The Storm Centre: A Novel

by Charles Egbert Craddock

That night, so long his step went to and fro in his room as he paced the floor, for he could not sleep and he could not be still, that the Rebel, hidden in the attic, was visited by grave monitions concerning his neighbor and did not venture out to roam the stairways and halls and the unoccupied precincts of the ground floor as he was wont to do.

"'The son of Belial' has something on his mind, to a certainty, and I hope to the powers 'tisn't me," Julius said now and again, as he listened. He had sat long in his rickety arm-chair in the broad slant of the moonlight, that fell athwart the dim furniture and the gray shadows, for the night continued fair and the moon was specially brilliant. Once in the clear glow he saw distinctly in the further spaces the figure of a man, watchful-eyed, eager, springing toward him as he moved, and he experienced the cold chill of despair before he realized that it was his own reflection in a dull mirror at the opposite side of the great room that had elicited this apparition of terror. He took himself quickly out of the range of its reflection.

"Two Johnny Rebs are a crowd in this garret! I have just about room enough for myself. I'm not recruiting."

He crept silently to the bed and lay down at full length, all dressed and booted as he was, his hands clasped under his head, with the moonlight in his eyes and illuminating his sleepless pillow, still listening to the regular step marching to and fro in the room below.

Julius did not court slumber.

"I must keep the watch with you, my fine fellow," he said resolutely.

Though there was a strong coercion to wakefulness in the propinquity of that spirit of unrest which possessed his enemy so close at hand, his eyes once grew heavy-lidded and opened with a sudden start as, half dreaming, he fancied a stealthy approach. He sprang from the recumbent posture, and the floor creaked under the abrupt movement. This gave him pause, and he slowly collected his faculties. Surely the stranger would hardly venture, even under the relentless scourge of his own wakeful thoughts, to roam about the house in search of peace or the surcease of mental tyranny that change might effect. This might savor of disrespect to his host, yet Julius canvassed the suggestion. These were untoward times, and strange people were queerly mannered. The officer must have learned in the length of his residence here that the great vacant attic was untenanted wholly, and of course he knew that the ground floor was altogether unoccupied by night. He might descend and light the library lamp and read. He might indeed roam the deserted rooms with the same sort of satisfaction that Julius himself had already felt in the great spaces, the absolute quiet, the still moonlight, the long abeyance of day with its procrastination of the sordid problems and the toilsome business of life. If he had chanced to meet the Rebel on the stairs, he would scarcely have thought the apparition a spectral manifestation, as the poor little twins had construed the encounter in the library, for old Janus, trembling and terrified, had detailed the significance of the scene in the dining room afterward, and the eagerness of Julius to get away, to be off, had been redoubled. Daily he had hoped for news of the approach of the picket-lines, and daily the old servant wrung his hands and made his report, of which the burden was, "Wuss an' wuss!"—or detailed a "scrimmage" in which "dem scand'lous Rebs had run like tuckies, an' deir line is furder off dan it eber was afore!"

The Confederate officer, nevertheless, had hitherto felt a degree of safety in the attic and had the resources of a manly patience to await the event. This nocturnal eccentricity on the part of the guest of the house, however, roused new forebodings. It bore in its own conditions the inception of added danger. It was unprecedented. It marked a turbulent restlessness and the element of change. In the evidently agitated state of the stranger's nerves, some trifle, the scamper of a rat, the dislodgment of the rickety old cornice of this bedstead, the fall of one of the girandoles, teetering over there on a chest of drawers, might rouse him with its clamor and justify the ascent of the attic stairs to investigate its source. These were troublous times. There were stories forever afloat of lawless marauders. Smoke-houses were broken into and pillaged. Mansions were robbed and fired, and their tenants, chiefly women and children, fleeing into the cornfields to hide, watched the roof-tree flare. It was hard for the authorities to find and fix the responsibility for these dread deeds in remote inaccessible spots, and it would be culpable neglect for this Federal officer to tolerate the suggestion of an ill-omened noise or an unaccustomed presence without seeking out its cause. Evidently any accident would bring him upstairs. It was equally obvious that the garret was no place to sleep to-night! Julius, as he lay on the pillow, could hardly rid himself of the idea of approach. Ever and anon he looked for the stealthy shadow of which he had dreamed, climbing in the moonbeams along the balusters of the stairway. Finally he stole silently out of the reach of the moonlight to a darker corner of the room,—the deep recess of one of the windows which the shadow of a great branch of the white pine made duskier still. The tall tree, with its full, sempervirent boughs, showed the varying nocturnal tints that color may compass, uninformed by the sun,—the cool suggestion of a fair dull green where the moonbeams glistered, the fibrous leaves tipped with a dim sparkle; the deep umbrageous verdure where the darkness lurked and yet did not annul the vestige of tone. As he reclined on the window-seat, he discerned farther down a faint flare of artificial light. It described a regularly barred square amidst the pine needles, and he presently recognized it as the light from the window of Captain Baynell's room. Now and again it flickered in a way that told how the disregarded candle was beginning to gutter in the socket. Still to and fro the regular footfalls went, muffled on the heavy carpet, but in the dead hush of night perceptible enough to the watching listener. At last with a final flare the taper burned out, but the moon was in the windows along the western side of the house, and still to and fro went the steps, betokening the turmoil of unquiet thoughts. Julius watched how the moonbeams shifted from bough to bough as the slow night lingered. He heard the bells from the city towers mark the hour and the recurrent echo from the rocky banks of the river: then one far away, belated, faint, scarcely perceived, beat out the tally of the time on some remote cliff. Once more the air fell silent save for the jubilee of the mocking-birds, for spring had come, and skies were fair, and the gossamer moon was a-swing in the night, and love, and life, and home were dear, and the incredibly sweet, brilliant delight of song arose in pæans of joy and faith. Even this waned after a time. A wind with the thrills of dawn in its wings sprang up, and Julius shivered with the chill. The dew was cold and thick in the pines, and the sward glittered like a sheet of water.

At last all was quiet and silent in the room below. Julius listened intently. No creak of opening door; no footfall on the stair. Now, he told himself, was the moment of danger, when he could no longer be assured of the man's movements, and could not even guess at his intentions. He listened—still—still to silence. Silence absolute, null.

A bird stirred with a half-awakened chirp. The sky showed a clearer tone, a vague blue, growing ever more definite. In the stillness, with an elastic, leaping sound, strong and sweet, the call of a bugle rang out suddenly from the fort on the heights, and, behold, with a flash of red on the water, and a flare of gold in the sky, the sweet spring day was early here.