3.
My dear Ned,—For though I have never yet had the pleasure of seeing you at our house, I still feel as though I knew you, Tom has said so much to me of you, and has shown so much more than he has said. I have felt very thankful that you were his friend; and now that this terrible and dreadful parting is to separate me from my only child, I am glad that you are to be with him. I know the cause that calls him, and I feel that it is better for him to go than to stay; but, though I say yes, I say it with an agony beyond your comprehension. I want your promise that you will not leave Tom during the time that your country may need you; that you will suffer nothing but death to separate you; that you will refuse promotion and honor, if it is to part you from him; that you will stay by his side in the progress of the battles that may come. It is through your influence that he goes; I must look to you for his safety. So make me this promise; and, in return, what can I give? what can I say? This only: that my house shall be your home; and that I shall feel as if I had two sons instead of one.
[VI.]
ONE YEAR AFTER.
“A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread;
Through it a level river slowly drawn:
He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
Streamed banners like the dawn.”
A bare room, the dead whiteness of whose plastered wall is only relieved by a coarsely colored print of the Virgin Mary in blue and scarlet, which hangs in a dingy gilt frame on the wall at the head of the bed. A crack in the glass has relieved the features of the Virgin of their ordinary expression of insipidity, but has substituted therefor a look of malevolence quite unpleasant to see. Fortunately for the man who lies, heavily sleeping, upon the pallet bed, this picture is not where his eyes can rest upon it. Beside the bed are two little stools, which constitute all the furniture of the room, and, indeed, all that it is well capable of containing; for so cramped and narrow are its dimensions, that it seems to be scarcely more than a closet with a window in it. Through the half-open door-way, however, can be seen long lines of beds, with the quiet figures of nurses and physicians passing back and forth through the ward.
Two people entered carefully and noiselessly through the open door-way,—one evidently an army physician; the other, in a captain’s uniform now, was Tom, bronzed and sunburnt, but the same careless, light-hearted boy as when he left Cambridge one year before. There was a look of anxiety on his face now, however, as he bent over the sleeping figure and asked:—
“How is he to-day, doctor?”
“Improving fast, captain,” was the reply. “His sleep is splendid,—just what I’ve been hoping for. If he wakes peacefully, and is conscious, he is likely to be all right again before long; and I shouldn’t wonder if he could rejoin his regiment in a week or ten days.”
“Thank Heaven!” said Tom.
“And his physique,” said the doctor. “This colonel of yours is a tough fellow, and a brave man; yet, if he should die to-morrow, I should simply put down his name, and never think of him again. My note-book is full of dead men’s names,—just a mention and nothing more. Oh! by the way, a gentleman called here for you yesterday afternoon, and said he would come again this morning. Here is his card.”
“Why,” cried Tom, “it is the Professor. See that he is shown up to me when he comes, won’t you?”
“Oh, certainly! I’ll attend to that,” said the doctor, and he rushed softly away.
Tom sat down by the side of the bed, and looked at his friend’s face. It had changed greatly, much more than his, since they left Cambridge. The forehead was marked now with heavy lines, and the full beard made it seem like the countenance of a man of forty. So old can even a boy grow in a year. Ned had trained himself, with great effort, to unquestioning obedience. His criticism had been only upon those to whom he gave his orders, and he had struggled not to form an opinion on those to whom his obedience was due; thus he had become an admirable officer. Tom sat there looking at Ned, and thinking, thinking, he could scarcely tell of what, until he felt a hand touch his shoulder. He turned and saw the Professor, and fairly hugged him in his delight.
“So I have found you at last, Tom,” said the Professor.
“Just think, sir,” said Tom; “it is a year now since I have seen you.”
“And the end seems as far off as ever,” said the Professor.
“Don’t say that,” said Tom, “because sometimes, you know, I have to try very hard not to think so myself.”
“Ah!” said the Professor, “you are still the same, I see, and I am the same; and Ned,—is this Ned?”
“Yes, poor fellow,” said Tom; “he has been sick for nearly ten days.”
“But how came you to be with him?” asked the Professor. “Why are you not with your regiment?”
“Sit down,” said Tom, “and I’ll tell you; but don’t speak too loud, on his account, you know!”
“Among the wonderful effects of the war,” said the Professor, in a didactic manner, “may be mentioned the fact that it has made Tom thoughtful and considerate. Well, go on!”
“That sounds just like you,” said Tom. “Well, the explanation is simply this: that I had a leave of absence for a fortnight given me, and just at its beginning Ned was taken sick.”
“So you remained here with him, and didn’t go home?” asked the Professor.
“Of course,” said Tom, simply. “I couldn’t leave him after all we had been through together.”
“What did your mother say?” asked the Professor. “Wasn’t she disappointed?”
“Yes, she was disappointed,” said Tom; “but she wrote and said that I was right. It was hard on Ned, and hard on me, and hard on her, especially as I haven’t been home for a year. You see, in my last leave of absence, there was some of the worst fighting that we have been in, and it would have seemed cowardly if I had gone then.”
“It is hard, Tom,” said the Professor; “but you have done nobly. But if I stay here with Ned now, can’t you run up North?”
“No,” said Tom; “it’s impossible. My leave of absence, you see, expires in two days, so that I shall have to give up going home at all for the present. I’m afraid now that Ned won’t be well enough to satisfy me when I start for the front. He’s been perfectly delirious, and yesterday the doctor said was the turning-point. If he only is conscious when he wakes from this sleep! Do you think he has changed?”
“Changed!” said the Professor; “he’s not the same boy,—he’s not a boy at all. What a developing agent this terrible war is!”
“And now you must tell me about Harvard,” said Tom.
“Wait a minute,” said the Professor. “I have one or two questions to ask you first. I want to hear about this new rebel general who is making such havoc with us.”
“Stonewall Jackson, you mean,” said Tom. “No one knows much about him; but Ned declares that he is, thus far, the most striking figure of the rebellion. Maliff, who says he knew him when he was in command at Fort Hamilton, before the war, showed us a picture of him, in which he looked simply prim and neat. The war has probably changed all that. I think we are all a little afraid of him, and hope to meet him in battle soon. Some of the men think he is a supernatural being.”
“The Hibernian element, I suppose,” said the Professor.
“Exactly,” said Tom.
“And now tell me some more about yourselves,” continued the Professor.
“Well, about ourselves,” said Tom, “there is little to say. I am a captain, as you see; and Ned is a lieutenant-colonel, and commands our regiment,—or what there is left of it now. We might both have been promoted before this; but we were bound to stick together, and so we have, in all sorts of places too.”
“I have heard,” said the Professor, “how you have saved Ned’s life.”
“Nonsense!” said Tom. “He has done just as much for me. We are together, and we fight and quarrel, just as we did at Harvard; and, when the war is over, Ned insists that we are to go back to Cambridge for a year longer, so as to get our degrees; a plan which I don’t altogether fancy.”
“I do,” said the Professor; “it will be delightful to me to have the opportunity of marking the misdemeanors of a colonel, and perhaps of even suspending a captain.”
“That sounds just like you, and like old times,” said Tom; “and now do please tell me all about Harvard.”
“Yes,” said Ned’s voice feebly, from the bed, “please let us hear the Harvard news.” And so the Professor began.
[VII.]
NED’S NOTE-BOOK.
Tom has gone, but the Professor is here still. I do not mean to stay long,—I shall rejoin my regiment in a day or two. In the mean time, I amuse myself, when the Professor is not here, by scribbling in my note-book and reading it over. Such a book as it is now! My own thoughts begin it; then, as we reach the battle-fields, I have not time to think, much less to put my thoughts in writing; then comes a record of deaths,—poor fellows, who wanted me to write to their homes. How curious that record is! Men whom I didn’t care for grew heroic to me in those first days,—when death was a novelty,—and I am minute in my descriptions of them. Then, as the deaths become more and more frequent, my descriptions grow shorter, and I give a line only, even to those whom I really loved. It is strange reading, this note-book of mine!
Here is an item which I find in my note-book: “Quarrelled with Tom!” How we have fought, to be sure! I don’t know what this quarrel was about, but I know how it ended. We didn’t speak for two days, and then came another attack from that restless creature, Stonewall Jackson. It was such a lovely day,—fresh and spring-like, but it soon grew hot and dusty. Every once in a while a bullet would whiz past; I could hear the rumble of the artillery, and I was terribly thirsty. I didn’t see Tom, but I knew he was near,—we always kept close together at such times;—still, if I had seen him, I wouldn’t have spoken to him. My horse had been shot from under me, and I had cut open the head of the man who did it; it seems strange, now that it is all over, that I could do such a thing. Suddenly I saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at me. The face of the man who was pointing it peered from behind a tree with a malicious grin. I felt that death was near, and the feeling was not pleasant. However, the situation had an element of absurdity in it, and that made me laugh a little. The man who was going to kill me laughed too. I heard a little click, a report, and his gun went up, and he went down. Tom had shot him.
“Tom,” said I, with some feeling, “you have saved my life.”
“There!” said he, triumphantly, “you spoke first.”
I saw that I had, and I was dreadfully provoked. However, he admitted that he was wrong; and so, under the circumstances, I decided that a reconciliation was advisable.
The Professor has been here to-day. He is the most delightful companion I know; and, what is his special charm, he really believes that he is hard and cynical, the tender-hearted old baby! I know that he fancies himself a second Diogenes. His liking for us boys is very queer to me. Tom is his pet, but he prefers to talk to me. He discusses Tom with me, and then he discusses me, just as if I were a third person. To-day he told me I was a mass of selfish pettinesses. I don’t think that was his word, but that was what he meant; “and yet,” said he, “you are capable of heroic generosity.” I always know that part of what the Professor says is said in earnest; but I am never quite sure what part it is. He doesn’t fatigue me, and doesn’t excite me, and it is well for me that he is here; still, I am impatient to get back again. He has told me about Tom’s staying with me, instead of going home. I don’t know what to say about it; I don’t know what to think. It makes me want to die for him; nothing else that I can do seems sufficient. When this war is over, I suppose Tom will marry and forget me. I never will go near his wife—I shall hate her. Now, that is a very silly thing for a lieutenant-colonel to write. I don’t care, it is true.
I wonder if I am so very selfish, after all. I like refinement and elegance, and I hate dirt; and I do like to have people care for me and do things to oblige me. But my first thought is not always of myself; and I don’t think I am unjust to others, because of myself. And, if I desire the sympathy and appreciation of others, I am sure it is not wrong.
“C’est qu’un cœur bien atteint veut qu’on soit tout à lui.”
I can’t remember, though, just now, a single unselfish thing that I have ever done, unless it was giving some of the fruit and jelly that the Professor brought me yesterday to a poor fellow with hungry eyes, whom I saw glaring at them through the door. That wouldn’t have been generous, either, if he hadn’t been a rebel. Giving aid and comfort to the enemy is the only generous action that I can discover of mine, after all my self-analysis. Confound self-analysis, any way! It is only another form of selfishness, mingled with morbid conceit. If I did what I ought to do, without thinking about myself at all, it would be better for me; but I haven’t anything to do just now, except scribble away here, and it is dreadfully stupid.
How talking with the Professor has set me to thinking of Harvard again! Now that the lights are glimmering at intervals through the ward, I can see the yard, with Holworthy and Stoughton and Hollis beaming away from their windows at each other, and Massachusetts standing a little apart, as becomes its greater age, but benignant in its seclusion. I hear the voices of singing in the yard, on the steps, and under the trees; I can see fellows sitting round the tables in their rooms, studying and not studying; I can hear recitations made to the different professors and tutors; and just as the bell for morning prayers, which I still hate, begins to clang upon my memory, I remember that I am here in a hospital, while we are still fighting and killing each other for the sake of the country that has given us all we enjoy. I shall be out soon, I know. There is always good prospect of a battle when I feel this way; and yet I do horribly loathe the tint of blood which has seemed to rest on everything I have seen or dreamed of for a year past. How I hate war, and yet how wholly I am absorbed in it! I am getting feverish; I shall write no more to-day.
In looking over my note-book, I find something which, luckily for me, I had almost forgotten; and that is, the prediction of my friend Mooney. Poor idiot! he was shot the first time that we were under fire. How pleasant it would have been for me in all the work I have been through, if I had remembered that prophecy! How it would have aided my recovery in my sickness, if I had been haunted by those words! I am to meet a dishonorable death for a dishonorable action, am I? The only dishonorable action I can commit is to go over to Stonewall Jackson, and learn how to fight. By Jove! I do admire that man. He is what too few officers on either the Union or the Rebel sides are, unselfish and in earnest. But I don’t think that I shall join him, for all that; and, if I did, I should not be likely to meet with death,—his luck and his pluck would take me through.
The Professor has confided to me a plan of his, which delights me. He says that he will go North, and bring Tom’s mother on to Washington, if her health permits. As Tom’s father is in Europe at present, and as it would be highly unpleasant, to use the mildest term, for a lady to travel alone to Washington, knowing nothing of the place and its peculiarities, it is very thoughtful and very kind, and something more, in the Professor to do this. Then Tom can run up to Washington for a day or two to see her, poor fellow! and all, or rather part, of his great generosity will be rewarded. The Professor is a brick to think of it; and I have made him promise to start to-morrow. And when he goes, I shall go too, only in the other direction. How happy this will make Tom!
I don’t know what makes me think of our class-day now, but I do wonder who had the rooms which Tom and I engaged for our spread. Perhaps it’s the contrast between salad and strawberries, and hardtack and corned-beef; though now everything seems to me to be saturated with gruel. I wonder if Tiny Snow was at class-day this year! She was an object of awe to me in Freshman year; then I despised the sex when I was a Sophomore; and then in Junior year I saw a good deal of her. She had a way of drooping her head a little; and then, with a sort of shy little gulp, raising it, and making her eyes childlike and plaintive. It was quite pleasant, even after familiarity with it had destroyed its novelty. I wrote some verses to her once, and sent them to “The Harvard Magazine;” but they came into the hands of an editor who was gone on her himself, and he very properly rejected them. Once I showed Tiny, quite by accident, the Etruscan locket which I got abroad, and which Tom admired so much that I had his initials cut on it to give to him.
“Oh, how lovely!” said Tiny. “Who is it for?”
“Don’t you see the initials?” said I.
“T. S.,” said she, innocently; “who can it be?”
I thought there seemed something like a blush upon her cheek as she spoke; but I told her that T. S. was some one I cared a great deal about.
“Is she pretty?” asked Tiny.
“She!” I answered; “it isn’t any girl; it’s my chum, Tom, you know.”
Then she really colored; and a little while afterward I remembered that those were her initials. How she must have hated me,—perhaps!
I have eaten a real breakfast at last, and am upon my feet again. The Professor has gone, and I am going at once. How curious it will be to come out of this dream, and go back again to work! The doctor begs me not to get excited, and yet tells me that in three days I shall be as well as ever. I have been excited for a year now, and I go to the front this very afternoon. I am rather thin, and my shirt feels something like an air-box; but I shall get over all that soon. We are to make an attack before long, I understand.
I am back in camp. This is the last entry that I shall make in this note-book for some time to come. I am alarmed a little about Tom. I think he is going to be sick; he seems excited and feverish, and yet dull. However, he has brightened up wonderfully since I told him about the Professor’s intention; and I am not sure but that it was a dreadful homesickness that oppressed him when I first met him. He won’t see a doctor; he laughs the idea to scorn, and says he is only tired and overworked, and that, if I can manage to secure him a little rest, he will soon be all right. But he is dying to see his mother, he confesses to me, and I am not surprised to hear it.
I said that this is the last entry I shall make here. I am not sure now but that these are the last words which I shall ever write. I take charge of a small expedition to-night, with men whom I have personally selected for the purpose; and we are to destroy the bridge above here. It must be done at once. Jackson is near there, and we expect and fear an attack from him. The work is delicate rather than difficult; but it is sufficiently dangerous for me to commend my soul to God before I start upon it. Good-by, little note-book, perhaps forever. If Tom and I return safe,—and Tom will, I am sure,—why, then, perhaps, I may tell you all about this coming night’s work; but, if not, you will be destroyed, unread; and so farewell.
[VIII.]
MIDNIGHT.
“Then came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
And dissonant cries of terror and dismay;
Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore,
And with the dead he lay.”
A starlit sky, dead silence all around, only the river’s murmur breaking it. The moonbeams shining on the forest-path mark all the shadows with a dazzling light, bringing weird and fantastic outlines forth, where brush and hedges line the dusty road, and making the parched fields, almost destitute of vegetation, shine like burnished sheets of dead white light. And along this road came slowly, with muffled tramp, a little body of men, their dark figures darker by contrast with the gleaming barrels of their rifles, which the moonlight seemed to tinge with silvery fire. They came along so quietly, so noiselessly, now hidden from view in a curve of the road, and now appearing again. And still all was quiet.
And then a little tongue of flame ran quickly and noiselessly up into the black darkness; and in a moment more all was blaze and smoke. The work was done,—the bridge was destroyed.
Down in the road around the bridge the men were grouped,—the fire giving them a ruddy coloring,—a tint of blood. Two figures were especially prominent, and seemed to be directing their movements.
“Well, Tom,” said Ned, “does this remind you of bonfires in the yard at Cambridge?”
“Not much,” said Tom, dispiritedly.
“Why, Tom, what is the matter with you?” asked Ned, anxiously.
“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I feel nervous and apprehensive.”
“I ought not to have let you come with me,” said Ned. “It was weak and selfish in me to consent. You are feverish and excited, Tom; and you ought to have rested.”
“Just as if I was going to let you go off into danger without me!” said Tom.
“I am much obliged to you for the care you take of me,” said Ned; “but you see the work has been done without any trouble. The rebs are two miles away; and this will prevent them from making a detour, and getting in our rear if we advance.”
“Ned,” said Tom, “do you think that the Professor will bring my mother on to Washington with him?”
“Think!” said Ned. “I am sure he will, and that, when we return to camp, we shall find a message from her to you. Perhaps he’ll charter a train, and bring on a host of your female admirers, victorious masher of female hearts!”
“Don’t rough me, Ned,” said Tom.
“Well, now I know that you are going to be sick, Tom,” said Ned, “when you take that piteous tone, instead of answering me back. By Jove, there goes a beam, crash; and look, the fire has entirely died out of the other. We can’t leave the work half done in this way, we must hurry and finish it. The rebel pickets are probably back in camp by this time. Tom, order four men, and row that boat over to the other side for me.”
“Why, Ned!” asked Tom, “what are you going to do?”
“The fire has died out over there,” said Ned, “and the other beam is left. Here, O’Brien, I want that axe. I am going to cross on it, and cut it off where it is charred. Get the boat ready at once, captain.”
“But, Ned, that is very dangerous,” interposed Tom.
“Obey orders!” said Ned, impatiently and angrily; and Tom, with a reproachful glance, left him at once.
Only a slender beam now hung over the flood. On this Ned started to cross, balancing himself with the axe, the group of men watching him eagerly. An inch to the right or to the left, and all was lost. The flames were decreasing now, yet still the beam stood. Then the boat started out slowly across the river. The attention of all was turned towards it for an instant; and, in the mean time, Ned had almost gained the other side. One, two, three blows on the charred part of the beam, and it wavered and fell with a crash as Ned leaped lightly upon the bank. He waved his hand triumphantly, and ran down to meet the boat, which, more than half way across, was now struggling with the powerful current, and yet was visibly nearing the shore. He waved his cap, and started down the river-bank into the copse to meet it. Only two steps, two little steps down the bank, and from the tangled foliage a powerful hand grasped his throat, the cold barrel of a pistol was pressed to his cheek, and a voice fairly hissed the whisper into his ears:—
“Silence! or you are a dead man!”
And for reply, with one mighty effort, he threw off the hand; and, as the pistol-shot resounded through the air, his voice rang out, clear and strong on the still night:—
“Back to the camp, for your lives! The enemy is upon us!”
In an instant more he was seized; and one of the men who had crept upon him said:—
“Damn you, you hound! you have spoiled all our plans.”
Then Ned smiled serenely, and looked calmly at the man.
“But we shall bag four or five of them, any way, lieutenant,” said one of the men,—“those in the boat down there.”
And then Ned started and turned pale; but it was too late. Tom and two others had already landed, and were in the hands of two or three of the rebel pickets.
“O Tom, Tom!” cried Ned, “why did you not turn back?”
But Tom did not answer, and only stared vacantly and stupidly at Ned.
“The captain’s sick, sir,” said one of the men who had been captured.
“Drunk, more likely,” said the rebel lieutenant, with an oath.
“He was taken in the boat,” continued the man.
“It is as I feared,” said Ned; “he is in a high fever, as I was.” At this the rebel lieutenant drew back. “Oh! it is not contagious,” said Ned, with a world of scorn in his voice; and the rebel lieutenant resumed his former position.
“Tom, don’t you know me?” asked Ned. “Oh, what will be the end of this, I wonder!”
“Libby Prison,” sneered the lieutenant.
“Tell my mother to come and see me at Libby,” said Tom, half stupidly. Upon this the chorus naturally raised an insulting shout, and one poor brute indulged in some ribald remark. In an instant, Tom had struck him across the face; in another instant, Tom himself lay on the ground senseless and stunned by a blow from the butt of one of the rebel rifles. It was at this instant, while Ned in anguish and desperation was struggling with his captors, that the sound of horses’ hoofs was heard coming nearer and nearer, and three or four officers rode quickly up. The central figure of the group was a compact, sinewy man, of medium height, with a full, untrimmed beard, and a face, as Ned could see by the dim light of the fire which some of the men were now lighting a little distance off, furrowed with the lines of thought, of care, and anxiety. The eyes were large and expressive, the features clearly cut, and the mouth, even though partially hidden by a thin mustache, showed indomitable firmness. A grand head in many respects, and one which made it evident to Ned that he was in the presence of the dreaded Stonewall Jackson.
“What is the matter here?” he asked briefly.
“They have destroyed the bridge, general,” was the reply.
Stonewall Jackson turned, and whispered to one of his companions who rode away. Then he continued:—
“Are these prisoners?”
“Yes, general,” said the lieutenant,—“these four.”
“A lieutenant-colonel, I see?” said Stonewall Jackson.
Ned simply bowed in reply. Then Stonewall Jackson looked at Tom, and said:—
“And who is this here?”
At this, Tom half raised himself, and then fell back again.
“May I tell you?” asked Ned.
“Certainly,” said Jackson; “what is it?”
“He is in a high fever, which has been coming on for some time,” said Ned; “and one of these men struck him with the butt of his rifle.”
“After he had surrendered?” asked Jackson.
“After he was taken prisoner,” said Ned.
“He shall be taken to camp and attended to,” said Stonewall Jackson. But, when they touched Tom, he uttered a sharp cry of pain; and the men drew back.
“We will let him remain here, then,” said Jackson, after a word or two more with his companions. “Lieutenant, you will keep watch here, and down the river’s bank, until daybreak, and then report at head-quarters to me with the prisoners. As for you, sir,” he continued, addressing Ned, “you can remain here through the night with your friend,—under parole, of course, not to break your bonds. Do you accept?”
“Most thankfully,” said Ned, with a gratitude in his voice and accent far beyond what his words expressed.
“He is a handsome boy,” said Jackson, looking again at the still unconscious Tom. “Keep the other prisoners under strict guard, lieutenant; but treat this gentleman who is under parole with all possible respect. Hark! what is that? Midnight!”
And, as he paused to listen, the distant sound of bells rang faintly out upon the air. Midnight; and for an instant utter stillness upon air and earth and water. And then Tom groaned painfully; and, as Ned bent anxiously over him, Stonewall Jackson said:—
“I shall see you in the morning, Colonel.” And Ned thanked him once again; and the noise of the horses’ hoofs came more and more faintly, and at last died away entirely.
Then Ned knelt down beside Tom, and looked steadily at him. Tom half opened his eyes, and then closed them again with a weary moan that went to Ned’s very heart. “Don’t you know me, Tom?” he said.
“I shall see my mother to-morrow,” said Tom, “after waiting two years. I couldn’t go before,—I couldn’t leave Ned when he was sick.”
Ned hid his face in his hands, and groaned. Tom closed his eyes again, and seemed to pass into a fitful slumber. The men had built a great fire a little way apart; and its gleams fell upon Tom’s face, just as the firelight had done in the Professor’s room, five years before, when Ned first met him. How well he remembered that night! He laid his hand on Tom’s hot brow, and smoothed back his tangled hair. How lovely his face was in this fitful, ruddy glow! How much he had sacrificed for Ned, and now Ned had ruined him! It was dreadful to Ned. He threw himself on the grass beside Tom, and put his face on Tom’s shoulder.
“I am going to cut recitation to-day,” muttered Tom. “Hang that old Ned! He is always vexed about something or other. I’m going to enlist, mother; I must, you see,—oh, I must, I must, I must! Good-by!”
“Oh, don’t, Tom!” groaned Ned.
And then Tom sat up, and gazed wildly and vacantly at Ned, without a trace of recognition in his face.
“Why, Professor,” said he. “I couldn’t leave Ned possibly! We’ve been through everything together; and he might not be cared for properly, if I were to leave him sick and alone. Mother says that I am right; and I shall see her to-morrow,—I shall see her to-morrow.”
“It is as I feared,” said Ned, half to himself; “he is in a high fever. If I can only get him down to the river-bank there, where I can bathe his head.”
And, putting Tom’s limp arm around his own neck, Ned managed with some difficulty to carry him a few steps to the river’s brink.
“There, Tom,” he said, “I’ll bathe your head for you, poor fellow!”
“Here is the river,” said Tom; “and we are going to see mother in a boat. It’s a dangerous thing, Ned, to cross on that beam. Obey orders! And now it is too late, too late! God only knows whether I shall ever see my mother again.” And now, as Tom became quiet once more, Ned sat there, and bathed his head; and the river continued the noise of its rushing waters, and the wavelets splashed gently upon the shore, and against the wooden sides of the boat,—the boat! And now for the first time Ned saw the means of deliverance within his power. The idea fairly swept over his mind. To put Tom into the boat, and gain the other side, would be the work of a few moments only: and it could be done; for the rebel squad was dispersed along the shore, and the one man who sat by the fire a few yards off seemed fast asleep. But then, even as the thought of a possibility of freedom for Tom made him exultant, there came the recollection of his parole. He still sat by Tom’s side, and mechanically now smoothed back the hair from his forehead, and as mechanically repeated to himself, “word of honor, word of honor, word of honor,” until the very leaves upon the trees seemed to rustle in rhythm with the cadence; and then, with this dull, heavy oppression on his mind, the words seemed to turn into French and Latin and Greek, and to make new and fantastic combinations in his brain. “God help me!” he groaned. “I am going mad.” And then he knelt and prayed; and still the river rushed along, and still that one black figure sat there by the fire, as if half asleep. Then Ned saw him move slowly, and heard him whisper hoarsely, “Colonel! Colonel!”
“Do you mean me?” asked Ned.
“Yes. Speak softer, and come up here.”
Wondering and confused, Ned obeyed. The man turned a rough, unshaven face to him, and said:—
“You don’t know me, I see?”
“No,” said Ned.
“I know you, though. Mighty peart you be now; but you wasn’t so three weeks ago. You was took pretty sick then, and lying in a hospittle.”
“Well, what of it?” said Ned.
“Well, you’re a stoutish kind of man now, ain’t you? But, Lord!” and the fellow laughed to himself, “I could just chaw you up in no time. I should kinder like to have a gouge at you, anyway.”
“Thank you,” said Ned; “but if that is all you have to say, I shall have to leave you, and attend to my friend.”
“You’re a real perlite man,” said the man, in a wondering sort of way; “and yet you’re a Yank. You must attend to your friend. That’s fair; and why? Because when you was sick, he took care of you. I see it; I was in the hospittle likewise at the time. I had just got up as you was took down. Don’t yer remember me?”
“No,” said Ned, impatiently.
“Well, you give me some fruit and jelly that was sent me one day. I never had such a good time in my life as eating them things. The nurse, she says, ‘Don’t waste ’em on him; he’s a rebel,’ she says; and what did you say? You says, ‘Don’t let’s think nothing about Rebs and Feds here,’ says you, ‘but let’s forget all about it; and then I liked you. I like you now.”
“I am glad to hear it,” said Ned; “but I must see to my friend.”
“You care for him about as you would for a gal, don’t you?” said this Virginia barbarian then. “Well, he’s pootier than any gal I ever see anywhar. Look here, this is jest what I want to say to you. Ef you should put him and you in that thar boat, and float down the river, you’d come to your own lines. Ef I should see you do it, I’d stop you; but I’m going to take a snooze by the fire here, for I’m powerful tired. Ef I should wake up, I should fire on you, ef I saw you; and so would others. But I can’t allus aim straight in the dark; and, whar one aims, others is likely to. Now I have done you a good turn for what you’ve did to me; and ef ever we meet again, by God, I’ll kill you.”
“But I can’t in honor escape,” said Ned.
“Of course you can’t,” said the man; “and, if you could, of course you wouldn’t tell me. There, I don’t want no more to say to you. Just git, that’s all you’ve got to do.”
Ned went back full of this new temptation. The other pickets were dispersed, the river rolled on invitingly, and Tom seemed to be sleeping more quietly than before.
“Perhaps I can get him exchanged in the morning,” said Ned, “since he’s so ill. I am glad that he is sleeping.”
Just at this moment, Tom awoke hurriedly, and looked about him wildly and vacantly, then fell back again.
“Oh, if Ned were only here!” he groaned,—“if Ned were only here!”
“Ned is here, Tom, close beside you, as always,” said Ned, softly.
“If Ned were here,” muttered Tom, “he would help me. O Ned, Ned! do come, do please come and help me to see my mother!”
“I will,” whispered Ned, solemnly. Not an instant was to be lost. Without daring to think, without daring to look around him, then he lifted Tom and laid him in the boat. The keel grated on the pebbly shore. He started nervously and turned; but the faithless picket was laboriously sleeping. In an instant more he had thrown off his outer garments; and, with the rope of the boat tied around his neck, he half swam, half drifted, with the strong current down the stream. Weak from his late sickness, and the excitement and efforts of the night, his swimming soon exhausted him; and he clung to the side of the boat, and drifted with it. The sky now was marked with black cloud-rifts, that made strange and fantastic outlines on its luminous background; and the white light of the moon was growing gray. On each side of him he saw the black trees standing in groups, now dense, now scattered, along the shores; while ever in his ears was the strange murmur of the torrent, broken only by Tom’s incoherent muttering as he lay in the boat. Then suddenly came the sharp report of a rifle; and he knew that his escape was discovered at last. He heard the bullets whistle by him, then one grazed the side of the boat, but luckily did not come near Tom. At last the firing ceased; but the boat seemed to be drifting into a little cove. He made one desperate effort to push her more into the main current, but in vain; for his strength was now entirely gone. Then he gave one cry, as he saw the first faint gleam of dawn in the east, and the boat struck him, bruised and fainting, against the shore. He crawled feebly upon the bank, the rope still around his neck; and then, stunned and bruised, all consciousness forsook him. The last thing which he knew was, that the birds were just beginning to twitter in the trees.
When he awoke it was later in the day; and the warm light and air of the forenoon was streaming into his tent. An orderly was standing by the entrance.
“Where is Tom?” he asked hoarsely.
“The captain is there;” and the orderly pointed to the other side of the tent, where Ned saw a figure lying muffled in coats and blankets. He hardly dared to ask what he dreaded to learn, his voice seemed clogged and heavy in his throat; and finally, when he did speak, it was in a hoarse and tremulous whisper:—
“Is he dead?”
“Dead?” said the orderly, surprised; “why, no, colonel! But he is dreadfully sick; and they are going to take him to the hospital, after you have seen him and spoken with him.”
“Go outside,” said Ned, briefly, “and let no one enter under any pretext whatever.” And, as the orderly obeyed, he threw himself down beside Tom, who was sleeping restlessly under the influence apparently of some opiate.
He looked at him, laid his hand upon his forehead, and then bent over and kissed his hot face.
“Tom,” he said. But there was no answer, no movement. “I have come to bid you good-by, Tom,” he said; “I am going back to deliver myself up.” But still Tom slept, and groaned.
“Not one word of good-by, Tom,” said poor Ned. “And yet this is the last time—the very last time—God help me!—that we shall see each other, that I shall see you. O my darling, my darling, my darling! please hear me. The only one I have ever loved at all, the only one who has ever loved me. The last words that you heard from me were those of anger and impatience, and now, poor fellow! you cannot speak even to say good-by. Hear me say it. When you get well again, have some memory of my bending over you and saying it, and telling you that I was saying good-by, good-by, good-by! O Tom, my darling! don’t forget it. If you knew how I love you, how I have loved you in all my jealous, morbid moods, in all my exacting selfishness,—O Tom! my darling, my darling! can’t you say one word, one little word before we part,—just one little word, if it were only my name? Oh, please, please speak to me! Don’t you remember when we were examined for college together? You sat across the hall. I saw you there; and I wanted to go over and help you. And your picture, Tom, that we quarrelled about,—I have it now, Tom; it will be with me when they bury me. Tom, don’t you remember that picture? It was the night when I determined to go to war that you gave me that picture; it was just before we enlisted. O Tom! why did I let you come at all? You will see your mother, Tom; and you will go home now, and marry, and be happy, and forget me. Oh, no, no, no, Tom! you won’t do that; you can’t do that. You won’t forget Ned, darling; he was something to you; and you were all the world to him. O Tom! Tom! please say one word to him.” He stopped and was silent. Tom only moaned restlessly in his sleep; and there seemed to be a painful death-like silence inside the tent, while outside was the bright life of the morning and the busy murmur of the camp.
“Ah, well!” he said, “it is better so. He would not let me go if he were conscious; he would say that I must stay with him; and that cannot be. He need not know that I am dead, as I shall be, until he himself is well once again. Good-by, Tom! good-by! and God bless you forever, my darling!”
And calmly, yet with a dreadful pang at his heart, he stooped, and once more kissed the flushed face of his friend; then quickly, as if impelled by some force not his own, without daring to look backward, he rushed from the tent.
[IX.]
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.
“The morn broke in upon his solemn dream;
And still with steady pulse and deepening eye,
‘Where bugles call,’ he said, ‘and rifles gleam,
I follow though I die.’”
Stonewall Jackson sat in his tent, writing rapidly on a rough pine table. There was in the man, in spite of his old coat stained here and there with mud, and his awkwardness of position and figure, an appearance of power,—power conscious and self-sustaining. At a first glance he seemed an old Virginia farmer; but an instant’s careful scrutiny showed, beneath his awkward simplicity, the grace of a true soldier, while the slow, hesitating speech had in it an undertone which made it evident that at times each word might be charged with fire and eloquence and life. As he moved one hand to brush back the thinned hair on his temples, this hot afternoon, a staff-officer entered the tent.
“I have some curious news, General,” he said.
“What is it?” asked Jackson, briefly; for a word was a power with this man, and he never wasted power.
“The prisoner who broke his parole this morning has returned here,” said the officer.
“What!” exclaimed Jackson, “has he given himself up?”
“Yes, General; they have him in confinement, and he has asked to see you.”
“To see me, lieutenant!” said Stonewall Jackson. “That will make no difference. He is to be shot at sunrise.”
“Very well, General;” and the lieutenant turned to depart.
“Stop a moment, though,” said Jackson. “I should like to know what defence, what excuse he has to offer. Have him brought here.”
“Very well, General. But he is to be shot?”
“Certainly, sir!”
Jackson laid down his pen, and folded his arms before him on the rough board which served him as a writing-table. He had not long to wait. In less than five minutes, Ned appeared, guarded by two soldiers, his face pale but determined. He met Stonewall Jackson’s scrutinizing look clearly and fearlessly, yet respectfully. “You may withdraw,” said Jackson to the men. “Now, sir, you wish to see me. What have you to say?”
“I broke my parole this morning,” said Ned.
“I know it, sir,” said Jackson; “and, having some compunction for your violation of honor, you have tried as a manœuvre giving yourself up again. You have made a mistake, sir.”
“It is just because I knew you would misconstrue my motive and my action thus that I asked to see you,” said Ned. “I wish to explain.”
“No explanation is possible, sir,” cried Stonewall Jackson; “and this will avail you nothing.”
“Oh! wait a moment,” cried Ned, impetuously. “Don’t deceive yourself. I know what I am doing; I knew a few hours ago, when I left the Union lines, what I was doing. I came here to die,—to be shot! Do you hear,—to be shot! I broke my parole; I expected no mercy from you,—I ask for none, I would take none. I claim only my right, and my right is death.”
“Then why did you give yourself up, if you knew death must be your fate?” asked Jackson.
“Death has not frightened me very much,” said Ned, contemptuously.
“There is something about you,” said Stonewall Jackson, “which makes me wish to respect you. I see you are not a coward.”
“And I wish you to see that I am not a liar,” answered Ned. “I gave myself up to death; and I wish you to bear witness, that, having sinned, I accepted the penalty.”
“But why sin?” said Stonewall Jackson.
“I will tell you why,” said Ned. “I have only one person in the world to care for: I have no family, no relatives, only this one friend. He was all the world to me, and I was something to him. When the war broke out, I enlisted, and he went with me. We have been side by side through everything. He saved my life in battle at the risk of his own; and a few weeks ago, when I was taken sick by fever, and he had a leave of absence, he gave up his home, he sacrificed everything, to watch by me. Last night he was taken sick while with the party at the bridge, when in another day he would have been with his mother at Washington. You paroled me. I was left there with him, and he raved and groaned until I could bear it no longer. Every word he said seemed to stab me to the heart. Then I saw the river and the boat; the men were scattered, and the means of escape were at hand. I hesitated. I thought of my parole; and then I thought of him a prisoner, an invalid, a corpse perhaps, if he waited here, while back of us his mother was hastening to meet her only son. He had given up so much for me, and what had I done for him? It seemed as if I must get him away; and then he cried out again, ‘Ned, Ned, won’t you help me?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ And I knew that yes was death to me. Oh! you see I am prepared. I have not tried to arouse your sympathy or your compassion, I have only told you the bare facts. Do you think, if I hoped for life, if I cared for pardon from you, that I could not say more, that I could not pour out words of fire and blood to show you what our friendship is, and what last night’s temptation was? I ask no mercy; and you could give me none if you wished it: my act must bring its consequences. Only I wished you to see that I was neither liar nor coward; that, having forfeited my life, I did not evade the payment of my debt; in a word, that I was enough of a gentleman to be worthy of the great privilege of serving in my country’s cause.”
“Sir,” said Jackson, “you are not only a gentleman, but a soldier. I love war for itself, I glory in it; but it saddens me when it brings with it the useless sacrifice of such a life as yours.”
“I am not a soldier,” said Ned, quietly. “I hate war; I hate to have to long for the death of such a man as you are. But I am ready for all that, when there is a cause at stake.”
“A cause at stake!” said Stonewall Jackson. “Well, God be with the right!”
“God is with the right,” said Ned; “and time will show us which is the right. Ah! if I could live to see that time!”
“Be thankful rather,” said Jackson, “that you are going to die before you find you are in the wrong. I wish you had been with me in this campaign.”
“If it had been possible,” said Ned, and then he stopped.
“I should like,” said Stonewall Jackson, slowly, “though doubtless you consider me a rebel and a traitor, to have you shake hands with me.”
“Not with a rebel or a traitor,” said Ned, “but with a sincere and honest man whom I respect and honor;” and with this grasp of hands, these two great souls gazed in each other’s eyes.
“And now you know what I must say,” said Stonewall Jackson.
“I know it,” Ned replied.
“Do not think me cruel, do not think me lacking in human feeling,” Stonewall Jackson continued; “but war has its duties as well as peace. God help those who must execute these duties!”
“There is but one thing you can do,” said Ned, tranquilly.
“There is but one thing I can do,” repeated Jackson. “You will be shot at sunrise.” He called the men outside. “Give this gentleman,” he said, “as good accommodations as the camp affords. See that he is left by himself, and is undisturbed to-night.—All letters, all directions, which you may wish to give, shall be forwarded to the North,” he continued, addressing Ned; “and if you wish anything to be done about burial”—
“I shall wish nothing,” said Ned.
“In that case,” said Jackson, with princely courtesy, “I have only to say farewell.” He rose again, and took Ned’s hand; then the soldiers marched away, and he was left in his tent alone.
[X.]
THE LAST LETTER HOME.
Dear Professor,—I am writing to you the last words I shall ever say, the last thoughts I shall ever think, the last farewell to all I have ever known and loved. To-morrow, at daybreak, I am to be shot. There is nothing that can possibly prevent it,—this is my last night on earth. Am I resigned to my lot? am I willing to lose my life? I cannot tell, it seems so like a dream. It is terrible to me to think that this is the end of all my youth and hope; and you will understand me when I say that I do dread and fear death. Yet I am calm and self-possessed. I am half dead already, indeed, for my end seems inevitable; and I do not suffer so much as I wonder. I seem to have lost all volition, and, as it were, to have gone out of myself. A little while ago I wound up my watch; and then the uselessness of that performance struck me, and I said, half aloud, “Poor Ned!” and then laughed at myself for doing it. As my laugh died away, there was a cold silence around which chilled me through and through. Yes, I must be half dead already. It is only when I think of Tom that the life seems to rush back again; and as I believe this sort of torpor is well for me, I dare not trust to myself write to him. Besides, he must get well; and so you must try and keep my death hidden from him for a time. You can tell him, better than I could, that my last thought will be of him, and that I cannot trust myself to say farewell to him. Even now, I have this cruel uncertainty about his health, and I do not know but what you may lose us both.
Stonewall Jackson is a hero. I never thought that I could say that of any rebel, but I am glad that I have known him. He will work us more terrible injury, I fear; but I am sure that he will not live long. The excitement of this war is killing him; and here, when I so thoroughly admire him, I have to rejoice that he is doomed. How strange war is,—stranger and stranger now than ever! Oh! if I could only see the end,—if I could only know whether we shall gain our country by all this blood, and if Tom will live, I could die perfectly contented. There is Tom again, you see. I have to think of him in spite of myself. When you tell him my story, you can give him this letter, if he wants it, as perhaps he will.
And now good-by for yourself. It is not well for me to write,—it brings me back to life too much; but I cannot die without telling you something of my feeling for you. Do you think that I have not fully appreciated all your sympathy, all your kindness, all the wealth of intellect and culture which you have laid before me? I always have had a sort of hope, that some time, when I should win some great honor, and the world should applaud, I could say, “Look here; here is the man to whom I owe all this; here is the man who advised me, who guided me; the man with the strong soul and the woman’s tenderness, who loved youth and beauty, and sympathized with sorrow. You take off your hats to me; but I kneel before him.” But all that is over now, and you have only a numb good-by from a man who is to be shot in a few hours.
My body will not be sent North. When I am dead, I am dead; and here or there, it matters not where it is buried, to me nor to any one else. But if you ever want to think of me, and to feel that I am near, walk through the yard at Harvard, over by Holworthy, in the lovely evenings of the spring weather. It was at such a season, and at such a time, that I last saw the dear old place; and, if I ever can be anywhere on earth again, it is there that I should choose to be. Ah, if I could only see Harvard once again! God bless it forever and forever! I wonder how many visions of its elm-trees have swept before dying eyes here in Virginia battle-fields!
Ah, well! there is only good-by to say once more. When he asks for me, tell him that I constantly think of him, that I am well and happy. Don’t let him know the truth until he is clearly out of danger, and then tell him all. It is not so very hard to bear; and I am sure now that I shall never be forgotten by him, and that nothing can ever come between us now. Tell him the only thing, after God, worth living for and worth dying for, is our country,—our noble country. Oh! she must be strong and glorious and united, at any cost. I feel it and I know it. And now good-by, once more and forever.
He sealed and directed the letter; then, throwing himself on the blanket in the corner of the tent, fell into a deep, refreshing slumber. He woke to feel the grasp of a hand upon his shoulder, to see a file of men beside him. Without a word he rose and went with them. They led him out a little from the camp, where it seemed quiet. He saw them stand before him; he heard one preliminary order given, and caught the flash of rifle-barrels in the early morning sunlight. Then there was a noise and disturbance in the camp beyond, and a voice cried out:—
“It’s an attack by the Federals!”
Ned turned involuntarily. And with these words, in one great sweeping flood, his life came back. No more numbness, no more indifference; but, in that one instant, every drop of blood in his veins seemed charged with electric power, and the morning air was like nectar. He stood there, strong, like a man; and then there was one report, and he fell dead,—dead in the dust of the Virginia soil.
[XI.]
AFTERWARDS.
This is the one picture that has been ever before my eyes, even in the wild regions of Nevada and the undulating lawns and woody slopes of California. In the snow-clad forests of the Sierra Nevada, and even in the tropical glory of sky and air in Arizona, amid the noise and bustle of the camp, with heavenly peace and loveliness above, and murderous savages, thirsting for our blood lying in deadly ambush all around, I still have seen this picture. A dead man lying with his face to the earth; while close by his side one little spot of dust seems blackened and congealed by blood.
And afterwards? The sunshine steals softly and furtively through the darkened windows of a happy Northern home. It is June, and the perfume of the roses is on the air. In an easy-chair half sits, half reclines, a pale girl, with a happy face, looking down with a perfect smile at Tom, who sits at her feet. And near by stands a nurse, holding in her arms a baby,—a baby whose two gelatinous arms beat the air wildly, while his voice is raised in a shrill note, which may be triumph or which may be agony.
“By Jove!” Tom says admiringly, “his high notes are stunning; ar’n’t they, Nettie?”
“Tom,” replies Nettie, threateningly, “dare to make fun of your offspring again, and we will leave you, and start for Indiana. Won’t we, Baby?”
To this question, reply is given by an absurd inclination of the head on one side and another wheezy shriek.
“I am not laughing, I am not laughing,” Tom hastens to remark, lest the threat of Indiana should be repeated; “so don’t get angry, Baby. I say, Nettie, we must have a name for him. We can’t call him Baby all the time, you know.”
“He was named long ago, Tom,” said Nettie, “though of course I had to wait. We must call him ‘Ned;’ we couldn’t call him by any other name.”
“Thank you, darling,” said Tom, gravely; “that is the way you make me love you more and more every day.” And he kisses his wife, and, rising, takes the baby and looks on its face, while his eyes are filled with tears.
And afterwards? The Professor’s room at Harvard is still as it was when we first knew it, with the photograph still hanging over the mantel-piece. And the Professor sits there gazing at it more lonely now than ever before. He is growing quite old; he is very sarcastic and astonishing; and dreadful stories are current among the students in regard to his severity against culprits in the meetings of the Faculty. There are two or three who know him, and to whom he is very kind. They heard him tell the story of his boys, and they heard poor Ned’s last letter. But the Professor declared then that he should never speak of the subject again; and the few who heard him saw that the rest of his life must be sad. And now, as he takes up the notes and emendations of his old lecture on “Domestic Arts,” whose turn has come again, his eye falls on the picture. Again it is the spring weather, again the fresh breeze enters his room. He rises and walks to the window.
“I wonder if he is near,” he says, half aloud. “‘It was in such a season and at such a time, that I last saw the dear old place; and, if ever I can be on earth again, it is there that I should wish to be.’ Poor Ned! Poor Ned!”
And, as he sits in his chair again, the picture fades from my view, and I see only the moonlight on our mountain camp, and hear the wailing of the western wind.
And afterwards? Once more the country is intact, freed from the deadly perils which assailed her. We know now what the words “our country” mean,—rocks which the Atlantic lashes with its spray; broad uplands and vast prairies where almost spontaneously fruit and grain seem to spring forth from the rich soil; and barren hills as well, with only the sage-brush for vegetation, within whose secret treasure-houses lie great masses of gold and silver ore. From the summits of the Sierra Nevada you can stand at midsummer in a forest where wreaths of snow lie on the trees, and can gaze far down into valleys, thousands of feet beneath, where there are rippling streamlets, and masses of flowers of the most brilliant and the most delicate hues. This wonderful country, that is still in its infancy, that is nursing men of every nation to form a new nation; this country, that, with all its imperfections, stands now on the grand basis of universal freedom,—justifies not merely enthusiasm, but any loss of human life which may aid in its preservation. These friends, these brothers, knew what was the true meaning of life, and with that knowledge, gained by zeal and study, offered their lives as a sacrifice. Woe to our country should the great debt owed to these heroes be ever forgotten!
“May God forbid that yet,
Or in all time to come, we should their names forget!
May every spring-time’s hours
See their graves strewn with flowers,
To show that still remembered is our debt!”
Transcriber’s Notes:
A List of Chapters has been provided for the convenience of the reader.
Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.
Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.