THE DIPPING OF THE RED STARS.
"Will you oblige me at the piano, Miss Seymour?" Judge Livingstone
asked, as they were seated in the parlor at Ingleside after the
retirement of Judge Bonham.
With a show of embarrassment Alice consented as the judge escorted her
to the instrument.
"Shall I play your favorite?" she asked a little coquettishly.
"Ah no; not mine, but yours, I beg, and please accompany the chords with
your own sweet voice, will you not?"
Alice, thrumming the piano in a perfunctory way, lifted her eyes to her
guest as she replied smilingly,
"I have no favorite, sir, indeed I have not. Shall I play yours?"
"Well, yes; you may if you will not laugh at my old-fashioned fancy. I
do not mind telling you that one of my favorites is, 'Then You'll
Remember Me.' I suspect that there are selections from Beethoven, Mozart
and Chopin that are inexpressibly grand, but for soulful melody there is
nothing like the sweet, dear old song."
Alice threw her spirit into the old song, and with eyes glistening
through her tears, remarked sadly, "This old melody is very dear to me,
very, very dear."
"I should imagine so," replied the judge, "and I know if it could
syllable its love it would tell you of its passion for you. I think it
has taken possession of your whole heart, Miss Seymour," continued the
high official with animation.
To this tentative kind of inquiry Alice did not reply, but looked
blushingly into the judge's earnest face and sweetly laughed, like the
artless girl she was.
The golden hours were fast slipping away, and the little goldsmith was
hammering, too, at the tiny arrows.
"I fear I have afflicted you very cruelly, my sweet friend," the judge
observed after a pause, as he noted that the hour hand of the ivory time
piece upon the mantel had run its circuit eight times in succession. "I
doubt not that I have wearied you by the unreasonable length of my
visit; but like a bound captive, I have been held in thrall with silken
chains for forty-eight hours."
"And have you really enjoyed the time?" she asked, quite artlessly.
"Why, my dear Alice," he now ventured to address her, "I am in
love--enmeshed in the delightful toils of the most beautiful woman in
the wide, wide world. Will you permit me to declare my passion--my
love--for my queen, my beauty? To tell you that I have been captivated
by the only girl that can under all circumstances make me happy? And can
you, my sweet Alice, reciprocate the feeling?"
There was no response from the girl, but her soul was thrilled by an
experience new and exciting, and she buried her face in her hands for
the moment.
Perhaps there is very little to interest a third party in the initial
chapters of a love story; there are to be sure the old fancies that are
animated, then its incidents become melodramatic, and then we laugh, and
then possibly forget. As Alice raised her eyes to the portrait just
above the piano, her face radiant as it were with an indescribable
beauty, the enamored judge looked into the lustrous blue eyes and felt
that he read within their azure depths, the passion of a beautiful
woman's love; and with much confusion he observed,
"Perhaps Alice, I have originated a surprise for you; please do not be
alarmed if my feelings have overmastered my discretion."
The embarrassed girl essayed quite tactfully to withdraw the attention
of her suitor from the subject he was nervously pressing, and pointing
to the portrait of a gentleman wearing the stars of a colonel in the
Confederate army, she asked him if he recognized her father in the
painting.
"Do you know," she remarked without awaiting an answer "that I feel
inexpressibly sad when I think of our poor boys who wore the gray in the
bloody battles of the South?" and a tiny tear quivered in her soft eye.
"I doubt not," replied the judge in sympathy with her feelings, that the
retrospection is extremely painful. "I am sure that I have reason to
deplore a catastrophe, that over laid our beloved country as with a
shroud."
"You were not a soldier in the Union army?" she suggested
interrogatively.
"And could you respect me if I were?" he asked.
"Oh yes," Alice replied without hesitation, "you have been so true to
the South in the character of judge I can and do honor you, and I am
quite sure if you were a Yankee soldier you believed you were performing
your duty."
"My sweet Alice," he exclaimed. "Don't let us have Yankee soldiers in
this beautiful Southern home; you don't know how opprobriously the term
Yankee sounds to me. I was a Union soldier and fought under the Stars
and Stripes, through the bloody battle of Manassas, and can my rebel
sweetheart forgive me?" he asked, as he timidly took her soft hand in
his own.
"Assuredly sir," she replied "if you will give me your word upon honor,
that you never shot our poor boys in the battle; now did you?" she
feelingly asked as she looked into his face, aglow with the holy passion
of love.
"No," he replied emphatically, "but if I had carried a musket instead of
a sword I would have done my duty."
"Do you know sweet Alice that whilst there were frowning clouds upon the
horizon, there were rainbows with bright hues that bridged them over;
that whilst there were incidents excitingly tragical, there were
experiences that provoked laughter in camps and prisons? Let me give you
a single illustration that occurs to me just this moment, if you will
pardon me, and let me say that I am convinced that it was patriotism
that kept the Confederate soldiers in the army, where they preferred the
thick of the battle, and sought death itself as the highest reward of
the brave. It would illustrate our pride as a nation to put the gallant
soldiers of the South in an attitude of glory equal to our own.
"I was assistant provost marshal at the military prison at Point Lookout
in the years 1863 and 1864, and I recall an amusing character who was
brought into the prison with a large number of other prisoners who had
been captured at Chancellorsville. I think his name was Patrick
Sullivan, a red-haired freckled faced Irishman, clad in butternut
homespun; and every available square inch of coat, vest, pants and hat
was decorated by military buttons of all kinds and sizes. I asked the
prisoner why this superfluity of decorations? and he answered with a
drawl as he squinted his left eye;
"Wall mister, I reckin ye haint hearn tell how thrivin the cussed
Yankees used to be down South twell we un's got to thinnin em out
sorter; they come down thar pine blank in gangs, like skeeters in the
Savanny mashes, twell weun's run afoul of em like a passel of turkeys
chasing hopper grasses in the clover patches; and bless your soul honey
the captain lowed that every dead Yankee would fetch a gold dollar at
pay day, arter we had licked old Lincum; and I've got just nineteen
hundred and seventy-six ginerals and kurnels and captains and privates
in the rear rank to my credic at settlin day. That thar button up thar
in the tip end of my hat was a Major, that was skeddadlin to the rare
arter weun's was plumb licked at Bull Run; and that thar button on the
tother end of the hat was the fust giniral I kilt at Seben Pines; and
bless your soul honey, killing ginerals and majors after that won't no
more than shooting bull-bats down in Georgy; and as to captains and
leftenants, I just flung them in with the foot cavalry sorter
pomiscuous."
"Sad to say," the judge continued, "the poor fellow died in prison. We
buried him with all his generals and foot cavalry where the Potomac
sings its threnody by night and by day."
The narrative with the amusing grimaces of the judge interested Alice,
and she laughed until tears came into her eyes. She became serious again
however, and asked her guest if he really participated in the battle of
Manassas.
"Yes indeed," he rejoined, "and my experience in that battle was
inexpressibly sad. I cannot think of Manassas," he resumed, "that I do
not recall an incident full of pathos and glory. Without the mechanism
of a regular army; with a currency as erratic as the proclamation money
of the colonists, without experience or discipline, they had the
courage of Spartans; and the proud eminence they assumed in every
engagement made them heroes in the forlorn struggle. There is not a
single instance upon record where the swords or guns of the Southern
armies were tarnished by ignoble flight or inglorious surrender; and
whenever their flag was struck, it was because the elements of
resistance were exhausted. Sad indeed that the drama should have begun
and closed with such heart-rending tragedies. Could I so order and
direct the policy of the government, I would make the glory of our
American arms as imperishable as the Republicanism of our government. I
would make Gettysburg and Chancellorsville to gleam through the haze of
centuries like Marathon and Plataea and upon each return of the glorious
anniversaries, I would find a Pericles to proclaim from our American
Acropolis the fadeless glory of the men who wore the gray as well as the
men who wore the blue."
The impassioned eloquence of the distinguished guest enthused Alice with
a strange experience, and in her discriminating judgment she discovered
a lover whose exalted spirit of patriotism, whose fervid oratory,
challenged her admiration. She could only bow her thanks to her honored
friend whose role upon the tragic stage must have been highly dramatic.
"I was a lieutenant in the twenty-sixth Pennsylvania cavalry," he
continued, "and at the head of a squadron rode a dashing young
Confederate officer who, at the time I saw him, was in the act of
cleaving the head of one of our captains with his sabre, when a shot
from one of our men arrested the sabre in mid air, and he fell mortally
wounded from the saddle. I instantly dismounted and raised the young
officer in my arms who could only say, "Take the ring on my finger to
my darling Al----" and died. I have worn the ring ever since, vainly
prosecuting the search for the true claimant. I presume that the owner
will never be found. You will observe from its facets and artistic
workmanship that the diamond must be very costly; and if you will take
it into your hand you will read within the circlet your name and mine,
"Alice to Arthur"." The girl taking the ring into her hands uttered a
scream that pierced the judge's soul, and she fell heavily upon the
floor in a swoon.
"Merciful Father in Heaven," exclaimed the affrighted man in a paroxysm
of agony. "What have I done! what have I done!" Clasping the unconscious
girl to his bosom, he cried loudly for help, and Clarissa ran in great
agitation into the room shrieking out in a delirium of fear.
"Mars jedge has yu dun und sassinated my yung missis in cold blood in
dis heer great house? If yu has yu'l sho be swung on de gallus. Oh my
lands sakes alive! Jerrusulum my king!" and the old negro ran
frantically about the parlor, hither and thither, over turning tables
and chairs and throwing info the face of her young mistress great
clusters of flowers and water and rugs which had the happy effect of
resuscitating the poor girl; and on regaining her senses she looked
dazedly up and saw Clarissa coming with a teapot of boiling water, with
which the old negro in her transport was about to parboil her young
mistress. She motioned Clarissa away, and as soon as she could control
her voice she said to the judge;
"Oh, how I must have alarmed you sir!"
"Ugh! My King!" interrupted Clarissa in her grave earnestness "Yu knows
yu skeert us jamby to def; yu fokses aint fittin to stay in dis heer
parlor by yoselves, ef dem is de shines yu is agwine to cut up; a little
mo und yu mout been dead as a mackrel und den dat dar jedge mout be
hung on de gallus;" and with this unparliamentary speech the old negro,
decidedly out of temper with the situation of persons and things, strode
out of the room muttering to herself as she closed the door, "I aint
satisfied in my mind pine plank whedder Miss Alice had a sho nuff fit,
or whedder she drapped down dat dar way jest to be kotched up by the
jedge fo she hit de flo. Dese heer white gals is monstrous sateful dat
day is."
"You don't understand our maid," Alice observed to her guest
apologetically as Clarissa walked out of the room. "We have to make
allowances for her." The judge could not speak for a while, for
Clarissa's oddities had thrown him into a fit of laughter. After
recovering himself he said argumentatively. "I think I can see that the
civilization of the South will have lost much of its fragrance when the
old negroes are dead. The history of your country has been refreshed by
the charm they have brought to it; and I doubt not that despite their
strong individuality, their crudities, they will be sadly missed one of
these days."
"Now that I have survived those ridiculous sensations that quite
overpowered me," Alice blushingly remarked "will you accompany me for a
moment?" And the judge quietly assenting gave Alice his arm not knowing
whither she was leading him. She paused before an exquisite painting
partially veiled by drapery, and bade him look upon it. The judge
obeying her command, saw upon the wall the faithful portraiture of the
handsome young officer who was slain under his own eye at Manassas; and
from whose hand he had taken the ring that had thrown Alice into the
swoon.
"Ah!" he exclaimed emotionally "It is he, it is he, your lover, Alice,
your brave soldier boy who died for his darling, ever so far away."
"You will pardon my tears will you not?" she asked entreatingly, "if I
tell you that he was so true, so good, so brave, that I loved him so
dearly?"
"Yes, I can freely pardon, since you confide your grief, your love to
me. Take the ring Alice," he pleaded so eloquently, "Take it from Arthur
Livingstone, who loves you with his whole heart; who has come to
Ingleside, to your own sweet bower, to your own dear self, to proffer
his life, his honor; to relight the candle upon the same altar, upon
which your brave soldier boy first lighted it, when he proffered to you
his life, his homage, his all. He who returns the ring to you that you
gave Arthur Macrae, would take his place in your heart and guard its
portal with his life, until the very stars shall pale their fires in the
heavens above. God in Heaven will ratify the compact, and 'neither
powers, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
life, nor death shall separate us from one another.'"
A smile of unutterable joy was the only answer she gave him.
"Now my darling," the judge pleaded passionately, "in the presence of
the angels and of your own Arthur, let us plight our holy troth to one
another."
The girl sweetly looking into the radiant face lovingly answered, "And
Arthur has promised to give me away at the altar, and to put the ring
that I gave him with my love; this ring upon my finger."
"Thank God," he exclaimed, in an ecstacy of feeling, "the cup of my joy
overflows," and pressing her soft hand to his lips he kissed it over and
over again, and looking only as a lover can look into her upturned
face, beaming with happiness, he said, "After all to what can I compare
the love of a true, beautiful woman?"
"May I guess?" she asked still laughing.
"Yes, oh yes," he rejoined.
"To the love of a true, manly man."
The scattered sun rays were coalescing and forming a nimbus of beauty
around every facade and chamber, except one in Ingleside. Upon this
threshold, shadows were by turns advancing and receding. The
undiplomatic ambassador with his commission of power to slay, without
being outlawed by any judicial tribunal, was inditing his judgment. It
ran in the name of Commonwealths and States Universal. This
Plenipotentiary had been into this mansion before, but he came without
terrors, without equipages, without liveried slaves. He came softly and
sweetly. There were no harsh commands that he uttered, no rattling of
wheels over cobble stones, no exhibition of a despotic will.
"My daughter," he whispered "you are wearied, come with me I will give
you rest." Will he come with this fascination again?
Here lies an old man broken like a wheel by the force of cataracts and
torrents, that have been increasing their momentum for all these years,
as they have heaved and billowed over his poor soul.
Pending the treaty of love in the parlor, old Ned and Clarissa were
holding a whispered conversation in the kitchen.
"Ned," Clarissa asked in alarm, "did dat dar jedge ax yu ary question
about Miss Alice when he cum in de do?"
"No, not pintedly," Ned answered.
Clarissa hung her head for a moment, and with her old checked apron to
her liquid eyes, she continued sobbingly, "Dar is gwine to cum a
breaking up in dis heer fambly Ned, sho as yu born. I seed it de fust
time dat furrinner sot his foot in dis heer grate house. Miss Alice aint
neber had her hart toched befo, but when he cum, her eyes looked bright
lak de stars, und a smile smole all over her beautiful face, und she has
been singing love himes ever since, and dat dar jedge when he gets whay
Miss Alice is, is jes as happy as a mole in a tater hill."
It was Ned's turn now to dash away a tear from his leaky eyes, and with
arms bent over his bowed bosom, and with drooping head and a seesaw
motion he said, "Clarsy, I been a studdin erbout dis heer situashun, und
ef dat dar furriner tices yung missis from dis heer plantashun, in de
name ob Gord what is agwine to come ob ole marser?"
"Yu better ax wot is agwine ter cum ob me und yu. Ole marser is agwine
away fust, yu heer my racket. I dun heerd deth er calling him. Ole
marser walks rite cranked-sided now, wid dat wheezin in his chiss, und
twixt dese franksized niggers, und dis outlandish konstrucshun, und ole
missis dun und gon, ole marser is er pinin lak a dedded gum in de low
ground."
"Eggzackly so, eggzackly so," ejaculated Ned, "Wot is agwine ter cum of
me und yu."
"Dares where yu interests me Ned; what is agwine ter cum of me und yu
sho nuff? Deres ole Joshaway nigh erbout one hundred years ole, ded und
gon now, jes lived on de rode trapezing baccards und furrards to de ole
kommissary, wid his happysack und jimmyjon as emty as my tub dere wid
nary botom, twell ole mars fotched him back home; und pend pon it, Ned,
ef Miss Alice don't make some perwishun fur me und yu, we's agwine to
suck sorrow as sho as yer born."
"Dat's de gospil troof," replied Ned.
"Uncle Ned," came the voice of Alice from the parlor, "Will you please
bring Judge Livingstone's hat to him?"
"Sartainly, yung missis," quickly the negro replied, and he ran as fast
as his stiff joints would permit, and bowing very humbly, placed the hat
in the judge's hand.
"And will you not give me a kiss now in the presence of your old
servant?" asked the judge. And the beautiful girl, half yielding,
allowed her lover to print one or more upon her rosy lips.
"Adieu my love, until I come again in October to claim my own."
Alice returned to the parlor and threw her soul into the old, old song,
the judge's favorite, "Then you'll remember me."
Ned shuffled back to Clarissa with his old bandana to his eyes with the
observation "Taint wuff while to pester yosef er sobbing und er sighing
no mo Clarsy, I dun und seed de margige sealed und livered. I heerd the
nupshall wows sploding same as er passel of poppercrackers."
"Oh my heavens," screamed Clarissa, as she jerked her old apron to her
eyes.
The three blood red stars were now blotted out of the reconstruction
calendar; like the painted dolphins in the circus at Antioch, they had
been taken down one by one. The old Colonel had been running flank and
flank with the athletes of reconstruction, but within the last stadium
he had lost, and the old man, like the fire scathed oak, was yielding
his life after all; dying like a gladiator with his wounds upon his
breast; dying, yet holding fast to the traditions of his fathers, with
no blemish upon their name or his; with no bar sinister upon the family
shield; with no stain upon his sword. Dying a Seymour, a soldier, a
southron of the bluest blood; dying with the prophecy upon his lips,
"The old South, by the help of God, shall be crowned with all the
blessings of civilization, with the last and highest attainments in the
manhood and womanhood of her people," Dying with another prophecy upon
his lips, scarcely audible, "My daughter, you will live to see the old
South, now reeling and tottering like a bewildered traveller, come to
her own again; like a magnanimous queen, reigning in love and
tranquility; her soil yielding its harvest in bounty, and her people
blessed in basket and store."