THE PRISONERS.
Many of the captives were coming home. Prison after prison had given up
its starving, vermin-eaten inmates, while all along the Northern lines
loving hearts were waiting, and friendly hands outstretched to welcome
them back to "God's land," as the poor, suffering creatures termed the
soil over which waved the Stars and Stripes, for which they had fought
so bravely. Wistfully, thousands of eyes ran over the long columns of
names of those returned, each eye seeking for its own, and growing dim
with tears as it failed to find it, or lighting up with untold joy when
it was found.
"Lieutenant Robert Reynolds" and "Thomas Tubbs," Helen read among the
list of those just arrived at Annapolis, but "Captain Mark Ray" was not
there, and with a sickening feeling of disappointment she passed the
paper to her mother-in-law, and hastened away, to weep and pray that
what she so greatly feared might not come upon her.
It was after Katy's betrothal, and she was in New York, happy to hear
news from Mark, and perhaps to see him ere long, for, as nearly as she
could trace him from reports of others, he was last at Andersonville.
But there was no mention made of him, no sign by which she could tell
whether he still lived, or had long since been relieved from suffering.
Early the next day she heard that Mattie Tubbs had received a telegram
from Tom, who would soon be at home, while later in the day Bell Cameron
came around to say that Bob was living, but had lost his right arm, and
was otherwise badly crippled. It never occurred to Helen to ask if this
would make a difference. She only kissed Bell fondly, rejoicing at her
good fortune, and then sent her back to the home where there were hot
discussions regarding the propriety of receiving into the family a
maimed and crippled member.
"It was preposterous to suppose Bob would expect it," Juno said, while
the mother admitted that it was a most unfortunate affair, as indeed the
whole war had proved. For her part, she sometimes wished the North had
let the South go quietly when they wanted to, and so saved thousands of
lives, and prevented the country from being flooded with cripples, and
negroes, and calls for more men and money. On the whole, she rather
doubted the propriety of re-electing Lincoln, and prolonging the war;
and she certainly doubted the propriety of giving her daughter to a
cripple. There was Arthur Grey, who had lately been so attentive; he was
a wealthier man than Lieutenant Bob, and if Bell had any discretion she
would take him in preference to a disfigured soldier.
Such was the purport of Mrs. Cameron's remarks, to which her husband
listened, his eyes blazing with passion, which, the moment she finished,
burst forth in a storm of oaths and invectives against what, with his
pet adjective, he called her "Copperhead principles," denouncing her as
a traitor, reproaching her for the cruelty which would separate her
daughter from Robert Reynolds because he had lost an arm in the service
of his country, and then turning fiercely to Bell with the words:
"But it isn't for you to say whether he shall or shall not have Bell.
She is of age. Let her speak for herself."
And she did speak, the noble, heroic girl, who had listened, with bitter
scorn, to what her mother and sister said, and who now, with elevated
nostrils and voice hoarse with emotion, answered slowly and
impressively:
"I would marry Lieutenant Reynolds if he had only his ears left to hear
me tell him how much I love and honor him! Arthur Grey! Don't talk to me
of him! the craven coward, who will neither volunteer nor give a cent
for our poor, suffering soldiers, but turns people off with: 'Government
provides,' or 'the stores do not reach them,' and all those subterfuges
to which mean men resort to keep from giving, and to avoid the draft
swore he was forty-five, when we all know better. Don't insult Robert
with such a comparison, or think I will break my faith with him."
After this no more was said to Bell, who waited anxiously for further
news from Bob, and who, the moment she heard he was at home, went to his
father's house, and asked to see him.
He was sleeping when she entered his room, and pushing back the heavy
curtain, so that the light would fall more directly upon him, Mrs.
Reynolds went out and left her there alone.
With a beating heart, she stood looking at his hollow eyes, his sunken
cheek, his short, dry hair, and thick, gray skin--all marks of the
brutal treatment he had received. She did not think of his arm until she
glanced at the wall where hung a large-sized photograph, taken in full
uniform the last time he was at home, and in which his full,
well-developed figure showed to good advantage. Could it be that the
wreck before her had ever been as full of life and vigor as the picture
would indicate, and was that arm which held the sword severed from the
body, and left a token of the murderous war?
"Poor Bob! how much he must have suffered," she whispered, and kneeling
down beside him, she hid her face in her hands, weeping bitter tears
for her armless hero.
The motion awakened Robert, who gazed for a moment in surprise at the
kneeling, sobbing maiden; then, when sure it was she, he raised himself
in bed, and ere Bell could look up, two arms, one quite as strong as the
other, were wound around her neck, and her head was pillowed upon the
breast, which heaved with strong emotions as the soldier said:
"My darling Bell, my promised wife, you don't know how much good this
meeting does me!"
He kissed her many times, and Bell did not prevent it, but gave him kiss
after kiss, then, still doubting the evidence of her eyes, she unclasped
his clinging arms, and holding both his poor hands in hers, gave vent to
a second gush of tears as she said:
"I am so glad--oh, so glad!"
Then, as it occurred to her that he might perhaps misjudge her, and put
a wrong construction upon her joy, she added:
"I did not care for myself, Robert. Don't think I cared for myself, or
was ever sorry a bit on my own account."
Bob looked a little bewildered as he replied: "Never were sorry and
never cared! I can scarcely credit that, for surely your tears and
present emotions belie your words."
Bell knew he had not understood her, and she said:
"Your arm, Robert, your arm. We heard it was cut off, and that you were
otherwise mutilated."
"Oh, that's it, then!" and something like his old, mischievous smile
glimmered about Bob's mouth as he added: "They spared my arms, but,
Bell"--and he tried to look very solemn--"suppose I tell you that they
hacked off both my legs, and if you marry me, as you seem to think you
will, you must walk all your life by the side of wooden pins and
crutches?"
Bell knew by the curl of his lip that he was teasing her, and she
answered, laughingly:
"Wooden pins and crutches will be all the fashion when the war is over;
badges of honor of which any woman might be proud."
"Well, Bell," he replied, "I am afraid there is no such honor in store
for my wife, for if I ever get back my strength and the flesh upon my
bones, she must take me with legs and arms included. Not even a scratch
or wound of any kind with which to awaken sympathy."
He appeared very bright and cheerful, but when, after a moment, Bell
asked for Mark Ray, there came a shadow over his face, and with
quivering lips he told a tale which blanched Bell's cheek, and made her
shiver with pain and dread as she thought of Helen, the wife who had
never known the sweets of matrimony, and who would never taste them now,
for Mark was dead--shot down as he attempted to escape from the train
which took them from one place of torment to another. He was always
devising means of escape, succeeding several times, but was immediately
captured and brought back, or sent to some closer quarters, Robert said;
but his courage never deserted him, and in the muddy, filthy place where
they were herded like so many cattle, without shelter of any kind, he
was the life of them all, and by his presence kept many a poor fellow
from dying of homesickness and despair. But he was dead; there could be
no mistake, for Robert saw him when he jumped, heard the ball which went
whizzing after him, saw him as he fell on the open field, saw a man from
a rude dwelling nearby go hurriedly toward him, firing his own revolver,
as if to make the death deed doubly sure. Then, as the train slacked its
speed, with the view, perhaps, to take the body on board, he heard the
man who had reached Mark and was bending over him, call out: "Go on;
I'll tend to him. He is dead as a stone; bullet went right through
here," and he turned the dead man's face toward the train, so all could
see the blood pouring from the temple which the finger of the rebel
ruffian touched.
"Oh, Helen! poor Helen! How can I tell her, when she loved him so much!"
Bell sobbed, while Bob repeated many things to prove how strong was the
love the unfortunate Mark Ray had borne for his young wife.
"He used to make pictures of her," he said, "with a pencil which he had,
and once he whittled out her face with a lily in the hair. It was a good
likeness, too, and I saw Mark kiss it more than once when he thought he
was not seen. He had her photograph, it seems, but a brutal keeper took
it away, for no earthly purpose except to distress him. I never saw Mark
cast down till then, when for two whole days he scarcely spoke, but
would stand for hours with his face turned toward the North, and a
quivering motion around his lips, as if his heart were broken."
Bell could hear no more, but motioned him to stop.
"It's too terrible even to think about," she said. "Oh, how can I tell
Helen!"
"You will do it better than any one else," Bob said. "You will be very
tender with her; and, Bell, tell her, as some consolation, that he did
not break with the treatment, as most of us wretches did; he kept up
wonderfully--said he was perfectly well--and, indeed, he looked so. Tom
Tubbs, who was his shadow, clinging to him with wonderful fidelity, will
corroborate what I have said. He was with us, he saw him, and only
animal force prevented him from leaping from the car and going to him
where he fell. I shall never forget his shriek of agony at the sight of
that blood-stained face turned an instant toward us."
"Don't, don't!" Bell cried again; "I can't endure it!" and as Mrs.
Reynolds then came in, she left her lover, and with a foreboding heart,
started for Mrs. Banker's, meeting on the steps Tom Tubbs himself, who
had come on an errand similar to her own.
"Sit here in the hall a moment," she said to him, as the servant
admitted them both. "I must see Mrs. Ray first."
Helen was reading to her mother-in-law, but she laid down her book and
came to welcome Bell, detecting at once the agitation in her manner and
asking if she had had bad news from Robert.
"No, Robert is at home; I have just come from there, and he told me--oh!
Helen, can you bear it?--Mark is dead--shot twice as he jumped from the
train taking him to another prison, Robert saw it, and knew that he was
dead."
Bell could get no further, for Helen, who had never fainted in her life,
did so now, lying senseless so long that the physician began to think it
would be a mercy if she never came back to life, for her reason, he
fancied, had fled. But Helen did come back to life with reason
unimpaired, and insisted upon hearing every detail of the dreadful
story, both from Bell and Tom. The latter confirmed all Lieutenant
Reynolds had said, besides adding many items of his own. Mark was dead,
there could be no doubt of it; but with the tenacity of a strong,
hopeful nature, the mother clung to the illusion that possibly the ball
stunned, instead of killing--that he would yet come back; and many a
time, as the days went by, that mother started at a step upon the walk
or ring of the bell, which she fancied might be his, hearing him
sometimes calling in the night storm for her to let him in, and hurrying
down to the door only to be disappointed, and go back to her lonely room
to weep the dark night through.
With Helen there were no such illusions. After talking calmly and
rationally with both Robert and Tom, she knew her husband was dead, and
never watched and waited for him as his mother did. She had heard from
Mark's companions in suffering all they had to tell, of his captivity,
and his love for her which manifested itself in so many different ways.
Passionately she had wept over the tress of faded hair which Tom Tubbs
brought to her, saying: "He cut it from his head just before we left the
prison, and told me if he never got home and I did, to give the lock to
you, and say that all was well between him and God--that your prayers
had saved him. He wanted you to know that, because, he said, it would
comfort you most of all."
And it did comfort her, so that she could almost say with a full heart:
"Thy will be done," when she looked up at the clear, wintry heavens and
thought that her lost one was there. It was her first real trial, and it
crushed her with its magnitude so that she could not submit at once, and
many a cry of desolate agony broke the silence of her room, where the
whole night through she sat musing of the past, and raining kisses upon
the little lock of hair which from the Southern prison had come to her,
sole relic of the husband so dearly loved and truly mourned. How faded
it was from the rich brown she remembered so well, and Helen gazing at
it could realize in part the suffering and want which had worn so many
precious lives away. It was strange she never dreamed of him. She often
prayed that she might, so as to drive from her mind, if possible, the
picture of the prostrate form upon the low, damp field, and the
blood-stained face turned in its mortal agony toward the Southern sky
and the pitiless foe above it. So she always saw him, shuddering as she
wondered if the foe had buried him decently or left his bones to bleach
upon the open plain.
Poor Helen, she was widowed indeed, and it needed not the badge of
mourning to tell how terribly she was bereaved. But the badge was there,
too, for in spite of the hope which said "he is not dead," Mrs. Banker
yielded to Helen's importunities, and clothed herself and
daughter-in-law in the habiliments of woe, still waiting, still
watching, still listening for the step she should recognize so quickly,
still looking down the street; but looking, alas! in vain. The winter
passed away. Captive after captive came home, heart after heart was
cheered by the returning loved one, but for the inmates of No. ---- the
heavy cloud grew blacker, for the empty chair by the hearth remained
unoccupied, and the aching hearts uncheered. Mark Ray did not come back.