figure in gray, and carried it into the hall
+chamber, his eyes closed, his face waxen under a beard brown and shaggy.
+Heavily, Virginia climbed the stairs to break the news to her aunt.
+
+There is little need to dwell on the dark days which followed--Clarence
+hanging between life and death.  That his life was saved was due to
+Virginia and to Mammy Easter, and in no particle to his mother.  Mrs.
+Colfax flew in the face of all the known laws of nursing, until Virginia
+was driven to desperation, and held a council of war with Dr. Polk.  Then
+her aunt grew jealous, talked of a conspiracy, and threatened to send for
+Dr. Brown--which Dr. Polk implored her to do.  By spells she wept, when
+they quietly pushed her from the room and locked the door.  She would
+creep in to him in the night during Mammy Easter's watches and talk him
+into a raging fever.  But Virginia slept lightly and took the alarm.
+More than one scene these two had in the small hours, while Ned was
+riding post haste over the black road to town for the Doctor.
+
+By the same trusty messenger did Virginia contrive to send a note to Mrs.
+Brice, begging her to explain her absence to Judge Whipple.  By day or
+night Virginia did not leave Bellegarde.  And once Dr. Polk, while
+walking in the garden, found the girl fast asleep on a bench, her sewing
+on her lap.  Would that a master had painted his face as he looked down
+at her!
+
+'Twas he who brought Virginia daily news of Judge Whipple.  Bad news,
+alas! for he seemed to miss her greatly.  He had become more querulous
+and exacting with patient Mrs. Brice, and inquired for her continually.
+
+She would not go.  But often, when he got into his buggy the Doctor found
+the seat filled with roses and fresh fruit.  Well he knew where to carry
+them.
+
+What Virginia's feelings were at this time no one will ever know.  God
+had mercifully given her occupation, first with the Judge, and later,
+when she needed it more, with Clarence.  It was she whom he recognized
+first of all, whose name was on his lips in his waking moments.  With the
+petulance of returning reason, he pushed his mother away.  Unless
+Virginia was at his bedside when he awoke, his fever rose.  He put his
+hot hand into her cool one, and it rested there sometimes for hours.
+Then, and only then, did he seem contented.
+
+The wonder was that her health did not fail.  People who saw her during
+that fearful summer, fresh and with color in her cheeks, marvelled.
+Great-hearted Puss Russell, who came frequently to inquire, was quieted
+before her friend, and the frank and jesting tongue was silent in that
+presence.  Anne Brinsmade came with her father and wondered.  A miracle
+had changed Virginia.  Her poise, her gentleness, her dignity, were the
+effects which people saw.  Her force people felt.  And this is why we
+cannot of ourselves add one cubit to our stature.  It is God who
+changes,--who cleanses us of our levity with the fire of trial.  Happy,
+thrice happy, those whom He chasteneth.  And yet how many are there who
+could not bear the fire--who would cry out at the flame.
+
+Little by little Clarence mended, until he came to sit out on the porch
+in the cool of the afternoon.  Then he would watch for hours the tassels
+stirring over the green fields of corn and the river running beyond,
+while the two women sat by.  At times, when Mrs. Colfax's headaches came
+on, and Virginia was alone with him, he would talk of the war; sometimes
+of their childhood, of the mad pranks they played here at Bellegarde, of
+their friends.  Only when Virginia read to him the Northern account of
+the battles would he emerge from a calm sadness into excitement; and he
+clenched his fists and tried to rise when he heard of the capture of
+Jackson and the fall of Port Hudson.  Of love he spoke not a word, and
+now that he was better he ceased to hold her hand.  But often when she
+looked up from her book, she would surprise his dark eyes fixed upon her,
+and a look in them of but one interpretation.  She was troubled.
+
+The Doctor came but every other day now, in the afternoon.  It was his
+custom to sit for a while on the porch chatting cheerily with Virginia,
+his stout frame filling the rocking-chair.  Dr. Polk's indulgence was
+gossip--though always of a harmless nature: how Mr. Cluyme always managed
+to squirm over to the side which was in favor, and how Maude Catherwood's
+love-letter to a certain dashing officer of the Confederate army had been
+captured and ruthlessly published in the hateful Democrat.  It was the
+Doctor who gave Virginia news of the Judge, and sometimes he would
+mention Mrs. Brice.  Then Clarence would raise his head; and once (she
+saw with trepidation) he had opened his lips to speak.
+
+One day the Doctor came, and Virginia looked into his face and divined
+that he had something to tell her.  He sat but a few moments, and when he
+arose to go he took her hand.
+
+"I have a favor to beg of you, Jinny," he said, Judge has lost his nurse.
+Do you think Clarence could spare you for a little while every day?  I
+shouldn't ask it," Dr. Polk continued, somewhat hurriedly for him, but
+the Judge cannot bear a stranger near him,  And I am afraid to have him
+excited while in this condition."
+
+"Mrs. Brice is ill?"  she cried.  And Clarence, watching, saw her color
+go.
+
+"No," replied Dr. Polk, "but her son Stephen has come home from the army.
+He was transferred to Lauman's brigade, and then he was wounded."  He
+jangled the keys in his pocket and continued  "It seems that he had no
+business in the battle.  Johnston in his retreat had driven animals into
+all the ponds and shot them, and in the hot weather the water was soon
+poisoned.  Mr. Brice was scarcely well enough to stand when they made the
+charge, and he is now in a dreadful condition  He is a fine fellow, added
+the Doctor, with a sigh,  "General Sherman sent a special physician to
+the boat with him.  He is--Subconsciously the Doctor's arm sought
+Virginia's back, as though he felt her swaying.  But he was looking at
+Clarence, who had jerked himself forward in his chair, his thin hands
+convulsively clutching at the arms of it.  He did not appear to see
+Virginia.
+
+"Stephen Brice, did you say?"  he cried, "will he die?"
+
+In his astonishment the Doctor passed his palm across his brow, and for a
+moment he did not answer.  Virginia had taken a step from him, and was
+standing motionless, almost rigid, her eyes on his face.
+
+"Die?" he said, repeating the word mechanically; "my God, I hope not.
+The danger is over, and he is resting easily.  If he were not," he said
+quickly and forcibly, "I should not be here."
+
+The Doctor's mare passed more than one fleet--footed trotter on the road.
+to town that day.  And the Doctor's black servant heard his master utter
+the word "fool" twice, and with great emphasis.
+
+For a long time Virginia stood on the end of the porch, until the heaving
+of the buggy harness died on the soft road, She felt Clarence gaze upon
+her before she turned to face him.
+
+"Virginia!"  He had called her so of late.  "Yes, dear."
+
+"Virginia, sit here a moment; I have something to tell you."
+
+She came and took the chair beside him, her heart beating, her breast
+rising and falling.  She looked into his eyes, and her own lashes fell
+before the hopelessness there But he put out his fingers wasted by
+illness, and she took them in her own.
+
+He began slowly, as if every word cost him pain.
+
+It Virginia, we were children together here.  I cannot remember the time
+when I did not love you, when I did not think of you as my wife.  All I
+did when we played together was to try to win your applause.  That was my
+nature  I could not help it.  Do you remember the day I climbed out on
+the rotten branch of the big pear tree yonder to get you that pear--when
+I fell on the roof of Alfred's cabin?  I did not feel the pain.  It was
+because you kissed it and cried over me.  You are crying now," he said
+tenderly.  "Don't, Jinny.  It isn't to make you tad that I am saying
+this.
+
+"I have had a great deal of time to think lately, Jinny, I was not
+brought up seriously,--to be a man.  I have been thinking of that day
+just before you were eighteen, when you rode out here.  How well I
+remember it.  It was a purple day.  The grapes were purple, and a purple
+haze was over there across the river.  You had been cruel to me.  You
+were grown a woman then, and I was still nothing but a boy.  Do you
+remember the doe coming out of the forest, and how she ran screaming when
+I tried to kiss you?  You told me I was good for nothing.  Please don't
+interrupt me.  It was true what you said, that I was wild and utterly
+useless,  I had never served or pleased any but myself,--and you.  I had
+never studied or worked,  You were right when you told me I must learn
+something,--do something,--become of some account in the world.  I am
+just as useless to day."
+
+"Clarence, after what you have done for the South?"
+
+He smiled with peculiar bitterness.
+
+"What have I done for her?"  he added.  "Crossed the river and burned
+houses.  I could not build them again.  Floated down the river on a log
+after a few percussion caps.  That did not save Vicksburg."
+
+"And how many had the courage to do that?"  she exclaimed.
+
+"Pooh," he said, "courage! the whole South has it, Courage!  If I did not
+have that, I would send Sambo to my father's room for his ebony box and
+blow my brains out.  No, Jinny, I am nothing but a soldier of fortune.
+I never possessed any quality but a wild spirit for adventure, to shirk
+work.  I wanted to go with Walker, you remember.  I wanted to go to
+Kansas.  I wanted to distinguish myself," he added with a gesture.  "But
+that is all gone now, Jinny.  I wanted to distinguish myself for you.
+Now I see how an earnest life might have won you. No, I have not done
+yet."
+
+She raised her head, frightened, and looked at him searchingly.
+
+"One day," he said, "one day a good many years ago you and I and Uncle
+Comyn were walking along Market Street in front of Judge Whipple's
+office, and a slave auction was going on.  A girl was being sold on whom
+you had set your heart.  There was some one in the crowd, a Yankee, who
+bid her in and set her free.  Do you remember him?"
+
+He saw her profile, her lips parted, her look far away, She inclined her
+head.
+
+"Yes," said her cousin, "so do I remember him.  He has crossed my path
+many times since, Virginia.  And mark what I say--it was he whom you had
+in mind on that birthday when you implored me to make something of
+myself,  It was Stephen Brice."
+
+Her eyes flashed upon him quickly.
+
+"Oh, how dare you?"  she cried.
+
+"I dare anything, Virginia," he answered quietly.  "I am not blaming you.
+And I am sure that you did not realize that he was the ideal which you
+had in mind."
+
+The impression of him has never left it.  Fate is in it.  Again, that
+night at the Brinsmades', when we were in fancy dress, I felt that I had
+lost you when I got back.  He had been there when I was away, and gone
+again.  And--and--you never told me."
+
+"It was a horrible mistake, Max," she faltered.  "I was waiting for you
+down the road, and stopped his horse instead.  It--it was nothing--"
+
+"It was fate, Jinny.  In that half-hour I lost you.  How I hated that
+man," he cried, "how I hated him?"
+
+"Hated!" exclaimed Virginia, involuntarily.  "Oh, no!"
+
+"Yes," he said, "hated!  I would have killed him if I could.  But now--"
+
+"But now?"
+
+"Now he has saved my life.  I have not--I could not tell you before: He
+came into the place where I was lying in Vicksburg, and they told him
+that my only chance was to come North,  I turned my back upon him,
+insulted him.  Yet he went to Sherman and had me brought home--to you,
+Virginia.  If he loves you,--and I have long suspected that he does--"
+
+"Oh, no," she cried, hiding her face  "No."
+
+"I know he loves you, Jinny," her cousin continued calmly, inexorably.
+"And you know that he does.  You must feel that he does.  It was a brave
+thing to do, and a generous.  He knew that you were engaged to me.  He
+thought that he was saving me for you.  He was giving up the hope of
+marrying you himself."
+
+Virginia sprang to her feet.  Unless you had seen her then, you had never
+known the woman in her glory,
+
+"Marry a Yankee!" she cried.  "Clarence Colfax, have you known and loved
+me all my life that you might accuse me of this?  Never, never, never!"
+Transformed, he looked incredulous admiration.
+
+"Jinny, do you mean it?" he cried.
+
+In answer she bent down with all that gentleness and grace that was hers,
+and pressed her lips to his forehead.  Long after she had disappeared in
+the door he sat staring after her.
+
+But later, when Mammy Easter went to call her mistress for supper, she
+found her with her face buried in the pillows.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+IN JUDGE WHIPPLE'S OFFICE
+
+After this Virginia went to the Judge's bedside every day, in the
+morning, when Clarence took his sleep.  She read his newspapers to him
+when he was well enough.  She read the detested Missouri Democrat, which
+I think was the greatest trial Virginia ever had to put up with.  To have
+her beloved South abused, to have her heroes ridiculed, was more than she
+could bear.  Once, when the Judge was perceptibly better, she flung the
+paper out of the window, and left the room.  He called her back
+penitently.
+
+"My dear," he said, smiling admiration, "forgive an old bear.  A selfish
+old bear, Jinny; my only excuse is my love for the Union.  When you are
+not here, I lie in agony, lest she has suffered some mortal blow unknown
+to me, Jinny.  And if God sees fit to spare our great country, the day
+will come when you will go down on your knees and thank Him for the
+inheritance which He saved for your children.  You are a good woman, my
+dear, and a strong one.  I have hoped that you will see the right.  That
+you will marry a great citizen, one unwavering in his service and
+devotion to our Republic.  "The Judge's voice trembled with earnestness
+as he spoke.  And the gray eyes under the shaggy brows were alight with
+the sacred fire of his life's purpose.  Undaunted as her spirit was, she
+could not answer him then.
+
+Once, only once, he said to her: "Virginia, I loved your father better
+than any man I ever knew.  Please God I may see him again before I die."
+
+He never spoke of the piano.  But sometimes at twilight his eyes would
+rest on the black cloth that hid it.
+
+Virginia herself never touched that cloth to her it seemed the shroud
+upon a life of happiness that was dead and gone.
+
+Virginia had not been with Judge Whipple during the critical week after
+Stephen was brought home.  But Anne had told her that his anxiety was a
+pitiful thing to see, and that it had left him perceptibly weaker.
+Certain it was that he was failing fast.  So fast that on some days
+Virginia, watching him, would send Ned or Shadrach in hot haste for Dr.
+Polk.
+
+At noon Anne would relieve Virginia,--Anne or her mother,--and
+frequently Mr. Brinsmade would come likewise.  For it is those who have
+the most to do who find the most time for charitable deeds.  As the hour
+for their coming drew near, the Judge would be seeking the clock, and
+scarce did Anne's figure appear in the doorway before the question had
+arisen to his lips--
+
+"And how is my young Captain to-day?"
+
+That is what he called him,--"My young Captain."  Virginia's choice of
+her cousin, and her devotion to him, while seemingly natural enough, had
+drawn many a sigh from Anne.  She thought it strange that Virginia
+herself had never once asked her about Stephen's condition and she spoke
+of this one day to the Judge with as much warmth as she was capable of.
+
+"Jinny's heart is like steel where a Yankee is concerned.  If her best
+friend were a Yankee--"
+
+Judge Whipple checked her, smiling.
+
+"She has been very good to one Yankee I know of," he said.  "And as for
+Mrs. Brice, I believe she worships her."
+
+"But when I said that Stephen was much better to-day, she swept out of
+the room as if she did not care whether he lived or died."
+
+"Well, Anne," the Judge had answered, "you women are a puzzle to me.
+I guess you don't understand yourselves," he added.
+
+That was a strange month in the life of Clarence Colfax,--the last of his
+recovery, while he was waiting for the news of his exchange.  Bellegarde
+was never more beautiful, for Mrs. Colfax had no whim of letting the
+place run down because a great war was in progress.  Though devoted to
+the South, she did not consecrate her fortune to it.  Clarence gave as
+much as he could.
+
+Whole afternoons Virginia and he would sit in the shaded arbor seat; or
+at the cool of the day descend to the bench on the lower tier of the
+summer garden, to steep, as it were, in the blended perfumes of the roses
+and the mignonettes and the pinks.  He was soberer than of old.  Often
+through the night he pondered on the change in her.  She, too, was grave.
+But he was troubled to analyze her gravity, her dignity.  Was this merely
+strength of character, the natural result of the trials through which she
+had passed, the habit acquired of being the Helper and comforter instead
+of the helped and comforted?  Long years afterward the brightly  colored
+portrait of her remained in his eye,--the simple linen gown of pink or
+white, the brown hair shining in the sunlight, the graceful poise of the
+head.  And the background of flowers--flowers everywhere, far from the
+field of war.
+
+Sometimes, when she brought his breakfast on a tray in the morning, there
+was laughter in her eyes.  In the days gone by they had been all
+laughter.
+
+They were engaged.  She was to be his wife.  He said it over to himself
+many, many times in the day.  He would sit for a space, feasting his eyes
+upon her until she lifted her look to his, and the rich color flooded her
+face.  He was not a lover to sit quietly by, was Clarence.  And yet, as
+the winged days flew on, that is what he did,  It was not that she did
+not respond to his advances, he did not make them.  Nor could he have
+told why.  Was it the chivalry inherited from a long life of Colfaxes who
+were gentlemen?  Not wholly.  Something of awe had crept into his feeling
+for her.
+
+As the month wore on, and the time drew near for him to go back to the
+war, a state that was not quite estrangement, and yet something very like
+it, set in.  Poor Clarence.  Doubts bothered him, and he dared not give
+them voice.  By night he would plan his speeches,--impassioned,
+imploring.  To see her in her marvellous severity was to strike him dumb.
+Horrible thought!  Whether she loved him, whether she did not love him,
+she would not give him up.  Through the long years of their lives
+together, he would never know.  He was not a weak man now, was Clarence
+Colfax.  He was merely a man possessed of a devil, enchained by the power
+of self-repression come upon her whom he loved.
+
+And day by day that power seemed to grow more intense,--invulnerable.
+Among her friends and in the little household it had raised Virginia to
+heights which she herself did not seem to realize.  She was become the
+mistress of Bellegarde.  Mrs. Colfax was under its sway, and doubly
+miserable because Clarence would listen to her tirades no more.
+
+"When are you to be married?"  she had ventured to ask him once.  Nor had
+she taken pains to hide the sarcasm in her voice.
+
+His answer, bringing with it her remembrance of her husband at certain
+times when it was not safe to question him, had silenced her.  Addison
+Colfax had not been a quiet man.  When he was quiet he was dangerous.
+
+"Whenever Virginia is ready, mother," he had replied.  Whenever Virginia
+was ready!  He knew in his heart that if he were to ask her permission to
+send for Dr, Posthelwaite to-morrow that she would say yes.  Tomorrow
+came,--and with it a great envelope, an official, answer to Clarence's
+report that he was fit for duty once more.  He had been exchanged.  He
+was to proceed to Cairo, there to await the arrival of the transport
+Indianapolis, which was to carry five hundred officers and men from
+Sandusky Prison, who were going back to fight once more for the
+Confederacy.  O that they might have seen the North, all those brave men
+who made that sacrifice.  That they might have realized the numbers and
+the resources and the wealth arrayed against them!
+
+It was a cool day for September, a perfect day, an auspicious day, and
+yet it went the way of the others before it.  This was the very fulness
+of the year, the earth giving out the sweetness of her maturity, the corn
+in martial ranks, with golden plumes nodding.  The forest still in its
+glory of green.  They walked in silence the familiar paths, and Alfred,
+clipping the late roses for the supper table, shook his white head as
+they passed him.  The sun, who had begun to hurry on his southward
+journey, went to bed at six.  The few clothes Clarence was to take with
+him had been packed by Virginia in his bag, and the two were standing in
+the twilight on the steps of the house, when Ned came around the corner.
+He called his young mistress by name, but she did not hear him.  He
+called again.
+
+"Miss Jinny!"
+
+She started as from a sleep, and paused.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Johnson," said she, and smiled.  He wore that air of mystery so
+dear to darkeys.
+
+"Gemmen to see you, Miss Jinny."
+
+"A gentleman!" she said in surprise.  "Where?"
+
+The negro pointed to the lilac shrubbery.
+
+"Thar!"
+
+"What's all this nonsense, Ned?" said Clarence, sharply: "If a man is
+there, bring him here at once."
+
+"Reckon he won't come, Marse Clarence."  said Ned, "He fearful skeered ob
+de light ob day.  He got suthin very pertickler fo' Miss Jinny."
+
+"Do you know him?" Clarence demanded.
+
+"No sah--yessah--leastwise I'be seed 'um.  Name's Robimson."
+
+The word was hardly out of his mouth before Virginia had leaped down the
+four feet from the porch to the flower-bed and was running across the
+lawn toward the shrubbery.  Parting the bushes after her, Clarence found
+his cousin confronting a large man, whom be recognized as the carrier who
+brought messages from the South.
+
+"What's the matter, Jinny?" he demanded.
+
+"Pa has got through the lines," she said breathlessly.  "He--he came up
+to see me.  Where is he, Robinson?"
+
+"He went to Judge Whipple's rooms, ma'am.  They say the Judge is dying.
+I reckoned you knew it, Miss Jinny," Robinson added contritely.
+
+"Clarence," she said, "I must go at once."
+
+"I will go with you," he said; "you cannot go alone."  In a twinkling Ned
+and Sambo had the swift pair of horses harnessed, and the light carriage
+was flying over the soft clay road toward the city.  As they passed Mr.
+Brinsmade's place, the moon hung like a great round lantern under the
+spreading trees about the house.  Clarence caught a glimpse of his
+cousin's face in the light.  She was leaning forward, her gaze fixed
+intently on the stone posts which stood like monuments between the bushes
+at the entrance.  Then she drew back again into the dark corner of the
+barouche.  She was startled by a sharp challenge, and the carriage
+stopped.  Looking out, she saw the provost's guard like black card
+figures on the road, and Ned fumbling for his pass.
+
+On they drove into the city streets until the dark bulk of the Court
+House loomed in front of them, and Ned drew rein at the little stairway
+which led to the Judge's rooms.  Virginia, leaping out of the carriage,
+flew up the steps and into the outer office, and landed in the Colonel's
+arms.
+
+"Jinny!"
+
+"Oh, Pa!" she cried.  "Why do you risk your life in this way?  If the
+Yankees catch you--"
+
+"They won't catch me, honey," he answered, kissing her.  Then he held her
+out at arm's length and gazed earnestly into her face.  Trembling, she
+searched his own.  "Pa, how old you look!"
+
+"I'm not precisely young, my dear," he said, smiling.  His hair was
+nearly white, and his face scared.  But he was a fine erect figure of a
+man, despite the shabby clothes he wore, and the mud-bespattered boots.
+
+"Pa," she whispered, "it was foolhardy to come here.  Why did you come to
+St. Louis at all?"
+
+"I came to see you, Jinny, I reckon.  And when I got home to-night and
+heard Silas was dying, I just couldn't resist.  He's the oldest friend
+I've got in St. Louis, honey and now--now--"
+
+"Pa, you've been in battle?"
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"And you weren't hurt; I thank God for that," she whispered.  After a
+while: "Is Uncle Silas dying?"
+
+"Yes, Jinny; Dr. Polk is in there now, and says that he can't last
+through the night.  Silas has been asking for you, honey, over and over.
+He says you were very good to him,--that you and Mrs. Brice gave up
+everything to nurse him."
+
+"She did," Virginia faltered.  "She was here night and day until her son
+came home.  She is a noble woman--"
+
+"Her son?" repeated the Colonel.  "Stephen Brice?  Silas has done nothing
+the last half-hour but call his name.  He says he must see the boy before
+he dies.  Polk says he is not strong enough to come."
+
+"Oh, no, he is not strong enough," cried Virginia.  The Colonel looked
+down at her queerly.  "Where is Clarence?"  he asked.
+
+She had not thought of Clarence.  She turned hurriedly, glanced around
+the room, and then peered down the dark stairway.
+
+"Why, he came in with me.  I wonder why he did not follow me up?"
+
+"Virginia."
+
+"Yes, Pa."
+
+"Virginia, are you happy?"
+
+"Why, yes, Pa."
+
+"Are you going to marry Clarence?" he asked.
+
+"I have promised," she said simply.
+
+Then after a long pause, seeing her father said nothing, she added,
+"Perhaps he was waiting for you to see me alone.  I will go down to see
+if he is in the carriage."
+
+The Colonel started with her, but she pulled him back in alarm.
+
+"You will be seen, Pa," she cried.  "How can you be so reckless?"
+
+He stayed at the top of the passage, holding open the door that she might
+have light.  When she reached the sidewalk, there was Ned standing beside
+the horses, and the carriage empty.
+
+"Ned!"
+
+"Yass'm, Miss Jinny."
+
+"Where's Mr. Clarence?"
+
+"He done gone, Miss Tinny."
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"Yass'm.  Fust I seed was a man plump out'n Willums's, Miss Jinny.  He
+was a-gwine shufflin' up de street when Marse Clarence put out after him,
+pos' has'e.  Den he run."
+
+She stood for a moment on the pavement in thought, and paused on the
+stairs again, wondering whether it were best to tell her father.  Perhaps
+Clarence had seen--she caught her breath at the thought and pushed open
+the door.
+
+"Oh, Pa, do you think you are safe here?" she cried.  "Why, yes, honey,
+I reckon so," he answered.  "Where's Clarence?"
+
+"Ned says he ran after a man who was hiding in an entrance.  Pa, I am
+afraid they are watching the place."
+
+"I don't think so, Jinny.  I came here with Polk, in his buggy, after
+dark."
+
+Virginia, listening, heard footsteps on the stairs, and seized her
+father's sleeve.
+
+"Think of the risk you are running, Pa," she whispered.  She would have
+dragged him to the closet.  But it was too late.  The door opened, and
+Mr. Brinsmade entered, and with him a lady veiled.
+
+At sight of Mr. Carvel Mr. Brinsmade started back in surprise.  How long
+he stared at his old friend Virginia could not say.  It seemed to her an
+eternity.  But Mrs. Brice has often told since how straight the Colonel
+stood, his fine head thrown back, as he returned the glance.  Then Mr.
+Brinsmade came forward, with his hand outstretched.
+
+"Comyn," said he, his voice breaking a little, "I have known you these
+many years as a man of unstained honor.  You are safe with me.  I ask no
+questions.  God will judge whether I have done my duty."
+
+Mr. Carvel took his friend's hand.  "Thank you, Calvin," he said.  "I
+give you my word of honor as a gentleman that I came into this city for
+no other reason than to see my daughter.  And hearing that my old friend
+was dying, I could not resist the temptation, sir--"
+
+Mr. Brinsmade finished for him.  And his voice shook.
+
+"To come to his bedside.  How many men do you think would risk their
+lives so, Mrs. Brice?"
+
+"Not many, indeed, Mr. Brinsmade," she answered.  "Thank God he will now
+die happy.  I know it has been much on his mind."
+
+The Colonel bowed over her hand.
+
+"And in his name, madam,--in the name of my oldest and best friend,--I
+thank you for what you have done for him.  I trust that you will allow me
+to add that I have learned from my daughter to respect and admire you.
+I hope that your son is doing well."
+
+"He is, thank you, Colonel Carvel.  If he but knew that the Judge were
+dying, I could not have kept him at home.  Dr. Polk says that he must not
+leave the house, or undergo any excitement."
+
+Just then the door of the inner room opened, and Dr. Polk came out.  He
+bowed gravely to Mrs. Brice and Mr. Brinsmade, and he patted Virginia.
+
+"The Judge is still asleep," he said gently.  "And--he may not wake up in
+this world."
+
+Silently, sadly, they went together into that little room where so much
+of Judge Whipple's life had been spent.  How little it was!  And how
+completely they filled it,--these five people and the big Rothfield
+covered with the black cloth.  Virginia pressed her father's arm as they
+leaned against it, and brushed her eyes.  The Doctor turned the wick of
+the night-lamp.
+
+What was that upon the sleeper's face from which they drew back?  A
+smile?  Yes, and a light.  The divine light which is shed upon those who
+have lived for others, who have denied themselves the lusts of the flesh,
+For a long space, perhaps an hour, they stayed, silent save for a low
+word now and again from the Doctor as he felt the Judge's heart.
+Tableaux from the past floated before Virginia's eyes.  Of the old days,
+of the happy days in Locust Street, of the Judge quarrelling with her
+father, and she and Captain Lige smiling nearby.  And she remembered how
+sometimes when the controversy was finished the Judge would rub his nose
+and say:
+
+"It's my turn now, Lige."
+
+Whereupon the Captain would open the piano, and she would play the hymn
+that he liked best.  It was "Lead, Kindly Light."
+
+What was it in Silas Whipple's nature that courted the pain of memories?
+What pleasure could it have been all through his illness to look upon
+this silent and cruel reminder of days gone by forever?  She had heard
+that Stephen Brice had been with the Judge when he had bid it in.  She
+wondered that he had allowed it, for they said that he was the only one
+who had ever been known to break the Judge's will.  Virginia's eyes
+rested on Margaret Brice, who was seated at the head of the bed,
+smoothing the pillows  The strength of Stephen's features were in hers,
+but not the ruggedness.  Her features were large, indeed, yet stanch and
+softened.  The widow, as if feeling Virginia's look upon her, glanced up
+from the Judge's face and smiled at her.  The girl colored with pleasure,
+and again at the thought which she had had of the likeness between mother
+and son.
+
+Still the Judge slept on, while they watched.  And at length the thought
+of Clarence crossed Virginia's mind.
+
+Why had he not returned?  Perhaps he was in the office without.
+Whispering to her father, she stole out on tiptoe.  The office was empty.
+Descending to the street, she was unable to gain any news of Clarence
+from Ned, who was becoming alarmed likewise.
+
+Perplexed and troubled, she climbed the stairs again.  No sound came from
+the Judge's room  Perhaps Clarence would be back at any moment.  Perhaps
+her father was in danger.  She sat down to think,--her elbows on the desk
+in front of her, her chin in her hand, her eyes at the level of a line of
+books which stood on end.--Chitty's Pleadings, Blackstone, Greenleaf on
+Evidence.  Absently; as a person whose mind is in trouble, she reached
+out and took one of them down and opened it.  Across the flyleaf, in a
+high and bold hand, was written the name, Stephen Atterbury Brice.
+
+It was his desk!  She was sitting in his chair!
+
+She dropped the book, and, rising abruptly, crossed quickly to the other
+side of the room.  Then she turned, hesitatingly, and went back.  This
+was his desk--his chair, in which he had worked so faithfully for the man
+who lay dying beyond the door.  For him whom they all loved--whose last
+hours they were were to soothe.  Wars and schisms may part our bodies,
+but stronger ties unite our souls.  Through Silas Whipple, through his
+mother, Virginia knew that she was woven of one piece with Stephen Brice.
+In a thousand ways she was reminded, lest she drive it from her belief.
+She might marry another, and that would not matter.
+
+She sank again into his chair, and gave herself over to the thoughts
+crowding in her heart.  How the threads of his life ran next to hers, and
+crossed and recrossed them.  The slave auction, her dance with him, the
+Fair, the meeting at Mr. Brinsmade's gate,--she knew them all.  Her love
+and admiration for his mother.  Her dreams of him--for she did dream of
+him.  And now he had saved Clarence's life that she might marry her
+cousin.  Was it true that she would marry Clarence?  That seemed to
+her only a dream.  It had never seemed real.  Again she glanced at the
+signature in the book, as if fascinated by the very strength of it.  She
+turned over a few pages of the book, "Supposing the defendant's counsel
+essays to prove by means of--" that was his writing again, a marginal,
+note.  There were marginal notes on every page--even the last was covered
+with them,  And then at the end, "First reading, February, 1858.  Second
+reading, July, 1858.  Bought with some of money obtained by first
+article for M. D."  That capacity for work, incomparable gift, was what
+she had always coveted the most.  Again she rested her elbows on the desk
+and her chin on her hands, and sighed unconsciously.
+
+She had not heard the step on the stair.  She had not seen the door open.
+She did not know that any one wage in the room until she heard his voice,
+and then she thought that she was dreaming.
+
+"Miss Carvel!"
+
+"Yes?"  Her head did not move.  He took a step toward her.
+
+"Miss Carvel!"
+
+Slowly she raised her face to his, unbelief and wonder in her eyes,--
+unbelief and wonder and fright.  No; it could not be he.  But when she
+met the quality of his look, the grave tenderness of it, she trembled,
+and our rendered her own to the page where his handwriting quivered and
+became a blur.
+
+He never knew the effort it cost her to rise and confront him.  She
+herself had not measured or fathomed the power which his very person
+exhaled.  It seemed to have come upon him suddenly.  He needed not to
+have spoken for her to have felt that.  What it was she could not tell.
+She knew alone that it was nigh irresistible, and she grasped the back of
+the chair as though material support might sustain her.
+
+"Is he--dead?"
+
+She was breathing hard.
+
+"No," she said.  "Not--not yet,  They are waiting for the end."
+
+"And you?" he asked in grave surprise, glancing at the door of the
+Judge's room.
+
+Then she remembered Clarence.
+
+"I am waiting for my cousin," she said.
+
+Even as she spoke she was with this man again at the Brinsmade gate.
+Those had been her very words!  Intuition told her that he, too, was
+thinking of that time.  Now he had found her at his desk, and, as if that
+were not humiliation enough, with one of his books taken down and laid
+open at his signature.  Suffused, she groped for words to carry her on.
+
+"I am waiting for Clarence, Mr. Brice.  He was here, and is gone
+somewhere."
+
+He did not seem to take account of the speech.  And his silence--goad to
+indiscretion--pressed her to add:--
+
+"You saved him, Mr. Brice.  I--we all--thank you so much.  And that is
+not all I want to say.  It is a poor enough acknowledgment of what you
+did,--for we have not always treated you well."  Her voice faltered
+almost to faintness, as he raised his hand in pained protest.  But she
+continued: "I shall regard it as a debt I can never repay.  It is not
+likely that in my life to come I can ever help you, but I shall pray for
+that opportunity."
+
+He interrupted her.
+
+"I did nothing, Miss Carvel, nothing that the most unfeeling man in our
+army would not do.  Nothing that I would not have done for the merest
+stranger."
+
+"You saved him for me," she said.
+
+O fateful words that spoke of themselves!  She turned away from him for
+very shame, and yet she heard him saying:--
+
+"Yes, I saved him for you."
+
+His voice was in the very note of the sadness which has the strength to
+suffer, to put aside the thought of self.  A note to which her soul
+responded with anguish when she turned to him with the natural cry of
+woman.
+
+"Oh, you ought not to have come here to-night.  Why did you come?  The
+Doctor forbade it.  The consequences may kill you."
+
+"It does not matter much," he answered.  "The Judge was dying."
+
+"How did you know?"
+
+"I guessed it,--because my mother had left me."
+
+"Oh, you ought not to have come!" she said again.
+
+"The Judge has been my benefactor," he answered quietly.  I could walk,
+and it was my duty to come."
+
+"You did not walk!" she gasped.
+
+He smiled, "I had no carriage," he said.
+
+With the instinct of her sex she seized the chair and placed it under
+him.  "You must sit down at once," she cried.
+
+"But I am not tired," he replied.
+
+"Oh, you must sit down, you must, Captain Brice."  He started at the
+title, which came so prettily from her lips, "Won't you please!" she said
+pleadingly.
+
+He sat down.  And, as the sun peeps out of a troubled sky, she smiled.
+
+"It is your chair," she said.
+
+He glanced at the book, and the bit of sky was crimson.  But still he
+said nothing.
+
+"It is your book," she stammered.  "I did not know that it was yours when
+I took it down.  I--I was looking at it while I was waiting for
+Clarence."
+
+"It is dry reading," he remarked, which was not what he wished to say.
+
+"And yet--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"And yet you have read it twice."  The confession had slipped to her
+lips.
+
+She was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking down at him.  Still he
+did not look at her.  All the will that was left him averted his head.
+And the seal of honor was upon his speech.  And he wondered if man were
+ever more tempted.
+
+Then the evil spread its wings, and soared away into the night.  And the
+moment was past.  Peace seemed to come upon them both, quieting the
+tumult in their hearts, and giving them back their reason.  Respect like
+wise came to the girl,--respect that was akin to awe.  It was he who
+spoke first.
+
+"My mother has me how faithfully you nursed the Judge, Miss Carvel.  It
+was a very noble thing to do."
+
+"Not noble at all," she replied hastily, "your mother did the most of it,
+And he is an old friend of my father--"
+
+"It was none the less noble," said Stephen, warmly, "And he quarrelled
+with Colonel Carvel."
+
+"My father quarrelled with him," she corrected.  "It was well that I
+should make some atonement.  And yet mine was no atonement,  I love Judge
+Whipple.  It was a--a privilege to see your mother every day--oh, how
+he would talk of you!  I think he loves you better than any one on this
+earth."
+
+"Tell me about him," said Stephen, gently.
+
+Virginia told him, and into the narrative she threw the whole of her
+pent-up self.  How patient the Judge had been, and the joy he had derived
+from Stephen's letters.  "You were very good to write to him so often,"
+she said.  It seemed like a dream to Stephen, like one of the many dreams
+of her, the mystery of which was of the inner life beyond our ken.  He
+could not recall a time when she had not been rebellious, antagonistic.
+And now--as he listened to her voice, with its exquisite low tones and
+modulations, as he sat there in this sacred intimacy, perchance to be the
+last in his life, he became dazed.  His eyes, softened, with supreme
+eloquence cried out that she, was his, forever and forever.  The magnetic
+force which God uses to tie the worlds together was pulling him to her.
+And yet the Puritan resisted.
+
+Then the door swung open, and Clarence Colfax, out of breath, ran into
+the room.  He stopped short when he saw them, his hand fell to his sides,
+and his words died on his lips.  Virginia did not stir.
+
+It was Stephen who rose to meet him, and with her eyes the girl followed
+his motions.  The broad and loosely built frame of the Northerner, his
+shoulders slightly stooping, contrasted with Clarence's slighter figure,
+erect, compact, springy.  The Southerner's eye, for that moment, was
+flint struck with the spark from the steel.  Stephen's face, thinned by
+illness, was grave.  The eyes kindly, yet penetrating.  For an instant
+they stood thus regarding each other, neither offering a hand.  It was
+Stephen who spoke first, and if there was a trace of emotion in his
+voice, one who was listening intently failed to mark it,
+
+"I am glad to see that you have recovered, Colonel Colfax," he said.
+
+"I should indeed be without gratitude if I did not thank Captain Brice
+for my life," answered Clarence.  Virginia flushed.  She had detected the
+undue accent on her cousin's last words, and she glanced apprehensively
+at Stephen.  His forceful reply surprised them both.
+
+"Miss Carvel has already thanked me sufficiently, sir," he said.  "I am
+happy to have been able to have done you a good turn, and at the same
+time to have served her so well.  It was she who saved your life.  It is
+to her your thanks are chiefly due.  I believe that I am not going too
+far, Colonel Colfax," he added, "when I congratulate you both."
+
+Before her cousin could recover, Virginia slid down from the desk and had
+come between them.  How her eyes shone and her lip trembled as she gazed
+at him, Stephen has never forgotten.  What a woman she was as she took
+her cousin's arm and made him a curtsey.
+
+"What you have done may seem a light thing to you, Captain Brice," she
+said.  "That is apt to be the way with those who have big hearts.  You
+have put upon Colonel Colfax, and upon me, a life's obligation."
+
+When she began to speak, Clarence raised his head.  As he glanced,
+incredulous, from her to Stephen, his look gradually softened, and when
+she had finished, his manner had become again frank, boyish, impetuous--
+nay, penitent.  He seized Stephen's hand.
+
+"Forgive  me, Brice," he cried.  "Forgive me.  I should have known
+better.  I--I did you an injustice, and you, Virginia.  I was a fool--a
+scoundrel."  Stephen shook his head.
+
+"No, you were neither," he said.  Then upon his face came the smile of
+one who has the strength to renounce, all that is dearest to him--that
+smile of the unselfish, sweetest of all.  It brought tears to Virginia.
+She was to see it once again, upon the features of one who bore a cross,
+--Abraham Lincoln.  Clarence looked, and then he turned away toward the
+door to the stairway, as one who walks blindly, in a sorrow.
+
+His hand was on the knob when Virginia seemed to awake.  She flew after
+him:
+
+"Wait!" she whispered.
+
+Then she raised her eyes, slowly, to Stephen, who was standing motionless
+beside his chair.
+
+"Captain Brice!"
+
+"Yes," he answered.
+
+"My father is in the Judge's room," she said.
+
+"Your father!" he exclaimed.  "I thought--"
+
+"That he was an officer in the Confederate Army.  So he is."  Her head
+went up as she spoke.
+
+Stephen stared at her, troubled.  Suddenly her manner, changed.  She took
+a step toward him, appealingly,
+
+"Oh, he is not a spy," she cried.  "He has given Mr Brinsmade his word
+that he came here for no other purpose than to see me.  Then he heard
+that the Judge was dying--"
+
+"He has given his word to Mr. Brinsmade?
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then," said Stephen, "what Mr. Brinsmade sanctions is not for me to
+question."
+
+She gave him yet another look, a fleeting one which he did not see.  Then
+she softly opened the door and passed into the room of the dying man.
+Stephen followed her.  As for Clarence, he stood for a space staring
+after them.  Then he went noiselessly down the stairs into the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT
+
+When the Judge opened his eyes for the last time in this world, they fell
+first upon the face of his old friend, Colonel Carvel.  Twice he tried to
+speak his name, and twice he failed.  The third time he said it faintly.
+
+"Comyn!"
+
+"Yes, Silas."
+
+"Comyn, what are you doing here?
+
+"I reckon I came to see you, Silas," answered the Colonel.
+
+"To see me die," said the Judge, grimly.
+
+Colonel Carvel's face twitched, and the silence in that little room
+seemed to throb.
+
+"Comyn," said the Judge again, "I heard that you had gone South to fight
+against your country.  I see you here.  Can it be that you have at last
+returned in your allegiances to the flag for which your forefathers
+died?"
+
+Poor Colonel Carvel
+
+"I am still of the same mind, Silas," he said.
+
+The Judge turned his face away, his thin lips moving as in prayer.  But
+they knew that he was not praying, "Silas," said Mr. Carvel, "we were
+friends for twenty years.  Let us be friends again, before--"
+
+"Before I die," the Judge interrupted,  "I am ready to die.  Yes, I am
+ready.  I have had a hard life, Comyn, and few friends.  It was my fault.
+I--I did not know how to make them.  Yet no man ever valued those few
+more than!  But," he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last,
+"I would that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out.  For
+it will be stamped out."  To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on a
+distant point, and the light of prophecy was in them.  "I would that God
+had spared me to see this Union supreme once more.  Yes, it will be
+supreme.  A high destiny is reserved for this nation--!  I think the
+highest of all on this earth."  Amid profound silence he leaned back on
+the pillows from which he had risen, his breath coming fast.  None dared
+look at the neighbor beside them.
+
+It was Stephen's mother who spoke.  "Would you not like to see a
+clergyman, Judge?" she asked.
+
+The look on his face softened as he turned to her.
+
+"No, madam," he answered; "you are clergyman enough for me.  You are near
+enough to God--there is no one in this room who is not worthy to stand in
+the presence of death.  Yet I wish that a clergyman were here, that he
+might listen to one thing I have to say.  When I was a boy I worked my
+way down the river to New York, to see the city.  I met a bishop there.
+He said to me, 'Sit down, my son, I want to talk to you.  I know your
+father in Albany.  You are Senator Whipple's son.'  I said to him, 'No,
+sir, I am not Senator Whipple's son.  I am no relation of his.'  If the
+bishop had wished to talk to me after that, Mrs. Brice, he might have
+made my life a little easier--a little sweeter.  I know that they are
+not all like that.  But it was by just such things that I was
+embittered when I was a boy."  He stopped, and when he spoke again, it
+was more slowly, more gently, than any of them had heard him speak in all
+his life before.  "I wish that some of the blessings which I am leaving
+now had come to me then--when I was a boy.  I might have done my little
+share in making the world a brighter place to live in, as all of you have
+done.  Yes, as all of you are now doing for me.  I am leaving the world
+with a better opinion of it than I ever held in life.  God hid the sun
+from me when I was a little child.  Margaret Brice," he said, "if I had
+had such a mother as you, I would have been softened then.  I thank God
+that He sent you when He did."
+
+The widow bowed her head, and a tear fell upon his pillow.
+
+"I have done nothing," she murmured, "nothing,"
+
+"So shall they answer at the last whom He has chosen," said the Judge.
+"I was sick, and ye visited me.  He has promised to remember those who do
+that.  Hold up your head, my daughter.  God has been good to you.  He has
+given you a son whom all men may look in the face, of whom you need never
+be ashamed.  Stephen," said the Judge, "come here."
+
+Stephen made his way to the bedside, but because of the moisture in his
+eyes he saw but dimly the gaunt face.  And yet he shrank back in awe at
+the change in it.  So must all of the martyrs have looked when the fire
+of the faggots licked their feet.  So must John Bunyan have stared
+through his prison bars at the sky.
+
+"Stephen," he said, "you have been faithful in a few things.  So shall
+you be made ruler over many things.  The little I have I leave to you,
+and the chief of this is an untarnished name.  I know that you will be
+true to it because I have tried your strength.  Listen carefully to what
+I have to say, for I have thought over it long.  In the days gone by our
+fathers worked for the good of the people, and they had no thought of
+gain.  A time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone in
+this Republic.  Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, and
+the waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save the
+incorruptible.  Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood.  You and
+those like you will remember how your fathers governed,--strongly,
+sternly, justly.  It was so that they governed themselves.
+
+"Be vigilant.  Serve your city, serve your state, but above all serve your
+country."
+
+He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, and
+reached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's.  "I was harsh with you at
+first, my son," he went on.  "I wished to try you.  And when I had tried
+you I wished your mind to open, to keep pace with the growth of this
+nation.  I sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born again--
+in the West.  You were born again.  I saw it when you came back--I saw
+it in your face.  O God," he cried, with sudden eloquence.  "I would that
+his hands--Abraham Lincoln's hands--might be laid upon all who complain
+and cavil and criticise, and think of the little things in life: I would
+that his spirit might possess their spirit!"
+
+He stopped again.  They marvelled and were awed, for never in all his
+days had such speech broken from this man.  "Good-by, Stephen," he said,
+when they thought he was not to speak again.  "Hold the image of Abraham
+Lincoln in front of you.  Never forget him.  You--you are a man after his
+own heart--and--and mine."
+
+The last word was scarcely audible.  They started for ward, for his eyes
+were closed.  But presently he stirred again, and opened them.
+
+"Brinsmade," he said, "Brinsmade, take care of my orphan girls.  Send
+Shadrach here."
+
+The negro came forth, shuffling and sobbing, from the doorway.
+
+"You ain't gwine away, Marse Judge?"
+
+"Yes, Shadrach, good-by.  You have served me well, I have left you
+provided for."
+
+Shadrach kissed the hand of whose secret charity he knew so much.  Then
+the Judge withdrew it, and motioned to him to rise.  He called his oldest
+friend by name.  And Colonel Carvel came from the corner where he had
+been listening, with his face drawn.
+
+"Good-by, Comyn.  You were my friend when there was none other.  You were
+true to me when the hand of every man was against me.  You--you have
+risked your life to come to me here,  May God spare it for Virginia."
+
+At the sound of her name, the girl started.  She came and bent over him.
+And when she kissed him on the forehead, he trembled.
+
+"Uncle Silas!" she faltered.
+
+Weakly he reached up and put his hands on her shoulders.  He whispered in
+her ear.  The tears came and lay wet upon her lashes as she undid the
+button at his throat.
+
+There, on a piece of cotton twine, hung a little key,  She took it off,
+but still his hands held her.
+
+"I have saved it for you, my dear," he said.  "God bless you--" why did
+his eyes seek Stephen's?--"and make your life happy.  Virginia--will you
+play my hymn--once more--once more?"
+
+They lifted the night lamp from the piano, and the medicine.  It was
+Stephen who stripped it of the black cloth it had worn, who stood by
+Virginia ready to lift the lid when she had turned the lock.  The girl's
+exaltation gave a trembling touch divine to the well-remembered chords,
+and those who heard were lifted, lifted far above and beyond the power of
+earthly spell.
+
+              "Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
+               Lead Thou me on
+               The night is dark, and I am far from home;
+               Lead Thou me on.
+               Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see
+               The distant scene; one step enough for me."
+
+A sigh shook Silas Whipple's wasted frame, and he died.
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Silence--goad to indiscretion
+
+
+
+
+
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