Much-a-Wanted.
The sun of an Italian September was shining in broad, yellow splendor on
Ancona--shining on the city, on its tawny background of hills, and on
the shimmering spread of the Adriatic at its feet. But for all the
sunshine, the city was not cheerful. The narrow streets were deserted by
ordinary wayfarers, shops were shut, sometimes a wan face peeped
furtively from a half-opened casement. The churches were turned from
their normal purposes to those of hospitals. Sant' Agostino, near the
Piazza del Teatro, was assigned to one set of patients; even the
transepts and aisles of the Duomo, on the top of the Monte Ciriaco, were
converted into wards and lined with rows of beds.
It was not that a pestilence brooded over the place, but something
worse, much worse.
Unfortunate Ancona, the scene of so many pages of strife written by
Greeks, Lombards, and Saracens, by the troops of Barbarossa and of
others, was undergoing its latest bombardment on this September day of
1860. Since the opening of the century it had changed its masters four
times: now it was about to change them anew.
An army-corps, commanded by the Sardinian general, Cialdini, was
encamped outside the advanced works, and had planted batteries which
sent projectiles hissing and screaming not only over the ramparts and
citadel, but into the heart of the thickly peopled city; and the fleet
of the Sardinian admiral, Persano, was steaming to and fro outside the
harbor, and occasionally joining in the work of destruction by pitching
a heavy missile into the Lazaretto (occupied as barracks), or against
the masonry of the Mole. De la Moriciere, the general to whom
Abd-el-Kader had surrendered, and who had driven the Red Republicans of
Paris from the left bank of the Seine in the June of 1848, was "holding
the fort" for Pio Nono. He had escaped but a few days previously from
the disaster of Castelfidardo with a troop of light dragoons, and was
battling stubbornly against odds which forbade the chance of success. He
had not much faith in his Swiss--they were purely and simply
mercenaries; the Italians at his disposal were neither unquestionably
loyal nor of the stuff of which heroes are made; the only men he had
beyond his own small ring of French Legitimists--his personal followers
so to speak--on whose courage and fidelity he could depend were the
Irish and the Austrians. The former, the Battaglione di San Patrizio,
were in the citadel and the environing entrenched camp; the latter,
being more seasoned and better armed, were assigned to the approaches of
the beleaguered stronghold. The inhabitants of Ancona were by no means
all well affected; but the one sentiment in which they were unanimous
was the hope that it might soon end--for all were in a mortal fright.
The roar of artillery, the bursting of shells, the collapse of shattered
walls, bugle-blasts, drum-beats, the tramp of armed men, the crepitation
of the hoofs of cantering chargers on the hard pavements, were frequent,
and now and again rose a shriek of terror, or an alarm of fire. But the
inhabitants took care to keep away these sounds as much as possible;
they cowered in dark cellars, and prayed and cursed, and played _mora_,
and helped to make each other uncomfortable by the contagion of an
abject poltroonery.
On the spacious sloping piazza in front of the Cathedral, where the
market used to be held, the main-guard was posted, and a pair of
_jaegers_ paced backward and forward with the stolidity of Germans
between their sentry-boxes. Suddenly they halted, raised a cry, the
meaning of which I could not grasp, and the guard turned out. I could
see no visiting officer, and was lost in conjecture when I noticed an
ambulance party with a stretcher moving slowly downwards by the road
leading from the citadel. A blue great coat outlined a figure on the
stretcher; one of the legs cased in red trousers was lumpy with
bandages, through which the blood oozed, but the face of the sufferer
was screened from observation and from the fierce noon glare of the sun
by a strip of linen. The party came to a standstill opposite the post of
the sentries; the guard presented arms, the officer lowered his sword,
the bugle blew thrice a weird melancholy wail of notes, and the
stretcher-bearers resumed their careful, slow march.
This, I heard, was a usage borrowed from chivalrous times, and was
intended as a compliment; but I could not help thinking it a cruelty to
the poor wounded wretch whose recovery the delay of a minute might
imperil.
I went up to the party and asked who was the last victim of the war they
were carrying.
"A countryman of yours," was the answer.
I gently lifted the strip of linen, and recognized in the sufferer a
youngster from Sligo, of some nineteen years, the only son of his
mother, who had joined the Papal service through motives of the most
sincere faith and devotedness. To his aged parent, in her humble
Connaught cabin, he had sent the twenty _scudi_ he had received as
bounty. Andy was his Christian name--I never heard that of his family;
but he usually went by the nickname of "Much-a-Wanted." This originated
from a habit he had of using the phrase on all occasions, suitable and
unsuitable. If it came on to rain, Andy would say, "much-a-wanted;" if
macaroni, which the Irishmen unaccountably disliked, were served up from
the dinner-boiler, he met it with the same exclamation; if he got a
newspaper from home, or won a _mezzo-baioccho_ at pitch-and-toss, it was
alike. All were "much-a-wanted." Verily, I believe if he had been sent
to the cells on a false charge, the philosophic Andy would have consoled
himself with the cheery reflection that it was "much-a-wanted."
On inquiry I discovered he had come in for his fate characteristically.
While they had been preparing the mid-day meal for his company, the cook
complained of a scarcity of water. The path to the draw-well was in the
direct line of a terrible fire; it was positively furrowed with ripping
segments of shell. Instead of ordering the men on fatigue duty (whose
actual business it was) to go, volunteers were asked for, and Andy and a
comrade stepped forward and undertook to fetch a bucket. Hardly had they
started into the open on their hazardous errand, when a shell exploded
almost at their feet, knocking them over like ninepins, and sending the
fragments of the bucket whizzing in splintered chips far asunder. Andy's
comrade was hit on the sole of the foot, and broke into a bellow of
pain. It was no want of fortitude; the torment must have been
insupportable. The net-work of sinew and muscles in that most delicately
formed portion of the human framework was torn through, and the dirty
leather of the shoe was forced into the flesh, and there was an ugly
circle of jagged spokes around like the star-fractures made by a stone
flung through a pane of glass. Andy's right leg was shattered a few
inches above the knee, and hung on by a shred of skin; the shock must
have deprived him of sensation, and the rapid gush of blood caused a
merciful swoon. The hemorrhage was stopped by a surgeon on the spot, and
a dose of brandy poured down his throat. As he recovered his speech he
murmured in a dazed way his old catch-words "much-a-wanted."
While I was learning these particulars, the pathetic little procession
was climbing towards the hospital of St. John of God, where the most
accomplished of our staff of surgeons were in waiting to perform serious
operations, and the zealous brothers of the institution--a sort of
anticipatory Red Cross order--were on the constant watch to supply all
that science, good nursing and the beautiful compassion of religion
could suggest for the benefit of the afflicted.
On the ground floor the operating-room was situated, and thither the
party bore their pale-faced, perspiring, still burden. I followed,
thinking I might be of use as I understood Italian; and, in any case,
when the sufferer returned to consciousness it might be some comfort to
him to have the face of one he knew by his pallet. It was promptly
decided that the leg should be amputated at the thigh, and as the
surgeons, with workmanlike coolness, proceeded with their grim
preliminaries, the pain awoke Andy to his situation. And yet not quite.
By the wild unrest of his eyes and the working of his features, it was
plain that he was in the throes of acute agony; he felt it, but he could
not tell why or wherefore it was. He knew too keenly where the seat of
pain was, but he could not divine the exact injury he had sustained, and
strove almost frantically to rise so as to obtain a view of his lower
extremities. He caught sight of me, and besought me to lift him. I laid
my hand on his forehead and tried to pacify him, but in vain. He sank
back with a moan that went to my very marrow. While he lay thus, as if
in the coma of prostration, I asked quietly if they did not propose to
administer chloroform, but they shook their heads and said they had none
to spare except for officers. I insisted that the boy would die under
the knife unless he had something to numb his sensibility, and at the
moment he opened wide his eyes, and, with a look of pleading which I can
never forget, gasped--
"Gracious God! How I burn. Take me out and shoot me."
Then, in a sharp shout of entreaty as if wrung by a stronger spasm than
before--
"If you're friends, if you're men, you'll put me out of pain."
The surgeon-major at last relented and nodded to an aide, who
administered the chloroform. Quickly and skilfully the operation was
performed, and when the patient came back to things of the world he lay
in a ward on the same floor, a cradle over the stump to avert the risk
of hemorrhage from the dressings being disturbed. He was very feeble and
languid, and spoke like one in a trance.
"Do you feel better after your sleep, Andy?"
"Yes, thank you; 'twas much-a-wanted. But my feet are very cold."
His feet! Then he knew nothing of what had occurred; that he was no
longer as others, but maimed in his youth, destined to go through life a
cripple--if he ever rose from his bed.
"Put more covers over me," he besought.
He got a stimulating cordial from one of the brothers who specially
charged himself with his guardianship, and I passed through some of the
remaining wards on my way out. Those who were the least querulous
appeared to be the very men who were most grievously wounded, perhaps
they were too spent to sigh; those who were loudest in their yells of
anguish--there is no other word--were a number of unfortunates who had
their flesh scorched and shrivelled by the blow-up of a magazine. It is
as trying to hear a strong man yell with anguish as to see a strong man
shed tears. Here and there a lighted taper was placed at the foot of a
bed, and the white sheet drawn over the mute and motionless occupant
told its own story.
The next forenoon I visited Andy. He was weak but sprightly, and still
unconscious of his great loss. He asked me how we were getting on, and
when we should have the enemy beaten, for he could distinctly hear the
whistling of shells and the repercussion of the booming of the big guns.
On the following day there was a change in him for the worse. There were
two reasons to explain it; a shell had fallen on the roof of the
hospital and crashed into one of the wards of the upper story where it
burst. This naturally caused a fearful commotion, and fevered and
mutilated patients had started from their beds in panic and crouched in
the corridors and on the staircases. But, to my thinking, the alteration
in Andy's condition was to be traced rather to another accident. He had
learned the extent of his misfortune. A rough, good-natured comrade who
had snatched time for a friendly call had blurted it out.
"Keep up your spirits, my hearty; you won't be the first lad to hobble
through life on a timber-peg."
The poor fellow turned a ghastly white, gazed around him in a scared,
vacant manner--so the brother told me--and asked with dry, tremulous
lips for a drink of water. Afterwards he had dozed into a delirious
slumber. In his ravings he fancied he was on a lone and dangerous post
in advance of our lines, and that his officer had forgotten him.
"I'm perishin' wid the cowld," he peevishly muttered, "and no sign o'
the relief. Ten hours on sentry; I give them ten minutes more. If they
don't come, I'll go."
Then there must have been a struggle in his harassed brain between duty
and the sense that he had been neglected.
"No," he continued. "Desertion before the inamy--disgrace! Can't do
that. As I'm here, I'll see it out. I wish the relief would come."
And then the poor crazed youth went through the motions of slapping his
hands across his breast to quicken the circulation, and began humming
the air of "The Pretty Maid Milking her Cow."
By degrees the motion of his hands slackened, his voice grew fainter, he
turned his head on one side, and dropped into a deep, calm sleep.
Duty took me elsewhere, but I returned in a few hours. As I stole up to
the bedside the patient was awake and looked brighter and better than
before. It was the blazing of the wick before the candle expires.
"He has had a lucid interval," whispered the brother, "and was so meek
and patient that it made me weep. But he is delirious again--still
yearning for that relief."
At that instant the sunset flame shooting through a window burnished the
sufferer's face until it looked like that of some waxen image with a
halo; by a powerful effort he propped the upper portion of his body on
his left elbow, raised his right arm in salute, and cried--
"Hurrah! I saw the sunlight on yer bay'nets, boys. Andy wouldn't lave
his post. But whisper, sargent, ye were much-a-wanted, much-a-wanted!"
And with a glad laugh the boy-soldier fell back.
There was a thin crimson streak upon the pillow. The relief had, indeed,
come at last.
JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA, in _Merry England_.
Mixed Marriages.
Marriage is so intimate a union between man and wife that the hearts of
both should ever beat in full and unalloyed sympathy and accord. Above
all, the religious convictions of both ought to be in perfect harmony.
If there is not in the family a common faith and a common form of divine
worship, the consequences are disastrous to home comfort, to religious
training, and to faith itself. Show me a family that forms an exception,
and you either show a strengthening of the rule, or you show a family
that is happy only in appearance. For, even then you will find that the
Catholic party has to do a thousand things unknown to the other, and to
beg of the children to keep matters secret. There is woe following the
telling of the secret. Suffice it to know that the wisdom of the
Catholic Church is opposed to these unions; that if the Catholic party
die, the children, as a rule, are lost; and that even in the best cases
religious indifference is the ordinary consequence.
How often do we meet such an instance as this, nor shall I overdraw it.
A young Catholic lady tells her confessor that she intends to marry a
Protestant young man. The confessor remonstrates. It is useless. Her
mind is made up on the matter. He is a good young man, with no prejudice
against her faith, and is satisfied to be married by the priest. Very
well; they get married; and six months afterward the bell is rung at the
priest's door. A thickly veiled female comes in, and she has a sad story
to tell. She has been abused, called names in which her religion was not
complimented; and, oh, worst of all, this very day he has thrust her out
of doors. Yes; called Papist and thrown down the stoop by the "splendid
young man" on whose arm she hung so proudly in the heyday of her foolish
fascination!
Some of our young ladies may be educated a little too high for our
average young man. And too many of them look down on honest labor--on
the young mechanic or tradesman--and cast their eyes on some banker's
clerk or broker's accountant, who, with ten or twelve dollars a week,
studies the manners of the millionnaire, frequents the opera, and may
not be above forging his employers' name. Better to cast her lot with
the honest young Catholic tradesman, who attends to his religious
duties, is temperate and steady, forgetting altogether that he neither
dresses like a fop nor poses like a Chesterfield.
If the man be the Catholic, the case is worse. The mother has most
influence with the children. The father worries, drinks, loses his
position, and perhaps dies a victim of intemperate habits.
Farewell, My Home.
Though sunshine dances merrily
On wave and stream and trembling leaf,
Though wild birds wake their minstrelsy,
My heart is full of grief.
No sunshine there; 'tis sad and lone;
No echo to the wild bird's lay;
One only thought--the dear hearth-stone
I loved is quenched to-day.
My heart will break; I cannot bear
To part with scenes so loved, so blest.
My heart will break; I cannot tear
Me from this home of rest.
Yet, though I say farewell, my home,
'Tis but the lips that speak their part;
Believe, wherever I may roam,
I leave with thee my heart.
Broken, yet clinging still to thee,
My home, as to a mother's breast;
Broken, yet loving tenderly
My home, my heart's first rest.
Farewell, my home, farewell, farewell;
One last, one lingering look I take
On each dear scene of hill and dell,
Of mountain bold and silver lake.
Farewell, I leave my bleeding heart
Within thy loved retreats to roam;
Farewell, farewell, too soon we part;
My home, my childhood's home.