THE DEAD AND THE LIVING.
Of all Paul Haverill’s comfortable buildings, house, stables, barn and
negro quarters, there was left him only one cabin which the fire had not
consumed. That stood a little distant from the rest, and had been
occupied by Lois before her husband died. It was superior to the other
cabins then; it was neat and tidy now, and there they laid the dead
lieutenant, in his grey uniform, with a little flag of stars and bars
across his breast. This was Charlie’s thought, and it was very mete that
he who to the last had believed in the righteousness of the Confederacy
should have her sign above him. There was no other spot except the cabin
where Maude could stay, and the entire day and night she sat by her dead
Arthur, whom, now that he _was_ dead, she cherished in her heart as a
martyr and a hero, questioning even the ground on which she had hitherto
stood so firmly, and asking herself if, after all, the South was so very
far out of the way, or if the Union were worth the fearful price the
Southern people were paying for it. Maude did not know herself in this
mood. It was so unlike all her former theories, and more than once she
pressed her hot hands to her still hotter head, and asked if she was
going mad.
Crouched beside Maude, with his blue eyes fixed upon her with a pitying,
remorseful look, was Charlie.
“Poor Maude,—poor sister! I am so sorry. I never thought,—I did not
know; you used to laugh about him so to Uncle Paul. I’d give my life to
bring him back for you. Did you love him so very much?” Charlie said, in
broken sentences, and then Maude shivered from head to foot, but made
him no reply.
She had not loved him so very much, but his violent death and all the
horrors attending it had shaken her terribly, and could he have come
back to life she would have tried to love him, and with her iron will
would have crushed that other love, the very knowledge of which had made
her heart throb with so much joy.
But the dead come not to life again, and the next morning they buried
Arthur Tunbridge in the grassy enclosure where Paul Haverill’s wife was
sleeping with the infant son who, had he lived, would have been just
Arthur’s age. The blue coated soldiery, who had been his deadly foes,
paid him every military honor possible within their means, even marching
to his grave behind the stars and bars which lay upon his coffin; but
when they came back from the burial, they bore the national flag, whose
folds that peaceful summer night floated in the breeze from the top of
Lois’s cabin.
Very kind, and gentle, and pitiful was Tom’s demeanor toward Maude.
During the day and the night, when she had sat by Arthur in Lois’s
cabin, he had not been near her; but, after all was over, he went to
her, and, with the authority of a friend and brother, insisted that she
should take the rest she needed so much. And Maude gave way at the sound
of his soothing, quieting voice, and, with a flood of tears, did what he
bade her do. And then Tom sat by her, and bathed her throbbing head, and
smoothed her beautiful hair, and paid back in part the services she had
rendered him when he lay sick in Squire Tunbridge’s house.
Maude was not ill,—only exhausted,—both physically and mentally the
exhaustion showing itself in the quiet, listless state into which she
lapsed, paying but little attention to what was passing around her, and
offering no suggestion or remonstrance when told of her uncle’s plan to
accompany Captain Simms and his men to Knoxville.
Over Paul Haverill, too, a change had passed. The attack upon him by his
old friends and neighbors, though long expected, had been sudden and
terrible when it came, and as he watched the burning of the house which
had been his so long, he felt that every tie which bound him to the old
place was severed. Then came swiftly the fearful tragedy of the
mountains, when Arthur was brought to him dead. Stunned and bewildered
by the startling events which had followed each other so rapidly, Paul
was hardly able to counsel for himself, and assented readily to the plan
which had really originated with Captain Carleton, who had another
scheme underlying that, but who suggested both so skillfully that Paul
Haverill fancied they were his own ideas, and gave them as such to
Maude. They would go to Knoxville with the soldiers, he said; thence to
Nashville. They had some relatives living there, and, after resting for
a little, they would continue their journeyings North, going, perhaps,
as far as New York.
“I always wanted to travel North,” he said, “but my affairs kept me at
home. Now I have no affairs. My neighbors have relieved me of such
commodities and I want to get away from a spot where I have witnessed
such dreadful things. We all need change. You, Maude, more than I, and
Charlie more than either. I don’t know what has come over the boy. That
horrible night and morning were too much for him.”
Maude knew that so far as Charlie was concerned, her uncle had spoken
truly. Charlie was greatly changed, and his eyes had in them a scared
look, as if every detail of the horrors of the fight on the mountain had
stamped itself indelibly upon his mind, and was never for an instant
forgotten.
He needed a change of place and scene; and as she could not return to
Arthur’s desolate home, whither the sad news had been sent at once,
Maude assented to the Nashville arrangement, and in three weeks was
comfortably settled at a Nashville hotel, with Lois as her attendant.
Her uncle, Charlie, and Captain Carleton were with her, the latter
constantly putting off his journey to Rockland, where they were so
anxiously waiting for him. He had written to Rose immediately after his
arrival at Nashville, telling her of all that had transpired, and
speaking of Maude De Vere as one whom he hoped to make his wife. This
time the letter went safely, and Rose replied at once, urging Tom to
come, and insisting that Mr. Haverill, Maude and Charlie should
accompany him.
“They saved Will’s life as well as yours,” Rose wrote. “I have a right
to them all, and especially to the noble Maude. Bring her to me, Tom,
and let me coax back the color to her dear face and the brightness to
her eyes. I shall come myself and get her if she refuses.”
Maude had never known the companionship of a sister,—had never had a
single intimate girl friend except Nettie Tunbridge, who died.
Independent, strong willed and self-reliant, she had cared but little
for any society except that which she found with nature in the wild
mountains of Tennessee; but now, broken and shocked, and shorn of some
of her strength, she longed for sympathy and companionship, and
something in Rose Mather’s sprightly letter made her heart yearn toward
the little lady who had written it, and the pleasant home which Rose
described as beautiful with the summer bloom.
“I will think about it by and by,” she said to her uncle; “but for the
present it is nice to rest here in Nashville.”
So for a time longer they lingered in Tennessee, while Rose waited
impatiently for them and fretted at the delay.