A COMEDY OF TERRORS.
When Jack, the day after the battle, found himself able to take account
of what was going on, he closed his eyes again with a deep groan,
believing in a vague glimpse of peaceful rest that his last confused
sensation was real--that he was dead. But there were no airy aids of
languorous ease to perpetuate or encourage this delusion. Sharp pains
racked his head; his right arm burned and twinged as though he had
thrust it into pricking flames. Loud voices about, but invisible to him,
were swearing and gibing. He was lying on his back, his head on a line
with his body. A regular movement, broken by joltings that sent
torturing darts through his whole frame, told him without much
conjecture that he was in an ambulance. The accent of the voices outside
told him that it was a rebel ambulance and not a Northern one he was in.
He tried to raise his head to see his companions, but he might as well
have been nailed to the cross, so far as pain and helplessness went.
Then he lost the thread of his thought. He heard, in a vague, far-off
voice, men talking:
"We'll catch old Abe on our next trip ef we go on like this--eh, Ben?"
"I reckon. I'm jess going to take a furlough now. Hain't seen my girl
fo' foah months."
"How much did you pick up?"
"I've got five gold watches and right smart o' shinplasters, I don't
reckon they'll pass in our parts, but I'm going to trade 'em off with
some of these wounded chaps. They'll give gold for 'em fast enough."
"I got a heap of gold watches, jackknives, and sech. I don't know what
in the land to do with 'em. Suppose we can sell 'em in Richmond?"
"Yes--but how are we going to get to Richmond? We're ordered to dump
these Yanks at Newmarket and go back. Ef we don't get to Richmond, our
watches ain't worth a red cent. Jess like's not old Bory'll issue an
order to turn everything in. I'm blamed if I will!"
"Look yere, Ben, do you see that road off there to the right?"
"Yes, I do, but I don't see that it's different from any other road."
"Don't you? Well, honey, it's mitey sight different from all the roads
you ever saw. It takes you where you don't want to go."
"What do you mean, Bob?"
"I jess mean that ar road goes to Newmarket, where these Yanks are
ordered, but we've lost it and we shall come out in about an hour and a
half at the junction, whar th' train goes on to Richmond. See?"
"Bob Purvis, you are a general, suah," and then there followed low,
rollicking laughter, mingled with a gurgling as of a liquid swallowed
from a flask. "But how'll we manage at the junction? We can't go right
on the cars? There is some hocus-pocus about everything you do in
the army."
"Oh, jess you keep your eye on your dad, and you'll see things you never
saw afore. The minit them cavalry sneaks left us back thar, I made up my
mind I'd skip Newmarket. They've gone back to pick up more loot. No one
at the junction knows what our orders was. Besides, it'll be dark when
we get thar. The trains'll be full of our wounded. We'll slip these
Yanks in as if under orders. No one will know but we're hospital guards
on a detail for the wounded. When it is found out we shall be in
Richmond, and, if the provost folk get hold of me afore I've been home
and planted my haul, then I'm a Yank."
"By mitey, Ben, you are a general, suah." Then suppressed laughter and
the gurgling of the flowing enlivener. Jack blissfully fell into dreams,
wherein home things and warlike doings mingled in grotesque medley.
Relapses into consciousness followed at he knew not what intervals
thereafter. He was conscious of cruel torment and a clumsy transfer into
another vehicle, confused sounds of groans, curses, waving lights, and
the hissing of escaping steam almost in his very ears. Then the anguish
of thundering wheels, until his cracked brain reeled and he was
mercifully unconscious. How long? His eyes opened on a clean white wall,
flowers hung from the windows in plumy festoons, birds sang in the
yellow dazzling sunlight. What could it mean? Was he at home? Surely
there was nothing of war in these comfortable surroundings. His left arm
was free, there was no one lying near to impede its movement. So it
wasn't a hospital. He took vague note of all this before he tried to
lift his arm. He raised his hand to rub his eyes and to assure himself
that it was not a cruel delusion. When he took it away, a kind face--the
face of a woman--was bending over him.
"You are feeling better, aren't you, lieutenant?"
"Lieutenant"? Why did she call him lieutenant? Had he been promoted on
the battle-field? Was he in the Union lines? Oh, yes; else he would have
been in a hospital, with moaning men all about him. He tried to speak.
The woman put her finger to her lips, warningly.
"The doctor says you must not speak or be spoken to until you get
strong."
Days passed. He couldn't tell how many, for he lay, long hours at a
time, unconscious, the mental faculties mercifully dead while the
wounded ligatures knit themselves anew. His right arm had been cut by a
saber-stroke, and a pistol-ball had entered above the shoulder-blade.
Prompt attention would have given him recovery in a few days, but the
twenty-four hours in a cart and the cars made his condition, for a
time, serious.
But now he is visibly stronger, and his nurse brings people into the
room to see him. They look at him with wonder and admiration, while the
good lady is all in a flutter of delight. He hears himself spoken of
always as the "lieutenant," and hesitates to ask an explanation. The
physician comes but seldom, the lady explaining that all the doctors in
town are busy in the hospitals. The truth flashed upon him one morning,
when his hostess came bursting in to say:
"The provost guard has come to take your name. I don't know it, for when
you were brought here my son only heard you called lieutenant."
"My name is John Sprague"--Jack lifted himself to his elbow in
excitement and disregard of everything--"and my regiment is the--ah!" He
fell back, and the frightened dame hurried to him as she saw his changed
look and deadly pallor.
"Oh, how careless of me; how unthinking! There, lie perfectly still. I
will send the guard away and come back."
She was gone before he could recover his speech or enough coherence to
say what was in his mind. She informed the orderly that the ailing man
was John Sprague, a lieutenant in the First Virginia Volunteers, for
that was the regiment the hospital guards had named, when, on the night
of the arrival, the eager citizens swarmed at the station to take the
wounded to their homes, the hospitals being sadly unready. Jack
instantly suspected the situation, the conversation in the ambulance
coming back to him now distinctly. What should he do? He was in honor
bound to undeceive the kind-hearted and unwitting accomplice of the
fraud practiced on herself as well as on him. She came in presently with
an officer. Jack was not familiar with the rebel insignia, and could not
discover his rank or service, but he expected to hear himself denounced
as a spy or anything odious.
"Our surgeon has been sent to Manassas, and Dr. Van Ness is come to take
care of you in his place," the matron said, as Jack stared silent and
quavering at the new-comer. That gentleman examined the patient, shook
his head dubiously and declared high fever at work, and ordered absolute
quiet for at least twenty-four hours, when, if he could, he would
return. "Continue the prescriptions you have now, Mrs. Raines. All he
needs is quiet. The hospital steward will come to dress his wounds
as usual."
Mrs. Raines came in with tea and toast in the evening, and as she spread
the napkin on the bed she prattled cheerily.
"I'm so happy to-night. I've just received a letter from my son. He's at
Manassas. He's been promoted to lieutenant from sergeant. It was read at
the head of the regiment--for gallant service at the Henry House, where
he captured part of a company of Yankees with a squad of cavalry. He's
only twenty-two, and if he lives he may be a general--if those cowardly
Yankees will only fight long enough. But I'm afraid they won't. _The
Whig_ says this morning that that beast Lincoln has to keep himself
guarded by a regiment of negroes, as the Northern people want to kill
him. I hope they won't, for if they did then they might put some one in
his place that has some sense, and then the war would come to an end and
we should be cheated in a settlement, for the Yankees are sharper than
our big-hearted, generous men. No, sir, no; you mustn't talk. I've
promised to keep you quiet, so lie still. I'll read _The Whig_ to you."
She ran over the meager dispatches made up of hearsay and
speculation--how the North had fallen into a rage with the Washington
authorities; how Lincoln's life wasn't safe; how the Cabinet had all
resigned; how the Democrats had arisen in Congress and in the State
Legislatures and demanded negotiations with "President Davis"; how
England was drawing up a treaty with the new Confederacy. Then she
turned to the local page. She ran over a dozen paragraphs recounting the
deeds of well-known Richmond heroes, but these made no impression upon
the listener, until she read:
"Major Vincent Atterbury, whose gallantry at the battle of the 21st
Richmond is a subject of pride to his friends, was transferred to his
country home, on the James, yesterday. He is still very low, but the
surgeons declare that home quiet and careful nursing will restore him to
his duties in time for the autumn campaign--if the Yankees do not
surrender before that time."
Jack's eyes were so bright when Mrs. Raines looked at him, as she
lowered the sheet, that she arose, exclaiming quickly:
"There, I have brought the fever back! Your eyes are glittering and your
cheeks are flushed. No, do not speak."
She moved precipitately from the room, and Jack sank back with a groan.
His danger, if not his difficulties, might be overcome now. He would
write to Mrs. Atterbury, and through Vincent arrange for an exchange.
But a still deeper trouble had been on his mind. Where were Barney and
Nick, and, worse than all, young Dick Perley? If any mishap had befallen
that boy, he would shrink from returning to Acredale. And his mother,
what must her state of mind be? How many days had passed since the
battle? He had no means of knowing. Ah, yes! The paper was there on the
stand, where Mrs. Raines had thrown it. He raised himself slowly and
seized it. Heavens! Saturday, August 4th? Two weeks since that fatal
Sunday! And his mother? Oh, he must find means to write, to telegraph.
"Mrs. Raines," he called, hoarsely, "Mrs. Raines!" She came running to
his side in alarm.
"Oh, what has happened? You are worse!"
"I am very comfortable; but, my kind friend, I must--I must let my
mother know that I am alive; she will think me dead."
"That's what I meant to ask you--just as soon as you seemed able to
talk. I would have gladly sent her word and invited her to come here,
but I didn't know the name nor the address. You didn't have a stitch of
clothes when you came except your underwear; the rest had been taken
off, the men said, because they were soiled and bloody, and there wasn't
a clew of any sort to your identity, except that you were a lieutenant
in a Virginia regiment. I thought we should find out when the provost
came, but they have sent to Manassas, and no answer has come back yet."
"The men who brought me here deceived you, Mrs. Raines. I do not belong
to a Virginia regiment; I belong to a New York regiment, and I am
a--a--Union soldier."
"Great Father! A Yankee?" The poor woman sank on the nearest chair, as
some one who has been nursing a patient that suddenly turns out to have
small-pox or leprosy.
"Yes, Mrs. Raines: if you prefer that name, I'm a Yankee--but we call
only New-Englanders Yankees." He waited for her to speak, but as she sat
dumb, helpless, overcome, he continued: "I tried to explain the mistake
before, but your kindness cut me off. I can only say that, though you
have given me a mother's care and a Christian's consideration under a
misunderstanding, I trust you will not blame me for willful deception
nor regret the goodness you have shown the stranger in your hands."
"And those men that brought you here--were they Yankees, too?" she
asked, her mind dwelling, womanlike, on the least essential factor of
the problem in order to keep the grievous fact as far away as possible.
"Oh, no! they were your own people. There was no collusion, I assure
you." Jack almost laughed now, as the dialogue in the ambulance recurred
to him, and the adroit use the men had made of their unconscious charges
to secure a furlough. "No; I was more amazed than I can say when I came
to myself in this charming chamber--a paradise it seemed to me, a home
paradise--when your kind face bent over my pillow."
"It's a cruel disappointment," she said, rising and holding the back of
the chair as she tilted it toward the bed. "We were so proud of you--so
proud to have any one that had fought for our dear State in our own
house to nurse, to bring back to life. Every one on the street has some
one from the battle, and oh, what will be said of us when people know
that we--we--" But here the cruelty of the conclusion came too sharply
to her mind, and she walked to the window, sobbing softly.
"I can understand, believe me, Mrs. Raines, and I am going to propose a
means to you whereby I shall be taken from here, and your neighbors
shall never know that you entertained an enemy unawares, though God
knows I don't see why we should be enemies when the battle is over. If
your son were in my condition I should think very hard of my mother if
she were not to him what you have been to me."
"But I can't believe you're a Yankee; you were so gentle, so patient in
all the dreadful times when the surgeon was cutting and hacking. Oh, I
can't believe it! Oh, please say you are joking--that you wanted to give
me a fright. And you have a mother?" She came over near the bed again
and stood looking at him dismally, half in doubt, half in perplexed
wonder; for Yankee, in her mind, suggested some such monster as the
Greeks conjured when the Goths poured into the peninsula, maiming the
men and debauching the women. "I said Sprague wasn't a Virginia name,"
she murmered, plaintively, in a last desperate attempt to fortify
herself against the worst; "but there's no telling what names are in
Virginia now, since Norfolk has grown so big and folks come in that way
from all over the world."
Jack could scarcely keep a serious face, as this humorous lament
displayed the pride of the Dominion and the unconscious Boeotianism of
the provincial.
"Now, Mrs. Raines, here is what I propose: Major Atterbury, of whom you
read to me, is my nearest friend. We have been college comrades; he has
passed weeks at my home, and I have been asked to his, and meant to come
this autumn vacation, if the war had not broken out. I will write to his
mother, and she will have me removed to her house, and it need never be
known that you gave aid and comfort to the enemy."
"But the Atterburys will never receive you. They were the first to favor
secession, when all the rest of us opposed it. To tell you the truth,
Mr. Sprague, it is partly because we were abused a good deal for holding
back when the secession excitement was first started, that I am so--so
anxious about the story getting out that we entertained a Yankee
prisoner. My husband is in the service of the government in Norfolk, and
my son is in the army. But you know what neighborhood gossip is."
So, after a friendly talk in which the poor lady cried a great deal and
besought Jack's good-will for her darling William, if ever he were
luckless enough to be captured, the note was written and dispatched to
the Atterburys, whose city house was near the capital square. The
messenger returned a half-hour later, reporting the family out of town;
that they had taken the major to their country-place near Williamsburg,
on the banks of the James. The messenger had given the letter to the
housekeeper, who said that it would go out an hour later with the mail
sent daily to the family.
"Williamsburg is two hours' ride on the train," Mrs. Raines explained,
"and we sha'n't hear from them until to-morrow."
Jack said nothing; his mind was on his mother and the misery she must be
enduring. He turned restlessly on his pillow that night, and woke
feverish in the morning. Mrs. Raines now took as much pains to keep
people who called from seeing her hero as she had before put herself out
to display the invalid. Even the doctor, calling about nine o'clock, was
sent away on some pretext, and the poor lady waited with an anxiety,
almost as poignant as Jack's own, for the response to his note. About
noon it came. Mrs. Raines went to the door herself, not daring to trust
the colored girl, who had lavished untold pains on Jack's linen and the
manual part of his care. Jack heard low voices in the hallway, then on
the stairs, and he knew some one had come.
"Here is Miss Atterbury sent to fetch you, lieutenant," Mrs. Raines
said, now very much relieved, and impressed, too, by the powerful
friends her dangerous _protégé_ was able to summon so promptly by
a line.
"You are Rosalind?" Jack said, smiling at a pair of the brownest and
most bewitching eyes fixed soberly on him. "I should have known you if I
had met you in the street, although you were a small girl when I saw
you last."
"You needn't take much credit for that, sir, since Vincent probably had
my portrait in all his coat-pockets and his room frescoed with
them--it's a trick of his. So you needn't pretend that it was family
likeness--I know better. Vincent has all the good looks of the family,
and I have all the good qualities."
"That's why you've come to console the afflicted?"
"Yes, duty--you know how disagreeable that is. Vincent declared he would
come himself, if I didn't, and mamma wouldn't hear of your being moved
by servants alone, so I am here. But I give you fair warning that I am a
rebel of the most ferocious sort. You shall ride under the 'bonnie blue
flag' to Rosedale, and you shall salute our flag every morning when it
is hoisted."
"I am the most docile of men and the easiest of invalids. I will ride
under Captain Kidd's flag and salute the standard of the Grand Turk, to
be near Vincent just now."
When Rosalind's colored aids had placed him in the big family carriage,
and he had bidden Mrs. Raines farewell, the young lady resumed: "Ah, I
know you! Vincent has told me about your Yankee ways. Not another word,
sir. I'll act as guide, and tell you all we see of note as we go on.
There where your eyes are resting now is the Confederate Hall of
Independence; that modest house on the corner is President Davis's. We
are going to build him another by and by--after we capture Washington
and get our belongings--no--no--you needn't speak. I know what you want
to say. That's Washington's monument, and there is our dear old
Jefferson. Doesn't it quicken even your slow Yankee blood to pass the
walls that heard Jefferson at his greatest, that held Patrick Henry,
that covered Washington? Ah! if you Northern Pharisees were not
money-grubbers and souless to everything but the almighty dollar, you
would join hands with us in creating our new Confederacy. Yes, sir,
you're my prisoner. We shall see that one Yankee is kept out of
mischief--if the war lasts--which is not likely, as your folks are quite
cowed by the victory at Bull Run. Wasn't it a splendid fight? I shall
never forgive Vin for not letting me know it was coming off. Vin, you
know, is on General Early's staff. He knew two days before that there
was to be a fight, for he started from Winchester to keep the railway
clear and lead the troops to the Henry House when they got off the cars.
He was in the thickest of the fight, near Professor Jackson--Stonewall,
they call him now. He--Vin--had three horses killed, and was made a
major on the field by General Joe Johnston. What?----"
"Please let the carriage stop a moment. I want to absorb that lovely
view."
He pointed to the James, debouching from the hills over which the
carriage was slowly rolling. The afternoon sun was behind them; but far,
far to the eastward the noble river wound through masses of dark, deep
green until it was lost in a glow of shimmering mirage in the
low horizon.
"Isn't it lovely? We shall have a nobler capital city than Washington,
with its horrid red streets, its wilderness of bare squares, its
interminable distances--"
"Carcassonne," Jack murmured.
"Carcassonne--what's that?"
"An exquisite bit of verse and a touching story. I----"
"There, there--stop. You are talking again. You shall read the poem to
me--that is, if it isn't a glorification of the North."
"No; Carcassonne was a city of the South."
"Really--you must not talk. I'm not going to open my lips again until we
get to the boat."
She settled back in her place and took out a book, looking over the top
at him from time to time. The motion of the vehicle, the warmth of the
day, and the odorous breath of flowers and shrubs gradually dulled his
mischievous spirits, and he slept tranquilly until the carriage drew up
at the wharf at Harrison's Landing, whence, taken on a primitive ferry,
they in an hour or more arrived at a long wooden pier extending into the
river. It was nearly six o'clock when the carriage entered a solemn
aisle of pines ending in a labyrinth of oleanders and the tropic-like
plants of the South. Then an old-fashioned porticoed mansion came into
view, and on signal from the driver a _posse_ of colored servants came
trooping out noisily to carry the invalid in. Mrs. Atterbury was on the
veranda, and stepped down to the carriage to welcome the guest. She
greeted him with the affectionate cordiality of a mother, and asked:
"How have you borne the fatigue? I hope Rosa hasn't let you talk?"
"If I may speak now it will be to bear testimony that I have been made a
mummy since noon. I haven't been permitted to ask the local habitation
or name of the scenic delights that have made the journey a panorama of
beauty and my guide a tyrant, to whom, by comparison, Caligula was a
tender master!"
"Since you slept most of the way you must have dreamed the beauty, as
you certainly have invented the tyrant," Rosa retorted, as the brawny
servants lifted Jack bodily and carried him up the three steps and into
the sitting-room.
"Your quarters are next to my son's, if you think you can endure the
constant outbreaks of that locality. We are with him in all but his
sleeping hours, so you will do well to reflect before you decide."
"Oh, I shall insist on being near Vincent. He's too badly hurt to
overcome me in case we are tempted to fight our battles over again."
"But he has allies here, sir, and you must remember that you are a
prisoner of war," Rosa cried from the landing above, _en route_ to
minister to her hero before the Yankee invaded him. Vincent was propped
up in the bed with a mass of pillows, and the two friends embraced in
college-boy fashion, too much moved for a moment to begin the flood of
questions each was eager to ask and answer.
"Before I say a word of anything else, Vint, I want you to do me a great
service. It is two weeks since the battle. I am sure my mother can not
have any certain information about me. Can you manage any way to get a
letter or telegram sent her?"
"Of course I can. Nothing easier. Write your telegram. I will send it
under cover to General Early. He will forward it by flag of truce to
Washington, and it will be sent North from there."
But Jack's letter was never sent, for when the post came from Richmond
the next day, Vincent read in the morning paper a surprising
personal item:
"'Among the distinguished arrivals in the city within the week, we have
just learned of the presence of Mrs. Sprague, wife of the famous
Senator, a contemporary with Clay and Webster. Mrs. Sprague has come to
Richmond in search of her son, who was captured or killed on the field
near the Henry House. She comes with her daughter under a safeguard from
General Johnston, who knew the family when he was at West Point. Mrs.
Sprague is stopping with Mrs. Bevan, on Vernon Street, and is under the
escort of Private William Bevan of the general headquarters.'"