It was heartlessly said, yet he, too, had omitted his usual profane word, like the little boy who drops the stolen apple when he sees his mother’s grave.
“Some night someone is going to mistake his grave for hidden treasure and open things up a bit, don’t you think?” the second remarked, with a glance they all understood.
But it had already been done, and by those who had long mistaken John C. Calhoun for hidden treasure. In the deepest quiet of the night, before the heel of the conqueror should tread on hallowed ground, they had come, loosing the sandals from their feet as though God were in every bush in the Western Cemetery; and fearful lest an enemy should touch his holy dust for desecration—tenderly, reverently, they had lifted their hero’s ashes and borne them away in secret till the storm should be overpast.
CHAPTER XLVI
Early in February of ’sixty-five, at the home of Mrs. Liddell, in Columbia, Jack Corbin and his wife and Helen Brooks were sitting round the open fire in the living room. The glow of the firelight on the hearth threw fantastic shadows over the rich furnishings and lit up the forms of the three who sat almost mournfully by his side. The darkness of the evening was made more dreary by the falling rain, through which, in a few minutes, the young captain must go to join his command. His suit of gray was worn and faded, and his felt hat that hung outside was full of holes.
“I am glad,” he was saying, “that old Joe is here. It was good of the colonel to send him. I saw him as I came, dressed up in a suit of Colonel Masters’, and new shoes and hat—”
“Yes, Jack, and I am so glad that Major Goodwin has said he will get us a guard for this house if Sherman comes.”
“He is coming, Bessie.”
“And you think there is no danger, Jack, dear?”