CHAPTER XIV.MATTERS IN ROCKLAND.
With quivering lip Mr. Mather told the members of Company R that their lieutenant was dead; and strong men as they were they did not deem themselves unmanly that they wiped the big tears away, and crowding around their informer anxiously asked for particulars of their departed comrade, all speaking kindly of him, and each thinking of the sweet girl-wife at home on whom the news would fall so crushingly. A soldier’s dying was no novel thing in Washington, and so, aside from Company R, there were few who knew or cared that another soul had gone to the God who gave it,—that another victim was added to the list which shall one day come up with fearful blackness before the provokers of the war. The drums beat just the same,—the bands played just as merrily, and the busy tide went on as if the quiet chamber in —— street held no stiffened form, once as full of life and hope as the gay troops marching by.
But away to the Northward there was bitter mourning, and many a bright eye wept as the sad news ranalong the streets that Rockland’s young lieutenant, of whom the people were justly proud, lay dead in Washington, and many a heart beat with sympathy for the young wife who, ever since hearing the fatal news, had lain upon her bed, more dead than alive, with a look upon her white face which told better than words of the anguish she was enduring.
Nothing could induce Rose to leave her for a moment. “Willhad staid by George,” she said, “and she should stay by Annie.”
With her sitting by, Annie grew stronger, and could at last talk calmly of what was expected on the morrow.
“It will be terrible,” she said, “to hear the tramp of feet coming up the walk, and know they are bringing George! Oh, Mrs. Mather, you’ll stay by me, won’t you, even if your husband is among the number?”
Annie did not mean to be selfish. She was too much benumbed to realize anything fully, and she never thought what it would cost Rose to stay there, knowing her husband would seek her at home, and be so disappointed at not finding her there. Rose could not refuse a request so touchingly made, but just as the morning broke she went home for a few moments to see that all necessary preparations were made for Will’s comfort; then, penning him a note to tell why she was not there to meet him, she returned again to the cottage, where Widow Simms was busily at work setting things to rights for the expected arrival, her tears falling upon the furniture she was dusting, and her chest heaving with sobs as she heard in the distance the sound of a gathering crowd, and thought,
“It may be my boy they’ll go up next to meet.”
Poor Annie, too, shuddered and moaned as she caught the ominous sounds, and knew what they portended.
“It would be better to bring him back quietly,” she said. “It seems almost like mockery, this parade, which he can never know. I may be glad, by and by that they honored him thus, but it’s so hard now,” and covering her head with her pillow, Annie wept silently as she heard the mournful beat of the muffled drum, and knew the march to the depot had commenced.
How Rose wanted to be in the street and see her husband when he came; but with heroic self-denial, she forced down every longing to be away, and sitting down by Annie, busied herself with counting off the minutes and wondering if the clock would ever point to half-past ten, or the train ever arrive.
There was a great crowd out that morning to meet the returning soldier, and George’s dream of what might be when he came back again was more than realized. There were men and carriages upon the street, and groups of women at the corners, while the little boys ran up and down. But in the beat of the muffled drum there was a tone which made the hearts of those who heard it overflow with tears, as they rememberedwhatthat dirgelike music meant. Around the jammed white hat of the man who played the fife there was a badge of mourning, and in the notes he trilled a mournful cadence far different from the patriotic strains he played as a farewell to Rockland soldiers, going forth to battle, with hopes so sanguine of success. One of that youthful band was coming back; not full of life and fiery ambition as when he went away, dreaming bright dreams of the glory he would win, and the laurels he would wear, when once again he trod the streets at home. Not as a conquering hero, with the crown of fame on his brow, though the crown indeed was won, and where the golden light of Heaven shines from the everlasting hills, he was wearing it inglory. But his ear was deaf to all earthly sounds, and the tribute of respect his friends fain would bestow upon him, awakened no thrill in his cold, pulseless heart. Still they felt that all honor was due to the dead, and so they had come up to meet him, a greater throng than any of which he had dreamed when ambition burned within his bosom. There was a carriage waiting, too, just as he hoped there might be; a carriage sent expressly for him, but the children on the sidewalk shrank away and ceased their noisy clamor as it went by, its sombre appearance somewhat relieved by the gay coloring of the Stars and Stripes laid reverently upon it.
Slowly up the street the long procession passed, unmindful of the rain which, mingled with the snow and sleet, beat upon the pavements, and dashed against the window-panes, from which many a tear-stained face looked out upon the gloomy scene, made ten times gloomier by the sighing of the wind and the rifts of leaden clouds veiling the November sky. Over the eastern hills there was a rising wreath of smoke, and a shrill, discordant scream told that the train was coming, just as the carriage sent for George drew up to its appointed place.
Gently, carefully, tenderly they lifted him out, and set him down in their midst; but no loud cheering rent the air, no acclamations of applause, nothing save that dreadful muffled beat, and the soft notes of the fife, telling to the passengers leaning from the windows that the dead, as well as the living, had been their fellow-traveller. The banner upon the hearse told the rest of the sad story, and with a sigh to the memory of the unknown soldier, the passengers resumed their seats, and the train sped on its way, leaving the Rockland people alone with their dead.
Reverently they placed him in the carriage which none cared to share with him. Carefully they wrapped around him the Stars and Stripes, and dropping the heavy curtains, followed through the streets to the cottage in the Hollow, which he had left so full of life and hope. Around that cottage there was a gathered multitude next day, and though on the unsheltered heads of those without, the driving rain was falling, they waited patiently while the prayer was said, and the funeral anthem chanted. Then there came a bustling moment,—people passing beneath the Star Spangled Banner, and pausing to look at the dead. There were sobs and tears, and words of fond regret, and then the coffin-lid was closed, and once more that muffled beat was heard, as with arms reversed the Rockland Guards marched up the walk, where, leaning upon their guns they stood, while strong men carried out their late companion, and placed him in the hearse,the carriage sent for him. There was no relative to go with him to the grave,—none in whose veins his blood was flowing, so Mr. Mather and Rose took the lead, followed by a promiscuous crowd of carriages and pedestrians, the very horses keeping time to the solemn music beaten by the drum, and played by the man in the jammed white hat.
Slowly through the November rain,—through the November sleet, and through the November mist they bore him on through the streets which he so oft had trodden; on past the cottage he meant to buy for poor Annie, whispering to herself with every note of the tolling bell, “George has gone to Heaven.” Onward, still onward, till streets and cottage were left behind, and they came to where the marble columns, gleaming through the autumnal fog, told who peopled that silent yard. Just by the gate, the bearers paused, andstood with uncovered heads while the solemn words were uttered, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!” Then, when it was all over, the long procession moved through the spacious churchyard, past the tall monuments betokening worldly wealth; past the less imposing stones, whose lettering told of treasure in Heaven; past the group of cedar trees and pine; past the graves of the nameless dead, and so out upon the highway, Rose Mather starting in alarm as the band struck up a quicker, merrier march, whose stirring, jubilant notes seemed so much like mockery. She knew it was the custom, but the music grated none the less harshly, and drawing her veil over her face, she wept silently, occasionally glancing backward to the spot of freshly upturned earth where Rockland’s first soldier was buried,—the brave, self-denying George,—who gave all he had for his country, and died in her behalf.
Four weeks after George’s death, Annie left the cottage in the Hollow, and went to live for a time with Mrs. Mather. Early orphaned, and thrown upon the charities of a scheming aunt, who, after her marriage with George, had cast her off entirely, there was now no one to whom she could look for help and sympathy save Rose, and when the latter insisted that her home should be Annie’s also, while William, too, joined his entreaties with those of his wife, and urged as one reason his promise made to George, Annie consented on condition that as soon as her health was sufficiently restored, she should do something for herself, either as teacher, or governess in some private family.
Amid a wild storm of sobs and tears she had read her husband’s dying message, growing sick and faint just as he knew she would when first she learned of his loss, and why it was he had never written to her himself. Butthis was naught compared to the horror which crept round her heart as she read what George had written of a coming time when the long grave by the gate would not be visited as often as at first, or he who slept there remembered as tearfully.
“Oh, George, George!” she cried, “it was cruel to tell me so,” and sinking to her knees, she essayed to breathe a vow that other love than that she had borne for George Graham should never find entrance to her bosom. But something sealed her lips,—the words she would have uttered were unspoken, and the rash vow was not made.
Still there was an added drop to her already brimming cup of sorrow, and a sadder, more loving note in the tone of her voice when she spoke of her husband, as if she would fortify herself against the possibility of his prediction coming true. It was a sorry day when she finally left her cottage home, and only God was witness to the parting; but the dim, swollen eyes and colorless cheeks attested to its bitterness, as, with one great upheaving sob, she crossed the threshold and entered the carriage where Rose sat waiting for her, while the motherly Widow Simms wrapped around her the pile of shawls which were to shield her from the cold, and bade her god speed to her new home.
Rapidly the carriage drove away, while the widow returned to the cottage to perform the last needful office of fastening down the windows and locking up the doors, then, with a sigh at the changes a few short months had wrought, she went back to her own long deserted home. And the busy tide of life rolled on in Rockland just the same as if in the churchyard there was no new-made grave, holding the buried love of Annie, who, in Rose Mather’s beautiful home, was surrounded with everypossible comfort and luxury, and treated with as much consideration as if she were a born princess, instead of the humble woman, who, a few months before, was wholly unknown to the little lady of the Mather Mansion.