CHAPTER XXIII.

MYRTLE HAZARD AT THE CITY SCHOOL.

Mr. Bradshaw was obliged to leave town for a week or two on business

connected with the great land-claim. On his return, feeling in pretty

good spirits, as the prospects looked favorable, he went to make a call

at The Poplars. He asked first for Miss Hazard.

"Bliss your soul, Mr. Bridshaw," answered Mistress Kitty Fagan, "she's

been gahn nigh a wake. It's to the city, to the big school, they've sint

her."

This announcement seemed to make a deep impression on Murray Bradshaw,

for his feelings found utterance in one of the most energetic forms of

language to which ears polite or impolite are accustomed. He next asked

for Miss Silence, who soon presented herself. Mr. Bradshaw asked, in a

rather excited way, "Is it possible, Miss Withers, that your niece has

quitted you to go to a city school?"

Miss Silence answered, with her chief-mourner expression, and her

death-chamber tone: "Yes, she has left us for a season. I trust it may

not be her destruction. I had hoped in former years that she would

become a missionary, but I have given up all expectation of that now.

Two whole years, from the age of four to that of six, I had prevailed

upon her to give up sugar,--the money so saved to go to a graduate of

our institution--who was afterwards----he labored among the

cannibal-islanders. I thought she seemed to take pleasure in this small

act of self-denial, but I have since suspected that Kitty gave her

secret lumps. It was by Mr. Gridley's advice that she went, and by his

pecuniary assistance. What could I do? She was bent on going, and I was

afraid she would have fits, or do something dreadful, if I did not let

her have her way. I am afraid she will come back to us spoiled. She has

seemed so fond of dress lately, and once she spoke of learning--yes,

Mr. Bradshaw, of learning to--dance! I wept when I heard of it. Yes, I

wept."

That was such a tremendous thing to think of, and especially to speak of

in Mr. Bradshaw's presence,--for the most pathetic image in the world to

many women is that of themselves in tears,--that it brought a return of

the same overflow, which served as a substitute for conversation until

Miss Badlam entered the apartment.

Miss Cynthia followed the same general course of remark. They could not

help Myrtle's going if they tried. She had always maintained that, if

they had only once broke her will when she was little, they would have

kept the upper hand of her; but her will never _was_ broke. They came

pretty near it once, but the child wouldn't give in.

Miss Cynthia went to the door with Mr. Bradshaw, and the conversation

immediately became short and informal.

"Demonish pretty business! All up for a year or more,--hey?"

"Don't blame me,--I couldn't stop her."

"Give me her address,--I'll write to her. Any young men teach in the

school?"

"Can't tell you. She'll write to Olive and Bathsheba, and I'll find out

all about it."

Murray Bradshaw went home and wrote a long letter to Mrs. Clymer

Ketchum, of 24 Carat Place, containing many interesting remarks and

inquiries, some of the latter relating to Madam Delacoste's institution

for the education of young ladies.

* * * * *

While this was going on at Oxbow Village, Myrtle was establishing

herself at the rather fashionable school to which Mr. Gridley had

recommended her. Mrs. or Madam Delacoste's boarding-school had a name

which on the whole it deserved pretty well. She had some very good

instructors for girls who wished to get up useful knowledge in case they

might marry professors or ministers. They had a chance to learn music,

dancing, drawing, and the way of behaving in company. There was a

chance, too, to pick up available acquaintances, for many rich people

sent their daughters to the school, and it was something to have been

bred in their company.

There was the usual division of the scholars into a first and second

set, according to the social position, mainly depending upon the

fortune, of the families to which they belonged. The wholesale dealer's

daughter very naturally considered herself as belonging to a different

order from the retail dealer's daughter. The keeper of a great hotel and

the editor of a widely circulated newspaper were considered as ranking

with the wholesale dealers, and their daughters belonged also to the

untitled nobility which has the dollar for its armorial bearing. The

second set had most of the good scholars, and some of the prettiest

girls; but nobody knew anything about their families, who lived off the

great streets and avenues, or vegetated in country towns.

Myrtle Hazard's advent made something like a sensation. They did not

know exactly what to make of her. Hazard? Hazard? No great firm of that

name. No leading hotel kept by any Hazard, was there? No newspaper of

note edited by anybody called Hazard, was there? Came from where? Oxbow

Village. O, rural district. Yes.--Still they could not help owning that

she was handsome,--a concession which of course had to be made with

reservations.

"Don't you think she's vurry good-lookin'?" said a Boston girl to a New

York girl. "I think she's real pooty."

"I dew, indeed. I didn't think she was haäf so handsome the feeest

time I saw her," answered the New York girl.

"What a pity she hadn't been bawn in Bawston!"

"Yes, and moved very young to Ne Yock!"

"And married a sarsaparilla man, and lived in Fiff Avenoo, and moved in

the fust society."

"Better dew that than be strong-mainded, and dew your own cook'n, and

live in your own kitch'n."

"Don't forgit to send your card when you are Mrs. Old Dr. Jacob!"

"Indeed I shaän't. What's the name of the alley, and which bell?" The

New York girl took out a memorandum-book as if to put it down.

"Hadn't you better let me write it for you, dear?" said the Boston girl.

"It is as well to have it legible, you know."

"Take it," said the New York girl. "There's tew York shill'ns in it when

I hand it to you."

"Your whole quarter's allowance, I bullieve,--ain't it?" said the

Boston girl.

"Elegant manners, correct deportment, and propriety of language will be

strictly attended to in this institution. The most correct standards of

pronunciation will be inculcated by precept and example. It will be the

special aim of the teachers to educate their pupils out of all

provincialisms, so that they may be recognized as well-bred English

scholars wherever the language is spoken in its purity."--_Extract from

the Prospectus of Madam Delacoste's Boarding-School._

Myrtle Hazard was a puzzle to all the girls. Striking, they all agreed,

but then the criticisms began. Many of the girls chattered a little

broken French, and one of them, Miss Euphrosyne De Lacy, had been half

educated in Paris, so that she had all the phrases which are to social

operators what his cutting instruments are to the surgeon. Her face she

allowed was handsome; but her style, according to this oracle, was a

little _bourgeoise_, and her air not exactly _comme il faut_. More

specifically, she was guilty of _contours fortement prononcés,--corsage

de paysanne,--quelque chose de sauvage_, etc., etc. This girl prided

herself on her figure.

Miss Bella Pool, (_La Belle Poule_ as the demi-Parisian girl had

christened her,) the beauty of the school, did not think so much of

Myrtle's face, but considered her figure as better than the De Lacy

girl's.

The two sets, first and second, fought over her as the Greeks and

Trojans over a dead hero, or the Yale College societies over a live

freshman. She was nobody by her connections, it is true, so far as they

could find out, but then, on the other hand, she had the walk of a

queen, and she looked as if a few stylish dresses and a season or two

would make her a belle of the first water. She had that air of

indifference to their little looks and whispered comments which is

surest to disarm all the critics of a small tattling community. On the

other hand, she came to this school to learn, and not to play; and the

modest and more plainly dressed girls, whose fathers did not sell by the

cargo, or keep victualling establishments for some hundreds of people,

considered her as rather in sympathy with them than with the daughters

of the rough-and-tumble millionnaires who were grappling and rolling

over each other in the golden dust of the great city markets.

She did not mean to belong exclusively to either of their sets. She came

with that sense of manifold deficiencies, and eager ambition to supply

them, which carries any learner upward, as if on wings, over the heads

of the mechanical plodders and the indifferent routinists. She learned,

therefore, in a way to surprise the experienced instructors. Her

somewhat rude sketching soon began to show something of the artist's

touch. Her voice, which had only been taught to warble the simplest

melodies, after a little training began to show its force and sweetness

and flexibility in the airs that enchant drawing-room audiences. She

caught with great readiness the manner of the easiest girls,

unconsciously, for she inherited old social instincts which became

nature with the briefest exercise. Not much license of dress was allowed

in the educational establishment of Madam Delacoste, but every girl had

an opportunity to show her taste within the conventional limits

prescribed. And Myrtle soon began to challenge remark by a certain air

she contrived to give her dresses, and the skill with which she blended

their colors.

"Tell you what, girls," said Miss Berengaria Topping, female

representative of the great dynasty that ruled over the world-famous

Planet Hotel, "she's got style, lots of it. I call her perfectly

splendid, when she's got up in her swell clothes. That oriole's wing she

wears in her bonnet makes her look gorgeous,--she'll be a stunning

Pocahontas for the next _tableau_."

Miss Rose Bugbee, whose family opulence grew out of the only

merchantable article a Hebrew is never known to seek profit from,

thought she could be made presentable in the first circles if taken in

hand in good season. So it came about that, before many weeks had passed

over her as a scholar in the great educational establishment, she might

be considered as on the whole the most popular girl in the whole bevy of

them. The studious ones admired her for her facility of learning, and

her extraordinary appetite for every form of instruction, and the showy

girls, who were only enduring school as the purgatory that opened into

the celestial world of society, recognized in her a very handsome young

person, who would be like to make a sensation sooner or later.

There were, however, it must be confessed, a few who considered

themselves the thickest of the cream of the school-girls, who submitted

her to a more trying ordeal than any she had yet passed.

"How many horses does your papa keep?" asked Miss Florence Smythe. "We

keep nine and a pony for Edgar."

Myrtle had to explain that she had no papa, and that they did not keep

any horses. Thereupon Miss Florence Smythe lost her desire to form an

acquaintance, and wrote home to her mother (who was an ex-bonnet-maker)

that the school was getting common, she was afraid,--they were letting

in persons one knew nothing about.

Miss Clara Browne had a similar curiosity about the amount of plate used

in the household from which Myrtle came. _Her_ father had just bought a

complete silver service. Myrtle had to own that they used a good deal of

china at her own home,--old china, which had been a hundred years in the

family, some of it.

"A hundred years old!" exclaimed Miss Clara Browne. "What queer-looking

stuff it must be! Why, everything in our house is just as new and

bright! Papaä had all our pictures painted on purpose for us. Have you

got any handsome pictures in your house?"

"We have a good many portraits of members of the family," she said,

"some of them older than the china."

"How very very odd! What do the dear old things look like?"

"One was a great beauty in her time."

"How jolly!"

"Another was a young woman who was put to death for her

religion,--burned to ashes at the stake in Queen Mary's time."

"How very very wicked! It wasn't nice a bit, was it? Ain't you telling

me stories? Was that a hundred years ago?--But you've got some new

pictures and things, haven't you? Who furnished your parlors?"

"My great-grandfather, or his father, I believe."

"Stuff and nonsense. I don't believe it. What color are your

carriage-horses?"

"Our woman, Kitty Fagan, told somebody once we didn't keep any horse but

a cow."

"Not keep any horses! Do for pity's sake let me look at your feet."

Myrtle put out as neat a little foot as a shoemaker ever fitted with a

pair of number two. What she would have been tempted to do with it, if

she had been a boy, we will not stop to guess. After all, the questions

amused her quite as much as the answers instructed Miss Clara Browne.

Of that young lady's ancestral claims to distinction there is no need of

discoursing. Her "papaä" commonly said _sir_ in talking with a

gentleman, and her "mammaä" would once in a while forget, and go down

the area steps instead of entering at the proper door; but they lived in

a brown-stone front, which veneers everybody's antecedents with a facing

of respectability.

Miss Clara Browne wrote home to _her_ mother in the same terms as Miss

Florence Smythe,--that the school was getting dreadful common, and they

were letting in very queer folks.

Still another trial awaited Myrtle, and one which not one girl in a

thousand would have been so unprepared to meet. She knew absolutely

nothing of certain things with which the vast majority of young persons

were quite familiar.

There were literary young ladies, who had read everything of Dickens and

Thackeray, and something at least of Sir Walter, and occasionally,

perhaps, a French novel, which they had better have left alone. One of

the talking young ladies of this set began upon Myrtle one day.

"O, isn't Pickwick nice?" she asked.

"I don't know," Myrtle replied; "I never tasted any."

The girl stared at her as if she were a crazy creature. "Tasted any!

Why, I mean the Pickwick Papers, Dickens's story. Don't you think

they're nice?"

Poor Myrtle had to confess that she had never read them, and didn't know

anything about them.

"What! did you never read any novels?" said the young lady.

"O, to be sure I have," said Myrtle, blushing as she thought of the

great trunk and its contents. "I have read Caleb Williams, and Evelina,

and Tristram Shandy" (naughty girl!), "and the Castle of Otranto, and

the Mysteries of Udolpho, and the Vicar of Wakefield, and Don

Quixote--"

The young lady burst out laughing. "Stop! stop! for mercy's sake," she

cried. "You must be somebody that's been dead and buried and come back

to life again. Why you're Rip Van Winkle in a petticoat! You ought to

powder your hair and wear patches."

"We've got the oddest girl here," this young lady wrote home. "She

hasn't read any book that isn't a thousand years old. One of the girls

says she wears a trilobite for a breastpin; some horrid old stone, I

believe that is, that was a bug ever so long ago. Her name, she says, is

Myrtle Hazard, but I call her Rip Van Myrtle."

Notwithstanding the quiet life which these young girls were compelled to

lead, they did once in a while have their gatherings, at which a few

young gentlemen were admitted. One of these took place about a month

after Myrtle had joined the school. The girls were all in their best,

and by and by they were to have a _tableau_. Myrtle came out in all her

force. She dressed herself as nearly as she dared like the handsome

woman of the past generation whom she resembled. The very spirit of the

dead beauty seemed to animate every feature and every movement of the

young girl, whose position in the school was assured from that moment.

She had a good solid foundation to build upon in the jealousy of two or

three of the leading girls of the style of pretensions illustrated by

some of their talk which has been given. There is no possible success

without some opposition as a fulcrum: force is always aggressive, and

crowds something or other, if it does not hit or trample on it.

The cruelest cut of all was the remark attributed to Mr. Livingston

Jenkins, who was what the opposition girls just referred to called the

great "swell" among the privileged young gentlemen who were present at

the gathering.

"Rip Van Myrtle, you call that handsome girl, do you, Miss Clara? By

Jove, she's the stylishest of the whole lot, to say nothing of being a

first-class beauty. Of course you know I except one, Miss Clara. If a

girl can go to sleep and wake up after twenty years looking like that, I

know a good many who had better begin their nap without waiting. If I

were Florence Smythe, I'd try it, and begin now,--eh, Clara?"

Miss Browne felt the praise of Myrtle to be slightly alleviated by the

depreciation of Miss Smythe, who had long been a rival of her own. A

little later in the evening Miss Smythe enjoyed almost precisely the

same sensation, produced in a very economical way by Mr. Livingston

Jenkins's repeating pretty nearly the same sentiments to her, only with

a change in two of the proper names. The two young ladies were left

feeling comparatively comfortable with regard to each other, each

intending to repeat Mr. Livingston Jenkins's remark about her friend to

such of her other friends as enjoyed clever sayings, but not at all

comfortable with reference to Myrtle Hazard, who was evidently

considered by the leading "swell" of their circle as the most noticeable

personage of the assembly. The individual exception in each case did

very well as a matter of politeness, but they knew well enough what he

meant.

It seemed to Myrtle Hazard, that evening, that she felt the bracelet on

her wrist glow with a strange, unaccustomed warmth. It was as if it had

just been unclasped from the arm of a young woman full of red blood and

tingling all over with swift nerve-currents. Life had never looked to

her as it did that evening. It was the swan's first breasting the

water,--bred on the desert sand, with vague dreams of lake and river,

and strange longings as the mirage came and dissolved, and at length

afloat upon the sparkling wave. She felt as if she had for the first

time found her destiny. It was to please, and so to command,--to rule

with gentle sway in virtue of the royal gift of beauty,--to enchant with

the commonest exercise of speech, through the rare quality of a voice

which could not help being always gracious and winning, of a manner

which came to her as an inheritance of which she had just found the

title. She read in the eyes of all that she was more than any other the

centre of admiration. Blame her who may, the world was a very splendid

vision as it opened before her eyes in its long vista of pleasures and

of triumphs. How different the light of these bright saloons from the

glimmer of the dim chamber at The Poplars! Silence Withers was at that

very moment looking at the portraits of Anne Holyoake and of Judith

Pride. "The old picture seems to me to be fading faster than ever," she

was thinking. But when she held her lamp before the other, it seemed to

her that the picture never was so fresh before, and that the proud smile

upon its lips was more full of conscious triumph than she remembered it.

A reflex, doubtless, of her own thoughts, for she believed that the

martyr was weeping even in heaven over her lost descendant, and that the

beauty, changed to the nature of the malignant spiritual company with

which she had long consorted in the under-world, was pleasing herself

with the thought that Myrtle was in due time to bring her news from the

Satanic province overhead, where she herself had so long indulged in the

profligacy of _embonpoint_ and loveliness.

The evening at the school-party was to terminate with some _tableaux_.

The girl who had suggested that Myrtle would look "stunning" or

"gorgeous" or "jolly," or whatever the expression was, as Pocahontas,

was not far out of the way, and it was so evident to the managing heads

that she would make a fine appearance in that character, that the

"Rescue of Captain John Smith" was specially got up to show her off.

Myrtle had sufficient reason to believe that there was a hint of Indian

blood in her veins. It was one of those family legends which some of the

members are a little proud of, and others are willing to leave

uninvestigated. But with Myrtle it was a fixed belief that she felt

perfectly distinct currents of her ancestral blood at intervals, and she

had sometimes thought there were instincts and vague recollections

which must have come from the old warriors and hunters and their dusky

brides. The Indians who visited the neighborhood recognized something of

their own race in her dark eyes, as the reader may remember they told

the persons who were searching after her. It had almost frightened her

sometimes to find how like a wild creature she felt when alone in the

woods. Her senses had much of that delicacy for which the red people are

noted, and she often thought she could follow the trail of an enemy, if

she wished to track one through the forest, as unerringly as if she were

a Pequot or a Mohegan.

It was a strange feeling that came over Myrtle, as they dressed her for

the part she was to take. Had she never worn that painted robe before?

Was it the first time that these strings of wampum had ever rattled upon

her neck and arms? And could it be that the plume of eagle's feathers

with which they crowned her dark, fast-lengthening locks had never

shadowed her forehead until now? She felt herself carried back into the

dim ages when the wilderness was yet untrodden save by the feet of its

native lords. Think of her wild fancy as we may, she felt as if that

dusky woman of her midnight vision on the river were breathing for one

hour through her lips. If this belief had lasted, it is plain enough

where it would have carried her. But it came into her imagination and

vivifying consciousness with the putting on of her unwonted costume, and

might well leave her when she put it off. It is not for us, who tell

only what happened, to solve these mysteries of the seeming admission of

unhoused souls into the fleshly tenements belonging to air-breathing

personalities. A very little more, and from that evening forward the

question would have been treated in full in all the works on medical

jurisprudence published throughout the limits of Christendom. The story

must be told, or we should not be honest with the reader.

TABLEAU 1. Captain John Smith (Miss Euphrosyne de Lacy) was to be

represented prostrate and bound, ready for execution; Powhatan (Miss

Florence Smythe) sitting upon a log; savages with clubs (Misses Clara

Browne, A. Van Boodle, E. Van Boodle, Heister, Booster, etc., etc.)

standing around; Pocahontas holding the knife in her hand, ready to cut

the cords with which Captain John Smith is bound.--Curtain.

TABLEAU 2. Captain John Smith released and kneeling before Pocahontas,

whose hand is extended in the act of raising him and presenting him to

her father. Savages in various attitudes of surprise. Clubs fallen from

their hands. Strontian flame to be kindled.--Curtain.

This was a portion of the programme for the evening, as arranged behind

the scenes. The first part went off with wonderful _éclat_, and at its

close there were loud cries for Pocahontas. She appeared for a moment.

Bouquets were flung to her; and a wreath, which one of the young ladies

had expected for herself in another part, was tossed upon the stage, and

laid at her feet. The curtain fell.

"Put the wreath on her for the next _tableau_," some of them whispered,

just as the curtain was going to rise, and one of the girls hastened to

place it upon her head.

The disappointed young lady could not endure it, and, in a spasm of

jealous passion, sprang at Myrtle, snatched it from her head, and

trampled it under her feet at the very instant the curtain was rising.

With a cry which some said had the blood-chilling tone of an Indian's

battle-shriek, Myrtle caught the knife up, and raised her arm against

the girl who had thus rudely assailed her. The girl sank to the ground,

covering her eyes in her terror. Myrtle, with her arm still lifted, and

the blade glistening in her hand, stood over her, rigid as if she had

been suddenly changed to stone. Many of those looking on thought all

this was a part of the show, and were thrilled with the wonderful

acting. Before those immediately around her had had time to recover

from the palsy of their fright, Myrtle had flung the knife away from

her, and was kneeling, her head bowed and her hands crossed upon her

breast. The audience went into a rapture of applause as the curtain came

suddenly down; but Myrtle had forgotten all but the dread peril she had

just passed, and was thanking God that his angel--her own protecting

spirit, as it seemed to her--had stayed the arm which a passion such as

her nature had never known, such as she believed was alien to her truest

self, had lifted with deadliest purpose. She alone knew how extreme the

danger had been. "She meant to scare her,--that's all," they said. But

Myrtle tore the eagle's feathers from her hair, and stripped off her

colored beads, and threw off her painted robe. The metempsychosis was

far too real for her to let her wear the semblance of the savage from

whom, as she believed, had come the lawless impulse at the thought of

which her soul recoiled in horror.

"Pocahontas has got a horrid headache," the managing young ladies gave

it out, "and can't come to time for the last _tableau_." So this all

passed over, not only without loss of credit to Myrtle, but with no

small addition to her local fame,--for it must have been acting; and

"wasn't it stunning to see her with that knife, looking as if she was

going to stab Bella, or to scalp her, or something?"

As Master Gridley had predicted, and as is the case commonly with

new-comers at colleges and schools, Myrtle came first in contact with

those who were least agreeable to meet. The low-bred youth who amuse

themselves with scurvy tricks on freshmen, and the vulgar girls who try

to show off their gentility to those whom they think less important than

themselves, are exceptions in every institution; but they make

themselves odiously prominent before the quiet and modest young people

have had time to gain the new scholar's confidence. Myrtle found

friends in due time, some of them daughters of rich people, some poor

girls, who came with the same sincerity of purpose as herself. But not

one was her match in the facility of acquiring knowledge. Not one

promised to make such a mark in society, if she found an opening into

its loftier circles. She was by no means ignorant of her natural gifts,

and she cultivated them with the ambition which would not let her rest.

During the year she spent in the great school, she made but one visit to

Oxbow Village. She did not try to startle the good people with her

accomplishments, but they were surprised at the change which had taken

place in her. Her dress was hardly more showy, for she was but a

school-girl, but it fitted her more gracefully. She had gained a

softness of expression, and an ease in conversation, which produced

their effect on all with whom she came in contact. Her aunt's voice lost

something of its plaintiveness in talking with her. Miss Cynthia

listened with involuntary interest to her stories of school and

schoolmates. Master Byles Gridley accepted her as the great success of

his life, and determined to make her his sole heiress, if there was any

occasion for so doing. Cyprian told Bathsheba that Myrtle must come to

be a great lady. Gifted Hopkins confessed to Susan Posey that he was

afraid of her, since she had been to the great city school. She knew too

much, and looked too much like a queen, for a village boy to talk with.

Mr. William Murray Bradshaw tried all his fascinations upon her, but she

parried compliments so well, and put off all his nearer advances so

dexterously, that he could not advance beyond the region of florid

courtesy, and never got a chance, if so disposed, to risk a question

which he would not ask rashly, believing that, if Myrtle once said _No_,

there would be little chance of her ever saying _Yes_.

HOSPITAL MEMORIES

I.

When the first wave of patriotism rolled over the land at the outbreak

of the late Rebellion, fathers and mothers were proudly willing to send

forth sons and daughters to take their part in the struggle. The young

men were speedily marshalled and marched to the scene of action; but the

young women were not so fortunate in getting off to places in the

hospitals before the first ardor of excitement had cooled. Indeed, all

hospital organization was in such an imperfect state that no definite

plan could be made for ladies desiring to enter upon the good work.

Then came grave doubts from sage heads as to the propriety and

expediency of young women's going at all. One said that they would

always be standing in the way of the doctors; another, that they would

run at the first glimpse of a wounded man, or certainly faint at sight

of a surgical instrument; others still, that no woman's strength could

endure for a week the demands of hospital life. In fact, it was looked

upon as the most fanatical folly, and suggestions were made that at

least a slight experiment of hospital horrors ought to be made before

starting on such a mad career. Accordingly, in Boston, a few who

cherished the project most earnestly began a series of daily visits to

the Massachusetts General Hospital. To the courtesy and kindness of Dr.

B. S. Shaw and the attending surgeons,--especially Dr. J. Mason

Warren,--these novices were indebted for the privilege of witnessing

operations and being taught the art of dressing wounds. The omission of

fainting on the part of the new pupils rather disappointed general

expectation; and though the knowledge gained in a few weeks was

superficial, yet for practical purposes the nurses were not deemed

totally incompetent.

After receiving a certificate of fitness for the work from medical

authority, it was discouraging at last to be denied the consent of

parents. However, some favored ones went forth, and, returning home in a

few months, brought back such accounts of satisfaction in finding

themselves of use, and of their enjoyment in ministering to our

suffering soldiers, that at length the prejudices which withheld consent

were overcome, and one of the last of those who went was allowed to take

part in the most interesting duties to which the war called women.

I have often thought that one day of hospital employment, with its

constant work and opportunities, was worth a year of ordinary life at

home, and I remember with thankfulness how many times I was permitted to

take the place of absent mothers and sisters in caring for their sons

and brothers. It seemed to me that we women in the hospitals received

our reward a hundred-fold in daily sights of patient heroism, and

expressions of warm gratitude, and that we did not deserve mention or

remembrance in comparison with the thousands at home whose zeal never

wearied in labors indirect and unexciting, until the day of victory

ended their work.

No place in the country could have been better adapted to the uses of a

hospital than the grounds and buildings belonging to the Naval Academy

at Annapolis, enclosed on two sides, as they are, by an arm of the

Chesapeake Bay and the river Severn, and blessed with a varied view, and

fresh, invigorating breezes. At the opening of the war General Butler

landed troops at this point, thus communicating with Washington without

passing through Baltimore. The Naval School was immediately removed to

Newport, where it remained until after the close of our national

troubles. The places of the young students preparing for the naval

service were soon filled by the sick and wounded of the volunteer

armies.

The city of Annapolis is old and quaint. Unlike most of our American

capitals, it gives a stranger the impression of having been finished for

centuries, and one would imagine that the inhabitants are quite too

contented to have any idea of progress or improvement. The Episcopal

church, destroyed by fire a few years since, has been rebuilt; but even

that is crowned with the ancient wooden tower rescued from the flames,

and preserved in grateful memory of Queen Anne, who bestowed valuable

gifts on this church of her namesake city.

Within easy access of all the conveniences of a city, and with excellent

railroad facilities, the hospital grounds were perfectly secluded by

surrounding walls. As one entered through the high gates, an

indescribable repose was felt, enhanced by the charm with which Nature

has endowed the spot, in the abundant shade, evergreen, and fruit trees,

and rose-bushes, holly, and other shrubbery. The classical naval

monument, formerly at the Capitol in Washington, has within a few years

been removed, and with two others--one of which perpetuates the memory

of the adventurous Herndon--stands here. The wharf built for the

embarkation of the Burnside Expedition in 1861 is also here. About sixty

brick buildings, comprising the chapel, post-office, dispensary, and

laundry, with long rows of tents stretched across the grassy spaces,

afforded accommodation for patients varying from five hundred to

twenty-two hundred in number.

In the summer of 1863, Dr. B. A. Vanderkeift was appointed surgeon in

charge of the U.S. General Hospital, Division I., at Annapolis, more

frequently called the Naval School Hospital. Dr. Vanderkeift, from his

uncommon energy of character, his large experience, and rare executive

ability, was admirably fitted for his position. By day and night he

never spared himself in the most watchful superintendence of all

departments of the hospital; no details were too minute for his care, no

plan too generous which could tend to the comfort of the suffering.

Absolute system and punctuality were expected to be observed by all who

came under his military rule. The reveille bugle broke the silence of

early dawn. Its clear notes, repeated at intervals during the day,

announced to the surgeons the time for visits and reports, and to the

men on duty--such as the guards, police, nurses, and cooks--the time for

their meals. One of the most original of the Doctor's plans was the

establishment of a stretcher corps. At one time there was daily to be

seen upon the green in front of head-quarters a company of men,

ward-masters, nurses, and cooks, performing the most surprising

evolutions, playing alternately the parts of patients and nurses,

studying by experiment, under the eye and direction of skilful surgeons,

the most comfortable method of conveying the helpless. In this way the

stretcher corps acquired an amount of skill and tenderness which was

brought into good use when the long roll on the drum summoned them to

meet an approaching transport, bringing either the wounded from the last

battle-field, or the emaciated victims who had been held as prisoners of

war at the South.

Shortly after Dr. Vanderkeift came to the hospital, he invited "Sister

Tyler" to take the head of the ladies' department. She will always be

remembered as identified with the war from the very beginning. She was

the only woman in Baltimore who came forward on the 19th of April, 1861,

when the men of our Massachusetts Sixth were massacred in passing

through that city. She insisted upon being permitted to see the wounded,

and with dauntless devotion, in the face of peril, had some of them

removed to her own home, where she gave them the most faithful care for

many weeks. These men were but the first few of thousands who can never

forget the kindness received from her hands, the words of cheer which

came from her lips. Until within ten months of the closing events of the

war, she was constantly engaged in hospital service, and then only left

for Europe because too much exhausted to continue longer in the work.

"Sister Tyler" had supervision of the hospital, and of the fourteen

ladies who had a subdivision of responsibility resting upon each of

them. Their duties consisted in the special care of the wards assigned

them, and particular attention to the diet and stimulants; they supplied

the thousand nameless little wants which occurred every day, furnished

books and amusements, wrote for and read to the men,--did everything, in

fact, which a thoughtful tact could suggest without interfering with

surgeons or stewards.

Dr. Vanderkeift wisely considered nourishing diet of more importance

than medicine. There were three departments for the preparation of low

and special diet, over each of which a lady presided. The cooks and

nurses, throughout the hospital, were furnished from the number of

convalescent patients not fit to go to the front. They made excellent

workers in these positions, learning with a ready intelligence their new

duties, and performing them with cheerful compliance; but they often

regained their strength too rapidly, and the whole order and convenience

of kitchens and wards would be thrown into wild confusion by a stern

mandate from Washington, that every able-bodied man was to go to his

regiment. No matter what the exigency of the case might be, these men

were despatched in haste. Then came a new training of men, some on

crutches, some with one hand, and all far from strong. When the ladies

remonstrated at having such men put on duty, they were told that

feebleness must be made good by numbers, and it was no uncommon thing

for four or five crippled men to be employed in the work of one strong

one. These changes made wild confusion for a few days, but gradually we

began to consider them a part of the fortunes of war, and to find that a

stoical tranquillity was the best way in which to meet them. Though

exceedingly inconvenient, there was rarely any serious result attending

them. Occasionally a lady would be fortunate enough to evade the loss of

a valuable man by sending him into the city on an errand, or by keeping

him out of sight while an inspection was going on. In this way my chief

of staff, as I used to call a certain German youth, was kept a year in

the hospital. His efficiency and constant interest in the patients made

him a valuable auxiliary in my little department; and I know that his

services were appreciated by others than myself, for one of the chief

surgeons advised me to keep him by all means, even if hiding him in the

ice-chest were necessary.

The regular supplies from the commissary were comparatively plentiful,

but fell short of the demand, both as to quantity and variety. The

Christian and Sanitary Commissions met this want in great measure,

providing good stimulants, dried fruits, butter, and various other

luxuries. But with the utmost delight were received boxes packed by

generous hands at home. I shall ever feel indebted to many Boston

friends for their laborious care and munificent contributions. One of

them, Mrs. James Reed, has now entered upon the full reward of a life

rich in noble impulses and kindly deeds. Her cordial sympathy for those

languishing in distant hospital wards was manifested in sending gifts of

the choicest and most expensive home luxuries.

A gentleman well known in England, as well as our own country, for his

friendly patronage of art, was never forgetful of our warriors in their

dreary days of suffering. Many a cheery message did he send in letters,

and never without liberal "contents." His name was gratefully associated

by the men with bountiful draughts of punch and milk, fruits, ice-cream,

and many other satisfying good things. His request was never to allow a

man to want for anything that money could buy; and though "peanuts and

oranges"--of which he desired the men should have plenty--were not

always the most judicious articles of diet, the spirit of his command

was strictly obeyed.

Mrs. Alexander Randall, who lived near the hospital at Annapolis, was

exceedingly kind in sending in timely delicacies for the men. Fruits and

flowers from her own garden in lavish profusion were the constant

expressions of her thoughtful interest. I remember especially one

morning when a poor boy who was very low could not be persuaded to take

any food; many tempting things had been suggested, but with feeble voice

he said that some grapes were all that he cared for. It was early in the

season, and they could not be bought. But just at this moment Mrs.

Randall opportunely sent in some beautiful clusters. The countenance of

the dying boy brightened with delight as he saw them. They made his last

moments happy, for within half an hour he turned his head on the pillow,

and with one short sigh was gone.

The large basketfuls of rosy apples from this lady were hailed with the

utmost delight by those allowed to eat them. "I have wanted an apple

more than anything," was often the eager reply, as they were offered to

those who had recently come from a long captivity; and as they were

distributed through the wards, not the least gratifying circumstance was

the invariable refusal of the ward-masters and nurses to take any. Their

diet was not sumptuous, and apples were a great luxury to all; but they

would say, "No, thank you, let the men who have just come have them

all."

On the 17th of November, 1863, the steamer New York came in, bringing

one hundred and eighty men from Libby Prison and Belle Isle. Most of

these were the soldiers who had fought at Gettysburg. Never was there an

army in the world whose health and strength were better looked after

than our own; the weak and sick were always sent to the general

hospitals; and the idea that our men were ever in other than the most

sound and robust condition at the time of their becoming prisoners has

no foundation. Language fails to describe them on their return from the

most cruel of captivities. Ignominious insults, bitter and galling

threats, exposure to scorching heat by day and to frosty cold at night,

torturing pangs of hunger,--these were the methods by which stalwart men

had been transformed into ghastly beings with sunken eyes and sepulchral

voices. They were clothed in uncleanly rags, many without caps, and most

without shoes. Their hair and beards were overgrown and matted. The

condition of their teeth was the only appearance of neatness about them:

and these were as white as ivory, from eating bread made of corn and

cobs ground up together. A piece of such bread four inches square daily,

with a morsel of meat once a week and a spoonful of beans three times a

week, had been their food for several months. Some were too far gone to

bear the strain of removal from the steamer; nine died on the day of

arrival, and one third of the whole number soon followed them. Roses,

which had lingered through the mellow autumn, were wreathed with laurel

and laid upon their coffins as they were carried into the beautiful

little chapel for the funeral services, before they were laid in the

government cemetery, about a mile from the hospital. It is a lovely

place, with many trees surrounding its gentle slopes; and here thousands

sleep, with their name, rank, company, and regiment inscribed upon

wooden slabs. But "Unknown" is the only sad record on many a headboard.

These were men who died either on transports, or who when brought to us

were too much impaired in mind to remember anything,--for the loss or

derangement of mental faculties was no uncommon occurrence. When the

first cases of starvation were brought under treatment, the doctors

prescribed the lightest diet, mostly rice, soup, and tea. By experiment

it was proved that just as many died in proportion under this care as

when an intense desire for any particular article of food was allowed in

a measure to be satisfied. Almost every man on his arrival would have

his mind concentrated on some one thing: with many, pickles were the

coveted luxury; with others, milk. Often, as I passed through the wards,

one or another would call out, "Lady, do you think there is such a thing

as a piece of Bologna sausage here?" or, "Lady, is there a lemon in this

place? I have been longing for one for months." The first thing that one

man asked for was a cigar. He was very low, but said, "I would like one

sweet smoke before I die." He finished his cigar only a few moments

before he breathed his last.

The gratification of an insane craving for food cost many a poor fellow

his life. One morning a man who had just come received some money from a

friendly comrade; going in to the sutler's, he bought a quart of dried

apples. After eating them he became quite thirsty, and drank an alarming

quantity of cold water. It is needless to say that he died the next day.

At another time a boy received a box from home; his fond mother, with

more kindness than good judgment, sent, with other things, a mince-pie,

which delighted him, and he was greatly disappointed in not being

allowed to taste it. Though warned of the danger, when the nurse left

him for a few moments to bring him some beef-tea, he got at the pie, ate

half of it, and when the nurse returned was lying dead. Perhaps his

death was not caused, but only hastened, by this. It was impossible

always to guard against such imprudences.

One of the most interesting of the patients, who lived a few weeks after

coming, was Hiram Campbell, of the Hundred and Forty-fifth Pennsylvania

Regiment. An imprisonment of one hundred and thirty-eight days had

reduced him to a point beyond recovery. Day by day he grew weaker, yet

clung to life for the sake of going home to see his friends once more. A

few weeks before, Dr. Vanderkeift had allowed a man in similar

condition to start for home, and he had died on the way; so that the

Doctor had made a rule that no man should leave the hospital unless able

to walk to head-quarters to ask for his own papers. An exception to this

rule could not be granted, and the only chance was to try to build up

Campbell's little remaining strength for the journey, to relieve his

sufferings by comforts, and to keep hope alive in his mind by

interesting him in stories and books. He was delighted to have

"Evangeline" read to him, and the faint smile which passed over his

haggard features as he listened told of a romance in his own life,

begun, but destined too soon to be broken off by death. When too low to

write, as a lady was answering a letter from his sister for him, he

asked to have it read over to him. In her letter the sister had

requested him to name her infant daughter. When the lady came to this

request, he stopped her by asking what she thought a pretty name. Edith

was suggested, but he did not seem satisfied with that; at last he said

shyly, "How do you spell your name? I think I would like to have her

named for you." The lady felt rather embarrassed in writing this, and

persuaded him to let her mention several names, so that at least the

sister might have a choice. This was only a few days before his death.

His father was sent for, because it was evident that there could no

longer be any hope of returning strength for him. The poor old man was

heart-broken when he saw his son in such an emaciated condition. They

had heard at home of his severe sufferings, but said he, "How could I

ever expect to see him the like of this?" With patient resignation to

God's will, the sufferer waited, and his life ebbed slowly away.

The sorrow-stricken father took to his home in the interior of

Pennsylvania the body of his son, that he might rest in the village

graveyard by the side of his mother. By his grassy grave a little child

often hears from her mother's lips how her uncle fought and died for

the country, and with questioning wonder asks, "And am I named for the

lady who was kind to Uncle Hiram?" Such are the strange links in life.

At this time there was in the wards an elderly man, who for months had

been vainly trying to recruit his strength. He had not been a prisoner,

but had been sent to the rear on account of feebleness. Now John Bump

thought it a great waste of time to be staying here in the hospital,

where he was doing no good to the nation, while, if he were at home, he

might be acquiring quite a fortune from his "profession," for he was a

chair-maker. His descriptive list not having been sent from the

regiment, he could draw no pay. One day he received the following

important queries from his anxious wife, who with eight small children

at home did seem to be in a precarious condition: "The man who owns the

house says I must move out if I cannot pay the rent: what shall I do? I

have nothing for the children to eat: what shall I do? There is nothing

to feed the hens with: what shall I do? The pigs are starving: what

shall I do?" An application was made, which resulted in John Bump's

being sent to his regiment, from which he no doubt soon received his

discharge papers.

Around the post-office at noon might always be seen an eager group

awaiting the distribution of the mail. A letter from friends was the

most cheering hope of the day, often proving more effectual than

anything else toward the restoration of health, by bringing vividly to

minds languid with disease all the little interests and charms of home.

Gathered about the fire on a wintry day, the men would recount the

experiences of their captivity, from the moment when they first found

themselves with dismay in the power of the enemy, and, relieved of

muskets, were marched without food to Richmond. There whatever they

chanced to have of money or of value was taken into the care of a Rebel

officer, with the assurance that it would be returned on their release.

The promise was never fulfilled, and the men were hurried off to the

sandy plains of Belle Isle. The death of companions was the principal

change in their dreary, monotonous life, varied also by the addition

from time to time of others doomed to share their fate. Efforts to

escape were not always unsuccessful. At one time eight men burned spots

on their faces and hands with hot wire, and then sprinkled the spots

with black pepper. When the doctor came round, they feigned illness, and

he ordered these cases of small-pox to be taken to the pestilence-house

beyond the guards. In the night the men started for their homes in the

West, and were not caught.

Tracy Rogers, with his bright, sunny face, and sweet voice, whose merry

music resounded through the wards, was one of the first to regain

strength and spirits. His patriotic zeal had only been reanimated by his

sufferings, and he was in haste to be in his place at the front again. A

brother had been killed in the same battle in which he was taken

prisoner, and another had died in a Philadelphia hospital. He was sure

that he should yet die for his country, and talked of death as soon to

come to him. With earnest thoughtfulness, he recalled the teachings of a

Christian mother in his far-off Connecticut home. As the tears filled

his manly blue eyes one day, he asked if the hymn,

"On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,

And cast a wishful eye,"

could be found in the hospital. He said that it had been sung at his

mother's funeral, on his fourteenth birthday; that he had never seen it

since, but that lately he had thought much about it. The hymn was

brought, and he committed it to memory. We were sorry to part with him,

when, after serving as ward-master, he was strong enough to go to his

regiment. Not long after he left, a letter came, saying that he had been

badly wounded, and wished himself back among his Annapolis friends once

more. We never heard of him again, and fear that his wounds must have

proved fatal.

Those were quiet, solemn hours passed in the hospital in the intervals

between past and coming dangers. At the close of the day, the men would

gather into one ward for prayers. Many a stern voice was uplifted that

never prayed before. After petitions for pardon and guidance had arisen

to the Giver of all good things, the men would sit and sing, for hours

sometimes, each one wishing for his favorite hymn to be sung, and saying

that this time was more homelike than any other of the day.

The inspection on Sunday forenoon made it the busiest morning of the

week. In the chapel at two o'clock, and again at seven, short services

were held, conducted either by the chaplain, or by the Rev. Mr. Sloan,

the devoted agent of the Christian Commission at this post. After a

while the second service was changed into a Sunday school, very

interesting to our grown-up scholars. The ladies found themselves fully

occupied as teachers in answering the various difficult questions

crowded into a short space of time. Sometimes the officers who were

patients would take classes too, which was far less embarrassing than

having them ask permission to take the part of scholars, as they

sometimes did. Before we had Sunday school, the men in my own wards

would ask to have psalms and passages selected for them to learn on

Sundays. On Monday mornings each one would have his little book ready to

recite his lesson.

For a week before Christmas, active preparations were made for its

celebration. The men were allowed to go into the woods across the river,

and bring boughs of hemlock, pine, and laurel, and of holly laden with

bright berries. Every evening was occupied in twisting and tying

evergreen in the chapel. Many a reminiscence of home was told, as we sat

in clusters, wreathing garlands of rejoicing so strangely contrasting

with the sights and sounds of life and death around us. Late on

Christmas eve, some of the men from Section V., a tent department, came

to ask as a great favor that I would assist them in decorating the tent

of Miss H----. They said that she had been "fixing up" the wards all

day, and they wanted to have her own tent adorned as a surprise when she

came down in the morning.

On going over to the tent, I found that they had already cut out of red

and blue flannel the letters for "A Merry Christmas to Miss H----."

These were soon sewed upon white cotton, which, being surrounded with

evergreen, was hung in the most conspicuous place. Then there were

crosses, stars, and various other designs to go up, among them a Goddess

of Liberty of remarkable proportions, considered the masterpiece of the

whole. There were only a few men present, not more than a dozen; each

had been seriously wounded, and nearly every one had lost either a leg

or an arm. It was a weird sight as they eagerly worked, by the light of

dimly burning candles, on this cold, full-mooned midnight, cheerfully

telling where they were a year ago, lying in rifle-pits or on picket

duty, and wishing themselves only able to be there again.

Christmas morning came at last. As the sun shone brightly on the frosty

windows, each one showed its wreath, and the wards were gayly festooned.

In some of the larger ones there were appropriate mottoes made of

evergreen letters; as, "Welcome home,"--"He bringeth the prisoners out

of captivity." Friends in Philadelphia had requested to provide the

dinner, which was most lavish and luxurious. The tables were loaded with

turkeys, pies of various kinds, fruits, and candies. This was a feast

indeed to the thousand heroes gathered around the board, and to those

too ill to leave the wards a portion of all was taken, that at least

they might see the good things which the others were enjoying. The

thoughts of many of the sick had centred on this Christmas dinner, and

they had named the favorite morsels that they wished for.

An Episcopal service was held in the chapel in the evening, by the Rev.

Mr. Davenport of Annapolis. A crowded congregation gathered within the

walls, which were hung with scrolls bearing the names of our

battle-fields, and richly adorned with evergreen, while the national

flag gracefully draped the large window. Carols were merrily sung, and

the shattered, scarred, and emaciated soldiers in the most righteous

cause that ever brought warfare to a nation joined in heralding the

advent of the Prince of Peace.

The Christmas had been rendered still happier by the reception of a

telegram, that another exchange of paroled prisoners had been made, and

we were hourly expecting their arrival. In the cold, gray dawn of the

29th of December, the shrill whistle of the "New York" coming up the bay

was heard. Every one was soon astir in preparation for a warm welcome.

Large quantities of coffee, chocolate, and gruels were to be made,

clothes were to be in readiness, and the stretcher corps to be mustered.

As the sun arose, a great crowd assembled, and when the New York neared

the wharf, shouts and cheers greeted her. The decks were covered with

men, whose skeleton forms and vacant countenances told of starvation,

the languid glimmer that at moments overspread their faces feebly

betokening the gratitude in their hearts at their escape from "Dixie."

This time the Rebel authorities had allowed only "well men," as they

called them, to come, because so much had been said at the North about

"the last lot," who came in November. Those able to walk were landed

first, the barefooted receiving shoes. Many were able to crawl as far as

Parole Camp, a little beyond the city. The more feeble were received

into the hospital, where hot baths awaited them; and when they had been

passed under scissors and razor, and were laid in comfortable

beds,--only too soft after the hard ground they had lain on for months,

with as much earth as they could scrape together for a pillow,--they

expressed the change in their whole condition as like coming from the

lower regions of misery into heaven itself.

Handkerchiefs and combs, writing-materials and stamps, were among the

first requisites of the new-comers. A few were able to write; and for

the others, the ladies were but too happy to apprise the friends at home

of their arrival, even if recovery were doubtful. In taking the names of

the men, I came to a white-headed patriarch, and expressed surprise at

finding him in the army. His name was R. B. Darling; and as I wrote it

down, he said: "You might as well put 'Reverend' before it, for I am a

Methodist minister. I lived in Greenville, Green County, Tennessee, and

when this Rebellion came on, I preached and preached, until it did not

seem to do any good; so I took up the musket to try what fighting would

do." He had left a wife and six children at home, from whom he had heard

only once, and then through a friend taken prisoner six months after

himself. He had been down with "those fiends," as he called them,

twenty-one months, and had been in nine different prisons. He had worked

for the Rebels--only at the point of the bayonet--while his strength

lasted, in digging wells. He had passed three months in the iron cage at

Atlanta, and three months in Castle Thunder under threat of being tried

for his life for some disrespectful speech about Rebeldom; finally,

after all the perils of Libby Prison and Belle Isle, he was free once

more. "These are tears of gratitude," he said, in answer to the welcome

given him, as they rolled down his furrowed cheeks; "it is the first

word of kindness that I have heard for so long." On soiled scraps of

paper he had the names of many of his fellow-prisoners. He had promised,

should he ever escape, to let their friends at home know when and where

they had died. Letters were at once written, carrying the painful

certainty of loss to anxious hearts. To his own family it was useless to

write, for the Rebels surrounded his home, cutting off postal

communication. He brought with him six little copies of the Gospels, one

for each child at home; they had been given to him at the South, having

been sent over by the British and Foreign Bible Society for

distribution. Surely no men ever more needed the promises of divine

consolation than the captives whom these volumes reached.

It was difficult to restrict the diet of this old hero. After eating an

enormous meal of soup, meat, vegetables, pudding, and bread, his

appetite would not be in the least satisfied; he would very coolly

remark that he had had a very nice dinner; there was only one trouble

about it, there was not enough. On being told that we would gladly give

him more, were it considered safe, he would persist in saying that he

felt "right peart," and begged me to remember that it was twenty-one

months since he had had any dinners. As he gained strength enough to

walk about, he became acquainted with the system of the hospital and

made a discovery one day; namely, that he was on low diet, and that

there was such a thing as full diet for the well men. "If my present

fare is low, what may not the full be?" he reasoned, as visions of

illimitable bounty floated through his insatiable mind. So he asked the

doctor one morning to transfer his name to the full-diet list; and when

the bugle sounded, he joined the procession as it moved to the

dining-hall. Salt-fish, bread, and molasses chanced to be all that

presented themselves to the famished, disappointed old man; his

countenance was forlorn indeed, as he came to the window of the low-diet

serving-room to ask for something to eat. "I shall get the doctor to put

my name back on to this list, for I like this cook-shop the best, if it

_is_ called low diet."

Father Darling, as he used to be called, soon became a favorite all over

the hospital. He delighted to perform any act of kindness for his

fellow-sufferers. On Sunday mornings he might be seen wandering through

the grounds, carrying books and newspapers into the wards, with a

bright smile and cheery word for each man. His eloquence reached its

highest pitch, when, talking of the Southern Confederacy, he declared

that he did not believe in showing mercy to traitors, but that God

intended them to be "clean exterminated" from the face of the earth,

like the heathen nations the Israelites were commanded to destroy ages

ago. He had but too good reason for wishing justice to be done. After he

returned to his home in Tennessee, he wrote: "There is but one tale in

the whole country: every comfort of life is purloined, clothes all in

rags, a great many men and boys murdered, and, worst of all,

Christianity seems to have gone up from the earth, and plunder and

rapine to have filled its place. Surely war was instituted by Beelzebub.

The guerillas are yet prowling about, seeking what they may devour. In

these troublous times, all who can lift a hoe or cut a weed are trying

to make support, but unless we get help from the North many must suffer

extremely. The Rebs have not left my family anything. They went so far

as to smash up the furniture, take my horse, all my cattle, and carry

off and destroy my library. They smashed up the clock and cut up the

bedsteads; and, in fact, ruin stares us in the face, and doleful

complaint stuns the ear. Even sick ladies have been dragged out of bed

by the hair of the head, so that the fiends of Davis could search for

hid treasure. All who have labored for the government are destitute.

Since the winter broke, I have been fighting the thieving, murdering

Rebels, and now their number is diminished from two hundred to nine, and

I can ride boldly forth where for the last three years it would have

been certain death. O, how are the mighty fallen!"

On New Year's evening the ladies held a reception. Huge logs burned

brightly in the large old-fashioned fireplace of their dining-room, and

a "Happy New Year to all," in evergreen letters, stood out from the

whitewashed wall. Surgeons and stewards, officers, extra-duty men, and

patients, mingled in groups to exchange friendly good-wishes.

Conversation and singing, with a simple repast of apples, cake, and

lemonade, proved allurements to a long stay. Those who had gained

admission were reluctant to depart to make room for the hundreds

awaiting entrance outside. For days afterwards this evening was talked

over with delight by the men: it was the only party they had attended

since the war began, and it formed the greatest gayety of hospital

experience.

Some of the vessels of the Russian fleet, then cruising in our waters,

wintered at Annapolis. A severe sickness breaking out among the sailors,

their accommodations on shipboard were not found adequate, and, by

invitation of our government, they were received into the hospital.

Their inability to speak one word of English made their sojourn rather a

melancholy affair. Their symptoms were often more successfully guessed

from signs and gestures, than from their attempts to express some

particular wish in words. They all returned to their floating homes in a

little while quite recovered, except one, who met with an accidental

death, and was buried from our chapel with the full ceremonies of the

Greek Church. With his face uncovered, he was carried by his comrades to

the cemetery, and laid by the side of our soldiers. A Greek cross of

black iron, among the white slabs, designates this stranger's grave.

The Vanderkeift Literary Association held a meeting every Tuesday

evening in the chapel, which was always crowded. Some of the citizens of

Annapolis, with their families, did not disdain a constant attendance.

An animated discussion of some popular topic was held by the debating

club; and the intelligence often shown did credit to the attainments of

the men who filled the ranks of our army. Ballads were sung by the

Kelsey Minstrels,--so named from their leader, a clerk at head-quarters.

"The Knapsack," a paper edited by the ladies, was read. Into it was

gathered whatever of local interest or amusement there was going on at

the time. Contributions in prose or verse, stories, and conundrums

filled the little sheet.

The short Southern winter wore quickly away, with little of unusual

excitement in the constantly changing scenes of war. Our prisoners pined

in dreary captivity, and the clash of arms was stilled for a season.

So many strange ideas are entertained about a woman's life in hospital

service that I am tempted to transcribe a page from my own experience,

in order that a glimpse may be had of its reality. Imagine me, then, in

a small attic room, carpeted with a government blanket, and furnished

with bed, bureau, table, two chairs, and, best of all, a little stove,

for the morning is cold, and the lustrous stars still keep their quiet

watch in the blue heavens. A glow of warmth and comfort spreads from

gas-light and fire,--an encouraging roar in the chimney having crowned

with success the third attempt at putting paper, wood, and coal together

in exact proportions. After all, the difficulty has been chiefly in the

want of a sufficient amount of air, for there could be no draught

through the dead embers, and these could be disturbed only noiselessly,

for the lady in the next room has the small-pox, and it will not do to

awake her from her morning slumbers.

A glance at the wonderful beauty in which day is breaking is sufficient

compensation for such early rising, as with hurried step I go to the

wards, about seven rods off. The kind-hearted steward stands at the

door: "Talbot died at two o'clock; he was just the same till the last."

I am not surprised, for when I left him I knew that his feeble frame

could not much longer endure the violence of delirium. He was by no

means among the most hopeless of the last prisoners who came, but an

unaccountable change had passed suddenly over him within the last few

days. And now tidings of his death must carry a sad revulsion to hearts

at home, made happy, but a short time since, by news of his safety.

The patients rouse themselves from the drowsiness of a sleepless night,

expecting a morning greeting as I pass through the wards, giving to each

his early stimulant of whiskey or cherry-brandy. The men in the ward

where poor Talbot died seem in especial need of it; for, as they glance

at the vacant corner, they say, "He screamed so badly, we didn't get

much sleep."

At the call of the bugle a general stampede takes place for breakfast,

and I must repair to the serving-room to oversee the last preparations

for low and special diet; for on his return each of the male nurses will

appear at the window with a large tray to be filled for his hungry men.

Beef essence, jellies, and puddings for the day's requirement claim a

little personal attention. Such things are not always left to servants

at home; and how could our "boys in blue" be expected to handle the

spoon with the same dexterity as the musket? They are not, however,

deficient in culinary skill, as the savory hash, well-turned beefsteaks,

nicely dropped eggs, and good coffee will testify.

After the procession of heavily laden breakfast-bearers has moved off,

supplies from the commissary need a little arranging; and one must plan

how they may be made the most of, and what additions for the next three

meals are to be furnished from private resources. The result of which

consideration is usually the despatch of Henry, the chief cook, into the

city to purchase chickens, oysters, and milk in as great quantity as can

be bought.

At eight o'clock the ladies meet for their morning meal. Good cold

water, bread and molasses, with the occasional luxury of a salt-fish

cake, suffice to keep soul and body together. The coffee is said to be

good by those in the habit of taking it, and some, too, enjoy the

butter.

The preparation of lemonade in large quantities, and drinks of various

degrees of sweetness and acidity, is next to be superintended. As

rapidly as possible the little pitchers are filled, and I follow them to

the wards.

Wondering what can be the matter, and cooling his parched lips and

bathing his burning brow, I stand over Allen as the doctor enters. Doubt

is soon dispelled, for he pronounces it a violent case of small-pox. It

is becoming very prevalent, but this is my first introduction to it. The

doctor orders the immediate removal of the patient to Horn Point, the

small-pox quarters, about two miles across the bay. It is too bleak for

the open-boat conveyance, and so he must be jolted six miles round in an

ambulance. On his bed, buried in blankets and stupefied with fever, he

starts for his new abode, not without a plentiful supply of oranges,

lemons, and bay-water.

The plaintive, whining tones of William Cutlep, a boy of sixteen, who is

a picture of utter woe, with mind enough only left to know that he is in

"awful pain," detain me too long; and when I must leave him, it is with

the promise of coming up soon again, for he says he always did like to

see "women folks around." His home is in Southern Virginia, whence he

escaped to join the Union army; and he will never hear from his home

again, for thirty-six ounces of brandy daily will not keep him alive

much longer. He has already taken a ring from his finger, to be sent

home with a dying message after the war is over.

The lower ward is not reached too soon, for the manly, gentle Mason is

near his end. He faintly presses my hand, begging me not to leave him

again, for it will soon be all over. An attack of pneumonia has proved

too much for his reduced system to resist, and, meekly submitting to its

ravages, he lies at last upon his death-bed. A saintly fortitude

sustains him, as in broken accents these sentences come from his lips:

"It is a country worth dying for." "Others will enjoy in coming years

what I have fought for." "I can trust my Saviour. He is lighting me

through the valley of death." "All is well." Low words of prayer commend

the departing soul to the God who made it, and the sweet hymn,

"O sing to me of heaven,

When I am called to die,"

breaks the stillness of the ward.

"It is growing dark,--I can't see you any more,"--he whispers; and then,

as the bugle notes strike his ear, "Before that sound is heard again, I

shall be far away." His heavy breathing grows thicker and shorter, until

that radiance which comes but once to any mortal face, streaming through

the open portal of eternity, tells of the glory upon which his soul is

entering, as his eyelids are quietly closed on earth. The men in the

beds around mutely gaze upon him, wishing that they may die like him

when their last summons comes. The tender-hearted McNally, the faithful

nurse, tearfully laments the loss of the first patient who has died

since he took charge of the ward, and is sure that he could not have

done more for him had he been his own brother. Nor could he.

I go back to the upper wards. Little Cutlep moans deeply in restless

sleep. But there are others to be cheered, and many a promise to be

fulfilled from the heterogeneous contents of a small basket, a constant

and most valuable companion. Comfort-bags, braces, knives, come forth at

requirement. Books, too, are always in demand. After they have been

read, they are sent to many a distant fireside by mail; some of the boys

have several treasured up to take with them when they go home, for such

books are rare where they live, and their little brothers and sisters

will greatly prize them. One boy still keeps under his pillow, clinging

to it until the last, the little book, "Come to Jesus," which he

requests shall be sent to his mother after his death, with the message

that it has been the saving of his soul.

New wants arise to be remembered, and special desires for additions to

the next meal are expressed. On the whole, the men seem comfortable and

happy to-day, as they rest on their elbows partly sitting up in bed,

playing backgammon, or scanning the last pictorial newspaper, or working

over puzzles, for which last they are indebted to Rev. Mr. Ware, who

made a visit to our hospital a few weeks since, and on his return sent

from Boston a goodly assortment of amusements.

By this time the stimulants are to be given out again, and preparations

made for dinner. For it will hardly be welcome, unless the promised mug

of milk or ale, fried onions or sour-krout, fruit or jelly, shall come

with it. Each tray receives its burden of hearty nourishment, and by one

o'clock the ladies may be seen returning to their quarters for rations

of beef and bread. It is well that we are blessed with elastic spirits,

for "a merry heart doeth good like a medicine." All sadness for the dead

must be concealed for the sake of the living. As we cheerfully meet at

dinner-time, an occasional letter in the following strain is not without

a salutary and amusing effect:--

"DEAR MISS T----:--I set down to tell you that I've arrove hum,

an wish I was sum whar else. I've got 3 Bully boys an they are

helpin me about gettin the garden sass into the groun; but they

haint got no mother, an ive got a hous and a kow an I thort

youd be kinder handy to take care of um, if youd stoop so much.

I've thort of you ever sense I com from the hospittle, and how

kinder jimmy you used to walk up and doun them wards. You had

the best gate I ever see, an my 1st wife stepped of jis so, an

she pade her way I tell you. I like to work, and the boys likes

to work, an I kno you do, so ide like to jine if youv no

objecshuns; an now ive maid so bold to rite sich, but I was

kinder pussed on by my feelins an so I hope youl excuse it and

rite soon. I shant be mad if you say no, but its no hurt to ask

an the boys names are Zebalon, Shadrac and peter, they want to

see you as does your respectful frend wich oes his present

helth to you

"I---- G----."

A few letters for the men are to be written for the afternoon mail.

Twining a wreath of immortelles and laurel, is the last that can be

done for brave Tenny, who died yesterday, and will be buried with

military honors to-day. The little procession, with reversed arms, winds

slowly through the grounds, and at the sound of the bugle four patriots,

each wrapped in the flag he has died for, are borne into the chapel.

Inspired passages are read, "There is rest for the weary" is sung by the

ladies, and prayers are offered for bereaved relatives at a distance.

The chaplain precedes the short train to the cemetery, where the final

portion of the church burial-service is said, and over the newly made

graves resound three sharp volleys of musketry.

There is not much time to-day to read to the group around the fire, but

with evident pride and pleasure they listen to "The Blue Coat of the

Soldier," and "The Empty Sleeve," a touching poem, inscribed to the

noble General Howard. I would gladly tarry longer at the request of the

little audience, but the other wards must be looked after. An awkward

man stands in the first one I enter, and begins a protest against being

put on duty. He says he "'listed to fight," and knows nothing about

"nussing." He hands over the materials for a mustard plaster, as he

professes profound ignorance on the subject, saying that he fears the

men left to his charge will not get very good care. This is the only

instance I remember of a man who did not cheerfully try to do his best

for his sick comrades. Fortunately, he was soon sent to his regiment.

Preparation of stimulants and supper keep me busily occupied until, in

the shadowy twilight, the men from the fifteen wards gather into one,

where the patients are not too ill to listen to a few texts from the

Holy Book, which come with a diviner meaning of consolation than ever

before, in the hush of closing day, with death so familiar a thought to

each. Sergeant Murphy leads in prayer with true Methodist fervor, and

the hymn,

"Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer,

That calls me from a world of care,"

concludes the short service.

After their tea, the ladies meet in the chapel, to teach in the evening

school held for an hour four times a week. It serves to interest the men

in useful study. A large library in one corner of the chapel furnishes,

too, stores of knowledge and amusement in works of history, travel, and

fiction.

On going back again to the wards, I am glad to find that Carney's wife

has come in the evening train. She was startled by the last news from

him. It is well that she is here: if anything can save his life, it will

be her presence. The poor woman is worn out by anxiety and a two days'

journey. The chaplain must be found to write a permit for her entrance

into the "Home" provided by the Sanitary Commission for the

accommodation of those coming to see their friends in the hospital. The

good-natured orderly, Frank Hall, conducts her out to the comfortable

house.

The lurid gas flickers in the chilly breeze, for never are the windows

allowed to be closed by day or night, in sunshine or storm. It does

sometimes seem as if a circulation of air a little less like a hurricane

from an iceberg might conduce more to the health and comfort of the

inmates; but then this is one of Dr. Vanderkeift's pet points of

practice, and woe betide any one who dares to shut out a breath of the

exhilarating element. Most of the men are stilled in merciful slumbers,

more or less peaceful or unquiet. One shout from a sleeper of "We'll

whip them yet, boys!" tells that Colby is fighting over in a dream his

last battle, while from others come groans only audible in hours of

unconsciousness. In wakeful uneasiness, others sigh for sleep, and are

at length lulled to rest by soothing words or rhymes, not unfrequently

by the childish melodies of Mother Goose. And so the day's privilege of

duty ends with gratitude, and a healthful weariness that vanishes before

the next morning.

DIRGE FOR A SAILOR.

Slow, slow! toll it low,

As the sea-waves break and flow;

With the same dull, slumberous motion

As his ancient mother, Ocean,

Rocked him on, through storm and calm,

From the iceberg to the palm:

So his drowsy ears may deem

That the sound which breaks his dream

Is the ever-moaning tide

Washing on his vessel's side.

Slow, slow! as we go,

Swing his coffin to and fro;

As of old the lusty billow

Swayed him on his heaving pillow:

So that he may fancy still,

Climbing up the watery hill,

Plunging in the watery vale,

With her wide-distended sail,

His good ship securely stands

Onward to the golden lands.

Slow, slow!--heave-a-ho!--

Lower him to the mould below;

With the well-known sailor ballad,

Lest he grow more cold and pallid

At the thought that Ocean's child,

From his mother's arms beguiled,

Must repose for countless years,

Reft of all her briny tears,

All the rights he owned by birth,

In the dusty lap of earth.

UP THE EDISTO.

In reading military history, one finds the main interest to lie,

undoubtedly, in the great campaigns, where a man, a regiment, a brigade,

is but a pawn in the game. But there is a charm also in the more free

and adventurous life of partisan warfare, where, if the total sphere be

humbler, yet the individual has more relative importance, and the sense

of action is more personal and keen. This is the reason given by the

eccentric Revolutionary biographer, Weems, for writing the Life of

Washington first, and then that of Marion. And there were, certainly, in

the early adventures of the colored troops in the Department of the

South, some of the same elements of picturesqueness that belonged to

Marion's band, with the added feature that the blacks were fighting for

their personal liberties, of which Marion had helped to deprive them.

It is stated by Major-General Gillmore, in his "Siege of Charleston," as

one of the three points in his preliminary strategy, that an expedition

was sent up the Edisto River to destroy a bridge on the Charleston and

Savannah Railway. As one of the early raids of the colored troops, this

expedition may deserve narration, though it was, in a strategic point of

view, a disappointment. It has already been told, briefly and on the

whole with truth, by Greeley and others, but I will venture on a more

complete account.

The project dated back earlier than General Gillmore's siege, and had

originally no connection with that movement. It had been formed by

Captain Trowbridge and myself in camp, and was based on facts learned

from the men. General Saxton and Colonel W. W. H. Davis, the successive

post-commanders, had both favored it. It had been also approved by

General Hunter, before his sudden removal, though he regarded the bridge

as a secondary affair, because there was another railway communication

between the two cities. But as my main object was to obtain permission

to go, I tried to make the most of all results which might follow, while

it was very clear that the raid would harass and confuse the enemy, and

be the means of bringing away many of the slaves. General Hunter had,

therefore, accepted the project mainly as a stroke for freedom and black

recruits; and General Gillmore, because anything that looked toward

action found favor in his eyes, and because it would be convenient to

him at that time to effect a diversion, if nothing more.

It must be remembered, that, after the first capture of Port Royal, the

outlying plantations along the whole Southern coast were abandoned, and

the slaves withdrawn into the interior. It was necessary to ascend some

river for thirty miles in order to reach the black population at all.

This ascent could only be made by night, as it was a slow process, and

the smoke of a steamboat could be seen for a great distance. The streams

were usually shallow, winding, and muddy, and the difficulties of

navigation were such as to require a full moon and a flood tide. It was

really no easy matter to bring everything to bear; especially as every

projected raid must be kept a secret so far as possible. However, we

were now somewhat familiar with such undertakings, half military, half

naval, and the thing to be done on the Edisto was precisely what we had

proved to be practicable on the St. Mary's and the St. John's,--to drop

anchor before the enemy's door some morning at daybreak, without his

having dreamed of our approach.

Since a raid made by Colonel Montgomery up the Combahee, two months

before, the vigilance of the Rebels had increased. But we had

information that upon the South Edisto or Pon-Pon River the rice

plantations were still being actively worked by a large number of

negroes, in reliance on obstructions placed at the mouth of that narrow

stream, where it joins the main river, some twenty miles from the coast.

This point was known to be further protected by a battery of unknown

strength, at Wiltown Bluff, a commanding and defensible situation. The

obstructions consisted of a row of strong wooden piles across the river;

but we convinced ourselves that these must now be much decayed, and that

Captain Trowbridge, an excellent engineer officer, could remove them by

the proper apparatus. Our proposition was to man the "John Adams," an

armed ferry-boat, which had before done us much service,--and which has

now reverted to the pursuits of peace, it is said, on the East Boston

line,--to ascend in this to Wiltown Bluff, silence the battery, and

clear a passage through the obstructions. Leaving the "John Adams" to

protect this point, we could then ascend the smaller stream with two

light-draft boats, and perhaps burn the bridge, which was ten miles

higher, before the enemy could bring sufficient force to make our

position at Wiltown Bluff untenable.

The expedition was organized essentially upon this plan. The smaller

boats were the "Enoch Dean,"--a river steamboat, which carried a

ten-pound Parrott gun, and a small howitzer,--and a little mosquito of a

tug, the "Governor Milton," upon which, with the greatest difficulty, we

found room for two twelve-pound Armstrong guns, with their gunners,

forming a section of the First Connecticut Battery, under Lieutenant

Clinton, aided by a squad from my own regiment, under Captain James. The

"John Adams" carried, if I remember rightly, two Parrott guns (of twenty

and ten pounds caliber) and a howitzer or two. The whole force of men

did not exceed two hundred and fifty.

We left Beaufort, S. C., on the afternoon of July 9th, 1863. In former

narrations I have sufficiently described the charm of a moonlight ascent

into a hostile country, upon an unknown stream, the dark and silent

banks, the rippling water, the wail of the reed-birds, the anxious

watch, the breathless listening, the veiled lights, the whispered

orders. To this was now to be added the vexation of an insufficient

pilotage, for our negro guide knew only the upper river, and, as it

finally proved, not even that, while, to take us over the bar which

obstructed the main stream, we must borrow a pilot from Captain Dutch,

whose gunboat blockaded that point. This active naval officer, however,

whose boat expeditions had penetrated all the lower branches of those

rivers, could supply our want, and we borrowed from him not only a

pilot, but a surgeon, to replace our own, who had been prevented by an

accident from coming with us. Thus accompanied, we steamed over the bar

in safety, had a peaceful ascent, passed the island of Jehossee,--the

fine estate of Governor Aiken, then left undisturbed by both sides,--and

fired our first shell into the camp at Wiltown Bluff at four o'clock in

the morning.

The battery--whether fixed or movable we knew not--met us with a

promptness that proved very short-lived. After three shots it was

silent, but we could not tell why. The bluff was wooded and we could see

but little. The only course was to land, under cover of the guns. As the

firing ceased and the smoke cleared away, I looked across the

rice-fields which lay beneath the bluff. The first sunbeams glowed upon

their emerald levels, and on the blossoming hedges along the rectangular

dikes. What were those black dots which everywhere appeared? Those moist

meadows had become alive with human heads, and along each narrow path

came a straggling file of men and women, all on a run for the

river-side. I went ashore with a boat-load of troops at once. The

landing was difficult and marshy. The astonished negroes tugged us up

the bank, and gazed on us as if we had been Cortez and Columbus. They

kept arriving by land much faster than we could come by water; every

moment increased the crowd, the jostling, the mutual clinging, on that

miry foothold. What a scene it was! With the wild faces, eager figures,

strange garments, it seemed, as one of the poor things reverently

suggested, "like notin' but de judgment day." Presently they began to

come from the houses also, with their little bundles on their heads;

then with larger bundles. Old women, trotting on the narrow paths, would

kneel to pray a little prayer, still balancing the bundle; and then

would suddenly spring up, urged by the accumulating procession behind,

and would move on till irresistibly compelled by thankfulness to dip

down for another invocation. Reaching us, every human being must grasp

our hands, amid exclamations of "Bress you, mas'r," and "Bress de Lord,"

at the rate of four of the latter ascriptions to one of the former.

Women brought children on their shoulders; small black boys carried on

their backs little brothers equally inky, and, gravely depositing them,

shook hands. Never had I seen human beings so clad, or rather so unclad,

in such amazing squalidness and destitution of garments. I recall one

small urchin without a rag of clothing save the basque waist of a lady's

dress, bristling with whalebones, and worn wrong side before, beneath

which his smooth ebony legs emerged like those of an ostrich from its

plumage. How weak is imagination, how cold is memory, that I ever cease,

for a day of my life, to see before me the picture of that astounding

scene!

Yet at the time we were perforce a little impatient of all this piety,

protestation, and hand-pressing; for the vital thing was to ascertain

what force had been stationed at the bluff, and whether it was yet

withdrawn. The slaves, on the other hand, were too much absorbed in

their prospective freedom to aid us in taking any further steps to

secure it. Captain Trowbridge, who had by this time landed at a

different point, got quite into despair over the seeming deafness of the

people to all questions. "How many soldiers are there on the bluff?" he

asked of the first-comer.

"Mas'r," said the man, stuttering terribly, "I c-c-c--"

"Tell me how many soldiers there are!" roared Trowbridge, in his mighty

voice, and all but shaking the poor old thing, in his thirst for

information.

"O mas'r," recommenced in terror the incapacitated witness, "I

c-c-car-penter!" holding up eagerly a little stump of a hatchet, his

sole treasure, as if his profession ought to excuse him from all

military opinions.

I wish that it were possible to present all this scene from the point of

view of the slaves themselves. It can be most nearly done, perhaps, by

quoting the description given of a similar scene on the Combahee River,

by a very aged man, who had been brought down on the previous raid,

already mentioned. I wrote it down in my tent, long after, while the old

man recited the tale, with much gesticulation, at the door; and it is

by far the best glimpse I have ever had, through a negro's eyes, at

these wonderful birthdays of freedom.

"De people was all a hoein', mas'r," said the old man. "Dey was a hoein'

in de rice-field, when de gunboats come. Den ebry man drap dem hoe, and

leff de rice. De mas'r he stand and call, 'Run to de wood for hide!

Yankee come, sell you to Cuba! run for hide!' Ebry man he run, and, my

God! run all toder way!

"Mas'r stand in de wood, peep, peep, faid for truss [afraid to trust].

He say, 'Run to de wood!' and ebry man run by him, straight to de boat.

"De brack sojer so presumptious, dey come right ashore, hold up dere

head, Fus' ting I know, dere was a barn, ten tousand bushel rough rice,

all in a blaze, den mas'r's great house, all cracklin' up de roof.

Didn't I keer for see 'em blaze? Lor, mas'r, didn't care notin' at all,

_I was gwine to de boat_."

Doré's Don Quixote could not surpass the sublime absorption in which the

gaunt old man, with arm uplifted, described this stage of affairs, till

he ended in a shrewd chuckle, worthy of Sancho Panza. Then he resumed.

"De brack sojers so presumptious!" This he repeated three times, slowly

shaking his head in an ecstasy of admiration. It flashed upon me that

the apparition of a black soldier must amaze those still in bondage,

much as a butterfly just from the chrysalis might astound his

fellow-grubs. I inwardly vowed that my soldiers, at least, should be as

"presumptious" as I could make them. Then he went on.

"Ole woman and I go down to de boat; den dey say behind us, 'Rebels

comin'! Rebels comin'!' Ole woman say, 'Come ahead, come plenty ahead!'

I hab notin' on but my shirt and pantaloon; ole woman one single frock

he hab on, and one handkerchief on he head; I leff all-two my blanket

and run, for de Rebel come, and den dey didn't come, didn't truss for

come.

"Ise eighty-eight year old, mas'r. My ole Mas'r Lowndes keep all de ages

in a big book, and when we come to age ob sense we mark em down ebry

year, so I know. Too ole for come? Mas'r joking. Neber too ole for leave

de land o' bondage. I old, but great good for chil'en, gib tousand tank

ebry day. Young people can go through, _force_ [forcibly], mas'r, but de

ole folk mus' go slow."

Such emotions as these, no doubt, were inspired by our arrival, but we

could only hear their hasty utterance in passing; our duty being, with

the small force already landed, to take possession of the bluff.

Ascending, with proper precautions, the wooded hill, we soon found

ourselves in the deserted camp of a light battery, amid scattered

equipments and suggestions of a very unattractive breakfast. As soon as

possible, skirmishers were thrown out through the woods to the farther

edge of the bluff, while a party searched the houses, finding the usual

large supply of furniture and pictures,--brought up for safety from

below,--but no soldiers. Captain Trowbridge then got the "John Adams"

beside the row of piles, and went to work for their removal.

Again I had the exciting sensation of being within the hostile

lines,--the eager explorations, the doubts, the watchfulness, the

listening for every sound of coming hoofs. Presently a horse's tread was

heard in earnest, but it was a squad of our own men bringing in two

captured cavalry soldiers. One of these, a sturdy fellow, submitted

quietly to his lot, only begging that, whenever we should evacuate the

bluff, a note should be left behind, stating that he was a prisoner. The

other, a very young man, and a member of the "Rebel Troop," a sort of

Cadet corps among the Charleston youths, came to me in great wrath,

complaining that the corporal of our squad had kicked him after he had

surrendered. His air of offended pride was very rueful, and it did

indeed seem a pathetic reversal of fortunes for the two races. To be

sure, the youth was a scion of one of the foremost families of South

Carolina, and when I considered the wrongs which the black race had

encountered from those of his blood, first and last, it seemed as if

the most scrupulous Recording Angel might tolerate one final kick, to

square the account. But I reproved the corporal, who respectfully

disclaimed the charge, and said the kick was an incident of the scuffle.

It certainly was not their habit to show such poor malice: they thought

too well of themselves.

I recall with delight my conversation with this captured boy, he was

such a naïve specimen of the true Southern arrogance. For instance:--

"Colonel," said he, respectfully, "are there any gentlemen on board the

steamboat where I am to be placed?"

I told him that such a question sounded strangely from a captured

private soldier.

"Perhaps it does," said he wistfully, "and I know my position too well

to offend an enemy. I only wished to know"--and here he paused,

evidently trying to find some form of expression which could not

possibly disturb the keenest sensibilities--"if there is likely to be

any one on board with whom I can associate."

This was carrying the joke rather too far. I told him that he would find

United States officers on board, and United States soldiers, and that it

was to be hoped he would like their society, as he probably would have

no other for some time to come. But the characteristic feature of the

thing is, that I do not believe he meant to commit any impertinence

whatever, but that the youth rather aimed to compliment me by assuming

that I appreciated the feelings of a man made of porcelain, and would

choose for him only the most choice and fastidious companionship. But I

must say that he seemed to me in no way superior, but rather quite

inferior, to my own black soldiers, who equalled him in courage and in

manners, and far surpassed him in loyalty, modesty, and common sense.

His demeanor seemed less lofty, but rather piteous, when he implored me

not to put him on board any vessel which was to ascend the upper stream,

and hinted, by awful implications, the danger of such ascent. This

meant torpedoes, a peril which we treated, in those days, with rather

mistaken contempt. But we found none on the Edisto, and it may be that

it was only a foolish attempt to alarm us.

Meanwhile, Trowbridge was toiling away at the row of piles, which proved

easier to draw out than to saw asunder, either work being hard enough.

It took far longer than we had hoped, and we saw noon approach and the

tide rapidly fall, taking with it, inch by inch, our hopes of effecting

a surprise at the bridge. During this time, and indeed all day, the

detachments on shore, under Captains Whitney and Sampson, were having

occasional skirmishes with the enemy, while the colored people were

swarming to the shore, or running to and fro like ants, with the poor

treasures of their houses. Our busy Quartermaster, Mr. Bingham,--who

died afterwards from the overwork of that sultry day,--was transporting

the refugees on board the steamer, or hunting up bales of cotton, or

directing the burning of rice-houses, in accordance with our orders. No

dwelling-houses were destroyed or plundered by our men,--Sherman's

"bummers" not having yet arrived,--though I asked no questions as to

what the plantation negroes might bring in their great bundles. One

piece of property, I must admit, seemed a lawful capture,--a United

States dress-sword, of the old pattern, which had belonged to the Rebel

general who afterwards gave the order to bury Colonel Shaw "with his

niggers." That I have retained, not without some satisfaction, to this

day.

A passage having been cleared at last, and the tide having turned by

noon, we lost no time in attempting the ascent, leaving the bluff to be

held by the "John Adams" and by the small force on shore. We were

scarcely above the obstructions, however, when the little tug went

aground, and the "Enoch Dean," ascending a mile farther, had an

encounter with a battery on the right,--perhaps our old enemy,--and

drove it back. Soon after, she also ran aground, a misfortune of which

our opponent strangely took no advantage; and, on getting off, I thought

it best to drop down to the bluff again, as the tide was still

hopelessly low. None can tell, save those who have tried them, the

vexations of those muddy Southern streams, navigable only during a few

hours of flood-tide.

After waiting an hour, the two small vessels again tried the ascent. The

enemy on the right had disappeared; but we could now see, far off on our

left, another light battery moving parallel with the river, apparently

to meet us at some upper bend. But for the present we were safe, with

the low rice-fields on each side of us; and the scene was so peaceful,

it seemed as if all danger were done. For the first time, we saw in

South Carolina blossoming river-banks and low emerald meadows, that

seemed like New England. Everywhere there were the same rectangular

fields, smooth canals, and bushy dikes. A few negroes stole out to us in

dug-outs, and breathlessly told us how others had been hurried away by

the overseers. We glided safely on, mile after mile. The day was

unutterably hot, but all else seemed propitious. The men had their

combustibles all ready to fire the bridge, and our hopes were unbounded.

But by degrees the channel grew more tortuous and difficult, and while

the little "Milton" glided smoothly over everything, the "Enoch Dean,"

my own boat, repeatedly grounded. On every occasion of especial need,

too, something went wrong in her machinery,--her engine being

constructed on some wholly new patent, of which, I should hope, this

trial would prove entirely sufficient. The black pilot, who was not a

soldier, grew more and more bewildered, and declared that it was the

channel, not his brain, which had gone wrong; the captain, a little

elderly man, sat wringing his hands in the pilot-box; and the engineer

appeared to be mingling his groans with those of the diseased engine.

Meanwhile I, in equal ignorance of machinery and channel, had to give

orders only justified by minute acquaintance with both. So I navigated

on general principles, until they grounded us on a mud-bank, just below

a wooded point, and some two miles from the bridge of our destination.

It was with a pang that I waved to Major Strong, who was on the other

side of the channel in a tug, not to risk approaching us, but to steam

on and finish the work, if he could.

Short was his triumph. Gliding round the point, he found himself

instantly engaged with a light battery of four or six guns, doubtless

the same we had seen in the distance. The "Milton" was within two

hundred and fifty yards. The Connecticut men fought their guns well,

aided by the blacks, and it was exasperating for us to hear the shots,

while we could see nothing and do nothing. The scanty ammunition of our

bow gun was exhausted, and the gun in the stern was useless, from the

position in which we lay. In vain we moved the men from side to side,

rocking the vessel, to dislodge it. The heat was terrific that August

afternoon; I remember I found myself constantly changing places, on the

scorched deck, to keep my feet from being blistered. At last the officer

in charge of the gun, a hardy lumberman from Maine, got the stern of the

vessel so far round that he obtained the range of the battery through

the cabin windows, "but it would be necessary," he coolly added, on

reporting to me this fact, "to shoot away the corner of the cabin." I

knew that this apartment was newly painted and gilded, and the idol of

the poor captain's heart; but it was plain that even the thought of his

own upholstery could not make the poor soul more wretched than he was.

So I bade Captain Dolly blaze away, and thus we took our hand in the

little game, though at a sacrifice.

It was of no use. Down drifted our little consort round the point, her

engine disabled and her engineer killed, as we afterwards found, though

then we could only look and wonder. Still pluckily firing, she floated

by upon the tide, which had now just turned; and when, with a last

desperate effort, we got off, our engine had one of its impracticable

fits, and we could only follow her. The day was waning, and all its

range of possibility had lain within the limits of that one tide.

All our previous expeditions had been so successful, it now seemed hard

to turn back; the river-banks and rice-fields, so beautiful before,

seemed only a vexation now. But the swift current bore us on, and after

our Parthian shots had died away, a new discharge of artillery opened

upon us, from our first antagonist of the morning, which still kept the

other side of the stream. It had taken up a strong position on another

bluff, almost out of range of the "John Adams," but within easy range of

us. The sharpest contest of the day was before us. Happily the engine

and engineer were now behaving well, and we were steering in a channel

already traversed, and of which the dangerous points were known. But we

had a long, straight reach of river before us, heading directly toward

the battery, which, having once got our range, had only to keep it,

while we could do nothing in return. The Rebels certainly served their

guns well. For the first time I discovered that there were certain

compensating advantages in a slightly-built craft, as compared with one

more substantial: the missiles never lodged in the vessel, but crashed

through some thin partition as if it were paper, to explode beyond us,

or fall harmless in the water. Splintering, the chief source of wounds

and death in wooden ships, was thus entirely avoided; the danger was,

that our machinery might be disabled, or that shots might strike below

the water-line, and sink us.

This, however, did not happen. Fifteen projectiles, as we afterwards

computed, passed through the vessel or cut the rigging. Yet few

casualties occurred, and those instantly fatal. As my orderly stood

leaning on a comrade's shoulder, the head of the latter was shot off. At

last I myself felt a sudden blow in the side, as if from some

prize-fighter, doubling me up for a moment, while I sank upon a seat. It

proved afterwards to have been produced by the grazing of a ball, which,

without tearing a garment, had yet made a large part of my side black

and blue, leaving a sensation of paralysis which made it difficult to

stand. Supporting myself on Captain Rogers, I tried to comprehend what

had happened, and I remember being impressed by an odd feeling that I

had now got my share, and should henceforth be a great deal safer than

any of the rest. I am told that this often follows one's first

experience of a wound.

But this immediate contest, sharp as it was, proved brief; a turn in the

river enabled us to use our stern gun, and we soon glided into the

comparative shelter of Wiltown Bluff. There, however, we were to

encounter the danger of shipwreck, superadded to that of fight. When the

passage through the piles was first cleared, it had been marked by

stakes, lest the rising tide should cover the remaining piles and make

it difficult to run the passage. But when we again reached it, the

stakes had somehow been knocked away, the piles were just covered by the

swift current, and the little tug-boat was aground upon them. She came

off easily, however, with our aid, and, when we in turn essayed the

passage, we grounded also, but more firmly. We getting off at last, and

making the passage, the tug again became lodged, when nearly past

danger, and all our efforts proved powerless to pull her through. I

therefore dropped down below, and sent the "John Adams" to her aid,

while I superintended the final recall of the pickets, and the

embarkation of the remaining refugees.

While thus engaged, I felt little solicitude about the boats above. It

was certain that the "John Adams" could safely go close to the piles on

the lower side, that she was very strong, and that the other was very

light. Still, it was natural to cast some anxious glances up the river,

and it was with surprise that I presently saw a canoe descending, which

contained Major Strong. Coming on board, he told me with some excitement

that the tug could not possibly be got off, and he wished for orders.

It was no time to consider whether it was not his place to have given

orders, instead of going half a mile to seek them. I was by this time so

far exhausted that everything seemed to pass by me as by one in a dream;

but I got into a boat, pushed up stream, met presently the "John Adams"

returning, and was informed by the officer in charge of the Connecticut

battery that he had abandoned the tug, and--worse news yet--that his

guns had been thrown overboard. It seemed to me then, and has always

seemed, that this sacrifice was utterly needless, because, although the

captain of the "John Adams" had refused to risk his vessel by going near

enough to receive the guns, he should have been compelled to do so.

Though the thing was done without my knowledge, and beyond my reach,

yet, as commander of the expedition, I was technically responsible. It

was hard to blame a lieutenant when his senior had shrunk from a

decision, and left him alone; nor was it easy to blame Major Strong,

whom I knew to be a man of personal courage, though without much

decision of character. He was subsequently tried by court-martial and

acquitted, after which he resigned, and was lost at sea on his way home.

The tug, being thus abandoned, must of course be burned to prevent her

falling into the enemy's hands. Major Strong went with prompt

fearlessness to do this, at my order; after which he remained on the

"Enoch Dean," and I went on board the "John Adams," being compelled to

succumb at last, and transfer all remaining responsibility to Captain

Trowbridge. Exhausted as I was, I could still observe, in a vague way,

the scene around me. Every available corner of the boat seemed like some

vast auction-room of secondhand goods. Great piles of bedding and

bundles lay on every side, with black heads emerging and black forms

reclining in every stage of squalidness. Some seemed ill, or wounded, or

asleep, others were chattering eagerly among themselves, singing,

praying, or soliloquizing on joys to come. "Bress de Lord," I heard one

woman say, "I spec' I get salt victual now,--notin' but fresh victual

dese six months, but Ise get salt victual now,"--thus reversing, under

pressure of the salt-embargo, the usual anticipations of voyagers.

Trowbridge told me, long after, that, on seeking a fan for my benefit,

he could find but one on board. That was in the hands of a fat old

"aunty," who had just embarked, and sat on an enormous bundle of her

goods, in everybody's way, fanning herself vehemently, and ejaculating,

as her gasping breath would permit, "Oh! Do, Jesus! Oh! Do, Jesus!" When

the captain abruptly disarmed her of the fan, and left her continuing

her pious exercises.

Thus we glided down the river in the waning light. Once more we

encountered a battery, making five in all; I could hear the guns of the

assailants, and could not distinguish the explosion of their shells from

the answering throb of our own guns. The kind Quartermaster kept

bringing me news of what occurred, like Rebecca in Front-de-Boeuf's

castle, but discreetly withholding any actual casualties. Then all faded

into safety and sleep; and we reached Beaufort in the morning, after

thirty-six hours of absence. A kind friend, who acted in South Carolina

a nobler part amid tragedies than in any of her early stage triumphs,

met us with an ambulance at the wharf, and the prisoners, the wounded,

and the dead were duly attended.

The reader will not care for any personal record of convalescence;

though, among the general military laudations of whiskey, it is worth

while to say that one life was saved, in the opinion of my surgeons, by

an habitual abstinence from it, leaving no food for peritoneal

inflammation to feed upon. The able-bodied men who had joined us were

sent to aid General Gillmore in the trenches, while their families were

established in huts and tents on St. Helena Island. A year after,

greatly to the delight of the regiment, in taking possession of a

battery which they had helped to capture on James Island, they found in

their hands the selfsame guns which they had seen thrown overboard from

the "Governor Milton." They then felt that their account with the enemy

was squared, and could proceed to further operations.

Before the war, how great a thing seemed the rescue of even one man from

slavery; and since the war has emancipated all, how little seems the

liberation of two hundred! But no one then knew how the contest might

end; and when I think of that morning sunlight, those emerald fields,

those thronging numbers, the old women with their prayers, and the

little boys with their living burdens, it seems to me that the day was

worth all it cost, and more.

POOR RICHARD.

A STORY IN THREE PARTS.

PART III.

In country districts, where life is quiet, incidents do duty as events;

and accordingly Captain Severn's sudden departure for his regiment

became very rapidly known among Gertrude's neighbors. She herself heard

it from her coachman, who had heard it in the village, where the Captain

had been seen to take the early train. She received the news calmly

enough to outward appearance, but a great tumult rose and died in her

breast. He had gone without a word of farewell! Perhaps he had not had

time to call upon her. But bare civility would have dictated his

dropping her a line of writing,--he who must have read in her eyes the

feeling which her lips refused to utter, and who had been the object of

her tenderest courtesy. It was not often that Gertrude threw back into

her friends' teeth their acceptance of the hospitality which it had been

placed in her power to offer them; but if she now mutely reproached

Captain Severn with ingratitude, it was because he had done more than

slight her material gifts: he had slighted that constant moral force

with which these gifts were accompanied, and of which they were but the

rude and vulgar token. It is but natural to expect that our dearest

friends will accredit us with our deepest feelings; and Gertrude had

constituted Edmund Severn her dearest friend. She had not, indeed, asked

his assent to this arrangement, but she had borne it out by a subtile

devotion which she felt that she had a right to exact of him that he

should repay,--repay by letting her know that, whether it was lost on

his heart or not, it was at least not lost to his senses,--that, if he

could not return it, he could at least remember it. She had given him

the flower of her womanly tenderness, and, when his moment came, he had

turned from her without a look. Gertrude shed no tears. It seemed to her

that she had given her friend tears enough, and that to expend her soul

in weeping would be to wrong herself. She would think no more of Edmund

Severn. He should be as little to her for the future as she was to him.

It was very easy to make this resolution: to keep it, Gertrude found

another matter. She could not think of the war, she could not talk with

her neighbors of current events, she could not take up a newspaper,

without reverting to her absent friend. She found herself constantly

harassed with the apprehension that he had not allowed himself time

really to recover, and that a fortnight's exposure would send him back

to the hospital. At last it occurred to her that civility required that

she should make a call upon Mrs. Martin, the Captain's sister; and a

vague impression that this lady might be the depositary of some farewell

message--perhaps of a letter--which she was awaiting her convenience to

present, led her at once to undertake this social duty. The carriage

which had been ordered for her projected visit was at the door, when,

within a week after Severn's departure, Major Luttrel was announced.

Gertrude received him in her bonnet. His first care was to present

Captain Severn's adieus, together with his regrets that he had not had

time to discharge them in person. As Luttrel made his speech, he watched

his companion narrowly, and was considerably reassured by the

unflinching composure with which she listened to it. The turn he had

given to Severn's message had been the fruit of much mischievous

cogitation. It had seemed to him that, for his purposes, the assumption

of a hasty, and as it were mechanical, allusion to Miss Whittaker, was

more serviceable than the assumption of no allusion at all, which would

have left a boundless void for the exercise of Gertrude's fancy. And he

had reasoned well; for although he was tempted to infer from her

calmness that his shot had fallen short of the mark, yet, in spite of

her silent and almost smiling assent to his words, it had made but one

bound to her heart. Before many minutes, she felt that those words had

done her a world of good. "He had not had time!" Indeed, as she took to

herself their full expression of perfect indifference, she felt that her

hard, forced smile was broadening into the sign of a lively gratitude to

the Major.

Major Luttrel had still another task to perform. He had spent half an

hour on the preceding day at Richard's bedside, having ridden over to

the farm, in ignorance of his illness, to see how matters stood with

him. The reader will already have surmised that the Major was not

pre-eminently a man of conscience: he will, therefore, be the less

surprised and shocked to hear that the sighs of the poor young man,

prostrate, fevered, and delirious, and to all appearance rapidly growing

worse, filled him with an emotion the reverse of creditable. In plain

terms, he was very glad to find Richard a prisoner in bed. He had been

racking his brains for a scheme to keep his young friend out of the way,

and now, to his exceeding satisfaction, Nature had relieved him of this

troublesome care. If Richard was condemned to typhoid fever, which his

symptoms seemed to indicate, he would not, granting his recovery, be

able to leave his room within a month. In a month, much might be done;

nay, with energy, all might be done. The reader has been all but

directly informed that the Major's present purpose was to secure Miss

Whittaker's hand. He was poor, and he was ambitious, and he was,

moreover, so well advanced in life--being thirty-six years of age--that

he had no heart to think of building up his fortune by slow degrees. A

man of good breeding, too, he had become sensible, as he approached

middle age, of the many advantages of a luxurious home. He had

accordingly decided that a wealthy marriage would most easily unlock the

gate to prosperity. A girl of a somewhat lighter calibre than Gertrude

would have been the woman--we cannot say of his heart; but, as he very

generously argued, beggars can't be choosers. Gertrude was a woman with

a mind of her own; but, on the whole, he was not afraid of her. He was

abundantly prepared to do his duty. He had, of course, as became a man

of sense, duly weighed his obstacles against his advantages; but an

impartial scrutiny had found the latter heavier in the balance. The only

serious difficulty in his path was the possibility that, on hearing of

Richard's illness, Gertrude, with her confounded benevolence, would take

a fancy to nurse him in person, and that, in the course of her

ministrations, his delirious ramblings would force upon her mind the

damning story of the deception practised upon Captain Severn. There was

nothing for it but bravely to face this risk. As for that other fact,

which many men of a feebler spirit would have deemed an invincible

obstacle, Luttrel's masterly understanding had immediately converted it

into the prime agent of success,--the fact, namely, that Gertrude's

heart was preoccupied. Such knowledge as he possessed of the relations

between Miss Whittaker and his brother officer he had gained by his

unaided observations and his silent deductions. These had been logical;

for, on the whole, his knowledge was accurate. It was at least what he

might have termed a good working knowledge. He had calculated on a

passionate reactionary impulse on Gertrude's part, consequent on

Severn's simulated offence. He knew that, in a generous woman, such an

impulse, if left to itself, would not go very far. But on this point it

was that his policy bore. He would not leave it to itself: he would take

it gently into his hands, attenuate it, prolong it, economize it, and

mould it into the clew to his own good-fortune. He thus counted much

upon his skill and his tact; but he likewise placed a becoming degree

of reliance upon his solid personal qualities,--qualities too sober and

too solid, perhaps, to be called _charms_, but thoroughly adapted to

inspire confidence. The Major was not handsome in feature; he left that

to younger men and to lighter women; but his ugliness was of a

masculine, aristocratic, intelligent stamp. His figure, moreover, was

good enough to compensate for the absence of a straight nose and a fine

mouth; and his general bearing offered a most pleasing combination of

the gravity of the man of affairs and the versatility of the man of

society.

In her sudden anxiety on Richard's behalf, Gertrude soon forgot her own

immaterial woes. The carriage which was to have conveyed her to Mrs.

Martin's was used for a more disinterested purpose. The Major, prompted

by a strong faith in the salutary force of his own presence, having

obtained her permission to accompany her, they set out for the farm, and

soon found themselves in Richard's chamber. The young man was wrapped in

a heavy sleep, from which it was judged imprudent to arouse him.

Gertrude, sighing as she compared his thinly furnished room with her own

elaborate apartments, drew up a mental list of essential luxuries which

she would immediately send him. Not but that he had received, however, a

sufficiency of homely care. The doctor was assiduous, and the old woman

who nursed him was full of rough good-sense.

"He asks very often after you, Miss," she said, addressing Gertrude, but

with a sly glance at the Major. "But I think you'd better not come too

often. I'm afraid you'd excite him more than you'd quiet him."

"I'm afraid you would, Miss Whittaker," said the Major, who could have

hugged the goodwife.

"Why should I excite him?" asked Gertrude, "I'm used to sick-rooms. I

nursed my father for a year and a half."

"O, it's very well for an old woman like me, but it's no place for a

fine young lady like you," said the nurse, looking at Gertrude's muslins

and laces.

"I'm not so fine as to desert a friend in distress," said Gertrude. "I

shall come again, and if it makes the poor fellow worse to see me, I

shall stay away. I am ready to do anything that will help him to get

well."

It had already occurred to her that, in his unnatural state, Richard

might find her presence a source of irritation, and she was prepared to

remain in the background. As she returned to her carriage, she caught

herself reflecting with so much pleasure upon Major Luttrel's kindness

in expending a couple of hours of his valuable time on so unprofitable

an object as poor Richard, that, by way of intimating her satisfaction,

she invited him to come home and dine with her.

After a short interval she paid Richard a second visit, in company with

Miss Pendexter. He was a great deal worse; he lay emaciated, exhausted,

and stupid. The issue was doubtful. Gertrude immediately pushed forward

to M----, a larger town than her own, sought out a professional nurse,

and arranged with him to relieve the old woman from the farm, who was

worn out with her vigilance. For a fortnight, moreover, she received

constant tidings from the young man's physician. During this fortnight,

Major Luttrel was assiduous, and proportionately successful.