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THE COWARD.
A Novel of Society and the Field in 1863.
by
HENRY MORFORD.
Author of "Shoulder-Straps," "The Days of Shoddy," etc.
Philadelphia:
T. B. Peterson & Brothers,
306 Chestnut Street.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
T. B. Peterson & Brothers,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
TO
THE PATRIOT PRINTERS OF AMERICA--
THE MEN WHO
HAVE FURNISHED MORE SOLDIERS
THAN ANY OTHER CLASS
IN COMPARISON WITH THE WHOLE NUMBER OF THEIR CRAFT,
TO
THE DEAD HEROES OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION
AND
THE LIVING ARMIES THAT YET BULWARK ITS HOPE,--
THIS
BLENDING OF THE FACTS AND FANCIES
OF
WAR-TIME,
IS
DEDICATED BY THEIR BROTHER-CRAFTSMAN,
THE AUTHOR.
_New York City, July, 1864._
PREFACE.
Some persons, taking up this work with expectations more or less elevated,
may possibly lay it down with disappointment after perusal, because it does
not discuss with sharp personalities, as the title may have led them to
suppose, the conduct of some of those well-known men connected with the
Union Army, who have disgracefully faltered on the field. But the truth is
that the Union Army has mustered very few cowards--so few, that a
distinguished artist, not long ago called on to draw an ideal head of one
of that class, said: "Really it is so long since I have seen a coward, that
I scarcely know how to go about it!" The aim of the writer, eschewing all
such tempting personalities, and quite as carefully avoiding all dry
didactic discussion of the theme of courage and its opposite,--has
principally been to illustrate the tendency of many men to misunderstand
their own characters in certain particulars, and the inevitable consequence
of their being misunderstood by the world, in one direction or the other.
No apology is felt to be necessary for the length at which the scenery of
the White Mountains, their actualities of interest and possibilities of
danger, have been introduced into the narration; nor is it believed that
the chain of connection with the great contest will be found the weaker
because the glimpses given of it are somewhat more brief than in preceding
publications of the same series. In those portions the writer has again
occasion to acknowledge the assistance of the same capable hand which
supplied much of the war data for both of his previous volumes.
NEW YORK CITY, _July 1st, 1864._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
A June Morning of Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-three--Glimpses
of West Philadelphia--The Days before Gettysburgh--The Two on
the Piazza--Margaret Hayley and Elsie Brand--An Embrace and a
Difference--Foreshadowings of Carlton Brand, Brother and
Lover 29
CHAPTER II.
The Coming of Carlton Brand--Almost a Paladin of
Balaclava--Brother and Sister--A Spasm of Shame--The
Confession--The Coward--How Margaret Hayley heard Many Words
not intended for her--The Rupture and the Separation 45
CHAPTER III.
Kitty Hood and her School-house--Dick Compton going
Soldiering--A Lover's Quarrel, a bit of Jealousy, and a
Threat--How Dick Compton met his supposed Rival--An
Encounter, Sudden Death, and Kitty Hood's terrible Discovery 61
CHAPTER IV.
The Residence of the Brands--Robert Brand and Dr.
Pomeroy--Radical and Copperhead--A passage-at-arms that ended
in a Quarrel--Elspeth Graeme the Housekeeper--The Shadow of
Shame--Father and Daughter--The falling of a parent's Curse 81
CHAPTER V.
The Birth and Blood of the Brands--Pride that came down from
the Crusades--Robert Brand as Soldier and Pension-Agent--How
Elsie raved, and how the Father's Curse seemed to be
answered--Dr. James Holton, and the loss of a Corpus Delicti 99
CHAPTER VI.
The Residence of Dr. Pomeroy--Nathan Bladesden and Eleanor
Hill--A kneeling Woman and a rigid Quaker--The ruin that a
Letter had wrought--A Parting that seemed eternal--Carlton
Brand alive once more, and a Glance at the fatal Letter 120
CHAPTER VII.
A return to 1856--Nicholas Hill, Iron-merchant--His Death,
his Daughter, and his Friend--How Dr. Pomeroy became a
Guardian and how he Discharged that duty--A ruin and an
awakening--The market value of Dunderhaven Stock in 1858 137
CHAPTER VIII.
What followed the revelation of Betrayal--A gleam of Hope for
Eleanor Hill--A relative from California, a projected Voyage,
and a Disappointment--One more Letter--The broken thread
resumed--Carlton Brand's farewell, and an Elopement 164
CHAPTER IX.
Dr. Pomeroy's purposed Pursuit--A plain Quaker who used very
plain Language--Almost a Fight--How Mrs. Burton Hayley
consoled her Daughter, and how Margaret revealed the Past--A
Compact--Dr. Pomeroy's Canine Adventure--Old Elspeth once
more--A Search that found Nothing. 174
CHAPTER X.
Before and after Gettysburgh--The Apathy and Despair which
preceded, and the Jubilation which followed--What Kitty Hood
said after the Battle, and what Robert Brand--Brother and
Sister--A guest at the Fifth Avenue Hotel--A fire-room Visit,
an Interview, and a Departure for Europe 200
CHAPTER XI.
Anomalies of the War for the Union--The Watering-place rush
of 1863--A White Mountain party disembarking at
Littleton--Who filled the Concord coach--The
Vanderlyns--Shoddy on its travels--Mr. Brooks Cunninghame and
his Family--"H. T." and an Excitement 219
CHAPTER XII.
Landing at the Profile House--Halstead Rowan and
Gymnastics--How that person saw Clara Vanderlyn and became a
Rival of "H. T."--The Full Moon in the Notch--Trodden Toes, a
Name, a Voice, and a Rencontre--Margaret Hayley and Capt.
Hector Coles--The Old Man of the Mountain by Moonlight, and a
Mystery 237
CHAPTER XIII.
Miss Clara Vanderlyn and her Pet Bears--A misadventure and a
Friendly Hand in time--The question of Courage--Halstead
Rowan and Mrs. Brooks Cunninghame on Geography--The Dead
Washington, the Flume and the Pool--With the personal
relations weaving at that juncture. 255
CHAPTER XIV.
A disaster to Master Brooks Brooks Cunninghame--Exit into the
bottom of the Pool--Nobody that could swim, and Margaret
Hayley in Excitement--"H. T." in his element, in two
senses--Another Introduction and a new Hero--Scenes in the
Profile parlor--Rowan and Clara Vanderlyn--The Insult 279
CHAPTER XV.
How Halstead Rowan arranged that expected Duel--Ten-pins
versus bloodshed--Some anxiety about identity--The "H. T."
initials, again--A farewell to the Brooks Cunninghames--An
hour on Echo Lake, with a Rhapsody and a strangely-interested
Listener 298
CHAPTER XVI.
Cloud and Storm at the Profile--Sights and Sensations of a
rainy-day ride to the Crawford--Horace Townsend and Halstead
Rowan once more together--Unexpected Arrivals--A cavalcade of
Miserables--An ascent of Mount Washington, with Equestrianism
and War-whoops extraordinary 323
CHAPTER XVII.
Horace Townsend with a Lady in charge--An adventure over the
"Gulf of Mexico"--Clara Vanderlyn in deadly peril--A moment
of horror--Halstead Rowan and a display of the Comanche
riding--Townsend's eclipse--The return to the
Crawford--Margaret Hayley again, and a Conversation overheard 348
CHAPTER XVIII.
Horace Townsend and Margaret Hayley--A strange Rencontre in
the Parlor--Another Rencontre, equally strange but less
pleasant--How Clara Vanderlyn faded away from the
Mountains--And how the Comanche Rider "played baby" and
disappeared 370
CHAPTER XIX.
A strange Character at breakfast--"The Rambler," and his
Antecedents--What Horace Townsend heard about Fate--Going up
to Pic-nic on Mount Willard--The Plateau, the Rope and the
Swing--Spreading the Banquet--The dinner-call and a cry which
answered it--A fearful situation. 392
CHAPTER XX.
Suspense in danger, in two Senses--Horace Townsend with a
Swing-rope--An invitation to Captain Hector Coles--A fearful
piece of Amateur Gymnastics--Going down into the
Schute--Success or Failure?--The event, and Margaret Hayley's
madness--Two unfortunate Declarations 410
CHAPTER XXI.
The bearer of a Disgraced Name in England--A strange Quest
and a strange Unrest--Hurrying over to Ireland--Too late for
the Packet--The little Despatch-steamer--Henry Fitzmaurice,
the journalist--The peril of the Emerald, and the end of all
Quests save one 432
CHAPTER XXII.
Pleasanton's advance on Culpeper--Crossing the
Rappahannock--The fight and the calamity of Rawson's
Cross-Roads--Taking of Culpeper--Pleasanton's Volunteer
Aide--Townsend versus Coles--The meeting of Two who loved
each other--And the Little Ride they took together 452
CHAPTER XXIII.
Once more at West Philadelphia--September and Change--Last
glimpses of Kitty Hood and Dick Compton--Robert Brand and his
invited Guest--The news of Death--Old Elspeth Graeme as a
Seeress--The dispatch from Alexandria--The Quest of Brand and
Margaret Hayley 478
CHAPTER XXIV.
In the Hospital at Alexandria--The wounded Man and his
Nurse--Who was Horace Townsend?--A Mystery explained--How
Eleanor Hill went back to Dr. Pomeroy's--One word more of the
Comanche Rider--Conclusion 490
THE COWARD.
CHAPTER I.
A JUNE MORNING OF EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE--GLIMPSES
OF WEST PHILADELPHIA--THE DAYS BEFORE GETTYSBURG--THE TWO ON
THE PIAZZA--MARGARET HAYLEY AND ELSIE BRAND--AN EMBRACE AND
A DIFFERENCE--FORESHADOWINGS OF CARLTON BRAND, BROTHER AND
LOVER.
A wide piazza, with the columns made of such light tracery in scrolled
plank-work that they seemed to be almost unreal and gave an appearance of
etheriality to the whole front of the house. The piazza, flecked over with
the golden June sunshine that stole down between the branches of the tall
trees standing in front and shading the house, and that crept in through
the network of twine and climbing roses clambering almost up to the roof
from the balustrade below. The house to which the piazza adjoined, large,
built of wood in that half Flemish and half Elizabethan style which has of
late years been made popular through cheap books on cottage architecture
and the illustrations in agricultural newspapers,--two and a half stories
in height, with a double gabled front that belonged to the one, elaborate
cornices and work over the piazza that belonged to the other, and a turret
in the centre that belonged to neither. A wide, tall door opening from the
piazza, and windows also opening upon it, sweeping down quite to the
floor. Altogether a house which approached more nearly to the "composite"
order of architecture so much affected by wealthy Americans, than to any
one set down in the books by a particular designation; and yet shapely and
imposing, and showing that if the most unimpeachable taste had not presided
over the erection, yet wealth had been lavishly expended and all the modern
graces and ornaments freely supplied.
In front of the house, and sweeping down to the road that ran within a
hundred feet, a grassed lawn lying in the lovely green of early summer,
only broken at irregular intervals by the dozen of trees of larger and
smaller sizes, round which the earth had been artistically made to swell so
as to do away with any appearance of newness and create the impression that
the roundness had been caused by the bursting of the trees farther out of
the ground through many years of vigorous growth. Beneath one of the
largest of the trees--a maple, with the silver sheen almost equally divided
between its bark and its glossy leaves, a long wooden bench or settee, with
two or three sofa-cushions thrown carelessly upon it, as if it formed at
times a favorite lounge for a reader or a smoker. On the piazza a triad of
chairs, irregularly placed and all unoccupied. One of the two folding doors
leading into the halls from the piazza, wide open, as became the season,
and the other half closed as if a single puff of summer breeze coming
through the hall had become exhausted before closing it entirely. One of
the windows opening from the piazza into what seemed to be the better part
of the house, closed entirely; and the other, with the shutters "bowed" or
half open, permitting a peep into a large parlor or sitting-room, with rich
carpet and handsome furniture, but kept dusky under the impression (more or
less reasonable) that thereby additional coolness would be secured.
Near the house, on both sides, other houses of corresponding pretension
though displaying great variety in style of architecture; and in front,
across the wide road, still others showing to the right and left, and the
whole appearance of the immediate neighborhood evidencing that it was
neither country nor city, but a blending of both, suburban, and a chosen
spot for the residences of those who did business in the great city and
wished to be near it, and who possessed means and taste to make so pleasant
a selection. Still farther away in front, as seen between the other houses
and shrubbery, and stretching off southward in a long rolling sweep, rich
agricultural country, with some of the hay-crop yet ungathered, broad
fields of grain receiving the last ripening kiss of the sun before yielding
to the sickle or the reaping-machine, and fruit-trees already beginning to
be golden with the apples, pears and peaches glimmering amid the leaves. A
quiet, gentle scene, with evident wealth to gild it and perfect repose to
lend it character; and over all the warm sun of a June morning resting like
a benediction, and a slight shadow of golden haze in the air softening
every object in the perspective. Occasionally a pedestrian figure moving
slowly along one of the foot-paths that bordered the wide road; and anon a
farm-wagon loaded with early produce and on its way to market, rumbling by
with such a sleepy expression on the face of the driver and such lollings
of the ears of the full-fed and lazy horses, that the episode of its
passage rather added to than detracted from the slumberous quiet of the
prospect.
Then another passage, very different and not at all in keeping with any of
the points that have before been noted. An officer in full uniform, with
the front of his chasseur cap thrown high in defiance of the glare of the
sunshine, spurring by on a high-stepping and fast-trotting horse, eastward
towards the city, with such life and haste in every movement of himself and
the animal he bestrode as to momentarily dash the whole view with unquiet.
Then the equestrian figure out of sight and the beat of his horse's hoofs
heard no longer; and the scene relapsing into that languor born of the June
morning verging rapidly towards noon.
Then a sudden sound, still more discordant with the drowsy peace of the
hour than the sight of the spurring soldier, and still more painfully
suggestive of war in the land of peace. The quick, sharp rattle of a
snare-drum, but a little space removed, and apparently passing down one of
the lateral roads in the neighborhood, dying away with a light tap into the
distance a moment after, and quiet coming back again yet more markedly
after so incongruous an interruption.
The place, West Philadelphia, half a mile or more beyond the Schuylkill,
not far from the line traversed beyond the bridge by the Market Street
cars, and near the intersection of that branch of the main artery known as
the Darby Road,--in the outer edge of that beautiful little section with
its tall trees and plats of natural green, out of and into which the
shrieking monsters of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad dart every hour in
the day with freight and passengers to and from the Great West. The time,
late in June, 1863, a few days before Gettysburg, when the long-threatened
invasion of the North by the rebels had become for the moment an
accomplished fact, when Lee and Ewell had crossed the Potomac, swept on
through Upper Maryland, entered Pennsylvania, devastated the farms and
carried away the stock of the farmers on the border, laid York under a
contribution, burned the barracks at Carlisle, and threatened every hour to
capture Harrisburgh and force the passage of the Susquehanna. When women
and children, and by far too many of the able-bodied inhabitants who should
have shown more pride if they indeed possessed no courage, had fled away
from the Seat of Government of the Keystone State, and the public records
were following them to prevent their falling into the hands of an enemy
known to be destructive and revengeful, and for the moment believed to be
irresistible. When the rebels themselves boasted that they were about to
teach the North all the horrors of war that had fallen upon the South in
the long contest,--and that in a few days they would water their
cavalry-horses in the Delaware, if they did not achieve the same success at
the very banks of the Hudson; and when the newspapers of New York and
Philadelphia, for the moment completely discouraged, gave up the line of
defence of the Susquehanna, and gravely debated, whether a check could
indeed be made at the Delaware, with the loss of the Quaker City, or
whether the great struggle must at last be transferred to the Hudson hills
of New Jersey. When the Reserves were mustering in Philadelphia, and the
Coal Regiments forming in the haunts of the sturdy miners. When the
Pennsylvania coal-mines were to be set on fire by the invader, and left to
burn on until all the fuel of the nation was destroyed, if the "great
conflagration" of the whole earth did not follow as a result. When more
placards calling for the defence of the State, were exhibited in the
neighborhood of old Independence Hall, than had ever shown there, inviting
the idle to amusement, in the most prosperous seasons of opera, theatre and
concert-saloon--drums beating at every corner, brass bands blowing on every
square, patriotic appeals and efforts to recruit on every hand, and yet the
people apparently lying under bodily apathy or mental paralysis. When
Governor Seymour, of New York, and Governor Parker, of New Jersey, waiving
the political question for the moment, were calling out the troops of those
States to the defence of Pennsylvania; and when the militia of the city of
New York and the returned nine-months volunteers of New Jersey were showing
themselves equally ready to respond to the call. When the Army of the
Potomac seemed for the moment to be nothing, even for the defence of the
North, Hooker discredited, no successor discovered, public confidence lost,
the very darkest day of the struggle at hand, and no man able or willing to
predict what might be the extent of disaster reached before the rolling
back of the tide of invasion from the homes of the loyal States.
Such were the place, the time, the surroundings, and the atmosphere (so to
speak) of the house of the blended Flemish and Elizabethan styles of
architecture, at West Philadelphia, of which, thus far, only the outward
aspects have been presented. Yet there may be an inexcusable neglect of
the proprieties, in presenting a house, its green lawn, shady trees, and
even the pleasant landscape stretching away in front of it, before those
living figures which would certainly have attracted the attention of an
observer in advance of any of the inanimate beauties of art or nature.
Those figures were two in number, both standing on the piazza, very near
the trellis of climbing roses, and where the flecks of sunshine fell
through the leaves upon them and dashed them with little dots and lines of
moving light, as well as the floor upon which they stood. Both were
girls--both young--both beautiful; at least each possessed that combination
of features, form and manner, making her very pleasing to the casual
observer, and certain to be reckoned beautiful by some one admitted to a
closer knowledge of the spirit enshrined within. They were evidently dear
friends; for as they stood near the trellis, and the hand of the taller of
the two plucked a half-open rose from one of the clusters, and she
playfully tried to coax it to a fuller opening by breathing caressingly
upon it and separating its clinging leaves with her dainty fingers,--the
arm of the other was around her waist, and both the trim and graceful forms
were slightly swaying backward and forward in that pleasant, idle,
school-girl motion which the grown woman does not easily forget until it
has given the "fidgets" to half her elder acquaintances.
The taller and perhaps by a year the elder--she of the rose--was the
daughter of the mistress of that pleasant summer paradise, born to wealth
and position, and her birth registered some two-and-twenty years before in
the predecessor of the heavy family Bible with its golden clasps, which lay
in state in the parlor so near her, as Margaret Hayley. She was a little
above the average height of womanhood, and might have seemed too tall for
grace but for the exquisite rounding of the lithe form, the matchless fall
of a pair of sloping shoulders that could not probably be matched within a
radius of an hundred miles, the graceful carriage of a neck that would
have been long if less elegantly poised, the beauty in shape and spring in
motion of the Arab foot under which the water would have run as easily as
beneath a bridge, and the supple delicacy of the long taper fingers with
their rose-tinted nails, which seemed perfect and high-blooded enough to
have a mission of playing among heart-strings as the fingers of others
might do among the chords of a harp.
In feature the young girl had quite as many claims to attention. The hair
was very dark and very profuse--so near to black that it needed the
sunlight before the golden shadows in the dark brown became fully
apparent--swept plainly down on either side, in the madonna fashion, from a
brow that was very pure, high and clear. The face was handsomely moulded,
rather long than broad, as beseemed the figure, rather pale than ruddy,
though with a dash of healthy color in each cheek that belied any momentary
suspicion of ill health; the nose a little long and somewhat decided, but
very classic in outline and finely cut at the nostril; the eyes dark--so
dark that a careless observer would have lost their brown and called them
black, and their expression a little reserved if not sad and even sometimes
severe; the mouth small and well-shaped, with the lips as delicately tinted
as the faintest blush-rose in the cluster near her, but a shade too thin
for the exhibition of exuberant passion, and showing a slight curl of pride
at the corners of the upper; the chin rounded, full, and forming a pleasant
point for the eye to rest upon as it descended from the face to study the
contour of neck and shoulders. The first appreciative glance at her was
certain to be followed by the suppressed exclamation: "How very handsome!"
and the second by a thought that the lips did not syllable: "How very proud
and queenly!" It might have needed many more than a third, before the gazer
could go to the full depth of a very marked character, and say how much of
that queenly bearing might be ready to bend at last to the magic touch of
the softer passions, and how much of that evident goodness and firmness
might be employed in conveying happiness to others than herself. Among her
peculiarities, she seemed to despise stripes, plaids, sprigs, spots, and
the other endless varieties of color in material; and the lawn which swept
that morning around her erect figure was of a neutral tint and as devoid of
spot as were arms, ears and neck of any ornament in jewelry except a small
cameo at the throat, a slight gold chain around the neck and descending to
the bosom, and a single cluster diamond sparkling on the forefinger of the
right-hand that was dallying with the spirit hidden among the rose-leaves.
No more telling contrast to the tall, majestic girl could well have been
supplied, than her neighbor and dear friend, Elsie Brand (Elspeth,
baptismally, for reasons that will hereafter develop themselves, but always
called Elsie by those admitted to the least intimacy.) She was at least
four inches shorter than Miss Hayley, round and rather plump, though very
graceful in figure, with a chubby face, ruddy cheeks, piquant nose, merry
blue eyes, pouting red lips, full hair coming low down on the forehead and
of that pale gold which the old Scotch poets immortalized as "yellow," in
so many of their lays of the bardic era. Pretty, beyond question, but more
good and attractive-looking than beautiful; and if a second look at
Margaret Hayley would have induced an observation having reference to her
pride, a second at Elsie Brand was certain to bring out the thought if not
the speech: "What a charming, good little girl!" Perhaps a third, with
persons not too severely in training for the great Olympian races of
morality, was very likely to create such a sensation as one experiences in
gazing at a lusciously ripe peach, having particular reference to the pulpy
red lips with their funny pout and kissable look, and ending in a wish that
the crimson love-apples of the modern Hesperides were not quite so
zealously guarded.
Elsie had not yet passed her twenty-second birthday, though she had been
"of age" for a good many twelvemonths, in the estimation of those who had
come near enough to her to feel the beating of her warm heart. Doctor
James Holton, graduate of the Pennsylvania Medical College, and lately a
student with one who had been a student with David Hosack, held his own
peculiar estimation of Elsie Brand, and had almost been driven into rank
atheism from the necessity of both holding and proving that the theory of
our springing from one common father and mother could not possibly be
correct, as the clay of which Elsie was made had been so very different--so
much purer, sweeter and better--from that employed in the moulding of
ordinary mortals!
For some minutes the two young girls had been standing in silence, Margaret
engaged with experiments on her opening rose and Elsie with one arm around
her and lazily observing the operation--both apparently full of that
indolent enjoyment born of ease, content, and the languid air of the summer
morning. Then the little one spoke:
"Margaret, do you know of what I have been thinking for the last two
minutes?"
"Haven't any machine by which I could pry into the droll secrets of your
brain, Elsie, my dear!" answered the taller, pleasantly, but with no smile
upon her lips meanwhile, and apparently with all her attention yet absorbed
in her horticultural experiment.
"Shall I tell you?" queried Elsie.
"Certainly, pet, if you like!" was the reply, the tone, as well as the word
of endearment, showing indefinably that Margaret Hayley thought of herself
as a woman and yet of her companion (of nearly the same age) as little more
than a child.
"I was thinking," said the little girl, "how much of character is sometimes
shown in the action of a moment, and how very different we are."
"Who thought your little head was so philosophical, Elsie?" answered
Margaret, and this time she for a moment deserted her rose and looked
around with a pleasant smile. "Well, the application of your thought to
yourself and to me?"
"Oh," said the little one. "It was only about the rose. I should have
plucked it, if I plucked it at all, and enjoyed it as it was. You are
trying to make something else out of it, and yet show no wish to destroy
the flower. A cruel woman--different from either of us, I hope--would
probably be plucking off the leaves one by one and throwing them away,
without caring how much pain she might be inflicting on the life of the
flower, hidden away down somewhere in its heart."
"A very pretty idea, upon my word!" said Margaret, ceasing to blow upon and
pluck at the leaves, and turning upon her companion a countenance showing
something like surprised admiration. "And what do you make of my character,
Elsie, as shown by my handling of the rose?"
"You must not be angry with me, Margaret," answered the young girl, a
little in the spirit of deprecation. "But you see _I_ should have been
satisfied with the rose as it was, and the other would have been cruelly
dissatisfied with it in any shape, and you----"
"Well, dear? I----"
"You showed that you were not entirely satisfied with every thing as it
was, and that you had a little self-will leading you to force things to be
as you chose, by trying to make that poor little flower outrun the course
of nature and bloom before it was quite ready."
"I think you are right, Elsie," said Margaret, nodding her head in that
slight and repeated manner indicative of answering the mind within quite as
much as any observation from without. "I am _not_ satisfied with every
thing in the world, Elsie. I am not cruel, I hope and believe; but I am
sharper, harder, more requiring than you, and consequently not formed for
half so much true happiness. I _do_ feel like forcing things to be what I
require, sometimes, and then I suppose I grow unamiable."
"You are never any thing else than a dear good girl, with a wiser head than
my rattle-pate, and my own sweet sister that is to be!" and the arm of the
speaker went still more closely around the slight waist it encircled. A
blush as delicately roseate as the first flushings of dawn crept over the
more classic face that bent above her own, the lips above came down to meet
those pouting below, and the two young girls were kissing and embracing as
if they had been two lovers of opposite sexes but very much of one opinion
as to the best office of the lips. Any delicately-nerved old bachelor who
should have happened to pass in front of the house at that moment and catch
a glimpse of the scene just then enacted on the piazza, would certainly
have fainted away on the spot, at the idea of such a waste of the most
delicious of "raw material."
"You may have the rose for your lesson--you see I have not spoiled it,
after all," said Margaret, when the kiss had been given and the rosy flush
died away from her own cheek.
"To give to Carlton?" asked Elsie, as she held out her hand for it.
"No, Carlton must come after his own roses!" was the reply, with the least
dash of pride in the curling of the upper lip.
"And pluck them himself?" asked saucy Elsie.
"Certainly!"
"No matter where he finds them growing--on tree, or on cheek, or on lips!"
continued the young girl, with a light laugh.
For an instant the same flush rose again on the cheek of Margaret Hayley;
then she forced it away, smiled, and said:
"Certainly! why not? Carlton Brand kisses me, sometimes, and I have more
than once kissed him back. What is that to you, sauce-box, when we are
engaged to be married?"
"What is that to me? Every thing! Joy--happiness--to know that I am going
to have so dear a sister!" cried the little one, throwing both her arms,
this time, around the pliant waist of Margaret and hugging her in a perfect
transport of delight, which seemed quite shared in, though more
tranquilly, by the object of the demonstration.
The saddest, cruellest thing in all the lyric drama is the blast of De
Sylva's horn on Ernani's wedding morning, calling him in one instant from
happy love to dishonor or death. Neither in romance nor in nature should
such sudden transitions occur. Alas, for humanity! they do occur in both,
not occasionally but habitually. The Duchess of Richmond's ball--then
Waterloo. De Joinville springs on board his flag-ship to sail for the
attack on Vera Cruz, in the very ball dress in which he has been dancing
the whole night through with the republican belles at Castle Garden. The
Pall is over every thing of earth: how sadly and how inevitably it droops
above the Banner! No scene upon earth could have been more exquisitely
peaceful, and few could have been lovelier, than that which surrounded and
comprehended those two fair girls in their embrace upon the piazza. Wealth,
youth, beauty, good feeling, happiness--all were there; and love blent with
friendship, for was not the embrace, given by Elsie Brand and accepted by
Margaret Hayley, both given and accepted quite as much for her brother's
sake as her own? It was fitting, then, according to the sad fitness of
earth, that the element of discord should enter into the peaceful and the
beautiful.
The officer spurred by, as we have seen him do, gazing only with our
incorporeal eyes. Both the young girls, just releasing each other from
their embrace, saw the dark cloud of war sweeping between them and the
sunlit grain fields. Elsie Brand shuddered and drew back, as if the
incongruity jarred her nature. Margaret Hayley instantly lifted her proud
neck the higher, as if something in _her_ nature sympathized with every
suggestion of the struggle, and as if she was, indeed, insensibly riding on
with the hurrying horseman.
"And what does the shudder mean, little one?" asked Margaret, who had
plainly distinguished it at the moment of release.
"I hate war, and every thing connected with it!" was the reply, the tone
almost petulant.
"And I do _not_ hate it, painful as it may be in many particulars," said
Margaret. "Force and energy are the noblest developments in life. Bravery
is the nearest possible approach to that divine character which knows no
superior and consequently fears none."
"Nearer to the divine than _love_?" asked the little one.
Just for one instant, again, that roseate tint on the cheek of Margaret, as
she said: "Nobler, if not nearer to the divine; and sorry as I must be to
see the bloodshed caused by a civil war in my native land, I am almost glad
that it has occurred, sometimes, as a means of rousing the sluggish pulses
of men who would otherwise have stagnated in trade and pleasure, and
proving that we yet possess something of the hero spirit of old."
"And _I_ am sorry for it all the while, night and day, in my prayers and in
my dreams," answered Elsie Brand, with a sigh. "Hark!" as the tap of the
drum came across from the lateral road before-mentioned. "There is another
reminder of the curse, and one that comes nearer home. Do you remember,
Margaret, that I shall soon have a brother, and you a lover, separated from
us and in terrible danger? They say Harrisburgh must be taken, unless a
very large body of troops can reach it at once. The Reserves will probably
go on, to-night, and Carlton will probably accept his old commission again.
I do want him to do his duty, Margaret, if it _is_ his duty; but I hope
that he will not think so--that he will not go away."
"And _I_ hope that he _will_!" answered Margaret, her tall form drawn up to
its full height, and a look of stern pride upon her face that could not
very well be mistaken.
"To go into danger--perhaps to death?" asked Elsie, looking sadly at the
proud Sibylline face.
"To a thousand deaths, if necessary, rather than towards the least
suspicion of a want of true manhood!"
"Ah, you do not know the trembling fear of a sister's love!" said Elsie,
with a sigh.
"I know a love fifty times deeper!" said Margaret, the pride still on her
face, and yet that ever-returning flush coming up again to say that if love
had not conquered pride it had at least divided the dominion. "Listen,
Elsie Brand, to some words that you may as well understand now as ever.
There is no one near to hear us, and so it is almost like speaking before
heaven alone. I love your brother, deeply, devotedly, with all the power of
my nature--so devotedly that if that love should be wrenched away from my
heart by any circumstance, I know that my life would thenceforth be but one
long, wretched mockery of existence. Happy natures like yours, Elsie, do
not know the absolute agony that lies in such love. And yet I could give up
that love, and my life with it, and would do so, before I would live, love,
and yet _despise_!"
"Despise?--are you speaking of Carlton--of my brother?" asked the young
girl, apparently a little lost in the mysterious energy of her companion's
words.
"I said that I could _not_ despise," Margaret Hayley went on. "I must not,
or we have no future. Do you know that I should have reverenced your
brother more, even if I did not love him better, if he had not refused the
commission in the army tendered him at the commencement of the war? I might
have wept, perhaps mourned--but I should have idolized. Now, I only love a
mortal like myself, where I might have been worshipping a hero!"
"Or sobbing over a grave!" said Elsie, with a sigh which told how easily
she might have been brought to illustrate the word she used.
"What then!" was the quick reply of Margaret. "The glory would have been
his--the loss and grief would have been mine, and I could have borne them.
But he did not choose to enter the struggle, prominent as he had once been
in military movements. He had the excuse of business and occupation, and I
have tried to believe that he needed no other."
"Needed?--what do you mean, Margaret?" cried Elsie Brand in a tone and with
a movement of starting back which evidenced both pain and alarm.
"It is a painful thing, but I must say it, to you, as I do not know that I
could say it to him," pursued Margaret. "I mean, that I have tried to
believe that there was no flaw in my idol--that Carlton Brand, who held
every pulse of my woman's heart responsive to his touch--did not lack the
one manly virtue of _courage_!"
"And would you _dare_ to believe my brother--the man you have pretended to
love--a _coward_?" There was something vexed and sharp, almost angry, in
Elsie's tone, now, that did not promise another immediate embrace like that
of a few moments previous. Margaret Hayley saw the expression of her face,
but neither blenched before it nor seemed to feel any anger at the
manifestation.
"Elsie Brand," she said, her words slow, measured, and with a cadence that
was somehow inexpressibly pained and mournful, "I am no school-girl, and I
am speaking words that I mean. I know your brother to be patriotic, I know
him to be in high health, athletic, vigorous and determined; and have
sometimes believed that if he had possessed that one requisite, animal
courage, he would long ago have been fighting the foes of the republic.
Grieve as I may to part with him, I am glad you believe that he is going
with the Reserves. He had his choice, before, and I let my own heart
instead of my reason have sway, and did not question its propriety. But
were he to hang back now, when his native State is invaded and every arm
necessary to drive back the rebels from Pennsylvania soil, I should know
that he was a coward!"
"I don't like you, Margaret Hayley, when your face looks so and you talk in
that manner!" said the little girl. "But I will not quarrel with you.
Carlton is going with the Reserves, and some day when he is killed or you
hear how he has shamed all the rest with his bravery, you will be sorry for
the words you have just spoken!" Just then the little yellow-haired girl
was the Sibyl, and her prophecy went upon record with the wild words of
Margaret, to be afterwards remembered--how sadly!
"No--do not be angry with me, Elsie," said Margaret, taking the hand that
had been temporarily released. "You have no cause. I have been speaking
against my own heart all the while, much more than against the man whom I
truly love. I know him to be noble and true, and I will believe him brave.
Are you satisfied? Kiss me!" and the proud, statuesque face once more lost
its gravity, to bring back all the joyousness into the rounder and merrier
one from which it had temporarily departed.
The light summer jockey-hat of Elsie lay just within the door, on a chair.
With a quick glance at the watch hidden under her waist-riband, she stepped
within the door, threw on her hat, and was about to terminate her somewhat
prolonged morning-call, when Margaret took it off again, dropped it into
one of the vacant chairs, and said:
"No--do not go away. You have nothing to do at home--mother has gone down
to the city for the day, you know, and I shall be lonely. We shall have
some lunch--you may call it dinner if it will taste any better,--very soon.
Stay till the afternoon--cannot you do so, just as well as not?"
"I suppose so--no, I must see Carlton--yes, though, Carlton will be quite
as likely to come here first as to go home, if he has arranged to go
away--yes, I will stay if you wish it so much!" rapidly answered the little
one.
"That is a good girl," said Margaret Hayley, just as she might have patted
a school hobby-de-hoy on the head. "Now run into the parlor and get the
very nicest book you can find, draw the easy-chair out of the hall, and
enjoy yourself the best you can for just twenty minutes, while I go down
to the kitchen, in ma's place, and see what progress our new Dutch cook has
been making."
She disappeared with the words, and her injunctions were acted upon almost
as rapidly. In half a minute Elsie had the arm-chair out of the hall, and
an illustrated work off one of the tables in the parlor, and was prepared
for her short period of indolent enjoyment.