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[Illustration: THE OLD MAJOR.]
The Works of E.P. Roe
VOLUME THIRTEEN
HIS SOMBRE RIVALS
ILLUSTRATED
1883
PREFACE
The following story has been taking form in my mind for several years,
and at last I have been able to write it out. With a regret akin to
sadness, I take my leave, this August day, of people who have become
very real to me, whose joys and sorrows I have made my own. Although a
Northern man, I think my Southern readers will feel that I have sought
to do justice to their motives. At this distance from the late Civil
War, it is time that passion and prejudice sank below the horizon, and
among the surviving soldiers who were arrayed against each other I
think they have practically disappeared. Stern and prolonged conflict
taught mutual respect. The men of the Northern armies were convinced,
beyond the shadow of a doubt, that they had fought men and
Americans--men whose patriotism and devotion to a cause sacred to them
was as pure and lofty as their own. It is time that sane men and women
should be large-minded enough to recognize that, whatever may have been
the original motives of political leaders, the people on both sides
were sincere and honest; that around the camp-fires at their hearths
and in their places of worship they looked for God's blessing on their
efforts with equal freedom from hypocrisy.
I have endeavored to portray the battle of Bull Run as it could appear
to a civilian spectator: to give a suggestive picture and not a general
description. The following war-scenes are imaginary, and colored by
personal reminiscence. I was in the service nearly four years, two of
which were spent with the cavalry. Nevertheless, justly distrustful of
my knowledge of military affairs, I have submitted my proofs to my
friend Colonel H. C. Hasbrouck, Commandant of Cadets at West Point, and
therefore have confidence that as mere sketches of battles and
skirmishes they are not technically defective.
The title of the story will naturally lead the reader to expect that
deep shadows rest upon many of its pages. I know it is scarcely the
fashion of the present time to portray men and women who feel very
deeply about anything, but there certainly was deep feeling at the time
of which I write, as, in truth, there is to-day. The heart of humanity
is like the ocean. There are depths to be stirred when the causes are
adequate. E. P. R.
CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON, _August_ 21, 1883.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I AN EMBODIMENT OF MAY
CHAPTER II MERE FANCIES
CHAPTER III THE VERDICT OF A SAGE
CHAPTER IV WARNING OR INCENTIVE
CHAPTER V IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER VI PHILOSOPHY AT FAULT
CHAPTER VII WARREN HILLAND
CHAPTER VIII SUPREME MOMENTS
CHAPTER IX THE REVELATION
CHAPTER X THE KINSHIP OF SUFFERING
CHAPTER XI THE ORDEAL
CHAPTER XII FLIGHT TO NATURE
CHAPTER XIII THE FRIENDS
CHAPTER XIV NOBLE DECEPTION
CHAPTER XV "I WISH HE HAD KNOWN"
CHAPTER XVI THE CLOUD IN THE SOUTH
CHAPTER XVII PREPARATION
CHAPTER XVIII THE CALL TO ARMS
CHAPTER XIX THE BLOOD-RED SKY
CHAPTER XX TWO BATTLES
CHAPTER XXI THE LOGIC OF EVENTS
CHAPTER XXII SELF-SENTENCED
CHAPTER XXIII AN EARLY DREAM FULFILLED
CHAPTER XXIV UNCHRONICLED CONFLICTS
CHAPTER XXV A PRESENTIMENT
CHAPTER XXVI AN IMPROVISED PICTURE GALLERY
CHAPTER XXVII A DREAM
CHAPTER XXVIII ITS FULFILMENT
CHAPTER XXIX A SOUTHERN GIRL
CHAPTER XXX GUERILLAS
CHAPTER XXXI JUST IN TIME
CHAPTER XXXII A WOUNDED SPIRIT
CHAPTER XXXIII THE WHITE-HAIRED NURSE
CHAPTER XXXIV RITA'S BROTHER
CHAPTER XXXV HIS SOMBRE RIVALS
CHAPTER XXXVI ALL MATERIALISTS
CHAPTER XXXVII THE EFFORT TO LIVE
CHAPTER XXXVIII GRAHAM'S LAST SACRIFICE
CHAPTER XXXIX MARRIED UNCONSCIOUSLY
CHAPTER XL RITA ANDERSON
CHAPTER XLI A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM
CHAPTER I
AN EMBODIMENT OF MAY
"Beyond that revolving light lies my home. And yet why should I use
such a term when the best I can say is that a continent is my home?
Home suggests a loved familiar nook in the great world. There is no
such niche for me, nor can I recall any place around which my memory
lingers with especial pleasure."
In a gloomy and somewhat bitter mood, Alford Graham thus soliloquized
as he paced the deck of an in-coming steamer. In explanation it may be
briefly said that he had been orphaned early in life, and that the
residences of his guardians had never been made homelike to him. While
scarcely more than a child he had been placed at boarding-schools where
the system and routine made the youth's life little better than that of
a soldier in his barrack. Many boys would have grown hardy, aggressive,
callous, and very possibly vicious from being thrown out on the world
so early. Young Graham became reticent and to superficial observers
shy. Those who cared to observe him closely, however, discovered that
it was not diffidence, but indifference toward others that
characterized his manner. In the most impressible period of his life he
had received instruction, advice and discipline in abundance, but love
and sympathy had been denied. Unconsciously his heart had become
chilled, benumbed and overshadowed by his intellect. The actual world
gave him little and seemed to promise less, and, as a result not at all
unnatural, he became something of a recluse and bookworm even before he
had left behind him the years of boyhood.
Both comrades and teachers eventually learned that the retiring and
solitary youth was not to be trifled with. He looked his instructor
steadily in the eye when he recited, and while his manner was
respectful, it was never deferential, nor could he be induced to yield
a point, when believing himself in the right, to mere arbitrary
assertion; and sometimes he brought confusion to his teacher by quoting
in support of his own view some unimpeachable authority.
At the beginning of each school term there were usually rough fellows
who thought the quiet boy could be made the subject of practical jokes
and petty annoyances without much danger of retaliation. Graham would
usually remain patient up to a certain point, and then, in dismay and
astonishment, the offender would suddenly find himself receiving a
punishment which he seemed powerless to resist. Blows would fall like
hail, or if the combatants closed in the struggle, the aggressor
appeared to find in Graham's slight form sinew and fury only. It seemed
as if the lad's spirit broke forth in such a flame of indignation that
no one could withstand him. It was also remembered that while he was
not noted for prowess on the playground, few could surpass him in the
gymnasium, and that he took long solitary rambles. Such of his
classmates, therefore, as were inclined to quarrel with him because of
his unpopular ways soon learned that he kept up his muscle with the
best of them, and that, when at last roused, his anger struck like
lightning from a cloud.
During the latter part of his college course he gradually formed a
strong friendship for a young man of a different type, an ardent
sunny-natured youth, who proved an antidote to his morbid tendencies.
They went abroad together and studied for two years at a German
university, and then Warren Hilland, Graham's friend, having inherited
large wealth, returned to his home. Graham, left to himself, delved
more and more deeply in certain phases of sceptical philosophy. It
appeared to him that in the past men had believed almost everything,
and that the heavier the drafts made on credulity the more largely had
they been honored. The two friends had long since resolved that the
actual and the proved should be the base from which they would advance
into the unknown, and they discarded with equal indifference
unsubstantiated theories of science and what they were pleased to term
the illusions of faith. "From the verge of the known explore the
unknown," was their motto, and it had been their hope to spend their
lives in extending the outposts of accurate knowledge, in some one or
two directions, a little beyond the points already reached. Since the
scalpel and microscope revealed no soul in the human mechanism they
regarded all theories and beliefs concerning a separate spiritual
existence as mere assumption. They accepted the materialistic view. To
them each generation was a link in an endless chain, and man himself
wholly the product of an evolution which had no relations to a creative
mind, for they had no belief in the existence of such a mind. They held
that one had only to live wisely and well, and thus transmit the
principle of life, not only unvitiated, but strengthened and enlarged.
Sins against body and mind were sins against the race, and it was their
creed that the stronger, fuller and more nearly complete they made
their lives the richer and fuller would be the life that succeeded
them. They scouted as utterly unproved and irrational the idea that
they could live after death, excepting as the plant lives by adding to
the material life and well-being of other plants. But at that time the
spring and vigor of youth were in their heart and brain, and it seemed
to them a glorious thing to live and do their part in the advancement
of the race toward a stage of perfection not dreamed of by the
unthinking masses.
Alas for their visions of future achievement! An avalanche of wealth
had overwhelmed Hilland. His letters to his friend had grown more and
more infrequent, and they contained many traces of the business cares
and the distractions inseparable from his possessions and new
relations. And now for causes just the reverse Graham also was
forsaking his studies. His modest inheritance, invested chiefly in real
estate, had so far depreciated that apparently it could not much longer
provide for even his frugal life abroad.
"I must give up my chosen career for a life of bread-winning," he had
concluded sadly, and he was ready to avail himself of any good opening
that offered. Therefore he knew not where his lot would be cast on the
broad continent beyond the revolving light that loomed every moment
more distinctly in the west.
A few days later found him at the residence of Mrs. Mayburn, a pretty
cottage in a suburb of an eastern city. This lady was his aunt by
marriage, and had long been a widow. She had never manifested much
interest in her nephew, but since she was his nearest relative he felt
that he could not do less than call upon her. To his agreeable surprise
he found that time had mellowed her spirit and softened her
angularities. After the death of her husband she had developed unusual
ability to take care of herself, and had shown little disposition to
take care of any one else. Her thrift and economy had greatly enhanced
her resources, and her investments had been profitable, while the sense
of increasing abundance had had a happy effect on her character. Within
the past year she had purchased the dwelling in which she now resided,
and to which she welcomed Graham with unexpected warmth. So far from
permitting him to make simply a formal call, she insisted on an
extended visit, and he, divorced from his studies and therefore feeling
his isolation more keenly than ever before, assented.
"My home is accessible," she said, "and from this point you can make
inquiries and look around for business opportunities quite as well as
from a city hotel."
She was so cordial, so perfectly sincere, that for the first time in
his life he felt what it was to have kindred and a place in the world
that was not purchased.
He had found his financial affairs in a much better condition than he
had expected. Some improvements were on foot which promised to advance
the value of his real estate so largely as to make him independent, and
he was much inclined to return to Germany and resume his studies.
"I will rest and vegetate for a time," he concluded. "I will wait till
my friend Hilland returns from the West, and then, when the impulse of
work takes possession of me again, I will decide upon my course."
He had come over the ocean to meet his fate, and not the faintest
shadow of a presentiment of this truth crossed his mind as he looked
tranquilly from his aunt's parlor window at the beautiful May sunset.
The cherry blossoms were on the wane, and the light puffs of wind
brought the white petals down like flurries of snow; the plum-trees
looked as if the snow had clung to every branch and spray, and they
were as white as they could have been after some breathless,
large-flaked December storm; but the great apple-tree that stood well
down the path was the crowning product of May. A more exquisite bloom
of pink and white against an emerald foil of tender young leaves could
not have existed even in Eden, nor could the breath of Eve have been
more sweet than the fragrance exhaled. The air was soft with
summer-like mildness, and the breeze that fanned Graham's cheek brought
no sense of chilliness. The sunset hour, with its spring beauty, the
song of innumerable birds, and especially the strains of a wood-thrush,
that, like a _prima donna_, trilled her melody, clear, sweet and
distinct above the feathered chorus, penetrated his soul with subtle
and delicious influences. A vague longing for something he had never
known or felt, for something that books had never taught, or
experimental science revealed, throbbed in his heart. He felt that his
life was incomplete, and a deeper sense of isolation came over him than
he had ever experienced in foreign cities where every face was strange.
Unconsciously he was passing under the most subtle and powerful of all
spells, that of spring, when the impulse to mate comes not to the birds
alone.
It so happened that he was in just the condition to succumb to this
influence. His mental tension was relaxed. He had sat down by the
wayside of life to rest awhile. He had found that there was no need
that he should bestir himself in money-getting, and his mind refused to
return immediately to the deep abstractions of science. It pleaded
weariness of the world and of the pros and cons of conflicting theories
and questions. He admitted the plea and said:--
"My mind _shall_ rest, and for a few days, possibly weeks, it shall be
passively receptive of just such influences as nature and circumstances
chance to bring to it. Who knows but that I may gain a deeper insight
into the hidden mysteries than if I were delving among the dusty tomes
of a university library? For some reason I feel to-night as if I could
look at that radiant, fragrant apple-tree and listen to the lullaby of
the birds forever. And yet their songs suggest a thought that awakens
an odd pain and dissatisfaction. Each one is singing to his mate. Each
one is giving expression to an overflowing fulness and completeness of
life; and never before have I felt my life so incomplete and isolated.
"I wish Hilland was here. He is such a true friend that his silence is
companionship, and his words never jar discordantly. It seems to me
that I miss him more to-night than I did during the first days after
his departure. It's odd that I should. I wonder if the friendship, the
love of a woman could be more to me than that of Hilland. What was that
paragraph from Emerson that once struck me so forcibly? My aunt is a
woman of solid reading; she must have Emerson. Yes, here in her
bookcase, meagre only in the number of volumes it contains, is what I
want," and he turned the leaves rapidly until his eyes lighted on the
following passage:--
"No man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and
brain which created all things new; which was the dawn in him of music,
poetry, and art; which made the face of nature radiant with purple
light, the morning and the night varied enchantments; when a single
tone of one voice could make the heart bound, and the most trivial
circumstance associated with one form was put in the amber of memory;
when he became all eye when one was present, and all memory when one
was gone."
"Emerson never learned that at a university, German or otherwise. He
writes as if it were a common human experience, and yet I know no more
about it than of the sensations of a man who has lost an arm. I suppose
losing one's heart is much the same. As long as a man's limbs are
intact he is scarcely conscious of them, but when one is gone it
troubles him all the time, although it isn't there. Now when Hilland
left me I felt guilty at the ease with which I could forget him in the
library and laboratory. I did not become all memory. I knew he was my
best, my only friend; he is still; but he is not essential to my life.
Clearly, according to Emerson, I am as ignorant as a child of one of
the deepest experiences of life, and very probably had better remain
so, and yet the hour is playing strange tricks with my fancy."
Thus it may be perceived that Alford Graham was peculiarly open on this
deceitful May evening, which promised peace and security, to the
impending stroke of fate. Its harbinger first appeared in the form of a
white Spitz dog, barking vivaciously under the apple-tree, where a path
from a neighboring residence intersected the walk leading from Mrs.
Mayburn's cottage to the street. Evidently some one was playing with
the little creature, and was pretending to be kept at bay by its
belligerent attitude. Suddenly there was a rush and a flutter of white
draperies, and the dog retreated toward Graham, barking with still
greater excitement. Then the young man saw coming up the path with
quick, lithe tread, sudden pauses, and little impetuous dashes at her
canine playmate, a being that might have been an emanation from the
radiant apple-tree, or, rather, the human embodiment of the blossoming
period of the year. Her low wide brow and her neck were snowy white,
and no pink petal on the trees above her could surpass the bloom on her
cheeks. Her large, dark, lustrous eyes were brimming over with fun, and
unconscious of observation, she moved with the natural, unstudied grace
of a child.
Graham thought, "No scene of nature is complete without the human
element, and now the very genius of the hour and season has appeared;"
and he hastily concealed himself behind the curtains, unwilling to lose
one glimpse of a picture that made every nerve tingle with pleasure.
His first glance had revealed that the fair vision was not a child, but
a tall, graceful girl, who happily had not yet passed beyond the
sportive impulses of childhood.
Every moment she came nearer, until at last she stood opposite the
window. He could see the blue veins branching across her temples, the
quick rise and fall of her bosom, caused by rather violent exertion,
the wavy outlines of light brown hair that was gathered in a Greek coil
at the back of the shapely head. She had the rare combination of dark
eyes and light hair which made the lustre of her eyes all the more
striking. He never forgot that moment as she stood panting before him
on the gravel walk, her girlhood's grace blending so harmoniously with
her budding womanhood. For a moment the thought crossed his mind that
under the spell of the spring evening his own fancy had created her,
and that if he looked away and turned again he would see nothing but
the pink and white blossoms, and hear only the jubilant song of the
birds.
The Spitz dog, however, could not possibly have any such unsubstantial
origin, and this small Cerberus had now entered the room, and was
barking furiously at him as an unrecognized stranger. A moment later
his vision under the window stood in the doorway. The sportive girl was
transformed at once into a well-bred young woman who remarked quietly,
"I beg your pardon. I expected to find Mrs. Mayburn here;" and she
departed to search for that lady through the house with a prompt
freedom which suggested relations of the most friendly intimacy.