MATTERS IN ROCKLAND.
With quivering lip Mr. Mather told the members of Company R that their
lieutenant was dead; and strong men as they were they did not deem
themselves unmanly that they wiped the big tears away, and crowding
around their informer anxiously asked for particulars of their departed
comrade, all speaking kindly of him, and each thinking of the sweet
girl-wife at home on whom the news would fall so crushingly. A soldier’s
dying was no novel thing in Washington, and so, aside from Company R,
there were few who knew or cared that another soul had gone to the God
who gave it,—that another victim was added to the list which shall one
day come up with fearful blackness before the provokers of the war. The
drums beat just the same,—the bands played just as merrily, and the busy
tide went on as if the quiet chamber in —— street held no stiffened
form, once as full of life and hope as the gay troops marching by.
But away to the Northward there was bitter mourning, and many a bright
eye wept as the sad news ran along the streets that Rockland’s young
lieutenant, of whom the people were justly proud, lay dead in
Washington, and many a heart beat with sympathy for the young wife who,
ever since hearing the fatal news, had lain upon her bed, more dead than
alive, with a look upon her white face which told better than words of
the anguish she was enduring.
Nothing could induce Rose to leave her for a moment. “_Will_ had staid
by George,” she said, “and she should stay by Annie.”
With her sitting by, Annie grew stronger, and could at last talk calmly
of what was expected on the morrow.
“It will be terrible,” she said, “to hear the tramp of feet coming up
the walk, and know they are bringing George! Oh, Mrs. Mather, you’ll
stay by me, won’t you, even if your husband is among the number?”
Annie did not mean to be selfish. She was too much benumbed to realize
anything fully, and she never thought what it would cost Rose to stay
there, knowing her husband would seek her at home, and be so
disappointed at not finding her there. Rose could not refuse a request
so touchingly made, but just as the morning broke she went home for a
few moments to see that all necessary preparations were made for Will’s
comfort; then, penning him a note to tell why she was not there to meet
him, she returned again to the cottage, where Widow Simms was busily at
work setting things to rights for the expected arrival, her tears
falling upon the furniture she was dusting, and her chest heaving with
sobs as she heard in the distance the sound of a gathering crowd, and
thought,
“It may be my boy they’ll go up next to meet.”
Poor Annie, too, shuddered and moaned as she caught the ominous sounds,
and knew what they portended.
“It would be better to bring him back quietly,” she said. “It seems
almost like mockery, this parade, which he can never know. I may be
glad, by and by that they honored him thus, but it’s so hard now,” and
covering her head with her pillow, Annie wept silently as she heard the
mournful beat of the muffled drum, and knew the march to the depot had
commenced.
How Rose wanted to be in the street and see her husband when he came;
but with heroic self-denial, she forced down every longing to be away,
and sitting down by Annie, busied herself with counting off the minutes
and wondering if the clock would ever point to half-past ten, or the
train ever arrive.
There was a great crowd out that morning to meet the returning soldier,
and George’s dream of what might be when he came back again was more
than realized. There were men and carriages upon the street, and groups
of women at the corners, while the little boys ran up and down. But in
the beat of the muffled drum there was a tone which made the hearts of
those who heard it overflow with tears, as they remembered _what_ that
dirgelike music meant. Around the jammed white hat of the man who played
the fife there was a badge of mourning, and in the notes he trilled a
mournful cadence far different from the patriotic strains he played as a
farewell to Rockland soldiers, going forth to battle, with hopes so
sanguine of success. One of that youthful band was coming back; not full
of life and fiery ambition as when he went away, dreaming bright dreams
of the glory he would win, and the laurels he would wear, when once
again he trod the streets at home. Not as a conquering hero, with the
crown of fame on his brow, though the crown indeed was won, and where
the golden light of Heaven shines from the everlasting hills, he was
wearing it in glory. But his ear was deaf to all earthly sounds, and the
tribute of respect his friends fain would bestow upon him, awakened no
thrill in his cold, pulseless heart. Still they felt that all honor was
due to the dead, and so they had come up to meet him, a greater throng
than any of which he had dreamed when ambition burned within his bosom.
There was a carriage waiting, too, just as he hoped there might be; a
carriage sent expressly for him, but the children on the sidewalk shrank
away and ceased their noisy clamor as it went by, its sombre appearance
somewhat relieved by the gay coloring of the Stars and Stripes laid
reverently upon it.
Slowly up the street the long procession passed, unmindful of the rain
which, mingled with the snow and sleet, beat upon the pavements, and
dashed against the window-panes, from which many a tear-stained face
looked out upon the gloomy scene, made ten times gloomier by the sighing
of the wind and the rifts of leaden clouds veiling the November sky.
Over the eastern hills there was a rising wreath of smoke, and a shrill,
discordant scream told that the train was coming, just as the carriage
sent for George drew up to its appointed place.
Gently, carefully, tenderly they lifted him out, and set him down in
their midst; but no loud cheering rent the air, no acclamations of
applause, nothing save that dreadful muffled beat, and the soft notes of
the fife, telling to the passengers leaning from the windows that the
dead, as well as the living, had been their fellow-traveller. The banner
upon the hearse told the rest of the sad story, and with a sigh to the
memory of the unknown soldier, the passengers resumed their seats, and
the train sped on its way, leaving the Rockland people alone with their
dead.
Reverently they placed him in the carriage which none cared to share
with him. Carefully they wrapped around him the Stars and Stripes, and
dropping the heavy curtains, followed through the streets to the cottage
in the Hollow, which he had left so full of life and hope. Around that
cottage there was a gathered multitude next day, and though on the
unsheltered heads of those without, the driving rain was falling, they
waited patiently while the prayer was said, and the funeral anthem
chanted. Then there came a bustling moment,—people passing beneath the
Star Spangled Banner, and pausing to look at the dead. There were sobs
and tears, and words of fond regret, and then the coffin-lid was closed,
and once more that muffled beat was heard, as with arms reversed the
Rockland Guards marched up the walk, where, leaning upon their guns they
stood, while strong men carried out their late companion, and placed him
in the hearse, _the carriage sent for him_. There was no relative to go
with him to the grave,—none in whose veins his blood was flowing, so Mr.
Mather and Rose took the lead, followed by a promiscuous crowd of
carriages and pedestrians, the very horses keeping time to the solemn
music beaten by the drum, and played by the man in the jammed white hat.
Slowly through the November rain,—through the November sleet, and
through the November mist they bore him on through the streets which he
so oft had trodden; on past the cottage he meant to buy for poor Annie,
whispering to herself with every note of the tolling bell, “George has
gone to Heaven.” Onward, still onward, till streets and cottage were
left behind, and they came to where the marble columns, gleaming through
the autumnal fog, told who peopled that silent yard. Just by the gate,
the bearers paused, and stood with uncovered heads while the solemn
words were uttered, “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust!”
Then, when it was all over, the long procession moved through the
spacious churchyard, past the tall monuments betokening worldly wealth;
past the less imposing stones, whose lettering told of treasure in
Heaven; past the group of cedar trees and pine; past the graves of the
nameless dead, and so out upon the highway, Rose Mather starting in
alarm as the band struck up a quicker, merrier march, whose stirring,
jubilant notes seemed so much like mockery. She knew it was the custom,
but the music grated none the less harshly, and drawing her veil over
her face, she wept silently, occasionally glancing backward to the spot
of freshly upturned earth where Rockland’s first soldier was buried,—the
brave, self-denying George,—who gave all he had for his country, and
died in her behalf.
Four weeks after George’s death, Annie left the cottage in the Hollow,
and went to live for a time with Mrs. Mather. Early orphaned, and thrown
upon the charities of a scheming aunt, who, after her marriage with
George, had cast her off entirely, there was now no one to whom she
could look for help and sympathy save Rose, and when the latter insisted
that her home should be Annie’s also, while William, too, joined his
entreaties with those of his wife, and urged as one reason his promise
made to George, Annie consented on condition that as soon as her health
was sufficiently restored, she should do something for herself, either
as teacher, or governess in some private family.
Amid a wild storm of sobs and tears she had read her husband’s dying
message, growing sick and faint just as he knew she would when first she
learned of his loss, and why it was he had never written to her himself.
But this was naught compared to the horror which crept round her heart
as she read what George had written of a coming time when the long grave
by the gate would not be visited as often as at first, or he who slept
there remembered as tearfully.
“Oh, George, George!” she cried, “it was cruel to tell me so,” and
sinking to her knees, she essayed to breathe a vow that other love than
that she had borne for George Graham should never find entrance to her
bosom. But something sealed her lips,—the words she would have uttered
were unspoken, and the rash vow was not made.
Still there was an added drop to her already brimming cup of sorrow, and
a sadder, more loving note in the tone of her voice when she spoke of
her husband, as if she would fortify herself against the possibility of
his prediction coming true. It was a sorry day when she finally left her
cottage home, and only God was witness to the parting; but the dim,
swollen eyes and colorless cheeks attested to its bitterness, as, with
one great upheaving sob, she crossed the threshold and entered the
carriage where Rose sat waiting for her, while the motherly Widow Simms
wrapped around her the pile of shawls which were to shield her from the
cold, and bade her god speed to her new home.
Rapidly the carriage drove away, while the widow returned to the cottage
to perform the last needful office of fastening down the windows and
locking up the doors, then, with a sigh at the changes a few short
months had wrought, she went back to her own long deserted home. And the
busy tide of life rolled on in Rockland just the same as if in the
churchyard there was no new-made grave, holding the buried love of
Annie, who, in Rose Mather’s beautiful home, was surrounded with every
possible comfort and luxury, and treated with as much consideration as
if she were a born princess, instead of the humble woman, who, a few
months before, was wholly unknown to the little lady of the Mather
Mansion.