| 'The years creep slowly by, Lorena; The snow is on the grass again; The sun's low down the sky, Lorena; The frost gleams where the flowers have been—'" |
"Don't mind him," said the soldiers on elbows. "Poor fellow! he ain't got any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill was pretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus—Jeb Stuart and Sweeney playing their tricks! We didn't know the name of the place. Evelington Heights! Pretty name."
The sergeant-major would not be cheated of Malvern Hill. "'Pretty bad!' I should say 'twas pretty bad! Malvern Hill was awful. If anything could induce me to be a damn Yankee 'twould be them guns of their'n! Yes, sirree, bob! we fought and fought, and ten o'clock came and there wasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the damn Yankees continued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels all the night long—so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the wounded and, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don't reckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was—I can't swear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was—Well, dawn blew at reveille—No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I just get my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right tired, damn Yankees and all of us.... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! Well, boys, the damn Yankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where their hell-fire gunboats could stand picket for them.... Say, ma'am, would you kindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung with wreaths of roses?—'Isn't any bed there?' But there is! I see it.... Evelington Heights—and Stuart dropping shells into the damn Yankees' camp.... They are roses, the old Giants of Battle by the beehive.... Evelington Heights. Eveling—Well, the damn Yankees dragged their guns up there, too.... If the beehive's there, then the apple tree's here—Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take them again, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to—"
The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, that it had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhausted army, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-two guns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores captured or destroyed, less some confidence at Washington, rested down the James by Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for a time at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knew that Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded than had fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond. Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For all its pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, the ward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense of triumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, looking with sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs. The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the black thread, but twisted with it was the gold. A pæan sounded as well as a dirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of the heart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, of processions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting, dizzy hope, descending despair.... Now, at last, above it all the bells rang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armful of flowers,—white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox—She gave her posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out with her smiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet. It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse by Thunder Run.... Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?
This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watching the narrow path between the wounded, saw her coming from the far door. He did not know who she was; he only looked from the flower in his hand and had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something noble approaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women; answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to the cut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a little the covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in her cool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower at her breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said.
"Yes."
"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been to Lauderdale and to Three Oaks."
"Yes," said Allan. "I have heard of you. I—"
There was an empty box beside the wall. Judith drew it nearer to his bed and sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell you about poor little Christianna—and—and other things. Christianna's father has been killed."
Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of his going!... Poor child!"