Catharine slipped after him, opened Colonel Eastworth’s door, and showed the visitor in. And then, thinking that she had literally obeyed orders in “attending” the gentleman, she returned to her duties in the lower regions of the house.
Meanwhile, Albert Goldsborough threw himself into a chair before the fire to wait for Colonel Eastworth.
Three long hours he had to wait. The time hung heavily on his hands. He read a little from the newspapers that lay scattered over the table; he walked restlessly, looking into all the cupboards and out of the windows; then he sat down at the round table to improve the time by writing letters that lay heavily on his conscience. One letter he wrote to his mother, another to some coconspirator in Virginia, and a third he wrote to Elfie—this last full of complaining love and tender reproaches. He was still engaged in writing this letter, which threatened to be as interminable as love letters usually are, when the door was suddenly flung open, and Colonel Eastworth strode into the room.
“You here?” he exclaimed, on seeing his visitor.
“Yes, colonel,” said Albert, rising and hastily rolling up his love letter and thrusting it into his pocket.
“Have you brought anything?” he inquired, coming up to the table, and speaking in a low voice.
“These, colonel,” replied the young man, delivering his dispatches.
Colonel Eastworth dropped into his chair, tore open the packet and read the papers, commenting on their contents as he went on.
“So,” he murmured, “L. will do nothing until the Legislature has acted. E. also holds back until the ordinance of secession is formally passed. J. is waiting for more light, and making the affair a matter of prayer. But M., S. and W. are ready to take the field now, each with a following of more than a thousand men! Good! I predict that when Washington is ours, those faint-hearted, purblind fellows who cannot make up their minds, but must needs wait for ‘more light,’ will be braced up a little, and be able to see their duty, or their interest, which, with such laggards, means the same thing.”
The remainder of the document was read in silence and with a lowering brow. Then he drew a quire of paper before him, took a pen, and rapidly indited a letter, which he folded, sealed, and put into the hands of the young man, saying: