"I do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God," said John Crawford, lifting his hand to heaven, remembering some portions of the oath so commonly administered in our courts of justice, and adding on some words not commonly used in the same connection, "that I am a true and loyal soldier in the service of the United States, and the enemy of all rebels and traitors! Amen!"
"Thank God!" said the old man, solemnly. "If I cannot die with the old flag over me, I can at least have the company of those who uphold it! Give me your hand. What!" as the young soldier came closer. "You are wounded. You have been in the battle to-day. You are defeated and a fugitive?"
"No!" said the Zouave, with a world of triumph in his tone, and giving his uninjured hand at the same time. "I am wounded, but McClellan and Fitz-John Porter have to-day flogged the rebels out of their boots at Malvern Hill, and the Union army is safe!'
"Thank God! oh, thank God!" said the old man, reverently. "Marion, lay me back, I am faint." He did not seem to be aware that Webster was assisting to hold him up, or that any one was in the place except Crawford and his granddaughter. His request was obeyed, and he was laid down again on the pallet; but the excitement of the last few minutes had perceptibly weakened him, and he was evidently failing fast. "Marion, it hurts me to talk—a little. Tell the gentleman, for he is a gentleman, I know—who we are and how we came to be here."
"This is my grandfather," the young girl said, still on her knees by the pallet, and evidencing in her calm and childlike tone no surprise at the request, and no agitation in relating what must have pained her so terribly under the circumstances. "His name is Chester Hobart. We belong to a good family, and they say that we are related to the English Earls of Buckinghamshire. My father was Charles Hampden Hobart. He was an officer in the navy, and was drowned when I was quite a little girl." Crawford did not notice, then, but remembered afterwards, that in this strange relation she said nothing of another parent who seemed likewise to be dead—her mother. "My grandfather and myself lived in the house, here. We had black servants, but they have all gone away. We did not have any negro quarter—the servants lived in one part of the house. My grandfather has been very ill—so ill that I thought he would die. He is very fond of the Union—I do not know anything about politics. He was better a little; but the house took fire awhile ago, and I could scarcely help him out. I got out the straw mattress and a sheet, and I could get out nothing more. I am afraid my poor grandfather is very ill, now; perhaps he is dying. I thought he was dying a little while ago, and I screamed—I could not help it. That is all, grandfather, is it not? oh, grandfather! grandfather!" and the poor girl, for the first time broken down, fell forward on the straw pallet, buried her face near the old man's head, and sobbed like an overtasked child.
"Poor girl!" said John Crawford. He did not mean to speak aloud, but he did so, and the dying man heard him.
"Young man," he said, "you took an oath just now. Will you take another, to make an old man die happier?"
"I will!" answered the young man, bending close to him. He was too much exhausted, now, to raise his head any more.
"You say that the Union troops have won the fight to-day?"
"I do say so. We have repulsed the rebel attacks every time; and the last repulse was a rout. They are defeated."