Rose Mather: A tale

by Mary Jane Holmes

Maude De Vere had insisted that Captain Carleton should have her room, inasmuch as he would be more secure there; for, if the house was suspected and searched, a catastrophe Paul Haverill was constantly anticipating, no one would be likely to invade the sanctity of her apartment.

And Tom found it so very pleasant, and quiet, and home-like, that he was not at all indisposed to linger for several days, particularly after Paul found an opportunity for sending to the Federal lines a letter, which would tell the anxious friends in Rockland of his safety. This letter, which was directed to Mrs. William Mather, had been the direct means of Tom’s ascertaining that his brother-in-law was not only alive, but had once shared in the hospitalities now so freely extended to himself. After learning this, Tom could not forbear tearing open the envelope, and adding in a postscript:

“I have just heard that Will was, not many weeks since, a guest in this very house where I am so kindly cared for. God bless the noble man who has saved so many lives, and the beautiful girl, his niece. I cannot say enough in her praise. I do believe she would die for a Unionist any day. Will, it seems, did not see her, as she was away when he was here; and perhaps it is just as well for you, little Rose, that he did not. There is something in her eye, and voice, and carriage, which stirs strange thoughts and feelings in the hearts of us, savages, who have so long been deprived of ladies’ society. She is a very queen among women.”

That postscript was a most unlucky thought. The first part of Tom’s letter had been so guarded with regard to the people who befriended him, that no harm to them could possibly have accrued from its falling into hostile hands; but in the postscript he forgot himself, and assumed forms of speech which pointed directly to Paul Haverill and his niece, Maude De Vere. And so the guerrillas, who caught and half killed the refugee entrusted with the letter, set themselves at once at work to find the “noble man who had the beautiful niece.” It was not a difficult task; and Paul Haverill, who had been looked upon as so rank a Secessionist, was suddenly suspected of treason.

Paul was popular and dangerous; while Maude De Vere, whose principles were well known, was too much beloved by the rough mountaineers, to allow of harm falling upon her at once. But the writer of that letter,—the “Yankee Carleton”—should not go unpunished, and just at sunset one afternoon, Lois, who had been at a neighboring cabin, came hurrying home, with that ashen hue upon her dark face which is the negro’s sign of paleness.

“Mass’r Paul was suspicioned of harborin’ somebody,” she said; and already the hordes of mountaineers were assembling around the Cross Roads, and concerting measures for surprising and entrapping the Yankee. “Chloe tell me she hear ’em say if they was perfectly sure ’bout mass’r, and it wasn’t for Miss Maude, they’d set the house on fire; and they looks mighty like they’s fit to do it. The wust faces, Miss Maude, and they does swar awful ’bout the Yankee. They’s got halters, and tar and feathers, and guns”

Lois was out of breath by this time, and even if she had not been, she would have paused with wonder at the face of her young mistress. Maude had listened intently to the first part of Lois’s story, but felt no emotion save that of scorn and contempt for the men assembled at the Cross Roads, and whom “Uncle Paul could manage so easily;” but when it came to the halter for the Yankee, her face turned white as marble, and in that moment of peril, she realized all that Captain Carleton was to her, and knew what had been the result of the last week’s daily intercourse with one so gifted and so congenial. She knew too that he was not for her. Arthur Tunbridge stood in the way of that. She would keep her faith with him, but she would save Captain Carleton, or die.

“Lois,” she said, and there was no tremor in her voice, “bring that dress I gave you last Christmas,—the one you think is so long. Your shawl and bonnet, too, and shoes; bring them to Captain Carleton’s room.”

Lois comprehended her mistress at once, and hurried away to her cabin after the dress, whose extra length she had so often deplored, saying “it wasn’t for such as her to wear switchin’ trains like the grand folks.”