reason--but, still, she resented it.
"Think of it," Crittenden went on. "It is the first time in my life,
almost, I have known what it was to wish to do something--to have a
purpose--that was not inspired by you." It was an unconscious and rather
ungracious declaration of independence--it was unnecessary--and Judith
was surprised, chilled--hurt.
"When do you go?"
Crittenden pulled a telegram from his pocket.
"To-morrow morning. I got this just as I was leaving town."
"To-morrow!"
"It means life or death to me--this telegram. And if it doesn't mean
life, I don't care for the other. I shall come out with a commission
or--not at all. If dead, I shall be a hero--if alive," he smiled, "I
don't know what I'll be, but think of me as a hero, dead or alive, with
my past and my present. I can feel a change already, a sort of growing
pain, at the very thought."
"When do you go to Cuba?"
"Within four days."
"Four days! And you can talk as you do, when you are going to war to
live the life of a common soldier--to die of fever, to be killed,
maybe," her lip shook and she stopped, but she went on thickly, "and be
thrown into an unknown grave or lie unburied in a jungle." She spoke
with such sudden passion that Crittenden was startled.
"Listen!"
Judge Page appeared in the doorway, welcoming Crittenden with old-time
grace and courtesy. Through supper, Judith was silent and thoughtful
and, when she did talk, it was with a perceptible effort. There was a
light in her eyes that he would have understood once--that would have
put his heart on fire. And once he met a look that he was wholly at loss
to understand. After supper, she disappeared while the two men smoked on
the porch. The moon was rising when she came out again. The breath of
honeysuckles was heavy on the air, and from garden and fields floated
innumerable odours of flower and clover blossom and moist grasses.
Crittenden lived often through that scene afterward--Judith on the
highest step of the porch, the light from the hallway on her dress and
her tightly folded hands; her face back in shadow, from which her eyes
glowed with a fire in them that he had never seen before.
Judge Page rose soon to go indoors. He did not believe there was going
to be much of a war, and his manner was almost cheery when he bade the
young man good-by.
"Good luck to you," he said. "If the chance comes, you will give a good
account of yourself. I never knew a man of your name who didn't."
"Thank you, sir."
There was a long silence.
"Basil will hardly have time to get his commission, and get to Tampa."
"No. But he can come after us."
She turned suddenly upon him.
"Yes--something has happened to you. I didn't know what you meant that
day we drove home, but I do now. I feel it, but I don't understand."
Crittenden flushed, but made no answer.
"You could not have spoken to me in the old days as you do now. Your
instinct would have held you back. And something has happened to me."
Then she began talking to him as frankly and simply as a child to a
child. It was foolish and selfish, but it had hurt her when he told her
that he no longer had his old feeling for her. It was selfish and cruel,
but it was true, however selfish and cruel it seemed, and was--but she
had felt hurt. Perhaps that was vanity, which was not to her credit--but
that, too, she could not help. It had hurt her every time he had said
anything from which she could infer that her influence over him was less
than it once was--although, as a rule, she did not like to have
influence over people. Maybe he wounded her as his friend in this way,
and perhaps there was a little vanity in this, too--but a curious change
was taking place in their relations. Once he was always trying to please
her, and in those days she would have made him suffer if he had spoken
to her then as he had lately--but he would not have spoken that way
then. And now she wondered why she was not angry instead of being hurt.
And she wondered why she did not like him less. Somehow, it seemed
quite fair that she should be the one to suffer now, and she was glad to
take her share--she had caused him and others so much pain.
"_He_"--not even now did she mention his name--"wrote to me again, not
long ago, asking to see me again. It was impossible. And it was the
thought of you that made me know how impossible it was--_you_." The girl
laughed, almost hardly, but she was thinking of herself when she
did--not of him.
The time and circumstance that make woman the thing apart in a man's
life must come sooner or later to all women, and women must yield; she
knew that, but she had never thought they could come to her--but they
had come, and she, too, must give way.
"It is all very strange," she said, as though she were talking to
herself, and she rose and walked into the warm, fragrant night, and down
the path to the stiles, Crittenden silently following. The night was
breathless and the moonlit woods had the still beauty of a dream; and
Judith went on speaking of herself as she had never done--of the man
whose name she had never mentioned, and whose name Crittenden had never
asked. Until that night, he had not known even whether the man were
still alive or dead. She had thought that was love--until lately she
had never questioned but that when that was gone from her heart, all was
gone that would ever be possible for her to know. That was why she had
told Crittenden to conquer his love for her. And now she was beginning
to doubt and to wonder--ever since she came back and heard him at the
old auditorium--and why and whence the change now? That puzzled her. One
thing was curious--through it all, as far back as she could remember,
her feeling for him had never changed, except lately. Perhaps it was an
unconscious response in her to the nobler change that in spite of his
new hardness her instinct told her was at work in him.
She was leaning on the fence now, her elbow on the top plank, her hand
under her chin, and her face uplifted--the moon lighting her hair, her
face, and eyes, and her voice the voice of one slowly threading the
mazes of a half-forgotten dream. Crittenden's own face grew tense as he
watched her. There was a tone in her voice that he had hungered for all
his life; that he had never heard but in his imaginings and in his
dreams; that he had heard sounding in the ears of another and sounding
at the same time the death-knell of the one hope that until now had made
effort worth while. All evening she had played about his spirit as a
wistful, changeful light will play over the fields when the moon is
bright and clouds run swiftly. She turned on him like a flame now.
"Until lately," she was saying, and she was not saying at all what she
meant to say; but here lately a change was taking place; something had
come into her feeling for him that was new and strange--she could not
understand--perhaps it had always been there; perhaps she was merely
becoming conscious of it. And when she thought, as she had been thinking
all day, of his long years of devotion--how badly she had requited
them--it seemed that the least she could do was to tell him that he was
now first in her life of all men--that much she could say; and perhaps
he had always been, she did not know; perhaps, now that the half-gods
were gone, it was at last the coming of the--the--She was deeply
agitated now; her voice was trembling; she faltered, and she turned
suddenly, sharply, and with a little catch in her breath, her lips and
eyes opening slowly--her first consciousness, perhaps, a wonder at his
strange silence--and dazed by her own feeling and flushing painfully,
she looked at him for the first time since she began to talk, and she
saw him staring fixedly at her with a half-agonized look, as though he
were speechlessly trying to stop her, his face white, bitter, shamed,
helpless, Not a word more dropped from her lips--not a sound. She
moved; it seemed that she was about to fall, and Crittenden started
toward her, but she drew herself erect, and, as she turned--lifting her
head proudly--the moonlight showed that her throat was drawn--nothing
more. Motionless and speechless, Crittenden watched her white shape move
slowly and quietly up the walk and grow dim; heard her light, even step
on the gravel, up the steps, across the porch, and through the doorway.
Not once did she look around.
* * * * *
He was in his room now and at his window, his face hard as stone when
his heart was parching for tears. It was true, then. He was the brute he
feared he was. He had killed his life, and he had killed his
love--beyond even her power to recall. His soul, too, must be dead, and
it were just as well that his body die. And, still bitter, still shamed
and hopeless, he stretched out his arms to the South with a fierce
longing for the quick fate--no matter what--that was waiting for him
there.
IX
By and by bulletins began to come in to the mother at Canewood from her
boy at Tampa. There was little psychology in Basil's bulletin:
"I got here all right. My commission hasn't come, and I've joined
the Rough Riders, for fear it won't get here in time. The Colonel
was very kind to me--called me Mister.
"I've got a lieutenant's uniform of khaki, but I'm keeping it out
of sight. I may have no use for it. I've got two left spurs, and
I'm writing in the Waldorf-Astoria. I like these Northern fellows;
they are gentlemen and plucky--I can see that. Very few of them
swear. I wish I knew where brother is. The Colonel calls everybody
Mister--even the Indians.
"Word comes to-night that we are to be off to the front. Please
send me a piece of cotton to clean my gun. And please be easy about
me--do be easy. And if you insist on giving me a title, don't call
me Private--call me _Trooper_.
"Yes, we are going; the thing is serious. We are all packed up now;
have rolled up camping outfit and are ready to start.
"Baggage on the transport now, and we sail this afternoon. Am sorry
to leave all of you, and I have a tear in my eye now that I can't
keep back. It isn't a summer picnic, and I don't feel like shouting
when I think of home; but I'm always lucky, and I'll come out all
right. I'm afraid I sha'n't see brother at all. I tried to look
cheerful for my picture (enclosed). Good-by.
"Some delay; actually on board and steam up.
"Waiting--waiting--waiting. It's bad enough to go to Cuba in boats
like these, but to lie around for days is trying. No one goes
ashore, and I can hear nothing of brother. I wonder why the General
didn't give him that commission instead of me. There is a curious
sort of fellow here, who says he knows brother. His name is
Blackford, and he is very kind to me. He used to be a regular, and
he says he thinks brother took his place in the --th and is a
regular now himself--a private; I don't understand. There is mighty
little Rough Riding about this.
"P. S.--My bunkie is from Boston--Bob Sumner. His father _commanded
a negro regiment in a fight once against my father_; think of it!
"Hurrah! we're off."
It was a tropical holiday--that sail down to Cuba--a strange, huge
pleasure-trip of steamships, sailing in a lordly column of three; at
night, sailing always, it seemed, in a harbour of brilliant lights under
multitudinous stars and over thickly sown beds of tiny phosphorescent
stars that were blown about like flowers in a wind-storm by the frothing
wake of the ships; by day, through a brilliant sunlit sea, a cool
breeze--so cool that only at noon was the heat tropical--and over smooth
water, blue as sapphire. Music night and morning, on each ship, and
music coming across the little waves at any hour from the ships about.
Porpoises frisking at the bows and chasing each other in a circle around
bow and stern as though the transports sat motionless; schools of
flying-fish with filmy, rainbow wings rising from one wave and
shimmering through the sunlight to the foamy crest of another--sometimes
hundreds of yards away. Beautiful clear sunsets of rose, gold-green, and
crimson, with one big, pure radiant star ever like a censor over them;
every night the stars more deeply and thickly sown and growing ever
softer and more brilliant as the boats neared the tropics; every day
dawn rich with beauty and richer for the dewy memories of the dawns that
were left behind.
Now and then a little torpedo-boat would cut like a knife-blade through
the water on messenger service; or a gunboat would drop lightly down the
hill of the sea, along the top of which it patrolled so vigilantly; and
ever on the horizon hung a battle-ship that looked like a great gray
floating cathedral. But nobody was looking for a fight--nobody thought
the Spaniard would fight--and so these were only symbols of war; and
even they seemed merely playing the game.
It was as Grafton said. Far ahead went the flag-ship with the huge
Commander-in-Chief and his staff, the gorgeous attachés, and the artists
and correspondents, with valets, orderlies, stenographers, and
secretaries. Somewhere, far to the rear, one ship was filled with
newspaper men from stem to stern. But wily Grafton was with Lawton and
Chaffee, the only correspondent aboard their transport. On the second
day, as he sat on the poop-deck, a negro boy came up to him, grinning
uneasily:
"I seed you back in ole Kentuck, suh."
"You did? Well, I don't remember seeing you. What do you want?"
"Captain say he gwine to throw me overboard."
"What for?"
"I ain't got no business here, suh."
"Then what are you here for?"
"Lookin' fer Ole Cap'n, suh."
"Ole Cap'n who?" said Grafton, mimicking.
"Cap'n Crittenden, suh."
"Well, if you are his servant, I suppose they won't throw you overboard.
What's your name?"
"Bob, suh--Bob Crittenden."
"Crittenden," repeated Grafton, smiling. "Oh, yes, I know him; I should
say so! So he's a Captain?"
"Yes, suh," said Bob, not quite sure whether he was lying or not.
Grafton spoke to an officer, and was allowed to take Bob for his own
servant, though the officer said he did not remember any captain of that
name in the --th. To the newspaper man, Bob was a godsend; for humour
was scarce on board, and "jollying" Bob was a welcome diversion. He
learned many things of Crittenden and the Crittendens, and what great
people they had always been and still were; but at a certain point Bob
was evasive or dumb--and the correspondent respected the servant's
delicacy about family affairs and went no further along that line--he
had no curiosity, and was questioning idly and for fun, but treated Bob
kindly and, in return, the fat of the ship, through Bob's keen eye and
quick hand, was his, thereafter, from day to day.
Grafton was not storing up much material for use; but he would have been
much surprised if he could have looked straight across to the deck of
the ship running parallel to his and have seen the dignified young
statesman whom he had heard speak at the recruiting camp in Kentucky;
who made him think of Henry Clay; whom he had seen whisking a beautiful
girl from the camp in the smartest turn-out he had seen South--had seen
him now as Private Crittenden, with his fast friend, Abe Long, and
passing in his company because of his bearing under a soubriquet donated
by his late enemy, Reynolds, as "Old Hamlet of Kentuck." And Crittenden
would have been surprised had he known that the active darky whom he saw
carrying coffee and shoes to a certain stateroom was none other than Bob
waiting on Grafton. And that the Rough Rider whom he saw scribbling on a
pad in the rigging of the _Yucatan_ was none other than Basil writing
one of his bulletins home.
It was hard for him to believe that he really was going to war, even
now, when the long sail was near an end and the ships were running
fearlessly along the big, grim coast-mountains of Cuba, with bands
playing and colors to the breeze; hard to realize that he was not to
land in peace and safety and, in peace and safety, go back as he came;
that a little further down those gashed mountains, showing ever clearer
through the mist, were men with whom the quiet officers and men around
him would soon be in a death-grapple. The thought stirred him, and he
looked around at the big, strong fellows--intelligent, orderly,
obedient, good-natured, and patient; patient, restless, and sick as they
were from the dreadful hencoop life they had led for so many
days--patient beyond words. He had risen early that morning. The rose
light over the eastern water was whitening, and all over the deck his
comrades lay asleep, their faces gray in the coming dawn and their
attitudes suggesting ghastly premonitions--premonitions that would come
true fast enough for some of the poor fellows--perhaps for him. Stepping
between and over the prostrate bodies, he made his way forward and
leaned over the prow, with his hat in his hand and his hair blowing back
from his forehead.
Already his face had suffered a change. For more than three long weeks
he had been merely a plain man among plain men. At once when he became
Private Crittenden, No. 63, Company C, --th United States Regular
Cavalry, at Tampa, he was shorn of his former estate as completely as
though in the process he had been wholly merged into some other man. The
officers, at whose table he had once sat, answered his salute precisely
as they answered any soldier's. He had seen Rivers but seldom--but once
only on the old footing, and that was on the night he went on board,
when Rivers came to tell him good-by and to bitterly bemoan the luck
that, as was his fear from the beginning, had put him among the
ill-starred ones chosen to stay behind at Tampa and take care of the
horses; as hostlers, he said, with deep disgust, adding hungrily:
"I wish I were in your place."
With the men, Crittenden was popular, for he did his work thoroughly,
asked no favors, shirked no duties. There were several officers' sons
among them working for commissions, and, naturally, he drifted to them,
and he found them all good fellows. Of Blackford, he was rather wary,
after Rivers's short history of him, but as he was friendly, unselfish,
had a high sense of personal honour, and a peculiar reverence for women,
Crittenden asked no further questions, and was sorry, when he came back
to Tampa, to find him gone with the Rough Riders. With Reynolds, he was
particularly popular, and he never knew that the story of the Tampa
fight had gone to all the line officers of the regiment, and that nearly
every one of them knew him by sight and knew his history. Only once from
an officer, however, and steadily always from the old Sergeant, could he
feel that he was regarded in a different light from the humblest soldier
in the ranks--which is just what he would have asked. The Colonel had
cast an envious eye on Raincrow at Tampa, and, straightway, he had taken
the liberty of getting the Sergeant to take the horse to the Colonel's
tent with the request that he use him throughout the campaign. The horse
came back with the Colonel's thanks; but, when the order came that the
cavalry was to go unmounted, the Colonel sent word that he would take
the horse now, as the soldier could not use him. So Raincrow was aboard
the ship, and the old Colonel, coming down to look at the horse one day,
found Crittenden feeding him, and thanked him and asked him how he was
getting along; and, while there was a smile about his humorous mouth,
there was a kindly look in his blue eyes that pleased Crittenden
mightily. As for the old Sergeant, he could never forget that the
soldier was a Crittenden--one of his revered Crittendens. And, while he
was particularly stern with him in the presence of his comrades, for
fear that he might be betrayed into showing partiality--he was always
drifting around to give him a word of advice and to shake his head over
the step that Crittenden had taken.
That step had made him good in body and soul. It made him lean and
tanned; it sharpened and strengthened his profile; it cleared his eye
and settled his lips even more firmly. Tobacco and liquor were scarce,
and from disuse he got a new sensation of mental clearness and physical
cleanliness that was comforting and invigorating, and helped bring back
the freshness of his boyhood.
For the first time in many years, his days were full of work and,
asleep, awake, or at work, his hours were clock-like and steadied him
into machine-like regularity. It was work of his hands, to be sure, and
not even high work of that kind, but still it was work. And the measure
of the self-respect that this fact alone brought him was worth it all.
Already, his mind was taking character from his body. He was distinctly
less morbid and he found himself thinking during those long days of the
sail of what he should do after the war was over. His desire to get
killed was gone, and it was slowly being forced on him that he had been
priggish, pompous, self-absorbed, hair-splitting, lazy,
good-for-nothing, when there was no need for him to be other than what
he meant to be when he got back. And as for Judith, he felt the
bitterness of gall for himself when he thought of her, and he never
allowed himself to think of her except to absolve her, as he knew she
would not absolve herself, and to curse himself heartily and bitterly.
He understood now. It was just her thought of his faithfulness, her
feeling of responsibility for him--the thought that she had not been as
kind to him as she might have been (and she had always been kinder than
he deserved)--all this had loosed her tears and her self-control, and
had thrown her into a mood of reckless self-sacrifice. And when she
looked up into his face that night of the parting, he felt her looking
into his soul and seeing his shame that he had lost his love because he
had lost himself, and she was quite right to turn from him, as she did,
without another word. Already, however, he was healthy enough to believe
that he was not quite so hopeless as she must think him--not as hopeless
as he had thought himself. Life, now, with even a soldier's work, was
far from being as worthless as life with a gentleman's idleness had
been. He was honest enough to take no credit for the clean change in his
life--no other life was possible; but he was learning the practical
value and mental comfort of straight living as he had never learned
them before. And he was not so prone to metaphysics and morbid
self-examination as he once was, and he shook off a mood of that kind
when it came--impatiently--as he shook it off now. He was a soldier now,
and his province was action and no more thought than his superiors
allowed him. And, standing thus, at sunrise, on the plunging bow of the
ship, with his eager, sensitive face splitting the swift wind--he might
have stood to any thoughtful American who knew his character and his
history as a national hope and a national danger. The nation, measured
by its swift leap into maturity, its striking power to keep going at the
same swift pace, was about his age. South, North, and West it had lived,
or was living, his life. It had his faults and his virtues; like him, it
was high-spirited, high-minded, alert, active, manly, generous, and with
it, as with him, the bad was circumstantial, trivial, incipient; the
good was bred in the Saxon bone and lasting as rock--if the surface evil
were only checked in time and held down. Like him, it needed, like a
Titan, to get back, now and then, to the earth to renew its strength.
And the war would send the nation to the earth as it would send him, if
he but lived it through.