CHAPTER XI.WAR CLOUDS.
When Liddy reached her desk at the academy the next day she found a note in a well-known hand that said:
"My father was very ill. I could not call last eve. I hope to next Sunday."
It was a bitter-sweet message. At times during the week she felt her face burn at the recollection of how disappointed she had felt the previous Sunday eve. "I am a fool to care," she would say to herself, and then when she caught sight of his face and saw the cloud resting upon it she felt puzzled. She had asked regarding his father's illness and learned he was better, so the ominous shadow was not from that source. She felt sure it was not from an impending declaration of love brewing in his heart, for she knew him well enough to feel that when it came to that, he would have the manly courage to express his feelings in his usual outspoken way.
When Sunday evening came again she awaitedhis coming with a new anxiety, and when he arrived her heart felt heavy. He greeted her as though nothing was amiss, and began chatting in an offhand manner, as if to prevent any question from her. He even joked and told stories, but with a seeming effort and not in accord with his feelings. Liddy watched him quietly, feeling sure he was acting a part and for a purpose. The more he tried to dissemble, the deeper became her dread. At last, when the chance came, she said in her direct way:
"Charlie, you are not yourself to-night, and I believe you have some serious trouble on your mind. I wish you would tell me what it is."
He looked at her a moment before replying, and then said:
"Oh, well, perhaps I have; but please don't notice it. I do not like to talk of my troubles here. You will dislike me if I do."
"I shall feel hurt if you do not," she answered.
"Don't say that!" he replied; and then, after looking into her earnest face a moment he continued in a lower tone: "You are the last person in the world I would knowingly hurt."
He remained silent for a long time, looking at the fire in a vacant way, and then rising suddenly he said:
"There is no use; I can't talk to-night. I am out of sorts. I think I will go home."
"No, no, Charlie," she replied, trying hard to keep the pain out of her voice: "don't go yet! It's too early, and we have not had a visit for two weeks. Please sit down and tell me all about it. Can't you trust me?"
He remained standing and looking earnestly into her upturned face and pleading eyes for a few moments in silence; then he said:
"Yes, I can trust you, Liddy, and I am not afraid to, either! I am not afraid to trust you with every thought and impulse that ever came to me, but I can't bring myself to hurt you," and then he turned away.
His words almost brought the tears to her eyes, but she kept them back. When he had his coat on and was at the door, she made one more effort. She clasped his arm with both hands, as if to hold him, and said:
"You have made me very wretched, Charlie! Don't leave me in suspense! I do not deserve it. No matter what it is, please tell me!"
He remained silent, but with one hand he softly caressed the two little ones that clasped his arm. Then as her face sank slowly upon them he stooped suddenly and kissed her hair. "When Icome again you shall know all," he whispered; "good-night!" and he tore himself away.
The meadows were growing green and the first spring violets were in bloom ere he called again.
To explain his strange mood a little history must be inserted here.
The summer and fall of '61 and the winter and spring of '62 were momentous in the annals of Southton. Fort Sumter had been fired upon, and the war for the preservation of the Union had begun. The President's first call for volunteers had been issued; the Bull Run retreat had occurred, and the seven days' horror of the Chickahominy swamp, followed by the battle of Fair Oaks and the siege of Fredericksburg, had startled the country. Secession was rampant, and Washington was threatened. The second call for volunteers had come and the entire North was alarmed.
In the spring of '62 came the third call, and by that time the spirit of patriotism was spreading over Southton. Captain Samuel Woodruff, a born soldier and a brave man, began to raise a company in that town. It did not require a great effort, for the best and bravest of her sons rallied to his call. This spirit even reached the oldest of the academy boys, and was the cause ofManson's strange reticence with Liddy. Among his mates were many who openly asserted their intention to enlist. Before and after school and at noon it was talked about. Some were, like Manson, the sons of peaceful tillers of the soil, and others the sons of tradesmen, but all were animated by the same patriotic spirit and that was to defend their country in her hour of danger. The example of a few became contagious, and seemed likely to affect all the young men of the academy of suitable age. In fact it did, for out of about thirty that were old enough, eighteen finally enlisted and went to war. Were it not that a list of their names is not pertinent to the thread of this narrative, that roll of honor should be inserted here, for it deserves to be; but it is not necessary. It is well known in Southton, and there the names of those young heroes will never be forgotten.
For weeks while the fever of enlistment was spreading, Manson had passed through serious mental torture. To sign the possibly fatal roll or not to sign was the question! He dared not tell Liddy; he dared not tell his parents. An only son, and one whom he knew his father loved, he felt torn by conflicting duty. Never in his simple life had he passed through such a struggle.Perhaps pride and the example of his mates were strong factors in bringing him to a decision, but he reached one at last, and upon a Saturday during the latter part of April he quietly wrote his name upon the enlistment paper in Captain Woodruff's office, and the deed was done.
In the meantime, and for the few weeks in which he did not call, Liddy lived in an agony of suspense. She knew what was going on, for it was current gossip in school, and there was something in his face that seemed to her ominous. In school she tried hard to act unconcerned, even when, as often was the case, other girls whose young and loving hearts were sore, gave way to tears. Each day she smiled and nodded to him as usual; but the smile had grown pathetic, and into her eyes had crept a look of dread. He saw it all, and hardly dared speak to her. Each Sunday eve she dressed herself for his coming and watched the fire while the tall clock ticked in solemn silence. She dreaded to hear her father speak of the war news, and when at school the gossip as to who had or who was going to enlist was referred to she walked away. She grew silent and morose, and clouds were on her face at all times. There were plenty of sad and worried looks onother girls' faces at school during those weeks, so she was not alone in her gloom.
Manson had felt that deep down in her heart she cared a good deal more for him than her conduct showed, and to tell her of his intentions before he carried them out would be to subject her to needless days of suspense and possibly affect his own sense of duty. Now that it was all over, she must be the first to be told, and how much he dreaded it only those who have passed through the same experiences can tell. He scarcely slept at all that night, and when he presented himself at her house the next day, just before church time, he looked pale and haggard. It was an unusual thing for him to call at that hour, and when Liddy met him her heart sank. Without any formality he asked her to put on her wraps and take a ride.
"I have come to tell you all," he said, "and I can talk better away from the house, and where we are alone."
When they were well on their way and driving along the wooded road toward the top of one of the Blue Hills—a lookout point whence all Southton's area could be seen—he turned his face and looked at hers for the first time since starting. What he saw there smote his heart.
"It's a nice day for a ride, isn't it, Liddy?" he said pleasantly, trying hard to act natural.
Her answer was peculiar.
"I can't talk of the day or anything else, Charlie, till I know the worst. Remember, you have kept me in suspense four long, weary weeks. Tell me now as soon as you can."
He made no reply, and spoke not another word until they reached the lookout place. In silence he assisted her to alight, and taking the carriage robe, he spread it upon a rock where they had often sat viewing the landscape below. Then he said, in a low voice:
"Please sit down, Liddy. I've fixed a nice seat for you, and now I can talk to you."
Then their eyes met for the second time since starting. Her face and lips were pale, and her eyes full of fear. She clasped her hands before her face as if to ward off the coming blow.
"Tell me now," she said hurriedly, "tell me the worst, only tell me quickly! I've suffered long enough!"
He looked at her a moment pityingly, dreading to deal the blow, and trying to frame it into suitable words—and then it came.
"Liddy," he said in a husky whisper, "I love you, and I've enlisted!"
A brief sentence, but what a message!
A woman's heaven and a woman's hell in six words!
For one instant she looked at him, until its full force came to her and then she burst into tears, and the next moment she was in a heap on the robe-covered rock and sobbing like a child. Instantly he was beside her, gathering her in his arms and kissing her hair, her tear-wet face and lips. Not a word was spoken; not one was needed! He knew now that her heart was his, and for weal or woe; for joy or sorrow, their lives must be as one.
"Don't cry any more, my darling," he whispered at last. "I shall come back all safe, and then you will be my wife, won't you, Liddy?"
She made no answer, but a small, soft hand crept into one of his, and he knew his prize was won.
When they were ready to leave the hallowed spot she gathered a bunch of the spring violets growing there, and kissing them, handed the cluster to him in silence.
Late that evening when they parted she put one arm caressingly about his neck and whispered: "Give me all the hours you can, Charlie, before you must go; they may be all we shall ever have together."
CHAPTER XII.A DAY IN THE WOODS.
When schoolmates who have studied and played together until almost maturity reach the parting of their ways a feeling of sadness comes to them; but when out of such a band there are eighteen of the best young men about to take part in the horror of war, the occasion becomes doubly so. The last few weeks passed together by the graduating pupils of Southton Academy came back to them in after years much like the memory of a funeral. There were no frolics at noontime or after school; no mirth and scant laughter.
A few of the girls were known to be carrying aching hearts, and it was whispered that two or three were engaged to be married to young soldier-boys now in the academy. Liddy wore a new and heavy plain gold ring, and when questioned as to its significance quietly answered, as was her wont: "I have no confessions to make," but those who were nearest to her and knewher best detected a proud look in her eyes and drew their own conclusions. It was noticed also that she and Manson were seldom apart during the noon hour, and invariably walked away from the academy together. As there were other couples who thus paired off it caused no comment.
When the last day came the academy was packed with the parents and friends of pupils, and on Liddy's desk was a bunch of June roses. She knew whose hand had placed them there. When the final exercises began she felt herself growing nervous. She had never felt so before, but now the mingled joy and sorrow of the past four weeks were telling upon her. There were several patriotic and warlike recitations by the young men, and readings of an unusually melancholy nature by young ladies, all of which tended to make matters worse, so that when her turn came she felt ready to cry. But she caught a look from Manson that was like wine. "He has been brave," she thought; "I will be as much so"—and she was.
When the exercises were over the principal made a brief but feeling address which raised him several degrees in Manson's estimation, and that was the end. Most of the pupils lingered, loth to utter the last farewells, but finally theywere spoken, and with many moist eyes among that gathering of young friends they separated. Some of them never met in life again.
The few remaining evenings ere Liddy and her lover were to part were not wasted by them, and the last Sunday was one long to be remembered.
"Come early," she had said the night before; "I have a little surprise for you." When he arrived at her house that day, just as the distant church bells were faintly calling, he found her dressed for a ride, and was a little puzzled.
"I want you to take me to church to-day," she said, smiling, and then added, in a low voice, "to our church on the top of Blue Hill, where there will be no one but God and ourselves."
It was an odd thought, and yet, knowing her as he did, it was not surprising. The simple reverence of it touched him, however.
"Now," she continued more cheerfully, "no more sober thoughts. Let us try and be happy, and like children once more. Here is a basket I have packed, and you are to put it in the carriage. We are to dine in the woods."
The day was one of those rare ones that come only in June, and when they reached the spot, now, henceforth and forever sacred to them, the sheltering trees were fresh with new foliage, thebirds singing while building their nests, the summer breeze softly whispering in the scattered hemlocks, and over all shone the mellow sunshine.
For a long time they sat on the rock, now hallowed by her tears, viewing the beautiful landscape spreading out below and living over, as they had many times before, and as young lovers will, all the little incidents of their lives, and what a marvelous thing it was that they had come to love each other. It was all a story as old as the rock upon which they sat, and pure and sweet as the blue violets blooming at their feet. In the midst of it Manson pointed to a spot in the valley below—a cedar pasture with an immense boulder in the middle—and said: "Once upon a time, several years ago, when I was a boy, I was picking berries in that field, when a little girl in short dress and calico sun-bonnet came running down a path near me until, almost at my feet, she stumbled, and girl, berries and bonnet went sprawling upon the ground! Can you guess who it was?"
Liddy turned her face toward him and smilingly answered: "Was that the way I entered your heart, Charlie? It wasn't a dignified way, was it?"
"It was at least effective," he replied, "for you have remained in it ever since."
When the sun was high overhead she arose and said, with bewitching imperiousness: "Now, sir, you have been idle long enough; you must help me set the table. Bring me that basket in the carriage."
"If we are to begin keeping house up here," he answered cheerfully, "perhaps you had better wait till I build you a table."
"I shall be glad if you can," she said, and watched him curiously while he cut small, straight sticks, and then larger ones with forked ends. These he drove into the ground under a tree, and placing one stout stick to connect each of the forked ones and form supporting ends, laid the others across and close together to make the table. He then placed flat stones for seats, covering them with the carriage cushions, and when all was done he said: "My dear, your table is ready; now I will help you to set it."
"I am glad I brought a tablecloth," she remarked smiling.
When the dainty little banquet board, just large enough for two, was covered with a snow-white spread and napkins, plates, knives and forks, and all the attractive results of her culinaryart, he smiled, for the tempting food would make any hungry man smile.
"It's not an elaborate dinner," she remarked, as they sat down, "but you must get used to my cooking some time, and you might as well begin now."
When the sun was low in the west and she sat near him idly weaving flowers into the band of his hat, he said: "Liddy, have you never wondered how I am going to solve the vocation problem I used to worry about?"
"No," she answered quietly, "and I do not wish to discuss it, either. Remember, we are children to-day." Then she continued, in a lower tone: "I have trusted you with my heart, my life, and all the happiness I can ever hope for, and when the time comes I know you will not fail me."
"I realize what it all means," he answered, after a long pause, "and you can trust me, for so long as God gives me strength you shall have all the blessings I can win in life."
They sat in silence until the lowering sun had left the valley in shadow and smiled only on the hilltop where they lingered. Perhaps the dread parting that was near seemed creeping toward them with the shades of night, for his arm stole softly about her waist, and her hand crept intohis. They watched until the last ray of sunlight had vanished, and when they arose he once more gathered her close in his arms and whispered:
"Promise me, my darling, that if I never come back you will visit this spot alone, once a year, in June, and if there be such a thing as a life beyond the grave, I will be here in spirit."
"I promise," she answered solemnly, "and no man shall ever have the right to stop me."
When they were ready to leave the place he had to lead her to the carriage, for her eyes were blinded by tears.
CHAPTER XIII.THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.
With bayonets flashing in the sunlight, with flags flying and keeping step to the martial music, Southton's brave Company E marched full one hundred strong to the depot the next day, ready to leave for the war.
Almost the entire town was there to see them off, and hundreds of men, old and young, filled the air with cheers. Mingling in that throng were as many mothers, wives, sweethearts and sisters with aching hearts, whose sobs of anguish were woven into the cheering. Strong men wept as well. As the train rolled away, Manson fought the tears back that he might not lose the last sight of one fair girl whose heart he knew was breaking. When it was all over, and he realized that for months or years, or perhaps never, would he behold her again, he knew what war and parting meant. He had obeyed his conscience and sense of duty, and now he must paythe price, and the payment was very bitter. Of his future he knew not, or what it might hold for him. He could only hope that when his hour of trial came that he would not falter, and if the worst must come that he would find strength to meet it as a soldier should.
War is such a ghastly, hideous horror, and so utterly at variance with this simple narrative, that I hesitate to speak of it. There can be no moments of happiness, no rifts of sunshine, and but few gleams of hope woven into the picture. All must be as war is—a varying but continued succession of dreaded horror and the fear of death. The first month of Manson's experience at the training camp was hard only in anticipation, and but a daily round of duty easily performed and soon passed. Liddy's frequent letters, each filled with all the sweet and loving words that, like flowers, naturally spring from a woman's heart, cheered him greatly; but when the order came to go to the front, the scene changed, and the reality of war came. He dreaded the first shock, not so much from fear of death; but lest his courage fail. When it came at Chancellorsville it was all over before he knew it. Although under fire for eight hours, he was not conscious of the lapse of time or aught else,except that he obeyed orders and loaded and fired with the rest; forgetting that he might fall, or whether he was brute or human. That night he wrote to Liddy: "We have had our first battle, and for many hours I forgot even you. I know now that I shall not falter. Poor Luzerne Norton, one of our academy boys, was killed, also three others from our company; and seven were wounded."
When the letter reached Liddy her heart sank. To know that one of her bright and happy schoolmates of a few months before had been shot and killed, and others wounded, was to have the dread reality of war brought very near home. "Thank God my boy was spared," she thought. That night she wrote him the most loving letter he had ever received, concluding with: "Be brave, my darling, and always remember that come what may I shall keep my promise."
Then came the battle of Gettysburg, and although his company escaped with only a few wounded, it was here he first realized the ghastly horror of a battlefield after the fight is over, and how the dead are buried.
When his next letter reached the sad-hearted one at home, no mention was made of this experience, and when she wrote asking why he hadnever told her how a battleground looked, or anything about it, he replied: "Not for worlds would I tell you how we bury the dead, or how they looked, or anything of the sickening details. Please do not read them in the papers, for it will do you no good, and cause you needless suffering. I wish to keep misery from you. Think of me only as doing my duty, and try to believe (as I do) that I shall come back to you alive and well."
For the next six months he had no battles to face—only skirmishing and picket duty. When Christmas came it brought him two boxes of good things to gladden his heart. One was from his dear old mother, and one was from Liddy, and tucked away in that, between four pairs of blue socks knit by her fair hands, was a loving letter and a picture of herself.
Almost a month after came the battle of Tracy City and the fall of brave Captain Upson. There were others wounded, but none of his company were killed. It was here Manson received his first promotion to a corporal's position, and he was afterward made sergeant. In the spring that followed, and almost one year from the day he first told Liddy of his love, came the battle of Boyd's Trail. Five days after, when the moon was full one night, he wrote by the light of acamp fire: "Do you remember one year ago to-day, and where we were and what I said? I little realized that day what was in store for me. One thing I must tell you, however, and that is you can never know how much comfort it has been to me to live over all the happy hours we have had together. Every little word and look of love from you has come back to me again and again in my long, lonesome hours of picket duty, and to-night as I sit by the camp fire and see the moon shining through the trees I can recall just how I felt the first time I kissed you, when the same moon seemed to be laughing at me. Do you remember one night when we were driving across the plains on our way back from a little party over to Marion, and you sang that 'Meet Me by Moonlight' ballad? That was three years ago, and yet I can almost hear your voice now."
When this letter reached Liddy she read it in tears.
For the next year it was with Manson as with all that slowly decreasing company—one unending round of nervous strain, long marches, sharp fighting, or, worse yet—carrying the wounded from the battlefield and burying the dead. They lived poorly, slept on the ground or in the mud at times, and became accustomed to filth andstench, indifferent to danger and hardened to death. When a comrade fell those who knew him best said: "Poor fellow, he's gone," and buried him without a prayer; but the dead who were personally unknown awakened no more feeling than so many leaves fallen by the wayside. It could not well be otherwise, for such is war. Individual cases of heroism were common enough, and passed almost unnoticed; for they were all brave men who came to fight and die if need be, and no less was expected.
War makes strange bedfellows, and forms unexpected friendships. It was after the battle of Gettysburg, when the Tenth Army Corps remained in camp for several months, and one night while on picket duty, that Manson met with a curious adventure, and made the acquaintance of a fellow-soldier by the name of Pullen, belonging to a Maine regiment, whose existence, and the tie thus formed, eventually led to a sequence of events of serious import. The enemy were encamped but a few miles away, and that most dastardly part of warfare, the firing upon pickets from ambush, was of nightly occurrence. Manson's beat that night was over a low hill covered with scrub oak, and across part of a narrow valley, through which wound a small,marsh-bordered stream. The night was sultry, and the dampness of the swamp formed in a shallow strata of fog, filling this valley, but not rising above the level of the uplands. To add to the weirdness of his surroundings, the thin crescent of a new moon threw a faint light over all and outlined the winding turns of this mist-filled gorge. Away to the northward a belt of dark clouds emitted frequent flashes of heat lightning, and occasional sharp reports along the line bespoke possible death lurking in every thicket. Keeping always in shadow, and oft pausing to listen, Manson slowly traversed his beat, waiting only at either end to exchange a whispered "All's well!" with the next sentry.
What a vigil! And what a menace seemed hidden behind every bush or spoke in every sound! The faint creak of a tree as the night wind stirred the branches; the rustle of leaves on the ground or the breaking of a twig as some prowling animal moved about; the flight of a bird, disturbed at its rest; the hoot of an owl on the hillside or the croak of a frog in the swamp were all magnified tenfold by the half-darkness and the sense of danger near. One end of his beat ended at the brook and here he waited longest, for the sentry he met there was, like himself,hardly out of his teens, and unused to war. A bond of fellowship sprang into existence almost at sight, and made them brothers in feeling at once.
It was while whispering together beside this brook, and oppressed by the suspense of night and danger near, that they detected a sound of more than usual ill-omen, and that, the certain one that some creature had stepped into the stream above, and was cautiously and slowly wading in it. Hardly breathing, and bending low, the better to catch every sound that came, they listened with beating hearts until it ceased. Once they had detected the click of stones striking together as if moved by a human foot and twice caught the faint plash of a bush or limb of tree dropping into the water. Then the sounds ceased, and only the faint murmur of that slow-running stream disturbed the silence.
For a few moments they waited there, and then together crept up out of the gorge. Just as they emerged from the pall of the fog, and where the moon's thin disk still outlined that narrow white-blanketed valley, they paused, looking across, above, below and all around, and listening as intently as two human beings so environed would when believing danger near. And as they lookedand listened for moments that seemed hours, suddenly, scarce five rods away, they saw a man slowly emerged from the bush-covered bank, rapidly cross this narrow gorge, apparently walking on the fog, and disappear in the dark thicket on the other side!
Forgetting in the first shock of supernatural added to natural fear that they stood fully exposed in the faint moonlight, they looked at each other, while a cold chill of dread seemed to check even the power to think. Manson was the first to recover, and with a quick, "We must hide," almost hissed, dropped on all fours behind a bush, followed by his comrade. That the motion betrayed them to watchful eyes is certain, for the next instant, out from the dark thicket across the gorge there leaped a flash of red fire, and the ping of a bullet, cutting leaves and twigs above them, told its own tale. Too scared to think of returning the fire, or conscious that to do so was unwise, they slowly crawled deeper into the scrub and along the top of the hillock. All that night they kept together, and how long it was until the gray light of coming dawn lifted a little of their burden of fear, no one who has never skulked along a picket line in darkness and dread can imagine!
When the relief guard came, Manson and his mate tried to discover where their night-prowling enemy had crossed that narrow gorge, if he had crossed at all, but could not. Whether ghost, or shadow, or flesh-and-blood enemy had walked on fog in the faint moonlight before them, they could not tell, and never afterward were they able to determine. The only certain fact was that some one had fired at them, and fired meaning to kill! Wisely, too, they agreed to keep the ghost part of that experience a secret, and none of their comrades ever knew they had seen a man walking upon the fog.
CHAPTER XIV.BESIDE THE CAMP FIRE.
Both Manson's and Pullen's regiments were encamped along the edge of a belt of pine woods, and after their creepy experience together on picket duty, they naturally sought each other as often as possible. There is a 'witching romance lingering about a camp fire in the woods that stimulates the imagination, and when these two newly made friends could meet for an evening's visit beside theirs, many a tale of youthful experience and boyish escapade was exchanged.
"Speaking of ghosts," said Manson, one evening, "I do not believe in their existence exactly, and yet there is a strange fascination about the idea that I can't understand. Now I do not believe we saw a man walking on fog the other night, and yet I can't resist the desire to hunt the matter out and discover what sort of an optical illusion it was. I am not at all certain the man who took a shot at us was the one we saw across the ravine, either. I had an experienceonce when I was about nine years old, that, in a way, tainted my mind with the ghost idea, and perhaps that is the reason why the possibility of seeing one affects me in the way it does. A couple of miles from the farm where I was reared there stood an old deserted ruin of a house known as the Tim Buck place. It was hidden away behind hills and woods and reached from the highway through a half-mile lane, thick grown with bushes. Here, years before I was born, there had once lived a man by the name of Buck, who hanged himself in the garret one day, while his wife was away. It was said she came back just at dusk and found him hanging lifeless from a rafter in the garret. What became of her I never knew, but no one ever lived on the place afterward, and in time the farm and house reverted to the town for taxes. It also soon obtained the reputation of being haunted, and no one ever went near it after dark. A couple of 'coon hunters told how they had taken refuge in it from a sudden shower at night, but left in a hurry when they heard some one walking on the chamber floor above. Some one else said they had seen a white figure walking on the ridge-pole just at dusk. All this was current gossip in the town, and believed by many.
"My parents had sense enough not to tell me, but when I was old enough to be sent to the district school, I heard all this, and more, too; and the worst of it was I believed all I heard. I had never been near the house, but when I heard the stories, I got another boy for company and went to look at it from the top of a near-by hill. As I grew older the fascination of the place kept increasing, and one day it overcame my fear and all alone I paid it a visit.
"The house was a ruin—roof fallen in, floor rotted away and pitched into the cellar: only the walls were standing, and the beams and rafters, like the ribs of a skeleton, still in place. I remember the well-sweep was in the usual position, and seemed to me like a warning finger pointing at the bleaching rafters. It took me a good half hour to muster courage enough to go within ten rods of the ruin, but I finally did, and at last, scared half to death, and trembling, found myself peeping in at one window. It was dark in there and smelt queer, and I, a nine-year-old boy, fully expected to see some new and horrible spook appear at any moment. How long I stood there I never knew, for I forgot all else except the belief that if I waited long enough I should see something queer. I did, too, for all at onceI saw in an inner room, where a closet door stood half open, a white, bony hand reach out from behind it, take hold, and seemingly shut that door from the inside! I didn't wait any longer, you may be sure, and never stopped running until I came in sight of home, two miles away!"
"And didn't you ever go back there?" said Pullen, "when you got older?"
"Oh, yes, I did, but not for a year after, and during that year I dreamed of that house and one or a dozen skeleton hands, countless times. Finally I mustered up spunk, went there one day all alone, set the old ruin on fire, and then ran as fast as my legs would carry me to a hilltop half a mile away, and stood and watched the fire. The place was so hidden away no one saw it burn except me, and I never told for fear of consequences."
"And did you ever outgrow the belief that you really saw a skeleton hand open that door?" said Pullen, reaching forward to pick up an ember and light the pipe he had just refilled.
Manson was silent for a few moments, as he lay resting his head on one hand and watching the firelight play hide-and-seek among the pine boughs overhead.
"No, to tell you the truth, Frank," he repliedat last, slowly, "I do not think I ever did. Of course, I know I did not see what I thought I did, and yet I have not quite outgrown the scare. I won't admit that I believe in ghosts, and yet the thought of them, owing perhaps to that boyhood fright, has a sort of deadly fascination for me. I believe and yet I do not believe, and if I were told I could see one by going anywhere, no matter how grewsome the spook was, I could not resist going."
"You ought to have lived where I came from," observed Pullen, looking curiously at his comrade; "for about twenty miles from my home is an island known as 'The Pocket,' that is fairly swarming with ghosts."
"Tell me about it," said Manson, suddenly interested.
"Well, it is a long yarn," replied Pullen, "but, from your make-up, the island is just such a spot as you would enjoy visiting. As I told you the other night, I was born and brought up on an island off the coast of Maine, and when I was quite a lad I first heard about this island, and that no one ever went there because it was haunted. I wasn't old enough to understand what being haunted meant, but later on I did. They used to tell about it being a hiding-place for smugglersbefore I was born, and that a murder had been committed there and that some one in a fishing boat had seen a man fully ten feet tall, standing on a cliff on it, one night. Dad, who was a sea captain, used to laugh at all this, and yet almost everybody believed there was some mystery connected with it. Another thing, I guess, helped give it a bad name was the fact that a ship was wrecked on it once, and no one discovered it until long after, and then they found four or five skeletons among the rocks. Another queer thing about this island that is really a fact is, that any time, day or night, you can hear a strange, bellowing sound like that of a mad bull, coming from somewhere on it. When there is a storm you can hear it for miles away. The sound can't be located anywhere, and yet you can hear it all the time. If you are one side, it seems to come from the other, and go around to that side and it is back where you came from. Inside the island is a circular pocket or walled-in harbor, like the crater of a volcano, that is entered through a narrow passage between two cliffs. Altogether it's a curious place, but as for ghosts—well, I've been there many a time and never saw one yet. But then, I do not believe in spooks, and perhaps that accounts for it. It'slike the believers in spiritualism, that can readily see their dead ancestors' faces peering out of a cabinet, and all that sort of bosh, but I never could. I'll bet," with a laugh, "that you could go to Pocket Island and see ghosts by the dozen."
"I would like to go there," replied Manson quietly, "and if we ever get home alive, I will."
"Come and make a visit, and I'll take you there," said Pullen; "that is" (soberly) "if I ever go home."
The story-telling ceased while the two friends, each thinking of the same thing, gravely watched the slowly fading fire.
"Come," said Pullen at last, "quit thinking about what may happen, and tell me another ghost story. It's your turn now."
But Manson was silent, for the story-telling mood had fled, and his thoughts were far away.
"Where are you now?" continued Pullen, studying his comrade's face. "With some girl, I'll bet; am I right?"
"Yes," answered Manson slowly, "I was with some one just then, and thinking of a fool promise I exacted from her before I left, and all this ghost-story telling has made me realize what an injury I may have done her by exacting that promise."
"Tell me," said Pullen, "I can sympathize with you, for I, too, have a girl I left behind me."
"Well," came the answer slowly, "this girl has too much good sense to believe in ghosts, and yet, you can't ever tell who does or does not believe in them. The foolish part of it is that I took her to a lonely spot away in the woods one day, before I left, and asked her to promise me that in case I never came back she would visit this spot alone once a year, on that same day, and if I was in spirit I would appear to her, or at least if there was any such thing as spirit life, I would be there, too. She is one of those 'true blue' girls would keep such a promise as long as she lived, I think; and now you understand what a fool promise it was."
"I can't dispute you," answered Pullen, and then they separated.
CHAPTER XV.MYSTERIES.
"Do you know, Frank," said Manson, a week later, as once more the two lounged beside their camp fire, "that I have the hardest kind of a task to keep myself from believing in omens, and especially the 'three warnings' business? Now, to illustrate, we lost a man out of our company two nights ago, and he was shot within ten feet of where you and I stood the night we were shot at. His name was Bishop, and an old schoolmate of mine. I was on the morning guard-mount detail, and was the first one to see him as we were going along the picket line. He had been shot in the head, and most likely never knew what hit him. To make the fate of Bishop more impressive his going on for night duty instead of myself had been decided by chance."
"Well, what of it?" said Pullen. "It was his bad luck and not yours that time, wasn't it? That fact ought to drive away your presentiments instead of increasing them, my boy."
"Perhaps, and yet it doesn't," replied Manson. "It keeps crowding me into the belief that I am booked for the same fate in the near future, and, do all I can, I can't put that idea away."
"Nonsense," put in Pullen, "that is all bosh, and in the same list with the Friday business, and seeing the moon over your left shoulder, and all that string of superstition that has come down to us, or rather, up to us from the Dark Ages, when mankind believed in no end of hobgoblin things."
"Say, Frank, don't you believe in luck?" interposed Manson. "Don't you believe there is such a thing as good or ill luck in this world, and that one or the other follows us most of the time all through life?"
"Yes, to a certain extent I do," answered Frank. "But I've noticed that good luck comes oftenest to those who put forth the greatest effort, and ill luck is quite apt to chase those who are seemingly born tired."
Manson was silent, for the wholesome optimism of his friend went far to dispel his grewsome imaginings.
"How does a mystery you can't understand affect you, Frank?" he said at last.
"Oh, as for that, if I can't find some solution for it easily I put it away and think of some othermatter. Life is too short to waste in trying to solve all we can't understand. And speaking of mysteries," continued Frank, "you ought to have been born and brought up where I was, on an island off the coast of Maine. There is more mystery to the square mile down that way, I believe, than anywhere else in the world, unless it be Egypt. There is a little village called Pemaquid, where they fence it in and charge an admission. I know of a dozen places where there are old Indian villages; old fort sites; old burial-places that fairly bristle with mystery! If you go anywhere near them the natives will ask you to go and look at this spot, or that, and act as if they expected you to take off your hat while they tell all about it in an awed whisper. Oh, we have mystery to burn down in Maine! Maine would just suit you, Manson! There isn't an island on the coast, a lake or mountain in the interior that hasn't got a fairy tale, or some legend connected with it. You remember what I told you about Pocket Island the other night? Well, that is a fair sample. And speaking of fairy tales, there is a curious one current down our way about a Jew and an Indian who were known to be smugglers and came and went in a mysterious way. They sailed a small sloop called theSea Fox, and, according to the stories, this Jew was one of the most adroit villains ever born with a hooked nose. Where he hailed from the devil only knew, and he never told, and when after he had mystified everybody for two years, smuggled liquor by the boatload all the time without getting caught once, he mysteriously disappeared, and left the entire coast guessing. According to the stories, and there are hundreds told about him, he was the smoothest Sheeney that ever swore by Moses. Dozens of constables were on the watch for him; his sloop was searched many times; every one believed he was smuggling liquor all the time and yet no one ever caught him. All this happened when I was a boy, and yet to-day no one sees a small tops'l sloop gliding into some uninhabited cove that they don't say 'There goes the Sea Fox.'"
"And did no story ever crop out regarding what became of him, or where he went to?" inquired Manson.
"Not a word or whisper; that is where the mystery lies, and, as I said, it is one more added to the large stock we already have."
"I would love to spend a month down your way, Frank," said Manson, after a pause.
"And why not?" replied Pullen. "I've a goodboat, plenty of time, and when we get out of this scrape I would be more than glad to have you visit me. I will take you all around among the islands and show you all the mysteries, even Pocket Island, and who knows but we may run across the Sea Fox? Promise me to come, will you?"
"Yes, if ever I get back alive I will," answered Manson.
It was not long after this pleasant chat that there occurred another episode in Manson's war experience that had a peculiar effect upon his imagination, and one that perhaps will illustrate the pathos of war as well as any.
"We do not pause to think what we are about to do when we are marched into battle," he said to his friend Frank the day after it happened; "we are under orders to kill if we can, and the smell of smoke, the roar of guns, and the awful horror of it all deadens every sense except the brutal one to shed blood. But to deliberately shoot an enemy, even though you know he is only waiting to shoot you, is another matter. I had to do it yesterday morning, however, and how miserable I have been ever since, no one can imagine. As you know, the Rebs have been shooting pickets off and on, for two weeks, andorders have been issued to shoot at sight and ask no questions. I had been on the line all night and was so dead tired and worn out with the nervous strain that I was ready to lie down in the mud even, and go to sleep, when just at daylight I saw a man crawling on all fours across an open space maybe twenty rods away, and across a ravine.
"It was a little lighter up where he was and I knew he couldn't see me. I lay low behind a rock and watched him, and as it grew lighter saw he wore gray, and I knew he was an enemy. For ten minutes he never moved, and I lay there with a bead on him trying to decide what to do. I knew he was there to kill, and that my duty was to shoot, and yet I hesitated. We shoot in battle not really knowing whether we kill or not, but to deliberately pull trigger knowing it means sending a human soul into eternity is an awful thing to do. His own action decided the matter, for, as I saw him lift himself a little and then raise his gun to the shoulder, I fired. Then I saw him spring to his feet, whirl around, clasp his hands to his breast and slowly sink forward half out of sight. I put a fresh cartridge in, and then never took my eyes off that gray heap until the relief guard came along. He was not quite deadwhen we went to him, for the ball had gone through his lungs, and he was fighting hard for breath. He was a beardless boy, not over eighteen, and as he gasped, the blood gushed out of his mouth. We saw him try to speak, but could not, and then he looked at us three; first one and then another. It must be he saw more pity in my face than in the others, for the poor boy suddenly reached out his hand toward me, and as I took it he drew me down to try and whisper to me. It was of no use; I could not catch the sound.
"I wiped the blood away from his lips and then rolled my blouse up for a pillow and laid his head on it. I could see a mute look of gratitude in his eyes, like those of a dying dog, and, mingling with that, the awful fear of death. It was all over in a few moments, and at the last he drew my hand to his lips and kissed it. The other two boys turned away, and I was glad, for the tears were chasing each other down my face. The one bit of consolation I had was, the poor boy did not know I shot him. When it was all over, we left him, and later we three went up there and buried him beside the rock where he died. I saw his face hovering over me all last night, and it will haunt me as long as I live."