As the old man said this he seated himself upon a marble door-step, and wiped the perspiration from his brow; for he had walked a long way that morning, and the thousand associations that pressed upon his memory wearied him.
A company of volunteers, in all the pomp and circumstance of city war, now approached by a cross street. The bugle’s shrill note, mingled in with the clarionet and cymbals; and the glance of the sun upon their bayonets and polished helmets, lit up the martial fire that slumbered in the old man’s soul. He rose upon his feet.
“It is pleasant enough now to look upon such gatherings,” said he, “but those who have heard the drums beat to drown the cries of the wounded and the dying, cannot forget their meaning, though youth and joy accompany them, and though the smiles of beauty urge them on.” And the old man wept, for the men of other days stood about him; and the battle-fields, then silent and deserted, teemed with the dead and the dying; and the blood formed in pools amid the trampled grass, or trickled in little rills down the smoky hill-side.
A servant now came out of a neighboring house and invited the old man in. He thankfully accepted the hospitality of the polite citizen, and soon stood in a comfortable breakfast room. A young man of twenty-one received him with kindness; and a tall, prim woman of eighty-six cordially insisted upon his joining her family at the breakfast-table. A beautiful girl of eighteen took the old man’s hat and cane, and wheeled up an old arm-chair that had done the family some service in ancient days. The old man as she seated herself beside him, patted her upon the head, and a firm—“God bless you”—escaped from his wrinkled and pallid lips. The old lady suddenly paused in her tea-table duty, and looked earnestly at her guest. The old man’s eyes met hers—they had seen each other before—but the mists of time shrouded their memories, and blended names and places and periods strangely together.
“Will thee have another cup of tea?” said the matron to the old man.
“I have heard that voice,” thought the stranger, as he took the proffered cup with gratitude, and finished his breakfast in silence.
“Oh! grandmother,” said the maiden, springing to the window, “here come the Iron Greys; how splendidly they look.”
“I cannot look at them,” said the matron, in a trembling voice—“thy grandfather was killed by the Brunswick Greys at Princeton.”
“What was his name?” said the old man, fixing his dim eye steadily upon the speaker’s face.
“Charles Greely,” said the matron, shedding an unexpected tear.