AN OLD SINGING SOLDIER.
"What will remind me of the summer while you are away, dear?" Robert had
said to Emily one morning, little thinking that the sweet girl would
treasure the saying for a whole day and end with a pitiful accusation to
herself of "selfishness" for leaving him. Could she have consulted her
own wish she would have put off the excursion then and there, but a
stateroom had already been booked in the Yarmouth, Beulah Ware was
looking forward joyfully to the trip and Dr. Eustis' orders had been
imperative. So good Mrs. Barlow sensibly stamped her foot at the notion
of her daughter's withdrawal and the maternal fiat went forth finally
and irrevocably that Emily must go.
But Emily determined that while she was away the bare cell in murderers'
row should not wholly lack touches of the midsummer of whose passing
glories Robert, their loyal votary, was cruelly denied a glimpse.
And so one day the carpenter came and plotted off a space over a foot
wide at the side of the cell, and the florist followed with a load of
beautiful long sods rolled up like jelly cake, and little potted plants
all in bloom. And the sods were laid down in the trough the carpenter
had made, and places scooped out with a trowel for the roots of the
plants, and presto, there was a flower bed all along the side that got
the sunshine, for Robert's window faced toward the south.
There were twiggy verbenas and fuchsias of tropic coloring, the
nappy-leaved rose geranium, less highly rouged than its scarlet-flowered
sisters, and blue oxalis along the border, plaintively appealing for
notice with its spray of tiny stars. And lest these should not insinuate
the odor of the country sufficiently into Robert's senses a pot of sweet
basil was suspended from the ceiling to give out fragrance like the live
coal in an acolyte's censer. Robert had complained of sleeplessness.
What was better for this than a pillow stuffed with prunings of a
fir-balsam at night and a sweet-clover cushion by day, when he sat at
his table and wrote down his thoughts on "The Parisian Police Theory of
Concentration of Crime," or some other such momentous topic.
But the last day, when the finishing touch had been placed on this
narrow bower, over which the shadow of the scaffold so imminently hung,
while Emily was sprinkling the beds with her watering-jar, Robert had
laid aside his pen and was drawing forth sweet music from the violin.
"How divine it will be, Emily," he said. "The ocean sail and the week at
beautiful Digby!"
"I wish you were coming, Robert," she answered, sadly.
"We may arrange a voyage in September. That is the month of glory in the
provinces."
Robert had never admitted entertaining a doubt as to his acquittal. It
must have been the confinement and the ignominy that had worn him down
and converted his nights into carnivals of restless thought.
"But I will be with you in imagination," he added, while Emily silently
poured the fine spouting streams over thirsty leaf and flower. Poor
little green prisoners! They, too, would miss the air and the sunshine
and, perhaps, would reproach her, when she returned, with wilted stalks
and withering petals.
While she hung her head a far-away voice stole over the high jailyard
wall, through the narrow cell window, into the lover's ears. It was a
tenor voice, not without reminiscences of bygone sweetness, though worn,
and still powerful as if from incessant use. Something in its tones told
the listeners that it was no common youth of the city trolling a snatch.
For when do such sing, except in derision of song, with grating irony
that is ashamed of the feelings to which true song gives expression? We
are ashamed of our best impulses and proud of our worst, we cynical city
folk! But this was a street singer, a minstrel, musical and sincere.
Straining their attention, the lovers caught here and there the import
of this ballad. Or was it a ballad repeated by rote? Was it not rather a
recitative improvised as the impulse came, both words and music?
He sang of the southward march of armed battalions. Their ranks were
full, their banners untattered, and the men shouted watchwords of joy
when they beheld the battle-ground before them. A great chieftain stood
mounted and motioned them into place with his brandished sword. Grant!
Grim Grant! They echoed his name. Then came the thunder of artillery
from distant hills, and the lines of the enemy's rifles were seen
glistening as they advanced. The defenders did not linger, but rushed
forward to meet them and their embrace was the death-lock of Titans.
Hurrah, the chivalry of the south give way! It is cavalry Sheridan who
routs them! Then the sun stood at its meridian. It was the noon of all
glory, for the northern crusaders, doing battle in the just cause. Oh,
the chase, the rallies, the heroic stands, and the joyful return, with
plunder! But the corpse-strewn field checked their paean. Sire and son
lay clasped in death, facing each other. The garb of one was gray, of
the other blue. Ambulances issued empty from the hospital tents, and
rode back groaning with the wounded. Nurses knelt with water cups at the
dying hero's side. And until night closed over, sorrow mingled with joy
in that bivouac by the fresh-fought field.
A loud salvo of applause told that the singer was done. Emily could see
in her mind's eye the ring at the sidewalk edge, arrested in the course
of meaner thoughts or idle vacuity by his heart-moving story. The gift
of Homer, in a humble degree, was his; and men to-day are not unlike
what they were 3,000 years ago. Robert had long since hushed his violin
and stood with bow suspended in air.
"Emily!" he said in a strange tone.
She looked at him and started. He was eying her so eagerly.
"Emily!" he repeated.
The bow dropped from his hand. He reached forward as if he would touch
her.
"What is it, Robert?" she asked.
"The water-lily. You are still wearing it?"
"Still wearing it, Robert. I put it on this morning."
Robert uttered a cry.
"It comes back! It comes back!" he said. "The old singing soldier that I
met at the park gate. He is blind and wears a brown shade over one eye.
His hair is white when he takes off his cap and passes among the crowd.
I see him again! I see it all!"
Robert's gaze was far away. He was not looking at Emily, yet he heard
her voice.
"When was this all, Robert?"
"That day, the day of the fire. I could not remember before."
She repressed a throb of joy. Was it indeed returning? God was good. He
had at last answered her prayers.
"And the water-lily, Robert?"
"Do you not remember, Emily, that I brought you one that evening? It was
the first of the season, I told you."
"I do--I do!"
"Search out the old gardener, who lives in the lodge at the west angle
of the park. He will remember. 'This is the first of the season,' he
said. He will remember the date. He will have kept some memorandum."
"And you talked with him, Robert?"
"We are friends of old. He will remember the incident--our stroll into
the glen where the little pond glistens, my noting the one white flower
floating among the pads, our poling the flat-bottomed boat from the bank
and the courteous speech of presentation he made. 'For your sweetheart,'
he said. Oh, it is as plain to me now as the sound of my own voice,
Emily. How could I ever have forgotten?"
"It is Providence who sent us the old singing soldier," said Emily. "Let
us thank Him for His mercy."
Then Robert ran over detail after detail of that afternoon, when he
rambled from the house, burdened with the fresh grief of his uncle's
death--seeing little, hearing little, mechanically following a familiar
route, all his outer senses muffled, as it were. The great shock of the
calamity when he came home late at night had canceled even the feeble
impressions that lingered, and not till the voice of the old singing
soldier came to his ears once more was the impediment removed.
Now the events rushed upon him, few in number, but clearly,
microscopically outlined. The sight of the lily brought up the image of
the gardener. He could no longer be suspected of hiding himself after
the fire or of secret escape with confederates, or of other conduct that
might require concealment and a mask of affected forgetfulness.
"The last link of his chain is broken," said Emily, joyfully, meaning,
no doubt, the great inspector's. This happy turn of affairs reconciled
her more than anything else to her vacation trip, and it was a gladsome
farewell the sweethearts took that day.
On her way through the city she heard again the chant of the old singing
soldier and a gush of gratitude impelled her to follow him. He was
indeed blind and wore the brown shade as Robert had described. A little
girl clung to his coat and guided him when he walked, and the cap he
held out bore the initials of the Grand Army and was ribboned with
silver cord. The bystanders stared at the sweet-faced lady who laid a
bill in the maiden's hand and hurried off without waiting for her "Thank
you," hurried off to acquaint Shagarach of the glad, good news.
It was not until she reached the upper flight of the office stairs that
she remembered that it was Shagarach's suggestion that she wear a
pond-lily now and then so as to start if possible the clogged wheels of
her lover's recollection, as we shake a stopped watch to make it go.
There was a similar case, too, in "The Diseases of Memory."
"But it was heaven," she said, "that brought us the old singing
soldier."