THE NEWS
Who that endured them ever shall forget
The emotions of that spirit-trying time,
When breathless in the mart the couriers met,
Early and late, at evening and at prime,
When the loud cannon or the merry chime
Hail’d news on news, as field was lost or won;
When hope, long doubtful, soared at length sublime,
And weary eyes awoke as day begun
Saw peace’s broad banner rise to meet the rising sun.
—SCOTT.
The first gun of our Civil War was fired, and its report was heard
throughout the civilized world!
“Oh, Abel! Oh, Abel!” moaned Mrs. Force, still pale with emotion.
“What is it, my dear? Calm yourself! All that you hold nearest and
dearest are in this room with you. What trouble can come upon you?”
inquired her husband, rising from his couch of pain and limping toward
her.
She lifted the newspaper from the floor and handed it to him.
Lord Enderby looked from one to the other in perplexity. He did not like
to ask a question—he waited to hear.
Odalite, Wynnette and Elva also waited in anxious suspense for their
father to explain.
Not so Rosemary. Her agony of anxiety burst forth at length in a cry:
“Oh, Mr. Force! is my mother dead, or what?”
“No one is dead, my child. And no special evil has come to you,” said
Abel Force. Then speaking to his expectant friends, he said: “There is a
civil war at home.”
His explanation was like a bombshell dropped in their midst. All shrank
away aghast and in silence.
Before any one recovered speech the door was thrown open, and Le burst
in the room in great excitement.
“You have heard the news!” he cried; and that was his only greeting.
“Yes, we have heard the news,” gravely replied Mr. Force.
“I have come to bid you good-by. The mail that brought the news brought
dispatches from the navy department ordering our ship home. We sail with
the next tide; that will be in an hour. Good-by! good-by!” he said,
beside himself with mingled emotions, as he hurried from one to another,
taking each in his arms for a last embrace.
“But, Le—this is awfully sudden!” exclaimed Mr. Force, as he wrung the
young midshipman’s hand.
“Yes! yes! awfully sudden! Odalite! Oh, Odalite!” he cried, turning to
his eldest cousin and once betrothed last of all, as if he had reserved
his very last embrace and kiss for his best beloved—“oh, my Odalite! May
God love, and bless, and guard you. Good-by! Good-by! my dearest dear!”
And Le pressed her to his heart, and turned and dashed out of the room.
“But, Le! But, Le! Wait! Can we not go to the ship and see you off?”
cried Wynnette, hurrying after him, and overtaking him at the street
door.
“No! no! Impossible, my dear! A boat is waiting to take me to the ship!
I have barely time to reach her deck before she sails! There would be no
time for last adieus there! God bless you! Take care of Odalite!”
The street door banged behind Le, and he was gone.
Wynnette had flown downstairs, but she crawled up again, dragging weary
steps, “woe befreighted,” behind her.
She entered the room, and sat down in silent sympathy beside Odalite,
who lay back in her chair, too stunned by the shock of all that had
happened to weep or to moan, or even to realize the situation.
Mrs. Force went and sat on the other side of her stricken daughter, took
her hand, and said:
“My dear, nothing but prayer can help you now. You must pray, Odalite.”
The girl pressed her mother’s hand, but made no reply.
Mr. Force and Lord Enderby were in close conversation on the political
conflict out of which the war had arisen.
Elva and Rosemary were standing together in the oriel window overlooking
the street, too much startled by the suddenness of events to feel like
talking.
“Let us hope that this trouble will soon be over,” said the earl.
“What! be put down like one of your corn riots, by the simple reading of
the ‘act’?” inquired Abel Force, grimly. “No, Enderby! I know my
countrymen, North and South. And the civilized world will see a war that
has never been paralleled in the history of nations.”
And his words proved prophetic.
After this day every mail from America was looked for in the keenest
anxiety; and every mail brought the most startling and exciting news.
Every schoolboy and schoolgirl is now familiar with the leading events
of the war, and they need not be rehearsed here.
Among news of more general interest came some of a private nature to the
Forces.
Among the rest, letters from Mrs. Anglesea, who wrote:
“You had better pack right up and come right home. ‘The devil is to
pay, and no pitch hot!’ The people have riz up ag’in’ one another like
mad. Ned Grandiere has gone into the Confederate Army. Sam sticks at
home. He says war is bad for the crops, and somebody must plow and
sow.
“William Elk has gone into the Union Army.
“Thanks be to goodness, Old Beever and Old Barnes and Old Copp are all
past sixty, and too old to fight, or they’d turn fools with the rest;
but, as it is, they’re ’bliged to stay home and ’tend to their
business, and take care of Mondreer and Greenbushes.
“But they do say, hereabouts, as old Capt. Grandiere—and he over
seventy years old—has turned pirate, or privateer, or something of the
sort, and is making war on all Uncle Sam’s ships; but I can’t believe
it for one. And young Roland Bayard is with him—first mate—and is as
deep in the mud as the captain is in the mire, and is tarred with the
same brush—which I mean to say as they are both a pirating on the high
seas, or a privateering, or whatever their deviltry is, together. So
they say hereabouts.
“Anyway, the ship is overdue for months, and neither ship, officers
nor crew has been heard of with any sort of certain sureness.
“And what I said in the beginning, old ‘oman, I say in the end—as you
and the ole man had better pack right up and come right home.
“But still, if it would ill convenience you at the present time to do
so, you needn’t come, nor likewise fret about your home. To be sure,
the devil is let loose all over the country, but he hasn’t entered
into Mondreer or Greenbushes yet. Me and the three old men, Copp, and
Beever, and Barnes, and the old niggers, take the very best of care of
everything. You bet your pile on that. So do just as you think
proper.”
This letter filled the Forces with dismay, as it told them that their
old friends and neighbors had risen, so to speak, in arms against each
other.
But the most disturbing part of the news was that which referred to old
Capt. Grandiere and his mate, young Roland Bayard.
Mr. Force, from his boyhood up to middle age, and Mrs. Force, from her
first arrival in Maryland to the present time, had known the old mariner
intimately and respected him highly. They knew him, even in his
seventieth year, to be strong, vigorous, fiery and energetic. But with
all their knowledge of him they could not know, in his absence, how he
would regard the Civil War, or which side he would take, if any, in the
struggle.
They had known young Roland Bayard from his infancy, and known him to be
pure, true, brave and heroic as his namesake, but they could not judge,
without him, which side he would take in the conflict. Nor could they
reconcile it with their knowledge of these men that they should run up
the black flag, and wage a war after a manner little better, if any
better, than piracy.
But of one course they were clear; namely, that they must keep this
baleful report as to Capt. Grandiere and Mate Bayard from the hearing of
little Rosemary Hedge. The child must not be made miserable by a mere
rumor which might have no foundation in fact.
Mrs. Force was even more affected than her husband by the doubt that
hung over the fate of the _Kitty_.
She answered her housekeeper’s letter, disclaiming all belief in the
story that Capt. Grandiere and Mate Bayard had turned the _Kitty_ and
her crew into pirates.
And for the rest, told her that they—the Force family—should not return
home for some months to come, even if then.
Later on there came a letter from Miss Susanna Grandiere respecting her
niece.
Miss Grandiere wrote in rather a stilted style, after the manner of her
old-fashioned romances. She wrote:
“All through the beautiful summer, all through the glorious autumn,
all through the desolate winter of the past twelve months we have been
anticipating the exquisite happiness of beholding you again in the
blooming spring, when nature rises from the grave, and arrays herself
in fresh and radiant apparel.
“But, alas! evil days have fallen upon us. War stalks abroad over our
beloved country, spreading ruin, misery and desolation. Brother rises
up against brother, and father against son. Friends and neighbors
whose hearts and minds were once united in the closest and holiest
bonds of friendship and affection, are now severed and estranged in
mutual hatred and malignity.
“In this spread of affliction and calamity a rumor reaches us to the
effect that the condition of your husband’s constitution will detain
you in foreign countries for a considerable time to come.
“If this report be truthful, and you should contemplate a further
sojourn in the Eastern hemisphere, I must implore you still to retain
my beloved niece under your protection until you can procure some
responsible escort to convey her across the ocean to the home of her
childhood.
“I should not venture to take the liberty of preferring this request
did I not accord the most perfect credence to your protestations of
attachment to our beloved child, and of enjoyment in her society, and
of the invaluable benefit she herself derives from foreign travel.”
This, and much more to the same purpose and in the same style, wrote
Miss Grandiere.
Mrs. Force showed this letter to Rosemary, and then had a talk with her,
and found that the child was quite willing to do whatever her friends
should think best.
Then Mrs. Force answered the letter, condoling with Miss Grandiere on
the state of the country, but also expressing the pleasure she and all
her family would feel in keeping little Rosemary with them as long as
the child might be permitted to stay.
Still later on letters were received from Le. His ship was at
Charleston, forming one of the blockading fleet.
Late in the summer of that year the Forces went again to the hot baths
of Baden-Baden for the benefit of the husband and father’s health, which
was giving the whole family much concern.