THE DAY OF THE WEDDING.
Those first warm days of March, 1865, when spring and summer seemed to
kiss each other and join hands for a brief space of time, how balmy, how
still, how pleasant they were, and how bright the farm-house looked,
where preparations for Katy’s second bridal were going rapidly forward.
Aunt Betsy was in her element, for now had come the reality of the
vision she had seen so long, of house turned upside down in one grand
onslaught of suds and sand, then, righted again by magic power, and
smelling very sweet and clean from its recent ablutions—of turkeys dying
in the barn, of chickens in the shed, of loaves of frosted cake, with
cards and cards of snowy biscuit piled upon the pantry shelf—of jellies,
tarts, and chicken salad—of home-made wine, and home-brewed beer, with
tea and coffee portioned out and ready for the evening.
In the dining-room the table was set with the new China ware and silver,
a joint Christmas gift from Helen and Katy to their good Aunt Hannah, as
real mistress of the house.
“Not plated ware, but the gen-oo-ine article,” Aunt Betsy had explained
at least twenty times to those who came to see the silver, and she
handled it proudly now as she took it from the flannel bags in which
Mrs. Deacon Bannister said it must be kept, and placed it on a
side-table.
The coffee-urn was Katy’s, so was the tea-kettle and the massive
pitcher, but the rest was “ours,” Aunt Betsy complacently reflected as
she contemplated the glittering array, and then hurried off to see what
was burning on the stove, stumbling over Morris as she went, and telling
him “he had come too soon—it was not fittin’ for him to be there under
foot until he was wanted.”
Without replying directly to Aunt Betsy, Morris knocked with a vast
amount of assurance at a side door, which opened directly, and Katy’s
glowing face looked out, and Katy’s voice was heard, saying joyfully,
“Oh, Morris, it’s you. I’m so glad you’ve come, for I wanted”——
But what she wanted was lost to Aunt Betsy by the closing of the door,
and Morris and Katy were alone in the little sewing room where latterly
they had passed so many quiet hours together, and where lay the bridal
dress with its chaste and simple decorations. Katy had clung tenaciously
to her mourning robe, asking if she _might_ wear black, as ladies
sometimes did. But Morris had promptly answered no. His bride, if she
came to him willingly, must not come clad in widow’s weeds, for when she
became his wife she would cease to be a widow.
And so black was laid aside, and Katy, in soft tinted colors, with her
bright hair curling on her neck, looked as girlish and beautiful as if
in Greenwood there were no pretentious monument, with Wilford’s name
upon it, nor any little grave in Silverton where Baby Cameron slept. She
had been both wife and mother, but she was quite as dear to Morris as if
she had never borne other name than Katy Lennox, and as he held her for
a moment to his heart he thanked God who had at last given to him the
idol of his boyhood and the love of his later years. Across their
pathway no shadow was lying, except when they remembered Helen, on whom
the mantle of widowhood had fallen just as Katy was throwing it off.
Poor Helen! the tears always crept to Katy’s eyes when she thought of
her, and now, as she saw her steal across the road and strike into the
winding path which led to the pasture where the pines and hemlock grew,
she nestled closer to Morris, and whispered,
“Sometimes I think it wrong to be so happy when Helen is so sad. I pity
her so much to-day.”
And Helen was to be pitied, for her heart was aching to its very core.
She had tried to keep up through the preparations for Katy’s bridal,
tried to seem interested and even cheerful, while all the time a hidden
agony was tugging at her heart, and life seemed a heavier burden than
she could bear.
All her portion of the work was finished now, and in the balmy
brightness of that warm April afternoon she went into the fields where
she could be alone beneath the soft summer-like sky, and pour out her
pent-up anguish into the ear of Him who had so often soothed and
comforted her when other aids had failed. Last night, for the first time
since she heard the dreadful news, she had dreamed of Mark, and when she
awoke she still felt the pressure of his lips upon her brow, the touch
of his arm upon her waist, and the thrilling clasp of his warm hand as
it pressed and held her own. But that was a dream, a cruel delusion, and
its memory made the more dark and dreary as she went slowly up the
beaten path, pausing once beneath a chestnut tree and leaning her
throbbing head against the shaggy bark as she heard in the distance the
shrill whistle of the downward train from Albany, and thought as she
always did when she heard that whistle, “Oh, if that heralded Mark’s
return, how happy I should be.” But many sounds like that had echoed
across the Silverton hills, bringing no hope to her, and now as it again
died away in the Cedar Swamp she pursued her way up the path till she
reached a long white ledge of rocks—“The lovers’ Rock,” some called it,
for village boys and maidens knew the place, repairing to it often, and
whispering their vows beneath the overhanging pines, which whispered
back again, and told the winds the story which though so old is always
new to her who listens and to him who tells.
Just underneath the pine there was a large flat stone, and there Helen
sat down, gazing sadly upon the valley below, and the clear waters of
Fairy Pond gleaming in the April sunshine which lay so warmly on the
grassy hills and flashed so brightly from the cupola at Linwood, where
the national flag was flying. For a time Helen watched the banner as it
shook its folds to the breeze, then as she remembered with what a
fearful price that flag had been saved from dishonor, she hid her face
in her hands and sobbed bitterly.
“God help me not to think I paid too dearly for my country’s rights. Oh,
Mark, my husband, I may be wrong, but _you_ were dearer to me than many,
many countries, and it is hard to give you up—hard to know that the
notes of peace which float up from the South will not waken you in that
grave which I can never see. Oh, Mark, my darling, my darling, I love
you so much, I miss you so much, I want you so much. God help me to
bear. God help to say, ‘Thy will be done.’”
She was rocking to and fro in her grief, with her hands pressed over her
face, and for a long time she sat thus, while the sun crept on further
towards the west, and the freshened breeze shook the tasseled pine above
her head and kissed the bands of rich brown hair, from which her hat had
fallen. She did not heed the lapse of time, nor hear the footstep coming
up the pathway to the ledge where she was sitting, the footstep which
paused at intervals, as if the comer were weary, or in quest of some
one, but which at last came on with rapid bounds as an opening among the
trees showed where Helen sat. It was a tall young man who came, a young
man, sun-burned and scarred, with uniform soiled and worn, but with the
fire in his brown eyes unquenched, the love in his true heart unchanged,
save as it was deeper, more intense for the years of separation, and the
long, cruel suspense, which was all over now. The grave had given up its
dead, the captive was released, and through incredible suffering and
danger had reached his Northern home, had sought and found his girl-wife
of a few hours, for it was Mark Ray speeding up the path, and holding
back his breath as he came close to the bowed form upon the rock,
feeling a strange throb of awe when he saw the _mourning dress_, and
knew it was worn for him. A moment more, and she lay in his arms; white
and insensible, for with the sudden winding of his arms around her neck,
the pressure of his lips upon her cheek, the calling of her name, and
the knowing it was really her husband, she had uttered a wild,
impassioned cry, half of terror, half of joy, and fainted entirely away,
just as she did when told that he was dead! There was no water near, but
with loving words and soft caresses Mark brought her back to life,
raining both tears and kisses upon the dear face which had grown so
white and thin since the Christmas eve when the wintry star light had
looked down upon their parting. For several moments neither could speak
for the great choking joy which wholly precluded the utterance of a
word. Helen was the first to rally. With her head lying in Mark’s lap
and pillowed on Mark’s arm, she whispered,
“Let us thank God together. You, too, have learned to pray.”
Reverently Mark bent his head to hers, and the pine boughs overhead
heard, instead of mourning notes, a prayer of praise, as the reunited
wife and husband fervently thanked God, who had brought them together
again.
Not until nearly a half hour was gone, and Helen had begun to realize
that the arm which held her so tightly was genuine flesh and blood, and
not mere delusion, did she look up into the face, glowing with so much
of happiness and love. Upon the forehead, and just beneath the hair,
there was a savage scar, and the flesh about it was red and angry still,
showing how sore and painful it must have been, and making Helen shudder
as she touched it with her lips, and said,
“Poor, darling Mark! that’s where the cruel ball entered; but where is
the other scar,—the one made by the man who went to you in the fields. I
have tried so hard not to hate him for firing at a fallen foe.”
“Rather pray for him, darling. Bless him as the savior of your husband’s
life, the noble fellow but for whom I should not have been here now, for
he was a Unionist, as true to the old flag as Abraham himself,” Mark Ray
replied; and then, as Helen looked wonderingly at him, he laid her head
in an easier position upon his shoulder, and told her a story so strange
in its details, that but for the frequent occurrence of similar
incidents, it would be pronounced wholly unreal and false.
Of what he suffered in the Southern prisons he did not speak, either
then or ever after, but began with the day when, with a courage born of
desperation, he jumped from the moving train and was shot down by the
guard. Partially stunned, he still retained sense enough to know when a
tall form bent over him, and to hear the rough but kindly voice which
said,
“Play ’possum, Yank. Make b’lieve you’re dead, and throw ’em off the
scent.”
This was the last he knew for many weeks, and when again he woke to
consciousness he found himself on the upper floor of a dilapidated hut,
which stood in the centre of a little wood, his bed a pile of straw,
over which was spread a clean patch-work quilt, while seated at his
side, and watching him intently, was the same man who had bent over him
in the field, and shouted to the rebels that he was dead.
“I shall never forget my sensations then,” Mark said, “for with the
exception of this present hour, when I hold you in my arms, and know the
danger is over, I never experienced a moment of greater happiness and
rest than when, up in that squalid garret, I came back to life again,
the pain in my head all gone, and nothing left save a delicious feeling
of languor, which prompted me to lie quietly for several minutes,
examining my surroundings, and speculating upon the chance which brought
me there. That I was a prisoner I did not doubt, until the old man at my
side said to me cheerily,
“Well, old chap, you’ve come through it like a major, though I was
mighty dubus a spell about that pesky ball. But old Aunt Bab and me
fished it out, and since then you’ve begun to mend.”
“‘Where am I? Who are you?’ I asked, and he replied, ‘Who be I? Why, I’m
_Jack Jennins_, the rarinest, redhotedest secesh there is in these yer
parts, so the Rebs thinks; but ’twixt you and me, boy, I’m the tallest
kind of a Union,—got a piece of the old flag sowed inside of my boots,
and every night before sleepin’ I prays the Lord to gin Abe the victory,
and raise Cain generally in t’other camp, and forgive Jack Jennins for
tellin’ so many lies, and makin’ b’lieve he’s one thing when you know
and he knows he’s t’other. If I’ve _spared_ one Union chap, I’ll bet I
have a hundred, me and old Bab, a black woman who lives here and tends
to the cases I fotch her, till we contrive to git ’em inter Tennessee,
whar they hev to shift for themselves.’
“I could only press his hand in token of my gratitude while he went on
to say, ‘Them was beans I fired at you that day, but they sarved every
purpose, and them scalliwags on the train s’pose you were put
underground weeks ago, if indeed you wasn’t left to rot in the sun, as
heaps and heaps on ’em is. Nobody knows you are here but Bab and me, and
nobody must know if you want to git off with a whole hide. I could git a
hundred dollars by givin’ you up, but you don’t s’pose Jack Jennins is a
gwine to do that ar infernal trick. No, sir,’ and he brought his brawny
fist down upon his knee with a force which made me tremble, while I
tried to express my thanks for his great kindness. He was a noble man,
Helen, while Aunt Bab, the colored woman, who nursed me so tenderly, and
whose black, bony hands I kissed at parting, was as true a woman as any
with a fairer skin and more beautiful exterior.
“For three weeks longer I stayed up in that loft, and in that time three
more escaped prisoners were brought there, and one Union refugee from
North Carolina. We left in company one wild, rainy night, when the storm
and darkness must have been sent for our special protection, and Jack
Jennings cried like a little child when he bade me good-bye, promising,
if he survived the war, to find his way to the North and visit me in New
York.
“We found these Unionists everywhere, and especially among the mountains
of Tennessee, where, but for their timely aid, we had surely been
recaptured. With blistered feet and bruised limbs we reached the lines
at last, when fever attacked me for the second time and brought me near
to death. Somebody wrote to you, but you never received it, and when I
grew better I would not let them write again, as I wanted to surprise
you. As soon as I was able I started North, my thoughts full of the
joyful meeting in store—a meeting which I dreaded too, for I knew you
must think me dead, and I felt so sorry for you, my darling, knowing, as
I did, you would mourn for your soldier husband. That my darling _has_
mourned is written on her face, and needs no words to tell it; but that
is over now,” Mark said, folding his wife closer to him, and kissing the
pale lips, while he told her how, arrived at Albany, he had telegraphed
to his mother, asking where Helen was.
“In Silverton,” was the reply, and so he came on in the morning train,
meeting his mother in Springfield as he had half expected to do, knowing
that she could leave New York in time to join him there.
“No words of mine,” he said, “are adequate to describe the thrill of joy
with which I looked again upon the hills and rocks so identified with
you that I loved them for your sake, hailing them as old, familiar
friends, and actually growing sick and faint with excitement when
through the leafless woods I caught the gleam of Fairy Pond, where I
gathered the lilies for you. There is a wedding in progress at the
farm-house, I learned from mother, and it seems very meet that I should
come at this time, making, in reality, a double wedding when I can truly
claim my bride,” and Mark kissed Helen passionately, laughing to see how
the blushes broke over her white face, and burned upon her neck.
Those were happy moments which they passed together upon that ledge of
rocks, happy enough to atone for all the dreadful past, and when at last
they rose and slowly retraced their steps to the farm-house, it seemed
to Mark that Helen’s cheeks were rounder than when he found her, while
Helen knew that the arm on which she leaned was stronger than when it
first encircled her an hour or two before.