An hour after sundown and the rattling old cabriolet has two occupants
as it drives back to town. Colonel Putnam comes forth with the old
gentleman whom he had so tenderly conducted to the farmhouse but a few
moments after the strange scene out on the bank, and is now his escort
to Frederick. The sergeant of the guard has been besieged with
questions, for several of the men saw the doctor drop upon the bench and
were aware of the melodramatic nature of the meeting. Lieutenant Abbot
with a face paler than before, with a strange look of perplexity and
smouldering wrath about his handsome eyes, has gone over to his own
tent, where the surgeon presently visits him. The colonel and his
civilian visitor are closeted together over half an hour, and the latter
looks more dead than alive, say the men, as he feebly totters down the
steps clinging to the colonel's arm.
"What did you say was the name of the officer who was killed--his son?"
asks one of the guards as he stands at the entrance to the tent.
"Warren--Guthrie Warren," answers the sergeant, briefly. "I don't know
whether the old man's crazy or not. He said the lieutenant had been
writing to him for months about his son, and the lieutenant denied
having written a line."
"He lied then, by----!" comes a savage growl from within the tent.
"Where is the old man? Give me a look at him!" and the scowling face of
Rix makes its sudden appearance at the tent-flop, peering forth into the
fire-light.
"Be quiet, Rix, and go back where you belong. You've made more than
enough trouble to-day," is the sergeant's low-toned order.
"I tell you I only want to see the old man," answers the teamster,
struggling, "Don't you threaten me with that bayonet, Drake," he growls
savagely at the sentry, who has thrown himself in front of the opening.
"It'll be the worse for you fellows that you ever confined me, no matter
by whose order; but as for that stuck-up prig, by----! you'll see soon
enough what'll come of _his_ ordering me into the guard-tent."
His voice is so hoarse and loud with anger that the colonel's attention
is attracted. He has just seated Doctor Warren in the vehicle, and is
about to take his place by his side when Rix's tirade bursts upon his
ear. The words are only partially distinguishable, but the colonel steps
promptly back.
"What is the matter with your prisoner, sergeant? Is he drunk or crazy,
that he persists in this uproar?"
"I don't think it either, sir," answers the sergeant; while Rix, at
sight of his commanding officer, pops his head back within the tent, and
shuts the narrow slit. "He's simply ugly and bent on making trouble."
"Well, stop it! If he utters another insubordinate word, have him bucked
and gagged at once. He is disgracing the regiment, and I won't tolerate
it. Do you understand?"
"I do, sir."
The colonel turns abruptly away, while the prisoner, knowing his man,
keeps discreetly out of sight, and correspondingly silent. At the gate
the older officer stops once more and calls to a soldier who is standing
near.
"Give my compliments to Lieutenant Abbot, and say that I will be out
here again to-morrow afternoon. Now, doctor, I am with you."
The old gentleman is leaning wearily back in his corner of the cab; a
strange, stunned, lethargic feeling seems to have come over him. His
eyes are fixed on vacancy, if anything, and the colonel's attempt at
cheeriness meets no response. As the vehicle slowly rattles away he
makes an effort, rouses himself as it were from a stupor-like condition,
and abruptly speaks:
"You tell me that--that you have seen Lieutenant Abbot's mail all summer
and spring and never saw a--our postmark--Hastings?"
"I have seen his mail very often, and thought his correspondents were
all home people. I am sure I would have noticed any letters coming
frequently in one handwriting, and his father's is the only masculine
superscription that was at all regular."
"My letters--our home letters--were not often addressed by me,"
hesitates the doctor. "The postmark might have given you an idea. I had
not time--" but he breaks off, weakly. It is so hard for him to
prevaricate: and it is bitter as death to tell the truth, now. And
worse--worse! What is he to tell--_how_ is he to tell her?
The colonel speaks slowly and sadly, but with earnest conviction:
"No words can tell you how I mourn the heartlessness of this trick,
doctor; but you may rest assured it is no doing of Abbot's. What earthly
inducement could he have? Think of it! a man of his family and
connections--and character, too. Some scoundrel has simply borrowed his
name, possibly in the hope of bleeding you for money. Did none of the
letters ever suggest embarrassments? It is most unfortunate that you did
not bring them with you. I know the writing of every officer and many of
the men in the regiment, and it would give me a clew with which to work.
Promise me you will send them when you reach home."
The Doctor bows his head in deep dejection. "What good will it do? I
thought to find a comrade of my boy's. Indeed! it must be one who knew
him well!--and how can I desire to bring to punishment one who
appreciated my son as this unknown writer evidently did. His only crime
seems to have been a hesitancy about giving his own name."
"And a scoundrelly larceny of that of a better man in every way. No,
doctor. The honor of my regiment demands that he be run down and brought
to justice; and you must not withhold the only proof with which we can
reach him. Promise me!"
"I--I will think. I am all unstrung now, my dear sir! Pray do not press
me! If it was not Mr. Abbot, who could it have been? Who else could have
known him?"
"Why, Doctor Warren, there are probably fifty Harvard men in this one
regiment--or were at least," says the colonel, sadly, "up to a month
ago. Cedar Mountain, Bull Run, South Mountain, and Antietam have left
but a moiety. Most of our officers are graduates of the old college, and
many a man was there. I dare say I could have found a dozen who well
knew your son. In the few words I had with Abbot, he told me he
remembered that there had been some talk among the officers last July
after your son was killed. Some one saw the name in the papers, and said
that it must have been Warren of the class of '58, and our Captain
Webster, who was killed at Manassas, was in that class and knew him
well. Abbot said he remembered him, by sight, as a sophomore would know
a senior, but had never spoken to him. Anybody hearing all the talk
going on at the time we got the news of Seven Pines could have woven
quite a college history out of it--and somebody has."
"Ah, colonel! There is still the fact of the photograph, and the letters
that were written about Guthrie all last winter--long before Seven
Pines."
The colonel looks utterly dejected, too; he shakes his head, mournfully.
"That troubles Abbot as much as it does me. Fields, gallant fellow, was
our adjutant then, and he and Abbot were close friends. He could hardly
have had a hand in anything beyond the photograph and letter which, you
tell me, were sent to the Soldier's Aid Society in town. I remember the
young fellows were having quite a lot of fun about their Havelocks when
we lay at Edwards's Ferry--but Fields was shot dead, almost the first
man, at Cedar Mountain, and of the thirty-five officers we had when we
crossed the Potomac the first time, only eleven are with the--th to-day.
Abbot, who was a junior second lieutenant then, is a captain now, by
rights, and daily expecting his promotion. I showed you several letters
in his hand, and they, you admit, are utterly unlike the ones you
received. Indeed, doctor, it is impossible to connect Abbot with it in
any way."
The doctor's face is covered by his hands. In ten minutes or less he
must be at _her_ side. What can he tell his little girl? What shall he
say? What possible, probable story can man invent to cover a case so
cruel as this? He hardly hears the colonel's words. He is
thinking--thinking with a bursting heart and whirling brain. For a time
all sense of the loss of his only son seems deadened in face of this
undreamed-of, this almost incredible shadow that has come to blight the
sweet and innocent life that is so infinitely dear to him. What can he
say to Bessie when he meets those beautiful, pleading, trusting, anxious
eyes? She has borne up so bravely, silently, patiently. Their journey
has been trying and full of fatigue, but once at Frederick he has left
her in the hands of a sympathetic woman, the wife of the proprietor of
the only tavern in which a room could be had, and, promising to return
as soon as he could see the lieutenant, he has gone away on his quest
with hopeful heart. A soldier claiming to be of the--th Massachusetts
told them that very morning at the Baltimore station that Mr. Abbot was
well enough to be up and about. It is barely nine o'clock now. In less
than an hour there will be a train going back. All he can think of is
that they must go--go as quick as possible. They have nothing now to
keep them here, and he has one secret to guard from all--his little
girl's. No one must know, none suspect that. In the bitterness of
desolation, still stunned and bewildered by the cruelty of the blow that
has come upon them, his mind is clear on that point. If possible no one,
except those people at the tavern, must know she was with him. None must
suspect--above all--none must suspect the bitter truth. It would crush
her like a bruised and trodden flower.
"If--if it had been a correspondence where there was a woman in the
case," begins the colonel again--and the doctor starts as though stung,
and his wrinkled hands wring each other under the heavy travelling-shawl
he wears--"I could understand the thing better. Quite a number of
romantic correspondences have grown up between our soldiers and young
girls at home through the medium of these mittens and things; they seem
to have lost their old significance. But you give me to understand
that--that there was none?"
"The letters were solely about my son, all that ever came to me," said
the doctor, nervously.
"That seems to complicate the matter. If it were a mere flirtation by
letter, such as is occasionally going on, _then_ somebody might have
borrowed his name and stolen his photograph; but I don't see how he
could have secured the replies--the girl's letters--in such a case. No.
As you say, doctor, that wasn't apt to be the solution, though I'm at a
loss to account for the letters that came from you. They were addressed
to Lieutenant Abbot, camp of the--th Massachusetts, you tell me, and
Abbot declares he has never heard from any one of your name, or had a
letter from Hastings. He would be the last man, too, to get into a
correspondence with a woman--for he is engaged."
The doctor starts again as though stung a second time. Was there not in
one of those letters a paragraph over which his sweet daughter had
blushed painfully as she strove to read it aloud? Did it not speak of an
entanglement that once existed; an affair in which his heart had never
been enlisted, but where family considerations and parental wishes had
conspired to bring about a temporary "understanding"? The cabriolet is
bouncing about on the cobblestones of the old-fashioned street, and the
doctor is thankful for the physical jar. Another moment and they draw
up at the door of the old Maryland hostelry, and the colonel steps out
and assists his companion to alight.
"Let me take you to your room now, doctor; then I'll have our staff
surgeon come over and see you. It has been a shock which would break a
younger man--"
But the old gentleman has nerved himself for the struggle. First and
foremost--no one must follow him to his room--none suspect the trial
there awaiting him. He turns sadly, but with decision.
"Colonel, I cannot thank you now as you deserve; once home, I will
write, but now what I need is absolute rest a little while. I am
stunned, bewildered. I must think this out, and my best plan is to get
to sleep first. Forgive me, sir, for my apparent discourtesy, and do not
take it amiss if I say that for a few moments--for the present--I should
like to be alone. We--we will meet again, sir, if it rest with me, and I
will write. Good-night, colonel. Good-night, sir."
And he turns hurriedly away. For a moment the soldier stands uncertain
what to do. Then he enters the hallway determined to bespeak the best
offices of the host in behalf of his stricken friend. There is a broad
stairway some distance back in the hall, and up this he sees the doctor
slowly laboring. He longs to go to his assistance, but stands
irresolute, fearing to offend. The old gentleman nears the top, and is
almost on the landing above, when a door is suddenly opened, a light,
quick step is heard, and in an instant a tall, graceful girl, clad in
deep black--a girl whom the colonel sees is young, beautiful, and very
pale--springs forward into view, places her hands on the old man's
shoulders, and looks eagerly, imploringly, into his face. What she asks,
what she says, the colonel cannot hear; but another moment solves all
doubt as to his proper course. He sees her clasped to the doctor's
breast; he sees them clinging to each other one instant, and then the
father, with sudden rally, bears her pale and probably fainting from his
sight. A door shuts with muffled slam, and they are gone; and with the
intuition of a gentleman Colonel Putnam realizes why his proffer of
services would now be out of place.
"And so there is a woman in the case, after all," he thinks to himself
as he steps forth into the cool evening air. "And it is for her sake
the good old man shrinks from dragging the matter into the light of
day--his daughter, probably; and some scoundrel has been at work, and in
my regiment."
The colonel grinds his teeth and clinches his fists at this reflection.
He is a husband and father himself, and now he understands some features
in the old doctor's trouble which had puzzled him before. He strolls
across the street to the sidewalk under the quaint old red-brick,
dormer-windowed houses where lights are still gleaming, and where groups
of people are chatting and laughing in the pleasant air. Many of them
are in the rough uniform of the army--teamsters, drivers, and slightly
wounded soldiers out on pass from the neighboring field hospitals. The
old cabriolet is being trundled off to some neighboring stable after a
brief confabulation between the driver thereof and the landlord of the
tavern, and the colonel is about hailing and tendering the Jehu another
job for the morrow, when he sees that somebody else is before him; and,
bending down from his seat, the driver is talking with a man who has
come out from the shadow of a side porch. There is but little light in
the street, and the colonel has turned on reaching the curb, and is
seeking among the windows across the way for one which may possibly
prove to be the young lady's. He is interested in the case more than
ever now, but the windows give no sign. Some are lighted, and occasional
shadows flit across them, but none that are familiar. Suddenly he hears
a sound that brings him back to himself--the tramp of marching feet, and
the sudden clash of arms as they halt; a patrol from the
provost-marshal's guard comes quickly around a corner from the soft dust
of a side street, and the non-commissioned officers are sharply halting
all neighboring men in uniform, and examining their passes. Several
parties in army overcoats shuffle uneasily up the street, only to fall
into the clutches of a companion patrol that pops up as suddenly around
the next corner beyond. "Rounding up the stragglers," thinks the
colonel, with a quiet smile of approval, and, like the soldier he is, he
finds time to look on a moment and watch the manner in which the work is
done. The patrol seems to have possessed itself of both sides of the
street at the same instant, and "spotted" every man in blue. These are
bidden to stand until their papers are examined by the brace of young
officers who appear upon the scene, belted and sashed, and bearing small
lanterns. Nor are uniforms alone subject to scrutiny. Ever since Second
Bull-Run there has been much straggling in the army, and not a little
desertion; and though a fortnight has passed since Antietam was fought,
the provost-marshal's men have not yet finished scouring the country,
and a sharp lookout is kept for deserters. Those civilians who can
readily establish their identity as old residents of the town have no
trouble. Occasionally a man is encountered whom nobody seems to know,
and, despite their protestations, two of those characters have been
gathered in by the patrol, and are now on their way to the office. The
colonel hears their mingled complaint and blasphemy as they are marched
past him by a file of the guard, and then turns to the nearest of the
officers--
"Lieutenant, did you note the man who ran back from where that cab is
standing?"
The officer of the patrol looks quickly up from the "pass" he is
examining by the light of his lantern, and at sight of Colonel Putnam
his hand goes up to the visor of his cap.
"No, colonel; was there one? Which way did he go?"
"Straight back to the shadow of the porch; just a minute ago. What
attracted my attention to him was the fact that he was deep in talk with
the driver when your men rounded the corner, and did not seem to see or
hear them. Then I turned to look at that corporal yonder, as he crossed
to halt a man on the east side, and at sound of his voice this fellow at
the cab started suddenly and ran, crouching in the shadow, back to the
side of the tavern there. It looks suspicious."
"Come with me, two of you," says the lieutenant, quickly, and, followed
by a brace of his guard, he crosses the street, and his lantern is seen
dancing around the dark gallery. The colonel, meantime, accosts the
driver:
"What took that man away so suddenly? Who is he?"
"I don't know, sir. I never seen him afore. He stopped me right here to
ask who the gentleman was I was drivin'. I told him your name, 'cause I
heard it, and he started then kinder queer, but came back and said 'twas
the citizen he meant; and the boss here had just told me that was Doctor
Warren, and that his daughter was up-stairs. Then the feller jumped like
he was scared; the guard had just come round the corner, and when he
saw them he just put for the barn."
"Is there a barn back there?" asks the colonel. The driver nods assent.
A moment's silence, and then the colonel continues: "I want to see you
in the morning. Wait for me here at the hotel about nine o'clock.
Meantime say nothing about this, and you'll lose nothing by holding your
tongue. What was his face like--this man I mean?"
"Couldn't see it, sir. It was dark, and he had a beard all over it, and
wore a black-felt hat--soft; and he had a cloak something like yours,
that was wrapped all over his shoulders."
"Remember, I want to see you here in the morning; and hold your tongue
till then."
With that the colonel hastens off on the trail of the searching-party.
He sees the lantern glimmering among some dark buildings beyond the
side-gallery, and thither he follows. To all appearances the spot is
almost a _cul de sac_ of wooden barns, board-fences, and locked doors,
except for a gateway leading to the yard behind the tavern. The search
has revealed no trace of the skulker, and the lieutenant holds his lamp
aloft as he examines the gate and peers over the picket fence that
stands barely breast-high and bars them out.
"May have gone in here," he mutters. "Come on!"
But the search here only reveals half a dozen avenues of escape. The man
could have gone back through several doors into the building itself, or
eastward, through some dilapidated yards, into a street that was
uninfested by patrols, and dark as the bottom of a well. "It is useless
to waste further time," says the lieutenant, who presently rejoins the
colonel behind the tavern, and finds him staring up at the rear windows.
To him the young officer, briefly and in low tone, reports the result of
his search.
"I presume there is nothing else I can do just here, is there, colonel?"
he asks. The colonel shakes his head.
"Nothing that I can think of, unless you look through the halls and
office."
"We are going there. Shall I light you back to the street?"
"Er--ah--no! I think I'll wait here--just a moment," says the colonel,
and, marvelling not a little, the subaltern leaves him.
No sooner is he gone, followed by his men, than Colonel Putnam steps
back to the side of an old chain-pump that he has found in the course of
his researches, and here he leans for support. Though his shoulder has
set in shape, and is doing fairly well, he has had two rather long
drives this day, and one fatiguing experience; he is beginning to feel
wearied, but is not yet ready to go to his bed. That was Doctor Warren's
shadow, bent and feeble, that he saw upon the yellow light of the
window-shade a moment ago, and he is worried at the evidence of
increasing weakness and sorrow. Even while he rests there, irresolute as
to what he ought to do--whether to go and insist on his right, as a man
and a father, to be of some comfort to another in his sore trial, or to
respect that father's evident wish to conceal his daughter's interest in
the trouble that had come upon them--he is startled to see another
shadow, hers; and this shadow is in hat and veil. Whither can they be
going at this hour of the night? 'Tis nearly ten o'clock. Yes, surely;
there is the doctor's bent shadow once more, and he has thrown on an
outer coat of some kind. Then they are going back by the night train.
They shrink from having it known that she was here at all; that she was
in any way interested. And the doctor wants to make his escape without
the pang of seeing or being seen again by those who witnessed his utter
shock and distress this day. So be it! thinks the colonel. God knows I
would not intrude on the sanctity of his sorrow or her secret. Later,
when they are home again, the matter can be looked into so far as
getting specimens of this skulking felon's handwriting is concerned, and
no one need know, when he is unearthed, that it was a young girl he was
luring under the name of another man. So be it! They may easily elude
all question now. Night and the sacred mantle of their evident suffering
will shield them from observation or question.
The colonel draws deeper into the shade of the barn. It seems a
sacrilege now to be thus spying upon their movements, and he is ashamed
of the impulse that kept him there. He decides to leave the yard and
betake himself to his lodgings, when he is suddenly aware of a dark
object rising from under the back porch. Stealthily and slowly the
figure comes crouching out into the open yard, coming towards where the
colonel stands in the shadow of the black out-buildings; and then, when
close by the pump where he stood but a moment before, it rises to its
full height, and draws a long breath of relief. It is a man in a soft
black-felt hat, with a heavy, dark beard, and wearing one of the biggest
of the great circular capes that make a part of the officer's overcoat,
and are most frequently worn without the coat itself, unless the weather
be severe.
The colonel is unarmed; his pistols are over at the room he temporarily
occupies in town; he is suffering from recent injury, and one arm is
practically good for nothing, but he loses no time in lamenting these
points. The slight form of the girl approaches the window at this very
instant as though to pick up some object on the sill, then disappears,
and the light vanishes from the room. From the figure at the pump he
hears a stifled exclamation of surprise, but no articulate word; and
before the figure has time to recover he stands close beside it and his
voice breaks the stillness of the night.
"Your name, sir, and your regiment? I am Colonel Putnam."
He has laid his hand on the broad shoulder under the cloak and plainly
feels the start and thrill with which his words are greeted. He even
fancies he can hear the stifled word "God!" The man seems stricken
dumb, and more sharply the colonel begins his stern query a second time,
but gets no farther than "Your name," when, with a violent wrench, the
stranger is free; he makes a spring, trips over some loose rubbish, and
goes crashing to earth.
"The guard!" yells the colonel, as he throws himself upon him, but the
man is up in an instant, hurls off his antagonist, and, this time, leaps
off into the darkness in comparative safety. But he has left a clew
behind. As the soldiers of the provost guard come running around into
the yard and the windows are thrown up and eager heads peer forth in
excited inquiry, Colonel Putnam raises to the light of the first lantern
a hairy, bushy object that he holds in his hand; it is a false beard,
and a big one.
"By Jove!" says the lieutenant. "It must be some rebel spy."