THE LAST OF MOLLY.
Long did Shirtliffe sit beside Morley, repeating the messages over and
again. No fear of forgetting them, he could remember naught else. As the
day wore on he began to realize his condition and he knew if he ever
expected to reach Washington’s army, he must move on. In the distance he
heard heavy firing and the sound guided him. He felt sure that the
Americans had met the reinforcements coming from Princeton and that a
battle was in progress. The thought stirred his blood, and he struggled
to his feet, gave a last glance at Morley and went on mumbling to
himself, “Tell Debby Mason!” Weaker and weaker he grew and as his mind
cleared, a sense of his danger absorbed him. Was this death? This
strange, unusual weakness? At any moment he might fall and be unable to
rise.
The firing was growing less, the battle perhaps was over, fleeing
parties of either friend or foe might soon be passing.
Never had life seemed so precious, as now when it was going so fast.
Dimly he recalled how he had saved one bullet for this hour, should he
use it now? Oh! no. “Help! help!” he sobbed, falling on his knees,
“help! help!” He had walked further than he had realized, and the men
who in the morning had left the deserted camp without him, later in the
day missed him, and were even now searching the woods in hope of tracing
him. They heard his weak cry from afar, and, guided by the second call,
reached his side a moment after he had fallen.
“It’s Molly!” said one of the two men who found him, “look at the
blood!” cried the other, “the boy is terribly wounded.”
“This is an ugly wound,” said the first, noticing the dry blood, “here,
take his feet, Hall, let’s get him to the surgeon’s. He stayed behind to
beat the drum, didn’t he? Brave little chap, I suppose the devils found
and shot him.”
Very slowly and tenderly the men bore their burden to the rough field
hospital, and the surgeons in attendance, after a hasty examination,
said quietly: “The boy is done for; make him comfortable over yonder,
there is nothing else to do for him, poor fellow.” Their hands were too
full to permit of them wasting time over uncertain cases.
So it was that Robert was laid upon a rough cot, covered with a coarse
blanket and left to pass out of life as calmly as he might. One of the
surgeons, however, did not forget him. He was a young man, full of
ambition and was to return in a week to Philadelphia with a record of
bravery and courage to cheer him during his furlough of rest. As he went
about his duties, Shirtliffe’s white face haunted him, “There might be a
chance for the boy,” he thought, “as soon as I can I will take a look at
him again.”
The opportunity came late at night, and then as quickly as he could he
sought the bed upon which Robert lay.
A nurse in passing saw him pause, and stopped to say, “Bob’s gone,
Doctor Bell.”
The surgeon bent over the cot. A smoking lamp shed a yellow light over
the fair face on the coarse pillow. Fair it was, but not with death’s
pallor.
No breath seemed to come through the closed lips, however, and Doctor
Bell put his hand over his heart.
Then with a start he drew back! The nurse had gone on, he was alone!
Again he bent close. A faint flutter stirred against his hand, and
_under a bandage bound firmly around the body_!
Doctor Bell rose to his feet. “Nurse,” he said sharply, “help me bear
this—boy—to my tent, I’m going to save—him!”
It was the hardest struggle the young surgeon ever had. He gave up the
long looked for furlough, and beside his other duties cared for and
watched the boy in whom he had grown so interested. No hand but his
operated on the ghastly wound, or touched the suffering body afterward.
For two days Shirtliffe knew not what was passing around him, but on the
third day at sunset he became conscious.
Doctor Bell was beside him, his finger upon the weak pulse.
As memory returned a puzzled, then a horrified expression grew upon
Robert’s face.
His eyes fastened themselves upon the physician’s bowed head, and a
tremor shook him like a chill.
“What will become of me?” he groaned.
“Nothing;” the calm voice filled the quiet place.
“Get well now, as soon as you can be moved I am going to take you to my
mother!”
“But, but—”
“It is all right. Trust me.”
In a few days Shirtliffe’s splendid constitution regained its tone, and
he began to improve rapidly. Then Doctor Bell further surprised those
who had time to observe him by giving up his comparatively comfortable
quarters to the lad he had saved from death. How Robert appreciated this
considerate act, no one but himself could know. To meet the surgeon as
seldom as he now did, was torture untold. He knew that he must speak,
but day after day he put off the painful task. At the close of the
second week, one day, Doctor Bell came in to make his accustomed call;
he saw at a glance that Shirtliffe had reached the uttermost bound of
endurance and with a courtesy for which his memory should be enshrined,
he took the boy’s thin feverish fingers and said simply:
“Your bravery and courage must win the respect of all. You have served
your country nobly. Why you entered the army under a false name, you
best know, I respect your reasons and thank you for the service you have
rendered.”
Robert bowed his head and wept over the friendly hand.
“And now,” the sympathetic voice sank lower, “what may I call you?”
“Just Debby Mason!” For a moment not a sound broke the silence but the
sobs from the figure now kneeling at the feet of the doctor.
Then very calmly the man’s voice went on: “Debby Mason, Washington has
sent for you to thank you for what you did at Trenton, He will probably
promote you for bravery; of course, you cannot remain in the army, it
now is left for you or me to explain why an honorable discharge should
be given you. Which one of us shall do it?”
Poor Debby could face death, had done so many times; she could bear cold
and suffering but the idea of facing her hero and _explain_ to him her
awful deceit, was more than she could dare. But Debby was no coward even
in this extremity,—availing herself of one of the privileges of her
almost forgotten sex, she found a new way out:
“Write it for me,” she begged, half smiling through her tears, “write it
all, then I will take it and bear my punishment like—a man!”
“And afterward?” Doctor Bell questioned, “have you a home? any where to
go?”
“No.” The one word echoed through the early twilight like a moan.
“I had only one on earth to love—I followed him to the war—my father
lies in an unknown grave near Boston—he died on my arm—but he never
knew!”
Something blurred the surgeon’s eyes.
“And then,” in Debby’s low voice there was little left of Shirtliffe’s
bravado, “there was one other, a young man in the British army—he looked
so like me that my own father could not tell one from the other. That
boy was looking for—Debby Mason—he died—by—my—bullet”—a dry sob choked
the words—“but I have his mother’s address. I think—from bits of an old
story—and from his strange likeness—that that mother will have something
to tell—me. But”—and a shudder passed over Debby, “how can I break the
news to her, that even in self defence—I took her boy’s life?”
The broken talk had interested Doctor Bell so much that now, when the
tale was ended he drew a long sigh of relief. His thoughts were becoming
burdensome. Strange relationships between British and American families
were not as uncommon to his experience as to simple Debby’s. He saw in
the girl before him a heroine of no every day romance, and he meant to
see the end of it. She had become an object of absorbing concern to him
during the last few weeks, and he did not intend to let her slip out of
his life without an effort to restrain her.
“I will write a full explanation, Debby,” he said, “we can trust General
Washington’s good heart. After you have seen him, come back to me. I am
going to take you to my mother, she is expecting you; and then we will
write to England.”