VI.

An unusual state of affairs existed at the big hospital for several

days: Mrs. Clancy had refused to leave the bedside of her beloved Mike,

and was permitted to remain. For a woman who was notorious as a virago

and bully, who had beaten little Kate from her babyhood and abused and

hammered her Michael until, between her and drink, he was but the wreck

of a stalwart manhood, Mrs. Clancy had developed a degree of devotion

that was utterly unexpected. In all the dozen years of their marital

relations no such trait could be recalled; and yet there had been many

an occasion within the past few years when Clancy's condition demanded

gentle nursing and close attention,--and never would have got it but for

faithful little Kate. The child idolized the broken-down man, and loved

him with a tenderness that his weakness seemed but to augment a

thousandfold, while it but served to infuriate her mother. In former

years, when he was Sergeant Clancy and a fine soldier, many was the time

he had intervened to save her from an undeserved thrashing; many a time

had he seized her in his strong arms and confronted the furious woman

with stern reproof. Between him and the child there had been the

tenderest love, for she was all that was left to him of four. In the old

days Mrs. Clancy had been the belle of the soldiers' balls, a

fine-looking woman, with indomitable powers as a dancer and

conversationalist and an envied reputation for outshining all her rivals

in dress and adornment. "She would ruin Clancy, that she would," was

the unanimous opinion of the soldiers' wives; but he seemed to minister

to her extravagance with unfailing good nature for two or three years.

He had been prudent, careful of his money, was a war-soldier with big

arrears of bounty and, tradition had it, a consummate skill in poker. He

was the moneyed man among the sergeants when the dashing relict of a

brother non-commissioned officer set her widow's cap for him and won. It

did not take many years for her to wheedle most of his money away; but

there was no cessation to the demand, no apparent limit to the supply.

Both were growing older, and now it became evident that Mrs. Clancy was

the elder of the two, and that the artificiality of her charms could not

stand the test of frontier life. No longer sought as the belle of the

soldiers' ball-rooms, she aspired to leadership among their wives and

families, and was accorded that pre-eminence rather than the fierce

battle which was sure to follow any revolt. She became avaricious,--some

said miserly,--and Clancy miserable. Then began the downward course. He

took to drink soon after his return from a long, hard summer's campaign

with the Indians. He lost his sergeant's stripes and went into the

ranks. There came a time when the new colonel forbade his re-enlistment

in the cavalry regiment in which he had served so many a long year. He

had been a brave and devoted soldier. He had a good friend in the

infantry, he said, who wouldn't go back on a poor fellow who took a drop

too much at times, and, to the surprise of many soldiers,--officers and

men,--he was brought to the recruiting officer one day, sober,

soldierly, and trimly dressed, and Captain Rayner expressed his desire

to have him enlisted for his company; and it was done. Mrs. Clancy was

accorded the quarters and rations of a laundress, as was then the

custom, and for a time--a very short time--Clancy seemed on the road to

promotion to his old grade. The enemy tripped him, aided by the

scoldings and abuse of his wife, and he never rallied. Some work was

found for him around the quartermaster's shops which saved him from

guard-duty or the guard-house. The infantry--officers and men--seemed to

feel for the poor, broken-down old fellow and to lay much of his woe to

the door of his wife. There was charity for his faults and sympathy for

his sorrows, but at last it had come to this. He was lying, sorely

injured, in the hospital, and there were times when he was apparently

delirious. At such times, said Mrs. Clancy, she alone could manage him;

and she urged that no other nurse could do more than excite or irritate

him. To the unspeakable grief of little Kate, she, too, was driven from

the sufferer's bedside and forbidden to come into the room except when

her mother gave permission. Clancy had originally been carried into the

general ward with the other patients, but the hospital steward two days

afterwards told the surgeon that the patient moaned and cried so at

night that the other sick men could not sleep, and offered to give up a

little room in his own part of the building. The burly doctor looked

surprised at this concession on the part of the steward, who was a man

tenacious of every perquisite and one who had made much complaint about

the crowded condition of the hospital wards and small rooms ever since

the frozen soldiers had come in. All the same the doctor asked for no

explanation, but gladly availed himself of the steward's offer. Clancy

was moved to this little room adjoining the steward's quarters

forthwith, and Mrs. Clancy was satisfied.

Another thing had happened to excite remark and a good deal of it.

Nothing short of eternal damnation was Mrs. Clancy's frantic sentence on

the head of her unlucky spouse the night of the fire, when she was the

central figure of the picture and when hundreds of witnesses to her

words were grouped around. Correspondingly had she called down the

blessings of the Holy Virgin and all the saints upon the man who rescued

and returned to her that precious packet of money. Everybody heard her,

and it was out of the question for her to retract. Nevertheless, from

within an hour after Clancy's admission to the hospital not another word

of the kind escaped her lips. She was all patience and pity with the

injured man, and she shunned all allusion to his preserver and her

benefactor. The surgeon had been called away, after doing all in his

power to make Clancy comfortable,--he was needed elsewhere,--and only

two or three soldiers and a hospital nurse still remained by his

bedside, where Mrs. Clancy and little Kate were drying their tears and

receiving consolation from the steward's wife. The doctor had mentioned

a name as he went away, and it was seen that Clancy was striving to ask

a question. Sergeant Nolan bent down:

"Lie quiet, Clancy, me boy: you _must_ be quiet, or you'll move the

bandages."

"Who did he say was burned? who was he going to see?" gasped the

sufferer.

"The new lieutenant, Clancy,--him that pulled ye out. He's a good one,

and it's Mrs. Clancy that'll tell ye the same."

"Tell him what?" said she, turning about in sudden interest.

"About the lieutenant's pulling him out of the fire and saving your

money."

"Indeed yes! The blessings of all the saints be upon his beautiful head,

and--"

"But _who_ was it? What was his name, I say?" vehemently interrupted

Clancy, half raising himself upon his elbow, and groaning with the

effort. "What was his name? I didn't see him."

"Lieutenant Hayne, man."

"Oh, my God!" gasped Clancy, and fell back as though struck a sudden

blow.

She sprang to his side: "It's faint he is. Don't answer his questions,

sergeant! He's beside himself! Oh, will ye never stop talking to him and

lave him in pace? Go away, all of ye's,--go away, I say, or ye'll dhrive

him crazy wid yer--Be quiet, Mike! don't ye spake agin." And she laid a

broad red hand upon his face. He only groaned again, and threw his one

unbandaged arm across his darkened eyes, as though to hide from sight of

all.

From that time on she made no mention of the name that so strangely

excited her stricken husband; but the watchers in the hospital the next

night declared that in his ravings Clancy kept calling for Lieutenant

Hayne.

Stannard's battalion of the cavalry came marching into the post two days

after the fire, and created a diversion in the garrison talk, which for

one long day had been all of that dramatic incident and its attendant

circumstances. In social circles, among the officers and ladies, the

main topic was the conduct of Mr. Hayne and the injuries he had

sustained as a consequence of his gallant rescue. Among the enlisted men

and the denizens of Sudsville the talk was principally of the revelation

of Mrs. Clancy's hoard of greenbacks. But in both circles a singular

story was just beginning to creep around, and it was to the effect that

Clancy had cried aloud and fainted dead away and that Mrs. Clancy had

gone into hysterics when they were told that Lieutenant Hayne was the

man to whom the one owed his life and the other her money. Some one met

Captain Rayner on the sidewalk the morning Stannard came marching home,

and asked him if he had heard the queer story about Clancy. He had not,

and it was told him then and there. Rayner did not even attempt to laugh

at it or turn it off in any way. He looked dazed, stunned, for a moment,

turned very white and old-looking, and, hardly saying good-day to his

informant, faced about and went straight to his quarters. He was not

among the crowd that gathered to welcome the incoming cavalrymen that

bright, crisp, winter day; and that evening Mrs. Rayner went to the

hospital to ask what she could do for Clancy and his wife. Captain

Rayner always expected her to see that every care and attention was paid

to the sick and needy of his company, she explained to the doctor, who

could not recall having seen her on a similar errand before, although

sick and needy of Company B were not unknown in garrisons where he had

served with them. She spent a good while with Mrs. Clancy, whom she had

never noticed hitherto, much to the laundress's indignation, and

concerning whose conduct she had been known to express herself in terms

of extreme disapprobation. But in times of suffering such things are

forgotten: Mrs. Rayner was full of sympathy and interest; there was

nothing she was not eager to send them, and no thanks were necessary.

She could never do too much for the men of her husband's company.

Yet there was a member of her husband's company on whom in his suffering

neither she nor the captain saw fit to call. Mr. Hayne's eyes were

seriously injured by the flames and heat, and he was now living in

darkness. It might be a month, said the doctor, before he could use his

eyes again.

"Only think of that poor fellow, all alone out there on that ghastly

prairie and unable to read!" was the exclamation of one of the cavalry

ladies in Mrs. Rayner's presence; and, as there was an awkward silence

and somebody had to break it, Mrs. Rayner responded,--

"If I lived on Prairie Avenue I should consider blindness a blessing."

It was an unfortunate remark. There was strong sympathy developing for

Hayne all through the garrison. Mrs. Rayner never meant that it should

have any such significance, but inside of twenty-four hours, in course

of which her language had been repeated some dozens of times and

distorted quite as many, the generally accepted version of the story was

that Mrs. Rayner, so far from expressing the faintest sympathy or sorrow

for Mr. Hayne's misfortune, so far from expressing the natural

gratification which a lady should feel that it was an officer of her

regiment who had reached the scene of danger ahead of the cavalry

officer of the guard, had said in so many words that Mr. Hayne ought to

be thankful that blindness was the worst thing that had come to him.

There was little chance for harmony after that. Many men and some women,

of course, refused to believe it, and said they felt confident that she

had been misrepresented. Still, all knew by this time that Mrs. Rayner

was bitter against Hayne, and had heard of her denunciation of the

colonel's action. So, too, had the colonel heard that she openly

declared that she would refuse any invitation extended to her or to her

sister which might involve her accepting hospitality at his house. These

things _do_ get around in most astonishing ways.

Then another complication arose: Hayne, too, was mixing matters. The

major commanding the battalion, a man in no wise connected with his

misfortunes, had gone to him and urged, with the doctor's full consent,

that he should be moved over into and become an inmate of his household

in garrison. He had a big, roomy house. His wife earnestly added her

entreaties to the major's, but all to no purpose: Mr. Hayne firmly

declined. He thanked the major; he rose and bent over the lady's hand

and thanked her with a voice that was full of gentleness and gratitude;

but he said that he had learned to live in solitude. Sam was accustomed

to all his ways, and he had every comfort he needed. His wants were few

and simple. She would not be content, and urged him further. He loved

reading: surely he would miss his books and would need some one to read

aloud to him, and there were so many ladies in the garrison who would be

glad to meet at her house and read to him by turns. He loved music, she

heard, and there was her piano, and she knew several who would be

delighted to come and play for him by the hour. He shook his head, and

the bandages hid the tears that came to his smarting eyes. He had made

arrangements to be read aloud to, he said; and as for music, that must

wait awhile. The kind woman retired dismayed,--she could not understand

such obduracy,--and her husband felt rebuffed. Stannard of the cavalry,

too, came in with his gentle wife. She was loved throughout the regiment

for her kindliness and grace of mind, as well as for her devotion to the

sick and suffering in the old days of the Indian wars, and Stannard had

made a similar proffer and been similarly refused, and he had gone away

indignant. He thought Mr. Hayne too bumptious to live; but he bore no

malice, and his wrath was soon over. Many of the cavalry officers called

in person and tendered their services, and were very civilly received,

but all offers were positively declined. Just what the infantry officers

should do was a momentous question. That they could no longer hold aloof

was a matter that was quickly settled, and three of their number went

through the chill gloaming of the wintry eve and sent in their cards by

Sam, who ushered them into the cheerless front room, while one of their

number followed to the door-way which led to the room in rear, in which,

still confined to his bed by the doctor's advice, the injured officer

was lying. It was Mr. Ross who went to the door and cleared his throat

and stood in the presence of the man to whom, more than five years

before, he had refused his hand. The others listened anxiously:

"Mr. Hayne, this is Ross. I come with Foster and Graham to say how

deeply we regret your injuries, and to tender our sympathy and our

services."

There was a dead silence for a moment. Foster and Graham stood with

hearts that beat unaccountably hard, looking at each other in

perplexity. Would he never reply?

The answer came at last,--a question:

"To what injuries do you allude, Mr. Ross?"

Even in the twilight they could see the sudden flush of the Scotchman's

cheek. He was a blunt fellow, but, as the senior, had been chosen

spokesman for the three. The abrupt question staggered him. It was a

second or two before he could collect himself.

"I mean the injuries at the fire," he replied.

This time, no answer whatever. It was growing too painful. Ross looked

in bewilderment at the bandaged face, and again broke the silence:

"We hope you won't deny us the right to be of service, Mr. Hayne. If

there is anything we can do that you need, or would like--"

hesitatingly.

"You have nothing further to say?" asked the calm voice from the pillow.

"I--don't know what else we _can_ say," faltered Ross, after an

instant's pause.

The answer came, firm and prompt, but icily cool:

"Then there is nothing that you can do."

And the three took their departure, sore at heart.

There were others of the infantry who had purposed going to see Hayne

that evening, but the story of Ross's experience put an end to it all.

It was plain that even now Mr. Hayne made the condition of the faintest

advance from his regimental comrades a full confession of error. He

would have no less.

That evening the colonel sat by his bedside and had an earnest talk. He

ventured to expostulate with the invalid on his refusal to go to the

major's or to Stannard's. He could have so many comforts and delicacies

there that would be impossible here. He did not refer to edibles and

drinkables alone, he said, with a smile; but Hayne's patient face gave

no sign of relenting. He heard the colonel through, and then said,

slowly and firmly,--

"I have not acted hastily, sir: I appreciate their kindness, and am not

ungrateful. Five years ago my whole life was changed. From that time to

this I have done without a host of things that used to be indispensable,

and have abjured them one and all for a single luxury that I cannot live

without,--the luxury of utter independence,--the joy of knowing that I

owe no man anything,--the blessing of being beholden to no one on earth

for a single service I cannot pay for. It is the one luxury left me."