ROSE MATHER.
CHAPTER I.
THE WAR MEETING.
The long disputed point as to whether the South was in earnest or not was settled, and through the Northern States the tidings flew that Sumter had fallen and the war had commenced. With the first gun which boomed across the waters of Charleston bay, it was ushered in, and they who had cried, “Peace! peace!” found at last “there was no peace.” Then, and not till then, did the nation rise from its lethargic slumber and shake off the delusion with which it had so long been bound. Political differences were forgotten. Republicans and Democrats struck the friendly hand, pulse beat to pulse, heart throbbed to heart, and the watchword everywhere was, “The Union forever.” Throughout the length and breadth of the land were true, loyal hearts, and as at Rhoderic Dhu’s command the Highlanders sprang to view from every clump of heather on the wild moors of Scotland, so when the war-cry came up from Sumter our own Highlanders arose, a mighty host, responsive to the call; some from New England’s templed hills, with hands inured to toil, and hearts as strong and true as flint; some from the Empire, some the Keystone State, and others from the prairies of the distant West. It mattered not what place had given them birth; it mattered little whether the Green Mountains of Vermont, the granite hills of New Hampshire, or the shadowy forests of Wisconsin had sheltered their childhood’s home; united in one cause they rallied round the Stars and Stripes, and went forth to meet, not a foreign foe, but alas, to raise a brother’s arm against another brother’s arm in that most dreadful of all anarchies, a national civil war.
In the usually quiet village of Rockland the utmost interest was felt, and though there, as elsewhere, were many whose hearts beat as warmly for their Southern friends as when the sun shone on a nation at peace, all felt the necessity of action, and when at last the evening came in which the first war meeting of that place was to be held, a dense and promiscuous crowd wended its way to the old brick church, whose hallowed walls echoed to the sound of fife and drum, strange music for the house of God, but more acceptable, in that dark hour, than songs of praise sung by vain and thoughtless lips. In the centre of the church, the men were mostly congregated, while the seats nearest the door were occupied by the women,—the wives and mothers and sisters who had come with aching hearts to see their brothers, sons and husbands give their signatures to what seemed their sure death warrant. Conspicuous among these was Widow Simms, whose old-fashioned leghorn, with its faded green veil, was visible at all public gatherings, its broad frill of lace shading a pair of sharp grey eyes, and a rather peculiar face. It was very white now, and the thin lips were firmly compressed as the widow tried to look resolute and unconcerned when two of her sons went forward, their faces glowing with youthful enthusiasm, as they heard the President repeat their names, “John Simms,—Eli Simms.” The widow involuntarily said it after him, her mother’s heart whispering within her, “Isaac won’t go. He’s too young. I can’t give Isaac up,” and her eye wandered to where her youngest boy was sitting, twirling his old cloth cap, and occasionally exchanging a word with the young man next to him, William Baker, who, together with his brother, arose, to follow John and Eli Simms.
Scarcely, however, had they risen to their feet, when a woman occupying the same seat with Widow Simms, uttered a cry more like the moaning howl of some wild beast, than like a human sound.
“No, Harry, no, Bill—no, no,” and the bony arms were flung wildly toward the two young men, who, with a dogged, indignant glance at her, fell back among the crowd where they could not be seen, muttering something not very complimentary to “the old woman,” as they called her.
But the old woman did not hear it, and if she had, it would have made no difference. It mattered not to her that they had ever been the veriest pests in the whole village, the planners of every grade of mischief, the robbers of barns and plunderers of orchards,—they were her boys, and she didn’t want them shot, so she continued to moan and cry, muttering incoherently about the rich treading down the poor, and wondering why Judge Warner didn’t send his own white fingered sons, if he thought going to war was so nice.
“I wouldn’t make such a fuss, let what would happen to me,” said the Widow Simms, casting a half contemptuous glance upon the weeping woman, whom she evidently considered far beneath her, and adding, “They had ‘nough-sight better be shot than hung,’ as an aside to the young woman just behind her,—sweet Annie Graham, who was holding fast to her husband’s hand, as if she would thus keep him in spite of the speaker’s eloquent appeals, and the whispers of his companions, who were urging him to join the company forming so rapidly before the altar.
There was a terrible struggle going on in Annie Graham’s breast,—duty to her country and love for her husband waging a mighty conflict, the former telling her that if the right would triumph, somebody’s husband must go, and the wife-heart crying out, “Yes, somebody’s husband must go, I know, but not mine, not George.”