CHAPTER LXXIII.
During the night of this 18th of October, while we were making our toilsome advance upon the enemy, a Virginia soldier, wounded in the battle of Winchester, lay in a small room of a house in the edge of Middletown; around which village the battle of Cedar Creek was chiefly fought. Upon some bedding, spread upon the floor, lay a young woman, his cousin; who, having heard that he had been hard hit, had made her way to the enemy’s pickets, and, after some parleying, gained permission to pass within their lines and nurse her wounded relative. This young woman had, since the beginning of the war, passed her life, as one might say, in our hospitals. But her present position, within the enemy’s lines, was a trying one. It so happened that between the Federal officer who occupied a room in the same house and herself a strong antipathy soon grew up. The little nurse was too busy attending to the wants of her wounded cousin to leave his side often; but being under the same roof with the Federal officer, they met, in a casual manner, not infrequently. These meetings he contrived to make very disagreeable, by continually attempting to force political discussions upon her. But she, on her side, managed to render them far more exasperating to him.
He that would get the better of a woman had best finish her with a club at once and be done with it; he is sure to get the worst of it in a tongue-battle. It may be a washerwoman opening on you with Gatling-gun invective, and sweeping you from the face of the earth; or a dainty society belle, with a dropping sharp-shooter fire of soft-voiced sarcasm,—in either case you shall wish that you had held your peace.
And so this big Federal colonel never had an encounter with the little rebel nurse but he gnashed his teeth and raged for hours afterwards. She always contrived, in the subtlest way, and without saying so, to make him feel that she did not look upon him as a gentleman. One day, for example, he had been carefully explaining to her in how many ways the Northern people were superior to the Southern.
“But I don’t believe,” added he, with evident acrimony, “that you F. F. V.’s think there is one gentleman in the whole North. This arrogance on your part is really one main cause of the war.”
“I can readily believe you,—for I understand the feeling. But really you do us an injustice. I know, personally, a number of Northern gentlemen. In New York, for instance” (the colonel was from that city), “I am acquainted with the ——— family and the ———s and the ———s, do you know them?”
The colonel hesitated.
“No?” said she, in soft surprise. “Ah, you should lose no time in making their acquaintance on your return to the city. They are very nice. But I hear my patient calling. Good-day!”
The colonel knew, and he saw plainly that she knew, that he could no more enter one of those houses than he could fly. He could not answer her. All that was left him was to hate her, and this he did with his whole heart; and all aristocrats, living and dead.
When the crash of battle burst forth, on the morning of the nineteenth, the colonel hurried forth to form his regiment. He met his men rushing pell-mell to the rear, and he ran back to his headquarters to gather a few things that lay scattered about his room. Although the bullets were flying thick, frequently striking the house itself, he found the little nurse standing on the porch, exultation in every feature. The whizzing of the rifle-balls seemed sweet to her ears. Confederate bullets would not hurt her.
“Get out of my way,” said he, in a gruff voice. “This is no place for women.”
“Nor for men, either, you seem to think!”
He gave her a black look.
“Why this unseemly haste, colonel?” said she, following him into the hall. “What! through the back door? The Confederates are there!” And she stabbed the air in the direction of the coming bullets with a gesture that would have made the fortune of a tragedy queen.
“Take that, d——n you!” And he brought his open hand down upon her cheek with such force that, reeling through the open door of her room, she fell headlong upon the floor.
“Coward!” roared a voice from the threshold of the hall.
Rising to her knees and turning, she saw the colonel spring forward with a fierce glare in his eyes and a cocked pistol in his extended hand. She shut her eyes and stopped her ears.
Had he killed the Confederate? No, for she heard no fall; but the clear ring, instead, of a sabre drawn quickly from its scabbard. The colonel stepped across the threshold of the room in which she was, cocking his pistol for another shot. He raised the weapon,—but she heard a spring in the hall, and saw a flash of steel; and the colonel fell at full length upon the floor, with a sword-blade buried up to the hilt in his breast. With such terrific force had the thrust been delivered that he was knocked entirely off his feet, and the whole house shook.
“Δούπησεν δὲ πεσών, ἀράβησε δὲ τεύχε᾽ ἐπ᾽αὐτῷ,”[[1]] muttered the victor, as the young woman, springing to her feet, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“My brave defender!” cried she, in a fervor of patriotic exaltation, lifting her eyes to his; and then she sprang back with a shiver, and stood breathless before him, her head bowed upon her breast, her face ashy pale.
A scene within a scene.
Without, the roar of cannon, the incessant rattle of musketry, the bursting of shells, the panic-stricken rush of riderless horses, the tramp of hurrying men, the Rebel Yell sweeping by like a tornado, shouts of victory, moans of the dying.
Within, four people for a moment oblivious of all this mad hurly-burly that billowed around them.
The convalescent soldier, rising upon his elbow, looked with silent amazement upon the crouching figure of his fair cousin; while the dying Union soldier forgot, for a moment, his gaping wound as he gazed upon the man who had inflicted it. Tall, broad-shouldered, gaunt of flank, supple, straight as an Indian, he held in his right hand the gory sword, from which the prostrate officer saw his own life-blood trickling, drop by drop, upon the floor. In his left he held his cap uplifted.
Attila and Monsieur Deux-pas in one!
With cap uplifted; but head thrown back and eyes averted. His right shoulder and breast were soaked with blood, which was streaming down his brown beard upon his coat, from a bullet-hole in his bronzed cheek. But it was his eyes which riveted the attention of his fallen enemy. He had been appalled by their fierce glare, when, angered by the pistol-shot, he had sprung upon him in the hall. But that look had been soft compared with the cold, steady, pitiless gleam they poured forth now. That man, thought he, would not give a cup of water to a dying enemy.
Captain Smith made two steps towards the door, and turning, bowed.
Feeling that he was going (for she had not dared to raise her eyes), Mary Rolfe quivered for a moment from head to foot; then springing forward, with passionate entreaty in every gesture and a cry of anguish upon her lips:
“And you will leave me without a word? Listen! How frightfully the battle is raging! And you are so cruel, cruel, as to go forth, and die, perhaps, without ever— I know you will be killed, I know it, I know it! And you won’t say you forgive me! Won’t you say just that one little word? You loved me once,—and dearly, for you pressed me against your heart and told me so; and can that heart, once so tender, be so hard now? Oh, say you forgive me; for the sake of that dear, dead love, say you forgive your little Mary!”
And round about them the battle roared and surged and thundered.
Her cousin has told me that such was the pathos and passion of her tones, her looks, her gestures, as she uttered these words (which hardly seemed unconventional in their fearful setting), that the eyes of the dying soldier grew moist. But Captain Smith, standing like a granite cliff:
“There is nothing to forgive. You did your duty as you saw it. So did I when I ran that officer through.—Ah, pardon me: I had forgotten you. Can I do anything for you?” added he in a tender voice, as he kneeled beside him.
“Unbutton my coat, please; I am choking.”
The captain shuddered as he saw the broad gash in the breast of his enemy. “I am sorry I hit you so hard.”
“It is all right,” replied he, wearily. “I tried to kill you, and you killed me, that’s all. But thank you for your kind words.”
The captain’s eyes filled with tears. “I hope it is not as bad as you think. I’ll send you a surgeon immediately. Meanwhile, keep up your spirits.” And taking the wounded man’s hand in his, he pressed it softly. Then, rising, “Good-by,” said he, with a cheering smile, and moved towards the door.
It was then that Mary, catching, for the first time, a view of the right side of his face, saw the blood trickling down his cheek.
“You are wounded already,” she cried in terror.
“Yes; wounded beyond healing,” said the captain of the Myrmidons; and with a cold bow, he passed out of the door and into the tempest of the battle.
“Oh—oh—oh!” gasped Mary, wringing her interlocked hands high above her head; and she sank slowly down upon the floor.
The measures fashioned by the hands of men can hold but so much; but anguish without limit may be pent up within a human heart that is bursting, yet will not burst.
The officer turned his eyes, and, even in his own great extremity, pitied her.
And, after all, which of the two was most to be pitied?
He was about to speak a few kind words, when he saw upon her pallid cheek the dark bruises made by his own heavy hand; and he held his peace. His lips were parched, his throat tortured with that cruel thirst that loss of blood entails. His wounded neighbor could not, she would not hand him a cup of water. At any rate, it were worthier to die there, where he lay, rather than ask a favor of the woman he had so insulted. Three times he tried to rise, and as often fell heavily back. She raised her head and saw the longing, wistful look in his eyes, fixed upon a bucket which stood in a corner of the room.
It is wonderful how sorrow softens the heart!
She rose in an instant and brought him the cup. He could not lift his head. Bending over him, she placed her arm beneath his neck and raised him. As he drank, the tears poured down his cheeks. Gently withdrawing her arm, she tripped softly across the room and brought her own pillow and placed it beneath his head; and sitting down upon the floor, by his side, stroked his brown forehead with her soft white hand. He raised his streaming eyes to hers, and again and again essayed to speak; but his quivering lips refused to obey.
“I know what you would say; so never mind. Don’t worry now. You may beg my pardon when you get well.”
He shook his head sadly. “I am dying now,—I feel it.”
His voice sank into a whisper. She bent over him to catch his words.
“Promise me to write to my mother and tell her how I died, and that you sat beside me. Leave out one thing. It would break her heart to hear that of me. You will? God bless you. Her address is in my pocket. Write to her. You promise? Oh, how good of you to hold the very hand that—”
“Hush! Don’t talk of that now.”
“You won’t have to hold it long. I feel it coming, coming. Press my hand hard, harder! You have forgiven me! Tell her, that as I lay—dying—far away from home—an angel—of light—”
| [1] | He fell with a crash, and his arms rattled upon him. (The Homeric formula when a warrior falls.) |