“I am waiting for my cousin,” she said.

Even as she spoke she was with this man again at the Brinsmade gate.

Those had been her very words! Intuition told her that he, too, was

thinking of that time. Now he had found her at his desk, and, as if that

were not humiliation enough, with one of his books taken down and laid

open at his signature. Suffused, she groped for words to carry her on.

“I am waiting for Clarence, Mr. Brice. He was here, and is gone

somewhere.”

He did not seem to take account of the speech. And his silence--goad

to indiscretion--pressed her to add:-- “You saved him, Mr. Brice. I--we

all--thank you so much. And that is not all I want to say. It is a poor

enough acknowledgment of what you did,--for we have not always treated

you well.” Her voice faltered almost to faintness, as he raised his hand

in pained protest. But she continued: “I shall regard it as a debt I can

never repay. It is not likely that in my life to come I can ever help

you, but I shall pray for that opportunity.”

He interrupted her.

“I did nothing, Miss Carvel, nothing that the most unfeeling man in our

army would not do. Nothing that I would not have done for the merest

stranger.”

“You saved him for me,” she said.

O fateful words that spoke of themselves! She turned away from him for

very shame, and yet she heard him saying:-- “Yes, I saved him for you.”

His voice was in the very note of the sadness which has the strength

to suffer, to put aside the thought of self. A note to which her soul

responded with anguish when she turned to him with the natural cry of

woman.

“Oh, you ought not to have come here to-night. Why did you come? The

Doctor forbade it. The consequences may kill you.”

“It does not matter much,” he answered. “The Judge was dying.”

“How did you know?”

“I guessed it,--because my mother had left me.”

“Oh, you ought not to have come!” she said again.

“The Judge has been my benefactor,” he answered quietly. “I could walk,

and it was my duty to come.”

“You did not walk!” she gasped.

He smiled, “I had no carriage,” he said.

With the instinct of her sex she seized the chair and placed it under

him. “You must sit down at once,” she cried.

“But I am not tired,” he replied.

“Oh, you must sit down, you must, Captain Brice.” He started at the

title, which came so prettily from her lips, “Won't you please!” she

said pleadingly.

He sat down. And, as the sun peeps out of a troubled sky, she smiled.

“It is your chair,” she said.

He glanced at the book, and the bit of sky was crimson. But still he

said nothing.

“It is your book,” she stammered. “I did not know that it was yours

when I took it down. I--I was looking at it while I was waiting for

Clarence.”

“It is dry reading,” he remarked, which was not what he wished to say.

“And yet--”

“Yes?”

“And yet you have read it twice.” The confession had slipped to her

lips.

She was sitting on the edge of his desk, looking down at him. Still he

did not look at her. All the will that was left him averted his head.

And the seal of honor was upon his speech. And he wondered if man were

ever more tempted.

Then the evil spread its wings, and soared away into the night. And

the moment was past. Peace seemed to come upon them both, quieting the

tumult in their hearts, and giving them back their reason. Respect like

wise came to the girl,--respect that was akin to awe. It was he who

spoke first.

“My mother has me how faithfully you nursed the Judge, Miss Carvel. It

was a very noble thing to do.”

“Not noble at all,” she replied hastily, “your mother did the most of

it, And he is an old friend of my father--”

“It was none the less noble,” said Stephen, warmly, “And he quarrelled

with Colonel Carvel.”

“My father quarrelled with him,” she corrected. “It was well that I

should make some atonement. And yet mine was no atonement, I love Judge

Whipple. It was a--a privilege to see your mother every day--oh, how

he would talk of you! I think he loves you better than any one on this

earth.”

“Tell me about him,” said Stephen, gently.

Virginia told him, and into the narrative she threw the whole of her

pent-up self. How patient the Judge had been, and the joy he had derived

from Stephen's letters. “You were very good to write to him so often,”

she said. It seemed like a dream to Stephen, like one of the many dreams

of her, the mystery of which was of the inner life beyond our ken. He

could not recall a time when she had not been rebellious, antagonistic.

And now--as he listened to her voice, with its exquisite low tones and

modulations, as he sat there in this sacred intimacy, perchance to be

the last in his life, he became dazed. His eyes, softened, with supreme

eloquence cried out that she, was his, forever and forever. The magnetic

force which God uses to tie the worlds together was pulling him to her.

And yet the Puritan resisted.

Then the door swung open, and Clarence Colfax, out of breath, ran into

the room. He stopped short when he saw them, his hand fell to his sides,

and his words died on his lips. Virginia did not stir.

It was Stephen who rose to meet him, and with her eyes the girl followed

his motions. The broad and loosely built frame of the Northerner, his

shoulders slightly stooping, contrasted with Clarence's slighter figure,

erect, compact, springy. The Southerner's eye, for that moment, was

flint struck with the spark from the steel. Stephen's face, thinned by

illness, was grave. The eyes kindly, yet penetrating. For an instant

they stood thus regarding each other, neither offering a hand. It was

Stephen who spoke first, and if there was a trace of emotion in his

voice, one who was listening intently failed to mark it.

“I am glad to see that you have recovered, Colonel Colfax,” he said.

“I should indeed be without gratitude if I did not thank Captain Brice

for my life,” answered Clarence. Virginia flushed. She had detected the

undue accent on her cousin's last words, and she glanced apprehensively

at Stephen. His forceful reply surprised them both.

“Miss Carvel has already thanked me sufficiently, sir,” he said. “I am

happy to have been able to have done you a good turn, and at the same

time to have served her so well. It was she who saved your life. It is

to her your thanks are chiefly due. I believe that I am not going too

far, Colonel Colfax,” he added, “when I congratulate you both.”

Before her cousin could recover, Virginia slid down from the desk and

had come between them. How her eyes shone and her lip trembled as she

gazed at him, Stephen has never forgotten. What a woman she was as she

took her cousin's arm and made him a curtsey.

“What you have done may seem a light thing to you, Captain Brice,” she

said. “That is apt to be the way with those who have big hearts. You

have put upon Colonel Colfax, and upon me, a life's obligation.”

When she began to speak, Clarence raised his head. As he glanced,

incredulous, from her to Stephen, his look gradually softened, and

when she had finished, his manner had become again frank, boyish,

impetuous--nay, penitent. He seized Stephen's hand.

“Forgive me, Brice,” he cried. “Forgive me. I should have known

better. I--I did you an injustice, and you, Virginia. I was a fool--a

scoundrel.” Stephen shook his head.

“No, you were neither,” he said. Then upon his face came the smile of

one who has the strength to renounce, all that is dearest to him--that

smile of the unselfish, sweetest of all. It brought tears to Virginia.

She was to see it once again, upon the features of one who bore a

cross,--Abraham Lincoln. Clarence looked, and then he turned away toward

the door to the stairway, as one who walks blindly, in a sorrow.

His hand was on the knob when Virginia seemed to awake. She flew after

him:

“Wait!” she whispered.

Then she raised her eyes, slowly, to Stephen, who was standing

motionless beside his chair.

“Captain Brice!”

“Yes,” he answered.

“My father is in the Judge's room,” she said.

“Your father!” he exclaimed. “I thought--”

“That he was an officer in the Confederate Army. So he is.” Her head

went up as she spoke.

Stephen stared at her, troubled. Suddenly her manner, changed. She took

a step toward him, appealingly.

“Oh, he is not a spy,” she cried. “He has given Mr Brinsmade his word

that he came here for no other purpose than to see me. Then he heard

that the Judge was dying--”

“He has given his word to Mr. Brinsmade?

“Yes.”

“Then,” said Stephen, “what Mr. Brinsmade sanctions is not for me to

question.”

She gave him yet another look, a fleeting one which he did not see. Then

she softly opened the door and passed into the room of the dying man.

Stephen followed her. As for Clarence, he stood for a space staring

after them. Then he went noiselessly down the stairs into the street.

CHAPTER XI. LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT

When the Judge opened his eyes for the last time in this world, they

fell first upon the face of his old friend, Colonel Carvel. Twice he

tried to speak his name, and twice he failed. The third time he said it

faintly.

“Comyn!”

“Yes, Silas.”

“Comyn, what are you doing here?

“I reckon I came to see you, Silas,” answered the Colonel.

“To see me die,” said the Judge, grimly.

Colonel Carvel's face twitched, and the silence in that little room

seemed to throb.

“Comyn,” said the Judge again, “I heard that you had gone South to fight

against your country. I see you here. Can it be that you have at last

returned in your allegiances to the flag for which your forefathers

died?”

Poor Colonel Carvel

“I am still of the same mind, Silas,” he said.

The Judge turned his face away, his thin lips moving as in prayer. But

they knew that he was not praying, “Silas,” said Mr. Carvel, “we were

friends for twenty years. Let us be friends again, before--”

“Before I die,” the Judge interrupted, “I am ready to die. Yes, I am

ready. I have had a hard life, Comyn, and few friends. It was my fault.

I--I did not know how to make them. Yet no man ever valued those few

more than! But,” he cried, the stern fire unquenched to the last, “I

would that God had spared me to see this Rebellion stamped out. For

it will be stamped out.” To those watching, his eyes seemed fixed on a

distant point, and the light of prophecy was in them. “I would that

God had spared me to see this Union supreme once more. Yes, it will

be supreme. A high destiny is reserved for this nation--! I think the

highest of all on this earth.” Amid profound silence he leaned back on

the pillows from which he had risen, his breath coming fast. None dared

look at the neighbor beside them.

It was Stephen's mother who spoke. “Would you not like to see a

clergyman, Judge?” she asked.

The look on his face softened as he turned to her.

“No, madam,” he answered; “you are clergyman enough for me. You are near

enough to God--there is no one in this room who is not worthy to stand

in the presence of death. Yet I wish that a clergyman were here, that

he might listen to one thing I have to say. When I was a boy I worked my

way down the river to New York, to see the city. I met a bishop there.

He said to me, 'Sit down, my son, I want to talk to you. I know your

father in Albany. You are Senator Whipple's son.' I said to him, 'No,

sir, I am not Senator Whipple's son. I am no relation of his.' If the

bishop had wished to talk to me after that, Mrs. Brice, he might have

made my life a little easier--a little sweeter. I know that they are not

all like that. But it was by just such things that I was embittered when

I was a boy.” He stopped, and when he spoke again, it was more slowly,

more gently, than any of them had heard him speak in all his life

before. “I wish that some of the blessings which I am leaving now had

come to me then--when I was a boy. I might have done my little share in

making the world a brighter place to live in, as all of you have done.

Yes, as all of you are now doing for me. I am leaving the world with a

better opinion of it than I ever held in life. God hid the sun from me

when I was a little child. Margaret Brice,” he said, “if I had had such

a mother as you, I would have been softened then. I thank God that He

sent you when He did.”

The widow bowed her head, and a tear fell upon his pillow.

“I have done nothing,” she murmured, “nothing.”

“So shall they answer at the last whom He has chosen,” said the Judge.

“I was sick, and ye visited me. He has promised to remember those who do

that. Hold up your head, my daughter. God has been good to you. He has

given you a son whom all men may look in the face, of whom you need

never be ashamed. Stephen,” said the Judge, “come here.”

Stephen made his way to the bedside, but because of the moisture in his

eyes he saw but dimly the gaunt face. And yet he shrank back in awe at

the change in it. So must all of the martyrs have looked when the

fire of the faggots licked their feet. So must John Bunyan have stared

through his prison bars at the sky.

“Stephen,” he said, “you have been faithful in a few things. So shall

you be made ruler over many things. The little I have I leave to you,

and the chief of this is an untarnished name. I know that you will be

true to it because I have tried your strength. Listen carefully to what

I have to say, for I have thought over it long. In the days gone by our

fathers worked for the good of the people, and they had no thought of

gain. A time is coming when we shall need that blood and that bone in

this Republic. Wealth not yet dreamed of will flow out of this land, and

the waters of it will rot all save the pure, and corrupt all save the

incorruptible. Half-tried men wilt go down before that flood. You and

those like you will remember how your fathers governed,--strongly,

sternly, justly. It was so that they governed themselves.

“Be vigilant. Serve your city, serve your state, but above all serve

your country.”

He paused to catch his breath, which was coming painfully now, and

reached out his bony hand to seek Stephen's. “I was harsh with you at

first, my son,” he went on. “I wished to try you. And when I had tried

you I wished your mind to open, to keep pace with the growth of this

nation. I sent you to see Abraham Lincoln that you might be born

again--in the West. You were born again. I saw it when you came back--I

saw it in your face. O God,” he cried, with sudden eloquence. “I would

that his hands--Abraham Lincoln's hands--might be laid upon all who

complain and cavil and criticise, and think of the little things in

life: I would that his spirit might possess their spirit!”

He stopped again. They marvelled and were awed, for never in all his

days had such speech broken from this man. “Good-by, Stephen,” he said,

when they thought he was not to speak again. “Hold the image of Abraham

Lincoln in front of you. Never forget him. You--you are a man after his

own heart--and--and mine.”

The last word was scarcely audible. They started for ward, for his eyes

were closed. But presently he stirred again, and opened them.

“Brinsmade,” he said, “Brinsmade, take care of my orphan girls. Send

Shadrach here.”

The negro came forth, shuffling and sobbing, from the doorway.

“You ain't gwine away, Marse Judge?”

“Yes, Shadrach, good-by. You have served me well, I have left you

provided for.”

Shadrach kissed the hand of whose secret charity he knew so much. Then

the Judge withdrew it, and motioned to him to rise. He called his oldest

friend by name. And Colonel Carvel came from the corner where he had

been listening, with his face drawn.

“Good-by, Comyn. You were my friend when there was none other. You were

true to me when the hand of every man was against me. You--you have

risked your life to come to me here, May God spare it for Virginia.”

At the sound of her name, the girl started. She came and bent over him.

And when she kissed him on the forehead, he trembled.

“Uncle Silas!” she faltered.

Weakly he reached up and put his hands on her shoulders. He whispered

in her ear. The tears came and lay wet upon her lashes as she undid the

button at his throat.

There, on a piece of cotton twine, hung a little key, She took it off,

but still his hands held her.

“I have saved it for you, my dear,” he said. “God bless you--” why did

his eyes seek Stephen's?--“and make your life happy. Virginia--will you

play my hymn--once more--once more?”

They lifted the night lamp from the piano, and the medicine. It was

Stephen who stripped it of the black cloth it had worn, who stood by

Virginia ready to lift the lid when she had turned the lock. The girl's

exaltation gave a trembling touch divine to the well-remembered chords,

and those who heard were lifted, lifted far above and beyond the power

of earthly spell.

“Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom

Lead Thou me on

The night is dark, and I am far from home;

Lead Thou me on.

Keep Thou my feet! I do not ask to see

The distant scene; one step enough for me.”

A sigh shook Silas Whipple's wasted frame, and he died.

Volume 8.

CHAPTER XII. THE LAST CARD

Mr. Brinsmade and the Doctor were the first to leave the little room

where Silas Whipple had lived and worked and died, Mr. Brinsmade bent

upon one of those errands which claimed him at all times. He took

Shadrach with him. Virginia sat on, a vague fear haunting her,--a fear

for her father's safety. Where was Clarence? What had he seen? Was the

place watched? These questions, at first intruding upon her sorrow,

remained to torture her.

Softly she stirred from the chair where she had sat before the piano,

and opened the door of the outer office. A clock in a steeple near by

was striking twelve. The Colonel did not raise his head. Only Stephen

saw her go; she felt his eyes following her, and as she slipped out

lifted hers to meet them for a brief instant through the opening of the

door. Then it closed behind her.

First of all she knew that the light in the outer office was burning

dimly, and the discovery gave her a shock. Who had turned it down? Had

Clarence? Was he here? Fearfully searching the room for him, her gaze

was held by a figure in the recess of the window at the back of the

room. A solid, bulky figure it was, and, though uncertainly outlined

in the semi-darkness, she knew it. She took a step nearer, and a cry

escaped her.

The man was Eliphalet Hopper. He got down from the sill with a motion

at once sheepish and stealthy. Her breath caught, and instinctively she

gave back toward the door, as if to open it again.

“Hold on!” he said. “I've got something I want to say to you, Miss

Virginia.”

His tones seemed strangely natural. They were not brutal. But she

shivered and paused, horrified at the thought of what she was about to

do. Her father was in that room--and Stephen. She must keep them there,

and get this man away. She must not show fright before him, and yet she

could not trust her voice to speak just then. She must not let him know

that she was afraid of him--this she kept repeating to herself. But how

to act? Suddenly an idea flashed upon her.

Virginia never knew how she gathered the courage to pass him, even

swiftly, and turn up the gas. He started back, blinking as the

jet flared. For a moment she stood beside it, with her head high;

confronting him and striving to steady herself for speech.

“Why have you come here?” she said. “Judge Whipple--died--to-night.”

The dominating note in his answer was a whine, as if, in spite of

himself, he were awed.

“I ain't here to see the Judge.”

She was pale, and quite motionless. And she faltered now. She felt her

lips moving, but knew not whether the words had come.

“What do you mean?”

He gained confidence. The look in his little eyes was the filmy look of

those of an animal feasting.

“I came here to see you,” he said, “--you.” She was staring at him now,

in horror. “And if you don't give me what I want, I cal'late to see some

one else--in there,” said Mr. Hopper.

He smiled, for she was swaying, her lids half closed. By a supreme

effort she conquered her terror and looked at him. The look was in his

eyes still, intensified now.

“How dare you speak to me after what has happened! she said. If Colonel

Carvel were here, he would--kill you.”

He flinched at the name and the word, involuntarily. He wiped his

forehead, hot at the very thought.

“I want to know!” he exclaimed, in faint-hearted irony. Then,

remembering his advantage, he stepped close to her.

“He is here,” he said, intense now. “He is here, in that there room.” He

seized her wrists. Virginia struggled, and yet she refrained from crying

out. “He never leaves this city without I choose. I can have him hung if

I choose,” he whispered, next to her.

“Oh!” she cried; “oh, if you choose!”

Still his body crept closer, and his face closer. And her strength was

going.

“There's but one price to pay,” he said hoarsely, “there's but one price

to pay, and that's you--you. I cal'late you'll marry me now.”

Delirious at the touch of her, he did not hear the door open. Her senses

were strained for that very sound. She heard it close again, and a

footstep across the room. She knew the step--she knew the voice, and her

heart leaped at the sound of it in anger. An arm in a blue sleeve came

between them, and Eliphalet Hopper staggered and fell across the books

on the table, his hand to his face. Above him towered Stephen Brice.

Towered was the impression that came to Virginia then, and so she

thought of the scene ever afterward. Small bits, like points of tempered

steel, glittered in Stephen's eyes, and his hands following up the

mastery he had given them clutched Mr. Hopper's shoulders. Twice Stephen

shook him so that his head beat upon the table.

“You--you beast!” he cried, but he kept his voice low. And then, as if

he expected Hopper to reply: “Shall I kill you?”

Again he shook him violently. He felt Virginia's touch on his arm.

“Stephen!” she cried, “your wounds! Be careful! Oh, do be careful!”

She had called him Stephen. He turned slowly, and his hands fell from

Mr. Hopper's cowering form as his eyes met hers. Even he could not

fathom the appeal, the yearning, in their dark blue depths. And yet what

he saw there made him tremble. She turned away, trembling too.

“Please sit down,” she entreated. “He--he won't touch me again while you

are here.”

Eliphalet Hopper raised himself from the desk, and one of the big books

fell with a crash to the floor. Then they saw him shrink, his eyes fixed

upon some one behind them. Before the Judge's door stood Colonel Carvel,

in calm, familiar posture, his feet apart, and his head bent forward as

he pulled at his goatee.

“What is this man doing here, Virginia?” he asked. She did not answer

him, nor did speech seem to come easily to Mr. Hopper in that instant.

Perhaps the sight of Colonel Carvel had brought before him too, vividly

the memory of that afternoon at Glencoe.

All at once Virginia grasped the fulness of the power in this man's

hands. At a word from him her father would be shot as a spy--and Stephen

Brice, perhaps, as a traitor. But if Colonel Carvel should learn that he

had seized her,--here was the terrible danger of the situation. Well she

knew what the Colonel would do. Would. Stephen tell him? She trusted in

his coolness that he would not.

Before a word of reply came from any of the three, a noise was heard

on the stairway. Some one was coming up. There followed four seconds

of suspense, and then Clarence came in. She saw that his face wore a

worried, dejected look. It changed instantly when he glanced about

him, and an oath broke from his lips as he singled out Eliphalet Hopper

standing in sullen aggressiveness, beside the table.

“So you're the spy, are you?” he said in disgust. Then he turned his

back and faced his uncle. “I saw, him in Williams's entry as we drove

up. He got away from me.”

A thought seemed to strike him. He strode to the open window at the back

of the office, and looked out, There was a roof under it.

“The sneak got in here,” he said. “He knew I was waiting for him in the

street. So you're the spy, are you?”

Mr. Hopper passed a heavy hand across the cheek where Stephen had struck

him.

“No, I ain't the spy,” he said, with a meaning glance at the Colonel.

“Then what are you doing here?” demanded Clarence, fiercely.

“I cal'late that he knows,” Eliphalet replied, jerking his head toward

Colonel Carvel. “Where's his Confederate uniform? What's to prevent my

calling up the provost's guard below?” he continued, with a smile that

was hideous on his swelling face.

It was the Colonel who answered him, very quickly and very clearly.

“Nothing whatever, Mr. Hopper,” he said. “This is the way out.” He

pointed at the door. Stephen, who was watching him, could not tell

whether it were a grim smile that creased the corners of the Colonel's

mouth as he added. “You might prefer the window.”

Mr. Hopper did not move, but his eyes shifted to Virginia's form.

Stephen deliberately thrust himself between them that he might not see

her.

“What are you waiting for?” said the Colonel, in the mild voice that

should have been an ominous warning. Still Mr. Hopper did not move. It

was clear that he had not reckoned upon all of this; that he had waited

in the window to deal with Virginia alone. But now the very force of a

desire which had gathered strength in many years made him reckless. His

voice took on the oily quality in which he was wont to bargain.

“Let's be calm about this business, Colonel,” he said. “We won't say

anything about the past. But I ain't set on having you shot. There's a

consideration that would stop me, and I cal'late you know what it is.”

Then the Colonel made a motion. But before he had taken a step Virginia

had crossed the room swiftly, and flung herself upon him.

“Oh, don't, Pa!” she cried. “Don't! Tell him that I will agree to it.

Yes, I will. I can't have you--shot.” The last word came falteringly,

faintly.

“Let me go,--honey,” whispered the Colonel, gently. His eyes did not

leave Eliphalet. He tried to disengage himself, but her fingers were

clasped about his neck in a passion of fear and love. And then, while

she clung to him, her head was raised to listen. The sound of Stephen

Brice's voice held her as in a spell. His words were coming coldly,

deliberately, and yet so sharply that each seemed to fall like a lash.

“Mr. Hopper, if ever I hear of your repeating what you have seen or

heard in this room, I will make this city and this state too hot for

you to live in. I know you. I know how you hide in areas, how you talk

sedition in private, how you have made money out of other men's misery.

And, what is more, I can prove that you have had traitorous dealings

with the Confederacy. General Sherman has been good enough to call

himself a friend of mine, and if he prosecutes you for your dealings

in Memphis, you will get a term in a Government prison, You ought to be

hung. Colonel Carvel has shown you the door. Now go.”

And Mr. Hopper went.

CHAPTER XIII. FROM THE LETTERS OF MAJOR STEPHEN BRICE

Of the Staff of General Sherman on the March to the Sea, and on the

March from Savannah Northward.

HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI GOLDSBORO, N.C. MARCH

24, 1865

DEAR MOTHER: The South Carolina Campaign is a thing of the past. I pause

as I write these words--they seem so incredible to me. We have marched

the four hundred and twenty-five miles in fifty days, and the General

himself has said that it is the longest and most important march ever

made by an organized army in a civilized country. I know that you will

not be misled by the words “civilized country.” Not until the history of

this campaign is written will the public realize the wide rivers and

all but impassable swamps we have crossed with our baggage trains and

artillery. The roads (by courtesy so called) were a sea of molasses and

every mile of them has had to be corduroyed. For fear of worrying you I

did not write you from Savannah how they laughed at us for starting at

that season of the year. They said we would not go ten miles, and I most

solemnly believe that no one but “Uncle Billy” and an army organized and

equipped by him could have gone ten miles. Nothing seems to stop him.

You have probably remarked in the tone of my letters ever since we left

Kingston for the sea, a growing admiration for “my General.”

It seems very strange that this wonderful tactician can be the same man

I met that day going to the Arsenal in the streetcar, and again at Camp

Jackson. I am sure that history will give him a high place among the

commanders of the world. Certainly none was ever more tireless than

he. He never fights a battle when it can be avoided, and his march into

Columbia while threatening Charleston and Augusta was certainly a master

stroke of strategy.

I think his simplicity his most remarkable trait. You should see him as

he rides through the army, an erect figure, with his clothes all angular

and awry, and an expanse of white sock showing above his low shoes.

You can hear his name running from file to file; and some times the

new regiments can't resist cheering. He generally says to the

Colonel:--“Stop that noise, sir. Don't like it.”

On our march to the sea, if the orders were ever given to turn

northward, “the boys” would get very much depressed. One moonlight night

I was walking my horse close to the General's over the pine needles,

when we overheard this conversation between two soldiers:-- “Say, John,”

said one, “I guess Uncle Billy don't know our corps is goin' north.”

“I wonder if he does,'” said John. “If I could only get a sight of them

white socks, I'd know it was all right.”

The General rode past without a word, but I heard him telling the story

to Mower the next day.

I can find little if any change in his manner since I knew him first.

He is brusque, but kindly, and he has the same comradeship with officers

and men--and even the negroes who flock to our army. But few dare to

take advantage of it, and they never do so twice. I have been very near

to him, and have tried not to worry him or ask many foolish questions.

Sometimes on the march he will beckon me to close up to him, and we have

a conversation something on this order:-- “There's Kenesaw, Brice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Pointing with his arm.

“Went beyond lines there with small party. Rebel battery on summit. Had

to git. Fired on. Next day I thought Rebels would leave in the night.

Got up before daylight, fixed telescope on stand, and waited. Watched

top of Kenesaw. No Rebel. Saw one blue man creep up, very cautious,

looked around, waved his hat. Rebels gone. Thought so.”

This gives you but a faint idea of the vividness of his talk. When we

make a halt for any time, the general officers and their staffs flock

to headquarters to listen to his stories. When anything goes wrong, his

perception of it is like a lightning flash,--and he acts as quickly.

By the way, I have just found the letter he wrote me, offering this

staff position. Please keep it carefully, as it is something I shall

value all my life.

GAYLESVILLE, ALABAMA, October 25, 1864.

MAJOR STEPHEN A. BRICE:

Dear Sir,--The world goes on, and wicked men sound asleep. Davis

has sworn to destroy my army, and Beauregard has come to do the

work,--so if you expect to share in our calamity, come down. I

offer you this last chance for staff duty, and hope you have had

enough in the field. I do not wish to hurry you, but you can't get

aboard a ship at sea. So if you want to make the trip, come to

Chattanooga and take your chances of meeting me.

Yours truly,

W. T. SHERMAN, Major General.

One night--at Cheraw, I think it was--he sent for me to talk to him. I

found him lying on a bed of Spanish moss they had made for him. He asked

me a great many questions about St. Louis, and praised Mr. Brinsmade,

especially his management of the Sanitary Commission.

“Brice,” he said, after a while, “you remember when Grant sent me to

beat off Joe Johnston's army from Vicksburg. You were wounded then, by

the way, in that dash Lauman made. Grant thought he ought to warn me

against Johnston.

“'He's wily, Sherman,' said he. 'He's a dangerous man.'

“'Grant,' said I, 'you give me men enough and time enough to look over

the ground, and I'm not afraid of the devil.'”

Nothing could sum up the man better than that. And now what a trick of

fate it is that he has Johnston before him again, in what we hope will

prove the last gasp of the war! He likes Johnston, by the way, and has

the greatest respect for him.

I wish you could have peeped into our camp once in a while. In the rare

bursts of sunshine on this march our premises have been decorated with

gay red blankets, and sombre gray ones brought from the quartermasters,

and white Hudson's Bay blankets (not so white now), all being between

forked sticks. It is wonderful how the pitching of a few tents, and the

busy crackle of a few fires, and the sound of voices--sometimes merry,

sometimes sad, depending on the weather, will change the look of a

lonely pine knoll. You ask me how we fare. I should be heartily ashamed

if a word of complaint ever fell from my lips. But the men! Whenever I

wake up at night with my feet in a puddle between the blankets, I think

of the men. The corduroy roads which our horses stumble over through the

mud, they make as well as march on. Our flies are carried in wagons,

and our utensils and provisions. They must often bear on their backs the

little dog-tents, under which, put up by their own labor, they crawl

to sleep, wrapped in a blanket they have carried all day, perhaps waist

deep in water. The food they eat has been in their haversacks for many a

weary mile, and is cooked in the little skillet and pot which have

also been a part of their burden. Then they have their musket and

accoutrements, and the “forty rounds” at their backs. Patiently,

cheerily tramping along, going they know not where, nor care much

either, so it be not in retreat. Ready to make roads, throw up works,

tear up railroads, or hew out and build wooden bridges; or, best of all,

to go for the Johnnies under hot sun or heavy rain, through swamp and

mire and quicksand. They marched ten miles to storm Fort McAllister. And

how the cheers broke from them when the pop pop pop of the skirmish line

began after we came in sight of Savannah! No man who has seen but not

shared their life may talk of personal hardship.

We arrived at this pretty little town yesterday, so effecting a junction

with Schofield, who got in with the 3d Corps the day before. I am

writing at General Schofield's headquarters. There was a bit of a battle

on Tuesday at Bentonville, and we have come hither in smoke, as usual.

But this time we thank Heaven that it is not the smoke of burning

homes,--only some resin the “Johnnies” set on fire before they left.

I must close. General Sherman has just sent for me.

ON BOARD DESPATCH BOAT “MARTIN.”

AT SEA, March 25, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER: A most curious thing has happened. But I may as well begin

at the beginning. When I stopped writing last evening at the summons

of the General, I was about to tell you something of the battle of

Bentonville on Tuesday last. Mower charged through as bad a piece

of wood and swamp as I ever saw, and got within one hundred yards of

Johnston himself, who was at the bridge across Mill Creek. Of course we

did not know this at the time, and learned it from prisoners.

As I have written you, I have been under fire very little since coming

to the staff. When the battle opened, however, I saw that if I stayed

with the General (who was then behind the reserves) I would see little

or nothing; I went ahead “to get information” beyond the line of battle

into the woods. I did not find these favorable to landscape views, and

just as I was turning my horse back again I caught sight of a commotion

some distance to my right. The Rebel skirmish line had fallen back just

that instant, two of our skirmishers were grappling with a third man,

who was fighting desperately. It struck me as singular that the fellow

was not in gray, but had on some sort of dark clothes.

I could not reach them in the swamp on horseback, and was in the act of

dismounting when the man fell, and then they set out to carry him to the

rear, still farther to my right, beyond the swamp. I shouted, and one of

the skirmishers came up. I asked him what the matter was.

“We've got a spy, sir,” he said excitedly.

“A spy! Here?”

“Yes, Major. He was hid in the thicket yonder, lying flat on his face.

He reckoned that our boys would run right over him and that he'd get

into our lines that way. Tim Foley stumbled on him, and he put up as

good a fight with his fists as any man I ever saw.”

Just then a regiment swept past us. That night I told the General, who

sent over to the headquarters of the 17th Corps to inquire. The word

came back that the man's name was Addison, and he claimed to be a Union

sympathizer who owned a plantation near by. He declared that he had been

conscripted by the Rebels, wounded, sent back home, and was now about to

be pressed in again. He had taken this method of escaping to our lines.

It was a common story enough, but General Mower added in his message

that he thought the story fishy. This was because the man's appearance

was very striking, and he seemed the type of Confederate fighter who

would do and dare anything. He had a wound, which had been a bad one,

evidently got from a piece of shell. But they had been able to find

nothing on him. Sherman sent back word to keep the man until he could

see him in person. It was about nine o'clock last night when I reached

the house the General has taken. A prisoner's guard was resting outside,

and the hall was full of officers. They said that the General was

awaiting me, and pointed to the closed door of a room that had been the

dining room. I opened it.

Two candles were burning in pewter sticks on the bare mahogany table.

There was the General sitting beside them, with his legs crossed,

holding some crumpled tissue paper very near his eyes, and reading. He

did not look up when I entered. I was aware of a man standing, tall and

straight, just out of range of the candles' rays. He wore the easy dress

of a Southern planter, with the broad felt hat. The head was flung back

so that there was just a patch of light on the chin, and the lids of the

eyes in the shadow were half closed.

My sensations are worth noting. For the moment I felt precisely as I

had when I was hit by that bullet in Lauman's charge. I was aware of

something very like pain, yet I could not place the cause of it. But

this is what since has made me feel queer: you doubtless remember

staying at Hollingdean, when I was a boy, and hearing the story of Lord

Northwell's daredevil Royalist ancestor,--the one with the lace collar

over the dull-gold velvet, and the pointed chin, and the lazy scorn in

the eyes. Those eyes are painted with drooping lids. The first time I

saw Clarence Colfax I thought of that picture--and now I thought of the

picture first.

The General's voice startled me.

“Major Brice, do you know this gentleman?” he asked.

“Yes, General.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is Colfax, sir--Colonel Colfax, I think”

“Thought so,” said the General.

I have thought much of that scene since, as I am steaming northward over

green seas and under cloudless skies, and it has seemed very unreal. I

should almost say supernatural when I reflect how I have run across this

man again and again, and always opposing him. I can recall just how he

looked at the slave auction, which seem, so long ago: very handsome,

very boyish, and yet with the air of one to be deferred to. It was

sufficiently remarkable that I should have found him in Vicksburg. But

now--to be brought face to face with him in this old dining room in

Goldsboro! And he a prisoner. He had not moved. I did not know how he

would act, but I went up to him and held out my hand, and said.--“How do

you do, Colonel Colfax?”

I am sure that my voice was not very steady, for I cannot help liking

him And then his face lighted up and he gave me his hand. And he smiled

at me and again at the General, as much as to say that it was all over.

He has a wonderful smile.

“We seem to run into each other, Major Brice,” said he.

The pluck of the man was superb. I could see that the General, too,

was moved, from the way he looked at him. And he speaks a little more

abruptly at such times.

“Guess that settles it, Colonel,” he said.

“I reckon it does, General,” said Clarence, still smiling. The General

turned from him to the table with a kind of jerk and clapped his hand on

the tissue paper.

“These speak for themselves, sir,” he said. “It is very plain that they

would have reached the prominent citizens for whom they were intended if

you had succeeded in your enterprise. You were captured out of uniform

You know enough of war to appreciate the risk you ran. Any statement to

make?”

“No, sir.”

“Call Captain Vaughan, Brice, and ask him to conduct the prisoner back.”

“May I speak to him, General?” I asked. The General nodded.

I asked him if I could write home for him or do anything else. That

seemed to touch him. Some day I shall tell you what he said.

Then Vaughan took him out, and I heard the guard shoulder arms and tramp

away in the night. The General and I were left alone with the mahogany

table between us, and a family portrait of somebody looking down on

us from the shadow on the wall. A moist spring air came in at the open

windows, and the candles flickered. After a silence, I ventured to say:

“I hope he won't be shot, General.”

“Don't know, Brice,” he answered. “Can't tell now. Hate to shoot him,

but war is war. Magnificent class he belongs to--pity we should have to

fight those fellows.”

He paused, and drummed on the table. “Brice,” said he, “I'm going to

send you to General Grant at City Point with despatches. I'm sorry Dunn

went back yesterday, but it can't be helped. Can you start in half an

hour?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You'll have to ride to Kinston. The railroad won't be through until

to-morrow: I'll telegraph there, and to General Easton at Morehead City.

He'll have a boat for you. Tell Grant I expect to run up there in a

day or two myself, when things are arranged here. You may wait until I

come.”

“Yes, sir.”

I turned to go, but Clarence Colfax was on my mind “General?”

“Eh! what?”

“General, could you hold Colonel Colfax until I see you again?”

It was a bold thing to say, and I quaked. And he looked at me in his

keen way, through and through “You saved his life once before, didn't

you?”

“You allowed me to have him sent home from Vicksburg, sir.”

He answered with one of his jokes--apropos of something he said on the

Court House steps at Vicksburg. Perhaps I shall tell it to you sometime.

“Well, well,” he said, “I'll see, I'll see. Thank God this war is pretty

near over. I'll let you know, Brice, before I shoot him.”

I rode the thirty odd miles to Kinston in--little more than three hours.

A locomotive was waiting for me, and I jumped into a cab with a friendly

engineer. Soon we were roaring seaward through the vast pine forests.

It was a lonely journey, and you were much in my mind. My greatest

apprehension was that we might be derailed and the despatches captured;

for as fast as our army had advanced, the track of it had closed again,

like the wake of a ship at sea. Guerillas were roving about, tearing up

ties and destroying bridges.

There was one five-minute interval of excitement when, far down the

tunnel through the forest, we saw a light gleaming. The engineer said

there was no house there, that it must be a fire. But we did not slacken

our speed, and gradually the leaping flames grew larger and redder until

we were upon them.

Not one gaunt figure stood between them and us. Not one shot broke the

stillness of the night. As dawn broke I beheld the flat, gray waters of

the Sound stretching away to the eastward, and there was the boat at the

desolate wharf beside the warehouse, her steam rising white in the chill

morning air.

CHAPTER XIV. THE SAME, CONTINUED

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES,

CITY POINT, VIRGINIA, March 28, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER: I arrived here safely the day before yesterday, and I hope

that you will soon receive some of the letters I forwarded on that day.

It is an extraordinary place, this City Point; a military city sprung up

like a mushroom in a winter. And my breath was quite taken away when I

first caught sight of it on the high table-land. The great bay in front

of it, which the Appomattox helps to make, is a maze of rigging and

smoke-pipes, like the harbor of a prosperous seaport. There are gunboats

and supply boats, schooners and square-riggers and steamers, all huddled

together, and our captain pointed out to me the 'Malvern' flying Admiral

Porter's flag. Barges were tied up at the long wharves, and these were

piled high with wares and flanked by squat warehouses. Although it

was Sunday, a locomotive was puffing and panting along the foot of the

ragged bank.

High above, on the flat promontory between the two rivers, is the city

of tents and wooden huts, the great trees in their fresh faint green

towering above the low roofs. At the point of the bluff a large flag

drooped against its staff, and I did not have to be told that this was

General Grant's headquarters.

There was a fine steamboat lying at the wharf, and I had hardly stepped

ashore before they told me she was President Lincoln's. I read the name

on her--the 'River Queen'. Yes, the President is here, too, with his

wife and family.

There are many fellows here with whom I was brought up in Boston. I am

living with Jack Hancock, whom you will remember well. He is a captain

now, and has a beard.

But I must go on with my story. I went straight to General Grant's

headquarters,--just a plain, rough slat house such as a contractor might

build for a temporary residence. Only the high flagstaff and the Stars

and Stripes distinguish it from many others of the same kind. A group of

officers stood chatting outside of it, and they told me that the General

had walked over to get his mail. He is just as unassuming and democratic

as “my general.” General Rankin took me into the office, a rude room,

and we sat down at the long table there. Presently the door opened,

and a man came in with a slouch hat on and his coat unbuttoned. He was

smoking a cigar. We rose to our feet, and I saluted.

It was the general-in-chief. He stared at me, but said nothing.

“General, this is Major Brice of General Sherman's staff. He has brought

despatches from Goldsboro,” said Rankin.

He nodded, took off his hat and laid it on the table, and reached out

for the despatches. While reading them he did not move, except to light

another cigar. I am getting hardened to unrealities,--perhaps I should

say marvels, now. Our country abounds in them. It did not seem so

strange that this silent General with the baggy trousers was the man who

had risen by leaps and bounds in four years to be general-in-chief of

our armies. His face looks older and more sunken than it did on that

day in the street near the Arsenal, in St. Louis, when he was just a

military carpet-bagger out of a job. He is not changed otherwise. But

how different the impressions made by the man in authority and the same

man out of authority!

He made a sufficient impression upon me then, as I told you at the time.

That was because I overheard his well-merited rebuke to Hopper. But I

little dreamed that I was looking on the man who was to come out of the

West and save this country from disunion. And how quietly and simply he

has done it, without parade or pomp or vainglory. Of all those who, with

every means at their disposal, have tried to conquer Lee, he is the

only one who has in any manner succeeded. He has been able to hold him

fettered while Sherman has swept the Confederacy. And these are the two

men who were unknown when the war began.

When the General had finished reading the despatches, he folded them

quickly and put them in his pocket.

“Sit down and tell me about this last campaign of yours, Major,” he

said.

I talked with him for about half an hour. I should rather say talked to

him. He is a marked contrast to Sherman in this respect. I believe that

he only opened his lips to ask two questions. You may well believe that

they were worth the asking, and they revealed an intimate knowledge of

our march from Savannah. I was interrupted many times by the arrival

of different generals, aides, etc. He sat there smoking, imperturbable.

Sometimes he said “yes” or “no,” but oftener he merely nodded his head.

Once he astounded by a brief question an excitable young lieutenant, who

floundered. The General seemed to know more than he about the matter he

had in hand.

When I left him, he asked me where I was quartered, and said he hoped I

would be comfortable.

Jack Hancock was waiting for me, and we walked around the city, which

even has barber shops. Everywhere were signs of preparation, for the

roads are getting dry, and the General preparing for a final campaign

against Lee. Poor Lee! What a marvellous fight he has made with his

material. I think that he will be reckoned among the greatest generals

of our race.

Of course, I was very anxious to get a glimpse of the President, and

so we went down to the wharf, where we heard that he had gone off for

a horseback ride. They say that he rides nearly every day, over the

corduroy roads and through the swamps, and wherever the boys see that

tall hat they cheer. They know it as well as the lookout tower on the

flats of Bermuda Hundred. He lingers at the campfires and swaps stories

with the officers, and entertains the sick and wounded in the hospitals.

Isn't it like him?

He hasn't changed, either. I believe that the great men don't change.

Away with your Napoleons and your Marlboroughs and your Stuarts. These

are the days of simple men who command by force of character, as well as

knowledge. Thank God for the American! I believe that he will change the

world, and strip it of its vainglory and hypocrisy.

In the evening, as we were sitting around Hancock's fire, an officer

came in.

“Is Major Brice here?” he asked. I jumped up.

“The President sends his compliments, Major, and wants to know if you

would care to pay him a little visit.”

If I would care to pay him a little visit! That officer had to hurry to

keep up with the as I walked to the wharf. He led me aboard the River

Queen, and stopped at the door of the after-cabin.

Mr. Lincoln was sitting under the lamp, slouched down in his chair,

in the position I remembered so well. It was as if I had left him but

yesterday. He was whittling, and he had made some little toy for his son

Tad, who ran out as I entered.

When he saw me, the President rose to his great height, a sombre,

towering figure in black. He wears a scraggly beard now. But the sad

smile, the kindly eyes in their dark caverns, the voice--all were just

the same. I stopped when I looked upon the face. It was sad and lined

when I had known it, but now all the agony endured by the millions,

North and South, seemed written on it.

“Don't you remember me, Major?” he asked.

The wonder was that he had remembered me! I took his big, bony hand,

which reminded me of Judge Whipple's. Yes, it was just as if I had been

with him always, and he were still the gaunt country lawyer.

“Yes, sir,” I said, “indeed I do.”

He looked at me with that queer expression of mirth he sometimes has.

“Are these Boston ways, Steve?” he asked. “They're tenacious. I didn't

think that any man could travel so close to Sherman and keep 'em.”

“They're unfortunate ways, sir,” I said, “if they lead you to misjudge

me.”

He laid his hand on my shoulder, just as he had done at Freeport.

“I know you, Steve,” he said. “I shuck an ear of corn before I buy it.

I've kept tab on you a little the last five years, and when I heard

Sherman had sent a Major Brice up here, I sent for you.”

What I said was boyish. “I tried very hard to get a glimpse of you

to-day, Mr. Lincoln. I wanted to see you again.”

He was plainly pleased.

“I'm glad to hear it, Steve,” he said. “Then you haven't joined the

ranks of the grumblers? You haven't been one of those who would have

liked to try running this country for a day or two, just to show me how

to do it?”

“No, sir,” I said, laughing.

“Good!” he cried, slapping his knee. “I didn't think you were that kind,

Steve. Now sit down and tell me about this General of mine who wears

seven-leagued boots. What was it--four hundred and twenty miles in fifty

days? How many navigable rivers did he step across?” He began to count

on those long fingers of his. “The Edisto, the Broad, the Catawba, the

Pedee, and--?”

“The Cape Fear,” I said.

“Is--is the General a nice man?” asked Mr. Lincoln, his eyes twinkling.

“Yes, sir, he is that,” I answered heartily. “And not a man in the

army wants anything when he is around. You should see that Army of the

Mississippi, sir. They arrived in Goldsboro' in splendid condition.”

He got up and gathered his coat-tails under his arms, and began to walk

up and down the cabin.

“What do the boys call the General?” he asked.

I told him “Uncle Billy.” And, thinking the story of the white socks

might amuse him, I told him that. It did amuse him.

“Well, now,” he said, “any man that has a nickname like that is all

right. That's the best recommendation you can give the General--just

say 'Uncle Billy.'” He put one lip over the other. “You've given 'Uncle

Billy' a good recommendation, Steve,” he said. “Did you ever hear the

story of Mr. Wallace's Irish gardener?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, when Wallace was hiring his gardener he asked him whom he had

been living with.

“'Misther Dalton, sorr.'

“'Have you a recommendation, Terence?'

“'A ricommindation is it, sorr? Sure I have nothing agin Misther

Dalton, though he moightn't be knowing just the respict the likes of a

first-class garthener is entitled to.'”

He did not laugh. He seldom does, it seems, at his own stories. But

I could not help laughing over the “ricommindation” I had given the

General. He knew that I was embarrassed, and said kindly:-- “Now tell

me something about 'Uncle Billy's Bummers.' I hear that they have a most

effectual way of tearing up railroads.”

I told him of Poe's contrivance of the hook and chain, and how the

heaviest rails were easily overturned with it, and how the ties were

piled and fired and the rails twisted out of shape. The President

listened to every word with intense interest.

“By Jing!” he exclaimed, “we have got a general. Caesar burnt his

bridges behind him, but Sherman burns his rails. Now tell me some more.”

He helped me along by asking questions. Then I began to tell him how

the negroes had flocked into our camps, and how simply and plainly the

General had talked to them, advising them against violence of any kind,

and explaining to them that “Freedom” meant only the liberty to earn

their own living in their own way, and not freedom from work.

“We have got a general, sure enough,” he cried. “He talks to them

plainly, does he, so that they understand? I say to you, Brice,” he went

on earnestly, “the importance of plain talk can't be overestimated. Any

thought, however abstruse, can be put in speech that a boy or a

negro can grasp. Any book, however deep, can be written in terms that

everybody can comprehend, if a man only tries hard enough. When I was a

boy I used to hear the neighbors talking, and it bothered me so because

I could not understand them that I used to sit up half the night

thinking things out for myself. I remember that I did not know what the

word demonstrate meant. So I stopped my studies then and there and got a

volume of Euclid. Before I got through I could demonstrate everything in

it, and I have never been bothered with demonstrate since.”

I thought of those wonderfully limpid speeches of his: of the Freeport

debates, and of the contrast between his style and Douglas's. And I

understood the reason for it at last. I understood the supreme mind that

had conceived the Freeport Question. And as I stood before him then, at

the close of this fearful war, the words of the Gospel were in my mind.

'So the last shall be first, and the first, last; for many be called,

but few chosen.'

How I wished that all those who have maligned and tortured him could

talk with him as I had talked with him. To know his great heart would

disarm them of all antagonism. They would feel, as I feel, that his life

is so much nobler than theirs, and his burdens so much heavier, that

they would go away ashamed of their criticism.

He said to me once, “Brice, I hope we are in sight of the end, now. I

hope that we may get through without any more fighting. I don't want to

see any more of our countrymen killed. And then,” he said, as if talking

to himself, “and then we must show them mercy--mercy.”

I thought it a good time to mention Colfax's case. He has been on my

mind ever since. Mr. Lincoln listened attentively. Once he sighed, and

he was winding his long fingers around each other while I talked.

“I saw the man captured, Mr. Lincoln,” I concluded, “And if a

technicality will help him out, he was actually within his own skirmish

line at the time. The Rebel skirmishers had not fallen back on each side

of him.”

“Brice,” he said, with that sorrowful smile, “a technicality might save

Colfax, but it won't save me. Is this man a friend of yours?” he asked.

That was a poser.

“I think he is, Mr. Lincoln. I should like to call him so. I admire

him.” And I went on to tell of what he had done at Vicksburg, leaving

out, however, my instrumentality in having him sent north. The President

used almost Sherman's words.

“By Jing!” he exclaimed. (That seems to be a favorite expression of

his.) “Those fellows were born to fight. If it wasn't for them, the

South would have quit long ago.” Then he looked at me in his funny way,

and said, “See here, Steve, if this Colfax isn't exactly a friend of

yours, there must be some reason why you are pleading for him in this

way.”

“Well, sir,” I said, at length, “I should like to get him off on account

of his cousin, Miss Virginia Carvel. And I told him something about

Miss Carvel, and how she had helped you with the Union sergeant that day

in the hot hospital. And how she had nursed Judge Whipple.”

“She's a fine woman,” he said. “Those women have helped those men to

prolong this war about three years.”

“And yet we must save them for the nation's sake. They are to be the

mothers of our patriots in days to come. Is she a friend of yours, too,

Steve?”

What was I to say?

“Not especially, sir,” I answered finally. “I have had to offend her

rather often. But I know that she likes my mother.”

“Why!” he cried, jumping up, “she's a daughter of Colonel Carvel. I

always had an admiration for that man. An ideal Southern gentleman of

the old school,--courteous, as honorable and open as the day, and as

brave as a lion. You've heard the story of how he threw a man named

Babcock out of his store, who tried to bribe him?”

“I heard you tell it in that tavern, sir. And I have heard it since.” It

did me good to hear the Colonel praised.

“I always liked that story,” he said. “By the way, what's become of the

Colonel?”

“He got away--South, sir,” I answered. “He couldn't stand it. He hasn't

been heard of since the summer of '63. They think he was killed in

Texas. But they are not positive. They probably never will be,” I added.

He was silent awhile.

“Too bad!” he said. “Too bad. What stuff those men are made of! And so

you want me to pardon this Colfax?”

“It would be presumptuous in me to go that far, sir,” I replied. “But I

hoped you might speak of it to the General when he comes. And I would be

glad of the opportunity to testify.”

He took a few strides up and down the room.

“Well, well,” he said, “that's my vice--pardoning, saying yes. It's

always one more drink with me. It--” he smiled--“it makes me sleep

better. I've pardoned enough Rebels to populate New Orleans. Why,” he

continued, with his whimsical look, “just before I left Washington, in

comes one of your Missouri senators with a list of Rebels who are shut

up in McDowell's and Alton. I said:-- “'Senator, you're not going to ask

me to turn loose all those at once?'

“He said just what you said when you were speaking of Missouri a while

ago, that he was afraid of guerilla warfare, and that the war was nearly

over. I signed 'em. And then what does he do but pull out another batch

longer than the first! And those were worse than the first.

“'What! you don't want me to turn these loose, too?'

“'Yes, I do, Mr. President. I think it will pay to be merciful.'

“'Then durned if I don't,' I said, and I signed 'em.”

STEAMER “RIVER QUEEN.”

ON THE POTOMAC, April 9, 1865.

DEAR MOTHER: I am glad that the telegrams I have been able to send

reached you safely. I have not had time to write, and this will be but a

short letter.

You will be surprised to see this heading. I am on the President's boat,

in the President's party, bound with him for Washington. And this is how

it happened: The very afternoon of the day I wrote you, General Sherman

himself arrived at City Point on the steamer 'Russia'. I heard the

salutes, and was on the wharf to meet him. That same afternoon he and

General Grant and Admiral Porter went aboard the River Queen to see

the President. How I should have liked to be present at that interview!

After it was over they all came out of the cabin together General Grant

silent, and smoking, as usual; General Sherman talking vivaciously;

and Lincoln and the Admiral smiling and listening. That was historic!

I shall never expect to see such a sight again in all my days. You

can imagine my surprise when the President called me from where I was

standing at some distance with the other officers. He put his hand on my

shoulder then and there, and turned to General Sherman.

“Major Brice is a friend of mine, General,” he said. “I knew him in

Illinois.”

“He never told me that,” said the General.

“I guess he's got a great many important things shut up inside of him,”

said Mr. Lincoln, banteringly. “But he gave you a good recommendation,

Sherman. He said that you wore white socks, and that the boys liked

you and called you 'Uncle Billy.' And I told him that was the best

recommendation he could give anybody.”

I was frightened. But the General only looked at me with those eyes that

go through everything, and then he laughed.

“Brice,” he said, “You'll have my reputation ruined.”

“Sherman,” said Mr. Lincoln, “you don't want the Major right away, do

you? Let him stay around here for a while with me. I think he'll find it

interesting.” He looked at the general-in-chief, who was smiling just

a little bit. “I've got a sneaking notion that Grant's going to do

something.”

Then they all laughed.

“Certainly, Mr. Lincoln,” said my General, “you may have Brice. Be

careful he doesn't talk you to death--he's said too much already.”

That is how I came to stay.

I have no time now to tell you all that I have seen and heard. I have

ridden with the President, and have gone with him on errands of mercy

and errands of cheer. I have been almost within sight of what we hope is

the last struggle of this frightful war. I have listened to the guns of

Five Forks, where Sheridan and Warren bore their own colors in the front

of the charge, I was with Mr. Lincoln while the battle of Petersburg was

raging, and there were tears in his eyes.

Then came the retreat of Lee and the instant pursuit of Grant,

and--Richmond. The quiet General did not so much as turn aside to enter

the smoking city he had besieged for so long. But I went there, with the

President. And if I had one incident in my life to live over again, I

should choose this. As we were going up the river, a disabled steamer

lay across the passage in the obstruction of piles the Confederates had

built. Mr. Lincoln would not wait. There were but a few of us in his

party, and we stepped into Admiral Porter's twelve-oared barge and were

rowed to Richmond, the smoke of the fires still darkening the sky. We

landed within a block of Libby Prison.

With the little guard of ten sailors he marched the mile and a half

to General Weitzel's headquarters,--the presidential mansion of the

Confederacy. You can imagine our anxiety. I shall remember him always as

I saw him that day, a tall, black figure of sorrow, with the high silk

hat we have learned to love. Unafraid, his heart rent with pity, he

walked unharmed amid such tumult as I have rarely seen. The windows

filled, the streets ahead of us became choked, as the word that the

President was coming ran on like quick-fire. The mob shouted and

pushed. Drunken men reeled against him. The negroes wept aloud and cried

hosannas. They pressed upon him that they might touch the hem of his

coat, and one threw himself on his knees and kissed the President's

feet.

Still he walked on unharmed, past the ashes and the ruins. Not as a

conqueror was he come, to march in triumph. Not to destroy, but to heal.

Though there were many times when we had to fight for a path through the

crowds, he did not seem to feel the danger.

Was it because he knew that his hour was not yet come?

To-day, on the boat, as we were steaming between the green shores of the

Potomac, I overheard him reading to Mr. Sumner:--

“Duncan is in his grave;

After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;

Treason has done his worst; nor steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,

Can touch him further.”

WILLARD'S HOTEL, WASHINGTON, April 10, 1865.

I have looked up the passage, and have written it in above. It haunts

me.

CHAPTER XV. MAN OF SORROW

The train was late--very late. It was Virginia who first caught sight

of the new dome of the Capitol through the slanting rain, but she merely

pressed her lips together and said nothing. In the dingy brick station

of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad more than one person paused to look

after them, and a kind-hearted lady who had been in the car kissed the

girl good-by.

“You think that you can find your uncle's house, my dear?” she asked,

glancing at Virginia with concern. Through all of that long journey she

had worn a look apart. “Do you think you can find your uncle's house?”

Virginia started. And then she smiled as she looked at the honest,

alert, and squarely built gentleman beside her.

“Captain Brent can, Mrs. Ware,” she said. “He can find anything.”

Whereupon the kind lady gave the Captain her hand. “You look as if you

could, Captain,” said she. “Remember, if General Carvel is out of town,

you promised to bring her to me.”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Captain Lige, “and so I shall.”

“Kerridge, kerridge! Right dis-a-way! No sah, dat ain't de kerridge

you wants. Dat's it, lady, you'se lookin at it. Kerridge, kerridge,

kerridge!”

Virginia tried bravely to smile, but she was very near to tears as she

stood on the uneven pavement and looked at the scrawny horses standing

patiently in the steady downpour. All sorts of people were coming

and going, army officers and navy officers and citizens of states and

territories, driving up and driving away.

And this was Washington!

She was thinking then of the multitude who came here with aching

hearts,--with heavier hearts than was hers that day. How many of the

throng hurrying by would not flee, if they could, back to the peaceful

homes they had left? But perhaps those homes were gone now. Destroyed,

like her own, by the war. Women with children at their breasts, and

mothers bowed with sorrow, had sought this city in their agony. Young

men and old had come hither, striving to keep back the thoughts of dear

ones left behind, whom they might never see again. And by the thousands

and tens of thousands they had passed from here to the places of blood

beyond.

“Kerridge, sah! Kerridge!”

“Do you know where General Daniel Carvel lives?”

“Yes, sah, reckon I does. I Street, sah. Jump right in, sah.”

Virginia sank back on the stuffy cushions of the rattle-trap, and then

sat upright again and stared out of the window at the dismal scene. They

were splashing through a sea of mud. Ever since they had left St. Louis,

Captain Lige had done his best to cheer her, and he did not intend to

desist now.

“This beats all,” he cried. “So this is Washington, Why, it don't

compare to St. Louis, except we haven't got the White House and the

Capitol. Jinny, it would take a scow to get across the street, and we

don't have ramshackly stores and nigger cabins bang up against fine

Houses like that. This is ragged. That's what it is, ragged. We don't

have any dirty pickaninnies dodging among the horses in our residence

streets. I declare, Jinny, if those aren't pigs!”

Virginia laughed. She could not help it.

“Poor Lige!” she said. “I hope Uncle Daniel has some breakfast for you.

You've had a good deal to put up with on this trip.”

“Lordy, Jinny,” said the Captain, “I'd put up with a good deal more than

this for the sake of going anywhere with you.”

“Even to such a doleful place as this?” she sighed.

“This is all right, if the sun'll only come out and dry things up and

let us see the green on those trees,” he said, “Lordy, how I do love to

see the spring green in the sunlight!”

She put out her hand over his.

“Lige,” she said, “you know you're just trying to keep up my spirits.

You've been doing that ever since we left home.”

“No such thing,” he replied with vehemence. “There's nothing for you to

be cast down about.”

“Oh, but there is!” she cried. “Suppose I can't make your Black

Republican President pardon Clarence!”

“Pooh!” said the Captain, squeezing her hand and trying to appear

unconcerned. “Your Uncle Daniel knows Mr. Lincoln. He'll have that

arranged.”

Just then the rattletrap pulled up at the sidewalk, the wheels of the

near side in four inches of mud, and the Captain leaped out and spread

the umbrella. They were in front of a rather imposing house of brick,

flanked on one side by a house just like it, and on the other by a

series of dreary vacant lots where the rain had collected in pools. They

climbed the steps and rang the bell. In due time the door was opened by

a smiling yellow butler in black.

“Does General Carvel live here?”

“Yas, miss, But he ain't to home now. Done gone to New York.”

“Oh,” faltered Virginia. “Didn't he get my telegram day before

yesterday? I sent it to the War Department.”

“He's done gone since Saturday, miss.” And then, evidently impressed by

the young lady's looks, he added hospitably, “Kin I do anything fo' you,

miss?”

“I'm his niece, Miss Virginia Carvel, and this is Captain Brent.”

The yellow butler's face lighted up.

“Come right in, Miss Jinny, Done heerd de General speak of you

often--yas'm. De General'll be to home dis a'ternoon, suah. 'Twill do

him good ter see you, Miss Jinny. He's been mighty lonesome. Walk right

in, Cap'n, and make yo'selves at home. Lizbeth--Lizbeth!”

A yellow maid came running down the stairs. “Heah's Miss Jinny.”

“Lan' of goodness!” cried Lizbeth. “I knows Miss Jinny. Done seed her at

Calve't House. How is you, Miss Jinny?”

“Very well, Lizbeth,” said Virginia, listlessly sitting down on the hall

sofa. “Can you give us some breakfast?”

“Yas'm,” said Lizbeth, “jes' reckon we kin.” She ushered them into a

walnut dining room, big and high and sombre, with plush-bottomed chairs

placed about--walnut also; for that was the fashion in those days.

But the Captain had no sooner seated himself than he shot up again and

started out.

“Where are you going, Lige?”

“To pay off the carriage driver,” he said.

“Let him wait,” said Virginia. “I'm going to the White House in a little

while.”

“What--what for?” he gasped.

“To see your Black Republican President,” she replied, with alarming

calmness.

“Now, Jinny,” he cried, in excited appeal, “don't go doin' any such fool

trick as that. Your Uncle Dan'l will be here this afternoon. He

knows the President. And then the thing'll be fixed all right, and no

mistake.”

Her reply was in the same tone--almost a monotone--which she had used

for three days. It made the Captain very uneasy, for he knew when she

spoke in that way that her will was in it.

“And to lose that time,” she answered, “may be to have him shot.”

“But you can't get to the President without credentials,” he objected.

“What,” she flashed, “hasn't any one a right to see the President? You

mean to say that he will not see a woman in trouble? Then all these

pretty stories I hear of him are false. They are made up by the

Yankees.”

Poor Captain Lige! He had some notion of the multitude of calls upon Mr.

Lincoln, especially at that time. But he could not, he dared not,

remind her of the principal reason for this,--Lee's surrender and the

approaching end of the war. And then the Captain had never seen Mr.

Lincoln. In the distant valley of the Mississippi he had only heard of

the President very conflicting things. He had heard him criticised and

reviled and praised, just as is every man who goes to the White House,

be he saint or sinner. And, during an administration, no man at a

distance may come at a President's true character and worth. The Captain

had seen Lincoln caricatured vilely. And again he had read and heard the

pleasant anecdotes of which Virginia had spoken, until he did not know

what to believe.

As for Virginia, he knew her partisanship to, and undying love for, the

South; he knew the class prejudice which was bound to assert itself, and

he had seen enough in the girl's demeanor to fear that she was going to

demand rather than implore. She did not come of a race that was wont to

bend the knee.

“Well, well,” he said despairingly, “you must eat some breakfast first,

Jinny.”

She waited with an ominous calmness until it was brought in, and then

she took a part of a roll and some coffee.

“This won't do,” exclaimed the Captain. “Why, why, that won't get you

halfway to Mr. Lincoln.”

She shook her head, half smiling.

“You must eat enough, Lige,” she said.

He was finished in an incredibly short time, and amid the protestations

of Lizbeth and the yellow butler they got into the carriage again, and

splashed and rattled toward the White House. Once Virginia glanced out,

and catching sight of the bedraggled flags on the houses in honor of

Lee's surrender, a look of pain crossed her face. The Captain could not

repress a note of warning.

“Jinny,” said he, “I have an idea that you'll find the President a good

deal of a man. Now if you're allowed to see him, don't get him mad,

Jinny, whatever you do.”

Virginia stared straight ahead.

“If he is something of a man, Lige, he will not lose his temper with a

woman.”

Captain Lige subsided. And just then they came in sight of the house of

the Presidents, with its beautiful portico and its broad wings. And they

turned in under the dripping trees of the grounds. A carriage with a

black coachman and footman was ahead of them, and they saw two stately

gentlemen descend from it and pass the guard at the door. Then their

turn came. The Captain helped her out in his best manner, and gave some

money to the driver.

“I reckon he needn't wait for us this time, Jinny,” said be. She shook

her head and went in, he following, and they were directed to the

anteroom of the President's office on the second floor. There were

many people in the corridors, and one or two young officers in blue who

stared at her. She passed them with her head high.

But her spirits sank when they came to the anteroom. It was full of all

sorts of people. Politicians, both prosperous and seedy, full faced and

keen faced, seeking office; women, officers, and a one-armed soldier

sitting in the corner. He was among the men who offered Virginia their

seats, and the only one whom she thanked. But she walked directly to the

doorkeeper at the end of the room. Captain Lige was beside her.

“Can we see the President?” he asked.

“Have you got an appointment?” said the old man.

“No.”

“Then you'll have to wait your turn, sir,” he said, shaking his head and

looking at Virginia. And he added. “It's slow work waiting your turn,

there's so many governors and generals and senators, although the

session's over. It's a busy time, miss.”

Virginia went very close to him.

“Oh, can't you do something?” she said. And added, with an inspiration,

“I must see him. It's a matter of life and death.”

She saw instantly, with a woman's instinct, that these words had had

their effect. The old man glanced at her again, as if demurring.

“You're sure, miss, it's life and death?” he said.

“Oh, why should I say so if it were not?” she cried.

“The orders are very strict,” he said. “But the President told me to

give precedence to cases when a life is in question. Just you wait a

minute, miss, until Governor Doddridge comes out, and I'll see what I

can do for you. Give me your name, please, miss.”

She remained standing where she was. In a little while the heavy door

opened, and a portly, rubicund man came out with a smile on his face.

He broke into a laugh, when halfway across the room, as if the memory of

what he had heard were too much for his gravity. The doorkeeper slipped

into the room, and there was a silent, anxious interval. Then he came

out again.

“The President will see you, miss.”

Captain Lige started forward with her, but she restrained him.

“Wait for me here, Lige,” she said.

She swept in alone, and the door closed softly after her. The room was

a big one, and there were maps on the table, with pins sticking in them.

She saw that much, and then--!

Could this fantastically tall, stooping figure before her be that of the

President of the United States? She stopped, as from the shock he gave

her. The lean, yellow face with the mask-like lines all up and down,

the unkempt, tousled hair, the beard--why, he was a hundred times more

ridiculous than his caricatures. He might have stood for many of the

poor white trash farmers she had seen in Kentucky--save for the long

black coat.

“Is--is this Mr. Lincoln?” she asked, her breath taken away.

He bowed and smiled down at her. Somehow that smile changed his face a

little.

“I guess I'll have to own up,” he answered.

“My name is Virginia Carvel,” she said. “I have come all the way from

St. Louis to see you.”

“Miss Carvel,” said the President, looking at her intently, “I have

rarely been so flattered in my life. I--I hope I have not disappointed

you.”

Virginia was justly angry.

“Oh, you haven't,” she cried, her eyes flashing, “because I am what you

would call a Rebel.”

The mirth in the dark corners of his eyes disturbed her more and more.

And then she saw that the President was laughing.

“And have you a better name for it, Miss Carvel?” he asked. “Because I

am searching for a better name--just now.”

She was silent--sternly silent. And she tapped her foot on the carpet.

What manner of man was this? “Won't you sit down?” said the President,

kindly. “You must be tired after your journey.” And he put forth a

chair.

“No, thank you,” said Virginia; “I think that I can say what I have come

to say better standing.”

“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that's not strange. I'm that way, too. The

words seem to come out better. That reminds me of a story they tell

about General Buck Tanner. Ever heard of Buck, Miss Carvel? No? Well,

Buck was a character. He got his title in the Mormon war. One day the

boys asked him over to the square to make a speech. The General was a

little uneasy.

“'I'm all right when I get standing up, Liza,' he said to his wife. Then

the words come right along. Only trouble is they come too cussed fast.

How'm I going to stop 'em when I want to?'

“'Well, I du declare, Buck,' said she, 'I gave you credit for some

sense. All you've got to do is to set down. That'll end it, I reckon.'

“So the General went over to the square and talked for about an hour

and a half, and then a Chicago man shouted to him to dry up. The General

looked pained.

“'Boys,' said he, 'it's jest every bit as bad for me as it is for you.

You'll have to hand up a chair, boys, because I'm never going to get

shet of this goldarned speech any anther way.'”

Mr. Lincoln had told this so comically that Virginia was forced to

laugh, and she immediately hated herself. A man who could joke at such

a time certainly could not feel the cares and responsibilities of his

office. He should have been a comedian. And yet this was the President

who had conducted the war, whose generals had conquered the Confederacy.

And she was come to ask him a favor. Virginia swallowed her pride.

“Mr. Lincoln,” she began, “I have come to talk to you about my cousin,

Colonel Clarence Colfax.”

“I shall be happy to talk to you about your cousin, Colonel Colfax, Miss

Carvel. Is he your third or fourth cousin?”

“He is my first cousin,” she retorted.

“Is he in the city?” asked Mr. Lincoln, innocently. “Why didn't he come

with you?”

“Oh, haven't you heard?” she cried. “He is Clarence Colfax, of St.

Louis, now a Colonel in the army of the Confederate States.”

“Which army?” asked Mr. Lincoln. Virginia tossed her head in

exasperation.

“In General Joseph Johnston's army,” she replied, trying to be patient.

“But now,” she gulped, “now he has been arrested as a spy by General

Sherman's army.”

“That's too bad,” answered Mr. Lincoln.

“And--and they are going to shoot him.”

“That's worse,” said Mr. Lincoln, gravely. “But I expect he deserves

it.”

“Oh, no, he doesn't,” she cried. “You don't know how brave he is! He

floated down the Mississippi on a log, out of Vicksburg, and brought

back thousands and thousands of percussion caps. He rowed across the

river when the Yankee fleet was going down, and set fire to De Soto so

that they could see to shoot.”

“Well,” said Mr. Lincoln, “that's a good starter.” Then he looked

thoughtful.

“Miss Carvel,” said he, “that argument reminds me of a story about a man

I used to know in the old days in Illinois. His name was McNeil, and he

was a lawyer.

“One day he was defending a prisoner for assault and battery before

Judge Drake.

“'Judge, says McNeil, 'you oughtn't to lock this man up. It was a fair

fight, and he's the best man in the state in a fair fight. And, what's

more, he's never been licked in a fair fight in his life.'

“'And if your honor does lock me up,' the prisoner put in, 'I'll give

your honor a thunderin' big lickin' when I get out.'

“The Judge took off his coat.

“'Gentlemen,' said he, 'it's a powerful queer argument, but the Court

will admit it on its merits. The prisoner will please to step out on the

grass.'”

This time Virginia contrived merely to smile. She was striving against

something, she knew not what. Her breath was coming deeply, and she was

dangerously near to tears. Why? She could not tell. She had come into

this man's presence despising herself for having to ask him a favor.

The sight of his face she had ridiculed. Now she could not look into it

without an odd sensation. What was in it? Sorrow? Yes, that was nearest

it.

What had the man done? Told her a few funny stories--given quizzical

answers to some of her questions. Quizzical, yes; but she could not be

sure then there was not wisdom in them, and that humiliated her. She had

never conceived of such a man. And, be it added gratuitously, Virginia

deemed herself something of an adept in dealing with men.

“And now,” said Mr. Lincoln, “to continue for the defence, I believe

that Colonel Colfax first distinguished himself at the time of Camp

Jackson, when of all the prisoners he refused to accept a parole.”

Startled, she looked up at him swiftly, and then down again. “Yes,”

she answered, “yes. But oh, Mr. Lincoln, please don't hold that against

him.”

If she could only have seen his face then. But her lashes were dropped.

“My dear young lady,” replied the President, “I honor him for it. I was

merely elaborating the argument which you have begun. On the other hand,

it is a pity that he should have taken off that uniform which he adorned

and attempted to enter General Sherman's lines as a civilian,--as a

spy.”

He had spoken these last words very gently, but she was too excited to

heed his gentleness. She drew herself up, a gleam in her eyes like the

crest of a blue wave in a storm.

“A spy!” she cried; “it takes more courage to be a spy than anything

else in war. Then he will be shot. You are not content in, the North

with what you have gained. You are not content with depriving us of

our rights, and our fortunes, with forcing us back to an allegiance we

despise. You are not content with humiliating our generals and putting

innocent men in prisons. But now I suppose you will shoot us all. And

all this mercy that I have heard about means nothing--nothing--”

Why did she falter and stop?

“Miss Carvel,” said the President, “I am afraid from what I have heard

just now, that it means nothing.” Oh, the sadness of that voice,--the

ineffable sadness,--the sadness and the woe of a great nation! And the

sorrow in those eyes, the sorrow of a heavy cross borne meekly,--how

heavy none will ever know. The pain of a crown of thorns worn for a

world that did not understand. No wonder Virginia faltered and

was silent. She looked at Abraham Lincoln standing there, bent and

sorrowful, and it was as if a light had fallen upon him. But strangest

of all in that strange moment was that she felt his strength. It was the

same strength she had felt in Stephen Brice. This was the thought that

came to her.

Slowly she walked to the window and looked out across the green grounds

where the wind was shaking the wet trees, past the unfinished monument

to the Father of her country, and across the broad Potomac to Alexandria

in the hazy distance. The rain beat upon the panes, and then she knew

that she was crying softly to herself. She had met a force that she

could not conquer, she had looked upon a sorrow that she could not

fathom, albeit she had known sorrow.

Presently she felt him near. She turned and looked through her tears

at his face that was all compassion. And now she was unashamed. He had

placed a chair behind her.

“Sit down, Virginia,” he said. Even the name fell from him naturally.

She obeyed him then like a child. He remained standing.

“Tell me about your cousin,” he said; “are you going to marry him?”

She hung an instant on her answer. Would that save Clarence? But in

that moment she could not have spoken anything but the truth to save her

soul.

“No, Mr. Lincoln,” she said; “I was--but I did not love him. I--I think

that was one reason why he was so reckless.”

Mr. Lincoln smiled.

“The officer who happened to see Colonel Colfax captured is now in

Washington. When your name was given to me, I sent for him. Perhaps he

is in the anteroom now. I should like to tell you, first of all, that

this officer defended your cousin and asked me to pardon him.”

“He defended him! He asked you to pardon him! Who is he?” she exclaimed.

Again Mr. Lincoln smiled. He strode to the bell-cord, and spoke a few

words to the usher who answered his ring.

The usher went out. Then the door opened, and a young officer, spare,

erect, came quickly into the room, and bowed respectfully to the

President. But Mr. Lincoln's eyes were not on him. They were on the

girl. He saw her head lifted, timidly. He saw her lips part and the

color come flooding into her face. But she did not rise.

The President sighed But the light in her eyes was reflected in his own.

It has been truly said that Abraham Lincoln knew the human heart.

The officer still stood facing the President, the girl staring at his

profile. The door closed behind him. “Major Brice,” said Mr. Lincoln,

“when you asked me to pardon Colonel Colfax, I believe that you told me

he was inside his own skirmish lines when he was captured.”

“Yes, sir, he was.”

Suddenly Stephen turned, as if impelled by the President's gaze, and so

his eyes met Virginia's. He forgot time and place,--for the while even

this man whom he revered above all men. He saw her hand tighten on the

arm of her chair. He took a step toward her, and stopped. Mr. Lincoln

was speaking again.

“He put in a plea, a lawyer's plea, wholly unworthy of him, Miss

Virginia. He asked me to let your cousin off on a technicality. What do

you think of that?”

“Oh!” said Virginia. Just the exclamation escaped her--nothing more. The

crimson that had betrayed her deepened on her cheeks. Slowly the eyes

she had yielded to Stephen came back again and rested on the President.

And now her wonder was that an ugly man could be so beautiful.

“I wish it understood, Mr. Lawyer,” the President continued, “that I

am not letting off Colonel Colfax on a technicality. I am sparing his

life,” he said slowly, “because the time for which we have been waiting

and longing for four years is now at hand--the time to be merciful. Let

us all thank God for it.”

Virginia had risen now. She crossed the room, her head lifted, her heart

lifted, to where this man of sorrows stood smiling down at her.

“Mr. Lincoln,” she faltered, “I did not know you when I came here. I

should have known you, for I had heard him--I had heard Major Brice

praise you. Oh,” she cried, “how I wish that every man and woman and

child in the South might come here and see you as I have seen you

to-day. I think--I think that some of their bitterness might be taken

away.”

Abraham Lincoln laid his hands upon the girl. And Stephen, watching,

knew that he was looking upon a benediction.

“Virginia,” said Mr. Lincoln, “I have not suffered by the South, I have

suffered with the South. Your sorrow has been my sorrow, and your pain

has been my pain. What you have lost, I have lost. And what you have

gained,” he added sublimely, “I have gained.”

He led her gently to the window. The clouds were flying before the wind,

and a patch of blue sky shone above the Potomac. With his long arm he

pointed across the river to the southeast, and as if by a miracle a

shaft of sunlight fell on the white houses of Alexandria.

“In the first days of the war,” he said, “a flag flew there in sight of

the place where George Washington lived and died. I used to watch

that flag, and thank God that Washington had not lived to see it. And

sometimes, sometimes I wondered if God had allowed it to be put in irony

just there.” His voice seemed to catch. “That was wrong,” he continued.

“I should have known that this was our punishment--that the sight of

it was my punishment. Before we could become the great nation He has

destined us to be, our sins must be wiped out in blood. You loved that

flag, Virginia. You love it still.

“I say in all sincerity, may you always love it. May the day come when

this Nation, North and South, may look back upon it with reverence.

Thousands upon thousands of brave Americans have died under it for what

they believed was right. But may the day come again when you will love

that flag you see there now--Washington's flag--better still.”

He stopped, and the tears were wet upon Virginia's lashes. She could not

have spoken then.

Mr. Lincoln went over to his desk and sat down before it. Then he began

to write, slouched forward, one knee resting on the floor, his lips

moving at the same time. When he got up again he seemed taller than

ever.

“There!” he said, “I guess that will fix it. I'll have that sent to

Sherman. I have already spoken to him about the matter.”

They did not thank him. It was beyond them both. He turned to Stephen

with that quizzical look on his face he had so often seen him wear.

“Steve,” he said, “I'll tell you a story. The other night Harlan was

here making a speech to a crowd out of the window, and my boy Tad was

sitting behind him.

“'What shall we do with the Rebels?' said Harlan to the crowd.

“'Hang 'em!' cried the people. “'No,' says Tad, 'hang on to 'em.'

“And the boy was right. That is what we intend to do,--hang on to 'em.

And, Steve,” said Mr. Lincoln, putting his hand again on Virginia's

shoulder, “if you have the sense I think you have, you'll hang on, too.”

For an instant he stood smiling at their blushes,--he to whom the power

was given to set apart his cares and his troubles and partake of the

happiness of others. For of such was his happiness.

Then the President drew out his watch. “Bless me!” he said, “I am ten

minutes behind my appointment at the Department. Miss Virginia, you may

care to thank the Major for the little service he has done you. You can

do so undisturbed here. Make yourselves at home.”

As he opened the door he paused and looked back at them. The smile

passed from his face, and an ineffable expression of longing--longing

and tenderness--came upon it.

Then he was gone.

For a space, while his spell was upon them, they did not stir. Then

Stephen sought her eyes that had been so long denied him. They were

not denied him now. It was Virginia who first found her voice, and she

called him by his name.

“Oh, Stephen,” she said, “how sad he looked!”

He was close to her, at her side. And he answered her in the earnest

tone which she knew so well.

“Virginia, if I could have had what I most wished for in the world, I

should have asked that you should know Abraham Lincoln.”

Then she dropped her eyes, and her breath came quickly.

“I--I might have known,” she answered, “I might have known what he was.

I had heard you talk of him. I had seen him in you, and I did not know.

Do you remember that day when we were in the summer-house together at

Glencoe, long ago? When you had come back from seeing him?”

“As yesterday,” he said.

“You were changed then,” she said bravely. “I saw it. Now I understand.

It was because you had seen Mr. Lincoln.”

“When I saw him,” said Stephen, reverently, “I knew how little and

narrow I was.”

Then, overcome by the incense of her presence, he drew her to him until

her heart beat against his own. She did not resist, but lifted her face

to him, and he kissed her.

“You love me, Virginia!” he cried.

“Yes, Stephen,” she answered, low, more wonderful in her surrender than

ever before. “Yes--dear.” Then she hid her face against his blue coat.

“I--I cannot help it. Oh, Stephen, how I have struggled against it!

How I have tried to hate you, and couldn't. No, I couldn't. I tried to

insult you, I did insult you. And when I saw how splendidly you bore it,

I used to cry.” He kissed her brown hair.

“I loved you through it all,” he said.

“Virginia!”

“Yes, dearest.”

“Virginia, did you dream of me?”

She raised her head quickly, and awe was in her eyes. “How did you

know?”

“Because I dreamed of you,” he answered. “And those dreams used to linger

with me half the day as I went about my work. I used to think of them as

I sat in the saddle on the march.”

“I, too, treasured them,” she said. “And I hated myself for doing it.”

“Virginia, will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

“To-morrow?”

“Yes, dear, to-morrow.” Faintly, “I have no one but you--now.”

Once more he drew her to him, and she gloried in his strength.

“God help me to cherish you, dear,” he said, “and guard you well.”

She drew away from him, gently, and turned toward the window.

“See, Stephen,” she cried, “the sun has come out at last.”

For a while they were silent, looking out; the drops glistened on blade

and leaf, and the joyous new green of the earth entered into their

hearts.

CHAPTER XVI. ANNAPOLIS

IT was Virginia's wish, and was therefore sacred. As for Stephen, he

little cared whither they went. And so they found themselves on that

bright afternoon in mid-April under the great trees that arch the

unpaved streets of old Annapolis.

They stopped by direction at a gate, and behind it was a green cluster

of lilac bushes, which lined the walk to the big plum-colored house

which Lionel Carvel had built. Virginia remembered that down this walk

on a certain day in June, a hundred years agone, Richard Carvel had led

Dorothy Manners.

They climbed the steps, tottering now with age and disuse, and Virginia

playfully raised the big brass knocker, brown now, that Scipio had been

wont to polish until it shone. Stephen took from his pocket the clumsy

key that General Carvel had given him, and turned it in the rusty lock.

The door swung open, and Virginia stood in the hall of her ancestors.

It was musty and damp this day as the day when Richard had come back

from England and found it vacant and his grandfather dead. But there,

at the parting of the stairs, was the triple-arched window which he had

described. Through it the yellow afternoon light was flooding now, even

as then, checkered by the branches in their first fringe of green. But

the tall clock which Lionel Carvel used to wind was at Calvert House,

with many another treasure.

They went up the stairs, and reverently they walked over the bare

floors, their footfalls echoing through the silent house. A score of

scenes in her great-grandfather's life came to Virginia. Here was the

room--the cornet one at the back of the main building, which looked out

over the deserted garden--that had been Richard's mother's. She recalled

how he had stolen into it on that summer's day after his return, and had

flung open the shutters. They were open now, for their locks were off.

The prie-dieu was gone, and the dresser. But the high bed was there,

stripped of its poppy counterpane and white curtains; and the steps by

which she had entered it.

And next they went into the great square room that had been Lionel

Carvel's, and there, too, was the roomy bed on which the old gentleman

had lain with the gout, while Richard read to him from the Spectator.

One side of it looked out on the trees in Freshwater Lane; and the other

across the roof of the low house opposite to where the sun danced on the

blue and white waters of the Chesapeake.

“Honey,” said Virginia, as they stood in the deep recess of the window,

“wouldn't it be nice if we could live here always, away from the world?

Just we two! But you would never be content to do that,” she said,

smiling reproachfully. “You are the kind of man who must be in the midst

of things. In a little while you will have far more besides me to think

about.”

He was quick to catch the note of sadness in her voice. And he drew her

to him.

“We all have our duty to perform in the world, dear,” he answered. “It

cannot be all pleasure.”

“You--you Puritan!” she cried. “To think that I should have married a

Puritan! What would my great-great-great-great-grandfather say, who was

such a stanch Royalist? Why, I think I can see him frowning at me now,

from the door, in his blue velvet goat and silverlaced waistcoat.”

“He was well punished,” retorted Stephen, “his own grandson was a Whig,

and seems to have married a woman of spirit.”

“She had spirit,” said Virginia. “I am sure that she did not allow my

great-grandfather to kiss her--unless she wanted to.”

And she looked up at him, half smiling, half pouting; altogether

bewitching.

“From what I hear of him, he was something of a man,” said Stephen.

“Perhaps he did it anyway.”

“I am glad that Marlborough Street isn't a crowded thoroughfare,” said

Virginia.

When they had seen the dining room, with its carved mantel and silver

door-knobs, and the ballroom in the wing, they came out, and Stephen

locked the door again. They walked around the house, and stood looking

down the terraces,--once stately, but crumbled now,--where Dorothy had

danced on the green on Richard's birthday. Beyond and below was the

spring-house, and there was the place where the brook dived under the

ruined wall,--where Dorothy had wound into her hair the lilies of the

valley before she sailed for London.

The remains of a wall that had once held a balustrade marked the

outlines of the formal garden. The trim hedges, for seventy years

neglected, had grown incontinent. The garden itself was full of wild

green things coming up through the brown of last season's growth. But

in the grass the blue violets nestled, and Virginia picked some of these

and put them in Stephen's coat.

“You must keep them always,” she said, “because we got them here.”

They spied a seat beside a hoary trunk. There on many a spring day

Lionel Carvel had sat reading his Gazette. And there they rested now.

The sun hung low over the old-world gables in the street beyond the

wall, and in the level rays was an apple tree dazzling white, like a

bride. The sweet fragrance which the day draws from the earth lingered

in the air.

It was Virginia who broke the silence.

“Stephen, do you remember that fearful afternoon of the panic, when you

came over from Anne Brinsmade's to reassure me?”

“Yes, dear,” he said. “But what made you think of it now?”

She did not answer him directly.

“I believed what you said, Stephen. But you were so strong, so calm,

so sure of yourself. I think that made me angry when I thought how

ridiculous I must have been.”

He pressed her hand.

“You were not ridiculous, Jinny.” She laughed.

“I was not as ridiculous as Mr. Cluyme with his bronze clock. But do

you know what I had under my arm--what I was saving of all the things I

owned?”

“No,” he answered; “but I have often wondered.” She blushed.

“This house--this place made me think of it. It was Dorothy Manners's

gown, and her necklace. I could not leave them. They were all the

remembrance I had of that night at Mr. Brinsmade's gate, when we came so

near to each other.”

“Virginia,” he said, “some force that we cannot understand has brought

us together, some force that we could not hinder. It is foolish for me

to say so, but on that day of the slave auction, when I first saw you,

I had a premonition about you that I have never admitted until now, even

to myself.”

She started.

“Why, Stephen,” she cried, “I felt the same way!”

“And then,” he continued quickly, “it was strange that I should have

gone to Judge Whipple, who was an intimate of your father's--such a

singular intimate. And then came your party, and Glencoe, and that

curious incident at the Fair.”

“When I was talking to the Prince, and looked up and saw you among all

those people.”

He laughed.

“That was the most uncomfortable of all, for me.”

“Stephen,” she said, stirring the leaves at her feet, “you might have

taken me in your arms the night Judge Whipple died--if you had wanted

to. But you were strong enough to resist. I love you all the more for

that.”

Again she said:-- “It was through your mother, dearest, that we were

most strongly drawn together. I worshipped her from the day I saw her in

the hospital. I believe that was the beginning of my charity toward the

North.”

“My mother would have chosen you above all women, Virginia,” he

answered.

In the morning came to them the news of Abraham Lincoln's death. And the

same thought was in both their hearts, who had known him as it was given

to few to know him. How he had lived in sorrow; how he had died a martyr

on the very day of Christ's death upon the cross. And they believed that

Abraham Lincoln gave his life for his country even as Christ gave his

for the world.

And so must we believe that God has reserved for this Nation a destiny

high upon the earth.

Many years afterward Stephen Brice read again to his wife those sublime

closing words of the second inaugural:--

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the

right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish

the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him

who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his children

--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace

among ourselves and with all nations.”

AFTERWORD

The author has chosen St. Louis for the principal scene of this story

for many reasons. Grant and Sherman were living there before the Civil

War, and Abraham Lincoln was an unknown lawyer in the neighboring

state of Illinois. It has been one of the aims of this book to show the

remarkable contrasts in the lives of these great men who came out of the

West. This old city of St. Louis, which was founded by Laclede in 1765,

likewise became the principal meeting-place of two great streams of

emigration which had been separated, more or less, since Cromwell's day.

To be sure, they were not all Cavaliers who settled in the tidewater

Colonies. There were Puritan settlements in both Maryland and Virginia.

But the life in the Southern states took on the more liberal tinge which

had characterized that of the Royalists, even to the extent of affecting

the Scotch Calvinists, while the asceticism of the Roundheads was the

keynote of the Puritan character in New England. When this great country

of ours began to develop, the streams moved westward; one over what

became the plain states of Ohio and Indiana and Illinois, and the other

across the Blue Ridge Mountains into Kentucky and Tennessee. They mixed

along the line of the Ohio River. They met at St. Louis, and, farther

west, in Kansas.

Nor can the German element in St. Louis be ignored. The part played by

this people in the Civil War is a matter of history. The scope of this

book has not permitted the author to introduce the peasantry and trading

classes which formed the mass in this movement. But Richter, the type

of the university-bred revolutionist which emigrated after '48, is drawn

more or less from life. And the duel described actually took place in

Berlin.

St. Louis is the author's birthplace, and his home, the home of those

friends whom he has known from childhood and who have always treated him

with unfaltering kindness. He begs that they will believe him when he

says that only such characters as he loves are reminiscent of those

he has known there. The city has a large population,--large enough to

include all the types that are to be found in the middle West.

One word more. This book is written of a time when feeling ran high.

It has been necessary to put strong speech into the mouths of the

characters. The breach that threatened our country's existence is healed

now. There is no side but Abraham Lincoln's side. And this side, with

all reverence and patriotism, the author has tried to take.

Abraham Lincoln loved the South as well as the North.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Behind that door was the future: so he opened it fearfully

Being caught was the unpardonable crime

Believe in others having a hard time

Freedom meant only the liberty to earn their own living

Humiliation and not conscience which makes the sting

Most dangerous of gifts, the seeing of two sides of a quarrel

Naturally she took preoccupation for indifference

Principle in law not to volunteer information

Read a patent medicine circular and shudder with seven diseases

She could pass over, but never forgive what her aunt had said

Silence--goad to indiscretion

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They have to print something

To be great is to be misunderstood

End of Project Gutenberg's The Crisis, Complete, by Winston Churchill