Blacker, and darker, and thicker the war clouds gathered on our horizon, but our story has little to do with that first year of carnage, when human blood was poured as freely as water, from the Cumberland to the Potomac. Over all that we pass, and open the scene again in the summer of ‘62, when people were gradually waking to the fact that Richmond was not so easily taken, or the South so easily conquered.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DESERTER.
There had been a desertion from a regiment on the Potomac. An officer of inferior rank, but whose position had been such as to make him the possessor of much valuable information, was missing from his command one morning, and under such circumstances as to leave little doubt that his intention was to reach the enemy’s lines if possible. Long and loud were the invectives against the traitor, and none were deeper in their denunciations than Captain Hugh Worthington, as, seated on his fiery war-horse, Rocket, he heard from Irving Stanley the story of Dr. Richards’ disgrace.
“He should be pursued, brought back, and shot!” he said, emphatically, feeling that he would like much to be one of the pursuers already on the track of the treacherous doctor, who skillfully eluded them all, and just at the close of a warm summer day, sat in the shadow of the Virginia woods, weary, foot-sore and faint with the pain caused from his ankle, sprained by a recent fall.
He had hunted for Adah until entirely discouraged, and partly as a panacea for the remorse preying so constantly upon him, and partly in compliance with Anna’s entreaties, he had at last joined the Federal army, and been sworn in with the full expectation of some lucrative office. But his unlucky star was in the ascendant. Stories derogatory to his character were set afloat, and the final result of the whole was that he found himself enrolled in a company where he knew he was disliked, and under a captain whom he thoroughly detested, for the fraud practised upon himself. In this condition he was sent to the Potomac, and while on duty as a picket, grew to be on the most friendly terms with more than one of the enemy, planning at last to desert, and effecting his escape one stormy night, when the watch were off their guard. Owing to some mistake, the aid promised by his Rebel friends had not been extended, and as best he could he was making his way to Richmond, when, worn out with hunger and fatigue, he sank down to die, as he believed, at the entrance of some beautiful woods which skirted the borders of a well kept farm in Virginia. Before him, at the distance of nearly a quarter of a mile, a large, handsome house was visible, and by the wreath of smoke curling from the rear chimney, he knew it was inhabited, and thought once to go there, and beg for the food he craved so terribly. But fear kept him back—the people might be Unionists, and might detain him a prisoner until the officers upon his track came up. Dr. Richards was cowardly, and so with a groan, he laid his head upon the grass, and half wished that he had died ere he came to be the miserable wretch he was. The pain in his ankle was by this time intolerable, and the limb was swelling so fast that to walk on the morrow was impossible, and if he found a shelter at all, it must be found that night.
Midway between himself and the house was a comfortable looking barn, whither he resolved to go. But the journey was a tedious one, and brought to his flushed forehead great drops of sweat wrung out by the agony it caused him to step upon his foot. At last, when he could bear his weight upon it no longer, he sank upon the ground, and crawling slowly upon his hands and knees, reached the barn just as it was growing dark, and the shadows creeping into the corners made him half shrink with terror, lest they were the bayonets of those whose coming he was constantly expecting. He could not climb to the scaffolding, and so he sought a friendly pile of hay, and crouching down behind it, fell asleep for the first time in three long days and nights.
The early June sun was just shining through the cracks between the boards when he awoke: sore, stiff, feverish, burning with thirst, and utterly unable to use the poor, swollen foot, which lay so helplessly upon the hay.
“Oh, for Anna now,” he moaned; “if she were only here; or Lily, she would pity and forgive, could she see me now.”
But hark, what sound is it which falls upon his ear, making him quake with fear, and, in spite of his aching ankle, creep farther behind the hay! It is a footstep—a light, tripping step, and it comes that way, nearer, nearer, until a shadow falls between the open chinks and the bright sunshine without. Then it moves on, round the corner, pausing for a moment, while the hidden coward holds his breath and listens anxiously, hoping nothing is coming there. But there is, and it enters the same door through which he came the previous night—a girlish figure, with a basket on its arm—a basket in which she puts the eggs she knew just where to find. Not behind the hay, where a poor wretch was almost dead with terror. There was no nest there, and so she failed to see the ghastly face, pinched with hunger and pain, the glassy eyes, the uncombed hair, and soiled, tattered garments of him who once was known as one of fashion’s most fastidious dandies.
She had secured her eggs for the morning meal, and the doctor hoped she was about to leave, when there was a rustling of the hay, and he almost uttered a scream of fear. But the sound died on his lips, as he heard the voice of prayer—heard that young girl as she prayed, and the words she uttered, stopped, for an instant, the pulsation of his heart, and partly took his senses away. First for her baby-boy she prayed, asking that God would be to him father and mother both, and keep him from temptation. Then for her country; and the doctor, listening to her, knew it was no Rebel tongue calling so earnestly on God to save the Union, praying so touchingly for the poor, suffering soldiers, and coming at last to him, the miserable outcast, whose bloodshot eyes grew blind, and whose brain grew giddy and wild, as he heard again Lily’s voice, pleading for George, wherever he might be. She did not say, “God send him back to me, who loves him still.” She only asked forgiveness for the father of her boy, but this was proof to the listener that she did not hate him, and forgetful of his pain he raised himself upon his elbow, and looking over the pile of hay, saw her where she knelt, Lily,—Adah,—his wife, her fair face covered by her hands, and her soft, brown hair cut short, and curling in her neck.