← catalogue

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865

by Various · English · Gutenberg #30265 · 502,724 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865

Author: Various


        
Release date: October 16, 2009 [eBook #30265]
                Most recently updated: October 24, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30265

Credits: Produced by Joshua Hutchinson, Josephine Paolucci and the
        Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net.
        (This file was produced from images generously made
        available by Cornell University Digital Collections.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, VOLUME 15, NO. 89, MARCH, 1865 ***

THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XV.--MARCH, 1865.--NO. LXXXIX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.




THE STORY OF A YEAR.


I.

My story begins as a great many stories have begun within the last three
years, and indeed as a great many have ended; for, when the hero is
despatched, does not the romance come to a stop?

       *       *       *       *       *

In early May, two years ago, a young couple I wot of strolled homeward
from an evening walk, a long ramble among the peaceful hills which
inclosed their rustic home. Into these peaceful hills the young man had
brought, not the rumor, (which was an old inhabitant,) but some of the
reality of war,--a little whiff of gunpowder, the clanking of a sword;
for, although Mr. John Ford had his campaign still before him, he wore a
certain comely air of camp-life which stamped him a very Hector to the
steady-going villagers, and a very pretty fellow to Miss Elizabeth
Crowe, his companion in this sentimental stroll. And was he not attired
in the great brightness of blue and gold which befits a freshly made
lieutenant? This was a strange sight for these happy Northern glades;
for, although the first Revolution had boomed awhile in their midst, the
honest yeomen who defended them were clad in sober homespun, and it is
well known that His Majesty's troops wore red.

These young people, I say, had been roaming. It was plain that they had
wandered into spots where the brambles were thick and the dews
heavy,--nay, into swamps and puddles where the April rains were still
undried. Ford's boots and trousers had imbibed a deep foretaste of the
Virginia mud; his companion's skirts were fearfully bedraggled. What
great enthusiasm had made our friends so unmindful of their steps? What
blinding ardor had kindled these strange phenomena: a young lieutenant
scornful of his first uniform, a well-bred young lady reckless of her
stockings?

Good reader, this narrative is averse to retrospect.

Elizabeth (as I shall not scruple to call her outright) was leaning upon
her companion's arm, half moving in concert with him, and half allowing
herself to be led, with that instinctive acknowledgment of dependence
natural to a young girl who has just received the assurance of lifelong
protection. Ford was lounging along with that calm, swinging stride
which often bespeaks, when you can read it aright, the answering
consciousness of a sudden rush of manhood. A spectator might have
thought him at this moment profoundly conceited. The young girl's blue
veil was dangling from his pocket; he had shouldered her sun-umbrella
after the fashion of a musket on a march: he might carry these trifles.
Was there not a vague longing expressed in the strong expansion of his
stalwart shoulders, in the fond accommodation of his pace to hers,--her
pace so submissive and slow, that, when he tried to match it, they
almost came to a delightful standstill,--a silent desire for the whole
fair burden?

They made their way up a long swelling mound, whose top commanded the
sunset. The dim landscape which had been brightening all day to the
green of spring was now darkening to the gray of evening. The lesser
hills, the farms, the brooks, the fields, orchards, and woods, made a
dusky gulf before the great splendor of the west. As Ford looked at the
clouds, it seemed to him that their imagery was all of war, their great
uneven masses were marshalled into the semblance of a battle. There were
columns charging and columns flying and standards floating,--tatters of
the reflected purple; and great captains on colossal horses, and a
rolling canopy of cannon-smoke and fire and blood. The background of the
clouds, indeed, was like a land on fire, or a battle-ground illumined by
another sunset, a country of blackened villages and crimsoned pastures.
The tumult of the clouds increased; it was hard to believe them
inanimate. You might have fancied them an army of gigantic souls playing
at football with the sun. They seemed to sway in confused splendor; the
opposing squadrons bore each other down; and then suddenly they
scattered, bowling with equal velocity towards north and south, and
gradually fading into the pale evening sky. The purple pennons sailed
away and sank out of sight, caught, doubtless, upon the brambles of the
intervening plain. Day contracted itself into a fiery ball and vanished.

Ford and Elizabeth had quietly watched this great mystery of the
heavens.

"That is an allegory," said the young man, as the sun went under,
looking into his companion's face, where a pink flush seemed still to
linger: "it means the end of the war. The forces on both sides are
withdrawn. The blood that has been shed gathers itself into a vast
globule and drops into the ocean."

"I'm afraid it means a shabby compromise," said Elizabeth. "Light
disappears, too, and the land is in darkness."

"Only for a season," answered the other. "We mourn our dead. Then light
comes again, stronger and brighter than ever. Perhaps you'll be crying
for me, Lizzie, at that distant day."

"Oh, Jack, didn't you promise not to talk about that?" says Lizzie,
threatening to anticipate the performance in question.

Jack took this rebuke in silence, gazing soberly at the empty sky. Soon
the young girl's eyes stole up to his face. If he had been looking at
anything in particular, I think she would have followed the direction of
his glance; but as it seemed to be a very vacant one, she let her eyes
rest.

"Jack," said she, after a pause, "I wonder how you'll look when you get
back."

Ford's soberness gave way to a laugh.

"Uglier than ever. I shall be all incrusted with mud and gore. And then
I shall be magnificently sun-burnt, and I shall have a beard."

"Oh, you dreadful!" and Lizzie gave a little shout. "Really, Jack, if
you have a beard, you'll not look like a gentleman."

"Shall I look like a lady, pray?" says Jack.

"Are you serious?" asked Lizzie.

"To be sure. I mean to alter my face as you do your misfitting
garments,--take in on one side and let out on the other. Isn't that the
process? I shall crop my head and cultivate my chin."

"You've a very nice chin, my dear, and I think it's a shame to hide
it."

"Yes, I know my chin's handsome; but wait till you see my beard."

"Oh, the vanity!" cried Lizzie, "the vanity of men in their faces! Talk
of women!" and the silly creature looked up at her lover with most
inconsistent satisfaction.

"Oh, the pride of women in their husbands!" said Jack, who of course
knew what she was about.

"You're not my husband, Sir. There's many a slip"----But the young girl
stopped short.

"'Twixt the cup and the lip," said Jack. "Go on. I can match your
proverb with another. 'There's many a true word,' and so forth. No, my
darling: I'm not your husband. Perhaps I never shall be. But if anything
happens to me, you'll take comfort, won't you?"

"Never!" said Lizzie, tremulously.

"Oh, but you must; otherwise, Lizzie, I should think our engagement
inexcusable. Stuff! who am I that you should cry for me?"

"You are the best and wisest of men. I don't care; you _are_."

"Thank you for your great love, my dear. That's a delightful illusion.
But I hope Time will kill it, in his own good way, before it hurts any
one. I know so many men who are worth infinitely more than I--men wise,
generous, and brave--that I shall not feel as if I were leaving you in
an empty world."

"Oh, my dear friend!" said Lizzie, after a pause, "I wish you could
advise me all my life."

"Take care, take care," laughed Jack; "you don't know what you are
bargaining for. But will you let me say a word now? If by chance I'm
taken out of the world, I want you to beware of that tawdry sentiment
which enjoins you to be 'constant to my memory.' My memory be hanged!
Remember me at my best,--that is, fullest of the desire of humility.
Don't inflict me on people. There are some widows and bereaved
sweethearts who remind me of the peddler in that horrible murder-story,
who carried a corpse in his pack. Really, it's their stock in trade. The
only justification of a man's personality is his rights. What rights has
a dead man?--Let's go down."

They turned southward and went jolting down the hill.

"Do you mind this talk, Lizzie?" asked Ford.

"No," said Lizzie, swallowing a sob, unnoticed by her companion in the
sublime egotism of protection; "I like it."

"Very well," said the young man, "I want my memory to help you. When I
am down in Virginia, I expect to get a vast deal of good from thinking
of you,--to do my work better, and to keep straighter altogether. Like
all lovers, I'm horribly selfish. I expect to see a vast deal of
shabbiness and baseness and turmoil, and in the midst of it all I'm sure
the inspiration of patriotism will sometimes fail. Then I'll think of
you. I love you a thousand times better than my country, Liz.--Wicked?
So much the worse. It's the truth. But if I find your memory makes a
milksop of me, I shall thrust you out of the way, without ceremony,--I
shall clap you into my box or between the leaves of my Bible, and only
look at you on Sunday."

"I shall be very glad, Sir, if that makes you open your Bible
frequently," says Elizabeth, rather demurely.

"I shall put one of your photographs against every page," cried Ford;
"and then I think I shall not lack a text for my meditations. Don't you
know how Catholics keep little pictures of their adored Lady in their
prayer-books?"

"Yes, indeed," said Lizzie; "I should think it would be a very
soul-stirring picture, when you are marching to the front, the night
before a battle,--a poor, stupid girl, knitting stupid socks, in a
stupid Yankee village."

Oh, the craft of artless tongues! Jack strode along in silence a few
moments, splashing straight through a puddle; then, ere he was quite
clear of it, he stretched out his arm and gave his companion a long
embrace.

"And pray what am I to do," resumed Lizzie, wondering, rather proudly
perhaps, at Jack's averted face, "while you are marching and
countermarching in Virginia?"

"Your duty, of course," said Jack, in a steady voice, which belied a
certain little conjecture of Lizzie's. "I think you will find the sun
will rise in the east, my dear, just as it did before you were engaged."

"I'm sure I didn't suppose it wouldn't," says Lizzie.

"By duty I don't mean anything disagreeable, Liz," pursued the young
man. "I hope you'll take your pleasure, too. I wish you might go to
Boston, or even to Leatherborough, for a month or two."

"What for, pray?"

"What for? Why, for the fun of it: to 'go out,' as they say."

"Jack, do you think me capable of going to parties while you are in
danger?"

"Why not? Why should I have all the fun?"

"Fun? I'm sure you're welcome to it all. As for me, I mean to make a new
beginning."

"Of what?"

"Oh, of everything. In the first place, I shall begin to improve my
mind. But don't you think it's horrid for women to be reasonable?"

"Hard, say you?"

"Horrid,--yes, and hard too. But I mean to become so. Oh, girls are such
fools, Jack! I mean to learn to like boiled mutton and history and plain
sewing, and all that. Yet, when a girl's engaged, she's not expected to
do anything in particular."

Jack laughed, and said nothing; and Lizzie went on.

"I wonder what your mother will say to the news. I think I know."

"What?"

"She'll say you've been very unwise. No, she won't: she never speaks so
to you. She'll say I've been very dishonest or indelicate, or something
of that kind. No, she won't either: she doesn't say such things, though
I'm sure she thinks them. I don't know what she'll say."

"No, I think not, Lizzie, if you indulge in such conjectures. My mother
never speaks without thinking. Let us hope that she may think favorably
of our plan. Even if she doesn't"----

Jack did not finish his sentence, nor did Lizzie urge him. She had a
great respect for his hesitations. But in a moment he began again.

"I was going to say this, Lizzie: I think for the present our engagement
had better be kept quiet."

Lizzie's heart sank with a sudden disappointment. Imagine the feelings
of the damsel in the fairy-tale, whom the disguised enchantress had just
empowered to utter diamonds and pearls, should the old beldame have
straightway added that for the present mademoiselle had better hold her
tongue. Yet the disappointment was brief. I think this enviable young
lady would have tripped home talking very hard to herself, and have been
not ill pleased to find her little mouth turning into a tightly clasped
jewel-casket. Nay, would she not on this occasion have been thankful for
a large mouth,--a mouth huge and unnatural,--stretching from ear to ear?
Who wish to cast their pearls before swine? The young lady of the pearls
was, after all, but a barnyard miss. Lizzie was too proud of Jack to be
vain. It's well enough to wear our own hearts upon our sleeves; but for
those of others, when intrusted to our keeping, I think we had better
find a more secluded lodging.

"You see, I think secrecy would leave us much freer," said Jack,--"leave
_you_ much freer."

"Oh, Jack, how can you?" cried Lizzie. "Yes, of course; I shall be
falling in love with some one else. Freer! Thank you, Sir!"

"Nay, Lizzie, what I'm saying is really kinder than it sounds. Perhaps
you _will_ thank me one of these days."

"Doubtless! I've already taken a great fancy to George Mackenzie."

"Will you let me enlarge on my suggestion?"

"Oh, certainly! You seem to have your mind quite made up."

"I confess I like to take account of possibilities. Don't you know
mathematics are my hobby? Did you ever study algebra? I always have an
eye on the unknown quantity."

"No, I never studied algebra. I agree with you, that we had better not
speak of our engagement."

"That's right, my dear. You're always right. But mind, I don't want to
bind you to secrecy. Hang it, do as you please! Do what comes easiest to
you, and you'll do the best thing. What made me speak is my dread of the
horrible publicity which clings to all this business. Nowadays, when a
girl's engaged, it's no longer, 'Ask mamma,' simply; but, 'Ask Mrs.
Brown, and Mrs. Jones, and my large circle of acquaintance,--Mrs.
Grundy, in short.' I say nowadays, but I suppose it's always been so."

"Very well, we'll keep it all nice and quiet," said Lizzie, who would
have been ready to celebrate her nuptials according to the rites of the
Esquimaux, had Jack seen fit to suggest it.

"I know it doesn't look well for a lover to be so cautious," pursued
Jack; "but you understand me, Lizzie, don't you?"

"I don't entirely understand you, but I quite trust you."

"God bless you! My prudence, you see, is my best strength. Now, if ever,
I need my strength. When a man's a-wooing, Lizzie, he is all feeling, or
he ought to be; when he's accepted, then he begins to think."

"And to repent, I suppose you mean."

"Nay, to devise means to keep his sweetheart from repenting. Let me be
frank. Is it the greatest fools only that are the best lovers? There's
no telling what may happen, Lizzie. I want you to marry me with your
eyes open. I don't want you to feel tied down or taken in. You're very
young, you know. You're responsible to yourself of a year hence. You're
at an age when no girl can count safely from year's end to year's end."

"And you, Sir!" cries Lizzie; "one would think you were a grandfather."

"Well, I'm on the way to it. I'm a pretty old boy. I mean what I say. I
may not be entirely frank, but I think I'm sincere. It seems to me as if
I'd been fibbing all my life before I told you that your affection was
necessary to my happiness. I mean it out and out. I never loved any one
before, and I never will again. If you had refused me half an hour ago,
I should have died a bachelor. I have no fear for myself. But I have for
you. You said a few minutes ago that you wanted me to be your adviser.
Now you know the function of an adviser is to perfect his victim in the
art of walking with his eyes shut. I sha'n't be so cruel."

Lizzie saw fit to view these remarks in a humorous light. "How
disinterested!" quoth she: "how very self-sacrificing! Bachelor indeed!
For my part, I think I shall become a Mormon!"--I verily believe the
poor misinformed creature fancied that in Utah it is the ladies who are
guilty of polygamy.

Before many minutes they drew near home. There stood Mrs. Ford at the
garden-gate, looking up and down the road, with a letter in her hand.

"Something for you, John," said his mother, as they approached. "It
looks as if it came from camp.--Why, Elizabeth, look at your skirts!"

"I know it," says Lizzie, giving the articles in question a shake. "What
is it, Jack?"

"Marching orders!" cried the young man. "The regiment leaves day after
to-morrow. I must leave by the early train in the morning. Hurray!" And
he diverted a sudden gleeful kiss into a filial salute.

They went in. The two women were silent, after the manner of women who
suffer. But Jack did little else than laugh and talk and circumnavigate
the parlor, sitting first here and then there,--close beside Lizzie and
on the opposite side of the room. After a while Miss Crowe joined in his
laughter, but I think her mirth might have been resolved into articulate
heart-beats. After tea she went to bed, to give Jack; opportunity for
his last filial _épanchements_. How generous a man's intervention makes
women! But Lizzie promised to see her lover off in the morning.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. Ford. "You'll not be up. John will want to
breakfast quietly."

"I shall see you off, Jack," repeated the young lady, from the
threshold.

Elizabeth went up stairs buoyant with her young love. It had dawned upon
her like a new life,--a life positively worth the living. Hereby she
would subsist and cost nobody anything. In it she was boundlessly rich.
She would make it the hidden spring of a hundred praiseworthy deeds. She
would begin the career of duty: she would enjoy boundless equanimity:
she would raise her whole being to the level of her sublime passion. She
would practise charity, humility, piety,--in fine, all the virtues:
together with certain _morceaux_ of Beethoven and Chopin. She would walk
the earth like one glorified. She would do homage to the best of men by
inviolate secrecy. Here, by I know not what gentle transition, as she
lay in the quiet darkness, Elizabeth covered her pillow with a flood of
tears.

Meanwhile Ford, down-stairs, began in this fashion. He was lounging at
his manly length on the sofa, in his slippers.

"May I light a pipe, mother?"

"Yes, my love. But please be careful of your ashes. There's a
newspaper."

"Pipes don't make ashes.--Mother, what do you think?" he continued,
between the puffs of his smoking; "I've got a piece of news."

"Ah?" said Mrs. Ford, fumbling for her scissors; "I hope it's good
news."

"I hope you'll think it so. I've been engaging myself"--puff,--puff--"to
Lizzie Crowe." A cloud of puffs between his mother's face and his own.
When they cleared away, Jack felt his mother's eyes. Her work was in her
lap. "To be married, you know," he added.

In Mrs. Ford's view, like the king in that of the British Constitution,
her only son could do no wrong. Prejudice is a stout bulwark against
surprise. Moreover, Mrs. Ford's motherly instinct had not been entirely
at fault. Still, it had by no means kept pace with fact. She had been
silent, partly from doubt, partly out of respect for her son. As long as
John did not doubt of himself, he was right. Should he come to do so,
she was sure he would speak. And now, when he told her the matter was
settled, she persuaded herself that he was asking her advice.

"I've been expecting it," she said, at last.

"You have? why didn't you speak?"

"Well, John, I can't say I've been hoping it."

"Why not?"

"I am not sure of Lizzie's heart," said Mrs. Ford, who, it may be well
to add, was very sure of her own.

Jack began to laugh. "What's the matter with her heart?"

"I think Lizzie's shallow," said Mrs. Ford; and there was that in her
tone which betokened some satisfaction with this adjective.

"Hang it! she is shallow," said Jack. "But when a thing's shallow, you
can see to the bottom. Lizzie doesn't pretend to be deep. I want a wife,
mother, that I can understand. That's the only wife I can love. Lizzie's
the only girl I ever understood, and the first I ever loved. I love her
very much,--more than I can explain to you."

"Yes, I confess it's inexplicable. It seems to me," she added, with a
bad smile, "like infatuation."

Jack did not like the smile; he liked it even less than the remark. He
smoked steadily for a few moments, and then he said,--

"Well, mother, love is notoriously obstinate, you know. We shall not be
able to take the same view of this subject: suppose we drop it."

"Remember that this is your last evening at home, my son," said Mrs.
Ford.

"I do remember. Therefore I wish to avoid disagreement."

There was a pause. The young man smoked, and his mother sewed, in
silence.

"I think my position, as Lizzie's guardian," resumed Mrs. Ford,
"entitles me to an interest in the matter."

"Certainly, I acknowledged your interest by telling you of our
engagement."

Further pause.

"Will you allow me to say," said Mrs. Ford, after a while, "that I think
this a little selfish?"

"Allow you? Certainly, if you particularly desire it. Though I confess
it isn't very pleasant for a man to sit and hear his future wife pitched
into,--by his own mother, too."

"John, I am surprised at your language."

"I beg your pardon," and John spoke more gently. "You mustn't be
surprised at anything from an accepted lover.--I'm sure you misconceive
her. In fact, mother, I don't believe you know her."

Mrs. Ford nodded, with an infinite depth of meaning; and from the
grimness with which she bit off the end of her thread it might have
seemed that she fancied herself to be executing a human vengeance.

"Ah, I know her only too well!"

"And you don't like her?"

Mrs. Ford performed another decapitation of her thread.

"Well, I'm glad Lizzie has one friend in the world," said Jack.

"Her best friend," said Mrs. Ford, "is the one who flatters her least. I
see it all, John. Her pretty face has done the business."

The young man flushed impatiently.

"Mother," said he, "you are very much mistaken. I'm not a boy nor a
fool. You trust me in a great many things; why not trust me in this?"

"My dear son, you are throwing yourself away. You deserve for your
companion in life a higher character than that girl."

I think Mrs. Ford, who had been an excellent mother, would have liked to
give her son a wife fashioned on her own model.

"Oh, come, mother," said he, "that's twaddle. I should be thankful, if I
were half as good as Lizzie."

"It's the truth, John, and your conduct--not only the step you've taken,
but your talk about it--is a great disappointment to me. If I have
cherished any wish of late, it is that my darling boy should get a wife
worthy of him. The household governed by Elizabeth Crowe is not the home
I should desire for any one I love."

"It's one to which you should always be welcome, Ma'am," said Jack.

"It's not a place I should feel at home in," replied his mother.

"I'm sorry," said Jack. And he got up and began to walk about the room.
"Well, well, mother," he said at last, stopping in front of Mrs. Ford,
"we don't understand each other. One of these days we shall. For the
present let us have done with discussion. I'm half sorry I told you."

"I'm glad of such a proof of your confidence. But if you hadn't, of
course Elizabeth would have done so."

"No, Ma'am, I think not."

"Then she is even more reckless of her obligations than I thought her."

"I advised her to say nothing about it."

Mrs. Ford made no answer. She began slowly to fold up her work.

"I think we had better let the matter stand," continued her son. "I'm
not afraid of time. But I wish to make a request of you: you won't
mention this conversation to Lizzie, will you? nor allow her to suppose
that you know of our engagement? I have a particular reason."

Mrs. Ford went on smoothing out her work. Then she suddenly looked up.

"No, my dear, I'll keep your secret. Give me a kiss."


II.

I have no intention of following Lieutenant Ford to the seat of war. The
exploits of his campaign are recorded in the public journals of the
day, where the curious may still peruse them. My own taste has always
been for unwritten history, and my present business is with the reverse
of the picture.

After Jack went off, the two ladies resumed their old homely life. But
the homeliest life had now ceased to be repulsive to Elizabeth. Her
common duties were no longer wearisome: for the first time, she
experienced the delicious companionship of thought. Her chief task was
still to sit by the window knitting soldiers' socks; but even Mrs. Ford
could not help owning that she worked with a much greater diligence,
yawned, rubbed her eyes, gazed up and down the road less, and indeed
produced a much more comely article. Ah, me! if half the lovesome
fancies that flitted through Lizzie's spirit in those busy hours could
have found their way into the texture of the dingy yarn, as it was
slowly wrought into shape, the eventual wearer of the socks would have
been as light-footed as Mercury. I am afraid I should make the reader
sneer, were I to rehearse some of this little fool's diversions. She
passed several hours daily in Jack's old chamber: it was in this
sanctuary, indeed, at the sunny south window, overlooking the long road,
the wood-crowned heights, the gleaming river, that she worked with most
pleasure and profit. Here she was removed from the untiring glance of
the elder lady, from her jarring questions and commonplaces; here she
was alone with her love,--that greatest commonplace in life. Lizzie felt
in Jack's room a certain impress of his personality. The idle fancies of
her mood were bodied forth in a dozen sacred relics. Some of these
articles Elizabeth carefully cherished. It was rather late in the day
for her to assert a literary taste,--her reading having begun and ended
(naturally enough) with the ancient fiction of the "Scottish Chiefs." So
she could hardly help smiling, herself, sometimes, at her interest in
Jack's old college tomes. She carried several of them to her own
apartment, and placed them at the foot of her little bed, on a
book-shelf adorned, besides, with a pot of spring violets, a portrait of
General McClellan, and a likeness of Lieutenant Ford. She had a vague
belief that a loving study of their well-thumbed verses would remedy, in
some degree, her sad intellectual deficiencies. She was sorry she knew
so little: as sorry, that is, as she might be, for we know that she was
shallow. Jack's omniscience was one of his most awful attributes. And
yet she comforted herself with the thought, that, as he had forgiven her
ignorance, she herself might surely forget it. Happy Lizzie, I envy you
this easy path to knowledge! The volume she most frequently consulted
was an old German "Faust," over which she used to fumble with a battered
lexicon. The secret of this preference was in certain marginal notes in
pencil, signed "J.". I hope they were really of Jack's making.

Lizzie was always a small walker. Until she knew Jack, this had been
quite an unsuspected pleasure. She was afraid, too, of the cows, geese,
and sheep,--all the agricultural _spectra_ of the feminine imagination.
But now her terrors were over. Might she not play the soldier, too, in
her own humble way? Often with a beating heart, I fear, but still with
resolute, elastic steps, she revisited Jack's old haunts; she tried to
love Nature as he had seemed to love it; she gazed at his old sunsets;
she fathomed his old pools with bright plummet glances, as if seeking
some lingering trace of his features in their brown depths, stamped
there as on a fond human heart; she sought out his dear name, scratched
on the rocks and trees,--and when night came on, she studied, in her
simple way, the great starlit canopy, under which, perhaps, her warrior
lay sleeping; she wandered through the green glades, singing snatches of
his old ballads in a clear voice, made tuneful with love,--and as she
sang, there mingled with the everlasting murmur of the trees the faint
sound of a muffled bass, borne upon the south wind like a distant
drum-beat, responsive to a bugle. So she led for some months a very
pleasant idyllic life, face to face with a strong, vivid memory, which
gave everything and asked nothing. These were doubtless to be (and she
half knew it) the happiest days of her life. Has life any bliss so great
as this pensive ecstasy? To know that the golden sands are dropping one
by one makes servitude freedom, and poverty riches.

In spite of a certain sense of loss, Lizzie passed a very blissful
summer. She enjoyed the deep repose which, it is to be hoped, sanctifies
all honest betrothals. Possible calamity weighed lightly upon her. We
know that when the columns of battle-smoke leave the field, they journey
through the heavy air to a thousand quiet homes, and play about the
crackling blaze of as many firesides. But Lizzie's vision was never
clouded. Mrs. Ford might gaze into the thickening summer dusk and wipe
her spectacles; but her companion hummed her old ballad-ends with an
unbroken voice. She no more ceased to smile under evil tidings than the
brooklet ceases to ripple beneath the projected shadow of the roadside
willow. The self-given promises of that tearful night of parting were
forgotten. Vigilance had no place in Lizzie's scheme of heavenly
idleness. The idea of moralizing in Elysium!

It must not be supposed that Mrs. Ford was indifferent to Lizzie's mood.
She studied it watchfully, and kept note of all its variations. And
among the things she learned was, that her companion knew of her
scrutiny, and was, on the whole, indifferent to it. Of the full extent
of Mrs. Ford's observation, however, I think Lizzie was hardly aware.
She was like a reveller in a brilliantly lighted room, with a
curtainless window, conscious, and yet heedless, of passers-by. And Mrs.
Ford may not inaptly be compared to the chilly spectator on the dark
side of the pane. Very few words passed on the topic of their common
thoughts. From the first, as we have seen, Lizzie guessed at her
guardian's probable view of her engagement: an abasement incurred by
John. Lizzie lacked what is called a sense of duty; and, unlike the
majority of such temperaments, which contrive to be buoyant on the
glistening bubble of Dignity, she had likewise a modest estimate of her
dues. Alack, my poor heroine had no pride! Mrs. Ford's silent censure
awakened no resentment. It sounded in her ears like a dull, soporific
hum. Lizzie was deeply enamored of what a French book terms her _aises
intellectuelles_. Her mental comfort lay in the ignoring of problems.
She possessed a certain native insight which revealed many of the
horrent inequalities of her pathway; but she found it so cruel and
disenchanting a faculty, that blindness was infinitely preferable. She
preferred repose to order, and mercy to justice. She was speculative,
without being critical. She was continually wondering, but she never
inquired. This world was the riddle; the next alone would be the answer.

So she never felt any desire to have an "understanding" with Mrs. Ford.
Did the old lady misconceive her? it was her own business. Mrs. Ford
apparently felt no desire to set herself right. You see, Lizzie was
ignorant of her friend's promise. There were moments when Mrs. Ford's
tongue itched to speak. There were others, it is true, when she dreaded
any explanation which would compel her to forfeit her displeasure.
Lizzie's happy self-sufficiency was most irritating. She grudged the
young girl the dignity of her secret; her own actual knowledge of it
rather increased her jealousy, by showing her the importance of the
scheme from which she was excluded. Lizzie, being in perfect good-humor
with the world and with herself, abated no jot of her personal deference
to Mrs. Ford. Of Jack, as a good friend and her guardian's son, she
spoke very freely. But Mrs. Ford was mistrustful of this
semi-confidence. She would not, she often said to herself, be wheedled
against her principles. Her principles! Oh for some shining blade of
purpose to hew down such stubborn stakes! Lizzie had no thought of
flattering her companion. She never deceived any one but herself. She
could not bring herself to value Mrs. Ford's good-will. She knew that
Jack often suffered from his mother's obstinacy. So her unbroken
humility shielded no unavowed purpose. She was patient and kindly from
nature, from habit. Yet I think, that, if Mrs. Ford could have measured
her benignity, she would have preferred, on the whole, the most open
defiance. "Of all things," she would sometimes mutter, "to be patronized
by that little piece!" It was very disagreeable, for instance, to have
to listen to _portions_ of her own son's letters.

These letters came week by week, flying out of the South like
white-winged carrier-doves. Many and many a time, for very pride, Lizzie
would have liked a larger audience. Portions of them certainly deserved
publicity. They were far too good for her. Were they not better than
that stupid war-correspondence in the "Times," which she so often tried
in vain to read? They contained long details of movements, plans of
campaigns, military opinions and conjectures, expressed with the
emphasis habitual to young sub-lieutenants. I doubt whether General
Halleck's despatches laid down the law more absolutely than Lieutenant
Ford's. Lizzie answered in her own fashion. It must be owned that hers
was a dull pen. She told her dearest, dearest Jack how much she loved
and honored him, and how much she missed him, and how delightful his
last letter was, (with those beautifully drawn diagrams,) and the
village gossip, and how stout and strong his mother continued to
be,--and again, how she loved, etc., etc., and that she remained his
loving L. Jack read these effusions as became one so beloved. I should
not wonder if he thought them very brilliant.

The summer waned to its close, and through myriad silent stages began to
darken into autumn. Who can tell the story of those red months? I have
to chronicle another silent transition. But as I can find no words
delicate and fine enough to describe the multifold changes of Nature,
so, too, I must be content to give you the spiritual facts in gross.

John Ford became a veteran down by the Potomac. And, to tell the truth,
Lizzie became a veteran at home. That is, her love and hope grew to be
an old story. She gave way, as the strongest must, as the wisest will,
to time. The passion which, in her simple, shallow way, she had confided
to the woods and waters reflected their outward variations; she thought
of her lover less, and with less positive pleasure. The golden sands had
run out. Perfect rest was over. Mrs. Ford's tacit protest began to be
annoying. In a rather resentful spirit, Lizzie forbore to read any more
letters aloud. These were as regular as ever. One of them contained a
rough camp-photograph of Jack's newly bearded visage. Lizzie declared it
was "too ugly for anything," and thrust it out of sight. She found
herself skipping his military dissertations, which were still as long
and written in as handsome a hand as ever. The "too good," which used to
be uttered rather proudly, was now rather a wearisome truth. When Lizzie
in certain critical moods tried to qualify Jack's temperament, she said
to herself that he was too literal. Once he gave her a little scolding
for not writing oftener. "Jack can make no allowances," murmured Lizzie.
"He can understand no feelings but his own. I remember he used to say
that moods were diseases. His mind is too healthy for such things; his
heart is too stout for ache or pain. The night before he went off he
told me that Reason, as he calls it, was the rule of life. I suppose he
thinks it the rule of love, too. But his heart is younger than
mine,--younger and better. He has lived through awful scenes of danger
and bloodshed and cruelty, yet his heart is purer." Lizzie had a
horrible feeling of being _blasée_ of this one affection. "Oh, God bless
him!" she cried. She felt much better for the tears in which this
soliloquy ended. I fear she had begun to doubt her ability to cry about
Jack.


III.

Christmas came. The Army of the Potomac had stacked its muskets and gone
into winter-quarters. Miss Crowe received an invitation to pass the
second fortnight in February at the great manufacturing town of
Leatherborough. Leatherborough is on the railroad, two hours south of
Glenham, at the mouth of the great river Tan, where this noble stream
expands into its broadest smile, or gapes in too huge a fashion to be
disguised by a bridge.

"Mrs. Littlefield kindly invites you for the last of the month," said
Mrs. Ford, reading a letter behind the tea-urn.

It suited Mrs. Ford's purpose--a purpose which I have not space to
elaborate--that her young charge should now go forth into society and
pick up acquaintances.

Two sparks of pleasure gleamed in Elizabeth's eyes. But, as she had
taught herself to do of late with her protectress, she mused before
answering.

"It is my desire that you should go," said Mrs. Ford, taking silence for
dissent.

The sparks went out.

"I intend to go," said Lizzie, rather grimly. "I am much obliged to Mrs.
Littlefield."

Her companion looked up.

"I intend you shall. You will please to write this morning."

For the rest of the week the two stitched together over muslins and
silks, and were very good friends. Lizzie could scarcely help wondering
at Mrs. Ford's zeal on her behalf. Might she not have referred it to her
guardian's principles? Her wardrobe, hitherto fashioned on the Glenham
notion of elegance, was gradually raised to the Leatherborough standard
of fitness. As she took up her bedroom candle the night before she left
home, she said,--

"I thank you very much, Mrs. Ford, for having worked so hard for
me,--for having taken so much interest in my outfit. If they ask me at
Leatherborough who made my things, I shall certainly say it was you."

Mrs. Littlefield treated her young friend with great kindness. She was a
good-natured, childless matron. She found Lizzie very ignorant and very
pretty. She was glad to have so great a beauty and so many lions to
show.

One evening Lizzie went to her room with one of the maids, carrying half
a dozen candles between them. Heaven forbid that I should cross that
virgin threshold--for the present! But we will wait. We will allow them
two hours. At the end of that time, having gently knocked, we will enter
the sanctuary. Glory of glories! The faithful attendant has done her
work. Our lady is robed, crowned, ready for worshippers.

I trust I shall not be held to a minute description of our dear Lizzie's
person and costume. Who is so great a recluse as never to have beheld
young ladyhood in full dress? Many of us have sisters and daughters. Not
a few of us, I hope, have female connections of another degree, yet no
less dear. Others have looking-glasses. I give you my word for it that
Elizabeth made as pretty a show as it is possible to see. She was of
course well-dressed. Her skirt was of voluminous white, puffed and
trimmed in wondrous sort. Her hair was profusely ornamented with curls
and braids of its own rich substance. From her waist depended a ribbon,
broad and blue. White with coral ornaments, as she wrote to Jack in the
course of the week. Coral ornaments, forsooth! And pray, Miss, what of
the other jewels with which your person was decorated,--the rubies,
pearls, and sapphires? One by one Lizzie assumes her modest gimcracks:
her bracelet, her gloves, her handkerchief, her fan, and then--her
smile. Ah, that strange crowning smile!

An hour later, in Mrs. Littlefield's pretty drawing-room, amid music,
lights, and talk, Miss Crowe was sweeping a grand curtsy before a tall,
sallow man, whose name she caught from her hostess's redundant murmur as
Bruce. Five minutes later, when the honest matron gave a glance at her
newly started enterprise from the other side of the room, she said to
herself that really, for a plain country-girl, Miss Crowe did this kind
of thing very well. Her next glimpse of the couple showed them whirling
round the room to the crashing thrum of the piano. At eleven o'clock she
beheld them linked by their finger-tips in the dazzling mazes of the
reel. At half-past eleven she discerned them charging shoulder to
shoulder in the serried columns of the Lancers. At midnight she tapped
her young friend gently with her fan.

"Your sash is unpinned, my dear.--I think you have danced often enough
with Mr. Bruce. If he asks you again, you had better refuse. It's not
quite the thing.--Yes, my dear, I know.--Mr. Simpson, will you be so
good as to take Miss Crowe down to supper?"

I'm afraid young Simpson had rather a snappish partner.

After the proper interval, Mr. Bruce called to pay his respects to Mrs.
Littlefield. He found Miss Crowe also in the drawing-room. Lizzie and he
met like old friends. Mrs. Littlefield was a willing listener; but it
seemed to her that she had come in at the second act of the play. Bruce
went off with Miss Crowe's promise to drive with him in the afternoon.
In the afternoon he swept up to the door in a prancing, tinkling sleigh.
After some minutes of hoarse jesting and silvery laughter in the keen
wintry air, he swept away again with Lizzie curled up in the
buffalo-robe beside him, like a kitten in a rug. It was dark when they
returned. When Lizzie came in to the sitting-room fire, she was
congratulated by her hostess upon having made a "conquest."

"I think he's a most gentlemanly man," says Lizzie.

"So he is, my dear," said Mrs. Littlefield; "Mr. Bruce is a perfect
gentleman. He's one of the finest young men I know. He's not so young
either. He's a little too yellow for my taste; but he's beautifully
educated. I wish you could hear his French accent. He has been abroad I
don't know how many years. The firm of Bruce and Robertson does an
immense business."

"And I'm so glad," cries Lizzie, "he's coming to Glenham in March! He's
going to take his sister to the water-cure."

"Really?--poor thing! She has very good manners."

"What do you think of his looks?" asked Lizzie, smoothing her feather.

"I was speaking of Jane Bruce. I think Mr. Bruce has fine eyes."

"I must say I like tall men," says Miss Crowe.

"Then Robert Bruce is your man," laughs Mr. Littlefield. "He's as tall
as a bell-tower. And he's got a bell-clapper in his head, too."

"I believe I will go and take off my things," remarks Miss Crowe,
flinging up her curls.

Of course it behooved Mr. Bruce to call the next day and see how Miss
Crowe had stood her drive. He set a veto upon her intended departure,
and presented an invitation from his sister for the following week. At
Mrs. Littlefield's instance, Lizzie accepted the invitation, despatched
a laconic note to Mrs. Ford, and stayed over for Miss Bruce's party. It
was a grand affair. Miss Bruce was a very great lady: she treated Miss
Crowe with every attention. Lizzie was thought by some persons to look
prettier than ever. The vaporous gauze, the sunny hair, the coral, the
sapphires, the smile, were displayed with renewed success. The master of
the house was unable to dance; he was summoned to sterner duties. Nor
could Miss Crowe be induced to perform, having hurt her foot on the ice.
This was of course a disappointment; let us hope that her entertainers
made it up to her.

On the second day after the party, Lizzie returned to Glenham. Good Mr.
Littlefield took her to the station, stealing a moment from his precious
business-hours.

"There are your checks," said he; "be sure you don't lose them. Put them
in your glove."

Lizzie gave a little scream of merriment.

"Mr. Littlefield, how can you? I've a reticule, Sir. But I really don't
want you to stay."

"Well, I confess," said her companion.--"Hullo! there's your Scottish
chief! I'll get him to stay with you till the train leaves. He may be
going. Bruce!"

"Oh, Mr. Littlefield, don't!" cries Lizzie. "Perhaps Mr. Bruce is
engaged."

Bruce's tall figure came striding towards them. He was astounded to find
that Miss Crowe was going by this train. Delightful! He had come to meet
a friend who had not arrived.

"Littlefield," said he, "you can't be spared from your business. I will
see Miss Crowe off."

When the elder gentleman had departed, Mr. Bruce conducted his companion
into the car, and found her a comfortable seat, equidistant from the
torrid stove and the frigid door. Then he stowed away her shawls,
umbrella, and reticule. She would keep her muff? She did well. What a
pretty fur!

"It's just like your collar," said Lizzie. "I wish I had a muff for my
feet," she pursued, tapping on the floor.

"Why not use some of those shawls?" said Bruce; "let's see what we can
make of them."

And he stooped down and arranged them as a rug, very neatly and kindly.
And then he called himself a fool for not having used the next seat,
which was empty; and the wrapping was done over again.

"I'm so afraid you'll be carried off!" said Lizzie. "What would you do?"

"I think I should make the best of it. And you?"

"I would tell you to sit down _there_"; and she indicated the seat
facing her. He took it. "Now you'll be sure to," said Elizabeth.

"I'm afraid I shall, unless I put the newspaper between us." And he took
it out of his pocket. "Have you seen the news?"

"No," says Lizzie, elongating her bonnet-ribbons. "What is it? Just look
at that party."

"There's not much news. There's been a scrimmage on the Rappahannock.
Two of our regiments engaged,--the Fifteenth and the Twenty-Eighth.
Didn't you tell me you had a cousin or something in the Fifteenth?"

"Not a cousin, no relation, but an intimate friend,--my guardian's son.
What does the paper say, please?" inquires Lizzie, very pale.

Bruce cast his eye over the report. "It doesn't seem to have amounted to
much; we drove back the enemy, and recrossed the river at our ease. Our
loss only fifty. There are no names," he added, catching a glimpse of
Lizzie's pallor,--"none in this paper at least."

In a few moments appeared a newsboy crying the New York journals.

"Do you think the New York papers would have any names?" asked Lizzie.

"We can try," said Bruce. And he bought a "Herald," and unfolded it.
"Yes, there _is_ a list," he continued, some time after he had opened
out the sheet. "What's your friend's name?" he asked, from behind the
paper.

"Ford,--John Ford, second lieutenant," said Lizzie.

There was a long pause.

At last Bruce lowered the sheet, and showed a face in which Lizzie's
pallor seemed faintly reflected.

"There _is_ such a name among the wounded," he said; and, folding the
paper down, he held it out, and gently crossed to the seat beside her.

Lizzie took the paper, and held it close to her eyes. But Bruce could
not help seeing that her temples had turned from white to crimson.

"Do you see it?" he asked; "I sincerely hope it's nothing very bad."

"_Severely_," whispered Lizzie.

"Yes, but that proves nothing. Those things are most unreliable. _Do_
hope for the best."

Lizzie made no answer. Meanwhile passengers had been brushing in, and
the car was full. The engine began to puff, and the conductor to shout.
The train gave a jog.

"You'd better go, Sir, or you'll be carried off," said Lizzie, holding
out her hand, with her face still hidden.

"May I go on to the next station with you?" said Bruce.

Lizzie gave him a rapid look, with a deepened flush. He had fancied that
she was shedding tears. But those eyes were dry; they held fire rather
than water.

"No, no, Sir; you must not. I insist. Good bye."

Bruce's offer had cost him a blush, too. He had been prepared to back it
with the assurance that he had business ahead, and, indeed, to make a
little business in order to satisfy his conscience. But Lizzie's answer
was final.

"Very well," said he, "_good_ bye. You have my real sympathy, Miss
Crowe. Don't despair. We shall meet again."

The train rattled away. Lizzie caught a glimpse of a tall figure with
lifted hat on the platform. But she sat motionless, with her head
against the window-frame, her veil down, and her hands idle.

She had enough to do to think, or rather to feel. It is fortunate that
the utmost shock of evil tidings often comes first. After that
everything is for the better. Jack's name stood printed in that fatal
column like a stern signal for despair. Lizzie felt conscious of a
crisis which almost arrested her breath. Night had fallen at midday:
what was the hour? A tragedy had stepped into her life: was she
spectator or actor? She found herself face to face with death: was it
not her own soul masquerading in a shroud? She sat in a half-stupor. She
had been aroused from a dream into a waking nightmare. It was like
hearing a murder-shriek while you turn the page of your novel. But I
cannot describe these things. In time the crushing sense of calamity
loosened its grasp. Feeling lashed her pinions. Thought struggled to
rise. Passion was still, stunned, floored. She had recoiled like a
receding wave for a stronger onset. A hundred ghastly fears and fancies
strutted a moment, pecking at the young girl's naked heart, like
sandpipers on the weltering beach. Then, as with a great murmurous rush,
came the meaning of her grief. The flood-gates of emotion were opened.

At last passion exhausted itself, and Lizzie thought. Bruce's parting
words rang in her ears. She did her best to hope. She reflected that
wounds, even severe wounds, did not necessarily mean death. Death might
easily be warded off. She would go to Jack; she would nurse him; she
would watch by him; she would cure him. Even if Death had already
beckoned, she would strike down his hand: if Life had already obeyed,
she would issue the stronger mandate of Love. She would stanch his
wounds; she would unseal his eyes with her kisses; she would call till
he answered her.

Lizzie reached home and walked up the garden path. Mrs. Ford stood in
the parlor as she entered, upright, pale, and rigid. Each read the
other's countenance. Lizzie went towards her slowly and giddily. She
must of course kiss her patroness. She took her listless hand and bent
towards her stern lips. Habitually Mrs. Ford was the most
undemonstrative of women. But as Lizzie looked closer into her face, she
read the signs of a grief infinitely more potent than her own. The
formal kiss gave way: the young girl leaned her head on the old woman's
shoulder and burst into sobs. Mrs. Ford acknowledged those tears with a
slow inclination of the head, full of a certain grim pathos: she put out
her arms and pressed them closer to her heart.

At last Lizzie disengaged herself and sat down.

"I am going to him," said Mrs. Ford.

Lizzie's dizziness returned. Mrs. Ford was going,--and she, she?

"I am going to nurse him, and with God's help to save him."

"How did you hear?"

"I have a telegram from the surgeon of the regiment"; and Mrs. Ford held
out a paper.

Lizzie took it and read: "Lieutenant Ford dangerously wounded in the
action of yesterday. You had better come on."

"I should like to go myself," said Lizzie: "I think Jack would like to
have me."

"Nonsense! A pretty place for a young girl! I am not going for
sentiment; I am going for use."

Lizzie leaned her head back in her chair, and closed her eyes. From the
moment they had fallen upon Mrs. Ford, she had felt a certain
quiescence. And now it was a relief to have responsibility denied her.
Like most weak persons, she was glad to step out of the current of life,
now that it had begun to quicken into action. In emergencies, such
persons are tacitly counted out; and they as tacitly consent to the
arrangement. Even to the sensitive spirit there is a certain meditative
rapture in standing on the quiet shore, (beside the ruminating cattle,)
and watching the hurrying, eddying flood, which makes up for the loss of
dignity. Lizzie's heart resumed its peaceful throbs. She sat, almost
dreamily, with her eyes shut.

"I leave in an hour," said Mrs. Ford. "I am going to get ready.--Do you
hear?"

The young girl's silence was a deeper consent than her companion
supposed.


IV.

It was a week before Lizzie heard from Mrs. Ford. The letter, when it
came, was very brief. Jack still lived. The wounds were three in number,
and very serious; he was unconscious; he had not recognized her; but
still the chances either way were thought equal. They would be much
greater for his recovery nearer home; but it was impossible to move him.
"I write from the midst of horrible scenes," said the poor lady.
Subjoined was a list of necessary medicines, comforts, and delicacies,
to be boxed up and sent.

For a while Lizzie found occupation in writing a letter to Jack, to be
read in his first lucid moment, as she told Mrs. Ford. This lady's
man-of-business came up from the village to superintend the packing of
the boxes. Her directions were strictly followed; and in no point were
they found wanting. Mr. Mackenzie bespoke Lizzie's admiration for their
friend's wonderful clearness of memory and judgment. "I wish we had that
woman at the head of affairs," said he. "'Gad, I'd apply for a
Brigadier-Generalship."--"I'd apply to be sent South," thought Lizzie.
When the boxes and letter were despatched, she sat down to await more
news. Sat down, say I? Sat down, and rose, and wondered, and sat down
again. These were lonely, weary days. Very different are the idleness of
love and the idleness of grief. Very different is it to be alone with
your hope and alone with your despair. Lizzie failed to rally her
musings. I do not mean to say that her sorrow was very poignant,
although she fancied it was. Habit was a great force in her simple
nature; and her chief trouble now was that habit refused to work. Lizzie
had to grapple with the stern tribulation of a decision to make, a
problem to solve. She felt that there was some spiritual barrier between
herself and repose. So she began in her usual fashion to build up a
false repose on the hither side of belief. She might as well have tried
to float on the Dead Sea. Peace eluding her, she tried to resign herself
to tumult. She drank deep at the well of self-pity, but found its waters
brackish. People are apt to think that they may temper the penalties of
misconduct by self-commiseration, just as they season the long
aftertaste of beneficence by a little spice of self-applause. But the
Power of Good is a more grateful master than the Devil. What bliss to
gaze into the smooth gurgling wake of a good deed, while the comely bark
sails on with floating pennon! What horror to look into the muddy
sediment which floats round the piratic keel! Go, sinner, and dissolve
it with your tears! And you, scoffing friend, there is the way out! Or
would you prefer the window? I'm an honest man forevermore.

One night Lizzie had a dream, a rather disagreeable one,--which haunted
her during many waking hours. It seemed to her that she was walking in a
lonely place, with a tall, dark-eyed man who called her wife. Suddenly,
in the shadow of a tree, they came upon an unburied corpse. Lizzie
proposed to dig him a grave. They dug a great hole and took hold of the
corpse to lift him in; when suddenly he opened his eyes. Then they saw
that he was covered with wounds. He looked at them intently for some
time, turning his eyes from one to the other. At last he solemnly said,
"Amen!" and closed his eyes. Then she and her companion placed him in
the grave, and shovelled the earth over him, and stamped it down with
their feet.

He of the dark eyes and he of the wounds were the two constantly
recurring figures of Lizzie's reveries. She could never think of John
without thinking of the courteous Leatherborough gentleman, too. These
were the _data_ of her problem. These two figures stood like opposing
knights, (the black and the white,) foremost on the great chess-board of
fate. Lizzie was the wearied, puzzled player. She would idly finger the
other pieces, and shift them carelessly hither and thither; but it was
of no avail: the game lay between the two knights. She would shut her
eyes and long for some kind hand to come and tamper with the board; she
would open them and see the two knights standing immovable, face to
face. It was nothing new. A fancy had come in and offered defiance to a
fact; they must fight it out. Lizzie generously inclined to the fancy,
the unknown champion, with a reputation to make. Call her _blasée_ if you
like, this little girl, whose record told of a couple of dances and a
single lover, heartless, old before her time. Perhaps she deserves your
scorn. I confess she thought herself ill-used. By whom? by what?
wherein? These were questions Miss Crowe was not prepared to answer. Her
intellect was unequal to the stern logic of human events. She expected
two and two to make five: as why should they not for the nonce? She was
like an actor who finds himself on the stage with a half-learned part
and without sufficient wit to extemporize. Pray, where is the prompter?
Alas, Elizabeth, that you had no mother! Young girls are prone to fancy
that when once they have a lover, they have everything they need: a
conclusion inconsistent with the belief entertained by many persons,
that life begins with love. Lizzie's fortunes became old stories to her
before she had half read them through. Jack's wounds and danger were an
old story. Do not suppose that she had exhausted the lessons,
the suggestions of these awful events, their inspirations,
exhortations,--that she had wept as became the horror of the tragedy.
No: the curtain had not yet fallen, yet our young lady had begun to
yawn. To yawn? Ay, and to long for the afterpiece. Since the tragedy
dragged, might she not divert herself with that well-bred man beside
her?

Elizabeth was far from owning to herself that she had fallen away from
her love. For my own part, I need no better proof of the fact than the
dull persistency with which she denied it. What accusing voice broke out
of the stillness? Jack's nobleness and magnanimity were the hourly theme
of her clogged fancy. Again and again she declared to herself that she
was unworthy of them, but that, if he would only recover and come home,
she would be his eternal bond-slave. So she passed a very miserable
month. Let us hope that her childish spirit was being tempered to some
useful purpose. Let us hope so.

She roamed about the empty house with her footsteps tracked by an unlaid
ghost. She cried aloud and said that she was very unhappy; she groaned
and called herself wicked. Then, sometimes, appalled at her moral
perplexities, she declared that she was neither wicked nor unhappy; she
was contented, patient, and wise. Other girls had lost their lovers: it
was the present way of life. Was she weaker than most women? Nay, but
Jack was the best of men. If he would only come back directly, without
delay, as he was, senseless, dying even, that she might look at him,
touch him, speak to him! Then she would say that she could no longer
answer for herself, and wonder (or pretend to wonder) whether she were
not going mad. Suppose Mrs. Ford should come back and find her in an
unswept room, pallid and insane? or suppose she should die of her
troubles? What if she should kill herself?--dismiss the servants, and
close the house, and lock herself up with a knife? Then she would cut
her arm to escape from dismay at what she had already done; and then her
courage would ebb away with her blood, and, having so far pledged
herself to despair, her life would ebb away with her courage; and then,
alone, in darkness, with none to help her, she would vainly scream, and
thrust the knife into her temple, and swoon to death. And Jack would
come back, and burst into the house, and wander through the empty rooms,
calling her name, and for all answer get a death-scent! These imaginings
were the more creditable or discreditable to Lizzie, that she had never
read "Romeo and Juliet." At any rate, they served to dissipate
time,--heavy, weary time,--the more heavy and weary as it bore dark
foreshadowings of some momentous event. If that event would only come,
whatever it was, and sever this Gordian knot of doubt!

The days passed slowly: the leaden sands dropped one by one. The roads
were too bad for walking; so Lizzie was obliged to confine her
restlessness to the narrow bounds of the empty house, or to an
occasional journey to the village, where people sickened her by their
dull indifference to her spiritual agony. Still they could not fail to
remark how poorly Miss Crowe was looking. This was true, and Lizzie knew
it. I think she even took a certain comfort in her pallor and in her
failing interest in her dress. There was some satisfaction in displaying
her white roses amid the apple-cheeked prosperity of Main Street. At
last Miss Cooper, the Doctor's sister, spoke to her:--

"How is it, Elizabeth, you look so pale, and thin, and worn out? What
you been doing with yourself? Falling in love, eh? It isn't right to be
so much alone. Come down and stay with us awhile,--till Mrs. Ford and
John come back," added Miss Cooper, who wished to put a cheerful face on
the matter.

For Miss Cooper, indeed, any other face would have been difficult.
Lizzie agreed to come. Her hostess was a busy, unbeautiful old maid,
sister and housekeeper of the village physician. Her occupation here
below was to perform the forgotten tasks of her fellow-men,--to pick up
their dropped stitches, as she herself declared. She was never idle, for
her general cleverness was commensurate with mortal needs. Her own story
was, that she kept moving, so that folks couldn't see how ugly she was.
And, in fact, her existence was manifest through her long train of good
deeds,--just as the presence of a comet is shown by its tail. It was
doubtless on the above principle that her visage was agitated by a
perpetual laugh.

Meanwhile more news had been coming from Virginia. "What an absurdly
long letter you sent John," wrote Mrs. Ford, in acknowledging the
receipt of the boxes. "His first lucid moment would be very short, if he
were to take upon himself to read your effusions. Pray keep your long
stories till he gets well." For a fortnight the young soldier remained
the same,--feverish, conscious only at intervals. Then came a change for
the worse, which, for many weary days, however, resulted in nothing
decisive. "If he could only be moved to Glenham, home, and old sights,"
said his mother, "I should have hope. But think of the journey!" By this
time Lizzie had stayed out ten days of her visit.

One day Miss Cooper came in from a walk, radiant with tidings. Her face,
as I have observed, wore a continual smile, being dimpled and punctured
all over with merriment,--so that, when an unusual cheerfulness was
super-diffused, it resembled a tempestuous little pool into which a
great stone has been cast.

"Guess who's come," said she, going up to the piano, which Lizzie was
carelessly fingering, and putting her hands on the young girl's
shoulders. "Just guess!"

Lizzie looked up.

"Jack," she half gasped.

"Oh, dear, no, not that! How stupid of me! I mean Mr. Bruce, your
Leatherborough admirer."

"Mr. Bruce! Mr. Bruce!" said Lizzie. "Really?"

"True as I live. He's come to bring his sister to the Water-Cure. I met
them at the post-office."

Lizzie felt a strange sensation of good news. Her finger-tips were on
fire. She was deaf to her companion's rattling chronicle. She broke into
the midst of it with a fragment of some triumphant, jubilant melody. The
keys rang beneath her flashing hands. And then she suddenly stopped, and
Miss Cooper, who was taking off her bonnet at the mirror, saw that her
face was covered with a burning flush.

That evening, Mr. Bruce presented himself at Doctor Cooper's, with whom
he had a slight acquaintance. To Lizzie he was infinitely courteous and
tender. He assured her, in very pretty terms, of his profound sympathy
with her in her cousin's danger,--her cousin he still called him,--and
it seemed to Lizzie that until that moment no one had begun to be kind.
And then he began to rebuke her, playfully and in excellent taste, for
her pale cheeks.

"Isn't it dreadful?" said Miss Cooper. "She looks like a ghost. I guess
she's in love."

"He must be a good-for-nothing lover to make his mistress look so sad.
If I were you, I'd give him up, Miss Crowe."

"I didn't know I looked sad," said Lizzie.

"You don't now," said Miss Cooper. "You're smiling and blushing. A'n't
she blushing, Mr. Bruce?"

"I think Miss Crowe has no more than her natural color," said Bruce,
dropping his eye-glass. "What have you been doing all this while since
we parted?"

"All this while? it's only six weeks. I don't know. Nothing. What have
you?"

"I've been doing nothing, too. It's hard work."

"Have you been to any more parties?"

"Not one."

"Any more sleigh-rides?"

"Yes. I took one more dreary drive all alone,--over that same road, you
know. And I stopped at the farm-house again, and saw the old woman we
had the talk with. She remembered us, and asked me what had become of
the young lady who was with me before. I told her you were gone home,
but that I hoped soon to go and see you. So she sent you her love"----

"Oh, how nice!" exclaimed Lizzie.

"Wasn't it? And then she made a certain little speech; I won't repeat
it, or we shall have Miss Cooper talking about your blushes again."

"I know," cried the lady in question: "she said she was very"----

"Very what?" said Lizzie.

"Very h-a-n-d----what every one says."

"Very handy?" asked Lizzie. "I'm sure no one ever said that."

"Of course," said Bruce; "and I answered what every one answers."

"Have you seen Mrs. Littlefield lately?"

"Several times. I called on her the day before I left town, to see if
she had any messages for you."

"Oh, thank you! I hope she's well."

"Oh, she's as jolly as ever. She sent you her love, and hoped you would
come back to Leatherborough very soon again. I told her, that, however
it might be with the first message, the second should be a joint one
from both of us."

"You're very kind. I should like very much to go again.--Do you like
Mrs. Littlefield?"

"Like her? Yes. Don't you? She's thought a very pleasing woman."

"Oh, she's very nice.--I don't think she has much conversation."

"Ah, I'm afraid you mean she doesn't backbite. We've always found plenty
to talk about."

"That's a very significant tone. What, for instance?"

"Well, we _have_ talked about Miss Crowe."

"Oh, you have? Do you call that having plenty to talk about?"

"We _have_ talked about Mr. Bruce,--haven't we, Elizabeth?" said Miss
Cooper, who had her own notion of being agreeable.

It was not an altogether bad notion, perhaps; but Bruce found her
interruptions rather annoying, and insensibly allowed them to shorten
his visit. Yet, as it was, he sat till eleven o'clock,--a stay quite
unprecedented at Glenham.

When he left the house, he went splashing down the road with a very
elastic tread, springing over the starlit puddles, and trolling out some
sentimental ditty. He reached the inn, and went up to his sister's
sitting-room.

"Why, Robert, where have you been all this while?" said Miss Bruce.

"At Dr. Cooper's."

"Dr. Cooper's? I should think you had! Who's Dr. Cooper?"

"Where Miss Crowe's staying."

"Miss Crowe? Ah, Mrs. Littlefield's friend! Is she as pretty as ever?"

"Prettier,--prettier,--prettier. _Tara-ta! tara-ta!_"

"Oh, Robert, do stop that singing! You'll rouse the whole house."


V.

Late one afternoon, at dusk, about three weeks after Mr. Bruce's
arrival, Lizzie was sitting alone by the fire, in Miss Cooper's parlor,
musing, as became the place and hour. The Doctor and his sister came in,
dressed for a lecture.

"I'm sorry you won't go, my dear," said Miss Cooper. "It's a most
interesting subject: 'A Year of the War.' All the battles and things
described, you know."

"I'm tired of war," said Lizzie.

"Well, well, if you're tired of the war, we'll leave you in peace. Kiss
me good-bye. What's the matter? You look sick. You are homesick, a'n't
you?"

"No, no,--I'm very well."

"Would you like me to stay at home with you?"

"Oh, no! pray, don't!"

"Well, we'll tell you all about it. Will they have programmes, James?
I'll bring her a programme.--But you really feel as if you were going to
be ill. Feel of her skin, James."

"No, you needn't, Sir," said Lizzie. "How queer of you, Miss Cooper! I'm
perfectly well."

And at last her friends departed. Before long the servant came with the
lamp, ushering Mr. Mackenzie.

"Good evening, Miss," said he. "Bad news from Mrs. Ford."

"Bad news?"

"Yes, Miss. I've just got a letter stating that Mr. John is growing
worse and worse, and that they look for his death from hour to
hour.--It's very sad," he added, as Elizabeth was silent.

"Yes, it's very sad," said Lizzie.

"I thought you'd like to hear it."

"Thank you."

"He was a very noble young fellow," pursued Mr. Mackenzie.

Lizzie made no response.

"There's the letter," said Mr. Mackenzie, handing it over to her.

Lizzie opened it.

"How long she is reading it!" thought her visitor. "You can't see so far
from the light, can you, Miss?"

"Yes," said Lizzie.--"His poor mother! Poor woman!"

"Ay, indeed, Miss,--she's the one to be pitied."

"Yes, she's the one to be pitied," said Lizzie. "Well!" and she gave him
back the letter.

"I thought you'd like to see it," said Mackenzie, drawing on his gloves;
and then, after a pause,--"I'll call again, Miss, if I hear anything
more. Good night!"

Lizzie got up and lowered the light, and then went back to her sofa by
the fire.

Half an hour passed; it went slowly; but it passed. Still lying there in
the dark room on the sofa, Lizzie heard a ring at the door-bell, a man's
voice and a man's tread in the hall. She rose and went to the lamp. As
she turned it up, the parlor-door opened. Bruce came in.

"I was sitting in the dark," said Lizzie; "but when I heard you coming,
I raised the light."

"Are you afraid of me?" said Bruce.

"Oh, no! I'll put it down again. Sit down."

"I saw your friends going out," pursued Bruce; "so I knew I should find
you alone.--What are you doing here in the dark?"

"I've just received very bad news from Mrs. Ford about her son. He's
much worse, and will probably not live."

"Is it possible?"

"I was thinking about that."

"Dear me! Well that's a sad subject. I'm told he was a very fine young
man."

"He was,--very," said Lizzie.

Bruce was silent awhile. He was a stranger to the young officer, and
felt that he had nothing to offer beyond the commonplace expressions of
sympathy and surprise. Nor had he exactly the measure of his companion's
interest in him.

"If he dies," said Lizzie, "it will be under great injustice."

"Ah! what do you mean?"

"There wasn't a braver man in the army."

"I suppose not."

"And, oh, Mr. Bruce," continued Lizzie, "he was so clever and good and
generous! I wish you had known him."

"I wish I had. But what do you mean by injustice? Were these qualities
denied him?"

"No indeed! Every one that looked at him could see that he was perfect."

"Where's the injustice, then? It ought to be enough for him that you
should think so highly of him."

"Oh, he knew that," said Lizzie.

Bruce was a little puzzled by his companion's manner. He watched her, as
she sat with her cheek on her hand, looking at the fire. There was a
long pause. Either they were too friendly or too thoughtful for the
silence to be embarrassing. Bruce broke it at last.

"Miss Crowe," said he, "on a certain occasion, some time ago, when you
first heard of Mr. Ford's wounds, I offered you my company, with the
wish to console you as far as I might for what seemed a considerable
shock. It was, perhaps, a bold offer for so new a friend; but,
nevertheless, in it even then my heart spoke. You turned me off. Will
you let me repeat it? Now, with a better right, will you let me speak
out all my heart?"

Lizzie heard this speech, which was delivered in a slow and hesitating
tone, without looking up or moving her head, except, perhaps, at the
words "turned me off." After Bruce had ceased, she still kept her
position.

"You'll not turn me off now?" added her companion.

She dropped her hand, raised her head, and looked at him a moment: he
thought he saw the glow of tears in her eyes. Then she sank back upon
the sofa with her face in the shadow of the mantel-piece.

"I don't understand you, Mr. Bruce," said she.

"Ah, Elizabeth! am I such a poor speaker. How shall I make it plain?
When I saw your friends leave home half an hour ago, and reflected that
you would probably be alone, I determined to go right in and have a talk
with you that I've long been wanting to have. But first I walked half a
mile up the road, thinking hard,--thinking how I should say what I had
to say. I made up my mind to nothing, but that somehow or other I should
say it I would trust,--I _do_ trust to your frankness, kindness, and
sympathy, to a feeling corresponding to my own. Do you understand that
feeling? Do you know that I love you? I do, I do, I do! You _must_ know
it. If you don't, I solemnly swear it. I solemnly ask you, Elizabeth, to
take me for your husband."

While Bruce said these words, he rose, with their rising passion, and
came and stood before Lizzie. Again she was motionless.

"Does it take you so long to think?" said he, trying to read her
indistinct features; and he sat down on the sofa beside her and took her
hand.

At last Lizzie spoke.

"Are you sure," said she, "that you love me?"

"As sure as that I breathe. Now, Elizabeth, make me as sure that I am
loved in return."

"It seems very strange, Mr. Bruce," said Lizzie.

"What seems strange? Why should it? For a month I've been trying, in a
hundred dumb ways, to make it plain; and now, when I swear it, it only
seems strange!"

"What do you love me for?"

"For? For yourself, Elizabeth."

"Myself? I am nothing."

"I love you for what you are,--for your deep, kind heart,--for being so
perfectly a woman."

Lizzie drew away her hand, and her lover rose and stood before her
again. But now she looked up into his face, questioning when she should
have answered, drinking strength from his entreaties for her replies.
There he stood before her, in the glow of the firelight, in all his
gentlemanhood, for her to accept or reject. She slowly rose and gave him
the hand she had withdrawn.

"Mr. Bruce, I shall be very proud to love you," she said.

And then, as if this effort was beyond her strength, she half staggered
back to the sofa again. And still holding her hand, he sat down beside
her. And there they were still sitting when they heard the Doctor and
his sister come in.

For three days Elizabeth saw nothing of Mr. Mackenzie. At last, on the
fourth day, passing his office in the village, she went in and asked for
him. He came out of his little back parlor with his mouth full and a
beaming face.

"Good-day, Miss Crowe, and good news!"

"_Good_ news?" cried Lizzie.

"Capital!" said he, looking hard at her, while he put on his spectacles.
"She writes that Mr. John--won't you take a seat?--has taken a sudden
and unexpected turn for the better. Now's the moment to save him; it's
an equal risk. They were to start for the North the second day after
date. The surgeon comes with them. So they'll be home--of course they'll
travel slowly--in four or five days. Yes, Miss, it's a remarkable
Providence. And that noble young man will be spared to the country, and
to those who love him, as I do."

"I had better go back to the house and have it got ready," said Lizzie,
for an answer.

"Yes, Miss, I think you had. In fact, Mrs. Ford made that request."

The request was obeyed. That same day Lizzie went home. For two days she
found it her interest to overlook, assiduously, a general sweeping,
scrubbing, and provisioning. She allowed herself no idle moment until
bed-time. Then--But I would rather not be the chamberlain of her agony.
It was the easier to work, as Mr. Bruce had gone to Leatherborough on
business.

On the fourth evening, at twilight, John Ford was borne up to the door
on his stretcher, with his mother stalking beside him in rigid grief,
and kind, silent friends pressing about with helping hands.

    "Home they brought her warrior dead,
    She nor swooned nor uttered cry."

It was, indeed, almost a question, whether Jack was not dead. Death is
not thinner, paler, stiller. Lizzie moved about like one in a dream. Of
course, when there are so many sympathetic friends, a man's family has
nothing to do,--except exercise a little self-control. The women huddled
Mrs. Ford to bed; rest was imperative; she was killing herself. And it
was significant of her weakness that she did not resent this advice. In
greeting her, Lizzie felt as if she were embracing the stone image on
the top of a sepulchre. She, too, had her cares anticipated. Good Doctor
Cooper and his sister stationed themselves at the young man's couch.

The Doctor prophesied wondrous things of the change of climate; he was
certain of a recovery. Lizzie found herself very shortly dealt with as
an obstacle to this consummation. Access to John was prohibited.
"Perfect stillness, you know, my dear," whispered Miss Cooper, opening
his chamber-door on a crack, in a pair of very creaking shoes. So for
the first evening that her old friend was at home Lizzie caught but a
glimpse of his pale, senseless face, as she hovered outside the long
train of his attendants. If we may suppose any of these kind people to
have had eyes for aught but the sufferer, we may be sure that they saw
another visage equally sad and white. The sufferer? It was hardly Jack,
after all.

When Lizzie was turned from Jack's door, she took a covering from a heap
of draperies that had been hurriedly tossed down in the hall: it was an
old army-blanket. She wrapped it round her, and went out on the
verandah. It was nine o'clock; but the darkness was filled with light. A
great wanton wind--the ghost of the raw blast which travels by day--had
arisen, bearing long, soft gusts of inland spring. Scattered clouds were
hurrying across the white sky. The bright moon, careering in their
midst, seemed to have wandered forth in frantic quest of the hidden
stars.

Lizzie nestled her head in the blanket, and sat down on the steps. A
strange earthy smell lingered in that faded old rug, and with it a faint
perfume of tobacco. Instantly the young girl's senses were transported
as they had never been before to those far-off Southern battle-fields.
She saw men lying in swamps, puffing their kindly pipes, drawing their
blankets closer, canopied with the same luminous dusk that shone down
upon her comfortable weakness. Her mind wandered amid these scenes till
recalled to the present by the swinging of the garden-gate. She heard a
firm, well-known tread crunching the gravel. Mr. Bruce came up the path.
As he drew near the steps, Lizzie arose. The blanket fell back from her
head, and Bruce started at recognizing her.

"Hullo! You, Elizabeth? What's the matter?"

Lizzie made no answer.

"Are you one of Mr. Ford's watchers?" he continued, coming up the steps;
"how is he?"

Still she was silent. Bruce put out his hands to take hers, and bent
forward as if to kiss her. She half shook him off, and retreated toward
the door.

"Good heavens!" cried Bruce; "what's the matter? Are you moonstruck?
Can't you speak?"

"No,--no,--not to-night," said Lizzie, in a choking voice. "Go away,--go
away!"

She stood holding the door-handle, and motioning him off. He hesitated a
moment, and then advanced. She opened the door rapidly, and went in. He
heard her lock it. He stood looking at it stupidly for some time, and
then slowly turned round and walked down the steps.

The next morning Lizzie arose with the early dawn, and came down stairs.
She went into the room where Jack lay, and gently opened the door. Miss
Cooper was dozing in her chair. Lizzie crossed the threshold, and stole
up to the bed. Poor Ford lay peacefully sleeping. There was his old
face, after all,--his strong, honest features refined, but not weakened,
by pain. Lizzie softly drew up a low chair, and sat down beside him. She
gazed into his face,--the dear and honored face into which she had so
often gazed in health. It was strangely handsomer: body stood for less.
It seemed to Lizzie, that, as the fabric of her lover's soul was more
clearly revealed,--the veil of the temple rent wellnigh in twain,--she
could read the justification of all her old worship. One of Jack's
hands lay outside the sheets,--those strong, supple fingers, once so
cunning in workmanship, so frank in friendship, now thinner and whiter
than her own. After looking at it for some time, Lizzie gently grasped
it. Jack slowly opened his eyes. Lizzie's heart began to throb; it was
as if the stillness of the sanctuary had given a sign. At first there
was no recognition in the young man's gaze. Then the dull pupils began
visibly to brighten. There came to his lips the commencement of that
strange moribund smile which seems so ineffably satirical of the things
of this world. O imposing spectacle of death! O blessed soul, marked for
promotion! What earthly favor is like thine? Lizzie sank down on her
knees, and, still clasping John's hand, bent closer over him.

"Jack,--dear, dear Jack," she whispered, "do you know me?"

The smile grew more intense. The poor fellow drew out his other hand,
and slowly, feebly placed it on Lizzie's head, stroking down her hair
with his fingers.

"Yes, yes," she murmured; "you know me, don't you? I am Lizzie, Jack.
Don't you remember Lizzie?"

Ford moved his lips inaudibly, and went on patting her head.

"This is home, you know," said Lizzie; "this is Glenham. You haven't
forgotten Glenham? You are with your mother and me and your friends.
Dear, darling Jack!"

Still he went on, stroking her head; and his feeble lips tried to emit
some sound. Lizzie laid her head down on the pillow beside his own, and
still his hand lingered caressingly on her hair.

"Yes, you know me," she pursued; "you are with your friends now
forever,--with those who will love and take care of you, oh, forever!"

"I'm very badly wounded," murmured Jack, close to her ear.

"Yes, yes, my dear boy, but your wounds are healing. I will love you and
nurse you forever."

"Yes, Lizzie, our old promise," said Jack: and his hand fell upon her
neck, and with its feeble pressure he drew her closer, and she wet his
face with her tears.

Then Miss Cooper, awakening, rose and drew Lizzie away.

"I am sure you excite him, my dear. It is best he should have none of
his family near him,--persons with whom he has associations, you know."

Here the Doctor was heard gently tapping on the window, and Lizzie went
round to the door to admit him.

She did not see Jack again all day. Two or three times she ventured into
the room, but she was banished by a frown, or a finger raised to the
lips. She waylaid the Doctor frequently. He was blithe and cheerful,
certain of Jack's recovery. This good man used to exhibit as much moral
elation at the prospect of a cure as an orthodox believer at that of a
new convert: it was one more body gained from the Devil. He assured
Lizzie that the change of scene and climate had already begun to tell:
the fever was lessening, the worst symptoms disappearing. He answered
Lizzie's reiterated desire to do something by directions to keep the
house quiet and the sick-room empty.

Soon after breakfast, Miss Dawes, a neighbor, came in to relieve Miss
Cooper, and this indefatigable lady transferred her attention to Mrs.
Ford. Action was forbidden her. Miss Cooper was delighted for once to be
able to lay down the law to her vigorous neighbor, of whose fine
judgment she had always stood in awe. Having bullied Mrs. Ford into
taking her breakfast in the little sitting-room, she closed the doors,
and prepared for "a good long talk." Lizzie was careful not to break in
upon this interview. She had bidden her patroness good morning, asked
after her health, and received one of her temperate osculations. As she
passed the invalid's door, Doctor Cooper came out and asked her to go
and look for a certain roll of bandages, in Mr. John's trunk, which had
been carried into another room. Lizzie hastened to perform this task. In
fumbling through the contents of the trunk, she came across a packet of
letters in a well-known feminine handwriting. She pocketed it, and,
after disposing of the bandages, went to her own room, locked the door,
and sat down to examine the letters. Between reading and thinking and
sighing and (in spite of herself) smiling, this process took the whole
morning. As she came down to dinner, she encountered Mrs. Ford and Miss
Cooper, emerging from the sitting-room, the good long talk being only
just concluded.

"How do you feel, Ma'am?" she asked of the elder lady,--"rested?"

For all answer Mrs. Ford gave a look--I had almost said a scowl--so
hard, so cold, so reproachful, that Lizzie was transfixed. But suddenly
its sickening meaning was revealed to her. She turned to Miss Cooper,
who stood pale and fluttering beside the mistress, her everlasting smile
glazed over with a piteous, deprecating glance; and I fear her eyes
flashed out the same message of angry scorn they had just received.
These telegraphic operations are very rapid. The ladies hardly halted:
the next moment found them seated at the dinner-table with Miss Cooper
scrutinizing her napkin-mark and Mrs. Ford saying grace.

Dinner was eaten in silence. When it was over, Lizzie returned to her
own room. Miss Cooper went home, and Mrs. Ford went to her son. Lizzie
heard the firm low click of the lock as she closed the door. Why did she
lock it? There was something fatal in the silence that followed. The
plot of her little tragedy thickened. Be it so: she would act her part
with the rest. For the second time in her experience, her mind was
lightened by the intervention of Mrs. Ford. Before the scorn of her own
conscience, (which never came,) before Jack's deepest reproach, she was
ready to bow down,--but not before that long-faced Nemesis in black
silk. The leaven of resentment began to work. She leaned back in her
chair, and folded her arms, brave to await results. But before long she
fell asleep. She was aroused by a knock at her chamber-door. The
afternoon was far gone. Miss Dawes stood without.

"Elizabeth, Mr. John wants very much to see you, with his love. Come
down very gently: his mother is lying down. Will you sit with him while
I take my dinner?--Better? Yes, ever so much."

Lizzie betook herself with trembling haste to Jack's bedside.

He was propped up with pillows. His pale cheeks were slightly flushed.
His eyes were bright. He raised himself, and, for such feeble arms, gave
Lizzie a long, strong embrace.

"I've not seen you all day, Lizzie," said he. "Where have you been?"

"Dear Jack, they wouldn't let me come near you. I begged and prayed. And
I wanted so to go to you in the army; but I couldn't. I wish, I wish I
had!"

"You wouldn't have liked it, Lizzie. I'm glad you didn't. It's a bad,
bad place."

He lay quietly, holding her hands and gazing at her.

"Can I do anything for you, dear?" asked the young girl. "I would work
my life out. I'm so glad you're better!"

It was some time before Jack answered,--

"Lizzie," said he, at last, "I sent for you to look at you.--You are
more wondrously beautiful than ever. Your hair is brown,--like--like
nothing; your eyes are blue; your neck is white. Well, well!"

He lay perfectly motionless, but for his eyes. They wandered over her
with a kind of peaceful glee, like sunbeams playing on a statue. Poor
Ford lay, indeed, not unlike an old wounded Greek, who at falling dusk
has crawled into a temple to die, steeping the last dull interval in
idle admiration of sculptured Artemis.

"Ah, Lizzie, this is already heaven!" he murmured.

"It will be heaven when you get well," whispered Lizzie.

He smiled into her eyes:--

"You say more than you mean. There should be perfect truth between us.
Dear Lizzie, I am not going to get well. They are all very much
mistaken, I am going to die. I've done my work, Death makes up for
everything. My great pain is in leaving you. But you, too, will die one
of these days; remember that. In all pain and sorrow, remember that."

Lizzie was able to reply only by the tightening grasp of her hands.

"But there is something more," pursued Jack. "Life _is_ as good as
death. Your heart has found its true keeper; so we shall all three be
happy. Tell him I bless him and honor him. Tell him God, too, blesses
him. Shake hands with him for me," said Jack, feebly moving his pale
fingers. "My mother," he went on,--"be very kind to her. She will have
great grief, but she will not die of it. She'll live to great age. Now,
Lizzie, I can't talk any more; I wanted to say farewell. You'll keep me
farewell,--you'll stay with me awhile,--won't you? I'll look at you till
the last. For a little while you'll be mine, holding my hands--so--until
death parts us."

Jack kept his promise. His eyes were fixed in a firm gaze long after the
sense had left them.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the early dawn of the next day, Elizabeth left her sleepless bed,
opened the window, and looked out on the wide prospect, still cool and
dim with departing night. It offered freshness and peace to her hot head
and restless heart. She dressed herself hastily, crept down stairs,
passed the death-chamber, and stole out of the quiet house. She turned
away from the still sleeping village and walked towards the open
country. She went a long way without knowing it. The sun had risen high
when she bethought herself to turn. As she came back along the
brightening highway, and drew near home, she saw a tall figure standing
beneath the budding trees of the garden, hesitating, apparently, whether
to open the gate. Lizzie came upon him almost before he had seen her.
Bruce's first movement was to put out his hands, as any lover might; but
as Lizzie raised her veil, he dropped them.

"Yes, Mr. Bruce," said Lizzie, "I'll give you my hand once more,--in
farewell."

"Elizabeth!" cried Bruce, half stupefied, "in God's name, what do you
mean by these crazy speeches?"

"I mean well. I mean kindly and humanely to you. And I mean justice to
my old--old love."

She went to him, took his listless hand, without looking into his wild,
smitten face, shook it passionately, and then, wrenching her own from
his grasp, opened the gate and let it swing behind her.

"No! no! no!" she almost shrieked, turning about in the path. "I forbid
you to follow me!"

But for all that, he went in.




THE FROZEN HARBOR.


    When Winter encamps on our borders,
        And dips his white beard in the rills,
    And lays his shield over highway, and field,
        And pitches his tents on the hills,--
    In the wan light I wake, and see on the lake,
        Like a glove by the night-winds blown,
    With fingers that crook up creek and brook,
        His shining gauntlet thrown.

    Then over the lonely harbor,
        In the quiet and deadly cold
    Of a single night, when only the bright,
        Cold constellations behold,
    Without trestle or beam, without mortise or seam,
        It swiftly and silently spread
    A bridge as of steel, which a Titan's heel
        In the early light might tread.

    Where Morning over the waters
        Her web of splendor spun,
    Till the wave, all a-twinkle with ripple and wrinkle,
        Hung shimmering in the sun,--
    Where the liquid lip at the breast of the ship
        Whispered and laughed and kissed,
    And the long, dark streamer of smoke from the steamer
        Trailed off in the rose-tinted mist,--

    Now all is gray desolation,
        As up from the hoary coast,
    Over snow-fields and islands her white arms in silence
        Outspreading like a ghost,
    Her feet in shroud, her forehead in cloud,
        Pale walks the sheeted Dawn:
    The sea's blue rim lies shorn and dim,
        In the purple East withdrawn.

    Where floated the fleets of commerce,
        With proud breasts cleaving the tide,--
    Like emmet or bug with its burden, the tug
        Hither and thither plied,--
    Where the quick paddles flashed, where the dropped anchor plashed,
        And rattled the running chain,
    Where the merchantman swung in the current, where sung
        The sailors their far refrain,--

    Behold! when ruddy Aurora
        Peeps from her opening door,
    Faint gleams of the sun like fairies run
        And sport on a crystal floor;
    Upon the river's bright panoply quivers
        The noon's resplendent lance;
    And by night through the narrows the moon's slanted arrows
        Icily sparkle and glance.

    Flown are the flocks of commerce,
        Like wild swans hurrying south;
    The lighter, belated, is frozen, full-freighted,
        Within the harbor's mouth;
    The brigantine, homeward bringing
        Sweet spices from afar,
    All night must wait with her fragrant freight
        Below the lighthouse star.

    The ships at their anchors are frozen,
       From rudder to sloping chain:
    Rock-like they rise: the low sloop lies
        An oasis in the plain.
    Like reeds here and there, the tall masts bare
        Upspring: as on the edge
    Of a lawn smooth-shaven, around the haven
        The shipping grows like sedge.

    Here, weaving the union of cities,
        With hoar wakes belting the blue,
    From slip to slip, past schooner and ship,
        The ferry's shuttles flew:--
    Now, loosed from its stall, on the yielding wall
        The steamboat paws and rears;
    The citizens pass on a pavement of glass,
        And climb the frosted piers.

    Where, in the November twilight,
        To the ribs of the skeleton bark
    That stranded lay in the bend of the bay,
        Motionless, low, and dark,
    Came ever three shags, like three lone hags,
        And sat o'er the troubled water,
    Each nursing apart her shrivelled heart,
        With her mantle wrapped about her,--

    Now over the ancient timbers
        Is built a magic deck;
    Children run out with laughter and shout
        And dance around the wreck;
    The fisherman near his long eel-spear
        Thrusts in through the ice, or stands
    With fingers on lips, and now and then whips
        His sides with mittened hands.

    Alone and pensive I wander
        Far out from the city-wharf
    To the buoy below in its cap of snow,
        Low stooping like a dwarf;
    In the fading ray of the dull, brief day
        I wander and muse apart,--
    For this frozen sea is a symbol to me
        Of many a human heart.

    I think of the hopes deep sunken
        Like anchors under the ice,--
    Of souls that wait for Love's sweet freight
        And the spices of Paradise:
    Far off their barks are tossing
        On the billows of unrest,
    And enter not in, for the hardness and sin
        That close the secret breast.

    I linger, until, at evening,
       The town-roofs, towering high,
    Uprear in the dimness their tall, dark chimneys,
       Indenting the sunset sky,
    And the pendent spear on the edge of the pier
       Signals my homeward way,
    As it gleams through the dusk like a walrus's tusk
       On the floes of a polar bay.

    Then I think of the desolate households
       On which the day shuts down,--
    What misery hides in the darkened tides
       Of life in yonder town!
    I think of the lonely poet
       In his hours of coldness and pain,
    His fancies full-freighted, like lighters belated,
       All frozen within his brain.

    And I hearken to the moanings
       That come from the burdened bay:
    As a camel, that kneels for his lading, reels,
       And cannot bear it away,
    The mighty load is slowly
       Upheaved with struggle and pain
    From centre to side, then the groaning tide
       Sinks heavily down again.

    So day and night you may hear it
       Panting beneath its pack,
    Till sailor and saw, till south wind and thaw,
       Unbind it from its back.
    O Sun! will thy beam ever gladden the stream
       And bid its burden depart?
    O Life! all in vain do we strive with the chain
       That fetters and chills the heart?

    Already in vision prophetic
       On yonder height I stand:
    The gulls are gay upon the bay,
       The swallows on the land;--
    'Tis spring-time now; like an aspen-bough
       Shaken across the sky,
    In the silvery light with twinkling flight
       The rustling plovers fly.

    Aloft in the sunlit cordage
       Behold the climbing tar,
    With his shadow beside on the sail white and wide,
       Climbing a shadow-spar!
    Up the glassy stream with issuing steam
       The cutter crawls again,
    All winged with cloud and buzzing loud,
       Like a bee upon the pane.

    The brigantine is bringing
        Her cargo to the quay,
    The sloop flits by like a butterfly,
        The schooner skims the sea.
    O young heart's trust, beneath the crust
        Of a chilling world congealed!
    O love, whose flow the winter of woe
        With its icy hand hath sealed!

    Learn patience from the lesson!
        Though the night be drear and long,
    To the darkest sorrow there comes a morrow,
        A right to every wrong.
    And as, when, having run his low course, the red Sun
        Comes charging gayly up here,
    The white shield of Winter shall shiver and splinter
        At the touch of his golden spear,--

    Then rushing under the bridges,
        And crushing among the piles,
    In gray mottled masses the drift-ice passes,
        Like seaward-floating isles;--
    So Life shall return from its solstice, and burn
        In trappings of gold and blue,
    The world shall pass like a shattered glass,
        And the Heaven of Love shine through.




AT ANDERSONVILLE.


Drake Talcott, a Union prisoner, marched with other prisoners
seventy-five miles to Danville, on thirteen crackers. They travelled
from there to Andersonville, six days by rail, on four crackers a day,
and, as a consequence of the rations, came in due course of time to a
general sense of emptiness, and an incorrigible tendency to think of
roast beef, boiled chicken, fried oysters, and other like dainties; and
many of the prisoners, after battling awhile with the emptiness and the
mental tendency, fell down exhausted, and were stowed away in the wagons
following on in the rear of the train. But Talcott, though with youth
and the brawn and muscle and lusty craving vitality of an athlete
against him in the cracker point of view, possessed likewise a mighty
will, and a stubborn, tenacious endurance, nowise weakened by the
discipline of two years of camp and battle; and not only marched with
courage and elasticity, but actually set himself, out of the abundance
of his resources, to spur the flagging spirits of his comrades, as they
huddled in disconsolate confusion about the little station at
Andersonville.

"Boys," said our orator, "the Rebels keep their best generals for their
Home Guard. Lee and Early, and the rest of the crew, are lambs and
sucking doves to Generals Starvation, Wear-'em-out, and
Grumble,--especially that last-named fellow, who is the worst of the
three, because he comes under our own colors, and we feel shy about
firing on our own men. I believe we are all too apt to think that
muscles are the vital forces, and that man lives by beef; but, boys,
muscles are only hammers, and it takes a thought to raise them; and
though beef is good eating, and we should all like a slice uncommonly,
let me tell you, when it isn't to be had, that _backbone_ is the next
thing to it, and it is surprising how long a man can live on it. For it
is the brain that is the commander-in-chief, and does the strategy and
the planning for this precious life that we all set such store by,--the
brain, that I used to think a lazy bummer, that lived at the stomach's
expense; and when the quartermaster--that's the stomach--telegraphs up
that he's fairly cleaned out, not a half-ration left, says our little
commander, cool and calm, 'Serve out grit and backbone to the troops,
and send out the senses on a scout.' And, men, if you've got the grit,
and keep on the sharp look-out, you are likely to get on; but shut down
on grumbling,--that's a luxury for fellows that get three meals a day;
for while you are busy about that, Starvation and Wear-'em-out will sail
in at you, and once you get weak in the knees, and limp in the back, and
dizzy in the head, you're played out. Remember, we aren't going to Belle
Isle. I don't know anything about Andersonville, but it can't be so bad
as that hole."

The men cheered. Up came an officer on the double-quick.

"What's the row about now? You Yankees are always chattering like
crows."

"So you scarecrows come to look after us," retorted Drake, quick as
light: at which poor piece of wit the soldiers were pleased to laugh
vociferously,--the irritating laugh that assumes your defeat, without
granting you a hearing,--before which the man in authority, not having
the art of looking like a fool with propriety, retreated, reddening and
snarling, but turned on the platform of the cars, and flung back this
Parthian arrow at the laughing Yankees:--

"You're a bad lot of men, saucy as the Devil; but I reckon you'll get
the impudence taken out of you here, d----d quick!"

"It is all you have left them to take, anyhow," said a voice,--and
"That's so," chorused the crowd; and the whistle sounding, the Captain,
whose reign was over, departed, hard-hit and growling, but left, so to
speak, his sting behind him: for the last of his speech had one terrible
merit,--it was true.

The prisoners, over a thousand strong, were formed in line and ordered
to march. As they tramped along the dusty road, they strained their
eyes, eagerly, but furtively, for the first show of their prison. Seeing
tents on the left, there was a little stir among them, but that proved
to be a Rebel camp; then some one spied heights topped with cannon, and
"Now," said they, "we are close upon it," and then stopped short for
wonder, for here the road ended, ran butt against the wall of a huge
roofless inclosure, made of squared pines set perpendicularly and close
together in the ground.

"Is it a pen?" asked one, doubtfully.

"Yes, yours," retorted one of the guard, with a grin,--"the Stockade
Prison."

The word ran down the line like a shiver, and the men stood mute, eying
each other doubtfully. And now, if I could, I would get at your hearts,
you who read this, and you should not read mistily, and hold the story
at loose ends as it were, but feel by the answering throb within
yourselves what thoughts gnawed at the hearts of these men under their
brave show of indifference: for though these be facts, facts written are
disembodied, and, like spirits, have no power to speak to you, unless
you give them the voice of your sympathy; and without that, I question
which touches you most deeply, a thousand rats following the Pied Piper
of Hamelin, and wondering, as he neared the wharves, where the Deuse
they were going, or the thousand Union soldiers standing stunned before
a gate from which should have wailed forth, as they filed through,
"_Leave all hope behind!_"

They were hardly in, when there was a scramble, and a cry of "Rations!"
and came lumbering a train of wagons, bringing the day's supplies. There
were at this time under torture twenty-eight thousand prisoners,--more
than the population of Hartford; and as the Southern Confederacy, a
Christian association, and conducting itself with many appeals to
Christian principle, believes the wind is tempered to the shorn lamb,
and so shears the Yankees as close as possible, these men had all been
formally fleeced of such worldly gear as blankets, money, and extra
clothing. Some further shearing there had been also, but irregular,
depending chiefly on the temper of the captors,--stripping them
sometimes to shirt and drawers, leaving them occasionally jacket and
shoes; so now most were barefooted, most in rags, and some had not even
rags. They had lain on the bare earth, sodden with damp or calcined into
dust, and borne storm and heat helplessly, without even the shelter of a
board, till they were burned and wasted to the likeness of haggard
ghosts; most had forgotten hope, many decency; some were dying, and
crawled over the ground with a woful persistency that it would have
broken your heart to see; they were all fasting, for the day's rations,
tossed to them the afternoon before, had been devoured, as was the
custom, at a single meal, and proved scant at that; and they crowded
wolfishly about the wagons, the most miserable, pitiable mob that ever
had mothers, wives, and sisters at home to pray for them.

The new comers looked on amazed, and "How about Belle Isle now?" they
said bitterly to Drake. He, poor fellow, was having his first despondent
chill, and sneering at himself for having it, after all his fine talk
about "backbone"; and finding reasons for despair thicken, the harder he
tried to make elbow-room for hope, till altogether confounded at the
muddle, he flung up thought, with "Brain's full and stomach's empty, and
it's ill talking between a full man and a fasting," and set about
cooking his rations. "But first catch your hare," cries Mrs. Glass.
Drake had his hare, such as it was, but found something quite as
important lacking,--wood.

"I say, my friend, where do we find fuel?" he asked of a man sitting
quietly on the ground.

"Where the Israelites found the straw for their bricks," was the answer.
"There is no special provision made, unless it be an occasional permit
to forage outside, under----Hold off there!--don't touch that, man,
unless you want to be cooked yourself for supper!--that's the 'dead
line'!"

Drake drew back from a light railing running parallel with the
inclosure, on which he had nearly laid his hand.

"What the Deuse is the dead line?"

"The new way to pay old debts, and put a Yankee out of the world cheap.
Show so much as your little finger outside of that, and the guard nails
you with a bullet; and as they like that sort of thing, they blaze away
whenever they get a chance,--which is once or twice a day,--for our men
expose themselves voluntarily. When Satan said, 'Skin for skin, yea, all
that a man hath will he give for his life,' he hadn't invented the
Stockade Prison."

The man who said these things, in a quiet, unexcited way, as if
discussing some abstraction of the schools, not murder, was too wan and
wasted, too shrunken and despairing, to afford a guess as to what manner
of man he might have been, and too unkempt and ragged for any inference
concerning his rank, having neither jacket, cap, nor shoes, matted hair
and beard, torn shirt and ragged trousers: but his look of resolved
patience, and an occasional smile while he talked, sadder than tears,
made Drake's stout heart twinge with pain. "A strong soul in a feeble
body," he said to himself, as he walked on; and furthermore, "The man
that can smile here like that is near heaven, and fit for it."

Presently he came on a farmer selling wood by the stick, price in
proportion to its size, and as many times its value as the Rebel, by
his own showing, exceeds the Yankee. Drake had money, spite of shearing
and searching. He had hidden it----But I forbear to tell of what
ingenious shift he had availed himself, for I remember, that, spite of
its well-known loyalty, the "Atlantic Monthly" runs the blockade. First
he passed the man, prudence pulling him by the sleeve, and searched
lynx-eyed for chips or twigs, over ground scoured daily, in such faint
hope as his, by thousands; but he might as well have dragged a brook for
the wreck of a seventy-four among its pebbles. Having wasted a precious
half-hour of fading daylight, he came back to the dealer to find his
stock on the rise; for the influx of new comers had produced an upward
tendency in a market sensitive as that of Wall Street. Lest it should
swell quite beyond the compass of his pocket, he made haste to
buy,--scores of meagre wretches looking anxiously on. That pitiful sight
made his heart sore again; and he hardly persuaded himself to take his
wood and be off, till he remembered the poor fellow whom he had left
resigned and hopeless, sitting quietly on the ground while all was eager
stir about him, and hurried back to the spot where he had seen him to
find him gone. He had crawled away, and was lost in that great throng.

Not to be balked entirely, Drake shared his firing with those around
him; and Virtue, in place of her usual promissory note, gave him his
reward instantly, in the shape of a tin cup belonging to one of the
party, and their sole cooking-utensil,--for the prison authorities
furnish none. His rations--a day's rations, remember--were eight ounces
of Indian meal, cob and kernel ground together, (as with us for pigs,)
and sour, (a common occurrence,) and two ounces of condemned pork (not
to appear again in our pages, as it proved too strong even for poor
Drake's hunger). He brought water in the cup from a ditch that traversed
the inclosure, and filtered it through a bit of cloth torn from his
shirt; and the meal being mixed with this water, (salt was not even
hinted at, the market price of that article being four dollars a pound
at Andersonville,) it was placed on a strip of wood before the fire, to
bake up to the half-raw point, that being the highest perfection
attainable in Drake's kitchen: for a range and a steady heat find the
baking of meal, so mixed, no easy matter. Eight ounces of meal make a
cake six inches long, five broad, and half an inch thick: that is to
say, Drake's dinner and supper for that day, and his breakfast and
dinner for the next day, were in the mass six inches long, five inches
broad, and half an inch thick. Give the figures an Indian-meal
consistency, you who are not of that order of Stoics that endures its
neighbor's sufferings without a groan. Try the experiment in your own
kitchen. One baking will carry conviction farther than batches of
statistics. Drake being famished chose to take four meals in
one,--improvident man! That done, he went to bed: quite an elaborate
arrangement, as practised among us, what with taking off of clothes, and
possibly washing and combing, and pulling up of sheets and coverlets,
and fitting of pillows to neck and shoulders; but nothing can be more
simple than the way they do it there. You just lie down wherever you
are,--and sleep, if you can. Drake could and did sleep most soundly.

This was our hero's first taste of prison-life. But a little reading and
much talk about camp-fires and behind earth-works--when there was a lull
in the storm of shot and shell--had etched out for him certain crude
theories, for which he was as ready to do battle as any other hot-headed
lad of twenty-three. "Starvation is the masked battery that plays the
Deuse with us all," he insisted; "and we must take that, or be taken
out--feet foremost. As for your '_how_,' good Incredulity and Unbelief,
where there is an end, and the will to reach it, the means are tolerably
sure to be lying around loose somewhere." But examinations for
candidates, and the hundred-pound hail, and the sharp beak of the ram
for the untried monitor, are facts for theories; and without the proof
of these, none of the three have the positive value of a skillet that
has been tried. We have Drake's theory. Here are the facts.

No cooking-utensils were allowed the prisoner; no blankets were allowed
the prisoner; no shelter of any sort was allowed the prisoner; no tools
or materials to construct a shelter were allowed the prisoner; no means
of living as a civilized man were allowed the prisoner; no way of
helping himself as a savage was allowed the prisoner. The rations were
at all times insufficient, and frequently so foul that starvation itself
could not swallow them: consequence, stomach and body weakened by a
perpetual hunger, and in many cases utter inability to retain food, good
or bad. More than that, the sluggish water-course that served as their
reservoir crept across their pen foul and thick with the _débris_ of the
Rebel camp above, and in the centre filtered through the spongy ground,
and creamed and mantled and spread out loathsomely into a hateful swamp;
and the fierce sun, beating down on its slimy surface, drew from its
festering pools and mounds of refuse a vapor of death, and the prisoners
breathed it; and the reek of unwashed and diseased bodies crowding close
on each other, and the sickening, pestilential odor of a huge camp
without sewerage or system of policing, made the air a horror, and the
prisoners breathed it.

Drake woke, stifling with the heat and horrible steam, and turning and
throwing out his arm, only yet half awake, struck on something cold and
stiff: the corpse of some poor fellow who had died there in the night
beside him. Drake, in a two years' campaign, had grown familiar with
death, but could not yet receive him as a bed-fellow, and scrambled up
in sickening horror to a day in which there was no breakfast to eat, no
arms to clean, no shoes to black, no dress to change, no work of any
sort to do, no letters to write or hope for, no books to read, no dinner
to prepare, at least till four P.M., when they served out
rations,--nothing to fix the eye, or offer subject of thought, but the
general and utter wretchedness. Nor could Drake and his fellows take
refuge in that unconscious self-gratulation with which we see the
miseries of our neighbors; for the future here threw shadows backward.
That skeleton, (I use the word not in the exaggerated sense in which we
are apt to apply it, but advisedly; and I mean a living human being,
whose skin is literally drawn over hideously projecting bones, and who,
having actually lost all rounding-out and filling of flesh, has grown
transparent, so that by holding an arm in the light you may see the
blood-vessels and the inner edges of the bones,)--this skeleton lying
there was, perhaps, what Drake should be two months hence; those men
quarrelling, hyena-like, for the "job" of burying their dead comrades,
that scarred old man moaning for a compass, because he had lost his way
and could not find the North, were not lower or more pitiful than Drake
might yet be: for stout heart and brave blood and quick brain have no
charm against famine, pestilence, and a steady pressure of misery in all
possible forms.

The majority of his comrades sank helplessly into this quaking bog. Out
of fifty captured of his regiment, Williams, a delicate lad, sickened at
once; Dean, a stout old Scotchman, was close on idiocy in a month;
Allan, the color-bearer, was shot by the guard,--he had slipped near the
dead line, and fallen with his head outside; fourteen were dead of
disease; twelve more sank in rayless, hopeless apathy; and Drake--was
busy on "A History of the Stockade Prison." The way in which he got the
idea and his stationery is worth telling.

There had fallen upon him a dread of motion,--a sombre endurance,--a
discouraged sense of thirty thousand hopeless men dragging him down to
despair,--a dark cloud that shut out God and home and help,--an
inability to compose and fix his drowsy, reeling thought, that spun off
dizzily to times at school, and love and laughter at home, and lapsed
itself in forgetfulness, and ceased to be even dreamy speculation.
Drake, in short, was going to the bottom with his theory about his neck,
when a "Providence,"--the modern way of dodging an acknowledgment to
God, whom, by the by, our poor boy had quite omitted in his little
theory of self-preservation,--in the curious shape of an official
blunder, stepped in to his rescue. A cook-house was in erection without
the limits of their pen, and, though no carpenter, Drake was set with
others to work under guard. The first glimpse of the open country,
stretching away to meet the low horizon, brought back the half-forgotten
thought of Freedom; and the very trail of her robe is so glorious, that
even this poor savage liberty of rock and clod roused in him anew wit to
devise and courage to endure. He worked then so merrily and with such
good heart, that an admiring inspector more than hinted "at the pity it
was to see a decent young fellow like him shut up in the pen yonder."

"So I think," returned Drake, calmly, cutting away at his board.

The official edged a little closer.

"Why don't you come over to us, then? The Confederacy gives good wages.
Our Government knows how to pay its men."

"Right there!" retorted Drake. "The Confederacy pays its servants in
death and ruin, which, as you say, are the just wages of a traitor. As
for me, I want no more of Georgia soil than will make me a grave. That
is as much as a man can own here now and be honest."

It was then, from some occult connection of ideas too subtile for
searching out, that he imagined, first, a history of the Stockade
Prison. He secured a number of long, thin boards, and planed them
smooth, for foolscap, pointed bits of wood for pens, manufactured his
ink from the rust of some old nails, and made himself a knife by
grinding two pieces of iron hoop one upon the other, and, his work on
the cook-house at an end, set bravely about his history, when Fate
nipped it, as she has done many a more promising one before it; for even
when on the final flourish of his title, he heard a sound between a
groan and a sigh, and, turning, saw Corny Keegan, a strapping Irishman,
and sergeant in his regiment, lying near him. Drake put the tail on his
_n_, and then some uneasy consciousness would have him look again over
the edge of his board at the sergeant; for, though there were scores of
men lying within view on the ground, there was something in the "give"
and laxity of Corny's posture that augured ill for him in Drake's
experienced eyes, and, laying the history aside, he went over and
kneeled down beside him. The man's eyes were closed, and a dull,
yellowish pallor had taken the place of the usual brick tint of his
face. Drake essayed to lift his heavy head and shoulders; but Corny
settled back again with a groan.

"Och! wurra! Musther Talcott, lave me alone. It's dead I am, kilt
intirely, wid the wakeness. Divil's the bit of wood I've had these two
days, and not a cint or a frind to the fore, and I'm jist afther mixin'
the male here with wather, thinkin' to ate it that way, but it stuck in
me throat, and I'm all on a thrimble, and it's a gone man is Corny
Keegan; though it's not fur meself that I'd make moan, sence it's aisier
dyin' than livin', only the ould mother and Mary that'll fret
and----Holy Mother! there comes the sickness, bad scran to it!"

You see now how it happened unto the History of the Stockade Prison to
vanish in smoke; for Drake, having neither wood nor the money to buy it,
made a fire with his precious boards, and baked Corny's raw meal in a
cake, which the poor fellow devoured with a half-starved avidity that
made Drake ashamed of the reluctance with which he had offered up his
sacrifice. A little corner of his cake Corny left untouched, saying,--

"That's fur the poor crathur over beyant."

"What poor creature?" asked Drake; but Corny's eyes were fixed on the
pens and ink, and the sorry remains of his foolscap,--a half-strip of
board.

"Och! murther! Musther Talcott, and wuz it thim bits of board ye's
writin' on? and ye's burned thim fur me, afther all the throuble ye took
wid thim? and to think of the thick head of me, to ate up all that
illigant histhry, when I'd heerd the boys talkin' on it, by the same
token, and bad scran to me! The Lord be good to ye fur your kindness,
Musther Talcott, and make your bed as soft as your heart is, and give ye
a line in the Book of Life fur the one I've ate, and"----

"But the poor creature, Corny."

"Thrue for you; and I'm a baste fur forgettin' him, and him starvin' the
while. It's jist Cap'n Ireland, if ye chance to mind him. He was the
illigant officer and the kind-hearted man; and to see him now! If ye'll
come away, Musther Talcott, I'm quite done wid the wakeness, and it's
jist over here beyant that he's lyin', poor jontleman, that'll not be
long lyin' anywhere out of his grave."

Corny pointed, as he spoke, to a man, or, rather, a bundle of rags
having some faint outlines of humanity, on the ground before
them,--limbs out helplessly, face set and ghastly, hardly a stir among
his tatters to assure them that he yet breathed; and Drake recognized
with a thrill of horror, though more wan, more woful, more shadow-like,
if possible, the man who had so moved his compassion on the night of his
arrival. Keegan knelt beside him, and put his corner of cake to the
sufferer's mouth, saying, "Ate a bit, Cap'n dear; thry now"; and then,
seeing that the food rested on white and quiet lips,--"Cap'n, don't ye
hear me? It's Corny, that spoke wid ye a while back. Saints be merciful
to us, he's gone!"

"He is not so happy," said Drake, savagely; "he has only fainted. He has
days of such torture as this before him. It would be a mercy to him, and
I'm not sure but good religion, to put him outside of the dead line. I
wonder why they don't tie us to the cannon's mouth at once. Here! you!
guard, there! holla!"

This last was addressed to a soldier in the Rebel gray, who was
proceeding leisurely past, but who, on hearing himself so
unceremoniously summoned, turned and came slowly towards them.

"Here is a man," said Drake, passionately, "who is dying, not because it
pleases God to take him, but because it pleases you to starve him. We
have no wood to make a fire, no food to give him, unless it is this
scrap of meal that he cannot swallow; but you can save him, and will, if
you are a man, and have a man's heart under that dress."

The soldier stared, but, being a phlegmatic animal, heard him quietly to
the end, and opened his jaws to answer with due deliberation.

"If you don't like our rules, you shouldn't have come here, you know.
And we haven't any orders about wood: you are to look out for
yourselves. As for the man, if he's sick, why don't you take him to the
stockade yonder, where the doctor is examining for admittance to the
hospital?--though I don't see the use: he's too far gone."

Drake and Corny lifted the poor wasted frame, that seemed all too frail
to hold the nickering, struggling breath, and carried it to a small
stockade crowded with men desirous to enter the hospital. The first
assistant to whom they applied was a nervous porcupine, fretted with
overwork, and repulsed them roughly.

"What is the use of bringing a dead man here? We have enough living ones
on hand."

"Och, and that's no raison, sence it's aisy to see thim's the kind you
like best," muttered Corny; but Drake silenced him hastily.

"Keep a civil tongue, Corny. They're the masters here; and it will only
be the worse for poor Ireland, if you anger them. Here's another; we'll
try him."

But Number Two was Sir Imperturbability, and, without even looking
towards them, answered, in a hard, even tone, "Our number is filled; you
are too late," and, without lifting an eyelash, went on with his work.

Drake grew white to the lips. The great veins started out on his
forehead, and his fingers worked nervously; but it was Corny's turn to
interfere.

"Musther Talcott, sure and ye'll not mind what that spalpeen's saying;
and there's the docthor himself beyant, and a kind and pleasant
jontleman he is. Jist lift the Cap'n, aisy now, and we'll see what the
docthor'll say to him."

For the third time, then, Drake made his appeal in behalf of the poor
fellow at his feet. The doctor heard him kindly, but answered, as his
assistant had done, that their number was full for the day, and was
moving on, when Talcott caught him by the arm.

"Doctor," he said, sternly, "one of your assistants refuses my comrade
because he is a dying man; another tells me, as you have done, that your
number is full for the day. Your own eyes can tell you, that, if not
dying now, he will be before to-morrow, of want and exposure. I know
nothing of your rules; but I do know, that, if my comrade's life is to
be saved, it is to be saved _now_, and that you have the means, if means
there are, for its salvation; and let the awful guilt of the cruelty
that brought him here weigh down whose neck it will, as there is a God
above us, I do not see how you can write yourself free of murder, or
think your hands clean from blood, if you send him back to die."

"God forbid! God forbid!" answered the doctor, shrinking from Drake's
vehemence. "You are unjust, young man; it is not my will, but my power
to help, that is limited. However, he shall not be sent back; we will do
for him what we can, if I have to lodge him in my own house."

"And didn't I tell ye the docthor was the kind jontleman?" cried Corny,
joyfully. "Though the hospital is no sich great matther: jist a few
tints; but thin he'll be gettin' a bed there, and belike a dhrap of
whiskey or a sup of porridge: and if he gits on, it's you he has to
thank for it; fur if it hadn't been fur your prachement, my sowl, the
docthor would have turned him off, too; and long life to you, says Corny
Keegan, and may you niver be needin' anybody's tongue to do the like fur
you!"

Drake made no answer; after the fever comes the chill, and he was
thinking drearily of the smouldering "History," and of the intolerable
leaden hours stretching out before him; but it was not in Corny's nature
to remain silent.

"It's the ould jontleman wid the scythe that takes us down, afther all,
Musther Talcott; the hours and hours that we sit mopin', wid our fingers
as limp as a lady's, and our stomachs clatterin' like an impty can, and
sorra a thing to think of but the poor crathurs that's dead, rest their
souls! and whin our turn's comin; and it's wishin' I am that it was in
the days of the fairies, and that the quane of thim ud jist give us a
call, till I'd ask her if she'd iver a pipe and its full of tobacky
about her,--or, failin' that, if she'd hoppen to have a knife in her
pocket, till I cut out the ould divil Jeff on the gallows, and give him
what he'd git, if we iver put our hands on him."

"A knife," repeated Drake, starting from his abstraction, and fumbling
in his pocket, from which he drew an old bit of iron. "I am not the
queen of the fairies; but with this you can hang Jeff and his cabinet in
effigy, if you choose, and can find the material to carve."

"Arrah, and that's aisy, wid illigant bones like these, that chips off
like marble or wud itself; but I'm misdoubtin' I'm robbin' ye, Musther
Talcott."

"I have another," said Drake, producing it; and as he did so, there
breathed upon him, like a breeze from home, a recollection of the dim
light shining in an old library down on a broad-leaved volume resting on
a carved rack,--of a brown-tressed girl who stood with him before it,
her head just at his shoulder, looking at the cathedral on its page,--of
the chance touch of a little hand on his,--of the brush of a perfumed
sleeve,--of the flitting color in her clear cheek,--of a subtile magic,
interweaving blush, perfume, picture, and thought of Alice. Dainty
pinnacle and massive arch and carved buttress were photographed on his
brain, and arch and pinnacle and buttress could be notched out in bone
by his poor skill,--and if he died, some kindly comrade should carry it
to Alice, and it should tell her what he had left unsaid,--and if he
lived, he would take it to her himself, and it should serve him for the
text of his story. That the carving of a design so intricate, on so
minute a scale, must prove tedious argued in its favor; and putting off
mourning weeds for his history, he took to this new love with a
complacency that excited Corny's special admiration.

"Sure, and it's a beautiful thing is religion; and the Divil fly away
wid me, if I don't be afther gittin' it meself! Here's Musther Talcott:
if he was fur carving a fort or a big gun, the eyes and the face of him
would be little but scowls and puckers; and there he sits, though it's
only the dumb likeness of a church that he's at, by the same token that
it's no bigger than me thumb, and, by the howly piper, you'd think the
light that flings away from the big colored windy down the church was
stramin' in his face, he looks so paceful-like; and he no betther than a
heretic nayther, though he's the heart of a good Catholic, as no one
knows betther than meself."

Indeed, Corny's gratitude never grew cold. Few sentences of his that did
not end, like the one just quoted, in eulogiums on "Musther Talcott." If
Drake was busy with his cathedral, there sat Corny, a few paces distant,
hacking at Jeff Davis. If Drake, who had resolved himself into a sort of
duo-decimo edition of the Sanitary Commission, was about his work of
mercy, there was Corny, a shadow at his heels, bringing water, lifting
the poor groaning wretches, and adding his word of comfort. "Cheer up,
honey, and do jist as Musther Talcott says; for it's nixt to iverything
that he knows, and thim things that he don't know isn't worth a body's
attintion." And when Drake himself was ailing, it was Corny who tended
him with terrified solicitude, foraged for his wood, and cooked his
rations. "When Drake was ailing!"--that was often. His courage was
undaunted, his hope perhaps higher, but he had grown perceptibly weak
and languid; and there were days--many, alas!--when he lay quietly on
the ground, giving an occasional lazy touch to his cathedral, while
Corny, as he laughingly said, ruled in his stead.

It was on one of these days that there arose a sudden stir and commotion
throughout the camp, a deep and joyful hum, that went from mouth to
mouth; and men were seen running hastily from all quarters, the rush
setting towards the gate, and drawing in even the sick, who crawled and
hobbled along with the stream, at the risk of being trampled by the
excited throng, struggling and crowding on pellmell. While Drake looked
on in surprise, Corny made his appearance, his eyes sparkling with
pleasure.

"News, Musther Talcott dear! an ye wuz dyin', here's news to put the
strength in yer legs! Letthers from home, and they say there's five
thousand on 'em; and there's an officer chap, wid a mouth like a thrap,
countin' 'em as if he was a machine, for all the wuruld, and bad 'cess
to him! wid the poor boys crowdin', and heart-famished for only a look
at thim, the crumpled things, for it's batthered they is! and he, the
spalpeen, won't let one of 'em touch 'em, and no more feelin' with him
than if he was a gun, instead of the son of one; and I'm cock-sure I
read yer name, Musther Talcott, and there's mine too on the back of a
letther, and that's from Mary, hurra! and God bless her! and come,
Musther Talcott, fur they'll be dalin' out the letthers or iver we get
there."

Drake rose at once; but a description of his sensations, as he hastily
made his way towards the throng that surged about the imperturbable
official like a sea, is beyond the power of words. The overwhelming
surprise and joy of a man who in that evil den had almost forgotten home
and the possibility of hearing from it, and his agonizing uncertainty,
could be fathomed only by the poor wretches suffering like him, who
anxiously pressed on the Rebel officer, and clutched at the letters,
and fell back sick with impatience and suspense at his formal delay. At
last he opened his grim jaws. The men listened breathlessly.

"All right. Men, there is ten cents postage due on each letter."

An instant's stunned pause, and then half a dozen voices speaking
together: "Why, man, you must have had ten cents on each of these
letters, before they crossed the lines"; and "How can _we_ pay postage?"
"He _knows_ we have no money"; "What good will the bits of paper do him
at all, at all?" But the man kept on like an automaton.

"My orders are to collect ten cents on each letter; and I am here to
obey orders, not to argue."

Meanwhile those in the rear ranks had heard indistinctly or not at all,
and pressed on those in front to know the meaning of the sudden
recoil,--for the men had instinctively given back,--and being told,
buzzed it on to those behind them; and there began in the crowd a low,
deep hum, growing louder, as muttering rose to curses,--growing fiercer,
for there is nothing half so savage as despair that has been fooled with
a hope,--swelling into a wave of indignation that swept and swayed the
whole throng with it, and seemed an instant to threaten and topple over
the officer in their midst. But it came to nought. The prudent nudged
their neighbors, "With the cannon, boys, they can rake us on all sides";
and the angrier ones fell apart in little groups, and talked in
whispers, and glared menacingly at the guard, but made no further
demonstration. Those who were happy enough to possess the money received
their letters: the feebler ones crawled away with tears furrowing their
wan cheeks; and the unmoved official thrust the remaining letters of
mother, father, wife, and children of these men into the bags before
their longing eyes; and even while the miserable men flung themselves
before him, and with outstretched hands tried to hold him back, the gate
clanged after him.

Drake, who long ago had spent his little hoard, had received this
terrible blow in entire silence, and turned to go without comment or
answer to Corny's vociferations. But eyes were dim, or head was reeling;
for a few paces on he stumbled, and would have fallen over a soldier
lying in his path, but for Corny, who was close behind him, and who at
once assailed the man over whom Drake had tripped, and who still lay
quietly, without even a stir or motion of his head.

"Ye lazy spalpeen! what the Divil are ye stretched out there for, to
break dacent folk's necks over the length of ye? Stir yourself, or
I'll"----Then with a sudden and total change of tone, as he looked more
closely into the quiet face, "The Saints pity us! it's Cap'n Ireland;
and in the name of Hiven, how came yer Honor here on the----Och! Lord
forgive me! Talking to a dead corpse! Och! wurra! wurra! Musther
Talcott, it's dead he is, sure! kilt this time intirely!"

"You may well say killed," said a soldier who had joined them. "If ever
a man committed murder, then that man did that kicked him out of the
hospital to die."

"What is that?" demanded Drake, who had seemed in a sort of stupor, but
roused out of it fiercely at the man's last words. "Do you know what you
are saying?"

"I think I ought," returned the soldier. "I was in the hospital at the
time; I'm only just out; and I saw it myself. The assistant surgeon
stops at his bed, where he laid only just breathing like, and says he,
'What man is this? I've seen him before'; and says some one, 'His name
is Ireland'; and says the surgeon, like a flash, 'Ireland? Ireland of
the --th? Do you know what that is? It is a colored regiment, and this
Abolition scoundrel is the captain of it. I knew I had seen him. Here!
put him out; let him go and herd with the rest'; and when some one said
he was dying any way, said the surgeon, with a string of oaths, 'Put him
out, I tell you; the bed is too good for him'; and then, Sir, when the
poor young gentleman, who was dizzy-like, and didn't understand, fell
down beside the door, from weakness, that--that infernal brute kicked
him, and swore at him, as vermin that cumbered the ground; and the men
brought him away here, Sir, it's two days back, and he's just passed
away"; and kneeling beside the body, and lifting the poor wasted hands,
"I swear, if ever I get back, to revenge his death, and never to let
sword or pistol drop while this cursed Rebellion is going on."

"Amin!" said Corny, solemnly, and "Amen" formed itself on Drake's white
lips; but by some curious mental process his thoughts would wander away
from the stiffening body before him to a vision of home, and Sabbaths
when sweet-toned bells called quiet families to church, and little
children playing about the doorsteps, and peaceful women in sunny
houses, and gay girls waving on men to battle through glittering
streets, and prayers, and looks of love, and songs, and flowers, and
Alice; and in on this rolled suddenly a sense of what was actually
around him, as under a calm sky and out of a still sea swoops sometimes
suddenly some huge wave in on the quiet beach. He saw about him rags,
filth, men sick, men dying, men dead, men groaning, men cursing, men
gibbering. There rose up before him the grim succession of days of
hunger, pain, sorrow, and loneliness, already past; there came upon him
a terrible threatening of days to come, yet worse,--without hope or
relief, unless at the dead line. He rose, staggering, and with a wild
and desperate look that startled Corny.

"Fur the Lord's sake, wud ye desthroy yerself?" cried the faithful
fellow, throwing his arms about him to hold him fast. "Och, honey! ye're
a heretic, and the good Lord's a Catholic; but thin He made us all, and
He has pity on the poor crathurs that's sufferin' here, or His heart's
harder nor Corny's: the Saints forgive me fur such a spache! Pray,
Musther Talcott, pray"----

"Pray!" exclaimed Drake; "is there a God looking down here?"--and
dropping on his knees, he gasped out,--

"O God! if Thou dost yet hear, save me--from going mad!" and fell
forward at Corny's feet, senseless.

He was carried to the hospital, and lay there weeks, lost in the
delirium of a fever; and every morning there peered in at the inner door
of the stockade a huge shock of hair, and a red, anxious face, with,--

"The top of the mornin' to ye, docthor, and it's ashamed I am to be
afther throublin' ye so often; but will yer Honor plase to tell me how
Musther Talcott is the day?"--and having received the desired
information, Corny would take himself off with blessings "on his Honor,
that had consideration for the feelings of the poor Irishman."

One morning there was a change in the programme.

"I have good news for you, Corny," said the kindly doctor. "Talcott is
out of danger."

"Hurray! and the Saints be praised fur that!" shouted Corny, cutting a
caper.

"But I have better news yet," continued the doctor, watching Corny
closely. "His name is on the list of exchanged prisoners, and he will be
sent home on Thursday next."

Corny's face fell.

"Is he, yer Honor?" very hesitatingly; and then, suddenly clearing up,
"and hurra fur that, too! and I'm an ongrateful baste to be sorry that
he's to be clear of this hole,--bad scran to it!--and long life till
him, and a blessin' go wid him! and if"--choking--"we don't mate on
earth, sure the Lord won't kape him foriver in purgatory, and he so kind
and feelin' for the sick."

The doctor could not suppress a laugh at this limited hope.

"But, Corny, what if you are to be sent home too?"

"Me?--and was it me yer Honor was sayin'? Och, Hivin bless ye fur that
word!--and it's not laughin' at me is yer Honor? Sure ye'd niver have
the heart to chate a poor boy like that. All the Saints be praised! I'm
a man agin, and not a starvin' machine; and I shall see ye, Mary,
mavourneen! but, och, the poor boys that we're lavin'! Hurra! how iver
will I ate three males a day, and slape under a blanket, and think of
thim on the ground and starvin' by inches!"

During the remainder of his stay, Corny balanced between joy and
his selfishness in being joyful, in a manner sufficiently
ludicrous,--breaking out one moment in the most extravagant
demonstration, to be twitched from it the next by a penitential spasm.
As for Drake, hardly yet clear of the shadows that haunted his fever, he
but mistily comprehended the change that was before him; and it will
need weeks and perhaps months of home-nursing and watching before body
and mind can win back their former strength and tone.

Meanwhile, people of the North, what of the poor boys left behind at
Andersonville, starving, as Corny said, by inches, with the winter
before them, and their numbers swelled by the hundreds that a late Rebel
paper gleefully announces to be on their way from more Northern prisons?




DOCTOR JOHNS.


VII.

It was not easy in that day to bring together the opinions of a
Connecticut parish that had been jostled apart by a parochial quarrel,
and where old grievances were festering. Indeed, it is never easy to do
this, and unite opinions upon a new comer, unless he have some rare gift
of eloquence, which so dazes the good people that they can no longer
remember their petty griefs, or unless he manage with rare tact to pass
lightly over the sore points, and to anoint them by a careful hand with
such healing salves as he can concoct out of his pastoral charities. Mr.
Johns had neither art nor eloquence, as commonly understood; yet he
effected a blending of all interests by the simple, earnest gravity of
his character. He ignored all angry disputation; he ignored its results.
He came as a shepherd to a deserted sheepfold; he came to preach the
Bible doctrines in their literalness. He had no reproofs, save for those
who refused the offers of God's mercy,--no commendation, save for those
who sought His grace whose favor is life everlasting. There were no
metaphysical niceties in his discourses, athwart which keen disputants
might poise themselves for close and angry conflict; he recognized no
necessities but the great ones of repentance and faith; and all the
mysteries of the Will he was accustomed to solve by grand utterance of
that text which he loved above all others,--however much it may have
troubled him in his discussion of Election,--"whosoever _will_, let him
come and drink of the water of life freely."

Inheriting as he did all the religious affinities of his mother, these
were compacted and made sensitive by years of silent protest against the
proud worldly sufficiency of his father, the Major. Such qualities and
experience found repose in the unyielding dogmas of the Westminster
divines. At thirty the clergyman was as aged as most men of
forty-five,--seared by the severity of his opinions, and the unshaken
tenacity with which he held them. He was by nature a quiet, almost a
timid man; but over the old white desk and crimson cushion, with the
choir of singers in his front and the Bible under his hand, he grew into
wonderful boldness. He cherished an exalted idea of the dignity of his
office,--a dignity which he determined to maintain to the utmost of his
power; but in the pulpit only did the full measure of this exaltation
come over him. Thence he looked down serenely upon the flock of which he
was the appointed guide, and among whom his duty lay. The shepherd
leading his sheep was no figure of speech for him; he was commissioned
to their care, and was conducting them--old men and maidens, boys and
gray-haired women--athwart the dangers of the world, toward the great
fold. On one side always the fires of hell were gaping; and on the other
were blazing the great candlesticks around the throne.

But when, on some occasion, he had, under the full weight of his office,
inveighed against a damning evil, and, as he fondly hoped by the
stillness in the old meeting-house, wrought upon sinners effectually, it
was disheartening to be met by some hoary member of his flock, whom
perhaps he had borne particularly in mind, and to be greeted cheerfully
with, "Capital sermon, Mr. Johns! those are the sort that do the
business! I like those, parson!" The poor man, humiliated, would bow his
thanks. He lacked the art (if it be an art) to press the matter home,
when he met one of his parishioners thus. Indeed, his sense of the
importance of his calling and his extreme conscientiousness gave him an
air of timidity outside the pulpit, which offered great contrast to that
which he wore in the heat of his sermonizing. Not that he forgot the
dignity of his position for a moment, but he wore it too trenchantly; he
could never unbend to the free play of side-talk. Hence he could not
look upon the familiar spirit of badinage in which some of his brethren
of the profession indulged, without serious doubts of their complete
submission to the Heavenly King. Always the weight of his solemn duties
pressed sorely on him; always amid pitfalls he was conducting his little
flock toward the glories of the Great Court. There is many a man
narrowed and sharpened by metaphysical inquiry to such a degree as to
count the indirection and freedom of kindly chat irksome, and the
occasion of a needless blunting of that quick mental edger with which he
must scathe all he touches. But the stiffness of Mr. Johns was not that
of constant mental strain; he did not refine upon his dogmas; but he
gave them such hearty entertainment, and so inwrapped his spirit with
their ponderous gravity, that he could not disrobe in a moment, or
uncover to every chance comer.

It is quite possible that by reason of this grave taciturnity the
clergyman won more surely upon the respect of his people. "He is
engrossed," said they, "with greater matters; and in all secular affairs
he recognizes our superior discernment." Thus his inaptitude in current
speech was construed by them into a delicate flattery. They greatly
relished his didactic, argumentative sermonizing, since theirs was a
religion not so much of the sensibilities as of the intellect. They
agonized toward the truth, if not by intense thinking, yet by what many
good people are apt to mistake for it,--immense endurance of the prolix
thought of others.

If the idea of universal depravity had been ignored,--as it sometimes is
in these latitudinarian days,--or the notion of any available or worthy
Christian culture, as distinct from a direct and clearly defined agency,
both as to time and force, of the Spirit, had been entertained, he would
have lost half of the elements by which his arguments gained logical
sequence. But, laboring his way from stake to stake of the old dogmas of
the Westminster divines, he fastened to them stoutly, and swept round
from each as a centre a great scathing circle of deductions, that beat
wofully upon the heads of unbelievers. And if a preacher attack only
unbelievers, he has the world with him, now as then; it is only he who
has the bad taste to meddle with the caprices of believers who gets the
raps and the orders of dismissal.

Thus it happened that good Mr. Johns came to win the good-will of all
the parish of Ashfield, while he challenged their respect by his
uniform gravity. It is even possible that a consciousness of a certain
stateliness and stiffness of manner became in some measure a source of
pride to him, and that he enjoyed, in his subdued way, the disposition
of the lads of the town to give him a wide pass, instead of brushing
brusquely against him, as if he were some other than the parson.

In those days he wrote to his sister Eliza,--

     "We are fairly settled in a pleasant home upon the main street.
     The meeting-house, which you will remember, is near by; and I
     have, by the blessing of God, a full attendance every Lord's
     day. They listen to my poor sermons with commendable
     earnestness; and I trust they may prove to them 'a savor of
     life unto life.' We also find the people of the town neighborly
     and kind. Squire Elderkin has proved particularly so, and is a
     very energetic man in all matters relating to the parish. I
     fear greatly, however, that he still lacks the intimate favor
     of God, and has not humbled himself to entire submission. Yet
     he is constant in his observance of nearly all the outward
     forms of devotion and of worship; and we hear of his charities
     in every house we enter. Strange mystery of Providence, that he
     should not long since have been broken down by grace, and
     become in _all_ things a devout follower of the Master! I hope
     yet to see him brought a humble suppliant into the fold. His
     wife is a most excellent person, lowly in her faith, and
     zealous of good works. The same may also be said of their
     worthy maiden sister, Miss Joanna Meacham, who is, of a truth,
     a matron in Israel. Rachel and myself frequently take tea at
     their house; and she is much interested in the little family of
     Elderkins, who, I am glad to say, enjoy excellent advantages,
     and such of them as are of proper age are duly taught in the
     Shorter Westminster Catechism.

     "Deacon Tourtelot, another of our neighbors, is a devout man;
     and Dame Tourtelot (as she is commonly called) is a woman of
     quite extraordinary zeal and capacity. Their daughter Almira is
     untiring in attendance, and aids the services by singing
     treble. Deacon Simmons, who lives at quite a distance from us,
     is represented to be a man of large means and earnest in the
     faith. He has a large farm, and also a distillery, both of
     which are said to be managed with great foresight and prudence.
     I trust that the reports which I hear occasionally of his
     penuriousness are not wholly true, and that in due time his
     hand will be opened by divine grace to a more effectual showing
     forth of the deeds of charity. I do not allow myself to
     entertain any of the scandals which unfortunately belong more
     or less to every parish, and which so interrupt the growth of
     that Christian love which is the parent of all virtues; and I
     trust that these good people may come in time to see that it is
     better to live together in harmony than to foment those
     bickerings which have led so recently to the dismissal of my
     poor brother in the Gospel. Our home affairs are, I believe,
     managed prudently,--the two servants being most excellent
     persons, and my little Rachel a very sunbeam in the house."

And the little sunbeam writes to Mrs. Handby at about the same date,--we
will say from six to eight months after their entry,--

     "Everything goes on _delightfully_, dear mamma. Esther is a
     good creature, and helps me wonderfully. You would laugh to see
     me fingering the raw meats at the butcher's cart to choose nice
     pieces, which I really _can do_ now; and it is fortunate I can,
     for the goodman Benjamin knows _positively nothing_ of such
     things, and I am sure wouldn't be able to tell mutton from
     beef.

     "The little parlor is nicely furnished; there is an elegant
     hair sofa, and over the mantel is the portrait of Major Johns;
     and then the goodman has insisted upon hanging under the
     looking-glass _my old sampler in crewel_, with a gilt frame
     around it; on the table is the illustrated 'Pilgrim's Progress'
     papa gave me, and a volume of 'Calmet's Dictionary' I have
     taken out of the study--it is full of _such beautiful
     pictures_,--and 'Mrs. Hannah More' in full gilt. The big Bible
     you gave us, the goodman says, is too large for easy handling;
     so it is kept on a stand in the corner, with the great
     fly-brush of peacock's feathers hanging over it. I have put
     charming blue chintz curtains in the spare chamber, and
     arranged everything there very nicely; so that, _before a
     certain event_, you must be sure to come and take possession.

     "Last night we took tea again with the Elderkins, and Mrs.
     Elderkin was as kind to me as ever, and Miss Meacham is an
     excellent woman, and the little ones are loves of children; and
     I wish you could see them. But you will, you know, _quite
     soon_. Sometimes I fall to crying, when I think of it all; and
     then the goodman comes and puts his hand on my head, and
     says,--'Rachel! Rachel, my dear! is this your gratitude for all
     God's mercies?' And then I jump up, and kiss his grave face,
     and laugh through my tears. He is a dear good man. This is all
     very foolish, I suppose; but, mamma, isn't it the way with all
     women?

     "Dame Tourtelot is a great storm of a creature, and she comes
     down upon us every now and then, and advises me about the
     housekeeping and the table, and the servants, and
     Benjamin,--giving me a great many good hints, I suppose; but in
     such a way, and calling me 'my child,' as makes me feel good
     for nothing, and as if I were not fit to be mistress. Miss
     Almira is a quiet thing, and has a piano. She dresses _very
     queerly_, and, I have been told, written poetry for the
     'Hartford Courant,' _over two stars_--* *. She seems a good
     creature, though, and comes to see us often. The chaise is a
     _great_ comfort, and our old horse Dobbins is a good, sober
     horse. Benjamin often takes me with him in his drives to see
     the parishioners who live out of town. He tells me about the
     trees and the flowers, and a thousand matters I never heard of.
     Indeed, he is a good man, and he knows a _world_ of things."

The tender-hearted, kind soul makes her way into the best graces of the
people of Ashfield: the older ones charmed with that blithe spirit of
hers, and all the younger ones mating easily with her simple, outspoken
naturalness. She goes freely everywhere; she is not stiffened by any
ceremony, nor does she carry any stately notions of the dignity of her
office,--some few there may be who wish that she had a keener sense of
the importance of her position; she even bursts unannounced into the
little glazed corner of the Tew partners, where she prattles away with
the sedate Mistress Tew in good, kindly fashion, winning that stiff old
lady's heart, and moving her to declare to all customers that the
parson's wife has no pride about her, and is "a dear little thing, to be
sure!"

On summer evenings, Dobbins is to be seen, two or three times in the
week, jogging along before the square-topped chaise, upon some highway
that leads into the town, with the parson seated within, with slackened
rein, and in thoughtful mood, from which he rouses himself from time to
time with a testy twitch and noisy chirrup that urge the poor beast into
a faster gait. All the while the little wife sits beside him, as if a
twittering sparrow had nestled itself upon the same perch with some
grave owl, and sat with him side by side, watching for the big eyes to
turn upon her, and chirping some pretty response for every solemn
utterance of the wise old bird beside her.


VIII.

On the return from one of these parochial drives, not long after their
establishment at Ashfield, it happened that the good parson and his wife
were not a little startled at sight of a stranger lounging familiarly at
their door. A little roof jutted out over the entrance to the parsonage,
without any apparent support, and flanking the door were two plank
seats, with their ends toward the street, cut away into the shape of
those "settles" which used to be seen in country taverns, and which here
seemed to invite a quiet out-of-door gossip. But the grave manner of the
parson had never invited to a very familiar use of this loitering-place,
even by the most devoted of the parishioners; and the appearance of a
stranger of some two-and-thirty years, with something in his manner, as
much as in his dress, which told of large familiarity with the world,
lounging upon this little porch, had amazed the passers-by, as much as
it now did the couple who drove up slowly in the square-topped chaise.

"Who can it be, Benjamin?" says Rachel.

"I really can't say," returns the parson.

"He seems very much at home, my dear,"--as indeed he does, with his feet
stretched out upon the bench, and eyeing curiously the approaching
vehicle.

As it draws near, his observation being apparently satisfactory, he
walks briskly down to the gate, and greets the parson with,--

"My dear Johns, I'm delighted to see you!"

At this the parson knew him, and greets him,--

"Maverick, upon my word!" and offers his hand.

"And this is Mrs. Johns, I suppose," says the stranger, bowing
graciously, "Allow me, Madam"; and he assists her to alight. "Your
husband and myself were old college-friends, partners of the same bench,
and I've used no ceremony, you see, in finding him out."

Rachel, eyeing him furtively, with a little rustic courtesy, "is glad to
see any of her husband's old friends."

The parson--upon his feet now--shakes the stranger's hand heartily
again.

"I am very glad to see you, Maverick; but I thought you were out of the
country."

"So I have been, Johns; am home only upon a visit, and hearing by
accident that you had become a clergyman--as I always thought you
would--and were settled hereabout, I determined to run down and see you
before sailing again."

"You must stop with me. Rachel, dear, will you have the spare room made
ready for Mr. Maverick?"

"My dear Madam, don't give yourself the least trouble; I am an old
traveller, and can make myself quite comfortable at the tavern yonder;
but if it's altogether convenient, I shall be delighted to pass the
night under the roof of my old friend. I shall be off to-morrow noon,"
continued he, turning to the parson, "and until then I want you to put
off your sermons and make me one of your parishioners."

So they all went into the parsonage together.

Frank Maverick, as he had said, had shared the same bench with Johns in
college; and between them, unlike as they were in character, there had
grown up a strong friendship,--one of those singular intimacies which
bind the gravest men to the most cheery and reckless. Maverick was
forever running into scrapes and consulting the cool head of Johns to
help him out of them. There was never a tutor's windows to be broken in,
or a callithumpian frolic, (which were in vogue in those days,) but
Maverick bore a hand in both; and somehow, by a marvellous address that
belonged to him, always managed to escape, or at most to receive only
some grave admonition from the academic authorities. Johns advised with
him, (giving as serious advice then as he could give now,) and added
from time to time such assistance in his studies as a plodding man can
always lend to one of quick brain, who makes no reckoning of time.

Upon a certain occasion Maverick had gone over with Johns to his home,
and the Major had taken an immense fancy to the buoyant young fellow, so
full of spirits, and so charmingly frank. "If your characters could only
be welded together," he used to say to his son, "you would both be the
better for it; he a little of your gravity, and you something of his
rollicking carelessness." This bound Johns to his friend more closely
than ever. There was, moreover, great honesty and conscientiousness in
the lad's composition: he could beat in a tutor's window for the frolic
of the thing, and by way of paying off some old grudge for a black mark;
but there was a strong spice of humanity at the bottom even of his
frolics. It happened one day, that his friend Ben Johns told him that
one of the bats which had done terrible execution on the tutor's windows
had also played havoc on his table, breaking a bottle of ink, and
deluging some half-dozen of the tutor's books; "and do you know," said
Johns, "the poor man who has made such a loss is saving up all his pay
here for a mother and two or three fatherless children?"

"The Deuse he is!" said Maverick, and his hand went to his pocket, which
was always pretty full. "I say, Johns, don't peach on me, but I think I
must have thrown that bat, (which Johns knew to be hardly possible, for
he had only come up at the end of the row,) and I want you to get this
money to him, to make those books good again. Will you do it, old
fellow?"

This was the sort of character to win upon the quiet son of the Major.
"If he were only more earnest," he used to say,--"if he could give up
his trifling,--if he would only buckle down to serious study, as some of
us do, what great things he might accomplish!" A common enough fancy
among those of riper years,--as if all the outlets of a man's
nerve-power could be dammed into what shape the possessor would!

Maverick was altogether his old self this night at the parsonage. Rachel
listened admiringly, as he told of his travel and of his foreign
experiences. He was the son of a merchant of an Eastern seaport who had
been long engaged in the Mediterranean trade with a branch house at
Marseilles; and thither Frank had gone two or three years after leaving
college, to fill some subordinate post, and finally to work his way into
a partnership, which he now held. Of course he had not lived there those
seven or eight years last past without his visit to Paris; and his easy,
careless way of describing what he had seen there in Napoleon's day--the
fêtes, the processions, the display--was a kind of talk not often heard
in a New England village, and which took a strong hold upon the
imagination of Rachel.

"And to think," says the parson, "that such a people are wholly
infidel!"

"Well, well, I don't know," says Maverick; "I think I have seen a good
deal of faith in the Popish churches."

"Faith in images; faith in the Virgin; faith in mummery," says Johns,
with a sigh. "'Tis always the scarlet woman of Babylon!"

"I know," says Maverick, smiling, "these things are not much to your
taste; but we have our Protestant chapels, too."

"Not much better, I fear," says Johns. "They are sadly impregnated with
the Genevese Socinianism."

This was about the time that the orthodox Louis Empaytaz was suffering
the rebuke of the Swiss church authorities for his "Considerations upon
the Divinity of Jesus Christ." Aside from this, all the parson's notions
of French religion and of French philosophy were of the most aggravated
degree of bitterness. That set of Voltaire, which the Major, his father,
had once purchased, had not been without its fruit,--not legitimate,
indeed, but most decided. The books so cautiously put out of sight--like
all such--had caught the attention of the son; whereupon his mother had
given him so terrible an account of French infidelity, and such a
fearful story of Voltaire's dying remorse,--current in orthodox
circles,--as had caught strong hold upon the mind of the boy. All
Frenchmen he had learned to look upon as the children of Satan, and
their language as the language of hell. With these sentiments very
sincerely entertained, he regarded his poor friend as one living at the
very door-posts of Pandemonium, and hoped, by God's mercy, to throw
around him even now a little of the protecting grace which should keep
him from utter destruction. But though this was uppermost in his mind,
it did not forbid a grateful outflow of his old sympathies and
expressions of interest in all that concerned his friend. It seemed to
him that his easy refinement of manner, in such contrast with the
ceremonious stiffness of the New England customs of speech, was but the
sliming over of the Serpent's tongue, preparatory to a dreadful
swallowing of soul and body; and the careless grace of talk, which so
charmed the innocent Rachel, appeared to the exacting Puritan a token of
the enslavement of his old friend to sense and the guile of this world.

Nine o'clock was the time for evening prayers at the parsonage, which
under no circumstances were ever omitted; and as the little clock in the
dining-room chimed the hour, Mr. Johns rose to lead the way from his
study, where they had passed the evening.

"It's our hour for family prayer," says Johns; "will you come with us?"

"Most certainly," says Maverick, rising. "I should be sorry not to have
this little scene of New England life to take back with me: it will
recall home pleasantly."

The servants were summoned, and the parson read in his wonted way a
chapter,--not selected, but designated by the old book-mark, which was
carried forward from day to day throughout the sacred volume. In his
prayer the parson asked specially for Divine Grace to overshadow all
those journeying from their homes,--to protect them,--to keep alive in
their hearts the teachings of their youth,--to shield them from the
insidious influences of sin and of the world, and to bring them in God's
own good time into the fold of the elect.

Shortly after prayers Rachel retired for the night. The parson and his
old friend talked for an hour or more in the study, but always as men
whose thoughts were unlike; Maverick filled and exuberant with the
prospects of this life; and the parson, by a settled purpose, which
seemed like instinct, making all his observations bear upon futurity.

"The poor man has grown very narrow," thought Maverick.

And yet Johns entered with friendly interest into the schemes of his
companion.

"So you count upon spending your life there?" says the parson.

"It is quite probable," says Maverick. "I am doing exceedingly well; the
climate, bating some harsh winds in winter, is enjoyable. Why shouldn't
I?"

"It's a question to put to your conscience," says Johns, "not to me. A
man can but do his duty, as well there as here perhaps. A little graft
of New Englandism may possibly work good. Do you mean to marry in
France, Maverick?"

A shade passed over the face of his friend; but recovering himself, with
a little musical laugh, he said,--

"I really can't say: there are very charming women there, Johns."

"I am afraid so," uttered the parson, dryly.

"By the way," said Maverick,--"you will excuse me,--but you will be
having a family by and by,"--at which the parson fairly blushed,--"you
must let me send over some little gift for your first boy; it sha'n't be
one that will harm him, though it comes from our heathen side of the
world."

"There's a gift you might bestow, Maverick, that I should value beyond
price."

"Pray what is it?"

"Live such a life, my friend, that I could say to any boy of mine,
'Follow the example of that man.'"

"Ah," said Maverick, with his easy, infectious laugh, "that's more than
I can promise. To tell the truth, Johns, I don't believe I could by any
possibility fall into the prim, stiff ways which make a man commendable
hereabout. Even if I were religiously disposed, or should ever think of
adopting your profession, I fancy I should take to the gown and
liturgy, as giving a little freer movement to my taste. You don't like
to think of that, I'll wager."

"You might do worse things," said the parson, sadly.

"I know I might," said Maverick, thoughtfully; "I greatly fear I shall.
Yet it's not altogether a bad life I'm looking forward to, Johns: we'll
say ten or fifteen more years of business on the other side; marrying
sometime in the interval,--certainly not until I have a good revenue;
then, possibly, I may come over among you again, establish a pretty home
in the neighborhood of one of your towns; look after a girl and boy or
two, who may have come into the family; get the title of Squire; give
fairly to the missionary societies; take my place in a good big
family-pew; dabble in politics, perhaps, so that people shall dub me
'Honorable': isn't that a fair show, Johns?"

There was a thief in the candle, which the parson removed with the
snuffers.

"As for yourself," continued Maverick, "they'll give you the title of
Doctor after a few years!"--The parson raised his hand, as if to put
away the thought.--"I know," continued his friend, "you don't seek
worldly honors: but they will drift upon you; they'll all love you
hereabout, in spite of your seriousness (the parson smiled); you'll have
your house full of children; you'll be putting a wing here and a wing
there; and when I come back, twenty years hence, if I live, I shall find
you comfortably gray, and your pretty wife in spectacles, knitting
mittens for the youngest boy, and the oldest at college, and your girls
grown into tall village belles;--but, Johns, don't, I beg, be too strict
with them; you can't make a merry young creature the better by insisting
upon seriousness; you can't crowd goodness into a body by pounding upon
it. What are you thinking of, Johns?"

The parson was sitting with his eyes bent upon a certain figure in the
green and red Scotch carpet.

"Thinking, Maverick, that in twenty years' time, if alive, we may be
less fit for heaven than we are to-day."

There was a pitying kindliness in the tone of the minister, as he said
this, which touched Maverick.

"There's no doubt on your score, Johns, God bless you! But we must
paddle our own boats: I dare say you'll come out a long way before me;
you always did, you know. Every man to his path."

"There's but _one_," said Johns, solemnly, "that leadeth to eternal
rest."

"Yes, I know," says Maverick, with a gay smile upon his face, which the
parson remembered long after, "we are the goats; but you must have a
little pity on us, for all that."

With these words they parted for the night.

Next morning, before the minister was astir, Maverick was strolling
about the garden and the village street, and at breakfast appeared with
a little bunch of violets he had gathered from Rachel's flower-patch,
and laid them by her plate. (It was a graceful attention, that not even
the clergyman had ever paid to her.) And he further delighted her with a
description of some floral fête which he had witnessed at Marseilles, in
the year of the Restoration.

"They welcomed their old masters, then?" said the parson.

"Perhaps so; one can never say. The French express their joy with
flowers, and they bury their grief with flowers. I like them for it; I
think there's a ripe philosophy in it."

"A heathen philosophy," said the minister.

At noon Maverick left upon the old swaying stage-coach,--looking out, as
he passed, upon the parsonage, with its quaintly panelled door, and its
diamond lights, of which he long kept the image in his mind. That brazen
knocker he seemed to hear in later years, beating,--beating as if his
brain lay under it.

"I think Mr. Frank Maverick is a most charming man," said the pretty
Mrs. Johns to her husband.

"He is, Rachel, and generous and open-hearted,--and yet, in the sight
of Heaven, I fear, a miserable sinner."

"But, Benjamin, my dear, we are all sinners."

"All,--all, Rachel, God help us!"


IX.

In December of the year 1820 came about a certain event of which hint
has been already given by the party chiefly concerned; and Mrs. Johns
presented her husband with a fine boy, who was in due time
christened--Reuben.

Mrs. Handby was present at this eventful period, occupying the
guest-chamber, and delighting in all the little adornments that had been
prepared by the loving hands of her daughter; and upon the following
Sabbath, Mr. Johns, for the first time since his entrance upon the
pastoral duties of Ashfield, ventured to repeat an old sermon. Dame
Tourtelot had been present on the momentous occasion, with such a
tempest of suggestions in regard to the wrappings and feeding of the new
comer, that the poor mother had quietly begged the good clergyman to
decoy her, on her next visit, into his study. This he did, and succeeded
in fastening her with a discussion upon the import of the word
_baptize_, in which he was in a fair way of being carried by storm, if
he had not retreated under cover of his Greek Lexicon.

Mrs. Elderkin had been zealous in neighborly offices, and had brought,
in addition to a great basket of needed appliances, a silver porringer,
which, with wonderful foresight, had been ordered from a Hartford
jeweller in advance. The out-of-door man, Larkin, took a well-meaning
pride in this accession to the family,--walking up and down the street
with a broad grin upon his face. He also became the bearer, in behalf of
the Tew partners, of a certain artful contrivance of tin ware for the
speedy stewing of pap, which, considering that the donors were childless
people, was esteemed a very great mark of respect for the minister.

Would it be strange, if the father felt a new ambition stirring in him,
as he listened from his study to that cry of a child in the house? He
does feel it, and struggles against it. Are not all his flock his
spiritual children? and is he not appointed of Heaven to lead them
toward the rest which is promised? Should that babe be more to him than
a hundred others who are struggling through life's snares wearily? It
may touch him, indeed, cruelly to think it; but is not the soul of the
most worthless person of his parish as large in the eye of the Master as
this of his first-born? Shall these human ties supplant the spiritual
ones by which we are all coheirs of eternal death or of eternal life?
And in this way the minister schools himself against too demonstrative a
joy or love, and prays God silently that His gift may not be a
temptation.

For all this, however, there is many a walk which would have been taken
of old under the orchard trees now transferred to the chamber, where he
paces back and forth with the babe in his arms, soothing its outcry, as
he thinks out his discourse for the following Sabbath.

In due time Mrs. Handby returns to her home. The little child pushes
through its first month of venturesome encounter with the rough world it
has entered upon bravely; and the household is restored to its uniform
placidity. The affairs of the parish follow their accustomed course.
From time to time there are meetings of the "Consociation," or other
ministerial assemblages, in the town, when the parsonage is overflowing,
and Rachel, with a simple grace, is compelled to do the honors to a
corps of the Congregational brotherhood. As for the parson, he was like
a child in all household matters. Over and over he would invite his
brethren flocking in from the neighboring villages to pass the night
with him, when Rachel would decoy him into a corner, and declare, with a
most pitiable look of distress, that not a bed was unoccupied in the
house. Whereupon the goodman would quietly take his hat, and trudge
away to Squire Elderkin's, or, on rarer occasions, to Deacon
Tourtelot's, and ask the favor of lodging with them one of his clerical
brethren.

At other times, before some such occasion of clerical entertainment, the
little housewife, supported by Esther with broom and a great array of
mops, would wait upon the parson in his study and order him away to his
walk in the orchard,--an order which the poor man never ventured to
resist; but, taking perhaps a pocket volume of Doddridge, or of
Cowper,--the only poet he habitually read,--he would sally out with hat
and cane,--this latter a gift of an admiring parishioner, which it
pleased Rachel he should use, and which she always brought to him at
such times, with a little childish mime of half-entreaty and
half-command that it was not in his heart to resist, and which on rare
occasions (that were subject of self-accusation afterward) provoked him
to an answering kiss. At which Rachel:--

"Now go and leave us, please; there's a good man! And mind," (shaking
her forefinger at him,) "dinner at half past twelve: Larkin will blow
the shell."

The parson, as he paced back and forth under the apple-trees, out of
sight, and feeling the need of more vigorous exercise than his usual
meditative gait afforded, would on occasions brandish his cane and
assume a military air and stride, (he remembered the Major's only too
well,) getting in a glow with the unusual movement, and in the heat of
it thanking God for all the blessings that had befallen him: a pleasant
home; a loving wife; a little boy to bear the name, in which, with all
his spiritual tendencies, he yet took a very human pride; health,--and
he whisked his cane as vigorously as ever the Major had done his
cumbrous sword,--the world's comforts; a congregation that met him
kindly, that listened kindly. Was he not leading them in the path of
salvation, and rejoicing in the leadership?

And then, to himself,--"Be careful, careful, Benjamin Johns, that you
take not too great a pride in this work and home of yours. You are but
an instrument in greater hands; He doeth with you what seemeth Him best.
Let not the enticements of the world be too near your thought." In this
way it was that the minister pruned down all the shoots of his natural
affections, lest they might prove a decoy to him, and wrapped himself
ever more closely in the rigors of his chosen theology.

As the boy Reuben grows, and gains a firmer footing, he sometimes
totters beside the clergyman in these orchard walks, clinging blindly to
his hand, and lifting his uncertain feet with great effort over the
interrupting tufts of grass, unheeded by the minister, who is pondering
some late editorial of the "Boston Recorder." But far oftener the boy is
with the mother, burying his face in that dear lap of hers,--lifting the
wet face to have tears kissed away and forgotten. And as he thrives and
takes the strength of three or four years, he walks beside her under the
trees of the village street, clad in such humble finery as the Handby
grandparents may have bestowed; and he happens oftenest, on these
strolls with Rachel, into the hospitable home of the Elderkins, where
there are little ones to romp with the boy. Most noticeable of all, just
now, one Philip Elderkin, (of whom more will have to be said as this
story progresses,) only a year the senior of Reuben, but of far stouter
frame, who looks admiringly on the minister's child, and as he grows
warm in play frights him with some show of threat, which makes the
little Reuben run for cover to the arms of Rachel. Whereat the mother
kisses him into boldness, and tells him that Phil is a good boy and
means no harm to him.

Often, too, in the square-topped chaise, the child is seated on a little
stool between the parson and his wife, as they drive away upon their
visits to the outskirts of the parish,--puzzling them with those strange
questions which come from a boy just exploring his way into the world of
talk.

"Benjamin," says Rachel, as they were nearing home upon one of these
drives, "Reuben is quite a large boy now, you know; have you ever
written to your friend, Mr. Maverick? You remember he promised a gift
for him."

"Never," said the minister, whose goodness rarely took the shape of
letter-writing,--least of all where the task would seem to remind of a
promised favor.

"You've not forgotten it? You've not forgotten Mr. Maverick?"

"Not forgotten, Rachel,--not forgotten to pray for him."

"I _would_ write, Benjamin; it might be something that would be of
service to Reuben. _Please_ don't forget it, Benjamin."

And the minister promised.

In the autumn of 1824,--the minister of Ashfield being still in good
favor with nearly all his parishioners, and his wife Rachel being still
greatly beloved,--a rumor ran through the town, one day, that there was
serious illness at the parsonage, the Doctor's horse and saddle-bags
being observed in waiting at the front gate for two hours together.
Following close upon this, the Tew partners reported--having received
undoubted information from Larkin, who still kept in his old
service--that a daughter was born to the minister, but so feeble that
there were grave doubts if the young Rachel could survive. The report
was well founded; and after three or four days of desperate struggle
with life, the poor child dropped away. Thus death came into the
parsonage with so faint and shadowy a tread, it hardly startled one. The
babe had been christened in the midst of its short struggle, and in this
the father found such comfort as he could; yet reckoning the poor,
fluttering little soul as a sinner in Adam, through whom all men fell,
he confided it with a great sigh to God.

It would have been well, if his grief had rested there. But two days
thereafter there was a rumor on the village street,--flying like the
wind, as such rumors do, from house to house,--"The minister's wife is
dead!"

"I want to know!" said Mrs. Tew, lifting herself from her task of
assorting the mail, and removing her spectacles in nervous haste. "Do
tell! It a'n't possible! Miss Johns dead?"

"Yes," says Larkin, "as true as I live, she's dead"; and his voice broke
as he said it,--the kind little woman had so won upon him.

Squire Elderkin, like a good Christian, came hurrying to the parsonage
to know what this strange report could mean. The study was unoccupied.
With the familiarity of an old friend he made his way up the cramped
stairs. The chamber-door was flung wide open: there was no reason why
the whole parish might not come in. The nurse, sobbing in a corner, was
swaying back and forth, her hands folded across her lap. Reuben,
clinging to the coverlet, was feeling his way along the bed, if by
chance his mother's hand might catch hold upon his; and the minister
standing with a chair before him, his eyes turned to heaven (the same
calm attitude which he took at his evening prayer-meeting) was
entreating God to "be over his house, to strengthen him, to pour down
his Spirit on him, to bind up the bruised hearts,--to spare,--spare"----

Even the stout Squire Elderkin withdraws outside the door, that he may
the better conceal his emotion.

The death happened on a Friday. The Squire, after a few faltering
expressions of sympathy, asked regarding the burial. "Should it not be
on Sunday?"

"Not on Sunday," says Mr. Johns; "God help me, Squire,--but this is not
a work of necessity or mercy. Let it be on Monday."

"On Monday, then," said Elderkin,--"and let me take the arrangement of
it all off your thought; and we will provide some one to preach for you
on the Sabbath."

"No, Mr. Elderkin, no; I am always myself in the pulpit. I shall find
courage there."

And he did. A stranger would not have suspected that the preacher's wife
lay dead at home; the same unction and earnestness that had always
characterized him; the same unyielding rigidity of doctrine: "_Except ye
repent, ye shall all likewise perish._"

Once only--it was in the reading of the last hymn in the afternoon
service--his voice broke, and he sat down half through. But as the song
rose under the old roof of the meeting-house, his courage rose with it.
He seemed ashamed of the transitory weakness. What right had he to bring
private griefs to such a place? What right had the leader to faint, when
the army were pressing forward to the triumph God had promised to the
faithful? So it was in a kind of ecstasy that he rose, and joined with a
firm, loud voice in the final doxology.

One or two of the good old ladies, with a sad misconception of the force
that was in him, and of the divine aid which seemed vouchsafed to him
during the service, came to him, as he passed out, to give him greeting
and a word of condolence. For that time only he passed them by, as if
they had been wooden images. His spirit had been strained to its
uttermost, and would bear no more. He made his way home with an
ungainly, swift gait,--home to the dear bedside,--down upon his
knees,--struggling with his weakness,--praying.

At the tea-hour Esther knocked; but in vain. An hour after, his boy
came,--came at the old woman's suggestion, (who had now the care of
him,) and knelt by his side.

"Reuben,--my boy!"

"She's in heaven, isn't she, father?"

"God only knows, my son. He hath mercy on whom He will have mercy."

Small as he was, the boy flushed at this:--

"I think it's a bad God, if she isn't in heaven.'

"Nay, Reuben, little one, blaspheme not: His ways are not as our ways.
Kiss her now, and we will sit down to our supper."

And so they passed out together to their lonely repast. It had been a
cheerful meal in days gone, this Sunday's supper. For the dinner, owing
to the scruples of the parson, was but a cold lunch always; and in the
excited state in which the preacher found himself between services,
there was little of speech; even Reuben's prattle, if he ventured upon
it, caught a quick "Hist!" from the mamma. But with the return of Esther
from the afternoon Bible-class, there was a big fire lighted in the
kitchen, and some warm dishes served, such as diffused an appetizing
odor through the house. The clergyman, too, wore an air of relief,
having preached his two sermons, and showing a capital appetite, like
most men who have acquitted themselves of a fatiguing duty. Besides
which, the parson guarded that old New England custom of beginning his
Sabbath at sundown on Saturday,--so that, by the time the supper of
Sunday was fairly over, Reuben could be counting it no sin, if he should
steal a run into the orchard. Nay, it is quite probable that the poor
little woman who was dead had always welcomed cheerily the opened door
of Sunday evening, and the relaxing gravity, as night fell, of her
husband's starched look.

What wonder, if she had loved, even as much as the congregational
singing, the music of the birds at the dusk of a summer's day? It was
hard measure which many of the old divines meted out, in excluding from
their ideas of worship all alliance with the charms of Nature, or indeed
with any beauties save those which were purely spiritual. It is certain
that the poor woman had enjoyed immensely those Sabbath-evening strolls
through the garden and orchard, hand in hand with Reuben and the
minister,--with such keen and exhilarating sense of God's goodness, of
trust in Him, of hope, as was not invariably wakened by the sermons of
her Benjamin.

On the evening of which we speak, the father and son walked down the
orchard alone. The birds sang their merriest as day closed in; and as
they turned upon their walk, and the good man saw through the vista of
garden and orchard a bright light flitting across an upper window of
his house, the mad hope flashed upon him for an instant (such baseless
fancies will sometimes possess the calmest minds) that she had
waked,--his Rachel,--and was there to meet him. The next moment the
light and the hope were gone. His fingers gave such a convulsive grip
upon the hand of his little boy that Reuben cried out with pain, "Papa,
papa, you hurt me!"

The parson bent down and kissed him.




ANCIENT MINING ON THE SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR.


In the month of March, 1848, Samuel O. Knapp and J.B. Townsend
discovered, from tracks in the snow, that a hedgehog had taken up his
winter-quarters in a cavity of a ledge of rocks, about twelve miles from
Ontonagon, Lake Superior, in the neighborhood of the Minnesota Copper
Mine. In order to capture their game, they procured a pick and shovel,
and commenced an excavation by removing the vegetable mould and rubbish
that had accumulated about the mouth of what proved to be a small cavern
in the rock. At the depth of a few feet they discovered numerous stone
hammers or mauls; and they saw that the cavern was not a natural one,
but had been worked out by human agency, and that the stone implements,
found in great profusion in and about it, were the tools used in making
the excavation. Further examination developed a well-defined vein of
native copper running through the rock; and it was evidently with a view
of getting this metal that this extensive opening had been made.

This was the first instance where "ancient diggings"--as they are
familiarly called in the Lake Superior region--were ever recognized as
such; and this artificial cavern presents the most conclusive proofs
that a people in the remote past worked those mines. Upon the discovery
of this mine, attention was at once directed to numerous other cavities
and depressions in the surface of the earth at this and other points,
and the result was that nearly a hundred ancient pits were found, and in
all of them mining-tools of various kinds. These ancient mines or pits
are not restricted to one locality, but extend over the entire length of
the copper region, from the eastern extremity of Keweenaw Point to the
Porcupine Mountains, a distance of nearly one hundred miles.

In some of the ancient diggings, the stone hammers have the marks of
hard usage, fractured or battered faces, and a large proportion of them
are broken and unfit for use; but in other pits the hammers are all
sound, and many of them have the appearance of never having been used.
These hammers, or mauls, which are of various sizes, and not uniform in
shape, are water-worn stones, of great hardness, similar in all respects
to those that are found in abundance on the shore of the Lake, or in the
gravel-banks of that region. They are generally trap-rock, embracing the
varieties of gray, porphyritic, hornblendic, sienitic, and amygdaloidal
trap, and appear to have had no labor expended upon them except the
chiselling of a groove around the middle for the purpose of attaching a
withe to serve as a handle. In a few instances, I have noticed small
hammers, usually egg-shaped, without a groove; and the battered or worn
appearance at one end was all that induced the belief that they were
ever used for hammering.

These hammers are usually from six to eight inches in length, and from
eight to twelve inches in circumference, and weigh from four to eight
pounds; but I have measured specimens that were twenty-four inches in
circumference at the groove, and would weigh thirty pounds. It seems
hardly probable that one man could wield so ponderous a tool; and from
the fact that some of the large mauls have two grooves around them, it
is presumed that two men were employed in using them.

Stone hammers are found in all the ancient diggings, and in some
instances the number is almost incredible. From the pits near the
Minnesota mines it is estimated that ten cart-loads have been removed; I
was informed that a well there was entirely stoned up with them, and
from the great number still remaining I am inclined to believe the
report. A still greater number are said to have been found at the
Mesnard and Pontiac Mines, in the Portage Lake district. Farther east,
in the vicinity of the Cliff and Central Mines, they are also abundant;
and it would seem, from the circumstance of their being invariably found
in the pits, that the law among the ancient miners was similar to the
one adopted by the adventurers in California a few years since, who
established their claims by leaving their tools upon the land or in the
pits where they were digging for gold.

In addition to the stone implements, copper chisels, wedges, or "gads,"
are often found in the abandoned mines; and in the vicinity, as well as
in places more remote, other copper relics are found, consisting of
knives, spear-points, and rings, like the bracelets of the present day.
In a collection at the Douglas House, in Houghton, Portage Lake, are
ornaments of this kind, and also some spear-heads, nicely wrought and
similar in shape and size to the blade of a spontoon. But I have never
seen a copper relic that had the appearance of having been melted. They
invariably appear to have been cut and hammered into shape from a mass
of native copper.

Colonel Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland, Ohio, who has examined these
"ancient diggings," has several interesting relics, some of which he has
figured and described in the thirteenth volume of the "Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge." In the Vermont State Cabinet is a
spear-head of native copper, about six inches long, which was found in
Williston, Vermont, in 1843.

It may be proper here to remark, that the copper in these relics is
tougher than that which has been fused, and so is the native copper of
Lake Superior; and occasionally in these copper relics blotches and
grains of native silver are found. These circumstances serve to
establish the fact, that the material of which the implements were made
was obtained at Lake Superior; for there, and nowhere else in America,
is native silver found in grains, and sometimes in considerable masses,
imbedded in a matrix of native copper. I well remember, when a boy,
reading an article relating to the "Lost Arts," in which the fact was
stated, that a piece of metal consisting of pure copper and silver had
been found in Hamilton County, Ohio, and that a copper knife had been
found in one of the ancient mounds at Marietta, which had distinct
blotches of pure silver in it. The writer of the article claimed that
the people who manufactured that knife were in the possession of an art,
now lost, by which copper and silver could be melted and
indiscriminately mixed, but upon cooling would separate and remain
distinct and pure, instead of forming an alloy. The discovery of native
copper and silver similarly associated in the Lake Superior mines has
not only destroyed this theory, but has established beyond a doubt the
locality whence that copper knife, and other relics found in the ancient
mounds and elsewhere, were obtained.

Billets of wood that bear the marks of a tolerably sharp-cutting tool
are often found in the old mines where water has been suffered to remain
since their abandonment. In the Waterbury Mine wooden shovels were found
about three and one half feet long, some of which were much worn upon
the blade, and appeared as though they had been used for scraping
together and throwing out the refuse rock and dirt from the mine.[A] At
the same locality a wooden bowl was found, the side being so worn as to
show conclusively that it had been used for baling water from the mine.
Similar implements have been found at the mines in the Portage Lake and
Ontonagon districts. When first found, these wooden implements appear
sound, and being thoroughly saturated with water are heavy and can be
handled without breaking; but when dried they often crack and warp so as
to retain little of their original form and appearance. It is to be
regretted that but few of these wooden relics were saved and properly
preserved by those who found them. In a few instances the wooden withe
or handle has been found attached to the hammers, but upon being dried
they usually fall to pieces.

At the Hilton Mine in the Ontonagon district, in October, 1863, as the
men were removing the vegetable mould that had accumulated in one of the
old pits, they found at the depth of about nine feet a leather bag,
which was eleven inches long and seven inches wide. It was lying upon a
mass of native copper which the ancient miners had unsuccessfully
attempted to remove from its parent vein. The bag was in a remarkable
state of preservation, the leather being quite pliable and as tough as
sheepskin. It was made up with the hair inside, was sewed across the
bottom and up one side with a leather string, and near the top holes
were cut and a leather string inserted to close the mouth by drawing it
together. The bag was empty, but from its appearance I judged that it
had been used for transporting copper or other mineral,--the leather in
places showing marks of much service, and the hair being almost entirely
worn off. I was unable to determine what kind of skin it was, but
inclined to the belief that it was from the walrus, as the short, stubby
hairs more closely resembled those of that animal than of any other with
which I am acquainted. At the time I saw the bag,--the day after it was
discovered,--it was in the possession of C. M. Sanderson, Esq., the
agent of the Knowlton Mine; but I hear it has since been taken to Boston
and sold.

In several of the ancient mines considerable masses of pure copper
detached from the main lode have been found, which were left there by
those who mined it. At the Central Mine, not far from Eagle Harbor, a
mass of copper was found in one of these old pits that weighed forty-six
tons. Every portion of the surface was smooth, and appeared as though it
had been hammered by those who detached it from its original vein. In
the Mesnard Mine, in the Portage Lake district, a detached mass of
copper was found that weighed eighteen tons, hammered smooth like the
mass before named.

But the most interesting specimen was found in an old pit near the
Minnesota Mine. In removing the accumulated leaves and vegetable mould,
the workmen, at the depth of eighteen feet, discovered a mass of copper
ten feet long, three feet wide, and more than a foot thick, weighing six
tons. On removing the earth around the mass, it was found to rest upon
skids, or timbers, piled up to the height of about five feet. These
timbers, having been constantly covered with water, were in a good state
of preservation, and at the ends showed plainly the marks of the tool
used in cutting them. It was thought by those who saw the billets when
they were plump, that they were a species of oak; but the few remaining
pieces which I have seen were so cracked and shrivelled that I have been
unable to form an opinion as to the kind of wood. This mass of copper,
like all others found in those ancient pits, was divested of all its
ragged points, and hammered perfectly smooth. There was nothing in its
appearance to show that it had ever been cut from another mass; but upon
clearing out the rubbish from the bottom of the mine, which was about
twenty-six feet below the surface, a vein of pure metal was found from
which this had evidently been taken.

A few unfinished jobs have been found in these ancient pits, which throw
some light upon the manner in which the work was carried on. In two
instances there were projecting masses somewhat resembling urns, or
inverted short-necked bottles, and completely smoothed by hammering,
especially at the thinner portion or neck. It appears that the ancient
miners first removed the rock from around the veins of copper. This was
done by building fires upon or about it, and, when heated, crumbling it
by throwing on water. By means of stone mauls the fragments were broken
up and removed. When the vein was sufficiently exposed on all sides, a
point was selected where the copper was thinner or narrower than the
average of the vein. Here they commenced cutting off a mass, and by
patient and long-continued hammering severed the two portions of the
vein. In all the ancient mines which I have visited there is abundant
evidence that fire was extensively used in the removal of rock; for not
only do the rocks give proof of having been heated, but charcoal and
ashes are invariably found at the bottom of all the rock excavations.

In general, the mining was done by surface openings along the line of
the outcrop of the vein; but occasionally adits are driven into the
rock, similar to the one first discovered at the Minnesota Mine before
alluded to.

The surface mines are usually nearly filled with leaves and vegetable
mould that have accumulated during the centuries that have elapsed since
their abandonment, and till within a few years a heavy growth of timber
covered the land; hence the nume

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/30265