“Whether on the gallows high
Or in the battle’s van,
The fittest place for man to die
Is where he dies for man.”
The news of Ireton’s death was mentioned by Captain Onslow while making a morning call on Miss Charlton. Her mother had dressed herself to drive out on some visits of charity. As she was passing through the hall to her carriage, Lucy called her into the drawing-room and communicated the report. The widow turned deadly pale, and left the room without speaking. She gave up her drive for that day, and commissioned Lucy to fulfil the beneficent errands she had planned. Captain Onslow begged so hard to be permitted to accompany Lucy, that, after a brief consultation between mother and daughter, consent was given.
Thus are Nature and Human Life ever offering their tragic contrasts! Here the withered leaf; and there, under the decaying mould, the green germ! Here Grief, finding its home in the stricken heart; and there thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair!
Colonel Delancy Hyde speedily had an opportunity of showing the sincerity of his conversion, political and moral. He went into the fight at South Mountain, and was by the side of General Reno when that loyal and noble officer (Virginia-born) fell mortally wounded. For gallant conduct on that occasion Hyde was put on General Mansfield’s staff, and saw him, too, fall, three days after Reno, in the great fight at Antietam. On this occasion Hyde lost a leg, but had the satisfaction of seeing his nephew, Delancy junior, come out unscathed, and with the promise of promotion for gallantry in carrying the colors of the regiment after three successive bearers had been shot dead.
Hyde was presented with a wooden leg, of which he was quite proud. But the great event of his life was the establishment of his sister, the Widow Rusk, with her children, in a comfortable cottage on the outskirts of Pompilard’s grounds, where the family were well provided for by Clara. Here on the piazza, looking out on the river, the Colonel played with the children, watched the boats, and read the newspapers. Perhaps one of the profoundest of his emotions was experienced the day he saw in one of the pictorial papers a picture of Delancy junior, bearing a flag riddled by bullets. But the Colonel’s heart felt a redoubled thrill when he read the following paragraph:—
“This young and gallant color-bearer is, we learn, a descendant of an illustrious Virginia family, his ancestor, Delancy Hyde, having come over with the first settlers. Nobly has the youth adhered to the traditions of the Washingtons and the Madisons. His uncle, the brave Colonel Hyde, was one of the severely wounded in the late battle.”
The Colonel did not faint, but he came nearer to it than ever before in his life.