CHAPTER XLIII.Ifmy pen alone, dear reader, could direct the scenes which must be presented to your view in drawing near the close of my narrative, rest assured they should be pleasant. I would tell of a grand triumphant army, marshalled for the last time beneath the Stars and Bars to hear the plaudits and farewell of their chieftain; of victorious legions marching home crowned with laurels, their very footsteps softened by the flowers fair hands are scattering before them; of every homestead, blessed with peace and plenty, greeting its hero returned from the war. I would tell of an Independent Republic, with Robert E. Lee at its head, growing into power and greatness among the nations of the earth; while, with all sectional animosity and bitterness buried beneath the blood of their children, the United and the Confederate States join hands in the noble alliance of progress and enterprise—exchangingproducts and commodities, aiding each other onward, yet vieing in generous rivalry. Alas! the stern reality presents a darker picture—the picture of a people, borne down by want and woe, yielding up at last their long and gallant struggle, and sitting down amid the ashes of their country to mourn their children dead for nought; a picture of two armies—small, indeed, and wasted by famine and disease, yet still stepping proudly as they remember their long record of victories—stacking their faithful arms and furling their shell-torn flags with tears of helpless bitterness; a picture of Southern roadsides filled everywhere with men in tattered gray, plodding, with blistered feet, their weary way towards homes where gaunt starvation hath so wasted the cheeks of loved ones that they will scarcely flush at their coming, and where, laying down the burden of war, they must take up the burden of fruitless labor!Ben and I secured transportation on the cars from Durham’s to Raleigh, and set out from there to walk home.Ah! never to be forgotten are those days after the surrender! How the Yankees jeered and cursed us for being rebels, as squad after squad galloped by us, tramping along our dusty roads! And the people, God bless them! how kind they were to us, even in their poverty! Stripped to almost utter destitution by the enemy, they were willing, like the widow of Sarepta, to share with us their only cake. As we passed each gate they would come out with a pitcher of water, a tray of corn bread and potatoes, and, if the ”bummers” had not paid their visits of mercy, a small piece of meat. Calling us into the yard, under the trees, they would press us to eat, and lament that they had not better to give. And as we eagerly ate their frugal fare, which was more delicious then than were the quails of Lucullus, and rose to thank them and pursue our way, they would put what remained in our pockets, and, asking God’sblessing on us, turn into the house to prepare their humble offering for the next hungry troop.Thus were the gloomy feelings of our homeward journey relieved by constant kindness and attention from every house we passed, and it was not till we neared Ben’s home, and had left the public road, that I had time to feel the terrible suspense and anxiety about Carlotta and mother that had been in my heart since I left them. I dared not hope that mother was alive; yet my heart did so much shrink from knowing she was dead, that, as I came in sight of Mr. Bemby’s, my feet almost refused to go forward.As we approached we saw no one but Horace, who was working in a little garden near the house, and we motioned to him to be quiet. We opened the door of the house softly, and heard the sound of voices out in the little back porch, and saw the edge of some one’s dress who was sitting near the door. Then we heard a chair put down from its tilted position, and Ben’s wife leaned forward and looked sideways into the passage. With a loud cry of joy she dropped a lap full of work on the floor, and ran to meet her husband. She was followed by Carlotta and Mrs. Bemby. Where was mother? Carlotta, as I pressed her to my bosom, interpreted the anxiety of my look, and said:”God has spared mother, John. She is much improved, though still feeble. She is out in the porch. Come with me.”I followed her out to the porch, and there, propped by pillows in a chair, pale and thin, but still alive, was mother.I knelt by her, and we both murmured our thanksgiving to God for his mercy.Then, when Mrs. Bemby had brought out chairs for us all, and Horace had brought a bucket of fresh cool water, how bright and happy were we all as we told of our adventures and wondered at our mutual dangers and escapes. Verily, it was worth four years of hardship to experience the joy of that morning out in Mr. Bemby’s porch.”But tell me, Carlotta, what caused this blessed change in mother?” I said, after we had finished our salutations, drawing my little boy to me, and taking him on my knee.”She was relieved, and commenced to grow better the very day you left. A short time after you and Mr. Ben were gone a company of Federal soldiers came up to the house, bearing with them a dead man and two wounded ones. Mrs. Bemby and I went out to them and found, I shudder to tell it, that the dead man was Frank Paning. They wanted some spades to bury him with, and some cloths to bind up the wounds of the others. They said that two spies, one of them disguised as an old woman, had killed Paning, and, meeting these, had fired on them. We knew it must have been you two. Oh, John! did you forget your promise to mother?”I said nothing, for I did not wish to involve Ben, but he spoke up directly:”No, Mrs. Smith, John didn’t kill him; I done it myself. We found him a rakin’ over the ashes he’d helped to make, and when he saw his friends a comin’ he tried to make us surrender, and I let him have a ball in his forred. ‘Taint worth while to be mealy-mouthed about it.””Well,” continued Carlotta, with a shudder at Ben’s words, ”Horace got the spades for them, and Mrs. Bemby told them to bring the men into the house, for they were both suffering very much. We did what we could to alleviate their sufferings, and when the surgeon who was with them had bandaged up their wounds, and sent them off to camp, he asked if he could reward us in any way for our kindness. I thought of mother; and though my pride revolted at the idea of asking a favor of an enemy, I begged that he would see her and give her some relief, if possible. He went in and examined her head, and saying that it was an easy matter, took out some instruments and went to work. He raised up the fractured skull, and, asmother expressed it, lifted a great weight from her brain; then mixing some medicine for her, and telling me how to bathe her head, took his leave.””Did you not offer to remunerate him in some way?” I asked.”Yes, I offered him my watch, as we had no money, but he refused it with polished courtesy, and said he would only take a kiss from my little boy, as there was something about his eyes, as well as mine, that reminded him of a lady he had loved years ago.””Did you not learn his name?””Oh yes! He gave me his card, and I think I put it in this basket;” and she commenced to search in her work busily. ”Ah! here it is!” and she gave me the card:”C. B. Sedley, M. D., New York!””Why, Carlotta,” I said, ”did not a young man of that name pay his addresses to you at Saratoga?””Oh! certainly; I remember him. How stupid of me to forget. Poor Charley! I do not blame him for not recognising the lady of satin in this old homespun.””I must go to Goldsboro’ to-morrow,” I said, thinking gratefully of his kindness, ”and if he is still there offer some testimonial of our gratitude.””It’s useless,” said Carlotta, ”he has gone on to Raleigh with the army, and I cannot let you leave me so soon.”Mr. Bemby now came in from the field, and greeted us warmly in his uncouth way, while Mrs. B. excused herself to see about dinner. It was a plain meal, of one course, but Delmonico has never served one that was more enjoyed, or surrounded by happier hearts.The next day I went over to Goldsboro’, and, obtaining a hundred dollars, in ”greenbacks,” the first I had ever handled, prepared to start with our little family for Wilmington the following morning, for I could not consent toimpose longer on the good nature of the Bembys, and crowd them out of comfort in their little house.The next morning, having bade them an affectionate and grateful farewell, we lifted mother carefully into the vehicle I had hired to take us to town, and were soon in the cars, mother, Carlotta, Johnnie and I, rattling down to Wilmington. We found that Miss Wiggs had been unmolested in her possession of our house, and that it was therefore ready for our reception.Many of our former slaves now applied for positions in our household, but, as they had deserted us when most needed, I refused every one, and engaged an entire new set. About this time, also, I received a balance sheet from father’s bankers in New York, showing a large accumulated balance in our favor, and, drawing on this, we began to surround ourselves with ante-bellum comforts, and to make home feel like home.Soon after we had gotten somewhat settled I began to make inquiries about Lulie, for I felt the deepest interest in her welfare, and had ever thought of her downfall with deepest sorrow. As I could hear nothing definite in regard to her, though it was generally believed she had gone off with a Federal officer of high rank, I determined to call on her old maiden aunt, with whom she had lived since her father’s death, which occurred early in the winter. To my surprise the old lady would neither see me nor answer any of my inquiries, but called out to me, in a shrill cracked voice, as I stood at her door, her long bony feet just visible in heelless slippers and blue stockings, at the top of her stairway:”You needn’t come here asking me about the little silly fool, for I wouldn’t tell you anything if I knew, which I don’t. She’s gone from my sight and hearing, and I hope to the Lord you nor any one else will ever hear of her again.”Of course I could do nothing but give up the search, though I ceased not to hope she might yet be found and saved.And now, as the summer wore away, came to me the question of life; nothowwe were to live, for our income largely exceeded our expenditure, butwhy. The boyish dreams I had so long cherished, of distinction in the political arena, were now vanished forever; and the practice of law, for which I had studied, under the Provisional Government was little better than a system of pettifogging, that was as undignified as it was profitless.There was absolutely nothing to do, and the veryennuiof existence seemed a terrible evil. So, when Carlotta proposed that we break up here and go to her home in Cuba, I acceded to the proposal with great delight, and, mother consenting to go with us, I began immediately preparations for our departure in the Fall. I could not help feeling some touches of shame and regret in leaving our dear old State in this her darkest hour, and had it not been for the beautiful Cuban home that was awaiting us, I could not have gotten the consent of my mind to go. But I felt, as a private individual, of little benefit to the State at large, and that my first duty was to render those dearest to me happy, and this I thought would be accomplished by the change.As executor of father’s will, I found very little trouble in settling the estate, there being no debts to pay and few to collect. The real estate in New York I determined to leave in the hands of our agent, in whom we had the utmost confidence, and who had doubly endeared himself to us by his kindness to father while he was in prison. I sold our residence and grounds in Wilmington to a blockade runner who had amassed a large fortune during the war, and was anxious to invest in town property. Early in the fall I went up to the plantation to see Mr. Bemby, and make arrangements for its disposal. Taking the surveyor over from Goldsboro’ I had four hundred acres cut off for Ben, and two hundred for Horace, making them a fee simple title to it; the remaining three thousand acres I turned over to Mr.Bemby, to use the balance of his lifetime without rent. These kind people were profuse and sincere in their regrets at our leaving, and Mr. Bemby protested that he and Ben could make enough on the farm for us all to live in the house and never go out doors where we could see a Yankee. They all followed me up to the road, and I felt, as I shook hands and drove off, that, go where I would, I could never find more faithful hearts than beat beneath their homespun clothes. Ben rode over to Goldsboro’ with me, and when we had gone some distance from the house he drew from his pocket a twenty dollar gold piece and handed it to me, saying:”I want you to give that to the one it belongs to, if you ever see her.””Whose is it?” I asked in some surprise.”Miss Luler Maylin’s,” he said, putting the coin in my hand.”Lulie Mayland!” I exclaimed. ”Where is she; where have you seen her; I have been trying to find her ever since I came home.””I saw her week b’fore last, right on this road, jus’ above our house.””How came she there? Tell me about it for Heaven’s sake, Ben.””Well, you know Frank Paning is buried up there in the woods by the road, and last Wednesday was a week I thought I’d go up and sorter put a pen like ’round his grave, to keep the hogs from rootin’ ‘bout on it, ‘cause I tell you the truth, John, I ain’t never felt right ‘bout killin’ him yit. I shot a sight of Yankees during the war, but I done it on account of the Confeder’cy, and I didn’t feel like it was charged ‘ginst me in the big book up yonder; but I put that bullet in Frank Paning on my own hook, because I was mad with him, and it’s looked mighty close kin to murder ever since.””By no means, Ben,” I interrupted; ”he had ordered you to surrender, and his friends were close at hand.””Well, any how,” he continued, ”I was piling up the rails ’round the grave, and kinder askin’ its pardon to myself, when I heard a carriage ‘comin’ ‘long the road. I got up and stepped back a little for ’em to pass, for I was sorter ashamed of what I was doin’. But the carriage stopped right at the grave, and a Yankee officer got out, and then handed down a lady dressed finer ‘n the top spot in a peacock’s tail. The minnit I see her face I knowed ‘twas the same young lady that come up here wonst with Mrs. Smith and you all. ‘Soon as she got on the ground she run to the grave, and fell down on her knees, and put her head on the edge of the rail pen, and cried a long time. When she got up the man fetched some white flowers outer the carriage and she put’em on the grave; then turned to the man and said:”’Do you think you can find the place, Curnel?’”’Without doubt, madam,’ he said.”’I want the granite base very broad and strong, as the column will be very heavy,’ I heard her say.”’It shall be as you desire, madam,’ he replied.”They was about to git back in the carriage when she saw me, and come towards me with both hands stretched out.”’O, sir!’ she said to me, with her cheeks all wet, ‘did you think enough of his grave to take keer of it; let me reward you.’ And b’fore I could speak she put that money in my hand. I run up to the carriage as she got in, and tole her I did not want her money, but they drove off without saying any more.””Do you know where they went to, and did she call the officer’s name?” I asked, intensely interested in what he had related.”No; but I went to town next day, and saw ’em going off on the train, and the man had a han’ trunk marked New York.””Poor Lulie!” I murmured; ”would to Heaven I could find her.”The train was standing at the depot as we drove up, and I had to hurry to get on. Ben followed me into the car, and, taking my hand, said:”Good bye, John, for I can’t call you Mr. Smith, like I orter. Remember one thing, no matter where you go or who you see you’ll never find anybody to think any more of you than Ben. I didn’t have much religion to start with, and the war spilled what I did have out; but if I ever do get to the good place I’d like to see you there, for it won’t seem natchurel without you.”The train moved off and he was gone—a true, tried old heart.There was one more duty, a sacred one, for me to perform before our departure. I must bring my father’s remains from the enemy’s land, and let them rest in the soil he had died for. I found no difficulty in identifying his grave at Elmira, owing to the clear and distinct manner in which it had been marked by Mr. P., the agent referred to; and taking up the rude prison coffin, I had it enclosed as it was, without being opened, in a large metallic case, and thus brought it home.Mother had given up her desire to have him buried under the old cedar, as she knew his grave would be neglected when we had passed away, and the property had fallen into strangers’ hands, as it inevitably must some time in the future. So we carried his remains to the cemetery, and in the hazy autumn evening, while the sinking sun was mellowed by the purple mists, we laid him beneath the still green turf, where the yellow leaves were falling, in ”whispers to the living,” one by one upon his grave.And now, with that solemn certainty that alone belongs to Time and Death, the day appointed for departure approached. On the evening before we were to leave, feelingthat I ought to pay a farewell visit to Ned’s grave, I went down to the livery stables—our stalls were empty now—and hired a horse and buggy, and drove, with Carlotta, down to Mr. Cheyleigh’s. The old gentleman came out to meet us with his wonted cordiality, and was as cheerful as of old, but Mrs. Cheyleigh had never gotten over Ned’s death, and I could read in her wan, sad face, the tale of incurable sorrow. We talked all the while of Ned and his death; and as I told her how the men all loved him for his goodness, and the officers honored him for his bravery, I could see that, like a Spartan mother, even in her tears, she was proud of her gallant boy.At length I arose and went out alone to his grave. It was in a grove of pines near the house, and the brown pine straw hushed my footfalls as I approached, and the wind was sighing through the boughs. The grave was enclosed by an iron railing, and over it rested a plain marble slab, on which were an inscription and some lines in gilded letters. Opening the wire-work gate, with uncovered head and softened step I went up to the slab, and, bending over it, read:SACRED TO THE MEMORYOFEDWARD CHEYLEIGH,Born April 8th, 1840,Killed at the battle of Gettysburg, July 2d, 1863.”Tell them to bury me under the pines at home.”I would not rest in the mouldering tombOf the grim churchyard, where the ivy twines,But make my grave in the forest’s gloom,Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,Each dark green bough of the dear old pines,Where the lights and shadows softly merge,And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirgeFor the dead beneath the sighing pines.When the winter’s icy fingers sowThe mound with jewels till it shines,And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,Like white-veiled Sisters bending low,Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.While others fought for cities proud,For fertile plains and wealth of mines,I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,I bared my breast, and took my shroudFor the land where wave the grand old pines.Though comrades sigh and loved ones weepFor the form shot down in the battle lines,In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,If the life I gave will help to keepThe Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.********The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;And, bowing ‘neath the chastening rod,We lift our hearts and hands to God,And cry: ”Oh! save our Land of Pines!”CHAPTER XLIV.Howeverpleasant may be the scenes to which we are going, we cannot repress a feeling of sadness as we leave those with which we have been long associated, and which have become, as it were, part of our life.As the train bearing us from our home moved off from the shed, I went out to the rear platform, and stood looking at each familiar place and object as they passed, with a fond farewell upon my lips, and a desire to stamp all so indelibly upon my memory that in years to come I might remember exactly how everything appeared. As I stoodwith my face down the track I could not see an object till it passed, and then I gazed at it as it receded, till other objects flashing by claimed my attention. Now the bridge overhead, where I had so often stood to throw bits of coal and wood at the engines passing underneath, its arch and railing almost hidden in the curling volumes of smoke our engine has left behind; now the machine shops, where as a boy I had gathered the spiral iron shavings as great wonders of art, still clinking noisily above the rattle of the train, and blinking their red eyes from every forge; now engine yards, with old rusty boilers cast aside, and broken smoke stacks lying on the ground; here a pond where I have fished, its yellow surface darkened with cinders and wrinkled with the breath of our speed; there the river where I have bathed, hidden by the trees itself, but its course revealed by some naked mast and gliding sails; now we rattle through the coal and lumber yards, almost brushing against great piles of timber heaped along the track, and almost grazing dusty carts, with coal-begrimed drivers in red shirts, and heavy plodding horses with brass-studded harness, nodding their heads at every step, as if to say they were used to the cars and could not be prevailed upon to shy; now flash by streets that open, for a second, elm-bordered vistas ‘way up into the city, and close them as they whirl past; now we overtake and pass some one who knows me, walking along a very narrow sidewalk, and who bows and says something I cannot understand, and which I can only reply to by a great many shakes of the head; now we rattle by a little house with a dingy porch, and a goat with two kids browsing in front, where a schoolmate of mine used to live and invite me, and mother would not let me go; and now we roar out through the suburbs, where greasy looking men are smoking short pipes in rickety doorways, and red-armed women, with tumbled-down hair, are ever carrying water in painted buckets to the crazy shanties,and never seeming to use it, and where flocks of dirty children run out to wave and scream at the train; on till the last tenement is passed, and in the hazy distance I can only recognize the steeples of the different churches. Even these at last fade into the sky, and still, in my reverie, I stand there watching the black rails gliding like two long serpents from under the train, and the cross-ties ever flitting like steps to an interminable ladder down the track.As I had several matters of business to attend to in New York, I determined to take steamer from that point to Havana, instead of from Charleston, as we first thought of doing.The evening after our arrival in the metropolis being bright and sunny, I ordered an open carriage, and Carlotta and I, with little Johnnie, drove out to the Park. Ordering our coachman to let the horses go slowly, we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the beautiful scene. Pausing at each object of interest—here a marble statue, there a bronze, getting out at the museum, that Johnnie might see the animals, stopping on the edge of the lake, that he might feed the swans—time passed swiftly, and the sun was nearly down as we found ourselves over the terrace, the dress parade ground for the equipages of the Park. The press of vehicles here forced us to stop for a moment, and at the same instant a most superb turnout caught our attention. A pair of jet black horses, whose champing mouths almost bit their foam-flecked breasts, covered with harness that dazzled the eye with its gleaming plate, a glittering gold-mounted chariot, and a coachman and lackey in green and gold liveries! There were only two occupants—a handsome, middle-aged man, and a lady of striking yet haggard beauty. Clustering brown curls fell around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes were very bright, but her wan cheek was rouged, and the smile she wore was plainly forced and meaningless. All this we saw in a moment, and then we looked in each other’s faces, and exclaimed in one breath:”Lulie Mayland!”Ere we could extricate ourselves from the throng of carriages and follow, their chariot was out of sight, and we could only return to our hotel in wonder and surprise.That night Carlotta and I went to the Academy of Music. Parepa was to open the season withMaritana, and the vast edifice was crowded. The curtain was down for the second act, and Carl Rosa, with his nervous baton was wafting up from the orchestra a soft, exquisite aria, when the door of a box across the circle was opened by an obsequious usher, and a gentleman in an agony of fashion bowed a tremendous satin trail, a superb white cloak, and a profusion of diamonds into the seat. Laying a harp of camelias and tube-roses in his crush hat, he assisted her in removing her cloak, and, as a cluster of brown curls fell over her bare white shoulders, we recognized again Lulie. He seemed to bend over her with pleasant words, for she frequently smiled; but oh! the look of weariness and despair that at times would flit across her face! The curtain rose and fell, Parepa sang her sweetest, and the dome reëchoed the thunders of applause, but we sat regardless of the stage, with our opera glasses fixed on the box where Lulie sat. The gentleman, too, who was with her was an object of interest to me, for I could not divest myself of the idea that I had seen him somewhere. The deep red hair, parted so exactly in the middle, the flowing side whiskers, and the foppish dress, all seemed familiar, but I could not recall them, till presently he lowered his lorgnon and stuck in his eyeglass, and then I recognized Mr. Monte. I immediately rose and left our box to go to them, but before I had gotten half around the aisle I saw them both rise from their seats and leave the house. I followed as fast as I could through the throng, and reached the pavement just in time to see them drive off in their carriage.When we returned to the hotel I rang for a directory andfound Monte’s name and place of business, and lay down to sleep, resolved to seek out Lulie, and, with Carlotta’s aid, reclaim her if possible.CHAPTER XLV.Mr.Montewas partner in a large dry goods house on Broadway, and from what I knew of his habits I judged that I would most likely find him in the store about two o’clock. Accordingly, after lunch I took an omnibus and rode down to the place. It was a massive five story building, with great iron and glass doors, that turned slowly on their hinges, and, closing with a loud bang, shut out the noise and rattle of the great thoroughfare. I stood for a moment confused by the murmur of voices and the tramp of feet, as the hundreds of salesmen and merchants swarmed over every floor of the vast building. The next instant the door sentry approached, and asked whom I wished to see.”Mr. Monte; is he in?” I replied, feeling for my card.”Mr. Monte!” he said, looking somewhat surprised. ”What market are you from?””North Carolina,” I replied.”Oh, then,” said he, walking with me to the head of some stairs that led to a gas-lighted apartment below, ”you want to see Mr. Bantam. Ban-tum!Ban-tum!” he called in his loudest tone, accenting the last syllable, and giving it the ”u” sound. ”Mr. Bantam is from your State; he is down stairs now with Col.—— from Raleigh, in flannels. Will be up in a moment. How’s trade in your section?””I am not a merchant,” I replied, wondering what Mr. Bantam could be doing with Col.—— in flannel, and if the Col. had forgotten his under garments when leaving home.At this moment Mr. Bantam, an elderly man, slightly bald, appeared at the bottom of the stairway and called out: ”Who is it, Johnson?””A gentleman from your State.””All right; I’ll be up in five minutes.””Wait a few moments, sir,” said Johnson, going back to his post at the door.Leaning back against a case of prints, I looked around at this hive of human bees. From floor to floor, from wall to wall, were heaped and piled, like immense breastworks, goods and merchandise of almost every description; case after case of prints, rolls upon rolls of cloths and cassimeres, long brilliant rows of dress goods, boxes of glittering silks, long counters of notions, great heaps of shawls, rugs and blankets; laces, ribbons, and white goods; every department marked by placards with hands pointing to it, and over each another placard with terms of sale: ”30 days,” ”Regular,” or ”Net.”Everywhere, at every case, around every heap of goods were the salesmen and merchants, bending over fabrics, examining their texture, standing off to get the full effect of the figure; the one class praising and overrating, the other undervaluing and quoting prices from other houses. Just here, at the case next to me, is a fancy young man, with brilliant studs and a flash cravat, a pencil across his mouth like a bit, and his shirt sleeves held up by gutta percha bands, diving head foremost into a box and bringing up a piece of goods, which he exhibits with a slap, as if it were a horse, and winks at a passing comrade, who pinches his arm and says: ”How is it, Saunders?” while the merchant, an old fellow from the country, with a broad felt hat and long coat, who licks his short stump of a pencil whenever he sets down anything in his memorandum book, which has his name in gilt letters on the back, and was sent to him by some advertising house, is bending down to examine it.Over there is a red-faced man, in a Cardigan jacket, showing ——. But here is Mr. Bantam, who reads my card and exclaims:”Smith! I am delighted to see you. When did you leave the old North State?””On Tuesday last,” I replied, rather taken aback by his familiar cordiality.”Where are you stopping?” he inquired, bending the corners of my card.”At the Fifth Avenue Hotel.””That is the reason I missed you last night,” he said; ”I did not go higher than the St. Nicholas. Well, I am very glad you’ve come in. Hope you’ll make all your dry goods bill with us. It’s much the best plan to concentrate on a house, and we’ll be sure to do you good. What department will you look through this evening? I used to sell your father a great many goods.”I begged his pardon, but informed him that my father had never been a merchant, and that I was not merchandising, but had called in to see Mr. Monte, one of the firm.”You must excuse me,” he said, familiarly patting me on the back, ”I thought you wanted to buy. You want to see Mr. Monte? I expect you’ll have to go to his house, No.—West 34th street. He hardly ever comes here. Bless your soul, he wouldn’t know what to do if he did come. His money is all the house wants. Give him a new dog cart and a pair of ponies and he’s satisfied.””Then he is not much of a business man,” I said, for the want of something else to say, as I took down his address.”Not in this line. He knows how to get in the green room at a theatre, and is a first rate judge of wine; but his connection with us is simply confined to putting in some money every year, and drawing on it like Old Harry the balance of the time.””I am very much obliged,” I said, putting up my pencil;”I will hurry up to his house, if you think I will find him there.””He is probably there now, but he will drive out to the Park at four.”I was about to leave, when a tall, elderly man approached Mr. Bantam, and said, deferentially,”Dinkle, of your State, wants Domestics on sixty days. Shall I sell him?””I’ll go see him,” said Bantam, turning off; ”Good bye, Mr. Smith. Call in again if you have leisure.”The tall, elderly man was about to follow him, when a sudden recollection of his face flashed upon me, and I caught his arm.”Excuse me, but isn’t this Mr. Marshman?””It is, sir,” he replied, turning around to me again.”My name is Smith, sir,” I said, offering him my hand; ”we met at Saratoga.””I remember. How have you been?” he answered coldly, taking my hand without cordiality, while a flush I could not understand came over his face.”You are connected with this house?” I asked; thinking, of course, that he was a partner.”Only as a salesman,” he said bitterly, and then added, after a pause, ”It is not worth while being ashamed of it. Lillian’s infernal extravagance ruined me, and I was compelled to do something.”I could make no reply, and there was a pause of some seconds, when he continued, with increasing volubility, as all men do when speaking of their misfortunes:”Lillian’s old uncle, from whom we expected a great deal, died insolvent. I spent half of what I had in my last political contest, and was defeated by the——treachery of my friends. Still, after that we had enough to have lived comfortably, by economizing a little; but Lillian would have her brown stone and her carriage, her silks and her laces.and now she has to take the street cars if she rides at all, and that isn’t often. I could stand it all better if she wouldn’t cut up so, and mope about her poverty, as she calls it. She turns up her nose at the neighborhood because we’ve had to come down to Bleecker street. She spends half her time crying and looking over old finery, and talking of better days. She puts all sorts of foolish notions into our little girl’s head, and makes her continually beg me for things I have not the money to buy. I would ask you to call and see us, but ‘twould not be pleasant for you, and only make her worse. It is improper, I know, for me to talk thus to a comparative stranger, but I am full of bitterness when I think of Lillian’s conduct, and as you used to know her I have been communicative. Pardon me. Yonder’s Mr. Bantam. I must go back to my customers. Good day! But take this piece of advice: don’t marry a belle,” he added, over his shoulder, as he walked off.As I stood on the sidewalk to hail an omnibus, my sympathy turned from him to poor Lillian, reduced to poverty, and her very sighs and tears ridiculed, to any one who might listen, by her unfeeling husband.When I knocked at No.—West Thirty-fourth street a servant in livery appeared and took up my card. I waited a few moments in a very handsome parlor, when he returned and requested me to walk up stairs. Going up with him I was ushered into a sitting room furnished with cosy magnificence, that is, with a splendid Moquette carpet, on which you were not afraid to tread; velvet divans, on which you did not hesitate to recline; a rosewood table, on which an inkstand and pens were scattered; a marble mantel, with a half-smoked cigar tossed on it, anetagerewith a smoking cap, a broken meerschaum, and a Sevres vase of Latakia, perched among articles of rarestvertu. With my first glance around the apartment Monte came in through a folding door from his dressing room, wiping his hands on aRussian towel, and giving me one to shake that was still damp.”Smith! old fellow, I am devilish glad to see you. When did you arrive? We had a gay time at Saratoga that season, didn’t we! Where the deuce have you kept yourself ever since? Sit down.””I thought you were aware, Monte,” I said, adopting his free and easy manner, and lolling carelessly down in an arm chair, ”that we had had a little unpleasantness down our way. I’ve been in camp four years.””Ah, yes,” he said, slipping his arm through the coat his attendant held ready for him, ”I had overlooked that. So they made a soldier of you, did they—powder, blood and all? I was captain of a company our fellows here got up, but when they went down South I resigned. If the—— States wanted to secede I had no idea of getting my brains blown out to prevent them.””We were defending our country, you know, and, of course, had to fight,” I remarked, smiling at his idea of patriotism.”I suppose so,” he said, sitting down near me and arranging his cuffs; then looking up at his servant, who stood waiting, ”James, tell Thomas to put the bay colt to the wagon; I will drive to Harlem this afternoon. By the way, Smith,” he continued, when the man had left the room, ”what ever became of that devil of a beauty that flirted with us all, and with whom you left the Springs?”An angry reply rose to my lips at hearing him speak so of Carlotta, but knowing that it would defeat the object of my visit, I restrained myself, and replied ”that she had been living down South during the war, but that I understood she was soon to return to Cuba.”There was a short silence, and I was wondering how to get at any information in regard to Lulie, when he put up his eye-glass and looked at me again.”You’ve changed a great deal, Smith. I should never have recognized you without your card.”It was just the turn I wanted, and I replied:”I saw you last night at the opera and remembered your face immediately. But, Monte,aproposof beauty, who was the lady you were with? She drew my attention entirely from the stage.””Ah!” he said, drawing his eye into the least perceptible wink, ”She was worth a gaze, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t tell every one, but you are a transient visitor: that was La Belle Louise. Half of New York is crazy about her—that is, you know, the b’hoys.””Not demi-monde?” I asked, looking knowing.”It was daring in me, wasn’t it?” he went on, without heeding my remark. ”But she wanted to go and I promised to carry her. Oh! but I shall have to lie about it to the ladies. I can cheat scandal out of the morsel if some fellow who knew her don’t blow on me to his mother, and she let it out to her set. Confound it, though, who cares?””Has she many admirers?” I asked.”Many seek the honor of her acquaintance, but I believe I am the favored one. I’ll vow it flattens that deucedly though to keep her in diamonds,” he said, drawing from his pocket a mother of pearl portemonnaie.”I’d like to get a peep at her myself; just a peep, Monte. Where does she reside?” I said, taking out a card.”Oh, I don’t mind telling you. But it’s no use, she won’t see you.””La Belle Louise. Number what?” I asked, pretending to write.”She is at Madame Dubourg’s, 42d street, if you wish to know,” he said, somewhat coldly, as if he thought me impertinent.Quick as thought ‘twas on my card, and then I said, smiling:”Oh, well, I was only jesting; I will leave day after tomorrow. But tell me, Monte, something of my old acquaintance, Miss Finnock.””Little Saph.!” he said, regaining his good humor. ”She is up the Hudson living with her brother, who married that horrid Miss Stelway. You remember them?””Very well, but is Miss Finnock not married yet?””No, of course not; who would marry such a bundle of sentiment? She often boasts of you, though, as the young Carolinian she flirted with.””I met Mr. Marshman very unexpectedly down at your store to-day,” I said, not caring to correct little Miss Finnock’s boast.”Marshman? Yes, he’s selling there for us on a small salary—the best we could give him though. The old fellow got beaten, took to his cups and went to the bad very fast. They say his wife has to work hard to support herself and child, while he drinks up what he gets at our house. My mother sends them supplies very often, though she has not visited them, you know, since they left the top.””Have you a check book here?” I asked, with a sudden resolution.”Yes,” he replied, handing me one from hisescritoire.”Will you do me the favor to get that to Mrs. Marshman,” I said, filling up the check for a good round sum and giving it to him. ”Please draw the money and send it to her so that my name will not be known in the matter, and do not let Marshman touch any of it.””James shall attend to it to-morrow. But stay and dine with me. We’ll drive out to Harlem, and get back to dinner at six.””Thanks, I must return to my hotel, as I have an engagement there. Dine with me to-morrow. I am at the Fifth Avenue.””Would be happy. The Sillery’s very fine there, but Idine our Club on my yacht to-morrow. Speaking of La Belle Louise,” he continued, following me down to the door, ”Madame Dubourg told me she gets letters from North Carolina, and that she is continually sending money to Italy to complete a monument to go over some poor devil of a deserter from the rebel army, who was killed down there. Did you ever hear of her before?””La Belle Louise? I never heard the name till you mentioned it,” I said.”I supposed it was a mistake. Good day.””Lulie, I have found you at last,” I murmured, as I sauntered down Fifth Avenue to the hotel. ”God grant we may save you!”CHAPTER XLVI.MadameDubourg’swas a grand brown stone building, with broad carved balustrades, and stone vases of cactus. I had chosen the hour of twelve for our visit, as the parlors would most likely then be free from visitors, and we could see Lulie in quiet. When we alighted from our carriage there was a large-armed Irish woman washing off the stone steps, and a man in a paper cap standing on a high step-ladder, to rub the plate glass windows. They were talking and laughing together, but ceased as we got out, and looked at us and each other with some surprise on their faces. The woman gathered up her cloth and water bucket and disappeared through the area with an audible snicker, while the man fell to rubbing the wide panes with renewed diligence. There was a pretty silver knocker on the figured glass door, and as I let it fall the door was thrown open by a footman, who had put on his gold laced coat so hurriedly the collar was turned under, and from whose moustachesome fragments of cheese were still hanging. He favored us with a prolonged stare of wonder, then presented a somewhat tarnished gold salver for our cards. I laid one in it, on which was simply written, ”An old friend,” and said: ”To see La Belle Louise.””You can’t see her,” he replied, with something of insolence in his tone.I restrained my first impulse of anger, and slipping a five dollar gold piece in his hand, said quietly,”Take my card up to her, and say nothing about a lady’s being with me.””I will, sir,” he said, with a low bow, his manner changing instantly at the touch of the gold.He ushered us through a wide hall, with mosaic floor, into a spacious parlor, furnished in dark green velvet, and opening into another of light green satin damask, and this, in turn, leading to a large conservatory of rare plants and flowers. Though the furniture and all the appointments were so magnificent, yet every thing bore the defacement of reckless vice. The splendid Axminster carpets, though partially protected by linen tracks, were soiled and worn by muddy boots, the grand piano had its rosewood surface scratched and bruised, the music books were torn and scattered, buhl quartette tables around the room were covered with sloppings of wine, broken glasses, wet packs of cards and dice, the embroidered flowers on the ottomans were frayed into strings, and the gorgeous paintings on the walls were splotched and blistered, and their gilded frames tarnished. We had walked through both parlors to the conservatory and returned to the first, when we heard a light foot-fall on the stairway, and Lulie came down into the hall and stood for a moment looking through the side lights out into the street, with the same look of wan despair upon her face. The next instant she walked lightly into the room, twirling the tassel of her morning robe over her forefinger. She advancedhalf across the room before she saw us, and then her eyes opened as if in terror, a leaden pallor spread over her face, as if life had fled, and pressing her hand to her heart, with the tremulous wail, ”O God!” she sank down upon the floor, her pallid cheek resting on the cushion of afauteuilthat had been overthrown, and her colorless lips uttering low moans, that were piteous, indeed, to hear.In a moment Carlotta was down on the floor beside her, lifting the poor bowed head to her bosom, smoothing the brown hair from the fair brow that was once so pure, and dropping the tears of her Christ-like pity on the upturned face. The poor girl had no strength to stir, but only put up her white hands feebly and murmured:”Do not touch me; oh! do not touch me. God knows I am unworthy to breathe the air you do. Leave me! Cast me off as all the world have done,” and again she would make those gentle, piteous moans.As soon as Carlotta could command her voice she bent down, and kissing her forehead tenderly, said:”Lulie, darling, we have come to save you.””To save me? Oh, no; it’s too late—too late!””Do not say so, dearest Lulie,” urged Carlotta; ”our carriage is at the door. Do not wait a moment, but come with us and leave forever this pit of perdition.””Would to God I could,” she said, shaking her head slowly, and speaking in the same low tone; ”there was a time I might have gone, but not now, not now.””But, Lulie, we are going away from this country to Cuba, where no one has ever known you. No one is with us except mother, who is even now waiting to receive you. We will forever bury the past, and look forward only to a new life. Lulie, come with us, and be my darling sister in our happy home.”She raised herself from Carlotta, and, placing her hands over her face, sat rocking herself back and forth, her veryframe convulsed with the agony of her struggle. When she lifted her face again her mind was made up.”It cannot be, Lottie,” she said, calling Carlotta’s name for the first time. ”Heaven only knows how I appreciate your goodness and thank you for it; but I cannot go with you; I cannot throw the shadow of my presence on your household. The world has no forgiveness for my sin, and no life of penitence or purity I might lead would ever wash away the stain. I do not doubt your kindness; as God is my witness I believe that you would love me, but, do what you would to forget and conceal it, in your hearts I could never be anything but poor fallen Lulie—and the consciousness that you all knew of my ruin would make your very presence a torture to me.””But, Lulie,” persisted Carlotta, ”this sensitiveness would after a while pass off, and our very kindness would beguile you of your remorse. And even if you suffer, I should think any change would be better than this life of shameless iniquity, so utterly opposed to the refinement and delicacy I believe still linger in your breast.””Oh, Lottie, do not chide me. You, whose heart is pure, who have never known the wild reckless abandonment of all that is virtuous, all that is good, cannot understand the terrible remorse that drives me into vice, whose constancy will prevent reflection—aye, reflection. An eternity of hell is compassed in one hour of my retrospect. I cannot be alone; solitude would drive me mad. One thought alone has brought relief—relief mingled with horror—the thought of death! Oft in the night has it come to my sleepless pillow and whispered to me ‘Die!’ and yet, when I poured the poison in the glass, my trembling hand has dropped it from my lips. But the crisis has come,” she said, fiercely, striking her hands together and wringing them till her jewelled rings cut into the flesh. ”I will not shrink again. Iwilldie!” and clasping her hands across her head, shegazed at me with such intense anguish and despair in her hollow eyes, I shrank from her face.”Lulie, Lulie, dearest, do not speak so,” said Carlotta, again putting her arms around her and trying to soothe her. ”You cannot surely contemplate self-destruction. Think, Lulie, what an awful thing it is to die. There, darling,” she continued, as Lulie’s head drooped on her shoulder, ”you were speaking wildly just now, you did not mean what you said. Come, the carriage is waiting. Youmustgo with us; we cannot leave you here.”But Lulie only shook her head firmly and remained silent.After a rather long pause Carlotta spoke again, in a low impressive voice:”Lulie, hear my last appeal. For the sake of the long ago, when we were innocent happy children, and our hearts were bound with ties of love which have never yet been broken; for the sake of those dear old days, I beseech, I implore you to leave these unworthy associations, and seek with us a better life. Aye, Lulie, for the sake of your dead mother, I beg you to come. If a heart can be sad in Heaven, hers is bleeding now to see you thus; her precious little Lulie in such a place as this! Oh! will you not make her happy again?”The fountains of her heart were now broken up, and with long shuddering sobs she lay weeping on Carlotta’s neck.I had not spoken yet, but had left all to Carlotta’s tact and skill. I now knelt down by Lulie and took her hand, while my broken voice and tearful eyes attested the sincerity of all I said:”Dear little playmate, by the memory of our childhood’s love, by the thousand scenes and incidents that endeared us to each other—our nursery games, Miss Hester’s school, the little parties when you first ventured to take my arm—by your first rejection of my love as we grew older, but above all, by the confidence you placed in me under the oldoak at Chapel Hill, I implore you to trust us now and to put your future into our hands.””Oh, spare me! spare me!” she cried, sobbing afresh, ”for humanity’s sake spare me! If you would not kill me, do not tell me of my joyous, sinless childhood. It is gone forever from me. Oh, my wrecked and ruined character! Oh, my blighted, broken heart! Mother!mother!MOTHER!God grant you may be blind in Heaven, that you may not see your poor, polluted child on earth. Lottie, do not torture me more; ‘tis useless to persuade me; I cannot go. Leave me to my fate. If you are willing, put both arms round my neck once more and kiss me farewell. John, my noble, true-hearted friend, Good-bye!”Carlotta strained her again and again to her bosom, then, seeing she was not to be shaken from her purpose, we slowly and sorrowfully left the room. At the door Carlotta’s feelings overcame her, and resolving to make one more trial, she went back, and embracing her again, said:”Lulie, I cannot leave you so. By the Blood of dear Jesus, by the Cross of our Redeemer, I beseech you to go with us to our home.”Poor Lulie caught her hand and pressed her tear-wet cheek and lips upon it, then pushed her from her side, not rudely but sadly, with despair in her very touch.And so we left her sitting on the floor, with her head buried in her folded arms upon an ottoman. We were so troubled to leave her as we found her, that we wrote a long note and sent it up to Madame Dubourg’s that evening from the hotel. The waiter soon returned with our note unopened, but on it, scribbled with a pencil:”Dear friends, forget me!Lulie.”Next morning, as we stood on the deck of the steamer for Havana, inhaling the breeze and enjoying the scene, whilethe giant wheels were throbbing us out into the ocean, we little thought that in the great city behind us, up in a room with perfumed and silken hangings, an overburdened heart, slower and slower, was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing a soul out into eternity.
CHAPTER XLIII.Ifmy pen alone, dear reader, could direct the scenes which must be presented to your view in drawing near the close of my narrative, rest assured they should be pleasant. I would tell of a grand triumphant army, marshalled for the last time beneath the Stars and Bars to hear the plaudits and farewell of their chieftain; of victorious legions marching home crowned with laurels, their very footsteps softened by the flowers fair hands are scattering before them; of every homestead, blessed with peace and plenty, greeting its hero returned from the war. I would tell of an Independent Republic, with Robert E. Lee at its head, growing into power and greatness among the nations of the earth; while, with all sectional animosity and bitterness buried beneath the blood of their children, the United and the Confederate States join hands in the noble alliance of progress and enterprise—exchangingproducts and commodities, aiding each other onward, yet vieing in generous rivalry. Alas! the stern reality presents a darker picture—the picture of a people, borne down by want and woe, yielding up at last their long and gallant struggle, and sitting down amid the ashes of their country to mourn their children dead for nought; a picture of two armies—small, indeed, and wasted by famine and disease, yet still stepping proudly as they remember their long record of victories—stacking their faithful arms and furling their shell-torn flags with tears of helpless bitterness; a picture of Southern roadsides filled everywhere with men in tattered gray, plodding, with blistered feet, their weary way towards homes where gaunt starvation hath so wasted the cheeks of loved ones that they will scarcely flush at their coming, and where, laying down the burden of war, they must take up the burden of fruitless labor!Ben and I secured transportation on the cars from Durham’s to Raleigh, and set out from there to walk home.Ah! never to be forgotten are those days after the surrender! How the Yankees jeered and cursed us for being rebels, as squad after squad galloped by us, tramping along our dusty roads! And the people, God bless them! how kind they were to us, even in their poverty! Stripped to almost utter destitution by the enemy, they were willing, like the widow of Sarepta, to share with us their only cake. As we passed each gate they would come out with a pitcher of water, a tray of corn bread and potatoes, and, if the ”bummers” had not paid their visits of mercy, a small piece of meat. Calling us into the yard, under the trees, they would press us to eat, and lament that they had not better to give. And as we eagerly ate their frugal fare, which was more delicious then than were the quails of Lucullus, and rose to thank them and pursue our way, they would put what remained in our pockets, and, asking God’sblessing on us, turn into the house to prepare their humble offering for the next hungry troop.Thus were the gloomy feelings of our homeward journey relieved by constant kindness and attention from every house we passed, and it was not till we neared Ben’s home, and had left the public road, that I had time to feel the terrible suspense and anxiety about Carlotta and mother that had been in my heart since I left them. I dared not hope that mother was alive; yet my heart did so much shrink from knowing she was dead, that, as I came in sight of Mr. Bemby’s, my feet almost refused to go forward.As we approached we saw no one but Horace, who was working in a little garden near the house, and we motioned to him to be quiet. We opened the door of the house softly, and heard the sound of voices out in the little back porch, and saw the edge of some one’s dress who was sitting near the door. Then we heard a chair put down from its tilted position, and Ben’s wife leaned forward and looked sideways into the passage. With a loud cry of joy she dropped a lap full of work on the floor, and ran to meet her husband. She was followed by Carlotta and Mrs. Bemby. Where was mother? Carlotta, as I pressed her to my bosom, interpreted the anxiety of my look, and said:”God has spared mother, John. She is much improved, though still feeble. She is out in the porch. Come with me.”I followed her out to the porch, and there, propped by pillows in a chair, pale and thin, but still alive, was mother.I knelt by her, and we both murmured our thanksgiving to God for his mercy.Then, when Mrs. Bemby had brought out chairs for us all, and Horace had brought a bucket of fresh cool water, how bright and happy were we all as we told of our adventures and wondered at our mutual dangers and escapes. Verily, it was worth four years of hardship to experience the joy of that morning out in Mr. Bemby’s porch.”But tell me, Carlotta, what caused this blessed change in mother?” I said, after we had finished our salutations, drawing my little boy to me, and taking him on my knee.”She was relieved, and commenced to grow better the very day you left. A short time after you and Mr. Ben were gone a company of Federal soldiers came up to the house, bearing with them a dead man and two wounded ones. Mrs. Bemby and I went out to them and found, I shudder to tell it, that the dead man was Frank Paning. They wanted some spades to bury him with, and some cloths to bind up the wounds of the others. They said that two spies, one of them disguised as an old woman, had killed Paning, and, meeting these, had fired on them. We knew it must have been you two. Oh, John! did you forget your promise to mother?”I said nothing, for I did not wish to involve Ben, but he spoke up directly:”No, Mrs. Smith, John didn’t kill him; I done it myself. We found him a rakin’ over the ashes he’d helped to make, and when he saw his friends a comin’ he tried to make us surrender, and I let him have a ball in his forred. ‘Taint worth while to be mealy-mouthed about it.””Well,” continued Carlotta, with a shudder at Ben’s words, ”Horace got the spades for them, and Mrs. Bemby told them to bring the men into the house, for they were both suffering very much. We did what we could to alleviate their sufferings, and when the surgeon who was with them had bandaged up their wounds, and sent them off to camp, he asked if he could reward us in any way for our kindness. I thought of mother; and though my pride revolted at the idea of asking a favor of an enemy, I begged that he would see her and give her some relief, if possible. He went in and examined her head, and saying that it was an easy matter, took out some instruments and went to work. He raised up the fractured skull, and, asmother expressed it, lifted a great weight from her brain; then mixing some medicine for her, and telling me how to bathe her head, took his leave.””Did you not offer to remunerate him in some way?” I asked.”Yes, I offered him my watch, as we had no money, but he refused it with polished courtesy, and said he would only take a kiss from my little boy, as there was something about his eyes, as well as mine, that reminded him of a lady he had loved years ago.””Did you not learn his name?””Oh yes! He gave me his card, and I think I put it in this basket;” and she commenced to search in her work busily. ”Ah! here it is!” and she gave me the card:”C. B. Sedley, M. D., New York!””Why, Carlotta,” I said, ”did not a young man of that name pay his addresses to you at Saratoga?””Oh! certainly; I remember him. How stupid of me to forget. Poor Charley! I do not blame him for not recognising the lady of satin in this old homespun.””I must go to Goldsboro’ to-morrow,” I said, thinking gratefully of his kindness, ”and if he is still there offer some testimonial of our gratitude.””It’s useless,” said Carlotta, ”he has gone on to Raleigh with the army, and I cannot let you leave me so soon.”Mr. Bemby now came in from the field, and greeted us warmly in his uncouth way, while Mrs. B. excused herself to see about dinner. It was a plain meal, of one course, but Delmonico has never served one that was more enjoyed, or surrounded by happier hearts.The next day I went over to Goldsboro’, and, obtaining a hundred dollars, in ”greenbacks,” the first I had ever handled, prepared to start with our little family for Wilmington the following morning, for I could not consent toimpose longer on the good nature of the Bembys, and crowd them out of comfort in their little house.The next morning, having bade them an affectionate and grateful farewell, we lifted mother carefully into the vehicle I had hired to take us to town, and were soon in the cars, mother, Carlotta, Johnnie and I, rattling down to Wilmington. We found that Miss Wiggs had been unmolested in her possession of our house, and that it was therefore ready for our reception.Many of our former slaves now applied for positions in our household, but, as they had deserted us when most needed, I refused every one, and engaged an entire new set. About this time, also, I received a balance sheet from father’s bankers in New York, showing a large accumulated balance in our favor, and, drawing on this, we began to surround ourselves with ante-bellum comforts, and to make home feel like home.Soon after we had gotten somewhat settled I began to make inquiries about Lulie, for I felt the deepest interest in her welfare, and had ever thought of her downfall with deepest sorrow. As I could hear nothing definite in regard to her, though it was generally believed she had gone off with a Federal officer of high rank, I determined to call on her old maiden aunt, with whom she had lived since her father’s death, which occurred early in the winter. To my surprise the old lady would neither see me nor answer any of my inquiries, but called out to me, in a shrill cracked voice, as I stood at her door, her long bony feet just visible in heelless slippers and blue stockings, at the top of her stairway:”You needn’t come here asking me about the little silly fool, for I wouldn’t tell you anything if I knew, which I don’t. She’s gone from my sight and hearing, and I hope to the Lord you nor any one else will ever hear of her again.”Of course I could do nothing but give up the search, though I ceased not to hope she might yet be found and saved.And now, as the summer wore away, came to me the question of life; nothowwe were to live, for our income largely exceeded our expenditure, butwhy. The boyish dreams I had so long cherished, of distinction in the political arena, were now vanished forever; and the practice of law, for which I had studied, under the Provisional Government was little better than a system of pettifogging, that was as undignified as it was profitless.There was absolutely nothing to do, and the veryennuiof existence seemed a terrible evil. So, when Carlotta proposed that we break up here and go to her home in Cuba, I acceded to the proposal with great delight, and, mother consenting to go with us, I began immediately preparations for our departure in the Fall. I could not help feeling some touches of shame and regret in leaving our dear old State in this her darkest hour, and had it not been for the beautiful Cuban home that was awaiting us, I could not have gotten the consent of my mind to go. But I felt, as a private individual, of little benefit to the State at large, and that my first duty was to render those dearest to me happy, and this I thought would be accomplished by the change.As executor of father’s will, I found very little trouble in settling the estate, there being no debts to pay and few to collect. The real estate in New York I determined to leave in the hands of our agent, in whom we had the utmost confidence, and who had doubly endeared himself to us by his kindness to father while he was in prison. I sold our residence and grounds in Wilmington to a blockade runner who had amassed a large fortune during the war, and was anxious to invest in town property. Early in the fall I went up to the plantation to see Mr. Bemby, and make arrangements for its disposal. Taking the surveyor over from Goldsboro’ I had four hundred acres cut off for Ben, and two hundred for Horace, making them a fee simple title to it; the remaining three thousand acres I turned over to Mr.Bemby, to use the balance of his lifetime without rent. These kind people were profuse and sincere in their regrets at our leaving, and Mr. Bemby protested that he and Ben could make enough on the farm for us all to live in the house and never go out doors where we could see a Yankee. They all followed me up to the road, and I felt, as I shook hands and drove off, that, go where I would, I could never find more faithful hearts than beat beneath their homespun clothes. Ben rode over to Goldsboro’ with me, and when we had gone some distance from the house he drew from his pocket a twenty dollar gold piece and handed it to me, saying:”I want you to give that to the one it belongs to, if you ever see her.””Whose is it?” I asked in some surprise.”Miss Luler Maylin’s,” he said, putting the coin in my hand.”Lulie Mayland!” I exclaimed. ”Where is she; where have you seen her; I have been trying to find her ever since I came home.””I saw her week b’fore last, right on this road, jus’ above our house.””How came she there? Tell me about it for Heaven’s sake, Ben.””Well, you know Frank Paning is buried up there in the woods by the road, and last Wednesday was a week I thought I’d go up and sorter put a pen like ’round his grave, to keep the hogs from rootin’ ‘bout on it, ‘cause I tell you the truth, John, I ain’t never felt right ‘bout killin’ him yit. I shot a sight of Yankees during the war, but I done it on account of the Confeder’cy, and I didn’t feel like it was charged ‘ginst me in the big book up yonder; but I put that bullet in Frank Paning on my own hook, because I was mad with him, and it’s looked mighty close kin to murder ever since.””By no means, Ben,” I interrupted; ”he had ordered you to surrender, and his friends were close at hand.””Well, any how,” he continued, ”I was piling up the rails ’round the grave, and kinder askin’ its pardon to myself, when I heard a carriage ‘comin’ ‘long the road. I got up and stepped back a little for ’em to pass, for I was sorter ashamed of what I was doin’. But the carriage stopped right at the grave, and a Yankee officer got out, and then handed down a lady dressed finer ‘n the top spot in a peacock’s tail. The minnit I see her face I knowed ‘twas the same young lady that come up here wonst with Mrs. Smith and you all. ‘Soon as she got on the ground she run to the grave, and fell down on her knees, and put her head on the edge of the rail pen, and cried a long time. When she got up the man fetched some white flowers outer the carriage and she put’em on the grave; then turned to the man and said:”’Do you think you can find the place, Curnel?’”’Without doubt, madam,’ he said.”’I want the granite base very broad and strong, as the column will be very heavy,’ I heard her say.”’It shall be as you desire, madam,’ he replied.”They was about to git back in the carriage when she saw me, and come towards me with both hands stretched out.”’O, sir!’ she said to me, with her cheeks all wet, ‘did you think enough of his grave to take keer of it; let me reward you.’ And b’fore I could speak she put that money in my hand. I run up to the carriage as she got in, and tole her I did not want her money, but they drove off without saying any more.””Do you know where they went to, and did she call the officer’s name?” I asked, intensely interested in what he had related.”No; but I went to town next day, and saw ’em going off on the train, and the man had a han’ trunk marked New York.””Poor Lulie!” I murmured; ”would to Heaven I could find her.”The train was standing at the depot as we drove up, and I had to hurry to get on. Ben followed me into the car, and, taking my hand, said:”Good bye, John, for I can’t call you Mr. Smith, like I orter. Remember one thing, no matter where you go or who you see you’ll never find anybody to think any more of you than Ben. I didn’t have much religion to start with, and the war spilled what I did have out; but if I ever do get to the good place I’d like to see you there, for it won’t seem natchurel without you.”The train moved off and he was gone—a true, tried old heart.There was one more duty, a sacred one, for me to perform before our departure. I must bring my father’s remains from the enemy’s land, and let them rest in the soil he had died for. I found no difficulty in identifying his grave at Elmira, owing to the clear and distinct manner in which it had been marked by Mr. P., the agent referred to; and taking up the rude prison coffin, I had it enclosed as it was, without being opened, in a large metallic case, and thus brought it home.Mother had given up her desire to have him buried under the old cedar, as she knew his grave would be neglected when we had passed away, and the property had fallen into strangers’ hands, as it inevitably must some time in the future. So we carried his remains to the cemetery, and in the hazy autumn evening, while the sinking sun was mellowed by the purple mists, we laid him beneath the still green turf, where the yellow leaves were falling, in ”whispers to the living,” one by one upon his grave.And now, with that solemn certainty that alone belongs to Time and Death, the day appointed for departure approached. On the evening before we were to leave, feelingthat I ought to pay a farewell visit to Ned’s grave, I went down to the livery stables—our stalls were empty now—and hired a horse and buggy, and drove, with Carlotta, down to Mr. Cheyleigh’s. The old gentleman came out to meet us with his wonted cordiality, and was as cheerful as of old, but Mrs. Cheyleigh had never gotten over Ned’s death, and I could read in her wan, sad face, the tale of incurable sorrow. We talked all the while of Ned and his death; and as I told her how the men all loved him for his goodness, and the officers honored him for his bravery, I could see that, like a Spartan mother, even in her tears, she was proud of her gallant boy.At length I arose and went out alone to his grave. It was in a grove of pines near the house, and the brown pine straw hushed my footfalls as I approached, and the wind was sighing through the boughs. The grave was enclosed by an iron railing, and over it rested a plain marble slab, on which were an inscription and some lines in gilded letters. Opening the wire-work gate, with uncovered head and softened step I went up to the slab, and, bending over it, read:SACRED TO THE MEMORYOFEDWARD CHEYLEIGH,Born April 8th, 1840,Killed at the battle of Gettysburg, July 2d, 1863.”Tell them to bury me under the pines at home.”I would not rest in the mouldering tombOf the grim churchyard, where the ivy twines,But make my grave in the forest’s gloom,Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,Each dark green bough of the dear old pines,Where the lights and shadows softly merge,And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirgeFor the dead beneath the sighing pines.When the winter’s icy fingers sowThe mound with jewels till it shines,And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,Like white-veiled Sisters bending low,Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.While others fought for cities proud,For fertile plains and wealth of mines,I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,I bared my breast, and took my shroudFor the land where wave the grand old pines.Though comrades sigh and loved ones weepFor the form shot down in the battle lines,In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,If the life I gave will help to keepThe Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.********The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;And, bowing ‘neath the chastening rod,We lift our hearts and hands to God,And cry: ”Oh! save our Land of Pines!”
Ifmy pen alone, dear reader, could direct the scenes which must be presented to your view in drawing near the close of my narrative, rest assured they should be pleasant. I would tell of a grand triumphant army, marshalled for the last time beneath the Stars and Bars to hear the plaudits and farewell of their chieftain; of victorious legions marching home crowned with laurels, their very footsteps softened by the flowers fair hands are scattering before them; of every homestead, blessed with peace and plenty, greeting its hero returned from the war. I would tell of an Independent Republic, with Robert E. Lee at its head, growing into power and greatness among the nations of the earth; while, with all sectional animosity and bitterness buried beneath the blood of their children, the United and the Confederate States join hands in the noble alliance of progress and enterprise—exchangingproducts and commodities, aiding each other onward, yet vieing in generous rivalry. Alas! the stern reality presents a darker picture—the picture of a people, borne down by want and woe, yielding up at last their long and gallant struggle, and sitting down amid the ashes of their country to mourn their children dead for nought; a picture of two armies—small, indeed, and wasted by famine and disease, yet still stepping proudly as they remember their long record of victories—stacking their faithful arms and furling their shell-torn flags with tears of helpless bitterness; a picture of Southern roadsides filled everywhere with men in tattered gray, plodding, with blistered feet, their weary way towards homes where gaunt starvation hath so wasted the cheeks of loved ones that they will scarcely flush at their coming, and where, laying down the burden of war, they must take up the burden of fruitless labor!
Ben and I secured transportation on the cars from Durham’s to Raleigh, and set out from there to walk home.
Ah! never to be forgotten are those days after the surrender! How the Yankees jeered and cursed us for being rebels, as squad after squad galloped by us, tramping along our dusty roads! And the people, God bless them! how kind they were to us, even in their poverty! Stripped to almost utter destitution by the enemy, they were willing, like the widow of Sarepta, to share with us their only cake. As we passed each gate they would come out with a pitcher of water, a tray of corn bread and potatoes, and, if the ”bummers” had not paid their visits of mercy, a small piece of meat. Calling us into the yard, under the trees, they would press us to eat, and lament that they had not better to give. And as we eagerly ate their frugal fare, which was more delicious then than were the quails of Lucullus, and rose to thank them and pursue our way, they would put what remained in our pockets, and, asking God’sblessing on us, turn into the house to prepare their humble offering for the next hungry troop.
Thus were the gloomy feelings of our homeward journey relieved by constant kindness and attention from every house we passed, and it was not till we neared Ben’s home, and had left the public road, that I had time to feel the terrible suspense and anxiety about Carlotta and mother that had been in my heart since I left them. I dared not hope that mother was alive; yet my heart did so much shrink from knowing she was dead, that, as I came in sight of Mr. Bemby’s, my feet almost refused to go forward.
As we approached we saw no one but Horace, who was working in a little garden near the house, and we motioned to him to be quiet. We opened the door of the house softly, and heard the sound of voices out in the little back porch, and saw the edge of some one’s dress who was sitting near the door. Then we heard a chair put down from its tilted position, and Ben’s wife leaned forward and looked sideways into the passage. With a loud cry of joy she dropped a lap full of work on the floor, and ran to meet her husband. She was followed by Carlotta and Mrs. Bemby. Where was mother? Carlotta, as I pressed her to my bosom, interpreted the anxiety of my look, and said:
”God has spared mother, John. She is much improved, though still feeble. She is out in the porch. Come with me.”
I followed her out to the porch, and there, propped by pillows in a chair, pale and thin, but still alive, was mother.
I knelt by her, and we both murmured our thanksgiving to God for his mercy.
Then, when Mrs. Bemby had brought out chairs for us all, and Horace had brought a bucket of fresh cool water, how bright and happy were we all as we told of our adventures and wondered at our mutual dangers and escapes. Verily, it was worth four years of hardship to experience the joy of that morning out in Mr. Bemby’s porch.
”But tell me, Carlotta, what caused this blessed change in mother?” I said, after we had finished our salutations, drawing my little boy to me, and taking him on my knee.
”She was relieved, and commenced to grow better the very day you left. A short time after you and Mr. Ben were gone a company of Federal soldiers came up to the house, bearing with them a dead man and two wounded ones. Mrs. Bemby and I went out to them and found, I shudder to tell it, that the dead man was Frank Paning. They wanted some spades to bury him with, and some cloths to bind up the wounds of the others. They said that two spies, one of them disguised as an old woman, had killed Paning, and, meeting these, had fired on them. We knew it must have been you two. Oh, John! did you forget your promise to mother?”
I said nothing, for I did not wish to involve Ben, but he spoke up directly:
”No, Mrs. Smith, John didn’t kill him; I done it myself. We found him a rakin’ over the ashes he’d helped to make, and when he saw his friends a comin’ he tried to make us surrender, and I let him have a ball in his forred. ‘Taint worth while to be mealy-mouthed about it.”
”Well,” continued Carlotta, with a shudder at Ben’s words, ”Horace got the spades for them, and Mrs. Bemby told them to bring the men into the house, for they were both suffering very much. We did what we could to alleviate their sufferings, and when the surgeon who was with them had bandaged up their wounds, and sent them off to camp, he asked if he could reward us in any way for our kindness. I thought of mother; and though my pride revolted at the idea of asking a favor of an enemy, I begged that he would see her and give her some relief, if possible. He went in and examined her head, and saying that it was an easy matter, took out some instruments and went to work. He raised up the fractured skull, and, asmother expressed it, lifted a great weight from her brain; then mixing some medicine for her, and telling me how to bathe her head, took his leave.”
”Did you not offer to remunerate him in some way?” I asked.
”Yes, I offered him my watch, as we had no money, but he refused it with polished courtesy, and said he would only take a kiss from my little boy, as there was something about his eyes, as well as mine, that reminded him of a lady he had loved years ago.”
”Did you not learn his name?”
”Oh yes! He gave me his card, and I think I put it in this basket;” and she commenced to search in her work busily. ”Ah! here it is!” and she gave me the card:
”C. B. Sedley, M. D., New York!”
”Why, Carlotta,” I said, ”did not a young man of that name pay his addresses to you at Saratoga?”
”Oh! certainly; I remember him. How stupid of me to forget. Poor Charley! I do not blame him for not recognising the lady of satin in this old homespun.”
”I must go to Goldsboro’ to-morrow,” I said, thinking gratefully of his kindness, ”and if he is still there offer some testimonial of our gratitude.”
”It’s useless,” said Carlotta, ”he has gone on to Raleigh with the army, and I cannot let you leave me so soon.”
Mr. Bemby now came in from the field, and greeted us warmly in his uncouth way, while Mrs. B. excused herself to see about dinner. It was a plain meal, of one course, but Delmonico has never served one that was more enjoyed, or surrounded by happier hearts.
The next day I went over to Goldsboro’, and, obtaining a hundred dollars, in ”greenbacks,” the first I had ever handled, prepared to start with our little family for Wilmington the following morning, for I could not consent toimpose longer on the good nature of the Bembys, and crowd them out of comfort in their little house.
The next morning, having bade them an affectionate and grateful farewell, we lifted mother carefully into the vehicle I had hired to take us to town, and were soon in the cars, mother, Carlotta, Johnnie and I, rattling down to Wilmington. We found that Miss Wiggs had been unmolested in her possession of our house, and that it was therefore ready for our reception.
Many of our former slaves now applied for positions in our household, but, as they had deserted us when most needed, I refused every one, and engaged an entire new set. About this time, also, I received a balance sheet from father’s bankers in New York, showing a large accumulated balance in our favor, and, drawing on this, we began to surround ourselves with ante-bellum comforts, and to make home feel like home.
Soon after we had gotten somewhat settled I began to make inquiries about Lulie, for I felt the deepest interest in her welfare, and had ever thought of her downfall with deepest sorrow. As I could hear nothing definite in regard to her, though it was generally believed she had gone off with a Federal officer of high rank, I determined to call on her old maiden aunt, with whom she had lived since her father’s death, which occurred early in the winter. To my surprise the old lady would neither see me nor answer any of my inquiries, but called out to me, in a shrill cracked voice, as I stood at her door, her long bony feet just visible in heelless slippers and blue stockings, at the top of her stairway:
”You needn’t come here asking me about the little silly fool, for I wouldn’t tell you anything if I knew, which I don’t. She’s gone from my sight and hearing, and I hope to the Lord you nor any one else will ever hear of her again.”
Of course I could do nothing but give up the search, though I ceased not to hope she might yet be found and saved.
And now, as the summer wore away, came to me the question of life; nothowwe were to live, for our income largely exceeded our expenditure, butwhy. The boyish dreams I had so long cherished, of distinction in the political arena, were now vanished forever; and the practice of law, for which I had studied, under the Provisional Government was little better than a system of pettifogging, that was as undignified as it was profitless.
There was absolutely nothing to do, and the veryennuiof existence seemed a terrible evil. So, when Carlotta proposed that we break up here and go to her home in Cuba, I acceded to the proposal with great delight, and, mother consenting to go with us, I began immediately preparations for our departure in the Fall. I could not help feeling some touches of shame and regret in leaving our dear old State in this her darkest hour, and had it not been for the beautiful Cuban home that was awaiting us, I could not have gotten the consent of my mind to go. But I felt, as a private individual, of little benefit to the State at large, and that my first duty was to render those dearest to me happy, and this I thought would be accomplished by the change.
As executor of father’s will, I found very little trouble in settling the estate, there being no debts to pay and few to collect. The real estate in New York I determined to leave in the hands of our agent, in whom we had the utmost confidence, and who had doubly endeared himself to us by his kindness to father while he was in prison. I sold our residence and grounds in Wilmington to a blockade runner who had amassed a large fortune during the war, and was anxious to invest in town property. Early in the fall I went up to the plantation to see Mr. Bemby, and make arrangements for its disposal. Taking the surveyor over from Goldsboro’ I had four hundred acres cut off for Ben, and two hundred for Horace, making them a fee simple title to it; the remaining three thousand acres I turned over to Mr.Bemby, to use the balance of his lifetime without rent. These kind people were profuse and sincere in their regrets at our leaving, and Mr. Bemby protested that he and Ben could make enough on the farm for us all to live in the house and never go out doors where we could see a Yankee. They all followed me up to the road, and I felt, as I shook hands and drove off, that, go where I would, I could never find more faithful hearts than beat beneath their homespun clothes. Ben rode over to Goldsboro’ with me, and when we had gone some distance from the house he drew from his pocket a twenty dollar gold piece and handed it to me, saying:
”I want you to give that to the one it belongs to, if you ever see her.”
”Whose is it?” I asked in some surprise.
”Miss Luler Maylin’s,” he said, putting the coin in my hand.
”Lulie Mayland!” I exclaimed. ”Where is she; where have you seen her; I have been trying to find her ever since I came home.”
”I saw her week b’fore last, right on this road, jus’ above our house.”
”How came she there? Tell me about it for Heaven’s sake, Ben.”
”Well, you know Frank Paning is buried up there in the woods by the road, and last Wednesday was a week I thought I’d go up and sorter put a pen like ’round his grave, to keep the hogs from rootin’ ‘bout on it, ‘cause I tell you the truth, John, I ain’t never felt right ‘bout killin’ him yit. I shot a sight of Yankees during the war, but I done it on account of the Confeder’cy, and I didn’t feel like it was charged ‘ginst me in the big book up yonder; but I put that bullet in Frank Paning on my own hook, because I was mad with him, and it’s looked mighty close kin to murder ever since.”
”By no means, Ben,” I interrupted; ”he had ordered you to surrender, and his friends were close at hand.”
”Well, any how,” he continued, ”I was piling up the rails ’round the grave, and kinder askin’ its pardon to myself, when I heard a carriage ‘comin’ ‘long the road. I got up and stepped back a little for ’em to pass, for I was sorter ashamed of what I was doin’. But the carriage stopped right at the grave, and a Yankee officer got out, and then handed down a lady dressed finer ‘n the top spot in a peacock’s tail. The minnit I see her face I knowed ‘twas the same young lady that come up here wonst with Mrs. Smith and you all. ‘Soon as she got on the ground she run to the grave, and fell down on her knees, and put her head on the edge of the rail pen, and cried a long time. When she got up the man fetched some white flowers outer the carriage and she put’em on the grave; then turned to the man and said:
”’Do you think you can find the place, Curnel?’
”’Without doubt, madam,’ he said.
”’I want the granite base very broad and strong, as the column will be very heavy,’ I heard her say.
”’It shall be as you desire, madam,’ he replied.
”They was about to git back in the carriage when she saw me, and come towards me with both hands stretched out.
”’O, sir!’ she said to me, with her cheeks all wet, ‘did you think enough of his grave to take keer of it; let me reward you.’ And b’fore I could speak she put that money in my hand. I run up to the carriage as she got in, and tole her I did not want her money, but they drove off without saying any more.”
”Do you know where they went to, and did she call the officer’s name?” I asked, intensely interested in what he had related.
”No; but I went to town next day, and saw ’em going off on the train, and the man had a han’ trunk marked New York.”
”Poor Lulie!” I murmured; ”would to Heaven I could find her.”
The train was standing at the depot as we drove up, and I had to hurry to get on. Ben followed me into the car, and, taking my hand, said:
”Good bye, John, for I can’t call you Mr. Smith, like I orter. Remember one thing, no matter where you go or who you see you’ll never find anybody to think any more of you than Ben. I didn’t have much religion to start with, and the war spilled what I did have out; but if I ever do get to the good place I’d like to see you there, for it won’t seem natchurel without you.”
The train moved off and he was gone—a true, tried old heart.
There was one more duty, a sacred one, for me to perform before our departure. I must bring my father’s remains from the enemy’s land, and let them rest in the soil he had died for. I found no difficulty in identifying his grave at Elmira, owing to the clear and distinct manner in which it had been marked by Mr. P., the agent referred to; and taking up the rude prison coffin, I had it enclosed as it was, without being opened, in a large metallic case, and thus brought it home.
Mother had given up her desire to have him buried under the old cedar, as she knew his grave would be neglected when we had passed away, and the property had fallen into strangers’ hands, as it inevitably must some time in the future. So we carried his remains to the cemetery, and in the hazy autumn evening, while the sinking sun was mellowed by the purple mists, we laid him beneath the still green turf, where the yellow leaves were falling, in ”whispers to the living,” one by one upon his grave.
And now, with that solemn certainty that alone belongs to Time and Death, the day appointed for departure approached. On the evening before we were to leave, feelingthat I ought to pay a farewell visit to Ned’s grave, I went down to the livery stables—our stalls were empty now—and hired a horse and buggy, and drove, with Carlotta, down to Mr. Cheyleigh’s. The old gentleman came out to meet us with his wonted cordiality, and was as cheerful as of old, but Mrs. Cheyleigh had never gotten over Ned’s death, and I could read in her wan, sad face, the tale of incurable sorrow. We talked all the while of Ned and his death; and as I told her how the men all loved him for his goodness, and the officers honored him for his bravery, I could see that, like a Spartan mother, even in her tears, she was proud of her gallant boy.
At length I arose and went out alone to his grave. It was in a grove of pines near the house, and the brown pine straw hushed my footfalls as I approached, and the wind was sighing through the boughs. The grave was enclosed by an iron railing, and over it rested a plain marble slab, on which were an inscription and some lines in gilded letters. Opening the wire-work gate, with uncovered head and softened step I went up to the slab, and, bending over it, read:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
EDWARD CHEYLEIGH,
Born April 8th, 1840,
Killed at the battle of Gettysburg, July 2d, 1863.
”Tell them to bury me under the pines at home.”
I would not rest in the mouldering tomb
Of the grim churchyard, where the ivy twines,
But make my grave in the forest’s gloom,Where the breezes wave, like a soldier’s plume,
Each dark green bough of the dear old pines,
Where the lights and shadows softly merge,
And the sun-flakes sift through the netted vines;
Where the sea winds, sad with the sob of the surge,From the harp-leaves sweep a solemn dirge
For the dead beneath the sighing pines.
When the winter’s icy fingers sow
The mound with jewels till it shines,
And cowled in hoods of glistening snow,Like white-veiled Sisters bending low,
Bow, sorrowing, the silent pines.
While others fought for cities proud,
For fertile plains and wealth of mines,
I breathed the sulph’rous battle cloud,I bared my breast, and took my shroud
For the land where wave the grand old pines.
Though comrades sigh and loved ones weep
For the form shot down in the battle lines,
In my grave of blood I gladly sleep,If the life I gave will help to keep
The Vandal’s foot from the Land of Pines.
********
The Vandal’s foot hath pressed our sod,
His heel hath crushed our sacred shrines;
And, bowing ‘neath the chastening rod,We lift our hearts and hands to God,
And cry: ”Oh! save our Land of Pines!”
CHAPTER XLIV.Howeverpleasant may be the scenes to which we are going, we cannot repress a feeling of sadness as we leave those with which we have been long associated, and which have become, as it were, part of our life.As the train bearing us from our home moved off from the shed, I went out to the rear platform, and stood looking at each familiar place and object as they passed, with a fond farewell upon my lips, and a desire to stamp all so indelibly upon my memory that in years to come I might remember exactly how everything appeared. As I stoodwith my face down the track I could not see an object till it passed, and then I gazed at it as it receded, till other objects flashing by claimed my attention. Now the bridge overhead, where I had so often stood to throw bits of coal and wood at the engines passing underneath, its arch and railing almost hidden in the curling volumes of smoke our engine has left behind; now the machine shops, where as a boy I had gathered the spiral iron shavings as great wonders of art, still clinking noisily above the rattle of the train, and blinking their red eyes from every forge; now engine yards, with old rusty boilers cast aside, and broken smoke stacks lying on the ground; here a pond where I have fished, its yellow surface darkened with cinders and wrinkled with the breath of our speed; there the river where I have bathed, hidden by the trees itself, but its course revealed by some naked mast and gliding sails; now we rattle through the coal and lumber yards, almost brushing against great piles of timber heaped along the track, and almost grazing dusty carts, with coal-begrimed drivers in red shirts, and heavy plodding horses with brass-studded harness, nodding their heads at every step, as if to say they were used to the cars and could not be prevailed upon to shy; now flash by streets that open, for a second, elm-bordered vistas ‘way up into the city, and close them as they whirl past; now we overtake and pass some one who knows me, walking along a very narrow sidewalk, and who bows and says something I cannot understand, and which I can only reply to by a great many shakes of the head; now we rattle by a little house with a dingy porch, and a goat with two kids browsing in front, where a schoolmate of mine used to live and invite me, and mother would not let me go; and now we roar out through the suburbs, where greasy looking men are smoking short pipes in rickety doorways, and red-armed women, with tumbled-down hair, are ever carrying water in painted buckets to the crazy shanties,and never seeming to use it, and where flocks of dirty children run out to wave and scream at the train; on till the last tenement is passed, and in the hazy distance I can only recognize the steeples of the different churches. Even these at last fade into the sky, and still, in my reverie, I stand there watching the black rails gliding like two long serpents from under the train, and the cross-ties ever flitting like steps to an interminable ladder down the track.As I had several matters of business to attend to in New York, I determined to take steamer from that point to Havana, instead of from Charleston, as we first thought of doing.The evening after our arrival in the metropolis being bright and sunny, I ordered an open carriage, and Carlotta and I, with little Johnnie, drove out to the Park. Ordering our coachman to let the horses go slowly, we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the beautiful scene. Pausing at each object of interest—here a marble statue, there a bronze, getting out at the museum, that Johnnie might see the animals, stopping on the edge of the lake, that he might feed the swans—time passed swiftly, and the sun was nearly down as we found ourselves over the terrace, the dress parade ground for the equipages of the Park. The press of vehicles here forced us to stop for a moment, and at the same instant a most superb turnout caught our attention. A pair of jet black horses, whose champing mouths almost bit their foam-flecked breasts, covered with harness that dazzled the eye with its gleaming plate, a glittering gold-mounted chariot, and a coachman and lackey in green and gold liveries! There were only two occupants—a handsome, middle-aged man, and a lady of striking yet haggard beauty. Clustering brown curls fell around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes were very bright, but her wan cheek was rouged, and the smile she wore was plainly forced and meaningless. All this we saw in a moment, and then we looked in each other’s faces, and exclaimed in one breath:”Lulie Mayland!”Ere we could extricate ourselves from the throng of carriages and follow, their chariot was out of sight, and we could only return to our hotel in wonder and surprise.That night Carlotta and I went to the Academy of Music. Parepa was to open the season withMaritana, and the vast edifice was crowded. The curtain was down for the second act, and Carl Rosa, with his nervous baton was wafting up from the orchestra a soft, exquisite aria, when the door of a box across the circle was opened by an obsequious usher, and a gentleman in an agony of fashion bowed a tremendous satin trail, a superb white cloak, and a profusion of diamonds into the seat. Laying a harp of camelias and tube-roses in his crush hat, he assisted her in removing her cloak, and, as a cluster of brown curls fell over her bare white shoulders, we recognized again Lulie. He seemed to bend over her with pleasant words, for she frequently smiled; but oh! the look of weariness and despair that at times would flit across her face! The curtain rose and fell, Parepa sang her sweetest, and the dome reëchoed the thunders of applause, but we sat regardless of the stage, with our opera glasses fixed on the box where Lulie sat. The gentleman, too, who was with her was an object of interest to me, for I could not divest myself of the idea that I had seen him somewhere. The deep red hair, parted so exactly in the middle, the flowing side whiskers, and the foppish dress, all seemed familiar, but I could not recall them, till presently he lowered his lorgnon and stuck in his eyeglass, and then I recognized Mr. Monte. I immediately rose and left our box to go to them, but before I had gotten half around the aisle I saw them both rise from their seats and leave the house. I followed as fast as I could through the throng, and reached the pavement just in time to see them drive off in their carriage.When we returned to the hotel I rang for a directory andfound Monte’s name and place of business, and lay down to sleep, resolved to seek out Lulie, and, with Carlotta’s aid, reclaim her if possible.
Howeverpleasant may be the scenes to which we are going, we cannot repress a feeling of sadness as we leave those with which we have been long associated, and which have become, as it were, part of our life.
As the train bearing us from our home moved off from the shed, I went out to the rear platform, and stood looking at each familiar place and object as they passed, with a fond farewell upon my lips, and a desire to stamp all so indelibly upon my memory that in years to come I might remember exactly how everything appeared. As I stoodwith my face down the track I could not see an object till it passed, and then I gazed at it as it receded, till other objects flashing by claimed my attention. Now the bridge overhead, where I had so often stood to throw bits of coal and wood at the engines passing underneath, its arch and railing almost hidden in the curling volumes of smoke our engine has left behind; now the machine shops, where as a boy I had gathered the spiral iron shavings as great wonders of art, still clinking noisily above the rattle of the train, and blinking their red eyes from every forge; now engine yards, with old rusty boilers cast aside, and broken smoke stacks lying on the ground; here a pond where I have fished, its yellow surface darkened with cinders and wrinkled with the breath of our speed; there the river where I have bathed, hidden by the trees itself, but its course revealed by some naked mast and gliding sails; now we rattle through the coal and lumber yards, almost brushing against great piles of timber heaped along the track, and almost grazing dusty carts, with coal-begrimed drivers in red shirts, and heavy plodding horses with brass-studded harness, nodding their heads at every step, as if to say they were used to the cars and could not be prevailed upon to shy; now flash by streets that open, for a second, elm-bordered vistas ‘way up into the city, and close them as they whirl past; now we overtake and pass some one who knows me, walking along a very narrow sidewalk, and who bows and says something I cannot understand, and which I can only reply to by a great many shakes of the head; now we rattle by a little house with a dingy porch, and a goat with two kids browsing in front, where a schoolmate of mine used to live and invite me, and mother would not let me go; and now we roar out through the suburbs, where greasy looking men are smoking short pipes in rickety doorways, and red-armed women, with tumbled-down hair, are ever carrying water in painted buckets to the crazy shanties,and never seeming to use it, and where flocks of dirty children run out to wave and scream at the train; on till the last tenement is passed, and in the hazy distance I can only recognize the steeples of the different churches. Even these at last fade into the sky, and still, in my reverie, I stand there watching the black rails gliding like two long serpents from under the train, and the cross-ties ever flitting like steps to an interminable ladder down the track.
As I had several matters of business to attend to in New York, I determined to take steamer from that point to Havana, instead of from Charleston, as we first thought of doing.
The evening after our arrival in the metropolis being bright and sunny, I ordered an open carriage, and Carlotta and I, with little Johnnie, drove out to the Park. Ordering our coachman to let the horses go slowly, we gave ourselves up to the enjoyment of the beautiful scene. Pausing at each object of interest—here a marble statue, there a bronze, getting out at the museum, that Johnnie might see the animals, stopping on the edge of the lake, that he might feed the swans—time passed swiftly, and the sun was nearly down as we found ourselves over the terrace, the dress parade ground for the equipages of the Park. The press of vehicles here forced us to stop for a moment, and at the same instant a most superb turnout caught our attention. A pair of jet black horses, whose champing mouths almost bit their foam-flecked breasts, covered with harness that dazzled the eye with its gleaming plate, a glittering gold-mounted chariot, and a coachman and lackey in green and gold liveries! There were only two occupants—a handsome, middle-aged man, and a lady of striking yet haggard beauty. Clustering brown curls fell around her shoulders, and her hazel eyes were very bright, but her wan cheek was rouged, and the smile she wore was plainly forced and meaningless. All this we saw in a moment, and then we looked in each other’s faces, and exclaimed in one breath:
”Lulie Mayland!”
Ere we could extricate ourselves from the throng of carriages and follow, their chariot was out of sight, and we could only return to our hotel in wonder and surprise.
That night Carlotta and I went to the Academy of Music. Parepa was to open the season withMaritana, and the vast edifice was crowded. The curtain was down for the second act, and Carl Rosa, with his nervous baton was wafting up from the orchestra a soft, exquisite aria, when the door of a box across the circle was opened by an obsequious usher, and a gentleman in an agony of fashion bowed a tremendous satin trail, a superb white cloak, and a profusion of diamonds into the seat. Laying a harp of camelias and tube-roses in his crush hat, he assisted her in removing her cloak, and, as a cluster of brown curls fell over her bare white shoulders, we recognized again Lulie. He seemed to bend over her with pleasant words, for she frequently smiled; but oh! the look of weariness and despair that at times would flit across her face! The curtain rose and fell, Parepa sang her sweetest, and the dome reëchoed the thunders of applause, but we sat regardless of the stage, with our opera glasses fixed on the box where Lulie sat. The gentleman, too, who was with her was an object of interest to me, for I could not divest myself of the idea that I had seen him somewhere. The deep red hair, parted so exactly in the middle, the flowing side whiskers, and the foppish dress, all seemed familiar, but I could not recall them, till presently he lowered his lorgnon and stuck in his eyeglass, and then I recognized Mr. Monte. I immediately rose and left our box to go to them, but before I had gotten half around the aisle I saw them both rise from their seats and leave the house. I followed as fast as I could through the throng, and reached the pavement just in time to see them drive off in their carriage.
When we returned to the hotel I rang for a directory andfound Monte’s name and place of business, and lay down to sleep, resolved to seek out Lulie, and, with Carlotta’s aid, reclaim her if possible.
CHAPTER XLV.Mr.Montewas partner in a large dry goods house on Broadway, and from what I knew of his habits I judged that I would most likely find him in the store about two o’clock. Accordingly, after lunch I took an omnibus and rode down to the place. It was a massive five story building, with great iron and glass doors, that turned slowly on their hinges, and, closing with a loud bang, shut out the noise and rattle of the great thoroughfare. I stood for a moment confused by the murmur of voices and the tramp of feet, as the hundreds of salesmen and merchants swarmed over every floor of the vast building. The next instant the door sentry approached, and asked whom I wished to see.”Mr. Monte; is he in?” I replied, feeling for my card.”Mr. Monte!” he said, looking somewhat surprised. ”What market are you from?””North Carolina,” I replied.”Oh, then,” said he, walking with me to the head of some stairs that led to a gas-lighted apartment below, ”you want to see Mr. Bantam. Ban-tum!Ban-tum!” he called in his loudest tone, accenting the last syllable, and giving it the ”u” sound. ”Mr. Bantam is from your State; he is down stairs now with Col.—— from Raleigh, in flannels. Will be up in a moment. How’s trade in your section?””I am not a merchant,” I replied, wondering what Mr. Bantam could be doing with Col.—— in flannel, and if the Col. had forgotten his under garments when leaving home.At this moment Mr. Bantam, an elderly man, slightly bald, appeared at the bottom of the stairway and called out: ”Who is it, Johnson?””A gentleman from your State.””All right; I’ll be up in five minutes.””Wait a few moments, sir,” said Johnson, going back to his post at the door.Leaning back against a case of prints, I looked around at this hive of human bees. From floor to floor, from wall to wall, were heaped and piled, like immense breastworks, goods and merchandise of almost every description; case after case of prints, rolls upon rolls of cloths and cassimeres, long brilliant rows of dress goods, boxes of glittering silks, long counters of notions, great heaps of shawls, rugs and blankets; laces, ribbons, and white goods; every department marked by placards with hands pointing to it, and over each another placard with terms of sale: ”30 days,” ”Regular,” or ”Net.”Everywhere, at every case, around every heap of goods were the salesmen and merchants, bending over fabrics, examining their texture, standing off to get the full effect of the figure; the one class praising and overrating, the other undervaluing and quoting prices from other houses. Just here, at the case next to me, is a fancy young man, with brilliant studs and a flash cravat, a pencil across his mouth like a bit, and his shirt sleeves held up by gutta percha bands, diving head foremost into a box and bringing up a piece of goods, which he exhibits with a slap, as if it were a horse, and winks at a passing comrade, who pinches his arm and says: ”How is it, Saunders?” while the merchant, an old fellow from the country, with a broad felt hat and long coat, who licks his short stump of a pencil whenever he sets down anything in his memorandum book, which has his name in gilt letters on the back, and was sent to him by some advertising house, is bending down to examine it.Over there is a red-faced man, in a Cardigan jacket, showing ——. But here is Mr. Bantam, who reads my card and exclaims:”Smith! I am delighted to see you. When did you leave the old North State?””On Tuesday last,” I replied, rather taken aback by his familiar cordiality.”Where are you stopping?” he inquired, bending the corners of my card.”At the Fifth Avenue Hotel.””That is the reason I missed you last night,” he said; ”I did not go higher than the St. Nicholas. Well, I am very glad you’ve come in. Hope you’ll make all your dry goods bill with us. It’s much the best plan to concentrate on a house, and we’ll be sure to do you good. What department will you look through this evening? I used to sell your father a great many goods.”I begged his pardon, but informed him that my father had never been a merchant, and that I was not merchandising, but had called in to see Mr. Monte, one of the firm.”You must excuse me,” he said, familiarly patting me on the back, ”I thought you wanted to buy. You want to see Mr. Monte? I expect you’ll have to go to his house, No.—West 34th street. He hardly ever comes here. Bless your soul, he wouldn’t know what to do if he did come. His money is all the house wants. Give him a new dog cart and a pair of ponies and he’s satisfied.””Then he is not much of a business man,” I said, for the want of something else to say, as I took down his address.”Not in this line. He knows how to get in the green room at a theatre, and is a first rate judge of wine; but his connection with us is simply confined to putting in some money every year, and drawing on it like Old Harry the balance of the time.””I am very much obliged,” I said, putting up my pencil;”I will hurry up to his house, if you think I will find him there.””He is probably there now, but he will drive out to the Park at four.”I was about to leave, when a tall, elderly man approached Mr. Bantam, and said, deferentially,”Dinkle, of your State, wants Domestics on sixty days. Shall I sell him?””I’ll go see him,” said Bantam, turning off; ”Good bye, Mr. Smith. Call in again if you have leisure.”The tall, elderly man was about to follow him, when a sudden recollection of his face flashed upon me, and I caught his arm.”Excuse me, but isn’t this Mr. Marshman?””It is, sir,” he replied, turning around to me again.”My name is Smith, sir,” I said, offering him my hand; ”we met at Saratoga.””I remember. How have you been?” he answered coldly, taking my hand without cordiality, while a flush I could not understand came over his face.”You are connected with this house?” I asked; thinking, of course, that he was a partner.”Only as a salesman,” he said bitterly, and then added, after a pause, ”It is not worth while being ashamed of it. Lillian’s infernal extravagance ruined me, and I was compelled to do something.”I could make no reply, and there was a pause of some seconds, when he continued, with increasing volubility, as all men do when speaking of their misfortunes:”Lillian’s old uncle, from whom we expected a great deal, died insolvent. I spent half of what I had in my last political contest, and was defeated by the——treachery of my friends. Still, after that we had enough to have lived comfortably, by economizing a little; but Lillian would have her brown stone and her carriage, her silks and her laces.and now she has to take the street cars if she rides at all, and that isn’t often. I could stand it all better if she wouldn’t cut up so, and mope about her poverty, as she calls it. She turns up her nose at the neighborhood because we’ve had to come down to Bleecker street. She spends half her time crying and looking over old finery, and talking of better days. She puts all sorts of foolish notions into our little girl’s head, and makes her continually beg me for things I have not the money to buy. I would ask you to call and see us, but ‘twould not be pleasant for you, and only make her worse. It is improper, I know, for me to talk thus to a comparative stranger, but I am full of bitterness when I think of Lillian’s conduct, and as you used to know her I have been communicative. Pardon me. Yonder’s Mr. Bantam. I must go back to my customers. Good day! But take this piece of advice: don’t marry a belle,” he added, over his shoulder, as he walked off.As I stood on the sidewalk to hail an omnibus, my sympathy turned from him to poor Lillian, reduced to poverty, and her very sighs and tears ridiculed, to any one who might listen, by her unfeeling husband.When I knocked at No.—West Thirty-fourth street a servant in livery appeared and took up my card. I waited a few moments in a very handsome parlor, when he returned and requested me to walk up stairs. Going up with him I was ushered into a sitting room furnished with cosy magnificence, that is, with a splendid Moquette carpet, on which you were not afraid to tread; velvet divans, on which you did not hesitate to recline; a rosewood table, on which an inkstand and pens were scattered; a marble mantel, with a half-smoked cigar tossed on it, anetagerewith a smoking cap, a broken meerschaum, and a Sevres vase of Latakia, perched among articles of rarestvertu. With my first glance around the apartment Monte came in through a folding door from his dressing room, wiping his hands on aRussian towel, and giving me one to shake that was still damp.”Smith! old fellow, I am devilish glad to see you. When did you arrive? We had a gay time at Saratoga that season, didn’t we! Where the deuce have you kept yourself ever since? Sit down.””I thought you were aware, Monte,” I said, adopting his free and easy manner, and lolling carelessly down in an arm chair, ”that we had had a little unpleasantness down our way. I’ve been in camp four years.””Ah, yes,” he said, slipping his arm through the coat his attendant held ready for him, ”I had overlooked that. So they made a soldier of you, did they—powder, blood and all? I was captain of a company our fellows here got up, but when they went down South I resigned. If the—— States wanted to secede I had no idea of getting my brains blown out to prevent them.””We were defending our country, you know, and, of course, had to fight,” I remarked, smiling at his idea of patriotism.”I suppose so,” he said, sitting down near me and arranging his cuffs; then looking up at his servant, who stood waiting, ”James, tell Thomas to put the bay colt to the wagon; I will drive to Harlem this afternoon. By the way, Smith,” he continued, when the man had left the room, ”what ever became of that devil of a beauty that flirted with us all, and with whom you left the Springs?”An angry reply rose to my lips at hearing him speak so of Carlotta, but knowing that it would defeat the object of my visit, I restrained myself, and replied ”that she had been living down South during the war, but that I understood she was soon to return to Cuba.”There was a short silence, and I was wondering how to get at any information in regard to Lulie, when he put up his eye-glass and looked at me again.”You’ve changed a great deal, Smith. I should never have recognized you without your card.”It was just the turn I wanted, and I replied:”I saw you last night at the opera and remembered your face immediately. But, Monte,aproposof beauty, who was the lady you were with? She drew my attention entirely from the stage.””Ah!” he said, drawing his eye into the least perceptible wink, ”She was worth a gaze, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t tell every one, but you are a transient visitor: that was La Belle Louise. Half of New York is crazy about her—that is, you know, the b’hoys.””Not demi-monde?” I asked, looking knowing.”It was daring in me, wasn’t it?” he went on, without heeding my remark. ”But she wanted to go and I promised to carry her. Oh! but I shall have to lie about it to the ladies. I can cheat scandal out of the morsel if some fellow who knew her don’t blow on me to his mother, and she let it out to her set. Confound it, though, who cares?””Has she many admirers?” I asked.”Many seek the honor of her acquaintance, but I believe I am the favored one. I’ll vow it flattens that deucedly though to keep her in diamonds,” he said, drawing from his pocket a mother of pearl portemonnaie.”I’d like to get a peep at her myself; just a peep, Monte. Where does she reside?” I said, taking out a card.”Oh, I don’t mind telling you. But it’s no use, she won’t see you.””La Belle Louise. Number what?” I asked, pretending to write.”She is at Madame Dubourg’s, 42d street, if you wish to know,” he said, somewhat coldly, as if he thought me impertinent.Quick as thought ‘twas on my card, and then I said, smiling:”Oh, well, I was only jesting; I will leave day after tomorrow. But tell me, Monte, something of my old acquaintance, Miss Finnock.””Little Saph.!” he said, regaining his good humor. ”She is up the Hudson living with her brother, who married that horrid Miss Stelway. You remember them?””Very well, but is Miss Finnock not married yet?””No, of course not; who would marry such a bundle of sentiment? She often boasts of you, though, as the young Carolinian she flirted with.””I met Mr. Marshman very unexpectedly down at your store to-day,” I said, not caring to correct little Miss Finnock’s boast.”Marshman? Yes, he’s selling there for us on a small salary—the best we could give him though. The old fellow got beaten, took to his cups and went to the bad very fast. They say his wife has to work hard to support herself and child, while he drinks up what he gets at our house. My mother sends them supplies very often, though she has not visited them, you know, since they left the top.””Have you a check book here?” I asked, with a sudden resolution.”Yes,” he replied, handing me one from hisescritoire.”Will you do me the favor to get that to Mrs. Marshman,” I said, filling up the check for a good round sum and giving it to him. ”Please draw the money and send it to her so that my name will not be known in the matter, and do not let Marshman touch any of it.””James shall attend to it to-morrow. But stay and dine with me. We’ll drive out to Harlem, and get back to dinner at six.””Thanks, I must return to my hotel, as I have an engagement there. Dine with me to-morrow. I am at the Fifth Avenue.””Would be happy. The Sillery’s very fine there, but Idine our Club on my yacht to-morrow. Speaking of La Belle Louise,” he continued, following me down to the door, ”Madame Dubourg told me she gets letters from North Carolina, and that she is continually sending money to Italy to complete a monument to go over some poor devil of a deserter from the rebel army, who was killed down there. Did you ever hear of her before?””La Belle Louise? I never heard the name till you mentioned it,” I said.”I supposed it was a mistake. Good day.””Lulie, I have found you at last,” I murmured, as I sauntered down Fifth Avenue to the hotel. ”God grant we may save you!”
Mr.Montewas partner in a large dry goods house on Broadway, and from what I knew of his habits I judged that I would most likely find him in the store about two o’clock. Accordingly, after lunch I took an omnibus and rode down to the place. It was a massive five story building, with great iron and glass doors, that turned slowly on their hinges, and, closing with a loud bang, shut out the noise and rattle of the great thoroughfare. I stood for a moment confused by the murmur of voices and the tramp of feet, as the hundreds of salesmen and merchants swarmed over every floor of the vast building. The next instant the door sentry approached, and asked whom I wished to see.
”Mr. Monte; is he in?” I replied, feeling for my card.
”Mr. Monte!” he said, looking somewhat surprised. ”What market are you from?”
”North Carolina,” I replied.
”Oh, then,” said he, walking with me to the head of some stairs that led to a gas-lighted apartment below, ”you want to see Mr. Bantam. Ban-tum!Ban-tum!” he called in his loudest tone, accenting the last syllable, and giving it the ”u” sound. ”Mr. Bantam is from your State; he is down stairs now with Col.—— from Raleigh, in flannels. Will be up in a moment. How’s trade in your section?”
”I am not a merchant,” I replied, wondering what Mr. Bantam could be doing with Col.—— in flannel, and if the Col. had forgotten his under garments when leaving home.
At this moment Mr. Bantam, an elderly man, slightly bald, appeared at the bottom of the stairway and called out: ”Who is it, Johnson?”
”A gentleman from your State.”
”All right; I’ll be up in five minutes.”
”Wait a few moments, sir,” said Johnson, going back to his post at the door.
Leaning back against a case of prints, I looked around at this hive of human bees. From floor to floor, from wall to wall, were heaped and piled, like immense breastworks, goods and merchandise of almost every description; case after case of prints, rolls upon rolls of cloths and cassimeres, long brilliant rows of dress goods, boxes of glittering silks, long counters of notions, great heaps of shawls, rugs and blankets; laces, ribbons, and white goods; every department marked by placards with hands pointing to it, and over each another placard with terms of sale: ”30 days,” ”Regular,” or ”Net.”
Everywhere, at every case, around every heap of goods were the salesmen and merchants, bending over fabrics, examining their texture, standing off to get the full effect of the figure; the one class praising and overrating, the other undervaluing and quoting prices from other houses. Just here, at the case next to me, is a fancy young man, with brilliant studs and a flash cravat, a pencil across his mouth like a bit, and his shirt sleeves held up by gutta percha bands, diving head foremost into a box and bringing up a piece of goods, which he exhibits with a slap, as if it were a horse, and winks at a passing comrade, who pinches his arm and says: ”How is it, Saunders?” while the merchant, an old fellow from the country, with a broad felt hat and long coat, who licks his short stump of a pencil whenever he sets down anything in his memorandum book, which has his name in gilt letters on the back, and was sent to him by some advertising house, is bending down to examine it.Over there is a red-faced man, in a Cardigan jacket, showing ——. But here is Mr. Bantam, who reads my card and exclaims:
”Smith! I am delighted to see you. When did you leave the old North State?”
”On Tuesday last,” I replied, rather taken aback by his familiar cordiality.
”Where are you stopping?” he inquired, bending the corners of my card.
”At the Fifth Avenue Hotel.”
”That is the reason I missed you last night,” he said; ”I did not go higher than the St. Nicholas. Well, I am very glad you’ve come in. Hope you’ll make all your dry goods bill with us. It’s much the best plan to concentrate on a house, and we’ll be sure to do you good. What department will you look through this evening? I used to sell your father a great many goods.”
I begged his pardon, but informed him that my father had never been a merchant, and that I was not merchandising, but had called in to see Mr. Monte, one of the firm.
”You must excuse me,” he said, familiarly patting me on the back, ”I thought you wanted to buy. You want to see Mr. Monte? I expect you’ll have to go to his house, No.—West 34th street. He hardly ever comes here. Bless your soul, he wouldn’t know what to do if he did come. His money is all the house wants. Give him a new dog cart and a pair of ponies and he’s satisfied.”
”Then he is not much of a business man,” I said, for the want of something else to say, as I took down his address.
”Not in this line. He knows how to get in the green room at a theatre, and is a first rate judge of wine; but his connection with us is simply confined to putting in some money every year, and drawing on it like Old Harry the balance of the time.”
”I am very much obliged,” I said, putting up my pencil;”I will hurry up to his house, if you think I will find him there.”
”He is probably there now, but he will drive out to the Park at four.”
I was about to leave, when a tall, elderly man approached Mr. Bantam, and said, deferentially,
”Dinkle, of your State, wants Domestics on sixty days. Shall I sell him?”
”I’ll go see him,” said Bantam, turning off; ”Good bye, Mr. Smith. Call in again if you have leisure.”
The tall, elderly man was about to follow him, when a sudden recollection of his face flashed upon me, and I caught his arm.
”Excuse me, but isn’t this Mr. Marshman?”
”It is, sir,” he replied, turning around to me again.
”My name is Smith, sir,” I said, offering him my hand; ”we met at Saratoga.”
”I remember. How have you been?” he answered coldly, taking my hand without cordiality, while a flush I could not understand came over his face.
”You are connected with this house?” I asked; thinking, of course, that he was a partner.
”Only as a salesman,” he said bitterly, and then added, after a pause, ”It is not worth while being ashamed of it. Lillian’s infernal extravagance ruined me, and I was compelled to do something.”
I could make no reply, and there was a pause of some seconds, when he continued, with increasing volubility, as all men do when speaking of their misfortunes:
”Lillian’s old uncle, from whom we expected a great deal, died insolvent. I spent half of what I had in my last political contest, and was defeated by the——treachery of my friends. Still, after that we had enough to have lived comfortably, by economizing a little; but Lillian would have her brown stone and her carriage, her silks and her laces.and now she has to take the street cars if she rides at all, and that isn’t often. I could stand it all better if she wouldn’t cut up so, and mope about her poverty, as she calls it. She turns up her nose at the neighborhood because we’ve had to come down to Bleecker street. She spends half her time crying and looking over old finery, and talking of better days. She puts all sorts of foolish notions into our little girl’s head, and makes her continually beg me for things I have not the money to buy. I would ask you to call and see us, but ‘twould not be pleasant for you, and only make her worse. It is improper, I know, for me to talk thus to a comparative stranger, but I am full of bitterness when I think of Lillian’s conduct, and as you used to know her I have been communicative. Pardon me. Yonder’s Mr. Bantam. I must go back to my customers. Good day! But take this piece of advice: don’t marry a belle,” he added, over his shoulder, as he walked off.
As I stood on the sidewalk to hail an omnibus, my sympathy turned from him to poor Lillian, reduced to poverty, and her very sighs and tears ridiculed, to any one who might listen, by her unfeeling husband.
When I knocked at No.—West Thirty-fourth street a servant in livery appeared and took up my card. I waited a few moments in a very handsome parlor, when he returned and requested me to walk up stairs. Going up with him I was ushered into a sitting room furnished with cosy magnificence, that is, with a splendid Moquette carpet, on which you were not afraid to tread; velvet divans, on which you did not hesitate to recline; a rosewood table, on which an inkstand and pens were scattered; a marble mantel, with a half-smoked cigar tossed on it, anetagerewith a smoking cap, a broken meerschaum, and a Sevres vase of Latakia, perched among articles of rarestvertu. With my first glance around the apartment Monte came in through a folding door from his dressing room, wiping his hands on aRussian towel, and giving me one to shake that was still damp.
”Smith! old fellow, I am devilish glad to see you. When did you arrive? We had a gay time at Saratoga that season, didn’t we! Where the deuce have you kept yourself ever since? Sit down.”
”I thought you were aware, Monte,” I said, adopting his free and easy manner, and lolling carelessly down in an arm chair, ”that we had had a little unpleasantness down our way. I’ve been in camp four years.”
”Ah, yes,” he said, slipping his arm through the coat his attendant held ready for him, ”I had overlooked that. So they made a soldier of you, did they—powder, blood and all? I was captain of a company our fellows here got up, but when they went down South I resigned. If the—— States wanted to secede I had no idea of getting my brains blown out to prevent them.”
”We were defending our country, you know, and, of course, had to fight,” I remarked, smiling at his idea of patriotism.
”I suppose so,” he said, sitting down near me and arranging his cuffs; then looking up at his servant, who stood waiting, ”James, tell Thomas to put the bay colt to the wagon; I will drive to Harlem this afternoon. By the way, Smith,” he continued, when the man had left the room, ”what ever became of that devil of a beauty that flirted with us all, and with whom you left the Springs?”
An angry reply rose to my lips at hearing him speak so of Carlotta, but knowing that it would defeat the object of my visit, I restrained myself, and replied ”that she had been living down South during the war, but that I understood she was soon to return to Cuba.”
There was a short silence, and I was wondering how to get at any information in regard to Lulie, when he put up his eye-glass and looked at me again.
”You’ve changed a great deal, Smith. I should never have recognized you without your card.”
It was just the turn I wanted, and I replied:
”I saw you last night at the opera and remembered your face immediately. But, Monte,aproposof beauty, who was the lady you were with? She drew my attention entirely from the stage.”
”Ah!” he said, drawing his eye into the least perceptible wink, ”She was worth a gaze, wasn’t she? I wouldn’t tell every one, but you are a transient visitor: that was La Belle Louise. Half of New York is crazy about her—that is, you know, the b’hoys.”
”Not demi-monde?” I asked, looking knowing.
”It was daring in me, wasn’t it?” he went on, without heeding my remark. ”But she wanted to go and I promised to carry her. Oh! but I shall have to lie about it to the ladies. I can cheat scandal out of the morsel if some fellow who knew her don’t blow on me to his mother, and she let it out to her set. Confound it, though, who cares?”
”Has she many admirers?” I asked.
”Many seek the honor of her acquaintance, but I believe I am the favored one. I’ll vow it flattens that deucedly though to keep her in diamonds,” he said, drawing from his pocket a mother of pearl portemonnaie.
”I’d like to get a peep at her myself; just a peep, Monte. Where does she reside?” I said, taking out a card.
”Oh, I don’t mind telling you. But it’s no use, she won’t see you.”
”La Belle Louise. Number what?” I asked, pretending to write.
”She is at Madame Dubourg’s, 42d street, if you wish to know,” he said, somewhat coldly, as if he thought me impertinent.
Quick as thought ‘twas on my card, and then I said, smiling:
”Oh, well, I was only jesting; I will leave day after tomorrow. But tell me, Monte, something of my old acquaintance, Miss Finnock.”
”Little Saph.!” he said, regaining his good humor. ”She is up the Hudson living with her brother, who married that horrid Miss Stelway. You remember them?”
”Very well, but is Miss Finnock not married yet?”
”No, of course not; who would marry such a bundle of sentiment? She often boasts of you, though, as the young Carolinian she flirted with.”
”I met Mr. Marshman very unexpectedly down at your store to-day,” I said, not caring to correct little Miss Finnock’s boast.
”Marshman? Yes, he’s selling there for us on a small salary—the best we could give him though. The old fellow got beaten, took to his cups and went to the bad very fast. They say his wife has to work hard to support herself and child, while he drinks up what he gets at our house. My mother sends them supplies very often, though she has not visited them, you know, since they left the top.”
”Have you a check book here?” I asked, with a sudden resolution.
”Yes,” he replied, handing me one from hisescritoire.
”Will you do me the favor to get that to Mrs. Marshman,” I said, filling up the check for a good round sum and giving it to him. ”Please draw the money and send it to her so that my name will not be known in the matter, and do not let Marshman touch any of it.”
”James shall attend to it to-morrow. But stay and dine with me. We’ll drive out to Harlem, and get back to dinner at six.”
”Thanks, I must return to my hotel, as I have an engagement there. Dine with me to-morrow. I am at the Fifth Avenue.”
”Would be happy. The Sillery’s very fine there, but Idine our Club on my yacht to-morrow. Speaking of La Belle Louise,” he continued, following me down to the door, ”Madame Dubourg told me she gets letters from North Carolina, and that she is continually sending money to Italy to complete a monument to go over some poor devil of a deserter from the rebel army, who was killed down there. Did you ever hear of her before?”
”La Belle Louise? I never heard the name till you mentioned it,” I said.
”I supposed it was a mistake. Good day.”
”Lulie, I have found you at last,” I murmured, as I sauntered down Fifth Avenue to the hotel. ”God grant we may save you!”
CHAPTER XLVI.MadameDubourg’swas a grand brown stone building, with broad carved balustrades, and stone vases of cactus. I had chosen the hour of twelve for our visit, as the parlors would most likely then be free from visitors, and we could see Lulie in quiet. When we alighted from our carriage there was a large-armed Irish woman washing off the stone steps, and a man in a paper cap standing on a high step-ladder, to rub the plate glass windows. They were talking and laughing together, but ceased as we got out, and looked at us and each other with some surprise on their faces. The woman gathered up her cloth and water bucket and disappeared through the area with an audible snicker, while the man fell to rubbing the wide panes with renewed diligence. There was a pretty silver knocker on the figured glass door, and as I let it fall the door was thrown open by a footman, who had put on his gold laced coat so hurriedly the collar was turned under, and from whose moustachesome fragments of cheese were still hanging. He favored us with a prolonged stare of wonder, then presented a somewhat tarnished gold salver for our cards. I laid one in it, on which was simply written, ”An old friend,” and said: ”To see La Belle Louise.””You can’t see her,” he replied, with something of insolence in his tone.I restrained my first impulse of anger, and slipping a five dollar gold piece in his hand, said quietly,”Take my card up to her, and say nothing about a lady’s being with me.””I will, sir,” he said, with a low bow, his manner changing instantly at the touch of the gold.He ushered us through a wide hall, with mosaic floor, into a spacious parlor, furnished in dark green velvet, and opening into another of light green satin damask, and this, in turn, leading to a large conservatory of rare plants and flowers. Though the furniture and all the appointments were so magnificent, yet every thing bore the defacement of reckless vice. The splendid Axminster carpets, though partially protected by linen tracks, were soiled and worn by muddy boots, the grand piano had its rosewood surface scratched and bruised, the music books were torn and scattered, buhl quartette tables around the room were covered with sloppings of wine, broken glasses, wet packs of cards and dice, the embroidered flowers on the ottomans were frayed into strings, and the gorgeous paintings on the walls were splotched and blistered, and their gilded frames tarnished. We had walked through both parlors to the conservatory and returned to the first, when we heard a light foot-fall on the stairway, and Lulie came down into the hall and stood for a moment looking through the side lights out into the street, with the same look of wan despair upon her face. The next instant she walked lightly into the room, twirling the tassel of her morning robe over her forefinger. She advancedhalf across the room before she saw us, and then her eyes opened as if in terror, a leaden pallor spread over her face, as if life had fled, and pressing her hand to her heart, with the tremulous wail, ”O God!” she sank down upon the floor, her pallid cheek resting on the cushion of afauteuilthat had been overthrown, and her colorless lips uttering low moans, that were piteous, indeed, to hear.In a moment Carlotta was down on the floor beside her, lifting the poor bowed head to her bosom, smoothing the brown hair from the fair brow that was once so pure, and dropping the tears of her Christ-like pity on the upturned face. The poor girl had no strength to stir, but only put up her white hands feebly and murmured:”Do not touch me; oh! do not touch me. God knows I am unworthy to breathe the air you do. Leave me! Cast me off as all the world have done,” and again she would make those gentle, piteous moans.As soon as Carlotta could command her voice she bent down, and kissing her forehead tenderly, said:”Lulie, darling, we have come to save you.””To save me? Oh, no; it’s too late—too late!””Do not say so, dearest Lulie,” urged Carlotta; ”our carriage is at the door. Do not wait a moment, but come with us and leave forever this pit of perdition.””Would to God I could,” she said, shaking her head slowly, and speaking in the same low tone; ”there was a time I might have gone, but not now, not now.””But, Lulie, we are going away from this country to Cuba, where no one has ever known you. No one is with us except mother, who is even now waiting to receive you. We will forever bury the past, and look forward only to a new life. Lulie, come with us, and be my darling sister in our happy home.”She raised herself from Carlotta, and, placing her hands over her face, sat rocking herself back and forth, her veryframe convulsed with the agony of her struggle. When she lifted her face again her mind was made up.”It cannot be, Lottie,” she said, calling Carlotta’s name for the first time. ”Heaven only knows how I appreciate your goodness and thank you for it; but I cannot go with you; I cannot throw the shadow of my presence on your household. The world has no forgiveness for my sin, and no life of penitence or purity I might lead would ever wash away the stain. I do not doubt your kindness; as God is my witness I believe that you would love me, but, do what you would to forget and conceal it, in your hearts I could never be anything but poor fallen Lulie—and the consciousness that you all knew of my ruin would make your very presence a torture to me.””But, Lulie,” persisted Carlotta, ”this sensitiveness would after a while pass off, and our very kindness would beguile you of your remorse. And even if you suffer, I should think any change would be better than this life of shameless iniquity, so utterly opposed to the refinement and delicacy I believe still linger in your breast.””Oh, Lottie, do not chide me. You, whose heart is pure, who have never known the wild reckless abandonment of all that is virtuous, all that is good, cannot understand the terrible remorse that drives me into vice, whose constancy will prevent reflection—aye, reflection. An eternity of hell is compassed in one hour of my retrospect. I cannot be alone; solitude would drive me mad. One thought alone has brought relief—relief mingled with horror—the thought of death! Oft in the night has it come to my sleepless pillow and whispered to me ‘Die!’ and yet, when I poured the poison in the glass, my trembling hand has dropped it from my lips. But the crisis has come,” she said, fiercely, striking her hands together and wringing them till her jewelled rings cut into the flesh. ”I will not shrink again. Iwilldie!” and clasping her hands across her head, shegazed at me with such intense anguish and despair in her hollow eyes, I shrank from her face.”Lulie, Lulie, dearest, do not speak so,” said Carlotta, again putting her arms around her and trying to soothe her. ”You cannot surely contemplate self-destruction. Think, Lulie, what an awful thing it is to die. There, darling,” she continued, as Lulie’s head drooped on her shoulder, ”you were speaking wildly just now, you did not mean what you said. Come, the carriage is waiting. Youmustgo with us; we cannot leave you here.”But Lulie only shook her head firmly and remained silent.After a rather long pause Carlotta spoke again, in a low impressive voice:”Lulie, hear my last appeal. For the sake of the long ago, when we were innocent happy children, and our hearts were bound with ties of love which have never yet been broken; for the sake of those dear old days, I beseech, I implore you to leave these unworthy associations, and seek with us a better life. Aye, Lulie, for the sake of your dead mother, I beg you to come. If a heart can be sad in Heaven, hers is bleeding now to see you thus; her precious little Lulie in such a place as this! Oh! will you not make her happy again?”The fountains of her heart were now broken up, and with long shuddering sobs she lay weeping on Carlotta’s neck.I had not spoken yet, but had left all to Carlotta’s tact and skill. I now knelt down by Lulie and took her hand, while my broken voice and tearful eyes attested the sincerity of all I said:”Dear little playmate, by the memory of our childhood’s love, by the thousand scenes and incidents that endeared us to each other—our nursery games, Miss Hester’s school, the little parties when you first ventured to take my arm—by your first rejection of my love as we grew older, but above all, by the confidence you placed in me under the oldoak at Chapel Hill, I implore you to trust us now and to put your future into our hands.””Oh, spare me! spare me!” she cried, sobbing afresh, ”for humanity’s sake spare me! If you would not kill me, do not tell me of my joyous, sinless childhood. It is gone forever from me. Oh, my wrecked and ruined character! Oh, my blighted, broken heart! Mother!mother!MOTHER!God grant you may be blind in Heaven, that you may not see your poor, polluted child on earth. Lottie, do not torture me more; ‘tis useless to persuade me; I cannot go. Leave me to my fate. If you are willing, put both arms round my neck once more and kiss me farewell. John, my noble, true-hearted friend, Good-bye!”Carlotta strained her again and again to her bosom, then, seeing she was not to be shaken from her purpose, we slowly and sorrowfully left the room. At the door Carlotta’s feelings overcame her, and resolving to make one more trial, she went back, and embracing her again, said:”Lulie, I cannot leave you so. By the Blood of dear Jesus, by the Cross of our Redeemer, I beseech you to go with us to our home.”Poor Lulie caught her hand and pressed her tear-wet cheek and lips upon it, then pushed her from her side, not rudely but sadly, with despair in her very touch.And so we left her sitting on the floor, with her head buried in her folded arms upon an ottoman. We were so troubled to leave her as we found her, that we wrote a long note and sent it up to Madame Dubourg’s that evening from the hotel. The waiter soon returned with our note unopened, but on it, scribbled with a pencil:”Dear friends, forget me!Lulie.”Next morning, as we stood on the deck of the steamer for Havana, inhaling the breeze and enjoying the scene, whilethe giant wheels were throbbing us out into the ocean, we little thought that in the great city behind us, up in a room with perfumed and silken hangings, an overburdened heart, slower and slower, was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing a soul out into eternity.
MadameDubourg’swas a grand brown stone building, with broad carved balustrades, and stone vases of cactus. I had chosen the hour of twelve for our visit, as the parlors would most likely then be free from visitors, and we could see Lulie in quiet. When we alighted from our carriage there was a large-armed Irish woman washing off the stone steps, and a man in a paper cap standing on a high step-ladder, to rub the plate glass windows. They were talking and laughing together, but ceased as we got out, and looked at us and each other with some surprise on their faces. The woman gathered up her cloth and water bucket and disappeared through the area with an audible snicker, while the man fell to rubbing the wide panes with renewed diligence. There was a pretty silver knocker on the figured glass door, and as I let it fall the door was thrown open by a footman, who had put on his gold laced coat so hurriedly the collar was turned under, and from whose moustachesome fragments of cheese were still hanging. He favored us with a prolonged stare of wonder, then presented a somewhat tarnished gold salver for our cards. I laid one in it, on which was simply written, ”An old friend,” and said: ”To see La Belle Louise.”
”You can’t see her,” he replied, with something of insolence in his tone.
I restrained my first impulse of anger, and slipping a five dollar gold piece in his hand, said quietly,
”Take my card up to her, and say nothing about a lady’s being with me.”
”I will, sir,” he said, with a low bow, his manner changing instantly at the touch of the gold.
He ushered us through a wide hall, with mosaic floor, into a spacious parlor, furnished in dark green velvet, and opening into another of light green satin damask, and this, in turn, leading to a large conservatory of rare plants and flowers. Though the furniture and all the appointments were so magnificent, yet every thing bore the defacement of reckless vice. The splendid Axminster carpets, though partially protected by linen tracks, were soiled and worn by muddy boots, the grand piano had its rosewood surface scratched and bruised, the music books were torn and scattered, buhl quartette tables around the room were covered with sloppings of wine, broken glasses, wet packs of cards and dice, the embroidered flowers on the ottomans were frayed into strings, and the gorgeous paintings on the walls were splotched and blistered, and their gilded frames tarnished. We had walked through both parlors to the conservatory and returned to the first, when we heard a light foot-fall on the stairway, and Lulie came down into the hall and stood for a moment looking through the side lights out into the street, with the same look of wan despair upon her face. The next instant she walked lightly into the room, twirling the tassel of her morning robe over her forefinger. She advancedhalf across the room before she saw us, and then her eyes opened as if in terror, a leaden pallor spread over her face, as if life had fled, and pressing her hand to her heart, with the tremulous wail, ”O God!” she sank down upon the floor, her pallid cheek resting on the cushion of afauteuilthat had been overthrown, and her colorless lips uttering low moans, that were piteous, indeed, to hear.
In a moment Carlotta was down on the floor beside her, lifting the poor bowed head to her bosom, smoothing the brown hair from the fair brow that was once so pure, and dropping the tears of her Christ-like pity on the upturned face. The poor girl had no strength to stir, but only put up her white hands feebly and murmured:
”Do not touch me; oh! do not touch me. God knows I am unworthy to breathe the air you do. Leave me! Cast me off as all the world have done,” and again she would make those gentle, piteous moans.
As soon as Carlotta could command her voice she bent down, and kissing her forehead tenderly, said:
”Lulie, darling, we have come to save you.”
”To save me? Oh, no; it’s too late—too late!”
”Do not say so, dearest Lulie,” urged Carlotta; ”our carriage is at the door. Do not wait a moment, but come with us and leave forever this pit of perdition.”
”Would to God I could,” she said, shaking her head slowly, and speaking in the same low tone; ”there was a time I might have gone, but not now, not now.”
”But, Lulie, we are going away from this country to Cuba, where no one has ever known you. No one is with us except mother, who is even now waiting to receive you. We will forever bury the past, and look forward only to a new life. Lulie, come with us, and be my darling sister in our happy home.”
She raised herself from Carlotta, and, placing her hands over her face, sat rocking herself back and forth, her veryframe convulsed with the agony of her struggle. When she lifted her face again her mind was made up.
”It cannot be, Lottie,” she said, calling Carlotta’s name for the first time. ”Heaven only knows how I appreciate your goodness and thank you for it; but I cannot go with you; I cannot throw the shadow of my presence on your household. The world has no forgiveness for my sin, and no life of penitence or purity I might lead would ever wash away the stain. I do not doubt your kindness; as God is my witness I believe that you would love me, but, do what you would to forget and conceal it, in your hearts I could never be anything but poor fallen Lulie—and the consciousness that you all knew of my ruin would make your very presence a torture to me.”
”But, Lulie,” persisted Carlotta, ”this sensitiveness would after a while pass off, and our very kindness would beguile you of your remorse. And even if you suffer, I should think any change would be better than this life of shameless iniquity, so utterly opposed to the refinement and delicacy I believe still linger in your breast.”
”Oh, Lottie, do not chide me. You, whose heart is pure, who have never known the wild reckless abandonment of all that is virtuous, all that is good, cannot understand the terrible remorse that drives me into vice, whose constancy will prevent reflection—aye, reflection. An eternity of hell is compassed in one hour of my retrospect. I cannot be alone; solitude would drive me mad. One thought alone has brought relief—relief mingled with horror—the thought of death! Oft in the night has it come to my sleepless pillow and whispered to me ‘Die!’ and yet, when I poured the poison in the glass, my trembling hand has dropped it from my lips. But the crisis has come,” she said, fiercely, striking her hands together and wringing them till her jewelled rings cut into the flesh. ”I will not shrink again. Iwilldie!” and clasping her hands across her head, shegazed at me with such intense anguish and despair in her hollow eyes, I shrank from her face.
”Lulie, Lulie, dearest, do not speak so,” said Carlotta, again putting her arms around her and trying to soothe her. ”You cannot surely contemplate self-destruction. Think, Lulie, what an awful thing it is to die. There, darling,” she continued, as Lulie’s head drooped on her shoulder, ”you were speaking wildly just now, you did not mean what you said. Come, the carriage is waiting. Youmustgo with us; we cannot leave you here.”
But Lulie only shook her head firmly and remained silent.
After a rather long pause Carlotta spoke again, in a low impressive voice:
”Lulie, hear my last appeal. For the sake of the long ago, when we were innocent happy children, and our hearts were bound with ties of love which have never yet been broken; for the sake of those dear old days, I beseech, I implore you to leave these unworthy associations, and seek with us a better life. Aye, Lulie, for the sake of your dead mother, I beg you to come. If a heart can be sad in Heaven, hers is bleeding now to see you thus; her precious little Lulie in such a place as this! Oh! will you not make her happy again?”
The fountains of her heart were now broken up, and with long shuddering sobs she lay weeping on Carlotta’s neck.
I had not spoken yet, but had left all to Carlotta’s tact and skill. I now knelt down by Lulie and took her hand, while my broken voice and tearful eyes attested the sincerity of all I said:
”Dear little playmate, by the memory of our childhood’s love, by the thousand scenes and incidents that endeared us to each other—our nursery games, Miss Hester’s school, the little parties when you first ventured to take my arm—by your first rejection of my love as we grew older, but above all, by the confidence you placed in me under the oldoak at Chapel Hill, I implore you to trust us now and to put your future into our hands.”
”Oh, spare me! spare me!” she cried, sobbing afresh, ”for humanity’s sake spare me! If you would not kill me, do not tell me of my joyous, sinless childhood. It is gone forever from me. Oh, my wrecked and ruined character! Oh, my blighted, broken heart! Mother!mother!MOTHER!God grant you may be blind in Heaven, that you may not see your poor, polluted child on earth. Lottie, do not torture me more; ‘tis useless to persuade me; I cannot go. Leave me to my fate. If you are willing, put both arms round my neck once more and kiss me farewell. John, my noble, true-hearted friend, Good-bye!”
Carlotta strained her again and again to her bosom, then, seeing she was not to be shaken from her purpose, we slowly and sorrowfully left the room. At the door Carlotta’s feelings overcame her, and resolving to make one more trial, she went back, and embracing her again, said:
”Lulie, I cannot leave you so. By the Blood of dear Jesus, by the Cross of our Redeemer, I beseech you to go with us to our home.”
Poor Lulie caught her hand and pressed her tear-wet cheek and lips upon it, then pushed her from her side, not rudely but sadly, with despair in her very touch.
And so we left her sitting on the floor, with her head buried in her folded arms upon an ottoman. We were so troubled to leave her as we found her, that we wrote a long note and sent it up to Madame Dubourg’s that evening from the hotel. The waiter soon returned with our note unopened, but on it, scribbled with a pencil:
”Dear friends, forget me!Lulie.”
”Dear friends, forget me!
Lulie.”
Next morning, as we stood on the deck of the steamer for Havana, inhaling the breeze and enjoying the scene, whilethe giant wheels were throbbing us out into the ocean, we little thought that in the great city behind us, up in a room with perfumed and silken hangings, an overburdened heart, slower and slower, was throbbing, throbbing, throbbing a soul out into eternity.