"_The best-laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft agley._"
BURNS
They didn't find Jim in the camp of his regiment, so went up to
head-quarters to institute inquiries.
"Given?" a little thought and investigation. "Oh! Given is out on picket
duty."
"Whereabouts?"
The direction indicated. "Thanks! we'll find him."
Having commenced the search, Surrey was determined to end it ere he
turned back, and his two friends bore him company. As they came down the
road, they saw in the distance a great stalwart fellow, red-shirted and
conspicuous, evidently absorbed in some singular task,--what they did
not perceive, till, coming to closer quarters, they discovered, perched
by his side, a tin cup filled with soap-suds, a pipe in his mouth, and
that by the help of the two he was regaling himself with the pastime of
blowing bubbles.
"I'll wager that's Jim," said Surrey, before he saw his face.
"It's like him, certainly: from what I've heard of him, I think he would
die outright if he couldn't amuse himself in some shape."
"Why, the fellow must be a curiosity worth coming here to see."
"Pretty nearly."
Surrey walked on a little in advance, and tapped him on the shoulder.
Down came the pipe, up went the hand in a respectful military salute,
but before it was finished he saw who was before him.
"Wow!" he exclaimed, "if it ain't Mr. Willie Surrey. My! Ain't I glad to
see you? How _do_ you do? The sight of you is as good as a month's pay."
"Come, Given, don't stun me with compliments," cried Surrey, laughing
and putting out his hand to grasp the big, red paw that came to meet it,
and shake it heartily. "If I'd known you were over here, I'd have found
you before, though my regiment hasn't been down here long."
Jim at that looked sharply at the "eagles," and then over the alert,
graceful person, finishing his inspection with an approving nod, and the
emphatic declaration, "Well, if I know what's what, and I rayther reckon
I do, you're about the right figger for an officer, and on the whole I'd
sooner pull off my cap to you than any other fellow I've seen
round,"--bringing his hand once more to the salute.
"Why, Jim, you have turned courtier; army life is spoiling you,"
protested the inspected one; protesting,--yet pleased, as any one might
have been, at the evidently sincere admiration.
"Nary time," Jim strenuously denied; and, these little courtesies being
ended, they talked about enlistment, and home, and camp, and a score of
things that interested officer and man alike. In the midst of the confab
a dust was seen up the road, coming nearer, and presently out of it
appeared a family carriage somewhat dilapidated and worse for wear, but
still quite magnificent; enthroned on the back seat a fullblown F.F.V.
with rather more than the ordinary measure of superciliousness belonging
to his race; driven, of course, by his colored servant. Jim made for the
middle of the road, and, holding his bayonet in such wise as to threaten
at one charge horse, negro, and chivalry, roared out, "Tickets!"
At such an extraordinary and unceremonious demand the knight flushed
angrily, frowned, made an expressive gesture with his lips and his nose
which suggestively indicated that there was something offensive in the
air between the wind and his gentility, ending the pantomime by finding
a pass and handing it over to his "nigger," then--not deigning to
speak--motioned him and it to the threatening figure. As this black man
came forward, Brooks, looking at him a moment, cried excitedly, "By
Jove! it's Sam."
"No? Hunt's Sam?"
"Yes, the very same; and I suppose that's his cantankerous old master."
Surrey ran forward to Jim, for the three had fallen back when the
carriage came near, and said a few sentences to him quickly and
earnestly.
"All right, Colonel! just as you please," he replied. "You leave it to
me; I'll fix him." Then, turning to Sam, who stood waiting, demanded,
"Well, have you got it?"
"Yes, massa."
"Fork over,"--and looking at it a moment pronounced "All right! Move
on!" elucidating the remark by a jerk at the coat-collar of the
unsuspecting Sam, which sent him whirling up the road at a fine but
uncomfortable rate of speed.
"Now, sir, what do you want?" addressing the astounded chevalier, who
sat speechlessly observant of this unlooked-for proceeding.
"Want?" cried the irate Virginian, his anger loosening his tongue,
"want? I want to go on, of course; that was my pass."
"Was it now? I want to know! that's singular! Why didn't you offer it
yourself then?"
"Because I thought my nigger a fitter person to parley with a Lincoln
vandal," loftily responded his eminence.
"That's kind of you, I'm sure. Sorry I can't oblige you in
return,--very; but you'll just have to turn tail and drive back again.
That bit of paper says 'Pass the bearer,' and the bearer's already
passed. You can't get two men through this picket on one man's pass, not
if one is a nigger and t'other a skunk; so, sir, face about, march!"
This was an unprepared-for dilemma. Mr. V. looked at the face of the
"Lincoln vandal," but saw there no sign of relenting; then into the
distance whither he was anxiously desirous to tend; glanced reflectively
at the bayonet in the centre and the narrow space on either side the
road; and finally called to his black man to come back.
Sam approached with reluctance, and fell back with alacrity when the
glittering steel was brandished towards his own breast.
"Where's your pass, sirrah?" demanded Jim, with asperity.
"Here, massa," said the chattel, presenting the same one which had
already been examined.
"Won't do," said Jim. "Can't come that game over this child. That passes
you to Fairfax,--can't get any one from Fairfax on that ticket. Come,"
flourishing the shooting-stick once more, "move along"; which Sam
proceeded to do with extraordinary readiness.
"Now, sir," turning to the again speechless chevalier, "if you stay here
any longer, I shall take you under arrest to head-quarters:
consequently, you'd better accept the advice of a disinterested friend,
and make tracks, lively."
By this time the scion of a latter-day chivalry seemed to comprehend the
situation, seized his lines, wheeled about, and went off at a spanking
trot over the "sacred soil,"--Jim shouting after him, "I say, Mr.
F.F.V. if you meet any 'Lincoln vandals,' just give them my respects,
will you?" to which as the knight gave no answer, we are left in doubt
to this day whether Given's commission was ever executed.
"There! my mind's relieved on that point," announced Jim, wiping his
face with one hand and shaking the other after the retreating dust.
"Mean old scoot! I'll teach him to insult one of our boys,--'Lincoln
vandals' indeed! I'd like to have whanged him!" with a final shake and a
final explosion, cooling off as rapidly as he had heated, and continuing
the interrupted conversation with recovered temper and _sangfroid_.
He was delighted at meeting Surrey, and Surrey was equally glad to see
once more his old favorite, for Jim and he had been great friends when
he was a little boy and had watched the big boy at work in his father's
foundry,--a favoritism which, spite of years and changes, and wide
distinctions of social position, had never altered nor cooled, and which
showed itself now in many a pleasant shape and fashion so long as they
were near together.
They aided and abetted one another in more ways than one. Jim at
Surrey's request, and by a plan of his proposing, succeeded in getting
Sam's wife away from her home,--not from any liking for the expedition,
or interest in either of the "niggers," as he stoutly asserted, but
solely to please the Colonel. If that, indeed, were his only purpose, he
succeeded to a charm, for when Surrey saw the two reunited, safe from
the awful clutch of slavery, supplied with ample means for the journey
and the settlement thereafter, and on their way to a good Northern home,
he was more than pleased,--he was rejoiced, and said, "Thank God!" with
all his heart, and reverently, as he watched them away.
Before the summer ended Jim was down with what he called "a scratch"; a
pretty ugly wound, the surgeon thought it, and the Colonel remembered
and looked after him with unflagging interest and zeal. Many a book and
paper, many a cooling drink and bit of fruit delicious to the parched
throat and fevered lips, found their way to the little table by his
side. Surrey was never too busy by reason of his duties, or among his
own sick and wounded men, to find time for a chat, or a scrap of
reading, or to write a letter for the prostrate and helpless fellow, who
suffered without complaining, as, indeed, they did all about him, only
relieving himself now and then by a suppressed growl.
And so, with occasional episodes of individual interest, with marches
and fightings, with extremes of heat and cold, of triumph and defeat,
the long months wore away. These men were soldiers, each in his place in
the great war with the record of which all the world is familiar, a tale
written in blood, and flame, and tears,--terrible, yet heroic; ghastly,
yet sublime. As soldiers in such a conflict, they did their duty and
noble endeavor,--Jim, a nameless private in the ranks,--Surrey, not
braver perchance, but so conspicuous with all the elements which fit for
splendid command, so fortunate in opportunities for their display, so
eminent in seizing them and using them to their fullest extent,
regardless of danger and death, as to make his name known and honored by
all who watched the progress of the fight, read its record with
interest, and knew its heroes and leaders with pride and love.
In the winter of '63 Jim's regiment was ordered away to South Carolina;
and he who at parting looked with keen regret on the face of the man who
had been so faithful and well tried a friend, would have looked upon it
with something deeper and sadder, could he at the same time have gazed a
little way into the future, and seen what it held in store for him.
Four months after he marched away, Surrey's brigade was in that awful
fight and carnage of Chancellorsville, where men fought like gods to
counteract the blunders, and retrieve the disaster, induced by a stunned
and helpless brain. There was he stricken down, at the head of his
command, covered with dust and smoke; twice wounded, yet refusing to
leave the field,--his head bound with a handkerchief, his eyes blazing
like stars beneath its stained folds, his voice cheering on his men;
three horses shot under him; on foot then; contending for every inch of
the ground he was compelled to yield; giving way only as he was forced
at the point of the bayonet; his men eager to emulate him, to follow him
into the jaws of death, to fall by his side,--thus was he prostrated;
not dead, as they thought and feared when they seized him and bore him
at last from the field, but insensible, bleeding with frightful
abundance, his right arm shattered to fragments; not dead, yet at
death's door--and looking in.
May blossoms had dropped, and June harvests were ripe on all the fields,
ere he could take advantage of the unsolicited leave, and go home.
Home--for which his heart longed!
He was not, however, in too great haste to stop by the way, to pause in
Washington, and do what he had sooner intended to accomplish,--solicit,
as a special favor to himself, as an honor justly won by the man for
whom he entreated it, a promotion for Jim. "It is impossible now," he
was informed, "but the case should be noted and remembered. If anything
could certainly secure the man an advance, it was the advocacy of
General Surrey"; and so, not quite content, but still satisfied that
Jim's time was in the near future, he went on his way.
As the cars approached Philadelphia his heart beat so fast that it
almost stifled him, and he leaned against the window heavily for air and
support. It was useless to reason with himself, vain to call good
judgment to his counsels and summon wisdom to his aid. This was her
home. Somewhere in this city to which he was so rapidly hastening, she
was moving up and down, had her being, was living and loving. After
these long years his eyes so ached to see her, his heart was so hungry
for her presence, that it seemed to him as though the sheer longing
would call her out of her retreat, on to the streets through which he
must pass, across his path, into the sight of his eyes and reach of his
hand. He had thought that he felt all this before. He found, as the
space diminished between them,--as, perchance, she was but a stone's
throw from his side,--that the pain, and the longing, and the
intolerable desire to behold her once again, increased a hundred-fold.
Eager as he had been a little while before to reach his home, he was
content to remain quietly here now. He laughed at himself as he stepped
into a carriage, and, tired as he was,--for his amputated arm, not yet
thoroughly healed, made him weak and worn,--drove through all the
afternoon and evening, across miles and miles of heated, wearisome
stones, possessed by the idea that somewhere, somehow, he should see
her, he would find her before his quest was done.
After that last painful rebuff, he did not dare to go to her home, could
he find it, till he had secured from her, in some fashion, a word or
sign. "This," he said, "is certainly doubly absurd, since she does not
live in the city; but she is here to-day, I know,--she must be here";
and persisted in his endeavor,--persisted, naturally, in vain; and went
to bed, at last, exhausted; determined that to-morrow should find him on
his journey farther north, whatever wish might plead for delay, yet with
a final cry for her from the depths of his soul, as he stretched out his
solitary arm, ere sinking to restless sleep, and dreams of battle and
death--sleep unrefreshing, and dreams ill-omened; as he thought, again
and again, rousing himself from their hold, and looking out to the
night, impatient for the break of day.
When day broke he was unable to rise with its dawn. The effect of all
this tension on his already overtaxed nerves was to induce a fever in
the unhealed arm, which, though not painful, was yet sufficient to hold
him close prisoner for several days; a delay which chafed him, and which
filled his family at home with an intolerable anxiety, not that they
knew its cause,--_that_ would have been a relief,--but that they
conjectured another, to them infinitely worse than sickness or
suffering, bad and sorrowful as were these.