POPULAR NOVELS
BY
_MRS. MARY J. HOLMES_.
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE.
ENGLISH ORPHANS.
HOMESTEAD ON HILLSIDE.
LENA RIVERS.
MEADOW BROOK.
DORA DEANE.
COUSIN MAUDE.
MARIAN GREY.
EDITH LYLE.
DAISY THORNTON.
CHATEAU D’OR.
DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT.
HUGH WORTHINGTON.
CAMERON PRIDE.
ROSE MATHER.
ETHELYN’S MISTAKE.
MILBANK.
EDNA BROWNING.
WEST LAWN.
MILDRED.
FORREST HOUSE.
MADELINE (_New_).
QUEENIE HETHERTON (_New_).
“Mrs. Holmes is a peculiarly pleasant and fascinating writer. Her books
are always entertaining, and she has the rare faculty of enlisting the
sympathy and affections of her readers, and of holding their attention
to her pages with deep and absorbing interest.”
All published uniform with this volume. Price $1.50 each. Sold
everywhere, and sent _free_ by mail on receipt of price,
BY
G. W. CARLETON & Co., Publishers,
New York.
ROSE MATHER:
A Tale.
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES,
AUTHOR OF “TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE,” “LENA RIVERS,” “THE CAMERON PRIDE,”
ETC., ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK:
_Carleton, Publisher, Madison Square_.
LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO.
MDCCCLXXXIII.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
DANIEL HOLMES,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for
the Northern District of New York.
TROW’S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING CO.,
_205–213 East 12th St._,
NEW YORK.
_To_
THE SOLDIERS LIVING
AND
The Memory of the Soldiers Dead,
THIS STORY OF THE WAR
IS GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR.
BROWN COTTAGE, Brockport, N. Y.
_April, 1868._
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.— THE WAR MEETING 9
II.— ROSE AND ANNIE 20
III.— THE DEPARTURE 35
IV.— WILL AND BROTHER TOM 50
V.— JIMMIE 67
VI.— FINDING SOMETHING TO DO FOR THE WAR 81
VII.— THE BATTLE 87
VIII.— THE RETREAT 98
IX.— THE REBEL AND THE YANKEE 111
X.— NEWS OF THE BATTLE AT ROCKLAND 121
XI.— THE WOUNDED SOLDIER 134
XII.— GETTING READY 142
XIII.— THE DYING SOLDIER 150
XIV.— MATTERS IN ROCKLAND 158
XV.— THE DESERTER 165
XVI.— NEWS DIRECT FROM JIMMIE 179
XVII.— THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER’S WELCOME TO ROCKLAND 191
XVIII.— THE RICHMOND CAPTIVES 208
XIX.— TOM’S RECEPTION 224
XX.— AT THE MATHER MANSION 248
XXI.— “NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD.” 259
XXII.— THE WOUNDED SOLDIER 269
XXIII.— TOM AND JIMMIE 283
XXIV.— THE RESULTS OF THE BATTLE 289
XXV.— GETTYSBURGH 292
XXVI.— COURSE OF EVENTS 296
XXVII.— THE HUNTED SOLDIER 304
XXVIII.— THE DEAD ALIVE 318
XXIX.— THE HEROINE OF THE MOUNTAIN 322
XXX.— ARTHUR AND MAUDE 337
XXXI.— MAUDE AND TOM 343
XXXII.— SUSPICION 353
XXXIII.— IN THE CAVE 359
XXXIV.— POOR ARTHUR 368
XXXV.— THE DEAD AND THE LIVING 373
XXXVI.— ANDERSONVILLE PRISONERS 377
XXXVII.— IN ROCKLAND 385
XXXVIII.— THE LOVERS 392
XXXIX.— CHARLIE 397
ROSE MATHER.
CHAPTER I.
THE WAR MEETING.
The long disputed point as to whether the South was in earnest or not
was settled, and through the Northern States the tidings flew that
Sumter had fallen and the war had commenced. With the first gun which
boomed across the waters of Charleston bay, it was ushered in, and they
who had cried, “Peace! peace!” found at last “there was no peace.” Then,
and not till then, did the nation rise from its lethargic slumber and
shake off the delusion with which it had so long been bound. Political
differences were forgotten. Republicans and Democrats struck the
friendly hand, pulse beat to pulse, heart throbbed to heart, and the
watchword everywhere was, “The Union forever.” Throughout the length and
breadth of the land were true, loyal hearts, and as at Rhoderic Dhu’s
command the Highlanders sprang to view from every clump of heather on
the wild moors of Scotland, so when the war-cry came up from Sumter our
own Highlanders arose, a mighty host, responsive to the call; some from
New England’s templed hills, with hands inured to toil, and hearts as
strong and true as flint; some from the Empire, some the Keystone State,
and others from the prairies of the distant West. It mattered not what
place had given them birth; it mattered little whether the Green
Mountains of Vermont, the granite hills of New Hampshire, or the shadowy
forests of Wisconsin had sheltered their childhood’s home; united in one
cause they rallied round the Stars and Stripes, and went forth to meet,
not a foreign foe, but alas, to raise a brother’s arm against another
brother’s arm in that most dreadful of all anarchies, a national civil
war.
In the usually quiet village of Rockland the utmost interest was felt,
and though there, as elsewhere, were many whose hearts beat as warmly
for their Southern friends as when the sun shone on a nation at peace,
all felt the necessity of action, and when at last the evening came in
which the first war meeting of that place was to be held, a dense and
promiscuous crowd wended its way to the old brick church, whose hallowed
walls echoed to the sound of fife and drum, strange music for the house
of God, but more acceptable, in that dark hour, than songs of praise
sung by vain and thoughtless lips. In the centre of the church, the men
were mostly congregated, while the seats nearest the door were occupied
by the women,—the wives and mothers and sisters who had come with aching
hearts to see their brothers, sons and husbands give their signatures to
what seemed their sure death warrant. Conspicuous among these was Widow
Simms, whose old-fashioned leghorn, with its faded green veil, was
visible at all public gatherings, its broad frill of lace shading a pair
of sharp grey eyes, and a rather peculiar face. It was very white now,
and the thin lips were firmly compressed as the widow tried to look
resolute and unconcerned when two of her sons went forward, their faces
glowing with youthful enthusiasm, as they heard the President repeat
their names, “John Simms,—Eli Simms.” The widow involuntarily said it
after him, her mother’s heart whispering within her, “Isaac won’t go.
He’s too young. I can’t give Isaac up,” and her eye wandered to where
her youngest boy was sitting, twirling his old cloth cap, and
occasionally exchanging a word with the young man next to him, William
Baker, who, together with his brother, arose, to follow John and Eli
Simms.
Scarcely, however, had they risen to their feet, when a woman occupying
the same seat with Widow Simms, uttered a cry more like the moaning howl
of some wild beast, than like a human sound.
“No, Harry, no, Bill—no, no,” and the bony arms were flung wildly toward
the two young men, who, with a dogged, indignant glance at her, fell
back among the crowd where they could not be seen, muttering something
not very complimentary to “the old woman,” as they called her.
But the old woman did not hear it, and if she had, it would have made no
difference. It mattered not to her that they had ever been the veriest
pests in the whole village, the planners of every grade of mischief, the
robbers of barns and plunderers of orchards,—they were _her_ boys, and
she didn’t want them shot, so she continued to moan and cry, muttering
incoherently about the rich treading down the poor, and wondering why
Judge Warner didn’t send his own white fingered sons, if he thought
going to war was so nice.
“I wouldn’t make such a fuss, let what would happen to me,” said the
Widow Simms, casting a half contemptuous glance upon the weeping woman,
whom she evidently considered far beneath her, and adding, “They had
‘nough-sight better be shot than hung,’ as an aside to the young woman
just behind her,—sweet Annie Graham, who was holding fast to her
husband’s hand, as if she would thus keep him in spite of the speaker’s
eloquent appeals, and the whispers of his companions, who were urging
him to join the company forming so rapidly before the altar.
There was a terrible struggle going on in Annie Graham’s breast,—duty to
her country and love for her husband waging a mighty conflict, the
former telling her that if the right would triumph, somebody’s husband
must go, and the wife-heart crying out, “Yes, somebody’s husband _must_
go, I know, but not mine, not George.”
Very tenderly George Graham’s strong arm encircled the girlish form, and
when he saw how fast the tears came to the great dreamy eyes of blue,
and thought how frail was the wife of little more than a year, he bent
down until his chin rested on her pale brown hair, and whispered softly
to her,
“Don’t, Annie, darling, you know I will never go unless you think I
ought, and give your free consent.”
Had George Graham wished, he could not have chosen a more powerful
argument than the words, “Unless you think I ought.”
Annie repeated them to herself again and again, until consciousness of
all else around her was forgotten in that one question of _duty_. She
heard no longer the second speaker, whose burning eloquence was stirring
up hitherto reluctant young men to place their names beside others
already pledged to their country’s cause. Leaning forward so that her
forehead rested on the railing in front, she tried to pray, but flesh
and strength were weak, and the prayer ended always with the unuttered
cry, “I cannot let George go,” while the fingers twined more and more
closely around the broad, warm hand, which sought awhile to reassure
her, and then was withdrawn from her grasp as George arose and politely
offered his seat to a lady who had just arrived, and who, after glancing
an instant at his _coat_, accepted his civility as a matter of course,
but withheld the thanks she would have accorded to one whom she
considered her equal.
Spreading out her wide skirt of rich blue silk so that it nearly covered
poor Annie, she threw her crimson scarf across the railing in front,
hitting Widow Simms, and so diverting the attention of Mrs. Baker, that
the latter ceased her crying, while the widow turned with an expression
half curious, half indignant. Annie, too, attracted by the heavy fringe
and softly-blended colors of the scarf, a part of which had fallen upon
her lap, as the widow shook it from her shoulder with a jerk, stole a
glance at the new comer, in whom she recognized the bride, the beauty,
the envied belle of Rockland, Rose Mather, from Boston,—and wife of the
wealthy and aristocratic William Mather, who three months before had
ended the strife between the Rockland ladies as to what fair hand should
spend his gold, and drive his iron greys, by bringing to his elegant
mansion a fairy little creature with whose exquisite beauty even the
most fastidious could not find fault. Childish in proportions, and
perfect in form and feature, she would have been handsome without the
aid of the dancing brown eyes, and chestnut curls which shaded her
girlish brow. Rose knew she was pretty,—knew she was stylish,—knew she
was fascinating,—knew she was just then _the rage_, and as such could do
and say what she pleased. Sweeping back her chestnut hair with her snowy
hand, she gave one rapid glance at the sea of heads around her, and
then, in a half petulant tone, exclaimed to her companion!
“I don’t believe Will is here. I can’t see him anywhere.”
“Didn’t you know he had enlisted?” asked a young man, who had made his
way through the crowd, and joined her.
For an instant the bright color faded from Rose Mather’s cheek, but it
quickly returned as she read in Mr. Wentworth’s eye, a contradiction of
his words.
“Will enlisted!” she repeated. “Such people as _Will_ don’t go to the
war. It’s a very different class, such, for instance, as that one going
up to sign. Upon my word, it’s the boy who saws our wood!” and she
pointed at the youth, offering himself up that just such people as Rose
Mather, radiant in silks and diamonds, and lace, might rest in peace at
home, knowing nothing of war, and its attendant horrors, save what came
to her through the daily prints.
Widow Simms heard the remark, and with a swelling heart turned toward
the boy who sawed Rose Mather’s wood, for _she_ knew who it was, and it
did not need the loud whisper of Mrs. Baker to tell her that it was
_her_ boy, the youngest of the three, the one she loved the best, the
baby, who kept the milk of human kindness from turning quite sour within
her breast by his many acts of filial love, and his gentle, caressing
ways. How could she give him up, her darling, her idol, the one so like
his father, dead ere he was born? Who would comfort her as he had done?
Who would give her the good-night kiss, timidly, stealthily, lest the
older ones should see and laugh at his girlish weakness? Who would bring
his weekly earnings, and empty them slily into her lap? Who would find
her place in the prayer book on Sunday, and pound her clothes on Monday,
long before it was light? Who would split the nice fine kindlings for
the morning fire or bring the cool fresh water in the summer from the
farther well, and who, when her head was aching sadly would make the cup
of tea she liked so much? Homely offices, many of them, it is true, but
they made up the sum of that mother’s happiness, and it is not strange
that, for a moment, the iron will gave way, and the poor widow wept over
her cruel bereavement, not noisily, as Mrs. Baker had done, but
silently, bitterly, her body trembling nervously, and her whole attitude
indicative of keen, unaffected anguish.
Rose did not know the relationship existing between the widow and the
boy who sawed her wood, but her better nature was touched always at the
sight of distress, and for several minutes, she did not speak except to
tell Mr. Wentworth how much _Brother Tom_ had paid for the crimson
scarf, one end of which he was twirling around his wrist. To Annie it
seemed an enormous sum, and a little over-awed with her close proximity
to one who could sport so expensive an article of dress, she
involuntarily tried to move away, and avoid, if possible, being noticed
by the brilliant belle. She might have spared herself the trouble, for
Rose was too much absorbed with the group of admirers gathering around
her to heed the shrinking figure at her side, and, after a time, as
Widow Simms recovered her composure, she resumed her gay badinage,
bringing in Will with every other breath, and showing how completely her
heart was bound up in her husband, notwithstanding the evident
satisfaction with which she received the flattering compliments of the
gentlemen who, since her arrival at Rockland, had made it a point to
admire and flirt with the little Boston belle, laughing loudly at
speeches which, from one less piquant and attractive, would have been
pronounced decidedly silly and meaningless.
Rose was not well posted with regard to the object of that meeting. She
knew that Sumter or Charleston had been fired upon, she hardly could
tell which, for she was far too sleepy when Will read the news to
comprehend clearly what it was all about, and she had skipped every word
which Brother Tom had written about it in his last letter, the one in
which he enclosed five hundred dollars for the silver tea-set she saw in
Rochester, and wanted so badly. Rose was an accomplished musician, a
tolerable proficient in both French and German, and had skimmed nearly
all the higher branches, but like many fashionably educated young
ladies, her knowledge of geography comprised a confused medley of
cities, towns and villages, scattered promiscuously over the face of the
earth, but _which_ was _where_ she could not pretend to tell; and were
it not that Brother Tom had spent three winters in Charleston, leaving
at last his fair-haired wife sleeping there beneath the Southern sky,
she would scarcely have known whether the waters of the Atlantic or of
Baffin’s Bay, washed the shore of the Palmetto State. And still Rose was
not a fool in the ordinary acceptation of the term. She knew as much or
more than half the petted belles of modern society, and could say smart
foolish things with so pretty an air of childishness, that even those of
her own sex who were at first most prejudiced against her, confessed
that she was certainly very captivating, and possessed the art of making
everybody like her, even if she hadn’t common sense!
On this occasion she chatted on in her usual style, provoking from
George Graham more than one good-humored smile at remarks which evinced
so much ignorance of the matter then agitating the entire community.
“Will wouldn’t go to the war, of course,” she said, ‘supposing there
were one, which she greatly doubted. Northern men, particularly those of
Rockland, were so hateful toward the South. She didn’t believe Boston
people were that way at all. At least, Brother Tom was not, and he knew;
he had lived in Charleston, and described them as very nice folks.
Indeed, she knew they were, herself, for she always met them at Newport,
and liked them so much. She didn’t credit one word of what the papers
said. She presumed Mr. Anderson provoked them. Tom knew him personally.
“You have another brother besides Tom—won’t _he_ join the army?” asked
Mr. Wentworth, a smile curling the corners of his mouth.
Rose sighed involuntarily, for on the subject of _that other brother_
she was a little sore, and the mention of him always gave her pain. He
was not like Brother Tom, the eldest, the pride of the Carleton family.
He was _Jimmie_, handsome, rollicking, mischievous Jimmie, to those who
loved him best, while to the Boston people, who knew him best, he was
“that young scapegrace, Jim Carleton, destined for the gallows, or some
other ignominious end,” a prediction which seemed likely to be verified
at the time when he nearly broke a comrade’s head for calling him a
liar, and so was expelled from college, covered with disgrace. Something
of this was known to Mr. Wentworth, and he asked the question he did,
just to see what Rose would say. But if he thought she would attempt to
conceal anything pertaining to herself, or any one else, for that
matter, he was mistaken. Rose was too truthful for anything like
duplicity, and she frankly answered:
“We don’t know where Jimmie is. They turned him out of college, and then
he ran away. It’s more than a year since we heard from him. He was in
Southern Virginia, then. Mother thinks he’s dead, or he would surely
write to some of us,” and a tear glittered in Rose’s eyes, as she
thought of recreant Jimmie, sleeping elsewhere than in the family vault
at beautiful Mt. Auburn. Rose could not, however, be unhappy long over
what was a mere speculation, and after a few moments she resumed the
subject of her husband’s volunteering.
“She knew he wouldn’t, even if he did vote for Lincoln. She was not one
bit concerned, for no man who loved his wife as he ought, would want to
go and leave her,” and the little lady stroked her luxuriant curls
coquettishly, spreading out still wider her silken robe, which now
completely covered the plain shilling calico of poor Annie, whose heart
for a moment beat almost to bursting as she asked herself if it were
true, that no man who loved his wife as he ought, would want to go and
leave her. In a moment, however, she repelled the assertion as false,
for George had given too many proofs of his devotion for her to doubt
him now, even though he had expressed a desire to join the army. Then
she wished she was at home, where she could not hear what Rose Mather
said, and she was about proposing to George that they should leave, when
Mr. Mather himself appeared, and she concluded to remain. He was a
haughty-looking man, very fond of his little wife, on whose shoulder he
laid his hand caressingly, as he asked “what she thought of war now?”
“I just think it is horrid!” and Rose’s fat hand stole up to meet her
husband’s; “Mr. Wentworth tried to make me think you had volunteered,
but I knew better. The idea of your going off with such frights! Why,
Will, you can’t begin to guess what a queer-looking set they are. There
was our milkman, and the boy who sawed our wood, and canal-drivers, and
peddlers, and mechanics, and”——
Rose did not finish the sentence, for something in her husband’s
expression stopped her. He had caught the quick uplifting of Annie
Graham’s head,—had noted the indignant flashing of her blue eye, the
kindling spot on her cheek, and glancing at George, he saw at once how
Rose’s thoughtless words must have wounded her. He had seen the
disgusted expression of Widow Simms, as she flounced out into the aisle,
and knowing that the “boy who sawed his wood,” was her son, he felt
sorry that his wife should have been so indiscreet. Still, he could not
be angry at the sparkling little creature chatting so like a parrot, but
he felt impelled to say:
“You should not judge people by their dress or occupation. The boy who
saws our wood has a heart larger than many who make far more
pretensions.”
Rose tried to pout at what she knew to have been intended as a
reprimand, but in the excitement of the jam as they passed out of the
church, she forgot it entirely, only once uttering an impatient
ejaculation as some one inadvertently stepped upon her sweeping skirt,
and so held her for a moment, producing the sensation which nearly every
woman experiences when she feels a sudden backward pull, as if skirt and
waist were parting company.
With the hasty exclamation, “Who _is_ stepping on me, I’d like to know?”
she turned just in time to hear Annie Graham’s politely-spoken words of
apology:
“I beg your pardon, madam; they push me so behind that I could not help
it.”
“It isn’t the least bit of matter,” returned Rose, disarmed at once of
all resentment, by Annie’s lady-like manner, and the expression of the
face, on which traces of tears were still lingering.
“Who is that, Will?” she whispered, as they emerged into the moonlight,
and George Graham’s tall form was plainly discernible, together with
that of his wife.
Will told her who it was, and Rose rejoined:
“He has volunteered, I ’most know. Poor, isn’t he?”
“Not very rich, most certainly,” was Mr. Mather’s reply.
“Then I guess he’s going to the war,” was Rose’s mental comment, as if
poverty were the sole accomplishment necessary for a soldier to possess,
a conclusion to which older and wiser heads than hers seemed at one time
to have arrived.
Annie Graham heard both question and answer, and with emotions not
particularly pleasant she whispered to herself:
“Rose Mather shall see that one man at least will not go, even if he is
a mechanic and poor!” and clinging closer to George’s arm, she walked on
in silence, thinking bitter thoughts of the little lady, who, delighted
with having _Will_ on one side of her, and Mr. Wentworth, his partner,
on the other, tripped gaily on, laughing as lightly as if on the
country’s horizon there were no dark, threatening cloud, which might yet
overshadow her in its gloomy folds, and leave her heart as desolate as
that of the Widow Simms, or the wailing mother of Harry and Bill.