The Shadow of the AttacoaBy Thornwell JacobsSYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERSCommenced in the April number.
The Shadow of the AttacoaBy Thornwell Jacobs
By Thornwell Jacobs
Commenced in the April number.
Ervin McArthur, bearing the nickname of “Satan” on account of his ungovernable temper, learns printing at the office of theDunvegan(N. C.)Democratand loves Colonel Preston’s daughter. The colonel, objecting to a love affair between his aristocratic daughter and a son of “poor whites,” shifts the youth to a place on theCharleston Chronicle. Here, the Civil War coming on, he distinguishes himself by his journalistic ability and by his inventions of war-engines. In these last he is ably assisted by Helen Brooks, a Boston girl visiting Charleston relatives. She learns to love the inventor and his cause and he struggles between his allegiance to Helen Preston and his newly awakened love. He returns to Dunvegan on furlough and in an altercation with his old time chum, Henry Bailey, the latter meets his death. Ervin escapes and another friend, Ernest Lavender, is tried and convicted. Ervin confesses and is tried but cleared on proof discovered by Helen Preston that the crime was committed by Mack Lonovan, who, wishing to marry Helen Brooks, destroys the only living witness to his secret marriage with half-witted Nance West.
Ervin returns to Charleston and invents the ironclad torpedo, destined, when copied by the Federals, to destroy the Confederate Navy. He also constructs a submarine torpedo boat and while preparing for his initial trip has an interview with Helen Brooks.
He decides to attack theHousatonicinstead of theNew Ironsides, as Helen has confessed that one whom she loves is on the latter. TheHousatonicis sunk, also the torpedo, Ervin alone being rescued and captured. Sent to the stockade on Morris’ Island, he finds Tait Preston, who is about to be exchanged on account of a wound. Ervin determines to escape.
But weeks passed and McArthur was forced to stay and see himself growing haggard, weak and filthy. It grew cold and the ragged quilts barely sufficed to cover the sand.
At last one day at dusk he determined to make his escape or die. A dense fog had settled down over the island, and in the growing darkness he could scarcely see the guards with their guns pointed over the stockades. It was absolute folly to attempt it, but what was a worm-fed man not willing to attempt? So, as his custom was, he went into his tent, and by his ragged pallet, asked a mercy from his God, and then went out toward the death-line. Well nigh crazed, he thought in the fog he could safely burrow a way unseen under the stockade. He chose a spot midway between a gullah negro (a lowlander from the rice fields of the Combahee) and a mulatto who spoke often of his rights and liberty, and who was as anxious that all should know of his presence as a little game bantam cockerel that has just learned how to crow. Then, kneeling upon the sand, he cautiously began work. A long, lanky man from the mountains of North Carolina saw him and followed:
“Friend, it’s death,” he whispered.
“It doesn’t matter.”
The sand was beginning to fly when he heard a noise as though some one was clambering up the poles of the stockade. Listening, he stared intently in the direction of the noise. A gust of wind had blown off the capof the Combahee negro, and by means of a rope he was letting himself down to get it.
Was it a mercy?
At least it was a chance.
Stealing up in the darkness he slapped his hand on the guard’s shoulder.
“To whom do you belong, Jim?”
Taken by surprise, and noting instinctively the white man’s voice, the thin veneer of freedom and egotism wore off.
“To ’state of Norris—on de main, Marster.”
“Hand me that pistol from your belt.”
Still under the power of the masterful man, the negro handed it over. Scarcely had McArthur taken it, however, when the spell was broken.
“Looky ’ere, stan’ off dar. I’se one of de gyards. I b’longs to Mr. Linkum an’ myself, now. Stan’ off an’ gimme dat musket,” he quavered, trying to re-assume his self-confidence.
Then he shivered as he felt the cold steel against his temple.
“Don’t speak again, or I’ll kill you instantly.”
Terrified, the negro fell to wringing his hands, his teeth chattering convulsively.
“Take off those clothes,” ordered Ervin, “cap, trousers, coat.”
While this was being done, a dark gray form loomed up by his side out of the fog.
“You got him? I’ll help you.”
It was the mountaineer.
McArthur handed him the pistol, and divesting himself, took the negro’s blue uniform and put it on.
“If he speaks, blow his brains out!”
“Ugh, ugh, ugh!” sobbed the negro, trying hard to swallow even this sound.
“Quick, what is your regiment?”
“Secon’ South Ca’lina. Marster, please take down dat gun!”
“Who runs the ferry boat at Cumming’s Point?”
“Hatchett an’ Simpson, Fifty-fourth Massachusetts.”
“What is your company?”
“Company C, sah.”
“Who is the Captain?”
“Cap’n ain’t come, marster—name’s Brown—’spectin’ him to-morrow.”
Quickly climbing the rope, he picked up the gun of the guard, and began descending. Neither was he to be confused in the fog and darkness. Many times in the Eseeolas had he taken his bearings from a bucket, two sticks and the pole star, as though he were really lost.
“You git it?” It was the mulatto’s voice.
“Yeah, aisy,” Ervin answered in pure Combahee.
He went on down the parapet.
“Where you goin’, you blame bluegum gullah?” the mulatto called.
“Huh, you swongerrin’ mighty rash to a free nigger wid a gun!”
The mulatto laughed.
“If I c’d see you, I’d shoot you like one of them d—n rebels. That’s a fancy way you goin’ to camp.”
“’Tain’t matter about de road, so long as ’e cah’y you to de right place,” was the answer.
Thoroughly familiar with the island, McArthur veered westward and turned his face toward Battery Gregg. As he passed it he was challenged.
“Cholly Smif—”
“What regiment?”
“Secon’ South Ca’lina.”
“What duty?”
“Gyardin’ dese d—n rebels.”
“Pass on, you black nigger braggart.”
“I ain’t lahgin’, mister. Take dese white folks to lahge. Niggers cain’t lahge nuttin’ to de Buckra. Sabby?”
“Get on, Combahee monkey,” called the sentry, recognizing the low country lingo.
Ervin passed on towards Cumming’s Point, his eyes serving him in good stead. Almost in a moment he was by the landing. A towboat lay at anchor, and a couple of mulatto men were in charge of it.
“Hello!” hailed Ervin. His tone was one of easy command.
“Hello,” one of them answered.
“Where are you going?”
“Been out to theMontauk—comin’ in—”
“Lay that boat alongside.”
“We have orders against it, sir, except by special request.”
“Never mind about the orders. I guess you don’t know Captain Brown, of your own company. You are Second South Carolina, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Company C?”
“Yes, sir,” and they saluted.
“You made a splendid charge at Wagner. We nearly drove the rebs out that night. There, bring her up. You are detailed by Captain Emilio to convey me to James’ Island, within the Confederate lines. I am going to do a little reconnoitering.”
So they pulled up the anchor, and the towboat turned into the creeks between Morris’ and James’ Island.
Scarcely had they gone a hundred yards before a boat was pushed off hurriedly after them, and a voice called excitedly:
“Stop that boat! Hatchett, Simpson, he’s a rebel prisoner! Stop!”
The two boatmen instantly ceased rowing and looked at McArthur angrily. Not a feature of his face changed. Only his nostrils dilated suggestively, and two little flames of fire shot from his eyes.
“Take up those oars, men,” he said, quietly, pointing his pistol at them. “Row as if all hell were behind you.”
The men hesitated.
McArthur fired at the foremost, intentionally grazing his clothes. At the report of the pistol, they cowered in mortal terror.
“Good God, marster, doan’ shoot any mo,’ we’se rowin’!”
“Then row!” thundered the master. “If they catch us I’ll kill you both!”
“Father,” whispered Helen Preston, in the low voice of despair. “Father, don’t you know me?”
The old warrior who loved Dunvegan sat still as death in his arm chair, a happy smile on his face.
“Father, it is Helen. Oh, father! Don’t you know me?”
Slowly he opened his eyes with a look of incredulous disappointment.
“Oh! Helen, child, is it you? Why disturb me? I was with him—we had just won a great victory—the men were cheering old Traveler as he came down the battle line—”
“But, father, you had been quiet so long—I was afraid—I—”
He had sunk again into a stupor.
She rose heart-broken, and pressed her wan face against the window pane.
“He will die soon,” she murmured, “and I shall be alone. Tait has Annie, but Ervin is so far away! Oh, if he could only come!”
She looked, as always, from the window that faced the southwest, where the ivy-covered cabin crouched, only her eyes now wandered on over the green wheat fields to the blue range of the Wa-haws. Beyond them Ervin was, Ervin who loved her, and would come back some day, and claim his highland lassie.
The twilight was falling gently in the Silver Creek valley, the cooing of the dove came softly from the piny woods. She closed her eyes—and—
The fighting is ended, the tears are over and gone. Of a glad day he comes back stronger, nobler, manlier. The little red church in under the oaks is garlanded with roses. Annie is playing the wedding march, and Dr. Allerton—
“Miss Helen,” called a happy old voice.
“Why, Ben—you—I was asleep surely! What are you grinning at?” Helen asked dazedly.
“I’se got some good news for de young mistis! Ole Ben’s shorely got some good news. De white pigeon what was lost is come home!”
In her anguish she saw him wounded—a great hole, perhaps, in his breast. Pathetically crowning him with her own motives, she hears him tell them to loose the dragoon, reads the one thought of his soul, that Helen should know and come to him.
“Helen, my child,” a weak voice called from the arm chair, “come near me—do not go far away—I feel ill—my child—it is so good to have you with me at the last—so good to know that you—will not go—a—”
He sank again into a stupor.
She slowly lifted her hand from his forehead where he had lovingly placed it. Her little figure trembled as a soul before the breath of Jehovah. She fell on her knees by the bedside, where her mother had taught her to pray. For an hour the duties fought bloodily over her heart, then she rose and went toward the stable.
Half an hour later Dr. Allerton heard a knock on his door. He saw her by the candle light.
“Helen, my child, what can—is he—dead?”
“Oh, Doctor,” she pleaded, piteously, “tell me what to do!”
“Trust, my child,” he said, seating her tenderly.
She told him all, and when it was done he encouraged her.
“How good it is to know that your brother is with him!”
“Tait? No, I have not even that comfort. He is in Virginia.”
“He is everywhere.”
Then she understood.
“Oh, Doctor Allerton, may I go? Tell me I may go!” she pleaded.
For a long while he sat silent, while a memory of the long ago came stealing through the closed window. A face—a death—a promise kept through forty long years of celibacy. The face laughed at him as he sat silent there, as if he had pleased her well.
“Go,” he said.
And he raised his hand in benediction and blessed her.
The fussy little engine had at last completed its task and the train was ready to start. A crowd of small boys was hanging around it—the greatest marvel of the world to the mountain lads. Its big funnel-shaped smoke-stack sent wonder’s own thrills down their backs, and when the wheels slipped on the cast iron rails they shook with delight. “What a engine!” one of them said. “It’s ’most as tall as a man!”
The engineer was busy pulling off a sliver that had started from one of the rails, which experience had taught him might creep upward, farther and farther, till a car wheel caught it, and sent it through the bottom of a passenger coach, for it was but cast iron, after all.
Helen Preston turned to go, and her eyes caught sight of the Attacoa—highest of all the Blue Ridge, save the forehead of Grandfather’s Mountain. The stranger coming to the village sees it first, and the inhabitant turns invariably as to an old friend to say good-bye when he leaves.
“I love old Attacoa,” she said. “It was there that Light conquered Darkness.”
One by one the mountains sank away behind her, and the forest gave way to the wheat. Pines and chunky oats ran the fuzzy-fingered spruce and slender limbed larches away, and at last when night was settling down over all, after a record-breaking run, averaging twelve miles per hour, she reached Charlotte, and the queer little passenger coach with its twelve-paned window sashes was abandoned.
It was early morning when she left for Charleston, and from the window of her car she watched the red embankments, last semblances of things familiar, become fewer and fewer, and the soft, gray soil of the low country take its place. The harsh blowing of the engine became mellower as the rolling hillocks flattened into fertile plains and juniper trees hastened to claim place by black, sluggish streams. As she neared the city, interminable cypress swamps closed in round them, and long festoons of gray moss hung from every limb. Forests of long leaved pines took their places when the track left the river bottoms, and all the rocks crumbled into sand. When the engine stopped for wood, she heard a bob-white calling his mate, and she fell asleep to dream of theruffed grouse in the Silver Creek valley.
The depot was a long, low wooden building, and Helen soon found a colored driver who knew where theChronicleoffice was, knew Colonel Masters and was sure he was in the city. The cold of the mountain had vanished, and the air was soft and balmy as she drove through the streets. At last they stood before a two-storied building that faced the bay, and over the door the sign of theChroniclecould be deciphered. Underneath was the simple legend, “What is it but a map of busy life?”
Tremblingly mounting the steps, she found herself looking through the open door of the office. An old man sat before the fireplace, holding a tattered flag in his hand. His lips seemed moving slowly, but Helen could not hear his words, as he muttered:
“Ervin, my son, my son, would God I had died for thee!”
“Is this Colonel Masters?” she inquired, trying to be brave, as his kindly blue eyes turned towards her.
“It is, madam, your servant, Colonel Masters. Pray be seated.”
“Colonel Masters, I came to ask if you could tell me where Mr. McArthur is. He is ill somewhere, and I am come to—to find him.”
He looked at her as if he were reading a chapter in his own love story.
“Is—he—ill?” he asked, slowly.
“Yes, sir, he is. I am sure he is. I had hoped that you knew where!”
“I was not aware that he was—ill.”
“He must be—a messenger told me!”
“Could he not tell you where?”
“No, it was not a messenger that could speak.”
Colonel Masters understood. Such messengers had spoken to him many times.
“You loved him,” he said, simply.
A scarlet glow crept over her cheeks.
“I—yes. When did you see him last?”
“When I saw him last he was well, I am sure he was well.”
“How long ago, sir, when—”
“May I be pardoned for asking the name of my pretty inquisitor?”
“It is Helen Preston. I am from Dunvegan.”
“He loved a Helen.”
Again the scarlet flush came. The colonel noticed her eyes light for the first time.
“I must go, sir. Can you not tell me where to find him?”
“Yes, I know where you will find him,” he said, smiling tenderly. “Heaven will not be far from where you find him.”
Helen returned his smile trustingly.
“Perhaps Mrs. Adams, his landlady, has heard something of him. I will send Joe to her house,” Colonel Masters continued, looking, not at the girl, but at the flag he held in his hand. Helen insisted on accompanying Joe, for her impatience could not brook delay in her loving search.
Mrs. Adams herself came to the door when Helen rang the bell, and was stupefied with amazement at the first question:
“Is Mr. McArthur in?”
“Mr. McArthur, madam? Has he risen—has he come back?”
“He is ill somewhere—is it not here?” Her heart sank, for she knew already the answer.
“He—isn’t he dead?”
“Dead!”
The girl from the far hills fainted on the doorstep.
Mrs. Adams bore her quietly to the settee and stood over her till she opened her eyes again.
“Did you—did he die here?”
“No, miss, now do be quiet. Maybe he ain’t dead at all,” the good woman said, soothingly.
“But the pigeon—did he—not loose the pigeon last week?”
At the mention of the pigeon, Mrs. Adams started. Could the girl, whose accent betrayed her highland blood, know that she had freed the dragoon? It was an accident that he had escaped, and he had disappeared instantly,only circling once over the house.
“To be sure, Miss, did he loose the pigeon?”
“Yes, a white one—a big dragoon.”
“Well, now I wonder!”
Then a happy thought came to her.
“If he’s sick, Miss, he must be at the hospital.”
Helen rose, half dazed.
“It is very, very strange,” she said. “Nobody seems to know where he is, yet you know—you must know. May I go to his room?”
“Certainly, ma’am, but there hasn’t anybody seen him in so long that how could we be blamed for thinking him dead?”
They had reached McArthur’s room. Everything was neatly in place. Suddenly Helen started. A glove with a little brown splotch on it hung over a daguerreotype portrait.
“Whose—whose is that?” she faltered.
“I don’t know, Miss; I don’t know at all.”
“Did—did Mr. McArthur like—anybody?”
Mrs. Adams looked at her sharply.
“Mr. McArthur, Miss, didn’t ever let anybody know his secrets!”
But Helen knew the woman knew, and said quietly:
“You would not hurt my feelings, please tell me.”
“Well, Miss, to be perfectly—that is candid—I think he did.”
“And her name?”
“I think—that is—her name is Helen.”
The highland lassie’s face beamed with pleasure.
“Do you know where she lived?” she asked, wishing to make very sure.
“I—not exactly—her home was not here—I think it was in—”
“Never mind,” said Helen, hurriedly, as if Dunvegan had already been pronounced. “I will go to the hospital—perhaps he is there.”
“Oh, Tait!” she sobbed, “I did not know you were here. We all thought you were in Virginia. Oh, I am so glad you are here!”
“Here, Sis, here in this hospital with a game leg?”
“But, Tait, I am here, and you can tell me about Ervin. Is he, oh, brother, is he dead?” The last words sank to a terror’s whisper.
“Dead!” exclaimed her brother. “Good gracious! No! He’s as ’live as a Wa-haw squirrel. He’s captured, that’s all. Cheer up, Sis, he’s all right.”
“Oh, Tait, you are so sweet! Tell me over again, tell me he is just captured! But he—I know he is sick!”
“Not much, I guess. You can’t make old Ervin sick.”
“I know he is ill, Tait, very ill, and I am going to him. I am going to him now.”
As she had left father, so she now left brother, and following his directions, passed out through the long rows of wounded, into the street.
“Go to the Confederate post on James’ Island,” Tait had said, “and they will get a message through for you. Tell Captain Dillard who you are, Sis, and he’ll do all he can to help you.” The words rang hopefully in her ears.
She returned to theChronicleoffice, bearing the good news to Colonel Masters, who immediately began arrangements for her conveyance to James’ Island. Joe and another trusty man were detailed as escort. “I regret exceedingly, my dear Miss Preston,” the gallant colonel declared, “that I am unable to accompany you myself, but Ervin’s d⸺ absence—” he corrected himself joyfully, “leaves me tied here. Joe, however, will do all that any one can do.”
Joe dressed in an old broadcloth suit, Prince Albert coat, silk hat crushed into an Egyptian ruin, and hair almost white, made a striking picture. Little tufts of gray hair grew here and there on his scalp, like the scrubby bushes that dot a far Eastern landscape.
Once in the boat with its sea-begrimed sails, Helen began to take in the beauty of the view. Far out inthe harbor, Sumter, the unconquerable, looked like a little black box floating on the water. Cumming’s Point was on the right, Moultrie on the left, and the famous hundred pines, so tall that they were seen first of all by the ships at sea, were near at hand on James’ Island. These were the charmed shores of which she had dreamed so often, and now she saw for herself the long low islands fringed with dense deep forests, of palmetto and live oak. The waving salt marshes, too, now sought, now deserted by the sea, seemed familiar, and the deep estuaries and the silver ribboned streams. As the boat moved swiftly over the river, Joe told of the winter residences of the rich planters that lined the banks farther up, of the golden rice fields and the snowy drifts of sea island cotton, of how the teal and mallard duck and wild geese came from the great lakes and wintered in the marshes, and fish swarmed the channels through the rice fields. Deer there were in the forest, too, and tough-necked alligators, which had to be pulled out of the mud when the rice fields dried up in the spring. Emboldened by her silence, he described the great Christmas festival, as it used to be, when for weeks the servants in the great houses had been busy. The river was deserted now, but once sailing crafts of all kinds made the Ashley look like a blue heaven filled with white-winged gulls, and from every bank and field came the song of the happy laborers. Time was when large schooners, fresh from the rice fields along the banks, were making for the Cooper River wharves, and barges laden with snowy cotton bales were being towed to the city.
Captain Dillard himself met her on James’ Island. Colonel Masters’ messenger had found him.
“He is here!” she cried, as soon as she saw the captain’s face. “Is he—is he—how is he?”
“Why, Miss Preston, he is desperately wounded. I can’t imagine how you knew he was here.”
“I knew he was ill, too,” she murmured.
“Then an angel of God must have told you, for it only happened a few days ago, and we have kept it absolutely secret.”
“A little bird told me,” she answered, smiling.
“They almost captured him, but our men heard the firing. Two negroes were dead in the boat, and he had emptied his revolver and was running for the bushes. They shot him as he made a dash for the woods.”
“Does he know anyone?”
“Absolutely no one, and nothing. He is wildly delirious at times, but here we are. Colonel Masters wrote me that you had a right to see him. I shall await your wishes.”
“I will go in now.”
He lay upon a pallet that loving comrades had made in a cabin under the shadow of the pines. His eyes shone wildly, the unnatural brightness intensified the pallor of his emaciated face. As Helen entered, he seemed to know her, and a smile lit up his wan features, a smile which Helen prized above her life. She bent low over his pillow and he whispered, “Helen, darling!”
Great tears sprang to her eyes, for she, too, had seen of the travail of her soul and was satisfied.
“Helen,” he murmured, “we will be married soon, in the little red church in under the oaks. I will care for you always, I will strike down your enemies as I struck down the man who smote you in the face!” His voice rose to a shriek.
“He’s delirious again, madam,” Captain Dillard said sadly, passing out of the door.
But her heart was happy as was the Dawn-Maiden’s when Ioskeha came.
“He’s delirious now, but he knew me,” she murmured, ecstatically, “he knew me at first, and he loves me!”
“Ervin, darling boy,” she whispered. “You love me, do you not, you love only me?”
“I love—I love Helen—” he said, vacantly.
And she clasped him again in her arms, and covered his pale face with kisses.
Hattie Corbin and Helen Brooks sat by the fire in the living room. But yesterday the news had come of the sinking of theHousatonicand of the submarine torpedo with terrible loss of life on one and total loss on the other. After the first heartrendings of grief, Helen had sunk into stolid indifference to everything and everybody. The last scene between them, and her note with the hastily scribbled “It is too late,” on the back, crushed her anew at each remembrance. Only one thing had anyone dared to say to her. It was Hattie who had spoken.
“Now, Helen, dear, you know how much we love the Great Cause, who give our all.”
So each day only found her face more deeply lined with pain, and her sympathy with the poor, wounded fellows at the hospital more tender.
One day she was in the hospital and passed by the bed of a poor patient who had just been brought in from Morris’ Island. His face was thin and haggard, and the flesh had all gone away from his bones. His right arm was shattered and one eye had been attacked by cancer. The poor fellow called weakly:
“Miss, a favor, please ma’am.”
“Certainly, sir. What may I do for you?”
“Could you write a letter for me, Miss?”
“Indeed I shall. Wait until I get the paper and ink.”
A few minutes later he was telling her what to write.
“It’s to Miss Annie Little—I mean Mrs. Tait Preston, at Dunvegan, North Carolina,” and at the mention of his loved one’s name, the sick man groaned.
Helen was quick with attention at the mention of Dunvegan.
“Dear Annie: I—am—sick——. Can’t you—come to me? I was—captured in—Virginia. About ten left. Poor Ervin—”
“Ervin,” she said—“Ervin—”
“Ervin McArthur, ma’am.”
“Did you know him?”
“Yes, ma’am, I did—poor fellow. He was the dearest comrade of us all.”
“Now, what did—did you say?” She controlled herself with a great effort.
“Poor Ervin,” he confirmed, “built a submarine tor—.” She stopped and her eyes were full of tears.
“I can get some one else to write it, ma’am—”
“I am ashamed of myself, sir, but his death was so sad—he—”
“Good God! Is he dead?” The sick man almost leaped from his bed. She looked up sadly and replied:
“Yes, sir, he—is—dead!”
The poor fellow leaned back with a groan and turned his face to the wall, saying in a moan:
“Ervin, dear old boy, my comrade! Ervin dead!” Then suddenly his eyes flashed through the cancer.
“Damn them, the blasted fiends! Starving a man on worms, shooting them like dogs. Poor fellow, poor Ervin. God have mercy on his mother! Don’t tell Annie, Miss—don’t tell her he’s dead. It would kill his mother. He loved his mother—and now he’s dead!”
Death—Love.
Love and Death are brothers, and we would tell them so, could we but persuade them to forget their mutual hatred long enough to come and listen to our words. For Love is life, and Death is death, and they never meet. Love never dies. There is a third brother, the youngest of the three, and his name is Fancy, who closely resembles the oldest. Death often crosses his pathway. His body, they say, too, is often found stiff and cold in human hearts, and cast out upon the public highway, where those who hate his elder brother, may see and scorn, and say that Death is stronger than Love. But it is not Love, it is only the fickle one that resembles him. Love never dies. Between him and his grim brother the great gulf is fixed. It is with the weak one that Death walks arm in arm, for he seems to meet often the dalliance of Fancy, and plays daily with the infatuations ofyouth, whom he can never call aright, not knowing whether it is the ghost of Love or the phantom of Death.
Love and death! We can hardly distinguish between them as we meet them upon the street. And so they are ever strangers to us, though they are often the guests of our hearts and homes.
They treat us to the same, so that one never knows whether it is Love or Death who knocks at the door until the latch is lifted, for their footsteps are not heard. They are not alike again after they have crossed the threshold, not alike at all, ever. Each knocks but once at the door of our hearts, and if we do not answer, but sit still and wait and there comes no sound, not even the sound of his retreating footsteps, it was Love. If you do not answer, but sit still in the gloom and silence, and there is no other knock and the latch lifts, it is Death.
And so we sit expectantly in our humble homes, because we never know when the latch is raised—never know when that single knock will come, nor which of the three faces will appear when the door is opened. We tremble as we open to the visitor, lest he be Death, and glance furtively about the apartments of our life, lest it be God. But those of us who are wiser than any others, always lift the latch, for God and Death will enter anyway, their knock being only a warning that they are coming; and while it might have been Love, the latch must be lifted before he turns away into the night, for he never enters unless the door is opened.
The pathos of our lives and their tragedies are dependent upon the order of the coming of God and Love and Death. If God comes first, we are happy then, for he seems to know when Love approaches, and so he is never turned away. Sometimes Love leaves the heart, but never if God comes first, for he is truer in the presence of the King, and the King is happy when Love is near. Sometimes Love comes first, and while he sits waiting, Death knocks; then he flees from the soul, for he fears the face of his brother, unless God is there, for Death always smiles when he sees God. Sometimes Death comes first, and then neither Love nor God can enter. This and this only is Tragedy with us in Dunvegan. Our children never pass his home at night, and we scarce dare breathe his name at midday—the home, the name of the man who died and saw neither Love nor God.
About a week after the writing of Tait’s letter, a pretty, girlish figure entered the hospital, and finding no one near, began searching the beds for the face of some loved one. On the way down she had been trying to prepare herself for the meeting and tried to make the bright eyes she remembered grow dim, the strong muscles flabby, and the hale glow of health on the cheeks fade to pallor, but she could not.
All the way from Dunvegan she had been planning how she would see him, among the others, on his white bed, and the old, familiar face would look as ever into hers. Now when she turned into the wards and saw the ghastly sights around her, she was stunned for a moment. Men were there looking ruefully at their stubs of arms and fingers, men with every imaginable part of their bodies shot off, and one man who lay just beside her, with his face turned away—Great God!—suppose Tait should be like him—. One eye was eaten out with cancer; disease had laid hold of his very vitals, and his right arm had been amputated. The thought of him made her sick, and she leaned against the bedstead. Then, not daring to look around, she went back to find a nurse for directions. She had hardly staggered a yard when she heard a weak voice:
“Annie, Annie!”
Stopping at the sound of her name, she paused to locate the sound.
“Annie, Annie, don’t you hear me? Here I am.”
The voice was weak and husky and unfamiliar, but the name was Annie. She turned. It was the man whosearm was gone, whose eye was eaten out by cancer.
“Annie, Annie, I am Tait! Oh, God, don’t you know me?”
The thin wasted hand held out in entreaty. She knew that it was her husband.
“Tait, darling boy! Oh, what have they done to you? My darling, my darling!”
Love—and—Death—a woman’s love, a soldier’s death.
A few days later, women were gathering in little groups about their homes and the boys and old men left in the city were congregated in the street.
Suddenly, as from a clear sky, the news has come—Sherman was coming. Mrs. Corbin and Helen and Hattie were at breakfast when the morningChroniclecame in and the news was read.
Sherman coming! Flee, hide your valuables, bury your silver! The few soldiers in the city had been ordered north to try to save the Confederacy there. The city was defenseless. Even the bells of St. Michael’s had been sent to Columbia for safety.
“I am glad Bessie is in Columbia,” Mrs. Corbin said, when it was read. “The little babe will be born in peace at least.” Bessie was the young bride of Jack Corbin.
“Mother,” said Hattie, “you and Helen must leave immediately.”
As though to emphasize her words, a cannon ball crashed through the house, whizzed by the speakers and penetrated into the cellar. In an instant they realized that it would have exploded if it were going to, and so sat quietly talking on, so used had Charleston grown to her sorrows.
“You must go immediately. I will get everything in order and follow later on.”
So they left in a few days, for Mrs. Corbin must needs be by Bessie, and Helen would go with her aunt.
As they entered the car set apart for ladies and their escorts, as was the custom now, a woman in front of them with a little baby, heard a voice outside:
“Madam, please lend me your baby.”
Her eyes were red and swollen with weeping. She had been pressing her child closely to her breast. She looked down. It was a poor soldier with a wounded arm who was going home. Without a word she handed her baby through the window, and in a few minutes it bobbed up serenely at the car door. The guard thinking it was the man’s child, let him pass into the more comfortable car.
“Thank you,” he said, seating himself wearily and handing the baby back.
Soon another soldier borrowed it, and another also, before the train started on its long, slow ride to Columbia. The rolling stock had fairly given out during the four years in which nothing could be done to replenish or repair it.
“Madam, will you give another lady a seat?” she heard the conductor say to the woman with the baby, who was leaning on a package that lay on two seats and was covered with a faded shawl. The woman looked up and moved and they saw that it was a rude wooden coffin.
Her eyes were red and inflamed with much weeping, and she spoke softly in the accents of the hills.
“It is my husband; I am taking him home.”
Nor did Helen know who the sweet sufferer was, though she heard her ask, when she left the train at Columbia, when the next train went north to Dunvegan.
General Sherman’s army was marching through Georgia.
At daybreak the pillar of cloud went before him, and at night great bonfires of burning homes lit up their rearward. The strong fled at their approach, and the weak trembled and prayed.
There was a day when the foragers of the victorious veterans reached the home of an old couple who lived with their few slaves in the path of the devourer.They had but returned from the burial of a little baby boy, a colored baby whose mother was the faithful old cook, Mary Ann, and whose father was a brother of theChronicle’sJoe in Charleston. They were standing under the vine-colored doorway looking at a dense smoke rising in the direction of a neighbor’s, when a squad of soldiers in blue came up.
“Old woman, we are hungry. Got anything to eat?”
The best the white-haired grandmother had was set before them, and when it was gone—more. At last one of them said:
“Madam, you had best hide everything you have, or by this time to-morrow you will have nothing.”
“Shet up, ol’ Secesh!” said another.
When the men had gone, they dug little holes and hid their few treasures; a dozen knives and forks and as many spoons, and the old man took his watch and put it far up the chimney. By the time it was done, blue-coated soldiers were swarming all over the premises.
“Old man, come out here!”
When he followed some men into the bushes, they made merry with the grandmother.
“Old woman, where is your silver?”
Silence.
“Where is the silver?”
By this time the smoke-house was on fire and a half dozen bales of cotton were burning. The negro slaves gathered in terror.
Soon the white-haired man came back, his face purple, his eyes bloodshot, his step tremulous.
“Give me my watch, Mary.”
“Why, Henry, it is not theirs!”
“Give it. They have choked me nearly to death.”
The old man staggered to his chair. They had taken him to the swamp, and bending a small sapling over the road, stretched a rope upon it and said:
“Now, old man, tell where you keep your gold.”
“I have no gold, gentlemen.”
“Don’t lie to us. We’ve heard all that before. You might as well tell us first as last. See that rope, you know what it means.”
“I have told you the truth.” The old man was thin and aged.
“Swing him up, boys.”
He dangled from the end of the rope, and then they let him fall.
“Now, where is the gold?”
He did not understand at first, then he said feebly:
“The gold—oh, yes, the gold—. I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have no gold.”
“Swing him up again.”
The jerk on his neck well-nigh broke it, and the suffocation was almost too much.
“Will you remember now where it is?”
“The gold—oh, yes, gentlemen,” dazedly, “I’m sorry, but I have no gold.”.
“Swing the damned rebel once more.”
It was really useless, for he was insensible, and when he fell he looked like a dead man. His withered old hand and his thin gray hair and his weak aged heart could not stand much. He was totally unconscious.
“We nearly went too far that time, boys.”
When he came to, they were bathing his face in the brook.
“Oh, yes,” he said, involuntarily, “the gold. It is as I have said—only the watch I told you of at first. I am an old man now and have no use for gold.”
So they brought him back to the house.
“Old woman, fork out that watch.”
“I will not do it.”
“You will!”
They were coming towards her when the one whom they had called “old Secesh,” entered, and they stopped.
“Men, for shame! For shame! Don’t dare touch that old woman! The first man who touches these old people will be shot,” he continued, raising his gun, and they went sullenly out into the yard.
And when they had gone, they had taken all—the sweet potatoes in the hills, the corn, bacon, flour, the cows, cooking utensils, anything any one wanted. And “old Secesh” stayed by the aged woman’s side.
“It is a shame,” he said, apologetically. “If only Grant were our commander! This isn’t the way he and Lee fight.”
At intervals other soldiers came, and finding all taken, passed on. To one she looked up reproachfully, and said, as she listened to the groans of the negroes about their burning cabins.
“And yet you say you are the friends of our negroes?”
“We came to save the Union. Damn the niggers,” was the reply she received; and then the man continued:
“You think Georgy is havin’ a bad time of it, old woman—jes’ wait till we git to Ca’liny, we’ll grease her over and burn her up. That’s where treason begun, an’, by God, that’s where it shall end!”
“Yes, and old Columbia’ll be red, white and blue when we’re done,” chimed in another.
At sunset the aged woman went out into the empty yards and an old negro mammy was sitting on her porch, her body swaying backward and forward, as is the custom of the race when in the deepest misery. Occasionally a low moan and the ringing of hands in silent sorrow. Then seeing her mistress approaching, she cried out:
“Mistis, what kind of folks is dese here Yankees? Dey won’ eben let de daid rest in de grabe.”
“Why, Mary Ann, what is it?”
“You know my little John, what was buried yistiddy? Ain’t dey done tuk him up and lef’ him on de top o’ de groun’ fer de hogs to root?”
The soldiers had seen the fresh earth, and they mistook the new-made grave for hidden treasures, and “a little dead nigger was not worth reburying.”
So the black mother rocked and moaned in horror and agony.
And that night by the campfires not far away, a man was warming his hands and saying:
“Dees tarn rebels down here tink dey haf a hard time in Georgy—jus’ wait till we strike South Ca’liny oncet. We’ll burn ’em up all to oncet already.”
“Have you heard what Sherman says, Dutchy?” a soldier asked.
“Iknow what Cheneral Sherman haf say, and I will carry it oud entirely. Ve vill burn up that Columbia ven de tree rockets goes up oncet. Ve vill gif dem hell already, dey hadn’t ought ter lef’ de glorious union,” and he laughed knowingly.
“General Sherman didn’t say that.”
“Ach, mein Gott, don’t I know vat Cheneral Sherman say and tink? Ach, he ain’t say nothings, aber he think a blicky full. You jus’ vait till we burn dat Columbia, and Cheneral Sherman vill be dere and von’t say one word, py tam!”