Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty

by John William De Forest

The Doctor shook his head with the resolute incredulity of a man who is too anxious not to expect the worst.

"But you can't continue to do well here. This air is infected. This great mass of inflammation, suppuration, mortification and death, has poisoned the atmosphere of the hospital. I scented it the moment I entered the door. Am I not right, Dr. Jackson?"

"Just so. Can't help it. Horrid weather for cases," replied the chief surgeon, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. "Air is poisoned. Wish to God I could get a fresh building. My patients would do better in shanties than they will here."

"I knew it," said Ravenel. "Now then, I am a country doctor. I can take this young man to a plantation, and give him pure air."

"That's what you want," observed Jackson, turning to Colburne. "Your arm don't need ice now. Water will do. Better go, I think. I'll see that you have a month's leave of absence. Come, you can go to Taylorsville, and still not miss a chance for fighting. Tried to send him north," he added, addressing Ravenel. "But he's foolish about it. Wants to see Port Hudson out—what you call a knight-errant."

Colburne was in a tremble, body and soul, at the thought of meeting Mrs. Carter; he had never been so profoundly shaken by even the actuality of encountering Miss Ravenel. Most of us have been in love enough to understand all about it without explanation, and to feel no wonder at him because, after reeling mentally this way and that, he finally said, "I will go." Now and then there is a woman who cannot bear to look upon the man whom she has loved and lost, and who will turn quick corners and run down side streets to escape him, haunting him spiritually perhaps, but bodily keeping afar from him all her life. But stronger natures, who can endure the trial, frequently go to meet it, and seem to find some dolorous comfort in it. As regards Colburne, it may be that he would not have gone to Taylorsville had he not been weak and feverish, and felt a craving for that petting kindness which seems to be a necessity of invalids.

I doubt whether the life in Ravenel's house contributed much to advance his convalescence. His emotions were played upon too constantly and powerfully for the highest good of the temporarily shattered instrument. He had supposed that he would undergo one great shock on meeting Mrs. Carter, and that then his trouble would be over. The first thrill was not so potent as he expected; but it was succeeded by a constant unrest, like the burning of a slow fever; he was uneasy all day and slept badly at night. In the house he could not talk freely and gaily, because of Lillie's presence; and out of it he could not feel with calmness, because he was perpetually thinking of her. After all, it may have been the splinters of bone in the arm, quite as much as the arrow in the heart, which worried him. Of Mrs. Carter I must admit that she was not merciful; she made the doubly-wounded Captain talk a great deal of his Colonel. He might recite Carter's martial deeds and qualities as lengthily as he pleased, and recommence da capo to recite them over again, not only without fatiguing her, but without exciting in her mind a thought that he was doing any thing remarkable. She was very much pleased, but she was not a bit grateful. Why should she be! It was perfectly natural to her mind that people should admire the Colonel, and talk much of his glory. Colburne performed this ill-paid task with infinite patience, sympathy, and self-sacrificing love; and no warrior was ever better sung in conversational epics than was Carter the successful by Colburne the disappointed. Under the rude oppression of this subject the bruised shrub exhaled daily sweetness. It is almost painful to contemplate these two loving hearts: the one sending its anxious sympathies a hundred miles away into the deadly trenches of Port Hudson; the other pouring out its sympathies for a present object, but covertly and without a thought of reward. If the passionate affection of the woman is charming, the unrequited, unhoping love of the man is sublime.

The Doctor perhaps saw what Lillie could not or would not see.

"My dear," he observed, "you must remember that Colonel Carter is not the husband of Captain Colburne."

"Oh papa!" she answered. "Do you suppose that he doesn't like to talk about Colonel Carter? Of course he does. He admires him, and likes him immensely."