A WOMAN
Allan Gold, lying in a corner of the Stonewall Hospital, turned his
head toward the high window. It showed him little, merely a long strip
of blue sky above housetops. The window was open, and the noises of the
street came in. He knew them, checked them off in his mind. He was doing
well. A body, superbly healthful, might stand out boldly against a
minie ball or two, just as calm nerves, courage and serene judgement
were of service in a war hospital such as this. If he was restless now,
it was because he was wondering about Christianna. It was an hour past
her time for coming.
The ward was fearfully crowded. This, however, was the end by the stair,
and he had a little cut-off place to himself. Many in the ward yet lay
on the floor, on a blanket as he had done that first morning. In the
afternoon of that day a wide bench had been brought into his corner, a
thin flock mattress laid upon it, and he himself lifted from the floor.
He had protested that others needed a bed much more, that he was used to
lying on the earth--but Christianna had been firm. He wondered why she
did not come.
Chickahominy, Gaines's Mill, Garnett's and Golding's farms, Peach
Orchard, Savage Station, White Oak Swamp, Frayser's Farm, Malvern
Hill--dire echoes of the Seven Days' fighting had thronged into this
hospital as into all others, as into the houses of citizens and the
public buildings and the streets! All manner of wounded soldiers told
the story--ever so many soldiers and ever so many variants of the story.
The dead bore witness, and the wailing of women which was now and then
heard in the streets; not often, for the women were mostly silent, with
pressed lips. And the ambulances jolting by--and the sound of
funerals--and the church bells tolling, tolling--all these bore witness.
And day and night there was the thunder of the cannon. From
Mechanicsville and Gaines's Mill it had rolled near and loud, from
Savage Station somewhat less so; White Oak Swamp and Frayser's Farm had
carried the sound yet further off, and from Malvern Hill it came but
distantly. But loud or low, near or far, day by day and into each night,
Richmond heard the cannon. At first the vibration played on the town's
heart, like a giant hand on giant strings. But at last the tune grew old
and the town went about its business. There was so much to do! One could
not stop to listen to cannon. Richmond was a vast hospital; pain and
fever in all places, and, around, the shadow of death. Hardly a house
but mourned a kinsman or kinsmen; early and late the dirges wailed
through the streets. So breathlessly filled were the days, that often
the dead were buried at night. The weather was hot--days and nights hot,
close and still. Men and women went swiftly through them, swift and
direct as weavers' shuttles. Privation, early comrade of the South, was
here; scant room, scant supplies, not too much of wholesome food for the
crowded town, few medicines or alleviatives, much to be done and done
at once with the inadequatest means. There was little time in which to
think in general terms; all effort must go toward getting done the
immediate thing. The lift and tension of the time sloughed off the
immaterial weak act or thought. There were present a heroic simplicity,
a naked verity, a full cup of service, a high and noble altruism. The
plane was epic, and the people did well.
The sky within Allan's range of vision was deep blue; the old brick
gable-ends of houses, mellow and old, against it. A soldier with a
broken leg and a great sabre cut over the head, just brought into the
ward, brought with him the latest news. He talked loudly, and all down
the long room, crowded to suffocation, the less desperately wounded
raised themselves on their elbows to hear. Others, shot through stomach
or bowels, or fearfully torn by shells, or with the stumps of amputated
limbs not doing well, raved on in delirium or kept up their pitiful
moaning. The soldier raised his voice higher, and those leaning on
elbows listened with avidity. "Evelington Heights? Where's Evelington
Heights?"--"Between Westover and Rawling's millpond, near Malvern
Hill!"--"Malvern Hill! That was ghastly!"--"Go on, sergeant-major! We're
been pining for a newspaper."
"Were any of you boys at Malvern Hill?"
"Yes,--only those who were there ain't in a fix to tell about it! That
man over there--and that one--and that one--oh, a middling lot! They're
pretty badly off--poor boys!"
From a pallet came a hollow voice. "I was at Malvern Hill, and I ain't
never going there again--I ain't never going there again--I ain't
never.... Who's that singing? I kin sing, too--
'The years creep slowly by, Lorena;
The snow is on the grass again;
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena;
The frost gleams where the flowers have been--'"
"Don't mind him," said the soldiers on elbows. "Poor fellow! he ain't
got any voice anyhow. We know about Malvern Hill. Malvern Hill was
pretty bad. And we heard there'd been a cavalry rumpus--Jeb Stuart and
Sweeney playing their tricks! We didn't know the name of the place.
Evelington Heights! Pretty name."
The sergeant-major would not be cheated of Malvern Hill. "'Pretty bad!'
I should say 'twas pretty bad! Malvern Hill was _awful_. If anything
could induce me to be a damn Yankee 'twould be them guns of their'n!
Yes, sirree, bob! we fought and fought, and ten o'clock came and there
wasn't any moon, and we stopped. And in the night-time the damn Yankees
continued to retreat away. There was an awful noise of gun-wheels all
the night long--so the sentries said, and the surgeons and the wounded
and, I reckon, the generals. The rest of us, we were asleep. I don't
reckon there ever was men any more tired. Malvern Hill was--I can't
swear because there are ladies nursing us, but Malvern Hill was--Well,
dawn blew at reveille--No, doctor, I ain't getting light-headed. I just
get my words a little twisted. Reveille blew at dawn, and there were
sheets of cold pouring rain, and everywhere there were dead men, dead
men, dead men lying there in the wet, and the ambulances were wandering
round like ghosts of wagons, and the wood was too dripping to make a
fire, and three men out of my mess were killed, and one was a boy that
we'd all adopted, and it was awful discouraging. Yes, we were right
tired, damn Yankees and all of us.... Doctor, if I was you I wouldn't
bother about that leg. It's all right as it is, and you might hurt
me.... Oh, all right! Kin I smoke?... Yuugh! Well, boys, the damn
Yankees continued their retreat to Harrison's Landing, where their
hell-fire gunboats could stand picket for them.... Say, ma'am, would you
kindly tell me why that four-post bed over there is all hung with
wreaths of roses?--'Isn't any bed there?' But there is! I see it....
Evelington Heights--and Stuart dropping shells into the damn Yankees'
camp.... They _are_ roses, the old Giants of Battle by the beehive....
Evelington Heights. Eveling--Well, the damn Yankees dragged their guns
up there, too.... If the beehive's there, then the apple tree's
here--Grandma, if you'll ask him not to whip me I'll never take them
again, and I'll hold your yarn every time you want me to--"
The ward heard no more about Evelington Heights. It knew, however, that
it had been no great affair; it knew that McClellan with his exhausted
army, less many thousand dead, wounded, and prisoners, less fifty-two
guns and thirty-five thousand small arms, less enormous stores captured
or destroyed, less some confidence at Washington, rested down the James
by Westover, in the shadow of gunboats. The ward guessed that, for a
time at least, Richmond was freed from the Northern embrace. It knew
that Lee and his exhausted army, less even more of dead and wounded than
had fallen on the other side, rested between that enemy and Richmond.
Lee was watching; the enemy would come no nearer for this while. For all
its pain, for all the heat, the blood, the fever, thirst and woe, the
ward, the hospital, all the hospitals, experienced to-day a sense of
triumph. It was so with the whole city. Allan knew this, lying, looking
with sea-blue eyes at the blue summer sky and the old and mellow roofs.
The city mourned, but also it rejoiced. There stretched the black
thread, but twisted with it was the gold. A paean sounded as well as a
dirge. Seven days and nights of smoke and glare upon the horizon, of the
heart-shaking cannon roar, of the pouring in of the wounded, of
processions to Hollywood, of anguish, ceaseless labour, sick waiting,
dizzy hope, descending despair.... Now, at last, above it all the bells
rang for victory. A young girl, coming through the ward, had an armful
of flowers,--white lilies, citron aloes, mignonette, and phlox--She gave
her posies to all who stretched out a hand, and went out with her
smiling face. Allan held a great stalk of garden phlox, white and sweet.
It carried him back to the tollgate and to the log schoolhouse by
Thunder Run.... Twelve o'clock. Was not Christianna coming at all?
This was not Judith Cary's ward, but now she entered it. Allan, watching
the narrow path between the wounded, saw her coming from the far door.
He did not know who she was; he only looked from the flower in his hand
and had a sense of strength and sweetness, of something noble
approaching nearer. She paused to ask a question of one of the women;
answered, she came straight on. He saw that she was coming to the
cut-off corner by the stair, and instinctively he straightened a little
the covering over him. In a moment she was standing beside him, in her
cool hospital dress, with her dark hair knotted low, with a flower at
her breast. "You are Allan Gold?" she said.
"Yes."
"My name is Judith Cary. Perhaps you have heard of me. I have been to
Lauderdale and to Three Oaks."
"Yes," said Allan. "I have heard of you. I--"
There was an empty box beside the wall. Judith drew it nearer to his bed
and sat down. "You have been looking for Christianna? I came to tell you
about poor little Christianna--and--and other things. Christianna's
father has been killed."
Allan uttered an exclamation. "Isham Maydew! I never thought of his
going!... Poor child!"
"So she thought she ought not to come to-day. Had there been strong
reason, many people dependent upon her, she would have come."
"Poor Christianna--poor wild rose!... It's ghastly, this war! There is
nothing too small and harmless for its grist."
"I agree with you. Nothing too great; nothing too small. Nothing too
base, as there is nothing too noble."
"Isham Maydew! He was lean and tough and still, like Death in a picture.
Where was he killed?"
"It was at White Oak Swamp. At White Oak Swamp, the day before Malvern
Hill."
Allan looked at her. There was more in her voice than the non-coming of
Christianna, than the death of Isham Maydew. She had spoken in a clear,
low, bell-like tone that held somehow the ache of the world. He was
simple and direct, and he spoke at once out of his thought. He knew that
all the men of her house were at the front. "You have had a loss of your
own?--"
She shook her head. "I? No. I have had no loss."
"Now," thought Allan, "there's something proud in it." He looked at her
with his kindly, sea-blue eyes. In some chamber of the brain there
flashed out a picture--the day of the Botetourt Resolutions, winter dusk
after winter sunset and Cleave and himself going homeward over the long
hilltop--with talk, among other things, of visitors at Lauderdale. This
was "the beautiful one." He remembered the lift of Cleave's head and his
voice. Judith's large dark eyes had been raised; transparent, showing
always the soul within as did his own, they now met Allan's. "The 65th,"
she said, "was cut to pieces."
The words, dragged out as they were, left a shocked silence. Here, in
the corner by the stair, the arch of wood partially obscuring the ward,
with the still blue sky and the still brick gables, they seemed for the
moment cut away from the world, met on desert sands to tell and hear a
dreadful thing. "Cut to pieces," breathed Allan. "The 65th cut to
pieces!"
The movement which he made displaced the bandage about his shoulder. She
left the box, kneeled by him and straightened matters, then went back to
her seat. "It was this way," she said,--and told him the story as she
had heard it from her father and from Fauquier Cary. She spoke with
simplicity, in the low, bell-like tone that held the ache of the world.
Allan listened, with his hand over his eyes. His regiment that he
loved!... all the old, familiar faces.
"Yes, he was killed--Hairston Breckinridge was killed, fighting
gallantly. He died, they say, before he knew the trap they were caught
in. And Christianna's father was killed, and others of the Thunder Run
men, and very many from the county and from other counties. I do not
know how many. Fauquier called it slaughter, said no worse thing has
happened to any single command. Richard got what was left back across
the swamp."
Allan groaned. "The 65th! General Jackson himself called it 'the
fighting 65th!' Just a remnant of it left--left of the 65th!"
"Yes. The roll was called, and so many did not answer. They say other
Stonewall regiments wept."
Allan raised himself upon the bench. She started forward. "Don't do
that!" and with her hand pressed him gently down again. "I knew," she
said, "that you were here, and I have heard Richard speak of you and say
how good and likable you were. And I have worked hard all the morning,
and just now I thought, 'I must speak to some one who knows and loves
him or I will die.' And so I came. I knew that the ward might hear of
the 65th any moment now and begin to talk of it, so I was not afraid of
hurting you. But you must lie quiet."
"Very well, I will. I want to know about Richard Cleave--about my
colonel."
Her dark eyes met the sea-blue ones fully. "He is under arrest," she
said. "General Jackson has preferred charges against him."
"Charges of what?"
"Of disobedience to orders--of sacrificing the regiment--of--of
retreating at last when he should not have done so and leaving his men
to perish--of--of--. I have seen a copy of the charge. _Whereas the said
colonel of the 65th did shamefully_--"
Her voice broke. "Oh, if I were God--"
There was a moment's silence--silence here in the corner by the stair,
though none beyond in the painful, moaning ward. A bird sailed across
the strip of blue sky; the stalk of phlox on the soldier's narrow bed
lay withering in the light. Allan spoke. "General Jackson is very stern
with failure. He may believe that charge. I don't see how he can; but if
he made it he believes it. But you--you don't believe it?--"
"Believe it?" she said. "No more than God believes it! The question is
now, how to help Richard."
"Have you heard from him?"
She took from her dress a folded leaf torn from a pocket-book. "You are
his friend. You may read it. Wait, I will hold it." She laid it before
him, holding it in her slight, fine, strong fingers.
He read. _Judith: You will hear of the fate of the 65th. How it happened
I do not yet understand. It is like death on my heart. You will hear,
too, of my own trouble. As to me, believe only that I could sit beside
you and talk to-day as we talked awhile ago, in the sunset. Richard._
She refolded the paper and put it back. "The evidence will clear him,"
said Allan. "It must. The very doubt is absurd."
Her face lightened. "General Jackson will see that he was hasty--unjust.
I can understand such anger at first, but later, when he
reflects--Richard will be declared innocent--"
"Yes. An honourable acquittal. It will surely be so."
"I am glad I came. You have always known him and been his friend."
"Let me tell you the kind of things I know of Richard Cleave. No, it
doesn't hurt me to talk."
"I can stay a little longer. Yes, tell me."
Allan spoke at some length, in his frank, quiet voice. She sat beside
him, with her cheek on her hand, the blue sky and old house roofs above
her. When he ceased her eyes were full of tears. She would not let them
fall. "If I began to cry I should never stop," she said, and smiled them
away. Presently she rose. "I must go now. Christianna will be back
to-morrow."
She went away, passing up the narrow path between the wounded and out at
the further door. Allan watched her going, then turned a little on the
flock bed, and lifting his unbandaged arm laid it across his eyes. _The
65th cut to pieces--The 65th cut to pieces--_
At sunset Judith went home. The small room up in the branches of the
tulip tree--she hardly knew how many months or years she had inhabited
it. There had passed, of course, only weeks--but Time had widened its
measure. To all intents and purposes she had been a long while in
Richmond. This high, quiet niche was familiar, familiar! familiar the
old, slender, inlaid dressing-table and the long, thin curtains and the
engraving of Charlotte Corday; familiar the cool, green tree without the
window and the nest upon a bough; familiar the far view and wide
horizon, by day smoke-veiled, by night red-lit. The smoke was lifted
now; the eye saw further than it had seen for days. The room seemed as
quiet as a tomb. For a moment the silence oppressed her, and then she
remembered that it was because the cannon had stopped.
She sat beside the window, through the dusk, until the stars came out;
then went downstairs and took her part at the table, about which the
soldier sons of the house were gathering. They brought comrades with
them. The wounded eldest son was doing well, the army was victorious,
the siege was lifted, the house must be made gay for "the boys." No
house was ever less bright for Judith. Now she smiled and listened, and
the young men thought she did not realize the seriousness of the army
talk about the 65th. They themselves were careful not to mention the
matter. They talked of a thousand heroisms, a thousand incidents of the
Seven Days; but they turned the talk--if any one, unwary, drew it that
way--from White Oak Swamp. They mistook her feeling; she would rather
they had spoken out. Her comfort was when, afterwards, she went for a
moment into the "chamber" to see the wounded eldest. He was a
warm-hearted, rough diamond, fond of his cousin.
"What's this damned stuff I hear about Richard Cleave and a
court-martial? What--nonsense! I beg your pardon, Judith." Judith kissed
him, and finding "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne" face down on the counterpane
offered to read to him.
"You would rather talk about Richard," he said. "I know you would. So
should I. It's all the damnedest nonsense! Such a charge as that!--Tell
you what, Judith. D'ye remember 'Woodstock' and Cromwell in it? Well,
Stonewall Jackson's like Cromwell--of course, a better man, and a
greater general, and a nobler cause, but still he's like him! Don't you
fret! Cromwell had to listen to the truth. He did it, and so will
Stonewall Jackson. Such damned stuff and nonsense! It hurts me worse
than that old bayonet jab ever could! I'd like to hear what Edward
says."
"He says, 'Duck your head and let it go by. The grass'll grow as green
to-morrow.'"
"You aren't crying, are you, Judith?--I thought not. You aren't the
crying kind. Don't do it. War's the stupidest beast."
"Yes, it is."
"Cousin Margaret's with Richard, isn't she?"
"Not with him--that couldn't be, they said. But she and Miriam have gone
to Merry Mount. It's in the lines. I have had a note from her."
"What did she say?--You don't mind, Judith?"
"No, Rob, I don't mind. It was just a verse from a psalm. She said, _I
had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the
land of the living.... Be of good courage and He shall strengthen thy
heart._"
Later, in her room again, she sat by the window through the greater part
of the night. The stars were large and soft, the airs faint, the jasmine
in the garden below smelled sweet. The hospital day stretched before
her; she must sleep so that she could work. She never thought--in that
city and time no woman thought--of ceasing from service because of
private grief. Moreover, work was her salvation. She would be betimes at
the hospital to-morrow, and she would leave it late. She bent once more
a long look upon the east, where were the camp-fires of Lee and
Stonewall Jackson. In imagination she passed the sentries; she moved
among the sleeping brigades. She found one tent, or perhaps it would be
instead a rude cabin.... She stretched her arms upon the window-sill,
and they and her thick fallen hair were wet at last with her tears.
Three days passed. On the third afternoon she left the hospital early
and went to St. Paul's. She chose again the dusk beneath the gallery,
and she prayed dumbly, fiercely, "O God.... O God--"
The church was fairly filled. The grey army was now but a little way
without the city; it had come back to the seven hills after the seven
days. It had come back the hero, the darling. Richmond took the cypress
from her doors; put off the purple pall and tragic mask. Last July
Richmond was to fall, and this July Richmond was to fall, and lo! she
sat secure on her seven hills and her sons did her honour, and for them
she would have made herself a waste place. She yet toiled and watched,
yet mourned for the dead and hung over the beds of the wounded, and more
and more she wondered whence were to appear the next day's yard of cloth
and measure of flour. But in these days she overlaid her life with
gladness and made her house pleasant for her sons. The service at St.
Paul's this afternoon was one of thankfulness; the hymns rang
triumphantly. There were many soldiers. Two officers came in together.
Judith knew General Lee, but the other?... in a moment she saw that it
was General Jackson. Her heart beat to suffocation. She sank down in the
gold dusk of her corner. "O God, let him see the truth. O God, let him
see the truth--"
Outside, as she went homeward in the red sunset, she paused for a moment
to speak to an old free negro who was begging for alms. She gave him
something, and when he had shambled on she stood still a moment here at
the corner of the street, with her eyes upon the beautiful rosy west.
There was a garden wall behind her and a tall crape myrtle. As she
stood, with the light upon her face, Maury Stafford rode by. He saw her
as she saw him. His brooding face flushed; he made as if to check his
horse, but did not so. He lifted his hat high and rode on, out of the
town, back to the encamped army. Judith had made no answering motion;
she stood with lifted face and unchanged look, the rosy light flooding
her, the rosy tree behind her. When he was gone she shivered a little.
"It is not Happiness that hates; it is Misery," she thought. "When I was
happy I never felt like this. I hate him. He is _glad_ of Richard's
peril."
That night she did not sleep at all but sat bowed together in the
window, her arms about her knees, her forehead upon them, and her dark
hair loose about her. She sat like a sibyl till the dawn, then rose and
bathed and dressed, and was at the hospital earliest of all the workers
of that day. In the evening again, just at dusk, she reentered the room,
and presently again took her seat by the window. The red light of the
camp-fires was beginning to show.
There was a knock at the door. Judith rose and opened to a turbaned
coloured girl. "Yes, Dilsey?"
"Miss Judith, de gin'ral air downstairs. He say, ax you kin he come up
to yo' room?"
"Yes, yes, Dilsey! Tell him to come."
When her father came he found her standing against the wall, her hands,
outstretched behind her, resting on it. The last soft bloom of day was
upon her; indefinably, with her hands so, the wall behind her and her
lifted head, she looked a soldier facing a firing party. "Tell me
quickly," she said, "the exact truth."
Warwick Gary closed the door behind him and came toward her. "The court
found him guilty, Judith."
As she still stood, the light from without upon her face, he took her in
his arms, drew her from the wall and made her sit in the chair by the
window, then placed himself beside her, and leaning over took her hands
in his strong clasp. "Many a court has found many a man guilty, Judith,
whom his own soul cleared."
"That is true," she answered. "Your own judgment has not changed?"
"No, Judith, no."
She lifted his hand and kissed it. "Just a moment, and then you'll tell
me--"
They sat still in the soft summer air. The stars were coming out. Off to
the east showed the long red light where was the army. Judith's eyes
rested here. He saw it, and saw, presently, courage lift into her face.
It came steady, with a deathless look. "Now," she said, and loosed her
hands.
"It is very bad," he answered slowly. "The evidence was more adverse
than I could have dreamed. Only on the last count was there acquittal."
"The last count?--"
"The charge of personal cowardice."
Her eyelids trembled a little. "I am glad," she said, "that they had a
gleam of reason."
The other uttered a short laugh, proud and troubled. "Yes. It would not
have occurred to me--just that accusation.... Well, he stood cleared of
that. But the other charges, Judith, the others--" He rested his hands
on his sword hilt and gazed broodingly into the deepening night. "The
court could only find as it did. I myself, sitting there, listening to
that testimony.... It is inexplicable!"
"Tell me all."
"General Jackson's order was plain. A staff officer carried it to
General Winder with perfect correctness. Winder repeated it to the
court, and word for word Jackson corroborated it. The same officer,
carrying it on from Winder to the 65th came up with a courier belonging
to the regiment. To this man, an educated, reliable, trusted soldier, he
gave the order."
"He should not have done so?"
"It is easy to say that--to blame because this time there's a snarl to
unravel! The thing is done often enough. It should not be done, but it
is. Staff service with us is far too irregular. The officer stands to
receive a severe reprimand--but there is no reason to believe that he
did not give the order to the courier with all the accuracy with which
he had already delivered it to Winder. He testified that he did so give
it, repeated it word for word to the court. He entrusted it to the
courier, taking the precaution to make the latter say it over to him,
and then he returned to General Jackson, down the stream, before the
bridge they were building. That closed his testimony. He received the
censure of the court, but what he did has been done before."
"The courier testified--"
"No. That is the link that drops out. The courier was killed. A Thunder
Run man--Steven Dagg--testified that he had been separated from the
regiment. Returning to it along the wooded bank of the creek, he arrived
just behind the courier. He heard him give the order to the colonel.
'Could he repeat it?' 'Yes.' He did so, and it was, accurately,
Jackson's order."
"Richard--what did Richard say?"
"He said the man lied."
"Ah!"
"The courier fell before the first volley from the troops in the woods.
He died almost at once, but two men testified as to the only thing he
had said. It was, 'We ought never all of us to have crossed. Tell Old
Jack I carried the order straight.'"
He rose and with a restless sigh began to pace the little room. "I see a
tangle--something not understood--some stumbling-block laid by laws
beyond our vision. We cannot even define it, cannot even find its edges.
We do not know its nature. Things happen so sometimes in this strange
world. I do not think that Richard himself understands how the thing
chanced. He testified--"
"Yes, oh, yes--"
"He repeated to the court the order he had received. It was not the
order that Jackson had given and that Winder had sent on to him, though
it differed in only two points. And neither--and there, Judith, there is
a trouble!--neither was it with entire explicitness an order to do that
which he did do. He acknowledged that, quite simply. He had found at the
time an ambiguity--he had thought of sending again for confirmation to
Winder. And then--unfortunate man! something happened to strengthen the
interpretation which, when all is said, he preferred to receive, and
upon which he acted. Time pressed. He took the risk, if there was a
risk, and crossed the stream."
"Father, do you blame him?"
"He blames himself, Judith, somewhat cruelly. But I think it is because,
just now, of the agony of memory. He loved his regiment.--No. What sense
in blaming where, had there followed success, you would have praised?
Then it would have been proper daring; now--I could say that he had been
wiser to wait, but I do not know that in his place I should have waited.
He was rash, perhaps, but who is there to tell? Had he chosen another
interpretation and delayed, and been mistaken, then, too, commination
would have fallen. No. I blame him less than he blames himself, Judith.
But the fact remains. Even by his own showing there was a doubt. Even
accepting his statement of the order he received, he took it upon
himself to decide."
"They did not accept his statement--"
"No, Judith. They judged that he had received General Jackson's order
and had disobeyed it.--I know--I know! To us it is monstrous. But the
court must judge by the evidence--and the verdict was to be expected. It
was his sole word, and where his own safety was at stake. 'Had not the
dead courier a reputation for reliability, for accuracy?' 'He had, and
he would not lay the blame there, besmirching a brave man's name.'
'Where then?' 'He did not know. It was so that he had received the
order'--Judith, Judith! I have rarely seen truth so helpless as in this
case."
She drew a difficult breath. "No help. And they said--"
"He was pronounced guilty of the first charge. That carried with it the
verdict as to the second--the sacrifice of the regiment. There,
too--guilty. Only the third there was no sustaining. The loss was
fearful, but there were men enough left to clear him from that charge.
He struggled with desperation to retrieve his error, if error it were;
he escaped death himself as by a miracle, and he brought off a remnant
of the command which, in weaker hands, might have been utterly swallowed
up. On that count he is clear. But on the others--guilty, and without
mitigation."
He came back to the woman by the window. "Judith, I would rather put the
sword in my own heart than put it thus in yours. War is a key, child,
that unlocks to all dreadful things, to all mistakes, to every sorrow!"
"I want every worst drop of it," she said. "Afterward I'll look for
comfort. Do not be afraid for me; I feel as strong as the hills, the
air, the sea--anything. What is the sentence?"
"Dismissal from the army."
Judith rose and, with her hands on the window-sill, leaned out into the
night. Her gaze went straight to the red light in the eastern sky. There
was an effect as though the force, impalpable, real, which was herself,
had gone too, flown from the window straight toward that horizon,
leaving here but a fair ivory shell. It was but momentary; the chains
held and she turned back to the shadowed room. "You have seen him?"
"Yes."
"How--"
"He has much of his mother in him, Judith. Eventually he will, I think,
take it that way. But now it is his father that shows. He is very
silent--grey and hard and silent."
"Where is he?"
"At present yet under guard. To-morrow it will all be over."
"He will be free, you mean?"
"Yes, he will be free."
She came and put her arm around her father's neck. "Father, you know
what I want to do then? To do just as soon as I shall have seen him and
made him realize that it is for my happiness. I want to marry him....
Ah, don't look at me so, saying nothing!" She withdrew herself a little,
standing with her clasped hands against his breast. "You expected that,
did you not? Why, what else.... Father, I am not afraid of you. You will
let me do it."
He regarded her with a grave, compassionate face. "No. You need not fear
me, Judith. It is hardly father and child with you and me. It is soul
and soul, and I trust your soul with its own concerns. Moreover, if it
is pain to consider what you would do, the pang would be greater to find
you not capable.... Yes, I would let you do it. But I do not think that
Richard will."