THE OUTLAW’S LOVE.
I know not. I ask not if guilt’s in that heart;
But I know that I love thee, whatever thou art.—MOORE.
They followed him up into the porch and through the double doors to a
broad, unfurnished central hall, where several guerrillas were on guard.
Four doors on the right hand and four on the left opened into rooms on
each side of this hall.
Corsoni led the way to the third door on the right hand, saying:
“My dear wife is in there. Had we not better consign Miss Fielding to
her care?”
“Thanks, yes! My fair travelling companion has been on horseback, riding
hard and exerting herself in other violent exercises for about six
hours; and must be greatly in need of aid and comfort just now,”
answered Goldsborough.
Corsoni opened the door and holding it open, bowed and said:
“Miss Fielding, my dear wife is in there. Will you enter?”
But before Elfie could answer, and indeed while Vittorio was still
speaking, Alberta herself came out, and taking Elfie in her arms, kissed
her on both cheeks, saying:
“Welcome to the greenwood, Elfie!” and drew her into the room.
It was a spacious apartment, with a wide fireplace. Over the fireplace
was a richly-carved mantel-shelf. In the wall above there was an old
fresco painting. A wood-fire burned on the hearth. Each side the chimney
were tall windows, reaching from floor to ceiling.
Every part of the room was dilapidated, and not by the gentle action of
time but by the merciless desecration of war. The beautiful figures in
the carved marble mantelpiece were chipped and broken off. The fresco
painting was scraped until its subject could not even be guessed at.
The glass in the windows was in many places broken and replaced by
pasteboard. The gorgeous historical paper that had once covered the
walls now hung in strips.
And the room was almost entirely unfurnished; floor and windows were
bare of covering. In one corner stood a rude, temporary bedstead, the
work of some guerrilla carpenter; and on it was laid a mattress and
pillows, with the redeeming accessories of clean sheets and blankets.
There was a rough table, supporting a tin basin and a stone pitcher of
water; with a clean towel laid over them. One low chair and two or three
rude three-legged stools completed the “conveniences” of the room.
Alberta led Elfie into this room, took the pillows off her bed, and put
them on the chair, one on the seat and the other against the back, and
made Elfie sit down and rest her bruised and tired frame.
“Alberta, had you any hand in this?” said Elfie, bursting into tears.
“In what, dear?” inquired the guerrilla’s wife, who was now stooping
over the fire, bringing the brands together with her naked hands,
because she had no tongs.
“With this outrageous act of bringing me off?”
Alberta made the fire blaze up cheerfully, and then answered:
“When I made my escape from Washington, I fell in with some of Albert’s
men, who guided me to their colonel. I found that he had been
instrumental in the deliverance of my dear Vittorio, who was then with
him. When Albert heard where I had been and whom I had seen, he had a
thousand questions to ask about you, all of which I answered as well as
I could. Among the rest I told him that you were planning a picnic to
the Great Falls. That was all I had to do with your abduction, Elfie.”
“Was that, really, all? Did you not encourage him in it?”
“No! At the time I spoke of the proposed picnic I had no idea that he
would dream of such a desperate deed as to cross the river and seize
you, as it were, from between the very teeth of the Federal forces! It
was a mad act; but he loves you madly, Elfie!” said the guerrilla’s
wife.
She then passed to the door and called one of her husband’s men, and in
a low tone gave him an order, and then she drew a stool to the side of
Elfie and sat down, saying:
“I am the only woman in the encampment, and I have to wait upon myself
or be waited on by men. I generally prefer the former. You will sup and
sleep alone with me to-night, Elfie, and I will keep you with me, and
guard you from annoyance until a chaplain can be found to marry you to
Albert, and give him the legal right to protect you.”
“Marry me to that guerrilla! Never! Never! It cannot be done legally
without my consent, and that they shall never have! The villain
threatened to find a minister who would dispense with the bride’s
consent, as well as with the marriage license and the wedding ring! But
oh, Alberta, you will not permit this outrage to be perpetrated under
your roof! You are a lady, or you were one once—at least, the daughter
of a gentleman. You will protect me!” exclaimed Elfie, losing, in the
failure of her physical strength, half her courage.
“I will protect you so far as I am able to do so. Be sure of that,
Elfie. But you do surprise me beyond measure, Elfie. I thought you loved
Albert Goldsborough,” said the guerrilla’s wife in amazement.
“Love that horse-stealing, house-firing vagrant!” indignantly exclaimed
Elfie.
Alberta passed coolly over these injurious epithets, which were
certainly as applicable to Vittorio Corsoni as they were to Albert
Goldsborough, and she answered calmly:
“You certainly loved him once, when he had done nothing to distinguish
himself, and if you truly loved him then, you love him still, for true
love knows no ‘shadow of turning.’”
“He whom I loved then was a gentleman, or I thought him such, not a barn
burner, not a hen-roost robber!” answered Elfie, contemptuously.
Again Alberta ignored the degrading terms that were applied to the
guerrilla chief; for in truth nothing on earth had power to move her
impassive nature, unless it were something nearly concerning Vittorio
Corsoni, her idolized lover-husband, and she said:
“Albert Goldsborough was destined by his parents and by mine to marry
me, and you knew it from the first, yet you saw him and loved him, and
won his love. Not that I regretted your success. I was very glad to be
well rid of my cousin, for I was fully determined to marry Vittorio
Corsoni, my beloved. But you took him away from me, only, it seems, to
cast him off from yourself. In truth, I cannot understand such
inconstancy,” she gravely added.
“You cannot! Do you suppose, then, that _my_ love can survive esteem,
and walk hand in hand with contempt?” said Elfie, scornfully.
“No, I do not. Nor has Albert Goldsborough done anything worthy of
contempt, but everything worthy of admiration.”
“Pouncing upon me, and carrying me off by main force against my will,
was among the rest of his admirable achievements, I suppose you think,”
sneered Elfie.
“Yes, for it was a brave deed.”
“Very brave, to kidnap a weak girl.”
“Yes, it was, for he seized that girl, as I said before, from between
the teeth of the enemy. Elfie, have you any idea what he risked when he
crossed the river for your sake?” gravely inquired Alberta.
“He risked the halter, I suppose, and I wish to goodness he had got it,”
answered Elfie, bitterly.
“Yes, he did, heartless girl. He risked capture and an ignominious death
for your sake. He risked all knowingly and willingly, for when, for love
of you, he crossed the Potomac, he knew that Scott’s Nine Hundred—and
_they_ are _your_ guerrillas, Elfie—were on the north side of the river
below the Monocacy, and that Rosenthal’s cavalry were on the same side
above the Monocacy, and that the scouts of one or the other force would
be sure to strike his trail.”
“Rosenthal’s cavalry!” echoed Elfie, passing over everything else in her
surprise at hearing this phrase.
“Yes, Rosenthal’s cavalry. You didn’t know that Major Rosenthal is in
command of the regiment in which he first enlisted as a private soldier,
did you?”
“Major Rosenthal! No.”
“That proves how much earlier and more accurate our information is than
yours.”
“Or how much better the devil is served than the Lord!” muttered Elfie.
“But our information is obtained for nothing from devoted friends, who
risk their lives to keep us posted as to the movements of the enemy, and
yours, when you get any, is purchased at high prices from mercenaries,
who sleep when they should watch, and invent fictions when they should
chronicle truths.”
“But Major Rosenthal! Did you say Major Rosenthal?” pursued Elfie, still
harping on Justin.
“Yes. He was promoted to a majority for gallantry in the field.”
“And he is in command of his regiment?”
“I told you so.”
“But how is that?”
“In the very last battle in which his regiment was engaged the colonel
was dangerously wounded, the lieutenant colonel was taken prisoner, and
the senior major killed; so that the command of the regiment devolved on
Major Rosenthal. His regiment was soon after ordered to W. And he is now
crossing the valley. Observe how early and how accurate is our
information. Now to get back to Albert Goldsborough. With Scott’s Nine
Hundred in Montgomery and Rosenthal’s cavalry in Frederick, your lover,
when he crossed the river for your sake rushed recklessly between two
fires.”
“I wish to Heaven the fires had closed upon him and made an end of him
and his horse-thieves then and there!” bitterly exclaimed Elfie.
“You don’t! If you ever loved him, you love him still. If you ever loved
him, you love him more than ever for the perils he has braved for your
sake,” said Alberta, positively.
“I tell you—” passionately began Elfie; but she was interrupted by a low
rap at the door.
“Come in,” said Alberta.
And the door opened and a young guerrilla entered, bringing in one hand
a kettle of hot water, which he sat down on the hearth before the fire,
and holding in the other hand a paper parcel.
“That is my good boy,” said Alberta, as she stirred the fire to make it
burn and keep the kettle hot—“that is my good boy! But, Gill, what shall
we do for tea? Use saffron root again?”
“No, ma’am! See here. Captain Mutchison sent you this with his
compliments,” said the young man whom Alberta called Gill, handing over
the paper parcel that he had held in his hand
“Tea! real tea!” said Alberta, holding the parcel up to her face and
gratefully inhaling its fragrance. “Oh, tell the captain I am ever so
much obliged to him. Elfie, child, I have not had a cup of tea since I
took one with Erminie at the parsonage. But I am very glad to have some
now, for your sake as well as mine.”
“I suspect that tea is a part of the spoils of our picnic,” replied
Elfie.
“Nothing in life more likely. Now do you know that circumstance actually
adds piquancy to its flavor!” exclaimed Alberta, as she went to an old
glass cupboard in a corner of the room and took from it a small tin tea
pot, in which she poured a portion of the tea, and afterwards filled it
up with boiling water and set it on the hearth to draw.
Meanwhile the young guerrilla, who had left the room, returned, bearing
a small rude pine table and a coarse crash table cloth, which he
arranged for supper.
Alberta took from her corner cupboard a few cracked cups, saucers and
plates, and set them upon the table, while her guerrilla waiter went out
and brought in a loaf of bread, a plate of broiled chicken and a paper
of loaf sugar.
“Gill, my boy, you are the prince of purveyors!” said Alberta, as she
received the good things and arranged them to her liking.
“All these with the compliments of Captain Mutchison,” said Gill, as he
delivered them over.
“Of course! spoils of our picnic,” exclaimed Elfie.
“And this,” said Gill, who had again flitted out empty-handed and now
flitted in with a canteen of fresh milk, “this with Abershaw’s
compliments.”
“Rich new milk for our tea! This is indeed a luxury. Where did it come
from, Gill?”
“Abershaw drove in a herd of cows this evening,” answered the boy.
“One would really think that we were living the border life of Scotland
in the olden time, when cow-stealing was the most popular profession
among the landed gentry and their retainers,” mused Elfie.
“Never mind. Don’t quarrel with your supper, my dear. When you have led
a guerrilla life as long as I have, you will learn to take what is set
before you and be thankful. Gill! is that thunder?” inquired Alberta, as
a low muttering sound was heard in the air outside.
“Yes, ma’am, there is an awful black cloud rising. The men think there
will be a storm—a great storm.”
“It is very late in the season for a thunder-storm. But then it has been
so unusually warm. Gill!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Are all our men on this side the river?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And have all Colonel Goldsborough’s force re-crossed?”
“All ma’am.”
“Then I am glad the storm is coming up! The river will rise and the
fords be impassable, and so pursuit will be cut off, even if the enemy
should be so mad as to wish to ‘beard the lion in his den.’ You can
retire now, Gill.”
The young guerrilla pulled his forelock by way of making a bow, and then
left the room.
“Come, Elfie, draw up your chair,” said Alberta, as she set the teapot
on the table.
“I would like to wash my hands first,” said Elfie, holding up her
fingers.
“Good—HEAVENS!” exclaimed Alberta, in real, downright consternation.
“What have you been about, Elfie? Who have you been butchering? I am
accustomed to the sight of blood, but I never saw such a pair of hands
in all my life! What ever have you been doing with them?”
“I have been proving how well I love Guerrilla Goldsborough, and how
willing I was to be carried off by him. I have heard that it is
considered an ignominy for a man to lose his ears, and I knew that
Guerrilla Goldsborough deserved such ignominy; and I have been doing my
best to inflict it upon him!” replied Elfie, as she went to the wash
basin which Alberta had filled with water for her.
“You do not mean to say that you tried to tear his ears off with your
nails!” exclaimed Alberta, in amazement.
“If he has got any ears left it isn’t my fault,” replied Elfie,
defiantly, as she wiped her hands and sat down to the tea table.
“Well,” said Alberta, “I have sometimes had to look on while hamlets
were burning and spies hanging, but I could not have done anything like
that.”
Notwithstanding that Elfie had been seized and carried off by
guerrillas, and ought to have been in despair, she was not. On the
contrary, she was hungry; and so she made a very good supper, and with
very little assistance from Alberta, she cleared the table of everything
eatable on it.
Meanwhile outside the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the
rain poured.
It was not a storm to alarm any one who was not exposed to its fury; for
at that season of the year thunder and lightning could not be very
violent or dangerous. But the rain! Surely, since the deluge never had
rain fallen in such torrents.
“The fords will be impassable for a week,” said Alberta, exultingly, as
she went to the window and looked out and listened to the pouring,
dashing, lashing rain.
Elfie sighed deeply, thinking that the rise in the river would make
rescue for her all the more unlikely.
Alberta went to the door of her room and called Gill, who seemed to be
on duty in the hall outside.
“Take away this service, Gill,” she said.
And the youth, to make short work, stretched the door wide open and
lifted the table, with all upon it, and carried it bodily out of the
room.
Alberta and Elfie drew in their chairs to the fire.
“You do not know, Elfie, what a respite from anxiety it is to me to be
sure of one night’s undisturbed rest! This storm that is raging outside
will lull me to repose as the sweetest music in the world would fail to
do,” said Alberta, with a sigh of intense relief.
“But how and why?” inquired Elfie.
“Oh, because I know while the storm is raging and the rain is pouring
the river is also rising, and the fords will be impassable, and our camp
will be safe from attack for one night, and we may sleep in peace! Oh,
Elfie! unless you had lived as I have lived for the last three years, in
the midst of ‘war’s alarms,’ you could never realize what a blessed
relief there is in the feeling sure that we may sleep in peace for one
night!”
“Oh! Alberta, what a life for you—for you, a daughter of the house of
Goldsborough—reared in luxury and refinement! How can you bear it? Why
do you bear it? Why do you not accept Erminie’s offer, and seek refuge
with her?” earnestly inquired Elfie.
“Why? Do you ask me why?” exclaimed Alberta, and her cold eyes, fixed
upon the fire before her, dilated and burned, and her impassive face
glowed as she replied:
“My lot is cast with his and with his cause!”
“Oh, Alberta! when you were in Washington, you told us that you had
taken the oath of allegiance, in good faith, and that you meant to keep
it! And here I find you among the guerrillas again! sympathizing with
them, aiding and comforting them in every way! Have you no respect for
your oath, no regard for yourself, no fear even of your God?” inquired
Elfie.
A strange smile passed over the face of the guerrilla’s wife; still
gazing straight before her into the fire, she answered, slowly:
“I have one idol, one religion, one rule of action! Elfrida, nearly four
years have passed since I left all, to share the fortunes of Vittorio
Corsoni, my beloved! Dark enough those fortunes have been, Heaven knows!
But I have never repented becoming his wife—never, Elfie! Neither of us
have known a shadow of turning in our attachment to each other. And now
I would not exchange my condition as the outlaw’s wife to be the most
honored lady in the land! Nor would he part with me for a kingdom! We
are all in all to each other. He is more to me than ever lover or
husband was to woman before! I am more to him than ever was sweetheart
or wife to man! We are one; we can never be divided. Nothing—no, nothing
shall ever part us! not life, not death, not eternity! In all the gloom
and horror of our downward course—and downward it is, Elfie—downward
even to the depths of hell!—we have the one, great, deep joy of knowing
that we go on together, inseparable forever! Yes, on earth or in hades,
inseparable forever! I will never again leave him, or be left by him,
for a single day. On the only one occasion when we parted since our
marriage, he was captured, tried and condemned to die. I found my way to
Washington, determined to deliver him or to die with him. Yes, if I
could not procure his release, I was determined to do that which should
place me by his side in the prison, or send me swiftly after him to the
scaffold!”
“Oh, Alberta! you make my blood run cold!” exclaimed Elfie.
“In such a pursuit, what were oaths to me? I had one idol—my Vittorio!
one religion—his service! one rule of action—his welfare! Happily his
release was effected by a stronger arm and a shrewder wit than mine. And
he is with me once more, and henceforth we part no more. Where he stays,
I will stay; where he goes, I will go. What he dares that will I dare.
The pains and privations he suffers I will share, and when he ceases to
live I will die!”
Alberta ceased to speak, but continued, with her hands clasped upon her
knees, to gaze into the fire.
Elfie did not answer these wild words; she remained silent—struck dumb,
as it seemed, with astonishment at the vehement earnestness of
self-devotion in one she had deemed so cold and calm. What could have
inspired Alberta with this self-sacrificing, _soul_ sacrificing passion?
Was it the beauty, fire and enthusiasm of the young Italian, who had so
successfully wooed her? Certainly Vittorio Corsoni, if not as handsome
as a grand Apollo, was as beautiful as a lithe Adonis. But then he was
so very dark; and how any woman could really and desperately love such a
slight Adonis, with such dark hair and eyes, Elfie could not imagine!
How could she, when she herself was but a little bit of a creature, with
hair and eyes as dark as Vittorio’s own, and when her ideal of ‘a fine
figure of a man’ was a tall, fair-haired Apollo?
While Elfie sat gazing into the fire, and musing over these mysteries,
there came a soft tap at the door.
Alberta sprang up eagerly and went to open it. The voice of Vittorio
Corsoni was heard to say:
“It is late, love. It is nearly two o’clock.”
“I know it is,” murmured Alberta.
“How will you dispose of your guest?”
“She must sleep with me, Vittorio, dearest. She is but an inexperienced
girl; and there is no place in this house, full of rough soldiers, where
she can sleep in peace except with me, the only woman in the camp,” said
Alberta.
A deep sigh from Corsoni followed these words, and then he murmured in a
lower tone:
“I had just been congratulating myself that we should all rest, without
thinking of an attack to-night! But, as Heaven hears me, I would rather
sit with you, and watch all night in the hourly expectation of an
assault and a battle, than be banished from you, though we pass the
night in peace!”
Alberta replied in a low and tender murmur, inaudible to all but the
ears for whom it was intended.
A whispered conference ensued, and then Corsoni said:
“Well, love, I shall lie on the floor outside your door to-night, and
like a faithful dog will guard your slumbers.”
“It is only for a few hours,” she said.
And then followed a few more gentle, inaudible murmurs, and Colonel
Corsoni left the door. And Alberta closed and fastened it, and returned
to her friend.
“It is late, Elfie! And you must be excessively tired after your long
ride. Get ready for bed, child! You shall be quite safe with me,” said
the guerrilla’s wife, beginning to put the chunks of fire together to
keep them burning through the night.
Elfie took her little watch from its hiding-place and looked at the
time. It was nearly three o’clock. And feeling really almost worn out
with fatigue, she undressed herself and went to bed, and fell fast
asleep even before Alberta laid down beside her.
Meanwhile, without the storm raged, the wind howled and shrieked, the
rain poured and dashed; and the roaring of the rising waters was heard
above it all!
And to the battle-worn guerrillas, sweeter than the music of the
spheres, sounded this warring of the elements, for it assured them of
one night’s safety.