After months of disaster there had come authentic news of victory. All
Union-loving men drew a long breath of relief when it was certain that
Lee had given up the field and fallen back across the Potomac. The
newsboys, yelling through the crowded streets in town, and the evening
trains arriving from the neighboring city were besieged by eager buyers
of the "extras," giving lists of the killed and wounded. Just at sunset
of this late September day a tall young girl, in deep mourning, stood at
a suburban station clinging to the arm of a sad, stern-featured old man.
People eyed them with respect and sympathy, not unmixed with rural
curiosity, for Doctor Warren was known and honored by one and all. A few
months agone his only son had been brought home, shot to death at the
head of his regiment, and was laid in his soldier grave in their shaded
churchyard. It was a bitter trial, but the old man bore up sturdily. He
was an eager patriot; he had no other son to send to the front and was
himself too old to serve; it had pleased God to demand his first-born in
sacrifice upon his country's altar, and though it crushed his heart it
could not kill his loyalty and devotion. His whole soul seemed with the
army in Virginia; he had nothing but scorn for those who lagged at home,
nothing but enthusiastic faith in every man who sought the battle-front,
and so it happened that he almost welcomed the indications that told him
his daughter's heart was going fast--given in return for that of a
soldier lover.
For a moment it had dazed him. She was still so young--so much a child
in his fond eyes--still his sweet-faced, sunny-haired baby Bess. He
could hardly realize she was eighteen even when with blushing cheeks she
came to show him the photograph of a manly, gallant-looking young
soldier in the uniform of a lieutenant of infantry. Strange as the story
may seem to-day, there was at the time nothing very surprising about its
most salient feature--she and her hero had never met.
With other girls she had joined a "Soldiers' Aid Society;" had wrought
with devoted though misguided diligence in the manufacture of
"Havelocks" that were bearers of much sentiment but no especial benefit
to the recipients at the front; and like many of her companions she had
slipped her name and address into one of these soon-discarded cap
covers. As luck would have it, their package of "Havelocks,"
"housewives," needle-cases, mittens (with trigger finger duly provided
for), ear-muffs, wristlets, knitted socks, and such things, worn by the
"boys" their first winter in Virginia, but discarded for the regulation
outfit thereafter, fell to the lot of the--th Massachusetts Infantry,
and a courteous letter from the adjutant told of its distribution.
Bessie Warren was secretary of the society, and the secretary was
instructed to write to the adjutant and say how gratified they were to
find their efforts so kindly appreciated. More than one of the girls
wished that _she_ were secretary just then, and all of them hoped the
adjutant would answer. He did, and sent, moreover, a photographic group
of several officers taken at regimental headquarters. Each figure was
numbered, and on the back was an explanation setting forth the names of
the officers, the item which each had received as his share, and, where
it was known, the name of the fair manufacturer. The really useful
items, it would seem, had been handed to the enlisted men, and the
officers had reserved for themselves only such articles as experience
had proved to be of no practical value. The six in the picture had all
chosen "Havelocks," and opposite the name of Bessie Warren was that of
Second Lieutenant Paul Revere Abbot. Reference to the "group" again
developed the fact that Mr. Abbot was decidedly the handsomest soldier
of the party--tall, slender, youthful, with clear-cut and resolute
features and a decidedly firm, solid look about him that was
distinguishable in a group of decidedly distinguished-looking men. There
followed much laughing talk and speculation and theory among the girls,
but the secretary was instructed to write another letter of thanks, and
did so very charmingly, and mention was made of the circumstance that
several of their number had brothers or cousins at the front. Then some
of the society had happened, too, to have a photograph taken in the
quaint uniform, with cap and apron, which they had worn at a recently
given "Soldiers' Fair," and one of their number--not Miss Warren--sent
a copy of this to the camp of the--th Massachusetts. Central figure in
this group was Bessie Warren, unquestionably the loveliest girl among
them all, and one day there came to her a single photograph, a still
handsomer picture of Mr. Paul Revere Abbot, and a letter in a hand
somewhat stiff and cramped, in which the writer apologized for the
appearance of the scrawl, explained that his hand had been injured while
practising fencing with a comrade, but that having seen her picture in
the group he could not but congratulate himself on having received a
"Havelock" from hands so fair, could not resist the impulse to write and
personally thank her, and then to inquire if she was a sister of Guthrie
Warren, whom he had known and looked up to at Harvard as a "soph" looks
up to a senior; and he enclosed his picture, which would perhaps recall
him to Guthrie's mind.
Her mother had been dead many years, and Bessie showed this letter to
her father, and with his full consent and with much sisterly pride wrote
that Guthrie was indeed her brother; that he, too, had taken up arms for
his country and was at the front with his regiment, though nowhere near
their friends of the--th Massachusetts (who were watching the fords of
the Potomac up near Edward's Ferry), and that she had sent the
photograph to him.
One letter seemed to lead to another, and those from the Potomac
speedily became very interesting, especially when the papers mentioned
how gallantly Lieutenant Paul Abbot had behaved at Ball's Bluff and how
hard he had tried to save his colonel, who was taken prisoner. Guthrie
returned the photograph to Bess, with a letter which the doctor read
attentively. He remembered Paul Abbot as being a leader in the younger
set at Harvard, and was delighted to hear of him "under the colors,"
where every Union-loving man should be--where, as he recalled him, he
knew Abbot must be, for he belonged to one of the oldest and best
families in all Massachusetts; he was a gentleman born and bred, and
would make a name for himself in this war. Guthrie only wished there
were some of that stamp in his own regiment, but he feared that there
were few who had the stuff of which the Abbots were made--there were too
many ward politicians. "But I've cast my lot with it and shall see it
through," wrote Guthrie. Poor fellow! poor father! poor loving-hearted
Bessie! The first volley from the crouching gray ranks in those dim
woods back of Seven Pines sent the ward politicians in mad rush to the
rear, and when Guthrie Warren sprang for the colors, and waved them high
in air, and shouted for the men to rally and follow him, it was all in
vain--all as vain as the effort to stop the firing made by the chivalric
Virginia colonel, who leaped forward, with a few daring men at his back,
to capture the resolute Yankee and his precious flag. They got them; but
the life-blood was welling from the hero's breast as they raised him
gently from the silken folds. The Virginians knew a brave man when they
saw one, and they carried him tenderly into their lines and wrote his
last messages, and that night they sent the honored body back to his
brigade, and so the stricken father found and brought home all that was
left of the gallant boy in whom his hopes were centred.
For a time Bessie's letters languished after this, though she had
written nearly every week during the winter and early spring. Lieutenant
Abbot, on the other hand, appeared to redouble his deep interest. His
letters were full of sympathy--of a tenderness that seemed to be with
difficulty repressed. She read these to her mourning father--they were
so full of sorrow for the bitter loss that had befallen them, so rich
with soldierly sentiment and with appreciation of Guthrie's heroic
character and death, so welcome with reminiscence of him. Not that he
and Abbot had met on the Peninsula--it was the unhappy lot of the
Massachusetts--th to be held with McDowell's corps in front of
Washington while their comrades were doing sharp, soldierly work down
along the Chickahominy. But even where they were, said these letters,
men talked by the hour of how Guthrie Warren had died at Seven
Pines--how daring Phil Kearney himself had ridden up and held forth--
"The one hand still left,"
and asked him his name just before the final advance on the thicket. One
letter contained a copy of some soldierly verses her Massachusetts
correspondent had written--"Warren's Death at Seven Pines"--in which he
placed him peer with Warren who fell at Bunker Hill. The verses thrilled
through her heart and soul and brought a storm of tears--tears of
mingled pride and love and hopeless sorrow from her aging father's
eyes. No wonder she soon began to write more frequently. These
letters from Virginia were the greatest joy her father had, she told
herself, and though she wrote through a mist that blurred the page, she
soon grew conscious of a strange, shy sense of comfort, of a thrilling
little spring of glad emotion, of tender, shrinking, sensitive delight,
and by the time the hot summer was waning and August was at hand this
unseen soldier, who had only shared her thoughts before, took complete
and utter control. Why tell the old, old story in its every stage? It
was with a new, wild fear at heart she heard of Stonewall Jackson's leap
for the Rapidan, of the grapple at Cedar Mountain where the
Massachusetts men fought sternly and met with cruel loss. Her father
raged with anxiety when the news came of the withdrawal from the
Peninsula, the triumphant rush of Lee and Longstreet on Jackson's trail,
of the ill-starred but heroic struggle made by Pope along the banks of
Bull Run. A few days and nights of dread suspense and then came tidings
that Lee was across the Potomac and McClellan marching to meet him. Two
more letters reached her from the marching--th Massachusetts, and a
telegram from Washington telling her where to write, and saying, "All
well so far as I am concerned," at which the doctor shook his head--it
sounded so selfish at such a time; it grated on his patriotic ear, and
it wasn't such as he thought an Abbot ought to telegraph. But then he
was hurried; they probably only let him fall out of ranks a moment as
they marched through Washington. And then the newspapers began to teem
with details of the fierce battles of the last three days of August, and
he forgave him and fathomed the secret in his daughter's breast as she
stood breathing very quickly, her cheek flushing, her eyes filling, and
listening while he read how Lieutenant Abbot had led the charge of
the--th Massachusetts and seized the battle-flag of one of Starke's
brigades at that bristling parapet--the old, unfinished railway grade to
the north of Groveton. Neither father nor daughter uttered a word upon
the subject. The old man simply opened his arms and took her to his
heart, where, overcome with emotion, mingling pride and grief and
anxiety and tender, budding love, she burst into tears and hid her
burning face.
[Illustration: "_The Virginians knew a brave man when they saw one._"]
Then came the news of fierce fighting at South Mountain, where the--th
Massachusetts was prominent; then of the Antietam, where twice it
charged through that fearful stretch of cornfield and had but a handful
left to guard the riddled colors when nightfall came, and then--silence
and suspense. No letters, no news--nothing.
Her white, wan face and pleading eyes were too much for the father to
see. Though no formal offer of marriage had been made, though the word
"love" had hardly been written in those glowing letters, he reasoned
rightly that love alone could prompt a man to write day after day in all
the excitements and vicissitudes of stirring campaign. As for the
rest--was he not an Abbot? Did not Guthrie know and honor him? Was he
not a gallant officer as well as a thoroughbred gentleman? No time for
wooing now! That would come with peace. He had even given his consent
when she blushingly asked him if she might--"Well, _there!_ read it
yourself," she said, putting the closely written page into his hands. It
was an eager plea for her picture--and the photograph was sent. He chose
the one himself, a dainty "vignette" on card, for it reminded him of the
mother who was gone. It was fitting, he told himself, that his
daughter--her sainted mother's image, Guthrie's sister--should love a
gallant soldier. He gloried in the accounts of Paul Abbot's bravery, and
longed to meet him and take him by the hand. The time would come. He
could wait and watch over the little girl who was drawing them together.
He asked no questions. It would all be right.
And now they stood together at the station waiting for the evening cars
and the latest news from the front. It lacked but a few minutes of train
time when, with sad and sympathetic face, the station-agent approached,
a fateful brown envelope in his hand. The doctor turned quickly at his
daughter's gasping exclamation,
"_Papa!_ Mr. Hardy has a telegram!"
Despite every effort his hand and lip trembled violently as he took it
and tore it open. It was brief enough--an answer to his repeated
despatches to the War Department.
"Lieutenant Paul R. Abbot, dangerously wounded, is at field hospital
near Frederick, Maryland."
The doctor turned to her pale, pleading face, tears welling in his eyes.
"Be brave, my little girl," he murmured, brokenly. "He is wounded, but
we can go to him at once."
Nearly sunset again, and the South Mountain is throwing its dark shadow
clear across the Monocacy. The day has been warm, cloudless, beautiful,
and, now that evening is approaching, the sentries begin to saunter out
from the deeper shade that has lured them during the afternoon and to
give a more soldierly tone to the picture. There are not many of them,
to be sure, and this is evidently the encampment of no large command of
troops, despite the number of big white tents pitched in the orchard,
and the score of white-topped army-wagons, the half-dozen yellow
ambulances, and the scraggy lot of mules in the pasture-lot across the
dusty highway. The stream is close at hand, only a stone's-throw from
the picturesque old farmhouse, and the animated talk among the groups of
bathers has that peculiarly blasphemous flavor which seems inseparable
from the average teamster. That the camp is under military tutelage is
apparent from the fact that a tall young man in the loose, ill-fitting
blue fatigue-dress of our volunteers, with war-worn belts and a
business-like look to the long "Springfield" over his shoulder, comes
striding down to the bank and shouts forthwith,
"You fellows are making too much noise there, and the doctor wants you
to dry up."
"Tell him to send us some towels, then," growls one of the number, a
black-browed, surly-looking fellow with ponderous, bent shoulders and a
slouching mien. Some of his companions titter encouragingly, others are
silent. The sergeant of the guard flushes angrily and turns on the
speaker.
"You know very well what I mean, Rix. I'm using your own slang in
speaking to you because you wouldn't comprehend decent language. It
isn't the first time you've been warned not to make such a row here
close to a lot of wounded and dying men. Now I mean business. Quit it or
you'll get into trouble."
"What authority have _you_ got, I'd like to know," is the sneering
rejoinder. "You're nothing but a hospital guard, and have no business
interfering with us. I ain't under no doctor's orders. You go back to
your stiffs and leave live men alone."
The sergeant is about to speak, when the bathers, glancing up at the
bank, see him suddenly face to his left and raise his hand to his
shouldered rifle in salute. The next instant a tall young officer,
leaning heavily on a cane and with his sword-arm in a sling, appears at
the sergeant's side.
"Who is the man who questions your authority?" he asks, in a voice
singularly calm and deliberate.
There is a moment's awkward silence. The sergeant has the reluctance of
his class to getting a fellow-soldier into a scrape. The half-dressed
bathers stand uncomfortably about the shore and look blankly from one to
another. The man addressed as Rix is busily occupied in pulling on a
pair of soldier brogans, and tying, with great deliberation, the leather
strings.
Casting his clear eyes over the group, as he steps forward to the edge,
the young officer speaks again:
"You're here, are you, Rix. That leaves little doubt as to the man even
if I were not sure of the voice. I could hear your brutal swearing, sir,
loud over the prayers the chaplain was saying for the dead. Have you no
sense of decency at all?"
"How'n hell did I know there was any prayin' going on?" muttered Rix,
bending his scowling brows down over his shoe and tugging savagely at
the string.
"What was that remark, Rix?" asks the lieutenant, his grasp tightening
on the stick.
No answer.
"Rix, drop that shoestring; stand attention, and look at me," says the
officer, very quietly, but with setting teeth that no man fails to note.
Rix slowly and sullenly obeys.
"What was the remark you made just now?" is again the question.
"I said I didn't know they were praying," growls Rix, finding he has to
face the music.
"That sounds very little like your words, but--let it go. You knew very
well that men were dying here right within earshot when you were making
the air blue with blasphemy, and when better men were reverently silent.
It is the third time you have been reprimanded in a week. I shall see to
it that you are sent back to your company forthwith."
"Not while Lieutenant Hollins is quartermaster you won't," is the
insubordinate reply, and even the teamsters look scared as they glance
from the scowling, hanging face of Rix to the clear-cut features of the
officer, and mark the change that sweeps over the latter. His eyes seem
to flash fire, and his pallid face--thin with suffering and loss of
blood--flushes despite his physical weakness. His handsome mouth sets
like a steel-trap.
"Sergeant, get two of your men and put that fellow under guard," he
orders. "Stay where you are, Rix, until they come for you." His voice is
low and stern; he does not condescend to raise it for such occasion,
though there is a something about it that tells the soldier-ear it can
ring with command where ring is needed.
"I'd like to know what I've done," mutters Rix, angrily kicking at the
pebbles at his feet.
No answer. The lieutenant has walked back a pace and has seated
himself on a little bench. Another officer--a gray-haired and
distinguished-looking man, with silver eagles on his shoulders--is
rapidly nearing him and reaches the bank just in time to catch the next
words. He could have heard them farther back, for Rix is in a fury now,
and shouts aloud:
"If you knew your own interests--knew half that I know about your
affairs, Lieutenant Abbot--you'd think twice before you ordered me under
arrest."
The lieutenant half starts from the bench; but his self-control is
strong.
"You are simply adding to your insubordination, sir," he says, coldly.
"Take your prisoner, sergeant. You men are all witnesses to this
language."
And muttering much to himself, Teamster Rix is marched slowly away,
leaving an audience somewhat mystified. The colonel stands looking after
him with a puzzled and astonished face; the men begin slowly to edge
away, and then Mr. Abbot wearily rises and--again he flushes red when he
finds his superior officer facing him at not three paces distance.
"What on earth does that mean, Abbot?" asks the colonel. "Who is that
man?"
"One of the regimental teamsters, sir. He came here with the wounded,
and there appears to have been no opportunity of sending him back now
that the regiment is over in the Shenandoah. At all events, he has been
allowed to loaf around here for some time, and you probably heard him
swearing."
"I did; that's what brought me out of the house. But what does he mean
by threatening you?"
"I have no idea, sir; or, rather, I have an idea, but the matter is of
no consequence whatever, and only characteristic of the man. He is a
scoundrel, I suspect, and I wonder that Hollins has kept him so long."
"Do you know that Hollins hasn't turned up yet?"
"So I heard this morning, colonel, and yet you saw him the night of the
battle, did you not?"
"Not the night after, but the night before. We left him with the wagons
when we marched to the ford. I was knocked off my horse about one in the
afternoon, just north of the cornfield, and they got me back to the
wagons with this left shoulder all out of shape--collar-bone broken; and
he wasn't there then, and hadn't been seen since daybreak. Somebody said
he was so cut up when you were hit at the Gap. I didn't know you were
such friends."
"Well, we've known each other a long time--were together at Harvard and
moved in the same set; but there was never any intimacy, colonel."
"I see, I see," says the older officer, reflectively. "He was a stranger
to me when I joined the regiment and found him quartermaster. He was
Colonel Raymond's choice, and you know that in succeeding to his place
I preferred to make no changes. But I say to you now that I wish I had.
Hollins has failed to come up to the standard as a campaign
quartermaster, and the men have suffered through his neglect more than
once. Then he stayed behind when we marched through Washington--a thing
he never satisfactorily explained to me--and I had serious thoughts of
relieving him at Frederick and appointing you to act in his stead. Now
the fortune of war has settled both questions. Hollins is missing, and
you are a captain or will be within the month. Have you heard from
Wendell?"
"His arm is gone, sir; amputated above the elbow; and he has decided to
resign. Foster commands the company, but I shall go forward just as soon
as the doctor will let me."
"We'll go together. He says I can stand the ride in ten days or two
weeks, but neither of your wounds has healed yet. How's the leg? That
must have been a narrow squeak."
"No bones were touched, sir. It was only that I lost so much blood from
the two. It was the major who reported me to you as dangerously wounded,
was it not?"
"Yes; but when he left you there seemed to be very little chance. You
were senseless and exhausted, and with two rifle bullets through you
what was to be expected? He couldn't tell that they happened to graze no
artery, and the surgeon was too busy elsewhere."
"It gave them a scare at home," said Abbot, smiling; "and my father and
sister were on the point of starting for Washington when I managed to
send word to them that the wounds were slight. I want to get back to the
regiment before they find out that they were comparatively serious,
because the family will be importuning the Secretary of War to send me
home on leave."
"And any man of your age, with such a home, and a sweetheart, ought to
be eager to go. Why not go, Abbot? There will be no more fighting for
months now; McClellan has let them slip. You could have a fortnight in
Boston as well as not, and wear your captain's bars for the first time.
I fancy I know how proud Miss Winthrop would be to sew them on for you."
The colonel is leaning against the trunk of a spreading oak-tree as he
speaks. The sun is down, and twilight closing around them. Mr. Abbot,
who had somewhat wearily reseated himself on the rude wooden bench a
moment before, has turned gradually away from the speaker during these
words, and is gazing down the beautiful valley. Lights are beginning to
twinkle here and there in the distance, and the gleam of one or two tiny
fires tells of other camps not far away. A dim mist of dust is rising
from the highroad close to the stream, and a quaint old Maryland
cabriolet, drawn by a venerable gray horse, is slowly coming around the
bend. The soldiers grouped about the gateway, back at the farmhouse,
turn and look curiously towards the hollow-sounding hoof-beats, but
neither the colonel nor his junior officer seems to notice them. Abbot's
thoughts are evidently far away, and he makes no reply. The surgeon who
sanctions his return to field duty yet a while would, to all
appearances, be guilty of a professional blunder. The lieutenant's face
is pale and thin; his hand looks very fragile and fearfully white in
contrast with the bronze of his cheek. He leans his head upon his hand
as he gazes away into the distance, and the colonel stands attentively
regarding him. He recalls the young fellow's gallant and spirited
conduct at Manassas and South Mountain; his devotion to his soldier duty
since the day he first "reported." If ever an officer deserved a month
at home, in which to recuperate from the shock of painful wounds, surely
that officer was Abbot. The colonel well knows with what pride and
blessing his revered old father would welcome his coming--the joy it
would bring to the household at his home. It is an open secret, too,
that he is engaged to Genevieve Winthrop, and surely a man must want to
see the lady of his love. He well remembers how she came with other
ladies to attend the presentation of colors to the regiment, and how
handsome and distinguished a woman she looked. The Common was thronged
with Boston's "oldest and best" that day, and Colonel Raymond's speech
of acceptance made eloquent reference to the fact that of all the grand
old names that had been prominent in the colonial history of the
commonwealth not one was absent from the muster-roll of the regiment it
was his high honor to command. The Abbots and Winthrops had a history
coeval with that of the colony, and were long and intimately acquainted.
When, therefore, it was rumored that Genevieve Winthrop was to marry
Paul Abbot "as soon as the war was over," people simply took it as a
matter of course--they had been engaged ever since they were trundled
side by side in the primitive baby-carriages of the earliest forties.
This reflection leads the colonel to the realization of the fact that
they must be very much of an age. Indeed, had he not heard it whispered
that Miss Winthrop was the senior by nearly a year? Abbot looked young,
almost boyish, when he was first commissioned in May of '61, but he had
aged rapidly, and was greatly changed. He had not shaved since June, and
a beard of four months' growth had covered his face. There are lines in
his forehead, too, that one could not detect a year before. Why should
not the young fellow have a few weeks' leave, thinks the colonel. The
regiment is now in camp over beyond Harper's Ferry, greatly diminished
in numbers and waiting for its promised recruits. It is evident that
McClellan has no intention of attacking Lee again; he is content with
having persuaded him to retire from Maryland. Nothing will be so apt to
build up the strength and spirits of the new captain as to send him home
to be lionized and petted as he deserves to be. Doubtless all the
languor and sadness the colonel has noted in him of late is but the
outward and visible sign of a longing for home which he is ashamed to
confess.
"Abbot," he says again, suddenly and abruptly, "I'm going back to
Frederick this evening as soon as the medical director is ready, and I'm
going to get him to give you a certificate on which to base application
for a month's leave Don't say no. I understand your scruples, but go you
shall. You richly deserve it and will be all the better for it. Now your
people won't have to be importuning the War Department; the leave shall
come from this end of the line."
The lieutenant seems about to turn again as though to thank his
commander when there comes an interruption--the voice of the sergeant of
the guard close at hand. He holds forth a card; salutes, and says:
"A gentleman inquiring for Colonel Putnam."
And the gentleman is but a step or two behind--an aging man with silvery
hair and beard, with lines of sorrow in his refined and scholarly face,
and fatigue and anxiety easily discernible in his bent figure--a
gentleman evidently, and the colonel turns courteously to greet him.
"Doctor Warren!" he says, interrogatively, as he holds forth his hand.
"Yes, colonel, they told me you were about going back to Frederick, and
I desired to see you at once. I am greatly interested in a young
officer of your regiment who is here, wounded; he is a college friend of
my only son's, sir--Guthrie Warren, killed at Seven Pines." The colonel
lifts his forage cap with one hand while the other more tightly clasps
that of the older man. "I hear that the reports were exaggerated and
that he is able to be about. It is Lieutenant Abbot."
"Judge for yourself, doctor," is the smiling reply. "Here he sits."
With an eager light in his eyes the old gentleman steps forward towards
Abbot, who is slowly rising from the bench. He, too, courteously raises
his forage cap. In a moment both the doctor's hands have clasped the
thin, white hand that leans so heavily on the stick.
"My dear young friend!" he says. "My gallant boy! Thank God it is not
what we feared!" and his eyes are filling, his lip is trembling
painfully.
"You are very kind, sir," says Abbot, vaguely, "I am doing quite well."
Then he pauses. There is such yearning and--something he cannot fathom
in the old man's face. He feels that he is expected to say still
more--that this is not the welcome looked for. "I beg a thousand
pardons, sir, perhaps I did not catch the name aright. Did you say
Doctor Warren?"
"Certainly, B--Guthrie Warren's father--you remember?" and the look in
the sad old eyes is one of strange perplexity. "I cannot thank you half
enough for all you have written of my boy."
And still there is no sign of recognition in Abbot's face. He is
courteous, sympathetic, but it is all too evident that there is
something grievously lacking.
"I fear there is some mistake," he gently says; "I have no recollection
of knowing or writing of any one of that name."
"Mistake! Good God! How can there be?" is the gasping response. The
tired old eyes are ablaze with grief, bewilderment, and dread
commingled. "Surely this is Lieutenant Paul Revere Abbot--of the--th
Massachusetts."
"It certainly is, doctor, but--"
"It surely is your photograph we have: surely you wrote to--to us all
this last year--letter after letter about my boy--my Guthrie."
There is an instant of silence that is almost agonizing. The colonel
stands like one in a state of shock. The old doctor, trembling from
head to foot, looks with almost piteous entreaty; with anguish and
incredulity, and half-awakened wrath, into the pale and distressed
features of the young soldier.
"I bitterly grieve to have to tell you, sir," is the sorrowful answer,
"but I know no such name. I have written no such letters."
Another instant, and the old man has dropped heavily upon the bench, and
buried his face in his arms. But for the colonel he might have fallen
prone to earth.