A dreary place it showed as they entered, large, low ceiled, extending above the whole expanse of the square portion of the house. It was lighted only by the windows at either side; through one of these pale watery glimmers were falling from a moon which rolled heavily like a derelict in the surges of the clouds. This sufficed to show to each the other's beloved face; and that Judge Roscoe's ribs were not fractured in the hugs of the filial young bear betokened the enduring strength of his ancient physique.
The place was sorely neglected since the reduction of the service in the old house. Cobwebs had congregated about ceiling and windows; the dust was thick on rows of old trunks, which annotated the journeyings of the family since the hair-covered, brass-studded style was the latest fashion to the sole leather receptacle that bore the initials of Judge Roscoe's dead wife, and the gigantic "Saratoga" that had served in Mrs. Gwynn's famous wedding journey. There were many specimens of broken chairs, and some glimmering branching girandoles, five feet high, that had illumined the house at one of the great weddings of long ago. A large cedar chest, proof against moths, preserved the ancient shawls and gowns of beauties of by-gone times, who little thought this ephemeral toggery would survive them. Certain antiquated pieces of furniture, hardly meet for the more modern assortment below,—chests of drawers surmounted by quaint little cabinets with looking-glasses, a lumbering wardrobe that seemed built for high water and stood on four long stilt-like legs, a pair of old mantel mirrors, wide and low, with tarnished gilded frames, dividing the reflecting surface into three equal sections, a great barometer that surlily threatened stormy weather, clumsy bureaus, bedsteads, each with four tall "cluster posts" surmounted by testers of red, quilled cloth drawn to a brass star in the centre, fire-dogs and fenders of dull brass—all were grouped here and there. One of these bedsteads had been occupied on some occasion when the house had been overcrowded, for the cords that sufficed in lieu of the more modern slats now supported a huge feather-bed. Judge Roscoe threw on it a carriage rug that had been hung to air on a cord which was stretched across one corner of the room. He almost fainted at a sudden, frightened clutch upon his arm, and, turning, saw his son in the agonies of panic, his teeth chattering, his eyes starting out of his head, his hand pointing tremulously toward the bed, as if bereft of his senses, demanding to be informed what that object might be. It was the time-honored joke of the young Southern soldiers that they had not seen or slept in a bedstead for so long that the mere sight of so unaccustomed a thing threw them into convulsions of fear. His father forgave the genuine tremors the joke had occasioned him for the joker's sake, and as Julius, flinging off his cap, coat, and boots, stretched out at his long length luxuriously, he stood by the pillow and admonished him of the plan of the campaign.
The Yankee officer had been ill, Judge Roscoe explained, and, convalescing now, joined the family in their usual gathering places—the library, dining room, on the portico, in the grove. If Leonora or the "ladies" knew of the presence here of Julius, they could hardly preserve in this close association with the enemy an unaffected aspect; so significant a secret might be betrayed in facial expression, a tone of voice, a nervous start. This would be fatal; his life might prove the forfeit. It was a mistake to come, and this mistake must forthwith be annulled. Despite the man in the house, Julius could lie perdu here in the garret, observing every precaution of secrecy, till the ever shifting picket-line should be drawn close enough to enable him to hope to reach it without challenge. They would confide in trusty old Ephraim. He would maintain a watch and bring them news. And old Ephraim, too, would bring up food, cautiously purloined from the table.
"The typical raven! appropriately black!" murmured Julius.
"Are you hungry now, dear?" Judge Roscoe asked disconsolately, after telling him that he must wait till morning.
"If you have such a thing as the photograph of a chicken about you, I should be glad to see it," Julius murmured demurely.
Judge Roscoe bent down and kissed him good night on the forehead, then turned to pick his way carefully among the debris of the old furniture. Soon he had reached the stairway, and noiseless as a shadow he flitted down the flight.
The young officer lay for a while intently listening, but no stir reached his ear; naught; absolute stillness. For a long time, despite his fatigue, the change, the pleasant warmth, the soft luxury of the feather-bed, would not let him slumber. He was used to the canopy of heaven, the chill ground, the tumult of rain; the sense of a roof above his head was unaccustomed, and he was stiflingly aware of its propinquity. Nevertheless he contrasted its comfort with his own recent plight and that of his comrades a few miles away, lying now asleep under the security of their camp-guards, some still in the mud of the trenches, all on the cold ground, shelterless, half frozen, half starved, ill, destitute, but fired with a martial ardor and a zeal for the Southern cause which no hardship could damp, and only death itself might quench. As he gazed about at the grotesqueries of the great room, now in the sheen of the moon, and now in the shadow of the cloud, he thought how little he had anticipated finding the enemy here ensconced in his place in his father's house, a convalescent, "the son of an old friend, of whom we have all grown very fond." He raged inwardly at the destruction of his cherished plans wrought by the mere presence of the Federal officer. The joy of his visit was brought to naught. Dangerous as it would have been under the best auspices, its peril was now great and imminent. Instead of the meeting his thoughts had cherished,—the sweets of the stolen hours at the domestic fireside, with the dear faces that he loved, the dulcet voices for which he yearned,—he was to skulk here, undreamed of, like some unhappy ghost haunting a lonely place, fortunate indeed if he might chance to be able to make off elusively after the fashion of the spectral gentry, without becoming a ghost in serious earnest by the event of capture, or catching the pistol ball of the Yankee officer. So much he had risked for this visit—life and limb!—and to be relegated to the surplusage of the garret, the loneliness, the desolate moon, the deserted dust of the unfrequented place! He was to approach none of them—none of the hearthstone group! There was to be no joyous greeting, no stealthy laughter, no interchange of loving words, and clasps, and kisses. He was still young; his eyes filled, his throat closed. But that shadowy glimpse of his dear father—he had had that boon!
"I'll remember it, if I bite the dust in the next skirmish. And the question is to get away—for the next skirmish!"
Once more he fell to studying mechanically the grouping of the archaic, disordered furniture; the shifting of the shadows amongst it as a cloud sped by with the wind; the spare boughs of a bare aspen tree etched on the floor by the moon, shining down through the high windows; and that melancholy orb itself, suggestive of a futile vanished past, a time forgotten, and spent illusions, the familiar of loneliness, and the deep empty hours of the midnight—itself a spectre of a dead planet, haunting its wonted pathway of the skies. When its light ceased to fill his lustrous, contemplative eyes he did not know, but as the moon passed on to the west, his melancholy gaze had ceased to follow.